#queer family times

[vaspider]

Literally me about 2 minutes ago before I ordered this.

I just looked up at @apocalycious with big eyes and said "it's oooonly eighteen dollars!"

(she said I could order it)

[apollos-boyfriend]

so my younger cousin is flying in to visit from brazil on sunday, and will be staying here for like, the entirety of july. which, don't get me wrong, is super cool! i love the kid! but it felt like a super weird move, considering his parents are the SUPER strict and borderline helicopter parents. even the smallest prank/roughousing with him/his little sister would lead to a strict talking to from his parents, he couldn't ever do anything without their clear permission, that sort of stuff. so letting him fly at alone at 16 to a whole different country and stay there for a whole month seemed WILDLY out of character. additionally, it just felt like a super last-minute trip. it's not like we have any plans to do when he gets here, and the flight itself and stuff only got booked like, midway through june.

and i was talking to my mom about it, kind of trying to nudge some answers out of her, and after a while she went, "yeah, i think they're sending him over here to get away for his boyfriend. see if the distance breaks them off." which, first of all, surprised me because last i checked, they didn't KNOW he had a boyfriend. literally everyone in the family did EXCEPT for them because while that entire side of the family being semi-conservative, his parents (mostly his dad) are EXTREMELY old-fashioned. so clearly something already went wrong. and considering the only reason the rest of the family knew is because one person found out and it spread like wildfire, i have a sneaking suspicion he wasn't the one to tell them, either.

and second of all. they're sending him HERE. to try to make him forget his homosexuality. i couldn't do anything but just wordlessly gesture to the multiple pride flags scattered around my room, then to myself, because really? he has like two other cousins in the us and they're sending him to me? honey i am about to introduce this kid to queer scenes you have never even heard of. he'll be returning home with labels only shrimp can perceive

[aunmenosheteroenespanol]

2.12 Chimney Begins - 2.09 Hen Begins - 2.16 Bobby Begins Again - 7.04 Buck, Bothered and Bewildered

Tommy's family arc

[mirrorcatcreditcard]

I know that the fandom is mostly female because it's an otome game, but are there any queers in the fandom? And Obey Me is comforting to you?

I started the game before I knew about my identity and while I was still a minor trying to deal with the whole repressed, Christian BS + religious trauma, and Obey Me really helped me accept myself and feel alive. I mean, they're just some demons (+ plus non-demoms) who do not have any care for sexuality or a gender presentation and are so unhinged themselves that they would accept any type of MC that's thrown their way. They might be written for a "female gaze," but the fandom is completely accepting and very nice to people regardless of how you present or identify.

So, I'm curious if any queers (yes, it can be gender, sexuality, romantic preference, or a mixture of the above) find comfort in this game too?

[bits-and-pieces-of]

She’s his sidekick, he’s her dad, she’s his mentor, he’s her best friend. They’ve known each other for a few days, they’ve spent their whole lives looking for each other, he sees her, she understands him, they’re flawed, they’re perfect, they don’t need anyone, but it’s the two of them choosing each other against the world that betrayed them.

[thefawnfallacy]

I know it’s generally in good fun when making jokes about how young fujoshi in the early 2000s-2010s talked about queer couples (i.e. “yuri couple, yaoi couple, i see no difference love is love” or “if you police people’s identities you are not yaoiful at all”) but if you look at it from the lens of acknowledging that this, for many of them, is their first time even realising being queer was an option, it’s a very interesting study in realising that this is an attempt at inclusion from the perspective of someone who may not have ever heard of things like gender identity or sexuality beyond “boy” and “girl”.

[bri-cheeses]

personally I think that all queer books should have a “special edition” with a subtle cover (and a code name if it’s necessary) for all of the people in homophobic areas

[marzipanandminutiae]

Museum Exhibit I'd Like To Curate:

"Never Married; Best Friends- Erasure, Discovery, and the Work of Queer Historians"

(shocker: we're not all straight/cis and we're not all out to erase queer history at every turn. never have been. of course, that doesn't mean queer historians have never been complicit in erasure, for safety reasons or personal bias against another letter of the acronym or what have you. I'd love to explore that- and our contributions to the queer history field -in greater depth)

[erinwantstowrite]

Hi I know you mentioned you being aroace just a couple days ago and I was wondering if maybe you could explain more in depth about how you found out your sexuality and what not? If it’s not too personal…

I’ve always sorta struggled since I haven’t had any crushes as a kid except for maybe one and that’s just cause ppl kept asking me who mine was… so I don’t even think it was a legit crush?? So not only do I not know who (looks,gender, that sorta thing) I would like … am I ever gonna like someone to even find that out???

I know you said Superman on the new trailer was hot ahaha so do you still experience that sort of physical attraction? I’ve been told when people question which gender they like, to pick which one looks more attractive to them but I’ve never really experienced that sort of physical attraction so I can’t tell that way either…

I think any thought of a crush forming was more towards their personality as well. Looks I guess are more of a second thought I think..? Even then I can’t tell if this is “you’re such an awesome person I wanna be besties with you” really strong feeling or an actual “I wanna date this person” feeling.

The only person I’ve gotten really close to discerning it as officially crush was someone from work who was older by a good amount… which can be/is pretty weird.. Lots of people my age are just a little too crazy for me.. I guess??? Idk and even now I can’t tell if that was just “glad to have someone as a friend sorta thing. I’m really sorry if this is too personal and u don’t have to respond to the ask directly either I was just hoping on maybe some advice for some clarity if possible… as I get older and realize I’ve never dated/had that sorta infatuation it feels so excluding at times.

Also I am hoping for a feast AND desert with this “‘soon’ but still haven’t posted it two days later” chapter plz and thank you

I hope this made sense and wasn’t too invasive!! :(

when i was younger, i was reading about this kind of thing online and i didn't find anyone like me. i think it's about time that i come full circle and make my own post. i've got like half of my frontal lobe developed and i've been figuring out a lot of things about myself these past couple of years, and there might be someone out there who needs to hear this (´-`ʃ♡ƪ) so if anyone is interested, below the cut is a very long talk about how i figured some stuff out

when it came to my sexuality, i only started considering it when i was in middle school, going into high school. (which would be when i was 12-13). that's when a lot of my friends started having crushes on our classmates and i realized they were being serious when they said they had crushes on people. they had figured out their identities as being a lesbian or bisexual, and they had relationships. (or as close as you can get to that in middle school).

i started to panic and think that i was lagging behind. and i really started to repress my feelings about dating people and romance and what that would entail. i found out through the internet about being pansexual. at the time i thought "oh, they have the same attraction for everyone!" and i slapped it on myself because i thought it would fix everything. i even came out to my parents as pansexual and for a while i left it at that.

i had an idea of romance. i shipped characters in media and i knew that my parents really loved each other. there were a lot of examples for love in my life that weren't the best, but having two parents that actually did care about each other made me want that for myself in the future...

but that's in the future. i personally didn't think about it much because we were still kids. for a while i didn't think anyone else was being serious, that they were just trying it out quicker than i was ready for. it was a strange feeling. i guess i still believed we were playing make believe, or copying what we saw on TV or with our parents. often when my friends asked me who i had a crush on and i felt pressured, i would pick someone that i thought i wouldn't mind dating if i had to. someone would be "interested" in me and i would say "okay" because i felt like that was part of this game we all seemed to be playing. i've had a few "boyfriends" over the years that got people off my back when i had them. in elementary school it was this boy that didn't pick on me, another boy that was my parents' friend's kid. in middle school i had an online boyfriend and a couple of "crushes" on friends of friends, someone just a little far out of my circle that didn't shake anything up. my friends would help me get together with a person and they'd seem so excited for me, so i just went along with it.

then it hit me that they weren't doing it just to do it, or playing pretend. they actually felt something when they were interacting with their crushes. i started to reread books and rewatch media and really grasp what they were saying. the feeling of having butterflies inside them when they talked to each other, blushing when something was said? i thought that was about a general anxiety people get when talking to other people. but there was always something more to it that i just... didn't get. no matter how hard i tried, i didn't understand what that something was.

then started coming the pressure to do the same, to fit in. that's why i accepted a label of pansexual. it was "strange" but at least it didn't feel "broken." i could deal with people telling me that i was wrong for liking more than just boys. but to say that there was no one on the table gave me an anxiety i'd never felt before. like i would be letting down my family, that the entire course of my life would shift. i wouldn't walk down the aisle because there would be no wedding. my parents wouldn't have grandkids. my friends would go on to have lives completely separate from mine, we'd have nothing in common anymore. so i stuffed it all down and made myself believe that this wasn't who i was.

it really mixed me up because i did have a couple of "crushes" that felt real. there were a few girls i was friends with, there were boys in my classes (usually class clowns...) that i'd get excited to see every day. when i thought about dating them, it felt nice. any other time when i thought about dating someone, i'd get this awful feeling in my gut that i later realized was dread. i was fully convinced it was different from all the other times. that "different" that i didn't understand before.

it was different! but not for the reason i thought it was. those people made me laugh, they listened and remembered things about me (that i didn't get much of during that time of my life), and most of all: they didn't like me back.

there were literally no expectations in their eyes for things to go away from friendship. and i think that's what made me like them, but not as a crush. it was relief. there was always an expectation for other people (specifically boys) that if we were friends, things would stray from friendship at some point. not with these people. that relief, combined with all the other good feelings they gave me (class clowns...) made it so much easier to fall into a friendship that i didn't have with other people. and i was in denial for so long that i thought of those friendships as crushes because they were different from other friendships.

there were a couple of times that i got close to having to face my sexuality and it felt like a gut punch. there were a couple of people i was friends with (that i didn't have crushes on) that i had previously thought "if i had to pick someone" about. but when they actually told me their feelings, i would run away. in one case, i literally ran away. i changed my entire routine so that i wouldn't have to face them. and i'm a creature of habit, so of course i took that step back and asked myself why i was having such a strong reaction. my friends didn't understand why i was so panicked about these confessions. especially because before, i "liked" people and had no problem with it.

part of my feelings were that no one would actually like me (which only furthered me not wanting/not considering romance). some of the confessions that i got were fake/pranks, and it would really mess with my head. i wasn't skinny, i knew i was strange and awkward, and i could be very brash and stubborn. i had a weird sense of humor and i missed social ques. i got a lot of "you should be a lawyer" and complaints of being bossy when i was growing up and i always knew they really meant "you're a bitch." i wouldn't understand why i felt so othered from my peers like that until i learned i was possibly autistic, and i only found that out a couple years ago. combined with being plus sized and not conventionally attractive, i didn't get much breathing room. if i wasn't perfectly calm all the time, if i didn't force myself to be overly nice to people, and if i wasn't funny, i'd get told i was "draining" to be around.

i did a lot to try and fit in. i kept my hair long because people would compliment it, i tried to wear skirts instead of pants/shorts, i'd wear comfy clothes and the like so i didn't look like i was trying too hard. a lot of my personality was forced and i was the one who was being drained instead. i ended up having to get a radar for when people were just messing with me. and so when a real confession happened, there was a combination of anxiety about if they were faking or not, doubt that they could actually like me, and then a deep rooted fear about if they were being serious.

instead of the relief i should have felt when i learned it was a real confession, i still felt scared. it would be the same anxiety as if someone asked me to get on the world's tallest roller coaster in the world and i had just seen a chunk of the roller coaster fall in front of me.

that part made it even harder to come to grips with my sexuality. i thought if i gave up on being a hopeless romantic, i'd be giving in to all the times someone told me "I just don't see you dating anyone." being unlovable was a death sentence in my eyes. and it didn't help that i've lived in the south all my life. i was already strange and going to hell for a multitude of things. turning around and telling them that i was going against every expectation set of me to get married and have kids by 24????

(i should clarify that my parents had never been the ones to put this in my mind. when i came out as pansexual, they had only been confused about what the hell that was. the rest of their reaction was "i mean... we could already sort of tell." and while my parents had hopes for my future, i knew deep down that while they'd be a little sad not to have those expected memories with me, they wouldn't turn me away. and they would very likely be happy to create a whole different set of memories with me.)

i have my current friends to thank for me coming to terms with who i am. by the time i was in college i had started to question everything. my middle school friend group had been majority queer but we had gone to different schools or just faded apart. in high school, a majority of my time was spent in band. and while i was one of those people who had friends in a variety of friend groups, the closest friends i had were the people in my section that i sat next to every day. and in the present time, only a couple of them remained straight churchgoers. even though they've changed now just like i have, during high school i was a different story.

going to college opened me up to a far different experience. by this point i'd shifted from pansexual to bisexual. my college experience wasn't... ideal. or really healthy in any aspect. but meeting these people did dislodge the mindset i'd had for most of my life. and my current friends have changed my life. the fear that i had about being aromantic has now become the relief i needed my entire life. it doesn't feel broken, or wrong, or strange. sometimes i do feel sad about it, or question if this is really the case. maybe one day i'll meet someone who shows me that "different" feeling i'd been waiting to understand. but i grew past the societal expectation of needing a partner to be fulfilled in life and i'm so much happier.

life doesn't need to be about that partner. i have many, many friends and family to grow old with. i have a godchild!! one day i'll have my own house to celebrate holidays and achievements at, to host my friends and family. i'll have pets that i love and i'll have my own career, and i'll be happy because i never needed to fit expectations to be happy.

when it comes to anything sexual, it's sort of the same feeling as when i had "crushes" on people in real life. though also different? i don't look at real people and feel an attraction beyond knowing that they are attractive, objectively. i can feel attraction sometimes in a physical sense, but i have no interest in having anything personal happening between us. a fictional character has no interest in me, and so it feels safe to think that they're hot and to express it. like sure, yeah, i have a crush on them! i get giggly when Captain Smoker from One Piece shows up on the screen, and the new Superman makes me think "oh! okay!" but if they were real and in front of me? i'd probably... lose that attraction, like it was never there.

here's the kicker, though, and might sound weird at first: you don't have to put a label on yourself

yeah, i do consider myself aroace. but the world is ever changing and so is the human experience. it helps to have a basis, to understand your feelings and work through them. it's nice to be like "there is a name for this" and to find a community through that. i'm not saying there's anything wrong about figuring out your identity and saying "I'm this, this, and this!" nothing at all wrong with that. but we're all figuring ourselves out, all the time. it doesn't end when you put the label on. you have the entire rest of your life to continue learning things about yourself and the world around you. i wish i'd known in middle school that i didn't have to rush it, that i have every opportunity to take it one phase at a time. a human life seems fleeting, especially when you're looking back on your past and feeling like the time flew by. but that's just our perception of it as we look back.

what i mean to say it that it's okay to backtrack. it's okay to change your mind. it's okay to not put a label on it. it's okay to put a label on it. it's okay not to tell anyone, if you don't want to. it's okay to say "i'll figure it out." and it's okay if you don't. it's okay if you sit up in bed one day when you're 60 years old and go "that's what it is." as long as you live your life listening to yourself and not trying to meet an expectation you think you have to, then you're doing it right.

and it's okay if you lived your life like i did, and you didn't do any of that. being a human is messy and that's part of life. you're not gonna get it right the first time- but even then, sometimes you will! there's a nuance and a spectrum to everything you experience. take pride in who you are even if you don't have a clue yet. be kind to yourself. you're gonna be okay.

[neoninglitchen]

I DONT USUALLY SWEAR BUT THIS IS A SPECIAL OCCASION BECAUSE HOLY FUCKING SHIT I JUST CAME OUT TO MY PARENTS AND THEY WHERE SO ACCEPTING I WANTED TO CRY I CANT THANK THEM ENOUGH OMG OMG

THANKING MY MUM, DAD, SISTER, THE REST OF MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS BECAUSE I AM JUMPING FOR JOY JUST AHSHGDAJY

IM GOING TO CRY FROM HAPPINESS THIS IS MY BEST DAY EVER

AND TO ALL THE OTHER TRANS PEOPLE, YOU CAN DO THIS! YOU ARE DOING SO WELL, I BELIEVE IN YOU, YOU ARE PERFECT KEEP BEING YOU!!!!

DJKHSGMNFDSCJNGJVHFHJFHFNJFDFNJNFDHJFDJSCHDAJFREBHJWFDVBRNHJDVBDNRMJ,CHDJKSIHUFGJBDIEO3FHBVDNKEHFBVNDJKEWFHBVDNKELWFHBVNDEJKWLFHBNVMSEKLJFNVBMDEJKLSFHBVNMEKLWJFBNVSJKDHGBDEKLWIOFHVBEIOFBGHKKNDL;ROIJGBHFNKDELIFGHBEKWFIGHBEKWIGHBFEJUYSGYKUEGRKUHFILHGIEFGYHUEIJWDUFRHGJFILERHUGYHKEIJLFRGHUTJKFREIHUJLUFRHKJEILWURYGFKHLIEFORP8GYTHEI389

anyways heres some silly highlights from the presentation!!!! (there was more but these were the best slides lol)

[apollos-olives]

"go to palestine and see how they treat you" okay. i did. they treated me like normal. i'm palestinian and queer and they treated me just fine. but you know where i was treated like shit for being queer??? the u.s. of fucking a.

[blenselche]

My friend who thinks bubbline shippers are "found family incest* freaks" just got engaged to the guy she brother-zoned way back in high school. Sis coped too close to the sun now look what happened smh. What have we learned, class? Don't get uppity about ship dynamics, it might come back 'round to bite you.

Thought I should toss up this La Vie Boheme reference I sent her to bust her nuts about it.

* As an adopted person who has a fucked-out "found family" from my transient years I can confidently say this doesn't exist, she's just salty the ship got canonized imo.

(She doesn't actually say this stuff to anyone else, it's just in good fun w/ each other and her rants tickle me. You need someone you can be toxic with.)

[urfavcrime]

dsmp is still SO insane to me. still not completely convinced it wasn't a social experiment. it is something that can never be replicated again due to the really specific circumstances that attributed to it's creation and popularity

[barksbog]

talking about trans stuff before starting HRT i had no idea that here in austria injections are a different type

we get Testosterone undeconat injections every 10-12 weeks

it's a 4ml injection of 1000 mg Testosterone diluted in oil (usually castor oil to make you smell even worse i guess)

it's injected by your gp directly, hurts like a bitch afterwards and leaves a noticeable lump in your tissue where the deposit is

that being said. it's extremely convenient only getting an injection every few months and personally it stopped hurting as much so i'm thriving

[bluecheeseinmyoffwhites]

The very concept that Eddie Diaz got outed by Family Feud is hilarious actually. What gave it away is that they picked Josh as the 5th member instead of anyone else

[shalomniscient]

thhtis might just be a big pet peeve to me but i hate when people write kjsr as someone cold or possessive, i always viewed her character as someone who is actually so soft when it comes to love. i cant see her saying anything awful with intention to her s/o and just prob cherishes each moment and intimacy.

yeah, sara is the victim of some INSANE mischaracterisation... i was informed that some people thought of sara as a karen, of all fucking things, and the psychic damage i took from that statement was unfathomable. it was so horrendously insulting i had to put my phone down and breathe for a solid minute, because sara? being a karen? the peak of entitlement? be so fr. sara struggles to even accept her place within the kujou clan, despite being its golden child. she doesn't know how to be entitled to even love, let alone anything else.

there is a quote, i forget by who, which goes "(s)he had the awkward tenderness of someone who has never been loved, and is forced to improvise", and i think it describes her so well. sara was raised to be takayuki's perfect weapon first, and a person second. for sara, to be a 'kujou' is to be the untouchable general, the prodigal child, the crowfeather kaburaya which heralds nothing but victory for the kujou clan. her place in her 'family' is intrinsically tied to what she can give to them, not who she is as a person. her image of her own worth is so entangled with being needed that she doesn't know how to be anything else. she explicitly states that she has never given any thought to her personal aspirations. never. that's so insane and heartbreaking to me like... my love, you are more than what you can give. so i agree with you on the part that sara would be so, so tender when it comes to love. this is uncharted territory, and she's learning as she goes, but you could never be unloved by her. she knows what that's like, and she could never hurt you the same way.

anyway, live laugh love kujou sara. i've been in the kjsr camp for 3 fucking years and i'll continue to be here until the day i die