> Engage in confrontational debates.
Homestuck's fanbase argues about everything. And we do mean everything, listing all the points of contention would take up most of this page.
Characters
- The trolls in general; to some, ensemble darkhorses even before they were really introduced who add depth to the strip, to some a pointless distraction that slows down the main plot.
- Vriska is easily the most divisive character in the comic due to her antagonistic personality and growth into a prominent Anti-Hero character, even compared to other trolls. Many love her moral complexity and find her need for power and guidance sympathetic, while others think she went way too far to be likable, particularly when it comes to her abuse of Tavros or her murder of Aradia. The Character Shilling she received after her Karmic Death was retconned furthered this divide, as some fans believed she was just as awesome as other characters claimed while others thought it removed the complexities of her character by painting her as an unambiguous hero. According to Word of God, this was all fully intentional.
- Eridan nearly matched Vriska after his murders of Feferi and Kanaya, crippling of Sollux and destruction of the Matriorb, which was the hope for the survival of the whole troll race. He became both Draco in Leather Pants and Ron the Death Eater at the same time.
- Gamzee is a fairly divisive character, especially given that much of the unfortunate events that occur happen indirectly because of his involvement. It certainly doesn't help that he killed one of the biggest Ensemble Dark Horse characters in the series. Most of this debate hinges on whether his Parental Neglect makes him sympathetic enough or whether his murderous rampage was his own doing or the result of Lil Cal's mind control. This only became worse when a sober Gamzee beat Terezi in response to her stabbing him, even after she started apologizing; while many still don't see sober Gamzee as the "real" Gamzee due to the mind control theory, the Domestic Abuse crossed the line for many fans to ever care about him. In a possible nod to the fandom, a Running Gag has developed since then of characters in-universe saying things along the lines of "yeah, fuck that guy," which has only made this divide stronger, as Gamzee fans feel he's become a wasted character in favor of Take That, Scrappy! jokes while Gamzee haters naturally find them well-deserved.
- The Pre-Scratch Trolls' introduction caused a lot of mixed opinions, especially since outside of Meenah, Aranea, and to a lesser extent Kurloz, they contribute little to the greater story. Some fans feel that they're an unnecessary addition to an already large cast and hate how they serve no real narrative purpose other than fanwank. Many haters feel they encompass a lot of Act 6's complaints (the cast getting too large, the pacing slowing down, and the plot bloating unnecessarily). Others like them for what they are, minor characters with great designs, presented in a well-put together walk around, with a number of smart fandom nods, and they further exemplify Homestuck as a conversation between reader and author. That said, the Walkarounds are generally agreed to be impressive with Homestuck really going the extra mile with the game function, art, and music, but there is debate about whether all that time and effort was well-spent.
- Aranea was popular when introduced, but when she revealed her plan and killed Jade, opinions immediately diverged.
- In regards to Aranea herself. Some hate her for the murder, her attitude, especially her smugness, and her insistence on justifying her actions. Others think she's a neat villain whose methods are understandable if extreme. Then of course there are those who take these to either extreme.
- In regards to The Reveal. Some feel it's a brilliant use of Bait the Dog with extremely subtle foreshadowing (her fear of irrelevance, the fact that she's never been playable, and certain conversations with other trolls). Others feel it was an Ass Pull meant only to throw a wrench in the plot and shake things up.
- Then after all of this she goes missing with the narrative pointedly not making her a Chekhov M.I.A.. It's either Laser-Guided Karma in a suitably meta way wherein the one who wanted the spotlight is dropped from the story or it's one of the comic's biggest cases of They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character.
- Alpha Kids:
- Roxy initially fit this trope with her drinking habits. Some found her hilarious, while others felt that an underage alcoholic wasn't humorous at all. She later averted this trope with her Character Development, which focused on her dependence with alchohol, and focused on her going sober as well as becoming overall more mature as a result.
- Jake English. Some fans see him as a lothario, even though in reality he's just a big dork, and on top of that he's been subject to derision since he pretty much ignored Jane's feelings for him and only talked to her about his own problems.
- Dirk got this mostly during the first half of Act 6. Some fans believed he was a clever individual and good friend who was always looking out for his friends best interests when they couldn't see it themselves. Others however saw his behavior as self-centered, manipulative, and abusive, as he decided to make choices for others because he thought it was what they wanted, and people accused him of forcing Jake into their relationship which was backed up by statements he said later on. Bringing up the actions of his Auto-Responder, an AI based upon his own personality, only made things worse as some would say they didn't matter while others would believe it represented Dirk himself as well. The shipping side of things didn't help matters either, as him being gay got him a number of fans on that alone. This lead to Jane to get attacked for just having feelings for Jake and celebrations when she couldn't confess to him. Then when Dirk broke up with Jake, many people went to his side and bashed Jake for not being a good boyfriend despite Jake himself wanting to break up as well. These actions would draw the ire of both Jane and Jake fans regardless of their own shipping opinions. After the Trickster arc, opinions of him on all sides quieted down due to Dirk admitting his own faults.
- Jane Crocker. She's become a victim to Die for Our Ship, being the girl who stands in the way of the more popular Jake/Dirk relationship, which in turn made a bunch of people root for her to go against that trope. However, shipping reasons aside there's the debate on Jane herself. Some feel she's an adorable character who's really trying at life only to get beaten down, making her The Woobie. Others think she's the least interesting of the 8 kids, and there isn't enough to her outside of the love-triangle and turning evil. Jane is the least developed of the kids and people either wish she had more too her, or just feel that she just never was as endearing as everyone else.
- Caliborn has become one, with some fans going so far as to claim that writing a sexist character makes Hussie himself sexist. And while most see him as a Love to Hate character, a few see him as a Hate Sink.
- Calliope has both her fans and detractors. Some fans love her dearly, but others think she's bland and not compelling.
- Dave's Brother was an Ensemble Dark Horse for his crazy feats, up until the comic confirmed him to be canonically abusive. Fan opinion split between those who simply hate him for being an abusive ass and those who go with the interpretation that Caliborn messed with his mind (which was discussed in-universe). Then of course there's the debate over the abuse reveal; whether it's a chilling (and well set up) Cerebus Call-Back to the comedy of the earlier acts or a botched attempt at Mood Whiplash and a clumsy handling of delicate subject matter.
- The Squared Sprites, starting with whether or not it was a good idea to introduce 2 new characters right as the comic was ending.
- Jasprosesprite^2 is either a great addition to the class, and a fun inversion of Rose's personality, or a grating waste of both Jaspersprite and Pre-Retcon Rose. Her fans find her hilarious and her haters find her annoying and creepy in a similar vein to Cronus.
- Davepetasprite^2 has fans who love them and find their speech about loving oneself and their interactions with Arquiusprite to be some of the most heartwarming moments in the comic. Their haters resent that Davepetasprite^2 is just a huge waste of Nepeta and Davesprite, especially since Nepeta had just been revived and feel that their potential in the fight with Lord English was largely squandered.
Anything else
- Was Act 5 Act 1 what gave the comic well-done new blood in the form of the trolls, or poorly-written drama and romance plots that's the first nail of the comic's coffin and sidetracked the original heroes for too long? There's even a small but vocal group who thinks that the trolls are all there is worth reading to the comic, enough to skip straight to Act 5. The trolls continue to be divisive, but not as much as they were back when Act 5 was in progress.
- Aradia and Sollux's relationship. It's presented ambiguously enough that it isn't clear what they have/had, which leads to a lot of arguing over it. Are they matesprits (or were previously)? Are they moirails? Or have they always been just friends? There's evidence that leads to all three. And then there's Feferi's involvement in it. Were her and Sollux meant to be matesprits all along? Did he only get together with her to fill the void Aradia's death left or because he found her similar to how Aradia once was? Unless Hussie gives a straightforward answer, this subject will never be truly resolved.
- Act 6 as a whole. Is this a satisfying continuation that plays around with what was known about the setting, or is it what ruined the whole story? Managing to trump even Act 5 in length in page count and taking even longer time-wise thanks to a number of hiatuses does not help this at all.
- Rose and Kanaya becoming canon, as of The Big Damn Kiss in A6I3. Some fans are joyful that it has finally become canon - especially the Rosemary shippers, and some fans do not like it at all - shipping reasons or otherwise.
- Rose developing a drinking problem. One side felt it added some great laughs, and also a certain sadness to Rose who admitted to doing it as a sort of twisted reminder of her mother, setting her and Roxy as no so different. Others feel that the whole thing's out-of-character, a waste of time and just another reason to make pointless drama in the comic that could be easily solved by other characters, who do nothing to help. Then the Retcon happened, and Vriska kicks her off the booze. Some are happy to see Rose back on her feet and functional again, while others feel the whole arc's been thrown out, and it was a pointless diversion (especially as that particular Rose has become Jasprosesprite^2, who's never really affected by her previous alcoholism).
- The Trickster mini-arc was yet another polarizing item. Either it was a funny distraction and nice nod to the fanartists, or just plain annoying and slowing down an already slow act. And then there was the "caucasian" thing...Caucasian?
- The pacing, with many fans thinking that the comic starts getting too drawn out and wastes time on pointless nonsense while many others still appreciate the emphasis on character conversations and development.note The fact that Hussie openly admited that he was in no hurry to get the comic done only served to fan the flames.
- The Retcon may be one of the most controversial things in the comic. Even the Trickster arc was just flash-in-the-pan crazy, while the Retcon had lasting ramifications. John unlocks the power he acquired and travels back at Terezi's behest to fix several of her mistakes in a way that changes the story rather than creating doomed timelines. For some, this was Homestuck's biggest Moment of Awesome with great flashes, great emotional resonance and a foreshadowed plot point that rings true with HS's themes of fate, temporal shenanigans, and over-arching meta narrative. The Retcon pulled a number of depressed characters back on their feet: Terezi left her abusive relationship, Rose was kicked off alcohol, Vriska returned to life, and everyone else was happier and more functional. For others this was the single worst thing to happen with the comic and a way for Hussie to just hit the Reset Button on everyone. Tossing away all the character development, giving the characters quick fixes to their problems, and throwing a wrench into established pairings. Part of the debate was whether or not this change invalidated large chunks of Act 6 or just tweaked them and the rest played out like we read it. Then there was the arguments over Vriska coming back and there now being two: was this outcome a great compromise between Manipulative Bastard Vriska and Took a Level in Kindness Vriska, or were either (or both) incarnations just insufferable or useless. The fact that this period of Homestuck was heavy with pauses hurt the pace as fans grew tired of waiting to see what had changed.
- Dave and Karkat getting together, a controversial outcome of the already controversial retcon. On the one hand, many fans were happy with it, being one of the most popular pairings and viewed by many fans as a great friends-to-lovers plot. On the other hand many fans hated the pairing either because it sinks a number of previous ships or because they feel that the ship had a bad case of Strangled by the Red String with little build-up. Then there's the debate over the ship itself and whether it's well-displayed or if the comic is far too ambiguous about it (the latter viewpoint being held both by detractors of the ship who feel it's badly written and fans who felt that for a couple they haven't had all that much interaction). Finally, there's Jade's role in it where she comes along and may or may notnote have made the relationship polyamorous as seen by the ending and the credits. This won a few of the detractors over who thought it was a neat compromise and cool that Homestuck tried its hand at a poly relationship. Others feel it was an even bigger case of Strangled by the Red String and a cop-out for the Dave/Karkat pairing.
- Upon Meenah/Vriska becoming canon, there was a field in the fandom that celebrated the two getting a happy ending after a lot of buildup and chemistry, and another that thought it was out of left field and thought it was a Crack Ship at best. Furthermore, there was a general understanding by the fandom that no one aged in the dream bubbles. Thus, the essentially-nineteen Meenah had hooked up with Pre-Retcon Vriska, who died at thirteen. The two breaking up almost immediately afterward only furthered the fires.
- The Omegapause. Some say it's excusable, due to Hussie needing a slight bit more time to prepare the finale updates and being busy with Hiveswap. Others say it's inexcusable, given how absurdly long the Gigapause was and the fact that Hussie has a whole studio dedicated to making Hiveswap. Not helping matters is that the previous hiatus (The Gigapause) had Paradox Space to tide fans over. It's absent for the Omegapause due to its difficulties in funding.
- Act 7. While it's undeniable that it's beautifully animated, it leaves tons of open threads. Fans are divided over whether the ending should have been more conclusive. The credits sequence revealing more details on the status of many characters did ease some tensions, but the subsequent "post-canon" content from The Homestuck Epilogues onward has only spurned more wars within the fandom.
- Out of all the Toblerone rewardsHuh? , the most controversial one is the apparent canonization of June Egbert, an interpretation of John as a transgender woman. On one side, many fans, especially trans women, loved the idea of the comic's protagonist being canonically trans, and defended this interpretation by showing many scenes from the comic that gain more meaning under this interpretation (such as an Easter Egg in Alterniabound where John resembles Vriska). Another side considers this dubious canon, given Hussie's nature as a Trolling Creator and the fact June has yet to appear in any official Homestuck content, the closest being an image of Rose painting John's nails in Pesterquest. Within the LGBT Fanbase, the debate over June can get extremely heated. Fans who consider June irrefutable canon will assume anybody referring to the character as "John" is misgendering and deadnaming her, while other fans refuse to accept her as solid canon, either out of transphobia, because they headcanon John as a trans man, because they don’t consider any of the post-main comic content as hard canon, or because they simply don't want to give credit for representation that isn't in the work. To avoid the ire of either side of the debate, some fans just refer to the character as "Egbert" and use they/them pronouns.
