happy #tdov ! my comic: Unicorn, Hunted was always meant to be an allegory for being trans. specifically for transmasculinity, and how we assert our identity despite feeling like we don't quite fit between two worlds. - ThreadSky

wateryday.bsky.social • 6 days ago

happy #tdov ! my comic: Unicorn, Hunted was always meant to be an allegory for being trans. specifically for transmasculinity, and how we assert our identity despite feeling like we don't quite fit between two worlds.

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wateryday.bsky.social•6 days ago

in medieval art, unicorns often represent innocence, virginity, and women. the famous Unicorn Tapestries were thought to be wedding presents, symbolizing the unicorn as a wife; once a wild animal but now willingly accepting her life in "captivity".

wateryday.bsky.social•6 days ago

haelan is a trans man, and he takes pride in being a provider. he loves hunting and feeding the people around him. to him this is a paternal virtue. thats why he kills the unicorn; it represents him killing his own femininity for the pursuit of these masculine goals he admires.

wateryday.bsky.social•6 days ago

through a curse, haelan's body is changed. you could read this as forced detransition or an unwanted female puberty? i want to be clear that haelan IS a man, this isn't a detransition story. he's firm in his identity as both a man and a human being, not a unicorn.

wateryday.bsky.social•6 days ago

i made gwendolyn as someone would accept haelan when she thinks he's a unicorn, and then despise him when she learns he's a human who killed a unicorn. to me she's like a terfy type that holds c1s femininity to the highest good, with little room for nonconformity

wateryday.bsky.social•6 days ago

the story is about how haelan deals with the assumptions of other people, how he stays resolute in his own identity, the ways he's persecuted and trapped by the expectations of others, and himself, and how he comes to accept existing in the middle.

wateryday.bsky.social•6 days ago

but ultimately the analogy is never exact! i want people to be thinking of queer themes as they're reading but not thinking there's a one-to-one symbolism for everything. i want to tell an interesting fantasy story too, and not just write coded queer theory or something lol.

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