#jaymes answers

[thatfunkyopossum]

Why do people say that their a trans man or trans women? I though that the point of being trans was that you wanted to be the other gender, so why don't trans people just call themselves a man or women? I'm sorry if this comes out as rude or accusatory, I'm genuinely curious

Well nonnie, to start, being trans isnt about wanting to be another gender, its about being a different gender than what society thinks you should be. Its about not being the gender that you were assigned as an infant. So, the doctor looked at me and said “thats a girl”, but they were wrong. So I’m trans. I am a man, but my being trans adds a lot of context to my existence and the things I say. When I say I am a trans man, what I’m saying is “I am a man who has experienced life as a woman, and I am a person who has experienced being transgender in a world that is hostile to trans people.”

My openly identifying as trans is so that I can talk about my experiences as a trans individual. My experiences of being a man who isn’t seen or treated the same as other men. Its also a part of my identity that I celebrate and am happy about. I will never be cisgender (the opposite of transgender, identifying wholly as the gender you were assigned at birth) and I don’t actually want to be. I want to be treated the same as cis men, and I want a body that I’m personally more comfortable in, but my experience has been an important part of my growth as a person. Cis men aren’t my blueprint, they’re simply a general reference, and a group that I share a gender and the experience of masculinity with.

Also its not unheard of for people to treat you differently if they assume youre cis and then find out that you’re trans. It’s an easy way to find out who’s a waste of time and who isn’t.

[thatfunkyopossum]

I remember seeing an art post you did a while back about Twi'lek Rey? did you have any more ideas for how different the plot would be if Twi'lek Rey was the main instead of human!Rey? 👀

Ah yes, twilek Rey!

For starters i havent seen TROS, and i have only seen TFA and TLJ once each, when they released in theaters. They’re not my favorite movies so i’m not super familiar with their plots tbh.

What i think would mainly change with twilek Rey is that her Blood Lineage subplot (which! I hate! :D) would be no more because no one would be like “ooooo shes a skywalker AINT SHE?”. Smth i hate anout star wars is its underlying message that your ancestry is arguably one of the most important things about you.

If Rey were a twilek, or even just anything BUT a white human woman, she would have had so much more room to breathe as a character and it would actually have made that message of “your family were a bunch of nobodies who abandoned you” that much less jarring. I feel like it also would have given us the opportunity to explore life as a twilek woman in a universe where twilek women are so thoroughly exploited. There could be a whole host of reasons connected to that to make Rey want to stay on jakku, including that she feels more or less safe on her home turf.

Also the universe in which a star wars movie has an alien lead is a universe where that star wars movie was willing to take risks.

Anyone who knows The Sequels better than me, if you have thoughts feel free to add!

[thatfunkyopossum]

i feel like the "none of this shit matters In The Real World" advice really doesnt help anything. im not out irl, my only option for socializing as a queer person is online. these people may not be the majority, but they do exist, and just because its online doesnt mean it doesnt have real impact. it just feels... dismissive

I just want to say that if that post doesn’t comfort you, you have full permission and agency to completely ignore it. It was made solely to share my perspective, which is not that online bullshit doesn’t have an impact. If online bullshit had no impact, i wouldn’t have been compelled to make that post. The purpose of the post in question is to remind people that exclusionists are not the norm.

I thought i was ace when i was a teenager, during the height of ace discourse, and I felt horribly and painfully alone, and it really got to me. Even though I had queer people in my life, I was affected and hurt by the online discourse. I lost a friend because of it. And because I believed, wrongly, that the attitudes of people online were representative of people OFFLINE, it fucked me up way worse.

The post exists to remind you that the screaming dipshits are a minority of a minority of a minority, and yea they scream really loud, but if you can find a place to ground yourself offline, then you’ll be able to feel how small they really are.

Its just a post about my experience. If it doesnt comfort you, thats fine.

[thatfunkyopossum]

I don't have DID, but I do have OCD, and I find it really respectable that you are taking a stand on how mental illness should and shouldn't be shown in media. For way too long mental illness has either been shown as a "villain" trait, or something a character has to work past in order to be "normal". Thank you for taking a stand on it.

OCD also is something that’s deserving of respect and ugh it drives me up the WALL the way it comes up in conversation? Like, honestly its really not just a problem with media, its something that people should be actively working against in IRL too. Like... no, not everyone is “a little OCD”, thats a medical condition martha, not you liking your spoons to be organized. And thats not to say mild OCD doesn’t exist or manifest in stereotypical ways, i’m sure it can.

Just. People need to respect conditions, and also i think it would be cool if medicine was more focused on how to make our lives better than how to force us to be perfectly neurotypical. Sometimes the solution is that if you’re scared your hairdryer is going to burn your house down, you take it with you. Sometimes the solution with my ADHD is I need timers and detailed lists and instructions of what to do. I will never be able to live like a neurotypical person! Living like a neurotypical person would be DISASTEROUS for me. I gotta live like a person w/ ADHD, who’s using adaptive strategies.

[screams into my hands]

[thatfunkyopossum]

rewatching tcw: why do the clone cadets look Like That. They just look like little white boys??? Even in season 2 before they did Boba so fuckin dirty they've got paler skin and lighter hair and tiny turned up noses, they look nothing like the older clones, let alone jango (or Boba in aotc jfc the model for them was RIGHT THERE)

The truth is that the lead designers never watched star wars and were told that this was the clone template

[thatfunkyopossum]

When you say biphobe DNI, does that mean you're a battleaxe bi?

Not wanting shitty people to interact with me doesn’t mean im bi :v

[thatfunkyopossum]

For the trans writing thing, I have a character who’s not out to the person who’s POV the story is from. I feel AWFUL misgendering/deadnaming the character. I don’t know how to realistically refer to them without using their deadname or incorrect pronouns. I also have places where the characters haven’t seen each other since they started transitioning. Is there a good way to refer to the character before the come out (just a few paragraphs before they know about their gender) thanks

Imo, you’re not doing anything wrong by deadnaming or misgendering a character when the POV character doesnt know. Personally, i prefer to write in third person limited, where the only information the reader gets is what the POV character knows or notices. When sticking strictly to a limited perspective, instead of an omnicient one, if the POV character doesnt know the character’s trans, theyre going to misgender and deadname them. And I, reading the story, wouldn’t know the character is trans and therefore wouldn’t be upset by it.

Its okay to write from a character’s perspective who doesnt know things, and who might be taking action that’s hurtful. Personally, as a non-passing trans person, I’m not upset when people think I’m a girl. There’s no way they could assume otherwise, really. What matters far more to me is how people respond AFTER I tell them.

Tl;DR: just write what the POV character knows, and switch pronouns and name in the narration after the character comes out to POV character.

[thatfunkyopossum]

if you don't like something, you know you can just not interact with it right? you don't have to go on a hateful, rude tirade where you scream your opinions out into the world and work people up. this is the internet, calm down, you don't need to be so angry. if you don't like something, don't read it. it's real simple. just block people and move on, it doesn't need to be a whole debacle like you're making it. imagine being so entitled that you think everyone cares what you think

If you don’t care what I think why did you even bother sending this

(Anyway I’m not going to be answering any more asks on this topic, and if I keep getting them I’m just full on turning off the ability to send me asks for a while.)