#featuring his childhood friend who i dont think ive posted yet (i love her)

[autoboros]

Some young Autos

[gayregis]

which characters are trans this is a scientific inquiry

all of them except vilgefortz and leo bonhart

ok ok jokes, ill go more in depth... some of this is taken from things ive written before but not posted. also for anyone reading this im non bee nary so know that im not trying to describe the experiences of different identities in first-person, i’m basing this off of both my own and my friends’ experiences... none of this is “OMG YES CHARACTER ANGST >:))” but rather depicting personal struggles in fictional characters, so just know that  the more difficult subjects that may be covered are not there just to see the character in pain, but rather to think about their eventual resilience against it and development afterwards

for geralt and yennefer i have more specific reasons why i think being transgender actually fits with their canonical characters & related story arcs, and then for the rest i have headcanons and maybe some reasoning but not a lot.

geralt: geralt already represents how a struggle with toxic masculinity and expectations of masculinity can influence one who wants to be seen as masculine to deny and bury their emotions. him being trans develops upon the aspect of his struggle with emotions, ive seen my friends who are transmasculine / myself when i used to ID as transmasculine struggle with showing emotions bc of feeling like you’re going to be misgendered if you shed a single tear. in canon, we already learn that kaer morhen has a bit of a macho culture (just fyi eskel and lambert and coen are trans too now, don’t go getting any idea that those guys are cis) and i believe that the “witchers have no emotions” thing is like 5% actual biology and 95% being raised to fight and not to feel. vesemir is a good father but he just wasn’t very emotionally nurturing, it’s the caste’s way of raising kids that geralt breaks out of.

i think geralt’s self-image also speaks a lot to the feelings of harsh internal transphobia. he constantly others himself from others and feels like people view him as different, which is metaphorical for any marginalized group under the sun, but also is very common for lgbt ppl. again this is smth ive really struggled with within the past few years so im just projecting/know what it feels like and feel that how geralt sees himself in canon is similar to a view suffering from internalized transphobia.

geralt's character already redefines manhood because he has to learn what it means to be a good father. and i think him being trans would be representative of his constant learning and growth as a person, yet also somewhat involved with his self loathing and feeling like just Him Existing is an affront ... but of course he unlearns this with time and love from others and all of his character development

yennefer: yennefer’s whole backstory revolves around defining who she is and defying the people who mistreated her and told her she was nothing. canonically yennefer of vengerberg is the story of the successful self-made woman... her life as janka she would rather forget, no one calls her by that name, and no one ever would because its not who she is nor who i think she ever was. 

shes incredibly strong-willed and knows what she wanted from life but some things are terrifying to reach out for, like love and acceptance. yennefer has a conflict with love and being loved because that was never a safe topic for her ... (also sapkowski handled this specifically poorly imo, but:) yennefer canonically struggles with being loved for who she is. i think she deals so much with her previous abuse and again, expectations from parents, and coming to terms with the fact that she survived it all. also this isnt even touching upon her arc regarding motherhood. wanting to give a child your everything and everything that you never had... the love and kindness that no one gave you...

ciri: ciri hesitated to ever identify with “girl” or “boy,” she’s also i think the representation of childhood in general, she’s naturally curious about gender presentation as she ages and just never really cares to commit to gender. i think she’d say she was a girl but only reluctantly bc she just doesn’t care much.

dandelion: [from his TV Tropes page:]

he’s an artist and a musician, he’s not gonna be cishet...

ok in a more serious context i think he’s a nonbinary guy, i think him being trans might explain why he has way more friendships than relationships with family members. dandelion, like yennefer, is also someone that had to define who he was for himself, i mean for one his stage persona of dandelion is entirely an artist’s creation/hyperbole of himself, i think he also had to think abt his inner identity too

his gender is also just “your friend that comes to your house and eats all ur chips and drinks all ur beer and passes out on top of you on the couch”

milva: ok unfortunately i currently think milva is the token non-trans friend (she’s nonbinary just doesnt think of herself as trans) but it’s only because her major arc in baptism of fire revolves around her pregnancy and miscarriage and just bc she is not trans doesn’t mean she doesn’t go through her own difficult struggling process surrounding her womanhood. she struggles enormously throughout the series and in her backstory with defining herself between two rigid identities: the feminine maria and the cutthroat milva. in her talk with geralt, she reveals how she feels trapped between these two identities and feels like they cannot coexist. i feel like she’s a nonbinary/gender non-conforming butch* lesbian whose struggles with sexuality intersect her struggles with gender and what it means to her to be a gnc woman. also you have to consider that milva was raised in a small village in lower sodden so she understood gender in the very strict roles ascribed to men and women, so she felt like she couldn’t be a woman unless she was this very traditional idea of what a woman is “supposed to be like,” which she’s both been trying to shape herself to be and also running away from simultaneously. she learns to accept herself within the hansa bc they love and support her for who she is, and she doesn’t need to be strictly feminine or masculine to be understood by them

* i know the terms nonbinary and gnc and butch didn’t exist in the 1260s tyvm, i’m just saying this as how i interpret her in a modern context

regis: gender is a human sociological construct so basically don’t ask him unless you’re prepared to listen for 20 minutes. vampires can exist noncorporeally so they can exist without gender, also i hc the telepathic vampiric language is nongendered as it’s a transmission of pure thought, will, and force, so it doesn’t even use any grammar. i also hc that vampires just appear the way they feel in terms of appearance and age (e.g., regis at around 300 when he died still looked 25 bc he was as stupid as a 25 year old, now he’s calmer and understands more, so he looks middle-aged). when chilling out with humans regis will be referred to as a man bc that’s just how he appears but it’s an identity he had to learn about and adopt, not something he was assigned. most vampires look androgynous anyways bc they just feel androgynous, how are you gonna feel a gender when you don’t know what a gender is... if you HAD to understand him with human labels / put it in a modern context (like if i was making an modern real life AU) i’d say he’s a nonbinary trans man. 

cahir: much like geralt i think cahir’s story is one of living up to expectations, but cahir’s actually takes it a step further because his major motivation in his backstory is trying to prove to his mother that he can be a good son that will make her proud and gain honor for the family... he seeks validation from external sources but faces ruin when he learns that war is not the way to prove one’s prowess and skill

angouleme: shes trans and i simply say so bc shes very cool and funny and i dont think a cis person could be this cool and funny. also i think the story of a runaway teen who was abandoned by her biological family and found solace in a new family is both very good and featured in a lot of trans ppl’s narratives. she kind of exudes this “im finally at a point in my life where i’m safe and cared for, i can start HRT now, let’s gooOOoooOOooo” energy. 

[sleepthinks]

I'm having Dumb Bitch problems.

We are in Texas visiting my niece who plays soccer for the college out here. I haven't been to Texas since like 2006 when we moved. I think we came back for like a quick few days in maybe 2008 or 2009 for a funeral. My father still lives in Texas with his new family. We haven't spoken since 2006 when I told him I was moving across the country. Before that it had been maybe 9-12 months since we had talked. After the move I received birthday cards for a few years but found out that it wasn't him, it was his new wife sending and signing the cards. After some therapy I decided to ask them to stop sending cards and officially cut off all ties. There was always pressure from her for me to come visit them and I felt like the cards were her way of guilting me into coming back.

We had to drive through the city they live in on our way to my niece's school. My mother made some smartass remark about going to visit him. I didn't respond.

Im still connected to some friends from Texas on Facebook. But having moved the week before we started high school, and not really ever coming back, I think we've all grown very far apart and there's not a lot of common ground anymore. I tried reaching out to a few friends, didn't hear back from most. There's a chance I can see a friend tomorrow night, maybe for dinner or something, but I'm really anxious about it. I don't feel like I've been successful or that I'm in a good spot in my life and I'm nervous to go meet someone I haven't seen in almost two decades. Worst case scenario I reveal how much of a loser I am. Or I have to face some harsh truths Ive been avoiding.

There's also some dumb bitch gay problems. Which aren't really problems. Allow me to explain. One of the boys I went to middle school/junior high with in Texas has been in my dreams lately. We're always in a happy relationship. Being depressed and miserable and oscillating between that low and just like a neutral "okay," having a dream where you're happy or elated is a trip. It's jarring because those basic feelings shouldn't be something you miss, but when you DONT have them, once you feel a little taste of it again, it reminds you of how far away you are.

It's really dumb this boy in particular is in my dream. We maybe spoke once or twice in the years I grew up in Texas. From 2nd-8th grade we never had any classes together. My mom was friends with his mom (they worked together before she got fired from that job thus burning all bridges she had made) he was friends with one of my "best friends" I had growing up. But he and I never really ever interacted. But he's in my dreams. Often. 3 or 4 nights a week.

Side note about that best friend. Since moving we haven't really kept in touch. I tried to reach out a few times and never got a response. Growing up either I stayed at his house or he stayed at ours nearly every weekend. It doesn't make sense to me. So much of our childhood was tied together, yet we have nothing to do with each other now. Do they ever think about me like I think about them? Do they ever dream about me? Towards the later years of our friendship we were at odds a bit. He was getting into trouble and getting into girls and getting into trouble WITH girls. He was super disrespectful to his parents. It made me mad. His parents were so nice. They provided everything for him. He lived on a huge farm, had every game and toy he could want. He got a phone and got taken to anywhere he wanted to go (we couldn't drive in 7-8th grade)

Looking back I start to wonder. He had several friends that were like me. Boys that didn't really have any other friends. It's hard to do it without naming names. Idk if anyone reads this anyways. This friends name was Randy. Randy was friends with Colton. Colton didn't really have other friends. He was just a big goofy kid. (looking back so was i) he was friends with Taylor. (the boy in my dream) Taylor's only other friend seemed to be his cousin (who was a girl, and for middle schoolers that meant he was weird) there were more boys but I can't remember specifically now. The point is. Looking back. I think maybe Randy wasn't really our friend. The friendships seemed one sided. I get the feeling that his mom put him up to it. All of us were kind of lonely kids. Not popular. Quiet. Maybe that's why Randy doesn't want to keep in touch. He didn't want to be friends in the first place. He was obligated to.

This all culminates to now. Now I'm in Texas again. Now I'm at a college visiting my niece. (I have other college anxiety but that's another long post) this college happens to be the same college both Randy AND Taylor went to. I'm not nervous about seeing them. I don't think they would recognize me anyways (I didn't have a beard in 7th grade) but it's weird being here. Being were they lived. I feel like an unwanted invader somehow.

Ah fuck I forgot to explain the Taylor in my dreams thing. I think the reason he's in my dreams is because he's got similar features and body types to my friend from Seattle. See my friend was a cute boy that i lived with and he was nice and paid me attention and acted like he wanted to hang out with me so OF COURSE I had a little infatuation. I'm so starved for friendship and love that any sort of attention like that would draw me in. I feel dumb. I just want to be friends with my friend without feeling like I'm crushing on him or something.