#and how am I supposed to think of myself as butch when I’m constantly told it’s the butches who you ask for help from?

[softlyapocalytpic]

Having lots of thoughts on Steelheart at the moment and decided to share some here-

I’ve really struggled a long time with posting any of my work onto the internet. For a lot of reasons, but one of them being that the stories I wanna write and tell for Fallout specifically are ones I know that very few will be interested in.

I work in social media at the moment and just being in fandom as a writer and looking at the numbers means that I know ahead of time what will “do well” on tungle dot hell or on ao3. I know what’s popular!

If I wrote Steelheart from Butch’s perspective and focused on their romance and made it more about him I know it would be at least slightly more popular- and its made me really insecure. Is the story I’m writing worth writing? Is it interesting? Would it be better to do just that?

(Please note that I do love stories that do all that as well, and this by no means a critique or shitting on them. If anything, the fact I love them so much makes me more insecure about my own writing choices.)

But, Steelheart isn’t Butch’s story. He’s the love interest, and won’t even become a perspective character until the latter half. He’s so important to the story and it wouldn’t be the same without him! But this is Amy’s story. It always has been, but I struggle constantly with whether or not it’s worth telling.

And I have to remind myself constantly of why I’m writing it. Amy’s story is just a piece of a bigger hole. Her story sets up Leo, gives context for his existence, because down the line he’s going to become a major character with entirely his own plot and story! Her story sets up Sunshine, in ways that I’ve been cagey about, but would be remarkably obvious (I think???) if anyone just. Looked at the random shit I’ve posted about them both.

And I COULD’VE told her story through flashbacks, through the stories that other people tell about her. In some ways, thematically, that would’ve been more impactful. The Lone Wanderer is a myth, a legend, a hero who very few truly knew and understood, but her story is already so heartbreaking and tragic. The hand she gets dealt is so DUMB unfair and it felt... bad? To make her just a footnote? Just a stepping stone to other heroes rise?

Because she means a lot to me- she’s the character whom is probably most reflective of my internal feelings. She’s a protector, a caretaker, even if she isn’t the same kind I am, and she struggles with feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders. When I’m in a bad spot writing out Amy’s own bad internal feelings lets me vent it out, and I have the knowledge that she always gets better. Even if her fate is ultimately a tragedy, it’s always been one that’s supposed to be marked by hope.

And yeah, numbers shouldn’t matter. Working in social media has made me almost too aware of how to get the good numbers and I hate it. I wish I wasn’t. I wish I could just write my stories because they make me happy, but it just... isn’t the reality.

Because writing and art doesn’t exist in a vaccuum! If no one stops to go “hey this is neat” it fucking hurts! And I don’t really blame people it’s just-

It hurts and is frustrating. Because I know what would make people pay attention, but I refuse to compromise my vision! I’ve been working on this world and these characters stories since fucking summer of 2017. Steelheart is one part in at least a four part series that explores so much of the world of Fallout because I ADORE this world. I have barely stopped thinking about since I got into the fandom and I just hope-

I just hope one day my love for these stories gets reflected back at me? I’ll probably have to learn to live without that but. It’d be neat. It’d be cool. It’d be chill.

I recognize that this might sound whiney or “hey come look at my fanfic because you pity me” but its really not supposed to. I kinda just, wanna voice this on my blog because its my own space. I don’t wanna just hold my thoughts to myself just because other people would take a lot of this in the wrong way.

TLDR; I really love Steelheart being fromy Amy's perspective and focusing on her journey as a person, but I'm super insecure about it because I think everyone would rather just here about her love story with Butch!! Which is super important to her growth as her person (and I really love romance as well), but I also I hope people like the other parts of it too ;;

[cornwaiidesu]

a boohoo-y deep dive into my ~psyche~ cuz I had A Moment at work yesterday :P

I care too much about what people think of me. plain and simple. I have been this way since I was a little girl. my cousins would pick on me because I was the special baby girl out of the three of us and they were the two older boys. they would pick on me for being shy and soft spoken and liking girl things, and I wanted them to like me because I thought the two of them were the coolest boys in the world, so I grew to be a little tomboy. I wanted to like fighting games, and anime, and comics because those were "boy things".

but then when puberty started to set in, being a tomboy wasn't cute anymore. at least according to the bullies I had in middle school. usually boys who would call me a d*ke and make fun of me for wearing baggy t-shirts and loose pants and my dad's army jacket every single day of my life. "girls are supposed to be feminine" so obviously something had to be *wrong* with me and they would speculate shit about me directly in front of me. try to engage me in the conversation just to rub it in and of course that made me feel like shit.

so then in high school I try to flip the switch again. I start wearing tighter fitting clothes. I grow my hair out because I was constantly being dogged on my hairstyle even tho that shit was kind of REVOLUTIONARY FOR A 12 YEAR OLD LIVING IN IOWA. PROPS TO TEENAGE MRH. even back then I was a little punk. :3c I digress tho.

the beginning of high school was when I started my curse that lives on in me. I wear earrings every day of my life and I do because I convinced myself back then that I would be mistaken for a boy otherwise. and I still hold that fear because it was upheld! I started wearing dresses and skirts to school, but it didn't matter because dudes would still flip me shit and say that I was a predatory lesbian and strip me of my femininity. adults would still call me young man and sir despite being a 16 year old wearing make up, denim skirts, earrings, and covered in beaded necklaces. I would wear SO much jewelry to try to get it through people's minds that I was a girl.

but then through that came another weird thing where, like, though I was dressing ~feminine~ I was still "one of the guys" because I had a crude sense of humor and still liked comics and anime and wasn't as, for lack of a better word, "delicate" as my other (white) female friends. but then AGAIN I *couldnt* be one of the guys because it was a secret special task force essentially and I was just a stupid girl.

a lot of that fucked up my sense of self with my sexuality growing up too. I knew at a fairly early age that I was bisexual even though I didn't know there was a word for it, but I didn't want to admit to liking girls because that would mean my bullies were right about me, and if they were right about that then what if they were right about all the other horrible stuff they said about me being hideous, and gross, and weird?

because! if that was right too! a boy would never fall in love with me and have dance sex with me like Johnny and Baby do in Dirty Dancing! or would never save me from being sacrificed like Rick saves Evie in The Mummy! I'd be alone forever because boys would think I was big ugly butch with no value to them, and girls would think I was a predator and would always have to be on their guard to make sure I wasn't gawking and fawning over them. (and let's not even GET into how my religion fucked up my sense of morality about this. I have since grown out of it at least.)

every person I ever confessed to having a crush on has turned me down (mostly politely though, thank god) in my life except for one and a half. (one said they also liked someone else as much as they liked me, and since I had no self-esteem at 18 I was like "oh that's cool. let's date anyway." because I just wanted to have a boyfriend. that's the half.)

the other we kind of connected right away, whirlwind romance for me, but I don't think they ever quite felt the same way and that ended in an actual divorce anyway.

I've had three "relationships" my whole entire life and no more than that, and in my head i told myself thag was because I am fat, and ugly, and MASCULINE, no matter how hard I tried to be sweet and charming and pretty.

as I've aged I've learned about the systematic de-feminization of black women since all the way back to slavery times and shit and I won't claim to be an expert about that shit but it makes me cry that it's just ingrained into people's minds. it doesn't give us a single fighting chance from birth. it makes me feel like I'm going to be a lonely freak for the rest of my life because iowa is like one of the whitest places in the world, and my own internalized racism has convinced me all my life that I don't belong in black spaces because I'm not "authentic", I'm watered down. I've been called a half-breed and an oreo so many times.

I can't be black, I can't be white, I can't be a boy, I can't be a girl. I'm a copper penny in a jar full of nickels and dimes. I don't look the same, I'm not the same shape, and im not as shiny.

though I am attracted to women I have this OBSESSION with men, and to have a relationship with a man as PROOF. SOLID PROOF. that I am a valid woman, because there seems to be no other way for me to get the point across. and it's important for me to get the point across because I grew up with my business being the punchline, and curiosity of my peers, and the concern of my family. I couldn't exist without speculation from someone.

and then came a moment last year while I was at work, where a co-worker told me something that a person in another department who I did not get along with had told them. that I was a mean, jealous bitch who wanted them "out of the way" because they were getting too close to my friend that also worked at our store, and I was obsessed and in love with her and trying to stop a relationship from forming between the two of them. and it made me sick to my stomach. it was the thing I had been trying to steer clear from, from the moment I knew I was bisexual, but I hadn't tried hard enough. my anxiety shot through the roof. I had a panic attack. I broke down sobbing in the bathroom. this person was vengeful, I had nothing to do with them or that friend anymore, and I hadn't for months but they wanted to spread this rumor about me. and even if I truthfully denied it like I did, it didn't matter, because a person could take one look at me an think "you know, I can see that." because that's what people thought my entire fucking existence.

I cried off and on the rest of the day. I was too sick to eat dinner. I barely slept. and then I ended up puking what little food I had to eat that night anyway. I still barely ate the following few days I stayed home from work because I still felt so sick to my stomach with anxiety and at one point I got faint-ish when I had finally returned to work, and had to have help to get to the breakroom and force myself to eat. I bawled to my step-mother about it all, that I didn't feel comfortable at work anymore because it was just my words against theirs, and my bosses never held the person accountable for any of the other bullshit that they caused anyway.

it took me a VERY. long time to move past this incident. I think the only thing that ever ended up fully distracting me from it was covid and my uncle and my father's health both taking a turn for the worst last June. and even then, in between, I had such loooow moments. I self harmed and wrote mean notes to myself, stayed in bed for days. I wrote my own suicide note just to feel better, even though I knew I'd never do it. I was too chicken, but I just wanted to write it and pretend, just to release the depression pressure in my brain.

I've since been better for the most part. I know my parents love me and that I'm important to them, when just a few years ago I used to claim that I was an orphan because I was convinced that my father and my step-mother never cared to see me again because I was an ungrateful brat. I still get very lonely and long for a significant other but I'm kind of just coming to terms with the fact that unless I put myself out there, it won't happen, and im just too insecure to take the steps.

yesterday though, just for a second, out of nowhere, I thought about the claim that person had made about me even though the atmosphere at work has since changed, and things are patched up between me and my friend.

that gossiper is irrelevant now, but I couldn't help but have a little meltdown about it anyway because. like. apparently that's the vibe that I give off. because that's what everyone has said about me from day one of my life. and. I just. have to keep dealing with it. I'm stuck like this. and it sucks. and that little thought about it reminded me again.

[werevulvi]

I feel like I should get deeper into my choice to take on the nonbinary label. Is it based on misogyny? Yes. Absolutely, yes. But a woman simply protecting herself from misogyny is not complicit in the misogyny that she is forced to face. Radical feminists should know that, I think. However, I realise that I may have missed to communicate that clearly. Allow me to try better, and dig deeper into my wounds.

Identifying as nonbinary does give me a sense of relief, a sense of wholeness - a relief to be whoever I want and feel allowed to just exist as my authentic self, free from either fucked up gender stereotype, thgose of both men and women - which might sound good on the surface level... but looking deeper, through my radfem eyes, what it means, is this: Why do I feel like I cannot be my authentic self as a woman, all of a sudden? There we have it, the big bleeding wound in my heart, and that's what I feel a need to elaborate on. I'll stay out of the nonbinary tag this time. This isn't for them. (Although anyone can reblog, comment or give a like.) What do I actually want, for myself, if it wasn't for society? I wish to continue transitioning. I wanna go back on testosterone as I deeply miss it and I'm panicking about my body hair thinning out and decreasing. I do not want to lose it for the world! I'm holding onto every single one of my vanishing hairs, for dear life! At the same time, I still wish to get new boobs. I still miss them sorely and I just need to have those kinda body parts again. I feel broken without boobs, I panic without T. I cannot explain it. It's weird alright, but I don't give a fuck! Without societal imput that's just how I want to look and love looking like. It's just body mods. At core, that's what it is: just body modifications. You know that as radfems - I know it just as well.

I love my body when it's masculinised yet retaining all of my originally female parts, such as curves, breasts and my pussy. That makes me feel very positively connected to my body; so to the point that it makes me feel entirely at peace with that I'm female, and very comfortable with that it makes me a woman. But I cannot be okay with being female if I had to be a traditional looking woman, or even a butch-looking woman. That is not ME, neither of those would be my authentic self. So, my medical transition deeply matters to me, as body mods, and I will not walk away from that. I believe that continuing my medical transition while still honouring my female body and womanhood is what is right for me personally. I understand that there is an issue with the beauty industry affecting me too, but I'm clearly not making myself beautiful for men - nor am I making myself ugly for them. What I'm doing is making myself beautiful for me, in an unconventional way, even though it makes me also ugly for most other lesbians. Can you understand then, from that perspective, how deeply important it is for me, that I willingly make such a sacrifice? (I'm already in a happy lesbian relationship, so maybe you can't, but alright.) I do not believe that I mod myself out of self hate. Not anymore, because I did in the past, and I believe that I can tell the difference between living as a man while actively attempting to escape one's female biology - and living as a male-passing woman while actively honouring my beautifully modified female body. You may think I'm mutilated, but I'd disagree. I am beautiful and my high self-esteem greatly surpasses such rudeness.

Is a heavily tattooed woman self-hating for her mods? I don't know what you may think, but if not, then neither am I with my beard and deep voice and future fake tits. An intentionally virilised (fancy word for masculinised, I like it quite a lot), modified woman is what I am, want to be and remain as. I do not have any "social dysphoria" accompanying my body/sex dysphoria since I recovered from my traumas, and thus I feel no need or wish what so ever to call myself a man, and I feel good calling myself what is true in science: female, girl, woman, she/her, lady, ma'am, miss, etc.

I believe that I have somehow managed, against all odds, with the help of radfems on tumblr... to balance transitioning my dysphoria with being a self-loving biological woman. Thank you for that. So what's the catch? I mentioned misogyny. Well, socially, as a male-passing, yet suspiciously curvy and overtly effeminately styled person - I have effectively lost my right to be a woman outside of radblr. I want you to understand this, especially other radfem's, so please listen carefully if you've got a few minutes, because this is important, as it absolutely has to do with both female oppression as well as trans ideology bullshit (and I'll try not to scream this time, but I can't make any promises, because this is deeply painful and upsetting to me.) Can't women take testosterone and like it and still be women? That's what's so complicated, and I need to be upfront and clear about why. Technically, yes of course that is possible. No one can or should stop women from taking T if they truly want a beard and permanently deep voice, right - but is it possible socially? No, in my experience it is not, and I will now try my best to explain to you what I mean by that, as it's kinda abstract. There are two aspects to this. Firstly, any female person claiming to want those physical features is going to be told that they then cannot be a woman. They are told that is incorrect thinking, that they are a trans man or nonbinary, that they have internalised transphobia or that they are indeed a "cis" woman but confused and should NOT take testosterone, implying that will make her dysphoric if she really is a woman. Because trans ideology says so.

Secondly, living as a male-passing woman who does not want to pass as female, was something that I found to be so difficult in practice that eventually it became too much for me. It isn't dysphoria-inducing, not at all. But it's very, very frustrating and constantly challenging. I can no longer access women's spaces so I have to put up with using the men's including locker rooms, convincing people of my still female sex is next to impossible (even doctors!), other women view me as a threat and an imposter, I'm frequently barred from lesbian spaces unless my girlfriend invites me to them first, I am frequently mistaken for being a poorly passing trans woman, and so on.

I'm effectively forced to either live as a trans woman (which I'd feel is degrading, untrue, and deceptive) or to claim a transmasculine label to at least be able to infer that I'm "afab" - but a WOMAN? No. Woman, in the eyes of society as it is today - cannot be a happily male-passing, dysphoric female. That is deemed an oxymoron. Gender has taken presendency over sex. People assume, wrongfully, that my "gender identity" is woman - and they assume, just as wrongfully, that my sex is male - and they make both those assumptions at once. They then refuse to accept that they are wrong, no matter how hard I have tried to explain it, over and over ad nauseum. I don't even understand why that keeps happening!

Therefore, I've come to the sad conclusion that I'm simply no longer welcome into society as a woman, based on my choice of looks, as I am indeed happily transitioned and do not wish to change what testosterone improved on my body. I completely refuse to. Not to be dramatic, but... I'd rather fucking die. My body is not a property of society. It is MY property. My ONLY true property. And I'll decorate it however I so damn well please. But what can I do about it, being treated like that? Realistically, in actuality, what CAN I possibly do about it? Honestly, not much. I can either suck it up and "admit" to being a man, or I can fight endlessly and keep explaining how I'm really a woman, or choose some kinda middle-road like nonbinary, but I cannot win that fight. Perhaps (hopefully) radical feminism can, but me, as a single, individual person? No, I cannot win that battle. I stand defenseless against a massive army, and that enemy has worn me out. I have essentially lost my right to be a woman, by being my authentic self. That is very, very sad. It scares me, it honestly mortifies me, but I have to deal with it somehow. I can't just slump down and cry about it, no matter how tempting that is.

I do not think that my experience with this is entirely unique. I believe I probably share it with tons of other gnc and/or male-passing women, but I am new to this.

I'm 30 years old, and have only lived as a male-passing woman for one and a half year. I grew up as a typically feminine girl, dysphoric about my sex traits, but never dysphoric about my feminine expression. My gnc mom taught me well, to separate sex from gender expression, and I thus never confused the two as I see sooo many other gnc and trans people do. I do not blame them, because so many people infer that my femininity=woman and my masculinity=man and that the sum of my whimsical androgyny equals nonbinary. But I cannot, do not, WILL NOT and have never in my life... seen it that way. However, big however, I STILL turned out dysphoric about my sex, despite being a happily feminine female, and lesbian at that, and that is something few seem to understand. I get that, I totally do. It's probably rare. Just see for yourself how empty the "dysphoric femme" tag is. Yes, it exists, with a whole whopping three posts. And I struggle to explain it.

It's very hard for me to live as a male-passing woman because it is entirely new for me and I'm struggling to adapt to facing this extreme level of misogyny. I break down from it, I do not know how to handle it. Perhaps most gnc/dysphoric women have lived with that crap since they were young tomboys, but I haven't, because I was never a tomboy. I suppose it will get easier, as much else does, and that is why I'm pretty sure that me using the nonbinary label now is only going to be temporary. Because I do not know how to deal with this. I'm sorry... I'm sorry for breaking down and admitting defeat, I'm so fucking sorry. I just want to be treated with the dignity and respect that I give to others, or at least just an ounce of politeness. So am I actually nonbinary, then, genderwise? No, I am not. Neither my choice of gender roles, nor my androgynous blob of a personality, not even my strange dysphoria is evidence of a nonbinary gender. If that’s how others see it: fine, but I cannot force myself to actually believe that THAT's what makes me nonbinary... No matter how much I keep getting that forced down my throat. All I do is choke on it. What I am is a woman, sex-wise, as I've always stated. Me taking on the nonbinary label is indeed a choice. A reluctant, but very deliberate, active choice.

Problem is that I cannot live authentically while at the same time calling myself what I literally am, without getting brutally punished for it. Yes, I believe the ones to blame for that... are the TRA's. Trans activism slowly changed society to overlook sex in favour of gender. I believe that is why I am being denied my womanhood, because it is based on my invisible sex. If you look clearly female in your day-to-day life, I do not think that you could possibly experience this. To clarify: I do not mind passing as male. In fact I like it quite a lot. What I do mind, is being treated like crap for who I am, and not being believed to be what I am. I had no idea that this would happen upon my detransition. I am shocked, and I am hurt. End notes: I wish that someday I can truly reclaim my womanhood, without having to change my body to fit societal standards, or claim a trans label to dodge the societal standards. I miss my womanhood, and I need it... but it has been snatched from my hands. The enemy won't let me have it back, unless I comply to the rules and (sell my soul to the patriarchy) turn myself into a conventionally attractive barbie doll - and my attempts to reclaim it without complying to those rules, are utterly futile. I am an incorrect female... deprived of my right to be a woman, and it hurts. Man, it hurts sooo bad!

Honestly I don't know what to do about it, but for now I need a breathing break from this constant battle, because my enemy has exhausted me. "Nonbinary" is such a breathing break. It is my retreat, but I will NOT surrender. Someday I will charge back into battle again, and shove down people's throats that I'm damn well a woman regardless of what they think of it. Because this bearded bitch ain't fucking dead yet!!!

[sighfertryptich]

Im going to rant(ish), skip if you want.

So I was watching a video (its the “Generations React to Dan Howell and Eugene Lee Yang Coming Out On Youtube” video by FBE) and everyone started sharing their coming out stories, and everyone was sharing that they were either scared or felt a freak by it. I felt that I wanted to, considering this is the only platform I have on here that I can express myself to the fullest without judgement, share my own, even though I am not in an accepting household.

So, let me start out with this. Growing up, I thought I was straight. There were no signs of me feeling any different than other kids. I was one of the more innocent children, I didnt care about gender identity or sexuality. I just cared about who I was going to play with at recess. By the time I hit fifth grade, I was naïve to the fact that not everyone was attracted to everyone around them. I didn’t understand that some boys only liked girls, and some girls only liked boys. In my community, it was rare that the gays and lesbians understood what it was, so they werent around to put that knowledge in our vocabulary. To me, if you had a crush, it could be on either a female or a male, whether or not you were the same gender or the opposite.

Reaching middle school, about a year later, our views were widened. People around me were realizing or expressing their sexualities. I, on the other hand, still didn’t understand that there were labels to these things. (Keep in mind, there still weren’t lesbians or gays out in the open yet. Everyone was either bisexual or straight.)

When this new vocabulary came to light, I could finally attempt to put a name to myself, liking both men and women.

I accepted the term bisexual for myself at the ripe age of 11.

I didn’t plan on telling my parents. I never wanted to. They didnt have to know who I was imagining kissing, they didnt have to know who I had crushes on. To this day, I never planned on telling them until the day came that I would have to. As in, if the time came, I would tell them when I got engaged to a woman.

Throughout middle school, I was labeled bisexual. It just felt normal to like who I wanted to like, and the people I surrounded myself with accepted me. I guess I got lucky with that. Reaching into high school, I got my first serious woman x woman crush. Every single day, she’d come into class and I would just gush over her. She was gorgeous. And being honest, a ripe 13 year old me was in her scene phase, and this girl oozed alternative. She had a grunge look, part of her hair was dyed sea-foam green, and she was sweet and funny and kind. As far as I knew, she liked me back.

I remember my first Sadie Hawkins dance. I got with my school’s GSA (Gay Straight Alliance) Club and put together this whole thing where me and a couple friends made shirts that said “Will you go to Sadie Hawkins with me?” She said yes! but then later the dance was canceled and we just made other plans. As time went on, she led me on to thinking she liked me. I found out she didn’t and that she was wasting her time on me when she got with one of my guy friends.

This is when my chronic depression stepped its pussy up. Thank you Dan Howell for giving me that quote.

When I was 15, I moved to my small town a state over where I reside to this day. I was still labeling myself as bisexual. I met my first lesbian that year. (And yes, this was my first time meeting a lesbian. Im serious.) She became my best friend for the next 3 and a half years. She opened me to the world of different labels and helped me through finding out what I realized I truly was.

I was, and am, Pansexual. And a proud one at that. #PansexualPride.

I got my first serious girlfriend when I was 18. Or at least, I thought it was serious. I was head over heels for her. She claimed she was bisexual. [I say claimed because she admitted after we broke up that she was straight.]

Long story short, she used me to go to RenFest, then broke up with me a week later blaming her depression, then got with some dude a day later.

A couple of months later, I met a girl through an app called Amino. She was pansexual, like me, and we had a lot of the same interests. Only problem was that while I lived in Louisiana, she lived on an island off the coast of Florida.

Although our relationship didn’t last long, I added her because this was the first time in my entire life that I actually could see myself marrying a woman.

Let me explain.

Up until this point, I had only ever seen myself marrying a man. Yes, I had an attraction to women. Ive dated women, although not many, but never could see myself marrying any of them. Nothing wrong with that.

During this time, I cut my hair very short. Like, pixie-cut with an undercut. My intentions to cut it were that it’d be easier to put up into wigs when I cosplayed, and it’d be less to take care of and look good. We’ll come back to this later.

Directly after our 3 month anniversary, yes I do month anniversaries, I met my current girlfriend, Cole.

I swear, it was one of those moments where you see someone and you know they’re going to be in your life for years to come. [Fun fact - she told me that after she had met me for the first time, she joked with her friend that her and I “would have an August wedding” even though we barely had passed a few sentences between each other.] There’s just that feeling when you look someone in the eyes and know that there’s something special about them. Something you want - no, need - in your life, whether it’s to make a life-long decision or just to help you grow as a person.

I started dressing more comfortably. I no longer wore skirts or dresses. I wore jeans and t-shirts and hats and less makeup. I wore chains attached to my belt loops. All in all, I started looking more masculine, even though it was just me dressing comfortably. My job allowed it, I was earning the money to allow me to buy clothes like this. It made me happy. I started feeling more comfortable with more masculine terms rather than strictly feminine terms, ie. “mans, they, them, boy” etc. I wasn’t uncomfortable when someone said I looked like a boy, nor was I uncomfortable with my female body. I just didnt care. It wasnt insulting as I was raised to think it was. In fact, I encouraged it. I allowed - and still allow - people to think I was whatever gender they assigned me with. In all, I became Genderfluid. Gender Neutral, if you will.

Now, we’re going to back up just a tiny bit. Tee tiny, nothing big.

About a month before I met Cole, someone outted me to my mother. Keep in mind, I was never planning on coming out to her. My older sister is like me, Pansexual. She strives on the fact that she doesnt tell people she’s in a woman x woman relationship unless people directly ask. She doesnt label her sexuality. And I look up to her severely for that.

My mother is homophobic. She says she isn’t, and maybe she’s not, due to the fact she accepts my sister and her girlfriend, and hopes they get married someday. But for me, I was supposed to be the ray of hope. I was supposed to be blonde, straight, thin, cheerleading captain female who went to college and became highly successful. I wasn’t supposed to be the 5-foot-8, blue haired, overweight, artsy gender fluid kid she had who dropped out of high school, got their GED, and “doesnt show signs of responsibility” (- per my mother, who doesnt want to put me through college) kid she ultimately got.

Dressing how I felt was comfortable and loving who I wanted to love brought me hate from the one person who should love me unconditionally - my own mother. Most people were given hate by their peers, being called gay and butch. My hate was given from the person who gave me life. My mother has said that she regrets getting pregnant with me, and that she would’ve stopped after her first two kids. In fact, she had her tubes tied BEFORE she got pregnant with me. I was being born, with or without her consent. She has told me countless times that she feels like she failed as a parent due to the way I came out as an adult.

To this day, she tells me that I constantly look “too lesbian” or “too butch” and that I need to “go back to how I used to look”. She doesnt accept that I like women. She calls me a lesbian - and everyone knows that when you like both men and women, you’re very obviously not a lesbian. Ive told her countless times that I’m not a lesbian. But she never listens. She uses the term lesbian as anyone in middle school would use the word gay - as an insult.

It makes me confused. How could you raise your kid - which by the way, Im the first kid she raised on her own, her other two were raised with either my grandmother or the baby’s father - and tell them you’re disgusted by their happiness? How could you be okay with one pansexual daughter and hate the other?

(This next part might be TMI but it makes another avid point.)

How can you be okay with your daughter sending explicit pictures to a boy, but be disgusted by your daughter holding hands with a girl?

I still have to hide my relationship with Cole. It makes me sick to my stomach to not be able to say “Mom, this is my girlfriend.” with the girl I care ever so deeply for. I want to take her to family events and show her to the world, screaming at the top of my lungs that Cole is mine and mine alone.

Cole tells me that I’m an idiot when I get gushy. In fact, she’ll probably text me saying I made her cry (dont worry, its tears of love) if she gets to the end of this.

Cole is gorgeous. Even when I spend the night, and she’s got sleep in her eyes the next morning, teeth not yet brushed, hair a mess, making gross yawning faces, I still think she’s quite possibly the most beautiful person I’ve ever met. She’s always got me nonstop laughing, doubling over and straight up snorting sometimes. She’s caring and headstrong, not afraid to stand up for what she believes in.

I want to be able to show her off.

But I cant with a mother like mine.

So, long story short, I grew up in an accepting community. Fell hard for some men and some women. Grew up and realized who I was as a person. Found someone who accepts me through each and every questioning moment I have with myself. Yet, I cant show her off like the people around me all because of the one person who gave me life.

I guess you could say this is the end, but everyone knows its a To Be Continued. You just gotta roll with what life gives you, whether or not the people in your life are there to love you or hurt you.

If you got this far, I applaud and also thank you. I’m not able to rant to anyone like this, so if you took the time to read this, I appreciate it. No one wants to hear my story. If you do…

My name is Marley, and I am a Pansexual, Gender Neutral, KPop loving cosplayer who is not afraid to love who they want to love.

Thank you ♡

(Btw, sorry if I got off track towards the end. My mind wanders when telling stories. I wrote this on my phone so I’ll go back and add a “Keep Reading” thing if you’d rather just skip it.)

[argotmagazine-blog]

Dear Worrier Princess: On Polyamory Pickles and College Coming Out Conundrums

Queery #1: Last summer I (32, queer) met someone (26, baby dyke) at the farmers market near my house, she lives in a town 2 hours away near the farm she works at. We started hanging out as friends and realized we had giant crushes on each other. We saw each other on & off through the winter. Now it’s April, & we really like each other, and have had fun sex a couple of times. The thing is: she says she doesn’t want a relationship—she’s busy farming, working 60+ hrs/wk and can’t commit to being in touch or making time to visit me. She also says she’s still processing her last relationship (5 yrs! her first queer relash!) so she needs to figure some stuff out. I totally get it. However, her actions are different from her words: she stays in touch a BUNCH and when we are together, she says a lotta stuff that feels VERY girlfriendy to me.

We both have established that we love hanging out, we feel fun and comfortable, we care a lot about each other, and we learn a lot from each other. I feel a lotta love between us although we haven’t said ILY but rn it doesn’t feel like we need that. For me, I really like her, I love hanging out w her. At the same time, I DO want to be in a relationship, but I don’t think a monogamous long-distance relationship would work for me. If I’m going to date someone I have needs! and want to have a lot of sex!! And only seeing someone like every other week *at most* doesn't feel enough, and if we’re monogamous, maybe there’d be a lot of pressure on those times to have a good time.

She is not comfortable with polyamory, specifically with me having sex with other people in the same time period as with her.  My question is about ethics, tact, care, and timing:: Should I break up with her now, knowing that inevitably I will be boning some local person? There is no one else in the picture right now but I would like to be dating people; I also really don’t want her to feel like a “placeholder,” you know? That would feel like a shitty dynamic.  Or, should we continue to “love each other while we can”? We’ve tried being just friends before and it was sad, there’s like this string that keeps wrapping each other together. Should I keep hanging out with her until it gets to a point where I am seeing another local person and want to bone them too? I’m feeling stuck between a rock & a hard spot, & it feels like an ethical decision which i don’t have the answer for. I want to be responsible and not be a douchebag.

I did not expect to see the words “she lives in a town 2 hours away” followed by “long-distance relationship.” As a lesbian from the Midwest, I have driven two hours for really good beef jerky and that is NOT a double-entendre. Two hours is not long-distance in my book, but I digress. We’re talking about you, not me and my horndog travels.

You’re in a pickle—an organic, free-range pickle from the farmers market, but still a pickle. You want an open relationship. Your farm boo does not. You want to spend more time together, but she’s overwhelmed by a semi-recent heartbreak and intense farming schedule. Neither of you are willing to compromise. This is a situation I see all the time here at Dear Worrier Princess: two people recognize that fundamental aspects of relationship aren’t working, but they stay together because the relationship is familiar and has redeeming qualities like good sex, rapport, or mutual love and care.

To be honest, it sounds like your farm boo is someone who wants what she wants when she wants it. The following sentences set off some alarms for me: “she can’t commit to being in touch or making time to visit me” followed by “she stays in touch a BUNCH and when we are together, she says a lotta stuff that feels VERY girlfriendy.” This is a boundaries issue and it’s 100% something you should discuss with her. Say something like, “It’s confusing for me when you say our relationship is one way, but then you text me frequently and say things like [EXAMPLE 1] and [EXAMPLE 2].” Similarly, you keep deciding to be friends and sliding back into romance-territory. This doesn’t mean you’re fated to be together, it means you need better boundaries and a solid chunk of time without any contact. I’m also wondering, during these stretches when you’re supposed to be friends, who escalates things? Who sends the first sext? Might be something to think about.

Is it wrong to date someone you don’t want to be with forever? No. I think most relationships fall into this camp. As long as you’re mindful not create a placeholder dynamic (which I interpret to mean becoming a dismissive or callous partner), it’s fine to see an end on the horizon. However, it’s never as simple as, “we’ll just date until things naturally end.” Even in the best of circumstances, breakups are hard. What if you meet someone available and local, but you’re still raw from the breakup? What if you struggle to establish post-breakup boundaries with your farm boo and this causes tension in your new relationship?

My advice is to set a course towards friendship, though I also understand how difficult it can be to end a relationship without the solid impetus of a fight or someone new. Ask yourself: if I end this relationship now, will I regret not spending more time together? If I keep seeing her, will my feelings become stronger and make it more difficult to separate? Is the agony is worth the ecstasy? Only you can decide.

Queery #2: Last semester (my first semester of college) I was pretty into this girl I thought was straight or at least very closeted. Almost immediately after returning to school after winter break we both got very drunk and ended up hooking up that night. Since then we've continued to see each other and the relationship seems to be getting more and more serious; however, only as long as we are in very private spaces. The only people who know about it are my friends and her friends all seem to believe that I am tragically in love with her, a straight girl. I have never been in any sort of serious relationship, I only first hooked up with a girl last semester but I've been out and open about my sexuality with those close to me for the past three years. I've tried to initiate conversations with her about this, which is hard as she freezes up with any sort of difficult topic that requires talking about ones emotions. We've gotten a little better at these conversations lately and it seems like she also wants a more serious relationship and wants to be able to be more public about it. In the past few weeks she has told one of the people she is living with as well as a close friend but it still seems like we're stuck in this strange place. I don't want to pressure her to do anything she feels very uncomfortable doing and I also recognize that feeling like I am, in a way, going back into the closet to be there with her is unhealthy for me. How do I keep my frustration for our current situation from clouding the good parts, if that's possible? Lately this is about all I think about or want to talk about and I find myself often getting stuck on these negative aspects. How can I best support her without damaging my own wellbeing?

While reading this queery, I realized that my first semester of college was TEN YEARS AGO. My mom drove me to Staples to buy an ethernet cable because my my dorm didn’t have wifi—that’s how we lived in 2009. I can confirm, in extreme retrospect, that your first year of college is overwhelming. It’s no small thing to leave home for the first time, make new friends, and balance coursework/relationships/a job. And then, on top of all that, your girlfriend is smacked with her own queerness and everything it entails. It’s a lot!

It doesn’t help that “coming out" is one of those those terms like “hooking up” or “middle class”—we pretend it’s this definite thing, when it actually means something different to everyone. As a femme lesbian, I come out to new people when it feels safe and pertinent. My butch friends, on the other hand, rarely get to come out on their own terms. Some people take years to come out, others make a snap decision and tell the world via Facebook. I have friends who are openly gay in the United States, but are closeted to their parents and extended families in their countries-of-origin. Sometimes I get DMs from women who say Instagram is their only queer outlet because marriage and other life circumstances make coming out impossible. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I meet a lot of young people who grew up in affirming homes and were exposed to queer adults and culture at an early age. All this to say that I totally agree with you: you can’t pressure your girlfriend to come out before she’s ready. I applaud you for recognizing that her life and decisions are hers and hers alone.

None of this changes the fact that your relationship makes you feel Bad. When you’ve escaped the deep closet, dating someone who’s struggling with self-acceptance can dredge up all sorts of insecurities and painful memories. It feels shitty to be someone’s secret; it implies that your sexuality is shameful and wrong. Like, have you ever had a friend who body-shamed themselves constantly and said stuff like “I’m so fat and disgusting”? Even though their comments aren’t directed at you, you come away feeling self-conscious and weird. Shame is contagious like that.

All relationships require compromise, but how do you know when you’re compromising too much? What do you owe yourself and what do you owe your partner? I ask myself these questions all the time. Kind of recently, I dated someone who habitually snapped at me. Like one time, we were walking dogs in a snowstorm and I joked that I could kick snow over the poop and it would be the perfect crime. They were full-on like, “THAT WILL CONTAMINATE OUR WATER SUPPLY.” It stung. Despite all this, I liked them a lot. I was in extreme cuffing mode and really, really wanted to be in a relationship. We talked it over and I left the conversation feeling hopeful. They acknowledged their outbursts and apologized, but the snapping kept happening to varying degrees. I could still feel the worst part of our relationship wearing me down. I kept second-guessing myself: “am I annoying? Am I difficult to spend time with? Is everything I say stupid and destructive to Wisconsin waterways?”

I turned to a friend for advice. L, who recently ended a complicated and bittersweet relationship, had the perfect response. I’m going to leave you with the text she sent me: “It’s your choice to stay in an imperfect relationship. Just make sure you’re staying because y’all are communicating openly and making the necessary changes. Stay cause you have a plan and solid reasons to believe things will get better, NOT cause you’re afraid of hurting her or afraid of being alone.”

dear worrier princess answers your qs about love and strife in relationships in this complex and modern queer world.

shoot an email to worrierprincess@argotmagazine.com or fill out the form below.

Maddy Court is an artist and writer based in Madison, WI. Keep up with her on Twitter @worrierprincess, or on instagram @xenaworrierprincess.

 All illustrations for this column are done by Sid Champagne. Sid is a freelance illustrator based in Baltimore by way of the Gulf Coast. You can find them on Twitter @sid_champagne, or Instagram (more cat pics) @sidchampagne

[docholligay]

Comments for “Perfection, Oil on Linen, Date Unknown” 

everybodyknows-everybodydies

oh my gosh oh my GOSH this is LOVELY I'M EMOTIONAL WOW

I’m so glad!!! 

everybodyknows-everybodydies

THE EXTENDED METAPHOR OF MICHIRU AS A PIECE OF ART UNDER GLASS IS SO GOOD I LOVE THAT

Thank you! I was really On My Shit for this one, I have always loved Michiru as a museum piece. 

everybodyknows-everybodydies

"things lose their value when you touch them, when you use them" U G H YESSSS LISTEN MY IMMEDIATE THOUGHT WAS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MONETARY VALUE AND PERSONAL VALUE AND CONTINUING ON WAS LIKE YOU REACHED INTO MY BRAIN AND GRABBED THAT THOUGHT TO CARRY IT THROUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my god mouse, this is MY GARBAGE. Like, not just with Michiru, but in LIFE, I have no concept of keeping something in its box, under glass,because then why have it? For some imagined money you may never see? 

everybodyknows-everybodydies

also the description of the city lights as "the Milky Way of mankind" is absolutely gorgeous I'm going to be thinking about that line all NIGHT

Thank you!!! I was rather pleased with that line myself

everybodyknows-everybodydies

Haruka sleeping curled up small even though she is a LANKY NOODLE AND TAKES UP SPACE = SUPERB CHARACTER DETAIL 10/10 I WANT TO HUG HER DANG IT

THANK YOU I LOVE THE IDEA CONSTANTLY AND ALL THE TIME

everybodyknows-everybodydies

AND THE BIT ABOUT THE MASTERS PAINTING OVER THEIR OWN WORKS I don't know if you had a specific one in mind when you were writing this but all I could think was the Artemisia Gentileschi painting (the name ESCAPES ME sorry) where she covered her brutally visceral depiction of a woman with a more male-approved and less disturbing version and AGAIN, MICHIRU AS A PAINTING OW OW OW

I think you’re thinking of Kathleen Gilje! https://kathleengilje.com/artwork/321721_Susanna_and_the_Elders_Restored_X_Ray.html   The underpainting is actually fictional, that’s Gilje’s “thing”as an artist. BUT YES I LOVE THE IDEA. I didn’t have a specific one in mind, it was something I’d just been tossing around in my head, that you paointed amasterpeice over whatever it was you did first, and that whatever came first was lesser, what might have been. 

everybodyknows-everybodydies

"her footsteps soft as church whispers" FORESHADOWING I DO EMBRACE THEE (AND that line is absolutely beautiful oh my word)

Thank you!!

everybodyknows-everybodydies

Michiru's quiet conviction that Haruka is beautiful and that's the word she KNOWS is right makes my chest hurt I LOVE

Listen I have FEELINGS about butch women and how one is not ‘supposed’ to think of them as beautiful or give them flowers or what have you but They!!! are not men!!!! And I’ve known many who like either of those things but feel like they aren’t ‘supposed’ to and ANYWAY YES HARUKA TENOH IS BEAUTIFUL. 

everybodyknows-everybodydies

aND HAND-TOUCHING FULL OF EMOTIONS AND PINING I AM THE MOST BLESSED

I HOPE YOU WOULD!!!

everybodyknows-everybodydies

ANYWAY TLDR I'M ALSO FULL OF EMOTIONS ALL OF THEM GOOD THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS

I am SO happy!!

keyofjetwolf

(thought a quick reminder on the epilogue for this, if you didn't do it yet, because my brain is too delighted with the thought)

I TOTALLY FORGOT THANK YOU

keyofjetwolf

"Michiru had been a primed canvas from birth"  The opening line is instantly amazing, I THINK I'M IN FOR A TREAT

THANK

keyofjetwolf

"she laid a sheet of plexiglass over what Michiru Kaioh might have been"  --This whole extended metaphor is *kisses fingertips*, and this line especially got me.

Thank you so much!

keyofjetwolf

"She would stubbornly survive against all enemies and against all allies"  --yessss, ugh, what a perfect line for Michiru, I'm furious.

THANK YOU, so much of what I think of for Michiru is her ability to make herself into an island,where she doesn’t even really care for the people who are ON HER DAMN SIDE, but it’s so hard for her to see that, all she sees is the rope (which is valid) 

keyofjetwolf

"Michiru wandered out of the living room with its barren and spare decor"  --I don't know why I'm so tickled at you noting how there's fuck all in their apartment/penthouse/whatever, BUT I REALLY AM

ahahaha MICHIRU HANG A PICTURE

keyofjetwolf

"She often pretended to her own sort of Sight, quickly adding to Michiru’s visions that she had seen the same, that the wind had told her one thing or another"  --I feel so oddly catered to in this. Haruka and her "oh yeah the wind said the same thing to me, totally" and Michiru knowing it's utter bullshit, I'M DELIGHTED As much too by contrast of Haruka wanting the visions, jealous of them, and Michiru wishing they could just fuck off and she could be left alone.

 I know you and I have a pretty similar idea about Haruka’s actual psychic ability, which is basically “zero.” But yeah, the idea that she thinks this is something intrinsic to being a senshi and not realizing it ‘s just Michiru’s “thing” and so trying to cover with “oh yeah I totally also heard that” is so central to me, because Haruka is trying so hard to be the senshi she thinks she needs to be, what’s she’s SUPPOSED to be

keyofjetwolf

"her footsteps soft as church whispers"  --you drop brilliant shit like this so casually sometimes and I want to punch you in the fucking face, it's so good, I'm screaming

Thank you so much!

keyofjetwolf

"not the prince that came to rescue this sleeping beauty but the witch who had enchanted her."  --We already talked about this line, I know, but it's somehow even better in the full context of the work and if it weren't so cold and windy outside, I WOULD come punch you in the fucking face.

THANK YOU I LIKED IT TOO

keyofjetwolf

It's all just so, so good. You did an amazing job capturing Michiru's bitterness and longing, in a way that's uniquely Michiru, cynically resigned to the whole affair. Yet then there are these little bursts of hope, and it makes it all that much sweeter. You always do fantastic with Haruka and Michiru, of course, but I think you may have outdone yourself a little here.

Thank you so much I tried very hard!!

[fromfiction]

on the subject of identity and my gender

Some of you may have noticed I have edited my ‘about me’ page a bit in the last couple days.

This may come as a shock to some of you who have only seen my carefully cropped photos of myself online, and know that I use he/him pronouns.

I don’t pass as a male.

I don’t pass at all.

I may dress in a stereotypically masculine way. I may speak in a stereotypically masculine way. I act in what is often considered to be a stereotypically masculine way. But none of that matters.

I’m short, I’m very fat, I have a high voice, and I have extremely large breasts. Even when I’m wearing a binder, I have visible, obvious breasts.

In my every day, irl meatspace interactions, I am perceived and interacted with, and related to as, a short, fat woman.

Not only that but I am almost constantly in the company of my delightful longtime, visibly feminine girlfriend/fiancée.

So, in my everyday life, out and about I am used to consistently being read as, and related to as a lesbian. As the kind of short, fat, plaid wearing, kind of ugly looking lesbian that’s the butt of homophobic jokes about lesbians.

My fiancée and I are read as and related to as lesbians in every social setting. And I’m pretty comfortable with that, despite the fact that it very honestly sometimes puts us in social or physical peril. Hell, my girlfriend identifies as a lesbian.

So imagine my shock, when I, a person who lives their life perceived as a lesbian, and describes themselves publicly online as nonbinary trans-masculine, am called out and given shit for describing myself as ‘butch’.

This is just bizarre to me as a writer because ‘butch’ just seems like the natural adjective to describe someone like me. Someone short, with a buzz cut, plaid shirt, combat boots, and obvious breasts.

But that adjective is, I was told, only for lesbians and some people took issue with a bisexual identified, masculine nonbinary person in a relationship with a lesbian, using that term.

So I stopped using it. I’m not looking to offend people or get into fights. I’m getting too old for that.

But here’s the thing. While my gender identity has broadly speaking been fairly stable, that is a consistent-to-me experience, since I was a kid, it is very hard to describe to people in concrete language terms, and I go back and forth about how to describe and understand it even for myself. For a while I thought about living as a man. Then I discovered genderqueer and that seemed right for a while.

Listen, if I was 16 right now, instead of 31, I would probably have a gender six words long and a set of neo-pronouns. But I have too little energy, and maybe sadly am too set in my ways by now for that.

But I’ve been thinking about that. I’ve been thinking about what labels are important to me, and how I relate to myself, and how I want to describe myself.

Lets run down the facts.

I have a body with many stereotypically female physical traits such as breasts and a vagina, and I relate to them personally as female body part.

I was raised in a very misogynistic environment which impacted my view of women in ways I’m still processing and getting over.

I have pretty severe PCOS, which some would argue puts me on the intersex spectrum.

Due to PCOS I have a beard and elevated testosterone levels

I have continual, severe body dysphoria

Some of that dysphoria is almost certainly related to my kintypes, given that I remember having a human ‘male’ body as Ken, an alien ‘intersex’ biology as Vriska, and no physical sex as Pearl. So… yeah.

No lie, if I got my Christmas wish body from Santa it would involve breasts, a vagina, and some kind of penis. Possibly non human standard. But nobody’s running around with penis giving rays, so that’s a pipe dream.

So that’s what’s been swirling around in my head all these months, and I’ve been trying to make sense of it. All in all, I don’t feel like I identify as male. I identify more as a masculine-traited female. Which I suppose, comes back to non-binary. I identify as a manly woman. Perhaps the pokemon evolved form of a tomboy.  My gender could be described as ‘a middle-aged Peppermint Patty working in a mechanic shop’.

When it comes to labels, man and male just don’t describe me the way I identify, or the way I am seen and want to be seen. Butch does, though. So yeah.

So that’s where I am right now. I’m not going to be referring to myself as a trans man, or trans masculine for the foreseeable future. I don’t know what pronouns I’m going to be using. You can just use whatever for me for right now until I get that sorted out. 

Anyone who has any advice on that, or any of this, I’d be happy to hear from by ask or private message. I’m really useless at this kind of thing, as I think this whole damn post shows.

[fourteenghostinfo]

Info/Memories

I am always nonbinary and asexual/biromantic unless otherwise stated. I’ll list specific memories (if I have them) under each kin. Also special info if necessary.

Shigeo Kageyama ~

Lots of memories but I’ll list some important ones. I had a crush on Teruki, who was also nonbinary. After my experience with Mogami I became heavily uncomfortable calling Reigen “Master,” which he didn’t question and let me stop calling him that. I cussed to myself a lot, but not around others for fear of offending them. I thought of Shou like a second brother. My parents weren’t very nice or accepting of me. ???% wasn’t another being living inside me, but a deeper instinctual part of myself. I knew this because I was still partly conscious while in that state.

Link ~

Most of my memories are from Breath of the Wild. While I was asleep I regained memories from past lives, making the memories from my current life even more confusing. I deeply loved Zelda, very very much. She was the only one I felt comfortable talking to (or crying around). I liked humming around her too. I ended up collecting every Silent Princess flower I found on my travels and showing them all to her when we were reunited. She was happy but started laughing because they were an endangered species and I wasn’t supposed to be picking them.

Mikaela Hyakuya ~

The first time I saw my red eyes I started crying. Once I started living with the humans again I had constant anxiety, thinking someone would try to attack me at any moment.

Ciel Phantomhive ~

Don’t you dare talk to me about sebaciel I will kill you right then and there. In fact I despise the author of Black Butler and at least 80% of the fans. How unfortunate. I had dependent personality disorder and attached myself to Sebastian because he was my only parental figure left. Things are fuzzy, but I’m pretty sure he was killed and once he was gone from my life I finally started to recover from my trauma.

Pearl ~

I was sorta messy and all over the place. Punk but hyper feminine too. I was extremely close with Steven and we liked to fuse into Rainbow Quartz often. The large fight with Garnet never happened, but I did find myself often disassociating from the others in the group. I liked going out and exploring different human-inhabited areas. During the war I shape shifted into Rose while Pink Diamond was shattered, making people believe Rose was the one to do it. If I did it they would let me go, and I could escape to Earth.

Chat Noir (Adrien Agreste) ~

Depression and other unchecked mental illnesses™. My dad was always cold to me, even before my mother’s death.

Lithuania ~

(Lmao I haven’t watched Hetalia in years) I was very feminine. I became good friends with England, and I also ended up befriending Prussia. But there were lots of other countries I was not friendly with, including Russia.

Shinji Ikari ~

Wow I miss Kaworu yikes. Very few memories honestly. We all returned to life and we were able to continue school, but I’m not sure if that happiness lasted forever.

Kaneki Ken ~

Honestly most of my memories are from my time as Sasaki. I’m not sure, but I may have stayed that way for years of my life. A long time.

Lars Barriga ~

I was a trans boy, which added a lot to my insecurity over my identity. I was bullied as a kid and my parents seemed unable to help. I spent years acting tough and masculine but I was scared and confused. I may have been aromantic. Sadie was my best friend and eventually the only one I felt comfortable opening up to. It took me forever to admit it but I was very happy Steven actually considered me a friend. I tried to refrain from being overly mean and instead pretended to be a chill person who was never awkward, but that often failed. After my death and rebirth and living with gems I became much more feminine and let that part of myself open up, instead of pushing it down, thinking it made me less of a man.

Eri ~

I was actually much older than I ever looked, due to stunted growth. I was around 15 when Midoriya first found me. I ended up living on the UA campus so that powerful superheroes could guard me and I would have access to kids my age to interact with while learning how to use my own quirk.

Steven Universe ~

Bit of a repeat from earlier, but Pearl and I were very close and we loved to form Rainbow Quartz often. Around the time I turned 14 I started wearing lots of girly clothes and flowing fabrics, and I liked putting colorful pins in my hair.

Trainer Moon ~

I had blonde hair and blue eyes, and my starter was Popplio. I was very gay for Lillie. We met up again several years after she moved away, and there was lots of happy crying. I became really close with Gladion, and he liked to confide in me and hang around me when he didn’t have much else to do.

Star Butterfly ~

Marco was a trans girl and boy was I gay for her. As a Mewman, I had sharp shark-like teeth. I had fantasies of being a rock star. I wore lots of spikes and eyeliner to try to make myself look as “punk” as possible but I could never let go of my bright colorful fashion taste.

Max Puckett ~

Gay for Isaac but too stubborn to admit it. I hated drama and really came off as rude and unsympathetic whenever I tried to avoid it.

Party Poison ~

I was gay for Show Pony (wow am I sensing a pattern here?) I sung a lot of music and always wished I had some way to record it. I had vague memories of the California coast. I never knew if they were actual childhood memories or if I’d been told stories about it and it was an image created by my mind, but I always dreamed of seeing the ocean with my own eyes. After I lost the battle, I was taken back to the city and reeducated and sedated. It must’ve been years later, it was all a blur, but I eventually managed to slip out and wandered the desert for a long time.

Danny Fenton ~

I was really more dead than alive. Phantom Planet did not happen. (Also lmao Butch Hartman can take his stupid ideas and suck on my gay nonbinary feminine ghost ectoplasm)

Mettaton ~

I became a total heartthrob on the surface and it was honestly incredible. I never strayed too far from where Napstablook was though. They really were like a little sibling to me.

Tails ~

Honestly not very many memories but I think my canon was sorta like the Sonic X anime. Also I loved him he was like a brother but Sonic was a total doofus lmao. Also we were the same age.

Vriska Serket ~

Killed off my lusus the second I knew I was capable of taking care of myself. That way I wouldn’t have to kill anymore. Tavros was an asshole to me, constantly. In fact, most of my friends were when we were younger. I stayed on the meteor with Terezi. Eventually, I navigated my way to the new universe. It took years, however.

Izuku Midoriya ~

Here we are in the barely any memories section. I do know I got into fights a lot as a kid to prove I wasn’t weak, and I ended up winning most of the time. Bakugou wasn’t that mean to me, just dismissive, which hurt because we really were friends as kids.

Luke Skywalker ~

Specific memories? Where? I was pretty gay you can be sure of that.

Tooru Mutsuki ~

Trans boy, I was gay for Sasaki. Things were a lot less….. tragic overall in my canon than in the source material.

Rhys ~

After Jack possessed me I lost my trust in him and tried to betray him. After it was all over, I was too scared of him coming back to replace the tech in my head. I just kept my eye covered. And I definitely wasn’t nearly talented enough to replace my arm by myself. That had to wait for a long while until I found the rest of the survivors again.

[dreadhaus-literature]

{A/N}

I uh.

I’m just here to talk so I don’t bottle and internalize too much.

Tonight was weird. That whole exchange that happened at the store left me rattled on so many levels it took me the majority of my night to unpack them all--and I’ll just say, I’m not one to sensationalize or dramatize things. I actually tend to downplay a lot of stuff that happens to me so when I say tonight left me rattled, I do mean it.

I was shaky unloading my groceries into my truck, I forgot some of the items I went to the store for (something I never do), and I twist my fingers a lot when I’m nervous and I caught myself doing it several times through the night.

And it really wasn’t fear. I didn’t think the dude was going to do anything to me. Call it Amazonian Courage or just being raised to incorrectly believe I’m too big to be threatened but I wasn’t scared of the guy. Yes he made me uncomfortable and I did feel a certain sense of “creep” from him (hence why I kept saying how uncomfortable he made me, staring at me the way he was) but my response to the encounter wasn’t fear.

It was anxiety.

Like I said, I downplay stuff that happens to me. I was raised in a way that if I was sick, injured, etc, it was brushed off. I was made to feel any showing of emotion or discomfort was a burden to the adult figures in my life. I was never babied or coddled or really even listened to when something bothered me so I never learned to behave that way. I think that’s why, in some instances, my empathy is fucked up. I was never shown that sort of empathy and so it was not something instilled in me, at least not properly. So oftentimes when I am uncomfortable or subjected to discomfort I react strangely or don’t process it right away--or I downplay it. I brush it off and say I’m okay or I’m fine, because that’s what I was raised to do.

But now that I’m alone with my thoughts I realize that tonight hit some sore spots and left me a little more rattled than I wanted to admit aloud when Monica asked me about it. I kept making excuses to downplay how I was feeling without even realizing that’s what I was doing. But I got off call and put my headphones in to get around for bed and as soon as the noise stopped and she was gone and it was just me and my mind...my smile faded and I couldn’t quite figure out why I wasn’t happy, anymore.

Didn’t take but two seconds of inspecting my feelings to realize I’m feeling insecure about the exchange from the store.

It’s strange, being in my body. I think a part of me wants to love my height, whether because I’m stuck with it so I might as well, or that I’m proud that I am so tall. It is pretty neat...but it has some major drawbacks.

Like it’s odd as fuck I’m not transgendered but I have to fight same as they do, to be recognized as my own gender. Oddly enough, the gender I was born in.

Back in high school I’d throw my hair in a low ponytail and toss on some oversized jeans and a baggy shirt and just be the dude everyone treated me like, anyway, and I’d come home and genuinely try and decide if I should just get a sex change. It was honestly something I considered, if only for a brief period. I thought it’d be easier. I thought it would be easier for me and my emotional/mental state if I just gave in and stopped fighting everyone else’s preconceived notions about who I was.

Because no one realized how damaging the shit they say, can be.

Mom constantly telling me how big my feet are or how shirts would look cute but i “have such broad shoulders.”

I was thrilled when my shoulders seemed to shrink after surgery, but I know logically bone structure doesn’t change so it’s all in my goddamn head because I’m insecure about my fucKING SHOULDERS????

For like a year or two in high school, after Mom criticized the size of my wrists, I wore wristbands and bracelets 24/7. I even slept in them. To cover my wrists because I was ashamed of them.

My fucking wrists.

My body dismorphia makes a lot of sense when I sit down and examine myself like this.

The comments about my size and appearance were and always have been relentless. Like when my sister asked me why I painted my nails pink, “but like, why that color? Doesn’t seem like you,” like I’m not allowed to like girly colors.

Or the constant surprise at seeing me in make-up.

Or the confusion that I like animal or floral print clothes.

Or when I buy shoes that aren’t combat boots.

Or being told to “just shop in the men’s section. It’s easier to find things to fit you.”

It leads to me feeling out of place in women’s clothes. I feel like a goddamn drag queen sometimes. Like a clown. Like I put all this on and walk around and people don’t see a woman, they see a person in the middle of gender reassignment surgery.

Which, by the way, not super thrilled about that being what people ask me these days.

I mean I get it. Logically. I have PCoS and thus a habitual 5 o’clock shadow and women aren’t supposed to. PCoS is never talked about and no one is raised to think women have facial hair so of course people stare and are confused by it. Logically I understand that.

Emotionally it makes me want to cut the skin off my face so the hair can’t grow through it anymore.

As I’ve gotten older I can talk about PCoS without crying but there’s still a part of me that feels robbed. Cheated. I feel like I missed out on being able to 100% be a girl. I have facial hair and I’m over six feet tall and I’ve got huge hands and feet and broad shoulders and there’s nothing small or tiny or cute or beautiful about me. Shopping for women’s clothes is a fucking joke because clothing companies stop making clothes for women once they pass 5′10 and size 9 shoe.

People don’t get it and I know and understand they don’t (I also understand how whiny this sounds but w/e) but I feel so out of place in my own body it’s no wonder I live in my head 24/7. If I spent too much time focused on what I looked like, what I actually look like and have to deal with, I’d go back to cutting all the time.

Self-love is hard but I try. I do. I genuinely, the last year or so, have felt this surge of “Fuck everything, I am going to survive and I am going to live and be okay.” I’ve really wanted to just be in a better place and not be depressed and cutting myself and walking around hating who I have to be. This is who I am and I better get on board with loving myself because that’s not ever going to change.

But it’s hard. It’s hard to have people look at me and think I’m a man. Or that I was born a man and became a woman.

“What are you?” ”So you were born a girl?”

Like the question of asking what I am sounds like someone asking what Frankenstein’s monster is. It’s so fucking dehumanizing I can’t really process people look at me and aren’t sure what the fuck I am. Not who, but what. Like that’s fucking crazy, to me. And to even question what gender I was born into. Like I had to have surgery to even achieve some semblance of femininity, but it failed since you’re still having to ask if I’m a woman.

Logically I know that’s their problem.

Emotionally it fucking sucks.

I’ve been toying with the idea of what to do with my hair, next, for the last couple months. If I wanted to keep the mohawk, if I wanted to dye it a fun color (Mom never let me dye my hair so I’ve never gotten to do it and I want to) and I decided tonight that I’m going to let it grow out a bit. I won’t give the creep from the grocery store credit, I’m not doing it because of him or the drive-thru guy who also assumed I was trans, I’m just, I think maybe I’ll feel better.

I know this mohawk would look more femme on a different girl. On me, with my height and PCoS, it does obviously lend to people mis-gendering me but I want to be firm in saying I’m not changing my appearance for anyone but myself. It’s just...maybe this isn’t quite the look I was going for, for myself. I don’t want to be seen as a man. Butch maybe, sometimes, but still soft enough to be seen as a she.

It’s hard to want to be pretty, to be feminine, to wear pretty clothes and make-up but know in the back of my head people will just see what they want to see.

Every little girl, I think, wants to be pretty. I wanted to be pretty.

Mom never thought I was.

My classmates never thought I was.

Most people don’t think I am.

Logically I know that doesn’t mean I’m not.

Emotionally, I’m not so sure.

[flummoxy]

Questioning

I just watched a video by QueerAsCat about questioning, and how no one ever talks about it in the moment, and it’s seen as a transitional phase that has a start and end, at which point you’ve moved from A to B and you never talk about that time you thought you were/were A. This is about the safest place for me to get all this out there, since I don’t have many followers, and I’ll ask the one person who does know me personally to just never speak of it here or on any other platform unless I start it, OK? OK, here goes. For the past year and a half, I’ve been masquerading around as someone absolutely sure that she’s a cis woman. When I started dating my spouse, we talked about how we identified, and I was like 100% woman, no doubt, you can even call me a lady, it’s all my own definition of femininity. But somewhere around the time I was looking for my wedding dress, I lost my gender. Everything felt bad. Expectations around how I was supposed to feel about finding my dress and seeing myself in it and all the other “bridal” things refused to manifest. Part of that was because I was preparing for my wedding in a foreign country where my best friends and family couldn’t do these things with me. I tried not to be sentimental about it, but it was painful. But there was something else. Not that I didn’t want to wear a dress, but there was something incongruous about the “bridal” connection to it, the feminine inhabitation in clothing, specifically as it related to me. I started to get more and more agitated when shopping, not just for wedding clothes, but any clothes. My spouse is trans non-binary. They are starting hormones now, and it’s something I’ve been dreading. With feelings like that, I must be a standard transphobic cis person right? But it’s not just the fear of change and the fear of threatening masculinity. It’s that I can’t talk about how I lost my gender, and all the feelings that are going on personally, because I don’t understand those things. I don’t understand masculinity and femininity or what it’s like to be desperate for someone to see you as a gender that as a western concept hasn’t caught on, so there’s not a lot of hope. I didn’t even think I wanted to change my name or pronouns. So even though I don’t have a gender, I’m definitely not trans. Those aren’t the only reasons. Partly, I just don’t care about being misgendered, I care about being gendered, being told I can’t do something, or I have some secret knowledge because of my sex. A non-binary friend described themselves as “politically female” because things that we think of as “women’s rights” still applied to them, and I think I’m comfortable with that identity. I’ve also been going with queer and bisexual for a while now, but I’m also toying with terms like lesbian and dyke, even though I’m the farthest from butch (and femme, for that matter) that one can be. I’m a caregiver, and one of my residents recently died very suddenly. It was traumatic in a way that no other death has been. I cry at work still, a month later, and I have literally woken myself up crying huge terrible sobs. All that emotion, combined with the start of my spouse’s self-medication, has brought my anxiety around my identity right in front of my face, every once in a while lunging at me and saying “What are you going to do about it?” I scroll through pinterest flailing around because I don’t know the terms for the look I’m looking for, and usually leave TRAID in a panic because I just can’t find anything that’s right. I’m not even sure that changing my style of dress will solve anything. When I search for “living genderfree” I get results for raising children and fashion, both of which seem to mostly involve dungarees, and neither of which I’m really interested in. I want to know how to move through life without being tied to the gender I was/am assigned. I’m constantly carrying around anxiety about whether I should come out, when I feel like I’m only halfway there, and no one will understand it. No one even uses the pronouns that I like the most, so I’m afraid that people will laugh at me. I used to go by the name Dusty when I was in college. It was my username, I moved, and just started introducing myself to people without reference to my other name. I stopped when a professor was rude about it during the first role call. “I’m not EVEN going to ask,” he said. I was so embarrassed, I went back to my given name. I’ve thought about asking people to call me that again, and we were going to move back to America, and now we are looking at being in London for another 5 years at least. It feel like my life will never start. I think that most people who talk about living authentically are full of shit, and it’s not like I’m hiding anything, and it’s not like i want to “open a conversation” about it, but I just wish things were different, easier. So that’s it. I think I’m agender, or maybe GNC, but it’s more like gender doesn’t conform to me. I’m not trans, and you don’t have to convince me I’m “trans enough” or that I’m still under an umbrella, because some of us just want to get wet, OK? I don’t need reassurance that I fit, because the thing is that I don’t, and that’s fine. I just wish I had other people to talk to about it, desperately. I’ve joined groups and chats and downloaded hours of non-binary podcasts, and I NEVER listen to non-fiction podcasts, but I’m desperate to hear from someone like me. Putting it out there

[princeoffireandwords]

Ever since shaving my head, I’ve been subject to various things that further prove what I’ve learned in this society.

Despite the fact that I’ve been consistently shaving my head for about five months now, many people I know still aren’t used to the change.

Hair is very important in performing femininity for men, as is expected of me. All of my life I’ve been constantly complimented on how thick and beautiful my hair is. Told to grow it out, let it be all it can be. Just the other day, someone I know told me it isn’t “fair” that I have such nice hair, only to shave it off.

That someone was my female coworker in her late thirties. She’s surely seen her share of what society expects of women. She isn’t the catalogue picture of a good housewife, but she conforms to gender norms nonetheless. She has told me I have “the right shaped head” for shaving it three times now. But what isn’t fair is that she, who enjoys having long hair, has very thin hair, where I have thick hair but choose to shave it off.

I’m sure she doesn’t know what message she is sending. She’s simply jealous that I have the hair she wishes she could have. But that is taken one step further that I am somehow doing other people a disservice by shaving off my hair. As if only by virtue of having nice hair, I’m required to use this opportunity to perform femininity as it is desired.

I’ve been treated all my life that I have the privilege of “nice” hair, and as such I am required to embrace it. Anything short of long flowing hair is a disservice to any woman who wants nice hair.

I’ve also been told many times that men like long hair, and that people will think I’m a man myself. That I owe it to myself to look like a woman and be attractive to men. These people seem to miss what butch is all about, but that’s too common as it is.

When I look at old pictures of myself, back when I had long hair, it isn’t simply looking at a past me. There is no sense of looking at a different version of me. I experience a complete disconnect when I look at pictures of me with long hair. When I had the side of my head shaved, or only the top of my hair left, that feels like a past me.

But seeing myself with long hair is seeing myself as society wants to. Every time I see myself with long hair I’m scared of how I would feel like that.

That just isn’t a different me, that’s a different person.

And yet I am constantly reminded that I have nice hair just waiting to be seen.

I know all too well that even other women treat me as some sort of mannequin, meant to look as perfect as possible. I’m supposed to have long hair and shave my legs. I’m supposed to put on makeup and play down my acne. I’m supposed to shop in the women’s section and buy clothes that make me look good.

And when I do the opposite, I am rebelling so strongly that so many people I meet seem to have something to say about it.

Despite my “nice” hair, and the “nice” body I might have, I don’t exist to aim for society’s standard of being a beautiful women.

Every time people tell me to shave my legs and grow out the hair on my head, I do the exact opposite even more often.