I thought I would do one of these, seeing as this is all a whole new social media start for me right now. I'm going to predict that this will be long because I enjoy writing and tend to get carried away. Also, gesture typing helps make that tendency even more stream of consciousness (with the downside of a fair amount of proofreading and occasionally needing to manually type words like 'consciousness' because the keyboard doesn't know wtf you're going for). So I don't mind if walls of text are not your thing and no one really interacts. I just feel like I need / want to do this and that's what this community is here for, right?
Firstly, why I've chosen the Blåhaj instance (besides the obvious)
This is my fourth day on Lemmy over all but first start on this instance. The reason that I didn't come here immediately is that when I came to sign up, the server join page itself was having such trouble loading, that when it finally loaded the list, I chose the server that said something like "recommended for users to join to lighten the load on other servers". After that turned out to be a not optimal Lemmy experience, I chose lemmy.world because I was given the impression that it's for noobs and the most 'Reddit' like. Also I didn't understand the point of using a more specifically tailored instance if you can just access most stuff from anywhere. Then I realised that if I want 'Reddit', I can just go to the 'All' tab. So why not make my home somewhere that I actually feel at home.
And I'm already more than happy with that decision. Everything about this journey so far makes me feel like I've found my people and the place that I should've been all along. Which also makes me sad that I took so long to start on this road but that's just life, I guess. And there's comfort in knowing that many others are in the same boat too. But sheesh, besides the reason that we're all here, it's not even just tastes and socio-political tendencies that seem to align with me. One of my last comments on world was about how I basically never downvote anything. Then I sign up here to find out that downvotes aren't even a thing here. Turns out that I'm even in like minded company here in that regard.
Plus, I started today with scrolling through the local feed and smiling and laughing, instead of immediately calling for guillotines for CEOs and politicians first thing in the morning. Which is just what I need for my mental health.
And now the relevant stuff
I'm only a couple of years in with this journey so far but the labels / umbrella that I'm currently feeling more or less happy with are non-binary or genderqueer. Both because they seem to almost be describing the same thing but going on a purely vibes based approach for me personally - "genderqueer" feels somehow friendly, non-specific and welcoming; while "non-binary" feels like a declaration and statement, almost like identifying as an anarchist. And I feel like those are the two wolves inside me. Right now at least.
In another universe where I was born a bit later, or in a first world, more socially progressive country and came to these conclusions earlier, I would probably be transfem though. For now I'm not even out to anyone in real life and not sure if I want to deal with that without moving to another country on my own. I've told a long time online friend and while she's accepting, she hasn't said much about it and I haven't exactly my poured my heart out. Which is fine because she's both cis and straight and not on the same journey. But my point is that with the exception of starting to push boundaries in fashion sense and starting to speak up a lot more in defense of the LGBTQ+ community as a whole, this is largely a secret world that I'm living in right now and between me and the beautiful and cool people on the internet in my phone.
But nothing is set in stone. I go through days at a time being happy with just simply abandoning my agab as a concept and being gnc, and then I go through days at a time hurting, aching at the fact that I wasn't born a woman. So maybe this is where a lot of trans people start. Just transitioning a little as a treat to start off with and still making excuses, before finally accepting and embracing who you are and doing something about it. So I can't guarantee that I'll still be happy with 'non-binary' in the future. I'm still learning and exploring.
Insomnia and the Hole in the Universe
No this section doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the song. It just popped in my head and felt appropriate. Now for the source of my guilt and imposter syndrome and maybe even a little shame. While something that I've learnt about myself in the last couple of years is that certain androgynous people are capable of releasing a whole hutch of butterflies in my stomach and making me feel both jealous and like jello, I'm still mainly attracted to women. Which makes me not conventionally 'queer' if you take away what has only been an internal journey so far.
For all intents and purposes I'm probably actually ace. But I hesitate to use the description because while I'm happy alone and don't NEED someone to survive, I wouldn't pass up finding and running away with my Xena or Harley Quinn either. In fact, like the range of feelings that I encounter as far as dysphoria goes, I go through long periods of time happy alone but sometimes feel the crushing weight of loneliness too.
But back to women. It's not even just about sexual attraction. I want to be in the company of women; to adore, admire and fight for women; and half of my existence currently is wishing I were a woman lmao. Whereas after some time on this earth, my faith and trust in men is pretty low. I've learnt that I can be attracted to androgynous men but right now I want to be with women, if that makes sense. I'm actually hoping that there are good men in this instance that can help restore my faith because feeling this way about a group of people goes against my beliefs and makes me a hypocrite.
The End
Or is it?
I'm responding to an old post but what are you gonna when things are still this quiet. This seems like the busiest Sonic community here in the fediverse at least?
But I actually looked this up a little while back. Turns out Echidnas can actually grow some serious claws, which they use mostly to dig.
So I can see what they're going for / where they got the idea for Knuckles' design. They're probably legit claws.
And I seem to remember him chipping them in Sonic X, but it's not treated as an amputation or anything and later they're fine, so presumably they grow like claws / nails too.