#ism dave

[fisheadz]

I love the idea of the ism everyone lives AU squad all being friends post-game, like:

• Max and Virginia insulting each other like siblings.

• Allen throwing away Max’s cigarettes without him noticing, and hiding the lighters if he can’t get to the cigarettes.

• Virginia finding every blog or book or whathaveyou on cats for Desmond and either spamming his inbox or mailbox, or visiting him with her findings, like she’s an informant or smt, folders and all.

• ^ Desmond is both very amused and impressed by her huge collection of all things cat.

• Lucas and Allen hanging out as two very isolated and guilt-ridden bros, chatting over drinks and laughing about silly things.

• Max and Desmond being not-quite-friends but also being besties at the same time. No one is sure why this is, not even them, but at least they aren’t at each others throats like Max and Lucas.

• ^ Lucas and Max absolutely cannot stand each other, in most circumstances. Constant arguing and trying to one-up the other. They don’t hate each other, but they don’t particularly like each other either. The others aren’t sure if it’s because of what happened at the factory, but they aren’t planning on intervening any time soon, since they aren’t killing each other just yet.

• Once Max needed a babysitter for Maddy, and had Allen look after her for a couple hours. He came back to Allen ducktaped to the wall, Maddy painting on his face. It took another ten minutes for Max to free Allen, due to his hysterical laughter.

• ^ Allen is terrified of the little girl, now, and she absolutely knows and takes advantage of it. Every time they see each other she messes with him and Max couldn’t be more proud.

• Desmond has an issue with some electric system or another in his apartment building and instead of trying to get his shitty landlord to fix it, he asks Lucas to help. The lights haven’t worked this good in forever.

• Virginia and Allen are the bestest friends. They hang out at least once a week, and just chill and chat about whatever.

• Lucas and Max always give Dave a side eye, just to remind him that Virginia’s friends are not afraid to commit crime. This terrifies the man, but he not really worried, since Virginia could kick their asses probably.

• Desmond and Lucas are mildly pining, and neither of them realize it. The others know, as outwardly it’s very obvious, but even if they did know about the other’s crush, they wouldn’t really change their dynamic. They’re comfortable being friends, and they aren’t pursing any romantic relationship at the moment. Not that that’s gonna stop their friends from subtly teasing them.

• ^ there’s a running bet going on between Virginia and Max, on who can be the most obvious with their teasing. Max is winning, but not by much.

• Lucas and Virginia have "half girls nights" where they hangout at one of their homes and gossip and stuff, do their nails. Lucas is surprisingly good at applying makeup. Virginia hadn’t felt this pretty in decades.

• Allen lands Max a spot as a mechanic, and Max has pledged his undying loyalty to the man. They still have a sort of unspoken rivalry going on, but they can bond over cars like longtime besties.

• They all go out for drinks whenever their schedules line up. Allen is typically the sober friend.

• Desmond, Lucas and Virginia all geeking out over video games, making fan theories and headcanons and AU’s. Virginia starts a blog about it, and it has amassed quite the following.

• They all have some leftover bad feelings from the "event", and call each other frequently to reassure each other and themselves. Allen especially, which gives Desmond no small amount of anxiety.

• ^ Desmond still isn’t happy with himself for missing Allen’s call, but Allen never held any grudge. He’s mostly just happy to be alive and well, and that the others got away safe as well.

• Dave and Allen will drop whatever they’re doing to chat if they see each other. They don’t meet often, due to work and stuff, but when they do, all you can do is wait until they get done talking, as nothing short of an earthquake can cut the convo short.

• ^ Desmond and Dave are also bros, but are more chill about it.

• Tonia is everyone’s emotional support kitty, and she loves the attention. It’s a win-win for everyone.

I can’t think of anything else rn, it is 4am for me, but when I do… hehe.

[theblacksheepcz]

hi dave!!

'sup dave

[spr1ngpvrinbunny]

Another random headcanons about the purpleassman part two. (William is definitely the kind of person who has those weird little quirks that make people pause for a second, but not in a way that’s forced—just William being William.)

🎶 He’s a Perfectionist, But Not a Control Freak

William definitely has high standards for himself and his work, but he’s not the type to micromanage every little thing.

He expects people to keep up with him, and if they don’t, he’ll either fix it himself or make sure they learn quickly. However, if someone manages to impress him? He won’t outright praise them, but he’ll acknowledge it in subtle ways—like a nod, a small "not bad," or even just not correcting them for once.

🎶 He Doesn't Like Being Ignored

Even when he’s calm and composed, he hates being disregarded.

If someone dismisses his input, talks over him, or acts like he’s not worth listening to, his demeanor will shift just slightly—a sharpened gaze, a quieter tone, a deliberate pause.

He won’t throw a tantrum, but he will make sure they regret underestimating him.

William isn’t over-the-top dramatic, but he does have a taste for flair. If he makes an entrance, it’s timed just right to turn heads.

If he’s explaining something, his voice carries just enough weight to command attention.

He might even have a habit of deliberately pausing mid-sentence just to make people lean in before delivering the final words with a smirk.

🎶 He Has a Very Specific Sense of Humor

It’s dry, sharp, and sometimes a little too clever. It’s not normal joking. It’s that kind of unsettling, slightly offbeat humor where he says something that should be funny, but it just feels...wrong.

Like he knows exactly what he’s doing and enjoys watching people try to figure him out.

He won’t laugh at basic jokes, but if you make a remark that’s witty or darkly funny, he might smirk or give a quiet chuckle. His humor is often layered with double meanings—half teasing, half observation.

And if he really enjoys a joke? He’ll remember it and bring it up at the perfect moment just to throw someone off.

🎶 He Finds Comfort in Precision

Whether it’s adjusting his tie, organizing his workspace, or calibrating a machine, William finds satisfaction in things being just right. It’s not necessarily obsessive—he won’t throw a fit over something being out of place—but fixing it brings him a quiet sense of control. This applies to his personal appearance too; even if he’s exhausted or disheveled, there’s always something intentional about the way he presents himself.

🎶 He Has a Strange Relationship with Sleep

William doesn’t hate sleep, but he treats it like an inconvenience.

He’ll pull all-nighters without hesitation, and when he does sleep, it’s either at the weirdest hours or in the strangest places—like sitting at his desk with his arms folded or leaning against a wall with his eyes closed for exactly 17 minutes.

If someone asks if he’s tired, he’ll just brush it off like it’s not even a relevant question.

🎶 He Eats in a Way That’s... Off

Not in a gross way, but in a "this man is not normal" way.

He might take apart sandwiches before eating them, eat things in a specific order (like always finishing one side of his plate before moving to the other), or drink coffee even when it’s stone cold.

If someone comments on it, he’ll act like they’re the weird ones.

🎶 He Has an Unreadable Poker Face—Until He Doesn’t

Most of the time, William’s expressions are controlled, precise—he knows how to hide what he’s thinking.

But every once in a while, something will genuinely catch him off guard, and he’ll make the most bizarre face before snapping back to normal.

If someone sees it and calls him out, he’ll just deny it outright.

🎶 He Remembers the Most Useless, Specific Details

He can recall the exact date someone made a mistake from three years ago but won’t remember their birthday.

He’ll effortlessly recite obscure trivia about things that no one else cares about, like the precise mechanics of a vending machine or the history of a specific screwdriver brand.

He’s not even trying to show off—it just sticks in his brain for some reason.

🎶 He’s Weirdly Quiet at the Worst Moments

Sometimes, he just appears in a room without making a sound, and it startles people.

Not on purpose—he just walks lightly and doesn’t see the point in announcing himself.

Other times, he’ll go completely silent during conversations and just stare as if he’s thinking about something deeply important... only to snap back into the conversation like nothing happened.

🎶 His Sense of Comfort Is Oddly Specific(like the one above again)

He won’t complain about being uncomfortable in normal ways—like sitting in a stiff chair or standing for hours—but if something tiny feels "off" (like his sleeve being slightly twisted or his sock sliding down inside his shoe), he will fix it immediately.

He’ll also instinctively adjust other people’s collars, ties, or buttons if they’re not right, sometimes without even realizing it.

🎶 He Treats Machines with More Respect Than People

William will insult a coworker without hesitation but will gently tap a broken machine like it’s a beloved pet.

If something malfunctions, he’ll mutter to it under his breath like he’s negotiating with it.

If someone damages a piece of equipment through carelessness, he gets way more annoyed than if they just made a regular mistake.

🎶 If He Gets Hurt, He Barely Reacts

It’s not that he likes pain, he’s just used to it.

Cut his hand? He’ll just wipe the blood off and keep going.

Break a finger? Slightly irritated sigh, keeps working anyway.

You’d have to physically stop him from continuing like nothing happened.

[moldsporr]

Brorails (pesterquest edit)

[retro-friki]

Extremely rare Homestuck post but I just had an insight:

The Strilondes and Karkat would totally be at home in Tumblr, wouldn't they?

[taylorhawkins]

"If I was to not know Taylor and go see his band play in a club, I would approach him after the show and say, 'How much do you charge for lessons?'" enthuses Grohl. "He's 50,000 times a better drummer than me."

Forget Dolly the Sheep: Hawkins seems like he's a clone of Grohl, only three years younger. With his mop of dirty-blond hair and goatee, Hawkins is looking kind of Skeet-like himself, and he's as skinny, antic, and hyperkinetic as Dave, maybe even more so. "I can't wait to go on tour so I can see if Taylor ever sleeps," laughs Grohl. Besides the ability to play like John Bonham, Stephen Perkins, or his idol, Stewart Copeland, Hawkins brings his own, surfer-influenced dialect to the Foo mix: a sample glossary includes "winger" (complainer), "Hessian" (hick, redneck, unsophisticated, burnout), and "flobe" ("when you fuck something up," says Hawkins, "like, if you've floundered, you're a flobe"). "He's the whitest Southern California surf kid I know," opines Smear.

Hailing from Laguna Beach, about 50 miles south of L.A. in Orange County, Hawkins just spent a year and nine months of constant touring in Morissette's backing band, which offered excellent preparation for the Foos' six hours of nightly rehearsal overseen by General Grohl. "You have to be an athlete to play these drum parts," says Hawkins. "I play really hard, and that's the key to playing drums for Dave Grohl-you've got to beat the shit out of the drums." [x]

[thedudeofguy]

hi followers. this dave is a dave who has mostly lived on discord and maybe thats y i didnt clarify earlier what my plans with him are BUT

if you recall hussie stated a long fucking time ago that bro basically tried to turn dave into a mini-bro bc of his own ego. this dave is kind of like if bro more or less succeeded with that. if thats not something youre into then,,,,,,,, sorry. i guess :')

[mr-aftons-rotting-pussy]

everyone so impressed by william aftons ability to. press a button:

[calware]

Transmasc aranea is so interesting to me…do elaborate on your thoughts 👀

frankly i'm not really committed to this reading, it's just floating around in my head lol. not a "this should happen" idea but a "this would be kind of interesting" idea

the thing i AM pretty committed to is that she's TME, which is informed by comparing her to vriska; essentially, aranea gets to avoid a lot of the bad-faith perceptions vriska gets tacked on to her. vriska is a dangerous weapon that can't be trusted, aranea is just some annoying know-it-all who can't shut up. granted, both are bad labels to have, and both characters are targets of misogyny, but for a good amount of time there aranea gets away with a lot more than vriska does (for example, aranea idolizes her pre-scratch self and nobody bats an eye, but karkat goes running to john to tell him vriska is dangerous at the first sign that they might be into each other). so when you look at vriska through a TMA lens, aranea reads as TME by comparison

there are a lot of directions you can take this ofc, the "main" one being that she's a cis woman. that said, i think it's interesting that hussie posits characters who take on an "authorial role" as thematic representations of toxic masculinity, which was the seed in my mind that led to me considering aranea as transmasc in the first place:

"Much later in Act 6, we see Lil Cal is a juju vessel containing the splintered souls of various controversial characters in the story: Caliborn, Equius, Dirk, and yes...even Gamzee, which means he's actually here watching this ball drop in TWO forms. But all these figures are, in some manner, highly exaggerated negative manifestations of author avatars, who have amalgamated themselves within the body of English to wreak havoc on the story/reader. This is the galaxy-brained interpretation of the line. The most important character in the story is me, or more specifically, the most villainous, destructive splinter-composite of the author's presence in the story."

"Dirk and Equius similarly aren't even that unflattering as avatars either. You could do worse. And we do do worse. As far as demonic author-tiers go, English is the true monster. His dominating personality splinters are much worse too. Caliborn and Gamzee are complete hell-people compared to Dirk and Equius. They are also sort of author avatars in certain ways, but with a degree of cartoonishly evil exaggeration. They absolutely comprise the "authorial wrath" portion of the total Doc/English personality quagmire."

"I think when the time comes to show the douchebag cocktail stuck inside Cal, there's a brief temptation to regard it as an odd, semi-random melange of characters. But there are several layers of logic to the guys who all combine to form his personality. Much of the logic orbits around these negative traits associated with men, or more specifically, the "toxically masculine" aspects often linked to certain male personalities. Dirk has a lot of these traits, which are central to Dave's feelings of tension and abuse concerning his bro. The intellectual aggression, the power of assertion, the knowitall-ism, the mansplaining.

also, this line in particular makes me think of aranea:

As an alt-author figure, [Doc Scratch's] omniscience makes sense, since the author has sweeping knowledge of story details as well. Because I "know everything," he "knows everything" too. Of course, as I write the story, there are plenty of things I don't know yet, and the "not knowing" is always an important part of the process in this largely improvisational medium.

aranea starts out almost as a historian wanting to infodump pass down oral history of previous events; eventually, however, she becomes fed up with the story and decides to seize control of it herself, placing herself in an authorial position (or alt-author) so that she can steer the ship to the direction she that believes is best for everyone. ultimately, however, she fails, and gets herself re-killed by the condesce, a puppet of the real authorial avatar (english). the gendered interpretation of this is that a woman, she can girlboss (translation: be a woman in a man's position) as hard as she wants, but can never achieve true power under the patriarchy. she can play author all she wants (and hurt people along the way) but will never be allowed into the Boys Club

now, this doesn't mean that trying to be in a masculine position means a character is masculine (or even truly wants to be). but it's clear that she wants to be an author, she wants to know everything, she wants to wield the sword, all symbols of oppressive masculinity. and ONE(!!!!!) OF the ways to subvert/break that expectation is to figure out how to be true to yourself by reclaiming and embodying masculinity without succumbing the perpetuation of the patriarchy (which, coincidentally (or perhaps, not coincidentally?) is part of the basis for my transmasc reading of dirk, something i think he's forced to grapple with as well)

again, not my true + perfect vision that i'll die for or anything. just an interesting thought to speculate on

[bottlehawk]

dave/vriska??

i know in canon they barely vibe with each other. but to me they should be like. bros number 1. everyone else thinks vriska is insane except dave who has been mentally conditioned into the same mindset that she has and therefore thinks that she actually kind of makes sense out of everyone there. if vriska brings up something dave should be there in the background going "yo but like hold up a minute... she got a point tho..." like a broken record. biggest grifters in the universe maybe. forever on that #grind. two of the most attention-seeking rambling conspiracy theory level opinioned people on the planet teaming up to host their own podcast. the ethan klein and trisha paytas of the meteor. dave's spine has the constitution and integrity of damp toilet paper and he bends to whatever vriska says so easily when she negs him it's insane. she'll get him to agree with her on shit he doesn't even believe in by saying shit like

which vriska thinks is funny that he's such a willing little easily manipulated minion for her. they should be making their own crypto-currency. selling snake oil on the street. going out on desert expeditions together on earth c for buried treasure and bones. dave accidentally admits in typical freudian fashion to karkat that he looks up to her and sees her as basically Bro 2 but healthier and the guy is jaw dropped open horrified. sometimes a vriska-ism will fall from dave's mouth when they're chatting as if it was as natural as breathing air and karkat will have to take a second and leave. no one's sure what their relationship is but they make out at christmas parties if they had too much eggnog and then act like nothing happened afterwards. nobody supports this.

[fisheadz]

Very tired, about to bully my brother for his bday, finally fixed my little Brenda problem, feeling alright! Enjoy some In Sound Mind hc’s and stuff as a treat!

• Magdalena has her hair died bright red. I don’t make the rules.

• Virginia makes a mean green bean casserole.

• Virginia’s brother is a nurse, and her parents are both accountants. Or something.

• Jorge and Samantha are engaged.

• Inez is a lesbian, and has a crush on the mysterious, quiet woman that just moved to town and started working at the library.

• Desmond often gets migraines, especially after That One Big Thing That Happened.

• In a zombie apocalypse scenario, Rosemary is the first to die, followed closely by Dave. Thankfully, there is no zombie apocalypse happening anytime soon. Probably.

• Max lets Maddison put makeup on him sometimes, on his good days. Lucas saw this one, and still hasn’t shut up about it. He brings it up every chance he gets.

• Allen can’t eat much at once, with his anxiety making him nauseous often. More than once, he’s gotten sick at dinner with one of the others and has to explain in a way that makes sense, which is difficult.

• Rosemary will not hesitate to punch a bitch. She’s done it before, and she can and will do it again. Anyone who’s an asshole or a Mayer employee is at risk.

• Allen sometimes forgets random things like where his keys are, what day of the week it is, where he put that book that he was just reading. But there’s things he never forgets, like his friend’s birthdays, faces, shipping schedules…

• Virginia hates gummies. Hates them. Cannot stand the texture. Will gag at the taste, no matter the flavor. Giving her gummy anything is akin to a declaration of war.

• Dave is an amazing cook, and a truly awful baker. Jorge is the other way around, he makes some great cupcakes.

• Maddison knows more than she should about What Happened from eavesdropping and snooping, and often confuses her mom by saying things like "Daddy’s doctor has a cat and a purple man in his head". Thankfully, Alice just chalks this up to stress and imagination, and thinks nothing more of it.

^ Maddy likes to pretend that she’s a detective, and she’s living out one of those "Vampires Don’t Drink Lemonade" or "Wizards Don’t Need Computers" books, y’know the ones.

• Max talks in his sleep a lot. Sometimes it’s cussing someone out for being dumb on the road, other times it’s utter nonsense. Virginia records the funny stuff and uses them as blackmail.

Very tired, oof.

I’ve got a bunch of ISM doodles that I think ima post here, sometime. I’ve found a way to doodle that’s actually fun and not stressful for whatever reason.

Oki dokie, have a good [insert time of day here] everyone!

[thefastestclockintheuniverse]

Look at this masterpiece:

Dave on "speaker crab" so his lil holographic mug is there

a cheeky SBAHJ-ism: sit on it frontways

Karkat's "no, look, it's casual and relaxed" chair theory

The implication that Karkat Tantrum Bingo is a well loved game at this point

AWAY WITH YE, FOUR LEGGED TEMPTRESS!

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

I've been reading some of your homestuck essays, I think they're really good! I would like to know what you think about post-retcon homestuck and the interactions between reader and author throughout homestucks publishing. I was not in the fandom at the time of it being published, but I find this to be a very interesting aspect of the comic!

I was only on the fringes of the fandom at the time, but even that was enough to recognize that the fandom was absolutely awful. Every bad story you've heard about the Steven Universe, Voltron, and Undertale fandoms has its roots in the Homestuck fandom.

Pretty much as soon as the webcomic got popular on Tumblr, Hussie was put under intense scrutiny for basically every decision they ever made ever. I'm not going to say that Hussie was a perfect individual who never did anything wrong, because Hussie is a human being and that's how it works, but it's basically impossible to overstate how much the fandom tried to make an enemy out of Hussie.

The fandom was convinced that Hussie was their personal LE, and that attitude continues to this day - like, for an easy example of the fandom harassing Hussie for Literally Anything, when he stated that all trolls were bi/pan, to the point where they didn't have specific words for single-gender attraction, comparing it to a "more exacting preference" like somebody who only dates fat people - but that even within that framework, Kanaya was undoubtedly a lesbian character - people insisted Hussie was being homophobic. Fucking homophobic! For confirming all trolls are bi/pan, except Kanaya, who's a lesbian!

Other examples include: calling Hussie homophobic for John saying he wasn't a homosexual and Karkat literally not knowing what a homosexual was, because again, all trolls are bi/pan. Calling Hussie racist for making the kids aracial but accidentally leaving references to Dave having pale/pink skin in (because Hussie is a biased human person who can't be perfect and who did try to be more inclusive as the comic went on). Deciding that the dancestors served no purpose except for Hussie to be mean to their audience. Like there are valid criticisms to be made of Homestuck, but anything that was valid, nuanced, or thoughtful was drowned under a deluge of incoherent accusations of every -ism and -phobia that the fandom could possibly muster, the fandom as a whole racing to see who could paint Hussie as the biggest monster, even as they were harassing them to make more Homestuck.

Not to mention this was the era of rampant, unchecked ship wars and fandom misogyny. Not that fandom misogyny has gone away, mind you, but it's slightly more in check now. This was the era of fandom where it was normal to be sent death threats for shipping the "wrong" ship, and fandom ship wars were often encouraged by media of the time (love triangles were HOT - think zutara vs. kataang, team jacob/team edward, danny fenton/sam manson vs. danny fenton/valerie grey) because it drove up engagement. Homestuck was not really interested in shipping wars and love triangles - while many characters had circuitous routes and false starts, many were also pretty clearly set up to have specific endgame ships. But the fandom wasn't trained to behave that way, and the troll quadrants + canonical bi/pan trolls + active role of romance in the story meant that the ship wars were brutal - and also, Hussie was getting harassed every step of the way for not making peoples' favorite ships canon, a major part of a larger trend of people constantly ragging on Hussie for things not going the way they wanted plot-wise, to the point where Hussie had to comment on it constantly on his Formspring.

And don't think I forgot about the fandom misogyny! Here's a hot take for the class: Vriska is literally just Girl Zuko. She's ostensibly a noble from an imperialistic, warmongering, fascist society with an abusive parent who raised her with strict expectations, who thinks she has to act much more evil and more tough than she feels in order to earn the approval of her parent/society, and who secretly has misgivings and feels really bad about it and was set up for a redemption arc.

And people HATED Vriska. Vriscourse was so bad that many Homestuck fan spaces banned talking about Vriska at ALL, because just the mere mention of her name would spark massive, endless flame wars as people argued whether or not she deserved her little redemption arc (spoilers: yes, it turns out death is cheap in Homestuck and characters changing, growing, and becoming better is a huge part of the story) or whether or not she was justified in doing the things she did. Genuinely, I think a huge part of this intense hatred and anger was just misogyny. God forbid women have Zuko's character arc.

It was also part of two other large trends in the fandom - the first was that, despite finding every possible reason to call Hussie -ist and -phobic they could, the fandom itself was, ummm... "of its time." For example, the original March Eridan stuff was pretty clearly meant to be funny because, look, man in a dress! Isn't it sooo funny when Eridan wears a dress? (No hate to the artist, this was a long time ago and I'm sure they're a different person now.) The fandom was also constantly goading Hussie on WRT which characters were fat, and while we can argue about whether Hussie is fatphobic because none of the characters are canonically drawn to be fat, I'm going to go to bat for them on this: people treat the Fat Vriska jokes as though Hussie is the creepy weirdo exclusively, but the fandom was goading them on and thought that shit was hilarious, because that was what early internet fandom was like a lot of the time - at the same time as it harassed and decried creators for being problematic, it would turn around and delight in shitting on women, neurodivergent people, POC, and fat people, and Homestuck was rampant with it.

The second trend the Vriscourse was a part of was one that also hasn't fully gone away, but it's better now - wilful ignorance of the actual comic's contents. I'm not talking about the usual fandom fare of noncanon ships or "x character is trans/autistic/etc. even though I know there's no canon basis," which is all pretty damn harmless, but I mean like, memes and fanon would override canon and you would be outright harassed for not playing along. There are STILL places to this day that will call you an actual fascist, genocide liker, evil and irredeemable, etc. if you try to stick up for Eridan, even though Eridan is actually the LEAST casteist highblood and his entire character arc is about how his shitty fascist society makes him deeply anxious and unhappy. Similarly, you can/definitely would be be harassed for saying you don't like March Eridan and/or think it's OOC (it is), and I have nothing but sympathy for Gamzee and Equius fans, who also get it really bad.

The most vocal parts of the fandom, if not the majority, were people who were generally uninterested in engaging with Homestuck on Homestuck's terms, instead dead set on making up a version of it in their head and harassing people who disagreed, including Hussie. Echoes of that persist to this day - Equius, Gamzee, and Eridan get it bad, but practically none of the trolls have fandom interpretations that actually line up with who they are - Kanaya is actually just Eridan's bully (and did nothing to help Tavros after she caught Vriska kissing him), but people portray her as Nice Team Mom. Feferi is a casteist hypocrite who loves classism and calling people the r-slur, but people portray her as bubbly equality lady. So on and so forth. Like, damn, I barely participate in fandom and I'm out here meeting people who think Karkat ACTUALLY hates his friends like he says he does.

And then, of course, these people went and harassed Hussie because actual Homestuck did not match up with the Homestuck that existed only in their own heads.

On top of all the fandom harassment, Hussie was also facing ballooning scope. Most of Homestuck was a single dude drawing, writing, and animating it, and they would update every two or three days, sometimes less. So from the get-go, Homestuck was an INSANE project that demanded an insane amount of work and time from Hussie, and as it went on, it only got worse - and fandom expectations only got bigger. Suddenly, Hussie had to be in charge of merchandise, in charge of vetting, hiring, directing, and paying third-party artists, planning animations months if not years in advance, creating entire sections of the comic that had GAMEPLAY, directing ACTUAL GAMES, etc. ... there's an argument to be made that Hussie should not have taken on a workload they couldn't manage, but at the same time, the fandom certainly wasn't telling them to slow down. If anything, they harassed Hussie for every update, and were furious when hiatuses needed to happen to plan and execute some of the bigger moments later in the comic.

There's a Sarah Z video out there on the creation of the Homestuck game, which I think is OK if you take into account that Sarah kind of has fandom brain and is a little biased against Hussie (and I guess Hussie did send a spurious legal threat which is pretty funny but, y'know, understandable that Sarah would be peeved), where it's really clear that Hussie was not ready for the kind of responsibility, time, and effort needed to manage a whole-ass video game.

So by the time Game Over and the Retcon roll around, you basically have to imagine that Hussie has so many irons in the fire that the furnace is about to pop like a balloon, and the people they were making the damn things for in the first place have been relentlessly harassing them for YEARS, and weren't even that interested in engaging with the actual story in the first place. I'd say the majority of the fandom to this day STILL does not understand Eridan - how do you think they would've taken his redemption arc, and especially the fact that he was set up to date Karkat and Roxy? Given the pattern of their behavior up to that point... they'd probably harass Hussie and call them homophobic.

This is why I genuinely cannot blame Hussie for turning on the fandom and truncating their story. Vriska got upgraded to main character and had her character development reset because fuck you, fandom, you couldn't understand her redemption arc in the first place so now you don't get one. DaveKat got (kind of) made canon but as a weird throuple with the Mayor because fuck you, fandom, you didn't appreciate any of the actual gay ships that were set up so now you're stuck with brutally OOC DaveKatMayor. Karkat and Jake have their plot threads left hanging because fuck you, fandom, you never even noticed all the prophecies and symbolism and character arcs because you were all too obsessed with screaming at women and took the dancestors as a personal insult, so now the guy who's supposed to defeat LE and the guy who's supposed to bring equality and forgiveness to all bloodlines don't even get to participate in any of the important boss battles.

People call Hussie a troll, and they really aren't. If you read their old Formspring, they're clearly deeply fucking passionate about the art of storytelling, and switch between bafflement, mild indignation, and playing along when people ask them stupid questions. But back then, they were always very serious and genuine when they answered questions asked in good faith, and I'm being 100% genuine when I say that I've learned about how to tell stories better by reading Hussie's Formspring. Over time, however, those stupid questions became more common, and often morphed into outright harassment, and in response to that, Hussie's answers became more humorous and facetious, and the fandom - who was already trying to find ANY reason to hate Hussie - started to paint Hussie as an unreliable trickster and liar who got their jollies by shitting on the fandom.

Honestly, in doing so, the fandom was what turned Hussie into exactly that. Again, I'm not saying Hussie was a perfect baby who did nothing wrong - there's a lot of stuff to critique and scrutinize about their writing, their biases, and what topics they found appropriate to joke about. However, I AM saying that they were also just a human fucking being who was trying to write a good story, who was harassed at every turn, mostly for things that actually weren't problematic at all, whose words and actions were always taken in the absolute worst possible faith, and that the fandom is not fucking faultless, and if there's anyone that I'm mad at for how bad Homestuck ended, it's the fans.

That's my hottest Homestuck take.

[stxrbxster]

･:*:･ﾟ★ intro and masterlist

･:*:･ﾟ★ greetings and salutations

hii ! welcome to my blog, i'm laine !! i suffer from chronic teenage girl-ism and i fear i may never recover lolz !! my requests are always open as i am in constant need of inspiration, just send me an ask !!

･:*:･ﾟ★ masterlist

♥︎ - smut / mature

✿ - fluff

★ - angst

Mouthwashing

Curly -

Jimmy - sfw & nsfw headcanons! ♥︎✿ baby, can you see through the tears? ♥︎★

Daisuke -

Anya -

Swansea -

House, M.D

Gregory House -

Jame Wilson -

Lisa Cuddy -

Robert Chase -

Thirteen -

Be More Chill

Michael Mell -

Jeremy Heere -

Richard Goranski -

Jake Dillinger -

Homestuck

John Egbert -

Dave Strider -

Rose Lalonde -

Gamzee Makara -

Karkat Vantas -

Mituna Captor -

Sollux Captor -

Nepeta Leijon -

Cronus Ampora -

SallyFace

Sal Fisher -

Larry Johnson -

Ashley Campbell -

Travis Phelps -

The Magnus Archives

Jonathan Sims -

Martin Blackwood -

Timothy Stoker -

Elias Bushard -

Peter Lucas -

Jerad Keay -

Nikola Orsinov -

Law and Order : SVU

Olivia Benson -

Elliot Stabler -

John Munch -

Fin Tutuola -

Evangelion

Shinji Ikari -

Rei Ayanomi -

Asuka Langley -

Stardew Valley

Sam -

Sebastian -

Abigale -

Harvey -

Creepypasta

Jeff the Killer -

Ticci Toby -

Eyeless Jack -

Ben Drowned -

Laughing Jack -

Repo: The Genetic Opera

Grave Robber -

Pavi Largo - sfw & nsfw headcanons! ♥︎✿

Luigi Largo -

Amber Sweet -

Beetlejuice

Lydia Deetz -

Beetlejuice -

Bojack Horseman

Bojack Horseman -

Mr. PeanutButter -

Princess Carolyn -

Diane Nguyen -

Sarah Lynn -

The Walking Dead

Rick Grimes -

Daryl Dixon -

Carl Grimes -

[softesteshouten]

"Chloroform Ninja Shit" is totally a fucking Dave-ism. She's picking things up from her brother in law.

Also yeah no what the hell guys. I see no real reason why we couldn't have talked like Normal People.

[keepsmagnetoaway]

Giant-Size X-Men 1 (May 1975)

Len Wein/Dave Cockrum

Here we...here we...here we fucking go!

This is the most important X-Men comic ever published: more important than the very first issue, even. This is also going to be a heinously long post, so strap in.

Notwithstanding the last, uh, six months of posts, this is where X-Men really starts, with it re-starting. In the mid-70s, the team had been without a book of their own for years but sporadic guest appearances had kept the characters present in the minds of readers: many of those guest appearances had been written by Len Wein, who in 1974 became editor-in-chief at Marvel and decided to revive the X-Men, but cautiously: he was going to put out a special large-format issue introducing a new team, and then follow it with further occasional large-format issues, maybe three or four times a year. He wrote the first issue, and got Dave Cockrum to draw it, creating a number of new mutants for the team's rebirth and introducing them all in a series of virtuoso sequences. I'm trying to resist the urge to just post this entire comic, but snippets will have to suffice.

Right away - this is page 1 - we see that the issue of prejudice and fear is back at the centre of the X-Men story, where it has always belonged. Not all the characters were totally new, though: one of the had been seeded a few months ago in Incredible Hulk, as we have seen.

Banshee, meanwhile - who, as we know, is canonically a country music freak - was also returning (slight sigh).

That's an interesting start - three characters and none of them Americans - but what about some non-white characters, huh?

So. The introduction and framing of the non-white, non-Western characters in this issue - and in this run of X-Men, to some extent - is obviously, shall we say, heavy-handed.

And yet, here they are - the characters exist, and I think it's important that they are drawn from all over the world: the comic is working hard to emphasise that and in doing so slips over and over into caricature in the interests of foregrounding diversity. It's not great - it's aged pretty terribly, in isolation - but with the knowledge of where these characters (particularly Storm) end up it's difficult to read any of this as actively bad, I think.

Certainly the clunkiest of these introductions is that of John Proudstar, the Apache, and it's surely no coincidence that...well, we'll get to that.

So, there they all are.

And here is someone you do recognise.

This is a long section of set-up, (re)introducing Cyclops and explainign where the others have gone: Jean, Bobby, Warren, Lorna and Alex have all gone missing on a mysterious island that seemed to house a super-powerful mutant (Beast, the X-Man we've seen most of during the hiatus, is now fully off doing his thing with the Avengers and is not involved).

There's so much going on here: we of course are all totally familiar now with the original X-Men, but some reader picking this up in 1975 very likely wouldn't have been, so here they are crammed in and then immediately disposed off. Shout-out also to Cockrum's art here, of which we'll have much more to say as we go on, but it does a huge amount, packing in character designs, costumes, action and plot while still leaving room for effect and emotion that, at times, ism almost Neal Adams-like (here, as you can see, Cyclops was briefly depowered when escaping the island, though he gets them back).

Also, here's our next big theme: infighting, introduced when Sunfire quits and then re-joins the team in the space of a single page. This is both foreshadowing and a sign that this issue was maaaaybe trying to do a bit too much.

But fuck it, this issue is great. Can you imagine the sheer richness of picking this up on a newsstand as a kid. All these characters! All this lore! All this potential! And then we get to the action of the issue, as the team fights its way across Krakoa, which is a kind of pulp nightmare landscape.

Enjoy the drama, the design, the style of this whole page: the looming temple, the strange angles, the sinister greyness of the final panel. Everything here is at the top of its game.

And then the big - if slightly obvious - reveal that the mutant is the island itself. This art kicks ass, and in the meantime introduces another thematic strand in the whole nuclear testing/cold war/mutation angle.

The final action sequence is bersekly brilliant, full of ambitious layout choices and complex storytelling that pulls of the goal of showcasing all the various disaparate X-Men and getting them to work together.

Eventually the fire the entire island into space (??) and the issue finally runs out of room and ends.

So, yeah. This issue was so obviously great, and such a success, that plans changed, and instead of occasional big stories like this, X-Men was revived as a regular monthly book: or rather, because it was still being printed but only with re-runs of original era stories, it was revamped as a book with new stories, starting with issue 94.

That's where this read will go next - and, guided by my trusty reading guide, we'll go right through for about 50 issues with only occasional guest appearances in the meantime, returning us at last to the one long on-going soap opera that is X-Men at their peak. Can't wait!