Holly: Well, um . . . I . . .
Hyacinth: It’s a secret magic thing! I would tell you, but there are . . . secret magic penalties!
Angelica: Oh! Of course.
Seaweed Vine: Hardcore. I would change my name to Hollis if I hadn’t already decided to change it to Vine.
Holly: Can’t you just let people use your original name until you figure this out for good?
Vine: No. It is unsuitable.
Holly: Because it doesn’t reflect the darkness in your soul well enough?
Vine: No . . .
. . . because it’s “Daisy.”
Holly: . . . and now I see the problem.
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…He’s a guy!
Is “Daisy” considered a feminine name in Ceannis? Are we to conclude that Seaweed/Vine is a trans dude, or is he a cis dude whose parents made an unusual naming decision for whatever reason?
Yes, he’s trans!
… honestly, I’m surprised nobody called it before. Comic full of LGBT+ characters in general, teenage boy who slouches all the time and insists on a self-chosen name? Of course that’s a young trans guy.
Did I screw up again?
Haha, it makes total sense in hindsight! Like in El Goonish Shive when I realized that one of the characters is a Trans Guy and suddenly certain details made sense. I wish I could say more, but I don’t want to possibly spoil something….
Probably because you set it up as a consequence of his gothness, not his gender. You coded him as belonging to a group that would do that anyway, and we went along with it because we trust you as a writer. No need to be surprised that we did what you seem to want. I say this without malice.
It’s not supposed to be an either/or thing, though? A lot of people get into gothness (as well as other subcultures) precisely because it’s more normalized to do the things they want to do as trans people anyway.
I mean, it makes sense that not everyone would jump to the idea. The trans characters aren’t supposed to have neon signs over their heads flashing “this is not my genetic sex, please clock me as trans!” But I was kinda expecting at least one “I’m gonna headcanon this character as trans” to gratify, or something.
Maybe next time!
I don’t think Mara was phrasing it as an “either/or,” but more of an Occam’s Razor? Like “both” is fine, but why look for an additional reason when there was an obvious one that fit all the provided data?
I kinda figured he was when Hyacinth said he changed his name all the time (In not so many words) but I didn’t see a point in pointing it out because there isn’t really a point in pointing it out.
I’m mostly not hopping in to comment on the old strips (but I am enjoying them immensely), but I will point out here that in another place, when a character exhibited a possible ace tell, you were troubled by people leaping to conclusions. I had leaped to the ace conclusion as well, because it seemed like about as strong a character signal as many of your other places where you include representation without hanging a neon sign. 🙂
I’m transmasc and assumed this kidlet was just gothing his goth self. Which is just fine. Not everyone has to be obvious!
To be fair, in this case I clearly *did* have to hang a neon sign on the representation, because nobody noticed otherwise…!
I do still think there’s a material difference between “personality traits you have” and “actions you choose to take.” Like, if a reader said they hoped one of the male characters was going to be revealed as a trans woman (or a trans man, come to think of it) because he had some femme or cutsey interests, I would side-eye that a bit too.
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