#me? writing another nonbinary character with self-esteem issues? it’s more likely than you think

[ninawolv3rina]

THEY ARE KENOUGH!!

OCS: Markus (he/him), Klark (he/him), Nova (They/she)

[rainsoftenings]

pls give us ur analysis on transfem nonbinary tenma 🤲

hello ken!! of coarse... preemptive disclaimer before anything else that i myself am not transfem nor do i claim to speak for them. i have just simply observed that a lot of the problems tenma seems to face are also rlly common transfem-specific issues. you can make a fairly strong argument for a transfem tenma reading imo. putting this under a cut bc it got kind of Long

ok in order to talk abt this. we have to talk abt eva. i am not naive enough to write off eva as all bad bc she DOES have redeeming qualities and is not to blame for everything that happened to them. but i do think eva was uniquely bad for their already poor self-esteem and that they likely latched onto eva as hard as they did in order to feel Normal. from the information we are given abt their childhood both in the main story and in Another Monster, as well as lunge's observations that they don't even fit in among other japanese people, it's clear tenma has felt marginalized and/or stripped of agency for a very, very long time. their family dynamic (cold mother who openly favored their half-siblings over them, father who pressured them to become a doctor for his own personal gain. their only sibling who still talks to them only does so bc he wants them to take his job) as well as their willingness to bond with people who hurt them (it is specifically mentioned that they made friends with their childhood bullies, who called them a sissy and left them alone in the woods. this only happened bc they were impressed with tenma's bravery in staying out overnight) seems to have led them to minimize their own desires and become extremely meek. arguably them fleeing to germany in order to escape their father's desire to have them work at his hospital was their best attempt at fighting this, but it backfired bc the heinemanns immediately picked up on their vulnerabilities and exploited them.

back to eva. where udo preying on tenma's insecurities and desire for approval was certainly intentional, the worst part abt their relationship with eva is that i dont even think eva was consciously aware of what she was doing to them/their feelings in general. she is very much a person whose life was meticulously laid out for her in advance and when it diverged from this plan she ended up at a complete loss. her insistence that they did "everything she asked" (with the sexual implication being extremely obvious) as well as them acquiescing to doing things they don't like in order to feel worthy of her love (to the point of even letting her pick out their outfits!)... well, it reads a LOT like comptop to me. it seems very similar to the relationship between trianon and oenone from serious weakness at times; though they differ in several key aspects, it's clear that when they got together both tenma and eva were looking at each other more symbolically than holistically. to tenma, eva was the normalcy and love they so desperately craved; to eva, tenma was supposed to not only be subservient to her (bc she cant imagine not being doted on), they were also supposed to be the Husband and rake in lots of money for the hospital, in essence putting them to the same end as their father initially wanted for them without consideration if that's what they actually want. losing eva causes tenma to get a fuller picture of who she rlly is very quickly, but it takes eva So much longer to do the same for them. and the heartbreaking thing abt this is that even though eva backstabs them several times and makes attempts on their life, whenever she's in danger they instantly go to great lengths to save her. it's second nature to them

this damaging selflessness doesnt extend to just eva, either- it's arguably the entire basis of their character. i think it's very interesting (read: sad) that in addition to their kindness simply biting them in the ass multiple times/tenma deliberately disallowing themself anger and smoothing over relations with ppl who have betrayed them in the past bc theyre so desperate for anyone to be their friend or ally, this is nearly always paired with bodily neglect. we literally see tenma struggle to eat consistently over the course of the manga, from smth as simple as a waitress deliberately offering them extra soup when she sees that theyve not eaten anything, to stuff as dramatic as them collapsing in prison from lack of food and sleep and needing hospitalization. im tempted to highlight the contrast between grimmer having a picnic with them out of nowhere and eva deliberately ruining the picnic they tried to have with her too but i feel like that's fairly well trodden ground analytically, but it still deserves a mention here. they are notably more gaunt by the end of the series than they were when they started out, i think it's most obvious when you see they've cut their hair back to its original length and it serves to emphasize that they'll never be the same person again. i think it's also noteworthy (though certainly unintentional) that urasawa uses them growing out their stubble as a marker that their mental health is yet again at its lowest. i am reminded of the time i took a dissociation test and it gave me a result that ppl with eating disorders typically score. i don't think i have one, just dysphoria, but with tenma it seems a lot like both at once.

put all together, and given the themes of the manga? i dont think transition would save tenma. not even close. but they should do it anyway if only because it would be an easy way for them to start being kinder to themself again, a skill they badly need to learn. if they could just take that first step toward giving themself a little mercy i think they would be a lot happier with themself. they already have two kids who love them completely unconditionally, i think having that extra support would be great for them! and also i think they're hot and i'd like to see ppl draw (NORMAL, NON RACIST) art of them in dresses and with sweaty small boobs and so on. Sue me ngl the nonbinary part is simply bc i think theyd feel some distance from womanhood after having been excluded from society in multiple ways for so long, that little extra bit of dehumanization tends to manifest in weird ways wrt ppl's internal perception of gender. and imo theyd be so tired by the end of everything that i highly doubt theyd enjoy being thrust into an entirely new set of gendered pressures and just want to skip the whole business. but i am open to any and all permutations of transfem tenma. i want them to be happy!! in conclusion:

[zorilleerrant]

I say I can’t figure out how to go to sleep, my body doesn’t get tired on the right schedule, when it does I beg it to stop sitting up, go lie down, but I can’t figure out how to get there, when I lie down I stare at the ceiling trying to figure out what the important thing was, what I forget, if the anxiety quiets, I lie there unthinking, so tired I’m not even sure I’m awake, wondering why sleep isn’t taking me as I sink into blankets and pillows unable to move.

you say you stayed up too late, you woke up and answered too many emails, you had trouble sleeping with a cold, you didn’t want to sleep yet

I say my sexuality doesn’t work like that, I have these attractions that don’t go hand in hand, that feel different from each other, separate, that happen in different ways, and how I used to spend half an hour explaining them to people, how I used to laugh it off and go home and cry because I didn’t know how to say it, how I found these words and this system and it was so simple, so fast, so easy to understand, how I could say it to someone who’s never even heard of it before, and, oh, they could take a guess, even if they didn’t get it

you say you used to have this self-esteem problem, you thought you were feeling something you didn’t, you don’t get it, why do we need labels

I say there’s a way it feels to be mixed in this monochromatic society, this place where everyone is white without their token dispensation, where everyone else is just this or that or the other thing, where you have to choose, where you’re not allowed to choose because they won’t accept you and they won’t accept you either, because you’re too much or not enough, because you try to say something when the grown ups are talking about more important issues sweetie and no one really has a problem with these privileged mixed people who could just decide to be white if they wanted to, that I always feel like my words are too loud but no one ever hears them

I say I hate my body, but it’s the same hate, always the same, and it gets to me, and sometimes I cry and sometimes I want to die and sometimes I plan surgeries and sometimes I just try to hide between all these layers stifling my skin, soft and formless like a blanket by a campfire, but I don’t hate my gender, whichever one it is, or more than one, how it changes day to day or maybe hour to hour, how it’s something hard to define most days, and most days there’s a label or two or three that I like, how I can make guesses and averages but I can’t explain really, how my body isn’t my gender, how much it hurts to hear people say that, trying to put words in my mouth about how gender really works, what I really feel, what I really want, how I’m fake because I won’t toe the party line like a good little soldier in this war on normativity that we only fight on one front

I say something happened, I say nothing happened, I say something happened but I don’t want to talk about it, but there’s so much to talk about and how can someone look at me in a little glass case and determine what I’m allowed and not allowed to think?

It’s all the same. None of it’s the same, but it’s all the same, because differences make it harder to make points, to make sure everyone is being Good and Correct, because nuance opens us up to being Problematic and if we can just determine who’s the most oppressed we’ll never have to think for ourselves ever again. It’s all the same. Everything is the same.

if I want to write about someone in a wheelchair or with an artificial hand, I have to be hurt first, lose some of my body. maybe it’s okay if I have a chronic illness, but I have to figure out what kind. I have to sit in a room with a doctor long enough to be accused of being a drug addict, subtly though, they don’t even notice they are, long enough for them to wonder if this is some sort of insurance scam or I just want attention, long enough for ‘well there’s your problem’ any number of things I already know - but doctors don’t do that. too much of a man to write women, not enough of a man to write men, and anyway, if I write about who I am, just me, only me, there’s too much problematic there and I don’t know what I’m talking about anyway. not trans enough, not nonbinary enough, or maybe just the wrong kind, so how could I present it in such a way that - hold on, why are all your characters cis? do I stand with the character who looks like me, or the one who’s coded with my history, or the mixed one even though they’re the wrong races and it’s not for me to touch, or only the white ones, the ones I can’t identify with in so many cases, or the ones who are coded like racism which is wrong because they’re white, or the ones from racialized minorities, from xenophobically othered groups, the ones in other times and places and cultures who aren’t the dominant race, but headcanons are bad and they erase real life issues and anyway there’s never been anyone who was black or latin or asian or native or middle eastern or anyone else who looked white. I was born here and I never had to worry, never tensed when the police promised not to call INS, never learned anything from another culture, never got confused when my worlds collided, never had someone walk up to me and say - hey, you speak Spanish, hey, you’re Muslim, hey, what really happened on this anime, hey, where are you really from, though. don’t ask relatives and family friends, just trust the nice white man on the tv to tell me what it’s like to be an immigrant, write my story like his, assume that being british if that is all the insight anyone would need. let the cis man dictate being trans, let the straight man explain what coming out is like, let these men describe womanhood, let these men tell you well I don’t know but I’d imagine, because these are real books, real movies, and fandom writers aren’t perfect enough. it’s not the same.

but it’s the same if you write about Ben, reluctant jedi, confused, sometimes tempted, living at his school with his uncle, loving his mom and dad, helping the younger kids, with a voice in his head that he’s scared of, in love with a girl he just met, this action hero from a world of sand, learning how to levitate things with her mind, just the same as if you write about this torturer who killed his own name, his own family for love of evil, who never had any motivations past being the worst villain he could be, who doesn’t and cannot love, who rapes and mutilates his helpless, hapless victim while she lies still and sobs I forgive you I forgive you I forgive you. it’s all the same.

there’s always context but the context never matters just the same.