#it happens to me a LOT when people learn im trans because i just look like a dude

[yael-art-den]

How the govermental worker looks at me when I tell them that I need to change my gender in these documents (but I look masculine ((therefore I must be a transgender woman (((so I must want to be Female ((((but the document already says F))))))

[sualne]

carnis au accidental [???] but i was thinking about mimic luffy wanting to get closer and closer to law, and i'd been thinking since i've made the au about how he'd want to see law's scars (already various scenes on how it could happen, written notes and all, don't know which to pick), and then the fact that he knows there's something carnis still in him.

so i was thinking of another scene where he's inspecting the scars on his face and they both very close but it's not the scars he's really looking at, he's searching for that carnis leftover and says maybe mostly to himself "It's still inside you. That's just so unfair. Why, just why couldn't it have been me?"

And jokingly is thought: This is it folks, I broke the code, this is about bottom dysphoria!

But then! I thought again, the au is about feeling otherized, isolated and monstrous and wrong. i've already strongly considered the idea of luffy's death as a suicide metaphor. the mimic has been thinking about socially detransitioning because it keeps getting accosted by creeps and assholes and knows that luffy would've fought back most of the time but also knows it's much stronger now and doesn't want to get caught, he needs to lays low, it doesn't want to cause a scene, it has to go stealth.

law hates the idea because it's not enough that it killed luffy now it has to just go and erase that important part of him of as well but the mimic insist, he's still a man, he'll just fake being a girl to make it easier. but law doesn't understand because to him the mimic is faking being a man, it's faking being a person, it's faking being luffy.

the reason the mimic wants to lay low is because it doesn't want to get caught so it can stay with law and study him, understand him. law doesn't knows that, he's too freaked out by the fact that's it's a mimic! that it killed luffy and might possibly want to kill him too! but the mimic feels a kind of kinship with law because of that remaining carnis in him.

remains he got from nearly dying, from losing his family, from an attack to another carnis. and i thought, law is meant to be reminiscent of mimics. he had to regrow his face, he's (as always) autistic and doesn't always act as expected, he's also paranoid even when he happens to be right, he's traumatized to the point of psychosis, the encounter changed him. it was meant as a parallel to how ppl like to think murderers&co are all mentally ill because they can't possibly be Normal Like Them, they must be different, they must not be human, they're obviously monsters. but those victims, those who get to survive, the trauma change them, they can acquire all sort of neurodivergences, and when those same Normal People learn that a person has some kind of The Scary Disorder they think "Oh, you're a monster too! You'll (inevitably) hurt someone!" which lead back to being otherized ect.

there's also something about how law didn't just get scars from his near death experience but also what's essentially a disease.

and then back to the mimic, who recognize itself in him, in that disease, but it isn't quite right, it's not enough and it's also nothing alike at all and also he's kind of jealous? it makes no sense to the mimic itself but he can't stop thinking about law either.

it's also how a monster that's linked to what is theorized to be something close to a hivemind accidentally developing a sense of identity and facing some sort of existential crisis over the fact that it can't ever escape it's monstrous nature and doesn't want to either. and that sound like, very much like being trans and cracking your egg and realizing you're fucked cause that sure is knowledge to have about oneself and also it's in the fictional 90s of a op carnis au so good luck with that.

anyway that's a lot of words and im not sure how to phrase the rest it's just, this was supposed to be a casual au where i went "OHOHO look at the Tragedy" but i thought about it too long and now i feel like i've ended up with a millefeuilles of overlaying themes and im, i means sure. can't draw All that tho so what now.

[tibby-art]

your grian is also what i strive to look like as a transmasc how has this happened to two separate people

anyways does your grian design just not care about gender roles and presents however she wants or do you not draw her more feminine since transfem grian isn’t the major head canon to avoid confusion?

i like learning about people’s lgbtq head canons XD

i think she just presents how she wants, yeah! i imagine she mostly wears more gender-neutral clothing like… sweaters, collared shirts, sweaters over collared shirts, lol. which is basically what most people’s grian designs already wear, i just enjoy exploring that character design concept in a slightly different direction i suppose? im certainly not the first person to hc grian as transfem, but i think for me it started when one day my friend sent me a drawing of grian i had done and joked that it looked just like our other friend who is transfem. it was funny bc it was true, but it made me realize i had a lot more fun drawing grian when i thought of the character as being transfem lol.

so as for why my grian isn’t super feminine, i think it’s also just because a lot of trans people i know personally tend to present similarly (that being, dressing more gender-neutral and not really worrying about gender stereotypes). that’s not to say all trans people present this way of course, just that i know a few folks that do! so i guess i enjoy drawing a character that reminds me of those around me. alternatively i know lots of transmasc people who enjoy dressing feminine as well and so on. for full disclosure i’m a trans man myself, so i don’t want to pretend i know everything about the transfem experience specifically, but i can at least relate to the trans experience overall o7

either way it makes me really happy that trans people on all wavelengths have been sending me messages saying that my grian gives them gender envy LOL. it’s really unexpected since i don’t draw grian as often as cub or scar for example, but it’s still really appreciated nonetheless :’)

[pillarsalt]

hi Im the same ex transmasc anon who sent you that aask about rhe tumblr ban thing, I did a lot of reading without forcing myself away this time. (I used to look at radblr sometimes bc I got curious, but when it started making too much sense i would make myself stop reading and tell myself I was being manipulated and try to forget about it..looking back that probably wasnt normal haha,)

I have mixed feelings tho. I don’t regret looking closer, the amount of sexism in the trans community was horrible. I think even radfems don’t understand how bad it was because it was all subtle styff. But seeing it constantly irl and online was terrible for me as a female. It gave me so much internalized misogyny, it made me hate myself and I felt worthless and stupid! and whiny! and annoying! all the time!! unless I was able to be perceived as a man. I felt like I had to be a man to have any respect in the community. I remember being so amazed to see abortion be covered by trans people I followed in even a reblog because it was the first time I saw people in the community talk about female issues at all. Even then it was covered with disclaimers and terfs DNI banners. male,opinions were always prioritized.

I thought this was dysphoria and a sign I was really a man. then I started reading radfem things and its like that feeling instantly lifted. I felt respected, listened to, even though I wasn’t speaking. It was also like all this stuff I’d internalized from being female, all the trauma around sex based oppression, was actually being addressed. in trans circles you get called a terf for acknowledging females face any kind of oppression (they acknowledge sex when it’s to talk about how hard male loneliness is on young trans women, and how the incel to trans woman pipeline happens, though…)

but the reason I have mixed feelings is bc I now feel….dumb? And afraid. And angry. I spend well over a decade being part of this community, half my friends are in the community, I’ve been trans since I was 9. My typings not the best… dyslexia sucks lol. But I like to think I’m smart. Now I don’t know,

And it makes me think totally different of these people I saw as progressive cis male allies, who were so loud about trans rights and hating JKR and terfs. Now they just feel like the same flavor of anti-feminist man I hate.

And the community is so huge and it’s so widely accepted and I don’t know how to deal!

But I am happy to be a woman now. In a healthy way I haven’t been for a long time. thats all that matters.

I'm sorry for everything you were put through. Many girls and women have been sucked into this thinking it will provide a solution for their distress at the social ramifications of the body they're born in, only for more people, namely men, to take advantage of their distress and gain power over them. As you mentioned, even "cis" men get in on the action when they justify intimidating and threatening women with violence in response to perceived transphobia. It's a terrible situation to be in. Made worse when you can't openly talk about with people you're close to for fear of alienating them.

I think you should give yourself more credit. You ARE smart. You questioned what you were told was never allowed to be questioned and realized you were being misled. And what you said about trying to make yourself forget the realizations you've had, that is normal. It's a difficult and scary thing to hold opinions that conflict with those of the majority of your peers. I think it's like the climax of cognitive dissonance -- when what you know is true clashes so hard against what you want to believe, you find it impossible to justify anymore, so you just resort to pretending you never learned the information in the first place. Been there.

I'm just being a stereotype now, but there's a classic Dworkin quote for this:

"Many women, I think, resist feminism because it is an agony to be fully conscious of the brutal misogyny which permeates culture, society, and all personal relationships."

Anyway my point is, don't beat yourself up. I'm really happy to read that you're accepting your womanhood, it's a hard journey but it's worth it to have a good relationship with yourself. And in my experience (at the sage and wisened age of 25) that it gets easier as you get older. You work through mistakes, and that prepares you to handle the next mistake better. You're right, your health and happiness is all that matters, keep striving for that and it will steer you right.

I wanted to give you some reading recommendations, you mentioned you have dyslexia but I believe these two are available in audiobook form if that's up your alley:

Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cordelia Fine

Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez

There are tons more great books on feminism but these two are my go-tos for hard facts on gender, socialization, and the systematic discrimination against women worldwide through biases that are built into society.

Well uh; TLDR thanks for gracing my inbox, anon :) Hope you keep well.

[hiroshotreplica]

im sorry you probably dont want this in your askbox but i dont really think it makes sense to talk about madness and leafi the same way for a lot of reasons. Idk maybe im just seeing a transgirl getting relentlessly dogpiled because of old screenshots and having an over-empathetic response but fuck man she was 13 when those screenshots were taken. Shes not even 18 right now shes crazy young for her level of play (like literally should be community banned for lying about being 13 for multiple years during splatoon 2 to get around discord community guidelines but thats a tangent). She said in her apology she was trying to fit in with a real shitty group of people she doesn't associate with anymore and fuck man im probably giving herself way too much grace cause i seeing a terrifying exaggeration of something i went through on a public scale but like people are editing HER face onto memes and talking shit about HER and constantly misgendering her when madness is not only an actual adult but has been ACTUALLY DOING THIS SHIT RECENTLY. im not saying the shit she was saying wasnt heinous but fuck man this isnt gonna help her and i dont want the dumass bullshit she said when she was a middle schooler to ruin the rest of her life. sorry for the white girl mental illness blast but there is important context in this ranty anxiety and projection goop

anon asked for a tldr for the situation w/ jackpot as a whole, which included leafi's part in the situation. as the post was about how jackpot as a team has made racist statements. i chose screenshots that put my point clearly, which just so happened to be screenshots with madness and leafi. i'll go more into it here, though

i did not mean to compare her to madness when including screenshots of her old statements. i was compiling the most blatant screenshots from the thread i had originally linked in a prior post. i was going to include other things, but didnt have the time to compile them and was beginning to get stressed about being the source of this info on tumblr.

i was also going to include this video of her saying racist statements in 2024, but i didnt want to include a twitter link for an anon that couldnt access twitter. im realizing i shouldve done so

i do feel bad for her getting involved with a group of people THAT bad if she was truly that ignorant when she was younger, but thats where my sympathy ends. she still acted racist and still associated with clearly racist people even when she was older and more mature. ive learned since making that post that she was born in 2007. 16 is still an age where you should be mature enough to understand that those comments are racist, even with america's shitty public education system glossing over racism.

i definitely see why this can look like people dogpiling on a trans woman though, and the people doing memes and editing her into them in general about this situation are disgusting. i had no idea she was trans and that people were misgendering her. anyone making this situation about her being trans are awful and not people i stand by.

but all of that, including her being skilled despite her age, still doesnt forgive or erase her actions. nothing like that does for the other members of jackpot that have also stated racist things. nothing like that does for any other comp splatoon player that has said anything similar. the apology she put out was needed, but from what ive heard from others, it wasnt the best. she is writing another apology, though, so it couldve just been rushed.

no one has to accept her apology, either. as a white person myself, im not one that should even be one to accept her apology. it wasnt an apology for me, and it isnt one for you, either (if you are white as you say but i might be misreading). people should not be painted in a negative light for not accepting her apology even if it were an amazing one.

the way some people are reacting to this situation is not okay, but she still did awful things that she should be held accountable for. the other guilty members of jackpot are not better than her, but theyve all still said fucked up things. none of them have done anything to prove they arent racist, and theres only more evidence coming out that proves that they have been, so its hard to process at the moment.

could things change? yes, of course, but as of right now, leafi has stated racist things as recent as 2024 and put out a poor apology trying to defend herself. people are handling it poorly and trying to make it about her identity and making memes on it when it is not the right thing to do. these racist claims are being put w/ other racist claims made by other jackpot team members so it was included in my tldr post about the entire situation.

i apologize for poor wording in this, im not the best w/ these kinds of posts

[4thenookie]

Hi hi i heard you wanted some headcanons!! As always this is /lh, not meant to be taken that seriously, agree to disagree, yada yada all that good jazz lmao. Most of them are pretty crack-y in nature as well, they're just meant for fun lol. And with that, I'll compile my miles long headcanon list into (mostly) sorted by character for everyone's convenience lmao

- starting off strong with trans EJ! Idk why but do headcanons really need a reason? (I do know why) (i like to make my blorbos suffer 💖) (and also [diverges your neuros] [transes your genders] [homos your sexuals]). Also biromantic asexual king

- more EJ because he's THE blorbo. Boy is british asf and he knows BSL and is learning ASL. Touch averse as well. I feel like EJ would actually be a decent if not great cook.

- EJ purring like a cat when he's content/happy? I think yes! Also has a tail with one of those tail tuft thingies? Kinda like lions if you know what i mean. And the pointy ears (peak character design yaknow)

- moving on. I feel like Jeff knows how to play an instrument. Probably electric guitar. He also has like a bajillion band t-shirts. Jeff also likes to take long, hot showers but hates to comb his hair lol

- while Brian cooks food so bad/raw it could as well just still be alive, Toby is either a great cook or a disaster in the kitchen with seemingly no indicator for which one it's going to be on any given day. I'm talking managing to burn a pot of water one day and cooking a michelen star worthy meal the next.

- Kagekao is actually fluent in English and speaks and understands it perfectly, he just refuses to speak it. He takes great amusement in watching other people lose their minds over this

- speaking of languages, i feel like Toby would be bilingual if not multilingual. He speaks English and German, maybe even Spanish if we're going the multilingual route

- also. Oh my god. The generational difference between BEN "memelord who quotes vines like there's no tomorrow" Drowned and Slenderman is just. I cant stop laughing thinking about it. Any given conversation between these two is just a gamble on who is going to lose it first

- BRVR is kinds Lost Silver's pet but also not really? Like he just kinda goes wherever but Lost Silver mainly takes care of him

- LJ he/it truther

- Me and a friend came up with this which probably explains why it is cracky as fuck but hear me out. Jeff as a makeup artist. He made Slender look like Beyonce once. No one knows how he did it and how he's not dead (the answer, as my friend said, is "no one can hate Beyonce")

- i feel like Toby, BEN, and Jeff would be like. The chaos trio. God knows what will happen when you put the three of then alone in a room together

- i also feel like Brian sunburns really easily.

- Tim is one of those dads that wants to leave in the middle of the night for road trips / holidays to avoid the traffic jams

Hope this makes even a bit of sense and i hope you enjoyed whatever my brain spewed at me lol if u ever wanna share more headcanons or talk about blorbos or share character slander (looking at Brian and LJ (affectionate)) feel free to dm me!! (I dont mind i promise lol /lh)

hi!!!!!!!!!!!!! omg these are so so so real thank you for sharing them with me!!!! ill go into some more detail under the cut :)

to be honest, i can kinda see trans ej being real now that you mention it, ill definitely think about that a lot!! and i also hc him as asexual!!!! :)

im british and i claim ej as one of us lmaooo

i absolutely agree w the purring thing!!! i think ej does a lot of cat things idk :)))) i love all of your ej headcanons!!!

tbh i can see jeff either playing electric guitar like you said or maybe drums?? just any instrument he can go ham on when hes mad lmao

in my hc he has the worst case of chronic greasy hair and he doesnt want to do anything about it

cooking hcs are so real brian can NOT cook!!!!!!! toby will either serve you some 5 star gourmet shit or some rotten takeout he found during a dumpster dive

omg omg omg I hardly see anybody talk about kagekao!!!!!! i totally agree he would do that lmaooo

idk if its canon or not but i read somewhere that tobys German so i totally agree that hed be bilingual!!!

oh my god BEN whos native language is memes meets grandpa slendy that would be so funny

in 4 words youve converted me into a fellow he/it LJ truther!!!! could we consider he/it ej too? maybe??

ik you said it was a cracky hc but i can actually kinda see jeff being good at makeup??? like one of those things where he tries it once and it's the most drop dead gorgeous makeup look you've EVER seen and everyones like how did you do that

toby BEN and jeff are an absolute riot when rheyre together lmao

omg i never thought about it but brian sunburning super easy is so real!! and in summer he always wears sunglasses so he has like an unburnt patch on his face where his sunglasses were yk??

OMG YES LMAOOOOO "guys get up our flights in 10 hours WE'RE GONNA BE LATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" he would 100% have a checklist or 3

thank you so much for sharing these with me!! i hope you dont mind me adding my own thoughts lol but theyre so much fun to think about!!!! if you ever wanna slander lj and brian with someone feel free to dm me lmao!!!!!! take care <33333

[unknownarmageddon]

Tell me your story when you discovered you were trans if you don't mind

oh hell fucking yeah i’ve been waiting for this question

okay story time

basically when i was way young i played an online game called animal jam play wild right

and like. i’d make all my avatars without eyelashes or flower crowns or pinks. “girly things”. and i also always roleplayed male characters, and my username was based off a male book character. which all made everyone i ever really met assume i was a guy.

so i just got referred to as a dude ALL the time like. constantly. that’s just what people assumed i was. and i even, as this kept happening, thought that if i called myself a girl online and was called one online it wouldn’t feel right. like i have vivid memories of saying to myself “if someone called me she online that’d feel weird” because i had been introduced to the notion of regularly being called a dude by people. i had NO idea what this meant and didn’t look into it at all it was just like. that’s that LMAO

i guess it was because like. on animal jam i really got to experience being more of myself??? i guess??? like in terms of expression. cause i made all these fun avatars that i loved and felt so connected to and that people referred to me as a guy because of. that was my first real experience with something like that, being called something other than she because of something i controlled. or something

and kinda as time went on and as i learned a bit more about the lgbtq community and saw other people doing it i decided to make a like. painting thing that stated my pronouns

so for a really good while i went by he/they pronouns on animal jam. never even questioned it. never considered it meant something. i never even called myself trans, never even called myself a guy. because i hadn’t had that realization yet. but that’s just what felt right to me

and even when i decided to go by those pronouns i had this whole thing where i was worried i would be like. lying about my gender???? which is WILD to me now. like i was like “if i went by he would i be lying about my gender?” because i didn’t really. know anything

and i also have this like. faint memory of one of my aj friends asking me what the pronouns change was about cause i had told them prior that i was girl. (which i only did because i thought it was funny seeing people get shocked by that, not because i actually thought i was. idk it was complicated) and i remember preparing the response of “im trans” but i crashed and they left before i ever got to say that. so i guess that was the first ever acknowledgment of being trans. BUT i never actually identified as trans for a good while

while i was playing animal jam and using those pronouns i was also watching a lot of squaishy quack’s videos. and i heard them talk about using they/them pronouns, and being genderfluid. that was the first real introduction i got to titles, words, for something like i might’ve had going on. and since i didn’t really have a grasp on what specifically was going on with me i thought “oh maybe that’s me.” so for a while i identified as genderfluid. but it felt like. forced. like i was trying to make myself that. so then i switched to nonbinary. because for some reason i never considered that it’d be as simple as trans. so i went with nonbinary for a WHILE but it still didn’t feel right. they/them didn’t feel right

so. last year. i was in the car with my father and i was watching the rain go down the window and i just had this batshit epiphany out of basically nowhere like. “holy shit. i’m trans. i’m a guy” like i was finally putting two and two together

and that’s. basically it CACKLES (there was a lot more thought than that but. essentially. that’s what it was)

and. yeah. it’s been that since

if i hadn’t played animal jam i doubt i would’ve realized by now

[offorestsongs]

vampire ocs omg ,,, anyways here’s a free pass to infodump about rorik 👀🙏

VAMPIRE OCS I LOVE VAMPIRE OCS (and just. vampires in general. to the surprise of no one im assuming 😭)

anyways. thank you so much for enabling me Ian ‼️

i'll try to make it somewhat brief and also coherent, but it is past midnight for me and im not good at either of those things even when it's not the literal middle of the night 😭 . ALSO ‼️ the whole story has been living in my head for a long time and i've been constantly changing and shifting the lore so i may not have the details on everything

so basically Rorik is the main character of a story about a vampire society; it's kinda funny because i never actually planned for this universe to have an actual plot, i just wanted to create some characters and put them in situations and the plot just kinda happened on accident lmao

Rorik is,,, actually not his real name. he used many names through the ages and he likes to change them often, never feeling particularly attached to any of them, but Rorik is the one he uses with the people he's somewhat close with.

he's a trans man. he's been born a peasant in a small village in, uh, [gestures vaguely] what would be Poland at the time and what is now Ukraine. the time period is forever undecided because i keep changing my mind but he's always one of the oldest vampires in the story

he never got along with his family or anyone in the village, really. he was always... weird. always cold, never talking much or even looking at the people, seeming to always be in his own world, often questioning the rules and wandering the forests a lot instead of doing anything useful. people would say that he's talking to the devils or that he's a pagan. not that it ever bothered much ― he didn't want to live there, with those people, and if they left him alone, that was all the better.

when he wasn't helping his family during the harvest season, he worked as a maid in the estate of the lord who owned the few nearby villages (despite his importance to the story, the lord does not have a name because i could never decide on one either. sorry)

the lord was known for his eccentricities. some said he never left his house at night. or that he had a laboratory in his basement, where he did strange things. or that his face didn't seem to change despite the years. in reality, he's basically the oldest vampire in the story. so old, that he started to get bored with life and in turn, tried to find amusement in strange endeavours

Rorik had quickly caught the lord's attention, tho he never minded much the favors his employer started to bestow on him. one day, the lord cornered Rorik in the estate's chapel. he revealed his vampiric nature to Rorik. he told Rorik that he's too smart for the people around him, that they will never truly appreciate him, that eternity would allow him to become the person he was truly meant to be ― it was exactly what Rorik needed to hear and so, he allowed the lord to turn him into a vampire

after that, he stole some valuables from the estate and ran away. he was enjoying his new life for a few decades, mostly travelling around Europe and studying new things.

then basically, after some time, he ran into the lord again (supposedly on accident). the man's newest amusement was trying to organise the vampire society in Europe; try to establish rules and laws, sometimes, but mostly just stir up trouble amongst the different vampires. he asked Rorik to join him, but Rorik declined. he never liked dealing with people and so any try at politics just sounded like a headache for him

except, a part of the vampire lore here is that the person who turned a vampire can have control over them. so the lord had basically forced Rorik to be his servant again, presenting Rorik as his "perfect little wife" during the many parties for vampire aristocracy

it went on for,, a long time until slowly, over the years, Rorik had learned how to resist the commands of his creator. he waited until another one of the parties; when everybody was busy socialising, he slipped out of the room and ran away... but not before setting fire to the whole house

fire is one of the few sure ways to kill a vampire and Rorik managed to kill many of them that night, just not the one he actually wanted to.

he's spent some years hiding and hunting down the supporters of his creator that he didn't manage to kill that night, until he was caught by the vampire council (that was established by the lord, by the way) to be punished for his killings. the lord was not a part of the council by the time it happened and because of that and of some vampire politics, Rorik got a lighter punishment. the blue lines on his face mark him as a killer on his own face and work basically as a magic seal, restricting some of his vampire powers

nowdays, he's mostly focused on his revenge quest and ignoring everybody else

most art that i have of him is pretty old and embarassing to show but dhfhh i have this one

also i have this art i got on art fight one year (he's in traditional slavic clothing here <33)

Rorik is autistic. he's snappish and awful and doesn't like most people and tries to distance himself from everyone around him and is basically allergic to showing his true feelings. when he's not off to his revenge quest, he's mostly sitting up in his room or does anything else that would get him out of talking to people. he always wears his hair in a braid, as braids have a significance in slavic culture ― while he tries to distance himself from his past as much as possible, it's the only thing that he keeps. he's also very good at learning languages, he knows several of them, and can usually learn well how to talk without having a foreign accent

he's also in a complicated, on-and-off again with another vampire named Gustave :3c

and here's Gustave by himself

honestly i could talk about their relationship and also Gustave himself for hours, but this is already so long djgjfj so the tl;dr is that Gustave is kind, and a bleeding heart. before being turned into a vampire against his will by the same man that Rorik was, he was a devoted catholic and a father who became a criminal to keep the roof over his family's head. he treats being a vampire as a curse and his guilt and self-loating are almost bigger than his boobs /hj

they meet when Rorik dragged Gustave out of a river when Gustave tried to commit suicide and their lives have been entangled ever since. Gustave loves and yearns, Rorik pretends he doesn't feel the same way. it's a whole thing

so. uh. yeah. that's about it?? i guess??

[ethanhuntfemmefatale]

i just wanted to say that i am a huge fan of dick (your oc not the appendage -_-) from what i've seen in his tag he just fascinates me. your mind is magnificent etc etc..

I cannot thank you enough for saying this. He says hi

:-) <-thats him

he's my player character for a ttrpg im doing...his name is dick wayne, erectile dysfunction joke partially intended (he's trans!) & also batman reference intended. he's basically a play on the stereotype of the dumb brute, I made him to play with a lot of ideas about vigilantism and violence in the family that are woven throughout the rpg. He's become a bit murky and complicated as a character because I use him so much as an outlet. The core concept of him is as a powerful guy who treats his body like a tool that he hands over to someone else to use however they see fit. He ran away from his mom as a kid but he never was able to get away from the ideas she taught him...when he was fresh out of (dropping out of) college he fell in with an older man who stoked his anger issues and taught him to fight crime. They took in a kid together! And in the end he wasn't able to stop the man from teaching those same ideas to their kid, passing the violence on.

A LOT has happened in the rpg at this point, he's almost died about 20 times, he's got like one and a half boyfriends and the one boyfriend has another version of himself who's pretty hot, etc. Now he's at a crossroads and he's trying to get better for the wrong reasons. Trying to rid himself of violence so he doesn't "infect" anyone else with it, not because he wants to get better. He's struggling with the growing horror of realizing that he has power over his own life, which means that everything that's happened because of his passivity is on his shoulders. And things are about to get worse! He's gonna die and get resurrected, for the SECOND TIME, and come back as a shambling zombie who's also kinda fey, still very powerful in all the wrong ways.

My concept is that he'll ultimately learn how to give up the one thing that he believes makes him useful and loved--his ability to fight for & protect people--in order to have a shot at real peace and contentment. before he died the second time (a really great phrase) he was a mechanic! it was the only thing he had that was his, that brought him satisfaction even through everything. he's constantly commenting on people's cars in the rpg, which is partially my own way of living out my car guy fantasies. and he has a car that's his best friend (named daisy.) I have this idea that after he gets resurrected, he'll have lost all the knowledge he had about cars, all the muscle memory, everything from this one skill that kept him tethered to the world and grounded in his own body and humanity. And at the end of the story, he'll slowly start to teach himself those skills again. Because it's not about competence, it's about the love of the work, and the love is still there! It's basically the idea of--there's no going back or undoing what's been done to you, or what you've done to yourself. the conventional happy ending (the world is saved, the status quo is restored, hurts are mended) is essentially impossible after horrible trauma. Things have changed, there are still scars, you're still older and you're still in the life all that stuff happened in. But taking the step to take care of yourself despite all that is better than a happy ending--it's meeting your life where it's at, looking at it honestly and making a commitment to it.

forgive me for being sappy i just am very invested in this. Dick is important to me at all times but especially right now cause I'm trying to use him as inspiration to deal with my own struggle to . well. give up the one thing I believe makes me useful and loved in order to have a shot at real peace and contentment.

anyway. dick wayne! he's a bear! he's a slut! he's even aro!

i love you thank you for the ask. hope you're doing great<33

[saiwestfield]

Some future stuff lolol

I just wanted to draw Jordan Kaithlyn and Nessa and them as teens because they are canonically the age I was when I first made them, so I want to draw them as the age I am now

Lot of them didn’t really change at all and that’s probably my error in making their original designs so much more mature in appearance than probably what an actual preteen looks like, but when I look back on how I used to draw them all those years ago, I still feel like they don’t look more mature now than then??? I don’t know if im making sense haha. Basically, my characters grow up with me

Anyways some notes on specific character’s designs -

Grabber (ginger with the frightening blue eyes) is wearing this (stupid looking >:T) cravat, which, —based on my limited knowledge on historical clothing— is actually a mid-late 1800s (1870’s maybe?) thing (Maybe even enlightenment era??) basically, it differs from (current) Grabber’s usual look which is more inspired by the 1880s*, and I just think it’s a fun detail to add, signifying that as Grabber gets older they kinda lean towards older (??) style clothing

*(as I bring up all these dates, know that I am referring to clothing mostly worn by mid-high (?) (somewhere between middle and high) class people in Britain)

With Kaithlyn (ginger in red hoodie), her hair has always been a struggle for me.

I wanted her to have a different hairstyle, like how she starts out with two buns which is a slightly more “childish” style, then evolves into just having a simple ponytail; but I wanted a more mature look for her here, because like, ponytails just aren’t really a thing? Anymore? Amongst teens I guess?

I don’t know if this is based on trends or a maturity thing.

So I wanted to design a different hairstyle, but I just couldn’t imagine her with her hair down or in a singular bun or anything of the sort, despite those two being most common hairstyles for teens nowadays.

But then as I was designing her for this doodle, I happened remembered the half-up half-down hairstyle! It’s perfect! I’m honestly not sure how I hadn’t thought of it before haha

I spent some time going back and forth on Nessa (flower overalls)’s haircut.

I wasn’t sure whether having her have short hair would make sense with the character development she has (which has only been illustrated in my head sorry guys).

The reason she keeps it short usually is because she wants to avoid looking like any of her family members, her sister Lily had a mid-length haircut, mostly never braided, never tied, while her sister Amy always has box braids.

I figured with her development in learning not to actively allow her family’s way of viewing her affect her would cause her to allow herself to finally have long hair.

But I realized that the way she cuts her hair isn’t only dictated by her family, and in the end she would still have short hair, but this time the only reason would be is just because she wanted to. Guess I don’t even know everything about my characters haha

Okay fourth and final one: Indigo! (She’s the one in all purple!) Her design is actually very important to me. I don’t even know where to begin lol.

Well okay, let’s start with talking a bit about representation. (Scroll down!!)

So, the story of my silly guys and their weird little island is definitely of an alternate universe where, you know, magic, demons, etc… are.. around; essentially, it’s a fantasy world. And similarly to many fantasy stories (well, mostly in modern media, especially tv shows, movies, comics, animation overall) there are… gay people! And trans people! And non-cis and non-trans people! And poc! And disabled people! And people of different cultures and ethnicities! And people with different religions! You know, people that are often considered minority groups (especially in western, mostly English speaking countries)

So, the main things I’ve seen people talk about when it comes to representation of minority groups in modern (fictional, set in an alternate world) media, is separating representation into two types:

Type 1: The it’s all just normal here. Nobody cares or mentions it at all

Type 2: There are people of these groups, and there is discrimination against it

By the way, both of these types are totally cool! It’s fine if you prefer one over the other, or if you like both. There’s nothing wrong with either

So, often with the first type, the representation isn’t often even mentioned, like characters coming out, characters stating their disabilities out loud, stuff like that. A lot of people tend to gravitate towards this version because we like escapism! Or we just want wholesomeness or conflict that doesn’t have to do with one’s identity

While in the second type, people often like it because it has relevance to the real world. Whether it is subtextual, metaphorical or literally shown or both! We like comfort but we also like to suffer!

I personally like the latter more. Mainly because I am a part of groups that have been underrepresented throughout history of media and just, overall in life! And also, I like to suffer! (Jk, sort of). I want some of my characters’ identities to be a part of their stories, designs, arcs and personalities! I like it when issues are specific and brought up in media!

So, what does this whole entire essay have to do with my fave girl Indigo?

Well, her story is important the experience of poc. (Many other of my characters are as well, but I’m just taking about Indigo in this post) So, let me preface by saying that I am mixed race, as in half poc. (half white and half East Asian) and I wanted to write some stories about wanting to fit in. Because let me tell you, despite what I may appear to be here, and despite what some parts of me want to tell myself, I have actually been very obsessed with conformity my whole life :’D yay! Okay because I’m getting lazy let me wrap this up super quickly. Throughout history, AND NOW, people, especially poc, have often tried to hide certain racial features in order to fit in with their white peers. I myself, my whole life denied having black hair because if I had black hair, unlike every other white kid in my school, that would mean I’m Asian. Which makes me different! (Obviously white people can have black hair but, I was in like 1st grade ok) I would refuse to speak Japanese throughout my young adolescence because I believed that if I would “throw away” my Japanese culture, it would mean that I’m just fully of my European culture. And this is an experience I find really common with a lot of mixed race kids, and kids of immigrant parents.

Indigo lives in a society where white people have always been in power. And, considering the fact that she is of high status, she is often pressured into trying to fit in. This causes her to be pressured by her family to “dial down” her ethnic features. Like keeping her hair straight, trying to keep her more light skinned. And Indigo is overall a very rebellious character and often does not follow these societal pressures to a T, but is still often controlled by her family and people around her. So, basically, I think as she grows up, she becomes more independent from her family and is able to make choices about her appearance. I think she chooses to wear her hair fully braided, because it is distinctly ethnic. (Changing from her half cornrows style). There are other reasons why I designed her like this, but I assume no one wants to read another 1000 word essay of mine lol

(By the way I just realized that she might come off as a masculine character, (which based on tv history of representation in especially American media does not come off great. If anyone wants to critique me in this please please please let me know!!) it is not my intention :’) I want to explore her style more outside her fancy school uniform but I haven’t had the chance to… hope I’ll have time soon!

Thanks for reading, if you did. I appreciate it a lot actually. Thank you.

[quietwingsinthesky]

8 and 16 for the choose violence ask

8. Common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about.

That Dean would return Cas’s love confession

Okay no actually you know what. I’m gonna talk about that. Maybe it’s just me being deep in Aro!Dean land, but I’m not seeing it. I’m not seeing at any point in the show where Dean loved Castiel. And I’ve been looking, I swear, but I’m. There’s no destiel on my screen. There is a lot more sastiel than I remember but there’s no destiel happening on my screen! There IS a lot of Castiel clearly having Problems and Issues and Angst about dean, and. Zero doubt here there that that angel wants to fuck him. But I honestly can’t imagine any happy ending for dean that revolves solely or even mostly around a romantic attachment. That man is hardwired for family being the most important thing to him, and I love that. Aro!Dean wins again.

Other notable things include: headcanoning Sam as not queer/trans because he’s too boring. Talked about that. Weird fucking opinion to have. That Gabriel is not exactly as fucked up as the other archangels, especially when presenting sabriel as the Good Sam Ship as opposed to samifer. My dudes, did we not watch mystery spot, do the reading. Also. Also. Not acknowledging the really clear character degradation of Lucifer in the later seasons/attributing later seasons stuff to how he acts in s5, just a personal gripe because whatever, people can read him however they want, but I really feel like on a meta level you gotta talk about how these are Two Different Characters who just happen to have been jammed into the same character. Okay. I think that’s it.

16. You can’t understand why people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc.)

I do not like coffee shops AUs. Actually, it’s more that im Extremely picky about AUs that aren’t canon divergence, and will drop them immediately the minute I feel like I’m no longer reading about the characters I like and am instead reading about Generic Guys who say funny quips and then kiss. Which is not a coffee shop au specific problem but the frequency with which that kind of au attracts that writing means I have kind of been turned off from ever reading them again.

if you are writing Sam into your coffee shop au and at some point he does not drop some insane backstory about the time he was kidnapped and forced to fight to the death with a bunch of other college kids, you have failed at writing this au and I am banishing you to the shadow realm /j

The other thing that I do not understand at all, and this extends into a problem with canon, I’m well aware, is how happily people will accept the idea that Castiel is rebellious/different from other angels because he was just Made Wrong. he’s too Broken to be like a real angel. that all the other angels are mindless drones and Castiel is the one good one who could learn about free will, usually justified with it being that “his love for dean is what makes him special”, but even outside of destiel circles, this kind of thing gets very annoying lmao.

And it’s just. That’s wrong. The show might have decided post-s8 that it believed this about Castiel but it’s False and Bad. I’m gesturing wildly at Uriel and Anna and Gabriel and Lucifer and Balthazar and Michael and shit what’s that one angel doing pinball I love them, them too, and Castiel is not special!!! He should not be special!!! All angels have the capacity for free will, they are living under a terrifying system of suppression that has stripped them of their ability to use it and has taught them that when an angel does something they disagree with, killing them is a mercy! (See: the implications of that one angel healer in s9 + Uriel and Cas being sent to kill Anna for falling in s4)

CASTIEL IS NOT SPECIAL. STOP SAYING HE IS SPECIAL. THE CRACK IN THE CHASSIS LINE IS BAD TO HOLD UP AS EVIDENCE OF HIM BEING UNIQUELY FLAWED.

ahem. sorry. i like the supernatural angels. i think making castiel into some separate special being who is the only one capable of rebelling and feeling love and etc does a massive disservice to the heaven storylines and angels as a whole. i think the show’s choice to never have another major angel character who wasn’t killed off quickly/made “too evil” to redeem was a bad decision and contributes to this view of cas as Different and The Good One.

[flimsyichigo]

ok so i promised an update so here’s part of an update of something pretty crazy that’s happened to me

back in mid february, i was chilling in my favorite elective class when my friend, lets call him ryan, asked if i heard anything interesting happening in school.

i told him nah not really. it’s mainly stuff personal to me. so he then asked if i like somebody. i was like YEAH. obviously he asked who it was so I told him to guess and that it was one of his friends. He couldn’t guess who so I just told him the name.

there was this girl in our table so overheard and wanted to know, i’ll call her jane. i only knew jane for over a month or so but we had a lot of mutual friends and her boyfriend is good friends with my crush. plus she just seemed SO sweet and trusting at the time so i just told her. she just seemed so giddy and happy for me after i did so. this is a very important detail. SHE KNEW.

so then my friend, ryan, offered to be my wingman and despite him being a fucking goof a majority of the time, i knew i could trust him cause this involves one of his closest friends and ryan has NEVER done me dirty b4. a week or so later, he told me his plan to help me out. the plan was asking my crush who he was gonna ask to prom and basically listing a bunch of people he could take so ryan could subtly include my name and see how this guy felt about me. to be honest this was a great fucking plan. almost everybody i told this story to said it was a good ass plan.

so on that friday (the day before spring break btw), i saw ryan after lunch right before our class and asked if he did it. he said yes. i asked if it went well. he shook his head no in pity… my stomach fucking DROPPED. i spent nearly the entirety of that same elective class i mentioned earlier just sitting there all gloomy and shit. even my absolute sweetheart of a teacher asked if i was ok.

ryan wanted to tell me what exactly happened so fucking bad and kept insisting but i was like NAHHH that’s gonna break me for sure. that same jane girl i mentioned earlier said she was there when it happened. so i asked her if it was as bad as my friend described it. she instantly nodded which made me feel so much worse.

so that class ended meaning spring break officially started. i was just fucking ruminating on my walk home wondering what the fuck happened. a few days into break, my curiosity was eating at me so i called ryan and asked him to explain EVERYTHING that happened on friday.

so what happened was ryan went over to where my crush was sitting during lunch and started asking him about prom dates. the plan was instantly shut down when my crush essentially said “ehh i don’t know jane told me that [my name] likes me.” he then added that he thought i looked like a guy(ahhh closeted trans guy tings😜😜) so basically he wasn’t interested. you see i wasn’t upset abt what he said about me. i know the way i dress and the way i present myself and im proud of it even if i am doing an awful job at being closeted.

now what i was upset abt was that mf jane girl deciding to TELL HIM I LIKED HIM some fucking reason??? she had no real fucking reason to do that shit. the whole point was to be subtle about it and see what he thought of me. if he was interested, then sick i’ll make some moves. if he wasn’t, then cool ima move on in silence; no harm done. but this girl HADDD to throw a fucking wrench in our plans. i was able to move on from my feelings for him easily after that but STILLL. it feels so weird now knowing that he knows i liked him. ideally i still would’ve been cool with him if he didn’t like me back because HE WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO KNOW. ughhhhhhh now i know to never trust that mf jane againnnn.

anyways yap session over. make sure to like and subscribe to learn about more bullshit in my life. but for real, i’ve been gone for a good while now and i just felt like i owed yall an update bc i love yall sm.

[silvr-skreen]

GIVE US THE SHIRLEY LOREE

OH BOY THIS IS GONNAE BE A DOOZY!!!

Shirley 🎶 (LORE AND HC ABOUND SORRY)

Lore:

Originally intended to be a duo with Lenard (he sings/makes the music and she dances) except that never really happened.

On her first ever day of existing she got lost and ended up at Ray's stage and just did a bit with him until they ran out of film. As it turns out the juxtaposition between her and Ray was hilarious and THOSE two became a duo.

Lenard legit doesnt care, especially since she makes sure to brief all the others on what happens down in the Stage 2 set (and vicea versa to Ray)

ultimately the CNBG started to try and push a "beauty and the beast" romance thing except Al (who originally despite his good intentions was kind of spineless and bent to their will) said no. He wasn't gonna make them do that, and he didn't. But the CNBG then told him to get her off the air then.

As it turns out, part of her appeal was people thinking her and Ray were more than friends, and a hard no would upset some viewers (as opposed to lying and agreeing, or doing a "will-they-wont-they")

She walked in on the destruction of some of her clones and was then chased out by the staff tasked with the job, and she fled to the basement (this was after Richie left and Ray got banished) and begged him to hide her because "they tore up my copies and they want to tear me up too!" and he agreed. He hid her and played dumb until the staff left.

She's kind of just... been in his lair since, until of course, the staff stopped showing up, at which point she got free reign of the basement, but she is too scared to leave his side. (she also doesnt make clones because shes afraid they'll get torn up too)

Headcanons:

something is very wrong with her. Her mechanic doesn't really have the "cute-Agression" but instead if gordon shoots her, or another puppet she runs at him to chastise him about it. Aka. pacifism is really important (or you attack when she's not active or looking)

there was a scrapped script from when Al was considering agreeing with the network and forcing it, but then he tossed it. It's. it's very bad and al's written in the margins a bunch about that.

she's around george height! very tall, also very wiggly. Ray is the one person she wont attempt to wiggle away from

also the one person ray confided in when it came to raymond (which. i have a headcanon about him too)

she learned a lot of stuff from ray, however, it was before gordon came around so... yeah she likes to hit stuff with small blunt objects.

in addition to that one. she needs to either be taped up, or lead to ray to deactivate her. (the second one deactivates them both, and they always are in the same room at the same time)

side quest is really just... listening. offering support.

oh, also fun fact im the person writing that fic on Ao3 "The Neighborhood" w/ trans gordon an' yeah ye shouldnae be stabbing a pregnant person w/ a screwdriver shirley-girly (ray calls her that)

Funny image tax thank you for reading :3

[pumpkinland]

You know honestly Ive been thinking about gender a lot and how my experiences and opinions really are worth a lot more than Ive been kind of taught by others in the community to think they are; i had learned from years of being treated a certain way that masculine queer people's opinions are inherently less worthwhile than feminine queer people's opinions, binary trans opinions are less important than nonbinary opinions, masculine trans men's (gender conforming? Somehow? Even though being trans is inherently gender nonconforming??) opinions are less important than feminine trans men's (gnc) opinions, and trans men's opinions are WAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY less important than trans women's, and that all of this together essentially means that my opinions are worth little to nothing, my experiences do not matter, and my existence contrinutes absolutely no worth to the community as a queer person - I exist, but no one really wants me here, and they're only allowing me to on a technicality, as I am *technically* included in it, but they would really rather I not be here and if I have to be, that they don't have to see it, and if they have to see me, that god forbid I at least just keep my mouth shut and never try to communicate about my experiences

But I've been thinking about how fucked up that is, how fucked up it is that I get treated like I'm cishet male-lite because I'm a masc trans man, when the reality is that I am so genuinely androgynous that people do not consistently gender me one way or the other. I get gendered as male and female equally, no matter if Im in a progressive or conservative area, an urban or rural area, people will refer to me with different pronouns that they're each sticking to within the same conversation when addressing me. And it's fucked up to act like I'm essentially a cishet man when not only am I gay but without ever trying to seem particularly masc, fem, or androgynous, on a day to day basis I am consistently ambiguously gendered - implying that I experience both "male" and "female" social experiences regardless of the fact that I identify as male. And I recognize that this in turn somewhat gives me both male and female social role, and I wish it could be acknowledged that this can happen and it's possible for a man to have, at times, female social roles, without actually being nonbinary or identifying as a woman. A cis man can dress femme full time and essentially look like a woman and assert that he is still male, that he's not a woman, that he's not trans, but I can't acknowledge the fact that my appearance bestows me with both male and female social roles despite my identity as a man?? And to be clear I do not want female social roles necessarily, but it's not like I can control how people see me and how they interact with me, so this is a neutral observation of how I am treated and the roles I fill socially, willingly or not, not a declaration of my gender or an insinuation that your gender depends on how other people treat you - cis women fill male social roles all the time, so this is not a roundabout way of declaring trans women not real women, since that's the accusation that gendered discussion always comes down to. It's just really frustrating to me that Im literally trans, gay, visibly gender nonconforming, visibly queer, visibly trans, and I don't feel like the social roles I fill are strictly male - as much as I'd like them to be - yet around other queer people I get brushed off and treated like I don't really belong in the community because I'm not queer enough, I'm a masc trans man so my identity isn't radical enough, I'm either basically a cis man or a tomboy, so my thoughts, opinions, and experiences don't matter because they're innately less complex less nuanced and less meaningful than queer people with feminine genders and presentations

[genderqueerdykes]

I’m a trans guy and I’m incredibly happy in my identity but…sometimes I remember what it was like identifying as a nonbinary lesbian and i kind of miss it?

Like it was so much easier when i was an enby lesbian. My dysphoria wasn’t as bad and everything fit into a neat little box.

At the same time though i was never really happy in any of my relationships and I didn’t really care about being alive because I didn’t feel like i had anything to live for

Did i make the right choice choosing to be a boy? I feel like i have something to live for now and im really happy but. I just feel like everything would be easier for everyone if i had just stayed as i was.

i really, really get what you're saying i do because that's LITERALLY where i'm at.

i was happy as a trans guy for a long time, but to me, after a while it felt like a prison, and more like something other people made me feel obligated into identifying as. i definitely don't know your situation so i don't want you to feel like it's the same for you, but for me, i was always pressured into being a man by others. i came out as "not a guy or a girl, just a person" to my mom and sister in 2011 and they said "so, youre a guy? okay if you're a guy then we'll treat you like a guy" and became. very toxic and mean and it made me feel like i had to try harder and harder to be a guy because. well, they were telling me i was one

my personal struggle has been with coming to realize i'm nonbinary and that i've been forced to identify as male by other people due to ignorance. for you, i'm just so sorry to hear that you know a similar pain of being happy and firmly rooted in an identity but not quite knowing what's right. i think for you, perhaps you could be bigender/multigender/polygender, genderfluid, genderqueer, or perhaps you have an identity like lesboy, boydyke, guydyke and so on. maybe you're feeling nostalgic for a sense of community that you no longer have, and it's okay to feel estranged and weird. maybe you really are happy being a guy, and it's okay to miss what you had in the past. it's alright to feel a lot of feelings

you may want to look into leslie feinberg's writings, particularly Stone Butch Blues, ze fit into a similar niche in life and had similar experiences to what where we fit in. you may want to check it out, just be warned that there are graphic depictions of sexual assault and police violence.

i don't think you made the wrong choice either way, people evolve and grow into themselves. you have to learn who you are, and it's okay if you chose a life that didn't fit you for a time, regardless of whichever identity doesn't fit. leslie tried living as a man for years and eventually went back to identifying as a lesbian. it happens for many of us, we have a complex relationship with life and gender, it's okay to not know, and to be confused. i hope you're able to figure it out, take care of yourself, i hope you find peace soon.

[kuiperror]

i watched the 2015 film "the danish girl" for my english class and i have to write an essay thats due eod tomorrow SO to get my juices a flowin i'm gonna review the movie here first. spoilers from here on out duh

So this movie was kind of 😐. i knew about lili elbe and gerda wegerner way before this movie , im not like a historian on them but i know that gerda supported lili in her transition and they were still very much together and in love up until the last years of lili's life in 1930 shortly after their marriage was dissolusioned since lilli transitioned and their marriage couldn't be recognized anymore. Also like gerda was a huuuugee woman lover she painted a lot of lesbian erotic art. i was actually really confused most of the film like "ok when is gerda going to start accepting lili and theyre going to be happy with eachother?" but i guess portraying gerda as anything but straight is too much somehow and she needs to rely on a man to help her process the horrible situation of her wife discovering who she is and medically + socially transitioning :(

obviously that was sarcasm , but that does happen in the film. Ok to be real, i will probably finish writing this post, draft a few pages of my essay and rewatch the film again in the morning because im having trouble processing this movie. its earnestly coming off as a nothing burger to me. i was keeping an open mind about how they portray lili's gender awakening and her subsequent female persona as a different person where lili can only be "einar" or "lili" depending on what she is physically presenting as, because this is set in the 1920s and obviously they do not have the same vocabulary and terms for things we do, hindsight is 20/20, that sort of thing. but like. i really expected them to steer away from that way of presenting things, because in the modern-day most (and yes. generalizing but thats how the cookie crumbles in analysis situations) transgender people view their agab self and their "transitioned" self as the same person, because. you really are the same person, you just look differently, a way that is more conjunct with your perception of your gender identity. so i was really expecting lili to start thinking of herself as both "lili" and "einar" or like explain to gerda that she is still the same person she knew, just different, in a way. but no, they keep going on with the "two identities" thing, and while that probably is the way that Real Life lili thought of herself, if the story is going to divert from reality then you can absolutely use fictionilization to your advantage to more clearly explain transgender identities to your cis audience .

one thing i did Not really like was the fact that lili's gender euphoria was always tied with her sexuality. and like. yeah gender ties with sexuality, duh, i would be a fool if i acted like they were seperate, but for lili biggest moments of gender euphoria are portrayed as sensual sexual pleasure. like when a naked gerda pulls off lili's male clothing to reveal a silky camisole underneath or when lili goes to a live peep show and mimics the girl inside, trying to learn to act feminine but stops when the girl sees her (as lili is presenting masculine and doesn't want to raise suspicion) but eventually she loses herself in the pleasure and continues to mimic the girl until she reaches down and remembers she has a penis instead of a vagina and its like... normally i would be cool with this kind of sexual portrayal if this movie was written or directed by a trans person or like 1:1 based off of a trans person's experience but this movie is Obviously made for cis people by cis people. and i would say that a LOT of cishet people, even those who are "allies", think that queer identities are inherently sexual. thats why they say that "children can't be in queer relationships" or that "all trans women / trans people are perverts" because they cant imagine divorcing queerness from sex. and just like the way that the movie refers to lili as having "two identities", this REALLY isnt helping cis audiences understand transppl better.

i think that this movie is helping american society step away from the bare minimum idea that trans ppl (but basically just trans women) are manipulating / abnormal and should only be used in media to point and laugh and say "EWWW the main character had sex with them that's disgusting!!" or "this Trans character is the Villain and they are SOOOO unhinged!" in horror and shit. but it isnt that good at representing like. nuance in gender identity or things like that .

K going to take a break and then continue slaving away at my keyboard