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

[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!)