Gachiakuta Spoilers
Tamsy character analysis
thought I'd give character study a try so here are my thoughts on Tamsy and his relationship with femininity and some other details I noticed. fair warning: english is not my native language.
The thing I noticed about tamsy when i first laid eyes on him was that he looked softer and more delicate than the rest of the male cast and as an enby myself I was like kyaaa!!, I loved him immediately.
Imagine my joy and not surprise at the voice actor pick with Mitsuki Saiga, a female va who is known for voicing both genders. Not that unusual by itself, but I found it interesting that they went this route with tamsy, a 23 year old man, instead of what would be the more common/traditional choice in 15 year old shounen protagonist rudo - he is voiced by a male va.
Appearance
Going off of visuals alone you can plainly notice traits typically attributed to women. Soft facial features and expressions, beautiful eyes with long, emphasized lashes, long ass hair.
But he doesn't just call it a day, he sits down every morning and does it up in a bun and something braid like on the sides, he puts in effort. he could do his hair in a lazy style when he's working but no he actually wants to look pretty. There's also this fruity pose he does after getting ready:
I don't think I need to spell it out but men stereotypically don't do this.
Demeanor
Tamsy's crafted personality is rather meek, he's also calm and more on the quiet side, we don't usually hear him speak except for the occasional comment on the situation. He has a protective and caring streak as can be seen in various moments.
Here some examples:
He shows compassion for rudo after his fight with jabber, when he's lying on the ground paralyzed
When rudo is about to be blasted by delmon's water beam tamsy snatches him and protects him with his own body. reminded me of a mother protecting their young.
Tamsy tries to make rudo comfortable when they meet for the "first" time, putting an arm around him and telling him he too likes passionate people and thereby rudo
Tbh we all know his true self is a bit different and he's a liar, but personally I think his act towards rudo can be called at least half authentic since we know he genuinely "loves" him.
jinki/vital instrument
Tokushin is a distaff, a tool used in spinning, traditionally a woman's work even to this day. Speaks for itself.
Could be a total coincidence because I don't know the japanese word and it's connotations, but in the english language the word distaff is also used to refer to the female side of a family.
Another thing to note is his ability to make some kind of net trap to catch and immobilize enemies. It's reminiscent of a spider's web: the more the prey/victim struggles the deeper it gets entangled in the web, it's cruel. We see exactly this with the cleaners: they didn't struggle, nothing changed, but once they did the rope cut into their skin, painfully restricting blood flow and entrapping them further.
My point is spiders are frequently associated with femininity in mythology, probably stemming from the fact that in most species the females practice sexual cannibalism, making them the more prominent gender. Unrelated but yeah get they asses spider ladies!
Japanese is a complex language. Tokushin can have several meanings, among them "devotion" and "blasphemy". Devotion huh? Another trait stereotypically attributed to women. We have all heard of the "devoted wife" and as far as I know this concept is deeply ingrained especially in japanese culture, you know, the land where the author/ kei urana is from.
On the other hand the word can be seen in a religious context, befitting of the other possible meaning, blasphemy. Tamsy's obviously devoted to Rudo. No idea about the blasphemy, but I know that what he's doing is definitely unholy by christian and many other religion's standards.
Besides, Tamsy is referred to as the "Angel" who travels between Sphere and Abyss, which is most likely a plain metaphor for heaven and hell - if true that'd make quite the christian imagery. Contrary to common belief christian angels aren't male, at least not inherently. They are described as spiritual beings who transcend gender, however, they were said to have male appearances and are referred to with male pronouns. Seems transmasc enough/j. This allegedly happened due to limited language at the time (no gender neutral pronouns), my personal guess would also be patriarchy, because of course these influental figures would be portrayed as male, right?
Now this might be a reach but his scars could be a fallen angel/lucifer reference. Lucifer's original sin was pride, he rebelled against god, tried to usurp him - this would tie back to the possible meaning of tokushin, blasphemy. I say this because the scars look suspiciously like burn scars, they could symbolise a fall from heaven to hell, getting burned there. Maybe he actually got them from crossing the border? We can see the scars go across his arms and torso in this picture from urana's instagram story:
There's some other things to discuss like why exactly tasmy chose to make amo believe he was a woman but I have written enough
tldr: Tamsy is a member of the lgbt community