This hell is better with you

A non-writer asked me "but where do you get your ideas" and i genuinely did not know how to explain that it's not a place. it's not a website. it's not a folder. it's that i was on the bus and a woman was holding a paper bag very carefully and something about the way she held it made me need to know what was inside and then i needed to know why she was sad about it and then there was a whole person and then there was a whole story and the bus had already stopped and i missed my stop. that's where.

Strange women on buses distributing ideas is no basis for a system of artistic motivation

I think brothers should kiss and i think it should be at once forbidden and electrifying and comforting and familiar. With tongue.

Saying “this niche, properly tagged, warned, and rated piece of fiction could theoretically hurt someone” is not a good argument. This properly labeled cookie with the allergen information at the bottom that contains gluten could theoretically harm me very badly, but only if I consume it. Tags are like nutrition labels, and warnings are like allergy information. If you know you have an allergy to something, the logic is to stay away from it. It is the same with fiction. I’m not running through stores yelling at people to take all the products with gluten off the shelves just because it could hurt me. Instead I ignore it and go to the gluten free section and find cookies that are right for me. And if running through a grocery store yelling sounds ridiculous, that’s because it is. Stop doing the same with fiction.

this is the best way i’ve seen this put!!

And just like with food, what might be harmful for one person to consume could be quite *beneficial* for others. One man’s trigger is another man’s catharsis.

AND if you lack the maturity/self control/awareness to stop yourself from eating things that could potentially harm you, you either 1) are too young to be making your own food choices and should be supervised by a parent/other adult who is supposed to be responsible for you (and the store clerk who put the food on the shelf is NOT) or 2) need to take accountability for your own actions, because if you deliberately consumed something you knew could hurt you as a fully autonomous adult, then you really have no one to blame but yourself.

I’d like to add that within AO3, “Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings” is, in this food analogy, like the food labels that read “This product was manufactured in a facility where [potential food allergens] are used in the production of some products”. It’s not telling you they’re in there, but even more importantly, it’s not telling you they’re not. This is not the same as “No Archive Warnings Apply” which would be the certified [food allergen] free food. One guarantees a certain experience, the other has given you no promises as to what may or may not be included and is very much a consume-at-your-own-risk product.

perfection

you think you know what yearning is until you come across incestuous yearning. then your life is ruined because nothing else compares.

Putting the term "Catholic guilt" on a high shelf where fandom can't reach it until everyone learns how to identify characters who are very very clearly coded as Protestant.

touch-starvation needs to be written with emphasis on the starving part. you are hungry to be touched. so hungry that even the very taste of it makes you nauseous. it has been long since anything has ever touched you, ever fed you - that your body has grown more used to that gnawing emptiness more than anything else. it's better for you to be held, to eat but it makes you sick to try. you know

wish everyone could perceive the Vague Concepts in my head because i just know you would looove my Vague Concepts. you would think im so smart if you saw the misty clouds of Vague Concepts floating around in my head. #MyVagueConcepts

Getting work done on my house and the contractor was like “I saw ur sign….. r u yknow in the community or an …ally?” And I was like doing the major side eye and was hesitantly like “……in the community…” and the guy whips out his phone and goes “cool let me show you a picture of my daughter and her 4 kids and her wife and did u know the baby is theirs biologically which is very cool and” then I got to listen to him tell me all about being an ally and how much he loves the queer community and also he thinks it’s despicable all the friends they lost when his daughter came out and they haven’t won the best yard since they put a pride flag out and how it’s about making sure people have safe spaces and know they aren’t alone- to my complete astonishment I really did get the full essay from him