#i’ve discovered i am much more femme

[aholefilledwithtwigs]

There’s an expectation that transition has a clear goal— a defined target that you are working towards

But sometimes the driving force isn’t towards, but away. Sometimes you can’t even conceive of a destination until you are well into your journey

Sometimes what you need is just the movement itself

[michellesneptune]

𐙚short astro observations (lowkey spicy, aka exposing myself)°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

i’ve noticed many women with heavy scorpio placements (especially sun) to be successful in scientific and medical fields. e. g. Marie Curie and Hedy Lamar, both bringing revolutionary ideas and discoveries to the world of physics, chemistry and technology. personally, i also know scorpio women passionately pursuing medicine! i think there’s something physical, deep and carnal in scorpios that makes them want to discover these things.

you should think twice before messing with someone that has heavy mercury in their chart while also possessing cancer placements. those individuals are extremely intelligent and sensitive simultaneously. thus, they will use their intellect to protect themselves no matter what. good luck winning with them lol, great manipulators.

idk if you’ve heard, but virgo placements are sooo kinky. virgos are associated with routine, practicality and health. but they’re connected to the earthy, bodily, primal pleasures more than others. they pay attention to things that others don’t. human biology=human sexuality, they find it oh so fascinating.

mercury in leo are great conversationalists! i love their big, warm energy. they’re down to talk about anything for hours. funny and charismatic, paired with significant virgo/gemini/cancer placements can gossip a lil too much… the type to know everyone’s business and secrets.

scorpio venus/8h are so insatiable and greedy in love (exposing myself rn😭) they want to posses all your thoughts, your feelings, know what you do behind closed doors. extremely afraid of betrayal, i feel like sometimes the anxiety might be a self-fulfilling prophecy🥲🥲 we sabotage ourselves a lot ok🥲

alsooo they’re said to be those super sexy dark femme fatales, but i just feel desperate and needy all the time and sometimes unable to be loved😭 pls help how do i unlock the divine feminine energy??

what’s surprising is that taurus mars (mars is in detriment in this sign) and cancer mars (mars’ debilitated here) are sooo giving in bed (i won’t tell you which one i am😶😶) they make for passionate lovers, they need to please.

thank you for reading, lots of love!

~Michelle

[hornytome]

Hello everyone!! Finally time for an update. I’ve put it off because of nerves too long.

So, basically: I’m not a butch lesbian (anymore)! I’m actually bi and transmasc.

Shockingly, my girlfriend is no longer a femme lesbian either! She���s also bisexual. Still a girly girl though.

We both went through a parallel simultaneous journey of discovering we’re bi.

It’s as upsetting as it sounds!! Will not lie!

She calls me her boyfriend now and our sex revolves around penetrative sex. We have a realistic cock and I’m trying constantly to find a new more realistic one.

We haven’t actually slept with a man quite yet, though. We may never, to be honest.

There was… A guy… We both struggled immensely with our attraction to him, and our OCD played a large part in that. We both got over it and realized we definitely have a crush on him. That’s… simmering away right now. No idea where it’s going to go. He’s a good guy.

This has fundamentally changed our view of monogamy. We’re still prescribing to the concept of monogamy, and I suppose our rule is that if we’re both interested in the same person, then we don’t mind too much.

So, I guess I should explain why I was dragging my feet. Hornytome took off way more than I ever expected it to. I gained a massive wlw and lesbian following, and I’m so proud of who’ve I’ve brought together and modeled healthy love for.

For a long time, I identified as a lesbian, and that felt like my authentic self. I wasn’t lying to anyone, or misconstruing truths. In making this blog, I wished to explore my lesbianism. In living and growing beside this blog, I discovered a lot more.

So, to be very clear, I’m bisexual, transmasc, and a lot happier than when I started this blog. My attraction to women is gay, and my attraction to men is ALSO gay. Beat that!

That leaves me with a conundrum then. What to do with my blog? I’d love to keep posting, but a vast number of you are wlw. Perhaps I could stick to talking about Edith and I on this blog?

No matter what happens, this is no longer specifically a lesbian blog. And I’m sorry if that disappoints some of you. I really, really am. But being dishonest to myself helps no one. You haven’t lost a comrade, you gained one!

So. That’s why I’ve been gone! 6+ months of processing a major life change. I want to get back into stories. Maybe shoot me some ideas 🌝

Anyways! I’m going to be tagging this with old and new tags, just to reach as far as possible.

Edit: Also: stories will not revolve exclusively around men!! I like fucking my girlfriend a whole lot!

[brattyfemmebaby]

Hey, I’ve been struggling with my recent stone femme identity. I’ve tried giving and it never feels good or feels like something I want to do. So I discovered what stone meant and it fit perfectly. It’s what I wanted. It made sense. But I feel so much guilt. I feel like I’ll never please my partner who is not stone and would like to receive. We’ve talked about it and discussed boundaries (so there’s nothing bad there just adding context). Idk how to overcome the guilt.

oh honey! i'm sorry you're struggling with this. i know from experience that the way the world treats us can make it hard to feel good in our identity. honestly, it takes time to unlearn the weird and harmful pressures placed on us to have sex in a "normative" way. additionally you will need to explore why you feel that bottoming isn't "giving" within a sexual encounter. stone femmes give their who selves to their partners! bottoming is a skill, making someone cum without touching their genitals is a skill. this is part of why i don't love the term pillow princess- it has so many connotations of "just laying there" or "not reciprocating" and that is absolutely not sex that stone femmes engage in. we are active, enthusiastic, and giving during sex. i, and every stone femme i've ever met, get soooo much pleasure from getting their partners off many times and in many ways.

unpacking and unlearning normative ideas of sex is step one but for me, three things helped me not just stop feeling guilty but start feeling proud to be a stone femme!

meeting stone femme elders (in person and online) who were willing to discuss their identities and experiences. hearing how they navigated dating, sex, and relationships helped me feel grounded in my stone femme identity and understand ofos courtship roles.

being a stone femme has historically been so desired that stone butches wrote erotica, books, poems, and articles just to praise our existence! reading stuff written by stone tops reminds me that i'm made to be someone's perfect match and that's so fucking affirming. stone people are well documented and long desired members of our community

having really affirming sex with stone butches! watching the pleasure so clearly displayed on their face, hearing their satisfied groans, feeling them shake as they got off, talking to them about how incredible it was for both of us, how they kept coming back for more. there's truly nothing that will make you feel more desirable than straddling a stone butch and witnessing them cum in their boxers just because their hands are on you. feeling and hearing them groan as they cum just from eating you out. how they pull you so close and hold you tight enough to leave their fingerprints bruised on your hips because they can't help wanting to be as deep inside you as humanly possible. umm wait what was i talking about?? but honestly there's nothing in the world that will show you how amazing it is to be a stone femme better than pleasing our counterparts.

i hope you know that i am proud to share this beautiful identity with you, proud to call you one of us, proud of you for finding yourself 💕

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

honestly like I’m so glad I’ve discovered transfem metal sonic stuff bc not only has it explained some of the weird feelings I couldn’t quite describe in how I related to her as a kid (i'm not transfem myself, but i am trans and i definitely projected a lot of that onto her even before I came out) but also like. it genuinely makes so much sense for her as a character.

like, her whole Thing is that she's literally been created for a purpose she cannot fulfil, right? she was made to be a superior sonic, yet she cannot be because she’s made only to destroy, and it’s lead to her having a beyond monomaniacal obsession with sonic to the point it drove her into an extreme psychotic breakdown at one point. and while it’s not explicitly stated, it’s pretty heavily implied she also envies sonic's freedom and his happiness, even though she’s probably not consciously aware of it herself. i mean that’s kind of like the whole point of heroes? she isn’t consciously aware of the True Super Power Of Teamwork and she views everything in terms of conquest and domination, but she cannot really Be sonic without it and it’s something that maddens her because she Can’t consciously understand it bc. mentally she's basically an extremely neglected fifteen year old if that fifteen year old was also a t1000 and allowed to murder people. like she uses big words and stuff but she’s pretty obviously immature no matter how she tries to hide it with her megalomania. again heroes is basically her having a stress induced psychotic breakdown and she’s Very Bad at hiding it.

and her being transfem just feels like it’s really resonant with all that. not only would she be crafted to fill the role of someone she can never be, it’s a role that also causes her discomfort and dysphoria. she's made to be a better, stronger sonic, but sonic is a boy, and she’s not. and his existence is a reminder of the fundamental wrongness she feels from that even if she can’t name it. he's not just offensive for existing because he's organic and disgusting and inferior, but also because he's essentially a living reminder of the fact she feels trapped in an identity that she cannot understand why she hates. yet she also deeply envies his freedom to choose who he wants to be, because that’s something she desperately wants for more than just the whole not being seen as a person thing. sonic is allowed to be sonic, and he defines that. metal is not allowed to be anything else, and the definition is not one she has control over. and the second she chooses how to present herself? she chooses to appear in a form both distinct from sonic and also in a form that, uh, well:

This Is Literally Just A Goth Girl. when metal sonic is able to choose her own appearance, she’s literally just Goth Hedgehog Hatsune Miku. when metal sonic is able for the first time to define herself- to literally be remade anew, hence the “neo” in her name- she chooses to put on a skirt, shapes her body to resemble clothes when we are shown that’s something near-exclusive to female anthromorphic characters, has her quills shaped like long hair, and wears eyeliner. like i know officially her skirt is a cape but like. it’s literally a skirt. literally canonically we know how metal prefers to present herself and it’s femme as shit. obviously you don’t need to be femme to be transfem we love and respect butches in this house but uh. i think a character Struggling With Their Identity finally choosing to present in a way that going by the logic of the series itself is near exclusive to girls, she might in fact be a girl herself.

[mogai-sunflowers]

I’m lowkey confused and scared rn. For the past four years I’ve IDed as nonbinary/agender in some sense, but now I’ve slowly started to reconnect with my AGAB and now I don’t know if I am anymore. I’m really worried that if I end up being cis that what I’ve experienced and explored will amount to nothing, and I’d have wasted four years of my life for nothing. What do I do?

i'm so sorry for the late response, but i want you to think about a hypothetical for a minute.

so there's this person. they think they have it figured out what they want to do with their life- they want to be a scientist. so they go to college for science, major in science, and for a few years, that's what they do.

but slowly, the field of science opened them up to new possibilities. through science, they started to like art, and realized they would rather spend their life painting and drawing, so they leave the world of science to start a career in art.

and they spend a few years painting, and it's wonderful. but after awhile, they start to wish that the things they were painting could be more real and brought to life, so they think "maybe i should start directing movies, because that's a way to bring art to life more and give it an active story" so they start to pursue that instead of painting!

they are three things- a scientist, a painter, and a director, because people/beings are not one dimensional. change does not cancel itself out. in fact, change relies just as much on what you were before because without it, there would be no beginning to a transformation, nothing to look back on after you've changed a lot.

you spent years feeling one way, and that feeling is shifting. but change is ALWAYS a balance between who you were and who you're becoming. without the way you identified before, you would not have the unique view on your own gender and identity that is allowing you to currently explore potentially new aspects of it. just like that director/artist/scientist would not have discovered the joy of directing without the joy of art, or the joy of art without science.

life is not linear. who you were is in the past, but the past guides us in the present and the future. you can't change the past, but that doesn't mean it's static- it is always a part of you. it is the reason you are who you are. change is hard, but your identity is GOING to shift and grow along with you. your experience of who you used to more strongly be, is still part of you, because the past is just as much a part of you as the here and now, and as the future you will know. i know this is very philosophical, but it's true. without the past there would be no present or future.

so if you do end up connecting more with being cis, then that is awesome. the point of discovery isn't to always find something new- sometimes you just discover something that was always there, but you've just recently gained the insight to explore more. "cis" is not a synonym for "has a completely normal and standard and non-personal experience with gender". gender is personal. i am a cis girl, and i identify with both nonbinary and trans communities because of my unique experience with gender. my gender experience as an autigender butch-femme girl is not any less real just because i'm cis. anon, you and your journey are wonderful. the past speaks within you- you do not have to judge it for not being completely correct about itself, you just have to listen to how it's helping you move forward. much love anon, you are glorious.

[fukuokanodivision]

Eko’s Thoughts On Saitama Division

Sayaka Miyuki

“Miyuki, Saitama’s forensic scientist? Mhm. She also passes for a solid division leader in my opinion, Having those traits of protection really take the cake. Being a single mother must be tough, Taking care of a kid and yourself on top of that. However, I imagine she has it out for herself. Wait…She used to work for Chuohku!? Maybe that’s why she’s so familiar… I don’t know when, But I’ll have to face her team of sisters eventually. I’ve been so busy juggling on how to deal with other teams lately, I think I’ve barely thought how to get past Femme Fatale. Or worse, we might not even get there…”

Lola Takahashi

“Aphrodite herself? She’s not looking too bad around here, Meow…~! She really lives up to her name, Being a captivating model and all. My guess is she’s Saitama’s best model out there, Having extreme popularity similar to mine. I guess she’s nice and all…Except, Maybe overbearing? I don’t know, She probably just imagines the world as her playground or something… All in all, There will be more to discover somehow, I think it’s time to dive back into the archive again…And see what ‘true’ spirit Takahashi truly has…”

Kureha Koizumi

“So Koizumi’s the ‘fan favourite?’ I’m not surprised, Anyone can go for art, Let alone prodigies any of these days. Eclipse, Not a bad name to go by, Pretty alluring. Their art seems intriguing, More intricate than Kurome’s I believe. I guess they qualify as an asset? She seems rather blank though…Makes sense for a blank slate. I’ll have to see for more, There has to be more than meets the eye around her, No questions asked.”

Femme Fatale

“Femme Fatale. Saitama Divison, Miyuki Sayaka, Takahashi Lola, Koizumi Kureha, All here. I’ve been dying to get to this one! Not to be boring, But there have been a ton of teams with friendship theming…Even us included, Saying that now feels very hypocritical. Hear me out, Let’s say these gals have it right. ‘Sworn sisterhood’, ‘Nothing can break us down,’ You get where I’m going with that? For once, I actually am excited to face them. Their power levels seem to be burning through the roof, So let’s see how much of a ‘Drive’ they can handle~!”

[tinylittlemexican]

I went to therapy yesterday for the first time in 3 months (she was on maternity leave) and we talked about my gender stuff which I haven’t really felt comfortable enough to talk to anyone about with and it’s been something I’ve been struggling with. In this journey to become my own person and express myself MY way has been challenging and filled with ups and downs but one of the biggest things is that I once had really felt like I was ready to go on T and make that change for myself! There’s a lot T can give me I feel like that I’ve always wanted, a deeper voice, more body hair, and more importantly, bottom growth! But I suddenly became very scared and hesitant to go on T. My identity as a lesbian and as a femme are something that I feel like are so deeply ingrained in me that I never want them to go away. I don’t want to stop being either but I’ve seen people talk about how T “changed” or made them realize they did like men and or discovered they wanted to be men and that’s amazing and wonderful! But I’m so scared of that to happen to me. I know it’s stupid and is probably so close minded and insulting but it’s something I genuinely fear. And it’s kind of stopping me from exploring my gender more. I’ve spent so long not knowing who I am and living my life by other people’s standards that when I finally was able to feel like home in my identity as a femme lesbian it was like a wash of relief and felt like coming home. I felt so secure and so happy but now I’m scared to lose my home. I don’t want to be a man and I know that going on T or being more masculine doesn’t make you a man obviously but I don’t know why I get so caught up in the idea that I’m some kind of exception. I guess probably because I don’t know a lot of Femmes who have gone on T I feel kinda isolated and feel like I’m in uncharted territory. When I talk about my gender stuff it’s like…I don’t feel wrong I just feel like something is missing, like I was born incomplete. To me going on T would be a way to bring about my true ideal of a feminine body, my body! To be my own created idea of femininity and womanhood crafted in my image. I know I’m the one who gets to decide who I am but there’s so much mistrust in myself. Im so afraid of being wrong or losing parts of myself I love and are so important to me. Im hoping to start working on it more with my therapist but it’s just been on my mind since our session yesterday.

[chryzure-archive]

whats some media that is soooo chrysijacks/chryzure? what would their fave pokemon be.... any random assorted thoughts you've been thinking abt them lately? and ofc any new songs you found that are chrysijacks/chryzure...

chrysijackscoded media:

moulin rouge‼️‼️‼️

the princess bride

labyrinth….

anastasia

enchanted

ella enchanted too <3

tangled (i want jacks DEAD)

wicked :)

the scarlet pimpernel

all those early 2000s barbie movies. jacks makes an excellent pretty barbie <3

the phantom of the opera, but i also have a chryzure au for this, so i’m putting it in both of their categories

chryzurecoded media!!!!:

beauty and the beast (for reallllll)

the bone witch (azure is coming back to life to be w chrysi… peak chryzure)

the night circus <3

h.hadestown……….

the corpse bride!!!!!

the addams family

THE MUMMY.

nightmare before christmas

haunting of bly manor…

legend of zelda, but esp twilight princess

phantom of the opera !!

the velveteen rabbit… i can make it work, i can MAKE IT WORK

fablehaven <3

the nutcracker….. i will not elaborate.

chrysi’s fav pokémon is probably phantump, since she can see ghosts and talk to them… this is jst another ghost. she has adopted a new child.

my friend showed me a purugly and i literally gasped and said, “AZURE WOULD LOVE IT”, so there’s THAT answer! i’ve never seen a more azure-coded pokémon in my life

jacks i’m less certain of, but i looove espurr’s design bc it’s sooo little creature + i think jacks would take one look at it and jst keep it at all times. he’ll never admit it, but he’d die for this creature

misc chrysijacks thoughts consist of how funny it is in most aus that they’re already divorced. it’s jst a question of them getting back together. why are they trying out this relationship again when chrysi would’ve gladly thrown jacks out a window? who knows! they’re kissing so hard rn though!!!!!!!!

then come the other half of the aus where they’re childhood friends and it’s like. yeah no it’s totally normal for friends to have napped together since they were in middle school, all bc chrysi got nightmares when she slept on her own. it’s totally normal that jacks kisses chrysi regularly. friends do that, esp when one friend is immune to the curse. and then jacks has the gall to be shocked when ppl call him out for being in love w chrysi. okay, darling, don’t worry your pretty little head over that.

misc chryzure thoughts are fkskgkskcjsjzkjfkkdkckfjwksmcnekzmdndns……. like??!!? sticking a fork into the wall outlet rn because i am sooo!!! jst down to the simple day to day domestic life, it’s so clear how much they love each other…. they’re comfy w preparing each other toast and teasing each other for the way they like their tea and they’re both teasingly mad when the cat picks one of them over the other.

and then the whole reincarnation curse makes me go insane go wild. the number of lives they hold, where they loved each other unabashedly and wholly, only for them to die tragically? and the fact that both chrysi and azure have started to look forward to their next life, because the agony will stop, for just a little while… they get to be happy for a fraction of time in each of their lives, and that’s enough. that has to be enough. oh, the agonies…

also, azure’s hickey game is insane + chrysi wears off the shoulder shirts a lot. what’s she supposed to do w these, blue??? knock it off!!!!!!!

chrysijacks songs:

summer // circadian clock, baethoven

love song // sara bareilles (i’m not justifying my choice. jst know this is the same era of chrysijacks as the era when i first discovered his hair would be blue and i was horrified for the next two hours)

casanova // allie x

oh l’amour // erasure (i’ve mentioned this before but it’s sooo chrysijacks to me)

chryzure songs:

tether // sleep state

below my feet // mumford & sons

divine créature // la femme

see you tomorrow // evgeny grinko

[255940g]

Any title ideas guys? Ch.2 - Hugs? Why no hugs?

Chapter summary: This is set a few days after Samantha came online. I'm not bothering to have her mess up with simple things like walking. This focuses on the issues of having sensitive wings, but still wanting a hug from your best friend. Even though your best friend is willing to hug - bee is only leaning lightly into the hugs and not using his arms like a weirdo. Sam wants to know why.

Inspiration fic: Don't say you'd rather walk by ChronoQuantify.

Masterlist: X

Ch.1, Ch.3

Jazz in particular accidentally came across the two bots in a small snit...over how the best hugging position. Bee knew how sensitive and delicate wings were. But particularly how sensitive her wings are. He dosen’t even want to contemplate touching Sam’s new wings without an emergency necessitating touch. (It also dosen’t help that everyone at the base had some version of talk about the sensitivity level of her wings and the general understanding that the standard touching requires a huge amount of trust normally only given to the closest of medical professionals - under a strict set of circumstances, family members, lovers, and children. Usually in that order too)

Sam is understanding that her new wings are indeed sensitive - she feels them all the time to the point of being angry when the wind picks up speed. Yet, she knows and trusts Bumblebee to be gentle with her wings. Bee just isn’t trusting himself in this situation.

What Jazz saw was Sam throwing up her servos in the air before turning to Bee saying ‘fine, I’ll demonstrate what I mean then’, and walking the distance between the two of them. Jazz carefully backed away wanting to see what happens. If they were going to discover making out he didn’t want to see that, and nor did he want to be seen and possibly interrupt, but dammit this was the hottest gossip and there were multiple bets to be kept track of. Jazz’s helm popped back around the corner when he heard a vague metallic bump on the other side.

He saw a completely surprised Bumblebee with his servos carefully not touching any part of the femme. Sam had her arms wrapped around Bee’s frame gently coming from under his arms. She pulled away slightly to meet Bee’s optics. “This is how I usually hug. It feels most comfortable as you are still taller than I am.” Bee very slightly nodded though notably his door wings never shifted from their nervous high upwards position.

Sam continued “Alright how are you going to return it? I’ve seen you exchange quick hugs with others, so I know you know how to hug. Or do you want to look like a startled kitten?”

Jazz continued to watch in rapt suspense. He knew the problem, her wings. Bee was also usually the smallest bot around. Unfortunately, it seemed Bee took too long to respond as Sam continued slowly pulling away further “Unless you don’t want to hug me?”

Frantically Bee closed the space between the two of them “NO! No, no. It’s just…your wings. They’re-”

“Yes, yes.” Physically waving a servo away as if it was inconsequential “My wings are sensitive. I’m the one that feels them consistently. Bee,” Insisting on meeting his optics and gentling her tone “Bee, I know you will be careful.”

Finally accepting his fate - ‘oh no the horror of being hugged by a stunning femme in and out who is clearly attracted to you just as much as you are to her’ Jazz’s processor snidely mocked - he carefully wrapped his arms around Sam’s shoulders and incredibly gently touched her wings.

“See, it's all good. Hugs are best when they’re reciprocated.” Sam’s voice was barely audible to Jazz’s audio sensors. Smiling Jazz walked quietly away. Knowing the two young bots, they weren't going to move for a little while. Better to share the good news and steals a picture or two. Sometimes they were too cute for words.

After that, it wasn't an uncommon sight to see Bee touching Sam’s wings more casually. Though there was always a moment when Bee made sure that it was still alright. The first few times Ratchet and Optimus saw it happen, the two of them visibly paused for a moment to recalibrate what they knew. Each has taken one of the bots in question under their guidance in a parental manner. (Optimus with Bumblebee and Ratchet with Sam.)

[andrewisdoing]

Beautifully Me: A Reminder

I had to put this down before I went to sleep.

I am currently reading “Straight Jacket: Overcoming Society’s Legacy of Gay Shame” by Matthew Todd. The first chapter had me misty eyed, particularly at the mention of the amount of LGBTQ people who have suffered in silence and succumbed to their own mental health struggles.

Truthfully, I must admit to my own personal struggle with suicidal ideation and body dysmorphia. While I know, right now, I am in this season in my life where I am finding myself in a comfortable place mentally and emotionally, I still have to reflect on what has been and perhaps what is to come. I honestly can say that looking back, I feel like I was no where near as comfortable being me than I am now. I feel like I talked a lot of smack about my body and my own person. I thought being truly myself was a bad thing. I thought I was too fat, too black and too effeminate to be loved. I recognize now that who I was in my late teens and throughout my 20s was someone who felt like it would be so much better if he wasn’t here.

Shame is something that I know folks don’t know how to own up to. Some of us are ashamed that we binge watch bad shows, the porn we consume or are ashamed of what we are into sexually which I only understood once I got older. I understand how some people may feel like their own sexuality, sexual attraction and sexual exploration is something to be ashamed of. I thought at one point that liking bigger men was something unnatural but luckily found I wasn’t alone in that attraction. I have found folks with possession kink here on Tumblr. EVEN DIAPER KINK..I’m not even into that and yet, I’m finding there is always something for someone. I guess what I’m getting at is that most people live in fear and shame and yet, I’m finding that as I am aging, it doesn’t’ fucking matter. All of it. I love what I love. I like what I like and goddamn it, that’s beautiful.

I used to feel consistently feel like I had to be more of a man. I felt like I had to measure up to my straight friends and straight presenting men as well. The brothas always were more butch than I and every other man seemed to glare at me as some kind of femme queen (that I am) that was a threat to what a traditional man should be. Now, hear me out, there are days when I worry and stress over these butchy men but I’ve realized that I don’t want to be them. I want to keep growing into the man I WANT to be. The man I want to be is the kind of man who doesn’t give two fucks if my braids are down to my knees and that I buy Ariana Grande’s perfume at ULTA. I want to be the kind of man that listens to others and is open to new ideas. I especially want to be the kind of man with the strength to persevere and demonstrate resilience when failure comes. I want to be the kind of man that lifts people up and builds them up to greater heights as well and create spaces for people who felt what I once did.

AND sweet lord, my body. I am still working on loving every bit of my body, from my hair to my belly. *SIGH* It’s not easy but I find that I am getting more and more cozy in my looks, after the first year of being 30. I am loving the feeling of going to the gym (that’s more for me to build a habit), I am loving how I am learning more about the what my body needs and realizing that I only have one body and mine is made beautifully. I have a belly that I wish would be flat but hell, she is there and she fits me perfectly. I have a unibrow that is unique and legs that make me feel like a goddess in heels. AND MY HAIR. MY HAIR CAN DO FUCKING ANYTHING. I love my full face and my smile. In my 20s, I was sure that I was ugly and only felt acceptable when a man would look at me or acknowledge me at all online. Now, I realize that these online apps aren’t for me. They are illusions and while everyone may use them to connect, I’ve discovered for myself they did me more harm than good. I felt like I was reaching for connection and found I would come up empty when someone with the most followers wouldn’t acknowledge me. I am finding solace in my own company and while still remaining connected with the small but important community of friends I’ve made along the way.

I am learning that I am enough and while I may not be everyone’s cup of tea, that I’m still a worthwhile person.

I don’t know what else to write. I just wanted to basically say this…I am so fucking happy to be alive. I am beautifully made and I hope to outlive my fears and my own insecurities. I hope that everyone reading this knows that they are beautiful fucking gay folk. WE ARE A PART OF THE MOST BEAUTIFULLY COMPLEX MOSAIC on earth.

YOU ARE IMPORTANT.

KEEP SELF IMPROVING.

DISCOVER WHO YOU ARE.

DON’T STOP DIGGING FOR YOUR TRUTHS.

YOU ARE FUCKNG LOVED.

[bloodybabytee]

Gender dysphoria as a “perfect girl” 

Hi, I wrote this kind of as a stream of thought, its semi-edited, but please forgive if it ends up going on tangents, I'd love to hear feedback on my writing as I'm trying to improve, thank you for reading. 

TW: Gender identity crisis, disordered eating ideation 

Last night, I went to my mirror just to check out a zit and discovered something strange- my facial hair had grown back. Now, this wouldn’t usually unsettle me as much as it did, but what about the hair on my chin? That’s new. Usually, the hair would only grow on the recesses of my neck, something I could easily ignore from day to day as I usually found shaving tiresome and difficult. it shocked me because I'm a femme nonbinary – or an egg, I don’t fucking know anymore, and had the privilege of being mostly unchanged by male puberty (I got the starter pack stuff, but generally remained unchanged), this comfort was shaken by the realization or theory that I could just be a late bloomer, I looked down my shirt to discover I had chest hair as well. Huh. This harrowing experience had me wonder about what would happen to my beauty as I age. I’m turning 20 this year, but the clock is ticking to do as much as I can, when I can, to prevent the changes to my body. I’ve seen what aging does to cis men, who for the most part roll with the punches, but for me, I'm pretty, not perfect, just pretty and I don’t want to lose that. In recent years, I've searched through articles and magazines trying to find rock-hard proof that I could prevent the degradation of my face and keep up this esoteric dreamscape where I coat the noun ‘supermodel’ with sarcasm despite knowing full well that I desperately wanted to be that girl. Am I saying I want to be a supermodel? Not necessarily, but is it so wrong that I want to see myself in a magazine? Is it wrong that I want to be seen as desirable? I’ve been given the note of having the demeanour of a celebrity and I took it as a compliment, but what about when my hair recedes, I gain weight, and lose the femininity I saw in my looks? No one wants to be associated with the brick-faced bitter old queen with a superiority complex, would they? No, I know they’d rather be with the doll-faced diva, ‘take a photo’ type of perfect girl. 

Revisiting the moment in the mirror, my next actions were to pace around the living room, making too much noise for what 4 AM calls for, and wondering- what are the steps to getting gender-affirming healthcare? Would I have to come out AGAIN? What are my options? Of course, my very first thoughts were: ‘Should I go back to starving? Maybe I can slow this process down just as long as I don't eat too much.’ of course, my self-awareness grabs ahold of me once again to remind me that this idea is fucking stupid and I don’t want to go to bed hungry any more than I had to, but I'm not going to sit here, lie and say that the thought never crossed my mind. This moment I had with myself reminded me of my trans brothers and sisters, and how they’ve likely experienced this sort of moment in their lives whether they knew their identity or not, and how they must have felt. I lived in a bubble of privilege where defecting from my birth-given gender was easy, and I had built up my self-image to the point where I liked the way I looked, and to think that it could be stripped from me by the passage of time scared me. Looking back now, how would they have felt? Would it be scarier to know your identity and see yourself changing uncontrollably, or more devastating to realize your identity and have it be far too late? All these questions, and I suppose the way they are asked, would assume it would be easy to halt the course of those changes, but I still feel the need to ask regardless.  

Clearly, femininity is something close to me, having grown up with two sisters and no brothers, living with my mother, and I think that what I find beautiful in myself is the parts that are the most feminine. I wonder if my idea of this so-called ‘supermodel’ lifestyle is firmly rooted in diva worship or something of the like. Growing up as a gay man, then later transitioning to non-binary certainly gives this diva worship theory some ground. Other than that, I don't know, man. This reads like the ramblings of someone clearly not well adjusted and deeply affected by the anti-ageing rhetoric we see today, but I definitely see the vision, would you rather grow old and deal with the reality of your beauty withering in your hands, blowing away like sand in your grasp, or die young and be shortly remembered as the ‘perfect girl’ ? 

[ixlander]

[Image Description:] At 17, I began pushing the boundaries of gender, building a community of freaks and outlaws. In order to be queer I had to walk away from family and home. I quickly discovered that there was nothing more radical than love, and learned that holding a lover’s hand in public was nothing short of revolutionary. Now, my gender transgression is no longer culturally recognizable, and I miss visibility. I still long for the way revolution was written across my body, the way my flesh was referenced by the world. I miss the recognition of revolution that took place every time I held hir hand. The world sees me and thinks I am nothing more than a straight woman, doesn’t see the journey of gender, the effects of hormones still coursing below the surface. When they see hir, they see a straight man, never a butch. Our identities are too complex to be understood in passing glances. The way we live in our bodies rewrites the pages of history: the stories of our people explain that femmes are made visible when standing next to butches. Our gender transgressions position us outside of that narrative, rendering us invisible to even our own. Hir hand across my flesh brings me home, healing the wounds inflicted by newfound invisibility. Our love is revolutionary, even when others can’t see it. Each time ze touches me, hir hands bring more of the pieces of my life together. In hir embrace I have been made real. Through sex I’ve learned to stop fearing my imperfect body, by fucking I’ve learned to stay in myself, to resist disassociation. It is through touch that I learned to let go, to trust. For trans and genderqueer people, our bodies become our battlegrounds, our private revolutions; our genitals, our war zones. We spend so much time seeking survival in our own skin, defending our bodies and ourselves, that when we find a moment of peace it is hard to surrender to that pleasure. As gender warriors we must spend our days being strong, showing any vulnerability is seen as incomprehensible. Our minds, so indoctrinated by narrow definitions of sex, we come to think it’s an act which could never include us but as a fag I watched my hands resuscitate boys. Touching elastic and plastic, brining life to manmade objects, I pulled close their bodies and together we birthed new continents, redrew the maps. Topography shifted under our fingers. We altered the course and struck down borders. Through their eyes I’ve seen Eden. I’ve witnessed creation, seen self-hatred drown in pleasure, and gazed on as dysphoria dissipated under the realization that body need not be the flesh they were born with, that body need not be made of skin at all. I’ve never seen anything more real than the look in my partner’s eyes with my mouth around hir silicone cock. Our sex transcends the limits of the flesh. We’re doing nothing less than fucking ourselves real. We’ve created lives and bodies that high school health class curriculums could never cover. In my world, sex defies the laws of physics and constructs new realities. Sex is magic as it liberates and resists being boxed in. As trans people I believe there are few things we can do more liberating than defy the societal norms that frame us as asexual, unlovable beings. We’re making families that defy definition, we’re fucking with constructed bodies, and we’re taking ownership over our flesh. [End ID]

sassafrass lowrey, from made real, from trans/love: radical sex, love & relationships beyond the gender binary, edited by morty diamond, 2011

[starlightrosari]

My gender isn’t fixed, it’s fluid between neutrality and femininity. Sometimes I feel very genderqueer in a sapphic way, other times very librafemme or lunarian where I’m tied to femininity but not a demigirl because I don’t feel partially like a girl, other times I feel agender and wish to be viewed further away from femininity and more masculinely but without feeling like I am a man or woman, and I really feel I am nonbinary sometimes and other times I feel slightly uncomfortable with it or disconnected to it, almost wishing I were seen as a genderqueer woman expressing gender and pronouns uniquely instead of nonbinary transmasc—and transmasc has never been a label I’ve felt I identify with despite identifying with trans. And sometimes, my gender is so in between or so fluid that I can’t figure out what I’m feeling, but I want to be free to express it freely. I never quite feel like a girl, and women terms never sit right for me when I use them or hear other people use them for me. I realized I’m genderfae because it doesn’t sit right for me to only use one label. I change too much having sometimes felt totally nonbinary and wanting to express very typically that while other times feeling very femme and loving owning my unique femininity in a way that isn’t quite agender. I like that genderfae is fluid and both neutral and femme aligned. It feels like me. It feels like a way I can freely express myself without feeling boxed in by my gender.

I’ve always known my gender and gender expression is a little fluid, but I never found a fluid label I felt totally comfortable using. And man, I think I may be pronoun and presentation fluid too which will be a whole other thing to discover. If I had to explain my gender I feel now, I’d say I feel very feminine. I like hearing she and they and I like being seen as feminine and pretty right now. I like that genderfae is a label that can make me feel good and valid in that experience and express it to other people without being locked into that experience and identity and invalid when I feel very agender and neutral and want to be called a boy and they/he.

[bluedalahorse]

Haha I will own up to sending this one in. Why should the mlms have all the fun in the rarepair game when the wlws can enjoy themselves too?

Some of my thoughts:

I feel like they’d meet because Simon and Felice are hanging out more outside of choir, and one day Felice overlaps with some trio time. That’s where she and Rosh start talking.

In canon, their dynamic might be a little more playfully antagonistic at first. Or at least there might be debate/banter. They’re very different! They come from different social classes! Rosh has zero hesitation about calling out the rich and Felice might have to question herself a bit. In other words: did you like the part in the show where Simon talks about the country’s biggest welfare receivers and then looks right at Wilhelm? That, but make it sapphic.

Rosh is perpetually cool 100% of the time onscreen thus far, so it’d be great if Felice periodically flustered her a bit. Maybe I just have an affection for Cool Butch Girls who turn into Awkward Butch Girls when the femme objects of their affection walk by.

Felice’s upbringing seems deeply influenced by comp het, so it might take her a bit to clue into her sapphic bisexual feelings. HOWEVER at some point she has an important memory of a time when she was twelve or something and they were watching Bend It Like Beckham at a sleepover, and she had overwhelming crush feelings for Parminder Nagra and Keira Knightley.

At some point they can go on a date to the best pizzeria in Bjärstad, which Felice realizes she actually likes that idea if her date is a quality human being and not a turtleneck boy with horrendous political opinions.

There should absolutely be some kinda story where Felice and Rosh have to sneak out in the middle of the night to meet up. I am talking sapphic shenanigans in the woods, people. This is not a drill.

Rosh gets Felice into Audre Lorde. Felice gets Rosh into bespoke tailored suits. Everybody wins.

They are canon in Heart and Homeland—the most recent chapters are making that ship sail!—but their dynamic is a little different there from what I’ve outlined above. It’s much more A Lady And Her (Female) Knight but the lady and the knight have also discovered anarchy. Which is still a fun dynamic.

Nonetheless, assuming a world where Felice is alloallo, I strongly believe that Felice deserves someone who will love and cherish her and make sure she has a good time physically and emotionally. I nominate Rosh for that because I Trust Her.

Have I convinced you yet? I have an agenda ahaha.

For your rarepair game: Felice/Rosh!

Rarepair Game!

Let's collectively brainstorm about some rare ships! This week's pair is Felice/Rosh, submitted by one of you.

Send in short drabbles, headcanons, fic prompts, AU ideas, anything! I'll collect them and post them all (or a selection) this weekend.

Things to think about:

How might they meet? What do they like about each other? What do they enjoy doing together? What's their relationship dynamic like? How do they fall in love / become friends? How do other people react?

If no one participates I will quietly delete this post and retreat into the shadows.

[beccanoodles]

Spike and Faye Pairing Analysis

March 2021

Ah the hit or miss pairing of the century! If you don’t love it, you probably hate it lol. I’m a very analytical person so I love analyzing works of art and overall enjoy deep discussions about them too. I have SO much to say when it comes to Cowboy Bebop (and oh I plan to), but I have decided to start with my very own OTP. Here, I am not really going to discuss Spike and Faye’s feelings for each other, but rather why I think people are drawn to this pairing and why I think they're totally valid. Get ready for a long read!😁

⚠️SPOILER WARNING!!! [Major Cowboy Bebop and the movie Out of the Past spoilers]⚠️

First off, let’s clear something up. I am confident most of us can agree that Spike was in love with Julia. Some people assume Spike and Faye fans are deranged and disregard Spike and Julia’s romantic relationship to try and make something of Spike and Faye that never was. While some people may have their various theories and opinions on this, generally, I don’t think anyone denies Spike’s love for Julia. As we will see, this pairing is not really driven by who loves who...let’s first look on the surface.

I don’t know your experiences with the series, but in mine, every time I show this to people it never fails for someone to say something along the lines of,

“Wait, they don’t end up together?”

“Why didn’t he kiss her!?”

“He should have stayed with her...”

and so fourth. 

Naturally, this pairing catches many eyes. 

Think about it, you are given two really cool, really hot and really deep characters that are really fun to see together! There are so many parallels between the two and they are arguably the strongest characters of the bunch. Granted, you can agree with this and still not ship them, but these aspects are part of what opens up the door for many fans of the pairing.

However, there is certainly more to this pairing than them simply looking good together right? As the years pass and I’ve now seen the show multiple times, my understanding of it has evolved in many areas, Spike and Faye included. 

Spike and Faye really couldn’t have ended up together. Sure, it’s a nice thought, but It would have been an entirely different show if they had. I don’t feel that the show should have happened any other way and I don’t think many other fans would either. 

So, what am I saying here?

What’s the point of this paring if I don’t think they should have ended up together? 

It is what's so frustrating about them, yet keeps you coming back and what honestly validates this pairing in my opinion. Spike and Faye are not driven by what is, but rather, what could be.  

I personally feel the themes of classic film Noir are not discussed enough when it comes to Cowboy Bebop! This is one of the show's major influences, especially when it comes to the plot and characters.

One of the common tropes of a film noir is that of a protagonist who is drawn back into his past and ultimate doom, usually by the “seduction” of a femme fatale. In these movies, the women are either a femme fatale [devious, dangerous, mysterious, greedy, troubled, or unreliable] or a woman of virtue [reliable, dutiful, trustworthy, conventional and loving]. 

I am going to use the 1947 classic, Out of the Past to make my comparisons from here on out.

In Out of the Past, Jeff is a former detective who gets caught up in a love triangle between a gangster and his girlfriend Kathie, sound familiar? He attempts to run away with her, but is betrayed and runs off to start a new life in a new town. Here, he meets Ann and falls in love with her, but of course, his past catches up to him and he is drawn back into the world of criminals (largely by Kathie’s involvement). This ultimately results in his and Kathie’s deaths and Ann’s heartbreak. 

Even though Kathie is the femme fatale in this movie, I found myself comparing her more to Julia’s role in the show, than to Faye’s and I found that Faye actually fit best in Ann’s role (this is a bit unusual considering Faye is typically seen as the femme fatale of this show).

Does that mean I think Julia was as ill intentioned as Kathie or that Spike fell in love with Faye? Well, not exactly, let’s look at it a bit further.

“The kind of beautiful, dangerous ordinary that you just can’t leave alone...Like an angel from the underworld or a devil from paradise.”

Most of what we get about Julia is from Spike’s point of view. From this, we learn she is at the center of Vicious and Spike’s conflict, but aside from that she is basically depicted as “The Virtuous Woman” of a noir. The colors around her are warm and she is shown caring for Spike. There is an innocence and modestly about her as well.

Yet, when we finally do meet Julia, we get a different image. We know she is tied up with dangerous men, but is she herself a dangerous woman?

She is certainly capable of betrayal. 

Suddenly she is a bad-ass-gun-toting woman in leather and black, surrounded by hues of grey and dark blue. Intentional or not, Julia is a major part of what lures Spike back into the past and ultimately to his death. In this case, Julia is the femme fatale of Spike’s story and thus, their relationship is doomed from the start.

Faye, on the other hand, is portrayed in somewhat of a contrast. When we first meet her, she is the clear cut femme fatale, appearing cunning, strong willed and seductive. However, we soon find that she has quite a bit of kindness and naivety hidden behind her facade. She uses the former tactics as a way of emotional (and probably physical) protection. Gren points this out in his conversation with her. 

Gren, 

“You’re just afraid they’d abandon you so you abandoned them. You distanced yourself from the whole thing.”

As the show progresses, we start to see less of her “femme fatale nature” and something more genuine. Think about it, between Hard Luck Woman and RFB Part 2 we don’t see much of Faye as her typical conniving or unreliable self, aside from changing the course of the Bebop maybe. Sure she takes off, but it isn’t at all for the same reasons she did in Jupiter Jazz or Speak Like a Child, for example. 

I would argue we actually see her more trustworthy and caring than ever. Since I don’t want to spend too much time talking about Faye’s character development (not here at least) I’ll give one example of this. 

When she returns to the Bebop after her encounter with Julia in RFB Part 1, she gives Spike the message, even though the outcome might hurt her (i.e. he leaves and/or dies). While she does first say “It’s gonna cost you,” she doesn’t really mean it because she tells him without hesitation only moments later.

This isn’t to say Faye good, Julia bad. Both women have their layers and even though we know way more about Faye, I don’t get the impression that Julia is selfish and cunning like Kathie was. But I do get the feeling she was enclosed in a world of crime and betrayal the way Kathie was. We really only know the basics of Spike and Julia’s situation. Who knows the details like motive or how long it lasted etc. etc. We can only speculate...

There is a scene towards the end of Out Of The Past, where Kathie tells Jeff to go away with her. This time it is her asking him, just like Julia asks Spike. During this she mentions,

“I never told you I was anything but what I am, you just wanted to imagine I was. That’s why I left you.”

This got me thinking...did Spike imagine Julia as something she wasn’t? Or something he wanted her to be that she just couldn’t be? 

It could explain why we get such contrasted images of her.

There are themes of this “dreamlike” relationship between Jeff and Kathie, similar to Spike and Julia’s “It was all a dream.”

The two of them were going to “live and be free,” probably something neither of them knew how to do and most likely wouldn’t have been able to get away with.

When Jet asks Spike if he can just forget the past, this is his answer.

Spike,

“There was a woman. For the first time in my life I saw a woman that was truly alive. At least that’s what I thought. She was the part of me I had lost, that part that was missing, that I had been longing for.”

I always wondered about this, because Spike is clearly talking about Julia, but right after is when Faye shows up. To me, that spoke volumes...

Faye is a woman who is terribly human and terribly alive.

Going back to Faye and Ann, I find their similarities shine not so much in the “Virtuous Woman,” concept, but rather in Ann’s dedication to Jeff and her optimism for the future. She is also the last person to talk to Jeff before he leaves for the final time, as if he were being presented with one last alternative. Spike spends his last moments with Faye as well, in which she basically begs him not to go and keep him in the present that she has now discovered for herself. She may be stuck, but she is definitely someone that yearns for human connection, love, and life.

The problem is, Spike and Faye are both set in opposite directions. Her’s leads to a future and Spike knows this because he points it out early on (My Funny Valentine). He also knows, his most likely does not. He has already dug himself too deep into this hole, if you will, that there is really no turning back. 

But let’s say none of that was an issue? What could be?

I sat and watched this movie (Out of the Past) with my mom. She didn’t know anything about it and didn’t know why I was watching it. I wanted her genuine reaction. The whole time she was getting mad at Jeff until the very end. I asked her why and she said that she wanted him to be able to live happily with Ann. I explained to her why he had to do what he did. She understood this, but still couldn’t help but be sad at how things turned out for him, when they could have been good.

Even though Kathie and Jeff are the “lovers,” of this movie, you don’t really want them to end up together. Forget that Kathie has a devious nature, regardless, you know where it has to end and you don’t want to see your hero die.

Like Kathie, Julia symbolizes Spike’s inevitable doom and Like Ann, Faye symbolizes his possible future. 

“I’ll be with you till the end”

                           “You’re the one still tied to the past Spike!”

                                                               “Why do you have to go? Where are you going? What are you gonna do, just throw your life away like it was nothing?!”

It’s two sides of a sad coin...

We want Spike to have a future and because we love the characters of the show, it would be really great if he could have it with them, but that is where the tragedy is. It's only an idea we can think about, a possibility presented to us as it was to Jeff and Spike before their deaths.

The bottom line is, when it comes to Spike and Faye you are really only given a taste. You are not given what you expect to see, which is why I say this ship is driven by what could be. As it is with most of the character relationships in the show, no major breakthroughs are made until the very end, when it's too late. Then it just feels like such wasted potential, but sometimes in life, that's how it is. And thus, we have been given a very classic noir here ladies and gentlemen!

So no, I don’t think people miss the mark when they ship Spike and Faye, nor do I find they invalidate the show by any means. I kind of like that Watanabe switched it up and didn’t do the expected, but left us those subtle hints. He didn’t outright give Spike another lover, but he gave us someone that represents what he could have. Kind of does that with the crew as a whole too!

UGH. I love-hate this show and I love this pairing! Thank you for reading my thoughts and I know this may not be the case or reasoning for everyone, but just based on what I have seen around the community and where this show draws inspiration, this is what I have concluded. I didn’t get into Spike and Faye’s feelings for each other because it gets a little more theoretical there, but I would like to do a post on my thoughts on that as well sometime. I also didn’t touch too much on Spike’s reasoning for choosing to face Vicious in the end, just because I know that will only lead into a whole other analysis lol. But you know I have my thoughts on that and certainly plan to share them 😎 Also, I know I basically spoiled it, but Out of the Past is such a great movie!! I think if you’re a fan of this show it's definitely worth a watch! There are so many more parallels to Cowboy Bebop that I didn’t even mention. Anyways, thanks again and talk to you soon!