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elliesmistress · 22 days

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EPISODE 1: PILOT

WARNINGS: 18+, heavy drug usage (cocaine, weed, alcohol, etc), oral sex (R, E, D, A, ETC), tribbing, overdoses (reader), mentions of overdoses, angst, EVERYONE WILL BE IN COLLEGE AS EUPHORIA IS SET IN HIGHSCHOOL!, mentions of self harm, Jules will be transgender (same in the show, except sex won't be with her), shoplifting, mentions of death, NATE and his family will most likely be left out of this completely and set with new characters that are less toxic, dealer!ellie (sometimes), drug deals, swearing, less abusive relationships but still toxic, mentions of rehab, rehab (detox), death, degradation, toxic sex, rough sex, strap usage, strap sucking, mentioning of 9/11, lmk if I missed anything please!

a/n: this will be VERY similar to Euphoria, you will be RUE (Due to it being "your" story I will be writing it with 'I' as Rue talks). I just need to figure out where abby, dina, jesse, etc will fit into the story. I do know abby will be CAT very likely all the characters will be the exact same (besides from Nate and his parents) I've struggled with a few of the problems in Euphoria and I've written my own fic about MY addictions but I figured I'd do Euphoria too hehe, I will be removing the SA parts of the story because that's just something I don't want to have on my page. Please let me know if you want to be on the taglist whilst I actually have inspo to write :) 3.8K WORDS, spell checked and shit idk man it's like 4 hours past my bed time and 1am

I WILL BE MAKING A EUPHRIA PLAYLIST FOR EACH CHAPTER!

Taglist: @snowy-vee , @vqxen @pedropascalsbbg

PRESENT DAY

"I was once happy, content, sloshing around in my own private primordial pool." I am standing in front of hundreds of people who are here listening to my story—to say the very least, I was nervous. I always have been a fucking addict, and now I'm telling my story of how I recovered from this fucking disease that ruined my fucking life.

"Then one day, for reasons beyond my control, I was repeatedly crushed." I blink my eyes, looking at the floor, struggling to find the right words: "over and over by the cruel cervix of my mother, Grace."

"I put up a good fight, but I lost, for the first time, and definitely not my last... I was born three days after 9/11."

Memories flood back to when I could hear the TV going on the day I was born.

"I can hear you; I can hear you; the rest of the world hears you; and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon." The unknown man says on the TV that hearing the words "USA, USA!" being chanted over and over again made me cry as a baby. Those chants will forever haunt me.

"My mom and dad spent two days in the hospital, holding me under the soft glow of the television, watching the towers fall over and over again, until the feelings of grief gave way to numbness." I shift uncomfortably in the silence of the audience, glancing at my good friends Jesse and Ellie, who indicate for me to keep talking. A soft chuckle comes from my lips as I continue on with the story.

"And then," I take a deep breath, "without warning, we moved to a friendly neighborhood in the suburbs, to where a middle-class child, me to be exact, was looking up at the ceiling, counting those fucking numbers like I could fucking see them. Over and over again. 'thirteen... fourteen... fifteen... sixteen."

"My mother looked up at that ceiling like I was fucking crazy; the words she said echo through my dumb brain still: 'What are you looking at, y/n?'" "I kept counting, trying my hardest to ignore her. She said to me, 'y/n, look at me."

I chuckle. "I bet you all know where this is going. I kept counting, but from the start," and my smile dropped immediately.

"I remember breaking down and crying when my mother tried to snap me out of it. I wanted... I had nothing but to cry, so that's what I did. I sat in a doctor's office a few weeks later with my mother crying next to me as the doctor said I could be suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention deficit disorder, general anxiety disorder, and possible bipolar disorder." I put my hand up close to the mic to cup it. "But I was a little too young to tell," I said in a joking tone, cracking a laugh from the crowd. "Y'all get me; y'all fucking get me."

"With this being said, I was put on medication to treat half of the disorders I had, and to be honest, I don't remember much between the ages of 8 and 12. Just that the world moves fast and my brain moves so fucking slowly."

"I would sit my fucking ass in class every day and try my hardest to listen to what that fucking teacher was trying to teach, but sometimes I would focus on my breathing a little too hard. I'd die. That teacher held a bag to my mouth to calm my breathing, though it never really helped. I remember trying to outrun my anxiety every day, looking in the mirror and trying to push my stomach in so I wouldn't look "fat."

"I would constantly get messages from people telling me they wanted to kill me, drug me, make fun of me, and bully me. My mother knew something was up and constantly asked me what was wrong, but I always gave the same response: 'I'm just fucking exhausted."

AGE 19 (college years)

"You said the doctor was in our network. How could he suddenly be out of network?" I hear my mother say as I walk out of my room into the kitchen, "I can't afford it" Grace says.

"did you see the beauty queen who got acid thrown in her face?" My sister says as I begin to lean on the dinning room table. "Mm, what? No" I say, turning my attention to her and out of my trance. "it's pretty fucked up." She says holding up her phone. "Hey, Mom, you got any tampons?" I turned my head to face her as she looked at the documents in her hand, I knew full well I wasn't going to be getting tampons but she didn't need to know that shit.

"in my bathroom, under the sink." She replies back, I swiftly make my way to the bathroom.

I enter her bathroom and cough as I open her medicine cabinet to take a few of her Alprazolam (XANAX) pills.

I would do this countless times, and surprisingly at some point, you make a choice about who you are and what you want in life.

I pretend to flush the toilet and I look at the picture in my mother's bathroom- it had my dad and my Mom on it on their wedding day.

I look at myself in the mirror washing my hands and putting on sunglasses to hide my pupils that are almost as big as my actual eye itself- I get out of the bathroom to go back into the kitchen

"alright, Jayda, let's roll." I say to my sister as she looks at me and frowns, probably these fucking sunglasses.

"y/n, did you eat breakfast?" Grace says, moving the phone away from her mouth. "I had coffee!" I yell out, opening the front door and making my way out.

Jayda and I begin to walk down the sidewalk, she turns her attention onto me and asks what's with the sunglasses.

"what sunglasses?" I say and chuckle, Jayda laughs with me.

We both make our way to the bus and wait for it to arrive, once it arrives we get on the bus and make our way to the back of the bus.

I guess... I showed up one day, without a map or a compass... Or to be honest, anyone capable of giving on iota of good fucking advice. And I know it all may seem sad, but guess what? I didn't build this system nor did I fuck it up.

I was sitting at a party, with a galaxy book to my knees and a line of cocaine, holding the perfectly rolled 5 dollar bill that had been rolled by some rando.

I snort the line of cocaine and immediately felt the pain in my nose, moving my hand up to my nose and applying pressure to where it is painful, making my breathing hitch, then speeding up my breathing in order to get rid of the pain.

My pupils immediately shot big, looking around—everything felt good, my mind at ease and nothing to worry about. I sit up with the most unreal experience, an out-of-body feeling as I struggle to get up.

"y/n, you good?" My friend Ellie attempts to hold my shoulders to steady me as I wobble slightly, I giggle and smile at her, escaping her grasp. "I'm good!"

I walk past people- everything is in slow motion, my body feels slow, my mind feels slow, and suddenly I no longer feel as high- I find another unknown substance and waste no time snorting it, sitting down on the couch.

I sat back up from the couch I was sitting at, getting offered yet another line of cocaine. I snort that cocaine as well, that leaves it hard for me to breathe, every time I take a breathe out. It feels like I'm breathing out all the oxygen I have.

And then it happens. That moment when your breath starts to slow, and every time you breathe, you breathe out all the oxygen you have. And everything stops: your heart, your lungs, then finally your brain. Then everything you feel, and wish, and want to forget, it all just sinks. And then suddenly... You give it air again, give it life again, and that's what leaves you needing more.

I smile at the figure I see besides me, her face is blurred but she's speaking to me, I feel scared. "I want to call an ambulance" I say in my mind, "but I don't wanna ruin everyone's time"

"dude get her fucking legs" I hear muffled voices, slowly waking up. It was Ellie and Jesse dragging my body to Ellie's bed, after I had passed out on the couch at that random frat party-

I stand in a church with my hands behind my back, looking up at the ceiling waiting to graduate from rehab. Slowly making my way up the steps, I look at the lady and give her a smile and a nod before exiting the building.

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Echoing in my mind over and over again as I make my way to Ellie's car.

"Hey!" I see Ellie running up to me. I drop my bags as she pulls me into a tight hug. I smiled at her shoulder. She squeals, letting go of me and looking at my face, pulling a hair strand behind my ear.

"I've missed you," she admits. "I've missed you too."

"What about we go back to mine and we can watch a movie?" Ellie suggests that, honestly, I wanted to get home and get out to my fucking dealer. I never had intentions of staying clean, but she didn't need to know.

"Uh yeah, sure," I say, quickly breaking myself out of my own stance. She helps me with my bag, and she puts it in Joel's old, beat-up truck, and I get into the front seat. "Everyone's missed you, dude, Abby, Dina, Jesse, and Maddie. Fucking everyone, dude."

I chuckle.

I cuddle up with Ellie in her dad's garage as we watch Jurassic Park. I'm on top of her, listening to her breathing—she's relaxed; she's always around me.

I find myself nuzzling into her neck. She moves her head to the side, so you have better access to her neck. I softly kiss her neck; she's always so soft.

Her eyes flutter shut as I start to suck on her neck, her hands finding their way to my ass, slowly rocking me back and forth to grind on her. Ellie let out a choked moan as she felt my clothed cunt rub against her clit.

"Y/N, fuck," she moans. I smile against her neck and make my way to Ellie's lips.

I kiss her slowly, but Ellie starts to become desperate, whining into my mouth as I refuse to give her what she wants. I move my hand underneath her hoodie to find her tits; of course she's not wearing a fucking bra or shirt under her jumper. It's Ellie.

"Wait," I say, pulling down her pants and boxers in one go. I look at her swollen cunt, slowly moving my head downward to lick up her slit, making my way to her clit.

She bucks her hips up into my tongue, I moan into her cunt, and she tangles her hand in my hair, slightly tugging upwards, making me groan loudly.

"S-sh-it," her voice is choked. "Fuck, just like that," she moans, rolling her eyes back, her toes curling in her socks. "Hmm? Feel good, baby?" I say to her, slowly lifting my head up, abandoning her swollen cunt.

"Fucking don't," she threatened, and I chuckled. I push my middle finger into her soaking pussy as I attach back to her clitoral area; her breathing gets faster, and I feel her tighten around my fingers.

"F-FUCK!" She moans loudly, and I feel her pussy conract on my finger as she cums, her fingers tugging at my hair. "A bit loud, don't you think?" I tease after letting her ride out her orgasm, and I move up to kiss her sweaty forehead. "Shut up"

"got another in you?" I smirk, taking off my pants, t-shirt, and bra. Ellie takes off her jumper, leaving us both naked. I allow Ellie to get up and let her go on top of me.

Ellie aligns her clit up with mine and moans quickly, filling the room each time Ellie moves her hips. I start to dig your nails into Ellie's back, making her groan in pain.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Ellie chants from the overstimulation. "C'mon, baby, I know—fuck, I know you can do it." I praise her as I feel a knot in my stomach, threatening to come undone.

Ellie moves her shoulder closer to my face. I take this as an opportunity to bite down on her shoulder, which makes her wince in pain.

"I'm going to fucking cum!" Ellie moans out. Hearing Ellie say this triggers my own orgasm, and we both cum together.

I sit up in bed watching Ellie sleep, and I take out my phone to look at the time.

4AM

"Fuck it," I think before opening Ellie's window slowly, climbing out her window, and making my way to my dealer's house.

"There's a new girl in town I think you're going to be friends with." I stand in front of my dealer, who's sitting down in his chair. "who?" I question.

"shit... I don't know, man. She came in yesterday lookin' all Sailor Moon and sh*t. I'm thinking to myself, "You look like somebody you would get along with."

"Ah, real nice, dude. Really nice, where's ash?"

"I thought you went to rehab?"

"Doesn't that mean I stayed sober?" I smiled, walking towards Ash's room with a smile. I opened his door to see him eating cereal. He puts down his bowl and looks at me.

"Shit, I thought your ass was dead."

"I thought you had Asperger's till I realized you're just a prick." I insult him. "This is a fickle industry. Y'all come and go." He chuckles.

I ask for what I want, and he hands it to me. "Sure, you don't want to try anything new?"

"Like, what?" I asked, pulling the hair out of my face.

"2-C-T-2, 2C-T-7, and 5-MeO-DIPT." "I have no idea what the fuck you just said, Ash."

"Doesn't matter, dude, this sh*t. Is fucking lit?" He holds up a bag with two unknown pills. "It's a fast-acting psychedelic. I have some similarities to LSD, but with, like, key differences. Not as visual and shit, but still a sense of distortion... I don't know what's been blowing up in Tampa, and mad people like to fuck on it."

"okay, yeah." I say, putting all the baggies in my pocket, "That'll be 120."

"Fez said he'd spot me."

"Fezco, don't spot anybody."

"Yeah, well, it's a post-rehab discount, so you should ask him." I say, pointing the middle finger at him, opening his door, and leaving.

"Do you think my areolas look weird?" Dina says to Abby, "What the fuck, no?"

"Just the edges."

"Dina, they're fine," Abby says, taking a puff of the weed Cassie gives her.

"Fine, like, they're weird, kind of weird, or fine, like, nobody but me would ever notice what I would notice?"

"Fine, like, shut the fuck up, Dina," Cassie says, sitting up, grabbing her vape, and taking a puff. Dina scoffs, pulling up her t-shirt to cover her boobs.

"Hey ladies!" Jesse walks in. "Hey baby," Dina squeals, running to Jesse and hugging him. Abby cringes.

"Straight people, ew," she thinks to herself, looking at her phone. "Yo, you got out of rehab."

"Didn't she die?" Dina asks, and Abby shrugs.

"Yeah, I swear she died. I don't know, is Ellie coming to the party?" Jesse questions, to which Dina nods.

I get off my bike at home, slightly drugged up from the drugs I took earlier.

I walk into the house, softly shutting the door.

"Where were you?" My mother says, sitting at the table, Why the fuck is she up at 6 a.m.? You thought to yourself: "I went to eat," I lie. "What the fuck do you mean, you went to eat?"

"what?"

"what?" She mocks, "Don't walk away from me." She sits up from her seat, walking towards me as I walk towards my room. "You know what, y/n? I don't trust you."

"I don't know what you want me to say." It's true; I didn't know why she wanted me to say it. "I want you to tell me where you were," she says, walking quickly as I walk to my room.

"I just said I went to fucking eat!" I yell at her, "Don't you talk to me like that!" Grace says as I slam the door on her face. "Don't be slamming my doors around here."

"It was a fucking accident!" I yell out, holding my body in front of the door. "I don't care. You're not leaving this house until you take a drug test."

"I just peed!" I yell out, "Slam another door."

"Shit," I say, making my way to my bed, not knowing what to do. Every option I could do is unsafe as fuck.

Niacin, maybe. I don't know fuck, I think to myself, putting out my phone to look at the side effects.

Google

Side effects: skin flushing, extreme dizziness, vomiting, rapid heartbeat, and sometimes death.

Fuck, I can't.

"No drug site recommends doing this" I whisper to myself.

The other option is to get a non drug-addicted friend to do it for me.

About 20 minutes later, I show up at Dina's door, knocking.

"y/n!" Dina says, opening the door, smiling and hugging me, "I thought you died."

I laugh. "Can you do me a favor?" Uhm, I'm serious, bro."

"Sure, what is it, y/n?"

"Can you, uh, piss in this cup for me?" I whisper to her . "You're fucking with me, right?" She responds back, and I laugh and shrug.

Dina agrees to do it, and I enter her house to see Jesse and Abby.

"Sup Jesse," I say, fist bumping Jesse, then Abby.

"We thought you fucking died, bro. How was rehab?" Jesse says it with a genuine tone. "Yeah, it was good." I turn to Abby and ask, "How's football going?"

"Yeah, good. Thanks, uh, are you coming to that party tonight?" Abby asks, "Uhm, yeah, maybe."

"y/n" Dina grabs your attention, you move away from Jesse and Abby, and she swiftly hands you the bottle. "Here's that eyeliner."

"thank you"

I quietly climb through my window, grabbing my baggie of crushed cocaine, tipping some out onto my shelf, grabbing my 5 dollar note, rolling it up, and snorting a line.

"Argh," I groan, feeling it hit my nose. The same pain I've always experienced with snorting was still there—just muffled out. By this point, my nose was completely fucked, and I could hear the sound of the drugs eating away at my nose.

"Mom! I have to pee."

"I wish we could do this in a way that wasn't a complete invasion of my privacy." I say, cup in hand, struggling not to smile at her due to the drugs I had taken earlier on.

"Well, you lost your right to privacy after your overdose," your mom says, staring at you in the eyes.

"That was an accident." I smartly talk back, "Don't be flippy, y/n."

"Could you, at least?" Your mom turns around and says, "Thank you."

I sit down, and before "peeing" in the cup, I swiftly change it with Dina's urine as she talks. I wasn't listening to whatever the fuck she was saying... I was high as fuck, and I didn't care.

I gave her the urine sample, and she put the drug test in the container, and all of them came out negative. "I'm sorry for slamming the door earlier."

"it's okay. I forgive you. Come here." My mom says, pulling me in for a hug.

I guess... Like I said before, you get to choose who you want to be and how you want to be- the way the drugs cancelled out all my emotions was what I was looking for, no person, no nothing could compare to that feeling. Besides from drugs.

"I'm gonna stay at Dina's tonight" i say to which she agrees.

It's now 7PM, I don't know how the day went by so fast- but it did and it fucking sucked. I get a text from Ellie.

Ellie: Yo, noticed you left this morning you okay?

Me: yeah, I'm good bro. You alg?

Ellie: yep! Wanna come over tonight? Dont have to if you wanna go to the party instead

Me: I'll come over around like 11?

I find myself making my way to the party that Jesse, Dina, and Abby are going to.

Jesse and Dina have fucked off somewhere else, probably making out or fucking, and you find yourself next to Abby.

"How was rehab, y/n?" She says, breaking the tension, although I can barely hear her over the music, "Yeah, it was good!" I yell over the music.

I stand up, looking for the bathroom in an attempt to snort more, but people were already in the bathroom. "Shit," I think to myself, not paying attention to where I'm walking, accidentally bumping into this lady.

"fuck!" I yell. Looking at her, she looks like the girl Faz mentioned. "Hey, sorry." I retrace my steps.

"You're good; I'm, uh, I'm Jules," she says, and I smile, holding out my hand to shake hers. She accepts and shakes my hand.

She's got one of the most beautiful smiles you have ever seen; her smile is so bright it could light up an entire dark room, filled with nothing but sadness.

"I'm y/n" I introduce myself, to which we exchange numbers, and I make my way to Ellie's place, feeling overwhelmed from the party.

I knock on her door for Joel to answer; my pupils are dilated, and obviously I've taken some sort of drug.

"y/n... Hey, Ellie's in her room." I smile stupidly. These fucking drugs, man, I can't stop smiling . I swiftly walk past Joel and see Ellie. I smile at her, and she smiles back. "Dude, are you high?" She scoffs, "I thought... I thought you quit."

"I'm not high, Ellie, mania." I giggle; she obviously doesn't want to assume, so she wants to give me the benefit of the doubt.

"Are you coming back to college this month?" She questions. "Yeah, probably." The truth was, I didn't want to. But I knew I probably had to.

I shall leave it at this due to how many words, etc. and idk if people will like this 😭😭

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junebugwriter · 11 months

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Transgender Dysphoria Blues

It was around 2005. In my dorms, I made a lot of different kinds of friends, and because it was the mid-2000s, we passed around CD's to show new music to each other. Back then, one of my friends introduced me to a band of theirs from their home state, a band called Against Me!. I said I enjoyed punk and emo stuff, and he said I'd like this band.

From the first moment, I heard the raw voice of the lead singer. This person was straining, yelling, screaming with melodic intensity and purpose, laser-focused on the rage, frustration, and despair that comes with young adulthood in the Bush era. They talked about love, and death, and how our future was sold out from under us. They sang

"Baby, I'm an anarchist and you're a spineless liberal We marched together for the eight-hour day and held hands in the streets of Seattle But when it came time to throw bricks through that Starbucks window You left me all alone, all alone..."

I was enthralled. I had never encountered anything like this music before. Well, that's not true. I'd heard punk before--older stuff, like the Clash, the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, stuff that spoke to a moment in time that seemed ancient to me but was only a couple of decades before--but not punk like this. Not punk that actually had some fucking teeth. Not punk that wasn't afraid to be proudly anarchistic, nakedly political, and darkly poetic in this way.

In 2007, I got the newer album, New Wave, and again, this was more of the stuff I loved. Sure, New Wave was a bit more polished, but it was still filled with all those rough emotions that spoke to a disaffected young "man" like me. There was something to the way the lead singer belted out those bars that really nailed something within me, something ineffable, intangible at the time. Something gestating quietly within my brain, a feeling that something wasn't quite right with me, but couldn't be named.

The final song on New Wave, "The Ocean," threw me for a loop. These lyrics... were different.

"And if I could have chosen, I would have been born a woman My mother once told me she would have named me Laura I'd grow up to be strong and beautiful like her...

There is an ocean in my soul Where the waters do not curve..."

At first, I thought this was simply poetic license, imagining a different life, imagining one in which they could be completely different, living a humble, domestic existence far from the drugs and rock and roll. One of simplicity, happiness, bliss. But... something gnawed at me. Why a woman? Why that name? Mysterious to my young brain.

I had not yet heard the word "transgender." I didn't have any context for it. But I knew the ocean in the soul, whose waters did not curve. I knew the depths that dwelled beneath. I knew that there was so much more to my being that even I couldn't quite understand.

Time passed. I graduated from undergrad, and had moved on to graduate school. In grad school, I had more education about LGBTQ+ issues, and had drawn closer to being in the "ally" camp of things, even in the Methodist church. I was drawn to the cause, yet couldn't quite understand why I identified with so many of the struggles they faced.

Near the end of it, a year before I graduated, news came out about the lead singer of Against Me!. She was transgender. Her name was Laura Jane Grace.

My mind raced. Wait, what? The singer with the raspy, raw, and to my mind, thoroughly masculine voice... was a woman now? I googled furiously. I had to learn more. I read every article about her. I drank deep of the news. I had to understand how this turn of events could be. Wait, someone can just... be a woman? And not know it? You can simply do that?

I watched some interviews with her. She seemed thoroughly natural in more feminine clothing. She smiled far more than I thought possible, knowing what she looked like before. She was... happy.

I was worried. What would happen to this band, now that their singer was different? Would her voice change? Would their songs change? I was nervous. But also... I was oddly excited. I knew what a trans person was. I knew that it was a thing you could be. But now, it suddenly became personal in a weird way. Because now I knew a trans person, if not personally, but through the art they made.

A couple years later, they came out with a new album. For whatever reason, I never took the time to listen to it. I had moved out to the country, and buying CDs was becoming passé, but I didn't know how else to buy music now, because I didn't want to bother buying songs through Apple. So... I never listened to it. Until recently.

Here's the title track of the album.

youtube

I no longer worried about the band. I knew that they were the same, just... actually wrestling with the thing that lurked within the ocean of Laura Jane Grace's soul.

With the kraken within the depths of my soul.

I was partly afraid of listening to the album. I was afraid of change. But I'm learning I'm more courageous than I thought I was. I'm learning to face the beast down in the depths, the dysphoria that stares back at me from the mirror each day. It has a name now. It has dimension, and weight, and yes, some days it is overwhelming and too much.

But I can fight it.

She wrestled with it in this album, highs and lows. Regrets, memories, eulogies for lost friends. All through the funhouse lens of gender dysphoria. And suddenly, all the rage, all the fury, came roaring back to the fore. The rage had an edge, and the edge cannot be dulled because it is an edge piercing all the way down to the spinal column. The cracks in the voice, the strain of the vocal cords, the tears and the joy and the endless, rocking waves of emotional turmoil... they can be viewed clearly now. They had a name.

It's a good album. I think every trans femme ought to listen to it, especially if you like punk. Because all the anarchist fury and anti-establishment wit is still there, just with a different set dressing, with a different lens, a different focus. If anything it's sharper. More raw. More powerful.

Happy Pride. This is the anthem of the month for me. I'm trans, and I'm going to help burn this world down build a better one in its ashes.

Thank you, Laura Jane, and Against Me!. You helped me understand the weapons in my hands better than any other band.

#transgender #lgbtq #lgbtqia+#blog #music #punk rock #against me!#laura jane grace #transgender dysphoria #gender dysphoria #transgender dysphoria blues #Youtube #pride #trans pride #trans mtf #trans women #transfem

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gwenmyoty · 1 year

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Trans Awareness Week

So, as I'm sure you are already probably aware, it's Trans Awareness Week. I always know because it ends on my birthday, so it's an active time for me. I've been debating how exactly to acknowledge it. Do I do a Celeste stream? Do I talk about my history as a transperson? A trans-artist? Combined with my approaching birthday stream, it's something I've been struggling to make time for.

Ultimately, I thought it would be best to share my history as this week is about celebrating the trans experience. (I'll probably stream Celeste if I have time too.) I don't acknowledge it very often, but I am 29, turning 30 this week. For over a decade, I have been out as a transwoman and for almost just as long, I've maintained a consistent presence on the internet. I've witnessed a lot of this community's recent history firsthand.

In 2011 when I first came out, transgender issues were very much still under the radar. There was very little information available, and I didn't really know how to approach it. After years and years of feeling this nagging problem in my head, I discovered a pamphlet at my college's Gay-Straight Alliance about transgenderism and I finally found an answer to why I labeled my Neopets profile female, always chose female protagonists in Pokemon, why cross-dressing gave me comfort and made me upset when people treated it like a joke.

Being an overenthusiastic person living in liberal northwest Washington state, I kind of just excitedly told everyone I was a girl at that point. It didn't exactly go well though. My friends at the time were divided. Some loved me unconditionally, while others were confused at this shift from the class clown they knew. My mother was the strangest case. Not a transphobic response at all, but she refused to acknowledge I fit the bill as being trans despite it being really obvious in most people's eyes. (I recall my best friend at the time's response being "FINALLY you realize it.") Besides that, she was concerned how this discovery would impact my studies.

I mention this whole opening because it set a context for how I would behave online as a transwoman. Fear of rejection, of judgment, and even just the desire to be seen as a 'true' woman meant that I didn't tell people I was trans. I had an alarm on my phone to tell me when I should start acting like I was on my period each month. I would alter stories about my past to make it seem like I'd always been a girl.

A quick side note, my mom did eventually come around to acknowledging my transness, and expressed a lot of it just came out of concern for my safety. Reasonable, given several transpeople were killed that year. She wound up becoming an advocate for LGBT rights after my sister came out as a lesbian and we're very close these days.

Continuing, in my desire to hide what I saw as an issue that would ostracize me, I worked desperately to be seen as a ciswoman. I trained my voice very early on, got into fashion, learned makeup, learned how to shape my body so I could take selfies and join voice calls with people under the impression I wasn't trans. I think many of them knew I was ultimately, especially early on, but they didn't reject me and so the important part was accomplished.

Over time, I eventually got onto HRT in about 2015 or so and that helped a lot. I also met fellow transwoman and one of my closest friends DearSixlet a couple years beforehand who I confessed my transness to and helped her on her journey to finding that herself. From that point on, I'd meet the good, the bad, and the ugly of this community between some of my best friends, my partners, those who'd come to hurt me, and even one whose only intention ever was to hurt me.

That one would be the constant reminder that simply because one is transgender doesn't mean they're kind or good. She would end up pushing me to the brink, the only time I ever came within a razor's edge to losing my life to depression. And it always astounds me it was someone from the very same community who did that, not an opponent or a bigot. The deepest scars come from within as they say.

I survived though, and I moved on. I drifted for awhile after that. Passing from home to home, never staying in one place longer than a year. I didn't really know what to do with myself. I got into a long term relationship I had very little investment in, fell off HRT for awhile, accrued an uncomfortable amount of debt.

Strangely enough, while everyone was suffering tremendously with the outbreak of Covid, I finally found my path. I'd been drawing since I was in middle school and finally got up the courage to put my artwork online. I saw my growth as an artist explode and eventually a little thing called VTubing came along and I wound up being a really early adopter.

Streaming and art gave me motivation again, along with the entrance of my current partner Hawken into my life who did a lot to shake me from the apathetic stupor I'd been in. And, the conclusion of this whole thing, is ultimately, I finally came to terms with accepting being transgender as something to be proud of. The flag is in my Vtuber design now, and it's on my bio. I don't hide that anymore or even act subtle about it. Weirdly enough, have never got hate mail over it.

But that's my experience. It's long, windy, and well, not exactly the traditional path, but it's mine, and that's what's important. I have deep hopes for the future of this community and I think despite recent events, even more recent events are a sign that this community will not balk in the face of opposition and will fight to the bitter end for it's right to exist.

#transgender awareness week #transgender #story time

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literategoblin · 1 year

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5/52 "Kitchen" By Banana Yoshimoto

God, that's such a fun pen name isn't it? "Kitchen" Is Yoshimoto's debut work, a novella that in the release I read was also accompanied by another very short story called "Moonlight Shadow". "Kitchen" was written during their downtime as a server in a restaurant, which I cant help but find incredibly endearing. It is a short work, only stretching to the 150pg mark with the help of a smaller than normal formatting and an attached story. And it moves briskly enough in the way that Japanese novels tend to. Briskly and to the point this is a story that delves into loss. What it does to us, how we deal with it, and how we are ultimately shaped by the partings in our lives. We follow the main character after losing her grandmother, her last blood relative close to her. The loss threatens to tear her apart before she is invited to life with a family friend. In moving in with them, she grows, heals, and ultimately changes. As they navigate complicated new feelings and losses. That's the novel in a bottle. Something of note that cannot go unstated that I struggle to find my feelings on, is the handling of the family friends transgender mother Eriko. This book was published in the 80's and one could argue that their handling of such a character was well done and progressive for its time, but even with this knowledge at hand at moments it just feels . . . in poor taste. While Eriko is referred to as "she" and "her" by main characters and others, it is her son Yuichi that will still refer to them as "My mother. . . No, my father." And while the main character seems constantly in awe of how beautiful and graceful they are as a person. It's often through the lens of "Even though they were a man. . ." The fact that the novel is translated does not help it in this regard, its hard to tell how much of those bits is culture at the time, translation, or poor choice. There is one joke in the book made between the main character and Yuichi that struck me as just offensive, but it was hard to tell if that was the translation getting in the way of the prose. Eriko themselves has mixed feelings and talks about their transition in interesting monologues, talking about the "male" them and the "woman" them but acknowledging that they are them, regardless of when in their life they are referring or looking towards. The events surrounding Eriko's transition, the perspective of Yuichi as a child of a transgender parent, and the main character seemingly having had minimal to no interaction with transgender people in their own life leads to interesting moments and conversations. But, be warned. While in its time the book was progressive through a modern lens I don't think it holds up as well as one might expect. Especially when filtered through a translation. Ultimately, I feel a combination of being written in the 80s, a different culture, and a translation on top of it all resulted in this aspect of the book stumbling more than it walked. But, there is grace in my mind in how the book never feels outright disrespectful or de-meaning in it's handling of Eriko. Aside from this. The story itself is a hauntingly familiar account of what it means to lose those you love and how life often hands us things we couldn't even imagine and expects us to simply deal with them. For those familiar with Japanese novels and the associated writing style, they will find it easy to slide right into Yoshimoto's style. If this is your first time, it may take some getting used to, but once you do you will find a touching, quick moving story that might just reach out and grab you if you relate to the material. 3.5/5 This book is so close to a 4 for me, and I can see how to the right person its a very high 4, could be a 5 to the right person. But there are just enough stumbling blocks that I found myself unable to FULL immerse myself in the work, though, I can say that I recommend it to those familiar with Japanese novels, as long as one is aware that while it may have been progressive for its time, it might not hold up in the same way today.

#tbr #reading #book recomendation #kitchen #banana yoshimoto

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nbwriteschaos · 2 years

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hi hello hi greetings hello!!!!!!!!!

i wish to hear all about my favourite blorbos please. i want all the june and ryan and archie facts and tales please and thank you

HELLO IM SO SORRY THIS TOOK ME SO LONG TO GET TO!!! it’s been lowkey chaos in my life and my brain is scrambled and rotting

archie me boy!!!!!! growing stupider every day, i think maybe he’s just lost all his brain cells from being hit by a football so many times <3 HDJDBDKDJ just kidding he’s okay, his brain has a redemption arc at some point during the novel bc he has to study to stay on his team. fun fact; he found out he was bisexual because he was always joking with his friends about how cute they were and stuff and then one day he was like. maybe this isn’t a joke anymore. and almost all of his lil sporty bros accepted him and didnt cause problems !!! sometimes they even go to him for relationship advice because hey, they think he’s a dude with double experience (when really he’s only been in like two relationships). he was the third to join the band , ryan was the second , june was the fourth ! and he actually really isn’t that good at music, he just sort of did it to look good for school and also because ryan loves it!!

ryan my pride and joy , my pessimistic mother friend. he carry’s around bandaids and pads and extra snacks and tylenol in his backpack everywhere he goes just in case anyone needs anything! on the topic of sexuality, ryan knew he liked boys, but he didn’t actually start recognizing he was transgender til about 13/14. he was like, best friends with his mom at the time and openly expressed this which unfortunately lead to not good things. however ! his aunt is his main caretaker now and has helped him get on a small dose of testosterone and also bought him his first binder after she walked in on him wrapping his chest with bandages :( she’s a bit strict, i think it’s just gonna be a Ryan’s Family thing with that, but otherwise she’s very supportive and caring and loves the band so much she’s like their second mom!! ryan loves her a lot too. also ryan smokes a lot of weed. like a lot. man’s is constantly fried. if he’s not then he’s usually either depressed or pissy, which isn’t very fun for him or others (ryan seek therapy please) uMm um he really likes studying philosophy and also doing art!! i think at some point juliette and him definitely have days where they just hang out and paint all day !! he also has a weakness for glitter.

june!!!!! gosh i love june so much have i talked about how much i LOVE june? i don’t think i’ve ever given much backstory on her? she grew up in the sorer parts of chicago, and her mom only worked at a gas station/liquor store down the street practically 12 hours a day while her dad stayed home and basically ,, did nothing besides try to raise the rest of her siblings. they did not get much attention or care/basically had to raise themselves while their dad focused on his own life and the rest of the younger kids. her sister, lily, eventually just took her to move in and stay with her at her apartment in san fransisco, which has been her place of residence since. her and lily get along rather well, lily just has a hard time keeping up with june’s mental health, and especially blames herself for june’s struggles. but overall they maintain a good relationship! june is never home much anyway, always out and about with the band or just chilling with one of them or by herself in the city. she hates school and skips a majority of her classes, especially math. her favorite food are california rolls with bread crumbs on them! also her and ryan are lowkey besties, they spend a lot of time together sharing a joint or a spritzer and exploring the city. she also really looks up to ronyn because ronyn basically gave her a reason to stay sober/stay alive, which was the band… which is more like a home to them <33

#ask #bat !!#the summer we bloomed #tswb ; june #tswb ; ryan #tswb ; archie #my ocs

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spacecasehobbit · 2 years

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So. Look. I held off on saying anything, and I'm still putting this under a read more, because I have zero interest in starting an internet fight over something this silly. On the other hand, I have very little chill, so I'm still going to foist my thoughts out into the tumblr void anyway.

I don't care about the J. K. Rowling discourse.

Not in the sense that I don't care about the HP books, or the shitty transphobic sense that I think her shitty transphobic views are remotely okay.

What I don't care for is the way this discourse has sparked tumblr's usual lack of nuance and gotten people claiming that to care about or talk about the HP books nowadays is synonymous with validating or supporting J. K. Rowling's views. I don't care for the performative virtue signaling it has inspired in every bit of HP related content I see cross my dash. I don't need to read a disclaimer from every HP fan about how guilty they feel for still enjoying a series of fictional fantasy books, a rambling rationalization of how this or that bit of carefully curated engagement with HP is still okay as long as you do it The Right Way, or any more performative glee from someone who still spitefully enjoys the books while not supporting the author's views.

The HP books are not J. K. Rowling. Even if I did want to judge them by the author's views and circumstances, it seems kind of absurd to judge them by her views and circumstances today.

She began writing those books over two decades ago. When she wrote the first book, she was a young single mother struggling to support herself and her child on government welfare. The only reason she was able to complete the first book was because of a loan from a friend that gave her a stable place to live, and she completed the second book only with the help of a grant she applied for before the first book had been published.

Beyond that, the whole series espouses the opposite of her current transphobic views. The HP books are about the value of love, compassion, friendship, and bravery in the face of tyranny and oppression from a dominant social group. It is about not giving into the views of an intolerant minority obsessed only with maintaining their own power, about not giving up hope in the face of a complacent majority afraid to stand up against oppression or uncaring about issues that don't seem to directly affect their own lives.

Loving the HP books today is not incompatible with recognizing that their author has become one of the wealthy and powerful people that the HP books themselves called out for the self-centered and short-sighted cruelty of their views. Enjoying the work she wrote when she was a person who prioritized kindness and understanding of other people and their differences does not negate any criticisms of J. K. Rowling's current intolerance and bigotry. Participating in the creation and sharing of HP fanworks, taking part in conversations about the fantastical world she created, loving any of the characters she wrote into being with love - none of these things mean that you agree with her on the question of whether transgender women are women deserving of respect and dignity and the same basic rights as any other woman.

People shouldn't be made to feel guilty for enjoying a work of fiction, just because the author is Problematic now.

All human beings are flawed. Every piece of media you consume was created by someone imperfect.

Love what you love without shame. Enjoy your favorite fictional works without guilt. Those are the views that I stand behind.

#hp #jk rowling #The Discourse

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underthevveather · 25 days

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Coming Out: My Story + Advice

*CW: Mentions of internalized transphobia, transphobic interactions, dysphoria, etc.*

*Please DNI if you're anti-LGBT, a terf, or a general asshole. This blog isn't for you.*

Hello, friends. So I know I don't have the biggest blog out there, but it's continuously growing and I figured I should make a post about this. I don't usually talk about myself or my identity too much on here, even though it's literally an LGBT-related account. So I'm very nervous to post this, but here we go:

I'm coming out to all of you as a trans man.

This is most likely not shocking (because this is Tumblr and everyone is trans or queer in some way), but I wanted to clarify because I'm so tired of hiding who I am. I've had so many people doubt me, be hateful, be disrespectful, be judgemental, and be utterly horrible to me for being trans. But honestly, I'm slowly coming to a point where I want to be authentic with people.

So, when I was 13, my therapist was the first person that I came out to. I told her, without being able to look at her in the eyes, that I thought I might be transgender. I remember she smiled, asked me a little bit about it, and was generally so supportive and handled it amazingly.

On my 14th birthday, I came out to my mom as trans. She was also very supportive, though more surprised and a little confused than anything else. Slowly, over the next year, I began coming out to all of my friends and family.

I had negative experiences along the way. One of my closest family members called me selfish for wanting to change my name and pronouns because it would be "too difficult" for everyone else. I was told that I was "being childish" for asking for support and love from certain family members. I even experienced a lot of hate from my partner's parents at the time (my partner being cis with transphobic parents).

Regardless, I had a supportive single mother that believed in me and supported me and let me start testosterone when I was 15 (yes, I was young and no, I don't regret any of it). Despite T being a very powerful hormone for most AFAB people that go on it, it took a very long time for it to fully kick in.

I had a lot of difficulties with T. My voice, for example, never fully dropped and it's something I've always been dysphoric about. I even remember being told by random people that I "sound like a girl" or that they "can tell" that I'm trans because of my voice.

About 2 years on T, with very little changes, I decided to get top surgery and my mom allowed it because she could tell how much this meant to me. She saw all the struggles that I was going through and she could tell how much my chest bothered me, considering I would wear binders an unhealthy amount of the time.

So I got top surgery and I'm currently 4 years post-OP. Though I received top surgery at a fairly young age, there is not a single part of me that regrets it and not a day goes by where I'm ungrateful for it.

Although my transition has been a struggle (due to external forces and a lot of internalized transphobia), I'm still slowly learning how to appreciate who I am. I've been out for 7 years now, transitioning for almost 6 years, and although I still get misgendered occasionally, it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be and that's something I'm very thankful for.

Now that I've shared all of this, I'd like to be a tiny voice amongst the many different trans people that've given advice on this (or any other) platform before.

To Any Closeted Trans or Gender-Questioning People Out There:

Please be kind to yourself. Please take care of yourself. Please be patient and take your time figuring out who you are. Please only come out when you are safe to do so.

Remember that it gets easier, even when it's just a little bit at a time. Every day gets a little easier. Remember your strengths. Remember that you are who you are, and that is enough. The right people will know it, too.

And never let anyone tell you who you are. Only you can determine that.

If you've read this far, I would like to say thank you and that I hope you have a wonderful day. Remember to be kind to yourself and others :)

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cordially-stupid · 4 months

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Transgender First Blog Entry

The #TransgenderFirst College Scholarship- For Transgender Students (onlinedegree.com)

^ Transgender First, the inspiration for this post. Through writing this I ended up being inspired to start a couple of other essays about my experiences with the specific transphobia i've encountered as a trans man at an HWC. I'm always happy to talk about my experiences.

When I was accepted into an HWC, I was excited by the prospect of being surrounded by other queer people, and to have conversations about gender and sexuality with more nuance than ever before. However, I kept running into this pervasive idea that gender is a choice but it doesn’t matter because it isn’t real. This common regurgitation always rubbed me the wrong way. I can see how the idea of gender being irrelevant can be freeing for gender nonconforming people, especially lesbians pigeonholed into performing femininity. However, it not being real doesn't mean it can't and shouldn't matter. My gender matters to me. When I came out to my friends as a trans man, they treated me like I chose wrong. I was not part of the in-group.

Beyond having a hard time making and maintaining friendships, I experienced more explicit transphobia at school traditions. The conflation of “woman” and “student” made it difficult to assert that I belonged in student spaces, despite not being a woman. I, and other trans people, were kicked out of school sponsored events because we didn’t look enough like “women” to be students. My identity as a man was respected, but my status as a student was not.

I eventually found my social niche surrounded by other trans people. I finally had found people that understood the foundation of my experiences, and who were excited and supportive of my relationship to my gender. We celebrated when I finally went on testosterone my sophomore year, and had a weekly injection countdown to help me get over my fear of needles. My pronouns and chosen name were respected in class and among my friend group. I was growing into myself.

Despite my joy, I was also filled with anxiety. Going on testosterone was changing my body. It was becoming a body I loved and one that felt like mine, but it was also becoming one that my parents were going to notice was different. I needed to talk to someone with knowledge about how to navigate coming out to my parents, and dealing with the anxiety of how they would react. My grades tanked along with my mental health. Previous to that semester, I had been comfortably maintaining at least a 3.0, and suddenly was struggling just to pass my classes. I turned to the school’s overworked counseling services and was told that there weren’t any appointments available for months. I sought out the mental health club, but they were unable to offer any support beyond stickers and stress balls. I became more and more stressed, reassuring myself that my parents were likely to be supportive given their political views anyway.

Unfortunately, that simply wasn’t true. My mother found the packaging for my shots in the trash, and told me that I killed her daughter. She grieved with my father, who stopped acknowledging my presence. I became like a ghost in the house, until my mother broke the silence with a deal. I was permitted to finish the semester and live in their house on the condition that I moved out before the fall.

I was stunned by how quickly my joy was taken away from me. The lack of support from my parents led to the total collapse of my security. Every future became uncertain, which made it difficult to plan for any future. I was finally myself somewhere where I was not necessarily understood but at least accepted, and then flung into total self-reliance. It finally sank in that all my safe spaces were on a paid membership being canceled at the whim of my parents. The core of my experience as a trans person at college has been the precariousness of the safety and respect I am allotted. Most people who go to college or university rely on their parents to support them financially. But when you're trans, you are required to consider how your parents’ transphobia could influence their decision to finance your education. That assumption of support puts them in a position to levy that financial power and prevent you from coming out. The possibility of them exerting that power, regardless of how accepting they actually end up being, means that even the decision itself of coming out to your parents weighs heavily on your mind.

I had a hard winter that year. I was struggling to afford food, let alone get access to the healthcare I needed. Every dollar I saved that summer went to the roof over my head. I didn’t starve that winter because of those connections I made at school. I moved about 15 minutes away from my old campus, dead set on at least keeping my support system nearby. My friends were sneaking me food from the dining halls and lending me blankets and soap. I would not have made it through the winter without them.

I was eventually able to find my financial footing the following spring, and can finally begin to think about going back to school. The degree to which financial stability, often founded on your parents’ acceptance of your identity, affects your ability to integrate with your institution is wild lol.

#transgenderfirst #scholarship

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midnights-perch · 2 years

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"There are few good things to say about the public conversation around transgender issues, which all too often shows us — all of us — at our worst. But it also offers up a seemingly endless series of case studies illustrating wider problems with the way contemporary culture and institutions deal with difficult ideas.

The latest lesson comes from Boswells School in Chelmsford, Essex. It has dropped J.K. Rowling’s name from one of its houses. Previously, she was honoured as a champion of self-discipline, regarded as a role model for children perhaps for her determination in starting her globally-successful series of books under difficult circumstances. Rowling wrote her first Harry Potter novel as a struggling single mother, telling stories to millions of people about a boy-wizard who does the right thing even when it’s difficult.

Nothing in that origin story of Harry Potter has changed. Rowling remains today at least as self-disciplined as she was when Boswells named its house after her. The Harry Potter stories themselves have not changed. The reason for the school’s action is, of course, that she has written things some people didn’t like about the potential for changes in law intended to benefit trans people, which she worries adversely affects the rights of women.

The school does not say, of course, precisely what Rowling has done or said that is wrong: vanishingly few of those who criticise her even bother trying to point to any particular words to justify themselves, probably because her words offer no such justification. Instead, simply discussing trans issues at all is, ipso facto, proof of guilt.

According to the BBC, Boswells School took this decision because Rowling’s 'views on this issue do not align with our school policy and school beliefs'.

Presumably, if Boswells rejects house names on the basis that a person holds views inconsistent with the school values, we can infer that by retaining Nightingale House, the school considers Nightingale’s views of race and empire acceptable?

Those few words capture something important and dismal about the way some people and organisations conduct themselves today. This approach demands total alignment of a person’s views and positions; anything less must not be tolerated. This is the elimination of nuance.

If you take this position, it is impossible to say of someone: 'I agree with them about X but disagree with them about Y'. Instead, all you can do is divide the world up into two lists: people who you consider acceptable and everyone else. Troubling complexity is wished away, replaced by the childish comfort of oversimplification.

It is all the more striking and miserable that this approach is being adopted by a school and the people who teach there: the decision to rename Rowling House came after 'numerous requests by students and staff,' apparently. If that’s true, it means there are professional educators who cannot or will not explain to children that it is possible to disagree with and criticise some things a person does while also agreeing with and admiring other things they do.

It also suggests deep inconsistency and a lack of intellectual rigour. No doubt it is possible to construct a coherent worldview where a person who holds a position that does not 'align' with your beliefs cannot validly be admired for any of their actions or thoughts. But if that is Boswells’s position, can the school apply it consistently? I ask because of the people whose names remain on its houses.

One of them is Sir David Attenborough. Now, I bow to no one in my admiration of a man whose natural history films remain one of the greatest things about this country (and a reminder to those who would destroy it that the BBC is, on balance, a national asset). But while I strongly admire his work as a broadcaster, I incline towards disagreeing with him about population control.

Sir David has supported Population Matters, formerly known as the Optimum Population Trust. This is an organisation that thinks there are too many people in the world and has previously taken positions including arguing that Britain should not accept more Syrian refugees because there are too many people here already (a view that it has since distanced itself from).

I admire Sir David’s films. I don’t admire his views on population. What does that mean? Not much: that’s just how life works if you don’t attempt to see the world through the narrow lens of 'values' and purity tests. Can we assume that Boswells’s position is that Sir David’s views on population control are consistent with its policies and values?

What about Florence Nightingale, for whom another house is named? Most people, rightly, admire what Nightingale did to improve nursing and medical care. What about her support for colonialism, her belief in the 'necessity of engrafting civilised habits on uncivilised races'?

Or — and I’m just speculating here — is it possible that some vestigial part of the school’s collective intelligence remembers that not only is it possible for one person to do admirable things while holding contentious views, but it is also a purpose of education to equip people to understand and appreciate such distinctions?

P.S.

Since this piece was published, several people have kindly pointed out something I’d missed about this story. The school has replaced the name of J.K. Rowling with that of Dame Kelly Holmes, an Olympic athlete. And guess which issue Dame Kelly has expressed controversial views about...

P.P.S.

In the time that I spent writing this piece, a second 'controversy' over Rowling blew up online. Jon Stewart, a US commentator, is reported to have suggested that Rowling’s depiction of goblin bankers in the Potter books is anti-Semitic. Several anti-Semitism campaigners have said this is baseless and pointed to Rowling’s support for their cause.

Without getting into a detailed analysis of the texts, I note simply that the first of those books was published very nearly 25 years ago and have been read by tens of millions of people, at least. So why is the internet only today lighting up with this claim? I’d suggest it’s another illustration of the reduction of the world to stark moral binaries. Because Rowling is a designated a Bad Person — by reason of her trans views — everything she has done must, by definition, be bad. And where the facts awkwardly fail to fit into the intellectual cookie-cutter, they must be cut, shaped and tortured into shape. This is the state of public discourse today, and it is grim. "

#radblr #terfs do interact #radfem #terfsafe #drop the t #jk rowling

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gatheringbones · 3 years

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["I am sitting in on lunch at the deli where you are meeting with a new acquaintance, and I am struggling with my pronouns. She is a big woman, over six feet, with a pulled-back ponytail and a sweet face. She is a woman with a spouse of fifteen years and four children and a life that started out as male and is now being lived as female. "At least," she says, "I am more than I am a man." The inadequacy of the words. The duality of the pronouns. She is talking to me about you, a narration of a moment on the phone with you, "So I said to him..."

This is not a man passing on the street who sees you as a man, arm in arm with me, a woman. This is not a lesbian who watches us dancing at a party, and sees you as either a butch lesbian or a woman trying to be a man, and me as femme or deluded. This is someone who lives in a world where gender and sex are fluid. Not an academic exercise, but what she tells the kids about who she was as their father. The shock to me of you sitting there as him, at this ordinary formica table, though of course that is the pronoun that suits your masculine spirit, short hair, oxford shirt, men's slacks. The word spoken about you not in hostility or misperception, but because, for you both, that is how flexible gender is.

Meeting you for the first time over curried chicken and masala dosa, she is socially appropriate to refer to you as him. Meanwhile, you are saying that you are a woman and transgendered, that your masculinity is a range of gender expression that should be available to all women, as femininity should be to men. You insist that you are him and also her. When I enter the conversation, I call you both by your given names to be respectful. The either/or pronouns suddenly are the jaws of a steel trap snapping shut on infinities that exist where body, self, sex, gender, the world, and lunch intersect.

The fluorescent light brightens in the little deli, as if a cloud has shifted from the sun. Your words become sharper and more distinct, someone turning up the volume on the radio. I see and hear the bothness, the severalness of this moment, a chaotic heightening of sense very akin to my first look at who really lives under the rigid grid of black and white. In a long-ago meeting of first-grade parents, every person was a woman of color except me, except some of them were almost as light-skinned as me, sitting there worrying about their children like me, and like the women who were darker-skinned than us. Then later, in the city, I met proper Black ladies walking home, gloved and hatted, from church. Their profiles, lips pursed, were exactly those of my aunts. And even later I learned how the laws of race and property had been laid over us, the bodies of some white men had lain on us, reproducing white and black, producing owner and owned, to divide our lives.

Over the clatter of the lunch-time rush, she says that she did "the femme thing" for a while to prove she was a woman, but now she believes in not denying her past. In the past I have denied I was a woman. The pronoun she was a trap set by others to catch me. I watch her talk, cheeks flushed pink, eyes gleaming silver and green. I imagine wrapping womanhood around me like a length of shimmering metallic cloth. She looks at me frequently while she talks, careful to divide her attention between you and me. How my aunts talked to me as a little girl, curly-headed and new in my mother's arms. No words from them to me without sex or gender.

Suddenly I see you and me and her on the edge of town, a place out of my view when I was growing up, like the Quarters or the Milltown, but this is another kind of gathering. It is a world of those the world casts out, calls freaks, the women-men of the sideshow at the circus, seen as tawdry, pitiful, hidden, wasted, walking their path of reeking sawdust between the tents. Except the people there have lovers, marriages, children, poor-paying jobs. They have marigolds in pots, they play the harmonica, they write books. You live there and now I live there too, with those who know they are both man and woman, those who have transmuted from one to the other, those who insist they are neither. Outside the pegged tents people stand and peer in at us, no words for us, though just by stepping over the ropes they could join us. I could cross back into that staring crowd and be without question a woman amusing herself, Sunday afternoon at the carnival. But I would rather stay here and talk to you in this in-between place, sitting with a friend, our food spread out, savory, spicy, on the table before us."]

Minnie Bruce Pratt, “Lunch”, from S/he, Firebrand Press, 1995

#minnie bruce pratt #lesbian literature #trans literature #gender stuff

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its-deputy-caleb · 2 years

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okay this is kinda irrelevant bc i already have my pronouns in my bio but ima use this post as like a mini story about me if you wanna read and also just to solidify my own experience. (there’s a nice little message if you just wanna read the last few paragraphs) — anyway here is my

✨ I’m Coming out as non-binary post!! ✨

i think this break has come at a good time for me and while i can’t wait to get back to writing i definitely needed moment to finally come to terms with myself and i’ve been wanting to do this for a long time.

i feel way more accepted on here and i feel as though i can be honest and express myself and i’m now at a point in my life where i’m happier with myself and who i am to a point where i’m comfortable with the label/term of non binary and feel comfortable with all pronouns but more specifically they/them.

(if you wanna read more i’m just gonna put some of my personal experiences under the cut and i’ll use this as a trigger warning as i’m gonna talk about my past experiences with a verbally abusive family and my struggles with mental health)

*a disclaimer these are purely my own experiences, people have different ones but this is more just my interpretation of things pls don’t be offend <3 and a trigger warning because i’m gonna talk about some verbal abuse and mental health disorders next so please don’t read if it’s triggering.

The early years of high school were particularly rough as i’d come out as bisexual and my friends, family and other loved ones didn’t understand or were not accepting at all since i come from a heavily catholic conservative family and most of my high school experience had been at single sex religious schools which really ruined my mental health and is something i’m still recovering from.

However i realised soon that coming to terms with my sexuality was really only half of the problem as there was still a apart of me that still wasn’t okay and i sort of knew it but couldn’t place my finger on it. A friend of mine who already identified as non-binary took me to their house one day and actually showed me a binder and let me put on some of their more masculine clothes and they cut my hair really short. As corny as it sounds in that moment i’d never felt more like myself and i couldn’t stop smiling and they showed me this new idea of what gender could really be and i was really comfortable with identifying as ftm and transgender.

now before i continue i am completely aware that you don’t choose to be transgender and it’s who you are and it’s not about cherry picking but it’s something that you can’t change but i’m going to explain myself.

for years i was out and identifying as transgender with my friends who were mildly supportive but they were blessings compared to my family who made it their chore every day to dehumanise me and belittle me for my looks. They’d always misgender me, some even going to lengths as to call me ‘it’ from my own family. My mother told me i had to live with my father because she was so disgusted with who i was and my father was no different.

i felt like i was abandoned by my family because every single one of them had an issue with my identity one way or another and i won’t go into detail but it has left me with serious anxiety, depression and an eating disorder and i still struggle with all three of them.

despite this i kept my head up for years and endured every day because it is truly something that feels so right to me. But there was a time when i had to put my mental health first because i could not stand the things they said and so i got through high school in a single sex religious school without any trouble and kept my feelings hidden.

now whenever someone asks me if i prefer a he/him pronoun i experience so much trauma and anxiety that it feels almost wrong because i’ve been conditioned that way but i also don’t like she/her all that much either. So for a few years now i’ve been slowly exploring different parts of myself and i’m actually helping myself heal.

coming to terms with being non-binary makes me feel 1) extremely safe and happy and 2) i realised now that i like expressing femininity, masculinity and neither all at the one time.

it’s also made me reconnect with my family and it’s taken a lot of hard work but we’re slowly getting into better waters but i’m so much happier and healthier now that i’m an adult and independent. And i’d like to make it clear that i’m absolutely okay and happy and healthy (this is not a cry for help this is me just accepting myself and sharing it— i’m in a good place <3)

now i’m so independent and healthy with my life and i feel comfortable with myself for the first time in a long time. i manage classes, work and my personal life while fitting in my writing on here and i never hesitate to take breaks and put myself first because one thing all of this has taught me is that i deserve to take care of myself.

At this point in my life i’m so happy with who i am and while it’s not perfect because life never is i can truly honestly say that this blog has somewhat influenced some of the more recent decisions.

even something as small as seeing my favourite artists write a gender neutral piece or the fact that there are both male and female o/c’s and readers can be extremely validating and so i also want to take the time to say a huge thank you to have an audience and have people love my work but also a thank you for just letting me feel safe and accepted on here.

love you all <33

#thank y’all for reading this if u see it #means the world #<33 #personal post #coming out post #long post #tw mental health #tw gender confusion

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writer1 · 3 years

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Acceptance

Warnings: a bit of angst, but not too much.

A\N: This was requested by Anonymous, I really hope you like it and that it helps your brother to feel better! Best wishes to him 😊 If there is anything wrong that I did, please tell me, this is my first time writing a fic like this and I don’t want to offend anyone. D\N-Dead name.

The Request: For your 501 followers celebration, can I request Bad Batch and Omega with reader, who came out as ftm? ( transgender, female to male ) Plot looks a little like this : reader calls them all for a meeting and makes them all sit down, telling them he has something important to tell them. He starts to explain to them his he felt for the past few years, not knowing who he really is and stuff. At some point he starts to cry from fear that they won't accept him and maybe even kick him out from the squad.

I would love to see their reactions, how they calmed him down and told him it's okay and they love him no matter what.

This request is for my brother, who is trying to tell our mother that he's transgender. He's really scared and I hate to see him like that. I think this fic would help him gather the courage and tell her or at least make him feel better about himself.

Please let me know if this kind of request is okay with you, like if you feel comfortable enough to write it. Have a great day/night and take care!

You pace the common area of the marauder, nervous about what you are about to do. You have decided to come out to them, and tell everyone that you are a transgender. You’ve always felt different, not like yourself, and it’s taken you a while to realize that you are a man, not a woman.

You just… you don’t know how to tell the bad batch, they’ve always treated you like their little sister, what are they going to think when they find out you are actually their brother? You sigh, and decide to just call them, it’s all you can do. You’re just scared, what if they won’t accept you, they may even kick you out of the squad, then you’ll lose your brothers and new little sister.

“Guys! Can you come in here, I want to have a family meeting!” You call, twisting your fingers in your hand, you take deep breaths to come yourself down, as the bad batch and Omega all walk in. Hunter raises an eyebrow.

“What’s going on, Sis.” You flinch when he calls you that, and Hunter frowns. “Hey, what's wrong?” “Are you feeling sick?” Wrecker asks, and you chuckle. That cheered you up a bit. “No, no. I’m not sick, there's just something I have to tell everyone, so please sit down.” Everyone does as they’re told, all curious of what you may have to tell them.

Tech smiles at you. “What do you need to tell us, D\N?” “Yeah, I was in the middle of cleaning my rifle.” Crosshair earns a slap from Omega for that, as she glares at him. “Cross, don’t be rude.” Then everyone turns and looks towards you, making you even more nervous than you already were, but you just take a deep breath to calm yourself, and start. “I… “ You try to start, but choke up.

You feel so nervous and scared. “D\N?” Hunter asks, as the others stare, you sigh and take a deep breath. “For the past few years, I’ve been struggling a bit. I’ve never really understood who I was, or what I really wanted. And I’ve always just felt… different.” They nod, looking confused, but they listen intently.

“Is it something we did? Or something we could help with, Sis?” Hunter asks, but his eyebrows furrow when you flinch at the nickname. You run a hand through your longer hair, absolutely hating it. “Look, I just… I don’t know how to tell you because--” You choke on a sob, making them all jump up. Hunter runs over to you, followed by his brothers.

“Hey, hey. It’s alright Sis.” He hugs you close, pulling you over to a seat and sitting you down. He pets your hair gently as Wrecker grabs your smaller hand in his larger one. Once Hunter pulls away Tech gently pulls you into his own hug. Echo walks over and grabs your hand gently, he’s newer to the family, but still has already become a brother to you. You look up as Crosshair taps your shoulder three times, his way of saying ‘I love you’

Omega comes over and gently gives you a hug, making you smile as you try to stop crying. “Hey, whatever it is, it’s okay.” Hunter tells you, but you shake your head and set Omega down. “You’re gonna think I’m weird and kick me off the squad, out of the family…” All their eyes widen. “Like hell we will!! You’re our sister!” Crosshair yells, making you flinch and sigh. Hunter wonders why, he has a theory, but you should be the one to tell him. “We won’t kick you out, none of us will.” Hunter reassures you, making you smile as the others nod in agreement.

“You’re family, even to me. And I haven’t been in this family very long.” Echo tells you, making you smile as they all sit down, but then you frown. “I’m not… I’m not a girl.” You tell them, finally just saying it. They all raise their eyebrows, not exactly understanding. “What?” Wrecker asks, not angry or anything, but sincerely confused. Even Tech doesn’t know what to say, you sigh as you bite your lip.

“I’m not a girl…. I’m a boy.” You tell them, and Tech makes a little ‘oh’ sound. “So you’re transgender?” He asks, and you nod. The others still look confused, making Tech sigh, then look at you. “Would you like me to explain?” He asks, softly. And you tear up, nodding. Who knows how the others beside Tech will react.

“Transgender means that the gender you are born with, doesn’t corraspond with how you feel. Meaning that D\N, who was born a girl, is actually a boy. That's who he is.” They all nod, blank expressions, you start to tear up again. “M’sorry.” You whisper, but then are pulled into a hug by Wrecker.

He sets you down, gently wiping your tears away. Hunter smiles at you. “Hey, we are never going to kick you out, ever.” He tells you, making you smile. “So we have a brother.” Crosshair says, giving you a rare smile. You nod. “Yeah, you do.” You tell them, and they all smile again. Omega runs over and hugs your legs. “I have another brother!!” She cheers, making you smile as you pick her up into a hug. “You do, sweety.” Hunter then walks up as you set her back down.

“Do you have a different name in mind, Brother?” Hunter asks, and you tear up, being called brother instead of Sis feels so nice. You nod. “I kind of like Y\N, what do you guys think?” They all give you wide smile’s. “I love it!!” Wrecker yells as he picks you up in a bone crushing hug, making you laugh, nuzzling into his shoulder.

“That suits you well, Y\N.” Hunter tells you as he smiles, Wrecker setting you down. “It does fit well.” Crosshair smiles, placing a toothpick in his mouth. You run a hand through your hair, and you grimace. Hunter must notice. “Would you like me to cut it for you? If you want it cut, of course.” Hunter says, making you smile. “Yes, please.” Hunter smiles and leads you to the refresher as your brothers and sister follow.

You both walk in, but then you smirk. “I want it to be a surprise to the rest of you.” You tell them, making Wrecker pout. “Aww, I don’t want to wait.” He says dramatically, making you chuckle. “Too bad.” You close and lock the refresher door, as Hunter smiles and sits you down. “Alright, how short do you want it?” You hum and tell him, making Hunter smile. “Nice, I’m sure it’ll look great on you.” You smile as Hunter gets to work, gently cutting your hair. He makes sure it’s the exact length and style you had asked for, wanting you to feel comfortable.

It’s a nice silence, filled with only the sound of the scissors. All you feel is joy, joy that you aren’t losing your brothers, joy that they accepted you, and joy of finally being who you are.

Once Hunter finishes, he smiles and runs a hand through your hair. “Is that how you wanted it?” He asks, and for the first time since he started, you look in the mirror. You immediately tear up, it’s exactly how you wanted it. “I… Thanks.” You tell him, slamming into him and hugging him tightly. Hunter chuckles and pulls you close, kissing your forehead. “Don’t you ever be afraid to tell us anything, no matter what happens, we will always be here for you.” You tear up again, crying tears of joy as you nod.

Hunter lets you go. “Ready to show them?” He asks, and you nod. “Yeah.” Hunter smiles and opens the door, you walk out as everyone comes running over. Wrecker smiles widely, a large grin as usual. “You look great, Y\N!!” You smile. “Thanks Wrecker.” Crosshair smiles. “You look a lot happier too, I’m glad.” He smiles at you, then he looks away. “I… I love you, Brother. Nothing can change that, not ever.” He says, making you tear up once again and pull him into a hug. You know how hard it is for Crosshair to say those words, so for him to say them, it’s so comforting.

He hugs you back, and after a few moments you pull away. “It looks great, and I’ve already changed your name and sex in my database to match what you told us.” Tech smiles at you, making you smile back. “Thanks Tech.” You chuckle out, smiling at him.

Echo then gives you a one armed hug, smiling. “I love it, it fits you much better than your old one.” You smirk, rubbing his head. “Hopefully yours grows back soon, then maybe we could match.” Echo chuckles. “Not a chance, I already have a hairstyle planned. No offense.” You nod, waving it off. “None taken, you just don’t know a good hairstyle when you see it.” Talking like this, normally. It feels so nice, before you told them, you thought you’d never joke with any of them like this again.

“You look so handsome, Y\N!! I love it!” Omega tells you, running forward and hugging your legs. You laugh and pick her up, as Wrecker pulls all of you, even Crosshair, into a group hug. Right here, feeling like yourself, your true self and with your family, this is the only place you ever want to be.

Taglist: @ahsokatano-thetogruta @pro-fangirls-unsocial-life @lightning-wolffe

#star wars clone wars #the bad batch #my writing #the bad batch x reader #the bad batch x trans reader #trans reader #tech #crosshair #hunter #Omega #wrecker

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sourwormsaresour · 3 years

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what are your thoughts on La Squadra's sexualities?

First off, Happy Pride Month! Please have a safe one. Before I start, I just want to let you guys know that I’m a straight cisgender woman so I’m not 100% knowledgeable on sexualities so these are based on my current knowledge of the community. I’m open to all head-canons about La Squadra’s sexualities besides my own :)

Sorbet and Gelato are gay, both using he/him pronouns, and are the most out compared to everyone in the team. Even though La Squadra knew about their relationships, the two themselves aren’t open about it outside of the team and their families. This is especially because relationships can be used against you in the crime world but also because their families rely on them to have a “good reputation” to live comfortably. I head-canon that they are both breadwinners of their families: Gelato has siblings that go to very conservative, academic institutions and rely on scholarships that look into family history for recommendations, and Sorbet’s mother requires medical attention from reputable doctors that also have homophobic biases that can be used against her. They’ve secretly used some of their money to help a street kid or two that they learned was disowned after being outed or assassinated a few people for hurting kids for being part of the LGBTQ+ community or even preying on them. The two men probably both went through phases where they thought they only liked women, tried to be in heterosexual relationships, and their enemies-to-lovers type of relationship had probably stemmed from their inability to properly process their attraction to each other at the time.

Formaggio is bisexual and prefers using he/him pronouns; he has a stronger attraction to women but is unaware that he’s attracted to men as well. A big part of why he’s so unaware or in denial of it came from his conservative upbringing in a working-class family and lack of representation growing up. Formaggio knew that men can be attracted to other men, but other aspects of the LGBTQ+ community is either unknown to him or seen in a negative perception; he’s learning more about the community and how to be a better ally, especially after meeting Sorbet and Gelato, but he’s still struggling to reverse the anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments he grew up believing. As a result of his past, Formaggio assumed that one can only be attracted to one gender and never crossed his mind that people can be attracted to more than one. He often tries to hide his attraction to men via “straight guy who’s unaware he’s gay occasionally spits homophobic jokes and says ‘no homo’ every time he says "I love you" to his friends but he means full homo” approach.

Illuso is pansexual and gender fluid, preferring he/him/they/them pronouns most of the time but also likes using neo-pronouns and occasionally prefers to use she/her pronouns. As a former intern for a fashion designer before he joined La Squadra, he’s relatively more exposed to meeting different people in the LGBTQ+ community through fashion; those who were higher in status and power would be more out about it than those in lower ranking and the community was a huge source for avant-garde, counter-culture influences. Despite getting more inspiration for his designs from his interactions and developing his identity in the LGBTQ+ space, that also led to him witnessing discrimination, abuse, and powerplay caused by the higher-ups; some became victims simply because of rumors that they may be part of the LGBTQ+ community or being forcibly outed, some are forced into relationships in exchange for opportunities and privileges, etc. He remains closeted and part of his arrogance stems from him hiding his sexuality due to the trauma of enduring the abuse and witnessing it as well. La Squadra doesn’t know his sexuality or know that he’s genderfluid, but they’re fine with adapting to his pronouns whenever they change.

Pesci is unaware that they’re gay and are non-binary that prefers they/them pronouns. Although they try to stick to he/him pronouns to avoid being out, they like using they/them more and get secretly happy when someone refers to them as such. I head-canon that they’re actually younger than Giorno when they encountered Team Bucciarati, which would explain why he never killed anyone up until this point (they’re a literal kid that’s slowly getting involved in the team when Sorbet and Gelato were killed, albeit they’re on the buffer side despite their age), and with their sheltered childhood and Prosciutto’s strict mentorship, they never got to sit down and think about their sexual and gender identity. They often try to pretend they’re a macho straight man alongside Formaggio but they end up feeling bad about it after trying to say a bad comment or joke to fit in. Pesci themselves feel like they’re alone in terms of the emotions of not being able to put your sexuality into words. It doesn’t help that they’re rather isolated compared to everyone except Risotto; they only knew La Squadra as their family ever since they joined the team and they never talk to anyone outside of the group.

Prosciutto is bisexual and genderfluid, preferring to identify with he/him pronouns, but he’s also the most closeted and probably has the most internalized homophobia as well. Growing up in the entertainment industry, especially in acting, means adhering to heteronormative standards; controversies of any kind would make or break a career and he constantly heard homophobic statements “disguised” as critiques around him from all levels of the entertainment industry. The fact that he was overworked up until his “career retirement” also didn’t give him the time to sit down and realize both his sexuality and how fucked up the film industry is in terms of its treatment towards the LGBTQ+ community. With his upbringing of being presentable and hiding his sexuality, he tries to present himself in the most Italian metrosexual straight machismo man he could and uses his “gentleman charms” towards women to avoid people from questioning further about his sexuality. But at the end of the day, he knows he’s lying to himself about his sexuality. And unfortunately, his anger at being unable to express that is often misdirected.

Melone is demi-sexual, though he presents himself as asexual and panromantic, and prefers using any pronouns. Like his teammates, he prefers using he/him for his safety. As a former scientist, he learned and got to know about the LGBTQ+ community through a more scientific perspective, but also knew there are hidden homophobic biases in the science community as well. Still, he does his best to be an ally for his peers before realizing he is demisexual and panromantic. His sexuality allows him to view the incubation and child-rearing aspect of his Stand without emotions or feelings involved and further explains how he views fornication and training his Juniors in a very scientific and analytical way without guilt taking over. Despite presenting himself as ace/straight (mostly for safety and because it’s easier to explain that he has no attraction to people than being a demisexual), I also see someone who yearns to have a strong emotional connection to someone and would give his all to the person he loves most. His overtly sexual nature is more of an act (I've heard that some aces tend to act overtly sexual, either to avoid being outed or as a result of growing up thinking that need to feel an attraction is necessary) and Melone secretly desires being attracted to someone he learns to trust, admire, and love over time. I have a backstory that plays into that but I might disclose it another time. ;)

Ghiaccio is on the same boat with Prosciutto in terms of having internalized homophobia due to his childhood career as a child athlete. At the time he was training to be an Olympic hopeful as a solo figure skater, Ghiaccio was born female and had to remain in the closet due to the conservative nature of the ice skating world and his step-father being notorious for his opinions favoring homophobia and sexism. Once he joined La Squadra, Ghiaccio began experimenting with himself and ultimately came out as transgender, presenting himself with he/him pronouns, and had been using testosterone ever since. Most members that joined after him only knew Ghiaccio as male while the other members are either indifferent about his gender or are involved in helping Ghiaccio transition to be male. Transitioning also helped him realized he was aromantic and gay, which provided him closure from the years of struggle he had trying to fit into the heteronormative expectations he thought he had to conform to when he was female. The effect of testosterone also explains his brash and short-tempered nature, although that stems more from him finally being able to express himself after years of repressing his emotions as a child.

Risotto is also aromantic and asexual, preferring he/him/they/them pronouns, although he doesn’t know that he is aro/ace, to begin with. Growing up, he never really cared when he heard his older relatives or adults making comments about how “he’d make a good husband” or “have the girls chase him”, because all he cared about was his family and friends. He just assumes that once he becomes a “big boy”, then he’ll have thoughts of wanting to get married like the fairytales say. Just let his future spouse have children with him in any way and he'll play the role of husband regardless. Since his cousin’s death, he gave up the idea of having any sexual or romantic interest in anyone. Why to go out of your way to find any relationship when they’ll be dead soon enough- that was Risotto’s logic. He’s not aware that he can define himself as aro/ace, he just assumes that the trauma he went through with his cousin’s death stops him from feeling any attraction and doesn’t make an effort to figure out why.

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honeyandbloodpoetry · 3 years

Text

Abuse and Gender Expression - Gender Thoughts Part Three

Huuuuuge trigger warnings for peer abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, religious abuse, a murder attempt and mentions of self harm, suicidal ideation and an eating disorder. 18+ talk of sexual activity also included. Discretion advised!

I feel like the first time I realized I needed to perform high femininity to be accepted was in sixth grade. I was slotted into a rotating elective class, and the first one was a careers class. That careers class was utter hell for me. Every single day, I was tormented by an entire classroom of about twenty of my peers. I was bullied, no, abused for being fat and ugly and weird. I was called a whore, and told the only way I could ever be loved was someone raping me. Things were thrown at me, I was shoved down and tripped. I was bullied for my special interest in Transformers. I was told I was so fat and ugly I should be killed and be made into meat and cheese and fed to starving people because that was my only worth. Every single day I was told I should kill myself in varying ways. And all of that is just a quick summary. It was intense and brutal abuse for an entire semester, and I distinctly remember a day where there was a literal pool of tears on my desk. I couldn’t understand. I reached out to the teacher for help, and genuinely can’t remember exactly what he said. All I know is that he simply watched, and sometimes even joined in with “jokes” of his own. This was also the year abuse from my mother amped up, and home was a warzone--we were constantly arguing, and she became a professional at gaslighting and poking and prodding me until I exploded so I could be blamed for fighting back. My father would vacantly stand by and remind me not to fight back. This was also the year I began to self harm as a way of release.

I remember thinking that if I looked more like the girls in my class, I wouldn’t be bullied so much. I was told I was ugly and unlovable, so I thought that if I performed more femininely, maybe I could be like those who tormented me and therefore not be a target. I thought there was something inherently wrong with the way I presented myself. I convinced my mother to take me to the store, and I bought wedge heels and gaudy jewelry I did not like to wear with my uniform--replacing my autobot necklace and sweatband. In another class I was teased for not shaving and for having ugly feet, so I learned to paint my nails, file my heels, and shave every bit of hair on my body--the echo of my father saying that since I grew pubic hair, I was now a woman and held accountable for all of my sins an echo on the cusp of my mind. I did everything in my power to be more pretty and girly. I used to be loud and rambunctious, and began to go silent and demure.

I remember walking up to the class in the new get-up that was certainly not me. I felt that I would be accepted but as I walked up...I fell flat on my ass. I couldn’t walk in the heels. They all pointed and laughed at me, and the abuse continued in even higher intensity. It was until the next semester that I fought back by throwing a desk at two of my abusers who followed me to the next rotating elective, screaming and snarling at them to leave me alone. Those two in particular stopped, but abuse from others continued for many years in many instances. I developed an eating disorder, continued self harming, and began to try and form femininity and “attractiveness” to the best of my ability. I added things like bows and kitty ears and flower crowns to my wardrobe--sure they were cute, and I did like them in a way, but it felt like putting on a costume or some sort of womanly obligation. It didn’t feel like me. Years later, I was told by someone I trusted that I was “too fat to wear pants”, which I internalized and began to only wear dresses--same thing with feeling like I was wearing a costume. I tried to be beautiful. I wanted to be butch, be myself, but I felt that if I was a cute and girly girl, demure and sweet, I wouldn’t be a target. I would be loved.

And so I locked myself away.

My relationship with my mother was a rocky one. She is definitely a sick and broken person, but I doubt she will ever get help. She swings between extremes, and I was always her doll and punching bag. She had a habit of pushing and pushing, finding all the littles holes in me that triggered autistic meltdowns and despair. She criticized everything about me, from my weight and height to my blaming me for how tangled my hair was. She entered me in sports and spelling bees with gentle but insisting prodding about how good I would be when I would rather be reading or playing, and when I got frustrated she would say it was my choice...when in reality I just wanted her approval. When I got older, and especially after my father killed himself, I began to fight back and question her authority though--sometimes violently. She didn’t like that, and was violent right back, and oftentimes first. I struggled my whole life with blaming myself for my outbursts and reactions, but through therapy I have learned I was a child being gaslit and abused, shown that violence was the only answer… And through therapy, I have learned to do better and grow. The worst instance of abuse was me having an autistic meltdown where I said that we should both just die and her response was to pull out a gun and point it at me--I collapsed down into our trash covered room (I was forced to share a bed with her) and pleaded with her to stop. She threatened to kill me and help me out since I was so suicidal, then turned the gun on herself and threatened to kill herself, in which I had to talk her down. When the gun was down, I fled in a flurry of tears and barely contained screams. It was truly the most horrible moment of my life, and I still struggle with the ptsd of that moment to this day. I was only fourteen.

All that background to say, my mother was extremely possessive of my body. She seemed to love to touch my breasts and butt, jerk me around, slap my butt, watch me get dressed. When I begged her to stop, she would tell me that she made that body and could do whatever she wanted to it. I found messages on her phone of her talking to guys about having sex with me and stealing my panties. She wouldn’t let me do my own hair because I couldn’t do it right. She wouldn’t let me bathe alone until I was over ten years old. I didn’t ever have my own room until I was 18 and shared it with my partner. She never let me play with my hair and kept a close eye on what I wore. This combined with my very religious Christian father, who said things like “if you know more song lyrics than bible verses when you die, you’ll go to hell” and the aforementioned accountability, along with things like letting me know he loved God more than me and always seeming to walk in while I was changing… I always felt owned by something. I never felt like my body or my identity belonged to me alone. And so it was extremely difficult to explore myself.

Sexual exploration became an outlet. I was asexual and didn’t possess sexual attraction or a desire for coital sex (still don’t), but I enjoyed kink play with my partner and playing with myself. I enjoyed porn, mostly stories. I always felt drawn to mlm porn, but never understood why. I saw myself in the big, fat men of the stories. I wished it could be me, wished I was a big hairy man like that. Wished I could be loved like that. Reading those types of erotica always got me off and made me feel relaxed and fulfilled, no matter what kink it regarded. Of course my mom would slutshame me without even knowing what I got up to, but sexual activity and pornography helped me find solace and ownership of my body. When I was aroused and taking care of myself, being taken care of, or taking care of someone else, I felt like I was finally in control of my body and my happiness. I had been sexually abused in different ways by different people throughout my life, and finding a certain safety and security in the kind of sexual activity I explored made me feel like...me. I found myself in those big men, but still didn’t make the connection that I was not cis.

It wasn’t until many years that I began to question my gender. First nonbinary, then agender, then genderfluid, then bigender, then nonbinary again, now finally transmasc. I am autistic and struggle with a resistance to change. I have struggled with shifting my name because it feels like a betrayal to become something new. So I have become Charis instead of Charissa...but I think I may be Myles instead. Since I have struggled with abuse and feeling owned my whole life, it is scary to take my self creation into my own hands. People I am close to have expressed concern and dislike for my transition--especially my mother. I came out to her two days ago over the phone when she guessed I was transgender--or “wanted a sex change” as she put it. She outed me to her anti-lgbt boyfriend without my consent, and now they want to have a discussion. She cried and told me it was too much and she couldn’t talk yet. I am still unsure of what to do about it. I know my mother is broken, and has come far from the cruelty she was once capable of--but she still swings. I see those shattered pieces and their sharp edges and know they have the ability to cut. It is terrifying.

Coming out, especially after so many years of abuse, has been absolutely terrifying and difficult. I am still navigating how to do it, especially with a name change. The clinic I am going to for hrt screwed up with their scheduling and had to reschedule me for later this month, a frustrating thing. I am looking forward to starting hrt, but also scared how people will treat me once those changes begin happening. Even with these fears and struggling with my interpersonal relationships...this is the greatest choice I have ever made. It is my truth and my freedom, and I will fight against that fear to become my most authentic self. I have an incredible partner by my side, and with their support and my own self love, I can do anything.

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liquidstar · 3 years

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I'd love to hear some of your recommendations! And I'm good without any content warnings, but since you're posting this for all your followers to see probably best to add them

Alright sure! I’ll be general then and since you’re just starting out this will sort of be bringing up a lot of really popular ones, the really good ones where the general consensus is “you gotta see this!”, but I’ll also try to give ones from different genres so you have a variety of things to pick from, so this isn’t really a list of personal favorites but I’ll throw in a couple of those too lol, but generally think of this as a handy beginners guide with just a little personal bias.

I wrote a lot so I'm gonna put them under the cut here.

Fullmetal Alchemist

Fullmetal Alchemist is a franchise that’s considered a must-watch, it takes place in a world where alchemy is a borderline magical power, but is considered scientific in-universe and follows scientific laws, namely the law of equivalent exchange. Something can’t be made from nothing, to gain something of equal value must be lost. The story follows the story of two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric, who at the ages of 10 and 11 committed alchemy’s one and only unforgivable sin, human transmutation, in an attempt to bring their mother back to life. As a result, one brother lost his arm and leg and the other lost his entire body, leaving his soul bound to a suit of armor. However the brothers are resolute to regain their original bodies, and the older brother, Edward, joins the State Alchemists, a branch of the military, to try to gain access to research materials to help them achieve their goal. But was that really such a good idea?

Fullmetal Alchemist can be a bit confusing to get into due to the fact that there are two series: Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (2009). The latter is a reboot with a different story that follows the original manga. They both have the same beginning, but diverge paths and tell very different stories. My recommendation for how to watch this show is: Watch 2003 first, and Brotherhood second. Everyone has a different opinion about which is better, but everyone agrees that 2003 has better backstory but a contrived ending, and Brotherhood has a rushed beginning (Because it works off the assumption that you’ve seen 2003) with a great and fulfilling ending. If you can’t do both I say just watch Brotherhood because it will leave you more satisfied and you don’t have to watch 03 to get into it.

For both series the biggest trigger warnings are: Parental death, child death, pet death, war, genocide, dismemberment, religious themes, and miscarriage. For brotherhood specifically: on-screen suicide, and for 2003 specifically: rape (not on-screen) and pregnancy from it. The 2003 series is also a lot darker than Brotherhood which has a more optimistic tone, so that’s worth noting too.

Soul Eater

A show I think is incredibly fun, and a good one for an October watch if you wanna save it. It takes place in a world where certain people have the ability to transform into weapons, and they team up with other people who become their meisters. The characters often travel around, but the main setting is Death City, a fictional city in Nevada based off of Las Vegas but with a huge Halloweentown vibe, and a school right at the top of it called the Death Weapon Meister Academy (DWMA) where a bunch of kids that turn into weapons learn how to hunt down witches and kishins (Beings that consume human souls). The school, of course, is run by the grim reaper, Lord Death himself.

Our main characters for the series are a group of 7 students. Our protagonist Maka Albarn and her weapon partner Soul “Eater” Evans, a scythe. A loud mouth assassin named Black✰Star and his weapon partner Tsubaki, who has many weapon forms. And the son of the grim reaper, Death The Kid, and his two weapon partners Liz and Patty Thompson, who are twin pistols. There are also a bunch of really lively colorful background characters and antagonists, and the cast of the show being as insane as it is really makes it, on top of the great atmosphere and of course the plot, which just builds more and more as the series progresses. Also Crona is there and we all love Crona.

Trigger warnings for this show include: Child abuse (Mental and physical), manipulation, snakes and spiders (The motifs of two major villains), some very surreal moments that can verge on unreality. Also, in the dub and most subs: misgendering of a canonically trans character. Crona is a character who is non-binary, but the dub and subs use gendered pronouns for them due to general ignorance about neutral pronouns in 2008, though this isn’t the fault of the original series and falls on the translators hands.

Also it’s important to note: that the first 3 episodes are prologues and they take themselves less seriously, there’s more fanservice in them than there is in the rest of the series (Except for Blair she stays the fanservice character :pensive:)

Zombieland Saga

Idol anime is really prevalent as a genre, the most popular being Love Live, but my personal favorite is Zombieland Saga. It’s an idol anime, but it’s also a comedy about zombie girls who become idols. It sounds ridiculous but there’s an insane amount of heart in it regardless, it wasn’t a show I expected to get emotional at but I did! It also made me laugh a lot too. The series itself can serve as a bit of a subversion on what idols are, not just because they’re literally zombies, but because of who the characters are.

Sakura Minamoto is a character who starts off as a more typical idol, a peppy pure girl, as the series continues her struggle with depression gets highlighted. Saki Nikaido serves as her initial foil, a delinquent girl with a criminal record who subvers the idea of pure perfect idols. Ai Mizuno, a former idol who has since undergone severe trauma (The way she died). Junko Konno who has ideals that seem very different on what idols “should” be due to the time period she died. Lily Hoshikawa, an explicitly transgender idol. Yugiri nolastname, a former high ranking courtesan, subvering the pure image of an idol by being a sex worker. And Tae Yamada, a completely nonverbal idol who’s still treated with the same amount of importance as the rest of the team. The premise here really is just that these girls don’t fit the incredibly rigid mold of what idols should be and yet they still all deserve love and they gain a fanbase by being their earnest selves.

Trigger warnings for this series aren’t incredibly severe but since they’re zombies there’s still talks about death and they way they died (Including motorcycle/car accidents, plane crashes, getting struck by lightning, and a heart attack), there’s also comedic dismemberment, as in their arms just sort of pop on and off and stuff like that. The most notable thing is the deadnaming of Lily, the trans idol, by her father, but it doesn’t appear to be malicious in any way.

Note: this series is in the middle of it’s second season right now, if you want to wait until it’s over it should be 12 episodes long and just aired it’s 3rd, so about 9 more weeks.

Death Note

This is also absolutely another series that gets recommended to people right off the bat, and for good reason, this show is an intricate game of chess between a serial killer and a detective trying to catch him, and it’s incredibly easy to get super invested in the suspense of what happens next. The story begins when a shinigami, a god of death, drops his “Death Note” into the human world out of pure boredom. A Death Note is simply a notebook where if you write someone's name in it… They die! And who better to pick up such a powerful object than Light Yagami, a prodigy praised for his genius and academy accomplishments as well as his charm and popularity, and with a very strong but juvenile black-and-white sense of justice, likely due to being raised by a cop.

So naturally Light begins his power trip as soon as he finds the notebook, he intends to “fix” the world by cleansing it of all the bad people, but truly he intends to become the world’s new god. Or the “God of the new world” as he puts it. But there’s one thing standing in his way, a detective resolute on catching him with the codename L. The series entire crux is a game of cat and mouse between these two, as they try to outsmart each other and the murders continue, Light loses more and more of his humanity, L becomes more resolute on catching him. There are more twists and turns than a cheetah race, and it’s honestly pretty addictive to see what happens next.

Trigger warnings here obviously include a lot of death and murder, including suicide, but in some cases it’s a forced suicide at Light’s hands. Also abuse, as Light loses his humanity he isn’t above manipulating and discarding people who love him. And one instance of near-rape on screen fairly early on, but the purpitrator dies before it happens and the victim escapes.

K-On!

Slice-of-life is an incredibly popular genre, and K-On! is the quintessential example of it. It’s a series that not everyone will like, because not a lot truly happens, and it can be overly saccharine or “moe” for a lot of people, and that’s fine. But I personally think that despite not a lot happening, the story has genuine substance, more than you may gather at first glance. It’s true that not much in the way of big plot really happens, it’s mostly life events, that’s why it's a slice-of-life. But it’s not about nothing. The real theme of the show is the fleeting nature of youth. It’s about how important the friendships you form at that time are, how they’ll stick with you for a lifetime, and how everything comes to an end. It’s sweetness even becomes a little bittersweet because you knew their after school tea time would end come graduation, and as they realize this it breaks their hearts a little, but they continue on, because they’re still After School Tea Time!

The series itself is simply about 5 girls in a band, Yui Hirasawa on lead guitar, Mio Akiyama on the bass, Ritsu Tainaka on the Drums, Tsumugi Kotobuki on the Keyboard, and Azusa Nakano on Rhythm Guitar (Who shows up later). They’re in a club at school called the light music club where they waste a lot of their time just drinking tea and eating cake, but they’re having fun and that’s what counts! The series has a lot of really great direction and expressive animation despite the fact that a lot of it is just sitting around and talking, it’s incredibly visually interesting so you don’t get bored.

I honestly don’t think there are any big trigger warnings I can give for this series, maybe that Sawa-chan can be a little too forceful when she wants to dress up the girls in cute outfits sometimes but it’s usually not presented as too creepy especially after season 1 where they tone it down due to straying from the manga.

Mob Psycho 100

This series is an absolute love letter to the art of animation as a whole, the artstyle itself may not seem like much to look at but the animation is some of the most expressive, fluid, creative, and vibrant out there right now, it’s the type of series that you can tell was made with a real passion for its medium and it’s story. It’s protagonist is Shigeo Kageyama, nicknamed “Mob”, a term that literally means “Background character”. Mob is a middle school kid and an incredibly powerful psychic, like, insanely overpowered, but he’s currently working part time for a shady conman, Reigen Arataka. Though it may seem as if Reigen is just using Mob for his powers, their bond is actually a very sweet one and you can tell they care for each other, it’s a very important one at the heart of the series.

The core themes of the series itself are what really make it shine, it’s message is stated as clearly as possible in the opening songs, “your life is your own” and “if everyone is not special, maybe you can be what you want to be”. Put simply, you’re the protagonist of your own life, but the other important message of the series is that all the supposed background characters are just as important. The friends you make, the connections you have with other people and the way they impact you, they’re what make you strong. No one is born special, everyone is just a normal person, and everyone deserves kindness. It’s a series that I recommend incredibly strongly for just how powerfully it portrays this message.

Trigger warnings for this series include kidnapping, possession, a scene with a “man in a dress” joke, and a racist design for a background character. Also (spoilers) a scene where it seems like a child was murdered and a scene where it seems like Mob’s entire family was murdered.

Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War!

Hey, speaking of amazing animation, Kaguya-Sama is a romantic comedy series centered around the premise of two incredibly arrogant people falling in love. Kaguya Shinomiya and Miyuki Shirogane are the vice president and president of the student council at the prestigious Shuchi'in Academy, they eventually develop feelings for each other but they’re both simultaneously too proud and too insecure to admit it, so the real crux of the series is the 3D chess they play with each other to try and get the other to confess first. Along with the scatterbrained secretary, Chika Fujiawara, the treasurer in desperate need of Prozac Yu Ishigami, the cast is incredibly fun and they all fit into the comedy great. Every single little game of “do you like me?” that they play is written like the most intense thing in the world, the insane animation absolutely adds to it, making it seem almost like a psychological thriller, the comedy comes from the absurdity of just how much they hyperbolize it.

It’s not pure comedy though, due to a lot of the series being set up around mindgames, the characters are actually fairly psychologically complex with a lot of genuine development stemming from their childhood to explain why they are the way they are. The series may be about mindgames, but the actual narrative frames them as a juvenile way to go about relationships, a way to try to protect yourself from getting hurt because you’re afraid to trust. The entire core theme is that communication in relationships of any kind is the most important thing and you cant replace it with clever little tricks, so the main pair only ever make actual progress when they’re actually upfront with each other. Even if it’s scary to be that vulnerable with someone, especially if you’ve been hurt in the past like they have, the relationships you build off of mutual trust and openness will be worth the risk, and they can help heal you. And one of the things I love about the series is that this doesn’t just apply to the main pair, but it places equal emphasis on the importance of friendship. All the characters' relationships with each other are unique and interesting and they all develop the same way, with trust and openness, and they become better because of each other.

Despite being generally a comedy, a lot of the characters deal with some really heavy things too so trigger warning for: child abuse (not on-screen), child abandonment (again not on screen), anxiety and panic attacks, suicidal ideation- initionally played off as a joke but it becomes very obvious the character in question is legitimately suicidal and in the manga he nearly attempts it but is stopped, this plotpoint will most likely be in the anime at some point as it’s also not complete.

Your Lie In April

Alright I gave you a funny show now I’m going to make you cry. In fact it’s hard for me to type this synopsis because I’m an absolute crybaby and thinking about this show gets me, but I think it’s absolutely worth checking out because it’s a very beautiful sadness. Your Lie In April is a series that follows the stress and trauma young musical prodigies face in their lives, as well as the people around them, and it’s a series about the beauty of music and art, and just how much it affects people. The music in the show is absolutely gorgeous, the way that they convey emotion through it is so beautiful and intricate that it just sticks with you. You feel the music, and you understand.

I’m actually going to give the trigger warnings right now instead of at the end because in order to explain the plot I’ll have to talk about them so tw for: Child abuse (phsyical and mental, on-screen), terminal illness, death, in depth depictions of PTSD, vomiting, panic attacks, the works.

The series follows Kousei Arima, a formal piano prodigy who hasn’t performed since the death of his mother two years ago. Kousei's mother was terminally ill, but she was also incredibly abusive. Kousei has incredibly complex feelings about his mother because of this. The trauma she instilled in him is severe, but because he was a child, he still is a child, and he loved his mom a lot, as any child would, and he didn’t want her to die and he blames himself for not being good enough. He wanted to make her happy, and the only way he knew how to do that was to play the piano. So he played and played and practiced until he was perfect, they called him the human metronome. But he would still get severely punished for being anything less than perfect. He had lost all the passion he once had, and after his mother died it was the final nail in the coffin, his trauma manifests now in a way that makes him unable to play. But all that changes one day in April when he meets a violinist named Kaori Miyazono, a girl full of life and passion for music, she’s someone who according to Kousei “Exists in springtime.” and she’s going to help him play again and refined that love for music whether he wants to or not! Teen drama happens of course, but there are much bigger roadblocks ahead.

Assassination Classroom

This series is thankfully generally more lighthearted… Most of the time at least. The premise is pretty simple, but incredibly ridiculous. An incredibly powerful octopus-like creature is the teacher of a classroom of middle school students tasked with the assignment of assassinating him in order to save the world. The series starts off very slice-of-life as it focuses on introducing the very large cast of characters inside of Class E, also known as the “end class”, but it quickly gains traction and gets a lot more intense as time goes on.

The octopus creature in question, Korosensei, is actually a very kind and genuinely good teacher to all his students. The real crux of the series is that it’s sort of a critique on the educational system, the students in the end class are there because they’ve been ostracized from the rest of the campus, far away in the mountains, to be made examples of. Why? Because they’re students that are considered worthless, instead of getting help they’re only pushed back further down in the system and left to struggle within it fruitlessly. They’re given up on, despite being children with so much potential, because they don’t fit a very rigid mold. That’s what Korosensei wants to help them with, and they’re able to grow as people together. As the series progresses you feel such a great sense of unity for the class, they’re like a family, they stick together and it’s very heartwarming. And watching them work as a team of assassins is so fun!

However the series can get heavy at times too, it doesn’t stray from heavier subject matter at all and i found myself incredibly shocked by it a few times, so trigger warning for: Child abuse (on-screen and off), both at the hands of a parent and a teacher and in one case a parent who is also the principal, misgendering of a character, sometimes as a “joke” but other times played dead serious at the hands of his mother, child death- specifically suicide, a successful one as well as 3 assassination attempts that doubled as suicide attempts by the main 3 characters (weird parallel they all got there huh)

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Honestly this is a series that is good to go in blind for if you need to tws, it’s a deconstruction of the magical girl genre, but if you don’t want to know more than that you can stop reading here. If you want to know more, it’s a series that starts off very light-hearted and in tune with typical magical girl conventions at first, however by episode 3 it’s made painfully clear that these girls are being led to sign up into something they shouldn’t. It’s heavy, though not incredibly so, but it’s also a lot to explain in a summary. Madoka magica is… It’s Faust with magical girls.

I’ll explain as much as I can without giving too much away. The story begins when Madoka Kaname and her friend Sayaka Miki encounter a creature who calls itself Kyubey, who says it can grant a wish of theirs and in exchange they have to become magical girls and fight witches. Both the girls are hesitant, but Sayaka wants to wish for her childhood friend’s injuries to be cured so he can play violin again, while Madoka is content as she is and can’t think of a wish. Luckily they have a mentor, a magical girl named Mami Tomoe who helps introduce them to everything. However something is stopping Madoka from becoming a magical girl, a mysterious new student who is also one herself, Homura Akemi, is resolute on keeping Madoka from becoming a magical girl by all means possible, for reasons Madoka doesn’t understand. Things get even more complicated when a rival magical girl shows up, Kyoko Sakura, who becomes Sayaka’s new rival. As things get more heated between those two they discover a terrible secret about the nature of magical girls, and what they truly signed up for.

Spoilers ahead but trigger warning for: Child death, parental death (backstory only), decapitation (off-screen), needles, incredibly surreal imagery inside the witch’s labyrinths that may feel unreal, mind control, suicide, depression and despair expressed by young characters. Also don't bother with Magia Record

The Disastrous Life Of Saiki K.

Alright something lighthearted now, there are a lot of comedy anime I enjoy, a lot of series that have made me laugh, but none has made me bust a gut like this series has, it’s absolutely hilarious. It follows the life of a boy named Saiki Kusuo who has psychic powers. His powers are incredibly overpowered, and he absolutely hates them, in his eyes they cause him nothing but trouble. There’s not much in the way of a plot to describe, because there isn’t any, the series is comprised of 5 minute segments surrounding Saiki and an incredibly vast and colorful cast of characters that are just all completely insane, many serve as parodies as types of anime tropes because the series as a whole is very self aware and doesn’t shy from breaking the fourth wall a lot, but the characters surrounding Saiki are what make his life… Disastrous.

Like I said there’s not really a plot to describe but like FMA people may get confused with this one, there are 3 seasons but one of them is titled “The Disastrous Life Of Saiki K: Reawakened” as is a continuation of the first two with just 6 episodes in it. Also for some reason only the second season isn’t dubbed so if you’re planning on watching it that way you’d have to either stop or switch to subs for season 2

The only major tw I can give here is an ongoing joke about a character being into his sister, he’s treated as disgusting for it of course because he’s a parody of that trope but that doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable, luckily he doesn’t show up much.

Little Witch Academia

Little Witch Academia is a series I personally just adore, it takes place in a world where witches are common and well-known among the people, but the era of witches is over and magic is dying out. However that doesn’t mean passion of magic doesn’t exist, the protagonist is a young girl named Atsuko Kagari, or Akko for short. She’s resolute on being just like her icon, a witch known as Shiny Chariot, as she attends the same magic school: Luna Nova! Unfortunately Akko isn’t exactly a magical prodigy, in fact she can’t even fly a broom, but that’s not gonna stop her, nothing will. Just like Chariot said, believing in yourself is your magic.

Once at school Akko gets into all types of crazy shenanigans with her with her two roommates, Lotte Yanson and Sucy Manbavaran, and occasionally her rival, Diana Cavendish. Akko still struggles a lot in school, in fact her inability with magic is pretty explicitly handled as a metaphor for a learning disability, and though this makes it harder for her she’s still resolute. Though the series is generally episodic, a concrete plot starts to form by the second core. Along with the help of her guidance counselor, Professor Ursula, Akko learns that she needs to unlock 7 “words” to bring magic back to the world, each time she learns a new one it comes with an important lesson to her and ultimately relates back to each of the core themes of the series

The series is pretty lighthearted so the biggest trigger warning I can give is one for bullying, two characters in particular tend to target Akko for not being a good witch and it can really sting to watch. Other than that none come to mind

#if you want stuff out of a more specific genre i can give a list of those too but this is like. general

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