#coming from a trans guy

[demiboydemon]

I love how on tumblr (or at least the circles I frequent) we just assume people are queer. Like, I was on Reddit and saw someone joke about how they wish there were girls with penises. And it took me a good 30 seconds to even comprehend why someone would wish that when there are already plenty of awesome girl penis owners.

But on tumblr? On tumblr someone would know lots of girls have penises and instead say ‘sure wish there were girls with giant tentacles on their backs like wings’ and we’d all cheer and reblog. Yay! Tentacle-winged trans girls!

[dear-ao3]

i think most of my younger hatred of coldplay came from a) my dads influence (he has BEEF with coldplay), and b) confusing them with one republic. who i cannot stand.

[lovelyrotter]

ill probably delete this in a minute but ive just been fuckin boggled by what ive seen across tumblr in the last few days in particular. its why i havent really been around. like holy fucking shit, its really like some of yall just dont want a chunk of the trans community to exist. like some of yall are thisclose to saying it verbatum. way too many already have. 'shut up sit down be quiet and smile for us' type shit, gee where have i heard that before. oh yeah my entire life cause i was forcefully gendered as someones daughter. shock horror i know. you might be surprised to remember and/or learn that very few trans folks know theyre trans before we're 5, or even 10, and that that gendered experience stays with all of us in both/either small or large ways. either bc we literally dont have a solid identity yet (bc we're very small children), dont have the words, we're repressing it out of fear from how others will treat us, we're actually enjoying or enjoyed being another gender in our childhood, or we just genuinely didnt fuckin know until shit lined up later in life. weird isnt it that transmascs dont pop out as 6'1 brick shithouse cis men when we're born so yall know for certain that we're confused lost girls/women oops i mean big dangerous scary men. its almost like we're transgender too. none of yall actually know what intersectionality is or means

[angelheartcas]

have i talked about trans dean yet? idc idc im doing it again if i did already.

the moment dean said "my boobs" in response to "is there anything about you that's real?" i knew he was trans. his voice? trans as hell. and the "daddy's little girl" from alastair ?? also he's just SO eldest daughter coded. no one's doing it like him. also i know the 3 layers of clothing is just a Winchester Thing but there's no reason for his jackets to be SO BIG but they are

[lokh]

mom avoids dead anime mom curse because he transitions. he’s always had a complicated relationship with pregnancy because of how woefully little people are told about potential complications and aftercare, and also because of how gendered it is, so after the birth of his second child he’s finally had it and decides to transition

he joins a local community group for mothers and at first it’s played for laughs how often they fall to the dead mom curse, but soon we find out more about how society has failed mothers and people who give birth, from information being withheld, procedures being carried out without consent, lack of accommodations and maternal and paternal leave, racism…

it also turns out that becoming a man doesn’t help with this, not really, because being a pregnant trans man brings its own problems. follow along as he learns more about being a parent and a mother, and maybe even… finding love???

coming to you never because I can’t write!

[blairamok]

i know this is probably on me for not clarifying more, but it’s really important to me for y’all to know that in my AU crowley is gender nonconforming and still firmly using he/him despite whatever he’s wearing. wearing “feminine clothing” does not equal she/her! this is a specific flavor of gender fuckery that i’m exploring here and misgendering him kinda takes away from that 😩

[alongtidesoflight]

so here's my honest thoughts on dragon age: the veilguard, after ~40 hours of playing. i finished the main quest after having finished all companion quests and major faction quests. just to clear up what content i saw, i played as an elven transmasc rook who is a member of the lords of fortune. he romanced lucanis (although after finishing the game i'm now leaning towards taash). i don't know what's happening in playthroughs that have a different race, gender identity, romance or faction going on.

full spoilers ahead, i mean it. don't read further if you want to avoid them. i don't want complaining about it in my asks.

oh and also, if you're worried because of a few negative reviews online i can comfort you by saying don't give a fuck about a certain big name youtuber who is very much tied to bethesda franchises giving this a negative review. i'll explain why.

i'm starting off with the things i liked

the game looks really pretty. i was worried it wouldn't feel like thedas anymore (with them trying to "focus on northern thedas only" i thought they'd make a clear cut in environmental design. they do and they don't. it's complicated. i'll elaborate on it when talking about the negative stuff). anyway it does. minrathous feels like kirkwall. treviso enchanted me like the winter palace did. the hossberg wetlands reminded me of the hinterlands and a couple other inquisition maps. arlathan looked like... arlathan. the crossroads were different, but familiar. overall i like the way it looks and feels. it's thedas, with a twist. it's a good one, and gives everything a solid but unique feel.

combat is top tier. if you're a hardcore dragon age player you WILL miss the tactical aspect of it for a bit, but i promise you, once you're used to the way the combat works, you will be lapping that shit up. and once you get to ability combos you'll mourn the control you used to have over your companions in battle a bit less

the MAIN quest and its story. i expected worse, way worse. and for a while the game even had me tricked (harr harr you'll get it in a second) it is Really That Much Worse. but holy shit was it good. i walked away satisfied ngl.

your choices have SOLID weight. there's consequences, good AND bad. i got minrathous blighted, ruled over by venatori, and the leader of the shadow dragons ultimately died because of my decisions. i made those at the beginning and throughout the game. he died at the end. DAVRIN died because i didn't expect what i was saying to have that much weight. i thought i was in the clear. he had hero status. well turns out, your choices can still get your companions killed even if you do everything right. i fucking love him. he shouldn't have made that sacrifice just because i told him to do everything it takes once.

the inquisitor, morrigan and dorian being there, surprisingly. there's also negatives to this though, see below.

speaking of companions dying and the inquisitor playing a bigger role: the final quest feels like me2's suicide mission. i was blown away by it and the fact that i got to see the results of all my efforts playing out in front of me.

bioware are NOT trying to redeem solas. they love him as a character yes, but i wasn't forced to see any good in him. he betrays you. he fucked my rook over twice. he fucked him over right back, for good this time (the veil wasn't torn down, i anchored it by binding him to it, he's doomed to uphold it). but solas really lives up to his name as the trickster elven god. rip to all the people who grew really attached to him over the years.

varric died. if you like him that's probably as hard reading it as it was watching it. varric died and the game lies about it until the very end. when the realisation hits, it hurts. but in the very best way.

the amount of care they put into gender expression and trans identities this time around. (i'll add onto this with negative points as well too).

rook feels very much ingrained in the world of thedas. he doesn't ask questions that expose the player to lore through dialogue as if he's stepped foot into thedas for the first time. those conversations feel very solid and good. i hope other faction players got as much joy out of this as i did.

and the things i didn't like and boy there's a lot unfortunately

the music. let's just get that out of the way holy shit. it doesn't feel like it belongs in this universe. it gets so incredibly sci-fi-y at times you'd think it's taken straight from mass effect andromeda. there's not a single song unique to veilguard that i really enjoyed. it broke my immersion, real bad. hearing a busker play the tavern songs from inquisition on a lute right after i killed some venatori with wobbly bass songs playing in the background is just odd. weird tonal shift. don't like it. it's made for people who like flashy light-weight cinema.

tevinter nights is required reading. the podcasts are required listening exercises. the game is so fast paced, especially at the start, that there's no time to introduce you to characters and how much weight their names carry in-game. i would not have known who half these people are if i hadn't skimmed over tevinter nights. i'd care even less about them than i already did. there is no time to get properly attached to them. people will act as if you're talking to a legend personified and you'll be thinking man goddamn which chapter of tevinter night were they in again and what did they do???

there's a weird mismatch with the animations. you'll have beautifully fluid ones, like emmrich casting spells. and then you'll have rook's face animating in the most unnatural manner that's sorta reminiscent of mass effect andromeda's "my face is tired" addison, when their emotions SHOULD be landing with the player rn instead.

i'm not vibing with the art style. sometimes it works. most of the time it doesn't. at points i felt like i was watching tangled.

that also brings me to some of the dialogue. same issue. i am watching frozen. i am watching tangled. someone on the writer's team really likes the adorkable trope. bellara is its victim.

for all the talk about identity, bioware sure doesn't like theirs. the grey warden armor got a redesign again and it just makes them look like a generic army. i hate it lol

in general, i don't like the armor design. the wardrobe/appearances system is fine, but it's just not helping if all the armors are just... kinda bland or downight bad looking? and don't get me started on the lords of fortune armor. that is orientalism personified.

the world states should have been carried over, full stop. i know they said they didn't because they want to separate what happens in the north from what happens in the south, which... i could have lived with that. but the inquisitor sends you letters that keep you up to date on... the south of thedas. you learn that there's a blight again, that people are standing strong but it's difficult, denerim's fallen, the rulers are taking care of it, orlais is fighting and they're successful for a while, etc etc. what's good bioware. i thought we don't care about the south this time around. why are you feeding me so much boring generic information. if you're not gonna show any of it and just write letters, then carrying the world state over should not have been an issue. i have a game dev background. those few lines of code would not have broken your budget or pushed your engine's limits. fuck right off.

this gripe of mine carries over to all the cameos. as a lord of fortune you have to deal with isabela a lot. it's fun. i missed her. you get to go drinking with her and taash and bellara! also my hawke romanced her. she's not mentioned once. they had the opportunity to put a sentence or two about her in there with not a lot of effort, trust me.

when varric dies, all she has is a single line about it. for gold, for fortune, for varric. she only says it if you interact with her on your way to the final push. that's not mandatory.

morrigan is there. kieran isn't. the old god soul that mythal and then solas absorbed? who cares at this point, the gods are dead now and solas is locked away for eternity. i suppose? why is morrigan there. she feels unneeded. i wish they'd just left her down south, at least that way i wouldn't have had to witness her god awful redesign.

dorian at least feels as if he belongs in this story. the shadow dragons are a crucial part to protecting minrathous. he's also weirdly underutilised. isabela and morrigan had more lines than him in my playthrough.

on the topic of romance: bro that was underwhelming. no, genuinely. you know when romance picked up a bit? after the point of no return. i heard maybe two lines of companion banter about it before that. maybe i missed something which i honestly doubt, but romance did not play much of a role in lucanis's storyline. i saved his grandmother as he wished me to (and if you read tevinter nights you know she was rather abusive and their relationship not the healthiest) and told him to focus on his family. a reunified family my rook wasn't even introduced to as a partner at the end of all that.

really, do not buy this game if you're only in it for the romances. others might be better, lucanis's basically gave me nothing. except for an outing (the second coffee date i had with him, it was getting repetitive) all of it played out once i committed to the final quest. the sex scene was a fade to black. annoyingly right after davrin died. if you're looking for well paced and good spice, pick up something else. the sweet talk and the final goodbye were nice though.

for all the good the ever-presence of gender identity does, it is brought up in such a disruptive manner too. it doesn't even play out naturally if you CHOOSE the lines that are meant to be said. hearing the words trans and non-binary in this setting doesn't feel right, and i'm saying this as a trans guy. i think it could have been handled more gracefully. the amount of times my rook went "i'm a MAN" as if he's about to start drumming on his chest and roaring any second now got super nerve-grating. "i'm so glad you're into me... the me who is trans. remember?" just. tell me one trans person who'd talk like that to a person they've grown close with and are trying to romance. this game doesn't handle sexuality well, so all this hey my body might not look like the way you're expecting it to look talk amounts to nothing anyway. i feel about this the way i feel about krem: this is partial exposition to trans experiences... packaged up for cis consumption. the ONLY exception to that is interacting with taash. holy shit was all of that heartwarming and bro did it feel good and natural to talk to them about theirs and rook's gender.

rivain and nevarra are new locations added by veilguard. they're also incredibly underwhelming, small and constricted maps. rivain is a coastline with a few ruins. the hall of valor is a partial ruin nestled into a cave on a beach, with a fighting pit. isabela is there in her skimpy outfit commentating your pit fights. that's it. i'm sorry if you were looking for a bustling pirate cove or whatever. you're not gonna get it. the nevarran crypts btw are a long ass dungeon crawl. that's it.

speaking of maps. i thought people were being dramatic when they said you're gonna be fighting the same enemies on them again and again. i thought they were figure of speeching it. they're not. you WILL fight the same amount of enemies. in the same spot. every time you reload the map. best to stay on a map and clear out the enemies and do as much questing on that map as you can before leaving, because you WILL have to do it all over again once you return.

the three choices i made for my inquisitor didn't matter lol she didn't have to face solas and therefore couldn't stop him at any cost as she had sworn (maybe because my rook tricked solas into binding himself to the veil, there was also an option to fight him. would she have stepped in? who knows). blackwall wasn't mentioned. and either her using a small amount of her forces in the final fight was the reason the civilians of minrathous fared so well..... or it just didn't matter. ultimately i think she had very little impact on anything

[oceanwithouthermoon]

i have a personal bias against aus/headcanons/theories where all of saikis friends have powers cuz im just not a fan of like... the way it changes the message from "youre different, and thats okay!" to "theres nothing different or special about you lmao", or at least thats what it feels like in my opinion 😭

[77ngiez-archive]

project sekai is crazy because literally every character is queer trans neurodivergent physically disabled or some combination of the above

[pickled-flowers]

I wonder what about me, a trans man with boobs, make people think I don't experience misogyny 🤔

[cyellolemon]

Ambrose's aunties, Flora and Marie!! not pride month anymore but whatever

[sammygender]

there is no hope for our society

[felt-squirrels]

Fuck okay sincerely asking everyone in the US to keep living. I haven’t been doing great lately in the mental health department and yes I did think about what would happen if Trump won and what I’d do but seriously. Keep living. Like I am holding your shoulders and telling you to fucking stay alive. I swear to god it will not be easy but we can and will get through this.

[yeahimatransman]

Even Bigger Step! I told my roommate. Somehow there was a good moment for it. I don't know how we got there, but we did. I said that I have been questioning and that I am a trans man. They were super supportive about it, just like I knew they would be. They asked me about transitioning and I said I wanted to. They said that was great for me and they support me. They want me to do what makes me happy and makes me feel like me. They then started looking at masc haircuts that would work for my hair type and face shape. They told me that I should feel totally comfortable wearing my packer around the apartment with no issues. It was such a weird conversation but it felt so good and it was so validating. I also talked with them about leaving the church since my roommate is also a member of my church. They are in a similar place with it as I am.

We also told my roommate's sister because I trust her and she is wonderful. She was very excited for me and said that she would always have my back. That conversation was so crazy because they were calling me Dylan and using he/him pronouns and it is the first time I have heard it out loud. It was such a strange feeling. Like it's so weird, but it was also so exciting to hear. They are both so excited for me and for my transition in the future.

It has been a very eventful but good day.

[gay-otlc]

Baffling to me how people can genuinely believe straight trans men are privileged/aren't oppressed when "save the poor confused lost lesbians!!!!" is a common sentiment that is literally directed at us. Like TERFs are quite vocal that they think straight transmascs are either lesbians being led astray because we are too stupid to think for ourselves, or evil predators stealing their lesbian daughters. If you refuse to acknowledge this rhetoric exists I really don't know what to tell you other than go fuck yourself.

[foxgirlmoth]

So F1nnster just came out as genderfluid but still I super fucking hate him. Making trap content and constantly making money off of a performance of being a fake girl, getting a name change and gender marker change and posting about going through that all while basically shoving it in the faces of trans women who have struggled over years and years. You've been a performance and you've gained wealth essentially making fun of us and enforcing horrible stereotypes, and saying "Yeah I just don't care about gender" Does Not Make Me Fucking Forgive Any Of That. What fucking hatred you've tossed onto your channel towards trans women will not go away easily, and Fuck You.