#and like....i Still have a lot of weird internal masculinity issues

[pansyfemme]

i’m not going to claim to completely understand what it’s like to identify with any gender that isn’t my own experience as a gnc trans man. But i sometimes notice this weird disconnect where in my day to day life, i am often assumed to be nonbinary, and that’s warranted, i present in a way that makes people question my gender. I identified with being nonbinary for a while, but i eventually came to terms with the fact that despite not totally understanding gender and feeling like i will never be able to know 100% what maleness or femaleness feels like, i want my body to be more masculine, i like masculine terms and being referred to as male- so i identify with maleness more than anything else, which i suppose can be described as binary. I will refer to myself as binary often, but more so because i want to be referred to masculinily and not neutrally and its the easiest way to say that- but i generally don’t consider myself on the binary or not, i don’t believe in the concept that at least my gender experience could be described with being either binary or not. I am not treated in the world as a binary man, so i don’t tend to identify with that as a group i fall into. Gender is the internal sense of self, but my external experiences being percieved still shape it for me. The issue comes up with when some people use the fact that i am a binary person to claim i lack understanding of certain aspects of being nonbinary, despite passing as such actively and identifying with it heavily in the past. It frustrates me when people assume i do not understand the struggles of misgendering and degendering, because i experience both in my life frequently. I don’t want to say that i know it as well as someone who identifies that way, but i just want to be clear that i think that drawing a line between binary and nonbinary experiences can be a bit reductive at times, when a lot of trans people, especially gnc trans people, do share in an understanding of their gender that is also seen as atypical to the cisgender population. The way that i identify with maleness can be seen as so alien to some cisgender men that it is essentially a seperate concept. Gender is not a universal truth, we can only speculate on what it means to be something or not. I just struggle at times with the intersection of having to define myself as being on the binary or not.

[chocolatepot]

There's something I feel like gets overlooked in metas about Stede's self-loathing being selfish and his communication style not always meshing with Ed's and Mary's, and it always digs at me when I'm reading an otherwise good post about these issues.

The thing is trauma.

Self-loathing does make you self-centered, it's true. You get focused on hyperanalyzing yourself and your behavior, which can potentially stop you from noticing what's going on with other people or from believing them when they like/compliment you. It's obviously not good for anyone involved in the situation, and it merits therapy. But it's also a trauma response.

Why does Stede believe Chauncey so easily? Why does he avoid expressing his preferences strongly in certain situations? Because he's been told his entire life, up until Discomfort in a Married State, that he deserves to be self-loathing. That everything he likes and wants is wrong, that his personality is wrong, that even the fact of his birth is wrong. Say he's not happy with the way someone treats him? That sounds like a you problem, Stede.

This obviously relates to homophobia and toxic masculinity, like so much of the show, but I'd also point out that it's familiar to a lot of un-dx'd autistic people who mask/have masked (which is part of why so many autistic people are leopointing.jpg at Stede). In that situation, you know that you're doing everything wrong all of the time, whether that's how literally you respond to people/how you miss the nuances of their social cues or what you choose to do on your down time, and since you don't really know why you're so weird, you learn that you need to ruthlessly self-critique in order to make a version of yourself that can be tolerated. If someone interrupts you to shut you up, it's because you're boring and so it's your fault - maybe don't talk at all, then?

That kind of internalized punishment doesn't go away immediately. Stede's spent his whole life being told to hate himself. It's not surprising that a few weeks of one amazing person telling him that he's actually pretty cool couldn't completely counteract that, and that he still needed to work through it by ep 9. It's as valid a trauma response as Ed's trauma responses.

#ofmd #ofmd meta #asd #I feel like I should natter in the tags but IDK what else to say #my meta

[monsterblogging]

So, I think I finally sorted out why I find Karl Heisenberg kind of weird and incoherent as a character concept when I actually stop and think about it. It took me several weeks and two watchings of Why Do You Always Kill Gods in JRPGs? to finally put my finger on it, but here it is.

So, the Resident Evil franchise is a series that has been loaded with metaphor and allegory from day one. The games have talked about stuff like labor exploitation under capitalism, eugenics, theocracy, neoimperialism, and even how the existence of counter-terrorist organizations creates perverse incentives to make more terrorists so the organizations have something to do.

Now the thing is, these are all systemic issues. For most of the franchise, the focus has been on large scale systemic problems.

Resident Evil 7, however, changed things up a little. While systemic problems are still a thing, they're put on the back burner in favor of focusing on a toxic family dynamic. Specifically, it focuses on what happens when people internalize a loved one's irrational fears and unhealthy behavior patterns. The mold here represents the emotional bonds between these people, and the way it's rotted their physical home represents how it's destroyed the family as a home. As a concept it's pretty solid; the only issue here is the execution, which treats Eveline as if she's an unsympathetic monster when she's actually the primary victim here. But still, solid base concept.

Resident Evil 8 tries to do both interpersonal issues and systemic issues. It took a lot of cues from Resident Evil 4 (the "theocracy is bad, oh my god keep it out of the government" installment) and threw in a lot of systemic issue shit while also trying to be about a toxic family dynamic. For the most part, this works out fine.

You got Mother Miranda representing the power of theocracy. Lady Dimitrescu's here representing stuff like conspicuous consumption and worker abuse/labor exploitation. Donna's representing toys/entertainment used to distract people with unhealthy illusions rather than giving genuine enrichment. Moreau represents a neglected healthcare system. Heisenberg is here to be the military-industrial complex... or, is he?

The first three characters do a solid job of embodying actual systemic issues. Heisenberg, however, is kind of a mess because the game tries to code him as two completely different kinds of people: the militaristic leader, and the exploited blue collar worker/engineer/mechanic.

Many of Heisenberg's lines seem to suggest that he sees other people as means to an end; things to be weaponized. He frequently praises Ethan's body and wants to weaponize him against Miranda. He also wants to do the same with Rose. This is, of course, how the military as an institution tends to view people.

But one problem here is, Heisenberg doesn't dress the part. They could have put him in a ratty old officer's cap and jacket and given him a dozen swords (the weapon of the ruling class) to magnetically control. But instead, he dresses like a member of the working class and carries a fucking hammer. So while Capcom probably meant Ethan's rejection of Heisenberg's offer to come off as "fuck off, I'm not letting you exploit me!", it... sorta also comes off as "fuck you, I don't need no stinking unions!"

Heisenberg also complains that Miranda has humiliated him by putting him under her control. This might have been meant to reflect how actual militaristic shitheads love to complain that they're being humiliated and emasculated by not being allowed to inflict violence willy-nilly. But the problem is, Heisenberg's complaints are actually valid, because he's actually being abused by his mother figure. Your militaristic shitheads aren't being abused; they're just pissed off over not being allowed to go kill people wherever they feel like manifesting their destiny and becoming great men of history.

Additionally, Heisenberg just doesn't embody the toxic masculinity that your militaristic shitheads insist makes you a Real Man™. Yeah, his traumadumping is ill-timed and obnoxious, but he's actually talking about his trauma instead of just bottling it up. He's doing what toxic masculinity considers unthinkable - making himself emotionally vulnerable to another man. He's actually less aggressive than the other lords, since he doesn't actually try to kill Ethan until Ethan tries to kill him. Furthermore, in calling Chris Redfield a "boulder-punching asshole," he displays contempt for over-the-top displays of male-coded power.

And of course, Heisenberg making soldats could be read as a metaphor for how the military dehumanizes people by turning them into instruments of destruction, but the problem is that he's using people who are already dead. Sure, he's definitely been considering using living people, but the fact that this thought only comes after years of nothing else working and he's never actually done it says that he hasn't actually committed himself to this, so if that was the intention here... it also doesn't work.

So yeah, IMO Heisenberg ends up being a kind of weird, incoherent character concept because the game wants him to represent both the military-industrial complex and the exploited engineer/mechanic literally just trying to survive, and uh, these are two very different concepts and don't really work together in the same guy.

#resident evil 8 #resident evil village #karl heisenberg #re8 analysis #re8 meta

[beanghostprincess]

Dipping in and saying transfem Sanusop is great but also just that transmasc Sanji has just a real special place in my heart. He’d probably join the crew already transitioned, just because I can easily see Zeff just being immediately supportive of his boy, and nobody ever questions Sanjis gender ever. He’s „blackleg“, „pervert“, „lovecook“ Sanji and nothing is ever gonna change that. Enter Sanuso tough and things get more complicated because Sanjis ideas of what makes a man are weird and nonsensical at times and him being a „ladies man“ is something he prided himself in and now he has to come to terms with the fact that: No, most straight men don’t regularly think about what it would be like to be in a fulfilling relationship with another man, no not even to „just see what it’s like“, most straight men don’t get those types of butterfly’s around their best friend. And poor Sanji is having an internal struggle because a weird part inside him feels like this somehow invalidates his gender. Bad times and dysphoria all around. Usopp may actually even already know that Sanji likes him back but doesn’t know how to proceed past this issue. He wants to tell Sanji that he loves him, that he would love for him to be his boyfriend, but nothings worth putting Sanji trough a mental breakdown and the thought that them being together would somehow make Sanji feel like a „false man“ is just horrific to him. In my mind they navigate trough it eventually just because I love fluff, but they have a slow burn type of relationship with lots of two steps forwards one step backwards types of progress.

Oh, I absolutely love this.

I've said it already a couple of times, but even if I'm very fond of transfem Sanji, I think transmasc Sanji works just as well with his character and story. He's so trans that no matter what you like, you're probably going to be right. Unless you think he's cis. Then you're definitely wrong. He's trans in every way possible.

His whole view on women and the fact that he worships them so much would have played, in my opinion, a big role in his gender discovery. He would feel so guilty and just... Wrong rejecting womanhood. Like- If he thinks women are the best thing the world has ever created, then why is it so hard to be one? He would have it rough, honestly, accepting himself. Especially after escaping the Vinsmokes and trying to forget all the things they said about him (and how many of them are related to femininity). But I think everything would get easier with time after getting adopted by Zeff. He transitions and he's finally happy with himself (almost, because he still has to fight every day against his own thoughts and past. But at least he's more comfortable in his own skin, now).

And everything goes well from there. Except when he meets Usopp.

It's not that Sanji thinks being gay means being less of a man or anything. He keeps saying he has nothing against gay people and he's being completely genuine there. But his own view on masculinity and what it means to be a man for him includes being a ladies' man. Liking women. Only women. That, and the fact that men and manhood have brought so much pain to his life, make it really hard for him to accept that he's in love with Usopp. With a man. Besides, he has created this persona- This different personality (slightly different from his own. Just a bit more confident and a bit happier and stronger and everything he thinks he's supposed to be considered a man, including liking girls) to feel like a real man. And he is a real man. He knows this. He just feels like if he doesn't follow the right norms he has established for himself and his own masculinity, everything will fall apart.

So, yeah, he kind of has a whole crisis when he realizes he's in love with Usopp. I love talking about Sanji's internalized homophobia/biphobia because I honestly think it's such an interesting topic... But I don't want to make this too long, so I'll just say that he would have a really hard time trying to accept this. The situation would make him angry at himself and even angrier at his surroundings. It would also make him isolate himself because, of course, he won't ask for help. And if Usopp (his best friend) enters a room, Sanji will get out of there just as quickly. His brain is a mess. My poor boy.

Usopp knows, of course, because it's not hard to tell when Sanji is in love with someone. But of course, he won't say anything until Sanji is ready to say something first, because it's pretty much obvious that he's having a hard time, and it's even more noticeable because he becomes more and more and more annoying when it comes to women now. He tries to overcompensate and reaffirm his gender by acting like the ladies' man he tries to be (it doesn't work). And Usopp doesn't mind waiting for Sanji, even if it takes him years, but he can't bear to see Sanji doing this to himself without doing anything to help him.

Not gonna turn this into a whole fanfic because if you're asking me this you probably know my posts and how long they end up being because I turn them into whole one-shots at this point- I swear I won't this time!! But!!

Just saying that Usopp trying to talk things out with Sanji and Sanji having a whole breakdown + Usopp comforting him and saying that they don't have to rush anything if he doesn't want to, that they can go as slow as Sanji wants. That he would wait forever for Sanji. And Sanji accepting to date him and getting used to being loved and loving in that way... I don't know. It feels like a good way to reach the fluff you were looking for with a bit of angst and slow burn first!!!

#i love trans sanji i don't care what type #and yes i've been projecting on sanji during this whole text that's why it feels personal be glad i t's juts a lil analysis #me when i'm genderfluid and trying to fit the norm all the damn time when i know i don't need to #also constantly feeling like i'm not valid bc i'm pretty feminine #anywayy stop the trauma dumping let's go back to sanuso #i love sanji so damn much and i think usopp would make him feel so loved #T4T Sanuso is so real idc about the combinations they're just trans #one piece #black leg sanji #usopp #sanuso #transmasc sanji

[flockofdoves]

i was out as trans a a middle schooler and long before anyone else i knew at school etc. ever came out as trans. id like to think that even as the specifics of how i navigate my identity have changed throughout the years, that i've been pretty in touch with myself for most of the past fucking. 13 years when it comes to gender stuff and don't consider myself to be repressed in that way or anything.

but as time goes on its silly but i sometimes feel so weird comparing myself to a bunch of people i know who realized they were trans and came out way after me who are way way further in transition while i've still done nothing to physically transition and still waffle about wanting to do it perfectly and at the right time

and i know i didnt like Actually regress in my understanding of myself and i do actually find joy in being a woman through the context of being a lesbian, but i hate how that combined with still not physically transitioning in any way and not having as many unambiguously masculine clothes that are my style that fit me anymore and giving up on binding because of health issues/comfort/weight change/etc and growing out my hair (which genuinely has been an interesting or satisfying experience in some ways to learn how to take care of my hair but maybe long since has outserved me by now) and being indifferent moment to moment about what pronouns or gendered terms people use for me have all combined together to make me so fucking cis woman adjacent. and like yes i'm fine with being referred to as a cis woman and contextually sometimes describe myself as such and i'm like individually fine with most of these separate contributing factors but all together i cant take it anymore theres just too many contexts in my life where the balance is so off and people can totally ignore anything trans about my identity and i don't want that i want to be visibly gender non conforming i want to take t and get top surgery its so so so unreal that i feel less trans than i used to be and all of that history is just totally invisible to anyone who hasn't known me that long

i understand all of my reasoning and why i've made the decisions i've made and am in the position i am and but also its so strange realizing how despite all that a lot of the time i feel like the things i say sound so similar to the types of things me and other long out trans people affectionately joke about people who haven't quite accepted themselves as trans yet doing. and i know part of that is because of course any joke is gonna flatten real life experiences and peoples internal worlds a bit, but still maybe the point of the comparison isn't entirely without basis and that makes me feel really awful and feels so degrading to think about it like that when ive thought of myself as so self assured about this stuff for so long

#cpost

[maxwell-grant]

What a lot of people don’t seem to understand about Goncharov is that it isn’t just “another Scorsese gangster film” (which in itself is a pretty gross oversimplification), it was a crucial part of the pivotal point of his career as a director. It was Scorsese applying everything he learned about effective low-budget filmmaking from Roger Corman (who co-produced Goncharov as well, albeit uncredited) during the making of Boxcar Bertha, as well as applying John Cassavetes’ advice on making the genre films he wanted to make rather than the more documentary/autobiography works he’d done so far.

With Corman’s assistance (himself notorious for being able to stitch new films together out of scrapped footage from old ones), in 1973 he was able to finish and release two films: Mean Streets, and Goncharov, both films sharing actors, sets, even small bits of footage. Mean Streets happened to be the classic that would launch his career, and Goncharov would remain mostly forgotten until now.

Now, we all know of course that Goncharov got tangled up in international copyright issues from the get-go, with the 1983 and the 1996 recolors only further complicating things as the movie got passed around to different studios, and by that point there wasn’t much Scorsese could even do to get the film back and he was tangled up in a lot of other projects (although some theorize this as one of the reasons why Scorsese would later go on to notoriously champion film restoration and preservation, knowing firsthand what it’s like to have a passion project fall through the cracks and be taken away from you).

Still, the movie did have a limited release in the US and Canada (with a pretty strong fanbase in Winnipeg, actually, for the past decades most of the available copies of Goncharov came from VHS releases in Winnipeg, although very poorly preserved), and it wasn’t terribly well received at the time either. Even if these odd strokes of fate hadn’t destroyed Goncharov’s release I doubt the film would have fared that well much the same.

Where as Mean Streets reads like a blueprint for Scorcese’s gritty masculine hits like Taxi Driver and Goodfellas, Goncharov in many ways feels more in line with Scorsese’s more oddball projects like King of Comedy and Hugo, actually it really does have more in common with Hugo than his other crime films. I think part of why Goncharov’s become popular on Tumblr lately is because it’s remarkably, whimsical? It’s a weird way to describe a movie that gets so dark but, it feels way more grounded in fantasy than his other works (it even has that clock motif that Scorsese would later use in Hugo)

The name itself is a tribute to filmmaker Vasily Goncharov, a film pioneer from the Soviet Union. Goncharov was the first filmmaker to record a film using two cameras and use sound effects, he’d directed the first feature film made in Russian history as well as the first blockbuster with 1812. This was the period where Scorsese was hanging out with De Palma and it shows because there’s a lot of scenes in Goncharov that are explicitly in tribute to Goncharov’s works like Ivan the Terrible and Khas Bulat.

Some of you are wondering where do the queer elements in Goncharov come from or why is Katya unusually pro-active for a Scorsese female lead (or even why this film has a female lead at all when so many of his other works don’t really have one), that’s a side effect of this movie’s debt to Goncharov’s works, particularly Charodeyka (The Enchantress). Katya is basically Scorsese’s take on the Nastasya / Charodeyka character.

In the fifteenth century, Nikita, the vice-regent of Novgorod, and his son Yuri fall in love with Nastasya, the owner of a local inn. But Nastasya is actually the sorceress Charodeyka. The local deacon Mamirov tells Nikita’s wife about Nastasya, and the wife poisons her. She dies in Yuri’s arms, and the enraged Nikita kills Yuri - Jess Nevins, on Charodeyka (1909), description taken from The Encyclopedia of Pulp Heroes

Albeit described as “evil” and being depicted as a witch, Charodeyka bears no blame for any of the tragedy that happens in the movie, she just happens to be a beautiful woman targeted by dangerous affections of men and women alike (the movie does go some way towards showing it isn’t just jealousy that drives Nikita’s wife to murder Charodeyka) while bearing a secret of her own. I’m not saying Charodeyka was a queer tragedy by any means, but it is a tragedy of doomed love affairs and toxic family relationships and that seems to be what Goncharov’s playing with (Scorsese’s Goncharov cut out the implied incest and I’d say that was for the better).

This is kind of why Katya Goncharova kinda feels a little disconnected from Goncharov’s narrative up until the point they first meet and their fates intertwine tragically. Instead of a witch, she’s a femme fatale, and it damns her much the same just as Goncharov’s past catches up to him. It isn’t quite a remake but it’s taking a lot from Charodeyka and Ivan the Terrible and Vasily Goncharov’s other works, and Scorsese didn’t quite manage to blend these influences and tributes smoothly into the story, which is why the movie is kind of all over-the-place in a way that makes describing it make it seem like it’s an epistolary shitpost, which it very much isn’t.

It’s, among all the other things people have described it as, Scorsese’s oddball love letter to his influences as well as an important yet forgotten parts of film history (it’s not for nothing that Goncharov attempts suicide by train). Obviously, for many reasons, it was never going to catch on the way Mean Streets did, but it is fascinating nonetheless and I’m glad to see it’s been rediscovered.

#goncharov #martin scorcese #cinema #robert de niro #roger corman

[invertedfate]

Bit of a weird question, but do Frisk and Chara have any physical insecurites about themselves right now? Like not liking the ways they look or something?

For Frisk it's mostly anxiety about how they'll look with glasses- trauma aside, there was some sincerity to being uneasy about that. Hell, when I first got diagnosed w/ nearsightedness, I avoided wearing my glasses as much as possible. ...which was dumb, but it was late high school and my vision had been 20/20 until very recently at that point.

They'd also like to be a bit taller.

For Chara a lot of it is internalized self-loathing. Any body image issues are less with how they are NOW and like... uneasiness w/ getting older. The idea of facial/body hair is a BIG NOPE for them personally even if they acknowledge that Asgore makes a beard look cool. It's just not the look for them.

Otherwise it's mostly just anxieties about wanting to try some fem fashion on occasion but also having internalized so much toxic masculinity that they are still untangling all of that. Seeing Mew Mew helped, but there's a part of them that's like, "But what if I look ridiculous?"

Good thing there are many good role models to talk to about this! Mettaton, Mew Mew, probably Dress Lion, tbh. And Frisk w/ their chaotic gremlin vibes as a fellow nonbinary human. They'll prob suggest puberty blockers so Cap has more time to comfortably figure out their gender expression... which is not something Chara even realized was an option in the first place due to being only 10 when they fell underground.

And monster biology's not 1:1, so they didn't have opportunities to learn about human options over the next three years.

#asks #frisk #chara

[nothorses]

Asking on anon because I don't feel like getting fucking lambasted by both radical sides of this. But I think they're are some folks that talk about transandrophobia (not you, baeddel-txt, etc) that are starting to pick up on toxic masculinity in the same way TIRFs picked up on TME/TMA shite and the like. (I have it on my blog but only because I'm tired of getting a toss up treatment from shallow transfems and getting reduced to either a cis man or them insinuating I'm not who I say I am, and the like. Frankly as of today I'm muting all of the related tags on both sides because frankly... I need a break).

I agree with y'all just like, be aware of it just like transfems should be aware of our own problems.

I also dislike the whole TIRFs "reclaiming" baeddel as a.) It's literally a ye old slur for intersex people (re: tfems having a problem with fetishizing intersex people, speaking from personal experience here)

b.) it reads like a far inferior version of reclaiming the tslur, which tbh, I would just prefer if they did that.

Also I guess if you ask this and you care so much about who's sending this, I'll reveal myself, just don't make it public because I don't need to be getting harassed by TIRFs for being a weird reject because I just choose to be both a girl and a boy identity wise and clearly the everything not binary fem phobia (even if I meet the criteria of not "CAFAB" to them.) they have is still clearly alive and well considering I took a soft ban 3 months ago for it. (After getting a full ban rolled back bc of staff reviewing it.)

The "baeddel"/TIRF ideology reminds me a lot of my own internalized transmisogyny turning me into a shithead radfem both pre and post coming out, but also everything else going with it.

That's not to say that there isn't some areas where it can be disproportionate. I also don't understand the obsession with violence statistics when a.) It shouldn't be happening period and b.) I don't think either side is accurately reported, really, unless it's entirely relying on self reporting. Also c.) I don't know how much of violence on trans SWers is reported in that, i could see it being even or even mildly trans fem biased, not statistically significant though.

I'll be honest here in that I am not 100% sure I'm understanding you correctly, but it sounds to me like you're making a couple of different points that I'd love to be able to engage with- I think I just need some clarification first so I can make sure I'm not completely misinterpreting what you're trying to get across.

So like, if it's cool, I would love a follow-up ask to clarify a couple of things!

What are folks doing with "toxic masculinity" that you feel is similar to what TIRFs have done with TME/TMA? My understanding would be that TME/TMA were turned into a kind of definitive label that people use to determine who's allowed to speak on certain issues, who's "oppressed enough" to matter, etc., but I don't really see a way that parallels "toxic masculininity" among folks who talk about transandrophobia. Unless you mean that people are distancing themselves from the possibility of being masculine in a toxic way on the basis of their identity? (If that's the case, I think I'm misunderstanding the connection to TME/TMA)

Could you expand on: "The "baeddel"/TIRF ideology reminds me a lot of my own internalized transmisogyny turning me into a shithead radfem"? I think the sentence after that muddied what you meant, for me, and I'm curious what insights you have there!

Also RE: statistics, I really agree that there need to be more studies and research into these issues in order to get any real sense of clarity. IMO the best uses for statistics of violence and discrimination against trans people, specifically stats that tell us who is facing what kind of discrimination, is to better understand the systems causing us harm in order to work towards dismantling them.

Trying to determine "who has it worst" overall is pointless and self-defeating. The goal should be to understand why transmascs tend to face more lifetime sexual violence, while transfems tend to face more childhood sexual violence. Not to decide which issue to give a shit about and which issue to ignore, or which trans people "deserve" to be prioritized over all the others.

I will also say that the study I draw from more than others is the U.S. Transgender Survey, which relies on self-reporting. I recommend checking them out if stats interest you; they're pretty expansive and had a massive sample size. The 2015 results have been published for a while, and 2022 results are coming soon.

[bentonthegay]

Ya know, it took me a long time to accept that gender (and sexuality) is so complicated and individual that for some people, there may never be a perfect word or even a perfect few words to label it with 100% accuracy. I spent many years trying on different identities, trying on identities that felt partially right but like I was missing something, and many that felt comfortable for a little while and then things changed.

In my strong desire to just find a few labels that could encompass all of me, I got really stressed and frustrated. I wanted to know which communities I would relate to the most! Even when I tried to just take a break and allowed myself into trans man spaces and nonbinary spaces, I found that I related to some or many people in each category, but not everything. After so long of just giving up it hit me. One, that I was allowed to be both. I could be nonbinary and a guy. Two, that everyone is so diverse that I'm going to relate to people of so many different identities, and there will be people who share the same labels as me that I will not relate to at all.

I can relate to some genderfluid people in some aspects, androgyne people, nonbinary trans mascs, binary trans men, femboys etc. and it's okay for me to look at experiences of people who don't share the exact same labels as me. I used to feel as if it was wrong or "intruding" for me to do so. I don't have to use a label to relate to common experiences, and I also realized I don't need to fit a label 100% to use it. I had similar issues with my sexuality.

In addition, I had to learn to be okay with not knowing every facet of my gender. I know who I am, and what I like, but I can't tell you every piece that makes up my internal gender puzzle. And I can't say with full accuracy that my sexuality is one specific thing set in stone.

I'm a nonbinary trans man. I know I'm a guy, I know I'm nonbinary. I know at least one aspect of my gender is androgyne, and I'm not sure if that is the reason I have some internal sense of feminity with my gender, but I'm fine with that. I can't say I'm fluid but it's not completely static either. I do have some fluctuations that are usually small, with the extremely rare stronger change.

I consider myself gay. I include nonbinary in my gayness because I'm both a guy and nonbinary (also the majority of my partners have ended up coming out as nonbinary during our relationships). But I know I'm capable in some circumstances of being attracted to a woman or someone who leans heavily on that side of the spectrum. Primarily if a partner ever came out to me as one and went down that transition path. But generally speaking, I'm gay, in my own way. It'd be more accurate to say men and in many cases, masculinity and androgyny. Feminine guy? Hell yeah. Feminine woman? depends lol

I'm also aspec which is weird and unique. I consider myself demisexual(/romantic). I do experience strong sexual attraction and am very sex favorable, and Ive come to understand that's partially the reason why I'd still love and be attracted to a partner if they ever realized they were a woman. But my Demi-ness doesn't require knowing someone for a long time necessarily. I can develop an emotional bond very very quickly in the right circumstances. I don't have a lot of issues when it comes to relating to a lot of "allo things" because I can relate to many, just maybe but in the traditional sense of the word. I can find random people hot AF, but it's more strong aesthetic attraction than actually wanting to bang them.

I can consume adult content because I don't do so for the people in the content itself, I just naturally "self insert" for the fantasy aspects of what's going on.

This is all to say, it took me way too long to understand that I'm not ever going to be exactly like another queer person, and that's okay. Yes it can feel alienating when I can't relate to so much that is correlated to a specific identity I use, but I know I'm not alone in that, even if not in every way.

It's been 8 years since I came out as trans, as of December 3rd 2023 💜 I'm so proud of how far I've come.

#lgbtqia #lgbt #lgbtq+ #nonbinary #demisexual #demiromantic #aspec #trans #trans guy #nonbinary trans guy

[sleepdeprivedsimp234]

~Some good ol’ headcanons for my boy Texas~

⚠️mentions of SH, drinking, child abuse, death⚠️

=======================================================================

-daddy issues daddy issues daddy issues-

-Tex is half-Mexican (his father) and half-Puerto Rican (his mother)

-he speaks Spanish, French, and German and has no problem switching between each one

-since he speaks French, and has his own Cajuns, he is literally the only one that is able to understand what Louisiana is talking about

-definitely a secret Swiftie and hell will freeze over before he tells anybody that

-you cannot tell me that this man isn’t an ambivert. Like- he loves people and he’s great with people, but he also enjoys his alone time and can get New York-level awkward in social situations

-he has a drinking problem and used to have a smoking problem, but stopped.

-he is definitely either Loui’s big brother figure or his mother figure (I say mother because he is also the mom friend and makes mother-like fusses and sh*t)

-if you put ANY animal in front of him, he will freak out a little bit and pet it whilst commenting on how cute and precious the animal is. Whenever he and Alaska hang out, he will be petting his dogs every single chance he gets

-in terms of a fight or flight response, he has a fight response. Well- more like you could spook him, and he will swing at you with whatever he has in his hands (or just with his bare hands) and you are going to get hit if you don’t dodge quick enough.

One time Nevada decided to be mischievous and scare the crap out of Texas by grabbing him from behind while he was cutting veggies with a very big kitchen knife and nearly got put on a T-shirt. R.I.P Nevada’s soul that nearly left his body that day.

-Texas sees both Georgia and Kentucky as father figures since his own father sucked (they aren’t dating, but they are the fathers of the south)

(HERE’S SOME ANGSTY SH*T FOR Y’ALL-)

-Texas’s father (Mexico) was an absolute piece of sh*t and abused him both physically and mentally. He also killed Tex’s mother when he was like- 8 years old.

-he hurts himself, but has been trying to stop since Geo, Florida and Loui found out

-during that one winter where Texas and Louisiana both froze over, Texas refused to ask for any help, and kept insisting that he was fine and didn’t need help. He kept saying that he wasn’t in any type of pain, when it was quite obvious that he was in a lot of pain. Tex was friggin’ cold to the touch and sometimes, he would see a small patch of frost or ice on his arm or something, which he would go to the bathroom and pull off. That led to him having MULTIPLE cuts/scratches all over his arms and torso by the time winter was over and it was starting to get warm again.

-sometimes Gov has to go to international meetings and bring a state with him, so when it was Texas’s turn, he would hide behind Gov like a shy child whenever they were somewhere where Mexico was. He doesn’t care what toxic masculinity says, if he is in a room with that b*stard, he will be hiding behind the nearest person he knows as if he was a scared kitten.

-he has frequent panic attacks, but not a lot of the others know that, because they usually happen when he’s alone, but there have been times that they happened while the others were around.

-he uses drinking as a coping mechanism for his PTSD, and it kinda concerns the others that care deeply about him whether they would like to admit it or not.

(Aight angst is over)

-So he and Cali have swapped clothes before or have at least mixed their clothes up before, and despite them both being the same height (6’4), surprisingly Cali’s clothes were kinda big on him. The reason for that is because I imagine Cali to be a lil’ more on the muscular/buff side, and whilst Texas is also fairly muscular, he’s a bit more on the leaner/lankier side.

-he 100% owns a "Keep Austin Weird" shirt

-he still has his mother’s dress, and just wears it sometimes when he is alone. And he absolutely SLAYS in that dress, part of the reason being the fact that he looks almost EXACTLY like his mother

=======================================================================

NOW TAKE SOME INCORRECT QUOTES AND SH*T THAT I CAME UP WITH-

(Also, this first one is just platonic Kentucky/Georgia, they ain’t dating or anything, though people often think that they are since they tend to act like an old healthily married couple)

=============================

(Texting Georgia)

Tex: uhhh… hey Geo?

Georgia: Yea?

Tex: Now don’t be mad….-

Geo: What did you do?

Tex: ME? I didn’t do anything-

Geo: Really?

Tex: Really!!

Geo: *sigh* What happened?

Tex: How on God’s green earth do ya sigh through text-

Geo: Answer the d*mn question.

Tex: Ok ok geez- So long story short, me and Ken went to a bar-

Geo: What did Ken do?

Tex: Will ya let me fini-feghkrsghurkdyvrsk-

Geo: Tex?!

Tex: Sorry nearly got hit by a chair 🥲

Geo: I’M SORRY WHAT?!

Tex: Yea so long story short Ken may or may not have gotten into a bar fight…?

Geo: EXCUSE ME?!

Tex: Yeah…. Hehe….LIUDLSEJGFKIDGXE,FIDXM-

Geo: ??

Tex: F*CK THERE’S COPS-

Geo: It is too early for this….. Are ya hurt??

Tex: Yea but nothin’ too bad. Just a busted lip that’s been bleedin’ for the past 5 minutes is all.

Geo: *sigh* Welp. Y’all better get your *$$es home right now and come to my room.

Tex: Yes sir.

~~~When they got home~~~

Geo: WHAT WERE YOU THINKIN’?! Ya started a bar fight?!

Ken: Now now- the idiot shouldn’t have started runnin’ his big mouth.

Geo: *hands Tex a piece of gauze for his lip* Here Tex, hold it down on yer lip til’ it stops bleedin’. Now KENTUCKY- that was no reason to punch the guy (the guy that Ken was fighting, not Tex)-

*Ken and Geo arguing*

Tex: *just sitting there with a piece of gauze in his mouth and flask of whiskey watching Ken get lectured like a child that stole a cookie from the cookie jar*

===================================================================

Cali, being nosy: Where are you going? 


Tex: Hell, eventually.

=======================================================================

Some jack-wagon at the bar: Hey, are you free? 


Tex: No, I’m expensive.

=======================================================================

Someone: So what are your political beliefs? 


Tex, awkwardly: Well, I think Pikachu would be a lot more powerful if he had a gun-

=======================================================================

Tex: Everything will be ok. You can not stop it. 


Tex: Everything will be fine. You have no choice. 


Geo: What the he// kinda pep talk is that? 


Tex: Ominous positivity.

=======================================================================

Loui: Am I in trouble? 


Tex, after finding out that Loui has not been sleeping enough lately: Take a guess. 


Loui: No? 


Tex: *sigh* Take another guess.

=======================================================================

Loui, T-posing in the doorway: Greetings, Traumatized Mother-figure. 


Tex, not looking up from his coffee: Good morning, problem child.

=======================================================================

Tex, coughing slightly: Calm down, I’m probably not sick. It might just be allergies. 


Mass: Yea I’ve heard that one before…. Okay, tell me this: are you like, really tired? 


Tex: I have depression, what do you think?

=======================================================================

#welcome to the statehouse #welcome to the table #ben brainard #wttt texas #he’s too underrated for my liking #biTE- #I MUST TRAUMATIZE THIS MAN WITH MY BULLSHI-

[simptasia]

it occured to me that i have a lot of bi headcanons for lost where it’s like, the character hasn’t accepted it yet. part of this is because 2004 to 2007 was somehow still having issues grappling with this concept

so i’m making a list of bi headcanons in lost, but it’s the characters who haven’t accepted it and why they haven’t yet (or ever)

internalized biphobia ahoy!

jack

he’s attracted to women so rationally he’s not gay, right? yeah he’s using the it’s one or the other logic. jack knows there’s nothing wrong with being gay. he’s just not gay. that’s fine. it’s fine. [shakes images out of his head]

also i know in my heart that christian and margo are queerphobic. not in the full on getting the belt out way but in the passive aggressive way

claire

she just assumes all straight women feel this way about women and it takes a while for it to occur to her that she’s just in a bizarre form of denial

desmond

he regards his experiences with other men in the army to be “experimenting” and he chooses not to dwell on it

richard

it just took a reeeeally long time for him to find his closet key (miles). the bisexuality was always waiting inside him, it just didn’t unlock until he was like 179 ish. and yes, miles finds this fucking baffling in a “you’re this hot and you’ve been alive this long and you haven’t been getting both kinds of ass??” way

ben

he grew up aware that queer people exist (dharma being a hippie commune) but also instilled in him that it’s weird and gross (roger). but also i think ben has a weird view of sexuality, that sexual desire makes people... weaker? in the sense that he’s observed that people act foolish for sex and love and therefore such emotions are a weakness and he’s better than that

so it’s a weird thing where ben isn’t homophobic to other people (if tom, greta and bonnie are any indication) but he is to himself. but he’s also shaming himself for having sexual desire at all. i think cuz he’s convinced himself that he’s selfless and utterly devoted to jacob and the island. sometimes he almost believes his own lies. but yeah anyways touching himself makes him feel icky, whether it’s about men or women or both so... yeah

locke

okay, locke is bi to me but i’ve always been ? about his sexuality because wow, locke feels like such a nonsexual being to me. so like does locke know he’s bi? i think so? but i don’t think he’d ever call himself that

i think if you asked, locke would say “i don’t wanna label it” or something

besides anything else, he’s an older man who grew up in the foster care system, i have to assume he grew up hearing that being queer is a Bad Thing

locke doesn’t agree but he’d rather not commit to the concept. like, maybe locke thinks being Gay would require him to do things or act a certain way rather than just be. so he’s just like “i am what i am” and stares at a sunset

sawyer

okay now here’s a bitch who actually would be homophobic, biphobic, etc. and it’s directed at himself also. he’s got an idea in his head of what gay dudes are like and no way is he like that so he’s not gay. as for being bi, i think if somebody (eg. charlie) said they were bi, he’d roll his eyes because he thinks they’re saying it for attention. “oh yeah everybody’s bi nowadays, pfft”

also i think sawyer thinks bi people, if they exist, are just people who have threesomes all the time. all the while, he is bi and he’s just making himself not confront it. and hey, even if he was, ya know, queer - not that he is - he’s giving not taking so it’s less gay, obviously. yeah, his bisexuality got all tainted by toxic masculinity. i love sawyer but i ain’t gonna pretend he ain’t got some macho posturing shit going on. and he’s canonically bigoted

shannon

making out with girls is just something you do for fun, haha it’s just silly time, it doesn’t mean anything, it’s not like Real Love, haha, your lips are so soft...

....oh

boone

a combo of not wanting to be mocked and a bad case of “it doesn’t count if”. it’s just porn, it doesn’t count because it’s not real. as long as i don’t do stuff with a dude, it doesn’t count. okay so i did stuff with a dude, but it was a threesome and a girl was there so it doesn’t count. okay okay i did stuff with a dude and it wasn’t a threesome but he never put it inside me so it doesn’t count. okay this dude put it inside me but-

and so on

(and to make it weirder, i think boone would just be gay if shannon didn’t exist. like the Wants Girls part of his sexuality only exists because of her. yikes)

anyways

assume that other characters i consider bi had issues with it when they were younger but are pretty much over it by the time of adulthood (tho charlie does grapple with it. like he’s accepted being bi in a “well, there’s no hope for me anyways” kind of way, so it’s... back handed self acceptance?)

thank you for your time

#lost headcanons #i just felt like talking about internalized biphobia today??? #fiction as a form of self expression indeed #some of my own experiences were used for this #and characters like kate and charlie and the sci trio all know that about themselves #not to say all of them fully Accept it (charlie has weird feelings about it) but i mean that they Know #i dunno where the sexually repressed ben headcanons came from. i started thinking that way a long time ago and didn't let go #i've gone into how i think dan felt weird about it at first but it had nothing to do with desmond being a man #daniel faraday has achieved a zen like state of queer acceptance #the bit i wrote about shannon gets sadder the longer i think about it :(

[gg-selvish]

I only ever really Sapnap characterized as the “straight one” in dnf fic which is usually used to contrast how someone reacts to their best friend versus how someone reacts to someone they’re attracted to. That makes sense to me even if it mischaracterizes Sapnap’s relationship with dnf. I’ve read one too many fics where dnf are hitting on each other or flirting or direct it teasingly to Sapnap and have his reaction be running for the hills. Like Sapnap hasn’t leaned into every gay joke or flirtation made by his friends, but he’s got to be the “straight one” because that’s how the straights react and the whole poor Sapnap save him thing. It does serve the purpose of getting Sapnap away, which I do like because I prefer a dnf fic to be just about them and saves me the trouble of having to read people trying and write a character I like, but they don’t care for.

mmm i disagree and also agree with this so this is gonna be long-winded as i often am.

i do agree that the biggest perpetrator of super straight and like... man's man sapnap is dnfers because of this like ur so right and. as someone who reads a lot of dnf i wish they just wouldnt even mention him lmaoooooo reading whatever reason theyve made up to get him out of the house is amusing in an annoying way. i like dnf fics where theyre just alone in the house and no one asks questions why. i read dnf for dnf not for sapnap to be there especially if they're gonna characterize him the way they do. but thats dnfers and they do things their way and thats fine i just ignore it im not gonna police anyone's writing i'm just gonna talk about it on my little blog with like 12 followers and hope no one reads it...

my biggest issue with it and where i saw it a lot in the older days (late 2020 through 2021 especially but it went beyond that too) in a way that really grinded my gears was with this like. one specific breed of karlnap. i used to ship karlnap and LOVED karlnap especially during their initial meetups. im a dnkn shipper til i die there's no reason for me to dislike them. but i just couldnt stop finding myself reading these fics that were just so strange. hyper-masculine sapnap with ditsy effeminate karl in this very very binary way that i just couldn't compute. it not only disagreed with my personal opinions but it would develop into what i saw as a slightly off-putting lack of chemistry and was just really unenjoyable for me to read. it read like m/f to me which is fine but when im looking for mlm fic i want to read mlm. this goes back to wanting queer dynamics in representation of queer relationships (note: i'm using the word representation VERY loosely. im not implying fanfiction is anything close to actual representation). it was just so weird

it's kind of funny because i realized this in a very roundabout way. a friend of mine from outside the fandom wrote and gifted to me a karlnap fic based on the karlnap they had read and it was like the perfect highlight of the dynamics in the ship that bothered me... i loved the fic, still love my friend for writing it, but it really pointed out that the characterization of those two was just so set in stone in those days and i read it but i didn't like it in the long run or as inspiration for my own writing. the writing was incredible, the quality of it was great and it popped off it was amazing. my issue was with the guts of it, yknow? the internal stuff.

that's one of the main reasons i started writing karl differently than i used to (remember when i used to write karlnap? subbottom karl in MY christian minecraft server?) and focussing on kwtnf because i was mad about the sapnap characterization but didnt watch him solo enough to focus on him... then i hyperfixated onto karl and went fucking hog wild with the idea of him and his character in my head. it obviously didnt do anything i dont have any impact on other people but it made me feel better lol

#i said i would never talk about my sapnap thoughts but ur asking very fun questions and i just love a monologue #gentle reminder that characterizations of real people holds no basis in reality whether they're my opinion or anyone else's #karlnap neg ?? just in case idk #ask

[hiriajuu-suffering]

ACen debrief

I went into this feeling it's the Texas scene that's treated me so miserably, the Southern weeb community is generally reared with so much internalized conservatism that's clearly why I got ACen and not MomoCon, right? right? I don't necessarily need to romanticize being treated with less otherization, I just need to feel it.

But what makes me care for all the pathetically needy and unkempt creatures is the challenge working on them, the sense of accomplishment in knowing you pushed someone so well they started to fear just how much you could change them, in your view, for the better.

I think I was convinced I need to remake the "wrong type of Asian" panel that was so jarring I was a part of back in the day with just how much contempt a straight, cisgendered male of my heritage is looked at when he dares step outside of his native community: the unchangeables I carry around with me at work, in my hobby spaces, and my future in-laws still treating me like a delinquent teenager sneaking behind their backs to see their daughter just because I haven't been enough to help her grow a spine. We demonize fetishization so much, but if all these white, black, and hispanic otaku looked at race equitably within the Asian demographic, not putting the orientalist physiological perception as a pivot point of masculine idealization, maybe I'd have a chance in hell for being treated as anything more than a sexless object whose only value resides in his capital production: the way even my own race sees me.

Being a South Asian Muslim, you receive every negative that comes Asian typecasting while receiving, at best, the fringiest benefits of the identity in that you're on the in-crowd with other Asians but they never see you as worthy of crossing boundaries for. My late aunt chaired our local Asian Cultural Society and Chamber of Commerce and lamented just how little she could do in mitigating the fixed forms of self-segregation Asian communities practice when creating our own spaces in the west.

Working to set things right with my sister was a far bigger priority than anything I am at conventions. For the first time in decades, it feels as if we're getting back to having each other's backs like we used to back when our parents were treating us equally, equally negligent and tigerish, but equal nonetheless. Maybe I'm finally being forgiven for being so different, so weird, something she had to explain and keep her friends away from. Or maybe she just has too much life to deal with now to bully me anymore, who knows.

Maybe my issues have nothing to do with internalized prejudices and methodologies of discriminatory human attraction, maybe I'm just too thoughtful for all the headcases I try to adopt. Performing the Peaches song feels like an easier way to get an eye through the door than delivering a real message. TikTok attention span? Trying not to be ageist but holy hell does it feel like the entire unmarried drinking-age population has at least 70% less of the attention span than the demographic did prior to the pandemic. Only things I've seen that hold attention like that are Overwatch, Roblox, and Minecraft ... I still think all three are kinda cringe to be obsessed with.

Leaving all that behind, how did my ACen really go? Well, it was an escape. How likely was I to really find a persevering connection just by not being in the social hellscape of what I call "cowboy logistics" when it takes a significant amount of time commitment to develop a sense of friendship but impermanently. Can't hold much credence to the concept, but there was a lot of upside. Not having a con charge and working around some cosplayer's schedule who couldn't give a rat's ass about me was a nice change of pace. Can't help but be reminded of how alone I felt around my 30th, though. Damned if I do, damned if I don't, I suppose. Could just be fantasy to be treated as valued, more than what I'm able to provide for someone, but there's always hope - no matter how hollow it ends up being.

The most fun moments in any big event for me are when I got to sit down and talk to people, a big reason why I started paneling because it used to prompt a lot of great narrative in the 00's North American convention culture. My excessive optimism had me hope there would be a flame to be made readily available, I get this terribly dumb tendency being hyperromantic of putting amorous connections above platonic ones, but dismissing some of the platonic ones for naught just because I didn't get flirted with is my misanthropy talking and I have to remember that. There was something nice about the lack of pressure, not that I'm treated as desirable with any regularity.

If there is opportunity for me outside of where I am, I need to put less stock in if I seek it out, it's bound to happen. The notion itself is true enough, but making it an objective devalues its capacity to permeate. What happened the last two times was clinging to a breath with how fleeting there was no choice for it to be. I was always going to be left behind when I prompt growth because I hadn't been either of their first choices and accepting I never could've made myself be will let me have the peace for myself I need. It's just tough having to play demiromantic when you're on the other end of the spectrum just because my nature is to gravitate towards those who need the most help, only advancing otherwise when clearly prompted by the other party. I'm sure I encountered a lot of could-be interests this past weekend, but I always keep safe distance until I get normatively obvious indication the feeling is mutual...admittedly a high bar, even for an empath.

I need to focus on myself. I need to stop trapping myself in the mindset of: if I'm not helping someone, I'm nothing of value. I need get back the ability to just exist without needing to produce an outcome. I think that's something I lost in the process of healing a decade ago, just being comfortable existing for myself alone since my pleasure has become inconsequential, more of my decision calculus being tied to the avoidance of pain and capability rather than hedonistic ideations in their own right. Heck, that's probably why I still won't have gone to Japan by the end of 30, too much of my social behavior being risk-averse.

There's a reason Haruhi Suzumiya hasn't been supplanted after all these years as the fictional character I feel the most in my soul. Life doesn't feel worth living vulnerably unless it's truly interesting. What's interesting about a person who's basically been stuck in Texas his whole life? What's interesting about a late millennial struggling to juggle finishing graduate school while getting enough hours out of work to live on? What's interesting about a competitor that never seems to find himself in the conversation of respected? What's interesting about the life I have now? Being 30 and no prospect for a marriage materializing in any reasonable timeline? Being touted as someone great to on the side of but easily discarded? Even just being a good person but constantly judged for his otherizing appearance? Something has to happening in my life for me to feel alive, something has to be changing, or I don't feel much desire to carry on for my own sake alone.

In a lot of respects, my behavior is a walking paradox. I'm hyperromantic so I restrain myself by treating everyone as demisexual; I'm a schizromantic so no sane mind could be anything other than a romantic to me; I'm a recipromantic because every time I gave more than was given to me, I got betrayed and gutted for whomever I trusted just to take without remorse. I look at humanity with disdain yet put all my principles into improving the human experience. I pride myself on never depending on anyone yet I'm considered a nuisance and the black sheep of my own family. I'm in an upbringing and position of privilege yet I barely have the faculties to feed myself most days.

Well, I have nothing of particular note happening until the end of the month. Play the cards I'm given, test if I can win with them. My ethical impulses force others' actions to be how I extract value out of the world, it's so dismal when not a soul acts towards you. I miss the feeling of receiving unfounded faith, maybe I never really had it at all.

Well hey, at least I know now Chicago can be a place of comfort as long as I use some discretion. Now to just make said comfort something inherently desirable to return to.

#personal

[thedysphoriadiaries]

Entry 20 - Rambling - 6 March 2023, 12:03am

Well, I intended to write this yesterday, but seeing as to how I've slept my entire day away, the second best timing to do it would be now.

I realized that there's been an awful lot of things that I have been sorry for. Things I'm not sure if I should be apologizing for.

...

What is this obsession with femininity that I have? I'm starting to hate it. It compels me to do things I hate, such as ogling women. I don't know why I keep doing that.

Now, I don't know if this discomfort comes from the fact that some of the women I ogle shouldn't be targets of my own gaze, or if I'm actually aro-ace, or if I'm actually uncomfortable with the fact that my gaze is so... male. There are also a whole bunch of other reasons that I could explore, and that I should. At the core of it all, though, I just hate the things I am doing, and by extension, I hate that part of me that wants to be something I'm not.

I also don't want to be called a bro, with one exception, that being my brother. It's kinda fine if he calls me that (even then, he calls me a horribly mispronounced 'bro'. I mostly call him with 'oi', or use Gyoza as a way to get his attention, so I guess he's still giving me some measure of respect.). After all, there's pretty much nothing else (except my name, but it feels weird being addressed by your name, by your siblings) he can address me by without outing me. 'Sis' doesn't feel right yet, since I know I'm not ever going to allow myself to be who I want to be, and that I'm just... not ready, I suppose. I still have a bunch of things to find out about myself.

...

One thing that I know I'm apologizing for is the thought of doing this for attention, or this being a phase, and unlike the other points I brought forth, I know where this one comes from.

It comes from a place where others viewed me as being 'indoctrinated by the west', or something. At least, that's where I perceive it to have come from. The undertones behind this guilt over being who I am taste the same, as the ones that I felt when a friend of mine told me that I was not a femboy, despite me, at that time, seeing a little bit of myself in them. Of course, what he said turned out to be true - I'm not a femboy.

That lays the groundwork for at least, some of the guilt that I am experiencing now. Now that I have internalized what others will think of me, it's kinda natural that the thoughts of being trans might be met with some resistance, along the lines of. "no, you're not" (believe me, I'm still thinking through this), or "It's just a phase", or "oh, so and so can be interested in this".

The question is, how much can someone be interested in something before they become that something, or, at the core of it all...

How much of these feelings are normal?

That is the issue with not having a benchmark. Throughout my entire life, especially during puberty, I had this... weird inclination to being with the girls. I do not know about the motivations behind those feelings, whether they were sexual in nature, or whether they were an indication of something more. Either way, those feelings have always been in the background for me, and now that I have begun to explore them, I've brought them to the foreground. I don't know what to do with them, but I'll tell you more about that later.

Initially, I thought that I wasn't a femboy because my body was too... masculine to present as one of them. However, given some years (it's been five years since I questioned the femboy thing), I have come to realize that the aesthetic that femboys chase typically fall within the hyper-feminine archetype, which is not something I think I can do in any reasonable capacity. Even more importantly, that is not who I am, and it feels almost... insulting - to reduce being something like a man, or a woman, to one's presentation, and not take into account the whole of a person is insulting. That's simply not who I am.

Something deeper was, and is, happening, but I don't know what exactly it is, and, I kind of don't really know if this is something that I should want to find out - after all, while it is good to get a good yardstick to base what I'm feeling off of, knowing what exactly I'm going through could... tie me to something. It's the same reason why people generally agree that they wouldn't want to know their IQ scores.

...

Please forgive me if anything I have written sounds like garbage. I... took those sublinguals again (I need to get a new bottle of them), and I don't think I'm in a good position to write something. A little part of me also decided that it would be a good time to worry about the portfolio. But I just don't care. Not like it would make a difference; the school's just going to upload it anyway. I don't even know if my portfolio will/can make the cut. I don't even know what the people want, and to be honest, I'm not going to bother asking.

...

I wish I could close Pandora's Box, but... I don't know if this knowledge (that what I feel is not normal amongst cis people) is something I can un-know. More importantly, I'm not sure if it's something I am ready to un-know; it's like refusing to hold onto a life preserver when you're drowning in an ocean. The lifeline's there (in this case, it's one of many explanations for what I'm feeling), and, as easy as it is to grab onto it, it takes someone seriously deep in denial and intent on not being helped to refuse help.

Ironically, I am self-aware enough to know that I am indeed talking about myself when I said the above. I am also self-aware enough to know that I will basically do nothing with the information and the questions that I have been asking myself, making this entire thing about helping myself a huge meta-joke. I basically am neglecting myself to the point where I ask others for lifelines, but refuse to take them because I'm too scared to even bother helping myself.

Maybe that constitutes attention-seeking behavior, but who cares?

At this point, I'm going in circles, and, I suppose the only bit of progress I got out of five entire months of gender questioning was knowing how deep in denial I've dug myself. That, and, knowing that I'm just disgustingly deep in the entire "I want to be a girl" thing, even if it genuinely makes me happier. I don't know why it makes me happier. Am I escaping something that I don't want to live? Am I just reconnecting with whatever extant femininity I have within? I don't know.

I don't know if I can even be proud of being a man again, or if being a man is something that I can ever do. All I know is that I have a major distaste to being referred to as such, but it's... what I'm stuck with, and I should just... deal with it.

...

At least the Kyoto Jam track that I was learning is going well; I managed to learn the first thirty seconds in two days, which is pretty good pace, given how I don't really play fingerstyle.

[autismsam]

Can i ask, if it isn't rude... do u you use any microidentities/labels? Your pronouns are nifty and I've found that a lot of neopronoun users also use neolabels, that's why i ask

hi dont worry abt it i dont mind answering questions abt my gender! personally im just a guy, i dont rlly use any neolabels or microidentities (but like, full respect 2 ppl who do) i just have...a weird relationship w my gender. i still deal with internalized transphobia but a while back i was dealing w some rlly toxic masculinity. using neopronouns kinda helped me to break away from that in a sense; its kind of a way of- idk? expressing myself? plus i just think theyre neat!

#and like....i Still have a lot of weird internal masculinity issues #and being gnc doesnt just....get rid of em hahah #like im . literally a drag queen but i worry if the way i hold my fork is too girly sometimes #but yeah fr me neopronouns r: an aesthetic decision + a way of trying to break free from my past issues + are easier to comprehend than like #my actual relationship w gender #i used to be very anti neopronoun.....that was during what i call my 'bad person era' #asks

[sn33z3s]

notes on contemporary south park fandom and its approach to fanon & headcanons

originally i posted this as a thread on twitter about a week after The Big Fix, in response to the various tweets i saw referring to tolkien as stan’s new best friend, how tolkien is now another character to visit tegridy farms before kyle (who hasn’t at all) and what that means for stan and kyle’s relationship, etc… this is just an observational post on fan culture and not so much a speculative piece about canon, so take from it what you will

a thing i tend to find within new (2015 and onward, i’d say) south park fans of the shipping fandom variety is this interesting way that some of them internalize overlapping character dynamics. beyond subjective shipping morality discourse, there’s a recent insistence of relationships “dying” out... and that is what i want to talk about in this post. warning: it got long, reader beware

for the record, since i got into south park and stan/kyle over a decade ago and have lurked around sp fandom on and off, i have seen folks say “style has died” in multiple waves, and each time i've thought to myself: they’re story arcs. character arcs. it all cycles. it’s reflective of weird insecurity to be like “characters A and C have interacted, therefore the dynamic between A and B is over now.” how so? 

ultimately, my concern is mostly about projecting said negativity onto other fans (non-constructively). however, it’s not a Versus thing exclusively; that is, it’s not just some people being win-or-lose about “opposing” ships, it’s also present in how people talk about specific dynamics. like stan and kyle: “stan pines more” “kyle pines more” - is there a correct answer? their relationship shifts the way that sp as a show itself has. simply put, i feel like some fans react in a way that implies moments of canon entirely “cancel” each other out, rather than ~*containing multitudes*~ or such. it’s not that i don’t think there are concrete ways that stan and kyle (for example) “are” - i certainly do - but i feel confused by the one-dimensional approach to their relationship, among other things. i’m applying this to fanon details and ship wars, but i’ll elaborate on the second issue further in this post…

“stan cannot be a jock, because he is depressed, and likes board games and music.” “kyle cannot have androgynous features, because that’s the same thing as an antisemitic trope.” regarding both of these, i’ve yet to see a good argument as to how. i’m still not sure about the insistence on jumping to the extremes for both. i have a lot of feelings about the complexities of stan and kyle, but i see it flattened for silly reasons. this discourse is also decades old, but still. i like jock stan precisely because of stan’s docile personality. i like that kyle is hot-headed, yet very fussy, all the while. kyle via the post-covid specials is shown to be comparatively well-groomed, decorative, etc, to the other three. i’m not sure how that conflicts with his personality, though, as per claims by parts of this fandom. does it need to be any more profound than that? (i don’t like getting into the "why i think it's concerning that some fans strongly dislike masc-fem gay fictional couples" thing because it’s fundamental to me at this point, so i digress because i’m getting off-topic!) (also, plenty of masculine depictions of fandom kyle are antisemitic, but whatever)

anyway, it’s not that matt and trey aren't inconsistent; they are consistently inconsistent. still, i’d say they know their characters. they’re theirs. not to sound like an apologist (buzz word, i guess) or like south park has never made me complain, but this constant scramble to claim “i know what trey parker thought here, what he meant, and you don’t…” is not a healthy way to consume your media, and at that point, taking a step back to focus on other hobbies may be necessary. the truth is that none of us know: we are all just re-interpreting the art. i worry about the fans who reach the level of tin-hatting (a thing which we all do, by the way) that it encroaches into “i am demanding that the creators of this show give me what i think should be canon, and anything else is pure shit” territory

many older south park fans have already prodded this question (phenomenon?). still, my own reasoning for this personal catharsis is that now i’m active in the fandom and i’m seeing this and above all, i feel that after Return of COVID, it’s happening so much more often again, and i don’t understand why

indeed, what i’ve been wondering since becoming an active instead of passive participant in the south park fandom: why spend any time thinking or talking about what you dislike, anyway? if it is coming from a place of such negativity. why be competitive? why not just relax and enjoy? there are nearly 25 years' worth of multiple character interactions, all in fluctuation, with recurring themes. i think the COVID specials were some withstanding point of that. for the record, every individual in fandom reserves the right to critique the art as they feel is best for them, but i don’t mean stating “this is my critical opinion on…” i mean stating “i am asserting my opinion as fact, and i am getting angry and passive-aggressive on public social media when i see others expressing a conflicting take.” reacting to an outright attack is normal and justified, but taking any disagreement as a personal sleight indicates an unhealthy connection to the source material.

when i recently got called a “child abuse apologist” on tumblr for saying [in what was very obviously a self-aware and comedic tone] that i like stephen stotch, it supplemented my curiosity about some parts of the fandom’s ability to recognize satire and subtle dialogue or writing choices. twisting and/or ignoring elements of south park’s canon to postulate your favorite pairing as better is unnecessary because shipping can happen regardless of what canon provides. we have the ability to create the fan content we may feel is lacking. all dynamics in south park have a baseline. whether or not you read into these character dynamics romantically is up to you, but to vaguely refer to others’ ship- or character-related headcanons on public forums in a punitive(?) way is immature at best and downright worrisome at worst

i also saw recent talks about kyle’s choice to tell yentl that cartman gave him AIDS in that scene from Post-COVID instead of mentioning, like, cartman’s constant desires to imitate hitler and-or reinstate the holocaust… well, kyle said that because south park is a comedy, you guys. the plot of a thing can change drastically based on a single line, a single character interaction, and matt and trey only have so much they can fit within a time frame. also, it was just a funny thing for him to say. that’s kind of it

how upset one person “should” get about south park fanfiction or fanart is subjective, but taking to the streets over trey parker’s writing is a bit much, and to be specific, it’s a bit much when you say that “xyz interpretation is wrong, unless adjusted to apply to what i prefer, in which case it is right, and it is not fair game for people to say anything about the characters that i favor, though i will disparage other people’s favorites.” like, okay, let’s all go outside for a walk and some fresh air. being nice goes a long way

there needs to be a two-way relationship in fandom which allows discussion, disagreement, and civil debate on both sides. (well, i don’t know how i feel using the word “debate” like the south park slash fandom is “the marketplace of ideas” or what have you, but…) moreover, it’s basic empathy to understand that this is south park and, with the exception of actual online harassment directed toward other fans, people are allowed to express their discomfort over things that the canon itself presents as uncomfortable. i understand that we all make exceptions, but sticking to your guns and following the consistencies you apply to your fandom consumption is, like, the best way to not look hypocritical or spiteful

#mb tag later