#characters i project my transness on

[theravencycletweets]

[northern-passage]

i've been thinking a lot about the word "representation" and what it means and how it's changed over the last few years, particularly when it comes to the writing/publishing landscape but also in movies and tv shows… and i really don't like it anymore. to be clear, of course i think it's important to have diversity in your work, i'm not saying i hate the concept of representation. but i do really dislike the way it's used now, and i really just hate the word itself

in a broader sense it's just become a marketing tool. i'm not impressed by any publisher or author who just describes their book by listing all of the minorities/identities the characters represent as if that should be enough. it feels very gross, very exploitative and disingenuous. it also really bothers me because it's always marginalized identities- which i understand Why, but it feels very othering to me (and again. Very exploitative as an advertisement). you would never list out "cishet able-bodied white man" as a character description to pat yourself on the back over. so why do it to everyone else? why insinuate that one is the "default" and the other one is "special"? (and when i say this i'm mainly talking about advertisements/marketing. i understand why people would specify about characters in descriptions with the plot, but i don't like to see an ad that's just "this book has gay people!" with nothing else)

which then leads me to my other point, which is that a lot of people treat "representation" as if it's "too hard." like "oh i don't know enough to write about that, i don't have that experience, etc" which is a fair way to feel! however… it's weird that people only say this about writing trans characters or characters of color. i'm writing a story right now with a character who is really into motorcycles. i personally do not know that much about motorcycles, so i researched what parts are what & what different kinds of models there are & what basic bike care looks like. i guarantee Most people will have to google something at some point in their writing process. so what's the problem? it also, again, feels very othering when authors treat certain groups of people as "impossible" to write, "too hard" to understand. they are just.. people. you write them as a person. and then you figure out the rest later.

and i think part of the refusal or fear to write something outside of your experience is because of the way representation is treated as So Special. these characters are So Special that they aren't allowed to be anything other than "representation." they're Not allowed to be characters with complex emotions and interesting motivations, they have to just be Trans or Gay or Disabled or whatever. they're not allowed to be people. which means, at the end of the day, we loop right back around to where we were at the start….

there is bad representation. there are depictions of certain marginalized people that are harmful and that are damaging, i'm not trying to minimize that or argue against it at all, in fact we should all be mindful of that while writing and reading. but i also think it's possible to swing too far in the opposite direction as well and put certain groups of people on a pedestal and not allow them to do anything at all but be Perfect Representation, if that makes sense.

[starshine-valley]

I have three types of trans headcanons:

1) Headcanons that have some sort of canon basis and in this category are Transmasc Mafuyu, MAYBE Transfem Airi and transmasc ichika

- Mafuyu singing villain (a gender dysphoria song) and in the kitty mv flashing between his past self with long hair to his card in the mv which is short hair (being seen next to the canon transfem who did the reverse, short hair to long hair)

- Airi in one of her events calling her past self “a girl no matter what” and her past self wanting to appear more feminine (if I remember the event story correctly, if I’m wrong i apologize).

- Ichika having that Kizuna Rank with Kaito called Handsome While Playing.

NOW THESE DO NOT IMMEDIATELY MEAN THAT THESE CHARACTERS ARE TRANS! These are just something that COULD point them to that direction!

2) Headcanons that have little to no canon basis but hit me hard based on the headcanons i have for them being trans and in this category, we have Transmasc Shizuku and Transmasc Kanade.

3) Headcanons that have absolutely no canon basis but i transed their genders anyway :). And in this category we have, Transfem Ena, Transfem Toya, Transfem Rui and Transmasc Nene.

[boy-above]

an anon insinuated i have no female faves so here is an appreciation post for my favorite girlies in no particular order

[emilnikos]

trans man morbius but he never got top surgery bc his disease made it too risky AND he still has the tit deep v neck. send post

[aro-laurance-zvahl]

I come alive after two years! What will I talk about? Dimension 20? The Owl House? A brand new interest I gained??? None of them! Today I will be talking about MINECRAFT DIARIES! Specifically Garroth Ro’Meave, whom I call my first ever comfort character. I have many thoughts about him, but today we focus on a headcanon I have gained and I would love y’all to hear me out.

Trans Garroth.

He is essentially a runaway prince. Nothing gets more queer than that.

It would add some great dimension to his self hatred of his appearance

Also adds explanation to how he stayed hidden from O’Khasis for so long, they were looking for an heiress instead of the heir

There’s most definitely Magical HRT in the form of minor transmutation potions so he’s able to go stealth

He was most definitely shoved in the closet for his whole life, and when he wasn’t there it was when he was maliciously outed

He’s out to very few people

Pre series being the old lord and his wife, Azura, Dale, and Zenix

By the end of season one it would include Aphmau and Lucinda

(Laurence isn’t included for Comedic Purposes)

Also like...it could make his season one betrayal make sense (I have a lot reasons to explain why I think it was out of character but that’s for another time)

Basically Zane manipulates him into thinking Aphmau wasn’t actually supportive and had maliciously outed him to Laurence

Provides the most basic of support which Garroth would have never gotten from family

And also adds another layer of his loyalty and love for Aphmau when he sacrifices himself to save her and co

He is so loyal he’ll betray his own self respect to save those he loves, even when he thinks they don’t care about him

Also imagine when he comes back Lucinda comes by with a crate of his dose of transmutation potions as a welcome home

I have a lot more thoughts my brain just needs some prodding to reveal them so ask questions!!! Thank you for reading my ramble!

[theabigailthorn]

Have you considered moving to america? you know there are a lot of blond americans in america, and most of them would be absolutely enchanted by a tall lady with a fancy-pants british accent

I've thought about it, for career reasons rather than romance!

It's a difficult question. If I were to move to the US, right now L.A. would be the place to go: I have contacts there and I'm developing projects there. It's likely I'd be able to have a better standard of living out there too. There's also the political angle: if the Conservatives win the next British election there's a nonzero chance I'll have to leave the country because if they pass a national bathroom law and I can't use a women's toilet, I can't go to work on a set or in a theatre! I know the US is worse in a lot of places, but at least over there some politicians are standing up for trans people, some politicians are trans, some cities are refusing to comply with discriminatory laws... There seems to be a better line of defence over there, in some places? The sorts of places I would be going to live anyway. It feels like in the US the extremes are more extreme: some states are worse than Britain, but some are actually better. I think the US entertainment industry is in some ways ahead of the UK on trans issues - I've had British people straight up refuse to work with me cause I'm trans even though that's illegal, and string me along for ages cause they think I'll be a diversity checkbox for them. Whereas in my (admittedly limited) experience American producers are more willing to give me a shot and don't see my transness as an obstacle. The producers of [SUPER REDACTED] are American and they gave me that role even though the character is written as cis and cis women auditioned alongside me! I thanked one of them like, "Hey, this sort of thing has never been done and it's not the sort of thing trans people are usually allowed anywhere near!" and she was like, "Bwuh? You nailed the audition, why wouldn't we give it to you?" I said to her at the wrap party, "The idea that a trans woman could be a [PERFORMER OF THIS TYPE] has not yet entered the minds of anyone outside this room, and when it does it's going to be a gamechanger for all of us." See also Nebula! I pitched Dracula's Ex-Girlfriend to them and they greenlit it 15 days later. Contrastingly, I emailed a pitch deck and pilot episode for a trans-led TV series to a bunch of British production companies back in August and a lot of them haven't even read it yet. I like working for Americans because they just seem to get it on a level that a lot of Brits don't, yet.

On the other hand!

The entire US entertainment industry is about to move to Britain! So, maybe the smart career move is to stay. My family are here, my home is here, and despite everything I do love this country. I would be sad to leave. But we'll see. The next few years are likely to be a little... unusual. My plan right now is to have one foot in both countries, and then perhaps at some point the acting industry will make the decision for me.

[1960z]

how people go about interpreting dr bashir I presume? really frustrates me sometimes ngl especially the “jules bashir died” scene.

like that whole scene is about julian revealing the depth of how deeply his augmentations fractured his sense of identity and who he is - which feeds into the themes of the whole episode surrounding how disability and then by extension disabled people are often viewed as a problem to be solved and because of that are often denied the ability to have fulfilling lives because the able bodied people around them don’t believe that they can.

but… idk, when the fandom talks about it there’s always seems to be a push to read a trans allegory into it that I don’t think is really there? I keep mulling over this post in my mind and when I initially reblogged it I didn’t really want to talk about this because the post is about how stories about racism can be hijacked by white people to be made about their own transness and it felt like as a white person, using that post to complain about ableism would be missing the point. but it really helped me articulate in my mind why the trans reading of this episode feels off to me because the same general principle seems to apply and that is taking a story trying to discuss a specific type of marginalisation and putting a trans reading above it because you can relate more to it personally.

“jules bashir died in that hospital because you couldn't live with the shame of having a son who didn't measure up!” this scene is the culmination of julian expressing his pain about what was done to him as a disabled child by his parents due to how they viewed his disability. but often when I see it being discussed, people aren’t really interested in talking about that. instead supplanting it with a trans reading instead which, in my opinion is an allegory that doesn’t even really work when you think about what’s going on in the broader context of the scene.

julian didn’t stop going by jules because he came to the conclusion on his own that the identity didn’t suit him similar to the way a trans person questions or rejects the gender they were assigned at birth, he stopped going by jules because he felt like the identity attached to that name was taken from him because of what his parents did. it’s not julian affirming who he wants to be it’s grieving over who he can’t be and to me at least, it’s honestly kind of harrowing.

and as an aside: when people read transness into a story about parents who change their child’s body and mind at a very young age without consent, which is literally a narrative projected onto trans people by transphobes to justify the curtailing of trans rights, that also doesn’t sit well with me. I think people latch onto this reading because of the idea of “killing a name” but again in the context of the whole episode the trans reading really doesn’t feel appropriate.

I think it’s okay for people to have trans headcanons about julian of course or literally any character they want to really, but I think saying that specific episode codes him as trans isn’t all that great honestly.

[peachiseas]

Final Update

Kab posted her final update and while that explains everything, a lot of people have been talking about one particular out of context screencap about how Tamarack with male MCs. That's fine; I'm not going to judge anyone for being hurt by that, but I'm going to lay the truth out for everyone.

That was me venting as a closeted bisexual and using a joke with my friends to further cement it was also not that serious. I am bisexual, my friends know this. The leakers knew this and knew that if they posted this, the only way to truly refute that screenshot was by being outed as a bisexual to everyone.

Before anyone asks about my icon: the icon has been there for years, and I hadn't had time to find a suitable change. This change in sexuality was also recent, and by the timestamp in that screencap, it was extremely recent.

I don't own anyone a constant update on my sexuality. I have the right to come out on my own terms, and I'm doing this on my own terms. A little earlier than I wanted (mainly because I wanted an icon to commemorate), but I'm comfortable with my bisexuality enough that I can write this post.

So what now?

I am leaving this community. I have now shelfed multiple projects; from zines to merch to even participating in weekly events. All works of art featuring any Our Life characters that aren't for commission will be put on hold indefinitely.

While everyone was making posts about the situation, I was getting slammed with both anonymous and non anonymous asks. The asks ranged from misgendering me, to saying I'm not transgender and that I'm a woman, to racial slurs (because of course there was). While there have been people who have been supportive in my asks, the hate was overwhelming.

It threatened everything for me: my safety, my privacy, my reputation, my digital footprint, my livelihood, and, more importantly, my peace of mind.

This fandom has been kind to me; it's the sole reason I was able to afford to go to college to finish my degree and rebuy furniture after I lost my house in a fire.

But why should I continue to make art and pour funds into merch for a community that told me that I'm faking my transness? That I'm faking my blackness and my latine heritage?

The same leakers who have leaked my private information were people who paid for my commission services, my merchandise. They wanted our MCs to interact. They wanted me to draw their MCs interacting with mine. They even used my art for stickers in their private server.

I could go on but tell me earnestly: why should I continue creating just for people to consume it while they can have fun running my name, my identity through the mud so frivolously without any thought?

There's a larger conversation about black exploitation to be had, especially when it comes to fandom involvement and how the nonblack populus will appropriate memes and art from black culture while disrespecting the black creators that made them but respectfully, I'm very fucking tired.

I'm going to take a break from this account. I might post. I might not. I hope everyone has a good day. Peace.

[maddragon15]

Happy pride everyone!!

I'm a bit late to the first day but nevertheless I throw a transtho at ye. I've made some slight changes to my headcanon version of etho because the sims has permitted me complete and utter control of how to envision him and therefore I'll make it everyone else's problem to also see said vision.

Ramble and variation down yonder

It's not uncommon to come across etho with the roots (bc of arctic fox seasonal colors) showing but what about the freckles on the body? I need to see more of that, and also he has gallbladder surgery scars because I said so. This man is so unbelievably a blank slate in terms of design and so I'm just gonna be silly goofy with it. I imagine that he has even more scars on the back due to battles with skeles and zombies alike.

Also I've had this pose with etho stuck in my head for at least a week and a half but I have not had the time to actually draw it until today. I wanted a pose that just kinda displays his body but in a non suggestive way, hopefully it comes across as that. Really it's just meant to show pride & positivity in top surgery scars along with other scars n details of the body. I figure Etho would be an ideal candidate for said topic because as I said earlier his character is such a blank slate but also I just really tend to project my transness on character fixations of the decade. (I'm still staring at you trans scar and gnc grian)

I wanted to do a more oil painted style for this piece but I figured a good 'ol watercolor style would be nice to dabble in again.

Also also I do plan to at least doodle the days I've missed for hermitaday as one mega post once I finish impulse & tango despite it being nearly a week after hermitaday finished.

Sketch & Sim (In case anyone wanted to see my eef sim)

[daftdrac]

Hey pspspspspspsps X-Men Evolution fans. Pspspspsps Kurt Wagner fans. Pspspspspspsps queer people. I have just the AU for you

Transfem Kurt Wagner AU.

I dont have a chosen name pinned down for her yet but i'm thinking Kerttu? Maybe give suggestions (I'm thinking specifically German names)

(Source babynamesdirect)

This is kinda what I wrote when I was talking about it with my friend:

The professor messing with his image inducer as a joke, but Kurt looks in the mirror and his eyes blow wide and he feels more comfortable in this skin than he's ever been, and why did scott calling him "ma'am" feel so right and oh, god, she's not a he.

I just think that a transfem Kurt au would be,, cool,,, (I'm shaking and sobbing I'm definitely not projecting my transness onto my newest favorite character what are you talking about)

[irlfelixcatton]

TALK ABOUT THE TRANSMASCULINE ALLEGORY!!! i want to hear your thoughts

ok. the long awaited oliver quick transmasculine allegory post.

to be so real it is mainly me doing 2 (two things)

-projecting

-using insanely obvious prompts from the text to pull shit out of my ass

i do think that oliver quick's character COULD. MAYBE. be either headcanon'd as trans (BOOORRRINNGG) or a lot of his actions in act one can be closely tied to very common trans experiences.

my biggest thing on 'common' trans experiences as it relates to saltburn, is meeting a cis man and latching onto him with every fiber of your being, because you can't be friends with him, you need to *be* him. the first thing that really prompted me to look at saltburn from this lense was when farleigh goes "[you're almost passing as] a real human boy!", though it's clearly about oliver wearing a rental suit, it's a phrase that i've heard a million times over and over again, and i think that oliver, within this transmaculine concept of his character, dances CONSTANTLY on this imaginary line of "real boy" to "weirdo freak" that i think a lot of trans people can relate to. (i will touch on 'real boy' again later)

theres also an aspect of this incessant watching and dissecting cis men, what they wear, how they talk, how they fuck. and with all of this watching, there's this part of melding your identity into what you're watching, which we see starkly with oliver. at the beginning, when he's this oxford kid, a freak if you will, but he's more or less himself, version A. once he meets felix, he ditches the glasses, the button up shirts, the uptight manner, and turns into this entirely different version of "himself", version B. version B is the version he's taught himself that society will like much more than version A, so it consumes him entirely. version A wasn't someone that girls would fuck, felix would love, and quite frankly be 'enjoyed' by the rest of the world. version A is pre-transition, and version B is post. (all this to say, in relation to irl transition, neither version A or version B are right, good, or bad, they're whatever you want them to be. beauty is in the eye of the beholder)

THIS PART IS JUST WORD VOMIT AND DOESN'T NECESSARILY PERTAIN TO MY POINT OF TRANSMASCULINE ALLEGORY. SCROLL AT YOUR OWN RISK.

for me, another piece i think about a lot is the “you’re just so real” (venetia) but that’s a bit more of a stretch. the reason i think this relates to the main point, is so many trans people have to work and rework their personality so that their 'transness' is socially palatable, real. the catton's have no general perception of a real person, they surround themselves with fake, upper class socialites who lie and cheat. but even if they met a real person, they wouldn't know it. and they don't lol. so when oliver comes around, who isn't this upper class socialite, the initial thought is that he's this "real" and "grounded" person. however, the only reason that the catton's (general society in this case) find oliver (trans people) so "real" and more or less worth accepting into their family is because he has worked and reworked his identity to be so similar and likeable to felix's.

there's also the conversation on cattonquick being a really good representation of what a mlm cis/trans relationship can feel like so much of the time. but i'll only really expand on this if any1 is interested lol. anyways pls dm me or comment on this i really want to talk more about it more.

[olderthannetfic]

It might be a weirdly specific ask but your blog is the largest writing-adjacent community I’m in so bear with me

How often do you think about trans people when doing world-building or character creation, especially when it comes to establishing their sexuality, be it in fanfics or original works?

I’m kind of new to fanfiction writing and fandom culture, so there’s very few people I personally know that I share my works with, and one of them (who admittedly is vaguely non-binary themselves) has a tendency to ask “will this character be open to dating a trans person” or “how would this element of your world work for trans people” etc. every single time I share a story or a character idea with them.

Last time it happened and they weren’t satisfied with my “uhh… I don’t know… maybe?” mumbling in response to their “would this gay OC sex worker fuck a trans guy” questioning, I honestly admitted that I don’t really think about trans people when writing my fics about canonically cis characters and was told it’s a sign of internalized transphobia and cisnormativity in me.

So it got me curious — is it some common thing in writing I wasn’t aware of? Or do you think it’s their personal pet peeve only?

--

Personal pet peeve.

I do think there's some... well... phobia is a strong word, but cis-centrism, let's say... if these things never occur to you and you're engaging in heavy worldbuilding where magical powers are determined by gender.

Reading a/b/o tends to make me idly consider what transness looks like in that world too, though it depends on the fic.

My character might date trans people. They might also have a bunch of living family members we never see or hear about. They might have any number of hobbies. A lot of things exist offscreen. Until they are relevant, I do not think about them. My focus is on telling this story.

Obsessing over this is 1. a sign that they're upset about the general transphobic state of the world and taking it out on the nearest target and 2. engaging in the kind of writing prep that consists of making tedious character creation sheets for eight hundred years instead of picking the details that are actually needed for this project and getting the fuck on with writing.

[solradguy]

has there ever been anything from daisuke on why bridget was amab/an otokonoko to begin with? i feel like i remember reading that he thought it would be a fun trope (interesting, since bridget basically spawned the crossdressing boy trope) but i don’t know if anything else has been said on why he chose that trope.

(btw, this isn’t me disrespecting bridget’s transness! i fully see her as a girl, i’m just curious about this specific issue.)

Funnily enough, the Artworks of GGX 2004 interview I recently found talks about this. Translation by fairymisao:

(27)---The character Bridget, introduced in Guilty Gear XX, looks like a girl but is actually a boy, right? What was your intention in deciding on creating this kind of character? Ishiwatari: The creation of Bridget as a boy happened at the very last second; during development I was drawing him as purely a girl. It's just that when there is a need to give a worldly backbone (to the game), in order for me to try to not forget each character, and in order to revive the character, I give them my very heart. As a result, the creation of Bridget as actually a boy instead of a girl was because I thought he could become my alter ego. Well, if there was a need for the reverse—a girl that looks like a boy—that would be okay too, but it doesn't look pretty game-wise. It's also somewhat calculated (laughs).

I don't have the original text for that second to last line so I don't know what Daisuke actually said/was trying to say about a female character that looks like a male character. It sounds like he swapped Bridget's assigned gender right at the end because he wanted to project his personality through her though haha Daisuke's personal relationship with gender fascinates me. I hope some day he does an interview where he talks about it more in depth. There's also that one comment he made about Testament's gender:

Back then [1998-2002], Guilty Gear creator Daisuke Ishiwatari told fans in a newsletter interview [from 2002] that Testament wasn't really male or female. "They're androgynous," he said. "In fact, they've transcended human existence. Just like me." - via The Gamer

What did he mean... The Gamer sourced the original interview and the word Daisuke used for "androgynous" there was actually 両性具有 (ryouseiguyuu; androgynous), not 無性 (musei; agender), which is the word used to describe Testament's gender in Japanese now.

IIRC there's a comment he said about Bridget's design starting because he wanted to make a cute character to balance out all the gruff battle veterans that made up a hefty chunk of the cast at the time but I cannot for the life of me remember where I read that at. It must've been in one of the interviews; I couldn't find it in documents I translated/edited.

I said before that a lot of the older comments from Daisuke about Bridget and Testament's identities felt like he was trying his best to describe "new" genders that he may have been a little familiar with through media he liked but that he just didn't know the right terminology yet. He always seems very genuine and sincere about wanting to explore gender even though some of it hasn't aged the best in hindsight...

[cptjoey]

in relation to my post about having more dominant and masculine male characters being headcannoned as trans men, i want to mention that i also heavily support headcannoning characters as transgender for No Fucking Reason.

i love it when there is absolutely nothing in the cannon media that could possibly be alluding to transness in any sense but we just headcannon the character as trans anyway.

i think it highlights the fact that trans people are all over, and their transness doesn't need to be a focal point of their character or identity. i hate motherfuckers who say "um. this character literally isn't trans though." because who made you the arbiter of gender? i don't need to prove my interpretation of a character to you.

maybe i see symbolism that you missed. maybe i relate to this character and im projecting. and maybe i simply decided that character is trans because i am trans and i think he's hot, and honestly, that is a perfectly valid reason too.

trans people deserve to be included in everything unquestionably. this includes fandoms and headcannons. even if you think its baseless and wrong. even if you think it's stupid. even if you think its cringe. idgaf. izzy hands is transgender because i said so.

[crowdsourced-webcomic-reviews]

Clover and Cutlass by Tobias Boyd

Clover &Cutlass by Toby (@lonelytuatara) is a fantasy romance comic based on dnd world. Every turn of a century different cults try to rise a demon lord and bring an apocalypse on earth. Jolene is one of the church students taking up her final group exams trying to prevent that (group project hell!). Maggie is the daughter of one of the local cult leaders tasked with stopping her… 

What strikes me most in the comic, is the usage of color. The limited color palette is both beautiful and clever, bringing the sort of atmospheric feeling to the scenes I feel I rarely see. The backgrounds often look simplistic: more akin to silhouettes than detailed things. The rhythm of the story only gets better with time, I really enjoy the newer chapters that take a break from the fast-paced storytelling of the beginning, and have more time to breathe and swell in the moments and emotions. The story also gets heavier with time, so it’s appropriate to take a moment for those scenes. It’s still a funny comic, there’s this certain easiness to its jokes, but there’s also so much care for it and how it wants to handle the topics it chooses to handle.

C&C is a love story, but it’s as much if not more a story of personal growth. I’m personally always drawn to stories of wiggling free of religious upbringings, so it’s easy for me to see Maggie. While she can be open and supported on some aspects of her identity, transness being one, she still has to hide parts of herself. She doesn’t want to be a part of a group that tries to end a world, but where would she go if not home. There’s something in the writing of it, that’s both very matter-of-fact, and tender in small details. She is also a horse girl, which is very important.

I am fond of the rest of the cast too. It’s interesting how simple both the story and the characters start up, and how quickly they deepen and become endearing. Shitty paladin and rogue my beloveds…