citrusjava: (Default)
So, I've been living in a hellish existence, preeeetty much - of course, it might get worse still, so - and i definitely need someone to raise me from perdition (but only in good ways for me, --ugh).

But

But

But there is a new season ffs

Gotta be on LJ!


What are you all up to?
What is fandom doing these days, too?
Miss you!... ..
citrusjava: (Default)
Hi!
Someone gifted me with paid time for this account! That is so, so sweet and so, so kind!
I was so not expecting it!

Whoever you are, thank you so, so much!

Might have to get back to posting!

And if you want to (only!!!!), please tell me who you are! It's wonderful to know anybody even cares!
citrusjava: (Default)
This is written for [livejournal.com profile] meesasometimes's prompt, on the December Days meme. If you feel like it, you can prompt me too, here.
She prompted with "glitter". It turned into a story about not having a place. And also plenty of glitter/ Images aren't by me, linking back to where they came from.


I loved shiny things as early as maybe a year and a half old. I'd announce them happily ("shiny!"), as I do these days too, actually. I remember lying in the back seat of the car, looking for glittery passing lights through the windows, following them through the windows and all the way to the wide back window. All lights were perhaps shiny – had to find out whether my mom considered them fit to be called shiny in the yay sort of way. But lights that blinked, or were colorful, or best – both! were the jackpot.

I loved glittery candy wrappers, theoretically collected them, though I didn't so much actually save or arrange them, just tended to them with care, tried not to rip them while straightening them out. I vaguely remember my mother discouraging me from keeping them right after encouraging me to do all the other stuff. We were living with her parents, she'd left my father, perhaps there wasn't much room to keep things. My grandfather sometimes gave everyone individually wrapped chocolate cubes, sometimes with animals on the extremely shiny wrappers. The chocolate was good, but the shiny... some of the colors were even unusual, some were pink!




When I was maybe 13-14, I had a dream in which I was walking through some back alley with a group of people, people like me. It was late, 02:30-03:00 at night. It was filthy, the road was wet, puddles of rain that the filth of the road melted into a bit, coloring it dark. There were backdoor metal steps, it was an area of bars and clubs. They were backdoor places, places for people who didn't fit in. Like us .

The bars had signs, lit up and colorful, and they all reflected beautifully in the puddles of soot and filth where we walked. Freddie Mercury was there, and just a group of wonderfully unusual people. And I was part it, celebrated.

It was about six years before I found anyone who understood what I was talking about, when I dared to explain my gender.



So, for years, I loved this thing, this vibe. It was strong in Ziggy Stardust. It smelled of dark allies and people wearing glitter, and illicit identities where I could find people to belong with, perhaps. It was somewhat Rocky Horror, it was in the way Steven Tyler was sexual, that wasn't the normative way, but I couldn't explain why.

When I was 18, I discovered it was something known. I wasn’t just my imagination, not meaningful just to me. It was called Glam Rock.

Pretty much.



For years, I found a home and adventures in Rocky Horror. I wore so much glitter, on stage and off. Made myself clothes, cause there wasn't anything to buy, and the very few things available were expensive, and made for thin girls.

I dressed my guy friends in my clothes and told them they were awesome the way they were, and that if anyone said otherwise I’d kick their asses.

Don't have that sort of black and white certainty about things these days, anymore.


Nail polish was a way for me to express my guy side. Putting together shelves and stuff was a feminist woman side thing, nail polish was a guy side thing. When I was feeling exposed and vulnerable, when it was hard to make myself leave the house, I put on nail polish, as a sort of ritual shield.



I wanted colorful nail polish, but it was hard to find, to get, to allow myself to have, too. When I was 17, I took a trip to visit my dad. I'd been trying very hard to get along with my dad, for years, and would return from each visit more broken up. This time, I was trying to protect myself more than before. Promised myself I'd just get a room at some motel if I had to, not stay with him. Also, a short while before I left, I extended my trip to San Francisco, I realized I *could*, there I was "allowed" to take something like that for myself. That trip ended with not talking to my dad for about seven years. I was incredibly relieved, though for years I waited for the other shoe to drop, waited to feel horrible about it.

I traveled alone. Met people there – a darling gay couple I hung out with for most of the trip. A lovely bi guy who gave me his sweater cause I had no idea San Francisco was going to be that cold. I met my first drag queens in person. I went to a gay bar and got hit on. I got lost somewhere there, hard evening and unknown streets, and happened to get to a drugstore that had a huge huge range of nail polish colors, in prices I could afford. I bought maybe tens of them. Still have them.

Years later I got my sister to play with me, and made up names for them – Lothlorien, Monarchy, Naked on Your Chain, Filthy Sheets, Clockwork Orange perhaps came later. There was a banana popsicle colored one, a metallic forest green, several liquid glitter silvers...



Pretty much right up to the Winchesters, my ideal man, and mostly, the only men I would date, were glittery men. And in every fandom, my biggest kink was cross dressing, always. With Winchesters, I don't mind it, but it's not my thing. It's a bit weird to lose a kink like that.

Glitter is still an identity and a signifier to me, of gender, and to some degree, a-normative sexuality and mostly kinks. It's often a way to find other people like me, too.


[ETA: PSA: reminding you that LJ is annoying these days, copy replies before posting, in case LJ forgets what they were along the way]
citrusjava: (Default)


-We set out to change the world, but ended up just changing - just changing ourselves.
-What's wrong with that?
-Nothing!
If you don't look at the world.
(Velvet Goldmine)


The first time I told anybody I was genderqueer, there wasn't a word for it yet. I told my closest friend, and he freaked out and told me I had to keep it secret. Never tell another living soul, cause that was just going too far. The bisexuality thing was cute, he said, but that was just - no.

I basically hid in my room for two days, much as I could. Then a vague acquaintance of mine called and bugged me till I agreed to go to a screening of Velvet Goldmine with her. She had no idea what was going on with me, she just needed someone to go with.

And it reminded me there were other sorts of people in the world, there was the possibility to celebrate creative/alternative gender. And not be completely alone. The movie tells the story of (the rise and fall of) about five minutes in which the world was friendly to people whose gender/sexuality was not normative, in which this beautiful sparkly bubble of acceptance held, in London and New York. It made a huge difference for me. Huge.

One of the themes of Velvet Goldmine is social change, dealing with living in a world that was designed for people unlike you. There are a lot of scenes that touch that - getting beat up as a kid and likening the blood to lipstick, getting booed off stage for wearing a dress, the way the media reacted to a kiss between two guys. It's about it's about trying to deal with oppression, resistance, and usually reclaiming or celebrating the difference. And still it's a movie about a safe and understanding world, there for a second.

I was thinking today about the movie actually being about the world. About - no matter if you create a wonderful safe group around you, there's still the world. And some things - most things - can't be changed, you just have to wait for the world to change, to hope it does. And it's one of the hardest things...

And I was thinking, that lately, I'd been meeting more and more people I didn't have to introduce myself to along with a painful discussion of my gender. People who knew what "genderqueer" meant, or who made the effort to read about it cause they cared. Which - has not happened, almost ever, in the past. And in the last few years, year, months - it keeps becoming more of an option. That a random person I'd at uni, in fandom, online, might know something about gender, that there are more than two options - I remember two years ago it'd blow my mind to meet somebody I didn't have to explain this to, in answer to "why are you talking weird?" Less than a year ago, I remember trying to think of anyone, just one person I'd managed to get through to, that I felt actually got my gender, without there being very special circumstances involved, and I couldn't think of one. Less than a year ago, I was talking to this amazing person I met in fandom, and she was mostly straight and cisgender (not transgender) - and she'd asked me what my preferred pronouns were, just - did, on account of being awesome... and I kept asking her how come she was so educated and understanding about it, it just blew my mind!

The world is changing. A little. My world is. And I don't believe it's just cause I hang out at different places. There were no places. I remember these places - really not long ago.

And that's - it's kind of - I'd lost some hope, not completely, and I'm not completely on solid ground about this now either, not by a long shot.
But it still makes me cry.
It's kinda amazing to let go - I'd done everything-eveything I could come up with to make things better, and I was done, for good or bad it was up to the world - and I didn't expect the world to budge, at all -


some pretty )

Profile

citrusjava: (Default)
citrusjava

March 2017

S M T W T F S
   12 34
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031 

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 5th, 2025 11:17 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios