Something I realized (which was obvious to me subconsciously) is that... The family that vehemently didn't accept me when I first came out but now do accept me are still the same family that I am most unwilling to be open about things I feel protective over.
I remember that my dad reacted so poorly, not to my coming out, but to my transition specifically that my therapist was the one to ask if I wanted to put it on my file that I wanted nothing to ever be shared with him about my health after I broke down multiple times due to my anxiety that I would never transition. While there are and were protections for me, I was incredibly fearful at the time because I was a minor, and I was so worried that he would have prevented my transition that I couldn't have said for certain what (if any) lengths he would have gone to to prevent that.
He's grown a lot as a person, and made some commendable strides. But he didn't find out from me when I medically transitioned the second I turned eighteen, and I think that's among the things that truly made him realize the scope of the issue.
I'm not here to guilt trip parents, guardians, or other members responsible for the care of the children or teens or young adults in their care.... but this is a cautionary tale. You aren't saving the people in your care when you do this, you simply reinforce an idea that you will never care for them, never want them as they are, would rather them be shoved away.
When you give people reasons to be secretive, they will behave secretively. When you give people reasons to doubt their safety around you, they will become sneaky, defensive, and withdrawn. When you give people reasons to doubt that you value their life, they will believe that you don't care if they live or not.
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It's so interesting and so exceedingly frustrating how agab is being utilized now within the queer community as a way to isolate and sort nonbinary and genderqueer folks into binary boxes that determine their moral purity levels, and their authority to do and write and exist.
The way nonbinary writers are being put under accusation of fetishizing gay men while their AGAB is continually brought up in a way that feels like queer-space-approved misgendering.
The way feminist circles that are supposedly trans-inclusive will use the word AFAB in a way that implicitly but intentionally isolates nonbinary people who aren't AFAB from joining. It's for women*.
The way the language is already flawed and leaves out intersex folks from the conversations while focusing on a binary of sex that isn't truthful.
The constant obsessing over whether someone is AFAB or AMAB and whether or not that gives them the privilege to join, do, write, or be present in certain spaces really really concerns me. How are we supposed to dismantle a binary system of gender if we can't even move past forcibly assigning and focusing on people's genders assigned at birth?
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whats crime and cricket? ur fanart looks interesting
ah thank u! 'crime and cricket' is the fandom tag for the Raffles series by E.W. Hornung, since the character name is difficult to use as a tag lmao
It's mostly short stories with one novel, all narrated by Bunny who is the old school friend turned partner and accomplice of AJ Raffles, a gentleman thief who uses his fame as an amateur cricket player as a cover for his secret life as a burglar! They were sort of based on Holmes and Watson if they were criminals instead of detectives, but there's a lot more to them than that and they're really compelling stories that i have become completely obsessed with
if you wanna read any, Raffles Redux is my go-to as its full of annotations with extra context and illustrations etc, but the books are all public domain so they're easy enough to find online copies of. I would definitely reccomend reading these in order since theyre pretty serialised - but if you're not sure, the first 'The Ides Of March' and third 'Gentlemen Vs Players' are good intro stories for getting the feel of them
Also, im only about half-way through the first story but i am obligated to boost my own comic book adaptation ive been working on >:)
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there are a lot of reasons i'm really, really impressed by how well sdmi portrayed the dynamic of an abusive relationship with pericles and ricky, and one of the big ones is how accurately they show what it looks like when abuse starts to escalate.
the extent of that is yet another thing that'll take a longpost of its own to go into, because it spans like.... the entire arc of their relationship in the show. but one thing that stands out to me in particular is their portrayal of the massive red flag that is a partner trotting out bigoted behavior against a group you're in. especially insults, and especially directed right at you.
this show has a LOT of fatphobia, jesus christ does it ever, and there are certainly some fatphobic tropes going on with ricky; but i've always been surprised and impressed by how many of the nastier ones they avoided, especially considering his role in the story and what his arc is about.
he is a major, nuanced character whose trauma is treated with full weight and sincerity. it's implied that his body type changed the way it did due to the trauma he went through when he was younger, and the ensuing mental illness, which is a pretty realistic experience for a lot of people. the things that happen to him are played for full tragedy and horror, when it would have been so, so easy for them to make light of it because Tee Hee Fat Guy and Tee Hee Male Abuse Victims Funnee. despite how his whole thing involves corporate greed, they don't go the route of portraying him as Gluttonous and Hedonistic; if anything he is very obviously not using all that money for even basic physical self-care, and the only time we ever see him eating anything it's when he's drinking wine grape juice with pericles. which, like, there's issues to be unpacked with that too, but jesus christ it's an improvement over what usually happens with characters like him.
he's a fat queer man who isn't degendered or made feminine in a mocking and/or predatory way. (there's nothing wrong with feminine fat queer men and they need more non-shitty rep, please and thank you god, but there is a lot of nastiness in the tropes they're often used for in mainstream media, and one of those tropes is when people consider 'fat queer man' and 'masc' to be oxymorons.) no one ever once calls him ugly; if anything multiple people in his life think he's attractive and desirable, for better or for worse. no one body-shames him. and no one ever mentions his weight.
except pericles.
'The Horrible Herd' and 'The Devouring' are two halves of a whole here, re: escalation of abuse. 'Devouring' is when the abuser goes full mask off and shit hits the fan; 'Horrible Herd' is the wind-up before the punch. HH is when ricky realizes things are getting Bad and he needs to put a stop to this now, and Devouring shows what happens when he tries, because by the point where it's gotten bad enough to give him a wakeup call it's already too late. it's how abusive relationships tend to go, and it's chillingly accurate.
and what's one of the things pericles says during Horrible Herd when that punch is winding up? something no one's ever said before now, including him? 'you pudding-faced dummkopf.'
he body-shames him. he insults his weight, and that's a major turning point. bigotry is something that's often there to some degree from the start, but not always, because some abusers are good at hiding things like that until they're confident they've got you where they want you. the message with ricky and pericles is loud and clear: when this happens, the walls are dripping blood. get out.
(if you can. and be careful when you try.)
when this show is good, it is really, truly good. god damn.
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hey how the fuck are you people finding people to date
and how the fuck am i supposed to figure out if im demiromantic or not if i cant find anyone to date???? where are all the hot gays* at????
*all gays are hot. hot in this context means open to dating
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