Not Your Average Teen Pop Star (DarkDreamer9110 x MsBloom)

[MsBloom]

"Why not," Leon said with a shrug.
"Who decided that only females of any kind, trans or cis, get to wear certain clothes?" he asked and looked at the camera.
"And also, Male does not mean not-feminine. People are so stuck on traditional gender expressions. Wearing clothes like these ..."
He stood up and turned around to let the camera see his outfit from every angle.
"... does not in itself make me female, or mean that I want to be female. I am still 100% secure as a male, maybe more so than most cishet men who would perhaps feel feminised or sissified if wearing an outfit like this. For me it is mainly about the aesthetics, and comfort as well."
He sat down again.
"And isn't that what is important? That you look good in what you wear and that you are comfortable in what you wear?"
He smiled and looked around the table and the camera followed his eyes until they settled on Ellie.
"What so many people don't understand is that presentation does not equal gender identity. If that was the case then why don't you ask Ellie, for instance, why she is dressed in such a masculine way with her jeans and t-shirt if she is a woman. There is when you think about it nothing specifically feminine in her outfit."
It was not Ellie's turn to stand up and show that Leon was in fact right. She wore nothing that was specifically feminine, at least nothing that was visible.
"And I am as far as I know, as cis as he is," she said.
"Not even if I cut my hair short people would question my gender because of this outfit."
She paused and looked first at Dusty and then at her partner before continuing.
"I mean as you our drummer here knows as well as yourself Adri (who was off camera of course ... It is easier for an AFAB to get away with presenting male than it is the other way around because in the end ... trousers and a shirt are mostly considered unisex. No one raises an eyebrow at an AFAB NOT wearing a skirt or a dress while and AMAB does draw attention if they are wearing anything other than trousers, and it can't be any trousers either, they cannot be too feminine."
She made air quotes around too feminine to indicate that perhaps there was no such thing.

 

[DarkDreamer9110]

Cassie smiled as Léon and Ellie spoke to emphasize that gender presentation didn't equate to gender identity. She nodded as Ellie mentioned that no one would question her identity despite her dressing masculine. And then Ellie went further, emphasizing that even trans and non-binary AFABs were generally not mocked for dressing in clothing that wasn't explicitly feminine-coded.

"And on the flip side, you have me. I dress high femme. I am all about the feminine look. I am the girliest girl in this band. And yet the people who wouldn't bat an eye at Ellie or Dusty or Adri dressing in "masculine" clothing are the same people who would call Léon things like "sissy,' or 'girly,' or homophobic slurs, or insist that I must be a dude just because I was born with the wrong factory default hardware. It's a whole double standard of BS." She said.

"It's honestly just misogyny. Because what's actually so bad about someone born with a penis wanting to dress in clothes that aren't conventionally masculine? Why aren't cis women berated for dressing masculine? It's because of course a woman would want to be seen as less feminine because femininity is punished, looked down upon, treated as lesser. And conversely, for a man or AMAB to intentionally give up that masculine presentation, to choose to dress as the "lesser" gender, is seen as some kind of mental illness or perversion because why would anyone want to go down the rungs of the ladder of socially imposed gender hierarchy." She added, then looked at André.

"Look at André here. It's agender, and yet because it prefers to dress in conventionally masculine attire, which also happens to align with its AGAB, most people are just gonna accept that it presents masculine."

André nodded. "And just like my twin brother chooses to dress feminine because he likes it despite being very cis, I choose to dress more conventionally masculine because I like it despite being agender. It's comfortable to me. And I'd say that, while Léon brought up both looking good and feeling comfortable in what you're wearing as being important, I'd contend that the latter is actually more important. It doesn't matter if someone else thinks you look bad in something that you feel really comfortable in, that you feel good in. As long as you feel good, as long as you like how you look, that dipshit judging you can get fucked."

Ember nodded. "That all makes a great deal of sense. Thank you all for your perspectives about it." She said. "So you're a very queer band. Three of the five of you are gender-expansive, at least two of you, Cassie and Ellie, aren't straight. I say at least, but I'm not gonna ask any of you who might not be out to out yourselves unless you want to."

André chuckled. "I'm not straight, either. Even if I'm into women, I'm not straight, because I'm not a dude."

Dusty nodded, glancing at Léon. "And I, uh, I'm into men. I may be AFAB, but I'm a trans man. And a guy exclusively into guys is gay. I'm gay. So that's four of us, at least."

Ember chuckled. "Damn. Léon, are you gonna come out and make it unanimous that all five of you aren't straight?" She said, then quickly added, "That was rhetorical."

After giving Léon a chance to respond, however he chose to, Ember nodded. "So my point is, how does a band like that happen? So much queerness in one group."

At that point, Andi walked by, and Cassie waved her over. "Honestly, thank Andi here. She actually approached me and Ellie after our last livestream Q&A, wanting to give us the chance to do some studio work. And the rest went from there."

Adri nodded, glancing at Andi. "So, Andi, you "discovered" Funhouse Sweethearts. But at that time, there were only the two girls. I know Dusty came along not long after, but how did André and Léon happen to get involved?"

 

[MsBloom]

It was of course no coincidence that Andi happened to be walking by as the band did their presentation stream. She had been invited to appear and to talk about the band and her involvement with them. Not only was there a point in it that related to her importance to their success but also in the question Ember actually asked, about how she thought of suggesting André and Léon join Cassie, Ellie and Dusty.
"As a record producer I am always on the look out for new talent and when I stumbled onto Funhouse Sweetheart's YouTube channel I knew I had hit gold. The first thing I heard was Heart of a Dreamer and it immediately had me thinking of Blondie."
Andi now smiled at the camera and elaborated.
"To those of you out there who don't know Blondie they were this little outfit from New York back in the late 70s early 80s who managed to combine sweet pop music with the energy of punk, just the same way Ellie and Cassie did. They have of course evolved and grown a lot since then, musically speaking. Partly because Ellie has had more freedom to experiment with her ideas in my studio but also through the addition of first Dusty on drums and percussion and then André and Léon, whom I discovered at about the same time when they were the driving mechanism of a band called Rats in a Can, a rocky outfit that were absolutely brilliant live and could have been so much bigger than they, sadly, are now."

She paused briefly and looked over at the twins.
"Even sadder is the reason the band fell apart," she continued.
"I will let André and Léon elaborate further on what happened but I will say that the reason why Rats in a Can fell apart is also to a very large extent the reason I thought of presenting André and Léon to Funhouse Sweethearts. It was of course not the min reason, that was because I could see the potential of what they could add to the band, and from what has been released so far and from what I know they are working on I would say it couldn't be a better match. Léon and André really pushed the limits of what was possible for Funhouse sweethearts and also opened up for Ellie to put her creativity into sixth gear."

 

[DarkDreamer9110]

André nodded at Andi's statement about why Rats In A Can fell apart.

When Andi finished her statement about how André and Léon had added to Funhouse Sweethearts, Ember nodded. "I've been in those sessions, and yeah, it's really amazing how the two groups synergized so well. Absolutely cranked their music up to eleven. That was a great call." She said.

Adri looked at André. "So, would you and Léon like to elaborate on what happened to Rats In A Can?"

André nodded. "So, yeah, basically what had happened is, I had been working on figuring out my identity, y'know. Since Léon was always dressing in a more feminine style, I was always getting called more manly, more masculine, "more of a man than Léon," and that wasn't sitting right with me. I didn't feel manhood fit me. But neither did femininity or womanhood. But anyways, what happened is I stumbled upon being agender, and I just ... It felt right. There was a creator on TikTok I followed who used they and it pronouns, and the it part resonated with me.

"I came out to Léon and Ember, who were both naturally accepting, and then to the rest of the band. And, uh, apparently being a bedicked individual who didn't identify as a dude was a bridge too far. Nevermind that Léon was showing up in outfits that would make Ziggy Fuckin' Stardust look masculine. Apparently dudes can dress genderfuck, but someone who was AMAB denouncing manhood while dressing in conventionally masculine clothes was their line. Our lead singer, Clay, he basically told me that if I was too scared to consider myself a man then I should "dress like a fucking twink so real men knew they could fuck me." Nevermind that I'm only really into more fem-aligned people." It said, then glanced at Léon. "You want to take it from there?"