this post is inspired in part by this one by @cheshirepirouette and sponsored in part by convos w @asteriis and @indouscurse here’s to y’all!! this post also goes out to my brothers, who are pale as hell for reasons unbeknownst to all of us (this is a joke).

like any good headcanon, this started as a joke because i thought to myself: Ryland sounds like the type of name that somebody’s Black child would have and only use on church sundays. nobody actually has ever called him that in his whole entire life, except maybe his mama SOMETIMES and that’s why he doesn’t remember it right away. i feel like every Black person knows somebody who is called literally anything except their god given name. people call him lil r, lil grace, gracie, ry, ryry, riri, RG, lando, mr. grace, dr. grace, but nobody calls him Ryland, which is part of why he Can’t Remember for so long.

so of course i went back to the source material to see if he ever actually mentioned being white anywhere and unfortunately it is very much at the beginning of the book. so THEN i started to think about how i could get around that while remaining at least largely canon compliant (as a little treat for myself). what i came up with is what i have affectionately dubbed my “litebrite baby” headcanon.

living together

Yumi Sato is our example of a thriving trans person in the world of 2086. She's a successful coroner with a strong personal style and plenty of profitable work to do, who gets to enjoy all of the technological progress that's been made between current year and 2086. In her little bonus scene it's strongly implied that she's a trans woman, and that advances in modding have made it easier than ever to alter her body to her needs. Indeed, she passes flawlessly, and nobody in the cast ever misgenders her, or likely even suspects she might be trans. She then laments how trans people are less visible than ever, and posits the question of whether that's a good or a bad thing, but leaves it open to interpretation. By all accounts it's a very hopeful vision for trans people in this world, a stark bright spot in what's otherwise a very cynical piece of cyberpunk.

But then, in episode 2, we go down to the lower wards. After spending most of episode 1 palling around with the rich and powerful, the opening scene of episode 2 draws a stark contrast by showing us the people this gleaming future leaves behind. And Creek stands out for one thing: the "pronouns: any" in their bio.

Lakers "Creek" Kristoff is, by all accounts, poor. He lives in the lower wards, is the leader of her own little gang, and desperately wants more money, so they can gain greater influence in the larger criminal organization she belongs to. And notably, only two sets of pronouns are ever used for Creek. People who don't know them assume from Creek's appearance that she is a man, and use he/him, while those few characters who knew them personally or are written to be more progressive will use "they/them." The glaring omission here, of course, is "she/her." A lot of characters in the episode have access to Creek's profile, which lists her pronouns. But in the entire script, not a single time, is Lakers "Creek" "pronouns: any" Kristoff EVER referred to as a "she." And I do think that's intentional.

Transmisogyny is alive and well in 2086. All those advances in transition care, that bright spot in the darkness, they only go to those who can afford them. The divide between those who can transition and those who can't is wider than it's ever been, both sides now invisible. It doesn't matter that you can mold flesh like clay if it's still prohibitively expensive and doesn't reach the poor and disenfranchised. Not when a masculine-looking person is still defaulted to as he/him. MAYBE they get a they/them from those who are woke enough. But never a she/her.

Next slide. “Brandon Sanderson is a member of the LDS”. The muttering has changed tone

“It’s not a very big amount of money though.” Someone in the audience pipes up. “His cut is only a small fraction of the cost of the book, and then-“ my next slide shows an income breakdown, it is titled ‘a small fraction of $10,000,000 is still a big number’