#my shifting experiences

[natashas-stark]

nobody can take away the fact that i went to bed thinking i wasn’t going to actively try to shift (because i was exhausted from the day) and i told myself i was just going to think of my s/o and dr and i woke up dead confused as to why my s/o wasn’t in bed next to me. i went to go to the bathroom and saw my house (dr) and blinked and was in my bathroom (cr).

it happened. shifting is real. and it’s so simple.

[inkskinned]

the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.

sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.

you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.

it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.

but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.

they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.

they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.

barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.

and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.

but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.

they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!

this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.

[lycorim]

Only her bones returned.

[inspo & reference]

[battlekidx2]

“Do you like girls?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you like boys?”

“I don’t know. I think I like TV shows.”

I remember when I was in middle school all the other girls were talking about the guys they liked and I said I didn’t like anyone. I just wanted to do my own thing.

I didn’t really get why I would want to date anyone. I understood friendship, companionship— having someone to share my interests and mutually info dump to sounded cool— but I struggled to understand the appeal of spending every day and every night with someone else. Of holding hands and going on dates. 

This led to a lot of homophobic bullying and a few of them would act disgusted that I might be into them. Constantly acting like I was looking at their boobs and sexualizing them (I never made eye contact with anyone and would frequently look at the wall or space out while looking in their general direction). Or make a big show of not being interested and many other things.

I didn’t get this either. I didn’t know why I would be interested in any of them. They treated me poorly and I thought attraction was something people made up and simply just claimed to feel towards other people.

Just like I never understood celebrity crushes. You don’t know the person so how could you possibly know you liked them? And I never understood how people “chose” who they dated. Did they just choose whoever they liked hanging out with the most?

But any time I voiced this it was always met with worse and worse reactions. It led to isolation among peers and my family. My parents made it pretty clear I wasn’t who they wanted me to be. That I wasn’t normal.

I soon learned to fake it. Pretend I understood it.

The idea of not being attracted to anyone seemed like a foreign idea to most people I met. Even when I branched out and moved away, I met a few people in the lgbt community who couldn’t grasp it either and reacted poorly and it made me feel stupid. Like maybe I wasn’t just screwed up to people who fit in the neat little box society wants you to fit in, but to everyone else as well.

Maybe I was wrong. If it’s an impossibility even in this community that champions diversity and acceptance then can that really be my reality?

I kept trying to force it. To date, but every time I did I always felt that same skin crawling discomfort and it always petered out. It didn’t matter who it was or what gender. It always felt wrong. It was suffocating.

I don’t think there’s a movie that better portrays that all consuming, suffocating stagnation of feeling so out of place– knowing you’re out of place compared to those around you– and in response forcing yourself to fit what other people expect of you than I Saw the TV Glow.

Whenever I think back to growing up or whenever I return home that same feeling this movie is centered around always drenches my experiences.

And even now it’s hard to put into words when I talk to other people what I’ve felt when it comes to this aspect of my life.

That comment from Owen about knowing there’s nothing there when talking about romance and attraction, but being too afraid to look and knowing that his parents know something is wrong with him hit harder than any other scene from a movie I’ve watched this year.

It’s that absence of something that is at the heart of asexuality that makes me always question what I choose to identify as when I have to explain it to someone. Because for the most part my explanation boils down to (in broad oversimplified terms): I’ve never felt attraction, I’m more interested in watching a Spider-Man movie than I’ve ever been into even just the idea of dating, every time I’ve attempted to date it’s been uncomfortable and I’ve actively dodged anything beyond friendship while in the “relationship”.

And when I try to voice that to another person it always feels like those experiences don’t hold water. That’s describing the absence of something. There’s no real proof of the identity.

With being bi or gay or lesbian there’s something you can I don’t know—point to?— that can help you know your identity.

And that’s the fact that you’ve experienced attraction towards one or more people of one or more genders.

It’s defined not by the lack of something but the presence of an experience.

And so every time I try and explain it I end up feeling stupid. Like I just haven’t tried hard enough to find someone compatible. That I need to get back into the proverbial saddle and try again. I always in some way feel ashamed and backtrack as a result.

This is in no way to say that it’s harder or easier to be one identity or the another. Everyone’s experiences are different and everyone experiences are valid. This is just a struggle I’ve found that’s unique to asexuality that many people I’ve talked to have also experienced.

I haven’t felt that part of my experience be seen in media until I saw this movie. Maybe I’m latching onto what I can get or maybe that was an intrinsic part of the movie. That’s not important. What’s important is that it’s something I felt seen in even if it was literally just one scene.

This is my really long winded and roundabout way of saying that I really think this movie is going to stick with me much longer than any other thing I’ve seen this year.

Things can be hard to put into words and as a result I tend to keep things inside. I’m fairly certain I’m ace but it might turn out I’m on a different romantic spectrum then I thought or I fall somewhere different than I thought on the ace spectrum. I don’t know what I’ll discover in the future.

I’m likely not going to express my label out loud to anyone but a select few. I still can’t express this particular label out loud to many people. My family is definitely never going to hear it. A friend or two might.

It’s something I struggle with on a regular basis. I’m fine with identifying with the label in my head—in a lot of ways it makes me feel comfortable and happy— but any time I try to voice it the words die in my throat and I can’t help but feel ashamed. It’s easier to just tell people I don’t want to date right now. That there are all these factors in the way (finances, time, jobs, etc) than it is to try and explain what I’ve just rambled about above.

I know many people have felt and understood that experience and I hope people know they’re valid. You can express your identity with your full chest, shout it from the rooftops and let people know, or you can keep it to yourself, identifying as your label solely in your head. Both experiences are valid. And if your label changes at some point in your life that doesn’t make what you chose to identify as at this point any less valid too. People are always learning and growing. You can gain a new understanding of yourself as time move forward.

Sorry for the way too long ramble. This movie made me feel things.

[uncanny-tranny]

I think it's so relatable to see trans women and transfem and generally people who no longer have a testosterone-dominant system describing what it was like to have a testosterone-dominant system. I find that often, when they talk about being angry, depressed, irate, or just irritable, I relate because that was me before I went on testosterone. I was so fucking angry and irate and genuinely unpleasant to exist around because I didn't have testosterone.

See, I think instead of estrogen or testosterone being the "bad, angry" hormone, it's more like... of course trans people who need hormones are going to be unpleasant before getting hormones - both your body and your brain require that you have a certain level of hormone balance. Of course somebody like me was fucking furious all the time, the brain does weird shit when its needs aren't fulfilled!

This isn't about criticizing any one group of trans people, rather, I encourage people to remember that ascribing inherent qualities to certain traits (e.g., saying "estrogen is such a horrible hormone!") isn't necessarily good. It's absolutely fine to talk about personal experiences with pre-transition, I do that all the time! The only issue is bioessentializing hormones, in essence, ascribing inherentness to traits we often share.

[soup-child]

The fact that Adaine "i don't know if im asexual im 15" Abernant and Riz "why is everyone so horny im definately aroace" Gukgak both being in the same show is incredibly important to me

[ternwithatmblr]

fun little question for therian tumblr

Any of y'all have shifts that just, never go away? My phantom ears and tail never go away, unless I'm having a shift for one of my other theriotypes since they usually don't blend together. Them phantom ears and tail be going HARD all the time. Paws are also a near constant.

[lolashifts]

WELCOME ｡𖦹°‧⭑.ᐟ

hi hi! my name is paola and this is my shifting sideblog! (you can find my main at @golden-wisegirl where i just talk about my fav media and yap)

i’ve been on my shifting journey for 4 years now. many things have changed since i first started, from the information going around to my own mindset, and it would be a lie to say i never once felt discouraged and about to give up. but it’s a part of the process and it is absolutely important to remember that we found shifting for a reason, and it’s much better to try one more time than to just let go of every single thing that we can achieve and experience through it!!

i’ve decided to create this sideblog bc the shifting community on here has always been really welcoming (shiftok could never) and i just wanted to share my thoughts and journey + experiences with everyone else! so please do feel free to interact <3

⤷ shifted: yes! (not to my drs yet)

i have yet to share anything and once i do i’ll update this, but for now here’s a list of the places i’m definitely planning to go to!

✰ : drs i have a script for

fame dr (x2) ✰ ✰

harry potter (golden trio era)

attack on titan

one direction ✰

pokémon

percy jackson

my hero academia ✰

how to train your dragon

haikyuu!!

sword art online ✰

outer banks

stranger things

waiting room ✰

i want this to be a safe space for everyone so please be nice + my dms are always open if you need anything and asks too!

thank you for reading and happy shifting <3 💌

[crybbyology]

[natashas-stark]

my shifting journey became easier when i cut out unnecessary information and just did what i wanted instead of seeking validation from outside sources by doing what they wanted me to do

[crazysnor1ax]

Any other alterhumans long to have instincts they don’t have?

Maybe it’s more-so me wishing my “human” instincts didn’t get in the way of things, but there’s so many things I WISH I had the instincts for. I’ve got hunger-related instincts, sure, but I want to feel more like me. I want to have territorial instincts. I want to long for the chase of a hunt without that human-made side of my mind telling me not to. Ugh. Sad werewolf hours

[novella-november]

For the record, I've gotten another ask that is complaining that I am encouraging people to branch out and experiment with original fiction vs fanfiction for the short story events -- that is to say, the events that consist of four, 5k short stories in a month, NOT me telling people they have to write 30k original words in November. If you read it that way, please go back and re-read the original posts.

It has part of this blog from day 1 that fanfiction is not only included and embraced in this challenge alongside technical and non-fiction writing, and if you take me encouraging people to also give original fiction *a try* on one of the mini challenges as a personal attack of some kind, I'm not sure what to say.... except I'm not going to have my inbox filled with this.

Re-read my biggest, top post, where I literally included Fanfiction and technical, non-fiction writing as fully fledged options on the literal announcement post of this blog.

I do not hate fanfiction, I do not look down on fanfiction, and I read and write plenty of it myself.

Suggesting that people might consider writing a short original story for one of the 5k a week challenges is not me attacking fanfiction or fanfiction writers, because I literally am one.

I am not going to be engaging in any further asks that act like I am browbeating or guilting people into not writing fanfiction or that I am "looking down on fanfiction writers".

I've responded privately to probably a dozen different blogs who asked about fanfiction since this blog began and forgot those dozen responses weren't visible to the rest of Tumblr, so it looked like the only times I had mentioned it at all were when I got asked twice in 24 hours about it.

Its been on the announcement post of this blog since day one that fanfiction is allowed along with any other form of writing.

If you are mad at me for encouraging people to give original writing a try for a writing contest alongside fanfiction then idk man 🤷

[sideprince]

I resent getting dragged into the discourse but it's wild to me that there are people out there who read the HP books and laud Harry for being brave and having a big heart and redeeming the wizarding world with his unusually great ability to love, yet can't comprehend how he could learn to appreciate Snape's sacrifice.

I'm very specifically thinking of the fact that Harry watches Snape die. Snape, who is lying on the floor, gripping Harry's robes, and whose eyes Harry is looking into and seeing the life leave. I don't understand how people can humanize some fictional characters and treat them as if they were real and completely dehumanize another. Not even for Snape's sake, but for Harry's sake, do these people not understand what it is to watch someone die? What's the expectation, that the Capacity For Love Posterchild protagonist steps out of character and doesn't care about the guy he watches bleed out and die suffering because you, as a reader, don't like him?

Which is it? Does Harry have a huge capacity to love or not? Pick a lane. Either you value this character trait in Harry or you don't. But you have to take or leave everything it comes with, otherwise you're a hypocrite. Or maybe illiterate.

I just don't GET it.

[driftingvoid-155]

Michael, proud he got the fnaf 6 job: 'So what stood out that made you decide to hire me?'

Henry: 'you were the only one that applied'

[fairylando]

carlos i hope you realize from this that you really need to bring back the nostril piercing because it's made for you!!!!

from here

[olivexing]

had a dream about turning into a giant robot

I kept changing, but my environment stayed the same.

It was initially strangely euphoric, but quickly became claustrophobic. It’s a recurring dream