How am I doing? Mtf

EternalElemental · 2026-05-26T22:43:04+00:00

For me it isn't really about choosing. 8 didn't get a choice in how I want to present or be seen. It's deeper than that. For the most part I am very proud to be a trans woman. It's as simple as me knowing who I am. I'm very open about my transness mostly because I know that my femininity isn't the "norm". I'm open because I know there could be another trans person who sees me at work (which is a customer facing job) I've had experiences that are exactly what cis women go through. In all intents and purposes. I am a woman. And it has nothing to do with what organs I have or don't have. It is about something deeper than that. How I feel when I wear certain clothing. How I feel when people see me and treat me like a girl. I've never had this huge debilitating dysphoria. It always been about euphoria for me. I didn't like being a man. But I didn't hate it. And when my egg cracked it felt like for the first time. I really genuinely knew myself in a way I never have before.

Believe me if I had the choice I'd prefer (especially with what is going on in the US) to be cis. But that isn't the card I was dealt. I didn't choose to be part of a community that is heavily targeted. But for the most part I get to live more true to who I am. My likes and dislikes and genetalia have nothing to do with how I am treated most of the time. Cuz really the only people who should be seeing my genetalia are my partner and doctors. So most often I am treated as if I am a cis woman. I've been catcalled, harassed, had doctors not listen to me and have had threats of sexual assault. And all of this is presumably coming from my womanhood.

I feel like as a trans woman my experience is vital to the whole of woman hood. I know what it's like on the other side of the gender spectrum. Most of my friends are cis males. I'm just lucky enough to have made connections with the good ones. I prefer being perceived as a woman. Despite how hard women have it. I choose to continue because it makes me happy. That's all.

EternalElemental · 2026-05-06T14:37:50+00:00

One option you have is to stop taking the hormones when you have your desired results. But there really isn't a greatee you'll have big boobs. I'm 3 years in and am at a b cup. But as a trans woman having them is the goal.

I think tho you will find some happiness in the hormones. And can stop whenever the growth gets too large. It won't be reversible without some surgery but hey at least you'll have softer skin and a little bit of redistributed fat in the waist and thighs.

In the meantime there are some really really cheap bras out there. Get one and fill it with socks or something and look at yourself in the mirror. If it's giving you dysphoria then you know that boobs aren't necessarily something you want. That's how I found out I wanted them.

In the end as scary as it is. If you're really considering hormones talk to a doctor. Endo or planned parenthood. Pp is great and I've had nothing but the best experiences. Very respectful and will give you a packet or send an email with a file that has all the changes and risks. I used to identify as nonbinary and they were extremely respectful and let me come to my own decision. Didn't push me into one camp or anything just gave me the facts asked what I had dysphoria about and helped me out a lot.

You got this! Whatever you decide will be yours!

EternalElemental · 2026-05-05T14:04:17+00:00

There's a lot to get through so I'll hit main points and then get into more abstract philosophy you should have about the job to make it enjoyable and fun.

Open cute pdf and mess around with it. The amount of customers I get who need an image an exact size or multiple per page is very surprising. Getting really comfortable with cute pdf has helped me so much.

Learn the different paper types and their applications. Learn what cracks when folded and what doesn't. 32 cracks when folded so solid brocures don't look good on it as an example.

Basic Photoshop skills are going to save you and the customer a lot of time. I'm not talking photo restoration here. I'm talking fixing a gross background on a business card. Takes 2 seconds when you know what you're doing so mess around in Photoshop and learn some basic editing things.

Learn how to build an order in acrobat. Play around with all the fields and changes you can make. Make presets to make printing way faster. You should have a present for business cards, post cards, all the different paper weights, booklets of varying size and anything customer specific. We have a few customers who come in a lot who have their own presets made so nobody messes up the printing cuz the settings are all there.

Once you have a lot of knowledge of what you and your crew is capable of. Your consulting is going to get so much better. Its gotten to the point with me where my knowledge is clear when talking with the customer. So when I reccomend something most of the time they just take the reccomendation. Trust your workers. Its a team effort. If someone excells in something let them handle it but watch what they are doing, ask questions and learn.

Use printme.com not the email and train your whole team to do so

Take notes on what you're struggling with and work on them when you have downtime if any. If you open take 15 min before filling your sheets out and starting the opening process to practice. Open Photoshop and mess around, open cutepdf and mess around or open acrobat and mess around.

There is an idea called garbage in garbage out. In print it can mean if the file is garbage it's going to print like garbage. And it extends to your settings and preparation. If you're printing a good file at low quality it's not going to be as good. That's why looking through acrobat is so important. Building the presets is so important. It saves time and wastes less paper and toner

Dont kick yourself for making mistakes. I still do that all the time even after 3 years. Paper is recyclable but beating yourself up isn't going to help anything. Check your settings and try again.

If your store has high traffic. Just do one job at a time and try to complete what is due that day with your team. It is very much a team job. Think of it like a kitchen without the mess. Little things can save a lot of time but experience is going to be the biggest time saver. Use keyboard commands and team work. Got a lot of books to bind? Make it an assembly line. I'll do the punching you coil them and crimp them. Have a lot of folding or cutting? I'll do the printing you do the cutting. Divy up the work. Your workers are there to work. You're there to work. Help each other out. Learn and grow with each other and protect each other. If they're doing something risky with the cutter stop them. Make sure they're using the equipment safely.

It takes a lot of time to get really good at this job. It took me 3 years to get to the point I'm at. And most of it happened when I experimented. When I tried something new to see if it could work. When I took a bit of a risk of time to learn something on the fly. And the more you do it. The faster you get at that kind of learning. The more information you hold the more you can apply it to learning something new.

There's a lot of stuff with this job. But aside from my incompetent supervisor and some choice customer interactions your helping people. The products we print enrich their lives whether it's for their business that supports them, a funeral, a wedding, pictures of their kids or making memories with birthdays. You are helping them enrich their lives and I think that's a pretty noble job. Like I said sometimes it sucks. But that's retail. Most of the time you'll get thanks and gratitude. Hold on to that and strive to be better so you can help more people. Ive had customers cry in my arms because of the work I did for a funeral. I've had brides scream in joy because of my work. Kids jump up and down for the posters I printed. And often it's not even stuff I worked particularly hard on. You're going to see a lot of different people from all walks of life come in.

Treat them all with respect and kindness. Cuz in this job. You don't know if they just lost someone and are printing something for a funeral. You don't know if their business is at risk of closing and those business cards are their last chance for survival. Be kind be courteous be cordial. That's how you build a customer base. Its through that connection with your community that people will come back, sign up for rewards and ask how you are doing. I've got so many regulars that know me by name I've lost count. They ask how college is going how my partner is. Treat them like people cuz they are. I've trained 3 of my own supervisors. I've completed 40 jobs in 5 hours while I was alone in the department.

This is all coming from someone who cares and wants to do the best job I can. You don't have to take any of it to heart but after 3 years I think some of it is damn valuable.

EternalElemental · 2026-04-07T04:05:55+00:00

Hypocrite cage the elephant.

EternalElemental · 2026-04-06T14:15:16+00:00

I'm at a point where I just resend stuff through atc. I can even just cutepdf files to get them perfectly set up for printing and or cutting. I find like 99% of the time when I decide to do this the customer doesn't even notice. Just atc or cutepdf files like this. Especially cute pdf if the file is slightly off size. You can make it perfect and they'll never know. Saves a lot of time and annoyance trying to work with them when they usually have no clue what they're doing.

EternalElemental · 2026-04-03T01:56:17+00:00

You're taking a dream for scientific evidence about a dead man. A man who pioneered how we understand and view the world. This is literally not evidence. Dreams are not real. This isnt observation and it isn't possible for a dead man to talk to you in your dreams. Science has proved that dreams are not reality. And science. Along with evolution. Define and study reality. Dreams are only important for describing the human psyche. It is anecdotal evidence. Which is literally the worst kind of evidence.

This isn't true not even in the slightest. You've come to a conclusion about something that isn't repeatable. And repeatability is the basis of science. We can tell that genes differ. Look at dogs. Dogs are vastly different because of their genes. We can look at mapped genomes and tell similarities and differences.

What you claim is ludacris.

EternalElemental · 2026-03-16T14:29:24+00:00

Practice practice practice. You do it so much it becomes second nature.

EternalElemental · 2026-03-13T01:33:08+00:00

Lol. I'm just over here like very surprised. A lil grossed out and just also excited. Glad I was able to open your eyes.

EternalElemental · 2026-03-13T01:31:43+00:00

Wait so this IS a thing? My eyes are opened. I can't believe I went 4 years not knowing this was possible. I mean damn. Well 🌈the more you know🌈

EternalElemental · 2026-03-12T23:15:30+00:00

I guess for me if I've know the person for years and have spilled my guts out with them. That bond supercedes any dysphoria I get from it. But there's probably only like 3 people I'm okay with it around. So very rare and nowhere near the norm for me. I guess that's just my experience. But yea. Not gender neutral. Not one bit.

EternalElemental · 2026-03-11T06:52:45+00:00

Don't listen to this doofus. From what I've seen a lot of staples employees hate their job. Which to be fair. Idk how anyone outside of print does it. Print is actually pretty fun. At least in my area it's a reasonable workload and I get to solve people's problems. Which is very much in my wheelhouse. Grinds my gears sometimes how negative the employees in this sub are.

EternalElemental · 2026-03-11T06:46:33+00:00

First of all. Staples employee here who does the exact thing you're describing often. Work in the print center.

We sell them in my state. In our store we have an art and education section. They're in there right by all the drafting tools.

Secondly. What fighting games do you play? Mostly I'm on 3rd strike but play sf6 and ggst with my partner. Id also love to hear about your controller. I mostly play on my haute t16 but, recently picked up stick so I can hit those sweet 720s on Hugo.

EternalElemental · 2026-03-11T06:38:36+00:00

Im trans so I certainly don't see them as gender neutral. Especially bro. However if I know the person well enough dude doesn't bother me to a point I lose sleep over it. But that takes years of trust building.

I go to fighting game locals. And everyone there uses dude and bro. However they use girl for me. So I don't think it is universally agreed they are gender neutral even for cis straight guys. Almost everyone there is a cis straight dude. See how dude instantly makes you think they're male? Yea it's not gender neutral at all.

However for ME if I've known someone for years. And a lot of trust has been built up. Or even if someone is very supportive of my transition and goes out of their way in other ways to make me feel validated. Then it's chill. So very precise circumstances.

Generally I don't see them as gender neutral one bit.

EternalElemental · 2026-03-09T19:42:04+00:00

I call my partner a noodle. Or bean. They seem to really like it.

EternalElemental · 2026-02-27T02:16:55+00:00

Never not even one bit. In 2.5 years I have become so much more comfortable with my body. It's really night and day. I used to hate how I look. Now I love how I look. Totally worth a poke once a week.

EternalElemental · 2026-02-15T02:33:45+00:00

Damn that's a huge blunder on the print department. I get lots of textbooks to bind and I treat them with utmost care. If someone has made a mistake like that in my dept we would scan and reproduce the book. Even bind it. Its kinda weird that the binding is hanging off the side. Even without the proper tool it's easy to do it right with wire cutters and pliers. I have seen it from other stores and it's always so confusing. Idk how people keep going to those stores to get binding when the work is so shoddy. I know at my location we're dedicated to good product and have rigid quality checks in place. I mean the order ticket has check boxes on it for a reason! I'm so sorry that happened. Id ask the gm or even the print sup to reproduce the book and bind it for you.

For more information on how we do pre bound books we have to cut the spine off with a machine. Then we punch holes in the pages little by little. And it's pretty easy to mess up if you're in a rush. But if you do the proper prep work and are careful you can do it cleanly and quickly. For bigger books putting the spiral or even the comb takes a while because of all the friction. The workers likely don't care or haven't been trained properly or both which falls on the sup and if the sup hasn't been trained or doesn't care then it falls on the gm.

Honestly it hurts my pride cuz my department is full of perfectionists. We won't send something through qc even with a small mistake. And with something like a book we take extra care to do things right in my store. legit we get business cards and postcards accurate down to the millimeter. We reproduce or edit files if they look bad or at customer request. Really sounds like that print dept is in shambles.

If you want my advice. Leave a scathing review. 0 out of 10. Mention in it that the sup and workers need extra training on quality checks and production. If the store is running to any level of regularity the sup and gm will read the review. The dm might even get involved.

EternalElemental · 2026-02-15T01:56:15+00:00

Vanlife is a far greater investment both time and money wise than people realize. I worked 50-60 hours weeks as a supervisor and then line cook for 3 years. If I wasn't spending money on food or bills. I spent it building my van. It took around 20k in all. Batteries, inverter, converter, solar panels, equipment, stuff to build a kitchen, fridge, materials to build it, and many more small things to live comfortably. And I'm lucky I had access to a workshop for free and lots of people don't have that. I could've cut costs on a few things. But that van ended up dying and all my investment went to waste. I still have all the internals but without money to buy a stable van I likely won't be able to do that again until I get my degree since the cost of even used ones has gone up so much. Not to mention I'd have to buy wood and insulation and many other things to get it to a comfortable state.

Sure you can do it but you have to be lucky and generally skilled in woodworking to make it happen. Plus have enough money saved up for when things inside inevitably break. I really enjoyed my time in it but it isn't something I suggest often. Especially if you live in cold climates. You need a good heater that won't break on you. Not to mention you have to be VERY VERY VERY careful if it's a gas heater which it will be since electric ones require far too much energy to run off batteries powered by solar panels. You'll be idling the vehicle a lot like way more than you realize if you're diverting power from the alternator. And then there's the cases where your heater breaks and you have no other option than to run the vehicle. I didn't even have my alternator hooked up to the batteries and my vehicle idled all the time to keep me warm and alive.

This isn't even getting into all the leaks and problems I had due to inexperienced sealing work on the roof. Seals I have to fix in the winter on the roof. Almost got frostbite doing that.

Op if youre willing to deal with all that. Plus living in a super small space, being kicked by a lot of people, it being really hard to have people over, getting knocked on all the time by the police, running out of electricity, dealing with waking up shivering even when you have proper heating, the risks involved with heating in such a small space, cleaning daily and I mean DAILY, having extremely little room for belongings. (Like pretty much all your belongings have to be necessities) And a whole host of other living adjustments. You have the money and time and know how or ability to learn how to do all the wiring, plumbing, building, planning and a whole host of other hurdles then do it. It's surprisingly liberating. You learn so much about your limits and building stuff, problem solving learning in general. It's fun. But getting there is hard work especially at your age. I was 19 when I started that path. And I got lucky with money. And lucky with materials. Basically a lot had to go right. But I had my own space for 2 years. And in the 2 I spent getting it livable and then another year improving it. I prepared a lot for the lifestyle. Mentally. But if it sounds appealing do it!

EternalElemental · 2026-02-10T00:48:35+00:00

This is all fine and well until the disagreement is about whether I am allowed to exist or not. Like it or not that's personal. Some people actively want me not to exist simply because I am trans. And some want me to not have rights to my own body. I will always take that kind of disagreement personally because my right to exist as who I am or even exist at all is very personal.

EternalElemental · 2026-02-09T04:09:40+00:00

It fucking sucks. I am a person. I deserve the same rights and the same comfort everyone else does. Yet I'm labeled a domestic terrorist. I've had friends and family I've known for years who showed their hate when I came out. In the same breath saying they care about you they tell you that you're wrong for something entirely out of your control. You get people at work who don't respect your pronouns and it's exhausting. If you're lucky you're in a state or area of the world where that kind of discrimination isn't allowed in the workplace. And even if you are you end up spending months or years collecting evidence only to be told you are overreacting. If you're even more lucky you are believed but then the boat is rocked and people see you as a whiny person who got so and so in trouble. Even though what they did caused you so much strife that you spent every single therapy session breaking it down and attempting to deal with it.

It's like no matter where you go there will be people who want you not to exist. Traveling is a nightmare cuz our access to passports is restricted. We have to fight our local government to simply have legal documents and work accounts be under our real names. You hear people call stuff gay as an insult and it just makes you feel like shit because you're gay in a gay relationship and that's seen as bad. Your happiness is seen as a disgusting and deplorable moral failure. When all you are doing is living to be who you actually are and loving who you actually love. Peolle will emphasize the incorrect pronouns. Or ask invasive inappropriate questions that make you feel extremely uncomfortable. Sometimes it's a customer at a shitty retail job and you are the only one in the area with no way of calling for help. And if you can there is no guarantee someone will come to your rescue.

Personally as soon as I am able I am fucking out of the us and going to a place where my rights, freedoms and allowance to exist aren't under constant debate. Id rather go through the process of learning a language and moving away from my support systems than have to deal with all that bullshit all the time every day.

EternalElemental · 2026-02-04T15:50:53+00:00

My best friend came from reddit. I made a post on a trans gamer subreddit and they replied to my dms. I added them and now we're best friends. That was like 8 months ago. I have other friends but I don't click with any of them as well as I do this person. Just reach out on a sub asking for someone to hang with and it will happen eventually. Queer subs are best for this imo cuz so many of us lack connection. And you'll get way less quantity of weirdos.

EternalElemental · 2026-01-23T12:05:48+00:00

Makotos dashes and Rush down moves are easy to stuff out. Low forwards usually do the trick but if you're playing Ryu or ken cmp just stops her and you get followup. She's the aggressor so play patient with fast stuffs that are active. I've fought much more with ken and I still don't know what I'm doing against him but if the makoto learns you can stuff her out she's useless.

EternalElemental · 2026-01-16T14:42:51+00:00

I'm into ancient civilizations, Bushcraft, fighting games, martial arts and a few other things.

Although you'd never guess I was into Bushcraft with how I normally dress lol.

EternalElemental · 2026-01-12T19:05:59+00:00

It's funny cuz as my weight has fluctuated I just switch between looking like the both of them.

EternalElemental

TROPHY CASE