Episode 22: The Three Ts of Troll Biology

Episode 22: The Three Ts of Troll Biology
They gave us, the gays, everything we wanted.
Episode	22
Featuring	Kate (host) Dia
Release date	Feb 2, 2019
Duration	57:11
Transcribed By	Pip
Music
Intro music	"perfectly generic" by Goomy
Outro music	"muse" by Kate
Chronology
Previous	Episode 21: Karkat Lives In A Society
Next	Episode 23: Darling Kanaya

Dia joins Kate to discuss troll biology, canon and headcanons. Topics include trolls just being bug furries, comprehensive theories of troll chromosomes and jadeblood roles, unexpected silk, forbidden Vast Error lore, rainbow drinkers, Bronwurd (THEY WERE PITCH, Y’ALL), and Mindfang’s armpit vortex.

Listen to this episode at https://perfectlygenericpodcast.com/updates/episodes/22

Transcript

Kate: The Perfectly Generic Podcast contains spoilers, occasional adult language, and Vriska. Additionally, this episode contains discussion of reproductive biology.

[intro]

Kate: It's time to get lost in Mindfang's armpit vortex. This is the Perfectly Generic Podcast, episode 22. I'm joined this week by cosmic_dia. Dia, how ya doin'?

Dia: I'm doing really great. But like, you kind of ruined my whole day.

Kate: I ruined your day with Mindfang's armpit vortex?

Dia: Maybe. Ruined —

Kate: Okay.

Dia: Some would say ruined, some might say improved.

Kate: Uh-huh.

Dia: It really depends.

Kate: I don't — d'you wanna explain to the people about Mindfang's armpit vortex or are we good?

Dia: Absolutely not.

Kate: [laughs] Alright. Well, this is — this week's episode we're gonna be doing — we're gonna be talking about troll biology headcanons. And —

Dia: Got a good one for you today, folks!

Kate: Yeah, we got — yeah we got a good one. Before we do that I wanna talk about this week in Homestuck. There was — we're still in the drought of official content, please save us. But I'm gonna — I'm gonna say a little bit, which is that Vast Error's been updating and also we are teasing a new project that I am very very excited to show you guys. Follow twitter.com/SyndicationVE for details on it as we start to release more. It's fun! We want to shave you bald and spray-paint your head for only $19.95.

Dia: I want — I wanna get in on this head shaving.

Kate: Yeah, absolutely — don't worry, you're next! [laughs]

Dia: I'm next — oh, that's scary! That scares me! Why would you say that?!

Kate: [laughs] So this week we got a lot of questions, so we're just gonna run this episode with sort of, like, a question-focused? First off I want to say, like, a whole lot of you sent in questions about troll — about tentacles and troll genitalia.

Dia: The three t— we are dealing with the three Ts this week: Teeth, Titties and Tentabulges.

Kate: Yeah. Teeth, titties and tentabulges. And all I can say is that, like, god bless all of you. Like, I do believe in your right to be horny on main — [laughs] I may not agree with it but I will defend, to the death, your right to do it. But we are not —

Dia: I won't.

Kate: We are not — I just want to get this out of the way — I had to throw out about fifty questions 'cause they were just about junk.

Dia: Junk, both in the literal and metaphorical sense.

Kate: Yeah. And so we're not gonna be talking about the drunk— the *junk* that trolls are packing in their trunk. [laughs]

Dia: That's a — that's a loaded sentence. Can we — we gonna unpack that one or we just gonna move on?

Kate: If you want — you wanna psychoanalyze me?

Dia: Mmm, I dunno. I dunno if I'm ready to reach into those Rose Lalonde kin memories today.

Kate: [laughs] We both share them, is the problem.

Dia: [sighs] Unfortunately.

Kate: [laughs] So hal asks on Discord: "are there any headcanons on troll anatomy that you don't see a whole lot of that you like?"

Dia: I am a huge fan of olivebloods with tails.

Kate: You're so fucking brave.

Dia: Yeah. If you're all — if you're all gonna be horny like this I'm gonna be a furry and none of you can stop me.

Kate: I think that that is — I think that's totally valid. Here's the thing, is for me there's only like, two siloes of troll that are valid. Like, if they're gray humans that's not valid. Like it either — you either have to go super furry or super buggy. And lemme be clear about my core thesis, which is that [clapping with each word] trolls are just bugs furries. Like, you —

Dia: I mean yes, that's like — that's — that's like, the most valid kind of interpretation of them because they do have a lot of like, arthropod traits.

Kate: Mhmm.

Dia: And I've always, like, headcanoned that they kind of — this is a headcanon that my friend Felix told me and it's a really good one that I love a lot — my friend — he told me about the headcanon of trolls kind of hatching with like, soft, like, squishy skin, and as they kind of grow into adults their skin like, hardens into like a dark carapace. Kind of like bugs, how they kind of start as like, soft maggots and they kind of like, grow like an exoskeleton as they get older.

Kate: Yeah, yeah exactly, and that does seem to be how it goes. And so my personal, like, favorite headcanon that I don't see — because it's mine and I haven't actually shared it yet — I'm gonna get into by reading a bunch of questions that are all sort of on the same topic and then synthesizing them together into one thesis. And this is really the reason why I'm doing this episode, is for this. So —

Dia: Oh boy.

Kate: I'm going to read —

Dia: This better not be what I think it is!

Kate: It's not about junk, no. It's —

Dia: Okay, thank god.

Kate: I mean it's sort of — it's sort of like, hypothetically about junk, but —

Dia: It's circling — it's circling the rim of junk, but not quite going in.

Kate: [struggling for words] D'you — can you really not think of a better way to say that???

[long pause]

Kate: [laughs]

Dia: Maybe? Maybe I didn't think too hard about that sentence before I said it. I was thinking of that line in Friendsim when — in Zebruh's route or like after Zebruh's route when the main character was talking about like, it circling, like — like the rim [sighs] — maybe we should cut this part out.

Kate: No, I'm — no, no I'm sorry you have to die up here. [laughs]

Dia: You're gonna — you're gonna expose me like that in front of, like, all seven of our listeners.

Kate: Seven? Excuse me! I have at least ten listeners!

Dia: Okay, that's fair. My bad.

Kate: [laughs] Alright, so I'm gonna read a bunch of these questions and not answer them individually, and instead then launch into a lecture. 'Cause that's what you're here for, to listen to me lecture instead of answering your questions.

Dia: Oh fuck yeah we're takin' a troll biology class today.

Kate: Yeah.

Dia: I'm very ready for this.

Kate: So raggedybearcat asked on Twitter: "what is the point of sexual dimorphism if all trolls are functionally producing the same gametes? Are there behavioral/hormonal differences between female and male trolls which contribute differently to the slurry? Would this have played a part in pre-bucket troll society?" mom —

Dia: I think it —

Kate: Sorry, go on.

Dia: I think the sentence 'pre-bucket troll society' is very heavy and very loaded and I don't have time to unpack everything that that's implying.

Kate: Yeah, for sure, I mean it's definitely like a — like [sighs] it is absolutely ridiculous that we care so much about a society whose — [sighs] oh god — whose like, sexual sociological history can be structured around [struggling not to laugh] buckets. It's like it's 2012 again, baby!

[A recording starts playing. A man's voice says: 'Yup'. A crash is heard. 'This is a bucket.']

Kate: mom friend asked on Discord: "could trolls even really be considered a species? They all have different blood colors (and body temps) indicating a huge biological divide. In addition, they don't really reproduce with each other, in that their genes don't combine (the usual definition for a species). It seems that trolls in the whole society have an ancestor that's Them (and while I know our trolls are ectobiological the phrasing used to describe the ancestors/descendants relationship implies it applies to all trolls, not just our main characters)." And then gatefoldCanard asks on Discord: "how do troll chromosomes work? I love genetics, have been trying to theorize about this for ages." Also gatefoldCanard: "why is His Honorable Tyranny practically a lusus but has black blood?" So now, I'm gonna — I'm gonna come here and I'm gonna answer all these questions at once. Because a species is defined as any group of creatures that are reproductively compatible with one another, right? If you cannot create —

Dia: Yes.

Kate: If you cannot create a fertile, viable offspring, you are not the same species as another creature. There are some species that can create non-fertile offspring, like — like horses and donkeys make a mule. That doesn't mean they're the same species because mules are not fertile. In addit— trolls, on their own, with other trolls, are not capable of reproduction. So I'm going to tell you right now that troll gender is meaningless. Human gender's also meaningless [laughs]

Dia: I mean art imitates life, right?

Kate: Yeah. Human gender's also meaningless but troll gender doesn't even have like, a reproductive capacity. There are three troll sexes. Troll, Mother Grub, and Drone.

Dia: Oh I like that! That's weird, but I really like it.

Kate: So in people we have 46 chromosomes, we're diploid. We get 23 from — from our mother, and 23 from our father.

Dia: Uh, speak for yourself!

Kate: Bees have different numbers of chromosomes and I'm gonna base this around bees since the Mother Grub is very clearly like a queen bee analog. The Mother Grub does all of the actual reproduction, does all the actual laying of eggs. So in bees, queens and — and females and workers have 32. 16 are contributed by the queen's eggs, and 16 come from the — from the sperm. And drones hatch from unfertilized eggs and have only the 16 chromosomes that were in the egg. So here is my argument: the Mother Grub, of which there is only one, or very few at a time, is the queen bee equivalent. They provide the eggs — the egg equivalent, and all trolls regardless of physical appearance are functionally identical reproductively and provide the sperm. If a Mother Grub egg is not fertilized it produces a black-blooded drone. Something like —

Dia: Oh, I like that. That's real— I really like that.

Kate: Yeah.

Dia: That's a really good theory actually.

Kate: So a fertilized egg produces a troll, and the wide variance in troll biology creates, y'know, the — is from that other half contributed by other trolls. And an unfertilized egg produces a drone. And that's where drones come from — and 'cause it seems like they've been around for quite a while and they are biological.

Dia: Yeah and like, there was definitely implications that there was like, something eerily organic about them —

Kate: Mhmm.

Dia: Like — even though they are — like they look and move like robots, they do act a lot like — y'know, like everyone's gangster until the proteins start walking, so.

Kate: [laughs] D'you wanna — what does that mean, I don't get it.

Dia: [laughs] I don't know if you ever watched in science class, like, the videos of like the proteins like, dragging the big thing behind —

Kate: Oh yeah [laughs] But like, yeah, so y'know there's a lot of bio-tech on Alternia. There's no reason to doubt that the drones that we see in modern Alternia are extremely modified and augmented by technology, like many trolls are.

Dia: Yeah 'cause we've seen that like, the tr— like Vriska's robotic arm has blood in it.

Kate: Yeah. And like, Aradiabot had blood in it. So yeah, so that's my theory on troll sex. And so — erasableData also asked, like, on Discord, which — I love this extremely simple question: "why breasts?" [laughs]

Dia: Y'know — well there's like — there's like a boring answer and an interesting answer. Should we do the boring answer or the interesting answer?

Kate: Do the boring answer first.

Dia: Boring answer is: trolls are fictional aliens made by a man in 2009.

Kate: Yeah! Yeah, that's the easy answer, right?

Dia: That's the — that's the — probably the most logical answer, but I also like the idea of kind of exploring, like, possible different biological functions for like, titties.

Kate: [laughs]

Dia: And also I'm not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth.

Kate: Welcome to the titty section. Let's play that bass line.

[A suave jazz clip begins playing underneath the conversation, featuring a prominent double bass part]

Dia: [laughs] We get — we're getting that Seinfeld bassl— oh wait, shit, I had that thing I wanted to say about jadebloods with the Mother Grub.

Kate: We'll —

Dia: Can we like — can we like, backtrack to that real quick?

Kate: Yeah, okay, pause — pause the bass.

[the jazz stops playing]

Dia: Pause the bass.

Kate: Bass is paused.

Dia: Pause the bass, we're backtracking. This is kind of a theory I had about — because there is, like — 'cause we know that from Homestuck there are non-cloistered jades such as Kanaya who had a lusus and did not live in the brooding caverns, which seems to be relatively weird by jadeblood standards.

Kate: That seems to be how other Mother Grubs are birthed.

Dia: Yeah, and so I've always liked a theory that cloistered jades and non-cloistered jades do have a biological difference between them. Because there is a process by which — 'cause we discussed this briefly about the drones and stuff —

Kate: Mhmm.

Dia: And this is all very based on not professional knowledge here, but there is like a process in which, like, certain animals can produce young without fertilization, such — like, certain species of lizards can.

Kate: Yeah.

Dia: And there are like, some like, similarities betwee— like, trolls also have some reptilian traits. They technically — like seadwellers technically qualify for all of the traits needed to be a reptile. They have scales, they're vertebrates and they lay eggs.

Kate: Mhmm.

Dia: Well, they *hatch* from eggs, they don't lay eggs, but you know what I mean.

Kate: Mhmm.

Dia: And so I was theorizing that cloistered jades are produced through parthenogenesis, which is a type of reproduction in which there's no fertilization and the young are essentially clones of the — the mother, which in this case'd be the Mother Grub.

Kate: Mhmm.

Dia: And I would think that the Mother Grub is created through feeding royal jelly to a cloistered jade wiggler.

Kate: Mhmm. I like that.

Dia: And like — yeah, like the Matriorb is not actually a Mother Grub egg, it's a capsule of royal jelly that's fed to a baby jade.

Kate: Alright. I like that theory. That theory is Kate-approved.

Dia: Yeah, and so — and then, like, non-cloistered jades would be the ones who are produced regularly. Like, through regular troll reproduction.

Kate: Mhmm.

Dia: And I think that the — and I think if my memory serves me correctly, like, young produced through parthenogenesis are always sterile, and they're also like, always clones of the — of the mother which would kind of explain why all cloistered jadebloods we know are female except for Lanque who is trans —

Kate: Mhmm.

Dia: And like, why they're not allowed to contribute to the slurry, because they're sterile.

Kate: Mhmm.

Dia: That's just — that's just a theory, a game theory.

Kate: I think that stands — I think that stands up pretty well.

Dia: Yeah, I just — I did think about it a lot.

Kate: 'Cause it's clear — it's clear that there is a like, unique relationship to gender amongst jadebloods that isn't shared by other castes.

Dia: Yeah. Especially because most of the female trolls that we see on Alternia are very aggressive and kind of — I wouldn't say dominant but more kind of like — like, definitely, like, female trolls are seen as more kind of, like — [sighs] I don't know how to phrase it but you know what I mean, right?

Kate: Yeah, well they're following — I mean, yeah. There's a — there's a societally imposed expectation by, y'know, the Empress, that female trolls especially are going to be, y'know, brutal conquerors.

Dia: Yes it's very much like a matriarchal society but we don't see that in the cloistered jades, we see them — they're expected to be very gentle and delicate and motherly.

Kate: Mhmm, and this is why Kanaya fascinates me too. Because Kanaya, y'know —

Dia: Kanaya is trans.

Kate: Oh Kanaya is so trans dude [laughs] I mean, 'cause there's that — that metaphor of growing up outside of the typical experience of being a jadeblood, which, y'know —

Dia: Yeah.

Kate: I could argue could — is like a metaphor for cer— for like, a DFAB experience. But then finding and making her own meaning of that and — and, like, having a meaningful connection to — to motherhood and femininity completely created and defined by her. Whether or not Kanaya is literally trans, that's a trans narrative folks.

Dia: It is, it — it *so* is. And I love it.

Kate: Mhmm. Homestuck is chock-full — there's no explicit trans-ness in Homestuck proper, unfortunately, but there is — there is also — there is also —

Dia: Davepeta?

Kate: Not a lot of explicit cis-ness in Homestuck, which I like.

Dia: That's very true.

Kate: That's one way to — I think that's one way to think about it, that's why I enjoy the work's treatment of gender so much, and why I've spent like, 22 episodes talking about mostly gender in Homestuck [laughs]

Dia: Yeah, and even — even our — our troll biology episode is [laughs] we're getting derailed into, like — not that it's bad because I absolutely love it, and we — but [laughs] even when it's not about gender, it's about gender.

Kate: Yeah it is, and that's true of — that's true of most things, folks. So let's — let's put that bass line back on —

[the cool bass line resumes]

Kate: Let's bring it back.

Dia: Alright folks, we're gonna talk about titties now!

Kate: We're bringin' it back to the titty zooooooone. So what — what were you gonna say about titties? [laughs]

Dia: They're — [pause]

Kate: [laughs] You definitely —

Dia: I don't know! You brought titties and like —

Kate: [laughs] You just — you just had that lesbian moment of like, they're good. [laughs]

Dia: They're — yes. But yes, titties, I think — I think, like, yes definitely the reason girl trolls have titties is because they are a fictional alien species made by a man, but that's a boring answer and we're not gonna — we're not gonna — we're not gonna settle for that.

Kate: Mhmm.

Dia: We're not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth.

Kate: [laughs] I do — I wanna say that the bravest person on the internet was @cullcore, who @'d the podcast account with "im gonna bring it up again troll breasts produce silk."

Dia: That is — I mean —

Kate: It's not bad!

Dia: It's — it's weird, but it's like — I can't say that it's like, a bad idea that doesn't make sense.

Kate: Yeah [laughs] I'm — yeah, I'm in favor of it. I'm alright with that.

Dia: [clearly not completely in agreement] Yeah —

Kate: I'm alright with that. As long as the reason — here's the thing, I don't actually care what the specific reason that they have titties is, as long as it's like, weird.

Dia: As long as it's weird, yeah. Like, my personal headcanon was always that they were like — served as like, protection for vital organs. But also like —

Kate: Mhmm. Which I guess fits also with the — the like, female troll gendered expectation being an aggressive warrior.

Dia: Yeah. But also, like, titties for silk is very weird and I kind of love it.

Kate: Yeah, exactly. Just the weirder it is the better, IMO. This was — like [laughs]

Dia: Y'know sometime— sometimes you're in a pinch and you need dental floss.

[the jazz abruptly stops]

Kate: [laughs] [gets up, takes off headphones, and walks away from the microphone] Goodbye! I don't even have my headphones in, I can't hear you any more. I'm leaving.

Dia: Okay, Kate's gone, now we can talk about tentacles.

[silence]

[Kate puts their headphones back in]

Kate: [laughs] Okay, I'm back. [laughing] That was the most cursed shit I've ever heard on this show!

Dia: I actually said something else while you had your headphones off, but you won't be able to hear it until you go to edit this episode.

Kate: Yeah, I'll hear it later! [laughs]

Dia: [laughs]

Kate: I — I just — I just had to leave. I just had to leave. That was — that was *awful*.

Dia: You're welcome.

Kate: UUGHHHHHH [laughs] thanks! [laughs] God.

Dia: Where were we going with this again? [laughs]

Kate: I don't know! You've ruined it! You ruined — my entire train of thought is just, fucking gone.

Dia: [laughs]

Kate: And it's your fault, actually.

Dia: Maybe it is, but like, maybe that's what God intended.

Kate: I guess so. Where was this — there was one thing that like, sorta sums up what I was thinking of here. Becca asked a question, I gotta hit the 'show more' button on Tweetdeck, you guys asked so many questions!

Dia: You guys were really, *really* —

Kate: You guys wilded out on this one!

Dia: [laughs]

Kate: I can't even find the questions that I wanna answer! That I — that I put in the fucking outline. You guys wilded out, man!

Dia: It's like that one Tumblr post says, the one way to get, like, your characters popular is to make them not human; provide one suggestively bizarre detail about their reproductive anatomy; and adamantly refuse to elaborate on it.

Kate: Yeah, that's the power of trolls. That's — that is genuinely, I think, a huge part of the power of trolls. And that's why, personally — so we're talking about Homestuck, here, but in Vast Error we are *never ever ever* going to provide you with genital canon, and I want to tell — and I want to say — I wanna say that it's because, like, we appreciate the mystery, and we — and we're intentionally doing it, but the actual answer is that the four of us can't agree.

Dia: [laughs] That's [laughs] that's a really good answer.

Kate: [laughs] The four of us can't agree! We all — we all have very different, extremely firmly-held opinions! [laughs]

Dia: That's one of the — that's one of those writing room questions that everyone wishes they could be there to witness.

Kate: I — dude, the Vast Error, like — like, our like four-person writing discussion — the actual amount of it that we spend dunking on each-other's stupid headcanons is like, really really funny. [laughs]

Dia: Okay but like, if you're the writers for it it's — they're not headcanons, they're just — they're just canon.

Kate: Well that's the thing is — but if only one of the four of us has it then it's still a headcanon I think.

Dia: Not for long.

Kate: Not for long [laughs] not for long, well I — I'm going rogue! [laughs] Alright folks, let's dish about Vast Error tr— no I'm kidding, I'm not gonna do that [laughs]

Dia: [laughs] We're saving that for the secret, secret episode.

Kate: That's episode 69! [transcriber's note: nice]

Dia: [laughs]

Kate: [laughs]

Dia: Implying that this is not already — this is, like, not literally episode 69 but it's like, functionally episode 69.

Kate: I guess episode 69 should maybe be about the Sufferer?

Dia: Okay that's true.

Kate: [laughs]

Dia: That's like — that's a long way off, though, are you gonna remember that? You gonna have to, like, pin this?

Kate: No fuckin' way, absolutely not. So we got — we got absolutely — we went into the sort of — the floss weeds [laughs] for a while there.

Dia: We kind of — we [sighs] I'm sorry I derailed the entire fucking conversation again.

Kate: [laughs] Ayhumanoid asked on Discord: "noses versus cute lil' snouts"

Dia: Cute lil' snouts, that's all there is to say.

Kate: Absolutely cute little snouts. The cute little snouts that were in one of the art styles in Vriskagram [transcriber's note: the artist in question is Jones N. Wiedle], those were extremely the shit. They're the fucking best.

Dia: I — I love them.

Kate: Vriskagram is so good.

Dia: I know, there was a lot of really good art in Vriskagram, and also it was like — like, it told the story really well without it feeling rushed and I really liked it.

Kate: Yeah. I think — y'know, let's just talk about Homestuck in general for a second here, 'cause we talked about this a little bit last week too —

Dia: They did — they do lose points for giving the trolls ears though.

Kate: [laughs] Okay, no, y'know what, we're getting into it! Redcer—

Dia: We're getting into it: trolls don't have ears!

Kate: Redcervidae asks on Twitter: "finned ears? Pointy ears? Rounded ears? No ears? What's the truth?" So —

Dia: No ears!

Kate: You say trolls don't have ears?!

Dia: They don't have ears!

Kate: Okay why don't they have ears?

Dia: Because [pause] fuck you, that's why.

Kate: [laughs very hard] OH, ext— [fails to stop laughing] extremely good!

Dia: I don't know, it's just — it's — 'cause it's like, kind of like the basic Homestuck art style did not portray them as having ears.

Kate: Mhmm.

Dia: So that just kind of stuck as being my headcanon.

Kate: But it doesn't portray the h— does it even portray the humans as having ears?!

Dia: Ummmm —

Kate: Lemme look up — I'm going back to Hero Mode on MS Paint Adventures Wiki.

Dia: [laughs]

Kate: We're doing live research right here on the show.

Dia: Live research, yeah, that's like when I was at work and I had to look up the price of something for a customer but I had to use my own phone because I didn't have one of the store-provided phones, and they — they got to see that on my phone the most visited page is the MSPA wiki.

Kate: The only character displayed in Andrew Hussie's Hero Mode art style with ears [long pause] is himself. I think.

Dia: So the humans do have ears, but the trolls don't.

Kate: Well Andrew Hussie has ears! Which I — which, like, we can't — [laughs]

Dia: Okay! But — are you trying to say that Andrew Hussie is not human?!

Kate: Does Andrew Hussie have ears? Discuss. Oh wait! Wait wait wait! Here's one! [sounding overjoyed] I found one!

Dia: Okay! So — yes, so the trolls, they don't have ears. The humans do.

Kate: Dammit. Unlucky. Wait, was there ever — was there a Tavros close-up, 'cause he hasn't got hair covering the side.

Dia: He's got — he's got it all out there, we've gotta know. Was there ever like — like a Hero Mode Tavros?

Kate: Yeah, where's Hussnasty Mode, I gotta go to Hussnasty mode.

Dia: Okay, well [sighs] Hussnasty Mode, we're gonna —

Kate: [shocked] Oh My God, Tavros doesn't have ears in Hussnasty Mode!

Dia: OH, I was right!!

Kate: [yelling] Look at that shit!! [laughs]

Dia: I was — oh wait, wait, shit, it's the podcast, they can't see it.

Kate: They can't see it! [laughs] I'll link it — I'm gonna make this picture the — the art for this episode! [laughs]

Dia: [laughs] So, basically I was right.

Kate: 'Cause all the humans have ears in Hussnasty Mode, and the —

Dia: Yeah, and the trolls —

Kate: And the trolls don't!

Dia: So basically, what you're saying is I was right.

Kate: [goes to say "fuck" but reconsiders] — do trolls not have ears?! [laughs]

Dia: They — well, they are — they are like, basically humanoid arthropods, and arthropods do not have — they have — I don't know, do arthropods have ears, like in the traditional sense?

Kate: They have like little — they have like, ear holes.

Dia: They got ear holes, yeah. That's like — that's like Elwurd's sprite art. She's like, the only person on this entire fucking planet I can respect because she doesn't have ears and she shaved her head so we can all see that. And I like that.

Kate: Uh-huh. She's proud of not having ears. There are some Friendsim spri— I mean, okay. The — the thing — a thing that I do like, again, about Friendsim, is that there is a massive variance in like, what trolls look like.

Dia: I know, it's really good.

Kate: Yeah, it gives — it's — it's, y'know. There was a lot in Friendsim that was like, canonized — there was like, fanon that was canonized. My favorite personally is grub scars. That's delightful.

Dia: I *love* grub sc—I have a lot to say about grub scars.

Kate: Well start — well say 'em! That's what you're here for.

Dia: Alright, so I li— 'cause well, the like, kind of existence of grub scars implies that troll pupation is kind of different from how arthropods typically pupate. Because like — again, most of my knowledge is coming from like, a high school biology class and stuff that I've googled at like, four in the morning when I was bored and couldn't get to sleep.

Kate: Yeah, let's take a time-out here actually to say — stackslip asked on Twitter: "do trolls molt in order to reach their 'adult' size? Is an adult troll's skin naturally darker in your opinion?" So we can talk about that — so if you could also talk about that.

Dia: Oh, okay good, 'cause I always liked the head— well I always liked the headcanon that grub scars were highly evolved gills meant to breathe, or like filter oxygen out of sopor slime. Which is how trolls can sleep in it without drowning.

Kate: [whispers] Nice.

Dia: And like, the reason that they get nightmare when not sleeping in sopor slime is because, since their grub scars are trying to breathe air through — 'cause gills cannot breathe air —

Kate: Mhmm.

Dia: They're cu— they have nightmares when not sleeping in sopor slime because they are asphyxiating and, y'know feeling —

Kate: Like sleep apnea.

Dia: Like sleep apnea, yeah.

Kate: That makes sense.

Dia: Yeah, so that's — that's my — that's my beans on the matter.

Kate: Mhmm. Solid unluck though, because, y'know, again, those — recuperacoons look extremely relaxing, and I would like to sleep in one without drowning.

Dia: That is — how could you say something like that?!

Kate: [laughs] Whadda you mean?!

Dia: I would never in a million years ever sleep in a cocoon full of slime.

Kate: I would! I'm just sayi— I'm just saying that — that the like, Lalonde-Maryam house has a recuperacoon and — and a little scuba mask thing for Rose.

Dia: [laughs] Okay that's cute, but also how dare you say these things to me?!

Kate: What's wrong with it?? It seems — it seems warm and comfy. I want to float.

Dia: It's proba— no, it's probably very cold.

Kate: I mean [various noises of disagreement increasing in pitch before morphing into the words] we could warm it up! You could have it be warm!

Dia: I mean, highbloods probably have like, fancy recuperacoons that keep the slime warm so they don't, like, fucking freeze to death in their sleep. But like, if you're a lowblood —

Kate: Well their blood's also colder, so they probably don't care as much.

Dia: I mean — yeah, there's — oh that does remind me of another thing I wan— I'm sorry I keep saying this!

Kate: No, go ahead!

Dia: I keep derailing the —

Kate: We're better when we're not running on an outline.

Dia: I — there was — there was a question about blood color affecting size, right?

Kate: Yeah I didn't put it in the outline.

Dia: But there was — I forget who asked it and I'm so sorry —

Kate: I can't find it, there's too many fucking questions [laughs]

Dia: They were great, we're finally — we're moving outside the three Ts and we can't even do it because everyone here — you're all too horny! Go home!

Kate: You can stay.

Dia: Absolutely not.

Kate: [laughs] Don't listen to Dia! I run this show. If you're horny you can stay.

Dia: If you're horny you have no rights!!

Kate: [laughs] You don't have rights but you can stay!

Dia: But yeah, I was thinki— I thought that like, it wouldn't — I don't think that it's like, a strict correlation, like it's like a — like anything in like, biology, like there's an acceptable range —

Kate: Mhmm.

Dia: And like always there's outliers. Like, y'know like the normal height for a person is like, probably like — like I know the average height for people is like 5'4" or 5'5".

Kate: Mhmm.

Dia: And so obviously it probab— but there's like, people who are, like, super short and also people who are like, super fuckin' tall.

Kate: Mhmm.

Dia: And so I think that it would like, make sense if each kind of — each blood color had its own, like, average range of heights —

Kate: Mhmm.

Dia: Which means that it's kind of like, with a group as small as like, the twelve trolls from Homestuck you wouldn't really be able to see a clear kind of correlation between blood color and height. But with like, a bigger group like the Troll Call trolls you would — probably you would kind of start seeing a pattern. And it makes —

Kate: Mhmm. Unfortunately the ninety different art styles don't give us a really good sense of who's actually taller than who else! [laughs]

Dia: I know and like, drawing 38 characters is a lot of work and I — it's a lot of work and — I dunno man.

Kate: I know, I have — I have your — I have your mousepad that you drew of all 38 Troll Call trolls right here! [laughs]

Dia: And like that took me like, a long time, and it's like doing that — and those weren't even detailed, so it's like doing that but like, giving each character like a full, like, detailed body and like — like inserting all of your headc— it's a lot of work, so — and also I love things with like, varying art styles.

Kate: Yeah me too, that's one of the things I like a— y'know some people are like 'Homestuck has inconsistent art' and it's like. Yes. Because it uses art style shifts to display emotional shifts. You dingus.

Dia: Yeah!

Kate: You absolute numpty.

Dia: Like — yeah, like Karkat is too angry right now, he's forced to look like shit.

Kate: Yeah exactly!

Dia: Like, how can you — how can you like, underplay, like, the comedic genius of that moment?!

Kate: Yeah. I love it! I love it. It's — like, again the thing about Homestuck is that it's like — it is fundamentally, like, post-modern in its structure. The way that it's structured is used to communicate in-story information. And of course, like, the best example of this is like the canvas literally expanding during Cascade, right?

Dia: Ugh I love —

Kate: Like that's the moment that makes everybody gasp.

Dia: I know, I love when like the panels shift around and — like another thing I like about Homestuck is that it gives the reader enough information to know what's going on — well, know what's going on in like the — it's kind of hard to know what's going on in Homestuck sometimes, but like it gives enough information that if you kind of piece it together correctly you will know what's going on.

Kate: Exactly.

Dia: But like it leaves enough to the reader that it's, like, a lot of it you can fill in the blanks with your own ideas.

Kate: Mhmm. Exactly.

Dia: Which is what I like so much about troll biology.

Kate: It's longer than the bible but it still leaves so much space for you to think about it, to disagree about it, to draw your own conclusions or to have 22 hours of podcast about it.

Dia: Yeah! Exa— that's — that's the — that's kind of the gist of it, yeah.

Kate: Let's see. And so speaking of — so the Adult Molt. So we actually have — we've only — the only adult trolls that we've seen are like, depicted in silhouette.

Dia: Yeah and so eve— like, so in Friendsim they did say that adult trolls have darker gray skin, but I don't — but the adult trolls depicted in silhouette, I — I know that's like a — that's more of a stylistic kind of interpretation of their appearance, they're not — they don't actually have like — or I dunno, I guess maybe the sort of —

Kate: Much like adult humans in Homestuck are depicted as featureless.

Dia: Featureless, yeah, because they are kind of meant to be — serve as kind of like a backdrop to the kids who are the main characters.

Kate: Yeah.

Dia: So I think that like — so while I think there is definitely some truth to that like, trolls kind of — they kin— they definitely, like — we did see one adult troll in Friendsim who was — there was the smuggler —

Kate: Yeah.

Dia: From Konyyl's route.

Kate: Yeah.

Dia: She was described as being really big and —

Kate: Bigger than anybody that — that protag had seen yet, and protag had met Chahut by that point!

Dia: No, no — the protag said that Chahut was taller than the adult troll.

Kate: Darn, unlucky.

Dia: Because Konyyl — yeah, Konyyl was — Konyyl was Volume 7, Chahut was Volume 9.

Kate: Whoops!

Dia: It's — I just remember too much stuff about this shit.

Kate: No, no! Usually I'm the one that is like pullin' out the encyclopedic shit, I just got my ass handed to me.

Dia: That's what we're doing here on the Per— I'm here to turn everything on its head. If you're horny you have no rights.

Kate: [laughs] One time — I reme— look, one time I was like — I was like talking about some detail in one of Aysha's routes and she was like "oh that sounds right, when did I — where did I write that?" [laughs]

Dia: [laughs] That is like — that is kind of like the content creator mood though!

Kate: Yeah. Sometimes I'm just — sometimes I'm just talking to somebody on Twitter and I'm just like, I said this in some episode, go find it. [laughs] And —

Dia: It's like they're like —

Kate: That's getting a lot easier now that people are transcribing episodes, and I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who's done that. And thank you especially to Pip, who's definitely listening to this right now while typing. [transcriber's note: Yup!]

Dia: Hi Pip! [Hi Dia!]

Kate: Hi Pip, I really appreciate the shit outta you. [ ;__; Kate...]

Dia: Wait, I wanna make — I wanna make Pip write down something absolutely horrendous. [Oh god.]

Kate: Okay.

Dia: I'm gonna get lost in Mindfang's armpit vortex.

Kate: We already said that!

Dia: I know, but sometimes you just gonna make someone write it down again. [I copy/pasted it, take THAT!]

Kate: Lusamine toenail vortex?

Dia: I'm gonna go to sleep under Lusamine's toenails. Goodbye everyone. [Okay this was literally the worst thing I have ever typed in my life.]

Kate: [laughs] [tries to recover] [laughs again] Luna — [loses it again]

Dia: [laughs]

Kate: [has another try] Lu— [fails miserably, laughs again]

Dia: There's still space for one more if you wanna join me!

Kate: Alright, sure. Goodnight everybody, this episode — no I'm kidd— [laughs]

Dia: [laughs]

Kate: Luna asks on Discord: "how do rainbow drinkers work? How does drinking all the blood types of the hemospectrum turn a troll, presumably only jadebloods, into a rainbow drinker?" That's not how that works, Luna! "And what abilities do they have?"

Dia: Well it was stated in Porrim — in one of the walkaround flashes in Act 6 that jadebloods are born with dormant rainbow drinker abilities and that are awakened later in life, but exactly how or why they're awakened is not known. The fact that Kanaya became a rainbow drinker after dying kind of implies that it's like, some ki— it's like a life-after-death thing. They'll be resurrected. But again that's not exactly — we don't know.

Kate: Yeah. And there were — there were a number of allusions to rainbow drinkers throughout Friendsim. "What, you've never seen a real one before?" [laughs]

Dia: [laughs]

Kate: That was — lemme tell you, that moment was the moment where I really fell in love with protag. 'Cause like, MSPA Reader was a delightful character the whole way through —

Dia: Oh yeah —

Kate: But that quick improvisation of "you've never seen a real one before?" was like —

Dia: And like, not actually —

Kate: The moment where I was like I — you are my — you are perfect.

Dia: Yes. I love — I love the MSPA Reader as a protagonist. They are just —

Kate: MSPA Reader —

Dia: So good.

Kate: Is the best character in Homestuck, and I've been saying this since August.

Dia: How the fuck could you say that about Wanshi?!

Kate: I'm sorry, MSPA Reader is better than Wanshi [laughs]

Dia: [yelling] You take that back right now!!

Kate: [laughs] I — I mean I [whines] [laughs] I'm sorry! I just like MSPA Reader. I like MSPA Reader maybe more than Tyzias!

Dia: More than — how could you — okay that's true, like, every character in Homestuck has flaws except for the MSPA Reader, Tyzias and Wanshi, who don't.

Kate: Mhmm. That's fair. Also Boldir. Boldir doesn't.

Dia: Boldir, yeah. Boldir —

Kate: Boldir doesn't have flaws.

Dia: She has no flaws either.

Kate: God I love Boldir.

Dia: God I — she's just — she's a little creature.

Kate: She's a little creacher. That's all. She cannot change this. And she knows things.

Dia: I know, like she just —

Kate: For those who've just — for those who just listened to the podcast and don't like, follow me on social media, there's a Friendsim fandub project coming up and I will be voicing Boldir and I'm really looking forward to it.

Dia: Ah that's — that's really cool! I didn't know you were voicing Boldir, I hadn't —

Kate: Everyone thought — everyone thought I was gonna be voicing Tyzias 'cause, My Brand. But no, I — I did a — I've got a Boldir voice that I will debut for all of you [laughs]

Dia: Yeah I'm really — I'm really excited for the fandub, I'm gonna make so many fuckin' animations. You have no i—

Kate: Oh my god that's so exciting!

Dia: Wait, hold on, this episode was supposed to be on troll biology — we're like, a million years off topic right now!

Kate: This is the Perfectly Generic Podcast! We get in the weeds every week. PunkinMars asked on Twitter: "we haven't seen or heard about any elderly trolls. Do you think they reach an age where their bodies begin to deteriorate like human bodies as they age?"

Dia: I think that's an interesting question because yeah, we really — like the closest thing we would have to seeing like an elderly troll would be, like, the Ancestors who are still alive like Her Imperious Condescension and the Grand Highblood.

Kate: Yeah.

Dia: But like, Her Imperious Condescension still kind of had — she had those — she wasn't quite at gilf stage yet, she was still a milf.

[transcriber's note: this was the point at which I had to get up and take a walk before coming back and finishing the episode]

Kate: [laughs] It's true! It's true. I like — I do like your thing that trolls just — trolls don't — trolls just keep gettin' bigger. They just keep — it's like a lobster, they just keep gettin' bigger until they die.

Dia: Yeah! And I think — but I also think — 'cause like a lot of, kind of — like, one of the kind of dilemmas in modern medicine is that we've figured out how to extend people's lifespans but we haven't quite figured out how to like, stop ageing.

Kate: Mhmm.

Dia: But I feel like maybe troll society — 'cause they are so bent on — they're like, hell-bent on domination and conquest, they've — and their medical technology is really advanced, like Amisia having the gloryhole of well-being that you stick your fuckin' arm into and it heals your bones. It — they probably have like medici— like, some kind of like, at lea— like, some form of medicine that like kind of pushes off ag— pushes off, like, the deterioration into —

Kate: Shortens those telomeres.

Dia: Yeah.

Kate: They do have a concept of cancer.

Dia: Yes, they do, which mean— which is — yeah, because they — trolls can definitely still be ill, like — like kind of Karkat being aware of the concept of cancer, and —

Kate: Or like Tavros' beats.

Dia: Tavros' beats, yeah, and — and Folykl having voidrot.

Kate: Yeah. Oh, voidrot fascinates me.

Dia: Me too!

Kate: Actually let's skip ahead to the — let's skip ahead to the goldblood question then.

Dia: [under breath] Oh yes!

Kate: Yeah. So pukuppi asks on Twitter: "is a goldblood's psionics necessarily tied to their eyes? As in, y'know how Fol has no eyes, like, is the losing of her eyes the cause for voidrot? Also how Zebede has normal eyes and shit. Man, I really wanna know more about goldbloods, I'm livin' for this shit."

Dia: Me too!

Kate: "Oh yeah, also following up on that Zebede thing, since he seems to be able to control his bees and it doesn't really seem to be a psionic dealie, I'm thinking about if powers from some castes bleed into other occasionally? I remember seeing this theory on Tumblr and I'm all for it TBH."

Dia: Oh yes, I love that — I love — I love that idea that he's kind of — because yeah, communing with animals was previously a skill exclusive to Tavros and Tavros' family I guess, that's like — like him, Rufioh and the Summoner.

Kate: Mhmm.

Dia: So it might be — so I don't know if we know enough trolls with animal communing ability so say it's like a caste-specific skill —

Kate: Mhmm.

Dia: Because it could just be like, a general lowblood thing that like, some lowbloods can commune with animals.

Kate: Mhmm. There's clearly a motif with goldbloods and eyes.

Dia: Oh yeah, for sure.

Kate: And it does — it does appear as thought there's some connection between eyes and power, like — Azdaja's eyes are — y'know, flash when he's using his powers, so do Sollux's.

Dia: Yeah and Sollux pushing himself caused him to like, lose his eyes and become blind.

Kate: Yeah. Yeah.

Dia: So I definitely think even if the eyes don't — the eyes themselves don't generate the power, the eyes are definitely like the exit point for the power.

Kate: The eyes [ayes] have it.

Dia: The eyes. They see all.

Kate: And yeah, there does seem to be, y'know, like — I don't know if Folykl losing her eyes is the cause of her voidrot, although Cirava does gouge out an eye to disable their own psionic powers.

Dia: Yeah, so I think that is definitely kind of like an explicit correlation between eyes and psionic powers.

Kate: Yeah.

Dia: But whether or not Folykl — maybe is like — it's kind of hard to say whether or not she's a fal — she's not a psionic because she lost her eyes, or like — I don't know, 'cause it's — it's really — 'cause voidrot as a concept is still kind of mysterious to us because we don't have a ton of information on it other than its effects is that it kind of causes her to need to like, suck up a ton of energy all the time, always.

Kate: Mhmm.

Dia: And — 'cause it's possible that she could've been born with it and was — never had eyes in the first place.

Kate: Or maybe it's Maybelline.

Dia: Maybe it's Mayb— yeah. Maybe — maybe troll Maybelline gives you voidrot.

Kate: [laughs]

Dia: That's why — that's why makeup culture is dangerous.

Kate: It is! Wel— welcome to the butch lesbian podcast! [laughs]

Dia: [laughs] Exactly!

Kate: I haven't shaved my legs since the Obama administration.

Dia: I haven't sh— I shaved my legs once when I was in eighth grade and that's it.

Kate: Fuckin' solidarity. Let's just talk about butch things. [laughs]

Dia: Butch — speaking of butch things — Marsti is cool. I have a —

Kate: Marsti is so cool.

Dia: Yes. I don't have any thoughts to attach to that, I just wanted to say it.

Kate: She doesn't have any interesting biology she's just cool.

Dia: She's just cool, yeah.

Kate: [laughs] Well — hey wait, it's relevant 'cause she's attracted to Folykl.

Dia: That's true, we — we segmented that one nicely.

Kate: Yeah exactly, but —

Dia: Another win for us over here at the Perfectly Generic Podcast.

Kate: I really — I tweeted this, but like, Folykl is a genuinely like, revolutionary type of character.

Dia: Oh yeah definitely. 'Cause like, she's like a — she's like a girl character who is like — she's, like, gross, but not in the way where it's like, oh look at this — look at this girl, she doesn't — she's bad because she doesn't conform to beauty standards. It's like, she's gross but in a likeable way.

Kate: Yeah.

Dia: Like, gross girl rights.

Kate: Yeah, gross girl rights! And like, she's depicted as being the like, receiving object of like, romantic affection from a —

Dia: Yeah.

Kate: Like, attractive character. And like —

Dia: Yeah.

Kate: It ain't no thing.

Dia: I know, it's — it's v— like, Folsti [Folykl/Marsti] is like, one of like [sighs] I love Bronwurd [Bronya/Elwurd] too much to say Folsti is my favorite ship but Folsti is very good.

Kate: [lesbian voice] Bronwurd is so tasty.

Dia: I know!

Kate: I'm always — so here's — by the way, so here's my theory! We're just gettin' completely off the rails here —

Dia: [laughs] Yeah.

Kate: So it's never specified what quadrant Elwurd and Bronya were in, and in Elwurd's route she says she's always going for the good girl spades trying to change them. And like, I followed up with this and confirmed that like, it's never confirmed what quadrant they were in canon.

Dia: Yeah.

Kate: I think they were black!

Dia: Yeah, like the MSPA Reader does say at one point that they were ex-matesprits but I don't think the MSPA Reader is a 100% reliable narrator.

Kate: Yeah. MSPA Reader doesn't actually understand quadrants very well.

Dia: Yeah, and Elwurd is a blackrom chad.

Kate: Yeah. She is.

Dia: [laughs]

Kate: I think — I think there could've been a case of vacillation where Elwurd had pitch feelings and Bronya had red feelings, as hinted by the fact that their breakup was about Bronya wanting to talk about feelings too much.

Dia: Yeah, and also like, thinking about Elwurd just as a character there was no way you could be close to her and not be pitch for her, 'cause she's —

Kate: [EXTREMELY lesbian voice] She's so — she sucks, I love it!

Dia: She's — she's a fratboy in a lesbian's body and that's like — that's what makes her, like, one of the best fucking Hiveswap characters.

Kate: Yeah. The thing about — the thing about Homestuck and Hiveswap that's good is that there's so many girls that just *suck*.

Dia: I know, and it's like: finally, some garbage that I can like, approve — like, some garbage is okay. This is — this is my garbage.

Kate: Some garbage is okay. [laughs]

Dia: I love how someone brought up Folykl and we went completely off-topic.

Kate: Yeah, it's true.

Dia: This really is the butch lesbian podcast isn't it.

Kate: This is the butch lesbian podcast! TornasolArtist asked on Twitter: "I'm so glad to see Dia here! I wanna ask what fanon thing would you like for it to be canon, and what fanon thing that turned canon surprised you the most?" I'll let you go for the — what fanon thing would you like to be canon?

Dia: I would love for — there's a lot of, actually, things that I would like to be canon. I would love either bioluminescent seadwellers or olivebloods with tails. Because those are just my two personal favorites.

Kate: Uh-huh. I like it, I like it. The fanon thing that I would most like to be canon: purring.

Dia: If you say — if you say tentacles I'm gonna come out through your computer screen and choke-hold.

Kate: I said purring! I said purring!

Dia: Oh! I didn't hear that! [laughs]

Kate: I didn't say tentacles! [laughs]

Dia: You better not — yeah, you're right, you didn't say tentacles. [laughs]

Kate: Although — although as somebody pointed out, the graffiti in Marsti's route —

Dia: If you finish this sentence I'm going to come out through your computer screen and choke-hold you.

Kate: Okay. Alright I'm not gonna finish the sentence.

Dia: [laughs]

Kate: [laughs] Readers, finish that sentence yourself.

Dia: Yeah. That's a —

Kate: I just called you readers! Maybe you're readers, maybe you're reading Pip's transcript.

Dia: Oh, hi again Pip!

Kate: In which case, please enjoy all of my 'um's and 'like's [laughs]

Dia: That's the — that's the California culture.

Kate: Yeah I — I'm not — I live in California but I'm not ready to be referred to as Californian yet! I don't —

Dia: You will soon enough.

Kate: The first thing I do when I arrive at a social engagement is not talk for fifteen minutes about the specific roads I used to get there and how busy they were, so I'm not an actual Californian yet.

Dia: You will be soon enough!

Kate: No! I will never — I will never show up at a party and talk about how busy the 5 was. That's my god damn promise to you.

Dia: Oh yeah, troll biology. We —

Kate: Oh yeah, what's up with that?

Dia: What's up with that!

Kate: What fanon thing that turned canon surprised you the most?

Dia: Troll biology-wise I really love grub scars, we talked about grub scars already but grub scars are very cool and I do love them a lot. And also I love the — it was a minor detail but in Galekh's route they talked about him making like a frustrated clicking noise in his throat, which kind of implies, like, trolls make bug noises sometimes, which —

Kate: Sooo good!

Dia: I love.

Kate: Yeah.

Dia: That's like one step away from purring.

Kate: Yeah exactly. I think we are — we're on the same page here, it's true. Yeah, pur— yeah, purring is like so close to canon. The —

Dia: Like, olivebloods definitely purr, that's all I'm saying.

Kate: The thing that surprised me the most was in Stelsa's route [laughs]

Dia: Ohhh boy, we're go— [laughs]

Kate: [various flustered indistinct noises rising in pitch and ending in a yelp] [laughs]

Dia: I thought we could only — we can only — we can only put this off for so long, so let me have it.

Kate: They — sensitive horns.

Dia: Sensitive horns yes, I think that's an interesting concept 'cause, well. In Polypa's route they do say that the horns are made of chitin, which is the material that makes up an arthropod's exoskeleton which is not a material that has — it's not a material that has nerve-endings in it, so they don't have — so that means they don't have feeling, which would mean that it's more so the gesture that holds weight rather than the actual feelings the gesture elicits, which would be none because horns are made of chitin.

Kate: Yeah. But the interesting thing is, y'know, like — like troll horns do not appear to be — like we never see troll horns used in a combat sense. They are not combat horns, they're like — they're like deer antlers, they're like decorative.

Dia: Well deer's — deer antlers they use — like, male deer they fight each other with their antlers for dominance. I always like the feeling that like tr— like, horn sparring was like — is like a troll form of martial arts.

Kate: Mhmm.

Dia: Like muscular theater, except they like, kind of like grapple with their horns, I always thought that was cool.

Kate: They're definitely not bones. We see —

Dia: They're not bones, yes.

Kate: We see the young Handmaid's bones —

Dia: Yes, and also in Lynera's study cave there are troll skulls and the horns are very clearly separate from them.

Kate: Yeah.

Dia: So yes, troll horn — yeah the horns — well they are — if they're anything like horns on Earth creatures they would be made of like an alive bone core with a sheath of keratin around it. Well, in this case chitin instead of keratin because they're bugs obviously.

Kate: Yeah.

Dia: But — so I think — I always thought of the like, horn touching being intimate as being kind of like birds preening each other. Like, it's an intimate gesture but it's not necessarily like — it's not horny! [yelling] Stop being horny!!

Kate: I didn't say it was horny. You're yelling —

Dia: I was just talking —

Kate: I know you're yelling at the listeners. I didn't say —

Dia: I'm yelling at the listener!

Kate: I didn't say it was horny, I just said it was intimate.

Dia: Yeah, intimate, I don't think intimate necessarily means horny. Well I guess in this case it does because they're literal horns, but like —

Kate: Wow I guess that's — I guess horns [laughs] darn! Let's see. So you talked about this a little bit, optimisticDuelist asked on Twitter: "better question: bioluminescent trolls? Yes? No? Very hot? Expert opinions say very hot."

Dia: I say yes, and I'm gonna say it again: yes. I love the idea of seadweller trolls having bioluminescent spots that they can use to talk to each other like morse code underwater.

Kate: I like it.

Dia: It's — I honestly stole that idea from a book series I really like, but you know how it is!

Kate: Yeah, you know — it really do be like that sometimes!

Dia: It really do be like that.

Kate: Holy shit! We're 52 minutes in! Have we talked about Vris—

Dia: Oh my god. We —

Kate: Have we talked about Vriska at all?!

Dia: We did not talk about — we did — we talked about Mindfang.

Kate: [sighs] Mindfang.

Dia: Wait, and I didn't bring up the — the analogy I made with troll horns to armpits but like, saying that so close to mentioning Mindfang, I don't know if I should.

Kate: You should do it.

Dia: [sighs] Okay. I'm saying that troll horns are like armpits. And like, I know that's a — that's a loaded sentence, but like —

Kate: [laughs] Especially coming from you!

Dia: [laughs] Yeah, okay! Okay, it's a loaded sentence but it's like — armpits aren't horny.

Kate: [uncomfortable noises of disagreement] Unless you're you!

Dia: Okay! [very long pause] Listen.

Kate: [laughs]

Dia: Armpi— it's like, your armpits are like — armpits are not like, an inherently like, sexual part of the body, but you wouldn't want a random stranger touching your armpits.

Kate: Okay.

Dia: Like that's just weird!

Kate: Yeah, I don't want a random stranger touching any part of me.

Dia: Well yeah, but like, especially your armpits.

Kate: Okay, fair.

Dia: That's like — that's like — I think MSPA Reader did the equivalent of asking Stelsa if they could shave her armpits, which is weird.

Kate: [cackles]

Dia: Like if some— if a stranger — if I invited a stranger in and they asked me if they could shave my armpits I would say "yeah you can go now."

Kate: Uh-huh. But — but Marvus —

Dia: Do not bring up that man!

Kate: [laughs very hard]

Dia: [laughs] Why —

[both struggling to recover for a while]

Kate: And that's our show, folks!

Dia: [laughs]

Kate: [sobbing with laughter] The in— [breaks up again] [tries again, having to yell to keep from laughing] The intro music was "perfectly generic" by goomy, you can find at smoothiefruitee.bandcamp.com, that's [spells out] smoothiefruitee, the link's in the description. The outro music is some shit by me. You can find the Perfectly Generic Podcast — that's the name of the show —

Dia: You can find the Perfectly Generic Podcast somewhere in Mindfang's armpit.

Kate: You can find the Perfectly Generic Podcast on your favorite podcast client or in Mindfang's armpits.

Dia: [laughs]

Kate: [laughs] Sunday, March 29th [TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: SHOULD BE 24TH!!!!] at the Guildhall Bar in Burbank, California. We're gonna be doing an all-ages liveshow and it is going to be a concentration of Homestuck power like you have never seen before. It will be myself, Aysha Farah, Paige, Austin, Heather, James Roach, optimisticDuelist and Pip, *at least* will be there.

Dia: That sounds like a lot of fun.

Kate: It is gonna be a lot of fun. And — no tickets, no admission fee. Just show up and be ready to listen to us talk about Homestuck. It's gonna be a two-part show: first part's gonna be about the most meaningful moments of Homestuck to all of our panellists there, and the second half is gonna be about Vast Error. You can find this show at perfectlygenericpodcast.com. Give us a review on iTunes, on Spotify, on your favorite podcast client. You can find me at — on Twitter at @gamblignant8, also that username on Tumblr, don't really use Tumblr. You can find my main at @KateMitchellOW, and you can find my new project account that — for a project I'm co-directing at @SyndicationVE. Where can folks find you on the internet?

Dia: You can go out into your back yard and find a shallow hole and I'll probably be there. But my Twitter account is @cosmic_dia and my Tumblr art blog is @diadraws with like, no spaces or anything.

Kate: Nice, nice, nice nice nice. Alright, d'you have anything else you wanna say about — about — I'm — gang, I'm sorry we didn't talk about — we didn't talk about dicks. Actually I'm not sorry.

Dia: I'm not! [laughs]

Kate: Yeah! [laughs] Actually — actually wait, I'm not sorry!

Dia: All I have to say is Slapras. That's all.

Kate: Slapras! Wait — oh wait I wanted to ask before we — before we log off. So like, I wanted to hear this story from you because Slapras, like, your Lapras plushie that I'm looking at right now because — because Slapras is your icon on Discord —

Dia: I'm looking at her right now too 'cause she — she sits on my desk next to my computer at all times.

Kate: Hi Slapras!

Dia: She says "hi" back.

Kate: Awesome. Fuck yes. [laughs] But like — so Slapras was used in the teaser for Daraya's route. And I imagine that that was — that was a pretty good — that was a pretty amazing moment for you.

Dia: Yes, I — to say I lost my shit was an understatement. I called my mom and told her.

Kate: Aww!

Dia: She was — she was happy. She was excited.

Kate: Uh-huh. [laughs] Alright, well then that's just one of the many ways that Homestuck has brought us joy over the years.

Dia: Yes, they gave — they gave us, the gays, everything we wanted.

Kate: That's true. Thank you very much for comin' on, Dia.

Dia: It was really fun to talk about Not Dicks.

Kate: See ya next week, don't know what the episode's about yet. Keep rising!

[outro]