i really can’t stress enough how much i recommend regularly engaging with older art– movies, books, whatever. like, “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it” and all that, but also, there’s just something really fascinating and kind of beautiful about reading something written by someone who lived so long ago and really connecting with it, recognizing the humanity of people who once seemed like abstract concepts to you
This is just my 2¢ as a nonbinary person but I genuinely think that cis people's gender is just as constructed as trans people's. Cis people love to accuse us of having making up genders or artificially modifying our appearance but....the entire makeup, fashion, diet, workout, and haircare industry exists so that cis people can maintain the illusion of two entirely distinct genders with no overlap.
when i say i like fedya dolokhov as a character, i mean that i like how dolokhov— an animalistic, misogynistic, antisemitic, cruel, bloodthirsty and venerated soldier of the battlefield— can somehow be viewed by his mother, sister, and close friends, as fedya— a good righteous, and loving son who is fiercely devoted to his family and intimates. it’s just so Terrifying and Intriguing how such a Horrible Person is seen by a certain demographic as what he is— or is this all a facade?— and another as what he’s not— or is this who he pretends to be?