#yeah we're tagging her for literary reasons what do you want

[pluralsword]

TLDR on our HRT journey (nearly 4 years now), very glad that we may be ending the chapter of our body’s life similar to how Phase 1 Arcee felt about her body lmao and moving on to feeling more euphoric with our organic frame (it is what is, we love it even though even our oldest headmate/our body desires metal, guess making shapes EVA foam will help compensate someday on occasions that would feel safe to do so):

Okay so, four days in on finasteride with estradiol (having given finasteride enough time to bond with our body tissue, takes four to five days) after switching out of spironolactone with estradiol (which we were on four almost four years) and personally;

finasteride is fucking fantastic so far:

- feel much more cogent/less brain fog (we’re told this is due to being more hydrated)

- it’s easier to plan doing things and then to do them

- body feels less unhinged/off-kilter

- sensation actually feels better/more intense, it’s easier to appreciate and immerse in touch and thus we don’t crave intimate relief as often, all of which has helped with our health a lot

Hopefully whatever “masculinizing” traits might resurface due to finasteride interfering with dihydrotestosterone instead of testosterone like spiro does won‘t be a bother, but from what we’ve seen/read/heard from folks a lot of people’s experience of it is okay. Finasteride is apparently recommended for folks who tend to get/are sensitive to side effects from medications (we definitely are).

For us personally, pre-HRT testosterone was no fun, it left us rather angsty and having difficulty with feeling a sense of composure, apart from the dysphoria, so spiro with estradiol was a remarkable improvement in all regards. Just with various psychological experiences piling up in the last three years on top of stuff from the rest of our life, spiro no longer felt tenable, so we had to switch to something else, and weren’t willing to take gender stuff by needle for personal reasons. Interestingly; a trans man we used to work with said that estrogen before HRT also left him feeling off-kilter in the head, and that taking HRT helped clear things up. This is just an experience some gender expansive folks have we suppose. :3

So yeah, here’s to the future! Whatever happens to our psyche for other reasons aside, we’ll probably be writing and doing art more consistently. We have some more thoughts about spiro and Arcee in regards to canon below:

To some degree though (this is going to be a very unhinged artist take, but more than anything it’s us processing what we went through), we’re glad we did spiro because of the effects it had we wanted that will carry over, and also because it did give our non-Arcee headmates and bodily experience personal insight into how much of a pain the aft sensory side effects and brain fog especially from something that was supposed to give euphoria is.

Given- we knew what many of the side effects could be going in, our gender affirmation providers did their best to inform us and we are deeply appreciative of how they’ve helped out all these years including by being supportive of our xenogender stuff and plurality when we finally felt comfortable talking about it. And, we know that having contracted the original strain of Covid in early 2020 could have left us with long covid which also can cause brain issues, and then there’s all the additional baggage of our psyche from how our brain is wired and living in the world, which we’ve done our best to compensate for with other medications, learning wisdom techniques from dialectical behavioral therapy and philosophy and various orgs and studies and contacts and experiences in life, seeing a therapist as needed, and so on.

So, it’s not as if it was just spiro, just as for IDW1 Arcee, it wasn’t just her surgery; it was also everything else going on in her life that was so hard, and she eventually found a way to reconstruct her life and be happy, just as we continue to attempt to do, appreciating happiness when it does come our way. This is all to say that there’s always hope; even if spiro had been the only thing in the world at the time, we would have clawed onwards, we wouldn’t be as happy but we would still try, for all the love we are lucky to have and make.

[ladyanidala]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

@sleepingbeauty21 thank you for tagging me!! This looks like a lot of fun!! :D

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

46! (That's wild, dude)

2. What's your total A03 word count?

Total AO3 word count is 127,857.

3. What fandom's do you write for?

Almost all of my fics are for Star Wars, but I do have four that are in the Attack on Titan fandom! (Still gotta watch the end of the show, rip)

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

We're Not Needed Here - 709 kudos (oh crack fic, my beloved <3)

Her Step Forward - 155 kudos (this is my first published fic on AO3, and I love it, even if I'd rewrite it differently now, haha)

(Galactic) History in the Making - 125 kudos (this is an Obitine proposal fic! Qui-Gon meddles too, and it makes me happy)

Though Darkness May Be Our Companion, I Will Watch Over You - 121 kudos (this is a Merrical fic that I wrote after I either finished playing or watching a gameplay of Jedi: Fallen Order. I love those babies :') )

Sparring with Buir - 110 kudos (Korkie and Obi-Wan spar after reuniting on Mandalore.)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do! I like to interact with everyone who reads my stories. I like building community!!

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oooooh, that's a hard one. I don't write super angsty endings, bc everyone deserves a happy ending, dangit, but the one fic that does foot the bill is Ghost Star, Are You Very Far? This is a fic centered around Kata Akuna and her love for stories. Sounds cute, yeah, but BROOOO there's some angst in there, I promise.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

The happiest ending? That's a hard one as well. The one I love the most is Tequila. Very cracky, and very fun to write.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No, not really (and that's not an invitation to start, lol)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

No, I don't write literary pornography. It's all kinds of damaging to your brain (see increased anxiety and depression rates) as well as the rest of the body (see erectile dysfunction). Click here if you want to see more of my reasons.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

No, I don't. My brain honestly has such a hard time making characters from different universes meet like that. They stay separate in my head XD

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nope! (And again, not an invitation to start XD)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes!! The beautiful @sleepingbeauty21 is translating We're Not Needed Here. Check out No Nos Necesitan Aqui!!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Kinda?? My brother helps me out and writes some things in my fics sometimes, but I've never done an intentional co-authored fic before.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

Anidala, hands down. I love them so much :')

15. What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I doubt that all my WIPs will get finished, does that count? XD

In all seriousness, my very first WIP - that's still unpublished - is sitting in my docs folder, just begging me to write more, but I feel like I'm at an impasse. I don't know where to go from where I stopped, haha.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Ummmmm, my ability to keep characters in character when I write crack??? Idk, dude, I just put stuff on a page and people like it enough XD

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I definitely don't describe things as well as I want to. I often feel like I'm jumping from point to point in my writing without connecting it on paper. It all connects in my head, but it comes out clunky on paper.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Would that I could :') I'd LOVE to become fluent in German or Spanish one day and write a fic!

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Star Wars!!

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Oh, dang, that's hard XD Ask me to pick a favorite child, why don't you? :P For the sake of finishing this, I choose Tequila again, lol. I love it so much XD

Tagging: @screwtornadowarningsimsouthern, @clawedandcute, and anyone else who wants to join, I don't speak to too many people on here XD