#squarequeen

[ardenttheories]

squarequeen replied to your post: “Thank you for voicing your thoughts on the HS^2! I feel all the things...”:

Criticism is fair, but 1) I think characterizing the team as a cult is more reactionary than productive and 2) I’m reluctant to pass judgement until we see how this plays out further. Homestuck has a long history of subverting expectations, and I’d like to give the writers a chance to do so

It is highly reactive, but it is also a fair comment to make. They are an exclusive membership seeking to explicitly hurt and belittle the fandom as much as humanely possible while gaslighting them into believing it is their fault. 

I no longer have ANY hopes for Homestuck^2 knowing that it is run by people who think so lowly of the fandom that genuine fandom criticism and upset over the shoddy way triggers have been handled was struck back with a complete fucking removal of content warnings entirely for an absolutely useless “overall warning” on the FAQ page.

Let me repeat that. 

The Homestuck^2 writers saw that they were handling triggering content so piss poorly that people were complaining more and more, and their response was to remove all content warnings entirely for a general blanket warning in a completely separate page on the website.

People who genuinely want to read the comic but might be triggered by its content no longer have explicit warning of what’s coming up. They have to crapshoot it and hope for the fucking best. Or, as the website itself says - they have to get friends to read the fucking thing for them to tell them if its safe. 

This, of course, completely ignores the natural human phenomenon of congregrating around people who share similar traits with you. As in, in a singular friend group, there are likely to be shared triggers. Which makes this attempt to put the onus on the fans to protect themselves fucking impossible. (It also disregards people who don’t have friends that’re into Homestuck, but like, lets ignore that shall we?)

It, mind you, is not up to the fandom to read and relate the triggers in your content. You, as the author, have a responsibility to admit what could be triggering to your audience. If you force your readers to “read and find out”, you are putting them through an explicit form of torture that could quite literally lead to panic attacks, dissociative episodes, and breakdowns that could have easily been avoided. 

At what point, as an author, do you genuinely look at your fandom with such disgust that you decide

And then, of course, the icing on the goddamn cake, is this:

No, actually, it really fucking doesn’t. You can tell a challenging and organic story while keeping triggering content in mind. You can write an interesting and developed world without having to rely on the shock-horror of unfettered triggering material. At no point as a writer should you ever have to decide that triggering your fanbase is better than changing how a scene is composed and written. Because, frankly? If you find it so fucking hard to write triggering content in a careful and delicate way, you are not a good writer. It isn’t hard. You can still get the reality of it through while also treating it well (you know - the same way Homestuck did?). 

Audience responsibility is crucial, yes, but that’s why you provide fucking triggers per chapter so that your audience can more directly decide if what they’re about to read will be harmful for them. However, it is also crucial that as a writer, you aren’t writing triggering content so fucking badly that you are triggering your fanbase month by month over material they could have otherwise handled. 

This is how they have attempted to explain it. This reads like every other big company’s “we have a diverse team of people working on this project, so any racist/homophobic/abelist content involved has complete validity and cannot be argued against in the slightest” memo. If you prioritise artistic intent over the actual health of your readers, knowing that you struck a chord with your fanbase because of your realistic but delicate handling of triggering topics in the main comic, then... you’re honestly just a dick. 

And this post? This is merely one comment of many that I have made on this blog over the past few months. The ask originally commented on? That’s only one ask of several that I’ve received on the Homestuck Epilogues and Homestuck^2 detailing why it hurts to much, why it feels like a betrayal, and what exactly has changed from the original comic. This has been worsening for months. While I understand that Homestuck is about subversion, this is not subversion. After a point you have isolated so many of your readers that when you finally flip it turnways, nobody’s going to want to fucking read it. 

These people are explicitly making Homestuck^2 as painful and hard to read as they possibly can. They have seen people complain that they are handling sensitive topics badly and have now reacted in such a way that it is “our” fault for having spoken out. That we, having the audacity to say it was bad and needed to change, are to blame for their reaction. 

Maybe calling them a cult was reactionary. But it wasn’t a far fucking cry from the truth when you combine everything together. 

[deer-head-xiris]

hi deer (haha, i like that it sounds like "dear"); would you ever draw leia? either as OG rebel princess or badass resistance general? (i hope you've had a nice holiday season

I have drawn leia! she’s here on this post-

http://deer-head-xiris.tumblr.com/post/166457442430/from-the-sw-request-stream-thanks-to-all-of-you

and thank you, my holidays were lovely

[thetwilightroadtonightfall]

hi roadie. stars, moon, zodiac, and rain please :)

Hi!

Stars: How would you decorate a balcony for a night under the stars?

Lots of blankets and a bean bag! And maybe some light snacks, like a cheese platter or something

Moon: Do you prefer daylight or nighttime? Why?

Between!! It’s a short time frame, but at twilight (and at dawn), the sun’s not too bright, but it’s also not too dark. For me, it’s like…perfect visibility, perfect temperature. And I don’t know, I guess seeing the sunset and all the nice colours in the sky you can’t see in the daylight or at nighttime is just really therapeutic.

Zodiac: What’s your star sign?

Cancer

Rain: Best moment this week?

New year’s day was nice! I did that draw the squad thing for the chi crew, and it was just really nice to get back to drawing after a while of not doing it.

[masteraqua]

hey MA, just curious, but what's something you'd really like to see in kh3?? -mskairi

hooooo boy i guess i’ll start with the easy target

obviously i want kairi to be playable at some point i mean let’s be real. that said, i don’t need her to be a super skilled fighter like a lot of people seem to want—heck i think it’d be really interesting if it turns out she’s not very good at combat but goes through training anyway because she needs to be able to protect herself. which would also go hand in hand with my fav kairi headcanon: that she’s impulsive and only cares about powering her way through enemies using brute strength she simply does not have, at least not at first. imagine. imagine a smol princess of heart crudely swinging around a weapon twice her size with minimal accuracy but a preposterously high critical hit value. she literally had all the time in the world to learn to aim properly thanks to merlin’s deus ex magica* but instead all she did was practice hitting things harder. amazing.

besides that, i’m not giving up on treasure planet & atlantis worlds. they’re just too pretty and full of adventure to be wasted. also a couple other world-related things that i’ve been pining for are destiny islands as a fully explorable hub world now that we have nothing preventing us from going back there, and for the final world to be the ever elusive physical manifestation of kingdom hearts, whatever the heck that actually is. how cool would that be

[backwardsflow]

squarequeen replied to your post “really disappointed to see so many people on tumblr - even people i...”

this is a very valid critique and I agree that the joke in question is def indefensible, but i also feel like it's worth mentioning that jason greene is not cis: http://www.thefader.com/2017/08/04/freckle-caleb-gallo-interview

thanks for sending me this interview. i’ve edited the post to be more accurate.

[rapunzelcrossing]

squarequeen replied to your post “ok now i cant decide if i want cheri or papi in corona what do you...”

PAPI HAS LITTLE STRIPED ARMS AND LEGS :)

you make a very good point!

[hayner]

tagged by @deuxroses and @3ddoctor. thank you!! 💫

1. Are you named after anyone

i think my dad said i was named after jacqueline kennedy lol

2. When is the last time you cried?

actually this morning i got teary-eyed bc i was thinking about how my mom’s number one priority is my health as i was sitting on the toilet akfhkjadsfh

3. Do you have kids?

no

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

yea, sorta

5. What’s the first thing you notice about people?

their face

6. What’s your eye colour?

dark brown

7. Scary movies or Happy Endings?

happy endings

8. Any special talents?

nah

9. Where were you born?

california

10. What are your hobbies?

drawing, making lame edits on photoshop, crying about kh

11. Have you any pets?

nope :(

12. What sports do you play / have played?

i played badminton in high school for one year

13. How tall are you?

5′1″

14. Favourite subject in school?

art maybe? 

15. Dream job?

ahh.......voice actress, director, or editor would be fun but a pipe dream tbh

tagging (you don’t have to do this btw!!): @samoyeed, @friends-in-my-heart, @chikai-ri or @squarequeen, @moonjellies, @fullmetalowlchemist, @healen

[the-transfeminine-mystique]

7 selfies!!!!!!! i was tagged by @audrey-scorne and i kept forgetting but here they are

i want to see so many ppl’s selfies but um @boriqueers @lesbianlenin @bottombinch @squarequeen @doseofdavis @avagardra @confidentialqueer @demigay and honestly like all my mutuals y’all are so beautiful

[the-transfeminine-mystique]

@squarequeen didn’t you come up with a weird categorization system kinda similar to this

Here’s the new alignment chart for the gays

[rnjrsupportsquad]

accent !

oooo thats 10/10!!! I’ll try to do it tonight (in like 25 pages of jane eyre) 

[nortmare]

kairi, xemnas, zexion :)))

Kairi: Tell me about one of your childhood friends.i’ve literally known her my entire life because our parents set us up to be friends right away. we used to hang out on the streets a lot and talk about our day, she started smoking at 14, got out of it at 16 and nowadays she helps elderly people in her job Xenmas: What’s your ultimate goal in life?i guess to have a great time? i wanna be able to have fun everyday  Zexion: What’s your favorite book?

i haven’t read any book in a loooong time but i guess the children of hurin comes close enough ? 

[backwardsflow]

really disappointed to see so many people on tumblr - even people i respect and admire - promoting the gay and wondrous life of caleb gallo. rant under the break.

i was willing to let the “sometimes things that are expensive are worse” meme slide, because that gained popularity from an out-of-context clip. but now i’m seeing more shit about gallo than even when that meme started, so i feel like i gotta explain my feelings about it. keep in mind that i haven’t watched the whole series, but unless there was some massive turnaround past episode 3 i’m not willing to give it another chance.

it boils down to this: caleb gallo treats its only trans character like garbage. 

there’s a main character in the series named freckle, who is lifted from previous work by the same actor (i’ll get to that in a second). freckle is described as genderfluid in the show and is generally referred to with he/him pronouns by the main cast. freckle themself consistently presents feminine and refers to themself with female-coded terms like “auntie” or “momma”. the main plot of one of the episodes involves a supporting character wanting to “go bi” and asking caleb gallo to set him up with “a genderfluid guy”. gallo of course plays matchmaker with him and freckle. the treatment of freckle by the rest of the cast made me think that freckle might have actually been a trans woman with unbelievably shitty friends.

the treatment of freckle by the writers of the show, however, is much worse. of the episodes i watched, freckle is primarily used for one of two jokes. either freckle is portrayed as a sassy, over-confident spectacle bordering on drag performance, or freckle is portrayed as a decadent seductress who cares about little more than sex. now obviously these traits in isolation aren’t necessarily bad, provided they’re handled well. but this is a comedy show, and the jokes play out in ways that veer too close to transmisogynistic stereotypes. i wanted to love the confident transfeminine character, but the show repeatedly treats freckle like every other poorly-written trans woman character in garbage tv.

this is clearly dangerous territory for any work of media, but i was willing to give the benefit of the doubt if the people involved in writing the show (who were also the actors for the most part) had among them trans people to greenlight these jokes. now i’m not claiming that one can get a full understanding of someone’s gender identity from just their social media, but i did do some research into jason greene, the actor who portrays freckle. jason maintains two accounts on both twitter and facebook - one for him that’s mostly professional, and one in-character account for freckle. this rubs me the wrong way, as if the actor’s gender is more of a performance than anything that’s actually important in his personal life. an interview with jason greene was published a couple days ago in which he clarifies that he identifies as gender fluid. that much is a relief because for a long time i was under the impression that freckle was just a drag persona.

(the above paragraph has been edited for accuracy. thanks to @squarequeen for linking me to this interview. http://www.thefader.com/2017/08/04/freckle-caleb-gallo-interview )

but really, none of this matters that much to me. i’ve enjoyed media on youtube that walks these same lines in the past, and i was willing to just live and let live on this one. but there’s one joke in episode two that is so tasteless that i can’t believe that those who watched it still enjoyed the show and want to promote it.

at the beginning of episode two, freckle goes in for a television commercial audition. freckle psyches themself up, is given their lines, and the rest of the scene plays out as follows: freckle stares directly into the camera, deepens their voice to sound threatening, and says “come here, children. momma’s got a surprise for you.” and then it cuts to black.

and it’s meant to be funny because the transfeminine character said something that alluded to child molestation, and in a tone that suggests they either thought that was the intent of the audition lines or had experience saying similar things in the past. i really don’t care if i’m supposed to interpret the scene as a misunderstanding or whatever. the fact is that the writers of the show specifically chose to use their transfeminine character to make this child molestation joke. they invoked one of the most violent transmisogynistic stereotypes for this cheap, throwaway line that isn’t mentioned for the rest of the episode.

after i finished that episode, i went to twitter in frustration. i said something to the effect of “caleb gallo’s comedic timing is very good, but it’s transmisogyny is very bad”, and to my surprise i got a reply from jason greene on his professional twitter account. he simply asked “how so?”, and i told him the child molestation joke was in poor taste. he just ghosted me after that, not bothering to defend or even comment on the scene.

my absolute most generous reading of all this is that the creators of the gay and wondrous life of caleb gallo are completely ignorant of trans issues and careless with their shock humor. but that’s assuming that the use of freckle for that scene was completely coincidental, and i don’t believe that for a second. the fact of the matter is that at least one of the writers decided it would be a good idea to make a child molestation joke at the expense of the only trans character in the show.

[masteraqua]

oh my goodness that's so sweet, thank you!! :'D

[terezi-discourse]

wait can you rec a good kanrezi fic like the ones you described in your "just bury me" post? i need to fill this void in my life

a bit of my thoughts on the dynamic was inspired by this roserezi bodyswap fic (beware of the fuckton of trigger warnings, because they’re accurate) but imo the ultimate “Terezi and Kanaya grieve Vriska together while having feelings” fic is the queen of chiaroscuro  by signalbeam (a great author who writes a lot of other Vriskanroserezi stuff too):

Four years after Vriska's death, her sister and her pale widow go to bury the body.

Featuring a city of gold, one dragon, and no fewer than two humorous encounters with the L4W.

Happy reading!

[thedeliverygod]

Hi, just wondering but how did you start writing for kh13?

Every once in a while we’ll open up applications for the teams & the best way to keep track of that is to keep an eye on KH13 and its social media accounts (particularly Twitter). I happened to get lucky in that our Team Leader Logan posted on his blog @fuckyeahkingdomheartsseries that they were looking for people to join the news team. 

So I just went from there & made my way through the application and was a trial team member for a bit before becoming a full fledged news team member. And that’s really all there is to it!

[poinsciuri]

a concept: John and Terezi go on a hatedate and spend the entire time arguing over the song "Do You Remem8er Me" and which one of them it best applies to

oh my god @sometipsygnostalgic this seems like a post you should see