okay well i replied to this and op just deleted my reply and pretended it didn’t happen, so now we’re going to have this conversation with reblogs. i’m not very keen on being silenced on this issue, especially considering the horrific antisemitism that hussie “toby fox” has been directly responsible for (on top of the racist caricatures, flagrant ableism, and many other awful things).
lets talk about 1. why homestuck is not a good thing to have created, and 2. why making these jokes isnt productive.
the problem with saying things like, “toby fox made homestuck,” “hatsune miku made minecraft‘, “hello kitty wrote harry potter”, etc, is that doing these things does not erase the fact that the media in question still contains elements that are a product of the original creator’s bigotry.
homestuck in particular has many instances of ableism, homophobia, and racism. several of the characters use slurs or treat disabled characters like shit. content warning for the r slur, the f slur, the term “autistic” being used as an insult, and the term cr*****d.
while the argument could be made that “these characters are merely being ‘in character’,” characters don’t.. have their own minds. all of them are written by andrew hussie, or i suppose in this case, toby fox, and he is in direct control of his characters’ actions. he doesn’t have to portray these harmful instances of ableism, especially because it‘s not his place to do so as an abled writer.
the character of damara is undoubtedly a racial caricature of a japanese woman, specifically a japanese schoolgirl. when speaking in english, she uses stereotypical broken english, and when speaking in japanese, her phrases (ripped straight from google translate) are very, very sexual and vulgar. the third image here is directly from her wiki page. i will not be specifically showing her translated dialogue here because i don’t wish to expose people to that sort of content without their consent, but you can find all of it here if you wish to see it.
in addition, the character of the condesce is clearly meant to be a caricature of black women, right down to the fact that she uses extremely incorrrect aave. neither hussie nor toby fox are black, so it should be fairly obvious why this is abhorrent for a content creator to do.
and we can talk about the pedophilia, too! hussie toby fox made a self insert who is extremely attracted to vriska serket. shown in these panels, this iteration of vriska is 13 years old, and hussie is an adult man.
hussie has said several extremely disgusting, vulgar things on his formspring about vriska (and 13-year-old girls in general). some of them, in addition to joking about and glorifying pedophilia, are fatphobic, too! once again, these comments are so abhorrent that i will not be directly showing them in the post because i cannot, in good conscience, expose my audience to this sort of thing without their prior consent. that being said, the truth is an extremely important thing. please use viewer discretion when viewing these links, they are vulgar, not sfw, pedophilic, and fatphobic. one, two
and now i can get into the horrific antisemitism that i directly criticized andrew hussie for. what i am referencing specifically here is content that was included within the original launch of the skaianet systems website. the original page contained a link in its source code which directed to a series of files, some of which were articles about the history of skaianet. these articles were primarily about the history of the condesce and detailed how several real-life historical figures played a part in her rise to power. two of these historical figures were albert einstein, a jewish man, and adolf hitler. these articles have since been deleted due to their inflammatory content and the resulting backlash, but has been archived on the wiki page, and its contents can still be read. viewer discretion is advised. they are quite lengthy, so here is a helpful tumblr post that compiles all of the horrific shit for you. content warnings for sexual abuse, mentions of bestiality, murder, and suicide.
there is a workplace rivalry that takes place between hitler and einstein, but the tension between them actually starts much earlier - einstein babysits hitler, and hitler despises him. this paragraph directly states that “[hitler’s] antisemitism also begins to escalate, mostly as a means designed to continue owning Einstein.” a direct acknowledgement of the fact that einstein is jewish, and a direct statement that the beginning of hitler’s antisemitism is because of how much he hates einstein.
in addition, there are several snippets that state that mark twain and the condesce were complicit in hitler’s rise to power, giving him promotions out of apathy:
this strange retconning of actual historical events so that hitler can kill houdini, also a jewish man:
arguably the worst part of all of this, this paragraph states that hitler “kicks the holocaust into high gear” because of his hatred for einstein, and accuses einstein of being complicit in the murder of his own people (he could’ve stopped it at any time by coming out as a fraud, but he’s too ashamed to do that). this is truly horrific.
this is an absolutely mortifying portrayal of jews. to paint a jewish person (who was a real person that actually lived) as a fraud and to blame the holocaust on him is extremely, extremely antisemitic. it’s not funny. it’s not a funny joke. it’s sickening, and it deeply unsettles me - and by saying that toby fox made this, by saying that toby fox did this, you are both sweeping the horrific things that hussie has done under the rug and implicating toby fox in this bigotry.
and before anyone says, “hey, wait, jade, hussie apologized for this!” he did, yes, but he also backtracked, referring to the incident as discourse that didn’t matter. violent antisemitism, an issue that we regularly struggle to get goyim to take seriously.
i want to make it clear that im not mad at you, op. disagreements on the internet tend to spiral and get out of hand very quickly because people assume the worst about each other, and this is not what i want - what i want is for people to see all of the horrible things hussie has done and acknowledge it, because homestuck is rife with his bigotry. i value knowledge above all things and i just want you to understand why this sort of joke is unproductive and why merely deleting criticism won’t make it go away.
“death of the author” does not work in situations where many aspects of the media are direct products of the author’s hatred. by saying that someone else made this, you are dismissing all of these aspects of homestuck. the reality of the situation is that these things are intrinsically a part of homestuck, and the author, no matter who you joke that it may be, is responsible for all of this antisemitism, ableism, pedophilia, racism, homophobia, and fatphobia (among other things).
we are begging you (the general you, not specifically you, OP) to acknowledge that homestuck is not a good thing to inherit, and that by making jokes like this, you are implying that you value consuming media over the safety of jewish people, people of color, and disabled people. besides, i’m sure that toby fox doesn’t want homestuck, anyway. he’s cultivated a much greater legacy for himself.
