Kanaya Maryam's Ashen Quadrant Through the Lens of Compulsory Heterosexuality

Shout out to everyone who let me scream about this to y’all. Inspired in part by this post by ConceptOfJoy, along with my tags on it.

A quick shout out to Faline, Rhys, Pluto NobodysVoice, Velcro, Harley, Sariel, Relaxx, and Crow, for letting me rant at y’all and helping me formulate my thoughts.

This essay is about Alternia’s sexual norms, quadrants viewed through a queer lens, and how Kanaya Maryam’s ashen quadrant is a metaphor for compulsive heterosexuality.

Alternia: Bisexual, Binormative, or Something Else?

Alternia is such a bisexual society that there aren’t even words to describe gender based attraction, right?

“EB: i am not a homosexual.
CG: WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?
EB: it is like, when a boy likes another boy.
EB: or i guess hates, in this case.
CG: HUMANS HAVE A WORD FOR THAT?“ (Homestuck, page 004528)

Despite seemingly having no words for it, the author indisputably indicates that trolls as a society are generally bisexual; “Hivebent never makes a big deal of explicitly stating that trolls are an overwhelmingly bisexual race, but you start to gather that from context on a longer-term basis.” (Homestuck: Book 4, page 337).

I’ve seen the word binormative thrown around by fans. Based on the Merriam Webster definition for heteronormativity, the definition I will be using for binormative is “of, relating to, or based on the attitude that [bi]sexuality is the only normal and natural expression of sexuality.”

I lean against calling Alternia a purely bisexual society because it erases all trolls who aren’t bisexual. Even Hussie didn’t call it exclusively a bisexual society. It’d be the same as calling the United States a heterosexual society; it ignores the experiences of all the gay individuals here. Characters like Kanaya and Elwurd would have their lesbianism erased by calling Alternia a bisexual society. Speaking as a bisexual myself, I don’t find an inherently bisexual society necessarily appealing, rather I want a society full of diverse experiences.

As for binormative, it’s a little closer, but still not quite accurate. To assume bisexuality is the only normal and natural expression of sexuality, Alternia would actually have to use a gender based model of attraction- which it doesn’t. Which isn’t to say Alternia is a society lacking sexuality either, as some fans speculate. It uses quadrants. It is less that Alternia is binormative and more that it is quadnormative.

How does this definition fit Alternia? “[O]f, relating to, or based on the attitude that [quadrant based] sexuality is the only normal and natural expression of sexuality.” It’s a pretty good fit if I say so myself. Which I do. As is evident by me typing all of this.

Would this erase all the juicy bisexual representation that so many of us love and appreciate? No. By human standards, the majority of trolls are still bisexual. Andrew Hussie literally says that trolls are “overwhelmingly bisexual,” remember?

Besides the more important question is this: how can a troll be a lesbian if gender based sexuality isn’t a thing? The easy answer is the Word of Huss.

“I think this was pretty obvious a long time ago.
But then, homosexuality in a society where bisexuality is the norm is kind of a different thing. Rather than being a swapped preference, it is a more exacting preference. Somewhat like a fetish for a particular gender. When Karkat was talking to John about it, he indicated trolls don't even have a word for the orientation. It's not something that appears to have any cultural significance to them. Which might seem odd, but then, they're aliens. Maybe a way to view it is how we view people with more exacting preferences, like certain fetishists. We don't actually have common words to describe most people like that, and their presence doesn't have nearly the same social ramifications which homosexuality does. Humans seem to make a very big deal out of homosexuality, while treating other forms of preference as barely worth noting. When Karkat was <3< hitting on John, the reasonable human response was to say "I am not a homosexual." But the troll response would be more like "Sorry, not interested," without invoking orientation. Very much like a guy with a fat fetish isn't too likely to reject a thin girl by saying "Sorry, I am just this HUGE chubby chaser, so I must decline." (CUE FAT VRISKA JOKES AGAIN)
Not that any of this changes how we view Kanaya. From a human perspective, she's an unmistakably gay character.” (Andrew Hussie, Forumspring, March 2nd, 2011)

Obviously there is something to be said about comparing having a gender preference to a fetish. My own critique starts at “what the fuck,” meanders into “I think it’d closer to having a preference for brunettes personally,” and ends at “I don’t think this intended to be homophobic, Andrew Hussie just seems to be fascinated with fetishes.”

The Perfectly Generic Podcast (episode 9) also brings up that Elwurd’s Friendsim route seems to retcon this and implies that there are gender preferences on Alternia and that those people have their own spaces. Though this is extra-canon material, I’m inclined to believe it.

Whether or not trolls have humanlike sexuality labels or not, the important part here is that Kanaya, from a human perspective, is a lesbian. She’s also referred to as a lesbian in the author commentary in Homestuck: Book 5 (published by VIZ Media on October 22, 2019) on pages 44 and 418 and in Homestuck: Book 6 (published by VIZ Media on March 10, 2020) on pages 117 and 237. So that alone is about a decade of Hussie calling Kanaya a lesbian.

But that’s from a human perspective. What does it mean to be a lesbian in Alternian culture? If Word of Huss is the easy answer to Kanaya being a lesbian, what’s the hard answer? Let’s take a look at quadrants through a queer lens.

Alternian Queerness

Queering the Quadrants

Bloggers other than myself have covered the topic of Alternian queerness before me- baring in mind that I disagree with this particular essay in that, frankly, I think quadnormativity works as a decent metaphor for heteronormativity- and others, such as in the Perfectly Generic Podcast, have also discussed the compulsory nature of quadrants, but I haven’t seen any in-depth discussion about how Kanaya’s ashen quadrant is specifically a metaphor for compulsory heterosexuality and how it relates to her lesbianism. And I promise we will get to that; I know you’re just as hungry for that delicious auspisticism as I am. First, we have to understand what being troll gay even means and why Kanaya being a lesbian makes sense not only in human terms, but also in Alternian terms.

I must note that when I say a character or relationship is queer or gay in this essay, I’m not using these terms as either specific identity labels nor as slurs. I am using them as a shorthand for sexuality that transgresses against social norms, roughly inspired by the definition by Jay Stewart that’s listed on the Wikipedia page for queer theory. Yeah, I know how to read Wikipedia like the best of them! I did actually read Stewart’s chapter of the pdf that Wikipedia links, so I exerted slightly more than minimal effort here.

One great example of queering relationships in real life are queerplatonic relationships, which already get compared and contrasted with quadrants via moirallegiance. For the unfamiliar, here’s the definition of queerplatonic from the coiner:

“Queerplatonic is a word for describing relationships where an intense emotional connection transcending what people usually think of as ‘friendship’ is present, but the relationship is not romantic in nature; people in a queerplatonic relationship may think of themselves as partners, may plan on spending their lives together, etc. The 'queer’ is a reference to the idea of queering relationships and ideas about relationships, not for describing the orientations or genders of anyone in a queerplatonic relationship. Anyone, sexual or asexual, romantic or aromantic, straight, gay, queer, bi, lesbian, poly, cis, trans, etc etc can be in a queerplatonic relationship, can have more than one such relationship, and there can be more than two people in a queerplatonic relationship; couples, triads, quads, whatever. The key feature is the idea of being deeply connected to someone, without a romantic element (though a queerplatonic relationship can be sexual).” (S. E. Smith, January 21st, 2011, link obtained via The Ace Theist).

Like the definition indicates, different people in queerplatonic relationships may define them differently, so this term is a bit malleable. The point is this is a real world example of transgressive relationship styles in human society.

In Alternian culture, one method of romantic transgression is via quadrant vacillation. Quadrant vacillation describes the “malleable” and “volatile” status of romantic troll relationships, especially so on the concupiscent side of the quadrants when trolls have mix-matched feelings for each other, i.e. one troll feeling flush while the other feels pitch, often leading to infidelity (Homestuck, page 004298). The socially acceptable fix to relationships with lots of quadrant vacillation is an auspistice coming in to mediate (Homestuck, page 004300).

While something like “SPIRITED PLATONIC CONTENTION” is acceptable in a “HEALTHY MATESPRITSHIP” (Homestuck, page 006592), quadrant vacillation is generally considered drama, with stable quadrant vacillation being depicted in troll romance novels (Homestuck, page 006612). Alternia generally runs on the idea that every troll will have one soulmate (or two soulmates, in the case of auspisticism) for each quadrant (Homestuck, page 004305). So an openly fluctuating relationship where two people alternate between two of your quadrants doesn’t fit within Alternian social norms, it’s an idealized idea from romance novels.

Along with these social norms, it is legally enforced for trolls to fill, at minimum, their flush and caliginous quadrants. Based on the eugenicist Alternian propaganda that stronger concupiscent pairs produce more dominant genes and are thus more likely to result in offspring, filial drones will kill trolls who can’t produce two separate buckets worth of genetic material (Homestuck, page 004296).

As such, between the pressure from social norms and legal enforcement, quadrant vacillation can be easily identified as a queer relationship style within Alternian culture. And Alternia is full of examples of these kinds of experiences! To start, there is the First Ship.

The First Ship consists of a relationship between The Signless and The Disciple. “It was said their love went beyond the four quadrants, transcending the grid entirely” (Homestuck, page 005958). Although they are a couple made up of a man and a woman, I do still think they work as a queer metaphor. Think of them as a bisexual couple, if that helps. Just because they don’t look queer doesn’t mean they’re abiding by heteronormative, or quadnormative for our purposes, standards.

For an example of an average Joe desperately trying to make his queerness abide by his dead civilization’s social standards, we look to The Signless’s descendant, Karkat Vantas. He wants Terezi’s flush and pitch quadrants (Homestuck, page 006592), but can only rationalize it through the lens of stable quadrant vacillation, keeping the two sets of feelings from mixing (Homestuck, page 006613). He survived his friends knowing he’s a mutant, but knowing he wants one troll in two quadrants? Never! Not without steps being taken to make it suit Alternian social norms. Since this is an essay about Kanaya’s queerness and not Karkat’s, I’ll leave this section off with a link to a post about Karkat’s queerness.

I’m also going to include an example here that might be a bit of a stretch for some of you, if only so I can say I was thorough in my search for queer expression in Alternian society. Say hello to my good old buddy Dualscar!

Here me out!

What comes to mind for me is when Mindfang pointed out in her journals that only someone as privileged as a seadweller would show disdain for the troll their kismesis sees in the flush quadrant:

“The Orphaner poses a caliginous riddle like no other I've met. I am presuming him 8othered 8y jealousy, and it would 8e sickening if it were not so marvelously amusing. 8ut then, who 8ut royalty could have the finned cheek to show disdain for the manner in which his 8lack lover conducts her red conquests? Less has acceler8ted meeker than I to homicide, and the viol8tion would hold me aghast, again, if his misgivings did not complement his so endearing arsenal of qu8nt flaws. It is impossi8le to stifle this grin even now as I write.” (Homestuck, page 005407)

Obviously, there’s a level of misogyny at play here, where Dualscar feels entitled to Mindfang’s flush quadrant despite already being her kismesis, but even Mindfang is acknowledging that only someone as rich and privileged as seadwelling royalty can get away with having feelings like this. Dualscar isn’t at risk of persecution for his queerness the way someone else, a man of lower social standing would be. By which I obviously mean The Signless. Though, when Dualscar acts on his jealousy, Mindfang does refer to having her heart broken (Homestuck, page 005408) and Dualscar still dies in the end (Homestuck, page 005414), indicating that attempting quadrant vacillation can be seen akin to a break up.

Though, to be fair, it could also just be that him killing her flush lover is what really caused the break up, rather than the vacillation itself.

So now that we know what queer quadrants look like, what’s next? Do we finally get that juicy ashen romance now? Nope! Next we have to establish what compulsory quadsexuality is.

Compulsory Quadsexuality

If you’re a fellow tumblrina, you’re likely familiar with compulsive heterosexuality in the form it is often shorted to: comphet. In modern, online nomenclature, many sapphic individuals define compulsory heterosexuality, or “comphet,” as being a social pressure that encourages them to be with men.

A lesbian marrying a man because her mother wants her to settle down and have kids already?

Comphet.

A bisexual dating a guy she isn’t into because she has a crush on his best friend’s girlfriend and this is the most socially acceptable way to stay close to her?

Comphet.

A nonbinary, pansexual sapphic staying in a relationship with a self-identified straight man who ignores their nonbinary identity because at least he doesn’t mind that they’re nonbinary because he can pretend they’re a woman?

Comphet.

But to make sure we’re fully understanding compulsive heterosexuality, let’s look to its origins. Compulsory heterosexuality, coined by Adrienne Rich in 1980, is a theory that states that heterosexuality is assumed and enforced by our society. She defines lesbianism as rejecting “a compulsory way of life.” This goes hand-in-hand with that definition of queerness as sexuality that transgresses against social norms, which would make sense given that compulsory heterosexuality is a part of queer theory.

So how does this wrap back into what we discussed about quadnormativitiy and quadrant vacillation as queerness? Easy, compulsive quadsexuality is the theory that quadrant based sexuality is assumed and enforced by troll society. Remember those Alternian social norms about legally enforcing by threat of death to use quadrant based methods of reproduction (Homestuck, page 004296)? Yeah, that’s not just quadnormativity, it’s compulsive quadsexuality. It’s not only assuming quadrant based sexuality is the norm, it’s enforcing it as the norm.

And that’s all you need to know about queer quadrants in order to understand how Kanaya’s relationship to auspisticism is a metaphor for compulsive heterosexuality.

Kanaya Maryam’s Quadrants

Kanaya’s Troll Lesbianism

We are so close to the auspisticism that I can smell it, but first we need to actually establish Kanaya’s lesbianism. Her lesbianism via a troll lens, not a human one. I’m not the first blogger to acknowledge that Kanaya doesn’t strictly keep things to one quadrant, and I likely won’t be the last.

Although Kanaya acts like Vriska’s moirail for a while, it’s very clear to other trolls that her feelings lean “ruddy” (Homestuck, page 004243). Later, she can also be seen auspisticizing between Vriska and Tavros, until Vriska distracts her and literally prevents her from mediating. What’s more relatable to the sapphic experience than having a crush on your childhood best friend and watching in horror as she falls for some guy you don’t really care about and crying over an imagined break up in your head? No? No one? Only me? Okay then. Moving on.

That said, while Kanaya has these varying feelings and acts in these different ways, I carefully emphasize that these are Kanaya’s feelings and behaviors rather than a formal relationship with Vriska. “Looks like Kanaya's still a little frosty from [Vriska and Kanaya’s] breakup. You know, because of the relationship they had, which never took place anywhere except for in Kanaya's mind. The breakup also took place in her mind. You can understand why she's a bit upset,” (Homestuck: Book 5, page 155). In Homestuck proper, Vriska and Kanaya weren’t formally in a relationship, or at least not in a matespritship.

To that note, Kanaya’s Pesterquest route supports the idea that Kanaya wants a more “crimson” relationship, with the added detail of being in an on-and-off moirallegiance based on Vriska’s whims, though Vriska generally prefers to keep their relationship undefined. When Kanaya does come forward about having flush feelings, their relationship turns “antagonistic,” though Kanaya expresses not being interested in “that quadrant” with Vriska. There’s also some really interesting stuff about Kanaya wanting to be a vampire that strikes me as a transgender metaphor, but this essay isn’t about that.

Turning our attention to a more reciprocated relationship- that’s right, I’m about to talk about Rosemary- we see on Kanaya’s side, their relationship starts out grounded in “admiration” as Hussie puts it (emphasis mine):

“We're about to start going harder into the Rose/Kanaya material. They're two characters who absolutely revolve around each other for most of this act, and Homestuck in general, like a sort of lesbian binary star system. But before we do that, we need to hop back to Hivebent for a little more setup reference, specifically the "trolling" plan and how Kanaya ended up talking to Rose, which was basically due to Kanaya's prior admiration of her resulting from the walkthrough study. Which we could already surmise from Hivebent, but hey, now we're more formally telling the story of Kanaya and Rose, so we might as well start at the beginning again. Their interaction was never was genuinely antagonistic, it only went in that direction due to some misfires which we saw in Act 4. It was always grounded in admiration. This feature of their relationship, Kanaya's natural gravitation toward Rose, links easily to the topic of Rose's arc on previous pages. The intensity of Rose's focus on ripping the game apart, finding answers, and telling her quest to fuck off, and the level of empowerment and control over her fate that seems to embody, signals a certain degree of self-confidence. And confidence is something we've seen Kanaya struggle with. Rose's newfound flair for destruction and recklessness is also captivating to her. Remember that Kanaya's a sucker for "meddling" with dangerous girls. Their confidence pulls her in, the intellectual intensity and danger keep her hooked, and then her mothering need to "protect" starts kicking in. These dynamics provide most of the fuel for the Rosemary fire, which, unlike virtually every other ship in the story, literally never stops burning.” (Homestuck: Book 5, page 44)

This quote points out several elements of Kanaya’s feelings towards Rose that indicate quadrant vacillation.

When it comes to flush feelings, this is what most people would assume Rose and Kanaya’s relationship is in the first place. Hell, even Roxy made this assumption, which Kanaya confirms (Homestuck, page 009679). So, unlike with her imagined relationship with Vriska, Kanaya does have a formal matespritship with Rose. That said, there are indications of other quadrant based feelings.

When it comes to pitch feelings, Kanaya’s admiration for Rose could be of a caliginous nature. While stated by the previously mentioned author commentary to not be truly antagonistic, Rose and Kanaya’s early interactions (Homestuck, pages 002993, 003492, and 003838) do have a certain level of fucking with each other that could be conducive to a pitch relationship.

When it comes to pale feelings, Kanaya’s need to pacify dangerous women also comes up directly in the comic, but, after her experiences with Vriska, Kanaya doesn’t want someone she feels flush towards to shove her into a conciliatory quadrant despite her conciliatory behaviors (Homestuck, page 004630).

In addition to Kanaya’s feelings and behaviors, Rose herself has also indicated reciprocating wanting Kanaya in more than one quadrant (Homestuck, pages 007317 and 007318).

Using the lens of quadrant vacillation as queerness in Alternian society, it’s obvious that Kanaya is queer and, as evidenced by the authorial intent, specifically a lesbian.

There’s also another example of quadrant vacillation in Kanaya’s relationships, but we’re going to put a pin in that for a moment as I discuss Kanaya’s ashen quadrant and compulsive quadsexuality.

Kanaya Just Doesn’t Like Auspisticism That Much

People other than me have pointed out that Kanaya isn’t really a good mediator, but here’s another question? Does she even like mediating in the first place?

“I Know Its Hard!/[Auspisticism Is] Supposed To Be Hard!!” (Homestuck, page 007959). Kanaya finds auspisticism laborious. The reason why she doesn’t like auspisticism is because her ashen quadrant is mired in social and interpersonal pressure to mediate by those around her, i.e. compulsive quadsexuality. Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at her experiences in this quadrant.

When pressured by Eridan into mediating between him and Vriska (Homestuck, page 004243), Kanaya outright refused. Is this indicative of her lesbian identity or her general disinterest in Eridan? Probably a little bit of both. If you fall in line with the transgender or gender non-conforming lines of thoughts for Eridan, a la Pesterquest, this probably says more about Eridan’s interests than Kanaya’s. Either way, it’s definitely not the successful auspisticism you would expect from someone who enjoys the quadrant.

There’s also a moment in the comic where Karkat suggests that he should have mediated between Kanaya and Rose, so that Kanaya could have mediated between Gamzee and Terezi. Is this, in Karkat, lesbophobic?

Short answer: prooooobably not?

Long answer: not intentionally. It’s definitely indicative of Karkat’s penchant for putting all the solutions to problems into quadrants and his lack of care about human sexuality labels (i.e. Kanaya’s lesbianism on the level of only being interested in women rather than wanting someone in multiple quadrants). Again, all of this says more about the other person’s preferences than Kanaya’s.

The brief ashen stint between Kanaya, Vriska, and Tavros has already been discussed, but do the tears Kanaya cries knowing Vriska had a flush crush on Tavros the look of someone who is enjoying her role? As said before, Vriska prevented Kanaya from mediating between the two of them. Society and their friends are expecting Kanaya to mediate, but it’s only on the individual level, from Vriska, that prevents her from doing what is expected of her.

There’s also one-off visual gags about Kanaya showing ashen interest in Gamzee/Karkat (Homestuck, page 005985) and Dave/Karkat (Homestuck, page 006621), but I take these more as indications of what she feels she has to do (i.e. social pressure) than what she actually wants to do.

Finally, there’s one last ashen relationship involving Kanaya that I would like to cover.

VrisRoseMary

First, an illumination on Kanaya’s troll gayness and her relationships to two very special girls: Vriska and Rose. Others, such as the Perfectly Generic Podcast (Episode 9) and RelaxxAttack, have talked about this relationship before but my take is that this relationship is different than all those before it because of three elements: the exclusively sapphic nature of the relationship, the post-societal setting, and the impermanence.

The first thing that makes VrisRoseMary different to Kanaya’s other ashen affairs is the sapphic nature of it. It doesn’t escape me that all the other ashen relationships discussed here involve men (or characters who are presenting as men in this reality, depending on how you want to consider Eridan’s Pesterquest route). This is the first ashen relationship that is affirming to her lesbian identity in the human sense.

The second thing that makes this relationship unique is the post-societal setting. This relationship is set in a place where there are no societal obligations or pressure to conform to quadnormativity. Well, aside from her fellow trolls on the meteor. It’s this flexibility, the possibility for judgement free quadrant vacillation (swapping from flush to pitch to pale to ashen with Rose) that allows Kanaya to be more comfortable. It allows her to engage in what may look like a somewhat more typical human romance to human eyes.

And, to be clear here, I’m not necessarily saying Kanaya is better off doing human romance. While I do agree with this previously mentioned RelaxxAttack post that Kanaya is probably one of the trolls most suited to human romance, she isn’t perfectly suited to human romance. As noted by Froggy-Nebula, both human and troll systems of romance are used as tools of oppression by even bigger, shittier societal systems. One is not better than the other, and someone being gay or queer in one system doesn’t mean they’re a perfect fit for the other. Kanaya’s sexuality must still be viewed through both a human and troll lens.

The final element to this relationship is its short term nature. This auspisticism doesn’t last very long, at most it could have lasted three years during the meteor trip, though given the way Vriska talks about her “ashen liaisons” (Homestuck, page 009408), it doesn’t sound like this lasted quite that long. Keeping that in mind, the short term nature of this relationship doesn’t make it unmeaningful. Because this relationship had no promise, or threat rather, of being a forever relationship, of this having to be her one and only pair of ashen soulmates, Kanaya is free to stay or leave on her own terms, without fear of repercussions.

It’s for these reasons that I believe VrisRoseMary represents Kanaya breaking free of compulsory quadnormativity and, metaphorically, compulsory heterosexuality.

Conclusion

Give me RoseMary multi-quad drifting or give me perma-death! Kanaya is textually both a lesbian in human and troll terms, and she is impacted by compulsive quadsexuality as a metaphor for lesbians experiences with compulsive heterosexuality, made most obvious by surveying her ashen quadrant. Boom, essay done. Kanaya’s Relationship To The Ashen Quadrant Is A Metaphor For Compulsive Heterosexuality, Baby. That’s the thesis statement! You can go home now!

That said, if you’re interested in reading more, please check out the links throughout this essay.