Little Toaster of Suffering

A lot of people could benefit from realizing that the vast majority of the time, when someone says a space or resource is “AFAB only”, the thought that this might include trans men or nonbinary people who look masculine has not even remotely crossed their mind. When most people say “AFAB”, they are imagining cis women—and maybe, as an afterthought, nonbinary people that they are able to mentally categorize as basically cis women. Certainly, they never imagine someone who looks like or is a man. Any intersex person who doesn’t look like a cis woman or who didn’t experience growing up as a girl, definitely the furthest thought from their mind by a hundred miles.

I think it's worth saying that the reason Flowery turns around so fast from being the worst guy ever to the coolest guy ever is largely because over the course of Chapter 5 you slowly learn that Flowery is actually the pure definition of "cool." He doesn't care if he looks silly. He doesn't care if what he's saying doesn't make any sense or if his entire gimmick is totally fake. He's gonna do whatever he wants anyways, no matter what anyone else thinks about it, and he's going to believe in it 100% even when he knows otherwise, because believing might make it real. And it's that pure and unabashed sincerity that makes him incredibly cool even when he's going on about "jarona" and "nothing is more powerful than a flower's dream." He's just genuinely super awesome actually.

Fat ragatha for the win!!

dump his ass. move to a walkable city. start hormones. get into fiber crafts. dye your hair weird. grow an herb garden. foster a distrustful cat. take a welding class. invite your friends over for tea and cake. get way too into obscure media. explore a new cuisine. lie to the police. protest in the streets. life has so many possibilities don't it?

make out with a frenemy. buy noise cancelling headphones. wear office inappropriate attire. quit a toxic workplace. improve your apartment. start a dog walking sidegig. get on first name basis with your local librarians. bully politicians at town hall meetings. get an unexpected piercing. cultivate farmer's market connections. trade recipes with a gossipy old neighbor. unionize your apartment complex. move to the countryside. let a friend take you larping. keep a sword on your mantleplace

get a tattoo on your 40th birthday. be tempted to buy a loom. do a charity drag show. sue your landlord. buy a really nice kitchen appliance. volunteer at an anarchist soup kitchen. rediscover a tv show you watched when you were 8. spam your state senators. shop at asian grocery stores. do cosplay. buy trans flags in bulk and mount them along the highway. go viral for unexpected reasons. move in with your best friend. make lemoncello with leftover lemon rinds. run for school board membership. explore pegging.

update: i'm delighted to report this post has been responsible for at least one person dumping his ass

update: three four people