why am i like this

It's not weird that we are here! There are SO MANY OF US! We're not outliers, we're not oddballs. We are occupying a space we CREATED and we are still fucking here, having fun with all our younger online friends, which is COOL AND GOOD and NOT EMBARRASSING ACTUALLY. It's fucking rad.

Look. We *built* online fandom, comrades! We built it with Angelfire and Geocities and the fucking telephone cables we unhooked from our phones to plug into our enormous, boxy desktop computers to suffer through glacial download speeds that today's children can't even fathom. I think we should all agree to stop apologizing for being here when this is our fucking house. An excellent sentiment (not mine):

To all of my beloved young friends - remember this when you get older. You don't need to grow out of fandom. Who the fuck cares if it's cringe? Childlike joy is something to CELEBRATE, NOT SOMETHING TO BURY AND HIDE!

"Free the nipple" never meant "free to not wear a bra" or "free to breastfeed." Those were adjacent conversations that of course "free the nipple" supporters would boost, but that was NEVER the core of free the nipple.

The core of free the nipple was always that the breasts of people perceived as women ("female-presenting nipples" to use some Tumblr speak) are in no way different than the breasts of people perceived as men. And that since the chests of people perceived as men are not sexualized and are allowed to be exposed, so too should the breasts of people perceived as women. If men can be topless, so can women. If it's inappropriate for women to show their chests, neither should men. It isn't sexual assault for a woman to walk around barechested, because it isn't sexual assault for a man to do so either, and breasts are NOT sexual organs.

Claiming breasts are inherently sexual organs is factually and morally wrong, it is sexist and controlling, it is a tool of oppression, and it defines normal body parts (and bodily functions) as sex which leads to inherent sexualization of people with those parts. It leads to 12 year olds with large breasts being accused of seducing 40 year old men or trying to distract and corrupt their classmates.

"Free the nipple" doesn't mean "free the nipple in a god-fearing way." It means FREE THE NIPPLE, full stop, end of sentence. It means to free the nipple of the faulty social constructs that cast it as a sexualized, malicious force of seduction instead of a normal body part that should be free of expectations of shame or "modesty."

Breasts and nipples aren't shameful, sexual, immoral, porn-adjacent, kinks, a distraction, or things to be feared. They are a part of your body just like your elbows and ankles, and being afraid of them, thinking they will corrupt some innocent person or that being exposed to them is trauma akin to sexual assault, is the entire fucking problem.

Free the nipple, not just for breastfeeding, not just from bras, but from the fucked up social constructs that cast them as malicious instead of innocent. Stop trying to sanitize "free the nipple" for puritanical, conservative audiences who already hate you and the rest of us. You aren't helping anyone.

the path of wisdom is sometimes to hire a plumber.

also you are never going to be safe for people for whom english is their second language. if someone clarifies their meaning and apologises and you can't accept that over the original wording then don't bother pretending to be autism friendly.

and like part of my autism is that i become convinced that the way i interpret words is the way that they're meant. my autism is disabling to my communication abilities. i have poor emotional regulation, i jump to conclusions. a lot of my reactions are informed by prior negative experiences. i can and probably have been overly defensive in the past.

and i've been misinterpreted so much and had my words picked over and mocked for saying the wrong things and mocked for being unable to say anything at all and it always feels devastating. it's ironic that the same disability that has me treated poorly would have me react poorly to a similar situation, but that's just how it is.

A year or two ago, someone accused me of 'using the language of the enemy' when I said, "so-and-so identifies as [insert gender]." Keep in mind, this is someone who I'd known online for a few years, and who was fully aware that I'm queer as well as autistic. To add to the grassless thinking going on there, everyone else in the conversation was just like, "Yup, if someone says that, I don't trust them."

Are you fucking kidding me?? No wonder the queer community (and the left in general) is paralyzed by infighting—because everyone belittles and alienates anyone who uses anything other than The Correct Terminology of the Week!

Needless to say, I got the hell away from all of those people not long after that.

I've also had someone block me on Discord when I admitted that I really, really struggle to remember how neopronouns all change cases in different ways (I literally have to go find charts to refer to, but some pronouns are so niche that they don't even have case charts), and how that makes me nervous to interact with people who exclusively use neopronouns because I don't want to cause offense. And of course, not wanting to cause offense caused offense 🙄

BAILEY’S 3K CELEBRATION —🫶🏻 for @galindaelphaba

Abbott Elementary S5 + Gregory's looks to the camera