#but here comes this man who is practically his equal and who decidedly *doesn't* like him and seb has to win him over

[skitskatdacat63]

So in the boy king au, we know nando falling in love is a... process. but how long and why does seb fall in love with nando?

Aaaaaagh great question!!!!

Seb is pretty infatuated with Nando from the start, well at least the idea of him. His council does *not* want this marriage to work out(they'd rather get into a war and completely rule Spain, then having to barter for it through marriage like this.) Seb knows this, and he's a little brat who always gets anything he wants, right? So of course when he hears of this, he's now like, *I must have him,* and gets obsessed and fascinated with the idea of Fernando. And he also already remembers Fernando as this older boy he had a silly childish crush on when he was a kid, so that adds to his desire.

I think he definitely also takes to fall genuinely in love with him. That's why there's all that stuff about Fernando just being his "kept wife." Because I think they both have trouble viewing each other as real people, rather than just larger-than-life figures/caricatures. Seb originally just views Fernando as something to be won, something to gain, like obtaining a fancy horse or property, or new title(wink.) And Fernando can't help but just see Seb as a kid playing dress up and pretending to be a ruler, undeserving of everything he has.

I think the way they fall in love is gradually just understanding the humanity of the other. They realize they can both learn valuable things from the other. And that they're more similar than they think, and that they have a lot more in common then they ever would be comfortable admitting. It's hard to put an amount of time duration on it thought, its a gradual thing, y'know? I think though probably they have some outside opposition at some point, and end up defending each other unprompted. Ex:

Someone says Fernando shouldn't be the King of Spain. Seb gets *super* offended and lists a bunch of reasons about why Fernando is fit to be King. It's funny because he wouldn't admit this to Fernando even under duress, but then he willingly defends Fernando in front of the entire court, even though it undermines his own position(bcs he's basically admitting that he has no right to that throne and Fernando always was the rightful ruler.)

Someone accuses Seb of being an immature ruler and not being suited for the position of Emperor. Fernando gets sooooo pissed and is all like "you think my husband isn't suited?? You think I would agree to marry a man who isn't suited to be emperor?? You think I'd willingly demean myself in that way!?" Even though he constantly calls Seb immature and unsuitable to his face. But absolutely God forbid someone else imply that. It's so offense to him because he eventually considers Seb to be an extension of himself, so it's like he's being insulted as well.

[man-squared]

There seems to be, in discussions on "trans theory," a focus on indirect, direct, and misdirected harm. In some cases, one is decidedly less than another, when that is, "in practice," not the case.

For example, I've seen trans M&Ms (trans men and mascs) and allies discuss stealth trans M&Ms and how ¹ transphobia still affects them. Indirect bigotry mostly impacts mental health ².

For this example, I will use a stealth trans man who doesn't go to the doctor as an example. When he reads about or sees the transphobia that his peers (stealthing does not remove you from the community), it may still impact his mental health in a myriad of ways.

Like the Ohio situation, when I read it, I hurt, even though it didn't happen to me. And while in this case, the trans man beat up and arrested in Ohio for using the bathroom ³ definitely faced more harm than me, and more physical harm, I still hurt. It not being a direct form of harm to me did not make me simply not hurt from it.

However, from other discussions in trans theory, ⁴ we see indirect bigotry being spoke about differently for different groups of people.

For instance, if a trans man is believed to be a trans woman and someone commits acts of transmisogyny against him, the tone set forth by theorists is that this hurts transfemmes more because it is misdirected, even though it directly hurt the trans man. ⁵

"But since the harm was not for his demographic, it didn't hurt him equally or more than the directed demographic," seems to be the message pulled from these discussions.

You see, it isn't balanced. Misdirection doesn't matter if it is direct or indirect. It hurts the target and the "supposed target." It hurts all.

This is to say all forms of bigotry can hurt, even if you aren't the individual or communal target. I think we would gain more from acknowledging the harm to all parties than assigning points to determine people's actual emotions.

Because even if an individual experiences direct harm, they, personally, may have emotions differently than a similar person in the same situation.

Footnotes:

1. A lot of trans M&Ms are not fully stealth in all ways, or even want to be.

2. Mental health is not lesser than physical health, and these two types of health can impact each other. The easiest example to understand this of the top of my head is if you see something gross or gory, you might puke or otherwise become sick. You may gain nightmares that impact your sleep. Et cetera.

3. For a refresher, a trans man used the women's restroom in order to comply with the laws set forth by transphobes. Upon entering, cis women became uncomfortable so they enrolled cis men to come in and beat him up. The trans man was later arrested. Read about it here.

4. Namely, on twitter, I think.

5. And similarly to transfemmes who experience transandrophobia (even when misdirected). I, right now, can only think of the bigotry that transfemmes face when transmascs discuss our reproductive health issues. They are often targeted while we are ignored for this. Feel free to add more examples for any group.

TLDR: Indirect and direct bigotry can and do affect people in different ways. However, those affects are not less than, and there are not simple rules applied to situations that determine who gets to feel what and how much.