#she is so gender too

[i-dont-know-nor-care-go-away]

I've only known Jadzia dax for like 8 ish episodes now but when she tells sisko "I've been a mother three times and a father twice" it just hits me that she is Jadzia Dax. Jadzia Dax, not Jadzia and Dax not Jadzia + Dax, Jadzia Dax, one being. she steps forward to join with her symbiont and she leaves behind her family name in the process. Just her and others before her. She said she failed being a parent, and i wonder if she carries that grief like it is an heirloom she inherited or one of her's will pass on. She is Jadzia Dax and maybe somedays it feels like it isn't Jadiza Dax, its Jadzia Curson (All the other hosts idk them) Dax, does she feel like she carries a history and testment with her, or does she feel like she brought into something folded in on it's self like an origami star

[cenvast]

"Toshiro Is Sexist," "Toshiro Owns Slaves": What's Really Going on With This Guy?

I've seen a lot of debate on whether or not Toshiro is problematic because he's a slave owner or because he's sexist in the context of his crush on Falin. While I do want to examine his relationship to Falin, I'd like to take a few steps back and unpack his upbringing first. We'll dive into the gender and class dynamics he was raised with and how it impacts his behavior in the main storyline.

Like all people, Toshiro is shaped by the environment he grew up in. Toshitsugu, Toshiro's father and the head of the Nakamoto clan, is the most impactful model of authority and manhood in his life. Toshiro does recognize some of his father's flaws and tries to avoid replicating them. But whether or not he emulates or subverts his father's behavior, Toshitsugu is often the starting point for Toshiro's treatment of others, particularly marginalized people.

The Nakamoto clan exists under a patriarchal hierarchy with Toshitsugu at the top. As noted by @fumifooms in their Nakamoto household post, his wife has more authority than Maizuru. She's able to ban Maizuru from parts of their residence, but despite disliking his infidelity, she can't divorce him or stop him from cheating on her. Their marriage is not an equal partnership.

On an interpersonal level, Toshitsugu and Maizuru also have a fraught relationship. While she does seem to care for him, she's often frustrated by his thoughtless behavior.

For example, he drunkenly buys Izutsumi for her — without considering how she'll have to raise this child — and invades her room in the middle of the night. When he cryptically says, "It's all my fault," she replies, "I can think of a lot of things that are your fault." She calls him an "idiot" and "believes that [Toshiro] will grow up to be a better clan leader than his father," implying that she takes issue with Toshitsugu's leadership.

Because Maizuru and Toshitsugu are described as being "in an intimate relationship" and "seem[ing] to be lovers," Maizuru appears to be a consensual participant. Still, this doesn't negate the large power imbalance between them as a male noble clan leader and his female retainer. This imbalance introduces an insidious undertone to Maizuru's frustration with Toshitsugu. Like Toshiro's mother, Maizuru doesn't have the agency to do as she pleases in their relationship; he has the ultimate authority. For instance, she doesn't seem to want to raise Izutsumi, but she has to anyway.

While Maizuru's role as Toshitsugu's mistress is significant, she's also the Nakamoto clan's teacher and Toshiro's primary maternal figure. She cares deeply for Toshiro: tailing him, feeding him, and taking responsibility even for his actions as an adult. While it might seem sweet that she cares for him like a son at first, Maizuru was notably fifteen years old at the time of his birth. In the extra comic below, he's six years old and has already been in her care for some time. Even if we're being generous and assuming that she didn't start raising him until he was six, she was still only twenty-one at the time she was parenting her boss/lover's child with another woman.

Maizuru's roles as mistress and maternal figure, in addition to her role as retainer, demonstrate the intersection between gendered and class oppression in the Nakamoto household. Despite her original role being a retainer trained in espionage, Toshitsugu presses her into performing gendered labor for him and eventually, Toshiro. She's expected to be Toshitsugu's lover, perform emotional labor for him as his confidant, care for his child, and carry out domestic tasks like cooking. She says, "Even during missions, I was often dragged into the kitchen." If she was a male servant, I doubt she would have been expected to perform these additional tasks. She can't avoid these tasks either, stating that her "own feelings don't factor into it."

Toshitsugu disregards his wife's and Maizuru's desires and emotions to serve his own interests. Because he has societal power over them as a nobleman and in Maizuru's case, her master, neither woman can escape their position in the household hierarchy.

As a result, Toshiro grew up within a structure where men and male nobility, in particular, wield the most societal power. The hierarchical nature of his household and society discourages everyone, including him as a clan leader's eldest son, from questioning and disrupting the existing hierarchy.

The other Nakamoto household members also internalize its sexist, classist power dynamics.

For example, Hien expects that she and Toshiro will replicate the uneven dynamics of the previous generation, regardless of her personal feelings. She sees her and Toshiro's relationship as paralleling Maizuru and Toshitsugu's relationship; she is the closest woman to Toshiro and his retainer, so she's shocked when Toshiro doesn't attempt to begin an intimate relationship with her. Notably, she doesn't have actual feelings for him. Her expectations are centered around the household's precedent of placing emotional, sexual, domestic, and child-rearing labor onto the female servants without any regard for their personal desires.

Hien also probably knows that her position in the household will improve if she is Toshiro's lover because she's seen it improve Maizuru's position. However, the fact that being the future clan leader's lover is the closest proximity she, as a female servant, has to power further reveals the gendered, class-based oppression she and the other women live under.

It's important to note that the Nakamoto clan bought Benichidori, Izutsumi, and Inutade as slaves, so they have less power and agency than Maizuru and Hien. The clan further dehumanizes Izutsumi and Inutade as demi-humans; their enslavement contains an additional layer of racialization.

Toshiro isn't oblivious to the gendered, class, and racial power dynamics of his household. He tries to distance himself from participating in its exploitative power structure. He walls himself off from Hien, who he's known since childhood, to avoid replicating his father's behavior and making his servant into his lover. He disapproves of his father's enslavement of Izutsumi and Inutade, and he lets Izutsumi go when she runs away in the Dungeon.

But does any of this absolve him of his complicity in his household's sexist, classist power dynamics and racialized slavery?

The short answer is absolutely not.

Despite his distaste for his father's exploitation of his servants and slaves, Toshiro still uses them. He refers to his party as "his retainers," and he has them fight and perform domestic tasks for him. You could argue that Toshiro doesn't like to and thus, doesn't regularly use his servants and slaves. In the context of him asking his retainers to help him rescue Falin, Maizuru says, "The only time he ever made any sort of personal request was for this task." But it shouldn't matter whether exploitation is a regular occurrence or not for it to be considered harmful. Toshiro asking Maizuru to cook him a meal still constitutes asking his female servant to perform gendered labor for him. He's also very accustomed to her grooming and dressing him.

Maizuru sees feeding, washing, and even advising Toshiro romantically as fulfilling Toshitsugu's orders to care for his son. They aren't fulfilling a "personal request." But just because her labor has been deemed expected and thereby devalued doesn't mean that it isn't labor or that she isn't performing it.

Maizuru's dynamic with Toshiro is also complicated by her role as his maternal figure. She loves him and wants to take care of him, and she doesn't have a choice in the matter. During Toshiro's childhood, the onus was on Toshitsugu to cease exploiting his lover and release her from servitude, but Toshiro is now an adult man. Seeing as how Maizuru defers to his wishes and calls him "Young Master," they still have a power imbalance that he's passively maintaining. Ideally, he would not ask anything of her until he has the authority to release her from servitude.

Throughout the story, Toshiro acts as if he has no agency and quietly disapproving of his father's actions absolves him of his participation in maintaining oppressive dynamics. While his father still ranks higher than him, he's essentially his father's heir. He has much more power than Maizuru, the highest-ranked servant. At the very least, he could leave his slave-owning household.

Unfortunately, his refusal to confront injustice is consistent with his character's major flaw: he does not express his opinions, desires, or needs. While this character trait obviously hurts his friendships, it also furthers his complicity in the injustices his household runs on.

Toshiro's relationship with eating food — the prevailing metaphor of the series — also parallels his relationship with confronting injustice. Maizuru mentions that he was a sickly child, so the act of eating may have been physically uncomfortable for him. As an adult, his refusal to eat crops up during his rescue attempt of Falin. Denying himself food might have been punishment for not accomplishing important tasks like rescuing Falin and/or a way to maintain control over something in his life when he felt like he'd lost control over the rest of it, again in the context of losing Falin. (Note: I suggest reading this post on Toshiro's disordered eating by @malaierba.)

But he cannot and does not avoid consuming food forever.

Similarly, Toshiro keeps his distance from his retainers and tries not to use them until the Falin situation occurs. His efforts to avoid exploiting his retainers amount to inaction — things he doesn't ask of them or do to them. But his inaction does nothing to dismantle the existing hierarchy that places his retainers under his authority, denies them agency, and often marginalizes them as not only servants or slaves but as women, and he ends up using them as servants and slaves anyways.

Returning to the narrative's themes of consumption, Toshiro cannot avoid eating just as he cannot avoid perpetuating the exploitative system of his household. The Nakamoto clan consumes the labor and personhood of those lower in the hierarchy. The retainers' labor as spies and domestic servants is the foundation of the clan's existence. Thus, the clan consumes their labor to sustain itself.

Within this hierarchy, the retainers' personhood is also consumed and erased. As Izutsumi describes, they are given different names and stripped of their agency to reject orders or leave. Maizuru and Hien also say their feelings are irrelevant in the context of Toshitsugu's and Toshiro's wants and needs. Both women are expected to comply with whatever is most beneficial and comfortable for the noblemen. Clearly, despite Toshiro's detachment from his household's functions, these social structures remain in place and harm the women under him.

Although we know the Nakamoto clan has male retainers, the choice to highlight the female retainers seems intentional. We're asked to interrogate how not only being a servant or a slave in a noble household impacts a person's life and agency, but how being a woman intersects with being a member of some of the lowest social classes.

Toshiro only distances himself from his father's behaviors of infidelity and exploitation so long as it doesn't take Toshiro out of his comfort zone. He doesn't free his slaves. He's far too comfortable with his female retainers performing domestic labor for him, and he barely acknowledges their efforts; they're shocked when he thanks them for helping him save Falin. He hasn't unpacked his sexist (or classist or racist) biases because he perpetuates his household's oppressive hierarchy throughout the narrative. Considering all of this, he inevitably brings this baggage to his interactions with Falin.

Falin is presumably one of the first women he's had extended contact with that isn't his relative or his family's servant. Because of his trauma surrounding his father and Maizuru sleeping together, he understandably falls for a woman as disconnected as possible from his father and his clan. He seems to genuinely like Falin, respects her boundaries, and graciously accepts her rejection. His behavior towards her is overall kind and unproblematic.

But if Falin had gone with him, she would've likely been devalued and sidelined like the other women of the Nakamoto household. No matter how much he loves Falin, simply loving her cannot replace the difficult work of unlearning his sexism. Love, of course, can and should be accompanied by that work, but by the close of the narrative, we gain little indication that Toshiro acknowledges or seeks to end his part in exploiting and devaluing women and other marginalized people.

A spark of hope does exist. Toshiro expressing his feelings to Laios and Falin suggests that his time away from home has encouraged him to speak up more. Breaking his habit of avoidance may be the first step towards acknowledging his complicity in systems of injustice and moving towards dismantling them.

Special thanks to my very smart friend @atialeague for bringing up Toshitsugu's relationship with Maizuru and the replication of dynamics of consumption and class! <3

[lulu-draws-stuff]

My sort of future au designs (traced/edited their psychonauts 2 renders for this) :] they are like 13 here

[kit-screams-into-the-future]

yeehaw

transcript:

JENNIFER: Don't get me wrong, this dress is nice and all, but- JENNIFER: ...it'll be real hard running around and stuff in it, don't you think? JENNIFER: Especially with. Whatever this is. (ass cage??) MARTY: I, uh... MARTY: Yeah, huh. MARTY: How- JENNIFER: (noticing the pants Marty's holding) Bingo. JENNIFER: Sorry, Marty, gonna hafta borrow this- MARTY: Wha- Hey!

everyone was making such good jennifer in 1885 posts so i nicked a couple for the gist of this one

[offkilterkeys]

The world isn’t ready for my alpha kid readings.

[giddlygoat]

mario + peach is such a good ship istg they’re so good. straight ship so good it feels gay

[shsl-analyzer-guy]

got a totally random rush of Emotions about Chihiro's gender so hi let's talk about how the entire account of Chihiro 'totally being a cis dude guys' is told by Monokuma, the guy that later goes on to fake a suicide note and falsify an entire class trial just to be pissy. Ah yes top 10 most reliable narrators ever of all time, yes, yes, very convincing

Not to mention in the exact same fucking motive he's very obviously purposefully warping the truth and lying to the cast's faces?? Within the 'embarrassing memories' motive Mondo's is a warped version of the truth. "Mondo killed his own brother" but he didn't, and just about everyone is able to grasp that one. He indirectly led to the accident, but Daiya made his own choices. So wouldn't the same logic apply to Chihiro's motive? "He dresses like a girl but actually is a boy" sounds like you're actively warping her own life experience to send her into Despair.... which is Monokuma's primary character motive.... crazy how that works........

And now, a compilation of every line Chihiro delivers in her own backstory, without the narrative padding from Monokuma explaining to you why this is totally her hating being a woman and wanting to be a man

"Now nobody will be able to say anything about 'even though you're a boy'..."

"I'm... weak... Weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak...!"

"Now's my chance..."

"I'm going to get stronger... and accept who I am..."

"Strong enough so that when someone says 'even though you're a boy' it'll be okay. I'll get better!"

"Maybe talking to Mondo about it will help give me some courage..."

So yeah, once you pull out the unreliable narrator. You get like, 6 lines total. 1/3 of which specify that she IS AFRAID of people saying "even though you're a boy". Now, call me crazy, but if we're genuinely arguing that Chihiro is a cisgendered man, why the hell would she say the equivalent of "I need to accept being a boy. Gee, I sure hope no one calls me a boy while I do so!" That's. That's inherently contradictory. More than anything, looking at Chihiro's lines as the most reliable source of Chihiro's thoughts about herself, it starts to look less and less like a man who wants to rise above being gnc and be a true manly man, and more like someone who's about to get fucking outed and mocked by Monokuma and trying to do damage control, steeling herself to be called a man and strengthening her mind and body to prepare for said outing.

Earlier in chapter 2, Chihiro is already thinking of starting to try working out, but is too afraid to enter the lockers because she's well-aware she can only enter the boys' locker rooms. The inference that Makoto comes to is that Chihiro is an individual trapped in a killing game that couldn't defend herself verbally in the library the morning prior, and is visibly the physically weakest in the class. Ergo, perhaps she wants to be able to defend herself better? Well, neither of those facts that lead to said inference magically change after the discovery of her dick, so perchance, the reason she wanted to get stronger was still so she could defend herself both verbally and physically?? The ONLY reason you'd have to come to the conclusion she wants to reconnect with her assigned sex is because she is being actively threatened into it by Monokuma's motive, or if you take Monokuma's story at his word, that he'd speak respectfully of the dead. Just like he did with every other character in that game, right?

Also, it's worth noting that in the actual conversation-turned-spiral between Chihiro and Mondo before Chihiro's death, neither Chihiro nor Mondo actually talk about Chihiro's gender, only her strength and desire to destroy her weakness. Yes, Mondo is using he/him in the voiceover, but the entire class is atp, and again. Using that as genuine evidence falls flat because we see in that very same scene that Mondo WAS NOT completely present for that conversation. He saw Chihiro's willpower and spiraled, conflating Chihiro with his brother and lashing out in a ptsd-induced blackout.

Also also, if you're gonna argue Chihiro has no reason to need to get physically stronger unless it's to be more masculine, A) Sakura exists in the same game, and B) please god look up any statistics on the amount of violence trans teens receive. That alone is a perfectly reasonable justification for a trans woman to want to be able to defend herself, especially when locked in a place where you cannot escape your potential aggressors.

TLDR Chihiro is legitimately more believable as a trans woman, and every intervention attempting to explain otherwise comes from a character defined by his love of twisting the truth for the sake of causing suffering. Hi hello does anyone hear me

[b0tster]

thinking about,, her,,,,

[mvmnbnv]

The fact that u had ppl saying vi would never wear makeup only for her to return in heavier black eye makeup and literal lipstick

[canisalbus]

at least as far as french goes, learning the genders of things is entirely memorization. and yes, learners of the language struggle with it.

in fact, if you're writing and want to convey that the person doesn't speak french too well, you have them misgender inanimate objects.

there's no rules to determine a thing's gender, not even vibes; in fact, the opposite is true: for native speakers, which gender a thing is will then color the vibes that they associate with that thing. this is why i will forever associate spiders with cunning and motherood.

and finally, i've saved the dumbest for last: in 2020, there was debate if COVID is male or female.

.

[boredlime]

when you're Probably Not Cis but you present as it anyways because you're too lazy to do anything about it

[zhe-awesome-me-blog]

A vision came to me.

[pango-doots]

Nimona is one of THE BEST animated book to movie adaptations I’ve ever seen BUT there is one missing component I am so sad about. RIP Dr. Blitzmeyer you’ll live on in our hearts

[joshuamj]

In Stars And Time? More like In Ace And Gender

+ some alts

[m1d-45]

spoken across stars IV

summary: voicelines characters would have in sagau! ft. lyney, lynette, freminet, and two bonuses :)

word count: ~710

-> warnings: major spoilers for fontaine archon quest

-> gn reader (you/yours, one ‘their’) and unspecified traveller (they/them)

taglist: @samarill || @thenyxsky || @valeriele3 || @shizunxie || @boba-is-a-soup || @yuus3n || @esthelily || @turningfrogsgay || @cupandtea24 || @genshin-impacts-me || @chaoticfivesworld || @raaawwwr || @ryuryuryuyurboat || @undrxtxd || @rainswept || @wanderersqt || @rozz-eokkk

< zhongli, ayato, heizou || < masterlist >

lyney

about us: the traveller

What do I think of the traveller? Well, they’re observant, quick on their feet, and remarkably determined once set in their ways. They’re the only reason Fontaine is still standing, and the only reason I’m not stuck in the Fortress of Meropide. I owe them quite a bit, now that I think about it…

about us: the creator

friendship lv. 4

Imagine a travelling opera troupe visited town, and you decide to attend. You listen to the musical scores, watch the actors dance across the stage, years of practice and rehearsals condensed into a single scene, an unknowable amount of complexity lost from your place in the audience. You want to watch it over and over, to ask the director about his creative process and about the symbolism of the chorus, but everything packs up before you know it. You think about it forever, mourning the fragility of your own memory, wanting more than anything to watch it just one more time.

about you: worship

friendship lv. 6

Thank you for keeping my family safe. Thank you for your compassion, for believing in Lynette and Freminet and Father and… for trusting me. I lied to you and the traveller when we met and yet you still chose to help, and that means more than I can ever express. You’re kind and caring and… ah, I’m no good with words. Just… thank you. For everything.

lynette

about us: the traveller

I like them. Quick, to the point, and able to back up their words with their swordsmanship. They’re surprisingly willing to work with the Fatui; though, that shouldn’t be too unexpected considering how much Tartaglia likes to talk about them.

about us: the creator

friendship lv. 4

What does a flower think of the sun? Or the tide of the moon?

about you: worship

friendship lv. 6

Gifts and acts of service are how thanks are normally given, but considering your status… I’m no good at speeches without a script, so I’ll get to the point. Thank you for everything. I’m here if you need me. Don’t be shy about asking for help, either; no amount of errands I could run could make up for saving Teyvat thrice over. If it’s for you, I don’t mind.

freminet

about us: the traveller

The.. traveller…? Ah, I- I never got the chance to speak with them that often. Usually Lyney or Lynette interact with them… But, I am grateful they’re here. Who knows where Fontaine would be without them…

about us: the creator

friendship lv. 4

What about them? W-wait, that sounded bad—what I meant to say was: why were you asking about them? My opinion? That’s… a strange question to ask. It’s like asking what I think of the sea, or what Lynette thinks of oysters, or Lyney his shows or Father the House. I.. I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand the question…

about you: worship

friendship lv. 6

I wouldn’t be where I am if it wasn’t for you. You changed my life, how I view myself and my family, and gave me the strength to protect what I care about. I am forever in your debt. Should you ever need anything, give me the order and it will be done.

bonus!!

arlecchino

about the creator: recitals

I think it’s amusing how much effort people put into planning a thing as simple as prayer. Every day, the children carefully discuss what candles would smell the best when lit, pestering Lyney for his opinion… even Freminet, blessed as he is, practices his words at least twice before addressing them formally. Then again, he never has been confident with his words…

navia

about the creator: tea time

I rather enjoy tea parties. Brewing the tea, baking the pastries, sitting together with a few friends, it’s all so peaceful. Of course, now that Silver and Melus are gone, I find myself drinking tea all on my own. No, there’s no need to worry—sitting above a thriving Spina, knowing everything we’ve been through and the strength we’ve been given, I never feel lonely.

[newts-and-sharks]

New human moon! Not sure if I like her or not rn