Artist is zippio95

im tired and scared and tired of being tired and scared

things keep changing, getting bad in my and my partners' life, from botched electrolysis to our rommate/ex-partner leaving the apartment and us having no income and being unemployed for forever basically, and having to put our sick cat to sleep. Also were both trans women and my partners tumblr got nuked two days ago

its been a shit show through and through

if ayone would be able to donate, cents or dollars or anything at all, we have about a month to save up for an apartment anywhere so anything helps please

cashapp- $dragonforgedbutch

venmo- @crow-forgemaster

Ko-Fi - dragonbutch

our tentative goal is 2000

200/2000

a few people were very kind to donate to us, we alsoel have a apartment tour tomorrow thats closer to my parents and near some possible jobs hopefully

308/2000$

alright so, its been a bit and the situation HAS changed

not for better or worse, which is maybe nice? not really, but yknow

we have shelter now, for now, and we only technically have to focus electricity, garbage, and wifi

HOWEVER its my grandmothers house who died last november and has been empty and unchecked on till today since december. this is a house in a actual holler a solid 15 minutes drive from the nearest VERY small town, and a hours drive from any hospital. its deep in conservative christian area and the house itself was built in like, the 1930s. some of it still is original wood.

What this means is that four different parts of the house are going 6 different directions as the ground shifts, we use well water and have broken pipes and a washing machine and only a washing machine made 20 years ago. we'll need to replace a lot of water pipes and do a lot of repairs to keep things sealed and liveable for as long as we are there so we still need a lot of help

WHAT THIS ALSO MEANS IS I GET TO BE A BLACKSMITH FINALLY, SO BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR COMMISSIONS OPENING IN THE NEXT COUPLE MONTHS OR SO. ill also be opening and linking a patreon for people who might want that!

there have been a few donations since last i updated the number and sorry to those who havent sern it change when you did donate, ive had a hell of a past week and a hell of a month

352/2000

We still very much need help, it takes 3 hours to get there and 3 back with all the stuff we need to have and still have to move, which costs us a lot of gas at a minimum of 30 U.S dollars and we still need the money we have to do repairs like replace water pipes and caulking/plastering holes and groceries and bills

352/2000

we still need help, we still have stuff we need to move and gas prices for the car alone are digging us a hole, kind of begging for help here if anyone and enough people could lend us even just a couple dollars, thatd feel like a miracle

300/2000

hey its TDOV, help two trans women stay alive in a isolated conservative area in Appalachia and please donate, even just a few dollars!

hey, so my wife and i figure once weve settled downish, for everyone whose donated to us ill make something like a key chain or something like that in appreciation for all the help and as like a way to go "hey! blacksmith/bladesmith open for commissions!"

also, our ex apparentl did a move out form for fhe water compay and didnt tell us, so the water got shut off today and i also expect the wifi and power to go too pretty soon in the next couple days

as much as possible would be appreciated!!

honestly being around people who are not uncomfortable with you having feelings and desires makes the people who were uncomfortable so much worse in retrospect

like. oh! you were just evil

I've been watching this very long, very good retrospective about the Red Dead Redemption series and its predecessors and in it, Noah Caldwell-Gervais touches on a couple specific moments in Red Dead Redemption 2. I already remembered the game having a "man in a dress" gag character named Margaret, which isn't particularly cruel as far as these jokes go, though it made me roll my eyes. But I had fully forgotten that there's a second instance of drag played for laughs centering around an entirely different character as well: a sexist womanizer cross-dressing to escape town (which I admittedly don't remember well enough to say much about). There are other stories in the game (which Caldwell-Gervais goes over as well) that feel a bit dissonant with how intelligently the rest is written, but these stuck out to me in particular.

Though she insists on being referred to as a lady while in-character, Margaret isn't a transgender woman. She's a costume that a misogynistic circus ringleader puts on because he believes only a man is tough enough to be a daring woman animal tamer (even though he has a woman assistant who is more than willing to take up the role). This isn't an inherently transphobic story to tell, and there's a case to be made that it's somewhat rooted in history. I even think there's a world in which it could be told in an entertaining way.

What irks me though, beyond just the fact that the very act of crossdressing is presented as a joke, is that the punchline leads to weak storytelling that conflicts with one of the game's themes and the way it relates to the protagonist, Arthur Morgan. Red Dead Redemption 2 is a story that explores, among other things, the concept of individualism. It's well established at this point that Arthur is a fairly apolitical egalitarian who believes strongly in freedom of the individual. And it's because Arthur truly believes in said freedom that he respects his fellow gang member (and character I love so much that I partially named myself after her) Sadie Adler's choice to ditch her dress and don some jeans and holsters. He's a bit taken aback at first, sure- it's 1899 and he's just seen a woman, by the standards of the time, cross-dressing! But he quickly comes around to her new style and, after they get into a firefight with the local bandit gang, accepts her as just as capable with a gun as any man.

So why is it, then, that a female character crossdressing is an opportunity for the protagonist to grow as a person and demonstrate his values to the audience, and a male character crossdressing is an opportunity for the audience to laugh? Sure, Arthur himself isn't too antagonistic to Margaret, but he addresses her in a chuckling "yeah, sure thing buddy" type of way. And okay, I get it, the character isn't transgender, just a man pretending to be a woman to take a performing role that probably ought to go to his assistant. But isn't it, at the very least, a bit eyebrow-raising that both male characters in the game who cross-dress are also misogynists? At this point, it's fairly widespread pseudo-feminist rhetoric that 'male' crossdressers and transfeminine people in general are regressive mockeries of womanhood. Is that something we really needed more of?

Beyond all that, it just strikes me as wasted potential. If you're going to include depictions of male crossdressing in your story, why not, for at least one of the two instances, explore it with tenderness? Why can't Arthur Morgan meet a man in a dress and respond to it like he did when Sadie cross-dresses? He could even have a stronger, more negative initial reaction than to Sadie- it has, after all, proven more persistently difficult for American society to accept a man in a dress than a woman in jeans. Though it could be more challenging to write gracefully than a shallow, "I don't see gender" way of writing a protagonist, I'd appreciate the effort put into a more realistic and messy approach if it meant seeing Arthur grapple with his cognitive dissonance to accept this unfamiliar mode of self-expression.

Hell, why not explore this cross-dressing character evolving into a transgender one over time? Cross-dressing is one way many transgender people today experiment with gender expression before fully realizing their identity, and in 1899 without modern terminology with which to articulate oneself, 'man who likes to wear dresses' could have been a valuable first step toward womanhood. The existence of trans people in the 1800s is historical fact, and though Red Dead Redemption 2's 'wild west' is much more based on other works of western fiction than the frankly horrific American frontier era, it certainly draws from history to create a believable world. So it all simply leaves me wondering why they decided to include, in a game that came out in 2018, not once but twice, a played out and careless cross-dresser joke, rather than approach the topic with a little grace.

As time goes on there seems to be more and more transgender and non-binary characters in video games, but off the top of my head I can only really think of one trans woman character in a triple-A game: Mindy Blanchard from Dishonored 2. She's awesome, I love her and her incredibly striking voice performed by Betsy Moore, but she's a fairly inconsequential side character who pops up very briefly twice in the game, and she was only confirmed to be transgender in developer commentary. In contrast, The Last Of Us Part 2 has a pretty great transmasculine character, Lev, who takes center stage in the later section of the game. He's hugely important in transforming the antagonist/deuteragonist, Abby, into a kinder person, eventually becoming her reason for living. He's on the run from a bigoted cult, so he gets misgendered and deadnamed by the villains a bit, but Abby fully accepts him right off the bat, and the audience is expected to as well.

But transfeminine people and male cross-dressers, as we are commonly lumped together in public perception, don't get very much representation in fiction in general. When we do, it's historically most often been slanderous, mocking, fetishistic, or violent in some other way. Transfeminine people and male crossdressers are not, of course, inherently the same thing, but there is sometimes overlap and we represent a similar thing in the eyes of society at large: people perceived as males who are breaking established gender norms by presenting the wrong way. To put it bluntly, we are seen as sexual deviants for more or less the same reasons. If we're all essentially seen as the same thing anyway, cross-dresser gags like the ones included in Red Dead Redemption 2 harm transfeminine people as well as men who wear 'women's clothing,' and it should go without saying that we're all deserving of dignity and love. Fiction can do a lot to shape how people think, and these cruel or otherwise disrespectful depictions of us reinforce these false and unjust ideas of us. On its head, positive depictions can introduce people to new modes of thinking, or else just make people feel a bit more seen and understood. I want to see more trans women in videogames, more 'Mindy Blanchards' except more proudly transgender and important to the story, and I want to see more men in dresses too. But most of all, I want them to be treated with respect, if not by all their fellow characters, at least by the story's narrative.

Anyway, as I'm writing this, I'm realizing it's Trans Day Of Visibility today, so that's a pretty fun coincidence. Sneaking it in right at the end for my timezone. I've never really been good at ending essays, and this sort of spiraled into one after starting as just a few thoughts on a video I'm listening to at work. Thanks for reading, I hope it was interesting.

this april fools reblog to let your followers know that they are not safe from getting DEERED

HELP A TRANS PERSON FOR TDOV

Hi Im Chaqui, Im a trans latina, specifically I live in Chile, and right now I need to urgently raise 180$ usd to be able to afford some diabetes prevension medicine at the moment. Id appreciate a kind act of mutual aid on this day. I also need help affording my hrt gel which is 60$ usd, so it would be twice the amount I usually get so it doesnt run out as fast.

My paylinks are paypal and kofi! I dont have any other paylinks. If youre from Chile and want my bank account data please send me a message through my inbox, I will try to get to you but right now Im shadowbanned so contact through tumblr is limited.

Please reblog and share, and Id prefer if you dont tag this post as anything. Thank you.

hi-c orange venom backsack

enough performative text posts put your $ where your mouth is

if you have a transfem lover I do not even know how to begin to explain how important it is that you touch her without her having to ask

well y'all are reblogging the fuck out of this one so I have some additions i wanna make really quick:

1: this isn't about sex!!! i am an asexual transwoman and while this came from a *kink* blog it is not about sex!! it is about intimacy, about love, about adoration. transfems are either hated or sexualized beyond belief and you should, if you are ever BLESSED enough, be able to take that transfem you are lucky enough to be with and hold her, kiss her all over, grab her waist, her sides, her tummy, her chest, her thighs, just touch her!! don't just make it sexual!! make it be with love for how beautiful her fucking body is and make her feel adored!!!!

2: TRANSMASCS MAKE YOUR OWN POST. I don't care if this also is something you also need and deserve, that is NOT what this post is for and y'all's inability to fuckin let transfems have a single thing without going "oh me too!!!" shut up shut up oh my god!!!! make your own post!!!! make your own post this post is NOT the place, god, fuck!!! I love you but PLEASE understand!!

3: @tropicalscream you have the most correct tags out of anyone on this post and I love you for it. if she is fat TOUCH HER TUMMY GRAB IT SQUEEZE IT TELL HER YOU LOVE IT IT IS SO FUCKING GRIPPABLE AND YOU ARE A COWARD IF YOU ARE NOT MAKING YOUR TRANSFEM LOVER FEEL DESIRABLE AS SOMEONE WHO'S FAT!!!!!!!!!!!

Ghost in the Shell (1995)

> sees complaints that a female character looks "too masculine" or "like an ugly lesbian"

> ask if we got an actual butch character or if shes just a normal looking woman that isnt wearing make up and a dress

> person is visibly confused, i start explaining the difference between actual butch presentation and dress and a woman simply dressing comfortably to avoid indecent exposure

> person laughs and says "she straight up looks like a guy, i can barely tell her apart from the actual men"

> google the character

> shes just a normal looking woman that isnt wearing make up and a dress

> sees complaints that a female character looks "too masculine" or "like an ugly lesbian"

> ask if we got an actual butch character or if shes just a black woman

> person is visibly confused, i start explaining the difference between actual butch presentation and dress and how black women are held to white standards of femininity and are often accused of looking like/being men because of white people applying these standards to them

> person laughs and says "she straight up looks like a guy, i can barely tell her apart from the actual men. why are you bringing race into this?"

> google the character

> shes just a black woman

casual survey: reblog if you want to kiss a girl right now