#hen and karen would be nervous because they don't have any experience with teenagers

[gayhoediaz]

call it childhood trauma or whatever but i'm weak as fuck for storylines where a couple meets an angry teenager and goes "anyway we're your parents now i guess cause no one else seems to be doing it"

bonus points if one half of the couple is like "we're NOT getting involved!" and the other one is like 🥺👉👈

[shadowsandsunset]

I wish nothing but good things for Oliver Stark and Lou Ferrigno Jr.

They gave us such an authentic, gentle, tender experience. I've watched the clip of that kiss several dozen times now.

Oliver, especially, has been amazing in his interviews and social media posts, empathetic and honest and sweet. I don't know his sexuality and I don't speculate in real people's sexualities, but regardless he seems like a true ally. He seems to Get It.

As someone who came out later in life** it really touches my heart what they're doing.

9-1-1 has always seemed to try to do good by their queer characters and I really appreciate that.

Hen and Karen have always been a fantastic and very real feeling example of a wlw relationship.

This show is doing amazing. I wish nothing but good and happy things for the cast and crew who make this happen.

**Under the cut is my coming out/self acceptance story if you're interested.

Tw: repression, self harm, drug use, shitty relationships both familial and romantic.

I tried to come out as a teenager in the early 2000s after I kissed a girl for the first time. It did not go well.

My mother was a complicated woman and she loved me very much, but when I told her I was bi (I prefer pan now but at the time I didn't have that word) she told me it was a phase and that she was disappointed, that she would always love me but that it was wrong in the eyes of God and she couldn't accept it.

Disappointing my mother was worse than her being angry. It felt like my heart was carved out of my chest. I feel like if she had been angry or openly cruel I could have fought back, but her sadness destroyed me. I was 16 then and I continued to live at home until I was 24. I'm in my mid/late 30s now.

So I repressed that part of myself for well over a decade and spent a lot of time depressed and miserable. I self harmed and did A LOT of drugs. I'm clean now except for super occasional weed use. I have a lot of scars from self harm.

My mom died several years ago and it wasn't until after her death that I allowed myself to even think about it, any of it. I was in a relationship with a man for eight years that was loving but he was an alcoholic and I had to walk on eggshells around him because of his mental health struggles; he was emotionally abusive but in a way that was only apparent in hindsight. I thought that my relationship with him was as good as I was going to get. We broke up not long after my mom died.

The only family member I am out to is my older sister, who has been amazing and accepting and loves me completely. Without her support I would be lost.

I have now dated/hooked up with women, men, nb and trans people. I have explored my own gender identity (it's whatever, I don't feel like a woman despite having the female equipment and appearing female in body, I feel pretty masculine but not like a man either, and I don't have strong opinions on pronouns, but I feel like I fail at femininity and masculinity in equal measure so I call myself genderqueer. I don't have any desire to take hormones or have any surgeries, I just want to be a person without having to perform gender).

I live in a conservative small city in the US south and I feel disconnected from the wider queer community. I don't know how to bridge that gap. There is a small queer community here but you can't really be openly out and be safe.

I'll be going to my first pride event this June. I'm excited and terrified because I don't feel like I'm queer enough or The Right Kind of queer, which is such a stupid stress to have, but I don't have many friends to talk about this with and I am hoping to get out there and make some but I'm nervous. I'm socially awkward and kinda weird. I'm also single and trying to mingle, lol.

I like who I am now but it was an incredibly difficult road to get to this place. I'm still on that journey, and maybe I always will be but that's ok. I'm finally myself.