Venus Envy

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
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Venus Envy is a transgender-centered webcomic which is notable for portraying the subject matter more realistically than most, rather than taking the Transformation Comic route.

It originally started as a simple gag comic about transgenderism, but the nameless lead character soon developed into the comic's heroine, Zoe (neé Alex) Carter. The story itself is a Teen Dramedy that centers around Zoe's life as a girl in her new town, where no one (with a couple of exceptions) knows that she was Alexander Carter just a few months ago.

Unfortunately, it succumbed to Orphaned Series syndrome, with no updates over a year after a cliffhanger. (Someone did get in touch with the author -- she is fine: recently married and too busy in real life to work on the webcomic.) Trans Girl Diaries did a fan followup (essentually a webcomic Doujinshi), here, which mimicked the style of the original comic and was well received by the VE fandom.

On July 31st, 2011, the domain name expired and was claimed by a cyber-squatter, though now it seems to have returned to its previous owner.

After two years and change, it finally updated again on April 1, 2012. Then it went away again in 2014.

Tropes used in Venus Envy include:

"... so I stabbed him in the eye with a fork!"

  • Orphaned Series: The Domain Name recently expired (with no apparent archive of the series), leaving the series effectively over.
    • Fridge Brilliance: Which, if you follow the fan theory, makes sense. The comic is from Zoe's POV, and she may have died in the last update.
      • It updated!
  • Pen Name: The author uses one of these; members of the Hatedom have semi-recently tried to "out" her real name on various wikis -- Including this one.
  • Queer Romance
  • Rape as Drama: Zoe was raped in seventh grade by an older student when she first tried on a dress she had created for the play she was working on. This was before she was living as a girl and was the first time anyone outside of her family saw the real her.
  • Redheaded Hero
  • Sarashi: Larson, using the tape as breast-bindings. Lisa spied a glimpse of them in the shower and assumed they were for wounds; when asked about it, Larson said he was secretly part of an underground kung-fu ring.
  • Schedule Slip: Oh so much. Borders on Orphaned Series at times. Most recently, updates started falling apart in October 2009, the latest update as of this writing was in March 2010.
  • Schoolgirl Lesbians: The entire girl's soccer team, except for one, who fears she's actually straight.
  • School Play: Romeo and Juliet, to be exact. Zoe has very good reasons to object to being cast as Juliet, as it turns out.
  • Serious Business: A small time high school production of Romeo and Juliet: SRS BSNS. So serious that apparently Nina is willing to kill whoever it takes to land the lead
  • Shaggy Dog Story: If it's true that Nina killed Zoey in the last strip, then that sort of meant it had a rather irrelevant ending and no closure on... anything really.
    • But she DOESN’T! Ages and ages after this horrible cliffhanger was posted, it was revealed―on April 1, no less―that she survived the attack. For now...
  • Shown Their Work: The artist is a transwoman and has a fairly first hand view of what a young Transgendered teen goes through in the US. Taken to horrifying extremes during a Filler Strip when the artist relays the time she was sexually assaulted at college.
  • Stupid Sexy Flanders: Lisa finds Chris a bit hotter than she would like to.
  • Teen Drama
  • The Atoner: Eric
  • There Are No Therapists: Averted and played straight -- Zoe's new town doesn't have a specialist in her type of therapy, but her old therapist does come to visit. In addition, it's shown early in the comic that Zoe's parents kept taking her to different therapists trying to find one that wouldn't suggest Zoe visit a specialist in Gender Dysphoria (aka Transgenderism). One even suggested they get therapy to try and get over their problem with this.
  • Transgender: Zoe (MTF) and Larson (FTM). Lisa initially assumes that Chris is as well (and even goes on a date with him), but realises that he's just a crossdresser.
  • Tsundere: Lisa, Larson
  • Unmoving Pattern[context?]
  • Unsettling Gender Reveal: Happens to Lisa twice.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The science teacher, Mr. Cluck, is a chicken. Lampshaded by Larson in one comic.
  • Webcomic Time: The comic's been running for nearly 8 years now, and only a few months have passed in-story.
  • Wham! Episode: The 3/4/10 page. Wow.
  • Wholesome Crossdresser: Chris
  • Why Couldn't You Be Different?: Zoe's parents' reaction to her transgenderism. Even when it is repeatedly diagnosed by independent therapists and she is repeatedly referred to a specialist for treatment, they continue to try and find a therapist who will tell them that Zoe's insane and that they will cure her for them. In the end, at least one therapist suggested they get therapy to help them deal with their reaction while Zoe was in therapy.
    • Zoe's mother continues to play this trope straight -- outright blackmailing Zoe into going to church as Alex and generally not being supportive in the least. Amusingly, the people at the out of town church they go to mistake Zoe for a lesbian, not for a boy -- and are more supportive than Zoe's mother (one tries to hook Zoe up with her own daughter), to boot!
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