the-hadal-zone-sys

[the-hadal-zone-sys]

We may do some proper headmate intros. It's hitting me now that, despite how long we've had this blog now, you all may not know who any of us are very well...

- Jon

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Headmate who gives the best advice, but refuses to follow it themself

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Headmate who is aromantic

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Headmate who is going to make you shower or so help them gods above—

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Happy disability pride to any and all systems who consider their plurality or aspects their plurality to be a disability.

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Finally this thing is finished. Took way longer than I thought it would. Well, it had a bit of a sour ending at first (venting and all), so I wanted to bring it back around a little. And the frames doubled lol.

But here we are, with our second comic.

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Is this anything

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Personal stories time.

May get long so I put it below the cut.

(since this post is outside of my usual communities: for clarity, I am part of a plural system and will often use the pronouns "we" and "us" to refer to myself if I am talking about the system as a whole.)

For most of our life, fashion wasn't fun. It was a necessity.

It was just one of those things we had to deal with, so we'd throw on whatever we had clean and largely we would just let our parents handle clothes shopping.

It wasn't like we felt violently uncomfortable in what we wore or anything, we just assumed it wasn't important to us.

We had a dream in mind, of course. We always loved the look of several alternative fashion subcultures, particularly punk, emo, and scene (although goth fashion has also been a big inspiration)

But we assumed it just wasn't in the cards for us to change how we presented so radically.

The day that changed everything for us probably sounds really small to most folks: my siblings and I decided to go thrifting together.

It was legitimately my first time actually shopping for clothes 100% independently. I found so many things that I GENUINELY liked, and suddenly I had ideas?? For outfits??

When I got home I was so excited I immediately put on one of my new outfits. It was vaguely inspired by punk and emo fashion, although wouldn't quite count as either pff. And I felt so... Good.

It felt so good to look like ME. To have fashion not just be another part of the daily routine to go through on autopilot, but actually be something I could be excited about. Shortly after that we made the call to cut our own hair, which actually went really well.

Over the past few months, we've finally learned what it's like to feel genuinely comfortable and confident in the way we present. We never realized it could be like this, we knew presentation and fashion were a big deal for other people but I guess we always just thought that was locked off to us for some reason.

Just yesterday we got a tail, and we've been wearing it non-stop. It's amazing how one singular accessory can bring so much joy for us, it's like a portable fidget honestly, it's so fluffy and nice to play with.

And y'know what? Our fashion sense is weird.

We get weird looks all the time.

Some days we go out in like four layers, with three different belts on, five or six necklaces, arms covered in kandi bracelets, and a tail hanging from our belt loop, and yeah we get weird looks.

But holy shit just wearing whatever we want has been SO FREEING. People often act like alt folks are just attention seeking but like... I don't honestly care if I get attention for the way I dress, I care that it makes us feel comfortable in our own skin, or at least moreso than we used to.

We've recently even finally been able to wear skirts and dresses again, which is huge. We're transmasc, but we still love traditionally feminine clothing, because let's be honest, it looks and feels really nice.

But we felt like we'd never really be able to wear that stuff again and still feel comfortable because we knew everyone would just look at us as a girl.

But like??? We've found a sizeable queer community in our home city, people who won't misgender us regardless of how we dress, and we've finally gotten to the point where we're comfortable dressing feminine again.

I just... I want everyone to get to feel this way?

Like. I feel like caring about one's own appearance has been painted as this negative thing that is always bad for your mental health but it doesn't have to be!

Caring has been SO FREEING for us. "Not really caring about fashion," in our case, was a massive prison we trapped ourselves in because we were too SCARED to care. To scared of rejection by others.

I'm just saying, if there's someone out there afraid to take that first step, check your local thrift stores. There's always some good and cheap stuff there.

Normalize dressing literally however you want.

Normalize dressing alternative.

Normalize dressing for comfort.

Normalize dressing formal in informal settings.

Normalize not liking formal clothes.

Normalize wearing tails, ears, and other things considered "cringe."

Normalize needing to dress a specific way because of sensory processing issues.

Normalize not having one set fashion sense and changing things up.

Normalize wearing clothes associated with the opposite binary gender, including for both cis people and trans people.

Normalize wearing revealing outfits just because you like them.

Normalize dressing "dramatic" or "over the top."

Normalize cosplay.

Normalize historical fashion.

Like...

It's your body! It's your skin! You deserve to feel comfortable in it, whatever that means for you.

[the-hadal-zone-sys]

Normalize dressing literally however you want.

Normalize dressing alternative.

Normalize dressing for comfort.

Normalize dressing formal in informal settings.

Normalize not liking formal clothes.

Normalize wearing tails, ears, and other things considered "cringe."

Normalize needing to dress a specific way because of sensory processing issues.

Normalize not having one set fashion sense and changing things up.

Normalize wearing clothes associated with the opposite binary gender, including for both cis people and trans people.

Normalize wearing revealing outfits just because you like them.

Normalize dressing "dramatic" or "over the top."

Normalize cosplay.

Normalize historical fashion.

Like...

It's your body! It's your skin! You deserve to feel comfortable in it, whatever that means for you.

[the-hadal-zone-sys]

Big day for the therian headmates! We got our first tail!!! :D

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Can't play deltarune until at least friday... Deltarune tomorrow FOR YOU. Deltarune in several days for us.

*explodes and dies*

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Moots please remember to tag your deltarune spoilers tomorrow, thank you!

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bringing this one back around for pride - kris

Happy pride month to insystem couples & polycules btw.

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hello fellow non-disordered traumagenic plural :)) glad to know i'm not the only one out there lol

yeah,, i think there are more of us than a lot of folks think there are

it took us forever to figure out we're mainly traumagenic because nobody talks about nondisordered traumagenic systems

it's always cool to see others!

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when the week so tough you have to pull out the pk;m n

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Martin is finally no longer frontstuck.

- Cole

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please remember to not shame yourself over whoever you split.

your brain needed them for a reasons, so please be kind to yourself