#long post sorta

Hi this is long but uh imagine time works different in this au so Nick n Narc get to hang out longer lol

A couple other parts I liked from some of the interviews including vlam teasing about guerin in s4 and malex

And I liked what chris answered here

And here

Oh boy gender stuff! Good luck anon!

I'll do my best to describe what it was like for me, but everyone's different and I feel like I had kind of a non-standard story anyway, maybe? (feelings were weird bc.... autism? trauma? depression?? all of the above??) But everyone's different, anyways. Some people know as soon as they have a concept of gender as small kids and some people find out super late in life, I figured it out the year after I graduated college.

There isn't really a specific moment I can remember, it was just sort of... steadily going "huh. hm. I think maybe.... huh..." and doing research and thinking about it. A couple days at the very end of August were the tipping point and I was sure by September, which is sort of a personal holiday for me figuring it out. For quite a while but especially for the year previous to this I'd been figuring out that I liked my hair short, and that I liked wearing more masculine clothes (my homophobic mom several times accused me of being queer and I was like WTF NO LEAVE ME ALONE I'M CLEARLY A COMPLETELY CISHET GOOD CHRISTIAN WAMEN WHO IS NOT SLOWLY DEVELOPING A GENDER CRISIS lol.) You can see why the um environment in my family might have contributed to me... not wanting to/feeling allowed to explore this earlier idk.

I was unsure for basically the first year of knowing I was trans, because I have issues with doubting my perceptions easily, but I logiced my way through it and was like. Why would I -want- to alienate my family and complicate my whole life if this wasn't real, like why would I choose extra inconvenience for funsies?? I wouldn't. I've gotten a bit more sure about myself and able to trust my perceptions since then, but also relaxed on knowing the specifics of everything. I'm still figuring out my gender and sexuality on some level (I'm some type of aroace but what fine print and where on the spectrum? idk but I'm something. I'm transmasculine, am I Completely Binary 100% Full Gender Man Dude or more nonbinary/agender? idk, I do know that I want to transition, for now I just tell people I'm a trans man and it's close enough and feels right.)

Emotionally, it's weird. For me, I didn't... at least I didn't notice dysphoria, at first? Because that was the way I'd always been, it felt normal. But here's the thing, "normal" felt dull and dead and just sort of empty. Like I wasn't interested in being my gender I was just sort of going through the motions because it seemed like I was supposed to. The big difference for me was realizing that I wanted masculinity and that it made me feel good about my gender, something I had not felt before. Before it had always just been like "eh, sure, okay, I guess. I mean, there's not another option, right?" (There was.)

I guess when I figured it out there was just sort of a sense of, oh, okay. There's nothing to go back to, because that was all just a lot of -nothing-, and now I've figure out how to actually feel alive, gender-wise. Like I didn't feel there was an option to turn that awareness off.

I don't know, it's confusing trying to explain it. Feelings weird. I want to say "you'll just know" but I did get super anxious and psyche myself out going "but what if I'm just completely deranged and making this all up for some incomprehensible reason?? or what if I'm POSSESSED??" (true story.) so like, it uh, took me a while to Know(TM) myself.

It might be easier to put aside the "am I trans" question for a sec and think about specific things that you do know that you are or want. Like this page! also this, and @transgenderteensurvivalguide in general. They're a good source. and I really like youtuber Jammidodger. There's sometimes a disconnect between finding community online and in the real world though, what I found out is that there were a lot more queer people and a lot more resources in my area than I thought! I was able to get top surgery like right down the street, I had assumed I'd need to travel to another state. So try to figure out if there's a local LGBTQ+ organization of some kind, they might have more information for what's in your area. I'm on a weekly zoom call with other trans people in the community, it's open to gender-nonconforming and questioning people as well as trans allies. I think a lot of trans groups generally are open for you to just come hang out and talk to other people and see other people if you're questioning your gender, you don't have to have all the answers on day one.

Not that it pretty much went this way but

a climate catastrophe literally halves the earth’s population, and 14 years later there is an impenetrable high tech mega-city that can literally retreat underground to avoid the terror of the world above it, keeping its population both safe and ignorant. there’s something weird about that. the explanation given at first, which is later proven to be false in at least a couple of different ways, is that humanity’s survival was “a testament to the resilience and ingenuity of humanity and Man's mastery of science and technology”.

that’s a load of bullshit, obviously. the most fortunate populations retreated into secluded fortresses built from stolen wealth while the rest of the world died around them. this conclusion is reinforced in (i believe) episode 8, where there is even a comment made about UN officials unquestioningly signing a budget proposal for the EVA units that will help protect them, while at the same time rejecting budget proposals to feed starving people around the globe.

Ok so Biscuit’s got these lil drawers

And they’re his FAVORITE thing. He and Fae pretty much never used their proper food bowl even though they had one, they just ate out of these. He still eats mostly out of them, and slams em around when he’s hungry and wants fed. I’d love to get him something else like it to make that little brain work a bit more. I have no idea where this thing came from though. Every other plastic forager I can find online is for like amazon/cockatoo/african grey sized birds. Most of them are taller than he is and too chunky for him to be able to maneuver easily. I can’t find a single thing that would be manageable for dispensing pellets/small seed treats to a cockatiel. 

I tried rigging one with a clear plastic cup I drilled a hole in but it has to be refilled with foraging material ie paper every time which then means picking it all up 20 minutes later after he throws it all over. There are cardboard box foragers and stuff for small birds but he’s a picky chewer and especially wouldn’t be interested if he didn’t see/hear the stuff inside.