#and when the characters are living as these genders they are referred to with masculine and feminine pronouns respectively in german

[lesbworth]

i feel like the tumblr perverts need to be aware of the forcefem novel written in 1901 by a trans woman patient of magnus hirschfeld, wherein:

a lesbian hypnotises her girly stepson into believing he is a woman

then she hypnotises his father her husband into shooting himself when he tries to stop her

then she proceeds to live as a man and convince her stepson that he is HER WIFE

AND THEN WHEN THE COUPLE WANT KIDS (AS SHE HYPNOTISED HIM TO) SHE HAS HIS CHILD AND CONVINCES HIM THAT HE GAVE BIRTH TO IT

AND DECIDES TO RAISE THE BABY AS A GIRL EVEN THOUGH IT WAS BORN MALE

AND THEN FINALLY ON HER DEATHBED CONFESSES EVERYTHING TO HER WIFE

WHO REFUSES TO BELIEVE ANY OF IT

the author's pen name is luz fraumann (yes she actually named herself "woman-man") and i wish i could tell her she's literally insane for this bestie and also how hard she would do numbers on tumblr dot com

(link to hirschfeld's profile of fraumann and extract from her novel, in german)

[maxdibert]

The nickname “Snivellus” derives from the word “snivel,” which means crybaby. So, Snivellus was basically a way of mocking the fact that Severus might show his emotions—that instead of toughing it out like a stereotypical, macho, strong, hairy-chested man, he cried. I don’t think I need to explain why this nickname is problematic—any nickname used to bully someone is problematic—but a nickname that also references a supposed weakness, stemming from the expectations of a patriarchal society for men to display “unmanly” behavior typical of “weak” men, is not just problematic due to the bullying itself but also because of the misogynistic implications it carries. Because yes, misogyny and hegemonic gender roles also affect men by demanding certain traits from them to validate them socially. And I know the Marauders lived in the 1970s, and that Rowling is one of the worst when it comes to gender issues. But I find it quite ironic how Marauders Stans or Slytherin Skittles, who have built their trash fandom and constant Snape-bashing around the topic of LGBTQ+ themes, have the audacity to mock Snape using a nickname that directly attacks gender nonconformity and justifies a toxic, traditional masculinity that shames men who cry or show emotions, labeling them as less valid.

The Marauders weren’t social justice warriors, and James and Sirius, in particular, embodied the classic values of male success through the performance of stereotypical “macho” characteristics: as leaders, as “alphas” of the pack. Both are violent; both are cocky men who try to stand out and mark their territory. Both exhibit behaviors that have typically been excused in men just because they are men, such as abusive and reckless behavior. Their nickname for Severus stems from the idea that showing emotions—especially crying—if you are a man, is a reason for ridicule and mockery because men don’t cry. Men are supposed to be strong, puff out their chests, and keep going because that’s what men do. It’s a misogynistic and archaic mindset that continues to be perpetuated in social models and relationships to this day. And I find it incredibly hypocritical that certain people who claim to hate J.K. Rowling for being a transphobe then go on to appropriate the horribly sexist nicknames she created for a group of heterosexual men embodying toxic masculinity to bully another man for not performing the traditional masculine model expected of someone like him.

Because Severus wasn’t a “macho”. Severus was a studious introvert with a more passive character who didn’t fit into the masculine vision of the time. Everything about him, including his appearance, demeanor, and interests, is unmasculine from a hegemonic perspective given the historical context. But these people don’t care. They’re so limited, so ignorant, and so cynical that they not only ignore these kinds of nuances but even find it funny to reproduce insults that any real-life James Potter would probably have used against them.

Make no mistake: James Potter and Sirius Black wouldn’t have been your friends. They would have tortured you as much, if not more, than Snape. And that’s the most pathetic part of their fandom, unfortunately.

[juniperpyre]

lily evans potter: womanhood, motherhood & morality

lily as the dream girl in canon and fan spaces

i want to talk about this while there isn't a current upsurge in the discourse

Lily Evans Potter is introduced to us as Lily Potter, the dead mother of Harry Potter. Lily and James potter, dead, leaving their poor, miraculous son to live with the dull, horrible Durselys. We only ever see her through, with the exception of her sister, the memory of men.

I've said before that I believe James and Lily are the ideal masculine and ideal feminine, both to Harry and in a metatextual way. parents are our introduction into gender roles, the "correct" way to be a man and woman. since Lily is dead she cannot disappoint Harry. she can be imagined as the perfect woman, which is, of course, a wife and mother. the dream girl!

Lily's death makes her a silent, ever-loving, beautiful young mother, for both Harry and the reader. James is slightly deconstructed in SWM, but Lily is not. She is a fierce protector, brave, clever, and only emotional (angry) once James, her future husband, provokes her enough.

in the text Lily is not truly presented as flawed in a meaningful way. the moral choices she makes: to build a relationship with Severus, to defend Severus, to break their relationship when he refuses to reject bigotry, to join the Order, to die for her child, are all the correct moral choices. these are the choices the narrative is telling us to respect.

women have, for the past 200 years or so, been conceived of as the moral center of the family.* Lily Evans Potter is the moral center of the series. her choice to die is mirrored by the main character, Harry, and sparks the beginning of victory. Harry's sacrifice is enabled by another mother, Narcissa, making the correct moral choice because the power of her maternal love urges her to this choice. finally, Voldemort's most powerful follower, Bellatrix, is killed by a housewife and mother, Molly, in a maternal rage at the idea of her daughter being murdered.

Lily's sacrifice and the emotions behind it are mirrored multiple times in the final battle because it and she are the moral center of the series.

that Harry is frequently told he has his mother's eyes, and that Dumbledore points out how his essential nature mirrors his mother's, further highlights Lily's character and her choices as implicitly good.

women, especially mothers, as our moral authorities, is an unconscious cultural belief we can see play out in the fandom and subfandoms that Lily is discussed in. we can all recall the characterization of Lily as the goody-two shoes that James has to change for, the characterization of Lily as "not like other girls", the BAMF characterization, the current near mommy dom to James characterization.

the characterization of Lily changes with our view of the best kind of woman. but she is, always, demonstrating a most "correct" way to be. maybe it's 2007 and she's telling James off—not fun, but right. or it's 2012 and she's not preoccupied with boys like her classmates. or it's 2019 and she always knows the right thing to say to Remus when he's down on himself. or it's 2025 and James is trailing after her like a puppy while she contemplates what size strap to use on him after she beats up a bigot.

We don't see a lot of moderate views on Lily. Above, I've discussed how Lily lovers tend to portray her. Lily haters, a smaller group from what I can tell, do not utilize these common fanon characterizations. They disparage her as an immoral, selfish, bad woman. The wholesale rejection of Lily as the moral center based on her perceived immorality is the other side of the coin.

I'll refer to people with this perspective as "Lily haters" though I am aware there are people who dislike her outside of the topics I'm discussing.

I rarely engage with Lily haters, though I am aware of their arguments that Lily was a bad friend to Severus, a social climber, a gold digger, or boring. All grave sins for the woman who's supposed to save everyone.

This perspective doesn't reject Lily as the moral center or the perfect woman, it is an argument that she's not fulfilling her role correctly. Her unwillingness to give Severus more chances is selfish, stuck-up, classist. Her desire for James is an further betrayal of Severus.

She's supposed to be the Madonna, why is she being a whore?

I believe Lily hate comes from a belief she failed at being the perfect woman/mother, and therefore she is worthless. A bitch. Weak willed. Oversexed. even by haters her role as the moral center is not questioned.

in both the og text and in the fandom supertext Lily is the moral center because of her role as mother. her status as the moral center is inextricably tied to her motherhood. since Lily being a mother is the point of her character, divorcing her from her motherhood often changes the foundation of her character.**

when her literal motherhood is removed from a depiction of her character, her metaphorical status as the perfect woman/mother is often still intact. this is seen in the characterizations I described earlier, and, I argue, in the belief that she's too good for James when it is used as a "justification" for shipping James with someone else.*** thereby, she is further purified, not even having been touched by a man. she's put on a pedestal, where she can't be touched, and is rarely noticed.

it is also frequently seen when she is written as a side character in a relationship with James, and the pair become the dual moral guides for the main couple.

this reflects James and Lily as the ideal masculine and feminine, as they are a perfectly harmonious couple when a side pairing. their implicit canonical roles are subconsciously reflected in fanon with little critique or commentary on the canon text.

Lily's entire character is crafted to be The Perfect Mother™️. whether she is literally a mother in her fanon depiction or not, she is still The Perfect Woman™️—and is still affected by the biases our culture has towards women and mothers.

thus, Lily is the dream girl in the text, the moral center only seen through a nostalgic veil, and a dream girl in fan spaces, as the moral guide for the men in her life who pegs her husband or is too pure for the touch of a man.

for more on gender in the wizarding world, based on gender in early modern england (pre the cult of domesticity) see this post

*see the cult of domesticity if you'd rather not read the article

**please like fucking do not fucking act like I'm saying you cannot do this. I swear to fucking god

***you don't need to justify your ships

[sufferu]

I think Subaru just feels that if he was born a girl life would have been easier since he wouldn't have to deal with the expectations as the first son

The thing is: Subaru gets a genuine sense of joy out of dressing as a woman. His entire presentation undergoes this massive shift. He becomes more confident, he thinks he’s prettier, he’s outwardly flirtatious — and even when he’s not, uh, “in uniform,” he genuinely loves making dresses, and styling hair, and playing with makeup. It gets to the point where, before he learns ANYTHING else, Rem remarks that his sewing skills are “top notch” — simply because he enjoys it so much that it’s where he dedicated all his time. Plus, there are all these little hints in the LN about how he misses being a cute, androgynous child who could be easily mistaken for a girl (even saying that the years have not been kind to him, which is a very strange way for a totally cis guy to reference puberty), and how he cried when his hair was shaved off, and how he prides himself on the old nickname “Princess of the Ice.” And even when basically nobody wants him dressed as a woman in Arc 7, he keeps making excuses to not change clothes, and EVERYONE takes it that way. And also he refers to Natsumi as his ideal self. This isn’t just him doing what’s easiest: he LIKES this.

Plus like — if you want to talk about characters leaning into an opposite gendered persona due to feeling that they can’t live up to their gender’s expectations…Ferris is right there. And Ferris very specifically foils Subaru in ways that are incredibly pointed. Ferris presents as a girl specifically for Crusch’s sake, while every time Subaru dresses as Natsumi he’s like the only one who actually enjoys it (sans Emilia, who has been very pointedly left out of the reveal that Natsumi == Subaru, and who uniquely shows pretty much zero contempt for his crossdressing habit in the one failed loop side story where she does find out about it). Ferris has to go through this entire morning routine of “getting into character” every day in order to be Crusch’s Cute Little Ferri-chan, Subaru slips into Natsumi’s persona so easily that he has to actively fight AGAINST it. Ferris dresses almost solely in a singular outfit that’s basically his Ferri-chan uniform (complete with a collar and a bell), Subaru has this whole love for styling different outfits practically every time he dresses as Natsumi. Hell — symbolically, Ferris is a nickname for a very traditionally masculine given name (Felix) while Subaru has been referenced many times as having a name that is explicitly androgynous (the implications of this can be debated but as it is I’m pretty certain it was intentional on Tappei’s part). It’s like a Whole Thing.

(And also — we already Had the whole “Subaru struggling with the pressures of being Kenichi’s son” thing. It’s what the whole First Trial was about him overcoming. So why is Natsumi becoming More prevalent as the story goes on, if it’s just an extension of that?)

(And if it really IS an extension of that prior problem, why do we STILL very pointedly not know what happened that day when he got found out? With Subaru going out of his way to shadow it as “a very traumatic event for me that I have spent a significant amount of time processing and struggling to overcome” while never revealing what actually went down — it’s be kind of anticlimactic for something like that to be revealed as just — an extension of a conflict that already got revealed and resolved ages ago.)

[demisexual-in-distress]

get my huskerdusters in this bitch

ok so I havent made a post of my own in a fuckin while but I needed to say this.

Angel Dust is a feminine man, okay, right, got that. Husk prefers to present more masculinely. Ofc, go off kings, great. Before I say any more, and I've only said 2 things, I want people to understand I AM ALL FOR GENDER FUCKERY, ESPECIALLY IN FANDOM! Make that man wear a dress! Give him some makeup, I don't care if it's out of character! Genderbends are really fucking cool! However, when it comes to huskerdust, some things are looked past. Some of the things they've done with Angel in fanfiction and fanart wouldn't be okay if he was a woman, they'd be considered misogynistic.

I used a bunch of tags in this post talking about this before (please read that post itself too!!)

Angel Dust is not a woman. We all know this by now, unless you've been living under a rock since the pilot came out. And, if you've been following hazbin hotel, I'd like to assume you're all for rights no matter what gender you identify with and, most likely, are a feminist.

So why and how is this being done to Angel Dust, a(n, as of current knowledge,) CIS MAN?

In so many fics and fanart, Husk is painted as the savior. Angel is a damsel in distress, even though we've clearly seen that he knows how to defend himself. Angel was in the mafia. We heard him in episode four, "I can handle myself, baby." He clearly doesn't need Husk to protect him, and never has. And Husk, as far as we know, has never really taken on that savior role, or ever really needed to. It isn't pressured onto his character. This isn't to be confused with his protective nature, which derives from his parental tendencies.

Sometimes, even, I've heard people use terms like "Mrs" or "Mommy" (not in a kinky way stfu it was regarding fat nuggets and his parents) to refer to Angel Dust, when we know he's not a woman. Again, I'm all for headcanons, but this is in situations where such headcanons aren't applied.

Still don't get it?

It reminds me a lot of the lesbians thing where people ask, "Who wears the pants in this relationship?" or "But who's the man/woman?" If you're watching Hazbin Hotel, I'm also guessing you are either (A,) really fucking queer, (especially if you're making huskerdust fanwork lol) or (B,) a big fucking ally. You should know that THAT IS NOT HOW IT WORKS, THAT IS NOT RIGHT!!! There is no "man" or "woman" of the relationship when it comes to queer love! The fandom has pushed heteronormative and sexist roles on a gay relationship. Whether that was the intention or not, it's what's become of it. I hate it. I hate seeing people make Angel some sort of housewife, unable to protect himself and in need of a savior, just because he presents femininely. No matter what gender he considers himself, Angel can present as feminine. It doesn't make him any less of the man that he is/considers himself.

In the end, it's some strange form of misogyny. The only reason people aren't calling it out is because Angel is just a femboy, he's not a woman.

Does that make sense?

[1000squid]

Obey Me! personal pronouns of the central cast

A short guide in what personal pronouns everyone in the Obey Me cast uses. Japanese has a variety of variations on the word "I" that you can use to express your personality, mood, and gender. Note that this is just a general guide based mostly on the character songs, and it is quite normal for a person to use different pronouns in different situations. I have not included Raphael, Mephistophelese, or Thirteen since most of this is based on the character songs.

Lucifer - 俺 "ore" quite masculine, casual, and slightly "rough" sounding. The most common masculine pronoun. Usually paired with masculine speech patterns, and not widely used in a formal settings. Fits Lucifer's aggressive, domineering personality.

Mammon - 俺 or 俺様 "ore" or "ore-sama" "Ore-sama" is what gets translated as "The Great Mammon". This term is not really used outside of fiction because it's so insanely rude and self-agrandizing that no one in their right mind would use it except as a joke. One does not refer to themselves with honorifics, especially not the super respectful "-sama." The result is super egotistical and self-aggrandizing and, in Mammon's case, a bit stupid.

Leviathan - 僕 "boku" mostly masculine, but can be used by girls who want to appear tom-boyish as well. Considered semi-casual, but polite, and can be used among colleges. Has a youthful, boyish connotation, but not so much that adult men wouldn't use it among close friends. Leviathan is the eldest to use "boku", even though some of his younger brothers use "ore". Probably self-diminishing on his part.

Satan - 俺 "ore" While he will use ore generally, Satan seems to largely avoid using first-person pronouns when possible, relying on grammar to imply "I" statements instead. His character song "Read My Heart" manages to completely omit them, a feature of the Japanese language that wouldn't be possible in English.

Asmodeus - 僕 "boku" I was a bit surprised by this! Going off of how Asmo is presented in the translation, I would expect him to use more gender neutral (possible even feminine) terms. There are other ways to express one's gender in Japanese, but that is much harder to pick up on for someone non-fluent, so I can't be sure. However, choosing a "youthful" pronoun is still very much in keeping with Asmo's character.

Beelzebub - 俺 "ore" the only surprise here is Beel using the more manly "ore" when he's the 2nd youngest of the brothers, as well as his twin using "boku". I do think it fits his sort of sweet-jock personality, though.

Belphegore - 僕 "boku" Belphie's the baby in the family, so he uses "boku". Would have been a jarring contrast to his yandere personality in the original game's first story arch, but he has since chilled out a huge amount.

Diavolo - 私 "watashi" flexible and mostly nuetral in formality and gender expression. Often taught to English students as the default "I," but is said to sound a bit stiff. If used in casual speech it can sound slightly feminine or extra polite. As Diavolo is next in line as the ruler of the Devildom, it's fitting that he'd use polite language, and as he seems to be terribly under-socialized, that he'd be overly formal with his friends.

Barbatos - 私 "watakushi" alternate reading of 私 (watashi). The Most Formal, would sound very stiff and archaic if used in anything other than extremely formal settings. Very fitting for the slightly romantically awkward ultimate butler.

Solomon - 俺 "ore" Solomon is possibly the oldest living human, and as such is shown to be a little out-of touch with things like manners (and not poisoning your friends with your heinous cooking). He doesn't seem to care what others think of him, and can come off as a little snobbish due to his confidence is his abilities.

Simeon - 俺 "ore" I would have expected Simeon to use more polite language, but he can be aggressive at times, so it's not completely unfitting. Like Satan, Simeon avoids personal pronouns in his song when possible, though not quite as aggressively.

Luke - 僕 "boku" No surprise here. Luke's about as "boku" as it gets, being the youngest in the cast save the mc, and definitely the youngest developmentally. He has the appearance and personality of a young boy, so "boku" makes the most sense.

MC - "君" "kimi" all of the main cast appear to use "kimi" when referring to the player character, which is gender neutral and informal, even affectionate. You would only use this with someone you consider your peer.

[onedeadkitty]

Mizus Gender

He/him they/them she/her pronouns for Mizu

I know the writers of the show wrote blue eye samurai with Mizu as a woman disguised as a man in a way similar ish to Mulan but uh

They accidentally made it deeper than that ??

If you removed like 2 lines of dialogue in episode 5 you could even make an argument for trans masc Mizu. Or at the least gender queer.

Being transgender is not a concept in this time period. But trust. People have always wanted to be other genders, probably for the entirety of human history. And how someone would go about being trans in a world with no true understanding of the concept, might be similar to what Mizu IS DOING RIGHT NOW.

Living as a man. PERMANENTLY. Not temporarily to achieve some near goal like Mulan and the many other stories with this concept. Mizu has lived as a man nearly their entire life and no intention to ever live as a woman in the future.

Mizu admires their freshly binded chest in the mirror as a teen.

When alone Mizu refers to himself as a man.

When alone with Ringo, (someone who knows the secret) Ringo also refers to Mizu as a man.

Mizu threatens to straight kill Ringo at the the very use of the word “girl”.

When, and ONLY when seeing 2 MEN kiss does he think of Taigen.

Not to mention madame Kajis indelicate insinuation of gay sex to Mizu, something I believe wasn’t for no reason. OR Madams iconic line “you are more man than ANY come through my door” (I’m convinced she has an idea of Mizus true sex but doesn’t care to accuse or call them out for it)

They HAD lived as a woman in the past. Only for about a year, and they did it to get married for her mothers sake. To save her from a life of prostitution. She was able to be happy, because it IS POSSIBLE to be happy while not presenting how you like. It’s a strain and some can never be happy doing so but it’s possible and people do it all the time to make their lives easier or to keep the peace with family or for many other reasons.

Episode 5 gave HUGE VIBES of going back into the closet when living with your parents or just visiting. And Mizu looked SO uncomfortable and awkward in woman’s clothing and doing “wife things” (partly cause they have never done that before) and maybe it was my own projecting but I felt so uncomfortable FOR Mizu.

These things don’t necessarily mean being a transgender man specifically. Gender is actually really complicated and has ALOT to do with what society deems it.

Mizu is a masculine person. Being what Japan wants women to be isn’t in line with what Mizu is. A violent, practical, stoic, cold, masculine, confident and capable warrior.

dressing up as a woman with the makeup ONLY to try and make her husband happy. She didn’t WANT to. “To soften her husbands heart, the bride… danced” performed femininity FOR HIM. Only for Mikio to betray her for, in his eyes, being more masculine than him, by beating him in a physical fight.

Mizu is both the ronin and the bride. Mizu will be whatever they need to in order to achieve their owed deaths. They HAVE to be a man to get their revenge but that doesn’t mean Mizu WANTS to be a woman. (To be fair who WOULD in that time but I digress) and it doesn’t mean they WANT to be a man. They WANT their revenge. Everything is secondary to that.

Mizu is so different from other characters…

I grew up in a kinda misogynistic place and my mom really didn’t let me “do boy stuff” or dress masculine in any sense until my late teens. I my self don’t know if I can even call myself Trans. But I’m masculine, I like looking like a man and dressing as one but I don’t WANT to be a man necessarily. But I don’t WANT to be a woman. I feel like we as a society put to much distinction between the two and the people who don’t fit either side get left out at times.

Mizu is such a relatable character to me, like no other characters complicated feelings about their own sex and gender have ever come close.

They are for those who don’t have a strong sense of their own gender. Especially those who are biologically female and hesitant to lean into their sex because of the societal baggage.

Once people realize that how you dress, how you act, and what you do in reality have nothing to do with your bio sex and everything with what society has forced people to do based on factors out of our control is the day we can finally stop having these conversations.

Do what you want, gender is fake.

But Mizu is forever 🫶

[saintsenara]

I have a question about your characterization of James and Sirius in war of roses: in the fic you have them behave fairly cruel to snape (verbal and emotional), do you see them doing that in canon or were you adding a bit extra for the story you were telling? Love that fic btw ❤️❤️

thank you very much for the ask, anon! i've got lots of marauders-dynamic questions in the ol' inbox, which can serve as the perfect motivation to finish the next chapter of the war of the roses [or - y'know - the perfect way to procrastinate from it...], and this one seems an ideal place to start.

and the simple answer is... yes, of course i see james and sirius subjecting snape to verbal and emotional cruelty in canon. it's right there on the page. it's just treated less explicitly by the canon narrative than the physical element of the bullying.

[until the end of deathly hallows, that is.]

sirius and [especially] lupin frame the marauders' targeting of snape as something primarily physical and completely mutual:

"Well," said Lupin slowly, "Snape was a special case. I mean, he never lost an opportunity to curse James, so you couldn’t really expect James to take that lying down, could you?"

which means that they both elide the non-physical aspects of the bullying into this supposedly mutual physical tension. snape's hatred of james is put down to jealousy, which is taken to have triggered him to attack james, which is taken to have triggered james to respond.

sirius and lupin are - unsurprisingly - extremely unreliable historians of this period of their lives. but the adult snape also seems to primarily regard the bullying he experienced as physical - as we see in half-blood prince, when harry attempts to curse snape following dumbledore's death:

"Coward, did you call me, Potter?" shouted Snape. "Your father would never attack me unless it was four on one, what would you call him, I wonder?"

and this framing of things by the characters involved seems - broadly - to be taken at face value by many fans.

on the more pro-snape end of the scale, discussions of him being traumatised by the bullying focus on the trauma of experiencing physical violence, especially in the context of being attacked - as snape puts it - only when outnumbered - particularly now that james' behaviour in snape's worst memory is increasingly understood by fans as [attempted] sexual assault.

on the more pro-marauders end of the scale, snape's own willingness to use physical violence - and, in snape's worst memory, to be the person who attempts to strike first and who attacks while james' back is turned - ends up being used to support sirius and lupin's assessment of snape and james' relationship as one of mutual antagonism... often without any thought seemingly given as to why sirius and lupin would want to present it this way.

but this means - i think - that other, more insidious parts of the canon dynamic between snape and the marauders - that is, the constant, low-level non-physical cruelty to which they subject him - end up being given less attention by readers than they deserve.

we can see several of these at play in snape's worst memory:

james and sirius refer to snape as "snivellus" and "snivelly" throughout the altercation - something sirius also does as an adult, prior to harry witnessing snape's memories, as a reaction to snape insulting him [that is, as a reaction to snape getting - as he sees it - too big for his boots].

in deathly hallows, we see the origin of this nickname: snape gets it because he has a female best friend - who speaks up to defend him from james and sirius, reversing the expected gender dynamic - and is disparaging about gryffindor because the house prioritises brawn [that is, physical strength - especially masculine physical strength] over brains.

there's an enormous homophobic subtext here - james and sirius immediately settle upon the idea that snape is improperly masculine, which makes him [as it would in the eyes of many men] a target who needs to be punished.

this subtext is present in the incidents of physical cruelty we see - james threatening to strip snape is a way of him soothing his wounded pride over lily publicly rejecting him by transferring that humiliation onto a male target seen as more deserving of such treatment; sirius telling snape about lupin and the shrieking shack is a way for him to humiliate someone he thinks of as nosy, meddling, jealous, and weak [feminine-coded!] by placing him in a situation which he'd lack the physical strength to escape [and - of course - snape is then rescued - like a damsel in distress - by big ol' masculine james].

but it's also present in the way the marauders speak to and about snape, separately from any physical confrontation - sirius referring to snape as lucius malfoy's "lapdog" is him insinuating a sexual relationship between them in which snape is the passive [with the implication, therefore, that he's the more "feminine"] partner; lupin claiming that snape's hatred of james was caused by being less physically strong, attractive, and respected than him; and so on - in a way which implies that it coloured most of their day-to-day interactions.

sirius admits to having been watching snape during their exam. while this is set up in the text as a precursor to physical violence - predators stalking their prey - it's clear elsewhere in canon that the marauders kept a close eye on snape in order to facilitate their non-physical bullying.

for example, we learn in the prince's tale that james' hatred of snape is partially motivated by sexual jealousy - he is unhappy [which connects to the homophobic element outlined above] that someone he sees as improperly masculine has greater access to a woman he thinks should be with him than he himself does. we also learn that snape is aware of this - and that his hatred for james is also motivated by sexual jealousy - he is unhappy with the idea that james might "steal" lily from him.

while attempting to prevent this from happening by turning lily against james, snape reveals to lily that james fancies her. significantly, him doing this comes at the end of a run of dialogue which makes clear that snape comes by most of his information about the marauders from the horses' mouths - that is, he observes them and follows them and eavesdrops upon them. it can be logically concluded, then, that snape has come by the information that james fancies lily by overhearing james himself say it. and it can also be logically concluded that james would have said this when he knew snape would be able to overhear him.

after all, sirius complains in prisoner of azkaban that snape was always "sneaking around... trying to find out what we were up to" - and then says that the reason he decided to lure snape to the shrieking shack was to punish him for doing this. it stands to reason, then, that snape's propensity for eavesdropping on the marauders was something they made use of more widely to bully him, including in contexts [such as in the classroom] when they would have had no opportunity to attack him physically - not least because this would, given snape's personality, rile him up into a state of agitation and paranoia similar to the one we see in snape's worst memory, where he's ready for a physical fight the second he catches sight of james and sirius and james and sirius are only too happy to oblige, which they could then use to jump him when the lesson ended.

we can get some idea of what these eavesdropped conversations might feature from canon.

in snape's worst memory, sirius only speaks to snape directly to disparage his looks and his masculinity - "his nose was touching the parchment... there'll be great grease marks all over it" / "what're you going to do, snivelly, wipe your nose on us?". the marauder's map also insults snape's appearance - and the map's insults are clearly the result of it having been enchanted to respond in such a way if snape, specifically, got hold of it.

in both of these examples, the mockery of snape's appearance is inextricable from mockery of his financial status and class background. snape being described as "greasy" - by both sirius and the map - is him being derided for being "dirty", which is him being derided for being "poor".

this isn't always the case when snape is described thus - harry, for example, clearly just means "greasy" as "greasy" - but the text makes clear that the layered meaning is the one we're supposed to understand the marauders were going for:

the prince's tale notes that james and snape's divergent home lives are obvious from first glance; james washing snape's mouth out with soap punishes him for swearing - that is, for behaving in a way james considers uncouth; james dangling snape upside down to reveal his underwear humiliates him by exposing his poverty - which the text spells out by emphasising that snape's underpants are "greying" - as much as it humiliates him by exposing him full stop; sirius taunts the adult snape by implying he relies on lucius malfoy [and on dumbledore] to look after him - that is, that he needs a patron because he has no status of his own [and snape responds by mocking sirius' reduced social status within the order, pouring salt into the wound by pointing out that he - rather than sirius, who regards the reverse as the natural order of things - is the one whose work is actually important].

and this - this undercurrent of constant snipes and insults which canon suggests - is what has ended up in the war of the roses as something sirius remembers as a key part of his and james' dynamic with snape. given where the story's going, my sirius is focusing a lot on the homophobic aspect of this non-physical cruelty. and while we don't find an exact match for what he's thinking about in the books -not least because, since the books are written for a child audience, they can't use the language i can in my explicit-rated fic - it is absolutely implied by the canon text.

[amphibious-thing]

Hi!

I really enjoy your posts about d'Eon; she's so fascinating. I'm definitely not an expert on her, but I'm very interested! One article I read said that, in her unfinished memoirs, she used both male and female pronouns. Is this a) even true, given some of the clearly wrong historical writing you've cited before, and b) if it is true, what do you think about it?

So I don't speak French. D'Eon's unfinished memoirs were originally written in French and I'm working with an English translation. This makes any discussion of gendered language in her memoirs a bit more difficult as there are words that are gendered in French but gender neutral in English and vice versa. Helpfully the translation by Roland A. Champagne, Nina Ekstein and Gary Kates notes when the masculine or feminine form is being used. However I'm still answering this question based on a translation not d'Eon's original words.

D'Eon's memoirs are written in first person so the majority of the pronouns she uses for herself are first person pronouns (I, me, my, mine).

Other characters use either he/him or she/her pronouns for d'Eon but this reflects that characters perspective not d'Eon's personal pronouns. For example in a scene set in Russia the Comte de Vorontsov confronts d'Eon about her double life, using feminine pronouns for Mademoiselle d'Eon and masculine pronouns for Captain d'Eon:

This young lady remarked to Madame Vorontsov and to my niece the Princess Asthoff that she remembers very well that Mademoiselle d'Eon has a small wine-colored birthmark on her left cheek near her ear, that at the convent in Meaux she wore gold-drop earrings, and that if Captain d'Eon has this wine-colored birthmark on his left cheek and that if he has pierced ears, you can be sure that this is the Demoiselle d'Eon whom I knew in the convent. (p20)

D'Eon pretty consistently seems to use feminine language for herself when speaking in the present tense. She uses the words "woman", "girl", "maiden", "daughter", the titles "mademoiselle" and "chevalière" and "she/her" pronouns at points when she slips into third person.

However when talking in the past tense she sometimes describes herself in the masculine. She was a "man" but is now a "woman". She will sometime talk about her past self in third person referring to "him" as her "brother". After Mademoiselle Bertin dresses d'Eon in woman's clothes for the first time d'Eon says to her:

You have killed my brother the dragoon. That leaves me with a heavy heart. (p61)

D'Eon's describes her transition as a death and rebirth. A few weeks before d'Eon was to be presented at the Court of Versailles as a woman she returns home to Tonnerre. Still wearing men's clothes she gets into an argument with her mother who believes she should start wearing women's clothes immediately. But d'Eon is reluctant, avoiding it. At one point in the argument d'Eon tells her mother she must resign herself to "the imminent death of your pitiful dragoon" as "he" only has a few weeks left in men's clothes. Their argument ends with the following passage:

In tears, my mother said to me: "You are still my dear daughter sitting in the darkness and the shadow of death. But you will be reborn, my daughter, without fear or reproach, to live and die peacefully by your mother, who loves and will always cherish you. For your salvation and our mutual happiness, I have long prayed for the misfortune that befalls you." She wiped her tears against my face and returned to her room. I hid my face under the covers in order not to see or hear anything. I was even troubled by my own presence in he darkness of night. (p41)

While d'Eon describes the loss of her "brother" the dragoon as painful she ultimately sees it as something that is necessary and positive:

Mademoiselle d'Eon has only one more step to take to bury her brother the captain of the dragoons with the full honors of War ... Tomorrow without fail I will inform Mademoiselle Bertin of my return to Paris and tell her to bring with her feathered aides-de-camp to deplume me and to sew the dragoon's skin to that of a girl who is worn out from bitter disappointment with her own skin. This girl has the greatest need of her help to be trimmed, readied, and fitted out by her skillful hand in order that I may walk with unworried assurance along the narrow path of virtue, as is befitting a Christian maiden (p56)

The death of the dragoon captain gives life to the Christian maiden:

In my regiment I sought only the rough and tumble. But in my convent I find only remedies and healing. Thus by a natural tendency I find it impossible to reconcile Mademoiselle d'Eon with her brother, the dragoon captain. The brother is imperfect, the sister perfect. How can one reconcile between the imperfect and the perfect? (p72)

Her life as Geneviève d’Eon brings her joy:

At present I am living in profound peace; and my joy is so great that I praise God in three languages so that a greater number of people may partake of the happiness of the angels in this life while awaiting the crown of ordinary martyrs, Nunc Genofeva d'Eon est nomen meum; quam suave et dulce est laetitia mea! [My name is now Geneviève d’Eon; how delightful and how sweet is my joy!] (p87)

However she doesn't always refer to her pre-transition self in the masculine. D'Eon presents herself as a woman who was raised as a boy by her parents: "I had been educated as a boy, and I dressed as one." (p7) She describes her past self as a "foolish girl who was tricked to go along like a foolish ewe." (p3)

One interesting example of d'Eon's use of gendered language is her invention of the word "demoiseau". One of the translators Roland A. Champagne describes it as a "masculine version of demoiselle" and explains "We translated demoiseau as "pretty boy" in order to capture the lexical proximity of demoiseau to damoiseau ("fop")." Champagne concludes that "d'Éon constructed in a neutral gender the demoiseau to live as a masculine woman beyond the codes of the Ancien Regime." (Decoding "The Maiden of Tonnerre": Translating Gender from the Eighteenth Century)

Champagne is correct to say that d'Eon lived as a "masculine woman" but I think he might be making too much of this one word considering the context. The word "demoiseau" comes from the following exchange between d'Eon and Bertin:

Mademoiselle d'Eon. Alas, at court everything is beautiful. To please the court, does a former dragoon captain have to become a pretty boy [demoiseau]? Mademoiselle Bertin. Yes, absolutely, when the so-called "boy" is discovered to be in fact a girl by the systems of justice both in England and in France. (p64)

So I don't think d'Eon necessarily identified as a "demoiseau" but perhaps I'm missing something in translation.

The part I struggle with the most is words that are gender neutral in English but gendered in French. Without being familiar with French it's difficult for me to understand what the use of masculine and feminine forms of words means in context. Take the following passage for example:

Neither my body nor my mind was worn out from studying when my father took(m) me to Paris at the age of thirteen. At that point, I knew only how to read and write, and not well at that. I, however, fell into the hands(f) of my uncle and aunt who made(m) me feel ashamed(m) of my ignorance and who motivated me to study. Furthermore, they alerted and warned me that if I revealed the truth of my sex I would be locked away(f) in a convent forever. (p4)

In "my father took(m) me" took is masculine. Does that mean that d'Eon is masculine, her father is masculine or the act of taking is masculine? What about "made(m) me feel ashamed(m) of my ignorance" is d'Eon masculine or is her shame masculine? If her sex if revealed she will be "locked away(f) in a convent". Why is the word away feminine?

One thing that I particularly found interesting is that the pronoun "me" is sometimes marked as feminine, sometimes masculine, but most often not marked as either. So we have:

The Revolution made me(m) so rich that today I do not have the means to buy ink or paper.

And then just a few paragraphs later:

I would just as soon suffer childbirth as to be doing this painful work of writing, which I have begun because of the destitution to which the Revolution has reduced me(f).

Then a few paragraphs latter:

I am no longer a disciple of this world since my wonderful conversion, which separated me(f) completely from the body of the dragoons and from the sin of my uniform and which finally stripped away the old man in order to make of me a totally new being before Our Lord, in the eyes of men, in front of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting as well as the Daughters of Holy Mary, and in the hopes of the fortune reserved for me in heaven. The knowledge of that fortune has filled me(m) with complete wisdom and spiritual intelligence so that I might bring to fruition every good action and so that I might behave as befits a Christian woman not only before the world but also before the Lord, since during my novitiate I was washed(f), probed(f), tested(f), corrected(f), corroborated(f), strengthened(f), and rooted(f) in every way, which I endured, in complete patience and spiritual tranquility, the Lord having erased my obligations, which consisted of military orders, orders contrary to my spirit, and which He completely abolished and replaced with my new obligation to live and die in the essential purity of my innocent dress, no longer thinking of those things here below but only about those on high. (p136-137)

The switching back and forth between "me(m)" and "me(f)" is interesting but I honestly have no idea what it means.

If I ignore all the little "f"s and "m"s the gendered language seems pretty clear and consistent. D'Eon is a woman who was raised as a boy. She is feminine in the present tense but sometimes masculine in the past tense. But I can't just ignore the fact that I'm reading a translation. That would not be a honest analysis of her memoirs. I'd love if someone who is familiar with French went through her writing and really analysed her use of gendered language. I'm unfortunately restricted by the limits of working with a translation.

[forgetmenautical]

ok I’m talking about this now just to get my own thoughts on it out there and bc i haven’t seen anyone else do it and if itll drive me up the walls if I don’t say anything. Anyway.

I really like the way Mizu’s gender is presented. I personally use he and they interchangeably, but I do actually feel like Mizu is the kind of character where having to use pronouns for the character at all is kind of….undermining him? does that make any sense?? obviously you have to but I’ve found myself using Mizu’s name a lot when talking abt them because of it. There is SO many different ways you can interpret Mizu, but to mizu himself you can see that they don’t care if people see them as a man Or a woman. When Ringo sees that Mizu isn’t “really” a man, he keeps using he/him for Mizu and referring to them as a man, and Mizu doesn’t correct this. At the same time, you can kind of see that Mizu was coerced into a life of masculinity that he seems uncomfortable with at first, but he grows into it. when the people in the picture encouraging or forcing him to live that way are gone, he continues to do so regardless. This could be taken either as him having grown comfortable with the way he presents, or continuing to live as a man because otherwise, despite his competence, they also firmly believe that women have very little options in Edo era Japan, and thusly his mission would be severely hindered. Honestly it’s so fascinating and I really like the way it’s done and all the different ways it could be taken!!

[heavenlymorals]

How a Modern Perspective Skews Historical Characters: A Mini Rant on the Hatred of Female Characters in RDR2

This isn't that organized cuz it's more a rant than a retrospective but fuck it it's my blog, I do what I want-

There are so many people who have actual hatred, not criticisms, for Abigail, Molly, Grimshaw, Mary, and other female characters in the Red Dead universe.

And honestly? I find it very interesting. Sure, men will probably always find a reason to hate a female character, but what I find interesting is how many women also hate these wonderfully crafted characters.

It could be so many reasons as to why this may be the case but honestly? I think it's because people forget that they CANNOT analyze this game authentically through the modern lens of morals and behaviors. This game takes place in 1899 America. Let me say it again. This game takes place in 1899 America.

One more time, just for good measure- this game takes place in FUCKING 1899 America. Women had to be dependent on men because otherwise? They'll either be in poverty, exploited, killed, or all three. There was also the honor system. When had to be the moral high ground for their family so them messing up has consequences on their fathers, mothers, siblings, cousins, and anyone connected to their family name.

Abigail getting pissy at John for getting in trouble all the time? If course it'd feel annoying if you're looking at it through the modern perspective but when you don't, it's a woman telling her man to act like a man and be careful because if he doesn't, she and her son will be destitute and destroyed.

Mary not getting with Arthur but using him? What's the likely hood that the law would bother to help Mary when the two people she needs help with are her father and brother- two grown men who can make their own choices that she literally can do nothing about because as a woman, it wasn't her place to dictate what they do. Arthur was her only option. "Girl, what her family thinks doesn't matter, she still should've gotten with him" girl no, because it's much harder and difficult than that- it's like tearing away an entire identity that you depend on to fucking survive.

"but what about Sadie? She was also living during this time period and she isn't drowned by societal expectations-"

Seriously. Do some research, read a book, expand your knowledge of gender roles and what that entails for people because it explains so many things about these characters in such a human way. They aren't "bitches", they are women of their time and people have to understand that.

No. Sadie isn't a part of this discussion because though she is a fun character and an amazing character, she is a mishmash of historical women who did masculine things to survive at one point but then went back to traditional roles, even if they did occasionally go back to to those old activities for sport sometimes, like Anne Oakley or Calamity Jane. Sadie's entire character is basically "but what if they didn't and committed to the nontraditional lifestyle". There are many inconsistencies that Rockstar did regarding the time period that they established earlier to accommodate Sadie's character better. Sadie is a great character but she doesn't belong in this discussion.

Edit: Ok, since this was a rant, as mentioned previously, I was a bit too rushed with the Sadie aspect of this post and ignored some crucial details. I'm not gonna change the post besides just this though. @hillbillyhipster84 made some great points that Sadie was a reference to Appalachian women and real outlaw women who did run and were accomplices in men's crimes, that I was too ignorant to mention prior beforehand because I didn't do much research. I still don't believe that People should use Sadie to bash the other women though, because those women mentioned above were not the status quo and thus were more trivialized because of it.

So many cultures still operate like this too so if anything, you're just learning something new about another culture.

But I swear, anytime someone talks shit about these characters, y'all got me looking like this-

[intersexbookclub]

Discussion summary: Left Hand of Darkness

Published in 1969, The Left Hand of Darkness is a classic in science fiction that explores issues of sex/gender in an alien-yet-human society where the aliens are just like us except in how they reproduce. These aliens, the Gethenians, can reproduce as either male or female. They spend most of their lives sexually undifferentiated. Once a month, they go into heat (“kemmer”) and their sexual organs activate as either male or female (it’s essentially random).

Here's a summary of the discussions we had on 2023-08-25 and 2023-09-01 about the book:

HIGH LEVEL REACTONS

Michelle (@scifimagpie): even though it was written by a cis straight perisex woman there is a queerness to the writing that feels true and that she nailed. There is a queerness to the soul of this book that still holds up, that's true and good, and I cannot but love and respect that.

Elizabeth (@ipso-faculty): this book is such a commentary on 1960s misogyny. Genly is a raging misogynist. It takes a whole prison break and crossing the arctic for Genly to realize a woman or androgyne can be competent 👀

Dimitri: [Having read just the first half of the book] I wonder if it keeps happening, if Genly keeps going "woaaaah" [to the Gethenians’ androgyny] or if he ever acclimates. It's been half the novel my guy

vic: yeah a book where a guy is destroyed by seeing a breast makes me want queer theory

vic: [it also] makes me feel good to see how much has changed [since the 1960s]

THE INTERSEX STUFF

A thing we appreciated about the book was how being intersex is contextual. The main character of the book, Genly Ai, is a human from a planet like Earth, who visits Gethen to open trade and diplomatic relations.

On his home planet, and to Earth sensibilities, Genly is perisex - he is able to reproduce at any time of the month and is consistently male.

But on Gethen, Genly becomes intersex. On Gethen, the norm is that you only manifest (and can reproduce as) a given sex during the monthly kemmer (heat/oestrus) period. 

The Gethenians understand Genly as living in “permanent kemmer”, which is described as a common (intersex) condition, and these people are hyper-sexualized and referred to as Perverts.

At this point it’s worth noting that depiction is not the same as endorsement. Michelle pointed out the book is very empathetic to those in permanent kemmer. LeGuin does not appear to be endorsing the social stigma faced by these people, merely depicting it, and putting a mirror to how our own society treats intersex people.

Throughout the book, Genly is treated as an oddity by the Gethenians. He is hyper sexualized. He undergoes a genital inspection to prove he is who he says he is. 

When Genly is sent to a prison camp and forcibly given HRT, he does not respond “normally” to the hormones, the effects are way worse for him, and the prison camp staff don’t care, and keep administering them even if it’ll kill him. 

Two of us have had the experience of having hyperandrogenism and being forced onto birth control as teenager, and relating to the sluggishness of the drugs that Genly experienced, as well as the sense that gender/sex conformity was more important to authority figures (parents, doctors) than actual health and well-being.

Another scene we discussed the one where Genly is in a prison van en route to the gulag, and a Gethenian enters kemmer and wants to mate with him and he declines. He is given multiple opportunities over the course of the book to try having sex with a Gethenian, and declines every time, and we wondered if he avoided it out of trauma of being hyper-sexualized & hyper-medicalized & having had his genitals inspected.

We discussed the way he described his genital inspection through a trauma lens, and how it interacts with toxic masculinity - in vic’s terms, Genly being "I am a manly man and I have don't trauma"

Those of us who read the short story, Coming of Age in Karhide, noted that once the world was narrated from a Gethenian POV, the people in permanent kemmer were treated far more neutrally, which gave us the impression that Genly as an unreliable narrator was injecting some intersexism along with his misogyny

WHY IT MATTERS TO READ THIS BOOK THROUGH AN INTERSEX LENS

Elizabeth: I’ve encountered critiques of this book from perisex trans folks because to them the book is committing biological essentialism, and dismissing the book as a result. I think they’re missing that this book is as much about (inter)sex as it is about gender. I think they’re too quick to dismiss the book as being outdated or having backwards ideas because they’re not appreciating the intersex themes. 

Elizabeth: The intersex themes aren’t exactly subtle, so it kind of stings that I haven’t seen any intersex analyses of this book, but there are dozens (hundreds?) of perisex trans analyses that all miss the huge intersex elephants in the room.

Also Elizabeth: I’ve seen this book show up in lists of intersex books/characters made by perisex people, and I’ve seen Estraven listed as intersex character, and it gets me upset because Estraven isn’t intersex! Estraven is perisex in the society in which he lives. Genly is the intersex character in this story and people who misunderstand intersex as being able to reproduce as male & female (or having quirky genitals smh) are completely missing that being intersex is socially constructed and based on what is considered typical for a given species.

WHAT THE BOOK DOESN’T HANDLE WELL

The body descriptions. As Dmitri put it: “ Like "his butt jiggled and it reminded  me of women" ew. It was intentional but I had to put the book down. It reminded me of transvestigators and how they take pictures of people in public.” 🤮

Not pushing Genly to reflect on how weird he is about other people’s bodies. We all had issues with how Genly is constantly scrutinizing the bodies of other humans to assess their gender(s) and it’s pretty gross.

vic asked: “how much of this is her reproducing violence without her knowing it? A thing I didn't like was how he always judging and analyzing people's bodies and realizing others treat him that way. And I wish there was more of his discomfort about this, that it made him feel icky.”

Dimitri added: “I really wanted him to have a moment of this too, for him to realize how much it sucks to be treated this way. As a trans person it's so uncomfortable. What are you doing going around doing this to people?”

Using male pronouns as default/ungendered pronouns. Élaina asked why Genly thinks a male pronoun is more appropriate for a transcendent God and pointed out there’s a lot to unpack there.

OTHER POSITIVES ABOUT THE BOOK

Genly’s journey towards respecting women, that he still had a ways to go by the end of the book. vic pointed out how “LeGuin was straight, and she loves men, and is kinda giving them the side-eye [in this book]. Her writing about how Genly is childish makes me really happy. It’s kind of hilarious to watch him bang his head against the wall because he’s so rigid.” 

To which Dmitri added: “I agree with the bit on forgiving men for stuff. I don't know how she [LeGuin] does it but she really lays it all out. She gives you a platter of how men are bad at things, how they make mistakes that are pretty specific to them. She has prepared a buffet of it.”

Autistic Estraven! As Michelle put it: “autistic queer feels about Estraven speaking literally and plainly and Genly not getting it”

The truck chapter. Hits like a pile of bricks. We talked about it as a metaphor for the current pandemic.

The Genly x Estraven slowburn queerplatonic relationship

The conlang! Less is more in how it gets used

MIXED REACTIONS

The Foretelling. For some it felt unnecessary and a bit fetishy. For others it was fun paranormal times.

Pacing. Some liked how the book really forces you to really contemplate as you go. Others struggled with a pace that feels very slow to 2023 readers.

WORKS WE COMPARED THE BOOK TO

Star Trek (the original series) - we wondered if LHOD and Genly Ai were progressive by 1960s standards, and TOS came up as a comparison point. We were all of the impression that TOS was progressive for its time but all of us find it pretty misogynist by our standards. The interest in extra-sensory perception (ESP) is something that was a staple of TOS that feels very strange to contemporary viewers and also cropped up in LHOD

Ancillary Justice - for being a book where characters’ genders are all ambiguous but the POV character is actually normal about how they describe other characters’ bodies.

The Deep - for being another book in a situation where being able to reproduce as male and female is the norm. The Deep was written by an actually intersex author, and doesn’t have the cisperisex gaze of scrutinizing every body for sex. But oddly LHOD actually winds up feeling more like a book about intersex people, because it features a character who is the odd one out in a gonosynic society. In contrast, nobody is intersex in the Deep - everybody matches the norms for their species, which makes the intersex themes in the work much more subtle.

Overall, as vic put it, “there's something to be said about an honest depiction that's not great, especially when there's no alternatives”. For a long time there weren’t many other games in town when it came to this sort of book, and even though some things now feel dated, it’s still a valuable read. We’d love to see more intersex reviews & analyses of the book!

[okeydokeylackey]

@leaswhum

Loki Jynx Lestrange is your stabbing recipient!

So, Loki's a fun character design-wise because he was inspired by a very shitty closet "cosplay" that I did like 2 and half years ago out of boredom. The tight shiny dark clothes, boob window, eyebrow scar, and slick back short hair are all because of that. When I got to drawing him I generally just wanted him to be very... sharp.

As for his face, I've always personally imagined Bellatrix (his mom) with a long ass nose so I did that but made it shorter to account for his dad (Rodolphus). His hair being brown and not black is also because of how I personally imagine Bellatrix, that being that she's a natural blonde who just dyes her hair black. Green streaks were for the sake of making him look interesting and identifiable and happened to be an option on the picrew I used to first try and conceptualize him properly 💀

Any resemblance to Tom Hiddleston was purely coincidental lmfao even though I did name the character after Laufeyson

The snake tatt on his arm was originally because he, at some point, wanted to be a Death Eater but couldn't be bc he got turned into a werewolf when he was like. 6. 5. I don't remember. He long abandons that desire and in fact eventually overcomes his biases towards muggleborns, but the snake tattoo in place of a dark mark still looked cool and would have been too much effort to get rid of. He wears gold instead of silver also bc of the whole werewolf thing, can't exactly touch silver w/o getting burnt.

He also has a boob window and generally wears clothing that shows off his chest because, and let's be clear I AM ALSO TRANS I AM PROJECTING MY OWN GENDER PRESENTATION, he's trans and he feels perfectly comfortable in the body he was born in despite wanting to be referred to with masculine pronouns and generally be seen as a man. It's kind of a middle finger to the people who want him to conform that he doesn't give a shit about their idea of what a man should look like.

HIS WAND okay his wand was fun bc I had only three things in mind: 1. It needs gold accents 2. it needs to be capable of being turned into a shiv at any moment 3. it should be kinda shaped like an L sort of. And I think I achieved all of those things! Along with adding the Norse rune version of his name (the Lestranges are pagan to some extent, not like super devout but y'know).

He pours milk before cereal purely to piss people off, he lives for stupid petty shit like that

[solovivoparati]

Pronouns and gendered words

Hello! Just a bit of a heads up for every writer out there:

If you're writing dialogue in a romance language (specially spanish or italian), be careful with the gendered words! I know there are barely those in English, but here's a few examples so you get what I mean:

•Friend≠amigo. Amigo -> boy friend Amiga -> girl friend. Friend is gender neutral, but there is no equivalent in Spanish.

•Pretty≈bonita. It can be, but bonita describes something considered femenine (a plant, a house, the living room, etc.). It can also mean bonito, which has more of a masculine meaning (the sea, the sky, the grass, etc.). Pretty is gn, but it isn't in Spanish.

•Mouse ≈ topo. Mouse can be topo in italian, but it can also be rat. Different genders, possible same word.

•Kid ≠ bambino. It's more like: little boy -> bambino Little girl -> bambina. Something similar happens in Spanish:

•Child≠niña/niño. Again, child is gender neutral, but there is no gender neutral equivalent in Spanish.

There is also, officially, no such thing as they in Spanish. The literal translation would be ellos, but it specifically addresses a group of people and cannot be taken otherwise. So, what to do? People who identify as non binary in Spanish usually use gendered words with an e. Bonite, niñe, hermose, etc. It depends on each individual, but that is the widely accepted way of addressing a person. They is often translated to elle (a new word, if you see it a certain way) in Spanish, but again, it depends on each person.

I decided to make this post because I've read a few fics (both reader inserts and other types) that have characters with neutral pronouns but end up being referred to in a gendered way when another character speaks to them in a different language. I know it isn't your intention, it’s difficult to figure out when it’s not your native language. Still, I hope this helps a little bit, we should all be careful and do an effort to respect people's pronouns in all languages!

Feel free to message me if you want/need help :)

[doberbutts]

So after seeing your post about BES I finally started watching it and damn. DAMN. People saw Mizu and can’t understand why transmascs gravitate to this story???????? I’m pretty sure “using bandages to bind chest” is like one of THE TOP symbolic moves that transmascs gravitate to when it comes to our (admittedly lackluster) representation in media.

Also, I feel like a lot of people get really weird about the idea that a story about empowering women and a story that’s relatable to transmascs aren’t mutually exclusive. I won’t speak for everyone but personally I like stories like this that don’t shy away from representing people whose AGAB doesn’t align with their outward actions.

And! Personally! As a man who is East Asian living in the US and has a higher voice even after 5 years on T, characters like Mizu rekindle my hope that one day I’ll be able to pass as flawlessly as him lol. Characters like Mizu, Mulan, Haruhi (from ouran high school host club) always seem to spark that little bit of hope in me… that maybe one day I won’t have to try so hard to be accepted and people will just see me and assume I’m a boy without me having to correct them… or at the very least, that they’d refrain from using any gendered language towards me until they ask and find out what I want to be referred as.

Oh for sure. It's like the Mulan thing. Like I'm sorry but you put "when will my reflection show who I am inside" and "who is that girl" and "why is my reflection a stranger" and you're mad that trans guys went "wow where'd you get that picture of me" like??? In a deleted scene, Mizu tries to play with her feminity in the mirror at the brothel and ultimately scowls and doesn't like what she sees- and you're trying to tell me that it's *not* supposed to be relateable to trans mascs trying to be feminine women and hating what they see reflected back at them?

Like you said, it's not that I'm mad that this is a story about empowering women and featuring a highly GNC woman as its main character. It's just annoying, and more importantly highly concerning, that people seem to think that because it's about empowering masculine women that trans mascs can't or shouldn't see any of themselves in it. I'm an entire grownass binary trans man and throughout my entire life I have felt more seen and more fellowship with masculine women both fictional and real than I have with anyone else except specific gay cis men who were very gender themselves.

And yeah. As your existence proves, it's not like East Asian trans mascs aren't real??? Like I'm sure there's nuance there that I'm missing because despite being biracial I'm not Asian and *definitely* not Japanese. But acting like characters like Haruhi, or Mizu, or Mulan [Chinese] *can't* be trans mascs because that'a inherently disrespectful to East Asian women is just plain erasing the fact that, um, Japanese and Korean and Chinese and Thai and Vietnamese and more trans mascs absolutely do exist and have existed as long as gender has existed.

[transguydeuce]

queer twst headcanons pt 7: diasomnia

OKAY HOLD ON TO YOUR PANTS THIS IS GONNA BE A LONG FUCKIN POST

first. we must establish fae genderisms.

(if you wanna just scroll to the headcanons for the lads tho feel free)

i think fae have around 3 “sexes”. i say “around 3” “sexes” bc science has proven repeatedly that sex is way more complicated than it seems lol. anyway i think fae have majority intersexed individuals with some female and some male. this definitely means that there’s not really a gender binary to trans around in, and fae don’t have the same concepts of trans and cisgender that we do. plus the fact that most fae, including both male and female (which here i’m referring purely to whether they produce egg or sperm) have a range of traits that are traditionally viewed by humans as gendered aka breasts, external/internal genitalia, etc. i would say body hair also but tbh i don’t think they have any, baul’s beard looks more like scales or horns to me and unless i’m wrong i don’t think we’ve ever seen a fae with body hair.

i would almost hesitate to say that fae are mammalian but they do have some hair as well as boobs (thank u meleanor for screwing w my fae biology headcanon /j) and it’s also known that they r capable of creating hybrid offspring w humans so they have to be closely related enough to humans to do that so they are mammals, my thought is just that they have adapted to live in environments with higher magic. that’s why they’re typically more magically gifted yet it’s more dangerous for them to be without it (cough cough glomas cough cough) ALSO. BECAUSE THEY LAY EGGS, FAE ARE BASICALLY MONOTREMES. HAVE FUN WITH THAT.

anyway it's impossible to tell what bits a fae has just from looking at them. so they don’t really get assigned a gender at birth and therefore they don’t really have the same concepts of cis and trans that we do. personally, i hc that "he" is the default gender-neutral pronoun most fae use. that is all thank you for your time now ON TO THE HEADCANONS

malleus: personally hc him as intersex :) doesn’t really understand human concepts of gender, but is curious about it since arriving at night raven. he doesn’t really know what an “all boys” school is especially because some of his classmates r definitely not all boy. (he thinks that’s neat though.) dressed masculine primarily for convenience and would have no complaints wearing a gown. he/him pronouns bc it's the default fae pronoun and that’s what he grew up with but after interacting more with humans he enjoys a she or they from time to time. gender is like a fascinating human custom to him. also i love the hc that he’s pan bc he’s attracted to player character regardless of gender so i’m sticking to that

sebek: [just insert the entire knuckles pronouns comic here]

ok all jokes aside he uses he/him as well, and thinks that that’s the default for everyone. the most important human in his young life was his dad who is also he/him so naturally sebek gets very confused when humans have more than one gender. most likely finds out more after asking about why epel doesn’t like being mistook for a girl (uh oh) he concludes he must be a guy cuz he’s big and strong (epel what have you done). i don’t really have a read on sebek’s sexuality and i don’t think he does either tbh.

lilia: THEE genderqueer just look at him. she is genderfuck incarnate. he’s on that immortal vampire gender. he’s on that ftmtftmtftmtftmtf type shit. a different pronoun set each day. throw some neopronouns in and stir the pot. basically he’s genderfluid. gendergas even. she’s traveled all around the world, if you think he didn’t pick up all the different genders like a crow hoarding shiny objects you would be wrong. if you ask them directly they’d probably say their gender is gamer (to be hip with the kids). also a bisexual king and definitely had a thing for meleanor and her husband there is no doubt in my mind.

silver: well he was raised by lilia so….. afab doesn’t really apply to him. he grew up in briar valley and was never assigned a gender besides the default pronoun “he”. when he’s older lilia probably teaches him a bit about human culture and asks silver what he feels like doing and i think he’d most likely go on t, partially for gender feels and also partially to build muscle mass and be a better royal guard lmao. his gender is knight boyprincess. no i shall not explain. i think he’s sex-neutral grey ace that’s just the vibes i get from him