funlovingfuzzball

[funlovingfuzzball]

wishing everyone who has newly or recently discovered that they are a system the best they can possibly have!

and please remember that it's perfectly okay to not have it all figured out. it's perfectly fine to take your time, to explore yourself. you don't need to know the explanation for everything, and it's really okay if you don't have a finished pluralkit or simply plural or whatever else. i promise! it'll all be okay.

[funlovingfuzzball]

I know cooking and baking is just straight up inaccessible to many for all sorts of reasons. At the same time, I think it's important to give the occasional reminder of just how many shortcuts exist. Because there are so many! And if people try and make you feel bad about a shortcut you'd like to take - like buying frozen or pre-sliced vegetables, for instance - you can ask yourself the questions below:

Would this person still be mad at me if I ordered take out? Is there really any way for them to not disapprove, other than by me expending effort that might be mindless for them, but immensely draining for me?

How much would this person consider a "reasonable" price for a knife or pan to be? Is it an amount that would make me laugh in disbelief?

Use the curry cubes or the pre-made, jarred masala. If you are a regular maker of boxed Mac and Cheese, maybe throw in some spinach or Supplemental Cheeses (I like a Lil' bit of goat). Consider getting a crock pot! They start at around thirty bucks, but can often be found on sale, and they make batch cooking food way easier.

Like to bake, but mainly stick to box mixes? Try changing the water used for milk, or even coffee or buttermilk! If it's a Gluten-Free mix, substitute the oil for melted butter (preferably unsalted but honestly I've done salted and it's fine), and make sure to let the batter sit for a minute or two after you add your water so you rehydrate the grains.

Making food can be super gratifying if you're able to fit it into your current skill set! And if someone judges you for a meal you've made for them, there's a good chance they're being kind of an asshole. Also if you can find this specific fried rice powder anywhere it is a game changer. You can literally just add some into your rice while it cooks and it's delicious.

[funlovingfuzzball]

As a system involving two large predators (dragon, leopard), one smaller predator (snowy owl), and two guinea pigs, this resonates, lol

several of our moots are bunny posting and want to let all our bunny moots know that i, as a poisonous spider wolf and jasper, as a tiger / cheetah, will protect you all from any mean predator animals. we will keep you safe, we will have a collection of bunny friends /silly - peridot

[funlovingfuzzball]

not sure if this will make sense to anyone besides me but: the antidote to negativity is not positivity, its warmth

[funlovingfuzzball]

they should invent a brain that doesn’t tell you mean things at night time

[funlovingfuzzball]

love saying "question mark?" out loud when I'm talking about something i'm unsure of

[funlovingfuzzball]

Definitely read some of them, then realized my library didn’t have most of them and wasn’t willing to try and find a way to buy that many books. Have watched a number of youtube videos about the lore as well, though we’re bad at keeping track of which Visser is which. Very nice books, and always happy to listen to you yap (/silly) (but genuinely even if we didn’t know the book series at all we’d still care)

- Miriam

How many of you have read the Animorphs book series? It's this series from the 90s! Peridot and I have kintypes (specifically Visser Three / Visser One) that we've been thinking about recently and want to talk about them, but we wanted to see how many of our audience will even know what we're talking about /silly - Jasper

[funlovingfuzzball]

[funlovingfuzzball]

[funlovingfuzzball]

My dear’s agenda is usually two things: protect me and eat hot pot. Maybe protect those closest to me if I’m already safe. But also maximum possible hot pot. And sometimes salami when she’s really desperate.

- Miriam

(God, she loves hotpot. Mental dragon zoomies in the H-Mart 😁)

"The dragon community has no members which could rightly be called 'leaders.' There is nothing one must believe in order to call themselves a dragon ... Dragons are a very diverse group, and if one stays for long enough they are almost certain to be exposed to a wide range of beliefs, but there is no agenda we have to push upon others."

- an excerpt from an article written by Baxil and last updated in 1998, “The Draconity FAQ.”

[funlovingfuzzball]

I’ve never had a reheading go this horribly before. I’d say I’m pretty good at beheading- I may have broken a neck once or twice, but never any parts I actually liked or intended on keeping, and usually a reheading is the easiest thing, right? Just a little squish and a pop and done, a complete person. But this time it just- it just won’t go back on the body?? Which is incredibly frustrating but also, like, why??

And the funniest thing is, I’m not even swapping a head!! This is a curvy dancer head going onto a curvy dancer body!! They match!! This should have been so simple!! But no, this head’s just flopping around like a limp flaccid idiot and my hands are all red and sore now but the head just isn’t attaching all the way!!

Today I did six beheadings and two other reheadings, and I wanted to get this one attached so I could take a picture, but somehow it just isn’t working!! The head is just getting squished around but isn’t stretching over the neck right!! And I’m way too lazy to go and boil the head just to make the slip easier!! And I don’t wanna keep forcing it cuz I might break something but this is!! So frustrating!!

Like, what could I possibly be doing wrong!! Fuck!!

[funlovingfuzzball]

Post-Transition Reintroductions

This would be my first time home since my transition.

My parents knew about it, of course. It was sort of impossible to hide from them. Every time I called them, they’d notice my voice changing ever so slightly more. One day, Mom asked for a video call instead of a regular one. That was when I broke the news to them. What I was doing was just so very hard to hide at that point. I’d changed too much.

My parents tried to accept me as I changed. Bless their hearts, they really did. But they just didn’t understand why I needed to do it, why I was compelled to seek the doctors who could help me through the procedure. Especially since I’d done so without telling them first.

When they focused in on that point, I asked them if they would have tried to talk me out of it. They denied it up and down, but the lie was pretty plain to see. Ultimately, my changes drove a schism through our relationship, one that never really closed again.

My sister, however, knew from the moment I showed her that this was something I didn’t just want to do; it was something I needed to do. When faced with the choice to take this leap and blossom into my best self, or languish in a body that was slowly killing me, she knew I had made the right choice. More than that, she recognized me. Even when I had changed so much that my parents didn’t know me anymore, my sister still ran up to greet me every time I visited her.

This would be my first time home, at my parents' house, in my hometown, since my transition.

It was a sort of… welcome-home party; I guess. My sister and I planned it together, so that we could reintroduce me to the family and my friends. Of course, she and her husband knew about me, even though they hadn’t told their kids yet. My niece and nephew were little, and wouldn’t understand who I was as I transitioned. I hadn’t had a chance to see them since my transition finished, but my sister promised that we’d do it soon.

Sis handled all the invites and insisted we hold it at Mom and Dad’s house. I wanted to do it somewhere a bit more open. The park, I mused, would have been a perfect place to do it. Plenty of space to mingle, but more importantly, I could run away if and when things went wrong. My sister insisted we do it in my parents' backyard.

It was a place of familiarity; she explained. It was a place where everyone already knew me, and hopefully, seeing me as I am now in this familiar place would help them connect who I was and who I am in their brains.

At least, that was the hope. There was no guarantee that the plan would work.

So that was where I was headed. My home town. For the first time since my transition. I kept dwelling on that fact as I traveled, the scenery passing in a blur. My town had changed so much in the two years since I left, in the two years since my transition started. It looked the same, but it also looked so much different. Uncomfortably different. Trees were bigger than I remembered them, casting streets in deeper shadows than I was used to. There were new cars on old driveways. There were unfamiliar faces in familiar windows, watching me nervously. And yet, through it all, I still recognized this place as home. Even though I hadn’t lived here in years, this was where I grew up; this is where I spent twenty-five years of my life.

My tablet buzzed, and I fished it out of my bag. My sister was sending me rapid-fire texts, asking about my ETA. Five minutes out, I told her. It was a generous estimate, even as I strolled down the street.

Message me when you’re around the corner. We’ll introduce you, my sister texted back.

Thanks.

I dallied a little bit longer in the cul-de-sac, just admiring the place I knew so well yet no longer knew at all. This street had taken such good care of me. There was the corner where my friends and I played street hockey, and where I inevitably broke my leg playing street hockey. There was the hill where Dad taught me how to ride a bike and, inevitably, broke my collarbone when I crashed into a parked car going way too fast.

Okay, maybe this street hadn’t taken such good care of me, but despite the pain, these were still happy memories. Memories of love and friendship, of being surrounded by people who knew me.

Knew me as I was back then.

This was my first time home since my transition.

I was standing outside the fence, hidden from view by the nine-foot-high wooden walls. My sister was there with me. We hugged, as siblings sometimes do, and she complimented me on how well I cleaned up. I hadn’t done anything special, but I still preened at her compliment. I couldn’t help it; I’d become a lot more vain since transitioning, something that the doctors had warned me might happen. I was aligning my body with how I always envisioned it was supposed to look; it was only natural to take pride in my new appearance and find joy in its beauty.

My sister stepped back through the gate and got everyone’s attention. She thanked them all for being here to welcome me home, and asked them not to be alarmed when they saw me. That despite the changes, I was still the same person they all knew and loved. I was even more that person, actually, because I was finally happy to be me.

At my sister’s flourish, I stepped through the gate, and presented myself to the crowd. There were gasps and murmurs. My mother leaned into my father’s embrace, shocked at my changes even though none of this was news to her.

My grandfather arched an eyebrow at me, took off his glasses to clean the lenses, then put them back on. “Are they hiding behind the dragon?” he asked. “No, I am the dragon,” I said, with the confidence and resolve I could have only dreamt of having back before my transition. I sat on my haunches and held my head high, spreading my wings to display myself with pride. Sitting like this, I could easily see over the fence. I took pleasure in that fact and felt a reptilian purr rumble from within my chest. “Hi everyone, it’s nice to meet you all again.”

And with that, the barriers broke down. My friends were the first ones to step forward and congratulate me. They hugged me and told me they always knew, deep down, that this was what I was always meant to be. They took to referring to me within the context of being a dragon almost immediately. They didn’t need reminding or even gentle nudges from my sister.

“That explains the raw steaks,” one of them laughed.

“Yeah, I like my meat bloody now,” I joked. I wanted to pat them on the back, but I was a lot stronger now than I was back when we hung out regularly. I didn’t want to send them flying.

After my friends, my cousins stepped forward to talk with me.

“So do you go by a different name now? Something more dragony?” they asked.

“I thought about it, but I don’t really feel the need to go that far,” I explained. “I don’t hate my name, and the process to get it legally changed is such a hassle.”

They seemed relieved at that.

To everyone’s surprise, my grandfather was next. At nearly a hundred years old, the family patriarch was venerated, loved, and respected by everyone. I fully expected him to hate what I’d become, but to my shock, as I bent down to hear his wheezing whispers, he patted me on the nose.

“There you are, kiddo,” he said, a grin tugging at his lips. “I almost didn’t recognize you, but you've got the same eyes. Always sharp, they were.”

“Well, I’ve got slit pupils now.”

“Sharper now than they used to be,” he chuckled. He patted me twice more. “You look good. Shiny. Like a pile of coins.”

I purred at his praise. “Thanks! I just shed my old scales, so my new ones are really vibrant. We actually timed this party super well, because if I were still in shed, I probably wouldn’t have been able to make it.”

The look my grandfather gave me said that he didn’t understand a word I had just said, but he was trying very hard to be respectful about it. I appreciated that, and told him as much.

The last people to speak with me were my parents. They approached me almost nervously, and I lowered my head to be closer to their eye level.

“I think we owe you an apology,” my dad said.

My mother nodded. “We… we were jut worried about losing you. But watching you now, the way you move, the way you talk. You never used to be like that.”

“Like what?” I asked, tilting my head.

“Happy,” she breathed, closing her eyes. “Thinking back, you were always hunched over, slinking around like you were just trying to get from point A to point B. But now? You’re holding yourself tall and proud. There’s something so joyous in your every movement, but I can’t put my finger on what it is.”

I grabbed my tail and showed it off to them. “It’s this thing. It’s pretty hard for me to hide my feelings with this big ole rudder swaying around excitedly.”

My dad snorted a laugh as I relinquished my tail and let it right itself again. He hugged me, wrapping his arms around my neck. My mother joined in too, and I squeezed them both with my wings.

And with introductions out of the way, the party got into full swing. Everyone wanted to know what it was like to be a dragon.

“It’s right,” I said. “I feel more like myself than I ever had before.”

They asked me to do tricks for them. My draconic pride stung a little at the idea of parading myself around like a pony, but it soared at the chance to show off. I demonstrated my fire breath by igniting wood in the fire pit. I did some flying maneuvers I’d been practicing, including corkscrews and loops.

Through it all, I felt good. I felt right and, more importantly, I felt like my friends and family were finally starting to understand. The human they knew me as, that was never really me. Now that they’ve seen me as a dragon, they understood that this was always what I was meant to be. That I’d been trapped in my body and now, finally, I was free to be my truest self.

“So do you live in a cave now? You’re a bit too big to fit in a conventional apartment,” my friend asked.

“As stereotypical as it is, yeah,” I laughed. “The Therio Foundation, the organization that helped set up my transition, has some land set aside so folks like me can live in something approaching our natural habitat. I have a cave to call my own, but the inside is really more like an apartment. It’s got all the amenities you’d expect: running water, electricity, even internet.”

“But it’s still a cave?”

“Well, yeah. But it’s a lot nicer than it sounds! You should come by for a visit. One of my neighbors is an ogre, and as weird as that sounds, he makes the best chili!”

“What do you do for work now? I’m guessing tech doesn’t really suit you anymore, does it?”

“Aha, no. I got fired from my last job once my transition took me out of commission for two weeks. My wings were growing in, and it was probably the most painful experience of my life,” I said, making the growling noise that was a dragon laugh. “The Therio Foundation helped me find a new job, though.”

“Let me guess: security?” my friend asked, incredulous. They all burst into laughter as my cheeks burned with a blush.

“Is it really that much of a stereotype?” I asked.

“Dragons sitting on gold? Yeah, absolutely.”

“I don’t sit on gold! I just… sit in front of the vault. And sniff people for guns,” I muttered. “It’s really easy to smell gunpowder through clothes.” I blinked slowly as the realization dawned on me. “Oh shit, I’m a dragon stereotype.”

That got more cackles from my friends. “It sounds like it suits you just fine, though.”

“Yeah. I mostly get to sleep through the entire shift, which is shockingly both okay and entirely necessary, since I tend to stay up late playing video games.”

“And the bank is okay with that?”

“Oh absolutely. Honestly, just having me in the building has probably stopped most attempted robberies alone. I have had to get involved once or twice, but nobody really needs to wake me up. I can hear and smell enough even when asleep, and a little bit of smoke out the nostrils is enough to scare off most would-be-criminals.” I gave them a little demonstration, letting twin columns of smoke waft up from my nose. “Honestly, the best part about the job is that, aside from paying rent and utilities, I don’t really spend much money. I don’t need to buy clothes anymore, and I usually hunt for all my meals. So I’m putting a lot of money into my savings!”

“You’re building a hoard!” one of my friends blurted.

“Oh my god, stop that,” I giggled, blushing. “But yeah. I’ve started working on getting a proper hoard going. Turns out there is actually a biological reason dragons hoarded treasure. I've gotta eat metals now and again to keep my scales healthy, and the different metals I eat have different effects. So to get them all shiny like this, I had to eat silver, which is frustratingly expensive,” I explained. “I don’t have to eat metal very often, only before I’m about to shed. That’s usually the first warning sign that a shed is coming, actually.”

“Sweet. Think we could get some of your shed scales?”

“Nah, sorry. I traded them with the ogre next door for his incredible chili.”

That got more laughter out of my friends, and I felt a warm feeling inside that had nothing to do with the fire in my belly. It felt good to have people I cared about not only accept me for what I was, but take an active interest in my life.

As the party wound down for the evening, people took to their cars to drive away. One of my friends expressed interest in a possible transition of their own, and I conveniently had the card for my Therio Foundation doctor in my neck satchel. When I asked about what they thought they wanted to be, they shrugged and said that they didn’t know, just that seeing me as a dragon made them recognize that they probably weren’t human.

“The Therio Foundation will at the very least help you explore that side of yourself,” I told them, smiling warmly. “Hit me up if you come by Theta Acres. If I’m not at work, I’ll be in my cave. I can help introduce you to some people.”

“Thanks,” they said, genuinely moved by my offer to help.

I said goodbye to my relatives and friends, as one by one they left. Finally, it was just me, my parents, my sister, and my grandfather. The old geezer was fast asleep in his lawn chair, so we decided it best not to wake him up. I whispered him goodbye, then embraced my parents. My sister gave me a particularly strong hug, praising me for being so brave and sharing myself with everyone.

“So when do we show your kids?” I asked her.

“I was thinking we could have you make a grand entrance at their birthday party in a couple of weeks. One of my son’s friends has been bragging about their grandfather being a vampire, so I figure we should one-up him by showing off the dragon in the family.” My sister grinned devilishly, and I couldn’t deny the idea had some appeal.

As I took a few steps out into the street, I glanced over my shoulder to admire the house I grew up in. It looked a lot smaller than I remembered, but that was to be expected. I was nearly twice as big as I was ‌before my transition. I couldn’t fit inside anymore, but that didn’t really matter. I had outgrown this home, both as a person and, quite literally, as a dragon. I smiled at the notion, spreading my wings and allowing my impressive wingspan to dominate the road. I flapped them twice, then leapt into the air.

This was my first time home since my transition. As the road fell away beneath me, and the sky reached out to embrace me, my heart felt alight with warmth and light. I would be back soon, I reckoned, because this place was full of people who loved me and memories I treasured.

[funlovingfuzzball]

This was incredibly helpful, thank you! I can’t exactly explain what part of it really clicked, because the brain is being weird about that, but something in there really clicked, and helped us massively, so thank you very much!

Okie dokie! So - how do you navigate having both in-sys and out of sys relationships? Obviously Mush is lovely, but how do you work through that?

(Trying out an in-sys relationship with my lovely partner Raie for the first time, and curious about how others go about having both)

- Miriam (again)

(also gonna tag @circulars-singlet in case they want to add to this when they remember that this tumblr exists in a few months)

Oooooh... This IS an interesting one. I think I get hung up on the word "navigate." Because the thing is, we navigate insys and out of sys relationships the same way, because they're all relationships. Which means, number one rule, work on communication.

Which ofc is what we struggle with the most.

Take today: Ve was in an OCD spiral, which happened a lot while we were away. She didn't want to tell Mush, who's been struggling a lot with depression recently, because it was depressing thoughts. We tried to tell them this, but they kept accidentally pressing, because it wasn't fair for Ve to have to deal with those thoughts. Ve ended up exploding (metaphorically) and shouting about all her distressing thoughts, and then asked Mush to help them switch out.

Now, on the surface? Oof. Ouch. The boundaries. What a bad relationship, I yelled at my partner and they pushed my buttons.

But... Mush held Ve while she cried. Apologized for pushing, explained why they had, and let her know that they appreciated being able to hold this burden with us. And then, helped Ve switch in, while telling her, "I'm so glad you spent time with me this week, and I"m so glad you can take care of yourself with a break. I'm so excited to see you again. Just know I"m proud of you for taking care of yourself. I love you." And shit like that.

I think... That's what really matters. In the moment, Mush could communicate with her and help her calm down, switch, and take care. WITHOUT ANY SHAME. And I think that's what a lot of systems need -- less shame.

If you want like... logistics?

IN-SYS:

Lots of cute imagined dates.

Buying shit for your lover, always a treat when they front and see it.

Communicaaaaate. Talk with each other. Figure out what you love about them and why.

OUT OF SYS:

Lots of cute real dates.

Buy shit for your lover, always a treat when they see it.

Communicaaaaate. Talk with each other. Figure out what you love about them and why.

And like... I guess, navigating polyamory has never been an issue for us, because Mush loves all my parts equally; our love just looks different sometimes. For instance, Sie and Mush don't kiss, don't have 18+ Fun Times(tm), none of that. But they do go on dates to game stores and get ice cream and dinner together. Curtis does massages with them and snuggles, whereas I'm really fond of parallel play instead. And TBH this is very much singlet coded for us. We are one person, in our system, even as we are multiple people. Loving another part is like loving myself in a new way.

And they've never minded the innerworld relationships, because for us, that's just... Again, loving ourselves. My partner finds the love I have for my in-sys partner, Debra, to be beautiful. Debbie provides things Mush can't, like... Idk comfort when I'm not fronting's a big one. I have her with me when I'm not with Mush.

And when Debbie gets jealous about how much time I spend with Mush? Cofronting babey. She's with me AND Mush. (Which, btw, for the more 18+ alters, definitely gets. Spicy. I think Numb and Curtis have discussed it some over on @circular-jerkular, which is our 18+ blog. Minors DNI or you will be blocked on sight. I'm watching you.)

Ough, rambling! I hope any of this made sense. Really, it comes down to communicating your needs and desires with all parties. <3 If you've got anything specific you'd like help with, super happy to give advice.

[funlovingfuzzball]

Everyone on tumblr has Conditions. maladies. I log onto tumblr and my mutuals are unwellposting. Conditions I didn't even know existed and sound like dark curses but I will see a post from friend like "died about 60% today, fine now. Made egg on toast #yummytoast". There are so many people in this world with life experiences

[funlovingfuzzball]

rent lowering gunshots i love endogenic systems they are my friends and colleagues my stances are not up for debate i have had this opinion for 6 years and i will not be changing my mind pewpewpew

[funlovingfuzzball]

shoutout to all the alterhumans and systemmates whose 'types and shapes are common phobias. to those who feel as though they cannot show images of their true self for fear of hurting others.

shoutout to the polykin who feel the need to identify themselves more as one 'type, because another is a common phobia. to those who have to bite their tongues, sigh, and favor the more palatable 'type as a mask.

i see you. you're not alone.