#ok just in case anon gives up halfway through reading the reply. you don't have to read it or to reply

[nazuna-tunnel-vision]

re:your post about the she/her-ing of enstars characters! i just wanted to provide A Perspective on it. i recognize this probably isn't everyone's perspective and i don't want to claim to speak for everyone but i figured providing a perspective could maybe be helpful in some way and i do like thinking about fandom behaviours critically yknow! (and ig disclaimer ahead of time that i always use she/her for arashi, she's the exception to whatever i'll say below bc canon transfem character)

for me at least i tend to refer to characters with she/her if they're ones i specifically headcanon as transfem/mainly using she/her pronouns or if it's specifically requested by op of an art/etc and i'm reblogging it and adding commentary in the tags. for me the regulars are ibara/mayoi/sometimes hokuto or tomoya or hiyori, with veeery occasional one-offs of other characters . which is a fairly small group of characters in the grand scheme of things! but if everyone in the tag was doing that for the small group of characters they personally have those headcanons for, then eventually at some point it'll go around to every member of the cast. that might be part of why it seems to be oversaturating the tag; there's a lot of unique people here on enstarsblr with their own unique interpretations of the characters' genders.

another thing i think is worth pointing out is that since the characters for the most part in canon are cis men, it's not going to be as visibly obvious when someone headcanons a character as transmasc, since for the most part a transmasc version of an existing enstars character will be referred to similarly as they would be in canon. unless op specifically states it, there's no way of knowing if the he/him they're using to refer to an enstars character is meant in an adhering-to-canon cis way or an i-hc-this-character-transmasc way. i personally headcanon every iteration of nazuna, natsume, or jun that i talk about as transmasc, but that's not going to be as visibly obvious as my ibara/mayoi/etc. headcanons because there isn't a difference in pronouns between canon and the headcanoned version of them that exists in my head.

additionally, i'm asian - which has a big effect on how i personally approach trans enstars hcs, because my view on gender + the social structures informing it is directly informed by my lived experience as a trans asian person. i've personally lived through a LOT of microaggressive feminization sourced from the general feminization of the 'East' and asian people and bc of that (+ my general interest in studying gender + related expression as a social construct) i can say that i, at least, am critical of those potential sources of headcanons because of my personal experience and awareness of them. i can't guarantee this for every enstarsblr blogger obviously but idk. you can't know a person's entire lived experience and why they have the headcanons they do just by seeing them use she/her for a character consistently. i do think that you're bringing up a good point in that asian men - and in particular the specific kind of 'soft' masculinity that asian idols generally try to achieve - are overly feminized by the west, and it's definitely a good thing to keep in mind when making these hcs, but i also think it might be less of a source of these headcanons than we might think. nevertheless i will always encourage ppl to be critical of their own thought processes and think about why they make the headcanons they do!

i hope this uh. i dont know if this will help at all it got a bit long and rambly but i hope the perspective i brought could at least add something to the conversation!

hiya, thank you for writing this thoughtful reply! i was hoping for someone to provide some perspective when i wrote that post so i’m glad i got a reply, especially one as long as detailed as yours.

you bring up a very important point that we can't know a person's lived experiences and why they chose to use certain pronouns for a character just from their posts. it definitely would be bonkers to expect people to explain themselves every time they use not-usual pronouns for a character, or to expect them to add disclaimers that they are thinking critically.

(putting everything else under read more bc this made me think a lot. basically lots of thoughts about what it means to engage in fandom with a lot of conflicting interpretations of the work, especially with respect to gender)

---

i’m sort of thinking out loud here but like. i think it's a. very strange conundrum we face regarding gender in fandom. irl i usually use the principle of "we should just use whatever pronoun the person uses for themself". i’m a huge supporter of prioritising that individual above others who might be uncomfortable using a certain pronoun for a person they coded a different way.

i instinctively use this principle when engaging with fiction too, but. "use whatever pronoun the person themself uses" does not necessarily work in fandom because the characters themselves aren't real; they won't feel dysphoria from us assigning them genders or misgendering them. 

i think we should prioritise readers' experiences. but sometimes that reader experience involves headcanons and certain degrees of projection that makes interpretations diverge quite a bit. i'm not saying that projecting on characters is wrong, it’s quite the opposite; i know it can have very transformative and constructive impact on how the reader thinks about things and i 10/10 support it.

but it’s like. which interpretation do you privilege? can they even coexist? it’s not the same as more inane headcanons like “nazuna always cooks fried rice for others bc it’s the only thing he can actually cook”. (this is wrong, by the way. source: Trust Me [this is a joke, i’ve never actually given nazuna’s cooking skills much thought, despite being tumblr user nazuna-tunnel-vision. i don’t actually have thoughts about this. he does cook fried rice for ra*bits on multiple occasions though and they all love it. sorry for the sudden nazuna fun fact intermission. i couldn't help it])

gender headcanons inadvertently become a lot more personal and political. i can just ignore or skim over whichever fic or post that incorrectly talks about nazuna being terrible at cooking and still enjoy other nazuna-centric posts by that person. but i can’t really do the same for posts with differing interpretations of gender bc i’ll be reading normally and then get smacked out of the immersion with “???! the pronoun??”

i'm a little. sad and miffed about this because i think people who assign non-usual genders to characters tend to be very enthusiastic about these characters. i sure would love to read what they have to say and to bask in that energy, but i truly do not enjoy the physical sensation of being metaphorically hit in the face every time i come across a pronoun i did not expect to be used for that character.

---

and i know that this reply has already gotten plenty long but i’m also starting to wonder how much of me preferring people to stick to the pronouns that i’m used to comes from a place of privilege or conservativeness. there is my concern about people needlessly feminizing men who aren’t Buff Hollywood Male Men, but also the majority of my reply so far has basically just been “man i would prefer if people just stuck to my interpretation of gender where i can see it :/”. it reminds me a lot of straight pride and the protection of prevailing gender norms - you know, when people are homophobic and transphobic not necessarily because they’re evil and want to actively want to repress people, but because they’re personally uncomfortable with it. they just don’t want to see it and be made uncomfortable. the whole political stance of, “i don’t care if people want gay sex - they can do their own thing, it’s none of my business. but i do NOT want them to demand marriage equality where the rest of us can see it”. because marriage & the law is in the public sphere and isn’t easily blocked out. obviously these things are not of the same severity because we’re talking about headcanons about fictional characters here, but you get the idea. 

in hindsight i do wonder if my previous post should be archived because it does sort of send the message that it’d be nice if people change the pronouns they use for everyone-sans-arashi in the public enstars tag. like yeah it would be nice for my personal fandom experience, but i don’t want people in the tag to feel like they have to censor their words to make others in the fandom comfortable - especially if their gender headcanons for characters help them to explore their own conceptions of gender. or if it just makes their engagement with the story more fun. you guys have my full support even if the she/her-ing of enstars makes me instinctively flinch and bang my knee on the table every time i come across it. i will grit my teeth - or find some way to mute or block you guys if it really comes down to it - but never change!!

---

the topic of the privilege of comfort & the fact that i flinch at the she/her-ing mostly because of how it conflicts with my own interpretation of the characters also makes me wonder - is it the same for you when you come across people using he/him for characters that you identify as using she/her? since from your perspective, we are misgendering them.

my current guess is that it’s a little different because he/him is generally the more popular & mainstream interpretation. so you might be more aware of and prepared for he/him misgendering. or you’re simply more accepting of different gender interpretations because that was already your starting point to begin with. it probably doesn’t hit you out of the left field like it always does for me. i think! i dunno.

or maybe the characters’ gender identities are like little secrets between you and the character. so looking at people who misgender them might instead make you go, “haha look at this idiot who doesn’t know”. (i’m not sure if it’s appropriate to bring this up in a discussion that unexpectedly became pretty serious, but i think that’s a fun way of engaging with fiction and fandom.)

if there is a difference in the way we react to gender interpretations different from our own, i think it might reflect, to an extent, the way people irl deal with queerness and the whole sentiment about how being queer is valid, but somehow not valid enough to be seen in public (like at gay pride) or in the public sphere (like in laws). again, how we address fictional characters really doesn’t have the same gravity or consequence, but i think the sentiments behind it might be similar.

(another possible explaination is that i unfortunately need to touch grass because i'm taking headcanons and fictional characters' genders too seriously. can't cross that out!)

you don’t have to answer this though; it’s already more than enough that you took the time to reply to my initial post with my perspective! your reply really made me think a lot. thank you <3

[deveharrington]

Not being rude or anything but why do you use a lot of "da" and "n" and "u" and "ha" and "wot" ways of writing words? It's weird. I like to coming to read your blog even when I don't always agree (we're about 55-45 I think) but it's so damn hard to read through your strange words. If you're in that age group or you're from Texas OK. I get it. But yikes. Your blog. You do what you want but I wanted to ask in case you aren't aware it looks and sounds like crunching metal.

oH MY G- 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

OK, ANON, sorry for the DAYS late reply to this but I literally had to recover from LAUGHING at the way you described my typing/words etc. Let me try to meet you halfway and type a bit more legibly from now on 😂😂😂 I’m still laughing though 😂 

I am also really sorry anon if you sent me a serious question and I answered it idiotically, just send it again! 😂😂😂

1. One aspect of it is that sometimes I could get so excited by my own “jokes”/observations that I would type them too fast to correct/spell check and for some reason the horribly written nature of them added to the humour FOR ME. I think its because, TO ME, D*v*d presents himself so seriously, yet demurely, and yet always with some underlying humblebrag or air of “I do know better” and so the idea at someone just cackling at everything he says just makes me laugh it really is just pure stupidity 😂 I thought my stupidity could contrast his own self-serving and self-serious statements to equate his statements to stupidity/thoughtlessness 😂 SORRY if it doesn’t really make sense, thats how I see his expressions and how I chose to respond. 

2. *** If that word salad above isn’t enough, this answer might also drive you crazy but this is how I saw it from my perspective: the broken speech was an ARTISTIC CHOICE to demonstrate the disintegration of the effort I felt I could afford to give to trying to “understand” Dustvid, as I learned more, or more information came in, I became less and less interested, basically only increasingly disgusted then suddenly neutral? I got another ask today that kind of brought up this feeling for me. 

3. I also saw it as: this weird writing could also communicate to the reader to  NOT take my words too seriously 😂😂😂😂😂 and it became funnier when describing events that actually happened in reality but really ITS ALL IN MY HEAD, and I guess on this space I have free reign and I overdid it as I overdo everything. 

4. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 Ok, I’ll try to just finish off the last things I have to say + actually respond to anons in a legible manner. BUT I won't guarantee capitalizations or perfect spelling!!!!! I like the vibrant nature of the excited dialogue 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 Also, the “ha”s are laughter and I won’t stop laughing at this fool so.. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂