Disability in Homestuck

So, I love Homestuck, despite its faults. And I really do mean that! It is, without a doubt, one of my favorite stories of all time. I will defend its merits as a unique and emotionally powerful piece of art. And because of that, I like recommending it to people! But there's two major caveats I always have to give, for its ableist and racist content. Which, y'know, sucks. As a disabled fan, I wanna give my perspective on Homestuck's ableism problem, and how it presents disability in general.

There's the obvious stuff like the frequent use of the r-slur, and then Vriska's.... entire relationship with Tavros. I think the scene of her bullying him to crawl up the stairs is the worst scene in Homestuck. I'd also argue that Terezi's disability is used more as a joke or a punchline way more often than not, and any real problems she has with it are barely explored. That said, I do wanna give credit for the storylines later about how she considers it an integral part of her identity, and regrets having it cured... there's good stuff there, even if it's not quite perfect.

I also take grievance with Vriska basically not being presented as disabled like, at all? It, really never comes up in the story aside from one gag about a roboslap. I think the Vriska route in Pesterquest did a good job showing her struggle with dyspraxia from her injuries, but even today in the main comic, it's really not been explored much.

We've also got my personal second least favorite part of Homestuck, the dancestors! I think there could be something quite interesting with them, they have a lot of potential! I honestly am a huge fan of Mituna and all the little details of his story. It's just hard to stomach that, especially as a person with POTS, most of Mituna's screentime is spent on jokes about him falling down and hurting himself... great. There's Rufioh's horsebody, throwing around cripple, the whole thing on if Latula's lack of scent is a real disability... it's rough.

The thing that still really stings about this is that it just feels so deliberately mean spirited. It feels malicious. And Hussie has never really apologized for it! In fact, in the book commentary for my personal nomination for Worst Scene In Homestuck, Hussie doubles down on the ableism, says Tavros deserves it. This was only a few years ago.

Homestuck is so important to me in so many ways, I love it dearly, I will sing its praises, I will recommend it to people, but I can't help feeling really bitter that at worst, it sort of seems to hate people like me. I'd like to talk about some other perspectives on this from other Disabled folks!

I also wanna say, I love the current team and what they're doing, and I really hope that there's some consideration for disability or disabled characters with where we're going next. It would go a long way to easing some very old wounds.