#our experiences are valid

[brianmayism]

YES the last part too! Emotional and mental health are just as important as physical health! That includes making time for yourself and allowing yourself to do things that you actually enjoy.

My mom gets mad at me that I sleep at 3am and wake up for uni at 6:30 on my own personal choice but like bro I study the entire day (until like 1am)--because that's how demanding my program is-- after I wake up, and that's how I cope with how stressful uni is.

I can somehow relate to previous reblog but in a different perspective/situation. I was diagnosed late with ADHD and it's believed to have aided me to develop some kind of perfectionism related to how I was raised (yes, lots of asian countries live up to the perfectionist stereotypes). At 6 to 14 I would stay up to 12am to study, do art, study music, maintain my membership in scholarship groups in school, join the choir and bands, etc. I got so tired of the routine and began to do the "normal" person routines like social media, etc. and I was always punished for it. If my dad saw me using my phone for a minute instead of studying, I literally got ass whooping. The attitude remains in me, obv. The way you grow up leaves a mark. I get mad at myself for very tiny flaws and feeling stagnant in life. But I guess my college program is somehow helping me to understand myself more and lessen these tendencies.

It's sad. During our childhood and adolescent years, we're still learning so much about ourselves and I think it's incredibly mean and aggressive to force children (I think ppl forget teens are children too!) to be busy with their lives this way 24/7 and make them feel guilty for the rest they have the RIGHT to. At this point society makes you feel that rest is a fucking privilege it's insane.

I hope we all learn to be kind to ourselves with the manner that we know, be it laying in bed all day, spending money, eating, etc. all with moderation. Also hope we could break the toxic cycle.

So yes. When you ask me if I'm busy, I am. I am busy cuddling w my dog. Yes I'm busy eating. I'm fucking busy reading smut fics. I'm extremely busy watching tiktoks. Don't bother me again.

“If you have time to watch Netflix you have time for a side hustle” my side hustle is relaxing so that my body and brain can heal from by this nose-to-the-grindstone bullshit. I refuse to feel guilty for being a human with the need to relax sometimes. my side hustle is no.

[reticentmutt]

Does anyone else feel not-so-silly?

I have respect for the silly and lighthearted nonhuman posts out there. I think spreading positivity is important.

But I feel like an old, tough, no-bullshit working dog. I got coarse, mud covered fur, scars from protecting my territory, and little time for being carefree.

I can't see myself being a silly guy when all I was trained for was protection. I can't help but want to see more content similar to myself (which is why I post).

Maybe it's a unique form of vulnerability I have yet to unlock. What do you all think?

[thorough-witness-enjoyer]

Maybe it’s my experiences with my culture and having relatives who are immigrants, but the conflict between humanity and the eliksni reads more to me than just a message on xenophobia.

To me, it’s also about how groups who have experienced oppression are often pitted against each other by the circumstances created by their oppressors to keep them stuck in a cycle of violence and mistrust with one other. This cycle keeps groups who share similar pain and plights from extending mercy to each other and joining forces to fight against the systemic forces that brought them both into a hostile state, which is exactly what those forces want as it keeps those groups powerless and unstable.

[blakbonnet]

can I also just - so everytime I've come across a piece of Ed art where his skin is too light, I've sent an anon ask or DM to the artist - explaining very politely why they should redo the piece and the history of racism in this fandom. And every single time (except one asshole), artists have reacted well to this and understood my point, and some have even reposted the piece after correcting their mistake.

Idk that makes me happy, to have the freedom to say that and not have to deal with butthurt artists. Most people are kind, but you have to start from a place of trying to educate and idk not start a witchhunt, if you truly genuinely want them to do better.

[not-so-superheroine]

Jesus is my older brother, not my dad.

other christians don't seem to feel the same?

am i missing something where he insists on such a thing except perhaps with actual little children?

[player016]

It’s weird and sad that I need to say this but whether you loved or hated s3 I have no beef and I still want to be your friend

[our-arospec-experience]

I love that I can recognize when I'm physically/aesthetically attracted to people while maintaining full confidence that I'm AroAce :] People are CUTE People are PRETTY People are BEAUTIFUL godammit!!

-🍜 anon

Yes! It's so beautiful when that happens!

[our-afamspec-experience]

Afamspec culture is…

Please please please where can I find afamilial positivity. Where can I hear that what I am is good. Please. Please. I feel terrible right now.

.

[grumpyoldsnake]

Our apple tree has house guests!

I think they’re probably bald-faced hornets. They’ve built a very pretty nest, and look at those cute little faces. <3

[our-multigender-experience]

I thought this was the right place to ask, but I often feel like both transfem and transmasc.

I realized recently that I feel "girl" as a gender is more something others perceive me as, it feels not something I was born as, but something society in general forced upon me by perceiving me that way. So my body for example, though feminine, doesnt make feel like I was "born a girl", it's just my body. I have no idea what my gender is, but all that I know is that it's not one thing. Masculinity and femininity are confusing notions to me, but I wish to partecipate in both, and I like to imagine what itd be like to be a guy or have cis boy traits even though I do feel a connection to my femininity and somewhat to being a girl.

Im also definitely non binary, or in some capacity experience a gender that I can only best describe as a mix of girl and nonbinary, not as in half and a half, but as in a mix that creates a distinct and different gender identity (reason why I dont like demigirl, it just feels like half and a half). I tend to use genderqueer as label and recently Ive allowed myself to refer to myself as trans, as Ive never done that before because I dont experience dysphoria with my body, even though I catch myself imagining how itd be to look different than I do.

So because my perception of my gender up until me questioning isnt "girl", it feels wrong to call myself a cis girl, even as "just a part of my whole gender". I feel trans both in the way I experience masculinity and the way I experience feminity. I like it that way, but hanging out w binary trans people I feel that's an impossible/wrong way to feel and Im just trying to be special.

-🦌🌊

mate your gender is so so valid, we have quite a few people in our system who expirence similar genderqueerness especially of a "binary and more" style is very common and valid.

[cliveguy]

this is a post about trans men making jokes about struggling to access pap smears. in what magical world are we being given easy access to the care we need and not being subjected to endless gatekeeping and medical abuse

[radiomogai]

excuse me, you recently related a post with a tag asking if people remembered when people cared about recoining things and I’ve been thinking about it and I’m wondering if you meant that caring about recoining was good or bad?

We dislike re-coining. I don't have the spoons to explain the full part of it, but it mostly comes down to our more general criticisms of the extent of individualism in the MOGAI community (recoins, especially when they are of terms that have already been coined many times, often feel as though they are disregarding the contributions of other coiners, as well as ignoring the community symbol purpose of flags) and it feels disrespectful to the work of archivists. Every time we see another gender related to the song I/Me/Myself by Will Wood and nothing else, we feel like our work and our efforts in not only preventing terms from being lost as well as making them so easy to search for is, uh. Pointless. Not valued. We've spoken about this with some other archivists who have said they feel the same.

There are five (5) genders related to that song on our blog alone, by the way, and that's only counting the ones that have no other specifications. There are also five (5) related to the album Everything Is A Lot, and four (4) related to the song Thermodynamic Lawyer, and four (4) related to The Normal Album. Again, this is only counting ones without any other specifications, and are only the ones posted on our blog. This is a regular thing.

[maple-moose-muffin]

Seeing olds vs youths fandom etiquette discourse breaks my heart because there's such a lack of empathy. It's literally ageism and generation vs generation bullshit playing out the same way as always, except because it's painted over with a veneer of pixel men and literay analysis we preted it's actually a human rights fight and we're justified for spitting on our juniors.

I saw a post talking about squicks, where the Fandom Youths who hadn't encountered the word before were rolling their eyes and calling it millenial baby talk nonsense, while the Fandom Olds were responding with statements like "omfg why didnt you google it you dumbass!!" As if you, Fandom Old, ever learned that word by googling it. Fuck me, but I don't remember ever googling what 'whump' meant. I learned it by having it demonstrated by the fandom figures I looked up to. For years of my early fandom life I thought 'slash' meant gore. It wasn't until I saw other fans talking about the fluffiest slash pairings that I realized it was another word for yaoi, which was the term *I* knew, coming from an anime background.

Fandom is huge but we are still a subculture, and culture is taught through interaction, demonstration, and the kindness and *patience* of your culturemates. That means listening to each other and fucking explaining shit to those who will inheret our Discord servers and our Archives, not screaming at them for being too stupid to know the stove is hot before they touch it. And it means opening your damn minds and ears, and absorbing those lessons when your foremothers give them to you. It goes both ways. It's just that this post is mostly aimed at the Fandom Olds, my peers, whom I see berating people simply for being new. Who take screenshot of tags from Youths asking what the hell Superwholock is and wail, "What is the world coming to??" Instead of answering them. Instead of teaching them our history. Their history.

Do YOU know all about every Star Trek email chain that came before you? Do YOU know all the big names of the OG Buffy circles? Xena Warrior Princess? Do you even know the most famous fics of the contemporary fandoms you never participated in? YuGiOh, Sailor Moon, Homestuck, Big Time Rush? When exactly did you learn omegaverse was born of the Supernatural fandom? When did you discover hanahaki? Why didn't you just know about it the day you made your tumblr?

We cannot fall into the curmedgeoning ways of gatekeeping fandom from the new bloods simply because they haven't been around long enough to know their own history. I've been writing fanfic for fifteen years, and I learned the Fuck or Die trope was born in Star Trek THIS WEEK. Ignorance does not make you lazy, entitled, or unworthy. It does not make you a fake fandom citizen. For fuck's sake, do you really want to be the person who says "Oh you like fanfiction? Name five tropes that aren't fake dating and there was only one bed"?

Yes, there has been an uptick in lack of etiquette. Yes there is an issue of purity policing. But correct me if I'm wrong, as it was before *my* time -- isn't that what killed LiveJournal? Isn't that why we now have an Archive who explicitly states in their ToS they won't take down content just because it is deemed offensive? This shit isn't new, and the Fandoms Youths aren't single handedly killing the kinky fic industry.

The Youths These Days are not ruining fandom anymore than I used to ruin it when, at age 14, I used to lash out at female characters for 'ruining' the gay ships. I've grown. You have grown. The Youths will grow.

But not if you alientate and refuse to teach them.

[our-arospec-experience]

My aro spec experience is finding out that I’m autoromantic, then coming to an aromantic community online for advice bcs I had some questions only to be ridiculed and humiliated (“me when I have schizophrenia🤪” - a comment I got on my post. Made me feel horrible about myself tbh)

- 🌻��️

that’s so horrible of them, wtf??? How dare they?? I’m so sorry they did that anon >:[

(and I can’t claim to be able to offer advice, but if you did want to ask for any we could definitely spread it to the wider community who might know how to answer your questions.)

[leenaur143]

if i were to ever get a roommate if i moved out, i too would hope they would find the urge to twerk next to me if they thought I was bored 🤓☝️

[alsaurus-loves-dean]

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