#am i relevant yet

[trans-axolotl]

my gendered experience growing up as an intersex person was overwhelmingly defined by my responses and resistance to everything that got me labeled as a failure: failure to quickly get a gender assigned at birth, failure to go through a normal puberty and grow up into a woman, failure at meeting the standards for "complete womanhood" because of my intersex sex traits, and yet simultaneously failing to ever be acknowledged as a "real man" and being treated as a threat when I expressed I wanted to transition.

before i realized i was a man and came out as trans, the ways that girlhood was denied to me was very often humiliating and painful. locker rooms filled with other girls were a frequent source of shame. there were many big and small ways that i was told that my intersex body made me insufficient, incomplete, broken. i was forced onto estrogen, forced into shaving my body hair, and was constantly being told to change myself to better fit this mystical idea of a "normal woman." and even though I ultimately ended up becoming a man, the denial of girlhood was painful.

but i think that these things would have been even more difficult to navigate as an intersex girl if on top of everything I already said, i was having to cope with the denial of my girlhood while i was forced into boys locker rooms. if my doctors were forcing me onto testosterone hrt and refusing to even discuss estrogen, if all my legal paperwork had "M" on it and was a logistical nightmare to change, if every support group for my intersex variation labeled it as a "men's support group," if the LGBTQ community spaces i tried to join were misogynistic towards me often to the point of exile, if my self determination as an intersex girl was denied in most spaces of my life, and on and on and on. while listing all these things out i also don't want to make it seem like it's all about suffering and pain--so much of transition for me has been about joy in my self determination and how much it feels like a reclamation of autonomy to decide what I want my body and self to be like--i know this is an experience i share with so many of my trans intersex friends.

as an person who was AFAB, although there were many ways that trying to grow up as an intersex girl were a painful, logistical nightmare, many times and places that i was excluded from woman's spaces, etc. however, there was a simultaneous affirmation that i was right to strive for that in the first place. which is logic rooted in some fucked up compulsory dyadism, but also which would have made some things slightly easier or even possible at all if i had wanted to embrace being an intersex girl within this fucked up system.

pretty much every time i've seen people on tumblr talking about "afab transfems" in an intersex context, people seem happy to collapse these experiences and act like there's no meaningful distinction or point in distinguishing between different types of intersex embodiment. it seems incredibly extractive, to be perfectly honest with you--taking terms already used by a community to make meaning of their experiences and to expand and dilute that term enough that it means something pretty different than the original.

it's making me think about the concept of epistemic injustice, which is a term coined by Miranda Fricker to describe oppression related to knowledge, communication, and making meaning of the world. There's two subtypes of epistemic injustice: testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice. Testimonial injustice refers to the dynamic where marginalized people are labeled as not credible, excluded from conversations, and their testimony and knowledge is labeled as unreliable, even when they're the ones who are experts and have first hand experience of what people are talking about. (this is why i probably won't make this post rebloggable--i've noticed this pattern on tumblr many times where trans men speaking about transmisogyny get lots of notes and are given a lot of grace, where trans women are silenced, attacked for not having perfect wording, and otherwise delegitimized.)

the second type is called hermeneutical injustice. it describes how marginalized people are denied the right to make sense of the experiences in their own lives. this can look like preventing people from building community, terminology, a political understanding of themselves, and the interpretive resources needed to process how you live in the world.

this is a form of injustice that I think almost all intersex people are very familiar with--we are denied community and interpretive resources to the point that we're told we don't even exist, that intersex isn't a real word, and so many more examples that leave us isolated and with very few options for understanding what we're collectively experiencing. as an intersex person i really intimately understand how frustrating, confusing, and painful it is to not have words for your experiences, your identity, your life.

so it makes me really sad and pissed off when it seems like intersex people seem to be replicating this exact same type of epistemic injustice towards transfems and specifically towards intersex transfems. pretty much every time recently i see people talking about "afab transfems" they're doing so in a way that seems to deny that trans women even have the right to make sense of their own experiences in the world. there seems to be this mindset that these political frameworks, these interpretive resources that transfems have built up are just up for grabs for anyone. and then on top of that has come with it a lot of cruel, hateful language and direct attacks towards many intersex transfems who are facing so much harassment right now.

an important value to me is this idea of reciprocity as a foundation for solidarity. to me reciprocity means that we're prioritizing the ways we care for each other, we're thinking about how we can uplift each other, and we're watching out for extractive or exploitative patterns where one group is constantly expected to be in "solidarity" with another group without getting the same respect and care back toward them. i think that there could be so many ways that intersex people of all genders could share our overlapping experiences and actually be in true, meaningful solidarity with each other, but i barely ever actually see that happen on tumblr. and that pisses me off, because i do think that there's so much we have in common that we could celebrate and support each other with. i feel so much kinship with so, so many of my trans intersex friends, and ways where i see our lives converge. but i don't think that can happen in an environment where there's no acknowledgment of the ways that our experiences will sometimes (often) differ from each other, and the ways that we have unique needs.

another frustration i've had based on this most recent couple months of transmisogynistic intersex posting on tumblr is how intersex people have been mostly ignoring intersex community resources and devaluing the existing intersex terminology that people created to try to meet our needs. so much of what i've seen people describing on tumblr seems to really line up with the term ipsogender. Ipsogender is a term coined by an intersex sociologist Cary Gabriel Costello, and is used to describe intersex people whose gender matches the gender they were medically assigned at birth, but who might not feel like cis or trans fits them, might experience dysphoria, and who might feel like they've ended up transitioning medically or socially in some ways. this is a word that exists that an intersex person put time into coining because they wanted other intersex people to feel seen, embraced, and have ways of understanding themselves and communicating to others, and that's something that's super meaningful to me! and yet, i've rarely seen anyone reference it, and also seen multiple people making fun of it in other spaces online.

there's also intergender, which is another intersex specific gender term used to describe when your gender is inseparable from your intersex traits, and that your intersex identity is intertwined with your gender identity in some way. some people just identify as intergender, others use it as an adjective and exist as an intergender man or woman. intersex terminology like this is really important to me, especially because we're so often denied the right to make sense of our own experiences.

i think ultimately what i wanted to say with this post is just that when i think about intersex community, some of the most important values of intersex community for me are solidarity, care for each other, and affirming our right to define our own existence. and i don't think that can happen in a community where people are acting in extractive ways, harassing and attacking their fellow community members, and being dismissive of the realities of other intersex people's lives.

[bigskydreaming]

Imagine looking at a character whose entire premise is that in every stage of his life, he's made every version of himself into someone that inspires people to such a degree that EVERY SINGLE VERSION OF HIM has people wanting to literally follow in his footsteps in some way or another.....

And coming to the conclusion that like.....the most important things about him are the sum of all his trappings. His entirely homemade developed from scratch could not exist if not for what he already was and brought with him BEFORE crafting this newest version of himself trappings, with his greatest trait throughout all of it being his adaptability; his ability and willingness to roll with the punches and not try to simply weather any opposition or changes to his life but instead reshape himself as needed to better fit INTO whatever new shape his life and the world around him takes. All while managing to carry the most innate, fundamental and necessary aspects of himself from one version to the next. Thus every single version of himself is different but simultaneously every single version of himself is also undeniably the same person.

The strength of this character, to me, will always be that he can be so many versions of himself, he can become so many things, all without ever actually losing or discarding any of the aspects of himself he considers most essential, the things he's not willing to lose or give up just to keep going. Finding that road not taken by most, usually because most never even think to look for it as an option. But one that he's always able to find because the one trick he's mastered in his tumultuous life is threading that needle of not just digging in his heels in an unproductive way but rather being selective about when and where he makes a stand and decides "this is not a thing I'm willing to compromise about" but here are places and ways I can and will change and evolve and adapt in order to make it possible for me to hold onto these parts and keep them as they are.

And that's why its always so mind-boggling to me that so many writers can't seem to think of anything else to do with Dick Grayson other than invent some new reason for him to just....not be that person, or to like just take the character whose most basic fundamental trait he's NOT about to compromise on is willingly giving up his spot in the driver's seat of his own life.....and make him just a passenger in his own life and stories.

Dick Grayson at age nine....at age nineteen...at age twenty nine....the one core thread running through all versions of him is the only way he's standing back and letting you call the shots for him or putting him on the sidelines in some way is over his dead body.

HOW he goes about that, what that looks like, who he becomes and what aspects of himself he plays up at some times and what traits he lets fall by the wayside at other times when they offer less in service to his primary goal here....that changes constantly. He changes constantly.

But those changes are almost always (or at least they used to be/should be IN MY OPINION) made with the intention of keeping certain things about him or his life as consistent as possible.

That's the duality of Dick Grayson that I'm here for. The inherent contradiction of him that COULD allow for endless conflict and breaking new narrative ground in all sorts of ways if mined properly:

His eternal willingness to compromise....but only ever in pursuit of doubling down on the ways he's not willing to compromise.

Forever walking that tightrope in ways that only a kid born and raised in a circus could ever hope to.

[endlesslytired]

Penacony.

more from the post looooop:

[niko-mesu-the-dragon-dog]

have silly meme while i take fucking ages to finish one(1) sketch

[ganondoodle]

"to even give people the mere chance of starting to understand how you feel about this character and this story you made up around them you have to actually draw that comic, you are at chapter 2, even just the rough draft for it took you a year despite your best efforts on being faster"

[eclectic-spaghetti]

Ascension

[napping-sapphic]

yeah, my life can just get so tough😔 (constantly in the mood to flirt but too shy and easily embarrassed to flirt with anyone)

[jade-of-mourning]

would their music sound like mcr, paramore, deftones, slipknot, or evanescene? we may never know…

(og caption lol: ah it's a redraw of the a-band i drew some time back except i this time committed to the shiggy-hand-fries bit

lately i've been telling myself that cringe is dead a lot. idk how they got a chokehold on my brain again because allowing bnha to reclaim any space in my brain ever was not on my bingo card of life actually. but it happened)

check out the fries also i literally just realized i failed to draw the frets and all texture ummmmmmm anyway

[oldworldghost]

How do you think P would react over finding out Reader likes to sing? Is a duet incoming in the walls of Hotel Krat?

P with a lover who's a singer! ☆

↳ Anon this is adorable! I'm tempted to write a fic about something along these lines at a different time, but for now have some hcs :]

➸ Pinocchio finds out you sing on one of his return trips to the hotel. His attention is first grabbed by the sound of the piano, its' notes greeting him upon his entrance, and being the artistically inclined man that P is, he naturally follows it. His attention is secondly grabbed by the faint sound of a voice, half hidden by the keys and only to be properly made out that's yours when he's standing in the doorway of the library. He makes eye contact with Antonia, who sends him a smile before turning back to you, who either hasn't noticed that he's there or simply doesn't care. He supposes it to be the former, too engrossed in what you're doing to pay attention to the outside world.

➸ He, very quickly, ends up the same. Dead glass eyes watch intently as your hands glide over the keys, something akin to life sparking in them as he listens to your voice dance with the music. Pinocchios' initial reaction is that you sound beautiful, look beautiful. Though it would be more accurate, I suppose, to say that he thinks you both look and sound incredibly human. P has never heard anyone sing outside of Vinyls, at least not for long, so being able to not only listen in person but watch as you engage in the act of something as human as music has his gears speeding up. Something in them has changed, he's sure of it.

➸ It should come as no surprise to say that Pinocchio is immensely curious about [and attracted to, in your case] things he perceives as human. This is partially due to the fact that he sees them as a goal, something to work towards and obtain, a barrier to be broken between himself and humanity as a whole. And of course this extends to music and is one of the reasons his vinyl collection is ever growing, why he always finds himself returning to the piano. It is a little hard to tell whether Ps' appreciation of art is something inherent to him or if it merely exists because he thinks it has to. In all honesty it's probably both.

➸ Now, to grow less introspective about it all, Pinocchio also just really loves listening to you sing because it's, well, you. He is undoubtably your number one fan, though he's subtle about it. Gemini is the hype man, much to the embarrassment of P and the amusement of Everyone Else. Honestly it's not even really embarrassment on Ps' part, more of an annoyed "wow I wish you would shut the fuck up!" because Gemini has the talent of being able to bring you into every conversation and you being a singer just adds more fuel to a fire that really does not need it [Pinocchio would one hundred percent do the same though if he was more, you know, talkative].

➸ One of Pinocchios' main love languages is quality time, and honestly you being a singer is perfect for that. Most of his time at the hotel is spent just sitting and listening and watching. Something about your voice makes him feel safe, as weird as that may sound. Maybe it's the affection in it when you sing for him alone, or just how intimate the atmosphere ends up being. He's not even sure if he's capable of feeling comfort, but he wouldn't change whatever's in his chest for the world.

➸ In regards to duets, I think Pinocchio would actually be rather open to the idea. Now, contrary to popular belief he can in fact speak, though he seldom ever does it without prompting. He doesn't really see the point in it if we're being honest, yes speaking is human but his voice is so flat and honestly he just doesn't have a lot to say about things. So it's fairly safe to say P has never sung before, hell he's not even sure if his voicebox can function like that, but nonetheless when you bring up the idea of a duet he's not only willing but somewhat eager about the whole thing. There's really no rhyme or reason for it either, Pinocchio just likes the idea of doing something human with someone who makes it easy to forget he's a puppet.

➸ Now Pinocchios' singing voice is actually rather nice! Though it is, of course, undeniably mechanical. There's something off about it, at times sounding like a crude mimicry of a human, a constant stiffness and roughness to it. It falls into a sort of uncanny valley, however there is also something undeniably endearing about it, something human about how much you can tell he wants to express anything in it. As for sound outside of puppetry, Ps' voice is fairly deep but retains a certain gentleness to it, a smoothness that contradicts the stiffness in a really lovely way. And yes, Pinocchio has a sense of rhythm.

➸ Pinocchio has a strong preference for keeping your duets private. The best way to do that, in his opinion, is when you're both out in the gardens dancing together. Under the stars while everyone else is inside, chest against chest and voices in sync, the gentle twirls and turns as you both slip into your own little world. If you couldn't tell how much he values your duets before, you certainly can now. Kiss him after the song is done, won't you?

[cuppajj]

Forgive me for asking for DE content when you aren't ready to discuss it yet. I suppose the story/game's starved us for too long. The concepts of your au is really cool, and I was excited for possible CoD stuff. I'll be patient and wait for it, I swear.

You’re good, there’s just only so much I can say with what little the game has given us lol

I don’t like improvising what characters are doing too much, like making up something for DE from scratch without knowing the foundations of what they’re doing. And right now since it’s not much, I don’t have much to anything for people asking about what they’re doing in baau. You’ll get your answer for what DE and the rest of the CoD are doing when the game gives it for us

[jennyfromthebes]

[image description: a bluesky post from the Mountain Goats. it reads "just finally got the master list for full band tour into the group chat. no I will not spoil the whole thing, no fun to do that, but here's something from the middle of the doc. come see us on tour it's gonna shred face mountain-goats.com/tour". attached is a screenshot of text reading "Solo and sometimes duo break -- Peter please have "Alpha Rats Nest" and "Linda Blair" and "Cheshire County" in your quiver if possible". end ID]

hi guys I feel really normal about this (lying)

[the-maddened-hatter]

As I've mentioned before I'm watching GOT with my irl friend and my partner and I felt compelled to make a meme regarding my feelings about one of the episodes:

I didn't know how to look up the Broom Boy's name without getting spoilers (we just finished Judged by Fire, so idk further than that) so I just drew him

[writeouswriter]

Girl, help, the book authors are trying too hard to be "hip" with the fleeting "teen lingo" and trends again, immediately dating their works before they're even released

[statementlou]

.

[ante--meridiem]

Got an assessment back from one of my applications and while I still don't know if they'll actually pick me or not it is a relief to have formal confirmation that my applications aren't considered embarrassingly bad.