Jaelights

Slooping dupes over here

Succinct transbien musician behind Lorelei and the Ghost.
Bring me your finest Yuris!





Music Links:
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@Jaelights
SoundCloud:
https://soundcloud.com/jaelights
BandCamp:
https://jaelights.bandcamp.com/



Writing:
https://www.wattpad.com/user/Jaelights



Business Email if you want music:
loreleiandtheghost@gmail.com



Profile Pic by @nomnomnami


At some point I need to get my brain to stop interrogating me every time I decide I'm enjoying something. Especially things that I picked up a while back that are even vaguely masculine. You now, things like wars games, fps games, sports, being competitive, the color blue, being emotionally innacessible.... yes I'm being silly, but you get the point.

You're prolly thinking, "that's ridiculous, you know that, right?" Oh, I know. I know. But you know what else I know? I spent the first 35 years of my life trying to conform to what I assumed my family, and general society, wanted me to be. You know, a dude. I'm not a dude, but, well... I mean, I was confused about what was important, okay?

Still, you may wonder, how are these things intersecting in your brain Jae?

TL;DR - I don't trust anything that happened to me between 0 and 35, including every like that I picked up along the way. Part of me is always worried that I only picked it up because I was being shoved in that direction...

And it goes a level deeper. I can feel, deep down, that a fearful part of me still exists regarding societies reaction to my identity.. It exerts an odd power on me, it's the voice in my head that see's me buying pink booty shorts for my PJs and just flips the heck out because it's worried someone else will find out and think I'm hella weird.

I worry about the force it exerts on the things I like. I worry that it leads me back to interests that will help me come across as more acceptable. As an example, I was a huge WWII nerd when I was a teenager, just thought the topic was really interesting and read a lot about it. Sooo, something I picked up when I was closeted and something that, traditionally, is considered masculine.

Then, in the last few days I discovered an RTS game called "Steel Division 2". The game covers the eastern front (something I know little about) and it looks really fun!! I haven't really read about WWII for a while so why not dive into it again? It can be fun to learn about! Right?!

squints deep into brain

Hey, brain...are you trying to trick me into acting like a dude again? I mean, like, 99.9% of the player base is dudes, you trying to be a dude? You trying to dude me up? I don't want to do that, so is that what you are doing because IF IT IS YOU FECKINGNEEDTOCUTITOUTOHMYGAWDPLEASESTAAAAAAAHP!!!"

...so on and so forth.

For every interest I developed in my first 35 years.

Over and over and over and over and over.....

...

...and over again.

It's a unique kind of paranoia, though I'm sure some of you have felt the same way.

It's this weird place where cultural gender identity and personal gender identity are at odds. I def identify female, I don't question that for a moment. But I was raised as a guy and, as it turns out, being exposed to interesting things (without society telling me, "uh, that's not for girls") allows you to develop interest in said things without much second guessing of yourself. It's almost like society should just always be that way, but I digress.

Of course, that cuts in both directions and there were certainly things I wanted to put more effort into that I was made fun off for...but that's not what this post is about.

Really, this is just me venting and speaking out incase other folks are feeling the same way. I think we all know the answer in the end: it doesn't really matter why you like things, just try and enjoy them! As time goes by, I think I get better at it.

And I think I'd also add on that...yeah, it's difficult to trust your instincts when you allowed yourself to sit in the closet for 35 years or so. But you know what? Once you're out, you're out. Just the simple fact that you've told your friends and family should be evidence enough that you, more likely than not, aren't going to backslide into the closet again.

So have some faith in yourself and just do the things you want to do :).


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in reply to @Jaelights's post:

(I can't fully relate to everything -even if i can for a good part of it-, so sorry if I say something inappropriate by mistake. That's not my intent at all.)

The part about cultural and personal identity made me think about what you described under another light (also mixed with personal thoughts I've had on the surrounding subjects):

As you said, you were exposed to things that are typically considered "for boys", and it's in part because of how society perceived you as such, so you were influenced to go towards these hobbies on some level.

Wouldn't doing the opposite be the same in the end though? I mean, you are a woman. It's a fact that won't change no matter what you like. Wouldn't prohibiting yourself from enjoying things that may be boy-oriented a way of conforming to what society expects of you as a woman? (though i can understand the difference between "being a woman trying to conform as a boy" and "being a woman trying to conform as a woman")

In that sense, it'd be part of your fear of society's reaction to your identity, not unlike your PJs example.

Anyway, it's the same conclusion as the one you gave. The "why" doesn't matter much as long as you enjoy something. It's still a part of your personality and tastes.

Oh, totally. That's another big topic, of course. But the tl;dr is that you really shouldn't try to determine your gender based on your person interests. Ideally there should be no relation between the two. I'd be bad feminist if I went around actually believing any activity is intended for one gender or another.

More what I'm speaking to is that, no matter how high and might my ideals may be... I'm still human and I have moments where I worry about how I present my identity and I worry about how that might influence my choices in what I do and don't like.

The only real cure is to learn to trust your own interests, to believe yourself when you tell yourself you like things (and that should go for everyone).

They're completely different causes, so I dunno if the comparison is really justified, but the result is kind of the same, so. I think I get whatcha mean, in a way, myself. My own circumstances with this involve myself just... not doing anything I wanna do, ever, because of bad brain stuff that's probably extremely convoluted but ultimately boils down to a mixture of ye ole depression and ye ole loneliness, and the result is pretty much the same: telling myself I'm not allowed to enjoy the things I wanna enjoy.

Like, around a year ago, I really was doing whatever the hell I wanted to!! I was drinking on my days off and playing through so many fricking visual novels and story-based games that made me happy cry all over the place and it was fantastic. But now, uh, I haven't drank since like March, pff. AND I LOVE BEING DRUNK. SO THIS IS A TRAVESTY. BELIEVE ME. I'M NOT AN ALCOHOLIC, I SWEAR. IT'S JUST REALLY NICE BEING FULLY RELAXED AND LETTING FEELINGS RUN WILD, THANKS TO ALCOHOL....

Anyway, tangent aside, yeah. Looking at a lot of things I've enjoyed and going "I shouldn't do that" for genuinely arbitrary reasons is something I've been going through, if that's... actually comparable? I mean I feel like it is... It doesn't really have to do with gender, though, outside of me partaking of yuri and thinking "gosh I don't think I'm allowed to enjoy this" sometimes, as you do.

Main reason I wanted to bring any of this up though is just 'cause I wanted to shout at you the same way I've been shouting at myself and say JUST DO IT, PLAY THE GAMES, ENJOY YOURSELF, PARTAKE OF WHATEVER THE HELL YOU WANNA PARTAKE OF, DON'T LET YOU BRAIN FRICKING CONTROL YOU LIKE THAT, FOLLOW YOUR HEART, FOLLOW YOUR SOUL, YOUR SOUL THAT SAYS THAT PLAYING COOL AS FUCK GAMES IS COOL AS FUCK. PLAY STEEL DIVISION 2 AND THRIVE!!!!! Alongside any other games that come up and are perceived as "masculine", because if a game's fun, it's fun. Who fricking cares how it might present you to extremely judgy fuckers. We aren't in some sort of hell where your gaming preferences literally dictate how people will see you!! This isn't 4ch or whatever!!!!! WE CAN ENJOY WHATEVER THE HELL WE WANNA ENJOY, REGARDLESS OF SOCIETAL PRETENSES!!!!! FUCK SOCIETAL PRETENSES!!!!!! PREFERENCES TRUMP ALL!!!!!!

Yelling at myself like this is the only way I finally, finally finished playing Atelier Sophie 1 after a year of owning it (it turns out it's a really fun game, so fun that I ended up finishing it even though I had two crashes at very bad times that totaled about 10 hours of lost gametime, out of around 40 (ALWAYS SAVE BEFORE INTERACTING WITH THE CAULDRON. THE CAULDRON IS EVIL)) and I mean...... I assume you've got some methods in place to circumvent the garbage of gender pretenses, considering you're laying out your feelings like this, but regardless!!!!! Here are my shouts!!!!!

Heh, Blackberry-Mochi I always love your shouts and thank you for saying all this because, of course, you're right. It's sometimes still hard to accept that I even know who I am but...I mean, I just am who I am.

If it's any sign of progress, I ended up getting Steel Division 2 and have really been enjoying myself!

Oh, I've also beaten Atelier Sophie. I got ahold of 2 and got a few hours in befo-- SQUIRREL!

And I haven't been back yet, but I probably will.

It's one of the oddest things about me (though I'm coming to accept it as time goes by), one second I'll be playing a realistic WWII Tank game and going "ooh! Lookit dat Panzer go boom! Good job B-26, you are my friend." Then, ten minutes later, I'll be reading my yuri updates and crying like an idiot because, gosh darn it, Not so Shoujo Love Story is adorable and I can't ship these couples hard enough!

Society maybe would see this as being incongruous (or as gap-moe, take your pick.) But in the end it's just...me.

One day I'll learn to be at ease with it. For the moment I'm just happy that, in principle, I think it's fine :D

Just stumbled on this post as I was scrolling through the global feed to pass time before bed, and wow, this resonated with me so much! It's comforting in a way to see someone else struggling with the same problem. It's so hard to combat that feeling, but it's always worth it to just.... have fun with something cool or interesting. :yeah: