#please love and respect yourself

[thepeacefulgarden]

[mossy-aro]

ultimately i think my insistence on aro positivity honestly is as much a political stance as a personal one.

when i say aro positivity is crucial and that i dislike doomer-ist posts that express sentiments like 'I hate being aro so much I wish I was dead instead’ it's not because I don’t think there can and should be a space for negativity and acknowledging self-hate, or the many ways being aromantic can really suck sometimes. i find that to be very important!

that being said. there is smth here about how self-hate posts are sometimes just arophobia that we inflict on ourselves. and when we put that out into the ether it (intentionally or not) can become arophobia that we inflict on other members of the community. i think there absolutely needs to be a place for negativity and the expression of anger and frustration and self loathing even - these are all good things to talk about because these are things that we experience. that being said, it can also be genuinely upsetting and triggering to people to have what is essentially arophobia shown to them and then have that be validated by other aspec people. your personal thoughts can affect your wider community on a level you may not anticipate. and i understand it i truly do! it took me so long to be able to recover from accepting being aroace - it threw my entire world off kilter and made me question everything about my place in the world.

but my insistence on aro joy and positivity is because ultimately i do believe that building is at the core essence of it all. that ultimately discussions and the purpose of community should be about construction, not destruction. and this is both a personal and a political stance. talking about how much you hate yourself and cultivating online discussions/spaces where negativity about aspec identity is the main and only theme is destructive - if that’s where we let the conversation end. these thoughts can and should be used as a vehicle to look for a path forward!

joy and positivity create a space where the focus can become on forging a path forward, on construction, on community building instead of tearing ourselves and others down with negative thoughts. it’s not productive or healthy when it stops at a place of negativity - it becomes actively destructive to the essence of community.

and i do think that this is especially poignant considering the fact that being any kind of queer, but especially aromantic (and/or asexual) means forging a path for yourself and making your own happiness where there is no obvious way forward. our communities exist mostly online (right now, anyway), there is little recognition of our existence in the real world, the effects of amatonormativity are both pervasive and actively dehumanising, and there are legal, economic and social structures in place actively making our lives more difficult. yes that all sucks! it’s good to acknowledge that. we need to in order to change it. but more importantly, that’s not the end. we are still here and our happiness, our future is for us to determine. even if we can’t change the laws or society, loving yourself and understanding aromanticism as a political identity (as well as personal), as a radical worldview, and as a protest against amatonormativity is essential for both community and personal well being. the personal is political.

tldr. i guess my point is that as a community, we should focus on building, improving, and nurturing ourselves and each other (construction) as opposed to destruction. we should recognise aromanticism and asexuality as political identities as well as personal ones and rely on community and self-love in the absence of anything else as a form of protest and political power. destruction (the recognition of everything that is wrong) is essential as a starting point - but where do we go from there? we rebuild.

[enii]

It's not okay if you are not okay with it💕

[fairieicedtea]

i always consider other people's feelings and realizing they don't even consider my own

[doctahchang]

this is exactly how equinox ended

[puck-luck]

I would like to create content that you guys enjoy, but I will not do that at the expense of myself. If that makes me seem intolerable and close-minded and hoity-toity, then that's whatever.

Enjoy the content you want to enjoy.

I will not be glorifying abuse or assault on my blog. It is not the content that I believe you all deserve. You deserve to read about someone who complements you and respects you, ESPECIALLY in a dom/sub environment since those can toe the line between a vanilla/"normal" relationship and something that can go too far.

[technitango]

a tong redemption arc really

[i-am-loco]

The leftism leaving peoples body as soon as the topics of trans womens bodies/sexuality or trans male pregnancy show up

[deer-with-a-stick]

man, I've only gotten Gale's rant about Nettie once (on like my first playthrough in 2020 or something 💀) but he has endeared himself to me with that one (1) conversation forevermore I love this man

[thepeacefulgarden]

[gothteddiesdotcom]

I’m not in charge of enough of anyone’s lives right now I think that’s the issue

[mooseyspooky]

Okay, well. I'm desperately trying to finish this chapter of vampire Johnny, but if Moz is going to be posting intensely thirsty photos of his hot lesbian girlfriend then I'm gonna have to do something about it

[iniziare]

Tag drop: Dorian Pavus

[wordswithloveee]

[mitathrone]

I am perplexed by the number of people in fandoms "peaking" and what not. It's so strange to see.

Especially ones that are turning to "loving hatred" by having a gentle and "welcoming" demeanor while talking about how much they despise men and calling intersex women "men," or posting nothing but vitriol against any woman they deem "a male" while swearing up and down that they're protecting women, supporting violently intersexist and misogynistic posts from right wingers, but also turning around and saying they hate right wingers and support all women... What is up with that ?

I've noticed that they also tend to have characters that are well-loved by trans people or are gender/sex variant in canon in their layouts or usernames, which is almost sinister..

[boyczar]

please remember that it is a compliment to be disliked by people. most people don’t even like themselves. think about why you even want to be liked by somebody. why do YOU like YOURSELF?? why give a fuck about whether or not somebody with so much work to do on themselves doesn’t like you? they literally do not even like themselves. they can’t genuinely “like” you.