The "Sansa reminds Sandor of his sister" motive that some people try to hitch to his character really just flies in the face of his actual attachments to her, doesn't it? Sansa reminds Sandor of himself. He sees the little boy who used to love knights in this girl who's been swept up by the same romanticism. He sees his abuser in her abusers, the much larger knight(s) beating on the helpless child. He sees how she is betrayed by every level of authority that should have saved her and remembers his father's neglect and Tywin and Robert's apathy for Gregor's crimes. He's protective of Sansa because he was Sansa.

And GRRM's design, that one of the strongest warriors in the series, a fearsome and cynical 6'8" guy who's "muscled like a bull" and has the face of death itself, sees himself in this soft and effeminate teen girl, and empathizes with her because he was an abuse victim too, is INFINITELY more compelling than "Oh yeah I bet she just reminds him of his sister," who he's never mentioned and who we know literally nothing about. Way to unnecessarily water down a character, you couldn't have ignored the black and white text more efficiently if you tried.

I'm curious, if gender is so fluid and easily "switchable" for lack of a better word, what exactly makes someone in OBT gay or straight? For example if Rune transitioned into a boy, aura and everything, would Dielle still fancy her (him)? I'm guessing no, but I have trouble wrapping my head around it. (I promise this a good-faith question. I'm pan so gender identity doesn't really register with me when it comes to who I'm attracted to, haha.)

// the short, canon answer is that it's for the same reason folks might have preferences in partner's irl! while we can't all magically change our voices or physical attributes at will, gender irl is as fluid as you'd like to make it. and just like irl, sometimes folks have a partner who decides to change their identity, which can either lead to an expanded sexuality from their partner, or their preferences remain the same and the parties part ways. and the longer, me-pondering-the-sociological-aspect-of-gender-in-my-pokemon-fanfiction answer is... there technically isn't even any reason to have gender in OBT's world in the first place. I think it's pretty obvious that OBT's world doesn't have a lot of hyper-feminine or hyper-masculine culture present, especially considering pokemon in OBT don't have any biological markers to decide gender at birth. it truly just goes off of vibes B) it's not really a world where pokemon are told "you should man up" or "you throw like a girl", because, well, the more pressing matters at hand are all the different species in the world. and when there are so many drastic physical traits that can be seen between pokemon of a shared species thanks to hybrids/subspecies, gendered traits are pretty rarely taken into consideration. more accurately, there shouldn't be a gender binary in OBT... but as the human author writing for a human audience that live in a gender binary, I instinctively gave pokemon genders and pronouns and such because that's the world I live in. maybe if I did OBT over again I'd do away with gender entirely! for now though, I get that itch scratched by other PMD fanworks like Anamnesis, which has many anthology stories featuring nonbinary pokemon characters

you ever think about the difference in how bomba and demeter talk about Macavity in his song and just OOUUGGHHHH

Look. Listen. When Demeter talks about Macavity in the song she mostly touches upon his abilities and achievements to describe him. It almost sounds like she's bragging about him- she mentions twice that he can outsmart Scotland Yard and refers to his reputation as a criminal and also a magical cat. The only time she refers to his appearance is when she says he is 'outwardly respectable' which -as we all know- is either totally untrue or, at the very least, not true anymore.

Meanwhile Bomba focuses on his physical appearance, and when she describes him it sounds like a completely different guy than Demeter's supposed 'respectable' criminal mastermind: he's unkempt, he's uncombed, his eyes are sunken in, etc. Also in almost direct contradiction to the 'outwardly respectable' line, she additionally claims 'you'd know him if you saw him'. She compares him to a snake, an animal most cats sure as fuck don't like, and calls him a 'monster of depravity'. I'd say her descriptions lean towards accusing him of being inhuman, but these are... you know. Cats. None of them are human. But either way she certainly labels him as completely 'other' than the rest of them: he is a 'fiend in feline shape'.

(And certainly this can be explained away as the two of them just having difference preferences. Bomba, as we know, likes Tugger, and she describes him as a 'curious beast' so clearly she has a type here. Meanwhile Demeter is sometimes depicted as having some kind of love affair with Alonzo, but nowadays she's usually paired up with Munk, a guy who doesn't really seem to display much sexuality in comparison to the other male cats, and demonstrates a lot of competence and emotional intelligence throughout the play. So it does make sense that these two specifically would fixate on these two different aspects of the same man.)

However they almost seem to be in conflict about their hot takes on Macavity. Take the middle section I marked off for example: the first time that 'there's no one like Macavity' bit is sung, Demeter sings it. Then later on, Bomba sings it. But when Bomba sings it she changes the second line, which goes from 'He's broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity' to 'For he's a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity'. She also mirrors Demeter's choreo from the same section as she sings it.

That makes her slight change feel very pointed, especially with the how she gestures towards Demeter during that line.

Demeter, fundamentally, is saying, 'there's no one like Macavity, he can do all of these insane things', and meanwhile Bomba is saying, 'there's no one like Macavity, he's a fucking monster' and she makes sure Demeter knows that's exactly what she's saying too.

& on that note there's even more context there when you look at their demeanor. Demeter seems to have a lot of conflict about her feelings, which is portrayed through her expressions mostly, while Bomba remains almost kind of playful and certainly enthusiastic through the whole song. Demeter --who is vastly conflicted-- tries to talk about Macavity's achievements when describing him. Bomba --who knows exactly what Macavity is and was and feels no shame about it-- is happy to talk about what an abomination he is and how attracted she is to him anyways.

And that makes the 'outwardly respectable/cheats at cards' moment feel really important, because Demeter tries to claim something that may be one thousand percent not even remotely true, (potentially to justify her attraction to Macavity), and Bomba cuts in --sometimes with amusement, sometimes with annoyance, sometimes without particular tone-- and retorts, 'i know he cheats at cards'.

Which regardless of if you interpret that line in the manner that seems most obvious: 'I know he cheated on you' (especially when there's a loaded pause between 'cheats' and 'at cards'), or if you take it to be more general ('I know he's more nefarious than he seems' for example) that line very much seems to be Bomba cutting in there and essentially expressing 'girl, give me a fucking break'. And well, one of Bomba's character words isn't 'frank' for nothing.

I also don't have it pictured in the screenshot, but the third time that 'there's no one like Macavity' bit is sung, it's sung by them both at once, and that notable second line that keeps changing says 'There never was a cat of such deceitfulness and suavity,' which labels Macavity as 'deceitful' but also 'suave', almost as if the two of them decided to compromise on their respective perceptions of the man. Which matches how they, by that point, have begun to dance in sync as well.