#eoy2

Data was collected as follows: for the five forums, all posts made in a dedicated Homestuck or MSPA thread between midnight EST on the first day of the month and 23:59 EST on the last day of the month were counted. Each post counts as 1. In general, forum posts are not deleted even if users are banned or delete their accounts, although users may be able to manually delete posts. It's my understanding that few to no posts from these threads have been deleted, since I have never come across a user replying to a post that no longer exists.

For Reddit, each post in r/homestuck was counted as 1, and each comment on that post was also counted as 1. Reddit retains a 'ghost imprint' of deleted posts and comments, so these can still be tracked for stats, though their content can't be seen. Comments were assigned to the month of their parent post instead of tracking their dates individually, making the data imperfect (but much easier to continue tracking in the long term). Most Reddit comments are made within a few days of the original post, so the data is still roughly accurate. Posts were retrieved from PullPush Reddit Search.

For Tumblr, each original post tagged #homestuck was counted as 1. Likes, reblogs and additions to these posts were not tracked. Only posts where the original poster's blog was still active as of 2022 could be tracked, meaning the numbers represent a fraction of what was once available. General trends, such as the sudden exponential growth in early 2011, may still be interesting. Tumblr data was compiled by Andy via the Homestuck Tumblr Explorer, whose work is invaluable, and you can tip them here.

For Homestuck, each page was counted as 1, regardless of page type or content. Look out for the point in May 2010 where this line and the Blockland line kiss.

For all fan communities, length of posts, number of unique contributors, and whether or not the posts are 'on topic' was not tracked. Posts on these websites outside their dedicated communities, threads or tags were also not tracked. Again this is so I can keep collecting this data without having to permanently forgo sleep to do so.

The culture and demographics of each of these sites are really different, as are the topics discussed and types of content posted. Bay 12, Blockland and Giant in the Playground are all forums for specific works (Dwarf Fortress video game, Blockland video game, Order of the Stick webcomic respectively) so all users are also in those fanbases. RPGnet is aimed towards developers and players of tabletop roleplaying games. Something Awful is a general forum, but has a $10 joining fee, so users must be willing to pay and have access to a credit card. As such, most users are 18+, in contrast to other sites where teenage users are common. Reddit and Tumblr are social media sites, though Reddit is primarily community-based, i.e. users follow topics which anyone can post about. On Tumblr (you are here) users primarily follow other users, who may post about anything. Cultures develop differently due to these factors and many others, and may influence how many posts people make, and which parts of Homestuck are likely to appeal to these sites' users.

Truthfully, I’m exhausted. Based on recent Formspring answers, I think Hussie and I are burning out at around the same time, right at the two-year mark. I knew early on that trying to keep up with Hussie’s rate of production in my own reactions and analysis was probably a fool’s errand, but I did it anyway because I was excited, and I had a lot to say. I still am, and I still do. But I am already struggling to keep up with the fandom to the extent that I’d like, and I’m slowly accepting that while there’s a lot of directions I’d love to take this project, I will not be able to do everything. I’m at two years out of seven, and I definitely haven’t explored two sevenths of everything I ideally would. To use my all time favorite Hussie quote, ‘i need currency and clockticks of which i aint got much of neither’.

In terms of what I do want to focus on, it’s important to me to read more fanfiction and fanventures, especially longform works. I’m not going to critique fanworks, but I am interested in discussing how different writers interpret the characters and themes of the main story. At some point soon I’ll start making a shortlist of ones I’d like to focus on in the coming year. I will absolutely continue keeping up with fan trends and projects too, but I have to accept that my understanding of the fandom will never be as rigorous and comprehensive as I’d like.

By sheer coincidence – and I genuinely didn’t plan this when I began – I think my essays for the ends of acts 1-5 will also be the main themes I pay attention to when reading act 6. Agency, representation of youth, surveillance and control, representation of the internet, and disguise and performance, is a set of core ideas that I care about and think the story is doing interesting things with. So, I’m planning to explore those in more depth instead of continuing to hop from topic to topic.

I think each year of this project will have a distinct identity. Year 1 let me laser focus on the early parts of Homestuck, letting Acts 1-3 be important on their own terms and not just as setup for something bigger. Year 2 has definitely been the birth of the fandom, where discussion, speculation, fanart and fanfiction have all exploded, forum threads have taken off, Tumblr and Reddit communities have begun, the cosplay scene and convention meetups have started to happen, and I’ve seen the genesis of the culture surrounding Homestuck that remains to this day. One year ago, I think Homestuck has found its identity as a story, but not yet as a community. Now, that community identity has solidified, and anyone just discovering Homestuck in spring 2011 is joining an established fandom instead of forging a new one.

I don’t know yet what will define Year 3, but there’s a lot I’m looking forward to. Cascade is in SIX MONTHS, and witnessing the live reaction to that flash will be so special. Act 6 begins this year, bringing with it the last few main characters! From the very start of this project I’ve been even more excited for Act 6 than Act 5, and there are two specific characters who I miss deeply and can’t wait to see again. Year 3 is also where the story starts getting weird – using the site design and space outside the panel as part of the story, branching paths, the Homestuck game disc, the fifth wall, recursive nested acts and intermissions, are all coming up, and these are some of my favorite things about Homestuck. (or have been in the past at least, because I consistently react to this story in new and surprising ways to me).

My original research question with this project was ‘to what extent can I reconstruct the original, real-time experience of reading Homestuck’. After two years, my provisional answer is that it’s possible, but it’s a smaller version of that experience. There’s plenty of fan content still out there, but far more has been lost or deleted. It is as though I’m participating in a fandom maybe 5% of the size of what it actually was, hidden in a corner hearing whispered tales about the other 95% of shadow fans. Like a dream bubble, recreating a specific memory for dreamers to relive and change, but never capturing the entirety of the world that memory came from.

Honestly, even that small percentage is still a pretty large fandom, and still extremely rewarding to investigate and be ‘part of’ in a strange and distant way. I truly don’t feel that I’m ‘missing out’ by not being there the first time, and the archaeological excavation is part of the fun! I just have to keep in mind that everything I experience is a snapshot, and I can’t guarantee that it’s a representative one.

About a year ago, I started playing The Longing. It’s a 400-day real-time adventure game about a loyal cavedweller waiting for their king to awaken from his long slumber. I decided to play this in parallel with Year 2 of this project, because it felt similar to what I’m doing here. Although the game includes a lot of content and explorable areas, the only mandatory part is the waiting. Players can log in once to begin the game and then again 400 days later to end it, and any gameplay in between is optional. I originally planned to do a lot more exploring, but then Silksong came out in September (between Vriska and Hornet it was a huge summer for cool spidergirls) and I suddenly didn’t want to play any other game. So, I just loaded up The Longing to complete it, and turns out I got the bad ending because I didn’t do enough while the king was asleep?! Which makes sense. I will definitely play again and give it the attention it deserves, probably for Year 4 after I’ve finally beaten Silksong.

-> Is Rose alive following her fight with Jack? Can she be rescued from the broodfester throes?

-> Will Rose attempt her plan to destroy the Green Sun? Will she succeed? Has Scratch been pranking her or concealing information somehow?

-> What will happen to WV, CD and Liv Tyler on their journey to deliver The Tumor to Rose?

-> What has Dave learned/will Dave learn from seeking an audience with the horrorterrors and creating a map of the Furthest Ring?

-> Will the kids find Liv Tyler's other tiny weapons, and can they enlarge them to wield them if so?

-> What's going on with Jade's pen pal / grandson? Is he a 'known character' and will we meet him at some point?

-> How will Jade's attempts to breed frogs and create Bilious Slick turn out?

-> Why did Jade switch off and captchalogue the fourth wall? What will she do with this?

-> What are Jack's plans? How will he get John's wallet, and whose blood is on his hand when he enters the trolls' session? What does he do in the last 10 hours before the scratch? What's up with the doll of him from John's dream room?

-> Does Vriska go to fight Jack? Who wins? If Vriska dies, will her death be heroic, just, or neither?

-> Will Gamzee murder any other characters? Is he really the most important character in Homestuck, and if so, why? If not, who is standing just offscreen in that panel?

-> What is the Vast Honk and how does it relate to the Vast Croak and Vast Glub?

-> Is Nepeta alive or dead? nepetaquest 2011 when :33

-> Will Kanaya face any problems due to being a rainbow drinker?

-> Is there any hope for resurrecting the troll species without a Matriorb?

-> Who were the other eight troll ancestors? How did their stories interact with Mindfang, Dualscar, Redglare and the Grand Highblood's?

-> What happens at the end of the Troll Countdown?

-> Will the kids and trolls meet? Will Karkat's sloppy makeout prediction come true, and if so, between who?

-> How will WV escape the bunker he's trapped in? Why are the exiles destroying the bunkers and what is the destination they are traveling to?

-> Who will wear the White Queen's ring, if anyone?

-> Why are guardians part of Sburb? Does Grandpa Harley do anything else in the Medium? Will we see Mom and Bro's meteor arrival and childhood?

-> What happens to sprites after Sburb? Is Davesprite alive or dead? Where did Jadesprite go after being created? Will the kids' sprites survive the scratch if it happens?

-> What happened to Jaspers in his two missing weeks during Rose's childhood?

-> What's up with Lord English? Is he a 'known character'? Will the Felt reappear and what is their significance? Will Doc Scratch die?

-> Who is trying to massacre the horrorterrors and why?

-> What's going on with dream bubbles? What influence can people in dream bubbles exert on the world of the living? Is this supposed to be a 'good' afterlife? Do all versions of characters from all timelines end up here?

-> Can the alpha timeline, predestination, Skaia, etc, be subverted? Are there any major reveals to come about the nature of Skaia, the horrorterrors, paradox space, etc?

-> What will be the nature of AH's one yard intervention in the story?