Unrelated to doing drabbles today but am thinking about some of my characters and their gender expressions
Avonis being agender bc he’s had a taste of both binary expectations bc of how he grew up, and decided he doesn’t feel anything at all for it. Rejecting both male and female Jade norms even if everyone else sees him as a paradox of religious importance and failed expectations. Goes by he/him, which to some degree keeps him tied to the “male jades are lesser” societal view, though I think he just goes by those pronouns out of convenience mostly. Masculine build but enjoys dresses and robes that may be considered feminine. I think at the end of the day he just doesn’t care.
Athens is interesting to me bc when trying to integrate more into Troll society after losing his home and people he leaned heavily in trying to be conventionally attractive for his new societally normative gender. Beforehand neither he nor Athena subscribed to “male” or “female” or really any other option, because the Vaelari language only had “blood” and “bloodless” as categories of nouns. Bc they are Trolls and Trolls bleed, that’s all they really needed to consider, which made an “everyone bleeds so everyone is relatively equal” give or take their clan roles. After being forced to integrate into normative Alternian society Athens found he had an easier time if he tried to be appealing under a male identity. After many sweeps he’s more secure in his place in Alternian society so he doesn’t care as much about conventional attraction for himself, though he still subscribes to a masculine role, identity, and appearance, partially bc of conditioning and language. I don’t think Athena went through as much trouble for integration nor gender expression, since she was raised among other females assassins. Athens was denied that privilege for being male, or at the very least was othered and not included for being male.
Fretok (not introduced to the blog) was born sexless but identifies with feminine pronouns and adjectives because she likes the sound of it. Being a type of fae she hears melody in words and likes the specific sounds that make up she/her. However if she finds other pronouns or identities she likes the sound of more, she will identify with those. Gender as an expression of sound and melody. Of all my characters would probably be the one who may use neo-pronouns the most if given the option.
Yrevan I’m including mostly bc he DOES struggle with Alternia’s perception of males. As a male he is seen as lesser, less combative, less ‘capable’ of tasks, softer: He would have gotten even more shit about it if he had been born as Jade or Fuchsia. This is obviously not something he deals with very well and used his twin sister as a role model on being a “proper Violet.” Might be drawn to Lark a little bit for the attitude they serve to everyone, might not like the more subservient behavior as much due to the perceived gender norms but he’ll take the opportunity in having power and control (plus it’s polite to be polite in front of others). I suppose Yrevan could be taken as an example of “toxic masculinity” or I guess in Alternia’s lens “toxic femininity” if females are seen as leaders and warriors? Either way, gender expression? Toxic. Radioactive. Explosively Chernobyl. I don’t know if estrogen can fix him, chat.