An incomplete list of things that annoy me about Homestuck

[sqbr]

Homestuck is one of those canons where I often veer dramatically from "This is so awesome!" to "ARGH SO ANGRY WHY CAN'T I QUIT YOU??" and back again. Right now I just feel like venting about the latter.

All the human characters are white. (The art style is a little ambiguous, but I think it's fair to assume they're meant to be white, even if we have space to interpret them otherwise) In my opinion: Since there aren't that many human characters, and most of them are related, this would be somewhat forgivable were it not for the repeated images of African Americans as sometimes creepy figures of fun. Also, there are songs on the soundtracks with names like "Tribal Ebonpire" and "Octaroon Rangoon" (the former is apparently a remix of another song called "(something else) Ebonpire" so may not be QUITE as deliberately racist as it seems, but still)

The constant over the top homophobic and ableist (and less often sexist, racist etc) language, especially from Dave.

Not being able to walk up stairs is hilarious(*). While Tavros is clearly a loser who happens to be disabled, there's this really creepy dynamic of "Lol he's crippled" that skeeves me the hell out. The way Nepeta and Terezi are talked about is a bit off sometimes as well (I'm not even sure if Nepeta is actually autistic or people are just using the word as an insult)

And now things that don't make me super angry but are still annoying:

There was this big deal made about WV fighting against the injustice of the Skaia system and the value of democracy as opposed to kings…and then he is all "Yay queens!". I can accept the pro-monarchy slant in most fantasy when there's no alternative given, as much as it irritates me sometimes, but now that democracy is on the table I just can't get invested in the whole PM is the Rightful Queen thing. And I love PM! I think she'd make a pretty good interim president until elections can be held! (I may or may not have gotten a little overinvested in WV's ode to democracy. I may also have read one too many bits of leftwing propaganda about the power of the people as a child, thus skewing my id. But, dammit, democracy is awesome!)

The gender roles aren't bad exactly, but something about them (and the other issues with the comic) makes me think they could end up going to a bad place. I've seen people complain that the ring should by rights be PM's: I can see that, and might be annoyed about it were it not for my aforementioned issues with the whole queen thing.

The pansexual dynamic is awesome but the (admittedly few) actual relationships that happen seem skewed towards straightness. Plus all the m/m subtext is about kismesis or Eriden/Equius being creepy, we haven't seen any nice m/m. This isn't really a complaint, per se (most of the m/f romance is pretty messed up too), but as with gender it makes me feel like things could, in the final analysis, end up very heteronormative.

And now I feel better. Pretty sure I forgot some stuff, but I can always rant again.

Continuing from a previous (locked, sorry) post, I will say that I like how Homestuck canon and fandom is way more open to lgbt relationships and characters than Certain Other Fandoms (Yes I am looking at you Full Metal Alchemist).

(*)Note: I can't walk up stairs (well, not unless I want to be in a fair amount of pain) This is surprisingly unhilarious.

Comments

[pseudo_tsuga]

I have nothing to say than a resounding word to this post.

[sqbr]

It's good to know it's not just me!

[furikku]

Yeah, all this stuff is why I have to distance myself a little from the story, because it kinda gets hipster as fuck in places and that's super not fun. :/

[sqbr]

I try not to get invested and then I do anyway and then he CRUSHES MY SOUL (why yes I did let myself get attached to Tavros, despite knowing this was a self destructive tack)

[sarcasmosaur]

Followed your link here from tumblr, and uh, yep this, all of it.

I remember Hussie pulling the whole "oh I didn't MEAN to make the characters any particular race" thing on his old formspring, but uh yeah, Harley and Egbert aren't exactly Asian names.

I admit that I laughed at the duttle (human face on a cephalopod just ain't right) but yeah, it's definitely part of a bad trend.

[sqbr]

I'm sure there are Asian people with the surnames Egbert and Harley, and Nanna was adopted anyway, and there are blue and green eyed Asian people (more often South Asian, which is my personal canon)...but the fact that they COULD be Asian doesn't change the fact that there's currently no canonical reason to think that they are.

And yeah, many of the individual jokes are fine in isolation, it's just the trend that's dodgy.

[sarcasmosaur]

D'oh yeah that's true. I just mean uh, if you consistently render your characters with paper-white skin and give them all surnames of obviously European derivation, you're not being quite as ambiguous/neutral as Hussie seems to think he's being.

And oh look he did it again. Poor Rufio. :C

Sorry, don't have an account

[(Anonymous)]

And it's a late comment, but I just felt you should know:

Hussi(e?) is a former troll. Trolls like to piss people off. It's their motivation in life. They like doing very-anti-PC stuff (such as make fun of crippled people; I'm epileptic, and the constant flashing shit kinda screws with me, but what can you do). It's also why he frequently kills off characters, and kills off ships, and creates ships: all for pissing people off.

Homestuck is...pretty anti-PC. There's a ton of cursing (everyone), there's 11 year-olds making crappy art on purpose that have half-naked women in it (Strider), and there's caricatures of corruption in legislature (Terezi). What I'm saying is, taking everything with a grain of salt. Don't take it personally--because that's how you deal with trolls. They don't care about other people's opinions, biases, diseases, etc. In fact, they are amused by them.

Just a bit of advice, I guess. :/

P.S. If you want to respond, I'm faving this page and may check it if you do reply.
P.P.S. Why the hell does Captcha look like Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff font?

Re: Sorry, don't have an account

[sqbr]

Oh, I know he's a troll, although I don't think trolling is his only motivation, he's obviously invested in the story and characters in his own trolly way. This is why I'd never bother trying to engage with him on these topics the way I might with a different webcomic author.

And I do take the jokes about Tavros's disability etc less personally than I would if the other characters weren't made fun of and he seemed to think he was writing realistic respectful fiction. But they still piss me off when they cross a certain line. I guess on a meta level my irritation stems from the fact that he's managed to make such an entertaining and engaging story despite being such a troll, so I keep reading despite knowing I'm guaranteed to get pissed off again in future. The upside is that he does piss off everyone, if not always to an equal level, so any fan telling me I'm being oversensitive about plot point A is likely to be railing themselves in a week or two about plot point B :)

(Also, I realise you may not want one, but I have some spare dreamwidth invites if you want an account)

Re: Sorry, don't have an account

[(Anonymous)]

He'd likely respond with some sort of troll-talk, i.e. "My characters. I can do what I like." Or some such. The best way to deal with trolls is generally don't deal with them at all.

Trolls are kind of like that; they have a rather warped perspective of what you called "realistic respectful fiction." I think it comes with their being a misanthrope thing. ;)

Personally, I think his trolling everyone can be amusing--but then again, I forcefully distanced myself from being fond of the characters, and being involved with the fandom (Dave Strider being my exception...damnit...). I did it because I came late into the story, and had heard it's a Kill 'Em All type, so I knew there'd be letdowns. ):

But I can sympathsize with your being offended by some of the jokes. However, I myself tend to make epilepsy jokes...

(Nah, no thanks. I'd only use it for this comment, anyways. :) Btw, it's invite-only? Never knew that.)

Re: Sorry, don't have an account

[(Anonymous)]

Oh hell, I thought I responded already. Sorry.

You can see he's invested in his characters, definitely. Even when he kills them (or...most of them. Bro ;__; ) he'll somehow bring them back. Magically. It's as if he's trying to balance trolling fans with fondness for characters. I think it's the old troll in him is fighting with the normal human, in an example I totally just now realized is kind of cliché.

On the topic of "realistic respectful fiction"--I think that's really how all trolls operate, when they decide to interact with the real world. :/ They have a warped sense of what's normal and respectful (i.e. cursing out everyone vs just not saying anything) since, a lot of times, they're quite misanthropic. :/

So I mentioned to someone over the weekend how, Hussie being Hussie, Dave is likely to die, being that he's basically the entire fandom's favorite character. Ever. And what kind of troll can resist such temptation? Pissing off so many people at once, by killing off such a beloved character. Anyways, your statement about "guaranteed to get pissed off again in the future" reminded me of that--we know that at some point he's going to troll us, hard, but we keep coming back.

Damn, it's like a bad relationship.

And the "oversensitive about plot point A..." thing: everybody has their pet peeves. I, for one, can't stand adherence to the laws of physics in scifi (it's why I love searching out scifi's explanations for FTL), why is why I classify Homestuck as "fantasy" so I don't try and shoot myself. :| But others, like you, may be frustrated when authors have obviously non-politically correct statements and imagery. But, considering he's a troll, yeah, everyone's gonna get PO'd by some point. Either that or start crying at the loss of their favourite character (Broooooo ;__; ). ):

Er, I may have lost my point along the way. Say, is that invite still up for grabs? I could use a new blog. :)

Re: Sorry, don't have an account

[sqbr]

Ack, sorry, you did reply, I just forgot to unscreen it. (I am VERY SLOW replying to comments sometimes) If you make another comment with your email address I won't unscreen it and can send you an invite. (And then eventually I will actually reply to you properly :))

Re: Sorry, don't have an account

[frameit]

I got your email! If you want to talk about this some more, you're free to use my email--and I set up the account "frameit". :) And I'm good with waiting. It took me 3-4 days to respond to you...again...after all.

Belated reply is belated

[sqbr]

Replying here so you get a notification.

...and now that I think about it, I don't actually have much to add, oops.

I think the way he's left John just lying there dead for so long is kind of similar to your "killing Dave" example (John is pretty popular, plus there's the "the main characters can't die assumption) But he already killed Dave and John a couple of times already, it'll take more than that for anyone to believe it's for real :)

Re: Belated reply is belated

[frameit]

True, true. You kill off the characters enough (and multiple times) and people just stop taking it seriously. Just look at Buffy. "Really, Joss Whedon/Andrew Hussie? Again? You're just going to bring him/her back..."

Probably. Hopefully. Doc Scratch is...basically God, anyways.

But actually, the "main characters can't die"--there's a trope for it's polar opposite: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnyoneCanDie

I'd make it a pretty link but I have no idea how and Dreamwidth isn't helping me. >:|

Re: Belated reply is belated

[sqbr]

*nods*

Re: Belated reply is belated

[isitsecret]

Hey, I know I'm pretty late to the party on this, but I was Googling "Homestuck racism," and yours was the first link! (Plus, I vaguely recognize you from the general amorphous "social justice" community.)

Anyway, A)Great article! and B)I LOVE this Torchwood icon. May I please take it and use it on other sites (with credit to you/the original creator, of course)?

Re: Belated reply is belated

[sqbr]

Hello, glad you liked the post! Yes, you may use this icon. Though note that it doesn't include his many deaths past season 2 :)

Re: Belated reply is belated

[isitsecret]

That's alright. There's only so much space on a 100x100 icon, and he just dies so much. :)