shit comrade, sorry for the circumstances.
no matter what, you will always be valid.
officer I'm bisexual I swear!
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no matter what, you will always be valid.
Trans rights are human rights. I am a lesbian. Pokemon was my first "nerd hobby" that had me socialize with women regularly, so I guess it made me gay, haha.
bit of a weird question but i was wondering if any londoners in this thread had any recommendations for queer spots to hang out at? i'm travelling there soon! would prefer spaces that aren't focused around alcohol, but if you really like a gay bar by all means send it my way also. would also love to know any websites for queer events and other things to do. i am asexual also so if there's any ace-specific stuff, you can lemme know about that as well!
dms are open too if you guys wanna suggest something but don't wanna post it in a public thread for any reason at all, can dm me here or on discord @ mega_gengar :D thank you so much!
dms are open too if you guys wanna suggest something but don't wanna post it in a public thread for any reason at all, can dm me here or on discord @ mega_gengar :D thank you so much!
So I heard a new word for the first time on the Internet the other day and while I never thought I’d say this out loud, I guess life is full of surprises because this one word alone might explain at least half of my problems with real life relationships.
The word in question is “fictosexual”. Enjoy this moment in history while it lasts, folks, because this one of the only times in history you will ever see me willingly type the word “sexual” into a keyboard in any context out of fear of my devices’ spell check system and the purity of my brain. The way I word this word described in… I want to say it was a TikTok video talking about character writing, is simple enough to understand- it just means there’s attraction to fictional characters going on.
It might be helpful if I provide some context of the situation and why I’m posting about this. I’m sure growing up we all had things like fictional crushes and, dare I say the word, ships we liked, thing along those lines. As luck would have it, along with all the other things these games did for me, the Pokémon Ranger games, of all things, introduced me to the idea of character shipping and relationships in general. I will not specify which character, but there was one in particular as far back as junior high school that was a topic of discussion. The problem? This was right around the same time I was playing junior high soccer, and it was a co-ed league. Normally that wouldn’t have anything to do with this, but there was an ongoing rumor turned inside joke at the time that me and some of the girls on a rival team really liked each other. Whether or not anyone actually did was never confirmed, but because the idea of crushes and relationships was relevant at the time, this in turn led to a second inside joke, this time with my best friends, that me and the fictional character in question liked each other with one friend in particular dropping an innuendo so clever I didn’t even recognize until a few years later. This… this is where things get messy.
Time went on as normal for a while, well, aside from the pandemic, anyway, and during the time stretch from the second half of 2020 to the first half of 2021 I was starting to develop a crush for someone in the high school grade below ours. It was also during this time that I started releasing chapters of my first-ever Pokémon fanfic as part of my celebration of ten years of being a Pokémon fan, alongside ten years of Guardian Signs’s release in North America in October 2010 right around the exact time I became a Pokémon fan. You might be able to see where this is going. My 2021-22 college year, and the summer break beforehand, were… uh… not great, to put it mildly? They were so bad that I scrapped the rest of the fanfic outright and lost all motivation to want to talk to my crush again going forward. The whole year put a massive damper on my view on relationships and for a while now I’ve genuinely started asking myself if I’ve been aromantic or something similar this entire time.
And then I took another look at my old story documents (I prefer to type my writing before sharing anything), and I noticed something. I couldn’t be aromantic. Without realizing I was doing it at first, I was coping with my own social anxiety by reading and taking inspirations from other people’s older stories and one-shots from the 2010s, and if you know anything about the Pokémon Ranger fandom… let’s just say there’s a lot of freaking shipping going on. My “canon storyline”, so to speak, had always been designed around the idea of me as a self-insert protagonist not unlike “Satoshi” from the anime or, more recently, Arven’s character in Scarlet & Violet. Suffice to say, the end result of almost five years worth of scrapped writing, yearly Pokémon releases on Switch, and me questioning my own views on relationships was me starting to prefer how things were in my own literal fantasy land- that is, the fictional world, over the real life equivalent of these things which has been ruined for me. But can you really blame me? All manner of relationships would be ruined for you too if you got to hear some of the absolutely disgusting things I thought I’d never hear at a a school like mine, if you know what I mean.
If you’ve read this far and still haven’t figured out what I’m trying to say here, first of all, thank you for your extreme patience, and most importantly, yes, there was a time when I actually gave some thought to the idea that I liked fictional characters more than real people. It doesn’t help that a certain character from Legends Arceus feels like a blatantly obvious attempt at mocking me, what with her choice in Pokémon, allegiance to the clans, and the fact she’s a shy, short (the hair is short, I mean) blonde haired flute player… yeah, you’re not fooling anyone, Brain. One of my friends was very quick to point out the similarities between You-Know-Who and both myself and that crush I had for a while, but I think what my friend was actually trying to do all along in 2022 was introduce me to her character in the game as a way to help me cope with the disaster of a 2021-22 year that was unfolding. So yes, a fictional character did unironically save my life from my depression worsening, thank you very much.
The word in question is “fictosexual”. Enjoy this moment in history while it lasts, folks, because this one of the only times in history you will ever see me willingly type the word “sexual” into a keyboard in any context out of fear of my devices’ spell check system and the purity of my brain. The way I word this word described in… I want to say it was a TikTok video talking about character writing, is simple enough to understand- it just means there’s attraction to fictional characters going on.
It might be helpful if I provide some context of the situation and why I’m posting about this. I’m sure growing up we all had things like fictional crushes and, dare I say the word, ships we liked, thing along those lines. As luck would have it, along with all the other things these games did for me, the Pokémon Ranger games, of all things, introduced me to the idea of character shipping and relationships in general. I will not specify which character, but there was one in particular as far back as junior high school that was a topic of discussion. The problem? This was right around the same time I was playing junior high soccer, and it was a co-ed league. Normally that wouldn’t have anything to do with this, but there was an ongoing rumor turned inside joke at the time that me and some of the girls on a rival team really liked each other. Whether or not anyone actually did was never confirmed, but because the idea of crushes and relationships was relevant at the time, this in turn led to a second inside joke, this time with my best friends, that me and the fictional character in question liked each other with one friend in particular dropping an innuendo so clever I didn’t even recognize until a few years later. This… this is where things get messy.
Time went on as normal for a while, well, aside from the pandemic, anyway, and during the time stretch from the second half of 2020 to the first half of 2021 I was starting to develop a crush for someone in the high school grade below ours. It was also during this time that I started releasing chapters of my first-ever Pokémon fanfic as part of my celebration of ten years of being a Pokémon fan, alongside ten years of Guardian Signs’s release in North America in October 2010 right around the exact time I became a Pokémon fan. You might be able to see where this is going. My 2021-22 college year, and the summer break beforehand, were… uh… not great, to put it mildly? They were so bad that I scrapped the rest of the fanfic outright and lost all motivation to want to talk to my crush again going forward. The whole year put a massive damper on my view on relationships and for a while now I’ve genuinely started asking myself if I’ve been aromantic or something similar this entire time.
And then I took another look at my old story documents (I prefer to type my writing before sharing anything), and I noticed something. I couldn’t be aromantic. Without realizing I was doing it at first, I was coping with my own social anxiety by reading and taking inspirations from other people’s older stories and one-shots from the 2010s, and if you know anything about the Pokémon Ranger fandom… let’s just say there’s a lot of freaking shipping going on. My “canon storyline”, so to speak, had always been designed around the idea of me as a self-insert protagonist not unlike “Satoshi” from the anime or, more recently, Arven’s character in Scarlet & Violet. Suffice to say, the end result of almost five years worth of scrapped writing, yearly Pokémon releases on Switch, and me questioning my own views on relationships was me starting to prefer how things were in my own literal fantasy land- that is, the fictional world, over the real life equivalent of these things which has been ruined for me. But can you really blame me? All manner of relationships would be ruined for you too if you got to hear some of the absolutely disgusting things I thought I’d never hear at a a school like mine, if you know what I mean.
If you’ve read this far and still haven’t figured out what I’m trying to say here, first of all, thank you for your extreme patience, and most importantly, yes, there was a time when I actually gave some thought to the idea that I liked fictional characters more than real people. It doesn’t help that a certain character from Legends Arceus feels like a blatantly obvious attempt at mocking me, what with her choice in Pokémon, allegiance to the clans, and the fact she’s a shy, short (the hair is short, I mean) blonde haired flute player… yeah, you’re not fooling anyone, Brain. One of my friends was very quick to point out the similarities between You-Know-Who and both myself and that crush I had for a while, but I think what my friend was actually trying to do all along in 2022 was introduce me to her character in the game as a way to help me cope with the disaster of a 2021-22 year that was unfolding. So yes, a fictional character did unironically save my life from my depression worsening, thank you very much.
I did probably one of the most down bad things I've ever done. I was watching a play and at intermission I wanted to go get food and then I saw this cute guy working the concession stand and thats the story of how I spent 16 bucks on a slushy. He complimented how I looked in my jumper though :)
it was 8 pounds and im canadian so i just double everything icl. i did the conversion though and it's only 14.90 CAD which is only 11 bucks ish in USD so it's less bad! and like sheepie said i got a compliment from a cute guy which basically means the slushy was free
gender update i don't think i'm trans or cis
i don't have a good explanation as to why i feel this way? i don't identify with being male at all as of now so i'm definitely not cis, but saying i'm trans just doesn't feel right either. i'm pretty sure i should fall under the transgender umbrella but it doesn't feel right to call myself that. why are labels like this
hoping no one irl finds my smogon i'm not ready to come out at all
i don't have a good explanation as to why i feel this way? i don't identify with being male at all as of now so i'm definitely not cis, but saying i'm trans just doesn't feel right either. i'm pretty sure i should fall under the transgender umbrella but it doesn't feel right to call myself that. why are labels like this
hoping no one irl finds my smogon i'm not ready to come out at all
Hoping this isn't a non-starter: what do you all make of neopronouns? If you're not familiar with this, I mean pronouns outside of He, She, They, and It. That would mean, a made-up set of words. I've been using "ae/aer" for myself for the past few months and (provided people actually use them when talking about me) its rather comforting.
To clarify, I'm still a girl, I'm still trans, and I do not call myself nonbinary, even if I literally am in the narrow definition of the term. I enjoy being transfem as a whole, but theres certain connotations and baggage with being a woman or a trans woman that I don't really appreciate.
"They/them" for me, I mostly heard when I was pre-boobs, pre-voice training, and overall was not subitized as a woman by most strangers. Well-meaning or not, the inkling there is that I am being seen as Less than a woman, and I've thankfully not had to hear they/them used on me in quite some time. I gather that many trans people feel this way.
"She/her" I tolerate, but I don't prefer it. Before I started passing to strangers, I mostly heard "she/her" around my family where it felt less than sincere. Being Genuinely Seen As A Woman is not something my family is capable of granting me; hearing them use She Her on me has always felt forced and will continue to do so. I am also wildly uncomfortable with cis people who do not see me as an equal, but still use my pronouns so they don't sound insane (the kind who will call you Dude just to get on your nerves). These two scenarios have kind of tainted the pronouns for me, to where it feels weird and dysphoric to accept them as part of my identity.
That being said, I don't despise being called by she/her. Our society at large really only knows three sets of pronouns for strangers, and she/her is by Far the most comfy one of them. My preferred pronouns are something I reserve for friends and those who can simply click on my profile to know the ettiquette. I don't expect people to read my mind, lol.
Despite that, I think neopronouns are Not Something To Get Upset Over Or Make Mean Spirited Fun Of. For me, it's simply a way of making room to express myself in the way I find comfortable, and not conceding my self-image to a label I do not relate to. Also, it serves as a litmus test for who denies, puts up with, or embraces my nuances and such. Below is a handy list of examples for how I use my pronouns.
Cheers all xoxo love from uppa. <3. <3
<-me
To clarify, I'm still a girl, I'm still trans, and I do not call myself nonbinary, even if I literally am in the narrow definition of the term. I enjoy being transfem as a whole, but theres certain connotations and baggage with being a woman or a trans woman that I don't really appreciate.
"They/them" for me, I mostly heard when I was pre-boobs, pre-voice training, and overall was not subitized as a woman by most strangers. Well-meaning or not, the inkling there is that I am being seen as Less than a woman, and I've thankfully not had to hear they/them used on me in quite some time. I gather that many trans people feel this way.
"She/her" I tolerate, but I don't prefer it. Before I started passing to strangers, I mostly heard "she/her" around my family where it felt less than sincere. Being Genuinely Seen As A Woman is not something my family is capable of granting me; hearing them use She Her on me has always felt forced and will continue to do so. I am also wildly uncomfortable with cis people who do not see me as an equal, but still use my pronouns so they don't sound insane (the kind who will call you Dude just to get on your nerves). These two scenarios have kind of tainted the pronouns for me, to where it feels weird and dysphoric to accept them as part of my identity.
That being said, I don't despise being called by she/her. Our society at large really only knows three sets of pronouns for strangers, and she/her is by Far the most comfy one of them. My preferred pronouns are something I reserve for friends and those who can simply click on my profile to know the ettiquette. I don't expect people to read my mind, lol.
Despite that, I think neopronouns are Not Something To Get Upset Over Or Make Mean Spirited Fun Of. For me, it's simply a way of making room to express myself in the way I find comfortable, and not conceding my self-image to a label I do not relate to. Also, it serves as a litmus test for who denies, puts up with, or embraces my nuances and such. Below is a handy list of examples for how I use my pronouns.
"Let's ask what kind of Newports ae prefer"
"I stole money from aer back pocket to buy aer Newports"
"Newports? Aer gonna give aerself lung cancer."
"ae're going to the store later to pick up Newports."
"Don't buy aer that. Ae don't smoke."
This set of pronouns basically just uses whichever word is most phonetically similar to they, their, and her.
They are pronounced like how you'd naturally delete the first consonant of a pronoun when speaking. See the title of this spoiler box?
"I stole money from aer back pocket to buy aer Newports"
"Newports? Aer gonna give aerself lung cancer."
"ae're going to the store later to pick up Newports."
"Don't buy aer that. Ae don't smoke."
This set of pronouns basically just uses whichever word is most phonetically similar to they, their, and her.
They are pronounced like how you'd naturally delete the first consonant of a pronoun when speaking. See the title of this spoiler box?
Cheers all xoxo love from uppa. <3. <3
Here's where I'm at with neopronouns.
1) People should be free to explore gender, self-expression, and self-reference to find and use what works well for them. For some people, that is neopronouns, so good for them, and we should respect their self-conceptualizations.
2) The above shows I surface-level understand why people use neo-pronouns, but I still haven't really grokked the preference for them, specifically. I briefly experimented with them and it mostly bounced off. This could relate to my non-standard particularities on language use or categorizations, or both.
(A note. While I often like to see and learn from the experiences of people here and elsewhere, I didn't mention my failure to grok neopronouns as an intentional subtle request for people to explain them, it was just a matter of fact statement to explain my relationship to neopronouns.)
Resulting from this gap, in the few cases people around me use have used them, I generally have had great trouble internalizing and replicating their use of neopronouns. (To be clear, this statement, and its use of they/them, is plural and does not encompass you. I did not know you used neopronouns until now.) This trouble is a limitation on my end, not a stance – point 1 takes priority.
3) Your post gives me new insight on why people use neopronouns. Your situation and response is not a dynamic I had really considered, but I understand where you're coming from.
4) To me, it is a neopronoun. This is a "how things sit in my head," not me claiming that neopronouns should encompass this or that. It is of course a pre-existing word, but its new and non-standard status as a pronoun causes me to group it in here.
I conclude with a recommendation that, to me at least, isn't really related to neopronouns (and definitely is not a recommendation against them).
Yeah, I get what you mean. I'm in a similar boat, both long-term and with a specific situation I'm dealing with right now. However, I invite you to consider the possibility your feelings here and relationship to these pronouns may change in the future, and draw less from those using them in mean ways. These feelings and relationships have for me changed in some ways and will probably continue to.
Congratulations to you, your rich understanding of your pronoun landscape, and your finding of a pronoun that works well for you!
something that i think everyone needs to understand about pronouns as a whole is that in english theyre a form of gender expression, and with neopronouns in particular, theyre just a form of that gender expression beyond the strict spectrum of gender that most people have understanding of, but as a result, are basically only used in the most online of spaces where everyone understands that expression. ik i just put that very bluntly, so by no means do i want to diminish anyone who finds comfort in them because i think thats great for them, im glad you feel this way and more importantly that theres people who you can talk to about yourself in this way, gender truly is a fuck after all and express it however makes you feel best. its just that we do have to acknowledge that like 99.5% of people in the english language wont rly understand anything thats not he/she/they (and some of these people have trouble grasping singular they mind you). in any case, most of these people would have no idea what youre trying to convey when you use neopronouns to describe someone, does it mean closer to masculine or feminine traits, or something entirely beyond that spectrum? could there be a neopronoun that would feel more comfy to me than she/her? idk maybe, but where would i use that if im not in any spaces with people that understand what it means? thats my personal gripe with them for my own self which i understand that others wouldnt have and thats perfectly ok.
the reason i mention in the english language multiple times is that pronouns and gender expression in different languages can just be extremely different lmao. like some languages they dont rly have gendered pronouns, i know in hindi, gender is mainly expressed in other ways like following particles such ka, ke, and ki for example instead of the pronouns. other languages may have many different kinds of pronouns that are masculine, feminine, neutral, and then also used in different social situations. japanese is an example where even the first-person pronouns have like 5 different commonly used pronouns depending on the aforementioned situations i describe (watashi, atashi, uchi, ore, boku). anyone who actually knows japanese and isnt loading their knowledge from consuming games and anime can prob tell in more detail lol but i guess the point im getting here is that gender expression can be very different depending on what language youre speaking, and in a sense, the idea of neopronouns in the context of multiple pronouns for masc/fem/neutral arent wholly new. i know i kind of transformed this post from talking about neopronouns to just pronouns in diff languages but i think looking at diff languages can help understand how they communicate gender, which i think also helps with understanding neopronouns. like bloody hell if someone wanted to use a diff first-person pronoun for themselves since they feel more comfy with it, go ahead thats awesome for you ive no reason to diminish your comfort in that.
the reason i mention in the english language multiple times is that pronouns and gender expression in different languages can just be extremely different lmao. like some languages they dont rly have gendered pronouns, i know in hindi, gender is mainly expressed in other ways like following particles such ka, ke, and ki for example instead of the pronouns. other languages may have many different kinds of pronouns that are masculine, feminine, neutral, and then also used in different social situations. japanese is an example where even the first-person pronouns have like 5 different commonly used pronouns depending on the aforementioned situations i describe (watashi, atashi, uchi, ore, boku). anyone who actually knows japanese and isnt loading their knowledge from consuming games and anime can prob tell in more detail lol but i guess the point im getting here is that gender expression can be very different depending on what language youre speaking, and in a sense, the idea of neopronouns in the context of multiple pronouns for masc/fem/neutral arent wholly new. i know i kind of transformed this post from talking about neopronouns to just pronouns in diff languages but i think looking at diff languages can help understand how they communicate gender, which i think also helps with understanding neopronouns. like bloody hell if someone wanted to use a diff first-person pronoun for themselves since they feel more comfy with it, go ahead thats awesome for you ive no reason to diminish your comfort in that.
I reckon they probably will. That has happened every time I declared a set of pronouns to be mine. It'd be silly if I, a trans girl, suddenly decided that everything is now set in stone and my feelings surrounding it won't change my identity. That's the whole point of being trans hehe
I believe you're under a misconception with what my neopronouns are for and when they'e used. My social circle is not 99.5% of people. If I'd prefer a stranger stay a stranger, they will never know my preferred pronouns. The point of neopronouns (for me at least) is acknowledging that I dislike the baggage that comes with certain labels, and I am most comfortable being thought of and referred to in a way that makes me happy. "ae/aer" does not mean a woman, a man, or an androgynous person you see on the street. It's a term to be used by those familiar with me who understand my gender. It's difficult to articulate what it means further than that, I can't sum up who I am or how others view me in words. :p
Thats so real :3. I am AMAB and while I’ve been presenting as a woman irl it feels like there’s something missing or that I don’t deserve to be trans
Idk if what I’m saying even makes sense lol but i guess it’s kinda similar ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
hi everyone im pixie! im 26m and gay, lately i’ve been reconnecting with pokemon and gaming in general (:
i used to lurk under various usernames as a kid but never posted much, didn’t even remember the password to my accounts so i figured i should just make a new one
besides video games i love music, movies, everything art and pop culture
i’ve started out in the battle by post community here on smogon but I figured it was time to introduce myself elsewhere too!
i used to lurk under various usernames as a kid but never posted much, didn’t even remember the password to my accounts so i figured i should just make a new one
besides video games i love music, movies, everything art and pop culture
i’ve started out in the battle by post community here on smogon but I figured it was time to introduce myself elsewhere too!