#Once I get top surgery it's all over for people that see me irl

[solradguy]

I love deserts and hot dry weather but I think I would die if I couldn't wear my leather jacket 7 months of the year

[sapphire-heart-tippy]

So, if you don't know, I actually have a slice of life au called "The Bellflower AU". It was supposed to be a more realistic au where Bel and I met in college and are a t4t couple. Bel is on testosterone and pre top surgery, while I'm pre everything like irl.

Some info:

Link 1

Link 2

But I was fantasizing about solving a problem, and I accidentally made it so Vanilla was in the au as well (I guess we literally will find each other in every universe huh? 🫂) but he doesn't go by Vanilla and he's not really him, because Jojo is a thing in the Bellflower au.

Here's what happened in the fantasy:

Bel and I are both top dysphoric but he can't afford top surgery, and I don't feel safe medically transitioning due to the situation I'm in. Plus, to make things worse, Bel's chest is larger than mine and makes it a little bit more difficult to hide or bind.

One day, he and I just say "fuck it, let's wear cute bikinis and enjoy the summer" and head over to the pool. Bel is pretty hairy due to both his genetics and the testosterone, he passes more as a guy than I do because his muscle mass and his voice is lower.

The problem is that we're both insecure about our chests... But yeah, we decide to go out and wear bikinis anyway, with or without top surgery.

We're having fun in the pool, splashing around and going down the slides until something awful happens... People are pointing, whispering, and snickering at Bel. He notices right away and knows exactly why they're doing that... I give them all dirty looks and try to comfort Bel, but he gets out of the pool feeling very embarrassed and ashamed.

I follow him to the men's bathroom, which I'm very uncomfortable going into gendered restrooms but I do it for him, where he's sobbing in a stall. I ask to come in there and he reluctantly lets me in.

I tell Bel that they're all stupid morons who don't know how to shut their mouth, and that people tend to hate what they don't understand... He tells me that he hates his chest and just wants to have pecs instead. I understand and want the same thing...

I tell him, "For now, we have to work with what we got... You know something else?" I smile at Bel, "You're actually the reason I was brave and confident enough to wear this... You inspire me and make me want to be more proud of who I am. Not just with my body, but myself in general."

He cries a little more and hugs me. We're both dysphoric and in pain, but we are very much in love with each other and help each other out.

That's when we hear a knock on the stall door and a voice,

"Hey, is everything okay in there?"

I try to explain but I end up blurting out,

"Yeah, it's just that... People keep making fun of him for a condition he has and-... I have it too."

The man on the other end expresses sympathy and says that he heard crying and wanted to check and see if everything was okay. Bel is still embarrassed and doesn't want to come out for fear that the guy might instantly be a jerk once he sees what we look like.

Eventually, after talking to the man for a while through the door, Bel and I come out... both literally and figuratively! The man notices right away and still gives us sympathy that others were being cruel.

When Bel and I see this guy, we're both instantly smitten by how handsome he is. We're both kind of awkward and feel very silly for being so odd in front of this guy, but thankfully he doesn't seem to mind.

He introduces himself as "Zeke" and asks if we'd like to get some pizza or ice cream. Bel and I are all flustered because this really attractive man is being nice to us.

We're kind of skeptical at first, obviously, so he just gives us his number. He tells us that if we ever want to hang out then we can text him.

Zeke goes back outside and into the pool. That's when Bel goes,

"That was... Interesting. Uh, is it just me or does that guy kind of look like...?"

"Vanilla from Jojo-?"

"LITERALLY YES!"

Then we both giggle and decide to leave the pool for the day.

Eventually, we start to hang out more with Zeke and get to know him better. He tells us that he can understand what we go through because he's gay, and us queer folk have to stick together.

Now, Bel and I are pretty jealous and have a big fear of being abandoned or cheated on... But when it comes to Zeke, we both have a mutual crush on him. At first, we don't know how to go about asking him if we could have a three person date. But somehow we managed to go on a date with him.

I blurt out that he reminds me and Bel of our favorite Jojo character, to which this embarrasses Bel and he tells me to be quiet and stop being a nerd. Zeke thinks it's cute and takes it as a compliment. That's also when he gets the nickname "Vans" from us.

So, in conclusion, us 3 get into a relationship and are deeply in love. Vans loves and accepts us for who we are and wants to protect us 🩵💙💜

Also, Vans is a swimmer in this au! He likes to work out and do gymnastics, but swimming is more of his passion. He works as a life guard at the pool!

[windwardstar]

So my two year mark on T is coming up in the next few days and while I will be writing up a longer post about all my experiences later, I do want to say this:

It is never too late to start hormones, you'll see amazing changes no matter how old you are when you start. And I know how hard it is to wait.

I know a lot of those starting hrt later in life stories are from people who didn't realize they were trans until later. And maybe you're thinking it's great for them but that you know you're trans now. You know the options for hormones and gender affirming care exist and you want it but just aren't allowed.

And I'm here to say i know how hard it is to wait.

I knew I wasn't a girl at 5. I wasn't allowed to not be though. Part of the requirements for stopping therapy in elementary school was that I learned to stop saying it. I realized being trans was a thing in high school even if i didnt know nonbinary was an option. I was given room to be tomboy irl and not-a-girl-not-a-boy in my mind. And then I went to live with different family members who expressed violently anti-trans beliefs and any social transitions I did had to be limited to safe spaces, where the countdown to eacaping them also became a countdown to being able to transition socially and medically. I wasn't able to move out and into my own place until I was 25. I didn't get to start T until I was 29 because of insurances. And had to wait until this past year for top surgery and hysto. And am still waiting for bottom surgery.

And I still wish I could have gotten on T earlier. That I could have been able to transition in all the ways I wanted earlier. But they're absolutely worth doing it now because it means I get to be me now. I'm still read as a girl 100% of the time but I feel better about my own body and so many aspects of my dysphoria have decreased. There are things that haven't changed but what has has been entirely worth it.

The wait has also allowed me to build up a history of having a consistent gender identity. It has allowed me to figure out exactly what I want and know down to my bones what the right choices for my transition are so that when I speak with the doctors with other people I have the weight of a decade+ of certainty backing up my choices. And being 30 rather than 13 people are more likely to listen to me and trust that I know myself. It allowed me to save up money and to find a job with good insurance to facilitate my transition.

You shouldn't have to wait. Whatever your age as soon as you know what the right choice is for you, you should be able to make it. And other people stopping you because they think they know better is infuriating and can make you feel hopeless. But one day you will get to transition in all the ways you want.

Bide your time. Use it to figure out what you want. To figure out what you have to do in order to get what you want. To save money. To identify the hoops. Find places where you can be yourself.

I know it's hard to wait. I still struggle with the grief over having to. Wonders of what my life could have been like. But I do know what it is like to finally get to transition and all the joy I've experienced over the past two years, that no matter how long I have to wait for more it'll never be too late because any time I have to experience this joy is worth it.

It's hard to wait, but please stick around and wait. It'll be worth it once you get the chance. I promise.

[still-a-morosexual-help]

@🌹anon asked about my ocs sometime back and as I was answering it rn I accidentally deleted the entire thing😭😭😭😭😭

I'm gonna try and write whatever I remember again✌️:

Yes I did it again (shut up);

I'm such a fucking idiot, I found the "deleted ask" hidden deep in my drafts - apparently it went there when I lost my internet connection but instead of getting saved at the top of my drafts it got saved on the day anon first sent me the ask so somewhere in the middle between other drafts??? Anyway:

!!!You asked for it!!

They were all created for some game or another (characters I'll be able to toss away once I'm done playing the games) But I ended up falling in love with all of them🤡

I can't draw people for shit & I don't wanna describe appearances so I'm gonna use picrews (with links added for anyone who wants to use 'em too)

Starting from first created to last & answering it like I'm making them character profiles for a dating sim (but leaving out the three from Choices 'cause I don't know if they can be considered proper ocs rather than just characters the game handed us? Also leaving out the others from fictif because they're not as well developed)

1. "Lex" Alexandra Lane

(Lex after Lex Luthor and Lane after Lois Lane because I think I'm funny)

[1] , [2]

Origin: Love Island the Game S2

25 at beginning now 26 years (Birthday: November 16th)

5'5"

She/Her

Bisexual

Professional Cellist

English/British because the game didn't give me a choice

Married at 26 (because the game gives you no option), will definitely have a couple kids at some point

No gross out factor - probably ate bugs as a kid. Probably will still eat a bug off the ground if dared to. Biggest point of pride is that she can do a backflip in heels. Loves fashion/beautiful clothes that are usually stupidly expensive. Biting her lip and making bedroom eyes at every single person but really just wants to fall in love and settle down. Hates confrontation/any sort of fight but also really wants to know everything about everyone's business. Good at being the mediator. Always the big spoon. Actually pretty buff - can absolutely bench you.

2. Eliza Ramskin

(Eliza after the official name of the porcelain apple doll sitting in a box on my cupboard but then I decided I didn't want it to stand for Elizabeth so now it stands for "A Lizard" after the rubber gecko pasted on my bedroom wall. Ramskin: a bad pun because of the game)

[1] , [2] (yes the little frog is supposed to be me)

Origin: Obey Me!

23 at beginning now 26 years (Birthday: April 21st)

5'10"

They/Them

Queer

Wildlife Photographer

Has chronic pain

Has a scar over one eyebrow - will smugly tell you a cool story for it. In reality dropped a jar of peanut butter on their face. + top surgery scars

-> Essentially just om! gen MC with a background and name. Have you read my post about gen MC's canon facts? Have you read any of my gen MC theory posts, where I take individual canon facts & connect them to see what happens? Have you read any of my obey me! fics? Can you remember what general MC was like in them? Then you know exactly what Eliza is like. But still, here are some of my favourite parts:

Ambiguously human. Would fight God at 2am in a Denny's parking lot and WIN. They're very lowkey an asshole but underneath that they're kinda nice but underneath that they're a bigger asshole but underneath that they're even nicer and so on and so forth. Surprisingly down for murder. 0 self preservation + 0 shame + 0 fear + max drive & determination + max stubborness + max can do attitude + unconsciously charming + actually pretty strong + danger kink + horny = the world's greatest monster fucker.

3. Len

(Len's short for Lenora which she no longer goes by but irl named after my Lenova laptop, No surname.)

[1] , [2]

Origin: The Arcana

31 years (Birthday: June 7th)

5'11"

She/They

Bisexual

Same occupation as the game's MC

The only one who has a defined body shape in my mind and that body shape is plank of wood

Pitch black eyes that reflects no light. Vague cryptid energy. Stoic, cold yet thin polite smile that seems very surface level. Posture's so good just looking at her makes your back hurt. Warms up once you get to know her; is caring and gentle and understanding and soothing but also stuborn and tough/harsh/strict. Responsible but also has no problem breaking the law if needed. Dreams of travelling the world. Gives off black cat energy but is a dog person. Sadistic in both the sexy and unsexy way. Bad puns. So much untapped potential to be a super villain. I think I accidentally just created a female version of om!'s Lucifer...

4. Vale Knight

(Vale after welcome to night vale which I hadn't watched at the time, Knight from the same place but it's also a pun because of what happens to them in the game)

[1] , [2]

Origin: Last Legacy

28 years (July 10th)

6'0"

They/Them

Queer Polyamorous

Same occupation as the game's MC

Not only are they a weeb they're an ASSHOLE. The kind of person to get stabbed because their first instinct was to mock the mugger. Decided to dye their hair for cosplay once and then went "wait a minute -" A shameless flirt until someone flirts back and then they're a flustered annoyed mess. Had a lot of jobs over the years, currently a barista - doesn't want to be a barista forever but doesn't know what they want to do (other than gaming, watching movies/shows/anime, reading books/comics/manga) until they accidentally discover a passion for medicine and go to nursing school

5. River Bouwmeester

(River after Lake from Infinity Train which I've never watched, Bouwmeester because it's a Dutch surname meaning "master builder" because they work as a home renovater)

[1]

Origin: Monster Manor

27 years

5'1"

He/They

Queer

Same occupation as the game's MC

American (because the game gave me no choice) with probably Dutch origins from their father's side

Couple of big scars here and there

BIG "I can fix him energy". Moves around a lot = not much possibility for a long term stable relationship = oblivious and shy when it comes to romantic attraction. Strong, patient, practical. Very little can rattle them. Came from a long family line of home renovaters/builders (of the magic, strange & weird) but no close living family. Unironically loves bob the builder. Trying very hard to forget about the fact that they're extremely lonely by keeping up a very positive optimistic attitude. Their truck is their pride & joy. Absolutely loves their job even though it's what causes them to move about so much and so makes it hard to form close connections. Very friendly from the first moment but isn't tolerant of anyone's bullshit.

6. Roo Kidd

(Roo after the baby kangaroo from Winnie the Pooh, Kidd because the baby kangaroo was a kid. Surprisingly the actual meanings behind both names fit with their character/circumstances)

[1] , [2]

Origin: Twisted Wonderland

16 years (Birthday January 10th)

5'7"

He/They

Gay Demiromantic Asexual

Wears reading glasses

Lots of small scars from scrapes and scratches all along body

Always cold + loves cute clothes = wearing summer dresses and instantly regretting it. Head in the clouds 7 outta 10 times. Has never felt romantic attraction before - believed they never would and was 100% okay with that - so the one time they did start feeling it went "wow I'm really into this friendship" and stayed oblivious for an annoyingly long time. Also similarly oblivious to romantic attraction directed at them. Kinda klutzy. Big wet eyes. Big bright smile. A ball of sunshine but also really snarky. "This might as well happen" energy. Fast with quick reflexes and a sharp eye for detail. A cunning edge that comes out only during emergencies. Strength of a wet noodle though. Gets a shitty impromptu/accidental haircut that leads to him buzzing it all off and having to grow it back.

[hellebore-petall]

Tag Game To Better Know You! Send this to people you'd like to know better!

Tagged by @yarn-dragon​

What book are you currently reading?

Kith and Kin by Marieke Nijkamp! I’ve had it for over a year and have just gotten around to actually reading it lol

What’s your favorite movie you saw in theaters this year? 

The only movie I remember seeing in theatres this year is the Dune movie, so that one wins by default. I do have more plans in the works to see more movies next year though, namely the Mario movie, and the DnD movie.

What do you usually wear?

Jeans or yoga pants/leggings, with graphic tees in the summer and graphic sweaters in the winter, or a graphic tee with a jacket over it if the temperature is right. Most of the tops I own are merch for various dnd actual plays, most of which are Critical Role because they make good quality clothing.

How tall are you?

5′5″

What’s your star sign? Do you share a birthday with a celebrity or historical event? 

Gemini! I found out last year that Kyle from Unprepared Casters and I share a birthday.

Do you go by your name or a nickname? 

My name irl, I go by Petall in online spaces and on the occasions where I have met internet friends irl.

Did you grow up to become what you wanted to be as a child? 

Growing up I was deadset on becoming a veterinarian. From the time I was 9 to the time I was in Grade 12 I seriously pursued this as a goal. I volunteered at vet clinics, looked for opportunities to watch surgeries, and took all the high school sciences I would need. Then the first week of Grade 12 I realized that becoming a veterinarian would take a lot of time and not give me much of a social life, and I wanted to be more present for the people in my life, so I decided to work with people instead. I just got my Bachelor’s Degree in Child and Youth Care and I have a job at an Emergency Youth Shelter.

What’s something you’re good at vs something you’re bad at?��

I’m really good at writing (and writing lots), I do a lot of creative writing in my spare time. I am not very good at sports, or anything athletic.

If you draw/write, or create in any way, what's your favorite picture/favorite line/favorite etc. from something you created this year? 

I am insanely proud of this paper lantern that I made for a final project in an art class I took as an elective early this year! It’s meant to depict Lottie from arc 6 of Unprepared Casters, as well as her ghost friends. I still have it hanging up in my room.

Dogs or cats?

I do like both, but I probably lean more towards dogs than cats

What's something you would like to create content for? 

I would really love to be on one of my favourite DnD actual plays, but I am a cast member for a Minecraft DnD actual play podcast coming out in the new year! I still feel like joining the cast of one of the actual plays I listen to is a pipe dream, but I am excited to be entering that sphere and hope it opens up other opportunities in other smaller actual plays!

I also really want to stream myself doing a series of pokemon nuzlockes, but my schedule is too unpredictable rn to settle into a routine with that, so that’s a future plan.

What’s something you’re currently obsessed with? 

Unprepared Casters, always. Also, boy howdy, Dimension 20: Neverafter sure has a hold on me rn, the brainrot is real.

What's something you were excited about that turned out to be disappointing this year?

I was really excited to get my job in Out of School Care at the same place I worked summer camp at, but while I love working with kids, working with youth at my practicum placement (and now part-time job now that my practicum is done) has lead me to see I much prefer working with an older age group. Once an opportunity for a full-time position at the youth shelter opens up, I plan on giving my notice to the Out of School Care position, but until that happens I plan to see out the school year to follow through on my contract.

What’s a hidden talent of yours? 

My middle sibling and I are really good at doing spontaneous improv bits together and I wish I could show them off, but we never plan them and attempting to film them would not allow it to happen naturally.

What's something you wish to have at this moment? 

I want my cold to go away :( I have been sick for the past several days and have had to cancel multiple fun plans as a result :(((( Let me get better so I can enjoy Christmas shenanigans!!!!!! I want clear nostrils again!!! My body faked me out yesterday and I felt better for most of the day, then I took a nose-dive in the evening and I feel worse than ever :(((((((((((

No pressure tags to @loudobjectprincess​ @jimbothy-magma​ @winter-changeling​ and anyone else who wants to do it! I would tag more but cold sick brain fog :((((

[party-gilmore]

under the cut for dysphoria about dysphoria and top scars that i have FINALLY been able to parse out and recognize why something that's so heartwarming and fulfilling and validating for other transmen just bothers me so much, and I'm just thrilled that i could pinpoint an actual REASON instead of this continued guilt over thinking it was just internalized transphobia

Because the thing is like holy SHIT do i love and support people drawing their fav men with top scars (and ofc would never ever SAY or BE anything but supportive as well) but I've never been able to understand WHY it makes me uncomfortable. Like. Like grimace and scroll past kind of uncomfortable.

So i thought I've just been being an asshole and not able to get past some weird fucking hang up about not wanting my fav men characters to be trans.

And thank fuck. It turns out. Today i realized 'oh shit it's not about the transness, it's about top surgery always being show as default for transmen.'

Because. Because again i know for so many transmen it's so incredibly validating and i NEVER want to take away from that, but as someone who's NOT top-dysphoric and actually likes and wants to keep my tits...

...god i just want to see them be men with boobs. I want to be shown someone just. Being accepted as a man without needing a "male" chest. And "top scars to show they're trans-" art is FANTASTIC and i love it for what others find in it... but it always just still sting a little everytime because it also feels like "-because that's what you're supposed to want if you're a transman.

I fucking love "trans!Bruce Wayne's scars look like batwings because he's nothing if not on brand," i think that's a fantastic fucking idea, but I'd give anything to just see. Like. ONCE. "trans!Bruce Waynehas tits. Literally nothing else about him is different. No one treats him different. No one misgenders him. He just. Has tits."

Unfortunately there's. There's so little fucking "tits AND dick" rep that's not grossly objectifying, and even THEN it's all transwomen. I get that at least irl phalloplasty isn't gonna get you quite like your cismale counterparts, but like. At least in art I'd like to see the body i wish I had sometimes without it getting derided as "Futa trash" T.T

[7fckingidiots]

Would you be alright with writing some HCs about the brothers and a MC who's a trans guy? Sorry if it's a tall order or too vague, they're a big comfort for me and I'd like to see what ideas you have bcs your headcanons are fantastic ;w;

HELL YEAH DUDE!!!! IM ALSO TRANS!!! AH!!!!! demigirl rights :3 but i also find a huge comfort in the boys and i hc all of them as trans because no one can Stop Me •• but i really hope you enjoy these and remember you’re valid and i care u so much! Also i hope you don’t mind but i kinda made it gender neutral so every trans folk could enjoy!

The Brothers With A Trans MC

Lucifer

He didn’t know until you came out to him honestly. He knew all his other siblings were trans but with all the work Diavolo gave him and adding new students from different realms on top of that he hadn’t really had time to notice any minor changes in you.

He feels guilty about this and immediately makes sure(like everyone else)to ask for your pronouns, name, and how you would like to present yourself from now on.

Fixes your ID cards and your papers with Diavolo right after dinner

God. He’s such a dad and he gets you things that have your new name on them. You wake up to see you have a new pencil case with your name embroidered on it with matching pencils. God.....he’s so weird i love him so much

Asmo does most of your clothing shopping but for formal wear he takes you shopping! He’s not about to buy you some cheap tux or gown ok it’s gonna be over 2000 grim and he’s gonna get you three of them STOP HIM

He’s not the best with verbal affection so he writes down notes that are like “you looked very handsome/pretty today.” or when he first starts writing them they’re like “you’re a boy/girl/kid. i’m proud of you.” Thank u mr morningstar

You want surgery or to start hormones??? He will stop all his work with Diavolo and spend forever looking up things for you, he wants you to be as safe as possible(pls he almost fainted after he realized you’d have to give yourself a shot like everyday dhdhdhjdhd hc that demons/angels don’t have to do hormone therapy i’m so JEALOUS)

Practices saying your pronouns in his study when you first come out. He just wants to make sure you feel as safe as possible in his care(and he remembers how terrible it felt to be misgendered)

Guess what....he loves you no matter what :)

Mammon

You’re blind as hell if you couldn’t see his top scars but I respect it

King DOES slip up on your pronoun change but always immediately corrects himself. Satan has a spray bottle that he sprays Mammon with when he does it. Mammon is NOT amused but the same can’t be said for Belphie.

Gender affirming activities??? Oh yeah like robbing a bank?? That’s pretty gender neutral and trans right?? Yeah!!! Wow such a good supportive brother.

If you want you can wear the formal wear Lucifer bought you to the said bank heist. Boom trans rights

You can practice painting his nails or doing his makeup if you’re too nervous to do it on yourself first!! Dw if it’s bad he also can’t do makeup or paint nails so once you let him return the favor you’re both laughing and Asmo is distraught.

KING at dying hair he will get you whatever you need and if you want an entire different hair cut entirely he’s ON it

Very used to being Loud and Brash but if you need someone to talk to about anything really he always calms down and sits down to listen to whatever you have to say.

Lots of gendered gifts from him. This said for men??? Oh ok adds to cart. Oh pink??? For ladies??? yeah that can go in there too

You’re never gonna believe this.....But he loves you and supports you :)

Levi

He was the first one to come out to you at the house!! He was just so excited! Same hat!!!

Gets literally any video game where you can design the protag/have custom pronouns and will play games like that with you for hours

Would you like a pride flag.....for u.....He has too many.....Please take the trans flag please he has no room....he bought in bulk for a pride event and didn’t consider the consequences of his actions

Miku binder but irl. He will get if for you but unironically.....thanks King. He just likes binders with patterns and i respect IT

Dysphoria?? He gives you his hoodie bc that was his trademark dysphoria hoodie and i GUESS for you he can share............he would give u anything just ask nicely he’s sensitive

Reads any character that matches up with your gender and is like!!!!! That’s you!!!! OMG!!!! You in da IRL

Goes back and edits his tweets if they use your old name or pronouns(also has he/they in his bio. this is for nothing just makes me :D)

If you haven’t chosen your name he’s gonna suggest so many fictional characters. POV levi kin assigns you.

You listen to music together that just has Trans Vibes.....maybe u cry together but there’s no judgment!! It’s just nice :)

God it’s wild but! He loves u and thinks ur great :)

Satan

Enby Satan. That’s all :)

He’s very quite about it, he supports you! He’s just not loud like his brothers

He brings you book about gender studies and LGBTQ history that he thinks would interest you(there some of his favorite books and they’ve made him feel the most comfortable in his gender)

Gives you a name list if you haven’t named yourself yet! He cares about you and wants to make sure you have the right name that suits you

He’s the one that tells you that it’s ok if you’re still figuring it all out, learning about yourself is a very tricky process and if anyone knows that it’s Satan

Any of the brothers would kill anyone who misgendered you but with Satan that shit is ON SIGHT

Asks you how you know and what were the signs that gave it away to you, but only if you’re comfortable telling him!! He just finds everyone’s experience interesting and would like to know yours as well.

Spells for fucking DAYS Satan personally kills body dysphoria the best he can(mainly bc he’s HIGHKEY afraid of you getting surgery he hates knives so much)

Makes your comfort food for you when you’re feeling down about yourself and will read whatever you want to hear outloud to you.

!!!!!! GET THIS !!!!!! He loves YOU :0

Asmo

Fucking excited!!!! This means you two are going to buy so much clothing together and he gets to style you let’s GO

Buys you whatever you want but he will make you try it all on so be CAREFUL what u wish for.....ur gonna be there till the store closes yeah......

Paints your nails with the trans pride flag!! Also does your makeup and gives you tips on how to look more masculine or fem!!

VOICE LESSONS

He will help you lower or raise the pitch of your voice if it KILLS him. It eventually becomes like a mini class after school

Helps with internalized transphobia! Hes dealt with his fair share and knows how awful it can be and he will NOT being having you experience that as well we r practicing Self Care now

Picks apart any one who misgenders you until they’re crying he has NO fucking time for that behavior in this HOUSE

Sometimes self care is eating whatever you want and sitting in the dysphoria hoodies while watching chick flicks with Asmo

He likes dressing you up but he’s always sure to set boundaries so he never puts you into something that makes you feel uncomfortable

ALSO edits his posts and takes down anything that makes you uncomfortable!!

He loves you so much!!!!

Beel

another one to hand you The Dysphoria Hoodie and it’s very large and comfy!

he’ll help you make out a work out routine that will help you get the body you want and it makes him really happy to work out with you :)

he’s gonna hold your hand if you have to take shots and will give you puppy eyes if you don’t let him. He’s just worried!!!! He wants to help

stands behind you whenever you’re nervous about coming out to someone, he will NOT have someone making you feel bad or misgendering you

he’ll see food with trans pride colors and gives it too you, probably doesn’t even know what it is half the time but it made him think of you so he makes sure to get it for you

he doesn’t trip up on any of your new pronouns or name and makes it seem like he never even knew them. dead name???? what’s that??? a type of sauce?????

will let you vent to him whenever needed and will always make you a sundae after you’ve finished. it’s comically huge but it’s tasty and does make you feel a lot better, thanks beel

makes sure you remember to take off your binder if you’ve been wearing it for more than eight hours! and if you’ve been wearing heels to feel more fem he reminds you to take those off too and has a pair of slippers for you in his room that you can wear instead

hey! get this! He loves you so, so much :D

Belphie

you’re trans? ok kid join the club. he doesn’t make a big deal at all

are you still gonna cuddle with him and join him in his quest to make lucifer’s life difficult? yeah? ok then cool what’s ur name 

if he hears someone misgender you he waits till you’ve left the room and just kills whoever did it, dude’s unhinged what did you expect from him honestly

he’s actually really curious about any hormone therapy you’re on and likes listening to you rant about it to him. he likes seeing your face light up and it partly reminds him of lilith

calls your hormones something stupid like “oh dude, your gamer girl juice arrived.” or “hey your little man potion is here.” ...thanks belphie

will NOT let you sleep in a binder or push up bra!!! not healthy!! let ur chest breath guys 

like mammon, he gets you gendered gifts but they’re so fucking weird? you didn’t need a girls version of a collectable hot wheels set???? he got you blue lightning mcqueen sheets?????? those EXIST here????!!!!! when does he even shop......

introduces you to new people like “this is our resident boy/girl/human. they don’t do much but i think they’re cool.”

he really does care about you but he remembers when he came out he just didnt want people to make a big deal about it so he’s just doing what would have made him feel the most comfortable, but you can still see how much love he has for you when you look into his eyes

he loves you, so, so much :)

[dog-teeth]

3 weeks post-op top surgery update!! details & pics under the cut, these ones arent nearly as gross as the last two sets but its still scars & a bit of scabbing so be warned!

for people who don’t want the details but just a general update: i’m healing really well, still pretty mentally foggy and physically weak but i think it’s more from doing nothing but rot in my bedroom for 3 weeks during seasonal depression time during the pandemic when i already have depression. but i’m done with all the really gross n bad parts of surgery, now i just keep my nipple grafts moisturized and clean & do scar care stuff, plus i wear my ace bandage wrap still. more on all that below!

so my chest looks really good for 3 weeks post op! no more bruising, but there is a bit of swelling around my incisions near the center of my chest. there’s also no more bleeding except for a tiny tiny amount from my nipple grafts that i see when i clean them, but its good to have bleeding from the nipples because it means there’s circulation, and it’s not enough to have to scab over again. i don’t have any more numb areas which is good, but some of the sensations are a bit odd because my nerves are still recovering. it’s not noticeable unless i stroke the spots with my fingers.

nipple care: i clean my nipples twice a day with a q-tip dipped in water, just to take off any blood and gently rub any scabs that are ready to fall off. i also very gently run my finger around the areola for a bit to prevent scar tissue buildup. the grafts are slightly raised right now, especially the left one, so i want to make sure they end up as flat as possible by doing a super light massage. as you can see, the areolas are currently pink with a few brown splotches, and a tiny bit of scabbing on the left nipple. i’m hoping the brown splotches are my pigmentation coming back! i miss my pretty brown nipples lmao. it can take a few months for the pigmentation to fully return and settle, but i’m excited anyways. i put healing ointment on my nipples and then a thick layer of aquaphor twice a day and put them under gauze squares, which is why you can see a square indentation in my skin around the nipples where the gauze is pressed down my my ace bandage wrap. i didn’t lose any part of the grafts during surgery or recovery, which is awesome! sometimes some or all of the graft fails, so i was really worried about that even though its uncommon with good surgeons.

incision care: as you can see, my incisions are fully closed and are currently dark pink. they have stretched a tiny bit since last week which is definitely expected, but i do need to be more careful to stop extending my arms so much so they don’t stretch unnecessarily. twice a day, i gently clean them with a cotton ball soaked in water, and then i massage silicone scar cream onto them for 5-10 minutes. in the shower i let soap and water run over them.

general care: i still can’t reach my arms out or stretch/bend my torso very much, it doesn’t hurt but it does tug on my incisions and grafts which doesn’t feel good and means i might be stretching them. i also can’t lift things over ~5 pounds because the tissue on my pecs is still healing. i wear my ace bandage wrap all the time, and i’ll be doing that for another week or two. my surgeon left it at my discretion, saying at my 2-week post op appointment to wear it for ‘a couple more weeks’ and stop when i see fit, so after a week or two, once i’m confident that my nipple grafts won’t get hurt from being exposed and my swelling is gone, i’ll stop. i am eager to stop having to wear it all the time, but i also don’t want to rush it!

i’m really happy with how my results look. my incisions will continue to stretch and my nipples might change shape a bit as all my skin settles and my musculature changes. my nipples are a bit uneven/asymmetrical in shape but i don’t really care, what’s more important to me is i’m 100% happy with where they’re placed, they’re healing well, & i like how my nipples still stick out past my areolas like they did pre-op, which sometimes doesn’t happen after top surgery. i also really love the shape of my incisions, the flat line in the center with the curve near my sides, i much prefer it over the totally straight lines & semicircular-ish curves ive seen from other surgeons, i think my surgeons style is really masculinizing and aesthetically pleasing, and it looks natural on my chest.

my nipples look a bit shiny in these pics, that’s from the aquaphor i keep on them at all times, my incisions also have the silicone scar cream on them here.

you can see on my side there at the end of my incision there’s a small bump, it looks more pronounced here than it does irl because of the lighting, but it’s just the spot where my skin was brought together & it will flatten out once my internal sutures dissolve and my tissue heals more.

[acourtesanofedgewater]

Open Heart 3 Ch. 8 SPOILERS for Bryce/Raf/Jackie Stans

I know I'm one day late. Blame PB for releasing the scripts so late. Why they even did that? Idk. It's not like this chapter is good.

Oh, here we are again. Honestly guys? I'm pissed off lmao. And you will be too when you're done reading this. But enough talking, let's begin. Beware, spoilers below the cut

Let's start with Bryce

•He DOES make an appearance this chapter AND has a diamond scene. Should we celebrate? Nah. It seems the only options with characters who-are-not-Ethan in this book are not having appearances at all or having mediocre little plots when they do appear. He makes his cameo at the begging. He's in the lobby with a friend of his, who's sick and wants Bryce to operate on him but Bryce seems reluctant to do so because it's a dangerous surgery. Does it have anything to do with his failed surgery? We won't find out, because instead of his premium scene being about... idk, having a coffee while he tells us about the consequences of his mistakes (not only at work, but also mentally), it is about... visiting a Escape Room with him and his friend? Um, ok. Should I mention that Bryce's pal call MC his 'friend' twice? Yep, PB still refuses to acknowledge MC's relationship with Bryce, even though they've been together for two years and shared a tender moment when MC was about to die. When I was reading the scene, I was like "uuugh, let me guess? we get this corny funny scene and near the ending Bryce and MC find a hideout to make out". Turns out I was wrong lmao. I expect nothing and I'm still let down. They just share a little kiss I front of Bryce's friend when they are leaving the Escape Room. It is mentioned they all are gonna have dinner after this, but we don't get to see that because that would mean PB has to actually write interesting dialogue and develop Bryce and that's sacrilege.

Ok, Jackie's turn.

•She doesn't show up in this chapter. She's not even mentioned. Silly us, Jackie already had her crumbs of development last chapter, there's no need to give her more screentime this chapter lmao. Not when that screentime can be used developing Ethan.

And lastly, Raf.

•He turns up too, but it's a situation similar to Bryce's. He's rehabilitating a little boy who's sad because he will miss his birthday, so enter the bonus scene where MC has the idea of recruiting Sienna too and organizing a surprise party for the kid in the Pediatric Ward. It's actually a cute scene, and spending time with Sienna is always good, but that's the problem. The scene is about the little boy, zero Raf development or plot, and I even feel he wasn't even needed here. We know Sienna visits the PW every once in a while so they could've made her be the one who came to us with the little kid situation and everything would have turned out to be the same, except for some dialogues. Then, near the end, Raf and MC share some flirting words and a little kiss, but everything is in front of the kids, so it's over pretty quick.

And... that's it for our LIs. It sucks, but it's not the worst thing abour this chapter. I'm gonna leave some spoilers of the general plot here below so you can be as angry as me.

•MC confronts Ethan about the trial thing. You can choose to go soft on him or be outraged and point out he's a piece of shit. I recommend the second option. Anyway, if you end up agreeing with him about his decision, he says something like: "I knew you'd understand me, you care about these patients as much as I do" which, for me, given the fact he's older than MC and their boss (and being a victim of grooming myself by someone older than me and that was kinda in a position of power above me too) IS FUCKING GROOMING. If you had any doubts the lead of this book is a creep.

•Yadda yadda, we get Bryce and Raf's mediocre scenes, and back to the main plot, MC and Tobias have to diagnose a patient together. The patient is the most annoying character on this series, only below Ethan. Seriously, she's worse than that Nigel guy from Book 1 who called Bryce "Ken doll". Tobias is kinda shady with her (but... light and funny shady. He's never mean or anything) and we're supposed to be like "ugh, Tobias is the worst" but the patient is annoying so yeah, I loved Tobias' actitude.

•There were lots of Tobias moments this chapter, and he's honestly really nice. I hope we can keep him in Edenbrook. We could even kick Ethan's ass out in order to raise his salary❤.

•Ok, and now the cherry on top of a shitty chapter. Do y'all remember how we were afraid PB was gonna make Harper MC's rival? It seemed like they had dropped that plot and we were safe... but it turns out they haven't. Harper finds out our patient has cheated their way into the trial and while Tobias and MC are bonding in the DT' office, she comes in furious as hell, and starts blaming the MC and insulting them, assuming they're the one who did the trial thing. Harper' screams are so loud that Ramsey, who was in the hall, listens and comes in running. Harper explains what "MC" did and we have three options: blame Ethan, insist we're not guilty but not blame Ethan, and ignore the accusations. Either way, Harper keeps on with the accusations (she's even more enraged if you blame Ethan)

•Ethan lets her mop the floor with MC a bit more before stopping her and admitting he's the one who cheated. Harper is shocked and Ramsey HAS THE AUDACITY of angrily leave the office. He really thinks he's the one who should be outraged in this situation. He's the most childish character PB has ever created. (Props to Tobias for being the only decent character in this situation, asking Harper to calm down because she couldn't know for sure it MC was to blame in this situation).

•MC runs after him. And sure, irl I'd run after him too, but to confront him and complain about all the mess his shitty behavior has caused (or, how we say in my country, putearlo. I wanna clarify to my fellow Latinoamericans, "putear" has a different meaning in Ecuador than in the rest of Latam lmao for us is similar to "mandar a la verga" JAJSJAJAJSK). But no, MC fucking goes to see if he's alright. And cue to the most ridiculous scene in this series:

•Okay, I know we all made fun of the BDSM outfits when the assets came out, and yeah, they're cringey af, but I was curious to see how the story would develop towards these outfits. Everyone guessed they meant kinky time with out LIs. Wrong again. Ethan is so mad about... well, idk why he's so mad, he's just facing the consequences of his actions, but anyway, he needs to release that frustration and that's when we're offered the kinky outfit. Yep, the kinky scene is Ethan-exclusive. It was so fucking easy to include the other LIs in this. Bryce could be frustrated because he's not the same after his failed surgery, Jackie because she has to lead the interns and Jade keeps screwing up, and Raf... well, he should be mad because PB tried to kill him and then decided not to but kept sidelining him and can't even give him a decent storyline could be frustrated because it's exhausting to try to help the patients when they make little progress and become disappointed. PB just was lazy and didn't care.

•Don't ask me about the BDSM scene, nothing in this world will make me read a sex scene with Ethan. I kept scrolling until I was sure that abomination was over. Although I caught the word "safe word" somewhere there so... yeah.

•The next day after that heated discussion, MC enters the DT' office. Harper doesn't even offer an apology for treating MC like shit, she acts like nothing happened. MC notices there's this peace in the air and there's no whining, so they ask where's Ethan

•Turns out, Harper reported MC to their superiors when she thought it was them who messed up the trial and now Ethan had to turn himself in and is meeting with the board. Then, she blatantly admits that if she knew Ethan was the one who did it, she would have talked to him first. She says she regrets telling the board, although, as she doesn't offer MC an apology, it seems she only regrets getting Ethan in trouble, not her awful attitude. Tobias is named the new leader of the DT, and that's the only highlight in this mess of a chapter.

I have more thoughts about everything, but I'll post them tomorrow, when they can reach more people. And I'll catch up with this shitt book just so I can join the mob law tomorrow lmao. See you then.

[goatsandgangsters]

For the trans asks! 1, 6, 14, 18, 25, 41?

1. How did you choose your name?

So the majority of people in my life call me either Em or EJ, though some people still call me Emeline (which is my given name). I don’t think I’ll ever consider it a deadname, because I do have some attachment, but I think the nicknames Em and EJ suite me better. People are welcome to use any of those options. While I’m particular about people getting my pronouns right and using neutral- or masculine-coded language, I’m kind of shrug emoji when it comes to names.

Em is actually largely @meyerlansky‘s doing (still suspended, rip), because they just... have a tendency to shorten people’s names and started calling me Em several years ago. And it just caught on! Particularly among online friends or mutual IRL friends, I looked around one day and was like “oh huh, a lot of people call me Em now, don’t they?” 

EJ has a bit more of an intentional story behind it: I first thought of EJ back in mmmmaybe late 2018? I saw a post on tumblr that was like, “I think it’s cool how there are a couple different Categories that transmasculine names tend to fall into” and listing those out. And one of them was initialisms—with examples like AJ, CJ, TJ. And I noticed, you know, J is always the second letter. And EJ is ACTUALLY MY INITIALS. And I just instantly felt really good about that, because here was a Very Gender Neutral Name, but it still already felt like a name I’d had my entire life. It was fresh and familiar all at once. It fit into this J pattern while also still feeling unique, because EJ is not as common as other -J initialisms. I first tried it out when I started going to a trans group IRL, so I have an entire trans friend group that only calls me EJ. The majority of people at work also call me EJ—similarly because nicknames just spread sometimes. I left my official documentation under Emeline, but mentioned to a couple people that I also go by EJ and then I blinked and almost every single person I work with calls me EJ. 

Both Em and EJ amuse me, because I’m surprised at how easy it is for people to pick up a nickname. I’ve found that people adjust to using a different name WAY more easily than they adjust to changing pronouns? Which is on the one hand an interesting observation, but on the other hand, it’s unfortunate because I CARE MORE ABOUT THE PRONOUNS PEOPLE USE THAN MY NAME

6. When did you realize you were transgender?

Short answer: 2012. I was a sophomore in college and one day I found out some people actually want to be their assigned gender?? I had thought we were all just miserably putting up with it. 

(There’s a longer answer here about realizing my gender in 2012 but then spending years and years overcoming my internalized guilt about “not being trans enough” and constantly moving my own goal post of “well I’m not trans enough because I don’t do x” and then doing x and going “OKAY BUT I HAVEN’T DONE Y” and then doing y and going “YEAH BUT I DON’T DO Z” and then wanting z and finally realizing, hey uh, how many times are you gonna move this goal post and also you’re eventually going to run out of goal posts—and finally having to go OKAY FINE, YES, I’M TRANS ENOUGH. I’M OUT OF EXCUSES TO INVALIDATE MYSELF.)

14. How long have you been out?

2018 was the first time I started telling people directly to use they/them pronouns for me. (I know, I know, took SIX YEARS RIGHT? But processing that is what my therapist is for.) But before that, I was definitely like in that vague place of “blogs about gender feelings and nonbinary stuff often enough that everyone who follows me like probably knew for a number of years before I said anything directly.” But in 2018, I was finally being Concrete and Direct about it, put it in all my socials, etc. Then in 2019, I came out to my parents and at my job for the first time. So officially, 2–3 years overall! 

18. How does your family feel about your trans identity?

If you asked them, they would tell you that they love and support me and they’re proud of me and they fully accept my identity. 

If you asked me, I would tell you that while they do love and support me, trans stuff is COMPLETELY BRAND NEW to them, so they don’t always know the right ways to show that support. It’s one of those “sometimes I wish it didn’t take work, but I know they’re trying and they mean well” situations

They ARE making progress, albeit more slowly than I’d like. Neither of them had ANY IDEA what I was talking about when I first came out. They very much... did not understand what I was telling them. So I made them both read a very good book on the subject, which they did read, and that helped lay some groundwork.

My dad has been consistently good about using neutral language from the start and as of a couple months ago started consistently using my pronouns! My mom still has not used my pronouns ever, which is kind of a bummer because she’s had... two years. She’s at the stage of “notices when she gets it wrong” or “aware enough to avoid pronouns,” which is better than not noticing at all, but it’s still not as good as getting it right. iT’S A PROCESS. I’m trying to be patient with it. They mean well. But god I wish it could just be easy, like a light switch. 

I still haven’t told them about my plans for top surgery. I’ve been putting off that conversation for....... months. It was actually the “pin in that for next week” comment to my therapist when we were wrapping up. But like, IDK IF YOU’RE STILL WORKING ON PRONOUNS, I FEEL LIKE “SURGICALLY REMOVING MY BOOBS” MIGHT SOUND LIKE A LOT?

25. What do you wish cis people understood?

I MEAN, QUITE A LOT. But if I have to get specific, I wish there was more understanding of why pronouns are actually important. I get the sense from a lot of cis people who are older and who don’t have a lot of understanding about queer stuff to begin with, that they think of pronouns as like “something they have to be PC about” and if they use the wrong pronouns I’m going to be mad and offended and they’re going to be sent to pronoun jail by the language police. Like, people approach pronouns by thinking “I need to remember that she uses they/them pronouns, so I need to only call her by them/them pronouns.” 

But actually, I’m asking that they stop seeing me as a woman. I don’t want a linguistic bandaid slapped over internal misgendering. If you can’t internalize that I’m not a girl, then pronouns will continue to be a struggle. I’d rather people call me the right thing than the wrong thing, but I don’t want to only be called the right thing. I want to also be seen as the right thing, too. It’s like one of my friends had a coworker call them by the wrong pronoun and the coworker came to apologize and then was like “alright, see you later girl!” with apparently no cognitive dissonance whatsoever. Pronouns are important, but they’re also not JUST language. Pronouns are important because they signify seeing people authentically. I want people to get my pronouns right, but I don’t want getting my pronouns right to be ALL that people do. 

Also, the idea that trans people are “angry and offended” when you misgender them because everyone is so sensitive and political correctness has gone too far, instead of like “it’s a painful reminder that you never get to just exist as your gender the way that cis people do, that no matter what you do there are always people who’ll use the wrong pronouns—sometimes unintentionally, sometimes intentionally, and it’s death by a thousand cuts” is a whole other rant I could go on. But if I get into how the myth of trans people being “easily offended” is dangerous, unfair, and untrue, we’ll be here all day. 

41. What is the place (blog, website, forum, IRL space) you get most of your info on being trans or on trans related things?

When I was first starting out, I did—for better or worse—get a lot of information from tumblr. On the one hand, I can’t shit talk, because it did allow me access to information that at the time I couldn’t find anywhere else. On the other hand, tumblr is often an ugly place for information (and whatever nonbinary discourse and misperceptions might exist now, it was 38475785 times worse in 2012. good god. just fuckin wall-to-wall trusc*m). I can’t tell you how many “HOW TO PASS AS A MAN (FTM)” articles and blogs I read back in 2012 as well. I absorbed any information I could find about anything, anywhere, because it was not as widely available. 

In the interceding years, I feel like I don’t know exactly where my information comes from. I just absorbed so much of it, wherever it could be found, that I don’t have a strong sense of where it comes from. I’ve watched countless “1 month on T / 3 months on T / 6 months on T / one year on T” videos on YouTube. I’ve trawled transbucket and facebook groups looking at people’s top surgery results. I’ve read lots of articles on fitting clothing and masculine style onto bodies that weren’t necessarily intended for those clothes. 

Spending IRL time with trans people though has been by far the most enriching and healing, though. It wasn’t necessarily where I learned the basics like different methods of top surgery, but it was where I started un-learning a lot of the emotional baggage I’d picked up along the way. 

[Trans ask game! What has been your gender journey?]

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #325

tired of seeing me in the survey tag yet? lmao me too

Would you date someone who’s shorter than you? I have absolutely never understood why there would be any correlation between someone's height and whether or not you would date the person because of it. What, do you think the person has any control over that? So basically, yes, I would, without a second thought. Have you ever fallen in love on the Internet? "Fallen in love," no. I had to meet Sara first to see how we meshed in the same environment. Have you ever had a crush on your best friend’s sweetie? Yes, hence the Joel mess. Have you ever had a controlling boyfriend? No. Good luck getting me to date someone like that. Can guys be sluts? Who the fuck cares so long as the person is safe and open with their partner. Ever had a crush on your best girlfriend? Twice now, haha. Would you ever kiss someone who’s taken? No, I'm not that kind of person. Do you mind being the third wheel? I don't care, really, so long as my friend doesn't totally ignore me. I very much enjoy seeing people in love. Has a kiss ever made you weak in the knees? Yes. Have you ever been in a love triangle? No, and I absolutely would not if I was aware. You pick me or you leave me alone. Do you feel comfortable buying condoms? I've never had to, but I'd probably feel a hint of awkwardness. Have you ever run into your ex with his/her new partner? No, and the only case where that would be a problem would be with Jason. I know in my heart I would feel at least some hatred towards her. Have you ever felt guilty after doing something sexual? Yep, when I was first actually getting truly sexual and felt like I was betraying my "abstinence." Would you stay friends with your sweetie’s friends if you broke up? I'm still friends with Jacob, mine and Jason's former roommate and his then-close friend. So yeah. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? I hope more than words can explicate that I have a stable job that I love, my driver's license, and my own place with a long-term partner, since I think living alone would be very detrimental to me. I also hope I have much better control over my social anxiety. Oh, and can I PLEASE be fit again? What was the last thing you bought for less than a dollar? No idea. Who was the last person in your bed? My niece Aria was sitting on it with me. I miss Misty's kids. Do you have a nice phone? Not particularly, but it does the job. Is Marilyn Manson creepy or cool? I find him creepy in a cool way, haha. Well, at least aesthetically. With his recent sexual assault (or abuse? idr) allegations however, I don't know how I feel about him because I don't know the facts. I really should actually read up about it. Regardless, I love his music; he's one of my favorite musical artists. Do you like talking to strangers? Depends on my mood and the person. Do you have OCD? Yes. Are you clumsy or graceful? I'm clumsy as all getout. Have you ever ran into a door because you didn’t know it was closed? Haha, no. Have you ever woke up and didn’t know where you were? After my cyst removal surgery, I was confused for a moment or so. Do you own a Wii? Yep. Do you like to talk about yourself? Depends on with whom, the subject, and my mood. Has anyone ever called you conceited? No; I'm very much on the other end of the spectrum. Tattoos or piercings? I love both, but tats win. Have you ever had ants ruin your picnic? I’ve never had a picnic. At least that I remember. What’s the last gross movie/show/video you saw? Recently, I watched The Dark Den dissect his recently-deceased tarantula to figure out why she died. It was serious impaction, and it was disgusting. Would you rather live in a huuuge house or a little cozy one? A lil cozy one! Not TOO small, though. I'd feel claustrophobic. Have you ever blow dried something other then your hair? Maybe? What is your favorite piece of equipment at gyms? Treadmills. Do you have a tutor for anything? No. Does your sibling(s) have braces? My older sister did for a little while. Did you tell your last girlfriend/boyfriend that you love them? Yes. What was the last thing your parents got mad at you for? Apparently I somehow forgot to wipe crumbs off the kitchen counter. Have you ever had a bathing suit fall off of you while swimming? Not a suit, no, but when I wore bikinis and I jumped into the pool, it's happened before where my top would go up. I'd obviously fix it super quick. Do your pets have favorites? I'm absolutely Roman's favorite, but he loves Mom, too. I'm the only one who interacts with Venus. What’s the longest you’ve ever liked someone without telling them? A very long time. I had a big crush on Girt my freshman year, and some time after Jason, my crush for him came back, but he didn't ask me out until years later. Turns out we'd been friends just too long and the relationship felt too weird for me, so I broke up with him after I think... four months or so? We're still great friends. That's my bro. Did you prank anyone on April Fool’s Day? I never do anymore. I don't like pranks. What’s the sweetest thing a gf/bf can do to get you to forgive them? Changed behavior. Do you dislike when surveys ask to describe your underwear? Well, I'm almost always in my pajamas, sooo I generally don't even have any at that moment. Did you check to see how much fat/calories was in the last thing you ate? No. If the last person you kissed gave you roses, what would you do? Blush and thank her. Anything happened lately that you never expected to? "Never?" No. Are you the person you thought you’d be when you were younger? I'm a massive disappointment and embarrassment to that little girl. Are you a confrontational person, or the peacekeeper? I am absolutely a peacekeeper. I avoid confrontation like the plague. The last time you did something with BOTH of your parents was? They've been divorced since I was I think 17 and I am now 25, so... Do you like pumpkin pie? Absolutely not. Do you believe in any conspiracies? I am 100% sold on that the government had some involvement in 9/11. Look into the evidence - there is an overwhelming amount. There are others that I consider as possible, but no others do I absolutely believe. I'm around 50/50 on the simulation theory. Do you have a little sister? What’s her name? Yeah, Nicole. Have you ever changed yourself to impress someone? Who? Nah. Who was the last person you gave up on? Why did you give up on them? Colleen. We simply butted heads way too much, and she just had this volatile meanness towards others I couldn't watch anymore. What was the last thing you printed? Is there even ink in your printer? Probably a paper for when I was in school. I don't know if our printer does. Have you ever gotten your nails done? Or do you get them done regularly? Yeah, with Colleen and then another time with my sisters. It was really just to hang with them, though. It's not something I'm interested in. Have you been outside yet today? What were you doing? Nope. When was the last time you got a new bed? Is your bed comfy? Not since I was an older teen did I get Mom's bed, but it wasn't new. This was actually her parents' bed, too. Well I mean, the mattress obviously isn't that old, but the bed itself is pretty ancient. It's comfy enough. Do you remember the first time you ever drove a car? Who were you with? Yes: on the dead-end road that led to our old house. I was with Mom obviously and probably my sister, since I think I did it on the way home from school. Do any of your friends drink excess amounts of alcohol? Do you? Not to my knowledge. I definitely don't. Have you ever been in handcuffs? Why, exactly? Yes, because it's mandatory when being transported to a mental hospital. What’s your favorite thing to do when drunk? Would you do this sober? Never been drunk before. When was the last time you bled? What happened? Well it's my time of the month, so. Are you a fan of dogs? Do you have any pets? I love dogs, but don't currently have one as a pet. Mom's looking intently. How often do you bathe? I'm going to be completely transparent and say not as much as I should. Doing my hair is fine, but moving all around, bending and propping my legs up exhausts my legs so much that I avoid showers as long as I can take it or until I have to go somewhere. I want strength back in my body. So. Badly. Do you have any tattoos? What, where and why? I have six that I'm not all explaining, but locations: right upper arm, right inner wrist, left inner forearm, left upper arm, right collarbone, left breast. What do you wear to bed at home? Pajama pants and a tank top. What do you wear to bed when you're somewhere else? Pj pants, tank top, and usually a bra, depending on where I'm at and with who. Do you have any phobias? What? Why do you think you have this/them? I have a lot, but I'll discuss my strangest/strongest: pregnancy, maggots, parasites, and whale sharks. Pregnancy would be because a fetus is technically parasitic, and, to cover that topic, I'm just generally terrified of anything living in MY body. I also find it absolutely disgusting to see a baby move from the outside. I will actually scream if I see this, and that is not an exaggeration. I'm afraid of maggots (larva in general, really) because I think they're just disgusting, and I once brought something in from outside and put it in my dresser (idr why), and one day I opened it and reached in for something just to find lots of little larva squirming around. That's when it started. Now, whale sharks: it's literally because of World of Warcraft, hahaha. There's an underwater zone in the game where they roam as boss enemies, and their mouths look so weird and are actually a bit toothy. Irl, they just have mouths that are just way too big for my comfort. I know they're entirely harmless, but still. If you could ask God (to atheists - IF there was one) one question, what? "Why." Why so much evil, pain, and unfairness. Briefly describe your family. Kinda broken, but still loving and try to stay close. Big "ohana" mood: everyone's loyalty is endless. Where do you stand on the death penalty? For it in extreme cases. Where do you stand on wearing fur? Disgusting and horribly morbid unless for survival purposes in cold climates. Could you kill somebody? In self-defense, yes. What are your political beliefs (anarchy, communism, democracy etc.)? I just say I'm Independent. My beliefs stretch over so many titles; plus, I'm not very educated on all types and what they entail. What, if anything, WOULD you sacrifice your life for? To save those I love most. How would your ideal partner look? *shoves picture of Mark Fischbach in ur face* Would you ever have an affair? Nope. I'm telling you: pick me or leave me be. I'm not a side-chick. Would you ever have a one night stand? Also no. What one thing would you change in this world (free Tibet, abolish Sweden)? Honestly... probably abolish all militaries. I do not in the least support war, and it's just... sad to know countries stand ready to kill the moment they "need" to. Distrust seems to make the world go 'round. Sure, a country may try to rebuild them in secrecy, but that's a preeeetty big thing to succeed in keeping under wraps. "But what if a terrorist or something rises?" I'm quite sure we could handle that without an full-on army. Maybe I'm not well-informed on this topic, but I've just never supported military presence. I WANT TO MAKE IT CLEAR AS DAY, I have endless respect for veterans and aspiring soldiers, because I DO understand the mentality of wanting to protect your home, but yeah. I just wish it wasn't a thing. Would you ever choose a career or job where your life was at risk? Nope. Do you have any famous relatives? Ancestors, yes, and I have a distant cousin who wrote a fantastic book, if that counts. Are you a loyal member of any organizations? No. Desired weight: At MOST 140. :/ I'd like to be closer to 120, but I'll take 140. What are your opinions on marijuana legalization? Legalize it, but treat it similarly to alcohol, like prohibiting driving high, obviously. What do you think about tipping at restaurants? Tip a minimum, and THEN increase according to service quality. Are you addicted to anything? Soda. Would you ever get back together with any of your exes? Yes. Never mind what gender you ARE, what gender do you WANT to be? I'm a female and content with that. Do you ever feel ashamed revealing your age? Yes, considering how behind I am in just being an adult. What does your parents call you? Generally just "Britt." Mom occasionally still calls me "Twinkie." ;-; Has anyone ever threatened you with a knife? Wow, no. Do you ever watch The Simpsons? No. What’s the last thing to make you scream? Truly scream, a mix of depression and anger. I screamed into my pillow. Do you play games with boys/girls, like ‘hard to get’? I'm an adult. I'm a tease in some romantic situations, but "hard to get" is definitely the wrong term.

[rontufox]

trans ask game taken from here!

How did you choose your name?

I wasn’t gonna change it initially.  I like my given name.  but I don’t like attention or talking irl, especially about myself.  so I figured I’d have a simpler time if I changed it to something more people considered masculine  

my new name had to start with B so my initials could remain BLT.  I also wanted a “white” name cuz although I’m biracial, my given name was white, and it just feels weird to have a name of totally different feeling, in that regard

the only B names I liked were already associated with people I knew, which I didn’t want.  so I kinda stopped.  I wasn’t motivated to find a name LOLOL.  one night, my cousin asked what I’m changing my name to.  when I was like “idk man I can’t find any I like” he pulled up a huge list of B names on the internet and just started reading them off the whole night lolol.  a few resonated with me, but Brian really felt right.  

I like how it sounds out loud, the feeling it gives.  I like its meaning (strong, virtuous, and honorable or hill/noble).  it’s Irish, which I am, so that was perfect.  and, amazingly, the strokes involved in writing it are actually really similar the ones I use for my given name

in the end I’m even more glad I changed my name, for feeling so much more of a self-made person.  it was kind of a new start, where I could decide anything.  I chose my own name.  I could choose anything else in life I wanted.

What gives you the most dysphoria? (Acknowledging that not all trans people experience dysphoria)

my dysphoria stopped after I got top surgery and transitioned socially ✌🏼

What was the first time you suspected you were transgender?

in college.  that’s when I fully learned the term.  I always knew what I was since I was 5 or 6.  but college is when I learned there’s a term and community for what I was.

What is your favorite part of being transgender?

just, being able to be myself, freely.  

How would you explain your gender identity to others?

trans guy

How did you come out? If you didn’t come out, why do you stay in the closet? 

I thought I’d stay closeted irl forever honestly.  it always seemed something I’d never be capable of.  coming out as trans was something incredibly strong people did.  people who were wiling to change their entire life.  well... I eventually became that person.

I first came out to my online friend Bsumo.  that was easy cuz they’re amazing, and we talked about gender so much anyway.  then I came out online, only on tumblr (I’ve been stealth online all my life).  after that, I personally told a few people irl I really trust.  next in line was my parents.  I had no idea how that would go.  but I was prepared to be rejected.  it went okay

then I had to come out at work.  I wanted to do that before making an announcement to my extended family via facebook to avoid anyone at work seeing it.  and that, was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.  I’m very fortunate to work in a progressive organization, so I knew I’d be okay.  but it was hard.  I first told the CEO and our HR person.  it’s really, really hard to let the words out.  but I did it.  and the second I did, it was like... a floodgate.  like, there was absolutely no turning back at that moment and I loved it.  I told the rest of my coworkers in a meeting a few weeks later.  I gave them my new name and the pronouns they should use for me.  the older generation staff members had trouble getting the hang of it, but I didn’t meet any intentional resistance

I will say, you receive allyship and rejection in very unexpected places when you come out.  people you thought would support you that don’t.  people you thought would avoid you, reach out and advocate for you.  it was all quite an interesting experience.  

What have your experiences with packing or wearing breast forms been?

none

What are your experiences with binding or tucking?

tried binding a few times before I had surgery.  I couldn’t stand to wear it more than 3 minutes.  it triggered a fight or flight response in my body for some reason.  like the panic you feel when your finger or limb gets stuck in something and your life flashes before your eyes as your mind overreacts thinking you’ll never escape.  I even cut a binder off with scissors once cuz I felt like I needed to get it off NOW.

Do you pass?

yeah, unless it’s over the phone lol!

What (if any) steps do you want to take to medically transition?

top surgery and T.  I woulda still been miserable to this day if I hadn’t gotten top surgery.  but I kinda took T on a whim.  see if I’d like it.  I’m glad I did, I really enjoy it.  out of all the changes I love my sideburns the most!

How long have you been out?

3 years!

How does your family feel about your trans identity?

frankly I don’t care lolol

Would you ever go stealth, and if you are stealth, why do you choose to be stealth?

I’m kinda in the middle.  I’m open about being trans online.  I pass irl so I’m pretty much stealth there to strangers.  but if anyone ever asked if I was trans, or if a trans discussion ever came up, or if I was just talking bout my past where it’s relevant to the story, I’d be fine revealing I’m not cis

What do you wish you could have shared with your younger self about being trans?

1) that no, people don’t secretly see you as a guy, 2) the term trans,  3) that you can get top surgery without any therapy involved (I thought I’d never be able to get it because of that, I resigned to that fact for so many years when I could’ve been arranging it!)

What’s your biggest trans-related fear?

lol I’m not sharing that

What do you wish cis people understood?

I honestly don’t think about that much

What impact has being trans affected your life?

it didn’t affect me much til puberty.  before puberty I sorta deluded myself into thinking everyone around me secretly regarded me as a boy but weren’t allowed to show it.  when puberty came my life ended.  dysphoria really made me suffer all through my 20s.  and I always hated being seen and treated the way people did.  I’ve never ever disliked being trans.  it’s always been me.  but now I live so fully and happily.  I love being trans

How do you feel about trans representation in media?

I really do not want it unless a trans person is the one creating it.

Who is the transgender person who has influenced you the most?

can I say myself? lolol

How are you involved with the trans community, IRL or online?

making/reblogging trans posts is the extent of what I do.  I did do a few things irl--helped carry a huge trans flag during pride once.  it was an amazing experience, but way too overwhelming for me lol.  tried going to our trans masculine group at my local lgbt center but had a bad experience with one of the members there, and he later became the group facilitator so lol

How do you see yourself identifying and presenting in 5 years?

same as I do now

What trans issue are you most passionate about?

trans youth having all the info they need to be aware of themselves and make decisions about their own lives

What is your sexual and romantic orientation, and what are your thoughts on it?

I’m aroace and it’s amazing!  I love being ace!  being both trans and ace made me wonder how the heck my life’d pan out in terms of having a partner.  cuz I did always want one.  but I thought I’d have a pretty low chance of finding someone I liked (I don’t like many people LOL) who also embraced and understood both my transness and aceness.  and who made it simple and easy for us on both ends.  maybe the chance was low, but I got the perfect partner now ❤

How did/do you manage waiting to transition?

it was just painful.  there’s not much more you can say

[ashbless]

FAKE IT: Combat Lifesaving for the Bluffing LARPer

Some great notes on how to bluff modern or sci-fi medicine from the excellent @nickbradbeer. --- This is a cut-down version of a note I wrote for a group at a specific system who were playing a bunch of sci-fi combat medics. It’s not authoritative (I’m not the useful kind of doctor) - but it is a series of things you, the bluffing LARPer can do and say to sound a bit like you know what you’re doing as a soldier with a bit of medical training. It’s mostly scraped together from the USMC Combat Lifesaver coursebook, and a few years hanging around with medical students and being practiced on. The medicine in here is just about correct enough that it should chime with what people have seen on TV, and that’s all we’re aiming for. SUMMARY Think of this as a three-stage process; diagnosis, stabilisation, treatment. First you have to figure out what’s wrong with them, then you stop that killing them immediately, then you patch them up as best you can. DIAGNOSIS The mnemonic is DR-ABC

Danger – Ensure that neither you nor the casualty are in immediate danger. If they are, secure them before treating (see below).

Responsiveness – Assesss the casualty’s responsiveness on the AVPU scale: ◦ (A)lert – Talk to them; if they respond, they’re Alert. ◦ Responds to (V)oice – Talk loudly close to them “I’m a medic; can you hear me” – any groan or movement and they’re a V. ◦ Responds to (P)ain – Safest way here is probably to shine a penlight in their eyes, or (mime) pinch the skin between thumb and forefinger. Any groan or movement and they’re a P. ◦ (Unresponsive)

Air – are they breathing? If not, that will be the top priority. If they’re talking, they’re breathing.

Bleeding – if lots of blood is coming out, stopping that is next priority.

Circulation – If they don’t have a pulse, we’ll get to that last. Check the pulse on the wrist AND the neck. If it’s there in the neck but not in the wrist, then it’s starting to fail.

This should be a pretty swift process - five to ten seconds. You’re not worrying about if they have any broken limbs; you’re looking for something that’s going to kill them quickly. At this point you may want to operate a TRIAGE system if you have multiple casualties. Assess your casualties quickly and sort them into:

In immediate danger of death. First priority.

Lightly enough injured that they’re not about to die, but can’t fight. Second priority.

Badly enough injured that they can’t be saved. Last priority.

STABILISE Roleplay options include the following: Pain relief: administer anaesthetic by syringe or breathing mask (morphine, entonox, etc) to stop them screaming. Stethoscope (apply on the collarbone; don’t feel anyone up) – this can check for breath sounds and heartbeat, helping you diagnose A and C.

Air - casualty is not breathing. Get them breathing again. ◦  Their neck is at an angle and their tongue is blocking their throat. Roll them on their back, kneel with their head in front of you and put your fingers on the back corners of their jaw (simulating a jaw thrust to open the windpipe.) ◦  They’ve been shot in the face and can’t breathe through the blood. Insert an Nasopharyngeal airway up their nose. (Maybe not, unless we can invent some cool non-invasing NP physreps!) ◦  Their lungs are too weak to breathe. Bag-mask them or give them a shot of magic drugs. ◦  They have a tension pneumothorax. Administer the Stab of Life™ to relieve pressure in the pleural cavity.

Bleeding – the casualty is haemorrhaging lots of blood and soon will not have enough to support life. ◦ If they have a severe wound on a limb, apply a Combat Tourniquet. (Wrap Velcro elastic around the limb above the wound, make sure it’s not too tight, and mime winding it.) ◦ Apply a combat pressure dressing. Put it in place and apply (gentle) pressure. Attach it with a bandage if you want, or apply coagulants with it to cause the blood to clot rapidly. ◦ Give fluids to replace lost blood volume – insert a cannula (needle line) and attach a bag of blood (which is red) or plasma (which is clear.) Make sure the bag remains higher than the needle. Mutter about them going into hypovolemic (not enough volume) shock.

Circulation – they have no pulse; blood is not flowing. Either their heart has stopped, or they have lost lots of blood. ◦ Administer a dramatic shot of adrenaline into the heart, just like in Pulp Fiction. ◦ Give fluids to replace lost blood volume, as above. ◦ Use a defibrillator if they are in VF (Ventricular Fibrillation) or VT (Ventricular Tachycardia), (if you happen to have a physrep). A defibrillator will not, IRL, work on other kinds of cardiac arrest – ironically, including flatlining where it’s always used in the movies. ◦ Mutter above low blood pressure, “weak and thready pulse”

Other people can assist with stabilisation, and getting other people involved is fun. Get people to:

Bag-mask the casualty and take charge of their breathing

Prep and pass equipment to the lead medic

Apply pressure to wound sites to stem bleeding

Give shots at the direction of the lead medic (anaesthetic, adrenaline, whatevs)

Just do another treatment option at the same time as the lead medic; multiple injuries!

TREATMENT This is the slower process of getting a soldier back on their feet to fight on, or patching them up properly when you have the time. It’s about actually solving underlying problems rather than fighting off an imminent threat to life. This is a good time to administer basic wound makeup! Field surgery following bullet/stab wounds is almost never about pulling the bullet out and stitching the hole up – it’s about damage to whatever internal things the bullet hit.

Arteries and veins – can cause severe bleeding, externally or internally. Clamping or stitching the vessel in question might be required. This will be messy and is your excuse to get everyone covered in fake blood.

Bones – broken bones are hard to walk on. Presumably we shoot them full of magic future glue and/or splint them since a minute later they’re probably walking just fine.

The gut. Damage to the intestines and/or stomach means digestive fluids and crap leaking into your abdomen and bloodstream, which is exceptionally bad for you. Again, clamping or stitching is required.

Heart/lungs – obviously non-critical damage since they lived, but even a grazing hit is really bad.

In all of these cases, you pretty much have to cut your way in, clamp/stitch/glue the problem, then close up – with stiches or magic spray glue depending on how advanced your system is. Depending on how hard your system waves away after-effects, perhaps injecting broad spectrum antibiotics to limit infection, MASSIVE doses of painkillers, and stimulants. If they’re going to be back on their feet a minute after receiving surgery, that’s either a miracle or a huge cocktail of drugs. SECURING A CASUALTY If you may be conducting lifesaving under fire, you need to ensure you do not place yourself in danger and double up the number of casualties. You may wish to consider a system like this: When someone sees a friendly go down, they call “CASUALTY”. Medics should respond affirmatively: “ON IT” if they are moving to treat, or “SEEN” to indicates awareness of the casualty but not moving to treat. During the D phase of DR-ABC, if a medic determines that the casualty and/or them would be vulnerable to enemy action during treatment, they call “SECURE THAT CASUALTY”. Combatants should move to drive off enemies or provide cover. Once they are happy that the casualty is safe to reach, and likely to remain so for a few minutes, they call “CASUALTY SECURE”. Where possible, whoever called that should remain on station to keep lookout, defend, and instruct the medic to move if they are in danger of being overrun.Once the casualty is mobile, the medic calls “CASUALTY UP”, informing defending combatants that their responsibility to protect the casualty is over. (Hat tip to the excellent and much missed @larphacks​, you might find their Five tips for a first time medic article useful.) Photo by Oliver Facey from Forsaken

[catboyrightsdefender]

Halloo! Yarn, fireplace, melt and rain? :)

hewwo!!!!! thanks for asking :3

yarn: what’s your favorite language? 

already answered so ill go with my second favorite: latin! i love it because its a very structured language (which makes it fun to read once you know your declensions and stuff) and because some of my fave poems (looking at u vergil) were written in that language!!

fireplace: who/what makes you feel happy?

for the who part: my friends (both irl and on here owo), my siblings, my dog, all the lovely people and animals that im lucky to know...also my fav artists......and for the what part: drawing, listening to music, playing/cuddling with my dog, laughing until my stomach hurts, being with animals, riding horses, reading about stuff that i love, buying nice books, going to museums, talking about things im passionate about to someone who’s listening, dancing, .... so many things make me happy. life is full of good things. this is an important thing to remember, i think

melt: five ingredients/things that would be in a recipe to make you? 

ingredients to make a raph: take some fluff for the hair, some bad sense of humor, throw that whole jar of love, add some chocolate and some cheese (and some pasta, gotta get that sodium)...mix it together....put it in oven and then let it cool...tada!! (careful with that jar of depression over there....wouldnt want it to spill onto our newly created sheep man haha!)

rain: where do you want to be in ten years?

i want to be financially stable, with a job that i hopefully like (museum job! museum job!), and i really really really want to be on t, with top surgery done, and be able to look at myself in the mirror and see me and love me. also i want to have animals. in my wildest dreams i have my own horse and spend my weekends doing reenactment with my horse

[kimbapmmbapbap]

Current Favourite Dramas

So I thought it would be a cute idea to share my top ten favourite dramas as of 2017. Maybe I will come back to this next year and it has completely changed or more or less stayed the same. I hope this will also come into use if someone wants to watch a new drama or wants to get into watching them!!! I will also include reasons why people may not like it just so if there is something you really hate when watching dramas, that you know it is there!!! 

Anyway, here we go: 

 10 - Playful Kiss

I honestly love this one! It was the first drama I ever watched which is why it has to be on this list. If you look online, it seems to have a lot of hate around it due to the female character and that it is just one big cliche, but to be honest it is so nice once in a while to watch something a bit cheesy, and that doesn’t require much thought while watching it. For those who don’t know what the plot is, it revolves around a girl who is in the lowest class in her school and follows her love story around a boy who is the smartest and coolest in the school. At the beginning he hates her and often embarrass her on purpose in front of their classmates. But as fate makes their families live together, their love grows closer.

What may put you off this drama is its over clicheness, and the foolishness of the main leads. If you dont like too much cheese, then this may not be for you, but i do recommend it if you want something easy to watch and if you are interested in the Itazura Na Kiss franchise!! 

09 - Smile, You

I fell onto this drama about two years ago and my god I was glad I did!!! The cast, the story, and the chemistry is just amazing!! It is a classic hate to love relationship between the main couple, the drama faces issues of money, family and changing the way you live. It involves two families: the Seo’s and the Kang’s. The Seo family are rich after inheriting the grandfathers business however they go bankrupt due to carelessness, and have no over option but to live with the Kang family, who has been serving under the Seo’s, and have to learn how to live frugally.  I absolutely loved the female lead, she started off being a spoilt brat and always getting what she wanted, to someone who wants to work and earn her own money. 

The only issue i find with this drama is that I constantly got frustrated with the other family members due to their stubbornness and constantly thinking that they are right when they are being stupid and annoying!! but other than that, I honestly think this drama is an amazing one. It is a 45 episode drama, but the episodes used to go by so quickly so it didnt take too long to watch!!

08 - My Father Is Strange 

Oh my goodness, this drama honestly completely surprised me. It made me laugh and cry and smile with happiness. The whole cast were amazing and played their roles so well, it was almost like they were a real family. It revolves around a family of five who seem to be living the perfect live. However, when someone turns up claiming to be the fathers son, it all gets disrupted. What I liked about this drama the most is that each of the family members have their own individual story, and focuses on them building new relationships. I loved Jung So Min and Lee Joon’s character in it so much that i genuinely want them to be together irl!!! 

The only issue i find with it was that some of the side stories dragged too long and the in-laws of one of the daughter’s in the family were a bit annoying!! But that shouldnt put you off it the drama. Even though it is a 52 episode drama, like Smile, You, it went by quickly and is something I think both drama veterans and newbies will enjoy!!! 

07 - Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo 

This was an absolutely beautiful, funny, and meaningful drama. The chemistry between the two characters was amazing, loved this couple!! That is not the only reason why I loved this drama. I honestly think the main reason I liked this drama is because it is the first one I have watched that has brought on the message on how serious mental health is, it doesn’t try to make a comedic or weakness element to it which i think it amazing!!  The story revolves around a girl who is aiming to be a weightlifter and is studying at a sports university. It shows struggles with love, friendship, and mental health. 

You know what, I honestly can’t think of a reason why you might not like it, other than that the female lead is a bit stubborn and foolish at times. It is a mood warmer and is certainly a must to watch. 

06 - Secret Garden 

Secret Garden was my first favourite drama. The plot is so good, and it thrilling and nerve-wrecking up to the end. It is another hate to love relationship drama, and features a lot of body swapping. The story focuses on the relationship of a stunt woman and a male ceo of a rich shopping centre who’s personality needs a bit of working on. The two end up drinking a potion that causes them to swap bodies when it rains. This leads to some funny, sad, and interesting moments between them. I loved the extended cast and their own stories, and it also features young Lee Jong Suk!!!!!!! 

You may not like it if you dont like douchey male leads and cliches of evil mother in laws. It is a classic drama which I feel is almost wrong if you dont watch it!!!! 

05 - Suspicious Partner

One of my favourites from 2017!!!! This drama is filled with funny moment, romance, and suspense!!!!! The Chemistry between Ji Chang Wook and Nam Ji Hyun was just unreal, I cant explain how much I love them!!!!!!! There was so much sexual tension and hot kisses!!! The story surrounds a woman who wants to be an attorney and a man who is a prosecutor. Everything changes for both of them after the female lead is framed for the murder of her cheating ex boyfriend. The acting in this drama was incredible, especially by the villain of the story, he was so good!!! 

What was annoying about this drama is that there was a breaf period where the couple broke up when they didnt need to!!!!!!!!! Ahhhhh!!!!!! I was so annoyed, but it didnt ruin the drama for me,  and overall it was such a good drama, the plot was on point and was so suspenseful on how they were going to proof the killer of murder!! 

04 - Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo 

HOOOOOO BOI!!! This drama was a whirlwind of emotions, which is why I loved it!!!!! The first couple of episodes fooled me into thinking it was going to like a historical rom com, boy was i wrong!!!! If you are going to watch this prepare laugh a lot, cry a lot, feel betrayed by certain characters, and to fall in love with all of the princes!!!! If you do not know what this drama is about, well it revolves around a girl in the present day who when saving a boy from drowning is brought the the Goryeo times of Korea and finds out she is in the body of the cousin of the wife of one of the royal princes, and she soon has to find out that she has to adapt to royal life in korea!!!

I feel like if you research this that you will find a lot bad press about it, but don’t listen!!! It does have a rather different ending to what most thought it would have had, but you know what, i honestly believe that the ending was perfect, even though it broke my heart, it fit so well with how the story was told!!!! I do recommend in watching an up beat drama afterwords because its a sadden!!

03 - You’re Beautiful (joint 02)

The next 2 drama’s on this list are pretty much on a tie of second because of how much I loved them!!! You’re Beautiful is an absolute masterpiece in my opinion!!!! It is such a fun loving show, it made me laugh and smile so much, the chemistry between all of the characters was amazing and its nice to see that they are still all friends (this was made in 2009). The OST was so beautiful and catchy, I love Park Shin Hye’s singing!!! The plot consists of a nun in training who has to pretend to be her twin brother due to him having plastic surgery issues while getting ready to debut with as one of the biggest boy group as its new member. The lead of the group Tae Kyung and Mi Nam dont get on at the start due to several incidents, but after finding out she is a girl, he ends up with having to look after her in situations and both end up slowly liking each other. 

Similar to playful kiss and secret garden, it holds a lot of cliche, and personally I did not the kind of love triangle and the second female lead, however I thought she was alright in the last episode. But overall, it is such an up beat drama. I watched this when I was going through a tough time in my life, and it really helped me get through some of my problems!!!! 

02 - Pinocchio (joint 02)

I’ve got to say, I was so surprised by this drama!!! Everything about this drama is just ahhhh!!!! Park Shin Hye and Lee Jong Suk are my absolute favourites, they both perfectly acted their roles and their chemistry was beautiful!!! I recommend this drama with all my heart. Like I mentioned, I loved this main couple, but the reason why it gets my top pick was due to its plot. I loved the whole mystery element to it and how they used journalism to find the answer of how Dal-Po’s (ljs) father’s death was abused and caused the death and disappearance of his brother. It was an on edge, suspenseful drama, but also had its comedic elements. I absolutley loved the supporting cast, even the second male lead, which I rarely ever do!!

The only fault i find with this drama is that when I first watched it, i thought the first 3 or 4 episodes were quite slow, but now i find those as some of my favourites as it tells the past and how dal po was effected by the death of his father and how poor journalism changed his life!!! I cant tell you how many times I’ve watched this one, i remember the first time I watched it, I started it again straight after!!!

01- The Best Hit 

As I am writing this, I can’t stop smiling!!! That is how happy The Best Hit made me!!! I found out about this drama a few days before the first episode aired due to the release of Beautiful Beautiful, a song for the soundtrack, and I instantly fell in love, not only with the song but also because it starred Yoon Shi Yoon who I absolutely adore!!!! There are so many reasons why I love this drama, so here are some: the 2 Days 1 Night references and cameos were amazing (the drama is directed by the past director of the variety show and Cha Tae Hyun who like YSY is a cast of the show). I liked how the plot of the drama was a mystery. No one knew where it was going, who was going to end up with who, what was going to happen to YSY’s character. I also liked how there wasnt really an evil character, and those who you thought were, they were just stupid. The plots consists of Hyun Jae (ysy) who is a famous pop star in 1993 time travelling to present day. He finds out that in 1994 he dissapeared, creating a conspiracy on if he is dead or alive. He finds out he has a son, and tries to help him achieve his dreams while falling in love along the way!!! It is so funny and sweet, I remember the waiting time each week for a new episode to arive!!!

What some people may not like about it is that there are sever continuity errors and areas which could have been developed further, but you have to hand them credit, it was the directorial debut drama for both PD Yoo and and Cha Taehyun!!! Honestly, this is one of my all time favourites and will all ways be!!! Please please please watch this drama!!!!!

SOME HONOURABLE MENTIONS:

The Ledgend of the Blue Sea

Oh My Ghostess 

Boys Over Flowers

Flower Boys Next Door

Personal Preference

Because This is My First Life

While You Were Sleeping 

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S1 Ep 46: Creating All of Your Own Problems

This season is almost over, but I guess the showmakers had one last thing to bring in last second--one last character--one last toy product that hits the shelves. But, the big problem I can see they had to work around was how do you introduce a character who has nothing to do with this season? Just plop him on at the end in his own self-contained arc, I guess.

So we begin by running into Yugi at home/store he lives in, where Grandpa’s sweeping the stoop although shouldn’t he be inside running the shop? Maybe he’s just keeping an eye on Yugi, making sure he doesn’t run off to an island again. Maybe Tea and Grandpa have an arrangement that Yugi doesn’t get to go anywhere by himself unsupervised because he keeps getting horribly distracted and risking his entire life every time he does. Maybe that’s why she meets him here at his house to walk to school instead of at school?

Grandpa didn’t even bring up getting his ass kicked by Kaiba because apparently Grandpa has had a new life threatening event every couple of months for just his entire life.

I feel like Grandpa runs the itty bitty bodega of game shops.

(read more under the cut)

Isn’t the entire point of a game shop to sell fads, what is he talking about? Like, even if you’re a game shop that sells handmade toys that have no lights or automated parts that’s...still a hippie fad thing. That’s still a fad. Maybe it’s just my capitalist mindset, but maybe Grandpa should stock some Nintendo?

But honestly, their family had nothing to worry about because look at this terrifying storefront.

No child with eyes would enter here.

Kinda surprised her threatening him with homework was actually in the show, because her telling him that he’d have to do her homework for a week sounds like more of a punishment for her than the other way around. Like, may as well have a cat with a pen tied to their tail do your homework.

So this pirate here owns the shop and goes by the name Duke Devlin. He’s got a lot of stuff on his face. Kinda looks like he wants to go full Nomura but hasn’t discovered belts yet.

I’m not sure how his headband works, as some of the hair is under the headband and going into his face (thus ruining the point of a headband) and the rest is going over the headband and into his face (thus ruining the point of a ponytail). There’s a lot going on here, and I...I just don’t know exactly how this hair anatomy works.

This weird line on his face disappears and reappears constantly throughout the show. Man this show and it’s love of eyeliner. The eyeliner that few women wear outside of like...Mai. I’ve never seen such devotion to guyliner in my life.

Anyways, then they had the biggest twist so far in all of Yugioh.

Her eyes will cost as much as an entire house by the time she gets this surgery. Anyways, across the hall and in the other room, Duke is showing off his weird dice tricks to a bunch of girls who have extremely low standards. Because when I was in school, the boys fidgeting with dice and cubes and lighters or whatever were actually pretty damn annoying.

Also dice were illegal at my school but my school had a huge gambling problem since like Elementary school, starting at when Pogs were outlawed. Pogs. I was in like 2nd grade, with my fistful of holographic Garfield Pogs and my teachers were like “absolutely not, those Pogs will send you straight to drugs” and I was very, very confused.

Duke, overhearing Joey talk big about his incredible dueling skills, sees an opportunity to get Yugi to fight him. I guess he assumed that Yugi wouldn’t duel him for any other reason, although I’m pretty sure he could have been all “want to duel sometime?” and Yugi would have answered “ABSOLUTELY, LETS GO TO THE ROOF AT MIDNIGHT, SHIRTLESS, DURING A THUNDERSTORM.”

(the liner got shy here, but came back later)

And like he goes off about this dice but does he actually duel with dice this episode? If he did, I did not catch it as I was scrubbing through the duels. I’m pretty sure he didn’t. Not totally positive.

But bro mentioned that Duke was the mascot for a game that exists IRL that they were trying to sell--and I looked it up, it’s called Dungeon Dice Monsters and it looks so freakin complicated and unfun. Apparently it did not sell well, although they planned all these characters and expansions for it. Also, weirdly it came out in 1996 which means this guy is from Season Zero so...I guess I’ll be watching that later.

Nowadays these pieces of this failed game with 10000 pieces sells for a pretty penny on Ebay, but youknow that’s assuming anyone on Ebay is buying?

But, if you have table top simulator on Steam, some saint has added this game as a mod so you can like...play it for the price of table top simulator instead of spending like 800 dollars. That’s nice. I’m not going to play it myself, but that’s nice.

It was also converted into a complicated GBA game, which is probably more of the reason that he’s in this version of the show--since GBA was around the same time as Yugioh, although I could be wrong.

But, back to the show, Duke decides to do some magic because he has no idea who he goes to school with. This was extremely dangerous and stupid and he didn’t even know.

And Yugi just complete loses his mind for like a few seconds. Which makes you think great, everyone in this room is going to die, because this is Yugioh, and that is a thing that can surely happen. But then...

I feel like this is the point where most people would have been like “eff this” and just turned around, since both Yugi and Joey were in an actual tourney and shouldn’t waste their time but Joey really hates this guy for no reason other than being popular. Joey just has so much rage for people he’s never met before--like really, he’s absolutely terrible at making friends which blows my mind since his best friend is the friendliest person who exists in this show.

So I’m throwing the word draft out there because that’s something card people are familiar with but for those that don’t know, drafts are pretty normal. It’s a randomized deck, so there is the possibility you can get super screwed over in a draft. You can get a whole bunch of like whatever the Yugioh version of that Goldfish from Pokemon is and well, that’s just your deck now. You don’t put a lot of high risk stakes on drafts. They’re just for kicks.

But Joey thinks he’s immortal because he survived that island, so like sure, why not? Lets get rid of the only deck advantage we have and trust this guy, who has done nothing but trick people since we walked into the room.

Damn, Joey! That escalated quickly!

Then, a reallllly weird thing happens that made me super uncomfortable--Yugi changed his clothes. I don’t like this palate swap.

This whole time. That whole time on the island--he had normal clothes.

ooof I owned this outfit in middle school. Exactly this outfit. I had a phase--I call it “gray goth” where I got helllllla emo and only wore gray and jeans for 2 years. The 00′s were a time. We were all very chilly and needed at least two insufficient layers on at all times.

So they draft, but they do it wrong. I mean I guess there’s no “wrong” way but the way I’ve seen it, you selectively make your deck from the cards on the table you don’t just shove every card in there without a strategy. This whole duel is just kinda weird. Not like I really talk about cards at all on here but like...this seems like just the worst way to play draft.

So, because there’s absolutely no way you can possibly have a good time playing this version of the game, Joey struggles.

And then we get a celebrity cameo.

I will never catch another one. I was a one console family and we chose Nintendo. But, I do know my Gradius because this game was on every console ever made and basically resold over and over again up until Konami became a pachinko company.

And so we have a return to dog outfit. Because Joey can’t get away from this weird type of torture. Did Duke Devlin get a tip from Kaiba about Things Joey Wheeler Hates or did two completely different bullies come up with this dog obsession all on their own?

Why is Joey being destroyed by dice? Joey beat up like 12 people in a warehouse once. Anyway, Duke decides to throw dice at Joey and humiliate him into goading Pharaoh into a duel. Again, why would it take this much to goad on Yugi? He freakin loves dueling.

And so, in order to save Joey’s dignity, Pharaoh shows up and is pissed. Back on the island there was like life and death reasons to be pissed--just a while ago, Pharaoh saw Joey and Mai die in front of him and got rightfully upset, but apparently Joey dressing like a dog is like equal in terms of getting this guy super indignant.

Like I’m not sure if Pharaoh realizes that this dog servitude is only as long as it takes for Duke to get bored, which will be about five minutes. Or maybe Pharaoh slept through the fact that Joey brought this on himself entirely by himself and ignored every single time his friends were like “Joey please walk away it’s not worth it.” But like consequences shmonsequences.

This could solve so many of Yugi’s problems if he’d just lose this game. I just feel like carrying around this title doesn’t really do much for your income and yet everyone keeps trying to duel you all the time when honestly, should have probably been just attending class.

Tristan and Tea seem to realize that uh, Pharaoh freaking the hell out is the last thing they need on national TV but I mean, Joey’s a dog so he’s gotta do it. Pharaoh can’t really step down from a fight, no matter how stupid it is, and maybe that’s where Joey got it from.

Or Pharaoh could have just covered Joey this week and caught all of those dice. After a while even Duke Devlin would run out of dice. And it’s not like it said anywhere everyone else can’t beat Duke up because Duke has lost his mind. I just really feel like they should have a way out of this that isn’t boys being proud boys and gambling your dignity left and right but whatever. We gotta sell toys.

Anyway, next week, on Yugioh

Will I even have content to cover? Will Joey have to wear two dog suits --a dog within a dog-- as punishment? Will they just give up and kick this guy’s ass on national TV?