#this is like the inverse of trans people naming themselves after things in nature. all raksura are named after things in nature or

[coquelicoq]

was trying to think of possible names for river's consort brothers who died in childhood and whose names are never given in the narrative and of course they have to fit with the river theme so i was like okay we got river, branch, drift, how about current...stream...float...bob...wait, bob?! <-legit possible name for a raksura but can u imagine. Bob of Indigo Cloud. these are my children Branch, Drift, River, Current, and Bob. bob my son the raksuran consort bob. bob the consort (can he fix it (intercourt diplomacy problem)) bob the consort (yes he can!)

[b-lysia]

I don't like the "identity" theory of gender, not just because it feels like the way it's generally understood feels like a misunderstanding of "Identity"

But because if gender is unobservable, then it's just metaphysics. And I don't fuck with religion. I don't want to enforce a new one as a social standard, I want religion to die. I wanna see a focus on intellectual integrity and empirical thought.

Performance theory is more concrete by contrast, because it can be questioned and interrogated. It's probably not as comforting as the weight of being able to say, "because I said so," and considering the state of queer discourse's mainstream right now... I feel it. But to me, that's just more reason to push for it.

Because-

Our personal feelings and view of ourselves and place in the world affect and determine how we present to others, and in a positive feedback loop; our presentation affects how people see and feel about us, influencing how they treat us, influencing the way we view and feel about ourselves. Ad infinitum

Performance or Identity theory, this is true. And because we all know this is true, I think a lot of transphobia- besides just being repackaged racism/featurism- is borne from an attempt to wrest control over what identities are considered shameful. Namely, obviously, ensuring the gendered portion of the social hierarchy remains intact.

A "guy" who everyone treats like "a girl," is supposed to be a negative thing. A source of shame, ridicule, and abuse. But if that "guy" says, "fuck it, what if I am a girl;" or more accurately, 'their internal perspective of themselves maps onto that of what traits we call "girly" more than they do "manly?" then the world suddenly lacks coherence. Likewise the inverse, but I realized I focus a little hard on trans masculine experiences here, so I want to be less heavy handed.

If the social position Woman, is no longer lesser; so much so, that a Man would become one. Then the gender/Patriarchy structure... Kind of collapses under its own weight. If these positions are no longer intrinsic, then it collapses seven fold. So the natural response, for anyone who either personally benefits form the structure, or at least feels threatened by the unknown social territory they've suddenly found themself in, is to say- "Wait, you can't do that!?" Like the schoolyard twat they are.

The fact that one's personal identity on this level is formed so early in one's development only exacerbates how ridiculous the petty cruelty of transphobia is. Someone who was assigned a gender in lipservice alone, based on the assumptions of a 30second once over, merely a minute after being born, is assailed with experiences that cause their psyche to form in opposition to it, is begrudged for wanting to escape harassment on the basis of them being the person that their environment's effects on their biology literally carved them into. Just because it differs from the assumptions and expectations that others have of the individual, but clearly haven't adequately impressed upon that human in such a way to make them stick.

Begrudged for wanting to perform their gender in a way closer to how they've been treated, because the people around them can't handle that this individual grew into a being based on how they experienced the world, instead of based on a vague and cruel idea of what a person should be.

I like Performance theory better than Identity theory, because gender is a thing you do, because social interactions are a thing you do. They are observable and dissect able. They can be checked, based on the way we use the concept of gender to communicate within a given culture. Because with performance theory, unless you count someone's physical body as part of a performance, someone with a beard and a frilly skirt on is probably a girl/fem-coding themselves.

Granted, I take issue with the concept of the genders boy/girl/(gender period) overall. So what do I know

[crossdreamers]

How old fashioned thinking about sexuality and gender invalidates both trans and asexual people

raavenb2619 sent me a comment on my recent post on erotic crossdreaming and the autogynephilia theory, where they asked me why I did not cover asexual transgender people in my discussion of that transphobic theory.

In that post I pointed out that the autogynephilia theory is bigoted pseudo-science, but that many people do get aroused by the idea of becoming their true gender. 

The following quote [edited after my talk with raaven] gives you the main gist of my argument:

“Trans people, like cis people, are sexual beings with a vivid imagination, and what could make more sense for a trans woman than to imagine herself having sex as a woman?” 

raaven asks if I am implying that a) “all trans people are allosexual” [experiencing sexual attraction] and that b) “trans women imagining themselves having sex as women is so natural that trans women that don’t, whether because they’re asexual or for any other reason, are unnatural”

Asexual trans women are valid

They make a good argument for why my post can be read that way, but this was definitely not what I wanted to say. Asexual trans women are both valid and natural. 

What has happened here is that I, by responding to a transphobic theory that is deeply embedded in the old paradigm of sexuality and gender, has focused on the experiences of allosexual/non-asexual people, because they are the ones addressed by the autogynephilia theory. 

I presented sensible alternative explanations for why trans people may behave the way they do – explanations that do not affirm the transphobic autogynephilia theory.

The 19th century view of the world

As I pointed out in my post the  theory is anchored in a late 19th/early 20th century understanding of sexuality and gender. This model is still alive in some parts of society and it is based on the following premises.

1. The only natural sexual attraction is between men and women. Any same-sex attraction is a perversion based on what was called “sexual inversion”. So all gay men are effeminate, according to this approach, and all trans women who love men are gay men. All lesbian women are masculine, and all trans men love women.

2. Sexuality aims at one objective only: procreation. This is a position 19th and 20th century science took over from the Judeo-Christian tradition, where humankind is expected to populate and rule the world. Having sex with a condom is therefore considered a sin by the Catholic church.

19th century sex researchers also believed procreation was the goal of sex, and sexualities that could not lead to a woman getting pregnant was therefore a perversion.

3. Men are active and libidinous and woman are passive, with a weaker libido. In my post I referred to this as women being considered somewhat “asexual” by these male researchers. That phrase could definitely be misunderstood, I see that now, so I have edited it. 

The point is that according to this world view women have a weak sex drive compared to men, and to the extent they have one it is aimed at their husband and anchored in the desire to become a mother.

Lesbian trans women falsify the old world view

The binary inversion theory tries to explain why gay men love men (they have some kind of female sexuality) and why lesbian women love women (they are “mannish”, according to this false narrative). 

Ray Blanchard, the man behind the autogynephilia theory, had to come up with a theory that explains why some trans women are attracted to women, and that was the autogynephilia theory: These trans women (”men” according to him) are suffering from some kind of “erotic target location error” where they become attracted to their idea of themselves as a women rather than women “out there”. 

He still refuses to accept gay trans men, since women (as he sees them) cannot be sexual perverts. He had a Catholic upbringing, you see.

(By the way, Blanchard continues to argue that homosexuality is a mental illness and he would like the diagnosis reintroduced into the American psychiatric manual. He is that kind of man.)

Asexuality as an offense to the old world view

All of this is wrong, and all serious researchers agree that all of this is nonsense, but this narrative fits the prejudices of many homophobic and transphobic people, so the model lives on in the dark corners of the web.

There is no room for asexual people in this world view. As far as Blanchard is concerned, all these “paraphilias” (sexual perversions) are fueled by sexual desire for someone or something. He is also a child of Sigmund Freud, and for Freud everything could be reduced to sexual desire. If procreation is the ultimate goal of both sexuality and gender, asexual people make no sense.

This is why a lack of desire for having sex with other people is classified as a mental disease by people like Blanchard. All people are fundamentally allosexual, according to them, but something has gone wrong, so that the sexual desire has been subdued or misdirected.  

In this tradition asexual men are incomprehensible, as men are supposed to be wired for chasing women, while asexual women are labelled as frigid, and frigidity can be cured.

When Blanchard sees that some non-transitioned trans women are more aroused by the idea of having sex as a woman than having sex as a man with their own girlfriends or wives, that is seen as proof of the “target location error”. 

He does not consider one obvious explanation: They are women, and having sex as a man is a big turn-off. Nor does he consider another meaningful explanation, namely that some of them are  asexual.

They are definitely not all asexual, as many male to female trans people who have crossdreaming fantasies also engage actively in sex with others, both men and women, but some of them are.

Continuums make more sense

As soon as you start to look at sexuality and gender as continuums, you start to see all of these phenomena with new eyes:

If sexual orientation is a continuum, then you see a diversity as regards what kind of folk people are attracted to.

If gender identity is a continuum, there is room for binary cis people, binary trans people and nonbinary people.

If gender expression is a continuum, there is room for masculine women, feminine men and nonbinary people of all shades and colors.

If the sex drive is a continuum, you will find people with a strong libido on the one side and some with a very weak one on the other. It does not matter what causes this variation. It is there!

All human abilities or personality traits can be seen as continuums – including physical agility, intelligence, creativity, artistic abilities, empathy and aggression –   so why should sexuality and gender be exceptions?

If the desire to have sex with others is on a spectrum, you will find those who are  continuously trying to score on the one side and people who do not want to have intercourse at all on the other.

Some asexual people have a low libido, others do not, but what they do have in common is that they normally do not want to have sex with other people. As soon as we accept the fact that nature is diverse, it makes absolute perfect sense that such people exist, in the same way it makes sense that gay, lesbian, trans and nonbinary people exist. And yes, asexual trans people also become a natural phenomenon.

Nature is a D.J.

The traditionalists will argue that evolution does not allow for this kind of diversity. Sexual selection will not let the relevant genes move on to the next generation. Blanchard has spent years trying to find an explanation for why gay men, like himself, exist.

The thing is, however, that real life diversity, both as regards genes, epigenetics, hormones, personal experiences and cultural rules and ideas, is so complex that such variation will reappear over and over again by itself. 

Nature and culture are not machines aimed at a producing the perfect man and perfect woman some time in the future. Nature is a D.J. continuously remixing the songs of the past. Nor is culture stable. As soon as you think it is, a new idea appears that turns everything upside down.

And this is what causes transphobia, homophobia and acephobia. As soon as we see these phenomena as a natural expressions of natural diversity, the whole mental map of the old world order is debunked and replaced by a new way of looking at the world. 

Right wing extremists, religious fundamentalists and trans-exclusionary radical feminists have their whole lives invested in the old model. That is why they struggle so hard to uphold it, and that is why they want to “cure” or exclude gay, trans, nonbinary and asexual people.

Illustration: frimages

More on why the autogynephilia theory is transphobic. See also: Gender Discrepancy in Asexual Identity: The Effect of Hegemonic Gender Norms on Asexual Identification, by Tori Bianchi

[pentanguine]

1. Do you use any other terms to define or explain your gender?

So…I got a little carried away. Most of these posts will not be this long, but I had a lot I wanted to say, and a long drizzly afternoon to work on saying it, so.

Aside from genderqueer, trans, and nonbinary…

I’ve started feeling more at home with the word transmasculine this year, after several years of circling it warily and ultimately running away because it would just be ALL TOO SHOCKING. Other people interpret transmasculine in a wide variety of ways, many of which make me deeply uncomfortable (eg “Transmasc = physically transitioning in all the same ways trans men usually do;” “Transmasc = trans man but woke about it;” “Transmasc = I have aligned myself against women and forsaken feminism and I love asserting my dominant gender role”), and voluntarily using a word that’s ripe for misinterpretation made my control-obsessed brain fuck right off.

But ultimately it’s not really about using words (what does that even mean? putting them in your tumblr bio? buying the pride flag?) so much as knowing, however privately, that you are a thing. And I’m transmasculine! It’s a word that feels comfortable, and homey, and exciting. Other people who use that word sound like me! They look like me, and they look how I want to look! I get such a blooming, leaping, light-filled feeling in my chest when I see these people, because I instinctively feel that these are People Like Me. I recognize myself in their experiences of gender, and sometimes I feel like my whole body’s going to shake apart with a euphoria that’s like being on fire. Every time I read something by Daniel M. Lavery I end up rolling around on the floor in paroxysms of delight and Feeling Seen, and my brain lights up like a fireworks display when I see awkward bi men with curly brown hair and glasses. There is still a little part of my brain that’s convinced referring to myself as transmasc will make everyone deeply disappointed in me, and obligate me to go out and befriend a footballer named Chad, but I’ve been casually referring to myself that way since May in semi-public venues and the sky hasn’t fallen in yet.

Transmasc feels like a useful word for me because it makes me feel more settled. I think a lot of times nonbinary gender is simplified to gender neutrality (which it is for some people!), while for me it’s more like a stewing mess full of things that don’t make coherent sense in anyone’s mind but my own. So I can like masculine words and gender presentations, and that doesn’t mean I’m equating neutrality with masculinity, and I can also express my gender in the numerous non-masc ways that feel natural to me while still having that anchor to come back to. Ultimately, I think it just means that I have a more meaningful relationship with masculinity than I have with femininity, neutrality, or androgyny, and that I’m deliberately moving in a more masc-coded direction that the one I started out. And that’s it!

--

The other big gender-conceptualization-thing that I’ve been thinking a lot about is the complicated muddle of doubleness and inversion that I feel between gender identity, gender presentation, sexuality, and gender expression. I don’t feel bigender, because that sounds like I have two discrete gender experiences sitting side by side, and I’m not genderfluid, because it’s not like my gender actually changes, but I do feel like I’m part woman-affiliated agender person, and part genderqueer guy with the genderqueer dialed up to eleven and the guy dialed down to two. Part of me feels apart from gender, but nebulously attached to queer ideas of womanhood (lesbian! spinster! middle school girl at a sleepover who promises to love her friends more than any passing crush!), and then part of me feels apart from gender, but like I picked Guy Gender to steal for myself and imitate and relentlessly queer by virtue of not taking it seriously enough. But it’s all mixed together, you know? Like paint swirling on a palette, or light bringing out iridescence on fish scales. Sometimes it will be more like one thing, sometimes more like another, but it’s always whole and completely intertwined.

Earlier this year a Miriam Zoila Perez quote about being a faggy butch was going around, and man, that gave me a lot of gender feelings. I first encountered the term fairy butch on this old blog called The Butchelor, and while I loved it then, I didn’t use it because of a radfem-induced trepidation that it was all an elaborate joke everyone understood but me. I also have an extremely annoyed relationship to the word butch, because I’m not butch at all, and I doubt anyone else would think I am, but this seems to be the only word anyone is capable of using to describe queer masculinity. It’s like other people are determined to smash you into yet another binary (ironically, a binary that’s jealously guarded by the same people who keep enfolding you in it) because you’re afab and like wearing ties. It’s annoying!

But the phrase fairy butch just seems so delightful to me, because it’s whimsical and complex, and also so genderfucky. I’m not masculine in any of the ways that usually cohere to the word butch—I don’t have the interests, or the mannerisms, or the sexual propensities or the haircut or the total dislike for anything feminine-coded (why is masculinity always all or nothing, and all about absence?). I love my socks with the sparkly pink foxgloves, I love smiling (why must men never smile?), I like sitting with my legs crossed and talking with my hands. I’m not feminine, I’m effeminate. I’m a double invert, gay for women and gay for men, a too-boyish-“woman” who doubles right back around as a too-feminine-“man.” Maybe I’m not a butch, or even a (faggy) butch, but dammit I’m a fairy/butch. Two queers in one, two inextricable, contradicting queernesses that complicate and complement and mitigate and enhance each other.

--

The idea that I’ve been slowly winding towards is that contradiction is part of my gender. It’s not something that’s going to get smoothed out one day when I find The Perfect Word, and the questioning and revisiting isn’t going to end when I reach The Final Stage of Transition or whatever. I read an article a few weeks ago that nebulously cited Jack Halberstam as saying “refusal to resolve my gender ambiguity has become a kind of identity for me,” and that’s something that resonates with me so, so much. I don’t have to make myself neat and appropriate for consumption, because my gender doesn’t exist at the mercy of other people’s understanding. I’m not a problem that has yet to be shoved into a “woman-aligned” or “nonvir” box, I just am. Sitting amidst the dissonance of things that other people tell me are impossible to feel at the same time is my identity. I never want to cohere.

It reminds me of the way I feel about historical figures like Katharine Hepburn and Daphne DuMaurier, who were definitely genderqueer as fuck, but also closeted to the outside world for their entire lives, and unclassifiable in modern terminology. They were real, complex people who existed, and are now gone! It would be really weird to assign them a coherent identity, like “Hepburn was a nonbinary trans man” or “DuMaurier was genderfluid” or what-have-you, when all you have are decontextualized fragments of their gender feelings. (I feel comfortable calling them genderqueer because that can be used as an adjective to describe cis people who queer gender, which they definitely did)

Anyway: I feel very deeply connected to these people, and the way they saw themselves as being boys, or like-men, or men-in-certain-contexts, or men-and-women, or women-who-wanted-to-be-men. But the thing is, wherever they may have wanted to go, they never arrived. Would Hepburn have preferred to be known professionally as Jimmy, gone by he/him pronouns in all areas of life, and identified as a proud trans man? Barring some spectacular archival discovery, we’ll never know, because that was never a viable option in Hepburn’s lifetime. And that space of possibly-wanting, but not-arriving, feels like a destination to me. That gap, between wanting and actualization, or fantasizing and pursuing, or playing around and Identifying As, feels like it is part of my experience of gender. I’m not a man, I’m a woman-who-wants-to-be-a-man. There has to be that distance, and that wanting.

I’ve gone on for an absurd amount of time here, but ultimately: I’m queer! My gender is queer! Some people are men, some people are women, and I’m a queer.

[alternis-dim]

If someone wanted to get into persona, what is the best game to start with?

to be honest, Persona is kind of nice in that it doesn’t matter a whole lot where you start, since each game is a relatively self-contained story which only has brief mentions or cameos of previous entries! some elements of the lore make more sense if you play certain games before others, but it isn’t anything drastic enough to impact your enjoyment. Hell, I started with Persona 5 and was just fine. So I guess I can just sorta talk about the pros and cons of each game as an entry point to the series! I can also briefly describe their premises in case a particular one seems more interesting, which could help someone with deciding where to start.

this is gonna be long, so I’ll put it under a read more.

Persona 1/Revelations: Persona is the only game I wouldn’t recommend playing first. Its mechanics are pretty outdated and not reflective of the rest of the series, and it’s relatively short compared to the others as well. Not to say that it’s not worth ever playing! In fact, from my understanding it has wonderful characterization, an engaging plot, and lays important groundwork for the franchise’s worldbuilding. I just wouldn’t recommend it for getting a taste of what the series is like.

Persona 2: Innocent Sin is the first of the dual entries for the Persona 2 duology. It has some of the same cons I mentioned for the first game; it’s relatively old, so its mechanics are a little outdated, and it plays more similarly to an SMT game than the future Persona entries do (for example, the story is fairly linear and occurs over the course of a few days, whereas later entries are strung out over a year). It is a little more refined, though, and the formula is starting to get there. It also has, in my opinion, some of the best character writing in the series.

P2IS is a story about how strange occurrences are brewing in the city of Sumaru because of a phenomenon where rumors actually influence and/or become reality. A group of high schoolers get tangled up with a mysterious man named Joker, who can supposedly grant wishes and, for some reason, seems to hold a very personal grudge against them. They discover their ability to call upon Personas to defend themselves from the demons at his command, and soon end up teaming up with journalist Maya Amano to get to the bottom of Joker’s identity and the source of the rumors which are warping the city. Over the course of their journey, they slowly start to piece together their past in order to figure out why Joker seems so invested in them.

Pros: - Stellar character writing- An intriguing, interconnected plot which is a bit of a rollercoaster but a lot of fun- Lays the groundwork for lore in the Persona series (most importantly the existence of Philemon and Nyarlathotep, as well as the origin of the Velvet Room)- Incredibly mature takes on the impact of trauma and familial abuse (TW for both of those things though)- Canonically bisexual protagonist with a potential same sex dating optionCons:- Unavoidable random encounters and really grind-heavy, as most 90′s jrpgs go- Outdated mechanics that aren’t really reflective of future Persona entries- One of those wiki-heavy games: it’s damn near impossible to unlock certain character interactions or personas without use of a guide- The second game in the Duology, Eternal Punishment, isn’t nearly as accessible to English audiences

Persona 3 is where a lot of the series formula originates from! It’s also my personal favorite, but I’ll try my best to be unbiased describing it. Small note: I recommend playing Persona 3 FES specifically, since it refines a lot of the things that were clunky in the vanilla version, adds more character content, and features a post-game which answers a lot of questions.

P3 takes place in a coastal city called Iwatodai at the beginning of the school year, where the protagonist moves in as a transfer student after being bounced around in foster care for ten years following an accident which killed his parents. Upon arrival, he experiences the strange phenomenon of the Dark Hour: an extra 25th hour in the day where people are transformed into coffins and monsters roam free. Technology doesn’t work during this hour, and anyone not protected by a coffin is violently attacked and seems soulless the next day, a condition local news dubs Apathy Syndrome. A select few people have the potential to stay conscious during the Dark Hour and protect themselves by use of a Persona, and these people make up a unit called the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad (S.E.E.S.). The protagonist joins, and the game follows their investigation of the phenomenon. It’s considered the darkest entry in the series, and for good reason: “memento mori” is right in its introduction. The game focuses heavily on themes of death, what it means to be mortal, how people deal with being confronted with their mortality, what the point of life is, and much more. 

Pros:- Introduction of the Persona formula: school life and dungeon exploration which requires time management on a linear calendar, the knockdown/1-more feature in combat, all-out-attacks, social links. Starting with this game may actually be the best way to go gameplay-wise, since coming back to this game after playing later entries makes it seem clunky.- Dungeon-crawl style of gameplay, which is a lot nicer than random encounters. You explore randomly generated floors and choose when and where to ambush enemies.- Excellent character arcs which enrich the game’s narrative- A dark, mature, and interesting story which explores human natureCons:- Still an older game, so some controls are clunky. One game mechanic in particular that many are frustrated with is the inability to directly choose what moves your teammates will use, instead requiring you to use Tactics to direct how the AI should behave.- Probably has the worst pacing issues out of any game in the series. There’s an entire calendar month where you do basically nothing.- The post-game is grind-heavy and long for the amount of story it offers. Some people just recommend watching a playthrough.- Features an uncomfortable transphobic skit towards the middle of the game.

Persona 4 is a refinement of many of the features of Persona 3. The best version to play is Persona 4 Golden, since it has a lot of extra content, but it’s vita exclusive and I’m stuck with vanilla :( Vanilla’s still fine in my experience, at least!

P4 takes place in the small town of Inaba, where the protagonist has transferred for a year to live with his uncle and cousin due to his parents leaving the country for work. Shortly after his arrival, a bizarre series of serial murderers start to occur where the bodies are found strung up on telephone lines. There’s also a rumor that looking into a turned off television screen on a rainy midnight will reveal your soulmate; this rumor is referred to as the Midnight Channel. The protagonists and friends inadvertently discover a parallel world which exists alongside Inaba, which can be entered through televisions but which can’t be exited without the help of a mysterious denizen named Teddie. They discover that these worlds are linked; people who show up on the Midnight Channel turn up dead in the real world shortly after, and the weather is inverse to Inaba’s. They discover that this is because someone is throwing people into this world, who are then unable to escape, and that the Shadows living in it become violent when the fog lifts (inverse to when the fog settles in the real world). This world also has an interesting quirk: people who enter it end up confronting their own shadow, which is a manifestation of the parts of themselves they repress or deny. Denying your shadow leads to it attempting to kill you, and this is likely what caused the deaths of the first victims. The protagonist and team discover that confronting and accepting your own Shadow, however, turns it into a Persona which you can then use to combat the monsters in the world. Equipped with their unique knowledge, the team sets out to save victims, solve the murder mystery, and learn how to accept themselves.

Pros:- A powerful message about the importance of seeking the truth and accepting all facets of yourself- An absolutely incredible murder mystery with clever plot twists and high stakes: getting the true ending is actually difficult if you don’t know who the murderer is, and you’re expected to understand the themes of the game and the characters in order to get it.- A nice in-between for the mechanics of P3 and P5: it’s pretty easy to transfer to either one after playing this one. (also introduces the ability to control party members directly, thank god)- A TON of spinoff content if you find you enjoy the characters and setting- Probably one of the best games in terms of understanding the overarching lore of the series, since it explains how Personas and Shadows work in much more depth than other entriesCons:- Has sort of a wonky difficulty curve. The first couple dungeons are honestly kind of a pain in the ass because of how level scaling works, and it takes a little while to level out.- The character arcs aren’t quite as well-written as previous games, due to the ultimate personas being associated with social link completion rather than events in the plot.- Oh god, such clumsy handling of LGBT topics. Plays around the idea of a gay narrative for one character (Kanji) and a trans narrative for another (Naoto) but ultimately just ends up playing up stereotypes and then backing out before doing anything “risky.” Another character in the party is pretty homophobic to Kanji for a while too, which sucks.

Persona 5 is the most popular in the series for sure, and for good reason. It’s the complete culmination of the Persona formula, and it adds all sorts of stuff to the gameplay and lore. It has a pretty lovable cast, to boot. Not that it doesn’t also have its problems, imo.

P5 features a protagonist who was falsely convicted of assault after attempting to defend a woman from a drunk man harassing her. His criminal record and probation result in his expulsion from his home school, so he moves in with a family friend in Tokyo where a school will accept him until his time’s up. Tokyo’s been strange for a little while now. Mysterious incidents have been causing disruptions for a while. There’s been a surge of “psychotic breakdown incidents” in which people act out unpredictably for seemingly no reason, and on rarer occasions “mental shutdowns” where people seem to completely break and die shortly after. The protagonist and friends get tied up in nonsense pretty quickly when a mysterious app on his phone transports him to a parallel world in which real locations of Tokyo are warped beyond recognition. The protagonist discovers the power of persona pretty early on, which he uses to fight the enemies there. With the help of a strange creature named Morgana, they learn that this is the “Metaverse”, a space in which the twisted desires and perceptions of people are made manifest. It’s a space where a person’s Shadow lords over a “Palace”, an altered version of real-world locations which reflects how that person views the world around them. They also learn that personas are the result of having a strong, rebellious will, allowing you to control your Shadow in combat. By breaking into a Palace, defeating the Shadow, and stealing the “Treasure” at its core, the Palace will crumble and the person in real life will come to grips with the morality of their actions, effectively outing themselves. This is referred to as stealing hearts, and the Phantom Thieves are born; they quickly become infamous in Tokyo, though their reputation attracts unwanted attention, as well as blame… could those breakdown incidents be related to the Metaverse, too? This game focuses heavily on the corruption of society, the abuse and manipulation of people in power, the ways in which our circumstances force us to hide parts of ourselves, ideas of justice, and all sorts of fun ideas of “rebellion”.

Pros:- ABSOLUTELY the best gameplay in the series. The controls are smooth, the battles and UI are streamlined, the visuals are absolutely stunning. This is the one that’s most fun to actually PLAY, bar none.- More of a stealth/heist game than a dungeon crawler, which is a fun spin on the series.- Excellent social commentary on the injustices young people face in a system stacked against them.- A really lovable cast of characters, and social links which actually grant you access to helpful gameplay features as incentive. Cons:- Sort of a small thing, but one of the game’s twists is a lot more fun to figure out if you’ve already played at least one other entry in the series.- Has some serious writing issues. The game has a very strong first half, but then starts to feel rushed the further along you get after a certain point. You can tell that the developers wanted to fit in a lot, but didn’t quite have the time to refine the ideas they implemented.- On that note, some of the character writing starts to regress or even becomes contradictory.- Has a couple instances of homophobia surrounding the Red Light District.

This got long, sorry, but I hope it’s helpful! like I said, you really can start anywhere, and you don’t have to play them in a particular order. Just pick the ones that seem the most interesting and have fun!

[desertbroad]

kaj + (inverted) tropes: part two! * * i don’t know all the actual Official TM names for these tropes, so most are made up. also, you might notice the regular trope list (part 1 of this headcanon) is significantly longer. this is because kaj has a few main inverted tropes but tons more regular ones, since tropes are like atoms: they make up everything. i just wanted to focus on the few inversions that created her character and let the rest come naturally! under a read more for length. ** also as of 7/6/19 part one isn’t done yet. yes i know please don’t shame me ok IM GETTING TO IT

fridged woman (aka back from the dead)—

for this one i took inspiration from laura moon from american gods, with a few tweaks (love neil gaiman, but some of the things about her character are...a bit squicky). unlike a good number of women in media, kaj isn’t shoved over gently and pronounced dead so that a man can grow from her pain. in fact, she’s shot in the head twice, pronounced dead, & buried. while her “death” means more pain and character development for the characters surrounding her, it means pain and character development for her, too. truth be told, she survives a hell of a lot more than any average person should, especially one with her low luck stat. half of this is the fun and wacky way new vegas’ world works (obviously, no real person could survive all this), but also because of her good ol’ courier determination. things that should’ve fridged kaj but haven’t include: two shots to the head, numerous combat scrapes, being stabbed, having her brain/heart/spine removed, having a bomb collar attached to her neck, killing an entire fortification of trained legionnaires, stepping on landmines, etc etc. the courier is pretty much the bruce willis of fallout.

world ending vengeance—

specifically applies to certain characters. while most others who piss kaj off get the full brunt of her wrath (see: caesar, mr. house, elijah, general oliver, ulysses), benny, along with dr. mobius & the think tank & mcnamara*, get a pass. in fact, she lets him go not once or twice, but on three separate occasions, even knowing he’s likely to betray her again. the reason why? not even kaj knows. some people speculate it’s because she likes him / slept with him (incorrect; she liked house to a degree, and slept with caesar); others speculate it’s because they’re so similar (also incorrect; she shared an alarming number of similarities with ulysses & elijah). the theory that comes closest to the truth is that she pities him. it fits in line her past behavior with mobius & the think tank, who were physically unable to see the effects of their actions and thus were spared a horrible fate. likewise, kaj seems to have judged benny to be innocent in her own personal court, and though he continues to be a thorn in her side again and again, she refuses to “sentence” him for anything. it helps his cause that his plan helped her take over vegas, and he created yes man, one of the only living beings she’s ever fully trusted. also a slight inversion of kaj’s maneater / black widow trope; the one person she truly should seduce and kill, she doesn’t.

that said, benny doesn’t get away from their encounters without any punishment—after narrowly escaping being crucified, both kaj and benny have matching rope burns around their wrists. it’s her morbid idea of a joke.

*mcnamara doesn’t fit within this trope, but kaj spares the bos for veronica & christine’s sake, despite yes man’s warnings. also for the off chance that they might convert to being her allies (they don’t, and this choice helps lend itself to more BOS trouble all over the wasteland).

white man cowboy—

kind of a simple inversion that’s been done before, but an important one and one that i like a lot. for starters, the “john wayne” cowboy is a bastardization of a history that was made up of ethnic minorities and whitewashed for hollywood aesthetic (also fuck you john wayne). while none of my research has come up with anything about women of color or nonbinary people in the western scene, only moc (whether this is intentional or not, i’m not sure), i still wanted to write kaj as non-male. frankly, this is because i wanted her to be an inversion of tired tropes, and that included being a debonair, byronic woman / non gender conforming hero (think gentleman jack) instead of a debonair, byronic white dude. we’ve got 20 of those for every fleshed out woman/enby on screen, lbr. kaj is also a femme fatale, but only by coincidence; she’s more of a wandering heart breaker than a necessarily dangerous woman, much like many of the heroes on screen.

i also find that non-men of color are one of the most underrepresented minorities in fiction—even media that celebrates diversity simplifies them down (hamilton), or centers their narrative and entire purpose around a man (hamilton, again). nevermind nonbinary people / trans folk. for that reason, i wanted kaj’s story to be about a woman of color / someone who doesn’t conform to expectations and doesn’t allow herself to be put in the sidelines for a white person or a male to lead her life. and regardless of whether a woman filling this swaggering, womanizing cowboy role is accurate to history or not, fallout’s setting lends itself an air of exaggeration, so i felt it was appropriate to include her here, instead of arguing with people over whether someone like her existed in actual history (my suspicions say yes, and that these people have simply been erased from the narrative for the convenience of certain people’s feelings, but still).

smarter than you look / deadly doctor (this one actually has a tvtropes page! look it up!)—

from the deadly doctor page : ‘ surely the ultimate example of the morally ambiguous doctorate. one reason for this is due to all his/her training : while having advanced knowledge on the human body can be used to save people, it also gives all the knowledge on how to injure and kill people with minimal effort by knowing all the body's weak points. some more sympathetic examples equate to the medical version of a well-intentioned extremist, who may certainly have good (or at least sympathetic/understandable) intentions but ruthless medical ethics. ’

one of the most important things kaj took from her thorough education is medical training—unable to depend on anyone after being traumatized, trusting any doctor who happened along to treat her illnesses was out of the question. she was also smart enough to know the original kaj wouldn’t be around to heal her up forever. thus, she began her training as a self preservation instinct; but over time, as she grew and relearned how to be compassionate and empathetic, she decided to use healing for good, too. trained as a young girl by the original kaj, and then later trained officially as a combat medic by the ncr, kaj has spent a countless amount of hours inside army tents, healing wounds and assisting doctors with tough cases. she even keeps a medical bag on her person for exactly that sort of situation (especially since supplies in the mojave aren’t exactly easy to dig up). though she’s a big scientist in general (the big mt saw to that), medicine is her specialty. she’s even stitched up her own wounds, though it’s not something she particularly enjoys (it takes a lot of whiskey and something for her to bite down on).

for reference, consider this scene of anton from no country for old men (TW: he’s performing self surgery, so it’s pretty gruesome). though both anton and kaj’s lifestyles are rough and even sadistic at times, they both still have medical training—if not to protect others, then to at least protect themselves. and like anton, it shows kaj’s inability to trust anyone with her most important commodity: herself. this makes her surgery in the big empty doubly as horrifying, given she took specific pains for something like this to not happen. it’s why she refuses to leave without all of her organs (also, stubbornness). all of this is just one of the ways kaj is way more ... well, everything than she looks. which leads into...

underestimate me if you dare, aka femme fatale (sort of?)—

though fallout prides itself on being a soft reset on the world, people’s perceptions of minorities are still ... iffy, due to real world influences by the creators. thus, the people around kaj often jump to assumptions about her based on her identity—mostly, that she’s weak. once, it offended her, but now it’s a perception that she encourages. after all, she’s not flat out strong like your usual hero, but is more of a hamlet-type; smart, perceptive, fast, and willing to strike from the shadows. it’s hard to do any of that if you’re putting on a big performance about your power (though admittedly, she’s been known to go big or go home if she’s planning on killing everyone; if she’s not faking nice and telling you what you wanna hear, trouble’s ahead).

of course, the reality is that kaj is a powerhouse. but these perceptions about her supposed weakness are why posing as a legion member is so easy—those who think she’s weak underestimate her or keep their distance, which gives her leave to do what she wants. she’s viewed more like a pet than a person by most, and though it frustrates her at times to pretend, it also gives her leave to do more, than if she were to simply pose as a man.

all that said, kaj doesn’t exactly qualify as a femme fatale. most of her lovers are just information givers, and they escape from their interaction unharmed. kaj killing her bed mates is actually less likely than her just sparing them and letting them go, none the wiser. of course, you kill one tyrant (maybe two or three) and suddenly you’re a black widow—