It Is Incredibly Important To Train Yourself To Have Your First Instinct Be To Look Something Up.

reblog if you worried about your abusive parent more than they ever worried about you

abusive parents will act like the world is insanely dangerous place where you get shot on sight as soon as you make a slightest mistake or displease anyone, when in reality the only place where this happens is your parents house

Sometimes your abusers will be extra nice to you after an event of horrendous abuse and it will feel transactional, like if you accept this niceness now, then you’ve accepted to forgive them for the abuse, then it’s all behind in the past and you’re perfectly happy to be on good terms with them again, and it will feel wrong and prickly like poison being injected into your body because no, you’re not okay, and no, you’re not forgiving them, you are not on good terms anymore, you do not want to act nice back, you do not want to accept niceness, you want to shut them out and be free from them forever. 

But you don’t dare to act out only because it might bring the horrendous abuse back. You have no choice but to let them believe all is well and forgiven and you’re a nice little family again and nobody is holding grudges. It feels like signing a contract against your will, confirming that the anger and the pain and the hatred will forever be festering inside of you, until they eat you alive, but you will never bring it up or act on it. It’s like being blackmailed to keep all of the consequences of abuse to yourself, and never let abusers experience any, because they’re currently being nice, and you can’t risk them being anything else.

And you know what, that contract is invalid. You were at a direct threat while you were displaying this behaviour. It doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to explode later. It doesn’t mean you have to keep consistent with what they expect of you. It doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to hold them accountable anymore. You were not leading them on to believe you’re fine with abuse, you were blackmailed and forced into taking over the consequences they deserved to bear. They still deserve it. Temporary niceness makes up for zero of the abuse. Nothing they do or preform or fake can make up for the abuse. Nothing can absolve them. None of your behaviour means they’re forgiven. You’re allowed to hold them accountable, to be mad, to show rage and coldness and consequences for however long you deem it prudent. Even if that is forever.

white people hijack every single movement they join

Just Another Love Poem. Until the First Line.

No one ever teaches you how to fall out of love with your rapist.

How to survive until the moment when their shadow ceases to be

an extension of your own, how to find someone else to be your North Star

who won’t ever violate the rest of your sky.

How to recognize wolves in sheep’s clothing, or wolves that devour you

then bring you the remains of a dead dove as a peace offering

like its feathers are enough to erase the teeth marks.

No one ever teaches you how to stop looking into a bedroom

and seeing the person you love sitting next to the window, waiting,

seeing your rapist sitting there too

and wishing they weren’t one and the same.

No one ever teaches you that it could take years

before you stop feeling like a crescent moon and more like a full one,

that it takes eons to cut the strings connecting you

to the person who said I love you and it’s your fault in the same tone of voice

when all you want is to hand them the scissors

and keep the strings intact.

And most of all, no one talks about wishing to feel their skin on yours again

even after months of being torn in half.

trying to prove a point to my brother

reblog this if you think art IS work, and that it takes time and effort and is a valid source of income.

If someone is trying incredibly hard to please me, I know something is wrong. That kind of desire doesn’t come naturally. I know something bad has happened to this person, and they need attention rather than people indulging in their sacrificing acts of servitude.

Nobody should be desperate and try to please anyone out of fear that they’ll be punished, or that they’ll be hated and despised if not useful and pleasing enough. That is a form of control with the threat of terror and pain hanging over a person’s head, their desire to please and be useful isn’t coming from their own sense of fulfillment, but out of fear that there’s no other alternative, no other way they’re allowed to exist.

I would prefer not to exist than to have someone live in fear of what’s going to happen to them unless they make my existence pleasurable for every second of my life. That is not humane, no person alive needs this kind of servitude. This is what abusive parents do to children to terrorize them into convenience and usefulness and it’s a form of torture. Nobody should be benefiting from that torture. Nobody should want that kind of thing to exist.

My very last comic for The Nib! End of an era! Transcription below the cut. instagram / patreon / portfolio / etsy / my book / redbubble

The first event I went to with GENDER QUEER was in NYC in 2019 at the Javits Center.

So many of the people who came to my signing were librarians, and so many of them said the same thing: "I know exactly who I want to give this to!" Maia: "Thank you for helping readers find my book!" While working on the book, I was genuinely unsure if anyone outside of my family and close friends would read it. But the early support of librarians and two American Library Association awards helped sell two print runs in first year.

Since then, GENDER QUEER been published in 8 languages, with more on the way: Spanish, Czech, Polish, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portugese and Dutch.

It has also been the most banned book in the United States for the past two years. The American Library Association has tracked an astronomical increase in book challenges over the past few years. Most of these challenges are to books with diverse characters and LGBTQ themes. These challenges are coming unevenly across the US, in a pattern that mirrors the legislative attacks on LGBTQ people. The Brooklyn Public Library offered free eCards to anyone in the US aged 13-21, in an effort to make banned books more available to young readers. A teacher in Norman, Oklahoma gave her students the QR code for the free eCard and lost her job. Summer Boismeir is now working for the Brooklyn Public Library. Hoopla and Libby/Overdrive, apps used to access digital library books, are now banned in Mississippi to anyone under 18. Some libraries won’t allow anyone under 18 to get any kind of library card without parental permission. When librarians in Jamestown, Michigan refused to remove GENDER QUEER and several other books, the citizens of the town voted down the library’s funding in the fall 2022 election. Without funding, the library is due to close in mid-2024. My first event since covid hit was the American Library Association conference in June 2022 in Washington, DC. Once again, the librarians in my signing line all had similar stories for me: “Your book was challenged in our district" "It was returned to the shelf!" "It was removed from the shelf..." "It was moved to the adult section."

Over and over I said: "Thank you. Thank you for working so hard to keep my book in your library. I’m sorry you had to defend it, but thank you for trying, even if it didn't work." We are at a crossroads of freedom of speech and censorship. The future of libraries, both publicly funded and in schools, are at stake. This is massively impacting the daily lives of librarians, teachers, students, booksellers, and authors around the country. In May 2023, I read an article from the Washington Post analyzing nearly 1000 of the book challenges from the 2021-2022 school year. I was literally on route to a festival to talk about book bans when I read a startling statistic. 60% of the 1000 book challenges were submitted by just 11 people. One man alone was responsible for 92 challenges. These 11 people seem to have made submitting copy-cat book challenges their full-time hobby and their opinions are having an outsized ripple effect across the nation. WE NEED TO MAKE THE VOICES SUPPORTING DIVERSE BOOKS AND OPPOSING BOOK BANS EVEN LOUDER. If you are able too, show up for your library and school board meetings when book challenges are debated. Send supportive comments and emails about the Pride book display and Drag Queen story hours. If you see a display you like– for Banned Book Week, AAPI Month, Black History Month, Disability Awareness Month, Jewish holidays, Trans Day of Remembrance– compliment a librarian! Make sure they feel the love stronger than the hate <3

Maia Kobabe, 2023

The Nib

The more you know!