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wheezel · 1 year

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transness & suicidality

obvious tw for. the above

hello. my name is max.

i’ve been going by max on the internet since like 2014 or 2015, when i’d join roleplay plots on creativefun, or maybe even before that, or parallel to that, i had some blatantly obvious self-insert OC with the same name. in every pokémon game i’ve ever owned, i’ve had an eevee named max. i don’t know why i was so attached to this name, but i don’t think i ever really foresaw it becoming Mine.

i started using tumblr “full time” in 2017. mostly for fandom stuff, especially harry potter. i’ve been max on here since the beginning of that— co-ran some hufflepuff blog under that name, and i thought it was the coolest thing.

i’ve always struggled in the mental health department. i wasn’t diagnosed with anything, but i’ve probably been contemplating suicide since the fifth grade. it didn’t start out serious, i don’t think, but throughout middle school it was a thought that never really left my head.

i’d known that i was queer since maybe the sixth grade? luckily i grew up in a general area where that wasn’t shamed or anything, so tbh it wasn’t super hard to come to terms with.

i don’t think i knew what being trans was until like 8th grade, but you wouldn’t believe that— i don’t wanna do the whole “i’ve been acting like a little boy since birth Ah Ah” thing bc i know that’s not a universal trans experience & i don’t want to make it out to be, but also.. i literally basically grew up as a little boy 😭 i was very outspoken about not liking anything “girly,” was friends with mostly guys, i’d always make my character a boy in any game i played, probably announced multiple times that i wished i was a boy or said that i “basically was.” i believe in tomboy/weird little girl rights and obv there is no “acting like a boy/girl” but. the point‘s that it was a thought in my mind.

wtv wtv quarantine hits, my friends become more homophobic/transphobic for some reason, i start looking more towards online queer communities. this makes me more active here, obviously, but also to a handful of discord servers. at this point i’m very well acquainted with transness, but still very sure in the fact that i’m just a very tomboyish lesbian— like i’d genuinely thought about it, a lot, and just didn’t ever “feel trans.” i wasn’t dysphoric, i liked my hair long, i had a lot of pride in being a lesbian, and i just. ‘didn’t mind’ being a girl.

time passes again and i start realizing that i’m not, in fact, cis. this pill was a little bit harder to swallow, but mostly because i didn’t know what i was. i played around with my identity for a while— i was pretty comfortably genderfluid for like a year or two— but i was still only out online. when i did eventually come out to my friend group at the time (shout out HS backstage crew), they were really accepting n stuff, but they’d almost exclusively refer to me with masculine terms. and like.. at first i was like ‘nooo they’re misunderstanding woe is me,’ but after a while, i got less & less comfortable being referred to with feminine terms, she/her pronouns, et cetera. some time in january, i started hanging out with a handful of people who i kinda knew but wasn’t all that close with, and i got to introduce myself as max. i danced around the topic of my gender for a while (“you can call me whatever i don’t really care”), but maybe two months ago, i resigned to the fact that i was just. a guy.

you’d think this would be about as easy as the rest of my little realizations, but. you’ve seen the news.

realizing that i now exist in a world that would blatantly rather i be dead than happy was not something that i was ready to grapple with.

i had made so much progress mentally since the beginning of this year— i *liked* who i was four months ago. i think i genuinely started loving myself.

now? i feel like i’m 12 again. i‘m so self conscious & i feel like everyone’s always looking at me funny and i can’t order food without embarrassing myself and i can’t. talk to anyone without feeling guilty that they have to know me. i’ve had this awful, heavy, guilty feeling in my chest for two months straight, and i don’t think i can get rid of it. i keep spiraling and hurting people and every time i think about talking to them about it i almost start throwing up because i feel so disgusting about myself. i shut myself out from a lot of people because of the shame. i couldn’t face them. i can’t convince myself that i belong here, or anywhere, or that i’m not actively making everything worse for everyone i know.

and you know. i almost did it.

to be honest, i don’t know why i didn’t. i still think about it all the time, if i’d actually gone through with it.

i think about the numbers all the time. i’m constantly turning them around in my head— 82, 40, 86, 56. it felt like what i was supposed to do.

though, clearly! i’m still here. i don’t have some big Ha Ha Fuck You to the world reason or whatever, in all honesty i just kinda felt more guilty when i thought about what’d happen if i did it. which stopped me, sure, but also led to me stewing in this miserable, suicidal limbo for like two weeks straight. i’ve been slowly getting better, but it doesn’t really get easier.

i wish i could make some grand statement about transphobia and society and the state of the world, but honestly? i’m just tired. i have nothing to say.

except maybe that my name is max, i’m transmasc, my pronouns are he/him, and i’m still here whether i or the world want me to be or not. because i gotta be.

#tw suicide #shrug #possibly delete later if the mortifying ordeal of being known gets to me

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ethompson · 3 years

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About EThompson and this blog:

Curious as to how I tag my posts?

For my original creative writing:

My original stories tags: fiction, prose, novel/short story

My original poem/original poetry: poems, poetry

Excerpts from my final drafts and bits from my rough drafts are posted directly to my Tumblr.

For my original nonfiction:

My original essays: essays, prose, nonfiction

My creative nonfiction: memoir/personal essay, creative writing

My analytic essays on all mediums of fiction and nonfiction: analysis

My reviews: my reviews, opinions, and recommendation on books/anime/manga/TV shows/non-anime cartoons/movies/video games.

First Take: Sometimes, I indulge in a visual medium of fiction (movie, television show, video game, etc.) that leaves me so emotional in some way that I can't help but type it and post it somewhere. These stream-of-consciousness essays are my brief, unadulterated, unedited opinions with glib analysis; these opinions may or may not change in the future.

I publish my writing on FictionPress. I've also published in my undergraduate university's literary magazine, The Normal Review. I published twice (Spring 2013 and Fall 2013), but only one is available online as of Nov. 29, 2021: "This Line" (page 55).

I’m not a prolific writer. I’m not able to write as often as I would like to. A lot of my writing is from my high school and college years, and I revamp them prior to posting them to my new version of my Tumblr/FictionPress/anywhere else. Don’t expect a lot of updates or new writing from me. I do tend to produce a bit of free writing in my spare time, though.

Also, I occasionally post personal posts, selfies, and mindless nonsense that I think would be cool writing references and muse.

~*~

ABOUT ME:

My name is Emma Thompson. Yes, I know I share a name with an English actress. This was actually unintentional on my mother’s part because she just liked the name Emma. I’m a tad bitter about it, though, because my mom’s last name is Gorman; she could have given me her last name and not my father’s.

My former Tumblr URL was EmmaThompson0. The zero is a double reference to Coca-Cola Zero and Yu-Gi-Oh “season zero.” (Also, my most popular post was from my old Tumblr, which is a SpongeBob reference. I don’t know how to feel about that.)

I am an Aquarius born in the Year of the Monkey.

I’m female and identify as a woman. I am often mistaken for bisexual because I love flirting with both men and women. I have dated a girl before and would not be totally averse to dating another, but I would not call myself bisexual. I don’t want to bother too much with labels anyway. I’ve been described as a “girly tomboy.” In general, I am often best described as a walking mystery.

I’m South Korean and Japanese. I’m adopted, and my adoptive family is mostly Irish (my dad is off-the-boat Scottish with some Irish). I have two siblings, both older brothers. My second oldest brother is also a Korean adoptee, but we are not biologically related.

Apparently, I consistently test as an ENTP.

I’m diagnosed with manic-depression (bipolar affective disorder, type 2) with tendencies to self-harm and self-medicate. I am also diagnosed with eating disorder not otherwise specified (now called other specified feeding or eating disorder/OSFED). I have it all controlled, though.

In May 2014, I received a bachelor of arts in political science and jurisprudence (dual major, no minors). In May 2016, I graduated with a master of arts in public policy.

Favorite authors and books? Ernest Hemingway’s Across the River and into the Trees is my favorite book ever. Hemingway is my favorite writer, really. Others: Agatha Christie, Ursula K. LeGuin, John Grisham, Douglas Adams, Charles Dickens, Walker Percy, Shirley Jackson, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Michael Crichton’s Next, Voltaire’s Candide, Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, George Orwell’s 1984, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Graham Green’s The Quiet American, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, Washington Irving’s “The Devil and Tom Walker”

~*~

ABOUT MY WRITER PERSONA:

WHY DID YOU NOT MAJOR IN WRITING?

I was bored of it. It was never presented to me as a challenge in academia because every professor and classmate boiled writing down to “all art is subjective.” No one wanted to have an interesting conversation about writing philosophy and technique. Even when I took an undergrad-level creative nonfiction course, it still was reduced to “all art is subjective.”

Besides, when I transferred to Montclair State from a community college, the creative writing minor was not split into prose and poetry. If I had declared that minor when I transferred, I would have stayed an extra year in undergrad since poli-sci and jurisprudence have very little overlap with creative writing. When I started my senior year, the minor was finally split and it was too late to declare it without staying in undergrad an extra semester or two.

Law and political science happened to present a challenge, but I also later found that something I really care about can best be pursued as a political scientist. My interests are more in healthcare policy, insurance regulations, and labor law than writing—though I know I can incorporate such topics into writing. However, I am more geared towards advocacy.

I studied writing (besides mandatory English classes) in school twice: once in my high school senior year in a creative writing class and another in my junior year of college in creative nonfiction.

WHAT DO YOU WRITE ABOUT? WHERE DO YOU FIND YOUR INSPIRATION?

Anything and everything.

I find myself more geared towards prose, although I do dabble in screenplays every so often.

I’m not really into poetry. However, I do occasionally write some just to give myself some practice writing (i.e., I'm bored).

Most of my inspiration comes from my everyday life experiences, so a large portion of my writing is semi-autobiographical. More of my inspiration comes from reading the news.

WHAT MADE YOU INTERESTED IN WRITING?

As part of a lesson to learn the writing process in the fourth grade, I cowrote a story about acid rain with one of my best friends. My favorite teacher in elementary school complimented the story as the most creative one in the class. (I adored this man, and he unfortunately died from a brain tumor at such a young age two years later.)

In the fifth grade, my teacher recommended me for a young author’s conference for Central New Jersey. I went, met other writers (both my age and legit published writers), and was rather impressed by all the cool ideas people had.

It wasn’t until my high school sophomore year that I started to get serious about writing. My English honors teacher made a comment that I wrote almost exactly like Ernest Hemingway after reading my first essay for that class. It wasn’t until a few months later when I read my first Hemingway novel (A Farewell to Arms) that she was probably right, but I wanted to figure out for myself why she was right. I started really studying the mechanics of writing and the aesthetic philosophies of writing, making a departure from my middle school days of simply wanting to improve my writing by only striving for an original plot.

#ethompson #about me

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king-of-the-issues · 4 years

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🏳️‍🌈Happy pride everyone 🏳️‍🌈

I thought I’d make a ‘little’ (sorry, it’s going to be a long one and it’s going to be a bit of a mess) post about my own story and journey within the LGBTQIA+ community. Hopefully it can help educate some, maybe others will be able to relate, or you’ll just find out a little more about me.

I grew up in a fairly liberal family and area - although the area was technically conservative until very recently, I’ve been lucky enough to not have known anyone majorly homophobic or discriminatory (my grandad is a little stuck in his ways though). I’ve always been told that being ‘different’ is good and normal and there’s nothing wrong with liking someone of the same gender. Although we were never really taught anything about same-sex relationships and being the late 00s, sex education was very heteronormative. We were never told that being gay was wrong and we knew of gay teachers in the school and kids with two mums or two dads and it was never really a big thing.

I first started questioning my sexuality in my early teens, I wasn’t very ‘girly’ and I didn’t really have any crushes on boys at school. So I figured I must be gay, or at least bi. Looking back at this I can see that although I thought I was well educated, I was not. And though I may have been right in the long run, my justification and understanding of why it was so was definitely built on a lot of gender stereotypes and I wasn’t fully aware of what it meant to be gay or what my true feelings were. But I still wasn’t sure, so I just assumed that I was straight, I’d never had feelings for a girl, so why would I be gay?

I finally started to better educate myself when I joined tumblr in 2013 as a ‘Wholock’ fan blog. I started following other fan accounts who just happened to be part of the LGBTQ+ community and so would post things about themselves and their community. Through this I definitely learnt a lot more about sexuality. There wasn’t just an L,G and B, but there was a P and an A and a Q and so much more. I started watching more LGBTQ+ you tubers, tv and movies and educating myself further.

At this point I was doing my GCSEs (16 years old), I’d never been in a relationship hetero or otherwise. I hadn’t even had my first kiss and I still hadn’t really had any crushes. A boy hadn’t paid any attention to me in anything other than a platonic way in about 4 years. Some of my friends were in relationships and getting male attention, so I was still thinking, was there something wrong with me? If I’m not gay, do people think I’m gay and that’s why they don’t pay me any attention? So I started dressing more feminine and wearing more makeup in the hope that something would change. It didn’t.

When I started Sixth form in 2014 (17) I saw a film in the cinema that truly opened my eyes and I think I can say that seeing that film was the turning point and the moment I started to educate and question myself further. That film was ‘Pride’, the true story of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners. Something about this film really got me, like many other films and tv shows I fell in live with the movie and it’s characters. Only this time they weren’t just characters, they were real people, who played a huge part in LGBTQ+ history. So I learnt more about these people and their stories. I posted about it a lot on tumblr and found other lovers of the film and they taught me more about their lives. This film was also my first major introduction to pride, London Pride in particular. I had missed the parade that year, but was hoping to attend the next year. This was also the year that same-sex marriage was legalised in England and Wales. There was a lot of things in the news and on tv about the history and struggle of the LGBTQ+ community, including ‘Our Gay Wedding the Musical’. As a lover of musicals, I wasn’t going to miss this, but not only was it an excellent musical, but I learnt so much more about the history and ‘legal side’ of being part of the LGBTQ+ community. It also introduced me to a lot of LGBTQ+ musical artists, personalities and songs.

In both AS and A2 Level art, I completed projects focused on sexuality and gender identity. I explored a range of artists, historical figures and other influential people within the LGBTQ+ community. I was able to better understand the many different identities that existed and the work that has been made to get where we are now as well as questioning my own identity.

For A Levels I had picked Art as one of my subjects. I have always loved art and at this point it was the direction I was planning on taking my life and career. I was still very much continuing to educate myself about the LGBTQ+ community and was discovering LGBTQ+ art and artists. This was also the time that Grayson Perry’s second tv series ‘Who are you?’ was airing, which looked at various aspects that affect a person, including gender and sexuality. With Grayson discussing his own relationship with gender and sexuality. At this point in time, A Levels were all split into ASs (year 12) and A2s (year 13). Which at the end of both would be an exam in all the subjects you took (4 for AS, 3 for A2). In art we were given a selection of titles and had to pick one to work from. From this we would have to create research pieces and supporting work, leading up to a final piece, which we would complete in a 5 hour exam. At this point I had been looking for a way to represent the LGBTQ+ community in my work and when ‘Community’ was given as one of the possible exam titles, I knew what I was doing.

I began with studies of people I had learnt about through general media, Pride and Our Gay Wedding the Musical. On a side note, this was when I developed my love for graphite portraits, my first of which was of Nathan Taylor and Benjamin Till the couple who both created and were married in OGWtM. I continued my general research into artists and styles, when one of my teachers introduced me to the work of Paul Harfleet. Paul created the Pansy Project, where he would plant a pansy (historically a derogative term for a gay man) in a location of homophobic abuse (verbal or physical). He would also edit photos to put Pansy’s into the mouths of famous people who were homophobic or used homophobic language. I used this idea as my inspiration and my final exam piece featured well known people who have used such language or hold such views, with handmade pansies in their mouths, with Oscar Wilde in the middle, who was imprisoned for being gay, holding a bunch of pansies as if he’d put them there. My research for this piece had introduced me further to the political movements, fights and protests, the work that had been made and was still being made to help people just simply live their lives as themselves. When I finished my AS Level, I was hoping to carry this theme onto my work in my A2s.

Because I was hoping to do this I decided that I now had to go to Pride as it would be a great opportunity to take reference photos. I intended to go with some friends, but they all bailed, so I ended up going with my mum. My mum has always been reasonably liberal, but she never really had the knowledge to educate myself and siblings on the different types of relationships, gender and sexuality. By going to Pride, it definitely opened her eyes and she has since become a huge advocate for equal rights for all and as a childcare provider is trying her best to educate the children she looks after and make her environment inclusive. I absolutely loved Pride and collected so many great photos and saw so many inspirational people. Including the cast of the Pride movie and originators of LGSM.

In A2 art, we were required to complete coursework that would feature various pieces and research that would accompany an illustrated essay. In order to continue my focus on the LGBTQ+ community, the title I created was ‘How has art reflected society’s attitudes towards sexuality and gender’. I continued to look at the work of Grayson Perry as well as the story of Lily Elbe. During Pride I had taken a picture of a drag queen dressed as the Queen and used this as a reference for a painting. From this I edited picture of well known people to be the opposite gender. Looking back at this, I do regret doing this, as well as other aspects of my following work. I feel that although my intention was to show gender as fluid and present some ‘what if..’ questions, I feel that the way I went about it could have been insensitive and seen as mocking those with gender dysphoria and identity issues. Continuing from my queen portrait I decided to look specifically at the royal family and at monarchs and members of the family throughout history who are believed to be part of the LGBTQ+ community and how that has been ‘covered up’ or ignored. I also looked at drag artists and how the royal family who, though are typically seen as being very conservative and modest, have in fact historically been very flamboyant in the way they dress and present themselves, with the line between feminine and masculine clothing once being very thin. Again, although my intentions were good and the questions I was presenting were important, I don’t feel I went about it the right way. Although I did try to justify it at the time, I feel I shouldn’t have been presenting these people who may or may not have been LGBTQ+ as so, especially when suggesting that some monarchs who may have cross-dressed, could have in fact been transgender.

Aside from the artistic side my research greater deepened my understanding of the range and fluidity of gender and sexuality. Including gender non-conformation, gender-fluidity, gender-queer, demisexuality, polysexuality and being queer. At this point I was still confused about my own sexuality, but would tell people that I was just a straight ally. I remember being asked by both a classmate and university interviewer whether I identified myself as within the LGBTQ+ community and both times I answered no. Looking back, I wish I had said that I wasn’t sure, that I was confused. Because it is okay to not be sure and be confused, no matter your age.

After leaving school I was starting to look more at asexuality and wonder if I was on the ace spectrum. I didn’t think I was 100% asexual because I do want to be in a relationship, but maybe I just haven’t had the opportunity to explore that yet. I have been subscribed to Evan Edinger for about 5 years now and he has spoken openly about his own experiences and as someone who is on the asexual spectrum, specifically being demisexual. I started to consider that I could maybe be demisexual and watched more of Evan’s videos as well as reading about others who identified as demi. I felt comfortable with this label, it felt like it answered a lot of questions and gave an explanation for why I hadn’t experienced crushes like my friends for many years.

I then began to realise that if I was to imagine myself in a relationships, it could be with a guy or a girl, it didn’t really matter and maybe I was bisexual, or at least biromantic. This was something that I had considered in the past but I was only just accepting as a true part of myself.

I was able to go to my second London Pride in 2019, this time with my mum, sister and a couple of friends. We had a great time and I met and spoke to some incredible people. This further made me consider my sexuality and made me feel even more comfortable.

So, on New Year’s Eve of that year I came out as demi and bi to my friends, who were all very accepting and supportive. I am yet to come out to my family and I don’t really intend to, not because I’m ashamed or I don’t think they’d be supportive, in fact quite the opposite. Since going to pride, my mum has been very vocal in her support of the LGBTQ+ community and I feel that if I were to come out to her, she would make quite a big deal out of it, which as someone with anxiety who likes to live a reasonably quiet life, I don’t really want. I also never really talk to my family about my ‘love life’ and relationships, existent or not, so I don’t really feel the need to tell them this. If I was in a relationship with a girl, then yes we’d probably talk about it, but until them, I don’t intend on telling them.

Although I have come out, I still wouldn’t say that I am 100% sure my exact labels, but I think that’s okay. If I am asked I normally say that I am Queer as I find it sums up that I don’t identify as heterosexual without going into too much detail.

I think the main thing to take from my story is, it’s okay to not be sure about your identity. There is no age that you should have had your first kiss etc by. You do what is right to for you, maybe you’ll have the answer soon, maybe it’ll be a while, but that’s okay.

#pride #lgbtq #bi #demisexual #pride film #c4 cucumber #e4 banana #lgsm #art #grayson perry #pansy project

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foreveralwaysanauthor · 4 years

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As previously warned, I have a huge number of questions for the fanfic author ask thing. So, here we go: 4, 5, 6, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 33, 36, 37 and then, if that wasn’t already enough, and there is anything you want to answer that I haven’t already asked, then pick one of your choosing to answer as well! 💕

Holy crap you weren’t kidding! lol this is gonna be so much fun!

4: What made you start writing fanfiction?

My 3rd grade teacher, Mr. Gula, gave me a challenge to write out my own ending to my favorite movie or TV show. As I was never really one to back down from a challenge, I went home and wrote out my own story about the first Transformers movie and another one about what I would do if I had been in HIgh School Musical. Yeah... needless to say, I was the Hermione of my grade.

5: Favorite pairing?

I know I don’t write for them, but my top is probably either Dee Dee and Frankie from the Beach Blanket Bingo, Bikini Beach, and Muscle Beach type movies or Seaweed and Penn from Hairspray. Something about those types of romance are sort of sweet to me. Guess I’m just an old soul. I also adore Cory and Topanga form Boy Meets World, but I’m mostly here for the older romances.

6: Least favorite pairing?

I’ll probably get flack for all of my answer, but I’m a little bit opinionated about this lol. The way Ginny and Harry’s relationship in the films was, was just confusing and so not what I had expected from them. The books gave them so much more than the movies ever did. The books were way better. Another case I don’t like was Bella and Edward/Renesmee and Jacob from Twilight. I think the other relationships in Twilight were better (Jasper and Alice are so sweet!) and Stephanie Meyer just kinda tossed Bella and Edward and Renesmee and Jacob together in the hope it would work and it just didn’t.

12: What’s the weirdest fic you’ve ever written?

I can’t believe I’m admitting to this.... I used to write full stories about One Direction. I had a full Niall x OC story I posted on a 1D Imagines group on Facebook that got almost 2,000 likes. It was silly, but, my word, it was almost as long as Broken Record. It spanned over the month of October 2014 and I can’t believe it ot the attention it did. It wasn’t all that good, but I guess it was good enough for people to like it, so that’s alright by me lol

13: Weirdest fic you’ve ever read?

I don’t believe it’s on fanfiction anymore, but I remember the basic info on it. It was Make a Wish by FireBladePrime. It was pretty much a girl made a wish on a shooting star and it made her favorite toys come to life as full size humans. I believe she ended up falling in love with one, but I’m pretty sure it just ended up being something that she came up with in her head when she was in a coma due to a car accident. Definitely a weird one, but it was pretty well written as far as memory serves.

14: Do the people in your life know you write fic? How do they feel about it?

Well, quite a bit of my family knows, actually. It started with just my parents, but my dad was always wanting to show off whatever his baby princess did (I was his only biological child, my older siblings were from my mom’s ex-husband). Dad shared with his siblings, mom shared with her siblings and my grandfather. My nieces and nephews know as well, but I believe that’s it. As far as I know, they are all very supportive and have no problem with it. My neice, Lorali, and nephews, Erek and Drake, have read all of my Teen Beach fics and quote things from them daily just to see if I’ll react, but they mostly just like reading them or having me read to them. They’re very loving and supportive of my writing.

15: Favorite fandom to write for?

I don’t know if I could pick one! I love Teen Beach so much, but I also have a certain affinity for writing small oneshots or “x Reader” style stories for Avengers and Harry Potter which can be found here and here. I do share the Harry Potter page with my sister, but she handles reblogging things to our page. Anyway, those would probably be my top fandoms!

17: What is the harshest criticism you’ve ever gotten on a fic?

Holy crap. Okay, I may or may not have repressed this for a long time, but I have more than one that I can’t decide between. The other one was from a girl in my class who stole my writing notebook and read my writing. Fuck you, Ashley She gave it back to me later that day with marker scribbles all over my writing. She said that I was horrible. The next day, I stole the makeup bag she had brought from her mother’s bathroom and buried it on the playground.

I was a good child that believed in getting even. Nobody found out about that btw.

Anyway, the first real criticism I had on a fic was someone who said, “You have no talent and you shouldn’t be writing. It all sucks and you’ll never go anywhere as an author.” I had actually written this down and, when I felt it no longer mattered to me, I burned it. It took me a couple of years to come to the realization that their opinion didn’t matter to me.

20: What’s your biggest struggle when it comes to writing fic?

Having time to sit down and write, probably. I usually have great ideas, but, in order to write them out and have them come out alright, I would need to sit down and feel it all come together while I write. I need time that I just don’t have most of the time.

21: Your biggest strength?

When I sit down to write, it all just flies out of me. Once i start, I don’t stop until my idea is all out into either m notebook or my computer. I can have a simple idea that somehow spirals into an eight page chunk that I never thought was possible. I like to think of that as my biggest writing strength.

24: What’s your process?

Write out the “backbone plot” (The stuff that has to happen, no matter what)

Decide on characters. Figure out appearance, personality and basic traits. (Sorta like a sim, I guess)

Bounce ideas with whoever will listen/listen to music (Gain ideas and write them in a small notebook)

Wait for inspiration and time to line up accordingly.

Write as much as I can.

Go back into that later on and edit what needs to be there and delete what isn’t necessary.

Publish!

I hope that’s what this means, at least.

25: Of all the fics you’ve written, which is your favorite?

Most definitely Broken Record and Creating a Rift. It was one of my first published stories and I just adore them.

26: Which of your fics is your least favorite?

I don’t even know how to find it anymore, but it was called Life’s a Rollercoaster. It was a Transformers fic that I had written when I was 11. Never finished it bc I lost the login stuff and it, now that I remember it, sucked hard.

27: What’s your most popular fic? Do you think the popularity is warranted, or is there another fic that you think deserves it more?

Any of them really! I love that Broken Record has had almost 10,000 reads, but I don’t believe it. As I go back over it, I wonder how on earth it gained popularity in the first place, but I couldn’t be happier that it did!

29: Which of your fics was the hardest to write?

My book. Probably the Christmas one, tbh. I only feel the pull to write it around the holidays and that kinda sucks lol

30: Favorite fic writers?

You better know you’re number one, girlie! For those who don’t know, Eleanor here is one of my closest internet friends and she’s practically family to me at this point!

As for other authors, I love Ulurnaga’s Primary Mechanisms story (Transformers). I know she hasn’t updated it since 2014, but it was so good that she could’ve left it at multiple parts and it would’ve been fine. I think it has abot 118 chapters to it. I have a few favorites from AutobotGuy710 who does a lot of Transformers stories basing around adoption (helps for my references and also a better understanding of what goes on a bit in adoptions/foster care). On Tumblr, I have a few faves, but not a ton. I like imagine-and-marvel and potterlyimagines fics a lot, but that’s about it at the moment as I haven’t sat down to read fics in a little while.

31: Do you write just for fun, or would you ever consider pursuing writing?

A bit of both, actually. I mostly enjoy writing my fics as a bit of an escape from reality. I enjoy being able to place myself in a world that doesn’t exist and sort of play around a bit. However, I do actually write as a job. I was working for my county newspaper for a while and that spiraled into me writing my first book, Feather Picked. I am currently writing one of the sequels to Feather Picked which takes the focus from my original main character, Melody, and moves it to her best friend, Roxy. I am planning on publishing a total of at least 5 books, the first four being the chronological 4 that take place over the course of a full year, each taking one season. The last one will be a look into the future, hopefully.

My first book can be found here!

33: Fanfiction pet peeves?

Goodness gracious. As someone who loves English classes, when people don’t place paragraphs correctly or spell simple words correctly, it reeeeeeally grinds my nerves. I will still sit through a story if it’s a well plotted story, but, come on people, at least do proper paragraphing!!!

Also, when people spell “definitely” as “defiantly”...... uuuuuuuuggggghhhhhhhhh

36: Which charachter(s) would you never write for?

For this one, I don’t really have much to say.

Probably characters from shows like soap operas or shows that never seem to end. If I can’t grasp the character’s backstory or personality after watching it because it never stops changing whenever it benefits the story or what the writers have planned, I refuse to write for them.

Mary Sue types like Bella Swan who are merely the damsel in distress and are only there to play out the author’s wish to be put in some type of scenario where everyone fawns over them constantly (can be applied to male characters as well).

37: Which character is your favorite to write for?

Out of already made characters: Butchy, Lela, Cheech, Evie, Ben, Harry Hook, Bucky Barnes, Draco Malfoy, Luna Lovegood.

Out of my OCs: Mick, Malina, Roxy Madden, Candi DiMaggio

Since you said I could pick one if I wanted, I’m going to pick #40.

40: Imagine yourself 10 years in the future; do you think you’ll still be writing fic?

I think I will be, yes. I don’t think my ideas for movies and books will ever stop. Especially knowing what I have planned after Creating A Rift is done. But... that’s a story for another time, lol

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gaytransbearish · 5 years

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Backstory (long?)

So, I’m a 35-year old trans man. Ever since I was little, I knew something was different. I felt gay/queer, but I liked men primarily. I liked the things we traditionally associate with girls (makeup, painting my nails, dolls, etc.). My mom apparently knew I was gay since I was a kid (she’s gay and so is her mom; I’m third gen queer), but it never quite felt “right.” I came out as bisexual in college, and later pansexual. I remember being so conflicted, depressed, anxious, and having a feeling of doom over my identity, constantly feeling as if I had no idea who I was. I tried different styles, religions, etc., and nothing ever quite fit. I did research on the trans community in college for a paper and it got the gears moving in my head. I brought it up shortly after I graduated as a “what if I was trans?” conversation with my then husband and mom. They both laughed and told me that they didn’t see me as “anything but a girl,” due to my love of the color pink and traditionally “girly” things, and wrote it off as me being silly. This was the worst time for me with my mental health. From the time I was in high school until I came out (1997-2013), I was suicidal, extremely depressed, and knew deep down in my soul that I wouldn’t live past the age of 30.

Later, in around 2012 or so, I attempted to come out to my spouse (I divorced my husband after we were married for about 3 years; we were better friends than partners), and she ended up coming out as a trans woman before I could even wrap my mind around coming out to people. I put off my transition to help support her with hers. I tried publicly identifying as neutrois and using ze/zir pronouns. I think I was terrified of coming out and what it would entail (and didn’t want to detract from my wife’s transition). Although non-binary gender identites are ABSOLUTELY valid, I think I may have been using it as a way to identify as NOT FEMALE, while I wasn’t ready to start the transition process.

Well, I turned 30 in 2013, and came out as a trans man in early 2014. I started testosterone in February of 2014, and once I started to pass at work in late 2015, I came out and began the process of changing my name and gender marker. I have the privilege of having been born through the military overseas, so it was very easy to change my birth certificate to reflect my identity (it involved a letter from a doctor and the cost of a replacement birth certificate). Around this time, my wife and I separated (she was emotionally abusive and manipulative) and I was promoted, so I was experiencing a LOT of change all at once. As I started to pass fully, I began to develop a lot of fear. I wanted to remain stealth; I just wanted to live as the man I’ve always been without having to constantly be worried about people treating me differently (it brings back all sorts of dysphoria when people who never knew me pre-transition suddenly struggle with pronouns once they find out). I’ve just recently completed a graduate program, and my goal is to work with the LGBTQ+/queer community in a college setting. As such, I’ve had to work through all of this internalized crap, because while I could justify not being out in my current job (it’s not relevant to the work I’m doing), I feel that I need to be out if I work with the community full-time. I think it’s vital that students have role models. If a student sees that a 30-something year old “professional” has fears about being out, that can damage their willingness or comfort level with starting a transition or outing themselves to faculty and staff in order to be referred to with the correct name and pronouns. I think, overall, it took me so long to come out because there’s so much problematic focus on conforming to the binary for trans folx. I had the impression that I couldn’t be a trans man because I liked makeup, jewelry, nail polish, pink, and I didn’t only ever play with “boy toys” or with other boys growing up. I was somewhere in the middle, leaning toward the more feminine gender roles (and still do, although my presentation is predominantly masculine). I think it’s so important to have visibility of trans folx who do not fit into the binary, or who subvert the binary. Hopefully someday it’ll be much easier for children to have access to resources and have support to explore and determine their identities without being made to feel as if they are “broken” or “wrong” for feeling they way they do. There’s so much more I could put here, but I’m going to stop for now. I’m not sure how active I’ll be here (I’ve been on and off Tumblr for so many years, and knowing myself, I can’t commit to being active on any sort of regular basis), but I do want to work on becoming more comfortable with taking back the trans identity, and tumblr is a good start. :)

#ftm #trans #trans bear #lgbtq #queer #introduction

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fleurdeneuf · 7 years

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10 things about me

I was tagged by @onthedriftinthetardis approximately an age ago, but am finally doing the thing now! Thank you. :D (I hope you don’t mind if I take your lead on some sorts of facts to impart...I never know what to say in these things.)

1. I’m an INFP (who occasionally tests as INFJ), which is one of the rare MBTI types (about 4% of the population), and is referred to as the Healer or the Mediator. It means I’m an introvert, loyal, creative, daydream a lot, have deeply held values, and am too damn sensitive for my own good. If you’re familiar with the Enneagram personality types, I’m a 4, which is referred to as The Individualist or The Artist, and is much the same. Apparently I’m supposed to be a super creative type, which I’m not...but that’s because I get in the way of myself more than anything, I think.

2. More types? OK, let’s do it: I’ve never taken the super long Pottermore test, but I have taken some shorter ones, and am either Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw. I choose to be both (Huffleclaw/Ravenpuff) rather than choosing one over the other.

3. I don’t have any “first job” horror stories, like a lot of people do. I was very lucky in that my first jobs were shelving books at a library and leading tours at a local museum, both of which fit into my personal and academic interests.

4. You may have noticed that I knit...but I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to relearn it. My mom tried to teach me, a college friend tried to teach me, a book tried to teach me, I’d put it aside for years and then reteach myself...if you’re someone who’s had trouble getting the hang of it, I am proof that practice makes perfect (or, well, practice makes competence, anyway).

5. Despite learning to knit (for the first time) 15 years ago, I have exactly one hat that I have knit myself. I am always knitting things for other people (it’s so much more fun), and so...one hat. I have a list a mile long of stuff I want to make for me, but doubt I’ll have/take the time to get much of it done.

6. You may have also noticed that I am fond of the color pink. I know I’ve rambled about this in tags a couple of times, but I’ll restate it here: I also went through a phase of “not being allowed” to like pink as I got older. Pink was my favorite when I was little. When I hit the tween years, I discovered that it wasn’t cool, and switched to purple for a while, then blue for many years. I started allowing myself to like certain shades of pink again in college, but not too much - nothing TOO girly or TOO feminine (because those are such awful cliched things, right?) But now? Pink is my fave again, and I am unapologetic. There’s nothing wrong with being girly. There’s nothing wrong with not being girly. Just let girls like what they like and don’t attack them for it. This has been a PSA by your aunt fleur. :)

7. I love cats, but I’ve never had one. I did, however, have a roommate for a while who had two cats, and I still miss one of them desperately. (What can you do when a cat claims you for their own?)

8. I am pretty sure that I have the best brownie recipe ever. It came about through looking up substitutions for ingredients I didn’t have, so it was an accident, like many good things. I’m happy to share it if anyone wants it, but...you probably don’t want to know how much butter is in them.

9. I started watching DW in 2007-2008, and was up to speed by the time season 4 aired in the US. I started reading fic right away, looking for episode/post-episode/in-between fics as I watched, then fixits, then other canon verse stories, then finally AUs. There have been a few times when I’ve stopped reading, but I’ve always come back to it, and now that I’m on tumblr and interacting with fandom, that has kept me more engaged. I lurked for years, too shy to talk to anyone or leave comments on fic (except for literally a handful), but decided when I joined tumblr in 2014 that I’d take the leap into engaging. Tumblr can be exhausting and annoying, but I don’t regret joining fandom in the least. :)

10. I would love to live abroad someday and be able to get a job in my chosen field (museum work). It’s probably just a pipe dream, but anything is possible.

11. (Because I split the knitting stuff into two, and didn’t realize I then had an extra): I am a very liberal Christian (Catholic, if you’re wondering which flavor), which is usually seen as a contradiction in terms…sometimes it feels that way, too.

I think I’ll take @onthedriftinthetardis‘s lead here too, and tag my last ten messaged mutuals: @deathlyfandoms, @asthewheelwills, @chiaroscuroverse, @fadewithfury, @tinyconfusion, @goingtothetardis, @redthreads, @acreasy1, @paigenotblank, @ruebella-b

No pressure, of course!

#onthedriftinthetardis #thanks for tagging me #and for giving me a few ideas #:)#fleur does the meme #about fleur

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m-aira · 7 years

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On Being a Fake Queer

trigger warnings: childhood sexual assault, q slur

I have a lot of complicated feelings about being queer, the first being that most of the time, I can’t shake the feeling that I may be faking it. For the record, I identify as a Crazy, fat, nonbinary agender individual; I was assigned female at birth, and socialized as a girl - as such, I will be using feminine pronouns when referring to my past.

Let’s back up.

I am a survivor of childhood sexual assault. Although I am still learning how to cope with this, it permeates nearly everything I do in my daily life, how my brain functions, etc. I was assaulted by another little girl, and growing up, this confused the hell out of me, and led me to believe that anything but compulsory heterosexuality was Bad. When I was 11, I started using the internet, and it was here that I met my first lesbian couple. We would all hang out on Palace, they were in a long-distance relationship. I confided in one of them that I had been abused by another girl, and that’s why I felt weird about their relationship, but that I was really trying to wrap my head around it. She understood, and didn’t make me feel like a freak. Around this time, I also started masturbating for the first time, primarily to images of women. So all in all, it was a very confusing, very queer time for young me.

From a very young age, I was considered a tomboy. I remember very clearly getting a “skater” haircut for the first day of 5th grade (something that could easily be hidden underneath a helmet, although I didn’t skate). I was shopping in the boy’s section at stores, wearing my dad’s old hand-me-downs, and generally looked like a little boy. On the first day, our teacher has us line up, separated by gender. I was in line with the girls. My teacher said to me, “I think you’re in the wrong line.” Now, as I am older and far removed from the situation, I look back on it and think, “I probably could have sued that fucker.” Regardless, it didn’t do anything but fuel my confusing feelings about gender - I wanted to look like a boy, but still do traditionally “girly” things. At the time, my parents made me feel like I couldn’t have it both ways, and I was starting puberty, so I had to make a decision; I feel like this decision was mostly forced on me, but that’s neither here nor there right now, it simply is.

Beginning in junior high, I started having crushes on my female friends, but I was never sure if it meant I wanted to be like them, or if I wanted to be with them. I stifled all of these feelings and maintained that I was a heterosexual female. I started hanging out with a group of punk girls, and wanted to emulate them so badly. It was around this time that I also started reading the manga Ranma 1/2, where, if I remember correctly, the main character was able to swap genders (and turn into a panda?) depending on what temperature of water they were in. I thought that was super cool, and wished that I could do the same. This was also around the time when kids were using “gay” and “queer” as insults, and so I was definitely thinking “Nope, I am definitely a Straight Girl, no queer feelings here, that would be Bad.”

I grew my hair out and played the part all throughout high school. I still got crushes on girls, and wanted to be a boy sometimes, but I shut these feelings out as often as I could.

Fast forward to my third year of college, when I finally moved out of my parents’ house and onto campus at San Francisco State. It was here that I really started exploring my sexuality and gender, and by that I mean I tried to look androgynous as possible, and made out with a lot of cishet dudes. I stopped talking to a lot of my high school friends, who were still using the f slur, q slur, and “gay” as insults; I started getting into social justice, going to bars, and meeting cute girls. I wasn’t identifying as queer yet, but I remember my first “open” crush on a girl - she was a friend of a friend that I had met at a bar for my friend’s birthday. We drank together. She took me outside and we smoked a bowl together. We were with each other the whole night, and I drunkenly confided in my best friend that I thought this girl was really cute, and to ask our friend if maybe she was bi? Turns out she was, but I didn’t find out til later when I was too chickenshit and closeted to do anything about it.

During my fourth year of college, some friends and I drove up to Portland for a weekend. It was there that I met the first nonbinary person that I’d have a crush on. We started talking after I got back to San Francisco, and I found out they lived in Santa Cruz, and I thought, “how convenient?” We went on one date, and I was too afraid to cuddle with them or show any sort of affection while we watched a movie in their room. My skin felt on fire, which I hadn’t felt in some time, and I mostly tied to the abuse; this, of course, concerned me. I felt wrong and bad and needed to shake those feelings. Because I didn’t know how to pursue anyone, I waited for them to pursue me. This didn’t work out the way I wanted it to, but around the same time, I started going on dates with a really cute cishet guy. I ended up making it “official” with him, and we’ve been dating since June of 2013, so a year after I graduated.

Around December of 2013, a lot of the confused gender feelings and mentally ill feelings and queer feelings all came rushing back to me. I would take days off of work, telling my boss I was sick, and just sit in the dark and cry all day. Something was off. Femaleness didn’t resonate with me anymore, and it was hitting me hard. However, even though I was Openly Queer at this point, I was still in what appeared to be a heterosexual relationship with a cisgender man. I remember very clearly making a tumblr post that said “I don’t know what I am, but I don’t think I’m a girl,” and showing it to him as we laid on my fold out couch in the living room. I started crying. He held me until I stopped, and then held me some more. He told me things were going to be alright. A few weeks later, after ruminating on it some more, I had accepted that I did not identify within the gender binary - I was now other. I made a Facebook status proclaiming this, filtered to a select amount of people who I believed would get it; some did, some didn’t, and I felt the need to explain myself, so I did. In January of 2014, my boyfriend and I traveled to Austin, TX, where he struggled with my new pronouns as I struggled with a virus and the worst case of dysphoria I think I’ve ever had. It was my first period after I had acknowledged my identity outside of being a woman, and it hit me hard.

Eventually, my boyfriend came around on the pronouns. But people still viewed us as a straight man and a straight woman in a straight relationship, doing straight people stuff. This made me feel, and still often makes me feel, invalidated in my queer identity. I’m much more open about my pronouns and gender identity now than I was then, but I still can’t shake the feeling that maybe, just maybe, I’m faking it. I’m a fake queer. I’m not queer enough to hang with the Actually Queer folks, and I’m too queer to hang with the straight folks. I walk a weird line between not talking about my gender with my parents or at work, and being very open about it in social situations. I still just feel weird about it. I have never been in a relationship with anyone but a cishet man, I have never been in love with anyone but a cishet man, I have never kissed or had sex with anyone but a cis man. So I must be straight, right? No!

The moral of this really long-winded diatribe is to never let someone else’s view of queerness shape who you know you are. You are queer enough. You are nonbinary enough. You can move past your trauma and into somewhere open and understanding. You are not a fake queer, even if you feel like you don’t fit into a socially accepted queer narrative. And you don’t even need to identify as queer if that makes you uncomfortable. “Not-straight” is enough!

My name is Maira, and I am not a fake queer.

#queer #writing #coming out story #lgbtqa #csa trigger

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marinareyesfranco · 6 years

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Lino Diva$ Art Gallery from lino divas on Vimeo.

Post Internet Argentina

Partially published as New Media in Buenos Aires in VICE's The Creators Project blog, January 2014

Argentina boasts hundreds of artist-run initiatives, some of which occupy no permanent space at all, other than web space. There’s an infinite number of workshops, studios, exhibitions, residencies and galleries that may or may not have ever sold a work of art in their life, yet thrive culturally and contribute to budding local scenes all over the country. These projects, a lot of which are documented online in the website Proyecto CARA (full disclaimer: I’m also co-founder), are often much more interesting than whatever goes on in bigger galleries or museums because they are community-driven and respond to artists’ needs in the face of systematic institutional inaction. Some of these projects are so essential to some cities, that it’s become impossible to talk about art in the city of Córdoba without mentioning Casa 13, Rusia Galería in Tucumán or La Herrmana Favorita in Rosario. These projects not only exhibit artworks, but rather take on the responsibility of creating educational programs and constitute a network of artistic and, lately, curatorial residencies. Namely, these projects are doing what a lot of city, provincial and national governments are not doing: supporting contemporary art.

While a lot of projects rely on a physical space to exist, some are mutable or even virtual. In fact, these art workers are sustaining alternative art institutions with varying degrees of seriousness and play, but always with a lot of commitment, especially considering that basically no one makes a living off them. One of the most notable efforts of institutional transvestism is the Fundación para la Difusión del Arte Contemporáneo en Mercosur y Alrededores (FDACMA, or Foundation for the Dissemination of Contemporary Art in Mercosur and its Surroundings), an “auteur institution”, according to its founder, artist Lino Divas. FDACMA is only one of Divas’ many uni-personal cultural endeavors, which also include Fanzineteca (a zine archive), Videoarteca (video art archive) and the all important FDACMA Permanent Collection, comprised of art from emerging artists from the Mercosur economic community Argentina, Brasil, Paraguay y Uruguay and other affiliated states (Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Perú and Venezuela). FDACMA exists online and takes on various physical forms wherever Divas is invited. The fact that the project is his doesn’t mean he doesn’t involve many other people. In fact, in 2009 Divas invited several artists to create the future capital of Mercosur in ThisIsNotAGallery, each contributing a miniature building or urban area, turning the whole gallery into a model city. Recent activities also include the 1era Bienal del Pasacalle (1rst Banner Biennial), which took place in various public spaces during July 2012 in San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina. Hopefuls tweeted messages with the hashtag #bienaldelpasacalle to @fdacma over a 3 day period, after which 20 were selected via online voting. The chosen messages, which varied in content and character -from “Thanks Google for everything” to “<3 Legal abortion is life <3”- were then turned into banners and placed around town close to existing independent art spaces, creating a route that increased their visibility.

Lino Divas (an alias, not his real name) is also an illustrator, web designer, gif maker, creator of his very own online Lino Divas Art Gallery, art peddler in Mercado Libre (a Latin American Ebay) and an artists’ artist who will probably matter more to insiders than to collectors, if that’s even a concern for him. Divas actually seems to be the direct descendant of another secretly great artist, Benito Laren (also not his real name). Laren, a self taught artist, first burst into the scene in 1987, when he started creating his paintings on glass and participated in the tight-knit 90s art scene around the Rojas Cultural Center at the University of Buenos Aires. He is also a cheeky megalomaniac who wears several wigs á la Warhol, open collar shirts under white suits, always dreamed of becoming famous and claims to be inspired not just by God, but by Martians. With him, everything about his personal branding is and is not a joke. His work spans painting, video, literature, mail art and nation building. Laren is actually the king and only citizen of Larenland, for which he has issued postage stamps featuring himself in various poses and sent letters to faulty addresses worldwide, including Saddam Hussein’s, only to have them sent back to him, with the other country’s “return to sender” stamp as a sign of recognition of Larenland. If mail art is a precursor of net art, then Laren is definitely sending spam. Both Laren and Divas have created personas as part of their work and the internet is a continued source of inspiration and source images, but Laren is still lagging on the technological front, whereas Divas’ body of work is readily available online. Divas is all about the internet, whether he’s making illustrations about the spam he gets or digital art based on “ego shots” (now called “selfies”, but this was back in 2008). Both his preferred mode of inspiration and medium is simply low budget technology.

The internet and the possibilities of Open Source, along with a lot of low tech and PC related imagery, are closely linked to the output of several Buenos Aires-based artists. There are more conventional venues like Fundación Telefónica, which focuses on “art and technology” or FASE, an annual exhibition featuring new media art, but both support a simultaneously dated and hi-tech version of art, which heavily features robots and LED lights. Other artists explore ways in which technology can be used to discuss such varied topics as the perceived notions of institutionality, politically correct humor and even the Patriarchy through gifs, websites and tumblrs, but also using otherwise old school mediums such as painting, sculpture and photography.

Facundo Pires

One such artist is Facundo Pires, whose work expands photography, sculpture and installation, yet does so through printing experiments with failing machinery and researching amateur porn posted online, among other subjects. Mostly, what Pires is really doing in exploring the mechanics and limits of photography, both analog and digital, as well as image manipulation. In his most recent solo exhibition, “La línea del horizonte” (The horizon line) at Miau Miau gallery, Pires researched pornographic images and videos amateur performers would post online, retouching them into oblivion. Some film rolls, already a thing of the past because of digital photography, were encapsulated in clay and displayed on a shelf. A printed photo was displayed lightly resting on a rod that protruded from a wall. Pires is steadily developing an archaeological approach to images and paraphernalia: “what did we use this for, again?”

Adriana Minoliti, from the Queer Deco series

Adriana Minoliti considers herself a painter, yet her practice expands way beyond the canvas into feminist activism through art, curating exhibitions and editing publications. What Minoliti proposes is a transformative approach to art and life, providing a more integral vision of sexuality that takes into consideration feminist and queer theories. Her practice includes painting but also installation and photomontages, always working with abstraction and geometry as a biopolitical tool. Aside from the huge and stunning paintings in her show Playroom at Daniel Abate Galería in 2012, Minoliti has been amassing an impressive body of work with her Play G and Queer Deco series, both of which are photomontages. In Play G, which she proposed to Playboy Argentina but was turned down for being “too artsy”, Minoliti mixes naked women and geometric forms that interact with them. According to the artist, the abstract porn she works with “is post-pornographic because they mean to excite the spectator’s nervous system but criticize the statutes of pornography.” The Memphis Group, an Italian architecture and design from 1980s Milan is a clear reference throughout Minoliti’s work, but particularly the Queer Deco series, in which she places anthropomorphic geometric constructions in the midst of design magazine spreads. Most recently, Minoliti teamed up with mexican born but Buenos Aires based net artist and curator Gaby Cepeda, to create a series of gifs for an online exhibition that mixed both Minoliti’s paintings and their interests, ranging from Rihanna to cats, japanimation and the affirmation of power through sexiness.

Girls of the Internet Museum, a project by Gaby Cepeda

Another project that stems from the online exploration of feminism is the Girls of the Internet Museum. According to Cepeda, it's founder, the GIM was “born from a necessity to put together references, works and context that build sense around the girly internet experience, wether they stem from art or from the most random digital production.” The project came about in November 2012 during a workshop on temporary museums and express exhibition making by curator Pablo León de la Barra at the Centro de Investigaciones Estéticas. For the past year, Cepeda kept working on the project, developing a Tumblr-as-museum as a feminine, if not strictly feminist, institution. Integrating post-internet theory and international artists, from Jennifer Chan, Angela Washko or Jesse Darling, who are more upfront about their feminism, to Petra Cortright and Emilie Gervais, as well as the Argentine Laura Códega or Bolivian Narda Alvarado. The GIM manages to exist as both online exploration of “girls”, but also as IRL exhibitions and the ultimate thesis research tumblr.

Franco Ferrari’s show at La Ene in Buenos Aires

Franco Ferrari is another artist fascinated by the idea of museums. First in an apartment show and then at the Nuevo Museo Energía de Arte Contemporáneoand the University of La Plata, Ferrari has been working with the idea of high art, theft, copyleft and the possibilities the internet provides for creating your own high art Open Source museum. Working with high resolution images stolen from the web, Ferrari prints them -mostly in a 1:1 scale- to play with the idea of the palace-as-museum, that 18th century space that, through revolution, was opened to the public and served as a tool for civilization. Searching for frescoes by Tiepolo, he found The Immaculate Conception on the Google Art Project -a 100MB file- and became obsessed with the quality of the images he could get online. He looks for the gloss, crackle and the paintings in their original frames. “It was a matter of improving the internet search to get high resolution pictures. I realized that I could open a museum anywhere.” he says. Ferrari clearly admires the greatest of the art of the past, but also questions its exclusivity, bringing the masterpieces to Argentina or someone’s home through appropriation, his DIY attitude and a little bit of theft.

The term post-internet refers to a state of mind that conceives the world as a network; another way of thinking. In the context of these artists’ production, we can apply it to how they create being conscious of the networks they are operating in - from inception to production and how it is distributed. But it doesn’t just apply to how artists produce art, but to how they team up with other art workers to generate other projects. Buenos Aires is an exciting art city mostly because of all the galleries and collectives you might not hear of, yet are essential. Some of the artist-run galleries that have been important in the past few years won’t necessarily be there when their lease expires -Rayo Lazer, Urgente, Inmigrante, Isla Flotante, Bonjour, Big Sur and Militantes are some of the standouts- but they all would have shaped a generation of artists that conceive their work as part of a greater, multi-platformed art world.

#la ene #franco ferrari #adriana minoliti #gaby cepeda #girls of the internet museum #facundo pires #lino divas #FDACMA #buenos aires #argentine art #argentina

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whatdoesagoodgirllooklike-blog · 6 years

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The ‘Girly’ Series

Interview: Louby Mcloughlin Girly: Stylist Mcloughlin talks femininity BY LOU STOPPARD ON 1 OCTOBER 2014.

Fashion is for fantasy and to feel good, so we shouldn't judge others so much on their reference points. I don’t think we should look at women and be like, ‘are you thinking about what you’re wearing?’ Don’t think about what you’re wearing, I say.

Lou Stoppard: Tell me why you think the girly aesthetic is being so heavily championed at the moment.

Louby Mcloughlin: I don't think it's a new thing. I think it's something that's been around for a while now. I think it's been around for at least five or six years on Tumblr and in the online world, and the young people who have now grown up a little are making more grown-up art, fashion and music that's making waves in young London and filtering down. It's a bit of a post-Tumblr effect.

People want to put 'girly' into a box and a category. I think that's partly to do with it, and I also think the twenty-year cycle comes into it...that's probably a big part of it. Also, whatever goes up will come down. We had the punk thing - when I came to London about 6 years or so ago it was all about punk, everything was black, black, black. I had hair extensions, fake-tan - it wasn’t cool. It's been a long time since girls have been able to be girly-girls. So overall, it's three things really: backlash to grunge, the post-Tumblr effect and the twenty-year cycle. And that's it. But it's going to go anyway, it's going.

LS: Why do you say that?

LM: Things do - it’ll go to the next thing.

LS: It's interesting what you said about the twenty-year cycle. Just glancing back there are several things you can look at when discussing this theme - the whole Riot Grrrl movement, the nineties and all that 'girl power' stuff. Do you think that is the root of where the current girly vogue is coming out of or do you think it's something quite separate?

LM: I think that's part of it, for me it feels like there is a bit of Girl Power 2.0 happening at the moment, like girl power gone digital - that's what the kids of Tumblr are all about. The Instagram generation and the internet generation - they’re all about soaking in everything that's been done before and regurgitating it in quite an mixed-up ironic way. It's generation LOLs, it's all about nostalgia and taking things from everywhere and spitting it back out as something new. But for me, there are a lot of exciting girly things happening all over, especially in London. From the underground electronic music scene to independent zines and fashion labels to Instagram and blogs, but they twist it up for the new gen, it's not exactly as it was.

LM: I think what you say about a mixing of references is very very interesting. This idea that you can take an image of a Riot Grrrl and put it next to an image of one of the Spice Girls and put a Hello Kitty sticker near it and you get a kind of common aesthetic out of that, even though those things all have very different intellectual starting points. I think that's quite interesting.

LM: I think it's all types of girl refs and it's a bit of a fuck-you attitude; 'I’m not in this box, I can do this, this, this. And I can do it well.'

LS: So do you think there is something quite empowering about that kind of mixing of references - that mixing of something that looks a bit ironic, with something that looks a bit Japanese, with something that looks a bit retro, because it is women refusing to conform?

LM: Everyone wants to do something different to the generation before them. If they don't, there's something a bit wrong. In the nineties people sat and made zines. It's the same thing people do now digitally. Kids are just expressing themselves and trying to be different - they're trying to say something. Now people have all those elements there available to them because of the internet. So it comes out in fashion, those different references. The younger generation has a lot more references available to them to explore and mix together.

LS: Talking about all those different references, it gets me wondering if girls who do dress like this now, whether they even remotely consider an intellectual side to it. Whether they think about, you know, femininity or feminism or womanhood, or whether they literally just take it as a pure aesthetic thing.

LM: Well I think you’re going to have a mixture of both, as you would with any type of style. People want to be different. I think that the younger kids that shop at, say Topshop, get the references more than anybody. They’re the ones that are really exposed to it, they’re the ones that have grown up with it.

LS: Have you always dressed like this, is it always something thats felt very natural? Where does the starting point come from for you, is it the way your friends used to dress when you were growing up? How did you start dressing like it?

LM: I think it's just from watching television and movies to be honest. And music videos. That's it really. And it did change as well. When I was at school I was kind of like a skater girl. I was more of a tomboy. I haven’t always dressed like this.

LS: How do people respond to you? I know London is slightly more open-minded to experimental fashion, but how do people respond to it?

LM: They don't really. But as I say it was a bit uncool probably five or six years ago.

LS: And what are the kind of aesthetic references that you’re drawn to, or the labels that you like to wear? I know you post a lot about early Versus stuff. What is the stuff that you think is really really great?

LM: I like to dress with a sense of irony. I like to have fun with style and take random references to play around. I don't take it too seriously. I like my Italian designers. I feel like they look good on me. I can’t pull off a lot of, you know, Margiela. But I can wear like double Pucci, some old Versace, noughties Valentino. I have a lot of Dolce e Gabanna but I'll also add in new designers from London like Sophia Webster and Ryan Lo. I like to mix it up a bit.

LS: Do you see the way you get dressed and the way you present yourself as about reclaiming girliness and taking ownership of it? Or is it just the aesthetics that you like? Is there an element where you are saying something about how you feel as a woman?

LM: Yeah, I’ve always sort of enjoyed very glamorous, successful women. Like a woman being glam and making it - I really like that idea. So I’ve always looked up to strong women who are also quite glam and girly. That's quite interesting to me, those two things combined. Think Erin Brockovich!

LS: It's interesting this idea that for a long time, for women to be taken seriously, they had to dress in either a minimal way or in a way that echoed a man. So it's interesting that you say you admire strong women who are successful almost despite their femininity. So I guess to dress in a way that's really really girly but be really smart, there is something about that which still makes people feel slightly uncomfortable. You even get it with how female politicians are treated if they’re wearing something thats super fashion-y, people almost act like that's at odds with them being smart. I guess there is something empowering about saying, 'I can be really interested in fashion and wear really girly stuff but I’m still really clever.'

LM: Definitely. I think that's what a lot of girls are quite interested in as well.

LS: Do you ever worry though, because obviously you’ve thought about that side and the strong attitude that comes with it but you mention those young kids shopping in Topshop - do you worry sometimes when they’re wearing something that's super super sickly sweetly feminine, that they’re not thinking about that side, that they’re not trying to present themselves as strong women and they do just end up looking like a sex object to a boy?

LM: I feel like this way of dressing isn't about men at all actually, it's about girls being girls and they do it for themselves. I think sex has nothing to do with it. It feels quite cute and innocent to me and all about dressing up to be a girl and feel empowered. I think everyone should do whatever they want. If you’re going to be clever with it, and reference this, that and the other then great! If not.. and you just happened to like looking the way you do then go for it too. Who cares? Fashion is for fantasy and to feel good, so we shouldn't judge others so much on their reference points. I don’t think we should look at women and be like, ‘are you thinking about what you’re wearing?’ Don’t think about what you’re wearing, I say! That's even better. They shouldn't have to consider it so much and worry what other people will think about them.

LS: It's almost rejecting this idea that how you dress says anything about you, because obviously if you’re a grown woman, you’re really smart and you’re dressed like a child, it doesn’t mean you are a child. It doesn’t mean you’re immature.

LM: Yes! And also, who cares what anyone else thinks?

This interview was super fascinating to me just because, I appreciate how Lou Stoppard referenced how some girls do just do it for ‘aesthetics’ yet some are putting out a new woke political message. How this ‘girly’ look has been sexualised and fetishised for so long - yet, now it’s not even about sex, it’s about empowerment and disconnecting conservative connotations.

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whatdoesagoodgirllooklike-blog · 6 years

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Girly Essays

Essay: Lolita

Girly: Sarah K. Cleaver on Tumblr nymphets

BY SARAH KATHRYN CLEAVER ON 18 NOVEMBER 2014.

These girls are wasting their youth fetishising it, treating it as a theme to be curated, collected and carefully documented.

In August 2013, paparazzi snapshots of Bradley Cooper and Suki Waterhouse were posted on the Mail Online and several other gossip sites. The two were pictured in various sprawling poses as they relaxed in a park in Paris reading - here's the crux - Lolita. The accompanying headlines all reported a similar narrative, but none more hysterically than Perez Hilton; 'Bradley Cooper’s Life Imitates Art As He Reads Lolita To Barely Legal Girlfriend Suki Waterhouse.' The already easy to grasp point was hammered home with the aid of Hilton’s famous Photoshop paint skills - '21 is just 12 backwards.’ One of these images in particular, - Waterhouse sitting with Cooper's head resting between her denim dungarees-clad legs as he presumably reads a favourite passage aloud - has multiplied endlessly on Tumblr, liked and reblogged hundreds of thousands of times. fallinhardforhim reblogged this from withloveclaudia, yourlittlegirllala reblogged this from moody-nymph, goodbye-lolita liked this. Spot the trend?

A controversial book since its publication, Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita is considered by many to be one of the 20th century's greatest novels but is widely famous largely due to its controversial subject matter - a man in his thirties sexually obsessed with a 12-year-old girl.

According to an interview in the New Yorker with John Bertram, co-author of Lolita: The Story of a Cover Girl: Vladimir Nabokov’s Novel in Art and Design, there have been roughly two hundred Lolita covers since its original blank canvas, which featured black lettering over a shade of green reminiscent of old school exercise books. Somehow, in failing (or not even attempting) to illustrate what was inside, erotic fiction publishers Olympia Press managed to create the dirtiest of dirty book covers. Almost sixty years, two film adaptations and countless references and misrepresentations in popular culture later, it's still a book that garners a curious glance or two from fellow commuters on the tube.

The conflicts inherent in Lolita stem from the impossibility of re-capturing what has been perfectly expressed by Nabokov in those 300 or so pages; the co-existence of obsessive love and self-serving tyranny. Writer Mary Gaitskill in the introduction to The Story of a Cover Girl cites this as the reason why Lolita cover art is so often poorly attempted; 'such impossible, infernal combinations there are in all of us, and we know it. That Lolitarenders this human condition at such an extreme, so truthfully… is this book's most shocking quality… It is also why no one will ever succeed in describing it fully on a book jacket.' Despite this difficulty, references are rife, from pop song lyrics to the long-standing Japanese 'gothic lolita' fashion The young women who have appropriated Lolita on Tumblr are practically a trope in their own right.

The nymphet community is an online subculture revolving around Lolita, its themes and its accompanying imagery. The fandom spans a diverse range of Lolita interpretations, from superficial feeds of anything pastel-coloured, to the almost inventorial, right through to the pornographic and upsettingly dark , As with any following, the community contains those die-hard fans who insist on authenticity alongside those who are along purely for the aesthetic. As one blogger complains; 'whenever I see people that think Lolita is romantic I wanna cry. Have u even read the book/ seen the movie or are you just in the nymphet community to be kool #nymphet #lolita.'

While the spectrum is broad, the average nymphet blog will usually contain at least one of a list of typical references. Firstly, and obviously, Lolita. Quotes from the book, stills, memes and GIFs from either film. Kubrick's 1962 is better stylistically, but Adrian Lynne's 1997 version is the more popular, probably because it's closer to the book, darker, more sexual and far less perfect. Dominique Swain's screen test from the same film denotes a real Lolita buff, as do the deleted scenes found on the DVD. Other 'age-gap' films seen over and over include Pretty Baby (1978), The Crush (1992), My Little Princess (2011), Sleeping Beauty (2011) and Jeune et Jolie(2013). Then there are vintage signifiers, pulp novel covers ranging in levels of bad taste (my personal favourite Daddy I'm Coming), photographs of vintage underwear, Parisian street photographs. There's the personal posts, 'I dropped my pen in a lecture today and two guys and the lecturer went to fetch it for me and is this nymphet power or what? #nymphet #thoughts.' And finally, the porn - huge amounts of porn. 'It's all American Beauty and cum!' exclaims a colleague as we scroll through one of the afore-mentioned pages belonging to a girl named ‘pulp-princess’. All this content is displayed on blogs that have been painstakingly coded to pink-tinted perfection (no basic Tumblr templates for these girls) and soundtracked by the mournful strains of Lana del Rey: 'I'll wait for you babe, that's all I'll do babe, you don't come through babe, you never do. 'Cause I'm pretty when I cry.'

Del Rey pops up a lot on these blogs. She’s a fellow, if honorary (given her age), nymphet. When interviewed, the singer-songwriter, whose real name is Lizzie Grant, cites Lolita as a reference, describing the sound of her first album as 'Lolita lost in the hood.' There is even a track on Born To Die named Lolita, but it's Off to the Racesthat borrows most heavily from both the book and the 1997 film. 'Swimming pool, glimmering darling' - a deleted swimming pool scene, 'Light of my life, fire of my loins' - a direct quote from page one, 'Give me them gold coins, Give me them coins' - another scene in which coins spill over an unmade bed as the couple fight over money that Humbert has bribed Lo with in return for sex. The list continues, even the songs that don't reference Lolitastill evoke that same type of doomed love.

Over the years many young women have probably read Lolita, liked the book and maybe even identified with aspects of the character, but it's only with the prevalence of the internet that you can observe the vast, primarily young and female fandom. Why this character? She has no agency or voice of her own in the book or either film, most of her lines are responses to what is being done to her. But it's her they're interested in, not so much her step-father/lover/abuser Humbert Humbert (affectionately known as Hum) even though the nymphets claim to be interested in older men. And though Tumblr is an aesthetically-led form of social media, for many of these users it's not quite as simple as style over substance either. This isn't a tentative grasp on the vague and various meanings attached to Lo over the years. Theirs is an informed obsession, not just an attraction to Bert Stern's pictures of Sue Lyon in heart shaped glasses.

With its vast proportion of teenage users, Tumblr is an angsty place. When discussing nostalgia and the internet in a panel discussion on Marques Almeida’s S/S 15 show, SHOWstudio founder Nick Knight pointed out that Tumblr’s community appear to fixate on the dark, the unhappy and the melancholy. 'There's a certain obsession with sadness on Tumblr, sadness seems to be kind of around at the moment… You see things that magazines on the whole won't show. Self harm, food obsessions. Things that are personal. A fascination for death. I do think it ties in with a global movement.'

Western young women today arguably have more options than ever before, but there's a pressure that arises from that to accomplish more. When you never quite feel like you’re getting enough right it makes sense to fetishise the wrong. It's not unusual to find something upsetting enough to make you close the tab in a nymphet blog; the gruesome dismembered body of Elizabeth Short (aka The Black Dahlia) just down the page from a pinterest-y shot of pastel colour silk dresses hanging in a vintage wardrobe. A violent pornographic image transformed into a meme with the darkly romantic Arctic Monkeys lyrics 'crawling back to you', then later a GIF of spindly spiders fighting in the corner of a ceiling. Reading Lolita in Tehran author Azar Nafisi points out that Lolita's real name Dolores means sorrow, and Lolita blogs are always sad. While at face value a curation of the sexualisation of young girls, on closer inspection nymphet blogs document tragedy. The type of femininity these young women – and for that matter Lana del Rey - have chosen to identify with is one that is doomed from the start. Either Oscar Wilde or George Bernard Shaw said youth is wasted on the young. These particular girls are wasting theirs fetishising it, treating youth as a theme to be curated, collected and carefully documented.

It's this juxtaposition of the cute and girlish with the violent that expresses the core theme of Lolita better than any blonde teen sucking a lollypop on numerous book jackets ever can.

This is an essay written alongside ‘Girly’ - the fashion film. It remarks on the ‘Lolita movement’ and really converses the message I am aiming to portray in my concept as well. I italicised and made bold, key points that I thought really struck a chord with what is going on. The polar opposite ideal I am discussing, and how the sweetness and innocence of ‘Lolita’ is so revolting against the sinister darkness of the paedophilic behaviour occurring in the story. Dolores is a minor, it’s just a game to her,

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