It's honestly crazy that discussion around testosterone HRT skews so much towards the beginning stages of it (to the point that you have dozens of guys thinking their transition is "failed" if they don't pass by like a year in lol) and what the initial changes of the first couple of months to years look like, like the classic laundry list of those early basic changes like bottom growth, voice drop, etc, when IMO literally none of that compares remotely to the depth and intensity of the long term total masculinization you start to experience like 3-5+ years in.
I just. I just… i have discovered something. And I have laughed too much. I have laughed every time I have tried to explain it to someone. I cannot get through this.
Look. Okay.
There are two things you need to know, here.
First: There’s a style of Greek pottery that was popular during the Hellenic period, for which most of the surviving examples are from southern Italy. We call them ‘fish plates’ because, well, they’re plates, and they’re decorated with fish (and other marine life).
Like this one, currently in the Met:
Or this one, currently in the Cleveland Museum of Art:
They’re very cool. We’re not 100% sure what they were for, because most of the surviving ones were found as grave goods, but that’s a different post.
The second thing you need to know is that when we (Classics/archaeology/whatever as a discipline) have a collection of artefacts, like vases, sculptures, paintings, etc. and we do not know the name of the artist, but we’re pretty sure one artist made X, Y and Z artefacts, we come up with a name for that artist. There are a whole bunch of things that could be the source for the name, e.g. where we found most of their work (The Dipylon Master) or the potter with whom they worked (the Amasis Painter), a favourite theme (The Athena Painter), the Museum that ended up with the most famous thing they did (The Berlin Painter) or a notable aspect of their style. Like, say, The Eyebrow Painter.
Guess what kind of pottery the Eyebrow Painter made?
the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"
just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible
Since Bruce's kids all love to play around and hide in his cape as Robins, I wonder if he makes them blankets out of the same materials as his cape so they can have a piece of security when Bruce isn't there?
I remember in Dick and Jason's older comics (correct me if I'm wrong), they used to stay up late waiting for Bruce when he'd go out as Batman alone, so I'm gonna take this as confirmation that all his kids have done this at some point.
So now I'm totally gonna hc that in order to encourage his kids to not stay up late for him or as a way to help them feel more safe and secure when he's not there, he makes them all blanket replicas of his cape for them to snuggle with :')
And also just imagine his kids all grown up, and they STILL have the blankets with them, regardless of if they've moved out.
going to chb must be crazy like imagine sharing a camp with
-one of the strongest demigods ever who's saved the world like at least 3 times, fought multiple gods & titans and WON (and is a tartarus survivor)
-the literal main architect of OLYMPUS who's also saved the world multiple times (also tartarus survivor)
-THE lord of the wild who's also close friends with the first two (and has helped save the world multiple times)
-an emo kid from the 1930s who again helped save the world and is also a tartarus survivor (TWICE)
-a son of apollo who survived tartarus with nothing but cargo shorts and sheer will (pun intended)
-the main designer and builder for the argo II, also the first hephaestus kid to have fire powers since hundreds of years ago (did i mention killed gaea? no? yeah he did that too)
-a girl who somehow charmspeak-ed gaea into falling back asleep (also side note daughter of super famous actor because why not)
-pretty much everybody is a two-time war veteran
-THE GOD APOLLO who just sometimes comes down to visit in the form of a teenage boy
-did i mention dionysus, god of wine madness and theatre
-also chiron, trainer of pretty much every greek hero ever
your voice calling out to simon was what snapped him out of his relaxed state in the living room.
simon loved it when you call his name. not ghost. not lieutenant riley. just simon riley, or simon or si. your sweet voice calling his name sounded like a wave of melody in his ears.
but just now when you called his name loudly and it echoed in his flat, he felt the alarm bells ringing in his head.
danger.
he tried to act nonchalant when you stepped in front of him with your arms on your hips. your face was cool but simon could feel the anger behind your eyes.
"yes, love? wha' is it?"
"did you eat my pudding?" you glared at him, crossing your arms.
simon internally winced at that. yes, yes he absolutely did. but simon can't just admit it or else he would be the receiving end of your fury (he already did). he had to protect his pride as your loving and considerate boyfriend no matter what.
"no."
you looked at him, unimpressed. there were no words exchanged but the moment simon denied it, his fate was already sealed. your stare said it all.
you're sleeping on the sofa tonight.
and when you walked away, simon's brain frantically tried to come up with excuses and apologies.
kaminari complains to his friends about how gross it is that you and katsuki kiss every morning in front of your classroom door. like, have some compassion for the singles, yknow ?! his friends tell him to just drop it.
what they don’t know is the reason he kisses you every morning is to guess which flavor your lipgloss is. and he’s a little too proud when he gets it right.