As a trans guy, whenever I see a post that’s just about trans guy dysphoria, or something along those lines, I like it, and might take a gander at whoever’s blog it is.

Without fail, there has always been some form of tmra bullshit on there. Either reblogged, or posted by the blogger themselves. The fact transandrophobia is as big of term in those spaces should be enough evidence- but, then again, they’ll claim it’s not a transmisogynistic movement if you present them with the fact that we really don’t need a term (especially one so similar to transmisogyny) when describing our oppression.

Most of their ‘evidence’ for transandrophobia even being valid in the first place is, again, just transphobia. We don’t have a unique intersection of oppressive systems because men (in general) aren’t oppressed for being men. Cannot believe that’s a controversial statement to make, but here we are

The base premise has a stock phrase attached, “The ball works his core.” Someone needs to say the stock phrase to a visitor.

So for the ball on head gag you put him on top of Grandpa Nutmeg’s head or on top of Grandma Nutmeg’s head. And for the big ball gag you have Grandpa Nutmeg explain it or Grandma Nutmeg explain it. This fills out a 2×2 table and gives us the four comics above.

Notice that there’s at least one year between each of these comics, and that the oldest one is from 2016. The series is nine years in the making. These are the only comics so far with this caption.

(Disclaimer: this data is biased by reruns and right-censoring.)

I predicted Iggy would show up. He did not. On careful consideration I don’t think he could have. He doesn’t fit the caption. Iggy is whimsy-neutral: he describes wacky events impartially. Grandpa and Grandma Heathcliff are whimsy-mitigators: they comment on ordinary elements to downplay the overall wackiness. Compare:

“The ball works his core” is whimsy-mitigating. It’s funny that the speaker only explains which muscles the ball exercises and ignores Heathcliff’s species and the ball’s size.

To break out of the 2×2 matrix above you need to either come up with a third joke (tricky) or apply one of the existing jokes to a different character.

You can’t do the ball-on-head version with another character. Grandpa and Grandma Nutmeg are used up, Iggy isn’t suitable (I called this), and neither is anyone outside the Nutmeg household. Cats are known to rest on heads, the ball-on-head is exaggerated cat behavior, but they do this with people they trust. So it has to be the big ball version.

The joke has to take place in a location where people exercise. The speaker has to be familiar with Heathcliff’s routine. The obvious setting other than the Nutmeg household is a gym and the obvious speaker other than the Nutmegs is a gym employee.

The “Mid City Gym” location was used in a few comics in 2003, then resurrected starting in 2023. Same interior, same uniform.