The Final Frontier

Straightness, masculinity, and whiteness all function exactly the same way, in that they are highly conditional categories defined only in opposition to something (ie, you can't ever really be securely straight or masculine or white; you can only be not-queered, not-feminized, not-othered. yet). In this essay I will

sometimes you have to write to remember that you like writing..... this mindfuck

the most burnt out girl in the world would like to remind you that she's actually really lazy compared to the people around her and she could probably use some extra work to keep her honest

There are many people who don’t share this sentiment, but I have an appreciation for when a fanfic is so separated from canon that it could’ve easily been its own original novel, and yet the author was only ever going to put that much energy into it if their favourite characters got to be there

I think there’s a difference between “the author stripped the media of everything it had to replace it with something easy” and “the author thought up a concept they really really like and are bestowing it upon the character like a medal”

my general opinion on what people should be "allowed" to portray and what topics they should be "allowed" to explore in fiction is that you can make whatever art with whatever themes you want but i'm also allowed to think the way you handled it was tasteless and should've been done differently. my negative opinion on your handling of sensitive topics is the price of admission for publicly showcasing your work. this is not a pro-censorship stance because i am not The Government

this is getting really popular so i’d like to add the important caveat that your criticism of a work is no more unassailable than the work itself. just as one is entitled to be critical of something someone else is entitled to disagree with that criticism. i add this because some of you pretend to give a fuck about thoughtful analysis and then when someone points out flaws in your argument you declare that all criticisms are valid. this is untrue. the status of a hater is no more sacred than that of a liker. get off your high horse and engage in the thoughtful discussion you pretend to believe in or perish by my blade

"RPF is soooo hard to explain it's sooooo weird it's bad and wrong'" it's fine. it used to be if you were a sex symbol people would just whack off to a picture of you or maybe write a dirty fantasy letter about you for a book or magazine, and now everything is all alienated and sublimated and abstracted and so a major way of Being a sex symbol is people imagine you, making out with another sex symbol, with tongue, and the dreamer happily uninvolved. fantasies are part of sexuality. it gets more elaborate because people crave tension & resolution and i mean lots of erotic material is also complex & always has been. it's the age of the voyeur baby it's fine. run that one again but they're up against the racecar and with more tongue. nice.

god I'm such a slut for Chinese eggplant in garlic sauce *decides it’s inaccurate to refer to myself as a slut in light of my minimal sexual activity* if The Enemy discovered my ardor for Chinese eggplant in garlic sauce, they would gain a significant strategic advantage

People really need to take a wider view of this paranoia about age gaps and realise this is how we lose the ability to build communities. You need to be able to realise that people can have things in common with you even if they grew up in a different time/place/culture. You also need to realise you can build communities with people who don’t have obvious things in common with you, that people can have the same goals and needs as you even if in most ways they’re very unlike you. Now, more than ever, we need to be able to work together to have any chance to stand ip against the few who have so, so much more power, money and influence than any of us do individually. We need to form communities that reach across age (and class and race and sexuality and so on…).

do these people not talk to their family members? I mean my niece and nephew are some of the coolest people out there and they are 30 years younger than me. Do they have nothing in common with their parents or aunts and uncles? My community elders in the fiber community are awesome and I have learned so much from them. And regularly do social things together.