#yelling emernally

[dullahandyke]

the number of people i've seen with both 'exclusionists DNI' and 'bi/pan lesbians DNI'... pleeease tell me you hear yourselves and then please tell me why it's different when these people who have a complex relationship with sexuality are worthy of your hatred.

[dullahandyke]

people are misunderstanding loveless aros, so let’s change the metaphor.

you grew up in a traditional christian environment, filled with the idea that the meaning of existence is to serve God. however, ‘serving God’ actually comprises of many expectations for how a society should behave, with very little give. you fall out of line with these expectations, and the massive pressure on you to force yourself into them leads you to entirely reject christianity. you move out to a new location, you find that you don’t mind christianity as long as it’s treated as a personal choice instead of a vital obligation. you get a neighbour, who blithely says ‘we all live to serve God.’ she’s the sweetest person you’ve ever met, she is not Bad as your old environment was, and yet this echo of past pressures hits close to home in a way that it’s hard not to feel isolated by. ‘we serve God’, an unspoken pressure for you to conform to this expectation. you ask her to change her language, she laughs and scoffs that no, of course, you don’t have to serve God like that, like your old environment! but you still have to serve God. this is an eternal truth and the core of the universe, and if you do not fit within it then you are worthy of ridicule and scorn.

does that make any more sense?

[dullahandyke]

[id: a picture of two people making out, labelled 'me' and 'my mutual who did an id.' in the forefront of the image, a dismayed person sitting alone is labelled 'op'. end id]

pspspsps image describing mutuals

[dullahandyke]

Endlessly astounded by the fact that me being a loveless aro who does not want their worth determined by their relationships (romantic or platonic) is seen as an invitation to debate. Idk abt you guys, but if you're so desperately attached to romanticism that you feel the need to curse out someone in their notes just for, like, existing in a dissimilar way, are we sure that I'm the one who's a miserable bitch?

[dullahandyke]

I'm sorry that you've never loved anything, like not even writing or a cheeseburger or music. That's awful

It appears we have some things to work out, my dear anon! Read these paragraphs and then get back to me, you condescending bitch!

To start with the basics, 'love is what makes us human' is a phrase that has been used against aromantic people countless times. The thing that makes it bad is not the (implied) narrow definition of love as romantic, but the idea of something making you human. We are all human. If you try to point at a Thing and say, 'this, this is what makes us human, this is the one thing that defines us'... you are going to leave out a lot of people who do not want to or cannot associate with the thing you choose to define humanity with. Broadening what love means helps some aromantic people, yes, but it still excludes others, and is thus unhelpful.

On that subject, there are many reasons to label yourself as loveless. There are some that feel their experience of 'Love' is so far removed from society's idea of it that they prefer not to explain their definition and thus call themselves loveless. There are people who feel their ability to freely call themselves loving is tied to the fact that, as many of them are autistic or similarly neurodivergent, many were scolded for not showing love well enough as a child, enough that they feel so seperated from it that it is uncomfortable, or that being expected to love has hurt them and so they do not want to conform to love. There are indeed, anon, people who have not loved writing or cheeseburgers or music, because they do not feel strongly enough to call it Love. Some use loveless as a rebellion against the idea that we need to Love to be worthy, myself included (alongside other factors.) There are countless reasons I have not included, anon my dear, but know that Love is a weighty word that not everyone is comfortable with, and guess what, it's none of your fucking business, they don't need your pity.

All of these people are human. All of these people are capable of happiness. Calling yourself heartless can be self-deprecating, but the loveless label specifically has a parallel to the label of 'queer', in that it is a reclamation of something that people say to try and hurt us. It is something that you can identify with so that you don't feel so much overwhelming pressure to Love, or any number of different reasons they might not love.

Being loveless isn't awful or a tragedy. And even if a person in particular feels that it is, they would feel that regardless of if they identified as loveless or not. The term is there to take the pressure off of people to Love, not to condemn them as Evil and Miserable. Love is not the one positive emotion in the world. Lovelessness is a celebration of your emotions as they exist and your determination to not be bent into conformity. A person's capacity for happiness is limitless as long as limits are not put on them by other people.

Don't mourn for my Love. I did not ask you to. I am the one who killed it.

[dullahandyke]

Ugh can everyone please block @/ever-given? It's been gatekeeping the Suez Canal and it has literally been so problematic in the global trade community. Proof under the cut 😞

[dullahandyke]

I am no longer asking, I am DEMANDING that if you are able-bodied and have the spoons for it, you NEED to be adding image descriptions to your posts. It is ableist to make your content entirely inaccessible to someone unless someone else comes and cleans up your mess by doing an image description.

And put the image description in the ORIGINAL POST. Tumblr recently expanded their alt text limit, use that if you must. By adding the ID in a reblog, you are letting people choose: do I want to reblog the ugly and long version of this post with the image description, or do I just want the funny comic? And they will choose the inaccessible version, and we are back where we started, and the only reason us IDers put IDs in reblogs is because we do not have the power to put it in the original post.

Do not put the IDs in reblogs if you can help it, do not put them under a cut, do not put them in the tags or replies or whatever other bullshit you've come up with to make disabled people jump through hoops to see your content in the name of a post being prettier. Accessibility over aesthetics, folks, don't purposefully exclude disabled people from your spaces for the sake of a post being less fucking ugly. Don't hide your image descriptions behind anything; if you are hesitant to do that because your IDs are long, DM me and I will help you pare them down, I promise I do not bite.

Everyone cares about disabled people until they have to change the way they are living in any tangible way. Show that you care, welcome disabled people into your space, and don't be a damn hypocrite.

[dullahandyke]

As a loveless rom-neutral aro, I want to extend a hand to lovequeer and rom-favourable aros. You show an awesome new side of aromanticism, and you deserve better than you get. Whenever I see you, I am awed by your cool vibes. Keep it up 👍🏻