I love people who try to be soft. I think about it a lot. I used to be an asshole when I was younger, I was sexist and racist, definitely shades of queerphobia (a lot of interalised shame about my own queerness). It was all about being edgy and tired of the world. I remember when I looked what I was saying and doing and went "no, actually, I am a good person, this is not what good people say and do."
I love people who have stared themselves down and gone "No."
@Corvusheart I used to be exactly like that. A lot of it was manipulative parents/family trying to imprint their awful values on me (a nine-year-old should not be getting caught in school with *that* kind of vocabulary). It took a very long time to figure out that the world I was stuck in wasn't at all how normal, well-adjusted people behave and a long time to unlearn it.
My only regret is that I can't afford to physically distance myself from those people as much as I'd like.
