#and it's relatable for some trans people to feel you failed masculinity (even if you never WANTED to succeed at it) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

monorayjak · 1 year ago

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I... it's getting hard to live like this. Hiding who I am to so many people. It hurts. I wrote a thing earlier today and I felt I summed up the feeling pretty well I think, reworded a bit to sound better:

"It feels like torturous self harm to be fully aware of who I am and yet imprison myself in a fortress of a false identity that's slowly caving in around me."

What I'm getting at here... I think... I think it might be time for me to come out to some people...and I really need some advice.

As of now, only four people IRL know about me, that's my therapist, my cousin (who was genuinely more like a sister to me), a friend at college (I knew they were extremely supportive and they had no connection to other people I know, so it seemed like a safe bet to tell her (I was right)), a friend I interacted with occasionally in high school who has since come out as trans herself (actually what got me to message her, saw her online and wanted to ask so I didn't misgender her or anything, and we got talking and I quickly realized she'd understand.)

At the moment, I'm still living with my mom, which is fine, I know she'll support me in her own way (she's queer herself, she has internalized issues, but she tries). I know my university I go to, despite having once been a "christian college," have opened up and been supportive of most of the students who do come out in one way or another. I know at least a few of the professors there who are absolutely trying to be supportive to everyone to the best of their abilities. My therapist knows, as mentioned before, but he is also... well, he ain't exactly a pro with gender and sexuality stuff (still a good guy, he just messes up what he's talking about here and there, like using masculine pronouns when he talks about a transwoman (largely I think its because he usually talks about them when they first started transitioning, and I don't think he thinks about gendering them correctly in reference to them coming out... if that makes any sense).

The issues... well, for one, I live in the bible belt. My extended family (who we are finally trying to cut ourselves off from now that the only think holding us together (my grandmother) is gone) lives all around me and the majority of them are.........well lets just say they really don't like my mom being gay, and one of them bullied a kid he was fostering because, in his words, "the kid's a fucking sissy!" Yeah... not a fan of that uncle. (In related news I am genuinely afraid of that man because he is very fucking clearly not mentally stable and has talked about killing himself and others before (while preaching at church!) and he is... really aggressive and has access to guns) I'm too poor to even consider leaving the state, and with... well frankly I'm a bit of a fuckup who really can't live on their own... yeah... fun times. Insurance may cover parts of things, but... honestly I don't even fucking know. Like I said, I know my mom will try to support me, but she is also... well, how do I say this? She tends to not know how to react to stuff. A large reason I don't talk about stuff with her is that she has a habit of turning it around into something about herself (not in a manipulative way, mind you. I just think she doesn't realize why it feels bad to tell her something like this and then have her break down a bit because I didn't tell her sooner or because she didn't work it out herself or anything like that). Basically, if I tell her, its either going to go one of two ways.

She reacts negatively and turns it around about herself and takes the moment to be hurt she didn't work things out or that I didn't tell her. (Literally once opened up to her when I was little (like 11?) about how much I hated myself... she said the next day she spent the entire night crying because she thought she failed... I understand what she was going for, but, honestly not something you should tell your kid who just opened up. Practically had it ingrained internally "If I feel bad, hide it. Because my mom will be devastated by it.")

She goes too supportive and expects me to be willing to open up immediately. Basically just forgetting she can't push me into being out and honest because it takes time to work up the courage.

Both of these options are... iffy. To say the least.

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happyoldqueer · 4 months ago

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Reality vs the Gatekeepers

The plain facts are: I have become a man with a pussy. I struggled with being a man in a feminine body with a pussy. I took testosterone and tried to access bottom surgery to relieve that dysphoria. I failed to access bottom surgery for a variety of reasons, none of them related to my need, and some of them unclear if they are actually medical reasons, or societal reasons concealed behind medical excuses. But along the path of taking testosterone and masculinizing my body, and the improvements T made for my genitals, I began to see that the experience of being a man with a vagina is special, and that experience is actually something I love, and that I want to hold onto. And the good news, is that: I get to. No one can take that away from me, because it is me.

The trans male transmeds, say that they always knew, and that they never identified as a woman, but we know that not all trans people feel they were “born this way.” It’s just another gatekeep, and the one’s on the phallo server that insisted I had to share the experience of being born with a uterus to be transmasc, were also just gatekeeping.

I assert that identities stack. It was once thought that you could not be both trans and gay. It took Lou Sullivan to prove them wrong.

To the born this way crowd, I assert that actually you can be both “just a man” and also be proud of being a transgender male, and that not all your peers feel they were “born this way” either. They’re still trans men and that’s not even a hot take. You can be a man, and also be a trans man if you want to. Things stack. You don’t have to have a bunch of proof to be trans, just the desire to change your body. The ones that don’t feel “born this way” are just as valid as you are.

To the biological essentialist, I assert that dealing with a uterus, and all it’s complications (that I wouldn’t want. Thanks progesterone for helping me figure out that I would be trans no matter what), is only one of a few reasons why someone could find themselves in a place where they need to access GAC; Testosterone, and possibly surgeries, to relieve their dysphoria and that being transmasculine isn’t about being born with a uterus, but rather about the journey of transitioning and becoming a man, and changing your body so that other people perceive you as a man, and then living your life as the man you have become. Many years down the path of your transition, your time before transition as an egg will just seem like the preface in the book of your life story; as you grow into yourself the pain of acute social dysphoria will fade. The memories of dysphoria you felt about your body will fade the longer you have lived in the body you have made for yourself, and far more often then not, you’ll just skip over that preface, and think back to Chapter 1, when you took control of your life and your eyes will fill with tears of joy that you did this for yourself, and that is all that will matter. And that is the trans masculine experience, and the experience of being long into transition decades down the road.

#transmascfem #transgender #transgender male #trans #gatekeeping #gender affirming care #later in transition

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sylvaridreams · 1 year ago

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Sage said something regarding Alba's new in-game fit about that he's finally playing around with his gender which is unfortunately (?) Not the case! Alba's relationship to gender is that he has one. And it's one of the boring default ones and you don't need to look closely at it at all. So please don't look at him.

He is a cis man, and he genuinely is, and he knows this because he HAS examined "what do I want, what do I need?" And the answer to both has always been "be a man." The ideas of womanhood or of being nonbinary or agender or all both something else entirely are ideas that make him MISERABLE. He doesn't WANT to be anything other than a man.

The ISSUE is that Alba deep down (not very deep) is gnc (but hiding it from everyone, himself included.) He refuses to acknowledge this. He Knows there are countless ways to be a man; he has gnc people and feminine men and trans people in his life that he loves and respects and he has no disagreement with their lived experiences or identities or anything. It boils down to that Alba thinks it is his ONLY OPTION (for him, personally!) to squeeze himself into a miniscule box of "masculine man" and never move or breathe so the box doesn't collapse trying to hold him. This is a "rules for me, not for thee" thing.

People around him can clearly see SOMETHING is up with Alba in terms of gender or related stuff. Something is going on that he's burying deep. It's not hard to catch a glimpse of how miserable he seems over certain things. Yao tried cracking his egg and had no luck with it. Turned to Alba's companions once he was out of earshot, like you folks ARE seeing this right, there's SOMETHING there, and the response boiled down to "Yes we know, he just won't let anyone bring it up, he won't DO anything about it." And Yao was like .....🧍 I think I can fix him--

It's this huge dolyak in the room at times that's treated more like a skeleton in the closet. We just dont talk about it. He doesn't want to. He'll get there when he's ready, maybe. And it probably boils down to some deep seeded self hatred and belief that he hasn't earned happiness, but even he doesn't grasp that as the issue. He "has to" be masculine but he's so awful at it and it's not fun or enjoyable. He can't and shouldn't want to be any degree of feminine, he's not ALLOWED to approach that, so when he catches himself, eyes lingering on cute clothes that anyone else in the world would be allowed to wear, he feels like he deserves some sort of punishment for failing to not want it.

If Alba were able to actually rationally process his feelings about himself and approach this topic without melting down and hiding and piling more layers atop the answer and ask "what would make me Happy" and could stop from recoiling in fear and anger from the first genuine answer and then correcting himself with "no I wanna be masc" then MAYBE he could work out that he IS a gnc cis man with a really fucked up relationship to his own gender, his own body, and himself in general. Maybe he could admit that he IS feminine in a lot of ways, that he DOES want to wear certain things that he's disallowed himself, that he punishes and berates himself for looking at.

But he won't allow himself to approach the topic from an angle that isn't defensive and afraid and angry and hateful towards himself, for not meeting his own expectations of what is acceptable For Alba.

And I think maybe this comes to a sudden and unexpected head when he does something impulsive and stupid and wrong and he tries to stop himself and can't. He buys something (a skirt) out of a Canthan mail order company and then panics and stakes out the mail for a week waiting for it to arrive because he needs to destroy it when it gets there before anyone can see that he lost this battle of wills. And it gets delivered and he hides the box in a closet for days before bringing it back out to get rid of it.

But he makes the mistake of looking at it first. And it hurts to look at because it's something he wants, but it has to go. But uh. If he tries it on first. Maybe that will fix him and this impulse will go away forever and ever. But it doesn't. He puts the skirt on and it doesn't change things, it doesn't permanently satisfy him and now he will never care or want it again. It devastates him looking in the mirror knowing that he Wants to keep it.

And then the door opens and he and Canach are staring at each other in shock like. A: oh I have to die actually it's the only way, and C: by the tree he's DOING something about it. Canach shuts the door behind him and they're both dead silent and Alba just has this feeling of hollow, miserable shame.

And Alba starts crying the minute Canach starts talking, the second he mentions the outfit. "You look nice in that. What's wrong?" And it's SUCH a non-conversation. Canach can't work out how to approach this because he's supportive of whatever Alba is doing, he loves him regardless of who or what he is, but Alba doesn't want love and compliments and acceptance because he's the one person in the world who doesn't deserve it. He deserves to be punished for this in some grand cosmic way.

Canach asks if he'd be happier as a woman or something else, and Alba just melts down. No, I don't want that, I'm a man and I want to be one, I shouldn't have done this I'm sorry. And he's not calming down or taking any rational position on this, his feelings about himself and "what Alba is allowed to do vs everyone else" DON'T make sense to anyone but him, and eventually Canach has to be like Alba I shouldn't have to sneak around our house to try to CATCH YOU in moments of genuine happiness. How do you think it feels knowing you're refusing yourself joy out of some twisted view of what you're "supposed" to be. Don't you think that hurts me? Why are you required to operate under different standards than anyone else? You're not that important, get over yourself.

(Canach actually has figured this out that he has to word things this way A Lot, "your behavior matters not only because it hurts you but because it hurts OTHERS, it hurts ME." Only way to get him to start caring.)

I don't think they're able to make any significant progress but Canach does convince him not to get rid of or destroy the skirt, it's not hurting you, you can wear it at home, in our room if it makes you happy. Then says something crass and unrepeatable. And Alba halfheartedly resists and then relents. Like, fine.... whatever YOU want...

Anyway someday Alba will manage to deal with one of his ten million problems! But for now he is sad and wet forever. :)

#alba #loreposting #love to make things be issues for him.

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yourbigendergremlet · 5 months ago

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Here is a bunch of rambles ive vollected over a few months instead of posting them in seperate posts

Feeling dysphoric about my face not being masculine, putting my hair down because it makes me feel masculine, i hate hair in my face, all my headbands to hold my hair back have bows on it, rip off the bows, wear is like a sweatband

Manly ✨

Even if i was ever gonna come out to my family as bigender, they wouldn't just say it is terrible, they would just tell me that im making no sense because i am still female, a part of me is still that, but they just wouldn't get that a part of me is also male, they would just say it was a tomboy. If they continue to misgender me, they aren't exactly wrong because i am still female so calling me she/her is still not wrong so i cant get that angry about it

Feeling dysphoria? I just made a new album in my gallery and copied any images that made me feel like a guy into there and named it "i am a big strong beautiful manly man"

Felt like a guy today but went to church and was gonna sit in the mens side but then felt extremely uncomfortable so i went to the women's side but i also felt uncomfortable with myself there and aaaagh

Me making braclets with my pride flags but my family dont know that thy are pride flags because they dont know the bigender and genderfluid flags 😎

Complaining to my little brother about our mum not letting me buy men's clothes and freely shopping in the men's section with him because he has not yet been tainted by our parents and older sister's views and feeling amazing even though he still knows nothing about lgbt stuffs

Me thinking of a plan to ask my little brother what his views on the lgtvs are but descreetly so that if he doesnt like it he wont tell mother 0.0

Conversation switches to "lgbt people bad", me goes completely silent 0.0 me: "haha yeah thats weird..." when talked directly to desperately trying to switch topic while not outing myself

My sister wants to try new nail polish but already has some on so asks my little brother to do it on him, parents being like "nooo he's a boyyyy" and my sister being like "yeah guys wear nail polish now tho but he still isnt gonna be able to be a girl" and me being there like "yeah, he can put on nail polish" and internally screaming that guys can be girls if they are aaaa

Hahaha internalised transphobia :D for a while there

Me: am i actually genderfluid or am i actually bigender? Am i faking it? Am i pretending to relate to genderfluid and ftm trans people? Am i only just female and male or am i non binary also a bit??? Am i duel weilding my genders or am i fluctuating between them right now i have no clue??????? Is that why im feeling like thisssss???

Me going out somewhere, analysing how guys walk and act differently to girls and taking mental notes

Walking two steps like how people say guys walk and feeling absolutely on top of the world before going back to normal

Hoping im being subtle in trying to lower my voice so my family dont question it (and horribly failing at being subtle why is lowering your voice a bit so hard??)

Tumblr recomending me a suspicious amount of transgender posts before i had started properly questioning my gender or even thought about it

If i was a AMAB, being bigender would be so much easier becuase it's easier to just wear a skirt or dress and look distinctly feminine and then wear other stuff and look distinctly masculine but as a AFAB when you wear male clothes you still look female but who just bought something from the male section instead of looking like a guy

My mum speaking arabic and using the masculine versions of words for me as a joke but me internally pretending that she is using my correct pronouns 🥲

Me considering getting the school trousers so i can wear that sometimes instead of my skirt but also its my last year and no point spending money on uncomfortable trousers ill never wear again if its only for one year

So in church, women wear something called an isharba which is a headscarf meant to cover your hair to be modest.

Ive noticed that on days where im feeling like a girl, i can wear the isharba theoughout the mass but on days where im feeling like a guy i feel very uncomfortable wearing it and dont usually wear it in the mass. On some days i can wear it on and off throughout as well. It's intresting how my gender also effects something like wearing a head scarf, but i guess it can also be kinda like skirts in that sense? It was also a very subconcious feeling and even when i wasnt aware of what gender i was that day i would sometimes feel uncomfortable

Some days i feel more comfortable with the label bigender, and sometime im more comfortable with the label genderfluid and it's weird

Today im feeling more masculine, but also not fully so im more between he/they. But also there is a small twinge of feminine but only a small amount.

So i dont really feel like he/him, but i dont like they/them for myself, but then also im not he/she because there isnt a lot of she in me but im not he/him because i dont feel fully like a guy.

Im not none of them because i am all of them but to varying degrees to the extent where im not comfortable with any of the pronouns no matter how they are balanced. Idk? Are people just not meant to refer to me when i feel like this????

A very specific feeling i want to experience is wearing a dress while looking like a boy, i really want to have the feeling of being a cis boy wearing a dress so much

I didn't realise how important having facial and body hair was to me until my mum and sister kept saying that i should shave it. I really really love my body and facial hair and i really want even a small beard but my mum and sister made me shave my tiny moustache hairs and unibrow for christmas and tried to get me to shave my leg and arm hair and i feel super dysphoric without it being there anymore

That moment of delusion where i pretend to myself that the soft fabricy present my sister got for me was a binder and fantasise about it but its just a jumper in reality

My sister was talking about starfield and how stupid it was that you could put pronouns "why not just have it male and female lol" and i tried to laugh along but really just could not make it sound energetic and i felt kinda sick

Ive recently had the epithany that as a bigenderfluid person i am still allowed to be a femboy or a tomboy and that being feminine doesnt necessarily make me a girl that day and i am still a guy and-

#tbb.rambles #lgbt #lgbt+#bigender #genderfluid #bigenderfluid #gnc #gender non conforming #transgender #trans

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your-bigender-big-brother · 4 months ago

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I’ve been feeling so sick lately thinking about gender. I’ve known I was xenogender and gender-fluid for multiple years, but nothing I try presentation and label or even name and pronouns wise ever fits long term in a way that makes me happy. I’ve changed my name at least 8 times in the time since I came out as a binary trans man. I wish I had never come out, and could quietly shift and change until I felt right, without ever saying a word, without anyone looking for an update or trying to figure out if I’m detransitioning. I don’t even know if I’m detransitioning. I don’t feel gender euphoria ever anymore, except for a few little places where I can imagine myself as a fairy, or a saytr, or faun, and when I see natural things that give me xenogender feelings. My dysphoria and loneliness are constant. Women think I’m a threat, men think I’m a freak, other queer people don’t see me as queer because I don’t have any money to yassify myself and I’m Very physically large and I feel like I don’t know any of the words to find a community of people like me, if they even exist. I have exactly 3 friends I’ve seen in the past year, and no online community. I don’t know how to pick just one thing to make me happy and it feels like I keep wearing masculinity and femininity like masks and nothing ever fits. I’m 24 and I feel like I’m wasting my life. Like, it feels impossible to thrive? Idk.

How do I “become” myself? How do I choose what to be when Everyone’s gender presentation holds a potential appeal to me? People say “just do what feels right” but I feel pullled in a million directions all at once and I can only walk one way. This was a lot. Sorry. I’ve been going crazy.

I took a little longer to respond to this than I wanted to, but I needed to make sure I was focused enough to type out a concise reply. Sorry for the wait!

I think it's a rare occurrence that people reach an end to their self-exploration. I don't think we ever really come to a conclusion about who we really are and what identity-related language fits us perfectly. Life tends to be an ongoing journey of self-discoveries. We're not working toward a goal when we explore aspects of our identities - be it gender, orientation, spirituality, our place in the world, our values. The beauty of the human experience (and tangential experiences such as alterhumans and others) is that we are prone to constant change. I think change is good. I think change can help us learn and grow. I don't see this fact as a solution, just something to think about.

Do you have a go-to label that works when things get dire? Something broad, something more in the good-enough range? Sometimes, we don't have it all figured out. But placeholder labels can help. Genderqueer, nonbinary, genderfluid, genderflux - these can be used as broader labels until you have something more concrete figured out. Having a placeholder name and pronouns might also help. "Hey, I know my gender seems a little turbulent and confusing. I don't have any specific pronouns in mind, but X/Y/Z can work for now. Here is a name you can call me for now."

It's an odd way to navigate, but it might help. Establish a baseline rather than some unattainable "perfect" label that encompasses every single aspect of your gender. It's more realistic to have your good-enough and for-now labels so that there's at least something there. Even "I don't know" is a good answer for when someone asks what your gender is - people are more likely to refer to you by name and pronouns anyway, so I think it's more important to find a name (or names) and pronouns that can work as a default. They'd be a way to indicate that when all else fails and you're not sure how you want to be referred to, you have something to fall back on even if it's not exactly what you want in the long term.

As for presentation: Wear what makes you happy and comfortable, not what you think "matches" your gender in the most accurate way. Oftentimes, when there are multiple genders involved, it's hard to find a presentation that fits. Keeping it fluid and focusing more on your personal comfort is easier than trying to come up with the perfect outfit for someone who is xenogender and genderfluid.

If loneliness is getting in the way so badly, look around at online queer communities to engage with. You can go back to those broader labels and search for groups - maybe Tumblr blogs or Discord servers - that are dedicated to those broader labels. It helps to talk about your experience with someone else who might even be able to relate. You mentioned being "physically large" and I think it might really help to find communities where they discuss intersections of disability and transness, or having a trans experience while fat. If this is something you're specifically interested in, I know someone who might have resources. Just let me know.

I am almost 35, divorced, and a whopping four-time college dropout. I'm still making new gender discoveries to this day and finding blind spots where I don't know what label to use. I am the epitome of a work in progress. You are not wasting your life. Your life is so new and there's so much for you to experience. - 💙💚

#bbb.ask #anon #gender troubleshooting #your bigender big brother

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draingang-agora · 1 year ago

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I think this reification is more like a broader trend of a pathological need progressives often have for gender to be real in like a meaningful ontological way. They want the statement: Trans-women are women, to be like metaphysically, actually true. But gender isn't real! we know this! it's a social construct. In practice, we use the word "woman" to refer to: personal identity(how you feel), personal identities as expressed socially(i.e what that person says they are,how they dress, what they look like), Social identities (i.e how your family, social circle, society, treats you and what they treat you as,) of varying modes; your perceived sex, your perceived masculinity and feminity (and those two things in relation to each other), and sex. I don't think any of these uses are wrong! family resemblance and varying language games etc, but I think most of us really want it to be real, we want there to be an essential difference between an amab man, and an amab woman, and there just isn't really.

In some ways I think TERFS actually get this right in the broader understanding(if we steel man them a bit from the deranged psychosexual obsessions their opinions tend to manifest as). At least the radfem tendencies they're taking from(many of whom were not transphobic). Gender is sex based, it is our socially constructed understanding of what sex is, this has very little to do with the actual in-the-world fact of sexual bi-morphism, and writ large, more to do with how we interpret that fact, such that many biological males can easily *be* women in most of the ways that matter to this interpretation. But then TERFS still want to have gender so they just do it again thinking they're cutting through the bullshit to sex-as-the-fact, and it fails hopelessly because of course it does, they just mistake a new map for it's territory. Masculinity and Feminity are the idealized understanding of the traits of each sex, but we seemed to have moved to a model where masculinity and femininity are distinct from "gender" which is distinct from sex. This isn't the case! These are all interrelated and epiphenomenal, e.g we read these attributes differently based on what we think someones sex is. When I wear suits, I need to look like a girl dressed like a boy, I don't want to just look like a boy! We know boys can be feminine and girls masculine, but we still kind of want boy and girl to be real meaningful ontological categories. We want non binary people to be a whole different kind of thing to men and women. Op mentions differences in experience of transness but there are also different fundamental aims, some people who identify as women are fine to look male and they present and act like men but ask people to call them she and her and woman or girl. Some identify as women and are fine looking biologically male but still act femininely, want certain female secondary sex characteristics etc. Personally for the most part I want to look cis, I don't feel much like a trans woman and I don't really feel an inherent connection to them on the basis of transness like I think a lot of you guys do. I want to look like I was born a girl and I act with certainly a high degree of femininity, though it's more important to me that I be perceived female in terms of sex then in terms of my feminine or masculine qualities. Nothing about these identities and the numerous weird cis female identities have anything in common such that there is a type of thing they all actually are. Certainly some of them will be included in more possible usages of the word "woman" then others, and this will factor into their experience of "privilege", but there's too much variation here for them to all encompass something that makes the term Trans women are Women, True. It's a range of historically contingent identities that aren't universal or essential. One day I hope they're no longer even need.

i think fundamentally the problem with "do trans women/men have male privilege" discourse is that it tries to reify male privilege as this thing either you Have or you Don't Have, rather than a collection of benefits/lack of punishments (these are separate concepts!) that various people will or will not have in various circumstances. this is compounded by the fact that "always knew they were trans, was raised as their actual gender", "always knew they were trans, hid it" and "was fine being cis until 20" are both legitimate ways to be but will have very different experiences!

and I don't think this reification originates from this discourse; rather, "privilege" has sort of coalesced already, and this unhelpful understanding is a cause of that piece of eternal discourse. like, why does it matter whether trans women/men have male privilege? what are you actually trying to get at? ask that question instead, and be willing to accept the fact that the answer will vary greatly depending on the person in question!

#maybe this is obvious but it genuinely seems like a lot of people don't get this and I wanted an excuse to write my thoughts down anyway.

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merrysithmas · 2 years ago

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masculinity in star wars

you know, after some great posts by the brilliant @intermundia my mind has been going. something i've long thought, and something they recently put into very beautiful words, is how one of the central themes of star wars, and why so many nonbinary/queer/trans/masc people gravitate towards it, is masculinity.

i'd even argue it is THE central theme (even beyond the concepts of Spiritual Balance & Good vs Evil), which explains the phenomenon of cismen being so violently gatekeeping and protective of it.

we all know when sw was released in the 70s the emotional arc at its core revolved around the concept of Father and Son, the forgiveness, redemption, or blame therein.

it is easy to see why Luke Skywalker, noble, innocent, and nontoxically pursuing a masculine concept of "knightship" (while retaining feminine qualities himself which would prohibit him from fitting in with the imperials) would become a hero to many young cis boys who had overbearing, unrelatable, absent, or downright evil fathers. it is easy to see why obiwan, the wise and protective second-father figure would become their beloved guru.

it is also easy to see, of course, the reverse, wherein many men who feel they failed at fatherhood, partnership, and life, would relate to Vader and the salvaging love he had for his son. the possibility that they were not totally consumed and digested by the toxic masculinity that had conscripted them and of which they then became soldiers of - an Empire.

the question SW asks in almost every film to this date is - what is masculinity? where does it come from? how do we define it? what do we do with it? and how do we balance it?

we see this reflected over and over again - Din Djarin with Grogu, the Bad Batch with Omega, Palpatine/Qui gon with Anakin, Obi-wan with the Skywalker twins, Rey's unrelenting search for a father figure in Luke, Kylo Ren and his burning abandonment in front of the absent Han Solo, Yoda and his Order, Cassian Andor and the powerless castration he experiences via the Empire, the HyperMasculine Empire, the warsome Mandalore vs. the pacifist Satine Kryze, Cal Kestis & his success borne of his crew of resourceful women.

Characters who are presented as male are constantly being challenged by ideas of masculinity and by which route they will choose to express it.

what does it mean to be a "man"? a question queer, trans, and masc people often ask themselves in relation to our identities. and a question we see the SW characters face constantly. is it sacrifice (Anakin)? protectiveness (Din)? bravery (Luke)? resilience (Obi-wan)? taking up arms when you are wronged (Cassian)? vengeance and blazing your own way (Vader)? Kindness and vulnerability (Cal)?

of course, this concept of masculinity in SW as a central theme also extends to its female characters and what it means to have female masculinity of any kind especially within a patriarchy or a situation where masculinity can be translated into a threat (to anyone, including oneself). this is another reason, id argue, for uproar in the cismale sector of the fandom when they are faced with a topic (female & queer masculinity) that they neither experience nor understand and see therefore, as a threat.

characters like leia, rey, jyn, reva all display various components of outright female masculinity and/or display a picture of women grappling with the masculinity around them, which i would postulate is what makes them so iconically and instantly popular. they are allowed to be whole on screen. they are not merely a "feminine" archetype. they are whole - masculine, feminine, passive, and aggressive.

Leia with her commanding military presence is never once questioned. She then becomes a mother who grapples with the duties of traditional motherhood while following a path that is most meaningful for her (the Rebellion).

Jyn, the abandoned streetrat rebel who is allowed to be callous, doubtful, unpreened, and cynical. Whose strength of heart eventually pulls a motley crew together.

Rey, a sexless scrapper whose skills come from self-reliance, who is pushed face to face with someone who repulses her - Kylo Ren with his burning crucifix of a saber, who haughtily croons to her that he can take "whatever he wants" from her. She pushes him away, rejects him continually, until he renounces the toxicity of his confused perspective (brought on by his own torture). Only to in the end embrace Ben, the good man who'd die for her to live: as she embodied the principles that he failed.

Reva, a hardened and traumatized covert soldier who gives in and then climbs out of the charybdis of vengeance and spiritual suffering. who mistrusts and is disgusted by the men who were supposed to protect her family (Obi-wan and Anakin). we rarely get to see this rage and pain from a female character on screen.

as queer people of course we see ourselves in between those philosophical questions and identify with various characters and their struggles. we are always presented with these internal questions of what makes an identity and confronted with our own society's labels of "masculine" and "feminine" and how they relate to our place as queer people.

& of course, "canon" doesn't truly exist in the sense of a character's gender or sexuality - a character's orientation and identity is up to the viewer- and with complex questions of identity already at play in this universe it is easy to see oneself as a queer person within this story.

and then of course, we are now starting to see characters like Merrin, Obi-wan, and others' sexualities expanded upon further than the "assumed cishet" brand usually defaulted by the general audience.

so those are some futher, not-totally developed thoughts on the topic here haha

#just thoughts #star wars #sw meta #anakin skywalker #obi wan kenobi #luke skywalker #leia organa #din djarin #cassian andor #cal kestis #rey skywalker #reva sevander #jyn erso #han solo #kylo ren

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mmmmalo · 3 years ago

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For anyone still under the impression that June Egbert is just a product of the Toblerone wishes with no particular relevance to Homestuck proper, here's an argument to the contrary: that June (or whatever you like to call her) was already here, woven into John's relationship with the idea of Dad.

Act 1 has a certain preoccupation with the ideal forms of things, John having multiple instances of saying X isn't a REAL X unless it has this or that characteristic. "A fire BELONGS in a fireplace, categorically." One of those outbursts touches upon masculinity, with John saying a gentleman without a monocle is a piss-poor excuse for such. Along such a paradigm, you might gather that something like John saying the beaglepuss sucks as a disguise or trying (and failing) to integrate Dad's pipe into the façade communicates that John is kind of grasping at this ideal of masculinity exemplified by Dad and getting frustrated that he can't seem to measure up to it (or that masculinity feels "fake" on him).

This sort of dynamic is more blatant with Dave, who talks openly about how he isn't a "hero", not really, measuring himself against the impossible standards set by his Bro. But as much was already implicit in Act 1.

Later it gets established that John has some kind of fear of heights: the first ogres appear after John experiences vertigo from almost falling off the stairs, and again after getting launched by the pogo hammer. (Just as Karkat suspected he was given a planet covered in his own blood as a form of harassment, Sburb placed John's house on that needle plateau because of this fear of heights; the game generally manifests adversaries in response to fear). The phobia becomes relevant to Dad stuff after the ogre fight is over, when John is hesitating to jump down into Dad's room: it isn't just that John's nervous about entering the room for the first time, the descent itself makes John anxious. Furthermore, this juxtaposition serves to establish that the fear of heights and anxieties around Dad are related somehow, if not outright synonymous. The two are associated again at the beginning of Act 5 Act 2, when dream!John tries to jump over a canyon to reach Dad, but awakens mid-leap. The formal reason John awakens is Vriska of course, but if we ignore her we're left with John approaching Dad and immediately experiencing vertigo. (The name "June" comes from Vriska contacting John shortly after this dream, incidentally)

This comes up again when John finds Dad's wallet and gets overwhelmed by the prospect of Manhood and the responsibilities it entails -- next thing you know John is flying around in Dad's car, having fun... and after the scene is interrupted by Seek the Highblood, we return to find John crashing the car (another fall from the sky!) and talking with Vriska about dread surrounding societal expectations, and the possibility of rejecting them to pursue something different for yourself. John came into the scene worried (if quietly) about the expectations surrounding manhood, so the Vriska conversation serves to makes those kind of concerns more vivid.

The car crash is itself kind of a metaphor for that conversation's trajectory... in Act 6 we see something analogous play out among the Dersites who have gotten into dapper-wear: one Dersite sits on a hat, panics about ruining it, and then begins to wonder if perhaps a crumpled hat could have a value of its own, aesthetically. (Dirk expresses this sort of counter-assessment more bombastically: "...the next best thing. By which you mean, the vastly superior thing.") Dad Crocker swoops in to condemn the crumpled hat, but the Dersite's tentative revaluation of an apparent failure mode is something the scene shares with Vriska, who initially regards her ambivalence towards murder as a symptom of personal failure, unbefitting her caste. John enters that conversation with a crumpled car, and from context we can guess John's revaluation concerns "failing" to be a man in the way Dad is, and how maybe that doesn't need to be considered a failure.

As laid out so far, I guess none of this quite necessitates trans-Egbert, since people can come at "anxiety and reservations at the prospect of embodying masculine ideals" from a number of angles... but there are other considerations which make me think wrestling with self-deprecating thoughts like "I'm a failed man" are maybe comorbid with a budding sense of being a girl, in Egbert's case.

Foremost, I think it helps to recognize that Dad's car can function as a symbol of John's body. To sketch a case for that:

1a. Death often means transformation: the trolls die in questcocoons to reach the godtiers, suggesting that death stands between the caterpillar and the butterfly, their too solid flesh dissolved into a goo.

1b. A command in Act 1 implores John to "retrieve arms from MAGIC CHEST". John complies twofold: we see some fake arms retrieved from the toy chest, held up by John's real arms which have been "retrieved" from John's ostensibly armless torso.

2. This dual usage of chest is deployed in part 3 of Openbound, in service of building a dysphoria metaphor (among other things). The segment reintroduces us to Fiduspawn, a game in which one creature hatches from another, a host creature, killing the host in the process (fans of the Alien films may recognize this as derivative of the "chestburster", fans of Homestuck may recognize this as analogous to godtiering). Damara (who Rufioh refers to as "doll") becomes the host plush, who is accused of locking away Rufioh's "happy thought" (Tinkerbull) in her "chest". Rufioh's beef with Damara serves to illustrate an adversarial relationship with one's own body, the ways in which the body itself seems to function as a barrier to some happiness. The carnal imprisonment of euphoria (the "happy thought") represents dysphoria. The conversation between Kanaya and Porrim which follows has analogous content and offers a potential resolution to such a conflict, with Kanaya coming to distinguish her body from the reproductive duties assigned to her body by her caste's place in society, and knowing that she is not "bound" to the Matriorb by any will but her own...

3. But the paradigm of Fiduspawn reminds us that the act of actually ripping the happy thought out of your chest has suicidal overtones, when taken literally. And Aradiabot notwithstanding, the inner ghosts the kids give up are often green: Dirkbot tears out his uranium heart and explodes, Rose peels pink bricks off the green core of an island and wonders aloud if her existence is a mistake, and (returning to our main topic!) John tries to retrieve the green package from Dad's car. The retrieval of the box comes to represents the birth of the self from its shell, the now broken body, a gesture which overlaps with the pursuit of death.

So we can infer that Dad is akin to Damara here, having locked the desired object (the box, the "happy thought") within a container that we can identify with John's own body. Thus Vriska's talk of perhaps rejecting her assigned role in society proceeds naturally from the wreckage of Dad's car: insofar as the car functions as an emblem of the masculine expectations imposed upon John, the car's wreckage suggests the possibility of liberation from those expectations, liberation from your own body. John is "sick to death of cake" -- cake is a Life symbol imposed by Dad, in visceral excess, accumulating as every birthday marches John towards Manhood. The possibility of living as a girl does not seem to have occurred to John yet, life and masculinity seem inextricable and absolute. The first time John sees Dad's car totaled (after Rose drops it), the symbol of self-as-corpse is surrounded by yellow bands of caution tape. The Authority Regulator who placed the tape will later declare himself to be THE LAW, and we should take his word for it: the scene's function is to declare that the crumpled car, the "dead" and therefore feminized body, is forbidden to John. No surprise then that as John marches to her death, in defiance of the Law's prohibition, she-whose-name-does-not-yet-suit-her is met with impressions of several maps that actually align with their territories: troll movies whose titles are their contents in full, a rocket encoded by the sound PCHOOOOO. John wants that for herself, I think. And as @lscholar once pointed out, it’s worth noting that John's pursuit of this unity (this pursuit of "death") is interrupted by Dave, who in saving John's life repeatedly emphasizes their status as "bros" -- masculinity being, again, inextricable from life within John’s symbol system.

...and that's the short of it. A more detailed account might get into the association of Vriska and other blue girls with the feminized corpse, or read into Equius self-consciously roleplaying as a cat girl between John’s joyride and crash, or perhaps try to apply this car-body framework to the appearances of Dad's car in the Epilogues. And I haven’t even touched upon clowns...but I'll call it here for now.

#homestuck commentary #john #i might do a follow up going into life metaphysics and how jade ties into things

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growingfeedeeinfrance · 2 years ago

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Bonjour Porcelet!🐷 As the feedee gainer community tends to be most prominent in the Anglosphere it's always delightful to encounter those from other cultures & countries discovering the delights of feedism & making it their own! It just shows our innate desire to get fat is such a truly universal impulse for aǁ of us! But I'm curious to ask how you as a French gainer girl view your experience striving to grow fatter with all of France's differing cultural attitudes to diet body-image & cuisine?

Ouch tough question😅 [TW: fatphobia, ED, suicide] I think my story is similar to those in the anglosphere but I can still share x)

The first thing I have to talk about is fatphobia. I was put on a diet at FIVE years old. I wasn't even allowed to go to Bday parties because of the sweets.

So I came to discover feedism at the same time as I began to struggle with eating disorders. I was 10/11 years old, anorexic and already fascinated by fat girls stuffing themselves online. I used to actually have a journal were I would write every synonyms, idioms etc related to being fat, repeating them all in my head to myself before falling asleep.

My teens years were hard because I tried so hard to suppress this kink, I was so ashamed of it, and of my body. Even though I was super fit and skinny. I basically tried for 10 years to get rid of this desire, a form of self-made "therapy conversation" rooted in the shame my mother's fatphobia (and society's) had ingrained in me. I guess the fact that everything was in english online made it a bit more "distanced" and easy to deal with? But I did have the same feelings toward that one episode from the Totally Spies ;)

It was only when I was 20, that I finally opened up to my partner about my kink because I just felled so sad and lonely. I had tried making connections in the online feedism community but I always failed 😅 Along the way I realized that the french langage didn't carry as much attraction and seduction to me when it came to feedism. Like I'm sorry you all but talking to me in french about feedism stuff is just almost always "anti-sexy" 😅

It wasn't for them so I didn't start anything IRL. But after my 2nd attempt at suicide, and during the 1st pandemic lockdown, I started gaining weight (because of some medications + lockdown I guess). I just had to ask myself what I wanted in life and who I wanted to be.

So I realized I was trans (I'm enby!) and that I wanted to pursue this kink in real life as much as I could. So I slowly started to center pleasure in my food habits, and tried to let go of the shame and the guilt (still trying). I have a malformation that makes it impossible for me to stuff myself (I throw up really easily) but I still tried to gradually increase my capacity.

I still feel sad and lonely because I fear that I will never meet someone in real life to share this kink with me. In all the spheres of my life (education, friends, activism...), I'm the fat one now. Which kind of drives me crazy because I'm not even that fat?!? And I'm just like "where are the other fat people?!?"

Even in diverse, kinky and sex positive places, feedism is always new to people and most of those spaces centers thin people. (I'm not "masc" enough to go to bear places 😅). Fatphobia is really pervasive in every spaces, and it's really hard to live through. For instance, EVERY transmasc spaces will center "thin/fit" bodies as the GOAL for transition. Like I want a more masculine body but I don't want to be thin. I want to keep my boobs and have less hips to reduce the "hourglass" body I have. It's super hard (almost impossible) to find cute, masc clothes that fit me. All of the environmental groups I'm in put big importance in highly physical activities and put fitness forward all the time. There is no relaxing or enjoying our bodies. WE HAVE TO BE FIT and want it. Public transport is also hard because the seats are so tiny (same in education). And fatphobia is still intense in medical places (like I went to see a cardiologist because my mom has heart issues and she told me my heart was super healthy but I still had to lose weight. why? no idea), and in familial settings (it's just for your heath etc etc).

Gaining would be soooo much easier if society wasn't so fatphobic. I hate it so much because I still have those moments where I feel I should try to lose weight because I fear I'm becoming "too ugly" (especially as a transmasc person) and I'll end up alone. And I've decided to center the relationships I have in my life and I don't want my partners to be disgusted by my body. That's why I never share my videos/photos with them and I only post on Tumblr. Thank you all for the feedist community online, I don't know where I'll be without it.

For the cuisine, having spent some times in the US, I have to admit that France's diversity in food makes gaining all the more enjoyable. And while yes, a lot of the food is centered around thinness/healthyness, most traditional dishes are much more hearty and fattening!!! (and delicious!!) And my sweet tooth is just in looove with french pastries!!! But I admit I like my twice a week american fast food x)

I don't know if I've really answered your question, don't hesitate if you want more details about some specific aspects of my experience in France!

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discyours · 2 years ago

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[a different anon] you still can admit that its not universal - i agree - that all trans people fetishize but there are some that do it and it’s not in the chronology you mentioned (getting obsessed as a result of transition)

greetings!

Yeah I agree. Although I think a lot of people fail to understand that they're both pipelines. If you're not active in kink communities yourself (or sometimes even if you are) you may see the fetish as a starting point, but someone still ended up there somehow. People may be predisposed to certain kinks/fetishes but they aren't born with them (for the most part, I think there's exceptions like foot fetishes where there's some research that it's literally some neurological wires being switched).

In either case you have someone who has been influenced to direct their feelings (sometimes sexual, sometimes not) towards the concept of being a woman (taking that as an example because the flipside is much much rarer). And that can be anything from "I want to do something Sexual and Naughty and Taboo and society has taught me that women's underwear (very much unlike men's underwear) is all of those things", to "I've never related to the masculine expectations that are put on men, I feel like I relate a lot more to the women in my life and I think that's a sign I was meant to be born as one". One is obviously grosser to hear given the sexual nature of it, but both groups of people are being needlessly funnelled into connecting their (natural and understandable) feelings to womanhood.

Not that a crossdressing kink necessarily goes as far as fantasising about actually being a woman, but because of the pipeline(s) it's very common for it to end up there. I do have to say that while still inside kink communities, men with cross dressing/sissy kinks who are openly considering ""becoming a woman full time"" usually seem pretty self aware that it's a matter of living out a sexual fantasy, and they don't tend to bother with politically correct language (still misogynists tho). It's just that if they do ever make it into trans communities, they are very quickly "re-educated" that sexual crossdressing or sissy porn is a normal starting point for getting in touch with your (fully nonsexual and entirely innate) gender identity.

#anon

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pankomako · 2 years ago

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see my mom used to bug me sometimes about how i should shave my legs or whatever else so that other people (particularly girls which my mom fails to understand i am not) wouldnt think im unhygenic or ugly or whatever else. i mean it basically amounts to that she was trying to get me to uphold those superficial, arbitrary feminine beauty standards. at least to SOME degree. and i have NEVER cared about that. never at all did i care that people would think im ugly. that has never mattered to me. but ive found that that hasn't come up in a while. now the things she does still nag me about are more just health-related, which i am not at all against but it still annoys me lmao.

but i do think it is a good thing to stop trying to push gender-related standards onto how people present themselves, ESPECIALLY people my age and younger. because like ultimately it doesn't matter. i believe it's better for an individual to find the presentation that suits themself best, rather than what some people think should be the standard of physical perfection for everyone. because people are born with different traits and not everyone can pull off every look and that's totally fine. like honestly setting my own gender identity aside i cannot as a person of the female sex see myself presenting the same way a lot of cis girls my age do. i feel i was just born to be butch and that includes me not shaving my body hair >:) let girls not be feminine and guys not be masculine. it doesn't even have to be a trans thing. it's healthier for a person to be comfortable in their own skin than for them to work extra hard to be the so-called image of perfection because other people said they should be. (and if you want to present yourself as the image of perfection, that's totally fine too! just don't feel pressured to present yourself in a way you don't want to. :D)

it's kinda been on my mind recently that like. my mom used to nag me about shaving my legs, especially during the summer when it's shorts weather. like oh it's too hot to wear jeans so you need to shave your legs to not like look ugly or whatever tf when you wear shorts. but like. it's been a WHILE since she's done that. i genuinely wonder why. but im all for it

#this has been my psa of the night #i love my afab body hair. cant wait to get more when i start hrt years from now #im gonna be SUCH a fucking bear just you wait

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a-clockwork-justice · 4 years ago

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Everything I Love About Loser Geek Whatever

So, not too long ago, it was the third birthday of Loser Geek Whatever. Yes, I know the single was released on November 30th 2018 and its considered the song’s official birthday, but the 26th July three years ago was the first showing of the 2018 Off-Broadway revival of Be More Chill and the first time Loser Geek Whatever was shown to the world in any capacity. Therefore, I consider that day to be the song’s unoffical birthday and I’ve been waiting to write down everything I love about it so here I am. (This was originally gonna be posted on the 26th July but I can’t make anything concise so it took longer than that).

I’ve gone on and on about what Loser Geek Whatever means to me personally, how a slew of random chance introduce me to it, got me deep into Be More Chill, introduced me to 90% of my current friends, and overall up-ended my whole life, but now it’s time to dissect the song itself and why it’s so great. As much as I adore Loser Geek Whatever, it could’ve easily been any other song that threw me down a rabbit hole and that I could’ve latched onto- no, wait, it couldn’t have been, because Loser Geek Whatever is unique in that way. I did about a year of music at A-Level so I’m gonna delve into some of the technical aspects here too. I’m chronicling this mostly for myself so I am going as deep as I see fit because this song is a treasure hiding yet more treasures. If you happen to love Loser Geek Whatever as much as I do, this’ll be your goldmine.

So, grab a snack my fellow fans, because here’s a comprehensive list of everything to love about Loser Geek Whatever in roughly chronological order. Long post incoming:

The song starts off strong from the first millisecond - I don’t know what instrument(s) they used but just listen to the single version again - that opening chord blares at you like a siren. It calls for your attention, screaming this is incredibly important, and indeed it is. That chord, an F chord, has no indication as to whether it’s major or minor - it’s just the tonic F with its dominant C and another tonic F above it. In other words, it’s unresolved, it hangs in the air. From a narrative standpoint, Jeremy is at a crossroads, torn between giving into the SQUIP or staying loyal to Michael, and the music paints this. It has the same effect on both the single and album versions - I always hold my breath as it holds, it’s the gap in this crucial transition for Jeremy between who he was and him becoming something he isn’t.

To continue the thread of musical painting, the melody line contains the accidental E-flat which doesn’t belong to the key of F major. This once again illustrates Jeremy’s uncertainty, but there’s more - the whole introduction is a slowed-down version of the Apocalypse of the Damned theme from Two Player Game, arguably the point in the show when Michael and Jeremy’s relationship was at its strongest. Jeremy’s recalling everything he had with Michael, but the slowing down of the melody shows hesitancy, along with highlighting the accidental E flat. These latter points of course aren’t unique to Loser Geek Whatever - they’re also in the section of Upgrade that twins with Loser Geek Whatever. I’m just laying out why they work so well.

I’m glad I waited until after I saw the show in London to finish writing this - I’m something of a Loser Geek Whatever purist, as made clear by my ire at them cutting it in half and tacking the end of Upgrade back on for the London version. I still enjoyed the show in London though and I’m glad I knew about this change ahead of time, because they did change something about the song that I think really worked - they added two notes in the bass to each bar, like heartbeats, which once again signifies Jeremy’s uncertancy and the importance of this major turning point.

It’s been firmly established by this point that Jeremy is a loser and he knows it. He doesn’t want to be a hero, he just wants to survive, but there’s a difference between that and feeling “inconsequential.” Jeremy is basically admitting that, in his eyes, it doesn’t matter to the world or anyone except Michael if he even survives or not. He’s not just a loser, or a geek - he’s a whatever, with no one caring who he is. And he’s felt this way for years - since middle school began. He’s now in his Junior year of high school - that’s five years of being in this state of being unnoticed at best and picked on at worst. He’s “the one who’s left out”. With just one little line, hell, one word, we’re given more layers as to why he so badly wants to change that.

Moving from the first verse to the chorus, we start to see Jeremy’s attitude shift, from being sad to being angry - he’s frustrated, resentful that he’s spent so long in this state (A lot of people have made similar comparisons about Will Roland’s Jeremy as a whole in relation to Will Connolly’s Jeremy and I think this song exemplifies that). He doesn’t deserve to feel this horrible - not now and certainly not for the next two years until he and Michael can be “cool in college.” When you think about it, what options does he really have? He could either give into the SQUIP or reject it and go back to where he was, still miserable and lonely. Yes, he has Michael and Michael is an amazing, kind, loyal best friend, but as many have pointed out, he’s also dismissive of Jeremy’s feelings of inadequacy whether he means to be or not, which only made Jeremy feel more lonely. Should Jeremy just expect to feel better about himself at some point before college? He’s waited for years, why would that happen at any other point?

More layers baby! Second verse, Jeremy rants on about his father’s advice about following his own instincts and how it’s gotten him nowhere he wants to be. Come to think of it, Michael’s advice about staying the same and waiting for their environment to change can be seen as similar - it’s arguably easier for Michael as he has two loving mothers who undoutably give him plenty of positive reinforcement. Meanwhile, Jeremy’s mother has left them, which likely instilled further feelings of not being good enough, and his father has fallen apart to the point where he can’t even put pants on, let alone step up to take care of his son, meaning that Jeremy likely isn’t going to take his advice very seriously, especially after it’s failed him so thoroughly. But to Jeremy, the problem isn’t necessarily the advice itself - it’s that it’s being followed by him. So now he’s going to turn around and put his life and every choice in something else’s hands, even if - no, especially if it goes against his own instincts. It still doesn’t feel quite right, it “feels bizarre”, but it’s getting him somewhere, so it has to be right in the most meaningful capacity, and to Jeremy, the “most meaningful capacity” is any capacity that isn’t his own.

Now the best line - the one about being a “normal, handsome guy”. Let’s get this on the table - Jeremy is trans. Will Roland himself said that he often thinks of the show’s young trans fans when he sings that line. Naturally, societal transphobia plus gender dysphoria would have a pretty catestrophic effect on the self-esteem of any growing teenager, even more so one in Jeremy’s situation for the reasons I’ve just laid out. He’s probably missed out on a lot of things that “normal” guys take for granted, with most girls barely looking in his direction, let alone in any positive manner. Jeremy’s own sexuality aside, it’s mostly society, and the SQUIP by extension, that considers scoring with girls to be a “manly” or masculine activity, and through Brooke treating him as dateable material, Jeremy feels better about fitting into society’s rules of how a man should be and act. This isn’t the only reason he feels good about Brooke finding him attractive, of course, but it’s just another layer that Jeremy sees more value in conforming to how society says he should be rather than in how he actually is.

I know I just said that the last point was about the best line, but honestly, there’s more than one best line in this song. The bridge is where we start to see Jeremy’s language becoming more technologically inclined - “prompt”, “command” and “bandwidth” are all terms used in computing and used to show how Jeremy is likening himself, or his intentions, to a computer, effectivly merging himself and his SQUIP into one entity and Jeremy willingly giving over his own individuality.

And HERE, we get to the kicker. I’ve talked a lot about layers throughout this whole essay, about themes and motifs building on each other. Jeremy is essentially peeling back the layers of his own situation and only finding reason after deeper reason after deeper reason as to why he should follow the SQUIP and not be a loser anymore. Now, he hits the core, the seed, the crux of it all - “The problem has ALWAYS BEEN ME!!” Everything he is, everything that makes Jeremy Heere himself, is and has always been wrong. This line is a gut punch and EVERYONE knows it - the performer always takes a few seconds to let it sink in before continuing.

As an aside, I wanna mention the differences between the single and the album versions of the bridge. The album version starts of quieter after the vocalising of the last chorus, and builds up to the climactic final line, while the single version is loud all the way through but gets even louder and punchier at the end. Both are good, but I personally prefer the single version - the album sounds like Jeremy is broken and desperate and on the verge of tears as he reaches his inevitable but ugly realisation. The single is also desperate, but it’s pleading and all-consuming and a THOUSAND times more powerful, I get chills every time I hear it. (Side note, the London version starts of loud like the single and ends quieter like the album, almost as if Jeremy is reluctant to admit what he truly believes about himself, and it’s easy to see why, it’s a damn harsh condemnation).

“Take a breath and get prepared” - Jeremy sings to both himself and the audience. The first half has been heavy and we need a breather. Yet just before he goes over the brink, he has second thoughts. His conscience, his own voice in his head, breaks through, warning him that his choice will have consequences for other people than himself. People will get hurt - Michael most of all. Not just by Jeremy ditching him; here’s something else - when Jeremy is the “cool dude”, he might end up being a bully to those who are losers just like him, cutting them down just as Rich’s SQUIP made Rich do to him. Who would be the perfect target for Jeremy’s potential future bullying? His former best friend and fellow loser, Michael Mell. It’s pretty damn likely that if the SQUIP hadn’t optic nerve blocked Michael, it would’ve told Jeremy to pick on him, and even though Michael has ostensibly been pretty good at brushing these things off before, the takedowns would hurt a LOT more coming from his former best friend - and we know this because IT ACTUALLY HAPPENS, granted without the SQUIP influencing Jeremy directly (also let’s just clear up that just because the SQUIP wasn’t on doesn’t mean its influence on Jeremy hadn’t disappeared - that’s not how emotional abuse works).

Twelve years of loyal friendship, of borderline unhealthy codependency … can he throw all that away for Christine, a girl he’s thus admired from afar and is only just starting to get to know as a person? Moreover, even if Jeremy gets Christine, what about himself, who he wants to be? He just wants to be something other than himself because he thinks that anything is better but … what? The cool dude, the hero or … whatever. He’ll take anything because he’s that desperate, but what about when he gets it? Will he finally be satisfied? Will it be worth failing his one real friend, an act so scummy that the only way he could possibly stomach it would be to somehow pretend he hadn’t done it?

But none of those questions matter to Jeremy now - he’s fully gaslit into believing that every thought and inclination that comes from himself is wrong and shouldn’t be followed. He needs to sync up with the SQUIP and the rest of the world and mute his own defective inner voice. When you think about it, the relationship between Jeremy and the SQUIP is one of the most intense abusive relationships ever put to fiction - we’ve seen emotional abuse and brainwashing before, but here, Jeremy is literally preventing from THINKING the wrong way because the SQUIP can detect his every thought. See what I mean when I say that doesn’t go away when the SQUIP turns off for a few minutes?!

Throughout all of this is the undercurrent of Jeremy wanting to get better. He’s been trying so hard for so long to have a better life, but nothing has worked. Not listening to his dad, not trying to get closer to Christine through theatre, and certainly not listening to Michael’s advice to wait until college. Why should he resign himself to even more time being miserable with no end in sight? After all, being cool in college isn’t a guarantee. After all he’s been through, it’s his turn to finally be cool, after an eternity of being someone he doesn’t want to be.

Another best line in this song - “I’m Player One.” As mentioned a few times in the show before, like in the Broadway upgrade, Jeremy feels lower even in his friendship with Michael - he’s Player 2 as the more experienced Michael is Player 1. As previously established, Jeremy admits that he’s “not the one who the story’s about.” Now he’s ready to finally take control of his life, be the main character and have good things happen to him, and that means cutting out Michael, the old Player 1. The irony here is that Jeremy is less like Player 1 and more like a video game avatar. In reality, the SQUIP is Player 1, making Jeremy do whatever it demands of him.

More best lines! The slew of insults towards the end serves not just as yet more gut punches for the audience but as a major catharsis for Jeremy - It’s telling that the insults get harsher as his rant goes on, from the “weirdo” to the “weakling freak” to the “failure” to the climactic “please don’t speak”. He’s unloading everything that he’s been carrying over the years, ripping out the bullets that have been embedded in his skin and re-opening all the wounds in the process, but he’s done with the pain and he’ll never ever let himself be hurt like that again, if he follows the SQUIP.

I’ve made a whole post about the significance of the best line “Please Don’t Speak” before so I’ll mostly be repeating a lot of what I said there because it’s been a while since that post and because I want to. Who would’ve said that to Jeremy? Probably not Rich or Chloe, it’s not like them. It had to have come from an adult in a position of authority that could’ve commanded Jeremy not to speak like that - one that apparently did so enough times for him to internalise those words like he did the others. (Even worse if it was more than one adult ...). Out of all of the insults, it’s easy to see how that can easily be the most scarring out of all of them - how would an adult let a child know they’re inadequate? By silencing them. Making it clear that their expression of self not only means nothing, but should be forcibly avoided. Put like that, it makes it much easier to see how and why Jeremy fell under the SQUIP’s influence so easily - telling it was hardly different from authority figures he’s experienced before. In even more sad irony, as Jeremy claims that he’s breaking free and letting go of his past as the “please don’t speak”, he’s just walking right into another, similar trap that he can’t easily escape from. The SQUIP literally vocal cord blocks him during The Play - if that doesn’t say “Please don’t speak,” what does?!

The climax is growing! The music shifts into the relative minor as Jeremy fully gives in to the SQUIP’s evil influence. This is the point of no return, the point where he’s literally being surrounded and overtaken - if you’ve seen this on stage or even just a bootleg, you’ll know what I mean, when the lighting shifts and the circuitry start closing in around him, it’s wonderful. The bass ascends, Jeremy declares once and for all that HE IS NOT THE LOSER, THE GEEK, OR WHATEVER, and he never will be again! As some have pointed out, the sequence of notes on the final “again” is the same as at the end of Be More Chill Part 2, except the last note is different. In BMC part 2, it goes further down by a minor third, but in Loser Geek Whatever, it rises up to the same note it started with. This foreshadows Jeremy’s fate - that he will eventually overcome the SQUIP and that he still has it in him to do so. Man, let me just point out how amazing that last belt is - it lasts for a full 15 seconds in a really high range and takes a LOT of control to bring it back up to the high B without breaking. This song really was written for Will Roland - his voice can pull it off seamlessly, but other actors and understudies have had to find workarounds. No disrespect to them, it’s a damn hard song and it kicks ass all the way through. Scott Folan apparently had trouble with it too, but on the day I happened to see him, he pulled it off without breaking, so props to him!

Overall, Loser Geek Whatever is my favourite song in Be More Chill and not just for its sentimental value to myself. It’s a genuinely deep, complex piece that earned every second of its six minutes. Loser Geek Whatever is definitely the missing piece the show needed - not only is it Jeremy’s solo song, it’s also his “I Want” song and, in a way, his 11 o’clock number all in one, as he’s having a major epiphany after going on a journey, albeit only half of one. It’s easy to see why Joe Iconis dubbed this his anti-Defying Gravity, but it’s also easy to draw parallels to No Good Deed - how both Jeremy and Elphaba vow to become something that society is forcing upon them rather than what they are, even if that society’s will is objectively worse for them. Loser Geek Whatever deserves a thousand times the recognition it has and I still wonder to this day what the fandom reaction would’ve been if it had been in the original soundtrack.

So, that was it. I’m not sorry it was this long.

TL;DR: Loser Geek Whatever is wonderful and anyone who doesn’t think so is wrong.

#be more chill #loser geek whatever #joe iconis #will roland #be more chill meta #music theory #broadway be more chill #be more chill 2.0 #be more chill 3.0 #musical theatre theory #tw depression #jeremy heere #michael mell #be more chill analysis #tw emotional abuse #trans jeremy heere

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batsarebetterthanpeople · 3 years ago

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I want to start this off with that I support trans head cannons broadly they are a good thing and that Trans women are allowed to see themselves in any character and headcannon them as trans women and it’s none of my business when they do that This is a vent post. I just want to put my feelings out.

Any evidence I talk about in this post is stuff I have seen be used as evidence for this head canon. If it don’t apply let it fly. BUT I actually hate the Ed (our flag means death) is a trans woman head canon and I’m gonna talk about it. Part of the reason I hate it is personal. I really relate to him, He is in fact the most intensely relatable character I have ever seen on screen or in books or anywhere really, and I’m a trans man, so that’s part of it. But part of why I hate this head canon is because I feel like it rests on a very fundamental misunderstanding of the character and also of masculinity. Please stick with me when I say that.

Now any reason is a good enough reason to head canon any character as trans, and I am not here to beef with trans women who see themselves in Ed. What I do beef with is the idea that because he likes Stede’s fancy lad clothes and he doesn’t want to be the monster that Izzy (The character with the most toxic masculinity) wants him to be, that those things make him less of a man. You get how that’s harmful, right? The idea that he can’t be a man because he rejects toxic masculinity is harmful and it implies that the only masculinity there is to be found is toxic and that anyone who rejects toxic masculinity is not a man. When really I think Ed has the most advanced masculinity of any character in the show. Because Ed is a man and his masculinity is never seen as in opposition to anyone. Izzy is the most obvious example of defining his masculinity in opposition to others on this show and Ed is failing to live up to his ridged definition masculinity and instead of being like oh Izzy’s a shitlord don’t worry about him a lot of yall have taken that as a way to emasculate ed. Then theres the thing with Stede’s clothes. I truely think some of yall heard as kids “Pirates are for boys, Princesses are for girls” And just internalized the fuck out of that. So when Ed takes interest in rich people shit (not gendered) and desires the finer things (Not gendered) and gets yelled at by Izzy for being a good enough Pirate for engaging in these things (Ching Shih/Zheng Yi Sao is literally rolling in her grave if you think piracy is gendered) you take that as evidence that he’s not a man? Like I just want you to analyze why these things add up to him not being a man for you, that’s all. Again if it don’t apply let it fly. Ed’s interest in frilly shit is because he as a poor indigenous man has been systemically excluded from comfort, and it feels weird when people gender that. Like men aren’t allowed to desire comfort.

There are of course ways in which Ed is feminine, he’s a complex character and no complex character is all one or all the other, but he presents a non toxic masculinity. He’s in touch with his emotions, he allows himself to be vulnerable, he doesn’t put anyone else down to prove he’s more of a man. and yet he’s still masculine. His beard is his whole brand, he cracks open a cold one with the boys, ect. (I know women can have beards but you understand my point)

I feel like this also fits into a larger problem this fandom has on taking Izzy’s word for things even when we know Izzy’s the worst. Like Ed is autistic and there’s oodles of evidence in the way he moves the things he says and does and stuff like that but I’ve seen yall bring up the way Izzy talks about him like he’s insane and cant take care of himself as evidence for it anyway when that’s not even true.

Now I feel like the most valid piece of evidence for the trans girl Ed headcanon is the scene that makes me headcanon him as a trans man. Which is the scene with Izzy at the end of the show where Ed “comes out” and asks him to use his “chosen name” Edward instead of Blackbeard, and then he “goes back into the closet” because Izzy threatens his safety. Fair enough. This is why I said at the beginning that I’m not here to beef with trans girls who see themselves in him, but I do kinda want to bring it up to point out that I can use this as evidence for him being a trans man. It’s not gendered, it’s just not cis.

And finally the underlying reason why I don’t just let it go and why I made a big long vent post about it. I relate to him. I find his brand of masculinity relatable, and when people dismiss this brand of masculinity I find that super invalidating. And I know that’s my own personal shit to deal with but you will note that this is my own personal blog, so, you know, that’s sort of what I’m doing by making a vent post. I just don’t like it when people see him stimming on Stede’s clothes (autistic and something I do) or being theatrical or crying or writing poetry or wearing a robe around the house and declaring that feminine. I hate it when you guys do that. I know I don’t control how other people interpret media and I don’t control what the vibe on this character is but the evidence I’ve seen pulled out for this particular head canon rubs me the wrong way. I don’t thing I would have as much of a problem with it if the evidence I often see get pulled out didn’t feel like it was reinforcing harmful ideas about what a man isn’t. There is also something to be said for Stede’s sexuality in relation to this head canon but that doesn’t rub me the wrong way quite as much.

#vent post #Our flag means death #ofmd

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