Anyone who's played a @fenoxo.bsky.social game: "Yes, and? I don't see the problem."

Alas, my hobby was writing smut, which is kinda only good when shared, and I keep trying to find my way back to it.

the reason i'm ever optimistic is because bluesky has a near-monopoly on trans folks, the strongest per-capita posting demographic on earth. it's like having all the kenyan marathon runners.

I rarely write forced expansion; it typically gets out of hand, but it's chosen deliberately. And the people forcing transformations on unwilling people in my world are villains.

Yeah, that was a big moment for me, actually. I'd been in the expansion space for literally decades thinking only about it happening to others, and then about when I started writing in 2020, my brain went "but what if bigger YOU?" And whole new worlds of fantasy opened up.

I need to write more.

Like, all of this is a spectrum (or several of them on different axes), not distinct points, and while I am definitely a straight cis guy, I'm not all the way at that end of the spectrum, just almost. Imagining how bodies, including mine, could be different is very broadening. (Hah, expansion joke!)

It's nearly impossible to be a straight cis guy in this community without grappling with what it might say about you. Seeing the people I share the community with, and thinking about my own place in it, has made me a better person at the same time it made me a better writer.

I mean, that was what I was planning when the idea was first pitched and I considered stealing it. But that's what I do.

Look, if you're anything like me, the characters just live in your head, you're not in charge of them. I don't know how Hannah/Hollie works at all, she's two very different people, but her/their adventures turn out alright.

I've never quite felt like I should tackle a gender affirming transformation story, like it's not mine to tell. But when I look back at literally the first story I wrote, I came close. It's hard not to appreciate trans women when you're an expansion author; growing boobs is in their wheelhouse.

Yes, I know that I haven't written about boobs in a while. I miss it, and I'm trying, it's just way harder for a variety of reasons.

Okay, now THAT might make it into my next story.

Basically, it sucks to be a thoughtful progressive straight white man with a loving wife and a supportive and diverse community, because you're always the worst person in that group, and you know it, and you can't complain about it without being even worse.

But I can't ask my wife, who is my best friend and the most amazing woman I've ever known, to do something that I can be upset at her about. And I'm certainly not going to fall into the stereotypical straight white guy grievances, because I know they're bigoted and wrong.

But it is not good for my brain to always lose. It honestly hurts to admit every single time, for as long as I can remember, that I messed up and I'm wrong and I need to do better. It's ethically right, but emotionally torturous, and I just want to win sometimes.

I shouldn't envy anyone who is the victim of more oppression than myself. I shouldn't want to be harmed in a way I can speak out against. I shouldn't want to be on the righteous side of an argument just because it means I don't have to examine my own culpability so deeply.

It's hard to be good, but part of being good (so I was raised to believe) is not complaining about how hard you have it, because your job is to use your privilege to stand up for those who have it harder than you. Which, as a secure middle-aged straight white man, is pretty much everyone.

How do I say that I wish I weren't so straight, or so white, or that I had worse pay? I don't want my wife to do things that hurt me, and she never does, but that means every (extremely rare) disagreement is about something I did wrong, and how do I explain the accumulated feeling of failure?