002 // audio // how can you even tell she's affected

[nicebluehat]

This was a surprise to realize at first, but I feel like I'm the most able to be myself here than any other place I've lived, even if I already miss manners I understand and am still baffled by a large majority of what happens here. I've only had one person ask my gender so far, or treat me as if it even mattered, and I haven't seen him around in

Comments

fklgjshdflk ilu

[nicebluehat]

I'm actually female. Pretending otherwise for eight years and having your entire future dependent on your success, though... it's shaped how I present myself even now that it doesn't matter anymore.

My friends tell me that's all right, but I still wonder whether it's lying by omission.

[nicebluehat]

I thought it was worth it at the time, I can't imagine why. I think it's because I was a child and thought it would be the only way I could live up to what I thought my family wanted.

[strangehstorian]

Who is Izanagi?

Also: What gender do you prefer to be addressed as?

[nicebluehat]

The father of several major gods in my religion. [She attaches a small file, mostly excerpted from Japanese Wikipedia.] I didn't believe in gods as anything other than old stories until I met people who called on their powers, and it's certainly shaken up how I viewed the universe.

I know a young man who Izanagi was working through until recently. There's something in his personality and motivations that reminds me of how the Admiral presents himself to us. But I may just be projecting that onto him because the help he offered me is similar to what this ship offers to inmates.

Also, female. It's started to bother me more than it ought that people don't recognize it.

[strangehstorian]

I'm sorry! Since arriving here I have learned that even races that are unable to change forms occasionally prefer to be viewed as the opposite gender, which I find intriguing. But if this doesn't apply to you, then I am sympathetic but not that much.

He seems to roughly correspond to Azeroth's Aman'thul, but no one has heard from him in hundreds of years. Can I ask more about this, or would you prefer not to talk about it?

[nicebluehat]

It doesn't apply. It had applied, in the past, but no longer.

Ask me anything you like; I might not know the answer but I normally tell as much as I'm able and attempt to look well-informed about it. If you'll tell me about your Aman'thul I should be able to help.

[dont_tell_sansa]

What's Iznagi? And will'o'wisps?

Does it really matter if you're a girl or a boy? I was a boy once. It wasn't that bad.

[nicebluehat]

He's the father of several gods, and I knew a young man who Izanagi worked through.

And do you remember the video I showed you? In the last port, I found some small creatures that looked like that and tried to bring them back onto the ship as pets. They disappeared.

It matters back home. People listened to me when I was a boy, but I didn't like lying about it, since my profession relied on a reputation for integrity.

[dont_tell_sansa]

People left me alone when I was a boy. Once I beat Lommy, anyway, then they left me alone. And maybe because of Gendry, too, but he's stupid and Lommy's dead. [mmm, word vomit.]

Your friend spoke to a god?

[nicebluehat]

[awww yiss word vomit] ...did you kill Lommy? I'm curious more than anything; I understand that sometimes people have good reasons to fight or kill others, so I'm not going to assume you're a murderer yet. Another friend and I almost killed a man until another one who had been hurt by him even more talked us out of it, so I don't have any right, even though I act like I do.

That friend who could summon all of the creatures? As far as I understand it, Izanagi was the one working through him the whole time, giving him that power.

[giftedtwin]

[He's had a look through her replies.]

My sister passed herself off as a boy for eight years as well. I never asked her what it was like, but she seemed happy enough. I'd ask if you were happy but I'm not sure if I care that much. There's just not a lot to do on this ship but talk.

[nicebluehat]

There isn't much to do around here, and I'm tempted to leave if I don't receive an inmate the next time they're assigned.

[sup Alanna] Was it out of preference, or did she have a greater purpose?

[giftedtwin]

A greater purpose, I suppose, though I think stubbornness might be a more accurate way to describe it. I wanted to be a mage but I was being sent to become a knight, whereas she wanted to become a knight but she was to be made into a lady, plus they only train boys to be knights. We're almost identical, so we swapped places. It was her idea.

Why did you do it?

[nicebluehat]

That's certainly a clever way to go about it. You weren't discovered? I find that surprising, if the people who received you expected a young girl.

My grandfather and I were the only ones left in my family line. I wanted to carry on his business - I don't know if you'd understand what a detective is since you come from a world where knights and wizards are, but we gather information to solve crimes when others are unreliable - but no one would have taken a girl seriously, or they would have expected me to be a very different person from who I was. It was easier in that line to be a boy, I thought. I feel strange that I'm still trading on the reputation I built up as one.

[notrueking]

Generally, it's much more pleasant to be yourself than to be yourself than to try and pretend to be someone else. If you do it for too long, you end up doing it out of habit.

[nicebluehat]

You sound as if you speak from personal experience, and what you're saying is completely the truth, at least as I've lived it.

[notrueking]

Oh, I do. Granted, we seem to have rather different reasons for why we have personal experience, but that's not really very important.

[nicebluehat]

I know asking for the details would be inexpressibly rude, so I won't, but have you found yourself able to be who you feel you are? There are certainly fewer social taboos here than, well... almost anywhere I've heard of. I suppose prison breaks down into its own society.