Troll England is fun to draaaaaw Im sorryyyyyyyyy (might color tomorrow??)

BECAUSE SHIPPING USUK KILLED MY GRANDMA 🗣️🗣️

Somthing I love about Hetalia is we all just accept anything he gives us. Like he just randomly decides that in the MAIN manga he’s just going to start doing a mafia AU out of nowhere with no transition or announcements that it will be driving away from the main “plot” for a bit plot is in quotes because we all lost the plot long ago. Then he invented a card game to go with it and we are just all like “yes understandable more please” I simply cannot imagine joining this fandom in todays age I would be so confused what the show even is lmao. Like “Yes they are countries. But sometimes they are high schoolers, sometimes they are just like guys hanging out, Santa is real and one of them is Santa but he’s also a country and also not Santa only sometimes, sometimes they are in the mafia playing a card game about themselves and the rules are kind of hunger games-ish where they are playing to move up in power with the other districts and it’s implied better districts have access to better things but they are still countries just also leaders of gangs but the gangs are the country, One of themselves has a best friend who is an alien, and just so you know animals can talk but not all animals and they can only talk to the countries who own them and other animals. Mythical creatures are real and only some countries can see them like Americas pet unicorn that he cannot see and England friend flying mint bunny that only he can see & Norway has head set that only trolls can call him on, sometimes they are all gender swapped and all of the gender swapped versions have their own personality and human name, oh right human names! They all have 2 names the county name and human name and if you don’t learn them quick you won’t have any idea what half of us are talking about, don’t even get me started on 2!p it’s them but slightly edgier and yes they all have their own separate names that you should at least learn the main 8s version of, other times they are all cat- why did you cut me off? What do you mean you are confused? What’s not clicking? Hua fine let me start over. It all starts with the tomato box fairy and Mr. stick…..Hey! Where you going? Come back I haven't even told you how some of them are related, but also not really, but also yes they totally are!"

Tag game

Thank you so much @coffeewithcutcaffeine for tagging me :)🐻

last song: Mahi - Ali Romeo ft Ria Raine &Jinx

currently watching: Story of Kunning Palace (2023)

three ships: oh hell, this is hard, so I dug through my trashcans of doom and came up with some random stuff:

Xiao Xingchen x Xue Yang (The untamed) - please be advised not their canon versions but my much-watered-down modern AU versions where at least no one dies and they're just pretty. Okay Xue Yang is still essentially a gremlin, but I love him. He's my baby mouse.

Milen Borisov (Borisov the Brave) x Valentin (from my BulRo Hetalia fic, 'Baba Marta's day') Or how to take 1000 years for a first kiss. Idiots.

Vlad Dracula x Dimitrie (Rise of Empires: Ottoman). I mean these two trolls, for real! Dimitrie is his second wife, constantly getting appalled in the background :)))))))))

favourite colour: yellow

currently consuming: fruit infusion

place of birth: Bucharest, Romania

current location: glued to my desk in Bucharest, Romania

first ship: I genuinely don't remember. Might have been Till Lindemann x Christoph Schneider from Rammstein back in 2004? Might have had some obscure proto-ships before but they're lost in the quagmire of history.

relationship status: brand new episode of neither dead nor married

last movie: ... been watching series only for more than a year now. May have been a Christmas movie though

currently working on: my accounting clients, the Hetalia soviet era Bulro shit and a Love and Redemption wip which I've been updating like twice a year and yeah. Rather busy at work rn.

I tag @melodious-tear, @estbela, @starsmadeinheaven @lactodebillus-bulgaricus and anyone who wants to put in the work ;)

write hetalia troll au. do it. with australia. make australia an oliveblood. reader can be whatever caste u want. do it.

spooky do you WANT me to send more people scotcket crap cuz it seems like ur begging now

ill DO it dawg dont mAKE me

big tiddy forest troll awakening some feelings

character design by @losnordiquitos

See this is why I always say we need to put our fucking foot down as a community and make this place as INHOSPITABLE to nazis and bigots as possible. Just this summer we've had

Aph America and Donald Trump art

Nyo Germany in a nazi uniform because "nazis are people too"

A hetalia group chat full of nazis on Instagram

Racist transphobic hetalia fanfiction on wattpad and ao3

And now this fucking wannabe nazi/troll and their au.

And that's just the ones I'm aware of from tumblr and discord.

Genuine or not, I don't care if these people are trolls or legit. Racism for the sake of trolling is still racism and I'm tired of seeing you all get angry for 10 minutes enough to reblog a post and then never actually do anything about the problem only for the same thing to happen in like 3 weeks.

The only people I ever see consistently reblogging discussions about racism and PSA posts about racists in this fandom are fans of color and jewish fans. And frankly we shouldn't have to do this alone. If we want to actually DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS it takes ALL of us. YES even the blogs who don't get involved in discourse and only make art and headcanons.

Your silence is complicity in the problem and frankly I'm tired of it.

Edit: when I say do something about it, I mean more than just reblogging this or making a tumblr post. We need action. We NEED to look out for each other and we need to actively work to make our community inhospitable to these kinds of people.

That means not letting people use trolling as an excuse

It means thinking critically about the history you consume and portray and discuss in this fandom

It mean listening and supporting fans of color and Jewish fans

It means that if you do something racist or antisemitic without knowing it, you apologize, learn from it, and try to do better.

If you have other suggestions on what we can do to make this fandom inhospitable to nazis/racists/etc. Add it in your reblogs so others can see

Thinking about,,,,,, Rock Troll England with his eggs up in his hair,,,,, one huge one obviously being America and the other a smaller one for Canada,,,,,,, 🥺

Rock Troll! Arthur, Classical Troll! Francis, and Country Troll! Alfred :3

I dubbed them all transgender,,, but can trolls really be transgender?? The sexes is a mystery, like their eggs come out of their hair??

So uh, I tried getting back into Hetalia because I wanted to have the motivation to dive back into this AU, but I couldn’t. I really tried…

I think it’s best to say that I fell out of Hetalia for good this time. It’s really hard to face the reality of this situation, but I think it’s best to embrace it now.

But it doesn’t mean that it has to end.

I originally made this AU back in 2015 because I was inspired by an old Homestuck AU called aquariumstuck. It had the same premise with the homestuck trolls being a part of a mermaid aquarium run by the humans. It had a lot more freedom because the troll’s character designs were already so unique and colorful. Sadly, I wasn’t allowed that freedom because Hetalia characters were so similar in design. (Most of the characters are white and blond.)

I’ve been thinking of recycling those Hetalia characters into my own ocs because lets face it, they were so far away from the original source that some people didn’t even know that this was a mermaid AU based on an anime about humanized countries.

I don’t know when I’ll update again, but I just want you all to know that I still care about Emil and all the merfolks that I portrayed here, but most likely, they will all be changing names, backstory, and personality. I need to push myself to make original content because all I’ve ever drawn is fan stuff.

Another reminder that my main tumblr blog is @nessa-harp.

Any tips on making a Hetalia scenario blog? Rlly need some good advice for writing, handling asks, etc.

This is a very good question! From what I've seen from other blogs, and such I can give you a nice list of the basics! I'd also LOVE to see your Blog so feel free to send me your username! Biggest rule SAVE EARLY. SAVE OFTEN! the amount of times I lost a whole hours worth of work! ALSO DON'T CLICK ON OTHER TUMBLR NOTIFS BECAUSE IT CAN KICK YOU OFF FROM YOUR DRAFT AND THAT SUCKS!

Know your Boundaries- While it's nice to want to anwser everything that comes through, it's helpful to pin a Do/Won't Do rules list. Both you and your future followers need to know Boundaries. It makes things easier on both sides! Make sure to stay with those Boundaries to avoid problems in the future.

Hetalia Fandom- as with all fandoms we have the good, bad and the ugly. Keep in mind you don't have to, and shouldn't, interact with anything negative. Only respond to 'hate mail' and trolls if you can handle it. Once they see you take their bait they most certainly will send more, and it can easily spiral your blog into a negative space! (It's also way more fun not answering them, and just KNOWING they're probably frustrated you're not giving them attention) A good rule to follow is to step away from that ask before deciding to respond. It might not be worth getting worked up over it.

Be inclusive- It can be fun to do research on ethnicities and other things like Genders. But if you ever feel like you can't answer an ask dealing with Trauma, Mental illnesses, or Races don't feel obligated to anwser then. Especially if you don't have the knowledge. Feel free to leave a brief message such as "I don't know enough about this, so I'm afraid I can't answer." Or "I'm unsure if I can represent 'X' properly so I can't do the ask."

Don't over do it- I find I get burned out if I answer more than 3 (I have no life) asks in a row. Get a tiny notepad and scribble ideas down when the urge or idea occurs! It can make it easy. But also, don't let it distract you from daily life! Tumblr users are relatively understanding of this rule.

Those are rules for what I personally feel that helps me keep motivated, and mentally well, all while keeping a rather clean and safe blog. This next set is more or so actually running a scenerio blog.

Have a pinned rule lost- Go take a peek at my rules list. Yeah. See that glorious mess I made- Don't expect everyone to have the ability to read a lengthy rule list. Keep it simple. We have people with ADHD (etc), reading disabilities, and people who don't speak full english roaming about in our lovely fish tank know as the Hetalia Fandom! So keep that in mind if someone asks something that goes against your rules, and be kind when telling them!

Have a back up- If there's any specific scenerios or asks you don't want to keep, Make a Google doc to copy and paste the scenerios from. I've noticed that Tumblr posts (mobile) don't let you copy anything more than what's between breaks and bullet points. So I'd recommend typing things out in Google docs (which can help with grammar and spelling as well) and paste it into a Draft.

Drafts- I personally like having several drafts to work on throughout the week. So I don't always do them in order, but I also let my blog followers know when I start hopping around.

Know your limit- I have over 50 asks (I'm also slightly out of my mind) and I will admit it can be overwhelming, so set a small limit of what you can get out at a comfortable pace, and close your ask box when you go over that limit if you plan on using it. Example: I can do 6-10 asks in a week (pain), So I should be closing my box when I see it get to 15-20, excluding the stuff like friendly compliments I can give a quick thanks to!

Writing- It's important to keep things organized. If you look at my past asks you can see I keep characters separate, and I make the names Bold of I'm not using bullet point. It's to help people reading my blog skim through and keep track of what's what. I see a lot of word counts, and Trigger warnings. For trigger warnings, act like you're rating a movie! Is it M for mature due to Violence, or mentions of nudity? It's nice to have a NSFW tag to help people filter your blog. Mine is #handsypandsy because Tumblr doesn't like the tag NSFW.

You can do a readmore- : readmore :

But without the space. Very helpful for NSFW, sensitive content, and long content. If the thing you made takes more than half a scroll, you should use it.

Prioritize your tags- this is a rule I don't follow, but I'm trying to remember it. It's probably smartest to go in the order of: NSFW tag (if any), Main Characters, Series Names, Funny tags or commentary. It makes it easier for both you and your readers to find what you're looking for! Also, organize any other AUs like human AU.

Last but not least- don't be afraid to make mistakes. I've forgotten characters, and some nice anons point it out. It can be a pain to find them, but like I've stated previously tags can be your best friend. It's also fun to use a text to speech and listen back to your writing (definitely want to Google doc so you don't struggle trying to copy everything).

With that being said remember to have fun! I know it seems like a lot, but it comes down to what feels best for you, and what goes on with your life. Feel free to DM me as well, I keep a very strict "What happens in DMs, Stays in DMs" rule! Remember internet safety, and if you have any specific questions feel free to send them in! And if anyone has anything to add, feel free to comment below!

Very off-brand but literally just venting and vitriol under the cut about recent-ish hetalia discourse, if you don't wanna see it then don't read it! Cheers.

Alright idk what the fuck happened to fandom spaces over the past 5 years but this shit is super toxic now. It's like the internet has over-corrected from "it's the wild west baybeeeee, ship wars and death threats and downright awful behavior galore" to "have you consumed anything problematic or made a mistake anytime in the past 30 years??? Literally go fucking die you deserve to kys!!". Both are shit. But in my experience, one is a fuckton easier to avoid. Hetalia is a problematic show. This is a fact. There's an anti-semetic joke in the dub. There's whitewashing in the earlier anime seasons. Hima's characterisation of South Korea is horrific. France's earliest characterisations are done real dirty with the amount of sexual assault present. You could write essays about this shit, but honestly it's all been said in better ways before so I don't particularly care to. But quite frankly the amount of harassment from sad trolls and bullies online is nuts over this shit. Five fucking months and it's unavoidable- "Your a nazi! Facist, japanese imperialist anti-semite!!" NEWS FLASH- YOUR KEYBOARD WARRIOR CRAP ISN'T DOING JACK SHIT! YOU AREN'T PREVENTING A-NY-THING, YOU AREN'T HELPING A-NY-ONE! GET OFF YOUR ASS AND CALL OUT THE HATE I GUARANTEE WILL BE HAPPENING IN REAL DANG LIFE IN YOUR LOCAL COMMUNITY IF YOU ACTUALLY WANNA EDUCATE AND MAKE A POSITIVE CHANGE. There's a world of difference between calling out shitty fandom behavior and whatever the fuck this is. It's madness that I have to point out how saying that people talking about cartoon characters from a five minute OVA even holds a single CANDLE to the worldwide rise in nationalist sentiment and anti-semetic conspiracy theory, bourne from a mass refusal to acknowledge history, is so severely minimising. I take it that's okay though because you can wank yourself off on your nice little high horse without actually doing anything to combat hate or improve the world in any way though? The show has so many faults and for multitudes of good reasons you might never want to see it ever again. So block it. Don't interact with it. Blacklist the tag. But it is downright RUDE to be coming INTO the tag and talking shit. That doesn't tell me you're earnestly trying to avoid the series- it tells me you're really really trying to start fights. Bc I have been using the block button pretty liberally recently, and for every normal user venting I see, there's always an equal amount of people who, ironically, seem to dedicate their blog to bigotry against others and cyber-harassment. I've seen anti-hetalia blogs that have been sexist, racist, panphobic and, maybe most hypocritically, one that was bizarrely insensitive to the connotations of a past political regime. And yet minors look to these same people and parrot what they say for clout. In my experience, in a whole lot of anti-hetalia circles, there's a severe case of "mocking because I think it's cringe, but disguising it as concern for others to not look like a straight-up dickhead and have the moral high ground". Is it seeping from twitter? Bc I see that shit there all the time even in non-fandom spaces, the black/white, we're angels/they're devils thinking that real life and sane adults just do not fucking operate on. What I do know is, in the midst of a difficult pandemic, the one announcement in months that was happy and exciting for me left me feeling like dogshit by the end of the day. The weekly episodes that I should be excited for are just making me dread what I'm gonna see online. The nordic five are kinda like comfort characters for me, since I grew up in an emotionally abusive household and so I treated them like the family I never had. And yet, when I wanna go online and look at headcanons and read cool au fanfics, I always seem to stumble upon the implication that doing this is somehow severely hurting someone and that I'm a terrible monster. Logically, I know this is a load of shit. And yet I've noticed I've been putting myself down and looking at more and more self-harm content again recently bc

guilt-tripping with that much weight seeps into your brain like a nasty case of sepsis. Even the more casual "haha hetalia not another pandemic/more brainrot/will punch you on sight" lark starts to fucking drag when it's just SO widespread. Might just queue nice art, drop the occasional fanfic and otherwise stop interacting with the fandom tbqh. This bullshit is not healthy and some of the people on this hellsite are genuine psychos.

I love my followers and my mutuals and everyone I know from this fandom and I think that for the most part, we are all seriously cool, but let’s get a few things on the record: 

What Hetalia is For: silly historical trivia, dress uniforms, romantic/tropey au’s, learning more about history, being seriously cool, “country” boys (and girls and other) kissing a lot, laughing at how silly and flimsy national identities really are because it’s fun and cute, enjoying mutual jokes about our own stereotypes and how others see us/how we see them

What Hetalia is NOT For: portraying historical tragedies/atrocities, omg yaoizzz, FUCKIN’ GODDAMN NAZIS (or trolls “pretending” to be nazis), racism, nationalism, using history to hurt people and DID I MENTION NAZIS.

Report. Block. Ignore. You have nothing to prove. Your existence is valid. Their ideology is not.

This blog is safe for all races, genders, sexualities, ethnicities, religions, etc. This blog always intends to be compassionate and respectful. This blog accepts critique on words/actions that may not reflect that intention. Please feel free to reblog if yours does too.

Only kindness matters. Sometimes kindness means forcing bigots out of your seriously cool fandom space.

CJ’s Favorite Homestuck AUs

I missed out on posting this on 4/13 so here we shall post it on 6/12!

Homestuck is without a doubt one of the most unique and bizarre fandoms I've ever been in and I think for that reason I was OBSESSED with it back in the 2013-2016 year range--it was a work that was just completely unlike anything else I had ever read and I wanted as much of it as I could possibly get.

One thing the Homestuck fandom is most famous for is its number of unique AUs, many of which could only exist in this fandom and no others. Homestuck has things like "Bloodswap", "Kidswap" among others and they're all fascinating. So I figured what better way to pay tribute to this than by writing out a list of my personal favorites? My contribution to 6/12 is just that: A list of my favorite Homestuck AUs!

Note that this isn't a "Top [Blank]" list because I'm no good at ranking things--however, I *will* be saving my personal favorite for last, so look out for that.

Note that I'm not counting crossovers because those are everywhere. This will solely be referring to Alternate Universe concepts and stories of Homestuck.

So here we go, my personal favorite Homestuck AUs, under the cut!

4CHORDS

Starting off with the...I suppose "weakest" of the AUs, we have 4Chords. Originally made by Emily Hu, or @averyniceprince here on Tumblr, 4Chords is a humanstuck (that is, all the non-human characters are reinterpreted as humans) college AU primarily focusing on Gamzee Makara, Karkat Vantas and Tavros Nitram, with the other trolls appearing time and time again. 4Chords' premise is...more or less as removed from the original series as possible; Gamzee in particular is portrayed as a musician who has some issues but isn't completely insane like his canon counterpart, and he is roommates with Tavros and Karkat, both of whom he has feelings for (and on Tavros' side, they appear to be reciprocated). Now the changes are not bad at all and the artwork is fantastic, but when you really think about it, the story isn't really "Homestuck" and feels a bit more like an original work with Homestuck characters slapped onto it.

I reiterate, this isn't a bad thing! Many of the characters are in-character, with the possible exception of Gamzee, they're just made humans. It does, however, feel more or less like the author wanted to write an original concept and use characters they liked for it. I'm personally more interested in the art than the story, but it's a lovely comic and the art is beautiful, so I say if it sounds like your thing I say check it out.

FANDOMSTUCK

Ever wonder what it'd be like if fandoms were human? Fandomstuck gives you the answer to that question! The exact origins of this AU is something I'm not entirely sure of, but from what I've managed to figure out, Fandomstuck was originally made as a response to the meme that went around after the Homestuck and Hetalia fandoms set aside their differences and became "Moirails", while the rivalry between the Homestuck and Supernatural fandoms was seen as a case of "Kismesis". The fandom decided to be like "Hey, why not take this a little further?" and personified the fandoms similarly to the way Hetalia personifies countries--humanizing fandoms of all varieties into cute human (or sometimes not so human, in the cases of Homestuck and Supernatural) characters. The "core" fandoms that started it were Homestuck, Hetalia, Supernatural, Doctor Who and Sherlock (or perhaps "Hetastuck" and "SuperWhoLock"), but it expanded into countless other fandoms until by the end of it, EVERY popular fandom in the 2010s was given a personification, almost always given a cool, Homestuck-inspired intro screen.

It inspired a surprising amount of creativity--we sometimes see the fandoms interacting with their creators, who were depicted as their "parents" (Homestuck has a very...strange relationship with Andrew Hussie), videos like this one, which has led to Lenka's "Everything At Once" being forever associated with Fandomstuck, and this one, which does a similar thing with Discovery Channel's "The World is Just Awesome" TV Spot. Naturally, shipping was also a thing; not only were Homestuck and Hetalia depicted as Moirails and Homestuck and Supernatural Kismesis (with the running gag being that Supernatural thinks Homestuck is a demon because they have horns), but we had romantic interactions between Sherlock and Doctor Who, while Danganronpa and OFF were usually paired up with each other. Even some of the character concepts were more original--one creative fan turned the personification of The Sims fandom into a Doc Scratch expy, while older fandoms like Star Wars, Star Trek and Sailor Moon were sometimes portrayed as Ancestors or Guardians instead of Adventure Kids. And then there's the famous "Good Fandoms Don't Die, They Just Go God Tier" I reblogged yesterday, where Homestuck "dies" after their final update and leaves behind a note asking Hetalia to put their body on their Quest Bed and finish them off so they can...well, go God Tier, obviously. It’s a cool and sweet tribute to the fandom and the Fandomstuck concept on the whole.

What I love about Fandomstuck is just how it perfectly brought a whole bunch of fandoms together--it eventually evolved beyond being "merely" a Homestuck thing and became a thing where a bunch of different fandoms intercepted and interacted in a friendly manner. I'm actually a little sad that it's no longer as common as it once was. Even extremely obscure fandoms were getting in on it--the freaking +Anima fandom, the tiny, tiny fandom for one of my favorite obscure manga series got a personification! Can you NOT tell why I love this AU?

PS: My number one favorite comic for Fandomstuck is this one, where Homestuck teaches the other fandoms about Troll Romance. It's just...such a thing they would do and I find it so stinkin' cute.

PETSTUCK (AND ITS UNIVERSE)

Petstuck is one of those AUs that's pretty much everywhere and it started really weird--Petstuck was an AU concept, I don't know where it started, that focused on the idea of Trolls being depicted as pets to humans. It was as weird and kind of creepy as you might think, but it was really popular for some time--fans used to enjoy writing these cute little stories about jebora-like trolls being kept as pets by the human kids, usually patron trolls paired with humans--John with Vriska, Dave with Terezi, Rose with Kanaya and/or Jade with Karkat. At the time, Petstuck stuff was well loved, but the inherent disturbingness of the concept of keeping sapient creatures with human-like intelligence as pets was largely unacknowledged...until "Unwanted Free Ugly Troll" came into existence.

"Unwanted Free Ugly Troll" was a fanfic by @Ceruleancynic and focused on Dave Strider discovering a box that has the titular phrase scribbled on it. In the box is Karkat, who was abandoned by a previous "owner". Dave takes pity on the little guy and takes him in, and over time, starts to treat Karkat as less like a pet and more like a brother. He and Bro eventually pretty much adopt Karkat and later Sollux, and as the story goes on, the two fight for the rights of Trolls everywhere.

This one fic completely changed the Petstuck AUs forever. Now if you ever see a Petstuck fic, it'll be deconstructing the concept rather than playing it straight. UFUT in particular had some cool spinoffs/fan sequels. The fic "Loophole" by saccharineSylph is a story about John as a volunteer who looks after Vriska, who as it turns out is subject to a trial for having gotten violent with someone and soon John starts to notice that this cute little troll acts less like a pet and more like a child. Spoiler alert: the ending is...bittersweet.

My personal favorite is "Before I Sleep", an illustrated fanfic by HeatedHeadwear, which is something of a Petstuck take on the tale of Karkat's ancestor the Sufferer, and those of you who know about Karkat's ancestor will know that it...doesn't end well. Even so, this story is beautiful, heartbreaking, has gorgeous artwork and easily the BEST Petstuck fic I've read so please, please check it out.

AQUARIUMSTUCK

A significantly less disturbing "animal AU", Aquariumstuck is a series of comics originally by @salihombox, with occasional contributions from other users. Aquariumstuck, as the title implies has everyone working at an aquarium, usually with sea creatures that weirdly resemble them--for example, John and his dad are employees, but there are otters who look like them.

What makes it more interesting, however, is the parts where the...less normal sea creatures show up. The most notable is probably this adorable comic of Feferi, depicted here as a mermaid princess being rescued by the team after she's nearly captured by poachers (portrayed creatively by the Felt), and taken in less as an attraction and more as a member of the little found family they've got going on until they can find her birth family. She also has the interesting power of being able to temporarily turn humans into sea creatures with a kiss, as shown when as a baby she gave the Dolorosa a little peck on the cheek. Other mythical sea creatures make appearances throughout the story--like Feferi, Eridan and Cronus end up in the care of the aquarium too, Eridan being a cute little porcupine fish (yes, this WAS my inspiration for writing him like that in my pet shop AU), but Cronus and Dualscar show that his "true form" will be like a humanoid manta ray. We also have Meenah, a more humanoid mermaid who can walk and is apparently helping the staff search for the Condesce (who is Feferi and Meenah's mother in this AU) as well as the Grand Highblood, Kurloz and Gamzee, who are all walruses.

Aquariumstuck is primarily a slice-of-life, but every now and then we get a somewhat character driven little story, my favorite being an arc where Kurloz convinces Meenah to turn him into a human for three days (got that? Three days!) because he's in love with Meulin. The stakes in Aquariumstuck are rarely all that high, and overall it's a nice wholesome AU for those who want a break from all the edgier stuff.

STABDADS

I can't pinpoint the exact source for this one, being more of a fandom-wide thing then one singular concept. That being said, it's a really fun AU concept, especially if you're a Midnight Crew fan.

"Stabdads" as a concept takes the Midnight Crew and depicts them as the fathers of the trolls they acted as the Exile guides to--Spades Slick to Karkat, Clubs Deuce to Sollux, Diamonds Droog to Aradia and Hearts Boxcars to Tavros. Occasionally, they throw in Snowman being the mother of Vriska and/or Terezi and even the cast of Problem Sleuth acting as parents to some of the more "heroic" trolls, though which ones tends to vary. Sometimes it's humanstuck, with the Midnight Crew and their troll wards being humans, sometimes it's normal Carapacian and Troll versions where the trolls are adopted, but it's always pretty interesting in how it handles the characters.

What I love about this AU is that it always manages to humanize the Midnight Crew (figuratively speaking) whilst still keeping them the same weird assholes we all know and love. Spades Slick in particular has a fun dynamic with Karkat, being as grumpy and homicidal as ever but still showing that he's not completely heartless through his interactions with his son. After she and Slick officially hooked up in canon, even Ms. Paint started getting in on the fun, effectively becoming Karkat's "stabmom" as this lovely comic shows. "Something wrong, momma's boy?"

BLOODSWAP AND KIDSWAP

Another one that's so ubiquitous in the fandom that it's hard to pinpoint just where it came from, Bloodswap is the popular idea of Homestuck Trolls swapping blood colors; the blood switches are actually not at all consistent--people typically just wanna see trolls with different blood colors, powers and personalities. The most famous ones I can think of are "Red Dead Virgo", which focuses on Kanaya having Karkat's "mutant" candy red blood color, "Don't Name It", which does the same with Vriska and "Be the Seadweller Lowblood", which does a very interesting take on the concept by not swapping the trolls at all, but rather flipping the hemospectrum on its head so that trolls like Karkat and Tavros are now on top while trolls like Eridan and Feferi are at the bottom.

Naturally, they also decided to make "kidswaps", where the kids end up raised by different guardians. Unlike the bloodswap, this one's usually rather consistent, as it pretty much just swaps siblings--Jade becomes an Egbert, Dave a Lalonde, Rose a Strider and John a Harley--but sometimes they switch it up a little; "Don't Name It", for example, makes Dave a Harley with a giant eagle for a companion rather than a dog (fitting his canon bird motif) and John a Lalonde who comes off as pretentious but is still the same dork we all know and love.

HEINOUSTUCK

We're getting into the more famous ones, Heinoustuck is a delightfully disturbing Homestuck AU by Yorsh. Body Horror AUs for Homestuck are very common, such as Taintedstuck, an AU depicting Sburb as purgatory being an example that almost made it onto this list, but Heinoustuck is probably the most well-known. Kinda hard for it not to be when the characters turn out looking like THIS (content warning for Body Horror and slight gore).

Taking place in a strange universe where those who go through puberty have to go through a process called "transmutation", which results in the terrifying body horror mutations you see above. John is understandably terrified of this potentially happening to him, and the concept art shows that it's inevitable. Worse still, the transformation apparently affects the personality too--Rose in particular is completely different in this story, and John is extremely upset over it.

It's not just the kids and trolls subjected to this either. Their guardians suffer the same fate: Nanna Egbert, Bro Strider, Grandpa Harley and Mom Lalonde all have the same mutations as Jane, Dirk, Jake and Roxy, while Dad has become a giant harlequin and Becquerel being disfigured led to him becoming more feral and aggressive. Even the Carapacians suffer, with my favorite example being poor WV (Content warning again, but not as visceral as before, more sad), who's haunted by ghosts which I personally believe are the spirits of his dead army.

GUIDESTUCK

Guidestuck was a fanadventure made by Scarvenrot and focuses on a failed Sburb session from before the kids and trolls' sessions; the "kids session" of this one features Becquerel Harley and his puppy Jade, Jaspers Lalonde and his cat Rose, Quinn Egbert and her doll John and Cal Strider and his puppets Dave and Bro. Meanwhile, the "Troll's session" is dominated by anthropomorphic versions of the Lusus, but the main one (aka the one we should care about) is Wyvern Pyrope (Terezi's dragon lusus). Stheno Serket (Vriska's spider lusus) also appears plays a major part and seems to be shaping up to become one of the story's villains. Notice a pattern there? ;P

The premise is that the players and their sprites have been swapped around in this session--Bec, Jaspers and Cal are all obviously based on Jade's dog, Rose's cat and the horrible puppet respectively, while Quinn is based on the harlequin doll John got for his birthday (hence the name "Quinn" as in "harlequin"). Even their guardians get in on it, such as Rose's horse Maplehoof being reimagined as Maple Lalonde, Jaspers' father; Isadora Egbert, Dad Egbert's hat, being reimagined as Quinn's mother (and implictly having had a fling with Bec's grandpa) and the Liv Tyler bunny being reimagined as Cal's older cousin.

The story started around 2012, I believe and like Heinoustuck, it unfortunately has not been finished. Even so, what we got was really fun, the character designs are creative whilst also being instantly recognizable, and it's an interesting premise even with the inevitability of the story ending with everyone's deaths due to the story's status as a failed session.

BRAINBENT

Finally, we enter my personal, all-time favorite Homestuck AU of all time: Brainbent. If you've read through Homestuck, you may have become aware that the cast of the series isn't exactly mentally healthy. So a user who once went by the name of "VastDerp" thought to themself "hey, what if they all had to be put in a mental hospital?" And so "Brainbent" was born.

Brainbent takes place in a Humanstuck AU where all the characters are human living in a mundane world (though canon is still referenced by various things, such as John's...fantasies...) and it takes place in the "St. Lobafs Residential Treatment Center" (Lobaf's being a reference to Sollux's Sburb planet in the original comic, the Land Of Brains And Fire); While Karkat is the first character introduced, Sollux is inarguably the "protagonist" of the blog. I say protagonist in quotes because everyone gets some focus throughout the story, it's just that Sollux is most often the focal character, with Karkat, Gamzee, Dave and later Calliope getting some focus later. More residents, such as Rose, Kanaya, John, Vriska, Nepeta, Jade and Eridan get some appearances, while the staff at the center consists of adult versions of Tavros, Terezi, Feferi, PM, WV and Equius. Aradia's not a resident, but she does appear sporadically as Sollux's platonic soulmate. The series has some Found Family elements, with everyone growing to care for each other throughout the story, even the initially abrasive characters like Vriska and Karkat.

What makes me love Brainbent more than any other Homestuck AU should probably be obvious to most of you who know me personally, but if you don't, then the answer is simply the sympathetic, nuanced and EXTREMELY well-researched focus on mental illness. The series goes out of its way to depict everyone's mental illness issues as sympathetically as possible, even the characters who are "villains" or "antagonists" in the source material, such as Vriska and Gamzee. Karkat's anger management problems, Dave, Rose and Jade's messed up childhoods, Gamzee's drug problems, Vriska's narcissism, Eridan's desire for validation, Kanaya's fussiness etc. are all examined and dissected, but overall treated with sympathy and understanding, even when it's pointing out that these don't always justify people's negative behaviors.

I especially love the series' take on autism, portrayed through Nepeta. Nepeta is portrayed as having Asperger's Syndrome, which I too have, and her characterization is just perfect--she's her same cheery, cutesy nature-loving self, but with the addition of sensory issues that often come with autism; she hates the color purple, for example, the feeling of fur is comforting to her while she hates socks with seams in the toes (GOOD GOD CAN I RELATE! I wore socks like that ONCE and it basically made me swear off socks forever--seriously, I genuinely have not worn socks since then, barring the occasional special occasion) and at one point has a meltdown after smelling a certain perfume Kanaya was wearing. A personal favorite post of mine is one where someone asks Nepeta if she has any stims. After she explains some of hers, she and Kanaya end up talking about people who could help autistic people and the topic of Autism Speaks comes up. To put it lightly, Nepet is NOT a fan of that group. The story even allows Nepeta's autism to tie into her status as a shipper--to help Nepeta learn more about social interaction, the staff at St. Lobaf's suggested that she try observing other people's interpersonal relationships. This led to her famous shipping wall.

And of course, shipping happens in this AU, why wouldn't it? The main ship for the series appears to be Sollux/Gamzee, oddly enough, Tavros is dating a guy named Dante, who appears to be just a parody of Dante Basco, John and Vriska may or may not be an item and of course, Rose and Kanaya have the universal constant of being a couple.

Brainbent was a formative Homestuck AU for me; it was my first exposure to Humanstuck AUs, gave me some headcanons that I sometimes like to use even to this day (autistic Nepeta, Sollux and Aradia being exes, etc.) and overall is a lovely AU that I recommend to anyone in the fandom, either people with mental health issues or simply people who love stories about Found Family or Hurt/Comfort. Or just lookin' for a good Homestuck AU.

All in all, I've always loved how Homestuck was able to spawn some weird and cool AUs, and I kinda miss the days when these were all over the place. There were a few cool and fun AUs I didn't list, ones I wanted to make into Honorable Mentions. Homestuck may have been through its ups and downs, but it was still a work close to my heart and I will always love it. As long as it's not the Epilogues/HS2.

Definitely not the Epilogues/HS2.

sensitivity reader

name: tangle

pronouns: she/her

age: 18+

reads for: autism spectrum, anxiety disorder, asexual spectrum (aegosexual to be specific), panromantic, neopagan who grew up baptist. lots of chronic illnesses in general really- i have a specific list on my blog

sensitivity reading:

general questions and discussion: yes in-depth discussion of plots and characters: yes partial read (relevant sections): yes full read: yes

willing to read: original work, fanfiction (hetalia, homestuck - though be aware i stopped reading shortly after the beforus trolls were introduced), i may be familiar with others but please ask), erotica/nsfw/explicit scene

unwilling to read: smut involving minors (aged up characters are fine), incest (again aus where this is not the case are fine), abusive relationships or rape in any context (any bdsm or such kinks must be fully consenting on the part of all characters involved), cheating (consenting polyamory is fine i just don't deal well with actual cheating as a subject matter)

rates: free

contact: available upon request

additional notes: i'm scatterbrained as heck due to my psychological/mental/cognitive disorders, it may take longer for me to reply than most readers

what happened in hetalia fandom? i was hanging out in other fandoms so i was out of the loop

Mostly had to do with an alt-right/neo-Nazi blog yesterday. But also, in general, there's just been some racist content circulating the fandom. It's unacceptable. If we're really going to start allowing this kind of content to permeate the fandom, count me out. I mean, a fucking Nazi/far right-wing party AU? Really?Whoever runs the blog probably just wants to be edgy and a troll and is likely young and dumb, but come on. Get it together. How can you post that? It's not funny or entertaining -- it's disgusting.

Think of all of the real people who were murdered and had their lives destroyed by the Nazis. The pain and grief they caused is felt to this day. My father's parents lived through the war in Europe -- I have zero tolerance for Nazi sympathizers.