softedisworl | Trolls and Pansexuality

I'm putting this here because while I don't think think it's polished enough to post to Ao3 ('least not yet), Tumblr really sucks for storing meta. So onto the Dreamwidth it goes.

For context: this short piece of meta was written in response to this post the whole CAUCASIAN! debacle wherein Hussie had Trickster Jane immediately remark that she felt, well, Caucasian in reference to trickster mode giving the characters light skin amongst candy-colored hair. This was changed to 'peachy' in response to the backlash. However, this post discusses how the controversy in relation to Hussie's assertion that the kids are canonically aracial despite the only race or skin tone-related comments invoke whiteness, either through description or using the word to describe their guardians or ancestors.

The author then made a hypothetical comparative: if the trolls' pansexuality (save for Kanaya according to a formspring answer via another mildly controversial statement from Hussie, god damn it) was in name only:

What if Hussie had said, “Yeah, all the trolls are pansexual,” but every romantic relationship that he wrote was about a boy and a girl? What if Karkat made some comment about how, say, in Alternian culture, “the bride and the groom” do x, y, z at troll weddings? What if Nepeta said, “Oh, I just wish a boy would notice me?”

And while the author praised Homestuck's queer representation, and I agree with them - this also brought up something I'd noticed for a while, which is the fact that the trolls kind of are pansexual in name only. This is what I wrote:

Old, old, post, but it brings up something that I don’t think I talked about elsewhere, so here it goes.

Homestuck, considering the competition at the time, was rather good at queer relationships. I mean, Hussie seems to falter at writing textual relationships that are healthy and functioning, but that’s a. beside the point and b. not a queer-only issue.

However. For a supposedly pansexual race, the relationships of the various trolls (canonical and highly implied) sure skewed towards ones between men and women. Remember, this was 'fore DaveKat and pale Scourge Sisters*, so aside from Karkat and Gamzee (which has less weight as a concilatory relationship anyway**), Kanaya was the only one who had any real interest in someone of the same binary gender***, aside from brief mentions of TavGam, the latter of whom becomes a murder clown whose more plot relevant relationship is his abusive one with Terezi, and the former who is killed into irrelevance by his much more prominent 'love’ interest, Vriska.

Aside from that we have:

Aradia & Sollux - never textually confirmed, but mentioned aloud by Vriska by calling Sollux Aradia’s boyfriend before the latter dies. Even/even split of flush and pale.

Aradia & Equius - Onesided, for the most part. Flushed, I think? But in the really bad way.

Karkat/Terezi - mentioned aloud by multiple people, and have a general Heterosexual bickering UST thing going on. That kind of sounds dismissive, sorry. I just don’t know enough about the 'ship to really spout pretty things about it. I think it mostly leans towards flush with a few sprlinklings of pitch.

Terezi/Gamzee - mentioned above. Pitch.

Nepeta/Equius - Meowrails. 'Nuff said.

Nepeta/Karkat - Either highly implied or outright stated that Nepeta has romantic interest in Karkat. I don’t think he reciprocates.

Eridan/Feferi - Oh, yes. The Discourse driver. Canonically pale on Feferi’s side, before she abandoned 'ship, and flushed on Eridan’s side.

Vriska/Tavros - Trying to be flush, but easily switches to pitch. Pretty much entirely onesided. Very, very unhealthy.

I’m not going to do the Alpha trolls, and hell, I probably missed some here. But even when there are strong relationships between trolls of the same gender (my inner SolKat fan rises), there’s never the same amount reference to them like there is for M/F 'ships. You have to dig around for the connections on your own, like a goddamn 'ship archaeologist.

*And I have criticism of how those were handled, too, but that’s not what I’m talking about here.
**Yes, moiraillegence is absolutely romance for trolls. But we're not trolls, and that affects how we interact with and write the quadrants. Matespritship is so often just used as The Quadrant for capital R human Romance even though it's not a 1:1 fit and performs a specific societal role while Moirails are used for BFFsies despite the same reasons and arrrghhh this is getting long enough.
***The only other being Karkat with the one-off idea that he was destined to be fated kismeses with John due to seeing a spade on the other's shirt, resulting in an incredibly embarassing come-on.