Nerd culture tends to be decidedly sexist. Just a brief scan of the “nerd culture” tag itself on Tumblr reveals dozens of women criticizing the sexism of comic books and the men who read them. In most mainstream comics, female characters are sidelined as love-interests or scantily-clad superheroes whose appeal lies more in their body than anything actually substantial. Comic-books-turned-movies The Avengers and the The Dark Knight Rises each feature their own sexy, strong, independent female characters–and actresses Scarlett Johansson and Anne Hathaway who played these amazing women were constantly subjected to questions about what sort of underwear they wore underneath their tight-fitting ensembles, rather than, you know, real, respectful questions.

In short, nerd culture is generally not kind to women.

On the other hand, Homestuck, intentionally or not, dramatically changes that paradigm.

While Homestuck has no overtly feminist agenda (not that there would be anything wrong with that if it did have one), the way the web-comic treats women is more than refreshing. The girls of Homestuck are equal in number and in awesomeness to the boys–and they are never sexually objectified, either. The girls represent all sorts of different types of women, from crazy-aggressive badasses and dark witches who like to write overly-intellectual novels, to ones obsessed with baking and shipping charts. There is an incredible balance of women who do not fit into stereotypical feminine roles, like Rose and Vriska–but Homestuck also represents women who are at ease being feminine, like Jane and Nepeta.

And, despite the fact that Homestuck tends toward ridiculousness, these characters are relatable. They are never, ever caricatures. For example, Nepeta seems like a stereotypical fangirl–she ships people and pretends to be a cat, and is all-around just plain adorable. In the context of how massive Homestuck actually is, she does not get much screentime.

However, even she is granted something “out of the norm”–her moirailship (aka, soul mate in a non-romantic sense) with hyper-masculine Equius (the same moirailship which makes Equius deeper than his stereotype, too.) Nepeta is not defined by her moirail (and neither is Equius), but the fact that these two opposites manage to be soul mates gives them a deeper level of complexity and believability that they would not otherwise have.

Jane Crocker is another character that can be considered more or less “feminine” in the traditional sense. Mostly because she is obsessed with baking and we as readers have not learned much more about her yet, as she is one of the newest characters. In fact, she loves baking so much that her weapon varies between a spoon and a fork.

On its own, this may be problematic. But Jane exists in a world of TONS of amazing female characters who have all sorts of hobbies and use all sorts of weapons (hell, Kanaya wields a chainsaw.) All things considered, Homestuck is allowed to have a girl who likes to bake. After all, there is NOTHING WRONG with women who like to bake and cook and even make their men a sandwich every once in awhile. Believe it or not, feminism includes them, too.

But of course, feminism would not be feminism without also analyzing the sorts of female characters that are not afraid to kick ass and do things that, for most of Western history, only men were allowed to do. Just in case you missed it before: KANAYA USES A CHAINSAW.

And Kanaya cares a lot about fashion, wearing stylish clothes and pretty makeup. Again, Homestuck does girls justice by not being afraid to step outside the caricatures that are all too common in science fiction and comic books.

Rose Lalonde also juxtaposes feminine and masculine characteristics. The reader’s first glimpse of Rose is in her bedroom. While the art is primarily black and white, the only bits of color are pink–stereotypically girly, particularly for the first female character introduced in the web-comic. But beyond what seems to be her favorite color and her love of knitting, Rose has a dark side that is usually depicted in male anti-heroes, and rarely ever women. Besides the pink, her room is plastered with posters of Lovecraftian monsters.

Further in the plot, Rose temporarily “goes to the dark side” and becomes Grimdark Rose–while in this form, she dies (temporarily) fighting against villain Jack Noir.

Definitely not the typical role for a woman to play. And in addition, Rose is known throughout the comic for her dry wit and sarcasm. Usually, female characters with such a sense of humor would likely be written as or considered a “huge bitch”–but not Rose. Check out this exchange she has with Dave:

Here, Rose (in the pink font) admits her lack of knowledge about sports–though she still knows more than Dave–and she puts him down in a subtly hilarious, witty way. As far as comedy goes, women are rarely allowed to be humorous based on their own merit, but Homestuck defies this trend. This entry would be about a billion times longer if we covered every instance of the intelligent humor that the girls of Homestuck exemplify. Rose’s constant wit is just one example.

I’ve waited until I reached near the end of this post before discussing Vriska. To me, she is the most difficult character to begin to analyze, simply because she is so off the wall all the time. You never know what to expect from her, and it’s extremely hard to characterize her. But I’ll take a shot at it.

Probably the most important thing to consider when looking at Vriska is what her MSPA Wikipedia page refers to as the “duality” of her character. She is a combination of light and dark, good and evil all at once, and to further extremes than the rest of the characters. Because of the evil deeds she habitually commits, the majority of her fellow trolls consider her to be a

Yeah. For example, she paralyzes Tavros when they are children, simply because he annoys her. Then as adoloscents, this happens.

She develops feelings for the same Tavros she paralyzed, and attempts to seduce him. Vriska can be vicious one moment, and sensitive the next. She is incredibly dynamic, and while she does a lot of terrible things, she does express to John how sorry she is for all the things she has done. And now that she is dead, it seems like she is determined to help everyone else to the best of her abilities, by finding a weapon amongst the Furthest Ring that may be used against Lord English. This strong, dynamic character development is truly indicative of a well-written, complex character.

I know that in this critical analysis I have left out Jade and Terezi. Despite how much I love them both, I don’t think any points that I make about them would be much different from the conclusions I have already reached. The girls of Homestuck are all stunningly complex, and depict and represent all sorts of women.

In a world where comics tend to be male-centric and marginalize women, Homestuck is definitely a step in the right direction.

Now if anyone reads through all this, I’d love feedback. Hit up my ask box with any comments!