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TDOV; Chosing Mean

I have been out as nonbinary since I sixteen. This year I turn 25 and yet in all those 9 years my closest family (other than my mum) barely ever get my pronouns right. I lived with these people until 3 years ago, I speak to them weekly, I see them multiple times a year and yet, still, everytime I see them I can hear the stumble my mum makes from the unfamiliarity of using my pronouns and I have to repeatedly hear my dad say the wrong god damn words every time. Even though as a trans-feminine person, I have told him how dangerous it is to potentially out me to strangers. So, what do I do?

I stop playing nice. I start fighting back. I'm not gonna accept it anymore. Why am I so able to be out and proud but won't fight my family when they misgender me. They love me - they can put in the god damn effort and use the right words for me. Actually show that they care rather than expect me to just accept that they care.

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Trans-feminine

I am 6ft and trans. I am danger and dangerous. I am a threat to those not me Who's space I invade. Though statistics show I am more likely to be harmed than harm

I am a woman with a lions head and broad shoulders. A shark toothed grin Blood in the bathroom Everyone forgets that lions are endangered And sharks just wanna swim.

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The American TikTok Timeout was fascinating and made me realise I have complicated feelings about America.

I’ve seen so many videos saying how much more positive the TikTok experience was with out the US audience and then when they all came back how many people were in a way kinda grieving the loss of a chance at social media without the domination of the US, its people and its culture. I get why so many people on 小红书 (RedNote) were upset by the influx of Americans. It was their space and with the massive power of the US it would become less of their space (especially with the splitting off of servers splitting Mainland China and overseas).

I am glad that people weren’t too negatively impacted by the TikTok ban, but also I wish we’d had a chance to see what TikTok could have been without the US’s dominating culture. As a Brit I’m a little bit sick of struggling to find other British people and their content online because if I speak English I must be American (don’t get me started on how often US English is the only option).

There will never be a social media platform of any size that is in English Language without US culture dominating it and we had a chance to see that but we won’t see it again.

So to any American reading this. Realise that while we love you and support you individually, but as a group you are very loud and the rest of us get drowned out. I’m glad you are back, but I hope you can bring some of the positive cultural mixing with you back from 小红书.

Yours hopefully,

An anglophone not from the US

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I’m sick of being single, but don’t know how to date

I often find myself feeling lonely nowadays, it feels like everyone around me - all my friends and those in my social circles - are in relationships and happy, and I’m just here on my own.

Okay so just start dating...

I’d love to, but I don’t even know how anymore. My social circles are all taken and as a trans-feminine and Autistic (probably) person dating apps just seem impossible to navigate and really unsafe.

Fuck!

I don’t want to be single

But why does dating feel impossible

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My Gender is Trans-Masc; My Body is Trans-fem

My gender floats in a space somewhere being small fluffy soft-boy and big buff butch lesbian. However, at the moment it seems to be sitting in a space that is slightly masculine androgyny.

I mostly see this form of gender expression from female cosplayers when they cosplay male characters but I've also seen it in young trans-men and certain softer tom-boy/butch women. It is an androgyny, that while visibly presenting more male, is something uniquely tied to feminity and the female form. It is also a form of gender expression that is impossible for me.

No matter how much I style my hair and clothes, or how much hormones soften my features, I will always been 6'1" (185cm) and long limbed. I will always have those features of male puberty that I cannot escape.

Honestly... Most of the time I am happy with where my transition has taken me, but every now and again I want to reach inside my chest and rip out the version of me that perfectly fits the gender expression that I want.

What do I do?

I will never be that picture perfect enby I grew up emulating and trying to conform to. But then again, no one really is. Those that do and want to are lucky and those that are lucky get visibility.

I'm sure that just as many of them feel just as 'not quite right' as I do.

All we've got to do, is the best with the hand we were dealt and try and not feel to despondent from those with aces up their sleeves or deals with the dealer.

My gender is abstract and my body is not.

The goal is to find a balance between the two.

Perfect isn't possible, but happy is.

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It has been 6 years since my last relationship and I don’t know how to feel.

I got into my first truly proper relationship at 17, I was recently open out as Nonbinary and I met someone and it was instant. We were both infatuated with each other.

That relationship lasted until September 2018 around about a year. For many reasons it shouldn’t have lasted that long… but it did.

Since then, I have not been in another relationship. I am now 24 meaning my last relationship ended 6 years ago.

Is that a long time to be between relationships?

It feels like a long time, especially as the other one was my first.

Also everyone around me seems to be getting into relationships of various kinds and I’m just not. I guess I feel like I’m being left behind.

That feeling might be because of how people have responded to my asexuality. I’m pretty sex averse and often get uncomfortable around sexual topics and that has led to me often getting infantilised.

Maybe I treat my lack of relationship as being another infantilising aspect?

I don’t know what this post was really saying but I had some thoughts I wanted to get out of my head. If anything I hope people might see this and at least know they’re not the only ones feeling this way.

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I still have thoughts about MHA

Spoilers up to Chapter 430

One thing that’s struck me with the ending of MHA is how open it is. The story is finished but the world isn’t. So many other big Manga finish and there isn’t really all that much left to explore. Before Boruto the world of Naruto was incredibly fleshed out but when it ended there wasn’t a great deal left to explore - sure there were certain characters and certain events mentioned. There was history you could go into. But it feels different than MHA.

With Naruto all you could do was deepen the lore add more details to things we knew the broad strokes of but with MHA there is so much more left to discuss Horikoshi has built such an expansive world that you could write in it for another decade and it wouldn’t feel full.

What is daily life like for heteromorphs and is there a mutant quirk hierarchy? Desirable vs undesirable mutations. You could write a whole separate Manga that dived into the celebrity side of heroism and idol culture, or there is a great spy film in heroes like Eraser Head. But even just slice of life style stories could be interesting because of the nature of the world of MHA.

Along with that Horikoshi managed to finish a story in a way I personally found compelling and a fitting ending (perfect, no; but good, yes) without solving all the problems and tying a neat little bow in all the plot threads. He leaves us with a world that is on its way to the perfect happy ending but doesn’t just jump to that point. We are left in a world where people are still campaigning and making changes that will eventually lead to the better world rather than a world where the bad guy was beaten and everything was sorted and I think that is great. Even if others have been left disappointed by it.

Maybe Horikoshi will write more and flesh out these aspects or if not I look forward to the fandom coming in to write fics and make TikTok series that do.

I heard it said in a writing class that a classic story “never finishes saying what is has to say” and that “great works will inspire other ideas” and I think MHA does just that. So I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Hopefully this ramble makes some amount of sense.

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Goodbye MHA

Spoilers for MHA up to chapter 430

I just read the final chapter of MHA and cried. I have never followed anything for so long and this work is incredibly special to me.

I started reading MHA in 2018, when I was in my first year of uni, and it was exactly what I needed. While I might not have always kept up with the anime since I caught up with the Manga I have read it every week. It has been a rock for me during a lot of different times. It helped me through Lockdown, losing my friend group (twice), and starting my master’s degree. Reaching the end of this manga, of this story one thing that has stuck in my head is: What do I do now? The Anime is still coming out and there are some spin-offs I can read but MHA is over and as far as we know there is nothing else. This world is finished and it has ended.

Was MHA perfect? No, fair from it. It had a lot of problems that are unfortunately staples. But, was it good? Yes. It was very good. There are a few times where I wish it had had more room to breath but and the ending still feels weird to me. It felt like that Horikoshi was setting up for a long epilogue and then suddenly switched to only a few chapters to finish. But I like how the Manga ends. I like how despite none of the main cast die and we get to see them become heroes and we get to see how being a hero has evolved and changed. I love that in the end the message isn’t just that Deku became the strongest and solved all the problems but that systemic change needed to happen - would I love to seen more of how that happened. Yes, but did I need to - probably not.

It’s interesting but at the end I’m left thinking of Hero All-mights final words “次は君だ” or “you’re next”. So, MHA fandom, now it’s our turn - what are we going to do? Where are we going to take what Horikoshi has given us?

Finally, though I know you will never see this: 堀越先生ありがとうございます。

Ps. Red Riot Gay confirmed! /lh

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So…. I was wrong…

A Manga I love is ending.

BNHA is finishing soon, that’s for sure the newest chapter just confirmed that we have way less than a year to go, maybe months if we’re lucky.

I don’t know how to feel. BNHA has been a massive part of my life for a long time it’s been with me all through Uni and lockdown. But it’s always been this private affair - I’ve always just quietly watched/read it and never really interacted with the fan community since the early days.

Now I have so many emotions about it and all the fan spaces I remember are gone, fossilised or deleted and it sucks. I don’t know how to interact with other fans. I have so many emotions and nowhere for them to go.

I’m so sad that this thing I’ve held close for so long is ending and also so fucking happy that it made it to the end.

Maybe I should cosplay… never done that before.

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Trigun Stampede

Spoilers below

Have you ever watched a show thinking you know where it’s going to go - waiting to see the hero turn it around in the final act and prove his world view right - only to realise that you are watching a tragedy.

You end up being left so incredibly heartbroken, begging for one more episode. But at the same time, you’re so happy, the show was so good that you wouldn’t change a thing.

Trigun Stampede broke my fucking heart and I’m so glad that I watched it.

I’m worried for what comes next. I’m afraid of more pain and suffering for these characters I’ve come to love. I don’t want to see the rock bottom that the ending left us in but I know I have to see what comes next. This is why stories are incredible… fuck you for making me have to wait.

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I’ve always thought I was Ace.

I’ve always thought I was Asexual and honestly, I still think that’s correct. I’m definitely somewhere on that spectrum - the idea of being intimate with someone is still something I have struggle picturing, but I know there are others out there who are “More Ace than me”.

But something I’ve started to question is my relationship to Romance.

I know I find certain people attractive and the idea of being in a relationship is definitely something I have pictured. But when it gets real I find it all gets fuzzy. I can’t picture myself being in relationships with people I know. As soon as it being less abstract as soon as the person is more than just a body in a crowd I can’t picture the relationship anymore.

But I’m lonely. I see those around me in relationships and it makes them so happy and I want that. I want to be with someone. To have someone and for them to have me.

But maybe that’s just Allo-normativity. Maybe I just think that’s what I want.

Doesn’t stop the loneliness from hurting so much.

Doesn’t stop the pain of being my favourite people’s second person.

There was more to unpack here than I thought.

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A Manga I love is ending.

BNHA is finishing soon, that’s for sure the newest chapter just confirmed that we have way less than a year to go, maybe months if we’re lucky.

I don’t know how to feel. BNHA has been a massive part of my life for a long time it’s been with me all through Uni and lockdown. But it’s always been this private affair - I’ve always just quietly watched/read it and never really interacted with the fan community since the early days.

Now I have so many emotions about it and all the fan spaces I remember are gone, fossilised or deleted and it sucks. I don’t know how to interact with other fans. I have so many emotions and nowhere for them to go.

I’m so sad that this thing I’ve held close for so long is ending and also so fucking happy that it made it to the end.

Maybe I should cosplay… never done that before.

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Cutting out Bad Friendships

There’s one thing I never hear people talking about when they talk about cutting out bad friendships and leaving toxic friend groups. That is the fact that you are still losing friends.

I recently got cut off/let myself get cut off from a fire group that was 90% of my social life and as much I have felt so much better since I stopped worrying about what problem they would have with me and what issue I was gonna accidentally cause next.

But I can’t hide the fact that I have also lost friends I went from a dozen friends to 3 and that sucks.

When most of your friends come from a friend group that isn’t good for you, it doesn’t stop it hurting. Nor does it stop you from feeling lonely.

So to anyone feeling the same thing. It gets better, I’m sure it does. Don’t let that loneliness let them draw you back. I had that happen and it just made the friendship worse.