#also these women are such undiagnosed girlies

[cum-rade]

Weird old ladies have the greatest sense of fashion like 30yo gay men with expendable income WISH they were her but they'll never be her. They'll never be her

[pumpkinsy0]

this post is about the shepards having autism/being on the spectrum, strap in,,,

btw to b clear, they all got some other stuff goin on w em mentally, but im focusing on them bein autistic rn, im a bit rusty when it comes to talking about them w autism bc i havent talked about it in so long, I HOPE THIS ALL MADE SENSE

tim- the same way ppl see darry as being autistic is how i feel w tim, its not much of a difference honestly, so ion have much to say. he comes off as cold but he’s rlly not, he’s blunt and that makes him come off as rude to a ton of ppl and so therefore unapproachable, generally prefers to be alone minus like a few ppl (those ppl being angela and curly, and hes kinda had to grow to get used to pony being around a bit). he kinda has a monotone voice. he does have a same routine generally speaking and HATES when it gets fucked up somehow, he gets pretty agitated. his special interest is maybe like, space or somethin like that, but he seems pretty casual about it so ppl dont exactly understand that its literally a special interest, if that makes sense. he can notice patterns n small things other ppl wouldnt. i could see him having synesthesia and pain insensitivity, thats part of the reason y ppl think hes so tough in fights, they think hes just so used to fights he cant rlly get hurt like others can but no, he genuinely just doesnt react to pain stimuli that much 

curly- hes the one out of all three of em where i actually have him more fleshed out😭

he does stim, however its things that r deemed as more “normal” to do in front of others like bouncing his leg, tapping something, etc etc, but i will tell u a good chink of his stiff is chewed bc he just “felt like biting something”. he doesnt know the volume of his own voice and that gets him into a bit of trouble, sometimes hes rude genuinely without even meaning to and he things thats just bc hes a shepard, he has his moments where he takes shit literally or just doesnt get social rules. honestly i could see him being either a lil too clingy physically or him hating being touched by others, maybe hes a mix of both. he also has pain insensitivity and like i said, ppl think its bc hes gotten into so many fights, he just doesnt feel that pain no more, but nope, genuinely registers pain differently BUT if u want him to be hypersensitive to touch, i will tell u that he is tender headed so tim always has trouble braiding his hair especially when he was younger. this is like more modern day ish hc of him but ik he would be repeating words/phrases over and over (its called echolalia i think). doesnt rlly make eye contact a while bunch, its not bc hes nervous or it makes him uncomfortable tho its just like, a thing he does idk how to explain it. hes autistic but if u literally just got this nigga someone to get a look at him it becomes pretty obvious hes autistic, hes literally not even masking, if u had someone u hc to be autistic and they looked at him on his day to day life theyre def goin “hmm,,,”. hes def gotten into a fight bc he was overstimulated lmao

his special interest can b bugs or horror movie or something along those lines

angela- my girl angela,,,,shes the one masking thee HARDEST i just know it, ppl would deny shes autistic the most bc they dont understand autism in women, they would just say “shes just being a normal girl”, and i cant explain it bc we would b here for a while, but i will tell u she would show an obvious sign of being autistic and it gets written off bc ppl just see that as her being girly. ANYWAYS, shes hypersensitive (which means shes a bit tender headed, save my black girl), she gets annoyed by minor changes, has trouble making friends and this is for a multitude of reasons but her being autistic is one of em, has less obvious stims, she mostly plays w her hair, her special interest is more “socially accepted for a girl” and so ppl dont even see that as being her special interest which leads to her being undiagnosed, lowkey imitates other ppls hand gestures, and i have other ideas for her but i need to wrap this up this is becoming an essay😭😭

ANYWAYS they r undiagnosed bc they 1) dont have the resources to get tested lmao 2) they r black and black ppl tend to get misdiagnosed w something else bc they r so underrepresented  and 3) they r immigrants and immigrant parents dont rlly believe in having mental issues lmfao 4) they arent the “textbook outlook” of autism

[aibidil]

Something I've been trying to figure out in the past five years or so is how being neurodivergent intersects with the "I'm not like other girls" script.

Like, yes, internalized misogyny and a culture that treats girls and women as if they have no meaningful inner life make many of us want to distance ourselves from things that are girly or traditionally feminine -- and yes, in so doing we reinforce those harmful cultural scripts. Working to undo internalized misogyny is absolutely necessary work for every human.

But also, yes, people who are neurodivergent often feel different from others around them in a fuzzy, undefined way. And women and girls who are neurodivergent are much more likely to be undiagnosed, much more likely to be questioned or second-guessed when we bring up the possibility of neurodivergence to our friends, family, or doctors, much more likely to have symptoms that don't fit the male-structured diagnostic ideal. For all these reasons, neurodivergent women and girls almost always spend a TON of time gaslighting ourselves about our difference. And when we don't, someone else is there to gaslight us. (I recently had an adult woman friend with tons of ADHD symptoms, difficulty managing life, and four close blood relatives with diagnosed ADHD, and when she went to get assessed the doctor told her she doesn't have ADHD, she's unhappy in her marriage.)

So when you're criticizing women and girls for saying they're "not like other girls," just keep in mind that there are lots of neurodivergent women and girls out here who are really struggling to understand our differences. And sometimes we might end up leaning on an "I'm not like other girls" script because it feels like the only explanation available to us. Because guess what? I'm actually not like most of the people I'm around in real life. I spend the entirety of many social interactions feeling nothing but different. And I'm not feminine. And I'm not made happy by "girly" things. But not because of internalized misogyny! Not because I think anything associated with femininity is bad. Because my brain is actually just different in lots of ways that intersect with all these other things like gender and sociality and sexuality and how comfy I feel existing inside mainstream social scripts.

I think the key is to recognize that "I'm not like other girls" isn't ever what I was trying to say, even when I was 15 and refusing to wear pink. What I meant was "I'm not like other people and I don't understand it and I can't be comfy living my life in a neurotypical box of social expectations." And sometimes that box of social expectation is about gender and sexuality, and sometimes it's not.

[niborssideblog]

It took me we'll into my 20's to realise I was trans. Tumblr has made that journey both easier and so, so much harder.

As a child I don't think I really knew gender was a thing. I felt more comfortable playing with the boys and a slight disconnect with the girls but thought nothing of it, I wanted a beard when I grew up, lot's of undiagnosed adhd moments, the girls thought I was weird, I got bullied, eventually the boys followed suit

As a young teen I felt uncomfortable and like there was something wrong with me (other than the adhd) but I couldn't quite figure out what, got bullied some more.

As a slightly older teen I learned about internalised misogyny and thought that was the problem (and some of it was tbh)

I decided I didn't want to be that person anymore so I made an effort to get over it:

I got over my extreme hatred for the colour pink.

Stopped forcing myself to watch horror movies that gave me nightmares just so I could look tougher.

Stopped forcing myself to participate in activities I hated but did anyway because I wanted to be as "ungirly" as possible.

Tried out some traditionally "girly" activities, found a couple I enjoyed, accepted that I still disliked others and that was OK

Realised that trans women exist and decided to support them (idk how I didn't realise trans men were also a thing back then)

Became more supportive of others

Made an active effort to be less judgemental.

Followed more feminism centric blogs here on tumblr

Accidentally started following some r*dfem blogs.

Didn't really buy into the whole "all men are evil" thing at first but everyone was reblogging it and the common notion was that disagreeing made someone a bad person so I went along with it.

Started to belive it eventually.

Became less supportive and more judgemental again.

I was scared of every guy I met.

I was scared of my male relatives.

Internalised quite a lot of it.

I knew it was wrong and I felt like a bad person for it.

My depression and anxiety got worse.

I eventually started to expect the worst of *everyone* I met.

In my early twenties and I was tired of it, I was depressed, unhappy and hated myself to a point where suicide started to look like an valid option, I'd even had it all planned out and the materials for it ready in my bedside drawer just in case I ever worked up the nerve to actually do it.

I knew that was kinda fucked up though, so I started reading self help books, got into new hobbies and most importantly:

I spent less time on tumblr and more time interacting with my friends, family and colleagues.

I slowly stopped seeing the men in my life as a threat, and started seeing them as human again.

My mental health improved - I still had depressive episodes but not to the point of wanting to die so I packed up my "maybe I'll kill myself kit" into a box and moved it into my assigned storage room in the basement of my apartment building.

That's also around the time I started to question my own gender, and I felt so fucking guilty about it.

I felt like an idiot.

Like a traitor.

Like even thinking about not being a woman anymore, about *maybe* being a man made me some unforgivable horrible person.

I tried to blame it on the internalised misogyny again but deep down I knew that wasn't it, I didn't know internalised misandry was a thing back then.

I started harming myself and the "mikms kit" moved back into my bedroom.

Then Covid-19 happened and I had so much anxiety about it but I with all the quarantine and working in shifts and homeoffice I suddenly had a lot of time to myself, to really and truly contemplate life, the world and my own existence.

Sometimes I felt better about it, sometimes worse, almost made one serious attempt at ending everything.

Got back on tumblr, unfollowed and blocked a lot of blogs that parrots the same kind of fake woke-isms that had made me feel suicidal in the first place.

I actively searched for people like me online, followed trans positive blogs, threw out all the feminine clothes that made me feel worse, kept a couple that didn't, started collecting poloshirts and hawaiian print shirts and came ot to my friends.

I met other trans people, tried out some different names and pronouns, bought a binder, some packing gear and new glasses.

I signed myself up for therapy so I can eventually start hrt and learned how to use makeup to look more masculin.

I feel so freaking euphoric whenever someone uses the name I'm trying out (and may even keep), or when random strangers gender me correctly.

I rejoice at the pure happiness and glee I feel every time I look in the mirror and see how far I've already come.

Sure, there are still bad days, sometimes even really bad ones, but all in all my life truly has changed for the better:

I haven't harmed myself in almost 2 years.

I've finally thrown away the "mikms kit".

I'm (a little) less anxious.

I'm still not sure about my sexuality but now I finally feel like I've got a whole life to figure it out.

I'm no longer embarrassed about "traditionally gender hobbies"

I have more confidence, both in myself and in others.

I'm more sociable than I've ever been.

I've gotten better at setting boundaries.

I'm more comfortable with my body.

I'm in my late 20's now and making real longterm plans for the first time in my life.

I may still have a long way to go until I've reached my personal transitioning goals but I'm confident that I'll make it.

I'm a proud queer dude, and I'm the happiest I've been since probably kindergarten.

It DOES get better.

[the-qalankhais-sweetheart]

I'm not a Potterhead, but I've got to admit, this is a relatable feeling as a Browncoat.

I don't mean to hijack this at all, but finding out Joss Whedon was a toxic, misogynistic gaslighter and abuser who cheated on his wife AND abused his writers and actors, especially the women, all while pretending to be such a champion of women's rights was heartbreaking.

Firefly used to be my comfort show. I discovered first its movie, Serenity, and then the series itself during my late grandparents' battle with dementia, and I threw myself into the fandom. It spoke to me - my family was hard up, trying to help care for my grandparents even while they were in a nursing home (we had no choice but to keep them in one, as they would lose Medicaid unless we did so and we couldn't afford their medical care and they couldn't afford their own care, either), and hard knock after hard knock smacked us in the face. I practically saw no future for myself, as I was depressed, poor, and undiagnosed autistic and ADHD and was feeling the strain of executive dysfunction big time. I felt like Capt. Mal, like Zoe, like Kaylee. I felt "weird", like I could barely hold it together, like River.

It was one of my places of solace, and when I began to come out of the fog of depression and the bullshit right-wing spaces I also wound up being sucked into (thanks to religious abuse and, again, being young, disaffected, and poor), it still was a source of comfort and fondness for me. I had come out the other side, with career goals, better driving skills, a job, and at the time, a boyfriend. I was beginning to become more of a feminist, and all us fans had been hoodwinked into thinking Whedon was this wonderful feminist and ally.

And then the news came out about Joss Whedon's cruelty and toxicity.

I haven't known how to feel about Firefly or about being a Browncoat ever since. I had received gifts from my ex's friends that were Firefly or Firefly-themed - "do I still keep them?" I wondered. "If I buy Firefly things second-hand, the money doesn't go to Whedon, does it?"

And then I began to see the hints, the flags we missed in Firefly upon rewatching.

Why did River need to be naked in the box when she was first revealed to be hidden in Simon's cargo box?

Why was Mal written to be so free with calling Inara a "whore" while still being attracted to her, then getting pissed when someone else also disrespected her as a "whore"? Hell, why did Inara need to disrespectfully refer to the independent Companions who weren't Guild members as "whores"?

Why was Kaylee written to be almost a bit hypersexual while still very "cute" and "girly" while still being a badass mechanic?

To be fair, some of these things (like Kaylee as a character and some of that inner conflict with Inara and Mal) can make for interesting character depth and discussion. But it was quite clear, in my opinion, that these things point to the sexually objectifying mindset of Whedon when taken into context with his toxicity in mind.

I say all of this to conclude, it's extremely heartbreaking when it turns out the creator of such a huge fandom staple is a dangerous, colossal douche canoe. I worry "if I say I like Firefly, will people think I condone Whedon?" "Can I even get any merch anymore without supporting him?" And while it's certainly possible to consume problematic content in a healthy manner with a critical, aware eye, it's really damn hard now to watch Firefly knowing about Whedon's bullshit.

And it was a huge, huge thing, the fans who "Did the Impossible", the Browncoats who helped bring Firefly back to life in one way or another. It was like another Star Trek, another sci-fi show risen from the ashes.

There are still fans, and it's still a thing, just like HP. But damn, how does one even interact with this anymore? How does one go on? How does one look back at the memories?

It's heartbreaking. It's discouraging. I still consider myself a Browncoat, but it's not the same, and it's left a similar hole in my heart to that which a lot of non-TERFy Potterheads now carry.

This is hard enough. I can't imagine having been or being a trans or Jewish Potterhead only to see JKR descend further into the bullshit.

What makes JKR's shitshow even harder to process is that she didn't just ruin a book series. Harry Potter was an entire subculture. Like Star Wars and Star Trek fans, Harry Potter fans dedicated their lives and careers to the series. I don't know if I'd call it "underground," but liking Harry Potter got you beaten up when I was in school, so it was more of a dedicated indie culture than a mass-appeal fanbase.

Harry Potter was so huge that fan works developed their own followings. Potter Puppet Pals racked up hundreds of thousands of followers and was nearly as relevant as the series itself. For fanfiction, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality got so big that it has a Wikipedia page. The band Harry and the Potters spawned the wizard rock music genre. A Very Potter Musical developed a fanbase and launched Darren Criss's career.

Harry Potter also has extensive ties to fandom history. Everyone in my generation (millennials) remembers coming home from school to read Harry Potter fanfiction on the Internet. Today, most people just post their stories on Wattpad or Archive of Our Own. But at the time, the fanbase was splintered between fanfiction.net and dozens of individual websites and forums, some made for specific ships. Since they all had individual hosts, a lot of those sites have been lost to time.

And there's the infamous My Immortal fanfiction, which is an Internet legend with people still searching for the author. Everybody read that one (and laughed at it) in middle school.

Pre-social media, fan sites like The Leaky Cauldron and Mugglenet had massive followings because they were one of few sources for news, theories, essays and fan content. Some of these sites still exist after being around for over a decade and building their own legacy.

Before Deathly Hallows came out, fans were so desperate to know what happened that Mugglenet published a book called What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Falls in Love and How Will the Adventure Finally End? Yep...Harry Potter was so big that people wrote separate books about what would happen in an upcoming book.

And that's not mentioning all the book release parties, Harry Potter-themed events, monuments, fan films, restaurants and even a theme park. A lot of fandoms have those, but Harry Potter infiltrated every aspect of popular culture.

Today, there's a thriving culture of "Harry Potter adults" with themed weddings, baby showers and Etsy stores. Putting your Hogwarts house in your Instagram bio is pretty much a prerequisite for joining the "bookish" community. Warner still produces new content, like the Fantastic Beasts series, although we've all seen what a disaster that's been.

Everyone has at least a few memories associated with Harry Potter even if it's just watching the movies. I had great memories associated with Harry Potter. But looking back at the subculture, history and thousands of fan works, it doesn't seem fun anymore. Studying the fandom or being part of it comes with an awkward tension because you don't want to seem like you're condoning JKR's bigotry but can't divorce her from the series. This subculture was spawned by a woman who turned her legacy of magic and wonder into one of abuse and hatred.

I don't expect people to write paragraphs about how much they hate JKR every time they post about Harry Potter, but it's still uncomfortable to see people make new content or wear their Harry Potter Etsy tote bags like nothing happened. Even if they clarify that they don't support her, it's just a weird, tense situation for everybody.

People dedicated years of their lives to running Harry Potter fan sites, writing fanfiction, cosplaying characters and making fan movies. If I were in that situation, I'd have a mild identity crisis. I'd ask myself "Did I waste all those years? Should I delete my content? Where do I go from here?"

So ultimately, JKR didn't ruin "just" a book series or even "just" a fandom. She tanked an entire culture, which inspired people to look at Harry Potter more critically. The issues that people brought to the light tainted the series's legacy even without JKR's personal issues.

Once, Harry Potter was a series for generations. Now, former fans hope that the series fades into irrelevancy. Unfortunately, JKR didn't just tarnish her legacy--she took decades of history, millions of fans and a worldwide subculture along with her.

[nichehouse]

Ariel didn’t change for Eric and Ursula is not bad.

I hate that everyone fixates on the fact that Ariel changed herself to be with Eric in the the Little Mermaid.

Okay. She did, but did people even really do a character analysis of Ariel? She’s 16! The choices she made in life were bound to be questionable, but why do we shame her for doing so?

I grew up with Disney classics. Snow White, Cinderella, Mulan, you name it I probably have watched it. Growing up, my favorite Disney Princess was obviously Mulan because she wasn’t like other girls (insert internalized misogyny of 2nd grade elementary me).

Mulan was someone I looked up to growing up. Probably because she didn’t like girly things and she fought with a sword. | Image from Mental Floss

I was taught that being too feminine wasn’t nice. I hated Snow White because she lived with 7 men and that was considered a whore (sorry this was how bad I was when I was a child!). Cinderella was someone I loathed because she allowed herself to be stepped on by her stepfamily. While Mulan, She was removing her makeup. She joined a men’s army and dealt the final blow on the bad guy!

I wanted to be just like her.

When I think about my childhood, I remember the character I hated the most. Hated more than Snow White or Cinderella- it was Ariel. I hated Ariel with a passion in my childhood because she was bratty. She had everything she ever wanted, but she gave that all up to be with a man.

I hated Ariel because she was throwing everything away to be with someone that didn’t even know she existed! | GIF from GIFER

There was no love to be found for me for Ariel and I remember even liking Vanessa more. It was the internalized misogyny I had that prevented me from being critical (plus I think because I was 8 lol).

Now that I’m a little older, I’d like to think I’m also a little wiser. While my musings do tend to go in directions I never originally think of, this one is close to my heart. I think I understand where Ariel is coming from… even more alarming, I understand where Ursula is coming from.

Ursula

Ursula was the titular bad guy in the Little Mermaid - a plus-size octopus woman that was banished for being too greedy | GIF from GIPHY

What can I say about Ursula. In the original draft of the Little Mermaid movie, Ursula was King Triton’s sibling. When their father died, they were both given a magical item- Triton with the Triton and Ursula with the magical nautilus shell. Because of Ursula’s greed she was banished from the kingdom by her brother. She has been bent on revenge ever since.

Now I know Ursula’s actions cannot be justified, but I get her? I get that feeling of wanting to be strong or to be dominating only to be banished by a man because I was too greedy according to them? Because the back story was never clear nor do we know the motivation for Ursula’s want for power, we cannot really make conclusions whether her response was good or not. What we can conclude though is the fact that she hurt people along the way regardless of motivation.

I related to Ursula so much because I can relate to the feeling of being cast out for wanting power. Will I take revenge on the people that wronged me by trying to kill their children? Probably not. What I think is more relatable is the fact that because I was a woman trying to grab power, I am seen as greedy or power hungry while Triton was seen as good for banishing the greedy, fat woman.

I now have to work harder than ever since I’ve been kicked out of the only place I ever knew. Why were bad guys always fat-shamed anyway?

Ariel

I will say it then and I will say it again: Ariel did not change for Eric. It’s our internalized misogyny speaking!

From the very beginning of the movie, Ariel was shown to be miserable. She hated that her father was strict. She hated that she couldn’t be who she really wanted to be- and that’s to be a human. She wanted to leave because she felt different and that she was not understood.

Adding to that, a father with an undiagnosed form of trauma from the death of his wife. A father that is emotionally unavailable and siblings that thought you were weird. How would that make you feel?

I guess if I were to really critique Ariel, what I hate about her is her privilege. She had everything money could buy in her place, but she wanted adventure. It is still hard to swallow because I don’t understand the feeling of privilege, but we all have different definitions of hardships in life and we cannot invalidate what she’s going through just because we don’t understand it.

She didn’t change for Eric, Eric was the catalyst that made her want to change. It’s literally in her want song. “What would I give if I could live out of these waters? Betcha on land they’d understand bet they don’t reprimand their daughters. Bright young women, sick of swimming ready to stand” She was fascinated by humans and had the prince statue as a representation of the entire human populace- remember she’s never seen a human up close.

This statue was her only idea of what humans were like. | Image from Sweety High

She had an active imagination. AND SHE WAS 16! She was an impressionable young lady that knew nothing about the world! What she did know was that she didn’t feel like herself underwater. She wasn’t free. She could have had the entire ocean, but she wasn’t allowed to leave. She felt trapped and she felt like the human world was the place where she could go without her father being able to follow her.

Funny she drank a potion to change her biological self. This is why I stand by the thought that she didn’t change for Eric. Eric was the catalyst and she did this for herself.

At the end of the movie, she stays in the human world and is eventually accepted by her father that this was her choice. As someone that came out just recently, being accepted by my family in my choice to change was the most beautiful thing for me.

[lesbeet]

Hey, I just wanted to say thank you for the posts you made about pcos because they meant a lot to me. I was diagnosed as a teen and the symptoms have caused me tons of gender dysphoria that I still struggle with daily. But I would always feel guilty for feeling that way because as a (pretty much cis) afab person, I felt like I wasn’t entitled to those feelings, or that I was alone in them. Anyway, I just wanted you to know how deeply you’ve affected me and thank you from the bottom of my heart. Much love ❤️

i’m so glad angel <3 but yeah i absolutely feel like that describes my own experience as well. 

it’s not something i’ve really discussed in detail publicly—in part bc i didn’t really conceive of what i was experiencing as gender dysphoria until pretty recently, and bc like you said, i didn’t feel like it was an experience that was available for me to claim since i’m also “a (pretty much cis) afab person.” i typically think of myself as “functionally” cis in that i receive the material benefits of a cis woman and don’t necessarily feel like being trans is an accurate way to describe my experiences or feelings about my own gender, but ever since i was a kid i’ve felt distress and discomfort about the way my body doesn’t feel...aligned? with the way i feel gender-wise. 

like i guess the easiest way to describe it is that i feel like my body makes me come across as more masculine than i am, and it’s caused a lot a lot a lot of emotional distress for as long as i can remember. my pcos symptoms (mostly the excess body hair and the way my body holds onto weight, personally) are w/o a doubt the primary cause for me, but being a lesbian certainly didn’t/doesn’t help, and in hindsight even some of my adhd symptoms probably contribute/d to this in some way

like i have clear memories of being maybe 8 or 9 (so before puberty, and before most of my pcos symptoms really manifested) and lying in bed at night thinking like...”i feel like i should be a boy.” not “i WANT to be a boy” or “i WISH i was a boy” or even “i AM a boy”, but that i should be, or that i should want to be. and then i would imagine myself as a boy and it would make me so desperately uncomfortable and unhappy because it was so at odds with how i felt on the inside, even though i WAS a girl. i honestly don’t think i’ve ever talked about this lmfao it’s always just kinda been tucked in the back of my mind bc i didn’t really have an understanding of what i was feeling

so there’s little baby lesbian me who definitely knows she likes girls but would jump in front of a bus before admitting that to herself, let alone to anyone else, and on top of that i’ve always been overweight, esp compared to most other girls my age growing up, and especially as a little kid i didn’t really share the same ~girly~ interests as a lot of my friends—i never liked playing with dolls, i didn’t care about makeup until i felt like i needed it to make me pretty, etc. and bc of (then-undiagnosed) adhd i was usually more like. messy and disorganized and LOUD than a lot of my friends who were girls. so i would just walk around feeling like this brutish, masculine child who looked awkward and dumb when i would like go to dance class (which i LOVED....when i didn’t have to look in the mirror) or hang out with my friends or whatever

and i feel like even though i’ve always been pretty feminine i’ve also gotten more *girly* as i’ve gotten older (or at least i got over my “i’m not like other girls” syndrome lmfao), which has helped, along with just being more comfortable w myself and w my sexuality for sure. but even now i still feel like i look inherently more masc than i feel like i am, and it still causes me distress. like there are certain things i would love to wear but don’t bc they would make me look “too masc” and would trigger the dysphoria. like i looooove looking at like feminine women in suits and i LOVE women in button-up shirts but i feel like i can’t wear them because it doesn’t come across the same way. when i do it i just look like i’m intentionally dressing to look masc, which i’m not

idk if any of this makes sense lol

and if i’m misinformed about my understanding of gender dysphoria please feel free to let me know

but anyway i’m glad i was able to help you! <3 and thank you for inadvertently giving me this opportunity to get all of this out bc like i said i’ve never really talked about it before

[rubrinna]

So fair warning I'm in a bit of a rambling mood. That means a long post is coming and I'm on mobile so feel free to scroll past this.

Alright so. For the past 4ish years i've been slowly moving from identifying as bi to identifying as ace. So as I've gotten more comfortable with the asexual label and learning about S.A.M. and the aromantic spectrum/orientation the more I've been questioning weather or not I'm aro as well. My therapist kinda pointed out that I'm probably aro as well. Which is fine. It's just that I have doubts about this. Because I've internalized the message that my worth is based on my attractiveness to men/boys, and growing up I wasn't popular in that department. Or at least in my mind I wasn't. Because I was "plain" and "weird" and I didn't really like "girly" things. I also was and am fat so therefore no boy would like like me.

And I would get jealous of other girls for having their hair nice, their skin nice, and their nice nails. And I was just the weird, fat, smelly girl. It also didn't help that intellectually knowing that I am of Puerto Rican descent and not having the cultural connection as well as not "looking like a latina". And I internalized that my body was supposed to look like a model's. I was supposed to be sexy and "mysterious". I also felt estranged from femininity despite never feeling like anything but a girl. I never felt right being feminine because I didn't have the ideal feminine body. I also strained against what is expected of women. I have never felt a strong need to have children.

So now I end up wondering if these labels I am using are just me trying to shield myself. Sometimes I wonder if I am using these labels as an excuse to not pursue relationships out of fear of intimacy and being hurt.

What doesn't help the confusion is the random and few crushes(?) I get. But lately they have been on older men who are teaching me in some way. At least I think I'm having crushes. Then again I've also had to have these feelings pointed out. And I find myself feeling hurt and jealous when others have their attention, especially if they mention a romantic or sexual attraction. Every time I get these feelings I feel terrified and confused. I've had crushes on women as well but it's still so very confusing.

My acensss and my aroness seem so intertwined and yet seem so very separate that it seems impossible to identify where my feelings come from. Then again having depression undiagnosed for half my life didn't end doesn't help. There are times in the past that I lived in a fog. But I also feel that I've been in a fog since the end of 2016. All of this seems so very squished together and very hard to figure out.

So uh yeah that's my ramble. I guess if any of you have the mental energy you can dm me or something.

[mille-at-home]

Dental disaster.

The dental disaster/s whichever way round I write about the dentist recently it appears to be a disaster so Tuesday was no different story. Firstly I had a call on Monday to confirm I would be at the surgery for 10am. It is a good job they did call as the surgery we had to attend was in Newton abbot! No, I hadn’t been told this and indeed I checked with the husband who was also present at the last ‘specialist’ dental appointment in our home town and he confirmed I am not going crackers and that we were not told it was in Newton abbot! That said it was no problem and we arrived ten minutes early for the appointment and waited 50 minutes to be called through.

A little lad had been in before us and obviously had the same fears as Erin, as mum stood quite clearly stressed with the screaming 6-7yr old next to her they made another appointment where mum like me, was desperately trying to get an after school appointment for next month. It wasn’t happening; reception said that the next appointment at 4.40pm was November - mum protested he needed treatment before then so the two were at a Mexican standoff. Reception lady just smiles that sarcastic sickly sweet smile of ‘and WTF do you expect me to do about school times?!’ Sort of smile. Like most Mum’s she gives in and just takes what’s is given to her but asks that they right it down as the school will not be happy with appointments in their time. You just can’t win this mum stuff eh?! I really did feel her pain!

Erin next and although we had a long wait, she had sat perfectly calm with me in the waiting area discussing many things in life apart from dentists and it was oddly quite a good little girly catch up time. Erin clocked the same short sharp ‘specialist’ dentist as last time and whispered 'oh god not her again’ and I quietly shh her, but the accompanying nurse was indeed an angel. Now this is where the specialism is, with the nursing staff - not the dentists it seems! (This is my opinion) Erin sat in the chair whilst they explained they need to take X-rays to find out what is going on with her tooth. Erin is having none of it and tears start to flow and her breathing is speeding up! I let the nurse do her calming soothing stuff but it’s not working. The dentist resorts to using the gas to 'put her out’. (Or is that shut her up?!) Nope…can’t get near her with a mask either and the distress is painful to watch - I offer to wait outside in case my presence is worsening the situation, but that is a no go too. All credit to the nurse, she tried her best.

Dentist and nurse go to the back of the room whilst Erin sits on my lap to try and calm down. I can see Dentist is really irritated and short and tells Erin they “only want an X-ray, it’s not difficult Erin” so she says she will have to refer (that bloody word) her back to Torbay for X-ray? I reiterate as I told them last time that she had one in December, why send her back for another as its not helping the anxiety. Dentist goes to back of room again in discussion with nurse, then asks for Erin’s date of birth. It turns out they have the wrong date of birth which is why they can’t find the X-rays I’m on about! *facepalm One click with the correct date of birth and voila! A full X-ray of Erin’s upper and lower gnashers! Dentist ushers us over to look but Erin sits with nurse still sniffling. She/we can’t see if there is a filling needed as the shadow is too small but whichever way we look at it, there is a tooth trying to come through but there is no room. It appears that this little tooth is crammed in too tight and this shadow could just be a pip or bit of food stuck but the tooth is crooked. Next thing is for the dentist to just have a look herself with the mirror. Easy solution but Erin will not let this women near her mouth, we try to encourage that she holds her lip up but she won’t do that either. Then I remember the alcohol gel of hers in my bag and say if she uses that, can she do it then? This works and Erin agrees.

Dentist and nurse look at each other perplexed and probably wondering if my daughter has OCD that bad that they need to do a psychiatric assessment instead of a tooth investigation so I explain….Erin spent the first four years of her life rather poorly with sickness due to an undiagnosed nut allergy, she goes to a beautiful school but there are nut tress in the grounds so I have always told her to wash her hands to avoid allergic reactions. It’s just something she has had to be pretty careful about I guess but I have made her that way, rather than see her suffer with the terrible reaction to nuts. They simultaneously breathe a sigh of understanding (or relief perhaps) and actually soften a little when I say that unfortunately a poor diet came with the allergy, if your child is underweight and suffering sickness and a biscuit is all they can stomach and/or coupled with dry snacky foods then that’s the kind of diet that turned quite normal for her until she was diagnosed. There is a reason for many things and I take responsibility for that; but by helping one problem, I indeed clearly created another.

Anyway, she did let the dentist have a look at said tooth, but she could not see anything due to the tooth being crooked so guess what? She has referred (yes, bloody referred) her to orthodontics to see if this tooth just needs to come out regardless as she needs a brace, not before bemoaning that they should have seen this at the hospital and asked me why they hadn't taken it out when she went in in December? (I don't know - I'm no dentist?!) The long and short of it is, she has a tiny, tiny mouth and no room for a full set of teeth! So here I go again, one is off (well one more appointment left) the orthodontics list and another is about to embark on the 3 monthly visits for the next 2 years! (Arghhh) We wait patiently for the referral!!!

Ahhhh and it’s only Wednesday?

#passthewine #passthehusband

[tumblunni]

MAN I tried messing around starting newgame plus on Digimon Cyber Sleuth, even though I’ve played more than enough already so I’m not really gonna play again so soon after finishing. And... WHAT THE HELL?? Seriously this is like a one game microcosm of how you don’t realise how much you’re being mistreated until you see how the other side lives. Specifically on the subject of weird minority stereotypes... The difference between the designs/animations/general presentation of the two gender options is REALLY BIZARRE?? I had no clue! Playing as the girl you just kinda think ‘yeah thats weird maybe’ but you dont realise the dude doesnt have the same problems. Like... she VERY MUCH suffers from the ‘miss male character’ trope. She’s the weird sort of ‘lol sexy genderswap deviantart fanfiction’ version of a female option. I thought I was just reading too much into it with how the girl is posed like a supporting character on the boxart and literally never appeared in any of the promotional material until the game came out... Its just so... ODD! Everything EVERYTHING about her is defined to be this overthetop stereotypical idea of ‘we have to let them know she’s the girl version’. She’s far more sexualized, she always does these ‘girly’ or ‘hot’ poses for LITERALLY EVERYTHING! Like, the dude’s animation is just running but she has to run with her arms wide out to the sides, skipping like a five year old and swaying her hips. And her standing pose also has the hands out, her toes inturned, her chest thrust forwards and this general sort of ‘tee hee hee’ thing?? It really REALLY started to bug me how her chest is ALWAYS thrust forwards, I started to get super anxious about ‘holy shit am I ever doing that when I walk and i dont know it? is this really how female bodies are supposed to work??’. Its like her resting pose is this thing and its extremely painful for her to fold her joints back into a normal mode. And she’s always always posing when the dude isnt posing AT ALL, even her selection screen image is her doing the ‘one leg bounces back while you kiss someone’ type pose, contorted into a wild accordion while he’s just looking at the camera. I jsut... didnt even realise what was bothering me so much about playing as this character, til i saw the total absence of it on the dude... SERIOUSLY! He doesnt have some overstereotypical super huge macho animation set, his design isnt made to yell ‘I’M MALE’, he isnt sexualized, he isnt the ‘one body type everyone in this gender has to have’. He’s a scrawny androgenous waif that could have worked equally well if you slapped the label female on that design, somehow to make him female they decided they had to scoop out holes in his waist and hips and shove them on his chest. While also adding a bazillion extra animations that make her walk around everywhere like that one damn gif of terrible ragdoll physics as some guy walks down a road. I did not understand that whole assassins creed controversy about ‘but women need more animations, it’d be too much work to add them’. NOW I UNDERSTAND. Why on EARTH do they think they need these animations?? Women dont have to do everything differently to men to prove theyre women, in real life literally nobody worries about accentuating stereotypical gender roles while doing COMPLETELY NORMAL THINGS. Women dont put huge effort into looking cute or sexy while they’re just frickin walking down the street or standing alone in the privacy of their own home. Its like these people know so little about women outside of hollywood femme fatale movies that they legit think that sort of walk cycle is biologically ingrained into one gender???? The fact nobody ever acts like macho bodybuilder walk cycles should be given to normal tiny teenagers in every situation makes it pretty clear the difference here... And seriously, what is even this universal THING that ‘male are default, you need to mark a character as different to show she’s female’? Which usually means making her more feminine than the real female actor playing her, like that even makes a damn lick of sense :P I mean seriously if we’re gonna talk actual biology, men are the ‘different’. A species cannot exist with only men, the only one sex species are all female. Or lack a sex, or contain both sets of genitals. Also there is at least one bird species that has two male genders as well as female. And male seahorses get pregnant, and male clownfish can physically transition into females as part of their natural life cycle. And all sorts of far more diverse things we humans can barely understand! And like... you can say ‘women are the different and men are the blank, because women have boobs and men don’t’. But you can also say that women are the default because men are the same thing with penises added. And seriously, boobs are just nipples that actually serve their intended purpose. Women have this extra function compared to men because MALE BREASTS ARE VESTIGAL! The organ still exists, it just sits there doing nothing and never changes at puberty. (Though even that is more fluid that you’d expect, there are ways to induce lactation even if you’re a cis man. i dont really know why anyone would want to do that, it wouldnt exactly work as well, but whatever.) Aaaaand OF COURSE this entire thing is a stupid argument anyway because it only talks about biology, which is not the same thing as gender. Not to mention that biological sex isn’t all cut and dry either, the human species has A LOT of different intersex conditions. You can even have people who don’t have significant enough outward symptoms to be recognised as intersex at birth, who go their whole life thinking they’re a cis male only to suddenly find out they had an undiagnosed hormone condition and are technically a trans man. There is most definately no magical biological guideline for how men and women act. Especially frickin stupid nonsense like overspecific cultural guidelines on what’s cute for a woman to do while running, geez. You really can;t just ‘tell’ that someone is ‘really a woman’ or ‘really a man’ cos of how they act, and thats why this stuff pisses me off even when the story isnt saying anything about trans people. I’m so used to seeing this overexaggerated japanese concept of feminine/masculine mannerisms being used on trans stereotypes, it bugs me even seeing it being done to cis women... gahh this has gone wildly offtopic and I’m just venting Everything Bad About Stereotypes rather than the specific thing about this specific game I need to logoff and go cheer myself up. OH BUT yeah this game also literally has a friggin ‘we can tell this man is really a woman because mannerisms’ scene :P which also dissappointed the hell out of me cos it seemed like a trans character and instead it was the cliche I Had Some Reason To Pretend To Be A Man thing... Also apparantly instead of acting like that male persona, the male persona was magical brainwashing virtual reality stuff. What a wasted opportunity! You could have told us a lot of stuff about her personality from comparing how she acted while under this other fake personality, and what it implies she hides from other people. Like ‘hey, maybe she actually can be confident as long as she’s wearing a mask!’ Nah, everything badass or tough or sassy she did was just mind control. And she’s not trans. And blehh being outed by ‘acting like a girl’... Its so weird cos the game actually does have one trans npc in a sidequest, and has trans themes with a few major digimon. In the sense that they were male in previous seasons and have designs considered ‘masculine’ but take female forms when disguising themselves as humans. (and the player-controlled versions of these digivolutions even have different masculine voices matching earlier seasons!) Gahhhh at least I can sit here hugging my ambiguously genderqueer alphamon headcanons and nobody can tell me those arent canon cos the question was never answered either way! I hate the cliche answer that ‘yes all alphamons are male cos they ‘look male’, this one was just a man disguised as a woman’, but still even if that was the intent, it means the character is trans coded! EITHER OPTION IS TRANS TIME protect me, alphamon protect me from super gender essentialist game how do you even EXIST in this game?? seriously even your human disguise was super fanservicey weird female stereotypes mannnnnn i guess I had a few problems with this game aside from the one stupid rape scene :P aaaaand the problem of the game clearly being written assuming nobody would play the female option, so characters still constantly call you ‘he’ and such the only good consolation being that the game accidentally becomes Hella Gay, though I would have preferred canon lesbians instead of this weirdness WHY CANT FEI AND YUUKO BE CANON IT GOT SO CLOSE TO BEING CANON THEN FEI DISSAPPEARED FROM THE PLOT FOREVER only reappearing as a postgame newgame plus bonus boss that makes it impossible to complete the damn Masters Cup damn you fei damn you awesome amazing hella gay fei whom i love you deserved to be in a better game you deserved to be the matt-esque rival, i will never forget that you started off teasing that role and then just vanished... HELL, CAN SHE BE THE PROTAGONIST OF A SEQUEL OR SOMETHING game entirely about her and yuuko’s amazing story of love! also alphamon wandering in just to yell ‘I AM CANONICALLY TRANSGENDER’, make everyone a cup of coffee, and leave aaaaa why did i spend so long rambling every single complaint about this game, games in general, gender stereotypes in gender, life in general... its weird how just realizing ONE THING about a stupid walk cycle animation made me realise my general nebulous feeling of uncomfortableness that I could never explain about this game :P I am really excited for digimon world next order being better than this!