#idk. this just feels like a personal post that maybe doesn't belong anonymously in my inbox

[glitteratti]

will not explain the context but i get mistaken for a trans woman 50% of the time to the point trans coworkers ask how my "transition" is going, but shy away once they realize we're not coming from the same background. I love all my trans sisters, but it is such a broad scope and doesn't ever make womanhood easier become someone else is more grateful for it. Womanhood is either neutral and genetic, or oppressed and social, and I don't know how to live that down. And I don't think my trans coworkers who I go out to coffee with everyday, do either.

if you want to talk about this off anon i'm more than happy to, but i will just say that it feels very weird that you would send this in response to me making a post about trans women helping me feel more comfortable in my gender and who i am

[symptoms-syndrome]

Talking about younger folks in DID spaces

For some reason a big burst of people reblogging that post are minors claiming DID/OSDD, some of them as young as 14, and obviously I'm not going to be an ass to them and obviously I can't for sure say what anyone has/doesn't have but I'm gonna be real and say if someone is still an underclassman in HS or younger I'm not gonna believe they have DID/OSDD I'm just not. Sorry not sorry. That's still a child that barely has had time to figure out their own identity and is trying to find a clinical reason they feel the way they do when the clinical reason is that they're a developing child.

Back when I was in a System Server™ there were occasionally youth not that young but still pretty young who came in and sometimes it felt like. I'm not going to pass judgement on you in any way that matters and I'm going to keep it to myself but do you know people are complex.

And not to be some grumpy old person or whatever but I do think that the internet has in some way impacted this. I think that in a lot of places in the internet people are expected to fit themselves into neat little boxes and everything has a place and everything that doesn't belong in that place goes some other place, and then people (esp young people, esp esp young people who are and have over the past two years lost out on a lot of chances to meet and interact wholly with real, whole people) see these little cardboard cutout personas people put out online and think that's how everyone is, and then see that they themselves do not fit neatly into one cardboard cutout and assume the worst.

Like, IDK this is a stupid example but if someone runs like, a academia aesthetic study blog then it would be weird for them to also post their favorite Dropkick Murphy's song onto the blog, or their favorite recipe for fried salami. And they might want to answer asks in a way that's more formal because of the blog theme. But that doesn't mean the person behind the screen can't like dark libraries AND Irish rock AND fried salami AND maybe dress up in pastels. But the internet kinda wants people to fit into these cute little cohesive windows into someone's life. And I feel that must be even more true for places like Twitter where things are more connected to like, you as a person rather than being anonymous. But meeting people in real life, you'll meet people who aren't cohesive. We're all, everyone, patchwork quilts of our varied experiences and the people we've met and the places we've been and no one's patchwork quilt is all one color or pattern. And I think I worry for a lot of the young young young people online (TBH I worry about them being so online at all in general, but y'know) who are investing so much time and effort into neatly labeling every part or perceived part of self, updating with who's fronting all the time, etc etc etc because I feel like for those who don't have a dissociative disorder (which, statistically has to be most of them) they're denying to themselves and leading their friends away from the realization that people can be disjointed and not fully cohesive and consistent. Rather than coming to terms with the fact that someone can like punk rock and have their favorite color be baby blue, they're keeping those experiences separate and insisting that must be two separate identities. And I don't know what that's going to do long term, but it probably isn't great.

Not to mention that that combined with the weird. Stranger danger-esque avoidance of any adults ever means that this is just 15 year olds comparing themselves to other 15 year olds to judge themselves in whether they fit the idea of normal development expected of a 25 year old.

(the stranger danger thing does confuse and worry me esp as someone who works with youth, the weird turnaround from my youth where 15 year olds share all their personal information online combined with "literally anyone over the age of 18 who tries to in any way interact with or talk to or exist in the same space as someone 17- is automatically assumed the worst of" seems like a recipe for disaster. Healthy intergenerational relationships can be so important and helpful, esp for youth who don't have good relationships with parents. I could write a whole post about this alone, and how healthy relationships with adults are necessary to help young people recognize unhealthy expectations from dangerous adults but also this is long enough already.

[sweetfirebird]

If I go by the metric of: post a link to a book on sale on Twitter-->wait and see how many clicks that sale gets-->usually zero, or maybe one or two, then Twitter does not actually get my name out there or increase sales or even raise awareness among the people who follow me that I have books out.

I don't have any other stat information from them. I probably get even fewer clicks from Tumblr, but Tumblr is a chaotic mess and was never really a factor in sales anyway as far as I know.

Twitter, however, is one of the few free avenues left for authors to talk with people or promote themselves or whatever. (There is Facebook also but I hate Facebook and I am not interesting enough to maintain a FB group with wacky hijinks or whatever happens over there. Also the culture of random authors inviting you to groups or just putting you into their groups??? Don't like that.)

But, since we've established that a) m/m romance and queer romance have some overlap but are very different and I am not really in m/m romance even when I try to be b) I am incapable of talking to people or making friends c) I am not the sort to do long Twitter threads about writing or the publishing industry because I know nothing, then Twitter seems like just a waste of my energy.

PLUS, while I enjoy seeing differing viewpoints and stuff on there, writing Twitter or romance Twitter or whatever just exacerbates my 'I don't belong here/I am not wanted here' constant internal spiraling. (So, btw, do most of the few m/m or queer romance review sites. Everybody seems to know everybody they care to know. That probably isn't (entirely) true but.... I have scars from several fandoms now as well as my early days with DSP, and the sense that I am the embarrassing weird white trash cousin to these people has never really gone away. I sometimes get authors messaging me... but anonymously or in private only. Like I am fine to read but not okay to be seen with??? I don't know what that is about either, but it doesn't help my issues. Also nearly every single one of them either writes for a living or has some white collar type day job and idk what to even say to them because their problems are not often my problems.)

hmm this is probably a case of real life invisible person issues/mental health issues regarding grief and the pandemic etc merging with book failure but.... that shit isn't for me. (I have related whining about how tired I am of having to do everything myself and figure out everything myself but, you know, I'll just let that build up toward my breakdown later.) Twitter's algorithm is about getting you to click stuff and engage, not your mental health. But even with that, I think some of this is just how book/romance/whatever Twitter operates. It has cliques and blind spots like anything else.

I do really like hearing and seeing stuff from different people about their experiences. But I also really cannot handle much else from Twitter, and Twitter itself does not give me anything in return for the stress. But deleting feels self-destructive considering it took me literal years to get even 300 followers there. If I deleted and then had to get a Twitter for promo again in the future, I'd have to do that all over again. :(

Also, I know there is High Romance and romance (much like High Fantasy and fantasy) and that romance tends to be light, frothy, easily consumed funtimes. But so many books seem to like to do "MC or LI has gone through an experience that would actually deeply affect them, but we are just going to do that on the surface and make it, like, sexy angst, not the real angst" and I think that is actually a big part of why so many of those books can be confusing or flat or irritating to me. Which is unfortunate, because I do want fun stuff to read. But those books are like watching shows on CBS--yeah sure it's fun, but then you're like, LET THE CHARACTERS TALK AND GROW. WAIT THIS PERSON WOULD BE DEALING WITH THEIR TRAUMA FROM THIS FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES, NOT JUST SAD FOR ONE EPISODE--and then, if you are me, you have to stop watching because the frustration gets to be too much.

(Sorry. There is A LOT going on in my head right now and I am trying to get some of it out or at least organized.)