History DethroningMoment / Homestuck

* Tropers/{{chelonianmobile}}: Not exactly a "moment", but the blatantly half-assed lip service paid to gender politics that only got worse in Hiveswap. Troll gender is presented as pretty much the same as human gender through the whole comic and game; only the girls wear skirts, only the girls have visible eyelashes and outlined lips (except for Lanque, which has its own unfortunate implications since he was named by the devs as trans male), only the girls and a couple of boys presented as effeminate dandies wear makeup, their hairstyles are gendered (Equius has long hair scraped back and not prettied up, while the girls with short hair have flips and bobs and generally shaped 'dos short-haired human women tend to favour), and the ancestor portraits and dancestor talksprites have humanoid gendered figures (Mindfang's noticeable curves versus the Grand Highblood's Dorito body and giant codpiece). Porrim is presented as the cool feminist, the jade and fuchsia castes are heavily femininity-associated, and according to Hiveswap and Pesterquest trolls can be trans. Yet... why? While the human gender binary is inadequate to describe the actual human experience, the concept arose because ''most'' humans can be put in two rough anatomical categories based on reproductive strategy. Trolls all have the same reproductive strategy, dumping spooge in a bucket for the Mother Grub, so why do they even ''have'' two different phenotypes at all? As for trans trolls, obviously ''if'' they have multiple phenotypes for whatever reason there's no reason they wouldn't be able to be trans, but it's presented as if transitioning is easy for them and no one questions the they/them pronouns some of the Troll Call use. Why, when their society is in all other respects based on extremely brutal conformity to physical norms? The death penalty is earned for having birth defects, for becoming disabled without a decent workaround (Tavros was at risk of culling while Terezi may have been fine with her super-scent power rendering sight unnecessary), or just because someone of a higher rank feels like it. Why is ''this'' one type of nonconformity okay? It all just makes it terribly obvious that neither Hussie nor the Hiveswap writing team actually thought it through at all, and it feels more like tokenism than a real attempt to represent anyone.

* Tropers/{{chelonianmobile}}: Not exactly a "moment", but the blatantly half-assed lip service paid to gender politics that only got worse in Hiveswap. Troll gender is presented as pretty much the same as human gender through the whole comic and game; only the girls wear skirts, only the girls have visible eyelashes and outlined lips, only the girls and a couple of boys presented as effeminate dandies wear makeup, their hairstyles are gendered (Equius has long hair scraped back and not prettied up, while the girls with short hair have flips and bobs and generally shaped 'dos short-haired human women tend to favour), and the ancestor portraits and dancestor talksprites have humanoid gendered figures (Mindfang's noticeable curves versus the Grand Highblood's Dorito body and giant codpiece). Porrim is presented as the cool feminist, the jade and fuchsia castes are heavily femininity-associated, and according to Hiveswap and Pesterquest trolls can be trans. Yet... why? While the human gender binary is inadequate to describe the actual human experience, the concept arose because ''most'' humans can be put in two rough anatomical categories based on reproductive strategy. Trolls all have the same reproductive strategy, dumping spooge in a bucket for the Mother Grub, so why do they even ''have'' two different phenotypes at all? As for trans trolls, obviously ''if'' they have multiple phenotypes for whatever reason there's no reason they wouldn't be able to be trans, but it's presented as if transitioning is easy for them and no one questions the they/them pronouns some of the Troll Call use. Why, when their society is in all other respects based on extremely brutal conformity to physical norms? The death penalty is earned for having birth defects, for becoming disabled without a decent workaround (Tavros was at risk of culling while Terezi may have been fine with her super-scent power rendering sight unnecessary), or just because someone of a higher rank feels like it. Why is ''this'' one type of nonconformity okay? It all just makes it terribly obvious that neither Hussie nor the Hiveswap writing team actually thought it through at all, and it feels more like tokenism than a real attempt to represent anyone.

** Tropers/{{chelonianmobile}}: It's worse than that. Remember Hussie's clearly-adult AuthorAvatar stalking and proposing to (Vriska), who, let's repeat it one more time, is THIRTEEN, and this is supposed to be funny?

* Tropers/MightyMewtron: Before my first choice of DMOS (Vriska's revival as detailed above) came another decision that left me uneasy, making (Vriska) and Meenah a romantic couple. First off, at the time she died, (Vriska) was the equivalent of thirteen, and has the body, and arguably mental state, of a thirteen year old. [[AgeGapRomance Meenah is the equivalent of a nineteen year old.]] Yes, they do mention how Meenah's blood type has a greater longevity and most other people are younger than her anyway, but the power imbalance is still very clear, with how (Vriska) becomes nearly dependent on Meenah and emulates her. That isn't the main DMOS though; it's when Hussie talked about said couple on Twitter, claiming that ''Homestuck'' was becoming so gay it would "make [[WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra korra]] look like republican propaganda." Acting like a relationship between a thirteen year old and nineteen year old is positive gay representation [[UnfortunateImplications spreads a pretty bad message]] especially considering [[AllGaysArePedophiles certain stereotypes of the LGBT community,]] especially when putting down one of the first gay couples in a children's cartoon, which is between two adult women. And Hussie's self insert is seen [[GirlOnGirlIsHot secretly watching the girls make out,]] [[SarcasmMode because that really shows respect for gay women.]] And after all that, Meenah later dumps (Vriska) basically out of boredom, leaving (Vriska) in tears, so even if they had been of equal age and power, it still wouldn't have been a positive gay story! TrollingCreator is one thing, but ''Homestuck'' has a huge LGBTFanbase that deserved better than this lousy attempt at pandering. Even with later additions of healthier gay couples, I still don't fully trust Hussie as a good writer for the LGBT community.

* {{@/Midna}}: I'm not a Homestuck fan. There are multiple reasons why, but the single biggest event that proved the series isn't worth my time is what happens after Nepeta heads off to fight sober!Gamzee. Months pass until we find out her eventual fate... Killed. Entirely offscreen. No death sequence. Yeah, AnyoneCanDie and all that, but this is one of the most popular characters in the series just... vanishing, never to be seen or mentioned again. If Hussie is that willing to callously kill off likable characters, I will be very surprised if the comic ends in anything other than a KillEmAll DownerEnding.

* Troper/I_Aint_Tropin: I apologize in advance, as this has to do with shipping. Now, I love Homestuck wholeheartedly, and even with things like Vriska being retconed back into existence, I was still fairly okay with that and went along with it. I was even okay with the cryptic ending of Act 7! But, one thing that always bothered me was how Karkat/Terezi got pushed to the side in favor of… Karkat/Dave. Now, for the record, on the list of Homestuck ships, Karkat/Terezi doesn't even make into my top ten. It's not my favorite, but I felt as through their relationship was integral to the plot as well as both of their characters; plus their pesterlogs are fun to read. Now, along comes [S] Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 5, and out of the blue; we're supposed to accept that Karkat/Dave is now canon. [[FlatWhat What?]] Look, I can accept Vriska making sure Terezi doesn't enter an unhealthy blackrom with Gamzee, I can accept her making sure Rose doesn't become a drunkard, but how does Vriska's meddling have any correlation with Terezi's relationship with Karkat? Karkat and Terezi had enough BelligerentSexualTension to make a TakahashiCouple look like PlatonicLifePartners. I know this is [[TrollingCreator Hussie]], but to push aside a ship with 4+ years of devolpment in favor of a ship where all the devolpment happened offscreen just reeks of an AssPull and StrangledByTheRedString. I've seen people defend this by pointing to John/Roxy, but at least it didn't feel forced and we got to see their development onscreen. The fact that Karkat and Terezi didn't even speak to each other one-on-one after the retcon happened makes it worse. It honestly felt like Hussie erased their entire relationship just so Karkat/Dave could become canon.

** @/MorganWick: It's obvious Hussie flipped an "evil switch" on Aranea solely so he could use her to screw up the session enough to force John to go back and fix it, because apparently what he'd already set up wasn't enough to do the job. (Oh, and of course John ends up "fixing it" by stopping Vriska from being killed, the culmination of Vriska's transformation throughout much of Act 6 starting with Hussie's own AuthorAvatar developing a crush on her.) Despite Hussie's self-admitted WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants and heavily involved AuthorAvatar, not once have I felt so bluntly reminded of Homestuck's status as a story being written by an author... until A6A6I2-3.

** Sciencejoe: My huge issue with this is that the majority of the new trolls have glaring character flaws; Latula is faking her personality to hide her depression at living forever, Kankri has no idea what he's talking about and his "lessons" are either useless blabber or manage to [[NiceJobBreakingItHero make things worse]], and Cronus is a jerk who won't take no for an answer. Unfortunately, it seems like they're going to remain as useless as despairChihiro mentioned while Meenah and Aranea get most of the spotlight; Meenah even had enough decency to warn John that her lust for greed will cause her to steal his ring. At least some of the original 12 trolls (Karkat, Terezi, and Kanaya) learned from their mistakes; the others either became villainous (Gamzee, Eridan), or wound up dead before that could happen (Equius). Meanwhile, Hussie created this whole cavalcade of new characters with a lot of potential for a good story...and they're just going to sit there. It was all a ruse! They were just there for Hussie to make fun of the fandom. Granted, Homestuck's not over at the time of this writing, but considering that all the other characters are coming together in one huge cluster, there's probably no time for every alpha troll to go through a character arc. In the end, Hussie did not waste a perfectly good plot. He wasted a perfectly good everything, and all to get back at the fans who pay him undying amounts of adoration.

** @/MorganWick: It's obvious Hussie flipped an "evil switch" on Aranea solely so he could use her to screw up the session enough to force John to go back and fix it, because apparently what he'd already set up wasn't enough to do the job. (Oh, and of course John ends up "fixing it" by stopping Vriska from being killed, the culmination of Vriska's transformation into a MarySue throughout much of Act 6 starting with Hussie's own AuthorAvatar developing a crush on her.) Despite Hussie's self-admitted WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants and heavily involved AuthorAvatar, not once have I felt so bluntly reminded of Homestuck's status as a story being written by an author... until A6A6I2-3.

** @/MorganWick: Roxy seemed to imply that, to some degree, everyone would still have memories of the way things were in the original timeline, though Jade sure didn't before Godtier!Calliope told her why LOWAS exploded. But Vriska must, because despite what PhiSat says Vriska, the huge bitch bluh bluh who, in Act 5, was a complete asshole even by troll standards and inserted herself into every bad thing that happened in the kids' session for the sake of her own self-aggrandizement, has suddenly become a FixerSue who, we are expected to believe, solves all the kids' and trolls' problems with her mere presence, while also being implied to be a much nicer person and bigger team player than even her Act 6 character development would have suggested. People may have hated Vriska back then, but at least she was an interesting character and people hated her on her own merits! Combining this with the above, it becomes apparent that Act 6 Act 6 from Intermission 2 on is basically a FixFic by the original author, embedded in the original story, in which Hussie needlessly trashes his own story solely so he can bring in his literal AuthorAvatar's crush and MarySue Vriska to fix it all.

* {{@/SomeNewGuy}}: Jade's death at the hands of Aranea Serket. YankTheDogsChain, HopeSpot, and TrollingCreator all rolled into one hideous passage. Not only is Aranea derailed from the [[OnlySaneMan Only Sane Woman]] of the pre-Scratch trolls into a heartless murderer, her manipulation of Scratch's Just/Sacrifice clock is a blatant AssPull that literally serves no purpose other than to rub it in our faces that one of the few remaining moral and competent characters, in a story where the majority of characters are sociopaths, assholes, or idiots, is no longer available in any capacity. It's blatantly clear that Hussie no longer gives a fuck about telling a story. All he cares about is cheap shock value and [[DarknessInducedAudienceApathy bleak tragedy purely for the sake of tragedy.]]

* [=InTheGallbladder=]: The October 11, 2013 update. Gamzee, having gone rogue for no clearly explained reason beyond the usual {{handwave}}s, beats Terezi to a pulp in lovingly rendered detail, while everyone else decides on a suitably bullshit reason to stand around instead of helping. Special mention goes to Jake, who unceremoniously comes BackFromTheDead a stone's throw away and spends the rest of the update [[HaveIMentionedIAmGay motionlessly staring at Gamzee's dick.]] This segment really didn't need to be there, and it wouldn't if Hussie still valued telling a story over manipulating his audience.

* [=InTheGallbladder=]: The October 11, 2013 update. Gamzee, having gone rogue for no clearly explained reason beyond the usual {{handwave}}s, beats Terezi to a pulp in lovingly rendered detail, while everyone capable of responding... doesn't. Rose is too busy doubting and hating herself to act, and Karkat and Kanaya are too awestruck. Jake, moments after providing one of the greatest moments in the act, unceremoniously comes BackFromTheDead a stone's throw from the brawl and spends the rest of the update just standing where he is, staring at Gamzee's codpiece. This segment really didn't need to be there, and it wouldn't if Hussie still valued telling a story over manipulating his audience.