#Something to do with forced masculinization

[famouskoaladetective]

So I'm technically non-binary or demi masculine but I really just want to talk to whoever asked this and said no and just literally ask them: do you think that trans men just appear in a vacuum? Do you think that we don't have lives before we come out? Do you think we aren't treated like women sometimes even after we come out? Do you think we weren't raised to be good girls and expected to grow up to be women? Do you really think that all of us had supportive families that let us actually be ourselves and not pretend to be women for longer than we were comfortable?

Like I came out as non-binary at 16 but was femme presenting and didn't come out as transmasculine until I was 23 or 24 and already had a child. I definitely know what the female experience is I just do not want to live it and I don't enjoy it and I never really felt as though it was right for me. There's a difference between not connecting with something and just being completely ignorant to it.

Like I can talk about how I kind of knew that I wasn't a girl from the time I was 7 or 8 years old but that doesn't change the fact that I didn't have the verbiage or the cultural understanding until I was in my twenties to realize that I was even "actually transgender" and not just non-binary and essentially close to agender. It's impossible without writing an entire novel to explain to people that transgender men and transmasculine people unfortunately were forced to know what it's like to live as their assigned gender at birth because at certain points in our lives we weren't given a fucking choice.

Shit like this reminds me of whenever I run into people who I went to high school with and they go "oh you used to be such a quiet good girl what the fuck happened?" I realized that I didn't have to be a quiet good girl to be a valid human being and that I was happier being myself but that doesn't mean that I don't still remember what it was like to be a teenage girl or to be a young woman in America.

I was forced to know what that experience is like against my will and bitch I will never fucking forget it.

That's part of why I love and respect women so much to this day because I know that they go through shit especially women of color and transgender women and other queer women, because I was raised by black and native women and was raised with the expectation of being a good mixed girl. I'm not and that's okay but I still fucking sympathize because being a woman is hard and women are impressive for the shit that they fucking go through.

Just because I'm not one anymore doesn't mean I don't get it.

i think im going to lose my fucking mind actually.

this little make believe game that yall are playing where ur all pretending that we have always been passing as cis men is honestly just really sickening to read. as if trans men have never been sexually harassed or abused because society perceives us as women. im genuinely of the opinion that u all just do not believe trans men face misogyny and thats so unbelievably fucked up and just not based in reality. its actually disgusting and vile.

[psychedelic5]

Weekly Ares post. Happy Tuesday.

Things that may not count as offerings/devotional acts but I still think of Him when I do it:

Fixing my posture

Stopping myself from lashing out

Lashing out

Studying

Calling out hypocrites

Reading angsty romantic stories, especially those with some violence

Work/ labor, especially ones that gets my hands dirty

Challenging myself to do things within a time limit

Having a good cry

Forcing myself out of bed

Self-care, even if I really don't feel like doing it

Playing violent video games

Staying sober

Reading posts about him

Wearing masculine clothing while strutting around like a feminine model

Tidying my room

Wearing red

Carrying around self-defense weapons

Being stubborn

Unmasking

When something physically hits me

Being honest

Shadow work

Failing but trying again

Hail Lord Ares

[thecoolerliauditore]

saw you mention gender for a bit - i wonder why grian is feminized so much? it's of course because of the feedback loop of fanon but how did it snowball so much? it would be funny if it's from him using the alex player model

I'm probably not the guy to ask for this just to be clear right off the back. I love observing fandom trends but I'm just not keeping an eye on Grian stuff more often than not. Grain (lol) of salt, blah blah blah.

So first off I think we should tackle what "feminized" means in this context because I can see that argument being made for both the default-ish generic young anime guy grian I have in my head when I think "fanon grian" and. well. arianna griande and the like (I'd argue cuteguy falls into this latter category)

I'm gonna start with the first one and use my own Grian as an example because I think he's pretty much as standard as you can go in the former category, and that's more or less on purpose. Pictured here in all of his tiny anime twink glory (next to Joel and Cleo who are also meant to be pretty short!)

So while I can't read the minds of other Grian artists, I can offer what went through my head when I designed mine and try to have a guess at how much other people thought the same.

First things first I do think this specific brand of Grian is "feminized" -- if you compare him to the CC. The goal at least for me was more to communicate youthfulness than femininity, but those traits tend to go hand in hand with male characters due to them having pretty much the same features (no facial/body hair is a big one).

Artists in this fandom tend to swing on the younger side, and people tend to base their designs unconsciously (or consciously tbh) on themselves or media they like, the latter being very likely to be media aimed at their age group and thus having a cast of characters around their age. Doesn't help that most popular animated things are made for younger audiences, so chances are most people are basing their art styles in media where the casts age range is 12-25.

For me I do think most of my designs have a little bit of added in youthfulness/femininity unless I Really want to get across age/masculinity. It's a lot easier to separate the 30 year olds from the 40 year olds if the 30 year olds look a bit closer to 20, doubly so when most of the stuff I like (and thus reference from purposefully or not) has casts full of 15 year olds. Alot of this also applies to the other younger men in my designs aside from Grian, like Joel who's next to him.

But Joel is still drawn with stubble and a bit taller than Grian, so what gives about Grian specifically?

For me personally, I draw everything with the Life Series in mind, especially Third Life in Grian's case. And the character who Grian plays off the most in that series, especially in Third Life, is Scar.

While I do think the aforementioned age factor also impacts a lot of Scar designs (as well as younger artists' tendency towards shyness when drawing muscles), I think most people see Scar's masculinity as a key trait of his. I think I'm kind of unique in that I take descriptions of their appearances ingame as somewhat canon (e.g. Scott being canonically referred to as "handsome") but Scar really lays it on thick with "Hot Guy" and the abs and so on that it's pretty much screaming for acknowledgement when you're designing him.

Grian is also short irl and this even gets mentioned by Joel in the first WL episode, so it made enough sense to me that should be something exaggerated with Desert Duo's designs to make them look better next to eachother.

This is also maybe getting a bit into headcanon territory but when I think Grian I don't necessarily think predator or brute force, I think of him setting his traps and giggling maniacally and manipulating what he wants out of people with his words instead of his sword. And him just being like. a little gremlin thing compared to his Big Strong Man partner in crime whilst also, actually being arguably the more dangerous of the two feels harmonious.

If we do a layer deeper into headcanon land, I've also always seen him as more frail and physically weak due to Martyn's concern for his safety and his own more anxious nature in 3L as one of the first players to really consider having to defend himself -- if you're dropped into a death game arena and you're the smallest one there, you would naturally be a lot more nervous than the big guys and come off as more "insane" for wanting to set up seemingly unnecessary defenses or striking first. (<-- this is why I don't talk about Grian much btw all of my thoughts regarding him are seeped in headcanons lol)

Alot of Grian artists are also Desert Duo artists and while they might not be operating by the same logic I am I have to assume there's some common points.

I've seen this meme used a lot when people make fun of other peoples DD art and it's almost always people with very little self-awareness. it's funny to me (and this probably could be its own discussion about queer tropes and xenophobia, but whatever haha funny it's literally them so true so true.)

One final note on this is I think this specific brand of twink Grian might be dipping in popularity? I've been seeing a lot more Grians that are chunkier or entirely throw out his anime-main-character-ness by making his glasses or curly hair heavily exaggerated. Which is cool I especially loveeee the more cartoony puff ball grians that have gotten more popular. Idk if it's necessarily in response to the anti-twink-propaganda or if it's just a new stage in Grian design development as we get further away from the Third Life Desert Duo meta, but it's fun and I think speaks the feminizing not really being an intentional trait and more of a consequence of other things.

As for CuteGuy/Griande I can't really offer as much insight since I don't really get the appeal either lol except that I think it's fun in the way drag is fun.

I think what a lot of people need to remember when they ask for more masculine designs is that masculinity irl is often synonymous with less customization. Alot of it is practical (like short hair obviously you can't style like long hair) and especially outside of queer circles a lot of it is just gender roles -- alot of men will refuse to wear literally plain mens t shirts if it's an eye-catching colour.

There's a great Derek Guy interview where he talks about how men tend to misunderstand what "fashion" is and how most cishet men actually care deeply about fashion. He makes the example of offering two pairs of jeans -- one is a regular pair of blue jeans that costs fifty dollars and another is free of charge but happens to be pink, and how most men despite "not caring about fashion" will go for the fifty dollar blue jeans.

If you want an example of mens fashion and its "boring" aesthetics made more to fit into a crowd than to stand out, just go on instagram and look at pictures of the Empires CCs together and watch the guys get absolutely mogged. This isn't me calling the men badly dressed (in fact I've actually noticed before that CC Joel is like. super well put together) but more of a statement on how womens clothing is designed vs how mens clothing is designed.

I know where my eyes go first, at least. (self indulgent note: Pearl is kind of an exception to the rule for reasons but I cannot say lest I betray my own moral code. however my eyes go to her first anyway because she is stunningly beautiful she could wear a potato sack and it'd work)

And while I don't agree with this sentiment (I actually loveee menswear deeply it's. a thing), in the world of fandom artists who typically are big fans of the gay gay homosexual gay and more into high-decorative, sexier stuff, clawing at any ounce of femininity that these men exhibit is probably an opportunity hard to pass on. This also happens with Jimmy on occasion I think, with stuff like the maid dress. And Ariana Griande is like Drag Drag, not just a dress but a whole persona, so that in combination with feeding into yaoi tropes for popular ships like Scarian and Grumbo, I'm not surprised there's such a gap between actual screentime and fanmade content.

Also is Griande even like. That popular anymore? I also don't think I've seen CuteGuy all that much unless it's DDVAU stuff specifically.

I'd be interested to hear my artist friends comment on this too since again I feel like I'm not the right person to ask lol. Take this as an invitation to yap I would be fascinated hearing your perspectives.

I also think his popularity and younger audience might be playing a big part in this especially in conjunction with the first point about drawing characters younger-looking but this is getting fairly rambly already lol

Go follow the menswear guy (@/dieworkwear) on twitter if you're interested in menswear btw he's very insightful and funny

[peachfuzz-nygma]

forcemasc post inspired by the wolf monologue josef gives to aaron in creep (2014)

[highseas-swede]

...I seriously cannot stress how much I hate tags like "Give us BAMF Aziraphale" because it seems to imply that he's not badass.

He IS. Tell me how well most people could endure 6000 years of consistent, persistent demoralization, harassment and shitty treatment without snapping?

Do you know how HARD it is to be kind when you've been put through a system that actively discourages kindness and softness, a system that tries to beat it out of you - not physically, but still. The fact that Aziraphale got through all of that and is not just still kind, but still has the capacity to be kind to the very people who hurt him, is fucking remarkable.

Aziraphale is badass. Period. Full Stop.

It's well past time that we stopped equating physical and fighting prowess as a measure of badassery. Just about anyone can exercise and get strong enough to fight someone. Just about anyone could possibly get weapons training. Neither of these things is half as brave as putting yourself in front of a crowd of people and holding off 70 demons with just conviction and a candleholder because it's the RIGHT THING TO DO.

EDIT: I had to add this while I was thinking of it.

I feel like people are buying into Heaven's version of badassery. Angels were made to FIGHT. To fight the last big battle against demons and Hell.

Aziraphale is a deviation because he DOES NOT WANT THAT. He doesn't want to fight a war that will hurt billions and destroy the world. His defining moment in Season 1 is when he stands in the face of the quartermaster and refuses to fight the way they want him to. Instead of a weapon, he chooses to find another way.

If anything, I would think it's leading to the idea that Aziraphale feels he must fight, that he has no choice, and then, when it comes right down to it, finding another way. A kinder way. A BETTER way.

By the standards of Heaven, Aziraphale picking up his sword and fighting would be Normal. Him refusing and finding another way is what makes him Unique. THAT'S what makes him badass.

[contagious-watermelon]

tomboy trans girls ily <3 by the law of equivalent exchange, there's got to be a masculine trans woman out there that i switched places with gender-wise. hope she's doing well

[rouguang]

laurent is a beautiful man who is so beautiful he is taken as an even more stunning woman in comparison to her portraits! he is beautiful and androgynous! he is not a masculine hero warrior archetype like damen, and that is something i love about his character. he is still a hero and still beloved by his people in the end, but he only became a fighter because he HAD to to survive. at heart he is a soft, book nerd, horse lover who likes to play and run and be silly. he doesn't have to be his brother, like he tried to force himself to be out of survival--training endlessly in swordplay when he isn't naturally inclined to do so, holding himself to a standard that is violent/unnatural to his body, rigid and laced tight and ready to defend himself. and being safe and loved lets him loosen and embrace that youthful side again and wear garish fashion and be silly and throw grapes while the other men fight around him. being an androgynous/effeminate/non-ubermasculine man is so rare in books and i love him so much <3

i'll forever love that c s pacat is bold enough to make laurent being androgynous effeminate canonical so much so that he's able to pass as jokaste with flying colors and even gets complimented on 'her' beauty. it's so rare to find a character like him. beautiful things happen when genderqueer writers play with gender expression in their books thank you pacat!!

[winepresswrath]

I'm causally interested in basically all Fallout ship combinations, but I really need Walton Goggins/evil wife. plz make this good for me, show.

[asmo-cosmetics]

it just bewilders me that anyone could write a character as perfect as julian and then so obviously begin to hate him. it's so weird how much open unabashed contempt these writers have for the character their game is basically about.

i've said this before but i think that the prologue was written for a different version of the game, before the team decided to make julian the heel to asra's face and the butt of every joke. "a gift from a witch who fears commitment" was so obviously meant to be foreshadowing for a major plot point, but they just hand-wave it away in the story with like two lines of dialogue and a prayer.

"no, no, that was a red herring!!" no it wasn't. julian himself is already the red herring, making his implied backstory another red herring is the definition of a hat on a hat. asra and julian were clearly written for asra to be the bad guy in the asrian divorce, but then someone (everyone? i don't know) vetoed it because god fucking forbid we make asra look like an asshole even once.

asra is the writers' favorite and it's extremely obvious. he basically has no flaws, to the point of legit cliche. oh mc my only flaw is loving you TOO much. so even though julian is already written with a very clear archetype of "guy who hates magic because he got his heart broken by a witch" that comes through in basically everything about him, they have to paper over it in the story because we can't make asra look mean!

so they just make up for their shitty coverup writing by being like haha isn't julian silly? he was wrong about everything and he doesn't like magic hehe haha. leeches! meanwhile the bones of the characters they actually wrote are in asra too, because it's clear he's meant to have his "villain moments," he's meant to have sharper edges and even be scary, but someone decided that he has to be an uwu softboy and ruined him in the process.

as always i am not looking for a debate, i will block you.

[lohstandfound]

hm.... exploring jake as nonbinary/agender who very much performs the act of masculinity because that is what is expected of him and coming to terms that he doesn't have to be, maybe he doesn't have to force himself into that mould

[moreaugriffins]

Something something- Even though Ryan seems comfortable in himself (and likely his sexuality) he still sticks to the status quo in the first movie, saying things aren't right when others start to express their various interests, even though in the second movie he's shown to be interested in yoga and baseball (which a theatre kid 'shouldnt' like), meaning he to some extent was repressing himself, and over HSM2 he's learning to be more openly himself around others- something something

[bugflies00]

fostering au cwil is …. Sort of cis. Kindof . he doesnt question it for at least the first 25 or so years of his existence . but then cq, who on the other hand considers gender like a challenge and wears everything he wants, offhandedly offers cwil to wear one of his skirts once and he Likes it . a Bit too much. he never Really goes that deeper into it because a) he doesnt care that much b) he doesnt really experience any sort of dysphoria. its more that like, as he matures and also as he spends more time with people like cq, cniki, ceret who are all very outwardly not cis, he kinda just grows more comfortable in himself and wearing what he wants. so sometimes he’ll wear maxi skirts or long flowy shirts. hes still just Some Guy in his mind and hes aware theres maybe a bit more going on but he doesnt really care beyond that

[bluastro-yellow]

people who draw fem!kim exactly the same except maybe small tits and little less moustache get it

[orionis13]

Robin Newman :((((((

[transzilla]

Biofeedback teaches the left hemisphere first to visualize the desired result and then to recognize the feelings associated with the experience of successful right brain hemisphere access to the specific lower cerebral, cortex, pain or pleasure or other areas in the manner needed to produce the desired result.

Upon reception of this information, if the subject is not willing to submit to the desire to satisfy autoandrophilic transsexualism, the hypnosis will emotionally taunt, intellectually torment and sexually torture the recipient until full completion of the transition from female to male. This inclination is inevitable and will predispose the recipient to sensations characterized by the desire to fill the gender role and orientation as male, embody sexuality and eroticism as male, follow general mannerisms and demeanor of any sexually attractive male specimen, until finally exhibiting and assuming the role as male in day to day life.

If the recipient is unwilling and tries to repress the hypnosis, any act of suppression and forced forgetfulness will be appraised, and the subliminal transsexualization made manifest through subliminal obsession, spontaneous topics of comment, fantasies, daydreams, and fumbled responses to oblique inquiries. Anything other than surrender to the desire to be a transsexual male will be met with all-consuming, destructive delusion enacted by the subject. There is no escape.

[the-best-bagel]

Ooku is so close to having something cool to say about gender but the second i think they might do it they curve me and have the unwell crossdressing lady's happy ending be becoming traditionally feminine and submissive to her husband who became assertive and traditionally masculine.