#Oh and fuck those who don’t believe a victim of abuse the first freaking time!

[cyarskj1899]

Let me go back to using Tory Lanes vs the State of California decide if i need to cut a nigga off or not, that was a good measure. Cause nigga what is your stance?? Come again??

I ain’t afraid to dump a man because he hates himself by hating black women

same if he also was the type of guy that would be a part of the January 6th insurrection

[confessionsofa-roleplayer]

I just saw "don't interact with me if you write - insert dark themes here - get help" in someone's rules and "don't interact if you write - insert dark themes here - you're gross / a freak / etc. etc." in someone else's, and I'm...not even surprised. The first sign of being unable to tell the difference between reality and fiction is assuming no one else can. It's assuming that writing these themes means you're secretly a supporter of them or engage in them in real life, instead of being able to recognize the clear and present divide between what people write and what they believe in. Ironically, this is never, ever, applied to torture or murder or cannibalism or even stalking. No, those are completely fine! No one who writes about those themes condones them or encourages others to engage in them. But somehow, the minute this veers into incest territory or sexual assault is mentioned, these people take up arms against you, and assume you're a perverted psychopath. And if you happen to write about child abuse or assault of a child, then congratulations, you're a pedophile now! A predator everyone has to avoid who has callouts written about them! I really wish those people would devote their time to being useful instead. If you're so goddamn obsessed with the rights and sensitivities of victims then go out there and help them. Donate to charities. Volunteer at shelters. Haul your ass off your cheeto-covered couch, take a fucking shower, and make yourself useful for a change. Or you know, go and bully that published fantasy author who writes sexual assault, child sexual assault, slavery, prostitution, child marriage, incest, pedophilia, and every other similar theme under the sun, and somehow has a massive following, an ultra popular TV series and just put out a new TV series in the same universe that everyone is equally obsessed with. Oh, you don't dare to? Then leave online strangers to write what they want in their pretend writing time, and quit being an ass.

[theturtlelovers]

How would the turtles react and/or help their S/O after being told that their father is a narcissist? And they've been a victim of narcissistic abuse their whole life. Reccently I realized my dad is a narcissisit and I've unknowingly been a victim of narcissistic abuse my whole life.

I relate to this on a personal level. My own father was a narcissist, and though I wasn’t a direct victim of the abuse, my own mother was and I had witnessed it with my own eyes. I do believe I have Narcissistic Victim Syndrome since I do struggle with anger, indecisiveness, regularly have to deal with low self-esteem, anxiety, doubt, and attachment issues. I hope you seek help if you ever have the same symptoms as I do.

Narcissistic Father

Warnings: Narcissistic abuse and cursing.

Leonardo

At first, the signs of you having a selfish person in your life didn’t click to him at all. He just thought you were a very indecisive person who had low self-esteem. But then he started noticing the smallest of things that told him that something else was going on.

Adding low esteem and your indecisive ways, he saw that you struggled with anxiety, were a people-pleaser, and had self-destructive behaviors that gave off warnings.

It fucking scared him. He wasn’t hiding it very well, either. His brothers and Splinter were immediately concerned, not understanding why the leader in blue was freaking out every time you left the lair, or why he would give you long stares when you said you had a hard day.

He was building up the courage to ask you about it, worried you would close him off when he said something when you came running to him crying. That moment, seeing tears coming from your eyes, he doesn’t hesitate to ask what happened.

He was relieved that you didn’t put up a fight in telling him what was going on with your father’s narcissism. Though, he was infuriated at the same time, now knowing that you hadn’t realized that your father was narcissistic.

Leo doesn’t need to think twice to see that all connections need to be cut off. After explaining the situation with his family, they all agreed that you didn’t need to have your father in your life if he was only going to bring harm. With his brothers’ help, ties with your father ceased to exist, and you now lived with them. If your father tried to insert himself into your life again, Leo was there to stand up for you and keep him in his place.

Once your safe from the narcissistic abuse, he sets out to rebuild what your father tore down. At first, he may seem harsh about scolding your destructive behaviors, but once he explains that he’s only trying to help you, it becomes more understanding. Leo will take a different approach if he notices that the pointing out part doesn’t help.

Expect lots of love and encouragement too. He loves you dearly and is distraught that you had to tell him something was going on. He makes it up to you, though with kisses and sweet nights together.

Raphael

Let’s just say he was extremely frustrated before he realized that something was going on. Ever since you two had gotten together, he’s been trying to bring your self-esteem up and become confident in your choices. It’d work for a couple of days, and then it was back to square one all over again.

Eventually, he can’t stand being frustrated, so he ends up going to Splinter. No way in hell is he admitting that he’s having trouble helping his s/o to his brothers. He spills everything about your troubling behaviors—low self-esteem, weak boundaries between yourself and others, angry outbursts, etc. Once Raph had told his father anything he could think of, even Splinter was troubled by how destructive this personality had become. He advises him to talk to you about it since this isn’t something to ignore.

At first, Raph is hesitant to ask you about it, not trying to intrude on your personal life. But when he thinks that since you’re his s/o, and that something terrible is happening to you, your privacy no longer matters until he knows your safe. However, he doesn’t even get the chance to ask about it when you suddenly pour your heart out to him.

 Your father is narcissistic? What? He’s confused at first. Is that the reason why you have so many negative traits? He’ll comfort you and promise to make things right, but the moment you’re gone, he’ll run to Donnie and ask for cons to having a narcissistic family member. Donnie will obviously ask why he wants to know. Raph will have to explain your situation to have the nerd list why you shouldn’t stay with your father.

He won’t ask you if you want to get away from him. He’s already doing that for you. Pack your bags and everything, and out of that place you go. He’ll make sure you get away without any complications, and no one was going to get in his way.

Recovery is one of his top priorities now. He works to get you back on your feet and have more confidence in your life. If your father tries to ruin that, you can bet my ass he’ll pay him a personal visit to keep him away.

He’ll beat himself up that he didn’t notice your fucked up relationship with your father. Aren’t fathers supposed to protect their daughters, not tear them down to make themselves look good? Knowing why you have a hard time with anger and self-esteem, his patience had increased and didn’t get as frustrated as he did before.

His protectiveness also grows, but luckily, he has brothers to keep him from being overbearing. He is more sensitive to talking about your father, and he secretly hopes you see Master Splinter as your new father figure.

Donatello

We all know that Donnie saw the signs before you even told him. He didn’t say anything because he wanted you to speak to him on your terms. Knowing what it feels like being pressured for an answer, he’s not going to put you in that position. Of course, he doesn’t know what’s happening precisely since you never come to the lair physically hurt or upset, so he is continually fretting over why you have these symptoms.

When you end calmly telling him that you found out that your father was a narcissist, it all pieced together for him. He’ll stare at you dumbly before apologizing to you for not realizing that the primary source of your problems was from a family member. You’ll have to reassure him that it wasn’t anyone’s fault, seeing that not even you knew that your father was the one making your life harder. At least Donnie could help you properly now that he knows what the issue was.

He’ll let you have options on what you can do. If you live with your father, he will suggest moving out and living in your own home, stay with a family member more appropriate to care for you, or you can stay with his family. 

Donnie will explain the situation to them in the most professional way possible and say that it was better this way for your mental and physical stability. The turtles and Splinter adore you, so they will insist you stay with them.

Being the hacker that he is, he will “advise” your father not to contact you, or Donnie will share their private information and sell their belongings. If you’re ever upset that you don’t have a father in your life anymore, he will tell you to look at Master Splinter as your new father figure.

He won’t be your therapist since he knows it’ll get personal, but he does go on the hunt for the best possible ones and suggest the best treatments for optimal recovery.

He brings himself down a lot for not figuring out why you struggled so much with anxiety and self-esteem, and he looks to you for comfort. He does it by giving you affection and little gifts that he makes.

He’ll be mindful speaking about your experience with narcissistic abuse and has his ways of helping you regain your confidence and anxiety. He’s determined to give you the support you need to proudly stand on your feet and not worry about some guy tearing you down to make himself feel better.

Michelangelo

Oh lord, this sweet angel. Any symptoms of narcissistic abuse will fly right over his head despite being naturally being in tune with people’s emotions. Sure, he will shut down any negative thing you say about yourself in a heartbeat and give lots of encouragement when you doubt yourself, but it doesn't pop up in his mind how frequent it happens since he’s always moving forward and not stopping to think about it.

Mikey won’t think about it until you say something. Then he’ll give you this confused look. He has no idea what happens when you have a close association with a narcissist, so you both take this moment to go Donnie and get a small lesson of Narcissistic Victim Syndrome.

He will have no words to say, because what? At this point, he’s kicking himself for being so stupid and not seeing that there was a source to your constant doubts and lack of confidence. Donnie will give him some advice on how to handle this situation, and he will go with it, even if he doesn’t understand what was said.

Cue him timidly asking if you want to live with him, so you no longer have to deal with the prick you call a father. If you say no, then he’ll tell you to live somewhere else and not have your father be a part of your life anymore. If you do agree, he will be so excited to have you close by nearly 24/7. Mikey will help you move your stuff in and store away things you believe you won’t need.

Mikey will sit with Master Splinter and ask questions similar to those he gave to Donnie because we know how to genius works. He’s been told the scientific part of the abuse, not the emotional. He knows his father will help him give you the best support you need and was proven right that the old rat gave fantastic advice.

Now that he is more aware that something had happened between you and your father, he can easily spot a symptom that shows from a mile away. Getting angry? Gives you something to laugh at instead. Doubting yourself? He’ll be the confidence you lack. This turtle loves you dearly and will do everything he takes to make it up to you and help you be the best you can be. His brothers will be super impressed about how tentative he is when it comes to taking care of you. 

Keeping your father out of your life won’t be a big deal to him since Mikey has three older brothers to do that for him because he wants to focus on you, not him, but if he manages to get past to them all, he’ll personally see to it that he never does again.

His affection will surprisingly remain as it was before. However, there will be a slight change he goes about it. He’s more observant and will purposely send compliments that will boost your self-esteem. This turtle is the King of Compliments™, so he won’t have any trouble giving you any.

Tagging: @brightlotusmoon @confused629 @whygz @kokokatsworld @supershiny-raven @coulrofilia-sexuell

[caithyra]

I’m suuuure he’s shocked /s

GRRM: “Oh woes! I have created a perfect and supporting family for my main characters and I need conflict to make it interesting! What could possibly ruin a good family?”

GRRM: “Ah! A girly girl, of course!” *Creates Sansa.* “And a traitorous bitch at that who would chose to support and protect her child over her birth family who do not rely on her for protection! Surely all shall realize what a bad person she is! It’s not like her own mother would be condemned for abandoning a child that’s not even her own!” *Creates first outline.* “But wait! She shall be prepubescent at the start of the story...” *Starts creating the actual story.* “I shall introduce her through the resentful tomboy’s perspective! And I shall have grown men slobbering over this prepubescent girly girl because we all know that’s ~*historically accurate*~! Oh, people do not like her? I am shocked! Shocked!”

Like, it says a lot about a narrative that when the author wants to create conflict and shake up a healthy family dynamic in a supremely patriarchal world, that he introduces a prepubescent, feminine sister who is unfavored by her father compared to her tomboy sister (even Sansa’s betrothal is a sham even if it would have made her future queen-in-waiting. If everything went as Ned planned, her virtue would have been ruined on the Trident and after he breaks the betrothal with Joff by accusing him of being a bastard, Sansa’s play-acting at love and having been alone with Joff would have ruined her for good, future prospects and the best she would get is either a disinherited second son who no one else wants to marry or a jumped up house who wants some blue blood like the Freys, Baelishes or Westerlings-Spicers that no one important likes.

Arya, by being younger, and more like Lyanna, would have gotten the queenhood and crown prince by Robert’s second wife after Cersei is disposed of, since Robert really wants to marry his child to Ned’s children, so no one better tell me that Ned ever put Sansa ahead of Arya the same he puts Arya ahead of Sansa. He freaking hides behind his prepubescent daughter’s skirts while investigating what he believes are ruthless murderers who had no qualms killing the most powerful men in the realm in a hyper-patriarchy! And it is the other daughter he warns about dangers and gives lessons in fighting! Like what was Ned thinking would happen with Sansa? Did he even care? Did he think he could just sweep it under rugs and forget it? She will need to marry within recent memory of her scandalous conduct since she’ll be twenty in less than a decade! And marriageable age in Westeros is 16! And yet the fandom goes “Poor Ned to have that traitorous bitch for a daughter~” “She should have listened to Ned who never spoke to her and explained himself or the world wouldn’t be ending~” “I don’t hate Sansa but she was sooo stupid for not blindly obeying her loving father who punishes her for her sister’s sins and never explains himself~” is it any wonder my patience with Ned Stark’s parental fuck ups ran out? Congrats, fandom, you made me hate him by excusing his fuck ups and blaming them on his daughter all the time!).

GRRM tries to make it gray, but he knows full well what kind of audience he writes to when he writes the relationships between Cat and Jon, and Arya and Sansa and should have compensated.

Hell, he should have made Joff a good person, prince and promising future king that most girls would like to marry, only to show that’s not what Ned cares about (after all, unless Ned wants Sansa to be abused like half the fandom, he had no idea that Joff was bad when he betrothed them), he cares about birth and truth and “High As Honor” over practical things like “Winter is Coming and Staying for Ten Freezing Years and Does Not Care Who Sits On the Throne So Lets Not Start a Civil War with One of the Most Powerful Families in the Realm, hm?”.

I mean, no one likes Drizzt Do’Urden’s sisters/mother/the matriarchy as a whole, do they? The Dark Elf Trilogy predates ASoIaF by six years, and should have shown a competent writer exactly what the state of womanhood in the Fantasy genre was like. And if you’re going “well, the matriarchy is evil!” I would like to point out that people hate Cattie-brie who is not part of that matriarchy. Yeah. There’s a reason why Menzoberranzan could be written that way and published and become popular, and it was not that Fantasy readers love and support and makes the effort to identify with and understand female characters (nor does most authors, come to think of it... see female friendships in ASoIaF that are without any sexual, incest, or abusive~ Like Arianne and Tyene being as close as sisters in the Later Books Which Are Not Early Installment Weirdness... Oh wait...).

Heck, in the Belgariad, another series predating both of them, things were more subtle but hardly better for female characters; Polgara is a mother figure who gets to have a moment of being imperfect, but to anyone reading the story, it is clear that Garion is the true victim in the circumstances and conspiracies Polgara’s family has woven around him, and that his anger is the immediate reaction of finding out the truth (he just found out how/why he was orphaned and now has the world on his shoulders! And the characters bag on him for not being understanding of the 1000s of years old woman who lied to him and now is sulking. It is blatantly obvious to the readers that it is not the male character in the wrong). The less said about Ce´Nedra (half hyper-sexual dryad, spoiled princess who wants bigger breasts, et cetera) the better. Heck, the less said about the lovable oaf of the hero group committing marital rape on his estranged wife to cure her of being a bitch and turn her loving the better.

The Narnia books predates even that, and Sansa’s direct parallel is Susan, and, yeah... “A silly and vain young woman” with “Plenty of time to mend” sounds very familiar when you hear how people blame Sansa and wants to force her into abusive marriages with repulsive men to mend her.

Not to mention that in Lord of the Rings and related works women are either paragons of virtue, evil, unnamed or are chastised for being ambitious, with a few, notable exceptions allowed to make “wrong” choices, and, well, just see the Elwing discourse in fandom and how her murderers who kidnapped and kept her children (Elrond and Elros, yes, that Elrond for those not familiar with Tolkien’s Legendarium and only watched the movies) as hostages are their ~*real parents*~ after committing a third almost-genocide against her people.

Yeah, no. GRRM doesn’t get to pretend he’s shocked and/or confused by his readers’ reception to Sansa (and Cat). He does not live, read nor write in a vacuum. This shit has been part of Fantasy fandom since long before ASoIaF was an errant idea in his head.

[vivithefolle]

Love isn’t a Deus Ex Machina thing, it’s literally the core theme of the series, hence why Love Magic exists

Love Magic is never a concept at any time in the series. It’s only about “Lily Potter’s spell”. But what’s so special about Lily Potter? What’s so great about her? She did the thing any halfway decent mother would do for their child: she gave her life for them. Molly would’ve done it for any of her sons. Narcissa would have done it for Draco. Mrs Granger the nonentity would have done it for her daughter had she not been lobotomized instead. Lily Potter’s sacrifice isn’t anything special. It’s only special because Rowling decided so, because the Plot needed it to be.

Love isn’t a Deus Ex Machina thing? Then how come Quirrel conveniently burned to death at Harry’s hands? How come Harry had to live at Privet Drive because reasons so he could be abused so naive readers like you could feel very sorry for the poor widdle orphan and pat themselves on the back because wow, aren’t you special for feeling sorry for the poor widdle orphan?

And I didn’t misunderstand Harry. I literally explained him to you

If you don’t like him, I don’t care. Just stop giving his uniqueness to other characters

And you literally showed me exactly why you don’t understand him.

Harry’s superpower isn’t teh special uniqueness of his luuuurve, or the absolute pure pureness of his heart, it’s that he has FRIENDS. Friends who’d die for him, friends who’d sacrifice themselves for him, friends who’d do anything for him. THAT’S the power of love, not some bullshit ~special pure pureness of the heart of Harry Christ our lord and savior~. Harry isn’’t unfailingly kind or uniquely loving or whatever the shit. Harry is a run-of-the-mill teenager who has such obscene luck I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he was conceived under the influence of Lucky Potion.

You just showed me you’re a member of the Church of Harry Christ and I’m not interested in joining. Dear God I thought I was too attached to fictional characters but wow am I glad I’m not at your level.

Also one more thing: “tortured” someone?

Sure. A painful stunner is DEF torture (that’s legit all his Crucio did; it acted as a painful stunner. It threw Carrow backwards and hurt him while it did. Crucio isn’t even close to that when performed properly)

............ you... you fucking little hypocrite.

You filthy, lying, little bitch cunt of a fucking hypocrite.

Remember when I said the next person who’d try to lie to me to pity poor wee widdle Hawwy would be sorry? You pathetic little piece of shit. If you’re so in luuurve with your precious cuntfuck of a camera archetype you’d accept EVERYTHING about him, wouldn’t you? Haha, but noooo. “Oh wee poor Hawwy only used a painful stunner :)))))))” you fucking little bitch. Oh you accuse ME of trying to “make Hawwy not special :(((” but you... YOU... Hahahaha sorry everyone. I have a slight aversion to people blatantly trying to gaslight me. You may find me getting a little bit angry if you happen to trod on this trigger of mine.

Let’s see that again shall we? Open your eyes and your chakras, bitch, we’re going for a ride.

“It’s not a case of what you’ll permit, Minerva McGonagall. You time’s over. It’s us what’s in charge here now, and you’ll back me up or you’ll pay the price.” And he spat in her face. Harry pulled the Cloak off himself, raised his wand, and said, “You shouldn’t have done that.” As Amycus spun around, Harry shouted, “Crucio!” The Death Eater was lifted off his feet. He writhed through the air like a drowning man, thrashing and howling in pain, and then, with a crunch and a shattering of glass, he smashed into the front of a bookcase and crumpled, insensible, to the floor. “I see what Bellatrix meant,” said Harry, the blood thundering through his brain, “you need to really mean it.” - Deathly Hallows

If I could reach through my screen to force you to look at the relevant bits, I would. And I’d also slap you in passing. Yknow, just so you think twice before being a stinking fucking hypocrite again in the future.

Now, let’s do some actual literary analysis that isn’t your ~wah hawwy puwe of heawt luuurrrve~ diarrhea you’re still trying to paint my poor innocent blog with.

Now let’s see that PaInFuL sTuNnEr in detail:

He writhed through the air like a drowning man, thrashing and howling in pain 

In bold so you can see it very well. Admire the curve of each letter, the angles and the lines. And most of all, interpret the meaning of each and every word. Watch how he’s compared to “a drowning man”, do you know how excruciatingly painful and distressing it is to drown? How the air fills your lungs as you claw desperately for the surface, trying to find something to cling to, anything, the feeling of your lungs filling with this foreign substance you cannot spit back out? The feeling of fading away as all your oxygen is consumed by the futility of your hopeless flailing, your muscles losing their strength, your panic dulling as you slip into unconsciousness and water claims yet another victim...

Of course, drowning people don’t thrash and howl in pain. Because all they’re focused on is trying to BREATHE. But Amycus’ focus isn’t on trying to breathe. Amycus is only focus on Harry’s Crucio and the pain it’s bringing him.

But sure Anon. A pAiNfUl StUnNeR. Fuck you.

and then, with a crunch and a shattering of glass 

Now I’m aware Dummywood has made you believe that glass can be traversed easy without any consequences but real glass doesn’t work like that. Real glass takes some force to shatter. Real glass shatters into hundreds of tiny pieces that embed themselves into your flesh and skin, kinda like... oh! Kinda like that glass chandelier that fell on Hermione, once. After she herself was Crucio’d if I remember well. Hmm, by whom exactly, I have it on the tip of my tongue...

“I see what Bellatrix meant,” 

Ah yes. By the woman who tortured to insanity Neville’s parents and whom Harry is literally acknowledging as having taught him this particular lesson.

Harry himself is TELLING US HE LISTENED TO BELLATRIX’S ADVICE. ON FUCKING TORTURING PEOPLE. But “a PaInFuL sTuNnEr He’S aN oRpHaN :’‘‘(((((”. Fuck off. Fuck off, Anon. Fuck off and learn to fucking read.

Ah but I got ahead of myself! We’re not even CLOSE to the point!

he smashed into the front of a bookcase and crumpled, insensible, to the floor 

So Amycus gets tortured - or, as Anon astutely put it, pAiNfUl StUnNeR - smashes through a sheet of glass, and gets knocked out.

Hmm. Now if Harry just took out a knife and brought it to Carrow’s neck, he’d be worthy of being called Bellatrix’s faithful apprentice.

And now I’m gonna quote one of my Quora answers again because my followers deserve better than to see me completely lose my mind at some anonymous cowardly cunt trying to lie to my fucking face.

On the topic of Harry’s Crucios:

This could mean that Harry is scarily proficient at casting Crucio, that Amycus has low pain tolerance or that he was knocked out when he fell, but regardless of the meaning, IT’S NOT GOOD. EVEN IF IT’S A DEATH EATER, EVEN IF HE PROBABLY DESERVES COMEUPPANCE - IT’S NOT HARRY’S JOB TO GIVE OUT SAID COMEUPPANCE.

(Like, can I please remind everyone that Harry is supposed to be the Jesus Christ of his story? In the Bible we never have Jesus Christ torturing the pharisees or any of those who didn’t believe in him. Just… you’re telling me Jesus “Peace and Love” Christ would torture people… what the hell, Joanne?)

“I see what Bellatrix meant,” said Harry, the blood thundering through his brain, “you need to really mean it.”

…………………….. Um. Harry, what the fuck are you doing???! He’s taken Bellatrix’s advice! He actually relates to the insane sadistic terrorist! He is capable of using a curse that literally requires sadism to work!

(Again, when someone tells me “Jesus Christ”, “sadism” isn’t the first word that would come to my mind.)

At least there’s some sort of reaction. “the blood thundering through his brain”. But that’s a very… nondescriptive reaction. Is it the “adrenaline pumping in my veins” blood? Is it the “holy shit what have I done” blood? Is it the “I could get used to this” blood?

We don’t know. We’ll never know.

Alright, skipping to the part that interests us -

She struggled to pull herself together. “Potter, that was foolish!”

Eh, I’d have said “tactically unsound” (what if Amycus wasn’t knocked out), “monstrous” (that’s Bellatrix’s favourite curse you’re using, Harry), “insane” (re: Bellatrix), but yeah, I guess “foolish” would also cover it.

“He spat at you,” said Harry.

Ever heard of Disproportionate Retribution, Harry? A few fascists regimes all over the world were especially fond of it.

Then I’m skipping over the one thing that causes the most outrage because I’ll go back to it soon, just let me finish with this:

“[…] but don’t you realize — ?” “Yeah, I do,” Harry assured her. Somehow her panic steadied him.

I guess we can imagine that McGee is saying “don’t you realize what you’ve just done?”

Harry “assures” her he realizes. Harry knows. Harry has just used the literal goddamn Torture Curse and he’s totally cool with it. Or, if he was uncool with it, now he’s cool with it. Because “her panic steadied him”. So seeing McGonagall panic makes Harry think “yeah, using Crucio was the right thing to do”.

Well then! Onwards then, Dark Lord Potter! First it’s just one Crucio, then it’s just three, then it’s just one little murder of one lowly little naysayer, then it’s only a little more murder…

And now we’ll go back a smidge, because how are we supposed to react?

How are we supposed to reconcile the idea of Harry, who’s supposed to save us all through his Power of Love, with the Harry that has just tortured a man into inconsciousness?

Even if that man was a Death Eater, Harry is supposed to be the Christ-like figure. He’s supposed to be love and forgiveness incarnate. Heck, not a hundred pages later he’ll offer forgiveness to freaking Voldemort! He forgives Draco Malfoy, he forgives Albus Dumbledore, he forgives Severus Snape!

So how do we reconcile Harry Potter The Forgiver with Harry Potter The Torturer? Tell us, O Author! Tell us how to navigate the murky, twisted depths of human morality!!

“Potter, I — that was very — very gallant of you — […]”

…

…………………

………………………………………………

That was… gallant?

Gallant?

Wait, doesn’t gallantry imply some form of honor?

As in, not taking your opponent by surprise -

Harry pulled the Cloak off himself, raised his wand…

As in, facing your opponent head-on instead of hitting them in the back -

As Amycus spun around, Harry shouted…

As in, not torturing your opponent???

He writhed through the air like a drowning man, thrashing and howling in pain

That’s… unless the definition has changed, nothing about this is gallant…

Let me just -

(of a man) polite and kind towards women, especially when in public

showing no fear of dangerous or difficult things

Alright, so, Amycus isn’t a woman, so Harry can’t, by definition, be “gallant” to him.

Still, being “polite and kind” to a woman didn’t involve “torturing someone who disrespected her”, last time I checked. Punching an asshole harrassing her, definitely *pats Ron*, but torturing that asshole… no, just no.

And well, I guess casting Cruciatus is a difficult thing to do… and Harry didn’t seem very afraid to do it… that’s not supposed to be a good thing, but apparently, now it is…?

What made that

As Amycus spun around, Harry shouted, “Crucio!”

more gallant than

“What else did you take, what else? ANSWER ME! CRUCIO!”

After all, they’re the exact same thing. Torture. Inflicting tremendous pain upon someone for the heck of it.

Why do people lose their heads over Harry using Crucio, when they seem to neglect the fact that Draco Malfoy cast it?

Well, easy enough - Draco Malfoy is an evil little cockroach. The guy wished death upon people, he bragged about the fact that his Daddy dearest was a terrorist who killed people. It’s not too surprising that an evil little cockroach like him would find it acceptable to torture someone he considers “not human”, isn’t it?

What’s more surprising however, is that the hero, Harry Potter, who has been subjected to the Torture Curse, whose only use of the Torture Curse previously was when he felt distress and pain unlike any other, that Harry Potter whom is supposed to be a hero and some sort of role model, would actually manage to use said Torture Curse even though it requires real sadism to actually work.

And what’s even worse is that Harry Potter casts that curse, that literal Torture Curse, and instead of being rightly horrified, instead of being terrified by the boy’s use of such a heinous spell, instead of saying “alright Harry, you’re not doing this again, ever, right?”, instead…

Instead McGonagall calls Harry “gallant”, instead of telling him off for using such a curse. She briefly calls him “foolish”, but it doesn’t register, really, since she ends up calling him “gallant”.

That’s what angers people. That the Torture Curse is the most horrible, awful thing you can do to people… unless you’re Harry Potter, in which case it is a little “foolish”, but mostly “gallant”.

......................

But of course, little Anon over here isn’t angered. Because little Anon is a faithful devoted member of the Church of Harry Christ Our Lord And Saviour. Little Anon can say enormities like A pAiNfUl StUnNeR and believe it with the whole force of their little Anon heart, because uwu Hawwy speshul orphan pure lurve uwu.

Little Anon, please get the fuck out of my blog and never, ever come back. I’m sure this arrangement will be beneficial for everyone involved.

[trilies]

Someone tried to come up with a “sfwrarepair week” for a fandom i’m in because they had problems with the mods of the actual rarepair week shutting down wank and being open to all rarepairs

but their interest post was, like. terrible.

and i had to write a super long response to it because it frustrated me so much, with the op clearly not caring about actual csa survivors despite ~wanting to help them~

but then the post disappeared from the main tag and i couldn’t reblog the post even from the op’s original site and so this has just been hanging around in a plurk paste i’ve had open for weeks now, so i figured i should just fling it out there because i’m not wasting that work lmao

This post (and if I’m honest, the base idea) is actually harmful to actual CSA survivors and I’d like to call attention to this, especially since the OP isn’t giving the impression that they’re interested in the words of an actual CSA survivor.

I’m going to go in order of the post to give my criticism.

1. “being a safespace for minors, csa victims, incest survivors, people of color, LGBT individuals, etc.”

If this were just about making people feel safe, then there would be zero need to judge or insult people outside the group as occurs repeatedly throughout this post - the focus would be on the people IN the group.

For that matter, you wouldn't make an open call for a group like this anyway because the people in it would all have different comfort levels, so you can't just go "oh all this content will be safe for you" - you don't even know what their needs are yet. How can you guarantee that?

“Safe” ships, even those defined by the OP, can still be written in a way that is triggering or problematic.

Triggers aren't just in what the relationship is, they can be in the subject matter or the theme or what happens in the fic and it's like...okay, how much are you screening for? How are you protecting your members beyond just screening what ships are allowed?

A group actually meant to help abuse survivors, people with triggers, etc would not just have a flat set of rules set out before it's even got members, it would be organically constructed with consideration to the people in it and what their specific needs are.

That is only speaking of CSA and incest survivors as well... because that’s all this post suggests. It offers nothing in terms of how it would explicitly help queer fans, or fans of color. What it does offer for CSA survivors? (The only one I would say I am qualified to speak of in terms of experience.) Only vague platitudes that, from my perspective, only apply to the ideal of CSA survivors. Not actual CSA survivors, like those who do ship things you don’t approve of because it helps them recover.

Which actually leads us to

2. “this means there would not be ANY pedophilic [...] ships”

First of all, as a CSA survivor: stop using “pedophilia” as a description for fictional ships. This dilutes both the actual meaning and the seriousness of the word, which in turn harms actual victims as that word is robbed from them. Use an actual definition.

Because that’s the second issue with this statement, in that there is no actual definition given. That is a problem in the current fandom climate because, along with diluting the seriousness of the word, the meaning now varies wildly from person to person.

By “pedophilic”, do you mean a ship featuring someone 18 or up with someone beneath that age? What about characters where it’s unclear, such as Xanxus, who was frozen at age 16 and one could argue that he’s still that age? Or that he’s not because anime? What about with a gimmick that features time travel, such as the canon instance of Hana liking TYL Lambo and not recognizing or liking him as 5 year old Lambo? Where do the Arcobaleno fit in any of this?

By “pedophilic”, do you mean any ships featuring characters that are under the age of 18? Is it only pedophilic if it’s an 18+ adult shipping them? How are you going to check for that? What about the canon time travel used as both a gimmick and an arc?

Other types who allege they’re against “pedophilic ships” have said that it’s any ship with a height difference, any age difference at all even if the characters are still both adults, if a character’s boobs are too small, if a character isn’t smart. And, yes, those are all things I’ve actually seen!

Or will you oblige anyone who claims a particular ship is pedophilic?

This vagueness is a problem. Admittedly, the vagueness was not started by you, but it was started by people who claimed the same intentions as you, OP, and if you’re going to make a claim that you want to help CSA survivors, then you need to be far more clear than this.

3. [the same thing but re: incest]

Admittedly, I’ve seen this as less of a problem with misusing incest, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t seen it at all. You may want to clarify that you mean explicit blood relations (for example, Bianchi and Gokudera) or... Well, I can’t recall anyone explicitly adopted, but the idea is the same there. None of the “they referred to each other as brothers, ignoring how that’s often used in a way that has nothing to do with incest, but so that makes it totally incest”.

4. “ otherwise harmful ships”

This is the largest red flag out of everything, and we’re not even past the first rule in the original post. This has a similar problem to everything else about this list of not-allowed ship, only it’s much worse because it’s target is arguably everything.

What do you mean by “harmful”, OP?

Do we judge “harmful” because of the characters, or because of the ship?

How will you regulate this incredibly harmful descriptor so that it isn’t misappropriated by bullies and harassers to silence fans, whether as them as a person or what they ship? Because I can guarantee you that I could come up with any completely bullshitted reason to hate on every single character or ship combination from KHR, and others easily could as well for malicious reasons.

This is a frankly terrible rule and, considering the kind of rampant bullying that comes from people who like to claim they’re against ““pedophilic”“ ships against CSA victims, I do not trust it. I do not trust it at all.

5. “this blog would NOT be in “competition” or in any kind of rivalry with the original khr rarepair week blog”

Now this is either an outright lie, or someone who has not considered their own words, and I could not tell you which is worse when it comes to a declaration of a “safe space” for minorities or people with trauma like CSA and incest survivors.

The entire original post ABSOLUTELY positions itself as competition to the actual khr rarepair week, not an alternative. Not only does it position itself as “competition”, but it tries to sell itself to people as the “better choice”.

It’s an attempt at a bit of sleight of hand. The post tries to show itself as friendly, just here to help people... But, as I stated before, if it really had an interest in helping people, it would focus on those people.

Instead, numerous times, you see the OP making judgment calls and negative comments to others - mainly implications of people participating in the actual khr rarepair week. There’s a series of connections throughout the entire post:

We start with “pedophilic ships” being banned to “help” CSA survivors in the first rule, and then leap from that to, in the second rule, “people who don’t feel comfortable in an event run by people who support pedo ships”.

(Reminder: still no idea on what ““pedo”“ ships even are by OP’s definition.)

So we’ve already started by associating the people participating in the regular khr rarepair week as the problem, instead of people simply not being comfortable with just the ships themselves - fictional things that are easily avoided.

Then, at the very end, the OP makes the explicit connection between ““pedo”“ ships and “freaks”.

So is the connection clear yet? The way they steadily escalate things until the implication at the very end? How that all does its best to frame KHR Rarepair Week as a negative? As something that Good People (tm) would never do unless they “must”? The implication that their “SFW” rarepair week is better?

So for the OP to claim they’re not trying to start anything, while their entire post ramps up the connection between khr rarepair week and Terrible Things (tm), is a... dubious claim at best.

The rest of the post isn’t that big a deal. It serves perfectly fine as a base interest check for half of it. However, the other half? That other half set off warning flags so intensely for me as a CSA survivor that I couldn’t stay quiet. I’m not saying this to be a “troll”, or to start trouble for no reason.

Additionally, that good half is tarnished by the problems of the bad half. If these are the red flags I feel they are, then that means if there are people in the group who harass others - I can already spot what-the-fuck-khr in there, a notable harasser who has called a CSA survivor a slur - then it weakens the promise to make this a truly safe space.

It’s simply that I’ve seen a lot of people claim they care about CSA survivors, a lot of fans who try to prop people like me up to signal their own virtue, only for them to turn around and lash out at CSA survivors like myself when we do not exist as only a prop, when we step a toe out of line.

If that happens again, then I don’t want anyone to be caught in that, especially some of the wonderful people I’m familiar with in the tags, such as [blank] or [blank]. I see a lot of red flags in there that I’ve seen harm other people when left unchecked.

If people want to give this a shot as run by the OP, that’s their right, and I wouldn’t take that away from them. I believe it is important to help and look after CSA survivors, especially us for one another. However, I feel like these criticisms are something anyone going for this should keep in mind, especially if they’re not CSA survivors.

Maybe I’m wrong about all of this. I will freely admit that the original post set me off something awful. Maybe some of my concerns are merely because this is an interest check post, and there wasn’t time for the OP to go indepth on just what they think “pedophilic” ships actually are, etc.

If that’s the case, then I’ll gladly have a discussion with the OP, if they truly care about CSA survivors and what is harmful to them. I’ll recant if I can be reassured this is all in good faith, and even support this endeavor.

However, as a CSA survivor, this post as it is worries and frustrates me.

[janiedean]

hello dearest (not) anon, excuse me if I don’t reply to you directly but as I want to block each single one of you I’ll keep the original so I can lovingly delete it after I’m finished. :)

now, I was this tempted to just delete or troll you, but as y’all have honestly seemed to not realize that you’ve gone overboard and that I didn’t want to get further involved with this dumb shipwar but you’re basically making me go like

so fine, whatever, I’ll address this one because it has all the single dumbest arguments we could have and I kind of want it for safekeeping, so.

point one: starting an ask with you freaks and then complain we don’t complain about jaime calling brienne ugly makes me wonder if you actually re-read your asks before you send them or if you even bother to make sure they’re internally coherent, because sorry but you’re basically saying this entire fandom is made of **freaks** which last I know was not a compliment to anyone’s aesthetic, so you already don’t have ground to stand on;

point two: stupid is actually a universally degrading word when referred to a specific person and used to undermine their intelligence, especially if continuously repeated. now, in *itself* it’s not damning - an argument can be stupid, a discussion can be stupid (I mean I’ve seen people savagely arguing over who had to wash the dishes, that’s a stupid reason to argue with anyone), a law can be stupid (all of italian bureaucracy is definitely a challenge for anyone for one), of course it’s all about how it’s used. for one, if used ironically and not meaning it, as in ‘my stupid son charging against dragons’, it’s not damning either, because wow, wait a moment, every single person who says that also knows that jaime is doing that out of ptsd fight instinct and that there’s nothing funny about it, but as we are people outside the narrative who love the character, we don’t mean it in a demeaning way. obviously charging at a dragon is suicidal, and it’s exactly what he’d have done (probably also in book canon I’ll give them that), but we all know why he did it, and btw dork is nowhere near on the same level as the stupidest lannister, it can be meant positively as well and tbh it’s used way more positively than that - I mean, there’s dorks in love and idiots in love as ao3 tags, no one uses them to insult the people in the ship they’re writing about now, do they? however, the whole thing about ‘the stupidest lannister’ is completely different because it implies cersei, someone jaime trusts implicitly and who’s his sister and, to him, also his lover and his other half - going by your own/their own definition - continuously demeaning his intelligence. now, I don’t think you quite realize how emotional abuse works or how that works, but let me tell you: if people you are that close with or have a fundamental impact in your upbringing (your parents, your siblings, your first teachers etc.) tell you that all the time, you end up believing that. and what comes with it? if you think you’re more stupid then them, then it means that their decisions will be better than yours because you’re too dumb to take them properly and they’re not, and you won’t even start to wonder that maybe they’re wrong and you’re right, and it’s an exceedingly common thing that happens between abusers and their victims, ie convincing them that they’re not smart enough to know what’s good for themselves, and so coming from cersei who also doesn’t want jaime to put two and two together and realize he’s a different person from her and actually, worse, doesn’t even consider the possibility that he might actually not be a different person from her, it’s straight up emotional abuse of the ugliest kind and it has nothing to do with *fans of the character* calling him a dork over his utter lack of smoothness when hitting on people, because we know why he doesn’t know how to hit on people. other than that, in the show they made jaime canonically dyslexic. now, if you even don’t get that calling someone stupid for thirty years will do a great fucking lot of damage to them (I mean, I’ve been told I was snobbish for three years by a teacher I didn’t even particularly admire in my formative years and I still have to finish unpacking the consequence of that shit, I can’t imagine being constantly demeaned by your relatives or people you trust implicitly) I doubt you’ll realize the fucking wrongness depths of the implication that the only lannister with a canon in-show learning disability is *the stupidest lannister* especially when there’s still the stigma about dyslexic people being dumb because *they can’t read* when that’s not true at all and they just need different ways of approaching a text and then they’re good to go and it has nothing to do with how smart or no they aren’t, but I’m going to tell you: it’s ableist as hell, falls under harmful stereotypes about dyslexic people that tv shows should go against, not reinforce and it has really disgusting connotations, so excuse me if I am pressed about it and other people are pressed about it and your opinion belongs in the trash and I really hope you’re not a teacher not are planning to become one;

point three: now we go at how you don’t get at all how those two work and how brienne’s character is structured, but here, let me explain you: a) jaime calls her ugly when they meet and after he loses the hand he only calls her ugly in his head and/or to her face when he’s irritated or she has misunderstood his intentions or he feels hurt by the fact that she misunderstood his intentions (when he gives her oathkeeper in the books), and in the show he stopped mid S3. on the other side, she calls him an oathbreaker and all the worst things she can call him - if you missed it, they insult each other and they start their relationship thinking the worst of the other person, and even with that he spends the entire first chapter of his in asos checking her out but you didn’t notice that I suppose; b) jaime does not call her ugly at all after he punches ronnet connington and in the show again he hasn’t since mid s3, and given that they were supposed to start as enemies and she insulted him right back, I won’t be here being pressed about them trading insults when the entire point of the story is that they stop insulting each other after they get to know each other and get closer to each other, or have you missed that too? c) the fact that he calls her ugly is actually narratively important because let me explain you something that you don’t know because you obv. haven’t read brienne’s chapters: most of the time she remembers being hurt by other men when it comes to her feelings, it’s when she found out they lied to her about her looks. she got her first trauma related to her looks when her septa told her that people who called her pretty were lying, and she got hurt during the bet with hyle and so on because those people were courting her and telling her nice things and then they were all planning on screwing her literally and metaphorically, so if someone went to brienne and told her ‘oh hey you look hot as hell let’s bang!!’, she wouldn’t believe them. let me guarantee you, she wouldn’t. the fact that jaime did not compliment her at all if not going all the way around to do it about her fighting prowess and maskerading it as insults means that he never lied to her about her looks or about anything, and the fact that then he changes and genuinely respects her and trusts in her and gives her THE THING SHE’S WANTED MOST IN HER LIFE ie a sword and a knightly quest and someone actually believing she could be a knight and carry out her vows instead of thinking she was a joke weights a lot more than any insult he might have thrown at her in the past and actually, she can trust him to not make fun of her/she can know for sure he’s not joking exactly because he never had a problem with calling her ugly (which she knows she is according to westeros beauty standards in the beginning) nor to tell her mean things when he thought them, and so since he never lied to her before and she can see that he changed, she has no reason to think he could or would lie to her after, and considering that most of her trauma is tied to having been lied to in that sense... sorry but no, it doesn’t bother me at all because if it’s an enemies to lovers kind of trope I really don’t think I’d expect him to gift her flowers at their first meeting. I mean, *enemies* to *lovers* implies that at the beginning they don’t like each other, or did you forget that words have meanings? also, hairy is not an insult. I suppose that for people who insult other people about the peach fuzz mustache most women have it would be an insult, but let me tell you: it’s not. and given that I’ve seen posts over posts about how it’s an expression of feminism to not shave I really think you haven’t even checked that discourse lately - personally I don’t care for it but like, having body hair is not automatically a crime nor a reason why you’re unattractive. get lost. and like, excuse me if insults traded by people who didn’t know each other and that they both outgrew when they did know each other are nowhere near on the same level of making someone think they’re too fucking stupid to take their own decisions and always have to follow someone else’s lead, and excuse me if I’m way more than mildly worried that anyone in this fandom would look at that stupidest lannister bullshit and actually don’t feel horrified at it.

now, honestly, can y’all just stop with this grasping at straws which happens to also be ableist as hell while pretending to give a fuck about brienne as a character - because you don’t, it’s obvious from how you don’t understand her issues at all - and keep to your own lane or what? because honestly, it’s obvious no one has ever called you ugly in your life and that you never had to deal with anyone demeaning your intelligence because you were most likely too busy demeaning other people’s, but you’ve been at this bullshit since 2013.

didn’t you get bored?\

[ableism-in-anime]

This post is for those who do not know about ableism. What is ableism, you ask? Ableism is the belief that “able-bodied people” or superior to those with disabilities. However, the definition is not only defined by the belief that only non-disabled people can living fulfilling lives, but also that disabled people cannot be strong, that their disability equals weakness, or a fate worse than death. 

I have heard rumors over the last couple of days about Kakashi Retsuden カカシ烈伝 and that the fact that Naruto was sick freaked the people the fuck out. There were cries that single page out of a 200+ novel was bad writing, and now Naruto wouldn’t be able to fight Jigen. 

And that it was lazy writing for an author to have a character become sick or physically weakened. 

First, those who spread rumors without knowing the facts will only be disappointed and spread misinformation. Secondly, we don’t know what Naruto’s illness is. Thirdly, Naruto and Jigen haven’t even met, much less fought. Fourthly, the lazy writing argument is stupid. 

I have heard this line before. 

To quote Levi, “All of them, whining like brats.” Interestingly enough, the character was the focus on the “lazy writing.”

To say that Levi’s death by a suicide bomb by Zeke is the definition of stupid. Would you say that death by starvation or malnutrition is stupid, because a lot of people in the Underground died from those conditions. 

Zeke was in a bind in SNK 114. He could not move, his most feared enemy had him cornered, and he had nothing else on his mind besides ending himself and Levi because of it. It was because of Levi that Zeke’s best plan was to blow themselves up with a bomb. 

How is this stupid?

Oh, I know why. 

People were expecting Levi to die in a blaze of glory, or against some magnificent foe that would end his life. 

Death doesn’t work that way. RL does not work that way. 

And people who say that Levi’s death is “stupid” and that his life is over because he probably lost an arm or a leg...

Is that really true? Someone’s life isn’t over because they lost a leg or an arm. They become part of a community that has survived despite the best of humanity to snuff us out. 

Getting the “Might Guy” treatment is also ableist. Or maybe, it is simply because when Might Guy was saved by Naruto and that he was alive in a wheelchair, fans were in an uproar. 

I remember it well because I too agreed. This was not from a disability standpoint, but from a medical standpoint. Might Guy should have died from the effects of the Eight Gates. His body was crumbling into ashes. The blaze of glory was not an option. Now Might Guy had to spend the rest of his days in a wheelchair. 

Something in the recent anime adaptation made me admire Guy more than anyone else. In the novel, when Kakashi said that he would do anything to heal Might Guy’s legs, Guy told him,

“What do two legs matter? As long as I am by your side...”

That sentence also reflects Levi’s situation too. 

If Levi had something to live for, a friend like Kakashi to live by his side, then perhaps it wouldn’t matter if he was disabled or not. But Erwin is dead, and Levi has failed to kill the Beast Titan again.

The issue is that Levi will, supposedly be “weak” because of his disability. He won’t be able to fight anymore. He won’t fulfill the fantasies that we had for him. 

Death is apparently preferable to becoming weak and the abilities gone, because all people who are in a wheelchair don’t exist and would rather be dead than be weak, right?

Don’t make me laugh. 

As of right now, Naruto’ s illness is unknown. Shikamaru only said. ［ままじゃ、ままナルトの一生…」 It doesn’t mean Naruto is dying. The translation said, “If this continues, for his entire life...” Being sick is similar to a disability by the pity people have towards us, the underestimation people have, always. 

But it does not mean your life is over. It does not mean that you are ready to roll over and die! There are less painful days and more painful ones, but that doesn’t mean that our lives are over. 

Ableism in anime exists. How many times have I seen a weak (typically female) individual bedridden and unable to stand due to illness?

In The Promised Neverland, Lucas, who had physical disabilities and facial scarrs due to fighting demons and used a cane, had “a whole” body with no scarring in the afterlife as he reunited with his friends who died. 

That is almost as bad as people posting pictures of Stephen Hawking walking and standing after his death. 

 If there is a person with a disability, there is a common trope of wanting to be cured by loved ones or the person with the disability itself. Tegami Bachi also had this trope, but Sylvette Suede was at least useful and not used as a pity devise. However, in the last chapter, Sylvette stands out of her wheelchair.

Emil, a blind girl, was an antagonist due to the abuse she suffered as a child and didn’t even get any sympathy from Lag, out of all people, for the complexity of the abuse and the town people’s history. 

It not only paints disability in a negative light, but also ignores the trauma of child abuse, neglect, and emotional abuse Emil suffered through her life only to die at the end.  

What kind of message does that send to people, especially children with disabilities?

Koe no Katachi is a brilliant work. It is not perfect, but the main focus is on redemption and self-love by a former bully, not on the poor life of Shouko.

 In Sunset with Orihara Izaya, the main character Izaya uses a wheelchair. Some, including Izaya state that he deserves to be in the situation he is in now. However, I do not view this as ableism. 

Izaya is a manipulative man with a history of observing his “beloved humans” and observing them destroying their lives. By no means, is he a good character. However, he is not a villain. Shinra, Izaya’s childhood friend, says as much. 

In volume 13 of Durarara!! Izaya and Shizuo try to kill each other one last time. Shizou, using his superhuman strength, throws Izaya against a building that causes internal bleeding, a spinal cord injury, and many other injuries. 

But, hey, Izaya tried to set Shizuo’s building on fire. 

Eventually, Izaya is taken away by his “allies” for treatment. His wounds are massive, and it unknown if he would survive or not. 

Izaya himself states that he deserves the pain. Even though his broken arms and other internal wounds are healed, it causes him great pain to stand or even walk. The author has confirmed that the pain in Izaya’s legs are psychosomatic and are from mental trauma. Two years after the final battle, Izaya’s pain has not improved, because he refuses to go to physical therapy because he deserves the pain for not acknowledging “Shizu-chan” as human. He acknowledges that he has been a coward, and that his love for humans was a selfish one. He did not get close to his “precious humans” and simply observed them. This pinpoints a reason for Izaya’s behavior and psychology. 

Izaya had to raise his twin sisters on his own as a child. His parents were never around, and his “loving” father noticed with concern that Izaya was rather anti-social as a child. Simply observing humans and their behavior continued to be Izaya’s favorite hobby. 

Izaya is afraid to love. He is afraid to be kind because his parents never showed him love in the first place. His sisters said they would be sad “ for a little bit before they would laugh” if he died. 

Izaya distanced himself from his “humans,” cowardly and selfish, as he acknowledged years later.

However, the disability does not stop him from working. Oh, no. That is why I believe Izaya is not a victim of ableism. He continues to work as a information broker and actually helps people. Although he had some involvement in their fathers’ deaths, Izaya is the semi-guardian of two children name Hinami and Haruto after their mothers tried to kill each other and then their children. He saved them from actual death, whereas before, he would have been content to see what “his precious humans would do next” and leaving the children on their own after saving them. 

At the end of the novel, a young couple was freed from bondage because of Izaya. 

He even allows Haruto to spin him around in his wheelchair to the point where he falls off. He does manage to hold onto a coffee table though and transfers his body back into the wheelchair. 

So, before any of you whine about lazy writing, think about ableism. 

SNK 115 

Sunset with Orihara Izaya cover.

[nellie-elizabeth]

The Walking Dead: The Calm Before (9x15)

Oh, for fuck's sake.

Cons:

I'm going to start with some personal context here: when I watched this episode, my DVR recording for some reason cut it off early, at the cliffhanger moment when Alpha sits next to Lydia in the movie theatre. I wasn't paying much attention to how long the episode had been, so I thought that was the final moment of the episode. I was all geared up to write a quite favorable review - lots of tense moments, good character buildup, etc. etc. But then I realized there was still fifteen minutes to go, and now I have to deal with this bullshit.

The problem with The Walking Dead is they have this huge over-bloated cast of people, most of whom we don't really care about, and then periodically in order to make us understand how evil a villain is, some of these characters will get killed off. But there's always some problem with the way they pull off the deaths: either they are way too built up and foreshadowed, and every ounce of drama is wrung out of the moment (Glenn, Carl), or else it's a character we kind of care about, and they're given a bunch of attention and more character development suddenly, and it becomes obvious they're about to die (Jesus), or they're someone I barely know at all and I'm not sure why I'm supposed to be so devastated about it (several of the deaths in this episode).

Really, we should talk about the Big Three Deaths.

Enid. She falls into the "Jesus" category for me, in that we suddenly get all these moments with her being all cute with her boyfriend, and I instantly thought she was going to get killed off. Or he was. One of them, anyway. It's hard to care about this, because I don't really feel like I know Enid at all, especially post time-jump. She's just another random Hilltop community member at this point.

Tara. I'm too exhausted to repeat my tirade about this show killing off all its queer characters. At least there are still those two girls whose names I don't know yet. Or whatever. And at least there's still Aaron. The thing with a big ensemble cast like this is that it's not necessarily the end of the world if some queer characters die, as long as there are plenty of other ones on the show, and that kind-of-sort-of is what's going on here, so I won't repeat myself on explaining why it sucks to kill off queer characters. Instead, let's just talk about how stupid it is to kill off Tara specifically. Hilltop just lost Jesus, and now it's lost Tara, and it all feels so pointless. And I don't mean pointless in the way it's supposed to feel pointless. It feels narratively pointless. Tara has been around for a really long time, and she never really came into her own as a character. I've never disliked her, but I've never felt all that invested in her either. Maybe she was somewhat superfluous to the story that this show wants to be telling. But instead of constantly bringing in new characters and over-extending the cast, and then killing off people who have been around for years to make room for newbies, why not take the time to actually develop these characters? Why not make us care about Tara the way we care about Daryl or Carol or Michonne, so that if she dies, it means something?

Finally, Henry. I will admit, there are some aspects to Henry dying here that I'm going to put in the "pros" section too, because I genuinely did not see it coming, and there are some interesting possibilities coming off of this. But on the other hand... why now? Henry was an annoying brat when this season started, and I had just started to get a bit invested in him... and then he's dead. It would have meant a hell of a lot more if we'd had a whole additional season with him, if we'd seen him grow, if I came to care about him the way I once cared about Carl. This show has this problem of dragging some things out waaaayyyy too far, and then cutting other things off before they've had a chance to develop and mature. It's annoying. I'm always feeling robbed of the better show that we could have had if certain plot threads could be disposed of, and different characters could be given the limelight.

The frustrating thing about this dramatic mass-killing is that so many people had to make mistakes in order for it to happen. It was just so contrived that when various groups started splitting up, Carol, Michonne, and Daryl would be the three together, along with one of the new-ish characters whose name I still don't know. They're idiots to let themselves get surrounded by the Whisperers. After all these years, do they not have any tactical common sense? And also, not to put too fine a point on it, Alpha is an idiot for not killing Daryl, Michonne, and Carol when she had the chance. If she really wanted to punish the various communities for their defiance, that would have been the way to do it. These three characters are protected because they're the most popular characters on the show (they're certainly the only three that I personally care about at this point), not because it makes sense in-universe for them to be the ones to always survive.

Pros:

One of the reasons that I found the deaths to be so unsatisfying is that the rest of this episode was doing some really good work. I was completely drawn in, loving the suspense, enjoying the happiness of the Fair, dreading Alpha's retaliation... it was all great stuff, and even the setup for the deaths, seeing the heads on spikes, would have worked really well for me if it weren't for the buildup resulting in those specific characters' deaths.

The first thing that was awesome about this episode? The Fair. I resisted Carol being a part of the Kingdom for a long time because I didn't like how it separated her from the rest of the group, and I was skeptical of Ezekiel. He just seemed too goofy to me, even though I know that's sort of the whole point. But now? I understand their relationship, I understand the Kingdom, and I believe in it. That scene where the leaders of the various communities signed the Constitution was incredibly moving. I think it's important in a show like this for the characters to have something they're fighting for. Despite all of the loss and pain, they have to remain strong for something bigger than any one person. The Fair was a great symbol of that, and I like the fact that we lingered on it long enough to understand what's really at stake here.

This episode did a great job being genuinely scary, too. As predictable as some of the deaths were, in terms of the character set-up as I've described above, I'll admit I wasn't expecting the slaughter in this episode. I thought maybe it would wait until next week. Everyone thought that Hilltop would be the target of the Whisperer's wrath, and I'll admit that I got caught up in that assumption as well, even though the Kingdom made more sense in terms of the narrative. And when the groups went out to go defend Hilltop, I was scanning their numbers, wondering which among them were going to die, so it was a doubly effective twist that the victims were people supposedly safe at the Fair. When we first see Alpha in that dress, with the wig, just wandering among the people, it genuinely startled me and made me very nervous. That tension kept escalating throughout the whole rest of the episode. The whole scene in the movie theatre freaked me out. I kept waiting for a mass attack to happen, and when it didn't, the tension stayed with me as we saw Lydia and Alpha talking. Great pacing, great acting, great score, all in service of a very frightening atmosphere.

Lydia has really grown on me. Obviously there will be some people who are livid that so much was lost because of her, but I think we're seeing that these communities don't want to give up their values, no matter the cost. They've offered Lydia asylum, and even though the consequences of that decision were devastating, it was still the right thing to do, and I believe that Daryl, Michonne, and the others will continue to protect her, in honor of the people who lost their lives, especially Henry. Lydia has a great moment where she stands up to Alpha. It's important to remember the degree to which this poor girl has been brainwashed throughout her entire life. Escaping an abusive parent is no easy task, and I think we're going to see the trauma play out in interesting ways. Or at least I hope that's where this is going. Lydia could be a really cool and interesting character to explore more deeply.

Oh, Daryl. He was killing it in this episode. I loved the little nod he gave to Carol when Alpha led him away at gunpoint. It was him saying "it's okay" and "goodbye" and everything else all at once. We get two Carol and Daryl hugs, once when Daryl, Lydia, Henry, and Connie show up at the Kingdom, and once again when Daryl returns after his one-on-one with Alpha. He just loves Carol and Michonne both so much. When we see the heads on spikes moment, Daryl notices Henry first and runs to Carol, desperate to save her this pain. He holds her and tells her to just look at him. My heart broke for the both of them. I also liked the little detail of Daryl taking Lydia to the spikes (heads removed, of course), so that Lydia can say goodbye to Henry. Daryl has been isolating himself since losing Rick, but we can see how community-oriented he really is, how much he cares about the people around him and how much he wants to nurture them.

A few other little details that I enjoyed: I surprisingly didn't mind Rosita and Eugene's little moment, even if the whole plot scenario is still a little eye-roll worthy. I liked seeing Judith playing with other kids, enjoying the freedom and fun of the Fair, and I loved when she and Carol had their little moment. It's so sad to think of Carol not being a big part of Rick's daughter's life, but we see that Judith still remembers her, and I'm sure they'll be together again now. Ezekiel's opening speech at the Fair about Rick and Carl was really great, and helped to tie together the themes of this season. Connie and Daryl's goodbye, with Daryl asking Connie to watch the dog... I could see a real friendship developing between those two. Connie and her sister's conversation, hinting at some backstory stuff that I'd be interested to get back to. Luke being buddies with Enid's boyfriend, excited to play music at the Fair. I actually really like Luke and I hope we get to spend more time with him.

Finally, Siddiq's speech at the end. It's taken a whole season to unpack the reasons for Michonne's fear and isolation. It's taken all season to start getting some answers about the communities being estranged from each other, and we still don't have all the pieces of the puzzle. When I saw those heads on those spikes, one of my first reactions was to be worried that we'd backslide on all that character development. Michonne and Aaron would pull back and stay in Alexandria, Ezekiel's dreams of union and trade would collapse, and we'd be back to square one. It's possible that that's where we're going with all of this, but I actually doubt it. We can see how devastated everyone is, obviously, but hopefully this latest challenge will bring them even closer together, and when the Whisperers are gone, harmony can continue to grow.

So yeah. I liked so much of this episode. I liked the build-up and the atmosphere and several of the character beats. And yet here we are with another slaughter, a bunch of characters that were only just getting interesting, suddenly killed off so that we're clear on the fact that the Whisperers are bad guys. Yeesh. Annoying.

7.5/10

[digoxinpurpurea2-blog]

One of my grandfathers died of AIDS complications before I was born.

There, that's my pound of flesh. You have to present those before anyone listens to you on this fucking website.

I didn't delete my tumblr because oh no I'm the Hamilton cannibal mermaid freak. I have been that for years. And, for what it's worth, I never interacted with Israa as Israa. She tried to interact with me, once, two years ago, about the intentionally dumb garbage I wrote in my spare time. I ignored her because I didn't know who she was and I didn't care.

Nah, I deleted my tumblr because you freaks kept sending me death threats and I couldn't exactly deal with that after being awake for four days and trying to manage the emotional fallout of this monster.

Don't send people death threats, you fucking loons.

This was not about fandom, because I do not orient my world around fandom. This was about my grandfather, and not just him, and not just the other people I have known who have had their lives irrevocably altered by HIV, and not just the fact that she stole money. This was about basic common decency. It's not about me. I'm not going to pretend I'm an angel or anything but I have never done anything like this.

But this is not about me.

The person behind hivliving, Alix McLiar:

1. Lives in a $500,000 waterfront house in a wealthy suburb in the US with her married and very wealthy parents, both of whom have terminal degrees in the sciences

2. Goes to a prestigious private out-of-state university on a merit scholarship worth approximately $250,000 over four years. Or maybe not. Maybe she got kicked out. Still not sure. Her school has been contacted multiple times by multiple people, and the chief of police of her university told me that she would be punished appropriately. I believe, at least, that she's no longer involved in the school's anti-racism groups as an administrator, and I know that her advisor knows, and that the head of the diversity office knows, and that her friends all know and have completely stopped talking to her. Rephrase: she went to a prestigious university while this was going on, majoring in a healthcare-related field.

3. Went to one of the best high schools in the United States

4. Started racefaking on the internet early in her senior year of high school, possibly earlier - she was 17 at the time and is 19 now

5. Vacations internationally with some frequency

6. Is white and cisgender and REALLY FUCKING RICH, meaning she definitely used the money she got as “Israa” for drugs or something

7. Is probably going to do this again

She used the following identities:

1. Israa, Liar Prime - bigender bisexual Chinese-Pakistani 19-year-old, from the China-Pakistan border (once or twice specified as westernmost Xinjiang), HIV+ after being trafficked into sexual slavery by her parents as a young teenager, Muslimah, hijabi, once had her eye popped out of its socket after someone found out her HIV status, once raped and robbed by police at gunpoint, pregnant, miscarried, married, living in India with her wife - blueskysapphic/hivliving/angischuyler

2. Muk(h)ta (she spelled it different ways) - Somali, Catholic, raised in America by her American father who was implied a few times to be a diplomat of some sort, 18, trans woman, lesbian, married to Israa, trafficking victim, not HIV+ - thewarsnotdone

3. Naj, American lesbian POC (never specified other than that), congenitally HIV+, fairly active in ace discourse -allolesbean/hivliving

A bonus identity discovered while investigating:

4. Alix, Lebanese Jewish lesbian, self-identified as an Arab, from Lebanon, living in the states for college - lesbianeclipse

(the Jewish community in Lebanon numbers about forty, by the by. She's fond of doing this)

Israa lied a fuckton but she didn’t just pop out of the blue. She had put together the biracial trafficking victim persona before she started posting her fic. She had convinced other people of this persona before she started writing fanfiction - named the wife, picked out Chinese and “Muslim” names (yes she called Israa her Muslim name), found a beta for her fic, made up a backstory. 

And it wasn’t just hivliving that she was involved in. Israa and friends' modus operandi in fandom was to declare someone a pedophile over fanfiction, sic followers on them, threaten to dox them, force them to divulge (often sexual) traumas, and then use those traumas to harass them into self-harm. She did this multiple times, mainly to young gay teenagers and young trans men and young impoverished women. Some of those people did self-harm. And she knew it. And she kept on bullying, and told anyone who said “Stop it” that how DARE they, she is HIV+, she can do this.

And, given that Israa and her crew placed so much emphasis on IP address hits to Tumblrs as "stalking," it is absolutely impossible that none of them - including the one who followed her on her "Lebanese Jewish" tumblr and Facebook-linked twitter - did not know. This was a squad of teenagers dedicated to threatening and sexually harassing rape victims over fanfiction, with their core defense being 'Israa has been much more traumatized than you, by people like you, and she's protecting other people by hurting you.'

Yeah, no. Weirdly enough, most trauma victims don’t go out of their way to tell victims of child sexual abuse that they should kill themselves.

Israa used the social capital and following she gained being a moral arbiter and Teller Of Wise Truths About HIV in fandom (she and her crew also picked on an HIV+ member of the Hamilton cast on Twitter such that I believe he blocked them, by the fucking way) to start hivliving. 

The person behind Israa is not Muslim. Or Jewish. Or HIV+. Or Somali. Or biracial. She was not trafficked to another country by her parents. She grew up wealthy. It was incredibly obvious she was not who she claimed she was. A basic knowledge of geopolitics would have nipped this shit in the bud literally years ago, because nothing Israa said made any sense. This should have been caught day of. Other people knew and let it ride because it’s fun to cloak your repulsive behavior in the language of social justice to get away with it. Other people should have figured it out.

Point by point:

1. Language

Israa claimed to speak Chinese and Urdu natively and English, Spanish, and Kannada as second languages. She exclusively used English on her blog. She learned English as an adult and yet had absolutely perfect grammar, spelling, mastery of American slang, etc. Is this impossible? No, of course not, but learning a second language as an adult - especially in a non-immersion environment, especially one from an entirely different language family, presents a ton of difficulties. I am currently learning a second language in a non-immersion environment. Writing and reading are easier than speaking, sure, but they do not come easy.

Israa wrote like a native English speaker. She never made the mistakes in grammar or spelling common with people learning English from Chinese. She never had slightly odd turns of phrase borne from not grasping all the tiny nuances of a given English word. She never had an accidental character inserted when she forgot to rotate the language on her keyboard. (I rotate keyboards. Lemme tell you, it happens frequently.) She used British spellings pretty consistently, but not British or Indian English phrasing. Her slang was all American, young, Tumblr-approved. The media she talked about was almost all in English, minus one Chinese-American film and one Chinese novel available in English translation. She never used Chinese or Urdu on her blog, except to write brief greetings or her name. She never talked to anyone in Chinese or Urdu or Kannada. Her punctuation was completely American. She never, ever forgot a word.

This person, from a family poor enough to knowingly traffick a child into sex slavery, was fluent in 4-5 languages, presumably literate in at least 3 (meaning she could effortlessly cycle between 3, possibly 4 different writing systems) and somehow so fluent in a language she had started learning only two, three years before that she was indistinguishable from a native speaker.

How?

How was her English so native-perfect after only two or three years?

Because she didn't only have two or three years to build on. Because she was a native speaker. Duh.

2. Offensive racial stereotypes

Israa consistently presented herself as from western China, right along the China-Pakistan border. Never specified city or town, presumably because Alix was not invested enough in the character to pick a random town name off of Google Maps. She also once posted about her family having a dispute about the family rice farm.

There is almost no rice agriculture in extreme western Xinjiang. Not none, but almost none. Too arid.

But rice, China, right?

Also, bit of a digression as the character could have started wearing it while not living there, but about wearing hijab in Xinjiang: it's not exactly legal, right now. Crackdowns on specifically Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang have been front-page news in major English-language publications for years. Crackdowns on Hui Muslims (the ethnic group she occasionally claimed to be a part of) are less common, but they happen. And, of course, not all Muslim women wear hijab...but all Muslims are the same, in Israa-world. Speaking of.

Israa claimed that she had relatives in Gaza and that she did medical research at a clinic in Gaza under the auspices of her university.

1. How did she get a passport? It would have to be either a Pakistani or Chinese passport. Traveling from India to the Gaza strip on a Pakistani passport would be, shall we say, extremely difficult. It would be difficult for her to acquire a passport in the first place (did she have any documentation before she was trafficked? After? She was trafficked into India and India repatriates trafficking victims. Presumably she would have been repatriated to China. Would she, an HIV-positive member of a Muslim ethnic minority breaking the law in Xinjiang, be allowed to acquire a passport? How would she afford a passport? etc) 2. How would a 19-year-old non-medical student undergraduate receive permission to enter the Gaza strip, especially if she was traveling on a Pakistani passport? 3. Current Israeli law gives the Minister of the Interior the right to deny access to Israel (and thus Palestine and Gaza) to any HIV+ alien or migrant worker. Presumably Israa counted as an “alien or migrant worker,” so how did she get into the country to travel to Gaza in the first place? 4. Did Israa not realize that Pakistan and Palestine (and China) are culturally very dissimilar because they're in very different parts of the world? This is another China = rice moment. Alix assumed that all Muslims are the same? How would the aforementioned impoverished ethnic minority family be wealthy or mobile enough to have relatives at the other end of the continent?

I'm pretty sure her logic there was "Chinese Muslims are oppressed, Palestinians are oppressed - basically the same, right? Family!"

Oh and by the way she seemed to not remember if her family was based in western Xinjiang or in Karachi. She had sisters living in Karachi at some point and then she told me and, apparently, told quite a few other people, that she would be moving back to her loving parents in China soon after graduating university, at the age of 19.

Her parents who trafficked her.

Hokay.

Oh and besides the 80s high school AIDS crisis AU fic she wrote a lot of seriously offensive “Muslim AU” fic that trafficked in a lot of incredibly harmful and racist tropes about Muslim women but I said I wouldn’t mention fandom

3. Her wife

Mukta/Mukhta - Somali, Catholic, raised in America by her American father, somehow ended up in India as a trafficking victim, monolingual in English. She implied a few times that her father was some kind of diplomat. Muk(h)ta married Israa and they lived happily together as an interfaith couple, doing such coupley things as packaging Christmas care packages at Muk(h)ta's church and having wanted pregnancies.

1. As far as I can tell, Mukta and Mukhta are not Somali names, and if Muk(h)ta was monolingual in English wouldn’t she, like, spell her name in the Latin alphabet consistently 2. There are approximately 100 Somali Catholics. (Like I said, she liked doing that.) 3. An American-raised child of a diplomat being kidnapped (?) and trafficked for sex in India would have made international news. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN INTERNATIONAL NEWS.  4. Legal gay marriage does not exist in India. I wouldn't bring this up, people can call their partners whatever they want in the absence of legal recognition, but Israa made a distinction between "wife" and "girlfriend" and talked about having a wedding in a religious space, so - 5. How were two married female teenagers living together with apparently no problem in Bengaluru? 6. Muk(h)ta and Israa ended up in the same brothel together after being trafficked and one day decided to take the bus out. TO WHERE. HOW DID THEY GET THE MONEY. How Israa talked about the brothel was completely bullshit too and seems to have been based on legal brothels in Australia or Nevada - personal amenities, private bathrooms, private rooms, et cetera. 7. Again, India repatriates, or attempts to repatriate, known minor victims of trafficking - so why were either of them still in India?

Oh also Muk(h)ta's blog literally only talked about how awesome her wife was and Hamilton and she almost never interacted with other people by herself and she would have had the same non-Bengaluru IP address as Israa (same blog organization, frankly, as allolesbean), so -

4. Being a student in India

Israa insisted she, a Chinese (and?) Pakistani national, was a science student at a university in Bengaluru. She would not have been able to do this without documentation and you have to apply for a student visa in India outside of the country.

So:

1. Again. How did she acquire a passport? 2. How did she prove her residential address outside of India? 3. How did she put together the money to pay student fees? 4. How was Muk(h)ta living with her in the interim, if Muk(h)ta wasn't an Indian citizen? 5. How did she overcome the language barrier in either English or Kannada in enough time to start studying science? 6. Where was Muk(h)ta during the application process? In China? In Pakistan? In India? How?

6. The pregnancy

Jesus Christ where do I start

Israa always, always insisted that Muk(h)ta presented as a woman, was understood as a woman, etc, and the pregnancy was expected and wanted - the old ladies at church (who 100% accepted her) cooed over her baby bump.

Two AFAB people and their magic desired child baby bump. 

NO 19-YEAR-OLD HIV+ PERSON IS GOING TO RECEIVE IVF. ANYWHERE. EVER.

When someone pushed back on this, she started insisting that Muk(h)ta was a trans woman, taking hormones, and then later she conveniently miscarried.

1. How did Muk(h)ta access hormones? 2. How did Israa access her HIV medications such that she was fine with having unprotected sex (she stated a couple of times that she and Mukhta were a serodiscordant couple), and/or how did Mukhta access PrEp? 3. Why would two impoverished teenagers living on student visas (and it had to be student visas as, again, India repatriates foreign trafficking victims) plan to have a baby? 4. How did Muk(h)ta, a devout church-going Catholic living in India, safely and successfully navigate as a lesbian trans woman married to a Muslim woman such that her church accepted her and the pregnant partner unconditionally? 5. Same question but about Israa and Israa's mosque, which she apparently attended regularly 6. If the child was planned, how did Muk(h)ta, a young (17? 18?-year-old) trans woman on hormones, access the healthcare that would have assured them both that her hormones weren't interfering with her fertility? 7. How did Israa access neonatal care? 8. How could they afford all of this and yet Israa needed to ask for donations on hivliving to deal with vague miscarriage-related medical bills?

And on. And on. And on.

Am I saying it's impossible for someone to learn a language quickly, or to be Pakistani and have relatives in Gaza, or be a victim of trafficking, or be a lesbian in India, or any of the other things she claimed separately? No, of course not. I'm sure there's actually someone who is very like Israa out there, minus all the lies.

I'm just saying - are you fucking kidding me? Are all of you so illiterate about how the entirety of the world works that this bullshit was allowed to pass unchecked for two fucking years??? Are all of you so illiterate about how the world works that no one wondered why a person with this background would be spending her internet time primarily writing god damn Hamilton fanfiction??? Yes, you are, because instead of putting together this incredibly obvious idiotic racist garbage in a post to point out the many insane consistencies, I had to wade through the goddamn cash.me terms of service LITERALLY MONTHS AFTER SHE STARTED DEFRAUDING PEOPLE.

And that was obviously not the only time she'd demanded money, she just deleted her tumblrs before I could find the "friend's paypal" she had used earlier on blueskysapphic/angischuyler.

Did she ever talk about living with HIV in any meaningful way? Did she ever talk about it in a way that wasn't just yelling about not blaming asexuals or complaining about people twenty years older than her not using Tumblr-approved phrasing or whatever? Did she actually do anything with hivliving besides reblog things other people had posted and tell people to pm her for more information? The real Alix is a 19-year-old college sophomore who is so stupid about public health that she told people RENT is a good introduction to the AIDS crisis in twenty god damn seven teen and told me that she checked herself into a hospital for narcissism (spoilers: there's a huge lack of beds in psychiatric hospitals and no psychiatric ER is going to admit a person not immediately in danger, especially not for NARCISSISM). She had absolutely nothing of value to contribute. She was clearly not talking from a place of expertise. She did not sound like she knew anything about anything and what she did regurgitate was highly Americanized. If her value as the person who ran hivliving was as an HIV+ pregnant married nonbinary non-American trafficking survivor, then it should have been obvious earlier that she was none of those things.

It is not difficult to figure out things like it is costly and difficult to move between countries, or that midcontinental aridity precludes heavy-water-using agriculture, or that adults who are learning English as a third or fourth language from a non-Germanic language will have quite a bit of trouble with grammar and vocabulary even several years in, or that a nineteen-year-old bigender woman-aligned person would have difficulty living safely with her wife anywhere, or that it’s nigh impossible that a person holding a Pakistani passport could get to the Gaza strip, or that most Somalis are not Catholic.

BASIC KNOWLEDGE. BASIC COMMON SENSE. BASIC GEOPOLITICS. A few hours on Wikipedia could have thrown all of this into the garbage. 

Why did any of you believe this garbage?

Easy! Because:

1. Tumblr fetishizes oppression, especially that of trans people and Muslim women, and Alix made herself a persona that hit every jackpot possible 2. Tumblr consumes only fanfiction and thus elevates it to an insane level of importance in culture, therefore fights over fanfiction content are actual justice (it's not that fucking deep) 3. Tumblr has an extremely warped understanding of social justice theory and abuse dynamics 4. Tumblr refuses to absorb any news or history besides that which is presented on Tumblr 5. Alix was so prone to leading harassment mobs that any pushback would lead to more abuse 6. Tumblr hates gay men and would rather listen to an obvious bullshit artist than anyone the community that is primarily affected by HIV

Really can't stress that last one enough. REALLY can't. I remember some big name ~tumblr LGBT-community famous~ blogger telling their thousands of followers that the pogrom against gay men in Chechnya wasn't happening, partially because they were so stupid that they didn't know how to click through on tabloid publications to the serious reporting done by actual journalists, but mostly because Tumblr has decided that gay men aren't oppressed and AIDS is over or some bullshit.

At least five people, five men, five GAY AND BI MEN, came to Alix with their status, begging for help. She fed them garbage and lies. She looked them in the face and decided she would continue with this monstrousness and you just fucking let it happen and then you made it about fanfiction because you don’t understand that there are things way beyond fandom. She was a psychopath who OPERATED IN FANDOM and 15 years ago she would have pulled this shit on the TWOP boards or the scarleteen message boards or neopets or something.

God, fuck all of you.

I have a tiny bit of money spare this month. If you send a receipt of a donation to an HIV/AIDS-related organization of your choice to thatwhichechoes@protonmail.com, personal information redacted as you so choose, I'll match it, multiple its, for a total of $50 from my end. If that doesn't happen by February 15, I'll just send it all to one of my choice. I can hold a couple bucks spare each month so that, God willing and my rent don't rise, I can consistently send to Rainbow Railroad or my home LGBT center's HIV/AIDS program.

Nothing is going to fix what she did and she's never going to get held to account in the way she should but I'm going to post receipts every so often anyways because I am nasty and angry enough to care about other people. I am angry enough to do penance on her behalf. I have been furious and horrified and sick about this ever since I found out and dealing with her vileness has caused actual tangible harm in my life but again, it's not about me, and I'm going to remember that even if you motherfuckers won't.

I would seriously advise anyone under the age of 21 to get the fuck off of this website and go learn how to communicate with other people in a healthy manner. Go outside! Interact with other people in the real world! Read a book. Read a fucking newspaper! Learn about the world. Or you can stay here and burrow in the echo chamber and become credulous fauxwoke racist homophobic morons who prioritize calling other teenagers pedophiles til they try to kill themselves because Steven Universe or something over doing literally anything that could help the world. Your choice.

The rest of you: comport yourselves like normal fucking human beings for once in your fucking lives and sort out your goddamn priorities. Read a fucking newspaper. Stop giving obvious racist fraudsters like medievalpoc and Israalix the benefit of the doubt and actually think about the information that is being presented to you and then maybe do something more useful with your time than getting into internet fights. For example, I organized an auction in my spare time that, with the help of another lovely person and dozens of wonderful donors, raised $3,917 for various charities over six months, including $200 for GMHC and about $75 for an HIV/AIDS organization in Wisconsin. Go do something similar or get off the fucking internet! It’s 2018! You’re adults! Try tangibly helping other people, at some point, instead of engaging in this terrible narcissistic performative circlejerk where trauma has become a cudgel to beat others!

If any of you do anything like this again I will find you and I will fucking destroy you. That is a promise. 

Go to hell.

[petite-neko]

Chapter Characters: Law, Bepo, Shachi, Penguin (Sugar, Corazon) Pairing: (eventual) LawLu Rating: M Warnings: Vampire AU, (Mostly) canon compliant, Angst, Survivor Guilt, Blood, (Kinda) drug use/addiction, dependency, child grooming, child abuse, abusive relationship, major character death, bullying (Other warnings may be added) A/N:  Well. I am taking some liberties here, seeing as Law's novel was recently translated. I did tweak the chapter a bit here and there. (Law meets the trio a bit later on than he does in canon, as he doesn't quite go through the same life xD) Also, I included one part of my own head canon into here, and I didn't wanna change it in accordance to the new canon. I kinda had it already integrated into my fic so :x I'd have to do a few too many minor tweaks.Again: Much thanks to Oturai for bearing through my loopy typing/writing. (I'm doped up on painkillers, and will prolly be for another week. Fucked up my shoulder)

.xxx. > Time/scene skip

.+++. > PoV change

(Wanna buy me a ko-fi? Link in blog description!)

Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6

She was no longer hungry.

She was no longer in a frenzy.

She was no longer driven by instinct.

And yet, Law still found himself avoiding Sugar. Sure, he knew. He knew all of that. He knew it would be fine now. That Sugar wouldn’t attack him. That he had no further reason to maintain a distance.

But, whenever he looked at her, all he could see was a vampire.

The vampires whispered amongst the humans in terror: Ravenous, hungry, heartless, inhumane.

Eyes solely focused on him in hunger, desperation and need. His own confusion, at first, but then that cold, creeping comprehension as her face contorted. As she hissed and growled at him. The way she had lost all control; been driven to her most basic functions. As her teeth began to extend, and the shock. The disbelief. The way that time seemed to slow down. The way Corazon’s voice echoed in his head: “We don’t turn children.” And then that realisation fully sinking in. Just as her teeth might into his flesh. And his own desperation. The adrenaline coursing through him, strengthening him. He couldn’t let her win. Couldn’t let her press forward. His hands - they were the only things keeping her from feeding on him. He could feel her breath on his face - mere inches away. Close. She was too close.

Food. That was all he was to her. A meal to sustain her into the next day. He was not another person. Not a living, breathing being. No. He was food, and she was hungry.

And even then, even as Corazon had separated her from him, she was hanging there, by her ankle, flailing and hissing and trying to escape his grasp to get to her meal.

In those moments, she had lost all humanity. Blinded by her need to feed.

And Law just could not forget that.

It was a harsh wakeup call. It only reminded him of the environment he was in. That Doflamingo, that Corazon, that - probably - many of his crewmates were vampires. That he was human.

He had dismissed that. Dismissed the danger he was actually in. Forgotten just what they were and just what they ate.

They went about it so... civilly. The blood they consumed was integrated into food, into wines and juices. It was never obvious. Disguised to hide their identities. Never did they openly consume directly from a human. Teeth hidden and withdrawn. They acted as, and appeared to be, humans.

Of course, Law knew differently, but that knowledge never truly sank in. Not until... Sugar.

Perhaps some of it, too, did stem from the similarities. Of just why he knew.

For he, too, consumed blood on a regular basis. His very survival was dependant on it. He craved and needed it, just as they did. Except, for different reasons, and for a different kind of blood.

Normally I never let my vassals become... hungry.

Sure, it wasn’t hunger that drove him, but the similarities were almost startling. That he was, all but in name, just like a vampire. That he, too, was being provided for by Doflamingo. Just from a different... source.

And certainly, yes, Law knew that eventually he could escape the confines if he so desired. (Of course, dismissing the fact that his body quite literally would not survive without the support.) But there was that thirst within him. One that could only be satisfied by the blood of a pure-blooded vampire. One that he had tasted once upon a time. Tasted and acted upon.

Law knew exactly what it was, but at the same time, there was nothing he could do about it. He was addicted. Addicted to the strength it gave him. That rush of adrenaline and euphoria. The life it gave him - both literally and metaphorically. And those physical dependencies were only exemplified by just how literally he needed it; by the mental addiction of life. That he knew, all too well, just what would happen to him if he stopped.

Thus, it had driven him, just as it had driven Sugar. It'd driven him to wield a knife and find any means necessary to draw the blood that he needed to survive.

Perhaps, if he had known how benevolent Corazon really was, he would have been a bit more... civil about the situation. But, he hadn’t, and so he wasn’t.

...he wondered just how Corazon could stand him after that. After seeing him in that state. Needy and desperate. Violent. Acting in the only way that he knew how.

But, Corazon had.

Maybe one day he, too, could face Sugar again.

.xxx.

It seemed that they would be docked here for a few more days. A lengthy supply run, because their future would soon be unpredictable. So, Law decided that he would explore some more of the island. He hadn’t really had an opportunity the last time he was out, after all; he’d been too angry at Doflamingo to enjoy it.

And yes - yes - it definitely was a way to avoid Sugar.

“You should be ashamed of yourself!”

As Law wandered about, he could hear some voices off in the distance. Part of him said that he should ignore it. This wasn’t his business and he came out here to relax, not to get involved with the civilians.

Now, there was the sound of flesh hitting flesh.

Oh, great, Law thought, somebody’s getting a beating.

He should just ignore it.

“You can’t even follow simple orders, can you?”

“You’re supposed to do as we tell you!”

Law tried to ignore it, but their voices were so loud. They hit too close to home. They were turning his stomach. They were only making him think of his possible fate. All that it would take for Doflamingo to...

He can make me do anything. Anything!

This wasn’t what he came out here for, dammit! He wanted to forget about that. Forget about vampires and blackmail, and the fact that he had no fucking choice in the matter anymore, and that...

But some fucking idiots thought that here and now was a perfect fucking time and place to bully somebody else!

...maybe he should get himself involved. Beat those fuckers up for ruining his day. And then he could get some peace and quiet and-

“You white monster!”

Oh. Oh. Those bastards were definitely getting it now. Not only did they fucking remind him of his current predicaments, but his past ones as well? The past he didn’t want to remember: The hatred. The shunning. The pain. The war.

Law rolled up his sleeves, marching over towards where the sounds were coming from.

The scene he had walked into was not one he would have expected: There were two boys about his age, beating up a... polar bear?

What the fuck?

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please stop...”

...wait a minute, was the bear talking?

“You’re so useless!”

They obviously hadn’t noticed him yet, continuing to kick the bear.

“Yeah,” the other boy pathetically agreed. “A freak, too!”

Pathetic the sight may be, Law still felt his brow twitching in irritation. Talking bear or not, nobody deserved to be treated like that. To be kicked when you were down, to be insulted all the while.

Law stepped forward. “Oh, really?” He said, drawing their attention. “I do think that I would reserve those names for the two of you.” He wore a smug expression on his face. “I mean, who the fuck beats up a polar bear?”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, wait. I’ve changed my mind. Useless and freak certainly are fitting words, but I do believe pathetic is more apt.” And Law continued to grin at them. “Ganging up on a poor little polar cub, using uneven numbers to gain an advantage. What? Too afraid to take him on one-on-one? Are you guys that weak?”

Law knew that he was just goading them on, but that was his intent. And it was working. Their anger shifted over to him. Such a shame, though. These poor boys had no idea of the mistake they were making. He did doubt these boys were vampires after all, and injectors were such a rarity.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“Yeah!”

Again, so pathetic, so predictable... Law could only roll his eyes at that. They were too easy. If he so desired, Law knew just how to play them.

But, simply because it would take no effort, and more importantly because of just how he knew to play them, he refrained. He would rather do things his own way, after all...

“Your worst nightmare.”

Those words were all it took for the boys to abandon their current victim and charge at him.

And of course, just like their psyches, they, too, were too easy. But Law anticipated it. Perhaps if he had been a regular human, the boys mighthave posed a challenge at best, but empowered by pureblood as he was? Hardly.

And, as the boys were licking their newfound wounds, Law flopped himself down onto a snow pile.

“What is your fucking problem, anyway?”

He looked over at the polar bear, who had stupidly stuck around. Why didn’t he run away when he had a chance? Oh well, not his problem.

“He’s just a fucking bear. Who the fuck cares if he can talk or not? I mean, there’s weirder shit out there. More dangerous shit.”

“Oh yeah?” A head snapped up. “What do you even know, kid?”

“Yeah, I mean, he obviously isn’t from around here!”

“And,” it seemed they were taking turns talking, “ya know what they say about foreigners...”

Law focused back on the two humans. “Actually, no,” he said, watching them cautiously, “no I don’t. And then, he let his lips curl once more. “Doindulge this foreigner just what your people say about us. I am mightily curious about your predispositions.”

Shock was the expression that greeted him.

“Hah?!”

“I’m a pirate,” Law explained briefly. It was obvious that they did not expect to find another child who was from elsewhere. “My crew stopped here for supplies.”

More shock, but there was another look there. They were starting to feel uneasy around him. A child foreigner was unusual, but they understood immediately what a pirate meant.

Law only let that smug expression grow. “Or,” he continued and cracked his knuckles, “I could beat it out of you.”

And unease rapidly turned into nervousness and fear.

“A-Ah!” It was enough to get them talking. “Th-They say to never trust ‘em!” He was fidgeting, but did not stop. “You never know who they are, or what they want, or what they carry...”

At the last note, Law felt himself tensing. He was feeling echoes of his past once more. And it was starting to make a lot of sense now...

“Ye-yeah!” the other boy continued, maybe even more nervous at Law’s obvious anger, “I mean - didn’t you hear about the country that got struck with a contagious disease? How the people there were trying to flee from it, carrying the disease with them? Trying to infect othercountries?”

Oh. Yeah. Yeah, it was definitely making a lot of sense now. Of course the rulers of the neighbouring countries would spread that rumour. Spread the fear of outsiders to justify their actions. It was making Law sick.

“So they-”

He hardened his gaze on the boys - and perhaps it wasn’t fair to them to face his anger. They, too, were victims of it in a sense, blinded by lies and rumours that were repeated so often they seemingly became the truth. That countries of people were exposed to this.

“They exterminated them.”

His voice, too, was hard. Angry. Full of rage that still had yet to be tamed.

“Slaughtered them. Lining children up against churches, and shooting them down one by one. But not before making them complacent with promises of hope and freedom. Burning hospitals down with patients still alive within them, laying on cots in pain. Hauling their corpses out, beyond the borders to run tests on them and study them... Oh, yes. I know all about Flevance. I was there, after all.”

And, if only to drive that nail in deeper, Law pulled up his sleeves to show the marks littering his arms.

Fear - that was all that was in those boys’ eyes now.

But then, Law scoffed, scoffed and laughed.

“Oh, do relax. If Amber Lead was as contagious as they said it was, wouldn’t you be hearing about outbreaks all over the place? It was just a lieplanted in your heads so they could justify slaughtering an entire country. The same could be said about the strangers you are so afraid of. We are people, too, just like anybody else. And I’m pretty sure this bear is the same. Right, bear?”

A squawk left the otherwise quiet animal.

“Yeah, you,” Law turned towards him and smiled, “you got a name?”

“I - uhh - Bepo.” And Bepo looked nervous. A little scared, too.

But Law only continued to smile. He even sniggered slightly before he flopped against the snow pile once more. “See?” He said as he looked up at the sky and the snow falling from it. “He’s got a name.”

He could feel gazes upon him, but Law didn’t care and he ignored it.

“And you? You boys got a name? Mine’s Law.”

“Uhh…” There was a moment of awkward pausing. “I’m uh, Shachi. And he’s Penguin, Peng for short.”

Law felt himself burst out in laughter now.

“You’re named after animals, and you beat up a talking one? You guys are the strange ones, not us ‘foreigners.’”

Nervous laughter was the response.

Perhaps it wasn't the most desired response, but it was a start.

[ion0ra]

Story Time

So, as a lot of you who've ever seen my family posts will understand, they're pretty messed up. Like, there's lighter things from just bad jokes, to things like full-on bigotry and abuse.

I wanna lay it all out, because I was thinking about it and wanted to get it off my chest.

So, there are 3 kinds of messed up with my parents, all their own special brew of abusive and neglectful.

So, you have my mother. She seems like a typical Southern mom on the surface. You can see her at church. At Wal-Mart. Dresses kinda trashy. Big & loud hair, and bad teeth. But if you knew her for longer than a week, you started to get this vibe from her you couldn't quite put your finger on until you REALLY knew her.

She's one of the few people I genuinely hate in this world. Growing up, she called me names (to my face) like "fat," "stupid," and other such names, and constantly verbally demeaned, bullied, and abused me (she'd constantly "joke" about things she disapproved of, sometimes even so far as to physically do things to me I'd rather not discuss publicly; she'd withhold information from me constantly, the list goes on. When my parents were talking about getting divorced, she took me to the Taco Bueno/Raising Cane's parking lot shortly after my birthday and told me and made me choose right then and there who I wanted to live with (which is a whole other emotional experience.)) She'd do things from her "jokes," to the "punishment" she came up with where every time I said something she didn't like, she'd slap my face.

Point blank. Didn't matter where or when it was, she did it. More often than not, it was whenever she felt like.

And then there was the privacy invasions. At first, it seemed logical (for someone who's grown up like that) that she saw everything. All my game accounts were linked to hers, and she knew my school-assigned email address (they used it to help teach us about "the real world".) I wasn't allowed to have a phone until age 13, which she could go through any time she wanted.

She'd punish me for whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, however she wanted. One summer (and this was in Texas, in an area where it gets particularly hot/humid) she locked me out of the house all day (from 9 until about 6 or 7 at night, whenever she decided to get back,) and told me I wasn't allowed back inside (she would contest that because she only forbade me from entering, and told my older sister and two stepsisters I was allowed exactly 1 five-minute bathroom break all day and to tie me down outside if I needed to be, that she "technically" didn't lock me out) until she got back. I wasn't allowed any food, and had to drink from a dirty ass hose. I wasn't allowed to accept help from anyone, and my sisters weren't allowed to take food outside to me. She got home that evening and made me go straight to bed, then said I "hadn't learned anything" and made me do it all over again. I literally went 48 straight hours without food during that time.

The thing she was "punishing" me for? My dog had decided it wanted to lay down while I was taking it for a walk and got his belly a little red and some dirt on it.

Point is, knowing my mother, she was out-right abusive. Case #1 for abusive parents. From her, trust issues and paranoia got amplified, but those are whole other stories.

My dad and stepmom, on the other hand, were more into the manipulative side of things (my dad resorting to getting physical "if need be.")

My dad looks like a quirky guy on the outside. Tall, bald, tattooed. If you meshed with him, you'd get along swimmingly. Otherwise, you were me.

At first, I didn't notice his bigotry (I mean how could I? I was basically a smaller version of him, but not quite.) It wasn't until I'd gotten on Tumblr (about 2010 ish was when I first got on? If I remember correctly) and started questioning basically everything about myself when I started recognizing the subtler things, and it was definitely apparent when my older sister moved in with us.

At the time, she'd left my mom's house (because she'd gotten to her, too) and I was about 14-15. I found out before my parents did that she was actually transgender (and went by he/him pronouns, had a support group, etc.) I was like "oh cool I've always wanted an older brother" but the condition was I not tell my parents until it had already been brought up.

Now... Especially with my dad, he'll say he'll support someone he cares about unconditionally, but if you do something he doesn't agree with, he'll either get... Apprehensive, or just straight-up drop you. When he found out about my older brother, he basically bullied "the phase" (as my dad called it) out of him. It officially ended with a Christmas story that actually involves my stepmom.

Anyways, that's where I started finding out that even though he claimed to be unconditionally supportive, he wasn't.

Long story short, had a Tumblr and a support group, they found out about it, literally took everything away from me and invaded my privacy on literally all my accounts, told me I was "being enabled" because I had friends who'd sent me positivity during a barage of Anon hate, wouldn't even listen to me when I tried to explain how I literally didn't know how some of the stuff that was on there wasn't me (someone has gained access to my account and basically started up a sideblog that let's just say a 14-year-old shouldn't even look at, much less have,) tried to get me to tell them "the whole truth" and when I came out about my sexuality had to bottle it up again and act like it was "just a phase" because of how they reacted, and over the course of the next 5 years tried to invade my privacy as much as they possibly could. (Hell, even today, my dad still has my old email account on his phone to "check on it")

He's the kinda guy who would physically restrain me from doing something, then claim I voluntarily didn't do it. The list goes on.

My stepmother was arguably one of the most manipulative people I ever knew. Anti-vaxxer (to the point that she signed a consent form saying neither of my little sisters could get immunization shots from their schools and when asked about it, shrugged it off and was like "they don't need them," but there was more), terf bangs, the whole shebang. Would constantly goad people, then when someone called her out on it acted like she was the victim. Got my dad to yell at me/restrain me because I was "being too aggressive" trying to not have a panic attack because she was yelling. Got the word "ridiculous" banned in the house (yes, literally banned.) So, so much more.

She'd constantly demean me and talk down to me and about me, tell my sister's they didn't have to listen or pay attention to me, and when I brought it up to my dad/publicly, she'd simply act confused and say she didn't know what I was talking about, or that I was misremembering (a common tactic my mother used that my dad and stepmom hated.) One time, my dad actually asked me if she turned into my mother when she was gone, and I paused for a moment and was like "I mean yeah." (Don't ask how that resolved.)

She was the kind of woman who would slap you in the face and then talk to you long enough to try to convince you that you were never actually slapped in the face (unlike my mom, who would and would just tell you you deserved it.) This was the woman who, when my older sister's friend asked how her son was doing, almost caused a scene by loudly stating that her "daughter was doing just fine and I'll let her know that you were thinking about her." (Mind you this friend didn't know that my older brother was trans. This friend only knew him as he, and once even when I slipped up they didn't seem to notice it.)

All my parents would constantly demand someone access my email, messages, and history at any given point. I had friends who I talked to about this that I was scared shitless my parents would find out about because I didn't wanna lose them. I made so many accounts to cover my tracks I've literally lost access to a lot of them because I just can't remember the login details. My parents constantly told me "if you're hiding something that means you know it's bad" out of the blue, keeping me in a constant state of paranoia.

One time, I'd accidentally left my phone in my room and my dad walked in and stayed in for an abnormally long amount of time. I didn't go in because I knew they would definitely see that as a sign something was up, and just rode out my anxiety until my dad walked out, a hand in his pocket. He made this dramatic deal of calmly saying "Now... You know the rules... I'll forgive you this time, but next time will be worse... Especially after what's happened before..." And I was freaking the fuck out. He looked at me and laughed as he pulled a candy wrapper out of his pocket. He said he chose those words specifically because he wanted to see what kind of reaction he'd get out of me.

There are so many other examples I could bring up that I don't have the time or emotional energy to all in one post, but it breaks my heart there are still people who don't believe there are people like this out there. I once had a guy ask "well if your mom's that bad how come she's not in prison?" And my reply was simple: "Because she can cover herself up well." Parents like this are out there. People like this are out there. Please don't let this be your relationships in any fashion because you don't deserve it.

tl;dr: parental abuse and violations take many different forms. If you have any parents or people you know like this, as soon and as safely as you can, get the fuck out. They may only damage you permanently even worse.

The post that got me thinking about all this over the last emotion-charged hour and a half: https://freckledfemme.tumblr.com/post/169530766178/omgwhy-bpdcalvinfischoeder-staar84

[amazinghcwkeye]

                        META TALKS;;  CLAIRE && PREGNANCY && SEX

(  OVERALL TRIGGERS FOR childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence, mention of a miscarriage, mention of wanting an abortion, sexual harassment and rape. Bad and sexist language is also used. Please tread carefully if any of these things trigger you.  )

First thing first, this is going to get down and dirty and I am not going to mince words. Claire was sexually abused at the orphanage and the circus. Because of this, she developed C-PTSD/PTSD and has complex emotions towards sex and pregnancy. 

** IMPORTANT: Everything has been researched very carefully and some of it is based on my own experiences. Please do not come into my inbox or ims screaming about how I don’t know anything. And yes, well everything in here is a bit dark, it’s something that has been in development for over a few years. This was not spur of the moment, this has been thoughts and headcanons I’ve collected and worked on since starting Claire’s blog originally. If you don’t want to read anything in here, that’s fine. While this headcanon is apart of this blog, not all of this is going to show up in most of the threads, so don’t worry. Also this is part 1/? who knows how many meta talks i’ll be having about Claire.  

I'm really nervous about sharing this but I really want to, so that said, let’s get into this. 

Her first introduction into sex was after their parents died, because despite how horrible Harold Barton was, he sheltered his children (imho) from things like sex and relationship and their mother figured they were too young to even really talk about anything like sex and finding love. So, her first introduction was with the man who did the orphanage’s laundry. He thought she was pretty and she was just terrified and unable to really find a niche in the home and so she looked for places to hide which is where he found her, hiding and he took advantage of her. When her and Barney managed to run, she tried to leave behind the icky feelings that came from what happened to her, but she was never able to really get rid of them. 

Which leads to..

Claire’s first time was with Viktor, the son of the fortune teller at the circus. She was 15 years old and he was 17 and she didn’t love him. But after breaking up with a townie shortly before going on the road again, Viktor offered to take her to a party where they got drunk and slept together in the bedroom of some townie who they didn’t know and honestly, she loved it. Afterwards though, she quietly sobbed in the bathroom, mentally eviscerating herself for sleeping with someone she didn’t love because that meant that the laundry guy was right; she was a whore. 

(of course we know that is a big ass lie) 

After that, Claire got herself another boyfriend, this time a little older (which is very illegal) and focused on trying to ignore the overwhelming feelings of complete dirtiness that came from all her drinking and fucking. He was a townie and believed her when she said she was old enough. After a few weeks, she got sick of him and broke up. But then she realised that she was getting sick in the mornings shortly after and that was the first time Claire got pregnant. At 16, she couldn’t be a parent, she was hardly a functioning adult. But she didn’t want to have an abortion, she was raised in a religious orphanage and thought that it was wrong. 

It didn’t matter though, the strain of training and the violence that she lived with in the circus caused her to miscarry and while she cried daily about it, there was a little part of her that was relieved that she didn’t have to figure out what to do anymore. Her relief lasted shortly though as she realized that with losing the baby, she gained a crippling sleeping problem that made her drink more and act out. She waited a bit to start dating again, she had heard that if you had sex after being pregnant (even if you had a miscarriage) you could risk getting pregnant again and she was too terrified of that. 

Though after a few months of not sleeping unless she was piss drink, Claire went back to dating and sleeping around because the nightmares from when she was younger was scarier than the nightmares of getting pregnant. Her first “boyfriend” after her miscarriage was the Strongman of the circus. He was violent and reminded her of her father and she made sure that no matter how drunk she was, she took the birth control that she had stolen. She refused to end up like her mother: shackled to a man who abused her and her kids. After a few months, she broke it off with him. Sorta. He was not one to take no for an answer so Claire just ignored most of his advances and slept with a knife under the bed. 

(Even if that didn’t protect her all the time) 

After the circus and the relationships that destroyed her understanding of basic relationships, Claire would get drunk and sleep with whoever was nearby. Sometimes, she would sleep with her marks or people who employed her and she occasionally dealt with people who refused her saying no unless she held a gun to their heads. ( unfortunately, more than once she had incidents where she didn’t have a weapon to protect herself and despite her training there are people stronger than her       it’s why she has so many scars on her body ) 

That was until she came across a situation where she felt she had fallen in love with a mark; sure he was wanted for a lot of things ( murder, thievery, being a turncoat, things that claire normally abhorred ) but he valued her opinions and made her feel wanted. Deciding to stay with him for a bit, she lived on the run with him and they decided they were going to start a family. But things weren’t as they seemed and shortly after she got pregnant - whoo boy did that do a huge damage on her mentality - he went missing. Too far along for an abortion, Claire was forced to carry the baby to term. 

Throughout it all, she suffered mentally. Her body changed in a way she didn’t like, she was forced to go into hiding until after she went into labor, she was forced to deal with nightmares every night she was actually able to go to sleep. She wanted to drink, all the time, but she didn’t because she didn’t want to hurt the baby even if she didn’t want it. Claire tried to find him all the time but she couldn’t and by time she actually gave birth, she was severely depressed and ready to end her life. 

Giving birth was the worst part of her life, she hated every second of the event and when she had given birth to the baby, she refused to hold the child. Everyone chalked it up to postpartum depression but Claire knew it was because this child wasn’t going to stay with her. She wasn’t going to risk giving the child up for adoption in a foster system - she had been a victim of it and she refused to do that to a child she didn’t want - but she knew she had to get rid of the kid. 

She spent a year looking and after finding a family that wanted a child (after secretly watching them for that length of time) she left the baby with them, swearing to watch over the child to make sure it was loved and cared for and promising to leave money in their bank account every month to help them. 

Not long after that, Claire was picked up by SHIELD and became an agent. During the beginning she was sent on honeypot missions (not that often but enough that Claire has developed a healthy hatred of trying to seduce someone and now just flirts really bad) and Claire hated every bit of it, and she eventually told her handlers that she refused to do those types of missions anymore because she felt uncomfortable using her body in such a way. Her first handler (before Coulson) didn’t care and told her that she was a weapon to be used how SHIELD wanted because she was a criminal who belonged in prison not working for the government.

Claire bucked it up and continued to do whatever mission that was sent her way. If a few of her missions lead to sexual harassment then she didn't complain. She knew her place - even if she argued with it. By time she finally decided that she had had enough, she was having hard time sleeping, nightmares and just hated working there, and so she decided to approach Fury and tell him to toss her in prison, at least there she had a chance to escape. When asked where all the negative emotions were coming from, Claire explained what was going on and Fury was not happy. 

She got a brand new handler and life at SHIELD got a bit easier to deal with. But there was still some trauma that was not dealt with because even though she was forced to go to aSHIELD therapist, she refused to truly talk about why honeypot missions bugged her and so she didn’t really deal with it. 

Which leads to..

Future relationships with Claire is so low maintenance (even if she does occasionally have problems where she cheats without meaning to) that she honestly just wants to cuddle and not discuss her past relations with her partner. When it comes to kids, oh god does she have problems. She wants them, she really does, but at the same time, she’s still haunted by the child she left behind. Any relationship she would have is a relationship built on trust and love and she’s terrified that finding out that she has a child, that finding out that her entire sexually history is tainted by dark heavy stuff that she’d rather just never explain will destroy any relationship. 

If it ever came to discussing having kids, Claire would probably have an internal freak-out and then, after trying to ignore it for so long, Claire would explain her history of pregnancy and talk about it with them. If she ever got pregnant, she’d deal with it badly by talking with her partner and a lot of communication by hiding it in the beginning, she would be terrified that they’d leave if they found out (because last time she thought she had a forever relationship, it went badly). When it came out, she would be over consumed by feelings and in some situations (if she felt too confined) she might even leave. Eventually she’d just come out and explain that when she was younger she had a child, gave it up and has felt horrible about it for years. She knows that she can’t take it back and she really doesn’t want to, but she would still regret it.

Eventually after much therapy, she would learn that what happen wasn’t her fault and that she is better than what her past was. She would also learn (after taking parenting classes) how to be a better parent. Because while much of her trauma towards children settle deeply from what was done to her and how she reacted towards it, a lot of it still stems from the abuse that was done to her by her father. Honestly, relationships would be hard even if she wasn’t abused, because she would be terrified of ending up like her mother or ending up like her father and not trusting herself not to end up like either of them. 

OTHER THINGS: 

Claire struggles with insecurity due to the abuse she suffered. In a relationship, she struggles with feeling good enough for the other person and she also struggles with drinking during a relationship. She feels like she doesn’t deserve her partner and will show it by either attaching herself to the other person or distancing herself.

[detrevniwrit]

re: kacchako is bad (responses)

oh my god I'm going to answer all of these in one post because it’s been a freaking long day and i have no desire to answer each individual permutation of the same sentiments over and over again

read more this time bc it didn’t seem clear enough last time by the bolded ‘kacchako is bad title’ that you can scroll past if you’re sensitive to criticism because this is a criticism of kacchako.

Concern:

Don’t tag it in the ship tag if it’s hate! Just blacklist it if it bothers you so much. People can ship it if they want, don’t be mean/an asshole! :(

Answer:

I can't believe I'm getting "let people ship what they want don't spread hate it's never worth it" msgs in this year of our lord 2017. Don't moralize down to me about spreading hate and quit acting as if I went into people’s inboxes to harass and specifically be mean to them. I used the tag, yes, but I did it to bring kacchako fans’ attention to legitimate concerns I have about the ship’s consequences, and I made my opinion very explicit in the bolded title of the post so people can scroll past if they’re sensitive. I thought it was worth the risk to my sanity to make sure that people who aren't as sensitive to criticism won’t just ignore that there are important issues with kacchako because it’s easier, or because they just don’t know/never thought about it. (I’m now partially feeling it wasn’t worth it, but determined to stand by my points)

Concern:

I think kacchako is fine and I don’t defend abuse! I just imagine them in a place where Bakugou is grown up and not abusive anymore and Ochako doesn’t take that shit!

Answer: 

It has occurred to me that it’s rarely anyone’s intention to support abuse, which is why I bothered to write the original post at all. To reiterate my argument so I don’t get confused ‘kacchako is not abusive’s in my inbox, I’m not saying that kacchako is inherently abusive. I’m saying that as Izuku’s friend, Ochako wouldn’t be motivated to date Bakugou specifically because he bullies Izuku and has abusive tendencies towards her friend, and because she’s someone who cares about Izuku’s wellbeing she wouldn’t be interested in someone who continues to unapologetically treat Izuku like that. 

There is no ‘she secretly likes Bakugou’ right now, or vice versa. She just wants to catch up to Izuku. And Bakugou does not respect her more than he sees her as a threat.

To the reimagining future Bakugou part: again, I doubt anyone has the intention to erase Izuku’s experience as a victim of Bakugou’s bullying. I’m saying that no one writes Bakugou changing from a bully into a better person respectfully or realistically. Most interpret Bakugou’s one interaction with Ochako (in which he considers her a legitimate threat to beat) as an indicator of Bakugou beginning to change because of Ochako, even if after this interaction he’s still only interested in winning and dominating over others and if people are potentially in his way. 

Let me give you a definition of domestic abuse (my bolding):

"domestic abuse occurs whenever one person in an intimate relationship or marriage tries to dominate and control the other person. Domestic violence and abuse are used for one purpose and one purpose only: to gain and maintain total control over you. An abuser doesn’t ‘play fair.’ Abusers use fear, guilt, shame, and intimidation to wear you down and keep you under his or her thumb. Your abuser may also threaten you, hurt you, or hurt those around you.”

All kacchako shippers imagine a future Bakugou as someone who automatically deserves forgiveness for not being an asshole anymore, most likely due to Ochako keeping him in line, and not a single one has been able to describe, in informed detail, about how hard it is to change abusive behavior. 

“In discussing why abusers abuse, it’s clear that a lot of the causal factors behind these behaviors are learned attitudes and feelings of entitlement and privilege — which can be extremely difficult to truly change. [...] While we hope abusive partners will change, it’s not always realistic to expect that they can and will. Focus on changes you can control to improve your own life, because you deserved to feel loved, happy and safe.”

Signs of progress of changing abusive behavior include (some bolded for what I think kacchako shippers particularly don’t take into account often when characterizing future Bakugou):

Admitting fully to what they have done

Stopping excuses and blaming

Making amends

Accepting responsibility and recognizing that abuse is a choice

Identifying patterns of controlling behavior they use

Identifying the attitudes that drive their abuse

Accepting that overcoming abusiveness is a decades-long process — not declaring themselves “cured”

Not demanding credit for improvements they’ve made

Not treating improvements as vouchers to be spent on occasional acts of abuse (ex. “I haven’t done anything like this in a long time, so it’s not a big deal)

Developing respectful, kind, supportive behaviors

Carrying their weight and sharing power

Changing how they respond to their partner’s (or former partner’s) anger and grievances

Changing how they act in heated conflicts

Accepting the consequences of their actions (including not feeling sorry for themselves about the consequences, and not blaming their partner or children for them)

Making Bakugou an adult does not change that you need to write him checking his abusive behavior.

Concern:

But Bakugou has changed at this point in the manga---he and Izuku now have an understanding of trust and respect.

Answer:

Bakugou has only demonstrated one instance that he could be changing. Though change for Bakugou is a good and decidedly difficult feat, one instance does not an abusive pattern break.

Let me direct you to the classic cycle of abuse by psychologist Lenore Walker, with helpful manga caps from Ch. 117-121:

1) Tension building phase 

2) Acute battering phase (in which Izuku absolutely does not want to fight at first until he feels obligated to)

3) Honeymoon phase

“The abuse may be terrible, but the promises and generosity of the honeymoon phase give the victim the false belief that everything will be all right.”

Secondly, to the aforementioned abuse-changing bullets Bakugou has not achieved up to after he’s fought with Izuku Ch. 117-121:

Admitting fully to what they have done

Accepting responsibility and recognizing that abuse is a choice

Accepting that overcoming abusiveness is a decades-long process — not declaring themselves “cured”

Thirdly, to what he is beginning to do

Stopping excuses and blaming

Carrying their weight and sharing power

I concede that Bakugou is making steps towards change because he is a hardheaded egoistic teenager who up to this point hadn’t offered help out of his own volition. But if you’re taking this as a sign that he’s anywhere near lasting and permanent change, even years from now---I almost literally just wrote a foot of text and references as to why that isn’t realistic or respectful towards the realities of abusive behavior. Please realize you are likely oversimplifying his path towards change.

Concern:

Not all kacchako shippers are like that! I know (insert fanworks here) that are respectful, good, etc,

Answer:

Show me. I’m more than willing to take a look and then give you my detailed opinion afterwards, if you’d like.

Concern:

I’m not trying to force a het agenda, I just like the dynamic.

Answer:

I mentioned before that people may not realize their intentions don’t match up with consequences. I just wrote more than 2 hours worth explaining why kacchako doesn’t have a sensical basis for a good relationship and am considering just passing out on the spot right at this moment in sheer exhaustion. I’m just going to post screenshots that actually do have the aforementioned good qualities and ask politely that you consider these respective Ochako and Katsuki ships, instead of kacchako het, which endorses a contrived relationship over not straight ones that actually have a basis of mutual affection in canon:

Fuck, if you really really want to ship Uraraka with a guy Iida and/or Midoriya have plenty of shared affection and solid relationships with her, I trust you don’t need me to screen cap to know that. 

Concern:

If Bakugou is so problematic, wouldn’t any ship with him be problematic (including kiribaku)?

Answer:

Finally a good question. I would say yes and no. Yes, because if you’re a survivor of abuse it’s perfectly valid and understandable not to want to think about Bakugou and his potential romantic partners at all. No, for a variety of reasons, using kiribaku as an example: 

a) Bakugou and Kirishima are established friends with a relatively healthy, mutual relationship. Bakugou has a foul temper but he’s not abusive towards Kirishima, even going out of his way to---admittedly badly---help him study (above caps from the manga and light novel); Kirishima admires Bakugou, finds positive qualities in their friendship, and isn’t cowed, wary, or disgusted by him, like Ochako or Izuku and many others are. tl;dr, there is plenty of solid evidence to back up the mutual affection, respect, and trust between them, something that kacchako and---god forbid---bakudeku lack.

It’s actually good for Bakugou to learn how to develop uncontrolling behaviors through healthy relationships where he doesn't feel the need to dominate over his partner.  He can’t do this with Ochako, with whom he regards as nonexistent at best, and a threat to him as Izuku’s lackey at worst (I discussed this in detail further up). Referring back to the changing abusive behavior list, Bakugou’s relationship with Kirishima demonstrates that Bakugou can learn a) respectful, kind, supportive behaviors and b) carrying weight and sharing power. This doesn’t justify how Bakugou treats others, but it does facilitate a view of how Bakugou would be able to treat others better, which I think is worth exploring.

Concern:

Why do you care so much? People ship bad/problematic stuff all the time lol there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Just let it be or blacklist it or something??

Answer:

I’m maybe foolishly invested in the idea that some people don’t have to be like that when they’re informed and engaged in critical discourse, and well fuck I have time and resources and have already started two godamned things this weekend with fandom out of probably masochistic impulses, so why the fuck not. 

Just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean I’m here to attack people or be unwilling to talk to them about it---rather, I’m more concerned that people are so unwillingly to talk about why the things they like isn’t good?? 

Kacchako is just one instance. I can provide a lot more examples of this kind of behavior in different areas of interest, in detail, with plenty of support and reasons, over private message. Otherwise, I’m not interested in making a detailed -post- of examples of bad kacchakos because honestly, I’ve already spent a lot of my time writing this when I could be discussing more pressing issues. The downsides of hyper focus.

On that note, forgive me if I don’t immediately respond to further replies any time soon after this post. After more than 10 messages that entirely missed the point I’ve exhausted myself thinking people could put aside their first impulses and self-indulgences to maybe formulate better opinions on tumblr.com, rather than sending me vague, misinformed, and/or childishly defensive insults that don’t actually tell me I’m wrong.

[ghostofmoriarty]

Fictional Favorites Tag Game

I was tagged by @yourgoodfriendraichel so here goes  I am going to follow in Raichel’s footsteps and put this under a break, because oooh boy did it get long  1. What is your MBTI? It changes every time I take the test, but  INTP /INTJ are my most common results 

2. What is your Hogwarts House? Ravenclaw. I’m quite the academic these days.

3. Are you a book person or a TV person? I love books on principle, but I love tv so much and it’s so much more CONVENIENT.  (this is @yourgoodfriendraichel‘s answer, but it’s so 100% accurate, I’m keeping it) 

4. What is your favorite book series? Harry Potter will always have a special place in my heart, as will Percy Jackson and Cirque du Freak. I love Dirk Gently (Douglas Adams was an amazing writer through and through) and Sherlock Holmes because I am garbage for a good detective story.  ASOIAF and the entire Tolkienverse (LotR et al) are some of my favorites. Oh! And The Sparrow, there was a sequel so it counts as a series. I haven’t read the sequel yet, but The Sparrow was legitimately one of the greatest books I have ever read and I am super excited to check out the sequel when I have a few days off of work that isn’t dedicated to mowing the lawn (it's been raining sooo much here)

5. What is your favorite TV series? I love so many tv series. Aquabats! Super Show! will always be in my top 10. I am garbage for TURN: Washington’s Spies even though I think it’s kind of terrible, oooh and Dirk Genty’s Holistic Detective Agency, can’t believe I forgot about that one, I was literally just talking about the books. And no matter how angry I get at Doctor Who, I will always return to watch the new season (this last season was really good, thank god) but I think Classic Doctor Who is a thousand times better than the reboot

6. Which fantasy universe would you most like to live in?  I don’t know, because in any universe I won’t be the hero (I’m not even the hero/protagonist in THIS universe, so why would it be any different in a fictional one?) so I would need one that I could live happily and not be incinerated by dragons or forced to fight some nobleman’s war. Yeah, I’ve managed to talk myself out of every fantasy universe I could think of. How about Harry Potter? Yeah, sure Hogwarts has a scarily high student fatality rate for a high school and there’s a massive war every couple of decades that wipes out half the generation, but magic would be fun. I think I would take a short life with magic over a long life without it (assuming that I don’t end up a muggle or a squib, of course)

7. Favorite character ever? Finn from Star Wars, Sansa Stark from ASOIAF (note: ASOIAF and NOT GoT), Prince Charles Edward Stewart from Outlander…. That’s a really weird one, but Outlander was one of the most horrible (and uncomfortable) shows I have sat through but I really loved Bonnie Prince Charlie?? He was just an idealistic ray of sunshine in this bland, bleak wasteland of a tv show. He wouldn’t make the list if my hatred for the show was any lessened, but because I hate the show so much, my love for him is exemplified immensely. Anyway, Theodore “TBag” Bagwell from Prison Break, the entire cast of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, Pietro Maximoff (and 99% of all XMen), Sauron, etc. So many.

8. Character you would like to personally slap in the face: Abe Woodhull from TURN: Washington’s Spies. He’s terrible, through and through.

9. Character you would like to personally murder: CHLOE FROM LIFE IS STRANGE. I WOULD HAVE MURDERED HER SO HARD IF MY GAME DIDN’T GLITCH ON THE LAST LEVEL.  *she’s a terrible human whose manipulative and abusive. WLW deserve better options in both general representation and romanceable wlw characters in video games

10. Character you would gladly intern under:  Any of the Xmen (can I be a plucky assistant who has a really lame super power but still tries to help, please???)  OOOOOH and Larten Crepsley from Cirque du Freak (I LOVE HIM, YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW also he is in my top 5 favorite characters of all time, so I can’t believe I left him out in the fave character section)

11. Character you would totally have tea with: I don’t drink tea, but I’d probably go on a late-night coffee run with the entire Star Wars cast or Aquaman. Aquaman probably hates coffee though, so The Riddler? Edward Nygma seems like an “up all night anxiously drinking coffee while finishing up some project (probably a criminal scheme)” kinda guy.

12. Character that you feel really needs a hug: The entire freaking cast of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (note: the tv show, not the books)

13. Character you love that you would probably hate irl: Most of them, to be honest. I am drawn to horrible people in fiction. Simcoe, TURN: Washington’s Spies (note: tv show version, not real-life verson); T-Bag, Prison Break; Cesare Borgia, The Borgias;

14. Character you would realistically be friends with irl: Ken, Dirk Gently���s Holistic Detective Agency 

5. First character you had a crush on (if any): Jack Sparrow………

16. Favorite ships: ooooOOOh boy where to begin…. DISCLAIMER: when I say I ship things, I just mean I find the dynamic between the 2+ characters interesting and compelling. I don’t necessarily feel that they should be a canonical end-game romance (or even a romance at all), nor do I stan the relationship as healthy for either of the characters, nor do I feel that these relationships (platonic, romantic, or otherwise) should be heralded as a beacon of #goals to aspire to. I literally mean “hey those two have a cool dynamic, I wanna see more of that” -Master/Missy (I’ve been calling it “MASTERbator but I don’t know what the official ship name) (Doctor Who) -Anna Strong/Hewlett (TURN) -Foggy Nelsen /Matt Murdock (Daredevil) -Abe Woodhull/ Robert Townsend (TURN; note: Rob is too good for Abe but Rob’s reactions to Abe are too perfect to not ship) -Sansan (ASOIAF; I ship this 100% platonically) -Jaime and Brienne (ASOIAF; this is 100% not a platonic ship) -Finn/Poe -Han/Lando (we have NEVER heard the details of that card game, is all I’m sayin’) -Edward Nygma/ Oswald Cobblepot (Gotham/ DC; this is legit the ONLY reason I continue to watch Gotham. Everything else is garbage, but these two’s relationship, man. It’s so compelling, they’re so in love and so unwilling to put their differences and murderous tendencies aside to make their relationship work. I have so many feelings about this ship, okay)

-Joker/Batman (LEGO Batman; it was so beautiful, guys)

I have so many more, I don’t even know

17. Series (TV/book) that you feel ended terribly:  Harry Potter’s ending is literally a meme now, so I won’t do overboard explaining that one. BUT, The Hunger Games. Okay, so this fucking series has a female character who is constantly talking and thinking about how she doesn’t want any children, and how she doesn’t feel like she should be a mother, which is pretty progressive right??? Also, 2 and a half fucking books are building up to an end all war/ revolution and It’s gonna be the biggest damn thing ever, right??? WELL how does this book series end??? Katniss, the FUCKING  NARRATOR, gets hit in her head and blacks out, so she (AS WELL AS THE READER) misses the majority of the final battle, and THEN this series reveals that Gail (the less useless of the two potential love interests) may have caused the death of Katniss’ sister, so he leaves and Katniss chooses Peeta for no other reason than “well, I’m 17 so I should settle down with SOMEONE and you’re within proximity, so I guess you’ll do” and they get banished to District 12 where Katniss mothers a bunch of children because what else are you gonna do but fuck, and basically the entire ending is one piece of bullshit after the other (ALSO THE MOVIES FRAME THE ENDING AS “KATNISS IS NOW A MOTHER THEREFOR SHE’S REACHED HER POTENTIAL AS A WOMAN, ISN’T THIS A HAPPY ENDING” and fuck this entire series)

18. Series (TV/book) that had so much potential but was actually an epic disaster: Literally everything I watch. Dr Who, TURN: Washington’s Spies, Gotham, Sherlock, Game of Thrones; But hey, that’s what fanfiction is for

19. Worst book/movie/TV show you’ve ever read/seen: Ooooh I’ve read and watched some TERRIBLE things in my day.  Outlander. Outlander was pitched to me as having 18th Century Scotland and TIME TRAVEL. Some of my favorite things, aaaand it ended up being one of the worst things I have ever seen. 90% of it is just boring, but the other 10% involves, in my opinion, really poorly handled sexual assault. I won’t go into details here, but it was bad.  

Also, Borgias was fascinating, but bad. And TURN: Washington’s Spies. Honestly, I watch a lot of period pieces because I think the clothes are pretty or I am interested in the time period and/or historical events in which its set around, but then 99% of them are all really poorly-written soap opera-y dramas with nice sets and costumes.   20. Favorite book from your childhood: Harry Potter

21. 3 Favorite Tropes: Complex Family Dynamics (I think that’s more of a category of tropes than a trope itself, but I love me some fam drama), Happy endings for gays (that’s not really a trope, but it fills me with love and happiness every time it happens –which is rare), oooh I don’t know. I can’t think of any right now, but I do love a lot of tropes, I promise.

22. 3 Most Hated Tropes: Bury your Gays (killing off gay characters for no reason), Rape as empowerment (ie: when the narration treats a sexual assault as a motivator for women that “makes them stronger”); Man Pain (when a woman is assaulted/ threatened by the antagonist, and the main male-protag uses it as “motivation” to fight the antagonist. The story doesn’t allow the female character who experienced the trauma to be the focus of the story/arc, her traumatizing experience is not about her, it is ONLY there to develop the male character she is close to; the story essentially treats the male as the real victim)

23. Scariest thing you’ve ever watched/read: James and the Giant Peach

24. Anything you’d like to recommend? Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (please send me a message if you want to know what it’s about, it’s SO GOOD. It’s fun, quirky, unlike anything else, and it has a diverse cast including characters who are poc (and woc), characters who have disabilities, women who are badass, none of the women are ever sexualized at all, it has corgis, and mysteries, and scifi, and it’s just a big adventure. (I also recommend the books, and the 2011 tv series Dirk Gently)

25. Would you like any recommendations? I’m game for anything. I love period pieces, fantasy, science fiction, TIME TRAVEL, quirky detectives, gory things, child-friendly things, honestly as long as it has interesting characters I am game. I don’t even need a good story, just characters.

  Heeey I am terrible at tagging people. If you want to do the thing, please do! And tag me so I can read it :) Also, if you actually read this whole thing, then you deserve all the gold stars, thank you!

[murder-cate-wrote]

Something I wrote for a friend. RusPrus, part of a larger, unspecified domestic au that I haven’t quite figured out myself. 

Enjoy.

Ivan rushed through the door. He tossed his bags haphazardly into their allotted corner, just past the entrance way. He heard the awkward rattle of an unsteady object nearly toppling over; it was the coat rack, which Ivan had flung his book-laden canvas and hand stitched satchel at. Ivan froze at the sound, staring in sheer horror as the treacherously tall and clumsy coat rack almost fell like an oak felled by a storm.

However, the rack did not fall, and settled back into place with one last rattle.

As soon as Ivan knew that the rack was out of danger, he released his breath and slumped over. He half wished his body would just let his legs go limp beneath him, the fall knocking him out cold. If he could've fallen exactly as the coat rack almost had, Ivan might be happy. But some primal message in the back of his brain stopped his legs from breaking down, and some other lurking voice laughed at him for this flaw.

Of course the first thing that Ivan did upon returning home would be almost making a big, ugly mess. Naturally.

There was nothing quiet about Ivan. Not the way that his feet dragged or stomped on the laminate wood floor, nor the way that he muttered under his breath and cursed many, many undeserving things on soft bits of air. Especially not the way that he finally got fed up with it all; trying to organize his thoughts and sort out what goes where.

What book did he need to look over, what questions that went along with the section? He didn't care. What project needed his attention, what piece was next in line? He didn't care. What about himself, what to eat, drink? Maybe a shower? Pajamas even?

Ivan didn't care.

He trundled into his small, though very well kept, bedroom. The door slammed behind him, and Ivan winced as he heard the walls tremble. He casually flopped down on the bed, dragging himself towards the middle, where a slight indent in the shape of his body indicated his favorite spot to rest. The bed groaned uncomfortably under his weight. The blankets had been well made before Ivan laid down and mussed them, and were rather stunned that someone was already in bed at this hour. It wasn't even quite dinner time; the sun still above the horizon, and yet someone occupied the bed. Either way, the thick, floral blankets had little say in the goings on of life. They silently accepted the staunch, unmoving occupation.

Ivan himself was surprised as well. This morning, he had left the room in utter disarray. Now, it was spotless. Of course it was, Gilbert couldn't stand a mess. And with a free day to do as he pleased, it seemed as if nothing pleased Gilbert more than simple chores and menial tasks that most people considered torturous.

Ivan had woken up early that morning, nerves shredded to bits at the thought of the day ahead. He had spent quite some time picking out what to wear, making a fiasco out of something so trivial. That little shirt and pants parade of his left various articles of clothing strewn about the room, Ivan much too nervous to worry about putting them away. It was as if he forgot about them until he was already gone from the house, unable to go back and put them away like he should have in the first place. It wasn't just that... Ivan remembered knocking a few things off of a shelf in his panic, some little picture frame or odd trophy, neither of which belonged to him. And, no, he hadn't bothered to pick either of those up, seeing as he was much too worried about himself to bother.

The memory summoned a rather hollow, dark feeling in his chest.

Ivan had made another mess the moment he had entered his apartment that evening. A clutter which Gilbert would come home to from whatever little escapade he was out on and gladly remedy. He would never mention it to Ivan, and probably wouldn't ever think about it again himself. Perhaps it was this quiet, peaceful acceptance that drew up a deep blame in Ivan. It was like the fault lines between the tectonic plates, slowly ripping Ivan apart.

He fell asleep, draped limp across the whole bed, flat on his stomach. It was a position comparable to one that an investigator might find the victim of a murder in.

~

Gilbert frowned, the edge of a snarl curled on the edge of his frustrated huff. He switched his truck into park, and slammed his hand on the steering wheel as if to prove to himself just how irritated he was. He snatched a box of pizza from the passenger's seat, then practically kicked open his door. He didn't really care for the truck that much- it was just an old red ford, with its fair share of dents and scratches- this physical abuse didn't even begin to make him feel guilty. He'd be getting rid of it soon anyhow. Maybe his brother would like it for his apprenticing shop, use it to teach the kids a few things.

Jumping down from the cabin of his truck, Gilbert slammed the door closed, relishing the clatter of metal slapping metal. It was chaotic and mindless and beautiful.

Unlike his mother, who had just spent the better half of an hour subjecting him to her own special mix of mental torture- a creative blend of his current shortcomings mixed with those of his past, all being communicated over the phone.

Yes, Gilbert had muttered. He remembered how he always forgot to do the dishes or take out the trash and yes, he was on top of that now, no need to fuss... and what was that? His grades? Hell, how had she even gotten ahold of those? Oh, yeah, Gilbert himself had sent her a short documentation via email, as his mother had requested when he first began attending college. A monthly report so that she could keep an eye on her little boy, and make sure that he was okay.

Like hell she did. She didn't give a damn, she didn't care! She was a control freak that exploited every single one of his flaws and never acknowledged any of his successes beyond a light pat on the back. She bitched and bitched and never thought one that perhaps some of Gilbert's issues were not with him, but with his mental affliction. Then again, Gilbert's mother didn't believe that ADHD existed anyhow, so why bother hoping that she might see it one day and get off his back?

Gilbert sneered, but quickly lost the glare in his eye as he caught sight of a moth fluttering around the dully glowing scone outside his apartment door. That was on the second floor, and Gilbert hadn't even reached the stairs yet. So that was one big fucking moth.

"Damn," Gilbert muttered, utterly amazed by the size of the moth. "Mothman's cousin must be trying to move in or something."

A mew to his right caught Gilbert's attention next, and he quickly looked down to face this new creature.

"Ah!" He cried in delight. "Mothman!"

Mothman, the amber eyed black cat, blinked lazily and meowed again. He was not looking at Gilbert, but at the pizza box he carried. Gilbert snorted. "Oh, don't even try and use me, cute face. It might work on softie, but not me. Besides," Gilbert squatted down, careful to hold the pizza out of Mothman's reach. "This is the good stuff, ya know? Not to brag, but it ain't Little Ceasar's. Cost me more than a couple pennies outta my own pocket, catch my drift?"

Mothman wound around Gilbert's legs, and all at once the tension melted off of his skin. His mother could go softly fuck herself for as much as he cared. Mothman was absolutely right, Gilbert thought as he stroked the cat with his free hand. There was no reason she should get up under his skin like that. Certainly no reason that she should make him so mad that he hurt someone else, aside from the truck that was used to the odd beating.

"Ah, fine." Gilbert laughed, giving Mothman one last, good cheek scratch. "I'll see if I can sneak out some for ya. For now, I gotta get up to the room. Ciao!" The last word, a farewell in an unfamiliar language, was spat out as cooly and stupidly as Gilbert could manage. He laughed at his own tomfoolery, while Mothman seemed to roll his stunning eyes.

Up the stairs Gilbert dashed, with his keys rattling in his pocket and the pizza expertly balanced on his hand. It was not long before he had reached his respective door, although he was rather disappointed to find that the moth he had spotted was long gone. Twisting the key in the lock, Gilbert shoved the door open with a quick yell. "Dinner is here!"

Upon receiving no reply, and observing the assorted books, folders, and sketchpads scattered on the table, a small, sad frown took over Gilbert's face.

"Bad day, huh?" He asked no one in particular.

He quickly found the bags that went with the various school supplies, and put them away as best as he could. The pizza had been set on a free spot on the table, which was clear after Gilbert had finished his small task. It was long forgotten by then, as was any hunger that nagged at Gilbert. His mother, surely, would've lectured him about eating consistent meals. But her son didn't hear her voice echoing in his head that evening.

There was nothing loud about the way that Gilbert moved. Not the way that his feet silently padded across the rug, nor the way that small concerns fluttered in and out of his thoughts. Especially not the way that he entered the shadowy bedroom, kneeling down beside it and resting his chin on the edge of the mattress.

Evening had long since claimed the sky, along with soft, unimposing clouds. The light from the half shuttered window was grey and calm. Gilbert could've fallen asleep then and there. He had, several times before in similar situations. But Ivan wasn't sleeping this time. Gilbert could tell by how the other man curled into himself, and by the anxiety that poured off his skin like a river of blood from an unseen wound.

Now, all Gilbert had left to do was be patient. Ordinarily, for Gilbert, this was like asking him to hike Mount Everest in a single day.

But for Ivan? God, he'd sit still for a week. He'd meditate and make peace with his mother and any number of ungodly things that Ivan would never ask of him. Gilbert grinned, lopsided. Ivan would never ask anything like that, even though he knew that Gilbert would act upon the whim of his word. How kind of him, honestly.

No, Ivan only asked for simple things.

Usually, forgiveness.

"Sorry." Ivan croaked. His voice was strained, absolutely pitiful. Usually, it had such a clear, golden tone, which floated up to a soprano's pitch. Gilbert admired it for its irregular beauty. Now it nearly made him want to cry.

But he didn't let the grey light and soft apology ruin him. He smiled wider, creeping up a bit further onto the bed, half on-half off. With his chin perched upon his hand, Gilbert said, "what for?"

Ivan shallowly shrugged. "The mess. 'm sorry."

"Nah," Gilbert swallowed hard before going on. "That wasn't a big deal. You know that. I tell you every time you supposedly 'make a mess'. It was my day off, and I should be thanking you, rather than you coughing up this... what should we call it this time?"

"Sob story?" Ivan offered.

"Yeah, this sob story... Like I was saying, I should be thanking you. I would've gone insane today with nothing really to do, so you helped me. Honest. You kept me sane, Ivan. As usual. You don't gotta be so glum about it for my sake, okay? You're good, you're good..."

Here, Gilbert paused. His mouth was half open as his tongue tried to come up with more words to fill the empty space of the swiftly darkening room. His eyes caught sight of the dim portraits the clung to the walls of the room. Pictures that he had taken. Mostly from his trip to Europe. The Coliseum in Rome, the Brandenburg Gates in Germany, a random bridge in France, a few sheep in the U.K....

"Hey." Gilbert whispered, a new thought having come to mind. He was proud of it, in fact, seeing as it was one that contained a slim memory which he expected himself to have forgotten. Yet, there it was.

Ivan grunted, permitting him to continue.

"How was that presentation today, eh?" Gilbert raised up, excited to hear. The thought that perhaps this was what caused Ivan's off mood never occurred to him. Not until Ivan groaned and rolled over. By then, it was too late for Gilbert to take his words back and take a more sensitive approach.

"Oh, God." Ivan nearly sounded like he was in tears right then and there. He sat up, and looked far more miserable than before. Gilbert couldn't tell for the dim light, but he hoped that tears hadn't already stained his cheeks. "It was so awful, Gil. So, so bad..."

"Hey, hey...!" Gilbert nearly jumped on the bed, trying to reverse his imperceptive mistake. Now even with Ivan, he searched the other's face once again for the stains left by tears... if Ivan had cried, that meant he had also...

Relief washed over Gilbert, a wave of ease relaxing his muscles. Searching his face, searching his arms, Ivan hadn't gone and done something stupid, he hadn't hurt himself.

"You couldn't have done bad." Gilbert whispered, and took Ivan's hands in his own. Ivan turned his face away and hid behind the shadow of his hair. "You prepared for so long. I know you did well."

"No." Ivan protested. "No, I didn't. I stuttered and I froze up and I forgot half of what I was supposed to say. I forgot my own story, Gil, the story I've been working on for most of the semester."

"Yeah," Gilbert leaned over, trying to find Ivan's face and meet him with another smile. "And I forget my own first name sometimes. Trust me, Ivan, I've been watching you work. You did awesome, I know it."

"You just said you don't know your own first name. How could you know anything about how I did, huh?" Ivan frowned, turning ever so slightly only to see Gilbert's wide grin. He nearly lost the grip he had on his glower.

"I said I forgot my name sometimes, not that I didn't know it." Gilbert corrected, bringing one of Ivan's limp hands up to his lips. He planted a quick kiss on Ivan's palm, which surely tickled the skin. Ivan jerked his hand back in surprise, and even in the low light, Gilbert caught sight of the dull red color on Ivan's cheeks.

"One thing I'll never forget, though, is that you do good work, Ivan. Who gives a damn if you get nervous sometimes? It happens. Your professor wasn't looking for an intensive speech on controversial topics, she was just looking to see the progress you made on your story board over the semester. I know for a fact that she's impressed. You put your soul into that thing, it's seriously impressive. You're really, really good at putting your ideas and images on paper, seriously. You don't even need to speak! Your art has a voice of its own. Just you wait until you go in tomorrow. I bet she'll say something to you about how fantastic it was." Gilbert finished, hesitantly awaiting Ivan's reaction.

He saw no real change in expression, only a small twinkle in Ivan's eyes. "I guess she will," Ivan murmured, and Gilbert felt elation spread through his veins. Had Gilbert really, finally convinced Ivan that he was as amazing as he knew he was?

"She will because you'll slip her a twenty, or make some shady deal. Scoundrel." Ivan added, and Gilbert tilted his head back and belted out in a cackle.

"Me?" Gilbert asked, recovering from his fit. His expression mimicked absolute astonishment. "Why, I'd never!"

Ivan just shook his head. Though a soft smile lit up his lips, Gilbert wasn't quite satisfied with that temporary change. It would be gone much too soon.

He laughed softly once more, then cleared his throat. Now, his voice had a far more serious, almost stern tone, that caught Ivan's attention. "Listen, Ivan, please don't be so tough on yourself. I bet no one even noticed that you stuttered or forgot anything. When I used to play for concerts, I thought every time I messed up that everyone in the audience knew. Well, the thing is, those suckers didn't know jack. And still don't. That's just the game. I know what's going on and what's supposed to happen, and they, the audience, can only assume that what happens is what's supposed to happen. You gotta own that sometimes, you know? You gotta own your errors, even if they haunt you when you sleep. Sometimes, it's better to pretend like you have ugly little children... but you still love them, yeah? Even though they're ugly...."

Ivan stared for a moment, then broke down in his own laughing fit. He allowed himself to fall backwards, landing on his back with a soft 'oof.'

"Where do you come up with this stuff, Gil?" He asked quietly, rubbing a hand across his face.

Gilbert crawled over to meet Ivan's eyes. His own were half lidded, as if he were dreaming. And his smile had curled into more of a devious smirk, as if he knew that he had gotten his way and won the battle. "Well, my mother always told me that my mouth was like a hallway, directly connected to my ass."

Ivan snorted. "Yeah, yeah, I know all about her and what she used to say... what do you think, though?"

Gilbert tapped his chin, feigning a period of silent thought. In reality, he had his answer within a moment. "It's the combination of our unique brilliance, that's what I think."

"Maybe you're just crazy, and I really haven't been keeping you sane at all." Ivan offered, shutting his eyes.

"Maybe." Gilbert creeped a bit closer, sitting right up against Ivan's side. "Maybe I don't care."

With that, Gilbert leaned down and connected their lips in a kiss that felt like the gentlest car crash to ever take human lives. He was perhaps a bit rough and silly, but then Ivan smiled against him and this was too enticing not to treat with some amount of seriousness. Gilbert felt himself pulled by a strong arm flush to Ivan's chest, and brought his own hand up to wind his fingers through Ivan's silken hair. A warmth as sure as death shuddered through his body, but Gilbert didn't give a damn if it meant he was on the road to hell or otherwise. This, all of it, was well worth its weight in gold, and then some.

Ivan was the first to break away. He blinked a few times but didn't say a word. His eyes were as soft as his lips, calm and satiated. In and of itself, this was an expression of gratitude that simple words couldn't express.

Then, he hugged Gilbert tight, offering no hope of escape. Gilbert accepted this with a strained, amused wheeze, his face afire and tongue in awe of the Ivan's subtle taste. Settling down and tucking his head as best as he could beneath Ivan's chin, Gilbert continued to absently work the tangles out of Ivan's hair. Ivan hardly noticed the occasional tug; he was simply entranced by how delicate and sensitive Gilbert's touch was. It was a ritual, and Ivan was the fortunate victim.

"Hey." Gilbert whispered.

Ivan hummed, giving permission for Gilbert to go on.

"I just thought of something else I'll never forget. Never, ever. You ready for it?"

"What's that?"

"I'll never forget how much I love you."