Gina the ficster

Hiya! Apologies, because this is going to get long. :P

I started realising I wasn’t straight when I was about eleven or twelve. But I didn’t know what bisexuality was - I thought there were two options: straight, or gay. So I went through years of just going “aghghghghghghghgh” inside my head because it was very frustrating to me that I didn’t know what was going on. Then, when I was about sixteen, I stumbled across the word online, and it was just like “...oh. That’s that sorted then.”

From that point onwards, I was fierce in my bisexuality. I kept coming out to people not because I’d decided to do so, but because I was in the middle of a debate on sexuality and needed to back up my own points. I was sure from day one after finding out that sexuality is not a binary, so I guess I didn’t do the soul-searching “but am I really bi” stage. I think the thing to remember here is that although some people will be rude if you eventually decide that you’re actually straight or gay or pan or whatever, it doesn’t matter. Sexuality is fluid in time as well as in populations. Assuming you’re only just seventeen (happy birthday!), why not give yourself a bit of time to let the idea sink properly into your brain? You can poke around at it, reevaluate who you find attractive, all in the comfort and the privacy of your own head.

But back to what I did - I skipped that bit. Two days after I found the word bisexual online, I was coming out to my parents (just after my Nana, who is awesome). My mum was flabbergasted, my dad has literally never spoken to me about it (seriously, I have never heard him say the word ‘bisexual’)...

...but when it comes down to it, they’re still really happy for me that I’m going to meet my girlfriend for the first time this summer.

I don’t know your parents. But. If they’re anything like mine - homophobic mainly because they don’t know any queer people, upset more with the idea than with you - I would give them a chance. Turns out Dad’s problem with it was that he was concerned he would never have grandchildren (my sister was kind of sort of dying at the time - she got better, thankfully) which, tbh, my sexuality doesn’t affect that, and even back then, he never said that to my face.

You see all this advice about cutting toxic people out of your life, and sure, that’s often good advice. But it doesn’t necessarily capture the reality of how people can be 95% lovely and 5% ignorant. I adore my sister, but she doesn’t think feminism is necessary in our country and disagrees with a lot of its premises. I’m not cutting her out of my life because she occasionally body polices me. In the same way, although going away for college might be a reasonable step for you, I’m inviting you to try with your parents. If they’re still shit about it a few months later, then by all means, do what you have to. But give them a chance.

Also give them resources. Print out a ton of information on sexuality, plonk it in their lap, and say “right, I’m bi, here’s some information about what that means, I’m off to go to the cinema, see you in a few hours to chat about it.”

It’s weird when you come out to someone you know really well, because they have this idea of you in their head. “Gina, likes writing, hates broccoli, had a crush on Barnaby Carter when she was eleven, tidies her room but never makes her bed” - all these little bits of information that they build up in their mind to create a solid picture of you. Coming out is telling them that they’re wrong.

Have you ever had a moment where someone has told you that you’re singing the lyrics of a song wrong? It’s a song you’ve sung all your life, one you learnt when you were like three years old, and it turns out you misheard the lyrics. It doesn’t actually matter that you’ve been singing “Kicking your cat all over the place” in We Will Rock You for going on fifteen years now, but it shocks you. This is something you were absolutely sure you knew, and you’re wrong.

That’s why I’m recommending you give your parents time. It doesn’t actually matter in the long run that they think you’re straight, but it will still be a surprise, because it’s something that they were sure they knew. Give them those couple of hours, and then give them a few days and weeks to realise that even though they got this little bit of you wrong, they still know the rest of you.

(all of this advice also goes for other people you come out to!)

And last piece of advice: feel free to ignore everything I’ve just told you. This is your sexuality, your family, your life. Ask anyone and everyone for advice, take it all in, and then decide for yourself what you want to do.

Finally, I wish you all the best, and offer you a *bi high five*

Okay, so, and there’s a reason I’m posting this under my pseudonym, I think I might be autistic. I’m twenty two - I know how ridiculous this sounds, but I think I was reading an AoS fic the other day which characterised Skye and Tony Stark as autistic, and the author included a list of symptoms and I was like. Huh. Right.

And then we were watching a documentary about autism the other day and my parents were going “ooh, you do that” and I was like. Huh. Right.

So I’ve been looking up ‘autism in girls’ and. Huh. Right.

From autism.org.uk:

Girls with autism have more active imaginations and more often pretend play

Evidence suggests that girls have more active imaginations and more pretend play (Knickmeyer et al, 2008). Many have a very rich and elaborate fantasy world with imaginary friends. Girls escape into fiction, and some live in another world with, for example, fairies and witches.

“Escaping into fiction”. I think we can all agree that that’s me. Hello fanfiction.net page with 60 fics.

Girls are often more aware of and feel a need to interact socially. They are involved in social play, but are often led by their peers rather than initiating social contact. Girls are more socially inclined and many have one special friend.

Me. Very me. Particularly when combined with this, which I found elsewhere:

girls gravitate towards older girls, who tend to mother them and act as a form of social “protection”

I used to fixate a lot on older female friends. I still do the fixation thing - I become friends with someone and start, like, imagining a world where I’m their very best friend (shit this is embarrassing). From the same website:

boys with ASD tend not to appear motivated to be socially interactive, but girls on the spectrum do. However, girls have a history of failure in achieving and maintaining friendships

*raises hand* it me. I am in touch with no one from school. Outside of term time, I am in touch with maybe two people from university, and I’m still fucking there.

And then from an Australian site:

The general consensus is that females with ASD exhibit:

Increased social imitation skills, A desire to interact directly with others, A tendency to be shy or passive, Better imagination, Better linguistic abilities developmentally, and Interests that focus on animals or people.

I started talking and reading very, very early. I’m a cat lady. Re: imagination, see my bloody fics. Shy and passive? Yes. A desire to interact, yep. Go back to the fantasy world with imaginary friends, and the fixation without being able to maintain friendships, and good lord, this is embarrassing.

And then the ‘traditional’ ASD symptoms - I stim when I’m stressed, can’t deal with too much sensory input, particularly in the form of human voices, and I’m serially obsessive. My special interests have been, in order from the age of 9, the Tudor period, Doctor Who, Twilight, back to Doctor Who, YouTube, phan, Marvel. I read so. much. fanfiction. Which, I know you guys all do it too, but.

...

Of course, I’m talking myself into believing it now. And even if I were right, there’s no point getting any sort of a diagnosis now. Like I said, I’m twenty two. What on earth would I do with it?

I was never going to study French. I was going to study history, and I was going to write about it.

I was asked the other week what my favourite type of music was, and I had to answer that I liked music with a story. I like Paramore because their lyrics are about the story of themselves. I like Mika, who creates and discards characters at lightning pace. I like Murray Gold, who ties Doctor Who together through the scores that he has written for every single episode since the programme's revival.

When my sixth form French teacher asked me why I was asking her to mark an essay for my Oxford application, I told her that I felt that I couldn't give French up now, because it was a task unfinished. I didn't know if it would be possible to arrive at a point where I could say 'now I have learnt French' but something about my nature forced me not to give it up. History was a book I found much easier to close. The chapters were more clearly marked, perhaps.

After six months in France, I feel fairly justified in saying that I can now speak French. I am bilingual. I can get through long conversations without missing a single thing, without mucking up my grammar, without forgetting words, and without giving myself away as English. I don't sound Raphaëloise, perhaps, I still sound a little foreign, but not so foreign as to scream my nationality with a single misplaced vowel.

That’s - well, that wouldn’t be very nice of you? There are going to be over 400 summaries - are you saying you’re going to dislike EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM?!

(this is what happens when you message me on my personal. i drop the professionalism.)

We can’t stop you not claiming things. Like, we can’t come into your house and shout at you until you claim something. But. Why would you sign up for the BB if you didn’t want to claim stuff?!?!?!?!?

(also we would notice, bc we have a list of everyone who signed up and a list of the people who claimed stuff and we would count you as a dropout. idk if that’ll have consequences for next year. we haven’t decided yet.)

Also, uh, 1) please don’t use the word ‘stupid’, it’s an ableist slur, and 2) just ask the PBB blog. I have a life outside the BB. I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true. And that means that sometimes I’m not online/answering questions. If you’re worried the question is embarrassing, just ask for it to be answered privately. We don’t have, like, a journal of questions people have asked. We’re gonna forget about it as soon as we’ve answered it, because as mentioned above, we have lives outside the BB. So. Yep. Promise we’re not gonna, like, mock you or anything. In fact, way more likely to be polite on the PBB blog. We gotta reputation and an image and stuff there.

1) No, sorry. We can’t have exceptions, bc a) it gets unfair and b) it gets unmanageable for us. Structure is a Good Thing TM.

2) Why did you send this to my personal? I just... I was out all day today and yesterday doing exams. There are seven people monitoring the PBB blog - you’re way more likely to catch someone online. Also, this is, um, my personal? Not the PBB blog? Which seems confusing given that you’re asking about the BB?

Ah, shit. There’s blood on my exam script, and no, I’m not being poetic. I’m not talking about the long history of colonialism and classism that went into my arrival at this moment in this university in this city in this country, I’m talking about the blood on the piece of paper in front of me.

I raise my hand. Someone tries to hand me another booklet, because of course that’s what any student must need, but no, “can I have a tissue please?” Of course we’re not allowed to bring in our own.

The invigilator looks at me, and scurries away.

I look a sight. There’s blood under my left nostril, always the left, but it’s not just blood, is it? It’s mucus, too, crawling slowly down over my lip. Disgusting. And there’s mucous blood on my essay, and it’ll take a minute for the tissue to arrive and I have to keep writing, and bleeding, and writing. The girl at the table next to me keeps glancing at me. You must not do anything to disturb other candidates.

Well, I’ve broken that rule before.

It was tears, that time, not blood. I was nineteen, and my friend was dying, and I was stuck in Oxford, taking exams, and I cried into the paper of my short text commentary and left the ink slightly blurry. I write in biro now, but still I write neatly around the spots of red on the page. I learn from my mistakes.

I’ve put literal blood and tears into my degree. The sweat will come in hour six of my Tuesday exams.

We’re twenty minutes in. We have to write a thousand words in our second language, and we have to do it in three hours, and it has to be bien argumenté, and there must be well-motivated knowledge,

and a fly landed in my hair. I’ve got a half-page plan taking shape and most of an introduction below that, and words that I don’t want the examiners to see are spilling across the question paper, and I flex my fingers, searching for a word I know I know, and