Being an active participant in fandom requires a certain level of self-regulating in order to be a healthy activity. It requires the ability to say “Not for me,” or “Not today,” and walk away.
We can have conversations about patterns we see in fanworks. We can discuss how we portray characters and relationships, how to effectively convey what we want to in writing, how to sensitively approach representations of marginalized characters. But having those conversations productively requires that we approach each other in good faith, and it requires the ability to self-regulate–including recognizing that often there is no hard line, no black and white answer, and we won’t always come to the same conclusions.
It requires an understanding up front that eliminating all fanworks we don’t care for is not the end goal of these conversations.
I’ll give a personal example. There is a ship that deeply, viscerally upsets me in like 95% of its iterations. I can explain why I don’t like it if asked. I’ve written about why I don’t think it’s handled well in canon.
And if I wanted to–if I wanted to–I could make a very convincing-sounding argument for why that ship is objectively bad and wrong and no one should ship it. Not because that’s objectively right, mind you, but because I’m good at arguing. I could slap that together in like… ten minutes, probably.
I don’t do that. If I vent about it on my own blog, it’s as infrequently as I can manage, because I do my best to avoid the content that upsets me. I don’t seek it out to get riled up about it. I don’t seek out content that upsets me, read it in its entirety, and then leave angry comments and send my friends to harass the author. I don’t choose a high-profile writer for the content I don’t like and engage in a targeted campaign of harassment against them all while claiming to be addressing a general problem.
If you are deliberately seeking out content that you know will upset you and reading it anyway and then feeling that you need to take those bad feelings out on the creator, you are not taking care of yourself. You are not engaging in healthy behavior or productive coping mechanisms. You are not keeping yourself safe, and you are not helping to make fandom safer for others. You are not engaging in good faith.
If you find that you do this and you can’t seem to stop, you may need to take some kind of further steps up to and including taking a break from fandom. I’m serious. I’ve taken breaks myself for that exact reason. There’s no shame in it.
Please monitor your own ability to self-regulate. Please actively evaluate whether or not you are engaging in healthy and productive behavior, for yourself and for others.
If you are deliberately seeking out content that you know will upset you and reading it anyway and then feeling that you need to take those bad feelings out on the creator, you are not taking care of yourself.
Sometimes people hit a place in their life where things are going really well. They like their job and are able to be productive at it; they have energy after work to pursue the relationships and activities they enjoy; they’re taking good care of themselves and rarely get sick or have flareups of their chronic health problems; stuff is basically working out. Then a small thing about their routine changes and suddenly they’re barely keeping their head above water.
(This happens to me all the time; it’s approximately my dominant experience of working full-time.)
I think one thing that’s going on here is that there are a bunch of small parts of our daily routine which are doing really important work for our wellbeing. Our commute involves a ten-minute walk along the waterfront and the walking and fresh air are great for our wellbeing (or, alternately, our commute involves no walking and this makes it way more frictionless because walking sucks for us). Our water heater is really good and so we can take half-hour hot showers, which are a critical part of our decompression/recovery time. We sit with our back to the wall so we don’t have to worry about looking productive at work as long as the work all gets done. The store down the street is open really late so late runs for groceries are possible. Our roommate is a chef and so the kitchen is always clean and well-stocked.
It’s useful to think of these things as load-bearing. They’re not just nice – they’re part of your mental architecture, they’re part of what you’re using to thrive. And when they change, life can abruptly get much harder or sometimes just collapse on you entirely. And this is usually unexpected, because it’s hard to notice which parts of your environment and routine are load bearing. I often only notice in hindsight. “Oh,” I say to myself after months of fatigue, “having my own private space was load-bearing.” “Oh,” after a scary drop in weight, “being able to keep nutrition shakes next to my bed and drink them in bed was load-bearing.” “Oh,” after a sudden struggle to maintain my work productivity, “a quiet corner with my back to the wall was load-bearing.”
When you know what’s important to you, you can fight for it, or at least be equipped to notice right away if it goes and some of your ability to thrive goes with it. When you don’t, or when you’re thinking of all these things as ‘nice things about my life’ rather than ‘load-bearing bits of my flourishing as a person’, you’re not likely to notice the strain created when they vanish until you’re really, really hurting.
Almost two weeks after reading this, and I’m still kind of blown away at what a ridiculously fruitful definition this is. Like I had no idea that load bearing things were a thing that needed to have a word for them, but now I’m like holy shit I’m so glad that there’s now a word I can use to refer to this really important class of Thing.
This is astounding. Load-bearing. Forget spoons, this concept is wonderful. I’m going to update my Spear Theory with this.
I would like to invite you all to embrace the ancestors you never knew.
As members of the queer community, we are in a unique space in that our marginalization is not always shared with our biological family. So we are often left with a feeling of separation to our community and our history, and I want to take a moment to encourage you all to try and bridge that gap within your minds. Think of the queer people who came before us as your family, because so many of them lived their lives so that yours could exist in the way it does.
Think of Oscar Wilde standing in court admitting his love and rejecting the idea that is was shameful in front of his peers. Think of Magnus Hirschfeld collecting data and research so that he could find a path to freedom paved with facts. Think of Marsha P. Johnson, giving out cookies to other sex workers and transgender people on the street and her rage as she threw that shot glass and ignited a revolution.
These people are your family, they are your history, and they built a world so that you could live in it. You may not be related by blood but you are related by history, their lives are irreversibly connected to ours and I encourage you all to take time to hold that in your minds as you move forward today.
People will tell you that emotional abuse isn’t real and what you’re dealing with isn’t that big a deal and you’re just exaggerating, but let me tell you something.
If you’ve ever been wary of everyone you know, even people you trust, because you’re expecting them to get angry with you over literally anything, make fun of you, or start making threats, something’s wrong.
If you’ve ever had to plan things in anticipation of a potential tantrum that you fear will be taken out on you, something’s wrong.
If you succumb to someone’s demands because you’re never sure if their threats are empty or legit and you just want to play it on the safe side, something’s wrong.
If you find yourself jumping at smaller noises in anticipation that they’re a warning sign for a tantrum, something’s wrong.
If you hide things – especially things that make you happy – because you’re so afraid that they’ll make fun of you for liking them, scold you for liking something they don’t, take them away, destroy them, or that they’ll defile them and ruin that love you have for them, something’s wrong.
If you find yourself being silent in the face of mild disagreements or thinly-veiled insults, rather than standing up for yourself because you just don’t want to start an argument and make things worse, something’s wrong.
If that very lack of standing up for yourself eventually leads to you never offering your opinion in any sort of discussion out of fear of ridicule or being scolded because that’s what you’re so used to, something’s wrong.
If you end up spending a lot of your time in your room keeping to yourself and keeping any trip outside of your room to an absolute minimum because you don’t want to risk putting one toe out of line and setting off a tantrum, yet you’re also aware that hiding out will also cause an issue and you’re probably just minimizing the risk instead of erasing it entirely, something’s wrong.
If you ever habitually glance outside the window to keep watch for your supposed abuser’s car to return from their work, errand or trip, and then heading to your room or other hiding place to keep out of their way, erasing any obvious signs that you’ve been out and about in the rest of your living space, something’s wrong.
If one of your greatest fantasies involves not a dream career or winning the lottery but instead an escape plan succeeding, something’s wrong.
If you could basically summarize your life as living in constant, subtle fear, Something. Is. Wrong.
Emotional abuse is very, very real, and it has lasting consequences that can affect people’s relationships, their jobs, and their lives all-around.
Every time I hate my body I remember that there are millions of old rich white men who benefit from my self hatred and if there’s one thing I hate, it’s old rich white men so I snap out of that shit instantly cos I ain’t EVER giving them the satisfaction.
Oh my fucKING GOD
Wait stop this is a game changer.
i have reblogged this 4 times; i have thought about this every fucking day
Reminder!
“If every woman in the world woke up tomorrow and decided that she loved herself and loved her body just the way it is, how many industries would go out of business?”
IMPORTANT
Hey look a few more industries for us millennials to kill!
This is the most motivating thing I’ve ever seen in regards to me stopping hating on my self
So the essence of grimdark is that everyone’s inherently sort of a bad person and does bad things, and that’s awful and disheartening and cynical. It’s looking at human nature and going, “The glass is half empty.”
Hopepunk says, “No, I don’t accept that. Go fuck yourself: The glass is half-full.” YEAH, we’re all a messy mix of good and bad, flaws and virtues. We’ve all been mean and petty and cruel, but (and here’s the important part) we’ve also been soft and forgiving and KIND. Hopepunk says that kindness and softness doesn’t equal weakness, and that in this world of brutal cynicism and nihilism, being kind is a political act. An act of rebellion.
Hopepunk says that genuinely and sincerely caring about something, anything, requires bravery and strength. Hopepunk isn’t ever about submission or acceptance: It’s about standing up and fighting for what you believe in. It’s about standing up for other people. It’s about DEMANDING a better, kinder world, and truly believing that we can get there if we care about each other as hard as we possibly can, with every drop of power in our little hearts.
Going to political protests is hopepunk. Calling your senators is hopepunk. But crying is also hopepunk, because crying means you still have feelings, and feelings are how you know you’re alive. The 1% doesn’t want you to have feelings, they just want you to feel resigned. Feeling resigned is not hopepunk.
Examples! THE HANDMAID’S TALE is arguably hopepunk. It’s scary and dark, and at first glance it looks like grimdark because it’s a dystopia… but goddammit she keeps fighting. That’s the key, right there. She fights every single day, because she won’t let them take away meaning from her life. She survives stubbornly in the hope that one day she can live again. “Don’t let the bastards grind you down,” is one of the core tenets of hopepunk, along with, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
Jesus and Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Robin Hood and John Lennon were hopepunk. (Remember: Hopepunk isn’t about moral perfection. It’s not about being as pure and innocent as the new-fallen snow. You get grubby when you fight. You make mistakes. You’re sometimes a little bit of an asshole. Maybe you’re as much as 50% an asshole. But the glass is half full, not half empty. You get up, and you keep fighting, and caring, and trying to make the world a little better for the people around you. You get to make mistakes. It’s a process. You get to ask for and earn forgiveness. And you love, and love, and love.)
And THIS, this is hopepunk:
Here I am with more addendums to this post: Seems like a lot of people are saying the word “noblebright” at me, and I just want to be really clear about this: Noblebright is not hopepunk. Noblebright does not espouse the same ideals that hopepunk does. They are two distinct, separate, coexisting things.
Noblebright is Arthurian legends. The world is a good place, people are essentially good. The codes of chivalry are in full effect. People in positions of authority are there because they are wise, prudent, caring leaders. They rule because they deserve to rule. They protect the weak, they uphold their ideals, there’s people practicing chaste courtly love in every bower and garden. Things are fine, and people have adventures in which they triumph because (see: all of the above).
Hopepunk is (as many wonderful people in the comments have pointed out) Discworld: The world is the world. It’s really good sometimes and it’s really bad sometimes, and it’s sort of humdrum a lot of the time. People are petty and mean and, y’know, PEOPLE. There are things that need to be fixed, and battles to be fought, and people to be protected, and we’ve gotta do all those things ourselves because we can’t sit around waiting for some knight in shining armor to ride past and deal with it for us. We’re just ordinary people trying to do our best because we give a shit about the world. Why? Because we’re some of the assholes that live there.
Examples of hopepunk media include:
Guardians of the Galaxy: “Why do I want to save the galaxy? Because I’m one of the idiots who lives there?”
Thor Ragnarok: “Asgard is not a place… It is a people.”
Leverage: “Right now, you’re suffering under an enormous weight. We provide… leverage.”
The Librarians: (“I have seen you all die so many times when it didn’t matter, I can’t let it happen now that it does.” “What do you need us to do?”)
Scorpion.: (”If you try to tell me about the greater good one more time, I will hit you.”)
Star Wars: (”There is good in him still.”)
Star Trek (the original universe): (honestly, there’s no one single quote, but like, the entire damn thing is solid hopepunk.)
Wonder Woman: (”It is not about deserve, it is about what you believe.” also “Who will sing for us, Charlie?”)
Also, Mad Max: Fury Road. Angharad is a hopepunk queen, and Furiosa and Max get pushed and pulled on to that path by the end of the movie through their connection to each other and the people they fight with.
More HopePunk quotes, cause I think we all need them:
It’s difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams, and cherished hopes
rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It’s a wonder I
haven’t abandoned my ideals; they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.— The Diary of Anne Frank
If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a search.
If a train crashes, people will line up to give blood. If an earthquake
levels a city, people all over the world will send emergency supplies.
This is so fundamentally human that it’s found in every culture without
exception. Yes, there are assholes who just don’t care, but they’re
massively outnumbered by the people who do. And because of that, I had
billions of people on my side. Pretty cool, eh?— Andy Weir, The Martian
No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin,
or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if
they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.— Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother
would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who
are helping.”— Fred Rogers
I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime
yet for every criminal there are ten thousand honest, decent, kindly
men. If it were not so, no child would live to grow up. Business could
not go on from day to day. Decency is not news. It is buried in the
obituaries, but it is a force stronger than crime. I believe in the
patient gallantry of nurses and the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I
believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that
goes on quietly in almost every home in the land.— Robert A. Heinlein
Sure, humans kill each other. We kill for passion, madness, rage, love,
war, and lord knows other things. And yet, we’ve got six billion people
running around the planet. Almost as if people who kill other people are
the exception rather than the rule.— Linkara, Atop the Fourth Wall Marville #4 review
“But we were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted into battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses.” – Robert Ardrey
Yesterday, I was trawling iTunes for a decent podcast about writing. After a while, I gave up, because 90% of them talked incessantly about “self-discipline,” “making writing a habit,” “getting your butt in the chair,” “getting yourself to write.” To me, that’s six flavors of fucked up.
Okay, yes—I see why we might want to “make writing a habit.” If we want to finish anything, we’ll have to write at least semi-regularly. In practical terms, I get it.
But maybe before we force our butts into chairs, we should ask why it’s so hard to “get” ourselves to write. We aren’t deranged; our brains say “I don’t want to do this” for a reason. We should take that reason seriously.
Most of us resist writing because it hurts and it’s hard. Well, you say, writing isn’t supposed to be easy—but there’s hard, and then there’s hard. For many of us, sitting down to write feels like being asked to solve a problem that is both urgent and unsolvable—“I have to, but it’s impossible, but I have to, but it’s impossible.” It feels fucking awful, so naturally we avoid it.
We can’t “make writing a habit,” then, until we make it less painful. Something we don’t just “get” ourselves to do.
The “make writing a habit” people are trying to do that, in their way. If you do something regularly, the theory goes, you stop dreading it with such special intensity because it just becomes a thing you do. But my god, if you’re still in that “dreading it” phase and someone tells you to “make writing a habit,” that sounds horrible.
So many of us already dismiss our own pain constantly. If we turn writing into another occasion for mute suffering, for numb and joyless endurance, we 1) will not write more, and 2) should not write more, because we should not intentionally hurt ourselves.
Seriously. If you want to write more, don’t ask, “how can I make myself write?” Ask, “why is writing so painful for me and how can I ease that pain?” Show some compassion for yourself. Forgive yourself for not being the person you wish you were and treat the person you are with some basic decency. Give yourself a fucking break for avoiding a thing that makes you feel awful.
Here’s what stops more people from writing than anything else: shame. That creeping, nagging sense of ‘should be,’ ‘should have been,’ and ‘if only I had…’ Shame lives in the body, it clenches our muscles when we sit at the keyboard, takes up valuable mental space with useless, repetitive conversations. Shame, and the resulting paralysis, are what happen when the whole world drills into you that you should be writing every day and you’re not.
The antidote, he says, is to treat yourself kindly:
For me, writing always begins with self-forgiveness. I don’t sit down and rush headlong into the blank page. I make coffee. I put on a song I like. I drink the coffee, listen to the song. I don’t write. Beginning with forgiveness revolutionizes the writing process, returns its being to a journey of creativity rather than an exercise in self-flagellation. I forgive myself for not sitting down to write sooner, for taking yesterday off, for living my life. That shame? I release it. My body unclenches; a new lightness takes over once that burden has floated off. There is room, now, for story, idea, life.
Writing has the potential to bring us so much joy. Why else would we wantto do it? But first we’ve got to unlearn the pain and dread and anxiety and shame attached to writing—not just so we can write more, but for our own sakes! Forget “making writing a habit”—how about “being less miserable”? That’s a worthy goal too!
Luckily, there are ways to do this. But before I get into them, please absorb this lesson: if you want to write, start by valuing your own well-being. Start by forgiving yourself. And listen to yourself when something hurts.
(First, I’m sorry this took so long to answer, anon! Life has been a bit overwhelming the last couple of months.)
I’m happy to delve into this a bit. Aging and such is something I think people need to talk about. Otherwise it can be scary sometimes. So for anyone curious, I will be turning 40 on my next birthday.
A little background. I’ve been part of fandom since I was 24 years old. Back then, fandom was a little different and instead of tolerating older fans, we embraced them. I remember going to a Harry Potter conference in 2007. I went to a fanfiction panel that had five women on it, all in their 40s and 50s. They were so happy and confident in their place in fandom and their friendships. It was absolutely beautiful to see.
I remember thinking I hope that’s me some day. Now, of course, things are different. I regularly see posts making fun of people over a certain age for still being in fandom.
We’re all going to get old some day. There’s no stopping that. But getting older doesn’t mean you suddenly lose interest in the things you love. You might have less time to geek out about them, but you’re not gonna lose interest.
I think the key is finding yourself little corner of fandom. Find some people around the same age as you. (For me, I consider ‘same age’ anyone over thirty. There is no upper limit.)
Then basically, once you have this corner, it’s time to say ‘fuck it.’ That might sound harsh, but I refuse to let anyone take away something that makes me happy. Gaming and reading and writing fanfic brings me a ridiculous amount of joy. It’s helped me make friends from all over the world.
Do not let anyone take away your joy. You have just as much of a right to be in fandom as anyone else. And anon, you’re always welcome in my little corner of fandom!
Listen, nonnie. I have been in fandom since I
was 14? 15? and I turn 36 tomorrow. This is a thing that has been part
of me for more than half my life. I don’t know how old you are, but when
I was first starting out in fandom, it was considered a grown-up
pursuit. Sure there were places for under 18s, but the people who ran
the mailing lists, wrote the newsgroup FAQs, and paid for archive
hosting fees? All adults. It was… I don’t want to say unusual for
younger people to be in fandom, but it was made clear that you behaved
respectfully in community/adult spaces. Or you pretended (very badly) to
be an adult and the actual adults overlooked it.
It was super helpful to
me as a young-un to have older female fans to look up to, and know that
I could be an adult (whatever the fuck that means) and still have room
for hobbies and interests I loved. It was also helpful, just as a
person, to have a network of older women who were invested in my
well-being but not necessarily involved in my day to day life to turn
to. I am grateful for my fandom aunties, and I hope I can be there for
younger fans the same way.
I feel like a lot of the “Ew adults in fandom”
bullshit comes from younger fans who can barely conceive of reaching 30
as a non-abstract thing, and suffer from deep misapprehensions of what
adult life is like. Yes you have to deal with stupid things like
insurance and taxes, but you also have so much more freedom to enjoy the
things you love. I am also irritated by so many heteronormative
presumptions these people seem to have: you get married, have kids, and
become so incredibly boring nobody wants you in fandom anyways. Not
everybody gets married or has kids, and neither of those things makes
you boring, you make yourself boring. So find yourself some friends to
grow old with, and stick to them like limpets. If you can’t, find new
friends. I have found that in new fandoms, I tend to gravitate towards
people my age and older, even if I don’t know it at the time. If you’re
enthusiastic and kind, that’s honestly all most people require to start
talking. There is room for you in fandom always, no matter what age you
are.
and I just wanted to second all of it.
All of this. I myself did not discover fandom until I was just about to turn 30 – I didn’t even know what fandom even was before then, and I had no idea that fandom was supposedly not for people my age. It is a hobby like any other, and you’re not too old to have hobbies.
There’s a weird kind of ageist misogyny happening in fandom at the moment, where “women in their 30s and older” are seen by some as the enemy or simply as people who shouldn’t be here in fandom, but honestly – in my own experience, some of the best people I’ve met in fandom are older people; and older than me, a lot of the time: people who can bring their own wisdom and life experience to fandom and navigating the social aspect of fandom as well as fanfic/fanart in a way that many younger people (with a few exceptions, of course) do not yet have the wisdom and life experience to do.
I hope Anon sees this whole “you are too old to have the right to be in or enjoy fandom” stuff for what it is – ageism and misogyny. Because let’s face it, we never tell men of a certain age that they’re too old to enjoy whatever hobby they get really into – why should we do this for women? Why should we do this to ourselves?
There is this expectation in our society that women stop caring about their own needs once they started a family. People ask you how you’re doing and you’re expected to tell them how great your kids are doing in school. Your accomplishments are not your own, your partner and your kids are now your accomplishments.
It’s dangerous bullshit because it literally strips you of your personhood. You’re not a person anymore, you’re a care automaton, designed to care about the happiness of others.
Don’t fall for this. You don’t stop being your own person with your own interests just because you decided to move in with someone or even popped out a kid. You’re still you. Your interests may change but you don’t have to drop all the things you love and join the “clean house” or “best kid in class” fandom.
Women have lives outside of the care for family business. We still love fandom and we’re not going away.
Bonus: fandom olds can mentor the kids. I remember lying my way into message boards and even if no one offered to beta, I learned How To Community by example.
And it doesn’t stop with kids: @thebyrchentwigges dragged me out of my lurk, and a huge part of how I interact with y’all is due to her encouragement.
So I don’t usually like to respond to people’s interpretation of a character because I sure as fuck am not the authority on what is and isn’t canon but I ran into an Alucard (Castlevania) fan blog and there was a post that just… treats Sypha and Trevor really unfairly.
It goes on about how they must not care about him because they couldn’t tell he was hurting and blah blah and look. Kids? Kids. I need to tell you a thing: I’m married to a person who I’ve known more that half my life and we don’t always know when the other is upset, especially when we’re trying not to project our feelings. And even when we do know, there isn’t always anything one of us can do to comfort the other in any real way and if there was we don’t always know how.
That’s just… people. Every person in the world is a whole universe in themself and even the people you’ve known forever are going to have parts you don’t know about.
In this case, we have three people who’ve basically just met eachother and Alucard is the most composed of the three of them. It’s very possible that while they clearly have some sense of him being upset, that doesn’t mean they would know if or how to comfort him.
Trevor DOES flat out give him a reason to live by way of handing over what Alucard would respect as a major responsibility and treasure.
I see this kind of sentiment in so many fandoms, and honestly it comes from such a toxic ideal of co-dependency masquerading as “true friendship/true love”.
ETD and I have been together for 10 years. We do everything together because I am his best friend and he is mine and we love spending time together. We do that annoying sappy thing where we finish each other’s line of thought. We’ve been through literal hell and back with my health issues, and he’s held my hand through all of it. Sometimes he’s even held the sick bag when I’ve been too weak to do it.
And we still sometimes miss when the other person is feeling upset by something, particularly if the other person isn’t projecting it clearly or is making an attempt to hide it. There are times when I have to ask him outright “hey is anything wrong” because I can’t read his body language. Sometimes it’s something as simple as him being tired and not having the energy to be “on”, other times it’s something more serious like work stress or a major life concern we both need to deal with together. Sometimes I don’t even notice something is wrong until he says “hey, I need help with this.”
And that is because relationships of any kind, romantic or otherwise hinge on communication, and not predictive emotional labor. Which is to say, you cannot possibly anticipate or predict the needs of everyone around you all the time, and nor should you be expected to do so. You are a person too, with thoughts and feelings and needs, and people do not exist to absorb or absolve the pain of others. They can only try to help where they can.
Someone missing a social cue, or not picking up on something you are not being open about, doesn’t make them a bad person, and nor is it indicative of how much they love you. It makes it a failure to communicate, or an inability to perform certain emotional labors you are not equipped to deal with. And that’s okay. No one is put on this earth to burn and keep you warm.
Queer Fiction Writer 