Equius is peak, actually

Just like Nepeta, who was also a joke character, they share the same fate.
Even though Equius was a joke character to begin with, he brought really interesting dilemmas to the table!
He had internalized issues due to how Troll culture goes, and day by day, he broke them down. But regardless of him trying, it was still his demise at the end of the day.

We honor Equius for trying and pray that he and Nepeta are in a bubble somewhere, drinking tea and eating biscuits.

Equius is funny. I like him.

I don't think he's a joke character, I think that Hussie liked Equius more than you're implying. He gave Equius themes that he enjoys a bunch in his writing, you can tell because they come back in Dirk too. Also ARquius was awesome.
I'm a big Equius fan, and I understand yeah he's got the classism of Alternia ingrained into his stunted socialization which is awful as a person but great as a character/literary device. We had to see what the hierarchy most of the world runs on is actually like to flesh out Alternia.
He's so essential to so many cool parts of the troll session but in a creepy background way. I still don't think he's a joke character but his role in the story is just inherently funny. Yeah you can get whatever robots or robot parts you need, he will clearly just make stuff for you with seemingly no compensation, but you have to deal with the awkward sweaty horse freak. It's great. Even Equius haters have to admit the story is better for having him in it.

Starting from the middle, Equius is not a joke character. I'll just directly quote the author commentary (page 2215) here.

"So one major challenge I found interesting was something like, "How do you introduce someone who appears to be almost instantly revolting or objectionable, and then proceed to make the reader love this person against all odds?" Equius is probably the strongest example up to this point of me embracing this idea as a challenge... There are many small ways his portrait is guided so that a guy who really has no right to be seen as endearing ends up being strangely so, often in ways that aren't even easy to explain. I firmly believe that if you don't love Equius after you've read most of Homestuck, then there's something wrong with you." -dclussie

Equius is a character struggling with an internal contradiction. He loves and upholds Alternia's brutal structures (even to his own detriment), but he's continuously proven wrong about them and kind of wants to be wrong. He ultimately fails to reject his upbringing, taking it to its natural conclusion at the hands of a clown. He ends up being the proof against his beliefs.

I hold that one of the single most important conversations in Homestuck is between Equius and Dave. Equius argues in favor of doing things the 'correct' way; the way that Dave is destined to play things out as the hero. Dave's rejection of this marks a milestone of personal growth. He no longer trusts authority figures or their weird fetishes, and chooses to do things his own way.

IT IS TOO BAD. WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR INDIGO ENGINEER FRIEND. PERHAPS WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED. HAD HE SUCCEEDED. WOULD BE SOMETHING THE WORLD COULD NOT BEAR TO HANDLE. I WOULD NOT BE OPPOSED TO A RETURN OF THE INDIGO HEIR. AS THERE HAS BEEN OF ANOTHER BELOVED INDIVIDUAL. HONK :O)

It's a little funny and a little sad that Hussie has been fighting off this exact bad-faith criticism for over 10 years now lol. To provide another quote on the matter, this one from Formspring all the way back in 2011:

Q: "So I think Equius was way more of an interesting and complex character than you realise. Yes, more than you, the author, realise. I find his death disappointing because I read heaps more into him then you deliberately put there. DEATH OF THE AUTHOR, BITCH"

A: "Oh ok I accidentally made him a complex character?
WHOOPS!!!
Every aspect of him was deliberate. I try to make even marginal characters as interesting as they can be with limited exposure given. But they're still marginal, and he was still fundamentally a gag character in spite of those complexities.
I'm just sort of shaking my head here at anyone crestfallen TO THE MAX about Equius's failure to stake a heroic claim on Homestuck's already IMMENSE plot footprint. Like, seriously? With as big a thing as this story is, people are gonna hold a candle light vigil on my lawn for the GREAT SWAN SONG of the dude whose overwhelming gimmick was fetishistic submission? THERE ARE BIGGER FUCKING FISH TO FRY, PEOPLE."

(archived at https://wheals.github.io/formspring/formspring.html#question158899822194104537)

Not every story is going to be Undertale or Steven Universe, and not every character's growth is going to put them in a "better" spot than they were when they started - if things were that way we'd have no conflict and no villains. What I would ask is: if Hussie really didn't like Equius that much, what's the significance of Equius becoming part of the comic's ultimate, most important villain? I get the impression Hussie actually liked Equius quite a lot! They just liked Equius for different reasons to why you like him; they liked his massive negative potential, as a villain representing the kind of person who ultimately doesn't become a better person despite all opportunities provided for them to do so.

I think the above exchange is a perfect encapsulation of how Homestuck's author and fans treat the more "marginalized" characters such as Equius ("marginalized" here referring to lack of narrative involvement.)

I wasn't around when HS 1 was active, but I can tell that there were a lot of readers who resented the author for not giving certain characters (mostly the murdered trolls) a bigger role in the story. And that resulted in resentment towards the readers, which was reflected in the comic, which made the readers even angrier. Again, I wasn't there, but A) I don't think I'm too far off base here, and B) most of act 6 certainly *feels* antagonistic to read.

It's easy to blame the author for this, and in a literal sense, they are responsible for making writing decisions that a good number of readers (perhaps the majority?) dislike. But I will play devil's advocate here and note:

- Vriska was (technically) dead for most of act 6, despite Hussie emphatically saying that Vriska is their favorite character.

- There was a tonal shift towards the end of act 6 where the story stopped feeling needlessly antagonistic and the comic started using its "marginalized" characters in meaningful ways.

Would a more "sensible" author have handled Equius "better"? Maybe, but a more "sensible" author probably wouldn't have made Homestuck in the first place. A more "sensible" author might have not killed off Equius, but a more "sensible" author probably wouldn't have made Equius in the first place. A more "sensible" author wouldn't have constantly antagonized Nepeta, but that antagonism gives profound meaning to the later parts of the story where she rises above it.

I'll leave you with a quote from the Huss themselves: (https://homestuck.net/official/interviews/vast-error.html)

> Fanwork always represents the most constructive form of criticism, because the creator is putting their money where their mouth is. Think your favorite character got the shaft? Didn't get enough screen time, or died unjustly? All you have to do is take the source to task by showing what could have been.

That's a great observation about the mutually antagonistic relationship between audience and author. Maybe that's inevitable on some level, but it must have been particularly pronounced in Homestuck, given the vague barriers of interaction that the internet and its diffuse methods of communication create. People might have been 'right' in the abstract about a character having more potential than the narrative was giving them,, but those critiques must have inevitably been perceived--maybe not unwarrantedly--as grating demands to an author who is in close direct contact with audience opinion.

What I will say about Equius is that being a "joke" never stopped anyone from being an excellent, interesting character. I don't have a high opinion of the guy myself, but his contradictions and what he represents about Alternian society are certainly interesting and make him interesting to read. Plus, you know. It's funny. The joke about him does not stop from keep being funny.