#autistic pride london

[disabilitypride]

Autistic Pride Flag (London)

This 2015 design by Joseph Redford for Autistic Pride London might be the oldest autism-specific (i.e. not general neurodiversity) flag around. It's been featured in the People's History Museum (you can even take a virtual tour!)

Colour meanings according to the PHM info are: - rainbow infinity to represent how autism comes in many varieties - gold because this colour is associated with autism - green represents being true to your nature - purple is for neurodiversity in general

A vector version is available on Wikimedia Commons.

[iz-the-egoni]

The Other Kind of Rainbow Pride – Part 2

TRIGGER AND CONTENT WARNINGS, and something of a disclaimer: This post contains language, such as "low" and "high" functioing autism/autistic, which is congruent with attitudes at the time. I do not fully condone this lingo but it has a place, especially since I've experienced sides and aspects of autism most modern auties haven't and never will. It also contains reference to institutionalization and allusion to experimentation on vulnerable children.

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Okay, I think it's time for another history lesson for all you ND youngsters out there...

As brought up before I was born in the early 90s in England during a bit of a transitional period for the country. Some parts of it were very up-and-coming and at least looked modern, whereas others stank of the bad-old victorian days. Hospitals and the medical industry were amongst those which very much had that institution-y feel to them. This is exacerbated if you just happened to be a medical minority like I was.

I don't really remember a time before "being aspergic". My mental VHS tape starts with the memory of walking with my family towards the children's hospital it all started in the building looming up over me, then after a bit of static and tracking it shifts to standing in one of those biiiiiiig white-walled pole-windowed rooms you've probably at least heard about. The ones with apparatus hanging from the ceiling and the creamy grey floors a dull shine after years of being scrubbed by janitors. Imagine having that as your very first memory. You probably can't. It's an impossible thing to empathize with unless you've been through anything like it.

So yeah, that was the start of it all for me and my parents. I was and still am an only child, the only bastion for my folks' projected hopes and fears. A lot of my memories consist of being subject to scrutiny in many *many* clinical rooms, getting castigated for not sitting still even though I was only there to be seen not heard. 'cos they don't care about what you think about your own condition when you're... 5, 6, 7, 8, 9... yanno that whole thing where you ask "when did your family/teachers/whoever start respecting you?" well they don't, 'cos no matter the age they can keep on infantalising you for their own sick pleasures. But when you do anything which could be considered disrespectful to THEM? Ho enby, you're in for a world of hurt. Rebel against the system at your own risk.

There were more kids, most usually boys, getting DXed with autism and aspergers back then. However there certainly weren't many special needs classes to deal with all of this. Actually the number exists somewhere between minus 1 and plus 1. The theory was, and to a degree still is, that your kid would go through playgroups, nurseries, pre-school, then be all ready to fully engage with their cohort by the first year in primary school. All those who think anything about such shit like ABA being useless know this is impossible. So it was that a mother and father ex-civil service team, parents of a child with what was then known as "high-functioning autism", put together plans for the very first designated autism-only class group in our borough of London.

It took about a year to get everything together, bolstered by support from other parents with autistic kids of similar ages; my folks were amongst these. Eventually a suitable school within the borough was found and one of the first ever Autism-Only class groups in the world was all ready to enroll for September 1997! Our name was the Rainbow Class, a name chosen to represent autism understood even back then as being a spectrum: low-functioning (LFA) all the way through middle-and-high (MFA and HFA) into Aspergers Syndrome (AS; what my DX is), and includes Educational Behavioural Difficulty (EBD), Oppositional Defiance (ODD), and all autie co-morbities such as ADHD and Dyslexia.

At first the class had 10 people in it. There was Dom (now Iz), making up the AS; Esmail, Jonathan, Matthew, William, and Charlie, making up the HFA; Tony, Rowan, and Oliver, making up the MFA. You may notice something: I'm the only one amongst them with an AS diagnosis. Yeah, it was weird as all samhill and mountain being this something-of-a-chimera, ostensibly normal on the one hand but being ineffably autistic (of my own kind, mind you) on the other footy claw.

The inaugural Rainbow Opportunity Base Class Group – 1997/1998

Top row – Left to Right: Julie(?), Tony, Es, Jonathan, Matthew, ???, Jackie Macey Bottom row – Left to Right: Alicia Rickman, Oliver, Rowan, Charlie, Dom (now Iz), ???, William

You might also notice a couple of things about the above. One: no men! That's because autism back in those days was primarily a maternal/matriarchal concern. Two: "omg! the racial intersectionality! half of y'all aren't even caucasian!" What, were y'all expecting all of us to be whities? It always makes me laugh when people go "oh, they NEVER diagnose PoCcy folks with this stuff". Actually if you think about it like this it starts to make sense: Given the places y'all grew up in were predominantly white then of COURSE you're not going to have very many autistic kids of colour in school if at all. We all grew up in a very ethnically mixed part of London, with Desi-run corner shops and everything. That's why so many of us had Bharatey or Afro-Caribbean ancestry. Heck even I'm of Italiana descent! We had a half-yank within our rank too, it was great! None of us cared about our wonderfully beautiful diverse skin colours and familial cultures, we were just happy to be in a class without meanies and jerks in it.

If there's anything to be said about autistics back then it's that we were a fantastically nonjudgmental lot. Sadly with the recent democratization of the condition that's changing for the worse. In my day we explained diagnoses with behavioral patterns, not behavior with diagnostic criteria. Shame. It rankles me quite as much as modernly autistic folks trying to teach me about my own history. I am that history. I was there when the arcane emblems were being hewn out of the primordial precipitous profile. Everyone I went to school with are your elders, in addition to all the other contemporaneous autie/aspie schoolers. Listen to them, that is if you ever get the chance. You might learn something!

Anyway yes... with the passage of time many passed through our group although our core stayed the same. We also oversaw a transfer to a different school after a year, along with our very own portakabin outbuilding separate from the rest of the school. No longer would we have lunch at different times to other kids, or use their classrooms when they weren't being occupied, sneaking around their schedules. On top of having a minibus come to pick us up from our homes each morning, and dropping us off every evening, we now had our OWN dinner room and playground! Life was pretty sweet, except when we were recessing during breaks and getting things like "SPAZ!" or "RETARD!" shouted at us through the chain-link fence segregating the mainstream kids' part of the back field with ours.

The Rainbow Opportunity Base Class Group – 1999-2001

1st Pic – Left to Right: Harry(?), Rowan, Dom (now Iz), Jonathan, William, Es, ??? 2nd Pic – Left to Right: Harry(?), William, Rebecca, Es, Dom (now Iz)

You might ask what this all has to do with the fisciality of toasted brioche? Well... a lot of my gender journey has been picking out all the werid af bits from my past and more importantly taking a fine-tined fork to myself and how I interact with all my historical experiences. Yanno when I mentioned that I was the only one in my class with AS? Well at some point a girl called Rebecca joined our lot. Her diagnosis was also Aspergers. She was definitively a bit of a tomboy and had some very masc-y mannerisms, in retrospect. Also liked to rat me out to the other teachers whenever we were masquerading in the normie parts of the school and I was being my hyper young self, as I was wont to do back then. Don't get me wrong she could also be a great support and something of a big sister figure in a time and at a place which was often brutal, but that's a double-bladed lightsabre of heterochromacity yanno?

So we finally had a boy and a girl with AS. "But..." I hear you begin "You're an enby!" Yes. That is quite honestly part of the biggest problem alive... It's taken me years and YEARS to get through all the reasoning to solve the null hypothecis in my cranial chasm. Turns out if you're autistic there's a 1 in 20 chance you're gonna be genderqueer in some way. Contending with the fact that there were maybe up to double-10 of us in all through the years it makes perfect sense that at least one of us would be. Yeah but I didn't know that 15 years ago when I started questioning things without any language or context to work from.

That's why I was all like "My bod was routinely Assigned Male At Birth, which is something that’ll bear much significance later so I’ll only bring it up when necessary" in Part The Onest, 'cos it weighs the fucking burden of proof down on you SO much. You couldn't possibly be an enby, 'cos you were the boy with AS. You were part of a sexed set at speshy school as a kid.

Eventually all good things come to an end and so it was no less than half a decade after it all begun everything came to a close. Most of us went to Special Educational Needs programs and bases in local schools, where the support ranged from mediocre at best to outright dreadful at worst. I'd been slowly intergrating into the mainstream classes, which saw near-total intergration during my last year, but it wasn't going well. So I went to a boarding school for secondary-years kids and teens with Aspergers and assorted co-morbidities. That sure was an experience and a double.

The Rainbow Opportunity Base Class Group – 2002/2003

First cluster (> shape): Dom (now Iz), William, Charlie, Es, Kyle Second cluster (< shape): Tony, Harry(?), Matthew, Michael, Rebecca, Rowan, Janet [MoSsie] (New joiners since 97/98 are in italics)

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There. That's the second installation of this ongoing occasional postfest. I can't promise anything like a regular display of Mentally Disabled History or nothing, 'cos living with psychological illnesses is HARD, enban. But yeah... I'll sure try, 'cos this is pretty fun and cathartically relaxing to tap out.

Next time maybe I'll go into the process for statementing whereby you're issued with a Statement for Special Educational Needs, and how that all tied into me getting sent to a boarding school in the muddle of nowhere...

[coffin-flop]

(alt text: in the background is the Disability Pride Flag, in front of that is the book covers of: Out on a Limb; The Luis Ortega Survival Club, True Biz, Blackwater, The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, and The Heart Principal)

It's Disability Pride Month! Here are just a few books I really liked that would be fitting to read this month :)

Out on a Limb by Hannah Bonam-Young - a contemporary romance where a one night stand leads to a pregnancy they decide to navigate together (and both love interests have limb differences)

The Luis Ortega Survival Club by Sonora Reyes - a ya novel about a largely non-speaking autistic teen who's raped by a boy she thought was her friend, who grows a community of people who help one another along a path of revenge and healing

True Biz by Sara Nović - a book about several students and an administrator at River Valley School for the Deaf navigating changes in their lives and their sense of community, and fighting for their autonomy.

Blackwater by Jeannette Arroyo and Ren Graham a YA graphic novel about a badboy teen jock, a quiet boy with an autoimmune disorder, and the spooky things that live in their town. Werewolves and cute romance included.

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White - a YA historical fiction horror which takes place in an alternate 1883 London where violet-eyed mediums (men) commune with spirits under the watchful eye of the Royal Speaker Society. When a trans autistic boy is diagnosed with Veil sickness, a mysterious disease sending violet-eyed women into madness, he's shipped away to Braxton’s Sanitorium and Finishing School, where the ghosts of missing students beg for his help. even tho it's ya, it is horror and the themes are very heavy- check out trigger warnings.

The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang is about Anna, who is facing career burnout in a flakey relationship, embracing an open relationship at her longtime boyfriend's suggestion. Instead of the string of one night stands she planned on, she finds someone who accepts her and helps her understand herself. Their relationship is derailed when a family emergency puts even more weight on Anna's shoulders until she finally has to care for herself. This is a contemporary romance, but the subject matter is pretty heavy and the protagonist experiences a prolonged period of autistic burnout

[madintersexmermaid]

Ya'll. I had a realization earlier today.

Let's start at the beginning: I was watching an interview with Chappell Roan earlier and she was talking about how a conversation with a drag queen named Crayola who opened for her in London made her realize that she was a drag queen:

"A drag queen opened for me in London named Crayola. She was like, 'Oh, you are a drag queen.' And I was like, that was the first time I'd ever been told that. [...] I was just getting ready and, like, my makeup wasn't done yet and I was like, 'Oh, I'm like you. I need to get my makeup and my clothes on and kind of transform.' And she was like, 'Honey, you are a drag queen. You're not just getting makeup on. You're a drag queen.' [...] Like that was very altering. Like that--there was something that switched. I really have taken that on as an identity and it's been very freeing to be like, 'Oh, Chappell Roan is my drag project.' And I think that's also helped me personally to separate it as a job and as like a project."

While that was interesting on its own, it was ultimately this comment in the comments section of the video that grabbed my attention:

"I think what people don't understand is that drag is about gender and about performance and about self transformation, and about hiding yourself and revealing yourself at the same time but 90% of it is about having and being FUN. Making people laugh, and then cry, and then laugh. Being a doctor for the audience's soul."

And then that's when it hit me: drag entertainers parallel clowns, fools, jesters and court jesters. They've each have a history of being fun, funny, witty, silly, campy and light hearted in expression and persona, but having a lot of emotional, intellectual, poetic, social, artistic and political depth to them.

I've always had a fascination with stories and fairy tales that had clowns, fools, jesters, court jesters, etc. at the center of the stories and I've always had a soft spot in my heart for characters that were clowns, fools, jesters, court jesters, and lately the clowncore and jestercore alt fashion, aesthetic and subcultures have become my new favorite hyperfixations, which in turn brought back nostalgic memories of the stories I read growing up and how I've always felt like a jester, a jokester, a clown and a court jester for all of my life, especially given me being autistic and neurodivergent though I feel like it's just now later in life at 30 years old that I'm stepping out of my shell and evolving as an individual and re-embracing the hyper, energetic, outgoing and jokester side of myself that I repressed at some point. (That and I've fully leaned into the fact that I'm unserious, unhinged, witty, quick witted, sarcastic, ruthless and very sardonic with a very dark, twisted, morbid and messed up sense of humor though I'm also a very very analytical melancholic deep thinker, I'm very introspective, philosophical and artistically and poetically inclined, and I also like to make others think, feel and reflect, as well as laugh, and I also like to shock and even anger and tick others off too from time to time, though only if there's a meaningful purpose behind it.) Plus I also realize that my journey as an autistic in having to mask my entire life and my initial irritation with being always seen as comical (though now me embracing that as a natural advantage to my ability to do comedy and bring humor).

Then drag queens are folks I've also had a fascination with and admiration for for a long time because of the campy, colorful, expressive, endearingly over the top and dedicated artistry, the creativity behind the personas and the additional dedication to some of the most ruthless, cutting, fierce and side splittingly funny clapbacks and iconic catchphrases ever.

Which leads to my discovery of a pride flag for intersex drag queens and drag kings which had been calling my name for a long while, and after the interview and YouTube comment I mentioned, and after how much said interview and YouTube made me resonate with claiming drag queen as an identity, I 1000% claim being an intersex drag queen and drag monarch. And after re embracing clowns, fools, jesters, court jesters and embracing the clowncore and jestercore alt fashion, aesthetic and subcultures as a nostalgic part of my life and a newfound autistic hyperfixation along with my discovery of clown-gender and jestergender identity and expression labels, I 1000% embrace being a modern day clown and court jester.

So I'm an intersex/interfemme autistic drag monarch court clown jester! 😊😊♠️♥️🃏👑👑

[painfullymeta]

I wrote this in June of '22 on the tweeters

and I'm going to rescue it because of reasons. The fact it was originally on the tweeters is why the syntax is what it is.

Me and queerness, as inextricable from theology, autism, and occasionally having throw-down arguments with people online:

(Please keep in mind that neurodivergent folks are known for being fucking unable to manage a linear narrative. This isn’t tidy. Life isn’t tidy. Making life look tidy when it isn't is super weird.)

My first Pride, I thought I was straight and cis. (I knew I was acespec but had never encountered terms.)

I was doing a study abroad in London and was invited to Brighton Pride by some friends from alt.polyamory. [waves]

It was unspeakably beautiful. A bright sunny day in a park filled with people who were, at least in that moment, free and unafraid. I wanted to be like that.

I didn’t even know what I was afraid of and I wanted that.

So there’s me, sharing a picnic blanket with a glorious tangled heap of bisexuals, one trans guy who seemed even more shy than me, and the femmest straight guy I’ve ever met, awkward, unknowingly autistic, and basking in this sense of a community that I was not part of.

I saw someone commenting in a discussion thread recently that she’d (just checked pronouns) felt the most welcome at Pride when she thought she was straight, and remembering Brighton makes me wonder.

My second Pride, I still thought I was straight and cis. I was helping staff a local polyamory booth, with a water bottle with a splash of vinegar in it because I am bad at hydration, and it wasn’t magical like Brighton. I don’t know why. It was still good.

Sometimes things are only magical the first time, mind, or magical like that: once you know the Mystery it’s hard to capture the thrill of learning the Mystery. It could’ve been that.

Time passed. I had a lot of ace arguments on usenet, with various people in predictable roles. (“All human interaction is fundamentally erotic, if you don’t perceive that in others, you’re dehumanizing them!” “Have you tried casual sex to get over this problem of yours?”)

I did manage to get somewhere by the point that I could articulate that just because someone is attractive to look at doesn’t mean anything more than “They’d make a nice wall hanging.”

(Years later I learned “demi”, in the context of people mocking it as worthless claptrap.)

Eventually my arguing on the internet migrated to the fringes of the feminist blogosphere, where I learned a lot about TERFs, SWERFs, and KERFs, who made me very tired.

And got me seriously gnawing on questions of identity.

(Thing I didn’t - couldn’t - talk about when it was going around the tweeters, how fucking devastating the Tiller murder was when heavily pregnant with Oldest. Knowing what that man did to balm the wounds of people who were suffering unbelievable pain.)

(Still not really capable of talking about it. I blogged it at the time.)

(He was the one who cared enough to make sure they could have a funeral.)

(Fuck.)

Anyway.

There’s a lot of intensely eggy flailing in that blog, in between snarking at the various flavors of ERF. Processing the massive dysphoria of pregnancy. Wondering if issues with gender were distinct from other forms of ‘I can’t figure out how this social shit works’.

Those people were exhausting, so full of furious categorization. Women Are And Must Be Like This. The Mysteries Of Shared Girlhood. That lot didn’t go in for a lot of The Spiritual Experience Of Menstruation but gods know as a pagan I didn’t need a supplement.

When I talked shared girlhood experiences through the person I had the most in common with was a trans woman.

And I can't separate the sexual violence I’ve experienced from being targeted for being autistic.

(That was also a whole thing: “But that abuser might be a socially awkward autistic guy!” “… what about the socially awkward women?” “They shouldn’t be abusing people either har har har.”)

(Thanks. That’s a big help.)

(I’m just gonna sit here trying to take my social cues from people who are ignoring what’s happening to me, because that’s what I gotta do to survive….)

(Masking sucks. Whatever my gender is it is also autistic.)

I came into the blogworld with “geek as gender” in my back pocket and a sort of complex ambivalence about a lot of conversations, as well as a habit of picking Discordian fights with homophobes in alt.sports on usenet. (Which did get me sent highly photoshopped dick pics.)

(Look, dudes, if you’re going to call people “cocksuckers” on the internet I’m absolutely there to ask you why you think that’s an insult if you like receiving oral sex.)

Anyway I came out of the blogworld with enough experience that I occasionally consider lapsing into a massive clickbait rant entitled, “I was transed by the TERFs.”

They defined “a woman is” at me so hard I realized I couldn’t be one.

Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have figured it out without them.

I don’t have a clean, categorizable experience of gender. I simultaneously had an intense spiritual/physical calling to bear children and found the experience at times so horrifyingly dysphoric that leaving the house was literally unmanageable.

A gay man in a Craft training group asked me if I was aware I had a lot of male energy, which I chalked up to my astral/energetic penis. It made my day and I had no idea why. I’m not sure I even believe in “male energy”.

Someone once told me that I was just butch because something and I spent a while going, “Am I butch? Am I fucking butch? I am pretty sure on the butch/femme axis I am definitely multiplied by i, and possibly ???”

When I stopped thinking of myself as female, I started learning about eyeshadow.

Literally never touched the stuff before aside from getting enthusiastically femmed by a friend of my mother’s for senior prom and this one time a Mary Kay lady came to the house.

The thing about cosmetics is when I was a woman I could do it wrong, and being autistic I was just fucking tired of all the things I was doing wrong, socially, so I included me out.

When I stopped trying to be a woman I could have fun.

(Pretty sure I’m not butch.)

(When I did a clothing purge I kept this one blue dress in case I’m ever man enough to wear it again.)

One of the most surreal days of my pandemic life:

Extra-super-epic dissociated from extensive mammography, got back to the car in my mask and Boston Flowers blaseball cap and the parking lot attendant said “You have a good day, sir” as I left.

My Craft training got hung up on a point of theology and focus at one point. My teacher corrected me and suddenly—suddenly I had a beautiful, intimate relationship with one of the gods.

An explicitly transmasc god.

The seeds sleep in the dark until the season of emergence.

There was also the time I was doing some reading on the nephilim and wound up with a visitation from a transmasc angel.

The nephilim gave weapons to humanity, you know. Swords and cosmetics both.

They’re weapons.

Never forget that the makeup palette is a weapon too.

Some people know that in their bones.

(It’s really all about the copper. Copper alloys, copper pigments, hello I’ve tripped over a Hetharu mystery while I’m trying to articulate something about queerness, thanks Mum.)

(Copper connectivity, copper electromagnetic, the attractive-repulsive powerhouse of life.)

I struggle a lot. I still struggle. I know now what I was afraid of that first Pride, that beautiful day in Brighton, and I am not yet free.

I am not yet legible even to myself.

A while back someone was doing a survey of women in public/online gaming spaces, and it made me angry. Not because it was trans-exclusive - it explicitly called out that anyone who was identifying as a woman was welcome to participate.

But I’m not a woman.

There was no space for me to talk about the experience of being perceived without being—of the Vent suddenly falling silent before the raid and someone whispering, “There are *girls* here,” a little too loud–of the rest of it.

Not without betraying myself.

The complexity of the narrative isn’t *there*. I wasn’t “always a man”, or even “always a pretty boy” (I am better with ‘pretty boy’, I don’t know that ‘man’ is what I am.) I’m a middle-aged whatever-I-am with a history and it’s not clean or tidily genderable—and it doesn’t, looking back, produce any “And now, it all makes sense!”

Okay, the autistic thing did that, but the gender thing? No. It’s always been a giant fucking mess. Best I’ve got is “ah, that’s why my attraction to men felt more like a similarity-thing than a difference-thing, I thought it was just that I only fancy geeks.”

I feel like what I have is an experience that exists, that has broader meaning, this complex interaction in which I have Done As Much Female As I Intend To and am now swirling into the arms of a different god, but my culture does not have words for this.

That is the thing that makes me angry, that this sacred queer liminal “I have been here, and that is not where I live, I am in motion, I am other than you expect” feeling is not something for which there are *words*.

There is no ceremony. There is no ritual.

I could make one, but that is just me, it is not the ceremony of the people who are like me.

I am not alone, but I’m also a white person on stolen land and my people mutilated away our spaces for sacred queerness a long time ago.

Things that have been built are not for me. Or… I cannot feel they are for me and whether that’s that I don’t fit or that neurodivergence makes me presume rejection or what, I don’t know.

I have built so much to house my spirit, but souls are a community work, damnit.

I talked to my minister at church a while back about this, awkwardly, not knowing how to articulate it.

I was glad to do so, to feel safe doing so. He retired, though.

Maybe I’ll join the relevant committee. Ha ha UUjoke.

I wind up muttering about wrasse a lot, helplessly, into the void.

Also, unrelated to personal stuff, but because I cannot resist a factoid, some varieties of slime molds have thirteen sexes (when calculated by mitochondrial inheritance). I believe others have more or less.

I need a new binder. I need to figure out hormones and my medical stew. I need to deal with being afraid of transition, because one thing I have neurodivergently learned is that change is extremely high-risk, even if there is a potential of good in it.

I need a nap.

When I was in my early twenties, I was on the pill, as is not uncommon. It fucked me up in many ways, also as not uncommon.

I got a new formulation that fucked me up much less.

It was a high-testosterone version.

What is a man? (A miserable pile of secrets.)

Someday maybe I will know a thing about this.

(Have at you.) /fin

Oh yeah I should add a note that I have a reasonably large pile of queer-affirming and queer-analysis Christian exegesis because, uh.

Well, I didn’t know why I wanted them when I got them.

Funny how that works.

[ideas-on-paper]

Since this year is the first time I'm experiencing Pride Month as part of the LGBTQIA+ community, I decided to rewatch Pride in celebration.

This movie certainly has a lot of things going for it, from the incredibly entertaining humor, the real bangers of 80s pop and rock songs featured throughout (by artists such as King, Bronski Beat, and Dead or Alive to only name a few) as well as an amazingly talented cast. (Jessica Gunning and Menna Trussler were probably my secret highlights; the fact that Andrew Scott is in it - a wonderful actor whom I've already had the honor of meeting personally - also makes this movie really special to me.)

The story itself has a real-life background, being based on the unique event of an organization of lesbian and gay people teaming up with the National Union of Mineworkers to fight for each other's rights. Back in 1984, homosexuality was still commonly viewed as "unnatural" and "perverse", with hostile sentiments specifically towards gay men increasing due to the emergence of AIDS in the early 80s. 1984 also saw the United Kingdom's miners' strike, during which British miners protested against the closing of coal pits that had been deemed "uneconomic", leading to them being antagonized by the British government, the press and the police. To support the miners and their families, openly gay activist Mark Ashton founded the group Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners to raise donation funds; in return, members of the South Wales mining lodges joined LGSM during the London Pride demonstration of 1985.

Adding yet another layer to ostracized groups supporting each other is the fact that these miners were Welsh. Historically, Wales - like pretty much all other Celtic countries - had to fight against the oppression of its unique culture, upholding its identity despite the English attempts to "civilize" it, and it's only recently that the culture of Celtic nations is receiving more and more attention and appreciation.

This contributes to what is probably the most important takeaway from the movie: At one point of the movie, Mark Ashton says that he thinks it's nonsensical to fight for the rights of gay and lesbian people, but not for the rights of workers or women. Granted, Mark Ashton was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and the Young Communist League (a fact that doesn't get mentioned in the movie), so supporting the workers was, in fact, in his interest, but that doesn't diminish the value of the message: There is no doubt that the issues of LGBTQIA+ people and working-class people are not the same, which in turn are not identical to the issues women are facing. However, no matter what group you belong to, one thing that connects all of us - workers, women, LGBTQIA+ people, people of color, autistic people, disabled people, and all other people who have previously experienced marginalization - is knowing what it's like to be discriminated against, ridiculed or outright excluded from society. And the first step to an inclusive society is to acknowledge the problems of others, to say "your problems may not be my problems, but they are just as valid, and I will support your interests as I would support mine". As David "Dai" Donovan from the National Union of Mineworkers said:

"You have worn our badge, ‘Coal not Dole’, and you know what harassment means, as we do. Now we will pin your badge on us; we will support you. It won’t change overnight, but now 140,000 miners know that there are other causes and other problems. We know about blacks, and gays and nuclear disarmament, and will never be the same."

[disabled-tolkien]

☆ Month of Fic Recs ☆

For each day of September (which is disability pride month in Aotearoa) I'm sharing a Tolkien fanfiction with disabled characters.

☆☆☆☆☆

Day 14/30: The Heistverse by @bodysnatch3r

Fandom: The Hobbit + LOTR

Rating: varying G to E

Disabled character: Thorin (BPD), Frerin (autistic), Elrond (autistic), Gimli (wheelchair user), Thranduil (visual disability and substance abuse disorder), Frodo (PTSD), Dain (amputee)

Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence

Summary: In a world of corrupt policemen, sly government officials and runaway children, those in charge of protecting the world as we know it many times find it hard to protect even themselves from their very own demons.

But as a vicious drake's mysteries unravel and a hacker helping a broken soldier to search for his lost family heirloom sets in motion events no one can predict, an even greater, darker and more dangerous power brews in London's twisted underbelly.

☆☆☆☆☆

[calyxthenerd]

the rest of the world was black and white, but we were in screaming color

“I gotta say, when I found out Marinette was gonna be swamped with a project, I was kinda nervous about going to Pride with her friends when she wasn’t there, but you guys are awesome!” Aurore admitted, twirling around in her white sundress, the lesbian flag tied around her back flowing with the movement

“It’s chill, I almost didn’t come because Mari wasn’t coming either, and then Nino got sick, Marc and Nathaniel holed themselves inside because it’s too sensorially heavy for them, Sabrina and Chloe are in the New York Pride right now, Mylene and Ivan are all the way in the front, leading the protest side of things, you must know where Mireille is better than I do” she smirks “Kim broke his leg last week and Max is with him, since both their parents are busy and he needs help getting around, Felix took Adrien and Kagami to London for Pride because apparently “it’s the best place to experience their first one” so it’s just us, but we’ll have fun anyways!” Alya replied, checking the Bi hearts she got done in the booth behind them and smiling at her “I put the bi in bad bitch” shirt she got on Etsy, she also had on some jeans and sneakers, with a flannel around her waist

“We should split up! I want to see how many hot dogs I can eat in ten minutes!” Alix exclaimed, they had on some regular sneakers and basketball shorts, they also had on a shirt that said “don’t hit on or misgender me unless you want to get decked” and in the bottom, in smaller letters “and not in a kinky way” and a backwards cap with a clock pattern in the aro flag colors, with a nonbinary pin and a they/them pin on it, all commissioned from Marinette

“It would be best to divide ourselves in groups, based on what we’re interested in seeing today” Luka chimed in, he decided to take some notes from his dad’s fashion sense and wear bell bottom leather pants and a jacket, both with a fade of the bi flag colors and lots of sparkles, he had nothing on underneath the jacket, he settled with combat boots for shoes

“Yeah, I really want to check out the artist booths, i promised Nath and Marc that I’d stop by later with something for them, and I want to get some stuff for myself too” Zoe added, she had a black shirt with “I’m pan, I’m autistic and I like to draw, just like our lord and savior Rapunzel” in white, with a picture of Disney’s Rapunzel on the bottom, a white flowy skirt and a jean jacket with the pan flag stitched on the back

“I agree with what Lulu said” Juleka mumbled, she and Rose decided to go in cosplay, because they thought it would be fun, so she tied her hair in space buns and put on a large dress with long sleeves and a black vest with grey stripes and strapped several throwing knifes to her body, no one but Rose and Luka knows where they are

“Yeah!! I really want to see Jagged play later!” Rose had on a pink crop top with long, puff sleeves, and some frills in a darker shade of pink on the collar, and pink Turkish trousers, she also put on a long brown wig in a braid, and some brown contacts

“We’re gonna see it on the best seats anyways, since we have both his kids with us right now” Alix smirked

“Okay, back on the main topic, who wants to do what?” Alya piped in

“I’m taking Jules and Rose to the artist booths, Zoe can come with us?” The older boy looks at her, she nods, grabbing on to his offered arm “so you don’t get swept a way from the crowd” he said and her cheeks flush slightly as the girls start giggling and whispering to themselves, they then head out for their destination

“Cool, now that that’s settled, I’m gonna go record Alix making themself sick by eating so much” the bespectacled girl stated, dragging her pink haired friend away

“I’m gonna go up to the front to interview the activists up there” Aurore says, to no one in particular, since the rest of the group had already left, before setting off

—————————————————————

“Who thinks I can’t eat 30 hot dogs in ten minutes?” Alix hollers, everyone in the immediate vicinity of the hot dog stand, who’s owner happened to be their cousin, that’s the only reason there were 30 hot dogs for them to eat, turns their head, Alya standing off to the side, recording it all

“I bet you can’t!” a teenager in the background challenges, and as the crowd parted, it was revealed to be Kim, on rainbow crutches and an Uranic flag hoodie with basketball shorts, Max sitting on his shoulder, wearing a matching hoodie and an ace bandana around his neck, paired with jeans, reading Radio Silence by Alice Oseman

“Kim-man! You’re here!” Alix runs and almost jumps on him before Max whistles, making them stop, yeah, he pavloved his jocks into stopping when they were about to do something so stupid he couldn’t get them out of the following mess

“‘Lix, he’s got a broken leg, he doesn’t need you to mess with his balance” the young genius chastises

“But you’re sitting on his shoulder?” they frown

“He literally begged me to, and it’s the easiest way to sit down and read a book while keeping an eye on him and not losing him in a crowd, you can get your hot dogs to go and climb on the other one and we can find a better place for it, Alya, I assume you’ll be coming too?” he explained

“Of course! I wouldn’t miss it for the world, we could swing by the Luxembourg Garden to shoot it?” Alya wondered aloud

“Alya, we’re just finding a spot that isn’t crowded and shooting it there” Alix said, having already gotten her hotdogs and climbed on Kim’s other shoulder, and they walked off, with Alya scrambling to follow as she filmed

—————————————————————

“Look Kaka, those earrings are so pretty!!!” Rose tugs her girlfriend along to a stand selling jewelry

“Yes, they’re really pretty, blossom” she follows along

“So Zoe, what kind of thing of art do you like doing?” Luka asks

“I- uhm- I like spray painting, doodling in my sneakers and in the corners of textbooks, but my main thing is acting and play writing, I went to Broadway with my dad every time there was a show on, back in New York” she rambles, flustered, trying not to oggle at his chest

“I bet you look really pretty onsta-“

“Hey look, it’s a whore and a bisexual who doesn’t want to recognize it!” someone yells, from a group that was passing by them, but unfortunately for them, Rose heard it, and she turned on her heels, zeroing on the guy who said it

“I’m sorry, what did you just say?” She narrowed her eyes

“I said, he’s a whore and she’s a bisexual who doesn’t want to admit it, you bimbo” and that’s when Juleka, who was unsheathing one of the, very much real, knives she was carrying, pounced, slashing the guy’s arm with a snarl, after that, it dissolved into chaos, making even Aurore, who was interviewing an activist nearby, turn around and try to stop it

That’s how Alya, together with a very joyful Anarka Couffaine wound up at the police station to pick up the five teens, as Alix got a stomachache from all the hotdogs and Kim and Max had to take her home, Juleka had one of her space buns on her forehead and the other on top of her ear, nursing a few scratches and a bruise in her collarbone, in addition to the bruised knuckles all of them had, Zoe had black eye and a split lip, Luka had some bruises on his ribs, peaking out from under his jacket, Rose had a green looking bruise on her cheekbone, her wig was half falling off and her top was almost torn down the middle, only being held by a thread

And that’s the story of the first time this weird group got arrested together (but definitely not the last) and how Zoe and Luka got together in a holding cell while they were waiting for someone to pick them up, and that became a love story for the ages

[sparkboyproductions]

SparkBoy: Facts & Backstory.

SparkBoy (real name as Dominic Woodhouse) is the main protagonist in the Team Honour Universe He is the founder as well as leader of the superhero team, also given the nickname "king of all heroes" as he has the courage to lead others to battle the forces of evil and fight for justice and world peace.

SparkBoy has a sweet and gentle personality, often gets excited over things that takes his interest such as Formula One, space rocket launches and animals (he loves them). But sometimes, although he's always brave as a superhero, SparkBoy"s negative emotions often gets in the way. He gets nervous at some occasions but really he gets angry, mad or upset when villains do very extreme ways, or call him names that really gets him go berserk. SparkBoy is a Roman Catholic, and still takes words from the bible, hoping he dosen't do anything that's against God and will try his best not let the Devil himself or the seven deadly sins take control of him or his powers. He is viewed to be a great leader to many superheroes, as he not only comes up with plans in battling the supervillains, but make sure his team (his friends) stay together and be not be left behind.

Powers:

The ability to control electricity.

Super speed. As fast as five cheetahs or three race cars put together.

Super amazing strength.

Teleportation.

Lasers out of hands.

Invisibility.

Create force fields.

Can create auras to fly and breathe oxygen when in space or in water.

Weaknesses:

Radiation exposure about up 600%, causing sparks to disintegrate.

Caught in contact with electric machinery such as substations and pylons

Stab wounds in abdomen and back.

Overcharged power being contacted to his body.

Likes:

Cultures of the world.

History of countries and people.

Going into space.

Exploring

Teaching people do good things.

Fighting crime.

Bring world peace.

Protect mother nature.

Help fellow autistic people.

His fellow super-friends

Special holidays, for example: Christmas.

Heavy Metal and Hard Rock Music.

Movies.

Dislikes:

Racism.

Wars

Religious extremism.

Plants and animals going extinct.

The League of Sin.

Losing his family and friends.

Cancer and other diseases.

People not listening.

The Deadly Sins: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy & Pride.

Backstory:

Born in London to a British-Polish family, Dom spent most of his life a peaceful area in Norfolk. He has Asperger's syndrome, a type of autism. His condition may had made suffer multiple difficulties in the past but now he has the ability however to control his condition while he does his best to think positive in life.

It was sorta a mystery of how he got his electric-like superpowers, because all though Dom's childhood and adolescence, he suffered a ruptured ear that often gets infected, but after a successful surgery, he discovered his powers at age 17. During his spare time from studying at West Suffolk College, Dom goes into a nearby forest to practice his powers, including causing some mischief on people who got him mad such as woodsman putting up a fence he disliked. Somehow, without anyone noticing Dom was met by secret agents who run a secret organisation (not run by the government) who are willing to search and recruit beings with superpowers to solve crimes that need to be prevented and prevent wars from happening (not too easy to stop). There, they tested Dom's powers, giving him the name 'SparkBoy' and his Spark-suit, making him a full superhero, when ready.

In 2013, that was the year SparkBoy came to the eyes of the world. After the Boston Marathon Bombing shook the world, Dom (who turned 18) felt he had enough of all these crimes and terrorist attacks, and someone has to to stop all the wrongs of the world. He fought and beaten multiple criminals, earning a mixture of support and dislike from people all over the world. His crime-fighting skills inspired other superheroes to come together and fight crime all together as Team Honour.

[bumblingest-bee]

100% agree. i saw it as a little kid right when it first opened in london and it changed my life. like genuinely it's the reason i'm studying music and pursuing theatre as a career today. i saw myself onstage in matilda and it gave me hope and a sense of power and pride i'd never known before as a lonely autistic girl who loved books. such a beautiful beautiful musical that taught me the power of theatre for the first time.

[londonautisticsstandingtogether]

Happy Pride!

London Autistics Standing Together and OutLAST will be participating in Pride again this year. All community members, friends or family members who wish to march with us are welcome to join us.

Why Is Pride Important?

2019 marks the 50th anniversary since the Stonewall riots and 50 years since homosexuality was partially decriminalized in Canada.

LAST participates in pride both…

[queerautism]

I support kink in pride but I'm still kinda sad that I won't be able to participate in pride events then. I was exposed to hard-core kink as a child and despite nearly 9 yrs of therapy, I still dissociate when I see kink.

I wish people who are uncomfortable with kink weren't all portrayed as anti-kink, swerf, cishet bootlickers. Some of us are just sad that we can't participate in a lot of our community events.

I also wish people who were against kink wouldn't try to kick kink out of pride in general, and instead just try to form their own trauma-safe pride events.

I'm sorry that happened to you, it really wasn't okay and you deserve better. A lot of this depends on location too though - when i was living near london, instead of the main pride event, i went to another smaller one at a park that was family friendly, and way easier for me to deal with as an autistic person. It was just organised online on Facebook iirc. So I'm super in favour of people creating their own auxiliary pride events like this! <3 And it's always a good idea to look into exactly what is happening locally

[residentofthedisc]

Sunglasses in the Dark

I just remembered this thing which I think really sort of shows how unconscious ableism can be.

I went on this really cool course in London and we made a film. I made a lot of friends. Friends were were POC and queer and young and activists in the making. Like, people who really wanted to be good people and help. There was real pride in it, you know? And most of them were incredibly supportive of me and fought for my accommodation. They got lights turned off, they encouraged me to wear my sunglasses and earphones and stim in public. One of them even ran back into an area we weren't allowed in to get my headphones when I forgot them. They really wanted to be inclusive, you know, really? But then we were sitting waiting for another talk. And my friends looked at the guy waiting to speak and saw that he was wearing sunglasses inside, in the dark. And these people, these guys who had worked so hard to make me feel safe and supported, started ripping strips off him. They got quite loud about it. I’m sure he heard them. They made jokes about him being a tryhard and ridiculous and overdramatic because he was wearing sunglasses inside in the dark. And I was sitting beside them. Wearing sunglasses in the dark. I spoke up, of course, said that he might be like me. He could be autistic. He might have some form of photosensitivity. That can happen when you get older, I said, my Mum's like that. Then he gave his talk and early in it, when talking about his life, he told us that he'd had an accident with a light back when film lights were lethal. He was badly burned and his eyes were damaged. So now he wore sunglasses. He made a joke that people treated him differently now. And these guys looked at me, and I'm glad to say they looked ashamed. And that is what I remember whenever people talk big about being allies.

And it is important to remember that I am not immune. I have to catch myself from being racist, ableist, transphobic, all of that. It’s important to be aware of where you fall short, of where you can improve. Were my friends in the wrong? Yes. 

Were they bad people?

No. They weren’t, they just saw sunglasses in the dark and didn’t think about their actions. 

[woluf]

The concept of pride is hilarious in some ways when you live in a town where the literal visibly queerest thing you’ve seen is a small rainbow sticker on a defunct red telephone box or the cursory single charity shop with rainbows raising money for some unspecified lgbtq charity for a few weeks during pride like a capitalist pity party. Truly the ‘no kink at pride’ discourse is a joke when you live somewhere you’re lucky to even come across anyone queer. My town has a population of 26k which to me is not insubstantial having lived places with literally 10 houses, but the lengths city queers go to is extraordinary. I very much stand in solidarity with every lgbtq+ person but also can’t help thinking there’s a deep lacking in support for people who don’t live in cities, especially rural areas; having (again) lived places where its you and idk 10-30 people plus fields it’s the most alienating thing to grow up queer with no semblance of any community except what you may eventually find online. Also probably why the amount of discourse commentary and arguments I see is truly absurd because city gays have no idea. I’ve had London friends in the past incredulous I’d not been to a gay bar but like...where? How? I spent my formative years 5 miles from the nearest bus stop. The closest city to me isn’t really a city (Bath; the abbey makes it a city but really its a big town) and the single gay pub it had - The Bath Tap - closed down about a decade ago and I’m probably an autistic recluse so like hell I want noise and people. Truly! City gays are another breed I’m not fucking with ever.

[ask-spiderglass]

🕸SPIDER-SONA AU: VILLIANS PART 2/???🕸

Wow more Villains? Yes ma’am! This time we’ll focus on the members of the Sinister Six!

Lizard/Martha Connors: Amari’s AP biology teacher, middle aged Florida Woman, and the widowed mother of her teenage son Billy. In 2005, her late husband, Dr. Curt Connors, had been found suspiciously dead off the side of the Everglades Parkway. Leaving behind his life’s research and work on cryptid magic for a Miami based PLEA, Martha would come across classified documents that he had stolen from his workplace detailing a method of accessing cryptid magic. Believing that her beloved husband was murdered by PLEA officers, she decides to avenge his death by using cryptid magic. However, due to her inexperience with magic and the vengeance in her heart, she was turned into vicious humanoid albino alligator. Going into a rampage at sundown, she would kill a couple PLEA officers, regular law enforcement, and anyone else who got in her way. Upon sunrise the following day, she reverted back into a human woman, though the things she did as a monster haunted her. While she wasn’t deemed a suspect, Martha ultimately decides to leave Florida with Billy, moving to New York to become a mild mannered but strict AP teacher in 2010. While she hasn’t since looked at that document for a decade, the gratifying rage of the Lizard beckons her every night, begging to be released once more...

Sandman aka “Sandy”: The Guardian of Coney Island and the unwanted son of a sand elemental and a boogeyman. Born on the beaches of Coney Island in 1880, Sandman grew up loving his home and due his parents being absent from his life, he ended up seeing the humans who visited Coney Island as his own family. For most of his life, he dedicated his life to making Coney Island a safe place for everyone from the shadows, especially the children, protecting the area and it’s patrons from the unseen and malicious. However as the years go by, Sandman began to feel unappreciated and overlooked by the people who protects. While he doesn’t harbor ill will towards all the humans, he feels incredibly upset with how he’s been treated by the people in power who carelessly polluting his environment. While he hasn’t really tapped into his boogeyman abilities in nearly a century, there are times he feels that it is necessary...

Mysterio/Quinlan Beck: The Lich of Broadway. Once a struggling Hollywood starlet and stage magician’s assistant in the 1920s, Quinlan was often overshadowed by her magician boss on the stage. Always feeling resentment towards him for being cruel towards her, she would end up stumbling upon a secret occult society in the underbelly of the glitzy city. Once she managed to convince a member to let her join, she climbed up the social ladder within the society in order to learn more about their teachings on magic. Upon learning a method of achieving immortality, she would make a plan to “deal with” her boss. On one fateful performance, her and boss were performing the Bullet Catch Trick, with Quinlan holding the gun. Unbeknownst to the magician, Quinlan would end up switching the wax bullet out for a real bullet at the last moment before showtime. She would end up shooting him in the lung, killing him in front of a horrified audience. Using her acting chops to manipulate others into thinking that this was nothing more than a tragic accident, she would manage to convince others that she was devastated by his “untimely” death. Once the press died down, she would fake her death, transform herself into a Lich, and start a new “life” on the east side of the country, taking interest in Broadway as the Lich known as Mysterio....

Kraven the Hunter/Sergi Kravinoff: The Patriarch of the Kravinoff Family, an Ex-PLEA Officer, and current Mercenary. Sergi was the son of Russian Aristocrats who fled from St. Petersburg to London during the Bolshevik Revolution. Born in 1957 and raised within an old family of monster hunters with deeply embedded traditions, Kraven grew up taking great pride in his family’s trade, hoping to one day recapture the wealth and glory his family once had. While he was the favored son of his harshly critical father, Kraven never felt like he quite measured up to his dad’s achievements, and he would overcompensate for this by masking it with vicious machismo. Once turning 18, he would begin traveling abroad to seek out opportunities to get more experience with monster hunting, growing more infamous as a hunter as decades passed. Eventually, he would be contacted by an American based PLEA to serve as an enforcement agent. But, due to multiple workplace disagreements and Kraven’s open disapproval of their “modern methods” he would be dishonorably discharged from his position. Even at the age of 63, Kraven still seeks out glory and riches, coming to reside in NYC for merc reasons and to continue his hunt even in the concrete jungle of the city...

Chameleon/Dmitri Smerdyakov: The Illegitimate Member of the Kravinoff Family, Half-Brother to Kraven, and Double Agent. Dmitri was the illegitimate son of Kraven’s father and a Nopperabō woman, born in London in 1962. Often ignored by his father who preferred “his own son” over him, Dmitri spent most of his time as a child honing his shapeshifting skills he got from from his mother’s side. His older brother Sergi used to bully him, mostly consisting of Sergi mocking him for “acting too much like a girl” and for being “too weak to be a real Kravinoff”. Once Sergi began to travel abroad, the two would go their separate ways and lose contact with each other for years. In the meantime, Dmitry decided to use his talent to become a spy, with his career bringing him to various places worldwide. Eventually he would become a double agent spying on a PLEA known as the Avengers and meet with his brother again, becoming a new resident of the supernaturally criminal underworld of NYC...

Dr. Octopus/Dr. Odyssia Octavius: The Lead Cephalopod Biologist of the New York Aquarium, Visiting Marine Science Scholar of Empire State University, and Vessel of an Ancient God. Odyssia Octavius was born in 1989 as an only child raised in a dysfunctional and emotionally abusive household. As a lonely autistic girl, she often found retreat from daily life in academics and her lifelong main special interest in cephalopods. From the day she first visited an aquarium during a field trip in elementary school, she had her sights firmly set on becoming a marine biologist, seeing the beauty and wonder in discovering new species. Eventually she would reach grad school where she would be involved with a fellow grad student, Mary Alice Anders, whom she would begin dating. However, her parents disapproved of the relationship and forced Odyssia to break up her. Odyssia sadly complies, but would eventually cut herself off from her parents after receiving her doctorate. After getting her job as a cephalopod biologist, she would have a fateful encounter during a research expedition where she and her team would discover a strange cephalopod-like entity in the Atlantic Ocean. While her scientists were deeply disturbed by the creature they saw, Odyssia would become enthralled and fascinated with it, managing to capture it and having it housed in the aquarium research center away from public viewing. While studying it, it began to speak to her. Despite the physical and mental toll it took on her to merely behold it, she was fiercely determined to learn more about it, seeing it was awe inspiring rather than horrifying. The eldritch entity, appeased with her dedication, offers her its power and knowledge in exchange for her service. She, in the name of science, accepts...

[ideas-on-paper]

Book review: Adrian Mayfield/Green Flower trilogy Part 1

With Pride Month being over, I want to share my thoughts on a really great LGBTQ+ book I picked up and read during June: the first part of the Adrian Mayfield/Green Flower trilogy by Floortje Zwigtman. (Original Dutch title: "Schijnbewegingen")

The story is about Adrian Mayfield, a young homosexual in Victorian England who grew up in the East End of London.

The first thing that strikes the reader's eye is the unique writing style: The plot is narrated by Adrian in first person, in a blunt, almost coarse manner. This actually gives the book a lot of its charm, and I found myself laughing out loud more than once at the sarcastic, dark humor. It makes Adrian's experiences feel all the more authentic, in addition to painting a wonderfully disgusting picture of the Victorian period's hypocrisy.

The historical setting itself is brought to life by vivid descriptions, which integrate organically into the narrative without feeling long-winded. The story also superbly manages to hit some more serious notes, addressing social issues of Victorian times such as homophobia (both internalized and external), poverty, and the strict social class system. It also takes a sober, by no means saucy look at the male prostitution Adrian eventually finds himself in.

Quite a few historical figures also feature prominently in the novel, including Oscar Wilde, his lover Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas and Aubrey Beardsley, among others. As far as I can tell, the author really did her research and portrayed their personalities with respect to their historical counterparts. In fact, if you didn't know, you couldn't tell which characters are historical and which are fictional - I was surprised to learn that Charles Parker, Alfred Wood, Bob Cliburn and most of the other rent boys actually existed.

As for the fictional characters, my opinions about them range from "love them to bits" to "absolutely insufferable". Augustus Trops, Adrian's first acquaintance from high society, belongs to the latter category - not because of his sexuality, but because his understanding of art, personality and overall attitude are completely at odds with my own. However, that doesn't mean that Trops is a bad character - rather, it's admirable feat on the author's part that he feels exactly like the kind of person I couldn't stand in real life.

In general, I found it quite welcome that the book doesn't make any attempt to dictate which characters you're supposed to like or dislike - all of them have their flaws, and to be frank, most of them are assholes. Still, each of them also has their good moments, even Trops - I guess even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Among the standouts on the positive side was Mary Ann, Adrian's energetic sister whose outgoing, confident personality I couldn't help but smile at. (Fun fact, btw: "Mary-ann" was actually a synonym for a male prostitute in Victorian times.)

My favorites, however, were Imogen and Vincent. Imogen is a tomboyish girl who just can't seem to fit into the role of "refined lady" that was cut out for her, preferring to realize her own creativity by writing. Being a hobby writer myself, I immediately took to her.

Meanwhile, Vincent is totally my spirit animal: Shy, reserved artist who is sort of belittled by his company of (false) friends, not very interested in joining them in their excessive consumption of intoxicating substances, hating parties, more married to his work than anything else and spending months of research poring over every historical book about Palestine just to get David's sandals right for his painting? Yep, that's definitely me. xD (Ngl, the guy was giving me serious autistic vibes at times; also, I'm willing to bet money that he's ace.)

As a fair warning though, the story gets pretty depressing at times. I really felt with Adrian having to deal with the various intricacies of life, and since the first half of 2024 has unfortunately been pretty rough for me, it resonated with me all the more. To share some of my favorite quotes:

"Every time I had managed to find life pleasant by the means of all sorts of tricks, something happened that turned everything into one big mess again."

"From time to time, it was fair for life to seem okay, but I knew from experience: It wouldn't stay that way for long."

"It was such a mess that it was probably true. Life. Just damn life."

However, I think the book actually sort of helped me through my troubles; at the very least, it made me think deeply about my own perspective on art and love.

On a side note, while there is sexual content in the novel, none of it is really explicit, making it a great read even for people who feel uncomfortable/awkward about sex scenes (like me). In fact, I would say the story helped me confirm my own identity as demisexual.

[spoilers]

The sex scene between Trops and Adrian made me feel absolutely nothing - the context was clearly sexual, but it didn't turn me on in the slightest. I simply couldn't get behind their relationship, so it left me completely cold.

However, when Vincent confessed his love to Adrian at the end - how much he suffered from hating himself - I almost broke into tears. I absolutely adore both of them, and I support them with all my heart - they'd make a wonderful pair, IMO.

[spoilers end]

It's a real pity that the language barrier prevents this book from being accessible to a wider audience, since it's only available in Dutch, German, and Danish. (Kind of ironic that such an excellent novel about Victorian England isn't available in English.)

Still, I highly recommend it to anyone who can read it - it's emotional, compelling, and downright disgusting at times. It's exactly like the abyss from Edgar Allan Poe's story referenced in the book: Despite wanting to shrink away, you can't resist the desire to throw yourself into it.