#and completely unrelated to trans issues

[babbelswoofominides]

Man if there's anything that this story has brought out is how parasocial some people can get with celebrities. And I'd have never guessed the biggest parasocialites would be the haters 💀

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA if I tried to covertly exclude one of my friends from game nights ? 🎮🎧📞

tw: disordered eating, self harm

I've got a discord friend group of about 15 people though only 10 or so are regularly active and game nights often are usually around 6 people but they rotate who participates often. We're all in the 20s and mostly nonbinary / genderqueer / trans one way or another. I'm 25 ftm personally (they them) and the friend this is about in particular is 22mtf (she/they).

Friend is really excited to hit the 1 year marker in her transition and loves sharing how excited she is about her progress - how strangers at her job are gendering her correctly more and more often, how her cup sizes are growing, how much weight she's lost, wardrobe updates, getting to learn girl things from their very supportive mom, etc etc etc. It's all very exciting, I remember hitting my 1 year marker and i'm genuinely really happy for her.

The thing is I struggled with disordered eating in the past. Several others in our friend group have as well and it's something we've talked about both in related and unrelated convos to this issue. Friend keeps an excel spreadsheet with her measurements from bust to hips to weight and will update us frequently whether we've expressed interest in hearing the exact numbers or not. Exact Numbers was one of the things I kept track of and hearing her tracking them (for very different reasons) will often set me off and i'll start taking more and more unhealthy actions, falling back into disordered habits.

Friend has adhd and very poor impulse control. She often joins conversations and talks over people, completely changes conversational topics on a dime, or forgets who is in a call at any moment and brings up someone's triggers. She'll almost always apologize if someone mentions a social mistake she's made, but because the weight/food intake/number watching is so important to them as a way to track their transition it's the one thing that keeps coming back and back and back. I and the others have tried talking in voice calls, mentioning in text chats in the group and even DMing her but because of the topic and this group being the friend group she feels safest in (we were all the first to know and hyped them up on the hrt journey) these are some convos she only gets to have here

and because of the topic, i feel rude or embarrassed when I have to say "hey can we not talk about this right now or i'm gonna have to leave". So on most nights if it comes up I'll just deafen / go afk / just zone out entirely until the conversation has passed. If it doesn't seem like it's going to or they are so in depth that it's genuinely triggering a self harm response i'll fully leave instead so she can keep having her fun and get excited

Game nights are different though

I'm usually the host of game night and so can pick when we play our silly little games. Obviously people can and do still hangout and do things together Not on specific game nights, and we all do, but game nights are my thing. We play party games over discord or multiplayer competition games or lately have been getting into games like content warning and lethal company when there's 4 or sometimes 5 of us (either someone wants to hang out but only watch or we rotate around who plays round by round)

Friend is often working in the evenings and so bc this is an online friend group they don't actually know my work schedule. We usually only have about half the total number of participants be around for game night anyways, so I've been thinking of occasionally lining up game nights for nights when she's mentioned being busy by saying i work the other nights - but only sometimes. I do really like friend. She can be so much fun to hang out with, excitingly competitive and with interesting knowledge to share and generally a good sport no matter the actual game we're playing. But sometimes the worry about the triggering and the trigginering itself are too much. sometimes i just can't handle when she does it and knowing i can't leave and asking her to stop expressing her joy makes me feel like an asshole anyways so i don't want to be around it.

To be clear. I do not think they are an asshole. Friend is genuinely one of my friends. I like her and hanging out with her. they do not trigger me (or any of the others w this same trigger) maliciously. this is solely would I be the asshole.

TLDR: My friends way of tracking her transition sometimes triggers my eating disorder. would I be the asshole for planning game nights that I host and cannot leave / tune out conversations during so that she cannot attend as often in hopes that I am not triggered as often?

[shippofuri]

Thoughts on Lycion's identity, species, gender. (CW: mentions of internalized transphobia)

as someone who is trans and has species dysphoria (and whose transness is intrinsically linked to species dysphoria, the human female form being too exaggeratedly human to feel comfortable in) it feels a bit odd when people exclusively discuss Lycion's body dysmorphia as exclusively a trans allegory (which is a perfectly reasonable read! but it can be more than that...) seemingly without much awareness that people who are like him, and especially trans people who are like him in a more literal sense exist... So I figure, as one of those people, I might give some observations on Lycion, along with some anecdotes of my own experience and how it parallels it, how his characterization reflects real-world struggles- both literally and as a trans narrative, and why I appreciate characters like him so much.

What is fascinating (but also so relatable!) to me, both when viewed in a literal sense and as a trans allegory, is that Lycion does not actually have a particular affinity to another species, but rather feels a visceral discomfort with his own elven body.

We even see in his raceswap portraits, Lycion is visibly happier as anything but an elf. Unlike Laios, who wants to become a monster, Lycion doesn't want to become anything in particular, he simply wants to stop being an elf.

Most depictions of transgender characters in media are focused on the idea of wanting to become something. Feeling in your heart you were always meant to be a boy or a girl or perhaps some secret third thing. Having a specific goal. What is less often depicted is the experience of I don't want to be what i was born as, I'd rather be anything else but this. anything is better than this. And, in both my struggles with gender and with my own humanity, this has been my experience!

Of course, there are a great many creatures I look at and think "I would be much happier if i were one of them", but those feelings are broader and less pressing than the overwhelming discomfort with my own body, and the desire to be less human. I aspired to masculinity and ultimately pursued transition not out of a particular affinity with any idea of maleness, but because masculine human features, to me, appear more animalistic, less of a strange naked thing that sticks out like a sore thumb in the grand scheme of things. And so too did Lycion pursue becoming a beastman, not because he felt a particular affinity with being a wolf, but because it would make him less of an elf.

And after pursuing it, even though he still has to spend much of his time as an elf, Lycion is far more comfortable, no longer nihilistic and self-destructive. He's confident, prideful even! He has a body that doesn't feel wrong, even if he can only wear it sometimes.

And, myself having been on HRT for nearly four years now, i have to say my experience has been much the same! Even though, of course, I'm still human, my dysphoria has essentially been eliminated, I feel comfortable in my body, and I genuinely like the way I look. I admire my reflection and find joy even in the changes that i was merely indifferent to the possibility of when beginning my treatment, and it even eased some issues completely unrelated to gender...!

Finally, Laios' dismissal of Lycion's identity here feels very reminiscent of people casting doubt on a trans (most often nonbinary) individual's identity due to transitioning for what they view as "the wrong reason", even at times arguing that only people who meet their personal standard for transness should be allowed access to transition. And like with Laios, who himself wishes to become a monster, these arguments are often coming from within, from others in the trans community.

Is someone who identifies as male because they don't want to be female less justified in their desire to pursue transition than someone who doesn't want to be female because they identify as male...? Should people be denied the right to feel comfortable in their own skin because they are seeking to escape something, rather than reaching for something specific...? Of course, you know what my answer is, but I digress.

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia

I have 2 separate questions that are unrelated but share a subject matter.

Would a woman omega or trans man omega who was infertile/sterile be allowed at Hillview?

And 2) Have you thought or would you ever write an mm pairing where one of them was a trans man?

I'm trans masc and I find it so hard to find good trans fics that deal with trauma recovery or aren't just pwp. And I love your writing so much that if you ever decided to write a transman fic I'd literally cry from happiness.

So, I was going to write a big long world-building response to this but instead I'm gonna take it back to something personal - you're asking me to consider worldbuilding for and writing for stuff I feel pretty dysphoric over in my personal life. I go out of my way to really, really avoid writing heterosexuality of any kind for a start, so I don't want to think about all the fringe cases where I can make heterosexuality possible at Hillview or the sister site. That's just...icky to me.

As for trans folk, being that I'm also transmasc, I'm mostly team 'if you want to see it happen you can write it happening. I have zero problems with that. But there's stuff I'm not writing about either for reasons relating to dysphoria, or for reasons relating to 'this is not actually why I enjoy writing in the first place.' This is why I don't do self-inserts, for example. I don't like seeing myself in my own stories, I prefer seeing myself represented in other stories.

So -> If other folks want to write it, they can! If they want to solve those worldbuilding issues, they absolutely can! If they want to write fic about it, I'm gonna set off a confetti cannon for them in celebration.

In terms of worldbuilding, the answer would just always be: It depends. If you want to find the fringe cases then sure, there would always be exceptions! But if there was any chance of fertility/pregnancy with their companion, then no. So it would absolutely need to be not just a hormonal transition (a lot of things can impact consistent hormonal uptake and I think omegaverse hormones in the Underline universe would actually impact them a lot too), but one that covered bottom surgery as well.

Is that like, a problem in honouring someone's gender? Absolutely!! The Underline universe isn't perfect. But preventing pregnancy is their biggest concern at Hillview and the sister site. I know in regular/standard ORFs, they only care about the fertility issue, and care about literally nothing else, and yes, that can be a huge issue re: trans folk. This world is a dystopia, it doesn't pretend to be anything else.

The fun thing about fanfiction, is that other people can erase all of that with a sweep, come up with some magical contraception, and just make it happen. :D

As a transmasc person myself, I have stuff I just don't like writing. Just like everyone else does. You are absolutely welcome and completely have my blessing to imagine whatever you like for Underline, to write it in fic, to daydream about it, to bend and change the rules that already exist or to make up new ones that don't exist yet, that work for a world you want to read about.

But for me...it just comes too close to 'if I have to change or figure out these things I also have to think about how to set up 'woman omega and man alpha' heterosexuality and I just don't want to.'

I'm so sorry anon. I'm going to circle this one under competing needs. Sometimes the thing another person needs to find gender affirmation, is the thing that will harm another person's experience of their own gender, even if that gender shares the same general name, even if that changes down the track. (This is how we get some trans people who hate genderbending in fic and say it's dysphoric, and other trans people who love it and say it's affirming. It's true for both, neither should impose their views on the other).

The TL;DR being: I write what I want to be writing. If I'm not writing it, and have never written it, it's because I don't want to write it. In the matter of heterosexuality: zero interest, I'll leave that for other folks. In the matter of being trans, dealing with my own gender stuff irl is already a nightmare that I don't want to have to write out a version of that again in fiction, because I can't live it twice, and I don't like writing fluffy stories.

[arkhamjack]

Thank you everyone for the reblogs on my "how some of the fandom sees wolfwood vs how I see him" lol I wanted to continue the conversation bc I am very annoying about this stuff and it grosses me out bc I am sensitive or whatever but um yeah 🤓

It's pretty long so TL;DR stop being weird about Wolfwood thanks 👍

I'll talking about objectification, hypersexualisation, and prejudice so a warning I guess --->

The Gaze has been working overtime on Wolfwood's ass (and tits) and it's making me a little nuts. This is not to say his character cannot be presented in a sexy way, or that he cannot perform sexuality without being problematic, it's just... ask yourself: why.

It can be subconscious, you might not even notice it, but media tropes have a way of worming into people's brains to be regurgitated into fan art, especially if the character presents or is coded marginalised in a way you are not. (I do it too!)

It starts from young. I had an adult call me a "hot head Latina" as a child LMAO (I am not even Latin)

Characters and actors that looked like me were worked into typically these roles - If feminine, desired, sexy but crazy, dangerous. If masculine, similarly sexual, either hot or ugly, suspicious.

I feel silly and attention-seeking for speaking up about this kind of stuff, especially as I feel I'm not in a place to cry 'racism' specifically because I'm more 'ethnic' than POC.

I'm a Balkan mongrel - Greek, bits from Turkey, Albania, and fuck knows what else. I've always kept my head down about people being weird to me but it comes to a point like the point of a classmate comparing my hair to an animal's, where I feel I gotta go "ok yeah lets unpack that."

Now about Wolfwood, he's our classic racially/ethnically ambiguous smoky sexy guy. Particularly in the 98 anime, he's pretty bosomy. He's a struggler - swindling Gunsmoke with his charm and portable confessional. This swindler trope, I've observed, tends to go hand in hand with 'suspicious immigrant out for your money'. Again, maybe I've pulled that out my ass and I'm being oversensitive, but I notice things. Tastes left in my mouth. Anyway. Brings to mind the time some other classmate jokingly called me a 'hustler' for *checks notes* making sure my work is submitted on time.??

Now on the subject of NSFW fanart... oh boy I am so uncomfy writing this... I rarely see him depicted.. receiving. You can place the issues here pretty easily. Give him a break. Please. Also I did note this on my original post and also completely my own opinion but PLEASE that man is not bigger than Vash, and I don't mean like not taller, like, thiccer. Calm the fuck down.

I hate having to write this bc it makes me uncomfy and reflects my own experiences of objectification by other people which sounds all very "oh noo its sooo hard being attractive :'((" but I trust y'all smart enough to see where I'm coming from.

The gaze. Othering. Marginalised masculinity (not to mention my intersecting trans identity thats a whole other unrelated convo). Hypersexualisation. Objectification.

But back to Wolfwood!! - are these tropes perpetuated by the original creator? Personally, I don't think so. (Wolfwood's design is based off a Japanese guy btw - musician Tortoise Matsumoto) The 98 anime? Maybe?? Am I reading too much into it? It's hard not to - naturally I'll latch onto the ambiguous guy and go "alright let's see how they do this" so naturally certain things stand out to me.

But when some of that fanart starts rolling out ... Jesus Christ ... MY EYES

On the flipside, I've seen great fanart out there! And I've seen quite a few Latino headcanons for Wolfwood too!(like I mentioned before I am not Latin, I am also not American in general I am a filthy freak Australian with our own colonial racist histories and intricacies) (There is also Latin diaspora here but I don't wanna speak for anyone aaaah)

I'd like to think most of the fandom is cool about him. But um. Yeah.

I said what I said but if I did say anything out of line I am so sorry and PLEASE let me know - I am using my own experiences as reference and acknowledge the intricacies my own privilege

Yap session over 👍

[thesovereignsring-if]

I'm a different anon, but following the 'can get pregnant/makes others get pregnant' question: How does it affect gender? Is it something completely unrelated, or does it have some ramifications?

For example, if I play a male character that is male in everything except for the 'can get pregnant' option. Would he be seen as trans? Or is this a world where gender and sex are unrelated? Meaning, genitals non withstanding, a person may have a specific gender they grew up in. So, a person can be a boy, and seen as a boy, from birth, even though his genitals would allow them to get pregnant as they grow up?

Maybe I'm complicating stuff unnecessarily. But I do admit it would be fun to see a fantasy world where gender and sex are completely separate.

Rule of the thumb goes

Gender >> Gender identity and/or expression >> This affects your pronouns and title.

Sex >> Your biological make up >> Affects your sex scenes depending on how in-depth I make it.

With how the code is, you can edit and change your pronouns without issue at anytime and it won't affect your character, but your biological sex does affect how certain characters talk and address certain topics therefore it is fixed after character creation.

While modern day transphobia has its roots in religion, it's not an issue here. Both the Grand Cardinal and the acolytes of the church strip themselves of their identities (which also includes their gender roles, sexuality and expression etc etc) to worship their god. Their influence then shapes the general view of gender roles/expressions of the general populous.

The nobles in the story are much more pragmatic for the most part, they do not care about gender expression or identity or even sexuality to an extent. All that matters to them is the product. Can you provide an heir? No? Well, let's see what we have to do to make that happen. Wether you like it or not.

In short in this world, you can have your gender autonomy, but reproduction? hmm maybe not.

[olderthannetfic]

https://olderthannetfic.tumblr.com/post/753295388848553984/thinking-the-progressive-pride-flag-is-ugly-is#notes

Bruh, I'm sorry but that reasoning does not hold up to any scrutiny if you even give a lick of care to learn the actual bullshit that goes on in queer sphere.

"(poc+trans) they’re marginalized even within the community,"

I'm a bisexual woman. I've been explicitly and blatantly excluded from queer and LGBT+ events when it came out I was 100% bisexual. Even at times where I had a woman as a partner. I've had to deal with accusations of being a predator from the lesbian community when dating lesbians, or "invading" lesbian spaces. I've dealt with accusations of transphobia for using the label bisexual, rather than "more inclusive" labels. I've been told to shut up when talking about my experiences as a bisexual woman, especially if it was me criticizing the behavior from the rest of queer spaces.

I've had to deal with being excluded from queer community events, helplines, or other resources for queer people because I was bisexual. Do not get me started on the times I was with a man, or male presenting partner. I've had to deal with people demanding that bisexuals get dropped from queer spaces, and that we should "choose a side" and that bisexuality doesn't exist.

And you know what? I know that the exact same shit happens to aces. In a slightly different coat of paint, but it nonetheless the same level of vitriol and exclusion happens on a constant basis. There's a reason why there's such a deep solidarity between aces and bis "It’s a flag that was created to draw attention to intra-community issues,"

It's a flag that pretends to draw attention to intra-community issues, but in reality only shines light on a tiny part, and in reality doesn't even do that well. I don't even think most people flying that flag have any idea as to the alleged specifics of why these designs were made. I've seen people throw out incredibly subjective and/or vague assumptions and assertions as to why they exist, while they're clearing doing guesswork.

It's not your accusation that people believe that the "progress pride flag is separating trans people and POC and acting like they weren’t previously included" it's that it feels incredibly shallow and ignorant of queer history, and queer POC history and racism-even from within queer POC spaces-.

It's the problem that people think that flying that flag while doing absolute fuck all to change the problems in queer communities is enough, intra-community also doesn't work if the communities represented don't also actively weed out their own problems. Don't add me I know about the NB-phobia, and inter-trans transphobia, "If you want to pass you're a traitor", dumbshit like "no rice or spice" shit from poc users on (certain) queer dating sites... That shit is and was never exclusive to white people.

The rainbow flag as a battleground for these issues feels cheap, shallow, and childish because it was never created to exclude or target a specific sexuality. It was always a symbol of togetherness and fighting for our rights and right to live. Then some people decided that the flag that always represented the message "We're standing together" suddenly doesn't represent that message anymore, not because the flag doesn't stand for togetherness or the message has changed. No, it's because some idiots completely unrelated to the flag and it's meaning are being terrible people. No, just because someone is queer doesn't mean they get to poison the well for all other queer people and rot the meaning of a flag that always was for everyone, or their actions suddenly get to smear that the meaning of the flag from the get go included everyone, black, white, asian, brown, fucking translucent, and was always meant to show solidarity between all the sexualities. We're standing together as queers, but that doesn't mean individual queers can't be shits all on their own.

At this point we should just slap a triangle on all the pride flags, the flags themselves have absolutely nothing to do with it, but at least we can pretend like it does something, because a few dingbats can't behave and happen to be #that-sexuality/genderID. Let's add a bi and ace triangle to the gay, lesbian and trans-flag. Add an extra trans triangle to the trans-flag, maybe the NB and bi flag as well.

You can have your progress pride flag. You can have your feel good messaging if that's what it takes. But for the love of the rainbow, stop pretending the flag is anything but a shallow way to show-off that you at least know the surface level issues in the queer community.

--

[fixfoxnox]

Okay, Luke's somewhat serious post time.

Okay, so recently I've been getting some comments on my Ao3 that have bothered me and I feel like we should talk about comment etiquette again along with some lines of comfort for me.

So first of all, this:

This is not how you ask for more of a fic that you like. I'm already beating myself up over how long its been since I've been able to update things, and having people comment stuff like this on my fics only makes me feel worse.

I am a real person. I have a job and I've been working hard on finishing some commissions that people have PAID me to write. Forgive me if I'm not making the things that I write for free for people in my free time my first priority right now.

I AM absolutely still working on these fics. I've been working on Pyre and some requests in my ask box, but since they aren't my main priority right now its going really slow. I could very easily abandon these fics, but I don't because I love them and I love you guys and writing for you guys. All that I ask in return is that you respect the time and effort that goes into writing these fics.

My 8k-10k fic chapters take like 8 hours to write AT THE LEAST. Like I can't just churn this out like crazy as much as I would like to.

I am fine with people asking if I'm still working on a fic, but not comments like this basically demanding an update.

The next thing:

These were all comments replying to one another on my fic. There are three people in this thread in total and of them, only one of them actually made a comment about my fic.

Two people commented on my fic to essentially have a completely unrelated conversation with someone in my comment section. This is extremely frustrating.

Listen to me, imagine being me and seeing a notification that I got a comment. I get super excited, only to click on it and see that it has nothing to do with the fic that I've written? Its disappointing and so unbelievably discouraging to me.

I don't mind if people don't comment, but I do mind when people do this. Authors comment sections aren't a place to just have a casual chat!!! Keep it about the fic please!

Last thing and for the love of God listen to me:

This is nothing against people with DID. My issue with this falls into 2 categories:

"My one issue is that I'm trans in this, personally would have swapped me and Johnny"

If you are a person with DID and fictives and you read fics with your fictives, you have to understand that I AM NOT WRITING ABOUT YOU.

I do not need your opinion on if I wrote "you" correctly because I am not writing you!! I'm writing the fictional character who I have my own thoughts and beliefs about. If it bothers you, click off. I do not want or need to hear how I got something wrong because its not fucking wrong when it comes to me. Again, extremely discouraging to read.

The second thing and this may sound mean but for the love of God I do not care or need to know if you are a system/have DID. Unless my fic features DID (none of mine do at all) then its just completely unnecessary to mention.

I especially don't need to know which of your alters is talking. Unless I know you, there is genuinely no point to it. It just takes up space and makes things about you rather than about the fic you're commenting on.

Also, in this case? As someone who has been cursed by online role-playing in comment sections, even though this isn't it just feels like role-playing and it makes me extremely uncomfortable.

Please just leave your comment and move on. Unless it has something to do with the fic, I don't need to know this stuff about you. I've had people tell me more personal things in the comment sections that I was fine with and even touched me, but its always about how they relate to the fic, not just random information they throw in.

Again, its just a comfort thing for me.

Okay, serious Luke post is over now.

[sysmedsaresexist]

your (idk who I'm talking about exactly lol) post where you talk about endo research and anti-endo being a dying stance is really cool actually. also cool cat in a plastic bag image.

while we are on this topic, what does one mean by "endo-neutral"? I fail to see the gray area between being pro- and anti-endo - one either accepts that endos exist and experience plurality or refuses to accept their existence and experiences. or they don't know anything about it, which is a completely separate thing as these people haven't formed any opinions yet, therefore they are not endo-neutral.

thank you in advance for enlightening! if you ever will answer, that is.

I make the same expression as that cat every time I open the syscourse tags

(None of this is meant directly at you, I really appreciate the ask)

Endo neutral is a personal label that could mean literally anything under the sun.

I've written several times about my issues with labels. To sum it up...

CDDs are trauma-based disorders and endogenic plurality is different.

What stance is that?

An anti endo and a pro endo could have the exact same stance. They could be best friends sharing all the resources but instead they're divided by pro vs anti. Maybe it would be more appropriate if we labeled each side by whether they think shared spaces are a good thing, it would tell us just as little as pro/anti endo.

All of this applies to endo neutral, too, but endo neutral gets a few extra fun options.

So, hot take:

👏 you 👏 are 👏 allowed 👏 to 👏 be 👏 neutral 👏

An even more important hot take:

Take care of yourself FIRST, always.

Any discourse can be absolute hell on your mental health. This isn't just about syscourse.

For the longest time, the vast majority of people using endo neutral were looking to stay out of syscourse entirely because it was draining on their mental health.

Now, it seems to be more of a slightly anti leaning, I don't know enough label, but many still use it for their mental health. It's impossible to engage in system spaces without syscourse coming up. It's slowly making its way into other communities, completely unrelated to systems-- random game communities, for example.

IMO, syscourse is inescapable in all spaces. It will eventually come up in some capacity.

The neutral label, in my opinion, is the best way to shut down syscourse related topics in inappropriate spaces.

The problem boils down to...

Even that statement can be said to be anti leaning. By allowing the conversation to be shut down, I am... fuck, take your pick. Shutting down endogenic voices, not allowing misinformation to be cleared up, system-phobic. Any number of ridiculous things. There will be SOMEONE who wants to comment, "imagine saying this about trans issues 😤"

For all the talk of mental health safe spaces, we don't make the best attempts at keeping stressful discourse out of it.

Saying that doesn't negate the importance of those topics-- people are struggling daily. It's real.

But we all need downtime, too. Not all of us are capable of constant advocacy and arguments. Some of us are incredibly active in other discourse and our plates are already full.

This also means not policing the use of that label. There are some who use it for... not quite right reasons, but there are more people using it for genuine reasons, and that's more important.

That's got to be the Canadian in me. Our system is built on the premise that a small number of bad eggs misusing the system is worth it for the people who really need it.

TL;dr neutral means a lot of things, but IMO, it's mostly health related, and an important label because of that. Once again, always take care of yourself first and foremost.

[bunnygirllover45]

hi. this is not a question per se but more like a comment. it is completely unrelated to everything, I just wanted to say thank you. this may sound completely stupid, but I am a trans man and I suffer from chest dysphoria. I bought a binder and even though it made me feel a lot better, but I realized that my chest was not completely flat. before, I was always like "I need to have a flat chest or I die." I still have some chest volume, that is very minimal, but it is there. days passed and watching your oc (the batshit male one, I love him) not having a complete flat chest despite being a guy made me feel a lot more secure on myself.

I've seen plenty of guys that were assigned male at birth (and even ones assigned female at birth but with complete confidence even without a completely flat chest), both real life people and fictional characters, and they have made me more confident. you've helped with that, so I wanted to say thanks.

also. your art is pretty and your style is unique. don't ever stop what you're doing.

sorry for the long text. you don't have to answer this, I just wanted you to read it. I hope you have a very nice day, night, or whatever moment of the day you're on. :)

Oh dear,, this is really cute. I understand this issue a lot, I've been dealing with dysphoria too for years, no matter how much I tried I always felt like I would never feel comfortable in my own skin. I don't wanna get too personal, but I still deal with those feelings every day, sometimes I wish I wasn't born like I was. Let me tell you something anon, gender is a fucking excuse to label things for marketing purposes, you can be whoever you want. I know it's hard not to think "I shouldn't have this" or "My body should be like that" ( I deal with those thoughts often too.) just to fit an imaginary list of attributes a gender should have invented by society that doesn't understand your struggles, you feel like a man? then you're one! It's okay if you still don't like some parts about yourself, hell, I hate some of mine too; do anything that makes you feel better, that really makes you feel like you belong there, in your own body. I'm really happy my art helped you. I hope you have a very nice day too, thanks for taking the time to send me this. And remember, you're handsome! you're valid, you're doing your best, and most of all, you're you, the most genuine and beautiful form of you.

[stal3bread]

[Reposted from my reddit account]

Did anyone else get misdiagnosed with ADHD before getting diagnosed with ASD?

I was diagnosed with ADHD at 14 after experiencing pretty severe mental health issues for years. I was then diagnosed with ASD (no level attached) at 17 (coming up on two years ago now). I think I was quite an obviously autistic child, to the point where when I saw a psychiatrist for something entirely unrelated and when I described my symptoms of autism in childhood at her request, she asked (quite concerned) why I wasn't taken to a psychologist as a child. I displayed very intense interests from the age of 1, obvious stimming (e.g. rocking, pacing, stroking other children's arms, etc) up until I was about 9 or 10, sensory issues which caused meltdowns until well into my teen years, as well as quite severe social deficits which made forming relationships with other children very difficult. I even had to get my hearing tested (it ended up being completely fine) at 7 because I didn't respond to my name.

The psychiatrist that diagnosed me with ADHD did not do a very thorough assessment. He only got me, my mom, and my teachers to do a single questionnaire about me each and looked through my school reports. Furthermore, when I brought up possible ASD to him after my ADHD diagnosis, he dismissed me entirely and even laughed. I think that because I was assigned female at birth (I am a trans man) and received good grades in school, it was seen as totally impossible that I could be autistic, even when I displayed such obvious symptoms.

Did anyone else experience something like this? I think my old psychiatrist could tell I wasn't neurotypical, but he didn't know enough about autism and so wrongly attributed my symptoms to ADHD.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Was I the asshole for confronting a coworker for being transphobic?

I sent this in a while back, when the blog was having issued and being censored by tumblr, so it got eaten before it was posted. I waffles about whether to resend it or not for a while because the issue was somewhat resolved, but I figured why the hell not?

I (23nb) work at a shipping store, I have a coworker I'll call Nathan (23m) and one I'll call Alex (20nb). Alex is our assistant manager, Nathan recently became full-time, and I'm part-time.

Alex's grandmother came into the store to visit them one day while things were slow; Alex, Nathan and the grandmother were in the front and I was packing packages in the back when I overhear Nathan saying "I don't think it should be legal for parents to consent to a sex change for their fifteen, sixteen, seventeen—even at eighteen you don't really know who you are or what you want." I don't hear much more than that, but being a trans person who had previously thought well of Nathan, and knowing he was talking to an older woman (albeit, one who had a nonbinary grandchild), my hackles were raised to hear him blatantly making ill-informed and transphobic comments.

After Alex's grandmother left, while there were no customers in the store, I confronted him. I'll admit I was hardly professional, but I was more scared than angry, and I tried telling him to be more informed before speaking on trans matters because he was spreading misinformation, but the conversation got sidetracked to trans rights in general and how he thought "no one would be trans if they didn't talk about it in school" and then went on to day "racism wouldn't exist if it wasn't talked about in school." I gave up on trying to correct him when he told me that he, as a cisgender heterosexual white man, was in the same amount of danger walking down the street as a black trans woman, because I realized in his privilege he was incapable of imagining that anyone had any different life from him. During the whole talk he was cool and collected, whereas I was very intense, though consciously keeping my voice low and tyring not to get angry despite it being an angering subject.

We went about our store-closing duties and Nathan left, leaving Alex and I in the store alone to finish up our last tasks. Alex had been silent the entire conversation, despite also being nonbinary, and they were the assistant manager, so I asked them if I was out of line and they shrugged non-commitally and refused to look at me.

(This was where the previous submission ended, but there's been an update since then.)

After that, there were several incidents completely unrelated to this conversation that resulted in Alex, another coworker, and I all having private conversations with our manager about complaints against us. One of the complaints about me was that I was uncomfortable to talk to about politics, so I clarified and told the manager the entire truth of what happened between me and Nathan and admitted that I may have been out of line professionally. He said I was, but also said Nathan had been nearly fired in the past for saying awful shit, and that if I wanted to I could make a report about him, because he'd been just given full-time and my manager didn't want him having that if he didn't deserve it. When I told him I hadn't heard the full conversation with Alex's grandmother, he rescinded the report offer and told me to next time not engage Nathan, just report him.

I know professionally I shouldn't have done any of that, but I was trying really hard not to be an asshole on just a human decency level while confronting Nathan, and Alex's reaction made me rethink whether or not I was. WITAH?

TL;DR: A coworker was being transphobic, so I lit into him at work while the store was empty. I tried not to be an asshole, but my nonbinary assistant manager acted as though I may have been out if line. I later learned the transphobic coworker is somewhat on thin ice with management anyway. WITAH?

What are these acronyms?

[pleasantspark]

can

can you not recommend/show appreciation for indie media without criticizing another series?

1-it’s kind of insulting to the series you introduced, bringing them down to just alternatives for this one show, as if that’s all they have to give or be compared to?

2-your needlessly hating on a series many people genuinely enjoy, for no reason, when you could have just? loved on the shows for what they are? do they not deserve that? this isn’t even a post giving any sort of opinion or contribution to the “critic” side of the shows watchers. this isn’t a ‘critical’ post. there’s no take or opinion being given. just completely unrelated show recommendations…?

instead you seemingly feel the need to harp on the popularity of vivzie creations/ vivzie haters to actually appreciate these COMPLETELY unrelated projects. all love and respect, that’s disappointing on so many levels. it also kind of sucks to rely on someone you hate so much to give you that audience…

this is all meant with respect, and is my own critical take, i hope there’s mutual respect in that regard at least

100% peace and love and feel free to ignore this if you so please /gen

have a lovely day💚

1. You can like a show and be critical of it. I ase no issue with what I'm doing.

2. I simply cannot find any reason why it's harmful to criticize a show and bring up a show in the same "space" as Viz when even the Indie space hates her.

3. I mean it's my blog. It's for critics to find other things. I don't know what you'd expect for me to say. You could've fully ignored the posts.

In conclusion. I appreciate the ask but approaching me in inbox just to ask me to not use tags is ridiculous. Especially when I'm not going to support someone who doesn't like my kind. I'm not dealing with Trans Male hate (EDIT: ANON TREATED THIS AS TRANSPHOBIUA WHEN I AM MENTIONING OF VIVIZIEPOP'S TRANSPHOBIA. I AM NOT TRANSPHOBIC, NOR DID I INTENTIONALLY USE THIS TO BE TRANSPHOBIC, I AM SIMPLY NOT GONNA ANSWER ANYONE WHO MAY OR MAY NOT TRY TO COME IN MY INBOX TO DEFEND VIVZIEPOP.) regardless.

This post is responding to future asks.

[dee-in-the-box]

even MORE kennedy family hcs if possible :evil:

woo!

and on today's headcanons: Visits With Family (when Jack and Peter were little)

(* also keep in mind: Jack is trans)

Visits with Marshall's Family (aka Dad's side of the family):

Marshall's family is. Loud. not great for sensory issues.

Jack and Peter have a lot of cousins on that side. so lots of people to play with.

Jack was always a more rambunctious kid, something that a lot of other kids found weird for a "little girl," but his cousin were just like "well, as long as she* can keep up, then she can play!"

Jack could, in fact, keep up

they were definitely more understanding about some of Jack and Peter's sensory issues, and the fact that they couldn't exactly help it. didn't help the noise problem, though

when Jack came out as trans, they didn't fully get it, but they were chill (especially Aunt Jan, she thought it was cool :]). His grandfather said "Well, Marshall, I guess that means you've got another man to help you around the house, eh?" even though Jack was. very much already doing that

all in all? pretty nice, just a bit too loud for the two of them to spend much time around.

Visits with Diane's Family (aka Mom's side):

hell. It Is Hell.

Diane's family absolutely sucks and is shitty to just about everyone, and that extends to their grandkids.

they give zero shits about any texture issues Jack or Peter might have. oh, you didn't like the dress we gave you, Jackie? how ungrateful, that cost us a lot of money, you know. what do you mean Peter doesn't like the onions in the spaghetti sauce because he doesn't like how squishy they are? well, he's either gonna have to man up or starve, because we're not making him something different just because he can't stop being a crybaby.

seriously, it got to the point that Diane would have to call her parents before they visited so she could make sure they were actually making something that Peter and Jack could eat.

her family also tried to shove Gender Roles onto her kids. which Diane fucking hated, by the way

Jack like wearing pants more since skirts and dresses typically had the Worst fucking textures. it wasn't even necessarily because he hated the dresses and stuff themselves, it was just because it was impossible to find anything (affordable) that didn't have World's Worst Fucking Texture. unfortunately uh. Diane's Family Was Very Judgemental About This. if any family pictures were being taken, then Jack was basically shoved into a dress. this should go without saying, but Jack Fucking Hated That.

due to Diane's family shoving gender roles on everyone despite how much they all fucking HATE it, Jack's usually laughed off whenever he wants to play with some of the boys. playing with the girls also sucks because "they don't ever wanna talk about dogs or go garden with me in the dirt because they "dOn't waNnA GeT meSsY". they just gossip and have no idea how to do hair Gently" (< Jack doesn't mind gossip, but theirs was Boring, and uh. Need I Remind You Of The Autism)

due to this, Jack Really Hates Visiting That Side Of The Family.

coming out as trans was. A Fucking Nightmare. Diane tried to make it clear that they supported her son, but her parents were just like Oh, so Jacqueline's one of Those people, huh? you can. Imagine how things went from there

anyway, completely unrelated, but Jack and Peter kinda cut that side of the family off after their parents died. I'm Sure There's No Particular Reason For That

[liskantope]

I think part of the reason I tend to get so argumentative nowadays about "what your side proposes kills people" -type political talking points is that it seems that this is being used more and more frequently as a rhetorical bludgeon, mainly (though not entirely) from the Left. There's a lot of shutting down of arguments based on "but HUMAN LIVES", and it's begun to feel to me like a disturbing trend. For instance, a good bit of the rhetoric in favor of shutting down schools in 2020-2021 seemed to center on "here, look at my computation that the expected value of children's lives lost if we don't shut down schools is greater than zero; anyone who disagrees with us doesn't VALUE HUMAN LIVES", with the effect that a lot of us (including to some extent me) were blinded for a long time to the absolutely devastating effect such extensive school shutdowns (in some geographic areas) had on children and their whole families, an effect that is still scarring them today. I'm not saying anything about whether or how far those school shutdown policies went wrong, just that they had very substantial harmful effects that don't vanish relative to the VALUE OF HUMAN LIVES.

Then there's the now-everyday claim that the anti-trans culture warriors "ARE KILLING US [TRANS PEOPLE]", which is true under a particular interpretation of "killing" and tragically true to an extent pretty well beyond some vanishingly rare extreme cases but is also transparently being used to drown out most other aspects of the debates around trans issues. Much more disturbing still is the accusation I now semi-regularly see casually flung that conservatives "actively want us [trans or LGBT+ people in general] dead" (I think I've occasionally seen left-wing variations on this that aren't even about LGBT+ people). A couple of months ago I called it "stomach-turning" ("it" being both the content of the accusation itself and the fact that so many people in our cultural discourse have seen fit to use it; this of course was semi-willfully misinterpreted by someone as my saying that trans people turn my stomach), and I reiterate now that it's still completely turning my stomach. This example is different from others in some fundamental ways, some of which make me more sympathetic with why people feel driven to use it (and it's not being used to drown out completely unrelated issues, for instance, like the guns thing is), and the general rhetorical weapon of "the other side wants to kill us" deserves its own effortpost which I intend to write later this summer.

So anyway, yeah, I'm also getting a kind of short fuse around insinuations of "what they show kids in school won't kill them, but guns could, so that's the only issue involving schoolchildren that anyone should care about" that I now see daily.

Of course, invocations of "my cause is the one whose stakes directly involve life or death so it outranks everything else" isn't exclusive to the Left at all. The Right has been doing it for decades with abortion to shut down both the abortion debate and whatever unrelated debate they didn't want to have ("millions of babies are being MURDERED each year, while liberals obsess over [women's bodies] [or] [just about any totally unrelated issue which appears frivolous next to MURDER]"). I also vaguely remember something that sounded like this in the post-9/11 years ("we're the ones looking out for Americans who might be KILLED in the next terrorist attack, that has to be the only priority right now"). And there was that bizarre "death panels" accusation around 2010-2011 when Obamacare was being debated which I guess might also count.

Only loosely related, but I'm reminded of a moment in the very first vice presidential debate, between Bob Dole and Walter Mondale in 1976, where Dole invoked a computation of the number of deaths in wars the US engaged in under Democratic versus Republican presidents, and apparently he got a lot of blowback from how underhanded this rhetorical move came across.

[spiderpussinc]

Like holy shit. Like that Poly-Anon, what the hell are they on?

You never said you hate poly people or open marriages or anything. Are they Mr. Fantastic cuz boi if that wasn’t a STRETCH!

But yeah, sure we can have the poly relationship, hell I read that shit all the time. I even have some sketches of it in progress. But by far my favorite is divorce!Peter.

You get so much more ideas and history with that. Peter dealing with no longer being with someone he loves, learning how to deal with that while getting feeling with Miguel. Maybe he never even liked MJ that way and couldn’t realize that he was gay and only saw her as a friend until recently.

Hell for extra spice and drama, have it so Mayday still exists during the divorce AU. Have Peter trying to figure out how to be a single dad while figuring himself. Maybe Miguel is fighting to understand if he likes Peter that way or if he just sees himself in him.

Divorce is so liberating for people and it can be so with these people. So many ideas can come from it. I don’t know why so many people hate it when we write or draw divorce.

I think the answer is a pretty clear and loud "homophobia" and this recent insistence on progressive circles to paint same-sex attraction as "inherently limiting" or "biased"; which are both absolutely /insane/ takes. You can't be a man and *JUST* like men, that's a waste! That's suspicious! That sounds like an ulterior motive! (Being gay is passe to a certain type of terminally online guy. Real enlightened allies would fuck anyone at any time! Words don't mean anything!!!!!)

People's insistence to read any interest in m/m relationships as a malicious attack designed to prod at *them* in particular is so fucking tiresome. The world does not revolve around you. Nobody has to care for straight ships and it's not revolutionary to try to reinforce them as a holy central aspect in characterization or storytelling. It's not more dignified or substantial. You just think straight people are inherently 'neutral' or pure because they dominate the media field.

My preferences and my gay art exist in a minuscule internet bubble that doesn't endanger or erase the fact that Marvel is a rampantly cishet company. I can do whatever I want and it doesn't matter; they will keep publishing the same thing they've been publishing. But I *HAVE* had my art stolen multiple times now to be reposted on tiktok or resold on etsy with any gay/trans elements I've put on it scrubbed out - to appeal to this very same straight audience -and that pisses me off. I am not trying to cater to these people and never will. I *HAVE* had my gay art used as a point of ridicule against me for years; and tbh it does nothing to me anymore but I refuse to quietly accept this treatment as default.

I don't have to center the experience of M/F nuclear family in my gay art and I won't; it does not appeal to me, I don't care for it, and I cannot be talked into changing my mind. Anyone finding an issue with this should go outside and touch grass.

Evergreen tweet, really:

If i say "i like these two gay dudes, I would like to see them kissing" and you hear something else about someone completely unrelated, that sounds like a skill issue