i got both of your asks, so i’ll just paste the other here for reference since i’ll answer them both here

“(previous anon) also like... especially having an "established identity" y'know... i dunno... whatever!! i'm gonna look back at myself in 10 years and laugh at how dramatic i am, but for now i have a lot to learn and think and do. especially do. :,^) thank you for listening…”

i think i’ve mildly talked about my past internet history? but i don’t know how in depth i’ve gone, and that was long and long ago, but maybe it would help you to hear about my experiences since it sounds like you were in a similar situation i was in years ago...

this was really before proship/anti discourse was widely popularized in the terms they were. i was in a very weird sect of the mid 2000s internet where there was fanwank but not fanwank as it’s known today. when discussing it with friends, i think i unknowingly fell into a friend group that was predominantly fancop leaning. as teen through young adult you could have qualified me as an “anti”. i didn’t send people threats or harass them, i was just fucking obnoxious lol. the very stereotypical grandstanding about how i wasn’t some weird gooner who loved incest or lolishota online. the funny thing is that i was incredibly into drawing guro/violence, but isn’t that how it goes. super comfortable with guro and violence, but incest….yuck! (LAUGHING!!!!!)

i was mildly aware at times i liked “abnormal” things but, put it to the side. i remember watching gravity falls for the first time and thinking mabel/dipper were cute. i also really liked mabel/bill/dipper. and then just kind of buried that LOL…mob psycho was a big one too. covertly would look up reimob and ritmob art…this is what i mean when i say i was annoying. a lot of my issues with fiction were from all the stereotypical things. trauma, being a dumb teenager, being scared of sex, being insecure in myself, my sexuality and my gender…huuugely i was scared of sex because i did not realize i was experiencing dysphoria to be perceived as a girl in intimacy. a lot of things clicked into place when i realized i was male but that wouldn’t happen for a few more years. i could not be sincere with who i was so of course i could not be sincere with what i liked. or sincere with anyone! i was insecurity and raw nerves.

there was a time in my early 20s when i did realize that i did like these things but…what to do about it. by that time my friend circle i (at least presumed) was all people who staunchly hated these things. and this friend circle and way of thinking had been part of my life for years so i assumed well…this is it. and then a friend dmed me saying they had a secret ship they felt they couldn’t tell anyone. i asked what it was and it was a twincest ship. and that was the beginning of the end LOL, because i immediately thought “oh well you are my friend and i know you aren’t a bad person. so you are just my friend who likes twincest”

but…that still didn’t change much. i basically changed my mindset to “well i know these ships don’t make me a bad person but i can never air this out in public so i’ll just keep all of these worms in my head and then one day i’ll day” which is INCREDIBLY melodramatic but that was where my frame of mind was at. here lies peach, who went to his grave with his secrets (shipping age gap and incest). funnily enough, around this time, i started to realize a lot of my friends did actually have problematic ships and ship things and i reached out to them, so i started to form a sense of kinship since they were very surprised i was chill about that. but a lot more were very much not chill about it, and starting to get a way about it that made me very uncomfortable.

it’s worth noting that i did, over the years, try ways to reach out to other people and express myself. i had accounts where i changed my style, i had fic accounts…but they still weren’t the free places of creation. i felt anxiety about my style being recognized. my creating was still restricted by fear of judgment.

…and then one day, when i was trying to find any distraction from living in a hell hole apartment i could not escape even when sleeping on a couch, i watched jujutsu kaisen…and goyuu broke me LMAO. i just had such pure, adoration and love for them…i felt suffocated trying to hide art of them in another style. i realized i didn’t care what people thought of me anymore. i loved drawing and i loved drawing what made me happy and i didn’t want anyone else to stifle my creativity.

on my old art account i tried a controlled burn. posting the most tame, chaste goyuu art to quietly weed out people. but i realized it was stifling me to feel like i was fighting against a current and space i no longer liked, and it was an account formerly tied to when i briefly did art professionally for a living. sooooooo i deactivated my 5+ year twitter, instagram, my entire professional art web presence, and i went full ham here. to my surprise, a lot of old friends refound me. i never regretted it for a second. the pure JOY of drawing whatever i want, shipping whatever i want, and being surrounded by people and friends where there isn’t judgment.

you can take my advice with a grain of salt because i don’t know you, i am a complete stranger…i don’t know if these friends you’re referring to are irl friends, or online friends… but in order to have sincere friendships, you need to be sincere. if you’re cultivating a presence where people can’t tell if you’re a happy pervert, the happy perverts can’t find you. you have to be vulnerable! i simply don’t have friendships where people would judge me for my shipsbecause…i wouldn’t be able to maintain friendships with someone who would scrutinize my characters based on the toys i play pretend with on my playground. we just simply would not be compatible in a friendship. i’m a very low maintenance person when it comes to friendship but one of my ground rules is that i’m not friends with people who judge others for their taste in fiction or their kinks. that judgment usually comes from insecurity and feeling entitled to the business of other people, and people who are insecure in themselves in that way will try to make it someone else’s problem…no thank you!

from how you talk it sounds like you’re reaching a point where you’re realizing your values and what you want out a friendship may not be compatible with the friends you have…so maybe that’s worth introspection? even if these are people who don’t ship or engage with fiction in the way you do, are these people who can still embrace you and be your friend…and if they can’t, how are you going to make peace with that?

anyways this is all very longwinded but i’m a chatterbox so i assume that’s expected lol. i wasn’t openly a happy pervert and took me years to reach the comfort level i have now, but it was worth it. if i knew then what i knew now i would have probably made it happen sooner.

you’ll never regret being sincere. it doesn’t make it harder to make friends if you’re sincere, it only makes it harder for you to interact with the wrong people. even if you just make a burner account to engage with people-if you are sincere, people will find you. so many friends i made on an old burner are friends i still know and have even met irl or sent mail to.

all of this happened to me 6-7 years ago, and i can laugh about how dramatic i was now. i hope you can do the same someday too.