Before I read Homestuck, I knew about it via a Know Your Meme video all the way back in 2012. It was described in a very nebulous way, and actual Homestuck content made up a minority of the video in favour of fanworks, so the contents and format of the comic were left up entirely to my imagination. I had read webcomics before, and nothing they showed looked like a webcomic, but they did showcase some of the early walkarounds. Because of this, I thought Homestuck was mainly a game, and most likely pay-walled, so I never bothered checking it out.

I don't remember having a lot of misconceptions about the trolls. My other main exposure to Homestuck at this time was an animatic called "The 12 Trolls of Christmas", which laid out all their personalities in a pretty straightforward way, albeit cartoonishly simplified obviously. It reminded me of like, Vocaloid, so I wasn't too confused that there were just these memetic characters who were constantly referenced in YouTube videos.

Although, going back to that Know Your Meme video, it did show a bit of Bec Noir and dog PM, and it showed Jack killing some of the trolls. So, along with some other foreknowledge I had, I assumed Jack and PM were like these otherwordly dudes who show up to enforce the rules and put the players in their place, kind of like the Gumball Guardians in Adventure Time when they put Finn on trial.

I didn't actually start reading the comic until a year later. I can't really remember what I expected or what misconceptions I had, except that I was very confused about the mechanics of sburb and the actual plot of the comic, seeing as I was 12 at the time. A lot of the time stuff, everything regarding Doc Scratch, etc. went completely over my head. I read the whole comic on my phone, so I had to search for soundpages on YouTube. That means anytime a soundpage had a nondescript hyperlink, I literally couldn't watch it. I only caught SOME of the walkarounds because I went to my granny's house occasionally, and she had a computer.

I do remember being pretty impatient about getting to the trolls, which is funny because nowadays I care for the trolls a lot less than other characters in the comic. I even skimmed through the intermission because I thought it was getting in the way of the main story. Jade was just introduced, the trolls were becoming more relevant, and things were just picking up with the exiles. Why am I reading this Spades Slick guy when Jack Noir is actually relevant to the plot???

Speaking of the trolls, given I literally knew every troll by name already, I had to then guess who each one was based on their trollhandle and typing style alone. I recognised Vriska, Sollux, Karkat and Terezi right away, but others were harder. Reaching Hivebent and learning their actual identities was very disorienting lol.

Oh, I don't know if this counts as a misconception but I was totally blindsided by Lord English as a villain. Like I said, I skimmed through the intermission and Doc Scratch's dialogue was hard for me to understand, so his name literally never came under my radar until basically the end of Act 5, and I was very confused. Also, the hotlinks totally didn't work on my shitty 2013 Windows phone or the dedicated MSPA reader app I chose to read Homestuck on for some reason, so that big scrapbook segment near the end of act 5? I also missed everything there, and there's a LOT of important information in that part.