when I was 14 I worked in a grocery store and one day I got to bag Stephen King’s groceries and of course, being the little horror fiction nerd I am I was completely starstruck
I think he thought I was gonna ask for an autograph because I was not even lowkey staring I was full on moon-faced and bouncing and he kept looking over at me hesitantly like aw jeez kid fuck off
anyways I finally managed to squeak out that I was a huge fan and asked for advice on writing, “how do I write as well as you do?” in my horrible thick German accent and broken ass English and he gave me the best writing advice I have ever received
“shit kid, stop worrying about how other people do it and just write your story”
14 years later my wife and I nearly hit him with our car because he was jaywalking
i arrive at the gay bar in full butch getup and i look like super hot like trust me and i start buying chocolate milk for the femmes at the bar…..between my striking good looks and my generosity concerning tasteful dairy products i have impressed them greatly and after an hour of chatting I make my move. i reach into my pocket and remove a large, gorgeous lichen affixed to a piece of bark from its protective herbarium packet that I have concealed in my pants pocket. “it’s a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and an algae,” i begin,
some of my fonder memories from the glory days of the homestuck fandom:
ke$hastuck and fandomstuck and guidestuck
endless crystalmethequins covers/remixes
octopimp videos
people having update cosplays completed within literal hours
“homestuck is my favorite anime”
pretending squiddles was a real show
scouring the nearest convenience stores for faygo
quietly slipping ww’s and vv’s into your texts or using eight of a letter/punctuation mark consecutively just in case
dante basco meeting up with homestucks wherever he went
fandom-wide debates over how long someone’s sleeves were
update art on goggles
the internet imploding every 4/13
“eridan is a metaphor for the obama administration”
when you went to a con in homestuck cosplay and anyone else in homestuck cosplay was instantly your friend and you could hang out for the rest of the day and go to the photoshoot together
really just seeing people with homestuck shirts on anywhere and being instantly friends, that fandom may have been a mess but hell if it wasn’t the best fun any of us ever had
Other Homestuck memories i can think of off the top of my head:
When Dante Basco started liveblogging his Homestuck reading
“Names for baby girls/boys that start with R/D” on Googles top searches list
Oh man, I’ve got more. some of these are less fond and more just funny/sad.
Ginger Dave was common in fanart
Bro Strider drawn with a red hat
Once upon a time, ‘tentabulge’ fics were RARE.
‘I’m So Fresh’ and ‘KK steals hands’
God I miss the old LJ Kinkmeme and Filladex (bless those who ran it)
‘Got Tiger’
The rush to watch Cascade on stream with the few people who caught it when it was first posted
Honl
The first few Omeagle and Tinychat Promstucks, where everyone asked their quadrants over tumblr.
Doodle or Die
PUTTING CHARACTERS FACES ON REGULAR GIFS OF ANYTHING
And then there’s the nerds who never stopped who look up and go “Where did everybody go??? :CCCCC”
And there are those who just got here and missed everything
Oh great now I’m feelin like this one guy from gif who is late for a party and who carelessly enters the room and then sees an armageddon which he missed
derse: what, trauma? yeah i’ve got that *proceeds to prove why their trauma was the Worst*
prospit: oh i feel really bad for whoever is traumatized!!! 😦 *is repressing years of memories that only resurface after one weirdly specific event happens*
Yogg-Sarongurt 