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I see posts go by periodically about how modern audiences are impatient or unwilling to trust the creator. And I agree that that's true. What the posts almost never mention, though, is that this didn't happen in a vacuum. Audiences have had their patience and trust beaten out of them by the popular media of the past few decades.

J J Abrams is famous for making stories that raise questions he never figures out how to answer. He's also the guy with some weird story about a present he never opened and how that's better than presents you open--failing to see that there's a difference between choosing not to open a present and being forbidden from opening one.

You've got lengthy media franchises where installments undo character development or satisfying resolutions from previous installments. Worse, there are media franchises with "trilogies" that are weird slap fights between the makers of each installment.

You've got wildly popular TV shows that end so poorly and unsatisfyingly that no one speaks of them again.

On top of that, a lot of the media actively punishes people for engaging thoughtfully with it. Creators panic and change their stories if the audience properly reacts to foreshadowing. Emotional parts of storytelling are trampled by jokes. Shocking the audience has become the go to, rather than providing a solid story.

Of course audiences have gotten cynical and untrusting! Of course they're unwilling to form their own expectations of what's coming! Of course they make the worst assumptions based on what's in front of them! The media they've been consuming has trained them well.

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There’s a thing which struck me in the comments on Sophia McDougall’s post “The Rape of James Bond” which explains an awful lot about the writers’ and fandom’s attitude to Zebruh Codakk.

“The subject I was most interested in was realism in depiction of violence against oppressed/underprivileged. Because it is really difficult to prove sometimes that an author is exploiting and delighting in depiction of such violence, and not (only) tries to arouse a noble anger in his readers. I think that the argument in the post are applicable not only to rape, but to a wide spectrum of violence, e.g. such widespread depictions of abuse of children or cruel murders of animals. Such scenes are common in Dostoyevsky’s prose, for instance.

The trouble with these scenes lies in the declared goal “to induce aversion to such atrocious behaviour”. This goal presupposes its target audience, and it consists of those who by default do not associate themselves (and are not associated by others) with the survivor or victim of the violent act. That usually means a privileged person. The plan is that reading such a scene would let them understand a bit more of the vulnerability of the underprivileged to violence. (It must be said that this will not necessarily be the actual outcome. The readers may enjoy the show and do not feel it as being contradictory to authorial intent.) So the potential readers who are already associating themselves with the victim, because they are also vulnerable, are not seen – are in a blind spot. It is no discovery for them that the victim of such violence is a person with feelings; and the detailed depiction of the violent act, by its design excluding them from the audience, is re-traumatizing, because it makes them re-live or recollect similar acts of violence against them or other members of the underprivileged group with whom they associate themselves.“

Friendsim isn’t meant as some kind of “do not do this” morality play, but they pile on and pile on negative traits which end up contradicting each other to this character with the intention that the players will sneer at him and think of themselves as better than him, without considering that he’s doing these things TO anyone. Sexual harassment and enslavement are used as vaguely abstract bad things for a character to do, and MSPA Reader only ever thinks about them in the context of how they don’t want to hang out with Zebruh, not in terms of how they should be helping his victims. Admittedly they’re controlled by Scratch into focusing on his goals, but it never even crosses their mind even when Scratch’s control starts to break down, except for a brief moment in the doomed timeline which ends up helping no one and is more just present to demonstrate to the reader that enslavement is happening at all. On this side of the fourth wall, the enslaved trolls never get names or faces and no one seems to care.

This is also pretty symptomatic of the anti movement, honestly. A lot of anti-shippers seem under the impression that the problem with CSEM is “bad people like it”, not that it hurts people. They’re under the impression that viewing people who do bad things in contempt is enough in and of itself to make one a good person.

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This would explain why the fandom seems to be actively hostile to people pointing out foreshadowing, as seen in the Marvus tag on @hiveswapguesses

I wanted to save this for another day but ive been thinking about this one tweet and i need help understanding if what OP was implying here is just me

So i stumbled upon this tweet from the infamous “Tavros is a chaser” person, and it’s… well,

Now i cant tell if they’re actually being serious or not, but what baffles me is what they’re implying. Yeah, they don’t actually SAY it, but with the current climate about police, I am extremely suspicious of what they’re implying here. 

And for further context, this is the comic they’re referring to. 

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Dammek could have been interesting, but he’s clearly being made into a hatesink, and that’s often shitty writing in itself, but when combined with the “Jews caused the Holocaust” thing in Skaianet, the blatant antisemitic stereotyping of the tealbloods, and the general lack of attention both canon and the fandom pay to any characters below jade, portraying the guy trying to organise a rebellion against the evil empire as a villain has some really, really, really unfortunate implications. Especially since Dammek talks a lot about socialism and workers’ rights, but Hussie notoriously treats his workers terribly and there’s evidence they stole from the Kickstarter.

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i have actually never seen a prison/police abolitionist give a reasonable alternative for domestic violence victims, not even once :|

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Me: The only reason I'm a little sad I'm not still writing the main story of C&V is that I feel like I missed a gr8 opportunity to have Daveglitch say something to the effect of "The Dave part of me would be horrified by this, but I mostly just find it funny! :D"

Me: (I'm quoting from memory so I'm sure it's not perfect, but I'm not strong-willed enough to go look for the exact quote. It'd just make me upset.)

Friend: that is pretty horrifying and i am trying to place what you are quoting/referencing because it feels like a reference?

Me: ...Davepetasprite.

Friend: OH. bleh. yes that is rather upsetting.

Friend: also

Friend: to give you an idea of how creepy davepetasprite is... do you want to know... who i thought you were referencing?

Me: ...who?

Friend: Bill Cipher.

Me: OH MY GOD.

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I find it deeply irritating when people paint Damara’s comments as sincere come-ons. I’m autistic and sex-repulsed, and even I know that one does not seduce people by standing still and saying sexual things in a totally deadpan voice in a language one knows full well the other person doesn’t understand. As for Latula telling her to get away from Mituna, did it ever occur to anyone that that might be because she physically maimed another member of their group?

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Genuine question for my homestuck intermission colleagues: are you guys genuinely content with the way the intermission characters are written (The Felt, Midnight Crew and Doc scratch) or is there anything that bothers you? Would you change anything if you could and what?

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“The homestuck epilogues are bad on purpose! It’s supposed to be bad fanfiction!”

1. That doesn’t make the story good.

2. That doesn’t make up for people sending gore and death threats for people who like certain characters, which got intensified because of the epilogues (the fandom was dying by that point).

3. It’s made entirely to antagonize the fans who like Homestuck enough to make fanfics about it.

Being “meta” and taking jabs at fans doesn’t make a story good. In my opinion, it makes it petty. You’re antagonizing harmless parts of the fan base for no reason other than your own amusement.

If you got issues with people having harmless fun, that’s a you problem.

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Genuine question for my homestuck intermission colleagues: are you guys genuinely content with the way the intermission characters are written (The Felt, Midnight Crew and Doc scratch) or is there anything that bothers you? Would you change anything if you could and what?

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I know this is a kink thing, but depressingly, she actually did, apparently.

We don't talk enough about how homestuck 2 has canon fakeboy representation!! Candy Roxy gave up on being trans after she got impregnated, just like real transmascs <3

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Yyyyeahhhh, whether it counts as misogyny or not there's a very nasty streak of femmephobia throughout Homestuck. The girls who are most strongly lionised are the ones who act/dress like boys and by RetJohn at least the girly girls get shoved in the background, while feminine boys are treated like figures of fun.

https://www.tumblr.com/evil-pafl-2fessions/778870227018579968/i-thought-homestcuk-was-written-by-a-misogynist?source=share

andrew hussie is a lot of things, but she is not a misogynist. she writes every one of her woman characters with the deepest of respect, unless it's for other reasons [usually racism. damara's writing is Like That because of racism]. she literally wrote an 800k word comic with the grand villain being a misogynistic manchild who never grew up and perpetuated patriatchy throughout the universe as a form of his evil.

sorry to talk about homestuck so much on pafl confessions blog. umm uhh umm i want to make out sloppy style with yura beletsky

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Hell, even within Canon they were done dirty.

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everyone in this comic is awful except for Dad Egbert

Me: so, like, people insist that Bro is Forever Bad and beyond redemption and no one is allowed to enjoy his character or else they’re excusing his treatment of Dave, but… why does no one say that about Mom Lalonde? who raised Rose while drunk off her ass 24/7? who raised her child in such a way that the child misinterpreted EVERYTHING she did as passive-aggressive mind games? (let’s not even talk about how Rose later tried to cope with the realization that her dead mom actually did love her by emulating her mother’s bad habits and blaming herself for being a “bad daughter.”)

Non-Homestuck friend: i’m wondering why people whose delicate feefees are hurt by people being horrible even LIKE this fucking comic!

Me: RIGHT? i love this fucked up comic and its fucked up characters but it’s about TERRIBLE PEOPLE being BROKEN AND TERRIBLE. they’re ALL Problematic Faves. but, you know, Bro’s the ONLY one we must boo and hiss at. let’s just ignore that Jade’s (senile??) grandpa let a toddler play with LOADED PISTOLS.

Friend: …the other examples. the children are girls.

Me: … … …i’d only been considering the genders of the adults.

Friend: nnnnnuuup. abuse is worse when it happens to their male fave.

Me: FUCK

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friendly reminder about roxy and their character

with the new homestuck^2 upd8 giving a canon design to transmasc roxy, i would like to remind y’all that roxy is one of the most unintentionally transfemme-coded characters in the comic. there is definitely going to be people that are going to debate me about this, but i am going off my personal experience as a trans woman here. im gonna be real hussie does not have the brain cells to properly write a trans character (or hell like even handling LGBTQ+ characters well, this is a callout post to his formspring), but roxy is a really good example of unintentional transfemme coding that’s done very well imo. to her interests (programming, video games, etc.) that line up w/ alot of common interests that transfemme people have, to her overperformed femininity that trans women commonly have, to her isolation that rlly fits the lonely trans girl trope, and hell like even her name and the genetic hinting that it had in comic! not to mention like roxy was The Character that trans women and transfemme peeps (myself included) rlly self-projected and attached to, and was widely headcanoned and theorized to be transfemme bc of that stuff and her unintentional rlly good transfemme coding too so like, it really doesn’t sit well with me that transmasc roxy was basically canonized in the epilogues and hs^2, because of how the epilogues were intentionally written to cause drama and start shit for the sake of starting shit, and like? there’s no way that hussie and the schmucks working on the epilogues weren’t NOT aware of how widely popular the transfemme roxy headcanon was on top of all that plus like, why would you canonize the most transfemme coded character in the comic as transmasc, despite the fact that both dave and dirk were widely headcanoned to be transmasc? it really comes off as a deliberatley hostile move towards transfemme homestuck fans, especially considering that they also twisted jade into a very harmful and transphobic trope that fetishizes trans women and gets trans women killed and getting into the meat of transmasc roxy in the epilogues (no pun intended), they really just sorta threw out what made roxy interesting and memorable as a character along w/ alot of their defining traits just to make them “yeah they’re Dave But Pink now, that’s it”, and just playing it up for jokes–especially considering they also basically made dirk a transphobe redditor too (and i will fistfight whoever is responsible for that). it just really comes off as a deliberately hostile move against transfemme homestuck fans, and i wouldn’t be surprised if it was confirmed to be one–considering that the epilogues were intentionally written to upset people for the sake of upsetting people too. and it really upsets me that like hs^2 is a direct continuation of the epilogues too, the epilogues had the factor that it was just in text–which helped make shit somewhat bearable and more easy to brush off, but now that hs^2 is both in text and visual just, it terrifies me to see transmasc roxy essentially set in stone and there’s Nothing that i can do about it, and considering that the eps/hs^2 are canon despite the fact that it tries to pull “it’s not canon! i swear!” all the way home but it knows and we know that it’s canon. another reason why transmasc roxy is very upsetting and a trigger to me is alot of the reaction that people had to them, and how pretentiously aggressive people got when it came to defending them after the epilogues dropped (i’m talking shit like “if you use she/her for roxy you’re a transphobe!!” being all over the roxy tag on tumblr and twitter, and how roxy’s mspawiki page was straight-up a warzone), and how people just relentlessly talked over transfemme people that were genuinely hurt and upset over transmasc roxy being canonized i should say that while i personally don’t care for it, i don’t have any issues w/ transmasc roxy as a headcanon, as i think there’s room for it to be genuinely interesting and unique if done properly as a headcanon. it’s just transmasc roxy in the epilogues i can’t see in a good light, and i honestly think it’s a deliberate act of aggression against transfemme homestuck fans bc “oh? you have this character that was heavily coded and headcanoned to be transfemme? guess what babey they’re transmasc now i guess we rlly subverted your expectations hahaha” i also think that like, even if transfemme roxy was confirmed in the epilogues, there’s no way that it would’ve been done properly and not played up as a joke–especially considering Redditor Dirk, and how they made jade a walking transphobic trope that fetishizes trans women and gets trans women killed and played it up as a joke (which i mentioned earlier) imo just, i honestly think the epilogues should’ve kept the identities of the characters ambigious and open to the reader’s interpretation and headcanons, but that’s just me

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Also racism. Lots of racism.

Sunk cost fallacy dictates that my brain recognizes 4/13... I think the thing that frustrates me the most about Homestuck is that there was a lot of really cool stuff but the execution (especially towards the end) left a lot to be desired. A lot of people try to sound super scholarly about it but honestly everything good and bad about it was pretty simple.

Good stuff

Incredible music/animations

Speedy and regular updates

Central fan hub (the forums)

Said forums allowed user participation in the comic

Internet/game meta humor

Lots of memeable stuff

Funny, yet plot-driven

Wide berth of unique characters (you're pretty much guaranteed to find a handful that you like)

Potent shipping (especially given the unique "quadrants")

Interesting and unique hook ("the game I got for my birthday started the apocalypse"*)

*(technically the apocalypse was going to happen anyways but you don't know that at the time)

Lots of elements that inspire fan speculation/creation (ex. aspects, god powers, etc.)

Bad stuff

Overcomplication of the plot

Even if it's pointed out as a joke, needing multiple recaps just to be able to comprehend what's going on is not a great sign

The story loses its throughline ("let's play a game with my friends to save the world"). Hussie stated that the stakes were always intended to zoom out once the scale of what was happening was established (it goes from playing a game to birthing a universe) but the plot clutter made it difficult to reestablish a feeling of cohesiveness

Far too many characters towards the end. Having lots of characters makes it fun and engaging for fans... but having too many makes the story cluttered

This also guarantees fan disappointment: there's a good chance that one of your favorite characters was never given enough screentime/chances to develop

Walls upon walls of text

^Which is much less daunting if you're catching live updates with your friends on the forums every other day... but new readers are left trying to consume and digest all of this information alone and at once

Overall I think a lot of people found it cool but were frustrated that being convoluted and bloated made it miss the mark on sticking the landing. Even so... after thinking about it (especially in its internet flash page glory) I always find myself sighing wistfully about it. There was a lot that was so much fun. I still remember what it felt like watching WV: Ascend for the first time...