hi kin !!

just a random question but… how do u pronounce ik’s name? :0 bc in my head i’ve always read it as “ick” 😭

(sorry if someone’s alr asked this/u addressed it before 😭)

this is the first time i've realised i really don't have a set pronunciation for it either..... in the beginning i think i just read it like you would an acronym (the same way i assume you'd read mc), but nowadays i think i read it as more of a 'kei' sound

since i first came up with the logic for why ik gets called that in-universe (her birth name is yi ke (乙可), which an english speaker might read as IK), i've also been calling her a-ke (阿可) and also little ke (小可 (xiǎo kě)) in my head too

(i like to think zhao turned the little ke nickname into 小蝌蚪 (xiǎo kēdǒu) to call her 'little tadpole' when she was little)

Hi,I'm I don't really know how to ask this I'm very shy and awkward. But I'm kinda questioning my sexuality and I was wondering if you had any tips on how to help me figure out what I could be? Like if you don't mind sharing were you always lesbian or did you have like boys too then maybe experimented? I don't really know what to do and how to figure this out by myself.

Okay so basically my gay timeline, I’ve had my fair share of male friends but my highest comfort level was always with females. Right from the start, and I didn’t really know being gay was a thing, because I grew up in north Texas, with my southern baptist family, and no one ever talked about it. I knew that no one talked about girls kissing other girls but I thought about it and I thought that I wouldn’t mind kissing another girl (this was maybe from 5-8 years old), and then I moved from Texas to Tennessee (from conservative…. to more conservative…) when I was 9. About the time I started going on the internet, learning more about political issues, and mostly- learning about the existence of homosexual people. The words “q*eer”, “f*ggot”, “d*ke” were tossed around as insults and with them came the stigma that gay people were inherently bad.

By the time I was 10, the summer after 5th grade, I had my first boyfriend. With him, I had my first kiss. I was nervous, I didn’t really want it. And he told me when I hesitated that it “shouldn’t be this hard”. So I let him kiss me, and it felt wrong, but I was the first of my friends to have a boyfriend, and my first kiss. In all honesty I really liked the attention. I liked it so much that when he broke up with me, I was devastated. I mistook that devastation for heartbreak. By the time I started 6th grade, I started watching degrassi (Canadian high school soap-opera), in it, I was exposed to lesbians. Fiona Coyne, the questioning lesbian, quickly became my favourite character. I became HEAVILY invested in her to the point where I developed my first girl crush. It freaked me out. I stopped watching the show, I shoved my feelings in a box, in the closet, and by the end of 6th grade, I had my second boyfriend. We kissed once, also through coercion. I didn’t enjoy it, and the relationship ended because we both decided that we mistook feelings of friendship for romantic feelings.

By the middle of seventh grade my hetero-posing ass had my 3rd (and last) boyfriend. Mind you this was THE PEAK of my eating disorder and anxiety disorder, and the beginning of my depression. I was desperate for attention and for validation, and because of this, I thought I was in love. I wanted his attention constantly, and I was very upset when he wanted to do other things. Which ended the relationship because he couldn’t provide the kind of attention I was looking for.

So you know my history with boyfriends. What about the actual gay part? I’m getting to that. My best friend from the time I moved (at 9) to this point (12) had been my rock. But in 7th grade, after her father died, the nature of our friendship changed. She became more attached and craved someone to hug and cling to, and THIS is the kind of attention I was after. I quickly, without knowing it, developed a crush on her due to the attention and the validation and physical affection.

So when she started talking to one of her crushes, what did I do? Sabotage their relationship by convincing myself I had a crush on him and sending him nudes (that’s illegal kids don’t do that)? You betcha I did. This put a halt on the relationship, for whatever reason lol. After 3 months of no talking (and still not considering my feelings for my friend and why I was so adamant about needing to send a flat chested tit pic to this 5'1 fuck boy in the making) whatsoever, she decided to forgive me. I apologised, and we moved on. She ended up dating the guy and talking to him constantly, which pissed me off for reason that I couldn’t understand.

And then one day it hit me. I wanted her to pay that kind of attention to me. I wanted her to talk to me 24/7. But I didn’t like her at all noooo because in the good old state of Tennessee liking people of the same sex is BAD and people who do it are BAD. So no, not gay. Just wanted attention. But then, in February (2015) she landed herself in the psychiatric hospital after a very bad night. In my fear of losing her I realised I wanted a life with her and I loved her and couldn’t live without her. At this point I’m like, “oh. Oh fuck. Fuck fuck fuck” so again I put those feeling back in the box on the shelf in the closet of gaybie shame (to keep my feelings for Fiona Coyne company). Didn’t talk about. didn’t think about it. Because my friend was straight, right? Right??

WRONG!! Because this friend got drunk one night after her break up with 5'1-fuck-boy (we did bad things okay but that’s not the point) and she said to me “I love you baby” so I’m like???? Yo? What’s up?? Next morning, sober, she wrote it off as “a very maternal need to protect” me. Okay whatever, now I’m onto her. But I don’t say anything. I keep it to myself so I don’t embarrass her or push her to do something she’s not comfortable with. But I’ve got my proof that she’s Down With The Homo, so I’m like okay I can maybe take the Gay Feelings ™ out of the closet. And I process them, and what conclusion. Do I come to? Bisexual. Specifically, heteroflexible. A month later, I tell someone for the very first time. Another month later. (This is actually the same month daddy and I met but she didn’t know about any of this at the time 😚) The friend says to me “I need to tell you something” so I say “okay, I need to tell you something too” and she says “okay” and I say “I’m bisexual” and she says “ME TOO” and I’m rolling my eyes thinking yah old news. We date. We break up, turns out she’s manipulative and emotionally abusive and it’s not a perfect love story and she went back to dating guys and she got pregnant last year and has a new boyfriend every two weeks so that’s how she’s doing in case you’re curious.

I tried dating another girl, didn’t work, I was rebounding, she was immature, she cheated on me. Whatever, didn’t care. Hardly even liked her. And now I’m dating my daddy, third (and hopefully last) girlfriend. And since being with her and feeling how FUCKING GREAT!!! It feels to be with a girl, I wouldn’t go back to guys, of course, I like people not genders so maybe I’d consider it. But I’m primarily attracted to female *cough* anatomy, so it would take a lot of interest for me to pursue a relationship with anyone who isn’t female identifying, (down for all females not just cis ones but I do still have a big preference for female bodies)

Long (loooooong) story short. Always been gay, didn’t always know, do some experimenting, try both (all) sides, get a feel of what you’re into and don’t be afraid (and don’t keep yourself in the damn closet for a decade bc I didn’t make it sound as painful as it was but it really really was painful)