#accidental misgendering

[glacierruler]

Making the Future

Ao3

Masterpost

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CWs: Theft, Fantasy Racism, Accidental Misgendering, War Mentions

If you'd like to see the Content Warnings of the whole story, please go to that section in the masterpost!

Taglist: @cutebisexualmess @duck-in-a-spaceship @oatmeal-stans-the-trash-rat (tell me if you'd like to be added/removed)

Chapter 1

Fig was constantly checking their watch, knowing their mother would expect them home soon for dinner. Still, they weren’t quite ready to leave the scrapyard, as there were still so many marvelous finds to be had. Plus there weren’t that many risks, as the sentry that usually guarded this yard had switched over to the other one he was in charge of for the day. Still it was best to be cautious, because if they were caught it would be at least five years in jail. It was stupid, but that was the case with most laws.

Pulling something out of the rubble, Fig realized that they had discovered a whole robot. Their eyes started to widen a bit, they quickly stuffed it in their bag o’ junk as they called it, and started making their way to their hideout.

Fig had been walking for five minutes before the pin like pain in their legs became sharper. Pulling out their bag, they rummaged through it a bit, before pulling something that looked like a weird 3D cube out. Pressing a button a wonky, uneven, walker appeared, made out of mostly metal and each side was a bit uneven. However, the seat was made out of sanded down wood, as they didn't have leather to make it more comfortable yet. While it was still a work in progress, they used it when they could because it did make their life easier. Regretfully though, they couldn't use it often, as not even their family knew it existed, and Fig knew it would be an awkward conversation to have. So they had gotten used to using it on the tough forest terrain, still working on making it better to go over roots and other various obstacles.

Naking it to their hideout, Fig quickly looked over the robot; using the little magic they knew to look at any spots they couldn’t easily get to. They were looking for any alarms or trackers even though the sentries would’t notice nor think to track a discarded robot, because if Fig set off the alarm they would have to move their hideout again. Which was not ideal, especially with all the stuff this place held, and how long it had taken them to build it here.

Getting rid of the devices was easy enough, they would just go back to the junkyard and destroy them on their way home. The sentries would think that the rest of the scraps had destroyed the thing.

Sighing, Fig glazed longingly at their hideout, before they pressed a button and their walker became a cube again. They started heading back the way they came, putting on their gas mask, just in case the sentries spotted them on the way back. While they were part changeling and could therefore change some of their facial features, because they weren't a full changeling, they couldn't do much with it.

After disposing of the trackers, Fig went a bit away, taking off their gas mask and hid behind a tree to take a five minute walking break.

*************************

Fig ate silently as they listened to the chaos, that was their family, surround them. Getting back home had been a journey and a half without their walker, but it was important that they put it away for things, in order to stay safe. After all if the sentries found out about it, they would most certainly be screwed. Looking outside through a window, they realized it was sunset, and they couldn’t help but be amazed at how pretty it was, even though it came by every night. It was stunning, always changing, and yet its beauty never seemed to fade, and Fig was certain that they had the best sunsets in the kingdom. Jarolend, their friend that they talked to when they could, agreed.

Still, Fig wanted to explore, they wanted to see the world. But it wasn’t safe to, not since they’re a changeling. Changelings have been viewed as one of the worse races, since before the infamous war, however that war had just made things worse.

The official narrative was that, changelings, orcs, drow, goblins, and dragons rose up in opposition to the other races. That their greed and lust for money and power drove them to their demise, that they committed unspeakable crimes, that they were evil. And everyone was just supposed to accept that, even the races that this rhetoric effected.

However, Fig had been doing research of their own, looking through their ancestors’ journals to see what it was really like back then. They were grateful that their mother kept the journals, although they were slightly less grateful that these journals were on the top shelf of her bedroom. That made it harder for Fig to look through them, and they knew their mom didn't want them looking through the journals. But Fig had always been rather curious, and they just couldn't accept the narrative that they were bad. That they were here to take someone else's place and steal their livelihood, that they were evil like the textbooks said. It helped that the town was inhabited by other unprivliged races, it helped that the elders assured them when they were kids that it was the world that was wrong. But it sucked, the culture that was stripped from all of them, in fear that they would rise up, that they would revolt against unfair laws. So almost no one in town was allowed to practice magic. That didn’t stop Fig, though they practiced in secret. Still, they wished they were able to do more, and be more free. But they couldn’t, so in public they conformed to the rules set out for them. Have a set look, and don’t change it; hair stays the same, eyes stay the same, nails stay the same. Nothing changes. And they couldn’t help but feel that’s how society was anyways, stagnant, hopeless and resistant to change. And they hated it. But that’s what their tinkering was for, it was fun to do and a fuck you to the government. It wasn’t something that did something technically, but it felt good, especially when Fig felt helpless to do anything to change the world.

“-ig! Fig!” Their head snapped up to greet their mother’s voice.

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay honey? You’ve just been poking at your food all night.”

“Yeah mom, I'm alright, just wish I could visit Jarolend more often."

Fig hated lying, it always meant that it was just one more thing they couldn't share with their family. But if anyone knew that they were stealing from the scraps, well it wouldn't be pleasant if someone found out.

"I know. Maybe when you have your own money..."

"I've been trying to find someplace to work! But you know how hard it is!"

"I know, I know. Still, if you do manage to get the funds to visit your friend tell her I said hi!"

"I'll tell em."

Their mother might still be getting used to their friend’s new pronouns, as ey had come out close to when ey had left, but it still sucked that Fig had to be the one to correct her. That it felt like for all their mom’s trying, she never really got it. Despite being a changeling, and the concept of gender being fluid, that she thought the only options were girl and boy. Sometimes, it felt like while you could be either, you couldn’t be both at the same time or neither. Which isolated Fig even more as they were trying to figure themselves out. But they knew their mother didn’t mean to, and that she’s trying, so they tried not to hold it against her.

Still, they’d rather not have to correct their mother altogether, but it was how things went. So they started to eat a little bit, ignoring the looks from the rest of their family, and then went upstairs to their room, trying not to feel desperately hopeless at the state of everything. At least they’d have time to tinker and experiment with the robot tomorrow.

[askanonbinary]

Hiya! Do you have any advice on not misgendering yourself (out loud and in your head)? I recently came out as agender, I come from a very suburban area where nb wasn’t really a thing, I’m also kinda old to be figuring this out. But I still constantly accidentally refer to myself as a girl and recently some assholes I work with have used this as an excuse to misgender me maliciously. I feel like it’s automatic to just call myself a girl or woman. Somehow it’s easier to remember my friends genders than mine LOL. Any tips? Thanksss

Practice by talking about yourself out loud. just walk around and narrate what you're doing in the third person. say your pronouns whenever you can.

If you hear others routinely misgender you, it gets easier to misgender yourself because you are used to responding to it. so you're used to hearing it and thinking of yourself. so the best way to ameliorate that is to hear it spoken out loud correctly more than you hear it incorrectly. which sometimes means you're going to have to do it yourself!

[mbodyinspectr]

great way to avoid unnecessary anger/negative feelings/hostility is to always assume someone is trying their best to be nice. Obviously do your best to keep yourself safe and you don't OWE these people really anything but assuming the best of people takes away so much heartache from daily life. Some people genuinely do not have the vocabulary to be perfectly "PC", I am of the belief that it doesn't matter that much because of the fact they are trying their best.

[l0ser-nicolaz]

NOOOOOOOOO

MISGENDERING

[lilliananightshadethesilvermage]

My coworker/friend forgets that I'm nonbinary sometimes because I don't correct people on my pronouns especially not at work. This is relevant because it created a funny situation when I was working with her. We were moving some furniture, and it was rather difficult to move. After we had moved it, she started to say something like anything can be accomplished with two capable young ladies, she then paused right after saying ladies and rephrased it to capable young people.

[capri851]

Kmsing because I misunderstood something in Spanish TWICE and misgendered someone without meaning to 🥰

[shinydoorknobs]

I just remembered the funniest time I was ever misgendered. My very close friend of 11 years still messes up my pronouns (fair enough he knew me exclusively as a She for 8 of them it's easy to make mistakes) but this was the best one.

I cannot remember what the conversation was but he tried to correct himself and just made it worse and wound up calling me

She-He-It-They

[ambercast]

"Wait, no," Blue said, grabbing Nick's wrist gently. "Sorry. You don't look stupid." He shook his head as he looked them over. "I've just . . . never seen a guy in a skirt before. I mean. Shit." He grimaced as he released Nick's wrist. "Sorry. I know you're not a guy but . . . you know what I mean. Right? It's just . . . it's different. But not in a bad way. A good way. A really good way."

Nick felt their heart start to race after they'd opened the door to let Blue in, and Blue just stood their staring, not saying anything. "I - I look stupid. I kn-knew I should have wor-worn something else. I - I'll go chan-I'll change. Don'-don't go. I'll - it won't take long" they said, taking a step back and starting to turn

[manyunhappygreenies]

hops on the transfem rise leo boat, and never looks back.

[glacierruler]

Making the Future

ao3

Masterpost

Support the author on kofi!

Content Warnings: Fantasy Racism, Chronic Pain, Accidental Misgendering

Taglist: @duck-in-a-spaceship @cutebisexualmess @oatmeal-stans-the-trash-rat @disco-and-vinyl @pandagobrr

Chapter 3

Fig stayed with Glorgol for a bit, chatting with him about different things. Mostly it had to do with their inventions and what they made so far; and what they ultimately lost in the fire. Glorgol offered to help them see if anything from the fire was recoverable tomorrow if they wanted, and Fig was grateful, because as much magic as they could use, they weren’t anywhere near as strong as Glorgol. He had proven his strength by picking up a large log and throwing it a fair distance half an hour into their stay.

What really intrigued Fig, was their new friend’s family. Apparently his grandmother had been unworldly strong, able to lift tree trunks out of the ground with just a couple of tugs. She’d also taught him all he needed to know about farming, and taking care of sheep and how to take care of cows. (Although it seems they were never able to get some for this property, but apparently when his grandma was growing up she’d helped in raising all sorts of animals).

After a while of talking, both of them were getting along pretty well, neither noticing the time pass by, until Fig looked out the window, saw that it was nearing sunset, and sighed softly.

“I should get heading out, it was nice to meet you Glorgol, see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, goodbye.”

With that, Fig put their gas mask back on their head, and started walking out, towards home.

*************

Nearing the edge of the treeline, they put their mask in their bag o’ junk, and limped home. Their legs acting up again despite the resting that had been done in order to keep them functioning. It made it worse that no matter what, they were stuck without their walker. Their handy walker that could turn into a clunky cube when they needed to put it away, was probably irreparable now. Still, Fig couldn’t help but hold out hope that at least the blueprints for the walker survived. Or else they’d have to refigure things out from scratch, and that could be a while.

What they were most upset about, was the fact that they ruined a robot. The first thing they did was destroy it! They really should’ve done some research, and seen if there were any blueprints in the scrapyard that could teach them more about this discarded robot.

Still, most of the smaller designs, and a good chunk of their older blueprints were in their special bag. So it’s not like they had to worry about too much. In fact, the fire might allow them to continue working on those designs. After they repair their walker of course.

Once they finished pathetically hobbling home, they cringed looking at how the sun was down at this point. As quietly as they could, Fig opened the door, not wanting to wake anyone up. Although that was considerably harder considering the door always had to creak loudly when it was opened. Still they were very glad, and a little disappointed, that no one woke up to that.

Settling into their bed, in the room that they shared with their sister, Fig fell asleep pretty easily. The day having tired them out with its antics.

**********************

It was barely sunrise the next day when Fig awoke to their youngest brother shaking them awake.

“Figgy! Where were you! You were goooonnnne for forever!” He spoke with a slight lisp, making his voice sound younger than he actually was. (This also helped him in getting out of trouble, but Fig could tell that it annoyed him because everyone was prone to babying him because of this).

“I was exploring Aeon. Now let me sleep.”

“But mom and dad were worried too!”

“Then tell them that I’m home and safe. Let me sleep.”

“But I wanna hear about your explorations!”

Fig sighed, they were never going to get to sleep in at this point. They loved their younger siblings, but sometimes they wanted their siblings to step on a thorn. Not really, Fig had stepped on one a few times and it had hurt. But still, would it really hurt to let them sleep in just a little?

“Fiiine. But you can’t tell mom and dad about my adventures. Or try and copy them.”

“Okay!” Their brother agreed a little too easily, so Fig made a note to tell some ghost stories in there too, just to make sure that he wouldn’t try to venture out into the woods.

“Get out of my room, tell our parents that I’ll be out in a minute!” 

Without another word, Aeon left, and Fig closed their door, made sure the curtains were closed, and got changed into clothes that weren’t singed from a massive explosion. (They still needed to figure out a new workshop, but that would be something to deal with later. Right now, they had a family to convince they were alright). Doing their best to get their morning grogged, foggy brain in talking condition, Fig exited their room; painfully walking to the kitchen table.

“Might you tell us where you’ve been?”

“Honey, she’s an adult! But you did scare us sweetheart, could you give us a warning next time you’ll be out past sunset?”

Fig had to keep from physically cringing at that. Sure they weren’t out to their parents, but it still hurt. Still, the rest of what was said wasn’t unreasonable, it just kind of sucked since, despite being an adult their parents still treated them like a kid.

“If I know, I’ll tell you. I just hadn’t realized how late it had been, until I started heading home.”

Their parents seemed to contemplate that a bit. Fig’s mother shooting them a curious glance, before they seemed to reach an unspoken decision.

“Alright,” their father finally said, “but be careful, we don’t want you getting hurt.”

Nodding, Fig noticed as their other little brother, the older of the two boys, started placing down plates of food in front of them, and gratefully started shoving pancakes in their mouth, not wanting to talk anymore.

After breakfast, Fig started getting ready to meet Glorgol, grimacing with every moment longer that they were standing. Maybe going out into the woods today wasn’t the best idea, but they couldn’t stand Glorgol up! That would be rude, and they may not have many manners but being somewhere when they said they’d be is one of them.

However, they didn’t manage to get out of the house that easily, as their youngest sibling still wished to hear about their adventures in the forest. So they made up something, something that would keep their younger brother from adventuring out on his own, while also making it seem like they had been on a cool adventure. The lie was about them tackling a huge spider, and scaring it further into the forest to keep from eating the villagers. Nothing too elaborate, but it wasn’t simple either. Still, it felt like forever before they got to go to the woods and investigate their old workshop with Glorgol.

[brown-spider]

#1 trans ally

[morallygaymwah]

Two and a half hours and an iced coffee later....

(This is honestly so fun, thanks for initiating this, @ppkm-week)

[rwby-confess]

Confession #396

[hrh-prince-butt]

btw since the rwrb movie is obviously gonna be bringing in a lot of new fans, here’s a little heads up for those who are unaware:

casey mcquiston, the author of red white & royal blue, uses they/them pronouns and is not a woman!

that’s all, have a nice day (:

[theexhaustedqueer]

The thing is, Noir understood something fundamental about non-binary people when he created Oobtaglor Oobtaglorbur, and that is the fact the we all desperately crave to be formless oozes. I don’t know about you but peak gender euphoria for me is being a colourful blob that can manifest hands at will but is never constrained to one shape or form. Anyway, I love you Oobsy baby, thank you for representing the they/them nation in more ways than one

[hive-sight]

Concerns 1

Sentients. This one has news. Upon encountering Raxor in the halls of the ship, this one inquired into their change in disposition. What could crush the spirit of this one’s companion so?

Raxor’s response… It is worrying.

--- TRANSCIPTION BEGINNING ---

RAXOR:        The Terrans… they do not enjoy war.

ELYSIA:        That is good, yes? Too many of the new races seem to revel-

RAXOR:        No.

ELYSIA:        No?

RAXOR:        They are a war race. Their history and evolution are paved in the ashes and blood of their enemies. Yet they do not revel. The Skellesian Bloodmites revel. Their weapons are made to draw out battle and prolong suffering. Barbed rods for the rending of flesh. Heated blades to ensure the enemy stays standing no matter how much is chopped off.

                      The Stol’oon of Grumha revel. Their cowardly tactics involve slowly terraforming the planets of surface-bound races while they are defenseless to stop them. Slowly cooking as the atmosphere of the only home they have known becomes their crematorium.

                      The Terrans? They do not revel in war. They hate war.

ELYSIA:       This one does not understand. The race was molded by war, yet hates it? Do they hate what it has made them? Are they a drink that hates the shape its container has forced upon it?

RAXOR:       They hate the acts. This one asks Elysia to consider, if one despised an action but the action was needed, what would they do?

ELYSIA:       This one does have experience with this. This one dislikes having to configure variables in simulations. This one wrote a script to automatically program variables if given a planetary identification code.

RAXOR:        Why?

ELYSIA:        To get it done as quickly… and…

RAXOR:        Yes.

ELYSIA:        By the Queen. Have the Terrans… streamlined… war?

--- TRANSCRIPTION ENDING ---

This was not the end of the discussion, Raxor proceeded to request a cancellation of the mission. They claim that the Queen would not have allowed the mission had she known.

Unfortunately for Raxor, after more than the expected number of delays, the ship has already entered the Sol System.

On this, the Terran Date of May 21st of 2030, or XD 4682C 4A 2L, and with an uncertain future, this is Elysia of Xyloptha, signing off.