#I didn't start off my new year in the most... Trans positive way

[grokebaby]

Hey!!!

[mittysins]

Newt at Home

Includes: Trans mpreg, graphic labor and orgasmic birth

I'm so glad I was able to get this finished! First Mayternity, in the bag. Of course I needed to use Newt for this. I'm so proud that I've actually managed to complete a seasonal art piece. I hope you guys enjoy it!!

[FIND THE UNCENSORED ART ON TWITTER]

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Okay, I'm not going to lie and say I'm not kind of freaked out. I'm standing in the kitchen wearing a loose shirt and a pair of sweatpants, quickly scribbling down the time in my notebook.

10:56 PM. I've been in labor for 10 hours, at least. I couldn't really tell at first, thinking the twinge in my lower abdomen was just Braxton Hicks. I ate my lunch and had a nap without a second thought.

Eventually I realized the pain wasn't going away, in fact it was introducing a new pressure in my hips that I was frankly not a fan of. Okay. So that’s how it is.

I started by emailing my professor. Just a vague mention of a family emergency, and that I was going to need an extension on an upcoming essay.

Continuing on, I sent a quick “baby’s on her way!” to the group chat where my friends were dicking around as they usually did. I laughed at their excited responses as I tapped my pen on the paper. Newest contraction started 43 seconds ago. I was doing just fine.

Then to get down to business. I blessed my past self for having half a mind to have everything ready a month beforehand. Everything I needed was in the bottom drawer of the baby’s dresser. A few old towels, a package of training pads, and settled neatly on top was a pair of sterile clamps and scissors within blue plastic packaging. I felt my heart skip a beat when I opened the drawer to set everything up. This was actually happening.

It was a waiting game from then on. Which is how I ended up here. My contractions are now 4 minutes apart and it's really starting to set in. My chest burns in a weird way, most likely a result of binding for years. I accepted the lung damage a long time ago, and it seems to be making itself well known as my breathing grows increasingly ragged. I can't quite keep my legs together anymore with that ever-present weight on my pelvis. It feels like something is about to give at any second. I assume it’s my water, honestly I figured it would have broken by now. I let out a long sigh as the contraction ends and set down the pen. I sway my hips as I flip through the notebook on the counter in front of me. Written on the first page is the date my pregnancy test was positive as well as a few phone numbers. I can still see a few splotches of faded numbers where my tears had mixed with the ink of my favorite pen. The next few pages were symptoms, weight, my medications including my testosterone gel. Everything medical. I was so scared all those months ago, it almost makes me anxious to look back on those pages. I prefer to look at the middle of the notebook, where I noted when I had gone a week without morning sickness, my first weird craving, the bizarre and vivid dreams I was having. My favorite was the page dedicated to name suggestions. All my friends took turns scribbling down names they liked, laughing and teasing each other as we crossed some out and circled others. It isn't too long before I flip to my current page and glance at my phone.

11:00 on the dot.

I bite my lip and continue my swaying with a firm grip on the counter. It hurts now. That's not to say it didn't hurt before, but now it's getting intense. Each clawing contraction feels like a band being tightened around my entire lower abdomen. It's enough to keep me tensed up with my head bowed for its entirety, until finally, finally, there's that give.

I let out a soft groan as my water breaks. It's not a huge gush like in the movies, more of like a gentle pop followed by a steady stream of fluid that lasts a few seconds. I take a moment to assess my situation. Pants need to come off, obviously, but after that? I couldn't quite decide. I weigh my options as I wattle back to my room and remove my sweatpants, tossing them into a laundry pile I'd designated to this whole ordeal. I could lay in bed with a pillow between my knees and just… wait. I quickly toss that option when I realize how little I've sat still since I even realized I was in labor. A shower sounds nice, the wetness between my legs is less than pleasant and the water on my back would be helpful. I could set up a spot on the couch, just throw down some waterproof pads and a towel or two and labor there, maybe get some last minute work done.

I tense up. Oh, now this is different. I subconsciously bend my knees a little as the contraction reaches its peak. The release of pressure when my water broke was heavenly, but the respite didn't last long. Instead the pressure returned, now bringing with it an intense fullness resting just at the base of my pelvis. I grimace as I feel more fluid trickle between my thighs. Shower it is.

I watch the clock switch to 11:04 as the contraction lets up.

It's a short walk across the hall to get to my bathroom. I realize how sensitive my nipples are when I peel off my shirt. I flush at the sound I make when the fabric drags, sending a jolt down my spine. I'm getting worked up and my heart rate quickens for a moment. I turn the faucet tab and slowly drag myself into the tub, letting the warm water run down my back and legs. For a few moments it feels like routine again. Just me and my baby. No college, no work, no bills, no angry parents. Just me, lowering myself to my knees in the shower, my baby burrowing dangerously low in my pelvis with the next contraction.

It's hard to keep track of time from then on. I'm sort of just zoning out a lot, concentrating closely with each new wave of pain and letting my mind wander in the steeply decreasing downtime. Eventually I’m talking aloud to her, telling her how loved she already is, that she can come on out when she’s ready, that I'm so excited to finally meet her. That I'm ready. My mindless blabbering stops when I feel a very sudden shift.

Before I realize it I'm openly groaning into the air with the gripping contraction. It all just got very real, and I can feel myself becoming frantic. The increase in pressure was maddening, and no amount of shifting and rolling my hips would relieve it. My last contraction was at most a minute ago. I don't have long at all. I decide to push, just the tiniest bit, at the end of the contraction. It's just a little shove, I don't even hold my breath. Just enough to try it out and get a feel for the sensation. If she’s coming, she's coming. If she’s not, what happens? I wait a little longer and try again?

Another timid nudge.

Yeah, she’s definitely coming.

As soon as the contraction lets up I turn off the shower and heave myself out to towel off. I almost want to jump out of my skin I'm so excited. A quick collection of my shirt, phone and towel and I’m waddling back into my room, haphazardly tossing them on my bed. I decide to wait until after the next contraction to climb up onto my bed and really get this show on the road. When I get a look at myself in the full length mirror near my dresser I have a chance to catch my breath. My taught belly has noticeably dropped, basically screaming to the world what was about to happen. I'm flushed and sweaty and my wet hair is still sticking to my forehead. I’m all out of sorts, but I couldn't care one bit what I look like right now. Baby couldn't care less either. That telltale tightening grips me again, and when it begs for me to push along with it, I deepen my stance into a half-squat and bare down.

It almost feels… good? It's a very odd sensation but it feels like such a release to finally get to work with the pressure instead of against it. Two firm pushes in front of the mirror and I decided my bed was there if I needed it. Instead, I swipe a training pad from the package and lay it down on the floor in front of the mirror before stepping onto it. And I wait. At this point I'm so eager to push it’s hard to focus on anything else. I slowly lower myself down to be half kneeling, one foot propped up to let my hips open. I suck in a deep breath, and just like that I'm stuck in a contraction and pushing so hard I see my face go red. Exhale, inhale, push like hell. So it goes.

It only takes a few good pushes to feel something hard and very noticeably large lodged in my birth canal. Between pushes one of my hands dips down and curiously prods at my lips. I don't know what I was expecting to feel, she’s definitely not there yet, but nevertheless I’m a lot more sensitive than usual. I feel perpetually slick now considering I've been leaking little by little for the last hour and a half. But that's not just it. The past twelve hours have been the most in-tune I've ever felt with my body, like we’re finally working towards the same goal of giving birth to my daughter safely and calmly. The excitement and the love mixed with the fullness of her head moving downward almost became ecstasy. One accidental brush to my sensitive clit and I'm shivering. The sudden rush of pleasure triggers a contraction and I weakly push through it. Once the contraction ends my fingers slip into my birth canal. I was disappointed for a moment when I didn't feel anything.

Until I did. About two and a half knuckles deep, there was the hard, slimy ball I had been working down for the past twelve hours.

Oh my fucking god, that’s my baby.

I was awestruck. Just allowing the pads of my middle and ring fingers to press against her head was enough to have me grinning like an idiot.

Returning my hand to its place on my knee, I bore down again with the upcoming contraction. This time a low groan escapes my throat and I find myself leaning forward just the slightest bit. Looking in the mirror, I become fixated on the bulge forming behind my lips. I'm leaking fluid considerably now, and I'm grunting out little pushes when I swear I see a dark sliver start to part my folds. I only saw it for a split second. My hand dips between my legs once more and I press a finger into my lips. Sure enough, just out of sight rests my baby’s head. The quick progress I made surprises me, and I let out a breathy laugh as I trace my fingers back up to my dick. The warm tingling in my belly when I rub a few experimental circles into the swollen nub quickly melts my grunts into soft moans. My breath quickens. I was expecting this to be horribly painful, yet here I am moaning with the next contraction. All I can focus on in the mirror is the sight of my lips parting for my baby’s head. I moan through the stretch of my perineum, letting my pleasure bring me higher as I watch my lips pull out into a teardrop shape.

My rubbing has found a steady pace, and my hips buck a bit. I'm close, I can tell, and I feel the head continue to push my lips open. That burn is starting to set in. Another firm push.

I almost yelp when the head stretches me to a full crown, but I find myself so awestruck by the sight that I fail to make any noise at all. My rubbing continues as there the head stays. The burn is searing. Until finally, the release of my orgasm carries me blissfully as the head surges forward with a gush.

I kneel there for a moment, legs shaking and eyes fluttering, as I process what just happened. The aftershocks distract me through the next contraction, giving me time to gather myself. I can see it in the mirror, my baby’s head hanging out of me as it's supported in my hands. A sob rips from my throat as my fingers wander, feeling her tiny ears and nose.

“Oooh-kaaaaay.” I breathe, shaking off the numb tingly feeling that accompanied my orgasm. My fingers fumble around the baby’s neck, quickly untangling the umbilical cord and pulling over her head.

After lifting myself up to standing, the short few steps that should have been my journey to my bed became a quest. I knew I had no chance of closing my legs at this point, so it's a slow shuffle making my way over with shaky legs and a hand between them to support my baby. Climbing up onto the mattress isn't much easier, but I eventually manage to sit up against my pillows, legs butterflied out. From there I wait.

“Come on, kiddo.” I encourage. “I’m ready, you can come out now.” I wiggle my hips and give a tiny push, trying to get her to turn.

Once she does, I'm all in. My hands find purchase behind my knees and I pull back, red in the face as I push as hard as I can for the shoulders. The way I'm sitting, I don’t even need the mirror to see. I watch as my swollen lips spread around the first shoulder, then the other with a small spurt of fluid, and then-

I barely have time to catch her as with the last push, the rest of the baby spills out with a gush.

“Oh my god-” I sputter out as I lift the infant to my chest. As soon as she touches my skin, she begins wailing. It's the most beautiful sound I've ever heard. I check her over with wide, misty eyes.

“You are just absolutely perfect, aren't you?”

I giggle at her squirming attempt to get comfortable. So that’s what’s been keeping me up at night.

The ache sets in quickly, and I make quick (quick enough) work of delivering the afterbirth, cutting the cord and making sure we were both cleaned up and warm. Once I'm in a pair of sweatpants and back with her on my bed, I lay her back down on my bare chest, opting for a light blanket to wear cape-style and cover us both. I'm absolutely awestruck.

“Alright, we’ve given your aunts and uncles enough emotional prep time, don't you think?” I say decidedly to the already-sleeping infant as I unlock my phone, quickly finding the “video call” button in the group chat.

I'm grinning like an idiot as three of my friends join the call at lightspeed, the other two following quickly behind.

“Guys, someone wants to meet you!”

[pupintransit]

We're at the end of Month 5™️ of the wait. In the same way that August was pretty dull all things considered, September was very much not.

While I still don't have a firm surgery date, on the morning I'm writing this draft I scheduled my pre-surgery consultation with Dr. Brassard. It's set for November 6! Which is yet more waiting but having a date to look forward to is going to make the lead up to it much easier to manage. I'll be taking lots of notes, and i'd be more than happy to share them with everyone after it's all over! I want my experience in getting gender affirming surgery something that i can record for people to reference, so that it can be of use to someone on a similar journey to mine.

Another milestone this month was the fundraiser I started. As you might well be sick of me talking about by now, I launched a GoFundMe at the beginning of this month. Currently it's sitting at $435, which is honestly not too shabby! This could easily be where it fizzles out, but even if I don't get any closer to the $5,000 goal i'm still incredibly grateful for what everyone has given. Most of the donations came from people I know personally, who chose to send what they could to help me with such an important. I'll never be able to fully express what that means to me.

Plus, $435 is in an of itself a tremendous help! That'll cover the lion's share of one the four plane tickets i'll need to purchase, so for that metric alone the campaign has been a great success.

Now, something that comes with the territory of sharing around a fundraiser for a very major and famously queer surgery is that your friends and family are inevitably going to find out. For the more part the response has been overwhelming positive. Old college friends and old coworkers of mine - folks i hadn't seen in years - sent me lovely messages of support and affirmation. A few even donated to the campaign! It was honestly hard to take in right at first, and i still don't fully know how to articulate the joy i feel in that.

Now, all of this seems like pretty excellent news so far sooooo why am i using the header image i am? Well this is the part where the stress comes in. Earlier i said that a lot of folks found out i was transgender and pursuing gender affirming surgery via the campaign i linked to. I figured it was best to let my parents and in-laws know ahead of time, since i didn't want them taken off gaurd. My in-laws were terrific about it. My own parents?

Ehmmmm not so much.

Mom had a very difficult time with the news. I'm not going to get into specific details but, while i haven't been written out of the proverbial will, she's very much against me doing this and will be "praying" that something changes my mind or cancels the surgery. I think (i hope) with time she comes around on it and be more supportive of me, but i can't be sure of that. Truthfully i also can't be too upset at her reaction. This is a major change in one of her children, so it's unreasonable to think she wouldn't have a emotional reaction to it.

I'm a little more concerned about my father. He did not take me being gay well at all. I remember specifically he called my husband my "friend" (complete with quotation marks) for the first few months of our relationship, so i can't imagine he'd take me being transgender or getting a vaginoplasty well either. What isn't helping my nerves is that he plays Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh in their living room as though they were day time talk shows. I'm not being hyperbolic when i say that Shapiro, Walsh, and their ilk want to do trans folks like me harm. Talking with him about this is neither something i'm looking forward to nor have the slightest desire to bring up with him.... but since my mother has almost certainly already told him this is almost certainly going to be inevitable.

My parents don't have to understand why i'm doing this and what it means to me. They just have to accept it as a reality of my life, and respect that it's something that will make my life happier. I want them to know that i've put thought and care into this choice, and just how many professionals i've debriefed with to be sure of my choice, and that my relationship with my husband will withstand the change to my body. If they can't accept it, they don't have to be a part of my life.

Of course, it's much easier to say that about my parents than to believe it.

Anyway i have an appointment with my therapist on friday so he and i will have a lot to talk about.

[altairrr]

What happened to your room mates?

I have decided it was a case of bad timing and bad luck, with human error pulling both of those things forwards like a sleigh. I still think everyone is doing what they think the right thing to do is. Eat my ass about it. There was a lot of things that piled on top of all of it. I had started to have PTSD in regards to the men who groomed me, and I was trying to focus my attention to anything else. That, paired with me asking for advice from shared friends regarding troubles with a new room mate (room mate A, we will say) being answered with malice towards this 'friend' of theirs, the disbelief that they were 'doing this again', and professionals explaining that not only did the diagnosis I'd been told not match at all (of which lined up with my own professional and personal experience of it), but that they were reminiscent of an abusive groomer that would try to keep everyone in a bad place made for a really bad mix. Our friends at the time had asked them (A) to not talk to them about any of this as an emotional boundary, to which they ignored and continued to do. I told them not to, and they took that idea and ran with the thought I was trying to separate them from everyone when I was the only one at the time trying to convince everyone else to give them time. They also seemed to not like the fact I was writing literally everything down that happened at this time, since my DID was flaring up badly enough to have complete black outs and I had started to rely heavily on going along with what others told me. So writing things down was, in my mind, the most helpful and best course of action for everyone. I can imagine if you hate/dislike someone, though, them writing things down could seem abusive or controlling or something. Unfortunately the writing things down did catch a lot of bad things, which might be another reason they didn't like it.

Someone we had been very close to, but cut off due to abuse/toxicity, came back into our lives around this time as well. They had gone to therapy, and done a lot of work to get themselves to a better place, so it was a really nice positive experience to see them again. They very vocally expressed that they felt we were being treated like absolute shit and unfairly. Both room mates became mean and distant. Due to the PTSD shit, the things everyone else was saying, and the tanking of my own physical and mental health, we insisted they move out. This was met with a sudden onset of a lot of touching even when being asked to stop, and a lot of wording very specific to triggers. It was ass, but luckily I was able to keep myself frozen instead of going into fight, and we stuck to asking them to move out rather than caving and having them stay.

They then went to a person who I had mentioned I had trouble thinking they could ever do anything wrong, no matter how horrid the behavior. This person was supposed to be the best man at my wedding- they had used me to defend them up and down for everything, and used me like a chess piece to abuse and gaslight their partner. Their partner, who they cheated on with several different people for seven years. The reason we finally broke off as friends, is because they cheated, proudly admitted to it, and then tried to change the story and say that the autistic trans woman in question raped them after I told them I'd be telling their partner about what they did. They got mad that, for the first time I refused to blindly side with them. I Still struggle to think they did wrong, even if on paper I know they did. One of the shared friends I had with room mate A, whom I had tried to get the most information from in regards how to best help and address what room mate A was going through, suddenly flipped what they were saying and started defending room mate A much in the same way I would speak about this Best Man friend. It made me reflect on that, and what the relationship I had had with Best Man ever was. Then I found out that this friend had had a sexual relationship with Room mate A when they were 11 and room mate A was 16. This did not pair well with the fact they had expressed wanting to get away from room mate A and focus more on their life in person, and that they did better mentally when they were away from them. Through out all of this I was still thinking that so long as we could just get A and B to move out into their own space, we could stay friends and I could help them get help, and etc. I just wanted them Out Of My Space in order to do that. They'd hear none of it, and insisted I was trying to kill them by making them move out.

On the Funeral of my last living relative that had ever been any amount of good, room mate A moved out, sent strange texts that sounded more like Best Man speaking that also for some reason compared me to Jesus- which makes me wonder if we had never been friends and instead I had been put on a strange and impossible pedestal of some kind. Which would make some sense.

We allowed room mate B as much time as possible to move out. They said they had cut off from room mate A, but they were always very bad at lying. We never really minded, they must have had their own reasons for feeling the need to lie. Either way, we wanted to give them time to move out and it wound up being about four or six months instead of a typical 30 day. It felt like torture, though, since they expressed they didnt want to be interacted with, or spoken to much, and they acted as if we didnt exist. They insisted they were looking for places to move out to. A new friend of theirs said they could move in with them, but then decided they couldnt because that person suddenly got pneumonia, which isnt contagious at all and they could have helped take care of them, so I suspect they just made something up to back out of it. I had very little energy at this time, my physical health was pretty bad, the funeral had hit hard and I had just learned something Extremely Fucked Up about my entire family and a good chunk of a bad part of my childhood. On top of that, the shitty uncle that had changed the will right before this family member died, made it so if we wanted to inherit Anything to remember this person by we would have to pay money for it. Room mate B who I had viewed as one of my best friends in my life had gone cold and as if I hadnt existed. So I mostly just had energy to keep working. I tried to help them find places, though they only worked 3 days of the week and had more time to do so. When I did find people, theyd seem disinterested. Later on, Id ask some of these people how the meeting had gone with them, and they all said that room mate B had turned them down. When I asked room mate B, they said the people said the room was already filled. I wanted to believe that maybe the other people were lying, because that sucked less. It also reminded me of all the times Best Man would do spiritual magic things to cause series of events to make things look very bad, or very good, depending on what was in their favor. Id rather think that, even. Room mate B was still buying expensive things during this time as well, though they were supposed to be saving up. We eventually did have to tell them they finally only had 30 days. I left to help a friend drive across the country, since she is a traveling nurse, alone, and their home was in Florida and she had come out to California to work and her husband couldnt go with her since he was working in Alaska. During that time, room mate B got rid of the pet chickens without telling me or giving me a chance to say good bye. (They were originally a shared thing. Then room mate B had expressed wanting to take over for them completely to learn responsibility and to try and have a scheduled thing theyd need to do every day. I had agreed that was a good idea, and to let me know if they needed to change it back. They had talked about it being difficult, but never asked to change it back. I wonder now if they had been indirectly asking and I didnt catch it. ) They eventually left, but left behind most of their stuff. I was really upset at the idea of them being in a bad spot in depression and apathetic, and wanted to hang onto their things so theyd have enough time to get it all. There was a lot of sentimental things there, and furniture and such. We kept it for three months, and tried contacting them several times. Eventually I was made to toss all of it, which I know is technically the good thing, but I still feel like shit.

What may be stupid, is I'd probably be friends with any of them again because I think.. people are doing what makes sense to them. On top of that, I've experienced people doing things like setting others on fire, so break downs, cheating, and etc seem like small beans. So I have safety rules put in place now, from therapy.

[sentientgopro]

Okay, so I know this might sound odd, but I kinda want to keep track of how my feelings have been changing seeing as my life just turned upside down a few days ago. Something feels weird about keeping a note to myself, idk why, For some reason I feel kore comfortable posting it to the internet. Well, I guess that is kinda the point of a blog? Anyway, if youre seeing this but not my last post on Monday, I think I cracked on Sunday Night.

That first post was comprised of how I was feeling Sunday Night- Monday Morning (10/11 Dec) and, well, I'm not going to repeat it. Monday was... weird. I didn't feel great, although thats not significantly out of the ordinary, but I was facing a difficult question I would rather not have to answer, especially when the obvious conclusion was such a difficult one to follow through and act on. It was a question Id rather die than face.

Monday evening was when I decided to start truly planning for the possibility. I may not know If Im right yet, and depending on how hard it may be, I was wondering if it was even worth it. Then I had a look at some trans timelines, and asked people about HRT options, and that was what changed my fuckin life. It was then that I saw how real this was and just how possible this was. The realisation that this was on the cards for me (after a 2 year wait) made me feel really fucking good. Like best Ive felt in a long time. Ive been running on fumes, a list of people to outlive, and "My cats would miss me" but this provided a positive reason to keep going, something to look forward to. For the first time in ages, I wanted to Carry On, not just felt like I had to. And this feeling/ realisation also helped in validating my feelings, that Im not just making it up.

And then came tuesday. The best day Ive had in a long time. I've heard people say "Transitioning may not solve all your problems, but it can make them feel worth solving" but I realised I had that in reverse. My problems are affecting my academic success, so to get out this house and get to Uni, I need to start fixing/ overcoming those problems. My problems feel worth solving so that I can get to transition. I got more done that day and focused easier than I have in a long time.

Later into Tuesday, I considered what my future could look like now. How might it affect other parts about me? I considered my Aroace identity, might it affect that? And I quickly realised I might not be Aro. Why could I see myself happily in a relationship in the future, as a girl, but not as a guy? Hell, I took the idea out of relationships, and realised I couldn't see a happy future at all as a guy. Ive known this for a while, and kinda brushed it off as "Modern society sucks ass" and "Who knows what the future holds" and shit like that, but if that was the case, I wouldnt see a happy future as a girl, which I do. This was another big help in feeling that Im not mistaken about my feelings, and also helps to explain why Ive always felt a little conflicted on my Aromanticism, because it wasn't. As for now, until I can transition, the label still fits. I still think Ill be Ace either way, but I cant know that until the time comes. It doesnt really matter, those labels can be pretty fluid, I shouldnt stress over it. The key takeaway here was that it seemed that Dysphoria was stopping me from wanting a relationship. Perhaps I was wrong about not feeling dysphoria, I think i might just have not been noticing it or understanding it.

I'm caught up to today, which hasn't really seen major developments. I acknowledged the fact that Ive been kinda subconsciously viewing myself as more feminine for years now, but I dont feel like that thought significantly leads anywhere beyond reinforcing how I feel. Most of my thought on this went towards music and lyrics, as now I have a whole new dimension of meanings to find in songs, completely changing how I see alot of them. For example, one song, that I havent been able to find any meaning to until now, has these lines across 2 different verses:

"I need time to break all the mirrors,

But my mind is in pieces and not ready to make it clearer,"

and

"Time to make it all clearer,

And if time never ceases I'll be ready to break the mirror"

After a quick google, the idea of "Breaking a mirror" means bad luck for years, before being okay, which can be interpreted to have fairly heavy parallels to a transition. The first version talks about needing to go through this period, but not being able to or not being ready. As much as I say I cant transition bc of living eith my controlling and transphobic parents, I also know I would not be ready to do it if that wasnt the case. But, as in the second version of these two lines, once I can make it all clearer, If I can just hold out until the end of the two years, if time keeps passing, I can break the mirror.

There are other parts of this song I like and find (questionable) trans meanings in, but these parts stand out. Song is "The Gift" by Kevin Sherwood and Elena Siegman for anyone wondering, I'd best describe it as Melodic heavy metal, heavy instrumentals courtesy of Kevin and beautiful vocal melody courtesy of Elena.

So that was pretty much my day today, finding little bits of meaning in various songs I already listen to. Although its only 2:30PM, there may be more to come later. Regardless, now that ive caught up, Im just going to be keeping every post as its own individual thought or topic. If you did actually read through this, thanks I guess? I dont know why I feel more comfortable writing this here than a private note. Ill only tag this with 196 because eh, why tf not.

[shadowsong26fic]

A-Z OC meme N. (I think I might only recognize maybe one or two but please feel free to talk about aaall of 'em xD)

All right, then!

I had an AtLA OC named Nuying; she was the Earth King's aunt but basically just a sketch--she was a satellite to a main OC, her son.

Dr. Naar! I love Dr. Naar. He is a doctor, he is very firm in his ethics, he treats all comers regardless of allegiance (which is why he refuses to Officially join the Rebellion). Also it would be nice if he would. Like. Confirm his species for me??? (He's either a Human or a Besalisk but will not say one way or another. Sigh.)

Nikolai is another Star Wars OC. He's Kallus's nephew, the middle of three boys. He's an art history nerd, and runs away because his father is...well...Awful. And his mother (Kallus's sister) isn't all that much better. He and his brothers figure he might actually be better off with Uncle Alexsandr, even with the treason and the war and so on. He does eventually have some contact with his mother, but never speaks to his father again. He is very close to his brothers, though. He marries a guy who is just as nerdy as he is, in a related but not necessarily the same field.

For my original stuff--

Nolani is the princess Lonura is in love with (from the Ls answer). She's her mother's eldest child and therefore second in line to the throne for most of the main part of the story. She does have a husband, who over time becomes her best friend; they married to seal a treaty. There were some. Communication issues surrounding that, and she and Lonura briefly split up. She is a hopeless romantic; before she started seeing Lonura, she had a string of brief relationships, falling in and out of love pretty quickly. She's very devoted to her family, especially her brother and sister, but tends to be very aware of her position in her mother's shadow.

Nida is a posthumous character, the wife of the...for lack of a better term, Disc One Final Boss. Her family has ties to a resistance movement, she was sent in to hopefully seduce the King to manipulate and eventually murder him as soon as she had an heir and a spare, who would hopefully still be young enough for her to serve as their regent and raise them to effect real change. But she fell in love with her target along the way, and at the last minute, chose not to kill him, partly because of that and partly because she--not incorrectly--thought that the alternative would lead to a bloody civil war, with her children caught in the middle. She does what she can over the next couple of decades, dying about seven or eight years before the main storyline opens. Her oldest son is the actual Big Bad; her youngest son is one of the main heroes.

Neiali comes from the same universe as Larien and Landelye. Neiali is the youngest of the High Priest's three children; older brothers Ahnrel and Sefalin are the main characters (Sefalin being Del's lover). Neiali is offstage for most of what I've written, trying to track down the missing Prince Idan for reasons of Complicated Politics. Neiali is also possibly a trans woman? This has not been confirmed; the rest of Neiali's family is unaware and refers to Neiali using male pronouns/terms. (If Neiali doesn't pick an entirely new name, her name would be something along the lines of Neialyi, because Weird Ways Of Marking Gender In Names, lol. Feminine names in this universe have a glide/y in the last syllable (Landelye; Metanrye, Kahleny).

Neremyi is Larien's aunt, the mother of his rival king in Nandere. Her husband made no secret of his resentment, and after her sons were about ten, they didn't spend much time with her. She built her own network of support and political alliances within her husband's--now her son's--court; she's mostly an observer for now, but she has some long-term plans, including a few candidates for her son's consort.

Nahrenyi is the High Priest's secretary, and a quiet schemer. Not actually against him or for any other faction; she actually thinks Jemairin is the leader the Church needs right now. But she...manages things, makes sure he doesn't get too bogged down in one issue and forget the others. Quiet and subtle, she likens herself to a gardener.

[that particular story is currently known as 'Untitled Intrigues Story'; there is a Lot of Scheming, lol]

That's...pretty much everyone with an N name, I think! At least in terms of major or Significant Minor characters.

Ask me about my OCs!

[min-yunki-agustd]

To The New Home!

part 1 of the series...

writer: This is my first fic with my original character James I hope you enjoy it! There will be more content coming soon!

Main Character: James

Additional Characters: His dad and his mother.

TW: nausea, dysphoria, etc

James and his family are on a road trip to their new home. Things are ok until the ride takes a turn. His parents panic and scramble around but try to make things better. James ends up upset but his parents comfort him in the end.

___________________________________________________

They were off! Off to a new life. Off to a new home. To a new place to call home. New school. He'd be able to make new friends, There be no more bullies. His parents made sure of that. Making sure the new place they called home was open and welcoming to progression. No more of that stuffy closed minded town.

He knew his parents did everything in their power to make sure James was safe and happy. He was thankful for his parents he couldn't think of any other people he loved more.

He sat in the back seat of the family car. The wind from the window blew in his slightly overgrown curly hair. ( he was promised by his mom that she'd give him another hair cut and when he felt ready his dad would take him to get a professional hair cut) He was thankful that his parent was so supportive of him.

The car was packed to the max with their belongings. But, Some things they just couldn't bring. So his parents decided they were gonna buy new things to put in the house. One big item he really wished they could have brought from their old house somehow was the couch. It was a big old but very comfortable beaten up with love couch. He had a lot of memories on that couch. He laughed on that couch, he cried on that couch he puked on that couch by accident two times. The first time not to his parent's knowledge but non the less. His parents told him he was finally allowed to take Testosterone on that couch. Even though it was just a couch he was really gonna miss it.

He was so glad to be moving. it's not something you hear very often from a kid but he really was. The other kids at school had been bullying him to the point of constantly being in pain. physically and mentally. He hid it from his parents not wanting them to be worried because they were finally in a good financial position. And didn't want to give them any more stress they deserved to have time to not feel stressed. It was hard to hide after being given a black eye and a fractured wrist. To his luck, it wasn't too serious and was fixed with surgery and this annoying cast he was stuck wearing. for a few months.

The blue bandage still had his ex-best friend's name on it. JAMAL . He'd crossed it out but he could still see it. The best friend that betrayed him. He told the school bully his secret. He vowed to himself to never again let anyone know he was trans. But he didn't want to think about that or his ex-best friend anymore he just wanted to enjoy the ride.

All of that was behind him and he wanted to focus on the positives. 1. he's getting another haircut soon, 2. He's moving 3. no more bullies

And the thing he was so excited about was the thing that kept his head up high no matter what happened. His doctor finally allowed him to start taking T!. The doctor explained that because of several factors in his life, and the discussions with his therapist. The doctor and his therapist felt like this was an ok move to make. He was so glad he finally could. He'd been wanting to ever since he was 13 but his parents, doctors, and therapist felt that it wasn't the best thing to do at the time, this upset him and he eventually became depressed for years feeling dysphoric in his body. His parents helped him the most. Doing whatever it took to help him look the way he felt inside.

clothes, packers, binders, anything at all to help. Any trick or tip to help dysphoria they learned it all to help him. He couldn't thank them enough.

He was so lost in thought he hadn't even noticed the car pulling into the gas station. " James," his father says in a singing tone. I'm about to go head in pay for gas and grab a few things." "wanna come?" " now would be a good time to hit the bathroom before we go." it will be a loooonggg stretch before we see another gas station."

'sure dad" James unclicked his seatbelt and opened the door. His mother waiting patiently by at the gas tank. He didn't really need to go to the bathroom to pee but he did want to take a break from his pants for a bit they were getting uncomfortable on his new downstairs friend. His doctor told him it was normal, and it was kinda cool it helped with dysphoria but it didn't make it any less annoying to have. It was bothering him quite a bit but he didn't like to talk about it. It felt like a weird thing to talk about...

James and his dad went inside to pay for gas. His dad watched him like a hawk as James went ahead to the bathroom as he paid. He wanted him so to be safe while entering the men's bathroom. His father knew it could be unsafe for him. It would be unsafe for any child. But James was 16 years old he was going up fast. He knew he had to give James space to grow and learn. He also knew James was prone to make good decisions.

Once James and his father were finished with their task they grabbed snacks that they'd all share and headed out. They found James' mother on her phone making last-minute emails. She always found a way to keep busy with work. She immediately dropped her phone the moment they announced that they grabbed her favorite snack. James and His father loved the expression mom made when she ate and saw her favorite snack. Her face would light up when she saw it. It made them happy too.

to be continued...

[scarecoen]

Trigger warning ⚠️ domestic violence.

I've typed this story a million times so I'm just going to summarize as much as I can.

A few days ago I was assaulted by my partner's family members. And as I've mentioned, I've typed this a million times and I'm honestly just exhausted thinking about it, but we could use some help.

My partner has always had a transphobic family. (I don't have anyone but my dad, who's in no position to help anyone.)

Her mom used her disability against her and manipulated her into giving her MOST of her checks. She's abused the system and my girlfriend.

When I met Jackie, she was with a terrible biggot. Jackie had came out, and her mother conspired with an abusive long distance ex, to fly her here, to stage an "intervention" and stop my partner from transitioning.

It worked. For years.

I met Jackie here on tumblr, we became good, SECRET friends because she wasn't allowed to talk to anyone.

I told Jackie openly about my views regarding gender and how I myself, was not cis.

Eventually she told her partner about us playing games together, which she responded to by harassing me.

Jackie ended up spilling the beans to me, about her mom, about the ex, everything. I realized that she had been extremely isolated and controlled her whole life.

So I intervened.

I got the two of them to separate, which wasn't smooth because Jackie was scared. She had been with her abuser for 9 years at this point. She's never known anything else.

The ex moved back to her state, and I started seeing Jackie, although she was stuck at her mom's... who was trying to play innocent at this time.

Eventually, I kinda just came and picked her up, she stayed the night, she didn't want to go back home. And I can't blame her. The house wasn't only disgusting, her family microagressed her all the time and they would tell her to pretty much stay in a dark room all day.

Ofc I didn't bring her back.

During early quarantine, we had a lot of self reflection and she started distancing herself from her mother, coming around to holding her accountable for her horrible actions.

Her mom messaged her things like "Why won't you talk to me? It's like you're trying to punish us!" Ect, just every fucking manipulative thing she could say, without ever apologizing.

Unfortunately the place we were staying fell through when my best friend's ex husband decided he wants a divorce and decided to throw in some transphobic hatespeach towards me.

We were all looking for somewhere to go.

I'm sure you know where this is going but listen, she told us EVERYTHING we wanted to hear. She told us she's not hateful now, told us she would go to trans support groups, pride, said she's realized how much she loves Jackie and it's time to accept her- and look- we had NO WHERE TO GO. We have 2 cats and at the time, a car that has no a/c or functional locks. AND I have a chronic autoimmune condition that I recently started taking chemo meds for. (Methotrexate.)

I'm too sick to be on the street, and survive. I had to think about me, Jackie, Zoe, and Boops.

And Jackie wanted to go..

I told her we'd be cautious and try to get out asap.

Well, looking for places right when the housing market crashed really fucked us up. That- and because I had only just finally got approved for disability, means I was set back in life- and had no credit to my name. No credit= no place to live.

I had almost built enough, but things went down hill very quickly with her family. Which leads us to right now:

After weeks of microagressions, giving us breakthrough covid cases, yelling at us to clean other's messes, and forcing us and our cats to isolate in our room, many broken promises, and straight up transphobic hatespeach (because she promised to get vaccinated but then said nvm as soon as we moved in and she went on vacation and got covid and gave it to us, which nearly killed me--) she said not getting the vaccine "IS A CHOICE, JUST LIKE YOU BEING TRANS AND TAKING *gestures to my testosterone* THOSE DRUGS."

We just were avoiding each other while I desperately try to gather resources for us to get out, NOW.

Of course, that wasn't good enough, so when her step father messaged her in all caps about our cats having to stay in our room and "I WON'T FUCKING TELL YOU AGAIN" my partner had a breakdown..

Her mom had let her step dad talk to her like this her whole life, basically.

Out of desperation, we went to her sister for help, maybe hoping she'd give us a place to stay for two weeks while we sign off on the lease for our new apartment.

She pretended to want to help and even said... something fucking weird? She made the comment that I'm a good person and I'm so much like her own boyfriend, that it's "scary"...

A few hours later she came to the house. She talked nicely to us, to gain access to our bedroom.

Then she attacked me.

I called the police right before, and was on the phone with dispatch when she lunged at me because she was aggressively trying to MAKE Jackie go into a separate room WITHOUT ME and Jackie was saying no, BEGGING her to STOP.

I wasn't going to let her take Jackie into that room. She looked fucking crazy.

All of the family came into our room, her two sisters, her mom, and her cousin- When they heard yelling.

It was actually me telling her mom that she's a terrible mother, that triggered her sister to try and attack me- although I knew she was planning on trying to from the moment she came into our room.

And that was after her mom was screaming in my face that if I have something to say, say it now.

Dispatch heard everything and sent emt as well...

But the police stayed outside, talking to them for a WHILE before even asking for us.

Her cousin is the only one that would have stood up for me, saying her sister never should have tried to hit me. But he was in the room with Jackie, giving her support...

I faced the cops alone.

He already had "that look."

He shined a light into my eye, letting the family stay on the porch, throwing insults and just letting it happen. He asked me where I'm hurt, and before I could even show him the scratches on my arm, he said "how do I know YOU didn't put those there?"

I wanted to fucking die in that moment.

This is a conservative city.

No one has equality stickers here. No one flies gay flags. People here that are lgbt- they LEAVE.

This is EXACTLY WHY.

I said "well is there any reason I should tell you anything when, clearly, you're already bias?"

I looked at the emts. I looked at his partner. I looked at all the lights and people coming out of their houses-

And behind me was her family.

Her sister that assaulted me, was laughing about having work in the morning.

All of them were looking at me, with hate in their eyes.

He tried to feed me bullshit about "well if I'm taking someone to jail, there has to be proof."

He dismissed everything I attempted to say, until I just stared at the ground and he decided he did his job here.

I told him my whole fucking body hurts because I had 4 people fucking toss my 100lbs ass all over the fucking room, which was a mess that he refused to look at.

He said "I don't see bruises."

I SPAT "BRUISES TAKE TIME?"

He retorted IMMEDIATELY- "YOU'RE NOT EVEN RED."

I asked what about the dispatcher- she seemed concerned- to which he said "you see, sometimes when people call us- they scream and be dramatic- for a quicker response."

I asked what we could do while the two weeks go by for our new place, and he fucking said "I DONT KNOW. BARRICADE YOURSELF IN YOUR ROOM OR SOMETHING."

Needless to say, we are now safe, in a hotel and I've gotten in touch with a few lgbt organizations that are attempting to help us get justice.

Unfortunately because it's a holiday weekend, all we can do is wait right now.

Our first order of business is getting a protection order, so that we can retrieve the rest of our things without her sister trying to attack us again. (I say us because she kept jumping towards Jackie, like she was threatening to hit her.)

I've been so gaslit and victim blamed that I was too scared to go to the er, even though this all happened in the midst of a flare, possibly including my liver health.

There's so much more to this story, as I'm sure other trans people can relate.. unfortunately.

The emts reluctantly offered to take me to the er, but I was like "and leave my partner here with them?" And he just fucking shrugged dude.

I hate this city.

I want out so bad but unfortunately I've committed to a year, but at least it'll be *our* apartment.

We could NOT stay there for two more weeks. Her step dad is a violent offender that has attempted to murder a homeless prostitute over some fucking pocket change- and he has a GUN in the house.

This hotel might run us into a hole, despite it being the cheapest, shittiest hotel in town, it's still going to be about 700$ for ONE week.

To ADD INSULT TO INJURY, SOMEONE ATTEMPTED TO STEAL MY VEHICLE WHILE WE'VE BEEN STAYING HERE.

I'm feeling incredibly paranoid and unsafe, but I'm on anxiety meds now at least and its SORTA helping us cope (My partner and I have the same Dr and she gave her permission to have some.)

The organization BRAVO is trying to help us with a hotel voucher, but because of all the natural disasters, it's hard to find room in charity for people like us, which is fair enough. We aren't immediately on the street, and for that I'm incredibly thankful.

However, if you or anyone you know wish to help you can donate to venmo: kittyzibby. Or you could just signal boost this.

If you can't help, I understand. And IF YOU'RE STRUGGLING FINANCIALLY, don't worry about it, for real.

Right now I'm just scared we'll go into debt before getting the apartment settled in.

I will update on things once our case moves along more, and we were already considering turning to OF sexwork before all of this, so if there could be support that way, maybe we'll get that going once we get moved in. That way, I feel good about providing a service in return.

Thank you so much for sticking with us during all of this. And really- we're doing much better today. We've given each other pep talks, but we are still determined to start our lives together.

Her family was merely trying to scare me away from her, but I got my girl's name tatted on me for a reason.

I know I'm not the bad person here.

Every time Jackie is feeling more gender euphoric, and showing me her changes, and seeing her get more confident, the more I know that what I'm doing with and for her, is right.

I love her so much. And I will never abandon her, like they tried to get me to do.

Jackie is taking a break from some socials, but she's given me permission to talk about what's been happening.

She needs justice too.

I will update as much as I can, but seriously, I think we both just have a fire under our asses now.

Mentally, we're stronger than ever.

Thank you for reading. My heart really goes out to the rest of the queer community that have experienced or are going through similar things.

It's really made me realize why we need to stick together and fight this bigotry bullshit! 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

[khaotickae]

WE THE NORTH WEEK 2K21 - DAY 006

↬ innovation = haley ↫

i picked this early on and then i thought i wasn't thinking about this right and then i realized i was and so i came back to this. i did not fit all of @charlieweasleyy's characters on here because i could barely fit the four. have you ever noticed how muscians suck in the image department, no? just me? okay then. moving on

*barney stintson voice* have you met haley? i'm sure you have because she's everywhere and she's friendly and lovely and honestly one of the best people (even tho she got me in a lot of trouble this week). i thought about putting haley for relevance a time or two while i was struggling with that prompt BUT i feel like she paves the way which lead me back to keeping her characters in this position. buckle up bc this is going to get long again.

lets get this party started (haley can correct me on anything i say that's not accurate)

James was one of my first favourite characters on the site, which everyone knows because you've heard me gush about him every appreciate week in june since i joined and prob at any given moment elsewhere. and i love what haley is doing with him, the story that she's telling with him, the way he's changing and the way he's seeing the world is evolving and its not because of the fact that he's married to prudence. but its because of the way the world sees and treats him, some times its got me cheering while reading and other times i feel incredibly sad about it. he's not the only black character on the site but he's the most involved in the social issues (i could be wrong and if i am, apologies) and i am excited to be joining haley with that. everyone got their characters involved in BLM last year, but since that moment i've heard haley talk about how she wants to keep doing things like that with james. i've wanted an activist character for a while now (i get that itch specifically around june yearly because of a show i watch every june) and i felt like james' estrange cousin was my best opportunity.

Then there is Hakim, who admitted i wasn't as aware of (as well as i could have been) until i made his sister Pari. and haley came at me with all these thoughts and head canons of the family and everything that she'd thought about with hakim which, i played myself because i love this character so much more now and all he does is hurt me. she popped into a group chat of the siblings and proposed a ramadan thread idea and then another but followed it up with like 1298742190 other links so that we could be informed while we were writing it. those links came in during the span it took me to find a single article. and it helped me flesh out pari a bit more and figure out how i wanted to shape her as a mix of tradition beliefs and non traditional. i just love this family and he's one of my favourite characters to read.

Mitch is a character i know i would struggle with, that rang true more so when we were not a site in canada. (idk if you've all seen my little breakdown about the *voices in your head* concept but sometimes separating me from characters isn't always easy. ) but she does it with such grace and respect, mitch could be seen as just a one dimensional character because we all seem to just write off conservatives. not to mention haley made a cop during the current climate. while i think that is valid at times, political stance doesn't always equal personality or mean that a person embodies everything of that political party (maybe its a privilege of living in canada where our conservatives are progressive idk dont @ me, let me gush in peace) and i think that's well represented in mitch. he has his beliefs, he has put his foot in his mouth and he married someone that can call him out when needed. but he's such a good person despite in his faults or in spite of them. the way haley approaches him is lovely. i can't wait to see the growth with mitch over the next few years, some of what i know, others which i don't which is always exciting to see unfold.

Sierra, i've loved them for a while like love love loved them and i could not think of ways to get plots with them that would span more than a thread and i was frustrated. one day we will get a ship (i tried with sierra but alas the stars did not align but that's okay) having them become part of tez's little crew has been one of my favourite things, i love the dynamic between them. but i did have a brief moment in 2040 where i had a friends to lovers sort of ship with sadie who was trans and haley didn't even think about it, like it was just a natural decision for her. which is the way it should be. so i was not at all surprised when sierra became non binary in like six hours of the news breaking and how haley just went about that whole process in a day. and i haven't been able to stop thinking about it and how its got me thinking about something similar.

a lot of things i've seen in haley's writing has inspired me to be more like haley. to take more chances. i wish i could think like her so i think my goal for year six is going to be simple. i'm going to approach it with:

WWHD?

what would haley do, and then act accordingly. but i think she's always going to be at the forefront of innovative ideas on the site and i love to see it. even more, i'm glad i get to be part of it at times. that was a lot, thanks for coming to my "all about haley" talk.

[riverofrainbows]

CW: This discusses a bunch of negative things and experiences, so if you're not in the mood to read that please keep scrolling!

It took me a while to realise this because ive never experienced any typical physical violence or war, and no overt emotional violence either, so in that regard this comes from a place of privilege, but I realised that my life is full of violence in different ways.

On one hand the kind of physical violence that my disability is, with me being harmed by even slight wind for the first few years and living in constant agony because i was/am so fragile that i get constantly harmed by seemingly small everyday things. Added to that ableism when i try to make things a bit easier even if i cant make the problems go away completely, and having to do something knowing that it will injure you.

On the other hand the ones that took me so long to realise. Such as the violence of being an autistic person unaware of your autism and not having any, any at all, other autistic friends and being so lost and feeling so wrong and cut off from the world.

And the violence of not realising you are a trans man until your 20s because you repressed it so far down that you didnt even realise yourself until then. This also couples with me having to get comfortable in being bisexual as a queer woman first, which i also had no positive examples for in my life either. And the struggle with my sexuality in my teens, which i later realised was caused not by that i didnt not like men, i just didnt like being a woman in a relationship with a man, which made me feel incredibly othered.

And the most subtle and insidious one, the violence of what is not there: no close friends, no (and i mean no) representation of trans men, no knowledge about autism (or rather autism beyond the common stereotypes), no one to relate to ever, not even being actually liked by any of your friends. Having such a small, empty existence that you feel empty inside too. I was bullied while in school, but i didnt even do the things i liked nor was myself outside of school either. I didnt support my interests beyond esacpism through books and was constantly in a waiting mode. I didnt have self agency because i was so beaten down i didnt even know where to start and it took me such a long process to develop it, and im still doing that. When i do anything, anything at all for myself that is big news. "I've decided i want to do this thing" was something I'd tell everyone i trust enough about because it was that big to me. And i would talk about it longer than it actually took me to do it, weeks and months in advance. I didnt have more than scraps to built my identity out of, so anything was big. I was so lost in myself, I was drowning and any active decision was a piece of wood i would cling to and gasp for air every once in a while, a change from being apathetic to the lack of air because id gotten so used to it.

I hate that my life is so full of violence, i dont want it like that. I want my life to be soft and full of joy, i want to talk about things that excite me and share my excitement with others and share theirs too. I want to built a better world, and join all the people who already do, and i want to do things that bring me joy. I want to be soft and safe with other people, i dont enjoy being distrustful now. I am naturally very naive and believe in good, and i hate that i had to learn to not be.

And i hate that i didnt even realise all of that was violence for so long, so that i couldnt even fight. I didn't know my experience counted, i didnt know that absence was still violence, and even if i did, i didnt know how to fight it. I tried, but i didnt have any examples.

In so many ways i felt like i wasnt supposed to exist. And im still learning, how to fight and how to actually live my life, and unlearning the feeling that i should not exist, but i am not going away.

I just wish someone had encouraged me to be myself when i was a kid.

[jackednephi]

Queering Christ: a post where I'm just rambling out some Thoughts

Jesus had two moms AND two dads. So we can look at this a couple of ways

Polyamorous family in which Mary had two husbands considering God got her pregnant. A mixed family like the case of divorce where kids have four parents is also a valid way to look at that. But honestly? The way the Holy Family is looked at by all of Christianity? That's totally a polyamorous relationship

Mary, like all good Jewish women, prepared from an early age to be worthy to carry the savior. From what I understand of the Jewish faith, good Jewish women still do this as they don't see (accept?) Jesus as the Christ. They live a specific way and pray to be worthy to receive the savior. Mary would have done this and, as we know from the scriptures available, this is exactly what she did. Therefore, the angelic visit of "hey you down to clown with god himself, lord over all creation?" was no surprise in that way. Pleasant, overwhelming and positive? Yes. Fearful screaming like with the shepherds? Not so much

I don't presume to understand how God himself allowed a virgin birth. We can say sex was involved but I'm just not going there. Instead, I propose something I learned of a few years ago when I was still a biology major: Christ's chromosomes were xx

So there's an actual recorded phenomenon wherein a woman can become pregnant, barring the usual method. She gives birth to a girl because of self fertilization. I forget the specific particulars but it is an actual thing that happens. It's rare and, from what I understand, will always produce someone xx rather than xy. Intersex and whatnot aside, this would mean that Christ was a trans man

We can talk about miracles all day long if we so please. Christ could have miracled himself whatever body he wanted. I'm not here to speculate on that. What I CAN speculate on is the fact that Mary was told she'd have a son. Meaning she would be told to raise him as a son. Children are pretty much interchangeable before puberty when it comes to telling gender at a glance. Hell, it used to be common practice to put all babies, regardless of gender, in little dresses

It would have been an easy thing for Mary and Joseph to raise Christ as a boy/man from a young age, teaching him carpentry. This would have likely also been safer socially because of how women were viewed in the past. Then, right around the time the couple could have explained to Jesus that no he was a girl, he would have been plenty old enough to protest and insist he was a boy. And anyway, look at those robes everyone wore

Or just look at paintings. Aside from color differences, hair covering was slightly different as well, these were pretty unisex robes. It would be no thing for him to dress as male. Not to mention, I honestly cannot see any bulge around this woman's chest. So long as Jesus didn't have an enormous chest, he wouldn't have to miracle anything away at all

Look, even if he wasn't trans during his life, he most certainly was in the Garden of Gethsemane considering the suffering he endured there. We know he bled for not just every sin but for every possible experience we could have ever had. The pain of being rejected by queerphobic family, friends, and society. Period cramps, child birth, the pain of being told you will never have children, losing children, losing spouse(s), and so on. In those moments, even if God had performed THE miracle and Jesus wasn't a trans man, Christ knew everything all of us would ever face. Meaning, during that time if nowhere else, he was just as trans and other forms of queer as the rest if us

But the scientist in me loves to think he went his whole life as a trans man due to the self fertilization that is a thing. God created the rules of reality and we know He plays within those rules. Why would he make Mary's pregnancy any different?

This also brings up the issue of Holy Consent. Mary consented enthusiastically to carry Christ. But what of The Mother? As someone in a polyamorous arrangement, I can confidently say that all parties must consent at all times to everything, with some wiggle room. If my wife were to want to remove their birth control, all of us would have to be consulted since everyone would be coparenting. When I removed mine, all three spouses and my then girlfriend were consulted for the off chance (read: miracle) of my own pregnancy

Before any of us most immediately affected adds a new partner, we consult the other partners. It isn't a Huge Ordeal so much as a quick text of "I'm going to start dating Josh" and usually it's "hey congratulations!" There have been instances of "you already have # partners. Will you be able to handle another?" or "I'm not really comfortable with Josh because of [behavior]" in which case, things are discussed further before a decision is made

Bottom line, consent is a conversation that happens between all affected parties. Otherwise it's not healthy or polyamory but just cheating. And we know God doesn't Cheat. Which means, at some point, there was a Conversation. And not only did our Mother consent, she did so for every instance of miraculous birth, a couple of which happen in the bible itself. I can't remember names but there was this one woman who gave her son to the temple? Because she'd had a miraculous birth? Look, I know it's in there I'm just fuzzy on the specifics because I focus on (sarcasm) important stuff (sarcasm end) like kosher laws and Laban's sword. And now this rambly mess of a post

That means that Christ was the child of a polyamorous relationship, however that relationship was structured. This isn't even diving into the kings etc before Christ who had multiple wives and concubines. I mean. The tribes of Israel were the product of a multiple woman, polyamorous situation

Anyway, there's no neat conclusion or anything but I've been sitting on these thoughts for a couple of years now. Feel free to discuss

[carrieannecoder]

The Wayne-Parton model of gender and sexuality.

Oversimplified models are kind of a drag.

As humans we often clump things together into simplified models that don't really represent the whole of reality. That doesn't mean these models aren't useful; the Bohr model of the atom is woefully inadequate to understand what happens at the quantum level but is useful to understand why electricity can turn water into hydrogen and oxygen.

So once the floodgate opened and I started recognising that I saw myself as a woman (or at least, 'more of a woman than a man', but we'll get to that later,) I have spent a lot of time rethinking a lot of the assumptions that got me here.

A disclaimer: First off... I am by no means an expert on sexuality or gender. If anything, this is the one subject in which I am particularly dense, having completely missed the signs that I was bisexual until age 27, and completely repressed the idea that I was a transwoman until age 43... three weeks ago, in fact. This, despite the fact that my younger brother knew he was transmasculine from his late teenage years, and attracted primarily to women since his early teenage years. Indeed, if anything, this is a highly oversimplified and completely inadequate explanation of what I've learned over the past three weeks.

So I may be way off the mark here. Or perhaps what I have to say here is old news compared to many who have a longer time to study gender and sexuality. As one person on discord put it, everything I say can be summed up as:

Most people reading this will be familiar with the Kinsey Scale - that 0 to 6 scale from "completely straight" to "completely gay". This model allowed us to move beyond that straight-gay binary into a linear model. "Bi-curiosity" could be labeled as a 1, bisexuality as a 2, 3, or 4... etc. When I first came out as bisexual I first labeled myself as a "Kinsey 2" and then later in life, as a "Kinsey 1" (and yes, these things can change over time) - then when I realised I was trans - a "Kinsey 5".

Fast forward to three weeks ago when I realised I'd like to be a woman. Why did it take me so long? Why did I repress myself so effectively? Well... LOTS of reasons (social, economic, lack of vocabulary, lack of understanding, etc.). But one (and by no means the biggest, but certainly a factor) is that my intrinsic gender identity didn't match the model in my head of what a "transwoman" was supposed to be.

Even the most positive depictions of "transwomen" in popular culture in my teens and 20s tended to be more... well, extreme. Think Nathan Lane in "The Birdcage," whose character only feels truly at home in the third act, dressing in a pink dress with a frilly bow, oversized pearls, makeup and nails.

And of course, the beyond extreme of "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert."

Even today, shows like "Ru Paul's Drag Race" indicate a level of over the top femininity that, well, I wouldn't be caught dead in, even if I had Margot Robbie's body.

Now - granted, that last one is a bit of a bad example because, so far as I can tell without ever having watched an episode, is that the whole point of Ru Paul's Drag Race is that it's a contest to see who can present the most feminine, and as such the point is to display hyper-femininity. But it's still pretty at the forefront of many peoples' minds when they think of trans culture.

This brings me back to two sayings that comes up a lot in the trans twitter and trans-friend community. One: "gender is a performance." In these examples, quite literally. Two: "gender is not a binary"

It can then be logically inferred that gender performance is not binary.

---------------------

From John Wayne to Dolly Parton

So let's take this idea of gender as performance - that is, assign a scale of gender presentation, like Kinsey did, where we assign 0 to be the most masculine - think John Wayne - and 6 to be the most feminine - think Dolly Parton. (I'm sure that there are other examples more masculine than Wayne and more feminine than Parton, but let's just go with that for now.)

Oh, and one more thing. I'm not rating these people on their beauty or attractiveness like Donald Trump rating chicks on tape in the Inside Edition van. All of these people are attractive (conventionally), and they help to give a rubric.

This is a simplified, in fact, oversimplified model to kind of explain things. It's not perfect by any means - it excludes xenogender and many "not on the sliding scale" who identify as genderqueer.

But - for the purposes of my own exploration of my own sexuality and gender, this is a useful tool for classifying my own feelings.

---------------------

The Gender Rhinoceros

One of the more interesting things that I've encountered over the past three weeks that I was unaware of was the concept of the "gender unicorn", which asks participants to rank their gender identity as not just a spectrum from masculine to feminine, but to mark masculinity and femininity as separate concepts, not opposed to one another, adding "other gender" to the mix. Here's mine.

But the problem with the unicorn model is that it too is oversimplified. A gender identity that is "70% female" could mean that a person feels comfortable presenting anywhere from androgynously to Parton-esque femininity - or it could mean that they only feel comfortable in the Bjork zone.

(You'll notice that I don't identify, present, or am sexually or romantically attracted to "other genders" in the above unicorn. That's one of the reasons I don't feel the need to include that in my particular model of my own sexuality -- you'll also notice that I tend to view masculinity and femininity as inversely correlated, which is why I can put masculinity and femininity on the same x-axis. Again. Oversimplified model. I cannot stress this enough.)

Instead, perhaps it's better to think of gender identity, gender expression/presentation, and sexual attraction as levels of intensity for that particular point on a scale. In other words, a bell curve, shaped more like a rhinoceros horn than a unicorn's pointy horn.

Something like this.

So, the triangle marked "current" is how I currently feel, whereas the bell curve is representing how good I would feel if I felt my gender identity markers (hormones, body type, surroundings, etc.) matched that level of masculinity or femininity, with the peak being my ideal self. I mean, I'm pretty clearly a woman, but when I think of my ideal self, I'm thinking of an ideal self much closer to, say, a Lita Ford or a Melissa Etheridge rather than a Dolly Parton. But I think I'd be comfortable being a Bjork or a Paula Poundstone, and I guess I'd be okay with being a Tilda Swinton or even a Legolas. Right now I'm a Danny DeVito, so... yeah, lots of work that needs to be done.

But that's how I want to be, which is different to how I'd like to present.

Here's the weird bit. Absolutely, I'd ideally like to be somewhere in the androgynous to Bjork zone, those are the people who I'd like to look like. I'd like to be called "she" more than "he", I like "Carrie Anne" more than my original name. But as far as acceptability goes... I'm pretty flexible. Like, I'm pretty much fine presenting how I am, "going boy-mode" when I need to. I'm starting up a new job, and might try out Carrie-Anne as a name while there, but it's still gonna be collared shirts and nicely pressed jeans while I get my bearings. I'm okay with it, it doesn't necessarily cause me too much dysphoria, but it's not ideal. Ideally I'd like to be anywhere in the 3-5 range (with a big drop off towards Parton town.)

Things get even more complex when you talk about who I'm attracted to, sexually.

Boom. Right in the Poundstone-Swinton-Bjork zone of feminine-leaning androgyny, you find my ideal sexual mate... what you'd call "having a type." Now this also assumes that we've normalised for other factors - such as general attractiveness, personality, age, and all sorts of other things which are perhaps more important than feminine/masculine presentation. Also, this is me goofing around in photoshop to try to express what I kinda feel instead of doing a scientific study with error bars and all that.

This is not science. This is Tumblr.

But having put this all out there helps me to understand more about myself and my own feelings. And while I know that "gender is a performance, sexuality is fluid" thinking about it using this model helps me to understand it more.

Anyway, just something I had to get out of my head.

[youspoketome]

My Favorite Albums of 2018

I tried something new this year. All year long, every time I bought a new album I added it to a note on my phone as a list so that I could adjust the order as needed. Some things settled into their order quickly, but a couple spots went down to the wire. Embarrassingly, I was just looking at my 2015 list and six albums on that list were the previous albums by six of the bands on this list, and one was a solo album by the singer of a seventh band listed here. I'm not quite sure what that means in the grand scheme of things. And that seems like a long enough introduction, so here we go!

Murder By Death - THE OTHER SHORE

Honestly, I thought Murder By Death was finished having albums on top of my best of lists. I had been so disappointed in GOOD MORNING, MAGPIE. That album had like two good songs, but the rest was at best forgettable filler and at worst sounded like a parody of themselves. The two albums since then had definitely been better, but still not at the levels of their earlier albums. Enter THE OTHER SHORE: an incredible return to the long form concept album following a story of love and dying planets in a western in space. It's full of catchy hooks without ever being clichè, small character moments and big, world-ending finishes. Best of all, it's got ripping 2-minute long cello solos. This is peak Murder By Death right here.

mewithoutYou - [UNTITLED]

mewithoutYou is another band I've loved for years, but thought was coming off of a weaker album. I enjoyed PALE HORSES (it made my top ten list the year it came out), but it didn't have anything that really grabbed me and made it a necessary part of the mwY canon. [UNTITLED] immediately feels important. It's not the most easily accessable album, but when have mewithoutYou ever been accessable? This is an album that has layers that you can appreciate as you dig down to them on further listens. Over the years mwY's sound has evolved from the heavier hollerin' of [A->B] LIFE and CATCH FOR US THE FOXES to the completely clean and folky IT'S ALL CRAZY... and back again. [UNTITLED] really blends things together by taking the heaviness from early albums and adding them in for flavor rather than building the songs around them, giving the songs depth and intensity. For my money, it's their best album since BROTHER, SISTER. Still waiting on that album/EP collector's edition to ship though, so no pictures.

Gregory Alan Isakov - EVENING MACHINES

I've enjoyed Gregory Alan Isakov's previous albums of folky songs fit for sitting on the front porch at your farm while reading an old book, but whenever I'd see him live my favorite song was always the non-album track "Liars" and I'd always wish he'd record it. That song seemed darker than anything else he'd written and had this slow build to an epic climax that almost gave you chills. He finally did record it on his studio album with the Colorado Symphony in 2016 and then he followed that up with his most eclectic album yet. From the soft and haunting opener "Berth," all the way to the end, EVENING MACHINES expands on what Isakov is willing to do, keeping that same welcoming, mellow feel, but getting there in new ways and with new instruments. "Caves" captures that darkness "Liars" had in a way that is wholly satisfying to me. It feels like he wrote the album I didn't even realize I had been wanting him to write all along.

Emery - EVE

I've always enjoyed Emery, but it wasn't until their last album YOU WERE NEVER ALONE when they broke the album down song by song on a behind the scenes podcast that I fully appreciated them as musicians. Unlike a lot of bands that came out at the same time in the same genre, Emery is a band with multiple members who have actually studied how music works and can point out and name every single time signature and key change in every song. Now with EVE, I've been able to listen to the little details, noticing and appreciating the attention they give to every little part of each song. The way they don't add the screamed vocal at this part of the song because that seems to obvious, so they save it for when it'll be more striking. How they add the harmonies and layer the vocals. Some bands with that kind of background forget how to write a catchy song or what makes a song enjoyable to listen to, but Emery has this ability to perfectly blend this crazy musicianship with honest, straight from the gut songwriting. The end result is an album full of fantastic songs with awesome little parts and details that make it special and stand out.

Thrice - PALMS

For me (and a lot of people, I think) Thrice and Thursday have always been kind of linked. I discovered them at the same time, both on their second albums. They were post-hardcore bands, similar enough sounding to compare to each other and they both started experimenting with their sound on their fourth albums. Then they both announced they were breaking up within a day of each other. The weird thing is when I first discovered them, I preferred Thursday hands down. Then they both released their third albums and cemented my opinions of them, so much so that I decided not to buy Thrice's fourth album when it came out. Man, that was a huge mistake. That fourth album, VHEISSU was the album when Thrice hit their stride, expanding and exploring their sound with each release since then. Each of their post-reunion albums have continued this trend and PALMS might be their best full album yet.

Frank Turner - BE MORE KIND

To be honest, I'm surprised this album is this far down. If you had me rank my expected best albums of the year list at the beginning of the year, Frank Turner with have been number one with a bullet. But BE MORE KIND was not the album I was expecting, and I was a little let down by it. That I'm saying that my number 6 album of the year was a bit of a let down should tell you how highly I think of Frank Turner. It starts off strong with the mellow opener of "Don't Worry" followed by a full on banger in "1933." But the third track "Little Changes" just didn't hit for me. It seemed like Frank Turner dumbed down for the masses. And it's not that it's too poppy; I enjoy myself a good pop song. It's just that the songwriting seems so simple. There are a number of really good songs throughout the rest of the album (like "Blackout"), but the overarching feel for me is that it's too simplistic, there's no depth to any of the songwriting. All that said, it's hard to rag too much on it because how can you bash an album that's sole message is to be kind and positive and to treat other people decently? Maybe it's that message that made him lose his teeth. In summation, I like Frank Turner a lot, even when he's disappointing me.

Smoking Popes - INTO THE AGONY

INTO THE AGONY is the Smoking Popes first album in seven years. They were putting out albums more frequently than that while they were broken up! After being broken up from 1999-2005, the Popes returned with STAY DOWN, which was not the strongest album to come back on. It was mostly a downer and ended up being completely forgettable for me. This time, upon returning from a seven year album cycle with new album they've knocked it out of the park. It's upbeat and catchy, it's slow and meaningful, it features Josh Caterer's soaring vocals, and it's another fantastic entry into the catalog.

Death Cab For Cutie - THANK YOU FOR TODAY

I think Death Cab's existence as a band is better broken up into stages. You've got the pre-TRANSATLANTICISM era, the TRANS/PLANS era, NARROW/CODES, and now KINTSUGI/THANK YOU. TRANS/PLANS is my favorite era. It's where I discovered Death Cab, it's where I spend the most time with them, it's just the best. But after a bit of a dip there for a couple albums (not saying they were bad, it was just a dip), I felt like KINTSUGI was a step back up, and now THANK YOU FOR TODAY continues in the same vein. It's a more electronic/synthy sound than previous eras, which sets it apart from their highest peaks, so you're not just constantly comparing it to something they'll probably never reattain. I really enjoy where this era is taking them.

Alkaline Trio - IS THIS THING CURSED?

This past summer I decided to give Alkaline Trio's AGONY & IRONY a listen for the first time in I don't know how long. Everyone agrees Alkaline Trio used to be good and then got less good, and I agree, but that specific album was for me the low point, mostly because of "Love Love Kiss Kiss." But then this weird thing happened: I really enjoyed it. Even that song, which is still doofy, wasn't as bad as I remembered. I was so bummed out about it at the time, but that album has some really good songs on it. Even at their lowest point, I still really like Alkaline Trio. IS THIS THING CURSED? is a new Alkaline Trio album. It's got Matt songs, it's got Dan songs, it's got one Dan song that kind of too doofy (Little Help?), it strangely has multiple song titles that end in question marks, and it has an acoustic closer featuring Matt's scratchy-voiced wailing. This is another solid Alkaline Trio album.

The Decemberists - I'LL BE YOUR GIRL

Every year at the same time, all of the baseball websites post their top prospects lists, where they rank the upcoming minor league players in all of baseball or on each team individually, so people can get excited about the next wave of baseball All-Stars. In almost all of these lists you've got your top five or six guys who are clearly the best players in that team's minor league system in that order, but then at about number seven they kind of become interchangeable for a while. You could switch prospect #8 with #12 and no one would cause too much of a ruckus because they're all pretty similar at that point. We've reached that point in my best albums list (really, we reached that point with Alkaline Trio). These final couple spots could have also gone to 6666 by Four Fists, 9 by Saves The Day, KIDS SEE GHOSTS, or if I was in the right mood, even the new MXPX or the Matthew Thiessen solo album. What pushed I'LL BE YOUR GIRL across the line was (a) my wife's incredulousness at my mentioning it might not make the cut and (b) the fact that "Once In My Life" and "Everything Is Awful" have full-on been our anthem songs this past month. This is the Decemberists doing what they do. Folky songs about sea monsters, horse gallop rhythms, and cowboy sing-alongs. Throw in some synth lines to keep things fresh and baby, you've got a stew going.