i mean youre giving hussie a lot of credit for a guy who probably couldnt tell you the difference between a phylogenetic tree and a cladogram. like. for the argument that they are at the very least arthropod-adjacent, mister hussey has provided the following information:
> trolls are sapient @ hatch
> mother grub/egg (some mammals lay eggs, but the mother grub is demonstrably and assuredly not a mammal) thing? caverns?
> implied metamorphosis between grub stage + adolescence
> not very subtle and yet misinformed metaphors for ant queen = condescebut then he goes on to just kind of slap his massive authorly dick around on the keyboard and presents some contrasting evidence to the “these guys are strictly bug-adjacent”argument? like:
> little to no mention of chitinous exterior
> repeated mentions of bones/skeleton/spines/pumps (hearts)
> vertebrate adjacent metabolisms (lifespans > 3 years) ((and before someone talks about queen termites to me like theyre the rule and not the exception i have a fucking skateboard and i WILL do flips))
> bipedal, four [visibly presented] limbs at adolescence
> HORNS? okay this one could be taken to be the equivalent of insect protuberances around the vertex/occitus area, but like, I Doubt It
> visibly distinct vertebrate oral organs (tongue/teeth/gums) and keratinous/chitinous hair
> visibly distinct digits
> implied simple eyes as opposed to compound eyes (will concede that an eye like those in mantids is also possible here, but then again, hussie literally wrote about irises filling in with color – and irises are an organ absent in literally every bug)
> consciously applied and maintained symbiotic relationship with mother grub species. don’t even fucking tell me that theyre the same species. mother grub is there as a surrogate for a species that is heavily implied to produce external gametes. kind of gross, but you could also make the easy assumption that the mother grub could constitute tool use
> implied lack of abdominal spiracles re: hissing with mouth open (will concede to this being only visually presented as a jadeblood thing, unclear for other castes), implying abdominal cavity as resonator and mouth/windpipe as opening
> mention of lungs anyway, lmaoand then we have evidence that they are directly mammalian in nature, given that they have no feathers and reference ‘birds’ at an established lingual contrast to themselves (featherbeasts, cluckbeasts, cawbeasts):
> heavily implied to be warmblooded across the species; common interpretation of mindfangs journal tidbits is that the varying base temperatures of the castes actually correlates to an overall rate of metabolism. could also be a reference to deep sea fish tolerating and maintaining internal body temperatures near freezing with locomotion, but like, OP is literally the author of homestuck> altruism present in species (jadeblood caste taking on mothering/caring role, the societal development of nonreproductive relationships like moirallegiance and auspictising) ((this one’s not as strong espec. considering literally all of alternia is set up for Maximum Efficiency Soldier Producing, up to and including deep-set and ancient societal safeguards against violent trolls reducing the gene pool (moirallegiances, auspictising) ))
> forward-facing eyes for fine stereopsis and binocular summation, and more importantly, prehensility
> oral communication and nuances
> nonverbal + sublingual communication in the form of facial expression, gesture, and body language
> domestication re: lusii. lusii apparently do not encompass all wildlife, but all lusii are acting with altruism towards a low-reward target (grubs). this is more of a sapience / anthropomorphic marker than anything elsefinally: they’re sapient and that in itself is demonstrably enough to imply that they are mammalian. or a cephalopod.
double finally: like all this is just to show that theyre literally just grey humans that talk funny and have big horns and weird blood. its not that deep
in conclusion hussie can’t write a decently researched and backed alien species for his fucking life and if the people behind petst*ck could get away with it then im here to reclaim tails and paws for the people
post post post script: dont fucking @ me i dont care im gonna draw them with tails sometimes and sometimes ill draw them without tails like im gay what do you want
I have mixed feelings about this post. From a strictly xenobiological perspective, I’ll say that some arthropods do have heart-like structures, and I have a (very contrived) explanation for how mother grubs (I doubt there is Only One All The Time) could be the same species; furthermore, trolls are aliens and thus only analogous to Earthly insects at best. Most of the “directly mammalian in nature” section shows far too much Terran bias (that such traits, especially sapience, are not present in Earth arthropods does not mean arthropods, or alien analogues, are incapable of evolving them; that trolls are equal in size to humans could be a sign of very different physical conditions on Alternia), although the bits about vertebrate anatomy (irises, tongues, teeth, skin, internal skeletons) are also very canon and something I choose to ignore in my own fanart.
However, from a literary perspective – Homestuck is, after all, a work of fiction – to the nearest extent that authorial intent can be determined, Homestuck is a comic about death of the author and the validity of the reader’s interpretation. My attempts to justify the contradictory picture of troll anatomy are merely the way that I like to engage with the comic, and frankly a reading that says “folkloric Scandinavian trolls have bovine tails proves that Alternian trolls have bovine tails” is at least as if not more valid than my “convoluted alien arthropod” reading. Trolls are a horrible and confusing mess of xenobiological traits that play more on established troll and alien tropes than any idea of biology; “it’s not that deep” is exactly right. The “reclamation of tails and paws for the people” and “im gonna draw them with tails sometimes and sometimes ill draw them without tails like im gay what do you want” are, as long as they are the way one likes to engage in the fandom, eminently defensible and defensible on that basis alone.
If this comes across as standoffish or a violation of the request not to @ you, I apologize; I just … really like engaging with Homestuck on both the spec bio nerd and death of the author nerd levels and this post has both.
I mean, frankly it’s already extremely weird to presume to try to classify aliens anywhere on any kind of Earth-based tree. That type of research and writing of xenobiology is a science fiction shorthand for exploring earth-based implications of the nature of existence which is one of the common functions of science fiction. It’s a lens for looking at ourselves.
“This alien is a bug” is a meaningless statement, because anything that is a bug is inherently not an alien.
That said, as an entomologist—lots of bugs have tails!
They have caudal filaments and cerci for sensory purposes, they have claspers for sexual reproduction, they have prehensile telsons and mobile pincers like scorpions and earwigs for defensive, offensive, maneuvering, grooming, camouflage, and reproductive purposes.
They have caudal lamellae for breathing underwater, and siphon tubes for breathing when embedded in more solid substances (like a host). They have fan-like waxy tail excretions for gliding and tails that spray acid and tails that store sperm. They have tails that can inject eggs into solid wood several times deeper than their body length. They have kangaroo springtails that flip out from under their body to launch them into the air. They have lure tails that wiggle to attract prey. They have tails covered in fluffy filaments to help hear and taste the world, or to provide grips for their lil babbs to hold on to mama.
Bugs are absolutely loaded down with more tail options than you can shake a stick at is what I’m saying.
Arthropods also have cases of kin-selection style altruism and commensal care-taking, of both oral and gestural advanced communication and vocabulary, of (some) forward facing eyes (think jumping spiders), and of domesticating other plants and animals!
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