#so it was my partner who figured out that these conversations activate my dysphoria like a nuclear bomb.

[non-un-topo]

Have to thank my partner for realizing before I did that talking about kids with people makes me extremely dysphoric --- whereas I thought I just had a problem and hated children or something lol

[hikari-ni-naritai]

Em Im so upset!!! just accept myself for who I am? I do wanna be intimate with someone, but for some reason my brain won't accept that! It just keeps telling me like, "hey, maybe this time you won't be grossed out by it, why don't you try this other thing, I bet this time you'll actually like it like everyone else" and it's been like this for years! I feel like I'm going insane, why can't I just accept what I do and don't like and leave it at that? Why do I have such a drive to try and prove myself wrong, while failing every time? I don't understand it and It's driving me completely insane.

I'm having some trouble figuring out if you mean you're having actual intimate encounters or not, but I think the message makes the most sense if you are, so I am going to assume that's the intended meaning. If I'm wrong, please let me know so I can give you a better response!

Anyway if this is the case, I think most likely you really need to spend time actively trying to accept yourself. It's not something that like, just kinda happens on its own, yknow? You've got an unhelpful pattern of thinking and you can really only break those by purposefully fighting them when they show up.

Of course, I don't have any idea what the underlying motivation is here. If your brain is telling you these things because you're in a relationship with someone and they expect you to do it with them, then it's probably fear that they'll leave if you won't, and in that case you're going to need to sit them down and have a conversation about this. And if they can't accept that you're sex repulsed, it's honestly healthier for you to not be in that relationship. Without that external pressure, you might not feel like it's so important that you like it. You'd probably still have to work through that thought process, but it'd be easier to say 'no, I know I don't like sex and there's nothing wrong with that' if you don't have someone who wants you to do it.

Now if that's not the case and you don't have a partner, and you're just desperate to be So Normal And Regular that you're going out to find people to sleep with to prove it, this is insane person behavior. I don't think this is what you're doing. I want to believe this is not what you're doing. If it is, you need to stop doing that and start very seriously learning to accept yourself. The very second those thoughts start you need to cut them off and say 'fuck off, I don't like it and that's okay.' I cannot imagine this amount of pressure to conform to some arbitrary standard that you don't even like. If you can't break it on your own and you have been trying, consider therapy.

There's a few possible fringe cases here. If you're trans, and you are sure this isn't just a desire to Be Normal, you may be experiencing severe dysphoria. This would typically manifest with particular disgust towards your own body, perhaps projected outward onto others. If you think this might be the case, I can talk about my own dysphoria in that regard and maybe you can confirm your own or rule it out.

Additionally, if you've either never had an intimate encounter or you've only had them with people you weren't actually into, you might be extremely demisexual. I know personally the thought of sex with anyone I'm not into is like. Eugh. Nasty. You can pretty easily rule this one out if you've ever dated someone you really liked and still found the whole experience gross and awful (though if you were *both* demi and very bottom dysphoric, you still might not have liked it, but that's less likely)

The fact of the matter is, anon, it's okay to be a little bit different from other people. If you're trying to fit the standard of Normal, you've already failed utterly by talking about your problems to a random trans lesbian on tumblr. If you're the anon I think you are, your drive to be Normal is something you REALLY need to work on yourself, and not something I can fix by answering asks. It's hard fuckin work and it sucks and you're gonna hate every minute of it but there is no other option. You either have to beat it back with a stick until it stops showing its ugly face or deal with the pressure to do things you hate for the rest of your life. Good luck

[i-want-it-on-fire]

Ok I just need to lose my shit for a second. Six months ago I'm like "oh I think I will trans my gender, this is good, this feels right, this feels like me" and now it sort of feels like the universe is just telling me very quietly to get back in the closet, like-

Thought parents would be chill about this since me being a huge queer isn't exactly new? Nope. Totally threw a grenade at our family dynamic. Never felt this distant from them.

Get on hormones? Sure, simple enough. Partner already did the hard work trying to figure the process out for themself, so it should be simpler for me, right? Can't get appointment until August. We may have left the state by then. Still don't have new doctor lined up. Don't know what future of health insurance is because don't know what future of job is.

Change name and pronouns? Hell yeah. And while you're at it, how about your change your work hours to full time. Also you're not out at work. Also you spend the vast majority of your waking hours at work. And when you're not at work, people you're out to rarely have cause to refer to you in conversation. Never hear name and pronouns. Get an opportunity to? Get chided by random hotel guy that I should use my legal name when booking stuff. Too paranoid about getting in trouble to give anyone other than restaurant cashiers my new name for things. It's like nothing's changed.

Actually get a different, masc haircut that feels much better than I thought it would from a stylist who was much cooler than I thought she'd be? Doesn't last. Next cut I get ends up wonky, and instead of looking cute and vaguely boyish I feel like I look like me four-ish years ago with my stupid undercut that just looks weird and bad in pictures. I never even had Gender feelings about my hair until I got a good masc cut, and now it's like, oh great! Now I can have dysphoria about things I never cared about before! Love that for me!!

Like, I'm so pissed, because there's a well-trod anxiety path in my brain that activates whenever I meet even the slightest resistance (perceived or real) to something I'm doing that's maybe a little ambitious or even just, like, difficult for other people to ignore. And that path goes like "I'm really excited to try this new thing, I think I've thought it through enough, and I'm ready to do it!" -> "oh other people don't seem as excited as I am, or they think I haven't thought it through enough, maybe they're right, and I shouldn't be excited?" -> "it's going to take a lot more work to do this than I realized, and now I feel like I'm being annoying, maybe I should dial it back and shut up for a bit" -> "it's getting too hard to keep moving forward with this thing, I'm just going to stop because this idea probably wasn't as good as I thought it was to begin with, and everyone else saw that except me, so I'm going to stop bothering everyone with this." And that path is trying to activate with this, and I'M! NOT! OK! WITH THAT!!

I want to keep pushing forward regardless, and like, I'm gonna because I know my stupid brain is an asshole and wrong, but that doesn't stop it from telling me "Yeah go ahead if you want to, but you're gonna be miserable the whole time because everyone else can tell that, tbh, this isn't going to work. This is a silly look on you, why would you expect anyone to take you seriously? You're setting yourself up to be disappointed over and over again. Just give up, don't bother correcting people or trying to present as something you're clearly not. It's better to take the path of least resistance. You'll at least keep your peace of mind that way by accepting it and not letting it get to you."

And I'm like...not having a good time

[bitch-in-a-bag]

can we talk about how the LGBT movement has changed in the past 15 years?

in the light of the events surrounding Chris chan, and people prioritizing pronouns over the rape of a woman with dementia, I think it displays just how... different things are.

i personally feel like it's been co-opted by the more loud and entitled mtfs/ males/penis-havers/whatever pc term exists for the XY chromosome'd, who go too far and aren't reasonably kept in check. I think terf no longer has meaning anymore because it's just become a word we use to silence anyone that disagrees with a trans woman. immediately you're going to call me a terf, I accept that, but please continue reading. I may suprise you. calling someone who's transgender a terf is kinda messed up anyway, and that's exactly why im writing this.

I also think that everyone else (allies, ftms, etc) have followed suit because they've written this messed up narrative that EvErYoNe iS VaLiD. except for trans penis-havers, bc they're the most oppressed and the most valid, actually, regardless of their experiences.

I never used to believe the above because it was always written off as terf shit, and ignoring it kinda benefitted me, but between seeing ftms getting bashed for refusing to follow new "TME" rules as if they aren't trans too, and seeing outrage around Chris chans pronouns, I think it's time to start saying things that may make people uncomfortable. innocent people are already getting hurt by this, and we need to do better. it's time to get uncomfortable.

I want to remind you that perception is both the relying factor, and also the downfall of newer lgbt theory. if my profile were mtf coded, maybe it currently is, you'd call me a self hating trans and I wouldn't be that big of a deal. terfs would probably target me.

if my profile was ftm coded, I would be absolutely skewered for daring to speak out about these issues, even though they do actually affect ftms disproportionately. terfs would try to convince me that being trans is a plague and a mental illness, and to just ~be a cis woman~!

and if assumed cis, I would 100% be assumed radfem terf, and everything I say would immediately be dismissed because of the genuine damage terfs have done. but terfs would still probably flock to this post and berate me for daring to validate trans people At All, because to them, being transgender is a mental illness akin to an eating disorder, and "giving in" to it is "self harm". clearly I don't believe that, so hopefully you'll give me at least some benefit of the doubt.

so, does my identity matter? i have a feeling you'll say yes, because it gives us a good idea of experiences I do and don't have expertise in, and thus room to talk about. but I refuse to directly identify what I actually am because I want the focus of any resulting conversation to be my message and not my self identification. if you read between the lines and figure it out that's just fine, but I would like to be heard first and foremost.

my profile is thus an attempt at being cis female coded, somewhat out of comfort, and that is likely what I'll be assumed to be due to the beliefs I am expressing, even though there is a substantial risk of getting misgendered and dismissed, no matter what my birth sex may actually be. i will give you a hint about my identity: I am transgender, on HRT and everything, and I have been personally affected by all of this. rest assured, this is well within my lane to speak about, and it does matter if you misgender me.

I want you to really think about that. before you respond, really think about if someone saying words on tumblr, talking about their OWN experiences and their take on recent history that applies to themself, really more worthy of being misgendered and harassed than... someone who said they transitioned so they could date lesbians, and then raped their own mother with dementia.

is that fair or just? or is this just a new way of letting people with penises do whatever they want? I personally think it's the latter. we need to hold people like Chris chan accountable without getting caught up on something as minor **in comparison** as misgendering and self identification. Is it sad and confusing that someone who self IDs as transgender became 1:1 with the most dangerous stereotypes that exist for trans women? Of course it is. But it doesn't mean that self identification is suddenly more important than a literal crime being committed.

I would normally dismiss it as a fluke or outright trolling if the evidence weren't so damning that this is in fact a real event that happened. If I hadn't seen this happen to other people, and if I didn't literally know another mtf person who used their dysphoria as an excuse for date rape on multiple occasions and never got any consequences for it.

It's not a one time thing, it's a developing problem that we need to stop before more people have their lives ruined. I can't even imagine how traumatizing and messed up it is for an FTM person to be date raped, by another transgender person no less. When I, an abuse survivor, told people of this MTFs red flags, people violently silenced me. People who didn't know I was trans called me a terf and transphobic. We, as a community, could've protected someone from getting date raped, and we didn't. Trans women can be awful, horrible fucking people, because they are people. Protecting them at all costs is wrong. Protecting them from transphobia is what we should be doing.

That being said, misgendering is still skeevy, and I haven't done anything like raped a disabled woman who is no longer able to consent, or date raped my own partner. if you give a shit about respecting my identity, please use they/them for me. if not, use visual perception and make assumptions that will most likely be incorrect, skew your own argument, and put me on the same level as a rapist, and arguably a fetishist. And I do need to remind you that calling someone transgender a rapist and a fetishist without evidence is still definitely classic transphobia, to the letter, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't do that.

as someone who is same sex attracted, I also want to bring this up as well.

in the US in the past 15 years, the movement as a whole pretty much went "YEAH BORN THIS WAY" with Lady Gaga, and then jumped ship to prioritize mostly mtfs at every angle. do mtfs need support? absolutely. but they don't need misguided toxic positivity, and that's what it's turned into.

it's gotten genuinely homophobic to the point where actually homosexual people are constantly being erased and demonized via "genital preferences are a fetish uwu", and vulva havers, especially the trans ones, are constantly being told to shut up about their experiences.

as much as you want to deny bioessentialism, its still very much well and alive with newer trans movement sentiments when we classify ftms as not worthy of speaking about their own issues with terms like "TME". it's also incredibly ignorant towards FTMs who pass, but dress feminine for comfort, and get mistaken for MTF, and treated like garbage because of it. They are not remotely exempt from misogyny, transphobia, or the intersection of the two, and it is not anyone's job to tell them they don't ever experience that when they do. Turning ftms and biological homosexuals into our enemies-- especially when the actual cause is transphobia and harmful gender stereotypes-- does nothing good or healthy for our movement.

Dont be mistaken, though, passing isn't the focus or end all be all here, it's the perception of others that ends up drastically effecting your experiences. There are words like misogyny that imply treatment via birth sex, however this too can be reliant on external perception. If an MTF individual either transitions very young, has an abundance of resources to transition, or just gets lucky and passes well, chances are she will experience a lot more misogyny than people may give credit to. inversely, someone who just started questioning yesterday, but lived as a male their whole life up until then, they genuinely cannot speak about misogyny with that much room because they simply haven't experienced it at an accurate enough angle or for enough time to understand it as a repeated and sociological force.

It works the other way as well, though; someone who's known that they're trans for a long time and haven't had the resources to transition, or do not or cannot pass in the eyes of society; these people suffer pain that we don't neccesarily have a word for yet, imo. It makes dysphoria worse and it makes living seem hopeless. And as a community, we deal with this is in a really messed up way by over-validating them instead of solving the core issue at hand. and people who suffer from this, but also acknowledge they can't claim what they haven't experienced, are left with nowhere to go.

And its important to acknowledge these things because they're integral to the over-encompassing trans experience. Instead of lying to everyone and telling everyone they pass/giving out unconditional positive regard, our focus should be making it so that it **doesn't matter if you pass**. that you're still worth respect and dignity if you're transgender, no matter what passing is or what it means to you, and no matter how you present. But also, if you do something awful, you still need to be held accountable, especially if you use yourself, your body, or your trans status to contribute to other axi of oppression.

Transphobia is a word that encompasses and addresses all of that, regardless of birth sex. "TME" shuts that down in favor of only letting MTF's speak. Which is still very bio-essentialist, and I can't help but feel like we've gone full circle.

Once upon a time you couldn't even get married if your partner had the same genitals as you. in the US, this was less than 7 years ago. and if you care about human rights activism, you know damn well that legal modification is not the end all be all. people who are genuinely homosexual are still oppressed, but the trans movement has started stepping on them to make ground we don't deserve. homosexuals are ok and valid. it's not a genital preference, and the prescence of trans people doesn't make conversion therapy sentiments ok, ever.

we've gone full circle, and it's not right.

[scarluxia]

Let's talk about some Adventures I had in Phoenix, AZ in 2015. It came up in my FB Memories and even though I determined to let everything from last decade go, this one still rankles. I got "in trouble" with these people for being open about my experiences on my Facebook because, even though I hadn't mentioned names, they didn't like me "putting their business out there".

CW for ableism, depression, rejection sensitive dysphoria, and I'll try to put all that in the tags.

My partner, Loki (yes real name), and I had been urban camping in Portland, OR for about a month. It had gotten cold and rainy to the point where we couldn't safely stay living outdoors, and Loki's father (who didn't approve of me) had demanded he come back to California and live with Loki's uncle. He made it quite clear I was not welcome, so I ended up going to Arizona because I had a friend who was willing to put me up. She and I had known each other since 2008 and I figured I would be safe with her. At the time, Loki was much more easily influenced by what his family wanted, and we ended up having kind of a nasty set of conversations over whether he was abandoning me.

While in Portland, my wallet had been stolen so I had no ID or SS card. I had reported it stolen of course, but had received no response until I was leaving Arizona.

My friend in Arizona had two young sons, a husband, and a boyfriend. Now, I have some sensory issues that make it so I have a hard time being around children. High pitched noises hurt me to my bones, like, even now I have to leave the room if my son gets overly excited and starts shrieking.

I was sleeping on the couch in the living room, which was where the kids would go when they woke up and where the TVs and entertainment consoles were.

Anyway, they wanted me to contribute to the household and whatnot but I was severely depressed and I think I've provided all the context I can remember? If the rest of this doesn't make sense, please know that there was a part 1 but it came up in my Memories on a different day and i didn't think I would be rehashing it.

So I couldn't do work, couldn't do anything anyone had asked me to do to satisfaction because various things that did not, in fact, depend on me. Maybe I wasn't being enough of a ~team player~, I don't know. But anyway, I did my best with what I had. Sometimes, because of THE EXTREME FUCKING SENSORY ISSUES THAT COME WITH AUTISM, I would get overwhelmed by the kids screaming. Two little boys, barely school age, and their parents sat them in front of a TV and gave them controllers. That's it. They had toys in their room, sure, but they weren't getting outside. I suggested taking them out a couple times, but firstly, I didn't know the area and wasn't about to go out alone, and secondly, I can't split in half and I'm not in good shape, so even if I had known the area, I wouldn't have taken TWO small children outside to run around where they could run out of the designated area. I'm kind of anal that way, I guess. But Woman A (mum) and Man B ("uncle") never got off their arses to help me take them outside, and Man A was at work.

Oh, yes, parental interaction with the kids. Woman A loved her sons very much. But at their age (3 and 5), they both should have been toilet trained. They should have gotten at least two hours outside every day. They threw fits when they weren't allowed to play video games because, instead of games being a special treat that was earned with good behavior, they were toys carelessly tossed at the kids to keep them out of everyone's hair. Conversely, and bizarrely, reading to them WAS a special treat. The father woke up, played games, basically brushed off his kids, and went to work. Same when he got home for lunch, and he *ordered* us to have them in bed by the time he got home for good. The mum did somewhat interact with them, but mostly just wanted them out of her hair. I wasn't so nice because I'm not good with kids in general and also loud screeching HURTS, IT HURTS IT HURTS MAKE IT STOP. (Same with snoring, or any noise made when I want to sleep.) This isn't me being a ~diva~, it is an actual manifestation of a mental disability.

Woman A was of the opinion that "everyone who lives in a house with kids automatically becomes a coparent", maybe because she wasn't willing to actually parent her kids herself.

Note from the future: I still disagree with the idea that "anyone who lives in a house with kids is automatically a co-parent". Parent your own kids. I don't expect my dad to parent my son when we go visit him and he made it quite clear when I was pregnant that he would not take on a co-parenting role (because his wives 30-50 years ago had handled the babies and he doesn't really know how to calm them down beyond entertaining them)

She got a really bitchy look on her face whenever I (who have been around children, especially TROUBLED children, all my life) made any sort of suggestion. Well sorry, lady, but it's not like you're doing such a great job with them. Y'all act like you barely want anything to do with them. Like they're cute and little and fun to snuggle, but actually teaching them anything? Forget about it, just toss em a controller and hope they don't kill each other in the game or real life. Meanwhile, they have no outlet for their natural physical energy, no real outlet for their curiosity. They're going to grow up stupid and sedentary, with "no one paid attention to me during childhood except when it was convenient for THEM" to deal with. The older kid recently got on meds for a condition that, from what I observed, was likely much more nurture than nature. And what everyone ate, my God, those kids were the only non-overweight people in the house, and it's little wonder! I bought ACTUAL NUTRITIONAL food for everyone, and the adults look at me like I'm from some demon dimension. I made a light comment about how I'd never eaten anything like what they had growing up. You know, boxed potatoes, veggies out of a can, white bread, sugary peanut butter. And Woman A was like, "well YOU don't have kids."

Um, no, but my father did.

I have a kid now, am working part time at min. wage because my boss sees my performance as so-so (plus she's been forced to give me a raise every time the County of Where I Live raises the minimum), in a single-income household, on as much Family With Kids welfare as My County will allow, and I still wouldn't feed my kid that crap LOL

Spoiler alert: they made me use all my food stamps on their household and then kicked me out later that month so... When I bought food I bought HEALTHY food, like, I've been on food stamps my entire life... Also, WIC specifically pays for WHEAT bread, fruits & veggies, and they do let you get peanut butter without sugar so idk what was going on there with them.

My father was a SINGLE PARENT raising a daughter in America after 20 years of living in Europe and raising kids with his previous wives. Well, up until the divorces, anyway. I was the only kid he ever got to keep. He told me things about how the others had been raised compared to how I was raised, and I saw the outcomes of different parenting styles in my peers as well. My father was a very poor man whose trade had been outsourced and who struggled to support us for years. And yet, we never went hungry, and he never fed me boxed potatoes. Never fed me sugary peanut butter, white bread, or veggies out of a can.

Ok I understand canned veggies are better than no veggies, and not everyone can get fresh, but you CAN get frozen in AZ. I always had fresh or frozen growing up.

It wasn't because we were living in the lap of luxury. It's because...

HE FUCKING VALUED OUR HEALTH OVER CONVENIENT, CRAPPY, NUTRIENT-FREE FOOD!!!! This is not a difficult concept. He ALSO read to me every night, despite having what I now realise was a very grueling day at work just to put said healthy food on the table. I didn't get to watch TV or play computer games (edu-tainment, the only kind I was allowed) until after all my homework was done. I can't remember if I was a particularly active child, but I'm sure I had the OPTION!!!! TO GO OUT.

Meanwhile, when I was at various stages of my life, I met kids whose parents shunted them from guardian to guardian because they didn't want to deal with them, kids whose parents were kind and supportive but rubbish at enforcing discipline, kids whose parents were abusive in every kind of way, and kids whose parents did their best.

You know, I wasn't raised perfectly. My upbringing lacked social grace and included some toxic ideas about womanhood that I've only been learning to overcome recently in my adulthood. But DON'T FUCKING ACT LIKE I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT RAISING KIDS JUST BECAUSE I DON'T CURRENTLY HAVE ANY. I have my own life, the lives of my peers, and a wonderful online community of new parents raising children in kind and socially aware ways, to draw inspiration from. I can go to any one of them, and to my own parents, and ask "hey does X seem weird to you?" And they'll give me their honest opinion, which *is valuable*. I have even mapped out a general idea of how to get through some parts of my children's lives, and I'm not even planning to have kids for at least another few years. I mean, honestly, it used to be "I don't want kids ever", but dear gosh, if I can have any part of raising someone in a manner that defies procrastination culture, entitlement culture, and everything wrong with the way my husband and I were raised, maybe it wouldn't be a complete horror. If I can ensure that not all hope for the next generation is lost, hey.

Anyway, I've gone off topic...

I also had some issues with the men. Man B just didn't seem to like anything ever. I had no idea what Woman A saw in him. I remember one time he tried to tell me, a Christian, that I can't tell people what a "real Christian" is because it ~invalidates their identity~. Excuse me, no. It doesn't work that way. There are things that Christ taught, and anyone who blatantly goes against them IN THE NAME OF CHRISTIANITY, IS NOT A REAL CHRISTIAN. And yes, I realise this entire rant has been very judgey and technically I'm not supposed to do that either, but it's not like I'm saying they're going to Hell. Just that their kids are going to be sluggish and stupid, and I can't understand how these people have the gumption to try to lecture anyone else about life when they're not even TRYING to get their own lives together.

Yeah so they tried to lecture me about how I was "letting" Loki mistreat me and how I cared more about "socializing" with my estranged husband (I have separation anxiety) than helping around the house e_e They also implied I used depression as an excuse to be lazy.

Man B was supposedly "super employable." Well, okay, even though his "job hunt" seemed to consist more of sitting around playing video games, he was larger than my father (who is 6 ft tall with a protruding gut and weighs 240 lbs at last count) (My father and I are both 60 lbs above our ideal weights. But we're working on it!), and never seemed to get past the phone-screening process.

Now, Woman A told me that Man B was looking for work and that her family and some friends looked down on him for being a freeloader. Probably because she was anxious about me thinking the same. But here's the thing: I wouldn't have cared. Honestly. If you want to sit around playing games all day in your married girlfriend's apartment with her and her husband playing video games all day, go right ahead. If you want to bake three potatoes at a time and take them back to your room for a snack, hey, more power to you. But don't piss out the window and call it rain.

I don't care how employable you are, where you live, who you're living with, or what your lifestyle is like. It doesn't affect me in any way. But don't act like you're doing something you're not just to appease someone's judgmental family. That doesn't ever end well.

Now, see, I clearly have a problem with people who do that. I don't hide many aspects of myself, though I will refuse to answer a question if I feel it's none of someone's business or if they're just asking it to be a judgmental asshole. I refuse to compromise myself or my safe space to accommodate someone who can't make peace with who they are. Hell, you know me! You know my show!

Wait, this is Tumblr, so you might not know my show. It's a YouTube storyboard dedicated to processing and mocking some spiritual and psychological abuse I've undergone in my life. On Facebook, it was one of the things I was known for at the time because I was constantly posting clips and art, and trying to recruit voice actors.

I sell anyone out who I catch lying to me about anything! That's nothing new! And these people knew that about me. For SEVEN. FUCKING. YEARS.

So anyway. Woman A has a lot of great short term goals but no actual follow through because "I'm just not in the mood right now." No judgment there. I've totally been there. The only problem is when it gets ME in trouble.

"Let's walk the dog." "I'm not in the mood." Okay, then the dog doesn't get walked because I can't figure out my way around the place alone.

"Let's do the dishes." Woman A doesn't let me know when the washer stopped. Okay. Then the rest of the dishes don't get washed.

"Let's take the kids outside." "No I'm too tired." Okay, then they're going to be RUNNING AROUND THE APARTMENT SCREAMING WHICH MY EARS CANNOT FUCKING HANDLE so bye I'm just gonna borrow your room and isolate myself for a bit.

"Let's go to the gym!" "Maybe later." But later never comes.

Do you see where I'm going here? As for the men, they BOTH complain that they're "doing too much" around the house. Okay, probably fair for Man A, who works full time and deserves to come home to a clean house. But Man B. Wtf. You literally do nothing, except when you do, and when you do, we're meant to throw you a parade? That's not how adulthood works, or so I've heard.

Note: All three of these people are older than me. I was 24? at the time, fresh out of trade school, on my own for the first time in my life. (Maybe 2nd? I ran away when I was 17 but ended up with my grandparents so idk if that counts.) Woman A was 26 at the time and had been married since 2008, had experience with office work and parenthood, etc. Both men were older than her. I was a chronological adult with the life experience of a teenager, so I felt comfortable saying that.

So did I mention that I'm sleeping in the living room during this stay? And the adults don't go to bed until like 2 AM, which means, because of my disability, wherein I cannot sleep if there's any sort of non-ambient noise, *I* don't get to sleep until AFTER 2 AM. And the kids? They come in the living room screaming at 6 AM. Yep. Okay. Living on 4 hours of sleep, for the mathematically challenged. That and dealing with the emotional turmoil of being separated from my husband when I've got high separation anxiety in the first place. All my pain, everything, it's up to 11. and I'm supposed to contribute but there's not really anything that allows me to contribute.

So what do they do? They ambush me. Call a "family meeting" to tell me absolutely everything that's wrong with me, after WEEKS of telling me what a big help I am and how grateful they are to have me around. Tell me I'm letting my "social life" get in the way of me helping around the house. Hmm. Social life. You mean, VENTING IN MY SAFE SPACE (Facebook, no names named) AND TRYING TO MEND THINGS WITH MY HUSBAND??????????????? Okay. Well since you guys treat your woman like shit, you clearly don't understand or appreciate devotion to one's spouse. Seriously. Woman A told me she used to have extreme separation anxiety with Man A, and that he would brush off her emotions as irrelevant. Her solution was to make it a poly relationship and take a lover WHO TREATS HER THE EXACT SAME WAY. I'm serious. She got no emotional support from either of them. They basically just threw pills at her and trained her to lie down until her feelings went away.

And she had the gall to lecture me (24 at the time) about how Loki (19 at the time & from a pretty horrific family) treated me. LOL ok. Log. Splinter.

As she knew, I'm monogamous. I do have some opinions on polyamoury based on individuals I've gotten to know who are in those types of relationships, but those opinions are irrelevant to this series of rants. Except one, which is pertinent: if you're going to take another lover, they should provide something that your existing lover(s) don't. If you're suffering from low emotional support and you just find someone else who doesn't emotionally support you and who treats you like a child who can't be trusted??? What are you even DOING? Like, she told me NEITHER of her men trust her judgment. What the fuck is a relationship without trust? And don't even try "dick too bomb" as an excuse when you tell me you haven't gotten laid in months and your husband is using your condoms on Woman B.

They don't support you. They don't trust you. And yet YOU'RE telling ME that things with my husband won't get better unless I follow your lead and take another lover? HELL TO THE NO. My husband has his faults, but if I tell him Person X can be trusted, he believes me.

Except for his ex-girlfriend whom he tried to add to our relationship when he tried to be poly, months later. That went Badly.

Or maybe he just knows I'll deal with them myself, with my hot, hot temper, if they turn out not to be trustworthy. He also doesn't treat me LIKE A CHILD. And while I sometimes point at things and make small motions when I can't physically talk, or sometimes even use baby talk when I'm feeling cutesy, I DON'T POINT AT A PIECE OF PAPER AND GO "THE CARRRRRR!!!!" IN AN INCREASINGLY HIGHER PITCH BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW HOW TO SAY, "Honey, I think we missed the car payment this month. Can you double check while the agent has you on hold, please?"

Okay, being a dick about losing words due to stress was not my finest moment, but at the time, I was just so appalled by how they treated her and how she allowed them to treat me.

So basically these adults who are nowhere near having their lives together, and aren't even really trying, put me on blast for not having everything running perfectly when THEY expected it to.

Let's reiterate. I couldn't get a job because I had no ID or social security card. I was waiting for them to be returned to me. I couldn't walk the kids or the dog, go to the gym, or complete all the household chores because no one would guide me. I need that guidance because of various components of my disability, which I really hate admitting to because I'm super fucking prideful, but I figured hey, she's not neurotypical either. These people will understand.

Their response when I brought this up? "You're an adult. You should know better." Sure, okay. But you should know that a child ought to be potty trained before he turns 5, or even 3; that kids need to run around, are entitled to their parents' attention and consistent discipline, and need!!! healthy!!!! food!!!!

Oh, discipline! So, she would send Older Boy to his room over misbehaving. But rather than enforce time-out, she'd go, "oh, I think I'm being too haaaard on him," and just... Relinquish. He's not about to learn anything that way, ma'am.

They called me trying to reconnect with the person I love more than almost anyone on this earth "obsessing over your social life". Well again, you treat your woman like shit, so MAYBE my undying devotion to the person I love goes a LITTLE bit over your head.

They told me that the household should be my first priority. Except no, because I am an autonomous person and my FIRST PRIORITY is, was, and ever has been the love of my life, whomever that may be at the time. That is 70% of my personality. I'm pretty sure anyone who had ever met me can vouch for my extreme devotion, and this woman had known me for SEVEN. YEARS. I'm not going to throw away 70% of myself to do an impossible task that no one will help me with.

They told me a lot of things I wasn't doing right, and for those of you who also struggle with anxiety and depression, you know that being told for weeks that everything is okay and you're so great and so helpful, and then being told that you're rubbish at everything... You know that that is hurtful. Devastating, even. I wanted to kill myself. I said that. I said that and expressed my feelings about some other things, in my safe space, without naming any names.

And even though I was posting in my safe space, I was polite about it. I was as gentle and rational as possible. I wasn't calling anyone out. Not like I am now. I wasn't trying to lead a witch hunt. I was just overwhelmed and trying to express my feelings. Trying to get myself not to kill myself. I had to tell myself over and over again that it's not what Loki would want for me.

In the morning, they woke me up and kicked me out. Said it was rude for me to say I don't care about their household. I never, NEVER said that. I said "Loki is my first priority." Something along the lines of "that's just how I am and I shouldn't be vilified for it." That doesn't mean I DON'T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE. IT JUST MEANS THAT MY PRIORITIES WILL *NEVER* BE WHAT SOMEONE ELSE WANTS THEM TO BE. I AM A PERSON. I HAVE THE RIGHT TO DECIDE WHAT TO PRIORITISE, AND I HAVE THE RIGHT TO LOVE MY HUSBAND!!!

I MEAN, FOR FUCK'S SAKE. MY NAME IS *SIGYN*. WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU IGNORANT ASSHOLES EXPECT?! WHY THE HELL SHOULD YOU HAVE FELT THREATENED BY ME SAYING ANYTHING IF I DIDN'T NAME NAMES AND WAS ACTUALLY RATIONAL? IF YOU SAW THIS, *MAYBE* YOU WOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE PISSY, BUT NOT THEN!

They kicked me out after having asked me to buy them all food. I had used up all my food stamps. Because I hadn't anticipated this at all. I hadn't known they would take such offence to my existence, to my ways. To the fact that I value the man I married more than I value... Whatever they wanted me to value, I guess.

Fun fact: I ended up in a women's shelter after this, and one woman told me to actually kill myself because she was tired of hearing me cry at night.

They said I hadn't made any effort to get my life on track. Because I can just snap my fingers and make my ID appear. Because I can just manifest the money for a replacement. They said all these things that left me almost unable to breathe, in retaliation for me posting that I was suicidal.

Later, Woman A told me that this had been a long time coming and that they were trying to make room for Woman B and Woman C, both of whom were willing to have sex with the men, which is something that I would not. I feel the first woman I met at the shelter was accurate when she said they basically kicked me out because I wouldn't sleep with them.

I also later found out that my ID and SS card had been returned to sender. The Portland PD called me and told me. So my father came to the conclusion that the people I had been staying with sabotaged me from the start. For a while, I didn't feel it, but last night I dreamed about it, and the dream made me angry. I didn't deserve to be treated that way. And I really had to get all this off my chest, so for those of you who didn't immediately whip out your tiny violins, thank you.

[skyhelmwriter]

A Weird, Wild Journey

Below the cut is a long, possibly rambling discussion of my personal understanding of myself. It focuses primarily on how having one (1) prominent DifferenceTM made discovering and accepting the others more difficult.

I’ve always been weird. Hell, I’ve always been WeirdTM. And for a long time I thought the reason I didn’t feel the same as other penis-havers was a matter of the one big, glaring difference I had from everyone else I knew: I was autistic.

I was diagnosed at the age of seven with Asperger’s Syndrome, but these days I’d be described as “on the spectrum” and “high-functioning with obsessive tendencies.” And this made me different. In my life, I’ve met maybe three other people with the same diagnosis. It’s something that’s so uniquely my own that I thought it had to account for all the differences between me and other people who seemed otherwise identical to me.

I’m lucky to have a form of autism that allows me to understand my own symptoms and manage them consciously. I barely have to force myself to modulate my tone, make eye contact, or think about how other people feel, because I’ve independently arrived at the conclusion that those are good things to do (not useful, good. That’s an important distinction). I often tell people that I “brute forced” my way into empathy. I had to learn it, when other people simply do it.

Around the same time I was diagnosed, I made friends with someone. She was my first real friend, and she was a bit of tomboy. She could defend me better from the bullies (there weren’t many, but they were brutal) than I could defend myself. She called herself a tomboy, and I responded that I must be a tomgirl, because I was interested in many things it seemed only girls were interested in. She didn’t seem convinced, so I brought the conversation home to my parents.

My mother was also unconvinced. She seemed to think that I was just feeling different because I was...well not strong. That didn’t make me effeminate; it just made me different, and different was okay. I’d always been “sensitive,” but that was very literal. My sensory nerves literally took less input to activate.

So I dropped it. Because my parents knew better. Again, I was seven. They said that I shouldn’t talk like that because other boys might not take well to me if I didn’t act like a boy. So I acted like a boy, and I liked boy things, and I did boy things.

And as I grew up, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was different, but I already had this really convenient explanation for what it was that made me different. And everything that was different about me could be traced to it. My shitty handwriting came from a nervous disorder associated with ASD. My deep and unusual interest in various things came from the obsessive behaviors associated with ASD. My physical weakness came from my introversion (and my asthma), which was a symptom of ASD. My nerves, my strange bodily structure, my repetitive behavior, it was all because of my ASD, and so I lumped other strange feelings in with that, too.

I attended high school in what could politely be called a suburb. In reality, it was White Central. I say this to give you an idea of exactly how...Republican....you should expect general sentiments to be. It was widely thought by anyone in the student body that someone who supported, say, gay marriage (I went to high school in the late 00′s and early 10′s) must be gay themselves, because (and here I’m directly quoting students) “why would you care if you weren’t gay?”

Never mind that I was a minority as well. I wasn’t neurotypical. I could feel for people being discriminated against because I’d spent years convincing teacher after teacher that my shitty goddamned handwriting wasn’t something I could fucking help, and watching my grades suffer because they “couldn’t read” my writing (never mind that it was usually perfectly legible and they were just being assholes because it wasn’t pristine). Never mind that you ought to treat people decently regardless of how they differ from you.

And of course, I wasn’t gay. I was definitely attracted to girls. And I was socialized only to think about how I could be attracted to girls, because being attracted to guys was a good way to get the shit kicked out of you and I certainly didn’t want that. I was already a nerd. I was already weak. I was already shy. I was already in speech and debate. I didn’t need that, too.

And yet, there were signs. Almost all my friends were girls. And sure, I spent a lot of time with two or three specific guys, but that was because we’d hit it off in Latin Freshman year and boy was Latin an interesting class. I hung around with the theater kids (though I never actually took part, mostly because half of theater was musical I couldn’t sing for shit), and I did speech and debate (wherein my attraction to men in suits could be written off--even by other explicitly gay boys--as something brought on by charisma and fashion, not an innate desire to be with another guy.

Even still, by the time I graduated I was firmly in the Q section of the acronym. In part, this was because I found myself on tumblr for the first time in 2011-2012, and I learned about a whole world of identities and people I hadn’t realized existed, and I’d taken my first philosophy class and learned how to actually think about other people, and I’d taken a law class, so I understood the foundations of the social order. All this together had helped me understand that there was nothing wrong with the way I felt. I just had to figure out what it was that I felt.

And that was difficult to do. I’ve always been good at reflecting on my actions--too good actually; I have a tendency to brood over minor mistakes--but my own thoughts, my own feelings, those were more difficult for me to articulate. And besides, my feelings would be affected by my autism, right?

So I let it simmer. I bottled it all up and said “this isn’t something I need to focus on right now. I’m not even looking for a partner.” I went through a lot of stages in this regard in college, fluctuating in my articulation about my identity as unsure, straight, and bi seemingly at random, and never even thinking about my gender. Hell, I was so focused on my schoolwork that I forgot to properly take care of myself most of the time--my autism in action once more. How could I care about my gender when I didn’t even care about my appearance?

And then i graduated college, and I had a lot of time to think. And I didn’t spend much of it here, but before I got my first job, I was thoroughly out as Bi. I knew what I was, and I was proud to say it. I’d forced myself to look at all those instances that seemed like flukes or coincidences, and I realized they weren’t. They were indicative of a pattern, a pattern of attraction to men, and a pattern of attraction to women. I’d had to fight through not only my heteronormative socialization, but also my neurodivergent socialization, the part of me that said “hey! you’re already different enough! do you really need this?” And it wasn’t matter of need. The real question I had to ask was “is this really my experience?” and the answer was yes.

But I still didn’t feel right. A couple of my friends came out as trans, and I couldn’t have been happier for them. Living their lives as they saw themselves, they were happier, livelier, more productive people. And I remembered all those times I’d thought I didn’t quite feel like a guy, like a dude, like a boy. I remembered how my default posture included a popped hip, how I kept writing female characters.

I remembered how the first ever avatar I chose in a Pokemon game was the girl. How I always made female characters in games where I could make that choice. How I kept playing women in DnD.

But I knew I wasn’t trans. I didn’t experience dysphoria. I didn’t want to be a woman, at least not all the time. But sometimes, I definitely felt more effeminate. And others I wished my voice were deeper. Sometimes I didn’t mind when people called me “sir,” or said “he,” other times it didn’t feel right at all.

And once again I thought “aren’t you different enough?” and “couldn’t this all just be because you’re autistic?” I wondered whether I was reading too much into myself, if I might just be projecting other people’s thoughts onto my own. I’ve been wondering that for years.

But one thing is certain. My experiences are real. I have felt these ways. I can’t deny that. I won’t deny it. And now I have a word, a word the encapsulates the ways I’ve felt. Well, it’s three words. I’m an aromantic, genderfluid bisexual. And I’ll say all three of them loud and proud. Not just because it’s pride, but because I deserve to be comfortable with who I am. After all, it took me 24 years to figure it out. I’ve got to make up for lost time somehow.

[operation-earthanoids]

They Don’t Come In Twos

So I said I’d write a story starring a nonbinary human and their shapeshifting alien friend, and not only have I done so, but I’ve also planned a whole series based around them and their crewmates! This series will start off focusing on some nb struggles (All heavily based on things I’ve experienced, by the way!) but will later expand into different “Space Australia” plots, and I might even write some side-stories based on suggestions from you guys! 

Anyways, without further ado, here’s the first chapter of They Don’t Come In Twos.

Frys thought that ae were pretty good at understanding human culture. Ae had taken a couple of courses a while back on human behaviour, and besides that, aer ship always had at least one human on it - the second-in-command was human after all - so ae’d been around humans for a good ten cycles. Ae also knew that ae were more knowledgeable about humans than any of aer colleagues back at the Center. Though ae were the first to admit that ae wasn’t the best at human ‘stuff’, and often, ae’d find aerself completely at a loss as to the reasons behind something a human did.

The reason as to why their friend Benny was lying face down on their bed and making a soft noise of discomfort was one such thing.

“Benny?” Ae stood tentatively at the doorway, aer tail curled around aer legs to try and let the human know ae wasn’t trying to interrupt whatever it was they were doing (Not that Benny could see that, with their head firmly shoved into their pillow). Ae wasn’t close enough with Benny to just walk in, they’d only met a few weeks ago, and even though they’d really “hit it off”, as humans said, Frys didn’t feel comfortable entering Benny’s room without their permission. “Are you feeling alright?”

Benny made a noncommittal sound, as they often did when they weren’t feeling well, or were tired. It seemed, in Frys’ opinion, to be a confirmation that something was wrong.

“Do you want me to contact the medbay?” Benny shook their head, and turned their head to the side slightly.

“I’m not sick, Frys, there’s nothing the medbay can do right now.” Right now? Perhaps this was one of those ongoing illnesses humans had that would require more intensive care that Frys had read about a little while ago? No, they said they weren’t sick… Perhaps they were lying?

“You are acting the way you do when you feel sick, though. Tell me the truth, what is wrong?”

“Nothing!” Benny’s voice was louder now, and Frys thought ae may have done the wrong thing. “Listen, Frys, it’s just… It’s hard to explain.” “Then tell me, and I will do my best to understand.”

“Alright.” Benny sat up, coughing slightly as they did so, which Frys noted - more evidence that their friend might be ill. “You better come over here then, this might take a while.”

The seat next to Benny’s bed was not made for a Vlaenue, but the pair of stools sitting next to the cupboard were a close enough fit. Folding aer front legs carefully, Frys waited for Benny to start talking, watching them closely as ae waited, looking for any other signs aer friend might be unwell. Ae didn’t look them in the eye, of course, as ae knew it made Benny very uncomfortable, and aer friend was uncomfortable enough already.

After a long pause, Benny let out a long hiss of breath. “So uh… have you ever heard the term ‘dysphoria’?”

“No, unfortunately. It seems somewhat familiar to me, though, I may have seen it in passing.”

“Ah. Right. Um. Well, you’ve been doing a lot of human research, yeah? You probably saw it once or twice in human culture or something?”

“Most likely, perhaps if you give me a brief definition of the meaning, I will remember.”

“Yeah, yeah, that should work.” They shuffled on the bed, shifting their legs out from under them and instead crossed their legs in front of them. A wise choice, Frys thought. Sitting on their legs for much longer would have stifled the blood flow, causing “Pins and Needle”, as many humans called it. “Might as well just explain what it’s like to me, shouldn’t I?”

“That would most likely be the best course of action, I agree.” Frys closed their upper row of eyes in agreement.

“Alright, uh… you know how when I told you I was agender, you didn’t think it was that big of a deal right?”

“Yes, I still have difficulty understanding why you believed it would be.”

Benny laughed. “Yeah, should have realised a shapeshifting species would be less rigid with all that kinda stuff. Well, uh, with humans, it is a big deal, ‘cause for a whole bunch of years they assumed that what your body was like defined who you were as a person, and were like ‘If you have these traits, then you have to be this’ and stuff. It’s not like that as much anymore, but… well, you getting what I mean so far?”

Frys nodded - a gesture ae’d learned from Benny themself - and gestured for Benny to continue. “Well, uh, for a lot of my life, people assumed I was a different gender because of that stuff, and when I didn’t actively go against it, they didn’t think to stop, and so I started to believe them. My traits were…” Benny paused, and took a sharp breath. “Um, were shoved into this weird binary of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’, and it kinda, y’know, stuck?”

“I think I do know, yes. You found yourself unable to stop thinking of them as such, am I correct?” Frys hoped ae had understood Benny correctly, sometimes ae had a little trouble following their train of thought.

“Yeah, you’re totally right. So um, once I figured out I was agender, and started presenting in a way that made me comfortable with myself, I kept remembering stuff people had said about some of my features beforehand. How they made me look.” Benny’s hands moved to their wrists, gripping them tightly. “And… ugh, I still do it. I don’t like looking feminine or masculine but every time I look in a mirror all I can see are the things I know other humans are thinking about me and I can’t stop and I hate it and I feel so disgusted with myself and fake and -”

This wasn’t the first time Benny had gotten into this kind of state, and after the last time had ended poorly, Benny had told Frys what to do to help. “Benny.” Ae interrupted, hands holding the human’s arms in a gentle, but firm grip. “Deep breaths. In… and out.” Ae repeated the phrase as Benny’s chest rose and fell, the ‘heartbeat’ Frys could feel slowing to a more normal speed.

“Thanks, Frys, I’m really not in the mood to have some kind of meltdown right now.” Benny smiled, and Frys noticed how tired they looked. Had they slept at all last night.

“You are very welcome, Benny. And from what I’ve heard you saying, I think I do remember a word or phrase similar to what you are describing. Are you feeling a type of physical distress due to  either with your physical state, either your appearance or physical attributes, how other humans perceive you, or how you feel you are treated in relation to your gender?”

“Pretty much, yeah. Where’d you get that definition from?”

“I believe it was an ‘article’ written by a transgender activist, though I do not recall their name.” Frys paused for a second, aer tail flicking as ae thought. “I shall have to look it up after this conversation. But I digress. I think I may be able to relate to how you are feeling, actually.” “You can?” Benny looked surprised. “Really?” “Indeed. In the community I grew up in, we called it… I think the closest translation would be ‘state sickness’. State sickness is the feeling of physical distress and dismay caused by trying to stay in a form that is wrong for you or is no longer how you personally feel comfortable presenting. I experienced it once, a few cycles before I signed on to this crew, in fact.”

“You did?” Benny paused, before tentatively asking, “What was it like?”

“Horrible. I had a romantic partner at the time who often complimented how I appeared, and their words made me feel happy and cared for. However, when I discovered I was Aeyrz, a far more feminine gender than the one I was before, I was afraid that my partner would not want to stay with me if I changed forms. I forced myself to stay as I was for a whole cycle, to the point where even strangers could see I was in pain. I eventually admitted what I was doing to my partner, and they insisted I change forms, that they wouldn’t stand for me hurting myself because of what they thought.”

Benny was silent for a second. “... Are you still together?” “No. But we separated for a different reason, and we remain close to this day.”

“Good.” Benny shifted again, moving to hang their legs off of the bed. “That sounds a lot like dysphoria, to me. But I can’t change my form like you can. All I can do is wait and save up for surgery later, and take medication, and wait….” They trailed off, before letting out a rattling sigh. “I wish I could change like you.”

“If you could, you would not be yourself, you would not be human.” Frys tried to choose aer words carefully, but wasn’t sure what might be the right thing to say in this scenario. “And besides, even if you were able to, you would change like you, not me.”

“True,” They smiled. “Very true.”

“And besides,” Frys continued, aer voice a little unsure. “Just because other humans have called part of you feminine or masculine, does not mean they are if you do not want them to be. You are the one in control of your body, and you are the one who says how your appearance should be seen.”

Benny smiled, a bright, toothy grin that didn’t really match how upset they seemed to have been just a minute ago. “Thanks, Frys, that means a lot to me. And thanks for letting me talk too, I think I’m feeling a little better.”

“Wonderful!” Frys nodded aer head, though perhaps that wasn’t the appropriate moment, and then realised ae had yet to let go of Benny’s arms. Neither of them seemed to have noticed Frys was still holding Benny, albeit in a far more loose fashion. “Ah, I apologise, I should have let you go before.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.” Benny waved their hand noncommittally, as Frys let them go. “I’d have mentioned it if I wasn’t having a good touch day and I was getting stressed out, you’re all good.”

“That is good, you seem to have been having a bad enough time before, I would rather be a help to your emotional state than a harm.” Frys tail swayed a little, showing aer relief, as a bell sounded from the speaker in the corner of Benny’s room. “Ah, it appears to be the hour of dinner. Is your dysphoria too great to go down to the cafeteria? Would you like me to bring you something?”

Benny pushed themself forwards, off their bed. “No, it’s fine, I’ve been dysphoric as heck and gone to dinner before, and I’ll do it again. ...I’d appreciate it if you could divert any conversation away from my appearance though, that’ll do nothing good to me right now.”

Frys waited for Benny to move past aer before standing. “Of course. I will do my best to help you, my friend.” It was times like these that Frys wished ae could mimic a human’s smile, but aer mouth simply couldn’t make those kinds of shapes. Benny seemed to get the picture though. Did they understand Vlaenue body language, perhaps? Aer tail would certainly have given aer away if they did.

“Thanks, Frys, you’re super great!” Benny smiled again, a more gentle one than the grin they gave aer before. Perhaps they had been exaggerating that smile, to prove they felt better? Frys wasn’t exactly going to ask, of course, so perhaps ae’d never know. “Anyway, we’d better hurry. I heard it was pizza night tonight, and you know how much Alvin loves garlic bread!”

Frys thought that ae were pretty good at understanding human culture, though ae were the first to admit that ae wasn’t the best at human ‘stuff’, and often, ae’d find aerself completely at a loss as to the reasons behind something a human did. But since ae hadn’t made Benny feel worse during their conversation, ae felt pretty certain that dysphoria, or at least this result of dysphoria, was something ae did understand, at least to some degree.

Ae also thought that if Alvin ate all the garlic bread ae was going to cry, but really, that was simply a given.

Frys and Benny’s descriptions of dysphoria are both ways I’ve described my own dysphoria to other people, more or less. This isn’t the best thing I’ve written, but I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of They Don’t Come In Twos!

[fictionborn]

ϟ, ❤, ✯ for Nicky & Peter

                                                sexy headcanons ! | accepting

ϟ: How much does your muse value sexual intimacy?

It’s hard to say for Nicky. They use sex the same way they use drugs and alcohol, kind of just a numbing mechanism. It’s fun but in a way that’s not good for them emotionally and that’s made it difficult for them to form long-lasting relationships with other people. So far the most sexually intimate relationship they’ve had has been Florence, who loves them just as they are and wants them to be healthy and happy -- everyone else until her was just kind of a face in the crowd or a friend-with-benefits. So while Nicky enjoys sex, their hypersexuality is a direct result of growing up under severe neglect, and this makes their sexual practices very very unhealthy.

Peter on the other hand has a more traditional view of sex. You do it with people you love and care about, mostly people you’re in a romantic relationship with. Canonically, his first time was with MJ, and I imagine that set the tone quite a lot; plus, he grew up under Ben and May, who were older than most parental figures and way more traditional. Sex for Peter it directly tied into romantic love for someone. He believes that sex is also a big component in relationship compatibility, like a couple’s sex life is a major part of whether or not the relationship will work out long term. MJ and Peter are very intimate with each other both in and out of the bedroom and it makes the relationship work very well.

(For clarification, my partner and I are both ace. I do think intimacy is important for relationship success but it doesn’t have to be sexual. Even just intimate conversations, cuddling, etc, is important for building trust and keeping a relationship alive.)

❤: Do they have any insecurities about sex?

Nicky has a lot of insecurities about their body. They were AMAB so that can be difficult in the bedroom, particularly whenever a partner wants to give them oral (they almost always refuse). Partners paying close attention to their penis can trigger their dysphoria very badly so they usually just try to ignore it altogether unless it’s actively involved.

Peter’s main insecurity regarding sex is the same as with relationships -- that his partner doesn’t love him for Peter, just for Spider-Man. This wasn’t a huge worry of his until Felicia, who was only interested in the superhero rather than the man under the mask. Felicia thought Peter was boring and it planted a lot of seeds of doubt in him. It’s one reason why he doesn’t ever sleep with people as Spider-Man -- the mask is always off for intimacy.

✯: Do they talk to their partner during sex? Do they talk dirty? Do they whisper sweet nothings?

Nicky is never quiet so kind of rambles during sex about nothing at all. I imagine their dirty talk is super weird and not very sexy at all, and their partner has to shut them up with kisses lmao.

Peter is a ‘sweet nothings’ type person. Surprisingly, he’s actually not super vocal during sex, but when he is, it’s soft confessions of love and adoration, compliments, etc. He’s not a dirty talker but will turn crimson if it’s done to him.