Racial: When all black homestucks hang their heads in shame bc of the voice actors

In andrews own statement addressing the retconned glitch text where john claims dave's bro is "a white guy [...]" he said the following:

"First of all, here’s what’s true: I was being quite serious when I said I viewed these kids as non-racial from the start. It is a fact! In the earliest pages, when people asked what race they were, I just said 'N/A.' 'Don’t care.' 'You decide.' "

Obviously, many took this with a grain of salt as in the comic itself, all of the textually white people in the comic ( ie. bing crosby, colonel sassacre) are depicted as being #ffffff white, whereas the the textually black characters (ie. bill cosby, charles dutton, donald glover, snoop dogg, ETC.) are always shown with actual colored skin. The dissonance is apparent and regardless of intent from which we can only trust the word from the guy who actually made the comic, the casually white perspective that the comic is told from tells another story.

But he did say “you decide.” and to that end we, the readers, are deciding.

I DO think that they were written from a white perspective but to say that they HAVE to be white or "always were white" because of the way they act is fucking crazy.

Also we only have 3 VA's we didn't even get a jade VA did we?

Firstly,saying racism is worse if directed at one group over another is itself inherently discriminatory.You can say certain groups are targeted more frequently(correctly so),but that doesn't lessen how disgusting it is to discriminate against anyone. Anti white/black isn't at all the argument I made,and straight up misconstruing a point to shut it down like that doesn't encourage discussion,it shuts it down and makes it feel like nobody can have a different view.I don't believe that to be your intention at all,but it nonetheless comes off like this. It does distinguish them,as being obsessed to the point of trying to dictate how others show their race is itself discriminatory.I did NOT equate a reaction to racism to being racist.Treating it as if the characters can't be white just because it happens to be official is still being discriminatory.You brought up discussions,but you're attacking and twisting parts of it you disagree with.I think Squiddo's comment comes closer to getting the point across,because while we disagreed,they weren't being being hostile about it.How can anyone discuss anything if the other says or implies they're racist the moment they're views aren't perfectly matched?The stirring the pot comment may have been a bit catty and letting annoyance get the better of,however,so I will apologize for that.

Also in response to "canonizing",I will point out the difference between canon and official.

are you actually trying to both sides racism? Like. Calm down dude. There is a major lack of representation for black characters, there are a lot of racist people in the fandom, even outright nazi's who used to harass people for drawing homestuck characters as black. I can't even tell you how many times people have said 'Rose can't be black it says she's pale in this pesterlog' it's just excuses to be shitty. It's a genuine concern that there is not proper representation, but I also don't think it's the ultimate end of the world yet and I don't think it's appropriate to make a ton of assumptions at this point in time, since, I can't keep stressing enough, it's a god damn pilot

Literally not what I said.

@squiddo this was posted in a rp discord im in

and if someone already posted this because i took too long typing in the alt text then. Thats on me

Ahh okay, still, again, pilot and there are more characters. I would hope they'd reconsider casting before the series comes out.

@facade rereading what you said it seems like you're not really understanding the point. It's not just that there are racist fans it's that representation is good first and foremost, so we want people who aren't just white working on the production, and particularly as main characters, especially because this has been such a point of contention for so long, and been such a controversial matter in general, particularly given the 'waving aside race entirely' thing is more just an excuse to not really think about it (which leaves you open to putting your own bias into the writing, which reinforces making characters 'white coded' and eventually gives ammo to the people who want to attack anyone who wants to headcanon otherwise) It would certainly help a lot for all of those things, and also not hurt in any way whatsoever to have one of the main 4 be a POC at the very least.

dont got any horses in this race so i'll say nothin'. there might be a chance the va's are changed though judging by how that happened with the hazbin hotel pilot, but who knowz..

@transientlotus You are bringing the discussion away from the initial topic and bringing in very large scope controversial arguments that are upsetting people. If you want to continue to talk about the VAs and how it will affect POC readers then maybe take a moment away from the topic and reply after time has passed. If you continue bringing the topic to larger inflammatory talking points then this forum is not the place for it.

an adaptation like this feels like it would the perfect opportunity to depict literally any of the kids as not-white in a way that doesn't need to be clarified through out of universe statements about 'aracial'-ness. and i think it will be a genuine loss if they do nothing with that chance (especially considering those first few acts have a very high concentration of slurs + racism:actual wordcount).

let's hope for a recast soon then.

not trying to be annoying, or act like I'm better than anyone else, but I just want to figure out if it's morally wrong to be excited for this pilot?

lot of replies on here is just example #8321093218 of homestuck fans hating black fans and deliberately misunderstanding black fans. can some of you shut the fuck up holy shit

genuinely fucking astounding how many of y'all are missing the fucking point here. when fans of colour complain about people acting like aracial characters are default white its not your goddamn place to say well they were always kind of white >.<! step off

sure, yeah, maybe andrew writing from her experience as a white person will relay itself into their characters but this is seriously not the place to talk about it when a black fan is saying that white fans will turn this into another piece of ammo to say that the cast cannot be black. none of you have seen (or worse, you have and you dont think its a problem) the way that racist white fans will get when you dare to draw their blorbos as non-white, especially when they're very clearly black. it's fucking bad out there

if you're non-black, especially if you're white, its so easy to just ... not contribute. lol. you don't need to argue against black folks stating their experiences. i apologise if i step over anyone here, especially as i myself am a nonblack poc but jesus fucking christ you guys

to the original subject:
if roxy lalonde isnt voiced by a black woman and if the megidos arent voiced by east asian (ideally japanese but hell i cant ask for anything out here) women it's fucking over. it's already a tragedy that neither rose nor dave have VAs of colour.

it's definitely disappointing that nothing has really ever been done to rectify the extremely fraught history of this stuff in the homestuck fandom and the comic itself. this would've been a fantastic opportunity to try to make some show of good will and while there's a lot of reasons one can pull up to justify why it didn't happen, it kind of just highlights the wound that has never meaningfully been tended to in any official way

The entire cast for the show is so painfully White

I hope they at least get more diverse with the trolls (afraid of what will happen with Gamzee and Meenah)

Also are we really having "white people also suffer racism" argument in 2025

i agree with timeisrestored that it is disappointing that they did not pick up the opportunity to underline the statement of race agnostic intent

it really does kind of shoot it in the foot

im also not sure if it would be worse if only gamzee and meenah are voiced by black VAs and damara by a japanese one or if they forego diversity in entirety since ive seen gripes about stereotypes a bunch before
i do not feel qualified to pass judgements on that unfortunately, ive just seen conflicting opinions (by poc) on it

i hope that they will at least consider a recast for the kids (tho i do think Toby as John is sensible on account of fandom history), and also that later characters are fully diverse without sticking to stereotypes

i have to admit that i did not really consider much for ethnicities when i first read the comic, and through projection and relating probably (at least indirectly? idk if thats phrased well) interpreted the kids as white
but i hope at least to since have learned more and i do really like a lot of poc interpretations of the characters
and some have fully stuck in my mental imaging as new base assumption

running the risk of overexplaining but i hope im not overstepping with this comment
crossing my fingers for the future