The Magpie's Nest

captainawkward_feed

Dear Pretty Great Kid,

I confess, I want to embroider a sampler for all of the homophobic and transphobic parents in the world. It will say “Kindly get in the fucking sea.”

How fucking dare they.

How dare they talk about “disowning” you as if “owning” you was something they get to do in the first place.

How dare they act as if there is a mold fitted with the exact specifications for “daughter” that you were supposed to climb into so you could have the inconvenient parts of yourself, the parts called “gay” and “made a slightly different career choice than they hoped for” sheared off, how dare they act as if that is the price of being loved and being part of your family.

How dare they treat their love for you like an audition that you have to pass. How dare they act like you are in danger of failing it.

How dare they respond to your good news, the news that you are in love and happy, with disapproval and threats.

Can your parents possibly, possibly, possibly be more disappointed in you, I wonder, than I am disappointed in them at this moment? (No)

What a poisonous, empty love they offer you if these are its terms.

Let’s talk about this proposed trip. I hope I’m reaching you in time to cancel it.

suncani

I've talked before about how diverse adult SFF gets so much less attention than diverse YA SFF.

So here's a thread of diverse (AKA SFF by and/or about marginalized people) science fiction and fantasy novels aimed at adults!

— Sarah Waites (@coolcurrybooks) May 13, 2018

A thread with brief descriptions and links to Goodreads pages for SFF books either by and or about marginalized people (includes POC, queer, disability, representation)

captainawkward_feed posted: It Came From The Search Terms: January Song Which had a mostly unrelated tangent on the end, including these 3 hypothetical dating profiles:

Please enjoy (and freely copy/adapt) Some Highly Specific Dating Profiles I’d Like To See In 2019:

FRIENDS FIRST FER SURE: “I think I’m a demisexual,which means I like to get to know people for a very long time before the idea of any sex is on the table. I’d love to fall in love and have sex and all of it someday, but I need to take all of that verrrrrrrrry slow, which can make being on sites like this pretty frustrating: Frustrating for you as you wait to see if I’ll bang you someday and frustrating for me (as I wait to see if I’ll bang you someday, as meanwhile I fall in love with my friends one by one). Any fellow sexual snails/turtles/other slow-moving-but-completely-adorable creatures out there want to go on some dates with me? As friends?”
ACES IN (MEAT)SPACE: “I am asexual and looking for fellow local asexual people to meet and maybe snuggle with sometimes without pressure to do anything else about that. There has to be someone else on this app who is like ‘I think I want a romantic partner someday but not exactly in the way that most people mean that, so how do I even do this without it being soooooooooooooooo exhausting’, right? Everyone I know who identifies as ace is online and farrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr away. They are wonderful, but a girl can’t live by Tumblr alone, so follow the ACE-beacon I’m flashing in the sky. I’ll buy the first bubble tea.”
...
LET’S FIGURE THIS WHOLE DEAL OUT: “I’ve never dated anyone before, and at 28 I wanna go on some first dates but I don’t really know what I’m doing. What if we figured this out together? Let’s go dutch, do inexpensive fun things in the city, and not have too many expectations or preconceptions. Who’s with me? Maybe we’ll fall in love, maybe we’ll just help each other feel less weird about being alone and not really knowing ‘how’ to do this awkward thing everybody but me seems to already know how to do.”

Is it weird to feel seen when these are barely theoretical? Can it be representation when its barely a writing prompt? Just the idea that someone out there actually wants to see people like me in something as ubiquitous as the personals ads?