Love to draw (what I want)

gettin some strange signals…..

And an update:

Something I made while dealing with my own stuff and hoping drawing this would pick me up somehow. Maybe it worked.

Like. You might as well walk into a bookshop and stamp BLOCKED FOR BADWRONG CONTENT on every book in the Song of Ice and Fire series, half of Shakespeare, every YA novel about rape recovery, every adult novel about rape recovery, every biography of someone who has suffered from rape, incest or paedophilia and been brave enough to write about it, every book of Greek, Egyptian and Norse myths, the fucking Bible - just a truly massive percentage of the entire global literary canon, because there is literally no way to remove each and every reference to these themes otherwise. 

Do you know why schools and libraries are pressured to ban books like I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, To Kill a Mockingbird and Laurie Halse Andersen’s Speak? Because dumbass, scaremongering adults think that letting teens read about rape or racism or sexual violence or queerness or half a dozen other topics they think are Bad Things will lead to them down a path of Vice. 

What happens to characters in stories, no matter how graphic or awful, is not the same as that act occurring to a real human person in real life, nor does reading or writing such works indicate endorsement of those acts. This is why a story which features paedophilia, regardless of whether it’s written as overtly sexual content or as a damning condemnation of the act, is not the same as child pornography by any legal definition: because no actual children are harmed. Are you personally still allowed to be angry and disgusted about the public availability of the former type of stories, even in instances where the writers are themselves victims of child abuse trying to process their trauma? Yes! You’re under no moral obligation to like any kind of content! But are you correct in asserting that the creation of such stories is illegal and hurting somebody in exactly the same way that a real abuser hurting a real child would be? No! Because fictional characters are not real people, and whatever our motives for creating or engaging with a particular thing, monkey see = monkey approve is not how it fucking works.  

Have you ever watched an episode of CSI? Congratulations! By your own logic, you’re pro rape and murder. Ever watched an episode of Hannibal? Congratulations! By your own logic, you endorse cannibalism, Stockholm Syndrome and serial killing. Ever watched a historical drama where a young girl gets married to a much older man? Congratulations! By your own logic, you endorse child brides. And on, and on, and on.

I say again: you are allowed to be critical of particular works and/or the recurrence of certain themes across a particular medium. But arguing that an entire literary platform needs to end because some stories there contain Bad Things makes as much sense as banning the works of Octavia Butler or Sherman Alexie from school libraries because of their content. Which is - spoiler alert - a really bad idea.

Puritanical culture is really fucking dangerous. By thinking you’re being ‘pure’ and ‘good’ and condemning all these things, you’re actually playing right into the hands of people who want to control media content by pretending shades of gray don’t exist. It’s not as simple as Thing Good or Thing Bad. It’s “Thing Complicated And Needs Critical Thought And Review.” 

I also suggest, for people on the other side of this argument, to study a bit more history and look into censorship. I live in a country that spent a lot of time under dictatorship (I wasn’t alive myself at the time but my parents were) and I know enough about it to make it obvious that it’s a Goddamn Bad Idea You Dumbasses lol

People work through their personal bad experiences through literature, like the other people in this thread said. Sometimes people write things to raise awareness about a subject. Art isn’t pure or cute, it shouldn’t be forcefully cleansed. Making art uniform is supid and wouldn’t work when we’re plural multifaceted beings, These fanfics teach people about these subjects, when well written they can educate. I learned loads about consent reading fanfic. It’s more effective than long tumblr rambles about it, It allows you to put yourself in the shoes of victim or perpetrator. And that’s not a bad thing!

If reading about certain contents bother you just DON’T READ IT?? It’s that simple! You know why the tags exist? So people don’t have to read it if it triggers them or if they would rather not, A lot of you are spoiled and grew up on AO3 but trigger warnings weren’t even a thing when I started writing and I’m incredibly thankful for them now. I’m thankful for tags that keep me safe. And that’s what you’re ultimately fighting against. And pro censorship if you think someone is gonna sit there and review everyone’s fics to say whether or not they’re appropriate.

dude.