I'll provoke the bulls with words

yes i art

anatomy was nice 2 me today

I had a really happy afternoon actually and it was 99.999% due to being aggressively unapologetically queer with someone I care about a lot — this, amid my mental illness making active attempts on my life —

sometimes I think they only say “living well is the best revenge” in order to keep you complacent but then but then I think …“fuck yeah it is”

so to all my queers who are scared to go to vigils or who are panicking over what bullshit military and/or rights-stripping government actions might happen over this or who are pissed as fuck about how our actual people are already somehow being erased from the narrative (again) or who don’t know what to do or who don’t know what to think

(Not comparing the two events. Comparing only the shape of my own emotions then and now. [The shape, not the scale.] Also of all the things Wrong with what’s happening right now, what I’m focusing on right-here-and-now isn’t even pretending to be The Main Thing or the biggest crime. It’s just the particular way these events happen to be slotting into my emotions.)

I’m not choosing to leave tumblr, but if this is it for my account, I’m at least taking this opportunity to be the one closing the door. Life doesn’t frequently grant us that chance.

I don’t expect my account to survive the purge. It might, but I strongly doubt it. I’ve managed to scrape together backups of what I could, and if my account is still here on the 18th I’ll be continuing with preservation efforts and then…

I don’t know. I still haven’t decided.

My partner and I used tumblr as our main communication platform when we first ‘met’, did you know that? We lived in different parts of the country. Now he’s sitting five feet away from me, we’ve been through hell and redefined heaven together, and I’m goddamn determined to spend the rest of my life with him.

It will be a very kinky life, too. And to me, that is Extremely Important.

I no longer feel inclined to hide or lie about that. Even if the only thing I do differently is incorporate more of that kink into the fanfic I write, or something… it’ll still be Something. I just want to be visible to other people who are like me. I want to offer that kind of hope and validation. I haven’t selected the exact rock I want to die on yet, but I’m scoping out a very particular side of a very particular mountain.

And I intend to be a force for good in the world.

I want to become one of those people who helps others remove their undeserved shame. Who makes the world a little safer for other softhearted freaks just by virtue of visibly existing without apologizing for it. Like the people I’ve admired… everyone from David Bowie to a few kink bloggers right here on tumblr.

Funny how it all loops back on itself like that. Over and over. Fortunately, I know how to knit. I know how to turn endless repeating loops into — not a tangle — something soft and beautiful and warm and of value.

Writing works the same way.

I still have self-esteem issues so all this “I want to be” stuff looks to me like an absurd and grandiose intent to declare publicly and in writing.

But, mostly thanks to healthy kink in a Solid Freaking Relationship (like I said: Extremely Important), I now have just enough shiny confidence to go ahead and say it anyway. This is the kind of person I want to be.

Striving is an action, and it starts with pretending. To try is to pretend that you’ll be successful. And as I understand it, that’s the only way anybody ever starts winning.

Anyway.

Tonight I’ll be logging off. Tomorrow my partner and I are going to see Into the Spider-Verse and be very kind to each other.

After that… I’ll still be chinashopbull on AO3, Pillowfort, and Dreamwidth. Doing my best, whatever that looks like.

a photographer captured a wild black vulture preening a northern caracara. while this interaction may seem strange, considering the birds are not in the same family, they are both scavengers and regularly interact over meals of carrion.

The history of the internet is tied together with the history of fandom, but fandom is not the only thing affected by censorship and purity culture.

This is where the drama and stress of tumblr’s ban on ‘adult content’ begins. This is why older members of tumblr in particular are angry.

I watched the events surrounding FFN, LJ, AO3, and Dreamwidth, but I would never be able to sum it up how the people in those other posts can. (edit: i shoulda linked this http://elevengrackles.tumblr.com/post/181061295443/prospectkiss-fierceawakening )

Tumblr has already reviewed (after flagging) and told LGBT+ content creators that their work, despite being non-sexual, and political or educational in nature, is sensitive content that needs to be removed. It begins.

This isn’t about pornography, it is about outright censorship and external pressure. It is just that tumblr has thinly and cleverly concealed it this way.

It’s been a while and a lot has happened. Here’s a Spiderverse thing because that movie is just something else. Go watch it support it admire its stylistic choices and weep for the artists who probably cracked their brain over it (while having lots of fun)