#you consider hs2 canon

[dave-shit-kat]

One of the many problems with Homestuck is the target audience. I often tell people that I don't think kids younger than 15 should read the comic and I always get crazy looks for that.

Yes, I know the fandom (right now) has many kids. Yes, I've read the comic; I know its themes, contents and how they're presented. And the problems lie on that specifically.

Because Homestuck isn't and never wanted to be a fucking pedagogy example, it takes many liberties with what it narrates and how. While I agree that some themes can be treated in any media, and while I agree that adult jokes can be made in kids' medias, we have to keep in mind that certain things have to be treated properly when talking to younger audiences, and that adult jokes have to be made with a structure that doesn't allow the kid to understand what the joke acutally means (also, you can't base an entire show on adult jokes only, or having them too often, or it won't be an age appropriate show anymore). Basically; people who have in mind a target age STUDY the fucking targeted age; something Homestuck never did.

So the result is a colorful and silly and dumb webcomic, that seems appealing to unsupervised 11 year olds (I've met them in the fandom, I'm not inventing anything), that also have read a comic that talks about racism, sex, rape, pedophilia, incest, totalitarism, and things like that. As I said, you CAN have kids medias that treat those topics, but the situation with Homestuck is much more similar to the situation with Hazbin Hotel; where the media is shown as colorful and silly and funny, more inclined towards edgy kids' type of humor, yet not having kids in mind as the target audience, and so allowing way too many adult topics to be treated in the media itself, while expecting the audience to be mature enough to get it.

As I said and as I repeat myself: yes, Homestuck is dumb, but not for this reason good for kids. And when someone on TikTok dared to tell me "Oh, but these topics and details fly over children's heads" I got mad. HOW does that make it ok!? An adult joke made in 40 episodes of a kid show is one thing; a webcomic with 8k pages FULL of that stuff is another thing. Just because the themes are treated non-seriously, doesn't make stuff like, I don't know, RICK AND MORTY ok for kids.

SUMMARY: Keep kids away from Homestuck.

[davekat-sucks]

it was implied because Rose was sick before the choice, and specifically was shown to be "cured" after the choice. and yeah, she wasn't actually dying, but again we're looking at this from kanaya's perspective. if it looks like someone is dying, you always assume the worst.

on that note, this makes Rose thanking John for the chance to live her life the most disingenuous shit possible, considering she was spending all this time planning for her death/coma and ruining her own marriage to try and have Kanaya live her life.

The cured part was looking at from the Vriskagram side of things, which is all about Vriska. Does that mean Vriska also had assumed that Rose was suddenly fine just cause Vriska saved the day, which means it boost Vriska's ego to continue 8eing her usual bad self? Would even the Post Retcons that Terezi tried to suggest John fix, will even be addressed or called out to either Terezi or John about this? I can understand Vriska's VN hell not addressing this because she wouldn't be aware and was ignorant if it meant she gets to be seen as the savior on the meteor. And yeah. It really paints her as an ungrateful bitch. The Beta Kids were suppose to be really close friends and this woman acts like this? I get things changed over time, but the theme of nihilism and spiting the audience that Andrew Hussie intentionally and purposely build within Epilogues and seeping in HS2/Beyond Canon, is just tiring that nobody is having fun or being interested of characters being depressed and the worse version of themselves.

[borzoilover69]

“Ok Borzoi so why don’t you like Dirkjohn” - somebody, who didn’t ask, but I want to ramble. 

I guess it’s funny as a crack ship but in actuality, i feel it would fall incredibly flat and only be viable in an unhealthy way. Canonically, they've got little to nothing to do with each other, and their relationship branches on bullshit in the epilogues and HS2 which just isn't a good judge of Dirk and Johns character so much as a butcher of it.

First, lets get their characters down. Dirk, very introspective to the point of destruction, who’s prone to rambling, overcomplicating and accentuating things in a way to keep up his aura of coolness, of being “totally in control and all knowing”, and sort of socially awkward, failing quite a few times to read jokes as jokes. 

John, upfront, more likely to push forward without really thinking, keeps things simple and asks not much, and very much a protagonist figure. He’s blunt, he’s teasing in his humour, and he likes to take the mic out of people and make his own fun. 

Dirk is very active. He's willing to go through many hoops and talk around himself, and he needs a conversational partner willing to spar him on it, however, John is anything but that. He's upfront, he brings a hypothetical hammer down into the bush that dirk is walking around. Jake will indulge, so will a lot of the alpha kids, but the beta kids by far are more blunt and straight forward. John would see whatever bullshit Dirk is pulling and think it's stupid and ornery, and shut him down..Dirk would go "okay" and then either try to counterpoint to be shut down, or walk away.This conversation is a relaly good point of reference for how it would go. Note how roxy is going through the general alpha kids bullshit theatrics and ornery, and john instead of getting it, cuts it down with "no thats stupid", and doesnt get the joke.

This conversation is a really good point of reference for how it would go. Note how roxy is going through the general alpha kids bullshit theatrics and ornery, and john instead of getting it, cuts it down with "no thats stupid", and doesnt get the joke.

dirk wouldn't know how to handle someone actually being completely straight up and refusing to humor him, being open about not giving a shit about whatever tangent dirk is on.  it might humble him which he definitely needs sometimes but most of the time itd just make him go "ok. whatever man im going to jake's"

(art by my boyfriend) 

Nobody puts up with dirk and jakes bullshit as much as dirk and jake do each other

DIRK: "I'll get this blue gumball son of a bitch this time. He's gonna be so perplexed by the bullshit im about to spew he's got no idea the storm that's wafting in on the wind."

 and then john says ratio and dirk is reduced to ash. 

John and Jake also have a bad habit of comparison in a negative sense, like how he did with davesprite. Jake does it out loud with no regard for others, and John is the type to drop a single “x has already made this joke” because his preference of Dave is so much stronger than Dirk. Dirk wouldn’t be able to beat Dave to the ironic punchline because most likely, Dave has already said it in a language John understands, and John has made fun of him for it already. John doesn’t have patience for long winded games, if he’s not in the mood he’ll just fuck off. 

Personally feel like John would be acutely aware that Dirk hates when he shuts him down, but he just genuinely cannot sit here and listen to a “worse version of dave talk like hes pretending to be rose. I just cant.i don’t have it in me.” 

I mean I think they’d be funny somewhat, but they would not be happy together at all it would be awkward as hell. Dirk needs someone to pull him out of his bullshit but John just won’t do that. He won’t consider it really that much. They could have funny moments, but the toxicity of their potential relationship sours most of it for me. Dirk is pretty fucking intense in a lot of ways, and hes prone to being a lot. 

the alpha kids in general are just way intense due to their fucking isolation whatever thety smoked in those years made them volatile like fucking potent like a chili peppers but thats words for another ramble.

John just isn’t able to match Dirk. He doesn't think enough, he's just going with the flow and dirk needs someone who can either match him on an intellectual level or someone who can match him in an interest way. John just wouldn’t take the relationship seriously enough, which would lead to Dirk trying to figure out something that isn’t there to really figure out. John matches well with someone who has known him for a while and doesn’t have a specific way they want things to go. 

[romanceclub-confessionss]

It's not a confession, I had a doubt, since these stories that get a continuation or spin-off are now becoming quite famous, as for the slots part, would the first slot be placed as canon when the continuation of the story began? or what.

sorry for the inconvenience.

the last active slot you played will be the one which will move on to the sequel.

so for eg, you play hs with three slots, say, one for lucifer, one for mimi and one for malbonte. the most recent one you've played is malbonte's so when you begin hs2, the game will consider malbonte to be your final LI and that's how the story will play out in hs2

- mod lucien

[hms-no-fun]

one thing i'm curious about is if you're currently reading / drawing inspiration from any other contemporary HS fanworks. i know KITTYQUEST just dropped its epilogue like less than a week ago, so it's definitely a big era for Homestuck Fanworks That Have Jade Harley Have Kids lmaoooo

i may talk a big game about how you can't hope to substantively discuss what homestuck *is* without also examining its fanworks, but unfortunately i am myself woefully under-read and out of date. i kinda stopped reading homestuck fanworks after 2020 because. well. at the risk of getting into the weeds of fandom drama. all the ones i really liked stopped updating when the fandom environment turned from passively toxic to aggressively poisonous, and there was at least a 50/50 chance that the creator of any given active fanwork was either with or supported the group of people who wielded that poison.

that feeling is far less prominent now but i am still skeptical any time a new homestuck fanwork gets popular. they have to pass a litmus test first: is this person shitty or weird about the epilogues/hs2? they don't have to have liked either work necessarily, they just have to acknowledge that those works exist, have influence, and are worth talking about, even if they personally don't want to do the talking. god this all sounds so petty, but people lost jobs over what happened. i don't think i can have a positive interaction with anyone who is simply unwilling to have an in-depth conversation about the contents of a text without feeling the need to pass objective moral judgments at every turn, nor do i think i will get much out of the fanworks such a person might produce. so i save us all the trouble and don't bother!

that said, i quite like Kittyquest. i'm way behind on it though, as i am on everything. that Kitty showed up not too long after Yiffy actually inspired me to create Edie, because i love the idea of "Jade's Daughter" being this extraordinarily flexible archetype. it feels like kind of a combo-breaker considering how rigid homestuck's archetypes typically are. i also very much admire Kittyquest's commitment to fleshing out the culture and history of Earth C, especially in the ways it seems to deliberately break from what we've seen of it in post-canon. the lack of worldbuilding the epilogues is one of its biggest weaknesses in my opinion, so i always like it when a story tries to pick up that slack. the artstyle being so divorced from homestuck's yet still somehow indebted to it really encouraged me to try different things with the types of images we started putting into godfeels. what i love about post-canon broadly is just how varied it is artistically, stylistically. i think it's good and compelling and healthy that so much art in this space is willing to play with these things in such constructive ways.

the other contemporary fanwork that really has influence on godfeels is Vast Error. which i am also behind on. but Snowbound Blood is a personal favorite whose tone (at its best) matches the vibes i'm going for in 3.2. the biggest i guess Thing for me wrt Vast Error is how different its universe engine session is from what we saw in homestuck. its logic, its mechanics, its purpose-- the whole thing is so alien, and yet it has Prospit and Derse, it has Spades Slick and other such guys, it has Skaia, so there's clear continuity. if we imagine the universe engine as a procedurally generated video game, these commonalities suggest that there are stable constants in the formula. it was that alongside all the other wildly different fansessions on MSPFA that started the gears turning which would eventually lead to the EWL. the idea of an organization of castoffs from the infinite fanontinuum of alternate sessions, who study the constants and variables across countless UE instances and build squads of sailors who specialize in particular behavioral clusters. oh this session has an overpowered Jack making it unviable? send in the Jills, they'll show him what's what.

i guess if there's a thread here it's that i'm most inspired by what metatextual trends suggest about the hypothetical Ultimate Self of any given homestuck narrative convention. i'm not saying that's a good thing but i guess it has worked out okay so far.

i could shout out other fanworks that i haven't read but i think i would rather hear from y'all. what's out there right now? what's good? i should probably catch up

[lazy-dog24601]

Hussie is such a coward for pulling a "death of the author" and then going on to give his blessing to the HS2 team.

Like thanks for nothing, dick. You write about how the author has no real authority over their own creation and then go on to endorse an entire fucking team that FUCKING CLAIMS TO INHERIT HOMESTUCK.

"ermmm we the official homestuck team don't like it when fans consider the (official) sequel to homestuck non-canon because we have the blessing of the author!!1!" motherfucker Andrew Hussie fucking died, Lord English capped his ass. Hussie lost his fucking authority.

[gardengnosticator]

you know what, considering hs2's only open canonical transfem is homewrecking, neglectful mother, dog dick jade i'm sure june egbert will be a positive breath of fresh air solely because you have to be under the earth's mantle not to clear that bar.

[dynamistimaeus]

This post is about to get long, so I added a ‘read more’. I was working on this back in December of last year (2022). Though, I am now sharing my thoughts and ‘theories’ as the HS2 writing team has changed and the story will go a slightly different direction.

I want to compile my thoughts involving the Homestuck Epilogues and Homestuck^2. Not necessarily just my opinions of it, but some things I noticed. More of an in-depth analysis, along with some of my own commentary and several ‘theories’.

There was originally a post that sparked this interest; however, I no longer have it and I don’t want this to become a debate. The person was voicing their opinion and that is totally fair and fine! They are in the right to do that. My thoughts on it still remain, though, as it got me thinking and theorizing more deeply. Something akin to igniting the fire, so to speak. While I don’t think opinions on fictional media are right or wrong, they are still just that, opinions. This being said, I feel like sometimes fandom runs with opinions and considers it factual (or canon) when in reality it really isn’t. At the end of the day, an opinion of something, and even theories, are still just those things. The important thing is that it is actually a good thing that someone can formulate their own opinions about media, and art, in general. Art is subjective and even if there is a very specific message to something, at the end of the day, if it can evoke something in you and make you think deeper.. Then, that is impressive and honestly really normal. It should draw some emotion from you, hence why it is subjective. You look at it from your own lens and determine what it means to you, using your own personal truths. Now, onto the fun part.

While I was thinking about what this individual said, it made me reconsider certain story elements. They had made a comment that Rose would have been a more interesting villain, and that is fair; however, technically, if you consider Ult Dirk a villain, then Rose would be too. Sometimes I think people forget that Dirk and Rose are similar (like how Roxy and Dave are), and this also goes into Jake and Jade being similar and the qualities that both Jane and John/June share too. For the record, I don’t necessarily consider Ult Dirk a villain, and it is definitely fine if you do; however, this goes a little into my theories surrounding things. In all regards, I think the fictional version of Ult would be more of a morally grey character, possibly someone that would fit better in an ‘anti-hero’ sort of role, since he clearly believes what he is doing is the ‘right’ thing to do. Furthermore, I believe his character always had the possibility of becoming this way and not necessarily ‘becoming what he hates,’ but someone that can control things and ‘fix’ things. We see a lot in the comic that Dirk pushes his friends in odd ways to show he cares. By extension, Bro Strider also tries to do these things— and, a side note here.. I saw someone make a theory about Bro trying to turn Dave into a Dirk splinter.. But the canonical points of Homestuck disprove that theory.. In that Dave doesn’t have a heart shirt as a kid because Bro is a Prince of Heart.. He has a heart shirt, because John has a spades shirt.. So on and so forth. It is just a nod back to the card suites, as well as the trolls quadrants. Along with this, Bro Strider— as a Dirk adjacent being, would be doing what he ‘thinks’ is best. We even see Dirk mirror this kind of behavior with his creation of Brobot to ‘strife’ with Jake to ‘prepare and train�� him better. In Dirk’s mind, he was doing what was ‘best’ or ‘correct’. And, even if it is bad what he was doing.. It is oddly his way of showing he cares. Furthermore, Bro Strider, with the knowledge from Lil Cal (and those inhabiting him) definitely tries to create the scratch or attempts to ‘delay’ or ‘end’ the game however he can.. We see him battle Jack. Bro Strider was technically one of the only Beta Guardians that actively tries to interfere with the game, while Grandpa Harley seems to have his own agenda and hand in things— we learn more about this when it comes to Hiveswap. Grandpa Harley has some very deeply rooted ties with the cherubs and their magic, as well as many other links back to the game.. But this post isn’t about that, so I will save that for a different time.

Back to looking at Rose’s character for a moment. I want to make it clear that Rose has always had the ability to dig deeper into the narrative and the game as a whole. Her seer powers allow that. The original post I mentioned, also explained this well. They made the comments about Alpha Mom. While the guardians are really interesting and helpful to give us insight on the kids.. I also want to reiterate the kids aren’t the guardians. And, in my mind, I am of the impression that they may share the aspect with their alternate timeline self, but not the class.. I made this theory from looking at the trolls: The dancestors and decendants— they all share the same aspect, but not the same class. With this information, I started to dig a bit deeper.. Which brings me to some other interesting finds.

Some of the kids share some aspects with the trolls, and even with the cherubs. Now, before I get more into that, I want to brush up on my theories involving HS^2 and the turns some of the characters took.. First, starting with Dirk. It has been a bit since I read the story of Timaeus, but I already have a few correlating ties back to it and the turn Dirk’s character takes. Within the story of Timaeus, as Plato writes it.. Eventually, the character of Timaeus begins to take over the narrative completely. The full story never was finished, as Plato died prior to finishing the dialogues, but I think this is important.. It plays back into a few other things involving Dirk’s character too, but I don’t want to stay on this, as I have a lot of other thoughts to unpack. Now, another interesting thing about Dirk, and more specifically Bro Strider, is the ties they have with Kamina from Gurren Lagaan. Unsure of how many of you have seen the anime, but Kamina— one of the main characters, goes by the nickname of ‘Bro’, especially to the younger character Simon. Now, some of the methods Kamina uses to ‘help Simon’ basically.. Deal with the destroyed version of the world, aren’t ideal.. But a lot of the things Kamina does in that show are very identical to things Dirk, and Bro Strider, do in regards to the game.. And, well, end of the world, essentially. Along with this, Roxy (and adjacently) Mom Lalonde share a lot of qualities with Yoko from that show.. From the scarf to the amazing rifle action. Also, the weirdly overly fetishization of female characters that happened in the 90’s.. It was bad, and it even shows with Roxy a bit.. Her personality is also a little similar to Yoko’s.. Though, the other interesting thing about this is that Jake shares some qualities of her too.. The shorts, the guns, the infamous kissing in front of a volcano.. You know, among other things.. But I think Jake having more ties back to Indiana Jones and Laura Croft make a bit more sense.. Considering Grandpa Harley.. And, the fact Hussie has started they weren’t really sure what to do with Jake’s character for a while— sidenote: I love Jake and want to see him fully use his Hope powers.. But I’ll brush up on this a little more as I unpack some things..

I think the Epilogues and Homesuck^2 are.. Kind of replaying the events of things that happened with the trolls’ ancestors.. To the way Jane is becoming Condy.. Even her ties to Gamzee. It makes me think of the relationship between Condy and GHB.. Even the fact Jane, a human, is with a troll to the side, but is fine with destroying the rest. Condy was with a human because ‘he made her laugh,’ but was fine with destroying anyone else. With this, we even see in one timeline (the Candy one) that Karkat becomes a lot like the Signless, which makes sense, especially if Jane is filling the role of Condy. There isn’t a kid that shares the Rage aspect as Gamzee, so I wondered if this was why they ‘brought him back’.. But that doesn’t explain Vriska, because Rose technically shares a classpect with her and still is alive within both timelines.. Though, interestingly enough, Terezi’s relationship with Rosebot in the Meat timeline mirrors her past relationship with Vriska, as well as that of Redglare and Mindfang.. Now, this is the interesting thing.. Jake would then technically be in the same shoes as Cronus and Eridan if it was following this trend, but he isn’t. He’s an outlier.. Though, on the other hand, John/June being a breath player.. I think that is why they will ultimately still ‘be the hero’ in all of this. Having ties back to Tavros’ ancestor, and what that entails involving the Signless. We also only see John/June in the candy timeline, as it is believed they died within the meat one.. Upon being sent back.. Now, even more interestingly.. Dave shares an aspect with Aradia and her ancestor and dancestor.. Which we see Davebot currently traveling along with Aradia.. But he also shares an aspect with Caliborn, being the same ‘color’ of the cherub swirls.. Also, think of the parallels here of Lord English and The Handmaid… Which also brings me to the fact that Jade and Calliope also share an aspect (as well as Kanaya; however, she never goes Godtier).. And, the color scheme of Jade fits closely with Calliope.. In the Meat timeline, they have merged together— to an extent.. Which makes me wonder if Davebot and that Jade will eventually have to fight one another? Would Davebot win or would that version of Calliope be the actual winner? Since, as we know, Calliope was the one who was supposed to win between the two cherubs, which was the reason the session was doomed.. As Caliborn takes over entirely (becoming Lord English). I also would like to point out that Aradia accidentally left Sollux behind somewhere… Will he eventually become a power source for Jane? Just some random thoughts. I’m still digging into things.. But I do think some of the characters going the routes they do make sense more in this context.

Last notes, I also believe the reason Roxy (within the Meat timeline) is fine with executing Ult Dirk. When they talk to Dave about it, he seems uncomfortable about it (reasonably so), but Roxy doesn’t.. They also share an aspect with Equius (and we all know about his ancestor)…

Anyways, this is all of my findings for now. I’ll continue updating as I find more things to discuss (and have the energy to do so).

[beangods]

14, 16, 18 and 20 for the homestuck questions.

14. Least favorite character?

eridan.

16. NOTP?

vriska x men. also dont like vriska x characters who are canonically men. stop fanoning your way into femslash when homestuck has a million billion compelling and bonkers canonically girl characters to smush together. ALSO rose or kanaya x men/canonical men come on now people we've been over this. if you want One Specific Ship i hate for no real reason though i dont really have one OH WAIT gamtav. tell me you dont actually give a shit about tavros without saying those words in that order. he was NOT reciprocating those advances leave him alone!!

18. Do you want Homestuck to just die already?

i wish the main comic had been wrapped up in a satisfactory conclusive way and that hs2/the epilogues either never existed or were likewise satisfactory and conclusive OR AT LEAST kept canon with the snapchat upd8s. i want them to bring back paradox space (official non-canon comics) and keep making merch forever and also for everyone with headcanons i personally dislike to leave the fandom and get really into something else instead.

20. Tell us how Homestuck has affected you in real life.

oh god. genuinely, homestuck completely shaped my adolescence and pop culture diet in extremely noticeable ways. i was one of those dave transmascs

i cosplayed vriska to school. i only really hit it off with my last ex when we started talking about homestuck. on 4/13 last year i almost passed up going to the club because i hadn't drawn any fan art yet. in fact part of why my sleep schedule is so fucked up is that for years i would stay up til 1-3am drawing homestuck fan art. indeed, the fact that i run two homestuck blogs impacts my schedule and daily routine significantly. i've given graded presentations on homestuck music in university. i still say "now we're cooking with petrol!" in real life. not only did i have moirails and auspistices and blackrom crushes in real life in middle school, i also, currently, as an adult, have someone in my life i consider my moirail. over half of my prosthetics, which i use in real sexual encounters, are tentacles, and You Know Why. my OC-verse has been radically shaped by homestuck (and the energy i spend on homestuck does NOT go to my OC-verse; before getting into the comic i thought i'd be a bestselling author by now). there is not a single area of my life that has not been touched by this webcomic. i will probably be buried with a scalemate plushie.

[friedchickenusa]

Do you consider the epilogues non canon like most people

dunno. theyre one image into the post-endgame, one of several. i havent read any mspfas that explore the post-endgame YET but i have them written down (stuff like homeslice, burning down the house, act 7, acr omega i believe all explore the same narrative zone as the epilogues)

so for now, the epilogues and hs2 are my only reference point for "what happens after". but i dont think it matters whether or not its "canon". its all fiction anyway.

what makes the epilogues and hs2 unique among all explorations into the post-endgame is that the original author(s) stand behind them. they created it. and as such, it can be considered "official".

so, i guess i DONT consider it canon. but i do consider it official, and as such, its "closer" to the original homestuck than any fanfic. more closely linked. hope that helps.

i rejected it at first, but the idea that the epilogues and hs2 put forth, the idea that i can make anything i want canon using my imagination, is pretty powerful, and funny because it basically inspires fan/foe fiction with no necessity to stick to the facts as presented by even homestuck1. you can just make anything up and write it. so lets go

[themageofblood]

(sorry for long post and fake blog i don't actually use tumblr) i agree with most of the takes you put on ur main post. as a indigenous/white person it did make me reconsider how i view some of the characters. i always knew to a certain degree that gamzee and meenah were offensive but since a lot of the fandom didn't care it just slipped from my mind. tho, i was always aware of how white coded the alpha and beta kids were, i always interpreted all the black hcs as andrew hussie slander cause he did say that all the kids were aracial but they were not black (i thought that was bullshit also even tho it's not canon i REALLY enjoy black jade. i really do think it fits her even if not canon), and since i personally do not care about nor read hs2 so i don't really consider it canon so your jane point doesn't make sense to me (i think hs2 a total mischaracterization of her character from original canon). tho, i did want to ask, what race would u rather hc meenah and gamzee as? i think that in order to actually hc them as black you would need to write out all of the racist ass stereotypes, but in the end i think you can tell really interesting humanstuck stories. also. sorry for all the hate ur getting dude.

It's not the headcanons that are the problem it's both hussie and the Fandom way of putting black people in a monolithic way. I see gamzee and meenah as white because they were written to be the troll equivalent of white supremacists. But what really irks me and rubs me the wrong way is that the reasons people claim certain characters to be black, they don't apply to other characters. For example: roxy uses aave. Well so does rufioh more than most other characters in fact. But I've seen Nothing about him being black coded from the Fandom. Another one is Gamzee has an "afro" as insulting as it is to have his hair be compared to a black hairstyle, no one in the Fandom hc the captors as black because mituna canonically actually has an afro, not to mention the whole slave story arc. Speaking of slave story arcs the entire jade blood caste are literally wet nurses and don't get me started on the Dolorosa her entire story is a racist black coded allegory and agin the Fandom completely ignores it. There are several black coded characters in homestuck but the fact that the Fandom collectively agreed the gamzee meenah and the strilalondes are black due to stereotypes that don't just apply to black people rubs me every wrong way. I get that hussie is a racist and the Fandom wants to do a big fu to him by claiming them as black but at the same time they're promoting the idea that black people are a monolith. It's like the whole tiktok "megamind is black because he understands how fucked the prison system is" all o er agian. I hope this makes a bit more sense

[davekat-sucks]

Never got where "trolls are one sex" or "don't actually have gender" came from, considering they have sexual dimorphism and that a female reproduces them (mothergrubs). Why do people deny trolls have boobs when its shown multiple times they do? What reason would trolls invent two genders or if that were the case?

Vriska and John arent trans btw, these characters were never wrote with the intention of being so and saying otherwise is false. Anything written after homestuck isn't actually canon.

True. Which means Epilogues, Pesterquest, Homestuck^2, and Beyond Canon is canon either. And yet people like to put those things in high pedestals as if they are. That's why people get all bitchy if you draw Terezi """""skinny""""" because Pesterquest made her fat and people believe she is canonically fat. That Davekat is canon because of Epilogues, Pesterquest, and HS2/Beyond Canon pushing it so hard.

[hellstobetsy]

Homestuck Acts 1-4: Like watching an Actual Play podcast. It was fun at the time, and there's still stuff to like, but rereading it now there's a loooooot of fucking around, especially in act 1. Stuff like Dave spending 100+ pages collecting items for a boss fight and the joke is that he gets one-shot and never uses any of them.

Homestuck Intermission: A commonly asked question by new fans is "Can I skip the intermission?". It's pretty much entirely time-based puzzles, but does have one of HS's best lines.

Homestuck Act 5: Turns into a tighter-paced sci-fi action comic. Trolls become very prominent, Vriska is introduced and becomes nearly the protagonist. Generally considered the "good" part and the peak of its popularity. If you're Homestuck curious but not 8000 pages Homestuck curious, it actually might be worth reading Act 5 Act 1 just by itself, as it's pretty short and condensed and heavily features Vriska at her Vriskest. You'd get the gist of it from that.

Homestuck Acts 6-7: This was supposed to be like three months long and instead they stretched it out for years and you can really tell. Self-defensively meta ("Real people don't have character arcs") and has aged the worst. [S] Collide is still hype though.

Epilogues/Homestuck 2: Somewhere between a blatant cash grab to solve Hussie's money troubles and a nervous breakdown, introducing completely insane plot points and character twists at a rapid beat. It's so bad and stupid that it nearly loops back around to being ironically good. Most of the art budget went to Viz Media. Names a major non-joke character "Yiffany Longstocking". Canceled mid-story.

Homestuck Beyond Canon (Currently updating!): A revival of Homestuck 2 run by the Steven Universe music team (?!) who got the IP rights in exchange for promising to finish HS2. The writing is much improved but it's built on a truly batshit foundation. Tries and mostly succeeds in making Yiffany Longstocking a cool badass punk. They're currently working on Homestuck's first big music video in years and the fandom might pop off when that comes out in a few weeks.

tl;dr: Maybe just read Act 5 Act 1, which can be banged out pretty quick and has the tightest writing in the whole comic.

It kinda sounds like Homestuck is the opposite of Steven Universe, in that Homestuck was really good at the time cause the fandom was active and you got regular updates, but it's not as good now cause it's way too long, the writing is mid in hindsight, and there's a bunch of stuff that didn't age well, meanwhile Steven Universe was MISERABLE to be a fan of as it was airing because the fandom was a torrential nightmare and the release schedule was incredibly inconsistent, but now that the dust has settled and you can just watch the entire show at your leisure it's obvious it's still a really good show.

[4lph4kidz]

idk what sort of speculation exists about the candy timeline kids role in the story of hs2 but it would be cool if they expanded on the lesser seen aspects. i think tav crocker might be doom

[callmearcturus]

Whomstve Discord Server

gdi i can't find my original post on this

OKAY I did a big inactivity cut and i know a lot of ppl have been curious so yeah i guess its time to invite more ppl to my Whomstve Server

The Vibes: relaxed talking about homestuck, fic, cool podcasts and books and games, and sometimes keyboards. server has space both to brainstorm your homestuck fanworks and to live-write/jam the fics. enthusiastic cheerleading for ppl who are making stuff.

Rules: adult only, server is considered blanket NSFW, absolutely zero tolerance of anti shit/purity politics, and everyone is expected to take care of their of mental health. if a topic in a channel is not your jam or upsets you, you're expected to go to another channel. do not yuck people's yum or rain on their parades.

also, as a "whomstve" server, there is no discussion of post-canon content. No HS2, no epilogues. not even to rag on them, we just don't open that bag of cats.

If you are interested, send me an ask. No anons, obvsly. I can't tell you how many people will get in this time, probably as many as I can stand before my anxiety kicks in.

[rosemary-is-in-pesterquest]

I'm still mind boggled over how ppl to this day comain about Rosemary being bland with no conflict pre post canon then. Drain davekat of conflict when that ship was literally considered a pitch ship for years

The homestuck fandom claiming rosemary is bland and had zero conflicts and was too happy so hs2 was a welcomed change is still such a frozen take.

Rose and Kanaya have had conflicts tracing back to Act 4-5. The grimdark arc was especially something their early relationship was heavily involved in and carried along and also interfered with their dynamic a lot. Like, even Rose was trying to comfort Kanaya about them not knowing what exactly happens when her screen goes dark in the future.

And then of course we have Rose’s problem with alcohol later on the meteor, which people stapled a “abusive/unhealthy!!” label on it since rosemary wasn’t free of conflicts, and yet when post-retcon still carried over the alcohol issue but took care of it offscreen, all of a sudden rosemary is bland??? Hs fandom literally just can’t make up its mind on whether rosemary is unhealthy for not being 100% perfect OR rosemary is way too 100% perfect and happy to the point it’s boring.

And then in post retcon davekat, like you said, is completely drained of conflict and its flavor because suddenly they’re buddy-buddy and penis ouija is a game they equally wanted to play (which imo makes it less funny). Don’t even get me started on post-canon davekat, where the conflicts that happen to them is just by people around them and not towards each other, because they have to be these perfect soft boys apparently. It’s gotten so bad, there was once this argument someone tried to make of why davekat was a lot popular than rosemary was because Dave and Karkat are pretty codependent and they tried romanticizing how that’s a good thing and what everybody wants to see?? Man even said Rose and Kanaya weren’t actually that important to each other’s characters and wouldn’t make a difference if they didn’t end up with each other, but somehow davekat is ackshually very 100% required for Dave and Karkat’s narratives compared to Rose and Kanaya’s.

Like, I’m sorry, but Rose and Kanaya’s relationship is way more exceedingly important to understand each other’s characters. Dave and Karkat literally have only had around 2 solo conversations together, with 2 others being with John, and their characters are mainly woven together because of their connections with Terezi and Jade. I just seriously can’t process of how someone could think Davekat is somehow more important than Rosemary narrative-wise when Rose and Kanaya literally had two whole arcs together.