i'd been looking forward to reading this post from when you said you were writing it. great story, great post, both made me cry a little
i also love the focus on others' perception of Byam in the story, but i don't think i could phrase it any better than you do. both in terms of failure, in the way you talk about it, but also in the act of presenting yourself as anything at all (shocker, local disabled trans nonhuman guy can project so fucking hard). it's very easy to get trapped in your perspective or the diminishing perspectives of the people around you and for that to, in a real and material way, affect what you can do and who you can be
one of the oddities of being a member of a system is that not only do i have access to my perception of myself, but if someone so chooses to share it with me, i also have access to the visceral felt perception of myself by others; and i'll be real, being able to feel the whole of the ways that someone who loves me sees me and the things that i do, even the small things i don't notice, and to see that it doesn't match up with my worst fears (or often even the self-beliefs that strike me as normal and pass without comment)? that's genuinely magical. genuinely magical. i wish i could beam what that feels like into other people's heads, sometimes
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2024-11-10 10:46 pm (UTC)i'd been looking forward to reading this post from when you said you were writing it. great story, great post, both made me cry a little
i also love the focus on others' perception of Byam in the story, but i don't think i could phrase it any better than you do. both in terms of failure, in the way you talk about it, but also in the act of presenting yourself as anything at all (shocker, local disabled trans nonhuman guy can project so fucking hard). it's very easy to get trapped in your perspective or the diminishing perspectives of the people around you and for that to, in a real and material way, affect what you can do and who you can be
one of the oddities of being a member of a system is that not only do i have access to my perception of myself, but if someone so chooses to share it with me, i also have access to the visceral felt perception of myself by others; and i'll be real, being able to feel the whole of the ways that someone who loves me sees me and the things that i do, even the small things i don't notice, and to see that it doesn't match up with my worst fears (or often even the self-beliefs that strike me as normal and pass without comment)? that's genuinely magical. genuinely magical. i wish i could beam what that feels like into other people's heads, sometimes
-Mercury