#is it just me or were clothes a lot less strictly gendered in the early 2000s?

[edge-oftheworld]

my theory for calum calling every vaguely tartan skirt a kilt is that’s what his parents told him when he had to wear Mali’s hand me downs being like ‘you’re scottish, be proud’ but really you don’t always have the extra cash to buy shorts for a growing boy when there are perfectly good skirts right there

[kurowrites]

The Live-In Boyfriend - Chapter 1

Looking for live-in boyfriend, the title read.

It had only been put up the day before.

Well, well, Wei Ying thought to himself. Isn’t that exactly what I was looking for?

He clicked on the link and quickly read through the text of the advert.

Since you all enabled me yesterday - have a chapter of Wei Ying being supremely stupid. Link to AO3.

(Note that this fic is going to get mature later on. Also don’t try this at home pls.)

---

Wei Ying usually wasn’t the kind of person that eavesdropped on the conversations of people he didn’t know. Most of the time, it wasn’t worth the effort of spying, anyway.

(Too many boring people in this world.)

But something about the day he’d had so far, and the way the two girls seated next to him kept giggling and exclaiming in (pretended?) shock, made him listen in. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do. He was just sitting there, sipping on his depression coffee, trying to decide what he was supposed to do next.

“A website?” the girl with a truly impressive set of pink lacquered nails exclaimed. “Isn’t that super sketchy?”

She emphasised ‘sketchy’ by tapping her long, sharp nails onto the tabletop.

“Noo, not at aaaall,” the other girl, dressed in a figure-hugging dress the colour of a ripe banana, replied. “You have to provide identification and they do a background check on you, to make sure you’re not a criminal or something. The sugar daddies too, of course.”

“Oh really?” Pink Nails asked, and immediately looked a lot more interested in the topic.

Well, Wei Ying had to agree with Pink Nail’s interest – he could use one of those sugar daddies himself. Someone willing to pay for his expenses, that would be nice. A lot better than being homeless, at any rate.

“Yeah, and you can even chat with them before meeting them,” Banana said, twirling her hair around her finger coquettishly. “It’s not like I’m going to go out with just any guy.”

“And that’s where you met him?”

“Yeah,” Banana said, leaning back a little, clearly satisfied to have the undivided attention of her companion. “You have lots of choices, and you can put in your preferences, too.”

She leaned forward again, and lowered her voice to a fake whisper that did nothing to make her voice less audible over the soft café music.

“I was really lucky with my current sugar daddy. He’s really generous because he has an established career and a lot of money. He likes kinky sex, but that’s fine, because he also kinda gets off on me sleeping with other guys, so it’s not like I can’t still go out and do whatever I want. I’m just providing him with company and a pretty thing to hang off his arm whenever he goes to a party or something.”

The two women laughed, and returned to the discussion of the advantages of this website.

Wei Ying’s attention was caught. He looked down at the sad little weekend bag next to his chair that contained nearly all of Wei Ying’s worldly possessions, discounting the boxes of books he had managed to stow away in Jiang Yanli’s attic. He’d had to sell all his furniture because he had no space where he could put it anymore. The landlord had kicked him out despite Wei Ying’s best attempts at negotiation (curse his entire bloodline), and now Wei Ying was, essentially, homeless. He had no idea how to weather the next few weeks. He had no stable address, and he needed to look for a new job. Things weren’t looking good for him.

So, he sipped on his possibly last coffee for a long time and pretended not to listen in to the conversation of the two women next to him. And when Banana finally mentioned the name of website she had been using, he felt compelled to casually unpack his own laptop, make use of the café’s free Wi-Fi, and enter the name of the website into his browser.

He was just curious, that was all.

His search returned with the result that this website was in fact the equivalent of a dating website, only for sugar babies and other forms of… special companionship. The company claimed to be classy and strict with their background checks, made assertions of quality and high customer satisfaction. And the registration as a potential sugar baby, companion, or whatever else they wanted to call it, was free.

Wei Ying paused for a moment, wondering if he really should do such a thing. All assertions from the provider aside, it was still a risky thing.

He took another look at the bag at his feet. It couldn’t get much worse than it already was, could it?

He clicked the ‘new account’ button and filled out the application without a second thought.

---

Looking for the right sugar-person wasn’t exactly a simple thing to do, Wei Ying realised about three pages in. He had decided early on that the gender of this potential sugar person didn’t actually matter, but that had the simultaneous advantage and disadvantage of increasing his possible matches considerably. He wasn’t sure how to make a choice in this wild new world that had suddenly opened himself up to him.

He was a bit nervous about the having sex part, too. He tried to imagine having sex with someone he didn’t really know and maybe didn’t find very attractive, but he drew a complete blank. It might be better to stay on the safe side and choose someone who didn’t have sex as a prerequisite. That might work out better for everyone involved.

God, with all these options and decisions, it was as complicated as looking for a job.

Well, technically, if he did it right, it might be a job. Well, not really, but he might get enough money to keep him afloat for a little bit. And with enough money, he might be able to both afford a decent apartment and find a well-paying new job.

He absent-mindedly scrolled past adverts looking for highly specific… qualifications that Wei Ying definitely didn’t have, and was considering giving up when he saw an advert for the same city he was living in.

Looking for live-in boyfriend, the title read.

It had only been put up the day before.

Well, well, Wei Ying thought to himself. Isn’t that exactly what I was looking for?

He clicked on the link and quickly read through the text of the advert.

Looking for live-in boyfriend

The ideal candidate must be clean, quiet, obedient, and sophisticated. Must be able to play his part convincingly around relatives, business associates, and friends. Good table manners and skilful socialising are required.

Physical relations are not required, but negotiable if so desired. Strictly no romantic entanglements. Affairs during the duration of the contract will lead to immediate termination.

I offer a large apartment with own private room. All ensuing costs (rent, food, clothing, allowance etc.) are covered.

The advert didn’t reveal much about the writer and his personality, so it was difficult to say anything about how well they’d fit together. But the man offered a room! Without the prerequisite of sex!

He clicked on the profile of this potential sugar daddy to find out more about him. The man, who went by L. Z., was the same age as Wei Ying, and had been working in his family’s company ever since he graduated university. Someone who had been born into wealth, probably.

He lived alone and was openly gay, so his family would expect him to bring a man to public events and family dinners. His hobbies included music, reading and tea ceremony. All in all, Wei Ying started to wonder if he was being catfished, because the age and occupation said successful young man, but the rest of it said boring middle-aged uncle with a receding hairline.

But what did Wei Ying care about boring when such a perfect opportunity presented itself to him? He didn’t want some kind of old, kinky dude. He simply wanted a place to stay, and if that stay came with an allowance and some social contact, it would be perfect for him. He had good table manners. And he did well at socialising. Most of the time.

He decided that ‘quiet’ and ‘obedient’ were relative things. He could be quiet! Sometimes! If he was reading interesting things!

He was going to contact this person, worries and fears be damned. What use was it to wait around? If this man was actually for real, he might get snatched up by someone else quickly.

He clicked on the 💌 button on the sidebar of the profile, and typed out a quick message.

Hi L. Z.!

My name is Wei Ying. I live in the same city as you and as coincidence would have it, I’m currently looking to be a live-in boyfriend! We’re the same age, too, so I think we would work very well as a couple!

I also like reading (if you have a library, I’d be all over that) and I think I can safely promise not to have any affairs while we’re dating. As for the rest, I think it would be best to judge for yourself. I’m free the next few days, so I have time for a personal meeting!

I’m a little curious though – why are you looking for a live-in boyfriend? Not to judge you, since I’m obviously responding to your advert, but you seem like a man that’s very put together. You probably could choose anyone you wanted, so why an advert?

Best, Wei Ying

He didn’t really think that he would get an answer soon, and half expected his message to go ignored, but it took barely an hour until a notification pinged on his phone, indicating that he’d received a reply.

He eagerly clicked the ‘view message’ button.

Dear Wei Ying

Thank you for your message.

I agree with you. Someone from the same city and of the same age would be a good potential partner. If you do not mind, I would like to invite you to my apartment for a personal meeting. We can meet in a café if you are more comfortable meeting on neutral ground, but you should know where you would live before you make any decisions.

To answer your question: I am not interested in a romantic relationship, but my family has been concerned about my happiness ever since I came out as gay. They want to see me in a fulfilling relationship. I want to make them stop worrying. A contractual arrangement will take care of these issues. Once we terminate the relationship, it would also provide me with a good reason not to date for some time.

Best regards,

Lan Zhan

Wei Ying gaped a little. That was a… very decisive statement. This Lan Zhan certainly didn’t beat around the bush.

Oh god, was he really catfished? Human trafficking, perhaps? But then…

He had no time to lose, and getting a home and money as a package deal was very tempting. If Jiang Yanli ever got wind of this, she might strangle him with her own bare hands. But well. She never would get wind of it. Wei Ying would make sure of that.

He pulled out his laptop again, and typed out a second answer.

Hi Lan Zhan!

Nice to meet you again. 😊

Meeting you at the apartment is fine, just know that I’m going to inform a friend of my whereabouts and check in with them to make sure everything is fine.

Tell me your address and a time that works for you!

Best,

Wei Ying

He sent the message and within a few minutes, he had an address and a time – the next day, at 5.30 pm. Lan Zhan also assured him that he was perfectly fine with Wei Ying telling a friend where he was. So maybe not a catfish, after all?

Wei Ying immediately looked for the address online, and it was a nice, modern building in the centre of town. Not some kind of seedy warehouse or an abandoned house. If he ended up disappearing in that part of town, there would probably be witnesses.  

He sent a short confirmation to Lan Zhan, telling him that he would be there at the desired time. And then, he spent the rest of the evening panicking about what he had done.

He just barely remembered that he needed to contact Nie Huaisang and use him as security. Nie Huaisang was the only one he could think of right now that wouldn’t try to talk him out of this. Jiang Cheng would just straight up murder him.

He had committed now. There was no way back.

---

His internet search had already informed him that the apartment was in the better part of town, so Wei Ying had expected a rather classy apartment building. What he hadn’t expected was that said apartment building came with an actual concierge. He’d never had to go through a concierge to meet any of his friends so far. The entrance hall almost looked like a hotel.  

Good gracious, this might all be an elaborate prank.

On the other hand, if he disappeared, now he had another witness.

He walked up to the concierge’s desk and smiled at the man behind the desk winningly.

“Hi, my name is Wei Ying. I’m here to meet Lan Zhan.”

The man gave him a critical look, from his ponytail down to the thick black leather boots he always wore, and picked up the phone in front of him.

He entered a number and let it ring a few times.

“Good evening, Mr. Lan,” the concierge said when someone picked up on the other end of the line. “A Mr. Wei is here to see you. Yes, understood. I will send him up immediately.”

The concierge came out from behind his desk and directed Wei Ying to the elevator. He held the door open for Wei Ying and pushed the button for the right floor, then bid him goodbye.

“Thank you!” Wei Ying called through the closing elevator doors, but the concierge was already out of sight.

Oh well.

He was going to meet Lan Zhan. Right now.

He quickly pulled out his mobile phone and tapped out a message to Nie Huaisang.

[Wei Ying, 05:29 pm] I’m going up to the apartment now. IT COMES WITH A CONCIERGE. 😱

The door pinged and opened onto an empty hallway with elegantly tiled floor and a tasteful but abstract mural on the wall. Wei Ying stepped out of the elevator and looked around curiously. Which way was he supposed to go?

“Wei Ying?”

There, at the end of the hallway, a man stood in the frame of an opened door.

This must definitely be a catfish, Wei Ying decided then and there.

There was no way that a man this beautiful needed his help.

[jeannereames]

Super weird question, but how did women in ancient times deal with their periods? Was it taboo? Was it acknowledged at all?

Pretty much everywhere, women on their menses have been expected to take special care, as bleeding is viewed as disruptive. What “disruptive” means, however, varies, and here we get into technicalities that can sound a bit odd to modern ears. Stick with me. I’m going to divide this into “How menstruating women were viewed” versus “What women actually did about it.”

Part I: How menstruation was viewed

Throughout the ancient Mediterranean and Ancient Near East (ANE), both women menstruating and women who’d just given birth were regarded as “ritually unclean.”

This should not be confused with sin. First, “sin” was much more of a thing in the ANE (and Carthage) than in Greece and Rome, where “impiety” mattered more. This is not hair-splitting. While “sin” could include strictly religious affronts, it also embraced a lot of what we’d call immoral behavior. By contrast, “impiety” might include moral affronts, but was more focused on religious error.

I’m trying to avoid going down the rabbit-hole of sin vs. impiety. The main thing I want to point out is that sin in the ANE carries different overtones than Greco-Roman impiety. And neither of them is necessarily connected to ritual impurity.

Certain aspects of human life were “unclean” and all involved bodily fluids. These “unclean” actions or states are things that you are not allowed to enter a sanctuary after doing, or are not allowed to do in a sanctuary. And I say “sanctuary” (temenos) because this is the broadest term for “land that is cut off as sacred.” Sacred space was set apart for the gods.

For the Greeks, one was not permitted to kill in a sanctuary, or have sex. One might be bad, but the other wasn’t. Similarly, someone who’d committed murder (not in war), especially kin murder, was barred, even if the killing was accidental. And not only could you not have sex IN a sanctuary, if you’d had sex the night before, you couldn’t enter until taking a special bath. Likewise, a woman on her menses couldn’t enter a sanctuary, nor could a woman who’d given birth. A certain number of days were required for a new mother to wait. That doesn’t mean having a period, much less giving birth, were “bad” things. Certain diseases weren’t permitted in some sanctuaries (except those to Asclepius). All Greek (and Roman) sanctuaries had “rules” about who was, and wasn’t, allowed inside that could be highly arbitrary. Some sites permitted only members of that city-state, or perhaps barred members of certain other city-states. Spartans might be barred from sanctuaries in Argos, for instance. Some sites wouldn’t allow women, others allowed only married women, etc. Many if not most chthonic sites required the one entering to have no bindings, from sandal lacings to braided hair. The restrictions depended on the god (or hero) involved.

But the broader matter of ritually clean or unclean spanned sites. Being “cleansed” was usually pretty easy. It involved taking a bath, or waiting a given set of days. In the case of murder, it might be more complicated, and involve a trip to Delphi (to be thwapped on the shoulders with a laurel branch), but the MORAL side wasn’t considered. So if you had sex with your wife, or committed adultery with your neighbor’s wife… either way, you’re ritually unclean. If you killed your brother with premeditation, or just knocked over somebody accidentally in the street who hit his head on a rock (and died)…you’re ritually unclean.

It’s not that murder or adultery wouldn’t carry their own CIVIC repercussions, but in terms of religious purity, it’s a different matter.

In the ANE, similar restrictions surrounded menstruating women (or those who’d recently given birth). There, it was also ritual purity, not sin, and the concern is sacred space.

Now, if you want a completely different view, I give you American Indian attitudes, at least those I know of the NE woodlands. Here, also, menstruating women were restricted in their contact, mainly with medicine men (not necessarily medicine women), as well as where they could sit relative to the Grandfather Drum. But in this case, it’s because menstruating women were regarded as so much more powerful than men, they disrupted male medicine. Why? They could give birth. (How this fit into ideas of the third gender varied, but there were men, and male-bodied; women and female-bodied, so a menstruating man might be subject to the same restrictions.) In any case, here, too, women’s menses were disruptive but for positive reasons.

We have to figure out how any particular group actually understood what was going on, not make assumptions based on our (culture-locked) views of their (equally culture-locked) actions.

Part II: What did you do when Auntie Flo came to visit?

Before I go into details, let me first recommend a really great book that addresses not just the status of women in ancient Greece but women’s health using the Hippokratic Corpus. As I frequently tell my students, the status of women in ancient societies depends on two things: control of fertility, and control of her own finances. Demand’s book addresses especially the former, and she talks about the states of a woman’s life, from birth to first menses to marriage to childbirth to menopause (for those lucky enough to live that long).

Birth, Death and Motherhood in Classical Greece, Nancy Demand, Johns Hopkins UP, 1990.

So, the practical side.

The BIG problem with such logistical matters is 1) that stuff doesn’t survive except under special, unusual circumstances, and 2) men mostly ignored what women did about Those Things. So they didn’t write about it. But we know a few things.

The first tampons, at least in the west (not counting Americas), seem to have been invented by the Egyptians. Softened papyrus around a reed. (Even softened…ow.) I note that women in Egyptian society had relatively high status and more freedom, so the fact they invented tampons doesn’t surprise me.

I wish we knew more about societies like the Scythians, where women regularly rode and (past a certain age) fought on horseback. Similarly with the Illyrians. But at least the concept of a “plug” was out there early. The Hippocratic corpus says Greek women put lint around a stick: same purpose. Romans used wool.

But these societies aren’t giving tampons to virginal girls. And not just because it might be uncomfortable. It could break the hymen…and that’s potentially disastrous for her reputation. But also, ancient tampons probably wouldn’t have been easy for young girls to use. (Modern tampons aren’t always easy for young girls to use,)

There are mentions of something like a menstrual belt, with clips for cloth pads. One can assume an enterprising ancient woman came up with the idea of a pad between the legs and something to hold it up pretty early. Certainly, the notion of the “girdle” was known to the Greeks and associated with virginity, first menarch, and marriage.

Other societies, however, weren’t that kind. Women stuffed rags into their underwear. Or they simply bled into their clothes. (Yuk.) My impression, though, is that just because the society in question isn’t writing about it (assuming they’re writing at all) doesn’t mean women IN that society hadn’t figured out how to deal with Auntie Flo. Certainly, there’s also hints of various teas brewed to deal with cramps.

A final, sorta wacky ancient idea I’ll leave you with … as I’ve mentioned in a few asks before, the ancients mostly had bad knowledge of women’s bodies. They thought the womb sorta wandered around inside the body causing havoc unless a woman was preggers. They also didn’t understand that menstrual “blood” was mostly fluid (and a little blood to give it color) from the womb shedding. They thought it was blood, which came from all parts of the woman’s body. And they assumed she was losing a LOT more of it than we know today to be true, even for those with a heavy flow.

But they also believed it was that blood from which babies were made. It was almost like soil, into which the father planted seed. Once fertilized, the blood turned into flesh and “built” a baby.

Yeah, weird, but they didn’t understand reproductive cell replication.

Another titbit…even at a very early period, menstruation was connected to the moon. Modern research has shown little connection between lunar cycle and menstruation (aside from the 28-day thing), but the ancients believed in it. So “moon-bleed” is a not uncommon term for menstruation. And of course, the term “menses” is the plural of the Latin word for “month.”

[odaatlover]

thanks for the response about the gender reveal party! i hope i didn’t offend you or anyone!!! i can see where they may seem weird and how it is a trendy fad thing. choosing to word it as “choosing your gender” was insensitive on my part and i apologize! i meant to word it as as long as you love your child no matter what happens or who they love or who they truly realize they are then that’s all that matters. i guess on the flip i can see the excitement for new parents. personally it would be very difficult for me to not know the gender of my baby but i also wouldnt raise them strictly in the common female stereotype, if that makes sense. i get where you’re coming from and i’ll definitely be thinking about it more. i’ve always been a bit confused on “what if i were to have a child would i have a gender reveal party and if i would would i call it that or call it something different since they don’t know who they are yet” thanks again and i really hope i didn’t offend anyone or you- that was my last intentions!

You didn’t offend me! And I don’t think there’s a problem with wanting to know your child’s anatomy. By all means, go get an ultrasound and ask your doctor. Let them tell you what’s between their legs. But the whole making a huge thing about it with blue/pink balloons or confetti or all that other ridiculous stuff is definitely for social media purposes. It doesn’t do anything with the connection of the child or your relationship with them at all except possibly damage it by making their life harder if they’re not cis. “My parents were so excited that I was born a girl/boy that they threw a PARTY over it...how can I tell them that I’m not? I can’t ever tell them that, they’ll be so disappointed in me.” That’s the narrative you’re setting for your relationship with your child — that their gender is so important to you that if they’re anything but you’ll be upset and not accept them. And why are we even still equating blue with boy and pink with girl in 2021 anyways? Colors have no gender, even though some people still like to think so. It’s truly annoying how much we still gender inanimate objects.

If you’re still confused on whether or not to have a gender reveal party, ask yourself why you want to have one. And the answer isn’t just “to know the gender” because you can know the anatomy without a party — your doctor can tell you in the office. Ask yourself why you want to make a huge celebration about it. Why do you want to celebrate your child having either a penis or vagina? It doesn’t mean they’ll want to play with dolls or toy cars, or that they’ll wear dresses or button ups, or even that they’ll be a mini version of you. When you get excited about the gender, you start envisioning those things for your child and in the end all you do is disappoint yourself when they end up not being that way. You’re not giving your child a blank canvas to start with, you’re giving them pre-determined futures based on what’s between their legs. As a trans person, I’m begging you not to do that. If you’re genuinely excited about them having a penis or vagina for some odd reason, then sure celebrate that I guess. But don’t for a second think that it means blue or pink, dresses or button ups, long or short hair, cheerleading or football...it doesn’t mean any of that. And you may say “as long as we love and accept them why does it matter?” And the answer to that is, why do you have to “accept” them for going down a different path than the one you set for them in your biased mind? Why do you have to make it harder on them by setting expectations before they’re even born? Why not let them figure out who they are without it being more difficult? Wouldn’t you agree that it would be much easier to figure out your sexuality if you hadn’t grown up being told that you were supposed to like men or women? Wouldn’t it have been much easier and less painful if you didn’t have to unlearn something that you had been told was true about you by other people but was never true at all? Well, multiply that by a lot — because it’s much harder to figure out your gender than your sexuality — and that’s what you’d be doing to your child. You’d be making their life so much harder than it needs to be by celebrating what’s between their legs and equating that with the kind of person they will be. If you truly want to do what’s best for your child, then learn what genitals they have so you can prepare for the body they will have, but don’t decide who they will be for them.

And I’m not saying you have to give them a gender neutral name or call them by gender neutral pronouns, but just know that whatever name or pronouns you give them might not be permanent, but rather just a starting point. They have the choice to keep them or change them. And buy them clothes and toys and all that stuff, but give them options. Buy them dresses and button ups. Kids know pretty early what they do or don’t like. When I was 2 I would scream whenever my mom tried to put me in a dress, and when my hair got long I wouldn’t let anyone put it up because I thought it looked too girly. And I had one doll ever when I was 2 and never played with it, and I always wanted the toys my boy cousins would play with because I liked those better personally. Listen to your child on those things, don’t force them to try to like anything and give them options. Buy them dolls and toy cars for their first birthday so they can figure out what they like more. Show them long and short hairstyles to see which one they like better. Show them that boys can do ballet and girls can do sports because none of those things have gender. I think that’s the best route to go down as a parent, and you would be the best parent ever!

And if you still consider having a gender reveal party, then ask yourself one more thing: would you be willing to do it and not take any pictures or videos to post anywhere so that way the child never has to see it or even know that it happened, and you can just have the memory of it? If you answered “Heck no videos and pictures are the whole point” then your reasons for doing it are definitely the wrong ones.

Hope that helps!

[thedeeword]

— BASICS

full name. beatrice anne smith

age & birthday. 30 & 07/25/90

gender identity. cis female

preferred pronouns. she/her

orientation. pansexual, homoromantic

parents. davis smith ( father ), eleanor smith ( mother, deceased )

hometown. blackpool, uk

— SOME FACTS

her mum passed away when she was in her early teens. her relationship with her dad has been strained ever since and she moved away from home the moment she was able to. however, she does call her dad every other sunday. the conversation lasts less than ten minutes and typically ends in a tiff. followed by an apology text from her dad which she ignores until just before their next talk. 

she is very close with her gran though, and any time she has returned home since moving stateside has been at her gran’s insistence. 

took a gap period after sixth form because she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with her life. during that time she lived in london with a group of girls working odd jobs including, bartender, office temp, and snow white for children’s parties. 

studied theatre at nyu. 

moved to la on a whim. booked some small acting parts but nothing substantial. was about to call it quits when she got hired by buzzfeed to be an on camera host. which eventually lead to her hosting her own radio show on THE WAVE where she answers questions about dating in 2020, peppering in stories from her own adventures dating in la la land. 

— PERSONALITY

What words or phrases do they over use?: she uses the word ‘basically’ a lot. she also definitely overuses her britishisms but that’s mainly because she’d been living there for the last few years. favouite curse word is ‘fuck’. ends too many sentences with the word ‘me’.

What is their life philosophy?: work hard play hard. 

What was their favorite childhood movie?: the little mermaid, somewhere there’s a photo album filled with pictures of a wee bea doing the part of your pose at various beaches across europe.  

How to do they take criticism?: she’ll tell you she can take it, and that’s not totally untrue, due to her work she has developed a fairly thick skin but she only really takes constructive criticism well. trolly comments on the internet will send her into a tailspin and often result in her seeking some outside affirmation of her awesomeness (often in the form of hookups or friendly cheerleaders).

How do they take praise?: she THRIVES off of it. like tinkerbell (and rachel berry) she needs applause and praise to live.

Do they have any pet peeves?: she gets annoyed easily and pinning down what will set her off from one day to the next isn’t an exact science but some things that never fail are slow walkers, people who talk on their phone in public, traffic (she probs shouldn’t drive bc the road rage is real), and people who insist on continuing conversations when she’s clearly checked out. and yes, it is ironic that she does all of these things herself. 

What never fails to cheer them up on a bad day?: spicy curry, garlic naan, a strong vodka martini. 

What is their favorite food?: indian take out, anything pasta, coffee.

What is their favorite season? Why? summer. she likes beach days, beach waves, and an excuse to wear a bikini. 

Are they impulsive or deliberate?: she’s an impulsive little sun of a gun. she detests feeling stuck and that has driven her to make many questionable decisions and has

How often do they cry?: more than she’d like to admit but rarely in public. while she can be very open about her sexploits and opinions (particularly on her show) she doesn’t like to feel emotionally vulnerable.

Are they a glass half full or half empty sort of person?: bea will tell you she lands somewhere between the two though she does tend towards optimism, particularly when it comes to the outcomes of certain events in her life. 

if they could change one thing about themselves what would it be?: apart from forever appearing ageless?? physically she wouldn’t mind being a little taller, but she thinks her face is nice and her ass is good so she happy with her appearance. there are a lot of internal things she’d change about herself but mainly she’d like to be braver and a little more vulnerable about the things that matter with the people she loves.

— RELATIONSHIPS

What is their love language?: though you’d think her love language would be words of affirmation, bea lands somewhere between physical touch and receiving gifts – little touches on the arm, a hand on a thigh under the table, a text to let you know she’s thinking about you. 

How do they perceive family?: apart from her gran, who as far as she’s concerned put the moon in the sky, bea is much closer to her found family than her biological one. so while she will call her dad on holidays, she puts the bulk of her energy into her friends and the small family they’ve made for themselves. 

At a family get together, where would you find them?: while she usually finds herself in the center of a party if it’s a true family party back home she’ll usually be found behind the bar taking shots, by the garage having a smoke or at the pub. 

Who was their first love? Do they still love them?: a girl named nina. they were best friends before they kissed and she broke bea’s heart when she ditched her for a boy named stewart. 

Do they believe in love at first sight?: no, not even a little which is funny because she is definitely the sort to fall quickly, but she does believe in lust at first sight. 

How do they act in a relationship?: depends on the relationship and the person, honestly. bea hasn’t been in many serious relationships because she typically bolts or self sabotages at the first sign of feeeelings thanks to some pretty serious commitment issues but on the rare occasion her heart has fallen before her brain was able to catch on she’s been quite happy to hermit with her partner. she becomes so smitten the idea of wanting someone else escapes her completely.

Who was their first kiss? What was it like?: awkward and the result of a game of spin the bottle gone wrong – she’d really wanted to kiss matt jones but instead the bottle had landed on rory tyler.

What was their worst break up?: bea’s managed to stay friends with everyone she considers to be an ex so she’ll claim she’s never had one, but if she really thought about it she’d realize that’s not strictly something to be proud of. 

— MISC.

What does their bedroom look like?: honestly, a total mess. organization has never been her strong suit. the cleanliness of her room is directly related to her relationship status, but regardless you’ll find two hampers, one with dirty clothes and one with the clean clothes she’s yet to put away. 

Do they exercise, and if so, what do they do? How often?: daily, reluctantly. the what depends on what’s ‘hot’ in la at any given moment but she prefers things that aren’t too difficult or time consuming. 

What is in their fridge right now?: a variety of take out containers, cans of diet coke, some seltzer and half a bottle of vodka. 

Do they have any favorite articles of clothing?: she enjoys anything that shows off her legs, but she cycles through her wardrobe frequently. the only things she wears every day is her mum’s wedding ring. 

What’s on their bedside table?: cellphone charger, a book she’s been trying to finish for ages, and a sound machine.

If they carry a purse, what’s in it? If not, what’s in their pockets?: her purse has at any given time four different lips, a chapstick, some gloss, three packs of gum, mints, a pack of emergency smokes (for when things get intense and she needs to break her clean streak), her wallet, a compact, an umbrella, and so many receipts! 

[shriracha]

Ok I just stumbled upon a thought that I'm still hella influenced by sexist stereotypes.. like, when a guy hits on me when I don't look extra girly, I tend to think that they may be a latent homosexual or bisexual.

Actually I started to think like that when I noticed at my early 20s that I very often do not notice how misleading (queerbaiting) my style and behaviour are. I liked being bold, loud, jester somewhat masculine in actions. I preferred masculine clothing style over feminine. (I also was to some extent gender disforic).

In late early 10s I studied in Prague, my circle was full of queer people. I started to notice that a lot of people wrongly assume my sexuality (even when my gender disforia was at strongest, I'd 98% would choose man as a partner). In my hometown my circle also consisted of people with higher than normally queer representation, but LGBTQ topic was way less known and open back then (in late 00s) in Astana. (Also as a teen I had very bad style and was much worse in social interactions; so eventhough I may looked like a queer, I was too weird for being popular. Once my friend even asked if anyone (from our otaku circle) has ever expressed interest in me, reasoning that I'm so weird, it's even hard to imagine someone liking me romantically [actually ofc some guys were into me. I stopped being friends with that guy but way later and for other reason (but still about him being somewhat of an asshole)].). (holy math what a threatening amount of brackets! I diverge a lot as usual ^^").

So, I started to be aware of my queerbaiting appearance. I started to try wearing more feminine clothes, at least around guys I liked. But I still like masculine style, so I feel weird when a guy is interested in me when I'm wearing more masculine outfits. But today I be like - hell, isn't that a sexist stereotype? That heterosexual men can like only feminine women? Like, don't I myself like somewhat feminine guys? Like, ofc smtms I think maybe I'm more bisexual than heterosexual cause I like feminine guys but i just like anyone who is cute + has a cock- so, basically, quite strictly men - so it's quite safe to say I'm heterosexual- so it's quite safe to say there are heterosexual men that like masculine women.

Fuaaah.

Not like I restricted myself for wearing masculine clothes, but now I feel more entitled to look masculine and not feel like I deceive ppl about my sexuality and not doubt other's sexuality.

[jerseydeanne]

There have been moments, little quiet moments, when I have begun to ask myself, who the heck does Meghan Markle think she is?

Don't all shout at once. Hear me out.

Yes, love her. Yes, adore her. Yes, accept and believe her to be a breath of fresh air blowing through the fusty hallways of Windsoralia.

And yet, after four official public appearances and leaked news of two 'secret' missions of mercy to console victims of the Grenfell fire, one can't help but wonder where all this is going.

It seems far, far too early for Meghan to go into full Diana mode and unfurl any fondly imagined royal superpowers. Or to start believing that she can change the lives of troubled citizens merely by bequeathing a megawatt smile and a consolation hug around their luckless shoulders.

However, that seems to be exactly what is happening.

It is just three months since the American celebrity and Prince Harry announced their engagement. With only one Sandringham royal Christmas under her pencil belt, she is barely a stitch in the tapestry of our nation's history.

Yet, already, she is behaving like a cross between Wilhelmina the Conqueror and Florence Nightingale.

In Edinburgh this week, St Meghan of Markle clasped people to her bosom as if the mere strength of her huggy-wugs could vanquish their problems.

Perhaps she doesn't mean to, but in public she frequently slips into glutinous actress mode, as if she were rather hammily playing herself in some future episode of TV'sThe Crown.  

More from Jan Moir for the Daily Mail... McMad, McBad…and a hero who looked like he wouldn’t hurt a fly in his borscht…JAN MOIR reviews the finale of the eight-part BBC series 12/02/18 JAN MOIR: Lay off Trumpy! We’d NEVER mock a female leader about her looks…and women have a sisterly support group to get them through each hot flush 09/02/18 Don't call me an old misogynist - it's wrong and hurtful: John Humphrys tells JAN MOIR about a 'bruising' few weeks after coming under fire for joking about BBC gender pay gap03/02/18 Am I alone in worrying that Kate's clothes are turning Camilla-ish? JAN MOIR says the choices on the royals' tour were a new low 02/02/18 Why the ego got the cha-cha-chop! JAN MOIR on the sacking of Strictly's Brendan Cole and how dumping his fiancée led to the birth of the show's infamous curse31/01/18 Why IS Saturday night TV such a turn-off? As former Spice Girl Geri Horner launches yet another dire singing contest, JAN MOIR is left despairing29/01/18 Yes, men behave badly. But let's not get hysterical: JAN MOIR says she wasn't that outraged or shocked by the Presidents club scandal 26/01/18 JAN MOIR: I would take a statue of Mrs Thatcher over a suffragette any day19/01/18 JAN MOIR: A princess can't be a designer queen AND a woman at Marks & Spencer  12/01/18 VIEW FULL ARCHIVEIf only she could dial down the full beam of worried sympathy that strobes from her lovely eyes at every opportunity and give it a rest with the endless Lady Bountiful arm-pats, I think people would like her more.Let us discover for ourselves how caring and kind she is, instead of her spreading it on so thickly that we can hardly see past the sugary glaze. Too many layers of the custard of compassion on this particular royal trifle is going to make us all feel a little bit sick.It is nice that Meghan wants to 'reach out' to the British charity sector and use her fame to become a full-time philanthropist and concentrate on her humanitarian work.Yet there are people in her own family whom she hasn't reached out to in years, including her own father. With the best will in the world, it does put her one-gal task force for international healing and her undercover visits to mosques to console survivors under a slightly different, less rosy, light.Charity begins at home — or it should, even for putative royals.However, to find meaning and truth in the role of a royal spouse is a mighty and difficult task. Recent history is littered with casualties and examples, both good and bad.Brittle Wallis Simpson was a woman of her time, one who cared for little except her pugs, her prince, her jewels and herself.Prince Albert married not just a royal, but a head of state to boot, and, like Prince Philip a century later, found a way to make a difference through types of energetic philanthropy.Diana set the gold standard for empathetic royal wives who worked with spirit and style for good causes, while Fergie . . . em . . . did not.St Meghan would do well to note that the most successful royals keep their distance and their dignity. They embrace unfashionable causes, as well as headline-grabbing ones.They attend flag-raising ceremonies in freezing South Korea, like Princess Anne. They visit farming communities in Cumbria, like the Countess of Wessex. They don't need to be loved and adored. They just get on with it.The Queen would never hug a stranger, even a needy one. She keeps her gloves on, physically and metaphorically, which is one of the reasons why she has endured.Meghan's biggest gesture to date has been giving up her acting career so that she and her prince can save the planet together — or whatever it is that they want to do.So I don't think that she is a phoney. I do think she is marrying for love. And I believe she has a lot to offer this country.However, the royal kind of fame is like no other. It can easily corrupt and be corrupting, for it is not based on achievement or merit, but upon status alone.And having said previously that Meghan can't wear £56,000 dresses and expect people to love her as she doles out broth in a soup kitchen, I now wonder if she and Harry shouldn't smarten up, just a bit. In her urban-girl uniform of black trousers and coats, straggly-haired Meghan turns up on official royal business as if she were on her way to get coffees for the office. Joined by a tieless Harry, they crash around, high-fiving, cuddling, rapping to order and generally getting down with the kidz. One wonders who is advising this headstrong young couple and where their unconventional approach will lead.In the meantime, lovely St Meghan should put a little starch in her shirt and stop trying to be a legend before her time.Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5398179/Why-does-Meghan-Markle-need-huggy-wuggy.html#ixzz57ErSurUoFollow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

DailyMail on Facebook

[pumpkins-s]

Spilling Like An Overflowing Sink

Read on AO3 Here

Read the Other Chapters on Tumblr Here

Lance Alexander Rafael McClain is born in the middle of a summer storm, thunder cracking and rain slamming onto the roof of an old ramshackle house that had seen more than its fair share of children.

The miracle baby, that’s what the family had called Lance. The unexpected son to a mother of five daughters.

(In which family is always complicated, Lance’s life hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows, and he and Keith are really emotionally constipated for each other.)

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Relationships: Keith/Lance, significant platonic Lance & Hunk

Characters: Lance, Lance’s family, Hunk, Keith, Shiro, Pidge, Allura, Coran

Chapter 11: Limitations

((Author’s Notes: 

Last update of 2017, rolling out. Late November and early December were sucked up with an original writing project for college -my first novella, which killed me - but I'm pleased to be back now to my Regularly Scheduled Bullshit. This chapter and the one following it were originally intended as one update, but for logistical and timing issues I opted to divide the two.

This chapter has discussions of divorce, (mentions of) the foster system, and what can be interpreted as child abandonment & poor parenting, depending on a person's feelings on the subject matter. While these aren't exactly new topics for SLAOS (see: Hunk's living situation), I still felt it was suitable to give a fair warning if those are topics any of you are sensitive to.

Also! Because I'm a hoe for my own bad music choices, there's another SLAOS playlist up called Lions - The tumblr post (complete with coverart!) can be found here, or you can jump to the playlist directly on Spotify or Youtube.))

After everything—that exhausting, all-encompassing summer that had ended following Lance’s return home with a sparse few weeks of scorching, claiming sun, the crisp freshness of coastal air, and continuing reconciliation with Hunk—returning to Greenwood feels severely underwhelming.

Perhaps it’s simply that many of the fears Lance held approaching the place the first time around are now largely void. He knows this place, lent a kind of familiarity to it in one year living there that he never experienced with his multiple years at his former schools. Knows who to avoid, who can be trusted, what to do and what to say. His position there is secure enough that he doesn’t have to experience a daily fear of being one step away from losing it all—so long as he keeps his shit together, at least—and that’s all Lance ever wanted, really.

And so, when his family departs with considerable noise, but still substantially less fanfare than last year, he feels fairly at ease as he helps Hunk unpack the remainder of their stuff.

About twenty minutes in, as Lance is balanced precariously on the head of his bed and attempting to restring last year’s not-strictly-legal Christmas lights, Ritzie bursts in without warning. The door rattles as she kicks it open, and Lance, startled, yelps and falls backward onto his bed, casting a despairing look at the ceiling as the Christmas lights follow him down and land heavily on his stomach.

“I hate men!” Ritzie announces sullenly, and then collapses in a pouting heap on the ground, limbs splayed to the ceiling dispassionately. After a moment, Yuu follows in, casting her a tiredly concerned look as he steps over her legs and takes a seat on the end of Hunk’s bed, crossing his legs beneath him.

“All your friends are men,” Yuu points out, staring down at her, and she sticks out her tongue.

“Fine, I hate white men.”

“Ritzie…” Hunk puts down the clothes he was sorting, and turning to her as if with the solemn bringing of shocking news. “You’re white.”

“Jewish,” she corrects with a hiss, pointing a finger in the air imperiously, and Hunk squints.

Lance snorts, rolling over and pushing the Christmas lights to the side. Planting his chin in his hands and his elbows on the bed, he opts to take pity on her and ask, “What happened?”

Ritzie moans in defeat, and waves the hand still in the air. “We shan’t speak of it. It was too horrible.”

“Ritzie—“

“Shan’t.”

Lance sighs.

“She got snapped at,” Yuu says, ignoring Ritzie’s squawk of protest. “That guy who was on our floor last year, Travis?”

“The one who called me—what was it—‘a Mexican’?” Lance rolls his eyes. A year of continued observation—not exactly desired but inevitable due to shared classes—had assured him that Travis’s specialty in cultural insensitivity and general assholishness extended in basically all directions, various genders and ethnicities included. “Among other things. What’d he say to her?” He can’t exactly imagine Ritzie taking shit from Travis of all people, so whatever words had been exchanged must have been pretty bad to affect her like this.

“He didn’t,” Yuu admits, scrunching up his nose in distaste. “Well, he was the cause of the whole thing, so I’m blaming him for this one, but—“ Ritzie whines, and Yuu pokes a foot gently into her side, prompting another displeased noise. “Anyways, he was picking on this year’s newest target, one of the new scholarship kids, because he’s uncreative. Ritzie stepped in, and the kid she was defending basically told her he didn’t need a uh—a society princess causing a scene by trying to speak for him.”

Lance hisses in a breath. “Yikes.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t…great.”

“You doing okay?” Lance asks Ritzie, casting her a sympathetic look, and she shifts enough on the floor to sit up, glaring at him.

“I’m fine.” Ritzie stands up, scowling as she casts them all a wary look. “I’m going to go unpack. Half my clothes are still in a box.” She trudges out of the room, and they all wince when the door slams pointedly behind her.

“…Is she actually okay?” Hunk asks after a long moment of awkward silence. “I know she likes to make dramatics of things but she seems like…genuinely upset. For Ritzie levels of upset, at least.”

Yuu groans in exhaustion, which seems to be the ongoing mood for all of them, Lance thinks. Falling backwards onto Hunk’s bed, Yuu shrugs, staring up at the ceiling miserably. “Who knows? Ritz’ likes to make out she’s all nails, but God knows she’s pretty sensitive at times. Especially about this sort of thing.”

“This happen a lot?” Lance asks, peering inquisitively at Yuu. If it does, it’s certainly not a trend he has really noticed. Most people seem fairly acclimatized to Ritzie’s meddling streak—begrudgingly accommodating if not grateful, at least.

“Occasionally?” Yuu makes an indecisive noise. “You know what she’s like. Can’t help but get involved in everything, regardless of whether she’s wanted or not. It’s a compulsion to be overly helpful, if anything, but to some people it’s annoying, or her personality just makes it come off as self-righteous despite being genuinely well meaning.” His head leans up enough to cast Lance a tired look. “Some people just want to fight their own battles, and she can’t get that when it applies to anyone but herself. And it doesn’t help the people she’s usually quickest to jump in and defend are scholarship kids, can’t exactly blame some for reacting badly. Pretty much everyone in that program isn’t exactly coming from the heights of financial luxury—though I suppose you guys would know that better than me,” he amends, an embarrassed flush scrawling across his cheeks.

Hunk offers him a wry look. “Yeah, probably.”

“But anyways,” Yuu continues, flopping back down and waving a hand in a move that’s so reminiscent of Ritzie herself not yet ten minutes ago that Lance has to stifle a probably situationally-inappropriate giggle. “Some kids in that situation, the last thing they want is someone else stepping in and causing a fuss, they just want to keep their heads down. Or worse, they don’t want Ritzie specifically getting in the middle of things. Insult to injury, or something, I guess.”

There’s a pause, and Yuu sighs. “It’s not like I don’t get it, y’know? To them it’s like…how could a kid living in privilege—the literal granddaughter of the headmaster, at that—possibly relate to someone who’s clawed their way to get here? It just looks like a martyr complex gone bad.” Hunk makes a reluctant sound, and Yuu points a finger at him. “Don’t tell me you’ve never thought it.”

“Okay, yeah,” Hunk says, holding his hands up in surrender. “A couple times, when we didn’t know each other as well. But she’s just trying to help, I figured that one out a long time ago. Ritzie’s one of the most bullheadedly self-sacrificial people I know.” He casts Lance a significant look, and he doesn’t have to say anything for Lance to know the other bullheaded moron he’s referring to is probably Lance himself.

“Yeah, but not everyone’s going to get that, and they can’t really be expected to.” Yuu sits up, fiddling with the hem of his shirt uncomfortably. “And she gets that, too. When she gets like this, she’s upset at herself, not mad at whoever told her to fuck off. She just needs some space to cool off and mope by herself for a while and then she’ll be fine.”

“Mmmm, if you say so,” Hunk murmurs, leaning up and stretching, and then grabbing the nearest box yet to be unpacked. “You’re the Ritzie expert.”

“Well,” Yuu stands up, going to join Hunk. “I’m probably banned from the room for a bit, so I’ll help.”

They both turn to Lance, giving him a pointed look, and he sighs, getting up to join them reluctantly.

After about fifteen moments of Lance awkwardly shuffling in place in-between helping unpack, and casting longing looks towards the door, Yuu knocks his shoulder against his own, offering him one of the patiently exhausted yet amused expressions he gets when dealing with Ritzie trying to do something particularly unadvisable. “You can go and check on her, you know.”

Lance squints at him suspiciously. “You’re the one who told us to leave her alone.”

“Yeah, but,” Yuu makes a face, shrugging a shoulder, “I did mostly mean me. Besides, if she’s going to talk to anyone right now, it’s you.”

“…Really?” Lance asks skeptically.

“You two have got that like—wonder twins junk going on. Ritzie and I have known each other so long, we practically treat each other like siblings, with all the annoyance and pushing at boundaries that comes with it. You treat her like a friend and that means a lot to her.”

Lance glances away from Yuu and to Hunk carefully, who gives him one of those looks that means he’s being an idiot again, like about Greenwood, like over the summer.

Well. Hunk’s never wrong.

“…Ok,” he relents, and bows out of the room as Yuu and Hunk resume their work, breaking into easy conversation about the robotics team’s possible plans for the year as he slips out the door and pulls it shut quietly behind him.

Lance slinks across the hall to Ritzie and Yuu’s room, knocking gently, and the door creaks open of its own accord when he touches it, apparently not shut properly to begin with. He casts a wary look into the suspiciously empty room as the door opens more and more of it to view, and after a moment steps in, glancing amongst the largely unpacked boxes and haphazardly shoved around furniture. “…Ritzie?”

There’s a crash of noise, and then Ritzie’s voice, sounding rather frazzled, rings out from the adjoining bathroom door. “In here!” Lance considers asking if she wants him to leave, but then she calls out “One second!” and he figures she can tell him to shove off to his face if she desires.

Instead, he opts for more awkward skulking around her room, carefully stepping over boxes and bags and random shoes, likely chucked in the car at the last minute, knowing both Ritzie and how Lance’s own packing tends to go. Picking up on the distinct lack of pet tanks, even amongst the clutter, he yells out back to the door. “What happened to those leopard geckos you stole from Jake Calhoun last year?”

“Oh them?” Ritzie calls back, voice markedly less shaky than before—a safe topic, then. “They’re at home. Somehow for the one day Dad was actually home and not on a video conference or something, he still managed to find them after not noticing the tank in the spare room for the whole damn summer. Wouldn’t let me take them back to school.” She pauses. “I’ll give it a week and then sneak them back in somehow. The housekeeper won’t stop me, she hates them.”

“You’re terrible. A terrible, terrible rulebreaker,” Lance says, just loud enough for Ritzie to hear, and her muffled laughter rings through the door.

It’s all a diversion tactic, really, for both of them, but it’s nice. Hearing her laugh and not be upset like before is nice. Lance always feels like he has so little control in his life, an inability to do as much as he should and help as much as he would like—unable to help his family, incapable of healing Mavis, of fixing himself.

Always, always, unable to bring Loraine back to them—unable to save her, unable to be her.

Comparatively, helping Ritzie should be easy.

It is. It isn’t. It’s neither. It’s both. Somehow. Like Loraine, and the being and saving of her.

Can’t save the dead, his heart whispers, and he hears Hunk on the beach again, for the millionth time over.

You need to save everyone, to protect them, because you love them. You let them in, because you need them, but you also push them away when they get too close.

Can’t even save the living.

He walks echoing steps along Ritzie’s wall, tracing a hand along whitewashed, concrete-foundation walls, the kind you can’t push poster tacks or hooks into, the kind that can’t be marked or damaged. Instead, they tape up pictures and string lights along windowsills to make homes out of a place that will bear no marking or memory of them once they’re gone.

His fingers still along the edge of the school-installed shelf, the one every room gets on each opposite wall. Ritzie has already started unpacking here, in the most backwards of functions given most of her clothes are still in boxes, knick-knacks and debate trophies and small ornaments he’s seen her pick up at touristy junk shops crowding the surface. On the edge, there’s a photo of a younger Ritzie and two men he assumes are her dads, all crowded together outside a building somewhere in a traditionally cheesy family photo. Ritzie’s hair is a puff around her head, not even long enough to pull into the smallest of pigtails or braids yet, and her dads have their arms around each other, a hand each on her shoulders.

They look nothing like her in the slightest. They look like a family.

“Oh look,” Ritzie says with a snort behind him, and Lance starts as her arms loop around his waist and her chin drops onto his shoulder. He hadn’t even heard her come out of the bathroom, too wrapped up in both their pasts. “They were married once. Who’d have thought?”

Lance puts his own hands on her forearms, and says nothing. He doesn’t know this territory.

“That was the day they took me home properly, y’know,” Ritzie says conversationally, voice dull. Her hair tickles his chin and the edge of her glasses digs into his neck. He leans his head more firmly against her own, regardless. “Day they adopted me. I was…” She scrunches up her nose. “Eight? Eight. They were my foster parents first, got me just after I turned seven, so it wasn’t like we didn’t already have pictures, but…” A chuckle. “They wanted it to be special, I guess? First photo after it was all official. Once we were a definite family. No maybes, no take backs. Maybe they just knew I needed that.”

“You look happy,” Lance offers, and Ritzie huffs.

“Yeah.” She frowns, just slightly, and Lance can feel the corner of it against his skin. “They got divorced not long after that, it felt like. I mean it was—it was three whole years—but God it didn’t feel like it. And then it was just…over. Looking back, I was probably the only thing holding them together, at that point. They’d always been separating, but they just didn’t realize it for a long time. Neither did I.”

Lance looks down and studies their hands, just next to each other. Ritzie is taller, but her hands are just slightly smaller than his, fine-boned and calloused and skin paper-thin pale next to his own. She is an ice sculpture, immovable, impenetrable. She is glass, easily broken. “Does it still hurt?”

Ritzie’s head turns, and her laugh tickles the back of his neck. “Most things don’t stop hurting, Lance.”

“I know,” Lance says, and he does. God, he does.

“…I don’t know,” she answers after a moment, soft but still firm in her decision, still Ritzie. “I guess? Sometimes. They’re happier now, and my step-dad—my papa’s husband—he’s nice, and they still…they still love me. Even if they don’t love each other, they still love me. I know that. And hey, two birthday parties, right? What could be better?”

Her voice is flat, and Lance closes his eyes. “You’re allowed to be upset. It’s ok to be upset about things that won’t change.” God knows he is.

She sighs out against his shoulder. “But I’m not sure if I am, at least as much as I used to be. It doesn’t not hurt, but it’s number, now.”

He tries to imagine the pain of Loraine going numb, of it fading. He can’t. He’s not sure he wants to. It has settled, but it has never, never become lesser.

He thinks he’d rather die, than face that day when it is lesser, despite how much easier it would be.

“I guess I just wish they were around more,” Ritzie murmurs, and Lance thinks of Mavis. “They’re always—“ She makes a frustrated noise. “Never mind.”

There’s a pause, and then she says, “I didn’t mean what I said earlier.”

“I know.”

“I was just—upset. Before my dads, there were mostly just group homes, everyone always clashing or sticking together. I guess I kind of stayed used to that, even after. When it was just me, in this new school on my own, and then just me and Yuu, the one other kid who didn’t have anyone, on our own together.”

Ritzie: the princess, the protector. Ritzie: the faceless, the friendless.

Ritzie: the child hanging off the tree, reaching out, seeking. Yuu: the child on the ground, looking, searching.

A park in Maryland, a private school in Virginia—what’s the difference, really, Lance wonders, when it comes to lonely children.

Except—he hadn’t been lonely, really. Not when he had his sisters, not when he had Loraine.

But then Loraine had been gone, and Mavis had been the next best anchor, but was away, always, even when she was there. Just like Ritzie and her dads.

“What that kid said to you…” Lance says, and Ritzie tenses slightly against his back. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“Ok,” he says, and Ritzie presses a smile against the back of his neck. Lance finds her hands with his own, squeezes. “Ok.”

“Thank you.”

“…I think I saw Calhoun bringing a turtle in earlier,” Lance mumbles after a long moment, a peace offering. “Do you want to go and rescue it before he inevitably kills it?”

Her smile curves into a grin, upturned lips warm against his skin.

“Please.”

At the end of a weekend in early November, with rain pounding outside amongst air so humid it feels heavy, Lance sits on the train back to D.C. from Veradera, watching the brewing storm from the window, wondering idly if it will turn into one of the thunderstorms that more usually characterize summers.

He likes thunderstorms, remembers August afternoons spent running out into the tempest with Loraine and his other sisters, dancing through forming puddles and letting the rain and wind ruin their hair as their mother screamed at them to come inside before they tempted fate and ended up being the unlucky idiots who got hit by lightning. Evie would recount statistics of lightning strikes, shark attacks, car crashes, every you’re more likely to as she would carefully place a palm out into the rain by their mother’s side, the only one who knew the unlikely odds, yet feared the chances more than the rest of them, Lance and the others contented to the risk in exchange for the joy.

Beside Lance, Hunk is silent, and that steals more of his attention than even the storm.

He had thought they had reached a new stability, after the summer. It’s not perfect, and Lance fucks it up more than he gets it right—like anything—but he tries, he tries to be more open, to not shut Hunk out when he feels himself slipping, and he knows that’s all Hunk was looking for, really—a token of effort, a bit more consistency in Lance’s treatment of him.

It is better. It feels better, than before. Not perfection, but honesty, human and flawed, there to be seen and heard.

And in turn he has felt Hunk try to be more understanding of Lance’s other forms of support, quieter on the afternoons Mavis calls, giving him the space he needs.

Which is why this past weekend—which took a turn from a friendly goodbye on Friday night when Hunk opted to go home with his grandmother to two days of Hunk straight up vanishing, rounded out by an awkwardly silent car ride and wait to board the train—is somewhat of an aberration.

Ok no, very much of an aberration.

And the thing is, Lance can’t figure out why. As far as he can tell, he’s done nothing to promote the return of Hunk’s silent treatment—and while Lance will fully acknowledge he has vast capabilities to be a dick, he’d like to think he’s at least self-aware enough to realize when he’s being a dick.

In truth, the longer Hunk remains silent, and the longer Lance racks his brain while tracing raindrops on the window, the more he begins to wonder if it does have anything to do with him at all. While Hunk hasn’t really been looking at him, it hasn’t seemed pointed, and the few times their eyes have met, Lance hasn’t detected the quiet fury he usually feels radiating off of Hunk when he’s truly angry at him, but just…distraction, lack of focus.

Hunk’s mind is somewhere else, as out of tune with his surroundings as Lance had been in Ritzie’s bedroom when he’d stood thinking of things that once were, and Lance frankly has no idea as to what holds his attention so drastically, except that it may not in fact be concerned with Lance himself.

Shocking, he knows, but he’d also like to think he took the portion of Hunk’s lecture about how his life doesn’t revolve around Lance to heart along with the rest of it.

Which really only leaves the question of what non-Lance-related puzzle has Hunk so wrapped up.

Next to him, Hunk shifts, pulling an envelope with a clumsily shredded top and loopy handwriting on the front out of his bag and turning it over again and again in his hands. It’s a repetitive motion he’s already done a couple times during the train ride, before tucking the envelope back into his bag until the next time he draws it out and does it all over again. Lance is drawn to it, watching Hunk’s large hands handle the envelope with the kind of dedicated fragility given to something revered, or something feared.

Stealing one quick glance at Evie in the aisle seat, who is still conveniently focused on her laptop, thick eyebrows lowered and glaring at the screen, Lance leans out and carefully taps the edge of the envelope. Startled, Hunk retracts it instantly, clutching it to his chest as if he instinctively expects it to be stolen away, and blinks, turning to Lance.

“You alright?” Lance asks quietly, and Hunk quirks a false smile far too easily, leaving Lance wondering when he learned to do so well what Lance does all the time.

“Fine.”

“…Uhuh.” Lance glances down at the envelope pointedly, and Hunk’s hands around it twitch nervously. “Look, you know I’m not going to make you talk about whatever’s going on, but…”

Hunk winces, eyes lowering to the envelope. “That obvious, huh?” He looks back up to Lance’s deadpan stare, and snorts. “Ok, yeah, fair.” Eyes flickering to Evie’s profile next to him, Hunk shakes his head and mutters under his breath, “I’ll tell you about it later, not here.”

Lance casts a questioning glance around the half-empty train car, and then looks pointedly to Evie’s headphones fit snugly over her ears. “Hey Evie, Karen was the one who broke your DS when you were eighteen.” Evie doesn’t even glance up, completely unawares of anything he’s saying, and Lance turns back to Hunk, who rolls his eyes.

“Ha-ha. Very funny.”

“Hey I’m just saying in terms of privacy, this isn’t actually that bad.”

“Yeah, but—“ Hunk leans forward. “It’s about—it’s about my mom, ok?” he hisses under his breath, and Lance jerks in surprise.

“Your mom?” he asks, and Hunk just nods jerkily.

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” Lance mumbles, and nods in turn, sitting back. “Ok.”

Hunk says nothing, falling back to his pattern with the envelope, turning it over and over again, fingers shaky as they skate around thin pencil lines to avoid smudging the writing, and Lance is left to wonder at exactly what secrets it contains. Is it a letter from her, a letter about her?

Lance has never met Awhina Garrett, the highflying woman who could never ground herself enough to be a caretaker. He’s seen pictures, old things depicting times long before, shoved up onto the fireplace mantle in Hunk’s home. She is mythic in that house, and in Lance’s own for that matter, unspoken of beyond the occasional whisper of a story from Hunk’s grandmother. It is not that she is a disgraced topic, or something uncouth to breathe mention of, but more that she is simply…not present. She has not been a part of Hunk’s life for a very long time, and never part of their lives, part of Veradera.

What could she even have to say, to the son who barely knows her?

Obviously, whatever it was, it was enough to rattle Hunk.

The silence between them lingers the rest of the train ride back to school, eyes largely not meeting save for conspicuously shared glances of waiting tension as Evie tiredly drags them out of their train and onto the local Metrorail one with the stop that puts them closest to Greenwood’s front gates. She waves them off distractedly, already answering a call from their grandfather about a sudden and immediate problem with the television he wants her to resolve right now, please.

They walk up the front steps of their dorm to the tune of Evie loudly explaining that no, Abuelito, she can’t fix the T.V. with the remote power of her mind because shockingly even she isn’t that good, and Lance has to stifle a grin even with Hunk shifting anxiously next to him.

He calls out his goodbye cheerfully, and Evie makes a face at him as she holds the phone out away from her ear enough that their grandfather’s confused bellowing won’t blow her eardrum.

Once they get up to their room, Hunk makes a beeline for his bed, flopping onto it gratefully, and Lance leans heavily against the door after he shuts it, eyeing Hunk speculatively as his friend makes exhausted sounds and rolls around onto his back, already fishing the letter out of his hoodie pocket. “So. Your mom, huh?”

Hunk heaves a heavy sigh. “Yep.”

Lance thinks back to the weekend’s lack of Hunk’s presence, and almost without thought slides to the ground, back resting against the door. “Was she here this weekend?”

Hunk blinks, and shakes his head, face furrowing into contemplation. “No, but uh—“ He stops, considering. “She’s been…around.”

“Around?”

“Earlier this week,” Hunk says, pushing himself up enough to sit back against the headboard. “Just a couple of days. Don’t know if she did that on purpose. She and Nana write, sometimes. When Nana has an address, at least. I guess she’d probably know I’m at boarding school by now, when I’d be home and when I wouldn’t be. Maybe.” He grimaces. “Maybe they don’t talk about me at all.”

Lance just crosses his arms over his knees, leans forward and rests his chin onto them, eyes trained to the floor. There is no easy answer here. Either Hunk’s mother knew his life’s schedule, and chose to come on days when he wouldn’t be present. Or she didn’t, which leaves the implication that she never asks about him at all. He honestly can’t say which would be more disappointing, or more comforting to Hunk—that his mother may have avoided him, or that she does not think of him.

Despite the close intimacy they share compared to their other friends, even they have things they do not speak of, unless in desperation. Lance’s hair—the incident that put him down this road to begin with. Loraine, sometimes, and what she meant to both of them.

Hunk’s mother—she, too, is one of the things they do not ask each other unprompted.

Lance was shared the story—or lack of it—for her…her un-presence in Hunk’s life in confidence when they were younger. Of how Hunk has that parental gap he doesn’t quite know if he even misses, when he never had something to begin to miss in the first place. Beyond that, it was something rarely mentioned between the two of them, it just was. Is.

Some things, for better or worse, are immovable.

Lance’s life will not resolve itself with waiting. Ritzie’s parents will not suddenly reconcile. Hunk’s mother will not come home to him.

“What happened?” he asks, rather than offer comfort. Hunk’s shoulders slump in subtle relief, and Lance decides he made the right call.

“She’s apparently on one of her ‘clean up the act and all loose ends’ kicks,” Hunk says softly, looking down to the envelope sitting in his lap. “Nana says they work, sometimes. For a little while.”

“…What happened, Hunk?”

“I don’t—“ Hunk makes a frustrated sound, curling up on himself. “It’s not like I’m angry, really. Though maybe I’m supposed to be. She just…was never the sort of person meant to be a mother. Anyone’s mother, not just mine. That’s not—I know that’s not my fault, it might not even be hers, but—“

“It hurts?” Lance guesses, thinking of Ritzie, and Hunk looks up, smile tenuous and grateful, even with watery eyes.

“Yeah.”

And then the tears spill over.

Lance moves on instinct, crossing the room to Hunk’s bed and sitting across from him. He looks around for a tissue for all of half a second, before promptly giving up and opting to pull his jacket sleeve over his hand and use it to dab ineffectively at Hunk’s face. Hunk makes an embarrassed noise, hands reaching up to try and push Lance’s hand away and wipe at his face himself, and Lance gently slaps them away with his spare hand until Hunk huffs in resignation and gives up. He looks mostly tiredly amused by the time Lance is done.

“Crybaby,” Lance mutters halfheartedly as he withdraws his hand, not meaning it in the slightest, and Hunk’s patient look indicates he knows Lance doesn’t mean it either. “Your skin always gets so blotchy.”

“Yes, because I’m really worried about that, Lance,” Hunk says dryly, even as he sniffles one last time and wipes his nose with the back of his hand, making a face. “Where’s the tissue box?”

“No idea.” Rummaging around in his jacket pockets, Lance finally turns up an old napkin he thinks he stole from the school cafeteria last week, and offers it to Hunk. Despite the suspicious look he gives it, Hunk accepts, wiping his hand and then wiping again at his face. Glancing down at the envelope still sitting between them, Lance draws in a deep breath. “Look, whatever your mom wrote—“

“My mom didn’t write that,” Hunk mumbles, scrubbing the napkin over his nose and eyes one last time and then balling it up in his hands, placing them back in his lap and reaching out one finger to tap the edge of the letter apprehensively. “It was—my—“ He sighs. “My dad did.”

Lance blinks. And then blinks again. Confusion wells up, and he stares at Hunk blankly.

One of the things Lance has always known with complete certainty in life is that Hunk doesn’t have a dad, at least not one he can put name and face to. There had only been Hunk’s mother, the unavailable, the unobtainable, and his grandmother, the homemaker, the caretaker. The technical family tree made up of the woman who birthed him, and the woman who raised him, none other.

“Your dad?”

Hunk sucks in a breath. “Yep.”

“But I thought—“ Lance wavers. “How?”

“Apparently part of the whole tying up loose ends thing meant visiting some old haunts,” Hunk says, with a kind of self-deprecating laugh, and Lance isn’t quite sure why. “She ran into an old flame, they caught up, and I guess somewhere along the way she decided it might be worth mentioning she had a kid that was half his.”

“Jesus,” Lance says faintly, and somewhere in the back of his mind he can hear his own mother—or Marcie, maybe—making a scandalized noise at his language choice. “And she’s uh…sure?”

“As sure as it’d ever be without a test.” Hunk shrugs. “She never stayed with anyone for long, but she never saw more than one person at once. Even I know that much, from her and Nana’s old letters and stuff.” He hums halfheartedly, a low, conflicted sound, eyes dropping again to the letter. “…She never told him, before. Just left when it was time for her to float off somewhere new. I have no idea why she brought it up now of all times, or if she even expressly did and he just did the math with my age o-or something and asked her but—“ Hunk glances up, staring at Lance with solemnity, and more than a hint of panic. “He is. He’s my dad.”

“He’s your dad,” Lance repeats with as much breathless awe as Hunk, and now his friend looks even more terrified, as if Lance’s speaking it somehow made it that much more real. He looks down to the letter once more in time with Hunk, and suddenly the way Hunk so reverently handled it, and the weight of it, metaphorically speaking, makes sense. “…Where? Where is he, I mean?”

New Zealand. Australia, maybe. The U.S.? Where else had Hunk’s mother been?

“You won’t believe it,” Hunk says, and when Lance looks to him, raising an eyebrow, Hunk giggles, suddenly seeming giddily overwhelmed. “Samoa.”

“…Samoa.”

Hunk nods frantically, eyes wide and excited. “Samoa. The uh—the independent state, not the American territory portion.”

“Why the hell was your mom in Samoa?” Lance asks, and suddenly he’s laughing too, stifling helpless snorts into his hands because this conversation was so entirely not what he had expected, and God—Hunk has a father, a father in Samoa. A father with a name and an address and—and—all the proof of a living and being of a person.

“I don’t know!” Hunk answers, throwing his hands up before he has to quickly pull them down again to muffle his own laughter. “She just—she just was!”

“I guess, geographically, it’s sort of logical.” Lance says, as the last of his giggles die down. “Especially if she was island-hopping around that part of the Pacific.”

“Who knows with my mother, honestly,” Hunk says, sounding mystified but not particularly upset, and Lance feels glad Hunk seems to be more at ease, at least until he looks back to the letter, and his shoulders slump slightly. A more serious expression sets on Hunk’s face, and he doesn’t look upset, really, so much as just very…contemplative. “He wrote this, for my mom to give to me. He wants—he wants to meet me. At Christmas, or the summer, whenever I’m comfortable. He—“

Hunk hesitates, and Lance leans forward, offering his hand to Hunk as an anchor. He takes it, smile grateful, and Lance intertwines their fingers as he taps Hunk’s name on the envelope carefully with his other hand. “Do you want to meet him?”

“I—“ Hunk’s face cracks, uncertain and frightened. “I don’t know? For so long when I was younger, littler but old enough to understand, all I wanted was to—to know. And then I accepted I never would, and now…” Hunk’s voice cracks, and his spare hand grabs at the forgotten napkin to scrunch and twist between his fingers anxiously. “What if it goes wrong? What if—what if he doesn’t like me?” he finishes, voice small.

“Hunk,” Lance says firmly. “Of course he’ll like you.”

“My mom doesn’t like me,” Hunk whispers.

“No,” Lance says, reaching up to touch Hunk’s chin and gently raise his face upward so that they can look eye to eye. He knows enough about running away from things, about the times Hunk has had to confront him and force him to see his own hypocrisy. It’s time he did the same. “Your mom doesn’t want to be a parent. You said it yourself. It’s not about what you can and can’t be for her, it’s about what she can and can’t be, and therefore not your fault.” He smiles as gently as he can manage. “You’re always there to tell me when I’m being an idiot, so now I’m returning the favor. You have no duty to your dad, blood doesn’t create a relationship, and if you don’t want to meet him you don’t have to. But don’t run away because you think he might not want to know you when he’s already indicated he does, otherwise you’re being just as dumb as I am whenever I panic and push people away.”

Hunk sniffs, and is back to wiping ineffectually at his eyes with the napkin. “Don’t compare my biggest moment of crisis in my life to your—your repetitive cycles of ‘I must solve everything myself’ self-sacrificing nonsense.”

“You’re welcome,” Lance says, grinning, and Hunk throws the napkin at him, the crumpled paper batting softly off his nose.

“…I just don’t know what I want,” Hunk admits softly after a long moment. “I never even thought this would be an option, you know?”

Lance thinks of all the unfixable things that haunt him, that drive him. What he would do, if he had an option to suddenly change it all. At first instinct, it seems easy. Bring Loraine back, repair his family, make himself…himself again. But it’s not that easy, really. If he could reverse the last year and a half…he’d lose Mavis all over again, would have never met Ritzie.

They’re not equivalent to Loraine in any way, shape, or form, but in the same sense she isn’t—she isn’t equivalent to them. You can’t trade away one person for another, balance out the equation and decide who’s worth more. Loraine was—is—everything, but Mavis, his friends…they’re important too. He wants Loraine back more than anything in the world, but he wants so many things. Wants his family to be ok again, wants his mother to have never been sick, wants Mavis to have never left, but sometimes bad things just…happen.               And would he even know how to be her Lance again, if the world reset and he could have everything back?

“Yeah,” he says to Hunk eventually, shrugging tiredly. “I know.”

“…What would you do?” Hunk asks, and Lance snorts.

“I don’t know if I’m the right person to ask, my dad was dead long before I was around.” Hunk makes a face at him, and Lance sighs. “I don’t know either, ok? Sometimes family isn’t what you expect it to be…for better or for worse.” He hesitates, and then grabs the envelope, picking it up and turning it to face Hunk. “It’s your decision to make, and it’s not like you have to do it now. But you have a chance, and if you want this, then don’t give it up and regret it down the line.”

So many unchangeable things happen, to all of them, but one of the few things Lance feels like he’s learned—with every fuckup and face slap and New York city street—is that you can’t run away from change, either. To hold onto his past, to Loraine, and to survive, he must change. Otherwise he’ll never reach the Garrison. Never reach her stars, his stars, their stars.

The unfixable is immovable, but change is also inevitable.

“If you want to know your dad, Hunk,” Lance says quietly, “Don’t let fear keep you from family.”

“You’re one to talk,” Hunk snorts unthinkingly, and Lance winces, glad Hunk doesn’t notice when he does. His family issues aren’t the ones on the table, right now. “I— yeah. Ok,” Hunk says, and when he squeezes Lance’s hand, Lance squeezes back.

“Ok,” he breathes. “Good.”

[musingsofamurderess]

Puberty: Born in the Wrong Body? (My personal account of why DNA may not always be the best way to define gender, LGBTQI)

If you don't believe trans women have a rightful place in women's sports, you're only supporting biological women, while refusing to accept that some women just happen to have been born men. We all understand that those who draw gender lines strictly biologically don't believe that, but instead that gender is binary with only the exception of the occasional pseudohermaphrodite born naturally. What the rest of us here are saying is that maybe it's time we recognize that our biological DNA is not the only thing that defines us. We have beautiful and brilliantly diverse minds, and some of those minds know the pain of what it feels like to have been born in a body that doesn't match what they feel they are on the inside.

Let me tell you a story. Growing up, I was a tomboy, I hated women's clothing and makeup. Girl toys were ok, but some of them gave me the creeps. I didn't feel like I related to anyone of that gender for a long time, really. I got along with boys and girls about equally, I was definitely attracted to boys and some girls, but I did not feel like I fit what I saw as the 'girly girl archetype,' nor did I ever really want to. Call it mental illness or hormonal imbalance, but when it was time for puberty to come around, I did not believe, for the very life of me, that I was going to get a period.

Now anyone who's known me knows that I may be weird AF, but I'm no idiot, nor was I when I was 11. My puberty was so traumatizing at that time that, when I did start having my cycles, I had fully convinced myself that I was bleeding internally and that I was going to die. I did not even want to face the fact that I had a vagina, much less, that it meant I had to go through PMS and menstrual cycles.

I told no one when the bleeding started, hoping it would somehow go away on it's own, and in complete denial about what was happening to me. I refused to use pads, and instead just balled up TP in my undies and went to the bathroom A LOT to try and clean myself, crying and worrying myself into panic attacks that this might be the last day of my life, while simultaneously doing everything in my power to keep that fact a secret because I felt like I didn't deserve to live. Everything that was happening to me was wrong. I, my existence itself, was wrong. All I wanted was for the awkwardness, my horrific visage, and these uncontrollable thoughts and emotions to end, for the bleeding to stop...even if it meant death.

I stayed up late countless nights crying, screaming, and writing 'goodbye letters' to those I cared about: apologizing for being mean, selfish, or abusive toward them. I would put them in a binder or folder next to me at night, every night, so that at least if I died, I could rest easy knowing that I had apologized for wrongs I'd done. Many of which were typical rude kid stuff, but looking back, many were also the products of an inability to understand and control the hormones that were rampaging through my body. I was out of sync with my physical and emotional self, to say the very least.

Now, I never equated those experiences then with what may probably today have been recognized as obvious clinical signs of gender dysphoria, but I'd like to think that as we grow culturally and as a society, people who experience similar difficulties will have careful and effective professional care to help them really examine what all those feelings and experiences mean, so more people can have a chance to live their lives in a way that truly fits them, whether that means changing genders or not. In today's society we have the option to examine and help people who suffer as deeply as I did so that they won't have to look back and "not know why" they never fit into their own skin. That's what we pro-gender folks are fighting for. Equal chances for humans to be their best selves.

Now, acceptance did not come easily for me. I masterbated only clitorally well into adulthood, having grown out of the methods of my early puberty which involved frequently humping things and occasionally putting socks or markers and other things into my panties for some unknown reason as I had never seen a penis or balls. I did not put anything other than a man's penis in my vagina until I was 18. I had no idea I could even have an orgasm that way until then. Needless to say, I ecentually accepted my body and myself as a woman (as if I were ever offered any other option). I have no problem identifying as such today, but would I have struggled as much with the crippling depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues I've had all my life had I had someone, anyone, that I felt comfortable being completely honest with about how wrong it felt just being in my own body at that crucial time in gender development? I'll never know. I'm glad to be myself today and, hell, it could definitely be a lot worse. Sometimes I wonder if it might not've been better if I had been able to become a male. I'll probably never know what that's like but I find it at the very least odd that such a young mind can feel so betrayed by its own body.

May 28, 2019

[notconsolation]

So here’s my history. It’s gonna be long, so I fully do not expect anyone to read this, this is as much a record for myself as it is anything else. I fucking pray this read more works. If it doesn’t, happy scrolling, it’s a long one boys

It’s hard to place because my memories of the beginning are quite vague. It became noticeable at the end of the summer of 2012, so I’m guessing  it started in sort of late 2011. So I was 13. It sort of kicked off with orthorexia, but neither I nor anybody in my circle would have known the signs to notice them. It also turned into anorexia pretty early on I think. Or at least I just finally accepted the label after a while. I always hated the word, though. It’s a phonetically horrible word. The german was worse to me, though now I think it’s more accurate. ‘Magersucht’ - ‘gauntness/skinness addiction’ basically. I don’t know- I just started eating things like a salad with no vinegar and no oil once a day, then sort of once every two days and nobody really noticed. I went on an exchange trip to Spain that summer and I hated it because everything was oily and I felt the stains the food left around my mouth and had to fight the urge to wipe away at it constantly. I would try to cut it up and spread the food around the plate to get rid of oil, I’d rub it on my lips on the way to my mouth so that I could wipe it off afterwards rather than take it in. I went vegan I went gluten free I went uh.. food free after a bit basically. My mother noticed in late 2012 because she went away for a week and when she came back she said my clothes hung off me and I’d always been a size xs. Didn’t stop me from doing youtube workout videos from 11pm until 2 every night. God, my tailbone bled onto my sheets sometimes and I’d use that to pretend I was still getting my period. It was obsessive, but in a way that’s very removed to me now, because now I’m obsessive in so many different ways, though partially about the same things.

We spent a long time sort of not doing much except my mother fretting and my father not mentioning it and my sister rolling her eyes at my attention whoring by coercing my organs into imminent failure. We went to a couple of doctors to try to get some kind of diagnosis because I wasn’t strictly denying that there was something wrong, but I wan’t going to take the intiative to get ‘better’ from a situation which I perceived as not normal, sure, but not my responsibility to fix because it wasn’t my mind that told me I wasn’t normal and okay, it was everyone else’s. So if my being deathly thin bothered them, they could do something about it but I wouldn’t. I think that’s more or less what my thought process was. I guess around this time I was hovering around 42-44 kilos. I got so fucking good at figuring out which of my clothes weighed the most so that I could wear them when my mom would weigh me and cry. I knew she wouldn’t want to see my body, so I wore layers of wet clothes under denim and she never asked me to take it off cause she didn’t want to see my bones. In fairness I cried a lot, too. Sometimes I guess we cried about a lot of the same stuff.

My relationship with my ED is, to a large degree, inseparable from my relationship to my mother because for three very formative years in my life we spent every conscious moment aware of how much suffering each was going through, and that empathy magnified the pain and suffering itself. I talk about this in past tense when really I shouldn’t, but it’s easier to pretend now that we live in separate countries. She is the best person and I don’t know.

But anyway, we went to different therapists for a while. None of them did much. We tried this family based approach for a while which was... god i never want to go to family therapy of any kind ever ever ever again. Didn’t help, really. I saw that therapist about a year later when I was walking home from school and she stopped me and said I was looking so good and wasn’t it nice that I was recovering and I was thisclose to spearing her with a pitchfork and telling her that really, as a therapist that specialises in eating disorders she should know better than to assume someone is in recovery because they’ve gained weight before cooking her up like a suckling pig. She was probably objectively nice. But she was such a fucking Karen. Anyway, all this time I was still losing weight. I got up early and drank litres so I’d still weigh the same in the morning, but man. There was a morning when I overslept and I panicked and my mother panicked and we all cried and she wouldn’t give me time to layer up and drink and so - tada - there’s the number blinking up at me and everyone i angry and there’s a lot of snot from my mother and spit from my father, but my body holds on to its fluids because it knows i can’t afford to lose them. anyway, I hate the number 35.8 now forever. I’m not even entirely sure that was my lowest weight but I’ve literally blocked out those memories. I have no access to them whatsoever.

I have no idea how i never fainted. I missed a lot of school. Everyone went so far out of their way to accommodate me. I realise i haven’t been talking about what went on inside me and it’s because it’s like there’s a haze over it all, muffling the whole thing and inserting this sort of dead, lifeless ringing into my ears and before my eyes. I know I was obsessive and that I was aware that I should get better and I agreed that I should get better, but that I would always find ways to make sure I didn’t eat more than 800 calories a day at most. Thereabouts, anyway. I just Don’t Remember so much of it. But yeah. My parents got me a place on a clinic waiting list and I got moved up to have an interview with the Oberfrauärtztinchefincaptainsirmaam and i am so very grateful that she was so very awful. I distinctly remember her telling me i should be strapped to a bed with a needle in my arm and that i shouldnt be thinking and doing school work anymore because intense thinking can burn as many calories an hour as a lumberjack at work. So when a spot opened up at the clinic I was able to beg and cry and beg my parents for one last shot at doing it myself. I have no idea why they let me, I really don’t. By this point one or more of my organs had probably been permanently damaged and it’s a miracle my bones aren’t entirely porous and brittle. I get survivors guilt sometimes because I really do think that, objectively, I shouldn’t be alive. I shouldn’t have made it through that. And I was so difficult about it. I would say I want to recover, and then not do anything to further that. I’d shoot down every suggestion and option and resolutely state that I was different and so, sorry mother mine, but the big fat book you bought with helpful tips and tricks? not gonna help, go away, leave me alone. I guess that was my version of teenage angst: ‘go away, I don’t need help literally staying alive because I’m a different human being from every other human being that’s ever gone through this’.

I do still believe that, in a way. I believe that everyone’s experience of it is different, and the causalities are so muddled that they’re barely discernible, but I was such a bitch about. I mean I still am, 100% but..!.

But I did gain weight back. I was still fucked up inside, but people stopped asking if I was feeling okay and started telling me they were so glad and proud that I was feeling better. Nobody really thought ‘hey, maybe telling this girl constantly and with strong, authoritative voices that she needs to eat eat eat eat eateateateatEAT might fuck her up a bit uwu’. It’s simplistic to blame it on that, though. But yes. I gained about 30 kilos in 2 years and I hated every second of it and my mental state deteriorated pretty steadily and lo, my anorexia became more akin to binge eating disorder. Depression kicks in, identity crises abound, the constant nagging intrusive ideas and noisy background of thoughts never stop, gender dysphoria jumps on the bandwagon for a while, and all manner of those tasty self-destructive tendencies find days of my life to cronch down on and consume whole.

But it always comes back down to food. I’ve made the binge eating section of this so brief because it exhausts me so and because I’m not sure how comprehensible it is as a concept to people. When you say binge eating disorder people sometimes think ‘oh shit man, I get you, I eat waaay to many pizzas AND, christ help me, sometimes I have a whole tub of ice cream by myself i hope god can forgive me hahaha’

BUt, Chad, what you fail to understand is that this is chronic behaviour where I consume sometimes seven or eight thousand calories at once and calculate every single one afterwards and literally worry that my stomach might rupture from the sheer volume of food and also that I’m doing yet more serious long term damage to my body and oh! hey frantic google searches on how diabetes works and if you can get it from repeatedly eating whole jars of nutella! didn’t see you there!

Listen, it’s all been a downer, yeah. By this point I’m assuming I’m speaking exclusively to the future self that I wrote this for as a record of what I remember. But listen. It always comes down to food for me. It just always does. And this whole thing was just sparked by the notion that I would love it if more people were aware that, sure, I deal with it because I have to and because it’s what one does, but if you could just... not bring up food to me unless I bring it up first? that would be great? And i don’t mean questions about my thoughts on it or anything, I just mean specifically for the future prospect of eating. For that very specific thing, if you don’t bring it up I’ll be super grateful because yeah, I’d love to watch a movie with you, but I’d love it even more if I didn’t have to spend an hour thinking of an excuse for not eating popcorn or not wanting to go for drinks afterwards. I think it would be amazing if we could establish a dialogue as a norm.

something like at some point having a conversation with someone along the lines of

‘hey, you know I don’t judge you or expect you to justify your eating habits to me, right?’

‘wait, really?’

‘yeah, that’s your business and I honestly don’t care, so you can stop stressing about it’

This has been an ED chat with Hannah

[fidelishaereticus]

Are you trans?

ah, thanks for asking. TLDR: yes and no? i am afab—>genderfluid/agender. she or they. or it. or he. hell idgaf honestly. i still ID as female in certain moods/contexts, but also it is very important to me to see myself as not attached to any single gender.

for a little more detail ( because this is actually a complex question and because i will jump at any opportunity to talk about myself) I was assigned female and am not technically intersex, tho some of my biology is a little weird (my body produces “abonrmally” high testosterone for someone who also has a uterus, and my reproductive system forgets its job most of the time which would be great except for the part where it increases risk of cancer? 8D). I also build very defined musculature very easily, and just grow a lot of hair. Consequently?? I can look pretty gender-ambiguous by simply not shaving, wearing masculine clothing, and doing certain things with my hair (easiest is just shoving it under a hat). This does not make me any more or less genderfluid/agender than anyone else, but you bet i enjoy the shit out of it in the most childish sense, i am very lucky.When i’m not specifically trying, however, i “read” as female to the binaristic gaze on account of: -i am petite (to the tune of 61 inches)-my wardrobe is not strictly composed of “masculine-passing” items e___e-i have long hair and i love to pretend im an elf and wear it down in a way that reads very “feminine”-am in possession of some modest boobature that i don’t always bind-i am a soprano bitch from way back and the range of my speaking voice does reflect this. i can hit some very high notes when i am nervous or excited about things XD. 

Anyway I really hated being female for a few years in my late teens/early twenties, but also did not strongly identify as male so….the idea of being trans was?? not a thing that ocurred to me. I wanted to be genderless in the way that all my favourite male characters (and only them) seemed to be: where they were human first and *handwave* i guess male technically. Yet I had the impression at the time that “gender-neutral” was not a valid identity, so i was just frustrated. Subsequently i both became a lot more comfortable with those aspects of my body that “read” female (tho i still sometimes hat my boobs) and also learned a lot more about how gender is cultural (so I CAN MAKE IT WHATEVER I WANT 8D) and the sex binary is also not nearly so clear-cut as they make you think in high-school biology. I concluded that, for my own single self, GENDER IS CANCELLED *throws confetti*I sometimes still get really angry abt the fact that so much of my frustration with being afab was a.) just the usual bullshit of being in any oppressed class and b.) the fact that i was ASSIGNED an identity without any say in the matter. like, gender is a HUGE PART of social identity. and??? i didn’t like being *told* who and what i was before i had a chance to look at the options and consider what worked best for me. I am a lot more comfortable identifying as “female” when it is part of a genderfluid identity that i *chose*, rather than a label someone slapped on me by looking at my junk when i was born. I also have a lot of pronoun loyalty to “she” on account of resentment at the sexism i encountered living with that pronoun and reading the fiction that i read. I want to make characters who are Like Me and also grew up with that pronoun, because i never had those characters back when i needed them, and i also want to continue using that pronoun out of SPITE (also i’m lazy and used to it)

[psykonee]

Monastery stay

In the north of Thailand, not far from the Myanmar boarder in a small valley just off the road from Pai to Mae Hong Son there is Wat Pa Tam Wua, a forest monastery.  A friend of mine stayed there almost 2 years before I did and from what they said it sounded like it would be an interesting experience to stay there, quite different from anything I had done previously.  It is good to leave the familiar and the comfortable and embrace a new experience.  To get there either drive yourself or take any bus heading from Pai or Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son and asked to be dropped off at the monastery.  There is no need to book in advance or let them know you are coming, but they do prefer if you arrive before 4pm.

I was dropped off in the middle of a sunny afternoon, with only the road, a small shop and a sign for the way to the monastery around. Heading in the direction of the sign for 1km I reached the monastery grounds.  There was still silence, sunlight over the grass, trees and small hills all around.  The setting is beautiful – wooded hills, fields, small lakes and the complex itself amongst them.

Heading to the main building there was a sign saying “Information.”  I could see dozens of people dressed in white, silently lying on the floor and nobody else in sight.  The next day I would be doing exactly the same thing.

I waited for the meditation session to end and approached the desk to check in with one of the volunteers that live there.  Most things are done in a mix of Thai and English.  You can stay for as little as one night or as long as your Thai visa lasts.  After checking in the rules for staying there were pointed out with the schedule and I was briefly shown around. We then went to collect some bedding and white clothes for me to borrow (it may be better to bring your own whites).

The accommodation is single gender and basic – you sleep on the floor on a mat, with blankets and a small pillow.  This is not a resort. You are responsible for keeping your own area and the whole monastery clean.  There are individual huts to sleep in, but if they are busy you will be sleeping in a dorm, which was not full when I was there in late December.  The dorm I was in had small lockers for securing things like your passport.

A little before 6pm I entered the main hall for the evening chanting and meditation with little idea of what I was meant to do.  Men sit at the front, women at the back (supposedly to keep the monks away from temptation).  There are cushions to sit on the floor and a few rows of plastic chairs.  I felt the best thing to do was to copy everyone else.  The chanting was in Pali, Thai and English with books to use with the words.  I was attempting to make sense of the experience, the unfamiliar words, the actions.  The monks sat in front of us in a single raised row, led by the Abbot.  I felt disorientated, confused and a little uncomfortable to start with. After the chanting we began sitting meditation in the darkness.  I meditate a bit, but doing so amongst dozens like this was new to me. I closed my eyes and attempted to clear the mind and just focus on my slow breathing.  It was challenging, disorientating and relaxing as I become accustomed to the situation.  By 7.30pm it was over and we were free to read, talk, meditate or go to sleep.

I went to sleep early because the next morning’s activities started around 6am.  This consisted of offering rice to the monks, followed by breakfast and more meditation.  The meditation was not just sitting or lying down, it included walking which I had never done before.  Slowly walking, focusing on breathing, slow steps and not being distracted.  I found this hard to start with because I was focusing more on what I was about to step on than not focusing. After the morning meditation it was time for lunch before noon.

Food is predominantly vegan, served twice a day and in good quantities. If you are attempting to follow things you should not eat after midday.  In practise you will not be stopped from eating later in the day.  I had little problem with following this rule for the full day I was there, but it could take some getting used to.  Water, both cold and hot is freely available along with tea.  

While there everything is freely provided.  You can leave without paying anything and nobody would know other than yourself.  If you would like to donate ask for an envelope to put money in and then deposit it in a small site a short distance from the main building.

The emphasis is on making the decision for yourself about how strictly to follow some of the rules and schedule.  The Abbot jokingly referred to the 5am self meditation in the schedule as “sleeping meditation,” which was a fair description.  If you wish to go to the shop on the main road, you are free to do so.  If you are looking for a place with rigidly enforced discipline this is not the right place.  On the opposite side, if you clearly break some of the rules (e.g. not being there for any of the schedule, drinking alcohol) you would be asked to leave.  The religious aspects are a part of the place, but not forcefully.  At the same time it is more than a place to try meditation.

The experience left me with much to consider.  It would be very easy while staying there to lose track of the outside world and to let go of external considerations.  I used my phone there only as a time piece and camera – no need to keep updated with other things. There is nothing to desire for there – your basic physical needs of food, water, sleep and cleanliness are met.  Slow down, no need to rush in an imaginary race.  The regular schedule means you have no need to think about planning anything.  With all this you can let go of the unimportant distractions.  I feel 2 nights, like I did, is a bare minimum to benefit from the experience of staying there.  A week or longer could have been better.

I do not see myself as a Buddhist, but a lot of the philosophy side of it feels like it makes more sense to me than the other religions I have encountered.  As I write this 2 months later I feel like some more of the inner negativity has dissipated.  I feel a little calmer and more at ease with existence.  I meditate a few times a week, usually flat on my back because it is more comfortable.  Small things and those outside of myself are less frustrating because there is nothing beneficial from having negative thoughts about them.  There have been a number of moments since being there when I have tried to adjust what I am doing or thinking / feeling in light of the experience.

Compassion towards others and also towards yourself.

http://watpatamwua.com/ ←this web address may no longer be working, but there quite a few other sources of information available

[erraticwriterscanvas-blog]

The Girl on the train - Part 1

Chennai Central Railway station, the biggest of its kind that I had ever seen, welcomed me once again. Honestly it was a warm welcome because the station inside was way too hotter than the streets outside. The bustling crowd that spread over the long trench over a mile was no surprise.

Five days ago, when I began my journey to Chennai, I was really excited about travelling all alone. It was my first experience of travelling alone to a city far from mine, and I was thrilled about the feeling of responsibility I would have towards myself and my luggage, the personal space I would get for myself among the thousands of unknowns on the train, the decision making situations where I don’t have to listen to someone else’s commands to choose what I want. Travelling seemed like fun, but it eventually turned boring. I should have carried few novels to read. And what added to the disappointment of excitement turned to boredom was that there was no sign of a girl in my whole compartment. How could there be no Meenamma on ‘The Chennai Express’ ( Meenamma is the female lead character in the movie ‘Chennai Express’ in which hero meets her heroine first on train). A bunch of Tamilians were my travel companions and I had no clue what they spoke about throughout the journey. A good aged Tamilian uncle cleared my confusion about how to reach my destination in Chennai (The only reason why I felt he was good coz he understood fair bit of Hindi, and it wasn’t hard to communicate).

My purpose of visit to Chennai was something I was really proud of; so proud that I told all my friends about it. I was one among the few hundred chosen to appear for an interview at Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (my dream world). I was imagining IIT, when my thoughts were broken by the whistling of train. It had reached ‘The Grand Chennai Central Station’, that I had heard a great deal about. It didn’t look any different from other railway stations at my place, when I stepped out of the coach. I realized how vast it was, when I had to walk ten minutes to make my way through the busy crowd at 5am, and reach the exit. It had 12 stations stretched over one and half mile; and truly deserved to be called ‘MASSIVE’.

I took a breath of relief when I finally got out of that station. A fresh breeze of air felt refreshing, when I closed my eyes. When I opened my eyes, I found myself circled by a bunch of taxi drivers, some trying to grab my hand and my luggage, some cursing each other about who would carry this new boy in town. I didn’t panic because I knew my way to IIT. Firmly holding my luggage, I walked away towards the nearest subway across the road.

It looked a neat city, with clean roads, fast moving vehicles, differently shaped buses, metro rails, restaurants, and obviously busy people. I wanted to explore this city more, but for now I had to go to IIT first. A very polite bus conductor directed me to a bus to IIT. The bus raced on the smooth roads, crossed flyovers and in fifteen minutes I stood before the gate of my heaven that I had dreamt of. A day before I had read an article that said IIT, Madras is 30 cooler than rest of Chennai. I was ready to experience this chill.

The excitement grew every second as I travelled through the roads of IIT. Old rusty buildings hidden behind century-old trees, dense trench of trees where deer and monkeys could be spotted made me think if it was an engineering college or a natural habitat for animals. I told myself ‘may be this is how IITs are’. Instruction boards were at every corner that said interference in the animal’s habitat is punishable. Seriously!! Humans seemed like a worthless creature here compared to animals.

It was 8am when I got down at hostel area and was accommodated into a room, all for myself. I was tired because of last night’s sleepless journey, and my body cried for sleep. But as per timings of IIT, breakfast ended at 9. So I hurried to clean my stinking body. Nothing’s more refreshing than a cold shower in a hot summer morning. I rushed to mess for breakfast.

Unlike my expectations, North-Indian food sucked there. I just stuffed my stomach to quench my hunger, despite the disgusting taste. I stepped out to explore the surroundings. A minute later, I cursed that guy who wrote the article about IIT being cooler than Chennai. It was too humid there. Bathing everyday wasn’t a task of concern, because I got drenched in sweat every hour. I restrained myself from going out and chose to rest in my room.

My entire day was spent in my room, succumbed to my loneliness and boredom, doing nothing. I walked out of my den in the evenings when the place felt rather cooler. Interesting people flocked everywhere (People refers to strictly girls in hot dresses). Most of the students were South-Indian but only North-Indian girls caught my attention for one reason. Hearing a fair skinned girl speak Hindi fluently was captivating. But I couldn’t dare to walk to someone and spark a conversation or the least a formal HeLLO. I was neither as charming as ShahRukh, neither did I have a great physique like Hrithik, nor did I carry my style like Beckham; so there was nothing in me that would make a girl want to talk to me. I had always been bad at starting conversations with God’s favorite gender.

My expectations of this place were going way down, thinking I have to spend my evening just as I spent my morning, bored and alone. But thankfully, I saw something. FOOTBALL!! A bunch of local hostelites were playing football. I got into one of their teams and began the game. Everyone around there was resident of Godavari hostel and majority of them were from Karnataka. Damn, it was hard to communicate during the game coz the only language we both understood was English, and you know that the real emotions are best depicted by the language of my choice; Hindi. We did fairly well, trying to speak and we won the game with our marvelous (totally exaggerated) team effort by 3-1. I bid them bye and promised myself that my evenings are never going to be boring, as long as I am here.

That night, when I lay down on my bed, I felt tired of having done nothing all day. Gazing at the ceiling and the fan, I imagined how my life will be at IIT if I fortunately got in. These hostels, junky north Indian food, vast football playgrounds, world class sports facilities; I would do anything to get here. The next morning was my big day; the day of interview.

I woke up the next morning when sun rays peeking in from the window hit my face. I realized it was only 6am. I sat on my bed erect, and scanned the walls that were scribbled all over. Hand sketches of cartoons, forgettable phone numbers, poems (barely romantic), and hell lot of formulae written on one corner wall. FORMULAE!!! Damn it! I had totally forgotten to prepare for the interview. And in the baffle, before I could prepare something seriously, clock struck 7. I rushed to cleanse myself, masked myself with a strong deodorant that would last all day, stuffed my tummy with slices of bread, and off I go.

Good morning IITM. The morning sun shone bright, while many joggers were returning to their dorms. Group of friends flocked around everywhere, catching up on a morning waali chai, and phone bugs hung around with their phones and earphones on. With a bright smile on face, I got into the bus to find it all empty. Adjusting my trousers and my over sized formal shirt, I struggled to stabilize myself in the moving bus and grabbed a seat. I hated formals, coz I cannot carry them. But you see, these were mandatory for an interview.

In less than five minutes, I was at the mechanical engineering block. What a rusty old building it was, barely visible, hidden behind the trees and little deserted too. I asked myself if I was too early, but it was 8am and that’s when I was asked to appear. I found my way to seminar hall, where everyone else appearing for interview on the same day had gathered. My jaw dropped when I opened the door, seeing that there were no less than 800 students of which only 25 would be selected. For a moment I thought if I had come to the wrong place; may be this wasn’t the place for interview. The instruction plate on the door read clearly “Research interviews, Mechanical Engineering” and my doubt was answered. I looked through people there, some were of my age group and while others seemed to have graduated years ago. To my relief, I heard someone say that Ph.D candidates are also being interviewed on the same day and few of these might be appearing for that. I found a corner seat from where I could have a clear view of the entire place. Only a few were dressed in formals and were trying to not mess up their attire, and clearly they were first timers like me. Others were in shorts and casual Ts.

An hour later, instructions arrived that we had to appear for a screening test before facing the interview. Four hours later, I walked out of the exam hall, with my face doomed in mixed emotions. I flunked the written test. I had least hope of clearing it. Lunch at the cafeteria didn’t seem as bad as breakfast; or perhaps that’s what I felt. Screening test was worse than the lunch served. I ate my food in silence and walked to my dormitory. Dumped myself on the bed, and thought to myself “Was I not good enough for the interview?”. Before I could think of something, I fell asleep, out of the tiredness of the morning.

Evening was same as the day earlier, playing football, stalking at girls around, shopping in the local cloth store, and distracting my mind from the failure of today’s test. A little hope still persisted that I would do better the next day.

Three days flew away in the blink of an eye. I flunked miserably in all three interviews I attended. Actually I did fairly better in the last interview in comparison with the first two. Now it was time for me to pack my baggage and find my way out of this place. In four days, I had fallen so much in love with this place. The peaceful atmosphere here (forgetting the heavy moisture content that made me seat all day), the teaching facilities, students from every corner of the country, unforgettably beautiful and rarely seen north Indian girls; all of it was so alluring that I didn’t want to leave this place. It felt like I belonged to this place, like I always have wanted to be in a place like this. When I got down from the bus at the exit gate, I turned around to have one last glance at the top ranked college of India. That moment I told myself “promise yourself that one day you will walk in through these gates, and never have to leave again.”

Clock tick 6 when I walked into the “Chennai Central Station”. The hustle and bustle in the station added more discomfort besides my disappointment of returning home as a failure. It was peak time and everyone at the station was waiting for Chennai express to arrive. My thoughts were crashed by the announcement of the railway department that the train was delayed by 30 minutes. Karma!! Even the Railways don’t want me to leave Chennai so soon. I had to get myself out of these thoughts of dejection and failure, coz worrying now is no way going to help. And I thought to myself “what could be a better distraction than food”, when my eyes fell on the food truck stationed at a corner. Making my way through the crowd, I reached the menu board.

“Two dosas and a plate of Idlis,” I placed my order.

I was scanning through the menu, looking for something more tasty and spicy, when a girl slammed her hand on the counter.

“Six samosas and pudina chutney. Wait, also add Rasmalai to it. And please make it quick,okay?” She went back to looking at her phone and tapping her feet to the rhythm of the song playing in her ears.

“How bossy!! She could be a little polite. Hogi koi bade baap ki beti” I thought to myself.

My thoughts were interrupted by the voice of the guy at the counter”72 rupees sir. That will be 72 rupeees”

I dug into my pockets for a change, but failed and handed him a 100 rupees note. He gave me 20 back and a five star chocolate, with a smile of gratitude.

“Paise kya tere baap ke ped pe ugte hain. Mann toh karta hai iss chocolate ko tere mooh mein ghusa doon” I thought to myself, but took that chocolate from him, with a made up smile, cursing him within. When I turned, the girl was gone. I turned around but she had disappeared in the crowd. Did she just vanish in a second??

Waiting hall was completely occupied. I managed to find a seat at a corner, and looked at my watch; 6:10pm. What do I do for twenty minutes now? Observe!! Observing people around always had been my best pass time. There were many young people around, in their mid twenties, and they all looked like they knew each other. Everyone was talking to someone around, except me who watched them talking. There was a bunch of girls at the far end, and from their baggage, they looked like they were on a holiday, perhaps on a adventure trip like trekking or camping. Beautiful and rough girls!! Adventure reminded me of the photos I had clicked at IIT, some next to the grazing antelopes, some at the great lake. Never in my life had I shot so many pictures at one place. I smirked thinking “Nature can really inspire you to become a photographer. “

Whistle of the train was loud, and at once the whole waiting hall stood to move. Chennai express had arrived, ten minutes before its delayed schedule time. I picked up my baggage, pulling my trunk; I craned over the crowd to look for the S5 coach.

Coach S5, L 47- Aryan Malhotra; I spotted my name on the reservation chart. I walked in and surprisingly I was the only one in the compartment. Resting my bag, relaxing on my berth, I peeked out of the window to look for water bottle vendor. Adjacent compartments were slowly filling up, but my compartment had only me yet. People of all age group were walking in and out of the coach, and I could hear raw Hyderabadi slang; it felt soothing to my ears to hear Hyderbadi language after so long(four days precisely). But what do I do alone in this empty compartment of mine? Updated my facebook status, tagged a few friends in hilarious posts, wished happy birthday to few others, scrolled through facebook wall, but everything seemed so regular and boring.

A noisy bunch of people entered the coach from one end, perhaps they were a joint family as it had kids, aunties, uncles in their 50’s and a huge huge luggage. One of the kids yelled “45 se 52 wahan hai” and my eyes popped out. No no no,I didn’t want this noisy family in my compartment to ruin my peace. And before I could gulp this fact below my throat, they began filling my compartment. 45,46,48,49,51,52; they filled in all seats; aunties with their heavy sarees were trying to load their baggage on upper birth, while I hardly had place to move my ankle. It felt suffocated sitting amidst them as they tried to figure out seats for each other. Moving out of this family drama, I pulled my bag and sat at the other single window seat, to have my peace time.

“sabko apni jagah milgayi? Aur meri jagah kahan hai?” a girl standing at the entrance spoke.

It was the same girl I had seen at the food court, and who vanished before my eyes. Rude and bossy!! Bade baap ki beti. I turned my eyes to not look at her.

“kahan reh gayi thi itni der? Yahan toh sab baith gaye hain. Tu woh window ke paas baith ja” an elderly lady of the family told her, pointing at the seat before me.

I was moving my eyes looking at the lady and the girl, when she said “Excuse me, will you move your bag please?”

“Sure” I said in a low voice, breaking my eye contact and moved bag on to my lap. Squeezing my legs close to make way for her to sit, I wished that she doesn’t fuss now, asking for more leg space. She sat down comfortably, adjusted her clothes, gulped some water and relaxed, while I was trying to squeeze my legs, so that I don’t accidentally touch her. My bag was heavy, but there was no place to rest it. My eyes were looking for some space and she caught me.

“May I help you please? I think your bag can fit in here” she said, pointing at the berth above her. She took my bag and placed it gently there.

“Thank you” I said in a sweet voice, surprised by her sweet gesture. This wasn’t expected.

She smiled and went back to flipping the pages of the book she held.

At the food court, I had no time to look at her. And from the first impression I had of her, I didn’t even wish to look at her. But this second impression of her was different. She wore a pink top with a creamy brown night pant; a small, tight bun over her head, and moderate sized reading classes. She looked cute though. No lip gloss, no eye liner, no plastic put upon face; it seemed like she had forgotten her makeup box in a hurry. She was so immersed in reading the book that she didn’t look up even once.

“Why am I admiring her beauty? As if I have nothing important to do” said to myself and went back to Facebook.

A minute later, one of the two kids in the family moaned, finding it difficult to sit in such little space. She came weeping to her elder sister, sitting before me.

“Excuse me, I’m sorry but can she sit here? She wants to be with me” asked she, looking at me hoping I would nod at her.

“Bag rakhne ke liye jagah nahi hai,and now you want your sister here” I thought to myself. But before I could speak something, the little kid, moved my leg and found her space between us. I was gaping at her in dumb shock, thinking “Fuck, I better jump off the window than squeal here”

“Thank you, I hope you are comfortable “she spoke again, with that bloody disgustingly sweet smile on face. I nodded, having nothing else to say.

Bored of facebook, I thought of starting a conversation with her. But what do I say first? I never have spoken to a girl myself. The book in her hand was PRIDE and PREJUDICE. This seemed like good way to start things off. But at that very moment, the name of its author escaped my mind. Arthur Daniel, William Leslie; it wasn’t any of these names that passed my mind. Author’s name on the cover was so small, that I couldn’t read. I bent my head to have a better view of the cover, when she saw me.

“Pride and Prejudice, the best seller of its year” she said, showing me the book.

I leaned back, calmly and said “Of course, I know”, trying to sound confident.

“Have you read it? I bought this book a while ago at the stall” she said.

“No, I didn’t. But my friend has, and he said it’s good” I said with a shaky voice.

“Of course. That’s why I bought it” she responded, not sounding very friendly.

I leaned back to my seat and took a breath of relief. Thankfully I didn’t showcase as a fool, before her.

An hour passed and we kept quiet; I, hoping she would look at me and boost me to talk to her, and she, being deeply immersed in reading. Fuck! I hated that book in her hands so much. But I chose to break the silence myself.

“So, where do you live in Hyderabad?” I enquired, to which she raised her cheeky big eyes, hiding behind the large frame of glasses.

“Sultanpur. But we are shifting soon to Gandipet. We bought a new house there.” She grinned.

“Wow, that’s cool. And what’s with the visit to Chennai?” I questioned, desiring to know more.

“Big fat wedding. My cousin got married this week. And our entire family had attended it.” She said, showing me her mehendi.

“Is this all your family?”I blurted out, even before I knew what I had asked. That question was really offensive. I fucked up this good going conversation myself. But to my surprise, came her answer “No, the rest of my family is in the next coach. We couldn’t get our seats at one place. You see, ours is a joint family” she smirked.

That’s a GIANT family.

The conversation got better with time. She was sounding sweet to my ears, friendlier than I would expect a stranger to be (especially a girl), and preferring to talk to me over reading the book she carried. Had the sun risen in the east, or was I dreaming? Never had a girl been so nice to me to have talked to me for fifteen minutes at a stretch. Wow! Fifteen minutes of uninterrupted talk with a girl. That felt like an achievement in my life.

Rage of my expectation usually peaked in fraction of minutes. An introvert like me, had lots of things on his list that were yet to be experienced. Some of these to-do’s were talking to a girl, asking for her number, kissing someone, dancing in public with a girl and etc.

It was soon 8pm, and train halted for few minutes at a station. I peeked out of the window, and saw that more passengers were flooding the train. But our coach still seemed spacious, fairly vacant. By then, the giant family next to me had drooped over their Tiffin boxes, feeding each other, littering the entire seat like uncivilized barbarians. This girl, sat before me quietly eating her food, with her ear phones plugged in, and looking out of the window. She didn’t look like she was a part of this noisy, uncivilized family. She was different.

I was finished with the food I had bought for dinner. Stretching my arms, and yawning, I grabbed the novel in my bag. Before I opened the first page of it, the lights of the compartment were turned off. The family was done with dinner and shut the lights off to sleep in peace, unbothered of my presence there. Surprisingly, even the girl had fallen asleep in just a minute. Damn it, I wanted to talk to her, but I cannot dare to wake her for this silly desire of mine. I usually don’t sleep so early. WTF should I do now!!

Tossing around on my berth, I was looking at the dark sky, in a disgusted mood. I hadn’t caught any sleep since the lights turned down. My watch flashed 11pm and I let out a heavy breath of discomfort. The family was deep asleep, snoring heavily to their pleasures, where as I barely had space to move my legs. Cautious that I didn’t disturb the herd, I tiptoed to the door.

Silence brooded over the whole coach, as everyone was fast asleep. Finally there was some peace in the darkness of the coach. Cool breeze of air brushed my face as I stood at the door. Train had caught its full speed. Little lights glowed at a distance, and the feeble cry of cattle could be heard. I always wanted to live my life in a country side home like these, where peace wasn’t scarce. I sat down at the door, to live that moment for a little longer.

“You wouldn’t die if you jump off, instead would end up with broken limbs and disfigured face” I heard a voice from behind.

I turned around, and to my aghast it was her.

“What are you doing here?” I asked horrified.

“You surely don’t own this place. Do you?” her reply slammed on my face.

“I mean, you were asleep right? You lay motionless so long, so I thought you were fast asleep” I retorted.

“So you were stalking me!! “She probed doubtfully.

“Uhh…..” I fell silent. She caught me in the act.

“Chill…. So what are you doing here?” she enquired.

Tumhare family ne mujhe sone kahan diya. I let go off my disgust look on face and turned sweet, to answer her “I couldn’t sleep. I’m not used to sleeping so early.”

“Hmmm….” She exclaimed, sitting down next to me. She looked gorgeous as her hair flew over hair, and she pulled them across her ears.

“So what’s your story?” She asked, looking straight into my eyes. I was jolted by her question. My story!! What does she mean?

“I don’t have any story” I retorted.

“I mean, what brought you to Chennai?” she cleared.

“I was here to attend interviews at IITM”, I answered facing the fast moving trees outside.

“I thought IIT was a college, but not a company. What did you attend interviews for?” she pondered.

“It was for the post of research scholar. It’s for those who wish to do research” I explained in not more than a line, assured that she had no freaking idea of what it was.

“That’s cool” she exclaimed, but with an ironic expression. “Nerd” she whispered in silence.

With passing minutes, she made herself comfortable sitting next to me, leaning on the door for back rest, and closing her eyes now and then. Silence brooded over. I had started to feel little uncertain about how to initiate the talk, though deep within my mind wanted to spend the night talking to her.

“I didn’t catch your name”, I said timidly, trying to sound cool.

“I never told you my name” she replied in an imperious tone, with her eyes still closed. I was awed about how quickly she switches from being sweet the-girl-next-door kind of person to being bossy, egoistic brat kind of person.

I refrained from snapping back at her. Insecurity was driving me now.

“I mean, what’s your name?” I asked, not looking at her.

“Aisha….. Aisha Gujraal is my name. What’s yours?” I heard her question, while I was still gazing outside.

I turned to her, with a smile, but noticing that she still had her eyes closed, I retorted in despair “Devansh Awasthi”.

“Tum toh naam se hi nerd lagte ho”, she blurted out laughing to herself. But silenced, seeing my grave expression. Damn her senseless jokes.

“Sorry yaar, but I’m not used to talking to nerds. This is my first time” she said and giggled.

Offended to the limit, I turned, moved an inch away and went on to enjoy my own company.

“So, what do you do?” she enquired, pretending to be sweet again. I didn’t bother to respond back.

“Hello, I asked what you do” she raised her pitch to make herself audible, amidst the noise of the train.

“Graduation…. Pursuing B.Tech now.” I replied in mono-syllables. Who damn cares to answer her anyway? I dislike her already.

“Oh, I study Commerce, and I totally hate it.” She uttered in a miserable tone.

I already had heard this a million times from many. I wasn’t bothered by her reply, and kept my eyes glued to the view outside.

“I said I hate commerce” she yelled at her highest pitch, assuming that I hadn’t heard her the first time. Damn! Why does she want to be heard always? Why is she here to ruin my tranquility?

“Oh..” I muttered, not knowing what to respond. “so what do you wish to do, if not commerce”

“Fashion Designer!! I wish to be a fashion designer. This one time, I saw a movie in which the lead actress is a wedding planner, and since then, I have been obsessed about it” she said delightfully.

I had the faintest idea of this career choice. I had never heard anyone pursue it, but it surely sounded interesting.

“And how do you think of getting there?” I asked in amusement.

“I haven’t thought of it yet. But I will find a way” she said with a pleasant smile. She seemed certain about her choice of life. I turned towards her, and now she was facing me. It seemed like the perfect moment to start a conversation, now that we both had a pleasant expression.

Clock ticked 12, and I was puzzled about where to begin. The awkward silence, that crept in, amidst the pleasant smiles on our faces, had to cut down.

“Tell me about you. Where do you live in Hyderabad ?” she broke the hush.

And with that began our never ending talk. We were comfortable talking to each other, though we were complete strangers a few hours ago. I didn’t know the reason why? Perhaps it was because of the serene, tranquil night with its clear sky and dazzling star, that worked like magic.

Two hours passed, and we hadn’t stopped. I had never felt time fly so easy, and never had I talked to a girl for so long. I have to ask for her number. I don’t know how. Before I could utter the next word, I heard a voice from behind us.

“Aisha, what on earth are you doing here, at this time?” It was her aunt. She was horrified, seeing that we had been sitting for more than hour at the train door. To me, she looked nothing less than hungry lioness, ready to hunt me down. Her eyes blazed with anger, and in the flash of light that fell on her face, she looked like a blood thirsty vamp.

“ Chachi,main toh bas……” and before she could finish, she was shushed and dragged away by her aunt. I sat there baffled, thinking about what I could have said to avoid this from happening. But then, I felt Acha kiya jo kuch nahi bola, warna aur bura ho sakta tha. Perhaps we were meant to get along this far. I convinced myself that there was no coming back of her, and it was in best interest of me that I rested my eyes now. Less than two hours were left for the sun to hit the skies.

I woke up the next morning, not because of the sun rays peeking in from the adjacent window, but because of the chaos in the compartment. The GIANT family had woke up, and now I was seeing them, gravely staring at me. Instinctively I covered myself, fearing I might be in an obscene posture or was uncovered. Few seconds later, it struck me that the reason was what happened last night. I rolled my eyes around to avoid looking at them, but from the corner of my eye, I could still see Vamp Aunt explain them the scenario of last night. Embarrassed, I moved out to other compartment to avoid any further humiliation, and glued my eyes to my phone screen. A few minutes later, Aisha woke up. She seemed normal, unaffected and walked to washroom. She didn’t even notice me sitting by the window side, ready to smile at her if she looked. But she didn’t.

In less than 20 minutes, the train halted at Hyderabad station. The jostling crowd, waiting for 9am train to work, covered the entire platform. It wasn’t unusual. I grabbed my bags, and got down the train. As I was scanning through the crowd, I saw her family get down too. I stood at a distance, hoping that she would at least look for me. A minute passed, and it turned harder for me to stand there in despair. Finally, there family walked past me. I was still gazing at her, desperately hoping that she would turn around to look at that guy she spent the last night talking to. But no, it didn’t happen. Soon they disappeared in the crowd, and I was left there thinking “This was how it’s supposed to end. When did anything start in the first place? We only had a conversation for a few hours last night, in seclusion, which by no way means that we would see each other’s faces the next morning. I am a total jerk to have thought that the conversation mattered to her. She must have had thousands of such conversations with thousands of strangers…. But it certainly mattered to me, coz it was my first time.”

Soon, we parted our ways amidst the bustling crowd, and disappeared in the busy streets of Hyderabad, my home.

[d3-v0id]

this is supposedly a reaction paper for school but fuck the patriarchal system so

           When I was still a kid, I was given Barbie dolls, dollhouses, kitchen equipment-like toys, and the usual; all for the sole reason that “those toys are for girls.” When I was around 8 years old, I was started to be taught how to sit properly because apparently, sitting with my legs spread out is improper for only boys sit in that manner. Also, my adult relatives would tell me to keep my voice on a low volume because girls shouldn’t speak loudly for it would be “tactless”. When I was in grade 6, my parents found out that I have friends whose sexual orientation isn’t straight. We had a sit-down conversation about how, according to the Bible, men are for women and vice versa. Another incident was when I was 13. I was really clumsy then and what they told me was, “Kababae mong tao, lalaki ka kumilos. Tomboy ka ba?” Last but not the least, the most popular experience for every woman up to date, being catcalled. I’m wearing shorts; I get catcalled because I’m showing too much skin. I wear a shirt and jeans; I still get catcalled. So, where should I actually stand?

           This all roots from patriarchy that gave birth to its sons, double standards and gender roles. I got aware of such terms when I was in grade 8. Social media was an eye-opener for me because it gave me awareness not only to those terms but also feminism. At first, I thought it was only empowerment for women. As I grew older, I realized that its goal was to have equality with respect to all the genders. I never knew I was a feminist until I knew that feminism exists. I have always been fighting for equality between boys and girls. I used to always question my parents why boys could do this while girls aren’t allowed to and vice versa. For instance, when it comes to kids playing toys, how come a car is strictly to be played by boys only? I mean, what does it have to do with the sex of a person? They’re mere toys for God’s sake! When those toys were created, did they already have a label which states, “Cars: for boys only.” or “Barbie dolls: for girls only.”? I don’t think so.

This basis is just created by humans and it saddens me that instead of trying hard enough to correct such notion, even women, themselves, become victims of hegemony that they acquired and started living out double standards as well. Mothers have started telling their female children the all-too-familiar “kababae mong tao” line. Society has been teaching women not to wear clothes that show too much skin. Schools and churches have started creating dress codes. Some schools even address the dress code to girls alone because wearing sleeveless tops and shorts might “distract boys”. As for catcalling, we are only ever catcalled because we wear clothes that imply that we are “asking for it”. We get verbally harassed because of a sorry excuse that “boys are boys”. In this patriarchal society, it’s as if rape is okay because we wanted it just because we wore what we think is comfortable for us. It’s as if it’s our fault that men think in that manner. The funny thing is that no one ever taught men not to objectify women. No one ever told them whether a woman is “asking for it” is not dependent on what she wears.

Other than that, women are also degraded in such a way that it is expected that she can’t do what men can and if she does, she still gets the lesser credit for it. There’s also this invisible rule wherein boys are taught at a very young age that they shouldn’t cry but girls can or women should be housewives and let their husbands do all the work. Besides the fact that women are being downgraded and deprived from maximizing their capabilities by society’s gender roles, men too can be victimized by this. Men are victimized for a lot is expected from them. Doing the opposite of what is expected from them or what is too feminine for them may lead to them being judged by society thus, their ego will be stepped on. So, they would rather do whatever is in accordance with the invisible law of gender roles. Today, I am actually glad that some names of occupations have been changed for them to be gender neutral to make jobs sound suitable for both men and women. But I do hope for parents’ hegemonic thinking to change that one’s sex should never hinder one person to feel. Sensitivity will never ever define one’s sex. Everyone must get rid of their mental notion that some things are considered as feminine or masculine. Everything can be done by any of the sexes, by any of the different and multiple genders.

From society’s gender roles, people are deprived from their freedom to choose however they want to express themselves, whoever they want to love. Homophobic people believe that men are created for women only and vice versa. They criticize people for being gay, lesbian, and all the other existing genders. They even associate God saying that what God wants is for them to stick to their biological sex. These people end up being discriminated and sometimes, assaulted. The worst case scenario for them is death. They don’t have the full freedom to practice their sexual identity. For some schools like ours, girl to girl relationships aren’t allowed and it’s quite saddening how at an early age, people are given the mindset that one is caged to love anyone ONLY from the opposite sex because that is what’s socially appropriate. Also, one must not cut her hair too short because that might indicate that she’s lesbian or that “she’s acting like a guy but she isn’t a guy”. But honestly, so what? It’s as if how you are as a person and how you cut your hair could measure your level of intelligence.

See, feminism isn’t about fighting against the inequality between men and women. It’s about standing up for equality among all the genders in general. Furthermore, it doesn’t degrade men. What it does is empower all the other genders enough to convince this patriarchal society that all sexes and genders are equal. Men aren’t superior. We are all in the same level with one another.

I actually don’t know what kind of feminist I am but all I know is that I really want patriarchy and everything else that comes along with it to be eradicated. If not fully, at least, convince majority of the world to raise boys and girls the same way so that when they grow up, they will know better not to conform to society’s double standards and gender roles.

For now, social media is an eye-opener for a lot of people when it comes to patriarchy, objectification, double standards, gender roles, and the LGBTQ+. Or, at least, that is what I’m seeing. Yes, there are still people who posts misogynistic comments on other people’s posts but more often than not, a lot of other people will defend the person who owns the post and go against the person who commented. If not misogynistic comments, they will also say something about how women shouldn’t do this and that because this and that are a man’s job and duty. They’d also say something that is meant to discriminate those who are part of the LGBTQ+. Again, a lot of other people will post comments as well correcting the person who commented negatively to disrespect.

For me, that is a step forward in destroying this patriarchal society. Through social media, you will see how some people still imbibe the patriarchal mindset but a lot of other people, the majority, are aware and are against the said mindset and the aforementioned kind of society. People, especially from our generation, can be seen stating their stand against our fucked up patriarchal system and it really makes me happy because when this generation grows up, they’ll know how they’ll raise their children. They will most probably be the kind of parents who, instead of telling their daughters not to wear revealing clothes for them not to be catcalled or objectified; they will be the kind of parents who will teach their sons not to disrespect women just because of how she looks and what she wears. This generation will teach their children that they can wear whatever they want to; if girls can wear pants then boys can wear skirts. This generation will teach their children that society shouldn’t dictate how you should be as a person, but society probably won’t because by then, society is composed of our generation, a generation who destroyed the old fucked up nonsensical patriarchal fucking system that’s full of utter bullshit. This generation will tell their sons and daughters that it’s okay to love people from any of the genders. In our generation, women can go ahead wearing whatever they want and that doesn’t mean they’re doing it for men. Women can go out wearing short skirts and cropped tops without being catcalled because she’s not a subject for objectification and men respect her. In our generation, it’s okay for girls to open up the door for boys. It’s okay for men to do household chores while women go to work. It’s okay for girls to be interested in cars and boys in dolls. In our generation, there is no such thing as patriarchy, nor double standards, nor gender roles.

Now that this generation is the most aware, we have nothing else to do but be an eye-opener for other people to little by little erase the patriarchal notion and eradicate the patriarchal system. We must stand up for what we believe in at all costs, spread awareness through social media, join organizations that benefit all the genders, and the like. We can only do so much as individuals but these little things could contribute to the correcting of society’s system in a big scale if most, if not all, of us are enlightened that patriarchy and its subsystems shouldn’t be the case in our daily lives.

There is no specified set of rules and duties for any specific gender. Anyone and everyone is free to do whatever they want regardless the gender. Anyone and everyone is free to love whoever she wants to. And that doesn’t make him/her/it/they any less of a person. Because in the end, we’re all just humans and with only our skeletons left of us, knowing our sexuality or gender wouldn’t matter.

[iwanttopissonthewallsofyour-blog]

The “Beginning”

Really I should have started this blog a year ago. But here we go: time to catch up a little.

Around this time last year I had my first severe panic attack in 3+ years. At the time of this panic attack it was the summer of my third year of university and I was a research assistant to one of my professors for three months. My panic attacks years prior used to be most commonly triggered by large crowds, but when this one happened I was working in a lab all by myself for 7 hours a day 5 days a week. So it wasn't crowds. About a month leading up to the panic attack I was thinking a lot about gender. A lot about my gender specifically, and what I was even really sure of anymore. In the back of my head at that point I knew I was trans, but I just didn't want to admit it to myself. I knew how hard it would be if I decided to transition, and I knew how much shit I would have to go through, and my brain was trying to weigh out whether or not it was worth it. I had decided it was worth it. It was that realization that triggered my panic attack. I knew I had to go through with it. If I didn't I know I wouldn't be here today.

I am pretty used to dealing with panic attacks and recognizing when one is coming on, but part of my job entailed weighing out very small amounts of heavy metal salts (very dense, so for the amount I needed to weigh-a few milligrams-all that was need was a few grains), and my hands kept shaking so much that I couldn’t precisely weigh the amount I needed. I decided to take a step outside and get some fresh air. On my way out of the lab it suddenly hit me: cold sweats, trembling, hyperventilating, and severe anxiety. I ran outside to get some fresh air and couldn’t bring myself down from it. So I went to my prof’s office and asked if I could go home early as I was feeling sick. I drove down the block and immediately call my gp and scheduled an appointment. I asked to get referred to a psychologist, as my GP knew I’ve had issues with anxiety and panic attacks before. He told me that my university offers free mental health services to its students.

I proceeded to email Counselling and Psychological Services at my school to schedule an appointment. Luckily I got in very quickly as it was during the summer. I went into this session with the intent to be upfront with my psychologist as to what the problem was. I didn’t do it. I just told her I had a panic attack for the first time in years. The only person that knew I was trans at this point was a close friend of mine 8 hours away. So by the end of the session she pretty much told me I knew how to identify and handle panic attacks and that there was not much else she could do for me. She offered to see me again if I wanted, so I scheduled another. This time I opened up immediately with the fact that I think I knew what caused my panic attacks: I am transgender. I am still seeing this psychologist semi-monthly, and she is by far the best I have ever had.

That summer, I went to the city where my close friend mentioned above lives and I went shopping with a female friend. This was my first time buying women’s clothes; I couldn’t have been. I actually enjoyed shopping for clothes the first time in my life. After this I started wearing women’s clothes, though they looked mostly androgynous.

Throughout the fall semester of 2016 I gradually came out to close friends and got overwhelmingly positive responses.

Somewhere in there I also started wearing makeup. I first started wearing it mostly because I felt like I had to, or I wanted to cover any stubble that couldn't be taken care of by shaving. Now I wear it strictly because I want to, and while I still wear it because I want to cover facial hair, I don’t do it for others. I do it to make myself happy and comfortable, not out of a fear of what people will think of me.

I think around October, I came out to my mother. My mother is generally a open-minded and caring person, but she is a very Christian woman and has a very stern head when it comes to shifting her ideas. But I’m sure we’ll get into that more in the future. The response wasn't very positive, but it was still better than I expected I think. She was shocked and didn’t understand. My friends in high school and I started a GSA in our school that we called the Pride Alliance, as we wanted to include everyone. So my mom knew about this and was fine with it. So I think when I sat her down to tell her in our local coffee shop she thought I was going to come out as gay.

But I still had to come out to my dad. I’ve always had a rocky relationship with my dad. My parents split up when I was 7, and my mom had primary custody. For about 5 years we did split custody. I would go with my dad every second weekend. It came to a point where I didn't want to be bound by a court order. I wanted to go on my own accord. My dad wasn’t happy about this. We never shared many common interests so we always kinda did what he wanted, as he didn’t know what else to do other than what his father did with him. I believe that my dad always has and still does want a good relationship with me, he’s just never known how.

Somewhere around Christmas I came out to my father and step-mom. I first contacted my step-sister that is two years older than I am for her support if anything went wrong. Prior to this she did not know either. She had a very positive response and has been very supportive. My step-mom reacted well, although she talked a little too much to awkwardly fill the silence. She’s always tried to reach out to me more than my father and she’s a big reason my dad and I have a relationship at all. I like her, and she’s done my dad a lot of good. My dad didn’t say a word at the dinner table other than nod his head. He then proceeded to slam the rest of the wine in his glass and spoke up with, “No matter what happens, I’ll always love you, and you’ll always be my son.”. I know he meant well by this, and he was in shock as well, but it still really hurt.

Somewhere in between these events I was also seeing my GP and discussing hormone replacement therapy (HRT). I expressed my desire with him to start HRT, and he was a little hesitant But after I filled him in on everything and we talked about it he was very supportive. We reached the conclusion that my cholesterol and weight needed to go down before I could start. I agreed with this - and still do - as I have a family history of heart disease on both sides of my family, and MtF (male to female) HRT increases risk of heart disease. This is still on ongoing process. I was vegan for 2 years for health reasons, and during that period I was about 225lbs. and my cholesterol was half of what it was when I got blood work earlier in January. When I weighed in then I think I was almost 290lbs. and now I’m about 270-265, but it’s been a couple months since I’ve weighed myself. For reference, I am about 6ft. tall. 225 was my ideal weight, and is more or less where we aim to get along with my cholesterol when I was vegan. I haven't been vegan for almost 3 years, and I am currently vegetarian.

In early January I came out publicly on Facebook. Responses were more positive than I could have ever imagined. I still look back at that post sometimes when I need motivation or I’m feeling shitty. Even with the positive responses, I have lost a few people from my friends list in addition to me removing or unfollowing people for being transphobic.

Shortly after this I got my gender legally changed on all my ID’s.

In early May I legally changed my name.

I’m working in another lab on campus now since July assisting a masters student with her project until the end of August. Most everyone in the lab has been good about my name and pronouns, even people I knew from working there in January when I wasn’t public about my gender change and my name hadn’t been changed yet.

I start my 4th and final year of my degree (BSc. Environmental Science: Chemistry) in the Fall.

I really wish that I started this journal/blog earlier, as there is a lot I wished I had written down. I’m sure some of it will come up later anyways. It’s very overwhelming sometimes to think how far I still need to go. But I’ve done so much this past year, all while somehow passing these past two semesters. My wonderful, beautiful friends are a big part of me surviving this long honestly. I can’t be more grateful.

It’s gonna be a fucking ride, but it always gets better.