Hi.
I'm a British guy (not a guy, a trans girl, really, but nobody takes it seriously) in my 20s.
I'm "moderate functioning" autistic. That means I can speak, but I have no concept whatsoever of "social skills" or "tact".
I was in school until I was about 8 years old. My mum, she took me out of school and home educated me up into my teen years. Great decision. The school never accomodated my mental and spatial and disabilities.
When I was 12, I had a crush on Asriel, the goat boy from Undertale. It was around this time, mid-2010s, that Protect The Fictional Childrens became a cause celebre among the public. I used to like erotic fanfiction and pornographic art depicting Asriel. The NSPCC at the time, I recall, was running a scare campaign about "cartoon child porn" and condemned it as "child sexual abuse". I developed an intense moral OCD, and I started repressing my sexuality, and I would self-harm whenever I had sexual thoughts.
It's made every living moment a nightmare for me. I eventually managed to stop repressing myself and be an openly sexual being, only last year. I'm going to talk of something from last year, that has nothing to do with sex, yet eventually leads me into something that does.
There was this person, let's call them "Diana", who shared my interests in pretty much every way, in fact, it was almost supernatural to me in some ways. Their favourite Pokémon is mine, and I was talking about my art inspired by theirs in a café, then I met another person who shared their exact name and nickname.
Diana is not a celebrity. Diana is not an unknown, either. They are very well-respected within a certain niche community.
I idolised them, wanted to be like them. They single-handedly inspired me to take up three academic subjects. They were better than me in every way conceivable, yet the greatness I perceived in them was something I could achieve myself, not the realm of distant superstar success. It was a Goldilocks zone of imitability.
Two characters that they invented, let's call them "Lettuce" and "Cauliflower", are portrayed as a timid autistic guy with scars on his left arm, who works in a clothes shop (exactly like me) and his elder brother, a secretary for an important business who's usually too drunk to care about his brother's issues (I have a brother who matches this description), respectively.
I was reading one of Diana's blog posts about Lettuce and Cauliflower, in, I think it was, August 2024, and suddenly, in big red text, "DO NOT SHIP THEM OR I'LL SKIN YOU ALIVE".
Nobody asked. It's like, "don't think of pink elephants", of course you'll think of pink elephants.
Now, it was terrible enough that someone who I idolised wanted me murdered over thoughtcrime about cartoon characters.
I had a dream that night. I was Lettuce. I was in bed with Cauliflower, and I was kissing him all over his beautiful chest. That was "shipping" them, that was grounds to skin me alive.
I wake up in a cold sweat, then I fall asleep again eventually.
I have another dream. I'm stuck on my bed, and burnet moths devour my skin.
Ever since then, I had wanted to get on Diana's good side, to suck up to them and be a friend almost.
That's why I so aggressively pursued those three subjects. After this dream, I completely transformed myself into the effigy of Diana, pretty much. I adopted their aesthetic style, started making up my own characters, writing stories, and certain other things.
I wrote a few times about how I could never be as great as them, and how I wanted to be just like them. I was certainly too blunt and emotionally heavy.
January 2025, this is where it gets interesting.
Diana has a Patreon and a Discord server. Anyone who subscribes to their Patreon and can join their server and collaborate with them on their projects, I'm told.
I had found purpose in my life. I had found an idol, a messiah.
I subscribed to the Patreon, and Diana told me that I was a creep and a stalker and blocked me from it.
At this point, I went catatonic. Being like this one person was the only thing giving me meaning and purpose in my life, and knowing that they hated me, it completely broke me.
I slashed my wrists open with a box-cutter, in about thirty different places, drew a portrait of Cauliflower with my own blood, and eventually cried myself to sleep at 6 AM.
After a weekend of suicidal ideation, I told Diana that I was very sorry for making them feel uncomfortable.
They said I had "violated" their "boundaries", but at least acknowledged that I might not have malicious intent.
After that, they announced they were flat broke and they needed money to move house, so they opened art commissions. I love their style. They, to my surprise, accepted my commission.
They gave me some art and language learning tips, and I drew their character as thanks.
That's the last of me and Diana. I remembered, though, in their post calling me a creep and stalker, they told me to "get help". They had also told me to live for myself and not to be like them.
I've got help. I have a lovely therapist. Let's call her Rin. I've been seeing Rin for four years. Without so much as flinching, she understands and listens to everything I say.
I told her, in February, everything about Diana, and I told Rin that I hoped I could live for myself, rather than living to be like someone else. I also told her that I was embracing my sexuality, rather than being ashamed and repressing myself.
So, also in Februrary, I went to a gay bar with some of my friends. I like men. One of these friends, let's call him Leon. I met him a few years ago when he was a support worker in a group for people who self-harm, one of whom was me. We met at 18 and 25.
After having some fun in the bar, I asked if anyone wanted a hug. A few people did.
I asked if anyone wanted a kiss. Leon said he did. We kissed. It felt good.
Now, I've been crushing on Leon for years.
I thought he might have wanted to be my boyfriend.
The next few times we saw each other, I called him hot and made flirtatious comments towards him. He never made any indication that he was uncomfortable with a such a thing. If he would just say, "I don't like it", I would probably take the hint.
Now, last month, I went to that bar again. Leon only showed up just as I was about to leave. I asked him if he wanted a hug. He said "yes", we hugged. I asked him if he wanted a kiss. He said "no". I respected his wishes and didn't kiss him.
There I was, thinking everything was fine.
But, no.
Yesterday, I got a text from another "friend" of mine, I'll call them Pixie. Pixie works at the bar. They told me that my flirtatious behaviour was "harrassment" and that I "went too far" and that the hug was "sexual assault". According to Pixie, Leon complained that the hug was "a sexual movement" against his body. What does that mean? When I hug people, I squeeze my entire body against theirs. It's been this way since I was a small child. That's just what I do.
If Leon was so uncomfortable with me calling him hot, he should have just told me. I would understand. Was he scared of me? I don't have any power over him, other than being slightly taller than him.
What confuses me is, if the hug was so terrible, why didn't he tell me at the time? Why did he wait a month? Why wait until I was scheduled to go to the bar again?
Society says "kill rapists", "believe victims", "accusations are true until proven otherwise", "sexual assault is worse than murder" and all that. Now, I'm considered a rapist for having consensually hugged someone. People say "consent is important" and then when there IS consent, they pretend there isn't.
It's ever since #MeToo, I think, that everything has been framed in terms of "consent" and "boundaries" to the point where everything is sexual assault and every molehill of physical contact must be blown into the proportions of a mountain.
Like, everyone is patronising about "consent", and then when I DO respect "consent" it doesn't count, what, because I'm big, because I don't pick up social cues in people's eyebrows in something?
And whenever someone wants to demonise you and assume the worst faith of you, they say you have "violated their boundaries", without ever explaining what those "boundaries" are, wherever it's verbal or physical or textual or electronic or anything else.
As for the few friends I have remaining, my mum wants me to sever ties with them because they could accuse me of something like my friends from the bar did. She also thinks I don't really want to be a girl, that I was magically mind-controlled by the bar people into dysphoria.
People are so prickly, like sea urchin tests, shapes that don't tesselate. I wish for a world where there is no boundary, no line between one being and the next, a world where where can't hurt each other over our petty differences because there is no you and no I, no individual. That world will never happen.
There is no place on Earth for people like me.
And all this time, the censorship machine grinds on and on, under the grounds of "think of the chilluns!", the tired excuse that was use to ruin my life in the first place, as a child, sucking more and more people into the notion that nobody under 18 should have any sexuality whatsoever, and the notion that real people should be brutalised over imaginary attributes of fictional characters, turning everyone slowly into me.
I'm considering killing myself. I thought I could make a life for myself, as a person in the world, rather than a pale simulacrum of some mildly popular internet person. I tried to live a real life, and look where it got me. There is no future for me other than as a complete shut-in with no interaction with other people whatsoever.
Why can't I be straight? Why can't I be neurotypical? Why I can't I be normal?
I'm a British guy (not a guy, a trans girl, really, but nobody takes it seriously) in my 20s.
I'm "moderate functioning" autistic. That means I can speak, but I have no concept whatsoever of "social skills" or "tact".
I was in school until I was about 8 years old. My mum, she took me out of school and home educated me up into my teen years. Great decision. The school never accomodated my mental and spatial and disabilities.
When I was 12, I had a crush on Asriel, the goat boy from Undertale. It was around this time, mid-2010s, that Protect The Fictional Childrens became a cause celebre among the public. I used to like erotic fanfiction and pornographic art depicting Asriel. The NSPCC at the time, I recall, was running a scare campaign about "cartoon child porn" and condemned it as "child sexual abuse". I developed an intense moral OCD, and I started repressing my sexuality, and I would self-harm whenever I had sexual thoughts.
It's made every living moment a nightmare for me. I eventually managed to stop repressing myself and be an openly sexual being, only last year. I'm going to talk of something from last year, that has nothing to do with sex, yet eventually leads me into something that does.
There was this person, let's call them "Diana", who shared my interests in pretty much every way, in fact, it was almost supernatural to me in some ways. Their favourite Pokémon is mine, and I was talking about my art inspired by theirs in a café, then I met another person who shared their exact name and nickname.
Diana is not a celebrity. Diana is not an unknown, either. They are very well-respected within a certain niche community.
I idolised them, wanted to be like them. They single-handedly inspired me to take up three academic subjects. They were better than me in every way conceivable, yet the greatness I perceived in them was something I could achieve myself, not the realm of distant superstar success. It was a Goldilocks zone of imitability.
Two characters that they invented, let's call them "Lettuce" and "Cauliflower", are portrayed as a timid autistic guy with scars on his left arm, who works in a clothes shop (exactly like me) and his elder brother, a secretary for an important business who's usually too drunk to care about his brother's issues (I have a brother who matches this description), respectively.
I was reading one of Diana's blog posts about Lettuce and Cauliflower, in, I think it was, August 2024, and suddenly, in big red text, "DO NOT SHIP THEM OR I'LL SKIN YOU ALIVE".
Nobody asked. It's like, "don't think of pink elephants", of course you'll think of pink elephants.
Now, it was terrible enough that someone who I idolised wanted me murdered over thoughtcrime about cartoon characters.
I had a dream that night. I was Lettuce. I was in bed with Cauliflower, and I was kissing him all over his beautiful chest. That was "shipping" them, that was grounds to skin me alive.
I wake up in a cold sweat, then I fall asleep again eventually.
I have another dream. I'm stuck on my bed, and burnet moths devour my skin.
Ever since then, I had wanted to get on Diana's good side, to suck up to them and be a friend almost.
That's why I so aggressively pursued those three subjects. After this dream, I completely transformed myself into the effigy of Diana, pretty much. I adopted their aesthetic style, started making up my own characters, writing stories, and certain other things.
I wrote a few times about how I could never be as great as them, and how I wanted to be just like them. I was certainly too blunt and emotionally heavy.
January 2025, this is where it gets interesting.
Diana has a Patreon and a Discord server. Anyone who subscribes to their Patreon and can join their server and collaborate with them on their projects, I'm told.
I had found purpose in my life. I had found an idol, a messiah.
I subscribed to the Patreon, and Diana told me that I was a creep and a stalker and blocked me from it.
At this point, I went catatonic. Being like this one person was the only thing giving me meaning and purpose in my life, and knowing that they hated me, it completely broke me.
I slashed my wrists open with a box-cutter, in about thirty different places, drew a portrait of Cauliflower with my own blood, and eventually cried myself to sleep at 6 AM.
After a weekend of suicidal ideation, I told Diana that I was very sorry for making them feel uncomfortable.
They said I had "violated" their "boundaries", but at least acknowledged that I might not have malicious intent.
After that, they announced they were flat broke and they needed money to move house, so they opened art commissions. I love their style. They, to my surprise, accepted my commission.
They gave me some art and language learning tips, and I drew their character as thanks.
That's the last of me and Diana. I remembered, though, in their post calling me a creep and stalker, they told me to "get help". They had also told me to live for myself and not to be like them.
I've got help. I have a lovely therapist. Let's call her Rin. I've been seeing Rin for four years. Without so much as flinching, she understands and listens to everything I say.
I told her, in February, everything about Diana, and I told Rin that I hoped I could live for myself, rather than living to be like someone else. I also told her that I was embracing my sexuality, rather than being ashamed and repressing myself.
So, also in Februrary, I went to a gay bar with some of my friends. I like men. One of these friends, let's call him Leon. I met him a few years ago when he was a support worker in a group for people who self-harm, one of whom was me. We met at 18 and 25.
After having some fun in the bar, I asked if anyone wanted a hug. A few people did.
I asked if anyone wanted a kiss. Leon said he did. We kissed. It felt good.
Now, I've been crushing on Leon for years.
I thought he might have wanted to be my boyfriend.
The next few times we saw each other, I called him hot and made flirtatious comments towards him. He never made any indication that he was uncomfortable with a such a thing. If he would just say, "I don't like it", I would probably take the hint.
Now, last month, I went to that bar again. Leon only showed up just as I was about to leave. I asked him if he wanted a hug. He said "yes", we hugged. I asked him if he wanted a kiss. He said "no". I respected his wishes and didn't kiss him.
There I was, thinking everything was fine.
But, no.
Yesterday, I got a text from another "friend" of mine, I'll call them Pixie. Pixie works at the bar. They told me that my flirtatious behaviour was "harrassment" and that I "went too far" and that the hug was "sexual assault". According to Pixie, Leon complained that the hug was "a sexual movement" against his body. What does that mean? When I hug people, I squeeze my entire body against theirs. It's been this way since I was a small child. That's just what I do.
If Leon was so uncomfortable with me calling him hot, he should have just told me. I would understand. Was he scared of me? I don't have any power over him, other than being slightly taller than him.
What confuses me is, if the hug was so terrible, why didn't he tell me at the time? Why did he wait a month? Why wait until I was scheduled to go to the bar again?
Society says "kill rapists", "believe victims", "accusations are true until proven otherwise", "sexual assault is worse than murder" and all that. Now, I'm considered a rapist for having consensually hugged someone. People say "consent is important" and then when there IS consent, they pretend there isn't.
It's ever since #MeToo, I think, that everything has been framed in terms of "consent" and "boundaries" to the point where everything is sexual assault and every molehill of physical contact must be blown into the proportions of a mountain.
Like, everyone is patronising about "consent", and then when I DO respect "consent" it doesn't count, what, because I'm big, because I don't pick up social cues in people's eyebrows in something?
And whenever someone wants to demonise you and assume the worst faith of you, they say you have "violated their boundaries", without ever explaining what those "boundaries" are, wherever it's verbal or physical or textual or electronic or anything else.
As for the few friends I have remaining, my mum wants me to sever ties with them because they could accuse me of something like my friends from the bar did. She also thinks I don't really want to be a girl, that I was magically mind-controlled by the bar people into dysphoria.
People are so prickly, like sea urchin tests, shapes that don't tesselate. I wish for a world where there is no boundary, no line between one being and the next, a world where where can't hurt each other over our petty differences because there is no you and no I, no individual. That world will never happen.
There is no place on Earth for people like me.
And all this time, the censorship machine grinds on and on, under the grounds of "think of the chilluns!", the tired excuse that was use to ruin my life in the first place, as a child, sucking more and more people into the notion that nobody under 18 should have any sexuality whatsoever, and the notion that real people should be brutalised over imaginary attributes of fictional characters, turning everyone slowly into me.
I'm considering killing myself. I thought I could make a life for myself, as a person in the world, rather than a pale simulacrum of some mildly popular internet person. I tried to live a real life, and look where it got me. There is no future for me other than as a complete shut-in with no interaction with other people whatsoever.
Why can't I be straight? Why can't I be neurotypical? Why I can't I be normal?
