a set of screencaps from ‘dys4ia’ an amazing flash game by anna anthropy, based on her experiences with hormone replacement therapy. you can play dys4ia here this is a link.
the gameplay of dys4ia is incredibly simple, but dys4ia tells a really really really personal story, particularly for a flash game. obviously i’m biased, but anna anthropy touches on things with dys4ia that i would struggle to discuss, even with close friends.
at one point, i stopped playing right in the middle of one of the final ‘mini-games’ of dys4ia to watch the sun set and reflect on what some of it meant to me personally. imo, it’s probably some of the most strangely “honest” media depicting transition i have personally experienced.
that said, the game isn’t like, a perfect masterpiece. but it’s VERY COOL IMO idk i am extremely biased just ignore me k wutever. here is what anna had to say on the night she released dys4ia
dys4ia is the story of the last six months of my life: when i made the decision to start hormone replacement therapy and began taking estrogen. i wanted to catalog all the frustrations of the experience and maybe create an “it gets better” for other trans women. when i started working on the game, though, i didn’t know whether it did get better. i was in the middle of the shit detailed in level 3 of the game, and at the time i had no idea what the ending would be; it was hard to envision a happy ending.
this was amazing. there’s also a great interview with anna anthropy at prettyqueer.com at the moment
looking forward to play this/read the interview later
I played Dys4ia a while back when I first saw someone post about it! It’s so persynal and interesting! I hadn’t really known that video games could be like that! I just read the PrettyQueer interview and it was great!
ELLE: I’m watching a video of you two.
Rashida Jones: Are you watching our lesbian video on YouTube?
Amy Poehler: Yeah, it’s pretty funny. Someone put together all the scenes of Ann and Leslie and then put a Counting Crows song to it. It looks like Parks and Rec is a love story about two women.
ELLE: Are you guys hugging right now?
Rashida Jones: Actually, we’re spooning.this is everything
AMAZING. I LOVE AMY POEHLER SO HARD.
this is the sort of thing dreams are made of.
(Source: buffyfan357.livejournal.com)
Humans have two hands
One for holding burritos and one for touching butts.
LD.
(Source: lurkskywalker)
hairy femme life.
(Source: katya-g)
on femme/hard femme
i’ve been getting a lot of asks recently about what my definitions of “femme” and “hard femme” are, so i’m gonna try and answer ya’ll the best i can in one post instead of a million asks.
femme is a many-headed, many-tittied, many-armed beast that knows no bounds.
for me, femme is about reclaiming our identities from a society that has sought to tell us what to do and who we are and can be for centuries. femme is femininity and masculinity reimagined, deconstructed and recreated. femme is on purpose. femme defies, questions, and shatters the structures and institutions that tell us how we’re supposed to identify. i am femme because i choose to be, because it is what feels right and solid for me - not because society says “female = feminine.” i am femme because i like how i look this way, not because anyone else does. femme is our own interpretation and application of what we’ve been taught, what we’ve had to figure out ourselves, what we’ve never been told, what the world throws at us. femme is self care. femme is strength. femme is a rejection of prescribed gender roles and an embrace of individual gender identity. femme fucks with gender. femme is intelligent, clever, and creative. femme shits on the patriarchy and tells it to clean up the mess its damn self.
femme is where i found my way back to after years of rejecting anything remotely “feminine” because of internalized misogyny, because of an abusive relationship in my past, because of how i am treated differently by strangers depending on my level of overt femininity.hard femme is how i knew i’d found my home.
i’d say hard femme is femme’s iron-pumpin, boot-wearin, always sneerin cousin. hard femme is tough, diy, takin care of business, down n dirty and no-bullshit. hard femme draws elements from both traditionally masculine and feminine traits and creates an intimidating, hard edged, boundless identity that a lot of folks find they’ve identified with for a long time without ever having a name for it. hard femme talks shit on The Man purely by existing. hard femme is studs, boots, leather, glitter, and a big ass middle finger.
here’s the thing though, and this is important: femme and hard femme are whatever the fuck they mean to you. yes they are outlined, existing identities, but their power lies in the freely chosen identity of those who embrace them and their potential for never ending growth and mutation.
i’m sure i’ll come back to this later with a list of shit i forgot to include, but i hope this works for those of ya’ll who’ve been asking.
<3
lj
my mom and I all dressed up for a night at the ballet. we are ballerinas. duh.
also, tickets for the new york city ballet are only $15 if you have a student id!
bluebell field and bonsai room at the brooklyn botanical gardens
(it’s free saturdays before noon!)

