it's always interesting to me how a bunch of analyses on knives’s character I've seen/read rely on the affirmation that he's inherently in an advantageous or privileged position compared to vash when not only are both of them from the same female-presenting species, they both suffered from the same gendered trauma and exposure to oppression/violence in the form of tessla as kids - it was their reactions and processing (or lack of processing, in knives’s case) of it that ultimately shaped what would later become their opposing ideals and/or beliefs.

obviously, our own different experiences, thoughts, beliefs etc irl will influence our readings on these sort of characters but idk, I think it's curious that knives's brand of rage/hatred/violence is seen as a Clearly Cis Masculine thing (which boy. there's a lot to unpack there) when these feelings stem from a deeply rooted fear of exploitation and consumption (that he can be subjected to, by virtue of the species he belongs to and what his body can do) that can be pretty relatable to afab folks imo. the lowkey infantilization is huh interesting as well bc honestly a lot of knives's overly emotional reactions remind me of afab characters who are immediately dismissed as crazy, hysterical etc etc for acting the same

anyway. I don't really care what genitals ppl hc knives with bc lord knows porn is free real estate and that's another matter (I've personally enjoyed fanarts/fics where he's depicted as having either, both, or smth completely different) but eh ig what I mean to say with all this useless rambling is that knives belonging to the same (oppressed) species as vash and still exhibiting abusive behaviors towards him doesn't automatically make knives the Cishet Male Privileged guy fighting against vash's Queer Trans Marginalization when both can easily be read as sexually-and-gender queer (even if in different ways) and if you believe folks from the same oppressed/marginalized group can't hurt each other well. think abt that perhaps

(as a side note bc this apparently needs to be said on these kinda posts but No I Do Not Think Knives’s Genocidal Tendencies Are Okay)