sky

And that's not bad! It's true for a lot of people! You CAN go back later! You can apply to university, you can get your GED, you can pursue whatever level of education you want. It's not bad to share that message. If you dropped out and want to go back eventually, there is zero timeline. You can go back at any age, with any life experience. You do not have to graduate by a specific age.

But as someone who dropped out of college over a decade ago, sometimes "you can always go back!" starts to feel a little like an empty platitude. Sometimes it starts to feel grating instead of hopeful. Even when it might technically be true, sometimes it still feels like a hollow sentiment.

I just want to say, to anyone else out there who feels that way, who dropped out and CAN'T go back, potentially EVER, whether it's due to poverty or disability or any other reason:

It's okay to drop out and never go back. It might feel shitty, and you may even feel grief over it. That's real, and painful, and allowed. But you are not lesser. Even if you never go back, you are not a failure or a loser. Academics do not define your worth. You are not stupid. And it is almost certain that the system actually failed YOU.

With love,

"I'm really sorry that lockdown and the ongoing pandemic interrupted pivotal educational and social/emotional development moments for you. You have an uphill battle towards adjusting to a lot of community based efforts because you experienced a mass trauma during an incredibly important time in your life where you should have physically been around your peers learning to engage in shared community. There is no "but" here, I'm genuinely really sorry. Something many of us consider key points in our interpersonal growth as youths was taken from you, not without reason but without care for its impact on you. I hope you know we are eternally allies in our struggles and if that is something you struggle to know I hope you can learn it someday."

Because so many of the angriest, most disenfranchised people I see on this website are under 24 and I often try to put younger people's behavior in the context of where they might have been 2020. I've seen the impact on my siblings and their peers+friends first hand, all ages 18-24. We've talked about how its impacted them, the isolation, the attachment to the internet, the anxieties and phobias and fears it developed in them due to the pandemic, the political unrest, and the responses to both that we've seen since. I know they're not the only ones and I know how much being marginalized also influences that impact too.

edit: people are reblogging without the addition so im putting the extra versions in the base post too

Needed a clean graphic for a project, and figured while I was vectoring I would put sex and magic back in.

Best we start cancelling nitro's subscription, send feedback, or make fire on other platforms, and still give fire to your local/state/federal representatives about these age verification laws they brought into the world wide web.

Can we do that everyone

@d0esery @gentleman-velvet @roxfox5 @hannahhook7744 @youtube-privacy-union

DO NOT SUPPORT DISCORD! CANCEL YOUR NITRO! DON'T SUPPORT SITES OR PEOPLE THAT PUSH THIS!