#like if you can't remember a moment when their description of identity was important that feels like part of the problem to me

[regenderate]

i genuinely don’t remember a single moment in which their description of identity was important. maybe when bette was running for mayor? i feel like it was mentioned then. and maybe when pippa was introduced? i think like rosie odonell’s character called herself a dyke? and finley too? i dont remember a moment where it was weird on purpose idk it never felt missing to me

yeah you're right why would characters being lesbians be relevant to a show called the l word

[alicejohnson]

I already made a messy post about this amazing book series here, but because I intend to use this blog as dumping ground for all of my thoughts properly now, I wanted to do an "official review".

Stars: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (In my heart it's a 5-star rating, but the plot and the writing is not THE best)

The review in itself is pretty much spoiler-free, but thoughts and interactions with this post might not be.

What is it about: A found family trope that revolves around a made-up mixed-sex sport called Exy (imagine if lacrosse and hockey had a child). Oh, and all of the college students playing in the team are "troubled children". Also, it is LGBTQ+ :)

Warnings?: All of them. All of the warnings humanly possible. Graphic descriptions of violence, r*pe, child abuse, drug abuse, overdoses, death, self-harm, suicide. Someone made an entire list here. PLEASE do go over it before reading these books.

Writing: It is dialogue-heavy, and kind of cringy in the best way possible. There are times you know there's no one who speaks like that, but at the moment it sounds pretty good. It did get repetitive and some phrases are used multiple times during the entire series to the point of "yes, I know, thank you". But the banter is just immaculate though, characters' interactions are pure gold.

Plot: The story in itself is not entirely realistic, I've heard people compare it to a very good fanfic and I agree, it has mafia elements, cult-like behaviors, and sometimes it is just quite out there in the realm of reality, but it's really compelling and perfectly paced. Also, even when it's not as realistic, everything fits into place and makes sense so it's not annoying or just outright crazy. Take the plot more as a trigger for character development rather than anything else.

And it is actually a funny book. When I was not in pain, I laughed a lot. 10/10 :)

Characters: I love them so much it pains me. The way the author describes and portrays feelings and trauma is incredible. Also, it's VERY CONSISTENT. I can't remember a time I thought "wait, why is X acting like this?" (except when it came to trauma-induced behavior that I will never understand cause I've never lived through it or when I failed to unravel all the characters motivations cause again, they are very complicated people in a complicated environment).

The MC, Neil, is a cinnamon roll, and actually has one of the best arcs I've seen in a book. He grows, learns, he cares so much, and gave me all of the comfort. I understand why all of them are in love with him.

It has good representation, (females kick-ass and are treated equally by the team, I mean the freaking captain is a woman! Loved it) and characters with very different personalities, and almost no one important is completely one-dimensional.

(Andrew is my fucking comfort character and no one can change my mind)

I do recommend it, actually, I believe everyone should read this book and learn about consent, trauma, boundaries, sense of belonging, identity, and a very specific kind of love that I've never seen before.

Thoughts: This is going to be pretty short because I left all of my feelings in that post (Edit: I lied this is long af. lol) I linked at the beginning that made no sense, had lots of grammar mistakes, and typos, but I was just feeling it at the moment.

These characters came to my life to teach me that I should not just bend over for love. That my boundaries - both respecting others and my own- can be an entirely new love language.

We carry so much emotional baggage created by just existing in this fucking world that we start to believe we are unlovable, hoping for the day some magical creature will come and suddenly lift all of the weight from our shoulders. Love will now hold it for us from that moment on till forever, and that's just not true. It's never going to happen. Yes, love keeps us moving, but it won't ever be the solution to our pain.

But, the good thing is that Andrew taught me that, instead, when this magical creature does appear, we can lean on them, work on our issues by ourselves, and the days we can't it's ok too, cause they will be there.

We don't need someone to save us, we need someone who respects our boundaries, our pain, our experiences and still loves us without us needing to be fixed as a condition, without us putting ourselves in uncomfortable situations, without us feeling unlovable for feeling the way we do.

We live in a world where boundaries don't exist anymore, hell, in the middle of the pandemic we even take classes or work in our safe place, so this book reminded me that it's ok to have them and to communicate them to the people around me.

(Thank you Neil for learning with me how to ask for help)

The opposite to The Song of Achilles, these books strip everything out of romance and leave us with the raw horrifying experience of being alive, alone, and terrified and takes it to the maximum amount of trauma and pain.

But, at the same time, it teaches us to love in the middle of all that suffering and that there are good people that are willing to be with us. (Yes, Neil, there are people in the world who are horrible, but there are also others who are not)

Side note: I'm in awe at how much the foster system sucks in the USA. These books also tackle a lot of issues around police incompetence, the State's inability to protect children, social class differences, and the abuse of power authorities use on a regular basis. Chef's kiss.

“He'd come to the Foxhole Court every inch a lie, but his friends made him into someone real.”

[teenagebeautyqueen]

[Image description: a young person holds a mobile phone with a blue case and a paper on the other. the paper has a drawing of an umbrella colored with the trans pride flag. we can only see their upper body. they are looking down and to the left of the image. they're smiling without showing their teeth, and look relaxed. they're wearing a black, loose hoodie and some shorts can be seen at the bottom of the picture. they're also using black nail polish. on the background there is a door and a star wars poster. the other image is a close up of the paper. end ID]

🌈ʜᴇ/ᴛʜᴇʏ🌈

happy trans day of visability to all my fellow trans*!! here is me and my project for peace's day... i personally love it. it's on spanish, but i'll translate it for y'all.

the text on the left says "cada persona que conoces está luchando una batalla de la que no sabes nada. sé amable. siempre", which is the translation of that quote that goes like "every person you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. be kind. always".

the one on the right says "¿qué sentido hay en pelear? ¿por qué insistimos en sabotearnos mutuamente? Todos caminamos por el mismo sendero embarrado, todos nos dirigimos al mismo final." its translation is something like "what's the point on fighting? why do we insist on sabotage each other? we all walk the same muddy path, we are all headed for the same end."

and above the umbrella there's words like "odio", "acoso", "ignorancia" & "discriminación", which mean "hatred", "harassment", "ignorance", and "discrimination".

yeah i'm very subtle.

i've decided to share my story with the world. but i got kinda carried away. it's not s fairy tale, so don't read it if you're sensitive to themes like bullying, mental health issues, and toxic people.

——————————————————————

it's been... one ride of a journey, to say the least. i've said a few times that i started to question my gender around summer. but that's not quite true.

growing up, i never was fond of... anything that i associated with femenine, really. this included, but wasn't limited to, any color that wasn't blue (pink and purple get a special mention, i despised them), flowers, clothes too loose or too tight, shorts if they weren't from some sport, etc. i think you get the idea.

this collided with me being afab (aka a girl for everyone including myself) & neurodivergent. i wanted nothing to do with those things. but society wanted me to love them.

5 yo me said she didn't like Monster High. 5 yo female classmate said i was a weirdo. 7 yo me loved football. 7 yo male classmate said i couldn't play because i was a girl. 9 yo me hyperfixated on minecraft. 9 yo pretty much every classmate called me a geek.

so i stoped trying. for a while, i loved pink, wanted to have rapunzel's hair, watched disney channel, etc. but i already was the weirdo. i remember being three and friends with all of them. i remember playful fights for the toy rocket and reading books with the only other boy who could read, to ourselves, each other, and the whole class. but people grow up, and they change. so yeah, i was bullied. always the last one to be chosen, left alone on the bus rides, on my own at the playground.

and you'll be thinking "that sucks, but pao, how is it related to you being trans?"

you'll see, i didn't have many friends. i was kinda alone until i turned 7. then two new kids came to my class. let's call them eva and john. i made friends with them asap. i loved them so much!! they were my first friends since kindergarden. so i allowed myself to let go. i was already hated by most of my peers. why wouldn't i be myself with those who didn't despise me? (i was 7 when i thought this. 7 years old, and i thought that out of 20 people, 18 hated me. and then people wonder why i've got self-steem issues lmao. i'm tryna make the point that bullying in primary school isn't just some mean kids calling you names. i'm currently in high school and it still has its mark on me. but that's for another moment.)

so yeah. i went "wild". eva has adhd too (noice, right? i mean she has her diagnosis becaise she's primarly hyperactive, while i'm primarly inattentive, but we understood each other way quickier than with neurotypicals– even if i didn't know why yet), and john was kinda shy & corpulent (he wasn't fat, but he didn't look slim either), just like me. so we became friends. and i slowly opened up a little, while still playing my role of "the freak kid". i knew i was seen as that AND as the smart kid. double pressure, double bullying. but i had my small circle. it evolved until my current friend group, in which, god bless, there's a trans girl!! (eva's still on it– she's my best friend and i would die for her, no doubts. john can go fuck himself, the goddamned fascist).

but it ain't that easy. it never is. i'm 14 and afab. shit happens. y'all get it.

my first period happened while i was on a school trip (bad), on a hotel with no pads avaliable (very bad), on another country so i couldn't call my mum unless i had wifi because politics & stuff– and i did not have wifi (really bad). cue a lot of dysphoria (even if i didn't know it was that) + not being able to contact anyone. add the fact that i was the second one to have it, and it was some kind of taboo– it meant the other girls wouldn't leave me alone, and the result is clear: one of my worst panic attacks ever, on a tiny bathroom of some shitty hotel room.

from there it went downhill. my body started to become femenine, and the football short didn't make my hips smaller. my face, my oh so alarged face, suddenly became rounder. puberty hit me not only physically, but emotionally. and if that wasn't enough, we, as a class, were entering what's called here "the turkey age", a.k.a. teenagerhood, where looks become even more important. it didn't take long until i hated my body.

[WARNING: from here, this gets hard. mentions of eating disorders, depressive episodes/thoughts, toxic enviroments, homophobia/transphobia (both internalized and external), anxiety attacks, and thoughts of self-harm]

i thought "it's big, it shouldn't be big, it's fat. besides i don't want it to grow so fast. i want to make it stop growing. how? well, i grow up by eating. no eating=no growing".

yeah. eating disorder. when i think about it, i want to laugh. because it only took a few comments and "jokes" for me to be so angry at myself when i should be mad with them. i'm big. always have been, very likely always will. i've been told that i could make a very good rugby player. i probably would. i shared my cantine table with people (😔). and they wouldn't shut up. "[deadname], the rest wants to eat too!", "look at [deadname], she's gonna eat it all!". things like that. i stoped eating. i would pick up the smallest amount of food i could, even if my stomach was begging me to please eat something. eventually, my mum found out. and she helped me to grow out of it. i sometimes releapse, but never for that long. because i went on a whole year like that. and it sucked.

so, last year. socially anxious neurodivergent girl with several doubts on her sexuality gets to eight grade.

i play basketball. since i was little. i used to enjoy it a lot. we weren't a team– we were a family. loved 'em so much, 1000/10 one of the best things of my life. BOOM. now you're old enough & good enough to be on the "good" team. in the good time there's the cool kids. i am not a cool kid. oops. i was left behind, they all laughed at my back, no one cared about me (except one girl, but she was in the group and was scared to act until almost the end of the year. love her for that tho). i felt like shit. i was too scared to go to train. the sight of a ball scared me, because i couldn't help but think everyone was talking shit about me. we went to a national championship and when they went out to the city, they didn't tell me, then sent a pic of them having fun to the groupchat & delated it saying "oops it was for the other group". i had several breakdowns on my room that night. it was such a bad experience i can't even hear the name of the city without tearing up.

not to count that a new girl decided to make my life a living hell. now i know how to deal with her, but then i didn't, and i ended up curled up on the bathroom floor crying.

all while i discovered my own identity. i was so scared of being non-straight i hated myself for it.

it was a tough year and there were times where i would wish i'd never existed. it was too much for me to deal with, and i was just miserable. but i got out of it. remember the trans girl i mentioned? she's closeted, and she told me just this october. but even before that, she was my friend. she bought a new life to it all, a fresh one. i owe her a lot, including accepting myself as i am.

she is here, despite everything.

i am here, despite everything.

you are all here, despite everything.

some of us aren't here. they are the ones we remember. each one of us has our history. i shared mine with you all. it is not an easy road. you know that. it's hard, and it's tough, and it's difficult, and it's unfair.

but we are here, despite everything. the ones who made it, the ones who didn't, the ones who are halfway through it, and the ones who are to come.

we are here. we are trans. and we won't be erased.