Katie, she/her, bi, probably too old to be here. Mostly a Sambucky blog, along w/ some Heartstopper, Heated Rivalry (Skip supremacy!), Marvel and Spn. I write and am a freelance artist, and Iām at AO3 under the same name. I take commissions! Art insta: @ksfisher_artist
Do you like slow-burns? Domesticity? Mutual pining by two oblivious idiots? Then please enjoyā¦
āGood Investmentsā
A couple months after the Flag Smashers mission, Bucky's now answering Sam's calls and texts (fostering relationships, Doc!). One call, in particular, finds Bucky returning to Delacroix for what's possibly his most daunting mission yet: helping Sam fix up a run-down, piece-of-shit foreclosure he recently purchased. Bucky doesn't know the first thing about home repairs or confronting his feelings but he does know how to move heavy things, so...that's something.
Itās also been betaād by the amazing @3dg310rdsupreme to whom I am eternally indebted ā¤ļø
This story is complete yāall! Iām pretty proud of it (and the fact that after leaving it for two years of nothing, I came back and finished) so Iām gonna plug it again.
A really long ramble of discovering my sexual identity after marriage bc I didn't know where else to get out these feelings (ft. Heartstopper)
I'm writing about this here because I've been going through it lately, and needed a way to share my thoughts so tumblr it is. No one will probably read this, but it's ok. It's therapeutic and is helping me process my emotions. Warning to readers (if there are any): this was not really edited and is basically just word vomit after too many iced coffees, and watching 3 x 6 of Heartstopper and crying.
I'm an "elder millennial" (yes, yes I know Iām too old for tumblr) who is happily married to a man...and I'm bisexual. I didn't figure out my sexual identity until after we were engaged. I was terrified to tell him, but when I did, he was very supportive and I felt relief and moved on for the most part.
But recently, like in the last couple of days, the mourning of what "could have been" has hit me hard. I blame Heartstopper. I just finished the graphic novels and am about to complete season 3 and I just relate to Nick so so much. I don't often see bisexual characters, and to watch someone put the pieces together and also deal with the erasure around his bisexuality (both in the show and in Kit's actual life), it just made me feel seen.
I'm an only child, who was raised in a conservative household where sex was never discussed. To make things harder worse, my parents had me in Catholic schools through high school and sex education in those schools was barely a thing; it was abstinence only. I remember, in my Freshman year of high school (an all-girls school btw), they had some woman come in to "discuss" sex with us (in our THEOLOGY class of all places!) and basically the conversation was just a big scare tactic about how boys just wanted to have sex with us and get us pregnant and leave. Our only discussions around identity were a little pink book that had an incredibly outdated vocabulary list - "transgender" wasn't even used yet - and everything was discussed from a religious slant. This stifled my sexual development in so many ways, not just from a perspective of identity. To this day I still struggle with being comfortable in my own skin and being sexual. I could go off for paragraphs on the harm of Catholic schools but that's not what this is about.
I had...feelings...about girls in school. There was a blond girl in my year named Katie, who I didn't know very well; I'm realizing my best friend, was also probably a crush due to how jealously I guarded my time with her. But I liked boys, and had posters of boy bands, and even dated a couple of guys I met through my summer job, so of course I had to be straight. I didn't even know bisexuality existed. And being in the Midwest, lesbians were always stereotyped as plaid-wearing, masculine girls with short hair; I didn't dress that way so, again, I had to be straight!
Once I went off to college, I was so overwhelmed by having open access to boys and figuring out sex and living in a house full of girls who were from the south and not-so-open-minded, that any feelings I may have had towards the fairer sex were tamped down and forgotten about. The only exception was a warm, fuzzy feeling I once got when a friend told me that a friend of hers, who wasn't straight, thought I was cute in THAT way. But that girl had a girlfriend, and the thought of experimentation never even occurred to me, so nothing ever came of it. I didn't even know hardly any non-straight people, they just weren't in my social circles.
Fast-forward about 12 years, I'm engaged to a man (whom I love dearly), and as sexual and gender identity is becoming more widely discussed and I'm being exposed to more than just the black and white labels, I realize that I don't think I'm straight. Maybe my infatuation with Jennifer Lawrence was more than just "she just seems like a super cool chick," and was actually "ok she's cool but also HOT and I would maybe kiss her if I had the chance."
The first person I admitted my bisexuality to (other than my therapist whom I have to thank for helping me realize it) was one of my closest friends who had always been very open with her sexuality. She was super supportive and casually admitted she was pansexual (also married to a man).
Which brings us to the present. It's taken me several years but I'm finally starting to own my identity. I'm not super open about it, but I'm not hiding it either (my parents being the exception, they'd never understand, and my father already has issues with me not wanting to have my own babies). But some days, especially during the height of Pride in June, I feel the weight of imposture syndrome. I'm straight-passing, and have never been with anyone other than cis, hetero men with the exception of a boyfriend who basically figured out he was gay while we were dating. The only time I kissed a girl was maybe at one or two drunken party moments and I barely remember them. Basically, I don't feel like I have a right to be a part of the LGBTQ+ community because I haven't had to "put in the work" so-to-speak. I haven't had to deal with bullying or the fear of putting a same-sex relationship out there for everyone to see. I don't feel like I have a right to it; I feel like I took the easy way out, even if it was because I didn't know any better.
Which brings me back to Heartstopper. I've been consuming a lot of queer media lately. I'm reading the Heated Rivalry series, have of course seen the show, just got through Heartstopper. It makes me so happy for the younger generations that we have all these amazing queer stories in the form of books and TV and movies because it means they are able to see themselves represented in a variety of ways. We didn't have these things in the 90s. Everything surrounding homosexuality was either tragic or something to be laughed at. Will and Grace was probably it (I should really go back and watch that show). I'm not saying it's any easier for a younger person to discover their sexual or gender identity and come out, today. It's just that there are at least more conversations and television shows and movies that depict non-hetero and cis identities in positive, healthy, ways.
The straight up (pun intended) celebration in this scene is everything. The confetti falling, rainbow overlay, bright lights, music swell. And look how fucking happy Nick is seeing Tara and Darcy together. It's the epitome of queer joy and literally my favorite episode in the whole show.
But while I celebrate what these younger generations have, I can't help but mourn for myself (and others like me) who didn't figure these things out until much later in life. I've just been so sad these last few days, sad for my younger self. All the experiences I could have had: the experience of being with someone - romantically and physically - who isn't a cis man, seeing how I might be different in those types of relationships. Fuck, every time I see Kit Connor I just want to burst into tears. To me, he represents everything I never had. But he sort of represents my own situation in a way. We already know that *SPOILER* Charlie and Nick are endgame per Alice Oseman; he's only ever going to be with Charlie. So he's in a same-sex relationship but doesn't identify as gay, he still owns his bisexuality and makes sure people know it .And like me, he won't ever know what it's like to experience that other part of himself who likes the opposite sex, which also makes me feel seen. (I know this is a lot of heavy lifting for a fictional character but I'm a fanartist; getting too emotionally invested in fictional characters is kind of my thing.)
Look at this happy bisexual boy and his adorable gay boyfriend š„¹.
Don't get me wrong, I am happily married to my husband, and he's been supportive of me. He even said he'd be willing to figure out an open relationship if I wanted to try dating women. It's not something I want for us. I'm a monogamous person by nature and trying to navigate all that - while being married to someone else - sounds messy and complicated. And he's tried to be helpful these last couple of days, trying to comfort me in my time of mourning, but he just doesn't understand. I have this huge part of myself that I will never truly know because of how and when I was raised. And it really fucking hurts.
I know looking back and playing the "coulda, woulda, shoulda" game doesn't help or do anything to change the present, but I'm just having a hard time moving forward right now. And I know there are so many other people out there like me. And I hope some of them see this and know they aren't alone.
If you've made it this far, I applaud you for putting up with my ramblings. I'm in desperate need of a therapy appointment but won't get in until next week so this will have to suffice until then.
Is anyone else experiencing a truly profound sadness over Heartstopper ending? I have been crying since yesterday, my mental health is shit and I needed to make an emergency appointment with my therapist. I feel like I'm mourning the loss of an actual person. I've always had a bad habit of getting WAY too emotionally invested in my fandoms, esp ones where queer characters are involved, but this has reached a whole new level.
I think part of the problem is that I binged both the book series and Netflix series over the course of about a week and a half, instead of pacing myself, so I just had a million emotions hit me all at once. Another thing is that I just became really attached to Nick Nelson. As a bi person, myself, it was just so lovely to see another bi person portrayed going through their discovery and continued defense of their bi-ness. It took me years to figure out I was bi and that was after I met my now husband, so I continue to struggle with feeling valid because I'm in a straight-presenting relationship. The combo of those things has grown into a crazy parasocial thing that's really effecting me more than any other fandom has before, with the exception of maybe Sambucky.
I find myself constantly rereading Alice's last post about eventually coming back to them, as well as googling "do charlie and nick stay together" over and over because I need the reassurance that they do (which I know they do, Alice Oseman literally confirmed it). I guess I just need to see a bisexual person who is in a similar situation as myself can be happy only experiencing part of their bi-ness (Nick's never really been with someone of the opposite sex, and neither have I). I think it's just that I've just never connected with a character before like I did with Nick and it took me by surprise. I'm way too old to be doing this and it's become incredibly unhealthy, I know. I think I'm grieving the loss of this comfort show as well as all the experiences I'll never have now that I'm (happily) married.
I guess...I just needed to know I'm not the only one going through this.
I could have called Nick whenever I wanted, but I was still feeling so horrible and I didn't want him to worry. I don't even know what I would have said to him. "I hate it here and I can't stop crying?"
