#and obvs this is something gay men and lesbians have always had to do

[margaretqualleytruther]

one last taylor swift post. her current flame that was pr analyzed to death by her millenial team that has one gay dude for diversity points as soon as she felt the first stir of attraction. which def happened while she was still with that ugly british dude LOL. he probably cheated on her first but ofc she can’t let her general fans find out she’s also one bc of the constant need to always be seen as a victim and never as the predatory business savy megalomaniac she really is even though she wants to promote a bad girl image with the 1975 dude 🙄… she can’t even fart in peace without swifties analyzing the shit particles like tea leaves for who she’s currently fucking. the consequent internet meltdown by her parasitic fans which was probably one of the biggest draws to getting with milquetoast edgelord twat healy cause she for sure hates them and wants her space from the constant scrutiny even though that is quite literally what her and her team most utilized to reach the heights she has including her current career high even though she has meltdowns any time something negative is said of her due to her obscene ego. obv i’m not immune bc i like talking about her gay flings but i like all gay celeb gossip in general and also why i’m interested in her bc you dig one inch beneath her carefully constructed pr top soil and realize she would be one of those serial killer nurses if she wasn’t famous. and don’t even get me started on the dykes that STILL think she’s a lesbian, that was an acceptable thought in like 2014 maybe. massive cope to think she isn’t just bi and likes fucking dudes too instead of the every man she breathes near is in a full blown bearding situation with her like she’s an old hollywood starlet or something. even then she wishes, they had 20x the balls size than she ever will. shoutout katharine hepburn. more on her predatory ways ie the olivia rodrigo situation where she went beast mode on her for riding her coattails a little during SOUR like she didn’t do the exact same thing with tim mcgraw LOL. literally sicced her $2000 an hour or whatever tf lawyers on olivia for copyright which took a significant chunk of royalties for some of her biggest hits off of the album and then got paramore’s team to do the same 😭 and then pretended like nothing new was written in 2012 for red like it isn’t the most obvious crying over olivia blowing up and using her name a bit for promo. olivia could have gone the lorde way where she could have organically gotten closer to her and then had to have painfully extracted herself from taylor’s grip so either way it would have ended badly in between them (also she def got with lorde for a bit, parts of melodrama start clicking in place when you realize that). the most fragile ego in the game which is also why she barely ever lets other women feature and if they do they get sent directly to background vocals except phoebe bridgers but i attribute that to the bpd spell phoebe casts over pathetic people. just a constant pattern with her. katy perry, lorde, her girl squad, her former men where she surrounds herself with underlings whose energy she can feed off of till they obviously turn against her control freak ways so then she casts them off to the wolves (her fans) and also the reason she’s stuck stunting with the haim sisters. will be awaiting her and healy’s breakup for their epic public battle of personality disordered egos. i know she has more testosterone than he ever will and will try to absolutely pulverize him in the public’s eye but she’s so overexposed rn i sense another fall from grace due to it. amen 🙏

[wild-at-mind]

I think I have a very transmasc type of haircut right now, pleased with this one! It made me think, what even IS gender if not a series of subtle visual signals to others who are like you? I mean, I don’t think I saw another trans masc person today, but if I did I could give them The Look. :)

[serenagaywaterford]

I love every lesbian so much I want to cry.

[letters-from-x]

The whole "asexuality is harmful bc some gay kids may think that they are ace" thing rly frustrates me bc when I was younger I used to think that I was a lesbian (I knew I didn't like men and thought being gay the only other option even tho I didn't like women either) and I tried to force myself to be into women, which was obvs awful for me and for those women too. And yet everyone sees how ridiculous calling the lesbian label harmful would be. Sorry for ranting, ur the only ace radfem I know 😅

Thanks for the ask, and don't apologise! This is something that frustrates me too.

When I was younger I had never heard of asexuality and this may sound ridiculous, but I thought it was just me. Actually for a couple of years I would become very annoyed with people my own age for "faking" attraction to each other when I "knew" they didn't actually feel anything. My mum eventually had to sit me down and explain that everyone else wasn't lying to me, I was just not having the same experiences for some reason. I felt like every other teenager was being sent instructions on how to behave in a groupchat that I wasn't invited to. I truly believed I was the only person in the world who didn't experience sexual attraction. I just couldn't account for the fact that I'd never heard of anybody else like me, never seen one in a movie or read of one in a book. I cannot express how isolated, lonely and hopeless it made me feel.

So when people on here are like "knowledge of assxuality is ruining society actually because everyone thinks they're ace now thanks to the internet" it seems so alien to me. I think people on here easily forget how disconnected tumblr is from the real world. I've told a lot of people that I'm asexual and I've had to explain what it means to almost all of them. People well past their teens come up to me amazed there's another person in the universe who feels the same way they do. The vast vast majority of people have absolutely no idea what asexuality is (including many radfems on tumblr, as it turns out). I will always advocate for spreading awareness of asexuality because I don't want anyone to feel the way I used to feel.

But clearly some of you grew up in a very different world than I did, since you used to think you were asexual as a teenager and now believe knowledge of asexuality is harmful as a result. Like anon, I know this can happen with any sexuality, and I don't see anybody saying that to prevent confusion we should stop talking about heterosexuality, because we all know that would be ridiculous. I know it's a controversial view but I think believing you're ace as a teenager while you're figuring yourself out and then working out later that you're something else is better than pushing yourself to experiment with people you aren't attracted to so you can work out what's "wrong" with you. I also believe that the epidemic of teenage girls calling themselves ace that radfems are so concerned about is a symptom of our cultural emphasis on identities and labels, and I'll grant also a symptom of our hypersexualised porn culture, but not a symptom of asexuality existing. If they didn't use our label they'd just pick another. The harm is not in awareness of asexuality. People knowing they aren't obligated to have sex or even want sex will never be a bad thing.

[hellomynameisbisexual]

Here's a shortlist of those who realized that I — a cis woman who'd identified as heterosexual for decades of life — was in fact actually bi, long before I realized it myself recently: my sister, all my friends, my boyfriend, and the TikTok algorithm.

On TikTok, the relationship between user and algorithm is uniquely (even sometimes uncannily) intimate. An app which seemingly contains as many multitudes of life experiences and niche communities as there are people in the world, we all start in the lowest common denominator of TikTok. Straight TikTok (as it's popularly dubbed) initially bombards your For You Page with the silly pet videos and viral teen dances that folks who don't use TikTok like to condescendingly reduce it to.

Quickly, though, TikTok begins reading your soul like some sort of divine digital oracle, prying open layers of your being never before known to your own conscious mind. The more you use it, the more tailored its content becomes to your deepest specificities, to the point where you get stuff that's so relatable that it can feel like a personal attack (in the best way) or (more dangerously) even a harmful trigger from lifelong traumas.

For example: I don't know what dark magic (read: privacy violations) immediately clued TikTok into the fact that I was half-Brazilian, but within days of first using it, Straight TikTok gave way to at first Portuguese-speaking then broader Latin TikTok. Feeling oddly seen (being white-passing and mostly American-raised, my Brazilian identity isn't often validated), I was liberal with the likes, knowing that engagement was the surefire way to go deeper down this identity-affirming corner of the social app.

TikTok made lots of assumptions from there, throwing me right down the boundless, beautiful, and oddest multiplicities of Alt TikTok, a counter to Straight TikTok's milquetoast mainstreamness.

Home to a wide spectrum of marginalized groups, I was giving out likes on my FYP like Oprah, smashing that heart button on every type of video: from TikTokers with disabilities, Black and Indigenous creators, political activists, body-stigma-busting fat women, and every glittering shade of the LGBTQ cornucopia. The faves were genuine, but also a way to support and help offset what I knew about the discriminatory biases in TikTok's algorithm.

My diverse range of likes started to get more specific by the minute, though. I wasn't just on general Black TikTok anymore, but Alt Cottagecore Middle-Class Black Girl TikTok (an actual label one creator gave her page's vibes). Then it was Queer Latina Roller Skating Girl TikTok, Women With Non-Hyperactive ADHD TikTok, and then a double whammy of Women Loving Women (WLW) TikTok alternating between beautiful lesbian couples and baby bisexuals.

Looking back at my history of likes, the transition from queer “ally” to “salivating simp” is almost imperceptible.

There was no one precise "aha" moment. I started getting "put a finger down" challenges that wouldn't reveal what you were putting a finger down for until the end. Then, 9-fingers deep (winkwink), I'd be congratulated for being 100% bisexual. Somewhere along the path of getting served multiple WLW Disney cosplays in a single day and even dom lesbian KinkTok roleplay — or whatever the fuck Bisexual Pirate TikTok is — deductive reasoning kind of spoke for itself.

But I will never forget the one video that was such a heat-seeking missile of a targeted attack that I was moved to finally text it to my group chat of WLW friends with a, "Wait, am I bi?" To which the overwhelming consensus was, "Magic 8 Ball says, 'Highly Likely.'"

Serendipitously posted during Pride Month, the video shows a girl shaking her head at the caption above her head, calling out confused and/or closeted queers who say shit like, "I think everyone is a LITTLE bisexual," to the tune of "Closer" by The Chainsmokers. When the lyrics land on the word "you," she points straight at the screen — at me — her finger and inquisitive look piercing my hopelessly bisexual soul like Cupid's goddamn arrow.

Oh no, the voice inside my head said, I have just been mercilessly perceived.

As someone who had, in fact, done feminist studies at a tiny liberal arts college with a gender gap of about 70 percent women, I'd of course dabbled. I've always been quick to bring up the Kinsey scale, to champion a true spectrum of sexuality, and to even declare (on multiple occasions) that I was, "straight, but would totally fuck that girl!"

Oh no, the voice inside my head returned, I've literally just been using extra words to say I was bi.

After consulting the expertise of my WLW friend group (whose mere existence, in retrospect, also should've clued me in on the flashing neon pink, purple, and blue flag of my raging bisexuality), I ran to my boyfriend to inform him of the "news."

"Yeah, baby, I know. We all know," he said kindly.

"How?!" I demanded.

Well for one, he pointed out, every time we came across a video of a hot girl while scrolling TikTok together, I'd without fail watch the whole way through, often more than once, regardless of content. (Apparently, straight girls do not tend to do this?) For another, I always breathlessly pointed out when we'd pass by a woman I found beautiful, often finding a way to send a compliment her way. ("I'm just a flirt!" I used to rationalize with a hand wave, "Obvs, I'm not actually sexually attracted to them!") Then, I guess, there were the TED Talk-like rants I'd subject him to about the thinly veiled queer relationship in Adventure Time between Princess Bubblegum and Marcelyne the Vampire Queen — which the cowards at Cartoon Network forced creators to keep as subtext!

And, well, when you lay it all out like that...

But my TikTok-fueled bisexual awakening might actually speak less to the omnipotence of the app's algorithm, and more to how heteronormativity is truly one helluva drug.

Sure, TikTok bombarded me with the thirst traps of my exact type of domineering masc lady queers, who reduced me to a puddle of drool I could no longer deny. But I also recalled a pivotal moment in college when I briefly questioned my heterosexuality, only to have a lesbian friend roll her eyes and chastise me for being one of those straight girls who leads Actual Queer Women on. I figured she must know better. So I never pursued any of my lady crushes in college, which meant I never experimented much sexually, which made me conclude that I couldn't call myself bisexual if I'd never had actual sex with a woman. I also didn't really enjoy lesbian porn much, though the fact that I'd often find myself fixating on the woman during heterosexual porn should've clued me into that probably coming more from how mainstream lesbian porn is designed for straight men.

The ubiquity of heterormativity, even when unwittingly perpetrated by members of the queer community, is such an effective self-sustaining cycle. Aside from being met with queer-gating (something I've since learned bi folks often experience), I had a hard time identifying my attraction to women as genuine attraction, simply because it felt different to how I was attracted to men.

Heteronormativity is truly one helluva drug.

So much of women's sexuality — of my sexuality — can feel defined by that carnivorous kind of validation you get from men. I met no societal resistance in fully embodying and exploring my desire for men, either (which, to be clear, was and is insatiable slut levels of wanting that peen.) But in retrospect, I wonder how many men I slept with not because I was truly attracted to them, but because I got off on how much they wanted me.

My attraction to women comes with a different texture of eroticism. With women (and bare with a baby bi, here), the attraction feels more shared, more mutual, more tender rather than possessive. It's no less raw or hot or all-consuming, don't get me wrong. But for me at least, it comes more from a place of equality rather than just power play. I love the way women seem to see right through me, to know me, without us really needing to say a word.

I am still, as it turns out, a sexual submissive through-and-through, regardless of what gender my would-be partner is. But, ignorantly and unknowingly, I'd been limiting my concept of who could embody dominant sexual personas to cis men. But when TikTok sent me down that glorious rabbit hole of masc women (who know exactly what they're doing, btw), I realized my attraction was not to men, but a certain type of masculinity. It didn't matter which body or genitalia that presentation came with.

There is something about TikTok that feels particularly suited to these journeys of sexual self-discovery and, in the case of women loving women, I don't think it's just the prescient algorithm. The short-form video format lends itself to lightning bolt-like jolts of soul-bearing nakedness, with the POV camera angles bucking conventions of the male gaze, which entrenches the language of film and TV in heterosexual male desire.

In fairness to me, I'm far from the only one who missed their inner gay for a long time — only to have her pop out like a queer jack-in-the-box throughout a near year-long quarantine that led many of us to join TikTok. There was the baby bi mom, and scores of others who no longer had to publicly perform their heterosexuality during lockdown — only to realize that, hey, maybe I'm not heterosexual at all?

Flooded with video after video affirming my suspicions, reflecting my exact experiences as they happened to others, the change in my sexual identity was so normalized on TikTok that I didn't even feel like I needed to formally "come out." I thought this safe home I'd found to foster my baby bisexuality online would extend into the real world.

But I was in for a rude awakening.

Testing out my bisexuality on other platforms, casually referring to it on Twitter, posting pictures of myself decked out in a rainbow skate outfit (which I bought before realizing I was queer), I received nothing but unquestioning support and validation. Eventually, I realized I should probably let some members of my family know before they learned through one of these posts, though.

Daunted by the idea of trying to tell my Latina Catholic mother and Swiss Army veteran father (who's had a crass running joke about me being a "lesbian" ever since I first declared myself a feminist at age 12), I chose the sibling closest to me. Seeing as how gender studies was one of her majors in college too, I thought it was a shoo-in. I sent an off-handed, joke-y but serious, "btw I'm bi now!" text, believing that's all that would be needed to receive the same nonchalant acceptance I found online.

It was not.

I didn't receive a response for two days. Hurt and panicked by what was potentially my first mild experience of homophobia, I called them out. They responded by insisting we need to have a phone call for such "serious" conversations. As I calmly tried to express my hurt on said call, I was told my text had been enough to make this sibling worry about my mental wellbeing. They said I should be more understanding of why it'd be hard for them to (and I'm paraphrasing) "think you were one way for twenty-eight years" before having to contend with me deciding I was now "something else."

But I wasn't "something else," I tried to explain, voice shaking. I hadn't knowingly been deceiving or hiding this part of me. I'd simply discovered a more appropriate label. But it was like we were speaking different languages. Other family members were more accepting, thankfully. There are many ways I'm exceptionally lucky, my IRL environment as supportive as Baby Bi TikTok. Namely, I'm in a loving relationship with a man who never once mistook any of it as a threat, instead giving me all the space in the world to understand this new facet of my sexuality.

I don't have it all figured out yet. But at least when someone asks if I listen to Girl in Red on social media, I know to answer with a resounding, "Yes," even though I've never listened to a single one of her songs. And for now, that's enough.

[yikesharringrove]

Quick q for your mango verse. Female alphas, do they carry?(and if they do carry, is it stigmatized?) and how does a female alpha/female omega pair produce pups? (Do they adopt?) (You mentiondd earlier that the only secondary gender to be determined by birth was a male omega, so I got curious) sorry/not sorry for making you expand this lovely universe of yours

I went in so DEEP this is all my thoughts on this universe and the gender/secondary gender politics of it.

Honestly, because this started as a drabble, I put SUCH little thought into it, lol, but as I’ve written, there have been more and more I’ve been dwelling on.

I’m gonna put it under the cut bc I talk genitals and stuff. Don’t want anyone to get uncomfy.

Here’s the Mango Masterlist, I’m gonna maybe put this somewhere in there. Maybe at the top.

So yes, how I always like to think of ABO is that male omegas have some combination of penis/vagina because I once read one where that was the case and I was like, hell yeah. It just kind of clicked into my brain.

Especially for this one, I’m not usually into mpreg unless it makes more sense for me, biologically, so like a trans person getting pregnant (which someone tagged the Mango series as trans!steve, which could TOTALLY work) or as I’ve written Steve, more on the intersex scale. I just think it’s interesting to bring this side of gender politics that very much exists into it and make it more.

HOWEVER, Steve can DEFINITELY be read as a trans man with a clit dick, so honestly, whatever you want. 

So, my original plan, when I introduced Robin, was to have her being a female alpha a kind of euphemism for her being a lesbian, and most omegas are female in this universe. My original thought was that female alphas would have a penis, but then I was asked to write about Nancy (and look me in the eyeballs and tell me that girl is NOT an alpha) so I was like, nvm and decided to scrap that, it also sets male omegas even further apart, as they are the only secondary gender to have a difference in external genitalia. I decided that when I wrote the part of them getting harassed.

So what I was thinking, was that Robin’s queerness comes in with her being attracted to other women, obvs, but also being attracted to other female alphas.

I think that with ABO, since they are these other secondary genders, there would be an even wider range of sexuality than in real life, so you could have omega women that are attracted to only alpha males, or only alpha females, or both or neither, etc, etc. Maybe a beta male that’s attracted to women, be they alpha or omega or beta. There are two different levels to sexuality alone that would be interesting to bring into play.

I think for Steve, he likes alphas. Doesn’t care male or female.

To me, for this universe, Steve is perfect for Billy. He likes the idea of omegas, but prefers males. Maybe he only dated male betas before he met Steve, so when he finds a male omega and it’s like he’s hit the Holy fucking Grail.

Nancy is an alpha that prefers betas, she likes to be more dominant, but doesn’t want someone to be completely reliant on her.

You bring up a SUPER interesting point, and I do really like the idea of. The world I've set up definitely caters more to alphas, but I think that there would be some kind of stigma against alpha women. I think a metaphor for it would be like, alpha males are the white cishet men of the world, they get away with everything and get it handed to them on a silver platter. There’s a LOT of privilege there. Alpha women are like white cishet women, they lose some of the privileges the men have, but they still have it WAY better than most.

So as I’m thinking about it, maybe because the way an alpha presents is their knot coming in, maybe when a female alpha presents, something similar happens where her clitoris enlarges. Because alpha males are rare, many alpha women date beta or alpha men, however, I think it’d be seen as kind of a pussy move by the world at large if a male alpha were to be with a female alpha.

Does any of this make sense? I honestly don’t know.

There are a lot of things I’ve thought about that I haven’t found a way of putting into the story since they are just snippets of time, but I thought it would be interesting to delve into Steve’s experience as a male omega, like maybe when he was born his parents could’ve had him undergo surgery and hormonal therapy to have him live as a female omega, as sometimes parents of intersex people do (which is something I DO NOT agree with, let people live) but they ultimately chose not to, which could then be reflected in how Steve’s mom tried to make amends after they moved to California.

This was a long tangent and didn’t answer a single thing you asked.

Female alphas carrying: I think yes, they can carry, but I think many would not want to. Part of the typical omega biology is wanting to carry pups, to nest and take care of life. I think many alpha women would choose not to have pups. They may feel the desire to reproduce, but don’t ultimately wouldn’t want to actually get pregnant. Maybe there is a well-established culture of omega surrogates. For female alphas that choose to carry, I think they would be looked at as lesser, like maybe they are with a male alpha, and she is seen as a lesser alpha for submitting to her man’s primal urge to impregnate, even though it was a decision they both made.

I think in this universe, female alphas/female omegas can’t procreate together, but as I mentioned, maybe there is a strong culture of surrogacy like many male alphas donate sperm and many female omegas are willing to act as surrogates for those that can’t procreate on their own, and having a surrogate or using a sperm donor is seen as fairly normal.

There is still a large sense of homophobia, as the stigma Billy and Steve face is largely that Steve is a guy, but that also has an air of anti-intersex or transphobia, seeing as the real rub is that he is a male omega, it’s the combination of the two that people are mostly discriminatory against. I think in terms of stigma, male alpha with a male omega is like, BAD, and then from most stigmatized to widely accepted and celebrated would be male alpha with male alpha, male beta, female alpha, female beta, female omega. 

To use an analogy from modern-day, a person may be accepting of a gay couple, but if they find out one of the people in the couple is a gay trans man, then they are transphobic and problematic about that.

Steve also is faced with transphobia and anti-intersex moments in the form of people asking him about his genitals. That is something that many trans and intersex people are harassed with and it’s disgusting, but I think that would be many people’s go-to form of harassment with him, like the guys in part 26.

As I mentioned, Robin may face discrimination from being a female alpha, being a female alpha attracted to women, but it is more the combination of being attracted to female + alpha that creates the same homophobia she would face in real life 1980s.

(I also was going to go into how transness may work in this ‘verse, since I think being under the trans umbrella would come into play with both sets of gender, and a person could be non-tertiary (? like non-binary but with 3 established gender roles) but this post is already so long if anyone wants to know my thoughts, feel free to reach out.)

I hope this kind of explained somethings, I went on long tangents without really answering your actual questions, and I kinda feel like J.K. Rowling not mentioning any of this stuff because it’s not a part of Harry’s journey, but this has been where my brain is at in terms of writing this drabble series. The more it progresses, the more I think about certain aspects of it, and I think a LOT about how gender and sexual politics would be established in this world.

As always, if I have said or done something harmful and problematic, please come and start a discussion with me, I am always willing to learn and I understand that in talking about certain things I do not experience, I can get stuff wrong and be insensitive.

[nonbinarypoststhings]

Hi, irrelevant, I know, but do you remember anything about the highschool period of your life? I swear this part is the most stressful part of all my life, first I figure out my sexuality, then I move away from all my friends, then my gender, and as if it's not enough, add to that school and standardised tests and all the typical drama of being a teen. Oh and also don't forget that you're somehow supposed to make choices that will affect the rest of your life.How does anyone even survive it?

I do remember my high school life, and as I have reconnected with one of my old classmates recently, I've even talked a bit about it with her.

(Warning for Homophobia, transphobia, Sexism, Racism. Only the homophobia is like explicit, but the others are mentioned. Feel free to tell me if there is more warnings I should have. Also, long post)

High school is a tough period of time for everyone. Everyone is struggling with who they are, and what they want in life.

And add in the layer of being Lgbtq+ it becomes more frustrating.

I have a hard time translating the school things from my country to others, but I believe I graduated what would be translated into high school only this year, but I will still talk about my old school which I graduated from three years ago.

My class back then was not the best place for anyone who is lgbtq+. Me and the classmate I mentioned earlier connected well back then, and still do now, but the rest of them..? Not so much (I will also exclude two more people from that rest, who also is my friends now).

We were a class of 22 or 23, and yes I believe that most of us probably were at least somewhat accepting of the lgbtq+ community, we still only had, from what I know, 2 people who actually is in the community. Neither of us accepted it at the time, even though we both were proudly supportive of the community.

The thing is, she struggled with internalized shit about her identity and that delayed the realization.

I was genderfluid, and same thing there. I denied my own gender because, my friend was nonbinary, I couldn't also be, right? So internlized shit that delayed the realization.

Neither of us came to term with it until after we had left that school.

But I have a clear memory of us both Hating our class, we were a class of mainly guys, and every single guy was white (tbf, we had 1 person who wasn't white in our class all together).

We all know what white cis straight men are famous for...

Being bigots.

I don't know if anything has changed these past years, I haven't talked to them. But back then,

At least half of them were openly sexist, homophobic, transphobic etc.

I have a clear memory, that still Disgusts me so much to this day, of a sex ed class where the teacher, bless her, tried to be inclusive and ask us what we thought about gay couples. (Not how it should be done, but it was atleast a try in the right direction) The guys, who always ran the show (the ones I hated more than I think I can explain), said (TW for Homophobia):

"Gay guys are disgusting. Lesbians are hot".

I was so mad, my skin was crawling with disgust, still is when I think about it. To everyone who only accept lesbians because they think it's hot, you are disgusting. Lesbians are real people and they are not there to please some man. It's not for you, it's between the lesbian and her girlfriend and you should Stay Out Of It!

It wasn't a great place to be out in, so maybe it wasn't weird for us to ignore our own identity, to not want to be lgbtq+ in that space, because if we had been out back then even just to ourselves we would've had to face these people every day and therefore face these kind of things knowing that they are talking about us like this. Even though they didn't know it, they were and it was disgusting and terrible.

(I am not saying repress your gender or sexuality until you are older, you don't have to do that at all. Just be safe, and know that if people are mean or ignorant, they are wrong. You are valid and loved and we all support you so much. Find support, and don't let bigots tear you down. You are Valid and you are who You are no matter what others tell you)

I wanted out of that class, from those people, ever since I was like 6-7 years old. I hoped when we switched school when we were 12-13 that I would end up without a bunch of them. I did still have that same class, which really I had expected even if I hoped differently.

At 16 I got a change to move across the country, I took it. Actually, I kinda fought for it, and I was lucky enough to get it.

Moving away from all my friends were scary even if I had made an active choice to do so. I was terrified that I would be lonely, and that everyone at this new school would be terrible and I had to move back home and face that shame of failure (obvs, it wouldn't be actual failure to get out of a toxic place if it has been that, but I saw it as such)

When I came to this new school, everything was super different from back home.

My class was, to my standards, filled with so many different people with different cultures. All of them different from mine because I was from across the country, from a small town. And suddenly here I was in a gigantic city.

Anyway, this school taught me a lot, about everything. My class had openly Lgbtq+ people. My new friends were suddenly all queer or questioning, and I was in awe, because... It could be like this?

Also, everyone was super nice to me. Asking for my instagram on day 1 so we could be friends on there, showing me how to get back home in this new city when everything was so new to be, starting conversations and being just geniune good people. Like, huge shout out to those people.

I learned so much about oppression, and how to stand against it in this school, not because I myself was oppressed, I'm white and at the time I thought I was cishet.

No, I learned because our teachers wanted us to learn about all these things that I knew were real problems but I had only heard of in fiction, never in real life.

I got to a safe space, where racist teachers got fired asap. Where teachers were openly queer and my classmates could come out as trans to the class simply by stating their new name and pronouns. No questions asked. I got to a school where every introduction included name and pronouns. Where we were all shown that we can be who we are and that is okay. And where teachers apologized to students in a real and honest way when they did something wrong.

In this environment I got to figure out who I am. Yes it took two years, but I figured it out and felt safe enough to tell my new friends in weeks, because they accept everyone.

So, the question, how do you survive high school?

My answer is simply, you hold onto the belief that you will survive, and that things will get better. And you will get there.

You can try to find other lgbtq+ people in your school, I know some have groups you can join (mine didn't).

And with the tests, I guess I recommend you study, and remember that a bad grade isn't the end of the world. You are worth more than a grade.

I wish I could promise you that you could enter a school like mine, where everything certainly wasn't perfect (you never get rid of high school drama...), but it was still a very friendly space.

But I can promise you that you are not alone and things will be better. If it gets better in high school or if it gets better years later, I can't tell you. But it does get better. And you will survive.

Also, sorry for this extremely long answer, it was probably not what you're looking for. But I hope you find an answer in there eitherway.

Long story short, high school is a shitshow, but the show must go on.

Also, gender neutral bathrooms in schools should be standard (it has been in all schools I've gone to and no one is complaining here, not even the transphobes).

Also, the reason why I barely mention the girls in my old class, is simply because there were almost none and nothing any of them have said when I've been around has been relevant to this answer.

Tell me if you want things tagged or added to the warnings at top.

[gaysharx]

CLUELESS YOUNG LESBIANS

I'm starting a list of thing I've done when I was young, but was cluelessly unaware how extremely GAY they were and how gay I was.

I wish I had known earlier, but he heteronormative society & my v religious surroundings conditioned me to never even consider it. For 20 YEARS!

I loved football to the extent that for my birthday parties i would invite my male friends to play with me in my garden, while the girls would sit at the table chatting and being pissed at me for not entertaining them

I also played basketball for most of your life and had a basket to practice in my garden. Only at the age of 21 I realised more than half of the girls in my team were gay

Generally i loved sports - every form of sport, at any time

I got v nervous when my male friends (who I knew mostly from playing sports together) would say a comment suggesting they would want to date me. It was the kind of nervous u feel when u really dont want to do something but dont know how to say no without destroying a friendship.

I've always hated skirts and colour pink & my mum could never force me to wear skirts, ever.

I tore off my dress the moment I got back to my house after some religious ceremony (that my family forced me to go through). I changed into a t-shirt and shorts and put on the rollerblades I just got as a gift and went for a ride, leaving all my guests at home.

Being jealous af when my 2 closest female friends were pretending to be 'fake lesbians' for fun at a winter skiing camp & I was their third wheel

I had "strong emotional attachment" to a couple of my female friends. I was nervous about being with them and while being with them i worried not to say something that would offend them and make them find better friends (CRUSHES lil human those are called CRUSHES).

Admiring female actors way way more than male ones and being obsessed about them for ages after watching the movies with them (to the extent I couldn't think of anything or anyone else)

Never having any interest in men whatsoever. Maybe apart from using them to play team sports with me.

Forcing myself to find a male crush cause all my female friends had one and that's all they talked about. I chose the intelligent one cause I reasoned he would be the best candidate. He turned out to be gay years later.

Going on a coffee date with a v smart guy I met at the beginning of uni. I thought it was my first date and worried I wouldn't know how to act or what to do if he tried to kiss me. He didn't and turned out to be gay too (universe was probs trying to tell me something then, but obvs I didn't listen for another while)

Please feel free to add on!

[butyouvealwaysbeenthecaretaker]

Incidentally, I think there's a queer reading of Crowley sorely missing.

My husband has a joke about young Crowley going to his priest for help with his homosexual urges, and the priest explaining that it was a demon. And Crowley being "...ok well let's try talking to it" and lo! A magus was born.

I actually think there's more to it. Sex magic is part of what makes Crowley a lurid figure, buuuut...the interpretations people have of this are very, very hetero; just as the imagery of Baphomet has become a hyper-masc goat towering over a fragile pulp fiction cover naked witch babe.

But Baphomet is a bigendered figure, even if occult artists all too frequently choose not to draw the boobs, and choose not to draw Baphomet as a kind of woman instead of a kind of man. From the earliest sources in 20th century western occult tradition, magic and mages are defined as a combination of masculine and feminine energy in a single body. *Not* a Gardnerian or Dianic concept of male and female magic residing separately on male and female people. To work magic, the magus must become both symbolically male and symbolically female.

George Ives, one of the earliest British gay rights apologists described himself as "the soul of a woman in the body of a man". That was very much the science/politics of the day, a concept of inverts or uranians. Inverts were a group of people we would now recognise as gay or bi, or trans, or gender non conforming (including people who were simply GNC for the era, like women who didn't want to marry), all in one messy concept of "the genderwrongs". And as early lgbt people were hungry for any scrap of data they could find about themselves, a lot of people adopted this into their self-concept where we would now likely see these things as different.

Anyway, I think that when Crowley joined the Golden Dawn & encountered the concept of mages being both male and female, he related it to what Ives & Ulrichs and others were saying about queer men. Specifically, I want to quote Alan Moore on this from his educational comic Promethea: "the mage seeks to penetrate the mystery; but on finding it, becomes the mystery that is to be penetrated". I think this concept reads very, very differently to a queer person than it does to a straight one. The Golden Dawn's conception of sacred sexuality was drawn from the alchemical idea of the sacred marriage of the Sun and Moon, and used the imagery of a lance dipped into the holy grail; later adopted into Wicca as the knife dipped into the chalice.

In short, what Moore et al is saying is "mages are symbolically both male and female, though in practice their ritual role is one or the other as appropriate to their actual birth gender obvs, especially if anything sexual is happening." Whereas Crowley's reading is..."men can be either the penetrative or receptive partner in sex, and this fits with what Ives is saying about queer men being both male and female, and with what the Golden Dawn is saying about mages being both male and female. And if both parts of penetration constitute a magical act, then that isn't heterosexual: a mage both gives and receives, and that's the true pathway to sacred sexuality".

he's such an inveterate tinkerers that I'm pretty confident he also made the intuitive leap that gay sex, straight sex and lesbian sex would all have differing magical results. I also want to highlight that Thelema, while a bit dickish in the hands of your average straight Crowley fanboy, is 100% the religious tradition a closeted Victorian would develop for his own psychological survival: "everyone has a true desire in them and it is right for that person to express their desires, even if they desire something wrong"

I feel like the queer context for Crowley is almost entirely missing. Like, as the "wickedest man in Europe", the incarnation of the Beast, many people will know he spent an opium-fuelled month in bed with his boyfriend in Paris doing sex magic. That's part of his bad boy image. I think people are less capable of taking Crowley seriously as an actual queer human being, and understanding how deeply queer his religious philosophy is. I think his magical techniques and ideas are decontextualised a lot by people who don't get this (like, straight people who misunderstand "do what thou wilt will be the whole of the law" as "it's ok to be an asshole" rather than "don't be a drag, just be a queen, because baby you were born this way"). I think the way gendered magic ultimately developed in the 20th c was detrimental to queer people, who then had to reinvent their place in Wicca and in the ceremonial occult. When we've always been there, and Crowley's life, work and magic makes us not the sidenote, but the central magic practitioners who are most fully able to embody the work of the mage

tldr: pity Mathers wasn't into being pegged.

[sparklebitch]

Dan and Phil’s Impact

Okay this is going to be long and rambling because I’m trying to type it on my phone in the car and my thoughts are all over the freaking place and I don’t blame you if you don’t want to read the whole thing I’ll put a tldr at the end lmao.

So first of all I’ve been watching Dan and Phil since like? 2014~ And for a while there wasn’t a minute that went by where I didn’t think about them. Their videos got me through so much shit in my life. Even dumb video game videos were like my reprieve from real life. And yeah a lot of stuff was super cringy and I was definitely borderline one of those creepy people that wanted to know everything about their lives (obvs not anymore lol) but that aside they were such good freaking influences on me? I looked up to them so much and, sure, I have a lot of role-model-worthy people in my life, but no one like them.

Everyone around me is so aggressively religious (although a lot of them are totally cool about it and not bad peoples !! But the rest of them are total dicks) and I felt like I couldn’t... question myself I guess? About literally anything. I felt like I couldn’t question religion, sexuality, the things I liked, what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be. It was like everyone’s lives revolved around church stuff and people were basically born knowing what they were going to do? And there I was, an awkward, sexually confused, homeschooler who had 2 friends that she wasn’t even that close to. I felt like I was the only one in the world like this. Everyone seemed to have a place in the world, except me. I often thought that maybe it was a mistake that I was in this world, that there was some cosmic screw up and that I was never meant to be born. I felt incomplete and it was so confusing and horrible. I was sure that that feeling was never going to go away. I had no one to talk to, no one to explain to me that it was okay to screw up. It wasn’t the end of the world to question things or yourself, everything was going to be okay. All I wanted in my life was for someone to tell me that.

Then I found Dan and Phil. And yeah, they’re two British boys on the internet that will never know who I am. But that’s okay. They don’t need to know me to have an impact on my life. I mean, who’s ever been impacted by a song? A movie, a book, an actor, an artist? The human race is always searching for someone or something to look up to. Religion, famous people, a father figure, a friend. Someone. And that’s what they were to me.

People didn’t understand what it was that I liked about them. And, if I’m being 100% honest, I guess I didn’t really know either. Sure, they’re funny, and the chemistry between the two is very compelling but there was just something about them that spoke to me. I loved them. More than I had loved anything in my life. I looked up to them, and listened to the things they said, listened to the things they believed it. Through them I discovered so many of the things that I love in my life. I started writing and drawing because of them! It’s crazy to think that I am the person that I am today because of them. I can’t imagine what I would be like if I hadn’t watched their videos.

There’s a lot of uncertainty in my life right now as I’m finishing up getting my General Associates and I’m in the process of starting a daycare with my older sister. It’s a lot for me to process because for the longest time all I wanted to do was get away from here. I wanted to go somewhere and be someone new. And it wasn’t until recently that I realized that’s not what I actually wanted. I love my family and my friends, I love living here (aside from the bigots but they’re everywhere so there’s no escaping them). What I really, truly wanted was to be myself. It wasn’t my family and this town that I wanted to get away from, it was the me that I was pretending to be. I just wanted to be myself, that was all. I didn’t care if it was in a big town with new people, i just wanted people to know me. I wish I knew this back then, then maybe I wouldn’t have gone into a tailspin when I was getting ready for college but hindsight I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When I finished high school it was like I was paralyzed. I didn’t know how to make decisions for myself or do anything on my own. All I knew was that I was not straight, seemingly surrounded by homophobes, and I was very very tired. So, toward the end of summer my mom pushed me enrolled me at a community college near home (which I am grateful for lol) and then I was going to transfer to a university after 2 years. Things started to feel better after that. Around that time I also started taking medication for depression and anxiety and it has only completely changed my life. No longer am I the super quiet painfully awkward person who’s so afraid to say something wrong that she instead stays silent, not telling anyone about my interests or passions in fear that I would be ridiculed, hiding core parts of me while the whole world passes by. I was talking and making jokes, I wasn’t constantly terrified to talk to people or to even simply leave my house to go places. Things were better. I was happier!

But as the time for me to transfer to a university drew near that paralyzing feeling crept back into my skin. I hated my classes. I hated college. I was suddenly plunged back into the world of endlessly scrolling through social media and watching the same shows on tv over and over, isolating myself from everyone and everything trying to ignore the world around me. I felt like everything was hopeless again. I was only occasionally watching dan and Phil videos at this time, having very reluctantly grown away from them (it was a sad day when I realized that I didn’t care if I skipped a video or two. I literally cried that day). But I was bored then, so I started watching their videos again. This was around the time that dan posted his video on depression (that’s a while other long ass post I could make but probably won’t because I’m already tired of typing) and i damn near called my mom (even though she was just downstairs) on the spot to tell her what I was feeling. Hearing that there was someone else out there that felt like I was was enough. But not only that, he explained that recovery is not a straight road. There are twists and turns, there are setbacks. It’s not like I was going to get better and everything was going to magically be awesome all the time. Some stuff was going to suck. I was going to go through shitty times and that was okay.

Because of him, I ended up going back to the doctor and explaining that my meds weren’t working anymore, and I got it taken care of. I feel so much fucking better now than I did before, and I know that it’s okay if I don’t always feel this way. I told my parents that I didn’t want to go to a university and they were okay with it, provided that I finished my 2 year degree at the community college. And while some things still suck, and I’m still worried about my future and whether or not I’m going to meet someone and fall in love, things are absolutely positively 1000% better than they have ever been. And a lot of it is thanks to them. Obviously it was me who actually took the steps I needed to to get here, but it was because of their being my role model that I had the courage to get where I am today.

Dan and Phil have such a unique platform and following. They could say jump and so many people would (metaphorically ofc) jump off the cliff, me included. But they don’t do that. They use their fame to positively impact people. They use their platform to encourage people and talk about important things in life. They share things about their lives in the hopes that it will help even 1 person out there... and I’m not the only one who they’ve positively impacted. The number of people that owe everything to them is crazy.

Okay so now I’m going to go a little bit into labels. (Not too much tho I’m seriously tired of typing lol). Dan talked about them a lot in his video. An entire freaking chapter of it was dedicated to labels. When I was younger I knew that I liked girls. I liked boys too though, so I just shrugged it off as Really wanting to be friends with girls. I didn’t know what the word gay meant until I was like 12 because I was a very sheltered child. My parents never talked about it and the only time I ever remember hearing the word before then was when one of my siblings called another sibling “gay” at the dinner table. The only thing I knew about the word was that my parents Did Not Like it. While I eventually stumbled onto the internet and learned a Lot of things, and a lot about labels, I became overwhelmed. There were so many words with so many meanings, and lot of times people didn’t agree on what the literal definition was. (Like bisexual meaning Only men+women vs. just like.. more than just 2+ genders) So for a long time I identified as pansexual because.. I didn’t know what to do. And based on my experiences on the internet, being bi was basically saying that you were excluding people. Idk it was fucked. The label ‘pan’ didn’t really feel like it fit me either, but it worked for the time being.

Dan’s comments on labels really got me thinking. I don’t think I’m a lesbian, but I don’t really know about bisexual either. When he said that he loved to use the word queer it just.. fucking hit me in the chest like a ton of bricks. I literally couldn’t breath. And it’s not like I’ve never heard people use the word queer. Tons of people identify as queer. But it was just something about the way he explained it? And maybe it was just the fact that it was him explaining it because, as I said before, I look up to him. He has a huge impact on my life. Saying queer gives me comfort. It feels less... restrictive I guess, for a lack of better words. I don’t know if this will be /the/ label for me, but that’s not the point. There doesn’t have to be a label for me. I, no one, should have to be pressured into finding a label so that other people have something to call you?? Fuck labels. Fuck people who pressure you into picking one. You be you.

So, in conclusion (honestly I feel like this has all been so incoherent I apologize) I don’t want to hide forever. I don’t. I hope that some day I can have even a fraction of the courage that Dan has to tell the people that I care about who I truly am. And the first step is telling someone.

So, to everyone who sees it here, most of which probably know or don’t care,

I’m bisexual, bitch. And I use the word queer.

It took so much fucking courage for dan to post that video and I have crazy amounts of respect for that man. I’ve said it a thousand times already, but I’m going to say it again. I’m so. Fucking. Proud of him. And I know he’s probably going to get thousands of stories like this one (if he hasn’t gotten that many already) but I’m going to tag him anyway. @danielhowell , you’ve changed my life. You’ve changed millions of people’s of lives for the better. Thank you. Thank you for everything you’ve done.

Tldr; dnp mean everything to me, even though I’ve grown away from them, they have been and always be a big part of who I am and i am so fucking proud of Dan.

[botseeksbot]

sorry 4 a lot lol but spy/heavy/sniper/soldier

im just gonna answer all of them here bc bruce repeated the same characters other people sent me but ty everyone who sent one ily

also read more bc i fucking cant shut up

spy 

favorite thing about them

ghfkldjshkj i have a soft spot for trying dads :pensive: also he’s so fucking funny and i love how he talks ?? he’s such a fucking asshole but also he’s like sweet when he needs to be [like to Miss Pauling in the comics and when Scout was dying. also just the whole thing he says to Scout when he thinks hes dying makes me so fucking emo i fucking love one dad]

least favorite thing about them

ok real i like never get angrier playing in game than when im constantly being backstabbed by spies / my shit it getting sapped [but playing engie makes me so aggressive to begin w gfdghlksdhg] . about his actual character though ? uh . IDK REALLY LKJGHLKSJG 

favorite line

god he’s so fucking funny sometimes but really the whole speech he gives to scout in the comics when scout’s dying . also whatever he tells that baby in the smissmas comic is good . thats a dad !

brOTP

i was gonna try to pick out my fave buddies for him but i was really just listing all of the rest of the mercs glkhfdsjk but if i must limit myself Miss Pauling and Scout [his lesbian daughter and gay son]

OTP

SNIPERSPY ! close second is . literally like everyone else except pyro [and obvs anything deplorable]

nOTP

ok ignoring anything deplorable [including Pyro] . uhhh nothing rly . Spy ships are good

random headcanon

his first name is Léon ! and he’s in stealth abt being trans except to Sniper [obvs], Scout, Medic [Medic knows bc hes . the medic], and Heavy . also he learns tht he actually likes doing “dad” stuff with Scout [and Miss Pauling] through doing stupid shit with both of them . he also enjoys singing [and gets drunk during the holidays to sing holiday songs + play the piano] . also he’s half Japanese + wears colored contacts [bc i’ll die the day i give any of the mercs natural blue eyes]

unpopular opinion

UH idk many opinions about Spy bc i try to avoid most fandom spaces [despite running a discord server kjglhl] but i think . most of the time he’s overhyped [along with the other skinny white characters frm tf2] and theres a lot more interesting characters 

song i associate with them

fuck idk man Love by Of Monsters and Men or Killer Queen by Queen

favorite picture of them

im not looking for anything new ths is just what i have saved .

heavy

favorite thing about them

sweet giant russian man . also a bear [thank god] . also i love his family ?? and he’s just a cool dude ?? what’s not to love GOD I LOVE HEAVY

least favorite thing about them

not enough fan content for him :[

favorite line

he doesnt talk much but tht one line where he’s like “in russia, if hand is sick, you cut of hand, etc” tht ones so funny lkfdshlkjh i love heavy 

brOTP

again literally everyone all the mercs are best friends =__=

OTP

BABEY YOU ALREADY KNOW ITS HEAVYMEDIC

nOTP

again nothing weird [Scout or Pyro and obviously Miss Pauling]

random headcanon

autistic legend . he’s really bad at reading the room / people’s feelings and he feels bad about it sometimes . really bad at displaying emotions too . also in stealth about being trans [only out to Medic and Spy] . he smokes with Spy when he’s stressed and doesn’t drink that often . also one of the neater mercs [he was the oldest sibling !!] and had one of the cleanest rooms on base .

unpopular opinion

heavy is NOT just Medic’s bear boyfriend PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD give him more solo content @ the fandom . also he’s trans and theres like no art of it even tho he’s like . trans man legend.

song i associate with them

lemon boy - cavetown  .  shrug .

favorite picture of them

idk HOW i dont have ANY pics saved of Heavy besides pride icons but here you go 

sniper

favorite thing about them

stinky australian man . he has such creepy voice lines lgkjlkj . what is not to love  ? also sexy . 

least favorite thing about them

stinky . and creepy voice lines gkldhlkjds NO i love sniper sm again what is there not to love

favorite line

god his voice lines are so fucking good . all of them .

brOTP

SNIPER SCOUT BABY ! but really him w the rest of the mercs is good

OTP

SNIPERSPY . but again everyone else is good too . DemoSniper ?? very good .

nOTP

SPEEDINGBULLET . ITS SO FUCKING POPULAR TOO I WANNA DIE

random headcanon

he likes walking around a lot !! cant sit still very well . always smells like the outdoors [though not always in the best way .] can sleep almost anywhere . also not really good at picking up social cues but can wing it . cant socialize for very long periods of time without getting tired . really affectionate to people who know him . can catch any animal with his bare hands . sunglasses make it harder to see [esp in the base] but he wont admit it . really self reliant . has a lot of weird talents he just picked up while he was growing up . also he’s maori bc fuck canon .

unpopular opinion

THAT MAN IS NOT 30 YEARS OLD AND ALSO SPEEDINGBULLET IS SHIT . also like i said abt spy overhyped bc he’s white twink .

song i associate with them

UH vagabonds - misterwives or the wanderer - dion dimucci or rose colored boy - paramore 

favorite picture of them

idk if i have it saved but theres that one sexy panel frm the comic

i just have ths edit but u get it . sexy .

soldier

favorite thing about them

STUPID RACCOON MAN !!!! he’s so fucking funny and i love him so much he’s so sweet .

least favorite thing about them

UH not popular enough and some of his voice lines are dumb

favorite line

literally everything Soldier says is comedy gold esp the comics w Merasmus  

brOTP

again literally anyone

OTP

DEMOSOLDIER !! and also his 2nd boyfriend is Merasmus . soldier has two hands

nOTP

soldier/engie makes me wanna die 

random headcanon

he’s really as dumb as rocks but has a heart of gold . he’s smart in where it counts [THE HEART] . he likes helping people even if he fucks up . he collects different things but eventually gets bored of it and moves onto something else . kinda shy about his appearance ?? hence the helmet . one of the more outspoken mercs, he’s not afraid to speak up if someone needs him to . doesnt understand any of Medic/Engie/Demo’s inventions/work but he admires them for it anyway . a beacon of joy for the base . they all love soldier even if he gets violent accidentally 

unpopular opinion

HELMETPARTY IS NOT GOOD . idk much else about what the fanbase thinks of him

song i associate with them

god im running out of songs frm character playlists i made months ago tht arent tf2 related at all but We All Die Young - The Decemberists or Buzzcut Season - Lorde

favorite picture of them

HE HAS SUCH A GOOD SMILE

pyro - bruce sent me another ask w pyro on it but im lazy so im doing it here

favorite thing about them

LITTLE ARSON BABY !!!! I LOVE PYRO SO MUCH

least favorite thing about them

??????????? idk people hate pyro a lot for gameplay reasons but i could never be angry :]

favorite line

all of pyro’s lines are good esp the ones where it has multiple interpretations 

brOTP

ENGIE !! THATS HIS DAD !! also Scout . and really the rest of the mercs

OTP

none . 

nOTP

really anything except ig Scout . engiepyro ? exceptionally bad imo

random headcanon

the youngest of the mercs !! self conscious about his appearance . looks up to Spy bc MASK BUDDIES . gnc nb trans man [he/they pronouns] . sees engie as a dad figure and uses the muffledness of his speech to call him “dad” sometimes >:] !!  really affectionate . doesnt have many talents besides setting things on fire but willing to learn any . hates talking about his past . has the worst sleep schedule out of the mercs [medic being a close 2nd] . speaking of medic, medic is the only one who knows what he looks like [secret buddies !!] . also calls spy “dad” sometimes .

unpopular opinion

im so fucking sorry i dont know how to play pyro besides wm1 but also i really dont give a shit if other people do it . let people play however they want . 

song i associate with them

little pistol - mother mother / machine - misterwives / lost boy - ruth b 

favorite picture of them

[flamewyrmz]

a late night rant from twitter im putting in one place, because its a trainwreck of several threads there. mostly copy/paste and still not proofread, but a collection of thoughts on gender, sexuality, personal identity, and love and support within the lgbtq community. i do really lay myself bare here so id like to ask that if you disagree or have criticism you do so respectfully and with that in mind, thank you <3 and if this means something to you itd mean the world to me if you shared it

dunno if ive said this here before but like. if you think you might be bi/pan but youre on the fence cos maybe youve never had a crush on a nonfictional guy or get more crushes on guys than on girls and you find yourself tied up in knots like "well im gay but im also attracted to nonbinary people unless theyre mostly woman-aligned but i dont wanna say im bi/pan because then people will think i like girls and like i like them theoretically but--" let go. just say fuck it! im bi/pan! 

try it out and if it doesnt feel right it doesnt feel right and thats fine and in the end no matter what youll have learned a little about yourself. this is actually my advice on any gender/sexuality dilemmas you might be having. go wild. try it out. see how it feels. dont feel like you have to confine yourself to something just because youve stuck with it for some amount of time. 

if youre questioning dive right into the deep end! no matter how it goes youll be a better swimmer in the end. its all not quite rigid and a little fluid anyways (for some more than others obv) so if youre unsure, man... go for it. its ok to backpedal

--

this is important advice to me because ive struggled with it multiple times in the past and this has only recently clicked and i really wish it had sooner. first it was with being... not straight in general. like i was actively dating someone of the same gender and i never considered that that meant, uh, im not straight. always "do you like boys or girl?" "uhhhhhhhhh. uh. UH" 

then with being in the range of aro/ace spect. then with being nonbinary! then with being nb but primarily male. and then goddammit im just a boy. accepting that God I Love Men And Only Men (and with it that i *wasnt* aro or ace in ANY capacity) and then, very recently (like up until a couple months ago. like im p sure this year. not 2017), going back on that and admitting i was bi. it is so so freeing to just say "fuck it" and test those waters!

hell, you find something you resonate with but looks a little silly? go for it! use those bun/buns/bunself pronouns. go with stargender! ace-flux demibiromantic? hell yeah rock that shit! it can always change and you can always decide its not right and go back! h4y dudes

--

all of that especially goes for teens who dont know what the fuck theyre doing. im only 20 yea and barely 20 at that but man i wish id heard this sooner

and please dont take that as me saying "well if youre a lesbian sexuality is fluid and maybe youre actually bi"! hell no. if youre a lesbian and you KNOW youre and lesbian and couldnt ever be anything else then rock on you funky little lesbian! but if you id as a lesbian but are teetering on something like "well im attracted to some fictional and theoretical men but not any real ones and maybe its just compulsory heterosexuality but im not sure and--" dont be afraid to try a different label. its all what feels right to you and theres absolutely no harm

--

people bash on like. """mogai genders""" and nounself pronouns and the split attraction model and all that and like. yeah! those things can hurt people! personally i struggled with the split attraction bit combined with how broadly people define the ace spectrum. it can be used to hurt. and it is used to hurt. sometimes its deliberate, sometimes its not. but the hurt is there. but its not inherently good or bad. 

and yeah, some of it sounds silly. hell, it sounds silly to me sometimes! but to some people hearing that label makes everything click into place, even if just for a little bit, and i take that very seriously. it is one of the best feelings in the world and i want as many lgbtq people (of any age) to experience it. 

for some people it feels right to zoom waaaaaaay in and section it into lots of little bits and for others its "fuck it! i dont know shit! im just queer!" and those are both equally valid (that words been thru 12 garbage disposals but i cant think of a better one) maybe you go back n forth and thats fine too! as long as youre open to it changing or being wrong it cant hurt and, like i said, its one of the best possible feelings to have it click like that

--

as an aside: being bi can *totally* mean "im attracted to men and nonbinary people are long are they arent primarily woman-aligned" or it can mean "im attracted to everyone fuck it" personally? i use bi over pan because i feel like it better encapsulates that i *do* have preferences (i say this all the time but God I Love Men) but ultimately gender doesnt really matter to me cos everyones cute and hot and generally attractive and im not leaving anyone out because im just a little more inclined to kissing boys. but thats me!

--

as Another aside: i do still to some degree identify with uhh this is gonna sound contradictory but agender boy? or more like boy agender? boygender with left none? i just dont personally feel like its worth taking the time to explain over n over. but it used to be, for me, n i dont regret that a single bit! i wouldnt regret that even if i *didnt* still feel that way in any capacity. honestly? 

i dont regret any of the ways ive identified in the past even though feeling stuck and cornered into some got a little harmful to me (and if youve gone through somethin similar and DO regret it and wish youd never heard whatever term you used thats good too. im very strongly advocating for "use whatever labels you want and if it dont fit it dont fit" here but if they did hurt you and youre still hurting about it i understand 100% just dont use it to pull others down. if it concerns you say your piece and let them decide)

--

this is personally a little hard to admit so bear with me here 

honestly? ANY sort of strong identity didnt start developing in me until i was.... 14 or so? and very slowly at that. like gender evened out around 18 and sexuality just a few months ago LMAO. but up until i was a teenager i didnt really feel much of anything re: gender or attraction (and the attraction thing is pretty normal for kids and even teens tbqh!) 

and i just.... didnt really think about it! i had This Name and apparently was a girl and i didnt really get what it was like to BE a girl but thats what people said and i didnt know there were other options so i went with it! the name didnt bother me either (except for when people made jokes about a Certain Historical Figure with the same one. just thinking about that i get tired) 

and when it came time to actually grapple with the whole concept of being *into* people i just kinda... slunk away! no joke until like 10th grade if someone started a rumor that i was dating x or y had a crush on me i would start to avoid them entirely. lost a friend in 4th grade that way but then in hs hed turned into a TOTAL DICK so no loss there. i think part of that was also people making the assumption that i was straight though? big shrug! 

i didnt even realize attraction was a thing i had until i got asked out and just kind of "oh wow??? that sounds so nice??? i feel the same??? yes??" and thats WHY i went thru varying aro/ace labels. cos it unfolded slowly (which again is totally normal if youre a teenager, so dont worry about it if youre going thru that. roll with the punches. and if youre a teen and youve got it figured out? thats totally normal too!) 

and the gender thing was similar once i learned that it was an actual possibility (especially being nb, and ESPECIALLY especially being agender) i slowly just... poked at it until i figured something out (fun fact: what set me off to finally go "fuck it im not a girl at all" was being stuck in an awful hair salon chair while my mom got a haircut that took FOREVERRRRRRRRR and i was having godawful period cramps. like i knew not being a girl wouldnt DO anything about them but i made that decision then n there n didnt look back!) 

and then i kept pokin at it and watching it like the seed id planted finally started to sprout and i realized i didnt actually know what kind of seed it WAS. i guess ive always been very nebulous in those aspects and its just now forming into something solid. like i said, its a little hard to admit and i... dont think ive actually talked about this in this depth before to, like, anyone? 

because the "oh ive always known" narrative is the only one you ever see in popular media and sometimes even from the community itself! and theres nothing wrong with having always known! but theres also nothing wrong with being like me! but i still feel a little anxious talking about it like it somehow means im a sham. 

hell, id even go so far as to say i WAS a girl as a kid! i WAS varying shades of agender and nonbinary and ???? as a teen, and i AM, like, 95% a guy right now! maybe in a few years ill be something else. none of those things contradict each other. things like that can change! its not set in stone (but like i said: for some people it is! or, like, set in slime that you left out for 5 years so now its pretty much a rock but if you really try it still squishes into something else?? none of these things invalidate the others! were all unique). 

i wouldnt say that at any point ive been cis or straight, cos even when i just went with being a girl and stuff it was always a little ??? but, yknow. even if i HAD been those things at some point it wouldnt matter to me? things just are the way they are and were the way they were

--

im making myself really vulnerable here and my thought process is a mess and i ramble and repeat myself and my memory and attention span is like 2 seconds and i dont proofread but. its important i think. i dont have a lot of followers and fewer still thatre active but... that really doesnt matter. 

maybe someone will retweet at least one of these messy, messy threads. maybe link it to a friend. maybe screenshot it and post it on tumblr [note: LMAO YEAH AND ITS YOU DUMBASS], or to keep for themself. if any of my words help anyone out even a little then it matters and honestly? then its the most important thing in the whole danged world. if even one person sees any of the things ive said tonight and it means *anything* to them, even if just "oh, im not alone in this" then ive succeeded here. 

i dont want any of us to ever feel trapped or alone because shit! lifes too fuckin short for that! its goddamn hard being anything but cisgender and straight! sometimes it sucks! like really sucks! there have been so many times ive broken down completely over being trans and felt like, for myself, its the most awful thing in the world. its why prides so important. its why community is so important. 

because even when the pressure of the world brings you down so low you think youll never escape theres something or someone there to take your hand and pull you back up, put you on your feet, and say "i know its hard. and itll get hard again. but i believe in you, and youre strong enough for this, and im here with you through every step". that goes for anyone but especially goes for us. and im not just talking about lgbtq youth here. all of us. which is *why* im laying myself completely bare here. 

most of this stuff? ive either never talked about or only vaguely mentioned. but im putting it out there. because there was a point where i needed it but didnt have it, and even if its just one person, i want to give someone this advice so at least they dont have to deal with the same stuff i did. and if youre reading this? i love you. im here for you. im my dms are always open and if for some reason they arent its almost definitely an accident and if you say something ill reopen them. 

and if youre someone who hates me? maybe even mutually? if it came down to it id let you come to me at your lowest moment, no questions asked, no judgement held, and at the end of it still be the same kind of enemies we were before and never speak again. there are some exceptions of course but honestly ill forgive a lot for someone who needs that kind of support. and if youre one of the people this applies to, i know youll probably never take me up on it. i dont expect you to. i dont expect you to even for a second be comfortable with that idea. thats fine. but if for some reason you ever need it, its there. 

i can count on one hand the ex friends that i wouldnt give that to and thats ONLY because theyve legitimately hurt me and left lasting damage (and for some of them? its mutual. and im sorry for that, regardless of how i feel about your treatment of me im truly sorry for my actions. that probably sounds fake and anyway i digress) 

and if youre a complete stranger? someone who follows me but has never interacted with anything ive posted? a mutual i havent spoken to yet? im here. and im bumbling, and awkward, and not the best at comfort but you can always come to me if you need someone. im only one man and im under a lot of stress but i swear ill do the best i can, even if its only reading and replying 3 days later and even then just listening and offer whatever gentle comfort or reassurance youll accept. 

because thats important to me. thats the impact i want to leave on this world. i dont ever want anyone to feel as small, as scared, as worthless, as alone as i have. im no fighter. im not going to lead any revolutions and hell im too anxious to even go to protests but im here for support. im here to help and heal. and thats important too

--

and if you listened to that? thank you. if you just skimmed? thank you for that too. if you shared it with someone? thank you (so much). and if you dont? thank you anyways, just for the time

just know this: i love you. i dont care who you are, if youre reading this i love you and im behind you 100%. im here if you need it. stay strong, do something that makes you smile if only for a moment. take that leap of faith. dont restrict yourself for even a second

i meant to go to bed at least two hours ago so goodnight <3 be safe, drink some water, if you have any kind of pet give it some love. take care of yourself. youre the most important person in your own world and never forget that, even if you dont think you are. even if theres something or someone you treasure above everything else. dont diminish your own worth! you are alive, and you are here, and theres nothing more important than that, really. the things you love matter more than anything else. hold them close

[emmvhq-blog]

hello everyone !! i’m nat and i’m very excited i found this rp bc i believe my bby emma can fit v well here, i hope so anyway. i’m 20 and i’m a walking trash can, but at least i’m gay so it’s all good ig. if you’d wish to plot pls pls like this or just send me a message !! i’m down to most plots and don’t let my awkwardness fool u i want all them plots ! anyways now onto my bby em under the cut lmao.

ANNE HATHAWAY. 35. CIS FEMALE. SHE/HER. ↷ do you hear rebel rebel, by david bowie? that must be emma hyde. she has been living in san francisco as a veterinarian for thirty-five years. during that time they have earned the reputation of the hedonist. it makes sense you know, they can be bossy and overcritical. but let’s not forget they’re pretty determined and intelligent.

**tw death

*** tw depression

emma was born in san francisco california in 1982. her parents were high school sweethearts who had been together for years, they had her when they were around 26 and were a cute lil fam, everything was perfect but sadly it didn’t last long.

**  tw death; when emma was barely 6 months old her mom passed away, on her way home from work she was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time and was mugged, she tried to fight back which was a bad decision which ultimately led to her premature death.

so ofc her dad was devastated and everything from that on was tough af but he did his best to look after emma. he was working double jobs and would take her with him bc he just wasn’t interested in leaving her with a nanny?? and overall was a great dad tru champ

bc of this growing up emma and her dad were close af, he was her best friend and they were literally always together. he never remarried and would barely ever date, and when he did he’d never introduce his gfs to emma, so she always missed out on a true mother figure which was just sad af

naturally she’d hang out with a bunch of men the whole time, her dad and his friends / coworkers who’d also look after her. so she kinda got into a lot of hobbies and things that were lowkey considered “boyish” back then.

despite this emma was a v girly girl though, and she’d get frustrated af when her dad couldn’t pull off those cool pretty hairstyles for her or when he’d pick out the wrong pair of jeans or shoes lol which happened all the time.

*** tw depression; so yes emma was pretty much her dad’s whole world and was always getting involved in everything she asked. he even coached her soccer team and all lol. bc he was always so upbeat and a playful dad, it wasn’t until she got significantly older that she started realizing her dad actually suffered from depression. ((nowadays she’s constantly checking up on him))

at age 14 she had a big ass crush on one of her teachers and this was when she started figuring out her sexuality, bc she’d always been so close to her dad she didn’t hesitate on coming to him first. at first he thought maybe she was just confused, maybe growing up without any women in her life had something to do with it ??? but sure enough that had nothing to do with it and it was something he learned eventually. it threw him off at first but he never made her feel wrong for it or anything. a+ parenting if u ask me.

her dad had saved enough money to send her to uni, but emma wanted to become a veterinarian which was a little more expensive than he expected, so she offered to work a part time job and help pay for her own studies.

when she was an intern right before graduating, some guys she used to hang with talked her into taking some supplies from the clinic and sell them it. it seemed like an easy way to do money and she really needed it at the time? so it sort of became a thing for her. this went on for a while, even after she was already an established veterinarian and didn’t really need the money anymore ?? it still seemed like a good and easy way to make some extra cash. this stopped a while ago tho after it got to be too much and she didn’t even need it anymore so ya know.

personality wise, she’s kind of a mix between eleanor from the good place and gina from brooklyn 9 9 ?? just a bit anyway. she’s very skillful and smart, mostly because of her dad who taught her a lot of things. she looooves classic cars and even drives one of her own (a 67 ford mustang) and also motorcycles ?? she probably has one idk i haven't made up my mind yet but she's definitely had one in the past at least

loves being a Big Lesbian and that’s like 90% of her whole personality. just very gay

will look good asf in suits and also in pretty dresses and literally anything. basically dressed to kill. a True Vers

grew up an angsty teen in the 90’s so obvs she loves anything from that decade. big fan of alternative rock. leather jacket lesbian, and obvs loves all animals but dogs have a bigger place in her heart.

has a dog, a brown labrador. he’s a Big Boy but he’s her baby. literally her child. his name is remi. 

somE QUIck wc’s; coworkers maybe ?? someone she met at the bar bc she probs goes there often lmao. uhh another Cool Cars enthusiast she can gush about cars with lmao.  clients ig ?? she’ll take care of y'alls pets. maybe childhood friends??. former flings/relationships. and uHhh idk anything else !! 

this got way too long and it’s messy lmao! but yeah thats p much it for now and ily for reading !! Pls come plot w me !!

[sootonthecarpet]

if it's not too much trouble to answer, can I ask what's been the going on with doctor who that's bad? I've seen little bits of it when my parents watch it in the other room but not enough to really get a good sense of it?

heyyy sorry to keep ya waiting on this. i tried to keep this as short as i could, but it’s about five paragraphs long, sorry. it’s not in any way a comprehensive list of problems with the last few seasons, just a quick tour of the moments i shouldve let be my ‘i can’t keep watching after this’ point. i wanted to write it objectively but i got pretty aggro, bc this show that in some part i genuinely adore has been producing unforgivably bigoted content. (it’s kinda a ship of theseus situation, except where the parts of the ship were replaced with worse, shittier, fake-woke parts.) i ask ppl to avoid reblogging this, because i don’t want my words to contribute in any way to online buzz surrounding this show or make anyone want to see it, even if ONLY to hatewatch or criticize.

content warning for misogynoir/antiblackness, racism, bury ur gays, some shit with nazi germany (yeah lol) and just the slightest kiss of antisemitism.

(edit: i seem to be having some problems with the read more cut. it’s there on dash view and when i edit the post, but doesn’t show on some instances of my blog. i can’t fix this but gksfkgls. wanted to at least be overt that i wouldn’t post this kinda long ranty stuff without a cut.)

in the last season where peter capaldi was the doctor, two seasons ago now, he had a new companion, Bill. she was a black lesbian and literally the only reason i started watching doctor who again. i loved her, and i was really glad to see the show moving back towards the more diverse cast of characters that we saw in the late aughts. then the season had a repeated theme of FORCING her to either repress or not feel her emotions. there are two scenes that stand out most to me. in an ep set in like, early 19th century london, she and the doctor are talking to a racist rich white dude who is being super nasty to Bill. the doctor keeps telling her to cool it and not show how angry she is. then HE gets to punch the guy out and knock him to the floor.

this theme of the white man being the only one allowed to get angry was big all season, iirc. then at the end of the season, Bill is turned into a cyberman. they’re usually like. soulless scary automatons, but some characters keep their individuality, which has been explored in a few past seasons, usually leading up to a tragic/heroic death. in Bill’s case, they did this trick with filming where we could see her perspective of herself in some shots–an intensely emotional performance, Bill was completely traumatized and her actress was working her ass off–and in others, just this metal body incapable of expression, scaring people like she was a monster and monotoning these otherwise very emotional statements. it’s an interesting narrative device, but after a whole season of this show putting Bill through all kinds of terrible shit and forcing her not to show her feelings on the matter, it hit me as like. this nauseating exaggeration of how society treats actual black lesbians as monsters and tries to make them bottle up their emotions and especially their justifiable anger. anyway, then Bill died and got to be with her dead girlfriend from her first episode. wow, cool.

idk what made me watch the season after that. i guess i wanted to see the new doctor, and i liked her companions (one was like. a young man with disabling neurological symptoms, tbh even if i’d missed Bill’s season that might have had me back on board). i had plenty of problems with how the season played out, obvs, but nothing was standout horrible to me the way the shit with Bill had been (except maybe the episode that started out like ‘space amazon is a hellhole’ and somehow ended with ‘space amazon was taken advantage of by a broken AI that hurt some people and they didnt fix the infrastructure we explicitly showed harmed their workers but now it’s fine!’ if that sounds weird and heavy handed with an unsatisfying ending, it’s because it was). the new season tho? the OPENING EPISODES OF THE NEW SEASON, THO? it opens with alexa product placement, in an episode about how a fictionalized google was actually run by a black man who had ties to a large number of aliens who had secretly infiltrated our society, altered our dna, and shit like that. so uh, 1. brand war lmao, sellouts etc etc 2. y’all remember those conspiracy theories about jews? and white supremacist beliefs that black people are ruining the world but aren’t smart enough to do it on their own so they must be agents of jewish corruption? HUH. HUH! that’s not even my big problem with the fuckin thing, but it’s FOR SURE a suspicious writing move from a tv show with suuuuch a huge viewership. (and it’s just plain embarrassing for a show with alexa product placement to try to go all scary panopticon tropes specifically @ a google analogue.)

anyway, we run into an old recurring antagonist, the master, a time lord like the doctor. he’s a guy again after having been a woman for a few seasons, and now played by an actor of color. i figure the reasoning at least partly relied on “dude, how fucked up will it be if we force the doctor’s black friend to call a white dude master” but i was immediately afraid it might go to the like…. Righteous White Woman Gets The Better Of Evil Brown Man tropes and oh boy!!!! i tried to be good and give it the benefit of the doubt until i saw something racist but it wasted no time. the doctor got stuck in the past at one point, and met the master, who was currently a military official with the third reich. oh boy. so she asks him why they let him work with them and he explains he’s using a device to psychically disguise himself, they see him as white. (we missed a great chance for him to monologue about how they were willing to bend their morals when they saw how evil he could get or something.) this was awkward enough for me as a viewer, but i wasn’t prepared to go into it, in case there was some tiny shred of nuance somewhere that would make this situation anything but a clusterfuck.

well, the doctor executes a genuinely clever scheme and makes a radio transmission to the brits that she knows won’t reach em, talking about how helpful this officer has been–setting up the master to be falsely outed as a double agent when the nazis intercept it. she tells the master this and then skedaddles, letting him be arrested by his own men. could be a satisfying karmic victory where he presumably gets a military trial and weasels out of his fate, although i don’t like the implications of a white woman punishing a brown man for racism. BUT IT DIDN’T STOP THERE! she disables his psychic filter, causing his men to see his true identity as a man of color–she exposes her oldest frenemy and Basically The Only Time Lord Who’ll Talk To Her to nazi racism when he was ALREADY about to fall into their hands as a prisoner. what could have been a marginally satisfying defeat was instead a kind of emotional horrorshow for me as i had to stop and wonder what kind of hell they’d put him through and why the writers decided that the doctor (who has literally since the show began in like the sixties been set up as an enemy of naziism via allegory and has always been firm in the idea that NOBODY, including literal maneating space monsters, deserves to be treated as less than human) would DO that. IT’S LATER IMPLIED HE ESCAPED FROM A CONCENTRATION CAMP. the narrative DOES NOT allow time for that to sink in before moving on.

i dont have a conclusion 2 this. im just hurt as fuck about it. i hope i gave u the info u were looking for without getting too deep into my personal feelings, but it’s difficult, maybe impossible to be objective about stuff like this.

[courtreadsmostlyfiction]

Best books of 2019

I read 179 books in 2019 (and finished the 179th, The Handmaid’s Tale, on 12/31, so I can watch the series and read The Testaments). This is the most I’ve ever read in one year (in 2018, I read 173). I was sharing this update with my grandmother, and she asked me if my goal was to read as many books as possible. I thought about it for a bit, and it’s not but it is? I told her how I knew I only had so many books I’d get to read in a lifetime, and I probably think about that fact too much. I don’t want to read just for quantity’s sake, yet I know that I find some of the best books because I have an insatiable appetite for reading. Too many books, too little (life)time.

I also read instead of watching TV (generally), and love when I’m reading something that pulls me away from social media. I love reading when Grant is reading next to me (on the couch, in bed, across from me at a restaurant on an introvert date).

And last but not least, books have saved my life before many times, and making time for reading helps keep me sane. 

...now onto our program - my favorite books of the year! This year I also blogged more, if not *regularly*, so some of the books below were suggested before. If you got my Christmas card, some of these might not be surprises, either, since we had the fun idea of listing our family member’s favorite books. Some of mine are different, though, since I had to have that done in early December, and there was so much good reading time left in the year! I went on holiday break on the 17th and had saved a lot of good books for my vacation.

TOP ELEVEN (I wrote about all except the last three -- thanks December reading for those books that made this list! -- in previous posts, so will try to capture in one sentence why you might want to pick it up): 

Good Talk (graphic memoir) - I bought my copy at The Strand, and have bought at least 10 copies to give to friends who are parenting in the age of Trump.

(posting this pic to prove my point, even though I’ll likely get shit from Grant about our Amazon bill)

The Most Fun We Ever Had (literary fiction) - a book with a dysfunctional family (yes, please!) and a character who cusses a lot PLUS a ginkgo biloba tree.

Fleishman Is In Trouble (literary fiction) - I want to reread this, and I rarely reread things; a rare 5-star rating from me that made me think about how I participate in misogyny without even realizing it.

Speak No Evil (literary fiction) - a queer, black immigrant high schooler in DC grapples with his identity.

The Nickel Boys (literary fiction) - a fictionalized story of real history: a disciplinary school in Florida where black boys are sent (and often “disappear”); the ending had me crying. (Also on Obama’s list of his fave reads of 2019)

Red, White & Royal Blue (romance) - more romance with bi relationships and politics, please!

Educated (non-fiction, memoir) - it wasn’t what I expected at all, I couldn’t put it down, and ultimately I think it’s about surviving.

Heads of the Colored People (short stories) - stories (and usually I hate short stories) about black identity that I’m STILL thinking about.

Disappearing Earth (mystery) - this was on so many best of lists (including the NYTimes top TEN for the year), and the hard cover had been sitting on my shelf for two long. I had it first on my read-during-winter-break list. As soon as I read two pages, I was sucked in. Two young sisters disappear in Russia’s Far East, and then the story unfolds, told by the perspectives of folks directly and indirectly connected to the crime. 

All This Could Be Yours (literary fiction) - I requested this at the library before it even had a cover :) because I’m a Jami Attenberg fan. A dysfunctional family’s patriarch is dying, and his son and daughter are called to his bedside, where the whole family grapples with his life of crime and abuse.

Juliet Takes A Breath (YA) - Juliet (Nuyorican lesbian) gets a coveted internship with hippy, white feminist author, and white feminism rears it’s ugly head.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: 

Nothing To See Here (literary fiction) - one time, a guy in Chicago had a job at a newspaper where he was the Biblioracle and he would recommend books to folks who wrote in if you told him favorites and what you read recently. 1) I need that job! and 2) he recommended Kevin Wilson’s The Family Fang to me, and I loved it. I was excited to read this, and it felt like such a real representative of politics and friendship even though people literally burst into flames.

The River (literary fiction / mystery) - in Grant’s top 5 of the year, and one of my favorite Peter Heller books (which is saying something, since I loved The Dog Stars and Celine). Two high school boys go for a graduation trip in the boundary waters, and there’s a brushfire growing and possibly a woman missing.

The Chain (thriller) - I keep picking up thrillers that people swear are the next Gone Girl or even better, and nothing is. This didn’t make my top ten, but if you want a page turner with a twist and also think about the banality of evil and what you might or might not do, try this.

Royal Holiday (romance) - Jasmine Guillory is always on point! I couldn’t even save this for Christmas reading!* A personal stylist gets to go to England to style the Meghan Markle (shout out to Suits!) fictionalized equivalent, and her mom goes along and finds romance. 

Intercepted, Fumbled, Blitzed (romance series) - have you read all of Jasmine Guillory? Pick up Alexa Martin next! It’s funny and captures the nuance of being a football fan or former football fan; the book doesn’t deny how it exploits men of color or the traumatic brain injuries. 

They Called Us Enemy (graphic memoir) - I don’t think that I would have ever picked up a graphic memoir if I didn’t already love Mira Jacobs (see Good Talk, above) and George Takei (LOVE him on facebook) already. Now I might seek them out. It’s George’s story of the Japanese internment camps that America likes to not remember.

Slay (YA) - Q: Do you need a YA version of Ready Player One written by a black woman? A: YES! After all of the racism she experiences in gaming, a black high schooler creates a video game only for black folks. No one knows she’s the creator. When a young kid is killed supposedly due to the game, she faces being revealed and wonders what she created.

The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali (YA) - I couldn’t put this book down; it’s about a young, queer Muslim woman whose parents want to marry her off. It’s never the right time to come out, and when they find out unexpectedly, she’s sent off to Bangladesh.

Heaven, My Home (mystery) - The follow up to Bluebird, Bluebird, and just as wonderful. Black Texas Ranger Darren Matthews is back, and is tasked with finding a missing 9 year-old boy from a white supremacist family.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed (non-fiction) - I asked my therapist if she had read this, but she hadn’t yet. She did tell me that she sees a therapist, though. Reading this (and hearing that) made me feel less alone and less crazy. It’s also pretty funny. (AND you know I don’t like non-fiction!!!)

What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About (non-fiction, essays) 

Southernmost (rural fiction) - did I just make up a genre? Yes! If you liked Plainsong or anything by Kent Haruf (and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, read that instead), I think you’d like this. A rural town, where a preacher decides not to turn his back on a gay couple, and then faces the consequences. I found it thoughtful, nuanced, and real. 

The View from Penthouse B (light fiction) - hmm, can’t stop making up genres! This is witty and well written, and I think is the book equivalent of a warm bath. I loved these sisters who end up living together in an NYC penthouse (the sister who owns it: separated from her scandal-ridden husband and lost her fortune in a Madoff-like ponzi scheme, and the sister who moves in is fairly recently widowed and everyone but her is ready for her to get over it).

Daisy Jones & The Six (historical fiction) - I think this was Grant’s favorite of the year, and it was definitely in the top 5. I loved it, too. It felt like the book version of Almost Famous.

American Spy (spy thriller) - it has so many things I’m looking for in a book all-in-one: excellent writing, fully developed characters, and moving plot. The premise is a black woman in U.S. intelligence during the Cold War, and the book grapples with racism and sexism and patriotism and family. So good!

To Night Owl from Dogfish (middle grade fiction) - I picked this up because Meg Wolitzer is one of the authors (wrote The Interestings) and because I’ve seen it on so many (non-middle grade) lists. It didn’t disappoint! Q: Do you need an LGBTQ Parent Trap-like book in your life (A: Yes, obvs). Pick this one up! I will try to read it with Ox in a year or so.

WHEW!

In 2020, I’m hoping for more 5 star reads (only five in 2019 - Good Talk, Fleishman Is In Trouble, Educated, Speak No Evil, Heads of the Colored People), more mysteries to make this list (bonus if it’s a new series [or new-to-me series] I can get lost in), and that I find the time to paint more book covers.

BONUS MEME

*Gah this meme is me, but this is my blog, so whatevs! Also a lot of these memes, too, which I hadn’t seen before!

[pumpkinspicelexatte]

1 through 65 because I want to study you!

1: Do you have a crush at the moment? Yes I always do lol, but maybe one slightly more than crush rn             

   2:Have you ever been deeply in love? Currently am

   3:Longest relationship you've ever been in? 3.5 years        

   4:Have you ever changed for someone? Bpd mirroring says hi            

   5:How is your relationship with your ex? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH        

   6: Have you ever been cheated on? Technically no but guilted into open relationship       

   7:Have you ever cheated? Nope

   8: Would you date someone who's well known for cheating?  Idk maybe depends on factors             

   9:What's the most important part of a relationship? Trust               

   10:Do you like to be in serious relationships or just flings? I mostly do serious ones lol      

   11 When you are dating someone do you believe in going on "breaks"? idk i never have but i guess it could be helpful              

   12:How many people have you ever hooked up with? I guess it depends on your definition, it implies casual stuff so I guess 2?            

   13: What's one thing you regret saying/doing in a previous relationship? Something stupid and ridiculous and i hate myself for it.

   14:What age do you think is appropriate for kids to start having sex? i have no idea.         

   15: Do you believe in the phrase "age is just a number"? Slightly yes, obvs as long as people are over 18, but older men and younger girls probably problematically hits me as creepy.         

   16:Do you believe in "love at first sight"? Kinda             

   17: Do you believe it's possible to fall in love on the internet? I have totally done this.        

   18:What do you consider a deal breaker? Racism, transphobia bigotry in general.

   19:How do you know it's time to end a relationship? lolsob i never do.          

   20: Are you currently in a relationship? Yeppers with Em :)

   21:Do you think people who have dated can stay friends? if it doesnt end badly.         

   22:Do you think people should date their friends? Go be poly with your friends everyone

   23:How many relationships have you had? 4 irl, 5 online so 9

   24:Do you think love can last forever? forever idk a lifetime yes

   25:Do you believe love can conquer all things? not abusive partners

   26:Would you break up with someone your parents didn't approve of? nope              

   27: f you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice about dating what would it be?You’re a fucking lesbian amy.

   28:Do you think long distance relationships can work? it’s hard but yeah it can          

   29:What do you notice first about another person?Honestly the hair.

   30:Are you straight, bi, gay or pansexual? lesbian              

   31:Would it bother you if your partner suffered from any mental illness?Bother me in a i’m concerned and would try to be mindful of it to help them be happy way? mayb               

   32: Have you ever been in an abusive relationship?All irl bar 1, 1 online was too :/           

   33: Do you want to get married one day? maybe ugh idk bleh this q why   

   34:What do you think about getting your partner's name tattooed?  idk i wouldnt really, a meaningful picture or symbol is more meaningful to be, also what if they change theirname :p             

   35:Could you be in a relationship without sex? Yep         

   36:Are you still a virgin?Nope

   37: What's more important: Looks or personality? personality, but im not gonna lie anf say looks are irrelevant, looks spark that first interest.               

   38: Do you enjoy love films? sometimes havent seen many tbh          

   39:Have you ever given anyone/received roses? yes, and got my first one from em         

   40:Have you ever had a valentine? yes        

   41: What's your imagination of a "perfect date"? I’ve always dreamed of watching a sunset with wine, and then stargazing at night.               

   42:Have you ever read "Romeo & Juliet"? yes problematically idealised it for ages           

   43: What's more important: Your partner or your friends? Both are equally important           

   44:Would you consider yourself "romantic"? Somewhat         

   45:Could you imagine to date one of your current friends? heheheheh after tonight i really could :p         

   46:Have you ever been "friendzoned"? isnt a real thing.        

   47:Which "famous couple" is your favorite? for a straight couple brie bella and daniel bryan are cute         

   48:What's your favorite love song? I guess head over feet by alanis if that counts lol    

   49:Have you ever broken someone's heart? probably          

   50:If you're single, why do you think you are? I’m not        

   51: Would you rather date someone who's rich but a douchebag or someone who's poor but a nice guy? neither, but give me a poor nice girl over any horrible girls anyday

   52:Are you good at giving other people advices regarding dating/ relationships? i certainly give advice i have no idea how good it is.      

   53:Are you jealous of couples when you're single? Yeah i can be           

   54:How important is it to make a relationship official (p.e. on Facebook)?  it’s nice, but FB GET POLY OPTIONS WITHOUT NEEDING CUSTOM CODE.

   55:Would you consider yourself "clingy", "overly attached" or "jealous"?  All of the above lol          

   56: Have you ever "destroyed" a relationship? lolfuck maybe idk uhhhhh  

   57:Do you think it's silly to consider suicide because of a broken heart?Honestly? no ? i’m kinda problematic and think people should be allowed to die for whatever reason whenever they want.              

   58:Are you the "dominant" or the "submissive" part in a relationship? Both in different ways              

   59:ave you ever forgotten important dates like your partner's birthday or your anniversary? Nope

   60:What's your opinion on open relationships? isn’t it basically poly?          

   61:Who's more important: Your partner or your family? partner always, but i have a terrible family lol.         

   62:How do you define "cheating"? I guess anything with anyone else which is outside of relationship terms and agreed behaviours?

   63:Is watching porn while being in a relationship inappropriate? Nope              

   64:Do you think Valentine's Day is overrated? idk but i like appropriating it gayly         

   65:Would you consider yourself a "cuddler"?      lolyes         

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