I know I have 2,000 pages of context and time to think abt this vs hussie who wrote this serially on a quick schedule so im not claiming to be Better At Ideas or anything. but I just feel like. I could improve the hemospectrum and solve the ambiguities of troll gender all at once
when the hemospectrum was first introduced hussie said something on formspring about how it didn't make sense + was clearly a social construct because the color wheel is a circle and putting the 'cut off' between red and fuchsia is an arbitrary decision. (this was later undone with the reveal that highbloods are much longer lived than lowbloods which I think I understand the purpose of but it definitely undercuts this social aspect. anyway never mind that for now)
what if, instead of an arbitrary cut off between two colors, thehighest and lowest blood caste were opposite sides of the spectrum. eridan has a line saying 'i tend to block out noise from filth wwhose blood is practically the complementary fuckin color a mine' (p.3321) which could be the Whole Deal - if fuchsia blood is what's prized on alternia for an arbitrary reason, the closer someone's blood is to fuchsia or the more fuchsia pigment it contains, the higher caste they are. so, Aradia and Eridan would be of equal status. meanwhile the opposite color, which I believe is Kanaya, would be the lowest caste, and other shades of green/teal would be similarly oppressed. (and if it needs saying, this is a true spectrum where blood can be any possible color on the wheel, not a situation where everyone is Exactly One Of Twelve Hex Codes, because that again makes no sense)
so then there's a highest point on the wheel and there's a lowest point, and two sides that represent roughly equal statuses despite being very different colors - someone of Sollux's blood and someone of Equius' blood are both halfway up the wheel but it's hard to just group them into a single category. so it'd make sense, I think, if the warmer colors (red/orange/yellow, left side of the wheel in how I'm picturing it in my head) and the cooler colors (blue/purple, right side of the wheel) roughly corresponded to human genders assigned at birth, holding different social roles and expectations, with trolls traditionally expected to stick mostly to their 'side' of the wheel when it comes to socializing, hobbies, careers, etc. you could write this as hierarchical like on earth, or you could write the warm and cool colors as having equal status so long as they stick to their assigned roles, I don't think that's impossible to do well so long as you're careful with the writing and work to avoid the casually misogynistic comments that some of the trolls do make.
this has interesting implications for the people at the top and bottom of the wheel! someone of Feferi's blood would probably be considered to have 'both' genders or given the agency to choose their own role, or to mix and match from the expectations of each role, because they're free from the expectations of specific roles besides rulership. meanwhile, someone of Kanaya's blood would be considered unworthy of even having a gender in the first place, and cut off from the benefits of either. the arbitrary cut-off is back, here - someone whose blood is almost fuchsia or almost jade might be in a complex place as to whether they're assigned a gender or not, and it'd definitely be interesting to explore how they navigated that!
and, of course, it gives a much clearer indication for how trolls can be meaningfully transgender and nonbinary in a way that parallels humans. I bet medical transition looks sick as fuck when you are injecting yourself with chemicals that change the color of your blood
obviously this isn't perfect and still needs work but to me it feels like an improvement on what's in canon and it is something I've been rotating in my head for a minute or two. I think there's something here and if anyone has any suggestions for this I would be interested to hear them!
