I think Vriska was definetley set up to be a controversial character, but I think it was more of the fandom response at the time that made them decide to do the author-self-insert proposing to Vriska bit. I find it hard to believe that Hussie genuinely hates any of her OCs in homestuck given how much care was put into writing them, I think it's more getting irritated with misinterpretations. One of my friends who was in the fandom back in like 2013 literally told me that they didn't read the actual comic as a teenager and got into it through comic dubs and fan depictions of the characters, and that this wasn't uncommon at the time. So you had a lot of fans who did not actually read the comic, which I think would be pretty frustrating as an author.

@sirlywebmester I don't think Tavros' personality changed, I think he was just (intentionally) put in more situations to push him, and couldn't handle it. Also, it isn't very surprising for thirteen year olds to be annoying. Most of the homestuck player characters would be annoying to deal with irl. I love Terezi, but if she ate my good colored pencils we would have some serious beef.