#gay trans man whose really into anime?

[silly-little-headcannons]

Rip Richie Lipschitz you would have loved the return of DanAndPhilGAMES

[hussyknee]

THE LEFTIST THIRD PARTY HAS WON SRI LANKA'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

WE HAVE A PRO-LGBT, PRO-UNION, ANTI-ETHNOFASCIST, ANTI-IMPERIALIST PRESIDENT. MY ANTHROPOLOGY PROFESSOR IS GOING TO BE PRIME MINISTER. A COMPETENT ACADEMIC WHO HAS WORKED ON FEMINIST INITIATIVES AND RESEARCH ALL HER CAREER.

please please please please god don't let them fuck this up don't let them turn into a bunch of cunts to retain their new voter base don't let them fuck up the economy don't let them let the minorities down please please please they won't ever get another chance if they ruin this one we'll be stuck with more idiot corrupt nepo babies till we die please please please PLEASE LET THIS BE THE END OF THE EXECUTIVE PRESIDENCY AND PREVENTION OF TERRORISM ACT AND PERSECUTING THE NORTH please please please let them decriminalize being gay and not bury LGBT rights please please please let there be a god I can't take anymore of this shitshow please please please don't let hope be something that keeps pissing in our faces please please please please please please please

ANURA KUMARA DISSANAYAKE WILL BE THE NINTH PRESIDENT OF SRI LANKA. TAKE THAT YOU TWO PARTY VOTING MOTHERFUCKERS.

Edit:

WHAT DO YOU MEAN FUCKING COLOMBO WENT TO THE IDIOT NEPO BABY???

AKD HAD 52%!!!!! HE WAS ALL BUT SWORN IN?????

THEY HAVE TO COUNT THE SECOND PREFERENTIAL VOTE FOR ONLY THE SECOND TIME IN HISTORY??

There is a very real chance that nobody will get over 50% of the vote. That would be really, really bad.

Fuck.

I HATE YOU MOTHERFUCKING URBAN MIDDLE CLASS LIBERAL CUNTS SO MUCH. PLAGUE ON THE WHOLE DAMN COUNTRY. FUCK YOU.

Edit 2:

Ok so first counting gets AKD 42% and SP 32%. It's very likely the preferentional vote will put him over the 50% line.

It's so poetic that Ranil's greed for power ended up handing the country to the very Marxists that his uncle hunted like animals. You love to see it. 🥰

Edit 3:

So the preferential vote didn't give anyone a 50% majority and we're still at AKD 42% and SP 32%. But apparently that's enough to declare AKD President as per the Constitution. I don't think that's ever happened before. He was sworn in an hour ago.

Point of clarification: The NPP are not Marxists. Foreign news is just uncritically regurgitating the pro-government Red Scare propaganda. AKD and his JVP party used to be Marxists back in the '80s and '90s. They're now more very pro-union socialist. The NPP is their coalition, which is even more mildly social democrat and just happens to be a little more left than the other two. Calling them a Marxist is like how MAGA thinks the Dems are commies. 😂

I truly don't have great hopes that much will change, but there's a chance one or two important things might. Which is more than we've been able to hope for in decades.

See this post for a run down of the what's really been happening.

Edit 4:

I retract the "openly bisexual" part with many apologies. I completely misremembered. It wasn't AKD but JVP senior K. D. Lalkantha, who said in a 2018 interview is that he has also had same sex encounters with his friends as a boy and young man, and that he knows others who have had as well. And he specifically said he doesn't see the need to maintain a label for his sexuality. Still, the fact that his party allowed this in a country that still criminalises homosexuality, to a Sinhalese magazine, speaks to a commitment to LGBT rights. He also explicitly stated his support for women's rights, trans rights, polyamory, open relationships, explicit sexuality in media. It's impressively progressive for this country. The interview is in Sinhala and you can read it here.

Here's an excellent write-up of AKD's career, political outlook and creation of NPP in The Hindu by correspondent Meena Srinivasan, a journalist whose reporting I've always liked.

[the-bjd-community-confess]

This happened years back but I still think about it. I met someone at a convention who liked dolls and was really happy to exchange social media handles, especially because we both loved the same anime character and both wanted to make a custom doll of him. On the way home I looked at their twitter account and found out they were a 'yumejoshi' (dream girl), people who ship themselves with anime characters and act like those characters are real. At first I was like 'well whatever, aren't we all a little obsessed with our faves?' but the more I read of her twitter the more genuinely unhinged I started to find that entire subculture. It's not just thinking the character is real, these girls are having wholeass screaming wars with eachother over whose character interpretation is correct, who is REALLY married to sasuke or sephiroph on the astral plane, but most of all they have this weird complex where they mistake being made fun of for actual genuine oppression.

The point I stopped scrolling the blog and hit the block button was when I saw the posts talking about how being a yume or 'fictosexual' was part of the queer community and they face similar discrimination. There were even posts saying she probably faces WORSE discrimination for being open about liking an anime man than somebody who is gay or trans because it's 'acceptable to laugh at! She was talking about wanting to attend pride parades with the custom doll of her fictional husband as a proud queer. I see a lot of bullshit from within the doll community but I never expected to learn about a separate community that trivialises the actual struggles of minorities and what's so bad to be part of the oppressed club that they think being called cringe is the same as slurs. I'm very queer myself so I genuinely found this upsetting and kinda enraging. I know this is only tangently related to dolls but for everyone who says they wished they could meet doll people IRL, be careful what you wish for.

~Anonymous

[chaosmagetwin]

Tonight, I watched ruin explorers! It’s an anime OVA (a mini series in this case) starring a human swordswoman (sometimes she’s a mouse)a catgirl elf mage, a human girl mage (antagonistic at first), a human master swordsman (also antagonistic at first), a red haired human prince (it’s sometimes green), and a dog’s owner who is also a conman. Also human. Spoilers below the cut.

It’s good! It’s really good. Unfortunately, I was watching with other people, and I was assigned to the character “Fam”, the elf catgirl, who is dumb and sweet and in the English dub (which is actually more fun and expressive than the sub, strangely enough) had a fantastic overly girly sweetie voice that I adored.

This made me hyper fixate on her. Just a little bit. As everyone watching it at the time was trans, we naturally had a very queer reading of this show.

Ihrie (human swordswoman) a total baddie. Whenever she casts a spell (which is like 3 times in the entire show), she turns into a mouse. She uses medicine to turn human again. Our read; transbien they/she, too competent for her own good.

Fam (elf catgirl mage) a bimbo catgirl who just wants to be friends with as many people and spirits as possible, because she’s lonely. She doesn’t use destructive magic because she doesn’t want to scare spirits away and be lonely again. She wears stirrup leg warmers. To our eyes; Transgirl, she/her, pansexual menace, but also too ditzy. In the canon, she’s head over heels for the red haired prince. In my head, she’s married to Ihrie, and also head over heels for the prince. And also for Rasha.

Rasha (human girl mage) a questionably smart mage who doesn’t seem to care about spirits. In our eyes; She’s terminally cis het, and also really into the prince. She’s competent enough, but also an asshole.

Miguel (human swords master (probably(not))) a braggart who constantly gets beat up for comic relief, but is actually a good sword man when things go down. Just… also a braggart. To our eyes; cis het. A moron. Likes Rasha, Rasha probably also likes him, they’re probably married, fuck this guy, no further thoughts.

Prince Lyle (the prince! Not evil! Probably!) A prince whose country was destroyed and now he seeks the ultimate power to kill the man who destroyed it. He’s kind of traumatized and sad and he had a fiancé who died. Very sad. Anyways, he’s beautiful and in canon, 2 of the 3 women are literally throwing themselves at him, and he is not interested at all. In our eyes; trans gay twink malewife that had a t4t marriage (his wife died, but due to translation, she was referred to as “my marrier”, which we took as very gay, simple as.) and now the boy is way too fucked up to ever contemplate moving on. We were pretty sure he was going to be evil, but it turns out he wasn’t? Very odd. Boys this pretty should be breaking hearts by being bad, not by being actually good but emotionally unavailable smh this is too realistic.

Galuf (the merchant miscreant conman) the comedic relief character. Unabashedly greedy. A worm. He’d sell his soul if it meant not getting a paper cut. We love him. Best worst boy. Despite being the oldest in the show, dude was batting at a solid .000 no wins, only losses. Love him. He’s the reason anyone actually meets up, works together, or is even on the adventure. He funds the expeditions. We have 0 thoughts on him, he’s perfect as he is in the show. No notes.

Now, that’s a lot of introduction to get to my fucking point, and my point is that I love Fam.

Like, just look at her. She’s so shaped. She’s so gender. I want to be her. She’s got the tall, the ears, the voice, the hair, she’s just so cool. Wish she was wearing more than a loincloth, but whatever, it was the 90’s.

She’s just the world’s softest girl. She just wants to be friends, and to not be lonely, and she is really pure. It actually sort of bothered me that the people watching assigned me to her, because she seemed too sweet, and also I’m... I’m not that dumb. I am occasionally that ditzy, I guess. I’m also not that monogamous, which my friends conceded was a fair point. While I was watching it, I just kept getting wrapped up in what Fam was doing, and wound up really kinning her, and did more than a fair share of projection.

Anyways, that was all, so, I guess that’s all to say that she’s going into my soul now, and I will come out the other side having been made anew, probably a bit dumber but much sweeter probably.

[zeravmeta]

whining about personal irl introspection stuff

since my friend groups mostly consist of trans peeps it always has kind of wormed its way into my head my own thoughts abt my gender and stuff but like for my whole life ive always been pretty comfortable as a cis dude and like for the most part despite growing up with very traditional parents ive also never really felt pressured to like follow the same gender roles they have like my parents are basically the one foot in the door type where like if for whatever reason hypothetically i come out as trans and gay double whammy them my dad whose a pretty Mans Man type of guy would still love me but i know he'd think that he did something wrong (out of ignorance not malice he would absolutely maul someone if they made fun of me) vs my mom who would also be accepting but it would become the next hot topic of her friend groups gossiping and neither are malicious but ive also seen them make themselves suffer over their own gender roles (men do this v women do this) and like i honestly think the reason i dont put much stock into gender as a concept is because most people focus on the roles aspect of it and even with my best efforts ive never really deprogrammed that out of them but honestly above all else im lazy as hell and wont impose more arbitrary rules like that onto myself so when i say im cis im not cis plus im like cis hasnt touched the personalization settings and forgot the login and ofc this would also bleed into ideas like romance and sexuality with aforementioned roles and when it comes to romance this leads more into my experiences with my asshole brother who would always be bringing girlfriends and bragging about being a sex beast but he could never hold onto a relationship and was always dumped and cheated on multiple times (and with modern context and Adult Brain i know its likely because he was a fucking asshole) while my parents would always argue but theyd also been together for 35+ years and wouldnt trade each other for the world so neither of those would be a good reference point for romance but this one also came down to me Not Really Caring where I wouldn't mind a romantic relationship if it happened and im p sure if I liked the person enough to where said stage of romance would even be happening i would invite it but im also not really agonizing over it and can be pretty comfortable being without a partner and on the sex side of things this one is a little weird because ive also Not Cared about it however i know I do have desire for people so im not ace and when it bleeds so intermittently with the romance aspect i just kind of assumed i was ace for a while in my teens until i learned the Words and Terms and such so i was like oh huh i guess i just dont seek romance and thats not the same as liking other humans physically and on that front i guess im just ok with any type of partner so like with neither of these considerations ever being a factor for gender or presentation esp when im a 6ft behemoth of a guy with a strongman body build and never had any type of body dysphoria with that i was and honestly still am perfectly comfortable just being a cis dude and for the past decade it has literally not changed im here for a good time not a long time

anyways this is a very long winded wordy way of saying that im pretty sure im cis aro and bi/pan because ive never cared about gender never wanted a partner and also i appreciate mens tits and cockenbalsen too much to be straight and this post came about because I was thinking of getting an anime man body pillow cover and was imagining the scandalized looks on my parents faces lol

[mithliya]

I had recently watched the children’s movie Nimona out of curiosity since people were praising the film for being a metaphor on how gay and trans people are viewed by society. The assimilative “cis gays” have the ability to polish our image and conform but trans people are seen as innately monstrous. Some crackpot theory like that.

It was a cute film but I found people’s analysis of the story to be hilarious. Fans were saying it was a beautiful portrayal of “trans rage” and cis gay privilege. The preface of the film was a man the alleged “cis gay” was wrongfully demonized and tries to clear his name by righting the wrong. The “trans” character who is highly immature and impulsive tries to get her way through violence and destruction. And towards the end, the “trans�� character has a meltdown, it causes mayhem and she endangers everybody. Basically.

And I have to admit. I agree with the fans that it is a very fitting portrayal of gay and trans people’s differences. Gay people want to live our lives undisturbed and seek justice. Trans people throw violent tantrums and wish to be a nuisance to everyone. So yes, a fitting metaphor indeed.

have people really seen that and equated it to trans people??? 😭 anyways i did find confirmation here but at least what they refer to makes more sensen

[ed-nygma]

What do you think gay men are attracted to in men that they can’t be attracted to in women?

It can’t be anything about femininity or masculinity obviously. That’s both sexist, and cultural so can’t be what drives men-only attraction.

It can’t be anything about stated identity because someone could lie just as easily as they could tell the truth in such a statement, and it makes no sense because homosexuality and heterosexuality exists in other species with no stated identities. It’s not like other animals without gender are all pan.

Saying idk it’s the vibes or some indescribable trait men have that women can’t but “I can’t explain” is a nonanswer.

Soooooooo what is it? Or do you think any sexuality but bi/pan is just cultural performance or an identity rather than an inborn orientation?

- [ ]

I'm not sure why you're asking me specifically but my opinion on human sexuality is that it manifests slightly differently for everyone.

There is not one specific quality that makes gay men as a whole be not attracted to women, and it more so will depend on each individual.

There are however "averages," which are mostly built on physical features and aesthetics. The average gay man will be attracted to physical features which he associates with manhood. The thing is, none of said features on their own is exclusive to either sex. Sexuality, I believe, is born out of attraction to a combination of those features.

Proceeding to TMI territory...

People may assume sexuality is inherently related to genitalia, and that's probably the subject you want me to head into based on your wording. I think sexuality goes beyond that.

I am physically attracted to men. I am attracted to COCK and BALLS.👍But let's say there's a trans man who I find extremely physically attractive, and he happens to not have a dick. That wouldn't really bother me because I'm not repulsed by vagina. I'm not attracted to it either, but it wouldn't turn me off from sex. I wouldn't mind touching it, is what I'm saying. Give that boy a strap to shove up my ass, I really couldn't care less.

A vagina is gonna be a deal breaker for many other gay guys, that's not really up for debate, but not for all. And while we're at this, I'd never find a pre-op feminine trans woman physically attractive just because she has a cock. I'm not physically attracted to people who I look at and think "that's a woman."

Now think about cis guys whose dicks have some sort of visible malformation, or which were lost in accidents. That's not gonna be attractive to most people, but someone who's not repulsed by it could still easily have a relationship with a man like that. Like, I don't find micropenises attractive, but I wouldn't turn down a man with a micropenis if I found him otherwise physically attractive. There's more to sexuality than sex.

So, ultimately: There is not one lone trait that gay men are attracted to which they can't be attracted to in women. It's a combination of traits, and most gay men are attracted to similar combinations of traits.

[c0rpseductor]

i know it sounds silly every time i say it but developing very serious feelings and opinions about ao3 famous anime png emet-selch really has been a decent part of my sort of recontextualizing and coming to further understand certain aspects of Gender More Generally and my own relationship to gender simply bc i have difficulty perceiving him in a way that isn’t “gay as gender identity.” and that really made me reflect on the arbitrariness of Labels Generally but particularly on manhood where like gay men, esp feminine gay men, are effectively exiled from manhood by society and regarded as less male or totally not male. so for someone who understands this but is not trans, like, how do you conceive of yourself as cis either when manhood is intentionally denied to you? like where do you go? at that point.

and really it makes a lot of sense anyway bc like for me being both binary trans and gay is like. genuinely it was hard for me to come to that conclusion bc being a gay man in particular is such a singular experience with gender that nothing really resonated with me that was orientation-agnostic. you know what i mean? like just general trans stuff obviously always struck a chord in me but what actually got me to figure out i’m a guy was realizing that i want to be seen as male by other men in a romantic and sexual context and that having that element missing was also part of why attraction to men always felt fraught for me, along with internalized homophobia. so like im fine just saying im a man but more honestly i think “gay man” is a lot closer to describing my gender identity. and that is something i do resonate a lot with in “cis” gay men who like i said aren’t necessarily trans and wouldn’t describe themselves as such but who also have sort of decoupled with more traditional ideas of gender and are doing the weird shit and whose whole gender situation is most easily summed up by “gay”

and like despite the fact that he’s classic Disney animated film levels of homophobic queercoded that’s one of the things i like so much about emet. “Lestat you’ve projected 90% of this onto him” yes and no. it’s not in the text but it’s true. i simply perceive these matters on a higher plane

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #637

Top Ten Mutants in Film & TV

Okay, so right out the gate I’m going to make a confession: I’ve not really read many X-Men comics. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve read comics with X-Men in them; I’ve just not really read that much actual X-Men if that makes sense. So whilst I really like the concept of X-Men, and many of the stories, and many of the characters, it’s more or less all come from other media (or, y’know, other comics where Wolverine is in the Avengers or something like that).

So what this list is, really, is the characters that have popped for me across other media. And, let’s face it, that really accounts for two things (or maybe two-and-a-half): the Fox-produced X-Men movies – stretching from 1992’s original X-Men animated series, through the Fox-produced movies beginning in 2000, up to (I suppose) The New Mutants in 2020, and culminating in this year’s superlative resurrection with X-Men ’97, by way (of course) of the two Deadpool movies. Yeah, okay, there have been other X-Men thingies in the meantime (X-Men: Evolution, say, which I watched a little bit of, but which I mostly remember for its goth Rogue), but really these are the things I’m basing it on. Which movies and TV programmes have the best mutants? Which non-comics properties have produced my favourite X-Men-and-women-and-therotically-non-binary-people-like-Morph-in-the-new-show-but-I-guess-he’s-not-on-this-list-so-it-doesn’t-really-matter.

Anyway, despite being a cheat and a charlatan and obviously not a proper fan, I love the X-Men. I love their general superhero team dynamic; the basic, old-school appeal of Professor X’s X-Men versus Magneto’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. But I also – of course – love the nuance and allegory the story allows; how the mutants themselves, as a disenfranchised and distrusted distaff population, could be seen to be Blacks in America, or gays, or trans, or – flippin’ ‘eck – Jews and Palestinians, depending on how you squint. When I first came across the X-Men, it seemed like Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were specifically tying their (ahem) two white characters to Martin Luther King and Malcolm X; the community leader preaching non-violent acceptance and integration versus the leader who believed that their repressed and abused minority could not gain rights without violently seizing them from the bigots in power. That allegory is not so clear cut, and one of the wonders of the premise is there are so many ways you could read or interpret it; X-Men ’97 is spectacular in the way it appears to be addressing modern concerns, although I suspect any time you read/watch X-Men you’d think “oh, this is about now.”

Where was I? Oh yeah, my favourite mutant characters from X-Men or whatever; except, y’know, more based on films and TV because – as I’ve said – I haven’t read as many comics as I’d have liked.

Wolverine: yeah, pretty basic, but whatcha gonna do? The taciturn, gravelly drawl of Cal Dodd in the animated series is one thing, but really the heart and soul of Logan is Hugh Jackman’s barnstorm, epoch-defining, twenty-four-year-long run playing the character. His physicality, his screen presence, his badassery, but also his humanity, his warmth, his empathy; a man at war with himself who just wants peace, but is compelled to keep fighting. There’s a reason Wolverine became the most popular X-Man in comics, and thanks to the tremendous portrayals we’ve had elsewhere, he holds the same accolade in film and TV.

Ms. Marvel: oooh, controversial! The excellent Ms. Marvel TV series somewhat shockingly declared Kamala Khan to be a mutant, rather than the Inhuman of the comics (a decision that has made its way back to comics, too). So she definitely counts, even if she’s not (yet) an X-Person. But Iman Vellani’s super-charismatic, loveable portrayal ensures Kamala burns off the screen, a font of energy and optimism.  

Deadpool: this really is down to one man: Ryan Reynolds, whose portrayal in two movies (we do not speak of Origins) is so iconic that it doesn’t just define the character for most people, but it’s also an exaggeration and enhancement of Reynold’s own comic screen persona; who else could be Deadpool now? He’s sardonic and funny, he’s violent but also often kind, and he breaks the fourth wall in tremendous ways.

Jubilee: I really loved Jubilee when I was a kid watching the animated series; I was kind of annoyed that she didn’t feature much in the movies. The classic “kid-appeal” entry-level character, she was younger than her teammates and offered an uneducated lens through which to view the X-Men’s world. Plus she’s sparky (literally), funny, courageous, and a bit of a goof. And, frankly, I’ve always loved her yellow coat.

Magneto: ah, Magneto; one of the most interesting and complex characters in all of comics. Yes, he’s a bad guy; he’s done bad things to good people, he’s definitely killed, and he’s caused innocents to suffer. But he does have a sympathetic core, fuelled by tragedy and a righteous sense of “never again”. We all know how great Ian McKellen is, but let’s tip our hat to the performances of David Hemblen and Matthew Waterson in the animated X-Men and X-Men ’97, showcasing all the nuance and complexity of a great Shakespearean actor. Also: the bit where he escapes from prison in X2 is mint.

Professor X: a lot of my love for him here is just down to listening to Patrick Stewart’s authoritative brogue. He just sounds like he’s in charge, yeah? Whether it’s on a starship or in a school. The First Class prequel movies added a lot of the complexity and ambiguity to the character that was present in the comics (and, I guess, the animated series), fleshing out his Optimus Prime-esque moral certitude.

Rogue: ah, sugah, how mucha this is just down to my likin’ for Lenore Zann’s voice actin’? Rogue in the show is super cool, an unstoppable powerhouse with a wit and a mouth and a ton of opinions. Her relationship with Gambit was an ongoing comic delight that also offered some heart; and, by god, how that developed in X-Men ’97… Zann gives a phenomenal performance in the sequel series. I don’t want to forget Anna Paquin’s turn as a more tortured, less outspoken Rogue; taking the place of the younger audience surrogate characters like Shadowcat or Jubilee, you get the impression she might be on the road to full Carol Danvers-level powers, but she ain’t there yet, honey.

Nightcrawler: mein freund, I could talk about the coolness of Nightcrawler – his design, his accent, his powers, the way he reconciles his faith with the world he inhabits and the prejudice he’s faced – but let’s just distil it to its essentials. Like Magneto, he has one of the greatest, coolest, most impressive comic book movie scenes of all time; the opening of X2. I still have no idea how they did that twenty years ago.

Gambit: his girlfriend may be called Rogue, but Gambit is a rogue; a loveable cad, a jack-the-lad type, a gambler and a grifter and someone with – to coin a phrase – a lot of red in his ledger. I used to love his style (another cool coat!), his accent, his weird black eyes, and his brilliant relationship with Rogue. I really rooted for those guys, y’know? And then X-Men ’97 happens and – as my next mutant would put it – oh my stars and garters.

Beast: Kelsey Grammar is, I have to say, pretty spot-on casting for the officious, academic, and loquacious Hank McCoy; although I don’t think he quite captured his sense of fun. However, the definitive Beast – and still the voice I hear in my head – is George Buza. He’s smart and funny; of course I gravitated towards him as a nipper. Shout out to tomorrow’s Lex Luthor, Nicholas Hoult, who gives Hank a good deal of pathos in the First Class era films.

[rebellum]

Nonbinary people arent the only ones who get to be funky little freaks about gender

Yes!!! This! This so much!!

A selection of nice genders: cowboy (also a horse guy), cowgirl, those old ladies that only wear 1 colour they really love, devoted husband, devoted wife (okay this one is LOADED but it IS one so I'm including it OK?), horse guy (but the weird rich kind that like polo), Steve erwinesque (animal lover, science educstor), car guy, 1990s dolphin girl, goth woman/man, goddess, goddess^2 (gnc/trans goddess whose life and personality portrays the divinity inherent to transness), leather daddy, leather dyke, lesbian (so many subtypes), gay (so many subtypes), stereotypical slutty fem bisexual man (I love you), farmer joe, cult leader man (again, loaded), rennaissance man/woman, fairy but in a queer way, white guy named tyler/ben/taylor/mark with square glasses and shaggy brown hair who enjoys video games and computer science*, bulldyke (I love you)

*and the often sequel: trans fem who is super into computers who used to be one of those guys

I may fully be a binary man but in the same way as gomez addams is fully a man (gender subclass: husband (my love of my not yet wife and my general devotion to the women I love is a part of my sense of gender))

I think that being Just A Man And Nothing Else At All is also something that comes with variation and unique relationships to gender and all the spicy stuff that the patriarchy hates.

I'm a man, and I'm also like, horse guy/nerd/academic/artsy/faggy subclass, or whatever. And every cis man at this horse show I'm at right now (most of the attendees) fucking hates me for my tboy swag, even though I am Also a horse guy (I didn't bring the cowboy hat or the big buckled belts bc I didn't wanna wear felt hat and fucking jeans in 100 degrees. I'm just a bad person I think)

anyway point being that "binary man" just means "not nonbinary", but nonbinary people aren't the only ones who get to be funky little freaks about gender.

you are Gomez Adam Man Gender and that's cool as hell dude you don't need to qualify your unique relationship to manhood. everyone should have one of those.

[homunculus-argument]

It feels strange to me that apparently anime community being heavily queer and female isn't universal. Like just trying to word this in a way that doesn't sound insane is difficult, if you go to an anime convention in Finland, you're going to see a shit ton of gay kids, roughly as much as cosplayers. Like if you had a venn diagram of "AFAB teenager whose gender you can't tell on sight" on one circle, and "cosplayers" on the other, like 60% of the attendees are going to be in both. Well over half of people cosplaying male characters are either crossdressing or trans boys. Someone learning about binding and discovering gender euphoria through cosplaying as a guy is an insanely common story.

You could walk into one of those crowded convention halls and not spot a single Y chromosome in the room, and that doesn't even register to you as anything unusual. Like this one time I went to a convention and saw someone dressed as a pirate, and my first thought was "huh, that's a remarkably tall woman". My second thought was, "that's some really impressive fake beard". My third thought at the sight of this person was "wait hold on, shit, that's actually a cis man."

It's genuinely weird to me to think that there are places in the world where the mental image that emerges in peoples heads at the words anime convention isn't a bunch of rainbow-coloured, neurodivergent kids sitting on the grass outside of a convention-centre having fun finally encountering peers.

[sa2sugu]

do you have a fav character in blue period??

yessss a blue period ask ₍₍ (ง ˙ω˙)ว ⁾⁾ i can’t really pick a favorite but i guess yatora and yuka stood out to me. yatora because he’s both very pragmatic about his goals but he also gets all consumed by art. obviously we walk through his art process because he’s the main character but the way he “solved” the uni entrance exam was very exciting to me and like i can tell he’s going to have a few breakdowns at uni for sure because the rigidity of college applications is lifted and he’ll be put in a very different environment. and we see how through his love for art he himself becomes a better person and how it influences the people around him as well (like koigakubo’s decision to apply for pastry school). simply doing the thing you’re passionate about and giving it your all can be an inspiration for others, no matter how insignificant it seems and i think yatora’s character development portrayed this very well. and most of all, yatora gets you invested in his growth as an artist. in the first season he is applying for uni so we see him acquire the technical skills but don’t really get to see him with any artistic freedom. so i’m excited to see where he takes his art once he has that newfound freedom and the responsibility that follows it.

yuka, goes without saying, is one of the most interesting characters in the show. gender nonconforming characters, especially trans women and men/boys who are femme, are ridiculed to the point where their entire point is to serve as comedic relief. so it really was a breath of fresh air to see yuka being treated seriously and we delve into their narrative quite intensely and honestly quite beautifully as well. yuka’s arc felt like a sincere coming of age story of a complicated gnc character, and i loved the way their art (the art that they actually wanted to make) coincides with their character development. i felt that there was a lot of respect for the character in the way they were written. and i want to address this now that i’m talking about them but i got several messages after asking not to refer to yuka as a “femboy” and these messages annoyed me so much i deleted them all. regardless of whether yuka identifies as a gay/bi man or a non binary person or a trans woman, the term “femboy” itself has a history of being a derogatory term to refer to trans women and i think it’s so funny that people HAVE to use that word for a rare character whose sexuality and gender is treated seriously for once in anime. anyway the episode where yatora and yuka go to the beach was literally one of the favorite scenes ive seen in all anime it was so goooood.

also i really like hashida’s character design i go bananas when it comes to guys with long braids but PIGTAIL braids just can’t be topped. i like maki too because i felt her narrative was realistic. oh and i love mori’s artwork, i think it was a very interesting choice to have yatora’s first artistic inspiration as someone who creates religious art

[istherewifiinhell]

reading progress: chapter 157

highlights (this book is my coworker now at least its pulling its weight edition)

144 all the drama about whose the strongest & hankim just owt what a laff. well about time to kill ya i think

yjh conflicted feelings abt kdj every time hes in strife ouagh

I do love the body swap take a load off buddy times

'but i wasnt the normal yjh' -> yjh cant come to the phone right now why cause hes dead consciousness isnt in control right now

dunno how to describe kdj attitude with nirvana other than 'dick swangin'

145 the fourth wall can eat now... (coping with frankly the most horrific scene this book has had for me)

146 unfortunately meta part of being on ch 146 of 550 is kdj is 'dead' and im just like omg ppl are telling this story are they <.<

god everyone is so sad about it tho. kdj what a shit

GOD why does yjh look upset!?! its a fucking mystery dokja

DEAD KDJ: The Hottest Commodity on the star stream

147 yeah yeah weve all seen the greek god family tree

goddesses who rip up homosexuals? Uriel SAYS WHAT??? JESUS CHRIST BOOK (cultist of Dionysus usually ripped up animals, i think goats, maybe pigs?, if you even care)

148 SWK!!! BABY BOY

god your so bad at reading yjh. why hes so upset WHO KNOWS (im not starting a counter for having that exactly note but u get it)

149 COPYRIGHT?

150 your just moving into a nebula together huh... uhauling...

eheh they are holding hands tho

152 wait is min jiwon dead -> terrified of the first significant and lasting character but given the genre idk if thats even a thing

record scratch... is kdj ugly cause his face has a perception filter

153 shin yoosung is his fucking daughter T_T

HSY + YJH epic sharing a boyfriend moments

155 blegh trans misogyny time i see

lhs: im just gonna keep grabbing you so i know ur still alive okay -> T_T

157 giving the demon earl yjh name is such a bitchy move. also. weird gay thing

rotating: trying to do anything other than the christian yaoi.... okay like the kdj schemes that leave everyone really grieving him for a week. thats hey dude. also his new "big constellation energy" he was already cocky... but okay lemme try and open the gate at least a little on nirvana. no i dunno just jesus fucking shit. the immortal versus mortal angst. in the philosophical sense. is always a pretty strong theme. definitely curious if this is just a domino for a further. something. also why didnt i note this.. but line smth like "no human can maintain philosophical outlook when facing death" pretty raw line and definitely an interesting position to take.

also in term of real rpm factor. like. as the notation frequency shows. yhj.... oh this man. far be it from me to be 1/4th thru a book and be like. oh im gonna have my own little interpretation of him. but i will be sitting in my little corner with my very specific reading on his behaviour thus far and ill just live like that. ill gladly wait for the irony to smack me in the face if im proven wrong. anyway this man is swooning and being romanced (unintentionally) by an idiot and i feel for him.

[sigynpenniman]

Julian Bashir Playlist Time!!

Apple Music playlist (if you're a heathen and subscribe to apple music like me) here

I know that there's plenty of people making playlists, but I really feel like this is an under-utilized brand of fan content. Instead of attempting to create a list of songs that Julian would listen to, or a playlist of songs which were all lyrically directly applicable (though there certainly some of those in here) regardless of genre, I tried to create something which captured, above all, his vibes instead, by choosing songs that balance at least somewhat relevant lyrical content with the energy or feel that I associate with the character. What it means matters, but not as much as how it makes you feel. That said, I signed up for apple music and read a TON of those overwrought iTunes store album review descriptions while I was making this, so I have a whole lot to say about all my choices here. In depth explanation of my symbolism and methodology behind each song under the keep reading. (I love tumblr. I want to write 1,000 words of analysis about why I picked songs to represent Julian Bashir and some of you are gonna read it. This is where I get to pretend to be one of those iTunes music writers. I feel joy.)

Good Morning - Two Door Cinema Club TDCC's Gameshow is high on my favorite albums of all time list for nebulous reasons I myself don't really understand. It was this album, though not this song (but one that will pop up later) that actually inspired me to make this playlist to begin with, as for some reason, from the color scheme of the album cover, to the overall vibe, to the ever-present references to illness, injury, surgery and healers in the lyrics, the whole thing feels inescapably Julian to me. And with an opening like I'm a sinner/I'm the victim/I'm an alien when I'm myself/I'm a healer/I'm a fixer/I'm a present danger to my health/I'm so strong/Doing what I'm supposed to do/ There's something wrong/With somebody like me, it's hard NOT to think about Julian when you hear this song, and I can't think of a better way to start this off.

Sweater Weather - The Neighbourhood I think there's a joke somewhere about bisexual people all liking Sweater Weather, and yeah, I resemble that remark. Sweater Weather is just good. You'll notice there's a sort of chill-indie-alt-electronic thing going here, and that is very much the vibe I'm sticking with. Sweater Weather slots in beautifully, both sonically and thematically. As the singer looks to warm and protect the person he's with from the cold, you can't help but feel a loving coziness coming off of this one. It always makes me feel cozy, at least, so it's here.

Gooey - Glass Animals I have nothing to analyze here because the artists themselves have said that the lyrics of this song have no meaning, they're just meant to capture a vibe, and capture it they do. Close your eyes and ride the vibes of this one. The energy is right, I love it, it belongs here.

Blue - Mika I could probably write a couple hundred words on Blue alone, in any context. This might be my beloved Mika's magnum Opus. Opening the song with the inherently counterintuitive lyric Blue is a feminine color, Mika manages to pack it ALL into this 3 minute song: questions about gender; concepts of sadness, joy, and their intersections; of the perception of melancholy as a flaw and loving people despite, or maybe because of, those "flaws" and anything else about them; a powerful first person reassurance that made me start weeping in my car the first time I heard it; just the phrase "why are humans cruel to you." And oh boy, ARE there questions of gender. Why is blue NOT considered a feminine color? Is that a good thing, a bad thing? In 3 minutes of artful poetry, Mika manages to wrap up sadness, love, joy, pain, the feminine that exists within the masculine and the masculine that exists within the feminine, in the simple color of blue and then, in one lyric, validates it all. And on a much simpler and more obvious note, this is in fact all a philosophic musing on the symbolic meaning of the color we see Julian wearing almost all the time (when he's not in uniform, almost all his civvies are also shades of blue.) I feel like this is one of those songs that's hard to analyze because it does what music and poetry does best - communicate something that cannot be communicated any other way. With these broad themes of loving others around the things they can't love about themselves, you can decide for yourself if this one is coming FROM Julian or directed AT him, either works. I find myself struggling for exactly the words to explain this one, but listen to it; you'll understand.

Little Dark Age - MGMT Another choice with no obvious lyrical relevance, but the tonal fit was just too good to pass up. The vibes pass.

The City - The 1975 This song is one of several present because it leans on medical symbolism to get its point across, though I would be lying if I said I fully understood what that point was. But the entire second verse, apparently about the song's subject suffering from some kind of illness and reassuring him that the next one's the M.D./You'll be feeling just fine, seems somehow to transmit the discomfort of illness directly to the listener. I don't know how or why, but the effectiveness of the empathy the second half of this song elicits, in me at least, puts it squarely in the "odd medical vibes" category.

Surgery - Two Door Cinema Club THIS is the song that inspired this whole playlist, mostly because of its title and general vibe. Another example (of many) of medical/anatomical references in this album (another of the songs is called Fever, etc), this song just feels like Julian to me.

The Other Side Of Paradise - Glass Animals I really like Glass Animals. That is probably becoming obvious. Aside from its delightfully cohesive vibes, this song opens with what's simultaneously the slyest and most brazen gay lyric I have heard on the radio recently, as the male singer says When I was young and stupid my love left to be a rock and roll star/HE told me... The song seems to be about a man whose male lover left him in pursuit of fame and fortune, and eventually ends up with a woman, leaving the singer behind. It's got simultaneously subtle and obvious gay themes, it's got confused love affairs, it's got so much bisexual energy. I cannot think of anything that could be more Julian.

Sit Next To Me - Foster The People Kind of like Sweater Weather, this whole song is built around a rather cute and sweet "sit next to me," and you can't help but feel a bit warm and cozy when you listen to it. I think it pairs with sweater weather well, and slides in with the rest of the picks very nicely.

Nothing Better - The Postal Service (the original band of the lead singer of Death Cab For Cutie) Another example of heavy surgical symbolism, the very first lyric of this song is Will someone please call a surgeon. This is actually a duet, and the singers speak of their real hearts to represent their emotional ones. Something about Your heart won't heal right if you keep tearing out the sutures always gets me and always will. And it vibes good. It vibes so, so good.

&Run - Sir Sly Sir Sly's &Run is my favorite song for driving too fast. It does an amazing job of musical onomatopoeia, talking about running while making you want to run. It's a song about running out of plans and running as far as you can instead, which is all very "I'm illegal by definition so I went to the farthest possible reaches of space." And like everything else here, it just feels good. It's also one of the only highlights here that I can actually see Julian listening to.

Cosmic Love - Florence and the Machine It's no coincidence that it seems like most of us who are invested in Julian Bashir are some flavor of genderqueer, be it trans, nonbinary, questioning, or something else entirely - the man's got a Gender with a capital G, and there's a whole lot going on in there. Between the words that were written for him on the page, and the words that were actually spoken, and the way he carries himself, Julian always seems caught between the white, western, and frequently toxic masculinity that the writers often seemed to want to imbue him with, and the very different, racially and culturally distinct masculinity Sid actually brought. But there's an undeniable element of the feminine in Julian too, at least by a traditional definition. The presence of this part of him at all, much less the fact that, in-universe, it's the more traditionally "feminine" parts of himself - the caregiving and nurturing aspects - that Julian seems proudest of or to like most about himself, is a large part of what makes his character so interesting, at least to me. So there was no way I was getting out of this without acknowledging that somehow, and I can't think of a better way to acknowledge a complicated relationship with the feminine side of one's own gender than with this world's own Celtic divine feminine, Florence Welch. I can't think of any better artist, at least that I know of, to represent femininity as a nonspecific ethereal goddess-concept. I basically spun the wheel of Florence here, as anything would have worked, but Cosmic Love felt very appropriate for a character who does in fact live in space. There could even be some Garashir in here, I think.

Dream Sweet In Sea Major - ミラクルミュージカル, or Miracle Musical, a sister act made up of members of Tally Hall I also couldn't leave off without acknowledging Julian's affection for classic lounge music, especially since it's the only thing about his taste in music that we actually know. But instead of tacking on some rat pack, instead I'm polishing this off with the incredibly chaotic and somehow also perfectly cohesive and calm Dream Sweet in Sea Major. It's got all of the vibes of a lounge singer but gone completely off the rails, which just seems perfect somehow. And it's also a very nice feeling to be left with, so it seems only right to put it at the end.

and if you've read all of this, I love you. Y'all didn't know I was this into music did you. but I am. oh boy. I AM.

[gryficowa]

In Poland, pop culture is strange, and I have lived in this country since I was born, well, at least women in short hair in movies and series are everyday life, worse with gay characters in movies who are like a couch of life from the musical Beetlejuice (It's about characteristic behavior)

A common theme in Polish romantic comedies (Apart from stalking and such absurd situations that even I, as a person with a phase on the musical Beetlejuice, do not understand) is a gay friend who is a fashion expert and other crap (Alexa from a certain browser game), okay, I don't mind a gay man like fashion, but the problem is that in Polish films this theme is even abused (which means that the creators see homosexuals in this way, in the sense of gays, as women in a man's body, I cannot explain it, because you have to see it to understand it)

For some reason my country fell in love with this genre too much and probably every other movie is of this genre (Apart from Vega's films, whose films are a massacre, because instead of focusing on characters, it tries to create controversy, okay, for some it can be strong but it gets boring over time, and the characters swear more than I do when my laptop turns off when I play minecraft)

We seem to have series like " Świat według Kiepskich" but many episodes from this show didn't age very well, an example would be the episode where Ferdinand and his son found some kind of helmet (Or a cap, I don't remember) that makes them invisible, at some point he breaks down, but the father about I don't know it and you know what I want to do? Harass random women on the bus… it got really bad old plus is he gets beaten up but that doesn't change the fact he molested women on the bus

The only good show is "Miodowe lata" which may be licensed from some old American series, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a good series (The creators of The Flintstones were based on the series that was just licensed by the Polish version, there was something with copyright, but who cares?)

Whereas the memic has become "Klan"

because of how this series was bad (Looking logically, he was also ableistic, because one of the characters is a boy with Down syndrome and what's wrong with him is … I don't know how to comment on it, okay? His character has become a meme, because the creators gave a lot of action with his character, backstage it was not interesting with this actor, he believed that what is happening on stage is his real life and he is too concerned about the death of a character on the show, in the sense that he thought the person who acted died)

And probably in the series "M jak miłość" character died by driving into cardboard boxes (Kind of an aneurysm, but well, it really looked like driving into cardboard boxes killed her) and that also became a meme

Usually memes become Polish para-documents, because they are so bad that the very fact of creating such something is something unusual, it's like watching "The Room", but in the form of a series with different characters, they even created furras once, the problem is that they were running in pajamas (You know, pajamas with animal features) and there dude said, that it has an animal element (?), this episode is comedy gold, the beginning seems like a typical episode of a para-document, and suddenly my father makes a strange noise and says that he always had an animal element in him, I greet the furras who read this and they have the following: What?

Polish cabarets are only interested in boomers, so I will not mention them, but a Polish TV station has become memical (Yes, it's about this station with a trans-species deer), when you start to listen to it, you feel as if you are sitting in a different reality, then after just such a departure in what is said there, that only those on foil caps are equal in this (Or the historical sewers after midnight)

There are also some celebrities and politicians (Including the president, who is as you see it, yes, it's about Duda, he pissed me off with the text "LGBT is not people, it's ideology", which made me become more interested in politics, because even with little knowledge, I knew that what he was saying was not very cool)

Let's not forget about the Pope (known as "Yellow Mouth" in Poland), who became a caricature of himself (In the sense, people loved him so much that the young generation started to meme it to piss off boomers, now these memes are seriously absurd, sometimes they have pedophile humor, on the Polish version of FB, in the sense of some person from Poland, fed up with "Politically Correct FB" created a page called ablicia, guess who the most was there, yeah popes got funny in its stupidity, the page that was supposed to be the new FB was taken over by an army of popes, they didn't play in any comedy) and some time ago, the minister of education announced that that will increase the number of classes on this particular pope, I can already imagine what memes from the alpha generation will arise

In Poland, there is a cult of the number 2137, the Pope died at this time, and seriously, it is so trivial that it's ridiculous, that's why this number is used in the form of a joke (Like 69 or 666)

[mx-shirogane]

Persona 4 and LGBTQ+

Ah yikes, an opinion piece. These are just my thoughts and I’m more than open to hearing other people’s opinions and thoughts on the matter. 

When I first found the Persona Fandom, I was introduced by Game Theory. Not the “Teddie is Yu’s Shadow” video, rather their video on LBGTQ+ represention in video games. MatPat threw around the word “Persona” and as someone who was just learning about the LGBTQ+ community, I became interested in what I thought to be a game with character development around sexuality and gender identity. While I can understand Kanji’s shadow being used as an example for this in their video due to Persona 4 being recent and how it appears at a first glance, I think a better example would have been Jun and Tatsuya from Persona 2: Innocent Sin. In this post I’ll be covering Yosuke, Kanji and Naoto.

Sexuality, Kanji and Yosuke: From the beginning, there were created issues with the idea of Persona 4 being an LGBTQ+ game, this was with Yosuke being removed as a romance option. Had they kept him as a romance option, I personally feel they could have explained his behaviors as internal homophobia and suppression of his own feelings for the protagonist. However, with this removed, Yosuke’s cracks at Kanji’s sexuality lack the reasoning of insecurity and projection and instead comes across as ignorance and fear. The anime made no attempt at fixing this, having more negative connotation around Kanji as the party is hesitant to save him. Another scene that comes to mind is the camping trip, where Yosuke asks if they’ll be safe alone with him. In the anime, the protagonist also joins in on this interrogation. Kanji’s clearly uncomfortable as he eventually runs off to sleep in the girl’s tent at an attempt to defend himself. In the game, Yosuke does express concern for Kanji as he fears he might be expelled. This at least shows that Kanji is a friend regardless of the feelings Yosuke harbors towards his sexuality. This exchange portrays Yosuke as quick to flip sides from being worried about Kanji to worried for Kanji and still maintains their friendship. This does have a bit of karma as Chie insinuates the same thing when the girls sneak into their tent. Where as in the anime, Yosuke and the Protagonist just watch Kanji leave and there are no later comments made on the matter. Overall, Kanji’s homosexuality becomes more of a punchline than a sexual orientation and was more so fueled by hyper-masculinity and Naoto. A later scene in the game that shows his perception change of Naoto from male to female is during the group date cafe when describing his ideal girl and Yosuke calls him out sarcastically for being obvious. During this same event, if you choose to be on the girl’s side, you have a few options. If you pick Yosuke, he’ll freak out but then begin flattering himself, the protagonist noting that he seems “proud for some reason.” Meanwhile if the protagonist picks Kanji, Yosuke will note that they’re a perfect match to which Kanji refuses and even threatens Yosuke if he keeps bringing the matter up. Instead of there being any snarky remarks following from Yosuke, he compliments Kanji saying it’s due to his manliness which Kanji does take well. This could come across as Yosuke trying to protect himself, however his remark is more positive than that in the tent and does signify a growth towards trying to understand. If you sit on the guy’s side and ask if Yosuke likes any of the guys, he’ll respond saying the protagonist before stuttering and calling him out for making him play along. With factors like Naoto’s reveal taken into account, Kanji’s shadow becomes less focused on his sexuality and more so on bullying and hyper-masculinity. As for Yosuke, he comes across as ignorant and fearful. Had he remained a romance option, this could have been played off as an internal conflict Yosuke was dealing with and projecting onto Kanji.

Gender Identity and Naoto: I’ll be using They/Them pronouns to refer to Naoto. Naoto Shirogane was originally thought to be a male which greatly fueled Kanji’s Shadow. However, Naoto’s arc referred more to sexism in the work place and their struggles with being a child detective and idolization. Side note: Props to Kanji in the shadow scene for realizing Naoto had to confront their shadow in order to stop hurting. After the fight, Yukiko asks Naoto if they dislike being a girl and if that’s the reason they dress like a man. Naoto responds saying their sex doesn’t fit their ideal image of a detective and notes that the police department is a male-oriented society. They express that if anyone knew Naoto was biologically female, they wouldn’t be needed anymore. Kanji and Yukiko both make remarks on this, Kanji saying that they didn’t know how others would react, and Yukiko remarking that Naoto didn’t want to become an adult or a boy. This is followed by Naoto saying “What I should yearn for... No, what I must strive for isn’t to become a man. It’s to accept myself for who I really am...”  From this point on, Naoto is referred to with female pronouns terminology, even by their close friends. While Naoto continues wearing the male uniform, they say it’s what they’ve become comfortable in and are show to be generally shy about their body, key examples being in the bath house and the beauty contest. My opinion on how to portray them as LGBTQ+:  These are small notes on how I would portray and shape them based on contradictions and hints in the game.  Yosuke: Have Yosuke identify as bicurious. It’s cannon that he likes girls and there are scattered remnants of him liking the protagonist littered throughout Persona 4 and the other spin offs. His internal conflict over liking guys as well as girls could prove to be an interesting story premise when done properly. As well, him projecting his insecurities onto Kanji would shift his character from being ignorant and fearful to being insecure about his own feelings and not knowing how to deal with them. If you want to have someone in Yosuke’s life that shaped his views on homosexuality, create someone like a friend, parent or even bully who caused him to see homosexuality in a negative light. Try to avoid having him instantly fall in love with the protagonist and present more of a struggle as to figure out what’s right and what’s wrong. Even if you end up having him identify as straight in the end, allow for some wiggle room for experimentation due to the small hints throughout the games.  Kanji: Have Kanji identify as pansexual and focus his shadow around him questioning his sexuality and not hyper-masculinity. Keep in the fact Kanji was called queer by female students because he liked cute things and knitting. This would serve as a starting point for him questioning his sexual orientation. However, when it comes to his shadow, have the repressed self trying to figure out who he likes whether it’s guys, girls or if sex just doesn’t matter instead of flat out calling him gay. That way, when it comes to the reveal of Naoto, his entire shadow arc doesn’t get cancelled out.   Naoto: Have Naoto identify under the transmasculine umbrella. As much as I love Trans!Naoto in fanworks, Naoto does say that they should strive to be true to themselves and that what they want wasn’t to become a boy. Transmasculine, acording to the nonbinary wiki, is an umbrella term that refers to those who were assigned female at birth, and whose gender is masculine and/or who express themselves in a masculine way. Transmasculine people feel a connection with masculinity, but do not always identify as male. This way, you can still have Naoto identify as male for the first majority of the game and have the shadow reveal Naoto felt pressured by the police force to negate any feelings they had and portray themselves as strictly male. They said themselves that both their parents were detectives, which contradicts Naoto saying that they’d get tossed aside if the department knew they were biologically female. Focus less on their age and have the repressed feelings focus on how they felt like an outcast for not fitting in the gender norm which contributed to an anxiety of shutting people out and obsessing over masculine stereotypes as an attempt to fit in. Naoto identifying as masculine would allow for more wiggle room in terms of pronouns and the variety of honorifics used (Chie and Yukiko use Kun, Rise, Yosuke, Kanji and the Protagonist don’t use any, and Teddie uses Chan) whilst further supporting Naoto’s preference for masculine clothes and body insecurities, mainly their chest.