*Insert Google Docs Joke Here*

videogames, trans+bi+aro stuff, being autistic on main i'm an adult, if you're someone who checks that

[bugshroom]

there should be a pill you can take one time that will shrivel up your uterus and abort it through one last horrible period

[rohirric-hunter]

Somebody at work keeps adjusting one of the perimeter cameras to have this beautiful artistic angle on the museum in a historical building across the way. The sun sets just behind it and the whole sky turns golden-blue, clouds streaked across the sky above. The lush tree line beneath the museum is perfectly lined up along the rule of thirds and the building itself towers above, almost mythical in its evening glory. Like damn, take a still from this camera and send it to the museum to frame and hang on their wall. I do need the camera to be pointing at the parking lot. Tho

[rohirric-hunter]

The setting sun bounces off the skyscrapers downtown and hits the museum's windows and every one of them turns the same golden hue as the sky behind, reflected in the trees just starting to turn golden-orange beneath. The bottoms of the clouds take on the slightest tinge of purple and birds circle above, speckling the evening sky as they call autumn's last farewell. Someone's car got broken into in the parking lot last week, Tammy, point the damn camera at the cars

[deerfishing]

[sophsun1]

 Are you posing? I don't have a photographer with me. 

Parks and Recreation – 5.11: Women in Garbage

[fforsythiaaa]

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

[hypokeimena]

#'this is present in the text' is often a good first step #but those second and third ones (naming it; describing its function) are vital (via @elucubrare)

[selfcarereminder]

the version of you from five years ago would be genuinely amazed by what you’ve handled since then. sit with that for a second

[idrawsnoopyeveryday]

174.

[i-suggest-becoming-a-guy]

Let him top please 🙏 please let him top when he’s with a cis man🙏 please. Prayer emoji🙏

[what-even-is-thiss]

I think over the years I’ve realized that assuming people you don’t understand are stupid by default is just like a mental shortcut to avoid having to think about why people act the way that they do.

I’ve kind of gotten tired of people doing that I guess. I used to do it, so I get it, but I’ve also figured out that you can learn a lot if you don’t assume by default that people are stupid. Almost everyone is fairly intelligent in some form or another, actually.

[what-even-is-thiss]

My family is full of mostly nice and empathetic people and they raised me to be kind and even they I think kind of raised me with the idea that we’re the smart ones and some people are just stupid

But over the years I’ve slowly decided to try to understand people better instead just assuming that they’re stupid.

And some people are idiots. But they’re rarely stupid.

It takes work though to think like this. Like I said, I understand the impulse to just assume that people are stupid. It’s easy. It involves a lot less research and connecting the dots and listening to people who annoy you or even people who actively dislike you.

It’s possible I have too much of an open mind sometimes but idk maybe broadening your understanding of the world and having a bit of compassion for people that you dislike is also very worth it.

[busket]

I think a lot of yall will hear a trans person talking about a legitimate experience and respond like "uhh isnt that a terf talking point 🤨" without having the critical thought to know WHY its harmful when terfs talk about it.

like I just saw a transmasc who drew a short comic about reading BL as a teenager and thinking "wow I wish I was a gay man too" and growing up to be a trans man. and a reply said "isnt this a terf talking point"

no. its not. the terf talking point is that straight girls pretend to be gay men to fetishize them as a form of autoandrophilia. or that exposure to gay male relationships or trans men will groom little girls into wanting to be gay men. that is an extremely harmful view because it deligitimizes a trans man's existence. but plenty of trans men DO grow up reading MLM/gay media and BL and do grow attached to it, because they are seeing themselves. even before you know who you are, you will be drawn to who you want to be. transfem lesbians also become attached to WLW media before transition and are also treated like creeps and fetishists. but they are just young gay kids seeing their true selves reflected back at them. terfs see these kinds of common phenomena that happen all the time in the trans community and try to explain it away with bigotry and hateful stories. and then they talk about it so fucking much that it confuses people and before you know it you got trans people sharing their real lives and being accused of spreading terf talking points from people who never think about anything.

[busket]

ive also seen people use "male/female socialization", another bogus terf theory, to discredit trans people's experiences. "male/female socialization" is the terf belief that boys and girls are raised so drastically different that no one can overcome their childhood as adults. they use this flawed logic to say that trans women are all inherently entitled and misogynistic because they were "socialized" as boys and that trans men are naive and desperate to please because they were "socialized" as girls (the idea being that trans men are so naive to be "groomed" into being men by other trans people, and that their identities are not real)

yet ive seen trans men talking about how the misogyny that we face as young afab people before transition is extremely difficult to overcome and it colors everything you do in your life, even when living as a man. and people roll their eyes and say "this theyfab believes in female socialization so he must be a terf!!" that's not "female socialization" thats trauma from living in a patriarchal society, and trans women experience it, too. afab people are ALSO "socialized" to be misogynistic, that too, is an aspect of a patriarchal society! boys and girls arent socialized to be very different, we are ALL "socialized" to see cis white heteronormativity and conformity as the golden standard and everyone who doesnt fit that mold (aka EVERY trans person) will experience harmful and traumatic consequences from it at many points in our lives.

[ddeck]

as always happy pride to people that are not out. happy pride to people that dont plan to come out any time soon. happy pride to people for whom it is not safe to be out. happy pride to people that live in a homophobic environment and happy pride to people from countries that criminalize queerness

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

It's a lot healthier to go for a daily walk than to sign up for a gym membership you won't be using because you hate that kind of exercise. It's a lot healthier to eat a frozen meal than to skip a meal because you were too tired to cook something healthy. It's a lot healthier to take a quick shower than to procrastinate an elaborate routine for days. Don't aim so high that you won't be hitting anything!

[creamypancakebatter]

this is actually really helpful and affirming thanks

[breelandwalker]

[1969chevycamaro]

*in tears* Thanks kitty, I needed this...

[whentheheartismissing]

Being on the aromantic spectrum but not at the end of it means having a crush once every 7 years like a curse that comes around and devastates your life for a while before leaving you again and freeing you of any form of romantic attraction for a few years

[genderkoolaid]

just a pride month reminder:

if you are making something featuring multiple flags and you put in the asexual flag, you better put in the aromantic flag.

if you put in the aroace flag, you better put in the aroallo flag.

fighting aromantic erasure starts with YOU 🫵

[genderkoolaid]

for reference:

^ the aromantic flag

^ the aroallo (aromantic allosexual) flag

& just btw, aromantic erasure is so bad that on pubmed, many of the very few studies that have looked into aspec people specifically, categorize us as a type of asexuality. from this study:

Our findings highlight that aromantic people wish for aromanticism not to be considered a part of asexuality—a practice that has dominated contemporary literature (Antonsen et al. 2020; Carvalho & Rodrigues, 2022; Clark & Zimmerman, 2022; Hall & Knox, 2022; Zheng & Su, 2018). Many participants clarified the distinction between their sexual identity and romantic identity and highlighted that though they may be connected for some, they should be considered independently as unique contributors to an individual’s identity and experience. This aligns with a previous aromantic community survey that showed 72% of the sample did not identify with asexual terminology (AUREA, 2021a). In combination with our findings, this suggests that a tendency to conflate and describe these identities as the same or linked may be to the disadvantage of a significant portion of the aromantic community.

this is why it is so important to include aromantic people as our own group and to specifically include non-asexual aromantics. i hope y'all can understand how frustrating it is to be erased through a group that is already erased.

asexual representation is sparse? all aromantic rep is asexual and most of the time people don't even bother to remember that "aromantic" is its own thing. i can't count how many times i've seen a character talk about not experiencing romantic attraction, only for people to go "wow asexual rep!" even though sexual attraction was never brought up.

asexual community & resources are sparse? when i try to look up groups for aromantics, i get resources on "ace & aro groups" that are literally all asexual-focused. at best asexual-focused with a mention of aromantic people. which isn't really helpful when you are aroallo and don't really want or need a group that is clearly meant for alloro asexuals and aroaces.

asexual history is sparse? i've literally never seen anything even trying to talk about aromantic history. the most impactful thing on aro history is that one tumblr post talking about a woman at a nursing home who heard the term and realized her best friend was likely aro. see above with the character situation as well.

my point here is not "aros have it worse than aces" because we are both aspec and both get fucked over by the same forces and in fact, a LOT of asexual aromantics are also very frustrated by aromantic erasure! i've even heard some people talk about not identifying as strongly as asexual, even though it fits them, because they feel their aro identity is more important to them but gets constantly erased by their asexuality.

my point is that it is so fucking disheartening to be aro even in queer spaces that are trying to be asexual-inclusive, even in supposedly aspec spaces, because it swiftly becomes apparent that people see your entire identity as just a footnote for asexuality. so many people never even realize they are aro because they aren't asexual and don't realize that you can be aro but not ace. i dealt with some really intense arophobia as a teen after realizing i was aro, feeling broken and alone. it hit much harder than any internalized homophobia or transphobia did for me at the time. i did not meet another person who identified as aromantic irl until this year. any resources and community that i had as a queer teen, as a trans teen, did not exist for me as an aro teen and does not exist for me as an aro adult, really.

and big problem is that, because people think of aromanticism as just a footnote of asexuality, they implicitly assume that more asexual rep, more asexual resources, more asexual visibility will automatically serve aromantics too. and when it doesn't work like that, aro people continue to suffer as a result.

things have improved over the years and i hope will continue to! but i really need every queer person to become more aware of aromanticism & arophobia & how the queer community contributes to it & hurts aro people. hence why i am so testy about when people will include the ace flag but not the aro one. YOU 🫵 will care about your aromantic siblings and consider us this pride month!!!!!

[daryldixonn]

some of you have never had your notp be the most popular ship in the fandom and it shows

[nonexistentnull]

CHALLENGE FOR THIS PRIDE MONTH, if someone says they’re aromantic/has an aro flag accessory, don’t assume they’re also asexual by default. I wish you all luck

[gatesofminrathous]

there will never be anything as funny as the mutual disbelief between long form and short form fic writers about each other's style.

short form writers look at people writing 100k+ fics as though this is some sort of talent given as part of a fae bargain, that the commitment required shows some sort of ungodly mental fortitude.

meanwhile long form writers look at people writing 1000 word one shots like god I would cut off my left nipple to be able to say anything concisely. i would love to play with multiple ideas. free me from the shackles of this child I have birthed. i love them but I now must take them to t-ball and doctor's appointments and they're going to destroy everything I own.

[ao3commentoftheday]

[internet]