Maybe I should join Hannibal fandom.

[krait]

I was cruising past some Homestuck blogs on Tumblr, and apparently there's a meme (or maybe it was just an ask; I don't do Tumblr) about "common Homestuck headcanons you don't subscribe to" and the person discussed 'grubloaf/grubsauce is made from troll grubs' fanon. According to her, it felt too anvilicious; like being beaten over the head with how troll culture is WRONG and HORRIBLE, and also as though someone's trying too hard to gross people out.

This made me double-take and then giggle because it's a fanon I've encountered a lot and, while it's not my personal headcanon either, it never gave me the feeling that it was supposed to be a squick attempt or a commentary on troll culture! It's always weird to re-remember that my reactions to cannibalism aren't the norm.

Maybe it's my biology geek showing through (plenty of species eat their offspring/siblings!) or maybe it's just my pragmatic attitude to food (if it's tasty, eat it), but when I encounter the troll-grubs-as-food fanon I just sort of... accept it? It's not horrific to me, so it never felt like "let me show you how BAD trolls are!"; likewise, it's not gross to me, so it never struck me as "are you making gagging noises yet?" either. More or less I treat it the same as any other popular bit of fanon I don't personally subscribe to, e.g. neck gills on seadwellers. If asked, I'll explain why it's not my headcanon, but otherwise? So long as the author isn't egregiously fail!splaining it in-story and forcing me to remember why I don't believe it, I can fit it into my mental framework for the duration of the fic and not think about it.

In sum: "Grubloaf is made from grubs!" doesn't ping me in any moral spectrum or in my gastroesophageal reflexes, and sometimes I get reminded how weird that makes me. :D


(For non-Homestuck people: trolls are an alien species that hatch out as insect-like grubs, which later pupate into more humanoid shape to continue development. They seem to be a r-strategist species, at least insofar as requiring little parental care and reproducing - one infers - in large numbers, many of which never make it to their first pupation.)

Comments

[cheyinka]

Heh. That reminds me of Monster Loves You!; you (like all Monsters) start your life as a Morsel, and there is an event later on where you can choose to defend Morsels from a hungry snake or eat some Morsels yourself, and while defending them is better (because it doesn't cost you Kindness points), eating them isn't horribly wrong (or even not delicious).

I mean, a story where humans eat other humans is definitely going to ping my "these people are all horrible and awful even if they don't realize it" radar, and if it's described too-lavishly it'll definitely make me feel ill, but nonhumans? Especially nonhumans with r-type offspring numbers? Eh, whatever.

[krait]

Yeah, pretty much! I definitely object to, like, actively hunting people for food! But taking sustenance from an already-dead body just seems sensible to me (as long as you cook it first)?

Especially, as you note, in a setup like the trolls have. Grubs hatch out in a cavern and undergo "trials" to determine whether they're able to reach the surface and pupate. My personal headcanon says that someone would have to clean out the caverns, or else the corpses of grubs who failed the Trials would eventually be so deep they block the exit! In fact, the not-quite-headcanons-just-plausible-background-ideas I have that do involve cannibalism both insert it here - the grubs eating those that fail as part of their trip to the surface, or the adult trolls who take care of the Mother Grubdumping the carcasses outside the caverns where scavengers - including weaker grubs and pupated trolls who aren't strong enough to leave - take advantage of a free food source.

This would actually mean that eating grubs as an older juvenile might, culturally, be considered a sign, not of moral failure, but of ill health or insufficient skill at hunting. Troll culture (and possibly biology, because: r-strategist species) is big on the "I am a fierce warrior, don't cross me or I'll make you sorry" school of thought regarding What A Proper Troll Is. Admitting you feed yourself by snatching whatever you can grab from a free food source, essentially making you a carrion scavenger, would be shameful and an invitation to others to attack you!

[cheyinka]

Yeah, I can't imagine it being seen positively. I can imagine it being a moral failing - "not all grubs are going to survive, but you're not in charge of deciding that that particularly-tasty-looking one over there won't" - but I can also imagine it just being shameful in a "...that was the best you could do? really?" kind of way.

As far as humans go, I do have a problem even with "but he died, he wasn't unhealthy, we didn't kill him on purpose, and we really need food" cannibalism. And I'd be more bothered by it in a K-strategist species of nonhumans, I think. But "hey we spawned a bunch of folks and hopefully a handful will make it!" species are going to have different views on death and dead bodies. "Grubloaf" isn't implausible.

[seerofbread]

Interesting! I do sort of accept the (head)canon that grubloaf is pretty literal, but I also don't really have a huge inherent problem with cannibalism. (I mean you know, don't kill people, and be respectful of the bodies of the dead when possible. Otherwise, my biggest squick with it is probably my general meat/bodies/death problem.) I always figured that the intention was more or less a "wow trolls are awful/gross," I mean logically that's what it was meant for right? But I just did the "wow fascinating" and went with it? I mean, it seems likely. "Why do you care? They're dead, they're not using that body and I'm hungry." That sounds about right, to me; I've always figured that their moral system is sort of "human squick but really it's all relative" and usually gets justified with PRACTICALITY! and things.

(But food for thought: the jade caste is supposed to be sort of motherly right? And I mean what do trolls even know about parents, but also Mama's Cooking is probably a Universal Constant. (I mean smaller things are, after all.) And I just think that nobody on Alternia would think for a second that the secret ingredient to Jadeblood's Cooking is love. Everybody knows it's exactly the same but the ingredients are fresh.)

[krait]

We already know from canon that trolls don't have any particular taboos regarding the bodies of their own dead, so yep. :D

I... don't really know about jadebloods being "motherly"; the only thing we see trolls refer to as 'mother' is the Mother Grub, and I'm not sure her servants would be considered 'mothers' in the mind of the average troll. (They're more like midwives, to use a human analogy.) Still, I hadn't thought about the failed grubs possibly being a food source for the jadebloods; that also makes sense! Caverns are usually low on things humans would consider food, but all those adult trolls must be finding something to eat down there...

nobody on Alternia would think for a second that the secret ingredient to Jadeblood's Cooking is love

Haha, true. :D

[seerofbread]

Oh, I'm not sure I worded that too well. (It's late, I'm going to sleep just after this. That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it!) Midwives does sound a bit closer, though I think that also has some similar connotations, but! Honestly the biggest thing making me say that seems to be an impression that canon says they are "because I say so" or I guess mostly through imagery (there's a lot of Mother Mary things for the jadebloods we know, from the Maryam name to Actual Troll Mother Mary Dolorsa) Though it'd be interesting to get on about human perceptions versus troll realities as to what reads as "motherly" and what that even means when there aren't really mothers.

[krait]

Aaahh, yes, I see. It wasn't clear to me whether you meant 'in canon' or 'metatextually', so I went with just what's in canon to be safe. There ARE some motherhood connotations set up for the reading audience, though I'm still on the fence as to how much of Kanaya-and-Porrim should be applied to jadebloods as a whole, given the ectobiological-shenanigans involved in the existence of those two.

Come to that, Karkat is arguably the closest thing to a mother amongst the beta trolls, as he was the one to create the ectobiology-grubs in his session! *ponders* Kanaya's mom is a virgin mother grub who, though she raises Kanaya as long as she can, is fated to die young because of her nulliparity; and the Matriorb is destroyed before it can do any mothering. Quite a contrast to Dolorosa's situation, as first 'midwife' and then actual mother who outlives her child. Iiiinteresting; needz moar meta! :D Motherhood and related concepts definitely do pop up around the Maryams in various direct and slantwise ways, but some of it seems to be in a negating or failed fashion. It'd be really fun to do an in-depth analysis of all the little threads. (By which I mean, it'd be really fun if someone else did that...)

There's a lovely prompt on the kinkmeme asking for, essentially, "trolls don't have parenting instincts, so I wanna see Dolorosa being terrible and clueless in her efforts to raise Signless because her biology just isn't set up that way". I've bookmarked that prompt, because it's basically the way I imagine that going.

One of my favourite moments in askerian's fic is when Davesprite shows Karkat a bunch of kitten videos in an attempt to cheer him up, and Karkat is just kind of baffled; trolls don't have the instinctive "I find it adorable and am prompted to love it!" response to childlike proportions that humans have. (Davesprite tries to explain that kittens are cute, and Karkat interprets the word as 'romantically attractive' and side-eyes him pretty hard for a few seconds!)

[novembermond]

Since it's Canon that Crayons are made from grubs the grubloaf Thing does not even make me twitch anymore. (Sorry bout the weird spelling am on mobile device with autocorrect to a diff language)
I do think Most fannibals object to cannibalism tho xD ( its a requiried warning on the kink meme afaik)

[krait]

Sorry for the belated nature of this reply, but I'm finding the idea that Hannibal fen require warnings for cannibalism pretty hilarious. :D Like... really, how does that even work, because it seems rather like warning for murder in Criminal Minds fic; it's so much a part of the premise that it's pretty much got to be there somewhere.

[novembermond]

I know I kept on mentioning it because I find it so funny.
(there has been a rule change since the kink meme changed ownership so I don't know if that rule still stands, but it existed)

Well...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Aliens eating their young is a motif that appears occasionally in science fiction. Among the best renditions I've read is The Color of Distance.

Re: Well...

[krait]

G-g-g-guess what is already sitting on my "to be read" shelf. :D :D :D

[tropicsbear]

Yes, join the Hannibal fandom. Do it.

[krait]

Unfortunately, and in contrast to the bit of Homestuck fanon, Hannibal strikes me very much as 'gratuitous gross-out attempt', not to mention the whole murder thing.

[tropicsbear]

Really? It doesn't really seem that way to me. Well, to each his own~

[krait]

I've heard it's pretty heavy on the gore. In general, though, I'm not drawn to it for the same reasons I have never bothered to watch Dexter - serial killer 'protagonists' just don't do anything for me at all. Give me a lead character who's less "edgy" and more like someone I'd be willing to have a conversation with, or at the least wouldn't be afraid to be in a room alone with. Vlad Taltos is about my maximum tolerance level for antiheroes and he gets better. Somewhat.

If it works for you, though, more power to you! Someone has to give all those not-my-fandom fandoms some love. :D