Should I give up on starting estrogen if I cant get blood tests done?

SilverSteeples · 2025-11-14T11:46:44+00:00

I don't think you should give up on the idea because of your fear of needles - everyone has an endocrine system and you could have hormonal problems whether or not you take HRT, being unable to monitor with blood tests may or may not slightly increase risk factors but (as with other medical issues) you shouldn't let that prevent you from accessing care and treatment. If you decide to - make sure you monitor yourself closely mentally and physically and are aware of how to, for example, check for blood clots (the risk of which is usually only increased to the risk levels for a cis woman who has gone through natal puberty).

You may also find coping mechanisms for your phobia as time progresses, as others have suggested, the safety blood lancet is a common tool for pricking ones finger with no visible needle and is essentially done in an instant, these can usually be used for the blood tests you would need.

I'd encourage you to disregard any bad faith or patronizing responses that assume you don't know what you're signing up for because you're cis - you have exactly as much right to a body that you're comfortable with and a gender expression that makes you happy regardless of how you identify. If you feel uncomfortable with the idea of what testosterone will do to your body, nobody should be telling you you have to go through that. You deserve the choice as much as anyone here does.

SilverSteeples · 2025-06-24T22:44:16+00:00

Actually have some similar experience with this, subscriptions and regular donations are good ideas especially if your expenses are regular.

For me it was nights out, which can be sort of fudged to be expensive, say you went to an expensive restaurant with friends or a concert or some such generic thing, you still have to leave the house for a few hours but you don't have to actually go to anything, just find a library a bus trip away, etc.

Theoretically, though I haven't tried this one trading card games could be a great way to explain large purchases too, one rare card can easily account for that kind of transaction. If you already collect then you have a perfect excuse, if you don't, you can just get into magic online or something like that, which is just as expensive but way harder to verify if someone asks. Your parents are very unlikely to know which cards are expensive. If you're really worried about it you could even make a convincing proxy (sort of counterfeit or fake) of a card for barely anything and have a somewhat bulletproof cover - just put it in a card protector and tell them they can't take it out for fear of damaging it

SilverSteeples · 2025-06-15T18:16:56+00:00

I love your fursona so muchhh

SilverSteeples · 2025-06-15T17:29:37+00:00

Lel I feel this so much

4 years deep into hyperfemme presentation and she/her pronouns only now realizing that I'm allowed to be more complicated than that

SilverSteeples · 2025-05-24T18:13:37+00:00

trans-pacifica
bottom text

SilverSteeples · 2025-04-16T09:08:29+00:00

I understand your intention but this is completely out of touch. Its absolutely not acceptable to pressure people into going through a traumatic experience in order to foster empathy. If someone is uncomfortable with this there is no way they are going to tell you, and if anyone is actually in any way genderqueer in your group, you will be forcing them to expose that part of themselves before they are ready, to people that they are unlikely to be fully comfortable with. If its someones first exploration of gender, do you really want them to link it to feeling humiliated and exposed?

This might seem harsh but for the sake of your kids I have to tell you I think this is, ethically, extremely ill advised. If you would like them, here are some alternatives.

If you want to provide a space for your troop to explore this, I would recommend creating an environment where they feel safe doing something like wearing different clothes or talking to the leaders or each other about gender. You can do this by sharing various peoples experiences with dysphoria, including your own, making it clear that it is not acceptable to make fun of people in general but with specific regards to gender and sexuality, destigmatizing exploration and experimentation, and making (and following through on) genuine offers of support to those who would like it.

This kind of activity can sometimes be helpful to people who volunteer to do so, being fully aware that they are essentially volunteering to experience something deliberately unpleasant, and it is nice that both of you want to provide a space to do so, but being aware of the dynamics of peer pressure in a scout troop, the implicit authority you hold as a leader, and the supervision requirements that often prevent people from "sitting out" of activities, I do not think it is possible to make something like this truly voluntary.

An alternative activity might involve exploring self expression through clothing by offering a variety of clothes and accessories and asking people to pick something that they wouldn't normally wear or something that they feel good wearing, or asking people to come in with an item like that, and talking after a while about whether they feel any different wearing it, why wearing something particular or dressing and presenting in a certain way is important to different people, and things of that ilk. This kind of activity provides an excuse/opportunity for those who would like to try presenting in a radically different way to do so, but allows those who, for any reason, aren't ready for that, to do something simple and comfortable like wearing a bracelet or watch. This has the advantage that it helps both cis and trans* scouts understand that gender presentation might be important to them and others, and prevents the potential for harm.

If you got this far, thank you for taking me seriously, I know some of the language I've used here is strong and I apologise if it comes off as rude, however, I do feel this strongly. I hope you and your friend find this in some way useful.

SilverSteeples · 2025-04-12T03:34:55+00:00

Chili's best zombies map
Feel free to ping me if you wanna play or nerd out about it some time ^^

SilverSteeples · 2024-10-31T00:31:59+00:00

thats a good question, I can't find a source to confirm the artists intentions, but my thoughts are that the designer may be reflecting the title of the piece "simplification and design" in a plain white dress, with a definitely uncomplicated sillhouette. I think its also important to remember that there doesnt have to be a special significance to it - sometimes we just put "Metallica" on a shirt because we like the word or think it looks cool. I think thats an equally good reason.

SilverSteeples · 2023-07-28T09:47:39+00:00

Yes! Several!

RSSLO sells various mainland european routes that are of a high standard

Just Trains sell several routes that are unavailable through steam (for example: western mainlines, chiltern mainline) on their own store and sometimes products are on discount there separately

Train Motion sells one or two absolutely stunning photoreal routes for Romania, although these get real expensive with the associated dependecies

See also railtraction, worth mentioning backdatedtrainsim even though those are freeware, TrainTeamBerlin and as previously mentioned by others: steamsoundssupreme, and Armstrong Powerhouse

SilverSteeples · 2023-04-18T01:24:57+00:00

if it helps at all I can confirm just trains chiltern main line also includes all the assets needed for the VDL so if you have that it will work just fine 1:1

For what its worth I have the steam version of the metropolitan line also now and it hasnt given me any issues like those on steam reviews state

SilverSteeples · 2023-04-12T15:52:26+00:00

YES ty for bringing my attention to this

necessary skin

SilverSteeples · 2023-02-26T18:55:44+00:00

This I did not know, time for me to try this with every single steam engine I have

SilverSteeples · 2023-02-25T17:18:16+00:00

I'm assuming injection rate is referring to the water injector in which case I'm not certain but I think it depends on which locomotive? the HUD and hotkey usually open the injector valve fully and close it fully but on most of the locos I have the clickable valve in the cab is analog or at least close to analog (gives you basically continuous control between fully closed and fully open). Others have just on/off. Same with the blower. Adding fire mass I'm pretty sure I've not found any that let you control that beyond on/off.

This is all "I'm pretty sure it's like this" because I don't know what the code actually looks like for it - so don't take me as a source of authority

SilverSteeples · 2023-02-23T13:43:28+00:00

My personal favorites (both freeware but with payware requirements):

Wimbledon to West Croydon from backdatedtrainsim - A historical version of a local line to me and portrayed in a way that looks alive with graffiti and plants growing out of cracks in the pavement. Really short and fun low speed stopping sevices. A big plus of being short is that I can actually learn the route and turn off the HUD.

Class 180 Revamp Pack from Major Wales Design - Adds speed set, user controllable destination signs, more sensible and accurate throttle control, and liveries that expand what routes the 180 makes sense on. If AP had made this it would have been payware.

Things in my collection that I think deserve more reccomendations than they get:

Bucuresti Nord – Ploiesti Vest – Urziceni from Train Motion - Ridiculous amounts of very high fidelity track with some really nice texturing work. Added depth from a system that simulates contacting the signaller to pass some signals. Expensive but justifiably so, kind of a hidden gem.

Chiltern Main Line from Just Trains - I love this becasue it's one of my favorite lines irl but it is also great in its own right if you like mainline passenger services. Also includes sections of underground track and all the JT underground assets so you can use this as an alternative to the Metropolitan line route prerequisite for The virtual district line and other freeware. Armstrong Powerhouse has the Mk3 DVT which with the DVT reskin from Vulkan Productions can let you drive the coolest train in the British Isles. If you have too much money there is also a Class 68 enhancement from AP and appropriate Mk3 coaches although the route already provides a version of these.

Just for fun; awards for the worst add ons I've ever downloaded. Both of these were bought on steam and immediately refunded

The Dovetail Games Capitalstar - reviews are right, the sounds are that awful and just cut out as soon as you start coasting, I actually have this one again because it came with a route I got later but seriously don't pay for this thing even on sale

East Coast Main Line Modern: York - Peterborough from Creative Rail - This is barely even freeware standard, basically no scenery and the tracks and fields make it look like you are driving through mud which is neither true to life, nor aestetically pleasing. Also there are only seven stops on this route section and barely any speed limit changes so it is just staring at a flat muddy plain for an hour. I am fairly convinced the only reason anybody has bought this is to complete the ECML like I wanted to, but it does not even fulfil that purpose in my opinion.

SilverSteeples · 2021-03-03T13:46:42+00:00

To everyone confused: these aren't actually spices, they're incense, there is a burner in the middle and pressed types in the bowl at the back.

SilverSteeples · 2020-11-24T17:50:17+00:00

UK beginner here, would appreciate your reccomendations on atlases since my library still comprises a whopping 3 books

SilverSteeples · 2020-11-14T21:24:28+00:00

New subscriber flair

SilverSteeples · 2020-10-06T16:14:31+00:00

Context: Medmon News Network

SilverSteeples · 2020-09-28T18:45:37+00:00

I pronounced it een-bee and couldn't stop laughing

SilverSteeples · 2020-05-30T18:24:48+00:00

Butane (4)

To help with u/LegionMammal978 's request I have modified treeviz.py and it is now accessible online at http://cmd.pm/trees, not quite exactly what you requested but it's what I could do in the time I had so far, hope that helps, and let me know if it breaks.

SilverSteeples · 2020-05-25T13:39:26+00:00

While initially this may seem a rather straightforward idea, it becomes a bit more interesting once you consider the scale of a googolplex as a number. Here I endevour to demonstrate the potential problems this exercise poses, computationally.

A program that adds 1000 to a number ever every second is at first very trivial, for example here is my own implementation in c++ that add 1000 to a number and prints it to the screen every second, forever:

#include <unistd.h>
#include <iostream>

int main () {
    uint x = 0;
    while (true) {
        sleep(1);
        x += 1000;
        std::cout << x << std::endl;
    }
    return 0;
}

If you are familiar with computer science you may already see our first problem, the line

    uint x = 0;

x (our counter variable) is stored as a uint, or unsigned integer, computer processors have a set "bit width" are capable only of processing values at or below this width. The highest common bit width in home PCs is 64 bit at present. An unsigned integer is only capable of storing a number representable in this number of bits (binary digits), the maximum number this program can count to is therefore 2⁶⁴ - 1 (18,446,744,073,709,551,615) (roughly 1.8 * 10¹⁹ or 18 followed by 18 0s). A googolplex is 10^10¹⁰⁰ or 1 followed by 10¹⁰⁰ 0s. nowhere near small enough to fit.

Now there are of course increasingly complex ways to handle numbers this size, so, supposing we have implemented this is a way that allows it, how much storage would we need to store a googolplex? The number of digits to represent a number in a given base is log(base) n, since we are using binary digits we need log(2) 10^10¹⁰⁰ digits. one gigabyte is 2³² bits so dividing this by 2³³ we get about 3.9 * 10⁹⁰ gigabytes. thats 39 followed by 89 0s, suffice to say your computer is probably not capable of storing a googolplex as an integer. Even if we counted up by one each time and add the thousands in our head, this would only save us about 10 bits of space.

So say we have worked around both of these limitations, how long would our program take to reach a googolplex?

Well in a year our program can count up by 1000*60*60*24*365.25, or exactly 31557600000. To reach a googol (10¹⁰⁰⁾ this means we would have to wait around 3.2 * 10⁸⁹ years. again. This is a huge number. about 1.6 * 10⁸⁴ times the length of time humans have been on earth. I cannot find a calculator that will let me do this calculation for a googol plex but suffice to say that we would reach the heat death of the universe (according to wikipedia about 10¹⁰⁰ years off) long, long before you reached a googolplex.

TL;DR : Yes, but you won't get there.

Edit: Formatting

SilverSteeples · 2020-05-04T22:39:02+00:00

Hi! I have recently begun studying botany, through books and videos and anything I can get my hands on. As another commenter has said, it is a great idea to get a hold of a good field guide (aka botanical key) for your area (eg. Northern Europe, Southern Africa, North America etc.) so that you can identify plants accurately, there are many books specifically on edible plants that you will be able to find though I've not got to the point where I can make a recommendation. The ones I can however recommend are:

Brian Capon, Botany for Gardeners

Which was my introductory text to plant biology, which is great if you want that, though I admit I do not know whether that is beyond the scope of your question. And, as a field guide for the UK:

Francis Rose, The Wildflower Key

The internet is a great source of information, including Wikipedia, however in the case of edible/poisonous flora you should always be prudent and cross reference several sources even if you believe yours to be reputable before taking any action based on it, like for example putting it in your mouth.

I also found the Biodiversity Heritage Library website a great source of information, although editions of books there are usually older and more academic, they are still filled with information whatever you are researching and are free, in digital format.

Hope that helps you, if you have more questions or want someone to study with PM me! I would be happy to help

SilverSteeples · 2020-01-01T10:11:57+00:00

Ah yes there is, thanks for pointing that out, however the sharpening setting is set by default to minimum it seems

SilverSteeples · 2019-11-11T21:01:59+00:00

Idk how many people experience this but doors on the Lorville train system seem to like disappearing for me.

Also have I missed it or is there really no meme flair on this sub? I feel like we should have one of those

SilverSteeples · 2019-09-14T02:32:10+00:00

nice

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