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pocketsizedquasar · 8 months

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thoughts about jon, gender, n hair

aka i've literally wanted to write a fic centered around this concept for like over two years but. well. anyway. i still might write the fic at some point but lord knows when that'll happen so in the meantime here are my jon jarchivist headcanons centered around hair and gender, ft. my personal flavor of jon: persian, w/ a white grandmother, n amab nonbinary transneutral/transfemme

⁃ jon's hair was always kept short as a kid. short hair was for boys, his grandmother had said, and besides, she didn't have the desire nor energy to learn how to care for his thick persian curls; the shorter they were, the less tangled and unruly, the better.

⁃ jon explored some more fem/gnc presentation in college, some of which included growing out his hair. he attributed it back then more to just the fact that he was exploring his queerness (in a bi and ace sense) in general & that he spent a lot of time around georgie (also transfemme), and didn't really think about the actual gender accompanying it -- he wasn't actively thinking much about his own gender. questioning and coming to terms with his sexuality was already a lot.

⁃ but he liked the way his hair looked and felt long. he liked the quiet rebellion of it. he liked the way georgie ran her fingers through it. he liked how many different ways it could be worn long -- in ponytails and buns and braids and just loose down his back. he doesn't remember much of his mom, but he's seen in pictures her long, dark, curly hair, just like his now, and he likes the reminder.

⁃ he keeps it long after college, though upon getting hired as a researcher at the magnus institute, he has a bit of a crisis over whether or not to cut it, re: standards of white cishetero "professionalism" and decorum and masculinity, all of which he's doing his best to perform. maybe even early on in his research days he cuts it a bit and decides it makes him feel so bad (for some inexplicable reason) that he decides to just leave it long, though tidy and brushed and straightened and pulled high up into a tight bun so it looks neat and out of the way and functionally short anyway.

⁃ similar thing happens when he gets promoted to archivist. i personally like him deciding not to cut it here because i like him being allowed to keep one (1) thing, though i def understand other hc's where he does cut it short for S1 / being the archivist. he's still very much keeping it pulled up in a tight bun and out of the way, and removes anything else remotely feminine about his appearance -- earrings, more fem clothing, nailpolish, etc.

⁃ i read mossy's @coulson-is-an-avenger "shopping for gender in a british wal-mart" fic like 2.5 years ago and i still love it so much and it's still canon to me basically re: he tries a skirt Once to work at the sort of peak sweet point where he's settled in enough to feel comfortable trying to wear a skirt but not yet paranoid enough about Prentiss. sasha talks w him about gender and femininity and stuff, though he's not quite ready to confront it yet.

⁃ then prentiss/season 2 hits and he regresses again hard into self-defense mode; the performative masculinity goes Harder. his hair is still long but it's messy; thick curls and flyaway strands frizzing about his sleep deprived and paranoid face.

⁃ by the time s3 rolls around, everything else in his life has gone to shit, so mostly he's just like "fuck it" re: his presentation in general, including his gender presentation. there's also a sense of just.. "this it the one thing in my life I have control over," so he sort of starts just wearing whatever. even if he's not really acknowledging the actual gender feelings to himself. but his hair and his clothes are One thing he can control about himself, one thing the watcher can't really take away from him. so with s3-s4 it's like. yeah he feels like he's becoming less and less human and yeah he's being kidnapped once a month and yeah the world is going to end but at least he can wear a goddamn skirt.

⁃ i do think there's also an element of it too where, there's obvious anxiety and concern about him being a visibly brown and trans/gnc person in fucking London of all places, but as time goes on i do think there's a bit of like. even if i face violence for this what does it matter. i hardly leave the archives anyways, and even then, would that really be anything? in the face of everything else that's happened?

⁃ in the safehouse jon and martin (who to me is a trans man btw) talk about gender a bunch and Jon realizes they want to try using both he and they pronouns and maybe jon decides they want to do some more feminine things, want to try wearing skirts and maybe painting their nails again and martin braids flowers into their hair and things are good

⁃ and then season 5 and the apocalypse hits.

⁃ for the first little while in the safehouse jon's hair is still long. but before they leave, he cuts it, for several reasons -- first like, if keeping it long and presenting femininely was partially about control for Jon, this is them letting Go of that, of what he perceives to have just been an Illusion control. yeah it might make them a bit dysphoric but so what, my body was never mine tobegin with.

⁃ and i think he's also doing it as a mental preparation for leaving the cabin, after jon and martin have had the initial talk about eventually leaving. long hair is a liability; hair can get pulled on and tugged on when being kidnapped and grabbed at; hair can be drenched in shampoo and twisted by plastic hands; hair can be tangled and snag on the walls of a coffin; it can be full of dirt days and days later; hair is a hassle and a hazard and an illusion of control and above all it was a comfort to jon and this is no longer a world where you can trust comfort, martin.

⁃ martin walks in on jon in the bathroom staring at themself in the mirror with a pair of scissors. they ask martin to cut it for them. (martin gets a haircut too, in a show at solidarity and some levity. also undercut martin rights)

⁃ anyway, Somewhere Else Jon wears flowy dresses and grows his hair long and leaves lipstick stains on martin's face when they kiss and hikes his skirts up above his knees when they work in the garden and their hair is long and dark and thick and curly and he likes it; likes the way it looks and feels, the way martin runs his fingers through it, the way it reminds him of his mother and the way it makes him smile at the person they see standing in the mirror.

⁃ and it's good. it's really good.

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greyias · 1 year

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FIC: Smoke and Mirrors - Chapter 19

Title: Smoke and Mirrors Fandom: SWTOR Pairing: Theron Shan/f!Jedi Knight Rating: T Genre: Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn Synopsis: Something’s rotten on Carrick Station, and Theron won’t rest until he finds out what. But picking at the frayed threads of suspicion quickly unravels a conspiracy much larger than even the Republic’s top spy can handle on his own. (A mostly canon-compliant retelling of the Forged Alliances storyline, as seen through the eyes of Theron Shan.) Author’s Notes and Spoilers: See Chapter 1.

Chapter Index: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | Crossposted to AO3

Sense memory was a funny thing — a sound, or a smell, or even a humid sea breeze could rewind time. Theron didn’t consider himself to be overly nostalgic or sentimental, but the moment he stepped off the shuttle, and the salty, humid sea breeze on Manaan took him back. He hadn’t set foot on this planet in over a decade, but for a moment, it felt like he had never truly left.

Nostalgia probably wasn’t the right word — his time on Manaan hadn’t exactly been the high point of his life. He’d made his way here after he’d left Haashimut and the Order (or they had left him—details details). It was before he’d even been recruited into the SIS. Just him and his teenage angst against the galaxy. It hadn’t all been bad, though. Even in the darkest moments, he still had some fond memories. Like the exhilarating rush of adrenaline pumping through his veins the very first time he raced through the swoop tracks, or those times he and one of his few friends from the minor league circuit would sneak out to the docks so they could watch the sun set over the endlessly crashing waves.

He blinked away the past, taking in his current surroundings. Things had chanced in his absence; time had a way of always marching on. Everything looked a little different at this height, less grand and imposing, and more… mundane. He didn’t remember any of the storefronts lining the Mercantile Plaza, nor recognize any of the faces milling about. The pristine fountains still sparkled radiantly in the sunlight, but even their beauty didn’t seem to match up with his memory. Perhaps it was because despite the pleasant weather and the tang of the sea in the air, he could still feel the oppressive weight of the local government in every interaction he spied upon. From the signs boldly declaring the many rules of off-world visitors, to the wariness lining the faces of the non-Selkath citizens milling about. Ahh, the telltale signs of a xenophobic and isolationist state. He’d definitely not missed that part about this place.

He slipped into the crowd milling about the Mercantile Plaza with practiced ease. It was a trick he’d employed many a time back in his first time here, but now he had over a decade of fieldwork under his belt. While humans were an abundant species on most planets, here on Manaan they were a bit more of a novelty, one of those weird, hairy, land-dwelling aliens. In his experience, a lot of Selkath had difficulty distinguishing between humans. Most of the population lived happily under the waters below, and saw little the outside galaxy by the design of their controlling government. In that way, being a human both drew attention, yet also provided cover. Something an experienced spy could use to their advantage.

The trick was to blend in by standing out. Act a bit like a lost tourist refusing to ask for directions, walk with confidence as if he knew where he was going (which he did), but also pausing occasionally as if looking for landmarks. It worked, and no one gave him a second look. He had got through customs almost laughably easy, the documents he’d forged for his cover identity passing with flying colors. It had also been almost too easy to guide the conversation with the customs officer so that Theron could obtain information on Darok. Just a lot of wide, toothy smiles, vapid blinking, and incessant babbling about his work and vacation plans. That was just the kind of guy that Tev Fith was.

He couldn’t check the grin at the name he’d chosen, part of the reason for his many toothy smiles with the customs officer. If she’d been around, he was fairly certain that Teff’ith would have threatened to shoot him over it. Or maybe just taken a shot on principle alone. And wasn’t imitation supposed to be one of the greatest forms of flattery? She should be more appreciative of his attempts to include her in his undercover work. In a way, she was helping him save the Republic again.

He could just hear the “Stupid Theron” being muttered in the back of his head. It nearly made him laugh again.

The intel was good, though. Darok had arrived only two days prior, so while a little behind, Theron was on the right trail. The Colonel had also put in a request for him and another individual for deep subsurface travel starting tomorrow. Odds were good that Darok’s travel buddy was Darth Arkous. If Theron stuck around the Plaza, it was possible he might even catch the two of them out in the open — of course; the opposite was also true.

That would just be embarrassing if he was spotted. Best to be careful and observe, wait for his backup to arrive. Speaking of… he needed to double-check the whereabouts of the Defender. If Darok was heading down under the surface tomorrow, it meant that something was about to go down, and Theron fully intended to be there. It’d be nice if his asset was there too, just in case her fancy lightsaber skills were called for.

While forging his identity documents, Theron had also taken care to rent out a little office space in Tev Fith’s name. Just a little space off the primary thoroughfare of the Mercantile Plaza, but still on the main network. A good op always needed a proper base of operations. Preferably one with better climate control than deep in the bowels of a Force enhanced Sith alchemical warship. As “fun” as it was to save the Republic in nothing more than his skivvies again, he really ought to be more properly dressed if he was going to have company. Something told him that his current Jedi operative would be a little less nonplussed about it than Gnost-Dural had been.

It took Theron most of the morning to slice into Manaan’s mainframe without tripping any security protocols. He’d been able to confirm Darok’s lodgings, which were thankfully far enough away from Theron’s little base so they wouldn’t accidentally bump into each other on a caf break. But still close enough for the spy to monitor him.

The government here liked to keep a very close eye on outsiders, meaning there were security cameras almost everywhere. It was both a blessing and a curse in this situation — in that it restricted Theron’s movements outside of his little office, but also allowed him to keep a digital eye on his targets. It was tedious work, especially as he had to more or less track the security feeds, since he didn’t want to risk installing any code on the mainframe that might give away his presence in the system. But that was the job sometimes — for every pulse pounding minute of action, there were several hours of monotony leading up to it.

So Theron watched the feeds, following both Darok and Arkous around the Mercantile Plaza with his many digital eyes. Their permits to head down to the underwater facility weren’t until the next day, so he was fairly confident that they wouldn’t disappear on him completely. However, Theron wanted to be sure he knew all the players in whatever game they were playing. They were likely killing time, and seemed to have dropped the pretense of not knowing each other, as they apparently didn’t think they were being observed.

(Heh.)

With one eye, he watched them go about their day and make preparations for whatever they were up to beneath the ocean’s surface, while he tried to pull what information he could on the facility they were heading to. Documentation on Genetics Laboratory G-1 was sparse, and there was almost no public information available on the mainframe. Its actual purpose and speciality beyond “genetics” wasn’t listed anywhere. Not even Darok and Arkous’s clearance papers seemed to list what they were doing. Curious.

There was more traffic in and out of its surface level office, and didn’t seem to be much in the way of passengers or visitors, so that must have meant freight. Slicing into the customs database took more time, and didn’t exactly yield any jackpots of information, but from the amount of equipment and supplies, it seemed to be a research facility of some sort.

Although what stolen Rakatan artifacts, secret labs, and traitors to both the Republic and Empire added up to, he still wasn’t sure.

That same funny feeling was still nagging at him — that he was missing some small, but key piece of information that would tie all these pieces together. If he only had more solid information about Arkous, how he had even crossed paths with a Republic SpecOps officer, just find that intangible something—he was sure all the puzzle pieces would click into place.

His camera snooping finally failed him near the end of the day, as both Darok and Arkous settled in a place that was practically in a blind spot to the cameras, a far corner of a cafe in a busy section of the plaza. It was impossible to tell if the action had been deliberate, but considering they had been in plain sight of the cameras for the rest of the day, it was probably just dumb luck. Either way, it still meant he had to abandon the anonymity of the office if he were to continue his surveillance.

Sunsets on Manaan always had an air of mystique about them. A briny tang carried on a soft ocean breeze. The gentle lapping of waves against the plaza’s platform had a calming and almost hypnotic effect that seemed to draw the surface dwellers out in droves. Large crowds packed the plaza, taking to the cafes and outdoor restaurants as they tried to sneak in one last meal and the peaceful atmosphere before dusk set in. There was basically no nightlife to speak of, at least up on the surface. Rowdy revelry from off-worlders wasn’t exactly something the government wanted to encourage, so most everyone wrapped up their business by dark and headed back to their rooms.

Theron picked a table where he couldn’t immediately be spotted by his quarry, but could still make them out. Luckily, this cafe had its menu on a ridiculously large datapad that he could hide behind if it seemed like they were looking in his direction, but so far, he hadn’t had to deploy that flimsy excuse for a disguise.

Despite their unintentional evasion of the cameras, amongst the backdrop of the crowd, they stood out like a sore thumb. Darok’s massive size and pale bald head were immediately recognizable and made an almost hilarious counterpoint to Arkous’s more slim figure and crimson skin. The big man’s wide shoulders seemed like they barely fit the small table the two conspirators had taken for their evening meal, and his massive, beefy hands nearly dwarfed a small cup of tea. Darok seemed distinctly uncomfortable as he tried to drink from the tiny cup without slurping. His Sith co-conspirator meanwhile seemed perfectly at home, somehow taking up more room than his large companion, like he was used to stretching out and taking up as much space as physically possible.

If Theron’d had more time to set up proper surveillance, he could have maybe installed a listening device near their table, so he could make out whatever they were talking about. From this distance, he couldn’t even read their lips without getting close enough to do so could risk tipping them off to his presence. So unfortunately for now, he would have to watch from afar, keeping his attention split between his quarry and his surroundings, and hope they wouldn’t slip his surveillance net again.

Not that either of them could go very far, considering the physical limitations of the plaza, but he wanted to be sure there weren’t any other actors in whatever game these two were playing.

The streetlights were just beginning to click on, and the weight of dusk settling across the sky when something… something felt. Off. Not that nagging missing puzzle piece that had plagued him since this entire thing started — no. This was that uncomfortable itch that would take up residence at the base of his spine, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. It was a feeling that any good operative was well-attuned to.

He was being watched.

Theron made a show of pretending to wipe invisible droplets of sea mist from the screen of the cafe’s giant datapad menu as a cover while he glanced around. Darok and Arkous were finishing whatever amounted to an extravagant meal at this little ocean-side cafe, and the other patrons were just as oblivious to him.

Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, but his ruse with the menu would be too awkward to keep up to glance in that direction. So he set it down and reached for his cup of caf as if he were settling in to savor the evening ambiance. The sip of hot liquid gave him an excuse to turn his head as he caught the flutter of a cape in the alleyway tucked just to the right of the cafe.

It was only a glance, but that was enough for him to just be able to make out the shape of a caped figure — humanoid, possibly female. A hood obscured the figure's features, but he could just make out a bright flash of blonde hair. That they were skulking in an alleyway automatically gave them an air of suspicion. But the closer that Theron observed them—no, definitely a her, he could see that her focus was on the cafe. Or in fact… the exact same table that he’d been observing.

This woman was also tailing Darok and Arkous too—or worse—was working with them.

The figure straightened, like a marionette on a string, and her head snapped in his direction. For a moment, Theron found himself meeting the unearthly yellow gaze of a Sith, who stared right back at him.

For the space of a breath, neither of them moved, perhaps both of them just as surprised to see the other. Then the bustle of the crowd broke the impromptu staring contest, and Theron seized the moment to melt into an opening in the throng. With almost practiced ease, he let the crowd sweep him away like he was just another wave crashing against the platform of the plaza. Just like the ocean currents, he didn’t fight the motion of the crowd, and let it carry him along until he could circle around to get a better vantage point on the woman in the alleyway.

He ignored the jostling of the strangers, every sense on alert now. He couldn’t afford to risk any confrontation, not without potentially tipping Darok and Arkous off to his presence and risking the entire investigation. A tiny voice in the back of his mind, one that sounded a bit too much like Jonas Balkar, also reminded him that right now, to not wade too far into these unknown waters. He was here with no backup, and the only person who knew where he was or what he was up to wouldn’t even be aware that he needed help until it was too late.

Right now, Theron was alone — just like he always had been.

By the time he reached the alleyway, the Sith was gone. He looked back to where he’d been sitting and spied another flutter of of a cape at the menu and cup of caf he’d abandoned.

A curse slipped loose as he realized that he’d now picked up a tail of his own. Making a split-second decision, as he was always forced to do when he was out on his own like this, and let himself get carried back off into the crowd. Away from Darok, away from Arkous, and most importantly, away from this mysterious new Sith.

#swtor fanfiction #theron shan x jedi knight #Theron Shan #Female Jedi Knight/Hero of Tython #SoR Fic O Doom #smoke and mirrors #oc: greyias highwind #otp: adorkable #swtor #fanfic #greyfic #here you go #surprise chapter update #two years later #when will you see chapter 20?#¯\_(ツ)_/¯#in the meantime enjoy theron and lana's silly mad magazine spy vs spy shenanigans #and my probably wildly inaccurate details about manaan and its government and history #because i throw my arms up in the air at it

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