#internalized and within the context of artemis navigating queerness as a trans man

[orangerosebush]

Obligatory pride month HC post for a few of my belovèd AF faves.

Putting this below the cut as it will be a smidge long. If your headcanons differ, please know that this is only intended to be my very own, self-indulgent reading of some of the characters -- I love to hear how people's readings differ from my own, and I truly do think of the series as being inherently conducive to a multiplicity of interpretations.

Artemis Fowl II: I have a whole post on the fact I love to read (and write) Artemis as being a trans man, and all my takes from that piece apply here. I see him as being bisexual and only coming to terms with this during his late-teens. I don't think he reflected much on his sexuality when he was younger, assuming he was heterosexual due to the fact he is attracted to women *and* the fact mainstream masculinity is also tied to straightness, thus making it common for transmasculine people to remain closeted (to themselves and/or to society) so as to avoid "risking" what little access to validated manhood in the eyes of the peers that they had managed to procure. However, I think he always was drawn to depictions of queer masculinity in art -- Oscar Wilde's writing, etc -- even though he didn't fully understand why he was so profoundly emotionally affected by it.

Juliet Butler: I read her as being a lesbian. Her character arc is so deeply tied to her negotiating what is expected of her as opposed to what she loves, and her finally gathering to courage to leave for America to begin living the life she was meant to live was so important to me when I read it the first time. I see her as having a non-traditional romantic relationship with Samsonetta, in that it's a somewhat open relationship and neither of them is interested in settling down and legally marrying. However, they both deeply love one another, and the relationship has been very healing for them both.

Butler: I see him as always having been supportive of the fact Juliet is gay (i.e. I see him reassuring her that she is meant to live her life as Juliet, not just a Butler, as him subtextually saying, "I know you've never told me, but I know you are gay, and I love you"). However, I think that in terms of him being comfortable with his own sexuality, he'd have a lot of internalized stuff to work through :(. Let me explain.

Canonically, one of Butler's favorite movies is Some like it hot (1959) with Marilyn Monroe -- and this movie was (arguably) the death knell of the Hays Code due to scenes like the following in which gayness was alluded to in a very progressive manner for the time:

Here's how Butler talks about something as innocuous as his taste in genre.

So much about what makes his dynamic with Juliet fascinating is that he is so unequivocally supportive of her, that he is adamant that the Blue Diamond life would kill her spirit, and so on -- yet he likewise spends most of the series refusing to allow himself to be emotionally vulnerable with others, just as he struggles to allow himself to be more than just "a Butler".

I could see Juliet finding out from Justin Barre (Butler's friend from Scotland yard) that years in the past, he had sensed a mutual -- though they never discussed this -- romantic frisson between Butler and himself, and that he always wondered whether something could have happened between them had Butler not been called back to Ireland at Artemis' birth. Juliet has a moment where she's like, "Wait. Hold up".

Suddenly, a lot of awkwardness about how Butler has tried to articulate how much he loves and supports Juliet's own sexuality is recontextualized as being part of, "Holy shit, my brother is heavily closeted". To me, I see Butler's love for Juliet as likely one of the few things that would impel him to properly go to therapy so as to work through all the shit he'd internalized from stripping away his personhood during his time in Blue Diamond training. Like, Butler *loves* being a bodyguard, and this is how he talks about it nonetheless.

I do think that over time, he learns how to be more vulnerable around other people, and that although he remains a private person until he dies, he does come to terms with his own queerness in a way that brings him peace.

Something that reminds me of how I write Butler is the following (beautiful and heart-breaking) piece of art by illustrator Kenny Park (@/parkkennypark).