MOOP!

(here's what I posted on Facebook)

Hey RSCDS Boston friends! You may have seen a survey in your email about role terminology! I strongly encourage you to fill it out. (If you need a link, send me a message --it's open to anyone who dances SCD in the Boston area, no matter if they are beginners or experts, no matter if they are members of a class or free-range.)

Here's what I wrote in the open field at the end. Consider it my open letter to the Scottish Country Dance community.

***

As a nonbinary person, it has been so disappointing to watch the SCD crowd lag behind other dance forms regarding gender-neutral calling. I continually get misgendered at events, in both explicit (wrong pronouns) and implicit ("you look like you're on the wrong side" --I'm agender, I can't "look" like a man or a woman!) ways. I have been called rude for countering people misgendering me, and it has been made very clear to me by multiple dancers that I am not welcome in this community.

It hurts, so much, to hear people cheer for "men and women" and know that they are cheering against my existence. It hurts to hear people whine about how my identity is "confusing" or to just ignore my buttons and pins and frequent reminders of my pronouns. It hurts to stop bothering to correct people after they misgender me again and again and again because they never listen or change or get it right. It hurts to hear people argue and fight against any suggestion of inclusivity. When I started Scottish dancing, I thought the community would be more loving than that, and it hurts to be disappointed again and again.

But I'm here because I love the dance form. I _love_ Scottish Country Dance. I love the precision, I love the power, I love the action, I love the music, I love the fiddly timing and the joyful abandon. I love it and I am damn good at it: I have put a _lot_ of work into learning How To Do This Thing Well and I don't regret that work because the work itself has been joyful.

And I'm here because I believe we _can_ be better as a community. I do see people trying, and I recognize and appreciate that. There are people -more than one- who will hear the wrong pronoun used for me and _speak up_ on my behalf, so I don't have to always be the one making corrections. There are people who are looking at the things that are exclusionary and saying, out loud, "this is wrong, we shouldn't be like this". There are members of Exec and TMC who are saying "how can we be more publicly and loudly inclusive", there are teachers who are saying "how can I shift my language to be more welcoming", there are dancers who are saying "I don't understand but I'm willing to try".

That's why I'm still here. Because every time I receive another metaphorical slap in the face about how my existence is a burden and I am not worth considering, I remember that there are those here fighting to keep me around. And because I believe there could be those in the future who deserve to have their identities respected as well and I want them to have an easier time of it then I have.

***

On a related note, if you are also tired of waiting for the broader community to make space for us, I am going to be starting a gender-free SCD class in hopefully September. I am waiting on venue details (they're in the process of replacing their floor...) but it will be in the middle of Somerville, not far from the Magoun Sq green-line station and with some parking. Most likely 1st/3rd/5th Thursdays from 7-9pm.
If you want to throw me your email address, I'll send proper details when I'm ready to announce the first class.

~Sor
MOOP!

Heyo it’s pride month! Happy Pride, if that is something you celebrate in your particular version of yourself.

I’d love to hear what gender/romantic/sexuality identity words you are currently using, regardless of whether you think I know them or not (and regardless of whether or not you feel they qualify under the pride umbrella! I’m interested in knowing if you’re cis and allo and het too!). Drop a comment!

Here are mine:

I was really really really fascinated when I did the Gender Census and actively did not select nonbinary, because that is the word I use most often or maybe it’s just the word I use most often in front of [presumed] cishet people. But my gender is really “agender” or “genderneutral” or “genderqueer” or just “queer”. It’s not _exactly_ that I don’t have a gender, it’s more that my gender is a series of play and performance and not a singular identity? I’m not sure on that, I’m going to keep poking at that one (especially because despite the sound of it, I don’t usually use the term “genderfluid”.) Anyways, my pronoun is “they”¹ and my title is “mx” and both of those make me so fucking happy every time I hear someone using them.

Romantically, I am “queer” first and foremost, but I also use bisexual pretty often and gay occasionally. Historically I have been attracted to and dated men (to the point where I sometimes joke I am the worlds worst lesbian –I have kissed a substantial number of FAAB people who later do not identify as female) but in more recent years it’s been pretty clear that I am attracted to queerness, whatever that means. I date very few people who are both cis and het (and indeed, my own gender means people who seriously date me cannot be irrevocably straight.)

Romantically I am polyamorous, and aim to not be the nesting/primary partner for any of my partners. I have been known to say both “my primary partner is work” and “my primary partner is dance” and I stand by at least the latter of those. I am in five serious relationships and have a small handful of comets or flirtations, some of which seem never to go anywhere. I keep a list of everyone I’ve ever kissed/fucked/dated and sometimes put future speculation on there because I am a horrible gremlin but also at this point I am interested to find out if I have enough historical data to actually make longterm predictions.

Sexually, I am slutty. Bodies are so _so_ attractive to me, and I wind up Noticing Respectfully people just about everywhere I go, because dang, have you seen people? People are so hot. Like...so many people are so hot. I have a lot more experience and confidence with penis-based-anatomy than with vulva-based anatomy. I don’t receive PiV intercourse, and I don’t believe in orgasms as the point of sex, which means my sex sometimes looks very different from what people might think. I am kinky and like tying just about anyone up, sexually or not. I’m wired a little funny vis-a-vis pain and pleasure and what makes me happy to receive. I’m the biggest voyeur in the entire universe and absolutely want to hear about your sex life, especially if it ~looks weird~ so I can reassure you that no that’s awesome and I’m glad you have weird things that make you happy.

Fundamentally, I am Queer, in the sense of “the only truly universal queer experience is doubting you’re queer enough”. There is room under my umbrella for you, and you are welcome here with me. Community is good and there is no such thing as a “good queer” to the people who hate us, so why not just be magnificently ourselves instead?

~Sor
MOOP!

1: I have secret pronouns as well, a set of neopronouns that I am rolling around in the back of my brain to see if they ever actually amount to something good. You probably don’t know me well enough to get me to tell you what they are, especially because I haven’t quite worked out all the grammar yet. To be clear though, they are a joke, and that’s an important part of them, that they are something playful, because I could say “my gender is play” and be hardly shitposting at all.

Youth Trad Song: The Annotated Ephemera edition!

( about 1700 words and a lot of images! But it is as complete a con-report as you'll get. )

It was a good weekend, and honestly, I think this sufficiently covers what all I did. Any time not covered by the above was probably spent cuddling and chatting with my friends, and singing all the nice songs they were leading.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: It is me, if I were a half-centaur, half-minotaur.

2: She is my nemesis and was fool enough to tell me the etymology of her last name. Honestly, usually I refer to her in my head as "Laurie Sheepfucker" because that has a much better ring to it, but technically it is not fucking the sheep, it's getting them to fuck each other. Hence.

Original Tags: how can I keep from singing?, conreports

It was graduation! I am making good progress in Necrodancer! I am exhausted with the end of the school year! I could write a bunch of other stuff, but I think I'm just gonna do the Pride Meme from sovay!

Sexuality: Queer. Occasionally bisexual, never pansexual, always and preferentially queer queer queer tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide queer. Also allosexual, alloromantic, and polyamorous¹. And kinky and slutty, which are separate but related categories.

Pronouns: they-them-theirs, please and thank you. If I know you well and would recognize it coming from a good place, she-shit-they is acceptable. Alys can call me seester and my students can call me Miss, but those are amateur nouns in their own right and if they go professional they need to no longer have a gender.

Gender: I oscillate wildly between "has all the genders" and "has no genders" (the two genders). I'm agender or genderneutral or genderqueer or nonbinary. Genderqueer is the flag I fly most often --I like the agender flag a little more, but it's too close to the aromantic for me to fly it that often.

Relationship Status: Four partners, 2-4 comets² (not really sure how to count them, because that's kinda the point of comets). I am part of one polycool, and the four of us (zed formation polyam³) have hung out a half-dozen times this pandemic to play multiplayer video games, which is definitely the point of having an actual polycule. (okay, and getting rides places from my sir's wife).

Celebrity Crush: So uh, the last time I decided to be really into a celebrity I accidentally caused him to email me a bunch of pornography that he liked and now we're best friends and hang out once a week to watch Taskmaster. I am either very good or very bad at celebrity crushes! But seriously, the internet's parasocial nature makes celebrity crushes way too weird for me to pursue --I don't want to lust after someone unattainable and then find out that they're weird and racist on twitter.

Crush: I mean, on a purely aesthetic/surface level, I Have A Crush On Every Boy. And Girl. And absolutely definitely yes Every Enby. Humans are just insatiably attractive to me, in so many ways! There are things to admire about nearly every person! More in line of what the question is actually asking, I am _damn_ polysaturated right now, so all my wibbly crush daydreams are still stuck on my current relationships.

Best Friend: Veronica. Tailsteak. Clayton-from-work. Ezri. jere7my. My partners. Alys. Mom. Eliška. I tend to do friendship just as over-the-top and extra as I do everything else, so of course I've got a lot of those.

When I came out: I came out as bisexual in 2005 in a livejournal entry because I am _very_ on brand. I came out as nonbinary in 2014 in a Facebook post. I came out as nonbinary at work in 2020 over zoom to my departments and then sorta randomly in my email signature over time. I am continuing to come out regularly, because it turns out that out is not one-and-done and people keep using the wrong pronouns for me.

First Person I Came Out To: Uh...so my entire LJ flist at the time? That...part of me thinks that can't possibly be right, but the rest of me is in fact familiar with what I was like at age 14 SO. (I might've talked about it with Moon beforehand though).

At work, I came out to Rachel (passively, she does SCD and so picked it up there), then Julia-wot-runs-the-school-GSA, then my side boss, then the MLE department, then my trueboss and the math department in fairly rapid succession⁴.

First Partner: Original version of this said gf/bf which is, uh, please don't resort to gendered terms when you're trying to be a meme about queer shit? Like, that just feels 101! Especially because my first ever partner is also nonbinary --Blue Canary is one of the three people I interchangeably refer to as my favourite ex. We dated for about a year after meeting at girl scout camp and hitting it off. (Sovay suggested the question might be specifically about queer relationships, which uh...check! Apparently about 50% of my relationships have been with non-cis people!)

First Heartbreak: Before I dated Blue, I failed to date a boy at school named Momo (this was not actually his name, it was just the name I gave him, in the way teenagers do weird stuff.) It didn't work out. I cried and cried and cried about it. Later I got to go out for sushi with him and listen to him totally regret the girl he dated instead of me, which was petty and cathartic.

Crush on a Straight Person: Okay, so about 35% of the people I've dated are straight, and presumably I have had crushes on all of them and them me. (This sort of pointless data collection is why I have the "people wot I have kissed" file.)

Fallen for a Friend: I've almost never dated someone who wasn't a friend first, although there's this weird relationship I have with waiting that gets creepier the more you think about it. Anyways, the way I figured out I was polyam was in high school and realizing I had a crush on a friend who (gasp!) wasn't my partner, how could this be?!

Cool Straight Friend: Clayton. He's my token cishet and also my work-bestie.

Cool Queer Friend: I have so many cool friends!!! Maybe Lee, who makes audio dramas and has a million awesome tattoos and a house full of whimsy and motley and the happiest kind of clutter.

Person That Made Me Doubt My Sexuality: "You're extremely self-assured, has anyone ever told you that?" "I tell myself that in the mirror every day."

Or in other words, I know who and what I am, and have done for a long time. There's one person I did monoamory with (after figuring out the polyam thing, so Blue doesn't count) and it didn't make me doubt my polyam, it made me _know_ that I was thus!

Am I Proud of my Sexuality: I am incredibly proud of my gender and the work I have put into exploring it and sharing it with the world. I am moderately proud that I have designed a life where I can slut it up with a variety of hot people who all know what's going on.

Describe Myself: I assume this is where I put the "Gender Presentation" question that is absent from this meme. Anyways, I am a "femmes can be thems, darling" nonbinary gentleman. I am extra. I am a teacher. I am 496 spiders in a pumpkin coloured ballgown.

My Queer Hero: One hundred thousand percent Racheline. I would've figured a lot of this out without them, but damn, they have made certain things so much easier by being another person with ink for blood and too much gender for one presentation. Especially the dance stuff.

Favourite Part of Being Queer: All of it. I love being queer, I love being who and what I am, I love being out and loud and dramatic and sensational. I especially love the fact that I have casual momentary crushes on damn near every adult I see. I doubleplus especially love the fact that sometimes weird little queer students at school know who I am and look at me in those certain ways and I realize I am giving them Hope. That part is amazing.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: allosexual and alloromantic --opposite of asexual and aromantic, it means I have sexual and romantic desire for people. Polyamorous means I have those desires for multiple people in the same timeframe.

2: A comet is someone who comes into your life briefly and it's very exciting and wonderful and intense and then they fly out again and you don't really keep up with them as seriously until they come back into your life. "casual" relationship, except at least two of my comets have been orbiting with me since like 2010, so that's not...very casual. Also for myself for future reference, my once and future lover; the professional lesbian; the James Dean relationship, and the loudest lipstick lesbian.

3: I date A dates B dates C. It would be much funnier if I used actual initials for all three people in this chain instead of just two of them.

4: TLA time! SCD = Scottish Country Dance, GSA = Gender and Sexuality Alliance, MLE = MultiLingual Education, TLA = Three Letter Acronym.

This is a snippet from a comment I was leaving to someone else. I want to preserve it in my own journal/share with a larger audience:

(I became so much better at presenting feminine once I knew, incontrovertibly, that I wasn't female. Once I had that rock-solid sense of self --and I don't think it was a lightbulb moment for me either, more a long slow slide into recognition of my own lack of gender--, once I knew for a fact that I wasn't a woman, it became so much easier to dress as a woman and I didn't have to be worried at all anymore about "doing it wrong" because I couldn't do woman wrong if I wasn't a woman in the first place.)

I can remember in the way-back-when, my first Highland Ball. All dressed up in a ballgown and finding a purse and doing my hair and feeling so stupid and awkward and awful and wrong. Maybe I wore makeup? Or tried to?

Being feminine used to be so painful, so fraught. Just this painful muddle of "how do women do this". I had so many ideas of what a woman was, and oh of course I knew that gender roles were not constrained and I could be whatever I wanted, but there I was with all these wonderful womanly role models and I still felt like I was constantly falling flat.

Ru Paul has some Problematics, but "you're born naked, everything else is drag" is the most meaningful thing in the world for me. Every way¹ I dress is drag, and that makes it so much easier to do exactly that!

Dressing like a boy --especially formally, in the early days of figuring out my gender, when it was still *so* tied to dancing-- was easy, because I *knew* dressing like a boy was a form of drag. I knew that I was pulling on a not-actually-true gender to play with it, and that knowledge made it very easy to separate and have a jolly time. I couldn't do that in women's formalware for so long. I didn't realize that I should've been playing there too, I thought I was just failing to fit.

God, I'm so much happier these days. Yesterday, at the very start of therapy, Jenn mentioned me in the third person and said "they" and my little heart sang out. Most of the bellsfolk do it most always. On Monday night when I was MCing, I started by introducing myself "and my pronouns are they/them/theirs" (and then a gentle joke, "here is the band and their collective pronoun is also they/them/theirs"). People are starting to learn and listen and respect and call me by the thing that is true and recognize it and see me the way that I have found to see myself.

I spent so long not able to see myself correctly. I didn't know the words maybe, or I didn't quite connect it to who I was.

And now, being agender, I can embrace all the feminine that I like, whenever I want. Kat from high school would've just about died before casually tossing on lipstick on a random day. Now half my selfies have bright-coloured lips, because why the shit not, it's *fun*. And I know (rock-solid sense of self, remember?) that I'm not a woman, so who gives a shit what anyone else sees when they look at me.

More and more though, they're seeing the right thing. Not "a woman who's not good enough at the game". Just...a person. A weird little ADHD agender ball of nonsense, who likes movement and patterns and draws pictures and rings bells and dances and dances and dances. 496 spiders in a red plaid shirt.

Gender is meant to be played with, and if you want permission to do so, you have it. I am somewhat of an authority on the matter, I assure you.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Well, okay, here's a thing: If you ask me to draw a sketch of mySelf, what I look like, I have an _extremely_ static image. From bottom to top, converse hightops, blue jeans, geeky t-shirt, flannel or cotton overshirt. If we're getting really specific, the shirt in question is my thin red plaid shirt that I wore on the first day of ninth grade. I might even still own that one somewhere.

So yeah, that outfit is not drag. That is the default "what does the sorcyress assume they look like, always". If I was a dress-up doll, that's the outfit I'd start with. Scooby doo character, that's what I have a dozen copies of in my closet.

Today's New York adventure was also very High Quality New York!

Today was shopping day, which means we hauled butt to Union Sq and hit up the Strand, Forbidden Planet, and Books of Wonder. I did not buy the uncorrected galley proof of Howl's Moving Castle (I didn't even ask how much it was). I also did not buy the $500 25th anniversary edition Where The Wild Things Are signed and doodled by Maurice Sendak. I *definitely* did not buy the $22,500 (yes, five digits) first edition signed and doodled one.

I did buy a copy of the Audubon field guide to Insects and Spiders, mostly because there were several copies on the shelves of the Strand for $25 bucks, and then one suspiciously identical copy that was marked at $11.50. I have not yet figured out why it was ten bucks cheaper, but I assume it's for a parallel dimension's worth of bugs, and they will all be subtlly...off.

Since we were in the area, we went to the Museum of Sex as well! That was pretty cool, although a little smaller than I was hoping. They did have a very cool punk rock exhibit going on! And there was a section on early stag films, which I was hoping would dovetail nicely with my recent obsession with The Rialto Report (site not remotely safe for work, details in footnotes¹). It actually largely predated the stuff I've been focused on, which meant I got to watch snippets of a whole bunch of super early loops --black and white silent films and every bit as filthy as we like to see today!

The effect was ruined some by some of the other patrons, who were giggling wildly and uncomfortably any time anything happened, like...a penis. You are at the Sex Museum. There is sex. Kindly _get the fuck over yourself_ or at least go be utterly immature about it over there somewhere.

Also mom and I got to bounce around in a bounce house made of boobs. It was amazing. There are photos, but you can't see them because obviously².

Post museum, we walked back to Times Square and picked up some tickets for The Play That Goes Wrong. Oh my poor sides. There's less _analysis_ to be done with this one than there is Hadestown. Suffice to say, the title is utterly accurate. I kinda want to see a "proper" staging of the Murder At Whatever Manor now, ideally done as overwroughtly as the actors would hope.

We waited outside the stage door, and probably made the casts day, as there was no one else except a couple of friends of a couple of the stars. Friendly chatting and signed playbills all around!

Now we are home again, and I am procrastinating completing my grades which are due in about ten hours. I'm sure I'll find the time to do them somehow!

~Sor
MOOP!

1: The Rialto Report is a highly academic podcast and website that collects interviews and primary source documents for the golden age of pornography, with a special focus on late 70s/early 80s NYC. It is so cool!! There is something beautiful and powerful and tragic and painful about all these stories of people living and fucking in that sweet moment after the pill but before AIDS. About half the interviews end with pictures of smiling 70 year olds, laughing somewhere far away. About half the interviews end with a drug overdose thirty years ago. It is such a _fascinating_ archive.

And yeah, it is _deeply_ not safe for work. Nothing about it is safe for work. There are full scans of smutty magazines from the eighties with big ol' tiddy spreads, and headshots of porn stars, and film stills, and backstage shots from strip clubs. It's academically awesome, it also can be some genuinely titillating stuff.

2: "Were you not just being enlightened and holier-than-thou about how well you can handle the existence of sex?" Yeah, but there's the whole point, and some people who are immature and can't handle it are my bosses and the parents of my students.

[crossposted with Facebook]

So, Facebook did the memory thing and apparently two years ago today I was doing some serious gendertalk on The Internets. It felt like a good time to update and refine that!

So, general reminder for everyone:

I am a person (or spider). I am not a woman/girl/lady/etc (or man/boy/etc)¹. I am neither female nor male, I am agender or genderqueer.

My pronouns are they/them/theirs, unless I am in a work-context (students, coworkers, admin, parents) at which point I use the incorrect "she/her/hers" pronouns. I am sad and frustrated by this, but hope to be able to be out at work once I have professional status (May 2020, if all goes well).

My title is "Mx", not Miss or Ms and definitely not Mrs. Again, work-context means I use "miss" but only for those specific populations. If you can read this post, you should use my correct pronouns and title².

My body has a uterus, a vagina, a vulva(etc), and breasts. I don't have female genitals. On rare occasion³, I shed my uterine lining at which point I use menstruation supplies, not feminine supplies. Please try to use medically accurate language when talking about these things, not just for me, but for everyone.

I prefer that the people I am romantically or sexually entangled with refer to me as "partner", but I accept "girlfriend" from people I have that kind of explicit relationship with.

Please feel free to correct other people (gently, briefly⁴) if they refer to me as woman, or use "she" pronouns for me. I will also try to correct people. Sometimes I don't bother because it's not worth it.

I am the kind of open person that you are welcome to ask questions of pretty much all the time, but you are especially welcome to do so on this post. I will answer any question about my gender, or gender in general so long as it does not feel malicious.

***

[1] I am both a "girl scout" and a "gentleman" though, and will not be the slightest bit bothered if you use those specific words to describe me.

[2] On some airlines, I am "Dr" because they're shitty enough to make titles mandatory and don't have any other genderneutral options.

[3] I have put a lot of effort into making this happen as infrequently as possible, because dysphoria and also mess.

[4] It is...exhausting having to comfort someone making a Big Deal out of having misgendered you. "she-shit-they" is a running joke with some of the SCD crowd as to what my gender is, and that's _perfect_. Everyone does accidental misgenderings sometimes, hell, most of us non-cis seem to do it to ourselves, it's okay, just fix it and move on

Thoughts on other words:

"your majesty" or "their highness" rather than any other royalty titles (I have heard of princex, but I don't like it for myself.) If you want to be incredibly specifically accurate to just me, I am the "Lord High Queen of Everything"

Laura reminded me that I meant to say that "female assigned" is the correct term to use if you are talking about something that directly has to do with, say, my ID or my medical care. Similarly, I will often use "female-socialized" or "female-aligned" to talk about myself culturally and socially --I was raised differently than I would have been if I were the same person with different genitals, not just by my parents, but my every person who interacted with me. Sometimes that is relevant.

"female" by itself is laughably wrong.

Under the cut are some good bits from the comments (which have been mostly REALLY great because it turns out I have Good Friends. I'm so happy and pleased that people are being kind to each other and open and not assuming bad intent.

( frequently asked questions! (where frequently means 'once') )

~Sor
MOOP!

Corollary post:

I am very very lucky, in that I do not typically experience feelings of dysphoria. Even when I do, the most of it takes the form of social dysphoria (where I feel uncomfortable because I am not being responded to socially like the correct gender) and not as physical dysphoria (where my body and appearance is wrong for my current gender or Self). Mostly, I am really comfortable in who I am and how I present

(It's worth noting that I am also really good at classifying things as "drag" or "performative" and therefore holding it comfortably as "not really me". This comes up most often in the sense of my professional drag, which is what I wear to work everyday --skirts, nice sweaters, uncomfortable (but flat and sensible) shoes. I don't typically feel dysphoric wearing all that, because of course it's not actually "me", it's teacher-me, who doesn't get in trouble with the administration by wearing jeans and flannels.)

Anyways, here is the short list of things that I know make me feel physically dysphoric, and actively deeply uncomfortable about my body and presentation:

*Not wearing glasses. I cannot abide photos of myself without my glasses. I have worn them since I was six --well over three quarters of my life-- and I need them, desperately, to see. My drivers license from MA has me without glasses and it is the most uncomfortable and awful bullshit, and I have to be reminded of it every time I fly.

*Wearing all white. Which is extra fascinating because I was a Herald before much of anything else, but let's be real, Captain Kerowyn was the only one for me, and she never wore white neither. I will wear white shirts as part of being dressed up nice (in my cool suit or prince charlie or even top-level professional drag) but I basically never wear white below the waist. It remains an awful colour on me.

This gets weird when you tie into the fact that I have to wear an all white godawfully ugly formal dress for Scottish demo team sometimes, but boy, if you ever encounter me when I'm wearing it, you will quickly figure out that I am somewhere left of center. My irreverence skyrockets (if I am laughing, I am not crying) (usually), and my bitter self-loathing as I cynically mock my "marshmallow dress". I fucking hate that thing, and hate being made to wear it.

*Shaving my legs or armpits. Which I have done once, because things should be tried once¹, and because Veronica asked me to and I love her more than anyone else. I have spent almost three years not talking about this on the internet because even with that love, there is, frankly, no way I can be gentle or kind about this. She wanted me to be clean-shaven for her wedding and so I was, and if you say a single harsh word about her for it, I will damage you in the night in ways you've never even dreamed of.

But it was an incredibly uncomfortable several weeks, and the first time since high school I felt compelled to keep my legs covered at all times, damn the weather. I wore pyjamas to bed every night² so I wouldn't have to feel it or think about it, and I didn't let anyone touch my lower legs for an age, because they were so upsettingly wrong to me.

*And...that's about it, actually. I'm drawing a complete blank on other things that make me feel dysphoric, and there just flat aren't any. Not wearing glasses, all white, shaved legs.

So yeah, being forced to wear all white for my HS graduation was somewhat of a big deal for me. It was not a good situation, and not something I was okay with, and it really wasn't just an example of "well, being grown-up and having to dress professionally sucks". It was a moment of "I am being forced to look fundamentally flawed to who I am, and it makes me feel sick and wrong."

I will do dysphoria, if I deem the reasoning good enough. Dancing? Well, that's good enough, I'll wear my whites if that keeps me on the team. Veronica? Absolutely she is good enough, she is the only person good enough, and has been since 1998.

But even with "good enough" even with "I will do this for you", even with "I have actively weighed the possible responses and accepted the ultimatum as it has been presented to me, it doesn't make me stop feeling wrong.

~Sor, sometimes Eric.
MOOP!

1: Technically the rule for me is "anything worth trying is worth trying twice", since you never know if the first time just turned out real iffy for unrelated reasons. However, I don't think shaving my legs was something worth trying, so I'm sure as hell not going to try it again. If you are my best friend for seventeen years and are getting married you can consider asking, but short of that, do kindly fuck off.

2: You do you with your comfort levels, but given my druthers, I sleep naked every night. If it is cold out, that means more blankets on the bed. If it's really cold, that means sleeping with pyjamas tucked under the covers with me, so they will be body-warm when I need to get up and do things, but I don't actually wear them if I can get away with it.

The Spider Monarch is a part of me that I haven't told anyone about yet.

I think I've hinted, once or twice, and named them in at least one thing I haven't posted yet (real helpful, right?). They first started to appear a little bit after Halloween last year. I can't always summon them, but when I can, they are currently one of the most powerful tools I am able to use.

They are a dom(me). They are gender neutral. You will refer to them as "Their/Your Majesty". They are not amused by excuses and have no time for procrastination. When you are actively in their web, you are expected to be listening to their instructions and Doing The Thing.

They would love to have more Little Spiders in their web. Right now I am the only one. You may think it's weird, that I can split myself like that, but I've had years to practice. I am very used to letting the other voices take over and be commanding. I am good at following commands. About the only problem I have is letting myself have the rewards that should be offered. It is hard to think of things that I am good enough to deserve, especially since, when I need to be following Their orders, I am likely to be more in the low places.

But learning how to accept rewards is a part of it. We cannot all be perfect all of the time. We cannot all be efficient, working, creating, making, doing all of the time. We need breaks. We deserve good things, especially if we can make a positive change in our worlds. The whole reason for the Spider Monarch is to help their Little Spiders create a positive change in our worlds.

You don't have to spend all your time in their web. You can choose when is the right time to be there, and when is not. You can tell them what you are trying to do, and how you can be punished and what good you should get as a reward. The Spider Monarch is not here to judge you, not for anything. They are here to help you try again, to balance the things you need with the things you want. They are here to help you up and remind you to take breaks.

I haven't been managing to schedule any time in their web, just sometimes realizing that I need to be acted on by a force greater than mySelf. I have an Indicator, a totem I wear to mark when I am theirs and will be focusing on the tasks they have set me (the tasks I have set myself).

So far it is working, a little. We will see if it continues to work.

~Sor
MOOP!

This post will probably make more sense if you read my previous post first. Anywho, I (at 25) wrote a letter to my teenaged (15ish) year old self, and then wham-bam, 35 year old self decided to come stick their nose in.

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( Also under a cut, but not nearly as long. Probably sad stuff content wanrings )

Xan Sorcyress, known also as Katarina Ruth Erik de [redacted] de Whimsy den MOOP! ged Athe ged Gaea (what other names did you have that you'll recognize to know this is serious) departs, leaving you alone with your thoughts. And hungry.

Go eat something, kid!

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MOOP!