#and a queer childhood

[hornscorns]

জুঁই

Desi LGBT Fest 2023 by @desi-lgbt-fest

Day 10 : They bring me flowers

the first love of my life would bring me flowers like joba (hibiscus) & jui (jasmine) & genda (marygold) from her mother's potted plants. i was never really too careful with them and would either lose them or dispose the soggy flowers before the last school bell. while returning back home, i remember my hands often reaching the end of the pocket of my skirt that once had the flowers in them. id be able to smell them on my fingers. i think liked that i smelled of them the potted plant of jui in my balcony still reminds me of my time with her (sometimes)

tried my hands at pressing some flowers with a sheet of glass. multiple photos that i clicked of the pressed flowers and some shadow pic were overlaid in different angles. cut out some bengali newspaper fonts for the title and a little collage of all local flowers i click photos of mainly on my way to swimming <3

[newlevant]

Preview of Sam Long’s story, drawn by the amazing Cynthia Yuan Cheng! (@cynthiaycheng, cynthiaycheng.com)

Becoming Who We Are Kickstarter ends Dec 14! Preorder now to help us fund the book!

bit.ly/becomingkickstarter

[catgirl-kaiju]

based on a true story

(side note, it's very euphoric drawing my kid self as a girl! i'll have to do more of this!)

Edit: this has a proper image description now, written by @disasterhimbo

thank you very much! ID below the cut and in alt text:

[ID: a comic titled “Weird Girl: a comic by Scout Forester.” It’s full-color and in a cartoon style. It opens with close-ups of each of three children’s faces, all with big eyes and open mouths, observing a praying mantis in awe. An older kid comes up to them and says, “Hey shrimps! Don’t ya know we’re playin’ boys vs. girls right now? Why’re y’all weirdos just sittin’ around? Are y’all scared? Y’all chicken?” He is depicted towering over the younger children as he says this, but in the next panel, he is much less intimidating, just standing across from them on the playground equipment. One of the children, a girl with curly red hair, replies, “Um, we don’t wanna play that. We’re busy.” Another kid says, “We’re watchin’ a prayin’ mantis here, it’s real cool.” The bully, red-faced and sweaty with a red explosive background behind him, yells, “Sh-shut up! I’m big and you’re small, so I can make you play with me!” The redheaded girl looks at him inscrutably.

The next two panels are larger, with a black background. The redheaded girl closes her eyes. When she opens them again, she looks righteously angry, and only her eyes are in color. Next to her is a bust of a dinosaur with lightning bolts striking the dinosaur’s portrait. She says determinedly, “spirit of the pachycephalosaurus.” In a tiny panel, a simply-drawn version of the bully says, “wait, wha-” The last panel is the biggest, and depicts the redheaded girl headbutting the bully and knocking the wind out of him with a comic-book style, all-caps “wham!” The praying mantis is perched on the bars of the playground equipment and the sun is shining behind both kids, giving a dramatic lighting effect. End ID.]

[howlingtothevoid]

Miss you, darling. Miss you so much. I hurt you so much when I was hurting, and it was the same from you to me. I hope you're doing well and I hope you don't ever get near me. I'm sorry for resenting you

[asoftepiloguemylove]

WHAT IF I REALLY WAS SOMEONE ELSE?

Car Seat Headrest What's With You Lately? // I Saw the TV Glow (2024) dir. Jane Schoenbrun // The Front Bottoms Looking Like You Just Woke Up // Joan Tierney The Elektra Complex (via @filmnoirsbian) // I Saw the TV Glow (2024) dir. Jane Schoenbrun // unknown // Kaveh Akbar Forfeiting My Mystique (via @othellho) // I Saw the TV Glow (2024) dir. Jane Schoenbrun // unknown // Louise Glück Otis // I Saw the TV Glow (2024) dir. Jane Schoenbrun // Raymond Carver Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? // I Saw the TV Glow (2024) dir. Jane Schoenbrun

[pityroad]

— Forfeiting My Mystique, Kaveh Akbar, in '100 Queer Poems, an anthology' (2022)

[text ID: Some saints spent their whole childhoods biting their teachers' hands and / sprinkling salt into spider-webs, only to be redeemed by a fluke shock of grace just before death. May I feather into such a swan soon.]

[thefroggiesden]

Turtle! It's watercolor pencil on a watercolor paper artist trading card. I've never drawn this small before and it was kinda hard.

[renatapatata]

as soon as i added a very vague letterbox review for this film some guy from work texted me and it took me .5 seconds to realize he had no idea what the plot was actually about… certified ‘bruh’ moment lads

[yudol-skorbi]

we heard you like metal huh name every metal ever

[sentientsky]

hmmmmgrhhf thinking bout crowley and childhood trauma and abandonment and rage again

[chawliekin]

and if I said that dennis’ insistence on being the breadwinner/provider despite literally being a pampered princess who dgaf about traditional roles of masculinity in every other regard (aside from ego) is because his mom only stayed with/chose frank for his wealth and dennis is highly aware that he’s difficult to love and unable to show his emotions openly so he has to be contributing something to the relationship materially in order to feel like he’s worth staying for… and mac grew up with parents who were extremely ambivalent to him and eachother so he has to overcompensate by proving his worth at every given moment and seeking praise/validation from people (and religious icons) who will never demonstrate the same amount of dedication to him but he has no idea how else to desperately keep himself close to those he loves other than by eroding himself into something they’ll approve of… dear god they’re both exactly what the other needs — someone who can’t and won’t leave them even if they try — and they don’t even see it…

[gor3sigil]

I spent the majority of my life being scared to DEATH about getting older. When I was 10, I listened to a song about growing out of the innocence of childhood and cried for hours. When I was 13, I could have panic attacks and crying fits because I was terrified of not being passionate about music as much if I grew older. I cried when I reached my 20s. And I'm scared shitless about turning 30.

The adults in my life were MISERABLE. I was told almost every day that growing up meant giving up, making sacrifices, having to bury inside everything you ever were as a child and teenager to fit in the mould or you were going to be the scum of society, useless, not worthy of anything.

The adults in my life were traumatized and never did anything to address their traumas. And they openly didn't want to. They were persuading themselves that they were fine or that it wasn't important to heal from the past. But their traumas transpired in everything they did, every decision they made, and the way they treated me.

And look, I'm not old by any means. I'm almost 27. But I spend every day that makes me closer to 30 like a waiting room before my inner death. Like one day I'll wake up and become a zombie and everything I ever loved and was passionnate about will be erased from my mind and heard, only to be replaced by the excruciating burden of responsabilities, chores, work, filling papers and wondering how I ended up living this way.

That's why I left my family. Because I was so sure that they would shove me into the same patterns they were in that I just dropped everything and went away. And the reaction I got in return was "Well, do you think WE'RE happy ? No, but life goes on anyways." I felt my inner child scream in agony. I packed, took a train, never returned.

And thank god I did.

It warms my heart so much when I see peolle here in their 30s still engaging in famdoms, nerdy hobbies, passions like writing, drawing, make music. Know that you're the reason I keep going and am a little less scared of being myself and growing into who I want to become.

[lordcastaway]

they are trying to solve the greatest mystery there is — why some people still think they are straight

[hauntedbythenarrative]

The Myth of Innocence, Louise Glück//Yellowjackets (2021-)

[howlingtothevoid]

Begging God to fix you!

(And other tales about religious trauma)

[sparklemaia]