#sexually dimorphic. but anyway

[knightofgreatrenown]

do you like / support trans people? (from a fellow trans)

p.s love u zote

Should my memory serve, this refers to bugs whose identity doesn't match that with which they were born with, correct? I believe City bugs had spoken of it in passing. Rather commonly, even.

And if that is the case, then why would I be opposed to such a thing?! After all, one must heed Precepts Six and Forty! Our elders teach that our fate is chosen for us before we are even born. I vehemently disagree. Let no bug but yourself dictate who you can and cannot be!

[machairocat]

cool kairoh facts because i worked hard on her design: she is technically afab, but her most distinctive features, her handsome mane and her massive stature, are actually male-associated phenotypes for her species! her long, thin canines on the other hand are a female-associated phenotype. kairoh is an intersex lesbian and uses she/her👍

[clownboy-yeehonk]

.

[vixivulpixel]

We find it extremely funny how apparently the way Transformers writers solved the weird discrepancy between how many male and female Cybertronians there are was to just go. "Hey, they're an asexual species anyways. What if they're all born with masc-leaning presentation, but once they came in contact with aliens that have sexual dimorphism, some of them were like 'Yoooooo girl is an option?????' and started going by she." So every femformer is canonically a trans girl now.

[the-giik]

tbh mollo being a trans guy was kind of a happy accident. when i was first designing him i went with the visual pun of his antennae being little fuses

then i remembered that a big part of sexual dimorphism in moths is that males have big fluffy antennae while females have thin antennae. i'd already been using he/him for mollo so rather than changing to she/her i just decided yeah sure he's trans. why not, it kicks ass. if you're enough of a moth nerd you could probably clock that but passing isn't really high on his priority list anyway.

i wasn't accustomed to making nb/trans characters back then either so i was a little worried that making a rare-for-the-series trans character a mean ol' punk rioter was too "on the nose" but i was *quickly* reassured that i had nothing to worry about on that front. he's still the only canonical trans character across the series and i think the rest of Aether studios is doing a fantastic job with his other appearances so far. (in both Tales and Creatures.)

also as a little bonus here's his very first design draft

[quarterlifekitty]

Might be a dumb ask but thoughts on a situation where Konig is like an angler or viperfish hybrid, one of those kinda creepy deep sea fish. And reader is just this cute isopod bottom feeder hybrid

That’s not dumb at all!!! This is my type of jam!!!

So, I’m gonna make him a viper fish because male anglerfish are actually extremely small. I believe it’s one of the most extreme cases of sexual dimorphism in the animal kingdom. And they mate by the male biting the female and getting slowly absorbed into her body until he ceases to be and she can just use his nuts to fertilize herself. So.

Anyways, as isopods are bottom feeders that eat detritus, I imagine König notices one day that you’ve been following him as he hunts. Skittering beneath him on the ocean floor, and eating the bits of prey that fall from his hands as he shreds it. He starts letting larger pieces fall, unexpectedly delighted by seeing you nibbling. Gets his instincts all hackled up— he feels like he’s providing for you. Cute little armored thing. His lure doesn’t really work on things like you, but maybe he’ll figure out how to lure you in his own way….

[teratosubmission]

 Humanfucker here, Humans are the most underrated Monsters

I’ve always had a thing for humans. I mean, there’s a lot of physical appeal to them. They’re small and cute and have beautiful contours and big personalities but you can just overpower them at any time and rail the cuteness out of them and fuuuuck. But there’s much more to a human that I think goes underappreciated with fellow humanfuckers and the larger monsterfucker community at large.

A human has hands, soft and dexterous. It’s said that their sense of touch Is massively amplified on their fingertips. And humans are exceptionally skilled at the soft touch (They have a lot words for soft touch in their language, like stroke, pet, caress, ect, which only make sense when you realize how important it is in their culture). A slow, gentle trace down your spine or up your legs can activate nerve receptors other monsters simply cannot, and it can feel extremely pleasurable when a human is behind you gently rubbing their hands over your back. While many monsters use their strength to keep their mates from leaving, humans often rely on their soft touch, which feels so overwhelmingly pleasurable you don’t -want- to leave. If you ever wondered how a small human can wrangle such giant monsters like minotaurs or werewolves, that’s how.

And the reverse is also true, humans are the most physically sensitive creatures, with the majority of their body being highly erogenous zones. It’s as if they were evolved for lovemaking, and entire subcultures exist around the concept of sex. (EDIT – so I did some research and apparently many humans are skilled enough to practice an erotic art called Massage (muh sahj), and apparently their hands can have healing qualities to them, soothing your aching muscles and overall just feeling really fucking good. Unfortunately its best done on their own kind, since they know their own biology and are basically built to enjoy it best, but I’m hopeful there are humans that are learning on other monsters and getting good at Massage for them… God I hope so, anyway, I want to experience Massage.)

I love their voices. A human, in my opinion, has some of the most beautiful noises you could ever have the pleasure of listening to. You could be engaged in conversation with one and find yourself lulling to the beauty of their voice. You could be fucking one and listening to how cutely they moan and whimper, it functions like an aphrodisiac for their partners. Apparently they don’t actually have persuasive superpowers in sex, but I don’t think that’s right, since every time they’ve moaned for me to cum for them, I’ve burst immediately.

Unlike most monsters, humans don’t have a breeding season. They’re ready to go at any time (sometimes they may need coaxing though~, I’ll link some guides on seducing humans). Now, if you want to actually breed one of the females you’ll have to understand a bit more about their cycles, but generally speaking you can just have at it till they’re eventually impregnated.

Humans have sexual dimorphism like most other monsters, but what’s intriguing is just how wide a range that dimorphism is, and how easily its defied as well. Want a male with feminine features? An exceptionally strong masculine female? Value something in between? Or perhaps you want a gender with the opposite genitalia? There’s something for everyone, which in turn makes them one of the most accessible and popular monsters available. But like I’ve said before, there’s so much more to them than their physique.

❤️ Anyway, humans are the best monsters and I hope someday to meet one! ❤️

[bunninophia]

Hi! I'm Bunny and I'm redesigning the whole cast for hazbin hotel

{PLS READ THE WHY SECTION BELOW}

Anyway.... Onto my designs! I'll be detailing the stuff I changed/added

First is.,..!! Sir pentious! Weird right? You would think it's Charlie but uh nah, he's my favorite character and I wanted to make him similar to my tastes.

Yes he is trans! I have a small little HC that the egg boys are his boys...

And he is much longer/bigger due to this because of sexual dimorphism! But we love him for who he is now he's so silly :). He also has a barbed tail that I would say is used as a 5th hand! To grab stuff. He already has 4 arms cause why not? He needs to push himself around already..

Next is.. Angel Dust!, he doesn't have an alt version because I feel it's not needed but here he is!

I added pedipalps, those are the mandible looking things. They are a part of spiders I think are so cool and I wanted to add them! Unfortunately they're not counted as legs and adding another set of legs to angel I couldn't figure out... But good enough!

I also changed his eyes! To include a spiderweb, I'm not entirely sure why he has that black eye, so I thought I would change it up a little bit.

A friend gave an idea that his sight from that eye is kaleidoscope-like so I'm implementing that too! And how could I forget! The spiderbutt! Without it it's kinda weird looking so I wanted to add it in cus it's so cute

Next up.... Husk! He's one of my favorite characters so.. kinda went all out on him

I didn't change much about him besides his patterns and colors, but generally his silhouette is the same!

I wanted to add a lot more feathers and fluff to him! And putting on the casino style bringing back the spades and hearts to his wings again!

I thought the spades were funny

Up next.. Vox!

I found his design interesting that he is a flat screen TV even though he died in the 50's? So I decided to change that! Turning him into a box TV again!

And giving him a cable tail, I thought it would be clever that when sleeps he charges himself up for the day!

Next up... niffty! She's the last character I've designed so far!

Also while looking up her historically accurate date I found out she's 22??? Weird... But yeah she did end up looking a little older here I'm glad, but I really wanted to give her a bigger needle! What's she gonna do with that small thing?

And her dress is based on 50's maid outfits! With the addition of an embroidered poodle!

.

Why?

Well first I'm crazy and second, I've been now made aware that the show itself does a certain type of representation so disgustingly that I'd rather make my own designs and fix what they couldn't do.

I don't support viv or the show.

If you want to read into it yourself I advise a trigger warning for S/A. It happens in episode 4.

[arislore]

˚ ༘ ೀ⋆.˚જ⁀➴ Can’t You Just Sleep?

Pairing: Spencer Reid x insomniac!Reader

Summary: You had a dream that gave you anxiety and Spencer wants to comfort you by talking it out.

Warnings: Reader is kind of rude at one point (just sleepy w no tone control, i prommy), Reader’s mom also sucks.

Tags: this one’s actually a story y’all 🤞🏻, Reader has hair that goes past her ears. also this is incredibly self-indulgent because i literally had these dreams last night.

Word Count: 500

You wake up sweaty, feeling like you can’t quite catch your breath. Next to you, Spencer stirs, his arm draping around your waist.

“You okay?” he asks, his voice thick and gravelly with sleep.

“Yeah,” you say softly, scooting closer to him. “Just had a really weird dream.”

He hummed, his fingers dancing along your spine. “Tell me about it?”

You smile wistfully, moving your head so that you’re looking at his face. “No thanks. It’s too silly.”

He grinned, pulling you by your hips so that you’re flush against him. “I love silly things.”

You sigh, looking down until your forehead connects with his chest. “You were just, like, really mad at me. And, like, I clearly fucked up, you know? Like, big time. But I don’t actually know what I did wrong.”

He kissed the top of your head, moving his hand up towards your shoulder, then back down in slow, rubbing movements. “I think I know why.”

You pout. “You only get to tell me if you’re not profiling me.”

“I’m not, I promise.”

“Fine.”

“You were talking to your mom yesterday.” He said.

“Yeah, and?” You took a deep breath, letting yourself calm down as he talks.

He pushed your hair behind your ear, his thumb tapping on your cheek. “Well, I know she makes you feel that way, and often.”

“You are profiling me.” You roll your eyes. “I knew it.”

“No, I’m not. I’m just saying that the way you were feeling when you went to sleep may have influenced your dreams.”

“Yeah, well, if you know so much, why did I dream about a merman getting stuck under a shipping container, then?” You snap, pulling away.

He chuckled. “A shipping container?”

You realize how pathetic you sound, but you continue anyway.

“Yeah. It fell off a cargo ship,” you say, as if it were obvious.

“I see.” He paused, grabbing your hand. “Were you a merman in this scenario?”

“I was a mermaid. You know, for someone who’s supposedly a genius, you know very little about the sexual dimorphism of faeries,” you joke, intertwining your fingers with him.

He smiled. “You got me there.”

“I also had a dream that I was a bridesmaid and it was really hot, and I had to walk up a hill. And I was already in my dress and makeup and had my hair done. It was so sweaty.” You smile, moving flush against him again.

“Who’s wedding was it?” He asked, bringing a hand to your hip.

“I don’t know. I just know that another bridesmaid was trying to get courted.”

“Courted?”

“Yeah, she used that exact word. I was like, ‘You can worry about getting courted tomorrow, lady. Today is her wedding.’ but I don’t know who I was defending.” Your eyes begin to feel heavy, so you close them, nuzzling his chest.

“Getting tired?” He asked, wrapping his arm around your waist.

“So tired.”

“Sleep,” he said softly, kissing the top of your head.

[iraprince]

That chart of your GW2 ocs has compelled me so much. what is gw2. how do you make gay plants in it

guild wars 2 is my favorite mmo of all time! it's free to play, tho if u ever do end up paying for the expacs/living world seasons and stuff they all have flat costs, no monthly subscription ever. (this is what i really like about it, bc games w subs stress me out... if something has a sub and i don't play every day i feel like i'm wasting money or something lol vs gw i can fall off the wagon for weeks/months and no harm done)

ANYWAY our gay plants are one of the playable races -- they're kind of gw2's version of elves, loosely, but they're called sylvari and imo they're much cooler. rather than being "born" they just Wake Up as fully formed adults from the pods of a magical tree and gain mmmmost (but not all) of their consciousness/general understanding of the world from a shared dream that contains the memories and life experience of the sylvari who have come before them, and at the beginning of the plot sylvari as a people have only existed for like. ~20 years, which i think is a really, really compelling hook. also i'm being serious and textual abt the gay thing, arguably the most central sylvari npc is a lesbian and her relationship w her ex is plot important, one of the starter missions u can choose as a sylvari centers around helping a gay couple and the dialogue is Really Insistent abt not letting it be interpreted as "wow they're good friends!!" etc etc

there's also an Evil Faction of sylvari called the nightmare court who feel the dream is overly controlling/sanitized and want to "liberate" sylvari by balancing out the experiences contained in the dream w more negative and painful ones instead -- in-game more often than not they're written pretty flatly as cackling puppy-kicking supervillains but i think they're really interesting lol, a huge chunk of my + marina's ocs are either current or ex nightmare courtiers (including merrit and glyndwr!)

okay wait wait wait im getting distracted and infodumping u can learn all this stuff yourself by getting into the game. gotta rein it in. uhhh let me leave u w screencaps of a bunch of our ocs so u can see some character creation options bc they're so cool

also hey furries: fuicking excellent beast race with close to no sexual dimorphism.

(the one on the left in this pic is an m model and on the right is the f model. the main difference between charr gender models, literally, is how fluffy their tails are. charr fucking rule)

[ahamkara-apologist]

finally got the chance to draw so I kinda went ham with drawing up a headcanon sheet for the Eliksni, in which I blatantly disregarded the canon skintones and just had fun (i don't really enjoy how pink they are in canon personally- I think they should have more natural colour variation)

Some notes:

-The freckles on Eramis and Variks are just freckles, they're not due to age. As for the alarming amount of minor scratches scarred into Eramis's neck and, to an extent, Misraaks- those are marks from hatchling claws! They're traditionally considered marks of beauty and wisdom in Eliksni society. Eramis has many to mirror her many litters, while Misraaks only has a couple from Eido

-I drew everyone but Taniks bald because I drew Taniks first and then realized later that it kinda obscured my hcs for their individual head shapes, so their setae is on the bottom. Setae is someting that only fully sexually mature adults develop, and is much closer in texture to a horse's mane than human hair. It also runs all the way down the back of their neck, much like a mane, and in some cases (like Taniks) has barbs or hooks along its strands so that ornaments can be woven into it, which is inspiration that I took from decorator crabs

-Eramis's facial scars were given to her by a Guardian at Twilight Gap, and are deep enough that they cut into her nasal cavity. Luckily, it's right near the nostrils anyways so she isn't impacted too bad, but she does have to be careful about keeping it clear of debris. Deep in her eye sockets, she's also had some electrodes installed that link to sensors in her helmet and give her little buzzes/shocks whenever something passes in front of it to help compensate for being half-blind, but it's a pretty crude device that doesn't work all that well on small objects

-Each Eliksni's ethnicity is written below their names, which is why Eido has a question mark. She's a mixed kid- try to guess which Houses her parents might have been from ::3

-The horns/shoulder spines were extra spikes of mineralized chitin that were common on adults in Riis, and were traits that were lost during the Drift. They often were calcium/mineral stores used to show age and fitness, but since resources in Sol are scarce, they no longer grow during molts. Riisborn Eliksni still have horn nubs, but that's about it

-As for the sexual dimorphism thing: that's more just me musing about how slight it would be with my hcs about their reproduction (which involves females laying fertilized eggs into a specialized broodpouch in the male, who then builds on their yolk supply and gives them the calcium needed to form eggshells, and thus needs to be bigger). When given actual Eliksni with a natural range of bodily variation, it would be near-impossible to distinguish them

[mychemicalraymance]

i started this post so short and made it into a full on tour outfit camp/fashion post accidentally

hope everyone knows that gerard’s skirt suit tie is like. literally a vintage “women’s” tie. when middle class women entered the workforce with gusto the fashion of professionalism and suits etc had an existential crisis about what to do with the ties...... like the ties of skirt/women’s suits are specifically bows and ribbons.  i can’t give any sort of statement as to why, aside from the fact of arbitrarily and subtly keeping gendered difference while “copying” men’s standard dress and attempting to move away from 60′s professional dress, which was largely the same as women’s social and public dress. anyway. the fact of choosing this tie 

and the fact that the tie reveals itself to be a scarf only after the jacket is removed is amazing... idk. it reveals the distinction between men’s and women’s dress and how gender is forcefully adapted into all ways of life, even in movements to remove it. the same goes for the kitten heels, 

kitten heels are another perfect camp example of gender adaptation imo. heeled and uncomfortable, explicitly gendered but “professionalized”, largely considered frumpy to a certain degree and unsexual due to their low height. translating the professional uniform of men to women’s attire was a sort of a second wave assimilation approach to gender. 

50s’/ 60′s workplace attire, which emphasized busts, hips, and waist. 

and then the more 70′s / 80′s look of gerard’s tie and heels - boxy, “androgynous”, padded and square shoulders, adopting suit jackets and patterns

the tour (mostly the dresses and skirts, designed outfits) has been largely 70s to me, even with the explicitly  60′s and ww II looks.

 they’re incredibly boxy and have a “boyish” silhouette, a hallmark of women’s fashion of the 70s, considering women’s lib and the gender revolution. it’s so cool to see because part of that was a move TOWARDS androgyny, and now even the pants looks are identifiably “women’s” or androgynous.  even the sunglasses are “women’s”.  

“women’s” sunglasses, “women’s” ties, and “women’s” specially adapted uniforms, be it nurse or office worker. all of these looks are seeded from the historical urge to de-gender and androgenize fashion, yet to our eyes it’s unmistakably “women’s” 

camp by my definition  in its purest form is the re-contextualization of needlessly gendered practices, society, and fashion, and the shifting context is used to satirize the  notion that things are “naturally” gendered and dimorphic. camp, when effective, describes the constructed nature of gender and sexuality. women’s suits DESIGNED to be "more masculine” are  by modern standards (well i mean. by modern feminist standards LOL) still obviously so far from the mark of “genderless”. it highlights the fact that gender is so insidiously woven into EVERYTHING, even  social efforts to be more egalitarian, so to speak. it makes us see the gender we quietly perform as “natural” in modern life. 

i’m not a fashion historian or anything else so if i’m wrong i’m sorry LOL. but i give such a huge fuck about gendered fashion in camp and also gerard way

[bimboficationblues]

I find it odd to claim (as Talia Bhatt seems to) that radical feminism is defined by its dominance-based social constructionist theory of gender. I agree with some version of that theory of gender, but it seems non-exclusive to radfem accounts of gender, even in its origins (Beauvoir is kind of an edge case but I think she has some demonstrably different commitments). Part of this seems to be the result of folding “radical feminism” and “secondwave feminism” together conceptually despite of the fact that the second wave was an ideologically diverse landscape (which is acknowledged explicitly in the piece but then kind of papered over by the argument).

But the account here is that the radical feminists had genuinely figured something out, had developed a robust social theory of sex and gender, but for a variety of psychological death-drive reasons lapsed back into essentialism, making common cause with people like Daly, when it came to the Shemale Question. what this misses for me is

1) that there were substantive weaknesses within radfem theories already, from which transmisogynist positions are easily derived. many located sexual dimorphism as the causal force behind patriarchy, and identified sex-conflict (ie, NOT class conflict) as the root of oppression; indeed, this is what was supposed to distinguish them from the Marxists and socialists they were reacting to.

2) that at least some of the hostility to trans women was intermingled with or developed from the radical feminist sexual politics, or at least the post-Sex Wars calcified version (as the movement, again, had a lot more intellectual diversity originally). particularly with the fixation on the symbolic or representational aspects of sexual subordination.

3) if part of why we want to return to radical feminism is because of its recognition of domination and power, unlike liberal feminism which is overly obsessed with contract and law, then it seems relevant that radical feminism increasingly turned into legalistic reform programs like those pushed by MacKinnon (“end-demand,” human rights approaches to banning pornography, etc.)

This seems to be a way of rescuing radical feminism from its problems by externalizing them.

anyway I find this kind of eternal return to “what if we bring back radical feminism but in a trans way” very tedious. perhaps we should develop a transfeminism that does not have to be either reverent or terrified of the radical feminist spectre; one that is less fixated on resurrecting or preserving intellectual “traditions” and more on cultivating the feminism of the future.

[quartergremlin]

Sleepover.

what would a turtle top surgery look like? we have our answer.

I spent so long designing Donnie's room and then drew. none of it.

first/previous/next

transcript:

Leo: Heeey Don! Have fun on your special date?

Donnie: Move over.

L: It's been forever since we've had a sleepover!

D: Whatever satisfies your hyperactive nesting instinct.

L: ...

D: And stops you from stealing my stuff.

Meme: Donnie after sleeping in their mask

Instagram monologue:

It's trans Donnie hours. Currently batting around questions of turtle gender, kappa sexual dimorphism, and human vs yokai gender presentation. bc in regular turtles females are flat on bottom and males have a slight concave plastron (so they can valance on top of the shell when fucking) so I made it canon that in kappa (turtle yokai within the rottmnt canon, that the turtles are sometimes referred to as even though they are mutants (so I'm assuming they're similar enough plus the origins of yokai [is] basically the same, since kappa evolved through generations where the turtles took humanization steroids and speedran their evolution)) - gets read as masculine.

/however/being top-heavy like that reads as female to humans. the turtles were mostly socialized as humans and in human culture (as much as they could ve in kind-of hiding, but now they can very much belong in yokai culture

they /are/ afab (kind of, its a bit complicated - turtle chromosomes don't work like human chromosomes and if we run under the assumption that they /did/ get a sry gene from yoshi, something something something no matter how you look at it they're some flavor of intersex), but how much of their turtits situation is coming from their turtle or human side is up in the air

PAIRED. with the opposite yokai/human gender presentation scales here, can make being! any gender kind of complicated! nevermind a trans mutant ninja turtle. so the /real/ question kind of boils down to. when considering presenting a certain gender for society, which side do the turtles put more stock in? (plus the island question)

asking that with leo was easy - he asked what Top Surgery For Turtles^tm and donnie told him that he'd be transing in the wrong direction. Since Leo's never really had a problem with his body anyway he took it at face value and he's fine. Donnie, however. is nonbinary plus transmasc. if talking it from a purely yokai standpoint, he's doing pretty good. but donnie's always put a bit too much stock in others' approval. see: the purple dragons, big mama, etc. and being nonbinary under normal circumstances is shit like. usually.

Some people just. shoot for confusion. but how do you even start when both sides are pretty certain they're right in opposite directions. anyway the concludes my Trans Donnie Hours, thank you for coming to my TEDx talk.

[transgenderer]

I feel like just from an evolutionary perspective we should expect humans to be mostly bisexual. Humans aren't that sexually dimorphic, sex is a least as much a bonding behavior as a reproduction behavior in humans (conception rate even at its peak isnt particularly high, and why would it be! Reproducing after Single mating wouldn't be adaptive, raising a human baby alone in like...any premodern times would have appreciably lower survival rate. Obv community support but still). Anyway my point is. We shouldn't expect there to be a strong evolutionary pressure weeding out bisexuality (bonding!) AND it's difficult (low dimoprhism). This is kind of bullshit evopsycj logic but it's 1 am here. So cut me a little slack

[beakers-and-telescopes]

Seeing UV colors is common for butterflies, but in some species, it is a female-only power

So, you may or may not know that many butterflies can actually see in UV light. It is very cool and I'm definitely not jealous that they get extra colors. It's helpful to them because many flowers have UV patterns on them (invisible to us) that let the butterflies know that they're a good source of food. The plants get pollinated and the butterflies get to eat. Everybody wins. This is a simulated version of what butterflies might see when they look at a flower.

Some butterflies, such as the zebra longwing pictured above, only display this trait in females. Because of this, male and female butterflies will tend to visit different types of flowers. But scientists have just recently figured out how this difference came to be, evolutionarily speaking.

Obviously many species have sexually dimorphic traits, some more prominently than others. There are also cases in which one sex develops a trait that is just... less useful than the other, like this case with the UV vision. Almost all butterflies can see in the UV spectrum, so it follows that at some point in the evolutionary line the male zebra longwing butterflies lost that particular ability. There are multiple ways that this sort of thing can happen, and the article covers them briefly, but after sequencing the genome for these butterflies they found that none of those previously seen explanations were the case.

Basically, we already know the gene that causes UV vision in butterflies. It is called the opsin gene. In zebra longtail butterflies, this gene occurs on the chromosome W, which is the female sex chromosome. That means that sometime in history, this gene just jumped from a normal chromosome onto the female-only chromosome, and has locked the male butterflies out of this ability ever since. This is the first time we have seen a gene do a jump like that, and it is pretty cool.

But anyway, appreciate the girlpower of zebra longwing butterflies getting all the UV vision, and take a look at the study! It's free to read, which is really nice to see.