#turning off reblogs because I actually don't want ppl sharing this around this is my stupid rant to the void

[violynsolo]

seeing some of my arcanetwt friends confused by tumblr so here are 10 tips, hopefully i can explain them in a succinct way that is specifically relevant for you all!

follow blogs and tags to see posts! eventually tumblr will accurately recommend things you like and show them on your for you page/"try these posts" on the explore page but i usually just scroll my dash.

you can sort your dash by most recent or recommended, but unlike twitter you aren't going to see other people's likes or replies on your dash, just posts and reblogs.

people love getting asks! (as long as they're nice!) asks are basically built in curiouscat. you can turn anon off if you want or turn asks off altogether but they can be a good way to spark a conversation/discussion.

people treat tags kinda like qrts! most people will throw their personal opinions about a post in the tags, because unlike hashtags you can use spaces and some punctuation. i rarely put my thoughts in a reblog unless i feel like it adds to the content of the post in some way/continues the discussion. basically if you just want to share your opinions put them in the tags but if you definitely want ppl to see what you're saying put them in a rb (either way people can look through the notes to read all the tags too)

on that topic, once your post has been reblogged it CANNOT BE DELETED! you can delete the original post off your blog but any rb is essentially a copy. it's not gonna disappear like on twitter. you can edit your posts on tumblr, but rbs that happened before the edit will not change. (this is why you'll sometimes see a deactivated blog's addition in the reblogs of a post)

you can private your likes and following list! honestly i recommend doing this, i think a lot of unnecessary twitter drama comes from those features being public but on tumblr no one knows how many followers you have but you and you don't have to share who you follow either. (keep in mind that privating your likes only hides the likes page from your blog, it doesn't hide your like in the notes of a post)

tumblr's tagging system is actually pretty great (whenever the search function decides to work lmao), you can tag a post by #gif, #art, #video, etc. so you can search your blog for it later. unlike twitter tumblr is shit when it comes to searching specific phrases, like it just refuses to work and i have no idea why, so i recommend this!

while tags technically do show up like hashtags in site wide searches, people very commonly come up with tagging systems just for their blog, like ways to reference posts to find them later, this is not really how people use tags on twt but it's common and useful here.

you can queue posts! if you don't want to spam you can schedule a post to be sent out at a certain time, or just leave your queue to post them in intervals throughout the day. people usually come up with a personal tag for their queue (often a pun where the word "queue" is replacing something) so their followers know they aren't actually active and the post was scheduled.

finally, and oops this ended up being long, tumblr posts have a ton of formatting features that make them a lot more like blog posts, feel free to play around! for the people who are really into blog design you can also actually edit the html of your blog's desktop site and fully code the page how you want (or just pick a premade theme)

happy blogging and don't hesitate to ask me any questions!

#this ended up being much less succinct than i intended oops but hopefully it was at least relevant #i feel like a lot of the 'welcome to tumblr' posts i've seen are not actually easy to understand if you haven't been on the site before #n e ways idk how to tag this for arcanetwt to see lemme try uhh #arcane #arcanetwt

[getallemeralds]

So, I have a character who is a system, and I wanted to know before I develop them further, how does DID work, from a personal account? I really really really don't want to accidentally create yet another TOXIC misinterpretation of a real condition (because I know how horrible that can feel), and I hope I'm not saying anything wrong even now. (P.S. I love your blog, but I'm too shy to come off anon.)

hey anon!! it means a LOT to me that you sent this message :D theres a lot of really messy-bad potrayals of DID in the media so seeing people actually going to the effort of asking systems abt their experiences is really heartwarming for us. (plus the fact that ppl keep asking us in specific abt system stuff omg,,)

im gonna preface this by saying that, in the end, i can only really talk about my own experiences with full confidence. systems can work pretty differently from each other, but this is how we function and also some details ive noticed from system friends + general discussion over the years

so, to start off: Dissociative Identity Disorder is, at its core, your brain trying to respond to trauma in a pretty severe way. that being said there ARE systems that didnt experience severe trauma and still developed, and im not really sure about the mechanics behind that but i find it really cool and it totally exists. im gonna focus on trauma-based systems bc that’s our ~tragic backstory~ and also tends to be what most people opt for when creating system characters anyway, but the only real difference from what i can tell is, uh, a lack of trauma.

I HOPE YOU’RE READY FOR ME TO SAY THE WORD “TRAUMA” A WHOLE LOT JFC

(system friends are welcome to reblog with corrections or added info!!)

anyway. the way your brain responds to things is really weird. if something happens where you’re just, like, completely unable to handle it, like you dissociate yourself so hard because there’s no way you can manage this, your brain has a chance of going “uh… well, fuck, uh” and generating somebody who can manage it. or it might decide to be a dick and take all of the fucky internalized garbage and turn it into a person whose sole existence is to be an asshole. (they have the potential to get better, i think… ours didnt.) honestly theres a bunch of reasons and a bunch of “roles” that could lead to an alter/headmate* forming.

* we use the terms interchangeably depending on mood and whos fronting. i think its supposed to be “alter” is DID, “headmate” is implication that theyre non-traumatic? we like using “headmate” because it brings this fun mental image of us being a bunch of roommates constantly starting shit with each other and goofing off which is pretty accurate about 75% of the time

i keep getting distracted bc my cat is here. this is gonna be fun to go back and edit.

whatever the original situation is, you’re suddenly not alone in your own brain. and it’s REALLY WEIRD. communication was VERY hard. Icarus, our system original, used to do a very “cliche” thing of sharing a journal with their early headmates, where theyd write a sentence and then theyd write a reply (although back then they didnt realize that was a system-related thing and just thought they were having a fun conversation with their ocs. which… they were, just. Actually Talking.) they didnt have any inward perception of themself or their headmates either, so that kinda built up over time (with some help) along with the appearance of our headspace so that there was… actually a location for people to interact in. once they had a better awareness of things, mental communication got a bit easier– its sort of like background chatter really, when everybody’s awake. sometimes i get weird out of context things from Mae yelling at somebody, or sometimes ill be talking to a friend and someone’ll butt in.

when talking out loud, this usually leads to us suddenly stopping and then laughing or going “no!!!”. when on discord and around people who know who we are… well.

speaking of Mae, she’s pretty much my sister. not like… biologically? because i don’t think thats possible for me, but shes kinda literally my “other half” which ill get into later. headmates can have strong attachments to other alters! friends, best friends, family, dating, whatever. they can also do that with people outside the system, and itll be different for each headmate. there’s like 4 people dating Jorb but i just see him as one of my best friends. we’re people and we have complex social interactions that can get to be kind of a nightmare when you’re around a bunch of people who don’t know that you’re Not Leo and that youre suddenly not super up to existing around people in general.

plus even if like… so Jorb’s dating 4 of us like i said, but his relationship w/ each of them is different? Ica is very clingy and likes rambling to him, Summer’s pretty much just always happy to hang out, Mae makes fun of him a lot but in a loving way, and Leo is… kinda “all of the above” because that’s his gimmick. plus even tho a few other alters have a sibling-ish relationship with Mae like i do, usually its just me and Mae that do the “chaos siblings” bit.

the basic system.. thing… is that there’s “front”, which is being in control of the body– so, like, i’m currently fronting/in front, because im the one currently active and using our computer and staring at our cat.– and then theres the headspace, where everybody hangs out when theyre not in front. the headspace itself can differ in style & functionality for each system, and i think theres some systems that dont really have a location at all? but for us its like a full on location where we have individual rooms, places to visit if we get bored while away from front, etc.

theres also like, being at/near/away from front? so currently im in front, but Leo is pretty much always lurking nearby if he’s awake (we have individual sleep schedules that dont always sync up to the “irl” one, Trust is almost always sleeping), Ica’s somewhat in the back talking to Rookie so i cant really make out what theyre saying (its probably about either a youtube thing they both like or about a comic they want to do), and everyone else is either asleep (in which case they could be nearby but i cant currently “ping” them, so id have to actually take a sec to ground myself in headspace more) or in a different room. communication is easier if im in front and somebody is nearby, or it can be like with Ica rn where im like “well, theyre talking, but i have no idea what theyre saying and am making a guess based off their usual interactions”, or i could pass off front to go talk to Ica and come back (in which case my memory would be kind of vague and weird because information doesnt always properly translate), oooor i could actually go bug them while still in front. which.. im not gonna do rn bc then id get super distracted.

switching front differs between systems a lot! and even varies from day to day. like there are days where we wake up and we have absolutely no idea who we are bc we went to bed as one person and woke up as another. or we could be talking to somebody and then realize “wait, i stopped being Leo a bit ago, who am i”. or we could pass off front to somebody, like if Summer really wanted to front sie’d run up to me and let me know and we’d swap. or if something critical happens (usually a breakdown), Leo or one of the other headmates that’re more built to handle stressful situations will literally drag somebody out of front to make sure they dont hurt themself. or sometimes we throw front at people unexpectedly, like either mid-breakdown where we go “okay i dont wanna be here anymore, tag youre it” or sometimes because we think its funny because its the metaphysical equivalent of getting clonked in the head with a dodgeball, except the dodgeball is “being in control of our shared physical form”. usually mae’s the one that does that lmao

there’s a couple major categories of how alters come about. there’s “walk-ins”, where they kinda just… appear externally? like they just show up. sometimes we get a feeling of “huh. i think somebody might be here? or somebody might be showing up soon.” and have to rummage around for a while until they approach us or we find them. our walk-ins aren’t like, inherently aware of system stuff at first, so they usually get a crash course before they first front (if they choose to front at all) and it can be kinda entertaining. Rookie’s a walk-in! also Hiro, from a couple years ago. most of our walk-ins are fictives (fictional characters, usually appearing in response to us getting extremely attached to something or somebody) but a couple of our trauma splits are also fictives so that’s not like, a Rule or anything. i think these are mostly associated with non-traumatic systems but we get em fairly often so man idk

theres also… uh, i dunno what theyre actually called? we used to call them “constructs” but that sounds kind of mean. these alters exist to fill a specific role! and we usually dont talk about them on here with the exception of one major one, they just kinda hang out. Dhe exists to keep the system stable and manages the “backend” so to speak. Imp is kind of a mix of our intrusive & impulsive thoughts that came about from us trying to separate ourself from them so that we had an imaginary entity to go “nope!” at, which… stopped being imaginary, and is now a gremlin that lives in my brain. they can show up in response to trauma but arent split off of somebody, they kinda just pop into existence to help manage things.

the more… well-known, i guess? alter origin is “trauma splits”. rather than “just showing up one day with no real connection to the system origins”, trauma splits are formed when somebody in-system, uh, splits. it could be in response to a single situation or something built up over a long time, but somebody just kinda breaks and somebody new that has a bit of the original alter’s identity (if kinda influenced by the situation) shows up.

this can vary. All is a trauma split off of Leo himself, who got saddled with all of our brain hell about our ex and their insystem appearance is influenced more by eir than by leo which is… something they struggle with. Mae has a trauma split from a similar situation that is “Mae but from 2 years ago”, so basically her old identity before she reworked herself after getting put through total hell. and then uh… then there’s me and Mae! Icarus quite literally exploded into several people, with Pat (me) and Mae being the most distinct ones. we’re STILL finding out alters used to originally be a part of them that later evolved into their own people, like Summer and Toby. my identity is shaped pretty heavily not just by who Ica was at time of splitting, but also what they wanted to be jumbled together with trying to rationalize what was happening to them (they’re a pretty big fan of megaman star force, which has a media-typical system in it, so they leaned into hard “its like pat and rey from mmsf! i like pat, i wouldnt mind being like pat, its scary but im like one of my current favourite characters” and so i ended up being like, half-weird shapeshifter, half-green-haired prettyboy. and yeah thats where my name comes from!)

(Ica got put back together w/o anybody needing to integrate, which we were all very scared about, and it’s still kind of surreal to me because… me and Mae used to be able to stick ourself back together and thats how we found out about what happened to Ica in the first place? and we havent tried that since bc we have no idea what would happen. Ica 2: Ica Harder?)

despite their origins, trauma splits can be way more than… being a split. :V;; Toby’s not just a tiny splinter of Ica, he’s a quiet guy that gets stressed out and isn’t totally sure how to interact with people. i’ve existed for like 7 years at minimum and im a totally different person than i was when i thought i was still Ica, ‘cause ive had time to grow and change (and a problem Ica keeps running into now that theyre back is… they kinda Didn’t change because they were MIA for 6 years.) like everything else though this is variable– there can be “temporary” splits that dont develop properly and might get integrated back in, which has only happened to us when we were at the lowest point in our life where we were stuck constantly splitting to try and cope with whatever the hell was going on.

so Ica was gone for 6 years, which meant our system was without an original or main– there wasn’t anybody to be head of the system, basically. for a while i was operating under the assumption that i was Ica, so i filled in that role for a few years before i made the realization. eventually i kinda… stopped being able to, though, bc of stability issues, and then we were back to not really having a proper main anymore. to make up for it, we started going by Leo collectively and kinda… trying to pretend to be a single person? and so that ended up creating a construct to fill the role of “system main and the person we pretend to be when passing as singlet/not a system”: Leo himself! he’s kinda the most prominent traits we all have in common rolled into a single guy, which means that not only is he a pretty good system representative but we can also pretend to be him pretty easily (unless it’s someone like Toby who acts totally different). i dont know how common this situation is, i think normally it’s just “if system original is gone, another alter steps up” like originally happened to us before i had a severe case of problems disorder.

uhhh this is very rambley bc there’s a Lot to cover and now im trying to figure out how much of it i HAVE covered. systems are complicated and weird! OH WAIT okay i have one last bit.

so like, for us, first realizing we were a system was total hell. we fought a lot. as more alters showed up through various means, there were times where Ica felt like they were completely out of control of their own life bc of having to manage everything. there were a lot of panic attacks of people fronting and not being sure they were even REAL, despite… being in front. but we still felt like we were deluding ourself. this was in, like, late 2011, so systems weren’t a THING. they were a very fringe community that everyone hated. we got constantly harassed, which only fed into Ica’s panic hell and our identity issues. interpersonal relationships became a nightmare, especially because we have BPD as well which varies in severity for each of us but… for me it’s pretty bad! there were times early on where every day was another fun new breakdown from us arguing with each other or our friends or not being understood or… etc.

so… how are we holding up ~7 and a half years later? pretty well, actually! we talk to each other. we do things for each other, like buy food or games we know specific headmates like. Ica is back and way happier than they were in 2011, and is thrilled to get to hang out with everybody that’s showed up since. we help each other through problems, because at the end of the day our system ended up being a support network. Ica couldnt function on their own, so we’re like… 10+ people working together to try and be a single functional person. and we feel pretty okay with that! we still fight, and we still start shit, but we’re not in constant crisis anymore. we’re still working through all of our trauma, especially the more “recent” stuff that kinda broke our system for a while until we were able to start rebuilding, but we’re doing it together. :D

so… yeah, it can start out as a stereotypical “nightmare system”, with constant infighting and toxicity and self-sabotage and etc. but we worked through it! it took a while, but we’re overall more stable than we were before. we got out of the bad environment that was fucking us up, we got mental help for our other brain hell (we havent been able to bring up the system to our therapists bc its literally a non-issue now and we focus more on other things like our depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc), we found people that support us for being us, and we were able to like… figure things out. and it was a mess! i still have issues about my own identity because of literally thinking i was someone else for two years. Ica’s still trying to figure out how to adjust to things, especially bc they missed our entire “cringe culture” phase so they came back to find that i’d dismantled a lot of their middle-school settings. and, uh, some of their friendships as well.

systems are fuckin weird

#leo chirps #leos reply #system shit #i dont think i covered EVERYTHING #and im not sure how coherent this is #but i tried! :D #Anonymous #ask #pat.txt

[cerullos]

You don't have to answer. Reading the responses to that reblog about ace struggles made me really sad. The way you talk about the ace thing in general makes me sad. And I really like you, actually. I know some in the ace community are homophobic fucks. And a lot of ppl in the gay community are transphobic. And a lot of trans people are biphobic. And a lot of bi people are sexist. Ad infinitum. This doesn't have to be the oppression olympics. Intersectionality is the only way out of this mess.

And it’s true. Ace people have not faced systemic oppression. It’s hard to systemically oppress someone when you systemically refuse to acknowledge their existence. Is that as bad as being electrocuted? No. But is that the point here? Why say that? Why amplify that kind of divisive message? We just want to belong somewhere. You can believe this or not, but we’re dying here. The LGBT community has been the only safe place I’ve known my entire life. To figure out years later that I was labeling..

myself wrong? It was the most terrifying feeling I’ve ever experienced. It still is. It’s like we don’t exist. One person was shitting on people who say they’re ‘gay ace’. Why? Can’t I still fall in love with women, despite not experiencing sexual attraction? Don’t you think I would rather enjoy sex with my partner? Being able to give her what she needs? Not being left again and again? Loneliness is a very real pain. And gay ace people exist. I exist. And let me tell you, we’re lonely as fuck.

Straight people see us simply as gay, and treat us that way. So we’re getting electrocuted too. Sexual, gay people tell us we’re ‘cis/het’ liars trying to steal their community. So we have no safe space. We can’t find partners. Our friends, family, and fellow LGBT ppl don’t understand us or even believe in our existence. We are constantly questioning out own existence. I don’t mean to flood you. I realize that’s what I’m doing. But I’ve seen this kind of post coming from your direction a few…

times now. And I feel like maybe this will make you think a bit about what it might feel like to not ever experience the thing EVERYBODY is talking about. Building their lives around. To feel like your broken. Like you’re gonna die alone. Being constantly told you’re not real, your feelings aren’t valid, your struggle is silly. You’ve got a lot of followers. And being ace has made me full on suicidal in the past. So just. Think about it. Gay ace is a real thing. Can you see how you might have…

privilege over a person like that? everyone in my life sees me as gay. I fall in love with women. and yet here we are. can’t you see how I might want to be in your shoes? At least you’re real. At least you have a community. At least you have *some* representation that rings true to your experience. At least you could get a girlfriend that loves you and build a life without either getting dumped for not putting out or subjecting yourself to sex when your body doesn’t want it.

Anyways. I’m not writing this because I want you to answer anything. I’m just hoping you’ll read it and think about it a bit, maybe. If you have, thank you. I really like you Christine. Not trying to be a bitch. But I doubt I’m the only one whose feelings get hurt when you amplify the ‘ace people are cis/hets trying to crash the LGBT community’ noise. - With love in my heart, from a long time follower.

okay, this is long but i’m going to try to keep my answers as succinct as possible. i don’t know if this was your intention, but elements of this message feel vaguely guilt-tripping, despite the fact that none of what you’ve mentioned here presents an argument i haven’t already seen and strongly disagreed with.

“ I know some in the ace community are homophobic fucks. a lot of ppl in the gay community are transphobic. And a lot of trans people are biphobic. And a lot of bi people are sexist […] This doesn’t have to be the oppression olympics. ”

two things: one, you’re referring to lateral aggression in every instance but the first. what i mean by lateral aggression is that it occurs between two people–within the same community–who experience oppression along different axes (e.g. a straight trans person and a cis gay person). in contrast, a cis straight ace man who engages in homophobia and/or transphobia is not “laterally aggressing” his victim, he’s oppressing them. the reason LGBT people have become so vocal against inclusion of cis straight aces is because their oppressors are now gaining entrance to their exclusive spaces, and speaking over them. and whereas a lesbian can voice her discomfort with this on tumblr, she’s forced to stay silent at her local GSA for her own safety.

two, this isn’t an issue of a “handful” of violently homophobic people in the ace community. the founder of aven–david jay–was a homophobic white cishet man, and the platform on which he built his activism was homophobic. moreover, oppression against (straight, cis) ace people is not enforceable, because who is and isn’t ace depends entirely on the decision to identify as such! there are (as the ace community has been told many, many times) plenty of LGBT people (if not most) who have a complicated relationship with sex and sexual attraction due to abuse/assault, compulsive heterosexuality, dysmorphia, etc. none of these people can be considered “allosexual,” even if they (for perfectly valid reasons) decline to share this information publicly! these people deal with many of the same issues you’ve mentioned here (e.g. choosing between getting dumped or engaging in sexual acts when they would rather not), although they would likely attribute this to homophobia, misogyny and rape culture, not aphobia.

also: the “oppression olympics” is nonsensical and offensive and i wish y’all would stop passing that term around. yes, the LGBT community’s history is absolutely rooted in oppression of same-gender attracted and trans individuals! and yes, the community exists to actively oppose legislation that exists to oppress them, and to provide resources for those affected. the community was not founded in order to provide comfort to people who feel outcast from society for [x] reason. when you make this claim (or when you sarcastically liken the community to an exclusive “club” one gains entrance to by virtue of being oppressed) you miss the point entirely. it’s watering down the mission statement and end goal of this community, plain and simple.

“And it’s true. Ace people have not faced systemic oppression. It’s hard to systemically oppress someone when you systemically refuse to acknowledge their existence.”

i find this argument (which is repeated often) to be ridiculous when the LGBT community has years of coherent history, and AVEN (and the popularization of identifying as asexual in the first place) has only gained prominence within the last decade or so. on top of that, as any oppressed individual will tell you, (and, again, something that has been repeated very often and rarely acknowledged) hypervisibility is dangerous to the oppressed! black and latinx trans women and gay men are the most endangered members of the LGBT community because it is impossible for them to “hide” themselves.

this alone should make it clear to you that what the LGBT community want and what the ace community want are two very different things–so what exactly would their shared goal in activism be? what purpose would expanding the community to include straight cis aces serve other than comforting individuals who resent being excluded? LGBT people may share the ace community’s desire for representation in media, but visibility–within the context of their everyday lives–is exactly what’s getting them killed. the pulse shooting is obviously the most recent example of this, but it’s one of many.

“One person was shitting on people who say they’re ‘gay ace’. Why? Can’t I still fall in love with women, despite not experiencing sexual attraction? Don’t you think I would rather enjoy sex with my partner? Being able to give her what she needs? Not being left again and again? Loneliness is a very real pain. And gay ace people exist. I exist. And let me tell you, we’re lonely as fuck.”

you’re introducing a very different argument here, and one i obviously don’t agree with. if you’re a gay ace, you belong in the LGBT community. i’m sorry you’ve been told otherwise. but if this entire passage (and the several paragraphs following it) are meant to convince me of this, i don’t know what to tell you? i’ve said before that–based on my history and  relationship with sex and sexual attraction–i could easily identify as an ace lesbian. i don’t, for some of the reasons listed above, and personal reasons of my own–and i don’t benefit from failing to identify as ace in any material way.

“And I feel like maybe this will make you think a bit about what it might feel like to not ever experience the thing EVERYBODY is talking about. Building their lives around. To feel like your broken. Like you’re gonna die alone. Being constantly told you’re not real, your feelings aren’t valid, your struggle is silly.”

i’m genuinely sorry you’re feeling this way, but again, if you think this is an experience LGBT people (ace or otherwise) don’t share, then i’m not the one turning a blind eye here.

“At least you’re real. At least you have a community. At least you have *some* representation that rings true to your experience. At least you could get a girlfriend that loves you and build a life without either getting dumped for not putting out or subjecting yourself to sex when your body doesn’t want it.”

you need to consider that you are making assumptions about what i want from a relationship based on the fact that i don’t publicly identify as ace. this is another thing we’ve been repeating constantly: you cannot do that, and therein lies one of the issues with asexuality as a framework for oppression. also, even on the off chance that i had a perfectly healthy relationship with and desire for sex (which–as i’ve said–very few people in the LGBT community do) none of us can just “get a girlfriend.” to suggest it’s more difficult for ace people is ridiculous when LGBT people have had to resort to dating apps and LGBT-exclusive spaces in order to find people to date in the first place. and before you say that similar spaces don’t exist for aces: they need to be built, just like ours were. the onus is on adult aces, not “allo” LGBT people.  

and, again, what an ace person would potentially want from an ace-exclusive space is not what an LGBT person (provably, historically) would want from an LGBT-exclusive space. ace condemnation of sex and sexuality is valid at the individual level, but it can be suffocating (and, yes–oppressive) to LGBT people who have fought long and hard to take pride in their sexuality. telling LGBT people that their love and “PDA” is “dirty” and “impure” is nothing new or progressive, it’s textbook homophobia, and those attitudes are damaging to us.

“Anyways. I’m not writing this because I want you to answer anything. I’m just hoping you’ll read it and think about it a bit, maybe. If you have, thank you. I really like you Christine. Not trying to be a bitch. But I doubt I’m the only one whose feelings get hurt when you amplify the ‘ace people are cis/hets trying to crash the LGBT community’ noise. - With love in my heart, from a long time follower.”

look…i hate to tell you this because i don’t think you mean any harm, and i’m not trying to attack you–but, as i think i said earlier, none of the arguments you’ve presented here are new to me. these are arguments that have been addressed and derailed by LGBT people (many of them ace themselves) multiple times, to no end. what you’ve mentioned here highlights an important point, and that’s “hurt feelings.” those are the stakes for straight cis aces–those are not the stakes for LGBT people (and i include LGBT aces in this statement). but i haven’t “learned” anything from these messages–i’ve never plugged my ears and ignored the arguments of straight cis aces, i’ve listened to them very carefully. and they’ve informed my opinion on this matter–an opinion that hasn’t changed and will not change. if that’s upsetting to you, you can unfollow–i won’t hold it against you!

#asks #long post for ts #discourse // lmao #i guess i'll publish this now...? while no one is awake