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[[OOC: Mun is very fond of this muse, as playing around with this character also helped solidify some things about zir own identity. It wasn't perfect, because nothing ever really is, but it meant something. Means something.
These are thoughts I've had in the years since the days of active play. Rather than things I came up with in "the heat of the moment", as it were, I'm pulling together some threads that I notice when looking back.]]
The people around "Jacinda" were a little more reactionary and close-minded, on the topic of gender presentation especially, than would have been ideal. Add to that a general reluctance from the magic user community to intercede with a curse placed by a goddess, and the cards were pretty well stacked against Jason Todd.
Thinking about it, if I picked up the storyline again, I'd want to make it clear that Jacinda's "present day" is in our past. Jason is about age 23 when he gets cursed. Taking the year of his debut in comics (1987) and his canonical age at the time (12), he'd have been born in 1975 -- so his "present day" with those dates and numbers would be 1998.
I'm sure that there were some elements of play that didn't quite match up with that date. Participation in the texting memes comes to mind, but I'll excuse it because the Hub's generalized "present day" was further along and maybe Jason grabbed himself a smartphone in the Hub.
Speaking as someone who remembers living through the mid to late nineties, being not straight and not cis was just... not discussed. And if it was brought up, trans and other queer folk were an object of ridicule. Or worse, targets of violence. (Not to say that such things don't still go on twenty or even thirty years later, but... there's been some social progress since.) So I'm explaining the external hostility and the internal struggle faced by "Jacinda" as a product of that time.
Tim Drake from their world being really insistent on using female pronouns and referring to Jacinda as a girl is based more in presenting a "normal" facade to the world -- being trans is unusual and will attract attention, don't attract attention when we have so much to hide (the vigilante secret). Dick Grayson from their world is like... attracted to this Jacinda version of Jason and kinda weirded out by it (more for the fact that it's "my little brother Jason, who is in a Situation and I shouldn't fetishize this transformation" than anything).
And while Jason initially describes himself as "a straight male"... it becomes a label that doesn't quite fit. The explorations of gender presentation and the interaction of gender and sexuality have definitely affirmed the "male" part of his identity... the "straight" part not so much.
The goddess Aine refuses to lift Her curse, and warns that there's a chance that Jason will get stuck in this female form as Jacinda, a state that not even the gods will be able to change. The god Miach, who is a god of healing, feels that Aine isn't being fair and does try to take the curse off of Jason... though Aine will just put it right back on. (Miach does stop trying to lift the curse just by brute-forcing it, because the constant switching between male and female forms is physically painful for Jason.)
At some point, Miach figures out the condition that will make the curse permanent -- though He communicates it in a ballad (gotta stay on-brand). If Jacinda engages in sexual intercourse, the female body becomes a permanent feature. (And by "sexual intercourse", the gods mean "penis in vagina" penetrative sex... because that would be Jacinda/Jason "losing himself to the curse". I know it kinda sucks, but the goddess is vengeful and also ancient.)
And that's where things got left off, because the roleplay comm fell out of use and I'm really really bad at staying in contact with people. There have been plenty of times I idly thought of reaching out to get the storyline played out, but... I always put it aside. I was out of the fandom for a long time, and upon coming back, I found that most people had moved on as well.
ETA (10-August): The entries in this journal which have to deal with filling in the events of the plot are going to be backdated, so that they fall behind this post in the top view of the journal. Tracking posts for action on Dreamwidth will have a more current date and come above this post in the top view.
These are thoughts I've had in the years since the days of active play. Rather than things I came up with in "the heat of the moment", as it were, I'm pulling together some threads that I notice when looking back.]]
The people around "Jacinda" were a little more reactionary and close-minded, on the topic of gender presentation especially, than would have been ideal. Add to that a general reluctance from the magic user community to intercede with a curse placed by a goddess, and the cards were pretty well stacked against Jason Todd.
Thinking about it, if I picked up the storyline again, I'd want to make it clear that Jacinda's "present day" is in our past. Jason is about age 23 when he gets cursed. Taking the year of his debut in comics (1987) and his canonical age at the time (12), he'd have been born in 1975 -- so his "present day" with those dates and numbers would be 1998.
I'm sure that there were some elements of play that didn't quite match up with that date. Participation in the texting memes comes to mind, but I'll excuse it because the Hub's generalized "present day" was further along and maybe Jason grabbed himself a smartphone in the Hub.
Speaking as someone who remembers living through the mid to late nineties, being not straight and not cis was just... not discussed. And if it was brought up, trans and other queer folk were an object of ridicule. Or worse, targets of violence. (Not to say that such things don't still go on twenty or even thirty years later, but... there's been some social progress since.) So I'm explaining the external hostility and the internal struggle faced by "Jacinda" as a product of that time.
Tim Drake from their world being really insistent on using female pronouns and referring to Jacinda as a girl is based more in presenting a "normal" facade to the world -- being trans is unusual and will attract attention, don't attract attention when we have so much to hide (the vigilante secret). Dick Grayson from their world is like... attracted to this Jacinda version of Jason and kinda weirded out by it (more for the fact that it's "my little brother Jason, who is in a Situation and I shouldn't fetishize this transformation" than anything).
And while Jason initially describes himself as "a straight male"... it becomes a label that doesn't quite fit. The explorations of gender presentation and the interaction of gender and sexuality have definitely affirmed the "male" part of his identity... the "straight" part not so much.
The goddess Aine refuses to lift Her curse, and warns that there's a chance that Jason will get stuck in this female form as Jacinda, a state that not even the gods will be able to change. The god Miach, who is a god of healing, feels that Aine isn't being fair and does try to take the curse off of Jason... though Aine will just put it right back on. (Miach does stop trying to lift the curse just by brute-forcing it, because the constant switching between male and female forms is physically painful for Jason.)
At some point, Miach figures out the condition that will make the curse permanent -- though He communicates it in a ballad (gotta stay on-brand). If Jacinda engages in sexual intercourse, the female body becomes a permanent feature. (And by "sexual intercourse", the gods mean "penis in vagina" penetrative sex... because that would be Jacinda/Jason "losing himself to the curse". I know it kinda sucks, but the goddess is vengeful and also ancient.)
And that's where things got left off, because the roleplay comm fell out of use and I'm really really bad at staying in contact with people. There have been plenty of times I idly thought of reaching out to get the storyline played out, but... I always put it aside. I was out of the fandom for a long time, and upon coming back, I found that most people had moved on as well.
ETA (10-August): The entries in this journal which have to deal with filling in the events of the plot are going to be backdated, so that they fall behind this post in the top view of the journal. Tracking posts for action on Dreamwidth will have a more current date and come above this post in the top view.
