#i'm something else. i'm butch.

[scorndotexe]

people referring to me as a man because i use he/him pronouns is equally as annoying as people referring to me as a woman because i'm a lesbian. gender is just one cage disguised as two.

[moe-broey]

Had. An extremely funny vision to revamp Moe's staff.

The design isn't super final, I can never really decide how I want the accents to look... trying to keep them in line with how the Askr trio's weapons look. Especially the signature color magic glow that's present in their special arts!!!

Anna has it too!!!!! You just don't see it bc her art gets cut off in game. Also, additional image bc you don't see the handle v well in her special.

Which is why, here, the green gem is most prominent on Moe's weapon.... geen....... idk if I'm keeping the other ones that look like the summoning circle orbs. It was just something I wanted to try out!

BUT. BUT. The Main Idea here is that Moe added its own touch to the staff. Yeah, the dangly halo was a Neat idea, but this concept is just so much funnier to me..... says SO much about Moe as a character... it is ALWAYS. Making and customizing things. I can also see Moe using the carabiner practically as well! Now, I wonder why it held onto those two feathers in particular... 🤔

[hikayunas]

yuna should use her rich girl privileges to spoil hikaru, i think.

taking hikaru out shopping with her, using her father's money to buy expensive perfumes for herself, very nice cologne for hikaru. a variety of different scents, each on their own outside of hikaru's price range, that she'd never be able to buy if she were out shopping by herself or with her parents -- but yuna covers the cost and buys them for her, just so that she has something nice. even makes sure that each of hikaru's new colognes matches up nicely with a perfume that yuna is either buying or already has on her dresser.

(hikaru is carrying all of the shopping bags, of course.)

buying high-end lipstick and 'testing' it with hikaru, later, in her room, with kisses -- lips or arm -- to see if it rubs off or smudges, and doing this with each new shade, just in case one could possibly be faulty.

regularly having hikaru over for the night and washing her hair with the same nice shampoo and conditioner that yuna uses to keep her own hair so sleek -- being especially thorough if hikaru's had a long day or is particularly dirty or sweaty. brushing and combing out any knots or tangles (and just a little bit of affectionately combing her fingers through it) to keep hikaru's hair in as good condition as her own.

having a rich girlfriend has benefits 🐯

[morrizarek]

@xtreme-cringe You'd appreciate this, I think.

[smile-files]

i have no desired answer for this!!!!! don't feel pressured to pick an answer based on what my gender actually is :)

responses will inevitably depend on what way you've interacted with me: have you been a long-time follower of mine, or are you new? or did you find this poll by chance, and don't even follow me? are we mutuals or online friends? do you frequently engage with my chatty text posts? have you heard my voice, talking or singing? do you know what i look like and how i dress? do you know which characters i kin? etc.

like all people i'm interested in how i come off to people, so if anything this is just a way for me to get a sense of that lol :P

[whatudottu]

...So yeah turns out I was lying in the tags butch Bulkhead actually gave me inspiration for t-swag Breakdown??? Inspired entirely by big naturals (not that you can tell) I did this in like... 30 or 40 minutes??? Never doubt the power of a butch I learnt that!

Look at this and tell me he’s not canonically trans I swear to god (projecting)

[yoshistory]

part of me still feels like i might be sort of genderfluid and/or bisexual but just traumatized about it. no idea anymore

[dykefever]

what should i go as for halloween (<- guy who has no plans for halloween)

[killerchickadee]

Since I've been working 50 hours every goddamn week I have a tiny bit of extra money. I was thinking of buying myself something fun but I've been wearing the same boots every single day for nearly 3 years now and uh. They're not doing so hot. Today whatever holds the steel toe up was loose and every time I took a step I could feel it. Which is not only uncomfortable but possibly dangerous.

So guess I'm shelling out $125 for new boots.

[my-balls79]

my mother was ranting at me again, the following is paraphrased: “the fact that you never do anything, can’t manage to do your school work and you can hardly take care of yourself tells me that you are a LAZY person” yes, mother, i am lazy, how could you tell? you do not even know the full extent of it, would you believe that i’m also too lazy to derive pleasure out of anything? would you believe the amount of times i’ve nearly killed myself because i am too damn lazy to be alive? i’m well aware of my laziness. fucking cunt.

[frogpillowpet]

My gender is so fucking performance.

[artemismatchalatte]

Now that NaNoWriMo is over, boy do I have a lot of editing to do. And reading to catch up on. I might have finished 1 or 2 books during the entire month of November because I was so focused on writing and school. 

I’m currently at 79/90 books for this year. And I kind of want to reach that goal. I did not read 75 books last year (I got to 70 books). I used to do 100+ a year but I also wasn’t in grad school and read a lot more manga and YA lit. I don’t really read much of either of those genres any more. Occasionally, I do but nowhere near as much as I used to. I’ve mostly been leaning more into classic lit, nonfiction, and historic fiction lately. 

[vamptastic]

kind of annoying to see people go yeah i guess there isn't a lot of feminist literature written by or about trans men, maybe somebody should change that. Not you though, you're bad at it

[genderqueerdykes]

i have been trying for like. months to explain how the relationship between butch lesbians and trans men is not something akin to polar opposites and this is all i got. like it's not like this:

it's a venn diagram with a massive overlap in the middle. i'm not saying EVERY butch is a trans guy and EVERY trans guy is a butch dyke , i'm just saying it looks more like this:

these are not "mutually exclusive" terms- they do not mean the same thing, but we can be the same people, an very often are. there is a long history of butches who identify as FTM, trans men, drag kings, genderqueer, genderfluid, transmasculine, male, polygender, and two-spirit lesbians, and so much more. the relationship between lesbianism and queer masculinity is inseparable and the only people telling you that butches and trans men need to violently separate from one another and be at each other's throats are terfs. even if we do not share identities, we share our struggle together as heavily misunderstood and unseen masculine queers.

we stand up for each other when our identities get confused by strangers, and we get misgendered. we stand up for each other when terfs and terfpilled people tell us that transmasculine people and men can't be lesbians, when people say "butches just want to be men", when people say "butches aren't real women", when people call each of us bull dykes and trannies, when people mock the way FTMs walk and talk and look, and when people tell trans men they're "just butch dykes in denial". we stand up for each other and understand each others struggles.

whenever a butch lesbian asserts they're a woman no matter how masc they are, whenever a trans man asserts that they are a man and not a butch, whenever a butch struggles to be seen as both a man and a lesbian, and whenever a trans man returns to the lesbian community while embracing their manhood, we are part of the same community, we share the same struggles, and we owe it to each other to stay strong.

we are not enemies. we are bedfellows, lovers, family, spouses, partners, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, siblings, friends, each others support networks, even if we don't share identities perfectly. whether you are butch and a woman, butch and a man, butch and something else entirely, a male, ftm, genderfluid, polygender, genderqueer, transmasculine, nonbinary, two-spirit or whatever else you may be lesbian, you are part of our family and your experience is worth being heard.

[the-haunted-office]

"Hmm, some of us like being flung into next week," Doom quips while looking at her phone and scrolling through it in search of a suitable option for them to attend. She has no idea what she's looking for, of course, which is why she calls him over in a moment.

She is still listening, though. "Sounds tedious. No hands involved, really? Sounds like people should be flying all over the place, but I'll take your word for it, cowboy, ehehehehe," she snickers, because the imagery is too funny in her mind. She's only seen rodeos on TV, and maybe been to one or two in her past life, but that was so long ago she barely remembers. Although none of this really holds any true interest for her, she still can't miss out on the opportunity to show off. It's in her nature. Not to mention Butch is there, and she's never going to admit that there's an inexplicable urge to show off for him. Annoying, but not something she can ignore either. She must do it and not back down, otherwise she'll be even more frustrated.

The phone going a bit nuts when Butch tries to use it doesn't bother her, though. She doesn't even blink, just uses her finger to correct it without missing a beat and scrolls back up to where she was.

His quick retraction gets an eyebrow raise out of her, though. "Are you sure? It's not gonna be some like, trash rodeo? Guess we'll know when we get there, eh? Then we can just burn the place down or something, ehehehehe. Let's see. Where is this place."

She actually has no idea. She's never been to this location before, so she can't just pop a portal directly there. She has, however, been nearby there, so she can get them close and then they can ride the rest of the way.

Putting her phone away, she grins at Butch. "Well, Butch, some good news and some bad news. This place we've picked out is not a place I've been to before, so I can't take us directly there via portal. However, the good news is, I can get us nearby, but we'll have to find our way there the rest of the way. You good with walking? Or would you like a little handy dandy transportation?"

“So long’s y’keep yer tweezers away from me, we ain’t got no problem.” Comes the cowboy response coupled with an indifferent shrug; his expression suggests her sarcasm is some level of amusing to him though.

Butch’s smile drops at the comment she makes and it’s hard to tell if she’s willfully misunderstanding him or not with the quickness in which she brushes past it. It’s enough to make his cheeks turn a little pink, if only because talk of his horns is involved.

“Wh— I wasn’t talkin’ ‘bout me.” He retorts bluntly, a dead pan stare lingering on her briefly. She may have already shut down the idea but he’s insistent, if only eager to share something he knows with Doomsday that she doesn’t know for once.

“Actually, I know there’s a sayin’ but ya wanna avoid grabbin’ th’ bull by its horns—that fucker’ll fling ya int’ next week! Th’ trick’s that it’s all in th’ hips,” he says, his hands patting at his own hips for emphasis. “F’ya know how t’ shift yer weight juuusss’ right while th’ bull thrashes, y’ain’t really even gotta hold on. Not with yer hands, anyway. Yer gonna wanna user yer knees an’ move with it.” The demon blooded cowboy explains, excited to be sharing information about something he’s passionate about with someone he found to be pleasant company.

He leans over to squint at the screen of her phone when prompted, an index hovering just above the screen as he tries to read the available search options for nearby. Only problem is, he doesn’t understand the format of what he’s looking at or why the some words are colored and others aren’t. Or why some text is bigger when it wasn’t necessarily a title. Or anything, really. It’s all jumbled together and he doesn’t know what exactly he’s supposed to be reading or looking at. He pokes the screen, prepared to ask a question, and it scrolls all the way down to the bottom of the page. Oh lord, it’s one of these…

“U-Uh—“ He retracts his hand quickly, thinking he’s messed up something on the screen. “Why don’cha jus’ read ‘em off t’me instead? My eyes ain’t too good,” Lies. “Better yet, th’ first one that popped up’ll do!”

[loriache]

Butch up that Elf: my Marcille manifesto

TBQH, this came into being because the Falin "dragoness" fanart rewired my brain completely. It's sillytimes, but we're going to make a serious argument: trying out being a little butch would Fix Her.

1. Marcille Gender Discomfort

Now, Marcille LOVES feminity. She loves playing dressup, she loves elaborate gowns, she spends her free time going to the spa - the absolute last thing I want is to deny that. However, there's also a definite vibe that this isn't just a preference. Specifically, the way that she pushes Falin towards femininity suggests that she isn't comfortable with gender nonconformity in the people around her.

If this was something she was 100% confident about ("I'm doing this for myself and nobody else!") surely what other people do wouldn't be a big deal? Of course, you can read this as a little bit of solipsism; "what works for me must work for you too! I think this is so cute and would suit you - wouldn't you agree?"

But for the sake of this argument, all I'm trying to suggest is that gender nonconformity (and probably sexual nonconformity... well, frankly, any kind of sexuality at all) is unlikely to be something that's on Marcille's "radar". She hasn't tried out other ways of presenting and decided she doesn't like them. I do think she'd be a very flamboyant butch - "ouji lolita" vibes, you know? It's a whole new set of wardrobe options she could play dress-up in, even.

After the story ends, she starts dressing like her mother in all black, which makes sense - her mother was also a court magician, so she's probably emulating her in order to project confidence and authority. But I can't say I think she should stick with this. Break away and be your own person, Marcille! Try a fancy waistcoat and frilled jacket!

2. Haircut

This is another potential hard sell, I'm sure. The people she loves doing her hair is a cute symbol of their care for her, and her hair is key to her magic - so there's plenty of reason for her to keep it long. But like... think practically. Having someone do your hair every morning, for the whole of her long life, while it gets messier over the day (because she can't remember to keep it neat)... That's got to be such a pain. My hair gets messy when I put a hoodie on. And I have short hair.

It would require her to go through a change of mind, and probably a little more growth in how secure she feels in her relationships, but - the hairdo's a symbol. The more important thing is the relationships themselves. Eventually I think there might be something liberating about cutting it off, even if she might eventually decide to grow it out again.

The lion, her trauma, took something away from her which was really important to her. The people around her are able to make that easier, and make up for it, and soften that loss, but... Mithrun isn't the person he was before, you know? He's a new person. The relationship he has with his brother is new, and I don't know if it's one that the person he was before could have had. If Falin hadn't died, they wouldn't have gone on that wonderful adventure! They wouldn't have met Senshi or saved Izutsumi and Laios and Marcille wouldn't have gotten so close. So I think it's totally congruent with the themes of the story that the burning away of this part of Marcille's self might eventually create the potential for new growth in a new direction, not clinging onto the parts that are gone.

This also isn't totally out of the norm for elven mages - both Otta and Flamela have short hair. Otta is canonically butch, and potentially Flamela reads that way to elves too, but the point is it clearly is possible to be an accomplished mage without long hair.

3. Desiring (to be) a chivalrous prince

Marcille's succubus is clearly General Halleus from her favourite book series, the Daltian Clan. The fact that this is her ideal man.... it certainly plays into readings of her as Not Straight. But at least, this conveys the way her conception of sex and romance is strongly idealised, dissociated from the bodily and from physical desire.

There are many ways to interpret that, including thinking about what types of desire this fixation is obstructing because she is not comfortable with it, but I am going to focus here on what this desire does signify. She likes the trappings of courtly romance, and is clearly comfortable putting herself in the role of the princess, being taken away on a white horse by a noble (but tormented; eyepatch has "death" on it lmao) prince. (Though I think he's actually the token male lead who isn't royalty; he's a General. There's always one in Romfan, lmao. IYKYK)

A kiss on the hand - this is so chaste, I think it's clear it's more about desire to play a role in a dynamic than it is about desire in a physical sense. There is undoubtedly a big part of Marcille that wants to be a beloved and chased-after princess, but I think it isn't at all impossible that she'd also enjoy being the powerful, cool, and chivalrous "prince" to someone (a pretty girl, perhaps) who needs her protection.

This is a little silly, because it's clearly just aping the shoujo artstyle that articulates basically the same idea as her succubus, that Marcille is attached to highly abstracted and idealised romantic (and Romantic) tropes and ideas. But the imaginary "successful" Marcille from chapter 4 looks quite similar to her succubus. (Another thing I noticed is that in the fantasy she has sharp ears... like full elves have. Despite what she says, I think the cultural messaging that this trait is "attractive" and hers are inferior got to her at least a bit. 😥)

Also, the way that she treats Falin, scolding her indulgently, trying to look after her and wanting to be looked up to and respected by her... that aligns more with the "masculine" role in the trope that her succubus is referencing. "What are we going to do with you...?" I can imagine her saying this to Falin, word for word. Whereas, if anyone real started talking down to her, even affectionately, I don't think she'd like it, given the negative way she reacts when people don't respect her or her skills. Especially after canon, given the way the Winged Lion was treating her.

Her attitude to Falin is partially down to her reluctance to acknowledge Falin as an adult, who is independent and can grow beyond her and leave her behind. But I think even as they move on from that unhealthy dynamic, Marcille is still going to get pleasure from feeling capable, reliable, able to look after and protect Falin. She'd like to pull the chair out for her in a restaurant on a date, you know?

4. Conclusion

Even after the growth she goes through during the story, there are parts of Marcille's character that are very much obstructed. Romance, sexuality, and gender, feel like one of those to me. The way that her discomfort with the messy origins of food betrayed a deeper, more significant discomfort with the cycles of life and death.

Much in the same way, I'd argue that the simplified, idealistic, and safely fantastical way that she views romance, as well as her very "safe" gender presentation and tendency to push it onto others as well, suggest an underlying discomfort in her own gender and sexuality. The character growth she goes through leaves her in a place where it may be possible to safely re-evaluate her relationship with Falin, as well as her choice of clothing and hairstyle, both things that go through a change at the end of the manga. Neither, I think, reach a sustainable stopping point that we see - there will be a point when it's more servants doing her hair than friends, just out of practicality, because they're all going to be so, so busy. The black clothing to copy her mum is cute, but once she gets some more self-confidence in her own skills as a court magician, I think she'll move on from it. And... who knows what direction her relationship with Falin will develop, over the years? I'm rooting for them, anyway.

In all those cases, I think moving outside of the things she's done before, into something really different from the things that are "safe" and expected, will be the most rewarding path for her. Like in the dungeon, things that she would initially reject were actually able to sustain her and broaden her tastes. She loves dressing up, looking after people, and "princely romance". So I say: Butch Marcille! It'll be good for her!!