i've met some of the best people in my life as a direct result from homestuck, but also some of the worst people i've ever met. so it goes. i'm tempted to say things are definitely less intense than they were now, but that's more a result of people moving onto different things. it was really inescapable back in the 2010s. it was everywhere. and as a result the people who were uhhhhh strange about it were more densely populated by rule of large numbers. that being said it was like, a very easy way to meet people. i was stopped more than once in public places for wearing homestuck merch. i had a substitute teacher who read it. online, you would see people in youtube comment sections with a dave icon and enter a long conversation with them and come away friends. all of that can still happen, but again, a smaller concentration (and hindsight coated cringe) makes it harder. i think the most striking thing is that nothing has changed about the fans and their ability to, well, read the comic. a lot of the bitterness we see now about HSBC is the same shit that was happening a decade ago, but instead of being too young to read the comic comprehensively, now people have become embittered with nostalgia. people still latch themselves to the idea of a character they have in their mind rather than the character themselves and start acting crazy as a result. i'd say nowadays people are uhhhh marginally better about the women, though.

all in all it was a lot of fun. i'm better and worse for it at the same time. kind of in such a way that it has had a net neutral impact on me, despite changing me irreparably. a process has occurred.