#of course andrew hussie

[bluetinge]

uncanny.

(adapted from here)

[autisticsupervillain]

"Fucking with a fanbase is bad if it causes them to-" *checks notes* "-engage with their favorite part of the show." Alright then. 👍

My point is that the teasing creator is far from a new trope. It's really not the same as, say, burning all your writing down to pull a new twist out of your ass. You just need to get a sense of humor.

“The Pyramid Guy from the opening credits literally has no significance to the show and never will. He’s just a generic image made to look mythological or spooky like most things in the intro.”

[juney-blues]

June Egbert is, and always has been incredibly fascinating to me because of just, how many factors have conspired to make Homestuck fans show their collective transmisogynistic asses.

The main character of Homestuck transitioning is a planned future plot point for the official continuation of homestuck, that was spoiled in advance by a fan making a joke about finding some toblerones Andrew Hussie the author of homestuck hid in a cave.

The current main writers of Homestuck: Beyond Canon have went on record in an AMA confirming that this was indeed always the plan, even before they took up the project.

In spite of these facts, the general consensus among certain homestuck fans seems to be that "June Egbert" is purely a headcanon for the original comic that was "made canon" by a "Toblerone Wish" (a concept that didn't even exist at the time)

For a variety of reasons, the "canonicity" of the postcanon official continuations of homestuck is a mattter of much debate, (though a debate that most homestuck fans seem to err on a side of "it's not canon at all in the slightest," something the writers have feelings on I'm sure.)

All of these factors combined leave the concept of "June Egbert" in a very nebulous place. It's assumed by most to just be an "ascended headcanon" that was shoehorned in, it's a spoiler so it hasn't happened yet in any official media, and the official media it will eventually happen in is regarded by some to be nothing more than glorified fanfic.

If someone is talking about June Egbert, and you don't like the concept of June Egbert, you have your pick of a million different excuses for why she's fake and gay and not worth discussing and bad writing and just the authors doing a gay dumbledore*, paying lip service to representation while actually doing nothing.

And of course, lots of people *don't* like June Egbert! Rather than being introduced as transfem from the start, she's in this nebulous position of discovery where people have to truly reckon with the idea of a "Pre-transition Trans Woman."

You can try to write off *some* of the backlash as transphobia, because obviously not everyone in this fandom is gonna be cool about trans people.

But there's no shortage of fans just dying to tell you about how much they like reading her as transmasc, or the idea of her being nonbinary or genderqueer or genderfluid, or literally anything besides a trans woman. And since they're fine with all those other interpretations, there's obviously no implicit biases driving their distaste for the concept! (if you want to try explaining the concept of "transmisogyny" to people like this you're braver than I.)

you can trust them when they say it's *just* a problem with whether or not it makes sense with the writing, or it just doesn't feel right somehow, or any of the thousands of excuses that this writing situation gives them to just Not Like It.

It's just, so interesting to me. There's not a lot of characters out there that get a trans arc in this way, that leaves room for open denialism and insistence that we have our trans cake and eat it too... Because Homestuck is a timeline spanning multiverse story, lots of people seem to want it to be an alternate timeline thing. Assuring us we can have this character share space with a non-transitioning version of herself and it won't be weird or imply gross things about trans people.

If you ask me it feels like a plotline that'd be really good for exploring some gender horror though, finding your true self and then being demoted to a footnote, an alternate version, because everyone around you likes your pre-transition self more....

Anyway I have no broader point beyond "hey look at this isn't this kinda weird. You don't get this kinda stuff often!"

*side note: it's a little ghoulish I think to compare "a future trans plot point that hasn't been given the chance to even happen yet, in an already famously queer piece of media, from a nonbinary author" to "some stupid shit done by the literal most famous transphobe of all time" but that's perhaps a discussion for later.

[ineffable-gallimaufry]

if they made a homestuck movie:

VOICEOVER: it's coming...

*two drum beats*

JOHN EGBERT: *puts the disk for sburb into his computer* i'm in

VOICEOVER: this summer

*two drum beats*

ROSE LALONDE: *rolls eyes* john, stop goofing around

VOICEOVER: prepare to be stuck...

*two drum beats*

JADE HARLEY: *wakes up and looks around*

VOICEOVER: at home

*two drum beats*

DAVE STRIDER: *spins record* woah, this is off the wall, yo

*shitty orchestral cover of sburban jungle plays*

ROXY: but you don't understand! this game is dangerous!

*cut to dave leaving his clone behind at his quest bed*

DAVE: i can't do it... i just can't kill another me...

*bec noir appears next to alt dave*

ALT DAVE: he's right behind me isn't he

*fades to black as bec noir slashes a sword at alt dave's neck*

*text on screen reads "ASCEND"*

*cut to rose in her shed*

JOHN: rose, the meteor's gonna hit!!

ROSE: *grabs computer* *rolls eyes*

*text on screen reads "DESCEND"*

*cut to scenes of the war on the chess field*

*text on screen reads "RISE UP"*

*cut to john, running out of his kitchen*

JOHN: these imps are everywhere!!

*text on screen reads "ABSCOND"*

ROSE: it's all over...

*cut to the various sprites being sprited*

*cut to jake kissing dirk's head*

DIRK STRIDER: *standing nearby* *coughs* awkward...

*cut to terezi and john after game over*

TEREZI: john, 1t's 4ll up to you now...

JOHN: *gasps*

*cut to john and dave hugging*

NEPETA: *grins* :33< i ship ittttt

KARKAT: *facepalm*

*cut to terezi and vriska facing off*

TEREZI: vr1ska, you c4n't do th1s!

VRISKA: watch me!

*montage of vriska doing a bunch of random and cool stuff*

VRISKA: i can do anything!!!!!!!!

*cut to grimdark rose and dave*

ROSE: to win... we're gonna have to blow up the sun

DAVE: awww snap

*text on screen reads "NIC CAGE"*

JOHN: and i mean, of COURSE con air is the best movie ever!! what other movie would you even suggest

*text on screen reads "LIL NAS X"*

DAVE: man, this isn't even the best song in obama's whole rap career

*text on screen reads "AMANDLA STENBERG"*

ROSE: *rolls eyes* whatever, mom! i'm summoning cuthulu!

*text on screen reads "ZENDAYA"*

JADE: *petting bec* oh, who's the best dog! is it you?

*a bunch more celebrity names on screen*

*text on screen reads "BASED ON THE WEBCOMIC BY ANDREW HUSSIE"*

ANDREW HUSSIE: *sitting in chair* wait, am i still in this movie? do i still die?

VOICEOVER: yes

HUSSIE: oh poop

*text on screen reads "HOMESTUCK: THE MOVIE"*

JOHN: we're gonna save the world... or die trying

*quick montage of every single death scene*

DAVE: i think we're gonna die trying

JOHN: daaaaveeee

*text on screen reads "COMING THIS SUMMER"*

*cut to dave beatboxing*

KARKAT: CAN YOU SHUT UP?!

DAVE: are you gonna make me?

NEPETA: :33< ooooh—

DAVE and KARKAT in unison: DON'T SAY IT

NEPETA: :33< ship it

*they both sigh*

*cut to black*

[relaxxattack]

Can you elaborate on what you meant with that ashen post? What do quadrant misunderstandings have to do with Eridan

oh my god, absolutely.

first of all, the fandom seemed to take eridan at his word when he said moirallegiance was a lesser romance akin to a friendzone; that's its own problem.

but in relation to blackrom: the toxic, horrible behavior that eridan displays in his flirting is often taken by fans to prove that kismesissitude is an inherently abusive, unnatural quadrant that the empire forces young trolls into. but this is incorrect.

as stated by multiple characters in-text AND by andrew hussie later: this behavior is not pitch at all. it's ashen flirting.

feferi calls out how transparent this bullshit is instantly. terezi, too, gets caught up in this when eridan decides to drag her into it, but she is also not having his shit. both of them read him for how fake he is. and that's not even going into how completely uninterested sollux was in this “rivalry”.

hussie, in the commentary, also states that eridan's obviously outrageous behavior is basically textbook for an ashen solicitation.

i feel that it's also worth mentioning that when eridan had a real kismesis, his relationship with her was amiable, and they even supported each other as teammates and allies in their campaigns. the second she gets bored of him, eridan starts pretending their relationship is volatile and going to “become murderous” to get kanaya to auspistize for him… sound familiar? 

and now here is what eridan looks like when he's actually pitch flirting. notice how despite his obvious assholery, eridan also tries to treat her with weird respect and pay her compliments? there's a noticeable difference between how eridan treats someone he actually has a pitch thing for and how he treats sollux.

eridan is intentionally going way over the line, to goad people into stopping him. i discussed this before in reference to vriska/kanaya/tavros, but trolls actually seemingly don't want their relationships to become unpleasant. they have an entire quadrant dedicated to intervening if they think a relationship isn't healthy. and the relationship going extremely toxic is attributed to a failure of auspisticism, not a natural facet of pitch romance.

this is what eridan's treatment of sollux is. it's unhealthy, by troll standards. which is saying something! it says that trolls have standards for blackrom; standards that make them think trolls like vriska, gamzee and eridan are going too far. 

so that's what my funny little image was trying to encapsulate. that fandom has such a blind spot when it comes to ashen relationships that it makes them misinterpret pitch romance as well. they forget that it's literally proven in-comic that trolls don't accept shit tons of toxicity as normal in their romance. (of course it gets a little more complicated when caste dynamics are introduced, but in the end other trolls still wish to auspistize in cases like terezi/gamzee.) 

ashen romance has a purpose, and people straight up refusing to acknowledge one of the four romances in the four romance system throws their perspective of the entire thing off balance.

[dukeofriven]

I don't know are you sure there's just always going to be another Dave? Really? REALLY?

there will always be another dave strider but there will never be another terezi, there will never be another kanaya, there will never be another aradia, there will never be another jade harley. so many of the women in homestuck blatantly go against expectation and are so wonderfully unique for it

[tiffanys-aus-and-headcanons]

Terrible Visions

A scrambled timeline is a timeline that has proceeded much like ours, except that some particular facet has been mixed up all over the place. For example, in the scrambled timeline we will consider today, our world's fictional stories have been told by different people, and in different ways.

Bryan Lee O'Malley, in this alternate timeline, is best known as the cartoonist responsible for Homestuck, a popular comic series about a group of children who become embroiled in a cosmic-scale video game known as Sburb. Although Homestuck is probably most often associated with the cult classic Edgar Wright-directed film adaptation released in 2016, the comics themselves are highly-regarded, and the film brought a new audience to them. Netflix has commissioned an animated continuation, The Homestuck Epilogues, which is due to be released soon.

Andrew Hussie, on the other hand, is a figure you're likelier to know if you're overly online. His "MS Paint Adventures" series - most notably including Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, which is kind of like Homestuck but weirder and hornier - have firmly remained a fixture of obsessive Twitter fandom culture. It doesn't help that the best-known iteration, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, is infamous for stretching thousands of pages of meandering digressions out of a simple and focused narrative starting point. Scott Pilgrim fans have developed something of a toxic reputation, which is not entirely deserved - although of course Knives discourse is interminable, and back in the fandom's heyday there were reportedly incidents of fans assaulting each other "for being evil exes".

Scott Pilgrim fandom was very big back in the day, though, and consequently it was a nexus for other creative figures who would go on to surpass Hussie. Perhaps foremost among these is indie developer Toby Fox. He was literally living in Hussie's basement when he produced ROSEQUARTZ, a universally-beloved retro Goonies-like RPG about a human hybrid boy born to a race of gem-based aliens. He's now developing an episodic spiritual successor, RAZORQUEST, with more overtly dark themes. It revolves around an inheritance dispute among a demon-summoning family.

Other foundational figures in this timeline's internet culture include Alison Bechdel, who helped get the webcomic scene started. Although she's now more seriously acclaimed for her personal memoirs, her gaming webcomic Press Start To Dyke, which premiered in 1998, was once everywhere. It had a broad appeal, and at its height, it was common to see even straight guys sharing pages from it. Time has not been especially kind to it, though, and at this point its main legacy is test.png, a meme spawned by one of the comic's most ill-advised pages.

Then there's John C. McCrae, more often known by his pseudonym Wildbow. A prolific and reclusive author of doorstopping "web serials" - long-form fiction published online - McCrae's best-known serial is still his first, Wind, a noir superhero story set in an alternate history where capes are mostly just a subculture of unpowered vigilantes. Wind landed in a culture already rife with comic book deconstructions, like Alan Moore's 2002 graphic novel Worm Turns, but it nonetheless managed to stand out from the pack with its extensive cast of characters and its themes of coordination problems and the end of the world. Later McCrae web serials include Part (the first "Otherverse" serial; an urban fantasy story about a couple who die in a car accident and find that they have become ghosts), Tear (a "biopunk" story set in a collapsing underwater city), Warn (the controversial Wind sequel), and Play (the second "Otherverse" serial, set in a small Indiana town that helps hide a psychic girl from the CIA).

Last and perhaps least, we should discuss J. K. Rowling. Far and away the most famous of any of these authors, Rowling's name is inseparable from the YA series that she debuted with, the Luz Noceda books, which remain her one successful work. Although it was heavily derivative of older fantasy novels - like Jill Murphy's Academy For Little Witches, or Philip Pullman's Methods Of Rationality trilogy - Luz Noceda was still a monumental and unprecedented success in the publishing industry, and the film adaptations were consistent blockbusters. The final book, Luz Noceda and the Watcher of Rain, contained some allusions to a romantic relationship between Luz and her recently-redeemed associate Amity. Rowling confirmed that this was her intent in subsequent interviews and indicated that she had fought her publishers for it; the film would then go on to escalate matters slightly further.

There have been many lengthy and heated online arguments as to whether the references in the book itself constitute text or mere subtext. Whatever your stance on this discourse, a new complication has been introduced recently: although she has put out no official statement on the matter as of yet, it has become quite apparent from Rowling's shrinking network of contacts and her conspicuous silences that she is certainly TERF-sympathetic, and likely an outright TERF herself. For many, this is leading to a critical reevaluation of the social values inherent in the Luz Noceda series; others, to say the least, are holding off on that kind of reappraisal.

Anyway, Scott Pilgrim just beat Luz Noceda in a Twitter poll for Most Gay Media, and people are piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissed

[girlbowser]

What exactly does "gloves is canon" mean, if you don't mind me asking?

let's just fucking get right into it.

Ultimate Rose Pt. 2: Gloves Are Canon

if you haven't seen part 1, here it is. the tldr version of it was to estabish candy rose (at the VERY least) as a liar. i also have a headcanon about ultrose putting alpha earth rose into front in candy timeline, but that doesn't really matter too much. its just kinda fun

anyway. heres the theory.

so you guys know A Threat, Sensed, right?

it's one of the hs2 bonus comics. originally patreon exclusive, but was made public for everyone during the hiatus. and i think it contains some deeply revealing information.

you may be wondering... hey, isn't that the comic where ultdirk talks to hussie about yiffy? like, its hussie's one appearance in the comic. kind of weird.

ahaha. yeah. so. about that.

let's rewind a bit. what's the contents of A Threat Sensed?

dirk wakes up after having the shit kicked out of him in pesterquest.

rose is like huh? huh wuh? but dirk gives her a thumbs up. and then he goes to sit on his computer, and type to god.

and then after that delay, he gets a reply.

etc etc etc. they talk. they chat. hussie talks about his beloved daughter yiffy. normal stuff. hey roll that last one back

let's play in this space. lets play in this space. perspective. daughter.

who's daughter is yiffy?

---

let's rewind.

when homestuck act 6 dropped, it released with one very important page.

this page.

this page, where someone with seemingly grey skin is typing on a keyboard. holy fuck, what a reveal. new troll. oh my god. this is the 13th troll

like, they have to be a troll, right? theyve got the time stuff. theyve got a symbol. theyve got shit going on with them

ah.

they were wearing gloves.

this? this is fucking huge.

in homestuck we see that shot a lot. of fingers on a keyboard. but every single time we have seen it, we have also seen at least one shot of the person typing, right?

with two exceptions. one is callie in the act 6 reveal.

and the other is andrew.

er, sorry.

"andrew."

from the patreon post on A Threat Sensed:

those are fake hands. what. what . what. what.

so

if this comic has a history of having a reveal when it comes to characters where Only Their Hands are being shown

and gloves are canon to homestuck, and have been used to precipitate this reveal

then perhaps

gloves are canon here as well.

if you'll allow me to speculate. on the gloves are canon in question.

yeah of fucking course rose is pretending to be hussie because WHO ELSE WOULD IT BE adjKFJGSKDHdskjgjkfskjgdsf

ITS ROSE!!! IT WAS ROSE THE WHOLE TIME

LETS REREAD.

"is that why you were lying on the floor" a question that Rose had because she saw his ass lying on the floor!!!!!!!

MY DAUGHTER

MY DAUGHTER YIFFANY LONGSTOCKING LALONDE HARLEY

hm purple background. anyway im sure thats fine

hm. hm. hm. psychoanalysis. hmmm. hm.

now if i was rose

if i was ultrose. and i wanted an ultimate weapon against dirk.

if i wanted to Make A Weapon Against Dirk.

what would i do.

how would i create it.

who would i hurt in the process.

anyway. this is all leading up to part 3 of this fucking nightmare roller coaster. but uh. basically. i think this one is like all but confirmed????

like...

We’ve had quite a bit of speculation on whether this is “really” Andrew. To that, I think we’d say that it doesn’t “really” matter. If you’re asking are those Andrew’s actual hands, then no, of course not. Because those hands are fake hands that are on the computer screen.

this sounds like it's telling us no, it's not "really" andrew. and to look at the hands. and we KNOW from part 1 of this theory that rose is incredibly deceitful.

the delay in "andrew"'s response could have plausibly been rose slipping away into her little hidey hole, putting on the stupid fucking gloves, and only then typing.

andrew never confirms who he is. and i'll admit, some of the lines don't sound 100% like rose. but others do. others really, really do.

i like this theory because it makes rose and dirk's rivalry on deltrius interesting. it means she has legs up on him. he thinks he's talking to hussie, but he isn't. she has plans within plans. she's got shit she's cooking.

i like it because it contextualizes yiffy, too.

hm wow it sure seems like the candy timeline isnt actually all that sealed! it sure seems like theres something in there that is a corrosive paradox! something that affects both timelines!

something

or someone!!!!!!!!!!!!

anyway. yiffy is an ultdirk icbm created by rose . rose wore gloves. gloves are canon. that's my theory graaaaaaaaaahhh

part 3 coming soon :3

--

EDIT SEVERAL MONTHS LATER: this is what part 3 would have been

[graves-simper]

What really happened in Room 302?

Yes, just like everyone else I am finally doing a small essay/analysis on TCOAAL.

This time I wanted to dive in something that wasn't a big part of the game, but has been on my mind since my first play through of the game and that is like the title states; What really happened in Room 302? Lets begin.

I wanted to start off by talking about the Lady in Room 302. Who is she?

We really don't know much. Her eye color isn't shown, she looks somewhat average but in terms of others opinions (ie; the Warden's and even Ashley) She is a very pretty woman. Even at a point Andrew says that she looks good. Take a look at some of the dialog below:

I mean, wasn't she?

After this very tasteful conversation these two love-birds have, Ashley heads up to commence the ritual to sacrifice the 2nd Warden, and of course Our Ashley pulls it off with no problems, and back downstairs she goes with full intentions of painting the wall with Lady 302's brains, but it appears someone beat her to the punch.

AND NOW I PRESENT WHERE I IMMEDIATELY BEGAN TO CALL CAP ON MR. DOORMAT EXTRAORDINAIRE AND HIS SILLY LITTLE LIES.

Your honor, this man is absolutely lying. The first thing that made me question everything about his story here is where she is lying dead. On the damn bed. Your honor, let's enhance this real quick.

That nail gun is a damn good several feet away from where Lady 302 lies dead on the bed. In fact it is in exactly the same position as when we left Andrew alone with her, and look at the sheer distance. These apartments clearly aren't huge but let me just be critical for a minute. Her mattress appears to be a single style mattress, so lets take in some measurements.

I can settle on the length being 75" or 6.25ft. So the apartment is about 12 feet wide. Not huge by any means, but to go from sitting down on a bed, even the edge, she would have to make quite the lunge while accounting for some random maniac being right next to you with a meat cleaver. I also do not think she would be the type to risk her life for a daring escape. Look at how absolutely bewildered she is the second Andrew rushes her.

That is NOT the face of someone who is absolutely down to fuck around and find out. She also had a chance to get help while also risking her life, when she is given the radio she could have screamed for help, and while yes she would've died, at this point I would say the risk factor was relatively similar.

Now that I have established my reasoning for why I don't think this lady tried to kill Andrew with a nailgun or even had the chance to, let's go over some of the reasons I think he DID choose to kill her.

No Witnesses.

This is a very boring theory but I have to bring it up no less. I think there is a good chance he just said fuck it, and killed her for the sake of not leaving evidence behind. She saw their faces, heard their names, and they even said they were her neighbor from upstairs. Leaving her behind could've ruined EVERYTHING for them after this point, and based on Ashley's sour reaction to her mere existence, I think he already knew damn well Ashley would want her dead too.

Make my Ashley happy.

This ties back to the point I made in No Witnesses. Ashley took her as a threat, and obviously Andrew noticed. She was not pleased after he called her "Pretty". I think once he was alone, he figured he would off her to show Ashley that he wasn't ogling her or wanting to do anything with her. In fact she meant so little to him, he butchered her right on her bed. To support this, the way Ashley reacts when she returns absolutely floors Andrew, he is calm about what happened but Ashley is still coming up with thoughts that he tried to fuck her, when in his mind, he was probably hoping she would be thrilled that he killed this awful, hell-bound, hussie. But instead she is still somehow mad despite her being now a corpse. He becomes to fed up that even though he did what she would've anyways, it is somehow not good enough for her. (I will dive deeper into this interaction below with another theory that relies heavily on this.)

The Hussie hit on him.

This one ties into Make my Ashley happy. There is a good chance this obviously sexually attractive woman tried seducing Andrew while they were alone. She had no problem doing it with the Warden's to get better treatment, and I have no doubt this was her go-to get out of trouble free card. This charming young man would surely fall for her good looks right? Right? There's two thought processes that would make this reasonable. 1. He was worried how Ashley would react if she walked in with her clearly flirting with him and how that would make her feel. 2. My personal favorite of these two, he is dedicated to Ashley and was offended by her advances and killed her in a show of devotion to her.

Now that we have the more sane theories out of the way, lets get to the GOOD STUFF.

Andrew's Fantasy.

This theory is more of a mental guess as to Andrew's relationship and views of Ashley. He has been clearly fed up with her more than once up to this point, having arguments, dealing with her shit, and all the trauma he just experienced from starving for weeks, isolation, and having to butcher and eat someone, and then murder a man to save her.

What if once Andrew had a moment alone with someone who was essentially his victim, he decided to truly see how he felt about something. I believe Andrew may have not seen Lady 302 as Ashley, but just for the hell of it, imagined that she was Ashley. Despite the different appearances, I'm sure he could overlook it in the state of mind he was in at this point, and decided how it would feel to finally kill "Ashley". The way he kills her just doesn't feel like he said fuck it and wanted the lady dead, she is laid out on the bed, there's no signs of a struggle either. Later in the game during one of the visions, there is the one where Andrew finally kills Ashley. When she accepts that he will kill her, he brings the cleaver to her throat similarly to how the throat of Lady 302 was cut. The similarities just feel so similar that I had to bring this up despite it being possibly far fetched but that's what makes these fun!

and now for my most absolutely far fetched theory yet.

Don't these two look similar?

This theory is much more far fetched but hear me out on this!

I know this may be a result of Nemlei's artstyle but these two have some stark similarities in my opinion. Both blonde, same eye color based on the greyscale of them, similar hair parting, and a similar face shape.

After all the trauma Andrew went through in the weeks locked in their apartment and then killing several people and eating one no doubt sent his brain to a bad place.

I think after all that hell he endured he may have simply had a breaking point and felt like he saw a ghost or just the stark similarities between Lady 302 and Nina just made something snap.

I want to back this up by making a point to the story telling in the game. Before they go and escape their apartment conveniently before the Room 302 incident, there is a dream about how Andrew and Ashley killed Nina. This could be just the flow of the story telling however, I feel like it was a lead up to what really happened in Room 302. It just feels too perfect to include that scene right before he kills someone who I am assuming is what Nina may have grown up to look like, AND then with this scene occurring once Ashley returns almost feels like a nail in the coffin of this theory.

Nina isn't brought up in the apartment, or once they're in the motel. Nina is brought up during a heated exchange in Room 302 right after Andrew might have felt as if he killed Nina once again, yet just like when they killed Nina, Ashley still somehow thinks that Andrew has a thing for a woman he helped kill, and this absolutely drives him off his fucking rocker.

This exchange floored Mr. Doormat so intensely he finally was ready to absolutely throttle the life out of her. Andrew was finally so fed up with being berated for doing things for Ashley's sake he just wanted it to be done and over with forever. Andrew once again found himself in the same place Ashley put him in all those years ago, but this time he knows he isn't as vulnerable as he was and uses it to his advantage, but after their little squabble, they leave together to bless our hearts with Chapter 2.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Perhaps this was as plain as the story made it out to be. There is a good chance that Andrew didn't want to leave a witness and said hell with it and butchered the woman in Room 302. But I'd like to believe that with all the hidden details Nemlei has scattered throughout this game that there is truth to one of these theories, hell maybe even a giant jumble of them all together is the true story of Room 302.

But with everything I presented today I hope you all perhaps are too questioning what really happened in Room 302 like I was.

I'd love to hear any theories you guys have regarding this or twists/opinions on the ones I presented here!

Thank you all for reading!

[existentialterror]

ARG notes: ZampanioSim

Okay, a work this metafictional and also that (I think) responds to audience interaction is going to need a high-caliber gimmick. Hang on.

...

Alright. Hey guys, catfishAnabasis (Light) here, taking a moment out of my surprisingly busy day tell you about a weird thing on the internet.

ZampanioSim is an intricate and brainbending ARG. It takes direct inspiration from Homestuck, The Magnus Archives, and House of Leaves, as well as the creator (JR, jadedResearcher/justifiedRecursion)'s previous canon of Homestuck fan-work and games. A major theme is "unreality".

HERE IS YOUR TRAILHEAD.

Feel free to ignore the rest of the writeup and check it out now.

I know very little about JR's other work, right now. However, among my many INTERESTS, I am something of a TMA ENJOYER and an AMATEUR INTERNET INVESTIGATOR, and if I were in a HOUSE I like to think I could LEAVE it pretty easily.

So, yeah. I figured I'd just describe my experience of this rabbithole and maybe you'll want to check it out too. I'm sure this will only scratch the surface.

ZampanioSim is structured as a nested labyrinth. In the same way that:

Homestuck is a webcomic framed as an interactive adventure game about an account of kids playing a video game (Sgrub) that doesn't exist, and

House of Leaves is a novel framed as a found scholarly discussion about a documentary (The Navidson Record) that doesn't exist about a house that doesn't exist,

ZampanioSim is a game-based ARG framed as an attempt to simulate a game (Zampanio) that doesn't exist based on a found FAQ of the game (that only sort of exists).

More concretely, ZampanioSim features a lot of nested browser games, as well as audio, narrative, an actual audience-interactive narrative game (the way Homestuck was originally), external websites, and more.

The starting point is, of course, the House:

ZampanioSim takes full advantage of the browser as medium. There is content accessible via the address bar, developer tools, cookies (I think), the developer console, and probably more that I haven't realized.

Like, to give you a sense of the kind of rabbithole we're dealing with: Here's a map I made of the House outset page today:

...And I say today because the House does change over time. Today (a friday) when I clicked on the EastEast route, for instance, I was greeted by this grotesquely distorted version of Rebecca Black's "Friday":

Okay, let's talk about what we have going on in the House map, starting from the doors and working out. (I've given some of these my own names for clarity.)

North

The Classpect Menu Game:

This, I think, is the main titular "ZampanioSim". It's the part that's intended to recreate the experience of a supposed old computer game, but by and large, you only experience the menu screen, not the rest of the gameplay. You can select attributes (based on Homestuck's Classpecting system + the Magnus Archives fears) gain points and select skills and (depending on your seed) eventually "beat the game". It's glitchy, it's a hellscape, there's an entity or two in the menu system that are trying to talk to you. It's great fun. Contains links to a rabbithole (which you can plug passwords into for more secrets) and + some secrets to you in the credits.

(While mostly the aspects seem to add flavor to the menu options, there's a special class called "Waste". This appears in neither TMA nor Homestuck, but comes from a fan or meta-joke that Andrew Hussie and Toby Fox, the writer and a major composer for Homestuck, are classpected* as the "Waste of Space" and "Waste of Time". By telling it you're a "Waste"you're more likely to get weird glitches and new options in your Classpect Menu game run - there's a fun recurring element in some of these games about the game changing depending on who you tell it is playing. I learned about the Waste trick from JR's youtube channel. Also, setting your birthday as Halloween might also do something.)

I have no idea if the different iterations of games here are substantially different. I haven't checked. There's a lot going on. "There's a lot going on" is a good summary of ZampanioSim overall.

*( Uh, classpecting is this in-Homestuck personality system where game players are a [Role] of [Element].)

Eyedlr: Eyedol Games is the company that supposedly made the original game Zampanio. Eyedlr is their spambot-filled tumblr clone, which also has secrets in it. (Actually, just assume everything has secrets out.)

East

The House Exploration game: It has the same setup screen as the Classpect Menu game, but this one drops you into a game with visuals: An infinite(?) procedural house you navigate with imagery derived from your choices.

Peewee's exploration game: When it's not blasting Rebecca Black's Friday But Weird into your ears, the EastEast route is another procedural infinite(?) maze, except that you type directions to Peewee, a snake guy with goggles who also moves around on his own. This one also introduces named characters we learn more about elsewhere.

Bathroom text: Procredural bathroom maze, unless it's just some text telling you to take a break. ZampanioSim really likes telling you to take breaks and hydrate, so that you can better appreciate and spread Zampanio.

Absolutely not. Also, I'm a busy woman. I have to finish this writing summary first.

South

The Train Game: a game - notably not a maze - where JR walks down a series of train corridors and monologues to you about the game and the "reality" behind it.

The mazecrawler game: You tell a little guy how to navigate an infinite(?) maze - and if you choose right and open up your browser's Console menu, you can learn a great deal more about

West

The only West route is AdventureSimWest, which is an actual text narrative game where readers submit commands that the author incorporates into updates - just like early Homestuck. It's still going. The logs are extensive but it's mostly about the antics of a new employee at Eyedol Games, which is stuck in a time loop.

Other

Then there's some other scattered clickable text -

The truth about alt: An exchange between two shapeshifters.

A transcript: A dialogue between two people who apparently work for Eyedol Games.

The lower left leads you to an apparently rotating selection of other Zampanio-related games. I particularly liked NagaGirlfriend.

None of this is even the stuff you can reach this page exclusively through the Console menu.

And much more

And there's a lot of stuff that's NOT branching directly off of the house. There's other things you find buried in links or by searching - a discord and a wiki that both straddle the line between in-character and -out, Archive of Our Own content, a youtube channel, the Eyedol website...

Is there a "story" to ZampanioSim?

Yes.

Like I said, there's a lot I haven't seen yet. But what's going on is something like this:

JR is attempting to recreate this game, Zampanio, of course, and tap into its fanbase. The game Zampanio is an infectious meme. Eyedol Games is a transdimensional company that is perhaps both trying to spread the meme and contain it, by removing its spores, e.g. the Zampanio FAQ - the thing that inspired JR to make ZampanioSim - from the internet.

Various parts of the game recognize that they are fictional and may identify you the reader/player as "Observers".

There are a few recurring characters who have gotten swept up into the meme, either working for Eyedol or trapped in ZampanioSim or both, and have followed it from variant to transdimensional variant.

(this is an image from homestuck. it's a reference.)

Japes aside, this is a brain-bending, very cool, and completely ludicrous unfiction project which I believe is made mostly by one person with an unparalleled hand for web sorcery, whimsy, and vibes. The vibes are so good.

The host website, Farrago Fiction (which AFAICT is a multi-person project), hosts a number of often-homestuck-inspired weird games and simulators.

I know ZampanioSim is now a few years old and is still actively updating. Consider checking it out.

2024-08-24 edit: Part 2!

[incorrect-gravescest]

(An AU where Andrew and Ashley are secretly fucking at the same time Andrew is dating Julia. Andrew and Julia are making out on his bed when she sees Ashley's panties that were left there from the night before)

🟡: Hey, wait..these aren't my panties?

💚: N-no, of course not! I bought them for you! As, uh, a gift!

🟡: But you know I don't wear thongs? They make my butt feel weird and uncomfortable.

💚: Well, I certainly wouldn't want my sweet, precious girlfriend who I absolutely love to feel uncomfortable! Good thing I saved the receipt! I'll happily return them for you!

LATER THE DAY...

💚: I don't understand why you're so pissed off! You're the one who left them there!

🩷: She better not have worn them! They're my favorite pair of panties! If even a drop of her nasty Hussie Cooch Juice touched my undies, I will burn them into ASHES!

[plaidos]

also w regards to ralsei the big argument i see for people saying why ralsei cant be transfem (that isnt outright transphobia) is that "why would toby fox misgender ralsei up until now? hes called a boy and he/him so far" and i just find the idea that you cant tell a story about a trans person transitioning instead of being auto-transitioned without it being "problematic" to be so stupid . and like of the 3 pieces of generally agreed upon trans symbolism or rep, mettaton mad mew mew and the lion waitress (not including like . characters who just use they/them for the sake of this because their transition isn't really discussed) two of them are cases of like . we watch them transition and start pretransition? and with mettaton the symbolic transition here is still Discussed and Examined we read his diaries its just not the first thing we see because the fact that mettaton was a ghost is meant to be a plot twist . i dont understand why this would be a problem this is clearly the kind of trans story that toby is interested in telling because its the case for the past ones as well

…and it fits in perfectly with the crowds Toby is already in! i’m not gonna say “everything Toby does is influenced directly by Homestuck” but yknow the project he kickstarted his career with was run by a non-binary person who transitioned recently & who placed an emphasis on characters realising their identity over the course of the story rather than off-screen before; why would Toby Fox “misgender” Ralsei? because Ralsei’s arc is about confidence & self-acceptance; it’s the same reason Andrew Hussie retroactively “misgendered” John by deciding she would eventually be June: because that’s the order a transition fucking happens in

[beevean]

There are so many wonderful essays in the TCOAAL tag, about all the shades of fucked up that Andrew and Ashley are, but there is one thing that gnaws at me.

Where did Leyley learn all the stuff she says? Not only to swear, because that's something she could have picked up from older kids (or her own brother), but to call women "hussies" and "floozies"? Even Andy questions her, and doesn't get an answer.

That is very deep, ingrained internalized misogyny. Ever since she was a child, Leyley slutshamed with frightening ease. So much that when she hears that their parents have been befriending the neighbours, she calls them "a bunch of whores". (And I'm not even counting the voicemails she left to Julia in Andrew's dream, since we don't know what is reality and what is Andrew's subconscious)

Then you remember that she seems to view sex as transactional - as a way to gain food, money, Andrew if necessary. She's, of course, not above making jokes about banging her brother (if you give her the soda she wanted, she jokes about rewarding Andrew with her virginity), but she doesn't display the... genuine attraction Andrew seems to be harboring for her. It's a "might as well". It's a "yeah I'd do that". Sex is a way to get what she needs... which might be a reason she flips when she thinks that Andrew is getting it from someone else. Because if Andrew is getting what he wants from someone else, well, what is Ashley good for?

And then you remember how Mrs. Graves not only accuses Andrew of "fucking" Ashley (notice the wording, it's not "you two are fucking", he is fucking her - she has no agency, which is weird since Mrs. Graves is all to happy to blame everything on her "bad" daughter), but she seems to think this is the only reason Andrew could ever want to do anything for his sister. Keep in mind that she knows about the Nina incident. The idea that it might be related to Andrew's obedience doesn't cross her mind. She'd rather think that Ashley is manipulating Andrew through sex, and Andrew is such a horndog that he'd do anything for his sister's pussy. Because, well, isn't this what women and men do?

Mrs. Graves may be the dom to her spineless husband, but she sure has some... views on sexuality. Who seems to have been passed on to Leyley since she was very young. One can only imagine the stuff the kid has internalized.

[fefairys]

"The way Vriska introduces herself to John says everything about her, and about their relationship, and really, her relationship with everyone. She forcefully interrupts a moment that is deeply important and emotional to him, thereby probably denying that opportunity from ever happening again, just so she can insert herself into his life and force him to pay attention to her. Now here she is again, being kind of rude (e.g. calling him stupid), but more than that, being vaguely obsequious overall, which is something about her I was harping on in the last book. Vriska cozies up to certain kinds of people, namely those she wants something from or feels will elevate her status by association. John's the perfect mark for the manipulative, ass-kissing games she plays. Since we're in the Vriska Zone now and forever, I'll just keep talking about her. It bears more examination of how her manipulation strategy seems to deftly blend ass-kissing and aggression. Successfully manipulative, sociopathically charismatic people tend to have this balance down to a science. The strategy seems to involve controlling the interplay between flattery, appealing to common interests, charming or flirtatious rhetoric, and little jabs, negs, or outright insults to keep the target off-balance. The target gets sort of hooked by the fascinating spectacle, intrigued, and strangely disarmed. Too much flattery results in suspicion, too much negativity is a turn-off (or taken to an extreme like Karkat, results in not being taken seriously at all). The barbs mixed in with the flattery are effective because they lead the target to think, "If this person really wants something from me, why would they insult me?" Of course, this is how pick-up artists operate, which isn't far off from Vriska's mindset when pursuing her goals—which, although more broad than romantic goals, are still mixed in with them, with the end result being part of the overall power play. Over the course of her tactics focused on John to make herself more relevant, when actual romantic designs start seeping into the fabric of her manipulation campaign, that's when it all starts to get...A Little Bit Weird.

We've already seen a lot of Vriska's tactics on display in Hivebent, with mixed results. By now she's had a lot of practice, and she's bringing all her skills to bear on the perfect rube for her schemes, this nerdy, gullible Egbert kid. The romantic angle that surfaces from this effort, as I just implied, is vaguely troubling. How else to describe it... ? Icky, maybe? Something is off about it, and we feel that more than John does, obviously because we know a lot more about her than he does. For Vriska, are the romantic desires real? Is she such a mess inside that she wouldn't be able to tell whether the feelings are genuine or not? It's more likely that it's all about the ego boost, the power trip involved with grooming this hapless fool into the thing she wants him to be, and hoodwinking him into feeling something for her. But for him, it's probably more sincere. His first awkward experience with romance, albeit one contrived by a manipulator. Too bad he has no idea that none of this even has anything to do with him. It's still just about Vriska's gamesmanship with Terezi, who is another person exhibiting many of the aforementioned qualities of a manipulator. Terezi just uses hers to target a different boy. Both are highly successful with their boywork, but they take very different approaches." -Andrew Hussie

[milliebobbyflay]

Okay so I've spent a while thinking about how to word my actual problem with homestuck 2, and the works that make up post-canon homestuck more broadly. I think a lot of people resort to nitpicking bits of awkward writing or art in some attempt to pinpoint a source to an underlying sort of hollow uncanniness, which is funny because homestuck's supposed golden age of acts 1-5 are themselves FAR more of a tonally inconsistent mess of odd character beats, jokes that don't always land, and janky looking art.

Homestuck 2 has been written and drawn by very talented and passionate artists from the beginning, I think the actual issue comes down to a mix between the general pitfalls of hiring fans and the particulars of hussie's outsider background and unorthodox writing style.

First is the issue of hiring fans in general; while it can seem like an easy shortcut to finding talented writers already familiar with the voice and story of the original work, you have to be very aware of how fan culture operates. Beyond the obvious pitfalls that fans are unlikely to approach the story from a detached perspective, there is the larger issue that past a certain point fandom becomes essentially self sustaining. Once a fandom has existed for a long enough period, its most avid members have likely spent FAR more time engaging with other fan works than they have with the original art object. Fandom and the art it produces are, in this way, a sort of a folk tradition; artists are imitating and responding to other artists, characters become archetypes through which to explore certain ideas and dynamics, and the values and tastes of the most prolific and influential fan artists become as inseparable from a participants mental image of the character as the original work itself.

For an example, the affected theatrical mannerisms and cruelty Vriska adopts while in her Mindfang persona have become inseparable from the popular view of the character. Despite the fact that it's heavily signposted as a sort of role playing performance from the jump and she's more or less dropped it by the back half of the comic, it was nevertheless how she had acted in the bulk of her scenes around the time the ur-texts of homestuck fandom were being written, and as so an understandable misread of a character became inscribed into the fandom canon, and by extension her characterization in Homestuck 2.

All of this is extrapolated by the sort of unorthdox, building-the-plane-while-flying-it manner in which Hussie's writing style developed.

Based on his commentary, I get the sense that Andrew is an incredibly clever and thoughtful writer who lacks the theory and vocabulary to precisely describe his process. He tends to communicate in sort of abstract metaphors which aim to bridge the gap in explaining the actual conscious process he uses to plot his stories, but the way he talks about technical nuts and bolts writing craft stuff gives me the impression that his approach is largely intuitive, bordering on unconscious. He's a lot better at describing how he writes than what he writes or why.

You can of course piece a lot this together—his approach to art draws from the tradition of videogame spritework, where the visuals exist as a utilitarian vehicle for conveying information first and a work of illustration only inasmuch is needed to serve the greater story. His character writing draws more from a synthesis of literary fiction, sitcom writing, and "making up a guy" style posting humor, where characters are defined more by their life experiences and underlying psychology than by their goals and values, but also seem to have largely been constructed backwards from a starting point of a funny or interesting manner of speaking. Importantly though, I don't get the sense that these were conscious decisions, just that to Hussie they seemed like the logical way to approach these tasks, and I don't really think he could outline them in a way that would actually help a new team of creators grok how to draw and write in a way that feels like homestuck. I also don't think Hussie could actually explain the psychology that undergirds his character writing, I think he was mostly just drawing on his own life experience and imagining how this sort of character might logically speak and act.

As a novelist, and Hussie is one, both your thought processes and the sum total of your worldview and life experience are just as important to your work as the actual conscious decisions you're making, and I think that where there are gaps in understanding, the new writers are filling in the gaps with both a more conventional approach to the creative process and over a decade of accumulated fanon, and I think that's why homestuck 2 never really rises above feeling like a very well-made fanfic to me?

[bipanicoverthegravessiblings]

Spare a little Yandere Ashley, please?

Isn’t that just canon? Oh well!

TW: Possessive Behaviors, Swearing, and Suicide Mentioned

Yandere!Ashley Graves x GN!Reader

Ashley couldn’t explain why she felt so strongly towards you

Maybe it was your looks. The way your eyes lit up when talking about your interests. Your voice. Or…maybe it was cause you were the only person (who wasn’t Andrew) to make her feel cared about

It started with small, insignificant things. A hello in the morning when you crossed paths. Compliments on her hair or outfit that day. A look of pure adoration when she spoked.

It wasn’t until your actions became more noticeable did she truly realize you cared about her.

“Ah shit!” Ashley hissed under her breath at the falling droplets of water.

Of course it had to rain, the one day she didn’t bring a stupid umbrella- or have Andrew to shield her- it rained. She stomped her foot in frustration, her face puffing up in fury towards Mother Nature. She sighed and was about to step forward and seal her fate with the cold and wet when—

“Here,” a familiar voice called to her, “We can share my umbrella.”

Ashley blinked, surprised. Her head slowly turned to look back at the source of the voice. Her assumptions were correct, as you smiled at her- umbrella in hand.

“Uh-…thanks-“ wearily, Ashley stepped closer to you- her arms hugging her body cautiously.

She stayed close to you, her body practically pressed against yours as you both shared the safety of the umbrella. A small blush painted her cheeks as she felt…safe pressed against your form. You always were so kind to her…

From there, she noticed your kindness more and more. And each time it made her heart melt. She felt so loved. So cherished.

…but then she saw that you treated everyone that way. Basic human decency to everyone you came into contact with. She especially hated it when it was other women.

She wasn’t special- she wasn’t as important as she thought. And that pissed her the fuck off.

She ignored you at first- thinking the silent treatment would do you some good. Teach you a lesson.

But then…it hit her-

You’re so kind. And these hussies would do nothing but take advantage of you. That’s what they were doing….taking advantage of you.

Obviously she’d have to protect you.

Ashley clung to your arm, holding you back from chasing after the woman who just ran off. You stared off, wide eyed, before turning to look at Ashley.

“Wh- What was that about?” You sounded dumbfounded, “Why did you scare her off?”

“You couldn’t see it?” She replied, her head tilting slightly.

“See what?”

“She was taking advantage of you, Y/N!” She extended an arm out in the woman’s general direction.

No. She- she wasn’t. Right? How could Ashley know that?

“How do you know that?” Your eyes dared to leave Ashley’s as you looked off towards the fleeing woman again.

“Wow, you really are too nice for your own good.” Ashley grabbed your chin and turned your head to face her once again, “It was so obvious! Cold-hearted hussies like that see a good person like you and want to drain you for everything you’ve got. You’re just too sweet to see that hun.”

Ashley’s nails dug into your arm. You winced from the pain, but didn’t object.

“You need someone like me to help you see that..” her voice was low, her knuckles white from how hard she dug her nails into your arm, “To protect you.”

And protect you she did

You began gaining a reputation in the area, and not a good one.

“Stay away from Y/N, or their girlfriend will bite your head clean off!” “That crazy chick always hangs around them- best stay away.” “I heard their friend harassed a girl into jumping off a bridge.”

Your own friends became scared of you. They slowly stopped answering your calls- all until you confronted them and they gave you their official goodbyes

“Look it’s just..” your friend shoved their hands into their pockets, eyes glued to the ground to avoid your hurt expression, “I think it’s best if we just take some time apart.”

You felt like they had more to say…but you didn’t prod as they walked away from you.

You were now completely alone

Well…except for Ashley.

She comforted you when your friends left. She was protecting you against the people taking advantage of your kindness. She was there for you when everyone left.

You were hers. Forever.