Thoughts on the "Slur Replacement Mod?"

I'm not particularly bothered by reading slurs, myself, even ones used against me, so I've never felt much need for it. But, I also can't begrudge anyone for not wanting to read that kinda stuff, y'know? If having to read through the same kinda bigoted bullshit you've dealt with in your life would deter you from reading the comic, then by all means, replace it. You don't miss out on too much.

(it's also made the comic a bit easier to recommend to people who aren't 100% about reading homestuck and might've been kinda thrown out of it by stumbling across a slur)

The censoring nudity mod is really funny though lmao. Someone in the other thread said it was to censor DD's ~*naughty*~ magazine??

the nudity censor is obviously to censor porn like the shit caliborn makes

I am sympathetic to people who use the slur replacement mod but personally, as someone approx the same age as the homestuck kids and autistic, my response to the slur replacement mod is honestly more "okay, are we going to make a slur replacement mod for all my peer interactions next?"

mod that adds more slurs

i think it's cool and valid if people want to use it, but personally i've never felt really offended (for lack of a better word) about the slurs in homestuck, even though multiple of them are ones used against me? i just thought the jokes were funny. though perhaps growing up in a very red state desensitized me lol.

but yeah not wanting to see slurs is totally okay, and honestly doesn't change the story or reader experience in my opinion

Good idea, so-so execution. The replacements it chooses are a little hokey, and frankly I think it's probably just not a great writing choice in general to replace every instance of one word with exactly one other. Contextually, sometimes a different insult works better!

Also, some specific instances need a toggle separate from the rest of the mod. I can get around characters throwing the r-word out too often, because that's just how Andrew Hussie talked at the time. But softening Vriska's ableist abuse of Tavros weakens that part of the story, where the fact that she sucks is kinda the point.

And I mean, come on. The "FUTURE arachnidsGrip" sequence is comedy gold.

That said, I maintain that it's a good idea, especially if you want it accessible to new readers, I think official releases might do well to implement this as a default option for newcomers. Frankly, up until this recent debacle with Steam and itch.io, I was fucking infuriated by censorship discourse, because it almost always amounted to dudes online getting mad at creators for doing what they want with their own work, and demanding it be changed. Like, that is censorship, you just think it isn't because you're making it more offensive or racy or adult instead of less. So my point is, anyone that gets mad at this mod in concept should be fired into the sun from a large cartoon cannon.

yeah I’m also of the mind that it’s made with a heart in the right place but how it goes about it can be a little… eeeh?

If it’s the only way someone can handle the comic then that’s fantastic I’m glad it exists I just wish it was done with a bit more tact and consideration for what is being said in that exact conversation and felt less like a Need to scrub everything clean yaknow?

Like I know there’s ppl out there but I don’t think I know a single person who is genuinely offended by Future Arachnids Grip like it’s just a funny accident and there’s no way the story wouldn’t point it out

future arachnids grip my beloved

I think it is completely fine to want to remove material you don't want to see. I'm in favor of it in games, I won't create a double standard for other media.

There is, however, a larger discussion, I think, about how people experience media that is problematic, and our tendency to want to sweep the problematics of it under the rug. The slurs are bad, but removing them doesn't change the overall ableism in Homestuck. Also, as it was pointed out by others, the execution is... Not the best. It proposes to remove slurs, but then also removes other stuff that are, categorically, not that. I understand the intention behind it, but eh. Could be better.

I use the slur replacement project for a readthrough i'm doing with some friends, because none of us want to say slurs. So i think it's useful.

Would Karkat still make the Future arachnidsGrip joke if he knew what it meant?

There is, however, a larger discussion, I think, about how people experience media that is problematic, and our tendency to want to sweep the problematics of it under the rug.

Yeah, like my experience is sometimes the discussions around the slur replacer mod are coming from a place of "not wanting to actually deal with and acknowledge the slurs" rather than actually talking about ableism and I am not benefited from people going "well we have a mod so we don't have to talk about the pervasive normalized ableism at the time and how it shows up in homestuck"

Seconding everyone that said "heart in the right place but execution was messy" and more. I personally am of the opinion that 'if its your first time reading it, you should read homestuck without the mod and in the future you can use it' because it's apart of homestucks history as a work, you shouldnt brush it under the rug or dismiss it as 'part of its time'. But it's like. Its tricky, talking about slur replacements and the nature of homestuck and such, I know I dont like it whenever I see the r word thrown around but I dont want to upright replace it and pretend it doesnt exist you know? Its complicated and difficult and I dont think theres a clear cut answer like what the slur replacement mod suggests.

I'm glad it exists, though I've never felt the need to use it.

I mentally process the slurs as dialogue: stuff our cast of edgy, poorly-socialised 13-year-olds would realistically say and think, due to being edgy, poorly-socialised 13-year-olds. It's thing. I heard much worse growing up; amongst themselves, early teens spray out "bad words" like a sodding firehose, and they don't really get that slurs are actually worse than swearwords until they're older. (Often due to the bad influence of their elders.)

But I totally get that not everyone can brush this off in the same way. It must be unpleasant to see your favourite characters tossing around bigoted insults that target you, and maybe I got off lightly - "autistic cat-girl"? Pfft. Try harder, Karkat. When I write Homestuck fic, I avoid slurs like the plague. I don't want to make anyone feel bad, even if that forces the dialogue to be out of character.

The awkwardness of some of the replacements in the mod isn't 100% a bad thing: it draws attention to the fact that something is being replaced, thereby keeping the slurs slightly about the rug but not zooming up to hit you in the face.

I think the content of the comic is important for context of when it was made (on that front, the animated show removing it will naturally create a very different tone). However.....
It's very difficult to get your friends to want to read it if you all don't say slurs and have to Skip over Karkat's ten billionth R-Slur while you all do voices. The Slur Replacement mod is really useful for that purpose- I don't want to be tripped up by a sentence and have to stop in the middle to come up with my own word, if I'm reading it out loud in a character voice, when the mod can do that for me! It may not be the intended way to read, but I think it serves it's purpose.
People bemoaning that it exists AT ALL sound a little bit like anti-SJW types tbh. Nobody has to install it if they don't want to, it's just there for people who do!

"LATER!arachnidsGrip" is funny as fuck

Glad it exists for people who use it. I think it's a little lacking for the reasons others have said, but its existence is good. Usually when I read homestuck if I'm voicing it I just replace the r-slur when it comes up as I see fit lol.

i think replacing the r slur with words like stupid, idiot, or synonyms is a pretty uncontroversial change since that's basically how they're used - the only reason it's that specific word rather than some other synonym for stupid is because of edgy internet culture of the time. and imo there's enough other cultural signifiers of that kind of internet culture that are overall more interesting and meaningful, plus even the comic itself grows out of that verbiage. whether the specific replacements are themselves good is a separate issue, but i think the concept itself is fine.

with some other things the mod changes it's different - as some people already pointed out, some of the characters are ableist, and it is part of the point. i think there's an argument to be made for example karkat calling nepeta autistic is not just hussie using autistic as an insult in place of a generic insult, but rather karkat being deliberately an asshole. plus, there's something to be said about karkat special interest in quadrants vantas calling nepeta autistic for being weird or whatever, especially with the parallels between nepeta's shipping and karkat's totally-not-shipping.

and i also will forever mourn the future arachnidsgrip joke.

generally speaking the mod doesn't differentiate between "tasteless casual ableism that made its way into the comic due to the specifics of the internet culture of the time" and "ableism existing as a plot beat/character point". and i kind of get why, it's hard to make hard lines about this stuff, so they ultimately made their own calls and let people decide whether this was something they wanted or not, which i think is a fair way to go about it.

Generally I have not found myself personally offended by some of the jokes removed. I feel like the f-slur is kind of a grey area that doesn't instantly demarcate bigotry. But in general I think that if it makes peoples readers experiences better, then go for it.

I do think there's a good point being made by Danya about how bigotry *as a character's trait* can be important, but even then like, there's enough supporting evidence that Karkat is an asshole without Karkat specifically (mis)using the word 'autistic', and ableism is generally not a key character trait of his unlike say Cronus where his not-even-slightly repressed bigotry and disdain for Mituna in particular is important to understanding him as the rancid character he is.

For myself, I have mixed feelings, but ultimately I respect anyone who chooses to use it. I can not commentate on how well it is implemented as I've not downloaded the mod myself, but I have spent some time thinking about the very concept of "Homestuck without the slurs" and the implications of creating such a thing at all.

I think I regard it in the same light do the "updating" and "editing" of certain works of classic literature. Personally, if I were to have a child, I would prefer not to read a version of Peter Pan that retains the slurs and racism against native peoples. I myself, would also prefer to read a version of Peter Pan in my free time that excludes all of that as well. The racism in that book truly drags down an otherwise enjoyable little story for me, to the point where I genuinely find it difficult to read at times.

There are also many other old books where one could reasonably "find and replace" a couple racial slurs and result in essentially the exact same story that simply doesn't jump scare you when they appear. In some cases, I imagine very few people would even notice the edits at all, even among those who had previously read the unedited version.

In that manner, I think there are quite a few places where the use of slurs in Homestuck that are unnecessary, add nothing to the story if not actively detract from it, and I would likely not even notice if they were removed.

But also I think it would be intellectually dishonest to pretend that the original "problematic" versions of these old works exist, and I don't approve of censorship or destruction of the original works. If you wish to truly engage with Homestuck as a work of art and critically and intellectually analyze the work for what it is (a comic made a specific era by a specific person with a specific place in history) you need to engage with it fully, warts and all.

BUT for someone who simply wishes to engage with Homestuck on a more casual level without language that they find at best distasteful and at worst active upsetting and detrimental to their experiences, I see no reason why they should not be allowed. to some degree I see it as no different then if someone where to read Homestuck with the typing quirks disabled, or if they watched the Lets Read Homestuck dubs instead of reading it by themself. both of these are a change from how the comic is "intended" to be engaged with, you are not getting the "Real Homestuck Experience" but I also see no reason to look down on people who make those choices, and find it odd and mean spirited to mock anyone who does.

(for the record, I have seen at least one person call anyone who uses the slur replacement project a "fake fan" who can't handle "real Homestuck" which I found to be very very silly and also was the catalyst to me contemplating this topic as much as I have)

In truth, if someone where to create a mod of Homestuck that edits out as much "problematic content" as possible while still retaining the original story, I would be interesting in checking that out, if only to see the results. How much of Homestuck can be altered while still being Homestuck? It is a question that fascinates me, leading to much pondering.

I am artistically intrigued by all transformations of Homestuck, from the dubs on youtube, to the reformatting that occurs in the physical print additions (the main factor preventing me from going on at length about how much I adore the print additions is the awkwardness of taking photographs of every page that delights me)and in time the upcoming Homestuck animated series, if that project gets off the ground. in turn I feel similarly to the numerous fan rewrites and alternate endings.

Essentially, this was an extremely long winded way of saying that despite not yet having figured out how to properly install the mod and read through the altered take on the comic, I still managed to have a lot of long and debatably useless thoughts on the matter.