I am aware that many people get generally very transphobic when talking the subject of June and I would like to avoid that completely.
I believe that gender in Homestuck is an extremely complex concept and I hope that the HSBC team can express it in a way that works well within the story. I wanna go into the topic of June specifically to see what other people think.
What I want to get into is how transitioning would look like and be meaningful to the story. What I mean by "how it would look like" is why would John transition from male to female when they took part in the creation of a society where the only difference between male and female is at most pronouns. How I see it Gender in Homestuck doesn't at all have the same perceived limitation as in real life. I honestly believe that Homestuck could be a good example of postgenderism where gender is an arbitrary and unnecessary limitation. I hope June can be used to explore themes of masculinity and femininely with what exactly decides what they look like and mean.
My main concern is that the introduction of June will completely change everything about John's character just to complete the toblerone joke and not tell a good story as well. I'm concerned about how the Epilogues and HS^2 laid a foundation of mystery, mischaracterizations and misunderstandings that HSBC now has to do damage control for and still tell their story. I think they are doing a pretty good job but their foundation is not good and I don't know if it will hold up nicely for the story and themes they try to tell.
I'm posting this to generally see what others think.
on the subject of june disconnecting; i really do feel it fits her character incredibly well. i've never written any formal analysis but we see even at the beginning of homestuck that she's not exactly fantastic at being responsive to messages. dave pesters her like crazy on her pc and rose tries to stay in contact while her pda is trapped in her sylladex. jade leaves messages for her to read later.
we don't get to know a lot about june pre-game but i think most people agree it doesnt seem like she has a lot of (if any) irl friends, which is especially striking because she most likely goes to school regularly (unlike the rest of the kids.) even in game, she doesn't meet up with her friends in person basically at all until she and jade are on the ship. and jade's busy with davesprite a lot of the time, and 2/3 of the snippets we see of their time on the ship are them watching a screen. it takes june ACTUAL years to realise con air fucking blows.
june's strongest bonds are formed over the screen, the only exception being roxy, who she ends up divorcing, and vriska in the dreambubbles, who her alternate self ends up breaking up with (or being broken up with, i honestly dont remember.)
it's a lot easier to interact online without the pressure of being percieved in your entirety, especially when you're uncomfortable with who you are. in the game, june gets the chance to focus on goals, achieving specific things, following the breeze. she doesn't have to be in a social context. and when she's reintroduced to one, it's uncomfortable for her.
i don't know how strong of a case im making here, but i think it helps to remember that breath is across from blood on the aspect wheel. she is literally the farthest from the aspect of bonds, community, et cetera.
-- real slim shady
