KungFuChicken

He/him, @meepeY_R6 fan. Videogame & TTRPG enthusiast.
Just a dude with opinions and free time. :)

[KungFuChicken @KungFuChicken3]

@TheChowderhead You had me at "Nuclear Cavalier".

[Gwen ☕ @GwenpostingTTV]

Around the time I turned 16 I encountered a litany of health issues, both physical and mental. One battle I struggled with heavily was insomnia. I would work late into the early morning to the absolute breaking point of exhaustion and I could finally fall asleep.

I didn't know how unhealthy this was until I roomed with my best friends, who would often remark on my crazy schedule. They chalked it up to gamer brain and left it at that.

Fast forward a couple years later. I finally wanted to get to the bottom of some very difficult questions that had been bugging me since I was 16. Many of those questions were repressed because of religious practice. Eventually, I didn't know what to believe, because everybody gave me different answers. Naturally, get the answer wrong and eternal damnation awaits you. No pressure.

I had always been under the assumption that transness was a personal decision, or at the very least, that was my best guess, under the pretense of not knowing what it was and simply concluding that it was none of my business. So I said eh, I can just "snap myself out of it." With enough guy stuff. I joined a fraternity. I did all the things the other guys did. Guy this. Guy that. I got obsessed with the whole "what it means to be a man," thing. But despite being a fraternity president, a successful business owner, and the ability (sometimes) to at least entertain the company of elegant women, I still didn't feel like a man.

Looking in the mirror didn't feel like a reflective experience. It felt like "this collection of light and reflected particles is a representation of the shell that is me." I thought that was just me being an autistic dork and ignored that too.

Eventually the stress of the situation drove me nuts. The insomnia got worse from the added stress. I'd spend hours tossing and turning wondering if I was losing my mind. After battling it quite badly for several weeks, I finally decided to talk to a counselor.

Components of the conversation arrived to these words. "That's dysphoria."

*Huh?

Wh-

No no no.. haha that's

Nah

Oh my god am I doing the 5 stages right now? What the fuck is happening.*

"I have dysphoria."

My worldview got snapped in half when I realized there was a science to all of it. Fast forward a couple years and I started doing some research on gender dysphoria, and I shockingly discovered there were biochemical aspects to it. It sounds like a lot. But it makes sense the more you think about it right? Hormones interface with just about every part of your body, so it stands to reason that if something is out of alignment, it's gonna have a negative effect.

I spent a long time in counseling just talking about it, trying to figure out where the hell I was with all of this. Eventually I felt comfortable enough to try hormones.

It took less than a week for my sleep patterns to go back to normal. Back to the healthy ones I had as a child. I naturally felt tired at 10pm, and woke up at 6am, like I did for school for many years.

In addition to this my mood lightened. I was prone to short fused bits of anger over unfair situations in my household. I was usually a cool person to be around, but a precisely wrong slight could get me from 0-100 in a strangely fast way. I still get angry, but I can cool off faster, and I have avenues of clarity in my responses to situations that didn't exist previously.

I became a million times more talkative. My roommates and my friends back home on the East Coast all noticed a more laid back version of myself seemed to have emerged. I took jokes less personally and riff. (not always, one roommate in particular who knows who he is remains an expert at pushing my buttons, but I'm getting better at managing his annoyances)

I can't explain to you why the hormones improved my quality of life. I'm not a scientist. Yeah, it is a bit weird. But understanding the mechanics of the human body makes it a lot less weird. And the human body is weird in general. We're fleshy bags of meat and electricity that made rocks think, put rockets on the moon, and harness the power of atoms to run entire cities.

I didn't ask to be trans. I didn't choose to be trans. A long list of angry and scary conversations with my family, with my friends, and God Almighty were had around the subject of whether or not I was trans.

But the moment I knew it was real was when I could finally get some good night's fucking sleep. Reliably, consistently, enough to feel "bright eyed and bushy tailed," as they say where I'm from.

So I don't really give a shit why I'm trans. Or how I'm trans. Some people find out they have autism, ADHD, and many other things later on in their life. My upbringing didn't necessarily hinder its development. I made choices to avoid it consciously, because I was scared.

But I'm not scared anymore.

I'm just gonna make my money, pay my bills, live my life.

And appreciate its colors the way I desperately missed as a child.

Colors are brighter, fuller. Smells are rich. Emotions hit deeper, more personally, warming when they're positive, chilling when they're negative. But I'll take that over the numbness I had.

Regardless of what anybody thinks of transness. There's only one thing in this life everybody can agree on. We're all gonna end up in the ground one day.

So don't make the choice to be miserable like I did, because you have an obligation to be miserable, or something. That's nonsense.

Make the choice to be happy.

[KungFuChicken @KungFuChicken3]

@TiredActor Not going to lie, I totally thought the punchline would be:
"We | Do | Did
They | Go In The | Square Hole"

[KungFuChicken @KungFuChicken3]

@Dreamboum Been thinking I might pick FFXIV up tomorrow and start giving it a shot, but this seals the deal. Pretty reassuring to hear, considering I've got very little experience with mmorpg's other than maybe a few hours worth of playtime on the PS5.
Looking forward to it!

[Republican Accountability @AccountableGOP]

Trump in 2016: “She shouldn’t be allowed to run...If she wins, it would create an unprecedented constitutional crisis. In that situation, we could very well have a sitting president under felony indictment and, ultimately, a criminal trial. It would grind government to a halt.”

[Farrukh Shamsi @farrukh_shamsi]

This is the video Instagram pulled down after getting 12 million views. It’s only about 5 min and starts with the history of how we got to where we are.

[ash 🍉 @kindlingofsorts]

saw this clip again of brennan that’s relevant now more than ever. when someone calls into question the force we use to fight against oppressors remember whose boot is on your throat. it’s always theirs.

[chris evans @notcapnamerica]

Matthew Boynton went to have dinner with a colleague at Waffle House. He received a text from his wife Jessica that said “I can’t do this anymore. Take care of the children. Please tell them I love them everyday. I have been suffering for a while now and no one has noticed...

[Meph @Mephistophea]

RETURN TO YHARNAM 2024 (March 24th to April 7th)

Happy to say it's that time again. Create a new character & play through the game. Engage in as much co-op along the way as possible. Leave a message that says "you're in the know, right?" by as many lamps as possible. Have fun!

[Sour @The_Sourkraut]

I'm going to look back on this when the Game Award for best multiplayer goes to something like Skull and Bones.

[Kev @Sneakinrican_]

God I’m loving Helldivers 2 TikTok lmao

[Xexizy @muke10101]

might just repost this every time this take goes viral: young people can't use computers because modern computing has been streamlined into consumerism

[MrBeast @MrBeast]

I’m gonna give 10 random people that repost this and follow me $25,000 for fun (the $250,000 my X video made)

I’ll pick the winners in 72 hours

[gibbsontv @gibbsontv]

The Lethal Company Experience [Animation] :P

[Ryan Broderick @broderick]

I've received messages all week from readers reporting the same thing. MrBeast's video is clearly being promoted as an undisclosed ad across the platform to juice its numbers.

[BasedBinkie @basedbinkie]

My biggest regret is that I wish I had started my worldbuilding/story journey earlier. I’ve been held back by the ‘I’m not good enough to start’ mindset for too long, later realizing that your creation grows with you.

My advice to creatives, is to just START, JUST DO IT RAAAH

[Reid Southen @Rahll]

Nightshade is out!

Nightshade poisons AI models if your art or images are taken without permission, Glaze protects you from AI mimicry. It's recommended you Nightshade first, then Glaze. A version that does both is coming.

Read this thread for more info.

Go get 'em 🫡

[Aftermath @Aftermath_site]

Valve's new AI rules will open the floodgates to a river of shit:

https://t.co/DzFb1hUQtG

[The Dog from the Goosebumps Intro @Chesuchesuto]

Imagine trying to escape a Saw trap while your buddies kept discussing if cheese would pair better with dirty needles or broken lightbulbs