Even in its day, there were problems with it. For one, it’s basically all white characters. Landon, Zoe’s obligatory trans boy counterpart (and end-game romantic interest?? I guess we’ll never know now), was Latino, but that was never made clear by anything other than him inserting various Spanish words into his dialogue; writers, don’t do this. Every year without fail there was some kind of exploitative gory art commemorating Trans Day of Remembrance, which I hated even then. It also included some digs at nonbinary people! Thanks for that.Pro tip from having an unfortunately large amount of contact with one of these types: when they say "cuties" it's code for "QTs" aka "Queer Trans" aka other people exactly like this. Not just cute people in general
It's probably different for Zoomers since they have newer influences, but if you know a Millennial MTF named "Zoe" there's a 99% chance they're named after
this web comic from the early 2000s and if you know one named "Jennifer" there's a 99% chance they're named after
this person
That Wikipedia article for Venus Envy had a link to
this review (
x) and the comic does indeed look laughably bad.
(I think the black-haired guys are supposed to be the same guy)
But the review is what really gets me
Even in its day, there were problems with it. For one, it’s basically all white characters. Landon, Zoe’s obligatory trans boy counterpart (and end-game romantic interest?? I guess we’ll never know now), was Latino, but that was never made clear by anything other than him inserting various Spanish words into his dialogue; writers, don’t do this. Every year without fail there was some kind of exploitative gory art commemorating Trans Day of Remembrance, which I hated even then. It also included some digs at nonbinary people! Thanks for that.
For what it's worth, this seems to be the "dig" at enbies
Overall "Wisp" gives the comic a C even though "It’s pretty bad" just because it has a tranny main character.
So, you might assume that he would never give an F to any comic with a tranny main character, right? Oh, so very, very wrong.
You’re not wrong; there are major parallels between Rain and Venus Envy. Both are about teenage trans girls going stealth to survive high school, and both are laden with over-the-top transphobia. Why did I give Rain an F and Venus Envy a C? Well, Venus Envy is capable of making a joke that isn’t based in transphobia, for one! And despite giving a lot of screentime to the hateful words and actions of some of the characters, Venus Envy makes sure to provide a counterpoint, to clearly show that we’re not supposed to remotely agree or sympathize with those characters. And while Zoe definitely receives more than her share of abuse over the course of the comic, she’s usually enabled to laugh it off or get revenge, and she’s never treated like the punching bag that Rain is.
Rain is another webcomic about a tranny fantasizing about passing for a cute girl in high school, but as
the review (
x) makes clear, Rain's friends don't see him as female.
After she gets non-consensually outed to her small group of friends, these friends constantly refer to Rain as “he” or “him” or “really a boy” or “physically male” or whatever, and no one corrects them, not even Rain. When Rain’s childhood friend Gavin realizes that he knew her as a boy, he becomes hostile and angry at her for a long period of time, which the comic treats as a normal and expected reaction.
Yeah, no shit he feels angry that his friend lied to him for an extended period of time
I stuck it out a lot longer than I would have for another comic. There were some things that carried me through: it’s clear that Maria is trying hard to be a decent cis person and challenge her own transphobia, and her crush on and defensiveness of Rain is really cute. But I can’t even have a cute ship to make the rest of the comic worthwhile, because Rain doesn’t reciprocate Maria’s feelings. Brutal.
It's not enough for a lesbian to be willing to suck the girlcock, we need to see her actually doing it.
No comment
Anyway, he gives the comic an F for these reasons. Not because the art is bad or because it's not funny (these would be fair criticisms from what I've seen, but an F is a bit harsh) but just because it's transphobic.
He added an addendum after he received criticism for giving the comic an F just because the damn dirty phobes didn't get what was coming to them
It’s no secret I’ve been on the receiving end of some vicious harassment these past two days over my review of Rain. I don’t expect all my readers to agree with me, and I’m open to different opinions and interpretations of the comics I review. I’m not perfect, and I can take criticism as good as I dish it out. But the mean-spirited nature of the messages I’ve gotten, both here and on Twitter, has done nothing to incline me more positively to the comic in question, nor has anyone constructively challenged my analysis of it. However, I do want to address some misconceptions people repeatedly brought to me, regardless of how abusively they did so.
There seems to be some misunderstanding of what I mean when I talk about positive representation. As many people brought up, Rain depicts acts of transphobia that occur in real life, to real trans people; surely this realism qualifies it as good representation? Well, the issue isn’t the events and actions depicted, although they are definitely depressing and unpleasant to read. The issue is the way the narrative depicts and responds to these things. A narrative that fails to condemn the harmful actions of a character is portraying them as justified; the fact that none of the characters in Rain face consequences for their transmisogyny means the narrative supports them.
...[A lot more bullshit]...
It's a shitty review and you deserved any criticism you got, Wisp, but the only disagreement I saw was this.
Literally the mere act of saying that you like the comment (but understand why other people might find it too painful to read)
hurts [him] worse than the most vicious hate mail. The complete lack of self-awareness or empathy it shows is staggering and I'm honestly having trouble collecting my thoughts.
Anyway, back to the subject of Venus Envy, that's written by a tranny who (now) goes by
Crystal Frasier. He added at least
one tranny to Pathfinder. I'm not sure if he's responsible for
this one too, but he's definitely written about her.
