Also I Think I Almost Like It More If This WASN'T Intentional - Blog Posts

Okay hear me out, there's something about twins who are trans in opposite directions, because I 1000% feel this way about Malenia and Miquella from Elden Ring

Like. Their curses could be read a lot of different ways, symbolically, but here's my personal reading:

Malenia was born with a god of rot inside her, something that gives her physical strength and power but also distorts and corrupts her body in ways she can't control- she dedicates her life to learning how to move through the world in ways that minimize its influence, but it keeps coming back to haunt her bc she doesn't have the tools available to be rid of it, and the tool she does have (the gold needle) she is forced to abandon when war breaks out and the rot is required from her to survive her fight against Radahn

Miquella is cursed to appear eternally youthful and feminine, often being confused with / identified as St Trina, a distinctly female saint of sleep (this identity is abandoned alongside his "doubts" in the DLC, wherein he also abandons his physical body on the journey towards godhood). He goes to great lengths to escape this curse, nursing the Haligtree with his own blood so he could be reborn within its womb, not to mention all the other stuff that happens in the DLC

My favourite part of this is how DEVOTED they are to helping each other become who they want to be.

Miquella abandoned the Golden Order when it became clear they couldn't help his sister. He learned the secrets of unalloyed gold and built a golden needle she could stab into her flesh to stave off the worst of the rot, and it WORKED- she only abandoned it when forced to in order to survive (re: Radahn fight), an action that had lasting consequences to her body and her health

Malenia devoted her life to being Miquella's blade, to protecting her brother, defending his Haligtree and his best hope at escaping his curse and not being eternally youthful and feminine anymore. In becoming the Blade of Miquella, she learned how to move like flowing water so the rot would not stagnate within her. Her devotion to her brother helped her learn who she could want to be.

It's also implied that Miquella helped create Malenia's armour / sword / prostheses, allowing his sister to reshape her own body when it changed too much for her to handle; and when she needed to reshape it to be the swordswoman she was devoted to being

so YEAH. it's a messy complicated nuanced metaphor (which makes me love it even more) but if the Rot is Malenia's T and dysphoria, the unalloyed gold is T-blockers, and Miquella's curse being his body which he goes to great lengths to change (and eventually abandons), then. ✨Trans Twin Prodigies✨

But more importantly, Malenia has TITS; this implies the Golden Order is capable of producing estrogen, but NOT t-blockers or testosterone, and they aren't that big, so probably not progesterone- NO, CMON, LET ME COOK, JUST ONE MORE PARAGRAPH, JUST ONE, I SWEAR-*gunshot*

Head-canon. Artemis and Apollo are both trans, just in the opposite direction.