hey @ non-lesbian lgbt+ people: ur all valid and beautiful but please don’t forget about lesbians when making pride stuff! and when rebloging sets of lgbt+ pride stuff, take a second to look at it and see if op left out lesbians. lesbians get left out of stuff a lot based on a lot of misogyny and lesphobia, or being demeaned as “the same thing as gay men” despite being a totally different identity, and it’s nothing but lesbian erasure. don’t rebog that stuff without thining about it, its harmful to lesbians! unless the post itself was for a specific group of people that wasn’t lesbians, of curse! but if it was meant to be a pride post for all identities, it’s almost impossible to leave out lesbians unintentionally given that lgbt literally starts with an L. don’t forget the L!
i’m so sorry for being a customer, i want to leave you alone but sometimes i have to buy things or eat. please understand i use self checkout whenever i can
no offense but when straight people tell me “i’m proud of my sexuality” i groan. of course you’re proud of your sexuality, you didn’t grow up being constantly told your sexuality was disgusting and shameful. you didn’t grow up thinking your sexuality didn’t exist. you didn’t grow up wondering if your family would still want you if you told them you had a crush on someone with the same gender as you. since you were a child people told you your sexuality was normal, and beautiful. you got to grow up seeing people with the same sexuality as you. you knew since day one your sexuality was normal. no fucking shit you’re proud of your sexuality.
You are born with the ability to see whether people listen more often to the angel or the devil on their shoulder, based on the opacity of each- if they listen more to the angel, it’s more solid and the demon is more transparent, and vice versa. You recently met a guy online and you’re finally going to meet. You go in for a handshake and glance at his shoulders, but you can’t see the angel. Only a solid demon.
Run. That’s my first thought and it keeps playing in my head over and over again. Run!
“You OK?” asks the man before me.
I realize I’ve been standing frozen, probably looking spooked. “Yes,” I fake what I hope is a convincing smile. I look back at his right shoulder, there’s nothing there, then to his left shoulder where a solid colored devil rests.
As he turns to our table I glance over the restaurant to make sure my powers are still working. There’s a woman one table away with a transparent devil and a translucent angel, she listens to the angel more. The woman across from her has a devil that’s translucent, she listens to it a little more than she should.
I’ve had this power my whole life, to see which side one listens to, but never before have I seen a completely solid devil, never before have I seen the angel completely gone…
Run!
Turning back to him I seen he’s pulled my chair out for me, watching me expectantly.
I could run now but what if he follows? Maybe it’s best I don’t tip him off, assuming I haven’t already, and sneak out while he’s not looking.
“Thank you,” I sit down.
He sits across from me and looks down, pulling on his long sleeves. “Order whatever you want,” he mumbles, “don’t pay attention to the price.”
“Oh, OK thank you.” I can barely pay attention to the menu. I glance over the restaurant, planning an escape route from the restroom.
“It was at 5:50,” he says, picking right up from where our last conversation online left off.
“I watched that video a dozen times and couldn’t see it.”
As we talk he seems just like the shy sweet boy I met online but then I glance at the devil on his shoulder and remember to be scared.
I’m looking at his shoulder so often that he glances back to see what I’m looking at. Worried about it I glance down and gape; on his arm a cut peeks out from under his sleeve.
He sees me seeing it and panics, pulling his sleeves down.
My gaze falls to the table and we sit there in silence.
This whole time I’ve been avoiding the people with the more solid devils because they listen to them more, I never questioned what the devils were saying. His devil isn’t telling him to hurt me, it’s telling him to hurt himself, that he’s worthless and doesn’t deserve me; and me acting scared of him isn’t helping.
“Don’t listen,” slips out before I’ve finished getting my thoughts together. I take in a long breath and speak slowly. “Don’t listen to the voice that tells you you’re useless, that you’ll never make a difference… You’ve made a huge difference to me.”
I risk looking up and see him teary eyed. “Thank you,” he whispers, and beside his head a barely visible angel fades back into existence.
