#i also have things to say about how gender plays into this

[old-school-butch]

Hello again <3

I sent you an anon that you replied to on April 1st, which was me asking how ex-TIFs are received back into womanhood. Your reply gave me a little foothold which ended up very comforting as I started coming out rapid-fire to all my friends as detrans. this is primarily a message for other people in my situation, who are afraid and might want a template of what you might expect will happen once you do come out with it.

Predictably, most of my friends dropped me; I've 3 friends left. Two of which continue to support trans people but can accept that i have different opinions (as long as i'm "not mean") and one of which has seen the gender critical arguments, accepted them, and agrees. So, heavy losses, but not total losses. My two siblings seemed to sigh in relief and reveal that they never believed in genderism at all, which is odd, because in my 10 years of being trans not one of them challenged me on it. my mom fell into heavy guilt over "letting me" do all this, although i was 18 when i took testo and 19 when i got surgery, so she really could not have stopped me, legally. i suppose she mainly grieves knowing that had she had the right arguments she could have saved her kid this, but i've told her she is not to blame and i hope she recognizes that.

i haven't received any real harassment, not from anyone that i PERSONALLY know, though my family has received... harassment targeted at me? my sister had a classmate begin sending her copious pro-trans propaganda (contrapoints videos) which she instructed should be sent onward to me (sis did not comply). hilarious how my 10 years of direct experience is suddenly null and void and i'm assumed to know nothing about transness.... 6 months ago i was helping people sensitivity-write trans characters. now, i'm told i can't speak for the trans experience at all, and that i do not know what it's like to be a transmasc person. told that i need to listen to the arguments more carefully, that i don't LISTEN, when i literally lived this for 10 whole years. girl, on god? they tell me i don't get it and need to educate myself. and have empathy of course.

but in general, detransing, i've discovered that there are PLENTY of people who do not actually believe in genderism but who will play along simply out of fear or social pressure. my friends aside, who i knew through "queer" circles, everyone in my family (expect my mom) has revealed they never actually believed in it. i think this might contribute to why trans people bully dissenters so badly. they know this is the truth, that no one really buys it. i think, subconsciously, i have known that too. i never downloaded grindr, i never went into the men's bathrooms. i knew that despite testo and surgery and pronouns i could never challenge men as an equal in their eyes.

interestingly, making new friends is not that hard. I lead with the fact i'm detrans and "don't believe in all that shit" and people are VERY eager to be able to, suddenly, voice their real opinions without being called transphobic. they begin with probing questions, uncontroversial statements like "i agree they shouldn't put males in women's sports..." but if you continue to agree and not punish this daring on their part, they will reveal, with much relief and enthusiasm, what they really think. most people, normal people, really do not believe it all? i'm a brash person and can take irl confrontations quite well, hence i feel safe putting myself up as a transphobe off the bat. and people are very into this. so. the old ass saying, just be yourself.... normal people will not volunteer anti-genderist opinions on their own but when i continue to state thing after thing they open up and agree and eventually feel safe enough to admit their own thoughts. making friends, especially with non-gendie women, hasn't been that hard.

i'm going to write another message about same-sex attraction in the genderverse, but it's also a can of worms so i will make it separate from this one. again, thank you so much, for having anon on and listening, and letting us listen to each other without fear. i would hug you. to be continued

Thanks for the follow up!

My only comment is that I think most people play along out of kindness, it's not all bullying and fear, but that does impose a silence on everyone so everyone feels quite alone with their doubts.

[inkskinned]

what is considered "beautiful" by society is inevitably sexist, racist, ableist, classist, transphobic, and bigoted. it targets and attacks any perceived difference, and it particularly villainizes women of color while co-opting aesthetics; as if features and cultural norms can be worn as accessories.

and the scary thing! you can see all of these things, know them to be true logically, and also know that you are treated better if you are perceived as beautiful. if you have ever been treated as "ugly", you know exactly how much society reviles you if you don't manage to scamper along and perform to their rules.

and how are you supposed to balance that? do you want a nose job to fix your broken nose, or have you just recently been seeing videos about how many people look better after nose jobs. do you want to lose weight to feel good, or is it that when you lose weight people treat you better. do you want to wear this outfit, or is it just the thing that's least likely to get you harassed. do you want to get lip injections for your reasons or is your whole reason that you don't feel beautiful unless you get those lip injections?

and the definitions shift. the goals get more specific. in the way that you only become aware of your tongue when someone mentions it; parts of your body are introduced as problems. i had never heard the term "hip dip" until about a year ago - and it was in the context of how to get rid of this. i'm 30, i know this shit is invented, and yet! i still find that strange voice saying but do you think someone is going to notice?

how the fuck am i supposed to say "this is my genuine choice i am making for my body" when i also know that years of my life have been spent socializing me to accept this as my inevitable fate? how do i know i'm actually doing this out of love for my body - or am i doing it for how i want others to see me, which will be lovely enough to feel loved? how am i supposed to recover when my unhealthy habits are seen as self-discipline but if i relax i'm openly mocked for "letting time win"? how the fuck am i supposed to say "i'm doing it for me" when i'm also very aware that i'm doing it to stop myself from being teased or demeaned? is it my choice if the other option is being bullied?

we are living in a hostage negotiation - either consent to the demands or spend the rest of your life being treated like you're a despicable person.

#i also have things to say about how gender plays into this #but it became like 1450 pages #so i saved the rest in a draft #btw? hip dips used to be like valued in the 90s & 2000s during the ultra thin craze #which is so fucking wild to me bc i am old enough to REMEMBER that people WANTED them #bc they're literally the shape of your bones. they're your hipbones showing. & you literally CANNOT 'target' that area #that would be like targeting your elbow. it's a fucking JOINT. #it is a place where you either do or do not carry mass. the lower ur bodyfat percent and the higher ur thigh & glute strength #the less that you will carry weight there #which is even MORE fucking cruel bc !!! the type of people who are already trying to improve themselves helplessly #are going to be aware of their body! and ur literally GIVING them an insecurity they LITERALLY do not decide!!!! #“it rounds out ur figure” here's something my guy! maybe people shouldn't have to look uniform and sleek !!! #maybe you just want to fuck a manatee !!! #if we're really at the point that you have to apologize for LITERALLY HAVING BONES..... #like sorry my legs had to connect somewhere in my form :( i will hide that from u. my apologies ur honor #(fashion bloggers gagging bc there's evidence other people have skeletons)

[fromtheseventhhell]

I also find it funny that fandom will only accept Lyanna being her non-conforming, wild self in the context of saying that Arya isn't meant to be pretty; Any other day we get back-to-back posts about how Lyanna is actually super traditionally feminine cause she sniffled at a song once, so she's actually more like Sansa. Instead of constantly speaking on Arya and Lyanna, how about you guys reflect on why your standards of beauty for women are attached to how well they perform feminity within the patriarchy?

#lyanna stark #arya stark #asoiaf #/Lyanna isn't actually pretty she was a wild tomboy/ Those two things are not mutually exclusive 😭 #how you look is not a reflection of your personality and this is also a running theme within the story #we have morally good characters who are ugly and morally bad characters who are beautiful this is like...kindergarten level #Lyanna is idealized in terms of her personality hence /you saw her beauty but not the iron underneath/ #and Ned correcting Robert when he said Lyanna wouldn't have shamed him like Cersei had #he's a very shallow misogynistic character and I truly doubt he would've been as attached to the idea of her without surface level beauty #reminds me of people saying that Olivia Hussey is a bad fancast for them because she has a /doll like/ beauty and they're /rougher/ 😭 #as though their entire facial structure magically changed once they realized they enjoyed playing with swords instead of sewing sdksdkdsksd #it's giving that one tiktok with the /cat pretty vs doe pretty vs bunny pretty/ #even if you wanted to make the case that her beauty is idealized in her death we get Arya described a pretty multiple times? #idk it's just so wild to me to use personality as an indication of looks it just sounds so stupid #Arya/Lyanna can still have /delicate/ features (which is extremely subjective) and still have a wild personality #how about we acknowledge that the perception of both of them is warped by strict patriarchal gender norms instead? #some real analysis just to shake things up idk

[dennisboobs]

blacked out and came to with a document full of macden

#ada speaks #ada writing macden in 2024........ hm #its all dennis introspection but i have a Plan #the funny thing abt macden is that mac is so goddamn dense i can commit to usual den shenanigans #charlie is way too perceptive it doesn't usually work #i will laugh if i manage to post this before any of my longass fics #its. playing with some concepts i have used before (i will say. victoria being conceptualized as an entirely separate person.) #i find den's separation of self really fascinating bc for me the trans experience has been. hm #playing a part for the masses but knowing who i am beneath that #its opposite for dennis but also the same. he doesn't see vicky as himself but he doesn't have a core either #he's a shell hosting her in his body but she also feels like the most authentic version of the self #and thus. gender euphoria. very weird and complicated gender euphoria. #one dennis holds himself back from expressing to its fullest extent #what was i talking about again #oh yeah macden. that's there too. i think probably den's gonna put the moves on mac but i haven't decided how itll go..... #this fic is just dennis doing psych student brain things thinking abt mac and their relationship and breaking it all down

[amorremanet]

seeing a post that has interesting canon analysis and wanting to reblog it until you get to the last paragraph and just

#fandom shenanigans #tumblrisms #actual about me #wank for ts #opinions for ts #kassie hush #mine: text #i am always here to talk about how MXTX Be Gendering Again in her novels #bc truly there is SO MUCH to talk about re: how she plays with gender & this usually applies to Wangxian Bingqiu & Hualian bc Main Ships #but it also happens with the supporting characters & relationships and i love love LOVE analysis of this shit #please do talk to me about how the relationship coding w/ jiang cheng & wei wuxian is more romantic than brotherly & jc gets the fem tropes #but that being said: it’s one thing to say that JIANG CHENG believes wei wuxian’s ‘blah blah blah duty & debt to the jiang clan’ nonsense #from guanyin temple…………but i deeply question the media literacy of any READERS who actually believe that story for themselves lmao #i also seriously question their read on wwx as a character when he spends the entire novel being an unreliable narrator abt his own feelings #but like okay cool we have fundamentally irreconcilable reads on both wwx & chengxian; you do you *thumbs up*

[eeriehowl]

i know it’s a big part of mammon to be mysterious but i really would love to know their age. there’s a lot more i want to know, too, but they sure wouldn’t divulge anything.

#khr 0 #gender obviously isn’t among these #mammon is cryptic gender #also xanxus’ age is wild #we do accept he is 24 since amano has pretty much made him that age and consistently says so #but we really are led to believe that someone can grow in cryostasis #that is somehow canon in this bizarre universe #(anything is possible in khr though) #i was already wondering about this as a kid #i can’t call bullshit on a thing like this though when we are in the same anime that has a 10 year bazooka #that a character uses for comic relief when they’re upset #amano decided that works in some bizarre fashion so it works #characters can become older and grow in ice & a character can somehow be convinced that they are playing a mafia game #even when shit blows up around them and people almost get killed #xanxus did legit grow physically there’s no doubt about that #but mentally??? by this manga’s logic….not even the most insane thing #there’s a baby that defies death. he’s immortal…. #though idk how that’s special when characters can blow up through a GIGANTIC explosion and come out mildly bruised…. #so the defying death baby doesn’t seem special despite the emphasis #i mean a character even survives having his heart ripped out #by having it replaced with an illusion

[overly-hubristic-mad-scientist]

ok so given everything went well the the Bride’s Reanimation what exactly did Dan decide to do? Because while he did agree to her creation with the agreement that she would be his replacement Meg, she’s not she has a different brain and based on what we saw a different personality what will Dan’s reaction be if she’s not what he originally wanted? Will he get discontent and look for happiness elsewhere like he did with Herbert? Will he resent her for not being Meg? Even if she was similar enough for him there’s no guarantee that she would love him back, which is extremely understandable since he is essentially her parent. What if the Bride just isn’t into Dan at all and just wants a dad? Will he leave? Will he blame her? Will he blame Herbert? Will he just lose it and try to inflict harm (he’s not emotionally stable especially not when it comes to romance) I’m kinda curious to know what will happen

#Overall the sci-fi move genre(?) of male doctors/scientists creating women in order to cure the guilt they feel for playing a role #In a lover’s death is its whole own thing and can say a lot about bodily autonomy and gender roles being projected onto the creation #Because at the end of the day these creatures are being created with the very specific goal of fulfilling a specific role #That the doctor thinks he needs in his life/overall being there to be a particular thing to the doctor #And never once does he actually stop the think about the ramifications of his actions and the effects it can have on him and his creation #Like what if it doesn’t make the creature happy? What if they can’t do it right and make him resentful? The never think #Actually this isn’t even just about creating women(or what is supposed to be a woman) #All doctors in media we see creating artificial life do it with the very express purpose that the creature will fulfill a perfect role #The perfect wife or or son or lover #Whatever this role is they all have specific thoughts on how the creature should act and want to enforce that onto them #Also let’s not even get into the problem of creating a creature specifically to be your lover because the consent there is dubious at best #Because do they have the minds of children at first? Even if not they owe you a great deal for creating them is that leveraged #Overall the whole “making a person without conception” is such an intriguing story device I could probably write an essay on this shit #Anyway rant over if you made it this far thanks for caring #reanimator #herbert west #bride of reanimator #dan cain

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

If there is at least one thing I can credit FE for doing better than Tales in localization, it's not trying to actively go out of their way for an entire game to avoid subtext or direct text between two men that is romantic or implied romantic. Funny when it's so present that the attempt doesn't even work; infuriating that it was attempted to begin with.

So as much as I often have issues with some of FE's localizations, at least they have a leg up on loc Tales for that.

#DCB Comments #imagine changing entire sentences and vocal tones just to try to avoid it #if anything I'd say at least in FE the locs just... keep what's there like #they could've toned Soren and Houses Yuri down and they didn't. they just kept their lines or in some cases #especially with Houses Yuri I'd say leaned into them #have to specify bc Houses Yuri got to keep his bi agenda. Vesperia Yuri had the unfortunate issue of #the loc not wanting to keep his gay and trying reeeeally hard to avoid it #including altering entire sentences to avoid any woe is them misunderstandings about men having feelings for each other #meanwhile Houses Yuri is free to call men cute and lo and behold everyone loved that for him #they removed and altered a LOT of Vesperia Yuri's personality traits #(including any ability to express real sadness or fear bc woe is them if he's not a cool edgy man) #but they also really changed his tone toward Flynn PLUS some of what they say to each other #and twisted it to make it sound like Yuri was either angry or wasn't actually emotional abt him #forget the way they brought Grant George in for the DE release and made him sound just completely DEAD with zero personality #like. I can tolerate playing Houses dubbed despite my gripes with it (story based stuff) #it didn't feel like they were trying to alter LBGT+ aspects and they even for some rly leaned into it #basically if you haven't played Vesperia Yuri is... really gay coded. the loc pretended not to notice #in fact he's queer + gay coded bc and doesn't fit male gender norms and the gacha games LOVE that with his hair/outfits #Rays mind you is JP only bc it was shut down very quickly in the west and Vesp Yuri's story in Rays is uh #basically it centers around Flynn he loses his shit to protect Flynn and they do the usual like #don't-admit-it's-gay-outright in fictional media by using the ''Yuri's important person'' shtick #but he activates a special power in the middle of utterly raging to get Flynn back from their enemies #funny thing? that game never made it to that arc. I was told in about five months the western ver would've gotten that #but in some way I'm glad it didn't bc who knows how they would've tried to spin that #It's BAFFLING to me how you can get characters in Tales like JAY but the locs shake in their boots at the idea of queer gays #but given how allergic fictional media is to admitting a male character is gay -gestures to Ike and Vesp Yuri- #I'm not surprised I'm just actually angry that the locs try to censor homosexual relationships as much as possible even when they barely ca #if anyone does know Vesp Yuri and is confused on why I'm calling him gay coded despite what the dub did with Judith feel free to ask #bc I do ship them a little bit myself! but I just recognize that canon wise I really can't see him as anything but gay-demiromantic #but again at least FE locs don't shake in their boots anymore abt same sex pairs including men (side eyes Lucius/Raven)

[no1ryomafan]

I mentioned this briefly last night in my last big post so here it is: The Ashe&Grey to Kei&Go parallel meme. I would’ve done a compare and contrast chart instead of listing out all the parallels but last time I did it the resolution was even worse then these 💀 besides just pointing out the similarities is funnier since I’d say overall their vastly different characters- but these baseline similarities I can’t help to notice even if I doubt it was a reference on ZXs part to Armageddon. Moral of the story they'd all be besties probably. (Also I’m going to ramble in the tags once more-)

#meg text #getter robo armageddon #mega man zx #shitpost #I actually did do art once of grey and ashe in go and keis clothes but never bothered to post it on my art blog #even though I posted it on my Twitter art alt which is just the same fucking thing 💀 my inconsistency between the two is hilarious #also to clarify if anyone saw the fic post no this will not be mentioned in the crossover even if it would be a funny angsty thing to write #it’s not one of *those* crossovers and none of these characters will be prevalent (even if I can say one of these duos does appear) #but if I ever wrote a normal ass ZXA fic where grey and ashe both existed I’d have to NOT give Grey Gos “I will protect you” complex 💀 #Grey is more personified then Go so it be less of a “it’s my objective” thing but baby boy doesn’t need to risk it all for his sister #especially when they both could kick ass together bc I will always roll with the hc if they both exist in a timeline they share Model A #I will never understand how the fuck Ashe is Albert’s daughter though bc its so confusing if she’s his descendant or not #I cannot tell if it’s a mistranslation thing or if Albert contradict himself I’d have to look at the dialogue again bc it’s been awhile #(I play ZX religiously I just can’t remember the last time I looked at all the dialogue- especially advent) #I guess it’s better then having a gender crisis like Kei over there though #Oh and I may have stretched it a bit with Kei’s meme bc it was never said if she *wasnt* going to pilot a getter #and like shin dragon whole ordeal was it needed to scan Kei’s dna to further its evolution which feels like it leads into her piloting it #but from wtf I grasp about Saotome’s questionable parenting is he probably raised her as a boy bc he wanted her to be a researcher #and not a pilot #the tables fucking turned there LMAO #Oh and machine in the meme getter wise refers to both shin dragon and shin (for zx it’s clearly just A)

[blujaydoodles]

@opportunity-strikes​ HI HELLO I’m gonna answer this heeere because I just realized I did a couple of sketches of them way back but never posted them aaahah

Indigo "Skylights" Asterix Pollux Kosjisk Ankabut Fatespinner is my pirate!! Quite awhile back one of my friends mentioned the idea of an all-gnome pirate crew whose ship’s name is comprised of the names of all the ships they’ve successfully raided and/or destroyed, and long story short it ended up being a one-shot and hopefully an ongoing series of one-shots :D

Indigo is the ship’s navigator and lookout; they’re a circle of stars druid, and their star map is a gold false eye etched with constellations, with a Gem of Brightness core that can project the stars outward-- which is, not to brag, the coolest idea I’ve ever had about anything (it’s an admittedly low bar; I’m not a very creative Ideas Guy lmao)

also their Archer starry form gives them a flintlock that shoots comets, and their Primal Savagery cantrip is flavored as a cutlass that’s formed from an extension of their starlight :D

#dnd #dungeons and dragons #gnome #druid #character art #heroforge #imagine the treasure map from treasure planet. that's sorta how their eyeball is (they pop it out to do readings and stuff) #in starry form their eye is the only thing that remains solid and opaque and you can see the whole thing floating and shining #I never got an opportunity to blind someone with my eyeball when we played 😭 hopefully next time lol #I default to they/them because I personally prefer consistency but they use any pronouns and their gender is 'none for me thanks' #they're an astrology bitch and constantly saying things like 'the stars predict you're gonna see a bird today' #but they also have like you know... Actual Portents and stuff as class features but they straight-face all of it #so it's hard to tell when they're being serious about astrology and when they're bullshitting you #similarly if you ask what happened to their eye they'll give a different answer every time including 'this IS my real eye?' #also we've talked about doing rotating DMs for Pirate Gnomes but my friend who ran it first had us explore a mysterious ghost ship #which was extremely cool AND we managed to grab her nameplate off her before she sank forever into the depths HELL YEAH #their roll20 bio is just 1) the 'look at the sky-- it's not dark and black and without character' bit from the van gogh ep of doctor who #and 2) the bridge from weird al's 'that's your horoscope for today' #so that's The Vibe lmao #anyway they're cool I like em they've got a handful of features I didn't get to use that I'm excited about in a theoretical future adventure #altho I'd want to better dial in how to actually roleplay them lol their voice and manner of speech was all over the place :'D #my OCs #Indigo

[diari0deglierrori]

Thinking about that post that said would you ever date someone who has the same name as you and might have to change my answer as I had ✨Thoughts✨ about someone I met tonight

#also good thing about having a gender neutral name is that it works for any gender so I’m good #anyway maybe it was only the wine doing things to me but I was already starting to consider it #and then a kid that was about 10 years old got there and called him dad and I said oops how old is he then?? #after hearing a conversation he had with someone else he’s from 85…….. so…38 #like gorl you think you found yourself a dilf?? come onnn #nope #anywayyy later on he also told me he has another son who lives in the north so imagine if he’s around my age #also he was my height it’s funny same name same height #and I heard him ask someone something about me as they were looking at me and I heard my name and country and stuff but pretended I couldn’t #hear #anyway absolutely nothing will happen I just got a bit carried away #but! #didn’t really help that around the end he was smoking and dancing and had his shirt opened a bit #‘tu savais que la saint [redacted] c’était le [redacted]?´ the urge to answer oui je me l’auto fête depuis une bonne dizaine d’année #et adore mentionner que j’ai toujours des feux d’artifices pour mes fêtes #I moved on but I can still say he has the perfect dad body and charisma and is pretty fun and nice k bye #thinking about this as quién es tu nueeevo amooor? tuu nueeva ocuupación tu misterioooso aaalguien is playing

[bat-the-misfit]

my dream is to be best friends with someone whose favorite character is the brother of MY favorite character

#NIMBUS STANS CADÊ VOCÊÊÊS #BROTA AQUI VAMO VIRAR AMIGUES #who are Do Contra stans without Nimbus stans? if they're brothers we should stick together as if we were siblings as well #we can complain about how little they appear in the comics together #we can also complain about how their supposed actors are taking so fucking long to admit they're going to play them :D #come on admit it most people had a crush on Nimbus growing up just admit you stan him #my son Do Contra is questionable but Nimbus' a good boy #he is nice with everyone he's pretty he's the responsible older brother and he does magic 🐇🎩 #my son's the weird brother but that's why i prefer him lol #WE CAN ALSO CALL THEM MAURO AND MAURÍCIO WITHOUT PEOPLE THINKING WE ARE WEIRD OMG #“Bat are you ignoring the fact you just accused your fave chara of being questionable and weird while saying his brother is an angel?” #i'm not ignoring i just have adhd lol #MY SON BREAKS THE SYSTEM HE BREAKS SOCIETY'S EXPECTATIONS #HE BREAKS GENDER ROLES HE BREAKS RACIAL STEREOTYPES #HE IS INDIVIDUALISTIC HE IS INVENTIVE HE DOES THINGS IN HIS OWN RYTHM #MY SON MY BABY MY BELOVED HE IS SO FUCKING PRECIOUS #HE ANNOYS HIS BROTHER TOO WHICH I RESPECT A LOT #HE IS A GREAT BOYFRIEND HE IS A GREAT FRIEND HE IS A TERRIBLE BROTHER #I BET HE'S A TERRIBLE SON TOO BUT WE'RE SUPPOSED TO ONLY COMPLIMENT HIM HERE #HE DOES THINGS NOT ONLY OUTSIDE THE BOX SOMETIMES HE IS THE BOX SOMETIMES HE BREAKS THE BOX #BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY HE IS ALWAYS ×AGAINST× AND I LOVE HIM FOR THAT #“ok Bat you can shut up now” DO CONTRA MY BELOVED #MAURÍCIO YOU WILL ALWAYS BE THE OWNER OF MY HEART #my future boyfriend: *cries in the background* #ok i'm gonna stop i just feel more hyperactive today bc i'm anxious #i mean i'm always hyperactive but that's not the point #“BAT GO AWAY” OK I'M GOING

[daisyachain]

Hmmmm how to say. There’s a certain peerhood of character dynamic that comes from two people in a work being both girls/both boys/both neither. That isn’t to say that life isn’t fluid or that you can’t build a dynamic between male and female characters that ignores this divide.

To take an example at random—MP100. Emi, Asagiri, Tsubomi all interact with Mob as Girls. They’re foreign, agitating or destabilizing elements in Mob’s world (the audience’s world) as non-peers. His interactions with them are always in the context of Gee I’m Talking to a Girl. Mezato is an edge case but still Girl. Mob ends up misinterpreting her journalistic curiosity as interest in the Divine Tree arc, which only makes sense if she’s viewed as Girl before Classmate. Tome, on the other hand, is fully a Peer character. She’s Mob’s closest friend from what we see in-canon, they go on what he describes as ‘dates’, but she’s so far out of the Girl social role that Shigeo never associates her with the fresh intrigue of the Girls. Instead she’s a comforting, reassuring force on the story in the way that Reigen and Ritsu are. She even steps into Mob’s shoes for the oneshot! There are gendered roles and non-gendered roles and actual gender doesn’t have to define them. Tome is a girl and not a Girl.

So, it’s interesting to play around with his characters’ genders can shape even non-romantic dynamics, or how dynamic is itself gender. People who are similar feel kinship. A tomboy will hang out with boys on the playground or a kid bullied for being a sissy will be part of the girl group. That gets complicated when genders bend around in-story.

Specifically DGM Alma Karma was born from the transmigration of a woman’s soul into an an artificial male-assigned homunculus. Her/his/their key dynamic is with Kanda as two-of-a-kind. Both experiments, both exorcists, both (assigned) boys growing up together. The sense of sameness and equivalency is important to that relationship. They have no one else in the world like them except each other.

PastKanda’s dynamic with PastAlma also fits into a strictly gendered structure: Kanda is a brooding gruff man searching for a lost cheerful kind woman. They’re the action hero/deadwife cliché. Kanda has abstracted PastAlma away from any semblance of personality because he doesn’t even know her, he just has a vague impression. The woman is separate, unknowable, distant, and though Hoshino is a lady herself, the trope is a misogynistic one that relies on the idea that women are mysterious creatures rather than human beings with thoughts and dreams.

By then transposing the somewhat gendered relationship of childhood friends-twins-equals-peers on to the irrevocably gendered trope of sadman/deadwife, Hoshino then challenges the way that gender informs the whole story. Kanda’s view on Alma is wholly interior. Alma is himself reflected, openly expresses what Kanda feels and hides, is the one person who truly knows and understands him. Then his view on PastAlma is entirely exterior; she is an inscrutable ghost, an invisible gap in his life. Kanda has idealized PastAlma and resented Alma for a decade only to find out that they’re the same person. Which begs the questions: did he think of them differently just because he thought Alma was a boy? Was PastKanda even a man? Do we the audience read PastAlma as opaque just because she’s a woman, where Alma is such a lively screen presence? Would Alma present as a woman if she weren’t trying to go incognito, or did they genuinely identify with the boyhood he was assigned?

Who knows. Social pressures always weigh on the edges of a story. Even if they’re not obvious, they inform how events unfold and how audiences interpret them. Gender (patriarchy) is such a pervasive hierarchy that a writer/reader’s got to consider how it influences plot events. Alternately, ignoring it has got to be a deliberate choice and you’ve got to think hard to keep gender from sneaking into the reading (eg a perfectly neutral interaction between girl characters will read as misogynist between a girl and a guy).

#kelsey rambles #brought to you by a post I should reblog talking about how Alma Karma is both feminine and masculine #but only in the ways that clash. their rough rage and destruction is their womanhood while their sociability and their grace is masculine #character study aside Alma plays the role of both a girl and a boy in the series. Kanda’s view of them (the lens through which we watch) #is defined by thinking of Alma as A Boy Like Me and by thinking of PastAlma as Divine Feminine #complicating it further. purely from a trope standpoint you can’t unpick one from the other #also. regret to say that I think it’s an important aspect of Kanda’s character that he only finds out about Alma at the very last second #he goes through that entire arc believing Alma to be a) a guy b) a stranger #or going to MP100 I see a lot of girl Mob which is great adorable interesting canonically resonant #but I also see a lot of girl Mob and boy Teru which feels so at odds with their entire thing of Teru being Mob’s foil/reflection/equal/peer #girl Mob must compare herself to alpha bitch fashionista girl Teru. just as guy Mob has to compare himself to suave bully boy Teru #their entire dynamic is rooted in comparison so you can’t just have them be different #or if you do have girl mob and boy teru then you’ve got to create a reason for them to view each other as competitors #given that both have extremely gendered worldviews and attitudes (mob’s idolization/teru’s precocious dating)

[lilydvoratrelundar]

Hey, I know you're probably well-adjusted and it doesn't mean a thing to you that they tried to 'gotcha' you, but n*ghtl*ng has always been known to be a generally unpleasant, classist, transphobic person in the fandom so there really was nothing you could have done. Your argument was sound and points out an inherent flaw in the oversaturated western market that there's never really any variation on classist stereotypes. I think the last time I saw a piece of media that wowed me with its use of acting against accent stereotypes was Resident Evil 8, where there's a highborn, classy sort of guy who speaks with what most would acknowledge as a 'sleazy' American accent. But that's neither here nor there. You're right about the classist roots and they really showed their true colors by then taking a shot at a perfectly normal accent that they clearly look down on.

i think they follow my sandman blog so i wont be posting this there but. yeah every time i see their posts in the tags they come off as a bit of a dick jfskldjfk i'm glad i'm not the only one who made an active decision to Not follow them.

#i couldnt see any of there transphobia when i went looking they seem to be relatively ok wrt that from what i could find? #on their sandman posts at least #but they way they tend to talk is just smug and condescending and overblown and i just. ugh. #i just wanna vibe with my funky comics from the 90s #also ties into the fuckin weird way EVERYONE is talking about johanna constantine because like yeah she comes from the comics #but she also 100% IS a gender-swapped John!! but that's not a bad thing!! #all of the arguments (especialyl from them but from other blogs too) seem to accept the initial (wrong) premise that if she WAS that #then it'd be a bad thing. but no it's fine it's an adaptation and making that change is a good thing #but also i know because of how these arguments have played out #if i say that on my sandman blog. people will jump to conclusions and say i hate diversity or something jflksdjfkl #damn that's a lot of tags. hope they never see this post but it's nice to know im not the only one who thinks their vibes are off #lily dot tee ex tee

[butchbarbieagainstterfs]

lmaoooooo so a video popped up on my TikTok of a story time of some guy trying to buy his wife tampons and some woman going up to him thinking he was a trans man saying, “see? you’ll always be a woman!”

and he turned to the woman like “I’m buying tampons for my wife because I’m a good fucking husband. do you think if they were for me, I’d look this lost about where the brand is she wants?” he shut her up so fast lmfao. and she walked away looking pale and teary because transphobic people always have to play the victim.

(but also this is what I mean when I say transphobia can affect anyone and being transphobic literally takes over your mind. you cannot think critically at all about anything to do with gender or sex and anyone diverting from the image you have of how things are in your black and white world view is automatically The Enemy)

[readymades2002]

i still think that pronouns being a...somewhat common expected mode of introducing yourself is strange 😭 the purpose that makes sense to me in doing that is mostly to signal that you're trans or otherwise affiliated (which...i know that "allies" doing things like this or calling people their partner or whatever is meant to create a space where people feel comfortable coming out, but as i still cannot bring myself to come out in such situations and as i've had Really Bad Experiences with people claiming to be allies i haven't internalized this as a purpose that makes sense yet), but i know that it is also genuinely supposed to be like. "here's how you should talk about me if you want to mention me to a third person!" which is something that makes me REEL to think about. there is no universe where i want to introduce myself to someone by telling them how to correctly and incorrectly talk about me to someone else!! i don't understand...

#i do understand its just that i guess my experience with gender is strange #i know that these things have a purpose but i am really averse to thinking about it #it feels like...branding in a weird way. tell your friends about this channel and subscribe if you want to see more #i dont feel like gender plays that kind of linguistic role in how i talk to other people? im sure it does on a deeper level #(talking to men does make me nervous even if i don't comprehend gender in the expected way) #but its. hrm. i dont know. i know (OBVIOUSLY!)(I AM TRANS) that gender is important to people #but i also dont...need to know to navigate convrsations? #i probably do. i just dont consider the kind of small talk that comprises most interactions irl to be conversations necessarily? #its...kind of a problem 😭 i dont think of the way i talk and move and emote as part of what makes me me #and i am so so so bored by most 'necessary' conversations that it makes my teeth hurt and i dont know how to deal with that... #part of the problem may just be im not approaching real life with a pragmatic approach to communicating...? #im not...hm. i am a very private person irl (which im sure is a surprise if you read this page) #i am very opinionated and passionate but i don't express this much in the flesh. lots of reasons #(often seen as an outsider)(denied opportunities to define myself)(put on display for others a lot)(punished for argumentative behavior) #so maybe i am not present enough in most banal conversations to understand the point of them... #maybe i would understand introduction with pronouns if i wasn't invested in staying closeted or scared or anything #'the ocean still looks grey to me' as they say #this didnt go where i wanted it to </3 anyway