#think of the trans potential too.. much to think about

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

TW: includes mentions of hate crimes within the context of intrusive thoughts related to safety

My dear lgbt+ kids, 

This one will be a personal ramble, so feel free to skip: 

I really wanted to go to a specific local Pride event this year. I talked about it ever since it was announced months ago, I excitedly shared every single little piece of information on it, I splurged on a whole outfit for it, I probably annoyed all my loved ones by not shutting up about how much I look forward to it - I was so determined to go. 

Because it sounded fun and I was looking forward to celebrating my personal Pride milestone this way (I’ll finally get to legally change my name and gender marker this month!), but also for political reasons. Pride has always been important but I felt like it was especially important to go this year, with the (local and global) drift to right-wing extremism. It would’ve been a fairly small, rural event and I know how especially these types of Pride events can become targets of hate and how vital it is for them to get enough attendance and supporters. 

And then - as you can probably guess from the way I worded all this - I ended up not going. 

I don’t even have a really good reason for that. I wanted to go with my partner and he couldn’t go for work reasons - but that became clear days before the actual event. Sure, that was disappointing to both of us (it would’ve been our first time attending Pride together and I was really looking forward to that), but I planned to go without him then. It’s not like that’s unheard of, plenty of people go to such events as individuals rather than as couples or groups! So, I rearranged all my plans to make it a solo trip. I was a bit nervous about going alone because I kept seeing all these headlines about explosively increasing numbers of hate crimes this year and worried about potentially making myself an easy target by being a somewhat „visibly trans“ person attending alone but I was still determined to go! Or well, I was until the very day before - that’s when I stumbled across an advertisement online by a group of people who wanted to go there together and were looking for more people to join them. 

This sounds like it should’ve been a great development, right? They wanted to go out for breakfast first, as a nice way for everyone to get to know each other, and then attend Pride together. I briefly entertained the idea of joining them - maybe I would feel safer in a group and have to worry less about standing out as an easy target? Who knows, maybe I’d even make some friends? - but I decided against it. 

It was so last minute and I’m not a very spontaneous person, but more importantly I knew that „going out to eat“ is a huge anxiety trigger for me. It’s a challenge to even go out to eat with my partner or family - doing it with a bunch of strangers would probably feel overwhelming. Maybe it would’ve been a good way to confront that eating-in-public anxiety („do it scared“ style) but no, no, I wasn’t going to derail my special event I’ve been looking forward to for months by turning it into an exhausting anti-anxiety exercise to conquer rather than a fun event to enjoy! … And then it derailed anyway. 

I got really in my head about it. I kept painting these awful mental pictures: just kept imagining how I’d go to the breakfast and deeply regret it. I’d feel anxious and awkward the whole time, I’d be so paralyzed with fear that I wouldn’t talk to anyone, I’d  unsettle everyone with my silence until I get a panic attack and embarrass myself in front of all these strangers, everyone would think I’m insane and hate me, I’d still be the lonely kid in the corner of the playground even as a grown-ass man. My brain turned it into a whole horror movie! So, hard no on the breakfast - but then the next picture would spring up: I’d not go to the breakfast and just go to Pride alone as originally planned… and deeply regret that choice, too. I’d feel lonely and awkward the whole time, I’d just stand around nervously without even enjoying myself and hate myself for not having gone to the breakfast, everyone would think I’m weird for just standing there and laugh at me or be creeped out by me, and when I finally realize I don’t belong there with the people who actually have friends, then I’d probably run into counterprotesters and get straight-up murdered and nobody would even care. 

Would either of these pictures have become reality? Nope. People don’t ever really think about us as hard as social anxiety will convince us. Chances are higher that nobody would’ve thought that I’m crazy or weird or unsettling - because nobody would really have thought much about me at all. That sounds like a depressed statement but that’s not what I mean. It’s just that people are usually preoccupied with their own lives and thoughts. I’m not the main character in other people’s stories. When I walk past someone who is standing somewhere alone and silent, I don’t go off on some long thought journey about how this must be the most unloveable person on earth, either! It’s not rational to assume that other people do that about me. (Plus, if someone would jump right over „he’s probably shy“ or „he’s the quiet type“ and instantly goes to „he must be unlovable“ and „I don’t care if he lives or dies“, that’d really just make them a rude judgmental jerk, if not a psychopath, and it would say nothing about my worth as a person). 

I know all this - and the anxiety still won. I stayed home and now I regret that I stayed home. 

That hurts. I can analyze it all I want, I can try to understand what went wrong and learn from it, I can be compassionate with myself and tell myself that I can just try again next year, I can make a donation to the team that organized the event so I still support the local community… and I still missed the event. I still missed my chance to celebrate my milestone this way. 

There’s this quiet grief that comes with anxiety and watching it ruin opportunities like this. Watching yourself ruin opportunities like this when you rationally know better but anxiety doesn’t care about rational. 

I don’t really have a neat ending point here. Just a slice of life that might resonate with some of you. Here’s to fighting anxiety - and to finding grace for ourselves in the setbacks along the way.

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Dad

[olderthannetfic]

My friend signed up for nonconathon and the person they were matched with is making them very uncomfortable.

Listing no racebending under DNW is fine. But also adding that you don't like Blorbo 1 as his canonical minority ethnicity? Gonna get you a side eye. (Even if canon didn't handle writing that ethnicity well.)

Listing no trans or ace/aro character headcanons can be fine, but when combined with the above?

Having fixed top/bottom preferences is fine. But reiterating it nine (9!) times throughout your list of prompts/likes/DNWs is...excessive.

Repasting your general DNWs at least 3 times and your fandom specific ones twice makes it so much harder to navigate your page (and puts way too much an emphasis on what you don't like vs what you do).

Including likes that don't apply to the event in question (sfw and fluff likes) is overwhelming and makes it harder to parse out what you're looking for from the event.

Having lists of likes and potential prompts that are longer than my computer screen, let alone my phone screen, is also extremely overwhelming.

Preferring fem!sub and male!dom as well as top!alpha and bottom!omega is fine. But not wanting to reference the fact that the person you want to sub/bottom/be raped is canonically larger than the person you want to top/dom is weird.

Like, one or two of these, I tried to defend. Until I read the whole list of what they wanted/didn't want. Way too many little, could be innocent, comments just adding up to a "huh, you're racist and transphobic, aren't you?" feeling.

(Also just rude in how extensive their lists of likes and DNWs are. Isn't it supposed to be just enough information to get someone going and ensure you don't hate the resulting fic?)

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I love hugely long requests. If the letter is five thousand words, I will read every one and love it. My rule for myself is to try to write an exchange fic that's at least as long as my letter. I think my longest letter was about 7k, but they're usually more like 2-3k.

No, I don't think it's supposed to be just enough info to get you going. It can be that, or it can be detailed plotbunnies or anything else.

The thing it shouldn't be, though, is extremely negative or trying to railroad the author into one specific story. If there are detailed plotbunnies, there should be a few different ones and some ideas about alternate takes if that exact scenario doesn't appeal to the writer.

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I'd definitely look askance at someone not liking the canon ethnicity of a character. Is it ambiguous in some way? That's odd and an annoying constraint on the author who might like canon.

Not wanting trans or ace/aro headcanons is a standard DNW and isn't any more meaningful than "No second person". For me, it's primarily that I don't want unrequested vag (and have in fact changed to just saying that instead of anything about transness), and I'm always asking for shippy stuff where I want the characters' romantic and sexual tastes to line up well by the end of the story. I wouldn't even bother saying any of this in an exchange signup if people weren't always going "Wharrgarbl! You like non-canon gay ships, so why not non-canon trans characters?!?!?!" and the like.

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What it sounds like has happened here is that an exchange regular who does the whole annual rotation of exchanges has recycled a lot of their standard letter without updating it enough. The off-topic stuff is part of their default sign up. The repeated DNWs are pretty common from people who think you'll only be reading one section of the letter instead of the whole thing. They're supposed to be helpful instead of repetitive and a slog since you don't have to refer back to a different section. (Whether they actually are in practice is another story.)

This letter doesn't sound that out there other than disliking the canon identity. Reiterating top/bottom preferences in nonconathon makes perfect sense. The thing about character size sounds bad the way you've phrased it but might be meant as "Don't kink on them being bigger". I can see reasons why they'd list something like this for nonconathon.

I haven't read the letter, obviously, but it sounds like the main issues are that it's just not written that well and that you and your friend aren't very familiar with what letters from people in Exchanges Fandom™ sound like. Maybe the vibes are off, but I can't tell from a second hand account.

...

Also... I heard it wasn't running this year?