i mean thank you i guess? am i supposed to thank you? normally i would reject an ask like this but it's so bizarre. sorry. its not that harrowing i guess, just constantly weird.

i understand the concept behind like, this callout stuff. i get it. you want to be safe. you want to keep your friends and loved ones safe. you want to feel like you're making a difference and doing something, i get it. but i feel this callout stuff has to stem from some level of generational difference because i straight up don't understand how people can just read a post on a forum and be like "yep, that checks out"

but even beyond this idea of lies or truth or good or bad you have to inoculate yourself from this kind of hate. you have to. being sorry isn't enough, regretting it isn't enough. you have to stop letting hatred feed you like this. you can't be sorry because when you're sorry for getting it wrong you're actually sorry because you thought i was one of the Bad Ones when actually I was one of the Good Ones. next time you'll be more careful so you only get one of the Bad Ones. next time you'll investigate better so you only hurt someone who deserves it. its poison.

but you know at the end of the day, there are bad bad bad people in this world, its partly why i got into this career path. awful things happened to me, i wanted to protect others from the horrors i went through. but your activism cannot be rooted in hatred. you will be hurting forever, you will be scared forever, and you will rarely know peace. one day you are going to die and you will realize just how many moments you have spent in fear and you will regret every minute of it. then it will become apparent that the fear you have given to others was prescribing them the same fate in a never-ending cycle of fear as we waste away our precious little time before we face the infinite nothingness.

you have to root your ideology and activism in love and support and mutual aid, not fear and hate. consider the actions you are taking and what they might accomplish. think about the harm you might cause. think about what you're doing and more importantly, why you're doing it and what you might accomplish. if someone else did it, consider their angle.

this doesn't mean that you shouldn't call people out, im not going to prescribe that.¹ it doesn't mean you can't moderate spaces (obviously, that's my career!), it doesn't mean you shouldn't deck the guy you found spiking someone's drink at the venue. but WHATEVER you are doing, for whatever reason you believe it to be righteous for, has to come from love. has to come from mutual aid, has to come from support. it can't just be hatred, don't ever let it just be hatred.

as someone who has seen most and experienced much of the worst this world has to offer: it's really not that scary. you don't have to be so scared all the time. being scared makes you hate.

1. i would argue that my pov supports the concept, in a vague way.