#truly schrodinger's gender

[primordial-being]

had to make these

[butchbarbieagainstterfs]

"Um Bi women stop bringing ur CISHET boyfriends to queer spaces"

The "queer space" was a concert and apparently the couple was bi4bi.

Every June these girlies pop up with "nuuuu bi girlies no boys!!!"

Bi men are schrodinger's gay

Even if the guy was straight, maybe he’s trans? Or maybe he’s cis and an ally that wants to support his girlfriend like a decent boyfriend should? If they aren’t being queerphobic, there’s genuinely no issue with them being at pride regardless of what their gender or sexuality is.

But yeah the erasure of bisexual men? Truly awful :( bi men, you’re valid and seen here ❤️

[vultures-and-scavengers]

Dearest Josephine, Do you recall the last letter I sent, about the new volunteers who have reported to Suledin Keep to help with our efforts? Lady Ducette, daughter of Lord Basile Maron, was one of them. We were unaware of her real identity because she came to us disguised as a villager. Unfortunately, Lord Basile has just now discovered the whereabouts of his missing daughter and has accused the Inquisition of kidnapping her. Lord Basile's colorful slander of the Inquisition has cast a shadow on our relations with wealthy southern Orlesian society. Complicating matters, Lady Ducette refuses to return to her father and the gilded cage of a gentlewoman. I can't very well tie her up and deliver her to the lord in a barrel, can I? Sincerely, Edouard

When I say Cullen was In Big Trouble at this suggestion...

Like, I get why Mr. Cullen "pick the simplest solution" Rutherford suggests this. I get that he's like, this is the problem, we solve it, and wash our hands of it. It's noble business and he's rather think about the soldiers under his command who put their lives in his hands as opposed to worrying about those who are never going to truly know hunger or poverty.

But two of his possible romance choices (rogue/warrior Trevelyan) are members of the nobility, who just may have been living in similar gilded cages to Lady Ducette depending how the player headcanons them. Mage Trevelyan is Schrodinger's nobility as mages get their titles removed, but they are still of Trevelyan and its very much left to the player to decide how noble their mage Trevelyan acts. And besides, what is the Circle if not a gilded cage?

Regarding my own Trevelyan, Annette, she has spent her life trying to wrestle some control back form her father. She identified heavily with Vivienne's line about a leash able to be pulled from both ends, and she delves so heavily into the Game and living in Orlais because if she's benefiting House Trevelyan, he's not going to arrange a marriage for her. Being afraid, every day, of being married off and living in that gilded cage is her life and she has adapted to it, but Lady Ducette has successfully made her escape and Annette would never send her back. Cullen's suggestion, then, when she has shared her fears, when she has shown her resentment for the lack of control of her own life, is a betrayal. So how does she handle him making this suggestion? Not well!

But then consider Cullen's own origins. He grew up in a small village, likely poor but definitely poorer than Trevelyan. There's a good chance he knew what it was like to go to bed hungry. He was likely working on the farm as soon as he was old enough to take on chores. I personally like to headcanon that one of the reasons he left for the Templars so early was because his parents were struggling to feed four children. He would have every right to say: you're running away from a situation many commoners can only dream of. Guaranteed food and shelter, as well as household staff to handle minor needs, while the major concerns are expanding the family wealth and keeping up with the latest fashions.

And more than just the Cullen/Trevelyan dynamics, this mission to me is why I call bullshit on the "gender inequality isn't a thing" in Thedas. "The gilded cage of a noblewoman" is how the Baron describes it, not the gilded cage of the nobility. More than that, her father is demanding she submit and return to being the obedient daughter and no one is acting like this is out of the ordinary. No one says its wild that Lady Ducette had to dress like a commoner and slip in amongst refugees to get away. No one says her father shouldn't have the right to order her around like this.

And here's Cullen's note if you have him complete the mission:

I sent Lady Ducette back to her father, though she begged me to allow her to remain with the Inquisition. A heartbreaking scene—the lady wants so desperately to have her life mean something. But she must obey her father and the Inquisition. Our escort of soldiers made sure she arrived at the Maron estate safely. Cullen

There's such a weird dichtomy with Cullen usually being the one to scorn nobles, but here's he's the one who says she has to obey her father and the Inquisition. I think it would be really easy to just say Cullen is used to black and white chains of command and following authority figures, but I also think you can take it a step further and view this through the eyes of someone who's not noble and was raised as viewing the nobility as the ultimate authority.

His life and that of other commoners is dictated by the nobility. So he clearly resents them, but here he is arguably also placating them, despite the whole thing being what he calls 'heartbreaking', which is not a word I think he would use lightly. I want to put him and this mission in a snowglobe and shake it and see what else flutters around, there's so many ways you can interpret this.

War Table missions like this are why I wish so many of them were expanded on instead of being so easily skipped if you don't care to read through them. I think there's a lot of subtext here that's fun to unpack, and especially with a romanced Trevelyan.

[tozettastone]

RE: "there's so little F/F fanfiction," and its supposed relationship to misogyny, unexamined "fandom truly hates women," statements, and also why "eating your veggies" ala dutyfic is all kind of... inadequate and poorly expressed, in my view (and in my experience, as an AFAB person).

--

"Fandom hates women," is a statement that's usually written as though the person writing it does not hate women themselves. I think feminists who can't acknowledge their own misogyny are probably living the unexamined life (sorry, Socrates).

These people are right that misogyny is a problem. But they are wrong about how, why, and whether or not the amount of F/F fanfiction or female character-centric works is a proxy for measuring it.

I think there must be room to accept that among the people who happen to be assigned female at birth, even the most liberated suffer from some amount of internalised misogyny — or even just the relentless examination of their own thoughts in trying to root out the misogyny they know is in there. It's an ugly thing people really try to pretend isn't real. Feminists are also misogynists. Society has raised us all ugly and correcting it is a lifestyle, not a one-and-done deep clean.

Sometimes we've thought about it so much that every line of text is haunted by the long shadow of that misogyny. I know I often start and don't finish, or finish and just don't post, my f/f fanfics. It's not just because it attracts more harassment (although it sure used to, at least; I don't know now), but also because I overthink what I'm putting into the world: Is her vulnerability in this moment an attitude of feminine weakness? Is her stoicism just me the writer falling into a bland stoic butch trope because it's easy? Am I replicating gendered things I hate in M/F fanfiction but don't notice in F/F? Is this just writing in character, or is it a sexist stereotype? Hey, what if writing "in character" IS a sexist stereotype? What does this female character, a representative of her entire constructed identity, say about women? Shall I write another scene where she cuts her soft hair and rejects pink girly things and takes her job ever so seriously as part of a power fantasy, in which the excision of femininity goes hand in hand with the attainment of that power?

Every line of text might be a new enfilade in the long identity war. It's Schrodinger's sexism. Who's reading? What will this imply? What will they infer?

I just feel like, personally, until you can exist in society as someone that other people view as a woman, in a way that isn't being perpetually dissected and examined (by yourself, by others, by the people who feel insecure and defensive and want to respond to this saying "uhmmm sweetie that's YOUR problem, I'm an enlightened woman who genders and fucks how I want actually, YOU'RE the only misogynist here, you just suck," as though that's not yet another permutation of exactly the high-pressure, high-critique behaviour I just described), there will simply be fewer people putting their writing about female characters (and by extension F/F) into the public eye, and fewer people who want to do that writing at all.

It's just so fucking exhausting. I think it must be nice, sometimes, writing deathly boring (to me) M/F romance that openly embraces gender stereotypes, where she's always taken by surprise, and he's always competent. Ha.

But then you attempt a M/M romance, and you have to think, "isn't writing masculinity as the totally unexamined default actually kind of an act of collusion, too?" It doesn't have to be. But it sure can be, when you feel like this. And then you throw your laptop out the window. (I'm writing this on my phone. How did you guess?)

You have to draw a line somewhere, horribly, between your existence in a politicised body, your representation of politicised bodies in your art, and your existence as an individual who wants to enjoy their fucking hobby.

Maybe that means you delete all your social media accounts and go herd goats on a mountainside. Or you write about aliens for five years and give them whatever genitals you feel like today. But, like, listen. It's going to be fine. Gender is made up. I know, I know, pretty much everyone else thinks it's a holy binary, just like good and evil, and you have to live in the same world with them, sending coded gender messages all day every day and unable to stop. I know. But it is made up anyway.

Key takeaways: People should write whatever they enjoy writing and kind of just worry less about it. Worrying isn't helping you make fun art. And the amount of fanfiction about female characters and F/F relationships is a poor proxy for whatever we think we mean when we say, "fandom hates women."

[the-morningstar-family]

*starts humming from the vent the song "Frere Jaques" to calm Al down some. Imbues a little magic to bring more of a calming effect*

(Meanwhile, in the other room)

Uh. Hmm. Not the questions I was entirely expecting. Alright though, we'll start there. And yes, Angel. You are limited to PG questions. Mainly because Im Ace and dont want to deal with your questions about that stuff.

Let me re-introduce myself. *stands up a little straighter, voice gains a faint echo*

My name is everything and nothing and nothing is truly my name. I am everything and nothing and all that exists in between existance. I am the space between the start and the finish. I am the journey on your way to your goals. I am the guardian of the balence of this world, and the next, and the next.

See me. Look inside of my heart, and you will find a ravine; carved within the beauty of the darkness in between the light. I stand in the balance of complete and incomplete; I identify the echo of what is and what will be.

Simply put I am everything and nothing all at once. I do not exist unless I desire to, and yet I do not ever exist. I am but a Ghost among 'men.'

*bows slightly, and then looks a little weirdly at Nifty*

Considering I am a shape-shifting of sorts, but don't have a "gender" to begin with? I guess I'm pretty much Schrodinger's Bad Boy? Cause I'm neither a boy nor not a boy, and I'm neither bad nor not bad. *looks over at Vaggie* I know you're gonna ask what that means. I have a very small, very questionable set of morals. One of said morals is to protect the people I care about. That includes this hotel. I also can shape-shift. It's part of my main ability set called "Adaptus Magicae." I can obviously only use it when im solid, but it makes it so that I can adapt myself in any way to any situation.

Cool? Cool.

(:

Alastor: "'M fucking tired..."

Right, recovering from major injuries takes a lot out of one even without a panic attack.

Lucifer: "Yeah, like I said, you should sleep a bit more. Take a breather Hun.... Do you want me to stay?"

Alastor: "I'll kill you myself if you leave"

Lucifer: "Alright big guy, a 'yes' would've sufficed"

Alastor, defensive: "I had enough emotions for today. I won't tolerate more."

Lucifer: "Okay, okay. I'll stay. But go on and sleep.

Meanwhile

Angel Dust, feigning hurt: "I'm insulted that ya think that would be the adult questions I'd ask."

Nifty, excited: "Another bad boy!"

Husk rolls his eyes and grabs her before she can run all over the ... Creature? Whatever.

Charlie: "So you and Ceres don't really know eachother?"

Vaggie: "How come the hotel is included in your dubious morals?"

[onebillionghosts]

@originalcharactersexyman

okay so adonis propaganda time. here's some more info on him

-he's an extremely powerful, human-eating, wyrm-like being doomed to one day cause the apocalypse, he rules his own underground city as the self-proclaimed "god" of wraiths (that is, ghostly undead creatures).

-although he was once a friendly, playful, and even kind person (though he always struggled with a quick temper, impulsitivity, and a tendency to run his mouth). however, the abuse he suffered growing up as a human (if he ever truly *was* one), the death of the only person who ever cared for him, centuries of isolation, and his own existence as a being called a "dire" corrupted him into a terrible, resentful, and sadistic person.

-despite his tendency to kill, eat, and torture humans, he still holds a playful, curious, easily excitable, flirty, and romantic streak (especially in his affection towards his late friend and lover, nacio). he is very eccentric, chaotic, expressive, dramatic, overdramatic, and easily angered. due to his own hidden insecurities and trauma, he hates feeling powerless or worthless or inferior to others, and will go out of his way to one-up or subjugate others.

-despite trying to put on the air of a seductive, cool all-powerful overlord, he's really at heart just an eccentric and emotional romantic who's a little too into violence and biting things. 

fun facts:

-he was born in the late 15th century. he's mixed irish and norwegian, and was born in ireland, but spent most of his childhood in south england. as a result, he has a strong accent that's a bizarre mix between west country, limerick, and medieval english. that and the fact that he's a rambling chatterbox with no inside voice means that he's nigh-incomprehensible when he talks, unless you know him well

-he was 19 when he became a fully-fledged dire, and he's stopped ageing since then… and he definitely acts that age lmao. that being said, he can shapeshift his body if he wants to

-his human form has wavy titian/copper hair (he's constantly changing up his hairstyle), droopy/downturned amber-brown eyes with golden sclera/pupils and long eyelashes, light warm-toned skin, a roman/aquiline nose, a beauty mark next to his mouth, and a very lanky body type. he also has a pretty high (almost kind of cute) voice, which is a strange contrast with his intimidating demeanor. don't make fun of it, he'll get mad

-he's an ExFP and 4w3/8w7

-his true form has snake, hookworm, and centipede traits. it can range anywhere from the size of a small garden snake to the size of mountains; whichever one he feels like at the moment. this is his actual real form; his human form is actually just a fleshy "shell" of sorts that contains his true form inside. 

-he has autism, adhd, bipolar-I, and pica. he will infodump to you for hours about flowers and snakes and nacio if you let him… and also whatever random things he's thinking about at the moment

-he has an older sibling named achlys, but that's a whole other can of worms. they completely despise each other, for complicated reasons

-he's a weird little freak <3 okay, well, not little, because he's actually 6'7 in his humanoid form… but you get the idea

-doesn't really give a shit about labels, but he's probably somewhere along the lines of homoflexible, and some kind of genderqueer that's vaguely along the lines of "fem-presenting dude". what gender is he exactly? fuck if i know. fuck if he knows either. he's his own thing. ultimate schrodinger's gender type character. he just defaults to male pronouns because that's what he's used to, but honestly he couldn't care less what you call him. (he *does* like it when people call him pretty though :] )

-he likes flowers, snakes, nacio, chewing/eating/licking random things, pretty things (like makeup/dresses/shiny stuff), warmth (he's cold-blooded), violence, blood, food (especially humans), cuddles, attention, talking, and being in charge.

-he dislikes boring things, the cold, being insulted, feeling bad about himself, feeling powerless, people who are better at something then him, people who get more attention or praise then him.

why you should vote him:

-to feed his ego

-he may try to eat the competition otherwise

-he will throw a tantrum if he loses and go melodramatically pout somewhere because he's a sore loser... though he is also a sore winner. 

-too many stereotypical "soft and sweet" autistic/adhd characters in the world, and not enough evil sexy bastardous ones that get bitches. i want to see more auDHD characters violently murder ableists. god bless

-because i love/hate him

-just look at him. weird evil sexy snake-worm-tipede twink. my beloved/beloathed unredeemable bastard freak who causes problems <3 there is something very wrong with him

-shitty one-minute doodle of him eating a flower. because i wanted to draw something new for this, but im too lazy so this is the best ive got:

[genderkoolaid]

do you have any advice for figuring out if you're multigender? i think i might be, but in a kind of "both all and none" kind of way? (i actually use the term schrodigender like schrodinger's cat) but i'm really interested in hearing any thoughts you have on determining if you're multigender!

To give you a feel for what my personal journey of multigender discovery was like:

It heavily involved me going back and forth between identities, basically constantly questioning, since I first realized I was queer. I would identify as one thing, then start questioning it (often out of longing for another identity), and then be thrust into the questioning cycle, find something I felt worked, and rinse and repeat. I'd go from being a gay trans guy to a nonbinary lesbian repeatedly over months and years, and it caused me a lot of distress because I felt completely unable to understand myself on any level. At lot of this was worsened by the fact that I was influenced by a lot of exorsexist exlus rhetoric, so any connections I had to multigender identities (like omnique, for example, or even genderfluid!! exclus exorsexism was/is actual poison) was cut off and I forced myself into the idea that my identity had to Make Sense and Fit The Rules. At some point I started getting out of that worldview and accepted, on some level, that I was multigender, but I mostly identified as transneutral and kind of downplayed every part of my gender. It wasn't until I started learning about the idea of transandrophobia that I really started embracing my male identity strongly, which then allowed me to interact more strongly with my womanhood & really, truly accept the entirety of my multigender, multi-sexual identity.

If you have found yourself constantly going back and forth, never being able to be satisfied with one identity for long and continuing to find yourself envious or longing for other identities, that may be a sign you are multigender. For me, I've also experienced a weird mix of... every gender option, including neutral, feeling like a "technically yes, but actually no" kind of thing? Like, if I have to check a box, picking "woman" doesn't feel like the worst, but it also doesn't feel right. But the same goes for "man" or "nonbinary" (which is why I usually pick "decline to say"). Every option feels like its almost right, but the assumption that I have to be only one makes any one response feel like a lie. There's also a sort of feeling of never being entirely comfortable in any gender-based group, like you can never fully belong no matter where you go and will always be some kind of pretender. On a more positive note, I've found myself the happiest so far when I have multiple different groups of people gendering me differently. Last semester I had some teachers/classmates that called me Antonia and used she/her, some that called me Antonio and used he/him, and some that used either/or and would use they/them, and it made me really happy! Being able to be seen as one thing by one person and something totally different by another has been the most validating gender experience ever, far beyond any single incident of gendering.

This is all just my experience, but I hope it might be helpful to compare it to whatever you have experienced and see if anything strikes you. Gender is a messy thing & I wish you good luck <3

[enochianribs]

bi dean vs gay dean is something that is truly holding hands to me bc I do think he's bi. as a bi person. but I also think that as time goes on hes less interested in women in an attraction way and gravitates towards men because there's a massive cas shaped elephant in the room and before anything else, he wants him but he doesn't think its tangible so he goes for the next best thing which is something else cas shaped. but even that will require Dean rituals. like, I still think he's bi in late seasons but I also think he only really wants cas. and that mostly starts in season six-ish, and just sets in stone more and more. I also think he has phases growing up where he is more attracted to women vs men and vice versa and that's cool! bisexual people don't have to be consistently perfectly split in their attraction to genders.

i also think Dean's gender expression is like schrodingers trans. he's like Link to me. I gravitate towards transmasc as a transmasc guy myself but him being transfeminine and/or nonbinary is also so obvious to me. And gender and orientation are always holding hands they're not actually that easy to separate so it's all confetti, anyways, at the end of the day. Maybe Dean loved Cassie as a woman when he knew her, even if they weren't both aware of that. Yknow? Maybe Dean has days where he wants to approach being a girl from the other side after transitioning. Anyways yeah. Dean's a nebulous thing and all I know is that he certainly isn't straight. These are just my opinions. Thanks for coming to my ted talk. 💖

[gncgang]

for the ask meme- maybe its too major of a character but josuke <3 also for the notps section can u pls not mention the rly gross ships w him? theyre kind of a given for that section since why would anyone like them, and i dont like being reminded of them 😔

U got it! I don't think anyone needs to be reminded how I feel about Those ones anyways, haha :)

Sexuality HC: gayboy!!! though i don't think he realizes it for a while. He exists in that space where he thinks gay people r So Cool (i mean, just look at Prince) but always believes that he'll eventually meet The Right Girl and fall in love and get married. He never considers that he could be gay..... Until certain boys events :)

Gender HC: schrodingers gender. he's all he's neither he's a boy who's a girl who dresses like a boy but in a fruity way. also he's transmasc

Ship: i mean. it's always josuyasu. these boys have so many problems but day by day they are helping each other through the worst of it. bro they are teens... bro....

BROTP: ohhh hmm, i'd say him and yukako because i'm definitely in the josuke&yukako twins camp, they definitely don't always get along but when ur siblings u don't really have a choice, that is ur best friend and also the person u shove ur chores onto

NOTP: i guess maybe josuke/koichi? i've got absolutely nothing against it, i just don't ship it myself. in my mind koichi is josuke's bf (bestfriend) while okuyasu is josuke's bf (boyfriend)

Random HC: after kira he starts quietly healing his friends all the time even if they're barely injured at all. yukako stubbed her toe? he heals it. koichi skinned his knee? he heals it. okuyasu walked into the corner of a desk? he's healed it before a bruise could even form. he never tells them, either—he just does it constantly because if he can keep his friends from feeling even the tiniest amount of pain, he will.

ALSO a lighter hc, he's got a BIG sweet tooth so he tends to get cavities a lot <3

General Opinion: LOVE HIM,,, he loves his town and his family and his friends SO SO MUCH and even though he's a lil sneaky a lil mean sometimes he truly wants everyone to be okay. i could talk about him for hours, he's absolutely one of my favorite jojos, he deserves THE WORLD AND I'LL GIVE IT TO HIM

[nosramusankarian]

thinking about enkiramus gender headcanons again... i love how everyone has different headcanons about them hehe

nosramus always read as a trans guy to me (totally not self projecting... or am i?) who came out around the time he decided not to become a new god, mainly relating to the pronoun switch in the old + new fellowship versions lol. i also wholeheartedly believe he found the secrets to gender affirming care in those fuckass caverns and synthesized his own Wizard Hrt i dont know i have a lot of thoughts on nosramus transmasc journey ill talk about later

and i used to think enki was cis but honestly thats probably just me thinking i need to meet a certain quota of characters to headcanon as cis to keep things "realistic" but fuck it its a videogame who cares. the harder i think about him im like... thats kind of a chris fleming situation. schrodingers guy. not a MAN man but not exactly not a man either. truly doesnt give a shit what you call him and would rather just not be referred to in general. whats under his robe you ask? THE SCARAB

theyre also both gnc and often get mistaken by other dungeon goers for a pair of wise old crones goodbye 🕺🕺🕺

[catlokis-blog]

you’re so real for the schrodinger’s gender bracket thing bc that apology was so long just for it to be a bunch of nothing 😭😭 what’s the point of making a bracket if they’re gonna put in a bunch of characters that don’t even fit the bracket

truly the only fit for the bracket is marshmallow from annoying orange

The thing is I'm very open to people admitting they fucked up but the shrodingers gender polls apology was full of a lot of takebacls and contridictions. They'd say at one point "I'm sorry for erasing this identity" but later "this identity can present however it pleases so I can put it in"

And the fact that "queer people aren't perfect" was used to include narrative facists and bigots didn't feel nice either

Glad the poll was discontinued but it was pretty disgusting if the harassment & gore allegations are true. I don't support that shit at all & it's never the right way to correct someone who may have just made a mistake

Also don't remind me of the annoying orange fanbase I just got sent back 12 years /silly

[jonathanrook]

i always thought it was silly but with the benefit of hindsight it's absolutely ridiculous just how many people truly believed, beyond headcanon, that pidge was transmasc to the point of sending vitriolic hate to anyone who dared to use her canon pronouns. like i understand she's got a bit of a schrodinger's gender situation going on but if anything she's transfem.

[debatablyspicydurian]

Schrodinger presented his model in that a person's gender does not exist in the confines of a binary, but instead in "waves" along a spectrum. It is impossible to truly know the exact pinpoint of where one's gender lies. Instead, he theorizes that there are "clouds of probability" called orbitals, and it is here that a possible gender identity may be found.

new gender idea: guy who is super masculine and uses he/him pronouns, but every time someone acknowledges his gender or asks about it he switches to feminine presentation and she/her pronouns and refuses to acknowledge the change

[jasperjv]

Actually, he mentioned a friend quite a lot. A pedophile who committed suicide because of the sexual urges that were beyond his control. Said he felt bad for him that he was dealing with that and said pedos need a lot of help and support. A lotta times it's from childhood trauma. (Therefore any who act upon those inclinations are beyond excuse.) I could agree with that. I think it's reasonable.

But... when a very common fetish of mine was outed while I was in the most vulnerable possible mental state, he's been trying to use it against me. One caused by gender-related childhood trauma, no less. I can't say I'm truly ashamed of myself. Frustrated with him, maybe. Disappointed in him.

I was saying, "I'm pissed off by your behavior. It caused this to happen to me. Please fucking stop. Your dad loves you." The appropriate response is not, essentially, "I know what gets you off and your gender is fake, girl." Doublespeak Schrodinger's Douchebag to get under my skin.

Can he only take people seriously after they're dead? I almost took my life in September. We'll never know how that would've changed his tune.

He should sort his shit out and become a better person, while he still has time.

[castielcommunism]

hi first of all i love you so goddamn much. secondly i agree with everything you said except for one ramification of your conclusion.. it seems like, by saying that cas would be bi but is gay specifically because he founded his gender identity around his love for dean, you're accidentally playing right into the biphobic "when you pick a binary-gendered partner you're no longer bisexual" thing. a bisexual man being monogamously committed to a man for the rest of his existence does not make him gay, nor the binary alternative make him straight. i don't think that's what you're trying to say AT ALL, and i would fight anyone who tried to put those words in your mouth to the death, but that subpoint is coming across regardless. i think the nebulous, fickle and frankly arbitrary-when-isolated-from-humans nature of angel gender makes it difficult to articulate that the identity of a man loving another man is crucial to cas' development into himself without making bisexual a Schrodinger's Sexuality that is defined by the gender of the partner we choose. i posit in it's place that cas is truly and completely bisexual and that doesn't lessen the importance of his development centering around being a man loving a man in a world that shames MLM because, were dean any other gender, cas would still love that dean just as much, and build his identity around his love for him/her/them in the same way.

NO ur totally right I’m being weird and pedantic. The hairsplitting doesn’t really matter and like arguments about whether a character is bi or gay tend to be really frustrating and rampant with weird reductionist takes about sexuality. You’re correct and like I think maybe the better more succinct way to phrase my opinion is that I’m agnostic about the particulars of Cas’ identity. Anyway I think this is a good thing to drop because like this is kinda pointless to hash out and I don’t want to potentially put my foot in my mouth again lol

[meimae]

11/12/21

Despite being out with a regular old cold for two weeks in October, I managed to finish my 7th VN, 大正×対称アリス! This was part of VN Club's October challenge for the month, and yet another 乙女ゲーム to keep in my books.

Didn't really have many expectations diving into this; the blurb leaves something to be desired and basically just says "Hey, here's some gender swapped fairytale characters. Oh, and by the way, have fun with no memories!".

This is the 5th VN I've read that makes the protagonist draw the short straw - start off 記憶喪失 and discover who and what they are along the way. An easy way to introduce characters perhaps, and I'm not necessarily sick of it yet compared to the very common Schrodinger's cat or Theory of Relativity reference.

This VN is episodal; you get to interact with two particular characters per episode, except for the epilogue. It was an odd choice, because it spurred some people into thinking they could just skip to the episode with the character they like.

However, this does not remain the genderbent romantic comedy fairytale recreation I thought it was going to be, and the longer I read, the more I was pleasantly surprised and disturbed by the true story that unfolded episode by episode.

STATS AND GRAPHS

Time Spent Per Route: prologue 1.61; シンデレラ 9.45; 赤ずきん 5.89; かぐや 7.02; グレーテル 7.97; 白雪 7.67; 魔法使い 6.5; アリス 6.71; and omake 1.29. Total: 54.11 hours.

As I expected, my reading speed dropped down from my peak with あやかしごはん. It's not particularly bad, just a few thousand characters less, but still remaining consistent throughout. Also managed to hit 100k characters towards the end which will forever feel really good to do.

Discussion about every route and CGs:

As usual, I implore you to stop reading now if you plan to read this visual novel. This is a story meant to be experienced and it would be a pity if reading forward ruins it for you.

Trigger Warning: themes dealing with depression, anxiety, paranoia, drug abuse and overdose, suicide, and other mental health conditions.

Who would've thought that this seemingly fluffy and sweet otoge would contain all of these?

I'm not going to lie, while reading through the first episode, I kept thinking, wait, what was the point of this game again? Do I just go around and date all the guys and maybe somehow get her memories back? It honestly reminds me of Island, happily going around and getting to know the characters, but in the back of my mind I was waiting for something big to happen, and I must say I wasn't disappointed.

有栖 百合花

The moment 百合花 started speaking, I knew I'd love her; her banter with the characters were fantastic. She's smart, clever, and funny, and while she does somewhat evoke the very feminine damsel-in-distress type she takes everything in stride. If anything, the strange situations she ends up in are strategically planned by her, even though the guys think they're in control, which makes her an even more brilliant protagonist in my books. She has a very interesting layer of cunning that surprised me and honestly made me concerned, too, because oh boy, the choices she makes in some of these? Absolute insanity.

What a gal, what a gal.

Episode 1

シンデレラ

シンデレラ was like fine wine; the longer I read the more I appreciated his role in the story and his character quirks. I loved him as an older brother figure the more I saw him in other routes. Shh, its my white/grey haired character loving self speaking.

He has a bit of a bad spending habit, hinting on a twisted version of the Cinderella fairytale, but he eventually develops a deep sense of duty to right the wrongs of his father, pay off his debts, and to help establish his brothers and their family's cafe before truly taking on the role of being 百合花's fiancee.

It was all very sweet; this was a nice and mature romance story through and through, with our lovely protagonist helping him change for the better along the way. Again as I said, the more I got into the story, the more I appreciated him as a character - they barely dropped any hints in this route or rather you wouldn't even understand the connection til much later, so playing blind, it was practically a SoL story and you really can't expect much more to happen in the next routes.

赤ずきん

Oh, but I was wrong with that assumption.

Much like the first route, 赤ずきん's was just as sweet. My favorite 真面目 character trope makes a return! I'm sorry, but I've become such 剣が君 trash that it was impossible for me to stop imagining 黒羽実彰 saying all his cute, embarrassed lines, that I had such a good time reading this. (•///•)~♡ I've become obsessed looking through voice actors' VNDB lists, send help.

I like that the twist to the fairytale was that 赤ずきん was the actual 狼 in the story. オオカミ, 猟師, and 百合花 all plotted it out to help him forgive himself for the things he did in the past and to bring him out of his paranoia embedded into him by his mother that all people are cruel and would treat him different, so its best to stay inside. Even though my next point actually should make him feel more paranoid.

This is a turning point for 百合花'a character for me. She started to evolve from this nice, witty, pretty lady to someone to watch out for, since its suddenly revealed that she's capable of controlling a situation to such a point. Its actually pretty scary how easy it is for her to pretend and act a certain way to get to a conclusion that benefits her. In this case it does benefit everyone involved and everyone ends up happy, but the way it was brought about still feels kind of icky.

If you think about it more critically, 赤ずきん really feels like victim of 百合花's controlling nature. Of course he wouldn't be able to tell that himself because he fell in love with her, and his other friends don't see or seems fine with it, especially because one of them is her brother. Ooof, yikes. Beauty and the Beast stockholm syndrome vibes, only its the "beast" that is trapped (albeit self-imposed because that's what he was taught as a child and he thought he was doing his job) in beauty's plot. She practically won't leave him alone and it felt as if she was throwing herself at him almost.

Anyway.

Please let me know if you feel the same, because the longer I think about it the more wrong it feels. Wouldn't it have been easier to just all sit down and talk about it rather than to come up with this ridiculous rouse of someone wanting to attack her? C'mon now.

From here on out 百合花 and the story becomes more interesting and thrilling to read, so if you dropped this game after episode 1, I do implore you to pick it up again.

Episode 2

かぐや

In an interesting turn of events, 百合花 turns out to be one of the siblings of シンデレラ, グレーテル, and 白雪 instead of 猟師 in 赤ずきん route or siblingless like in シンデレラ route (if I remember correctly). Not going to lie, I kept forgetting that she was trapped in a strange dream state with アリス, but from this route onwards it was finally made blatantly obvious to me that nothing in this game was normal.

Why is it that the playboy characters are always those who are seriously depressed? Oh but wait...it isn't as shallow as I thought it was going to be.

The most interesting character design of the six, and the only one referencing Japanese folklore and mythology, and of course can't forget the 関西弁 as well to cap it off.

There was a lot of heavy topics in this route and very much like our protagonist, he had some sort of amnesia, but it turned out that he was just suppressing all the bad memories in his life.; かぐや was an unwanted child constantly put through the foster system and was essentially forced to witness or to help push through someone else's suicide attempt against his will. He grows up feeling unwanted, hence the multiple relationships, and he is extremely possessive and desperste for attention as well since he never had stability in his life. GEEZ.

百合花 was very nice to him from the get go, always giving him the benefit of the doubt until she figured out what the root of the problem was. The issue is - and I can't believe you have to go through this to get the good end - is that she also takes it to the extreme and stabs herself in the gut to make him trust her enough to quit his own suicide attempts. She actually dies in one of the bad ends, which is an obvious end, and one of the only bad ends that didn't feel pointless.

Let me tell you, I lost my mind when it happened! Where did all the fluff go and why is this suddenly so depressing? ｡･ﾟ･(ﾉД`)･ﾟ･｡

グレーテル

This time around, everybody is siblings with each other except for 魔法使い and アリス. They're really pushing this sibling narrative with all of the past romances, huh....

One glance at this boy, I knew something terrible was brewing underneath the surface. It takes かぐや's possesiveness and easily triples it - literally the first scene at the start of the route involves a gigantic cage in a dark room. ドS sibling has arrived.

グレーテル has a massive シスターコンプレックス, and she is constantly trying to snuff his urges in a manner that won't cause him to go bonkers with jealousy. The scenes switches a lot to explain why グレーテル made the extreme decision of locking 百合花 in a house in the middle of the woods.

Turns out he wasn't actually a sibling of 猟師 and 百合花, but someone who was kind of just taken in as a family member. He was always made to feel inferior to his siblings, so he was constantly striving to excel in all of his school activities. His obssessive love for 百合花 causes him to get picked on in school a lot, and for 百合花 to receive equally nasty comments from his peers as well - which then causes everything to snap causes him to almost beat a student, and eventually many other students, to death if not for someone else holding him back. He gets suspended from school and he misses a year, causing him to not be able to go to school with 百合花, who at this point, he obsessively wants to protect from the 狼 of the world, which explains the cabin in the woods, and his distaste for オオカミ, 百合花's friend, and someone he thinks is making moves on her.

To control his anger, and later on what was revealed as what I can only describe as schizophrenia - extreme hallucinations and delusions of himself mocking his decisions - he eats a lot of "sweets" or really he takes his medicines for his condition just so he could pull through and function like normal. It was presented as an addiction, and it was very concerning the way he gulped down multiples from his prescription bottle.

Again, 百合花 with the strange suggestions such as staying together in a house that's about to burn down to the ground, welcoming the urges of her "sibling" in one of the bad ends, and telling him to quit his medicines. Now I'm not a psychiarist, but I do know that you shouldn't suddenly not take your medicines for illnesses such as these, even if you feel fine, because it can actually cause more psychotic breakdowns in the future. Obviously that didn't exactly occur in this since this is fiction, and they get a pretty questionable happily ever after as sibling...fiancees? Ick.

Still, this was a riot from start to finish, and pretty much my favorite next to the best end, because of just how ridiculous the whole thing was.

Also, the ribbon. ( ﾟ• ﾟ)

EPISODE 3

First of all, can we talk about this absolute fire of an opening song?! Easily my favorite rendition, and I never skipped listening to it whenever I booted up the game. Coming from the chaos of Episode 2, you just know that things were about to go down!

By this point, I was very alert to any scent that would lead me to a a hint to what was going on, but I was still left flabbergasted at what was to come.

白雪

Honestly, coming from that epic soundtrack and the events in Episode 2, this started really tame, with 百合花 hanging out casually with 猟師, 白雪 and his mom a lot.

If anything the most suspicious person was his mom - I honestly thought she was poisoning him or something, a theory based on the original Snow White fairytale, especially because 白雪 was starving himself and refused to eat anything that he was given - easily interpreted as an eating disorder - except for his mother's apple pie which was his favorite. Even the stuff that she gave 百合花 turned rotten and made her sick.

As it turns out, 猟師 made 白雪's acquaintance first, when he saw him at the dead of night by the lakeside. He earned his trust eventually by giving him books to read and talking about his sister 百合花 ありす, who had beautiful blonde hair and strange two-toned colored eyes.

His family used to be rich, until a time where his father left him and his mother to fend for themselves. They moved out of his mansion house to a cottage in the woods, and his mother worked herself to the bone, dodging tax collectors and teaching 白雪 to do the same, because the 狼 of the world are terrible people. They lived in this kind of seclusion, with 白雪 occasionally sneaking out to the lake.

One thing led to another, and 白雪 revealed his secret to 猟師 - that he kept the decaying body of his mother at their dilapidated house in the middle of the woods, and kept himself alive by munching on the now rotten apple pie she last baked for him. He also believed that him leaving her to sneak out caused her death, and that he deserves the kind of life he lives because of it. OH BOY.

The other thing was that he was aware. He knew that he was both real and unreal, and that at the other side of the looking glass was a person named アリス - the same name 猟師's sister had - and he was keeping 猟師 close as a friend, but also to get to his sister who might be his way out.

Thankfully both 猟師 and 百合花 were kind enough to make him realize that not all people are evil, and that he wasn't responsible for the things that happened to him.

魔法使い

And so we move on to 魔法使い, one of the biggest enigmas in the game, and another piece of the puzzle who is aware of everything that is going on.

Of all the characters and throughout the game, both 白雪 and 魔法使い were the most secretive of their backstories and intentions with acceptable reasons. Both of them knew what the world was and how it functioned - through the looking glass of アリステア's mind.

魔法使い was there to act as a reset button - which explains why he appears at every bad end - to make sure that 百合花 made the correct decisions that would solve every other character's problem, except for his.

I think its better to explain further in the next section, to kill two birds - well three - with one stone, and since he won't get his proper, unselfish, happy ending until the Epilogue anyway.

アリス & アリステア

アリス, the beginning of it all and the first split personality of アリステア.

For a good beginning of the Epilogue, ありす chases after アリス, through all the different characters' stories, only to reveal that she wasn't the ありす they knew and loved, and the only people who could explain why were partially 白雪, 魔法使い, and アリス.

Which brings us to the original, truly existing person, アリステア.

アリステア is a shy and reserved boy from a classy family, a dad who had many riches and a kind mom who loved fairy tales. His parents hosted a party one day, and he decided it was best to keep to himself in his room, much to his mother's disappointment. He would often talk to himself in the mirror, convincing himself or rather, the then unbeknownst to him split personality アリス, who was confident and bold and someone he believed to be a better version of himself.

With アリス's urging, he goes down to the party and finds ありす crying, with her beautiful blonde hair similar to his, and a pair of strangely beautiful colored eyes that were the cause of her to be teased. It probably happened at the same time, both アリステア and アリス were besotted by this girl who shared their name, hair, and eventually her ribbon, and for the remainder of her stay before she moved countries, she played with one or both of his personalities - again most likely unbeknownst to her.

Years passed and they grew up and lost touch with each other when アリステア's father's empire collapsed and his family was left with a lot of debt. By this point アリステア was already struggling without his friend ありす, his family was in shambles, and he had began to have these out of body experiences - his multiple personalities slowly appearing and taking over.

He got acquainted with 猟師, ありす's brother who was left in the country to pursue his studies. He also helped アリステア to talk to someone who could handle his case. Eventually through this connection, ありす and アリス reunite, with her parents deciding to officially take him under their wing as part of their family, despite all of them knowing about the multiple personalities.

Their first encounter was with シンデレラ, ありす being able to tell the difference immediately. He was dead set on making his father's wrongs right, and their only work around was to make him ありす's fiancee so they can live together without the stern looks of others.

ありす, with the help of her brother's initial guidance was able to tell all of the multiple personalities (the six initial characters except for 魔法使い who doesn't appear til much later) apart and treat them accordingly to how they interact with her, all along loving the original アリステア, unbeknownst to him who feels like he doesn't own his body anymore.

All that happened in the five previous routes except for 魔法使い, was アリステア's reality split into five to form fairy tale characters - a reflection of his mother's obsession - for the personalities lived in his mind and possessed his body at different occasions which also got him into trouble for obvious reasons - グレーテル being the most violent personality.

It all boiled over when one evening, he wakes up in bed with ありす - with the smell of sex in the air - and none of the memories. He reacts to the extreme, in a fit of anger, and demands to know who dared to damage ありす's body as well. I still don't know who it is - probably グレーテル because he was the one who blatantly expressed such urges multiple times in his route.

He chugs a bunch of meds which leaves him comatose in the hospital in the hopes that he can enter his mind and talk to his multiple personalities.

Which is where ありす comes in. She actually somehow manages to create another personality of herself in アリステア's mind - a game to be played repeatedly, with 魔法使い as a sort of overseer, to make all personalities happy with a version of ありす for themselves.

It pretty much works out, they all pick the ありす that catered to their needs, except for 魔法使い who actually was in love with the human ありす, and アリス who was hesitant as well since he knew about the human ありす from their shared childhood. アリス talks to them carefully, and leaves all of them a version of ありす that loves them or that would at least would love to keep them company.

So that's at least 12 different personalities that all live rent free in his mind, but won't take over his body for the most part.

The biggest twist even, is one of the bad ends, where one of the ありすs goes rouge and actually just takes over アリス's body and murders the original ありす, so for obvious reasons アリス would be left to deal with the repercussions and live with the fact that with his own hands, he killed the one person who ever loved and cared for him - whether or not that was own mind's doing.

I honestly can't even begin to explain how mind blowing this entire revelation was to me. I'm writing this two months after reading, and I'm still so impressed by how this entire story teased the reader with so many hints and still be able to drop a bomb this big at the end.

Fantastic storytelling, and I'm absolutely dying for people in my club to start reading this, so I could talk to someone about it. ｡･ﾟ･(ﾉД`)･ﾟ･｡

-☆-

It was so long and there was so many things to keep track of by the end - probably the reasons why I couldn't sit down and write this. I'm incredibly surprised that something written so well would be hidden under the otoge genre never to be even looked at by a lot of people just because of the tag. If only they knew!