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.
