This isn't "the normal me."

I don't normally write things like this. I surely don't give them any sort of formatting made for presentation. And I DEFINITELY don't post them for the general public to read.

But I'm trying something.

Feel free to ignore this if you'd just like to see my games. This isn't that. You can play it, if you want, but it's not a game. It's a deep and extremely personal rumination on the nature on who is allowed to be trans, what others say being trans even is, and how the messages others tell you echo into the messages you tell yourself. It's an exploration of how I see myself based on how others see me, and how that way of seeing might resonate with others facing similarly imposed views.

That's why I called YOU ARE CIS a "mirror portrait" — because it's a medium that captures what I (and the reader) look like based off reflections of one another and others. I look like you, because you look at me and tell me who I am, which I then tell myself. And this echoes forward again, shaping how the person I am tells others who they are.

Gonna be honest: this is pretty scary to put out there. It's messy, nasty, mean, sharp with serrated spikes. I might even take it down later, if it proves to be too much, too dangerous to handle (for me or for others). But I'm hoping that by making my own mirror, I can maybe start to get my messages about myself from... myself. Ironically, the only way to stop the echoes is to seal myself within a one-person echo chamber. But I could use a change in tune to help wash out the screechy songs stuck in my ears from others. Maybe I'll finally start singing my own tune, and stop merely repeating the shadowy fragments others leave for me, on me.

Be kind — if only because the words you say shape the world, and you should prepare for that world to shape you back.