TrillianAstra

Re: sexual changes:

I’m turning 40 this year, and I started injections a couple of months ago. My libido and ability to get erections have not really changed at all; the only real difference is that I don’t have morning wood anymore and I find that I tend to use my imagination more than porn nowadays to finish if I’m on my own. Smut books are wonderful, lol. Still early but I am pretty happy with retaining function so far, it was the thing I was most worried about.

Re: passing, and other people’s concerns:

Respectfully, who gives a shit what other people think? If a bigoted patient was uncomfortable because you were a person of color, or a cis woman, or a gay man, or disabled, would that be acceptable? Should someone hide those things for the sake of said bigot? What makes being trans any different? Don’t let fear of assholes stop you from being who you want to be. They’re gonna be assholes anyway. Be an enby if you want or go full woman if you find that suits you, or be gender fluid or whatever, but do it because you want to, not to avoid stepping on someone else’s toes. I’m an old punk so maybe I’m biased toward being actively visible, but fuck those people. I can’t tell you what to do, and stay safe, obviously, but don’t hide your light under a bushel; the world would be lesser for it.

You sound a lot like me 6 months ago, though, as far as not knowing where you might fall on the gender spectrum. At that point the only thing I knew for sure was that I was sick of pretending to be a man and I wanted out. I thought of it as “defecting”, lol. I’ve gone from “I’ll be an enby because I’ll never pass as a girl” to “I wanna be a pretty pretty princess, let’s do makeup tutorials and look like a clown” to “I’ll just be a butch lesbian, where are my cargo pants and flannel, I already own that” to “I wanna be exclusively made of goth eyeliner and oversized hoodies and thigh highs” to “maybe I’m actually some kind of horny chaos gremlin, and it’s more fun if what’s in my pants is a mystery”. Next week I will probably feel differently. It’s a real exploration of a space I previously thought I wasn’t allowed into; I am “boldly going where no man has gone before”, lol. It’s a lot to take in and exploration takes effort and time, but it’s very rewarding to learn about what I like and don’t like. Turns out there’s a lot of ways to be a person.

Also hey, good job for asking. It’s scary to ask for help, often the hardest part. You got this. If you wanna talk more I’m open to messages and happy to talk about my experience.

Lol I am listening to Hodgman right now on E Pluribus Motto as I scroll past and came to see if anyone else mentioned him. He was so young then!

Volunteer work. I can’t do anything for the folks in Minneapolis right now but I can invest that energy into protecting and supporting my own community so we’re better prepared when they come for us.

You could put it on the base for accessories

Yeah I’ve been saying this for a while, Idiocracy would be much more preferable, and President Camacho would be better than any president since my parents were born at least. We’re getting the George Orwell / Philip K Dick future, which is like the worst one.

Is this a bot? This account is new and posting an absolute fuck load.

Hey I apparently already own this game, lol. So many humble bundle mysteries in here. Guess I know what I’m playing next!

I really like Cure Dolly’s approach though the videos are a bit difficult to understand with her accent and the quality which is why I linked the transcript, I find that more useful anyway personally. Her approach to the language really clicked for me though. That and the Kaishi 1.5k Anki deck for vocabulary has gotten me pretty far.

I think also immersion is super important. Once you learn the kana, you can jump right in to reading with some free, simple books for children at Tadoku and use jisho.org to look stuff up. It’s slow work but very rewarding imo. I’m doing manga translations now for practice after working through some of those. I also watch anime and try to ignore the subtitles and listen for common phrases and whatnot as listening is a separate skill that needs to be trained.

One thing I actually think apps like Duolingo are good at is teaching the kana, which is usually the biggest hurdle most people seem to have in the beginning. I used Duolingo for that and it helped me at first but it does a bad job with everything else IMO, especially grammar. I’m sure there are other apps for teaching hiragana and katakana, or an Anki deck probably exists too if that’s preferable.

I’m far from functional with the language but in the year I’ve been studying (honestly pretty lazily) I’ve improved a lot and I haven’t spent a dime.

This is basically what the shitty MAGA ladies at the grocery store do. No thanks, I’m not Christian.

I’ve got a thing for Welsh women. Specifically, Eve Myles, Torchwood of course but primarily Merrill in Dragon Age 2. So damn cute.

Japanese would argue otherwise, 二 is certainly a number.

If it makes you feel any better noise is hard to compress so it costs Spotify more I imagine

As a product of a rural town in SoCal, I can assure you there are VERY white, VERY racist places all over the west coast. I regularly had to deal with neonazis and white trash racists growing up. Still full of toxic bigots, I hate going out in public there. I wish I lived anywhere like what you described but even the big city near me is pretty rich, white, and conservative.

Yeah agreed! Where’s the milk and butter and maybe some fresh dill?

Also I have strong opinions about trifold being better than just slopping that thing in half like a barbarian.

Seriously the first season is one of my very few 10s on anilist. Just incredible execution. So excited for more.

It’s a fun sports management game. The races are often very exciting, you can skip them for time but I almost never skip races that might be close and find myself shouting encouragement at my phone in public, lol.

You could always watch the original anime or the absolutely phenomenal Cinderella Gray spinoff, see how it strikes you. Legitimately pretty great sports drama and the characters are a lot of fun.

If you do play, send me your Trainer code!

I’m legitimately addicted to Umamusume Pretty Derby, which is a gacha game but I’ve been playing for many months and while you can give them money they don’t really push it very hard. There’s a surprising amount of depth.

I also like idlers, shout-out to Almost A Hero and the hilariously unhinged Crush Crush.

For a more traditional timewaster I also play a lot of Downwell.