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[iana-stardust]

to give proof through the night

The sun rises

Warm rays fight through clouds to reach my eyes, a grey haze hangs over a dim room

A child rises, slowly, drearily, unkempt, unsure, uninterested

A voice rang out once long ago

Give me your poor, your broken, your huddled masses

I am not poor, not huddled in a mass

I am not broken

I am not whole

I long

For a starry night

Shooting stars leave stripes in their wake

For those behind to place upon

Their wishes, their hopes, their happiness

But I do not shine

I wish

I long

For more than this

More than the safety of mundanity

More than the silent uncaringness of a calm world

I long

For crimson mirrors on a muddy ground

A cruel sunrise to rise beyond

Shouting to the heavens above

The enemy bearing down upon me

For beautiful tears shed on a broken brother’s quiet form

A hallowed piece of fabric woven proud waving in the wind that slows our step

The defender in my hand, by my side, in my chest

To stand proud

I long

For scars like the marks in the hands of the son

For the sting of the pain in the chest of the father

For the tethering nail in the foot of the spirit

A hero

Arms open wide for all to see the glory of the broken

To return destroyed and yet permanent

Dead yet undying

What if not the end can give meaning to the endless

I know well beyond my years

For well I’ve been taught

I know the place that awaits me

My destiny

The destiny of my brother

For us to manifest.

[iana-stardust]

Well in other „jojo is frustrated about braindead CEO‘s“ news, my god did Unity ever fuck up. I‘ve seen five individual studios that hold major Unity titles announce delays as they would have to jump ship, meaning Unity is losing everything. Not even those with the strongest reasons can stay under the conditions Unity is clamoring for.

So what has the announcement achieved?

- the indie dev userbase dies out the second it is enacted. They can’t afford it and the games are small enough that they would rather remake or abandon them than turn them into cashcows, which most don’t have the playerbase or gameplay features for anyway, so it’s not even really a choice, they are immediately dead.

- the active learning and indie userbase implodes immediately as there isn’t a convincing reason to choose Unity over other engines the second it becomes expensive and caps its own potential at near zero.

- the larger and more long term studios abandon unity because they stand to lose a ton of money. Plus most are indie studios that take pride in their work and would object to the necessary changes to comply. They can afford to remake their games so they would do that as it is both more ethical towards their players AND MORE PROFITABLE FOR THEM. Mind you, with established titles on the engine, nobody else has a stronger reason to stay. It’s just that the reasons to leave outweigh those reasons so phenomenally it’s a fucking joke.

- the players get annoyed and dislike Unity; public opinion goes down the gutter. Players in the very active indie game communities fully comprehend that Unity is the reason their content updates are delayed, devs are stressed, games are abandoned and the quality drops as engine ports develop bugs and minor features and feel have to be relearned.

- as a result, unity games disappear, the active learning community disappears, the players disappear, and no devs will pick unity up again.

Oh and because the person that made that calm can’t exactly be trusted to comprehend what that means, a small explanation. If your company makes a product, and nobody uses that product, you don’t sell any. You don’t sell any product, you don’t generate revenue. You don’t generate revenue, YOU‘RE NOT PROFITABLE.

Hey CEO, the reason you have to strongarm your companies, customers and b2b partners into your idea of profitability is that it’s less fucking profitable. You generate more revenue in the short term because what you’re selling isn’t just your product, it’s your credibility, your morals, the trust placed in your company, your reputation. Every extra cent you make is a drop of blood from your company and once you‘ve bled it dry it doesn’t matter what’s left in your wallet, it’s dead. But I guess you don’t care, you just want your cut of the wallet when you jump ship. Well you fucked up, because you thought you could just pull that again with another company and in your blind greed failed to even take a glance at your company. Failing to recognize its structures and thereby cutting too deep and bleeding too fast. There’s no payout coming, just the anemic collapse. I hope you are personally held financially accountable for the losses you’ve created so that you feel some of the loss that all the people are feeling because of you.

The devs who spent years building passion projects who will be forced to abandon them.

The devs who spent years acquiring a skill only for it to become a worthless CV bullet point.

The players whose favorite indie games are discontinued.

The studios that will go under because they don’t have the room to pivot.

The countless people whose livelihoods are reduced or destroyed because of your incompetence and blind greed.

I dislike wishing poor things upon others but I wish you financial and professional ruin so that you may never again inhabit a position of power capable of destroying another good thing.

Someone get that dipshit CEO some PR, marketing, economics, development and ethics advisors, and importantly a „how to shut up and let people who understand my job do it for me 101“ class. Seriously, how does one run one of the most successful game companies (EA) into the PR ground, get given a second chance after that, AND FUCKING DOUBLE DOWN?

Killing a company in three announcements is a more impressively incompetent feat than what Musk is doing with Twitter and that was already unheard of.

[iana-stardust]

Man this stuff is pitiful huh.

I‘m talking about reddit starting another r/place to gloss over the subreddit strikes.

Now I‘m not coming back without 196 either way but this is just upsetting.

[iana-stardust]

Down – a mundanity in three relatively short acts

by Jojo

Act 1 – down the drain

  Tick, tock tock tock, tick, tock tock tock. Tick goes the clock, over and over, again and again, forever. She glances at it, an ugly brown thing on her wall. It’s only been there for a few weeks now, hasn’t had time to stop ticking yet. Not like the one in the corner. It’s been there for how long? Two weeks? No, three. Four? Yes, four weeks and… what day is it? The calendar says it’s Wednesday, but she hasn’t been keeping up with it for a while… Whatever, Wednesday it says, so Wednesday it must be. She bought it on a Thursday. So three weeks and six days? That feels too short… but that must be right. Three weeks, six days, she started it up at midnight on the dot, she remembers how satisfying it was to start it as the church bell rang out twelve, after it had stood on the floor for three hours, catching her nervous glances. So that means it’s been three weeks, six days, five hours and ten minutes, plus a few seconds, she wouldn’t know, the clock doesn’t show them. In a way it’s strange, she thinks, how she bothered to start the clock perfect to the second, even though it doesn’t show them. Actually, she has trouble believing that the clock actually is set to the second. After all, who knows what position the gears were in on the inside. And if the church tower is on point. Maybe she should take it to a perfect clock. But what clock is perfect anyway. Even digital clocks don’t get it quite right, there’s a delay in the connection. She saw it with a friend once. They were showing off their new digital clock, and it was four seconds short of her old clock, the one she tossed into the corner when it started turning too fast and ruined her precisely set time. She misses it. It was a good clock. She remembers starting it, four years ago. All day she waited to put the batteries in, until it was 12 on the dot. Lunchtime. Where could there be a perfect clock? She doesn’t know. It was a good clock that one, it was shaped after the Cheshire cat from a children’s book she liked. Well, she liked the movie, the book was too boring to read. So many pages. And she remembers when she reached page 2 and it just… repeated. It must have been a printing error of some sort, but all the pages afterwards had been offset and she hated it. She couldn’t go on after that, she felt so out of rhythm. She kept wondering how Alice could have gone down the rabbit hole and sat at the bottom at the same time. It’s not like she was some sort of Schroedinger’s kid, was she? Would Schroedinger have a perfect clock? Probably not, he’d probably put it in a box and say that it was both perfect and imperfect. Would the amount of possible outcomes on either side affect the ratio of time spent being perfect or imperfect? After all, it would be perfect one out of one-thousand four hundred and forty times, and imperfect one-thousand four hundred and thirty nine times, so would that even really apply? After all, even a broken clock was right twice a day, so did that make Schroedinger’s clock a double broken clock? She didn’t see the point. If she was there, she would just open the box. After all, if nobody could see the clock, it couldn’t show anyone the correct time. But how did the clock know the time anyway? Well, she had to set it. And she knew it because of the big clock on the church tower in the valley. And that one had been set by the Vicar. Or whomever he’d hired to do it, probably after some digital clock with a delay. And that got it from some other digital clock without a delay. Where did that get it from? Schroedinger? Probably not, he was long dead. But maybe some other scientist. Scientist. Knower, that was what it meant, right? Surely one of them must know this too. They must have a perfect clock to know it, or even be one. Maybe at NASA? They broadcast those fancy countdowns on TV back in the day, but she didn’t recall those showing the time very well. And they’d used some strange terms to tell the time, what was it, t minus? Yes, that was it, t minus something. Sounded like Math, but time had never been much a topic in Math class back in school. Oh, but physics! Physics had lots of time and Math too! So it must be a Physicist who knew. She’d heard of some big physicist institution before, what was it… scorn? She should google it. She clicked on her phone. She couldn’t stand the thing. Whenever she turned it on, it showed a huge digital clock display that was never quite right. She quickly clicked past and it was reduced to a much less noticeable display in the corner. Scorn physics… cern… CERN? That seemed about right. Switzerland, too… they were good with clocks, she remembered that her grandmother had had a Swiss cuckoo clock that she bought on a visit to Germany once. Why she would do that, she had no idea, but it had always faithfully announced the time with a lot of confidence. It had broken her heart to put it away when that confidence finally led it astray, to remove this piece of her grandmother from the wall. She wondered if it had already been wrong when it told her that her time had come. She detested it a little, but that cuckoo surely meant well. Now, for a plane ticket… and the trip was set in stone. One day, back and forth, a flight to Switzerland, with just a few hours to go to CERN and get the time. She looked at the ugly brown clock on her wall, and hoped it would tell her the time well so she wouldn’t miss her flight. But of course it would, she had set it herself just four weeks ago after all.

  Act 2 – down the rabbithole

  Fourteen hours on the plane. Fourteen excruciating hours of that stupid heads-up display showing the local time wherever they were flying over and jumping every now and then randomly. Of course she knows what timezones are, but it’s frustrating that a clock can jump from one second to the next and make hours not take hours. Of course that’s only for her, inside the timezone an hour is still an hour. It’s disorienting and stupid, just like how the sun always rises at a slightly different time every day. It’s frustrating because it disorients her, and stupid because it makes sense when she thinks about it logically. She opens her backpack and produces an ugly brown clock, much to the confusion of the officer in front of her and the bemusement of the tired businesswoman standing on the other side of the metal detector. The officer wants to disassemble the clock to check for illegal contents, but is finally assuaged when she shows him the tickets for the flight back in a few hours and the booked appointment for the CERN visitor center. The operator on the phone had told her she wouldn’t need it, but she knew it would be useful when she printed it out. The airport is full of clocks, digital and analog. She likes the analog clocks better. Digital clocks can be late by minutes one moment and fast by seconds the next because they don’t have their own clockwork, that’s what her teacher told her. A moment, how long is that actually? Analog clocks are better, they have consistent shift, little by little across years. Of course they also stop working at some point and stop showing the right time, but that’s alright. She remembers an old book her teacher showed her once, about a young boy with two gem stones and a camel and a horse, who knew an alchemist. Coelho he was called, she thinks. In that book, Coelho says that a horse is better than a camel because you can tell when it starts breaking down, while a camel will be fine until it suddenly isn’t. Just like analog and digital clocks, she thinks, when an analog clock stops working then it becomes irrational and you can tell, but when a digital clock is wrong, you can’t tell at all. When a clock’s batteries run out, it stops, but when a digital display loses connection, it still shows the wrong time. She chooses the horse. But she has to adjust her saddle if she wants to ride off, and that’s what she wants to do. She read that CERN has a Caesium fountain clock that is perfect enough to define time. She doesn’t understand how it works, but it seems that this is where time comes from. All paths lead here. So she needs to see it, cut out the middleman, set her clock to it exactly. The visitor center is open, of course it is, so she makes a beeline for the help desk. She needs to see the clock that shows the time right, it’s what she flew all the way from Seattle for. The receptionist seems surprised, but seems to have a faint recollection of a phone call a few days ago. So she makes a phone call. She doesn’t understand Swiss, but the receptionist sighs with a grin and tells her in English that someone will come and take her there. Two ladies step out of an elevator, one wearing a uniform that says security on it, and one with a lab coat slung over her shoulder. They say they’re surprised at the purpose of the visit, that normally people come to learn about physics and science, but they are intrigued by her dedication to learning the time. So there is the clock. The display is digital, which doesn’t give her much confidence. But then, this must be the clock that all the digital clocks are set after, so it must be right. She pulls out her brown clock and sets the time. That’s all she came for, she awkwardly thanks the two ladies who brought her here. The display shows the time down to fractions of a second, and she’s hit by the sudden realization that her clock only goes down to minutes. She would love to stay until midnight and start her clock perfectly, but she has a flight to catch and a life to return to. Such a shame, she should have planned another day and come here around lunchtime. But it’s too late to gripe about it now, so she sets the clock to the best of her ability. She then dejectedly places it in her backpack. She wonders if she can get a digital watch in the gift shop after all, one that gets the time directly from this one. But that probably isn’t possible, this clock is used for research here, so it probably doesn’t command any other clocks on the outside. She really should have thought of that before she came. Well, it’s too late now. She leaves the gift shop behind her with the clock in her backpack. She got what she came for. She doesn’t realize until the security officer at the gate recognizes her that the clock is analog. No, that’s not right, she always knew it was analog. So why does it matter? She’s confused. And she sees the big analog clocks in the terminal. And it hits her. It’s analog. When she gets home, it will be wrong by several hours. She forgot about the time shift. All of this was in vain, she still has to manually change the time when she gets home. She has to add human error, reduce the perfection of the time to a mere estimation. She got the perfect time, but she can’t take it home.

  Act 3 – down the stairs

  Good thing she didn’t do it. She shakes her head and leaves the daydream be. She’s curious what CERN would be like. Maybe she should google it anyway. The first result is an article claiming that the Caesium clock says that a day should have 25 hours. She’s curious. It’s horrendous, and surely it can’t be real… and it isn’t, it’s an April fool’s joke. Thank goodness. But perhaps the time isn’t that important anyway. It just ticks away, tick, tock tock tock. She glances up at the ugly brown clock on her wall. “Hey, you there?”. Tick, tock tock tock. She looks over to the door. Tock tock tock. Knocking. “Hey, you still in there? You good?” Tock tock tock. Oh god. He’s been knocking this whole time. She didn’t even notice. “Look, if you don’t respond I’m calling an ambulance. I get you might need a little longer in there, but I’m starting to get worried. Let me know hun, okay?” She can’t help but laugh. “I’m fine, dad. Gimme a minute!”. She glances at the mirror and rinses the soap off her hands, before unlocking the door. “Gosh, you really had us worried”, her father grins. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to take my turn too. Dinner is waiting downstairs, I’ll be right down.” She chuckles and steps aside to let him into the washroom. She’s starving, she thinks, it’s about time for food. She wonders what’s for dinner. She could ask her father… But she could also just go check. As she steps away, the ticking of the ugly brown clock fades away from behind the door. Who cares what time it is anyway.

[iana-stardust]

I need to brag about my energy drink consumption last year. I’m fully aware it’s not a good thing but I was proud of it at the time and I want to stand by that just for a bit.

Last year, I would have upwards of four cans of monster a day. I‘d buy two 24 packs a week and keep at least one pack stocked. Some days when I hadn’t slept, I‘d pop two cans of white monster, put them in one of those 1.5L bottles with a full tray of ice cubes and use them to make it through my lectures. At first it was white monster but the sweeteners and citric acid caused me serious stomach issues and I started getting tired of them, so I eventually switched to monster monarch. Still my favorite energy.

But also let’s face it. I was fucking addicted, to a dangerous extent. This originally came from me struggling with depressive thoughts and losing control of my day to day. On top of that, I developed anxiety over starting uni during lockdown. I started staying up late again to enjoy my late evenings when I could just game and chill and take walks with no obligations or anyone to see me and judge me. My sleep schedule shifted backwards. At first, I was going to bed at 10 every day. After two months, it shifted back towards 12. Soon after, 1 or 2 am. We were still in lockdown and I didn’t have a set time to get up as online lectures couldn’t take attendance and were often in the afternoon.

But I started getting up later and later, and my schoolwork started following me further into the evening. Soon I wasn’t staying up until three to unwind, I was staying up because I knew I was behind on my major and if I didn’t finish, it would get worse. My schedule shifted towards 4 to 5 am. I needed the energy drinks to make it through the day. But I was at home so my mum could keep tabs on my consumption, and it was largely a can a day.

After that, I moved back to Uni for my exam phase. I failed phenomenally, and was waiting for my expulsion letter. It never came. I reenrolled in my secondary major. No notice. I kept attending classes. Nobody said anything, but I was worried. Had there been a mistake? I should have been expelled. But I wasn’t? I wasn’t ready to give up, but the advisory office was closed still and I couldn’t get a clear answer. So I just kept up with classes. My anxiety got so much worse. But I was determined to do my best. I made it through the second online semester, and moved back to uni as classes moved back to in-person.

Going to uni for the first time wasn’t easy. I made some friends, but I was constantly a nervous wreck. The anxiety from my lack of expulsion loomed over me constantly. I trief hard to keep up with classes, but as the semester went on, my schedule started shifting again. I started pulling all-nighters because I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t recognize at the time, but I was having panic attacks almost every night. I was having heart issues and trouble breathing and I thought if I went to sleep I wasn’t going to wake up, so I didn’t sleep. I barely slept and regularly showed up to classes barely lucid. I needed the caffeine to make it to class. Several times I fell asleep on the tram back home and woke up in a different town. The caffeine stopped keeping me conscious and I increased my dose. As the semester approached its end I stopped attending classes altogether since I had sufficient attendance. But I still couldn’t sleep, I was still panicked. And my consumption of energy drinks only increased.

Now, I feel like mentioning here that my best friend has a nickname for caffeine: anxiety juice. And I‘m sure many of you know that feeling. I didn’t get that. I didn’t realize how much the caffeine was pumping into my anxiety. It was a spiral and I‘d taken the leap of faith down the center.

The next semester was the same thing but kicked into overdrive. I was drinking nothing but energy drinks stretched with water. I was gaining weight from the sugar in them so I cut back on my diet to lose weight, and went overboard. With my body constantly scratching by its very minimum energy I was craving the kick from the caffeine more than ever. But at this point I was so tolerant to it that I would drink a sixpack a day and still struggle to keep it together. The panic attacks stopped coming, they were here to stay now. And I didn’t even notice. I was a jumpy mess of self-loathing and anxiety. Finishing my mandatory classes should have been a relief but the approach of my bachelor‘s that I wasn’t going to be able to get drove me insane. I was thinking of doing unspeakable things to myself all the time that I don’t even want to remember. Being on a strict diet, I drank more energys than ever since there aren’t very many good non-caffeinated sugar free drinks and in lieu of the sugar I needed the kick of the caffeine.

And then the end of the semester came. And I looked at myself and I realized that this couldn’t go on. That if I kept having these thoughts, one day it would happen. That all the threats looming above me would only catch up to me. And even though I had once resolved that I wouldn’t, I decided to escape. I left uni and moved back home with my mother. I went to Taiwan and although my anxiety was still pretty bad, the month in Taiwan was a cold cutoff on my caffeine consumption. Besides a headache that droned on for a few days I was fine. But coming off the caffeine, I realized just how much it had affected and worsened my anxiety.

I really wish I could be a cool alt kid again, glued to my monster can, collecting tabs. Gaming late into the night and popping a can for that tryhard edge. But I‘ve barely had energys in almost half a year and I‘ve gotten way too sensitive to caffeine since. I only drink small low caffeine energys now, but my heart aches a little whenever I see a can if Monster Monarch in a shelf, knowing if I buy it I won’t sleep that night. I don’t know if or how badly I damaged my body, but I suppose I should be glad I didn’t inherit my father‘s heart issues.

[iana-stardust]

Took some time to look back on my blog today and yeah, sorry for subjecting yall to that stuff. But, I‘m also glad because after looking back at all the shit I‘ve been through in the last two years, I can see how much I‘ve improved. I have kind of an emotional capacity now and I don’t live in constant crippling anxiety. I still don’t really function normally and struggle to do some pretty basic stuff but at least now I can take care of myself, more or less. I haven’t felt the urge to end myself in so long, suicide jokes make me worried now. I can barely believe that one. Honestly, my life is pretty much in shambles. I‘m broke, living at my mom‘s place and still too scared of talking to people to try to get a job. Might tutor english/bio/german nonprofit for a while to get used to being around people, but being masc presenting, education/supervision jobs with children scare me. So yeah I‘m still a total wreck, but I‘m also gradually getting better at life, and at some point I might even be able to function properly. Yay.

Also I‘ve kind of settled my gender identity? Like, I‘m transfem. Pretty sure of that. But I‘m going to continue going by all pronouns and I won’t take up a real name until I can actually start my transition. Don’t know why but it feels right that way. Honestly I‘m really scared of what the future may bring regarding that, but I‘m going to hedge my bets on being happy. Unfortunately, my therapist won’t give me an assessment on the matter because she regards herself as unqualified to do so, which I suppose is fair enough, but I‘m frustrated that I can’t make progress. I want to continue therapy to deal with my anxiety but I worry it won’t work if it comes at the cost of delaying my transition. In the meantime I‘m dieting and hitting the gym; I can shape up my waist a little already, and since I read that mtf hrt reduces muscle mass I figure bulking up won’t hurt, especially since from experience I lose muscle mass pretty quick once I take a break. I pretty much have my mind set on a full transition, because I just want those damn bottom dysphoria things gone, but time will tell if that’ll be an option. If I can’t be a proper transfem yet, I can at least be my best twink lol.

I‘m fixing my sleep rythm and somehow managed to go full decaf. Which is nice, but sugar free monster is so much better than diet soda and I legit can’t drink it for shit anymore because caffeine has become pure anxiety juice. Also it’s really hard looking at monster monarch on the shelves and not getting a can. I hope once my anxiety gets better I can have the occasional can again.

I‘ve been downsizing my shit because I realized I‘m pretty materially spoiled and my room is full of once-expensive now garbage. I want to pursue my old hobbies again, but warhammer and airsoft are both very time-consuming and expensive and between the two, airsoft is such a joy and pride for me that it’s hard to choose something over it. So I‘ve been trying to sell my pile of shame from Warhammer but haven’t found anyone willing to buy. I might just paint them in a quiet minute anyway. If I can make the space to set up a small workbench type hobby desk I‘d be set for years of warhammer and airsoft tinkering on free time, but for now I feel like I don’t deserve to take that free time because I don’t really have any work to take it from.

So yeah that’s where I‘m at uwu

[iana-stardust]

I‘m 20 now

Is this what getting older feels like?

Also it’s been a good two weeks since I turned 20 but it hasn’t really hit me yet

[iana-stardust]

The Birch

In a meadow stands a Birch. Its branches stand tall, its leaves hang low. Its bark bears scars of age and love. It was raised from a sapling, planted cautiously by tender hands to stand tall and proud. It stands upon nurturing soil that houses the roots of various plants, slightly apart from many other trees; strong oaks, reliable pines, generous maples, handsome Cedars. Between them, the flowers can take root: gorgeous roses, fragrant lilies, tender tulips, well-rounded chrysanthemum, tantalizing hyacinth. The meadow is rich with life that crawls, runs and flies in the shadow of the trees and the bushes, untouchable and approachable rosebushes, warm hydrangea, sweet honeysuckle, comforting strawberry, adventurous blackcurrant. The plants rank and grow wildly in unpredictable, new paths, wrapping around trunks, sprouting between roots, trunks growing to intertwine and share their sunlight, blossoms hiding away under a crown of leaves from the heavy rain.

The birches roots are no home to such beauty. Its leaves hang low, they take the sunlight from its roots, no sapling nor seed may take root there. The planter takes pride in the comfortable shade in the midst of the meadow, and comfort as they rest. Yet the birch is sickly, in a way they cannot comprehend. No bug may gnaw at its leaves, no fungus may take hold of the trunk, no rot disgrace the roots. Yet its trunk grows hollow. The leaves hang lower every day, until the planter shivers in their shade. The bark begins to peel with sickly appearance; the tree grows no longer, he shakes and staggers in the wind, his bark falls to the ground, his leaves can grow no more, he can give no more shade, no more protection, he yearns for salvation from the weight of his spindly sticks.

And so he must fall. The planter regrets and does not wish to swing the axe, but the choice is not theirs, it has been determined, and so the tree is felled.

Sunsets flood the meadow in their warm golden ichor again and again, and again and again the ground greedily swallows it up for the serene night. A sole trunk lays hollow amidst the vivid meadow, it dries in the sun and soaks in the rain. And from inside, a stem begins to grow. It ranks along the bark, takes root inside the scars, and stretches into the sticks that once held a crown of leaves. And one day, the sun rises upon the valley once more and behold! And the planter beholds, and they see the Birch; she is alive once more in blooming glow, her leaves upon the ground, her crown alight with red, the trunk firmly held and wrapped in thorny green, as she stretches against the sky again, a rose bush.

[iana-stardust]

Hi

I’ve been gone for quite a while. I’ve returned from Taiwan and I’m back to fighting to get my life in order. I finally discussed about my gender with my therapist, and while she wants to help me, she refuses to give me the prescription I would need for HRT or anything of the sort; so I’m still staying with her for my ongoing therapy, but as soon as I deem that I’m content with the achievements, I’ll have to start looking for someone who will.

I’ve started going to the gym, to take steps towards fixing my body image and body respectively, and I’m happy with my results so far. My best friend isn’t doing well these days but I can’t really help her, so I’m mostly focusing on myself so that I can be there for her if she does need me. The dysphoria is getting worse these days though and I find myself dissociating in order to cope pretty often. I still feel wrong describing it as dysphoria, but getting a professional diagnosis isn’t within reach at the moment. My *** drive is just gone these days because I can’t stand my body. I get gender envy at the stupidest shit. I don’t know if I’m getting into my own head or if it’s real. Can dysphoria worsen over time? Is it because everything suddenly feels so inaccessible because of my therapist, or maybe because my body’s been changing? 

My best friend showed me some of her introspective art today, and it really left an impression on me. I thought “It’s a shame I can’t draw like her” and then I realized, I may not be much of an artist, but I think I’m okay at writing? So I tried writing a little piece of prose to try and express my dysphoria. I call it “The Birch”, which I only realized after the fact is also a horror movie. Whoopsie? It’s very much unrelated. Anyway, I’m uploading it as well for now.

[iana-stardust]

A little life update. I‘ve finally dropped out of Uni and moved back home. In a week, I‘m going to Taiwan for a month, when I come back I‘m gonna start looking for work and studying for my driver’s license. I feel much less stressed and things are better. I still have a long way to go in terms of both therapy and my life in general, but for the moment I‘m ok with just existing for a bit. My mum has chilled out about my gender and I get to wear shorts and stuff around the house, although not outside cause we got a lot of conservatives around. Anyway, I‘m looking up a little.

[iana-stardust]

Well, I tried putting my energy drinks in my water bottle and mixing them with water and ice cubes to slow my consumption rate and it worked for a few days, but today I started taking little sips of energy juoce whenever I started feeling low and now my anxiety is kicking, my circulation appears to suck cause I get dizzy whenever I stand up no matter how slowly and also I may have gone through six cans of Monster in 10 hours. Have I mentioned I‘m an anxious wreck? Cause I‘m an anyious wreck hoping that metacommentary on my mental state will help alleviate it.

[iana-stardust]

CW: mention of excrement

So I‘ve been eating pre-cooked meals recently cause I didn’t have time/energy to cook during exam phase, and wound up pretty constipated. After feeling bloated but unable to do anything about it for two days, I decided to „home remedy“ by drinking lemon juice. Didn’t know how much and I quite like sour things, so I downed the bottle without second thought.

Well well well, if it isn’t the consequences of my actions.

[iana-stardust]

Bruh my intestines are killing me and I can name far too many possible reasons

a) excessive energy drink consumption

b) excessive „sugar free“ drink consumption

c) inconsistent diet mostly nuggies and curry sausage

d) fucked sleep schedule

e) corsets

f) swallowed too much makeup

g) excessive consumption of citric acid

h) sedentary lifestyle

i) that damn Brita filter

To name a few. Now, that gives me quite a lot of possibilities:

a) Drink regular energy drinks and soft drinks instead

b) eat some veggies

c) go to sleep before 3am

d) stop giving a fuck about beauty ideals

e) stop drinking exclusively 1:1 ratio lime water

f) touch grass

g) exchange the filter or just drink unfiltered water (I live in Germany, tapwater is safe here)

I will go with h

h) suffer

[iana-stardust]

Venting again

Well, after I “came out” to my mum, I started feeling a lot better and a lot more secure in my gender identity, I had proper masc and fem days and was able to live accordingly which was nice.

Somehow, since last week I’ve been lacking energy. It started with me just feeling very masc and not enjoying wearing fem clothes and makeup. That was fine, I figured I was just having masc days and that was it. But then I started feeling bad about my appearance again, I wanted to look more fem; but at the same time, I didn’t have energy to shave my legs, much less wear makeup. I was just in a stasis and I couldn’t do anything.

Then the weekend rolled around. As ususal, since it’s a holiday, my family had a reunion. Now, I have a bit of a history with some of my family members, and while both sides have been making an effort to mend our relationship, they are very headstrong people with strong political and personal views. They are German conservative, which is to say they aren’t denying things like homosexuality or transgender, and even have compassion, but also think of them in an old-fashioned way. In between, I casually mentioned I was on the ace spectrum, and they were like “that isn’t real” like I guess I’m fictional, but whatever, that wasn’t too bad. Now, I’ve been hiding my own gender issues from them, but I’ve had to have “the talk” about my fingernails and earring. That was fine and all in the past. The weekend was exhausting, but not so much because it was bad, I’m just introverted and can’t really relax when I’m around anyone besides my mum. So I came back home fairly late on Monday, tired but fine. it’s a little frustrating, because it feels so unequal. They often act like they are making such a big effort to mend our distance by investing all that time and money, and to be clear, I’m very grateful for that! But I’m investing equally much time and money, and they have yet to just accept that I don’t fit into their upper class neat and tidy world where words have hidden blades and confidentiality stands only when we see eye to eye. 

Well, I also set my whatsapp profile picture to a picture of me in fairly heavy makeup and my choker, which I wear because it makes my throat look less masculine. Apparently that was the straw that breaks the camel’s back, because I was messaged about how that was questionable, I should seek help and that certain things should be kept private. I guess they took the heavy blush and choker as a sign that I was a sub. Now, while I don’t mind the topic or the people involved, I’m not. And the way they confront issues is... infuriating. They bust down the proverbial door and go for hard confrontation, ignore any attempt at consolation, guilt trip by taking every correction as a personal attack and then just walk off leaving the topic unconcluded, no matter if I concede, stand my ground or just try to correct the misunderstanding. And it sucks, because I am nowhere near secure enough to handle it. It lives in my mind rent-free and won’t let me rest until it’s settled.

If you are reading this, you know I’m talking to you. I hate when you do that, it’s the reason I couldn’t handle it back then as well. I barely got any sleep because your reaction kept me awake. I get that you were tired, but maybe don’t rip a can open if you can’t handle the content. I still haven’t gotten over it. I’m still an anxious wreck. Please, I appreciate your concern, but you stress me out so much whenever you do this. Please just learn to communicate. Not your shrouded “discussing secrets at a party” bullshit, just clear, simple communication. We’re family, not investors sneaking a hint at their next moves. If you can’t tell me to my face, then don’t bother telling me at all.

I just can’t handle stuff right now. I hate myself. I hate the way I look. I’m not even sure of myself, I’ve been questioning who I even am for two years now, I finally figured out my gender identity and my fashion style and taste in music and all of that just hasn’t been bringing me any joy at all. I’m just so tired. There’s nothing secure to hold on to in my life, or rather, the few things I can hold on to just feel so wrong and I’d rather lose myself than rely on them. I’m so lost.

[iana-stardust]

Vent post yay

I‘m feeling a really weird mix of emotions rn. I had a really nice day; made it to class and back feeling good and didn’t have a panic attack out in the city, managed to buy some makeup and tried it out, it turned out great, I was really happy and even managed to do a live stream. A while ago I accidentally cut back too much on my diet and I accidentally triggered my body‘s starvation reaction (I think I‘m not really clear how that works) but I‘m back to a healthier diet with sufficient calories and eating well, even felt pretty good about my waist looking in the mirror today. All in all it should be an amazing day for me.

But it’s not. I‘m in bed knowing I should be asleep because I have a class in exactly nine hours but I‘m so overwhelmed with the knowledge that I have a ton to do. I need to make an appt with my uni counsellor that I‘ve been dreading for literally a year, one with my doctor who I‘ve been unable to reach and I have appts with my therapist three hours away and then with my dentist two hours away in the coming weeks. I have a presentation due on Thursday in a week on a topic I know nothing about in a style I‘ve never held before, I have to go home to my mum for the weekend on Friday because Saturday is her birthday which I still need to get a cake for, then we also have to travel to tend to my dad’s grave and I just want some time to write my shitty trashy poems and dnd campaigns that nobody will ever play because all my friends are too busy having their life together. I almost fell back into sh habits but remembered how much I regretted it and luckily my tiktok fyp shoved a video of someone markering themselves instead in my face so I just drew some hearts all over my arm with eyeliner and a realistic one on my torso as well as I could. I don’t think it actually satisfied the urge but it got close enough to stall until I snapped out. It’s never been much of an issue for me so I wouldn’t take this to mean any guarantee of it working, but it did for me so that’s nice. Honestly I really want to take a mental health day of absence but it’s also the class I‘ll have to present in so I hope I can learn sth from it. I‘m immensely frustrated and stressed rn but there’s really nothing I can do about it.

[iana-stardust]

Fuck yeah finally outta class! I can’t wait to try my new white eyeliner

Not sure whether I should stream today tho

[iana-stardust]

I am miserable right now but at least it’s physical for a change. Doesn’t help when I‘m in class and my stomach begins its plot against me though.