Hi Legion! Long time lurker and lover of your art and tags here. I always read your tags and I'm really interested in your thoughts & views on love and relationships, so I'm curious to know where you got those ideas from. Are there any videos, terms, or books you could recommend? It really resonated with me and since I'm a huge nerd my first instinct is to find more sources haha. Thank you so much!
This ask genuinely made me sit with myself and think long and hard about how my views on that stuff really formed, something I maybe took for granted a lil bit. So thanks, and I'm sorry that I can't give a nerdy answer here! It is difficult to point to specific sources, it's more of a lived-experience type thing. It truly is The Question Of All Time lmao. And boy did it get me thinking back.
I'll put my ramble under the cut if this is not interesting or what you're after, but I enjoyed the introspection still! Thank you!
My context is entirely unremarkable (middle class cishet white guy from eastern europe), but if I had to point to one thing that is the bottleneck of my views on love and relationships, I genuinely think it could be traced to my insane early childhood nat20 roll to avoid toxic masculinity pipelines. I truly believe in my bones that if I had been seduced by that stuff - and legitimately all but maybe two of my childhood friends were - I'd be a completely different, colder, worse person today. I credit only luck in that.
Where I'm from, boys of my generation were set on a very specific path very early on that was pointed veeeery far away from "love". All wrapped up in warped orthodox christianity and crypto-nationalist sentiments, stemming from our incredibly disillusioned post-soviet parent figures constantly running in survival mode. So like, I legitimately don't remember how I managed to avoid those circles and behavior patterns, and the truth is that I probably sometimes didn't? I certainly made stupid mistakes in my early teens, but I had the luxury of making them outside of the public eye of social media. More luck.
There's other alchemy of course - as a child of divorce I got a real early up-close look at the ugly results of mistrust and toxic "love", and a lot of my life back then was rebelling against that. Not that the parenting itself was always bad - my mother turned me to the arts and to stories, which eventually led me to fandom that I can now identify as a much healthier outlet for my frustrations than whatever my peers were doing with their nighttime brawls. It led me to a very crystallized idea of what I really wanted from life - not glory or patriotism or ambition, but a quiet life with the ones I loved.
That is also around the time when I let go of teenage lust as my north star and started fostering friendships instead; because like, relationships are bonds and connections, nothing more or less. Sexuality and romantic love can take as big or as small of a role in that as the parties desire, and they're entirely ornamental to the value of linking your experience with another living, breathing human. Realizing the divinity and beauty in that changes almost everything in an instant. And it is such a goofy-ass thing to say, but yeah, for a lost idiot dude like me, fandom helped me see that. Even the raunchiest fics were ultimately about belonging and emotional nakedness, and I learned to desire that more than anything else. I am trying so hard to point to something specific here, but I honestly don't know with way back then. Bioware's found family-ass games/fanfics were a big one later on, but there were so many other communities before. My memory's just bad.
But knowing I wanted love was one thing, and being a healthier, more empathetic person ready to actually get that was a whole other trek. Made a few more dumb interpersonal mistakes. And then I met my current partner, now over twelve years ago, and realized there was a version of me reflected in her eyes that I could truly chase and grow into. This all sounds super melodramatic but it was more of a terrifying thought at the time, stoking self-doubt and real worry that I was leading her into a mistake. But of course that was all a symptom of terminal self-awareness. We were in our early 20s, mature enough not to play childish emotional games, and young enough to go on that growth journey together. More luck. Found that gentle peace I had yearned for with her., and I count my lucky stars to this day.
In short, everything about my understanding of love and relationships is rooted in personal circumstance + massive amounts of luck, and especially that early course-correction away from toxic dudeness. Nothing extracurricular. And then just more and more luck piled on with time, culminating with my lovely bean. So in that sense I'm the worst person to ask this question! And times have really changed irt internet culture and fandom so I can't even point at that part as an action point either.
But if nothing else, I believe that storytelling is the ultimate shortcut in getting our dumb teenage brains over the precipice of pride and control, and towards the gentle pursuit of love in all its forms. I think that's worth articulating over and over again. Thanks for reading this long and I promise I usually interpret asks like a normal person! This is an exception!!! a big question if there ever was one
appeltaart27 replied to your post “so I sent an email to my college advisor/professor giving him an...”
Congrats! He sounds great, good teachers are one of the best things in this world IMO. HELL YES!
Yesss definitely. He’s such a chill dude too; he’s got his PhD but doesn’t like to be referred to as doctor, and always brought our class outside if the weather was nice B) (Benefits of being in the ‘hippie’ program at my university, I guess)
And thanks :3
You’re probably really different a person than I am now, because I have learned that change is imminent within myself. I have been a scared little girl, bullied and alone; a fighting, angry, young teenager, pissed at everybody and the world; and I’ve been a questioning older one, unsure of my place, and of the love that was given to me at last. At the moment, I’m trying to find what version of adulthood fits me. I imagine that version is you, but I also imagine you have a search of your own going on - perhaps you’re halfway though yet another change, because I’ve accepted that truth - I think - early in my life. I will change, you will change. I simply hope that those changes will always be for the better, that they will be to get us to a better, happier place. Not all of our changes have been like that, but we’ve always learned and I believe we will be able to always to that. Learn, and grow. I imagine you found more great friends in increasingly different, strange places, as we always seem to do. I hope you’re loved. I hope you finally got that pet you’ve always wanted. Maybe those tattoos, and more piercings. I wonder what other colours you’ve dyed your hair, and what other penguin-related things you’ve collected. Or mugs. Or socks. I wonder mostly about the little things, because I don’t want to know about the big things yet. Those are mine to experience, not yours to tell. Don’t write me back, I’ll meet you in due time, Best wishes, Belle
muttluver replied to your post “Transistor is on sale for $7 on steam. Worth buying y/n?”
YES. I mean if you like sad stories
Oh boy. Yes, yes I do. :D Went ahead and got it, hopefully I can find some time to play it soon :3
appeltaart27 replied to your post “it’s been a wild ride, but i’ve finally settled on what i want to go...”
Congratulations on making a decision! Glad u found something u can strive towards, good luck with your endeavors! :D
Thanks!! Hopefully this plan'll stick, it feels right though..... I'll get to geek out about sustainability but still be a tech nerd :D :D
appeltaart27 replied to your photo “[excitement intensifies]”
Have fun! Don't forget to sleep and eat occasionally :)
Thanks! :D And sleep? What is that word. I don't recognize it. Do you mean brief naps? :P
Still waiting for it to install tho..... for the 2nd time..... the only thing I was iffy on about this game was the fact that you have use Origin to install >.> And so far I've had a couple crashes mid-installation.
appeltaart27 replied to your post:[[MOR]Normally I don’t think too much about...
I for one think that tumblr could go with a little less ”HERE’S ALL OF THE SEXUAL/ROMANTIC ORIENTATIONS LEARN THEM BY HEART OR YOU ARE EVIL” and with a little more ”whatever man, it’s all cool, who cares anyway”.
lmao yeah to be honest i feel the same way. it's nice to see the informative posts going around, especially when it's with things that aren't commonly discussed (or are shamed, like being ace), buuuut there's definitely a lot of entitlement and special snowflake syndrome going on that makes me want to roll my eyes x infinity
