#not only did I learn to accept myself

[sharkneto]

Hey, sorry if this is a bit of a personal question - and feel free to ignore it if it is - but how did you know you wanted to start hrt? I am someone who IDs as transmasc and knows in an ideal world, I would've loved to have been born a guy. But the idea of going on hormones is terrifying because I can't figure out if I really want it... I worry about regretting it, or it making me 'unappealing' physically, or my friends judging me for it. Did you ever struggle with similar worries?

I think every person thinking about and starting HRT goes through this. A rite of passage, if you will, and also not a bad thing to do. HRT is a big step, some of the changes (especially on T) are irreversible. It's good to think through if it's a choice that's right for you or not.

That said, it's also Just A Thing You Can Do. I first started really questioning my gender at the end of 2020 (thank you, Elliot Page, for coming out and making me go "oh shit, you can do that?"). I got a therapist to talk about gender... Mid 2022? And started hormones spring 2023, top surgery a year later.

Before getting the therapist, I spent over a year Just Thinking About It. And a lot of the thoughts were around the changes on T and if I'd like them or not or if I'd regret them. If I'd be ugly, after being conventionally attractive as a woman.

It hits a point, though, where eventually you have to pull the plug one way or another. I spent a lot of time thinking about how my body would change on T. A Lot. With longing. I caught myself putting things off Until I Knew For Sure and because I didn't want to do it while being perceived as a woman. I was sitting, treading water for a hypothetical Later that I could start moving towards at any time. I was scared for the Teenage Round 2 phase, and didn't want to spend months being "ugly and awkward", but then the months passed anyway and I was still in the same spot.

HRT isn't an all-or-nothing thing, you can ease into it on a low dose. My doctor started me on a low dose and we ramped up over months. Some T changes can start pretty quickly (voice dropping, bottom growth - this isn't true for everyone, but was true for me). If these changes excite you, make you feel good - great! Keep going! If they scare you, feel wrong - stop. Assess. Figure out what about it isn't right (a gender therapist for all of this process is a Huge Help). In early days if you stop T, the changes can revert, for the most part. But you can always stop at any time.

The bigger thing I actively worked to wrap my head around before starting HRT is - Who Cares If You're Wrong? What's right for you now might not be right for you later. The idea of detransitioning was scary to me, society has such a weird spotlight on it, the Right uses people who have detransitioned as props against transition. But it shouldn't matter. At the end of the day, if I do change my mind, I'll know myself better, and I don't think it's wrong to chase and find comfort in your own body.

A year+ on T, I've mostly made it through the ugly duck phase, I think. I was lucky, I didn't get bad acne or get too oily or anything (after having horrible acne in my first puberty). Most of what I dealt with was the chronic baby face, where I was getting read as male but a teenager - I'm almost 30 and a woman wanted to card me over a free T-shirt at a baseball game because it had beer logos on it. After some middle months of changes and going "oh my god what am I doing" and not feeling confident in how this was all going to turn out, I think of myself as relatively attractive and I think I'm just going to get more vain as my beard comes in. Some of that is physical, sure, but I think a significant amount of that is me feeling more confident in myself and liking the body I'm in more. I was never a selfie or picture person, now I am. I joke I'm like a budgie, always looking at myself if there's a reflective surface nearby. I'm more excited to exercise, I'm interested in lifting weights for the first time, I'm curious what my body on T can do and become. Keep your eyes on the pieces that are going well, the changes exciting you, and let the rest catch up.

My social circle helped a lot. I'm very lucky and blessed to have great friends and family, all of whom are supportive. If you don't have friends who are supportive of you, that are judging you for exploring yourself rather than lifting you up for it, it's a sign to expand the social circle and find ones that are. Family is harder, but that's a thing you have to navigate for yourself and find your own boundaries for.

So, there's no ~one moment~ where you're 100% certain that medical transition is right for you. It's a huge unknown and you're changing the body you've had your entire life. At some point, though, you just have to jump and see how it lands. Part of being alive is making mistakes and doing things you might regret.

That said, the regret rate for trans people is something like 3%. The regret rate for knee surgery is something like 20%. Trust yourself.

[candycryptids]

😇- What's their best trait?

👿- What's their worst trait?

for Tuesday and Chuu

“Miss Chuu’s best trait? Mmm… You said this is an interview for your retelling of the Warriors of Light and their journey, right? I’d say it’s her unshakeable resolve. She decides she’s going to do something, and she doesn’t give up until it’s done. Ah… I’m not allowed to speak more on Miss Chuu without her presence, my apologies, mister Levraut.”

“You broke into my house,”

“Your lovely wife let me in actually,”

“To wake me up from my nap and interrogate me on my assistant,”

“Interview, Mademoiselle, not interrogate. Though I am sorry for waking you, your eyes were open so I assumed-”

“Ah-ta-ta. You wanted to know Two’s best trait right? Adaptability. Any environment, any obstacle… he’s got brains enough to figure the way through most anything. And failing that? He knows a top notch engineer in Magitek to kit him with the right tools to overcome his few shortcomings. Hey wait did you fucking call me a mad gazelle, you lop-eared scab?!”

“Thank you for your time, both of you. I have just one more question before I consider this interview complete and I let you both go back to your.. erm, busy schedules. What would you say is each others weakest trait?”

“I knew it! This IS an interrogation! Two, don’t-”

“Ah, that would be Miss Chuu’s paranoia, mister Levraut. Most of her other traits net positive gain,”

“Watch your mouth, Two.”

“That is.. ah, her paranoid trait has served to pull her out of many situations she would have landed in had they not afforded her foresight and caution to approach most situations.”

“Two’s worst trait is how I just can’t seem to keep mad at him when he finds and exploits loopholes in whatever rules I’ve set for him. And last week I asked him to bring me lunch, and he was nowhere to be seen for nearly six bells.”

“… Miss Chuu, if I may, you were in Azys La, and you called me via Linkpearl to bring you specifically egg sandwiches from the Bismark, even utilizing the Aethernet it takes time… and when I arrived at your last marked location you were nowhere to be found.”

[Duo Oc Ask Meme !]

[blackswallowtailbutterfly]

Still haven't messaged my mom back. And I don't think I'm going to.

[sherlock-is-ace]

.

[eggwishing]

little peek at somethjing i am cooking up ...

[snekdood]

ppl who larp about the Revolution™ almost seem to expect someone *else* to take the leading role in it all so they can sit inside on their asses and do jack shit, they know they have no meaningful skills to offer and would only slow people down, but expect to *somehow* magically radicalize most americans into doing all the work for them because awww dey're just such a weak wittle babu that needs to be pwotected and defwended awlways uwu

like. come on. get a grip. if everything went your way and someone actually stronger than you came along to take the lead, you're likely not being invited, and you'll likely be left behind... which means left to the alt right, who will no doubt come to your house to see if you're perpetuating anything "woke", and you gotta know they wont just ask, they'll barge in and look through everything even your computer.

though, you should really focus on your plan. your first step: get along with people enough to even actually convince them its a good idea, and we all know you'll never dare to try that shit. you cant even be on here w/o blocking someone like me for even suggesting you are approaching this like a child playing war and you have NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT YOU'RE DOING.

you think you want a second holocaust (which is essentially letting trump win, i mean hitler got the majority vote in germany. thats how he rose to power. didn't just materialize out of thin air), but you dont seem to grasp the gravity of what that entails, or even that you'd be thrown in the camps with everyone else, all to stick it to jewish ppl and "the libs", even if it means you and all the ones you love die along with them. you are a net negative to humanity and quite frankly should be on a fucking watch list.

[izzy-b-hands]

today should be a t break day

bc I'll need it to be more effective in the coming days if we see family, and then I'll have the survey shifts

but since late last night i keep randomly nearly breaking into tears and thinking abt the stupidest shit that needs to stay in the box in my brain

so idk. maybe it will be. it is thus far. but I'm not leaving my room without a container of some edible or another in my pocket either

[theultracharmingladynoire]

something something about how the rings not just symbolised Yuuri and Victor's bond and was not just an omamori for them something something Victor was the first person Yuuri wanted to hold on to and share his dreams with and depend on after fighting for so long ALONE something something the rings symbolising this exact same thing something something about how Yuuri's arc still is wonderful even when he didn't win the gold because he finally learnt to actually depend on people, share his dreams and aims with them and not fight alone which is something he struggles with for the whole show

[haemosexuality]

these past few days i have been uncharacteristically. emotionally open. w my friend and it has me thinking about how truly for all of my life i just did not expect anything from anyone

[whimsyprinx]

i think I just need to stop clinging to and getting so attached to people

[planetarytransformation]

so many of the transfems i know spent their time pre-transition performing a kind of lifelong exercise in self-deprivation, the goal of which was to find out exactly how little a person needed to live. they starved themselves, dressed carelessly, shunned friends, and hollowed themselves out so as not to be burdens on anyone but themselves.

i see it now, too, in the girls around me. i'll ask if they want care – a home-cooked meal, relaxed company, sex without the expectation of reciprocation – and they say no, no, thank you, i don't need it; what would you like, what do you want, because in their head they're still doing that awful calculus, still training themselves to disappear in the eyes of the people around them.

i don't think i'd have died without transition – not in the conventional sense, at least – but to take that leap, i had to stop thinking of myself as a human experiment in fuel-efficient living and start nurturing the anemic, atrophied flame of desire in my heart. i had to learn to eat well, to exercise, to style myself beautiful, but harder than that, i had to learn to ask the people around me to work on my behalf in order to enrich my life and give me the things i wanted.

and i did it; i learned. and it was agony, but courage is a muscle you can train, and every day i get better at accepting gifts with the hungry gratitude i never learned in my years and years as a sad, scared, lonely boy.

so be patient with the trans girls in your life. better than that: be proactive, attentive, generous; be forceful, if you have to, and learn to distinguish real discomfort from the terrified reflex of self-denial that so many of us once learned to rely on.

and if you are so lucky as to love a trans girl, you must insist upon her. you must insist upon her happiness, her comfort, her pleasure, and her rest, because she may still not yet know how to make those demands for herself. if you can devote any amount of energy to becoming an engine that nurtures the flame of even a single tgirl then there is a place for you in trans heaven, which as far as i'm concerned is the only one worth going to

[charlattehotte]

why! don't! pharmacies! have! bathrooms!

[foldingfittedsheets]

I think something a lot of other people can relate to is the way that you get so conditioned to discomfort that you stop registering it.

I remember sitting at the table with my family, eating dinner as a child. I’d try to eat, because of course I was hungry. But sometimes the flavor or texture was so repugnant that it moved into a category of Not Food.

“Two more bites before you can leave the table.”

“I can’t,” I’d say, trying to explain the impossibility.

But because I was a child they heard, “I won’t,” and made me sit at the table. I’d sit in dull agonized silence, bored and hungry for hours until bedtime when they’d give up. I’d hate myself for not eating and my parents for forcing me to sit there. The few forcefeeding moments ended in vomit.

They’d say, “If you don’t eat this you can’t eat a snack later,” and I moved past trying to communicate my discomfort into accepting that I’d just be hungry.

That state of affairs didn’t last, because my parents realized nothing could force me to eat so they catered to my palate, worrying they’d starve me. But the message stuck. If you can’t do anything about a situation, just accept the suffering.

A few years later my mother called me off the playground to ask, “Are you limping?”

I shrugged. My feet had hurt for a long time, but that was just the way things were now. My mom pulled my socks and shoes off and gasped. The soles of my feet were covered in huge painful planters warts.

“Why didn’t you say anything?!” She demanded but I could only shrug at her. I’d learned a long time ago that saying things about my discomfort didn’t matter, so now I had no words. Sometimes things hurt and sometimes they don’t. I simply accepted and did my best.

Now as an adult trying to learn to improve my own conditions can be hard. If I make food that I can’t eat I’ll force myself to sit at the counter still, full of guilt and self loathing, trying to will myself to eat it.

At first I needed my betrothed to gently take it away to present me with something I could eat. Now on my own I can usually admit that it’s not happening before too long and get something else, but I still feel guilty.

Laying in bed at night waiting for my betrothed to finish getting ready I let out a huge sigh of relief when they turned the lights off.

“Why didn’t you turn them off if they bothered you?��� they asked the first time it happened.

“I didn’t even know it was bothering me until it was gone.”

Assessing my physical state now to see if I can improve it is something I’m still relearning but I’m relieved to finally have the space and support to do it.

[hedgehog-moss]

I saw an astronaut walking on the side of the road today, which is the kind of thing my brain will placidly accept at first, only to go "Wait, an astronaut" a minute later once I'm done with my previous train of thought. By then I felt like it might be too late to stop my car, but I ended up stopping anyway because I didn't want to spend the rest of the afternoon wondering.

I waited for the astronaut to catch up with me since they were going in my direction, but they didn't. Eventually I got out of the car and retraced my steps, and after a bend in the road when I saw no one walking towards me I decided the visitor must have gone back to their spacecraft and I would never get an explanation for this—and then in the distance I caught a glimpse of the white space suit disappearing into the forest.

I managed to catch up with them and they turned out to be a distant neighbour of mine (let's call her M.), and what looked like a space suit when I was driving by was a beekeeper's outfit! (Sorry for the pointless suspense but I was taking you on the same little journey my brain went through.) M. was tickled when she learnt that I mistook her for an astronaut—she told me she'd borrowed her husband's too-big shoes which made her drag her feet, hence why she looked like she was having trouble readjusting to Earth's gravity.

Then she said that one of her hives had swarmed, and she was pretty sure she knew where the swarm was. I had no idea how swarming worked so as we walked in the woods she explained that when a hive becomes too crowded, the queen will get replaced by a new one, and the old queen will leave along with half of the bees. After this split, the swarm will cluster somewhere nearby and wait while scout bees fly away in search of a new hive location. "That's when you have to catch them—if you can find the swarm. But here it is!"

I wasn't expecting quite so many bees!! I'm pretty scared of all flying creatures so allow me to pat myself on the back for what came next—I thought I was about to learn how to catch a swarm from a prudent distance, but M. asked if I could give her a hand, seeing as her husband was supposed to be here to help but clearly wasn't.

The first step of catching a swarm was spraying the bees with sugar water, and I was glad not to be asked to help with that, as it seemed like something that could make bees angry. ("On the contrary, it makes them less agitated!" I was told, but that remained to be seen.) Step 2 was pulling on a rope tied to the tree branch in order to lower the swarm into the new hive, and that was the job I was recruited for. The rope was long enough that I could stand several metres away to pull on it, but my role in this swarm-catching business was still all too clear to any angry bee looking for someone to blame.

I remembered reading that bees can sense the electric field of flowers, so I thought there was no way they wouldn't sense the staticky nervousness coming from the rope-puller, but thankfully they completely ignored me.

M. was offering one fun fact about bees after the other, in a very relaxed voice, which was very interesting and very soothing for both me and the bees. She said this particular colony was very sweet ("some bee colonies are meaner than others?" "yes of course"), and that swarming usually happens a bit earlier in the year "but it's been raining so much lately, the bees had to postpone all their activities, just like us" and also "swarming involves quite a bit of planning ahead of time; for example worker bees have to put the queen on a diet so she won't be too fat to fly. Did you know that?" I did not!

Unfortunately our first attempt to catch the swarm failed. The bees entered the hive, had a quick look around their new home, then left in disgust and formed a thick, angry, buzzing cloud over our heads, while I tried to think nothing but bee-loving thoughts to make my electric field harmless and friendly.

Then one after the other all the bees returned to the exact same spot on the branch where we'd first found them. ("Because it smells like the queen" said M.) We examined the near-empty hive and found that a mouse had made a nest in there! She was no longer here but the traces of her passage were evident (some of the comb was very nibbled.)

As we were removing the supplies brought in by the mouse (sticks, hay), M.'s husband joined us and he had brought a spray bottle containing some sort of bee-attracting liquid (pheromones?) (I didn't have a close look at the bottle because I made sure to stay far away from the bee-attracting liquid, while he sprayed it inside the hive.)

He had also brought a white sheet which he spread under the tree, explaining that the bees will want to get away from the bright surface and look for darkness, thus hopefully getting inside the box. Another thing I learnt is that once the queen enters the hive, the nearest worker bees will spread the message by turning round and fluttering their wings to send a chemical signal in specific directions, which will be picked up by other bees farther away; at strategic intervals some bees will light the beacons of Gondor turn round and fan their wings to relay this scent-message until the entire colony is informed of the queen's new location.

We were more successful the second time around! This time the bees who went in didn't immediately get out again to return to their branch. Well I say "we" but I didn't volunteer to pull on the rope again, so I can't claim any role in this victory. But my personal victory was that I stood quite a bit nearer this time so I could watch everything closely, and I felt more intrigued than nervous. Bees were constantly zipping past me but it had become clear that my electric field was pure and they bore me no ill will. I was always fond of bees from afar and happy to see them do their thing in flowers in the spring, but today's adventure got me interested in their daily life as well, so I think I'll read some books about bees this summer!

I was reading last month about the morality of termite colonies (Maeterlinck's La vie des termites) and I had a feeling this man must have written some poetic stuff about bees as well—and he did. Here's a translated excerpt from his book "La vie des abeilles" :)

[lifetimeoftired]

Thought more on the 'Batfam in Danny's world' stuff.

Red Robin: What is this? -holds up a clunky early 2000s device he found in Danny's room between his pinched fingers, like it might bite him- Danny: Oh, my PDA? Tucker insisted on buying it for me but honestly I'm not really that great with tech so I don't use it much. He usually follows me around trying to manage my schedule with it. Red Robin: Concerning but, more concerning, this thing... Works? Danny: It's the latest model, so it should? Red Robin: Latest... -trying not to cringe- How do you connect to the internet on it? Or take pictures? Danny, with genuine excitement: Your PDA can do that!? Man, that sounds way cooler than the plastic that lets you see all the stuff inside! Red Robin: I'm In Hell.

Spoiler: Having villains for parents is the worst right? Danny: I mean, my mom accidentally brings the food to life and it tries to bite us. But the keyword is 'accidentally'. They're mostly harmless. Spoiler: They literally just shot at you??? Danny: They shot at Phantom. They don't know it's actually me you know? Also I don't even worry about it. They don't have very good aim since I'm not a danger to them and Dad only gets badass when mom is in danger. Mom's always a badass but it's good dodging practice. Besides, I'd be more worried about them dissecting me, what with the whole, I'm technically an entirely different species that they've been studying their whole life and don't think I'm sentient anymore. But y'know it's whatever. They're not actually all that bad and I know they love me deep down. Spoiler: I'm not sure whether to borrow Hood's guns and shoot you myself or kidnap you away from here and force Batman to adopt you. Danny: Wha-

Danny: Alright a few more adjustments aaaaand there! Signal: Oh wow! Thanks! It's nuce to be able to see again without getting black spots on my vision. There's so many ghosts around it can be hard to see. Danny, biting his lip trying not to laugh: No problem. Signa;: .... What? Danny: Nothing! You look great dude! Signal: ....... Danny: ....... Signal: What did you put on my face!? Danny: Sun glasses! Signal: -skids to a halt in front of mirror and sure enough they're sun glasses. But they're triangular and the hooks go aaaall the way up to hook around the bat-ear points and look completely ridiculous- Danny Why :( Danny: -trying to say 'sorry' through his giggles, but he's not really sorry-

Danny: Uuuuh Red Hood I can't see your face, but I'm kinda worried about how many guns you're loading right now. Red Hood: I just want your 15th birthday party to be safe, okay? Danny: I'll be fine? It'd be nice if the other ghosts gave me a day off sure, but fighting them seems safer. I don't really want my mom to bake a cake anyway. Knowing her it'd just come alive so if they forget this year it's fine. I'm just, those are real guns man. They're dangerous. Red Hood: They are. -cocks gun- For Them.

Robin: >:( Danny: It was a nice try. Robin: Do not patronize me Fenton! Danny: I don't know why or how, but that sounds even more insulting than when Dash does it... Robin: This is an indignity! Fighting immortals entities that cannot be harmed by blade is one thing- but I will not accept being spoken to like a child! Skulker will return and taste my fury! Danny: Hey calm down alright? Robin: Do not test my patience! Danny: I heard you like animals. Wanna meet my purple back gorilla friend? She's really nice and is easy to talk to. Robin: .... The gorilla... doesn't speak does she? Danny: Haha no of course not! I learned her language instead. Robin: ... You are a strange man. However I will accept your proposal for now and I insist you teach me every form of communication with her.

Orphan: :( Danny, who's always been able to understand Cass perfectly, much to the mystery of the batfam and her delight: Aw Cass, I love you guys too. It's been great having your family around- and really I'm flattered! But I can't be your new brother, I'm sorry, but we do live in different realities. Besides, I think I've had enough of people trying to adopt me. Orphan: ? Danny: Yeah my godfather is a total fruitloop. Always trying to kill my dad and marry my mom who hates his guts and get me to call him father instead. Like, he even tried to clone me and copy my brain into a new body right? Or that time he rigged the election to become mayor just to mess with me. And hiring actually competent ghost hunters so I'd quit (kinda wish I could quit actually but it's fine). His obsession with me can get out of hand sometimes you see. Orphan: >:( -cracks knuckles- Danny: What? No! I don't need protecting really! I can handle him just fine. Now that I'm thinking about it though, I dunno what he'd do with Jazz. He never seems to actually talk about her beyond that one time he tried to get her to attack me- huh? Orphan: -disappeared- Danny: ...... That probably won't come back to haunt me.

[inkskinned]

the problem is that being single is seen as the consolidation prize, and not the natural neutral state of being-a-person. at the end of the movie or the book or the poetry, there is a person waiting for you at the altar, and they love you. if the play is a comedy, everyone gets married. the metaphor is about how you are not-whole. the metaphor is about how everyone is going to be happily-ever-after. the metaphor is that romantic love is the most important resource on the planet, not just all-love. all-love is not a thing, that is a disappointment. the treasure is not the friends we made along the way. the treasure is the girl you landed.

the metaphor is that you cannot be alone, that means you are broken. are you getting over someone? that is acceptable, you can be getting over someone, but not for long. you must be single because you would rather not be single. you must be single and looking to not-be-single. you must want to date, eventually.

friendship and community are never seen as being equal-to or even-better than romantic connection. that person is your one! you need to find them. you need to hunt through the sand particles until you can shift out some kind of gem. this is regardless to your own experience of the beach and the sun. you need to be somewhere with someone.

if you are taking this time alone to heal, that is so sad. everyone gives you this little pitying look. the understanding is that you are not actually happier than you were before you were single. it is seen as a sort of pity - oh, you are choosing yourself, making yourself the priority? - that isn't quite right. you must mean that you are making yourself ready for the right person. you are just laying the bed better this time. open up your heart. you'll find them, we promise!

what do you mean you're really-truly genuinely-very happy? you are probably misremembering what it was like to be in a relationship. and besides, once you meet your person, that time will look grey and bland and wasted. your person is the only way for you to see in color. so what if you have taken this time - for the first time in your entire life - to actually-for-real do the fucking work. you can be proud of yourself, sure. but the way we need to know that you got better is that you get a partner. you're healed enough for the next bad part!

people don't choose to be single, they just say they're choosing to be single - they actually mean "nobody wants to date me." it doesn't matter how many people you have gently rejected or how many times you've talked it over carefully in therapy. what matters is that you are single, and by all accounts - that means you are something worth our pity. your successes and life all seem pale in the sunlight. sure, you have done amazing things and finally found your way in life. what matters is that there wasn't a person in the room with you while you did it.

you want to tell them - that's the whole thing. i didn't know how to be alone in the room. i didn't know how to handle the silence. every moment was so sharp, and i kept choosing the wrong way to close the door. i have spent my entire life in the empty well, living in the ricochet of someone else's cruelty. for once i have built myself a ladder. for once everything i taste is all mine, every bite of sunshine and laughter. i have learned how to sleep out in the open with my memories. recently, they have started to purr.

your father rolls his eyes. listen. this isn't about you. i just want a grandchild in my future.