For this. I’m still taking more.
Mm. Tolkien, a five-times sort of fic. Éowyn as a child getting her tunics grass stained while learning to ride a horse. Arwen in the last years of her life, staining the knees of her gowns as she works in a garden. Sigrid during the rebuilding of Dale, working in the fields with everyone else. Tauriel between the Battle of Five Armies and the War of the Ring, traveling Middle Earth. Dis, making a home of the Blue Mountains.
🍰: You’re sweet and I like you!
🐢: Your presence is relaxing.
*blushes* Thank you! 🙂
Thank you!
I’m sorry I took so long to respond to this – I have been grinning every time I see this, and it’s taken this long to be able to put together a coherent response, even a short one.
Thank you!
@koiotchka said: *hugs and luck*
*hugs back* Thank you!
Am home, am signed up for medicaid, and next step is waiting for the insurance card to come because I need that time waiting to get my brain back in as good a working order as it can be right now. Then, find a doctor who’ll take medicaid and is taking new patients and get started on getting the brain and body issues worked out, and more importantly, getting access to testing I can’t get without a doctor and options for treatment.
And I only had one meltdown! (Granted, in public, which makes me want to crawl under my bed and not come out again ever, but still. Only one.)
Thank you!
Having internal reproductive organs does indeed suck, and I will be glad to get rid of them sooner or later. Have to get to the point where I am not utterly panicking about the idea of even remotely trusting a doctor to listen to me about it first. And there are other issues that I can deal with first.
I tend to put the tags which amount to “I do not have time or energy to deal with people being shitty about my life choices/body being stupid/brain weasels” onto posts as a pre-emptive thing, because the people who follow me have been pretty awesome, but I can’t be certain random people coming onto my blog to read are the same, or that new followers are going to be likewise. So, pretty much the warning for anyone new who comes and reads that no, I really won’t put up with shit about who I am, and the way my body/brain hates me.
I’m glad you enjoy reading my tumblr! And I hope you have a good holiday season, whatever of it you celebrate. 🙂
There’s only so much room in a single ask to put things, and it’s ok to not be able to put the context in one ask! *offers you a hug*
Given the context of fiction and that bit of world building, I’m still not entirely certain if the line from the previous ask would be a shitty thing for a character to say or not. I’ve a few world building questions, though, for you to answer for yourself.
First, I’d like to say, the idea of a world where gender doesn’t restrict choices is a fantastic idea, and I love to see how people handle that. It’s not something that I see as much as I’d like, and I seriously hope that’s because I have limited energy to search for new books.
If the society is not divided by gender, what would be the purpose of assigning a gender to children too young to express their own preferences of pronouns and gender? Is it a vestige of a past where gender was binary and restricted choices? One that is still clung to by enough of society that the mainstream cannot entirely excise it?
Does it effect how they’re socialized, consciously or unconsciously, on the part of their parents? Does it effect their choices of expression – in how they adorn their bodies, the clothes they wear, how they cut and style their hair?
Does language still reflect a gender-binary past, or is it gender-neutral in common usage?
Is gender still generally considered binary, even if social structures are in place that mean that genders are effectively equal?
Also, how does society in your world handle those who don’t identify with their birth-assigned gender, including those who aren’t comfortable with either male or female? How does it handle infants whose genitalia doesn’t clearly match a binary? Are they assigned a third gender at birth instead of male or female?
Because how the society you’re building thinks about, talks about, and uses gender is important to why you’re introducing the twins as male and female, beyond the presentation of their external genitalia.
And if the answer to why you’re introducing them as two nominally binary genders as they’re generally assigned at birth in life is because it is a spot of familiarity for readers, that’s an answer you need to know and keep in mind.
Ultimately, I think that if you’re confident in how your society is handling gender, and you know why these twins are being introduced as male and female, than making it clear, even in an offhanded way, that gender is not necessarily fixed, isn’t a bad thing. Just that there’s far more to it than a simple “is it shitty to introduce such a concept in a potentially off-beat manner?”, and that complexity introduces a lot of uncertainty from an outside perspective. Which, in my case, means I tend to want to ask a lot of questions, even if I’m not necessarily asking them with the intent of being given answers.
Ask box is always open if you have more questions on the topic, or just want to bounce other thoughts off me, and that goes for anyone! I enjoy poking at world-building, even when it’s not for my own writing. 🙂
I’m afraid I do not have a simple or clear-cut answer, if you were looking for one.
It could be shitty or not, and even if it is, sometimes it can be the catalyst for a much needed conversation, and all of that depends on a lot of things. Tone of voice, body language, beliefs and attitudes of those present, the atmosphere of the room/story, the relationship between the one saying it and those hearing it. In the case of fiction, also the way the author handles gender and the way western society tends to enforce a gender binary, and how they handle readers who read that line and respond.
For me, it would be uncomfortable to hear in the context of life, because I don’t like the idea of assigning gender to a child, nor appreciate the insistence that the government has a need to officially record a person’s gender at all.
In the context of fiction, if the author handles gender through the story (and responses) in a way that does not give me the impression they believe that gender is binary and fixed and that they meant the line as a craptastic joke, I’d probably look at it as a way of acknowledging the parts of life that I do not like concerning gender without having to do some form of info dump.
Someone else who is non-binary or transgender or cis might take it entirely differently, both in life and in fiction, and their reactions may have a narrower ranger as well. Any emotional reaction is valid, so long as the words out of their mouth and their actions are not an attack on the person who said it. (Which, by necessity, excludes them expressing they’ve been offended and why they find the line offensive, preferably after having a chance to calm down enough to talk civilly. For their safety as well as that of the other person. Also, in the context of life, because screaming around newborns is not a good idea.)
I don’t know if any of that was helpful, though I hope it was, and if you need clarification, or want to refine the theoretical situation further for a more refined and less ambiguous answer, feel free to send me another ask!
I’m glad you love it!
It will be done. It may be a month from now, it may be a year from now. But right now, I need to step away from that writing and focus elsewhere, and that elsewhere may not be writing things.
Creativity requires breaks sometimes, I’m not the fastest writer to begin with, and I am fighting with ADHD and associated depression and anxiety to get words out at all, especially right now with the clusterfuck that was Tuesday.
I’m glad you’re enjoying it, and I hope you enjoy the rest when I get there.
Don’t be sorry to be excited! 🙂
And this ask is a welcome distraction right now. (If anyone else wants to send me fandom and fanwork asks right now, the ask box is open, and distractions are welcome.)
So!
Anakin, early in the Clone Wars, I think.
Kira would take this angry “I can’t Jedi right” kid under her wing, and tell him it’s ok to be angry, it’s ok to be upset and hurting and everything, this is normal for someone who grew up enslaved and oppressed. She’d take him down to Bajor, and introduce him to Kai Opaka, and to Shakaar, and to a whole bunch of people who lived under the Cardassians, and are starting to heal and put their lives back together from shattered pieces.
Julian would be looking at Anakin’s prothesis, and offering to fit Anakin with a more life-like one that better integrates with his nerves – one that is virtually indisinguishable from a real hand, and Anakin wouldn’t be quite sure what to do with that. Or how to deal with the fact that it wouldn’t cost him more than the time to sit still long enough for Julian to take all the measurements and to fit it when he had it replicated.
Sisko would mostly want Anakin not to monopolize his officers’ time, and he’d probably want to know how Anakin got there (in order to get him home), and what do you mean there’s a whole group of people trying to make everyone into some Vulcan ideal? Vulcans are all fine and good, but emotions are part of being alive, and trying to stomp them out is a recipe for disaster, are the Jedi out of their minds?
Kira would have her own choice words for the Jedi and the Republic and she’d probably actually side with the Separatists, and ask why the hell Anakin’s fighting to support an oppressive regime instead of to free those who want to be free. Anakin… would have a lot of thoughts to go home with, and maybe an Orb experience if he’s lucky, and either way, it’s not going to be good for Sidious’s attempts to manipulate Anakin.
And he’d be so excited to tell Padmé and Obi-Wan all about this place he’s been, and the Federation and Bajor and how these people actually live up to the ideals of the Republic that Padmé loves, and take care of each other, and also maybe this war is seriously not the best idea, because if the Separatists want to break away and live their own lives apart from the Republic, shouldn’t they be allowed to do so? (Provided they’re not trying to take over planets that want to stay with the Republic, or want to be on their own, of course.)
Oh dear deities above and below. That. Oh fuck.
Garak would be so frustrated by this delightfully self-sacrificing for all the wrong reasons Jedi. Yes, yes, sacrificing everything in the service of the State is such a very Cardassian thing to do, but it’s a Federation-style government that he did it for, and what do you mean you’re now rebelling against the State you sacrificed everything for? Humans are so frustratingly contradictory.
And Obi-Wan would take one look at the Federation, and go “THIS! This is what the Republic was meant to be!” and the only reason he really wants – needs – to go home is Luke, and someone has to look after Luke. But maybe… not right away… maybe a vacation isn’t a bad idea.
But there’s this very amused and strange non-human who thinks he’s quite lost his mind, and will you just let me pretend I’m asleep here, yes I know it’s a public space, yes I know some people are eating, no, I don’t remember when the last time I had a proper meal, why are you looking at me like that?
Also, there would be an insane amount of flirting because Obi-Wan will never stop being a sarcastic, snarky little shit, and Garak is a Cardassian with a delightfully acerbic wit of his own, and Cardassians flirt by arguing, of course. Even though Garak turns him down, he’s flattered of course, but he’s not interested in courting someone who rightfully belongs in another universe.
Obi-Wan is not sure what he’s just accidentally managed to do, but yes, yes, he didn’t mean to be courting, what?
(All in all, I do not need more plot bunnies, I have stories to finish and one to write for a holiday exchange, and there are already so many AUs on my spreadsheet, and I’m going to put this in my plot bunny fodder tag because I may come back to this and write it, whether fluffy bit of crack or something more serious I’ll worry about later. Yes, I know that’s a run on sentence and so will this one be; I’m currently just out of it enough to be very babbly.)
Also, this is an excellent thing to poke at today, and a most excellent distraction, thank you! 🙂
There's a Mirror on the Wall 