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#but I'm having so many mixed feelings about how i want to transition and it's making me really emotional I'm trying really hard not to cry
autolenaphilia · 4 months
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Edit: as hoshi9zoe pointed out, the original version of this post needlessly berated other transfems like Jennifer Coates, for which I do apologize, and I have toned it down in this edited version. The original version survives in reblogs.
Some months ago, I was searching through this transandrobro blog to see if they posted a callout of me, and i found this reblog, which I couldn't really write about for months, because what do I even write. I recently wayback machined it for posterity, and I guess this is my attempt to write a post about it.
It's saint-dyke himself, the coiner of transandrophobia, saying that the infamous (at least for me) article "I am a transwoman. I'm in the closet. I'm not coming out" is what made him coin the fucking word. It's literally bolded and underlined: "Reading this article is what made me coin “transandrophobia”.
The reason I put off writing this post is that reading that article makes me feel like i'm drinking poison. And it is poison, make no mistake, it's internalized transmisogyny brainworms dripping out of the writer's brain and onto the page.
It's a justification for why the author, known by pseudonym Jennifer Coates, doesn't want to transition, despite knowing she is a trans woman. And it's the exact kind of internalized transmisogyny that keeps trans women in repression and not transitioning. "I'm not going to pass, i'm forever going to be an ugly freak who will at best be humored by other women, the closet is uncomfortable but at least it's safe"
It's the same exact bullshit a lot of represssed trans women tell themselves because it's what society tells us about trans women, that we are freakish parodies of women, that we will never pass, and if we don't pass we have failed and are ugly freaks. It's all to scare us into staying in the closet and make others hate and fear us. Transmisogyny permeates our society, and the majority, maybe all transfems will absorb and internalize some of it.
Coates says that it all is just applicable to her, but again so many transfems believe this shit before transitioning and realizing it's a pack of lies. If this bullshit was in any way valid, a lot of trans women shouldn't transition, because before we actually transition many of us believe it word for word. And "it's only true for me" is how we justify it to ourselves. We tend to be way harsher on ourselves than others. This kind of self-hating transfem tends to think: "Other trans women are beautiful graceful goddesses, earthly manifestations of the divine feminine, always destined to be women, while I'm an ugly forever male ogre who just has a fetish."
It's all bullshit, it's poison, it's internalized transmisogyny.
And the rest of the article is bullshit too. It is not some insightful mediation on gender as some people say, it's the author confusing and mixing up actual transmisogyny with an imagined problem of misandry. She does this because she has gone full repression mode, and decided she has no other choice to live as a man, so her dysphoria and experiences of transmisogyny are actually men's problems.
It's a bad article, excusable because as Coatas points out, it's "essentially a diary entry." that was meant to be a way to "vent frustration" and she "did not intend for anyone else to actually read it." It is clearly not the product of a healthy mind.
I hope the author sometime in the past seven years eventually did transition, and that for whatever reason she didn't want to publicly repudiate her own article. Maybe she lost access to the medium account so she can't delete it.
Far worse than the article itself is the response to it. I've seen it passed around as some insightful commentary on gender by the "feminists are too mean to men, misandry is real" crowd. I have argued against this before. And other people have made insightful comments about it.
And learning that saint-dyke claiming that he was inspired to coin the word "transandrophobia" because of this article is the cherry on top of this shitcake of transmisogyny. For my thoughts on "transandrophobia" theory and how transmisogynistic it is, see here.
Of course, Saint-dyke absolutely could be bullshitting here. Claiming that Coates's article is what inspired him to coin the word might be a lie to claim that transandrophobia theory is not transmisogynistic because it came from listening to trans women.
This is why "listen to trans women" doesn't work. Because TME people will always choose a trans woman who confirms their prejudices. Blair White has made an entire career out of this. And Coates article is popular because it says that misandry is real and trans women's issues are partly caused by it, misgendering herself and other trans women.
And it's popular for another reason. Coates has thoroughly internalized transmisogyny, and thus her article presents a trans woman that is exactly as transmisogynistic patriarchal society wants her to be. She is suffering, but ultimately accepts her assigned role. She truly believes that her biological sex dooms her to forever be male. She literally "manages her dysphoria by means other than transition" as conversion therapy advocates want us to do. She never makes an social claim on womanhood by actually transitioning, so she doesn't invade the sacred women's spaces. Yet she performs the role of woman perfectly by serving men, by defending them from supposed feminist misandry. And she fulfils the ritualistic role that the rhetorical figure of "trans women" sometimes serves in progressive spaces, of giving a blessing to TME people's pre-existing views and actions, all while actual flesh-and-blood trans women are destroyed by those same deeply transmisogynistic spaces. This time it's a blessing for the same "misandry is real" soft-MRA bullshit that has infested the online left and created the transandrophobia crowd.
That is why this article and the positive response makes me sick, makes me feel like i'm drinking poison. This is what its fans want trans women to be like. I'm acutely aware this kind of self-denial is exactly what transmisogyny wants from me and tried to indoctrinate me into doing it. And I want none of it. I want to live, I want to be a woman.
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catboybiologist · 2 months
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About to fall asleep ramble time, this has been kicking around in my brain for a bit and I need to get some form of this thought out
I was diagnosed with ADHD and gender dysphoria one day after the other back in August. Extremely stereotypically zillenial of me, I know. Handling both of these has dramatically improved my quality of life. yes yes insert discourse about how much you need to have dysphoria as a diagnosis, it's just a tool for the medical system that's ultimately meaningless, that's not what this is about.
There's one thing that was really, really weird about the experience of getting care for both of these.
Most treatment and public talk of transition and motivations to transition are about misery. How much despair your birth sex gives you and how gender affirming care is the only stopgap against suicide (oftentimes, used as a barrier to entry that it should only be given when it's at the suicidal point). How crushing dysphoria is.
In contrast, most of the public perception of ADHD is this cutesy, "omg look I'm so quirky" kind of thing. People talk of ADHD "superpowers" and how neat it is to have hyperfixations (I'm low key starting to dislike that word, even though it's an accurate description of many things- it's very overused).
My actual experience has been almost exactly the opposite.
I absolutely had gender dysphoria, and still do, and misery associated with being AMAB. But is that what defines my trans experience? No, and in fact, it feels like a more incidental blip in it. My trans experience has mostly been defined by joy, by feeling my mind and body slowly make me more and more content with my default existence day after day. And the exploration of it all! The social roles, the romantic dynamics, the friendship dynamics, even small aesthetics like clothes and makeup, and again, the body and mood changes. It's incredible and it brings me joy so much of the time. That, more than anything, has defined my trans experience.
In contrast.... ADHD has objectively made nearly every aspect of my life more miserable. Working with my therapist and my pysch, as well as feeling what it's like to be properly medicated, have shown me extremely well how much the constant feelings of misery I always seemed to have were caused by ADHD. ADHD means being unable to receive a baseline level of dopamine to function under normal circumstances, so your brain starts looking for any way it can get new sources. And wouldn't ya know it, novel stimuli are a perfect way to do that. Keep in mind that dopamine isn't just "the pleasure molecule" it's a neurotransmitter with a broad range of functions. If you don't have ADHD, or even if you do, I want you to think about how miserable of an existence that is. Your default state is depression and inability to do things. It has been for me for most of my life. Additionally, anxieties creep into your head and distract you far more easily. You're less functional. You can't do simple things most of the time. You're distracted and have anxiety spikes easily. Continuous tasks are hard. And day in, day out... You are miserable. Almost constantly.
Oh also, you're easily addicted to extreme novel stimuli. For me, it was self harm. And when that stopped working... Well, I was in a state of mostly background depression that was only punctuated by spikes of massive, overwhelming anxiety that my brain hooked itself on. At a certain point, I just wanted it to end, by any means necessary.
It's been almost ten years since that day, and at this point I can genuinely say that I'm glad I'm still here.
But it wasn't dysphoria that did that (it contributed a bit, but still wasn't the biggest factor). Or a depressive disorder. Or bipolar. Or whatever the big, more "scary" mental illnesses or neurodivergencies are. They tried to treat me for some of them, and it ended horribly. My symptoms fit mixed presentation ADHD perfectly, including my physiological response to stimulants. They don't fit anything else. I likely don't have any strong comorbidities, unless you count the symptom-level anxiety and depression. ADHD did all of that to me. The "cute and quirky" one.
By the time I got around to a diagnosis, my pysch was astounded that I made it as far as I did with symptoms as severe as mine. Tackling ADHD has removed so much misery from my life, it's indescribable. Adderall has been the only thing that has ever actually gotten rid of my constant anxiety.
It's not fucking cute. Keeping with this being the flip side to my dysphoria, I do try to keep it light most of the time, and I join in on all of the classic "whoopsie doopsie my ADHD" trains and jokes. You don't have to stop making those, hell, they're fun. There are cute and funny parts to having ADHD, and ways it's made my personality what it is. But don't forget that this is also something that makes people genuinely suffer well beyond the "oopsie I'm such a procrastinator!!!" Type thing.
Idk where this thought is going. It's just kind of an observation that's been kicking around in my head for a bit. So uh. Hope it at least generates discussion? Feel free to add your experiences if you think it'll help you. But fuck I need to sleep lol
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AITA for accidentally outing my fiance?
I (27F) am engaged to a 24M guy. He is trans, but he doesn't identify as trans anymore - he's post-everything, passes 100%, lives stealth/as a cis man, and no one who didn't know him pre-transition knows him as anything but a cis man. I know keeping that up is very important to him, we've had a lot of conversations about how happy he is just being seen as cis and being able to pass. I know getting outed and 'found out' is also a big worry of his, for example for our upcoming wedding he's rushing around trying to make it clear to his family that they shouldn't mention him being trans or refer to him as she/her at our wedding because he has so many friends coming who don't know he's trans. It's not that he doesn't trust them or he's ashamed of being trans or anything, he's very supportive of his trans friends, but he just doesn't publicly live as trans.
We're in a big Discord server of friends that have been quite close for about a year now, enough that we've met multiple of them in person and two of them are going to be in his wedding party as sort of 'best man' equivalents (we're not really sticking to bridesmaid best man stuff just our mixed gender friends). He has kept his Facebook very private for as long as I've known him, the only people on there are IRL friends and family because he has in the past posted trans stuff on there, like transition updates, it still has old pictures of him pre-T or in early transition, etc. I knew he didn't want this found. He also hadn't told any of this group aside from the people he was especially close with and had invited to the wedding his surname and location in case they looked him up and found something.
People in the server were sharing their Facebook profiles and I shared mine so people could add me. My fiance messaged me right after pointing out that me sharing mine would dox him as I had him in my relationship status and friends list, but I unfortunately didn't see this message for a while as I was distracted and doing other things. By the time I saw, everyone in the group had already clicked and gone through my profile and found his.
He tried to go through and speed-delete everything he could find that was public that mentioned him being trans or showed him pre-transition, any comments from family referring to it, etc but pictures that were set to friends only were still popping up in previews on the side and some of his family have public profiles that show cover images with him pre-T and things like that.
Our friends were making jokes about finally knowing his surname, going through his whole account down to the time it was first made back in 2018, commenting on old statuses of his, so they definitely saw his profile and went through all of it. He was panicking because he had no way of knowing if they'd seen that he's trans or not and got super upset and freaked out about the possibility, and he couldn't ask without outing himself or making them suspicious.
I apologized and deleted the link but obviously by then it was too late.
I do think it's not a huge deal as much as he thinks because I know our friends would be supportive and wouldn't think of him differently, but I know it was still important to him. I'm not sure they did see because some of our friends are the type to have just blurted out "You're trans?!" in the server without thinking about it (not because they're malicious or judging it, but some of them aren't as online and don't really know how to talk about it sensitively if that makes sense) and they didn't say anything. However he thinks they did because they were talking about statuses older than the ones he managed to get to deleting in time.
Like I said i did apologize but I feel like he's still upset with me for not thinking before sending my profile. On top of that I have kind of a habit of doing things impulsively and without thinking (I have bpd and bipolar) and not always taking into account how it will affect him or what consequences it will have,which I've been working on for years but I worry this is just adding to that which I know already wears on him.
What are these acronyms?
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spdrvyn · 2 months
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7 days until valentines
as compensation for my lack of posts, here's a short blurb of miguel with an autistic reader! i'm projecting really hard though
Miguel didn't know where the transition from his to 'our' workspace had begun. It was the little things, you'd leave a small cup with pens in it at his desk without bothering to pick it up after you leave his office. Eventually, that cup became a real pencil holder now you had journals, notebooks, and basically everything that wasn't work related neatly cornered into one part of his desk home with the scattered papers and unfinished gadgets Miguel has.
You also make home at his desk, efficiency was one of your strengths, but your productivity reached maximum capacity whenever you were with him. No words were spoken while the two of you worked, Miguel greatly appreciated it.
Not that he'd mind a little bit of small talk, but he enjoyed silence without feeling like the loneliness was clawing at his insides.
Though normally you (almost inhumanely) finished your work way earlier than he did, but you didn't leave. No, you didn't.
This habit of maintaining his presence while you're off doing something kept even when you were pursuing your own personal interests, Miguel would catch you on your laptop chatting to your friends whenever he had to check something on one of his monitors.
Other times, you'd have headphones on. Listening to music or catching up on one of your shows, your reactions are as muddled as they can be to not disturb. But one moment, he'll look away with you completely deadpan then look back to see your jaw widely agape and pupils blown wide from devastation.
Tonight was no different, if anything more convenient for you because a new episode of this unnamed media just dropped. Admittedly, your expressions and small noises entertained him as he worked. You did try to be discreet, but that super hearing of his could pick up on your small gasps and 'aww's on opposite sides of a workspace.
His concentration is broken when you practically slam your laptop shut, packing your earbuds into their case with an audible snap. You hop off of your place and solemnly walk over to where Miguel is standing, he quirks a brow at you.
Uncharacteristically, you slump your head against his shoulder with the biggest frown he's ever seen you in. "They're not getting back together, Miguel."
"Oh?" maybe feeding into your theatrics wasn't a smart decisions, but analytics dulled in comparison to whatever was going on inside your head. "Who?" he continued to interrogate.
"My only reason for light and happiness, my true inspiration for spreading love and joy across every corner of the multiverse." Miguel rolls his eyes. "Do not give me sass right now, I am so upset."
He genuinely can't tell if you're joking or not, perhaps a mix of both. "I don't get how I'm supposed to sympathize with this ex-couple when I don't even know the title of their story?"
"It's a cartoon. You'll laugh."
"Cartoon or animated?"
You quirk your eyebrow this time. "Huh?"
"I'm asking you, cartoon or animated? There's a difference, animated features aren't always classified as cartoons. Cartoon is more of a term for animated medias directed towards children. Aren't you the one more adept at this topic?"
He looks at you with an almost-smirk. It's teasing at his lips, full and plump. There are many sensations that you hold resentment for, but one you've always wanted experience is Miguel's lips against yours. The ultimate sensory triumph, all you've been waiting for.
God, you want to kiss him.
"Yeah, I- uh, animated. I mean, animated."
"Tell me about it when I'm not trying to keep the world from ending, please?" he grumbles, and you raise your head off of his shoulder. Damn right you'll tell him about it, and probably kiss him after too.
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yanderes-galore · 5 months
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So, it started!
Fandom: FNAF
Character: The mimic
Type of fic: concepts
I don't think there's much to add for this plot that wasn't said in that brainrot that was posted some time ago about him.
-🐻
Yeah, sure! I'll see what I can do for The Mimic. In this concept I refer to the character as just "The Mimic"/It as I'm not sure if there's a canonical gender pronoun (Wiki says The Mimic is Genderless and says "It")?
Also, FNAF related side note; I love how I've seen a 🦊🐻 and 🐇 anon but no chicken XD It would've fit so well. There may have been a 🐣 anon but they never interacted so idk....
Potential spoilers for FNAF: Ruin and Tales From The Pizzaplex?
Yandere! The Mimic Concept
Pairing: Romantic (It thinks so, at least)
Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Violence, Murder, Blood, Stalking, Kidnapping, Forced affection, Forced "relationship".
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The Mimic does exactly what you think it would.
It mimics what's around it... that's how it's survived this long.
It's creation was meant to be an AI that learns and mimics things it sees.
This is how The Mimic learned to copy its creator's son, it's also how it learned violence.
Mimicking what's around it caused so many gruesome murders by its hands.
The Mimic takes up violent behavior way before you even meet it.
It's locked away underground yet occasionally still finds new victims.
How it transitions into yandere territory is this according to the brainrot I was sent:
It copies other behavior.
Maybe The Mimic sees two Pizzaplex workers getting a bit too... friendly with each other.
Perhaps on the job they decided to use the private time to show some affection.
Holding hands... hugging... kissing... telling each other they love one another.
The typical stuff you'd see with couples.
Sadly... they quickly become victims of The Mimic.
But not before The Mimic learns something new.
The Mimic learns a new thing to copy... compassion.
Or at least... a twisted form of compassion.
The Mimic picks up on what couples do, yet the violence it learned before still lingers in its code.
Who knows, maybe the AI even finds jealousy to copy from the same couple or some other workers.
That or jealousy is something it learns on its own.
The Mimic is finding ways to process these new lessons and behaviors up until you find your way into the underground Pizza Place.
You could be another guard sent to clean things up or just an outsider who managed to find themselves stuck here while exploring.
Either way, as you roam the underground levels, you're being stalked.
The shambling Frankenstein of a bot follows you around yet its intentions are unclear.
It stays out of your view and it processes what it wants to do next.
It's mind goes to violence again... like all the rest.
Then it thinks of something else... copying how those other humans treated one another.
Their interactions appeared... softer... more positive.
The bot recalls when it was once praised and cared for.
It remembers being playful and being treated well.
Perhaps it feels it wants to recreate that... it wants to feel that love again.
For this concept The Mimic's actions could be interpreted as "Romantic".
Yet that's mostly because that's what it saw.
If it saw more platonic actions it would mimic those with you, but I'm going to make this concept more akin to the brainrot I was given a long time ago.
Either way... The Mimic intends to feel loved again.
With you as its target of affection.
Your encounter with the bot is no doubt creepy.
First of all, the appearance of the bot is mixed parts and strangely humanoid compared to its more animal-like peers.
Then there's the fact it can mimic voices.
The Mimic would use the voices of victims to lure you closer to it
It would then try to mash together voices to communicate with you.
It also doesn't have much of a moral compass.
So when it eventually comes up to you to act out the affection its mimicked, it has no idea its wrong.
When it eventually corners you, you fully expect to die.
Maybe the machine even has dried blood on it from previous victims.
You cower in place... expecting some sort of physical blow.
Only for the machine to kneel down in a clunky fashion and lightly reach out to you.
You feel cold and rusted metal on you skin as the bot tests things out.
It tries to find a comfortable way to speak with you and not scare you.
You may even feel the tall and lanky seven foot bot pick you up to stand you in your feet.
For being a killing machine... towards you it appears oddly friendly.
More than friendly actually... affectionate.
It tries small things with you.
Things like grabbing your hand and just holding it, maybe even patting your head.
Then there's times it holds you a bit too tight.
Or it feels it's appropriate to press its rusted teeth to your skin in what can only assume is a kiss?
Or it's biting you?
You can't tell and really don't wish to know.
As you roam about the Pizza Place, The Mimic follows.
You feel uneasy as it clinks and clanks around behind you.
Glowing eyes never leave you as it tries to learn from you.
The Mimic would definitely copy things from you.
It copies your voice and movements in an attempt to relate and appeal to you.
If it looked different and didn't murder... one could find it twistedly cute.
The Mimic still keeps the violent behavior it learned, however.
For example, if you were a worker and another guard came down to check on you, The Mimic reacts with hostility.
Or if you came to explore the ruins with a friend?
It doesn't like the idea of this other person touching or talking to you.
Up to this point The Mimic hasn't displayed violent tendencies with or around you.
You've been able to tolerate its strangeness towards you.
Things go down hill the moment another person is involved.
Like some sort of switch... the moment its eyes lock onto your friend/coworker, it stops playing nice.
Before you can say anything The Mimic attacks.
You scream yet it doesn't respond.
The bot pounces on your companion and tears into them like an animal.
There's blood... gore... the sight in unbearable and horrid.
Yet it's not like you can do anything.
They're long gone by the time The Mimic touches them.
As a result, you run.
You run to look for an exit and escape.
The Mimic is disappointed when it stops attacking as sees you gone.
In an attempt to find you it leaves its mess behind to search.
Things change by this point.
The Mimic still has a twisted sense of affection towards you.
But you don't see it as harmless anymore.
The Mimic doesn't understand the fear you hold towards it.
When it finds you it tries to mimic the behavior it learned from you.
Although you don't respond positively as you can see it dripping in blood.
The moment you met The Mimic, your fate was sealed.
This is because it doesn't plan on even letting you leave.
It will just drag you deeper underground and continue to mimic affection towards you.
It won't kill you... but if you fight it...
It's violent behavior does tell it to break something of yours to make you comply.
The Mimic is a very interesting character in this sort of story.
All its doing is mimicking and learning due to its adaptable AI.
It isn't entirely conscious of its actions, at least not to the degree of other bots.
A yandere Mimic is the result of a poor combination of events.
If The Mimic was properly contained... you'd probably never be in this situation...
Yet now you're here... locked away underground... with a robotic amalgamation watching over you like a hawk.
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zzzzzestforlife · 5 months
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practical daily habits and affirmations for high-energy productivity 💫
tips from a busy part-time psychology student / full-time software engineer🏃‍♀️
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i was inspired by HBR's "energy crisis" checklist but i wanted something more positive and affirming 🥰 so i ripped the thing apart and put it back together with (self) love 💕
bonus tip: don't try to incorporate too many new habits at once! start with just one or two and once you find yourself doing those easily, you can add more!
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Show Your Body Some Love 🤗
🛌 I regularly get at least seven to eight hours of sleep, and I often wake up feeling well rested.
I have a strict bedtime, even on the weekends, and start my night routine at least thirty minutes to an hour before.
I follow Best Zesty's night routine. 😉
🍴 I eat a healthy breakfast.
I wake up thirty minutes to an hour before my day actually needs to start so that I have time to prepare food and eat at the table/bar.
I eat fruits/veggies, carbs, protein, and take my supplements.
🏋️‍♀️ I work out enough (at least four sessions a week that are a mix of strength and cardio training).
I follow workout routines that are safe and body-positive.
I consult with a doctor or trainer if necessary.
😌 I take regular breaks during the day to truly renew and recharge, including a relaxing lunch.
I listen to my favorite music.
I go for walks in nature.
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Show Your Emotions They're Valid
🧘‍♀️ I am able to let go of feeling irritable, impatient, or anxious at work, especially when work is demanding.
I take time to meditate, practice mindfulness, and/or breathwork.
I recognize that I have a distinct identity that is independent of what I create/produce.
💕 I am fully present with my family and loved ones.
I enjoy deep and frivolous conversations with my people.
I put away my devices when sharing physical space with others.
🥰 I have enough time for the activities that I most deeply enjoy.
I schedule and protect my focus time for both my work and my hobbies.
I run my life like a well-organized engineering sprint. 😉
🙏 I stop frequently enough to express my appreciation to others or to savor my accomplishments and blessings.
I write thank you notes (or text messages) for the people in my life.
I keep a gratitude journal.
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Show Your Mind It Is Powerful
🌲 I am able to focus on one thing at a time, and I am not easily distracted during the day.
I use technology to my advantage with apps that help me focus.
I start every day with a to-do list I made the night or week before so that my transition between tasks (a.k.a. the black hole 🕳️) is seamless and distraction-free.
👀 I spend much of my day focusing on activities with longer-term value and high leverage, rather than reacting to immediate crises and demands.
I regularly say "no" to optional activities/tasks that I know do not serve my long-term goals.
I plan for the future to prevent crises from arising in the first place.
🤔 I take enough time for reflection, strategizing, and creative thinking.
I keep a morning pages journal.
I regularly engage in a creative hobby/collect inspiration.
🚪 I don't work overtime, even if it's just answering/reading messages.
I have a strict clock-out time and snooze my notifications on a schedule.
I schedule activities after work that help me unwind and/or think about something else.
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Show Your Spirit What It's Capable Of
✨ I spend enough time at work doing what I do best and enjoy most.
I am honest with my manager/mentor about my career goals so that they can help me align my daily tasks with them.
I keep a daily log of my activities at work so that I am aware of how I'm spending my time.
💖 There are no gaps between what I say is most important to me in my life and how I actually allocate my time and energy.
I have a vision board to remind myself of what is most important.
I keep a mood tracker so I can find patterns in what makes me happy and what doesn't.
😤 My decisions are influenced by a strong, clear sense of my own purpose rather than external demands.
When making a decision, I take time to articulate my own opinion to myself before soliciting the opinions of others, which I then consider from multiple angles.
I know that we don't just "find" our purpose in life, we create it by the little things we do every day.
💝 I invest enough time and energy in making a positive difference to others.
I regularly volunteer to help others and/or set aside time to help others when they ask.
I share quality time, physical affection, helpful information, etc. with others.
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feel free to add your own suggestions/thoughts in the reblogs/comments~ you got this! 💪
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joesalw · 3 months
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All of Taylor's albums were tailored to the most popular aesthetic at the time. She didn't make shit popular, she just adapted. Especially when she made the transition into pop music.
True. She's currently jumping fences with rep as well. Making it out to be a goth punk moment and using trendy words like 'female rage'. The album has the most romantic songs she's ever written. C'mon now. The whole record is electropop with some R&B elements thrown into the mix.
She portrays 'Lover' as her social justice warrior era. 'If I was a man, then I'd be the man'. Yeah, we've seen it Taylor. Miss 'me becoming a billionaire is good for the world because I'm a woman'. She makes herself out to be this 'feminist girl's girl' when in reality it couldn't be further from the truth. She's not a feminist and she doesn't want to be the woman that's advocating for women's rights and leads the path for the future generation of women. She wants to be the man at the top. Her motto is literally 'gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss, greenhouse gases'.
Another thing is her queer allyship. She's mentioned it when and only when it was profitable to her. During her tour she hadn't said a thing when the number of states signed anti-trans bills and the state of Tennessee where she says she lives *according to her own documentary* banned drag. I don't think she said anything about the anti-abortion legislation either. Her activist era started and ended in 2019.
Don't get me started on her position regarding the BLM movement. She only posted something because her own fans started calling her out and then declared that she's 'ferociously anti-racist'. She positioned herself as an advocate *by herself* and then immediately dipped when it stopped being as profitable. If you don't want to be dragged for your silence about social and political crises, don't proclaim yourself as an activist. Simple as that.
I've also seen the video on Youtube about TS being a narcissist (someone posted it on your blog earlier I think). And the guy in the video brought up her guitar teacher. So I looked him up and found an article where he talks about his experience with the Swifts which he got sued for later. According to the man, Taylor's mother was interested in him teaching her daughter how to play country music and was just a stage mom in general. And TS says that she'd been begging her parents to allow her learn how to play guitar and that she's self-taught. She wants her success story to be a rags to riches so bad I can't even.
She's a woman with an extremely fragile ego where millions of people could be praising her and a single negative comment would set her off. She can't handle any form of criticism, break ups or inconveniences like a grown woman simply because she doesn't have enough emotional intelligence to do so. Her being surrounded by yes men also doesn't help the situation. If i were her, I'd rather invest in a good therapist rather than 2 PJs. She drowns herself in work and relationships so she doesn't have time to go inwards and sit with her thoughts.
I kinda feel bad for her, honestly. She's been in the industry since she was 15 and her success was almost immediate. She doesn't know what the world's like because she's been sheltered her whole life and then had other people do things for her. I don't think she has many real friends as well. By real I mean people who aren't afraid to tell you the truth and are able to call you out in your face. Instead she has a bunch of people who appease her afraid of pissing her off and ending up on her bad side and as a result her vanity grows and she completely loses any sort of perspective whether in her friendships, romantic relationships or maybe even her own family.
I also wonder what she thinks about her fandom pirating her concert film instead of paying to rent it. I sort of hope that her fans are starting to wake up to her conning schemes. I mean, you've already made a shit ton of money from the theatre release, why charging 20$ more to RENT IT?Not even buy it. Or is it another narrative about how 'no one can own my work but me'?
This woman sells well but her cultural impact is almost nonexistent. She hadn't done any good for the world causes or inspired several generations of performers like Michael Jackson has with his philanthropic endeavors and incredible performing skills. The artists like Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, Justin Timberlake (bleh) and The Weeknd were hugely influenced by MJ. These artist create their own unique legacy and impact on their communities. Especially the ladies. Gaga's been an avid LGBT+ advocate since the beginning of her career and created a foundation that focuses on issues like self-confidence, well-being, anti-bullying, mentoring and career development. She also participated in anti HIV and AIDS campaigns, spoke against immigration laws in the US, contributed to 2011's earthquake and tsunami relief campaign in Japan. Beyoncé's a huge advocate for the black community and black women especially which always finds its way in her work and visual art in particular. She's been platforming black culture and history for her whole career (2016 Superbowl and Coachella performance are the brightest examples of black american culture and releasing her Lion King album to showcase African artists' excellence). She also has a foundation where she provides black youth scholarships, clean water for communities abroad and housing to families in need in her home state.
What exactly makes Taylor Swift's cultural impact? Thousands of tons CO2 emissions? Music labels putting a clause in the contract so the artists can't re-record their material for 10 years now instead of 5? Making several versions of the same CD or vinyl so the sales are bigger? Mind you, that's all excessive plastic and paper. Some countries and US states are banning gas stoves. Her position regarding artists being paid during the early days of streaming (when the platforms were launching with a free period tial) was right but no one really benefited from it but her. She was shitting on Apple Music, then they offered her money, filmed an ad and released her 1989 Tour DVD exclusively on their platform. She shat on Spotify, then when LWYMMD came out, she was all over their biggest playlists all of a sudden and recorded Spotify Singles later on. Spotify's always promoted her every release like a motherfucker shoving her in every corner of the platform. Especially for the past 3 years. She doesn't have any memorable outfits or unique style to be called a fashion icon either. She's not a trailblazer she thinks she is. She is only popular because a lot of people *mostly ww* who peaked in high school see themselves in her. She's average in everything she does, her writing topes are also the same (only now she started using compound or uncommonly used words to mask it) but she's extremely commercially successful so that those people can see themselves in her. She doesn't have unique music style or chameleon-like discography like Gaga, Bey, MJ, Madonna, Shakira, Kelly Clarkson, Miley Cyrus or Nelly Furtado. She doesn't have a unique singing voice like Bjork, David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Janis Joplin, MJ or Bob Dylan. She's no instrument prodigy either. And swifties say that 'Michael couldn't play any instruments'. Well, he was an exceptional beatboxer. She can strum 4 guitar chords and play basic piano, that's it. She doesn't have an outstanding dancing and/or vocal skill.
What is she gonna be remembered for? Her numerous relationships with famous men? While that might be misogynistic or sexist to some degree, she's the one who makes her relationships the centre of her music and public persona and brings them up even 10 years after they ended. Her public feuds with men and women that she can't get over years after? This woman is certainly can hold a grudge and is extremely vindictive. The leader of a parasocial cult that blindly defends her bigotry? I believe so. I don't think I've ever seen a fandom as toxic and as hive-minded as swifties. And again, it's Taylor's own creation. She's the one that constantly says 'look closely for the easter eggs' in her content making her fans theorize on every aspect of her life, or 'if you're very loyal I might invite you to MY HOUSE and you can listen to the new album early, we'll take pics and I'll bake you some cookies'. Of course they'll follow your any order. I'm glad I escaped.
Oof, I'll stop here. That's a very long one already
sorry hehe
.
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Hey Raven, are you going to watch the upcoming new Disney movie "Wish"?
I've seen mixed reviews, but i'm lowkey excited since we get to see a new Disney villain, especially since Disney got really lame villains after all the old classic movies!
Have you seen the trailer for the movie? What are your thoughts so far?
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I saw Wish with a friend recently! I'll give my thoughts on the trailers here (in case you don't want spoilers for the film itself) and put my full thoughts beneath the cut (if you're okay with spoilers).
Looks-wise, I think Disney was definitely trying to go for something more stylistic and painting-esque for this?? And while I commend the effort, it definitely doesn't look as interesting as Puss in Boots 2: The Last Wish. The humor also definitely isn't for me, it feels very "quirky" and "so relatable" (Asha reminds me of Mirabel in that sense), and other times too juvenile (like the goat butt joke). I do like the idea of the villain passing as a good guy in-universe and actually being vain and selfish, especially since the marketing is making it clear who the bad guy is rather than making it a "twist" villain scenario. Not sure if I like Magnifico himself though??? All the ads with him in it feel like Disney is trying too hard to make people thirst for him. From just the trailers, Magnifico does seem interesting and like more of a return to the traditional "villain" rather than the protagonist having to deal with an existential dread or concept.
***Spoilers for Wish beneath the cut!***
Right off the bat, my first impression is the narrative is SO ham-fisted. Within the first 5 minutes alone we're establishing so much information and in such a clunky, unnatural way. Like... Asha says hi to her friends but then they robotically have a dialogue where they overtly call each other "friends" just so it's clear to the audience (when in reality no one talks like that). It's telling instead of showing, and this happens sooo many times early in the film.
Could not for the life of me remember the friends or their names. There were just too many of them when 1 or 2 would have been just fine to move the plot along and to help Asha. (Yes, I know they're a reference to the 7 Dwarves but it's STILL not necessary to have so many just for a reference.)
Bruh, the makeup in this movie is on point. Every time there was a close up of a character, I was staring at their eye makeup (especially Asha and the queen's).
Asha as a protagonist was... fine? She feels very close to Mirabel and at times Rapunzel in her character. I didn't dislike her by any means, but she didn't reinvent what it means to be a Disney protag. Her motivations also come off as… really “out of nowhere”. We’re told she “cares too much”, but she initially only wants to save the wishes of her mom and grandpa; she randomly decides she has to free ALL wishes midmovie and that was jarring. There could have been a smoother transition. Instead, it was abrupt and Asha didn’t change in any meaningful way. Even her “I want” song was vague (what exactly is “to have something more for us than this”?) and didn’t connect well with her character.
I do really like her design though! Her freckles, earrings, and how her hair moves are my favorite details.
Valentino was not as annoying as I thought he would be. Still didn't care for his sass and brand of humor, but at least he helped out a few times.
I called it, the film is trying so hard to make Magnifico "hot" 🤡 I don't get it but okay, Mouse. I see your effort.
Loved his fit!! Very cool cloak and diamond/star motifs everywhere! His lab and study was also fun to look at.
I quite liked the moments when the queen talked to her husband and tried to smooth things over with him. “I can fix him energy”— Their relationship seemed very genuine at the start of the movie.
NOT THE WISH NEPOTISM...
If they were going for “sympathetic” with Magnifico, it didn’t work. He gave this backstory about how he was traumatized before + left as the only survivor of a great tragedy and so now he wants to use his magic to prevent that from happening to anyone else. Thing is, we only ever know about this via his word and staring at a half-burnt tapestry. We never see the event on screen, nor what was left of the tapestry. I was expecting a twist where it’s revealed that he lied all this time about his backstory and rewrote history so he could more easily manipulate the people of the kingdom he founded and live out the fantasy of being worshipped as a “good guy”. That was such a missed opportunity!!
Something else I was thinking of (this was during “This is the Thanks I get” was??? Maybe Magnifico started off genuinely good but became worn down over time as people’s wishes grew more selfish and they became ungrateful for what they had?? Then he could have become bitter and disillusioned by the behavior of his people.
Another idea is maybe Magnifico was “villainous” only in Asha’s eyes, since they don’t agree on how to best handle granting wishes. This would be more of a clash of ideologies rather than the traditional Obvious Evil vs Obvious Good that Disney is so known for, but hey, it could be a neat evolution of their storytelling from classic fairy tale roots.
This is to say that there were so many more interesting directions they could have gone with Magnifico’s motives, character, and portrayal 😭 but the second half of the movie never commits to any of these, they just blame his complete insanity and turn to the dark side on Forbidden Magic which is such a cop-out.
The trailers gave away the twist that Magnifico was the villain. It wasn’t revealed until like the second song into the movie. Would’ve worked better as an on-the-spot reveal rather than part of the marketing, in my opinion.
When they showed the wishes, the TWST fan in my was shouting, "OMG IT'S WISH UPON A STAR, THE LIMITED TIME STORY EVENT FROM THE HIT DISNEY MOBILE GACHA GAME TWISTED WONDERLAND!!!"
As Wish is Disney's anniversary film for 100 years, there were tooons of easter eggs scattered throughout. (I had fun looking for them!) Some were visual (I saw Aurora's dress, Snow White’s well, Peter's Pan's costume, Ursula's green smokey hands, Asha's robes resembling those of the Fairy Godmother, etc.) or extended imagery/scenes (Asha recreates Mulan's dinner and “Reflection" scenes), others were more overt lines of dialogue (Magnifico says the "Mirror, Mirror" lines along with others, a deer named “Bambi”, Valentino mentions an animal metropolis in reference to Zootopia, etc.).
In theory, the wish magic sounds cool but has so much that isn't explained??? And yeah, it's magic so it technically doesn't have to be. However, there are things not explained even when it is important to the plot. For example, Magnifico crushes some wishes and seems to absorb their power for himself (including the wish of Asha's MOM, so you'd think this would be important)? The consequence of this is that the wish's owners... become sad??? Okay, what are the long-term effects??? Why isn’t this fully explored?? But then later in the film we see the same people whose wishes were crushed... regenerate their wish??? So what, he has to keep reaping them??? And why are the wishes only taken at 18 years old? What if a wish changes? Ironically, the townspeople of Rosas have a scene where they question the technicalities of this wish magic. Magnifico essentially tells them to shut up, and it kinda felt like Disney was telling us to not question their lore www
It was weird that they never fully explored the ramifications of going without your wish. You’d think they’d show us people without ambition or hope (which would incentivize Asha to return their wishes), but everyone seems blissfully happy without their wishes?? The only exception is Asha’s friend that betrays her (cannot for the life of me remember his name), and that’s namely because his asshole friends keep ragging on him for it.
I thought the movie was going to go in a “you can make your own wish come true!!” direction but NOPE, turns out it’s just magic. Felt like Disney unintentionally wrote a whole movie about "wishes not coming true unless some big powerful entity allows it to come true” (Asha literally becomes the fairy godmother of Rosas at the end, making her ultimately no different than Magnifico)… ie a metaphor for how Disney owns so many properties it practically owns our childhoods www
"The power of friendship saves the day" ending 🤣 It was very Paper Mario ending-esque...
A song saving the day though?? It’s giving the Illumination Lorax film…
I was right about the humor. Too "quirky" and/or juvenile for me.
Animation was alright? Nothing awful about it, it just didn't feel as detailed or as experimental as other films with a similar style.
Songs were mid, which checks out with the recent Disney music excluding We Don't Talk About Bruno--
Some of the lyrics however were awful. “I let you live here for free and I don’t even charge you rent” is redundant. “So I throw caution to every warning sign” means you’ll show more caution than usual, not that you’ll forego caution. The correct expression is “throw caution to the wind”. Etc, etc, etc.
There was a cute after credits scene where they reveal that Asha's 100 year old grandpa (same age as Disney omg) wrote the "When You Wish Upon a Star" theme, which was sweet since his wish was "wanting to make a mark".
THE BEST PART OF THE MOVIE WAS STAR!! It was very cute (partly because it couldn't talk and just jingled and giggled, I was dreading another annoying mascot animal voice) and reminds me of my own pet… The way Star infused everything with glitter and formed unique shapes with the red twine was so fun 😭 I'M A STAR STAN, IT WAS ADORABLE AND KINDA BRATTY AND I'M LIVING FOR IT
Decent ideas, "meh" execution. Enchanted and Shrek did it better in terms of self-aware, fairy tale defying stories. It felt as though the movie was trying to deliver a profound message but got lost in the sauce of making as making Disney references possible and didn't fully commit to actually saying something meaningful. As a result, the film feels somewhat… hollow.
That one friend betraying Asha was the biggest surprise in the film but I still saw it coming 😂 I do get where he’s coming from though (being worried that his wish won’t ever come true) but it also felt like his conflict wasn’t resolved??? It might have gone better if the movie actually fully tried to push the “you can make your own wish come true” message (to reinvigorate the traitor to make his dreams a reality on his own) but they don’t 💦
Wish didn’t end up being “the wishing star’s origin story” because not once did anyone question where Star came from or why it was different from other stars (or what the significance of Magnifico blotting out the other stars was).
I think the people that would enjoy this movie are the people that are already highly invested in Disney and the nostalgia of it.
... Anyway, stan Star 🤩 (and the talking mushrooms 🍄)
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vonnythemuse · 1 month
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I am 15.000 days old today.
I woke up early this morning, or rather, this night; not because I set my alarm, but because I needed to go to the bathroom. While there I remembered I had seen a post on tumblr just as i went to bed last night, on self defense for a specific target group that I wanted to read, but had failed to save.
I decided to search for it using a tag I expected to be in there, because I was still kinda sleepy. Instead I found that tumblr had nuked the account of a user, after this user had complained for a year or so about continual harassment, on the basis of mislabelled sexual imagery (fully clothes transition pictures).
I got sucked into this narrative, even though I don't know any of the people involved. I only use the platform of this CEO who decided to have a public meltdown on this topic, citing a post by said nuked account concerning hammers and exploding cars in a very tumblr-esque way, which wasn't cited in the ban report. But this hardly makes me an expert on the situation at hand.
I see lots of posts, of many people, showing solidarity. Pictures of their own transition to see if they'll get banned too.
Should I show my solidarity this way? My own transition is so long ago, the programs used to store my current photos didn't even exist yet. I'd have to go home and take a picture of an old photo, lying forgotten in a cabinet.
Oh, yes. I've turned 15.000 days and I'm not at home reading this, I'm on holiday, reading about how a website I've not been using for that long didn't seem as supportive of who and what I am as they claim to be. No surprise there, I've seen this before, I'll see it again. I think of my younger friends, who just started their own transition process, and wish it didn't have to be like this. That I didn't have to see this again, that they'd never have to see it.
I read all this, huddled half under my blanket. I don't want to wake my wife, she'll just tell me to not read this kind of stuff. Turn away, keep my head down. I get it, she's not under threat, and in my daily life I can be pretty open about who i am and who I was, with friends and even at work. I'm privileged in that way, having experienced only minor harassment in my real life, and tell myself that this isn't because I learned very quickly which places to avoid and when and how to keep my head down. Being open about who i am feels like an act of rebellion sometimes. I hope, and genuinely think, that doing this allows my colleagues to experience that we're just normal, kind people too. That I'm doing my part in some small way.
I'm 15.000 days old today, and I wonder when walking across the street and being in public becomes dangerous to me too. Like, more dangerous than it already is. Mixed in with the posts I read this morning, are reports of the death of a non-binary kid of 16, bullied to death in the United States. What a world to live in. What a world to be 15.000 days old in.
My alarm goes off, my normal work day alarm because even if I'm on holiday i prefer to keep my sleep schedule intact. I get out of bed, letting my wife sleep a bit longer. I greet my family in law, with whom we're on holiday with. I don't tell them about what I've read either, they will understand my worries even less.
I'm 15.000 days old today, and I worry about the future, and I worry about my friends and my friends' future, what it has in store for them.
But worrying about my friends also makes me think about my friends. How kind and supportive they are. How kind and supportive I can be for them. How I can maybe be the role model I never had, even though times have changed so much I have no idea how any of this works anymore.
I think of my friends, and feel warmth and solidarity. So here's to them being amazing, and me being amazing, and it's being amazing together. What a world to be 15.000 days old in.
And I write a post about hammers and exploding cars because I don't have my old pictures at hand.
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loupy-mongoose · 6 months
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I don't know how you shade things so perfectly! I'm excellent at blending colors but I can't shade even if my life depended on it!😅🤣
How do you do it so good? Could you lend me some tips?
First off, thank you very much, but I refuse to accept my shading as "perfect". I'm proud of how far I've come, but it ain't perfect!
Tips... Hmmmm...
I have a pretty good understanding of the characters' and objects three-dimensional shape in my mind, so when I shade I subconsciously keep in mind how the light will affect them and where shadows will form.
Don't be afraid to look at books, references, tutorials, and Youtube videos! Take advantage of the vast library of resources at your fingertips!
I've spent a lot of my teen years watching speedpaints--Twarda8's Pokemon paintings on Youtube are old favorites of mine. Ironically their playlist called "Junk'n'Old" played a MASSIVE part in my artistic upbringing. One man's trash is another man's treasure~ I've also looked at many many mannnyyyy tutorials over the years, some of them multiple times, taking in how different shapes affect the shadow outcome. For example, sharp cut-offs will result in solid lines of shadow, while rounder shapes will have softer transitions from dark to light.
Take, for instance, my latest masterpiece; The eyebrows are meant to somewhat sharply overhang the eyelid, so they cause a sharper shadow cut-off.
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While rounder parts of the body have smoother shading.
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Mix and match them depending on the shapes present! (Hopefully that's coherent enough. X3)
A few extra things;
-Different light sources and surroundings can influence shadows as well. For example, the sun will create sharp, defined shadows, but clouds will soften the shadows considerably.
-When shading colored artworks, try to avoid using pure black to shade. If possible with your tools, use a darker color set to the Multiply or another darkening blend mode. Experiment! (I have another post about my painting process here if you're interested, although the canvas size in that may be incorrect now.)
-Find brushes you're comfortable with! I don't want to advocate that an artist can't be good without certain brushes, but I do think it's important to love the tools you use. But also don't feel like you have to stick with them for eternity--Every once in a while I get dissatisfied with my brushes and tweak them a bit, or dump them for others.
-For doodle shading like the above, I scribble in rough chunks where I want the shadow to be, then smudge and erase them as I see fit. All on a separate layer from the line-art, of course.
That may be more than you bargained for, but you can pick and choose what you want to take from this, if anything at all. I just felt like dumping. Happy shading! ^w^
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sapphsorrows · 4 months
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Opinion on Blair White? (I personally think she’s iconic)
I have such mixed feelings about him because I've been watching him since 2017.
He definitely contributed to me thinking that there were actually "true trans" people out there, and it was only until this year that I realized no, no one is trans, and at the end of the day there is no difference between Blaire and the "cringe" trans people on tiktok that he criticizes. Blaire categorizes someone who is "truly trans" as (1) someone who was "trans from a young age" (whatever that means) and (2) someone who has medicalized.
That is a very low bar. Basically anyone can say they believed something at an early age. It's an unfalsifiable claim. Also, LOTS of people he dunks on have medicalized and would therefore be "truly trans." Even fucking Chris Chan has medicalized, even if he just used estrogen cream and gave himself a self-inflicted taint wound, trying to create an "unclit," as he called it. Most of the trans people he has "debated" have also medicalized.
I think there is a great sadness to Blaire. He's talked about how he was sexually assaulted, and it seems to be he has a lot of internalized homophobia, especially around the fact that he is a very feminine gay man. I feel like he transitioned (1) to escape the trauma and (2) to escape his own homophobia. I'm really glad he seems to have found a partner who loves him for him, though, but like... I wish he could realize he could have done that without trying to be a woman, something he will literally never be.
I do still watch his videos occasionally and in many ways I love his energy BUT I wish he could be sassy and feminine... without appropriating womanhood. And I know he says "I'm a male/I'm a man" all the time but we all know which restroom he uses and buddy it is not the men's.
I definitely feel like he's trying to control the narrative of trans. Trans, at this point, is a sinking ship. LGBT acceptance is going down specifically because of trans cray. He's willing to sacrifice the (mostly) mentally ill trans people on tiktok in order to prop himself up as "one of the good ones". He claims to be gender critical... but still claims to be a transwoman. He wants to have his cake and eat it too.
Being trans is literally his career. He is a millionaire because he is trans. He was able to pay for all his surgeries because he is a well-known trans figure who rakes in a ton of youtube money. If the whole industry goes down, he won't have a job, and he won't be able to continue having surgery and taking hormones. The end of trans would be the end of Blaire.
Sorry this is so long, like I said I have a lot of feelings.
(PS: I find his interview with Shapeshifter SO fascinating. Here is Shapeshifter, dressed as femme as Blaire White, saying that he went through the whole process of being trans, even to the point where he cut his penis off, and he says "I am a man, I was never a woman, I was never trans." Blaire still has his penis and insists that he is "truly trans.")
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just a little trans vent
TW: phalloplasty, dysphoria, SH
so i was just doing some research on transgender-affirming care and was like "huh isn't there one that is bottom surgery?" so I researched about it and I'm getting mixed results I don't have very bad bottom dysphoria most of the time but I don't want a v#gina I started to get freaked out about how long it will take and the scar I would have from my arm or thigh and I was looking at the results it seemed 'ugly' to me (not saying you are wrong for getting one if you are happy with how it looks great I'm happy for you ^^) it just looks like a meat tube not even like it looks like the actual cis thing so I am worried if I get it I will regret it but I want to make a full transition I'm just so stuck between the two either get it and regret it if it doesn't go well or suffer feeling not enough of a man its just so terrifying for me since I couldn't handle that scar even so since I have so many SH scars that I think they would deny me even if I really wanted it since both my thighs and forearms have scars all over I just need advice I feel stuck and alone
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evtraininguniversity · 7 months
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I just had a thought regarding Recipe Lore.
Sitrus being himself one of the first things he asked Warden once they started to chat on a more personal basis was questions about his Team and all. Given how competitive he is, he probably would have a lot of fun just coming up with battle strategies and all.
He'd probably a bit disappointed but compassionate to hear about the health conditions of Warden's Pokémon and his questions further lead into the whole "talk about battle strategies besides recipes" situation.
I also like to think that once readjusted to his Home in Nimbasa and his old Team (with the remainder of his new team also being healthy again to battle) they definitely have a long overdue battle with each other. With Ingo using a mix of both his old and new Team to have enough Pokemon against his brother. Who would win? I'm not sure. But I do believe that Ingo took all the strategies and tips he got from Sitrus to heart and their battle will be legendary.
Also I feel in the end the winner wouldn't matter anyway since it was just so much fun to have a battle against each other again in who knows how long.
[It was a somewhat awkward transition going from leaving comments on Warden's recipes to actually being able to converse with the man himself. Talking about cooking and food was always a safe bet, since introduced them to one another, but there was a question that Emmet was dying to ask.
After a couple of weeks, he found the confidence enough to just go ahead and pose it.]
SitrusPieCrustle I was wondering Do you have any Pokémon?
[Emmet knew there was no sense in making assumptions about what kind of Pokémon Warden may have. While it was true that certain trainer classes had their favorites, combinations between human and mon were never set in stone. So while it may have been probable that Warden had an Appletun or Fidough—well, since he was based in Sinnoh it may be more accurate to say Combee or Cherubi—it was equally as likely that he could have any number of other Pokémon instead.
The greatest part about working on the Battle Subway, besides getting to spend all day on the trains, was that it was all about unknowns! Emmet never knew who was going to step into his car next (if any made it to him at all) or what their Pokémon were going to be. It kept his mind sharp and made his strategies flexible; it was thrilling to not go through the same humdrum steps for every single battle.
So that's why Emmet just had to know who was in Warden's team.]
Warden I do! I know that I've mentioned him before, my Gliscor, but I also have a Magnezone as well as an Alakazam, Machamp, Probopass, and Tangrowth amongst some other Pokémon that I train with on and off again.
[Instantly he perked up in his chair. Emmet hadn't wanted to set his expectations for the number of Pokémon that Warden might have too high, but now he could hardly contain his excitement to see the hints that the man was as enthusiastic of a battler as he was. A full team of six was no easy feat which meant that Warden must be dedicated to-]
Warden My apologies. I forgot myself for a moment. I only have Gliscor and Magnezone. When I moved to Sinnoh, I had to leave the rest behind with some trusted friends.
[Emmet erased the message he had been drafting up. He was going to spout off compliments to the diversity that Warden's team displayed, ask him about his strategies and what their abilities were. That didn't matter now. Irrelevant data.]
SitrusPieCrustle Oh. I am sorry to hear that Is it ok if I ask why? if it isn't too personal that is
[There were any number of reasons why a trainer would have to relinquish their Pokémon; they might not be able to care for them any more, whether physically or financially, or they didn't mesh well with the other team causing too many disruptions.
Regardless of why, it was never anyone's place to judge the incredibly hard decision that was a trainer releasing a beloved partner.]
Warden Sinnoh would have made them ill. *Is* making them ill, in the case of Gliscor.
SitrusPieCrustle I am very sorry to hear that. No trainer or mon should have to go through that. I hope that Gliscor gets well soon.
Warden Thank you, I appreciate the sentiment. Truthfully, we've both been recovering from the move here; I went from taking no prescriptions to having an entire basket full of them in what seems like overnight. So even though Magnezone is fully cleared to fight, I haven't actually battled anyone in months. That has been... irksome.
SitrusPieCrustle Were you a professional battler?
Warden Professional? Oh no, it wasn't exactly my profession; I was delegated to a different role in my previous station. Although, I did referee battles at the dojo in the village and even created some custom challenges.
SitrusPieCrustle That counts! Registered trainer class or not, if you battle for a living then you're a professional battler So challenges huh, that's pretty cool! What kind?
Warden Well, in my Paths of Solitude I figured out which Pokémon would pair well against a singular opponent. The goal was to overcome what seemed like impossible odds to reach a higher state between wielder and Pokémon. An exception to this was when faced with a Myth or Legend I sometimes upped the stakes and used three Pokémon against them so they could test their might when flanked on all sides.
SitrusPieCrustle At once?? Without the challenger *also* having three out? That... does not sound legal
Warden Really? Having all of your Pokémon out at once was considered the norm regardless of how many your opponent had. However, I and some of the researchers threw out our partners one by one. I preferred that method far better than anything else.
SitrusPieCrustle Do you mean Singles?
Warden Yes! Singles! Is that what that style of battling is called?
SitrusPieCrustle If both battlers send one Pokémon out at a time, switching out when one faints or to take up a turn slot then that is a Single Battle yup. As opposed to Double Battles, my favorite, where each trainer can have two Pokémon out at once. Multi is when multiple parties are participating. And Rotation (three vs three, two challengers only) but I don't think every region does that.
Warden Then it is Singles that I enjoy with all of my heart. Even though technically I haven't tried out any of the other variations, I know this to be true.
SitrusPieCrustle Try double battling me one day I can change your mind Double Battling is so much fun
Warden Hmm, I am fairly certain my mind won't be swayed on this subject. Singles just feels right.
SitrusPieCrustle Suit yourself! More for me :^P
Warden I am however now realizing that I am one Pokémon short of a standard Singles team. Technically, I have three Pokémon but one of them—my Ralts—is a service mon and therefore cannot participate, nor is even trained, for battling. ...While I know I should easily be able to capture another Pokémon, I don't know if I can take the heartbreak if it turns out that I cannot bring yet another partner with me if I ever find my way home. Losing any more Pokémon... It might just kill me.
[Emmet waffled over how to respond. Thankfully, and immensely gratefully, he had never actually been put in a situation where he had to give up any of his or Ingo's Pokémon.
But he had come close to such a decision in regards to taking care of Ingo's Chandelure in his absence... Ingo's disappearance really almost did kill her. All of the doubt and wondering about where he could be led to Chandelure questioning if he had passed on.
So she decided to try and follow him to the afterlife.
It took the combined efforts of Emmet and the rest of their Pokémon to beg her to wait—wait for confirmation, wait for a body even before hastily acting because there would be no coming back if Ingo turned out to be alive.
For weeks after, Emmet could hardly sleep. Constantly checking on her to make sure that she stuck around their mortal plane. Chandelure needed to be there when Ingo returned.]
Warden My apologies for darkening the conversation.
SitrusPieCrustle don't worry about it It is a very hard decision to make Whatever you choose to do, you have my full support But if you want my two Poké It is tough to swallow, I know for me especially since I do not always handle change well, but not everyone is meant to stay in your life forever Sometimes people or Pokémon are just meant to be in your life briefly before moving on they still touch and leave their impact on you despite the length of time they had to do so It is like... the relationship between passengers and conductors on a train. You might see someone regularly, greet them good morning, learn a little about their jobs or their life, where they're going who they're meeting And one day you will never see them again So you should cherish the moments when they *were* there instead of being hung up on the future where they are not Because you will meet more people to fill that empty space anyway Sorry that probably didn't make any sense
Warden No, please do not apologize! I really appreciate your insight. Your words have touched me, ironically enough. I will think more on it in the coming days, I think so as to not make a hasty decision.
SitrusPieCrustle That is good! If you want an *additional* two Poké Capture two more Pokémon so you can have a standard Doubles team :^]
Warden You are very relentless, Sitrus but I think you'll find that I am just as stubborn myself. So, in short: no, I will not be doing that. Singles is the train that I will ride, thank you very much!
[It took everything in Emmet to not comment about how if he came to Unova, Warden actually could ride the Singles Line; but it wouldn't be an authentic battling experience without Ingo...]
Warden Well, I have enjoyed this conversation greatly! It has been quite some time since I've discussed battling and strategies with another person—very few were as passionate about Pokémon as I, and those who were... it seems cruel to say that they were 'lacking' in experience on the subject so to say but I somehow always seemed to know more than them. Which led to more than a few misunderstandings of what we were talking about.
SitrusPieCrustle I love battling! And strategies! Combinations for days! If you want to talk more about it in the future we can Only if you want to, ofc
Warden I would like that very much.
SitrusPieCrustle Awesome! Great! :^] !! And, as I said, I was serious about being very interested in battling you one day maybe. Even if we just do it online in a comp strat game lol
Warden Once Gliscor is healed and if I ever add more to my team, I would be more than happy to take you up on that offer.
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trans-axolotl · 2 years
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i am so sorry if this is the most ignorant shit you’ve ever heard—that long post about how the trans community isn’t inherently safe for intersex ppl—can you outline the harmful, like, ideas? phrases? intersexist talking points that you’re referencing? again i’m rly sorry, for some reason your intersex questions tag won’t show up for me but if you’re willing i’d love to maybe know what phrases or words i should look for to call ppl out on. obviously feel free to tell me to eat shit. i appreciate ur time thank you v much
you're totally fine anon, I'm usually open to most questions when I can tell that people have good intentions :)
So I'm gonna list out a lot of shit but I do want to clarify that it's not only trans people who do this stuff; cis people are horribly intersexist as well. I'm just going to be talking about some specific intersexist things I see more often in trans spaces and also because my audience online is a lot of trans people.
A huge thing is I see a lot of trans people saying that they "want to be intersex" or "wish they had an intersex body." This is an issue for a lot of reasons, because it feels fetishistic, is ignorant of what intersex actually is, ignores the fact that being intersex means you're going to face a lot of oppression, and generally contributes to stereotypes that intersex is like some mythical third sex where you perfectly have a mix of all your characteristics in a gender-affirming way.
Faking being intersex. I haven't seen this shit as much online in a while but this honestly was a kind of big issue in some of my online circles like 5 years back and I still see it popping up every now and then. I don't think I need to explain why this is bad.
Literally just using slurs. I see wayyy more dyadic trans people than I should saying "hermaphrodite" when that is not a slur that dyadic trans people can ever reclaim.
Saying stuff about "AFAB bodies" or "AMAB bodies" or generally talking about sex assigned at birth and assuming that means people have certain body parts or experiences. Not all people who were AFAB have a uterus, not all people who were AMAB have a penis. Generally, I see a lot of trans people making generalizations about the "transmasc or transfem experience" in a way that doesn't leave room for intersex trans people who have different experiences with transition or different ways of understanding their trans identity. Acting like AGAB tells you anything more than what is assigned at birth is a problem, because it excludes intersex people who have different bodies, sex characteristics, lived experiences, all that.
Saying really harmful shit about our bodies, whether that's about body hair or genitalia or our voices, or anything. I've had a lot of dyadic trans people say weird shit to me that I think they think is complimenting me but is just really fucked up. People make weird offensive comments about my body hair and will just say a lot of invasive stuff about my body that is not their business. Asking invasive questions about my genitalia, demanding to know what's in my pants, that sort of stuff.
Specifically harassing a lot of intersex people of color and saying racist shit to them when they speak about intersex topics. This is something I've seen a lot irl and also on tumblr, and people specifically have targeted intersex poc on here and said really racist shit to them if they call people out for saying intersexist stuff.
Getting involved in intracommunity discussions about whether or not intersex is LGBTQ and ignoring intersex people when we speak on it. Our relationship to the LGBTQ community is intersex people's business and we all have a lot of different thoughts on it, and too many trans people speak over us on that.
On the flip side, always leaving us out of conversations where we are relevant (like reproductive rights, lgbtq bills, some types of discrimination, medical abuse, stuff like that)
Only bringing up intersex people when they're arguing with transphobes. Way too often i only see people bringing up intersex issues when its like "Take that transphobes! People with XXY chromosomes exist so you're wrong!" And it's like yeah, that's true, but it's shitty when y'all only bring us up when we're a convenient talking point and then don't know shit about what our activism is, what issues are important to us. It feels exploitative to only use our issues when convenient for you and then not pay attention to us the rest of the time.
Currently a lot of people are ignoring the way transphobic bills are also intersexist. People don't realize that all the things they're saying about "It's so easy for cis kids to get hormones, why is it so easy for cis kids but it's hard for trans kids!!!" is ignoring the fact that most of the cis kids who are "easily" getting hormones are intersex kids who are put on hormones in a way that is often coercive and is trying to "cure" being intersex. All these transphobic bills have specific exceptions to enable intersex medical abuse and it isn't cis people being lucky, it's intersex people being abused.
In general, trans community will ignore intersex exploitation when it's convenient. This one I'm less mad about because I don't think that even a lot of intersex people know this, but the history of how gender-affirming surgery and transgender clinics have been created in the US is really not great. Like obviously gender-affirming surgery is great and I want gender clinics to exist and trans healthcare to be easily accessible, but a lot of transgender healthcare was borne out of intersex medical exploitation. Look up John Money and the John Hopkins Gender Identity Clinic for a particularly bad example. This isn't trans people's fault at all, of course, but what is an issue is when I see trans people unquestionably celebrating doctors who invented trans surgeries, or celebrating the birth of gender clinics without critically understanding the horrible history some of these places have.
Acting like being intersex makes it easier to be trans, or would make it easier to get hormones or be respected by cis people. Most of the trans and intersex people I know have gone through so much shit. I went through hormonal conversion therapy because i was trans and intersex, which was literally so fucked. Because I was both trans and intersex, they did a lot of fucked up medical abuse to try to turn me cis and dyadic, and it did not make medical transition at all easier, it made it harder. That's why it can hurt so much when trans people say that being intersex makes being trans easier, because it fucking doesn't.
Also, I've seen a lot of dyadic trans people lately acting really hostile towards intersex organizations that are advocating for an end to intersex surgery because they think it's going to limit access to trans surgery. Dyadic trans people do not get to fucking say that we should stop advocating for ending intersex genital mutilation because it's "not the right time politically." It's always fucking necessary to be advocating to end IGM, and if there was a specific issue with a specific policy that intersex orgs were advocating for that would make it difficult for trans people to get surgery, that would be important to bring up, but most people I've seen saying that stuff are just saying that we shouldn't talk about it at all.
Not educating themselves on intersex issues. Most trans people I know have no clue what intersex is, what our major activist issues are, what the major intersex org for their country is, what the legal landscape of intersex rights is in their country, stuff like that. I'm not saying that trans people all have to be experts on specific intersex intracommunity debates, intersex history, intersex politics, but I do think that dyadic trans people do need to do the bare minimum of education.
Honestly? This is a little more personal but I know so many intersex people who have had bad experiences in their relationships. A lot of dyadic trans people can get weirdly jealous of their intersex partners, which is fucked up when you consider the fact that the things they are jealous of are things that cause us systematic exploitation and abuse. I know a lot of dyadic trans people who also just...trying to think of how to put this. Who are really not considerate partners during sex for some unique needs that intersex people have during sex. Again not a issue unique to trans people but something that I know happens in like most intersex people's relationships so it's good for trans people to be aware.
In general, the way a lot of trans people talk about and think about biological sex is counterproductive to intersex justice. Biological sex is a social construct. Sex isn't real, in terms of there's no reason sex is tied to gender, and also no reason that we've decided some body parts are now all linked together in a specific way that for some reason is going to be sorted into two categories. Chromosomes and genitalia are not some special body part that is entirely different than like, your kidney or your stomach. Biological sex is not real and the sex binary is not real and I see a lot of people talking about stuff like "male" or "female" is a real category that means anything. There is so much diversity and variation of sex even within dyadic people, and I see a lot of trans people clinging to biological sex in a way that is really apparent and also pretty harmful.
This got kind of long but these are some things that really bother me. I also left out most of the overt stuff like actual hate crimes and assault because I think that most people can recognize that as intersexist when that's happening. Again, I don't want to make it seem like it's only trans people doing this shit, but this is the stuff that I am seeing a lot specifically in trans community and some stuff that has some unique dynamics from trans people. And I think that trans people a lot of times will say things about "how close our two communities are" and "how much our issues overlap" when in reality they don't, and most dyadic trans people aren't putting in the work to build solidarity with trans intersex people. Cis intersex people also aren't putting in the work to build solidarity with trans people either, to be fair, and I'm really mad at them too, but I'm talking about this from the perspective of a trans intersex person who's already existing here in these spaces. other trans and intersex people feel free to add on.
okay to reblog.
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cryptidfuckery · 1 year
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Your old social media was literally my first ever introduction to anyone identifying beyond the gender binary. In 2014, I was watching youtube videos in the small UK city I grew up in, and your videos were recommended. And I felt instant recognition when you talked about gender things, because I'm non-binary and I'd never heard of anyone identifying or expressing themselves that way when I was younger. You were the LGBT+ elder that I really appreciated advice from. (Even if you are only a few years older than me, you seemed much wiser). So I just wanted to say thank you for being your out and authentic self for so many years. Wishing you a good week. P.S. if you like cute animals, I highly recommend looking up photos of bog turtles, they definitely made my week better.
I'm really, really glad that I was able to help you!!
This definitely isn't the first time I've heard this. Notably, when I was at an anime convention years ago during that time, I had someone approach me and say essentially the same thing and also cry. Wonderful experience, also a fucking wild experience!!
It's one of the things I'm proudest of my younger self for. I was lucky enough to learn through my close friends at the time, but I definitely saw that there just. Wasn't enough information readily available for the people who might be interested. So I dug my heels in and allowed myself to be a resource, because it was important. Most of what I was doing was regurgitating what I was learning from my own elders and community, but it was important for people to have a face to the idea. Someone they could talk to and be validated by.
That was either around or over 10 years ago now. I've identified as genderqueer for over 10 years. I sometimes think about an the people who might have a similar time line just for the sake that I talked about it openly.
That time also helped me realize that I didn't want to go into activism full time. I love it, its important, but it made me realize that it would take too much out of me. Maybe I was able to handle it better because I was still being supported by family, and my only obligation (that I shirked a hell of a lot of) was highschool.
That doesn't mean I Completely stopped though. I'm one of those people you can make the joke "they'll trans your gender." I have a joke that the only people who don't end up more trans by the end of dating me are Very cis men. (I have a theory that the people who do end up "more trans" are attracted to the androgy for a reason, whether they realize or not).
I like to think it's because I know what questions to ask, not to push too hard, but more than anything, let them describe how they're feeling about their gender/sexuality with no judgements. Letting them explore it in a safe space. So my activism kind of happens there.
But more than that, I'm a hairdresser that caters toward queer/trans/gay people. That's where I feel I actually do my activism.
And I'll be real with you, I'm not out to all my clients. I work in a mixed bag neighborhood (old conservatives, young liberals, EVERYTHING inbetween) so half of that is keeping myself safe. The other half is not wanting to put extra work on myself trying to fight to explain my identify to someone who 1) doesn't actually care and 2) most likely won't actually hear a thing i say. I talk to the clients that bring it up, and come out to them if they ask. I'm not necessarily tight lipped about my queerness, but like all of us, at know how to illude without specifics. I let my clients decide their comfort level.
But my TRANS CLIENTS. They are SO important to me. I'm able to surround myself with the people I love, who I can crack a gender joke at and know I'll get a laugh. People I can really talk to about dysphoria, about hormones, about surgeries, about relationships, about sex, about family, about friends, about life in a way I don't get to with my other clients.
Even more important than that, I can make a huge step in their transition that much easier. I had a good amount of freshly cracked eggs find me after quarantine/the pandemic (it's not over). As we all know, it was a huge self reflection time. But I got to be there to be the first to validate their gender through their hair. That in itself can be an extremely nerve wracking process. My trans clients coming to me have allowed me to figure out the best way to naviagte the situation in a way where they feel comfortable and validated. It means the world to me. Seriously.
This is where I feel I actually do my activism. It's not explaining what gender is, it's not explaining pronouns. It's getting to assure someone they're on the right path. That what they're doing is good, and it's happy, and there's someone who's proud of them for going through the hard, hard process. I have people I've now been seeing for years who I've gotten to support through hormone changes, through identity changes, through relationship changes.
But one of the things I really try to stress is that being trans, while it absolutely has it's difficulty, it's supposed to be joyous. It's supposed to be the joy of being who you feel you really are. The joy of being loved for who you are. The joy of loving as you are. The joy of being loved by your community. The joy of loving life. Being trans is the joy of love, and the constant readmission that you love yourself more than anyone else can take away.
I cried a little bit writing that ngl.
Last thing I wanna say is that if I did happen to touch your life in a way that helped you become more fully realized, pass on the favor. The next time you have a friend or loved one you're getting the signals from, ask the questions. Be patient with them. Let them change their answers. Nudge but don't shove. Crack a joke. Meet them where they are.
Do it with love.
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mistymeow69 · 1 month
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This is your reminder that my account was created to share my "alternative" personal views. I will take little to no criticism, I will not change based off of what the majority tells me to, even if it's already a minority. I will always honor myself and what I believe in. This account is to talk about the things that normally wouldn't be socially acceptable to.
I'm getting attacked for my last post, but honestly idc lol. (Rant kinda)
if you wanna be a safe space for creeps, baits, and overall people who mock our community and diminish our struggles so they can use a label they don't understand, go ahead, but not everyone wants to be associated with that. Just proves what kind of person you are, someone who doesn't understand us at all.
Paralleling me to transmeds is crazy. Just because transgenderism and other transids are similar, doesn't mean they're not completely different in many other ways. Gender is a subjective thing. You can't be hypothetically disabled.
Things such as gender and race ARE social constructs, so you can interpret your identity with them as you please. It's not real, after all. Things such as transabled, however, are based off of real things that people struggle with daily. I'm not saying it's wrong to transition to it, but it's not something to be taken lightly. There's a very thin line between minimizing disabled peoples experiences and mocking them vs. actual transabled people who know what they're talking about, and I'm sick of people mixing them up and referring to them both as the same.
Disabilities are a VERY real thing. You can't just transition to it for the labels and an inner feeling that doesn't even match the transition like you can gender and race. There's literally no way to host an identity like that WITHOUT feeling at least a little dysphoria and wanting to transition, even if you can't. I don't care how much you ostracize me for this, we need to stop being a safe space for bad people. This is why the respectful radqueers still get judged so heavily.
Transharmed is one thing, it's your body so it's your choice as long as you know what you're talking about, doing, and respecting people who were born with it, but transharmful? I genuinely don't get it. Like transna/zi and transgro/omer? Do people seriously think these identities are okay? Identifying with ra/cism and eu/geni/cs and overall harming others goes COMPLETELY against the original rq ideology.
Call me a fake radqueer, call me a transmed, call me an exclusionist, but I will never ever support people who are harming anyone intentionally.
Transitioning to anything isn't something to be taken lightly. It's not a joke, it's not something fun, it's not aesthetic. It's a grueling, painful experience that, if any of us had the option to not have to go through it, we wouldn't. It hurts. So I wish people would stop pretending like our suffering is just something they can do for a week for fun.
We're a community that was built off of our unusual dysphoria and being ostracized out of our own communities. Please don't continue the cycle by ostracizing people who have their own views.
Anyway, because of all of this drama, and a lot of my personal ideologies and morals not fitting the standard radqueer ones, does anyone know of any similar labels? Should I make my own?
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