Culture
One thing that reading all the activist timelines I have on birbsite and elsewhere has really driven home for me is the sense that I'm better off writing second-world fantasy, because if I tried to write "my native culture," I'd be accused of creating unrealistic characters.
Culture
My culture is inherently queer. My culture doesn't think twice about people deciding on a day-to-day basis that they're a new gender, a new species, a new material. Identity changes are signs of discovery and understanding, and they're things to be celebrated. Any plot that can be solved by people having a ten-minute talk is not a real plot in my world.
Culture
My culture is inherently poly. I have a wife and two pets. One of my housemates is in a polycule that crosses multiple state lines and can't be graphed on a two-dimensional surface without overlap. The worst I've ever gotten or given when negotiating sex outside the relationship was "be home by this time" and "I'm not interested but I want you to have fun." We had to INVENT WORDS to describe the relationships forms we were creating just so we could talk about them.
Culture
My culture is inherently spiritual. I have a weekly ritual. One of my dearest friends hosts quarterly multitraditional gatherings. I have an annual mythopoeic retelling of the First Terrible Winter accompanied by a festival. We've invented our own religions and found ways to incorporate those elements into our daily lives without harming each other. Mostly. And I feel terrible when I fuck that up, because encouraging people to Tell the Tale of You is one of my deepest vocations.
Culture
Not to say that everyone here _is_ spiritual, but that elements of spirituality permeate it. There are atheists, agnostics, Christians, Wiccans, Buddhists, and others beyond all here. But those elements are a living part of our shared community, not things we isolate and keep separate and hide, because we're all here to walk our own paths together.
Culture
@literorrery I think that your writings and stories /are/ the best way of sharing your culture, short of wearing a body-cam and streaming those parts of culture you think are significant. documented words are how we know about cultures that aren't even here any more, and the more documentation that exists, the more accurate picture can be drawn and shared. TLDR: Documentation, or it didn't happen. But that's just my opinion.
Culture
I don't even know where to begin expressing the frustrations of trying to communicate this outside this space, because it feels like saying it here is a risk, but if I don't say it, it will continue to eat at me. The culture I came from, my organic origin-body culture, was toxic and soul-crushing. We built something better, something healthier, something powerful in its own right on its ashes. And I wish I had better tools to share it. Ω