#my meatsuit is my meatsuit

[onbearfeet]

So I just reblogged a thing about how fat people are treated in sports, and this seems as good a place as any to tell a PE trauma story.

Disclaimer: I'm not what most people think of when they say "fat woman". I've been told all my life that I'm too large to exist, of course, as nearly every woman in the English-speaking world has, but I'm on the upper end of the size range for most clothing companies that market to "standard size" women in my age range. So calling myself fat seems a bit like stolen valor (stolen trauma?), but if I had to describe myself in one of my books, I'd use words like "stout" or maybe "pudgy", mostly because I'm slightly shorter but no narrower than my personality leads people to expect. Someone being creepy might write phrases like "soft curves" or "acres of creamy skin". Me, I think it's more helpful to say I'm about 5'5", I've got what my mother insists on calling "childbearing hips", and I was 12 years old the first time strange men in public screamed at me to show them my boobs.

There's a fair bit of me, but if I'm the largest woman in the room I've usually taken a wrong turn.

Anyway, I've more or less always been a very slightly upsized human for my age, and that was also true in high-school PE class. I refused to dodge PE despite the MANY remarks made about my body because I'm pretty sure I have "fuck you, haters" engraved on my bones, but one person who was extra hard to get around was the actual teacher. Because she was somehow convinced that I "wasn't trying" when I ran the mile, because my times didn't improve.

Now, I am a dogshit runner. Always have been. Even when I was doing it for fun for several years, I was total crap. I have a long waist and therefore less leg than usually goes with my meager height, and while I am descended from people who walked across vast steppes, carrying their children and their lives on their backs to escape the wrath of tsars, none of them fucking ran while they were doing it. You don't usually escape a tsar by running, because running makes you tired before you get to the edge of his territory. You escape a tsar by walking and walking and walking and refusing to fucking stop until you're somewhere where no one recognizes your language or has heard of whatever the fuck a tsar is. I can walk for days, but I cannot run for shit, whether I try or not.

So my teacher telling my straight-A ass that my "low effort" on the mile was why I'd be getting the first B of my overachieving life? That was a PROBLEM.

(Also, my parents would kill me. An A was the only passing grade in my family.)

Luckily for me, that was when we hit the weight-training unit.

Most of the girls in the class didn't even want to HAVE weight training, because something something femininity, but I shut up and hit the bench press because I hated most of PE equally and, again, "fuck you, haters" was inscribed on my bones.

Except this time, unlike every other time I shut up and tried harder in PE, something happened.

I started getting stronger. I started upping my weights. I added plates to my bench while half the other girls were still pressing the bar and complaining about it. By the time we finished the unit, I had one of the highest maximum bench-presses in the class, just behind a really hard-core competitive swimmer who had been weight training for years. They wrote my name and maximum on the gym wall in ballpoint, right under hers.

I was doing all the same exercises as most of the other girls in the class ... but I ended up able to pick any one of them up and walk away with her after a few weeks.

After that, the PE teacher pulled me aside with a shocked expression and asked, "Are you really trying as hard on the mile as you are in the weight room?"

"Yes," I snapped back. "It's just that it only works in here."

The next time we ran the mile, I pushed myself so hard I collapsed and vomited at the finish line. It was the fastest I've ever run a mile in my life, and the time was a wildly unremarkable 10 minutes, 47 seconds. I'd shaved maybe ten seconds off my usual time, which hovered around 11 minutes.

The teacher apparently put together the name on the weight-room wall and the puke on the grass and gave me my goddamn A. It didn't stop her from giving me shit the following year, but at least after that my murderous glare was slightly more effective.

Point is, the lesson I learned that my teacher clearly did not is: different bodies are built for different things, and not nearly enough people understand that. Nothing is going to give me the body type of an Olympic sprinter or a WNBA star. I have about the same body shape my mother and grandmother had at my age, and I routinely surprise grocery clerks with my ability to pile all my groceries into one reinforced bag, sling it onto my shoulder like a beach tote, and stroll out of the store. I will never win a marathon or a 100-meter dash, but if you need someone to walk until I'm beyond the reach of the tsar, and carry my worldly goods with me, I'm your gal.

Unless my knee gives out. Fucking middle age.

[art-is-kayos]

Being very normal abt canto 7 I swear

spoilers + Bingo after cut

[middle lines are technicalities/ones I don't fully remember]

[pyunyrage]

[dreamlogic]

i told my physical therapist today about how i plan to get a xenomorph tattooed on my hip to highlight my hysterectomy scar, bc when i still had my reproductive organs i likened period cramps etc to having a live-in chestburster, then after surgery the complications that stupid lil ½" bastard scar gave me made it feel like i still had an alien parasite ravaging my innards... so the tattoo will be an homage to all it took to overcome that long painful history, as well as a way to honor my beloved monster wife.

then she shared a story about a close friend of hers who found out she had a tumor the size of a clementine that had been growing in her brain since childhood. it was safely removed & she's fine now, and she got a tattoo of a clementine slice behind her ear near where the tumor had been as a fun little inside joke with herself.

and i think about the long history of medicinal tattooing, and of people using ink to either cover or accentuate past wounds ranging from self harm to cancer to gender transition and everything in between and i just. i love how humans tell stories with our bodies. i love that we get to decorate the shapes that house our souls to reflect our experiences and celebrate our survival and carry what we find beautiful with us for life.

[roseflowerthorns]

Social anxiety trick -

Tell yourself your just a brain in a meatsuit. It will stop you feeling perceived.

Your welcome 😁👍

[thegreatyin]

being a big fan of gender selectable and/or gender ambiguous characters is so hard because everyone defaults to calling them a guy all the time and it's like. i GUESS that's correct. i guess. you're perfectly free to decide that because that's the point of gender being choosable and im not one to dictate how you play or interpret your playthroughs or opinions on the game. im still gonna fucking kill you though.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

yk, its weird being Way Too Aware & In Control of yourself bc technically i believe im having a panic attack. but somehow i am Very Unbothered by this, bc i know whats happening and its illogical. my body's having an overreaction and i couldn't be fucked to join in

[zmediaoutlet]

They don’t hug, so much as Sam drags Dean in by his biceps and holds him very tight and close for five seconds. Their foreheads together and Dean breathing shocked against Sam’s mouth. Adrenaline shocks up from Sam’s guts and he wants—to throw Dean on the ground, to pick him up and push him against the wall, to do—what he can’t, when Bobby’s calling down, saying boys! Dean gets his hands on Sam’s chest and pushes off, looking up into Sam’s face with this wide-eyed weird expression, and Sam realizes he still has his finger on the Colt’s trigger. He crams the gun into his belt and yells back, “Down here!” and ignores how Bobby says I know that and watches Dean’s face instead, watches how it shifts and locks down, a problem to be dealt with—later.

Later comes after they’ve dug two graves out back of the girl’s house. Whether her real name was Casey or not, Sam doesn’t know. They plant the bodies the demons had used and burn them and Sam thinks that Dean’s going to bitch about the Impala’s windshield getting shattered yet again, but he just watches the flames licking up out of the hole in the dirt. His face set and his eyes steady in the glare, looking past it at something Sam can’t see.

The motel, then, pre-dawn. Bobby’s somewhere. Sam locks the door behind them and watches Dean drop his jacket on one of the beds and set the keys down on the table and then he watches Dean sigh, long and kind of quiet. Not the kind that’s meant to be heard so he can loudly complain about something dumb and distract them both. More just—tired. Long day in a long life.

“You hurt?” Sam says. Not surprised when Dean shakes his head but relieved, anyway. Dean drops to the bed with his back to Sam so Sam comes and sits on the other one, and Dean’s cheek hollows deep on one side before he drops all the way onto his back, looking up at the ceiling. Sam looks up, too. Weird view. Dean mirrored, distant. Like he’s in some other place already.

“What’d you do, anyway?” Sam says. For something to say mostly. “When you were stuck down there. She seemed…” He bites the inside of his lip. “I don’t know. Not like a demon.”

“You an expert?” Dean says. It stings at that deep raw place that’s always open to be stung, but Dean’s not saying it to be an asshole, or not any more of an asshole than he usually is by being Sam’s brother. He tucks his hands behind his head, meets Sam’s eyes in the mirror. “I don’t know, either. Guess she kind of didn’t. Didn’t try to use weird mojo on me or anything. Other than her rack hanging out of that shirt.”

“If we start calling that demonic we’re gonna have to exorcize every bartender you’ve ever asked for their number,” Sam says. Dean grins up at the ceiling and some coiled hard thing in Sam’s stomach loosens, slightly. He stretches out his legs, doesn’t pretend he’s not sort of tangling them with Dean’s. Dean doesn’t move away but his grin softens. “She say anything?” Raised eyebrows and Sam shrugs. “I don’t know. You were together a long time. I’m guessing you weren’t playing canasta.”

“Jealous,” Dean says, half-singing. Sam rolls his eyes, but Dean’s grin is all gone, now. He bites his lower lip and then turns his head, looking toward the headboard. “Said a lot. Not much worth listening to, though. No worries, you didn’t miss out on the demonic church sermon.”

Tired, again. Expression shuttering, turning inward, again. Sam looks down, not at the image of his brother but the one in real life, warm. Still here.

He kicks against Dean’s ankle, not all that gently. Dean says ow! and sits up on his elbows, glaring at Sam. “The hell was that for?” he says.

“Don’t fall asleep,” Sam says. He glances up at the ceiling. “Thought you wanted to make use of the decor.”

Dean stares at him and then huffs out a laugh. “Well, damn, Sammy,” he says. “You can pick your moments, huh?”

The adrenaline’s gone but Sam still wants Dean as close as he can get him, as long as he can get him. Here, not looking for the echo of flames in the dark. Where Sam will keep him, no matter the cost. “Sin’s not really my forte,” he says, “but I figure we could give it a shot.”

“Wow,” Dean says. “Okay, you’re banned from trying out lines.”

“That worked!” Sam says, and Dean sits up all the way, says, “It really didn’t, little brother,” but he’s looking Sam in the face and he’s grinning and he’s maybe thinking about the mirrors over their heads and not about anything else, so. Maybe the line did work, after all.

[brbuttons]

Sometimes a god is the imploded personification of flesh trapped in a mascot costume. And often it's your friend.~

Finalizing some Personifications designs for Artfight.

[thesealfriend]

begging folk to remember that even positively commenting on someone's weight change can fuck em up

like i know you're saying "hey u look good" but what I'm hearing is "well done on taking 3hrs to eat a sandwich and averaging a meal every day or two"

none of this is ed behaviour, it's meatsuit + meds bullshit, but if i keep getting positive reinforcement about it that's gonna change!!!!!

[angeltism]

gender is so weird bc I'm both a soooorta cis girl but also a trans man who wants to be hairy and grow facial hair (I call this transition goal the ga.le deka.rios for obvious reasons. that man has a good looking beard!!) but also the stereotypical bug they/them but also dolls and the need to transition into looking like a doll and also just fucking. ascend to godhood (could also be considered the ga.le deka.rios)

[strigital]

just a smol dose of SilverV 'cause i'm sick, tired and high as a kite on painmeds, and these two bring me nothing but blissful pain and dejected happiness 💜

[thoreau-up]

Maybe this is autism, maybe i’m just insecure, but i really dislike how I can’t feel ownership over my own face.

When I look in the mirror or photos I don’t innately feel that my face is my face, and I feel like that’s something other people feel without even a thought. I’m always thinking to myself, “This is you,” every time I look in the mirror. Now I don’t have to think about it that much because i’ve luckily Pavlov’ed myself over the years, but I still don’t feel that it’s my face. It’s like my face is on loan from its actual owner and, naturally, I want to give it back so I can have my own. I have this habit of examining old photos of my parents, searching for any trace of genetic likeness from me to them, trying to scientifically will my brain into understanding that this is, indeed, my face. I can understand science. Genetically, I look like a mix of my parents; that is me. I look at my brother and see shared likeness between us. His face is like my face, but I wonder if he owns his.

But I also don’t feel like my being has a face. It’s either just a reflection of my current peers or nothingness. I don’t like knowing that people see this face and associate it with me because it’s not me. It’s like a mask I can’t take off (haha, mask, masking, I see that). I feel most like myself when I dissolve the concept of having a body from me, like pretending i’m not stuck in this temporary meat suit. I feel most like me when I forget i have a body and lose myself in things, hobbies, activities, laughs, etc. I am a verb, not a noun. I am the seeing in the mirror, not the subject reflected back.

[dreamlogic]

re: tags on prev post, i lied about not having any internally felt sense of gender. i feel gender euphoria when:

- engaging in faggotry (love seeing my angular hairy body in femme clothing, and feel significantly more masculine in the context of my attraction to men)

- when it's funny to be a man

- when i get to scare the shit outta cis men by unexpectedly & abruptly dropping the masc mask to fuck w/ their gender hangups

- when meeting Softboys, cause often there's this muscle of kneejerk performativity cis guys have had drilled in since childhood that unclenches around me when they learn i'm trans and it's beautiful. it's hard to explain but for example; my housemate's boyfriend, an absolutely jacked 6'3" woodworker who wears big clompy cowboy boots, sometimes shyly & politely asks me gender questions and we bond over how fucked up and pointless the Intricate Rituals™ are. or my dad, early in my transition, earnestly asking me if he was a woman because he's always felt more emotional and nurturing than he was supposed to as a man. i asked him if he felt like a woman at all, if he wanted to be one, explained dysphoria to him for context. he thought about that for a long moment and said no. so i was like well then i think that just means you're a man with a big heart.

- when i get to be a gentleman and/or model healthy nurturing supportive masculinity, especially rewarding with kids & old ladies (shout-out to the grandmother & grandson who flagged me down on the street once because "his mama told him boys can't have long hair, but look at you! that's just not true")

- when someone calls me "good boy" and my tail wags so hard

[solradguy]

I had a dream I killed a dragon with my bare hands (and some Dwarves but that's irrelevant) and this kid saw me do it and recruited me to help him find his stolen DVD since no other adult was taking him seriously. So I broke into the house of one of his friends by installing and flying up to the second floor window. But then the kid and his family came home and I was trapped in the closet for the rest of the dream. It smelled like stale milk and I couldn't go back to a human form because it had a cooldown, they'd find me because it was loud, and I didn't have enough room in the closet anyway. It was miserable. Hangers kept getting caught on my wings and rattling around. I couldn't even sit on the floor

[milkweedman]

I literally had to get shirtless while straining this--it was just splashing everywhere. Finally got it all tho, about a liter and a half/a third of a gallon. Done with distilled water, and the wool is alum mordanted (in tap water--I hope that doesn't affect anything but who knows, and I didn't want to carry that much water around). I poured some dye in and then topped it off with vinegar, and we'll see. Cooking on medium in the crock pot to prevent my roommates from changing the dial on the stove and boiling all my dye. Fingers crossed.