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barrel-crow-n · 2 months

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Kaz's gender

I already talked about this a lil in the tags of my sexuality post but my thoughts are complex so I feel the need to really dive into what I believe with Kaz and his gender expression and why.

First of all: pronouns. I feel like Kaz uses he/they/it.

He because he aligns himself with masculinity. He/him is his preferred and what he uses.

They is also one of the preferred ones. He/they is fine, he/him or they/them is also fine, they don't really mind.

And Kaz likes it because it feeds the whole "what is he? Is he even a person? Is he a demon?" It makes him seem less human, more demonic, and he revels in it.

Kaz definitely goes for a more masculine vibe, but honestly? They also aligns themself as other, as demonic. They're not really anything like all of these people. Even his dark mercher suits make him look like a dark stain on the city, a nightmare manifest. Sure, he looks respectable, but the eyes, the corpse-like face, the "sharp glass boy of deadly edges" thing he has going on, makes him look more subhuman, almost undead. Which fits his whole Kaz Rietveld died in the harbour and was reborn as Kaz Brekker thing.

Gender wise, I don't think they labels themselves. They lets people talk and theorise. "He's obviously a man" "They're nothing like us" "Have you seen it?? That's not even a person!" When one of the crows asks they just tells them something theatrical like "I'm the demon under people's beds, merchling" "I'm the thing in your closest, Nina dear" "I'm people's nightmares made manifest, the personification of this city. I am crime made a person, I am horror in the flesh." But they never actually answers the question. They're not really sure. He knows that he uses he/him pronouns the most, alongside they/them, but he doesn't feel like a boy, not really. He hasn't really ever been like the other boys, even as Kaz Rietveld, much less as Kaz Brekker. Always a little odd, a little more on the quiet side. Analytical, searching, constantly watching. Unnerving.

He doesn't mind terms like boy and man but prefers demon and monster because he's silly like that and it gives him a rush. I feel like he'd hate the word lad.

I also think their gender identity is explicity linked to his rebirth as Kaz Brekker. They created themselves, almost entirely from scratch. And so they pondered it, thought it over. They decided that they liked it to an extent but only in certain scenarios. He uses he/they interchangeably, but also not.

As Dirtyhands Kaz sees themself as it. A separate persona. As Kaz Brekker, it's they/them but he only associates the two because they only realised they liked they/them after the rebirth. As Kaz Rietveld it's he/him. It's another way of separating himself into different parts. But Kaz Brekker is still Kaz Rietveld, no matter how much they try and deny it. Kaz Reitveld isn't really a persona the same way Dirtyhands is. It's who he is. Kaz Rietveld is a part of Kaz Brekker, and Kaz also uses he/him alongside they/them

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ultimateplaylistmaker · 4 months

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BASED. Finally someone actually acknowledging Tenko`s sexism and making her overcome it instead of unfunny jokes or ignoring it.

Making unfunny jokes? Lame

Ignoring it? BORING

Having Tenko run a primarily woman's shelter during the literal apocalypse which forces her to see actual genuine families that she in her heart cannot bare to turn away when she has resources to help, forcing her to interact with guys more then she had before and getting to observe them be good people trying to help their mothers and sisters. When clearly troubled by how this is changing her world views a nice older trans lady sees this young teenager trying to help everyone but clearly having gender essentialist views correctly blames her guardian for her teaching her those views then goes over to help/adopt her, slowly working through it and kindly correcting her when she messes up or says something bigoted and while Tenko's progress is slow and she still makes mistakes, a lot of them, its clear she's trying and she's growing and she'll get there one day and you just cant help but be proud of her while Tenko learns to be more then just what her master wanted for her and learns who she is outside this role she was molded into causing her to question herself in ways she never was allowed to before? BASED AS HELL

#my tenko has a very long journey that ends with a very poignant moment where she switches her label from lesbian to sapphic #giving her a sense of nuance and fluidity she felt lacked before in her old label that felt more assigned to her then naturally picked #this is of course not demonizing people who do identify as lesbians kirumi is right there being gay as hell there are several lesbians here #but for TENKO SPECIFICALLY the change is a sign of fluidity and growth learning that things arent always black and white and unbending #i think its really boring to insist tenko has to be a gold star lesbian #i think shes more interesting if she gets a chance to explore her attraction at her own pace even if that means actually giving boys a shot #and if she comes away still unattracted but now more solid that her attraction is just who she is and not who she is made to be thats good #and if she comes away thinking maybe she could theoretically like boys thats fine too! she deserves the chance to find out on her own terms #not her masters terms of isolating her and only exposing her to the worst for some god forsaken reason she deserves to explore herself #gender and sexuality is so much more fun in fanon when you realize its like water to splash around in #ever changing and very stimmy!#ndrv3 #uh oh this got long #anon chaos #my dr lore #tenko chabashira

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artificial-horizon · 2 years

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Being visibly mixed race/racially ambiguous and visibly trans/GNC is being inherently confusing and unreadable to white cis people. Like, they can tell you're sure as hell not a white man or woman but they can't decipher you beyond that; they don't know how what to do with you because they can't put you in any category.

You are both masculine and feminine, but not enough of either to fulfil the white criteria for manhood or womanhood, and regardless, brown people are gendered differently to white people anyway. You could tick off almost all the criteria for "male" features (such as, and notably, body hair) and still be read as a cis woman, because the level of masculinity white people accept in brown (perceived) women is higher than what they accept in white (perceived) women, because brownness itself is masculine to them. (Though it can be feminine and androgynous at the same time, too. Again, POC are gendered differently than white people.)

They have these set ideas of how they're meant to relate to people, set ways that they treat, let's say, white women, Black men, East Asian women, Middle Eastern men - but they can't even tell what you are, so how are they meant to treat you? How are they meant to relate to you?

I don't doubt at all that this is why I've always been ignored in public, even before transitioning; never treated as a fellow person to connect with, but an anomaly that happens to occupy the same spaces. I scare them by defying categorization, so it's better not to engage and risk upsetting their preconceived notions of gender and race. Alternatively, they will just be bigots instead, though I can tell that's hard for them too as they aren't quite sure what specific flavour of bigotry to throw at me.

[cw for following paragraph: non-graphic description of an incident of racist and transphobic harassment]

I always think back to this one time, having recently come out, when I was harassed by a white man on the bus. Seeing me in all my gender ambiguity and reading me as Black, he expressed his disgust at us Black people, at how "you can never fucking tell whether they're girls or boys". Honestly, in all my interactions with white cis people from then on, I never stopped feeling the echoes of his words.

#im venting so apologies if this is worded badly and/or some of it isnt good analysis #i have many thoughts but i'm really struggling to put them into words #also @ the last paragraph i am a mixed black person hence saying us jic that needed to be said #me writing things #racism #transphobia #mixed race #biracial #multiracial #brown and trans #trans poc #idk any tags that are about the intersection of gender and race or transness and race #also is there a term for that type of oppression anyway?#like if not there definitely should be cos POC are oppressed along gender lines in white supremacist society #and its not necessarily transphobia or homophobia or misogyny #its specifically the oppression that comes from not meeting gender standards because they are inherently based on whiteness

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diapause · 4 months

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if you see a post that contains some historical writing or art by or related to trans women and your first instinct is to comment or share it and make it about gerard way, maybe consider not doing that

#by historical I mean anything in the past to clarify #like babe. this drawing from the 90s of a trans woman with nice legsis just that. sometimes you have to be normal and not make every gender #thing you see about your fave. esp one that you like to pretend is some pioneer when it comes to being gnc in the music industry (he isn't)#I do say this as a long term mcr and gerard fan! you just need to like ... remember that trans women are real and not your fun idea to+#project on people. and that gerard way is a real person that you don't have the right to project identities on as if they were fact either!

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aresstan · 1 month

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Some Lokeans are some of the rudest, most defensive fucking people that need to understand the power of logging off 💀

(SOME. Not ALL.)

#literally I've come up and said things trying to contribute to conversations constructively #and they will read it as an attack (cause they loooove being under attack) and bite my fucking head off #over shit that does. not. matter.#had one flip out at me for coming up with gender neutral deity terms #had another flip out at me for saying 'it's healthy to block bullies'#oh and the person who flipped out at me over the gender neutral thing #is/was helped run the lokean welcoming committee blog. that blog is not as full of helpful people as you think 🙄#same lokean welcoming committee person had it out for another pagan I knew and constantly chewed them out over everything #I will never join online pagan groups ever again tbh they are chalk full of people who want to be a victim so they can lash out

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kneworder · 3 months

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angry at the oscars barbie nominations but in an annoyinger way (i think nominating ryan reynolds makes sense but the best picture and best supporting actress noms are ridiculous)

#sorry but the more i think about it the more i really dislike the movie #ken was funny! he was silly and campy! i really did not care for the rest of the movie!#i just think the more you examine its take on feminism the more it falls apart!#it's inherently about a product! it's inherently personifying a product and making you feel sympathy for and relate to a product!#they are generating hype and engendering sympathy for something they are trying to sell you!#regurgitating second wave feminism without nuance doesn't make it groundbreaking it makes it like. fine i guess?#verilybitchie has a great video that put a lot of my feelings about it into words #idk it did not resonate with me at all and also made me kind of annoyed with how it contributed to the ongoing trend #of gendering things that aren't gendered and focusing on a segregation of gendered perspectives #tired of i'm just a girl! tired of girl dinner! tired of men are always thinking about the roman empire!#sure there are experiences more common to and relevant to women but i get so uncomfy with those kinds of generalizations #even when they're just jokes because after they get repeated enough they stop sounding like ones #just like. when you try to examine it in terms of any kind of intersectionality it falls apart #and i know it's not that serious but like come on. they literally do not once touch on any kind of intersectionality.#you can't be like 'it's a groundbreaking feminist movie!' because they said 'women struggle with misogyny' in 2023 #like i know it's barbie but i don't understand why there's this impulse to say that that's something that's never been said before #just because the president is black doesn't mean you've acknowledged like. racism at all.#just because you have two fat barbies with like four lines doesn't mean you've said anything meaningful about body image #and when you take an openly lesbian actress and give her short hair and make her strange and then have all the other characters #essentially socially exile her and still think she's weird after the resolution!!!#i would say that's like!! implicitly a pretty weird way to write gay people!#i don't want to rain on anyone's parade! it's silly! it's not that serious! i just also think it's not that good!#it's fine! it's fun! but i DO think ken is the best part of the barbie movie and for that i apologize

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punctuation-completionist · 3 months

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you don’t have to answer this ask but wow how are you supposed to be the bad guy fucking apologizing for reacting badly to being told to kill yourself?? i hate this website

well okay hold up i never said i was the bad guy. i said there were misunderstandings on both sides and that i was sorry for an issue in one part of how i handled it. just one.

#ask tag #not counting #like um. i do understand that maybe this person's sense of humor is way different then mine okay #but like. they said that they didn't mean it legitimately and once they saw it was haarmful they apologized #for me to say ''i am glad i understand your side of the story and you understand mine'' i am not saying i'm the bad guy #there's really no ''bad guy'' in this situation as i see it because the world is more nuanced then that y'know #like. sometimes people have a sense of humor that you can't pick up on. it doesn't mean you shouldn't state your point of view #and say ''that wasn't how i want people to talk to me and i also won't let you do that''#also the only part i really ''apologized'' for was that i used a term for them that was uncomfortable #i assume for gender reasons. and i understand where that comes from. if someone called me ''girl'' while arguing i wouldn't like it #whenever i said sorry after that i did my best to try and word it in a way like ''i am sorry this happened but it's not my fault''#like how when. idk. someone's grandma dies and you say ''sorry for your loss'' you're not saying that you killed their grandma #you're just saying that you feel bad that the thing happened but not that it's your fault #and yes. i do agree that the situation may have been fixed if they just said it was a joke but hindsight is 20/20 right?#anyways. that's my take on the situation.#and like. idk. if they apologized and told me how they saw it. i'm gonna believe them because i have had WAY more malicious people here #like idk. there have been anons who have said wayy worse and there's no discernable reason for why they would #like that one anon who told me that i should get my arms chopped off or something. idk. i deleted it before i could commit it to memory #and that was on purpose #but like. my point is. there's worse people. and if i focus all of my energy about being mad over a person who made one joke in bad taste #idk just seems like a waste of time #at least that's my perspective on the situation. never said i was the bad guy. just sorry it happened #also sorry it happened so late at night for me! i need an ibuprofen and a bagel now

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cecenyss · 6 months

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Okay listen. Listen okay. Dumbledore’s moral failings are a result of poor writing.

Like jkr goes out of her way to describes Albus Dumbledore as this paragon of virtue who’s constantly trying to do the right thing and he’s practically omniscient and one of the only reasonable people in the entire wizarding world

And then she turns around and goes “but he didn’t check on the boy he left in the care of a Muggle he had been warned was going to mistreat him by someone he’s known for years” and he didn’t check for eleven years.

And then after that when Harry’s envelope literally said cupboard under the stairs nobody checked on that?? And hey hey McGonagall was the only one who’d see that letter actually she was the one who signed it so that’s poor writing on her character too

But this is about Dumbledore not her

And then nobody double checked on Sirius Black and whatnot including Dumbledore (and that’s not just Albus?? Like Remus didn’t, nobody else who knew Sirius didn’t) which is frankly ridiculous because he had friends and what can be assumed was an active social life given he was friends with James Potter who everybody falls over themselves to sing the praises of at every opportunity

This is, I think, an issue with writing an overpowered character in general. You describe them as virtually all-knowing, but then don’t come up with reasonable explanations for why they wouldn’t know certain things that need to be unknown for the plot to progress. You give them awesome powers, and then struggle thinking of ways for them to be thwarted.

When this isn’t done correctly, the only possible explanation for the fans is to make the op character in question an asshole. They didn’t care enough to check that a child was safe or they didn’t feel like vouching for the safety of someone else so they just didn’t or they allowed people to become collateral damage even though it would’ve been a perfectly viable solution to let things play out another way.

It’s so annoying to me that people do this but it’s also perfectly understandable because in reality the character is fundamentally contradictory; there’s no real way to reconcile the ideas that “Dumbledore is intelligent and wise” and “Dumbledore didn’t bother checking on an infant who actively had terrorists gunning for him for over a decade.” Those two things just can’t coexist without some serious bending over to make them make sense.

But they have to for the story to make internal sense, because it is a bad story. It’s just bad writing, there’s no way around it. And that’s a really difficult thing to swallow, even after coming to terms with jkr’s bigotry. Because even when she was just transphobic and racist and just kind of a bigot in general I could still say “well, the story was good, but it sucks she turned out so bad.” But I really can’t say that anymore. And that hurts so, so bad.

#tw: jkr #dumbledore #albus dumbledore #fuck jkr #the things I love about Harry Potter come from the fandom #I love the fics I read about it and I love the community it makes me a part of #Harry Potter had a fundamentally good base #but even those parts are iffy #like Merlin supposedly going to Hogwarts? he would have lived 500 years before Hogwarts was supposedly founded #house elves? need I say more #witches and wizards are not gendered terms #whenever I think about this in any kind of depth I always come back to this one tumblr post that describes it as #similar to coming out of a fae spell #like you suddenly come to all these realizations like you were incapable of seeing them before #ugh this was just meant to be another Dumbledore apologist post but now I’m sad #:(#harry potter

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ingravinoveritas · 10 months

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Why can not David just be a good actor and a good human being in your "discourse"? He cannot just play gay/ambiguous because he's a trained actor, he has to BE gay irl, there's no other explanation. He cannot wear the NB pin and be an outspoken ally because he's a good human and has always felt the unfairness of the situation, no, it means he's GAAAAY and maybe NB irl. Don't you see how you refuse his agency in your desire to objectify and imagine his sexuality as you'd like it to be?

(The Anon above is responding to this post, but I thought I would group these together since we now also have the picture of David wearing his new Pride pin.)

Hello, Anon. I realize I'm a few weeks late in responding (to this and many other Anons still waiting in my inbox), but we are still in the last few days of Pride month, as we've recently seen, so I thought I'd take a moment and address this.

First of all, I have not once anywhere on my blog ever said that David is gay, so I am not sure why you are putting words in my mouth, but doing so does nothing to help your already flimsy case. I think it's also worth noting that I am not the only one who has made the observations I have, as I've had countless people of all sexual orientations/gender identities say these things to me over DM, things many of them are afraid to say publicly because of people like you.

Secondly, it is very obvious to me that you did not at all listen to David's appearance on that podcast where he talked about Pride Month, because if you had, you would know that your attitude is the exact same type of phobic mindset he was talking about fighting against on the playground in primary school. It's the very fact that you are "defending" him from something that doesn't inherently need defending from that is the entire point that you seem to be missing. Further, when I have talked about David's sexuality, I am basing my thoughts on things David has actually said and put out into the universe, which you by contrast seem determined to ignore in favor of projecting who you think David is onto him, which seems far more like removing his agency than what you've accused me of doing. I also do not believe I am "objectifying" David's sexuality in any way, because for me, I do not care if David is straight, bi, gay, whatever--I just want him to be happy and feel that he can be free to be who he really is.

The other point of yours with which I strongly take issue is that you are trying to shove David into a narrow box when that is the very thing he was speaking against in that podcast. According to your words, he can either be a good human/actor or he is bi/enby, which gives the impression that these things are somehow mutually exclusive. My question to you is, why can't he be both? Why can't David be a good human/actor AND queer himself? What if what makes him such a good ally is that he is bi or enby and has experienced such difficulties with his identity and now wants to protect his child and others from going through something similar? And if that is the case, I'm not sure why you think that would be so awful as to resort to leaving mocking messages in my inbox.

To the points made by @hunterofartemisblog: I am so, sorry for what you went through. No child should experience something like that, let alone from a parent. I fully concur with you, however--we could speculate about David's (and Michael's) sexuality until the cows come home, but the one thing we can say for certain is that David and Michael (and Georgia) are incredible supporters of the LGBTQ+ community. Michael has been outspoken about his support for years, but I feel like David has become much more vocal in just the last year, and it is beautiful to see. Indeed, how lucky so many of us would be to have such support in our lives--from a parent, a friend, or anyone who loves and cares about us.

When I looked closely at this picture yesterday, I felt as though I could see tiredness and worry in David's eyes--which, again, could be for any number of reasons. My hope is that if he is bi or enby, that David has someone in his life to give him that support, who is letting him know that it is okay to be exactly who he is and that he is safe with them.

Clearly, there is still a lot of judgment awaiting David and/or all LGBTQ+ people who decide to be open about themselves, which may be one of the reasons why it's so hard to do exactly that. As Pride month draws to a close, I hope we can all think about how we can unlearn our own preconceived ideas about gender and sexuality--whether well-intentioned-but-misguided or outright harmful--and make this world safer for queer folks everywhere.

#anonymous #hunterofartemisblog #reply post #david tennant #soft scottish hipster gigolo #please have several seats #and try reading what i actually wrote instead of accusing me of ridiculous things #michael has made pride posts but also donated to a fan's gofundme for gender confirmation surgery #but i think david is definitely telling us who he is #i think he has slowly come to terms with his identity #not all at once but cumulatively over the last few years #happy pride month indeed #david is lowkey bi and michael is highkey bi #thoughts #discourse

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imabiscuitinthousandworlds · 8 months

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MY DAD HAS STARTED CORRECTING HIMSELF

LIKE HE WAS USED TO JUST SAYING "GIRLS" WHEN REFERRING TO MY MUM AND ME

AND NOW HE'S LIKE "GIRLS AND UH LGBTIA+ PEOPLE"

I AM SOSOSO HAPPY AHHHHH

#GENDER EUPHORIA IS KICKING IN #probs bc i corrected him pn my pronouns recently and that made it clearer than just “yea my gender is kinda shrug emoji”#BUT AHHHH #GENDERQUPHORIA BE KICKING IN #ALSO THAT ONE RESTAURANT RECENTLY HAD TOILETS FOR 'GIRLS' 'BOYS' AND 'GEBDERNEUTRAL'#AN OPTION SPECIFICALLY INCLUDINGPEOPLE LIKE ME #i think that was the first time since coming to terms with being a genderfucking mystery that i used a toilet that was really 'right' act #actually #like at the punk festival they specifically included 'women girls trans women enbies' etc #but it was still generally a men/women typa thing #like absolutely fantastic on including any and all trans folks but still #and here it was a THIRD OPTION that was Not the disabled toilet and i love that!!!!!!! it eas literally just a dingy smelly toilet but!!!!!#AHHHHH #a biscuit's rambles

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pikslasrce · 1 year

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saw someone describe an ocs gender as 'if a trans guy was a trans girl' and ive never related to anything more...

#i think im coming to terms with the hilarious truth....... my gender is an onion. i am. an onion....#a nesting dolleven #an ouroboros kind of situation. if a girl was a boy who was a girl who was a boy who was a girl.#it all circles back to girl and then im like. yeah thats being cis babygirl.#can you even have a complex cis gender like is that a thing. like... at this point im not even sure 💀💀💀💀#piksla.txt

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aro-culture-is · 1 year

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aro culture is wishing you could compliment people on their appearances without worrying that they'll think you're into them :/

#Anonymous #aro culture is #aro #aromantic #actually aro #actually aromantic #ask #mod phoenix #generally speaking i find that people are less likely to assume it's about 'liking' them #if you say it in a bubbly tone #like... 'oh wow! i adore your hair color - can i ask if you did it yourself?'#or 'can i just say your makeup is super cool? i really like the shimmery green eyeshadow'#like... bubbly and give a detail + a question or opportunity for them to talk about it #ie 'where did you get that / did you do it yourself'#if it's about like. a body feature ig? that's a little more complicated imho #it really has to come up in a natural way and honestly i'm cautious to draw attention to that which isn't changed easily #because personally ppl compliment me a lot on my body shape that gets me misgendered #and things like that #so i personally am Not fond of complimenting body parts unless it's like. gender neutral features at least.#in terms of how ppl usually perceive it #i do think complimenting laughs/smiles is usually easy enough and most ppl genuinely are happy to hear that #also if you're a cis white woman for the love of god stop touching what you compliment without asking

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monstertsunami · 1 year

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WAIT TELL ME ABOUT TRANS FEM YURA (hcs him as the opposite)

YESSSS THE MOST IMPORTANT ASK OF THE CENTURYY

i have a looottt of thoughts about yura and repression.. like there is no doubt abt it hes already a repressed bisexual just add some unaddressed gender feelings in there and its. the perfect mixture.

like a LOT of my lgbt feelings for pafl revolve around the environment that theyre all in, which is. generally not very good.. misogynistic and homophobic and you know. with all the toxic masculinity that comes with that. im kind of interpreting this all as the source for sergei's weird stoic toxic masculinity, nikitas misogyny, and yura's.. everything because! these things dont exist in a vaccum! these characters were raised in Not Good environments that fostered these behaviors and that is fucking interesting!! it adds depth to headcanons!!

(this is why i dont really pay much mind to pafl trans headcanons that r compliant to canon genders bc personally i believe their character arcs would be heavily affected by transitioning in that environment.. i save that all for post-canon funsies yk. other than olya who is mysterious enough to stealth and temnova whos too cool for gender obv)

anyways anyways anyways. yura is the most repressed thing out there he copes by dating around and evey other vice known to man bc he wants to be so fucking normal and deep down he KNOWWS he isnt.. good lord. he just wants to completely ignore all his gender and sexuality feelings so bad like. theres something fucking wrong with him jesus christ im going to hit him with a car. god. hold on i have a source

YURA WOULD YOU LIKE TO SHARE WITB THE CLASS WHO WOULD BE GOOD FOR SANYA. A GIRL PERHAPS. cough cough. he has so many fucking complexes about romance and sex. he sleeps around bc thats what HE sees as important in the male ideal (alongside stoicism bc we all know how well that went for him) and he is fighting tooth and nail to try and be a guy and repress anything that might suggest otherwise. body dysphoria is complete hc but tell me it wouldnt fit seamlessly with his character.. guy (girl) that hates himself so so fucking much

#i probably have . more thoughts than that but i am running on 3 hrs of sleep o7 #i might come back to this when im more coherent..#btw if you wanted to know. transmasc butch sanya transmasc ace katya transmasc butch sergei #transfem olya and temnova but this is known #OH AND . TRANSFEM DIMAAAA!!!#either way on dima works flawlessly i believe in temnova helping him transition during his time in the facility #(<-transmasc dima i didnt clarify)#and olya helping hook him up w hormones when he escapes.. ough #*pats dima* this autistic thing can fit so much transgenderism in this #the good pafl end is where everyone comes to terms w their gender and transitions freely #boss makes a dollar i make a dime thats why i answer asks on company time #schizobabble #pafl #yura #pafl yura #OH MY GOD I MEANT TRANSFEM BUTCH SERGEI I CANT EDIT TAGS OR REARRANGE THEMMM

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whatudottu · 7 months

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It's been a bit since I've rambled about xenobiology headcanons, and this time because I've been thinking about Andreas I thought today's edition would be about talpaedans, seeing as how I made a list that I haven't put into a post yet-

Let's go!

Between all members of talpaedan youth and development, there is an innate basic understanding of construction, as comparable to human's ability to recognise patterns and facial language (give or take a few neurodivergencies). And specific construction comprehension is linked to whatever tool talpaedan youth are integrated in, which develops over time based on what materials are consumed (a diet of concrete may make cement mixers, or a diet that requires a lot of digging may develop jackhammers) as well of course the genes of the parent/s.

And on to that 'parent/s' thing, let's bring up haplodiplody again.

On Earth, haplodiplody is the system where one sex is developed from a fertilised egg (which tends to be the females) and thus are diploid with DNA of the mother and father, while the other sex is from an unfertilised egg (males would technically be the result of asexual reproduction) and thus is only haploid with only the mother providing DNA. Talpaedans are not an Earth species, but functionally that is the basis of their sex-determination, where females would be best translated as architects and males best translated as tradies, which in of itself is rather contextually slang in English.

And even with haplodiplody, talpaedans still have a bimodal sex distribution, though tradies are neither part of the equation. Instead, fertilised eggs though typically expected to produce architects also just as often produce workers, non-reproducing talpaedan youths that are born an raised to be the most common labourers of the colony they were born under and never leave the hive, as opposed to architects who work higher profile jobs and are in line to be promoted to site queens, and tradies who pre-war were lower rung workers who took to training younglings for work as well as in general raising them. Being bimodal it's not a perfect list of traits to be considered as either an architect or a worker, though there is a bias towards architects being able to reproduce as that would be the key factor needed in promotion. Tradies that are infertile or more characteristically architects would be considered workers and are more of a consequence of asexual reproduction and the lack of genetic diversity.

Talpaedan gender has been typically correlated with sex throughout most Poiana Lüncas colonies, with the architects being the talpaedan equivalent for women and tradies as the talpaedan equivalent for men, but workers have a more diverse gender identity even in more conservative colonies, either being a third gender or having men and women and in between identities being formally acknowledged as such in worker populations. There might be a few general issues about identity especially among architects and tradies, but colonies are less focused on the individual and most of their aggression is directed to other colonies rather than it's own population.

It is this tension towards other colonies that had eventually and near inevitably sent Poiana Lüncas into many wars, though the most recent one had been the worst and the last in many years, a war that fundamentally changed how intercolonial relationships worked. A very large colony had been expanding it's borders to accrue even more resources for it's ever growing population, in turn threatening the smaller colonies on it's outer borders, elevating tensions to an all time high. The whole shtick lasted for years until a few colonies realised that alone no one could stop this large megacolony from wiping out each of them one by one, but through an alliance they could stand together and beat the ever loving crap out of the aggressor.

And how their alliance worked was through the sharing of resources and ensuring the protection of youths especially, and so began the first war-era runs of arranged 'marriages' as tradies live up to their name in a more eh... dubious sense. By sending in tradies (who's lower rung work was mining for resources and food) from colonies not on the front line, the colonies along the border had assurances that their home had well fed and well protected populations - as well as a general diverting of power - to beat back the aggressor colony and in fact not only raze it to the ground, but dug it completely out and functionally turned it into a mass grave reeking of death; No Queen's Land it would later be named, for no surviving members of the colony were left alive to name it after themselves.

With a combination of a clearly war-created desert and the whole 'ant death smell' thing that exists in ants aka the big inspiration for my talpaedan headcanons, makes No Queen's Land an omen that trade routes never cross, instead creating what would be a ring road surrounding the outer reaches of the ex-colony that would direct trade routes through the border colonies one by one. Direct trade or travel between the colonies on complete opposite sides of the pock marked, crater desert is both impossible and otherwise detested by Queens and the architects responsible for trade routes, instead being a multicolonial multigenerational process that circles the border colonies until reaching the 'opposite side of the world'.

To this day (or at least to the day that exists universally in the moment that Andreas would consider a 'this day') the trade routes affect the lives of tradies post-war. Instead of being completely locked to the hive like workers and architects, tradies at a certain age are sent to travel in as both tradesmen and concubines to whatever colony they have been raised for, a fact that had been determined early on at the development of their tools and the needs of the recipient colony. The host colony would arrange their young to be raised by tradies that once came from their own host colony, determined by their last name of [birth colony-trade colony] (as opposed to architects and workers whose last names are simply [birth colony]) in order to be raised as bilingual to understand the majority language of their trade colony and to be an example of the future youth they would need to raise speaking their birth colony's language.

Andreas was on one such trade route when Aggregor snatched the talpaedan for materials in functionally a fusion experiment, being part of a group about to be married off to a queen, an architect or as a working tradie, technically 'divorcing' the deal when Andreas was stolen away. Considering that Poiana Lüncas isn't the most peaceful environmentally, the trade routes also serve as a double use, a sharing of resources and a preventative measure for overpopulation. I mean, a colony would be pissed if absolutely none of their trade gets to them - probably spark a conflict that may get hairy - but losing numbers is an expected consequence. Andreas doesn't expect anyone to particularly care that they're missing the one or few talpaedans that disappeared in the night, especially with the generally large number a trade route sends, and Aggregor isn't going to take out a whole line of talpaedans just to get to one; a simple 'cutting off from the group' works fine enough.

And one final thing to note, now more focused on Andreas as an individual rather than talpaedans as a species. I've mentioned death smell and thought to bring it up here since, if you've seen my stuff before or straight up follow me (for my rambling or long enough to see my rambling), I love stealing @kariachi's necromancer Argit and the whole idea of him killing, healing, and reviving Andreas in the titular episode Andreas' Fault. I looked up how ant death smell works and apparently it's a constant thing that's only combated by a constant flow of life smell, so with a brief touch of death even if Andreas doesn't REEK of death, a talpaedan would probably suspect Andreas stepped into No Queen's Land and got cursed by something. But for those of y'all buried deep enough in my rambling would be confused; 'if one can smell actual literal death and associate it as actual literal death why doesn't Andreas at least even slightly suspect the idea of being briefly dead when the castle crashed?'

Well babes, you know what's an easy simple solution for this? Andreas is anosmic :D! Of course Andreas would be the last to know, Andreas' would have no frame of reference for what a 'death smell' is. Could even be how Aggregor got Andreas separated, if everyone else can smell death smell they might notice the fact that No Queen's Land reeks of the stuff. Not a great way to find out that one is anosmic admittedly, but I mean if Ra'ad is finding out that among the many neurodivergencies he does have much of his overstimulated suffering is magic and mutation that he thought every other amperi had to deal with because you find out your husband died and now has a magical mind barrier well...

Okay okay, one more final note. Given that Andreas is a tradie, Andreas's full name would be [birth colony]-Andromeda after the name Andreas actually gets married into because Earth and especially English dominated areas of Earth like last names. And I guess if Andreas gets adopted into any Earth-based packs thanks to being attached to Argit like a puppy you can shove in another last name like [birth colony]-[pack]-Andromeda.

This has been in my notes since August woops-

#talpaedan #andreas #andreas ben 10 #ben 10 #xenobiology #world building #this has been a large general and specific headcanons thing that i have been rotating in my mind for forever #even longer than when it was actually documented in at least dot point form #since i am bad at names i didn't come up with any colony names #though i could probably just look at fault lines and the people who study earthquakes maybe #eh if i come up with something i might just go around in a circle going 'who needs a last name and who can make do' for the andromeda 5 #which includes andreas but also might include galapagus because of that one elder i brought up once inspired by diego the species saviour #also i just came up with architect worker and tradies because i didn't like how females drones and males sounded #also i thought that the double entendre for 'tradies' was far too fitting for what i wanted to ignore #like they'd be the closet translation in english for poiana lüncas languages in a general sense #as in the work type influences the origin for the name of the sex which would then influence the name of any sex correlated genders #and in this case- sex AND work related terms like trade routes- lowkey the first thing that comes to mind to andreas when you say sex work

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