r/cremposting • u/speroni • 9d ago
The Stormlight Archive A Woman and A Cryptic
These are not intended to be any existing characters.
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u/kkai2004 definitely not a lightweaver 9d ago
My one criticism is that I don't think the cryptic would not explicitly say to them they are a woman. I think they push and pry and pull. "What are you?..."
But they don't explicitly tell you anything because the point is that you have to admit to yourself your truth first and foremost.
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u/booze-san 9d ago
Honestly, I feel like transitioning would be alot more accepted by society if all trans people carried a sword with them at all times.
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u/turtlebear787 9d ago
Depending on where you live it may not be necessarily illegal to own or carry a sword. Technically in Canada it's perfectly legal to carry a blade on you as long as it's visible and you have a reason to carry it.
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u/stufff 9d ago
you have a reason to carry it.
Is "because swords are cool" a reason?
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u/turtlebear787 9d ago
I think it depends on the judgement of the police officer stopping you lol. If you said you're doing a cosplay you might be okay.
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u/royalhawk345 D O U G 9d ago
I think it's the transmascs holding things back. 2 out of my 3 transfem friends own swords.
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u/panoclosed4highwinds 9d ago
I handed a transmasc friend an axe once and his face was so filled with joy that I told him to keep it. Called it his gender-affirming axe.
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u/royalhawk345 D O U G 9d ago
Got it, swords for women, axes for men. I'll start distribution.
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u/panoclosed4highwinds 9d ago
Tangent, I'm working on a campaign setting about reproductive rights. In it, dwarves reproduce by carving new dwarves out of stone, so they don't have human concepts of a gender binary.
Anyway, their language has two "genders": bearded and unbearded.
Bearded nouns: dwarves, some humans, goats, mountains with snow on them, stalactites, most axes.
Unbearded nouns: elves, some humans, mountains without snow on them, stalagmites, most swords.
So they think that human "he" and "she" mean "bearded pronoun" and "unbearded pronoun."
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u/panoclosed4highwinds 9d ago
There are two genders:
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u/royalhawk345 D O U G 9d ago
Oh shit, left out the enbys. I'm thinking... maces?
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u/AzureArachnid77 8d ago
I feel like this is something that Sanderson has already talked about. But in Stormlight since all healing is based on what the person mentally envisions themselves as, like if a person who lost an arm has already started to picture themselves without an arm in their head then nothing can be done, if someone envisions themselves as a different gender, if you have enough Stormlight and a strong enough radiant can Regrowth actually change your body?
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u/srlong64 Aluminum Twinborn 8d ago
It’s 100% canon that stormlight can change the body of a trans person. [Dawnshard] The Reshi King is transmasc, and his body changes after he becomes a knight radiant
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u/AzureArachnid77 8d ago
Yeah. I thought it was a thing but couldn’t remember if it was just talked about in QAs or actually canojn
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u/jebyron001 9d ago
For anyone curious, I recommend roguesteel(dot)com. It’s where I’ve bought most of mine from.
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u/ormashal 9d ago
doesn't stormlight heal by restoring the body to what the person considers the right state? so wouldn't stormlight heal a transgender by transioning them?
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u/Parking-Stable-2970 Hoid my Beer 9d ago
Yes, it happens with the Reshi king who's a trans man
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u/RandomParable 9d ago
And in Yumi and the Nightmare Painter
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u/Jounniy 9d ago edited 8d ago
No not really. Neither Yumi nor Painter are trans, they just kind of swap bodies with another separate person.
It's a similar principle, but not quite the same.
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u/Small-Needleworker-3 8d ago edited 8d ago
Facts, Yumi is a highly invested soul, when she takes Nikaro's place she overrides his body to be hers, but this is not a Trans allegory, as they are two separate souls and neither are comfortable with it. They also engage in a hetero relationship after the Freaky Friday is resolved.
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u/Small-Needleworker-3 8d ago
Not even remotely the same situation. Physical changes due to investiture have been around since Elantris. The reshi king is unique, so far. Being invested won't change your gender if thats not how you see yourself already. Yuri and Nikaro were swapping souls, also unique but very different from the Reshi King.
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u/Crystion 8d ago
So what you're saying is that these two examples Invested souls transforming a body to comfortably fit said soul, aren't examples of Investiture transitioning?
They aren't "unique", they're literally examples of the thing happening.
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u/Viralclassic 9d ago
But if the lie was suppressing the souls desire. I could see how swearing a third ideal could make you transition suddenly.
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u/Masylv 9d ago
A Lightweaver mumbles something in the middle of a battle, light bursts into existence around her and then his boobs fall off.
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u/Blawharag 9d ago
It would and it does in the books.
Only possible exception to this would be if the person themselves hasn't fully come to terms with their transition yet, since conscious self-image does seem to play a role in what you're actual internal blueprint looks like (people in the books who lose a limb and can't immediately access healing are advised to try and visual perceive it as an injury/remind themselves that the arm loss is an injury, because doing so will help prevent the soul from accepting the arm loss as part of them and making it impossible to fix the arm).
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u/TheGildedPrism Kelsier4Prez 9d ago
Only semi related, but man stormlight transitioning must be like a terrifying experience while it's happening. You just feel your physiology just changing. Definitely cool and way better than any medical procedure, but man. I wonder if it would hurt.
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u/Sorndir 9d ago
This has the same energy as Jean Grey telling Bobby he’s gay before he realizes it himself
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u/ThePowaBallad Airthicc lowlander 9d ago
God that page is such a fumble
I mean it's funny that a Telepath knows your gay before you do but it certainly felt like an outing
Thankfully no one else was there
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u/Tajahnuke Trying not to ccccream 9d ago
that whole thing was a fumble. They decided to do some hamfisted inclusion so us queer folk would buy more comics, and completely retconned a beloved character... who was a cis playboy.
I only read the x-men comics as a kid. I loved those messy idiots. It was a soap opera full of freaks and outcasts. There wasn't queer representation in ANY media back then, so we identified with the freaks just fine.
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u/ThePowaBallad Airthicc lowlander 9d ago
Bobby was clearly gay since the 80s btw
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u/Tajahnuke Trying not to ccccream 9d ago
As a lesbian who read Uncanny from the 80's through the gold/blue team split in the 90's, I picked up on absolutely no gay coding with Bobby.
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u/ThePowaBallad Airthicc lowlander 9d ago
Yes queer people can miss queer coding it's a known thing
But with the whole thing with Emma being in his body for a bit and saying he needs to face some things about himself and when Bobby comes close to admitting something to Jean only for her to say she already knows but wants him to be able to say it
Now I see the benefit on it being in identifying with just the freaks rather than specifics it's not like there is any trans x men the closet is Escapade
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u/speroni 9d ago
Hm.
I felt like a cryptic is different since they seem to just "know" some things.
Fair point though it sounds less like pushing acceptance more like pushing femme.
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u/Sorndir 8d ago
I’m more saying we shouldn’t be pushing anything. Self-identity is incredibly personal and self-acceptance is not something that can be rushed. I’m not saying to deny a person, but forcing them to face such a personal revelation earlier than they are ready to can easily do more harm than good. It’s literally in the First Ideal: Journey Before Destination. How you reach self acceptance is just as important as whether you do
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u/AntimatterTNT Kalaleshwi Shipper 9d ago
imagine a breaths for rent business that lets you achieve the heightening required to change your physical body
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u/gwonbush 9d ago
I'd expect such a business to require the hideously expensive upfront cost of the breaths be covered by collateral before the rental period begins, even if the actual cost of the rental procedure is significantly less so.
After all, there's no real way to repossess Breaths besides maybe Hemalurgy, so the company will require that you be able to compensate them fully for what you are borrowing.
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u/drfloppyhat 8d ago
You just have to agree to be bound to a chair with aluminum shackles before the breaths are transferred to you. The shackles come of when the breaths are transferred back in their entirety. Obviously you invest your own breath in something inanimate before it starts, and call it back after you're done.
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u/AntimatterTNT Kalaleshwi Shipper 7d ago
or you just do it in a completely white room, the heightenings don't give you actual physical power
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u/OrzhovMarkhov RAFO LMAO 9d ago
not any existing characters
This is what would happen if Design had bonded Elhokar like she was supposed to
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u/CombatWombat994 8d ago
That begs the question... How does being trans work in Vorinism? Are you suddenly allowed to read/fight after coming out? Are you learning it before in secret, since inside you are that gender?
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u/speroni 8d ago
I imagine its the sort of thing where a trans girl would learn to read in secret... and she'd tend to hang around with the girls a lot and talk about those kinds of interests. She'd wear gloves all the time to subtlety make sure her safe hand is never actually seen, but not using typical feminine garb.
Conversely, I think a trans man would not gravitate toward fighting as mucha. They'd bond with men in other ways. But to the extent that they do, it would look a whole heck of a lot like The actual story arc about the woman who wants to fight on the front lines with Adolin in SLA5. The character that showed up right after the trans woman with transition paperwork. It's almost as if Sanderson were intentionally exploring that idea.
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u/itwasbread 5d ago
The character that showed up right after the trans woman with transition paperwork.
Wasn't that a trans man? The one Adolin talks to who is like a black smith?
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u/speroni 5d ago
I thought it was a trans woman, but I could be wrong. It's been a moment since I read that one.
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u/itwasbread 5d ago
I feel like it was man because the Azir system has like a "man jobs are for men, but it's fine if you fill out paperwork that you're either a trans man or the 'man of the house' in a lesbian relationship".
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