#branching out profzach

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Can someone who read Branching out when it was on canvas manifest themself? I just wanna talk, I swear

[pornosophical]

Briar coming out of their chrysalis and they’re doing just fine, Branching Out

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You can't tell me these men aren't t4t

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Briar, the famous case of do I want them or to be them?

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So you know how many names in Branching out are somewhat gender neutral, even when the characters are seemingly binary? (Twig, Catch, Canna, Cass, Owl, Wren, Gan...)

Could it be a random choice? yes. But also, I don't think it is

Initially I thought that maybe, no one in this world has an assigned gender, that they are just born and they are like whatever until they say otherwise. Which would make a lot of sense to what we see of Amani's birth in chapter 17, when Twig calls the baby 'them'

And how they say

It makes sense they would also wait for other things to flower (as in gender identity). But as she says this, Yuri also gives a name to the child, which is contradicting on itself. Another contradicting point is that Bargo misgenders Briar, assuming they are a boy, in chapter 25

So I remembered that TWIG was the one to call Amani 'them', Twig, the hexabeto, the outsider. The characters that do have neutral names, were, or were once, hexabeto, because characters like Mika, Yuti, Bargo (micobeto), Lot (tracheobeto), have, from what I could find, "gendered" names.

So basically, it's probably a Hexabeto thing, which also makes sense, since they were "from a distant land" seems reasonable they'd have different customs.

But then again, we got access to three (3) caribeto names during the story, Kappa, Sting and Xipha, none that I could find in baby name websites though, so technically I couldn't find whether they are gendered or not. But they surely sound like gender neutral names to me, (any additions are welcome).

We know for a fact that Xipha had never seen a btemon tree before episode 42

and that Sting used to live in fear of hexabeto (chapter 32)

and that hexabeto have harbored other composition's trees (queen's monologue E55), so probably happened to be Sting's. So there was a trade between these two cultures, even if not friendly, and we don't know how long it was between hexabeto starting to infest other compositions and the queen's response to it.

Also, about Xipha's never seen a Btemon tree: Probably his village was destroyed at some point, probably right after he was born, and his parents got some kind of help from the queen, so he became a royal guard. And he probably wasn't the only one, there are several Cariobeto we see (as in four) that are hollow knights, which suggests that those were all refugees. And with that, probably had even more contact with hollow eyes, aka hexabetos. So it would make a lot of sense that hexabeto culture would impact caribeto culture.

Again, it could be just an aesthetic choice from Profzach, but if it was intentional, it could be a nice addition, world building wise.

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Way to go Xipha! Go on kill your husband because some random kid killed your bestie

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Rereading: wouldn't it be a mind-blowing move if a firefly was his scarab?? I mean would be some sick foreshadowing, plus that whole pink fire thing he has (plus the other hollow eyes ig)

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I know it isn't a big deal but can we appreciate this? I would kill to see his crown formation design tbh

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Briar is Aroace by the way.

Reasons:

They are purple

They are green

They would look great with black and white rings

Bc I said so

They look like they like garlic bread