Hi.

Between Tw*tter doing *gestures vaguely* and wanting to find a place to see others' and share my own Heartstopper fan art, I have arrived to Tumblr approximately 1.5 decades after someone first suggested it. I'm usually very punctual but the thing is, I got distracted and that's fine because it means I was accumulating experiences and armchair "wisdom" for that 1.5 decades, woohoo. Not that I'm going to stop doing that now, but hopefully it'll make for good storytelling }:>

If the society I live in were all way better at pronouns, I would use my favourite neopronouns xe/xer/xem/xemself etc. (pronounced zay/zeir/zem/zemself) which was me misreading a set of pronouns used in Becky Chambers' books and falling entirely in love as my "correct" pronouns. Getting people to use they/them for me is a huge uphill battle though so that's my fight for now. I have very strong secondary sex characteristics and can't be troubled with gender expression that would convey androgyny and I don't really identify with androgyny anyway. I would describe myself more as gender defiant than agender or non-binary because I think gender constructs harm literally all of us. I don't mind people describing me as agender or non-binary because they are making a clear effort to understand why I say "them" every time they say "she."

Stealth ND: I'm autistic, but it took me a long time from my mom collecting notes from an elementary (US->UK: primary) school teacher about why she thought I should be tested and forcing me to not do those things until a long talk with a neuropsychologist confirming that I'm "high functioning" ... which, sigh. I'm strongly against functioning labels and others have written far more eloquently on why. It was disappointing to discover professionals still unabashedly using them. Bah. Special interests include or have in the past included but are not limited to: undeciphered writing systems, a specific US Civil War regiment, CUTTLEFISH, Paik Nam June, Heartstopper.

Speaking of forced masking, problematic behavioural modification, and the joy of broad umbrellas, I also define as QUEER and tend to get annoyed with more specific labels for myself but happy to respect yours. Am I DEMISEXUAL? Probably. Am I PANSEXUAL? Probably. Am I a die hard romantic? Oh gosh, yes. But listen, this umbrella is really big, and I want to make sure everyone who is ready can come stand here under it with me, so I just say queer or LGBTQIA+ when asked. Also, sexuality is complicated and it should be in order to fully embrace who we are, right? Like, a few of my girlfriends over the years only ever had one ostensibly queer experience and it was with me. Gay men sometimes really dig what they perceive as my masculine energy. I spent a lot of time dancing at gay clubs (I LOVE DANCING) and found that gay men were often more interested in me than gay women and we used to joke that I needed a t-shirt to clarify my In Search Of (which, y'know, varies.) I personally find it very validating when gay men feel that masculine part of who I am, though I'm also reluctant to even use the word masculine! I'm very Nimona about gender. Like, defining gender by the different ways people dance high and flighty or low and stompy (see also: Grupo Corpo) feels better to me than masculine and feminine, personally. Always happy to warmly welcome even the most lukewarm homoflexible and heteroflexible people under the big umbrella. We all need love and support, because there is always, always, always someone who will still try to shame who we are or put us in a box. Basically f boxes. I'm done with the boxes. I don't even like checkboxes on medical forms and will often cross out whole lines and just write "I have a uterus" if that's clear that's what they actually want to know.

My queer journey was complicated early on by a TON of compulsory heterosexuality on the part of homophobic family. Stuff that often requires a trigger/content warning before I talk about it. I'm still unpacking some of the impacts and it's very much related to my obsession with Heartstopper from the first moment I saw it. I kept rewatching it and just absolutely sobbing, but I couldn't even start to explain why until I'd seen it about 4 times and started unpacking my own queer origin story. Would that I had just one Mr. Ajayi, just one Ms. Nelson, just one Ms. Singh, so shout out to all the parents and teachers and Alice Osemans who provide safe space for queer youth today. Y'all are who I think of when I see the Seattle graffiti "my friends will save the world" on my long city walks. The first person I ever fell in love with was my best friend who unfortunately for me was and is straight! We're still great friends though and I'm so grateful for that. She has always been very supportive.

Also also related: my first I-actually-understood-it-was-a-crush queer crush was on Sha'uri in the movie Stargate.

I am an unapologetic Taylor Swift fan and my favourite headcanon is that she's high masking autistic. I used to strongly believe she was bisexual because a bunch of things she does reminded me of me before I came out but she addressed those rumors herself and I'm not gonna gaslight her. Only Taylor knows Taylor, and I respect that. I love her through her music and she deserves as much of a private life as she can manage.

Last but not least, I think I'm quite a bit older than the average Tumblr and/or Heartstopper fan. The Star Wars of my childhood was the original Star Wars. I watched Buffy and Babylon 5 as they aired for the first time. I'm so grateful that youth today has better education around how predatory older people can be and take steps to self-advocate and self-protect and I also want to say as an older person I have a responsibility to be extra thoughtful in how and when I engage with younger people. I will absolutely engage over shared fandoms and loving your art, but I also think it's important for young people to mostly be in community with each other. I do however have a TON of experience being alive and always happy to answer questions and share my experiences about what I've landed on for calm, good living.