Venus Envy

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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.

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Tropes used in Venus Envy include:

• Above the Influence: Eric turns down Zoe at the prom. He can tell her drink was spiked.
• A Date with Rosie Palms
• Animesque: The more recent comics have moved away from this style, though.
• Arc Words: "Hello Alex. Don't you look pretty in that dress."
• Art Evolution: So, so much. In a rare example for a Webcomic, it goes away from a Animesque look as it evolves.
• Attractive Bent Gender: Chris, Zoe, and Larson.
  • Subverted with their attractive unbent genders.
• Author Avatar: Erin herself occasionally appears in non-canon strips (sometimes to deliver an Author Filibuster), along with her evil spider-clone, Erin 2.0.
• Berserk Button: If you want to avoid a trip to the emergency room, Larson is not "Marie", or a lesbian, for that matter. And don't call Nuke "Harry Potter". Just don't.
• Bi the Way: Zoe and Nina
• Big Fancy House: Lisa lives in one of these.
• Big Friendly Dog: Bergy
• Cannot Spit It Out: Larson and Zoe
• Casanova: Eric, in a more overtly creepy way than most examples.
  • Well, you cannot refute the fact that he has been redeeming himself lately.
    • And in the process, admitting even creepier things. Like recognising the symptoms of a date-rape drug. This troper, for one, does not buy the "drug problem" explanation. Another troper thought it was fairly obvious that this was just him chickening out of confessing he used to use date-rape drugs on girls.
• Cerebus Syndrome: The comic was never exactly light, but as the art changes it gets progressively darker and more serious.
  • With Nina as the Knight of Cerebus.
• Cheeky Mouth: Moreso in the earlier comics.
• Chekhov's Skill: In a crowning example of the use of the trope, Zoe's Tai Chi. Useful when a murder is charging you. Of course, then you go and hug the murder...
• Coming Out Story
• Content Warnings: While the comic is fairly worksafe, there are rather frank discussions of gender and sexuality issues, as well as the occasional nipple.
• Cute and Psycho: Nina. Oh gods, Nina.
• Dead Little Sister: Eric
• Death by Origin Story: Bergie. Poor Zoe.
• Does Not Like Men: Lisa, who won't even speak to boys other than Chris if she can help it.
• Dramedy
• Easy Sex Change: Completely averted.
• Everything Sounds Sexier in French: Coach Lonov teaches the girls various Russian phrases to intimidate the opposing team.
• Fan Sequel: Provided by Trans Girl Diaries. And none to soon.
• Falling Into His Arms
• Femme Fatale: Grace
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Grace. Nina too.
• Gender Blender Name: Although she changed it anyways, Zoë's birth name is Alex.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel
• Groin Attack
• Irony: Nina thinks Zoe is the perfect girl.
  • Also, the poster in the last panel of this strip.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Richie, Eric, and Larson.
• Kiss Kiss Slap
• Klingon Promotion: Nina. Turns out Brittney's accident wasn't an accident -- except they gave the leading role to Zoe instead of her. This is only a minor setback.
  • Nina didn't expect Zoe to know Tai Chi. Didn't work out too well for her.
    • Yes it did... so far... thanks to Zoe having the Idiot Ball surgically implanted.
• Lethal Chef: Zoe.
• Love Dodecahedron
• Love Redeems
• Really Gets Around: Lisa is a rare lesbian example of this trope, and is somewhat infamous for it.
• Mother Russia Makes You Strong: Coach Lonov. Lampshaded when the entire team starts spouting off random Russian to scare the other teams.
• Nobody Here but Us Chickens: Mr. Cluck
• Orphaned Punchline:

"... 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!