i think the word i want to use for a lot of homestuck's approach to identity is "prescient". this may be kind of a chicken and an egg thing, but let me explain.

i think i've gone both ways on jade's whole deal, but i think i've come around on it. not because i think it isn't transphobic, but because it's a really reliable red flag. it's been 5 years. it is barely relevant in modern day. it is as relevant as like, gamzee drinking jane's trickster breast milk. so when it obviously lives rent-free in someone's head, it's more telling of them than it is the text. jade is a nearly-40 year old trans woman, who has been using deviantart since she was 13 in the year 2009. i'm surprised this is the only thing we get on the matter.

i also think writing off characters because they don't explicitly say outright in the text they're transgender is leaving paint on the palette. the way vriska's entire arc is a shockingly prescient depiction of transmisogyny. scenes in past karkat: wake up with vriska often have this template that goes something like:

VRISKA: Please valid8 my existence.

WHOEVER: no. kill yourself, freak.

VRISKA: Haha, you got me good! Really pr8nked me!!!! ::::)

and sometimes in past karkat: wake up, you get stuff like feferi joining in just to be on the "right side" and nepeta being like "no, i won't do mundane roleplay with you, you're a murderer" while being cute with terezi. and later during murderstuck, you get stuff like gamzee's framing of her for murders she didn't do, using things she did, which terezi believes vriska did because she had preemptively decided that vriska was the one who did it. because vriska's awful, obviously she killed nepeta and equius and maybe even gamzee.

this isn't even getting into the stuff with doc scratch, because arguing that doc scratch is a pedophile can be an uphill battle that i don't really want to fight right now.

i think saying vriska isn't transfeminine because she doesn't say it outright, even though her arc and her relationship to others is a spot-on depiction of transmisogyny and the way trans women are othered and pushed to the brink for flaws that others are celebrated for is kind of missing the point.

@lyrichartwell
as someone who cut their teeth in the early 2010s kinnie mines, i think depicting cronus as someone who lies about their otherkin feelings to manipulate others is actually kind of prescient as well. the kinnie culture of the time was - and likely still is, this surely has not gotten better - primarily a lot of teenagers, who suck at relationships at the best of times. as a kinnie tumblr survivor, i think this is an apt and potent depiction of the ways people will play this semi-spiritual aspect of themselves primarily to find new victims. the kinnie folie a deux is a classic way to feel.

and again, there's the pattern of writing off subtext. there are characters who i think are more subtly depicted as aspiring towards humanity. you could make sincere arguments for both vriska and karkat, beloved characters all around. one of my favorite moments in act 5 act 2 is vriska asking, in sincerity, what humans are like. it's got a real yearning for a human experience that really stuck with me. and with her recent helltier design, a design associated with inner peace and acceptance of the self, including the human white shirt, i think hsbc agrees. you could even argue this for caliborn and his yaoisona.

there's more i could say on the matter, but i spent an entire meeting mulling over the wording on this post in specific, and that's simply too much.