#and saying 'post transition' is weird to me too bc. i'm not? there yet? i'm not done yet.

[moe-broey]

Thank you transwomen (in general but also) for the term "boymode" bc using that terminology for myself as a transguy (so, "girlmode") has been the only way I've been able to aptly and succinctly describe whatever the hell was going on *vaguely gestering to my adolescence from ages 15 to 19* there.

[catboybiologist]

Hi! I’m CatboyBiologist.

Formerly a femboy, now a trans woman just starting HRT, and a PhD student in molecular biology. I started using this online persona as a fun, shitposty way to explore gender a few years ago. I post selfies (generally sfw, but somewhat sexy, so minors and ppl who don’t like that have been warned), rambles about science, tutorials and advice from the stuff I’ve learned by being a femboy in the past, nature pictures, stuff about the ocean, my adorable grumpy little tortoise, and unsolicited opinions on random nerdy topics. Any pronouns are fine. I don’t plan to socially transition for a while, and still present as a man most of the time, so I’m used to whatever you wanna use for me (for now, I’ll update this if that changes). Please send me pictures of your pets or other cute animals in your life!

As a scientist, I’m also documenting my transition! This google sheet will be updated at least monthly. I also have additional metrics I’m keeping to myself, and pictures that go with this, but I’m not sharing them publicly yet. Keep in mind that this is just one person’s experience with HRT, and may not represent universal trends!

Adding a little something here, bc I think it was an interesting bit a writing: if you want to see me respond to a transphobe about what "biologically female" means, here's a thing I wrote about it. CW for transphobia and discussion, obviously.

Also, if any of my measurements look weird, its entirely possible I fucked up. Let me know if anything looks off!

Here’s some of my favorite pre-HRT pictures:

If you want to see more of my pre-HRT selfies, browse the “femboy” tag on my blog!

And as of this writing, I’m only 2 days after the start of HRT, so here’s a picture with my tortoise that’s technically post-HRT (but with 0 time for actual changes):

If you want to see my future post-HRT selfies, browse the “trans selfie” tag on my blog!

Also here's another really cute picture and fanart of my tortoise by @whalesharkcat:

I have affectionately given my tortoise the title of The Grumpus.

I also wrote a couple of tutorials and general vibes about being a femboy before I started HRT:

Sometimes I make shitposts of myself, I don’t take myself too seriously:

This includes the way I came out on tumblr:

And here’s an overly serious, long ramble about trans thoughts and things that I wrote shortly afterwards:

Later addition: Someone asked how I take selfies, so I wrote a quick and dirty guide with some tips on how I do so in response to their ask:

Oh yeah and apparently I was a 196 microcelebrity? I never to thought I was popular enough for that but apparently some people do 🤷‍♀️. So uh, hi 196 tags, I'm abusing you for my pinned post LOL

As for terminology, I personally do think of myself as a “man who is becoming a woman” as opposed to having always been a woman. If that doesn’t resonate with your experience, I totally get that! But that’s why I freely call pre-HRT me a femboy, while still calling post-HRT me a trans woman. I’m also keeping the blog name as CatboyBiologist for the forseeable future, because at this point, Catboy just seems like a gender neutral term to me.

I’m also trying to put together a script for a podcast regarding how studying biology influenced my perspective on sex and gender- lmk if there’s any interest in that! It’s probably gonna be way too long and indulgent but oh well.

So uh. Yeah. I don’t end these types of things well. Byeeeeee

[intersexcat-tboy]

"I put it on the tag so that intersex people would be more likely to see" you want to subject us to your bigotry? GTFO of our tags holy shit you really posted this whole ass expecting a minority to educate you out of your bigotry? While FIGHTING them on it?

First and foremost, intersex is not a sex nor gender. While some may claim objections to the term 'transintersex' sound reminiscent of TERF rhetoric, it's crucial to acknowledge that they stem from entirely different foundations, TERFS ultimately and completely lacking one.

Saying "it's something you're born as" isn't inherently TERF rhetoric. There are many things someone must be born for them be. That's what congenital means. Intersex, by definition, is innate. Womanhood does not have this restriction, in fact, it's impossible to be born as a woman, as it's based around being an adult.

"intersex is something you're [born] as" [innate] is in fact the definition of intersex. It is an innate characteristic. Womanhood does not have this definition

These are going to be out of order, also I ended up deciding fuck anonymity halfway through getting the screenshots. There's a line of intersexism I'll excuse, mainly in ignorance, before I warned people about about you

It does not matter what you think! Our oppression is not accurately understood by our oppressors! You are not the target of harm, so you have no real concept of what actually occurs to us. This is no different than a cis person claiming they don't see transphobia or don't understand why something is transphobic, so it must actually not be harmful, since the bully doesn't think so! I said multiple times it IS happening. Also, weird I can't say that trans women often follow a route to transition (first SS), yet you can claim bigender is wanting both genitals and it's ok to point that out (second SS below, highlighted)??

"you're transitioning into a stereotype" is said to trans women regardless of how they transition, it's mainly about social transition. People say they're transitioning to intersex mainly to describe the change of genitals or hormone levels, but it's nearly always genital surgery.

There it is folks! Idk how much more clear I can say "unless you consider intersex to be a separate gender/sex, which is harmful on itself", but somehow it's read as me saying "intersex isn't about sex"

I'm cutting myself short bc there's a lot more and I don't have the energy, so sorry if some parts don't make sense. One earlier screenshot was combined to shorten it to focus on the ascepts I would respond to, so that one is understandably confusing.

"If I'm wrong then educate me!" I have tried like four fucking times (not pictured bc repetitive), idk how many times I have to say things.

When everything you say is so blatantly misconstrued, to the point it almost seems on purpose, and it's hard to take these people seriously.

I genuinely worry sometimes, how can one manage through life when their perceived reality is so flawed and skewed? Sometimes this shit fucks me up too, and I start to question myself. I have to constantly scroll back and make sure that no, I did not "literally" say the things claimed. It would be gaslighting if it went on longer I'm not even kidding, it's meant to make you question yourself and there's times I do

[heterophobicdyke]

I wanna say as a detrans radfem myself thank you so much for that post. It's something I've sort of posted about in the past myself and it drives me crazy. Especially as someone who medically transitioned quite young.

no worries xx

it's so weird how gender makes both "feminine" and "masculine" females go through life endangering pressures, processes and procedures, both matters of conforming to "women must be feminine and man must be masculine," and yet "feminine" females are seen as victims and "masculine" females are seen as traitors.

when a straight "feminine" female diets, gets breast implants, operates to get a smaller nose and wears tonnes of makeup, she's flying the flag of "this is what it means to be a woman."

when a lesbian "masculine" female uses he/him pronouns, gets a mastectomy, takes hormones, she's saying "i must be a man because i am the opposite of what women are meant to be"

both are victims. both have been told "this is what it means to be a woman/man" beyond biology and it's so naturalised and normalised that how can you blame them?

the extra empathy for the straight "feminine" female is bc straights see themselves in her.

it's also because many radfems think men are biologically oppressive, rather than socialised to become so, which creates a gender 2.0 where women are seen as the natural/biological angels to men's devils and anything that signifies the "male uniform" (such as "masculine" style dress) is considered a "desire to oppress." therefore "masculine" females, many lesbians, are viewed as "trying to be like the oppressor"....

tomboy lesbians are not only attracted to women when society says that's a "man thing"--you notice radblr treating lesbians like manly freaks for being horny about women on tumblr too might i add--but they also look and act the way men are taught to. they're ostracised by the sisterhood for "being manly" but are abused by men for "not being womanly."

when radfems say the trans-identified female lesbian betrays women, is a class traitor, because the logical conclusion for many is to "become a man," they blame the woman for heteropatriarchal expectations. they act like she made the personal choice to abandon womanhood alone - has a "not like other girls" complex.

try saying an anorexic straight "feminine" woman has a "not like other girls" complex by trying to compete with them for "most feminine" around a radfem and see how far you get. hyperconforming and trans-identified females are both supporting an unhealthy idea of what it means to be women... equally. both are influencing others. but both are victims.

and don't get me started on how the hatred of "not like other girls" teenage girls is hypercritical of GNC females (many lesbians) who are quite literally "not like other girls" in the sense of gender conformity. they get bullied by hyper"feminine" straight girls, pushed out of the Sisterhood for being "manly", and then are blamed for building up a bit of self esteem and pride by being like "well i'm not like those wannabe-barbie girls anyway"

and then did u see radfems go wild for the barbie movie? anyyyyway.....

ultimately all these issues come down to lacking an intersectional approach when discussing the different power dynamics *among women*. it only suits the most privileged women to pretend we're all a monolith, all equally disenfranchised, as if things like race and sexual orientation aren't a whole other layer of disempowerment... even among women

[girlbossblackbeard]

Okay in honor of the high likelihood that we're getting the s2 trailer today I wanted to post this draft that I've been sitting on for like a month so it wouldn't be tainted by any juicy new tidbits we might get today:

I can't wait to look back on this post and either celebrate my future-seeing psychic abilities or laugh/cry at how naïve i was so here goes-

These are my predictions for the basic narrative structure of s2 (based off of a 10 ep season):

-I think it's gonna be your typical 3 act story arc: act 1 is resolving the conflict that was set up at the end of last season, act 2 is exploring the consequences of that resolution (the good and the bad) and setting up/discovering a new, bigger conflict to worry about, and act 3 is the drama of either confronting that bigger conflict for the first time but not fighting it yet, or starting to fight the bigger conflict but ending the season on a "holy shit we're fucked" note (that gets resolved in act 1 of the next season)

-similar to s1, episodes 1-3 are act 1: they're going to be spent resolving the Ed/Stede/Crew being separated issue with Ed and Stede finally reuniting (or about to reunite) at the end of ep 3. Narratively this makes sense to me since the big immediate issue is the physical separation of the two love interests, so the writers might want to "resolve" that issue sooner rather than later bc audiences don't want to see their faves separated for too long even if it makes for good character development and conflict. Ed is gonna be sad but try to seem aloof, Stede is probably gonna be told all about Ed's transgressions with the crew which will create more opportunity for complex emotions on Stede's side. Also he and the crew are gonna steal a ship or something and Stede is gonna start showing signs of *gasp * semi-competency when it comes to captaining. Also I don't know which ep exactly but I think we'll get Lucius back in this act (I hope)

-episodes 4-7 are act two: they're gonna be a mixture of funny awkward exes era for Ed and Stede with a healthy dash of some angst and miscommunication thrown in there for good measure. Ed is gonna slowly have the ice around his heart get melted from being in close proximity to the sun (Stede's unintentional charm combined with his newfound competence will be literally impossible for anyone to ignore, let alone Ed) and Stede is going to FINALLY start to realize how deeply he hurt Ed by leaving and HOPEFULLY understand that the core reason Ed was hurt was bc he actively wanted Stede by his side (cue more confidence-building for Stede)

-episode 8 is when they Do It

-on a less jokey note (even tho I'm kinda dead serious about the statement above) episode 8 is in a weird limbo where it's the transitional ep between acts 2 and 3. I think this is when we'll finally get the love confession from Stede. since act 2 finally put them both on equal footing and they're no longer actively mad at each other, I'm predicting ep 8 is when they finally sit down and hash it all out - why stede left, why Ed went kraken mode, how they hurt each other and the crew, and how they want to move forward. idk if this will be a big dramatic yelling conversation where stede blurts out something like "because I love you, you nut!!!" or if it'll be a quiet conversation where stede gently says "because I love you, you nut 🥺" but either way I think stede confesses this ep. Does Ed reveal he loves stede in return? Idk man!!! But once stede raises the emotional atmosphere to dizzying heights with his confession they'll be overcome with passion and flap their jacks or whatever. either the ep will end on a sweet note with no ominous signs of the next Big Bad brewing, or the very sweet and intimate afterglow will get interrupted by big scary news about some threat on the horizon. which brings us to act 3:

-episode 9 will fully introduce the Big Bad of the season (maybe whatever/whomever it is had already been talked about in previous eps, hell maybe they've been seen on-screen in previous eps like chauncy, but this will be when the main villain/issue reveals the full extent of how much of a threat they are). Ed and Stede will kick into co-captain mode which will either have a bit of a rocky start as they're still working through fully trusting one another again or it'll be so seamless and in-synch it actually visibly shocks the crew. this ep will be when plans are made on how to defeat the Big Bad

-and finally, ep 10 will be the showdown with the Big Bad where the crew implements whatever plan they made. oh fuck I just remembered the revenge is probably not gonna make it through this season. this might be the ep where she gets blown tf up for strategy purposes idk. someone (probs buttons, but maybe the Swede) will make a Viking funeral comment. anyway the crew will likely pull off the plan, but right at the end of the ep they'll discover that the threat is actually way bigger than they thought and THAT will be the cliffhanger/set up for s3

[boringkate]

I just got my first wand today and holy shit, how did i live post transition without it. But now i’m thinking of some butt plugs i bought ages ago but never had the inclination to try them, what’s the best way you think to ease myself into butt stuff?

I already boof progesterone, so i’m not necessarily afraid of going back there, I just don’t know what to expect.

I don't have any specific brand or toy recommendations, but a small butt plug is probably a good way to get started with anal. Just go on amazon (or ebay or aliexpress if you're down to trade a longer delivery time for a way better price on a similar or identical toy) and browse around for what looks nice.

I'm a big fan of steel and glass toys. Glass might be a little conceptually scary, but I've never had a glass toy crack or anything. I personally appreciate the firmness and it's nice that they have like a natural slickness to them (although you'll still wanna use lube (I recommend crisco (just not when condoms are involved bc it'll degrade em))). There are really just a ton of really mass produced stainless steel toys all over the place (like those classic plugs with the gem on the end) (those curved steel dildos that have a sorta ball on each end are really good for hitting your prostate while still being really slim if you're worried about things being too thick for you). Plus steel and glass is nice if you're like worried about what weird possibly toxic materials things are made of (this is where I cut off anyone that was appalled by me saying to buy dildos and plugs on aliexpress by pointing out that western made toys are also mega unregulated too and furthermore most western online sellers are literally just reselling you chinese made toys with a markup).

Otherwise try to get something made of silicone. Pounding your hole with some pvc or whatever once every now and then won't be the absolute end of the world tho. This might not matter to you yet, but it's a lot easier to find large toys in soft materials than it is with steel and glass. You'll also be able to take larger toys when they're made of soft materials because they'll compress.

Make a note of the width or diameter of whatever toy or toys you're getting! And once you know you can take em try to find something that's only slightly too big for you! Rinse and repeat! The stretch is the fun part!

[loregoddess]

Hm, maybe my memory is poor but I swear that I've seen you reblog Tolkien stuff (or maybe I'm mistaking it and it's all Legend of Zelda posts?)

But there I was talking as if you'd read the books or watched the movies!

I watched the movies so long ago that I forgot a great deal of them and I'm determined to finish the books before I re-watch them so that I can experience the whole original story of LotR without the film giving away the parts I'm still reading.

You'll find out more about Boromir in the first book and the very beginning of the second book. As for Denethor, he appears in the first chapter of the third book (and he had me just a little bit salty, to put it mildly.) You'll also see the Fellowship in all three books!

I'll be honest and say the only reason I have time to read at all is downtime at work and really long wait times for public transit. And I've only just recently began branching out from reading only Discworld to other books that I either read in high school or heard about but didn't get a chance to read yet. I'm keeping track of my reading on an app called StoryGraph, which lets you record start and finish dates and get recommendations based on what you've already read!

I mostly just use it as a reading diary of sorts. But if I ever get through my to-read pile (good luck, it's long) I might see what it recommends me. But even still, I usually go by friends and family's suggestions for any books that I might be interested in.

Haha, no you're right, I have reblogged LotR stuff. I have basically no fear of spoilers, if only bc I have been spoiled on stuff in the past only to not realize it was a spoiler and still get surprised when I reach it in the story anyhow (and also I think the weird culture of "no spoilers" is silly anyhow, bc like, sometimes the fastest way to convince me to look into something is to show me major spoilers that baffle me so much I need to figure out how a story could function to accommodate what I know out of context with the new knowledge).

But no worries, I totally get where the confusion came from. I know just enough LotR from osmosis that I can kinda hold a conversation about it. Your excitement for the stories does get me excited as well, and I really am looking forward to reading them when I can make the time.

Also I feel you on having free time to read things. I think that's part of my issue, is a lack of free time (or energy), but at some point I also developed this weird environmental thing where I couldn't focus on reading if I could hear human voices or if there was too much background noise of a certain type? Which, given that I still live with my family and they are all very noisy (and also assume that they can just start talking to me whenever if I'm sitting in plain sight, which is more or less everywhere where I like to sit to read), makes it hard to actually find the sort of quiet I need to read when I do have the energy for reading.

I used to be a voracious reader too, I was basically always reading a book from middle school through high school, sometimes multiple books. And I used to be able to read in the middle of a school's worth of noise, so I have no idea why all the academic reading I had to do in college messed with my reading habits so much. It's not that I haven't read anything--I made it through Dracula all on my own a year before Dracula Daily happened, just because I was interested in it and wanted to read more classics. And I've made my way through about a third of the complete works of Lovecraft, which are easier for me bc they're all short stories more or less (though I keep stalling reading the next story bc I know it's one of the "almost a novella" length stories). And of course, The Hobbit.

A lot of my free time is limited though, especially since I'm very particular about how things need to be if I'm to do something (which is partly the house situation, partly my brain is my own worst enemy sometimes). I often have to choose between art, video games, writing, general decompressing (i.e. interwebs), or watching something, and usually video games or art/writing win out if I don't need to decompress, because I can deal with being interrupted or ignoring outside noise when playing a game better than I can reading, and no one bugs me when I'm working at my computer generally.

Which hmmm. Actually, I think that might actually have more to do with it than anything, because now that I'm thinking on it I have read a metric ton of manga over the past several years, which I usually use various websites for (and am therefore at my computer). Granted, that's a slightly different storytelling medium than a text-based book, but considering I can finish a completed manga series in roughly a two-week span, I don't think my issue is with focusing on reading so much as it is getting interrupted or having too much background noise...hmmm.....

Well this was an excellent conversation actually, I think I might have figured out part of the reason my brain wants to strike when I do try to read, and if I can get to the root then I can maybe figure out some sort of workaround to trick myself back into reading text-based books again. Which is great, because I have so many books in my to-read pile, and I do want to check out the Discworld books at some point (which I've never read, but they are also books that I just know from out-of-context things that I will love), and I really do miss reading as a leisure activity. So, thank you for prompting this discussion!

[moinsbienquekaworu]

Good morning my beloved (or at least, it is morning for both of us when I am sending this but hopefully you've gotten to sleep in) and I just wanted to say two things:

1) yes I got your asks and I am so hinged right along with you I love your blorbos like they are my own <3

And 2) I can so so relate to your just wanting to be like "normal" girls but knowing in your bones you'd never be able to be like them. That was my whole childhood, both before and after I started socially transitioning, bc it's like,,,,, you (general you) just want so badly to be normal and yet you know you never will be and it hurts, and it's like mourning something you (general you) never lost in the first place, if that makes sense?? And I'm sure you hear this all the time, esp from people older, and so I'm so so sorry to say it again, but it does genuinely get better as you get older, I promise. You may never be a "normal" girl with "normal" interests and capabilities, but like you even said right in your post, yeah your roommates are cool, us tumblr mutuals are cool, and you're learning who you are, and that's amazing and wonderful and you deserve every bit of joy you get from that

The usual disclaimer of I have severe brain fog applies, but also: you really are epic, I promise, and if you ever need anything just lmk, not that I'd be able to do much across the ocean but I almost always can listen, and I love you very much and good luck and everything <33333

Tomas if I hadn't asked for your hand in very serious and legally binding marriage already that would've sealed the deal. Actually let me get the image again because the sentiment is still there in my heart.

Okay I needed to say it. So. In order:

I did sleep in! I love sleeping in. Sleeping in my beloved. I slept in, did my groceries like the adult I am (and I'm eating both fruits & veg's AND candy, god I love just buying my own stuff), took a shower, and ate pizza in front of the two Deadpool movies. Great day, would do again.

1) well they can be your blorbos too for the low low price of uh - actually it's not a low price it's a good like at least dozen hours just for season one of Daredevil, and that's probably shorter than trying the comics. But. Low low price of a dozen hours and some violence on screen. Otherwise I can keep telling you about it in increasingly detailed rants I love doing that also <3 one thing we'll have in our beautiful home once we're very legally bindingly married will be a big box for hinges at the door the way people have shoe racks. You put your hinges in it when you come in because we want the least hinged environment possible. <3 <3

2) yesss I knew you'd get it, former weird girls assemble and such. I guess I'm not fully out of the weird girl woods, but also maybe if you ever were a weird girl she's always inside of you 🤔 anyway. I know it gets better I'm seeing it real time!! I made cooler friends in high school and I'm making even cooler friends in uni & outside of it and keeping only the best. I'm wearing clothes I like after years of slowing replacing my kid wardrobe with long term pieces. I know what I like and how I like it and by that point I know that like, there will always be someone who'll notice me and like me if I'm loud enough about myself.

It's just the combo of weird girl + aro(ace) + some flavour of neurodivergent. I want to be more spontaneous and meet people and try dating things but my brain's need for structure and my impressive aura of non-romanceability are not helping.

Like you want to be normal but you don't want to become normal, you just want to always have been!! Because by this point becoming normal would be both painful but also just straight up impossible. It's like ADHD in that I am mourning this ethereal potential that rationally I know doesn't exist and never existed.

I just feel like I'm both too young to be here but also already late, which of course you're going to feel like that if you compare yourself to others, but y'know. People older than me at the same stage of life are doing more standard normal things and hitting milestones I should be hitting, and my younger cousins are cooler than me and have boyfriends/girlfriends. My younger brother's going to have a better mark on his first real degree and bring someone home earlier than me, and my only accomplishments of speaking english and having gone abroad will be nothing compared to everyone else hitting milestones Better than me somehow. Anyway. The point is comparison sucks because the only good time for me to hit any milestone is when I do it, because I'm living my life and not anyone else's, but y'know. At least I think most people that actually matter in my life think I'm cool so eh.

WELL. Thank you for the space to be unhinged about many various things. I think you're biased in thinking I'm epic but since I'm getting a good grade in friend I'll take it honestly. You're also epic, I give you a 20/20 in friend and a ring that both is practical so you can wear it even while doing manual tasks and elegant because you are of course worth it. I hope YOU have a good day when you read this (because you're probably asleep/preparing for Morpheus so you should see this in the morning) and I love yoouu <3 <3 <3

[your-turn-to-role]

Don't know if this has been said before, but what if Molly's soul is still hidden away in the body, although still around about the level when he died, so it's when Lucien gets taken to 0 hit points or something he's weak enough for Molly to finish him off from the inside

(I don't say it as a "this is what I think's going to happen" sort of thing, it'd just be cool & I'm thinking out loud)

so, i’m gonna ramble a lot about this before i get to your question, because this actually gives me a really good opportunity to talk about something i’ve been wanting to for a while and haven’t made the post yet

i’ve, honestly been really confused by everyone going “oh what if molly’s soul is still in there”, as if molly and lucien are two separate souls fighting over a body, and one’s possessed the other or whatever (especially when beacon theories get involved)

but like... that’s not what happened. to explain, lucien was the original soul. weird cult shit aside, he was an otherwise normal tiefling from shadycreek, who hired vess derogna to help him cast some kind of ritual involving that book

she went along with it, but didn’t actually want lucien’s plans to succeed. she’d read the book extensively herself, she also had nine eyes across her body, but she wanted no part of whatever the somnovem is doing. so when she cast the ritual on lucien, she modified it, and instead of its intended purpose, it shattered lucien’s soul into pieces, intending to make it impossible for him to be resurrected. the tombtakers found his body, seemingly dead, buried him in the woods outside their hideout, and scattered across the continent per lucien’s emergency instructions, plan lost

until the one piece of his soul left in his body slowly managed to wake up. a full soul isn’t actually required to keep a body alive, especially if there’s other weird magic involved, and this piece is very determined. it’s missing the rest of itself, and trying to come to terms with that - doesn’t remember anything, takes months to be able to speak, other than one word, haunted by the emptiness it’s now feeling, and the only other vague memory in their head is of the dark dark magic that brought them here. eventually, like any living creature, they grow, and develop, and move on from that. they were given a new start, a new name, and a family that loved them. molly learned how to be a person, not knowing anything different, and gave himself a whole new identity, had friends, had family, that lucien didn’t. but nothing new was added to the mix other than the love he got from the circus, everything else he built himself

(i’ve had a couple people say to me “well lucien isn’t a reliable source, he could be lying or mistaken about what happened”, and just from my personal insight, i don’t think he’s lying, but even if he was wrong about molly being a piece of his soul and not a whole new soul entirely - molly doesn’t match the symptoms of being a soul given to a new body. but you know what he does match near perfectly? egtw’s description of a hollow one, a being resurrected without a soul)

(he had at least part of one, we know that, we can see it, in lucien, they’re too similar, and molly doesn’t register as undead like hollow ones do. but i’m guessing if a fractured piece of a soul found itself back in its body without the rest of it? it would sound something like this)

“Yet some beings find that, days after they died, they awaken, clutching to life, with only a terrible emptiness inside to remind them of their death.”

“The transition from life to becoming a Hollow One affects different people to different degrees. Some let their anger and regret consume them. Others use their second chance to become a brighter force in the world. However, all Hollow Ones are marked by their new existence: feelings of unease, dread or sadness cling to them like tattered rags of their past life.”

so then he dies. and the mighty nein tell cree. and she spends months looking for a way to bring lucien back. i don’t know exactly how she does it, but she does, collects all (or at least more of, he may be missing some things still) those fragments of his very shattered soul and puts them back together. lucien doesn’t remember everything that molly did, the person he grew to be, and who’s to say really which part of a soul is responsible for memories? if you were to shatter his soul again in the same way, would the part that was molly remember, or would it have to go through the same thing all over again?

but it also leads us to an interesting question of, how does a soul get made. a baby still waiting to be born doesn’t have a soul yet, we know that because of how the beacon works

is each new child not connected to the luxon given a soul by the gods? or do they grow their own, as they learn to be their own person

did molly essentially turn a soul fragment into a whole soul, just by living? and if he did... what part is in lucien now

i’m honestly inclined to believe that lucien’s soul is back together, including the molly part, because of all the ways they’re similar, i think those all came from that fragment. but there’s three options here, 1) the soul fragment that was molly is back as just another puzzle piece, he’s essentially dead, and the purpose of his story is that you don’t have to keep living to keep having an impact on the world, molly has changed things permanently despite how short he lived 2) he did grow a second soul, and that fragment they share is shared, back in lucien’s body, but either molly in the afterlife is missing a piece, or there’s more than 100% of a soul in that body, weirdly stuck together and probably not that noticeable as wrong because there’s already a thousand other voices in there 3) he did grow a second soul, and it’s gone. he left for the afterlife and that piece was unrecoverable, and now lucien’s walking around with 80% of a soul

the first is my belief, honestly, and the only way to get molly back is to shatter lucien in the same way, and hope he still has those repressed memories. the third is what would make molly resurrectable, if you were to kill lucien.

the second, however, is the only thing that really makes sense with molly being “still in there”, and if that 80% of a new soul can manage to wake up from whatever’s going on in lucien’s head, it’s possible!

it would also be pretty symbolically cool bc, while matt changed the blood hunter class a lot recently so it’s no longer a feature (give me back the cool ghostslayer, pls), back when molly was alive, the subtype he was? at high levels he’d get the ability to keep fighting in ghost form after his body fell unconscious, as long as he didn’t die. and i mean fuck if that’s not exactly what he’d be doing here

[sothischickshe]

11, 17, 20!

11. What do you envy in other writers?

This is gonna sound cheesy, but jealousy is something that I try to, I guess, actively dismantle for myself? For all things, not just writing.

Like, there have defffffinitely been times where I've read stuff and been like WELL THAT'S SO FUCKING GOOD, I CAN'T DO THAT, WHAT'S THE POINT. but I think that's transitioned into WELL THAT'S SO FUCKING GOOD, I APPRECIATE IT!!! I WONDER IF THERE'S ANYTHING I CAN LEARN FROM IT? IF SO THAT'S COOL! OR MAYBE IT'S JUST VERY DIFFERENT TO HOW I WRITE, AND IF SO THAT'S COOL TOO!!

And I mean, stats/kudos would be an obvious one, but I reallllly think that's mostly stopped having an impact on me? As in, I love kudos obvi, but I don't really pay attention to anyone else's, and I tend to see my stories as weird lil snails in competition with each other?

That said, here are some things I do get a bit jealous of sometimes:

Writers who have the sense to write an idea down when they have it???

Writers who can actively work on multiple stories in the same period

Writers who can respond to comments in a sane fashion????

Writers with a computer that works (I should just back everything up! And get a new one?! But it's so shit! I cannot face the task of trying to back everything up???)

Writers who can write things normally??

Writers with a strong sense of smell

Writers who are yanks and therefore don't think it's fucking batshit to use adjectives where adverbs should clearly go???

17. Do you think readers perceive your work - or you - differently to you? What do you think would surprise your readers about your writing or your motivations?

I mean, I'm certain that readers must perceive my stories differently to me, they are not me (well one of them is, I spose)! And readers are surely not a monolith? I would expect an array of perceptions!

I think there's often a fair bit of ambiguity to my stories, and I feel like that works for gg? Particularly cos I tend to write quite tight single pov, often unreliably, but also bc stories are ambiguous. I reblogged a Neil Gaiman post a lil while ago but fuck if I can find it or if I would be able to link to it if I could, but it was basically about how there often isn't an answer, that the ambiguity of the story IS the (point of) the story, and I think I broadly agree with that?

Like sometimes im deeply hinting at things that aren't stated and the ambiguity is mm I guess intentional but there's an answer I intend. And other times... Idk that's just the story and I can't say there's a distinct meaning or reason for the thing, it's just sposed to be vague - interpret how you will!!!

I don't know that I can speak to how any readers (other than I!) interpret me.

Hmm well I don't know if this would be surprising in terms of my writing/motivations but it kind of ties in with the above: when I'm thinking through or working out or then writing a story, I'm just thinking about it as a story. Like yea there are logistics, like how do I get a to do b, or into a better fucking mood so they stop yelling, but it's not really about how to convey parallels or comparisons or character notes. That stuff mostly comes in the edit. So when I write it, I often have no idea why stuff is there. I'll just be like I KNOW I NEED A SENTENCE WITH AN ICE CREAM, or whatever. and when I come to type it up im often like what the fuck is this for?? And I have to fight hard against deleting it!! And then when I'm editing I'll be like ohhhh this is here as a contrast to all the shit about the HOT PIES (or whatever), dang I'm glad I left this in!!! OK time to double down on or emphasise this somehow!!!!

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

Afghff this is so hard cos I wanna yell about time 3 but I haven't even written any of it yet 😂

I'm gonna pull out something a lil silly, but @mego42 reminded me of an example in bdtn and it's something I do a fair bit, which is these ludicrous juxtapositions.

The one in bdtn is when rio asks Beth to watch Marcus for a bit n is like OI DON'T GIVE HIM LOADS OF SUGAR, and then Beth's like hmm should I make cookies with the kids?? (also that includes her thinking something about not starting something you can't finish 😇)

There's one in dirty dirty game where Beth just walks off from rio in the mid of a convo cos she can't be bothered with it, and v shortly after is musing on how he doesn't understand how conversations work 😂

I just like stuff like that cos it's not exactly textual but the placement makes it funny? I hardcore think that Beth is allergic to listening to anything rio is trying to say at almost any time, and that they're both absolute fucking hypocrites. It's also the kind of thing that I think a reader might not consciously notice, but I think bits like that kind of sink in and impact the experience of reading something??

[transgenderteensurvivalguide]

I'm ftm (pre everything) and am in choir but I also want to sing and maybe pursue it later but if I go on hormones then I'm afraid I won’t be able to. Advice?

Lee says:

I like singing, how will T affect my voice?

We can’t tell you what will happen to your voice- people tend to be able to sing well (once their voice is done changing!) if they could sing well before, but there are instances of people losing their singing voices.

We’ve anecdotally heard of some people on T being able to keep their high notes, but it’s much more likely that you lose your high notes as your vocal cords thicken. 

T will most likely deepen your voice so your range will change, but as long as you continue to practice and don’t overwork your voice into notes you cannot reach anymore your singing voice probably will be okay- different, but okay.

But we can’t guarantee this, and it’s your decision whether testosterone and passing/being comfortable in your body are worth the risks of losing your singing voice for you.

This post has a bit more on singing

The Changing Female-To-Male (FTM) Voice

The Changing Female-To-Male (FTM) Voice Pedagogical Notes 

Testosterone And The Trans Male Singing Voice

Training the Transgender Singer: Finding the Voice Inside

Followers, any examples of trans singers on T for us to add? Or any personal experiences to add on?Followers, any personal experiences to add?

Followers say:

aeolianchemistry said: have a lot to say about this! i may not be the most coherent bc im half asleep lol, but anyone feel free to message me about this anytime and ask for more details!,

this was my biggest Thing when i was deciding to pursue hrt. ive been in various choirs for years, and its a very Important part of my life. but also my voice was my #1 source of dysphoria, and the #1 thing i needed to change. i searched for weeks to find anything about what to expect from hrt as a singer, esp bc ive heard stories of trans ppl losing their siging voice entirely. i was terrified, and couldnt find resources to shed any significant light on the topic.

and so, in no particular order bc im half asleep, here are some things to expect and things that i’ve experienced so far (almost six months on hrt):

- practice while your voice is dropping! feel it out every step of the way. get to know your voice while it’s changing, and try to maintain those high notes. i didnt do a v good job of this and my high range kinda just shriveled up. i cant be sure that it wouldve been hugely different if id practiced more, but ive heard it does help

- yoir voice will feel different. unfamiliar at times. you wont be using it the same way youre used to. technique will change, placement will change

- my speaking voice shifted downward after just a month or two (i had mild hyperandrogynism before, so this wont be as quick for everyone), before my singing voice did. i didn’t start getting new low range until later, but within my pre-t vocal range, my voice just sat a bit lower than it used to. my low alto filled out more. than i started getting new notes, slowly

- there will be periods of time where it cracks or breaks or is unreliable. dont push it, but dont despair either. keep practicing as well as you can

- my voice is somewhat fragile. if i yell (which i can only somewhat do currently) or push it or force it thru cracks/breaks/weak spots, it will get tired easily and take quite a while to recover. be nice to your voice. dont push high notes if they cause strain. dont push the low notes either, even tho im sure youre excited about them

- your voice will be weak while it’s shifting. this can cause frustration and anxiety. i’m two months into my choir season singing w two and a half choirs, and i’m dealing w lots of Complicated Feelings bc my voice just cant do all the things i want it to. i cant project much, and i certainly dont have the strength (yet) to audition for any of the solos i’d like to. Patience

- the Weird Spots and the Weak Spots will continue to shift around. i have this one area in the middle of my range (currently its about Ab3-B3, but a few weeks ago it was B3-C4) where its weird and weak and its kind of like a break in register but also a bit like a black hole, bc i Cannot Project there and theres no good placement for singing those notes, and notes in the vicinity of those are also Weird but Less So. it’s slowly sliding downwards, and i am learning to navigate it better. i’m hoping it will settle and go away soon, but we’ll see

- breath support is v important. as mentioned, your voice may be quite fragile, and putting strain on it could cause it to glitch out on you for a while. supporting your voice w lots of breath will put less demand on your vocal chords

- NEVER SING IN A BINDER or compressive garment. you need those lungs!

- you’re going to miss out on some of the nostalgic singalongs of old choir songs, bc you no longer have the range to sing your old parts. this is possibly the #1 consequence of transitioning that im the most sad about lol

- i have a very weird quality to my high range rn. it seems to be caught midway between the head voice it used to be and future falsetto or whatever it’s moving toward. for now its just Strange to listen to

the current state of my voice is this:

low range is down to almost the bottom of the bass clef. i can sing down to Bb2, A2 on a good day.

from there up to F3ish is quite comfy and possibly the strongest part of my singing voice, but i do find that if i spend too much time down there it can strain the rest of my range (i used to have this problem before too: if i sang in my low alto range too much or too enthusiastically, my sop range would get tired).

from G3-C4, it’s Awkward. the Awkwardness shifts around, and some parts of it can be more comfy than others sometimes, but it’s all v inconsistent. i cant project much here, and placement is veryvery Weird.

D4-F4ish is typically comfy but has a bit of that Strange quality to it. these notes are a bit floaty, but not bad.

G4-B4 are unreliable. somedays i can get up there. some days it’ll blink out or crack or break or just Not Be There. i am predicting that once my high range settles into a proper falsetto, i’ll be able to work on this range more and it’ll have less of that Strange quality to it, but only time will tell

again, apologies for being Scattered, it’s 1am and ive had a long day. any of yall are welcome to message me for more details ☺

there is a lot of weirdness and weakness and Awkward in the transition period. but while i’m frustrated at times, i’m not worried. everything i’m dealing w is temporary. now i can’t be 100% sure how my voice will settle or when, but i’m not afraid i’ve lost it forever. as far as i’ve heard, the stories of trans ppl who lose their singing voice on t are very rare cases. youre going to go through weeks or months where singing is Weird in constantly shifting ways, but itll keep on moving and developing, and personally i’m so excited to see where it goes.

i’m currently singing tenor2 in my choirs, and occasionally i get to take a trip down and sing baritone. im not even 6months in! that has transformed my choir experience to be even better than before, even w all the awkwardness. it was so weird and beginning to get verg uncomfy to be in a place like choir, which is so important to me, which i love dearly, which has had a significant impact on my life, but which revolved around the use of my one most dysphoric feature. but now i don’t have to worry about that. now i can sing the parts i’ve been wanting to sing for years.

i do occasionally miss some of my old voice. i miss soaring soprano lines, i miss all the old alto parts in songs i used to know. i miss the confidence and strength of a familiar, complete voice. and im allowed to miss those, i dont feel bad about having that longing or sadness, bc i have zero regrets. i also occasionally miss playing with and styling my super long hair, but in five years i have not once regretted cutting it all off. i own those memories and that nostalgia, but i keep moving forward to new and better things

pinesboi said: If you keep working at your voice and take lessons to make sure you never let it get out of practice, everything should be okay. I’m on T now about 3-4 months, and I’m still singing high tenor musical theatre

[okaysign]

hello ☺️ this is izzie, your fantasy friend!

I'm so happy he tested negative and he doesn't have to self isolate, so he can participate in the comeback promotion!!

I get what you mean and I feel the same as well, I expected a little bit more from the mv. it was the teaser just... longer, I wished there was more of a story line? but some of the shots were amazing, I still can't get over the part in the second verse where jaeyoon is singing and the camera slowly zooms on him passing hwiyoung, dawon and zuho... that was something! and I really loved the transitions between the scenes. the camera work was great. overall it was a good mv, the quality is amazing, but it was a bit simple. maybe I had high expectation ahah it goes well with the song though!

I saw your gifs and those were some of my favourite parts as well!

did you listen to the whole album? I really love tear drop, I think it's one of my favourite title as of now, but the one that surprised me the most is fanatic! it was the one that got a little under the radar when I heard the medley, but when I listened to the whole thing I was like wow, this is really great! I didn't expect it. the whole album is a masterpiece to be honest, the more I listen to it the more I love it! what do you think?

also, yes, I really love inseong sense of humour! I have a lot of things to say about some korean variety shows, but it's better if a I don't ahah

anyway, this is my main account, but I usually post sf9 stuff on my sideblog (@ bbang-nim) ☺️

hii ! -omg for a second i thought u were calling me lizzie 😂- anyway its nice to officially meet u izzie!

yeah its definitely pretty n i do love the aesthetics but story wise or like cohesiveness (?) it was lacking a bit. that part w jaeyoon hwiyoung dawon n zuho was one of my fave shots too! i was going to add it in my gif set but i felt it didnt match the rest 😞 the camerawork was rlly good too even is it was a bit dizzying lol n thank uu for rebloging my gifs <3

i havent listened to it yet.. i was going to do it today but some things came up so now im going to wait until tmrrw while i work, but i think fanatic was the one i was most excited about -apart from off my mind- bc the part they chose for the medley was youngbins rap n i mean youngbin u knw <33

i feel the same way about those shows too..

its so weird bc i thought i had followed ur side blog during kingdom (i reblogged some of ur zuho gifs!) but i guess not 😭

[calamitys-child]

Hey so we're mutuals and I like your stuff so I thought maybe I could get this off my chest and I hope that's okay with you. I thought about saying this not on anon (via like dm or something) but like idk if you're cool with that so I'm just gonna stick to this for now. If you want me to come out and talk to you just reply to this one and I'll dm you, but I'm sending the whole thing now via ask bc I just need to talk, ya know?

Hey, anon, I'm just gonna reply publicly to this ask rather than publish all the other parts if that's alright? Like, I've read it all and I'm replying to it all, but I'm putting the whole reply here.I'm not super familiar with this guy other than the name ringing a very faint bell for me, and a quick Google just led me to a lot of right-wing troll sites which it is far too early in the morning on far too nice a day for me to want to look at, so I can't speak much about this specific scenario. In terms of the overall situation though I absolutely understand what you're dealing with. I watch a couple of trans vloggers and their videos sometimes cheer me up but sometimes just make me so jealous, because they're going through all these changes on T and I haven't even had a single appointment with anyone yet to discuss transition.I don't know where you live but I know it's a nightmare getting T in the UK, where sometimes we can go through the NHS and sometimes we have to go private and it's all a bit of a mess. I know it's almost definitely harder in America. It's totally okay to be angry about this, my dude. The world is messed up on so many levels and it's absolutely fine to be pissed off at that. Not knowing how to feel is weird and it's confusing and all I can recommend for that is to look after yourself. It's okay to be angry, it's okay to be sad, it's okay to take some time to sit quietly and just try to step away from it all for a little while (I like to listen to podcasts under a blanket when the world gets too much). It's also okay to be happy. Be aware of what's happening, be angry, but please try not to let anger be all you've got. The world may be run by idiots who keep overpricing things just cause they don't want to understand them, but the world is also full of love and art and really goddamn cute dogs.I know exactly what you mean about your friends- it's so frustrating, when you're happy for them but also jealous. Try to remember that those two emotions aren't necessarily contradictory. You can absolutely be feeling both. I obviously don't know the full situation but it sounds to me like they're maybe trying to make you feel better by downplaying how they felt, but it's coming off as dismissive cause they haven't actually thought through what they're doing? Either that or they really have just moved on and forgotten, which I guess means some day you'll be able to forget too. I know it hurts a lot right now, I feel you, but I promise one day we'll both be able to look back at this post-T and realise how much it's stopped hurting.Dating can be confusing at the best of times, my only advice there is that if he doesn't support you through this, then he doesn't deserve you. The people who matter, the good people around you, will support you, and the people who don't aren't worth your time. You deserve to be supported.This is a very long rambling reply, I'm sorry. Hopefully at least part of it is worth reading. If you want to message me I'm not always great at remembering to reply to people but I will do my very best, and my inbox is always open if you want it. You haven't been a bother at all- I do care, and it's not too far on your part to need to vent about stuff. You seem pretty cool too, you know, so don't you go anywhere either 💙💙💙💙💙