hey man, i'm not saying it just because it includes transphobia in the fic. it's how the issues get resolved and how the supposed allies treat junna that's kind of questionable.
banri flipping over their entire established relationship dynamic because junna is trans as if the fact that her world feels like it's changing isn't a reason to try and remain normal and familiar.
kumon outs junna and somehow this is fine and not something life shattering? also, banri making out with her to help her panic attack is a little crazy.
junna wanting to come out to mankai and mentioning that she wants to stop "lying" to them, as if 1) it's a conscious choice and 2) she's a completely different person after her egg is cracked.
junna quitting acting and becoming a model (stereotypically very feminine profession).
not to mention the play, which seems to imply that "since you're a woman, you're not welcome here. please go be happy somewhere separate from us." and this is somehow the happy part?
these in and of themselves aren't necessarily bad. well, maybe that last one. but each of these has it's own merits that could be a great fic. but putting all these together in a fic that you've clearly spent a lot of time on makes it feel like you've done only surface level research on this and ends up making the characters feel ooc.
ultimately i don't want to police your writing because i know it's literally fanfiction. i just wanted to share because i, and several other trans friends, feel like it's in somewhat poor taste, and this, to me, feels a step up from just leaving flames because of "poor writing", as it involves possible biased beliefs. but if you would prefer not to accept this comment, then it's fine. i don't think you're a bad person. i just wanted to say something.
Thank you for elaborating! This would have been useful in the initial message, since it's something I can respond to :)
"banri flipping over their entire established relationship dynamic because junna is trans as if the fact that her world feels like it's changing isn't a reason to try and remain normal and familiar."
He doesn't flip over their dynamic "because Junna is trans". The changes that happen are his response to learning that someone close to him is deeply struggling, afraid and alone - and his reactions, especially when drastic, are largely because he did not previously perceive Juza through that kinda vulnerable lens, and also because he feels guilty and responsible for the way in which he found out. Just like Junna doesn't have all the answers for what is going on and what she wants, he doesn't have all the answers for how to be an ally either. It is something they work through together.
"kumon outs junna and somehow this is fine and not something life shattering?"
I assume this is about chapter 73? His reasoning behind saying what he said is addressed in that same scene that's about him facing the question between sharing that information, or upholding a lie that Junna had explicitly said she doesn't want to live anymore. He makes that choice out of what he perceives as respect for her true authentic self and her feelings about pretending to be a guy when she's not one.
With a cast as big as A3!, not all conversations and inter-character developments can be covered within a workable word count for me, so some of it needs to be inferred based on other context. When Kumon is considering that this is all about timing at this point, the takeaway for the reader can be that these thoughts are informed by the developments in Junna's coming out plans which he as her brother might in some aspects be even more privy to than the reader. She is actively planning to come out to the public at that point in time, and when Kumon tells her about the interaction, she is hesitant at first, but what's at the forefront of it for her is the thought that other people are now discussing her as a woman. It is not something life shattering for her because at that point in time, it was something she herself was already actively pursuing and felt safe and supported about.
"also, banri making out with her to help her panic attack is a little crazy."
Is this about chapter 57 and onwards? Or their first kiss in chapter 40? Neither of those scenes (or any other that I can recall at the moment) is intended as a panic attack, just heightened emotions and anxiety about the unknown. Many aspects of their relationship are 'a little crazy' - that's kinda the point, as they both don't know what they're doing in different ways, and both have unorthodox approaches to solving problems and processing their own emotions. Plus they're very physical with their communication in general, whether that's fist fighting or stage fighting, or making out in the case of this fic.
"junna wanting to come out to mankai and mentioning that she wants to stop "lying" to them, as if 1) it's a conscious choice and 2) she's a completely different person after her egg is cracked."
The concept of 'lying' in relation to being in the closet is explored and developed at several points in her journey - initially in the context of something she should be sharing but isn't (as in, she considers if her identity is something others are entitled to know), but later in the context of hiding and limiting her true self, which is how she comes to view her situation. She wants to come out and stop lying not in the sense of stopping something she shouldn't be doing, but in the sense of stopping something she doesn't want to be doing. The outward concept of lying is more so just a metaphor for her internal concept of lying to herself at that point.
She does see hiding her identity as a conscious choice, and how the reasons behind that and feelings about it change is also discussed a lot.
As for being a completely different person - she knows she is not, as is probably most evident in her early conversations with Banri and Kumon. But that conceptualization of seeing herself (or parts/aspects of herself) as completely different is one of her processing mechanisms, a way to make getting to know her true self without the interference from her old self easier, and then she can 'add back' the old parts that still feel true.
"junna quitting acting and becoming a model (stereotypically very feminine profession)."
She does not quit acting. This is not specified directly before the epilogue, but what I imagined for the current Mankai cast in this story was something akin to mass stage production graduations, where all the actors leave together. Or they could have left to other jobs and theaters gradually over time, it doesn't really matter. Even in the current A3! universe, many characters hold a job outside of Mankai - Junna's modelling work after the events of the fic is something like that. And even after Mankai, I see her still working as an actress too. Perhaps at some points in her career, modelling takes precedence over acting and vice versa - these things ebb and flow. The epilogue focuses on her career as a model because it's supposed to be a call back to where the story started (and a contrast in how much has changed on the same topic since), and because modelling was her specific catalyst for finding herself.
But even aside from that, I don't use modelling in the fic as a feminine stereotype, I use the fact that it is a feminine stereotype as a counter and jumping off point for Junna's exploration of her own identity: as in, the masculine standards placed on Juza were so suffocating that even as an actor in a theater that has put many guys in dresses before, he didn't have that experience until a modelling gig came along. Junna doesn't fall in love with modelling because it's a way to validate her femininity, she falls in love with it because it's where she can explore her femininity first, and she will always cherish that space for what it provided her. But she loves acting too, and in a way, the play in the end is really just her bringing back lessons she has learned about herself in modelling to the place where she learned that she's allowed to explore and express herself at all in the first place - which is acting.
"not to mention the play, which seems to imply that "since you're a woman, you're not welcome here. please go be happy somewhere separate from us." and this is somehow the happy part?"
Junna's coming out play depicts an orderly world that's deeply entrenched in its ways, which are supposed to be perfect for everyone, but evidently, they are not. “But you said … I could be anything?” is the parallel for the moment of betrayal/hurt/disappointment that many people outside of the norm experience in real life when their needs, experiences, identities, etc. are not accommodated, accepted, understood and accounted for in a world that brands itself as being perfect and fine just the way it is.
"You do not fit our preconceived notion of what we will accommodate, you should be happy but not like that" is exactly the message! And the intended take away between the lines is that this heaven in the play is a false paradise: only good in so far as you fit into the right box - so it's not good at all, it's shit. And the angel whose job it is to 'help' the paradoxes by removing them is, at least on some level, aware of that too, hence the “Well, they did say you could be anything. Seems like a mess up on their part, if you ask me" line.
The system is broken - that's not the happy part. The happy part is that Junna had the courage and the ability to find herself and build a place to live as herself despite of that. The flawed heaven in that play is a parallel to the greater systemic issues in society that she can not directly change yet. But the play ends with her stepping toward a part of the world that she can change, and fully intends to.
"putting all these together in a fic that you've clearly spent a lot of time on makes it feel like you've done only surface level research on this and ends up making the characters feel ooc"
I think the characters feeling ooc is an inevitable outcome or at least risk when putting characters in situations that are radically different than canon. Juza isn't a trans woman in canon A3, Banri isn't the first person accidentally learning she's a trans woman. the rest of Mankai doesn't have a trans actress in their midst, etc. This story is about experiences that have not happened in canon, but which are so monumental that they inevitably drastically alter the character's thoughts, actions and behavior. Yes, the result will be them feeling ooc because they're literally not the characters I have started with by the end of the story - it's a diverging path from their canon selves. In many of my stories, I like to take aspects of these characters at their core, and then go see how that would play out and who they would become somewhere completely different.
"i just wanted to share because i, and several other trans friends, feel like it's in somewhat poor taste, and this, to me, feels a step up from just leaving flames because of "poor writing", as it involves possible biased beliefs."
I would like to address 2 things to maybe re-conceptualize how you view this story, and how its aspects make you and your friends feel.
First, this is a fictional work where the main centerpiece are human emotions. It is not a research paper, or a non-fiction article, or an advice book, or a news blog, or a manual, etc. It is messy, it is troubled it is flawed - because people are that way. If a character has a thought, if they do something, if they act in a certain way, ... that doesn't automatically mean that any of it is good, or helpful, or the right thing to do in their world, or even out here in the real world. The characters may strive for it to be that way, sure, but not always, and sometimes even when they do, it's not the result they get.
This work is not supposed to be an amalgamation of the best ways to reevaluate your own identity, be an ally, come out, find your gender expression, etc. It is just a snapshot of how all of that can play out for some people - some of it good, some of it bad.
And second, in the same vein, it's also not supposed to be a representative story of all trans people - it literally can't be. If there are thoughts that Junna has about her identity that another trans person never would, if she approaches things in ways that another trans person never would, if the support she wants looks different than what other trans people would want, etc. - that's all okay. That's how it should be. Everyone's experience is valid and should be their own.
This story was not supposed to be an experience every trans person relates to, agrees with, understands or wants for themselves. It was just supposed to be Junna's experience, and at the end of the day, even she is a fictional character that doesn't really exist: just a personification of the many different pieces of the trans people in my life, and my own experiences with queerness and gender expression.
I am sorry that specific story hasn't resonated with you and your friends. I hope you can find a story that does somewhere else ♥
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