hmm guess it's time to reiterate on this acct that i oppose ALL censorship in fiction, full stop, no matter how distasteful the subject matter, because i believe all art has merit whether for catharsis or even just to exist to be criticized.

i grew up under severe censorship in a cult and i cannot stress enough how damaging it is, how infantalizing, how antithetical it is to growth as an adult with the ability to read critically and think for oneself.

pro-censorship ideology assumes absolutely no independent thinking, no critical thought in the people consuming media. it's patronizing, controlling, assumes the worst both in everyone's intentions and in their intelligence. it's regressive and anti-growth.

i will always support artists and writers' right to create, no matter how distasteful i find the subject matter, no matter how triggering it is for me personally, because i believe consuming and discussing art is how we grow. if art reflects badly on reality, we change reality.

fiction affects reality when we take it to heart, when we decide it is worth making a reality. we have agency in that choice and i am tired of people assuming that others have no responsibility or control in that process. i am tired of people denying their own and others' agency.

i am tired of people looking around at art and seeing wolves everywhere. so often the creators of distasteful art are themselves victims of the things they depict, trying to shed light on their experiences, trying to make sense of them in an exchange of thought.

depiction of trauma and societal problems is not approval of them, is not reinforcement, is not normalization. if people are depicting something that has already happened to them, in this reality, it's because it was already real to them. to shed light on it is not approval--

--and to read it as such is in such bad faith, is so cruel and retraumatizing for survivors who have been unable to process their trauma due to conservative norms suppressing any and all discussion of their trauma. it throws survivors under the bus, makes us acceptable losses.

pretending a problem does not exist and erasing any and all record and depiction of its existence does not erase the problem! in fact by sweeping it under the rug we allow it to fester, make it harder to recognize, create false positives that drown out the real warning signs.

anyways heres my feelings on the grooming argument: https://kienansidhe.tumblr.com/post/189346605396/but-x-can-be-used-to-groom-children-bitch-i-was im very tired.