Trans Reveals and Gender Parity

[VASKA]

in my mind theres like, a hierarchy of transness in homestuck trolls.

unambiguously trans:

kanaya, vriska

i can see it in retrospect:

eridan, sollux

it would make sense:

Tavros, equius

dont see it:

terezi, feferi, karkat

the capstone of a cisgender pyramid:

gamzee, nepeta, aradia

[TH4NK YOU B3N]

I honestly don't see Sollux being trans before Pesterquest, but I think he'd prefer it that way so I'm fine with that.

EDIT: OH he buys from troll bad dragon so that's why karkat calls his bulge mutant

[pfeffer-29]

Kanaya?

[calamityCons]

Kanaya made an attempt at a sarcastic joke by claiming Vriska cursed her bulge. They're taking it as confirmation that Kanaya has a penis and thus is trans.

[thorondraco]

edit

[TH4NK YOU B3N]

So, the joke about the bulge. The joke isn't about how wacky it would be for Kanaya to have a bulge. That would be offensive and stupid in a way that goes against the tone of Pesterquest. The joke is calling a crush a medical condition. I'd understand not taking Chixie Roixmr's rap as a literal statement about her anatomy ("just grab my bulge and deepthroat it"), because that's a statement of aggression she made anonymously, but this? This is just... a girl being honest about her feelings with a sense of humor? Spider cursed her bulge.

And, because I sense the topic going in this direction, trans lesbians are not lesser. Reading Kanaya as trans is not lesbian erasure. I'm not accusing anyone of thinking this way, but I want to make sure I never have to know who actually does have these prejudices. I really want to stay friendly with you guys.

I think it would be neat if Kanaya realizing that she'd rather wear the clothes she makes herself was serendipitous with Sollux's realization. The bond of mutual trans solidarity is so poignant. They have to trust each other a lot.

Although it's not shown, I'm assuming the clothes she made for Sollux back then weren't a plain black shirt and pants, because then it wouldn't be anything of note.

EDIT: thorondraco, you do not have to comment on everything. Remember when people got mad at you in the Dirk thread for saying things you didn't know were offensive? There are times where you should stick to listening, and this is one of them. Let other people take the floor if you don't understand something. The opinions of trans people are not a monolith, so you'll have to do some critical thinking to form your own opinion, but please stop.

[JakeMorph]

there are plenty of writers both in the fandom and in what pumpkin who see both troll sexes as having the same bits. kanaya saying she has a bulge does not equate to implied transness. nor does kanaya even mentioning having a bulge mean she has one! a real life person could say they were dick cursed and nobody in their right mind would just take it as a given that they therefore have a dick! I actually think you are thinking WAY too hard about an off handed comment made by a 13 year old girl!

[BrobyDDark]

What JakeMorph said.

I've had plenty of female CIS friends say things relating to "their" dick, but not actually have one. It means nothing.

These are weird alien children who grew up on the internet. They're gonna say some weird shit.

[VASKA]

I read Kanaya as trans as far back as early act 6. I'm not sure if I'd call it "coding" since I think it was unintentional on Hussie's part; I don't think he was WOKE enough back then to have a trans character and not either a) make a joke about it, or b) stick his foot in his mouth ("girl fetish"). There's a lot of individual moments you could point to as fuel for a trans headcanon, from the lipstick to the "im a girl" bit. What really drives it home, for me, is the vampire thing and the femme presentation to the point where it's overwhelming.

But like I said, I don't think these things were intentional at the time, but retroactively I can definitely see Hussie hunkering down in the trench of "trans kanaya".

[egg]

iii think you are forgetting that time he literally gunned down Gamzee, multiple times, despite him having no threat to his existence. He is literally an incarnation of negative emotion and behavior.

If seeing that clown doesn't immediately trigger your fear response, there must be something wrong with you.

No way man, Gamzee's hilarious.

[MorganMustDie]

Whilst I'm all for trans headcanons and would be excited for some of those headcanons to be revealed in canon material, the current state of how its being handled kinda puts me off. The only evidence we have as of yet are very minor coding changes which, for a lot of readers, appear to have flown completely overhead. For example, the "cursed bulge" comment sticks out to people who are specifically looking for a trans confirmation, but to most other fans it is simply read as a joke or little personality quirk. The exact same can be said for Vriska sticking eight !s after the F on her character sheet, or the Egbert/Lalonde fingernail painting at the end of volume one. As far as I can see, it is a lot of circumstantial stuff - thirteen year olds just being goofy - that is leading to such huge schism over these characters we all love.

I take no issue with readers who enjoy reading trans interpretations to these characters, I encourage it, and hope that it is elaborated on in canon in future, BUT! It does worry me on the writers end. To me, someone who's been in the ups and downs of different fandoms throughout the years, it reeks a lot of the kind of virtue signally, queerbaiting type stuff that would usually get other creators called out. For example, Pidge from Voltron 2016 had a lot of very similar circumstantial transmasc coding, a lot of it quite blatant, but the studio never doubled down on it in any kind of reveal. As such, people were upset that it seemed like they had only strung viewers who had hoped for some transmasc representation along in order to appeal to a new audience, when they never intended to actually deliver. I worry about the same thing for Homestuck. At least to me, it seems like they're dropping a whole lot of hints here and there for different characters - pretty much solely mtf too, which I personally think is a strange way to go due to the huge number of ftm homestuck fans I've bumped into through the years - and I worry that they do not actually intend to deliver. We've got Roxy, for sure, in canon, but beyond him? Zero, aside from some breadcrumbs to string the people who really care for this kind of thing along.

I worry they're shooting themselves in the foot with this, since if they reach the end of HS^2 and haven't canonicised trans John/June, Vriska, Kanaya, Sollux, and Eridan, they'll have a whole lot of disappointed fans to answer to, and accusations of Rowlingism out the zillyhoo

[TH4NK YOU B3N]

iii think you are forgetting that time he literally gunned down Gamzee, multiple times, despite him having no threat to his existence. He is literally an incarnation of negative emotion and behavior.

If seeing that clown doesn't immediately trigger your fear response, there must be something wrong with you.

No way man, Gamzee's hilarious.

There are lots of characters in Homestuck that I love as fictional characters that I wouldn't fuck with in real life. Back to me ignoring this thread.

[JakeMorph]

I'll be honest b3n I find it a little disappointing that you've promptly decided to start ignoring your own thread immediately after ive made a comment criticising what you believe to be "trans woman coding"

[xeno]

there are plenty of writers both in the fandom and in what pumpkin who see both troll sexes as having the same bits.

Wait, that isn't outright canon? I swear it was stated somewhere that all trolls have both a bulge and nook. Am I just misremembering?

[BigSteve]

there are plenty of writers both in the fandom and in what pumpkin who see both troll sexes as having the same bits.

Wait, that isn't outright canon? I swear it was stated somewhere that all trolls have both a bulge and nook. Am I just misremembering?

It's one of those "It's not CANON (but its totally canon you guys)" things. It's never mentioned, will never be outright confirmed, and only has the slightest allusion, but people love it enough for it to be essentially willed into existence.

[JakeMorph]

it's not explicitly stated anywhere. the idea probably has its origins in the fact that karkat refers to his nook a bunch of times in the comic, and it's an easy assumption to make given that trolls reproducing "bisexually" would need to be universally reproductively compatible with each other, but the actual form and function of a "nook" aren't exactly explored in-depth, and a lot of its usage would seem to imply it could just be ANY orifice in the body.

the 'bulge' is less ambiguously a sex organ, but as far as comic canon goes it's only a word used by the boy trolls (karkat and sollux in particular) or by terezi to refer TO the boy trolls.

[MorganMustDie]

Could just be that nook and bulge are synonyms for genitalia, like how humans have got junk, groin, crotch, nethers, etc etc which are all neutral words that apply to all forms

[BrobyDDark]

Maybe both are in reference to the butt?
Trolls are just all unanimously ass lovers?

[JakeMorph]

Could just be that nook and bulge are synonyms for genitalia, like how humans have got junk, groin, crotch, nethers, etc etc which are all neutral words that apply to all forms

...i mean, it could be, but the point is that very little in the comic actually suggests the nook serves a reproductive part at all. also words like 'groin' and 'crotch' are actually literally synonyms, whereas 'bulge' and 'nook' mean the exact opposite of each other?

Maybe both are in reference to the butt?
Trolls are just all unanimously ass lovers?

why stop there. maybe literally every bulging organ or bodily nook can be used by trolls to reproduce. maybe theyre elbow and armpit lovers too

[Dream Muttman]

I just assume that time Tavros got a boner in that Paradox Space comic is canon.