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bisexualamy · 3 years

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hi. hello. i've only been following you for a short while, so apologies if there's already a post about it somewhere on your blog, but would you be willing to expand on duck newton a little bit? the thing is that i'm terribly stupid and i feel like i see your point but don't know. why exactly...

Hi! There’s not one comprehensive post about it but I’m more than happy to make this one it. And don’t beat yourself up!! I think some of this does come from “I am a trans man and his experience resonates with me” and personally, I think that being an argument for identifying someone as gay/trans/queer coded is valid. But that’s not, imo, the only reason why many folks (including myself) really see Duck as a trans man. So here are a few more. Spoilers for the ending of TAZ: Amnesty ahead.

Goes by a nickname & treats revealing his “actual”/proper/non-nickname name as a sign of intimacy - I think this is the most obvious one but the way that Justin plays it gives it a genuine quality that really fits with Duck being trans. I love the exchange between Duck and Aubrey where she asks for his name, he replies “Duck” and when she presses him he says “we’re not there yet” and she says “we’re not at names?!”

Names being an intimate symbol is not exclusive to trans folks, but for many of us, choosing our names is often a literal and symbolic first step towards redefining the lens through which the world sees us. This time, in a way we want to. Duck’s earnest insistence that no, he is Duck, and that’s enough, comes off as very trans. So much so, that I wasn’t sure initially how I felt about his name reveal to Minerva in the finale. But the more I sat with it, and after my Amnesty re-listen, I think it actually puts a really fine point on this.

Choosing a name for yourself is really vulnerable. From what we know about Duck’s past, it really sounds like Duck has gone by Duck since he was a kid. Juno has known Duck since they were both teens, at least, and she’s always called him Duck, even in flashbacks. Duck remarks in another flashback that his mom doesn’t like the name Duck, yet he still insists on using that name. To me, it’s very easy to take a trans reading of Duck here. Duck has had clear discomfort with his birth name since he was a kid, whether or not he realized it was for a trans reason. He starts going by a nickname very early on, and later chooses a more traditionally male name (Wayne) as his legal name when he transitions. But in a sense, he was Duck before he was anything else. Revealing the secret name he chose for himself to Minerva, in this reading, just makes that an even more intimate moment.

Part of an alternative subculture as a kid - this is somewhat anecdotally based, but we know Duck was a skater and kind of a punk as a teenager when he was going through his own period of self-discovery. Alternative subcultures are often refuges for lgbt and gnc folks as teens, because they can be safe spaces for alternate gender expression. For me, being part of the pop punk/emo subculture as a kid gave me a lot more freedom to experiment with gender neutral and masculine gender presentation. I see Duck’s past as a skater and a punk a good parallel for this. We also know that Duck had kind of a fraught adolescence, and this was an outlet for him. I think this reading is even stronger when you consider him as a trans character, trying on the identities of different subcultures in parallel to understanding his own gender identity. His character arc redefining his identity as the chosen one is a genuinely great parallel for the trans gender euphoria, self acceptance, and taking an active role in reshaping one’s identity - this is absolutely my favorite one. Duck’s literal journey as the chosen one works really well as a metaphorical trans narrative, and I honestly think it strengthens his character arc to read him as a trans character redefining what it means to be the chosen one. Duck is caught between who he is as part of the Kepler community and who he is as the chosen one in an interstellar war. And his character arc is finding what it means to be all of these things and also Duck. From a young age, Duck is told he’s the chosen one, and his whole life is redefined in front of him. He’s very resistant to accepting this fact. What will this mean for his family? What will this mean for him and his future? What if he doesn’t want this? Why him? Who picked him? What if I don’t want all this baggage? Can I please give this to someone else? His first scene with Minerva is very reminiscent of the first moment of “wait, am I trans? What does that mean? Who am I, actually? I don’t want this.” Many trans folks, myself included, sort of know they’re trans before they know they’re trans. In our transphobic society, it’s a lot easier to just not be trans. It sort of sits there in the back of your mind, and sometimes you can ignore it, sometimes you even forget about it, but it inevitably always comes back. Because to ignore you’re trans is to ignore the truth of your life. The same thing happens to Duck and his identity as the chosen one. Minerva literally reappears to him throughout his life to remind him that he can’t run from his destiny, as much as he tries to shut her out. Duck even goes through periods of accepting “hey, maybe this chosen one thing isn’t so bad” only for something to go a bit wrong and him to completely reject it again. Minerva gives Duck Beacon, and for a moment he’s like “hey, this is kind of cool” before his destiny scares him and he falls back into what the hell am I doing and eventually gives Beacon to Ned. He shuts away a symbol of the identity he’s running from, much like a trans person might hide objects or experiences that give them gender euphoria, because to accept them is to start to accept the truth of who you are. I also like this reading because it makes Leo Tarkesian a great parallel for older trans mentors. Leo lived the life of the chosen before Duck. He’s gone through this all before and now his role is to keep Duck safe and make sure he safely comes into his own identity as the chosen one. The found family? The generational mentorship? The fact that Leo and Duck talk about the emotional weight of being chosen in a way Duck can’t really express with others? Even Minerva? Very trans. When Duck stops running from who he is he realizes he might actually like being the chosen one. When he loses his abilities, he realizes he misses them. But the solution isn’t to just become what Minerva tells him. The solution isn’t to just abandon all of his principles and values, abandon everything that makes Duck Duck and transform into the model of a chosen one. Duck won’t kill anybody. Duck chooses to make decisions with arguably worse outcomes for himself to avoid killing anybody (like saving Billy the Goatman). Duck gets to define what it means to be Duck The Chosen. He won’t settle for anything less. This, to me, is a really awesome parallel for not just accepting one’s gender but accepting oneself and your experiences of gender, and making it your own until it feels euphoric. Two other quick things that are more my opinion than textual analysis:

Duck’s brand of a softer masculinity made me feel euphoric as a trans man and it’s a kind of masculinity I see a lot of trans men aspire to have. Yes, not all trans men are masculine in this way. However, I think the gentle streak in his masculinity codes him as this type of trans man. This great thread goes into more depth on that.

Duck is characterized quite strongly as a staple of the Kepler community. He knows everybody and they all know him and they all call him Duck. It’s just, “that’s our Duck.” That’s a wonderful thing for me as a trans person, to see a community come together around accepting a trans person they’ve known all his life, and certainly known since before his transition. That just makes me happy. 

This was long but I hope it helped better understand why Duck is so important to me as a trans character! Thank you for the ask. I had a lot of fun writing this up.

#taz #taz amnesty #taz meta #taz amnesty meta #duck newton #hailing frequencies open #okay to reblog #long post ///#my meta #Anonymous

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ladyfl4me · 4 years

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Hi! I've caught the trending page of Tumblr and heard that there's now an ace character, and I want to start listening to the podcast! I don't really know much about how d&d works, but is there a certain podcast that starts the campaign with the ace character? If so, do you know what podcast that starts in? Sorry if that sounds weird, but everyone's been talking about how accurate the ace rep. it is and I want to check it out! :)

Yeah, no problem! Sorry that this got a little long. Any of the thoughts I have on this are mine and mine alone, and are not blanket statements about the character’s asexuality; other people have different readings and rationales of what’s happened so far, and that is okay!

So I’m assuming the character you’ve heard about is Fitzroy Maplecourt. He is one of the player characters of The Adventure Zone: Graduation, the most recent season of the podcast The Adventure Zone. Griffin McElroy, the guy who plays Fitzroy, said in this recent behind-the-scenes special episode (TTAZZ 2020) that he always intended to play Fitzroy as an asexual character. I got so hype while listening that I wrote a transcript of his answer, which you can find here. It can be crosschecked against the official transcript, which will eventually be uploaded here. Very minor spoilers for one element of Fitzroy’s background, but nothing too revealing.

Basically, Griffin put a hell of a lot of care and attention into his answer, which is really unexpected for a cishet white dude. He’s done his research. He acknowledged asexuality as a spectrum and as something that’s different from aromanticism. He also explained wanting to avoid aphobic stereotypes while making Fitzroy, such as the “too busy with the Real World to think about sex” stereotype or the “being asexual means there MUST be something wrong with you” stereotype (not direct quotes, that’s me paraphrasing). That’s mostly what people are excited about, and for good reason, because that’s a lot more compassion and nuance than we usually get in media.

However, to answer your question about accurate representation, the word “asexual” or a scene in the text confirming Fitzroy as asexual has not happened yet. I think Griffin plays him as an asexual character who’s just minding his own business, though, which I personally think it’s great. Like. That’s me. I’m minding my own business, living my ace life. It’s not something that’s right on one’s sleeve at all times. Starting off knowing that Fitzroy is ace, though, is a great context to have if you’re starting from TAZ Grad episode 1. Fitzroy being ace from the get-go makes a lot of the ace-projecting readings I had of lines - like a line somewhere about “missing the vibe between us” - feel like a more canonical acknowledgement.

If you’re the kind of person who would prefer a textual acknowledgement of asexuality you can point a finger at, though - like, a “ctrl-f” search for "asexual” in the transcript sort of thing - there aren’t many options. There is subtext, like I said, but nothing direct beyond the offscreen TTAZZ. Fitzroy’s type of asexuality is a little fuzzier, too, and hasn’t been confirmed. As you can see in the transcript, Griffin obviously wrote and played him as asexual, and Travis secondhand-quoted Griffin saying, “Y’know, I don’t think… I don’t think Fitzroy really feels that,” during planning for a recent character-driven episode. This quote could go a couple ways:

Option one: this could be just a blanket acknowledgement of Fitzroy being asexual, with the “that” being sexual attraction. Not feeling sexual attraction is the textbook definition of being ace. This leaves him open to be anywhere on the ace spectrum, from sex-repulsed to sex-indifferent to sex-favorable.

Option two: “that” could be read as the desire to have sex, which is completely different and points at a more sex-repulsed asexual reading. A lot of people have taken that, too, claiming he’s “not interested” in sex or stuff along those lines. A valid but by no means exclusive reading, re option one and the actual words that Griffin said in reference to Fitzroy.

Until we get more details, maybe in a canon text portrayal, I think it’s kind of up in the air. TAZ tends to be good about getting in-text confirmation, though; in another TTAZZ commentary episode for TAZ Amnesty, the player character Aubrey Little was confirmed as bisexual and Puerto Rican, and we got a scene in the actual podcast that confirmed her as bisexual. (She literally said “I’m bisexual” to another character. In one of the funniest exchanges in that entire arc of Amnesty. They can do it. Still waiting on the Puerto Rican part, though.) So we may get an actual scene in the future where Fitzroy’s asexuality is stated.

That being said, I know that sexuality and personal preferences are not things that all people discuss openly, so including that scene may not be possible or natural - especially with Fitzroy’s motives/expression/characterization, which you’ll find about if you listen. Writing a realistic scene that gives explicit confirmation is tough, especially in an improv environment like D&D. I personally really, really hope that they give it a shot, though. The McElroys have made characters explicitly gay, bisexual, trans and nonbinary in past seasons of TAZ, and Travis has a whole armada of LGBTQ+ characters in the TAZ Grad universe. It’s possible. They can do it. Griffin’s dialogue/other roleplaying choices, though, do portray him in an asexual-coded way, and that may be all we get.

All I can really say is that things are looking up for ace representation, and the way that Griffin McElroy is coming at this character is really heartwarming to see. If you decide to listen to TAZ: Graduation, I really hope you enjoy it, and maybe consider listening to the other two seasons too! I wouldn’t be too worried about d&d going into this - the most basic explanation is, you got dice with numbers on them, sometimes players roll them, and a high roll means something good will usually happen to their character while a low one means something bad will happen. TAZ can be found on any podcast-streaming website like Spotify, Stitcher or Apple Podcasts, as well as on YouTube and the Maximum Fun Network website.

#asks #anon #long post #taz graduation #fitzroy maplecourt

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