(folding legs delicately)
let me tell you guys their lore. the guy on the tamaraw is named Chintana, and the guy holding the reins is Chintana's husband, Jamil. Chintan is a closeted trans man. He does not wish to opt out of the features he was born with, he is completely and totally happy with his body. His pain and sadness is more focused on how people see him as.
Chintan was cursed ~completely at random~ by a wandering, abandoned mechanical goddess to always be forgotten "as you are presently.".. so always she is in the shadows and the backburner... so she spends all her time wondering what in the world did that goddess mean by that. Chintan spends all day, every day wondering how to end her curse. Once she's out of her grandmother's matriarchal village, she starts figuring out some gender stuff. But living her whole life where your only worth is dependent on your gender makes Chintan anxious.
she has some cultural trauma where exploring any gender identity that deviates from what was accepted and known in the culture she grew up with is deeply discouraged, so why bother speaking up now when she's married to a handsome prince named Tidulay who "makes me very happy, thank you very much."
Jamil is a prince whom Chintan was supposed to be marrying, but rejected him for being arrogant and rude.
for some reason Jamil is the only person in the whole world who can always, always remember Chintan, what he says, what his thoughts on things are... Really it's because Jamil can sense.. something about Chintan's disconnect with his own gender. it never occurs to Chintan that he can break his own curse, he has been breaking his own curse, when he allows himself to be who he really is after deeper introspection, a man.
pleasantly surprised when people remember him, happy when Jamil lends him his clothes.. anyways.. yes.. Jamil was supposed to marry Chintan, but they did not get along when they first met. leading to Chintan marrying a different prince, Tidulay. who was extremely cruel to her. so Chintan clung on to that curse of being forgotten to protect herself.
.....how can someone hurt you if they don't even remember you half the time.
Eitherway, Jamil ends up helping Chintan escape Tidulay, back to his matriarchal village..... and by the time their journey is done.. Jamil and Chintan are completely and achingly in love with each other.
Jamil however is emotionally constipated, and he can't bring himself to ask Chintan to come with him to his mother's home bc he can't stop thinking about all the mean things he said to Chintan when they first met. (when they were TEENAGERS)
"they deserve better than I."
meanwhile, Chintan is like "PLEASE JUST ASK ME TO MARRY YOU ALREADY"
there's more hehe but this post is so long already cnsjs
