#see my reading thread for more

[nyx-b-log]

Am I Trans Enough? by Alo Johnston

thanks to netgalley for the arc!

read: oct 2022

rating: 4*

summary:

see title ;) more seriously, a self-help text written by a therapist for people who are experiencing doubt in and of their transness.

opinion:

this is a really affirming read! or at least it was to me.

to some extent i think this is the kind of book which each reader will get varying mileage out of depending on what they relate to and what they need. cishet people might struggle (but i still believe it could be useful for them! you never know what gender is lurking, plus allyship!), but people who have a more complex relationship with gender will (i believe) find parts that they relate to, if not the whole thing.

the book itself covers a variety of potential trans and nonbinary experiences and historical context, and tho i bounced off the first half (with the exception of the exploration of the strange feeling of trying new pronouns which made me feel a lot better about a fear i'd been diminishing) the second half felt much more practiceable. towards the end there's three separate chapters, one each on being a trans man, woman, and nonbinary.

(the author also acknowledges that this doesn't and can't cover all potential identities and experiences. how you feel about that is up to you.)

and, of course, the gist of the book is that yes, yes you are trans enough.

the chapters themselves are very short, a couple of pages each, and any longer ones are broken up with sub-sections, so it's very easy to read. plus, if anything comes up that you really need to sit and think about for a while - and like me, you have a base need to finish chapters before putting the book down - you can!

but, bear in mind, i don’t technically identify myself as trans (though i use multiple pronouns), so this was more of an interesting reading exercise, with a few hopes that maybe some of those minor niggling doubts were more universal than i'd initially thought. (surprising literally no one, they were).

however, as a person relatively newly playing with gender, i did feel very affirmed and reassured by both the writing style and the content.

it's also, for anyone concerned, open and accepting of detransition as an option, and supports more fluid experiences of gender. (low bar, i know, but appreciated.)

my only critiques with it are that it seems to try and cover too much at once, and ends up covering a lot of stuff in a very light way. this, coupled with the lack of activities makes it feel like a sort of superficial book. to put it another way, i feel like my knowledge around trans doubt has changed, but i'm not entirely sure how to approach feeling different around my own doubt.

not unhelpful tho! and the long list of resources and notes in the back are greatly appreciated!

but still, i think i was hoping for a bit more depth.

on the whole, i enjoyed this book and found it useful! would recommend to anyone early in their gender journey, or perhaps looking for a little insight into other gender identities.

[niinnyu]

Here's why I think the Gojo bait is not great writing and why you should maybe think so too (Spoilers till jjk 260).

We've spent the last few chapter consistently establishing a few things about our protagonist (Yuuji) and our antagonist(Sukuna).

1. Yuuji's father's soul is a reincarnation of Sukuna's twin: This instantly creates a connection between Sukuna and Yuuji.

As if you needed one outside of Sukuna's constant mockery of his former vessel's lack of "competance", and that most of yuuji's biggest losses can be attributed to Sukuna, building his wrath brick by brick. But surely adds to it all.

2. Yuuji feels incredibly lonely right now: Anyone he's created any sort of meaningful (?) Bond with outside of just 'hey you're an ally I can fight alongside with' is currently either dead or greatly incapacitated.

3. Also ofc the absolute damage that Yuuji has started incurring on sukuna. Damage that the slew of sorcerors before him couldn't. Forget about everyone teaching him abou love, Yuuji will show him Burning Rage.

This while also having hinted at Yuuji being possibly strong enough to do so on his own. He can go head to head with the King Of Curses with or without the help of his fellow sorcerors once he is able to harness this power.

Anything that was Gojo vs Sukuna feels absolutely irrelevant with the build up that Gege themself has been creating through the past few chapters.

Gojo's form right at the end of the chapter undercuts the pacing completely. Readers are more interested in those last 2 panels of Gojo which are completely removed from and rather jarring to the buildup between Yuuji and Sukuna. Fan interest in Gojo isn't their fault because that's what the chapter makes you focus on.

The only way I see this continue the buildup is if this is somehow Yuuji's doing or done with his knowledge, in which case it'd have been better to end the chapter by showing that Yuuji is aware of it and has an ace up his sleeve, bringing it back to the 2 relevent characters, and for people to stew in what Yuuji could be up to for a week.

But no matter what Gojo's visage there means, Yuuji in this moment has been so greatly undermined, not by his lack of strength, not by Sukuna outright demeaning him, but by the writing itself. By Gege.

And oh, how Yuuji deserves better.

[purplebass]

I realized something when I reread A Life Erased. That Kell's mother as we've "seen" her in the short story, somehow is hinted at in bits and pieces in Lila. It's like Lila was giving hints about Kell's mother all along and his past before he was given up.

His mom gave him a knife with his real initials on it. Lila is fond of knives, and even though Lila is not her birth name, the name she tells Kell to call her after they introduce each other starts with L, just like his real surname. Those two initials on the knife make me think about the initials lovers carve on tree trunks. I've already said multiple times that knives are symbolic of their relationship, and this object is also symbolic of Kell's identity intertwining with Lila's and viceversa.

His mom was a fire magician. The first magic Lila tries to call on is fire. His mom and dad likely did illegal things like thieving and traveled on ships, because the text specifies her arms are tanned. Kell's mom has fair skin and red hair just like him, so I assume she must've been a lot under the sun to be described as tanned. Lila used to be a thief, and now she's the captain of a ship. Moreover, one of the ships Lila raids in AGOS is called the Copper Thief. Who has copper hair? Kell, but also his mom.

Perhaps we will see Kell's parents again in future tftop books.

[tricksterlatte]

Anyone else think short form social media based on algorithms designed to promote topics that create more engagement instead of more joy, the idea of fast fashion but conveyed through social media, and the fact you can monetize suffering and outrage better than ever has largely resulted in the death spiral of media literacy and the mass emergence of bad faith readings?

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

reopening the ask box is like... just finishing vacuuming shed cat hair, and then immediately going and petting said cat vigorously & watching with delight as So Much Fur sheds right back onto the floor

[eijiroukiriot]

it's been a sec since i've done a translation! but i think this comic is really sweet so translation under the cut!! the title on the comic is "kiribaku and tododeku who aren't public about their relationship (having mild heart attacks)", and the caption on the tweet is "i wanna read 10000 stories about people finding out about kiribaku and tododeku's relationships"

Hero Radio OFFTiME! On our program, you can hear top heroes spill a little bit about their private lives. Today's hosts are Deku and Red Riot! What kinds of things will they talk about? Let's see!

Midoriya: Man, you must be tired! You came here straight after a night shift, right? Are you feeling alright?

Kirishima: All good! Besides, you've been working ten days in a row, right? Good on you!

(word bubbles - Very, Very Tired)

M: Alright then, our first letter of the night...this one comes to us from BlueMackerel-san, who asks, "How did you spend your last day off?"

K: Uhh...oh yeah! Hiked 'n camped! And ate a ton of campfire food!

M: Oh, with Kacchan?

K: Yep!

M: He sure does like hiking.

Flashback Kirishima: WHOOPIE!!

Flashback Bakugou: Just eat it

M: What'd you two eat?

K: The works! Spare ribs, and homemade sausage, and meat, and more meat! Bakugou always packs a ton of meat to barbecue, it's crazy good! What about you?

M: Mmm...I slept in until around noon...and I think that day, Todoroki's family invited me over for dinner. His sister is a great cook!

Flashback Fuyumi: Welcome, welcome!

K: Coooool. So we both ended up just spending the day with our boyfriends, huh-

M: UH- um-

K: Huh? OH-! Cut! Cut!! Can you guys pretend you didn't hear that last...

M: Ohhhh my goddddddd

Narration: Our next letter comes to us from DieYouScum-san, who writes, "I'm killing you when you get home"

[phoenixfiiire]

Tentatively maybe returning tomorrow, maybe... friday? Depends on vibes and what me and Sera are doing.

There is going to be a rule change for my own comfort. This sounds ominous and for all I know it is but I don't have the energy to really write it out eloquently so I'm just going to ramble in tags for now.

[ziracona]

I’m going to be thinking about this

One panel of comic for the next 8 years of my life

[covenofthearticulate]

wait a fucking second I am just now putting the dots together and realizing all these short sentence drabble prompts are all coming about because I reblogged that sentence starter meme originally on my Louis RP blog LMFAO. It is so jarring to see niche tumblr rp things make it into the wider fandom and I was so confused but now I'm mostly delighted LOL

[godsfavoritescientist]

How do I explain the ways in which the bill origins fic 'A Romance of Many Dimensions' by haley3 rewired my brain without needing to give paragraphs upon paragraphs of context. The fic is something like 200,000 words long. Almost every single good moment calls back to things that are set up earlier in the fic

[chibishortdeath]

Hmmm I kinda want to make a side blog for RPG Maker game development related things to be able to talk to more experienced people in that community, but at the same time I both don’t really think I’d get much attention and don’t want to accidentally spoil my own game (^^ ; ).

I have a rough story, concept doodles, a tileset, some character sprites, an enemy that walks around but can’t initiate battle yet (if I even decide to have a battle system), a couple rooms with some events, and a functioning run button, but I’m still lost on how to do much else at the moment. Especially since this program has the ability for scripting, meaning I’ll probably have to learn and actually retain another coding language.

So, I’m not very far at all lol. Idk how well that’d go over on the established fandom website, but eh.

[lady-ika]

hands you love and peace

[tathrin]

Posted this one a little while ago, but does an abandoned fic even know time...? (Answer: clearly not.)

The premise of the fic is a what-if? canon-divergence idea where both Gandalf and Aragorn die in Moria, leaving the Fellowship to struggle on without either of their leaders.

And unfortunately, I did not leave any notes for my future-self when I started working on it originally, so every time I've tried to go back to it since my initial burst of work has run into the roadblock of my having no (middle-)earthly idea what was meant to HAPPEN?

I still don't know, but here's the immediate aftermath at least, while the Fellowship tries to pull themselves together in Lórien and figure out how to go on with the Quest without Aragorn or Gandalf there to guide them. We make it as far as the Anduin...

And there we leave them, to sink or swim as chance wills.

@goodintentionswipfest

[gibbearish]

anyone else experience the thing where you have like. ships in law. like someone you follow is turbo into a pairing from a media you know nothing about so youre like. well guess this is our ship now

[ofgentleresolve]

ferre's thoughts!

hi everyone! so sorry to have been absent ( or at least very sporadic ) here and across all my other blogs- i promise i never stopped thinking about my muses and all of the wonderful dynamics i have with everyone!! recently though, i guess i've been feeling a bit...meh about this blog?? so i'm just going to ramble for a hot second in these bullet points to air out my thoughts and hopefully i can get to some kind of conclusion here....feel free to throw your own opinions in here if you want to!!

this is my fault, but uh, i think i accidentally isolated myself on this blog?? like, these days most of my activity rp-related has been in discord, but i would like...to reach to ppl again if they are still interested....that being said, i know i say i love plotting with other muns, but i also know that truthfully, it takes me a while to open up and it probably doesn't help that i can take like weeks to get back to ppl ic wise....i dont want to get into the details but i'll just say that this summer was kinda...not great ( don't worry nothing bad happened, i'm just going thru a rough patch....) so that's been killing my writing mojo for a while ://

this also relates to the first point, but i realize plotting really does make a difference to me about whether or not i'm excited for a thread so i'll probably make a note about that when i rewrite & condense my rules....

ever since i moved patrick to his own blog, i've noticed that annie ( and since i gave him a connection to her ) and ga ram seem to be the most active on there...tbh there are some muses on my main muse roster that truthfully, haven't been used in months due to the lack of plots/active dynamics- i don't want to get rid of them bc nostalgia and i do intend to write them on occasion, but....if they aren't garnering as much interest then i might just have to switch around my rosters a bit....

this blog isn't nearly as much of a slice-of-life blog as it used to be....if anything, i feel like it might be better to call it a crime & slice-of-life multimuse considering that the muse who seems to come out the most often now is annie....as such i was wondering if....perhaps changing the aesthetics of this blog might help with getting into the mood for writing on here again?? if anything patrick and calum's blogs seem to embody this blog's current core themes more ^^'

this might also mean changing the username for this blog....although i will say, i am quite attached to this url as it's been my brand for YEARS... but on the other hand perhaps a url with a bit more...grit to it could help ( that and if it is change then better to accept than resist...right?? )

also saw lena on my dash ( WHICH WAS A SIGN OF A GOOD DAY FOR ME 🥺🥺🥺 ) and i lowkey?? wanna follow in their footsteps aka be more lax and free-flowing on here...so i might drop the formatting ( sans the small text ) bc that does, i will admit, take up more time to post responses than anything else :'D

okay if you read all of this, thanks for listening, i promise everything will be fine on my end <3 i really really just miss writing on here and being part of dashboard shennagans so....hope to see?? you all soon in the meanwhile, will try to get to some memes & maybe do the bingo boards for some of my muses here <3

[shikai-the-storyteller]

I know Quackity said "Don't stress if you can't watch every single POV and if you don't know all the lore" and all that, but it genuinely frustrates me so much that I cannot, realistically, know every single detail of the QSMP storyline. Even trying to just focus on the "main" story isn't possible since so many people are doing things tied to it, and so many unexpected things happen.

I don't really have a point to make with this post, I'm just venting my frustrations. I like knowing complete stories and knowing I can't do that with QSMP frustrates me so much.