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intergalactic-chameleon · 2 years

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gender chronicles: a journal

hi thanks for reading if you've decided to click on this post! basically this post is me talking about my gender exploration journey, with an semi-abridged timeline and a list of recent developments. i'm just gonna be rambling so it's quite long.

(also if you, like me, thought you were simply a cis queer person but recently realized that it's a little more complicated than that, maybe this post will be helpful. but i digress!)

part 1: my timeline

2019: I am 19 years old. I am fully at terms with my bisexuality, and not really thinking about my gender identity. I start working as a busser/food runner at a semi-fancy restaurant near the end of the year, and feel myself grow really comfortable in the environment despite being surrounded by many boys/men. What really changed things for me is when I began wearing my uniform consisting of black pants, a white, long-sleeved button-up, and a quaint, black, clip-on bowtie. Wearing this and constantly interacting with guys in a semi-professional environment felt really empowering for some reason and I couldn't quite understand why.

2020: You already know what it is... lockdown and social distancing and what have you. Still working at my food runner job, and by June 2020 I was excited to finally have more stuff to do. I distinctly remember myself start to self-reflect way more than usual - often to a fault, but it was needed. As well as dealing with emotional numbness and emotional breakdowns, I was wondering how much I really identified with being a woman. It was confusing because I hadn't experienced much gender-related dysphoria at all, yet I experienced many instances of gender euphoria. This usually happened when I experimented with androgyny, which to this day consists of more "masculine" behaviors/stances paired with my mostly "feminine" clothing. I started playing around with concepts such as genderfluid, non-binary, androgynous woman... etc

2021: I continued to work at my restaurant job and saw myself opening up to people at work, particularly to one (male) cook that had been trying to connect with me to no avail. Through my work relationship with him, I realized how much I liked feeling equal to another man. Of course, I knew a huge part of that feeling stemmed from the sexist exclusion I've faced throughout my life. But I also knew that our connection gave me a sense of validation in more than one way. I felt like he could see the masculinity in me, despite him never telling me that. Then, I started art school later that year in August.

2022: Fast forward to this year, I wrote a paper about my gender identity for my college writing class. During the writing process, I began to research and introspect once more, hoping to come to a more comprehensive conclusion. Amazingly, I was finally able to articulate my experience much better than I had before. I finally settled on the term genderqueer and realized that my identification as a "woman" is mostly conditional on my social interactions and when im alone with myself, i feel like I'm so much more.

part 2: this year's revelations

...Consequently, the aforementioned realizations opened a lot more doors of exploration. I realized that my bisexuality is a HUGE influence on my gender identity and expression - truly an epiphany, I dunno how I hadn't realized this before. I also began to investigate my attraction to men.

Being attracted to men has always been a confusing sport. Ever since I began to identify as bisexual at the age of 15 or so, I've had to check in with myself to make sure I actually liked men. Like yea, men can be real shitty, but I also knew that initial, organic attraction doesn't rely on an ethical vetting process (i.e., you don't always need to know someone's personality to find them cute, lol). and time and time again, i would gain a small but distinctive crush on a guy (celebrity or not), and I would feel validated in my sexuality. Not to mention that my long-term partner transitioned from non-binary -> transman, and I still remained attracted to him. In fact, I think my attraction has grown, even. So, my only question I had left was "Why, even after all this self-reflection, do I feel like I'm still missing something?"

Well, guess what: IT WAS GENDER AGAIN!!

I began to wonder about my fascination with queer men expressing their sexuality. I didn't mention this before, but people such as Freddie Mercury and Harry Styles have transfixed me in a way I haven't been able to explain for literal years. And yes, they awe me with their talent, their charisma, their good looks, etc. But the common denominator outside of these things have always been their queerness.

Witnessing their expression of attraction to the same-sex, experimentation with femininity, confident stage presence, and gentle off-stage demeanor have made me feel a million different things. Comfort. Safety. Joy. Awe. Wonder. Lust. Yearning. Envy. Frustration, even. All because, in every which way, I wanted to emanate their uniquely queer energy.

Most of all, I learned that I want to express my attraction to men in an utterly homosexual way, despite being "not a man." And this lead me to the obscure term "girlfag," which means precisely what I'm describing. Being a "girlfag" as a genderqueer person means that despite experiencing most of my life as a "woman," I cannot for the life of me conjure up a heterosexual sense of attraction when experiencing attraction to a man. Everything about me is queer, so I cannot find anything appealing about typical "straight" sexual and romantic dynamics, healthy or not. This, of course, feels almost insanely hard to explain to other people. Most people think that bisexuality is split: as a woman, your attraction to women/"non-men" is queer and gay and revolutionary. Your attraction to men, however... not so much. It's just straight.

Which to me, is plain bullshit. If you're bi and you feel that your opposite-sex attraction is in fact straight, that's ok! I'm not here to police your sexuality. For me, however, it's a total crock, because I'm not attracted to men in the "normal" way, if you will. For one, I specifically seek out genderqueer/gnc men who love being feminine and masculine and everything in between; who identify strongly with women as people and as sexual beings. And, to put it plainly, I also deeply desire to do sex acts with men that most women would probably not consider. I often conceptualize myself as a performing a more masculine or androgynous role with men, wanting to woo them as if I were a princely figure, and wanting to fuck them with the same intense lust that gay men tend to have for each other. I want men to see my masculinity and revel in it. Specifically, gnc/genderqueer bisexual men are my everything and want them to be attracted to me so, so badly.

Anyway, to conclude: All of my attraction is queer all the time, full stop. Nothing is or will ever be more fulfilling than feeling like a queer because it breathes life into me. It's beautiful, invigorating, and empowering to be able to express this and I'm so happy to finally know this part of me. I love being a bisexual girl fag.

Anyway, thanks for reading my ramblings. If you happen to relate, please let me know :)

oct 2022 update: not sure if “girlfag” is my fav word anymore lol but i still relate to my definition of it. i feel pretty equally like a boy as well as a girl atp

#personal #gender #i talk a lot about sexuality and my attraction to men in this btw #also #f slur #lol just in case

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fromthedeskof-darkiplier · 2 years

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6, 10, 12 !

What made you realize your current labels fit you?

Well... for starters, being Intersex didn't really need a lot of introspective soul-searching, as that is just the scientific term for my anatomy.

I've learned about nearly every M-Spec (I believe that grouping is called) orientation when I realized someone had begun cataloguing them. Polysexual, omnisexual, pansexual, homoflexible, heteroflexible... you name it. Bisexual had always stuck with me, as long as the term had been around; and the use of it to describe an attraction to "both genders like your own and genders unlike your own" is even more befitting.

All other configurations of being, indeed.

That being said, the phrase "demisexual" had also piqued my interest for a time, as it sounded very similar to my attraction to Wilford. It turns out the word I was looking for was "demiromantic".

Specifically hearing the phrase "Singular They", when being introduced to they/them pronouns, struck a chord with me. I distinctly remember feeling that tell-tale euphoria in finding pronouns that sat right with me.

Sometimes I feel like I'm too old to be doing this much inward-searching... but sometimes I feel like now is a better time than any to do exactly that.

When did you realize you weren’t cishet?

When I was created. I didn't know that term before my reincarnation, but I certainly knew I wasn't one of the two any longer... and, if I may be honest, it was very liberating to have that epiphany.

Favorite flag(s) visually?

I can't see colors that aren't caused by some sort of magic, so that rules out picking a favorite based on color. The big, all-encompassing queer flag is very appealing, in terms of just how many stripes there are. The inclusivity is immediately obvious, colored-in or otherwise.

-D

#ask darkiplier #ask dark #darkiplier

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yikesharringrove · 4 years

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Will just has a huge ass crush on Steve and billy (not romantically or sexually, he just gets gay panics cause they’re hot as hell)

will having a crush on steve is one of my favorite things ever.

Will always knew he preferred guys.

Well, maybe not always, but just as long as he’s known Steve Harrington.

Which feels like always.

Steve had been the assistant coach for his little league team one year.

He remembers the first time Steve smiled at him, the first time he pat Will on the back and said, hey, good hustle out there.

He remembers the way his gut burst into flames, his face matching the fire inside him.

He doubts Steve remembers it. Doubts Steve put much stock into the interaction.

But that, that was an epiphany for Will. It was such a defining moment.

And he guesses, that this is probably another one.

Billy was gross.

Will doesn’t know why he finds it so endearing.

But watching Billy shove half a slice of pizza in his mouth, and then proceed to talk with his mouth completely full, it should make Will wanna ralph.

But that fire was back. The one that had never really left, the fire that roared whenever Mike touched his shoulder or Steve ruffled his hair.

Here it was, burning for Billy Hargrove and the pizza grease on his chin.

Steve reached over absentmindedly, wiping the grease mark away.

“You’re a pig.” Billy showed Steve the chewed up food in his mouth. Steve scoffed, shaking his head, turning to Will who was smooshed between Mike and Steve.

And if he’s being honest with himself, being smooshed between Mike and Steve and staring at Billy, Will really couldn’t complain.

“Isn’t he awful?” But Will had noticed the way Steve’s foot had been planted firmly on Billy’s the entire meal, noticed how sometimes Billy was just at Steve’s house when the party showed up for DnD night.

And of course he had noticed the looks, the touches that were far too casual to actually be casual.

He doesn’t think anyone else had noticed.

Honestly hopes they haven’t, hopes that these two can be happy and safe, even if it is in secret.

“I don’t know,” he realized Steve had asked him a question. “He’s not so bad.”

“He must’ve brain washed you, or somethin’.” Steve said something else, but he had chose that exact moment to brush a casual hand through his hair.

It made Will’s brain short circuit.

It made Billy’s brain short circuit, too, judging by the way his eyes tracked th movement hungrily.

Billy leaned over the table, checking to make sure all the other kids were engrossed in their own conversations.

“Harrington, you gotta cool it. You’re makin’ the kid here lose his damn mind.” He winked at Will. Will could feel heat spread up from his neck, over his face. “You’re too hot, Sugar.”

Steve shook his head, looking down at the table, his cheeks tinged pink. Will loved it.

“So you two are,” Will trailed off, his voice low. Billy nodded.

“But you already knew that, eh?” Will shrugged lamely. “I mean, with how much you watch us-”

“Bill, don’t-”

“I’m sorry! I wasn’t trying to be, to be weird-”

“Will, hey.” Steve had fully turned to him, speaking in that soft, special voice he used when one of them was in over their heads. “It’s okay. It’s not weird. We’ve just, noticed, I guess.” And then Steve’s hand was on his shoulder and Will felt like he was gonna die. “You look at us the way we used to look at some of the older guys we’ve known.”

“Look, Byers,” Billy shuffled in his seat, leaning closer over the table. “We just wanna be on the same page. We don’t mind you looking. It’s natural, it’s normal, but like, we’re way too old for you. Harrington’s already enough of a cradle robber-”

“Okay, that’s fucked.”

“Your last two relationships have been with people a year younger than you, you absolute cougar.” Steve kicked Billy under the table, Billy grinned at him.

“Don’t push it, Bill. I would leave you for Tommy’s older brother in a damn heartbeat.” Billy rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Steve turned back to Will, taking a breath. “We were just talking the other night, and we wanted to make sure you knew we’re here for you. If you wanna like talk or anything.” Steve shrugged.

“We both know how much it can fucking suck growing up queer.” Billy was back to leaning into the conversation. “You’re not gross and you’re not alone. Which Steve told me to say the alone part.” Steve kicked him again. Billy pouted at him dramatically.

“I thought he might need to hear it, you asshole.” They were back to bickering like the ex-rivals they pretended to be.

Will just smiled at them both, let his arm brush against Steve’s as he reached for a napkin.

He could have this.

#yikes writes #steve harrington #billy hargrove #steve harrington x billy hargrove #billy hargrove x steve harrington #harringrove #harringrove fic #harringrove ficlet #harringrove drabble #will byers #billy and steve being wills queer mentors is one of the best things in the world ngl

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grakkyy · 3 years

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TW: HOMOPHOBIA AND TRANSPHOBIA

Thinking about when I was in high school band and discovered that the German word for Bassoon is "Fagott" so I would purposely say it any chance I could to make fun.

This was during a time before I discovered I was panromantic asexual and wanted nothing to do with the LGBTQIA+ community. I was raised to believe everything about it was wrong and offensive to the religion I was apart of at the time. So I made jokes and said things I really really regret to this day. I know that the queer friends I had were uncomfortable with me and it's something I'm not sure I can ever really make up for since I was a contributing factor in the trauma they received as queer people in the deep south.

It wasn't until I went to college in Georgia that I realized just how wrong I was. I met so many people with different views and experiences and backgrounds and sexualities and I'll forever be grateful for the education I got from them. Now, by this time I thought myself to be a firm ally to the LGBTQIA+ community and stopped making the homophobic jokes and comments that I had developed a habit of, but I can still remember VIVIDLY telling one of my friends, "Yeah I support them but I don't like the idea of them getting married and stuff. Especially in a church." Because at the end of the day, no matter how much I tried to be supportive, I still found it all to be against my religion. Deep down I still thought that it was wrong. It was also during this time that I got my first official boyfriend. He wanted to have sex and I didn't because at the time I thought it was because my religion told me I should wait for marriage and not because I was sex repulsed. This was the first real thing to make me even start questioning myself.

So flash forward to April of 2020. I'm 19 years old at this point, a college dropout, lost my job due to covid, and moved back home with my family due to covid. I'm questioning everything at this point. I've educated myself more (honestly thanks to tik tok and tumblr if we're being honest) on both the LGBTQIA+ and my religion. It was at this point that I realized once again how wrong I really was.

I discovered the term Asexual and did extensive research because of it, including articles, tumblr blogs, and porn. I realized that I was actually a sex repulsed Asexual and that's why I only ever found romance attractive. I then went on to have the great epiphany of August 2020 when I made...a tinder profile.... and checked the box that said "all genders" to match with. Because for me, i realized that personality and companionship is what matters instead of a gender.

In November of 2020, I made a minecraft server. This is where I learned a lot about Trans and non binary people. I made friends with a trans guy that I misgendered more than a few times simply because I knew he was trans. Granted, I never did it on purpose but I know that I still messed up and upset him multiple times. He's educated me a lot and we've had deep conversations about being trans and the hardships they can and do go through on the daily.

I also met my partner through this server and they're amazing🥰 just had to throw that in.

And now, I'm proud to say that I will be celebrating my first Pride month as a panromantic asexual and member of the LGBTQIA+ community. I know who I truly am now.

All of this is to say that growth isn't linear. It took me years and years to realize how wrong I was and who I was. I went back and forth on opinions and denied many facts that I refused to see because there were times that I didn't want to learn. I believe I've changed for the better and I genuinely don't think it would have been possible had it not been for the wonderful people I've met and learned from.

Education is key here. Sharing your stories and sharing your experiences and sharing your pride is key.

Happy Pride everyone. Thank you for helping me grow and learn as a person and accepting me into this community. I love you all🏳️‍🌈

#share your pride #pride month #lgbt pride #lgbtq #me

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confringo- · 3 years

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Letters to My Younger Self

Dear 14 Year Old Joey,

It’s a cloudy day. We love cloudy days.

If you can read this, please keep writing that Jonas Brothers fanfic that you’re writing. It’s strange and different and no one will understand it. Not even me. But it’s where you started. It’s where you realized that you’re a storyteller and that there are people out there in the world who will read your writing. Hold on to that joy and excitement you have when you open Quizilla dot com. Remember how easy it was just to write and then post it without having to worry if you’re doing it right or if it’s perfect.

I’ve since forgotten the exact sensation of that...but I’m trying to rekindle that ease. Perfectionism got the better of us. You may not think it, maybe you don’t have the capacity to yet since you’re fourteen and there are so much more other pressing things to occupy your mind, but we’re more like our mother than you think. Our academic ability won’t match hers but the perfectionism appears elsewhere.

It’s toxic. It’s dragging us under whenever it gets the chance and poisons everything that we do until we’re incapacitated by our own doubt and sadness.

However, we’re taking steps to alleviate it.

I’m listening to music now. You listen to a lot of music but as the years come, you start listening to less and less. Just because sometimes you can’t find the right song and if you can’t find the right song, you’ll never find the right song. Thankfully, there’s so much music out there that at some point you’ll find something that you can vibe with.

And that just gave me a grand epiphany on art. It’s saturated. All the songs have been sung, all drawings have been drawn, and all the stories have been written, but it’s nice to have a large selection. That’s why it’s important to create more - so we can enrich the pool. If every queer writer stops writing because there are other queer writers out there who allegedly “do it better,” then we’re letting the straights win.

Oh yes, 14 year old Joey. We’re out and proud. A beautiful queer little thing. Who would’ve thought? Not us.

We’re writing a story about superpowers. The main character is bisexual. No one is straight except if they’re a passing character. That’s fun, isn’t it?

Remember when we were playing pretend? With all those powers you daydream about all of us having? We’re doing it but in a more controlled way. Something that doesn’t involve our family the way we involved them in our daydreams. It’s better that way, trust me.

I’m gonna try to write a little bit today. Not too much. Sometimes when we do too much, we stop writing for a long time and...Mom’s retiring this year. We can’t afford to stop writing. If we do, then there would be no point in anything.

Keep writing Jonas Brothers fanfic Joey. I’ll keep writing our new stories if you do. I promise.

Love always,

Joey 2021

#Letters to Self

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potatopossums · 3 years

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Insecurity and Boundaries: A Necessary Coexistence

Content Warning:

This post includes discussions / mentions of:

bodily insecurities, explicitly including dysmorphia, dysphoria, and implicitly including but not limited to eating disorders, weight

childhood trauma including shame, humiliation, fear

coping mechanisms, both healthy and unhealthy, including anxious avoidance, projection, masking, reflection

mentioned references to all of the above through lenses of morality, cis white feminism and sexualized body positivity

adhd

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Author's Note:

Written through the lens of adhd, anxiety, depression, queerness, transness, nonbinaryness, aromanticism, alterous attraction, and as always, questioning.

—

Ngl I've had the opportunity to date/"be with" (in whatever capacity) several quite attractive ppl, and the last couple have been great examples of something that actually kind of triggers me / turns me off.

I didn't really know what to make of it then, and I felt bad about it then too because I thought I was just being judgy. Not saying some of that isn't potentially still there, but i think i understand better now.

It honestly kind of scares me when I have the opportunity to have close relationships with people with bodily dysphoria/dysmorphia or strong insecurities. My brain has a really bad habit of being reflective when I'm feeling vulnerable. I just match people. It's a way of masking while relating to people. It's a defense mechanism. But it feels quite real in the moment and i often don't realize it's happening until it has already happened.

But as a nonbinary person who gets misgendered a lot at work, I've spent a lot of time now very acutely aware of my own body (as if i wasn't already). I don't tend to hate my body in a vacuum. I actually enjoy my body. I like how it looks in certain clothes; I like how I can trick the eye and make it look another way with other clothes, and then surprise, it's a different body underneath! I like how my body feels when i masturbate, i like how my body feels in the warm sun, i like how my body feels when i self-soothe. Even when I'm in pain, in some of those moment, i like that my body exists because I know something is happening inside me, something systematic and programmed, something beyond me that does it's evolutionary purpose, no matter how flawed. I've always had a curiosity about bodies in general (gender and sex completely aside). So when i say i love my body, i mean that.

Does it mean i don't struggle with dysphoria? Of course i struggle. And it makes me feel like shit.

Sure, I've got that Cis White Feminist Self-Loathing Intervention Voice in my head that says "all bodies are beautiful" (and she really means all women are beautiful but I'll co-opt her lines to fit my agenda). That voice is problematic because like. I like being beautiful, but why do I want to be beautiful, and what happens when I'm not beautiful? How do I guage whether I'm beautiful at any given moment? Isn't that largely subjective even with an overarching cultural & social standard? When I feel "ugly" — my cowlicks sticking up, teeth unbrushed, i feel too short, i feel i look too childish, I'm afraid my boobs are showing in a way i don't want to be seen, etc. — who's to say that someone else doesn't find some of those things attractive? So attractiveness is a poor method of confidence, despite how influential it still is on my brain and personality. That influence is fear based.

All that in mind, when I hear other people struggling with their bodies, especially in a Trans/Non-Binary/Dysphoric way, it really scares me. I mean, any bodily struggles scare me because I have my own insecurities to deal with. And when I'm in that state of really wanting to keep a connection because abandonment trauma + adhd, my vulnerable brain says that in order to impress someone, I must reflect relatably. So that has me digging back into my bodily insecurities. And I explore them as if I should be feeling them.

Let me unpack that. I'm avoidant with my anxieties. I don't talk about them, and I don't think about them much if I can help it, because when I think about them, that result can be largely painful, dramatic, and too emotionally volatile for me to handle. I always want to look put together, I want to feel secure enough to not need to ask for help, because those few times it went badly when I asked for help still stick with me (regardless of how long ago those moments were, and regardless of how many good times I've had where received actual help since). I remember the embarrassment and humiliation, the shame, the fear, the guilt. I remember wanting to make myself smaller, and how crushing that felt to do. I remember how little I understood of these wild and complex emotions, and all I knew was that I felt violated and disgusting. And I turned that inward. Because I had no external support.

So me saying that I explore my anxieties "as if I should be feeling them" is multi-pronged. It's Cis White Feminist Body Positivity, it's all those family members who modeled and normalized self-hatred for me from a young age, it's bodily dysphoria/dysmorphia at being misgendered, it's me trying to convince myself that my body truly is okay and that my negative inner voice doesn't know what it's talking about due to it's poor influences, and it's me ultimately not being able to reconcile all that on my own (or fast enough, thanks adhd) and resorting to anxious avoidance of my insecurities as if that solves them.

And then, when I hear someone I might kind of want to be intimate with start to talk about their insecurities, my brain panics. It says, "If you go in there, you will lose it. You will fall into the same hole they're in. You will have to suffer just as much for them, and for yourself. You will lose all your energy and you will start to hate yourself. They will treat your body the way they treat their body. You will be made to hate yourself."

And even though I know plenty of people with dysphoria/dysmorphia and other bodily struggles absolutely won't do those sorts of things, I also know that projection is a thing. And considering how poor I am at boundaries and how I tend to adopt unhealthy relationship dynamics due to my avoidance, I know that it would just start a bad cycle for me. Even with all the empathy and understanding in the world, I simply cannot root myself in a situation that would cause me to loathe myself.

And again, in case this wasn't clear: this is absolutely not a statement about people with bodily confidence issues as a whole. I am not trying to villainize or demonize or moralize their experiences. That is markedly the opposite of what I intend here.

But it took a long time for me to get to this point in my self-awareness. And i wanted to share it because i want other people to be able to reach an understanding of themselves too, whatever that understanding might entail. Yeah, it's a little cliche, but our projections and fears about others can have a lot to do with our fears about ourselves. It's important to be self-aware, even if that doesn't immediately solve the problem(s).

I tend to really like confident people because of this. That attraction has it's own roots in confidence issues, and its own potential flaws. And until I can change my own avoidant anxiety, I'm going to find new ways to project my avoidance and shame onto others, regardless of whether they are confident or unconfident, dysphoric or not.

But, just because I'm projecting doesn't mean that I'm unworthy of boundaries. Even if my behaviors are unhealthy, even if I do need to work to change those things (and even though I actively want to change those things), it is still healthy for me to know my limits. It's healthy to know what triggers me. It's good for me to realize these things and step back, even if the relationship I'm leaving/not starting is arguably "good." (And that assumption is a whole other topic for another post.)

So, along with whatever other epiphanies you might have received from this read, here's my major takeaway that I want to leave you with:

Your boundaries are okay. Even if they're based in anxiety, even if they're based in unhealthy coping mechanisms, even if you want to change your unhealthy behaviors/mindset. Your boundaries do not need to pass any social justice or morality tests in order to be valid. Your boundaries do not have to "make you grow." Your boundaries are not bad, even if you feel like they keep you from being the best version of yourself.

The only way you can actually grow is if you respect yourself enough to respect and enforce your boundaries. The only way you can feel comfortable and happy and healthy is if you respect your boundaries.

So please do that for yourself. Please respect your boundaries. I know it's very hard, especially for people-pleasers. I know it's hard for you avoidant types. I know it's hard for those of us who mask and reflect.

But please, just a little bit at a time, respect yourself. Even if that means disappointing or hurting others with a "no."

And please, please, please surround yourself with people who respect your boundaries and stand up for you. Of all the work I've tried to do alone, nothing compares to the effectiveness and growth I've experienced when I've been around radically affirming people — people who fought for my right to say no; people who defended my boundaries no matter what they entailed; people who stood up for my pronouns at work; people who validated my life experiences, labels, queerness, and questioning. It can be difficult to find people like that in real life, but please stay in the company of people who do that for you. Even if they're online. Stay near people who model self-respect for you. They will help you practice how to treat yourself.

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#tw body insecurity #tw dysphoria #tw dysmorphia #tw eating disorder #adhd #masking #reflecting as a coping mechanism #trauma #relationships #alterous attraction #questioning aromantic #nonbinary #agender #queer

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southeastasianists · 4 years

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From the iconic films of drag legend Divine to the campy classics The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar; the essential documentary Paris Is Burning to the groundbreaking TV series Pose; and, of course, the popular herstory-making franchise of RuPaul’s Drag Race. There’s a plethora of content from drag culture that can comfort the weary during these confusing times.

Drag, in its basic sense, is about transformation. It’s a reaction to society’s standards and expectations. However, albeit entertaining at first glance, drag, like any other art form, has always been political. From half a century ago’s queens of Stonewall riots to today’s digital queens, drag has always fought for the downtrodden – all the while wearing seven-inch rhinestone-studded heels.

In celebration of Pride Month, INQUIRER.net talked to six of the country’s fiercest queens about the importance of drag in this period of turmoil.

The art of drag

I always knew I like creating things, whether it’s dressing up our Christmas tree or dressing up for Halloween. When I first transformed in drag, it was like an epiphany. I knew this is something I would do for a long time. It was love at first drag…

As much as the pandemic has taken away the physical interaction that we used to enjoy during our parties, it also opened up more opportunities for the art of drag to be seen and appreciated. In the past, local drag queens and performers can only be seen inside nightclubs and LGBTQ establishments, and a lot of enthusiasts and artists don’t have access to such places, especially minors and those living in the provinces.

Nowadays, I still get to do drag, but more on hosting and co-producing online shows and parties. In doing so, I’m able to gather people and provide platforms for other drag artists to be seen and perform. So far, the reception has been good, especially since online e-numan is slowly becoming the new normal for our patrons in the clubs…

Drag is dynamic, evolving, and very diverse. Here in the Philippines, most people are familiar with drag through impersonators and our trans sisters donned in impeccable gowns. But there are also drag artists with occult or alternative aesthetics, or unpolished makeup skills, or garbage as part of their brand, and those who tell stories onstage that some may not like.

I, for one, am a storyteller. What I do is I incorporate current events or matters of public interest in the songs I perform. By carefully listening to the lyrics of a song, I weave its meaning to my stand on social issues. People may say it’s a political agenda, or that I’m biased or off-putting, but that’s what art does. It’s meant to provoke and challenge ideologies…

Human rights should never be a collateral damage. It is not the law itself that puts the people at risk. It’s the integrity and morality of those enforcing it that predisposes people to danger and makes them fear for their lives. Why would we trust such absolute power to this government?

-- Eva Le Queen

Mascots of the LGBT community

I started doing drag as an escape from reality. Just like any other art form, it’s a vehicle for the expression of my alter ego. My drag persona is an extension of who I am as a person.

I see it more as a hobby than work. I tell myself that I will stop doing drag once it starts to feel like work. During this pandemic, it’s so heartwarming to see all these queens, young and old, come together during these hard times…

There’s a Chicago drag queen named TRex who said, “As drag queens, we are the mascots of the LGBT community.” That resonated with me because we have a responsibility to amplify the voices of our community. Just because we’re entertainers doesn’t mean we don’t have a say on political issues.

In this country, those who criticize the government get silenced. That’s why as part of a community of outcasts in a society that conforms deeply to tradition, we make it a point to speak out without fear or reservations. Because at the end of the day, we have to be echoes that will remind our countrymen that we are the generation that never forgets…

It’s crazy. “I am the law.” That’s what’s happening in our country right now. It’s no longer about the law of the state. That’s why the Terror Bill is wrong. If the government can abuse the law against journalists who are only doing their job, they can surely do it to anyone.

The problem is, supporters of politicians act like fandoms. It shouldn’t be that way. They hold their positions because the people put them there. But, really, what can we expect from this government? You elect a clown, expect a circus.

-- ØV CÜNT

Disturbing the comfortable

Drag is a matter of creating your own reality, and in creating your identity, you get to choose the traits that you want to embody. I believe that it’s a melting pot of everything I’ve learned in life, especially from theater and the arts.

As drag queens, we get to break the social norms, and we do it with more power and confidence than we ever thought we had.

Drag is art, and art in general is meant to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. It’s a fun way of looking at what’s happening in our society and of doing checks and balances. Drag queens have always been integral in the LGBT movement, and removing politics from a drag queen is the same as removing that person’s identity…

Ever since the lockdown, more newbies have joined the scene, and they even get to perform with the more veteran queens. People aren’t that busy so we get to interact with each other. Queens from different clubs and cities finally get the chance to collaborate. Everyone gets a level playing field.

At the same time, it’s also challenging because it’s still a live show, so you still have to put in the effort. There’s no assurance of a talent fee, and the attention span of netizens is so short, especially with so many things competing for their attention online. It’s a different stage, too. We’re constricted to the screens of other people’s devices…

I always try to make my drag fun, but it depends on the mood, the sound, and the message. Same with crafting any other performance, there has to be a story. You should get the audience hooked and there has to be an escalation and climax. Whether you make it subtle or literal, the message always has to come across.

For me, the message is often about coming together as so-called deviants and telling people who we are and demanding what is ours, or telling people that we are not a sin and that being ourselves is good enough.

-- Mrs. Tan

Drag is unbreakable

I did drag for the first time by joining Drag Cartel back in November 2017. It’s a competition for aspiring drag queens. Category for the night was “Disney On Ice,” so I came as Prince Charming in drag. That night, I won, and from there, my love for drag just bloomed.

I do it because it makes me do things that I’d normally just fantasize about. It’s a realization of the things that give me inspiration. The look, the makeup, the attitude. Even though it takes a lot of time, effort, and money, and even though my face breaks out and I get physically hurt while performing, living that fantasy is still the best feeling…

“Keep drag alive” is what we always say, and that goes for togetherness. For drag queens, drag enthusiasts, and drag lovers to maximize the power of social media and uplift queer artists to keep pushing, and to show that this pandemic is not a reason to stop doing what you love…

Drag is a middle finger to all forms of hatred, homophobia, discrimination, social injustice, and stigma…

What’s going on in our country is so overwhelming that I’m often left speechless. Every day I scroll through my feed and I see one issue after another, and it makes me feel sick. I’m disgusted by the people responsible for all this mess.

I just hope people will take note of those in power who haven’t done anything good for this country. I hope that come election season, the people will remember what’s going on now and who’s responsible. I hope they vote for the right people. That’s all we can do as Filipinos.

—PRINCE

An image of hope

I started doing drag April of 2019 when I met a few drag queens (now my drag sisters and best friends) who helped me build my drag persona. I have always been very flamboyant and effeminate growing up, and drag opened up the possibilities for me to express those traits even further. Before, I was just doing it for self-discovery, but now, it’s for the community as well.

Drag is about finding the courage to create an image of hope and fulfilment for yourself that could later on affect other people’s lives…

The local scene has been very resilient when it comes to this pandemic. This is a living proof that drag is possible even without clubs and big venues. Just like wild grass, it’s bound to find a way to grow on its own no matter what…

Drag has always been political, and expressing my thoughts on socio-political issues through performances, public posts, online protests, and family and peer conversations is a way for me to maximize my drag as a political medium.

With everything that we’re facing right now, I think a lot of people are scared for their own safety more than ever. Aside from the unresolved coronavirus crisis, it’s really frightening to witness the recent displays of abuse of power and the questionable decisions of this government.

As a member of a community that has long been experiencing inequality, discrimination, and unlawful acts, I am deeply saddened with how all of this misconduct diminishes my hopes for a country free from oppression.

—Marina Summers

On the right side of history

Drag is my art, my craft, and my passion. Without it, I’m incomplete. It’s an alternative persona but it’s also part of my identity. It is the Juliet to my Romeo.

My interest in drag started after I saw the film To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar. The glitz and glamour was so fascinating, and I immediately wanted to be part of that world.

People may see us as glamorous toads with a million rhinestones in 7-inch heels but, girl, it’s not as easy as it looks. Drag is not just crossdressing. It’s a transformation.

Drag queens are probably the most resilient and most creative people I know. Drag is thriving even on lockdown. There are a lot of online shows for all to see. We figured out a new way of showcasing our chops. We will survive this…

Drag is political. It was, it is, and it always will be. Periodt. I am a full-grown adult man dressed up to the nines, looking like Joan Crawford after losing the Oscars. It’s a big middle-finger to toxic masculinity and misogyny.

I like to think I have a considerable amount of following, which means I have a platform. I always have a choice, just like everybody else. One can choose to stay quiet, which effectively means choosing the side of the oppressors. Or I, a drag queen, can choose to be part of a positive change and help inspire a new generation of people who are not afraid to express themselves, political or otherwise.

I want to end on the right side of history. As a drag queen, I believe I can do that.

—Dee Dee Holliday

#drag #drag queens #lgbtq #philippines #art #culture #resistance

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sincerelyreidburke · 4 years

Note

Questionnaire for the rat bf, if u can?

Real Touille stan hours. Thank you. Ace rights. Let’s go under the cut and do the whole damn thing!!

Here’s the questionnaire of pride asks for the crickets! Send me anything!

I’m answering this entire thing “as” Touille, so be aware of that.

1. what is your sexuality?

I’m asexual!

2. what do you identify as?

I use the term aro-ace, for the most part. Or just ace.

3. how long have you been aware of your sexuality/identity?

Okay, well, I’ve known as long as I can remember that I’m not into romance or dating. I never understood, growing up, why everyone was always asking me about girls or why there was so much romance in the media. But if you mean knowing the word for my sexuality... then not that long, actually. It was during fall of freshman year, and the upperclassmen started talking about Winter Screw, which was coming up. I kind of freaked out when I realized it was a dating thing, because I didn’t want my roommate Francis (or anyone) to pick a date for me. So I had a little panic moment, and then Bully asked me if I was asexual. I had no idea it was a thing, but it was the best epiphany. I’ve felt so much more comfortable in my own skin since I learned there were other people like me.

4. do you have any preferences?

For, like... dating? Not applicable, I guess.

5. share a positive memory about coming out!

Because I realized I was ace in front of all of SMH at team breakfast, I didn’t really have to come out to any of them. And I haven’t really come out to that many other people, because I’m not sure my parents or my mémé would think it’s a real thing, but I did have a good experience coming out to Quinn! It was, like, two weeks after I met him, and they were doing this double-date thing with him and Nando plus Ben and Gina, who he was dating at the time, and, well, anyways, Quinn thought they were excluding me? And he said, oh, Remy, do you want to come? Are you seeing anyone? And I said, oh, no, I’m asexual, actually. And it was really nice, because Quinn just smiled and said oh, that’s lovely! I love your pride flag! and we moved on. It was really validating. Also it was the first time I really came out to anybody at all.

6. how do you feel about pride month?

Ben and Nando introduced me to the concept of pride month a few months before pride month actually happened for the first time since I met them. I like pride month because I send bad memes to my friends, and also because it’s fun on social media, but... in my regular life, I don’t really get to do that much for pride. Except the summer between sophomore and junior year, Ben came up to Quebec and we went to pride. Which was really fun, actually. And also, at the end of freshman year, Quinn sewed pride patches for a bunch of people, and he gave me a little circle that’s a hybrid of the ace flag and the aro flag, so I pin it to the hat I wear when I work at my papa’s crêperie in June.

7. do you participate in pride related events? any other events?

On the night of Winter Screw freshman year, Bully brought me to this party at his friend’s apartment, and introduced me to a bunch of other ace people. Apparently, they have this top-secret ace club??? It’s not an official campus club or anything, but they just... host parties sometimes, especially on nights where dating stuff is happening on campus, like Screw and also Valentine’s Day. I don’t know if that really counts as a pride event, but it makes me happy. It’s all kinds of people, from all over the Samwell community, and it’s really cool.

8. how do you feel about lgbtqa roles in media?

I wish there were more ace ones.

9. do you feel pride in who you are?

Honestly, yeah, I do! I’ve never really been ashamed of my identity, even before I knew there was a word for it and a community of people like me. The only time I’ve been discouraged about it is thinking about how the world is so romance-oriented, but that’s not really about myself; it’s kind of just frustration with the way society is.

10. who has been your supportive idols in your self discovery?

Bully! He was the first person to say the word ‘asexual’ to me, and he and I have been really good friends the whole time we’ve been on the team together. He teaches me about ace stuff and we usually sit together on the bus. I don’t think I would even know about asexuality at all if it weren’t for him. Okay, well, maybe Ben would have taught me eventually. But still. I’m really grateful for Bully.

11. tell us about your first crush?

Hahaha, not applicable. But I can tell you about my first real squish, if you want? Bully taught me what a squish is. It’s like a friend crush, but a little different than just wanting to be friends with a person. It was Ben for me.

12. what sort of advice to have you lgbtqa teens?

Well, for ace teens, you aren’t broken and you’re whole on your own. Never compromise the way you feel for other people’s sake.

13. have you come out to friends and family?

I’m ‘out’ to all my closest friends, but not to my family. Like I said, I’m not so sure my parents would think asexuality is even a real thing. They just think I’m taking a long time to find somebody.

14. how do you feel about the term “coming out”?

(Mel talking...) Click here for Touille’s answer on this one!

15. do you believe there is a “closet” to come out of?

For me? Not exactly... not really. Aside from generating annoying comments, coming out as ace doesn’t endanger me directly in any way. I’m lucky, because I know that’s not the case for every ace person.

16. any tips on coming out?

Oh, man, I’m definitely not qualified to give coming out tips.

17. what’s your biggest pet peeve when it comes to lgbtqa characterization in media?

(Mel again!) Here’s Touille’s answer on this!

18. what’s your favorite parts of lgbtqa characterization in media?

When I actually see aro and ace characters. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a confirmed one, but I like projecting onto characters without a love interest. Jughead from the Archie comics? Obi-Wan Kenobi? Merida, the Scottish girl? Asexual icons, and thank you for asking.

19. what did your teachers say about the lgbtqa community in school?

My teachers said little to nothing. I went to a French Catholic high school, and I think they ignored it on purpose.

20. do you practice safe sex with the same sex?

Haha, not applicable.

21. what’s an absolute turn off for you in people?

Also not applicable, but in friendship terms, when people don’t shut up about themselves. I can’t stand huge egos. There were a lot of them in juniors.

22. what’s an absolute turn on for you in people?

Definitely not applicable.

23. how do you feel about lgbtqa clubs/apps/websites?

I like browsing AVEN and the LGBT+ parts of Reddit. And we have the unofficial ace club on campus. Bully calls it the ‘ace gang’.

24. how do you feel about the term “queer”?

My friends use it all the time, but I don’t really say it that much. I don’t have anything against it, it’s just not something that’s really part of my vocabulary. I don’t find it harmful.

25. how does your country view the lgbtqa community?

Canada has a long way to go on some social issues, but as far as I can tell, LGBT issues are pretty okay. We have a reputation for being more liberal than the US, which I guess is true in some ways, but things aren’t exactly perfect. But LGBT Canadians are a lot luckier than LGBT people in other parts of the world.

26. favorite lgbtqa actor/actress?

I’ve been trying to think of an example of an ace celebrity, but I’m coming up short.

27. any tips for heterosexual people on how to handle lgbtqa events/news?

Just listen, honestly. And stand up for people who are being picked on or shamed.

28. what’s the most annoying question you have ever gotten?

Definitely “when are you going to find someone?” I can’t stand that question.

29. how do you feel about receiving questions about your sexuality/identity?

As long as they’re not in the vein of, like, you know aces aren’t LGBT, right?, then I actually really enjoy getting questions about my identity. Because people in my general life don’t tend to care that much about hearing about ace experiences (except my friends, who I love), talking about it comes sparse. Thank you for asking me all these questions, by the way! I feel appreciated.

30. what is your romantic affiliation?

I’m aromantic. :)

#oc taddies #crickets #rat boy #pride asks #cricket pride

14 notes · View notes

libermachinae · 4 years

Text

Schematics [Or, Another Chance] – Ch. 6, Peace

Also available on AO3! Notes: @prowlweek Coming to the end here! Can’t wait for tomorrow’s prompt, which *checks watch* I haven’t started writing yet.

⏳ 🚧 🚓 ⌛ 🏗 🚧 ⏳

There was something different this time. The push of the timestream was still there, its resistance to invasion, but now it felt confused. Hook’s legs were being pulled backward while his chest was lifted, his left arm drawn to his side. None of it was wholly uncomfortable yet, but the variety of sensations made it harder than usual to keep track of which way was up. He knew there was no choice but to keep moving forward, even as the building pressure started to remind him of that last fight with Victorion, feeling on the edge of victory only to be torn away from Long Haul without warning.

“Prowl!” he yelled, and the sound made his spark stutter. He’d never tried to talk in the timestream before, and it sounded like Soundwave’s multi-layered vocalizations, his own voice piled on top of itself many times over and bellowed into an echoless void.

He needed to get out. The timestream, empty and endless as it was, felt like it was pressing in on him, and there was nowhere to go. At the place where there should have been an end to the tunnel, an opening into whatever time Prowl had ejected himself into, there was nothing but more fragmentary space. There no footsteps in the timestream.

Hook wondered if this might be the end. He would be part of a legacy, anyway: dying in a state of heightened confusion, far away from the team. There were real reasons to be scared and upset about that, but the only thing he could think was that, having gone from prison to battle to hospital, they hadn’t even had a chance for a good frag before all this went down. He was going to die, and the main things on his mind were Long Haul’s tires. Great.

“Prowl!” he yelled again, bearing the unease caused by the sound of his voice. “It doesn’t have to be like this!”

“It does, Hook.”

The voice was so close. Hook whipped around, trying to find its source, but the familiar Praxian frame did not reveal itself. Space twisted around, obfuscating the way he’d come, and Hook became dizzy. There was no up anymore, no forward. Just time, its crystalline branches weaving over each other, incredible patterns that Scavenger or Mixmaster might have called beautiful. He thought of the possibility that he take an exit, the first one he came across, and just live through whatever time he ended up in. He survived the war once; he could do it again.

He’d come to get Prowl, though. He couldn’t leave without him.

“Come on,” he said, optics searching as though Prowl might be behind a spiderwebbing fragment. “That’s slag. I fragged up, but we can fix it.”

“You can’t fix this, Hook.”

He felt it like a blunt blow to his pride.

“What would you know?” he demanded.

Something shifted, its ripple out of time with the rest of movements of the timestream. Hook’s optics darted down to it, and he watched as the walls of time shivered and cracked, beams of darkness breaking through. Hook stumbled toward them, barely able to remember how his legs worked, his systems were to delirious with relief. Five windows opened, just the right size to peer into the times beyond.

“Enough,” Prowl said.

Hook couldn’t make sense of the scene at first. It was Cybertron, of course, but free of bullet hole pockmarks. Their missions had so attuned him to pre-war Cybertron that he didn’t immediately recognize the post-war (or at least the closest they’d come) landscape, though in time his processor did manage to make sense of it. It was somewhere in the depths of New Iacon, the sewer systems and maintenance lines that the Decepticons had made their base for a while.

Prowl stepped into view, still wearing his old frame. His optics were bright with stress and his doorwings arched high, but there was an air about him Hook wasn’t familiar with. The way he carried himself, dove so confidently around each corner, was removed from the mech he knew, who clunk through the shadows with the grace of a cybercat. Hook’s spark stirred again, though he brushed it off as the unnatural forces still toying with his frame.

He made to reach in, pry open the window a little wider so he could escape to freedom, but found that it would not allow entrance, an invisible force holding his hand back. He grunted in frustration.

“Prowl, what gives?”

“Just look,” the voice said, distant and yet chillingly, intimately close.

He shifted to the next window, wondering if maybe Prowl was waiting for him there. Instead, it was another scene, another Prowl. Above ground, under the Cybertornian sun, wielding a gun half his own height. So proud, so radiant, the sight drew an exvent out of Hook.

“Don’t get distracted, Hook,” Prowl said. “That’s not me.”

What? Of course it was. When Hook humored Prowl and looked closer, though, he thought he understood what was meant. The armor was different from the one shown in the last window, enhanced and bulked up to match the demands of his soon-to-be gestaltmates. His optics (two!) were as piercing as ever, but unlike the tactician Prowl, who took every opportunity to survey a situation and formulate evolving strategies, these were hard, intended solely to challenge anyone who returned their gaze. Hook remembered at last that Bombshell was the one behind them here, that It was his cruel smile twisting Prowl’s neutral features. The most uncanny part of it, though, were the rigid doorwings. Even as he spoke, inaudible through the peephole, and gesticulated to his onlookers, the doorwings were fixed, mute.

“Eugh,” Hook said.

“You understand?”

Hook glanced up, though there was still no one there.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“You don’t believe me, that this is beyond your ability to fix,” Prowl said. “I’m showing you proof.”

Prowl’s processor was big, beautifully complex, able to solve problems with such elegance the rest of the swooned. But he was being shortsighted when he claimed there was nothing they could do. They were a team of builders, able to fix pretty much anything, and they did it together. Though they might have been temporarily pulled apart, Prowl just needed to come out of hiding and they would prove it to him.

Instead, he just said, “Keep going,” and Hook was obliged to obey.

He knew the next window before the entire scene had come into view. It was one of his favorite memories, one of the few he’d kept locked up tight during Scoop’s brief stint with the team: Megatron gave the order to combine, and after months of laying low, Devastator’s components came together again. The feeling of reconnecting had been like a rush of sweet coolant through Hook’s lines, and then invigorating energon, as a new mind swept them up with its incredible power.

Except, here, that perfect moment of synchronicity was delayed, and instead the view swept down. It found Prowl, splayed on the ground, screaming. All the way through that first transformation, as the power of combination lifted him into his place as Devastator’s head, his expression was warped in agony. Hook stared the whole way through, until the silent screams were encased within Prowl’s own body, folded and reshaped into the head of their combined forms. When Devastator’s mouth opened, it was to bellow with rage.

It… unsettled him. Hook had always known that first combination had been without Prowl’s consent, but the bliss that followed, Devastator’s purpose reborn, swept over his limited misgivings. Now, Prowl’s expression permanently etched in his memory core and knowing that Prowl had intended it so, the misgiving crept back in.

“You didn’t want to be a part of us at first, I get it,” Hook said as he moved to the next window. “But that’s not really unusual. Long Haul didn’t want to combine either, when Megatron first told us about it. You learn to like it more as time goes on, though, right?”

The next scene, not far ahead at all: Cybertron under siege from Shockwave’s assault, Metroplex barely holding out and in need of backup. Prowl looked up, into the sky, and Hook swore he saw his optics flicker the moment he made his decision. A second later, he gave his first order to combine.

“After that first time combining, though, things change,” Hook said. “You see each other, and then you can never imagine yourselves apart again.”

He hovered by that window, watching as Devastator met Monstructor head on, his rage and brutality underscored by a long-term strategy the rest of the team hadn’t been prepared for. The first time they’d combined with Prowl had been good, but this was the moment that had made them realize that they needed to keep their new teammate, that he was going to be a part of them forever, the same way Scrapper still was. He missed it, he realized, that moment of epiphany. It had been less than a cycle before they disconnected again, but in his memory, it stretched out, a breathtaking expanse of violence he wanted so badly to reclaim.

Prowl sighed, though it was more like Hook felt it than an actual noise he heard. Before his optics, the window stitched itself closed again, empty space left where one the chaos of battle had waged. To either side of him, the others did the same, once more enclosing Hook in the timestream.

“I hoped I would be able to show you and you would understand, but I guess I forgot what you used to be like.”

There was direction to the voice now. Hook whipped around.

“Prow—you’re not Prowl.”

The mech, standing a dozen or so meters away, had an all-black paint sceme and stood at eye-level with Hook. He was a vehicle, likely a car of some sort, but it was a queer blend of Cybertronian and Earth design, rubberoid wheels embellished with thick treads. His posture could have been described as casual or confident, Hook couldn’t decide which, though his doorwings twitched faintly.

The luxurious black was was so silky that the mech’s features faded against the bright background, though the matte gray Autobrand centered stark on his chest. The other most visible features were his gray faceplate and purple optics, frame under a familiar red chevron.

“…are you?”

The doorwings fluttered up.

“That’s my name, yes,” he said, the grin he bore making Hook doubt himself again.

“But you’re not my Prowl.”

“I am who ‘your Prowl’ is going to become,” he said. “I’ve come from your future.”

“Neat,” Hook said, and immediately wanted to punch himself in the face. Prowl was here, dropping revelations like that, and the best he could come up with was ‘neat’?

The smile, though, did not fade, even as Prowl strode forward to collapse the distance between them. Hook startled when the hand came up, fingers resting against the side of his helm, tilting it like he was a fine weapon being observed.

“You’re nervous,” future Prowl said.

“Yeah.” Prowl’s fingertips were smooth on his plating, barely making a sound as they glided along the delicate seams. “You said you were going to kill me a few minutes ago. Uh, years? How far in the future you from?”

“Several centuries.”

“Ah.” They caressed his audial receptors, the curve of his jaw. Was Prowl looking for something, a stasis switch hidden in the nook between lower jaw and throat cables? He didn’t know of anything like that on his frame, but it seemed more likely than what his processor desperately wanted to believe this was.

“Is the team, you know, still together?” he asked.

“That’s what I’m here to address, actually,” Prowl said, his hand pulling back with a final brush along Hook’s cheek. He could not help that his optics trained to the hand as it returned to his side, though the steady purple glow of Prowl’s optics eventually regained his focus. “This moment is a turning point, Hook. The team is about to enter a new phase in its legacy, and it’s on you to determine how this transition resolves.”

“Me?” No, that couldn’t be right. That wasn’t how they did things; they were a team, they smashed through their problems together. Yes, he’d decided that retrieving Prowl would be his responsibility, but there should still have been time to go get the others before anything important happened. “Shouldn’t we all be here for that?”

“No. You were alone when you found me,” Prowl said.

“Yeah, but I can go grab them and—”

“I mean the first time,” Prowl interrupted. “My first time. Your second.” Hook’s (voluntary) lack of comprehension must have shown, because Prowl sighed and tilted his head. That smile was back, and it didn’t seem to be mocking. “You’re about to go find him. I know, because I remember it happening.” He said it like a conspiracy.

Something inside Hook was rattling. Not audibly, but he swore he could feel it, a deep feeling that was probably going to shake his frame until it fell apart, limbs and plating in an undignified heap in this nowhere place.

“So, I’m going to go get the real—present—my Prowl, and I’m going to do… something that causes him to become,” he waved his hands in front of the tall, black mech, “this.”

There was a glimmer in Prowl’s optics, a tremble in his doorwings, but his vocalizer stayed silent. Hook sagged.

“Come on, Prowl, what do I do?” he asked.

Nothing.

“I don’t want to mess up.” He hoped it didn’t sound like he was begging. “You’re from the future, you know everything.”

“What do you want me to tell you?” Prowl asked with a shrug. “That you find me, make a few more empty promises, and that’s what convinces me to come back to the present? That we finish up the mission, lock up our culprit, and spend the rest of our lives as Windblade’s secret task force?”

He advanced a step closer.

“Or the one where we leave Earth entirely? Travel from planet to planet, mercenaries one day and construction crew the next. Cybertronians are still generally disliked by most of the galaxy, so we spend nights piled up in whatever seedy motel won’t rat us out to the local militia.”

Another step. The rattling grew more violent.

“Our relationship gets pushed back to square one. We learn from the mistakes of our past, make more in the future, and figure out how to put together something that works. We stop letting the trauma that first brought us together continue defining what we could be to each other.”

Hook’s vents caught when he heard that word, though Prowl’s voice was so hushed he almost missed it. They were so close; he would only have to lean forward to…

But he stopped himself. He needed to know, first, “Do we ever combine again?”

This close, Hook could see Prowl’s lenses as they contracted, narrowing as he straightened himself into the rigid, unreadable posture Hook was more familiar with. Not mission relevant, he guessed, but not irrelevant, either. The futures Prowl described sounded… weird, but good. The team stayed together, got work doing things they were good at. He didn’t know how he felt about their employers, Autobots or aliens, but he could handle anyone if it meant he was with the whole team.

Could if be whole, though, if they were missing their giant, invisible seventh? The thought stung, a sharp pinch he felt in his inactive combination ports. To never again feel Long Haul’s ambition, Mixmaster’s curiosity, Bonecrusher’s protectiveness, Scavenger’s blend of emotions they’d never been able to put words to… Prowl’s brilliance… When they combined, the best parts of his favorite mechs flowed into him, meshed with his own processor to produce something greater, a feeling that they would never have to worry about being alone. Combining had become the means by which they understood each other, and even if they stayed together for centuries, he couldn’t see how they would last through millennia without it.

This was fear, he realized, even as the rattling inside of him stilled.

“Hook.” Gentle hands on his frame again: one back to cradling his helm, the other squeezing his arm, rubbing glyph-like patterns along the plating. Unfamiliar though they were, Hook found himself leaning into the touches. “Remember, that was all hypothetical. I can’t tell you what happens in the future. But I can tell you this: it’s good. No, better than that. It’s peaceful.”

“What does that mean?” Hook asked, even as his optics threatened to power down. When was the last time they’d recharged?

“What do you think it means?”

Prowl didn’t want to kill them. They fragged a lot. All the pests left them alone. They made a living working hard, working for themselves, without Shockwave or Starscream or Autobots telling them what to do. They were together.

If he was being honest, though, then Prowl probably knew all of that, and there were more pressing matters.

“What am I supposed to do with all this?” Hook asked.

His gaze had shifted down. He realized this when gentle persuasion from Prowl’s hand had him look up again, and he was met with those unfamiliar purple optics.

“You were on the right track,” Prowl said. “You go find me, and you say what needs to be said. We go from there.”

“But what is it? What do I say?” He didn’t care anymore if it sounded like begging; this was too important. He couldn’t screw it up. For as weird as this Prowl was, the futures he described sounded worthwhile. Hook wanted it, he realized, regardless of whether they could combine. It would be more work, to learn how to know each other without a direct connection, but it would be worth it to keep Prowl in their lives. For a few centuries, forever, anywhere in between, would be worth it.

Prowl’s expression softened again, his doorwings giving little flutters, and Hook wondered if he’d somehow revealed what he was thinking anyway.

“You’re going to keep this secret for a long time,” Prowl said. “From the other Constructicons, and especially from me. Once we’re collectively in a steadier place, then you’ll tell me about it. You need to tell me about this conversation, and that I need to trace our steps back through the mission and doctor things, a bit.”

“You…”

“Just a few details, to make me notice you all more, question some conclusions I’d come to,” Prowl specified. “Trigger one of Mesothulas’ experiments to combust; make Bonecrusher think I’m about to walk into a firefight.”

“You were the one leading me around Cybertron!” Hook gasped. “When you—past you took off, you knew where to find him!”

“My directions were a little off, but I got you there in time,” Prowl agreed. He sighed, a pleasant sound, pulling back again as his expression turned serious. “I know I’m asking a lot of you, Hook. All I have to offer is my trust that you will do this to the best of your abilities, and in return I’m asking you to trust me that, regardless of the details, it will be worth it. The conversation we’re about to have is…” But he stopped himself, started over. “I’m asking you to give me another chance. Can you do that?”

“Of course, Prowl,” Hook said. The answer was automatic. Regardless of the weird paint and far-fetched stories, he knew in his spark that this was still his teammate. “Always.”

Another smile. Hook realized that there were more to look forward to, in some hypothetical distant future, and a tentative excitement built in his spark. Yes, he could trust Prowl.

“I know,” Prowl said. He reached forward again, wrapping his fingers around Hook’s hand just long enough to squeeze, before letting go and stepping back as time started to stitch itself over and around him. “See you again soon.”

Then Prowl was gone, and Hook was alone. Something stirred within him, an old feeling, pointing off to the side. He turned toward it, letting it guide his steps until eventually he came upon the past.

He’d only heard rumors of the Arctic, a dreadful patch of Earth that was cold enough to freeze the fuel in your lines and with snow high enough to swallow a Cybertronian. Stumbling into the past, he was a little disappointed at what had turned out to be an exaggeration. Not a lot, just thinking it might have been cool. The snow barely covered his pedes, just enough to make driving a pain, though not impossible. He reasoned it wouldn’t be necessary, though, going by the deep tracks that led away from the portal and into a covering of dark trees. There wasn’t room for hesitation here: Hook stepped into the tracks and let them guide him forward. If Prowl had been lying, Hook would know soon enough.

He wasn’t surprised when the barrel of a gun appeared through the trees.

“I warned you, Hook,” Prowl said, stepping out. He didn’t have his finger on the trigger, but Hook raised his hands in surrender.

“We’re not great at the whole listening thing.”

“I’ve noticed.” Prowl’s optics, familiar blue, narrowed. He glanced to either side, not taking his sight off Hook for longer than a nanoklik. “Where are they?”

“The rest of the team?”

Cold silence.

“They stayed behind,” Hook said. “I told them to. I screwed up, so it’s on me to make things…” Well, not right. That had been future Prowl’s whole point, and he wasn’t about to waste the opportunity he’d been given. “We need one more chance,” he tried instead.

“This was your chance,” Prowl said, his hand tightening around the gun, “and you failed. I can’t trust you to follow orders or respect my decisions. How do I know you wouldn’t have killed Springer on sight?”

There was no victory in learning their target’s identity; what had once seemed so crucial, the in that would give them access to everything else Prowl was holding back, became insignificant when spat from a face glowing with hate.

“Do you want to know why I really chose you?” Prowl asked.

Hook did. He didn’t. It didn’t matter, because he wasn’t the one holding the gun.

“You aren’t the only bonded Cybertronians still alive. There are other active combiner teams, and even splitspark twins would have done the job. I picked you,” Prowl’s doorwings trembled, “because I knew I could live with it if the timestream killed you all.”

Hook’s internals shifted. He hadn’t thought he’d expected an explanation like that, but he found no trace of surprise in his systems, nothing to indicate that this was outside of Prowl’s usual behavior. He’d been more shocked to wake up to that message left over their comms, a cryptic command left while they recharged, and it was that realization that had his engine rumbling in arrhythmic pulses.

“The timestream?” he managed to ask. Any other part of the admission would have been impossible to address.

“We’re not built to exist in a place like that, let alone survive,” Prowl said. “Excess exposure gradually tears your spark across multiple dimensions, photon by photon. Agonizing, and once you’re sealed in, eternal.” His optic flared. “I was ready to see every one of you fall to it.”

He couldn’t help it, Prowl’s stare too intense, his tone too earnest: Hook thought of Scavenger. The wild, honest fear he would feel, to be trapped in a place like that, and it was all he could do to keep his systems running normally. He forced a memory in, played it back multiple times until it maxed out his processing power and the dreadful fantasy was pushed aside: gentle hands, a kind voice. A promise.

“What about you?” he asked. Another chance. “You’ve exposed yourself just as much. More, since you can’t even sit out. What’s going to happen to you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Prowl snapped.

The deflection was exactly what Hook needed to banish the ugly thoughts from his mind entirely, because it did matter. The future he’d envisioned was staked on Prowl being alive, and he wasn’t about to let anyone risk that, least of all Prowl himself. Hook wanted to assure him of this, but his first instinct was to step forward and Prowl’s finger moved to the trigger.

“Don’t!” Prowl shouted.

Hook froze. His arms dropped to his sides and stayed there, where they wouldn’t be taken as a threat. He knew to be wary of a scared mech holding a gun, but for each moment that passed he became more aware of the fact that it hadn’t gone off.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Prowl,” Hook said. What were they supposed to do next? “We need to talk.”

“You’re a bunch of brutes who kill without remorse and decimate populations for fun,” Prowl said. “You forced yourselves into my mind and took whatever you wanted. What could you possibly want to talk about now?”

The same thing he’d been shown in the timestream, just phrased in a few more words. For as gorgeous as Prowl’s mind was, as endlessly fascinating and precise and meticulously designed, it wasn’t something Hook had been offered. He’d taken, grabbed for that beautiful thing, because that was how you got anywhere in the Decepticons: you grabbed the things you wanted and stepped on anyone who tried to keep you from them. The whole team had been operating on that hard-learned principle when they drew Prowl in that first time, not realizing that by doing so, they’d inadvertently been crushing the mech, too.

That had been the basis for their new team, and it was a structurally stable as a building without supports, a project with no plan. They’d jumped straight to the best parts and doomed the whole structure to fail.

“We won’t touch you again, if that’s what you want,” he said. He turned his palms toward Prowl, though kept them low. “We’ll give you space. We won’t get repaired. We—”

“Your combination ports?”

“Yeah.” Didn’t matter that he hadn’t gotten the rest of the team in on the idea, yet. He would find a way to keep that promise if it were what Prowl wanted.

“You would put Devastator to death,” Prowl said. The wording made Hook a bit queasy, too reminiscent of Scrapper, but he nodded. “How? What are you if you can’t combine?”

A team, Hook’s spark wanted to say, but he stopped himself. Something had been lost in translation when they’d tried that before, he was sure, and maybe specificity here would ease whatever steps lay ahead.

“You took my spot,” he said. “I used to be Devastator’s head. Mechs who never saw us combined assumed it had to be Scrapper, since he was the leader, but he was a leg. Bombshell had to reformat me, because it was easier than making you bulky enough to hold up everyone’s weight.”

Prowl’s optics narrowed, and even from this distance Hook swore he could hear his processor working, plugging in all the variables to try to figure out where this was headed. Hook sped up: he needed to be the one to say it out loud.

“We didn’t need Scrapper to be the head to be an effective leader, and we didn’t want you to take over from him because you became the new head. Where you fit in Devastator and your role on the team are two different things, and we want to keep you as the leader. Or whatever you want to call it. You don’t have to stay a part of Devastator to do that.”

Four million years ago, on a planet that existed permanently in the past, the Constructicons had been a nameless construction crew, its foreman an imperfect and brilliant mech. Scrapper had the gift of a clear vision and ability to maximize his crew’s innate abilities, and it was under his leadership that they found purpose among the lowest rungs of Cybertronian society. They’d become a team deep in the foundations of future skyscrapers and city blocks, and when the benefits of that spilled into their off hours, Hook had thought nothing would ever compare. Scrapper’s death should have signaled the end of a dream. Instead, it had opened a door to something strange and new, and though the other side was looking less and less like what they were leaving behind, Hook knew that they had to go ahead through.

Prowl’s optic was still narrowed, but his finger was back to the barrel of his gun.

“I said I would kill you if you came after me,” he said. “How do we trust each other if you can’t hold me to that?”

“We’re a team,” Hook answered. “I’m going to take back what I said earlier. We’re not going to ask for another chance to prove it, because we’d just screw it up again. This time, we don’t make it about proving anything. Megatron threw us all into this without a plan or nothing, because nobody thought we’d stick together this long. We need to sit down, figure out what we’re doing, and then go after Springer or whoever. Once we’ve got our schematics down.”

He thought about turning his back on Prowl, a show of trust, but decided against it. There was a difference between trust and stupidity, and he liked to avoid being accused of the latter when possible.

The gun stayed pointed at him several seconds longer before, slowly, it lowered, pointed to the halfway point between them. Prowl’s optic was still fixed, but his doorwings no longer trembled.

“I’ll come with you to the present,” he said. “That’s the only guarantee I’ll make. I’m not promising to talk, or even that I won’t shoot the rest of the team on sight. Just that I will accompany you back through the timestream. Am I understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Hook said, and now he did turn around, following the tracks back to the tear in time. His footsteps were the only sound for a moment, before he heard the gentle crunch of another following him, their strides matching the prints in the snow.

#maccadam #prowl week #prowlastator #prowl #constructicons #transformers #my writing #longfic #schematics #peace

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blaugreen · 5 years

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Nine Albums Later, Tegan and Sara Are Finally Ready to Discuss High School

In a new memoir and an album of songs they wrote as teenagers, the feminist pop stars look back at their traumas, triumphs and life as identical twins.

By Jenn Pelly and Liz Pelly Sept. 24, 2019 Updated 6:33 p.m. ET

To be a twin can be a psychological house of mirrors. And so where better to meet up with Tegan and Sara Quin — feminist pop heroes, freshly minted authors, and, like us, identical twins — than at a kaleidoscopic infinity room in Chelsea? As we left the small mirrored room at the kitschy Museum of Illusions, where our likenesses warped and refracted, we encountered a third set of twins. Reality grew ever more psychedelic, and we snapped a photograph of the six of us to commemorate it.

In their new memoir, “High School,” the Quin sisters alternate chapters to detail their teenage years. Growing up in Canada, they worshiped Nirvana, Green Day and the Smashing Pumpkins. They discovered and explored their sexuality. They sneaked out to raves, dropped acid, fought authority. When a classmate spewed homophobic statements during a lesson on STDs, Sara hurled a chair across the room. In the end, the twins competed in a life-changing battle of the bands. “If we don’t win tonight,” Tegan said onstage, “our mom is going to make us go to college.” They won.

While gathering their research for the book, Tegan and Sara found cassettes of some of their earliest songs. And so “High School” is accompanied by a new album, “Hey, I’m Just Like You,” featuring polished-up re-workings of those unearthed demos. Some of the songs evoke the ’90s indie pop of the band’s Lilith Fair era, while others could be the seeds of electronic-dance bangers. The connective thread is the unguarded emotionality of a teenage perspective.

This multimedia set is yet more experimentation from a band that, across nine albums, has moved from folky indie rock into synth-driven dance tracks and mainstream pop. Tegan and Sara sang “Everything Is Awesome” (“The Lego Movie” theme song) at the 2015 Oscars, and have performed with Taylor Swift. In 2016 they launched their Tegan and Sara Foundation, to benefit organizations committed to health, economic justice and representation for L.G.B.T.Q. girls and women.

During a conversation at a downtown cafe, Tegan was forthright and unapologetic, while Sara was analytical, using an app to astrologically survey our twin-by-twin dynamic. They frequently chipped at each other’s memories and perspectives to hone the truth and soon turned the questions on us: Did we feel ever competitive with each another, or encroached upon, as twins with the same career? These are excerpts from the conversation.

JENN PELLY As identical twins, we have strengths and weaknesses that are different but complementary. I often think: If you put us back together, we would be a perfect person. Do you relate?

TEGAN AND SARA QUIN 100 percent.

SARA I wouldn’t be as extreme, if Tegan wasn’t Tegan. I would have balanced myself differently. When Tegan would go through a dark stage, and be a little more chaotic, I would straighten up and be more disciplined. When Tegan went through a punk stage and started getting tattoos everywhere, I was like, I’m going to wear tailored clothing.

LIZ PELLY I think some twins learn early on that collaboration requires compromise and patience.

SARA A lot of people will say, “I have mommy issues” or “daddy issues.” I have Tegan issues. A lot of my hangups or dysfunctions in relationships are based on our primary relationship as children — what worked for us, what didn’t, how difficult it was to share the same face.

Most people sort of break up with their mom or their dad when they go out into the world and become adults. With us, it’s like we broke up, but decided to co-parent our music career.

TEGAN I believe there is a deep desire in Sara to define herself outside of this duo, like she’s cutting off an appendage. It’s not sad for me anymore, but it was at first. We are better together. Our songs are more developed together, and we stand out in a crowd together. It’s very complicated, to want to sever and tether at the same time, this mix of emotions that’s feuding inside of you at all times: We desperately want to be apart, and be our own people, but I need her to thrive and survive.

JENN Explain the mirror on the cover of “High School.”

TEGAN The mirror is distorted, and so is our perception of ourselves, and of the past, and of each other. In writing the book, it was like: That’s what you remember? That’s what you thought was happening? Over the years, I’ve realized there’s this unfair weight put on our shoulders to represent both of us. It’s a psychic burden; you’re responsible for each other.

JENN One passage that shocked me was when you discover you’ve both been playing music alone. Liz and I talk about cryptophasia a lot, a secret language that some twins share. Is that how it felt?

SARA When I discovered the guitar, I didn’t need to know Tegan was also discovering the guitar. When I figured out I was attracted to my best friend, I just assumed Tegan was figuring out she was attracted to her best friend. I assumed there was this parallel experience happening at all times.

TEGAN I was shocked you had been doing the same things.

SARA Discovering the guitar and writing songs felt like an epiphany, like a miracle. I had been so bad at so many things. This was the one time in my life I picked something up, and I knew how to do it. It felt like a gift, like it saved me. I wanted to protect that for a second, in that little tiny moment where I was doing it alone. But playing with Tegan, I knew it was bigger and better and more special and more seductive to people.

JENN You write about not fitting in with the punks, while also offending people in school because of the way you dressed, like outsiders among outsiders. Did you embolden each other?

SARA I felt alienated at punk shows. I walked in with that chip on my shoulder — “I don’t belong” — and Tegan threw her bag on the wall, walked into the pit, banged her head and thrashed.

TEGAN I always felt, if you want to be in that room, go in that room. If you want to be invited there, go. If you want to be a part of things, be a part.

JENN I wonder if some of this confidence comes from having a built in support system — the us against the world type thing.

TEGAN I never needed an external source to inspire me. It’s inside of me. I want to make my own rules. I don’t want to ask permission. There were long stretches of our career where I felt Sara dwelled on meaningless things. But she was finding a way to work through, and I worked my way around.

There were certain criticisms made of us, early on, that felt unfair. They did not feel like musical criticisms. They felt borderline or blatantly misogynist. My reaction was to design a T-shirt with all of the quotes — Spin magazine: “Wicca-folk nightmare.” Pitchfork: “Tampon rock.” I wanted to sell it on our website, and embrace the part of our history that made us as tough as we are now — not hardened, not bitter, but thrilled to be a part of this still. Because we got around it, and she got through it, and we’re still here.

SARA I always had a more institutional perspective. It wasn’t “tampon rock” that bothered me, it was sexism that bothered me. It was homophobia that bothered me.

The only reason I’m still making music, in this band, is because Tegan was championing me and cheering me on and trying to get me past these obstacles. But I didn’t feel sorry for myself. I felt furious at the industry, at the institutions that were inherently flawed and discriminatory. Even as a young person, I thought: If we’re the ones making it, and I feel this bad, Jesus, what does it feel like to be the artist that isn’t breaking through? I appreciated Tegan going around the obstacles, but I was like: I want to put dynamite under the obstacle and blow it up. We really have struggled with that dynamic.

A lot of that was planted early in our lives. Tegan’s coming out story is so different. She didn’t face the same type of homophobia. She didn’t have the same type of trauma as I did. Tegan holds her girlfriend’s hand on the street. I don’t. I’m afraid. I don’t care how big WorldPride is or how many cool new queer artists are on the covers of magazines. My experience informed how I react to the world. And that sometimes is hard to reconcile.

JENN I was thinking about your song “Nineteen” from “The Con,” which also describes your teenage years. Do you feel you’ve been reflecting on this part of your life for a while now?

TEGAN When we started talking about other songs that could be included [on our upcoming tour], the first song I thought of was “Nineteen.” I thought about how much of our music harkens back to that high school period. We’ve been diminished over and over throughout our careers for only writing love songs. But what we were really writing about was relationships, including the ones with ourselves — about family, friends, work. You talk about everything when you’re talking about relationships. There’s something about tethering the old songs to the modern age that becomes very cinematic for me. It starts to tell a bigger story.

LIZ You’ve described “You Go Away and I Don’t Mind,” from the new album, as being about the futility of fame. What is it like to reflect on that now that you are famous?

SARA I think that is the most strangely prophetic song. It was very surreal to read those lyrics all of these years later. Because for me, it’s very coherent. Since we were little, we had drawn undeserved or unearned attention. We would go to the mall as little kids and people would touch us. And that’s very disorienting and destabilizing as a young person. I think we did feel popular but it felt false. And in a lot of ways that echoes what it feels like to be famous or to be a celebrity in some ways. It can feel very empty.

JENN In part of the book, a friend’s brother asks you to jam, and you talk about how badly you wanted to be taken seriously. Was there a point in which you finally felt like you were taken seriously?

TEGAN To this day there’s a part of us that doesn’t feel like we’ve been taken that seriously, and I think all women probably feel that way. But we’ve now spent the majority of our adult life doing the thing we love, and we’re approached every day by people who are like, “I exist because of you.” Things like the Grammys become less important when you have an entire generation of people who are grateful you were bold and open about being gay before it was cool.

SARA We want journalists and fans, and culture at large, to reconcile how we see young women as artists — and when we begin seeing art as valuable. With our new songs, there are going to be people who say, “Oh, isn’t it cute? They released songs from when they were in high school.” But we want this music to be taken seriously. Not because we’re 38 years old and rerecording these songs, but because we were 15, 16 and 17 years old when we wrote them. And as 38-year-old women who have been around the world, who have experienced so much, I still think there is value in what I had to say. I went back and listened to that music and decided it is valuable.

TEGAN Actually I did first and then you did two months later.

SARA We are challenging people to see this work as sophisticated and mature and ahead of its time.

When we were teenagers, our music was written about as “rudimentary, but geez, there is something there.” It wasn’t rudimentary. There was something remarkable about what we were trying to say. There is something so profound about your first experiences. I fell in love multiple times. I was depressed. I was suicidal. I was passionate. I fought with my mother. I broke up with my sister. Those are some of the biggest moments of my life. How am I supposed to just write them off, like, “Oh who cares, I was a teenager.”

LIZ We’re taught that thinking in an emotionally-charged way is something for your teenage years. But actually, that sort of emotional intensity is powerful to carry with you throughout your life.

SARA I have a visceral memory of sitting down to write the song “Hello” at the end of grade 12. I had been devastated by this girl, Zoe, in the book — I loved her, and she was like, “I don’t like girls.” I was grappling with all of these big things. And I remember thinking, “I wish I was older. I wish I knew how to get through this.” I’m 38 years old, and every time I sing that line, I feel that right now. I wish I knew how to do this better. I don’t understand why I’m still suffering. I don’t understand why I’m still not better.

TEGAN It’s powerful to acknowledge that you don’t have all of the answers yet.

SARA When I sat down and listened to the demos, I just thought: I’m so glad little Tegan and Sara wrote all this music. They were better at addressing my feelings than I am right now.

#tegan and sara #tegan quin #sara quin #tns interview #sweet baby jesus hi-res photos #beat the paywall

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