Don’t normally reblog stuff like this, but I think it’s important for everyone to see.
Okay actually with me reblogging a lot of these posts about queerness I just want to say this.
My childhood was not surrounded by queerness. I did not have enormous queer internet communities full of love and support readily available. I was not "influenced" into queerness as a child; I grew up and live in a small rural town filled with conservative, religious people who hate queers like me. I was shielded from the joys of accepting myself. My family, while certainly better than they used to be, still look down on queers. I'll never forget coming out to my meema my freshman year of high school and she said to me "I love you, but I do not support you." And for the first time I understood what conditional love and support was. "I love and support you so long as you are what I want you to be."
I am lucky that as a teen, as I first genuinely began questioning, the beginnings of queer liberation on the internet was getting huge and I could find answers to my questions and much needed support. I am lucky that as a young adult queerness is more accepted, even in places like where I live.
There are older queer people who did not have that luxury. Older queers who lived through violence and hatred and fought for us younger queers' rights. Queer people who have lost their lives, who did not get to see the world today and how far we've come.
They did NOT fight for us just so we could say who and who is not queer. They did not die for us just so we could exclude each other from our communities.
We have a long way to go, we're still far from perfect, and we need to fight together to continue the work. It is our turn to continue this fight for our rights. Let us give the older community members a well deserved break. We will get this done for you. We will fight together until we don't have to anymore.
reblogs and screaming in tags is always appreciated <33
I don’t normally believe this stuff, but a toasty bagel sounds nice.
Been a fan of V’s work for a long time! Y’all check out her stuff when she (eventually) posts! So glad to have you here pookie!
So, I may have decided to rebrand this to use for my artwork to help grow myself and find my audience. Just a fair warning I have no idea how to tumbler. But I will figure it out! Haha. Just bear with me because my blog will probably be a little ugly for a bit until I get everything made for it. <3
If you see this you are OBLIGATED to reblog w/ the song currently stuck in your head :)
With @staff 's recent post saying 1/4 of this site is LGBTQ going around, I'd like to see what the actual demographic is
So!
Please reblog for bigger sample size!
People seem to have forgotten that "proship" was the Fandom norm for the longest time.
Only, it wasn't called proship. It was called ship and let ship. Or minding your own buisness.
If someone had a ship you didn't like or thought was gross, you would avoid them. If they drew art or wrote stories you didn't agree with or like, you would ignore them.
There were tags like smut, whump, and angst to tell people about things they might not want to read. And then dead dove: do not eat for taboo subjects and especially gritty fic.
Then people started to ignore that. Younger fans started to bully people because they disagreed with shipping certain characters. Whether it be because it "wasn't canon", they thought it was gross, or they just didn't like it.
These people began calling themselves "anti-ship"
Pro-ship became a label to show that someone was against anti-ship.
Eventually, the anti-ship movement began to die down. So do you know what they did? They started accusing people. Of being pedophiles, groomers, rape supporters, and more. All because they wrote or drew things that these people didn't like.
They began claiming that THEY were the Fandom norm, and that these "proshippers" were the bad people. They started claiming that proship stood for "problematic shipping"
Due to this, the term "pro-ship" is often misconstrued as to what it means. Many people don't even KNOW what it means.
It means "anti-censorship".
It means that we support someone's right to produce art, no matter how gross, no matter how taboo, no matter how "problematic"
Because it's not hurting anyone.
If it's something you don't want to see? Block the person. Block the tag. Say in your bio that you don't like it. That's what they're FOR!
This was discussed in earlier days of fandom.
"I wonder why people would read a story in a genre they don't care for, then take the time to let the writer know that sure enough, they didn't care for it. That would be like me going to a restaurant, ordering a slice of cherry pie, then asking that the chef be brought out so I can say "I don't like cherry pie, and I didn't like yours either." To continue this analogy into its usual fannish outcome, the chef would say "Well gee, lady, why did you order it?" And I'd say, "Are you questioning my right to order cherry pie?"
-Unknown 2002
Except now, it would be like the person who didn't like the cherry pie and ordered it anyways then demanded that no restaurant serve cherry pie because it was poison. Not only is it a ridiculous request, it's blatantly untrue.
Shout-out to Ao3 for not only being transparent in the work they're doing to try to get the site running, but for IMMEDIATELY calling out any islamophobia. They're doing fucking WORK rn, all on a volunteer basis, and while most of the comments I've seen are far and away supportive I just know whoever is in charge of their socials is watching the comments section unfold with a migraine.
Anyway this is all to say I love Ao3 and the people working on it rn are dealing with absolute chaos, so the next time someone throws out a line about "why do they need a fundraiser every year" please remember today.