#it's written by a trans man so you know it has lots of gender feelings

[deescontinuity]

t4t relationships.... please i need one, t4t please save me......

[gonzo-rella]

Headcanons: Being Wallace Wells' Trans Boyfriend

MASTERLIST | AO3 | KO-FI

EDIT: Although this fic was written with a more binary trans reader in mind, I'm hoping this fic will also be suitable for AFAB nonbinary people who are masc or male adjacent, which is where I might be at. I'm currently working dating hcs for Wallace with a nonbinary reader (which will be suitable for both AFAB and AMAB readers).

Relationship(s): Wallace Wells x transmasc!reader (romantic)

Warnings/info: Trans typical stuff, like dysphoria, transphobia etc. etc., sexual remarks, he/him pronouns for reader, headcanons were written in one sitting, when I was feeling not great. (Let me know if I need to add any)

(A/N: I've been reading a lot of Succession fics over the last few days. Last night I read a Roman Roy fic and for some reason it gave me this overpowering wave of dysphoria that I still have yet to fully recover from. Annoyingly, I have yet to actually watch Succession so this could have been avoided; I just think Kieran Culkin's hot and very gender so I couldn't resist pretending that someone with his face was my boyfriend. Reading about Roman made me think 'oh shit. Maybe I'm a flawed and pathetic little guy on the inside. But I just look like a woman who likes to kiss women and everyone treats me like a girl and uses my girl name and girl pronouns and that feels super gross and makes me want to live in a hole. Now I'm going to feel bad about that for the next few days.' So, yeah, I'm having another transmasc crisis that I'm using fanfiction to get me through. I figured Kieran Culkin started this, so I might as well write something featuring a character of his that I can actually write for. This is a self-indulgent and self-explorative treat for myself, but I hope that transmasc readers can enjoy this, too. If you'd like more Wallace stuff, trans stuff or Wallace AND trans stuff, feel free to send in a request. I really want to provide more fics for transmasc readers because you guys are super underrepresented (and, y'know, Papa Gonzo-rella wants to explore his gender a little more). Also, I swear that I will get around to watching Succession, and I more than likely will end up writing for it when I do.)

Respectfully, Wallace does not give a shit that you’re trans.

Of course, he doesn’t flat-out ignore it, because it’s part of who you are, but it isn’t an obstacle in your relationship by any means, and it doesn’t bother him in the slightest.

If you’re feeling dysphoric and/or otherwise insecure about yourself, he’ll pinch your cheeks and tell you how handsome and sexy you are.

If you’re feeling especially bad, like ‘not getting out of bed and hiding from the world’ bad, he’ll keep you company and say what he can to reassure you.

Being mushy and sincere truly isn’t his thing, so whatever he says will sound either slightly insensitive (but still pretty sensitive as far as Wallace goes), facetious or like he wants you to get over how you’re feeling so he can fuck you.

But, he genuinely doesn’t want you to feel bad and you can tell he cares, because otherwise he wouldn’t be there for you when you're feeling your worst.

Wallace is very affirming, but in his own Wallace way.

He lovingly refers to you as his lameass boyfriend.

If Scott ever compliments you about anything, Wallace will call him gay.

He will shout ‘gay’, like the Senor Chang meme.

"Hey, man, I like your shirt-"

"Ha, Scott's gay!"

"I-I'm not gay! I just like his shirt."

"What's wrong with being gay, Scott?"

"Nothing! There's nothing wrong with being gay!"

"You really need to work on your internalised homophobia, Scott. To think, my gay lover and I share a bed with a bigot."

If you’re doing anything that he knows will make you dysphoric or exacerbate your dysphoria (for example, scrolling through social media and looking at cis dudes that give you gender envy) he’ll shut it down.

Using the aforementioned example, he’ll snatch your phone off you and close the app, saying: “Nope. Make better decisions.”

And, while you’d initially be annoyed at him for grabbing your phone, you will appreciate it in the long run.

If you have testosterone shots but you’re not a fan of doing them yourself, he’ll begrudgingly help you with them.

He will make a very Wallace comment, though

“Stabbing? I didn’t know you were that kinky.”

If anyone’s a dick to you about being trans, Wallace is always ready to go with a snide remark about the other person, because of all the things you could possibly mock his lameass boyfriend for, being trans is at the bottom of that list.

(He should know, as the person who makes fun of you the most.)

Also, he cares about you very, very much and he doesn't want people being transphobic to his boyfriend.

If you’re cool with it, he will make trans jokes, but nothing ‘attack helicopter’ or ‘attack helicopter’ adjacent, because he’s too clever for that and he can come up with better material that isn’t just derivative, transphobic garbage.

If you get your period and it makes you at all dysphoric, be prepared for this exchange:

“Don’t worry. Scott pissed blood last month and cried about it and he’s still a man.”

“Did-did he go to the doctor?”

“I don’t know. He seems fine now, though.”

If you still have boobs and don’t mind them being touched or otherwise acknowledged, he will use them like a pillow.

If you decide to get top surgery, he will make the following request:

“Well, if you’re not using them, can I have them? I need a pillow that Scott won’t steal. And, he wouldn’t steal your tits, because he knows I’d call him gay for it.”

“Why are you like this, Wallace?”

“Selfish.”

Being trans doesn’t make your relationship much different from any of Wallace’s other relationships.

You’re just, for better or worse, another one of Wallace’s boyfriends.

[willalove75]

stop simping over women and pay attention to your husband. You clearly made your choice to be with a man and have his child rather than choose a woman. You bisexual women don’t get to exist in lesbian spaces when you lean towards men. Unless your husband lets to you step out on your marriage or lets you have delusional thoughts that any lesbian would want a woman knocked up by a man. You bisexual women who lean more towards men or are with men have no right to be in sapphic or lesbian spaces. And lady d is a lesbian so as if she would be with someone who let a man touch them let alone knock them up.

Oh, I'm sorry, did my husband tell you that I'm not giving him enough attention? Didn't think so.

Yes, I made a choice to be with him, because I fell in love with him. Because he's my best friend and my biggest supporter in everything I do (yes, he even supports my writing and fics and he tells me often how proud he is of me). I did not chose him because he's a man. Truthfully, his gender had absolutely nothing to do with why I married him. I just happened to fall in love with and marry a man, but that does NOT make me any less of a bisexual woman.

"You bisexual women..." and people question whether or not bi-erasure is a thing, meanwhile, this entire ask is such a great example of just that😒

"delusional thoughts that any lesbian would want a woman knocked up by a man." is truly offensive to not only every bi woman who has been with a man, but any woman who has. What about the lesbians that got pregnant by men?? Because this may come as a shock to you, but it does happen. It may not happen a lot or often, but it does. Does that mean that those women are "tainted" or "ruined" also??? No it fucking doesn't, you idiot.

It really makes me laugh when people try and use a fictional character to make a real life argument. You want to know why? BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT FUCKING REAL!!! So honestly, you have absolutely no idea if that's true or not because she's a fake fucking character from a video game. Are you also this upset at the fic writers who make her trans??? Or what about fic writers that make Alcina's partner trans??? Or are you just that much of biphobic person and this is the hill you're choosing to die on?? Either way, you're an actual bigot.

This post just SCREAMS biphobia and bi-erasure and it's fucking gross. You are so very obviously projecting your own issues and insecurities in this and honestly I would be embarrassed if I were you. Because not a single thing you said is true AT ALL or holds any merit.

Bisexual women who lean towards men or who are with men ABSOLUTELY do belong in those spaces. Just because a bisexual woman is married/with a man or leans towards men does not discredit or change their sexuality. No bi person automatically becomes straight if they date/marry the opposite gender or become gay/lesbian if they date/marry the same gender. It's called BIsexual. More than one gender. You do not get to invalidate every bi person with this shitty (and inherently wrong) opinion.

I know you wrote this trying to get a rise out of me, and congratulations because you succeeded. But I also know that people like you leave messages like this because they feel so broken and hurt and shitty that they want others to feel like that too. Unfortunately for you, I grew up in the era that birthed anonymous hate messages so you'll have to try harder next time. Not only that, but I am proud and confident in who I am and no pathetic anonymous (especially anonymous, you pussy) message is going to shake me.

I am a proud bisexual woman. I am proud to be married to my husband. I am proud that I will soon be the mother of a little boy who I will raise to be a much better person than you'll ever be. I am proud of what I've written and no, I will not stop.

[turtlefanboy]

Hiii!! Local trans guy here,could I request the 2012 turtles with a really strong trans partner? I know one thing that makes me feel really masculine is being strong:D!!

A/N: Happily!! And I can understand being strong does make you feel really masc! I am so sorry this came out a lot later than I wanted like I think 2 years ahead of deadline, life has been crazy like I'm a junior now and I'm 17. Hope you like what I wrote though!

FEM DNI

2012! Turtles with Trans Masc S/O who’s really strong!

Leo

Leo loves the fact that you're strong.

honestly all the turtles do.

he will still want to protect you and make sure you don't get hurt.

but it reassures him to know that you can handle your own in a fight if you need to.

He loves to be carried by you.

makes him feel like you're his knight in shining armor.

he also picks you up to make you feel the same dw.

he does spar with you and is genuinely surprised when he loses to you!

he likes to spar with you as to challenge himself and to get better at fighting.

and so you get better at fighting as well!

will ask you to cosplay the like captain from space hero's

totally not because he's in love with him and you and it would be super cool if you did that combining the two things he loves-

totally not-

likes to watch you fight

not as much as Raph

but he will sometimes look over at you with a loving gaze as you knock out an enemy.

does not care that you're trans

none of the turtles do

mutant turtle that is rejected by society he can't Judge!

also he helps you whenever you are feeling dysphoric

will tell you that you are the most handsome and strongest guy he knows

and loves

Raph

LOVES THAT YOU'RE STRONG

IT MEANS HE CAN SPAR WITH YOU!

AND YOU CAN KEEP UP WITH HIM!!

he definitely works out with you and gives pointers as to how to be stronger.

please carry this man like a princess.

he adores it

he adores you

as mentioned before he loves sparring with you

since you're strong like him it doesn't mean he has to hold back!

and he loves that!

and he genuinely is a good sport when he loses to you

and that's totally not because he likes being thrown around by you

absolutely not.

he also likes it when he wins against you

inflates his ego.

he also loves fighting in battles with you and loves watching you fight

like he will just be starring at you so lovingly as you smash a Kraangs metal skull

he's just smitten

has to have someone yell at him to stop starring at you

he adores you and absolutely loves the fact you're strong.

Also makes sure you don't feel dysphoric

genuinely angry whenever he hears someone was transphobic to you

or was just mean to you...

they get a little visit from Raph and get beaten the shit out of-

like how dare they say that to his handsome and strong boyfriend

he don't care if your strong and can beat people up yourself

he will still beat them up himself.

Donnie

again all the turtles love that you're strong

same with nerd over here (I say that affectionately)

he helps you with becoming stronger

likes diets

and workouts that help

and he gives you workouts that will help with your gender dysphoria

like he will give you workouts that make your body more masculine

if you want that of course

he asks for your help a lot to pick up big heavy things he can't

genuinely your biggest fanboy

loves to have you there helping him by being his brawns

has definitely written fanfics of you two

and it's the jock x nerd trope

he doesn't tell you about them

much like Raph he just stares at you adoringly while you fight an enemy

takes a lot to snap him out of it though

literally have to bonk him out of his trance

he just is absolutely smitten with you

definitely has a folder dedicated to pictures of you working out

for research purposes

doesn't spar with you unlike his brothers

mainly because he is more into computers and tech rather than fighting.

but he definitely roots for you as you fight his brothers

fucking loves it when you beat Raphs ass

Mikey

Loves your strength

Loves to be picked up like a pretty princess by you

Calls you his knight in shining armor

Showers you in kisses whenever he can

Goofball over here will flirt with you a lot though

Constantly flirting and complimenting you

Like calling you handsome, or hot

Compliment him as well he loves it

Definitely made you dress up as a knight while he dressed up as a prince

He just loves it

Has made you play DND with him

He loves sparring with you

and also watching you beat his brothers sometimes

Mikey adores you

and will watch you with heart eyes as you fight much like his older brothers

but he can multitask, he's fighting while admiring you

its impressive.

throws himself in your arms after a fight

he loves you and adores you.

[thoseyoulove]

Reacting to The Vampire Lestat - Part III (with a bit of spoilers)

I like Gabrielle.

I'm not sure I love her, but I really like her.

I feel wrong using feminine pronouns with her, though. I feel like Gabrielle is whispering in my ear that is they/them. Like, I've never had a headcanon so strong before? I don't know about labels, but for me those are the pronouns Gabrielle would use. It's just so clear to me.

I won't use them because the book doesn't do it, the fandom doesn't do it, which I'm not criticizing because it isn't exactly 'official', so it wouldn't be real canon to... But I feel like if the books were released today, it would be. And I hope the show changes that and we can gradually adjust too.

I hope that when they write season 3, they show signs of her gender dysphoria even before she says something explicit like the "you're the man in me" conversation. I want lines that imply that, I want a look in her eyes and expressions on her face whenever she gets gender envious of guys or has to do something "feminine". The book doesn't do a lot of that because Lestat is the narrator and he is away from her, so we barely see her before the transformation/'transition' but the show has the opportunity to explore more of it and I hope they use it.

Gabrielle was born to be a vampire. I think she would nail it even without Lestat's counseling. It's just second nature for her. You go, bruh!

Gabrielle actually seems to be more fun and even affectionate than I expected? I was worried that she'd might be too confident, powerful, badass, empowered etc that she would feel cold and emotionless, because that's usually what happens with characters like these and I hate that... But so far it hasn't been the case.

She really blossomed with vampirism. Feels like she is finally getting the opportunity to have the life she was meant to live.

The only downside is the hair. That moment with the hair was so visceral. I feel bad for her. Imagine being stuck with a hair you hate and gives you body dysphoria forever. I hope the show lets her hair be short. Like, maybe her illness affected her hair or something. Or at least give her hairstyles that make it look shorter than it really is. Or make her cut it every day. I don't care. Let the dude have short hair! Period.

Lestat's reaction to all this is like... Mixed feelings. He doesn't love it. Which, I get it, all his life he knew her as a "woman". It can be weird adjusting to that, it may feel like you're losing someone. But there are these gentle moments when he separates accessories (if I remember it correctly, rings) that are masculine for her because he figures she would prefer them and when he says he'll cut her hair every night if she wants to, so it's more of unlearning and grieving what/who he thought was 'real' and adapting to a new reality. It's not an "okay, let's go!" reaction as if nothing happened, specially for the time being (1700s), it's complicated, but he seems to be open. I can't speak for everyone who is trans and/or under the non-binary umbrella, but it was human to me and I have no problems with it.

Alright, so whether it was incestuous before or not, now it clearly is. I do hope it started now and not when they were human, though.

She was my mother, my fledgling, my child (sort of), my roommate, basically the only friend I had and my lover. I mean, not exactly, but I thought the joke was funny.

I feel like if I talk about the incest, it has to be on another post because it would probably take too long. There are way too many things to talk about and I'm still approaching the middle of the book.

Let's just say it sort of makes works with how the book, the characters, this species and universe are written. I can sort of get it, at least for now. Is it necessary? No. Would the show suffer if they don't do the incest? Not all. Is it random, irrelevant, only for shock value and because "let's get nasty freaky and controversial these are vampires and this is gothic horror grow up cupcakes deal with it hahaha"? Also no! It has some kind of logic. But I feel like Lestat and Gabrielle are already layered enough with their parent/child/maker/fledgling/sort of envious of each other (including the fact they're both gender nonconforming to some extent) dynamic on its own, that there's plenty to cover here without incest. Still, if the show goes there (and I'm afraid they will), I also expect it to make sense and not be just for the sake of being seual, weird and controversial. I believe Rolin is too good to write something that mediocre and poor. So, I can live without it, but I'm also trusting the show to do whatever their thing is. Let's see, I guess.

Also, at least at the moment, it's not as big as people make it out to be. Again, to talk about this properly I'd need another post, but it's not like they sleep together, they're head over heels in love with each other or anything. Like I said, there's some logic that is kind of complicated to explain here, but it's not that radical and it's not that often. Sometimes I even genuinely and wholeheartedly forget about it. Fortunately, there are way too many other (and more) interesting things going on to focus on.

Gabrielle learning about her powers is really fun too, maybe even more fun than Lestat since she's such a natural at this whole thing.

And their maker/fledgling dynamic is entertaining as well.

She's like, climbing walls, jumping from roofs etc like a cat, just having the time of her life and while Lestat gets pretty adventurous and experimental with his powers too, it's not as much? Gabrielle takes it to the next level (good for her).

Like, sometimes he has to stop Gabrielle like a father with his kid, like "CAN WE PLEASE JUST GO HOME WE CAN DO MORE TOMORROW" and it's simply hilarious.

Stop it, Lestat, let Gabrielle HAVE FUN!

Gabrielle just gives major Cat Woman vibes. Now I need Cat Woman-esque scenes on the show with her climbing and jumping between buildings etc. WE HAVE SO MUCH POTENTIAL AND THE VISION IS CO CLEAR. Do it, Rolin!

It's cool that Lestat finally has some real company and someone with whom he can be open about being a vampire.

Loneliness is the biggest thing for him on the show and I have a feeling it's the same thing on the books. And it's even worse here, because there are moments where he is completely alone and in so much pain (and we haven't seen that on the show yet). Having Gabrielle around made things better for him and he hasn't cried in a little while (and he was crying A LOT on those first two chapters, for very understandable reasons), so this was a nice turn for him and the story.

I also think he enjoys being her mentor, like it gives him a sense of purpose and pride. Reminds me of how he talked about the way he felt at the monastery. And it's sweet to see him teaching Gabrielle stuff.

And sometimes he feels like an old and tired single dad and it's just funny. Like, Gabrielle is ready to create the vampire Olympics and win gold for every single sport and he just wants to sleep. Lestat is too much and loves playing around, but Gabrielle is too much even for HIM. Imagine having more energy than the actual ADHD child. What a legend. They're hilarious. A lot of room to play with humor with these two and I hope they use it.

P.S. Nothing is permanent, opinions might change and this is based on Lestat’s narration, which can be unreliable. I’m reading the books so I can find out more about the characters, what potential events might happen in the show, what I can expect etc. This is my favorite show in the universe, so I want to be as informed as possible. I have no idea if I’ll become a legit fan of the books or not, but so far I’m enjoying it. I’m posting these comments only for fun.

[mortalityplays]

I don't think I've ever written explicitly about my relationship with gender on here outside of when I originally came out and shrugged in the direction of some pronouns. now I have a lot more followers and it's tdov so why not.

I'm genderfluid, which for me means that I identify as both a man and a woman. you could call me bigender, but fluid better fits my experience. I've described this before as being 'not nonbinary but extra binary'. gender is a social construct etc but my sense of self is theatrical and oppositional and articulates itself most clearly in reference to / interplay with a polar north and south. kind of like my aesthetic preference for saturated colours and stark contrasts.

I prefer he/him pronouns. I actually don't dislike she/her pronouns but it is almost impossible to thread the needle of being called she/her without being implicitly degendered. they're a double twist not the default please thank you. they're nightmare mode, mostly for other trans people and strictly invitation only. I quite like it/its, and I tolerate they/them from people who don't know me (but it gives me sims negative moodlet).

I don't have a 'deadname' the way many trans people do. I go by Lee these days because it's nice and ambiguous, but that has always been my middle name. I still love my more feminine forename, but it's sleeping right now. It's in a velvet coffin in a thorn-strangled tower. It doesn't bother me to be associated with old work under that name, but it doesn't represent me right now. don't feel awkward if you come across the signs she left behind. my autobiography is a gothic novel.

this should explain why I use the pen name R/L - flexibility and change are intrinsic to my sense of self and by extension my sense of gender. maybe things will change again, if they do I'll let you know. right now the tl;dr is: Lee, he/him. It/its if you're feeling fancy.

[alwaysahiccupandastrid]

As an autistic person, I want to say something about The Good Doctor.

Over the last month or so - but especially the last two days - Twitter has gone nuts about dragging the absolute piss out of this show. Because autism representation is so rare in major television shows or movies, I’ve been finding myself questioning whether The Good Doctor is in fact “good” representation in the slightest or if I’m just clinging onto it because it’s one of the few shows out there with an autistic lead… and people dragging the shit out of it has made me even more unsure because I’ve only seen one and a half seasons of the show so far and so I can’t really speak on how the show has done recently in regards to portraying autism.

Personally, do I feel that Shaun in TGD represents me and how I am autistic? No. But to be honest, I wasn’t expecting him to because autism is a spectrum and the areas where my autism affects my life will be different to other people’s; it’s also worth noting that it’s been shown that autistic traits are different in girls than in boys, and that girls tend to mask more etc. Obviously this does not apply to ALL boys and ALL girls, but in general it’s thought that girls and women tend to have different traits to boys and men.

With this in mind, Shaun actually does remind me at times of a child at the school I’m currently at - again, not 100% the same but there’s similarities in regards to how they talk, what they say etc. However, that child is five-nearly-six, and Shaun is a grown man so… do with that information what you will. There have also been a couple of moments I’ve had so far watching the show where it’s seemed like lightening has struck and I’m like “Oh that’s me!” - namely the social awkwardness and a meltdown scene. It’s not every episode, it’s only on occasion, but it’s been nice to see nonetheless because the only other time I’ve witnessed that with an actual confirmed autistic character is Newt Scamander.

Obviously I don’t speak for all autistic people, and I’m very aware that many other autistic people have expressed dislike and criticism of the show - and I get it, I truly do. I do think the show isn’t exactly the best written (to put it nicely) and that it gives a very stereotypical representation of autism, namely “white boy/man autism”. I don’t want to bash the show too much because while I’ve seen complaints about it, I’ve also had some fellow autistic people say to me that they love the show and that they feel Shaun represents them - and that’s great.

I do want to express my discomfort about the fact that people have turned a scene where Shaun is having a meltdown into a meme. There is a very fine line between criticizing a piece of media for bad representation and then mocking autistic meltdowns - and I think a lot of neurotypicals are in fact just using it as an excuse to laugh at autistic people and mock us. It’s not just that scene either: I’ve seen people mocking clips showing how he stands, how he talks, how he interacts with people, and it very much feels like people just wanted a chance to make ableist comments about autistic people.

It’s also interesting that this show has so far had six whole seasons air, it’s got extremely high viewership, and yet it’s only now that people are taking offence to a scene that occurred at least four years ago. I know that Twitter has had a field day over another scene in the first season where Shaun at first struggles to understand why a trans woman is “she” (which, you know, is a whole other kettle of fish given that I’ve seen it claimed that autistic people are more likely to be trans/NB etc), and far right TERFs/bigots were using that scene as some kind of “gotcha!”… right up until it was pointed out that by the end of the episode, Shaun fully accepted the trans woman’s gender identity and used the correct pronouns.

Again, I’m not saying this was brilliant writing or anything, but it was several years ago and is only now being brought up, same with other scenes taken out of context in the show… Yes, autistic people have voiced grievances with it before, but were ignored - I don’t believe for one minute that the neurotypicals making the memes and being preachy give one shit about actually autistic people or care about us, because otherwise why were our voices ignored before? It’s only now that it’s been getting public notice for the trans episode that people are going “ohhhh this show sucks and is bad representation” as if members of the autistic community haven’t voiced that opinion for years. It just rubs me the wrong way quite frankly.

What I will say is that I’m tired of seeing people drag Freddie Highmore though. He’s a good actor, anyone who’s seen him in things he’s done since his childhood will know that, it’s not his fault if he’s given shit scripts to work with. I do also think Freddie means well with his portrayal, even if he’s (as far as we know) allistic and the fact he appeared in an Autism $peaks video (because of TGD/all the cast did it) - the man has zero social media presence whatsoever though and didn’t even know what Pokémon Go was, so I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt this time and assume he truly hasn’t been informed about how harmful that organisation is. Or maybe I’m just going soft on him because seven year old me had an age appropriate crush on him eighteen years ago, who knows at this point?

I’m hoping all of this talk will open up a dialogue about the show and about the representation of autism, if nothing else.

[secretgamergirl]

People are super weird about letting fictional trans people get on with their lives.

There's a thing I've written about before where people will refuse to accept that fictional characters could possibly be trans no matter how incredibly blatant their creators are about it. You can put a big note on a character design sketch that just says "she is trans," you can have a character whose body shape suggests one gender and have every single character in the show make a point of correcting anyone misgendering that character accordingly, you can straight up have a character come out as trans, either having a serious talk about their identity with a parent while bathed in the trans flag color scheme with an actual trans flag on the wall behind them, or just straight up say "hey, I'm a man, gonna change my name to Victor, everyone cool with that?" and people will still find ways to bend over backwards and deny it.

But there's a small handful of characters out there people will accept as trans, generally, without a huge fight over it. Typically this happens with characters who are first introduced to people in a context where them being trans is treated like a mean-spirited joke, or is at least put so bluntly people can convince themselves it was. But then we have this weird thing that happens where that recognition is completely conditional on feeling like there's a mean-spirited joke they're in on.

Let's just dive in with the example that's going to be on most people's minds lately. Bridget from Guilty Gear.

I'm pretty sure if you had internet access from 2022 to 2023 you are Extremely Aware that this girl Bridget is trans, and that the scum of the earth threw a gigantic snot-nosed bawling fit of denial over this for at least half a year, trying to cope with all sorts of weird baffling denials where she wasn't trans in Japan and localizers made this up or there was some double-secret "true ending" to the game you could unlock somehow that walked this back or whatever, and the creator of the series as a whole, and this character, and really the only voice with any authority on the subject ended up writing like 4 big public statements directly addressing these bigoted weirdos about how no, she's trans, and she's always been trans. There's also some possibility that you were aware that Bridget is in a fighting game called Guilty Gear Strive, and maybe even that she's been a character in that series since 2002.

Here's the thing a lot of people don't seem to understand though. Since Strive has this whole story mode bit with her gaining the confidence to admit she's trans to everyone around her and they're all accepting and all that, if you just got here it would be pretty reasonable for you to assume that either she's a brand new character, or that in previous appearances, she was either "stealth" and everyone thought she was a cis girl, or this general look is new and she used to do the boymode thing. But, no. She's always presented this way, everyone's always known she was assigned male at birth. We went through two whole decades with Bridget being THE poster child for gross bigots going "hey, the little blond girl dressed like a nun is pretty cute right? HA! That's actually a boy! You're freakin' gay dude!" TVtropes had a page forever called "Dropped a Bridget on him" for describing all the media that as a "reveal" along those lines. The 4 letter T-slur was pretty much coined to describe this specific character.

So it's not that the recent rage from bigots is because they were into Bridget and thought they were into a cis girl, or that this character is "suddenly a girl." It's that we are now very explicitly saying "yeah, she's trans. Everyone knows she's trans and everyone is cool with it." There's no more "dark secret" to use as a gotcha.

Meanwhile, the incident that was really on my mind today was seeing someone's big retrospective piece about good ol' Poison, refreshingly opening with the actual story of how she was created, citing the same concept sketch from that post of mine I linked earlier, and not repeating the usual gross playground rumor, going on to mention an a fighting game appearance where backlash from trans-positive people caused Capcom to walk back some gross jokes in victory quotes about her "manly strength" or whatever... and then proceeded to speculate if cutting those transphobic jokes meant they have "retconned her into being cis." Like, what the hell is this logic? Is the idea of a character being trans and NOT being subject to gross ridicule seriously so hard for people to get their heads around that "they must have decided she was never trans at all" feels like a sensible explanation? That's... not how retcons work. If we've had years of hard confirmation that a character has had some particular trait, that's just a fact about that character, and you can go ahead and keep assuming it's true. A retcon would be like, if there was a new game and it had some cutscene where we see Poison dying her hair, revealing/confirming that it hasn't been naturally pink this whole time. There isn't a word for people just quietly deciding drastic changes have happened to characters, then never mentioning these anywhere. Because that's just not a thing that happens. It is completely absurd to just go around assuming characters stop being trans or gay or vegetarian or whatever the hell else if you haven't been reminded of the fact lately. That's like assuming your parents ceased to exist when they played peekaboo with you and hid their faces behind their hands. What the absolute hell? Oh and people do this with Birdo like all the damn time, too.

"Hey, don't you mean Birdetta?" I was going to make one of those rambling joke tags about this but, no, actual real discussion on this one. So just to clarify things here...

Here's the Japanese ad for "Super Mario USA," the Japanese release of the American "Super Mario Bros. 2" being presented in a way that makes it pretty clear we're going for as clear an example as we can give of mid-80s Japan's conception of a trans woman. Technically her first appearance was in Doki Doki Panic, a game created as part of this multimedia promotional thing for... a Japanese TV station's 1987 fall line-up. It was then reworked a bit into a Mario game because... it was really good, the actual Japanese sequel to SMB wasn't great, and Nintendo didn't want to have to deal with all the weird licensing issues tied into things. In the original manual for that, we have...

I'm a bit rusty, but in Japan, she's Catherine, and this brief description here says she's trans in a bigoted fashion, along with mentioning she tells people they can call her Cathy, you know, in a flirty sort of way. The general structure of this made its way into the original Super Mario Bros. 2 manual, at least in keeping the same general format of here's her name, here's some gross transphobia, here's her nickname, but... the whole thing's kind of a mess? Like, if you just saw the U.S. manual, and it said "Birdo- [Transphobic nonsense], ... rather be called 'Birdetta.'" It would be reasonable to interpret that as a dead name/chosen name sort of thing, but the original Japanese version has roughly the same formatting (and confirmation she's trans) but there's plainly no dead naming there, just an informal nickname... and the U.S. manual didn't even call her Birdo at all. It calls her "Ostro" and then it calls the actual ostrich enemies "Birdo."

And they're like that in-game in the credits too. Everyone caught the obvious error there about the wrong names getting used, and flipped those for future western mentions, but nobody ever caught that there was supposed to be a cutesy nickname going on, and future releases cut the whole transphobic description entirely. So, she's called Catherine in Japan, Cathy for short, and just kinda arbitrarily called Birdo instead in the west. But there's no dead name in any of this, just one of those Mash/Sabin Terra/Tina M. Bison/Vega/Balrog localization messes. And she always has been trans, everywhere, that's just a thing and has nothing to do with badly written manuals, and she's not going to somehow stop being trans just because the awful jokes have stopped.

Here's some fun extra trivia from wikipedia though! "Birdo/Catherine was prominently featured in the cut-scenes for the Japan-only, Satellaview pseudo-sequel of Super Mario USA (Japanese title for the Western version of Super Mario Bros. 2), known as BS Super Mario USA. In this version, three "Super Catherines" were voice-acted by Jun Donna (Pink, described as "slightly mischievous"), Rika (Red, "whose finances are always in the red"), and Akemi (Green, described as "cultured and affluent"). The voices were those of gay men or transgender women." That should really be "BS Super Mario USA" though. The Satellaview was weird.

[prince-liest]

Ok so I know you haven't officially trans anyone's gender in any of your Hazbin fics, but I lowkey get really trans vibes from Alastor in most of your fics?

Idk, it's a little hard go explain but what really tipped me off was his... distaste? Disfavor? Aversion? To his "male body" in one of the 666 fics. (I think the line was something akin to "the male body being what it is" in reference to Alastor getting hard fairly quickly).

There's honestly a lot of interesting things to speculate in relation to how Alastor views his body. Especially with his relationship with touch, and how he initiates touch and how he actively dislikes it (depending on the person).

Not to mention his feelings regarding his non-human features. How he doesn't inherently dislike them for being what they are, or rather, that they're "abnormal", but more so that they're not what they're "supposed to be", and not "what he was before" (though I do think that his dislike of his deer features is linked to his dislike of how he died, being viewed as something so easy to be put down - an animal).

Which also relates to how dressed Alastor constantly is. How he shields away his body using clothing, a customizable thing that he takes great pride in making sure is up to his standards (notice how when his coat is damaged he immediately goes to get it fixed, even though the ends of his coat is already damaged. He seems to have very complex opinions on how, exactly, his coat is supposed to be damaged)

I do think that Alastor's preference to being so dressed is linked to his dislike of vulnerability, but I also think it's a very trans(tm) move, lol.

(And I also do think that his dislike of vulnerability is tied to his transness, kinda in a weird "chicken and egg" scenario.)

I find it really interesting how Alastor's true feelings are revealed by his shadow, a being that can transform to look different, is mostly hidden, and is internally mysterious. Idk, it's just very trans(tm) to me!

I also think that Alastor's transness is linked to how he views masculinity, how he seems to automatically like woman, while automatically disliking man. How this is also tied to his parents. I've noticed in your fics (and could be completely wrong about) that Alastor seems to relate femininity (and his mother) with "safety" (how he compares the gentle touch in your last fic with feeling like his mother and his like of jambalaya).

I'm not sure if I would say that Alastor is a trans woman, but I also wouldn't say he isn't. Overall I think he has a very complex view of gender, but it's definitely something he doesn't put a lot into. Which relates to him not knowing what asexuality is.

I have a lot more Alastor trans thoughts, but this ask is already getting pretty long so I'm just gonna cut it off here. I hope I made sense, and that you're comfortable with me speculating on a character you've written about gender. (Totally valid if you're not though! If so, then please disregard this ask!)

I'll take "asks that made me realize I'm out here accidentally writing a character as nonbinary" for 300, please! Please prepare yourself for the mistake of letting me have a keyboard and talk about gender after 9pm, so sorry to literally everybody else.

You're gonna get a real fuckin' kick out of the first bit of the next 666 that I'm gonna post tomorrow. ;) It's definitely the point where I finally acknowledged to myself that I have a strong urge to inject some genderfuckery into Alastor in the form of him continuing to use his thing with Vox to explore his own relationship with, like, existing in his own body, and then also threw those feelings all over Angel Dust like a fistful of glitter while I was at it.

Like you said, I wouldn't say that I've ended up writing him as a trans woman, but I think I have seen him from the start as a character who is not exactly cis in a wibbly-wobbly way I have not previously defined but that I think I would perhaps characterize as "gender: monster condescending to play at humanity."

I don't think he eschews masculinity entirely, for what it's worth. He definitely strikes me as a person who aligns himself with the image of a smiling gentleman (if a hellish one) as the proper way for a person like him to be, and for whom that is an important, comfortable, and satisfying part of both his identity and how he relates to both his female friends and to men. However, he also strikes me as someone for whom that part of his identity is what he shows the world on purpose, presented as he would like it to be seen, rather than as something that reflects his bodily preferences. To put it another way, if he'd been AFAB, I think he would put just as much into his presentation, just in the direction of femininity, and it wouldn't make him any more or less comfortable with himself.

You're right in that I've definitely written him with a faint distaste for the mundane physical reality of his body, and a lot of this comes through in how he alternates between short moments of fascination with what new things his body is doing as he explores it and decides whether or not he likes it, and his much longer moments of utter disregard for the same thing. It also extends to the rest of his mundane humanity, though: his physical limits, his adrenaline-rush of fear, etc. He values the coat, the cane, the reality-bending static, the smile - but whatever he sees in the mirror when he gets undressed or whatever doesn't function to his purposes, he can take or leave.

I see Alastor as someone who defines himself first and foremost as the radio demon: not a person, but a monster and an enigma. A voice and a personality. Everything else is more or less incidental, and he would prefer to keep it set aside, thank you. The occasional dysphoria isn't just about his sex, it's about the humanity of his body as a whole.

[velvetvexations]

Just read that t4t masc4fem (?) kind of article everyone is speaking of, and sure... Being a trans man in the nonbinary lesbian kind of way myself, I kind of understand gnc or queer transfem ppl feeling repulsed since it just feels like too much gender roles...

I can't deal with cis nor trans men who'd approach me like this, not because I see it as predatory but because it's just not my cup of tea. It's not hurting me to get flowers. Or if a femme person is interested in a way that expects an overtly 'manly' role of me etc., again I am not harmed by them expressing such interest.

Initiation isn't coercion, it's where you can either give or not give consent. That's how people find people to date or flirt with. No shit.

Also... There are trans people into those dynamics described in the article. Trans people who wish they could just go on a kind of a stereotypical straight people date. Even a bit old-fashioned flowers and stuff. I think people forget how magical that can be to trans people who, by default, are not expected to be able to experience it.

I'll respect trans folk who find this type of thing gender-affirming. I've seen t4t straight or masc/fem couples like these, as well as butch/femme lesbian couples like this. This is normal trans and/or queer people stuff.

The way people read into the article as inherently rapey or predatory or incelish seem wild to me. Have they ever read anything written by an actual incel...? Because I'll tell you. Incels describe everything a woman says as manipulation. Incels view every interaction with women as a power game. Incels encourage deception, emotional abuse, manipulation and coercion.

None of the above is implied in the article. It's cheesily written for sure, but says something about society how cishets can have their cheesy romantic straight people things but when trans people do, it's gross and bad...?

Trans people are... * checks notes * attracted to or interested in relationships with literally ANYONE and are inherently seen as predators. That's fucked up. I feel like this could even be internalized shame in some of these transfems esp. if terfs have demonized transfem lesbians a lot so it's like. Seeing a trans guy into fem people be masculine and cheesily romantic feels like a taboo, I guess? Could that be it?

Ughh. Also. The part about "exploring sexuality unconventionally" or whatever, being equated to cis guys' tgirl fetishes... Like. People commenting this stuff do not know anything about trans men's sexualities or complex relationships to our bodies. To me that immediately read as;

"Another trans person will understand that the sexual roles or acts we may prefer may not be stereotypical to what people automatically assume about our anatomies."

Allocishet people have an infamously poor grasp of the idea. Trans people on the other hand... May be a liiiiittle better about taking dysphoria to account and not reducing people to specific sexual roles based on their anatomy.

Also they really have decided to view trans men as these hypersexual predatory monsters who can't even be attracted to someone without being a fucking predator. Idk that hurts to read. I wonder if it's again some internalized stuff from how TERFs predatorjacket and shame transfeminine people's sexualities. So they feel instinctively angry, because of shame, when seeing anoter trans person be a sexual being.

Also I wish more people understood not everything other people are into sexually or romantically is about them, nor has to be their cup of tea.

Yeah, it is like, at worst kinna retrograde humor but even on that level it's...not a big deal, and the outrage is especially galling because this is right in the midst of egg drama where it is vitally important we still be allowed to stereotype trans girls.

I wish I had more to add to what you've said here anon but you really laid it out.

[plutodetective]

I have to work today, but there’s a lot I want to say about Jonathan and gender, and I won’t have the time to organize it in a proper essay, so here are some points:

1) Of fucking course men can have characteristics usually attributed to women and still be men. I’m working on a series of sci-fi adaptations of fairy tales, and in my Sleeping Beauty the protagonist is a (cisgender) boy, precisely because I want boys to see they can be vulnerable and need rescue too. And I completely understand if someone prefers to see Jonathan as a cis man because it’s so rare to see men in this role, surviving abuse, when it does happen in real life. I start my Gothic Heroine Support Group fic with Belle making precisely this point. Men can be prey, women can be predators. She knows this because that’s what happened to the original Beast, and kudos to Gabrielle Suzanne de Villeneuve, the author of the original Beauty and the Beast, for making this point centuries ago.

2) That being said, Jonathan seems to identify with women on a deeper level than being on a role in which women usually are. For me, what cements the headcanon is when he chooses the women’s quarters to sleep in, seeming to long for “a gentle life”, even if it involved sadly waiting for the menfolk to return from war. He seems to identify with the female identity, not only the female role. That’s only my personal interpretation, I fully acknowledge that. But seeing as it’s one that a lot of trans people in the fandom seem to share and, more importantly, to identify with, it’s one that is more than valid: it brings people joy. I’m cis. I’m also bisexual, and I know the joy of seeing myself in a character through subtext, and also how frustrating it is when people say it’s not true because it’s not 100% explicit in the text. If trans people are telling me they identify with Jonathan, I believe them and I take that as there being reasons I acknowledge I cannot fully understand why Jonathan is potentially a trans woman.

3) I assume everyone here has heard of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey. But it’s less likely that everyone has heard of Gail Carriger’s The Heroine’s Journey. I fully recommend this book to everyone. But the point she makes is that whether someone is a “hero” or a “heroine” according to hers and Campbell’s analysis doesn’t depend on their gender. Women can follow Campbell’s Hero Journey, and men can follow Carriger’s Heroine Journey. And non-binary people can follow either. The names come from the gender of the characters who originated the archetypes, with Campbell’s being classic Greek heroes, and Carriger’s being ancient world goddesses. With that in mind, although no one has written a “Gothic Heroine’s Journey”, Jonathan Harker is a gothic heroine, regardless of whether you see him as cis man or trans woman, because he follows that story type step by step.

4) Does anyone here know of a transgender gothic heroine (in the gender neutral sense explained above)? Because I don’t. If anyone does, seriously, please point me their way, I’d love to increase my gothic knowledge. But it’s a type of representation I’ve never seen. As a member of a lot of minorities, I feel very happy whenever I see any of them represented in ways I’ve never seen before, and I can only imagine it’s the same for trans people. So what’s the harm in letting Jonathan be that? Seriously. All that is missing so far from Jonathan being a fully classical gothic heroine is him going around the castle in a flowing white dress. If I ever get to adapt my written version of modern day!Dracula, I’ll absolutely put Natália (my version of Jonathan) in a white nightgown, just to give a transgender actor the chance to play out this scene that I’ve seen so many cis women do over the years. Again, I understand if someone takes empowerment from Jonathan as a cis man surviving abuse, and I’d never want to take that away from them. Jonathan being a cis man is an absolutely valid reading too. But I think trans women deserve empowerment too, deserve to see a trans woman playing out a story so many of their cis counterparts have always had. The book is in public domain. We can each adapt them the way we choose. Cis man Jonathan and trans fem Jo, Natália, or whatever name you prefer for her, can coexist and be important to the groups of people each of them are important to. 

[deadboydetectives-confessions]

Man, I love a lot of the shows that I grew up with, but I as I was trying to think of more possible DBD crossovers to suggest, I thought of BtVS & it's wild now to think of how that was considered "feminist" & "progessive" for its time (oh the ways in which Joss Whedon & Neil Gaiman are cut from the same fucked up cloth, wrt how they both have made careers out of presenting themselves as "feminist men," which is it's own rant, tbh) and the ways that DBD just casually blows BtVS out of the water in terms of gender parity & racial & sexual diversity:

--DBD shows up out of the gate with two main cast members who are women of color, something BtVS never had in seven seasons. Closest we got is Kendra & she was a recurring character who was killed early. & season seven with some of the potentials I guess -- I don't think any of the potentials were main cast though (was Kennedy?)

--DBD has no straight, white men wrt the main cast or recurring cast. Charles is a person of color, Edwin is gay/queer/mlm, Tragic Mick is black, TCK & Monty are some flavor of queer, all the rest of the regulars are women or female-coded. Meanwhile, BtVS has Xander for 7 seasons. It's not until Andrew -- who was a villian! -- that we get a queer man as a regular/main cast member and that's season 6 & from what I remember it is kind of frustratingly done! (Season 4 is the first canonical queer rep with Willow/Tara. Retroactively we know Willow is queer from tge get go, but watching in real time it was a surprise when she came out) And as homoerotic as Angel, Spike, & Giles might be to fans, they're all written as straight on the show and they're all white. The first character of color who gets a main role is in season fucking seven with Principle Wood.

--there's not a true female big bad on BtVS until the 5th season. I love Drusilla, but Angel is the S2 big bad not her. There's the S4 millitary professor lady (totally forget her name), but ultimately it's her creation, Adam, who is the big bad. Meanwhile DBD is blessed with Esther right out of the gate.

--Ratio wise, I always think about how of the 90's Trek series Voyager is the "feminist" one, but if you look at the main cast the ratio of men:women is always 2:1 in every season it aired. BtVS isn't as bad as Voyager & tbh I forget who was main cast vs supporting (like, Tara should have been main cast but wasn't, I know that), but DBD is just set up from the on-set in a way that feels so much more female-powered, imo.

Anyway, I just wanted to take a second to appreciate all that. When I see meta posts about Crystal seeped with with misogynoir or when I get frustrated that there seem to be more fics that focus on TCK or Monty than there are fics that focus on Niko or Jenny or when I get bummed that there aren't any canonical ace or trans or nonbinary characters, it's also nice to remember how things used to be and how much the media landscape has improved. I can name multiple shows currently on with queer characters. Multiple shows with black women & other women of color in the main cast. I still have a lot of fondness for BtVS & I'm definitely using it as a scapegoat here, but it's true that my enjoyment had a lot of caveats & I don't feel that when watching DBD. I really appreciate that.

.

[xviistrings]

I feel like fanning some flames today.... Why do you hate N_oto (a) I'm rly curious ,':^

i would like to answer this calmly and rationally. i would really like to. but i'm going to be angry (and will use they/them for naoto)

naoto is a shit character no matter what angle you view them from. a major aspect of their story is struggling with being taken seriously in their line of work because they are both a child and female; the gender aspect is especially relevant to naoto, since the child thing is kind of just a problem that solves itself........

naoto's gender is a widely debated topic among fans. some people see them as a trans man because of naoto's desire to be viewed as a man, some see them as a cis woman because that's just the conclusion they come to at the end, some see them as a trans woman because it feels like naoto is forcing themselves to go back in the closet but they can't fight their true feelings, some see them as nonbinary because they don't want to be a woman but they also show discomfort being a man....

yeah i've heard every single argument for every single kind of different gender identity naoto could have and i've concluded that no matter what angle you look at it from, naoto is still a shit character.

this isn't to invalidate anyones headcanons, idc do what you want forever, but naoto WAS meant to be written as a cis girl. but they did such a shit job at writing them as such that believing they're otherwise is so so understandable

naoto is apparently supposed to have internalized misogyny. we never even see a hint of that like we do with everyone else. we see chie be pushy about getting the mc's opinion on yukiko because of her jealousy towards her, we see yukiko being very gloomy when she's busy with the inn, etc i don't wanna list everything it's late rn

naoto's screen time is mostly spent on them just kinda. detectiving around. that's not bad and it's a very proper introduction, it's just that.......... there are scenes where naoto hangs around the entire investigation team, including the girls. if their hatred is so internalized to the point where its affected their outward appearance, is it that much of a stretch to say that they'd also project their hatred outwards?

like. yk. being rude to the girls and not accepting their input on discussions. that would've been an interesting trait to introduce to this supposedly respectable and polite smart detective guy. and later on, when we discover the source of that behaviour, it makes a lot more sense than it just suddenly being thrust on us.

plus, it would give them a flaw for them to overcome via apologizing to the girls and attempting to engage in femininity in a healthy and positive way. it doesn't have to be that long of an arc, i know there was very little time between naoto's dungeon and the namatame stuff, but it really could have been as simple as a scene or two of naoto bonding with the girls, changes to preexisting ones (COUGH COUGH BEAUTY PAGEANT), and then their social link deals with the rest.

like. dude.

i get what they were trying to go for, honestly, but i just wish they handled it better. if a lot of persona 4's jokes weren't outlandishly sexist and at the expense of the girls, maybe i could absolutely get on board with a lovely story about a girl recovering from a life of self hatred and insecurity and learning that she doesn't need to have a stick up her ass all the time, and that she has a whole group of friends that will accept her for who she is beyond gender, beyond age, beyond any other labels and the expectations placed on her because of them. that would be really really nice if we had that.

but we do not. i don't think naoto really feels like part of the friend group most of the time. it's kind of the same problem haru has where she's introduced very late and not given nearly enough time to develop before we get right into the final arc of the story. naoto helps with the investigations, sure, but otherwise naoto doesn't really get to be in too much of the team bonding moments. maybe that's an issue that gets fixed in golden? idk? i only played vanilla

the thing that really pisses me off about naoto is not just that they're underdeveloped; i love a lot of underdeveloped characters and i like exploring their potential. it's that the main element of naoto's story is handled so clumsily that it makes me wonder what the fuck they were trying to say in the first place!!!!

naoto doesn't want to pretend to be a man anymore and they want to be a woman. so here are several scenes of them being visibly uncomfortable when experiencing womanhood. naoto doesn't want to follow any gender norms and just wants to be themselves before a label. so let's have one of the flags for their romance route be a dialogue option saying you'd only like them if they were feminine. what are you doing guys

i'm rewriting naoto in my head all the time . i've seen a billion tboy naotos but i think i can do cis girl naoto justice. and i will do it because without this naoto will just piss me off forever and ever and ever. ugh

[one-squash-one-end]

once again rambling about Adam Parrish

Hi! This still belongs to my big Raven Cycle analysis, click here for the masterpost.

For most of the characters I obviously read a lot into subtext and speculate about how they're absolutely not straight, but lucky for us, we do get canon queer characters!

So let this be me talking about Adam as bi representation and also throwing in (other people's) gender headcanons. As always, please tell me your thoughts in the notes <3

c) Adam Parrish

Sadly, I cannot speculate too much about Adam’s sexuality, as he is canonically the mean, witchy (and bitchy) bisexual.

There isn’t much I can say, really. Throughout the book series he displays interest in both Blue and Ronan. And also Greenmantle, but I would like all of us to ignore that because I want to believe Adam has good taste. Blue and Ronan as his love interests are essentially seen as equal. While I would say he had already had some repressed attraction for Ronan (see: him calling the swearing melodic, black-painted poetry- you normally wouldn’t feel like that for someone who just called you a motherfucker) in book one while dating Blue. Yet it becomes very much clear that he did have romantic feelings for Blue. Yes, the two of them were doomed from the start (but still pretty cute I’d say! Until things went to shit, that is), however, Blue is not treated by the narrative as some mistake before Adam figures out he’s actually gay (looking at you judgingly here, Rainbow Rowell). Neither was Ronan a quick, silly thing to see how it would feel to kiss the same gender. That is, like, very much very obvious, through the last five books. They are boyfriends, your honor.

At this point I would also like to give a shout-out to Adam Parrish and the Crying Club (which would make for a fire band name, just saying). This little group of queer people Adam collects at uni (in Call Down The Hawk) has my whole heart and I so wish we would have seen more of them, I am forever mourning their potential of silly, reoccurring side characters. What I’m trying to say though is this: The fact that Adam builds a group of queer people around himself (another one apart from the Gangsey) proves his sexuality even more, because we all know queer people flock towards each other.

Either way, canon bisexual, we love that. Moving on.

Honorary mention to the transmasc Adam headcanon that Tumblr user @barbaricpoetic compiles especially well in a post. I personally do not follow that headcanon, like of course I do not think Blue is supposed to be written as genderfluid in the books, but somehow I believe even less in trans Adam, but either way I do agree there is a lot of strong source material to support that headcanon. Check out the original post for a lot more detail, I don’t want to plagiarize all of that here either way, but here’s two especially solid hints: First of all, he does everything to appear more masculine, like working in typically male-dominated fields and dressing accordingly to that, while orientating his behavior on Ronan and Gansey, who, ironically, do not try as hard as him. Secondly, there’s physical descriptions, Adam being a lot more “elegant” and delicate than the other (Raven) boys Blue knows, with unusual features, and “blue eyes pretty enough for a girl”. Yeah, might be a coincidence, might be solid, queer truth.

This would all make so much sense, even within the books and all, there is just one, considerably big thing, that would not add up with this in canon. Adam’s rural-conservative shitbag of a father would never use the correct name and pronouns for his ftm child.

Either way, there might still be something fun going on with his gender that defies the binaries. Why do I think so? Well, Gansey says a very interesting thing. “Henry was a boy. Adam was a─ Gansey didn’t know.” I wish he would have told us what makes them different. What is it that Adam was? A man? A demiboy? A nonbinary person? A dinosaur in disguise? Please do enlighten us, Gansey. I’m assuming it’s got something to do with Adam being more mature than Henry (he definitely is), but like with Blue and the 300 Fox Way Women, it might be a gender thing, at least you can very easily lay it out to be that way.

To conclude as I will conclude every character part, I think Adam might possibly wear a crop top (might take him a while to accept masculinity is everything you want it to be and not just a certain aesthetic standard though), but absolutely not regularly and not around strangers or his parents.

[odysseys-blood]

theres a lot of back and forth about paimon especially so i just wanna put in my two cents about it bc speculation on paimon and gender can be tricky and theres a lot to take into consideration. this isnt an end all be all post and not the best written but im just speaking from my place as someone who is trans (though i myself am tme) and works with gender themes in my own characters so this is gonna be kinda long

So! Paimon

a lot of the issue from the back and forth stems from how paimon is written by default. When you meet paimon, he's designated as just a pretty boy that likes to crossdress and they emphasize heavily that paimon is a man every time they talk about his femininity and how he presents himself.

Now crossdressing itself is not at all transphobic, hell drag is a big thing and its not uncommon for queens do figure out that they're transfem when they get into it. In fact a lot of queer people do push to erase gender boundaries within clothes because in the end....clothing is just cloth wear what you want be who you want to be, whether it be a woman wearing masc clothing, a man wearing femme clothes, or anyone just wearing something neutral feeling.

Where it becomes a problem is the push to enforce paimon's masculinity at every turn. While its good that paimon isn't a character that's put in to be played for laughs (as feminine men and trans women often are in media), it comes off odd in a way for paimon to have a feminine voice, dress femininely, love feminine things...and then at every point have it enforced heavily that paimon is a man. THAT is where a lot of the issue stems from at when you see it happening as someone who has seen transmisogyny (if this is your first time seeing the word, its transphobia that arises specifically for a trans woman being a woman. ergo the word being a mix of transphobia and misogyny) in practice it looks worrying. When you're someone who knows how to spot this kind of thing it can feel like paimon's gender nonconformity is being demonized (while they also highlight it. its an odd mix).

This isn't to say that it is a concious thing that's being pushed either i'm not saying the writers are personally transmisogynists at all, HOWEVER since transphobia and transmisogyny is rampant in society to the point where it subconsciously controls biases, thats how it can come off transmisogynistic. Think of it as similar to racism: even if you think you yourself are not racist theres still likely biases you have picked up or have been taught just because theyre so pervasive in society. This doesnt mean its your fault it just means its something that you have to unlearn conciously and put in the work to do so.

This is also not just a problem with whb because again like i said, its systemic. Think about other characters in media who are written this way, such as Bridget from Guilty Gear, or Vivian from Paper Mario. While these two are different in that their status as trans women have been solidified, the treatment they've gotten is largely the same. Especially bridget considering how she for the longest was the poster child for the "femboy" archetype and how femininity is enforced yet also discouraged in these characters until she was finally labeled transgender in gg strive.

All this to say...its messy and theres a lot of points to consider so there really isnt a reason to go at each others throats. Using paimon's canon pronouns and gender isn't exactly a problem and neither is choosing to instead see paimon as a transgender woman and using she/her pronouns. But at the very least it doesn't hurt to educate yourself also and understand why paimon's writing can come off transmisogynistic and transphobic. WHB is not a game thats heralding itself on being progressive (even if there are aspects to it that might seem so) so there's not much to expect from it in that regard but still we can be mindful and discussion isnt bad.

(also a footnote i dont think ive seen any transfem or tma players of whb in the tag....ever but if anyone is and wants to add on or thinks ive overstepped let me know)

[huecycles]

oh hey :) thanks for the kind comments and tags left under the last post!

it's so wild how body hair in art & media in general is seen as something "disgusting" or "weird", at first i thought that maybe the way i drew it made it look confusing but no way in hell you couldn't zoom in or just... think logically to know that is natural hair? some people are hairy like that! the way i draw it is more fluffy yes because i love floof and i dont give a shit tbh lol

i knew about the "issue" of jevil being fat so the body hair one threw me for a loop like wow. idk why jevil specifically gets this type of treatment, maybe other fat characters in utdr do too but i always see toriel, asgore, alphys, lancer, king, catti, sans who is a skeleton (and i really can't see him any other way, the fandom is doing a great job in keeping him chubby-like i love that) drawn with mostly correct proportions to in game/official art, yet jevil seems to get this mixed reaction. idk why i still see skinny jevil, or why some people insist his clown clothes are just "baggy". the jester is circular, look at his torso please for the love of god. sorry but i just want more fat rep as a fat person myself. i want jevil to remain short (his sprite is shorter than kris and slightly taller than spamton) and fat like he is in game!

drawing him helped me understand a lot about plus size anatomy, and honestly i couldn't be more happy about that because i'm also dealing a lot better with my body image issues and finally bringing more diversity to my art. him being hairy too is yet another thing that makes me happy as someone with pcos, and portraying him as a fat, hairy trans man as someone who is nonbinary and for months has been wanting to experiment with different pronouns/wondering how it would be like to transition is something really special. it's messy and silly but spamton and jevil are the ultimate comfort characters/ship to me, their stories and how they were written speak volumes and resonate with me a lot + headcanoning them as t4t has been beyond freeing and making me get a lot of gender euphoria/dysphoria/envy all at the same time lmfao what the fuck.

i'm honestly glad for these characters because they're what helped me articulate my recent feelings about my gender to my mother, who has grown a lot and is making an effort to understand all of this. the reaction i sometimes get from people who talk to me, come into my inbox or just pour their feelings out in the tags about how they love my portrayal of spamton and jevil's gender identity + their relationship and how important it is to them is so so cool. yeah :)

speaking of chest hair, here's how spamton looks without the shirt. the left side of his chest has a panel for his heart (a smaller version of neo's) and of course top surgery scars, a different type. he's also hairy! not that much since he's a puppet but he still has the addison floof, it's cute