Unpopular Opinions Thread

[Royaute]

Andrew Hussie lost his spine when he withdrew Jane's "I FEEL SO CAUCASIAN" joke. Homestuck is the whitest webcomic ever, idk why the alphabet folk keep trying to insist that they could be black.

Homestuck went downhill when ipgd became buddy-buddy with Hussie and thought it was a good idea to jam in unfunny jokes, resulting in a worse comic.

[ArchmageIsACat]

I wouldn't say that the whole trans thing is necessarily as unpopular as it is decisive. It wouldn't surprise me if it was a close to even split between those who support it and those who are against it. My main problem with it though is how divisive it is. I hold the perspective that i'm not entirely opposed to any character being trans so long as it makes sense in the story, but the characters chosen really don't make much sense. Vriska and Roxy never seemed to question their gender much, but those two I'm a touch more alright with. But John especially was always the conventional, straight-and-narrow kind of kid in my mind, and while I don't view him as the most masculine kid (such an award would go to Dirk), he's the one kid I'd expect the least to be L,G,B, or T. I dislike such a theory as John being trans it for the same reason I dislike Dave x John ships: Because it doesn't make sense for the character to suddenly reveal something of such consequence to what we already knew about their character. In short: He is not a homosexual.

Also that idea of timeline hopping to see alternate versions of yourself is all I would ever want out of HS2. It could add so much room for character development and comedic potential that it's sad that it hasn't been done already. Not to mention that it would help some to dispel that pesky shroud of cannon that has been looming over the story.

desu I don't really consider "I am not a homosexual" to be a big intrinsic part of the character. they were 13 when they said it and I can say from experience that when I said stuff like "I'm not gay" I had no fucking clue what I was talking about.
denial of being lgbt/overembracing of cishet norms is an established thing in homestuck of telegraphing that a character is lgbt, seen with roxy outwardly focusing on attraction to men while ignoring their crush on callie as well as with the epilogues contextualizing their emphasis on femininity as repression of even questioning their gender, dave going on and on about how he loves women and how he's totally not gay (even going so far as to use the infamous "not a homosexual" line in his pesterquest), jake acting like the only thing keeping him and dirk from dating is that dirk isn't a girl, and if we continue this trend, June's "not a homosexual" line combined with her rejection of traditionally feminine hobbies like baking plus her embracing of masculine symbols and hobbies telegraphing her being a trans lesbian.

obviously not everyone who goes "I'm not gay/trans" is secretly gay or trans/ is repressing being gay or trans, but its a common enough experience irl and a form of coding that homestuck is not a stranger to in any way that it means that those kinds of statements mean very little to whether a character is any of those
at least imo.

[egg]

Cory in the House is better than Homestuck.

[MorganMustDie]

As of right now, it seems that June is an absolute certainty...

Unpopular opinion: I don't see what makes June fans so 100% sure that June is going to manifest in some form
The only hints we've ever had are "Hussie likes it," he said it was canon, and it was alluded to in Pesterquest. For all we know, that might be the extent of it. He's got a history of "canonising" things in the past, with fat Vriska, or the fantrolls, only to either renege on it (skinny Vriska in act 7, PQ, etc) or immediately pull a cruel prank on the canonised thing (killing the fantrolls immediately)

Also worth noting that there were TWO different canonity hunts: the toblerones, and the jerky. Jerky is meat, Toblerone is candy. Candy, in post-homestuck meta, is representative of something that, while it might be important, is not necessarily canon. So far, the toblerone requests have mostly turned up in the form of Pesterquest "references," (i really don't see why nail painting is such a big deal) and that might the extent of it.

Basically, I wouldn't trust Hussie to make it canon, and I don't see why June fans have this much faith in the guy considering his past of canonising fan stuff

[ArchmageIsACat]

snip

bc its not just hussie saying it, a good amount of the team is on board with it and kate, the initial leader for homestuck 2, tweeted out a bit back "june is inevitable"

[JakeMorph]

Also worth noting that there were TWO different canonity hunts: the toblerones, and the jerky. Jerky is meat, Toblerone is candy. Candy, in post-homestuck meta, is representative of something that, while it might be important, is not necessarily canon.

I'm not super invested in the June stuff personally but that's not what Meat and Candy are supposed to symbolise at all. Neither Meat nor Candy were "necessarily canon" in the Epilogues. Candy just represents stuff that's slower-paced and less heavy in violent content than Meat, as outlined by Andrew in the book commentary:

[S] Jack: Ascend, if memory serves, was posted exactly one year from Homestuck’s start date. What an absurd amount of content I produced in that year, especially when you consider the animation stuff. Good thing I slowed down after that, right? No, I kept doing the exact same thing for the next several years. Yikes, sounds bad… So about this animation. I think this one marks the start of Homestuck’s trend thereafter of dropping exceptionally violent, high-octane, game-changing animations out of nowhere. There are so many like this from here on, right up to the end of Act 5. Only then does the number sort of taper off. But from this point on I just sorta started shoveling more and more red meat into the story’s maw. This stretch is where I was starting to get a feel for this type of sensationalistic storytelling content as something I’d later code (mostly for my own internal purposes) as “meat,” in the meat/candy binary of storycraft theory. I really shouldn’t talk about this yet, though. It’s too soon.

[ThePungeonMaster]

Andrew Hussie lost his spine when he withdrew Jane's "I FEEL SO CAUCASIAN" joke. Homestuck is the whitest webcomic ever, idk why the alphabet folk keep trying to insist that they could be black.

Homestuck went downhill when ipgd became buddy-buddy with Hussie and thought it was a good idea to jam in unfunny jokes, resulting in a worse comic.

While I have no firsthand experience on the matter, I've heard that it wasn't because people got upset that he retracted the joke, but because the people defending the joke did it in really poor taste, bordering on racist. Not to mention the joke wasn't funny in the first place. Also, unless I'm mistaken, Hussie has said that there really is no real cannon skin tone for the kids (as meaningless as that phrase is), and while I'm sure most people interpret them as white, I don't have an issue with artists interpreting them as black until race starts to bleed into the comic itself.

[Royaute]

While I have no firsthand experience on the matter, I've heard that it wasn't because people got upset that he retracted the joke, but because the people defending the joke did it in really poor taste, bordering on racist. Not to mention the joke wasn't funny in the first place. Also, unless I'm mistaken, Hussie has said that there really is no real cannon skin tone for the kids (as meaningless as that phrase is), and while I'm sure most people interpret them as white, I don't have an issue with artists interpreting them as black until race starts to bleed into the comic itself.

You're under 18 years old, so I really don't feel I have to take you seriously.

[Ralsei]

I don't think there are any problems with June, Roxy, and/or Vriska being trans. Additionally, I REALLY wish this wasn't an unpopular opinion.

I don't think it's so much a problem with them being trans as if that were a problem, but so much them being trans makes no sense with what we saw in Homestuck, and is largely headcanon (for John and Vriska) but is argued for as if it did make sense and might as well be canon, which can get on people's nerves.

It's Homestuck. This is a story where Karkat's pants are a sacred artifact from Troll Jesus, where all the kids are their own interdimensional grandparents, where the author's self-insert tried to kiss a Dante Basco ripoff, and where the most important character is an ex-stoner clown. But a character realizing they're trans in their young adulthood is too weird for you?

[MorganMustDie]

It's Homestuck. This is a story where Karkat's pants are a sacred artifact from Troll Jesus, where all the kids are their own interdimensional grandparents, where the author's self-insert tried to kiss a Dante Basco ripoff, and where the most important character is an ex-stoner clown. But a character realizing they're trans in their young adulthood is too weird for you?

These are all ridiculous things that, if they don't go over well, can be written off as "it's a homestuck thing it's silly lmao laugh along with it"
A character coming out as trans is a difficult, very real-world kind of thing that COULD potentially be handled very very poorly. Homestuck has had mixed results in the past when approaching sensitive identity themes, which several people here have pointed out. Having a character realise that they're trans in their adulthood without any kind of prior properly structured character work is a recipe for a badly handled character evolution, which would be a lot less appropriate than just adding a new trans character who could be written with the idea of a transgender realisation from the beginning

[egg]

Andrew Hussie lost his spine when he withdrew Jane's "I FEEL SO CAUCASIAN" joke. Homestuck is the whitest webcomic ever, idk why the alphabet folk keep trying to insist that they could be black.

Homestuck went downhill when ipgd became buddy-buddy with Hussie and thought it was a good idea to jam in unfunny jokes, resulting in a worse comic.

While I don't necessarily agree with the contents of the post itself, I do agree that Homestuck seems like a comic that really only touches upon 'white culture', pardon the way I phrase it. John Egbert is this incredibly normal straight kid who lives with a middle-class dad in a somewhat fancy two-story building who embodies the "white american 1960's dad" stereotype, complete with pipe and over-valuing serious business. Dave lives in a high-rise apartment building with an older brother who idealizes manliness and styles himself after some fucking weird puppet-obsessed anime jackass, etc. I don't think this is really intentional coding as much as it just being what Hussie is familiar with and thus parodying. This can be incremented on even further with Hussie's Team Special Olympics comics, which were pretty much leaning on outright racism.

[gutza1]

While I have no firsthand experience on the matter, I've heard that it wasn't because people got upset that he retracted the joke, but because the people defending the joke did it in really poor taste, bordering on racist. Not to mention the joke wasn't funny in the first place. Also, unless I'm mistaken, Hussie has said that there really is no real cannon skin tone for the kids (as meaningless as that phrase is), and while I'm sure most people interpret them as white, I don't have an issue with artists interpreting them as black until race starts to bleed into the comic itself.

You're under 18 years old, so I really don't feel I have to take you seriously.

Welp, that's a report for you.

[rookie1978]

While I have no firsthand experience on the matter, I've heard that it wasn't because people got upset that he retracted the joke, but because the people defending the joke did it in really poor taste, bordering on racist. Not to mention the joke wasn't funny in the first place. Also, unless I'm mistaken, Hussie has said that there really is no real cannon skin tone for the kids (as meaningless as that phrase is), and while I'm sure most people interpret them as white, I don't have an issue with artists interpreting them as black until race starts to bleed into the comic itself.

You're under 18 years old, so I really don't feel I have to take you seriously.

Welp, that's a report for you.

this is an 18 and up forum

[Leddy]

this is an 18 and up forum

This is a 16 and up forum actually. I'd know I'm 16 as well

BS #2: If you are not 16 or older, do not come here until you are.

[LudicrousFalcon]

I actually think early A5A1 is kind of slow and boring. Going from [S] Descend and all the crazy things the beta kids had to go through to a new set of characters I have little investment in yet is kind of jarring. I don't think it's bad, or even mediocre, but when compared to the crazy things we see in both Act 4 and A5A2, it doesn't quite hold up to the same level IMO. That's also not to say A5A1 had some great moments (like [S] Make her pay, and some of the worldbuilding/ancestor stuff).

This take is even weirder since trolls are easily my favorite thing about Homestuck

[Dream Muttman]

If you're all going to ignore the first rule of unpopular opinion thread at least do it to discuss Karkat beating LE instead of more discourse. Bad taste, man.

[arachnidsGrip]

Potentially unpopular opinion: This is one of the worst threads on the entire forum. The idea itself I don't think is bad, but from what I've seen it's basically solely bringing negativity, and personally it makes me feel dreadful reading over the majority of the stuff here. Especially when, from my understanding, it should have been for stuff like "I think The Retcon was good" or "I think Eridan is a redeemable character", which is just SO shitty, man. It brings me down so much seeing threads go this way.

[tajazzled]

unpopular opinion im good im gone is the best fanventure on mspfa and the hs2 writers wait for it to update for the sweet troll lore and good jokeys

[gutza1]

Potentially unpopular opinion: This is one of the worst threads on the entire forum. The idea itself I don't think is bad, but from what I've seen it's basically solely bringing negativity, and personally it makes me feel dreadful reading over the majority of the stuff here. Especially when, from my understanding, it should have been for stuff like "I think The Retcon was good" or "I think Eridan is a redeemable character", which is just SO shitty, man. It brings me down so much seeing threads go this way.

Yeah, I think it's gotten a bit too out of hand. I'm going to ask to merge the positive unpopular opinions thread because this thread should be for those as well.

[Ralsei]

I think Eridan is not only a redeemable character, but should have been brought back to life post-retcon instead of Vriska. Think about it.

(Vriska) had a good character arc going on in the dreambubbles, and that whole thing got shoved aside when Vriska was brought back to life. Imagine how much cooler it would've been if she and pre-retcon Terezi met and teamed up in Terezi: Remem8er. They'd take on Lord English themselves while nobody else knew they were "alive". And it'd prove that characters could still be relevant even when they were dead.

On the other hand, Eridan deserved a lot better than what he got. Is he an asshole? Yes. Are most of the other trolls assholes? Also yes. I wouldn't say he's any worse than Equius or Vriska, he just got pushed way over the edge by despair. Murder wasn't okay ofc, but technically he killed fewer people than Vriska. Anyway, he would've made a pretty good leader when he got over his blood-racism. And he's inherently hilarious.

My point really got away from me but tl;dr (Vriska) had a good character arc, bringing her back to life ruined it, and Eridan deserved a lot better.