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tiptapricot · 1 year

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I was going to ask abt transfem marc too but they beat me to it lol

You said you had headcanons about the system and their relationship to gender? I'm listening,,,,,,,,,

YUSS!! I’ve talked ab stuff off and on in various other posts, like the ones I’ve done on clothing, Jake’s sense of self/home, and some of these, but I’d love to do a lil dedicated hc post just on my gender vibes for em :-)

Since I’ve just done the one on Marc I’ll do only Steven and Jake in this one, though Marc’s gender stuff can vary, again, based on the headcanons I work with (like sometimes he’s a cis man sometimes he’s a trans man sometimes he’s ?? sometimes he’s transfem, etc).

Some of this esp Jake’s stuff will get into heavy hc territory but I hope I can give my vibes for my thoughts in a cohesive way anyway. This will also ofc be an examination of their genders through the lense of western/American systems of gendering, as well as through English language understandings and descriptions of those experiences. There is so much that can also be filled out culturally and through the lens of different languages when it comes to concepts and connection to gender and the self. So while this is limited to a certain scope, I hope it can still spark some thoughts and ppl are welcome to add on their own ideas as well :-)

Let’s go!

Steven’s vibes to me are generally autigender man/cis+. He would use the label of man, he doesn’t necessarily feel outside of the binary or like he connects strongly with anything outside of being a man, but it’s different for him conceptually and in experience than it is for neurotypical cis men.

He doesn’t really think very strongly about the role he’s meant to play, the stereotypes he’s meant to fit. Gender isn’t really a concept on his mind as far as something to worry about or adhere to or live up to. He’s just… vibing. He’s soft spoken and friendly and snappy and awkward. His experience with others is more shaped by how they accept him for his behaviors than how they perceive him for his performance of masculinity. Because he doesn’t try very hard.

He likes loose clothing for sensory reasons, big sweaters, comfortable pants and shoes, things with patterns that make him happy and relate to his interests. And that includes skirts sometimes, maybe occasionally dresses if they’re long sleeved. He doesn’t think “I’m a bloke I can’t wear a skirt” he just does. He talks to people and connects with them, he’s earnest and kind, he cries and loves his fish. He doesn’t have this same weight that can come with trying to fit within the bounds of gendered expectations.

I feel in some ways if he had to try and conceptualize his own gender it would be strange, a role that’s not exactly been strongly felt or enforced (he wasn’t a part of a lot of the hypermasculine parts of their life, doesn’t have the same input Marc or even Jake do), but he also feels comfortable in being a man, in that being his label and the space he occupies.

He likes suits, he likes being called someone’s boyfriend or husband, he likes being called Mr. Grant, he likes the memories of receiving his tallit on his bar mitzvah, and still leads blessings over wine and challah on Shabbat, but none of it feels like an obligation. He also thinks makeup can be really fun and expressive, he likes wearing earrings or bracelets if they add a pop to his outfit, and he lights the candles on Shabbat without feeling out of place (until he encourages Marc to start doing it, to heal through that reclamation of the motherly role [idea courtesy of @fdelopera ]). He’s just comfortable where he is, not feeling the need to do too much and not feeling a need to change.

His brain experience plays into that conceptualization of gender and self, something that can’t be separated when describing it and in some ways can’t be described. Gender is experienced differently when you do not meet the same social expectations/understand the same social cues for it to be taught to you, when the rules themselves don’t make sense, when you have a blended experience of life.

So Steven is Steven, and that’s all he needs to know, and all he needs to be :-)

Jake is more complicated. Again I’ve talked about it before, I think perhaps even in its own post, but I forget the things I’ve ranted about on discord or in various ppls dms versus actual posts. Most of the text I’ll give here is from a wonderful conversation with spicyboelives over on Instagram, as that’s one of the best times I’ve been able to express my thoughts on this, but the ideas themselves have grown from multiple conversations with multiple people.

Essentially though, Jake’s having a ball.

Gender is one of his ways to reclaim and take hold of his sense of self, of his personhood, and as such it is multifaceted and strange. It has pieces to it, distinct ways of experience. To delve into his gender I have to delve first into my thoughts on his existence, and how he feels about that existence, because they’re deeply related and hard to talk about separately.

Jake Lockley protects. In my headcanon of his role and actions he’s a gatekeeper, a physical protector, and an extractor. He handles things Marc can’t, and his goal is to get them away from the threat or neutralize the threat so they’re safe, whether that be a direct attack, or self harming tendencies Marc may be enacting.

When he’s not out—for fast moments, for adrenaline filled snapshots of an outer world—he keeps them steady on the inside, makes sure whoever’s in the front seat is who needs to be and that no memories are trying to backseat drive them into a car crash. With such limited time out, and such a specific purpose, I think personhood as a concept would be complicated. He doesn’t get to experience things the same way Steven and Marc do, and he’s got a lot of responsibility and awareness from the start on what to do and how to do it.

He’s their transport, their traffic coordinator. He’s not fully a person, and he doesn’t get a chance to Be someone for a long time. So he builds it on his own, finds what he likes, the things he can take and repurpose into his own meaning and use, make them his so he has something to keep and someone to be. He defines his own edges, his own boundaries. Jakob wrestled with G-d and Jake takes that for himself. He is the lock and key for memories and he takes that. He forms himself into a man, into an experience, into a tool and a vehicle and a weapon. He is himself, and he is nothing. He is a man, and he is no one.

Jumping forward, for a moment, there was a joke in fandom early on about Jake using she/her pronouns. This came from that scene at the end of episode two where Khonshu threatens Marc with making Layla his next avatar, but he says “you may not like my next candidate, near and dear as she is to you.”

And as Khonshu ended up always wanting Jake, some people were like “omg she/her Jake real.” And then as me and other people are wont to do, we took that seriously. I’ve seen a lot of transbian Jake headcanons and similar stuff, and I realized I really liked some kind of gnc aspect for him. It tracks. Gender is a part of identity and self definition, and queerness is contradictory and strange and powerful. So then I headcanon Jake with the following:

—he/him for the man, the boy, the cabbie, the smile

—it/its for the tool, the entity, the weapon, the space he displaces, the cracks in between

—she/her like how you reference a car or a boat, taking power from things he loves and the weight of painted nails pushing a flat cap up, or lipstick under a mustache; gender nonconformity is confusing and not stuck to the binary idea of people and men, and he is not wholly a person, not wholly a man

He is Jake, and his boundaries can’t be defined by anyone else but himself because they are his to control and his to grip with moon-shielded knuckles, to pull back beneath the suit and tie into the practiced Someone he’s chosen to be.

In line with this, through a semi-recent conversation, I realized something else for him. Cars get people from place to place, they’re an escape, the rumbling engine and headlights showing the way, and for the system Jake is their transport. He gets them out, gets them away, pushes them off-road when they have to dodge an obstacle.

And I think there’s something there that really connects, that feels right. Humans anthropomorphize vehicles of all types, see them as a friend and a companion, and isn’t that what he is? I feel like Jake really connects with cars on an identity level, just with what feels right, with what he does, with how he experiences the world and the ways his brain connects with things and people and himself.

So like… in more modern terms, I feel like he might be partly cargender/otherkin for cars as well. He’s not a fully human headmate, and vehicles are something he aligns with, connects to, and loves on a self level. Maybe he’d even be a car in headspace sometimes, stuff like that can happen, and I think it’s an interesting layer to explore for him and his actions and who he is (and can even add an interpretation to the Shiva memory scene of the cab in the background being Jake, being him watching over Marc at the time, hovering in the periphery).

With all of it, with all of him, it is complicated. But she knows, she gets himself. Jake doesn’t need others to understand it, to know why it is the way she is. He just is.

Just Jake.

#and there we have it…#I love these guys sm n I love the crossover of gender and life experience and personhood and lack of and wOOOO #moon knight #steven grant #jake lockley #mikes mk meta #moon knight gender #<I’m gonna wanna find this post again ik it #the fruit is talking again #the fruit is headcanoning again #the fruit is answering again

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