it'd be great to have tangible friends and community in person. i would feel at least 4% less insane

I'm making a full post about this because I think it's important. I've reblogged other posts on this topic, but this is my own experience because trans man apparently can't be artists without our own communities ripping us apart for it.

I'm mainly an actor, but I do music on the side. I've been in 5 stage productions, a commercial, and a short film. For music, I've done a few gigs at charity events, won a community talent competition, and made some money on the side as a street performer. So I feel decently confident in saying that I'm fairly good at what I do.

When I talk to other trans people about my desire to build a resume that doesn't out me as a trans, and to market myself as a gay actor and not a trans one, I'm called a traitor to the community. And told that I'm depriving trans kids of a role model. Nevermind the cis queer people who think I'm stealing roles from 'real' gay men.

What they don't understand is that work for trans men does not exist. The modern professional canon of dramatic work does not include a single trans man. Not one. I cannot work as a trans man. The best I can hope for is what I've been getting the last year and a half, small background characters whose gender doesn't matter.

When I won the community talent competition for my music, I was told afterward that it was a shame that I won because "the last thing the queer community should be celebrating is another guy with an acoustic guitar". Several people in the trans social group I started attending agreed with that sentiment, telling me to stop playing altogether and saying "the world doesn't need anymore straight men with acoustic guitars". (Side note: I'm gay and explained that but the consensus of the people there was that trans men can't be gay because we're still 'female' (side note to the side note: all of the other people in this group were trans women lesbians and did not see the irony in that)).

I dont understand how other queer people can contribute to this without realizing the harm. I would ask how trans masc artists are supposed to want to keep creating their art but I think that's the point.

Contact

Pain.

Every synapse and nerve ending in 621’s broken body burned. The sudden Coral surge was overwhelming. It felt like his brain itself was buzzing, his head spinning. Every sensor feed from his stricken AC was more noise than actual data. The last time he’d experienced this much misery in one place was his initial augmentation; unlike that time, he no longer had a larynx with which to scream. Everything was red. Outside, inside, even if he closed his eyes all he could see was that flashing, jittering, intense red. At the outer vestiges of his mind he could hear a voice; soft, feminine, surprised and curious, though he was far from capable of making out what was being said. He clung to the margins, fading in and out as his AC was thrashed around the interior of the Watchpoint. He was fairly sure he had faded in and out of consciousness a few times now. And what was that voice? He was no stranger to hearing voices - usually the med cocktail took care of them - but this was different somehow, more alien and external than a voice in his head had any right to be.  Even in his dazed state, he could pick out angular changes in orientation, hear thrusters firing. Accelerometer data confirmed the changes, when his twice-fried brain could actually understand the signals. Was he doing that? Even his instincts had their limits.

“Raven.”

There was that voice again. At least she sounded soothing. Was this it? Was this the parting hallucinations of a brain that had figured out it was going to die? Something seethed  deep inside him. This was not how it was supposed to end. He had not come this far to die in some Coral-filled hole in the ground. His AC systems read off a full readiness report he could barely even comprehend. He did make out “operator vitals stable”, so he probably wasn’t dying. Not unless the Coral in his brain decided to cook off, anyway. He also noted he had absolutely no outbound signal. He struggled to un-slump himself within the fluid of his control pod.

“Raven, you need to wake up. There’s a PCA craft on direct approach, it’s jamming our signal.”

Suddenly his mind snapped awake. Combat. The noise had died off and he could make heads or tails of what was happening, albeit with some difficulty. His AC was standing on the roof of the Watchpoint. How? He could figure that out later. There was a hostile incoming. If he didn’t get it together now he wouldn’t live to worry about getting out of the Watchpoint, or the voice in his head that was evidently not a dying hallucination. He was still struggling to function, though; his movements were sluggish and he was struggling to process his machine’s full bandwidth of data. Frankly it was amazing he was doing as well as he was given he should, by all rights, be dead.

“I’ll synchronize with your brainwaves and support you as best I can. Get ready.”

Synchronize with- what? 621 struggled to make sense of the statement, but it wasn’t like he had time to worry about it anyway. At the very least, his datastream had cleaned up, and his AC was moving better, though it felt almost as if it were moving of his own accord. Wait, is this voice doing that? Who the hell even is this? Radar tracked a large AC screaming down to the Watchpoint at high speed. It swung around and drifted to a stop opposite his position on the roof, a large biped with what looked to be an EVA extension pack on the backside.

“Scans indicate it’s an autonomous PCA interceptor, designation Balteus. Be careful.”

The machine physically reached up and dragged down a sizable MRLS rack, locking in for a salvo. 621 already registered the hostile lock tone. This is gonna suck.

“Main system: reactivating combat mode. Move, Raven!”

He didn’t need to hear the suggestion twice. He lunged his AC forward with a booster-augmented kick, dipping low to the right to drag the missile volley towards him before suddenly juking left, sending most of the flight slamming into the ground behind him as he loosed a volley of his own from the plasma launchers on his shoulders. They detonated against Balteus, a shimmering off-teal field shielding the body of the machine from damage. Of course it has a pulse shield. Fucking PCA. He staggered discharges from the laser rifle in either arm as Balteus started to move, bolts rippling across the shield as the autocannons on the support ring returned fire in kind. Damage reports were fed directly to his consciousness as stray shells splintered off armor plating. Balteus came to a brief halt, and 621 reflexively fired his machine’s lateral thrusters, just barely clearing a cannon shell screaming past his left shoulder. He took the chance to loose another plasma volley, slowing down the rhythm on his rifles to give the poor guns a chance to cool, thermal warnings whining in his head. Not like he needed them; he could feel the rain sizzling off the barrels. No pulse weapons on hand. The only way I’m getting through that thing’s shield is with brute force. He tracked Balteus’s orbit, keeping pressure on with his lasers as it came to a halt, gaining altitude over him. The lock tone buzzed in his head. Perfect. He fired off the transit thrusters on his AC at full power, scraping low again to drag the missiles clear before streaking up underneath Balteus. It started to evade but it moved too late, as 621 brought his AC’s foot up in a rocket-powered flip kick. Sensors registered the shield protecting Balteus drop, and 621 carried his momentum through, bringing his weapons to bear as gravity reclaimed his machine. This time his weapons struck true, plasma fields and laser beams finding purchase against Balteus’s reinforced hide. It started to move again, putting distance between itself and its target as more autocannon fire raked 621’s armored hide.

“Thermal spike, Raven, get clear!”

The voice called it out before he even registered it, but sure enough, gouts of flame built at either side of Balteus’ support frame. The machine came screaming forward, lashing a gouge of superheated fire across the roof. 621 barely jumped his machine clear of the sweep, firing off a wall of plasma bolts as he engaged retro-thrusters and put some space between them. Balteus came forward for another sweep, which he evaded only by slamming down to the ground. He dashed forward underneath Balteus, barely managing to keep his machine standing as he pivoted around to bring weapons to bear once more. The damned thing’s shield was already back up.

“Keep fighting Raven, we can do this.”

Gotta kick it again, it’s the only way. Back to square one. Focus. He kept skidding backwards away from Balteus, throwing in erratic changes in vector to throw off its aim with the autocannons. He shifted into a hard left at the edge of the Watchpoint, tracking as Balteus followed his movements along the edge and repositioned accordingly. It initiated a staggered set of dashes forward, firing off another cannon shell in the middle, before launching into another flurry of flame blade strikes. 621 struggled to keep his machine ahead of the assault, thermal sensors spiking well past the redzone as flames licked at his machine. Finally, however, Balteus slowed down. It’s energy was, for a short window, spent. There’s my window. Once again, 621 fired his transit thrusters and slammed feet first into Balteus with as much weight and force as his spritely machine could muster. Its shield flickered out and 621 proceeded to hammer it with as much firepower as he could muster at any one time, driving his weapons as hard as they could go. Balteus tried to regain it’s stability under his barrage, and he fired up the thrusters again, this time sending it drifting across the roof with a shoulder tackle. He kicked off high, continuing his barrage until the weapons forcibly quit fire.  Flames poured from Balteus as it struggled to get itself under control. Flames billowed from several open blasts across the hull. Its thrusters gave out, and the machine tried to catch itself on its feet, swaying before buckling and dropping to its knees. It reached up and tried to drag its missile racks down for a final, spiteful salvo. However, in the midst of them sliding into place, several detonated in the rack, leading to a chain reaction that blew the entire craft to pieces. “Sympathetic detonation confirmed in enemy magazines; enemy craft destroyed. Well done.”

621 found himself huffing inside his control pod. Even if he hadn’t physically moved much at all, pushing an AC to its limits right after brushing shoulders with death takes a lot out of you. He took a second to collect himself. “Mind explaining to me who - or what - the hell you are, exactly?” He asked. Things weren’t adding up. Sure, a voice in his head could just be a hallucination, but his hallucinations never actively helped him drive an AC before. Short wave radio comms would pick up in his skull as well, but that PCA unit was very much jamming comms so that’s out, and there is zero chance of somebody copiloting an AC remotely over radio. “I am Ayre - a Rubiconian. We made Contact when you were subsumed in the Coral flow below. The surge of Coral throughout your machine allowed me a measure of direct control, and I was able to override the autopilot and extract you. The residual Coral in your machine is already fading, however… I am symbiotically bound to your implants.” Finally, a name to the voice- Ayre. It wasn’t just another mental side effect of his implants going haywire. Arguably, it was worse; he’d picked up a stray. How? Since when were there people in Coral? It was a mineral, a fancy sparky rock in the ground. It could do a lot of things, to be sure, but since the fuck when was Coral alive? “I understand that this is probably a lot to take in all at once. I tried reaching out to you before, but I… I guess you were still too far gone then to even understand me. Or maybe I hadn’t worked out how to communicate in a way you could understand.” “Well. Thank you for dragging me out of that pit, at the very least.” He said. “So, you’re in my head?” “Yes, specifically your cerebral implants. The Coral throughout your central nervous system acts as a resonator and allows me to exist within your brain, functionally as an extra brainwave.” “Well that’s grand.” 621 lamented. “As if I wasn’t enough of a wreck as-is. I’m going to guess you can rifle through my memories and the rest of my brain at a whim?” “That is correct, yes. At a surface level, that’s how I worked out your name, and worked out how to best coordinate with you in combat.” “Do me a favor then, don’t go poking around places you don’t belong. There’s places in my brain even I don’t touch anymore.” He chided. “I… will keep that in mind, Raven.” Ayre agreed. “Something you should keep in mind yourself: look up.”

In the gaps between clouds, as the storm overhead began to part, 621 could see the bare sky. Streaked through in red, churning as crimson lightning raged within. It traced clear back to the horizon, to the northern coast, where smoke and debris were only just beginning to settle. “That Coral surge you were caught up in was but a drop in the greater tide… and only a small taste of what is to come in Rubicon’s future.” “Fuck.” 621 found himself at a loss for words. How much Coral did we just release? What kind of well was that cork holding closed? “Raven, you need rest. Both you and your AC are in rough shape. I’ll re-establish communications with Handler Walter.”

621 looked to the-now smoking remains of Balteus. Maybe the PCA had a good reason for trying to keep the Watchpoint sealed.

not watching the super bowl because there is nothing that could make me voluntarily watch football, but i hope chiefs win because i don't want taylor to feel any negative emotions

People go:

"Max, Max you write fanfic so well! You should write a book!"

Or "Max your waisting your talent on fanfic"

IVE TRIED TO. I CANT 😭😭😭👺👺👺

the sweet memories of how excited i was when season 2 of sword af was announced vs me now being just - meh that the first episode is out

I hate to say it. I hope I don't sound ridiculous, but I've literally never found the breastfeeding kink attractive. I'm so sorry you guys so sorry

i feel like im probably gonna be talking about this a lot here since i cant talk to Her about it and it really is bothering me so much

i really wish i liked aco.tar. the people who like it seem to be having so much fun. they love their characters so much, and i literally can't with the writing.

have you ever experienced a weird-ass problem and are faced with no easy solution but to just deal with it?

for example, i've recently gotten back into writing longhand, after reading about how Neil Gaiman writes his books. so i decided to give it a try, slammed out ~2,000 words, and went to type them up into a doc.

now, what they don't tell you, readers, is that it's fucking annoying to do so. And the way I write makes it easy for me to recognize my words at a glance, because I tend to write words distinctively, if messily. (Here's an example -- an excerpt from a project of mine -- if you want to see...?)

Anyway, as an avid writer who not only has fanfic trapped on paper but also homework and essays i need to type up, i now have much more than those 2,000 words I never finished transcribing sitting in this book waiting to be typed -- maybe 4,000 words worth of material. and it's, as you can imagine, infinitely aggravating.

anyways. jsut wanted to share that. i feel like a vlogbrother

everyday i like ghostknife less....

absolutely painful . i cannot hear the words they are all mushed together in my ears and i cannot differentiate the words from each other so i cant understand what theyre saying !! and in return i cannot answer thee damn questions !!!

the truth of the matter is that dean outside of his obsession with sam does absolutely nothing for me. there's just no crazy juice in there. for me. personally.

Monnie pls hear me out. Since you mentioned Frankenstein imagine

Frankenstein!Y/N And Monster!Sun and Moon with like a jekyll and Hyde thing going on

Dude listen I've thought about a Frankenstein au but like,, idk I just can't figure it out. Especially bc like my aus are usually romantic (bc I'm a sappy hopeless romantic) and I see Frankenstein and the Creature's relationship as a father and son type deal. Plus I don't want the boys to be hated by the person who created them so :(((

Sorry I'm just,, Frankenstein is SOOO important to me I can't NOT be book accurate. If somebody else wants to try tho...

@vvoidled replied to your post “Okay We Seriously Need To Stop Talking About Love...”:

... yknoww if you need someone to talk to im not a bad listener

​Something About My Particular Issue Is A Little High Concept For Most But I Appreciate The Offer

I Doubt Talking About It Will Help Though