I spent so many years of my life being told I wasn't allowed to talk about bad things people did to me or around me. why? why are people so afraid of having conversations about difficult topics? understanding is crucial to not living in fear of toxic hellscapes; you have to want to resolve conflict with others and within yourself or you're just never going to be happy
that's why I'm even posting again publicly. i want to be able to share these feelings, even if they can't voice them themselves
labels
it's so important to not get caught up on labels. if you believe you're "good", then anyone who you feel is wrong is clearly "evil/bad", therefore fair game to harass and target.
this is so fucked up! you can't look at things that way; it's counterproductive & toxic to shove people into roles that you then use against them forever, no matter how "justified" you feel.
people grow and change and maybe that forum post from 12 years ago has nothing to do with the person you're hating today
labels (queer)
it's the same kind of thing I ended up realizing as one of the root causes of queer infighting. people get specific ideas of what a label means or implies, and then anyone who doesn't share that exact set of experiences is clearly Wrong and Not Part Of MY Label.
this happened to me a lot with writing asexual characters. asexuality is a spectrum, but i'd get people going "Um, you wrote them having sex. Fake queer. Fake ace." even though it was based on my PERSONAL EXPERIENCES
labels (queer, self-hating)
and... and of course it feels that way. because people have to work hard for their label to be recognized by the public. so when I come across a blog where a transmasc person violently rejects the validity of any other transmasc person who is fine with their feminine sides, it's so clearly an act of self-hatred that they're projecting onto others. and that makes me so, so sad in my heart, bc it's the feeling of "*I* had to do this to be a boy, so THEY should TOO"
cw hurt/KF
I just want to understand why people hurt each other, and it's increasingly clear that it's because people around them have hurt them. after you internalize it for so long... if you can't find a release for it (like writing a comic about trauma, for instance) then you start being destructive.
that's why places like KF exist -- it's full of people who hate themselves, don't feel safe expressing their own voice, and hate anyone who DOES and CAN express their true self and voice. :(
hurt
like of course it's absolutely terrifying to say things you really think. at any point, someone could come up with a reason for why you're abusive and horrible, esp if you're accidentally blunt and abrasive sometimes (that's me!!) and no one will tell you why the thing you said upset them (that's everyone else!!). it took a lot of learning to figure this shit out, and I won't have people acting like I'm evil over being a regular ass person who has been doing their best to improve on mistakes
hurt
I've just been an excessively public person before because I love sharing experiences, and I love being vulnerable, because there are so many who CAN'T be vulnerable who NEED to feel like they're not alone and like there's a way out, a way forward. but sometimes people get the wrong feelings from what you type online, as I have learned, and this is especially difficult when you don't realize how you've come across before. it makes it so easy to pick on i.e. autistic people (that's...me...)
hurt/autism feelings
I haven't even wanted to fucking, talk about autism and how that's been a difficult thing for me to deal with forever. I didn't even realize I was on the spectrum at first, not until a few years ago. then after I did, I found out my younger siblings were, too. it made SO MANY THINGS make sense to me, as I FINALLY had a way of relating to how "normal" people felt, where previously I felt like I was missing something that would let me just, fucking understand people at all
autism feelings
it's like, "oh my god, here's finally a framework to help me understand how to interact with normal people. thank god. oh my god. it's like a manual I desperately needed" and.. and...
why are people so desperate to believe someone else is evil before they'll believe that someone just doesn't have a brain that works like theirs??? that maybe different people have different motivations for sharing their hurt/pain? it's still really difficult to grasp
autism feelings / nsfw
like christ I've been accused of trying to "lure kids in" or whatever for sharing my sentiment that I hoped that teens who sneaked looking at my NSFW comics would end up learning something about themselves.
this is so insane. i only shared this thought because, as a teen MYSELF, i looked at porn and had wished I could have read comics to help me understand my sexual/gender feelings way earlier!! that's the only reason I even said that!!! because it's how *I FELT* as a teen
nsfw/abuse
but it makes people so uncomfortable to read a sentiment like that! because you're not "supposed" to talk about things like that! because there's "potential for abuse" in it!
but like. OF COURSE there's potential in abuse - that's why things should be talked about openly, so people understand HOW and WHERE abuse can take place!!! it doesn't make SENSE to fucking act hush hush about it and then lash out at someone for trying to bring it up in a safe context!
nsfw/abuse
so it all gets twisted. people work that into their "preys on kids" narrative, even though my ACTUAL actions and words based on my feeling of wanting to help out people who felt the way I did, as a teen. I had no interest in interacting with anyone underage who consumed my nsfw work -- but I also didn't care if they read my adult stuff, because I'm not their parent and can't stop them and the reality is, every kid I knew when *I* was a kid did it, too.
why do people deny reality???
nsfw/sexual abuse
if you don't put up a performative act of caring that kids might look at nsfw material, then you're "evil".
but it directly contradicts my experiences as a kid, so of course I don't feel that way. I learned a lot about myself through the adult material I consumed, when i was a confused kid who'd been a victim of sexual abuse. so of course my heart goes out to people who are in that kind of position. of course I'm not going to shun those extremely real and hurtful experiences.
nsfw/sexual abuse
and it's so fucking dishonest for people to strip out my feelings and experiences from something in order to go, "look. this person thinks KIDS should look at PORN." it's dishonest and disgusting to take a CSA survivor's experiences, and their attempt at doing good with it via stories -- to twist their own attempts at good back against them, as a weapon to be wielded out of "performative goodness".
it is so fucking disgusting to act like that's an acceptable course of action
nsfw/sexual abuse
like, yeah, I get it. it's uncomfortable to acknowledge that minors might look at NSFW stuff, but I have no interest in interacting with minors over it, nor have I ever. when I ran my 300 member discord, we were so strict about not letting minors into adult spaces. if they wanted to talk about it, they could do it among themselves elsewhere.
but don't fucking act like that my openness about reality means I would EVER want to participate in the same abuse i suffered through.
nsfw/sexual abuse
I can't get over the dishonesty of it. people know what a shock value "THIS PERSON WANTS TO GROOM MINORS" has, and it's inherently a bad thing that everyone can agree on.
this wraps back around to labels. it more or less becomes a label, where people will do what they can to twist your actions to fit a label that everyone agrees is bad, and that people have trouble picking apart without also being seen as bad. it's lose/lose without OPEN DISCUSSION about ethics.
labels, callouts
but hey. it's fair game. because when you've decided someone is bad, and needs to be punished, all you have to do is find ways to make their actions fit the horrible label of your choice.
that's why this shit is so insidious and why there needs to be so much more discussion about callout culture and effective tools for resolving conflicts. because you end up hurting the most vulnerable when you give in to performative anger and rage, without examining the reality of actions.
nsfw/sexual abuse
if people DON'T want to listen to you, they won't. esp if they already have the momentum of a horrible label. but here's how this horrible game of telephone goes when you want to hate someone:
"Uses their past to make vulnerable nsfw work, hopes it'll help teens discover themselves" (reality) ->
"wants teens to look at porn" (not reality) ->
"grooms teens by forcing their porn on them" (extremely not reality) ->
"sexually abuses children" WHAT THE FUCK? NO? this is SO CRUEL