Slime HRT - Supplimental
So, I’ve been asked to make this supplemental entry to the journal covering all those little changes that happen over the course of a transition that fly under the radar while the bigger things happen or happen so gradually that you don’t notice it until six months down the line. They also asked me to include any other things that could help other people going through a similar transition, or to just add any other notes that I didn’t include in the regular ones, so that’s what this is going to be!
To start, a slightly weird one: Clothes! It took a while before I began to have any issues with these if I’m honest, but after a while, particularly once my slime started to become more prominent (so around the 10 month mark) my slime was very noticeably seeping through my clothes, making them damp at best, and soaked through at worst. Comfort wise this wasn’t really a problem - the wet clothes on my slime wasn’t super noticeable - but they did cling a bit.
The real issue was that it essentially stained all of my clothes, and overtime they all became slightly more orange over time, especially the lighter shirts. So I started wearing tank tops (since initially my shoulders hadn’t quite changed) and wearing waterproof shorts and pants (underpants for the non-brits). Of course once more of my body changed, I also had to get waterproof tops as well - which actually proved the harder of the two. I did also buy some waterproofing products so I could keep using some of my favourite clothes, and just to help sure up some of the new clothes I was buying. Fortunately I’ve had no issue with my now more acidic nature, which I’m guessing is due to the same membrane that stops me dissolving anything I touch.
The other note about clothes is that certain clothes aren’t as good of an idea as you’d like. Foremost - bras, the typical ones at least, do dig a little into your shoulders - and I don’t mean in the human way of ‘oh it’s too tight’: if they’re doing their job at all, they will dig in a bit. And of course, digging in here means at least partially breaking through your outer membrane. It’s not painful, certainly not in the way it is for humans, but you do notice it. I’ve found the best solution is (waterproof) sports bras, but honestly since my chest changed, I’ve found the need for bras has decreased, since I can kinda control my chest like I can the rest of my body, so I can kind of do the bra’s job for it - basically my chest only moves as much as any other part of my body does at this point, so in the same way my arms don’t flop around everywhere when I move, neither does my chest.
Tighter clothes are fine so long as they’re not too tight, since things that are too tight really mess with my shape now, and of course since the fluidity of my body has been one of the best things about my transition so far, having my movement at all restrained isn’t super fun, so I’ve tried to find stuff that is a nice middle ground. I can’t comment much more since I just don’t own that many tight clothes, but I had a couple and tried them out, and yeah, it’s neat to see how they affect my body now, but not all of them are as comfy now (not fun to have your goo squeezed through the material of your clothes, or at least unpleasantly weird, particularly for daily wear/use).
I also think it’s worth noting that I basically forgo clothes while at home/in private, particularly now that my transition is basically complete, partially ‘cause I don’t wanna have to worry about them getting messed up by my goo/the waterproofing wearing out, but also because they aren’t particularly conducive to the ways I want to, and can now, move. My outfits may be fairly open that might accommodate an extra limb or two, but if I turn into a ball of slime or a puddle, or some other less humanoid shape, the clothes at best get in the way, at worst could get damaged. I have, of course modified my clothes to account for more permanent things, like my tail and wings, but that’s only because I still feel a little awkward in a humanoid form not wearing anything - even if they’re nothing really to see now - just one of those things that has been baked into me… pluuuus I’d rather not find out firsthand what the legal ruling is on that, and either way, I don’t wanna draw any more attention than I already do, so I’m sticking with clothes in public for now.
Relatedly to clothes, I’ve noticed that my body temp is lower, and I’m definitely cold ‘blooded’ now, in the sense that I don’t produce my own internal heat. Fortunately I don’t particularly seem to need to keep my body temperature up, just so long as the outside temp doesn’t get low enough to start actually freezing my body. I did look up the freezing and boiling points for maple syrup (since that’s the closest thing to my own makeup) and basically I don’t have to worry about boiling unless I fall in an oven or something. But as I said, freezing is more of an issue, but I found a place in the city that helped through some of the colder winters called T.H.E.M.S, where those of us creatures who can’t manage the heat - snakes, lizards, and ofc slimes etc. can last out the winter with heat lamps and the like.
Linking back to the clothes, they do very little to help anymore, since they can’t trap heat if you’re not producing any. Does mean I can basically wear whatever outfit I want regardless of weather, since bundling up isn’t gonna do anything - yes - but similarly means that I can’t do much to ward against the cold. Also means I can’t bundle myself up in bed and be warm that way either, unless the room is already warm, so that kinda sucks.
On top of all this, ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ register a little differently, although that might be more no longer having the human symptoms of ‘hot’ and ‘cold’. I will however say that I do still shiver, although as with many things now, it’s subtly different. From what I can tell, it feels like parts of me are kind of vibrating? My guess is to produce the same effect as shivering, vibrating/moving to create heat. It does create a weird kind of minute rippling effect across my body, but it does help stave off the cold a little, so that’s useful.
I do have to note: Early on, you’d think that your human body will help maintain heat, but that’s not super true - you maintain just enough heat to keep your human body alive, but your slime parts aren’t heated nearly enough, so yeah, either prepare to bundle up, or go visit T.H.E.M.S (or a similar place) which is also a good place to meet other creatures, which I’d definitely recommend, lotsa fun peeps out there.
Continuing with at least tangentially related things: weather. As a slime, the weather kinda affects you a little differently. The worst is cold, since yeah, no internal heat source/production can cause you to solidify, but a windy day can also be awkward almost from the start of transition. While early on you’re sheltered from the negatives of being a slime, your skin pretty quickly becomes more fluid-like, which means that wind will ripple and blow your skin, and later on the surface of your slime. It does get a little better as you become slimier, since the self-adhesive nature of slimes means that the wind affects it a little less, but you’ll still definitely end up rippling a bunch. Of course, this also means you really have to watch out when the wind gets really high, as you can lose mass to the wind, so definitely be careful of that.
Rain is probably the next most awkward. Slimes are, depending on material of course, mostly water, even more so than humans and we kind of absorb things easily especially water (We can to some level stop things from entering our bodies, but on the whole small things are just naturally absorbed). What this means in rain is that you start taking in a bunch of water, which initially is good - slimes need a lot of water to survive - however if you stay out to long, it’ll keep going and you’ll get diluted, which is not fun, feels kinda like bloating, and you get really heavy. Worst case you’ll start to lose mass as your slime can’t hold itself together properly. Once you’re inside/out of the rain, if you can, you’ll either have to wait out for the excess to be processed, which takes bloody forever, but does give you a decent amount of mass, or wrap yourself in something absorbent to draw the water out - however I would recommend avoiding using a towel for this if you only have one or two, as you inevitably also sop up some slime too, so the towel will need quite a few washes to be usable again (I’ve actually had to get a bunch of towels to deal with washing ‘nd stuff, me and the towels, although it can be nice to sit with the water and just let it all absorb)
The last notable weather is, of course, the sun, or I suppose I should start with warm weather generally. Really warm weather is, plainly, sticky, and honestly I think that’s more because of my subspecies - it’s like heating up sweets, they get all sticky when heated, so in the same vein since I’m very sugary (being a sap slime and all) I also get sticky. Fortunately, unlike with human skin, the stickiness isn’t as much of a problem, mostly just makes me adhere more to myself, meanwhile the heat makes me a little meltier overall, which again, not super a problem, just means that I’m ‘stringier’ when I move and change shape. This actually makes changing shape a little easier to do, but harder to hold individual shapes if my body isn’t used to them. I’ve also noticed I can tolerate higher heats better, I’m guessing since my body doesn’t need to hover around 37 degrees, so if it gets close to or hotter than that, it’s not a problem for my body now, asides the aforementioned stickiness and ‘melting’.
A quick thing to mention with regards to the weather, particularly sunny weather, is my hay fever - something I suffered from before - has completely gone. I don’t know if this is just ‘cause I’m now part plant, so ofc i’m not bothered, or because my immune system/immune response has changed now that I’m a slime, but either way, definitely a boon!
Continuing to the other side of sunny weather, rather than just the heat, is the sun itself which has become a new best friend of mine. Over my transition, I noticed that, slowly, my otherwise amber slime, had begun to get these small green flecks throughout it. I didn’t really think much of it at first, asides from checking in to make sure i wasn’t something strange, only to find out at my most recent appointment that they’re little pockets of chloroplasts/chlorophyll (I can’t remember exactly which) so I can actually photosynthesize!
Now, for full transparency, I don’t think this is something that all or even most slimes’ll get, pretty sure it’s just because I’m a plant based/connected slime (being sap) so unless you’re in a similar situation don’t expect to be photosynthesising. It is a little interesting since I’m not a part of a plant that would normally have the ability to photosynthesise, but I am absolutely not complaining.
What this does mean is mostly that I have extra energy on sunny days, as at the moment the concentration of photosynthesising cells in my body isn’t high enough to really act as a supplemental for food, especially as I am more active than other plants (oh, that feels nice to say/write), although the doctor did say that I might be able to get a greater yield by increasing the surface area of my body, and when I suggested that doing some stuff with my wings might help, he didn’t shoot it down. Also given my core is the same colour, I’m hoping that that will up my photosynthetic capabilities, haven’t had a good day to try it out yet though.
I guess the next thing to talk about is food. Obviously as I’ve mentioned above, a small amount of my energetic needs are met by photosynthesising, but that hasn’t been/isn’t enough to sustain me, so I’m still eating ‘food’ to keep myself alive. Early on I mentioned that my tastes, and dietary requirements, had shifted a little, meaning I was eating more sweet foods, and avoiding savoury, and particularly salty, foods more. Turns out the former was only during the transition, as my body needed the extra sugars to alter my body, both for energy, and for the sugary nature of my body. The latter, however, has remained, salty foods in particular remaining an infrequent indulgence, and while I can now enjoy savoury foods, I’ve noticed that my enjoyment is based less in texture and flavour (the former hasn’t changed, arguably it’s gotten more detailed, while the latter… ehhh they taste fine, but I’m not jumping to the chance to have them) and more on the amount - bacon, while still something that can taste really nice, is much less enjoyable than a steak, even one done less than great - fuck, even a burnt one can be better than bacon now, which has been particularly weird to get used to, although it does help if I disable my ability to taste for that.
What I have worked out fairly easily is that for things that don’t have a particularly good taste, or texture for that matter, my enjoyment of them comes now from a third factor - mass - specifically how much of it is there. And this extends beyond what human’s consider food as well, sheet metal, what little I've been able to get a hold of, has been really wonderful. Honestly, metal’s density makes it really good for me, since it’s a lot heavier than a lot of other things I could be eating for the size. Aluminium’s kinda like popcorn, or like prawn crackers, or stuff like that, it’s the ‘light, fluffy’ of metals, well, aluminium foil at least, cans are more like crisps. I could make a whole section on what all manner of objects are like to eat (and honestly I might in the future….), but that’d prolly add too much for this entry.
It’s also worth adding that I’ve also found watery foods - watermelon etc. - are also very nice and filling/they feel good to eat, so I’ve been eating more of those when I can. I’m guessing it’s because it helps with my increased need for water, as well as just being food, so they satisfy a couple of my new bodies needs.
A good thing to segway into from food is to talk about hunger, as well as other similar processes that I’ve noticed changing.
Hunger in particular is an interesting one. I don’t really ‘get hungry’ like humans do, it’s more of just a general constant low-level background feeling that I should eat? But it never really has spikes in the same way human hunger does. Additionally, if I don’t eat for a while, asides from a slight increase in awareness of my ‘hunger’, there isn’t really any pain or physiological issues that come from it (I tested this for a couple days, making sure I did have food if I needed it ofc, but I was curious). I now realise I should have asked about this, to work out why exactly slime hunger works like this. It is also worth adding that - from what I can remember (it’s been a few months since I had a stomach, which is about when I think this changed for me) - the ‘hunger’ doesn’t really feel like hunger in the same way…. I’m not really sure how to describe it, and hunger is definitely the closest analogue, but like, to the left a little.
Moving on from hunger/hunger-like feelings, of course, with my new non-human, and fuck non-animal (i think, i don’t know the taxonomy of a slime), a lot of things have changed, and I think the most notable is how ‘breathing’ changed.
I mentioned before about how I no longer breathe since I lost my lungs, which is still cool and super useful, however, as with any living being, I still need to respire to produce energy to live. To this end, instead of actively breathing, oxygen is absorbed through the outer membrane of my slime, oxygenating my cells. Of course, as previously mentioned, I also photosynthesize, so that also helps provide some of the oxygen for respiration (which I still think is super cool), so together I actually have a pretty good system going - much like other plants do (hehe, still feels nice to say that). However, much like other living beings, slimes produce waste/excess, despite my particular subspecies seemingly having a setup perfect for cycling gases for energy production - but plants aren’t perfect systems either, so I guess it makes sense that I’m not as well. Excess gases seem to be stored in little bubbles all throughout my slime, while waste is released from my slime, much like exhaling, except sometimes it’s more oxygen than carbon dioxide, and instead of coming out of one hole, just kind of permeates out of my body..
Next, relating to self regulation/maintenance (it’s tenuous, but work with me here), is hygiene. Lack of teeth means I don’t have to brush my teeth anymore, but the main thing is washing. I mentioned at the start of my journey that showering was a little weird because the water would get absorbed by my slime and kinda like, indent and ripple it, but it also helped with hydration - yeah that still happens, and honestly, high pressure showers are kinda unpleasant because of it, huge amount of sensory stuff - can be nice at times, but equally can be unpleasant. This has meant washing (which yes, I still have to do - despite my acid dissolving most foreign dirt and stuff, grime still builds up, so I have to clean that - it is however required less regularly though from what I can tell) has primarily taken the form of baths, and let me just tell you they are amazing now. Half fill a bathtub with warm soapy water, climb in, and just relax; let go of all shape and form and just kinda mix with the water in the bath… it is heavenly just being liquid and only gently moving about to run the water through every part of yourself. Weirdly the water weight gained from bathing like that is kinda nice compared to that gained via rain, and it’s nice to just kinda let it sit and be processed by my body, which I guess is similar to humans - liking showers vs disliking rain.
Another typical thing that’s somewhat changed is sleep. I don’t really get tired in the same way, so this means that I don’t really need to sleep nearly as often to keep my body from keeling over from exhaustion. Recently too, I noticed that the same thing has kind of extended to my mind as well - can go for much longer without getting mentally exhausted… so long as I don’t do anything too mentally taxing. Usually it’s my mind that calls it quits first over my body, but I can go a lot longer without rest now.
On the note of exhaustion, not breathing or having any musculature means I don’t really tire anymore - liked to the above tiredness, though obviously I have a limit to how long I can go before I do run out of fuel - but it’s much more like that, more of a running out of energy, rather than feeling out of breath or strained in muscles. Honestly I kinda feel like I’m cheating - I get to be all fluid and stuff, shape my body almost however I want, and I can run for way longer than a human without being tired.
What feels even more like cheating is that I don’t really feel pain any more. Ok, that’s not strictly true, but my pain response is quite different now. The most clear example of this was when I tripped and fell, and a metal bar went through my hand - there was of course a conditioned reaction of horror, pseudo pain, and panic, however after I calmed down I realised there actually hadn’t been any pain really. I tested it later with a knife, stabbing various parts of my body to experiment with how it felt, finding that yeah, being stabbed really didn’t hurt (it should be noted there was an amount of hyping up and worry and concern about it, given I was going to stab myself but hey it worked out). Of course, as part of this experimentation, I was curious about… more major wounds…. and so, after working up even more courage, I cut off a finger - now that hurt. I obviously can’t compare to what it feels like for a human body to lose a finger, never had that happen while I had one, but it definitely hurt a bunch. After reattaching the goo that had been my finger, and reshaping it into the digit again, I tried cutting off a piece of my hair, which similarly hurt, which was kind of unexpected, but it did hurt a little less than losing my finger. What I worked out is that slime pain response is tied to loss of matter, rather than breach of outer membrane or other such events like it is for humans. It’s definitely an interesting thing to have one of your fundamental responses reworked without you even really noticing it.
One thing that has become a pain though all of this is those little things humans can do that my new physiology just doesn’t allow for anymore, namely: sighing. You know that thing that humans do where after a long day/something tiring, they take a deep breath, and just kind of ‘let it all out’ - yeah, I can’t do that any more, and it’s honestly a little frustrating. I will say, I think it’s another hangover from when my body was human, as I tried to emulate breathing to see if it would help, and, asides from being very manual, didn’t really give the same feeling of relaxation that I used to get from exhaling like that, which sucks. I can still get the same feeling from just kinda, letting my form go a little, relaxing my solidity, but that’s not always practical if I’m doing stuff.
The other things that don’t really match up from being a human, are thoughts and feelings. Obviously, humans/those with human bodies often feel things in their head or heart when thinking or feeling things, however I’ve noticed that those feelings have shifted to all be centred around my core, which is odd, but affirming. There are still occasional phantom-like feelings sometimes, where the brain and heart roughly used to be, but they’re usually not as connected/fainter.
It would be remiss of me to fail to mention the few involuntary things/instincts that I have picked up over the course of my transition, especially if this is going to inform other slimes in the future. I’ll start with the most recent, which is basically what amounts to a reconfigured survival instinct - if something is going to hit my core, I reflexively move it out of the way. This is the most straightforward, it’s basically the ol’ hammer-knee reflex test, ‘cept y’know, with my core instead.
The other instincts are less… familiar to those with a human body. The first is predation instincts - which arguably humans would know, but I can’t really think of any moments I felt it while I had a human body, so, I think it will be somewhat unfamiliar to others undergoing this too. Now, despite what people might think, slimes are predators, or at least some of them are, and my subspecies is clearly - I’ve figured that likely, being a sap slime, the method was to sit in/on trees pretending to be sap, then either drop onto pray below, or just trap them when they came to eat the ‘sap’. Kinda makes me happy that even the type of slime I picked has kind of ‘mimicry’ stuff going on, which is kind of sister to shapeshifting, even if this kind in particular is only minorly related, but it still makes me happy.
This predation instinct manifests in two ways - one, I now kinda like hanging out up high, and have found it quite nice to sometimes just climb up somewhere high and sit adhered to the surface (although there are some conflicts with my fear of heights, although I feel like the latter has lessened somewhat (because falling is less likely to be lethal now? Or because it’s my nature now to be up high?)). The other is I very much like throwing myself at people, or at very least have the impulse too. Interestingly, while of course in nature this is specifically for hunting, I’ve found myself drawn to do it even to friends - not to eat them, but like a slime-specific kind of hug, very all encompassing, I just want to leap at them and wrap my whole form around them to hug them. I do understand though, that - without warning, that would be at best surprising, and at worst taken as an attempt to eat them, so I’ve restrained myself from doing it to anyone, settling for more traditional ways of hugging.
The other instinct actually links into the pain I mentioned above, but I think I have an instinct to make sure I preserve as much mass as possible. The finger cutting I mentioned earlier, took more effort to get myself to actually do it than stabbing a knife through my body, literally, stabbing my torso just took a little bit to point out to myself that there was nothing to damage, meanwhile to cut off my finger, I was having to psyche myself up so much because my mind was just screaming at me not to (and y'know what, it was right, fuck that hurt). From there I kept noting what hurt and what didn't, and what triggered that survival-esque instinct, and it was always those things that would or could cause me to lose mass.
Something a little lighter next (lopping bits off myself isn't exactly a happy topic): emotions! Turns out that different species show emotions differently, and we slimes definitely have some fun ones. First, it is worth noting that since I tend to maintain a humanoid shape, face included, I still emote like humans too, but I've now also got the slime ones too!
I'd say the most notable one is anger, which was definitely an interesting discovery the first time it happened. The easiest explanation is that I ‘fizz’; air bubbles shoot up through my body, popping once they reach my head, whenever I get angry, the more angry the more dramatic the fizz.
Blushing's definitely changed too, although it kind of feels the same; instead of blood rushing to my face, my slime kinda condenses around my cheeks (wondering if the location is a hangover from being human, or if all slimes have this), becoming more opaque. Basically instead of red, I now blush orange.
While there are more, those two are the main ones, and the others are less distinct, nor that easy to describe, so I'll save the space here.
What I will quickly add here, since it's at least tangentially related to emotions, is that I've found a couple new ways to stim with my new body. One is just idly altering my shape, usually just my hand, but honestly anything is fair game (look forward to seeing how that'll change/alter with shapeshifting), while the other is fiddling with my core. Do have to be careful with the latter, given if I mess up I could have to reform myself - don't think my core is liable to crack if I drop it, but I'd rather not find out.
Going to round this out with the things I couldn't work out where else to put them, starting with audio/hearing.
Firstly, I'm pretty sure I can hear better, or at the very least, my audio location is better, since my hearing changed I can much more accurately pinpoint a sound. Figure that this is ‘cause that's how slimes would hunt naturally - slimes don't innately use sight to navigate, it's all vibrations, and sound is a really good one for that. The negative side of this is areas with lots of various sound sources can be really overwhelming, which has been something I've had to learn to manage, but it's something even some humans struggle with, so there's plenty of resources and info to help so it’s been something fairly easy to learn to cope with, compared to other things I’ve had to throughout this.
What has been interesting has been finding my strength diminish as I've become gooier, after all, my muscles have literally become syrup. While this has been a little annoying at times, especially early on, I got used to it, and, as I got more goo I found that slime strength is apparently proportional to how much mass a limb has, but less in the ‘more muscular’ sense, and more in the same way a denser piece of wood is better for leverage, if that makes any sense. It's not that more mass makes me stronger, it's that it makes my body more capable of lifting/moving things, it's a little hard to explain without a demonstration or diagram but hopefully that has all made sense with just text.
Lastly I do want to talk about something that isn't strictly slime related, but is something I've had to deal with within my transition, is my less than human shape I've taken. The main three that I’ve got sticking around are talons instead of feet, a tail with a fin, and wings. Obviously everything is made of slime, but when I get on my shapeshifting meds, I plan to add more texture and stuff to them.
The feet I've shaped for myself took some getting used to. They're kind of like bird feet - talons as I said above - and as such they kind of reworked how I walk around, and I definitely had some issues balancing with them at first while I learned how to manage them. I probably would have given up and just stuck with human feet if it hadn't felt so right walking around with my talons(feels nice to say that). I wish I could articulate the feeling better here but it's just that very simple feeling of ‘this is how I should be’.
I also shaped myself a tail, which was one of the earliest phantom limbs I had, and it's similarly been wonderful to have. It's about as long as I am tall now (yeah, it's big, but I had to put the extra mass from shrinking myself somewhere (ignore that I seem to be able to squirrel mass away in my core and let me have this)) which is just super great… except for the fact that the human world has strongly not accounted for tailed individuals in their design of public spaces. Now, I could just shrink my tail down to fit, but damn it, I just got it, I'm not getting rid of it ‘cause humans are slow to adapt! But yes, it's been nice having the improved balance, especially with new feet and gelatinous legs, and grabbing things with it is also good fun, as well as quite useful too, and the fin is fun to flex.
Finally, wings! Much like the others, it feels really nice to have them, and stretching them out is quite euphoric. My only complaint is that, due to their consistency, I can't actually fly with them. I have tried making them more solid and the like, but they just don't seem to be able to get me off the ground. I think the extra mass kinda stops the additional strength from being able to provide any more lift… or maybe I'm just too nervous about them not working.
And with that I think that's everything I need to add into the journal here, and hopefully this helps anyone else with their treatment! So with that, guess I'll see you all in the next entry!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This took a while to get together, but hopefully I've now covered the majority of things that cropped up in my mind long after I'd written them down in their entries and added more of those little moments you get over a transition.
This is the actual last diary entry solely dedicated to the Slime portion of this, and as I said before, although there will be at least a couple more stories we have planned that are slime based, the next proper entry to this story will be the beginning of Shapeshifter/Polymorph hrt
Tag list under the cut (let us know if ya wanna be added)
