What if HRT could improve my voice? Save my hair? I started asking myself many things that started as soon as I heard that HRT was more than just for feels. I didn’t even have a strong grasp of what it was, let alone what it did. I started researching, spending a lot of time researching, not just HRT but trans feelings, experiences, things I would have never said I felt but buried inside? Always there. I excel at burying my thoughts and feelings, so it really was just one more thing. Still working on this today, for what it’s worth, but I like to think I’ve made major progress at this point. Anyways, eventually HRT became the kind of thing where every change sounded good, except for one. The big one. Or should I say big ones? As much as the body could be changed, and made to more of my liking, once these grew in, they’d never leave. That’s right. Boobs. I had major anxiety over them, didn’t know if I wanted them, even. At the time I was still thinking I would be more nonbinary, femboy adjacent maybe. What if I don’t like them? I don’t think I would, and I want to be able to make that choice, have more control over it. So I looked in to SERMs, and after seeing the side effects I decided against it. Not for a lack of looking into it, but there really isn’t a lot of research on them, and so I decided if I was going to start HRT I was going to have to go “all in”. A bit of a time skip, but a few weeks into starting HRT, I was lying on my chest and it felt sore, hurt decently bad. Wondered if it was my shitty lungs again, but it hurt more than straining to breathe. In two areas, to be specific. To this day it was a huge euphoria hit, and from that moment I’ve wanted them as big as I can get them. I say “prog save me” on the regular, and in a more present note, I’m hoping to start in a few days!!!

It was after confirming I wanted HRT, and also had dysphoria, that I admitted to myself that I was trans. I still felt fake, not real, lesser than, and was still figuring out how exactly I was trans, but I was there for sure. A few weeks later, and I started journaling, at first just gender thoughts, but expanding to my whole life. I’ve been doing so for a year as of May 19th, which also means we’re moving fast from here. I didn’t think I would though, the entire point of the journal was to put my thoughts somewhere, because I planned to hide until I changed my living situation. Safe to say the plan was to wait a while, as I planned on remaining in that situation until I completed my education. Luckily, this didn’t last. My mom started catching on too quickly, in other words, I failed to hide it well. I couldn’t at this point, I had to try everything. Getting cuter shoes when I needed shoes again, shaving more often, shaving my legs. It is a huge autism moment, but when she told me about HRT like I didn’t know anything, I went into an infodump about HRT and SERMs. Yep, I’m trans, ma. I had a feeling at least she would be accepting, for the most part. This was 6 days into the journal lol, no time at all. And on this day one year ago, I would come out to the rest of my immediate family, who all took it quite well. It’s pretty great, they love me lots, although my one gripe is when they try to explain gender or sexuality to me. Is there a word for this kind of “mansplaining”, because I need it.

The speed of which I would go about things increased. I had an appointment for informed consent HRT scheduled just two days later, and a little less than a week after that I was on HRT. From there it’s just been my activity on this site. Learning more, talking to so many nice people, and getting to know some amazing people. Spending a lot of time on the gender carousel, hopping off, getting back on, hopping off (it was a wild ride, although I lied when I said it was fun it hurt like hell). Changing genders like I had to change batteries, questioning my sexuality to an obsessive degree (well I did for gender too). Making memes, shitposting, talking life, and many, many vents. It’s been, despite all the turmoil that came with it, my self-ravaging crises, and all of the pain, one of the best years of my life. There was pain, but there were so many happy moments as well, wonderful moments I hadn’t had anything like in such a long long time. Rather than just having horrible depression, I now have significantly less depression, so much less hopelessness, and a much better grasp of control of my own life (although, still working on that too). My anxiety has gotten a whole lot worse, but that’s because I have something to lose, so many somethings. I fear so much, let so much eat away at me, because I actually care now. I want to know who I am, I want to know what I want, and I want to get to know people, live life, leave my little bubble that I’ve been stuck in for as long as I can remember. I’ve made a prison for myself, and I’ve not even worked my way out yet, but the bars have come down. I’m no longer in the cell, and that is a wonderful thing. I care for people so much more now just as a product of caring more about things now. I already cared a lot about people and life as a concept, it’s what radicalized me, but caring for everything else managed to boost that even more. For the people I care about, I care so much. I fear losing them, so much. I probably don’t have much reason to worry, but since when has anxiety been one for reason? Don’t worry, I’m working on it :>

What else to say? Not sure, to be honest. Life moves on, transition keeps going, and I hope my second year is even better than my first! Meeting trans people has been wonderful. Not in real life, community is dead where I live, trust me, I’ve tried, but people on the mega and tracha! You’ve all talked to me in various degrees, but it’s been wonderful talking to all of you. Thanks for reinforcing the fact that trans people do, in fact exist, in a world where I can count the number of trans people I have seen and know offline to varying degrees on my fingers. Going to hope that I can find some stuff to attend and some people to meet this pride month. I only hope to whatever higher power may or may not exist that their sole method of communication is not fucking discord (or instagram, snapchat, etc. for that matter, but I know people fucking love discord and I hate it with a passion. You may say this isn’t relevant, to which I will say, fuck discord.

I mean, the insect glaive is also pretty nice, and I do like a lot of the weapons, bit aside. As of late, I’ve put Fire Emblem down in exchange for Xenoblade X and the topic of this part of the post, Monster Hunter. Yes, me, the person who has made multiple megathread posts on Fire Emblem has not touched it in months. I am thinking of running an Enbarr Edition (woke mod) playthrough of Crimson Flower though, so I might be back on FE soon, but for now we’re talking Monster Hunter. Oh, and I’m not getting technical. I do not know much about this game, I just know that it’s fun and I want to share some of why that is! I’m not an expert, I could be wrong on some technical things, and yes I am a poser and started with Rise and World… a couple months after Wilds came out. Truly ahead of the curve.

Monster Hunter is an action RPG developed by... you know what, no. Monster Hunter is a fun game where you hunt big monsters. There are many weapons to choose from, the best of which are Insect Glaive and Switch Axe, sorry to the one Gunlance fan lol I feel bad (/j, all weapons are good) and they all play so differently that changing weapons is such a fresh experience every time. Each weapon has so much to it, so many layers, that many players pick one and stick with it like they’re picking a main in a hero shooter. That’s not even mentioning the monsters. I’ve still barely learned what they all do, because they all feel so different. I know what to expect with some of them, but went and fought some I haven’t done in a while and I’m getting my ass kicked, which is of course the authentic Monster Hunter experience.

Character customization (and feline/canine customization!) is very fun, I had a good amount of hours in the character creators alone. So much to choose from, and there wasn’t free changing at the time (mods my beloved) so I really wanted to make it count. Made designs I liked and then stuck with them, haven’t really changed much. Same with XCX, even with the option to change, and hating having to make a permanent decision, I grow attached to my characters, and then it looks weird when they look different. Although, I did turn them into foxgirls, because they are avatar characters and should be reflexive of the player. Inhales... eepawoo!

So many armors to choose from too! I’ll touch modding here as well, but I unlocked all of the cosmetic armors and it’s such fun dressing my character up! Right now, my character in world is running white hair and a pretty nice black coat, it’s giving more edgy, but I like it (also color matching for anything other than white is tough with the fox stuff on world, so sad). On Rise, I have more of a red theme going on, and although nothing is consistent, running full Mizutsune gear is what I’m doing now, and it’s quite fun! Yeah, that too, a lot if not all of the monsters have their own armor sets, as well as their own cosmetic armor sets, and some have multiple! Customizing to your hearts content is key to the authentic Monster Hunter experience. I’ve also added many other mods, mostly QoL but also some fun stuff. None of it is really game-breaking, but I could if I want to, and that’s powerful, but it’s also nice to be able to tweak the game to however I want to enjoy it!

They also look soooooo good. Rise has it’s charm, especially considering it was made for the Nintendo Switch, but World, oh my gosh. Extremely good looking game. Between that and Xenoblade X I have been spoiled for visuals as of late. So atmospheric and immersive, and the environments are so dynamic, and World captures ecosystems so well. Maps are vast, have variety, have verticality, and even just walking around and exploring is such a treat. The fact that monsters can interact with the environment as well, from breakable objects to nests, is just absolutely wonderful.

There’s a whole lot more I could say, or I couldn’t, I can’t put it into words. Very fun experience, very fun playing with others (not randos I have social anxiety even online), and I got World and the DLC for like 16 USD so that was a huge win. So what are you waiting for? Go play Monster Hunter! Can’t play online for free, but getting it cheaper is a hell of a deal. I bring Xenoblade X up here as well, but these games are solidifying themselves in my top rankings, to be honest. Monster Hunter is a blast and I’ve gotten completely sucked in, and I do intend to play and finish Xenoblade X. It’s quite nice playing all of these new and amazing games :>