re: yiffy's name and child abuse

homestuck proper also has this weird relationship with child abuse as a theme in the sense that it is both used for comedy and at the same time treats it seriously. like, the whole thing with dave's childhood is that it's both presented as a joke and genuinely fucked up. i think the thing about yiffy's name is that yes, it is a joke, but it's also a genuine commentary about how yiffy's existence is selfish on jade's part: not just towards rose and kanaya, but also towards yiffy herself! like, part of the point is that everyone is having all this drama about yiffy and her existence and yiffy just fucking hates all these people. it's a throughline of candy that all the adults have their own bullshit that ultimately hurts their children - who none of them really treat as like, people. that's why vriska is like "wow ok fuck these guys" and just takes the kids. the theme of like, child rights and the treatment of children has always been an undercurrent theme in homestuck, considering it is a story about children and growing up and has a cast of largely unsupervised thirteen year olds, so it makes sense that in the world where everyone gets together and has children because That's What You're Meant to do none of them take their children seriously as like, people. roxy has a kid just because that's been her childhood dream resulting from her last woman on earth complex, john is a deadbeat who's at his most excited about his son when he learns that he, too, can play the Death Game, tavvy's situation is, well, tavvy's situation, rosemary is literally just raising Vriska 2 for shits and giggles, and yiffy was named yiffy. and, yes, in part this is a commentary on the concept of "fankids", how often people who make said fan kids only make them as an accessory to whatever ship they like instead of treating them as real characters, but it's also a continuation on the themes of the original homestuck - children's relationships with their parents and how children fail to see their parents as people, parents also fail to see their kids as people.

i fully believe yiffy will turn a new leaf of child liberation in homestuck considering her thing so far seems to be really pissed about everything and also the person who so far treated her with the most kindness and talked to her like another person instead of a point to bring up to a divorce lawyer or a conciliation prize for a failed marriage is another child also victimized by being a child of a bunch of gods who rose to godhood as teenagers.