#Still kinda unhappy but trans about it <3

[riddlebanshee]

Thinking about Them

[catboybiologist]

Hey, transfem who has only started to like her body about half a year ago here

As someone who takes a lot of pictures of themselves, do you have any resources/tips for angles or something that accentuates feminine features?

Also in regards to having a somewhat normal facial expression, like my eyes look so weird in every picture I take bc I don't know where to look

This response ended up WAY longer than I expected, and I think Imma add it to my pinned post- thanks for pushing me to talk about this! I don't think I'm really an expert here, but if people want to leave more advice in reblogs and comments, please do.

So when I say "I had two years of femboy experience before transferring to the related (and potentially overlapping) but separate field of trans womanhood" I'm only like... half joking. Selfie angles took a fucking wild amount of time for me to figure out, and guess what? The pictures I post are usually 1-3 in a set of about 20 that I take at any given time. I'm still unhappy with most pictures I take, you just gotta take a lot of them, and figure out for yourself.

That said, I think I have gotten a lot better over time. Behold, the first selfie I posted on reddit (warning for kinda cringe but I know y'all fuck with that):

(Damn, my thighs look good when I properly shave, gotta do that sometime)

(btw I'm 23 in this pic so feel free to simp if you so desire)

And another early one:

This was still selected from a bunch that were horrible, but you can really tell that my face is basically just covered in fabric entirely. My eyes look very dead in both. Compare that to:

^this one is still pre-transition, so don't blame the estrogen.

So what are my specific tips? Well, the classic "selfie angle" is from above. This angle certainly helps, but why? Personally I've found that its far less about angles are far more about lighting. Since most lighting is overhead, taking selfies from above means that you'll have a well lit face in those standard lighting conditions. Notice that in both the early selfies and the later one, the camera is actually positioned below my height level, and there's still a noticeable facial difference between them. The reason this is possible is good, forward lighting. Generally, you want a soft light source to be vaguely behind the camera, shining onto your face- but make sure its not too close, or too bright. This will ensure that harsh shadows don't artificially make your features look much different than they actually are.

Another thing that cannot be understated: DISTANCE between yourself and the camera, especially if you're using a phone camera. There are several reasons for this- notably, it'll help make the background be framed more pleasantly, as well as prevent the camera/phone itself from shadowing your face. But there's also a massive, insidious reason this happens- all phone cameras have some degree of fisheye to their lens to increase the field of view while still using compact optics. Multiple lens have helped a bit, but its still a problem on all of them. Higher end phones will algorithmically correct for this, but they also add a TON of other postprocessing "beautification" in ways that are sometimes completely invisible (insert entire rant here about how this is a deceptive marketing tactic to make a brands phone cameras seem better than they actually are). Sometimes, these edits are way off base. But I digress. The fisheye is killer because it takes any slightly more prominent feature and bulges them out, including the nose and chin. Conversely, recessed features, like eyes and the sides of your cheeks, are going to be less emphasized. Moving further away from the camera significantly reduces this. If you can get a small phone tripod and take selfies that way, it'll alleviate this. Unfortunately my living space is not large atm, and I have less motivation to bother my roommates in the common areas and use their hallways for picture taking, so this has been a little lacking in more recent selfies. It's also just a lot of work for a couple quick selfies, so its hard to do right- but it genuinely makes a world of difference.

Otherwise, my advice about eyes would be that your eyes show your overall facial expression, even if you're covering your mouth. Most of my pictures are taken while smiling slightly under the mask, and it shows in the eyes. If I want a scarier looking picture, I'm stone faced or deliberately make my entire face angrier, and you end up with the "glaring directly down the camera wanting to kill you" face. Referring to the pictures I just posted- the first two are both dead faced under the mask, whereas in the last one, I'm doing a smug, sultry smirk. The eyes then reflect that.

Don't focus on specifically trying to open your eyes wider. Change your facial expression and just let them be how they want to be in relation to that. Eye position should fully commit to looking straight into the camera, or be fully distracted with something else, imo (including the screen of your phone, if you're doing something like a mirror selfie). If you're taking a mirror selfie, look at the camera lens as it's reflected in the mirror. A HUGE takeaway is that cameras, especially phone cameras, straight up lie to you. They don't work the same way as the human eye, and have to compensate for that- but they'll never be a completely faithful representation of what you look like. Don't let your ego be affected by how you look in pictures, when all is said and done.

And of course, experiment, experiment, experiment! Figure out the lighting you can get in the space you have available, and the angles that work for you! Don't be afraid to delete selfies you don't like! Show off your style and your features in the way you want to! There are no rules for what's attractive, this is just what I do and you should develop your own style!

I guess I'll take this with both femboy and trans tags bc the selfies are pre-HRT

[steddie-island]

20 Questions for writers

I was tagged by @runninriot over 2 months ago Thank you friend 😘🥰

I've done one before but I like answering these types of questions so I'm doing it again.

No pressure tagging @wynnyfryd @stervrucht @wormdebut @mugloversonly @augustjustice

Pressure tagging @v3llichor who saw this over my shoulder and said "I wanna fill one out!" 😂😘😘

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

37, all but 1 of which were posted between October of last year and now. Which I'm really proud of. 🥹 The only other fic I'd written and posted was for Frasier back in 2020.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

63,421!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I write Stranger Things mostly, but I've written Good Omens, Frasier, and Destiel (I haven't written for them in a loooong time though.)

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Just Because We Get Around (Part 1 of my Fuck his dad series. Steve is Dustin's dad, Eddie is Dustin's college friend, they fuck nasty and then there are feelings. It's silly and cheesy and I still love it even if I think about renaming it at least once a week. 😂)

Mutually Beneficial (Written for this art by @2jihiir0 😌 There may be a part 2 coming if I can ever get Inspired to work on it again WE'LL SEE!)

With Extra Nuts (Eddie sees Steve in his Scoops uniform, they fuck nasty in the back room about it.)

Dustin's Dad (Has Got Me Down Bad (Part 2 of Fuck his dad, wherein Dustin finds out. 😌)

Vixen (Steve wears lingerie to a Christmas party. He and Eddie fuck nasty about it when they get home. There's a pattern here. 😂)

5. Do you respond to comments?

It definitely takes me some time sometimes but I try to! Even the ones that are just like, hearts or a laugh emoji. They took their time to not only read my fic but to leave a comment and I want them to know that I appreciate it. 🥹

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I had an answer here but I had completely forgotten about A rush kinda like the old times (I still cross your mind). It's Stommy, with Tommy reaching out to (fem) Steve after he gets engaged. There's lots of reminiscing but it's bittersweet because Tommy's clearly not happy, and Stevie isn't going to give him what he wants.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I have a transfem Steve series (Wallpaper, Long Haul, Candles) that gave me so much joy to write. I don't really write unhappy endings (IDK maybe that'll change but I kind of doubt it. to quote T Swift, "I'm just too soft for all of it.") but these three just. I'm really proud of them. Part one is Stevie coming out to Robin, part 2 is Eddie, and then part 3 is Stevie getting dicked down a happy ending to her birthday. I was nervous to write these, because I'm not trans. None of it is from Stevie's POV, it's from the POV of the people who love her. And that's what I wanted to show. A beautiful trans woman who had been through so much hell before life decided to throw gender stuff at her, getting to come out, getting to be herself, and getting so much love and support from the people around her. 🥹🥹🥹🥹

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Thankfully no (knock on wood)!

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

All kinds? We have monster fucking and some good ol' sapphic steddie semi-hate fucking and some Steve playing Billy Loomis (with the softest fucking aftercare in the world, tbh). 15 of the fics I've posted are explicit (it feels like there should be more but I think that just means they're all in WIP purgatory, who knows when/ if they'll see the light of day).

10. Do you write crossovers?

I have one I've been working on for months that's a Marmalade/ Baron x Eddie fic but I also haven't touched it in months. 😅

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of (knock on wood again).

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I don't think so but that'd be cool!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Not one that's been posted yet but I actually have two written with my spouse that we're going to upload eventually!

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

I love Steddie, I've found so much community here, but I would be remiss to not acknowledge the fact that Destiel had such a strong hold on me for years. I've made so many friends because of it, I literally met my spouse writing it.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I honestly don't know. I'm intending on finishing the ones I have started but my WIP folder is kind of daunting so. Who knows?

16. What are your writing strengths?

Even though I don't write it often I think my angst is pretty good. I've also been told that I make things feel very alive, and that's something I try hard to do, too (and am glad that I can do, I've only been writing for over half of my life even if I'm only just now posting it! 😅)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Action scenes. I struggle SO HARD with action scenes. It's something I'm working on, something I've been working on for a while, but I feel like my pacing is way off and needs a lot of work.

I also can't write slow burn to save my fucking life. I just want them to get to smoochin' already!

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I would do it but I would want to be so careful and not have a scenario where I translate it as one thing and someone comes along and says "she said he smells like dirty socks and liver" or something. 😂

19. First fandom you wrote for?

That I posted, Frasier. First fandom that I started writing for in general was Spn!

20. Favorite fic you've written?

This is the same answer I gave last time but I think it has to be Don't go where I can't follow, which was I think my 2nd Steddie fic? It's under 1,000 words but it's the one I've reread the most. There's lots of hurt/comfort packed into those 990 words. It was written as a kinktober prompt, written in an hour and posted in the middle of the night and IDK. I just really love it.

[dragon-appreciator-fray]

Ugh.

I am just... kinda making myself sick with the kind of writing I am doing.

I got to sit down, and really fucking interrogate a beloved character of mine I roleplayed before coming out as trans to a group of friends I was uncertain about.

Writing Depths of Promises Sworn was meant to give Astraea an epilogue. It was an opportunity to make her trans all along and just own an important character of mine for all to enjoy.

Anyway.

I didn't do that.

Not in the way I intended, at least.

I got a lot messier with it.

Spoilers for chapter 17 of Depths of Promises Sworn. (Which should go public on Scribblehub in about 2 weeks.)

Instead, I decided to keep her as is. And instead elect for a painfully honest reading of a period of time where I wasn't quite sure how queer I could be. Which SCREAMS what Depths of Promises Sworn dedicates so much of its page count to.

The most trans reading that you can probably get out of Ayre's fiercest and most storied protector...

Is that she gave up on herself.

Said no to dozens of gods that offered her a different monster gender before just accepting the one that hurt the least.

So when she comes out fucking swinging from protector to villain in chapter 17 in the emotional climax of Arc One... it is because she hitched her wagon to the Goddess of a dying world for what has got to be pushing a hundred or more years now.

Astraea is so many things.

But I don't think she ever really figured out herself.

I'm pushing 30 and still redefining myself.

Astraea just took a fantasy world of first edition pathfinder, the opportunity to gain aspects of damn near any creature associated with a deity/devil and went........ I don't want this and fuck you for forcing it on me.

So I made Astraea deeply unhappy. And by extent, damn near everyone in the cast.

But Ayre is my chance to push back against Astraea. To call out her every failure while still recognizing that Astraea is still worth salvaging a relationship with. She's still one of only three canonical trans characters.

(Is Lenore trans by virtue of sharing a body with Ayre? 3 1/2 characters are trans.)

It is going to be incredibly funny when Ayre's gender slowly grows to resemble a Dragon over time and the great Lady Wyrmsbane Astraea just gets dragged along for the ride. Powerless to say no to Ayre.

[genderqueerdykes]

i saw you mention you're nonbinary and like i've wanted to ask someone cause i think im nonbinary but all my gnc friends are like binary trans i guess? and don't really have any answers for their discovery beyond like "i always really connected with girls and felt more like a girl than i did a guy" and it just leaves me questioning because i feel gross to think of myself as a boy and gross to think of myself as a girl. not sure where this is going, i guess what was the discovery process like that led you to recognize yourself as nonbinary?

hey that's a really awesome question actually!

my journey has been kind of back and forth- i identified as a binary trans guy for about. 7 years. and during that time i realized i was really, really unhappy. i was being seen as a man, or at least, not as a woman and it was making me happy, but i had to wear very traditionally masculine clothes, never wear makeup, never talk about being gay, etc. in order to pass

so, i'll kinda give you my two big moments where i realized i was nonbinary, so to speak!

1.) when i first found out what transgender was, it was thru a local lgbt pride alliance group. i learned what the word "Transgender" was there and it literally made my heart stop. i met a transfem person who kinda explained what being genderless was, but the term "nonbinary" wasn't in circulation at the time. i went home and started researching trans stuff and i found terms like "neutrois," "genderqueer" and "agender" and immediately vibed with those.

i identified as neutrois/agender/"other" gender for about 3 years. when i came out to my family, they didn't take it well at all. i told them to please stop calling me a girl, that i wasn't a girl, i wasn't a guy, and that i was just a person. they couldn't handle it, and i realized that most people couldn't, so i felt like i had to go full tilt into being a trans guy in order to be taken seriously. it kept me up at night because i knew deep down inside that i was different, and that this wasn't something that would just go away, and that there was nothing i could do change who i was. i didn't quite know who i was yet, all i knew is that i hated people dictating how i was to be referred to and if i was allowed to keep the beard i naturally grew due to being intersex or not

over the years i started realizing how miserable i was forcing myself to look/act like a cishet guy, because while i am partially a guy, i'm definitely not a cis or binary one

2.) 2020 rolled around and everyone was wearing masks constantly. i wanted some cloth ones around for safety, and my landlord's grandmother made me some. one of them was a cute flowery fabric, and i started wearing it around with my traditionally masc hair and clothing. someone approached me one day and went "sir? ma'am? ... i'm sorry, i can't tell." and i tell you what that gave me the most euphoria i've ever had in my life, more than being called "sir" by itself ever has

it made me remember that oh RIGHT i was my happiest when i was being referred to as something nonbinary adjacent. i still identify as genderqueer and use that term when i don't want to go into detail, or am around people who aren't very familiar with queer terms. most doctors and professionals seem to get the term genderqueer too.

i have DID and am a plural system, so there are alters in my system who still identify as neutrois, too! many of us have attachments to the terms that we used when we first came out. being a trans guy is an awesome experience and during the times in my life i've tried to stop identifying as one, it's made me really fucking sad. but that's okay!

i have several genders at once and that's rad. i'm glad you decided to ask this because coming back around to realize i'm nonbinary has made me the happiest i've been in a long time. i really am just a person !

i hope that helps!!!! thank you for asking this, i've really been wanting to talk about being nonbinary, genderqueer and "other" gender in general, and what it means to identify this way. thanks for stopping by, if you have any more questions feel free to ask = )

[trans-advice]

Hi, I’m not trans myself but I have a trans friend who’s in a situation.

Warning for Suicide mentions and depression

I’m gonna use they/them for them even though those aren’t their pronouns because, well, you’ll see.

So I’ve know them for about 6 years now and they’re a few years older than me. In January of this year they came out to me and some other friends as a trans girl. They’ve apparently known they were trans for a good long while and were only out to close friends.

It became clear that they had depression when they had several venting sessions in discord servers that turned into talking them down from suicide and or self harm.

The friend group they came out to me through kinda fell apart which was definitely stressful for them and me and everyone involved but they’re the one I was life/death worried about.

I also found out that their mom is supportive but their dad isn’t. Well recently they let me and other friends know that if they go forward with transitioning (theyre 18 now) their dad will leave.

They’ve decided to “not be trans” so as to not split up their family. No transition, not socially or medically. They said “[chosen name] is dead” , they’re just gonna be their deadname now. They said they’ve masked for 18 years, they can keep going. Obviously I don’t want this for them because I want them to be happy but they don’t think they deserve to be happy.

But logistically I don’t know what to tell them. They don’t want their dad to leave because he’s still their dad and their mom would be unhappy and I just don’t know what to tell them.

The unsupportive ness of their dad is obviously a sizable contributor to their depression and suicidal thoughts. I don’t want to talk them out of suicide again. I want them to not have to be talked out of it because I want them to not even consider it. It’s taking a toll on me and I’m not a professional, I’m just a kid.

Advice? Please?

To my friend if they’re reading this because it will be obvious I’m talking about them: Hi! I hope you don’t mind I sent this. <3

Call trans lifeline: they're more trained they don't call the cops on anyone, and we're not professionals here either.

Seek help from someone trained in dealing with domestic violence! Your friend is an abusive family & needs an escape plan. -- Transition can wait, they need to get out & or distance for their safety, they are in danger. (Especially considering how the political situation is developing.)

They're in an abusive family. I obviously don't know everything, but my suggestion is that if your friend is able to get out of the house away from their family, then do that as much as possible because having autonomy will obviously support bodily autonomy.

When I mention resources for adults, my hope is that it will click that life goes on, and recovery from abusive families is something that is ongoing into adulthood. I'm hoping they & you survive into adulthood. AA & al-anon tend to be carceral with philosophies of "rock bottom" involving "white coats, blue coats, black coats", but still.

Like the reality of potential of divorce happening doesn't just happen due to what your describing. Like there's probably a bunch of other built up things, and it's going to become a "stepping on eggshells" situation. -- The other factor with divorce that needs to be looked out for is property since divorce procedures are also about divvying up the property held by the couple. Of course, couples can stay married but separate because they can't afford to divorce, but like, I feel like that might help with some grounding.

Parent is a verb/role not a noun/body. "Love is an action, not simply a feeling." -- bell hooks. If the father's abusive then he's an abuser instead of a father. There might need to be grief over losing their father, but the father is already lost as of now, it's just a matter of whether the father comes back (as in stops being an abuser, makes amends, etc) or dies abusive. Look up familial rejection, look up resources for adult children of abusive parents etc.

Grief is the feeling one has when the brain's mental maps (such as knowing where access to supportive people such as a father), has to adapt to something no longer being there. Grieving is feeling you have with that. Grief will always be there. Grieving can become "less" with time because you learn how to better adapt to that stress.

Transition is separate from gender identity. Basically your friend is grieving over their father. -- The problem to this whole reasoning of going back in the closet/grave (which I once had to reckon with the fact that I had basically buried my inner children, and it was brutal)... is that the father's body is still above ground & free, & he's abusive, and a threat to your friend's & your friend's family's safety. The rest of the family would still be in danger regardless.

So my advice, in general, would be for your friend to get out of that abusive family, live somewhere else, etc, as much as possible.

Y'all are kids, I hope y'all survive childhood, and if any of y'all get further harmed I want y'all to remember that: the harm was not self-inflicted, that the adults around y'all hurt y'all.

Since y'all are kids y'all also qualify for the Trevor project, but be careful with them because all 988 providers will call the cops if "imminent harm" is believed to be near.

Good Luck, Peace & Love,

Eve

[commsroom]

Happy belated birthday! Just wanted to hop in again saying I love your posts about Wolf 359. They’re all so good.

I’m on a relisten again and am at the end of season 3. And I’m thinking about how fascinating it is that Hera remembered the Thanksgiving with her at the table physically. And in a post if yours I read recently or you posted recently you talked about Hera getting a human body and I think that scene kinda hints at maybe wanting to be physically there? Idk.

If you’re up for it you can share your thoughts on this. I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday and leave you with some of my Wolf 359 thoughts.

Sending you good vibes over the internet.

thank you; you're always so sweet!! 💙

we're absolutely on the same wavelength here, too!! that scene in particular is a big reason why i feel like hera would want a body - what it says about her self-perception, sense of physicality (even without experience to contextualize it), and... as a result, that she experiences physical loneliness. and, notably, that all of those things are subconscious framing in what she misremembers. i've posted about that scene before here, and in my... way too long essay about hera here, which i'll try to paraphrase a bit. and in other places, too, probably! i think about it a lot.

so: i think there's a big difference between existing differently (which can be isolating in itself, but... through lack of understanding) and feeling like she's always being kept away from the others - somewhere else, physically. she clearly conceptualizes herself in that space as within the hephaestus, separate from it and the systems she runs, the same as everyone else. that's the difference between "other people need to change their attitudes" and... well, other people still need to change their attitudes, but there is also something fundamental about her circumstances that she's unhappy with and needs to change.

(and, obviously, like... because you know i see hera as a trans woman, i think some of the parallels you could make to medical transition are pretty clear in that framing, too.)

minkowski says “you weren’t here with us [...] we were over here, and you were over there” but minkowski would never actually say that - from her perspective, hera was as there with them as she's ever been. but if hera doesn't feel that way - if - like the sound design suggests - she's always hearing their voices the way they hear hers... if she's always felt that she's somewhere else... then it's hard for me to imagine there's a way to resolve that without giving her the autonomy to physically interact with the others, to be seen the way she sees herself - and that's something i think is really highlighted in the finale, too.

[plural-culture-is]

Im questioning wether i should even ask, im so hesitant about this.

Every time i go into a depressive period, i question in im really trans, if im really plural, ocd kicks in and worries about ways i might be awful.

So bear with me, if you dont answer this or the answer is painfully obvious or whatever i wouldn’t hold it against you.

As a young child i was severely abused by my father, and when we got away there was a period i don’t remember where i was in “psychosis” (quotes bc uncertainty), where i became an ape and was lost. I have only one memory from that time, where i came out of that to my mother calling my name and holding me. I only know of this time period because my mom told me about it.

Much later, when i was lonely i started to have imaginary friends, and i told my mom about them and she actually introduced the very beginning concept of tulpas to me and idfk why but she said that if they become aware and i stop being their friend they may get angry, and that sentient imaginary friends are called a tulpa. I worried about this, and idk if it was just my paranoia or something else but i did start to actualy get a vibe from my main imaginary friend like awareness, i could almost feel thoughts happening that were just sorta beyond a barrier. I stopped before anything else could happen, and i cried to my mom i was worried that my imaginary friend would hate me and become malevolent. She said that i’ll be alright, and that my imaginary friend probably still loves me.

(This is where things get confusing)

Few years gap, i am still very lonely but probably more, i start having the beginning signs of depression i think.

My mom started getting into new age stuff and psychic things, and i asked for a pendulum of my own to talk to spirits, one of which i formed a relationship with and even a “psychic link” (talking to eachother with our minds) and at some point after intrusive thoughts, some unhappiness and this other voice that would pretend to be that one, i stopped for fear of getting posessed.

Around this time, watched and listened to a lot more conspiracy theories in my house than we did before, stuff like you’d find on Gaia TV or Joe Rogan and others to give well-known examples. I would hear about people contacting or being contacted psychically by aliens, notably these ones colloquially called the Blue Avians. There was also a videogame i played at the time with alien bird people too. In anycase, i was lonely (and tbh kinda grieving no longer talking to the spirit one?) got the idea to deliberately try and make a psychic link out in the universe and i made one, i managed to talk to a blue avian and started what i thought a romantic relationship looked like with them. I talked to and interacted with them every day, very often. I eventually met another two “aliens” through them and now i was talking to 2-3 beings mentally for a while, while they told me about life in their world.

I went through a lot of denial and that i was crazy or it was in my head, which i mean yeah. I later remembered what my mom told me about years ago: tulpas. That sounds about right. And with my new internet access i looked into it, i found i was already doing what those people were or atleast i was pretty sure. But some things werent adding up, many of them said a tulpa was more a mental construct and that they 1, couldnt be mean to you for example, 2, couldnt talk besides when you wanted them to and so on, mine were too autonomous i guess. In anycase, i continued but acted both as if they were real alien beings elsewhere and a mental construction for a while. At some point then i found out about DID and saw eery similarities, that was my second theory about what was going on. At around this time i broke away from the conspiracy aliens thing, and started thinking more about spirits, and would talk to random and re-occuring ones often. At around this point but maybe well before i started to fall into psychosis and a lot of intrusive thoughts and even hallucinations. At this point i was going through a lot and all these conflicting and inconsistent worldviews were starting to get to me, aswell as me starting to realize but not knowing outright that i was queer. I learned more things that werent conspiracy theories or new age stuff, and i finally broke. I describe it as litterally there was countless pieces of my mind fighting eachother, as verbally and not and everything was clashing. I am not using metaphore here. I felt separated from my body and in a haze, much like when im co-conscious and not in “the driver’s seat”. I fell further into psychosis too. Eventually something was said that made my different conflicting worldviews a little more compatible on paper, and i survived. Then was recovery, still talking to “spirits” and stuff and even aliens. Up to and before this point my family was obsessed with “shadow work”, aka forcing yourself to look at trauma unessecarily. I was partly doing this bc i worried that me being queer was somehow from my father abusing me as a child. This is part of what contributed to that shattering.

So skipping a bunch of tedium, i started operating as if i was plural after a while of debunking stuff , i figured out that yes i definitely am queer and that its not a bad thing, but i still had doubts.

I still talk to my presumed alters often, but there is some funny business:

After setting up some walls or rooms in headspace, they don’t intrude as much and i dont hear them unless i wanna and vice versa

Im struggling to tell if its my internal echolalia or if its me saying everything they say, and sometimes the line is blurrier

They can say things on their own even things that surprise me, but so can i sorta

im almost certain we can’t full switch, or if we can im not sure if i will have any experience while the other is fronting, does this make us monoconscious?

We can go co-conscious pretty much on demand whenever we feel like it, and we can do a partial switch too i just have to relax and allow it

Im pretty much always fronting fully or partially, and always watching when another is fronting

I cant mentally hear them when i talk too, i either have to go quiet or pause for them, and when i do talk it either is too much chatter i cant process or i automaticaly somehow mute my minds ears to them. But, due to autism, talking even to ppl outside my head is like this where i either speak or listen no inbetween

I want to hopefully finally solve this and get on with my life. Thanks for reading/answering if you do

sorry, this ask has been our inbox too long and we haven't been able to come up with a response, so we're handing it off to the public to answer

[deyaviews]

Five Years of Tabletop RPGs

A little over 5 years ago, I started the One Shot Club server on Discord. It's an international place (has to be, I'm Dutch and knew few Dutch TTRPG fans) where people talk about and play tabletop RPGs. I had played D&D for 11 years, starting with 3.5, but only that year--2018--did I play a session of Blades in the Dark and then decided I wanted more.

Here is that story, of how I made more.

That July, I graduated from university with a Bachelor in Game Design & Production. (I was good at it! I still love the work I did in narrative design, mission design, quest design, and some level design. But that's a story for another time.) The day after graduation, I posted in various places about wanting to start an open table game, where I would run multiple sessions a week at EU-friendly times, of a game about teenage superheroes called Masks: A New Generation.

Because nobody ever gave it a name that other people agreed on, I kept just referring to it as "the big team" until it became "The Big Team" and it was official in everyone's hearts.

That game has now been going for 5 years as of tomorrow, July 8th, 2023.

Play and Introspection

I have played in very few long-running campaigns--I usually GM and while I love it, I kinda am wishing I could be a player in some regular campaign with people I love to be around--which also means that most of the characters stand out so much more to me. Many of them are a bit of a power fantasy, because the games lend themselves for that. But in Masks? In Big Team? Despite being about superheroes, despite easily providing me with a lot of great power fantasy moments, at the heart it's never been about the power fantasy for me.

It's been about introspection through play, in a very much "play to find out kind of way". It is trite and all too common to say that playing TTRPGs is like therapy, but it is certainly a journey of self-discovery.

Through Gwen, the daughter of Arthurian knight Lancelot du Lac, I expressed a lot of latent rage and letting go of it, in becoming more comfortable with taking charge, in exploring art forms I have interest in but no skill, and ultimately also expressing myself more as a trans person.

Through Anaya, a fish-girl princess, I had a journey about being on the autism spectrum and aspects of sexuality that I don't often touch on.

Through EliZe, an eldritch horror god turned trans girl, I tried to face my fears and have become more aware of their root causes and thinking of how to healthily address them irl, as well as embracing and being comfortable with openly expressing myself as a trans person online.

Through Greta, a wrestler and aspiring indie film director, I've explored my body issues not directly related to gender dysphoria (I am fat, will probably always be fat, but that doesn't mean I'm unhealthy, and that she--and I--are still beautiful and cool. The art others have made have absolutely been especially wonderful too!) and also exploring other art forms adjacent to mine, indirectly thinking about where to take mine.

Past, Present and Future

At this point, 5 years later, I have gotten onto a 2-year wait list to see a psychologist for gender dysphoria, took 3 years, went through the whole thing, and am waiting on a call tomorrow (on the anniversary of Big Team, my first non-D&D campaign) to see when I can meet with an endocrinologist. I am getting ready to get a referral to a therapist to deal with my fears and anxieties. I have been forced out of one home, nearly out of another, narrowly saved by my dad and now have been living independently for over a year. I am on my fifth job since I graduated, but for the first time I've got one where I'm not unhappy with the work itself, it's (nearly) full time and it's more than minimum wage. I've got local friends and online friends that I talk to regularly and who mean so much to me.

In those 5 years, I have fallen, but I've gotten up again. I'm not where I thought I would be 5 years ago. In some ways I certainly am not where I would have wanted to be. But I look around me at my situation and think "this is not so bad". I look around me at the people who have chosen to spend time with me and think "I love my life, actually".

I look forward to what the coming year will bring.

Thank you all for reading, and have a great Dey.

[tiannasfanfic]

I finally remembered to finish this!

15 Questions, 15 People

RULES: Answer the questions and tag fifteen mutuals.

Thank you for the tag @jadeylovesmarvelxo !

1. Are you named after anyone? No, my parents liked the name Courtney and wanted to make it unique, so my dad pulled Kort-nee from the pronunciation key in the dictionary.

2. When was the last time you cried? I don’t remember actually.

3. Do you have kids? Yes, my son, who will be 17 this year. 😳

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot? Somewhat, my humor is starting to become dryer, but I still use it a lot.

5. What's the first thing you notice about people? The way they hold themselves and their eyes.

6. What's your eye colour? Hazel with tints if gold.

7. Scary movies or happy endings? I’m a big fan of the unhappy ending, like Seven, Saw, Chasing Amy and such. They are more realistic to me so they hit harder.

8. Any special talents? I’ve kinda become a slight Jack of All Trades these past couple of years since my dad has been sick. I’ve discovered I can figure out how to fix things on my own with the right tools and YouTube. I’m also pretty good at most crafts I’ve tried my hand at. I beaded my own beaded curtain, hand sewed a cosplay Viking fur cape out of faux fur for my husband, am a beginner at crochet and quilt making, am a pretty good cook, and I’d say I’m a decent writer.

9. Where were you born? Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in the US.

10. What are your hobbies? Hanging out with my family and pets, writing, reading, trophy hunting in video games, teaching myself new crafts, abstract doodling, hyperfixating on one thing for a long period of time then switching to something new.

11. Have you any pets? Two big dogs (that think they’re cats) and five cats.

12. What sports do you play/have played? None.

13. How tall are you? 5’9”

14. Favorite subject in school? English and science.

15. Dream job? Esthetician and makeup artist, but one that works for myself so I could work exclusively for LGBTQIA+ clientele who may not feel comfortable going to a traditional spa for services. I wouldn’t charge an arm and a leg either since this is a big passion of mine, basically just a little bit for each product used and maybe $10 for labor. So, altogether I’m thinking at max maybe $25-$30 for something like a facial. I’d also offer classes in makeup and skincare free of charge (which I already do for my friends, cis, trans and non-binary).

No pressure tagging: (Sorry if y’all did it already and I didn’t see it!) @pretendfan @powerfultenderness @eddiemunsons-missingnipple @munsonology @ladyapplejackdnd @ali-r3n

[possum-down]

the pride asks: 3 8 and 9 for ribz and bedel :]

YAY my guys

3. How did your oc discover themself? Did something cause them to question, or did they always know? I think for Ribz they kinda knew they were at least some sort of queer, even when younger. He doesn't seem the type too concerned with labels but does identify with bi and queer, just for when people ask. Maybe still figuring out the gender stuff. Bedel went through a long period of just being extremely anxious and unhappy with herself until she figured out she was trans. I think the domes are less open with that kinda stuff/isn't viewed as important because well. They're in a constant energy crisis. But I think it clicked when she overheard some others talking about it as a pre-teen, and from there she started to socially and soon medically transition. She has always found girls hot 👍

8. Have they had struggles with their identity, be it due to internal or external reasons? Bedel not so much, for her most of her anxiety over her gender was do to not knowing how to name how she felt. Know that she knows/has gone through most of the transition process she's pretty comfortable. Ribz... she's comfortable until she not. Most of their struggles are due to their own body image, so any time they feel a little too looked at the alarm bells start ringing. Face the struggle of "all prnouns, only gets she/her'd".

9. Are there cultural or lore specific aspects to their identity? If applicable, does their species affect it? OK so. Both octolings, but culturally very different cause of where they grew up (Ribz in Splatlands, Bedel in the domes). So gender presentation/views are a little different. They kinda are mimicking each others cultures a little bit? Bedel dresses in more Splatlands girl clothes because she wants to "blend in" and not stick out, but it sometimes feels weird when she's grown up in the domes. VS Ribz who dresses with a vague influence of domes military uniform with their mid drift showing alot (i think of it as like. the equivalent of wearing grunt shirts and camo) because he wants to come off as more "dangerous"

[ananinidraws]

Redesigns for Zeldas and Links. This is part 2. Part 1 is right here

Descriptions for each under the cut:

Classic:

- Trans male, he/him

- Heterochromia

- Mute. Speaks through sign language

- Modest boi, doesn't like to brag and doesn't know how to process compliments

- Horrible with directions, needs to have a map or compass on hand at all times

- Also has poor memory, always carries a diary/notebook with him

- Became a traveller after his adventures, documenting his journeys in his diary/notebook

- Is very close to Ribbon. They have a lot in commun and generally enjoy being arround each other

Ribbon:

- Trans girl, she/her

- Chubby

- Has a crush on Classic, but has not admited it to him yet

- Cheerful and a bit of an airhead. Spends a lot of time daydreaming

- Doesn't have much experience with running the kingdom, and is often at a loss of what to do. Dream currently helps her out

Dream:

- Grandma™

- Has no clue what's going on. She just... kinda hangs out. Since she has nowhere else to go

- Wished she could go back to before she was put to sleep. She misses everyone

- Has become a mentor figure to Ribbon

- Has a lot of experience that she passes down to Ribbon

Twilight:

- Fantastic with kids and animals. Not so great in other social situations

- A nice, simple and polite young man. Is a lot smarter than he lets on

- Has a quiet and peaceful life in Ordon Village after TP. Perhaps alongside Illia?

- Preserved the twilight shard, and can change into his wolf form at will. Likes to turn into doggo mode sometimes just to wander arround without a care in the world

- Will sometimes accidently try to maul enemies in human form

- Colorblind (like dogs!). Also has big chompers. ALSO also, turning into doggo mode so much has caused his human form to have some diferent characteristics

- Admires Dawn a lot, but they aren't very close. They mutually respect each other

- Still great friends with Midna

- Fully vocal, just anxious

Dawn:

- Love interest: Midna. Big lesbian vibes

- Very tall. She towers over the other Zeldas

- Markings from the Ganon posession

- Doesn't show much emotion. Always serious and professional

- Respects and is in good therms with Twilight, but is a bit distant

- Has found a way to bridge Hyrule and the Twilight Realm, so she and Twilight can go visit Midna any time

- Genuinly feels relaxed arround Midna. All her usual tension melts away

Discord:

- A mess (post adventure merge, without Shadow)

- Very unhappy about their situation. Does not like being 4 entities cramped in one body and wants to be separated again

- The 4 Links fight over control constantly after the merge. Before pulling out the Four Sword, each had their own turn, but they became more vocal after having the oportunity to live as individuals

- Because of the constant fight over control, Discord is very much disconected from everything. Most of the time, they spend it not moving, looking at nothing, completelly lost in their own turmoil

- Along with Flower, they decided the course of action was to split up again and live as individuals of their own

Flower:

- Love interest: Green

- >:3

- Chaotic. BFFs with Red and Shadow, cause chaos together

- She and Green love going together into flower fields, like old times

- Does not take her duties seriously. Preffers to goof arround, gets easilly bored if she's stuck in the castle all by herself

- In the brief time after the merge, when Discord was still arround, she spent a lot of time trying to cheer them up, to no avail

- She was the one that decided that separating them again would be the best course of action

Green:

- Love interest: Flower

- Leader, but has no clue what he's doing

- Even if he might be confused 90% all the time, he is still very competitive. Usually loses said competitions, though (because they are usually against Blue, who he constantly butts heads with)

- Is like a big bro to Red

- Proud owner of a single braincell

- He becomes Flower's bodyguard

Red:

- Love interest: Blue. Pan boi

- Baby boi. Baby

- Very innocent and sweet. Can cheer anyone up

- Has a mischevious streak, though. Shadow is a bad influence (and so is Flower)

- Blue is his favourite to be arround. He absolutly knows the effect he has on him, and takes full advantage of it (like i said, Shadow and Flower are bad influences)

- Proffecient with magic, especially fire and explosions

- Hands are calloused and full of burns, so he wears protective gloves now (Blue was the one that made him wear them)

Blue:

- Love interest: Red. Very, very gay, but also very much in denial

- Extremelly short fuse, will get angry if provoked

- Does not like Shadow and Vio that much. Cares about them deep down, but does not apreciate the constant pranks and teasing

- Prideful and loud

- Has absolutly no idea how to deal with embarassment, and is very easilly flustered

- Red is the only one who can calm him down. The others just give him space when he blows up

- He will never, EVER admit it to his face, much less to anyone else, but he really likes Red (in denial about any further feelings, though)

- Became a royal knight

- Neat freak. Everything must be organised and tidy, otherwise he will explode at the nearest person and go into a frenzy of cleaning. If anyone makes a mess on purpoise, he loses it

Vio:

- Love interest: Shadow

- Very smart, and rubs that in to every person he encounters

- Usually quiet, but is a sarcastic and cocky lil bicth

- Usually doesn't tag in with Red, Shadow and Flower's shenanigans. But if he does, lord help us all

- Tag teams with Shadow to make fun of Blue, because his reactions are the best

- Doesn't get a lot of sleep

- Specialises more on defensive magic, as oposed to Red's offensive magic. Barriers and healing are two he's particularly good at

Shadow:

- Love interest: Vio

- Bastard™

- Loves messing with everyone (even with Vio, but less frequently). His favourite victim is Blue. His reactions are priceless

- Is still adjusting to living as a good guy. Doesn't really know how to act in social interactions, so defaults to mischief

- Always manages to find himself in trouble

Wind:

- Aro Ace

- Rowdy Pirate Boy, fully vocal, and swears like a sailor

- Cannot swim very well, but loves the ocean

- Lost his eye in the Ganon fight

- Not the sharpest tool in the box

- The bandana is actually Tetra's! She gave it to him as a gift

- Is at the same time very energetic and very lazy. Likes to just lay arround in Tetra's ship

- Linebeck is his unoficial parent

- Took Aryll and his granny along him in his and Tetra's journey to New Hyrule. They all settled there

Tetra:

- Rowdy pirate girl

- Keeps her dark skin, as she should have in the first place

- Just cuz she's the ruler of a new contry, doesn't mean she lost the atitude

- Anjean and her were BFFs

- One of the only Zeldas to reach a very advanced age. Was still arround to watch Ghostie grow up

- Has gotten into trouble multiple times, due to her pirate ways. Has no regrets, her pirates often steal from those who deserve it anyway

Engie:

- Love interest: Ghostie

- Shy with strangers, barelly speaks (still very polite, though). Becomes a chatterbox with people he's close with

- Will infodump about trains

- A descendant of Aryll, not Wind

- Fidgets a whole lot, especially when he's nervous

- Inherits Tetra's bandana

Ghostie:

- Love interest: Engie

- Eyes change color acording to her emotions (like when she was posessing phantoms)

- Tetra's her granny, and she lived a bit to see her grow (i chose to ignore what Hyrule Historia has to say)

- Inherited all of Tetra's attitude

- Anxious baby, tho, panics quite easilly

- Engie is there to confort her, though

- Loves listening to him ramble about stuff

- Has a big mark on her stomach/chest area from haing her soul ripped out of her body

Warrior:

- Nonbinary, goes exclusivly by they/them

- Mute. Speaks through Proxy

- At first, they didn't like Proxy that much. Now they are inseparable

- Misses Lana. Sometimes, she comes by for a visit, but can never stay for too long

- Rapier is a close friend

- Linkle is actually their younger sister! Though neither know this

- Despite their anxious nature, they are a fantastic leader

- They are careful not to get too overconfident (they had a very bad experience last time that happened)

Rapier:

- Lesbian

- Wreckless, will throw herself into danger without thinking twice

- Usually comes out unscathed, though, she is confident in her abilities. Actually, one of, if not the best, Zelda when it comes to combat

- Has a more laid-back aprocah to her duties. Is like the cool aunt

- Will stab as a warning

- Impa has to keep her in check, otherwise she will be quite irresponsible

- Warrior is a close friend, she thinks of them as a little sibling she needs to protect. Dials down her rebelious atitude arround them, so that they don't get too overwhelmed (they don't like her wrecklessness)

Rythm:

- Dramatic little shit

- Bard vibes, flirts with anyone that he comes across. Usually results in comical fails

- His worst atempt yet has been Cadence

- Fully vocal, and a chatterbox with everyone

- Loves to dance

- A talented musician. Can pick up any instrument and play it no problem

- Atrocious singer, though

- He and Harmony have forgiven Octavo and are in somewhat good therms with him (after he served some time in... is there even something akin to a prison in Hyrule? Nah actually, he spent a long time stuck with Cadence)

- Rythm is kinda jealous that Octavo, not even trying, managed to "snatch" Cadence away

Harmony:

- Cheerful and bubbly

- Has stayed good friends with Cadence (headcanon that her world is part of Hyrule, just in a somewhat hidden part of it. Perhaps in a diferent timeline. I have a whole headcanon about the timeline too, maybe i should make a post about that)

- A very good singer. Rythm and her often pair up to perform. He plays the instrument and she sings

- Rythm has tried to flirt with her on multiple times. She laughs and brushes it off as a joke

- They are still great friends, though

Wild:

- Love interest: Sidon. Disaster Bi

- Confused

- Has not regained most of his memories, and the ones he does have... hooo boy

- Resorts to being an unhinged cryptid as a way to cope

- Will eat anything he finds on the ground

- Partially mute

- Silent and him have been reconecting. He might not have all his memories back, but he still thinks she's cool

Silent:

- Anxious baby. Struggles with her self esteem

- Loves to do research on... anything! Even if it's insignificant

- Especially loves researching animals and plants

- Mom friend 2.0

- Infodumps a lot

- Still has her memories from 100+, and is still sad about it

- Has been trying to reconect with Wild. It is a bit awkward, but both of them are trying their best

[absolutebl]

What are some popular tropes in BL that have died out? And what are some tropes you think will slowly phase out or transform? I was just thinking today how manga has evolved in the 20 years I've been reading it (and then had a moment of feeling old af) and was curious about dramas.

What a WONDERFUL ask! Thank you. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to tackle this question and I really hope others will weigh in, because i am sure i am forgetting something. 

Ready?

Here we go!

ONCE POPULAR BL TROPES THAT HAVE DIED 

1. Kidnapping for Love

My goodness this was once a big one. Putting aside Because of You (I have many thoughts on Taiwan's love of bad old tropes), 2016′s Addicted Heroin was the last major BL to employ this trope. It used to be SO POPULAR. A hearty dose of early BL, particularly the dark stuff out of Japan and China, used the kidnapping trope. By comparison, it is super rare now. I anticipate its resurgence only if we get a companion rise in mafia, historicals, and dark romance, which unless funding materializes, I don’t see happening in a big way. 

2. Sad Endings 

Before Thailand really hit its stride (starting around 2017) a majority of BLs (by far) ended unhappily with the couples separated, dead, stuck in dreamlands, or otherwise depressing apart and unhappy. If they did get together, the uke was often disfigured or crippled. There were lots of murders and suicides. It was a rotating buffet of “how many ways can we kill the gays?” Fortunately, those darks days seem to be mostly behind us. And i really think we can thank Thailand for that.

Everyone say: “Thank you, Thailand.” 

3. Taboo Tropes

We used to get a lot of May/December, Teacher/Student, and Stepbrothers wanna bone tropes. Yaoi started these and Japan and Taiwan will still pick up and play with them, but percentage-wise since China left the scene, they are becoming much less common. I think that’s partly because gay used to be strongly considered/associated with taboo, thus to push the boundaries with other taboos using a gay couple was considered a companion titillation. Bonus squick for everyone! Thank heavens they seem to be fading away and fans respond vocally and negatively to their presence (see H4). 

4. Whipping Boy

Like kidnapping, i think this trope is pretty much dead. This is the poor kid raised in the rich kid’s household expressly to service him. We kinda saw it with Golden Blood, but the original whipping boy was always a suffering uke who was household sub, slaving his identity to his wealthy master/boss, giving his everything to that one seme, including his body. China’s Irresistible Love duology is the prefect version of this trope (also TulHin in A Chance at Love). Japan, of course, has picked this one up in the seme (attack dog) variant for My Beautiful Man. So it’s not totally dead. But that’s japan for you. 

TROPES DOOMED TO SLOWLY PHASE OUT OR TRANSFORM 

1. Punch down humor & queer othering 

Punch down humor vilifying femme, butch, trans, and other visually queer characters is slowly starting to be less common and occasionally be directly addressed. It’s taking a while but with Taiwan, the Philippines and, to a certain extent, Vietnam I think we will see more queer rep and less queer vilification leaking into Thai stuff. And in BL where Thailand goes others will follow. Hopefully, we will also start to get more queer domesticity as a side effect. (Thailand is making big strides in 2022.) 

2. Gay for You 

I think the straights are starting to get that is a very ugly thing to do to a character. Once MAME puts an out pansexual in her series, after being one of the first to put an out bisexual into BL, you gotta give Thailand some credit. I think BL wants to be hip and modern and if that means using the lingo the queer kids are using (semantics are super important), and that in turn leads to normalization and acceptance? I’ll take it. And in BL where Thailand goes... (to be fair Taiwan is pretty much there). 

3. Size Differential Fetish 

I think seme/uke in some form or another will stick around for a very long time, but I think the visual depiction of the seme as significantly taller then the uke will probably become less common. Partly because of casting constraints. I think directors are going to prioritize good chemistry and on screen comfort between their leads over perfect visuals. Taiwan and the Philippines have pretty much given up on this aspect. Korean only really bothers with a school setting. I think we are going to see Vietnam and Thailand follow. The Thai pulps are already leaning this way. 

4. School Settings

Early live action yaoi from Japan gave us a lot of workplace set BL. Early stuff from Korea, too. Then Thailand firmly moved us into high school and university for what seems to be the requisite 4 years (for reasons of expense - they’re cheep to make). I think we are going to see a lot more non-school settings going forward - especially from Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Thailand even seems to be getting in on it by way of cafes and restaurants. The audience is excited about this and the production companies can cut costs by sizing down the cast. 

5. Friends to Lovers 

I think we are going to see a lot more complex origin tropes than we have. Much less plain old friends to lovers or enemies to lovers. We will still get romance tropes like cohabitation but they will be Be Loved In House or To My Star style, not just college roommates something more nuanced. We will probably get more fake dating, paranormal elements, secret lovers, fuck buddies, and so forth. I would be shocked if we didn’t see some messy “my sister’s ex” or “my best friend’s younger brother” or “my sister-in-law’s brother” extended family taboo come into play. Possibly combined with “home for the holidays” style romances, probably from those who go shorter run and can get domestic like Taiwan, Vietnam, or Japan. “Boss’s spoiled son want’s me” is also a good one we haven’t seen recently. These all are super popular in gay romances and great ways to get tons of tension outside of an education environment.  

VISUAL TROPES I DIDN’T SEE MUCH OF IN 2021

Share My Earbuds? - seems to be fading away. Perhaps because 2gether kinda owns this one and feel tired? Or perhaps with the rise of ear pods it’s just the tech is too old fashioned.

Post-it Love Note -  too overdone in 2020 for anyone to use this year?

Bath Time! - I’ve stopped keeping track of this one because it’s more all romance than just BL and Tumblr gods get mad at me when I show too much flesh. But showering or bathing together seems to be departing all but the highest of heat BLs.

Kiss Me In The Car - aside from Gen Y this one seems to be entirely abandoned in favor of “I’m just doing up your seatbelt for you” as an excuse to execute a variation on the aggressive loom trope.

Clutch That Pillow - there were a few of these this year, but none struck me as particularly significant.

(source)

[gb-patch]

Ask Answers: August 8th

Well, doing big posts all together worked for a while but lately I’ve been putting it off because it takes a long time to get them done. I think I’m gonna try switching back to answering asks whenever I can fit it in and posting them one at a time instead of waiting until I’ve filled out one of these major collections.

But for now, here’s more ask answers! Thank you for the questions and for all the kind words along with them ^^.

Hello!! I'm here to ask if its possible to get  the game and its dlcs on steam and play it on android?

I’m afraid not. Steam doesn’t have Android builds on their own site and Steam is not cool with keys for other sites being given out for Steam purchases, so you don’t get the Itch version from buying on Steam.

Hello! Sorry to bother you but, I had a question, if we buy the Game on itchio do we get steam keys or would we need to purchase it twice? 

You would have to buy it twice if you want it in both places, I’m sorry. To repeat myself a little, Steam doesn’t like the key trading thing. Itch may support giving keys for another site, but the reverse isn’t doable with Steam and Steam doesn’t even really want you to get a Steam key for buying somewhere else either. So we just don’t mess around with that.

hey, sorry if this is frequently asked, but is step 4 free dlc or paid for? some of your sources are contradicting each other. 

It’s free! There’s a paid wedding DLC, but Step 4 itself is entirely unpaid.

Hello! I just had a quick question, for the Baxter and Derek DLC's will we be able to confess our feelings to them or let them confess to MC? or will it only be one way? (they confess to MC)

Both type of options will be available!

Hey there! I wanted to ask whether or not the Derek DLC is still on track to be released in August since on the steam discussion board it says it will be released mid 2021. I totally understand if it isn't, I'm just really looking forward to it! If you answer then ty! And keep up the amazing work :D 

It’s not, aha. Unfortunately, 2021 wasn’t easier than 2020 as we hoped so things are still slower than planned. It’ll come out late 2021 or early 2022.

Hi! Firstly I just want to say that I LOVE Our Life. I have played a bit of similar games but this one instantly wins for the best one! Everything about it is amazing! I just wanted to ask if Derek would ever lose feelings for MC, like if they make the deal and then MC gets with Cove would he move on? and even if you don't, after "losing contact" would his feeling fade or would he still like MC? 

If you don’t really keep in touch with him and clearly move on with your life, Derek will too and he’ll be over it. But if you are still close as best as you can be, he’ll still think the MC is special. Though, he’ll always support your relationship with someone else if that’s what’ll make you happy.

Hello! Sorry if you've answered this before but: 'How's Lee related to us? Though which momma? And does she share our player-chosen last names? Also, do you know if Noelani took Pam's last name or did it happen the other way round? 

She’s related to Pamela and Pamela’s last name is the one they use, so the MC has the same last name as Lee.

Will we be able to choose which (they or he) we tend to call Qiu by more often, or will it randomly change depending on the moment? 

Qiu knows which pronoun they’re comfortable with at a time and you’ll call them what they’re happy with. And it doesn’t change between lines, it takes multiple scenes or even full Steps for it to switch. So for extended periods Qiu will be totally a guy or fully agender.

Will Step 4 of OL2 have moments?

It’ll be an epilogue like it is in OL1, so it won’t have a bunch of different Moments.

Hello! Just a quick question, is Sunset bird from OL1 based on a real location? If so what's it called? I wanna visit it +_+

ps i love your games so much <3

It isn’t based on one specific town you can go to, but there are a lot of little coastal towns in Cali that have a similar vibe!

Heyaaa ( I hope you're all well ), umm… it might seem kinda stupid to ask but did Patreon members can have a key for the dlc's ( all the steps-released dlc ) even if they became a member this month or later ? (me? saying this cuz it's my case? maybe ;-;), and once again thanks for absolutely all the amazing works on all the games ! u-u 

You wouldn’t get the DLCs for backing there. The Patreon is for extra bonus content/early access, rather than being a storefront to purchase the normal DLCs. Rarely we give them out as a side gift, but it hardly happens and if what you want is the DLCs it’s best to ignore the Patreon and  buy keys for those directly from Itch or Steam. I’m sorry for the confusion.

Hey y'all, love what youre doing w/Terry. Trans rep outside of player customization is so rare and important to see more of so thank you so much. I do have a question and its that does he have a canon sexuality? I know Miranda was said to be straight ace but I dont believe anything was stated for Terry probably because he wasnt revealed to be a guy which changes things. Im also curious if well get answers on how long hes liked Miranda since he may have liked her in step 3 before she liked him 

Terry likes women and Randy likes men! And he did like Miranda back in Step 3.

Will the Wedding Dlc release at the same time as Step 4? 

They’ll come out separately with Step 4 releasing first.

I really love Our Life so much! I've spent over 20hours playing it even though I only got it a week ago! I was wondering if I could make a fangame for Our Life with a different love interest but same plot. Next-door neighbors romance, multiple steps, etc? I'll probably make it on Google Slides though- 

Sure! I hope you have fun with it and I’m glad you love the game.

How does Cove feel about poly relationships? 

He’s got nothing against them for the people they work for, but he’s 100% monogamous and would only be comfortable with a partner who was willing to be monogamous with him.

Idk if this has been answered before but will Step 4 include the option to advance your feelings towards Cove? 

Yep, you’ll be able to determine your feelings and what your relationship is.

In step 4 will there be a chosen to say we live with Cove even as just friends? 

Yeah, you can choose to live with Cove and that can be done when you’re friends.

I just played the game with the MC and Cove being best friends and omg it’s still so damn cute like the wholesomeness of it all is too much for my heart I swear ^.^  Now with that all said I was wondering can we still marry Cove? if we only love him as a friend like let’s say we’ve made deal with him similar to the one we can make with Derek because let’s real no one could compete with what the MC and Cove have even if they aren’t in love. 

It’s great to hear you enjoyed the friendship story! You can live with Cove, but you can’t marry him platonically. Cove has familial affection for the MC if they’re best-est friends. He wouldn’t think to marry someone he loves like family and even grew up with as though they truly were siblings.

Are you still going to be making a DLC for XOBD? :] 

Yes! We’re slowing adding voiced lines and fixing errors.

It makes me laugh that Shiloh's last name is Fields because that's what I put as my last name! So in Our Life when he talked about "Ms. Fields" picking him up I was extremely confused, lol. That dude mimics personalities so much that he stole my surname!

Oh, wow, that’s a very funny coincidence, haha.

hi !! i cant seem to be able to get the scene where mc is able to propose to cove despite being at the 'love' stage and telling him i'd want to get married, are there any other details that im missing out on? the options just dont appear at the end... 

Maybe you missed telling Cove you were in love with him even if you mentioned wanting to get married or you might’ve accidentally said earlier in the game that you don’t want to progress your relationship further with Cove. We haven’t removed them, so you can get the scene again. It’s just kind of easy to miss since there’s multiple requirements. You can read a little guide in the FAQ.

wait what di you need to do to be able to propose to cove? I've been trying but haven't had much luck 

You can check out the FAQ linked above!

does cove only develop a crush on the mc if the mc is also at crush/in love with him? 

Technically, yes. We treat the non-romantic relationship options as truly non-romantic since we don’t want to bait and switch people. But there’s nothing wrong with headcanoning that Cove does have feelings developing for the MC even before the MC has.

Is there a way to make/allow Lee and Baxter to date?

No, they just don’t have enough time together.

We also got a group of asks related to Tamarack in OL2, but I’m afraid the way they talked about people with larger bodies made me not want to post their words, even if the person didn’t say they’re trying to be hurtful. I will separate out the core question and answer it though, so people can know that info.

Does Tamarack lose weight in later Steps?

No, she doesn’t. As for the other questions included, to be honest, I don’t have to explain/defend having romance options of different sizes. I’m sorry if you’re dealing with unhappiness that’s connected to body image, if that’s where the negative emotions are coming from, but even so I can’t meet you on that level and pretend it’s a problem that needs an answer. A girl who simply isn’t thin being a main love interest is just not an unreasonable concept. Also, Tamarack isn’t a lesbian. Yes, she can date a female MC, but that doesn’t undo her actual sexuality, so I’m not sure where that one part at the end was coming from.

I wonder... can we "fight" with Qiu over leader status? 👀

Not really, haha. No matter how cool your MC is, they’re never gonna replace Qiu for the other kids around. So you can either partner up with him, follow him too, or not be a part of all that group politics stuff.

So when I play the game, sometimes I mentally call Cove “Covie/Covey” and that made me wonder, how does Cove feel about being nicknamed? Not like Romeo/Space Cadet/etc. but like pet names relating to his actual name

It’d depend on his age, personality, and your relationship with him! When he’s younger he’d probably be embarrassed, when he was grown he’d probably be more casual or happy about it.

will you be able to date baxter in step 3 while at crush with cove (but not dating him ofc) sorry if this has been asked already. i really love baxters step 4 design btw!! 

Yeah, you can be crushing on Cove and date Baxter if you weren’t already dating Cove. You just can’t be truly in love with Cove and then switch to Baxter.

I just got my friend into our life, and they adore shiloh and derek sooo will there be more of them in the second game? 

I’m afraid not. But you can see plenty more of Shiloh in XOXO Droplets/XOXO Blood Droplets, haha.

I see you haven't gotten any xoxo droplets asks recently but I'm still obsessed with these boys!! I was just wondering if Nate would curse under any circumstance? 

Yeah, Nate does use certain swear words (damn, hell, bastard) on very rare occasions.

Hi there! I have a question about the wedding dlc. Will we be able to plan a honeymoon during the planning stages of it or would it be something that Cove and the mc would rather plan later on? Thank you! Absolutly love the game by the way, definitely one of my favorite games! 

The focus will be on the wedding day itself. The topic of the honeymoon might come up a bit, but there won’t be any choosing of the exact location and such.

Hi! I have two questions and it's completely understandable if you only answer one/neither and I'm sorry if you've already answered either before! First, is there a set year in which OL:B&A takes place (ex: Step 1 being set in 2010 & Step 2 being set in 2016, etc.) or is it simply up to interpretation? Second, have you guys thought about doing a coming-of-age game where the MC has a tough home life or upbringing? (like one of their parents is an addict, a parent being transphobic whilst the player has the option to be trans, or having friends that are influencing them to do drugs, etc.) That's all! Thanks for making beautiful games. <3 

There is a set timeline!

Step 1: 2006 Step 2: 2011 Step 3: 2016 Step 4: 2021 

And we don’t currently plan on making a game like that. The Our Life series exists to be a safer environment for people to play around in and if we did do a brand new series that was harsher edged it’d be something more fantastical and/or plot-driven instead of a different type of modern day slice-of-life growing up story. I’m sorry.

i don’t know if you’ve already answered this, but do you have a guess on when phase 4 will come out? as well as ol2? i’m so excited for both of them, the inclusivity in this game is amazing, you guys should be really proud of it! 

Step 4 will be coming out very soon! OL2 is gonna take until 2023 to be anywhere near completion. But we might episodically release the Steps one at a time as they get done instead of waiting for three to be finished before launch like we did with the first game.

Hello, I was curious if there was an official or unofficial discord server for the game? 

We do have a discord! You can join by clicking this link HERE.

how long do you plan to keep ol's patreon running? 

Hopefully for at least a few more years.

Are you considering ever making merch? 

Yeah, but I don’t know when it’ll happen or what exactly we’ll make, aha. It’s something we want do, just nothing is set.

hi! i just found out about your game a couple of days ago on tiktok (so sorry if you’ve already answered this question) and i was wondering if y’all are ever planning to release it on iOS? 

I have no idea. It’s hard for a small group to get Apple approval and I honestly can’t say if it’ll ever happen or not. Maybe someday, though!

Hi, I love the art style of Our life and I would like to know if the artist has a Twitter? Also, could it be possible to fund more CGs for the game from him/her? So many times, I wish there was one like when the cutscene of the sunshower. 

That’s nice of you to offer. He doesn’t have a Twitter, at least not one that’s public enough to be shared with me. And I’m afraid not. The issue is that the CGs take huge amounts of time rather than there not being a budget for it. He’s gotta make CGs for Step 4, the DLCs, and new character sprites, too. There isn’t space in the schedule for even more. Sorry for that.

Hi, how are you?!

Are you planning on accepting new writers or is it always the same people who write your stories??

Thanks!!

Our Life: Beginnings & Always won’t be getting new writers, but we will be hiring a new team of writers for Our Life: Now & Forever eventually!

perhaps this counts as nsfw and I'm sure it has been answered before but what does Cove prefer, chests/boobs or butts? or perhaps both :3c thank you for this wonderful game (and the patreon bonus moment, it was worth all the waiting and more ♥) 

He’s a “chests of all shapes and sizes” kind of guy, haha.

i was wondering- did any of the writers actually grow up by the beach? as someone who's lived in a beach town all their life it really did feel nostalgic to play through our life 1 

I was born and raised in Cali! Though, not right by the beach. We still had to make trips out, but the setting is based on my own childhood memories of small beach towns we went through.

In Derek’s upcoming DLC, will we be able to reference the pact we made as teens? (love olba and xod/xobd so much btw you’re literally amazing) 

Yep, you will be able to talk about that!

Oh, sorry about the Cole being secretly L ask, then!

If you wanted context: Death Note is about this one guy who finds a notebook that kills anyone who you write the name of in there. The guy eventually develops a God Complex and starts mass killing criminals and stuff. L is the one trying to find out who is killing all these people.

Me and my sister first joked about it because I couldn't remember how to translate a word about the way Cove was sitting, so I just did the pose, and it looked a lot like how L himself sits! Then we just snowballed from there, with more and more nonsense connections.

That’s okay! Thanks for explaining. I’m sorry I didn’t know what you meant.

[werevulvi]

So I've been away from tumblr for a while. Not sure how long. Maybe a month? I'm writing a book (fiction) so I've been and still am busy with more fulfilling distractions from reality than social media. The book I'm writing is about a woman, Olga, who's transitioning like me, but then she's an assassin. I don't wanna get into all the itty gritty details of that until I'm done, but writing that book has been serving as a great distraction from my gender issues. Except I need to take breaks from my hyper-focused super intense writing spree at times to not accidentally boil my brain. What? Is working on a project for 10+ hours a day, every day, for over a month a little much? Sorry I can't hear you over my autistic hyperfocus. And those breaks get me tossed right back into... mostly dysphoria. That’s what I wanted to rant about.

I know this is an unfair accusation, but sometimes I wonder just how paranoid and anxious feminism has made me. I fully abhor victim mentality, but sometimes reading feminist posts, articles, etc, about the various evils of men (crime statistics, female victims' accounts of male violence, etc) makes me feel... like a victim, and hopeless, for being female. And it requires a lot of effort to dig myself out of that pit. I need to remind myself that I can trust men, that most of them are not violent, that they're not the real enemy, and that women are not so different from men. Otherwise what? Otherwise I'd give into my PTSD and get drowned out by my dysphoria.

PTSD says all men are dangerous and want my pussy, either to harm it or fuck it. PTSD says it's my fault I'm a victim of sexual trauma, because I am female. And I dunno why, but sometimes feminism echoes that sentiment, and that's not great for my recovery, or my long term pursuit of happiness. Dysphoria says I'm too different from men and that's why I hate being female. Dysphoria doesn't want any special treatment just because I'm female. Feminism echoes what my dysphoria says, sometimes, and that's not great. Dysphoria wants equal treatment. Receiving equity due to my "failed" sex feels like... I dunno, like wanting to crawl out of my fucking skin and set it on fire, I suppose. Bad female skin humiliating me. Because that again reminds me that my sex being female is what's wrong, and not the treatment of women as "weaker" and more emotionally frail. Then my solution is to get rid of my femaleness, so that I can be strong, fast and free. Independent enough to open a fucking jar. I feel trapped in the unfairness itself.

I still want to be different from women, not from men. I want to stand out among women, and I'm jokingly boasting about how I'm such an NLOG (Not Like Other Girls) and proud to be different, in masculine ways. I'm proud to be hairier, having a deeper voice, and that female socialization didn't stick to me as much. And likewise, I feel good when I'm similar to men, blend in among them, am compared to them as an equal to them, and that I managed to pick up on some male socialization. This is more subconscious, and not something I really think about.

I still wish I was male, and that impossible dream still hurts, I guess. I've been trying to distract myself from those thoughts by writing my book and... having sexual fantasies in which I am male. Clearly my own home made therapy that made me connect somewhat with being female (3 years ago) was ineffective in the long run, but now I can't possibly make myself believe I'm a man again, just because I still/again wish I was male. It comes and goes, yes, but it's seemingly in a curvy line that over time points me in the dysphoric direction, and not in the desisting direction. And that's what's so hard. That I basically have to force myself to this realization that... I can't talk myself out of my dysphoria, and that that little bit of connection I got to my sex 3 years ago, was an appetizer for a meal I'll never have. That feels cruel.

And I keep telling myself I don't have dysphoria. Nah, I'm just transitioning for the heck of it. If only!

I don't wanna be trans, and I don't wanna be dysphoric. I wanna be male, but that's different. I can't even see myself as a man simply because I am not male and can never be. Thus, I'm a woman, and unhappy with it. Yet, I clearly can't function as a woman socially either, and that frustrates me. I'm happy that I can look and sound so convincingly male in my appearance, and I'm really excited to go back on testosterone, but I... I feel trapped, in a medical condition I cannot escape. And it doesn't matter what fucking caused it, it's not going away! Point is it's not going away! I've tried for sixteen years! I am tired! And now I can't even call myself a man without laughing all the way to hell and back.

Everyone wants to be trans nowadays. Everyone who benefits from a new label. But I don't. Clearly I don't have an easy time with it, and it might be because I just have a shit ton of sex/physical dysphoria, and not even calling myself a man helps. It just adds insult to injury. I don't wanna play pretend, goddamnit, I wanna be a real boy! That's "problematic" to say, because I shouldn't shatter other trans people's dreams. Well, mine's shattered and I wanna whine about it. I don't blame them for their identities. How could I? Ignorance is bliss, and I miss bliss.

I think that's why I feel like I'm a woman who just wishes she was a man, and kinda always have. I wrote it in my diary when I was 16, four years before I even came out as trans, before I knew anything about trans ideology or gender critical or anything, but I knew I was dysphoric and fit the loose criteria for FTM transsexuals, and I didn't like that verdict. It felt like a death sentence, and now... now it feels like a cruel joke.

I don't think I'm really all that different from trans men. De-gendered, perhaps, but still just as bloody dysphoric and still just as much of a testosterone junkie. I'm just a less happy go lightly kinda FtM. I've always been a bit of a nihilist. The "if you leave the half full glass it will eventually dry the fuck out no matter how much water you keep pouring up into it, because the nature of water is to vaporize" -kinda nihilist, not the "the glass is half empty" -kind. Yes, there is a difference. I'm not a pessimist, I'm a hardcore realist, and reality is... being trans sucks and I can't do fucking shit about it. I want a solution, not rose tinted goggles. But at this point, I'd take that too. I've tried... but they keep falling off.

Perhaps I'm too autistic to get gender identity, or maybe I just don't have social dysphoria or gender incongruence, perhaps it just feels so fucking pointless. Words... they're just blah blah blah. They have whatever meaning we put in them. So I changed my personal meaning of "woman" to include my dysphoria and beard, and since then I'm fine with calling myself a woman. But woman is still just a word. It's what I am that I dislike, not what I'm supposed to call it. My problem is not in how people perceive me. They can perceive me as a stranded jelly fish if they so wish, it doesn't change reality that I'm an adult human female. And it's reality, that biological reality, that bothers me.

And I don't like that I realised that, because biological reality is the one thing I can't change. I can change my identity, but my identity as a woman is not the problem. The problem is my sex is still persistently female. And I don't wanna change what is not a problem. Why fix what ain't broken? I get that my sex isn't broken either (well it might be now, considering I've smashed it with testosterone) but I just don't wanna be a woman. Because dysphoria. No point in arguing. It just goes round and round in circles. I can't make a logical argument for why I don't like ketchup either though. It always comes back to "but I just don't like it."

I just get sad, sometimes, over being female, and uncomfortable. And I get envious of men's bodies, and then I get sad I can't have that. And I try to emulate what men's bodies do, which makes me feel a bit better, but then I remember I'm still female, and I try to be okay with that. Sometimes I even half succeed, and feel like "yeah, being a woman is actually kinda badass!" but then I remember that a cranky uterus and estrogen exist in my body, acting as if they want me to suffer a slow (very slow) death, and I get sad again. Is trying to like being a woman even worth it, considering that's mostly been going downhill since I was 3 years old? Well what the hell are my options, aside from that?! Pretending to be a man? Pretending that the nonbinary labels could do anything at all to benefit my existence?

I'm sorry, but I don't see the appeal, in either of those options. I'll try to just exist. That became my focus; just existing. But I can't distract myself 24/7. Because as soon as I stop distracting myself, for even just a minute, I get caught in the inevitable doom that is my dysphoria, and how hopelessly trapped I am inside it.

[lesbeet]

Hey, I just wanted to say thank you for the posts you made about pcos because they meant a lot to me. I was diagnosed as a teen and the symptoms have caused me tons of gender dysphoria that I still struggle with daily. But I would always feel guilty for feeling that way because as a (pretty much cis) afab person, I felt like I wasn’t entitled to those feelings, or that I was alone in them. Anyway, I just wanted you to know how deeply you’ve affected me and thank you from the bottom of my heart. Much love ❤️

i’m so glad angel <3 but yeah i absolutely feel like that describes my own experience as well. 

it’s not something i’ve really discussed in detail publicly—in part bc i didn’t really conceive of what i was experiencing as gender dysphoria until pretty recently, and bc like you said, i didn’t feel like it was an experience that was available for me to claim since i’m also “a (pretty much cis) afab person.” i typically think of myself as “functionally” cis in that i receive the material benefits of a cis woman and don’t necessarily feel like being trans is an accurate way to describe my experiences or feelings about my own gender, but ever since i was a kid i’ve felt distress and discomfort about the way my body doesn’t feel...aligned? with the way i feel gender-wise. 

like i guess the easiest way to describe it is that i feel like my body makes me come across as more masculine than i am, and it’s caused a lot a lot a lot of emotional distress for as long as i can remember. my pcos symptoms (mostly the excess body hair and the way my body holds onto weight, personally) are w/o a doubt the primary cause for me, but being a lesbian certainly didn’t/doesn’t help, and in hindsight even some of my adhd symptoms probably contribute/d to this in some way

like i have clear memories of being maybe 8 or 9 (so before puberty, and before most of my pcos symptoms really manifested) and lying in bed at night thinking like...”i feel like i should be a boy.” not “i WANT to be a boy” or “i WISH i was a boy” or even “i AM a boy”, but that i should be, or that i should want to be. and then i would imagine myself as a boy and it would make me so desperately uncomfortable and unhappy because it was so at odds with how i felt on the inside, even though i WAS a girl. i honestly don’t think i’ve ever talked about this lmfao it’s always just kinda been tucked in the back of my mind bc i didn’t really have an understanding of what i was feeling

so there’s little baby lesbian me who definitely knows she likes girls but would jump in front of a bus before admitting that to herself, let alone to anyone else, and on top of that i’ve always been overweight, esp compared to most other girls my age growing up, and especially as a little kid i didn’t really share the same ~girly~ interests as a lot of my friends—i never liked playing with dolls, i didn’t care about makeup until i felt like i needed it to make me pretty, etc. and bc of (then-undiagnosed) adhd i was usually more like. messy and disorganized and LOUD than a lot of my friends who were girls. so i would just walk around feeling like this brutish, masculine child who looked awkward and dumb when i would like go to dance class (which i LOVED....when i didn’t have to look in the mirror) or hang out with my friends or whatever

and i feel like even though i’ve always been pretty feminine i’ve also gotten more *girly* as i’ve gotten older (or at least i got over my “i’m not like other girls” syndrome lmfao), which has helped, along with just being more comfortable w myself and w my sexuality for sure. but even now i still feel like i look inherently more masc than i feel like i am, and it still causes me distress. like there are certain things i would love to wear but don’t bc they would make me look “too masc” and would trigger the dysphoria. like i looooove looking at like feminine women in suits and i LOVE women in button-up shirts but i feel like i can’t wear them because it doesn’t come across the same way. when i do it i just look like i’m intentionally dressing to look masc, which i’m not

idk if any of this makes sense lol

and if i’m misinformed about my understanding of gender dysphoria please feel free to let me know

but anyway i’m glad i was able to help you! <3 and thank you for inadvertently giving me this opportunity to get all of this out bc like i said i’ve never really talked about it before