#I haven't actually been looking in the evillious tags but I have a friend who has who's been talking about it with me

[cardentist]

apparently there's discourse (not in the bad way, just the discussion way) surrounding lich and trans headcanons because of how he talks about michaela in the books

so here's my opinion as a trans person (other trans people are allowed to have different opinions but this one is mine):

I believe that mothy himself is well meaning about his trans and gay representation, but is unfamiliar with what We'd consider problematic. I'm not familiar enough with either mothy or the general culture of japan to say if this is the result of mothy himself being out of touch, or japanese queer culture just being different from the US's. but either way this is my read on the situation.

and so I engage with evillious with that in mind. it's a series that means well but has problematic elements. and that doesn't have to be a Bad thing, it's just something that needs some awareness while taking it in.

so when mothy writes lich openly acknowledging and accepting that michaela is his sister but then Also has him refer to her with her dead name I don't see that as mothy intentionally portraying lich as transphobic or unaccepting of her. it is, after all, how mothy chose to reveal that she was a trans woman in the first place (introducing us to "lich's brother michael" and having it revealed that she was michaela all along, and having lich acknowledge her as his sister now).

and I think there are two ways to go about this with this understanding.

we could simply gloss over the issue, because at the end of the day we're not going to be able to sit mothy down and explain why it can be hurtful to trans people. we don't have that direct communication with him. and it's not being written with the intent of being read as malicious on lich's part, so it's simply easier to smooth it over.

Or we could translate mothy being well intentioned but misinformed onto lich as a character trait. this works best within the context of him having to learn what he's doing wrong and grow, but obviously it's up to personal interpretation.

as for trans headcanons, there's nothing wrong with that in the first place. trans people are misinformed sometimes, nobody comes out of the womb socially conscious and fully aware of modern sensibilities.

having lich realize that they aren't a man could be tied into lich gaining a better understanding of transness. having lich be transmasc already and just not knowing any better because He doesn't mind these things and hasn't stopped to think that other people may feel differently. having lich be whatever flavor of trans you want in whatever way you want just because it's fun and you'd like to. it's all fine and doesn't hurt anybody

I would Also like to point out that levia has been making fun of behemo for wearing dresses and make up since she was introduced as a character, and people tend not to call her transphobic or highlight this as transphobia.

yes, there is more ambiguity in behemo's case as mothy has never stated outright what behemo's identity is, but calling someone you interpret as a man disgusting or weird for wearing dresses Is Transphobia (and was specifically highlighted As transphobia/bigotry that behemo has faced during barisol's child) regardless of what that person's gender actually is.

I personally like levia a lot, just like I like lich and behemo and michaela, and Personally I think they're all trans Because I like them. and I'm not saying that we should Start defining levia's character by this trait.

but I Am saying that it's an obvious double standard to hold lich as a character accountable while Not doing the same for levia when arguably levia is intentionally written as being harmful while lich isn't.

anyways, I think it's funny if levia realizes he's a trans man that still likes to wear dresses and make up, and I think lich is seth's boyfriend and banica's girlfriend and eater's -̴̱͔̫̭̎̆͆-̴̠͚͘͜-̶̺̰̙̦͗-̸̡̻̽̅-̴̢̹̰̠͐͑̃̈̑friend, and equally trans no matter what

(also potential lich and carlos dynamic intrigues me but I think it's much funnier if they aren't dating each other. banica's husband and banica's girlfriend silently and awkwardly eating brunch together because they figure they're supposed to hang out but between the two of them there isn't one drop of social intelligence)

(they do this every day, it never gets any better)

#evillious chronicles #evillious #ec #lich arklow #levia barisol #discourse #not really but you know #I haven't actually been looking in the evillious tags but I have a friend who has who's been talking about it with me #so this isn't vagueing anyone in particular and you're allowed to feel differently about it #I've been thinking about the way that I feel about it and why lich's writing doesn't bother me #despite the way that it could in a different context

[brigittttoo]

Fic Writer 20 Questions

Thanks for the tag @merlyn-bane !!

1.) How many works do you have on ao3?

60! wow

2.) What's your ao3 word count?

417,555!!

3.) What fandoms do you write for?

Lately it's been Star Wars (Codywan), but I started out writing for Captive Prince, and have one very cracky fic for the chickens from Venom lmao

4.) What are your top five fics by kudos?

All five are Codywan! (with my first captive prince fic sliding barely into 6th place) they are:

Slow Waters; Inexpressibly to Untangle; Wolfssegen; Two Winters; and Leaning Closer to Never

5.) Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do! if not immediately, then eventually. I always like receiving responses when I comment on other people's fic, even if it's just a short 'thanks for reading!' so I try to give the same in return.

6.) What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Smiling evilly over here because it's definitely What Year Was Our House Built? although a there's a close second and third in Kiss Goodbye and Gone and Returned. Oh wait also Akin, Removed. It's still true that the majority of my writing tends to be hopeful, though.

7.) What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Slow Waters is a classic action movie happy ending, as a pacific rim au, and The World Offers Itself is a classic fantasy story happy ending, but I quite treasure the happy ending I gave codywan in Friday: Historical for @order63 because I will always cheer for edwardian wlw who say "sod the basilica".

8.) Do you get hate on fics?

Nope! I figure the premises I write are sufficiently niche that you have to actually want to read it to click on it in the first place. Everyone is very lovely in my comment section :)

9.) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I do! The gay kind! and the loving kind, the angsty kind, the kind with layers, the kind that's just hot, etc etc

10.) Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I don't terribly prefer crossovers; I'll just set it in an AU of a different IP rather than mixing characters.

11.) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I know!

12.) Have you ever had a fic translated?

I haven't! But I've thought about practicing my language skills in translating them myself before (not that a lot of people really need a Norwegian translation of something lmao)

13.) Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Nothing published! but I've gone through many a planning stage and/or shared gdoc with friends before.

14.) What's your all time favorite ship?

I really can't choose! As long as it's well written I enjoy my ships pretty equally!

15.) What's a WIP you'd like to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Looking out the corner of my eye at The Skies Above Us which was. Well let's just say I learned my lesson to always write a fic to completion before starting to post it. RIP you really obscure codywan Wings of Desire AU, we barely knew you.

16.) What are your writing strengths?

I love describing general atmosphere and nature scenes, and I'm pretty good at doing an obscene amount of research and then letting most of it go in favour of writing what matters. I think I'm pretty good at picturing something in my own head and being able to transcribe it into prose.

17.) What are your writing weaknesses?

Aside from the aforementioned necessity of writing something fully before posting, and also planning/outlining a story beginning-to-end before writing it, I'm not so strong in writing dialogue. But practice makes perfect!

18.) Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I quite like it, but only for snippets of text that don't really matter in the overall scheme of things. I've provided some of my own small French and Norwegian translations in the captive prince fics Portrait of Monsieur X (some silly poetry) and Hver blomst en stjerne (some fictional gods) and some other capri fics (what if there was an in-universe Basque) because I really enjoyed giving the nations in Captive Prince those real-life parallels (e.g. Ios = Greece, Vere = France) and playing around with the languages; it's kind of an integral part of the source material. I stay away from fictional languages though, because it's not something someone can easily just googletranslate, and I'd prefer to read " 'Something in English,' Character said in XYZ language." rather than waiting for a translation and wondering why extraneous information and words had to waste my time.

19.) First fandom you wrote for?

Captive Prince! Pretty recent, all things considered. Everything I wrote before that was original stuff.

20.) Favorite fic you've ever written?

I'd have to go with Wolfssegen for codywan and Ideal Bounds for captive prince. I'm really proud of the stories I was able to tell with those two, and how neatly they both came together in terms of themes and actions :))

#my fic #tag game #thanks all!