in a distant view of spring

trans ftm sethos

now, discussions on sethos and transition cannot be complete without discussions on the temple of silence, bc we know the temple has Issues with sethos' leadership and also bc a chunk of his character is deeply entangled with his relationship to the temple.

in characterizing the temple, most people will go the fundamentalist route of making the elders out to be misogynists bc its an easy analogue to signal traditionalism however comma, the temple of silence and sumerus desert is heavily ancient egyptian influenced and, little known fact, while largely misogynistic, ancient egypt Did Not care much abt gender essentialism despite being family centric.

this is common in most pre-colonial, polytheistic/animistic cultures, where what we now call trans people were revered as holier, more sacred, and overall wiser than the average cis person because they experience living as and seeing the world through the lenses of both womanhood and manhood.

the ba fragments themselves manifest a la yin and yang in color palettes, so it's pretty easy to imply this animistic "duality of gender" idea just between the ba fragment holders

so My take is that the there wasnt a problem with the division of the ba fragments were between two children (boy and girl. for narrative simplicity we will assume cyno is cis), bc they could very well have just married these kids off to each other and have them agree over who got the other's fragment a la bridal gift.

the problems surface when cyrus Leaves the temple with cyno, as succession would be difficult in an organization that is still rather patriarchal. misogyny can and would make sethos' influence weaker among the elders.

sethos transitioning could both be a vie for power but could also be understood as him trying to figure out his relationship with his self-worth, his faith, and himself. as the heir apparent to the temple of silence and ba fragment holder, he loses his personhood and agency just by being given these two roles. while he is reverent to hermanubis' guiding virtues and deshret, the privileges he has as the heir become shackling, doubly so for being born a woman.

so when he transitions, the community sees this as a wise choice, leaving only disapproval from elders who dislike the way he manifests and enacts his faith as leader after the duel for the fragments.

presenter (leader): got tired of taarof. needs this credit. bad with letting people pussyfoot around with a simple task

presenter (absentee): didnt show up for group meetings, shouldered presentations to have a reason to have his name included on the list. would have been fine w getting excluded. already calculated this loss

slides guy: hates the way people make their slides look. very particular. insists on matching slide sections w everyone's presenting style. hard on the script guy.

researcher/script writer: has the material gathered before the first group meeting. insists on properly citing things. despises the guys who grab things from AI bc its the first thing the search engine provided. will communicate w the presenters if they just showed up, but will look ticked off the whole time.

pack sumpterbeast: the only guy in a group of layabouts who really fucking needs this grade. made everything from the research to the script to the slides. 🤏🏾 this close from excluding everyone from the list, but gives in bc theyre all younger than him.