#because i love making male characters transfem and i do that a lot but i need to correct the imbalance

[marshmellowtea]

i change my mind aleheather can be yaoi too cuz if alejandro is a gay man then heather is a trans guy/transmasc in the same way that if heather is a lesbian alejandro is a trans girl/transfem. Do Not Separate Them

[dingodad]

please god i need to know what U think of the whole “jadebloods are all female!” thing because i got into homestuck in 2019 around the time of friendsim and (retching) Lanque so i always assumed they were explicitly intended to be an all-female caste. however, re-reading the comic this year, i couldnt find a mention of it other than virgo and the Space aspect being really feminine, but i think kanayas journey with motherhood is more kanaya-centric than All-Jadebloods centric??

on one hand, it makes sense given that alternia has very real gendered oppression, so what’s better for that than CATHOLICISM?? on the other hand, i always saw kanaya as being transfem coded, because it connects so well with roxy yknow.. homestuck fans love to insist that certain characters just have to be cis women (kanaya, jade, roxy)

(as an aside; was “long hair was butch on alternia” a one off joke? i like speculation about alternia’s fashion opposing earth, lol)

most all of our basis for explicitly gendered interpretation of Alternia comes from act 6 intermission 3, where Aranea tells us that "jade 8loods were also an almost exclusively female caste". so the door has always been open for there to be "some male jadebloods". but it's a mistake to view this as having anything to do with any kind of "biological sex". the whole idea of biological sex among trolls is a smoke screen. the jadebloods' assigned gender at birth is "jadeblood". this is what makes them a feminised caste.

Caliborn doesn't have a clue what biological sex is. Aranea will tell you that there are boy cherubs and girl cherubs, but for your own sanity you need to cast this idea out of your mind: cherub sex takes place between good and evil cherubs - which is determined by their blood - and anything else is just roleplay. Caliborn's attitude toward sexing is that the ones he likes are boys - that's all the thought that goes into it. and that's the mindset we need to be aware of when we delve into understanding troll gender. there are some trolls who have breast tissue and some who don't, but they aren't "mammaries" in any sense, so there's no reason to believe they're actually sexual characteristics of any kind; maybe this is what Lord English chose to base his gender schema on, but the idea that this means there must be "male trolls" and "female trolls" is completely imagined for the narrative convenience of the human reader.

when we read that there are "male-dominated" highblood castes and therefore by implication female-populated lowblood castes, it's not by some coincidence of biology: the highblood castes are male-dominated BECAUSE they are highblood castes. each caste has a role to play in Caliborn's Alternia, and just as the highblooded roles are those of patriarchal domination, the lower castes must take on roles of feminised submission; and in the case of the jades in particular, this means breeding duties. the fact that this also comes with the expectation to wear makeup and pretty clothes is just more roleplay.

so tl;dr what i think of "the all jadebloods are female thing" is that it is very obviously true but in a way more 5 dimensional gender studies way than anyone else tends to mean when they say it

my pet "long hair was butch on alternia" headcanon - which is a joke but in the way all headcanons about alternia should be jokes of some kind - actually kind of relates to this lol. bc i figure that if gendered expectations of female trolls includes working in disgusting underground caverns filled with genetic material, it's going to be practical to keep your hair close to your head where it won't get dirty, in much the same way the feminist image of the short-haired woman became popular in the west during and after world war 2, wherein a lot of women had to start wearing their hair close to their heads to avoid scalping themselves in the factory machinery they suddenly had to start working with. hence kanaya dedicated to her assigned feminine role and wearing her hair short vs. porrim rebelling against it for feminist reasons and thus wearing her hair at a length that would be totally impractical for wading through gene pools.

[kidrat]

having feelings about trans Gwen,,, like there's the 'superhero leading a double life' allegory for being closeted, which ppl have noted, but there's plenty I haven't seen anyone mention yet! like, the fact her dad has a trans patch in support of her means she's out.

She's a young trans *girl* (as opposed to a trans woman) living as her authentic gender in a loving home. she went to her school dance in a dress. she did ballet! which of course boys can do too, but often times when people are assigned male they don't get the chance to explore feminine hobbies. It's really lovely that someone, likely Gwen's dad, supported her enough to let her have those girly experiences and memories, whether she was living as a girl when she took dance up or as a gnc boy.

While it's subtle rep, I still think it's awesome to imply a character like Gwen is trans. Trans girls don't always get to have a childhood. Transmisogyny fetishizes transfems and presents them as always victimisers, never victims. They're barred from girlhood and it's connotations of innocence, vulnerability, lovableness.

Not that Gwen isn't a hashtag strong female character! And not that she hasn't had to grow up fast in other ways. She Is Literally Spiderwoman and she plays the drums and has agency and expresses negative emotions. But she's also a teenager, and she gets to be hugged and comforted, and to be set up for a soft friends to lovers relationship with another teenager, a cis boy who respects her and only knows her as a girl and thinks she's amazing and draws her in his sketchbook. That is not a role the media often lets trans girls have!!! It's lovely to think young transfems might be able to see themselves in a character consistently shown as worthy of affection.

Of course, the fact that Gwen is in the closet about being spider-woman is even sadder knowing this is her second rodeo. Lots of us have hesitated to come out a second time because our parents were supportive about the first thing and well, putting something else on them feels like taking the piss or hoping for too much.

Something else I wanted to talk about is how Gwen being trans effects a reading of her Peter's death, especially taking into account the new information this film gave us about this. There's this gendered switch happening, where Peter passes on his usual role to a woman. What's more, he has to die for her story to happen. She loves him, and never wanted him to die, but she's blamed for it anyway. Her father talks affectionately about the dead Peter, calling him his daughter's best friend. He talks about him like a son. He vows revenge on Gwen for killing him. It's a fantastic allegory for how some transphobic parents hate their out trans children for 'killing' the kid they had before.

I think with the above in mind, maybe we can see the subtext of Gwen's arc with her dad in this film as that of a supportive parent who's nevertheless got some biases left that hurt his trans daughter, who doesn't speak up for fear his acceptance is conditional.

I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that protecting a trans daughter is this Captain Stacy's motivation while he's working as a cop. Obviously there's the text that he wants to be a 'good cop' to work against the institution's bigotry, and he displays the trans flag on his work jacket. His quitting the police is a fantastic story beat because it makes a point about the real world while also serving a lot of the analogies going on.

Good cops quit. They realise you can't be a well intentioned cog in a bigoted machine. It doesn't matter if you're a bigot or just taking actions a bigot might because you're working within parameters set by bigots. It's an important message. Within a trans reading of the film, I'd also see this plot moment as Stacy realising he can't protect his trans daughter if he's still playing by the rules of a society that see her as threatening and duplicitous. He's then able to stop seeing her on some level as having killed his son.

They're able to be close again because he has completely rejected the cis culture he was a part of, rather than just decrying the worst parts and slotting Gwen in. She no longer has to worry that he'll rescind his acceptance if she's too trans, and so he gets to know all of her because she can let him into her world without self-editing.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on Gwen after watching Across The Spiderverse two hours ago lmao.

[mimikyuno]

trans representation: my hopes and fears about mizuki5 🏳️‍⚧️

im writing this post so that i can keep a record of all of my current thoughts on the upcoming n25 event, which im fairly certain will come soon (september?). i just. i have a lot of thoughts on this topic and i wanna share them before the event drops.

disclaimer: i am tme, and while i am not cis, i am not transfem.

depiction of transfeminine characters in anime has been quite… how do i even put this into words. trans women are depicted as either a joke, or as an “otokonoko” which for brevity’s sake let’s translate to femboy (i highly recommend on reading on the history of the term though). the trope of “tr*ps” was quite common, and used for comedic effects. i think of ruka from steins;gate, who is clearly a trans woman; she has dysphoria, asks okabe to go back in time so she can be born biologically female etc. yet, her womanhood is never taken seriously. “she’s a dude after all.”

i have already written a small post about the history of the “otokonoko” label and the way trans women consistently get third gendered in the anime scene so i won’t repeat myself. the thing is, many transfem characters i have seen in anime are either uncracked eggs or, when out, are often not taken seriously by the rest of the cast. a lot of transfem characters i know of fall in between being an uncracked egg and being out; these would be the very many “girly boys” who identify as male, while living their lives as women and being happy about passing, while people around them who know about their agab either treat them as men or third-gender them. for example, kuranosuke from kuragehime stays an egg throughout the series. as i mentioned in a previous post, i see makoto from the currently airing senpai wa otokonoko as a closeted trans girl struggling with internalised transphobia. she has dysphoria, is happier and feels like her “real self” when presenting as a girl, displays gender euphoria when she passes, and more. narratively, she is coded as a girl. i havent read the manga, but i know the author drops the ball, and makoto never gets to come out in the series.

i can only think of a handful of trans women who are both out AND are taken seriously within the narrative. for example hana from tokyo godfathers, nao-chan from skip and loafer, or isabella from paradise kiss (iirc). though i have not watched these anime, i know that lily from zombieland saga, alluka from hxh, seiko from lovely complex and shuuichi from wandering son also tick both the “out of the closet” and “taken seriously” categories.

the situation is slightly different in manga. in manga, i have always found more trans representation (both transmasc and transfem). however, before we move on to mizuki, i really want to talk about one of my favourite mangas, namely “love me for who i am”, aka fukaboku (anime adaptation when ;-;). this manga revolves around mogumo, a non binary teen who is struggling to make friends. their classmate, a cis boy, mistakes mogumo for an otokonoko, and invites them to work at the crossdressing cafe that his sister (a trans woman) owns. mogumo is initially upset; they are not a girly boy, they are non binary. mogumo is reassured that the cafe is a place for people to be who they are, and they dont have to identify as an otokonoko to work there. this strikes a nerve with mei, one of the kids working there, who is a closeted trans girl. throughout the manga, these characters all come to be more and more unapologetically themselves. lgbt themes are addressed constantly (they even go to a pride parade!!) and the trans women depicted in this manga are some of the best written ones i have come across. because they are actually acknowledged as women.

the reason why i want to talk about fukaboku before discussing mizuki, is that the 4 kids who work at the cafe cover the spectrum of “crossdressing boys” we usually see in anime, though taking it a step further with mogumo and mei. firstly we have ten-chan. he mostly identifies as a boy. he likes anime and manga and cosplaying, he’s into girls (but also hinted to bi maybe? i need to reread this), and he’s an adorable weirdo. to him, dressing as a girl in the cafe is fun, clothes have no gender to him. then there is sou, who is gay and also identifies with his agab. sou has a boyfriend, and the cafe is the only place where he gets to gush about him and feel accepted. he likes cute clothes but always dresses masculinely outside the cafe. then there’s mogumo. as mentioned, mogumo is non binary. they like cute things, so they sometimes like feminine clothes like the maid uniform they wear at the cafe, but they actually prefer a cute androgynous style (they often wear shorts instead of skirts). lastly, mei (my fave, my daughter, light of my life). at the beginning of the manga, mei is a closeted trans girl. initially, she resents mogumo for rejecting the “girly boy” (otokonko) label that she thought she had to embrace to survive and be who she is. thanks to mogumo’s courage, and the guidance of two older trans women (one of which is the owner of the cafe and the other is her friend, who works in fashion), she finds a more stable sense of herself, and canonically and textually identifies as a girl.

AND NOW, onto mizuki. first things first, i see her as a trans girl. her struggle with her identity, the way she presents, her history of bullying, dysphoria (the covered mirrored), and depression (in middle school, before transitioning), visual metaphors (all the pink and blue symbols, i should make a post about this tbh) all hint at her being trans. i really dont think mizuki is an otokonoko; typically, in anime narrative, when there is an otokonoko, the fact is revealed early on, and the struggles are about being accepted as a boy who dresses like a girl or as a funny gag (tr*p). tbh, i think it wouldnt make sense for mizuki to be an otokono. if she were, her main struggle would be to accept that she wants to dress as a girl. once accepted, the arc should be resolved. and she wouldn’t be scared to say “hey im a boy” when people assume she’s a girl. especially with niigo? they met online when she was still pre-transition, if she was an otokonoko it would have made more sense if niigo thought she was a boy, and then irl saw that she looks like a girl and THAT would have been the obstacle. but that is not the case with mizuki. she is happy in people assuming she is a girl, and is terrified of being outed. that is not in line with the trope of otonoko. in fukaboku, we have two characters who are Actually “girly boys”, ten-chan and sou, and neither are like mizuki at all. they dont present femininely with their family nor at school. mizuki is way more similar to mei, when it comes to gender presentation and identity. characters who are similar to mizuki from other media and who dont identify as girls all share the same trait: they are commonly regarded as eggs.

my hope for mizuki5, is that she gets to come out as trans to ena and the rest of niigo. mizuki being confirmed trans, indirectly or not, would make the most narrative sense, looking at her story, imagery, and the build-up for the reveal. and while i desperately hope this is the case, i am overwhelmed by fear. times are changing in the anime scene, and we got canonically gay and trans characters in similar games (the lesbian couple in d4dj or the trans girl in enstars). however, project sekai is massive in japan, and quite renowned internationally too. and that comes with expectations and pressures. when gundam witch from mercury finished airing, bandai namco had to issue a statement that the relationship between miorine and suletta was “up to interpretation”, despite the fact that the two literally get married. gundam is also a huge franchise, and bandai namco chose to issue a statement that would give them plausible deniability. not only is project sekai huge, but as i previously mentioned, representation of transfeminine characters overwhelmingly labels them as an otokonoko. i think the label of “otokonoko” is very useful when it comes to plausible deniability in media; u can see this character as a closeted trans girl, or as a crossdressing boy. you pleased the transgenders, and you pleased the transphobes. expect, u didnt please us. im gonna say it, i hate the crossdressing boy trope in animanga. in most instances, it’s a way to deny the character their identity, and in others, it’s treated as a means (willingly or not) to perpetrate violent and harmful transmisogynistic jokes and stereotypes. tho i will admit, i love a lot of “otokonoko” characters, tho for my mental health i tend to view as transfem nb or just trans women.

project sekai, with the massive reach it has, has the opportunity to give its audience a canonically transfem character. a character who is a fan favorite, whose story has, so far, been handled with so much love, kindness and understanding. mizuki could become the new standard, she could change the way transfem characters are portrayed in mainstream animanga for real. i know we have to let go of the expectations that queer characters have to verbally and explicitly state their identity for them to be taken seriously by the audience but fr i hope this will be the case for this event. i dont think most people would get it otherwise, and will just keep seeing mizuki as an otokonoko. which is in itself sad; being cishet is such a default, that gay and/or characters who never explicitly come out are either misunderstood or seen as a sign of “queerbaiting” (dont get me started on yuribaiting and how insane some of y’all are calling a show with gay women “yuribait” if they dont kiss or say “I AM A HOMOSEXUAL WOMAN).

mizuki’s and ena’s VAs told us to please be kind and understand the characters in preparation for the upcoming event. i hope they go for it. i really, really do. this could for real be a huge game changer in the industry. i see how project sekai keeps inspiring other shows and games (i should make a post about this too lol), so i hope mizuki won’t be third gendered, or shoved into the otokonoko label. i hope she gets to be herself. a girl. and be accepted as one by ena and the rest of niigo. it could be huge. or it could be a flop. no in between. which is why im both excited and terrified of this event. SEGA pls-

[bababerries]

Can’t sleep bc I’m anxiously anticipating mizu5

I really really want them to explicitly commit to Mizuki’s transness. I’m pretty confident Mizuki being a transgirl is colopales intended purpose but I’m not super confident in colopale being explicit about it I worry they’ll leave it vague to keep both sides happy and that would be very disappointing and such a cowardice move. I’m just exhausted of most of the conversation around Mizuki being around if they’re actually trans.

If colopale wanted to make a GNC/crossdressing character that’s fine but if Mizuki was supposed to be that that would be incredbily malicious, deceitful and transphobic with the way they went about setting Mizuki up. (The idea of having to hide your hobby in GNC fashion by living as the opposite gender is really ridiculous way of going about it and has really bad implications) It sucks that Mizuki is such a great transfem character that people spend more time arguing about it if she’s transfem then discussing how the narrative goes about her trans femininity because what they do with her is very interesting.

And even fans who do respect her transgirl identity I feel like are a bit close minded in some regards. I think it’s gotten better over time. And while I’m not opposed to they/them nonbinary fem presenting Mizuki as an interpretation I really don’t like how people say that Mizuki IS without a doubt nonbinary (they could be, but we don’t technically know the term they use for them self specifically) and got pretty hostile at transgirl and she/her being used for Mizuki. And the arguments for this bother me

“They use they/them for them in the text!” The text of the English translation for sekai and I think people forget that. It’s just a bit Eurocentric and assumes that Japanese pronouns work that same as English ones when they dont. The translation just tried to translate boku as literally as possible. (The story also would just not work if people Mizuki was afraid to come out to was already using they/them pronouns for them) and it neglects a really interesting transfem read for Mizuki where she as a transgirl tries to third gender herself because she still doesn’t fully accept herself for who she is and it makes the use of more feminine pronouns in later stories as she gains confidence in herself really loving to me.

And I want to talk more about Mizuki in this lens…. I find her really powerful and she’s affected me and some of my friends a lot through her exploitation of transness. I think she’s really great rep that deserves to be discussed more in deph. I’m sick of people disrespecting her identity. I honestly do feel a bit pessimistic regarding colopale being explicit and debunking transmasc/gnc male “”reads”” of Mizuki but I really hope I’m proven wrong. I don’t want to hold their hand on this because trans girls really deserve this. They deserve respect. She deserves respect.

[blubushie]

Are there some things you dislike about fans' interpretation of the other mercs?

Yeah uh. This is long so it's under the cut. Whole TF2 fandom boutta be like 2Fort on my arse.

I hate how people make Medic "evil". He's fun and goofy and likes doing experiments and he'll betray the people paying him for the sake of his long-time coworkers who he's mates with. He's not evil, he's not manipulative, outsmarting the LITERAL DEVIL doesn't make you a bad person. There is literally nothing in canon to point to Medic being evil except MAYBE stealing a bloke's spine (coulda been dark humour for all we know) and turning a criminal into a sentient pumpkin, which is something that Engie HELPED HIM DO but no one goes around calling him evil. Medic is chaotic good or chaotic neutral, he is not evil.

The amount of people who are downright racist about Demo, or the amount of people who reduce his addiction to the butt of a joke. There's a lot of shit that I notice. They act like Demo isn't fiercely loyal—look at his relationship to his mum). They act like he's lazy because he's an alcoholic—HE HAS 3 JOBS AND WANTS MORE, HE WASN'T LAZY IN THE COMICS HE WAS DEPRESSED BECAUSE HE LOST ALL HIS MATES. On the other end of the coin, you have people insisting that Demo's alcoholism isn't as bad as it actually is, as if substance abuse is a fucking moral failing and they can't have their blorbo be a bad person by just letting him be the alcoholic he's shown to be in canon.

As an intersex man: do not get me fucking started on the amount of intersex+NB headcanons I've seen of Pyro. People need to realise that like the rest of the human population, most intersex people are cis, that gender is not equivalent to sex, and that EVERY intersex character being non-binary promotes a harmful stereotype. Actually I'll be honest—I side-eye EVERY intersex Pyro headcanon what's made by a perisex person. Most the time they give off massive virtue signal vibes and I really don't like how the second you can't clearly determine someone's gender people immediately go "ah, intersex" like we're all visually androgynous. I also don't like how the person MOST OTHERED ON THE TEAM is always given the intersex headcanon. It doesn't make me feel represented, it makes me feel like everyone already seems me as an other and that's all I'll ever be.

People who act like the pronoun police and insist Pyro's pronouns are they/them. Canonically Pyro is always and consistently referred to as he/him except when he's being dehumanised by his own team and called it. It's cool if you headcanon Pyro as using they/them, just remember it ISN'T CANON and you shouldn't be getting on people's arse about non-canon pronouns. What are you a cop?

On a similar vein, the amount of people who infantilise Pyro. Pyro was literally the CEO OF A COMPANY who was responsible for RECORD PROFITS OF THAT COMPANY. Pyro is an adult. People assume that because Pyro hallucinates or enjoys "childish" things that it means Pyro's a child. Please be fucking normal about mental illness, my god.

People who make Scout transfem for the sole purpose of shipping Scout with Pauling, worse even if they outright make it so that Scout transitioned SPECIFICALLY to hook up with Pauling. You realise that you're enforcing TERF "all transfems are predatory and transition just to get chicks/transfem lesbians are just straight men" rhetoric right? Please tell me you're aware. People who make Scout transfem for reasons beside this (ie you just like transfem Scout) and still hook her up with Pauling for fun, I love you and this post is not about you. <3

People who ignore Medic's likely bisexuality in favour of writing him as a strictly gay male. Bi erasure is fucking real lads. If you have the view that Demo was talking out his arse and didn't actually shag Medic's wife cuz he's not even married, cool ok. I'm talking about the people who insist Medic's wife was his beard.

People who act like the ship police with Pauling's sexuality when her being a lesbian was something mentioned in one tweet on Twitter by Jay, not approved by Valve, and never referenced in the source material (outside of MAYBE how she stared at Zhanna while she was fighting robots, but that facial expression could also be interpreted as impressed or "so horrified she can't look away". Especially when she outright agreed to go on a second date with Scout in Expiration Date. If you headcanon her as a lesbian, cool! Just don't enforce it on other people and give them flak for shipping her with non-women characters. This applies to people aggressively enforcing Medic's sexuality as well. What are you a cop?

How the character people trans the most is the white skinny twink, white skinny otter, or white wolf. Why not Demo? Trans people of colour exist too. I can count the trans Demo headcanons I've seen on one hand. Why not Heavy? Why not Heavy? You know fat trans people exist too right?

My family is southern and half the time people don't know what the fuck goes on down south. Tell me you've never been to a cookout without telling me you've never been to a cookout. They either write him as too northern/coasty and only enforce the "stereotype" southern aspects of him, or they write him as racist/homophobic/transphobic/etc because he's southern. Luckily the latter gets a LOT of pushback on Tumblr so I haven't seen it much, but it's more prevalent on Twitter and fanfic sites.

People conveniently ignoring how Heavy's father was killed and his family was imprisoned by the USSR so they can call him a communist. Lol what. I get that you hate capitalism but you realise there's more options than just capitalism vs communism vs socialism right? That you can hate/dislike communism without also being a capitalist? Heavy would not support communism after what the USSR did to his family in the name of communism because his father was a counter-revolutionary. Also people ignoring WHY Heavy's father was killed, and how his father having different politics got his whole family, including innocent children chucked to a GULAG IN SIBERIA where they were starved and constantly abused by the guards, and how even after their escape the government continued to hunt them with the intent of killing them. He would not be a communist. He probably sees a hammer and sickle in his fucken nightmares.

Spy being evil and an arsehole. You know his schtick is the suave gentleman right? He's cool but he also has to be cringefail. And arsehole is a far cry from a gentleman.

People making Soldier a bigot. Har har I know it's funny to joke about the bloke obsessed with America being a bigot, but do you honestly think he cares enough? He's xenophobic at worst. Everyone is assumed to be American and his best mate is a black Scottish cyclops. Half the time I'm convinced you people want Soldier to be a bigot so you can write bigoted shit and not cop shit cuz it's coming out of his mouth.

Carrying on from prev, the amount of people I've seen use the time setting as an excuse to be bigoted towards the characters. This is ESPECIALLY prevalent where it seems like every story-focussed fic of Demo has a scene where someone is being racist to him and he Heroically Sticks Up For Himself or someone else sticks up for him to show How Much They Don't Care About Being Seen With A Black Man (usually it's Soldier, sometimes it's Sniper). You realise everyone knows racism is bad, right? That that's really not necessary? It wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't in EVERY FIC but it's like the author always needs to proudly claim themselves Not Racist while writing REALLY RACIST SHIT directed at the ONE CONFIRMABLE MAN OF COLOUR on the team just so they can yell "RACISM BAD but here's me jumping at the opportunity to call a man of colour a racial slur".

Well, reckon that about covers her...

[volleypearlfan]

Ranma 1/2 Intro for Newcomers

The popular classic anime Ranma 1/2 is getting a remake. Ranma tends to be a favorite among older anime crowds, but it's not very known by today's generation, and since the remake will lead to a spike in interest for the Ranma franchise, here is everything you need to know.

Ranma 1/2 was created by Rumiko Takahashi, the same author behind Urusei Yatsura, whose remake recently wrapped up, and Inuyasha. The basic premise is about a young martial artist named Ranma who is cursed to turn into a girl when splashed with cold water, and can turn back into a guy when splashed with hot water. He is engaged to be married to a girl named Akane, who has a hot temper and bickers with him a lot. Soon, Ranma, both in male and female forms, attracts multiple admirers who try to win his affection, as does Akane, resulting in a humongous love dodecahedron balanced with comedy and martial-arts action.

Things to know:

Ranma pioneered the harem anime genre, but it is very different from the stuff you see nowadays, since his harem is pretty small compared to others (he only ends up being engaged to three girls), and Ranma is not a bland self-insert like modern harem protags. He actually has a personality, agency, and is not perverted like other harem MCs. That doesn't stop Akane from mistaking him for one though.

There is a lot of wacky slapstick humor in the series, usually consisting of Akane punching Ranma. Akane and Ranma both qualify as tsundere characters. They do actually love each other even though they fight a lot, they're just too insecure to show it.

Other characters possess their own curses. Ranma's father is cursed to turn into a panda; Shampoo, one of Ranma's fiancee, is cursed to turn into a cat, Mousse, who has an unrequited crush on Shampoo, is cursed to turn into a duck; and Ryoga, who has a crush on Akane, is cursed to turn into a pig named "P-Chan"

Although martial arts is a big part of the story, I'd say most of the drama and development are centered around the romance stuff.

Unlike other shonen series, who stretch out their arcs, Ranma has multiple small, self-contained arcs focused on introducing new characters or martial arts techniques. A complete list of them is available here.

The anime has a lot of filler episodes (as in, not adapted from the manga), but a few of them are worth watching. My personal favorites are Akane Goes to the Hospital and Am I... Pretty? Ranma's Declaration of Womanhood

Ranma has a huge LGBT following due to its gender bending premise. Many transfems cite it as helping them realize they were trans. The title character is commonly interpreted to be a trans woman, genderfluid, bigender, etc. The latter episode mentioned above is a favorite among them because in it, Ranma hits his head and starts acting girlier, even in his male form. This is notable because Ranma usually seems to not like his female form. Like other amnesia episodes, this doesn't last, but Ranma seemed genuinely happier like this.

That said, the series is also outdated in some respects. Look no further than the Tsubasa arc. The character, Tsubasa, was originally thought to be a lesbian, which disgusted the characters. It turns out that he's actually a cishet guy who likes crossdressing, which relieves the characters, but still disgusts them because of the crossdressing part. It's painful to watch.

The earlier episodes of the anime have lots of uncensored nudity (male and female alike), even showing nipples. This gets dialed back in later seasons, though. I don't recall Ukyo, the last of Ranma's fiances, ever getting nude scenes like Akane and Shampoo did. It’s not pornographic by any means, it’s just kinda there.

All of the characters are flawed people (except for Kasumi) who do bad things, some worse than others. This is what makes the series funny and interesting

There is a perverted character named Happosai, an old guy who likes stealing girls underwear. Unlike a character like Master Roshi, however, Happosai is not a good guy. He’s one of the villains in the series and is consistently portrayed in a negative light, since, besides being a pervert, he abused Genma and Soun.

There are technically two runs of the original anime. The first run ran for 18 episodes before being cancelled. Soon, it came back with a much longer run called “Ranma 1/2 Netto-hen.” The martial arts figure skating arc episodes were supposed to be in the original run, but they were pulled because of then-current events. The arc involves P-chan being kidnapped, and around the time it was supposed to air, Tsutomu Miyazaki kidnapped and murdered several young girls. The arc was later aired as part of Nettohen, but on the Blu-ray and on streaming, the arc is included as part of season 1.

Ranma had some of the earliest “waifu wars” in anime fandom. In the early days of the internet, people would go into “trench wars” on forums about whether Akane, Shampoo, or Ukyo is better it’s Akane btw

Ranma has a very large fan fiction presence, so you’ll likely never run out of Ranma fics to read

Ranma has a large Mexican fanbase, and it is very easy to find fan pages and information in Spanish. It’s popular in Mexico for the same reason that Dragon Ball is - it aired on local TV in the 80s and 90s.

The anime was dubbed in Vancouver, and you might recognize familiar voices from the Ocean dub of Dragon Ball Z, Inuyasha, and Death Note. Brigitta Dau was the first voice of female Ranma, but after six episodes, she moved away and was replaced by Venus Terzo for the rest of the series. In the dub, male Ranma was actually voiced by a woman, Sarah Strange, at first, but starting with episode 65, she was replaced by a man, Richard Ian Cox. Good luck trying to unhear Inuyasha.

Besides the anime series, there are several movies and OVAs, some of which adapt manga stories.

The anime is available on Tubi, Peacock, and Hulu

[musicalmoritz]

Ok ok so you said something in your Les Aoi analysis about trans Aoi (I’m gonna be honest I don’t remember which it was 😭😭) so I wanted to ask for an analysis on that! Especially because I don’t think I’ve really seen that before! Thanks :))

Alright! Let’s talk about transmasc Aoi. Just a heads up, I’m probably gonna alternate the pronouns based on whether I’m referring to canon or fanon Aoi. So if I’m talking about a canon situation with Aoi I’ll stick with she/her but if I’m referring to Aoi as in transmasc fanon Aoi, I’ll go with he/him. I’ll try to make sure it doesn’t get confusing lol

Transmasc Aoi exists for the same reasons lesbian Aoi exists. Aoi’s character centers around hiding her true self, which is a universal queer experience. Some fans relate her arc to lesbianism, but others relate it more to her gender identity. I am not trans myself and I have never been trans nor questioned my gender identity so I may not be the best person to explain this, so if any trans TBHK fans want to chime in here feel free to do so!! I will try my best to relay how Aoi’s character stands out to some trans readers (tho you obviously don’t have to be trans to headcanon a character as trans as long as you’re doing so respectfully, I have lots of trans headcanons)

Unlike the lesbian Aoi headcanon, I have no gripes with how this one is portrayed. I’ve seen AoiAoi, Aoinene, and TeruAoi shippers alike express love for this headcanon so it never feels like they’re trying to erase part of her arc or just keep her away from Akane. Which makes sense, unless they were writing Akane as straight, male Aoi wouldn’t hinder that relationship in any way. Furthermore, this headcanon feels more focused on Aoi as a charger rather than trying to shove her into an aesthetic (just to be clear I don’t dislike the lesbian Aoi headcanon, just the way it’s often portrayed). In fact I often see this hc paired with trans Akane/trans Nene/trans Teru. With a wide variety too, sometimes Akane is written to be transmasc as well and other times she’s portrayed as transfem. That’s one of my favorite parts of this headcanon, people get so creative with it

Aoi’s entire character centers around how her internal self doesn’t align with the external. The image she presents to the school is not her true self. I’m gonna pull out my favorite term here, Aoi’s identity makes her experience cognitive dissonance. Her actions don’t align with the way she thinks and believes. I know that’s a pretty simple concept but there is so much you can interpret from that premise. Imo there’s some pretty obvious personality disorder coding going on there but I’ll hold my tongue. Canon reasons aside, this theme stands out to a lot of trans readers.

Having to present yourself in a way that doesn’t align with who you are on the inside is a core part of the trans experience. This is supported even further by the fact that Aoi’s femininity is a large part of her act. The difference between her and Nene is that Aoi seems to be the perfect girl in every way, and Nene is far from that. Let me reiterate that, the image Aoi presents to society is one of the perfect girl. Most fans focus on the perfect part, but her femininity is also an act to an extent. To impress Nakahara (the bitch from chapter 1), Nene spent three years trying to act more feminine. She knew he liked traditionally feminine girls so she worked hard to fit that role. Part of that involved joining gardening club, the main hobby Aoi is known for. After three years of trying to fit a specific brand of femininity, Nene was still rejected for not meeting Nakahara’s standards. But the boys at school LOVE Aoi for traditionally feminine things. I’m not sure I could find the specific chapter but there’s one scene in the manga where they’re drooling over her for sweeping and marveling at how domestic she is. At first glance, Aoi appears to embody traditional femininity. But it’s all an act

She presents herself a certain way so that the school, including the boys, will love her. What’s interesting to me about the aforementioned scene is that Aoi is doing completely normal tasks and still being upheld as the pinnacle of femininity. She can’t escape the role others mole her into. She has to play into it too, in order to obscure her true self from the public eye. But when we see signs of the real Aoi, she’s not acting how a perfect girl should act. She’s reserved and quiet and nerdy and rude. This is different from the theme of femininity we see in Nene’s story, which is that femininity doesn’t have to be performed in restrictive ways. Aoi doesn’t have to find her true femininity, she has to find her true self. That’s where transmasc Aoi comes in

So how is transmasc Aoi depicted in fanon? The same as canon Aoi! That’s what I love most about this headcanon, you don’t have to change much about Aoi’s character in order to make it work. Trans Aoi is still his usual introverted and supportive self (it took me so long for find a nice adjective to describe Aoi lmao), the biggest difference I’ve noticed is that he’s usually portrayed as being the truest version of himself, which I think is beautiful. It works with canon too since these fics are typically written later in Aoi’s development when she’s begun to take steps towards embracing her real self. Trans Aoi is depicted as being a natural step in that direction. Sometimes he’s written to stay closeted for a while in order to keep up appearances, but he still gets to come out to his close friends/partners

To me this headcanon is filled with appreciation for Aoi’s character. It’s not my personal main headcanon for her (despite all I’ve said I am a lesbian Aoi lover, tho more of a bi Aoi lover for canon), but I have mad respect for everyone who chooses this as their version of Aoi. If anyone wants a really good fic for this headcanon I recommend livvidaloca’s “i could be your regular belle” on ao3. It’s Terukaneaoi and actually more transfem Akane than transmasc Aoi but it’s super good and honestly I just wanted to recommend a livvidaloca fic

I hope this helped you understand the headcanon better, thank you for the ask!!

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

aita for pretending to be cis online? im a trans man and have been trans for almost ten years now. i am pre-most transition even though i would like to fully transition, due to money and medical phobia complications. i do not pass irl.

a few years ago i attempted stealth (saying i was a cis man) on a discord server before ultimately admitting to being trans because i was afraid everyone could tell, and was informed that even though they even heard my voice on the server, no one there suspected i was afab, and even when i said i was trans, some people assumed i was coming out as transfem, because i had passed myself as a cis man so well. this gave me euphoria, of course, and made me regret telling anyone since i was apparently passing so well.

i held onto those feelings, and a year or so after that, quietly changed my bios and stuff to remove the trans part. a little while after that, i started actively saying i was cis male in my bios and to new friends.

i should clarify this is not out of safety or fear of transphobia, all my family and irl friends know im trans and are 100% supportive, im lucky enough to live in a very progressive area, and my online existence is small and filled with tons of trans and supportive people. it's only because i feel dysphoric when i know people can perceive me as afab, and since i don't have control over that irl, i just want someone in the world to see me as amab, even if im not and never will be.

i also am not by any means a transmed. i myself am also gnc, and many many of my friends are loud and proud queer weirdos, and i am too with everything but my agab. i love the wacky ways other trans folks present their genders and refuse to sanitize themselves for cisciety. i do not think anyone should ever have to water down who they are for any reason and i don't think being afab makes anyone less of a man, just i personally don't like facing the fact that i am afab and would rather people see me as a cis man whenever i can control it.

this might be where the asshole comes in here, because being gnc, being surrounded by so many trans people and being in many "afab dominated" spaces (such as fanfic writers, tumblr, fandom in general honestly) as well as having a lot of trans headcanons makes me paranoid people are going to clock me and even if they don't say anything they'll know im faking being cis. because of that, and to avoid the dreaded "egg" conversations (people trying to insist or imply that ill soon "find out" that im transfem) ive sometimes been telling people when the subject comes up that i had experimented with my gender before and thought i was transfem or nonbinary in the past, so i sort of fit the idea of cis+ and that might be why i feel more trans than cis even though im definitely cis.

i also tell them im intersex and have trans family (both of these are true, though obviously im intersex in a different way than i say) to get them off my scent.

i know i dont owe anyone my agab, but when all is said and done, i am lying about my gender and history with gender exploration, and i kinda feel like im disrespecting other trans folks by implying it would personally feel better to be cis, like i can't relate to other trans people saying they never want to be cis and the goal of being trans isn't to be cis. but i do. i also worry that having trans hcs (including in sexual contexts) for characters while im presenting myself as cis makes people think im a chaser.

anyway sorry this is long, but aita for lying about my gender?

What are these acronyms?

[warlock-wizard-mage]

The Fetishization Of MLM relationships

DISCLAIMERS:

1.) this post is not trying to be transphobic or mysoginistic in any way. That would be disgusting and if you are either one of those it will not be tolerated and i will flag and block you.

2.)This is not an attack onany artist specifficaly or ppl who headcanon Sirius as transfem.

Now, onto the actuall discussion...

So this started with my post about 99% of wolfstar fanart making Sirius look like a woman and how it is a gross fetishization of a queer relationship.

As a masc person who ships a lot of MLM myself, i have noticed that sometimes when i see a fanart of my fave mlm ship, one of the more femme one out of the couple gets portraied in a very femmine way, sometimes to a point of no recognition where it straight up almost feels like a gender swap fanart (and its not).

I usually kept it no mind as it wasnt that usuall and didnt really interest me (for example, i used to be a huge Loki fan a few years back and every time id see a hyperfeminized loki it would be a Thorki fanart, so i just ignored it cuz i dont ship thorki )

HOWEVER

recently i got into marauders and when i searched up wolfstar fanart for the first time ever, MAJORITY of it was portraying Sirius as a baby girl (hyper femme, to the point where it looked like a hetero fan art)

That is why i got fed up, bc before it was scarce but this fandom has a problem.( Like how is it a majority of fanart?? you ppl okay??)

SO, how is this a gross fetishization and queerphobic you ask?

Ive actually seen a lot of people talk about it back in 2020/21 and since then had a few conversations about it with my friends, bc im not the only one who noticed this.

There is this phenomenon of CIS and HETERO girls/women that obsess over gay relationships. They ship mlm characters, maybe desire a "gay bestie" (but not a lesbian one), or even would like to have a bi bf (with a perfrence for women ofc).

I noticed this but didnt know what it was. It wasnt until i heard other people talk about it and talk about some research and studies and so on, that i found out what it all was about.

It is because girls/women in this society and era strive to be seen as equal by their partner, want to be seen as an equal by their partner- emotionaly and physically and so on. And subconciously or conciously they know that they cannot get that from a cishet male partner, so they obsess over the fictive desirable world of a gay male love. (Male bc theyre not queer themselves and fantasizing about a sapphic relationship would be very fruity.)

And while all of that is understandable and valid and actually quite sad, it does not change anything about the fact that these people then go on and invade queer spaces, take away representation, selfproject onto one of the men in the ship to the point where they hyperfeminize him bc they dont actually want to see two men in love, they just crave what the gay couple has.

ps: if you do this and you do not identify as a woman/girl, i am very sorry if this made you feel invalidated and i need to say that this doesnt apply to you, queer ppl obsessing over queer ships is no problem at all and you are valid

[hamiltonconfessions-but-better]

MORE HEADCANONS i am now headcanon anon that makes me happy ! ! anyway i dont think there are many characters i missed except jefferson and madison ? ? i think I've got them all :3

jefferson - bisexual [ male preference ] / polyamorous / demiromantic / transmasc / demiboy --- they / he [ also he has audhd because i have audhd and i said so — wouldve put neurodivergent headcanons on the others because i have a lot of them and they make me happy but i can only imagine how much shit i would get for those so this is the only one i am admitting to </33 ]

madison - bisexual [ no preference ] / aroace / libramasc --- he / it / they

ALSO MY OCS YAY ! ! ! i said i would do them a while ago but i forgot anyway

sidney lee [ actually a person from history but shes completely different in this shes basically an oc but shes charles lees older sister ] - bisexual [ HEAVY female preference ] / demisexual / ambiamorous / transfem / girlflux --- they / she / it

katherine abbott [ awesometastic musician ! ! ! shes completely made up ] - lesbian / demisexual / transfem / non - binary --- she / they

i love them soso much they are both girls and they kiss each other and they are married wahoo you love them so much i know you do / sarc :33

goodbye

.

[ekjohnston]

hi!! i was watching the new apprentice arc in tcw, and i was thinking...

how would a transmasc nightsister or transfem nightbrother look? im asking you primarily because of sister the trans clone and tepoh, so i do trust you with my trans star wars!!

being transmasc myself, im foaming at the mouth for more trans star wars characters, and the concept of a trans nightsibling would be amazing to see!!

would mother talzin and the leader of the males in dathomir send over a trans person to the other camp? a nightbrother with pale skin and no horns? a nightsister with colored skin and horns?

just a cool concept that i'd love to see you flesh out!! :] <3

Hi!

So this is a lot to think about, because so frequently in non-human humanoid Star Wars species, sexual dimorphism is both extremely visible AND tied to social status/role. Furthermore, the nightsister/nightbrother alliance already involves more than one species (I THINK???, like, the Nightbrothers were exiled Zabraks and bonded with the Nightsisters who were already there??? I am reading the wiki and trying not to accidentally find Acolyte spoilers, so I am not reading too closely🤣).

I seem to recall Talzin altering Savage Oppress to make him a more useful warrior, though. And I know adding magic to a trans narrative can immediately cause separate issues, but it's definitely something to consider when building a character from a planet full of witches. What makes you a Nightsister, your assigned gender or your culture and magic? How would the combination of social role and magic affect a person who is transitioning? And if you're a Nightbrother but not a Zabrak, what does that mean? And how does the Force work in all of this?

Also, the unification under Talzin is pretty limited in terms of timeline, so before that there were a bunch of different Nightsister groups, and they probably had their own way of doing things. You could, theoretically, invent your own group (but then what happens to them when Talzin rather forcefully unites everyone?).

Long story short, I can't build a character on Tumblr and then use them in a book, so I'm deliberately avoiding that (you may have noticed), but this is a very, very brief intro to the things I think about when I'm starting a character build, and if you're building a character for some reason (game, fanfic, fun), then that's awesome too! None of my questions have single answers, and every possibility leads to more story generation and character development.

(It has been a while since I've thought about this era, so apologies if I've misremembered something. And this is just how I would go about character building. Other people might start somewhere else.)

[thebrookesnook]

Now that both torso studies are officially completed, time to yap about it >:)

–

QnA Time

"I really like the variety in the body types!"

Thanks! But that's mostly thanks to what Nii-sensei already gave us in their character designs. Since I already talked about Shitara's dad bod, heres my thought process for the others:

I knew I wanted to draw Togame as boxy/rectangular (Ales said he was built like a tank and I agree) and his build in canon speaks for itself.

Umemiya's shape is trapezoidal and his arms are built af because that man is a gardener, nothing more to be said.

Takiishi's arms are quite muscular in the manga but his torso's pretty lithe so I mostly referenced male ballerina dancers.

Shizuka has an hourglass shape with some of her ribs showing with her arms being thin as she came from the same place as Gravel so she'd likely be malnourished as a child (her height—151 cm fyi—just adds to that).

I gave Kotoha a tubular shape with some toned arms since shes a cook and does groceries by herself so she's bound to have some meat on her arms (also I fully believe she can knock someone's teeth in).

Drawing Tsubakino with a muscular back that I see in some of the bulkier male ballerinas was a highlight for me, they also have trapezoidal body type that Nii-sensei draws them in.

And then there's Endo, its not clear cuz of the pose but his shape is an inverted triangle.

"Why aren't the abs more prominent?"

To preface, I absolutely love fanart that do more defined muscles and the like (most of my references def had those and also i follow artists who do). But personally, I wanted to go for the relaxed/"usable" abs type of look that athletes or blue-collared workers in rest usually have—so it was me being (somewhat!!) realistic. There was this one post on here that talked about how Roman paintings portrayed the ideal (at the time) nude men with like their rolls & stuff which I absolutely adored and has stuck with me ever since but I don't think I did a good job in conveying that in the studies tho 😔. I'll work on that on my own time.

"Why no boob showing for the girls but only for the guys >:(?"

Trust me, I was going to originally (I have a version without their tops but no render) but then Endo snuck in so I went yeah I'll just give them my bras (wow tmi bra reveal sksks). If you must know, I gave Shizuka an A cup and Kotoha a B-leaning-C cup. I was also planning on making another version for Tsubakino (a transfem with breast aguementation scars vers.) u know?? But I got tired from drawing Endo's tats so blame Endo twice if you wanted both of those things.

"You said something about body hair?"

YES! So the happy trails right? Takiishi doesn't have one because I hc him as not really producing a lot of body hair so no happy trail or armpit hair. Togame too doesn't have armpit hair either because I'd imagine he shaves if he's a frequent onsen goer. Also Japanese men don't usually produce a lot of body hair, genetics u know but when they do they look *chef's kisses*. I'm (respectfully) thinking of you TsudaKen 🫶🫵

The others definitely do have, but I'd like to think Ume had his waxed by Tsubaki (aka one of the darlings who helped give us his iconic hairdo) one time and they just kept going u know? (Read: Hiragi was probs laughing in the bkgd while Ume was in pain the first time). I kept his happy trail for his fans tho <3.

–

Silly Thoughts:

The torso studies was super fun to experiment with some canon characteristics and just go crazy with my headcanons!! Not as crazy as I wanted but oh well,,

While making that reaction vid of how drawing endo was like, Ales said that putting togame after endo made the latter look like a twink and I couldn't stop wheezing for a good hour 😭.

Next art study will probably be on dynamic poses so lots of action poses which will definitely be fun since me and dynamic posing hang out on the weekends, but i'll do that when break comes around and maybe after Furin Trio week 🤔🤔.

[tfdtreasurer]

I think transfem eridan is an interesting interpretation of eridan because (though not frequently stated in the comic) she spent time crafting her identity around a dead male figure (dualscar) and the cruelty of alternia. This created toxicity, instability, and ignorant bigotry in eridan. I also think her whole deal with magic can be symbolic of a repressed sense of self or even femininity as many girl characters in Homestuck use magic. She denies magic saying it's fake and calling her magic wand a "science" wand furthering the sentiment of her repressed femininity.

Thank you anon for seeing the vision because that is indeed a good jist of it. Now, if you don't mind I'll use the points you brought up as a platform to get into them in detail.

Eridan indeed crafts a lot of her facade around Orphaner Dualscar. It's unclear if she ever had a journal of his like Vriska did Mindfang, but it's clear she was aware of his lore (for fun headcanoning: judging from Aranea's shared penchant for storytelling with Mindfang and Cronus's side music thing, I would figure Dualscar's tales were encoded musically, possibly in sea shanties or a lyrical epic). It should also be noted that in the only visual depiction of Dualscar, while Eridan shares the striped pants, jewelry, and cape, it's her scarf that is the twist on the formula. Now, in the heart of headcanon this is all but proof that it's a gift from patterned fabric loving Kanaya, and that she gets adam's apple dysphoria. But that's just headcanon. 🚬🍷

Where Dualscar and the unfathomable cruelty of Alternia intersect for Eridan is with the inherited duty of Orphaner. I think I fully agree with how Alternia made her toxic and unstable, but I will disagree on the part that Eridan is ignorantly bigoted. In my mind, the more accurate way to put it is complicity defeatist. Alternia didn't brainwash Eridan, it just broke her into accepting it because how familiar she became with the mechanisms and forces that made it unstoppable. She's not ignorant of her world's cruel nature, and any sample of her bigotry is performance rather than belief. This is still harmful overall, don't get it twisted, but it's no different than other characters hemospectrum hangups, from Karkat to Equius. Now this will be a helluva tangent, but I do promise it goes somewhere on the reading of transfem HC Eridan, while providing a lot of interpretation of canon Eridan. Because the most underappreciated detail of Alternia as a setting is that it is kind of in a cold war with itself.

"As a self-governing body, the land dwelling portion of [HIC's] empire was formidable. But her force of sea dwellers was equally formidable, and the two were kept in check not only with the threat of psychic annihilation, but their mutual hatred and distrust."

It's another thing that makes Eridan's claims of wanting to kill all land dwellers ironic and an empty threat, because in cold war fashion, any attempt to make a move on land dwellers would be met by their Mutually Assured Destruction. Yet, despite neither side being able to make a move, it's still a cold war. Even for die hard hemocasteists like Equius, sea dwellers are seen as mortal enemies that it's alright to kill in spite of normal hemospectrum conventions. This is why I previously mentioned Eridan as experiencing a form of siege mentality. I will always disagree that Eridan is a supremacist because I think the most accurate diagnosis of her genuine issues is that she's the rawest simplest form of xenophobe. Trusting of members of her own group, trusting the "other" only in that their hostility is earnest and reliable, embodying the rampant paranoia that characterized both Cold War superpowers. Plus, although her efforts are still noncommittal and performative, Eridan does make a show of seeking out doomsday devices (read: WMDs), blatantly imitating the Cold War's arms race.

So why do I bring up the Cold War? Because it relates and reinforces another thing that Eridan is associated with. (Jack) Noir. Eridan borrows a lot visually and ideologically from film noir, a genre that thrived and established itself in that post-war start of the cold war America. Eridan's best and most striking panels (IMO) are pages 3328 and 3331. You may know what I'm talking about before even looking them up they're so visually iconic. They take their cues from noir chiaroscuro lighting. Stark shadows and light, backlit silhouette, the classic trope of lighting through Venetian blinds/bannisters being evoked by Eridan's striped clothing in the one. (And being fair to all perspectives, even anti-Eridaners: take a pause from comparing Eridan to Draco Malfoy, because nobody likes HP anymore and maybe start comparing her to Sin City's Kevin. I've been called a lot of things for liking Eridan before but you could be the first to call me a cannibal) Visual language can only suggest so much though. Eridan still fits noir philosophy in spades. Nihilism, cynicism, godlessness and sin. Having nobody you can trust, angels that may be demons, black and white melodrama. Falling prey to a society that will chew you up and spit you out, make you the terrible person it wants you to be. And at the end of the day: tragic endings, friends killing friends. Eridan is cynical and defeatist. She lived in a world that despised her, put in the role to keep it that way, and gave up trying to change it. You can see in her associations that she likes her land dweller friends, but her approach is like how she sees magic. It would be nice if it were real, she'd like that, but it isn't.

Okay okay, the Cold War, film noir, what the fuck does any of this have to do with transfem Eridan? The paranoia. The constant lingering doubt of who can be trusted with a secret. The hiding of true selves and identity. Sympathies for the "other side" having to be suppressed or hidden, disguised. Lest you be accused. Or, if those sympathies have evolved into identity, caught and outed. How all the suppression of the self takes its psychological toll. So yeah, it has a depressing amount to do with her.

Paranoia arc over. We've already gone over magic as a symbol for the ideal versus the "real." Homestuck is even less shy as using it as a symbol for the innocence of childhood, as seen mainly with Tavros clinging to his childish innocence. So, it's certainly no stretch that it can represent repressed gender, in a way a combination of those two. The ideal being the innocence of a childhood raised the way we may have wanted, versus the reality of the one we receive and in which innocence is lost and dysphoria is present. Again, Eridan's approach to magic is wishing it's real, but being resigned to its unobtainability. Wishing magic was real. Wishing that she could trust her friends. Wishing that she had a choice in who she is. But knowing that magic is fake. Knowing that land dwellers hate sea dwellers. Knowing that her destiny is taking up the mantle of the Orphaner.

Homestuck is a whole mess of character parallelism and foils, and Eridan does indeed parallel with a lot of girls, especially when it comes to magic. To start with the obvious: There are almost too many Rose-Eridan parallels to count. But just to demonstrate from their intros alone: One is a dabbler in Freudian psychoanalysis and the other is Mrs. I-have-a-psychological-complex and am definitely a Freudian mess of I kill mother and father figures for a living. And don't get me started on the W fridge. She shares a little parallel with Jade, a Witch, by embodying the harpoon gun side of the riflekind. For fellow trolls, Eridan is often less parallel and more foil especially for Kanaya and Feferi, but that's a whole other story. Though considerably less "magic," Meenah somehow shares more character design DNA with Eridan than Feferi.

All cherry picked alpha kid parallels do come with the asterisk that they all share DNA with the dead trolls but Roxy is notable because so many of her parallels with her dancestor end up doubling up with Eridan too, the most significant being the love of wizards. Since noir featured so heavily in this post, I'd also be remiss to not point out that Jane is associated with hard boiled fiction, which is earlier than the later noir but they're fairly similar genres, sharing a lot of tropes and themes. Also because I think Jane's skeptical, cynical hard boiled detective connections are an often overlooked part of her character that people should appreciate more. She's more than just baking, people.

With the transfem reading, the entire deal with there cherubs becomes a whole other thing. But, the jist really speaks for itself. Magic, wandkind, childhood innocence, femininity. Living reality, riflekind, emotional stuntedness, masculinity. I'm going to avoid saying anything definitive about the author because it's just not my place, I don't know them personally, and tbh I trust them about as far as I can throw them. However, to put it frankly, the cherubs could be seen as the smoking gun of "having hangups with how an upbringing killed the feminine aspect, villainizing the masculine and idealizing the feminine through the symbol of magic and just don't pay attention to how the author self insert dies accepting that magic isn't real." Like, FUCK, that's goddamned motherfucking gender, baby. But look, is that projection? Hell yeah that's projection but as a reading of the fiction it's not that much a stretch.

I want to also end off with the symbolism that could've been if the retcons were done differently and in a way that allowed the dead trolls to live (y'know, the way it probably should've been). Karkat could've fulfilled his thing of being the second coming of gnostic Jesus by enlightening his team to see their respective truths, and for Eridan it would be seeing that she can Hope and accept magic. An egg being allowed to incubate and hatch, rather than destroyed. A more productive form of bottom surgery. Transition from prince to princess.

[catharsis-in-a-bottle]

hi its me again. i meant to say that if you have any more thoughts on femme vetinari (or even... butch vimes...) i'd love to hear them bc i think about her a lot

HI AGAIN. OH DO I HAVE THOUGHTS. SORRY IF THIS IS LONG I'M JUST HYPE.

okay okay so like. to me ANY iteration of vetinari is fully confident in terms of gender expression. canon vetinari is so unshakeable, so immune to public opinion, that i think even a femme vetinari and/or a trans vetinari would have to have the same unshakability (spelling??); it'd feel out of character otherwise. femme vetinari may be ridiculed for occupying a position typically occupied by men but she is UNBOTHERED and probably using the public discomfort to her advantage in some way. also vetinari being a woman would not affect her asceticism in any way, she's still doing the simplest hairdo and dressing in black and calling it a day. any iteration of trans vetinari acts the same in my mind.

the most interesting and actually new thing that a female vetinari introduces is that dynamic of a female leader in a male-dominated position. of course the position is historically dominated by tyrannical murderers, but she still has that social pressure to deal with/manipulate.

(i also love thinking about the social pressure that an openly trans vetinari has to deal with, or a genderfluid vetinari, gnc vetinari, etc., etc., it's not just gender shenanigans it's politics and it has implications, etc.)

i think the ultimate thing with vetinari is that her job position is not defined by gender or gender expression. 'Patrician' is an isolated field. it's what the individual makes of it.

but vimes...

oh, vimes...

oh please talk to me about butch vimes. in ankh-morpork being a cop is heavily defined by maleness. this may not be beneficial, this may not work in individual contexts (with specific examples like cheery, or in a broader sense the mental toll that trying to perform properly as a man can take on an individual), but it's how it is. and i say maleness, not just masculinity, because with angua's introduction we see that even adopting masculinity (in her case acting like the other officers, making crude jokes, etc.) does not allow for conformity (angua is still ostracized as a woman before her werewolf identity is known). which makes butch vimes extremely interesting because the dynamic of the Watch means that vimes as butch woman, even as hyper-competent as she is, would still be an outsider because of her gender. canon vimes latches onto copperhood as an identity; it's tied up with his masculinity; and with butch vimes it would be the same, being a copper and being masc cannot be separated, but she would probably then feel that being a woman couldn't be separated from being a copper either, which might actually start to change the dynamic of the watch............ oh lord i'm having thoughts. and what of cases like he/him butch vimes or nonbinary vimes or or or...... if we're extrapolating from canon vimes, all of these versions of vimes would still wrap their gender identities and expressions up in the identity of copper, with varying effects.

all these cases also introduce a likely paradox: that police have and do persecute visibly queer people in ankh-morpork, but that vimes is one of them. this actually fits nicely with vimes's overall attempt to make policing a genuinely just practice

the same paradox would exist for a visibly queer vetinari (like my fav transfem vetinari that i'm writing): the heads of state have presumably never protected queer people in any way, and now vetinari is both queer and head of state. (BUT AGAIN - being a patrician is an isolated job, there's less of a 'culture' surrounding it - whereas the Watch has a pretty definite culture that can change but is difficult to change bc of it's a collection of people not just one person)

lastly i'm gonna rant about my favorite case of transfem butch vimes (i am having so much fun writing her). a vimes who is very comfortable in masculinity but not in male gender identity. who has to wrestle with this fact. who will relentlessly question herself because she doesn't really want to change her presentation. who will relentlessly question whether she can be a real watchman if this is the case. who, if she comes out, will have to deal with a watch that has always seen her as male and will have difficulty adjusting pronouns, if she wants them adjusted, because she isn't changing presentation. who will have to deal with fred colon (lmao). there's so much potential for TENSION!!!

anyway!!! you asked mainly about vetinari but got a lot about vimes. i think the Thing with both of them - femme vetinari and butch vimes - is that they're most thought-provoking and actually Meaningful beyond just a gender-swap when you lean into the tension that their identities introduce in an otherwise unchanged ankh-morpork. thank you SO much for this ask it has been SO fun and healing to rant about this

[quietwingsinthesky]

destiel and wincest for the ship ask game :))

destiel

you know, what could have been an interesting ship has been so thoroughly destroyed by bland fanon and overrunning the website with it that my only reaction is Shut The Fuck Up. you know how people have taken saying “read any other book” to harry potter fans? Discuss Any Other Ship. the only people who should be allowed to still talk about destiel are the people who are properly freaks about it.

i pray every day that a supernatural revival brings castiel back played by a woman and that’s the only way reciprocal destiel happens. i think that would be hilarious. i would love to watch a bunch of people who are so proud of themselves for shipping this Revolutionary Queer Ship™️ stumble and fall on their faces if it worked out like that. i guarantee you no one would care that Cas has always been technically canonically genderless the whole time. how do i put it. people could hallucinate a whole finale they were denied for that gay angel when he was shaped like the man they were attracted to. they wouldn’t bother to put any amount of effort into embracing it as still being a queer narrative if cas took the body of a woman, nevermind that if that did happen, it would be arguably even more queer then before. can’t hit a character with the transfem beam just to make the ship “straight” without making everything else a lot more funky around it! but it is very obvious to me, given the disconnect between what’s in the show and what people claim about destiel, that the majority of investment has very little to do with the characters themselves and a lot more to do with the attractiveness of their male actors.

wincest

so anyway, you know how everything im annoyed with about destiel is about how there’s not much investment in the show itself or its themes or the characters beyond how they serve to further a ship? so like. having been in both circles. wincest isn’t like that. there’s people who annoy the fuck out of me in wincest circles, who i think have awful takes or are just assholes, because that’s how being a fandom is. but like. at least they do the reading, you know? the thing about supernatural, and if you’re someone who has followed me only since i started doccy whoing and only knows about spn through tumblr/destiel osmosis, i’m either sorry to inform you and/or delighted to tell you, the thing about supernatural is that it’s about incest. i’m not trying to do a shipping gotcha, i’m not being competitive about who is more canon here. incest is in the text. eric kripke did not fight the network to have mary winchester kiss her father on the mouth to sell sam’s soul to the demon who would later infect his blood with a curse he could never scrub out for people to pretend like this show isn’t about incest. they reference it in the show by name multiple times when talking about the in-universe fandom of the winchester brothers. this is what the show is about. (which. the fact that this isn’t just common knowledge and people unfamiliar with the fandom know more about destiel is so funny to me. no one goes up to game of thrones and tries to say it isn’t kicked into motion because of jaime and cersei fucking and is instead about the love story of bronn and jaime.)

it’s one thing not to engage with it out of discomfort, i understand that, one of my friends doesn’t because that themes genuinely makes him nauseous. but like. that’s what the show is about. it’s about sam and dean’s codependence and how it destroys them and every relationship they have with the people around them. its about how there’s still a core of love so powerful it can beat the devil even surrounded by all that sickness and abuse. the show never stops being about sam and dean. the center was always meant to be “family is hell.”

so what i’m saying is. i vibe with wincest a hell of a lot. this is a theme that i love. i’m a little freak who likes when gothic horror is about two siblings holding on too tight when the house crumbles down on top of them. i love that the show goes hard on placing sam and dean as brothers being on the same level or above their romantic entanglements. and like. also incest kink. but mostly, i find engaging with the text of the show from a wincest lines fascinating, because it isn’t about fighting the show as it is to get the narrative you want. it’s about interpreting what was laid out for you, on purpose.

like. the way i see the great fandom war between these two ships is: you can either look at Sex and Violence and say ‘oh this is proof dean is into dudes and also cas because the siren sort of looks like cas’ or you can say ‘the siren literally word for word says that he lured dean in by playing along as the little brother that dean needs right now as he feels sam slipping away from him and choosing ruby instead.’

wincest wins. it’s in the name.

[put any ship in my ask box and i’ll give my brutally honest opinion]