Prefacing the meat of this post with the disclaimer that I do really really love Homestuck!! It's a huge part of my life, even if I'm not super integrated into the fandom side of things, and I think about a lot of it on a daily basis. Genuinely it means so much to me, which is why I think about this critique so often.
Homestuck is not kind to aromanticism. Like at all. In most other senses, it was super great for queer rep!! I'm not saying it's not, but regarding aromanticism specifically.....
There are, arguably, three mentions of aromanticism in the entire comic. It first comes up with Kankri, as a part of the whole... satire of an SJW Tumblr user caricature that he is. Very much played for a joke, very much making fun of aromanticism.
The second is Jake, who calls for "No romantic stuff! No platonic stuff either!" in one of his discussions with tavrosprite, but again this isn't handled super well? It's very much framed as a self-destructive statement here, even though his experiences do actually resonate really well with me as an aromantic through an aromantic lens!! The conversation continues with tavrosprite talking him down from his declaration of aromantic (and aplatonic) intent and it's super heavily framed as though if that were his reality it would be inherently lesser. Obviously he's not canonically aromantic, not necessarily (though I still have my own personal headcanons about it, I recognize that they are not canon in any way), but he's still one of the only two even references to it in the original comic-- given he explicitly says he wishes there was a word for the no romantic stuff no platonic stuff feelings he was having.
I think the third one is the worst one, though? It's in the Epilogues-- and I need to put it on the record that I genuinely love the Epilogues. I think they're fascinating and they do what they set out to do really well. Yes, they're supposed to be difficult, and they're supposed to be upsetting to read! It's fun!
This statement, I do not think, is supposed to be interpreted as "difficult and challenging intentionally".
In the epilogues we get to find out that Callie is maybe-aromantic! Here's the quote: "[Roxy's] possibly aromantic skeleton alien monster girlfriend."
This is... like really bad, actually? Especially given that we never go on to wrestle with this queerness, unlike with the other parts of Callie's identity?
It's framing their aromanticism as the first in a list of progressively more inhuman statuses, and directly tying it to the romantic relationship Calliope's in. The implication, of course, being that aromanticism is inherently inhuman just as these other categories are. It is inherently othering to aromanticism as a whole, while also aligning one of the only two explicitly aromantic characters in Homestuck with a romantic relationship that goes on to be a major focus of their story without addressing the aromanticism at all.
Again, I love Homestuck very much, but I think there's a conversation to be had about the aphobia present in the comic and its contemporaries, as an aromantic fan.
CW: Mention of abuse, hateful femicide, incest
This entire thread is very interesting to me (aromantic/quoiromantic) because, while I won't deny any of the problems you're listing, the overall vibe I always got from Homestuck was that it was an aromantic or almost aromantic story.
Almost every romance we see in Homestuck 1 is playful rather than passionate, generally complicated, stressful and short-lived.
It may be a staple of romantic comedies that, if sufficiently dramatic, they end up looking like ANTI-romance advertising... It may be this problem in effect... But what I get from this story is that romance, particularly classical "over-intense" and often carnal romance, is the path to alienation, destruction and self-destruction.
In Act 4, the human kids starting to flirt with the trolls is a theme introduced explicitly in the conversations by Karkat, who sees it very negatively and tells them to stop (which, hilariously, reinforces the June/Vriska and Terezi/Dave flirting). June is lead to her "death" by Vriska, and learns the troll girl is responsible for the creation of their mortal enemy. Things don't end up much better for Dave.
The troll team cooperation is mostly a mess because of their constant romance sitcom, directly criticized by Spades Slick's gaze ("Goddamn kids always smooching each other"), and on the meteor, two of the main triggers for the Murderstuck arc ARE tied to romance: Eridan's unrequited incel fantasies come to the point of explosion, to the point where he challenges Sollux (who, himself, engages with Eridan because of a kind of pride as Feferi's suitor) then kill the girl he supposedly "loved", while Tavros and Vriska's unrelated almost-kismesissitude culminate in another duel with a lethal conclusion. You may even say that the final conversation between Vriska and Terezi, and the fact Terezi fails to murder Vriska in a prediction, and decides to kill her in the first timeline, are all rooted in their romantic tension.
Act 6 is famous for how much potentially non-platonic romance collapses into drama, and how particularly unhealthy these kinds of relationships can be. We see Dirk/Jake as this unhealthy association doomed from the start, with a lovable goofball/pileup of weaponized incompetence Jake paired with a very self-hating and manipulative Dirk, while Roxy and Jane are devoured by loneliness and complex feelings of attraction. Meanwhile, the spades rapprochement between Terezi and Gamzee (with Gamzee positioned in an obvious predatory role) is shown as the most toxic and nightmarish one, it's abuse 101. And Jade and Davesprite live and break their entire story offscreen, a story that doesn't seem to leave either of them the slightest bit relaxed or satisfied.
There's also the incestuous or pseudo-incestuous angle. Early on, the Harlbert and Strilonde siblings, ignoring their genetic ties, are interested in each other, but these attractions are revealed to be impossible, while it is indicated in the book commentary that Doomed Dave and Doomed Rose had a romantic relationship in their doomed "Calsprite" timeline. Memories that ended up in Rose, then in Jasprose, while Doomed Dave became Davesprite, then Davepeta. In one of the most uncomfortable conversations of the entire webcomic, Davepeta openly proposes Jasprose to date again. In parallel, mixed troll reproductive fluids are called "incestuous slurry", while Cherubs are said to "seek a partner who looks like their defeated opposite gender personality" (meaning that Caliborn, had he normally natured rather than stunted his growth, would have roamed the cosmos in search of a pseudo-Calliope as a romantic partner, basically looking for his sister to bone).
So what does Homestuck tell us with this? It seems deadset on depicting many intimate ties as unhealthy, too "inbred" in a sense. To me, it isn't accidental: it is part of the entire idea. It is part of a move to make romance in general feel disgusting by association.
Romance in Homestuck is not a complete nightmare either (in early Homestuck, Dad and Mom find each other and it is depicted as a touching romance, and of course Roxe x Kanaya is the poster child of successful, long-lasting love), but the overall landscape seems quite negative.
Consequently, I never thought Homestuck was SUPPORTING romance, quite the opposite, I perceived it as ATTACKING it.
Of course, attacking romance is not the same as being supportive (or even appropriate) towards aromantic people, but to me, it is worth mentioning, because I find almost direct REPULSION for romance here, a kind of feeling I know pretty well. And this is how I got this aromantic vibe from it. It resonates with me.
Read Alabaster here: https://mspfa.com/?s=236
CW: Mention of abuse, hateful femicide, incest
This entire thread is very interesting to me (aromantic/quoiromantic) because, while I won't deny any of the problems you're listing, the overall vibe I always got from Homestuck was that it was an aromantic or almost aromantic story.
Almost every romance we see in Homestuck 1 is playful rather than passionate, generally complicated, stressful and short-lived.
It may be a staple of romantic comedies that, if sufficiently dramatic, they end up looking like ANTI-romance advertising... It may be this problem in effect... But what I get from this story is that romance, particularly classical "over-intense" and often carnal romance, is the path to alienation, destruction and self-destruction.
In Act 4, the human kids starting to flirt with the trolls is a theme introduced explicitly in the conversations by Karkat, who sees it very negatively and tells them to stop (which, hilariously, reinforces the June/Vriska and Terezi/Dave flirting). June is lead to her "death" by Vriska, and learns the troll girl is responsible for the creation of their mortal enemy. Things don't end up much better for Dave.
The troll team cooperation is mostly a mess because of their constant romance sitcom, directly criticized by Spades Slick's gaze ("Goddamn kids always smooching each other"), and on the meteor, two of the main triggers for the Murderstuck arc ARE tied to romance: Eridan's unrequited incel fantasies come to the point of explosion, to the point where he challenges Sollux (who, himself, engages with Eridan because of a kind of pride as Feferi's suitor) then kill the girl he supposedly "loved", while Tavros and Vriska's unrelated almost-kismesissitude culminate in another duel with a lethal conclusion. You may even say that the final conversation between Vriska and Terezi, and the fact Terezi fails to murder Vriska in a prediction, and decides to kill her in the first timeline, are all rooted in their romantic tension.
Act 6 is famous for how much potentially non-platonic romance collapses into drama, and how particularly unhealthy these kinds of relationships can be. We see Dirk/Jake as this unhealthy association doomed from the start, with a lovable goofball/pileup of weaponized incompetence Jake paired with a very self-hating and manipulative Dirk, while Roxy and Jane are devoured by loneliness and complex feelings of attraction. Meanwhile, the spades rapprochement between Terezi and Gamzee (with Gamzee positioned in an obvious predatory role) is shown as the most toxic and nightmarish one, it's abuse 101. And Jade and Davesprite live and break their entire story offscreen, a story that doesn't seem to leave either of them the slightest bit relaxed or satisfied.
There's also the incestuous or pseudo-incestuous angle. Early on, the Harlbert and Strilonde siblings, ignoring their genetic ties, are interested in each other, but these attractions are revealed to be impossible, while it is indicated in the book commentary that Doomed Dave and Doomed Rose had a romantic relationship in their doomed "Calsprite" timeline. Memories that ended up in Rose, then in Jasprose, while Doomed Dave became Davesprite, then Davepeta. In one of the most uncomfortable conversations of the entire webcomic, Davepeta openly proposes Jasprose to date again. In parallel, mixed troll reproductive fluids are called "incestuous slurry", while Cherubs are said to "seek a partner who looks like their defeated opposite gender personality" (meaning that Caliborn, had he normally natured rather than stunted his growth, would have roamed the cosmos in search of a pseudo-Calliope as a romantic partner, basically looking for his sister to bone).
So what does Homestuck tell us with this? It seems deadset on depicting many intimate ties as unhealthy, too "inbred" in a sense. To me, it isn't accidental: it is part of the entire idea. It is part of a move to make romance in general feel disgusting by association.
Romance in Homestuck is not a complete nightmare either (in early Homestuck, Dad and Mom find each other and it is depicted as a touching romance, and of course Roxe x Kanaya is the poster child of successful, long-lasting love), but the overall landscape seems quite negative.
Consequently, I never thought Homestuck was SUPPORTING romance, quite the opposite, I perceived it as ATTACKING it.
Of course, attacking romance is not the same as being supportive (or even appropriate) towards aromantic people, but to me, it is worth mentioning, because I find almost direct REPULSION for romance here, a kind of feeling I know pretty well. And this is how I got this aromantic vibe from it. It resonates with me.
Read Alabaster here: https://mspfa.com/?s=236
... Yeah, I have absolutely no idea why each time I post, my text ends up with these weird tags I never asked for.
I'm just gonna wait for the arrival of the Edit function before correcting this.
In the meantime, could a moderator delete one of my messages? They are perfect doubles.
Read Alabaster here: https://mspfa.com/?s=236
Yeah a lot of the above. To go even further, troll romance is a parody of the very idea of romance itself, and so many people took it seriously that leprechaun romance shows up to re-parody it later on. You're supposed to see this byzantine, arbitrary society-and-government-enforced system and go "haha, that's so ridiculous!" - and every single thing that makes troll romance arbitrary and dumb applies to human romance in the exact same way. You're telling me you pick one person to mate with and live with forever and assign them the heart from playing cards, and this creates a binding religious ceremonial agreement that grants you government favor that can be retracted if ever broken for any reason? Human romance sure is weird!!!
An aromantic person like Jake might feel that he's just broken, but the truth is deep down inside he just isn't bound by this stuff, and his friends give him shit for it because they are stuck deep in their homes on the matter.
i totally agree with your opinions on jake and kankri as well as a lot a lot of the opinions in the replies, especially relating to jake.
personally, i really enjoyed seeing jake grapple with his identity as an aromantic person, and it helped me a lot to come to terms with my own aromanticity or however you call it. i didn't necessarily see it as something that was framed in a negative way; if anything, i considered it to be a really realistic depiction of how it feels, at least for me, to realize there is a part of you society has not yet adjusted to recognizing as normal. if that makes sense. it feels isolating and the framing of jake's whole arc of realizing he's aromantic (although i guess it's not canon that he is, but god damn he definitely is) worked a lot both due to being realistic to his character, especially during the whole shitshow everyone was going through during the dirkjake breakup, as well as being due to its actual depiction of. well. a queer character realizing they're queer in a way that isn't framed insanely positively.
with other queer characters like callie, their queerness is just shown through a simple "hey i go by they them now", but jake's was a lot more in depth and i really appreciated that display.
just wanted to add my 2 cents into this conversation. on another jake related note, i really dislike that he isn't able to explore his aromanticity unlike other queer characters. it feels like him being aromantic becomes sidelined and he just gets fucked over in every way possible by dirk and, later, jane. i wish that they would at least let someone be aromantic and just. not date people. :P
