#(they almost ALWAYS blame the side of the mother. even oliver cipher did. because well! the seocnd dimension is a misogynistic hellhole!)

[irregularbillcipher]

for anyone curious-- kryptos, esp. post dimension burning, defines his gender as Square and Shape but not really Male or Guy, like that part's whatever to him, that's not the important part of his identity to him. getting to freely call himself a Square and Shape with no pushback is exciting to him because, as his status as a square-born-to-a-square, he was consistently ignored, told he should have been something else-- namely a pentagon, very rarely an equilateral because as tragic as a descent in caste would have been, it would have been more Normal Than This-- and forced into weird arbitrary roles and rotating schools and castes in early childhood before it was finally decided that fine, he was a square, they guessed... but also barely and because he was Barely A Square by the stupid laws of configuration and because the circumstances of his birth were so Strange and his Abnormality was so Apparent, he had to go to school with equilaterals so that only the lower middle class kids were put at risk by his Weirdness, and not the other Much More Valuable Real Squares. so getting to the point where he was one of the only members of his species left and he gets to just go "yeah, i am a square, i'm the only square left, and i get to decide whatever the hell that means now" was meaningful to him, and the guy part is like. whatever. but he is a square

#his assigned role was always v. arbitrary and shaky. his dad even asks if it's possible that he's a line when he hears he's not a pentagon #because a line is a parallelogram and he was being described as a parallelogram and the barrier between a line and irregular square #would very likely be arbitrary tbh! and it was determined he Was a shape because of his regularity in terms of angles and sides #but of course the fact that by laws of configuration he Should Have Been a pentagon or whatever also was a point of contention #and even him being equilateral would have been Tragic But Sensible by stupid second dimension standards #there was probalby some Unaccounted For irregularity in the family line (definitely the mother's side because if you notice in my fic) #(they almost ALWAYS blame the side of the mother. even oliver cipher did. because well! the seocnd dimension is a misogynistic hellhole!) #but a square having a square son? especially a square with the social clout of his father? that's just unheard of! #so there was a lot of squabble of Where He Should Go and what his caste role should be anyway #so him being a square was always something that felt very arbitrary and like an identity that could be taken from him at any moment #and he doesn't give a shit about his Caste Role anymore but he personally just likes being able to go 'actually i am a square' #'i am a square and i always was a square and i'm the one who gets to decide whatever that label means now' #he feels similarly about being gay. like 'no i actually understand this about myself now and i LIKE this about myself now' #'so i get to say this word as much as i want to now :)'