If you’ve been seeing a resurgence of Homestuck fanart in the last few months and you’re wondering what the hell happened, the answer is simply that it’s been a solid decade since the comic’s active popularity was at its peak, and the author has finally shut the fuck up about it for long enough for it to be re-framed as an object of nostalgia.
Now: if you’ve had a turn on this particular merry-go-round before, and you’ve seen first hand what happens when an active fandom makes a successful transition into a nostalgia-based fandom, you’ll know that this is the part where Shit Gets Weird.
Gets weird?
Different kind of weird.
The transition from media-driven fandom to nostalgia-driven fandom is typically marked by a period of turmoil regarding what the “correct” way to engage with that nostalgia is.
Which old arguments will be considered gauche to drag up again after all this time, and which will continue to simmer?
Which authorial mis-steps is it cool to criticise, and which ought to be excused as a product of their time?
Which portions of the source material will be subject to an unspoken agreement that We Don’t Talk About That?
In other words, folks are going to be getting weird about what kind of weird the weird should be.