#by placing transness on a scale of achievements

[craecm]

here to remind my lovelies

it’s been on my mind as of late so i wanted to voice it to all baby gays and older queers alike, that sometimes we forget the nature of our community and how we see each other.

there’s nothing wrong with looking up to older queer figures, or wanting to teach new queers important messages and information as they integrate themselves more into the community. it is undeniable that older queers (that is, people who have identified as queer and been part of the community for a longer time) have experience and time behind them that aid with problem solving. it’s important that we respect and help each other. but i also don’t want people to see queerness as something that requires achievements. sometimes we uphold certain older queer figures because they have attained more things, engaged in more relationships, transitioned further. we begin to see queerness on a scale, where people are higher up if they have had higher engagement in a range of acts. or even, if they can describe themselves in a more understandable, definite way.

so let me say it now, you are not any less gay if you have never been in a long-term same-gender relationship. you are not any less trans if you have not socially or medically transitioned. you are not any less queer if you can not define yourself in a short sentence. there is nothing that could make you any less ‘queer’, because being queer is not a scale. it is something you inherently are, something that simply is, something that can not be measured. just as we should not look at other aspects of people’s identity and begin to measure it, saying whether it makes them less or better than another of that identity, we should not with queerness.

criticism is good, learning is good, changing is good, but do not put yourself down or think that you must do any of these things to become ‘more’ queer. you are as valid now as you ever have been and will be, accept that, love that, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise :)

[hattedhedgehog]

hihihi i have one million questions about veilguard if you're willing to answer

what's the party banter like (quantity, quality, how often it triggers)?

can we talk to companions outside of the lighthouse (like in origins)?

how in-depth can we go with the questions we ask companions? and on that note - how varied can our responses be? is it like origins with a shitton of variety, or inquisition where you're mostly limited to two or three opinions?

how fashionable are the armors? any favorites?

how much do we get to interact with the infamous egg? is it anytime, or only in specific cutscenes?

could you go a bit more in-depth about how gender and transness works for rook?

does rook have their own room in the lighthouse, and if so, is it customizable (and to what degree)?

how much impact does your race have on story/banter/gameplay?

if you're allowed to tell us, how large of a role does the inquisitor play?

how tall/short can rook be?

how in-depth can rook get when it comes to political discussions (related to #3)

on a scale of 0 to videos of soldiers coming home to their dogs after being at war, how much should we expect to cry?

can we see your rook?

thanks!!!

I'll do my best! Some I won't be able to answer but I'll give it a go for ones I can. Spoiler-free answers below:

1: The party banter is lovely! It's very frequent, it ranges from rivalry to potential romance amongst each other, and happens at the Lighthouse as well as on missions.

2: Sometimes!

3: Depends how close you are to them. There aren't as many options as in Origins but it doesn't feel like the conversation is limited. You also get extra dialogue options depending on your faction/gender/relationship etc.

4: I found lots of them very aesthetically pleasing, though of course there are some that missed the mark. There's a huge range of outfits, and you unlock more with each area you go to. I can't show my favourites as they're spoilers for the achievements sadly! Emmrich's outfits are particularly fun and give me Locked Tomb haute couture vibes.

5: Infamous egg can only be accessed at certain times (like with companion cutscenes) but it happens multiple times at useful points.

6: In character creator Rook has separate categories for pronouns and gender identity, which his amazing! The pronouns are for how other people refer to them in dialogue, and the identity is for expanding on gender in conversations. For instance, my Rook was nonbinary and used he/him pronouns, so other characters referred to me as He, and I got to talk to other characters with dialogue specifically about how Rook wasn't a man or a woman (and how he felt about that!)

7: Rook does have their own room! You collect items in-game that you can place around the room as decor, and interact with to explore Rook's personality.

8: It impacts your character's origins and how you interact with/relate to characters.

9: Can't tell you, sorry!

10: Depends on the starter build!

11: Quite in-depth!

12: The latter...

13: I'll post my Rook on launch day!

Hope these help!

[unknought]

Is the "your gender is not revolutionary" thing supposed to be comforting, like, "you don't have to feel pressured to use your gender expression to defeat Patriarchy?" It came off to me as super discouraging - "stop being proud of your defiance! your gender isn't going to achieve anything! you have not done anything worthwhile by identifying that way! you are not brave for making sex choices your parents disowned you for! stop being so proud!" And I was wondering how you *meant* it

Hi anon,

I’m sorry my post was discouraging to you, and that absolutely wasn’t my intention. You are brave and wonderful and you deserve to be happy and to love yourself. And if you can love yourself all the more fiercely for the things society has wrongly punished you for, you deserve that too.

Loving yourself for something you’ve been told to hate yourself for is a beautiful thing, and not an easy one. Sometimes this kind of self-love is an angry and defiant thing. Sometimes it means being loud and taking up a lot of space.

There is a prose poem I really like, the seam of skin and scales. Some of it is specific to the author’s experiences as a trans woman, but I think a lot of it applies more generally to finding pride and love for things you’ve been told are worthy of nothing but shame and hate. Here’s an excerpt that captures the attitude I’m trying to talk about:

It is time to look the monstrous in the eye. It is time. It is time to say that we are beautiful in our fierceness, and that we are our own. We are not the rejected of what we can never be. We are what we were meant to be. We are not pieces of wholes thrown together incorrectly. We are not mistakes.We are not inferior knockoffs of someone else. If our monstrousness is frightening, then it is time we bare our teeth and draw that fear close to us and stop being so afraid of our fearsomeness that we fear everyone and everything else right back.I am throwing my head back, here, and saying it: no more being afraid. Hell no. My monstrousness is not a place of shame. It is a strength. It is the power to say I am mine, and I will tell you what I mean. Not you. I am not any thing trapped in anyone’s body. I am tougher than that, and I have plenty of blood to spare in this body of mine, and plenty more miles to go before any of you can bring me to my knees, and I dare you to try.

The defiance of shouting from the rooftops “FUCK YOU! WHAT I AM IS BEAUTIFUL AND I WILL NOT BE ASHAMED,” the defiance of living and thriving in spite of all who have stood in your way, the defiance of celebrating when the world wants you to keep your head down and quietly disappear… These are vital, beautiful things, and I’m not trying to take them away from you.

But some people will tell you that the reason your gender or sexuality or presentation is okay is precisely because society says it isn’t. They’ll say that by identifying a certain way or dressing a certain way you are bringing down oppressive structures. They’ll tell you that is why you should be proud, that is why you deserve to love yourself. I don’t think this is a healthy attitude.

It makes it harder if any of those details change, for one thing. If your sexual orientation is helping to fight the patriarchy and that’s a central part of how you conceptualize it and take pride in it, then realizing that a different orientation label fits better feels like betraying the cause.

Or you get situations like where a community says that trans men are great because they defy restrictive conceptions of gender, but that nonbinary people challenge those cissexist assumptions even more. So a trans man coming into those communities might find for the first time in his life a place where his transness is accepted and celebrated, but at the same he’ll get an underlying message of “Yeah, that’s great, but it’d be even better if you identified as nonbinary.” Especially for people early in their questioning process, think how much that can complicate things.

Or you get people arguing over whose identity and sexuality and presentation are most threatening to the patriarchy, because they think that that’s what makes them worthy of respect. And someone always gets the short end of that stick.

You should be proud of your defiance. Your gender is going to achieve something – indeed it already has, because (I infer) it’s important to you. You have done something worthwhile by identifying that way, because living your life pretending to be something you’re not can be fucking hell. You are brave for your choices. Please please please do not stop being proud. But I don’t think you should hang that pride on the idea of your identity serving some broader political cause. You are worthy cause enough.