#what I'm saying is this could definitely apply to trans whose egg cracks later in life and that doesn't get across in a way that pleases me

[kurakurakura99]

Thinking about Changeling:The Lost and how the concept of the Fetch as allegory is kinda genius to a trans/nonbinary reading. The fetch is a facsimile left in the place of victims, spirited away and changed by the true Fae. It is impossible for most people to ever tell the difference:one could go their entire lives without suspecting that your family member has been replaced, but the fetch is different:it is static, resistant to change. the fetch of a child will grow up like you'd expect it to, and grow old as its expected to, as well, and nothing more:it follows the path that blends it in. Does things that those around them would look at go, "oh, they would do that. That is so like them." Consider the plight of a trans person snatched away before they came out, or their egg cracked. It stands to reason that their fetch would NEVER transition:Their family expects their boy to grow into a young man. A deviation from that pattern draws the wrong kind of attention. And when that person comes back, changed by their time in Arcadia, they might behold the Fetch living in their shoes: The imagery of Her family enjoying a holiday dinner with Him springs to my mind. And whats worse is that the family probably likes the fetch better. fathers and mothers pass the gravy to their perfect son when in another life, without the intervention of the kindly ones, they would have ran their true child from the family home when they came out. The same true child that watches from a window now as they share their hearth with an invader, a body snatcher of sorts. Thats gotta sting. I know how much it stings because my family forced me back into the closet multiple times:They simply ignored my confession that I didn't fit in the neat category of "boy" that had been lovingly prepared for me. They told me I wasn't transgender and that was that to them, or they just outright forgot after a while. I have been both the fetch and the changeling at the same time in this scenario. The question is, what does the changeling do now? does she simply vanish in the night like I did, leaving the past life to be content with its fake memory of her, or does she burst through the window and take that fake memory, cave in the loathsome imposters skull until he collapses into twig and twine and leaves, ripping that happiness and baring cruel, unbelievable reality like tusks at everyone witnessing the event? Does she meet her false self in secret, and try to work with it, understand it? That reminds me of half-measures I've seen taken by friends. Call me by my deadname around my dad. Please. I think the most horrifying outcome from a trans perspective is that of replacing the fetch:doing away with it in secret and concealing the truth about yourself to slip into your old life. But that life no longer belongs to you: His flat chest and blunt teeth are antithetical to who you really are, now. Your claws and yellowed eyes and femininity are going to scratch under that false skin forever, until you take it off. Maybe you'll do it in secret, letting your horns breath in nightclubs and venues and forest paths far from the eyes of the people who knew the false you (in both senses of the term) or maybe you'll stuff your true nature away as far and deep as you can, even if it destroys you. Change is deeply, deeply terrifying after all.