Ly'lac of the Final Applause is Black

As a non-black person I don't have anything to add other than I think your analysis is so correct.

Well, I guess the only thing I have to add is that I hate how the meaning of an allegory can be so obvious yet people will still deny that interpretation. Like those ppl are the very thing the scene is commentating about :/ something something media literacy and racism idk

Oh and I guess the other thing was that I remember seeing a screenshot of a tweet by someone who is black, and I think is in the writing team?? Saying that "why are aliens are always white," and when I read that, it affirmed in my mind that Ly'lac is black. Like yes I remember seeing Ly'lac for the first time and noticing she has dark skin, and making that mental note for myself that it could possibly be PoC-coding, but after seeing that tweet I figured that Beyond Canon is 100% going to spell it out that Ly'lac IS specifically a black alien.

as a black person and a person who’s been in the HS fandom since 2016 I’ve seen and experienced racism in the HS Community for as long as I can remember.

I remember hearing about the “Feeling Caucasian" panel being changed for the fandom going as far as to attack each other over whether or not their favourite characters were somehow POC.

racist fans were using the panel as an excuse to attack PoC fans and fans with PoC headcanons And don’t even get me started on hussie saying he “consider the kids a-racial.the only race they obviously definitely arent is black.which is very racist of me.” And honestly if I were to say hussie doesn‘t see black people as PEOPLE. him and the fandom see our culture as props.

They call Gamzee “black coded“ because his dad isn’t around and a “Stoner” which is just racist no matter how you put it and gamzees whole thing with chucklevoodooes. yeah they steal our religions and make it demonic BUT NOOOO THEY CANT BE BLACK. they make Dave/Dirk a rapper stealing our music they can’t be BLACK Etc etc.

I’m honestly surprised we’re finally being treated as people and Not props especially With hussies track record with black people being represented in his comics. I hold on hope and pray we aren‘t made out as some joke (again) and actually get the right representation we’ve been wishing for. <3

I definitely think the writing team is going to do a much better job of finally treating Black homestuck fans as like actual people in the community and not just as a prop or joke lol. I have said before in other spaces that I think Homestuck has always had an issue with trying to do poor race related allegories that fall flat because they're not written with Black people in mind at all, and are on some "Zootopia" levels of race allegory. I hate shallow stories about race like that because people always want Black fans to just accept whatever slop is given to them regardless of if it even relates to their personal experiences or anything they've even experienced in real life.

Being black and into Homestuck before just kind of felt like walking on eggshells because you couldn't be "too" black without some weirdo asshat coming into your replies or comments or dm's wondering why you're headcanoning the characters as Black and lecturing you about who is and isn't "black coded" and telling you that your personal headcanons based off of your personal culture is wrong and how they know better etc. It's exhausting and so to see that one experience represented through Ly'lac and the Satyr forum is really refreshing IMO.

I think this is just a better allegory then the troll rebellion as well, because In my opinion I feel like the writers just didn't go as far as they could when writing the troll rebellion stuff, and they also just don't focus on it as much as they should. And if you're going to place Karkat and Kanaya in the spot of marginalized people and literally have them fight against a genocidal fascist then you should probably just go all in instead of just pussyfooting around the subject.

Damn, that flew RIGHT over my head, but re-reading it now, you're so right. I can't think of any better interpretation of "If there was any character that could be a nymph it'd be the blue one."

it is like. really kind of embarrassing how many white trans people immediately went to "oh this is about transness" about the nymph headcanon bit. come on.

i'm a fat dumbass because i read this part and thought "this has to be a commentary on something but i cant figure out what it is" and seeing this now im like fuuuuuuuuck thats so obvious why didnt i realise

Yet another black homestuck lol. I don't really have any personal ancedotes about racism in fandom (thank GOD) but i AM very much aware of it. it always felt weird, being surrounded by white people. i try to not pay attention to it all but that shit's like an ever looming spectre. like. kind of a non-sequiter, but in one of my favorite video games, anthology of the killer, there's like tons of thinkpieces about how the protagonist's situation of like being constantly persecuted by murderers only to be warped via shitty movies INTO a murderer and just having to deal with that (mutating from proximity to murder to it's cause, it's source) and the transgender angle to all of that (and it is a valid take! i like that headcanon!) but like sometimes i feel like the only one who rlly noticed the whole like. racial angle to it all. did you know the most murdered demographic of people are black men???? do you know that while i was trying to find the stats for black women i kept seeing shit that was like "oooooooooo black people murder more"??????????????? she canonically doesn't trust the police cmon. anyways that bit about lylac and gumby reminded me of that... i should probably read post-canon.

WAIT OMG I JUST REMEMBERED. remember when there was controversy over roxy's pesterquest sprite *gasp* HAVING BLACK FEATURES??? like. i saw the sprite edits and everything. all because they can't handle roxy having actual texture in her hair instead of it just being a shape :/ like come on you already got bobcut rose what else do you WANT. (i am right and true when i say the best way to view rose's hair is as an afro btw)

Something interesting about this Ly'lac being Black thing is that it kind of means Rose is also Black because she's put all of her thoughts and feelings and projected hard to deal with problems onto this race that she's created for the game between her and Dirk. And so, the Nymph's have obvious features that relate to Rose as we the readers know her. They look like squiddles, they're purple, they have a gothic theme etc. But there's other aspects about each Nymph that we've seen that don't so much relate to Rose as knew her, but that add more to her IMO. They recontextualize her as Black in a way by giving her a space to vent frustrations she might not have been able to.

The Nymph's, for one, not only exist in a pretty gendered society where things are strictly female, but they are also an under-represented class of people in a different way then women are. It's not that all of media is just about men but that there are barely any Nymphs around. Ly'lac's a girl, and there are plenty of girls in the media she watches, but NO satyrs which I feel is what makes it a distinctive racial allegory and not one that's only about the gender of the characters.

And if Rose added this dilemna to her species it begs to question why? We can see she added all sorts of things that are obvious projections of her own childhood trauma onto these cute little Nymph's so what does it say about Rose that being a "Nymph" is akin to race and not necessarily just gender? Food for thought.

Im kinda shocked that this wasn’t like Well Established when the fish with squidlocs went to talk to her friend and the first thing she says is ”grand rising queen“

When reading this part I didn't thought it really meant anything but your interpetation of Ly'lac being black makes a lot of more sense instead of it just meaning nothing.

Good post!