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brown-little-robin · 2 years

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Okay I have not been able to get over @lurking-latinist and @lovesodeepandwideandwell calling me the “little guy mutual”, so here’s some... *drum roll*... gender thoughts!

I was in a really conservative church growing up. And by really conservative, I mean really patriarchal. Women, according to the church, can only be fulfilled by being super feminine and submissive and raising a family with as many children as possible. That was literally what was preached. And as a girl who didn’t want a family, I felt like something was deeply wrong with either me or the church or probably both.

I wanted to be feminine, but not in the way the church defined femininity. Not if it meant giving up what I really was passionate about and good at and just having babies forever. I don’t want babies. I don’t think that’s wrong of me.

Simultaneously, I was really into stories. And what characters did I identify with? Not the girls. Never the girls. It was always the young boys. The dark boys. The young teenagers. The lithe, almost feminine creatures. Robin Hood, the fox from the animated Disney film. Sasuke from Naruto. (full disclosure, okay?? shut up.) Frodo Baggins. Sam Gamgee. Nightcrawler of the X-Men. Ariel from the Tempest. Tim Drake from Batman comics/fanon. Bart Allen. Thad Thawne.

It’s this kind of lithe boy that I almost always dream I am, too. I’m rarely myself in my dreams. Usually I’m a teen-boy-deuteragonist type.

Consuming media was my outlet for things that the church didn’t think were feminine. Like not wanting a husband. Not liking babies and small children. (I don’t dislike them, to be clear.) Like being mentally ill. Like wanting to be a scholar, a writer, and an artist full-time. Like wanting to have a supporting role in life—like those boy characters did in their stories—but NOT one that required me to mother a family. Things that are important parts of me, but which I could not express out loud in that place. Not as a girl. Not as a woman.

I was lucky that my family didn’t hold with the strict gender roles and storytelling rules that the church I grew up in held. I had a family who encouraged me to explore things that were not typically feminine. But I still needed that outlet of identifying with boy characters! I needed it to survive in that church, as a placeholder for my own passionate desires. I wanted the role they had, not their gender/body. But if I hadn’t been given the freedom to recognize that I could want that role and identify with those characters while still being a God-honoring woman, I might have decided I was actually a boy. Or that something was deeply, fundamentally wrong with me. One of the two.

I used to love “little guys” in a desperate way. Now I love them in a freer way. I don’t know if I’d be able to identify with a female character in a similar role, but I’m happy with being one.

Anyway. Little guy mutual. Yes.

#EDIT: I FORGOT MY BOYS FRODO AND SAM!!#Oh man. Identify with them so hard.#long post #hm. to clarify: I am a woman.#I do not think that gender roles are a good idea apart from what is VERY SPECIFICALLY STATED in the Bible #and even that has to be very carefully examined with the context of the cultures the books' authors and God were writing to.#drum roll... GENDER THOUGHTS

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swinging-stars-from-satellites · 3 years

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past 20 (or however many you have) titles meme, tagged by the wonderful Aurelia @lurking-latinist! most of these are from published fics, but "frozen" and "good mistakes" are working titles for a couple of WIPs I've got going (and, in typical fashion, may or may not ever finish 😂)

• frozen

• good mistakes

• Redux

• Tumblr Minifics

• Falling Together

• space between heartbeats

• give up forever to touch you

• for the bad decisions that we made

• tell me more than just the scars I've known

• when all I own is just dust and gold

• Which Has Suddenly Been Laid Bare

• for fear of moments stolen

• Home Is Weird

• in that sleep of death what dreams may come

• Hello Cold World

• Somehow More Than Alright

• somewhere too far for us to find

• In the Drift

• In Books Written By Rabbits

• what must we do to restore

1. How many are you happy with?

technically I'm happy with all of them, bc if I wasn't then I probably would have picked something else, but... I'm not a huge fan of a couple, so I would say that I'm *actually* happy with 18.

2. How many are... not great?

just two: "Home Is Weird" and "Somehow More Than Alright" aren't my favorites

3. How many did you scramble for at the last minute?

I normally title things as I'm filling out the posting form, so.... I think 16.

4. How many did you know before you started writing/creating, or near the beginning?

Four: "frozen" and "good mistakes," which are titles I've tentatively picked out for WIPs, along with "for the bad decisions that we made" and "In Books Written By Rabbits". I think I probably had a few others bouncing around in my head pretty early on, but I'm not sure tbh.

5. How many are quotes from songs or poems?

Eight of them; most of my titles are song lyrics tbh. (surprisingly, only two on that list are from Paramore songs 🤣)

6. How many are other quotes?

Five!! "Which Has Suddenly Been Laid Bare" is part of a line from Les Miserables, "in that sleep of death what dreams may come" is of course from Hamlet's soliloquy, "In the Drift" is from Pacific Rim, and "In Books Written By Rabbits" is from The Last Unicorn, which is actually worked into the fic itself. "good mistakes" is from a poem by Natalie Wee.

7. Which best reflects the plot of the story/content of the fanwork?

for obvious reasons, I'm not counting "Tumblr Minifics" in this one 😂 i would say that probably "give up forever to touch you" and "Home Is Weird" probably fit their respective fic content best, though if you know the context/full quote of "In Books Written By Rabbits," it actually says a LOT about the fic itself.

8. Which best reflects the theme of the story/fanwork?

IBWBR because the TLU quote ties directly into the fic and sets the stage for it, or "Redux," which was yoinked directly from The X-Files for... multiple reasons, mainly my own feels tbh, but also the word's definition does match the fic very well and also the connection to TXF fits pretty well within the context of both that episode and my fic. it's sorta convoluted tbh but I'm pretty proud of that 😅

9. Which best reflects the character voice of the story/POV of the fanwork?

"in that sleep of death what dreams may come". it's a Brax-POV introspective fic so like... duh, Shakespeare. plus, the angst of it all 😌

10. Which is your favorite?

you get one guess 👀

no but seriously you could probably guess by now that my favorite, my precious baby, is "In Books Written By Rabbits". it's just... very personal actually bc TLU is one of those very formative things for me and I'm super super sentimental, and I waited literally A YEAR to use that as a title for a fic.

the line always struck me as very Leela, "you and your heart and the things you said and didn't say, she will remember them all when men are fairytales in books written by rabbits," and I always wanted to write something about her based on that line/with it for a title and so when I finally did i just poured all that into it and i mean... I may not be the most objective on this bc it *is* my own fic after all, but I'm just super happy I got to use a quote so near and dear to my heart in what I would like to think is a pretty deep way?

I also really love "tell me more than just the scars I've known" tho bc it's my first Sylki fic and the title is from the first song I associated with that ship, plus it plays with the content of the fic itself so I think that's all-around a pretty great title.

tagging @theladyjojogrant, @magicofthepen, @thelightofthingshopedfor, and @ladyverachtung but obviously no pressure if you don't want to!

#kinda feel like i should add links but that would be a L O T of links lol #this is too fun dhdjfhsksj #thank u aurelia for resurrecting it #Lu rambles #tag games #fanfiction #on writing #Lu writes #not tagging fandoms shdjfhsj

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