[ SECRET POST #1555 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1555 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 076 secrets from Secret Submission Post #222.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 3 4 5 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ], [ 1 - unreadable ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

You're assuming that Hussie has a reason to Represent For Great Social Justice. That's really the opposite of what he's doing.

Yes, the trolls are all pan and functionally poly (in a weirdass way), but that's solely because Hussie enjoys teasing the shipper contingent of his fanbase (that is, the entirety of his fanbase). He kind of has no reason to incorporate a trans character, because it's a slim minority of people who even give a fuck.

He's also proven himself to be sexist, ableist, and racist as hell on multiple occasions, so I don't know that I'd want him attempting to write a trans character in the first place. He probably has no idea that FtM is even a thing.

[alanahikarichan.livejournal.com]

I think you're not giving him as much credit as I do-- he's said multiple times that he's introduced characters almost no one should give a fuck about just so he can make us love them. And while being noncis is a lot heavier of a topic than "being a juggalo" or "being a furry with a submission fetish" or "being a hipster wwizard", I do think he's good enough with characters to pull it off, if he wanted.

And he has shown some signs of social justice, here and there? Like how he is exactly 50/50 with the gender ratios of the kids and trolls and (Earth's, at least) Exiles...

But he does also say stupid shit (under the guise of irony, even) and it's sometimes hard to tell where he's trolling and where he's sincere and where his trolling is sincere. So I don't blame you for not sharing my opinion that it wouldn't be too shocking if someone in the cast was trans.

(Of course, very little Hussie does shocks me anymore! Or at least not for more than a few minutes. I would also not be too surprised if he announced Dave was Lord English, at this point. :P )

[(Anonymous)]

... I really wouldn't call a 50/50 gender ratio an indicator of being pro-social justice. Especially considering the way Hussie has given a lot of those girls the narrative shaft. (In Homestuck, it seems that if you're a girl you're either shithive maggots, or you don't do anything of importance.)

I think he enjoys manipulating his readers' reactions more than anything. When he introduces characters you're meant to like and sympathize with, it's because he enjoys yanking on your heartstrings and then calling you a sucker for letting him. Recall his response to the fanbase uproar when Equius was killed.

A trans character is definitely too heavy of a subject for him to handle sensitively, even if he were interested in a sensitive portrayal (or portraying one at all). He's the archetypal omniprivileged male and an utter douchebag to boot. I don't want him going anywhere near that shit.

[interrobangings.livejournal.com]

>In Homestuck, it seems that if you're a girl you're either shithive maggots, or you don't do anything of importance.

Rose turning into a grimdark badass, Jade learning her role and saving her friends' lives, Feferi was supposed to be the one to unite the two races, Terezi pulling just about every string to make everything work, and Aradia doing just about everything ever and being awesome

Vriska is also a powerhouse but she's fucking crazy

Nepeta is the only one who's really "shithive maggots"

Edit: Forgot about PM being a mail-lady badass, WQ being strong and gentle all at once, Snowman being a dangerous force

[(Anonymous)]

- Rose going grimdark at the apparent cost of her sanity, already ripping apart her session at the seams
- Jade admittedly not having gone shithive yet, but if we're to take Dave's words at face value she will at some point in the future
- Feferi not actually doing shit
- Terezi not actually doing shit since about mid-Hivebent (so much potential squandered I can't even)
- Aradia being a shithive dead girl, Getting Better and being demoted to a passive helper character (apparently a psychopomp for some reason; her ~ultimate god tier power being a passive support spell)
- Vriska winning all of the shithive medals, all of them
- PM being cheated out of the natural conclusion to her character arc because apparently WV is supposed to wear the ring despite being a pacifist and having no personal beef with Jack whereas PM has every reason to kick his ass
- WQ admittedly not having had enough screentime to actually do shit
- Snowman not actually doing shit but teleporting around looking enigmatic

I'm just saying, every time a girl steps up to actually do something of impact in this comic it's completely shithive

And it's not as if women haven't historically been regarded as hysterical bitches unfit to take active roles in things or anything

[(Anonymous)]

Kanaya is pretty boss and the one exception to the apparent overarching rule

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe, but the guys aren't really faring much better

- Tavros really doesn't do much until he gets killed
- Eridan does nothing for most of the story before losing his mind and getting cut in half
- Gamzee became powerful at the cost of his sanity
- Equius doesn't do much before he dies of being way way too passive
- Sollux hasn't really done shit since mid-Hivebent and barely did anything before that
- Dave has only just returned from being nonexistent for 600 pages

[(Anonymous)]

... there's no cultural subtext suggesting that men are to be passive or they lose their shit and go psycho, jussayin

[(Anonymous)]

But how is it sexist for women to be going insane or dying when everyone is going insane and dying? The female characters are being treated exactly like the male ones are.

[cephiedvariable.livejournal.com]

I actually kind of get what anon is saying here about the precedent set for female characters in pop culture? Because it's true that no work of fiction exists in a vacuum.

But how is it sexist for women to be going insane or dying when everyone is going insane and dying?

- but the answer to your question here really just seems to be "holding female characters to higher or different standards".

[cephiedvariable.livejournal.com]

- John, despite being the big sparkly friendleader hero main character, kind of just wanders around being useless without direction from usually Rose or Vriska.
- Check out this beautiful metaphor for Dave Strider's entire life (http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=005602).
- Karkat's kind of awesome, but his thing is that he is the power of heart. A passive role usually reserved for heroines.
- Jack is a dangerous, psychopathic mass murderer but you can't tell me that from what we know about his character that he is not "shithive maggots" or, you know, the borderline incompetent sociopath who was accidentally handed the atomic bomb.
- Eridan was just around for us to hate him for being a Nice Guy until he died.
- Equius was just around to be a joke about horse porn.
- Sollux is barely there, really, and his contribution to the plot amounts to two deus ex machina actions (making SGRUB, foretelling the death of the trolls) which is near equal to Feferi who by the way set up the dream bubbles thanks to her amicable relationship with the Horrorterrors.
- Tavros was kind of pathetic and entirely a plot device for Vriska's character arc by the end.
- Gamzee might have something important to do yet, but he went from least developed troll to psychopath we're meant to anxiously want dead on a dime, I'm not really calling this positive or brilliant.

If you sit down and sort out which characters have gotten the most character development and are most important to the plot you are left with the four kids, the patron trolls and arguably Aradia- that's three guys, five girls. It really reads to me like you're judging the female characters by a different rubric here- male characters always get to do shit like be the game-breaker or be the misunderstood bad-dude. Pretty much everything that happens in Homestuck is kind of "shithives"- I honestly don't know how you're interpreting Rose's actions as some sort of "omg nooo wimmins can't be trusted with all that power, Rose is unfit and hysterical" since I always saw it as a "Rose is on the right track about some things but when intelligent minds look into the heart of darkness, the abyss stares back." A truly grimdark Lovecraftian character arc on a canny, badass thirteen year old girl why are we complaining?

I'm not saying Homestuck is perfect because, like anything, there's a lot of passive sexism in it but uh- the female cast is large, diverse and incredibly active within the main plot. I think sometimes criticism about the role of female characters in fiction does this unfortunate double reach-around back into misogyny the moment a female character touching a trope or displaying a fatal flaw makes them "shithives maggots".

we're to take Dave's words at face value

Yes, Dave Strider is a character meant to be taken at face value. He is totally spot on in his analysis 100% of the time.

[alanahikarichan.livejournal.com]

I think sometimes criticism about the role of female characters in fiction does this unfortunate double reach-around back into misogyny the moment a female character touching a trope or displaying a fatal flaw makes them "shithives maggots".

+1 why can you articulate so well.

There's a lot of "if you can't do a female character perfectly you shouldn't do a female character at all" but everyone has different goalposts for "perfect" and those goalposts are constantly moving the moment a female character actually approaches them, or a female character is reduced down to the most negative trait a person can think of and everything else she does is dismissed as unimportant, no matter how important it is-- hell, I made a post about this last week (http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_rant/147868.html) where a male "feminist" reduced ass-kicking, strong-willed, bookish and brilliant Belle to having "one asset", that being sex appeal.

Judging female characters so harshly that none of them can be "good" does no one any good.

[cephiedvariable.livejournal.com]

I used to be really into harshing on female characters like that because I was oh so feminist

I mean

when I was like fifteen. >:?

It's definitely useful to criticize the inherent and often unconscious sexism that is an underlying influence in basically everything we watch or read, but I get really leery of people who jump over every flaw in a female character (or, in the case of characters like Vriska, every female character with gratingly harsh flaws in generally) as a chance to rake that character over the hot coals. I think anon here was aiming more at a criticism of Hussie, but I think it got a little away from them. :/

[cephiedvariable.livejournal.com]

I think anon here was aiming more at a criticism of Hussie, but I think it got a little away from them. :/

By which I mean: I think Anon was trying to say "this is why I think Hussie is sexist", but to me it came off as "I automatically view all these female characters in the most negative light possible".

[(Anonymous)]

I apologize that my criticism of the individual characters came across as intense. For what it's worth, I do love the girls.

I was simply attempting to specify and clarify the pattern I had recognized, a pattern that kind of upsets me given the cultural subtext.

That character pattern isn't really the only example I could have cited. There is a lot of other sexism I could point out in the comic (Bluh Bluh Huge Bitch is a big standout - especially when applied to a thirteen-year-old girl) besides just that. Perhaps I set this discussion off in the wrong direction. My bad. :\

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know, Huge Bitch is pretty fitting for the shit Vriska pulls. Thirteen or not, she still crippled Tavros for no real reason before killing him, blinded Terezi, and killed Aradia.

[(Anonymous)]

... sorry, gendered slurs are never appropriate. End of.

[(Anonymous)]

Funny, I hear the word bastard being used for Eridan all the time and no one cares.

[(Anonymous)]

Gee, that could be because men aren't an oppressed class.

[(Anonymous)]

A double standard is a double standard. If gendered insults are never acceptable than they are never acceptable. That includes when it's a man.

[(Anonymous)]

baw baw derail some more

Ironic Icon Usage

[cephiedvariable.livejournal.com]

The thing is that "bitch" is a gendered insult (and a pretty ugly one at that) which carries a lot of unfortunate social connotations. The difference is between shaming and gendered shaming.

Personally, I'm not bothered by the whole "bluh bluh huge bitch" meme because I always thought it was meant to be hyperbole and I'm less good about PC language than I should be durr hurr :C, but it's completely reasonable for people to be uncomfortable with it, especially since it bolsters the often very sexist frothing that surrounds discussion on Vriska's character in the fandom.

by which I mean you kinda proved anon's point

Re: Ironic Icon Usage

[(Anonymous)]

I guess my thing is that I've never seen gendered insults as a problem. They can be used problematically, of course, but so can any word.

The problem I've most often seen is when women are called bitches for being too ambitious or trying to get ahead in a 'man's world'. But that's not an issue with the word itself, it's the attitude that drives the insults. Complaining about the use of bitch is, in my opinion, missing the point and pushing focus onto the word instead of the attitude itself. Sexism doesn't go away just because you're not using a gendered insult to express it.

[cephiedvariable.livejournal.com]

Eh, no apologies needed. Sorry if I came on a little strong. I don't agree with all of your interpretations of the girls's role in the story, but I don't think it's an unimportant discussion to have. I see that your crit was coming from a different angle that I thought it was, so thank you for clarifying and in that case I would have to apologize for misrepresenting your words.