Leigh

I imagine that out of all the beorc nations, Daein is the most intensely homophobic. Like Begnion is just as bad, but they’re more subtle about it, y’know? They hide their bigotry under a guise of concern. A classic “think of the children!” approach. Daein, however, is far more straightforward with its hateful rhetoric.

So just as Jill was taught to hate laguz since starting school as a young girl, she was also taught to hate anyone who wasn’t cis and straight. Even stepping outside of traditional gender roles was viewed with suspicion.

That being said, Jill herself was kind of pushing social boundaries just by joining the army. Female soldiers in Daein are not unheard of, esp after Ashnard came into power, but they’re still few and far between by the time Jill enlists. So Jill is a bit of a hypocrite, then, in that she would get into arguments with more old-fashioned men in her platoon, calling out their sexism, and then turn around and sneer at men who exhibited any traditionally feminine traits.

So when Jill first joins Ike’s army, she would have been insulted by the suggestion that she was anything but straight. And she had a bit of a crush on Haar (which I refuse to imagine is ever requited, considering he’s like twice her age, and her superior, and a close family friend, so he’s probably known her since she was just a baby), so Jill has no reason to suspect that she could possibly have anything in common with those foppish boys her friends and her used to gossip about in school.

Then Jill makes two very important friends: Mist and Lethe.

Mist befriends Jill almost immediately. And Jill, who hasn’t had any female friends since she joined the army, greedily seizes the opportunity.

Except, despite having been raised in rural Crimea with no formal schooling, and being a bit ignorant of a lot of social issues, Mist’s got a big heart and an open mind. She’s nothing like the catty, judgmental girls that Jill used to hang out with. Mist gives everyone the benefit of the doubt. And whenever Jill finds herself making snarky remarks about someone else, Mist is always offering a different perspective.

Then there’s Lethe. She infuriates Jill, but mostly because of just how similar they are. They both have fiery tempers, they both tend to stubbornly cling to their prejudices, they are both competitive and proud and share similar values. Except, while Jill is constantly second-guessing herself, chronically indecisive about what is right and what is wrong, Lethe is so self-assured, so confident in all of her decisions. This is all to say that Jill envies Lethe a lot. Even when they start getting along, they frequently clash, the both of them too stubborn for their own good.

Jill doesn’t know quite when her frustrations with Lethe started to be at least partially fueled by sexual tension, but even when she realizes her feelings, it takes her a long, long time to come to terms with them. Like, years of second-guessing herself.

I imagine she does eventually talk things out with Mist during the endgame portion of Radiant Dawn. Multiple times, even, because Jill can’t help but go back and forth, discussing pros and cons and what-ifs until even Mist, with the patience of a saint, eventually reaches a breaking point and refuses to rehash the same conversation for the tenth time.

I also think that Jill and Lethe need to spend some time apart before they can be together post-game. Jill returns to Talrega a changed woman, more confident in herself, and no longer ashamed of her sexuality like she was just a year ago. But to leave Talrega to pursue the romance with Lethe she never allowed herself before… well, she isn’t ready for that right away. But I do like to think it eventually happens.

Thanks for reading! Sorry this one got so long and rambly. I just have a lot of thoughts about Jill being raised in a military culture household, in Daein no less, and how much harmful propaganda she has to unlearn.

You can see all of my Tellius Pride posts in chronological order here!

I believe this is part of why early Radiant Dawn Micaiah insists on calling Sothe her brother— it’s her clumsy way of trying to avoid misgendering him. Before they separated, she used to introduce Sothe to people as her little sister, to help avoid uncomfortable questions. That, and Micaiah has always been jealous of people who have siblings, so she was more than happy to play family with Sothe.

Then Micaiah abandons Sothe, and suddenly he has to try to find his way back to her all on his own. At first, he disguises himself as a boy for safety reasons, but quickly it becomes less of a disguise and more of him finally feeling comfortable in his own skin.

I like to think that in addition to having a very casual approach to sexuality, beast laguz are also very open to transgender and nonbinary people. I mean, just look at Kyza. And additionally, they have herbs they use to help with gender transition.

Sothe idolizes Ike for being the type of man he wants to become. It takes him some time to recognize that he also has a bit of a crush on Ike, and that confuses him at first, because does that mean he’s a girl after all?

Basically, I hc Path of Radiance Sothe as going through A Lot in terms of questioning his gender and sexuality.

Luckily, Sothe then meets and befriends Tormod and Muarim! And Muarim quickly figures out that Sothe is trans, and helps provide him with the herbs he needs, and also gives him a talk about sex, sexuality, and gender. And while Sothe feels so embarrassed that he could die, he is forever grateful for that conversation.

On a similarly wholesome note, I hc that Tormod is the first person that Sothe ever comes out to. It’s all rather anti-climatic, because Tormod already got The Talk from Muarim a couple of years ago, so he was just like, “Awesome! Hey, do you want to skip stones by the river? I think I can finally perfected that trick you taught me!”

When Sothe and Micaiah reunite, Micaiah hardly recognizes him. It hurts. And Sothe is So Mad at her, and that hurts even more.

Micaiah knows she messed up, and she tries to smooth things over by acting like the years they were apart never happened. Except she can no longer refer to Sothe as her sister, so… brother it is!

Except, Sothe doesn’t want that. They’re no longer little orphans playing house. He’s no longer the little street rat always hiding in Micaiah’s shadow. And no matter how much Micaiah pretends things are the same, they’re not. Sothe is a young man now, capable of surviving on his own, with friends he’s made of his own accord.

This refusal to acknowledge how Sothe has changed puts a big strain on their relationship. She hates being reminded of the years they spent apart. Ike, Jill, Tormod, Muarim… all of them have memories of Sothe that she will never have. All she knows is the Sothe of before and the Sothe of after. She was not there to witness his transformation, so it’s easier to not even think about it.

Things are complicated further by Sothe’s growing romantic feelings towards Micaiah. She’s an empath, but she’s also very good at being in denial, so even though she’s unconsciously aware of his feelings, she’s also very consciously suppressing her awareness of his feelings.

Sothe being trans is definitely a part of why Micaiah feels so conflicted about the part of her that returns Sothe’s feelings. She may have been a victim of discrimination her whole life, but she was also raised in Daein. I definitely see her as the type of ally to be super gung-ho about her support to mask the internalized queerphobia she refuses to admit she has. It’s not that she doesn’t see Sothe as a real man, it’s that he’s her precious little brother! It would be weird to find him attractive, right?

It takes being confronted by Ike in the Goddess Tower for Micaiah to finally admit just how badly she fucked up by abandoning Sothe, and how she needs to acknowledge and take accountability for how profoundly her actions hurt Sothe. And in doing so, she can finally be honest about her feelings.

Sothe, meanwhile, is caught between Micaiah admiring how big and manly his hands have gotten, and being interrupted by his first crush Ike, and has a full mini freak out behind the scenes.

I also like to imagine that Sothe and Pelleas develop a weird dynamic after Micaiah starts dating both of them (because if Ike can have two boyfriends, then so can Micaiah!) Sothe finds Pelleas unfathomably insufferable, and yet. The sexual tension between them could be cut with a knife. Their dynamic is very much the “a guy asked me what the Spanish word for tortilla was once and now I dream of kissing him under the moonlight” meme.

Whew! That was a long one. Turns out I have A Lot of thoughts on Sothe and Micaiah’s very complicated relationship.

(Also, before you try to go after me with pitchforks, pls understand that I hc Micaiah as 20-21 while Sothe is 17-18. And additionally, remember that my thoughts on fictional characters and stories have nothing to do with what I condone in real life. Ty ty)

You can see all of my Tellius Pride posts in chronological order here!