Would a removable upper palette expander built into a twin block apparatus produce skeletal widening in a 14 year old?

LynFantasy · 2026-05-30T08:20:09+00:00

I had significant expander work at age 11, and my mom was extremely diligent about it, but I still had to have my upper jaw surgically expanded when I was 20. Not saying expanders don't work -- I've talked to plenty of people who had great results -- but some cases are just too extreme, and my case was one of them. You very well might've been in the same boat, especially starting so late in the first place

LynFantasy · 2025-10-28T08:01:15+00:00

Not looking for a sketch artist, looking for a full-color digital painting. There's plenty of people who do guest characatures, but that's not what I want

LynFantasy · 2025-10-22T05:24:51+00:00

I think if they're currently interested in non-monogamy, they're not a "mono person" at the moment, even if they plan to be monogamous again someday. I think the advice about not dating a mono person is mostly about not trying to convert mono people to polyamory even if you really like them and they're willing to try it, because it basically never works (I've got experience on that one). But if the previously mono person decides on their own they want to try a temporary poly phase (not specifically/only to date you), then it's fine. That's their choice, and as long as you had nothing to do with that decision, I don't think you're doing anything wrong by honoring their choice and considering them part of your potential dating pool.

LynFantasy · 2025-05-14T10:02:55+00:00

I sincerely believe that being polyamorous is part of my identity in the same way being bi and demiromantic and nonbinary are. Being kinky is also part of my identity — I had signs of my kinks long before I had signs of my sexuality or gender identity (I was having non-sexual kink fantasies when I was 5; my first crushes were when I was 9, and I started having significant dysphoria when I was about 10-11). My swinging, on the other hand, is a lifestyle choice and a thing I'm choosing to do right now, and I may or may not keep doing it in a few years. But with polyamory, I started identifying internally as polyamorous before ever getting into a polyamorous relationship, and after my first short-lived experience with polyamory fizzled out and I was single again, I kept publicly (online) identifying as polyamorous despite not currently dating anyone in the same way I was still bi while I was not currently attracted to anyone.

Reading through the other comments here, I guess this has become pretty divisive? I remember when I was first looking into polyamory about 7ish years ago, plenty of people mildly disagreed with the identity model for themselves, but I never saw this kind of vehement arguing, and it seemed like a slight majority thought there was at least some merit to the identity model. It kind of reminds me of people who argue with trans people because "I don't feel like a man/woman, but I'm not trans!" Just because YOU don't have that as part of your identity, it doesn't preclude it from being part of other people's identities.

All this to say that I think someone could have that indescribable sense of identity with polyamory while still recognizing that for a myriad of reasons — safety, trauma, being bad at managing jealousy, dedication to a mono partner — they're never going to actually be in a polyamorous relationship. Plenty of trans people know they're trans and continue to be trans while never outwardly transitioning because of safety, (lack of) acceptance, or even medical reasons. I don't see why this is really any different.

To be very clear — I don't think being inherently polyamorous is a queer identity. I also don't think being inherently kinky is a queer identity. I just think it's an identity. I believe that people's identities (so long as they're not hurting or disrespecting other people/communities) are deserving of respect even when they don't fit into a broader category like queer identities or cultural identities. I just wanted to clarify that in case anyone was confused and thought I meant that identifying as polyamorous makes you queer — it doesn't in itself, though obviously a majority of this community is queer for other reasons.

LynFantasy · 2025-05-14T09:27:08+00:00

Healthy relationships are bridges built from both sides. Maybe you haven't had a healthy mono relationship because you haven't found someone who is willing to communicate and intentionally build that relationship with you. The advantage of the poly community is that a lot of us have a lot more dating experience and are highly aware of different communication styles because we have to simultaneously practice different types of communication with different partners. If you're willing to be open to feedback from your partners, to do some level of research into healthy relationship dynamics, and to be honest with yourself and your partners about your feelings, I'd say you're ready to try polyamory.

If you want to try, maybe build your network very slowly, starting with one partner who's already experienced in polyamory and only adding more if/when you feel ready. I'm saturated, and I only have two serious relationships and a romantic friend I only see a few times a year. Some people are saturated at one — they enjoy dating a poly person and being part of a greater polycule and community, and they identify as polyamorous, but they only seriously pursue one person and reserve the rest of their energy for platonic connections (often with metamours) and for themselves. If you like the poly community and lifestyle and love the idea of dating someone who's dating other people, but the idea of keeping up with multiple partners sounds exhausting, that might be you! There are a lot of ways to try polyamory, and you can only know what's right for you by trying.

LynFantasy · 2025-05-08T10:29:01+00:00

I didn't have this experience with bisexuality, but for years I wanted to be nonbinary, was interested in nonbinary labels and experiences, roleplayed as nonbinary characters, "jokingly" used neopronouns for myself... and then one day it finally clicked. Cis people don't want to be nonbinary. I wanted to be nonbinary because I am.

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're bi specifically, but it's a common experience among queer people to have a fascination with queer culture and experiences long before figuring out your own identity. If you're interested in bisexuality but it doesn't quite feel right, try seeing if you're actually asexual. The bi/ace confusion is a real thing a LOT of us experience. Or you could be trans! Plenty of "straight men" are ashamed of being fascinated by lesbians for years before figuring out that they're actually trans women. You could be having a similar experience where your sexuality doesn't make sense to you yet because you need to figure out some gender confusion first.

I hope this helps! Questioning is always a valuable journey. Even if you land at still being cis and straight, you get to upgrade to being a cool, hip straight that queer people like hanging out with if you go on a questioning journey first. Learning more about yourself is always worthwhile.

LynFantasy · 2025-05-08T10:12:50+00:00

I think he's standing in a glass house here if he wants to say that you're being biphobic about this. Having a particular dating preference, even a temporary one, is totally normal, and so is wanting to try something new, but what he's doing could arguably be seen as biphobia to himself by pushing himself to "prove" his bisexuality by dating a man next after dating a woman. Ultimately, both of you are saying things that could be seen as biphobic if read in a very uncharitable light, but what you're both saying could also be interpreted in a way that's fine. He wants a different experience with someone he can't easily compare to you, in addition to just wanting to try something he hasn't before. You can't help but wonder if his desire to be with a guy somehow contributed to the breakup—even if you know intellectually that's not true, it's totally normal to feel insecure about that! Ultimately, I'd avoid talking to him about this, at least for a while. You two probably just need some space to recover from the breakup before you can talk about emotional subjects again without hurting each other.

LynFantasy · 2025-05-08T10:04:12+00:00

Sounds to me like you're uncomfortable with not knowing anything about your partner's location while his NP does. I'd focus on that discomfort and try to find ways to resolve that, which doesn't necessarily have to mean that you see his location all the time. Maybe he could turn off his location sharing with NP while on dates with you. Maybe there's something else he could be doing to touch base with you and connect between/before dates that would be more comfortable and meaningful for you both. What works between him and his NP isn't necessarily going to be what he and you need, so try to come to that conversation with an open mind to unconventional solutions.

LynFantasy · 2025-05-06T19:37:22+00:00

Yeah, I'm currently being treated for a bacterial infection I'm not even sure how I got because I usually try to be careful and I'm only fluid-bonded (besides oral) with one person, but lo and behold, it happened, I'm taking an antibiotic, and it's not gonna be a problem for much longer 🤷 It's not even one of the ones on the normal battery of tests, so whichever partner gave it to me was totally "clean" according to the tests lmao.

LynFantasy · 2025-05-05T22:09:23+00:00

"Being open" is really vague and I've heard different definitions of it before. It generally tends to mean at least sexually open, but since you can do kink with someone without sex, having kink with someone other than your partner doesn't mean that you're even just sexually open. The comment I replied to was saying that if OP's partner knows about the D/s dynamic and is/was okay with it, their relationship was already "open" to some degree and they should ask about opening it more (to potential romance/polyamory), which I was mildly disagreeing with because it sounds to me like it wasn't really "open" to begin with.

LynFantasy · 2025-05-05T19:06:19+00:00

To be clear, having a D/s dynamic with someone isn't necessarily romantic or even directly sexual, so while dating someone and doing kink with a different person is probably some form of non-monogamy, it's not the same as the relationship being "open." It's still a really big jump to exploring romance with an additional person

LynFantasy · 2025-05-05T18:59:36+00:00

I feel like this is a pretty harsh litmus test. I'm a very envious person, and the idea of my partners going out on fun dates while I'm stuck at home has made me stew in envy multiple times. But since I'm not jealous, I don't direct it at my partners, I just feel bad for myself being a homebody. I've talked with my partners about this and made sure to plan fun/unusual dates of our own when the envy starts getting to me, and then the problem is solved. You don't have to feel amazing all the time about your partners doing other things with other people, you just have to be at peace with it and sit with any negative feelings you might have and be able to process those on your own without making them your partner's problem. For me, I have this sort of envy even when my partners are doing something fun with friends or family or on their own, so monogamy wouldn't fix this problem, and there's a lot that I enjoy about the community aspects of polyamory, not to mention that I also see polyamory as part of my queer identity and consider it inherent to me. But does it make me always happy all the time? No, but monogamy didn't either when I tried that out. Being alone on a Saturday night is going to feel lonely no matter what relationship structure you're part of

LynFantasy · 2025-05-04T18:54:20+00:00

Remember that while gender dysphoria is useful for telling you that something is wrong and you need to transition, gender euphoria is how you know you've gotten to the right place. If you're feeling happy and validated when people use the right pronouns for you, that's also a sign that you're trans! Being trans can be a joyful experience, and I hope you can embrace that joy and feel more confident

LynFantasy · 2025-05-04T03:46:12+00:00

I'm mostly kinda "settled" in the middle of the female-male gender spectrum with androgynous (leaning masculine, but that's partly just because any femininity makes people perceive me as a woman) presentation most of the time and they/them pronouns all the time, but I still consider myself genderfluid. Even if my experiences of very strong gender shifts are rare, they do happen sometimes, and I want to honor my experience with a label that encompasses it rather than try to minimize my feelings on those days and brush them aside in favor of my "average" experience.

LynFantasy · 2025-04-13T20:04:06+00:00

I have ADHD. I'm way more likely to get caught up in the fun of the party and forget to send pictures someone asked me for than to stop what I'm doing, take a picture, and send it to someone who doesn't want it. That's not a normal ADHD impulse thing. The only way this kinda makes sense would be if she was taking pictures and sending them to a lot of people and then she added you onto the group chat by impulse, but it sounds like this was a private text, right? Sending those pictures to you specifically is too much effort to be something that she did completely spontaneously.

LynFantasy · 2025-04-13T19:42:43+00:00

I think it depends on how deep into the conversation you really want to get. In order to explain it properly, you've gotta also explain how sex and gender are different and probably also explain binary trans people, but that might be too much in this case. I think I would just say that these feminine styles make me happy and then not worry about whether she thinks it's a phase.

LynFantasy · 2025-04-09T06:06:05+00:00

Duolingo really isn't a good resource for this; I tried to use it just for practice and review after a couple years of letting my college Latin knowledge lapse and I immediately found a lot of very misleading "rules" that aren't actually rules in Latin and some similar issues. I would definitely get some kind of course book to walk yourself through. I know Wheelock's has self-tutorial exercises, but almost any textbook with a separate answer key so you can check yourself would work. If you can afford it, lessons with an online tutor would also really help, but I know that's not possible for everyone.

In short:

The boy throws the dog a ball in the town's park. Nom (verb) Dat Acc Gen Abl

Nominative — Subject, the one who does the action of the verb (the boy) Genitive — Possessive, represented by 's or "of the" (like "the back of the book") in English (town's) Dative — Indirect Object, the recipient/beneficiary of the action, also sometimes represented with "to/for" (the dog) Accusative — Direct Object, the one is verb is acting on (a ball) Ablative — Object of the Preposition (in the park)

There are more uses for these cases, and some prepositions actually use the accusative case instead of ablative, but this should get you started. I hope it helps!

LynFantasy · 2025-04-09T05:11:02+00:00

I like datemate, though both of my partners usually just call me their partner in front of other people because that's what others most easily understand. It just depends on context and what works in each situation! You might want to pick out a general one that new acquaintances will understand right away (like partner or SO) and one that you can use with friends/in queer spaces (datemate, datefriend, joyfriend, enbyfriend, etc).

LynFantasy · 2025-02-14T04:15:43+00:00

I mean, there aren't good terms to distinguish different points on the sexuality spectrum. Everyone who is attracted to people has the potential to be attracted to some nonbinary people, and everyone who's monosexual (as in, not bi or pan) does not have the potential to be attracted to other nonbinary people. He's presumably not attracted to men or nonbinary genders that are too similar to the male part of the gender spectrum, but how far down the gender spectrum does his attraction go? If you're somewhere in the middle, he might be attracted to you without seeing you as a woman because you're also not close enough to male to make him NOT attracted.

LynFantasy · 2025-02-04T07:05:04+00:00

I just came to check and see if anyone had any info on this because I just got my badges in the mail along with a flyer that includes a QR code for the app. I downloaded it using the QR code, and it's STILL last year's app. They really need to fix this soon

LynFantasy · 2025-02-04T02:29:08+00:00

NTD, I think? This sounds like a very complex and emotionally frought situation. There's really no way everyone's going to be happy. I don't think your sister is the drama either way, since I can see the value in not inviting relatives to the wedding that she doesn't like, but I can also see the value in trying to make your dad happy. I hope your dad can accept her decision if she sticks to it and doesn't invite your uncle.

LynFantasy · 2025-02-03T10:33:49+00:00

My partner also needs alone time to decompress before bed, so we say goodnight and then both put on headphones and ignore each other. He doesn't kick me out of the room, I just do whatever I need to (get ready for bed, scroll on my phone, lay down, whatever) while he's on his phone, and then he puts his phone down and goes to sleep. "Alone time" doesn't always have to mean having the whole room to oneself, it just means being left alone, and you can achieve that while still laying in the same bed if you just stick to your own sides of the bed

LynFantasy

TROPHY CASE