At first I was really nervous about being trans. I was really scared about coming out to people, and who could find out. I'd seen a lot of the stats about how trans people face so many more systematic disadvantages compared to their cis counterparts, and I was really scared about how my being a boy would affect my relationships with people, if people wouldn't accept me. I was really worried about how my shadow would still affect me. Would it still insist that I was a girl? Would it change? I didn't know. And it intrigued me. As much as there was to worry about, there was another thing to be curious about. To want to explore. And I was excited to do some exploration.
Some things that I knew that I wanted to figure out about myself right away were my name and my pronouns. However, I tried to figure out my pronouns first, and I quickly discovered how hard it was to do that without a name. You see, I would write these mock sentences to try out different pronouns for myself, and they went like this,
"Hey, have you seen Krista?" "No, I think he's outside."
It was very difficult for me to figure out my pronouns when I had such a girlish name. I knew that my name would have to come first. My silly, optimistic little brain thought that that would be an easy task. My brain was very wrong indeed. There were so many names that I could choose from, I didn't even know where to begin. But, I knew I had to start somewhere, so I made a list of traditionally male names that I liked and tried them out in those little mock sentences.
"Hi, my name is Adrian." "Hi, my name is Matthew." "Hi, my name is Logan." "Hi, my name is Damian." It went on like this for a while, but none of them stuck.
It took me months to find my name. Nearly every spare thought I had was thinking about different names. Some days I thought one was certainly it, and then the next day a new name came along that called out to me. However, I found my for sure name completely on accident, and it was accidentally thanks to my brother.
You see, I have two passions in life: animation and musical theatre. I'll probably elaborate on the two of those later, but my passion for animation was kickstarted by my older brother, Benny. When we were little, we would always wake up early, go downstairs to the family room, and watch cartoons on Saturday morning. Occasionally this would stretch into Saturday evening. We did this every Saturday we were together and had no prior commitments, all the way until he went off to college, and when he came home on the weekends, we'd be watching cartoons on Saturday morning. It was something that we really bonded over, and neither of us would trade it for anything.
When I got my phone, I wanted to explore cartoons even further, and I would go onto getting into a ton of animation YouTubers and YouTubers who reviewed animations, including (but not limited to) PhantomStrider, Saberspark, Vivziepop, Schaffrillas Productions, theodd1sout, and Jaiden Animations. Particularly from the animation reviewers, I really started to appreciate how many of the best cartoons weren't just for children, but for everyone. Anyone can enjoy animation, and it's completely ludicrous that it's treated like it's for children because most animation is kid-oriented, when that simply isn't the case. The best animation has themes, ideas, and concepts that kids and adults can relate to. That's what Disney is at it's best. That's what Pixar is most of the time. That's what Studio Ghibli is ALL the time. It frustrates me how animation isn't taken seriously and isn't given nearly as much attention as it should be because "it's just for kids" when no, it clearly isn't.
That was a bit of a rant. Like I said, it's a passion. Anyway, this one day, Benny comes home from college, it's a Saturday morning, about 10 o'clock, and Adventure Time is on. That's a series that, at the time, I was just starting to get in to and hadn't seen a fraction of the episodes there are. The episode we were watching at the time was called "I Remember You". It started with the Ice King going over to Marceline's house to write a song to attract princesses. It's pretty light-hearted up until the middle of the episode, when Ice King starts singing about how lonely he is. Then Marceline sings a song about how he's crazy and she can't help him. Then when Marceline says she's tired of Ice King acting the way he does, she calls him "Simon".
The name seemed to stick in my brain, bouncing around like a rubber ball. The episode kept going, and it was revealed that Ice King raised Marceline through the aftermath of a war, but that he doesn't remember her anymore. I was crying really hard through the ending, because Marceline was so desperate to make him remember her, and he's totally none the wiser. Marceline, Marceline the super tough Vampire Queen, started crying, and they sang through one of Simon's final notes to her before he lost his mind and left her alone. Benny and I were both crying in the aftermath of the episode. He decided to turn it off since it was such a downer of an ending. Still, the name Simon was still stuck in my head, like it was caught in some flypaper.
Soon enough, we were called to breakfast, and after that Annie had a basketball game that we all went to. At around 1, we went out to lunch, and then we went to see our grandparents. We got back home at 5, and ate supper at 6 o'clock. After that, I went back on my phone and immediately hopped onto YouTube. I searched the term "Simon Adventure Time" and got taken to a bunch of videos. I clicked on the compilation put out by Cartoon Network's channel that was all about this and Marceline's past together. Every time the name "Simon" was said, it would jump out at me, like someone was calling out to me.
After I'd finished the videos, I made my mock sentences. "Hi, my name is Simon." "Hey, have you seen Simon?" "I like your shoes, Simon." This was it. This was my name.
After I figured out my name, I retried my mock sentences with varying pronouns, and I discovered that I liked both 'he' and 'they' pronouns. As I tried them out in different sentences, I felt ecstatic. I felt like... myself. I felt comfortable. I felt happy.
At about 9:30, I got ready for bed, and I went to bed at 10. Discovering myself was a lot of work. I knew that I still had a long way to go. Even though I knew it would be a long road ahead of me, it felt nice to have just a little stability in my identity. I went to sleep feeling optimistic about my situation, for the first time in a while.
AN: Yep, update directly after I updated the last chapter. I'm going to try to get more consistent with these as the story goes on. Anyway, I wasn't totally sure how I was going to structure these two chapters, so it took a while for me to update. I'm glad that I've finally worked it out. I'm always open to feedback! Love y'all! 😘
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The Girl in my Shadow
General FictionSimon is a boy. He knows this, from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. However, *she* thinks otherwise. She's always there, taunting Simon, making him doubt himself. The worst thing is that Simon can never escape her, because she is his sh...
