I hope everyone had a great week! Hang out. Chat. Talk about what’s going on. Have fun :3
look idk how else to put it but for years i thought i just had the cis kind of dysmorphia that’s totally a real ass thing
Mood. Again. Are you me per chance? Long lost twin?
idk, i might have a second account here i post on that i completely forgotten about
I wonder if always feeling sad whenever someone brings up the fact I have a fat ass means anything…
I have my first meeting with an endo today. Very nervous. Hope it goes well
Good luck!
The doctor refused to treat me because of my “negative attitude”.
I was negative cause he suddenly wanted psychological attests, that are neither recommended to demand, nor legally required.
Now I am sad, and unsure where to go next.
Wtf
Yeah, am wondering what the point of medical laws is, if the doctor can just reject you based on vibes, if you insist on the legally recognised standard of care.
Like why have pro-trans legislation, if it doesn’t matter, if there is no reason to not just ignore it.
holy shit as if i already didn’t have white coat and medical anxiety
thats so fucked not looking forward to my first forays
Really throwing everything I can at the problem of body distress and hoping anything works.
Guess I'll shit up this mega one last time, soz and thanks for having me ✨
Now that I’m in Arc 2 of Unjust Depths, I literally had to go remind myself who Sonya Shalikova is (pale skinny mech pilot with something against Murati) because it’s been near two whole books, like 17 sub-chapters, since we last saw her. I legit forgot she was onboard the Brigand.
To be fair & for comparison, The Last Girl Scout is also a pacing disaster and can bog down at times, it comes with the territory of a big sweeping dramatic narrative. I still don’t love it though, I’m having to homework-check myself on the crew of the brigand. There’s that lady who does the announcements who was late the first day, Yana and Aaliyah, the bridge crew has the navigator guy(a guy, woah!) and that trans gamer girl and the “full figure” lady, uh and there’s the fishgirl security guard? I think that’s most of em?
Also, I like Shalikova. She seems to hate absolutely everything and everyone and I just can’t help loving her bitter cynicism layered over some sort of trauma. Also there is no fucking way in hell she’s not autistic, my headcanon has decided. “Hell really was other people!” Beloved.
Conversely, I don’t think I love Genivov much, because she doesn’t seem like she respects people’s privacy, or desire to be alone I guess. Also she’s a total fuckin g*mer. Plus, who the fuck describes another woman as “buxom”??? Yes, give me the angry misanthrope lady instead please ✨
Anyway I adore the Brigand as a setting, it is as comfy and mundane and slice-of-lifey as I’d hoped. Underwater mech ballets to the death and intense ship-to-ship combat is rad, but it’s all the more rad for the contrast against the little moments of calm. Sorry I could go on about Unjust Depths literally forever, I’d never run out of things to say about it
unjust depths!
yeah i remember having forgotten a lot of the characters from the brigand at this point as well. thankfully it does a pretty good job of reminding you of the important bits, and pretty firmly establishes the whole cast in a way that sticks because we get to spend more time with them. shalikova’s great, i love her. she’s just like me fr fr
geninov is obnoxious and kind of a creep but like everyone in the cast she has her moments. i would absolutely take shalikova over her any day though
and yeah the brigand is just really good, lots of time spent on the day to day workings of the ship and the people who make that possible, lots of really great slice of life moments. it’s got a great sense of place. i wouldn’t mind you going on about it forever, but that would get in the way of you actually reading anymore lmao
Oh my god this shit is soooo gooood
It does true, we also have a lot of new buddies including “I’m a living machine” Zachikova (which, I’m assuming that’s more of an “I identify with my metallic/electronic bits and it fucks” rather than a self hate thing) and Unjust Depths’ very first enby, Valya!!! Awwwh man I’m excited to have None Biney in this tbh :) The scene where Murati was monologuing about how cool &rad & diverse her diver squad is, followed by introductions, was awkward in a really endearing way. Shouts to Sameera for not being a dog of the empire
It’s so dorky how loup wag their tails all the time, makes me giggle.She is LITERALLY ME,
I’m excited to see what Shalikova’s deal is whenever we do.Oh wait, so I’m not just being an asexual buzzkill, and Genivov is actually an obnoxious creep? Uh oh that’s a baaad sign, worse than I thought
The author is actually really good at giving locations substance generally I’d say, like we spent maybe seven chapters in Vogelheim but it basically felt like a pocket of royalty-fantasy undersea, quality stuff. Also I don’t think it would, I sort of got the sense that I’m crowding out other people in the mega with more relevant things to say, (because this thread is like 50% Unjust Depths goodposting by volume) but short of that I could easily post an update every day, every two days. I didn’t even talk about the Khaybar Shimii jihad because I didn’t wanna ramble too long, or the anarchists, like I’m boiling over with thoughts about it and getting through 4-8 subchapters per day!
ikr????
yeah i really like the whole crew of the brigand. zachikova rules, the whole diver squad rules, i love how proud murati is to be part of such a cool squad. shalikova is probably my favorite member but i do really like them all
ehh, a little? like, i think calling her a creep was probably a bit too far on my part but she’s definitely horny in a kinda gross way. she’s not enough of a creep that it’s actually a problem, just a little obnoxious in her internal monologue
and that’s true, i don’t know that it’s a problem as long as it’s all spoilered for length, but i get it. i guess you could move your unjust depths posting to the main mega and then space wouldn’t be as much of a problem. i’d need to start checking it more though, because i definitely want to hear your thoughts!
plus at the end of the week the trans mega is always kinda dead, it gets a lot of posting for the first 2-3 days but then it really slows down. imo it’s not a big deal
I cannot shut up about this lol
100% agreed, tfw you dont live on an undersea diver carrier with a diverse gaggle of rad n bad queers
Need this type of thing in my life…I’m glad I’m not totally out to lunch on that one at least, shit was kinda uncomfortable right after that shower bit :| Her thing with Fernanda is kinda fun at least…
Alright uh, yeah I spoiler posts as much for length as I do actual spoilers, not wanting to dominate the thread… But I guess megas do tend to go quiet after a few days so it’s not terrible? Was kinda hoping some high-powered posting would bring life to sleepy megas
I guess I’ll just keep posting here with your blessing ✨Also, uncritical support to the Khaybar Shimii and their jihad against the goofy racist-ass anarchist Bosporans. Uncritical support to Majida leading said jihad. When u need allies against the imperials but ur guys cant stop being racist imperial freaks for two seconds and get their insides superheated by Shimii psionics
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yeah, god. i think the brigand sounds like an unbelievably nice place to live, even with the whole secret spy mission thing going on and adding stress
and the khaybar shmii rule, it’s so good to have a story that’s willing to look at this sort of thing and go “no the people doing this are cool and good and firmly in the right.” majida is so cool, i love her
You two are gonna convince me to read this. I just wish there was an audiobook version so I could listen to it while driving around for work.
I apologize for being cringe on this forum before. I strive to be a better poster in the future.
Messed up my T injection so I had to use my back-up ampule. R.I.P.
Also first time going to a psych today. It went a lot better than I expected, probably going towards a legal ID change but I got prescribed Lexapro on first sitting and I am not sure whether I should take it.
Same as usual, spoilers for all of Unjust Depths 4.x
At the end of book/chapter 4, I like it well enough even if I still think it was a big pacing misstep for Unjust Depths. I see why it was necessary, at least, appreciate what it introduces. Bethany is a-ok in my book, I respect her, and I like the dynamic it’s built between Marina and Elena. Elena in particular is now set to stop being vapid & immature, which will be cool. The look inside of the empire was also neat, although I will say it’s a bit tough to see the fash as menacing when they’re also all hopelessly gay, but it does make them funny & enjoyable villains c:
Still, when Murati walks into that cargo depot I’m like TRANSBIAN COMMIE MY BELOVED, HOW I HAVE MISSED YOU
I’m also excited that Elena and Gertrude are probably gonna be star-crossed lovers on opposite sides now :)Anyway this omnibus epub has intermission stuff on the end of 4, and I’m like no reeeeeee keep going I wanna see Aaliyah again!!!
E: Oh man, I think Sawyer was just jealous that Victoria got to live the dream and be taken in like a sad lil animal by mommy domny ten years her senior, lmaooooo
Also that was, definitely the most kitty scritches headpets scene I have ever seen in any fiction. Huh… It was uh descriptive.
unjust depths!
i like elena and marina’s whole deal a lot, and yeah the empire gets some really interesting stuff in this bit
the intermission chapters are all really good, but yeah i would always like more of the brigand. thankfully there is so much brigand stuff in the future for you
yeah sawyer was 100% jealous lmao. i don’t blame her, that kitty scritch scene is really something
Yeah!!
They were worth the setup even if it took like ten lil chapters. I want to see them on the brigand interacting with the crew, I’m so looking forward to that! Also regarding the interludes, the idea that some church type would have psionic powers and spin it as godly insight to become the head of a christofashy state is awesome, I really dig that. Also if she bleeds out her eyes more that’d be funny :>
I actually really deeply hate Sawyer now, which is not unexpected but kind of unforunate. The way she just stands by and lets Rue get called an “inferior” and shit, but also gets arsey when Rue bugs her about it teasingly? Victoria should have killed her tbh
Something… I never thought about scritches that way, yeah… “[…]from the base to the tip”?
Uhhhh?100%
yeah, lemme tell you when they get to interact with the brigand it’s fantastic. all the intermission chapters are really good memorable stuff that gives you a great sense of the broader world
sawyer sucks, just a really unpleasant person
c:
I like Sophia and Irene that was rad, tbh I haven’t read an intermission I dislike yet :)
Truly, which makes her the best villain in the plot currently
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sophia and irene are really good, yeah. i like all the intermissions a lot
we haven’t gotten many villains at this point, who’s her competition?
spoiler
I assume uh, Erich von Fueller plus evil twink? And probably the sun cult people, and the funny stigmata lady? And the fash guy Sawyer is working for! They’ve all had less development than Sawyer, so I assume they’re being set up for later evildoing?
I’ve decided to tell my mom I’m trans, probably this week or the next. I know she’ll be supportive, but I’ve been worried (probably irrationally) that she might feel sad or hurt. Which is kind of a dumb reason, because I know if it was up to her she’d want to know anyway. but I’m still nervous about it.
I think she might have figured it out anyway. I live pretty far away from my family, but I’ve seen them a couple times the last two months, and even though I was boymoding I know I still appear pretty different than I did before, and some of the things she said to me on the phone lately made me think she suspects something’s up.
I was so nervous I almost threw up, but I went to the local trans meet-up!
It was my first time presenting explicitly as a woman in public and I feel so incredibly happy, everyone was so kind and welcoming.
[Yet more Unjust Depths posting]
At the point where there’s a mech battle involving a National Socialist aristocrat pilot screaming her head off at a psychic autistic gay catgirl, I realised that Unjust Depths may be ever so slightly silly
I really enjoy both reading this & also posting about it, I’m having a lotta fun.
unjust depths posting up to where you are
the psychic powers were the thing i mentioned earlier. they’re a staple of gundam, with almost every series involving them to a greater or lesser extent, and that’s true of the genre more broadly as well. like i said, not something major but something that could potentially feel out of place without that context (though it seems like it didn’t)
it is slightly silly, isn’t it
and i’m glad you’re enjoying it! i am enjoying seeing you post about it, so this works out nicely
Posting in return!
Oh, that didn’t actually seem that weird to me c: Once the agarthite power stuff was introduced and established as basically magic that could tear holes in time? I was kinda prepped for lightly fantasy elements, plus psionics are pretty normal for scifi tbh. What’s a lil psychic powers between residents of the Imbrian Empire right
The battle at Vogelheim with those two verbally battering eachother though, that was the point when I was like “Gun-damn is when young people lead the military and take out their highschool drama on eachother in mechs”
We love our slightly silly gundam-inspired underwater communism drama, don’t we folks?!Awwww well shucks y’know
posting posting posting
yeah, i figured it wouldn’t read as weird, but then second guessed myself and thought i might be overestimating how common psionics are in broader scifi stuff because i’ve basically only been looking at mecha stuff where it’s basically universal
yeah that’s basically gundam! though sometimes it isn’t high school drama and is instead other kinds. like, in first gundam the school drama is reserved for members of the same faction, like char and garma (who are college exes) are both from zeon, while char and amuro are meeting each other and coming to understand each other on the battlefield. of course unjust depths is better than gundam at this on account of being about lesbians and communism
Psionics in sf is less common now, but it was very common throughout 20th century sf.
Pooooooooosting!
Haha what a nerd! Look at this mecha dork :)
“Coming to understand eachother on the battlefield” cute lol. Gundam has been casually on my watchlist for a long time, but I am gonna have to shed my Unjust Depths related expectations whenever I do because yeah, lesbians and communism…
mailing
the only gundams i’d say are even remotely on the same level as unjust depths are turn a gundam (basically a perfect show, not openly communist but like, has a material understanding of the world that never goes away and hates the industrialists, protagonist is probably trans? reads as such to me) and iron blooded orphans (about struggling against imperialism, but mostly about dudes and some of the women aren’t treated amazingly) and though turn a especially is hitting hard i still prefer unjust depths
[Even more Unjust Depths posting]
I guess it follows that if there are catgirls, there must also be puppygirls! Me rollin’ when Ingrid literally says “awoo”. I’m a silly puppy in the fascist regime barkarwuff!!!
yessss the puppygirls!!! introducing catgirls with aaliyah being fumbled by yana and being the cool commissar of the ship, while doggirls are introduced as literal imperialist dogs is a brave choice, but as a puppygirl myself i don’t mind
Lmao I never even thought about that, this is high art. Premium stuff!
Getting an uncommon amount of Ws this week. I male failed for the first time today! I’m not open about my gender at work, so I boymode, and was there wearing a gender neutral hoodie and jeans outfit. At some point I had to help this elderly, probably senile guy and his assistant get some stuff into their car, and he starts rambling to me about something I have no idea what is, so the assistant intervenes and tells him “she can’t help you with that”, without even like a moment of hesitation or anything, as if calling me she was the most natural thing in the world!
Wow that’s amazing!!
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Cw sex
spoiler
Uhm I had sex with my ex again. She’s the only person who will have sex with me lol but its definitely not healthy. Today I didn’t feel as bad but I’m always left with this feeling of “Am I even trans?” afterwards. Like, frankly I enjoy fucking and I was pretty good at it as a guy at least. And so when I have sex I just kinda… do that. Idk what else to do tbh. It’s fun for sure but Like yeah… not very gender affirming. I find it’s much more gender affirming to have sex with guys foe that reason but… ugh men. Idk. I’ll take any advice
sex
Having sex using your dick is a gender neutral action tbh - it doesn’t make you any more or less fem (or trans). As difficult as it might be to separate it from masculinity now, it’s very much worth internalising and spending some time with that thought. Fwiw that was a really difficult thing for me to accept and took a while to feel good about
CW: More sex talk
I have been and currently am in the exact same boat as you (minus the ex part). As a warning, my advice isn’t fun, but it is what worked for me, kinda.
Up until a few months into HRT, I used my penis to have sex with my partner. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but I certainly didn’t like it much. It solved the problem of I’m horny, she’s horny, do this and we’re not horny anymore. However, we had to take a break for a few months because surgery, but we did it eventually have sex again. This time, it sent me into a wild spiral of dysphoria that took me a while to recover from because of the exact question you posed yourself. “Am I even trans?” After recovering from that extreme spiral of dysphoria, I came to a solution. It was to simply take a secondary role in sex and not bother with my penis or my own pleasure. I simply pleasured her and when she finished, I was finished. That means I’ve simply not had any active role in sex for a long time now, but it also means that I’m not falling into deep depression because I used my dick.
This is not an easy mindset to get into and just straight up might not work for you. After all, I’m mostly a top with other women so it wasn’t any sort of issue. I also garner pleasure from the pleasure of others. So who knows. It might work for you. I genuinely hope you do find a solution though. Your situation is a very unfun one to be in.
I think it is made even more complicated since it’s with my ex, but yeah. I may consider this.
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The thing is… I kinda like using it? It just leaves me questioning and feeling weird. And there are so many women who top in a gay way. I just don’t know how to top in a gay way haha. The secondary Weird feelings are that I’m scared I’m falling back into a relationship with my ex. There are a few reasons why I really shouldn’t do that and the first being that I can’t be in a relationship rn at all. I need to be self focused. But the second is that I’m trying to figure out what I want in a relationship, and I kinda wanna try dating guys too because I’ve just never given that a shot. Idk I’m venting now 😅
Sex
spoiler
I understand what you mean when you say fucking isn’t really gender affirming and that you are kind of accusing yourself of falling into old habits as opposed to working with a newer “feminine” thing. However, you might try to reflect on this and try to decouple the idea of “giving” and masculinity vs “taking” and femininity. You mention that you enjoy it and you’re good at it so… Keep enjoying it! You’ll just be a woman who’s likes to fuck and is good at it.
Now, if you feel your partners are pushing you into that role or you only do it because it’s familiar, then that’s a different story.
Try not to overthink it and just enjoy the things you enjoy. And keep experimenting to see if you like other things more.
CW sex
spoiler
I’m post op and I love fucking with a strap so it is possible to be the penetrator while still affirming one’s femininity
My hair is so amazing I love it AHHHHH
I was laying in bed last night and came to the sudden and somewhat panicked realization that the disparity in my mental and emotional moods between when i’m at work where I’ll never be able to come out and when i’m at home or with friends who i’m out to is so large that I’m eventually going to burn out, and it may be sooner than I think.
I need to leave this place asap but I have so many things I need to get in order before I can even think about applying to new jobs. I really wish I didn’t let myself become dependent on this fucking place but unless I can find a new job that will pay me enough to afford rent I’m stuck here.
A friend did mention working at the casino he works at. From other friends that have worked there before it seems to not be the best, but it has potential to pay 1.5k+ a week working in the cages.
Maybe if I time things out correctly I can apply to the new place while being visibly trans and make my own life easier.
OH OH OH I told myself I’d buy paperback versions of Nevada and Whipping Girl after I started coming out and I finally picked them up on saturday. Unfortunately I only found out about this cool little anarchist-coded bookstore in my city AFTER I bought these books at B&N.
I still want to check them out tho in hopes that they have some feminist books available.
I’ve been interested in finding and reading Who’s Afraid of Gender as well as Gender Trouble among a few others.
Is there any that some of y’all transfemmes can recommend?
Gender Outlaw by Kate Bornstein! Also if you like Nevada, Detransition Baby by Torrey Peters would be worth trying
among some other thingsAlso read the Gender Accelerationist Manifesto if you haven’t!
Thank you for the recs, will do!
