#(which I’m pretty sure includes creating a vague sense of unease) and left WAY more questions than answers before dipping

[age-of-moonknight]

Phases of the Moon Knight (Vol. 1/2024), #3.

Writers: Yuji Kaku, Justina Ireland, and Chris Giarrusso; Penciler and Inker: Daniel Bayliss; Colorist: Dee Cunniffe; Letterer: Cory Petit

[paint-pilot]

shit it’s been a second, guess it’s time to update again

edit: holy christ this is long, i’m gonna readmore it. tl:dr tyler has many badweird feelings but is getting through it. fun body changes, including hair growth and an unexpectedly nice voice. surgery and legal matters are Annoying. tw for menstruation

it is truly bizarre to think that i’ll have been five months on t in a little under two weeks. another month after that and it’s half a year. it’s uhh...weird. quarantine has just made this all feel weird. it’s like i fast-forwarded through this whole journey i was supposed to go on i guess? like i got randomly torn out of my life one day in march with no warning and then just as suddenly got spat out in august with a new life - new name, new face, new major, new identity - and no transitional period whatsoever. my classmates, my professors, my students, they all have only known me as tyler. and only ever will know me as tyler. and that’s great! it’s great, and i’m truly just blown away by how markedly easy it’s been and how weirdly good my timing was in transitioning. but it almost feels like i’m still a ways behind everyone else, i guess. i’ve spent so much of my life hiding, and lying through my teeth, and covering my ass every second of every day to protect myself, and i don’t have to do that anymore but the instinct is 100% still there and that honestly doesn’t feel good. of course i’m not making any of it up - i’m happier now than i’ve ever been, and i know i’m making the right choice - but it still persistently keeps feeling that way.

it’s just difficult, i think, to balance wanting to be read as male (and, to a large extent, wanting to keep my transness hidden both for safety reasons and so people don’t start treating me differently) and finding it difficult to hide this truly massive life change that, like, four people are really seeing anything of. and y’all, i guess, lol. it’s one thing to talk about all this in therapy, but it’s another entirely to just be able to share it with strangers and not worry about it being weird.

i was writing this with the intent of it being a mostly happy update but i guess there is some negativity boiling up so. gotta be honest, i guess? there’s a lot of fun trauma stuff i’ve been going through lately that i won’t get into but it’s culminated with this bullshit in this really fun way where my mom gets upset because i get kind of uncomfortable when she shows me childhood photos or tells stories about me as a little kid and then i just break down for reasons i really can’t discern. i’m going to try and articulate this, and who knows how messy it’s going to get, so i apologize if it gets kind of incoherent from here on out. as far as i can tell the root thing that she really gets upset about is that i’ve “thrown away” my whole previous identity. like, not a direct quote, but “you can’t just pretend [deadname] never existed. because she did, for a long time.” and...sure, i guess. i know this has been hard on my mom. i know she was raised in a conservative family, and while she has worked hard to adopt an accepting and open mindset she still doesn’t 100% grasp all of it and will make mistakes. i’ve made my peace with that. and yet. it’s not so much, really, that i was this other person and then became tyler, y’know? tyler did not appear suddenly two years ago where she once stood. tyler put on a mask, even before he knew he was tyler, because tyler was scared and ashamed but people seemed to like her and, for a time, she was an easy person to be. and i hated her. that is so fucking scary for me to say, and i’m not sure i’ve admitted that until literally right this second, but i did. not because she was a bad person. because she had a voice and a face and a body that i hated. because people saw her and assumed they knew me. because even she had many faces, because there was no real base or identity to her, just traits designed to paint a pretty picture and make people like her. because i knew, when i finally threw her away, people would miss her. compare me to her. expect me to be like her.

so i don’t know. i don’t have a satisfying way to wrap this up, because i honestly don’t know how to face this because i know it is absolutely not just the trans thing that created this situation. i’m kinda warring with myself, because i do kinda want to go back through this blog and delete photos of myself with long hair and whatever (because jesus, i’ve had this thing since i was like 14) but i genuinely don’t know if that’s healthy. i know i’m going back on my bullshit, fretting this way and that over whether something is “healthy” as though that’s an objective term without considering what’s going to make me happy, but honestly? i don’t know anymore. i keep sensing the mental block - the swathes of my childhood that i cannot recall, just vague, constant unease - and i don’t really know if i want to dig into all of that and learn what lies underneath because i’m sort of afraid of it. like i said, i’m happy now, happier than i’ve ever been, and i’d sort of like to just leave it like that. but i guess the length and tone of this post might argue otherwise.

anyways. anyways. enough mental health therapy, more actual hormone therapy updates since that’s what this goddamn thing is supposed to be i think? i’m finally starting to grow some noticeable hairs - my chin hair is coming back after my mom made me shave it before i left for school lol, as are a handful of mustache/lower lip/sideburn hairs. i keep feeling phantom bugs on my legs/feet and i’ve only just now recognized that that’s just leg hairs brushing against places i’m not used to. my appetite has picked up like absolute hell again, too, so i don’t know if i’m just having a metabolic spurt or what. also, i’ve started bruising more? idk what the hell that’s about - i fucking never bruise unless i’ve been hit Hard, and i kind of assumed testosterone would make you less likely to bruise, but then that’s probably just not related to the hormones at all. i was gonna put this in the tags but seeing as this post is already so long i might as well put a readmore and just put this here lol: my period is late, like, four days late, which is exceedingly unusual for me and might mean i’m finally done. or almost done. fingers crossed.

my voice has started to settle, it seems like. i popped out an e2 yesterday, which is Sick, but i’m not as focused on that anymore as i am on the actual quality of my tone. which is...good? i’m not just a baritone, i’m kind of a good one, at least it seems like. i’m really working right now on just getting familiar with my instrument - i’m second-guessing my pitch sensitivity a lot, but i think i really just need to drill and practice until everything starts feeling like second nature again. but since the musical didn’t happen for me, my coach wants to enter me in a classical solo competition next spring. so...no more retirement from competitive singing. i’m back! and thank god, because i’m starting to go crazy without being in musical work lol.

jesus fuck, i have a lot to say. i should probably split this into two posts but i don’t care. i am frustrated; i tried to get an appointment with a pro bono legal program for a name change, but it happened today and i wasn’t invited so apparently i’m on my own. and i’m frustrated. i’m trying to look at internships and shit for next summer, but i kind of can’t apply right now because my legal name and sex don’t line up with my presentation, and i don’t really know how easy it is to get away with that in this day and age and especially in my field. genuinely, if anyone has any advice, i’d appreciate it. i don’t know how long this will take, i don’t know what the requirements are, i don’t know if i’m better off just applying now and hoping they don’t eliminate me before ever getting me an interview. and, of course, i’m working on getting consultations for top surgery, but i keep catching myself procrastinating that. which seems weird, but listen. i’ve said it before but i have to emphasize, i am capital-t Terrified of getting this surgery. i know i need to, i know it will make things better for me, i know now is the time, i know i hate binding and can’t really get away with not doing so, but jesus fuck i am so frightened of anesthesia it’s not even funny. but i guess i’m mostly just calling myself out here and telling myself to quit being a big baby, schedule the thing, and give myself a few months to prepare.

anyway. that’s all i have to say. i’d apologize for ranting, but honestly...i dunno. i know at the start of all this a handful of you requested these updates, and i have to imagine it’s because at least some of you are transitioning, are thinking of doing so, or know someone who is or will be soon. and i just hope someone out there can at least relate, because there honestly just aren’t a lot of comparable life changes out there. or maybe this is just therapeutic for me, that’s fine too.

i have two midterms next week i should be studying for. i should do that.