#WE WERE BADLY ABUSED AND NOBODY CARED WHEN THAT HAPPENED... WHERE IS SHE...? OUR TRAUMA GODDESS THE PERSON THAT WILL SAVE US AND FIX | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

movedyoakkemae · 3 years

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my thoughts on the en.deavour redemption arc (chs 164 - 302). DO NOT REBLOG.

DO NOT REBLOG !!

the endeavour redemption arc is a rather controversial arc in the manga, and, tl;dr: i think it started eh, continued badly, turned better, then ended like shit.

note: if you are anime only, this will contain spoilers ! trigger warnings: child abuse, domestic abuse, suicide, and murder.

here are the things we know: endeavour physically abused shōto, tōya, and rei. he ignored natsuo and fuyumi, and he discarded tōya once he realised that tōya got burnt through using his quirk. he also mentally and emotionally abused all of them. separated shōto from the rest of his siblings. not to mention the fact that he married rei on purpose in order to create the perfect tool that would become the number one hero in his stead. he thinks of his children as objects, as extensions of himself.

however, endeavour, not out of his own power but because of all might's lack of strength, ends up reaching the number one spot as a hero by himself. this kickstarts endeavour's "redemption" arc, particularly in chapter 164 when endeavour asks all might:

endeavour: you hear about this? how the crime rate this past month... is up 3% compared to past years? i... i'm the guy who resolved more incidents than anyone, now more than ever... but i can hear it. the thing you've built that cannot be seen... is crumbling down. so, #1 hero... what's it mean to be the symbol of peace? (ch 164)

in a lot of ways, this question is surprising to hear. as we can tell even in the question itself, endeavour's main area of focus has been about the amount of incidents that he has stopped, the amount of villains that he has defeated, but recognising that there was something missing, something that all might had built up, certainly shows an awareness that endeavour seemed to lack earlier.

in the next chapter, the conversation continues:

endeavour: i gave shōto everything. by age 20, i'd already climbed to the #2 position. it was because i made that climb that i understood... unless i reached the summit, it was all for nothing. if all i cared about were titles, i could've worn a smile like you... and played the part of the lovable fool. but i wanted to be the strongest! [...] all might: endeavor. the position you've been put in... i know what people are saying. a lot of people compare us. but you and i are different. the symbol i strove to be... that isn't the path for you to follow. take your time to figure out... ...the way you ought to do things. (ch 165)

again, we still see that hint of same sort of "all he cares about strength". being number one was all about being stronger than all might, which is why when he found it impossible for him, he went on to try to create something that could end up being stronger than both him and all might. that would be, after he beat it into shape.

also, the fact that he says "i gave shōto everything". (yeah, you gave the poor kid trauma if that's what you mean by "everything".) that's something some abusers routinely say about their children -- that they gave them everything, that they should be grateful.

at the end of the chapter, we see shōto warmly giving a little girl a small fire to put her hands next to when she was chilly, a smile on his face, and endeavour has a weird look as all might says:

all might: what purpose does our strength serve? endeavour... the answer is a simple one. (ch 165)

this is what sets the tone for endeavour's part of his conversation with shōto in the next chapter.

endeavour: i'm proud of you, son. on that note... i'm hoping to become a hero you can be proud of. as your father and the #1 hero... i want to be deserving of those titles. shōto: [clearly aggravated and tense] good luck with that... (ch 165)

inasa sees endeavour talking to shōto and notices how his eyes have changed from being cold and not looking at anyone around him to actually focusing on shōto. as such, the readers are basically hinted to see that endeavour has changed, even just a little, already. he's no longer just looking at all might as the summit he needs to climb; he's actually seeing the people around him.

now, this kickstarts endeavour's arc of thoughts that being a better #1 hero would mean that he would be a better father. this we especially see in the endeavour v. nomu arc.

i think the first interesting conversation we have about the endeavour's redemption arc is in chapter 187 with natsuo and fuyumi visiting rei in the hospital. natsuo says,

natsuo: about him... they made him number one yesterday. it's official. the world still doesn't know the truth about you [rei]. about our siblings... about how he's always treated his family. for one, he doesn't do the talk show circuit. i can barely remember most of it, really. thinking back, he was like a perfect stranger. but... what he did to you, to shōto, and to... [tōya/dabi] well, i can't let anyone pretend it all never happened. it's been almost ten years, and he still hasn't come to apologise to you. his past, his family... it's like he wants to leave it all behind. [...] rei: apparently he's [endeavour] come many times. though... we haven't met. i'm a bit scared though... and my doctor says it's not a good idea. of course, i can't say what he's thinking. it might be external pressures. but... he's not leaving anything behind. not his past. not his family. i know he's trying to make sense of it all. (ch 187)

he's also apparently been leaving rei flowers, flowers that she told him that were her favourite once when they met for the first time.

i actually think in this aspect, it's good that he hasn't actually seen rei or pushed himself onto seeing her. he's letting her take control of her own recovery (although, i will say it's pretty fucking telling that even after a decade, she's still scared of him). i'd argue that the flowers might be crossing the line, but it seems that rei thinks of them as a nice gesture, so i'm not going to argue about how that could be perceived negatively.

the battle between endeavour and the nomu gets serious, and endeavour nearly dies (which is broadcasted on TV for shōto to see, ofc).

in chapter 189, we see three different characters' thoughts on endeavour never giving up (some of it in particular directed towards his fight towards surpassing all might and being number one via strength alone).

natsuo: he knows better than anyone... that he'll never be the next all might! that's why he gave up so quickly... and basically went insane... abandoning the kids he didn't care for... and driving mom to the breaking point... [...] fuyumi: he never gave up. in fact, giving up is what he's worst at. [...] hawks: i was watching you this whole time. i get it. there was nobody else out there... really trying to surpass him [all might]. only you! you were the one working to surpass him. [manga showing endeavour building a small bridge over the chasm that metaphorically separates all might from the rest of the heroes] (ch 189).

i actually agree with fuyumi here more than anyone. endeavour marrying rei and creating his children wasn't because he was giving up (for one, he thinks of his children as extensions of himself...) but part of his way of trying to surpass all might. he also continued to work and get stronger himself, which he wouldn't have been doing if he had just given up.

that being said, i do agree with natsuo's description of their childhood, just not about it being because endeavour gave up.

also, from a narrative perspective, the shift of endeavour's obsession with surpassing all might being thought of as negative (from shōto's statements of it in the sports festival arc) to positive (you're the only one who actually tried!) through hawks point of view is... interesting. horikoshi is re-contextualising endeavour's obsession as a good thing, and that, in point, is done to soften endeavour's actions overall.

after all, if it's a good thing that endeavour was trying to surpass all might, then doesn't his actions against his family make a little bit more sense? doesn't that mean that he had good intentions, even if he did something bad?

(nope. not in my book.)

so, the next part of this arc happens in 192, where endeavour comes home from the hospital and after defeating the nomu with a huge scar on his face (the exact same side as shōto's!), and we get that beautifully passive aggressive "nasty scar you got there" from shōto while he's slurping up soba noodles.

and then natsuo tries to leave and this conversation starts:

endeavour: natsuo... if you got something to say, then say it. natsuo: say it...? that's rich, coming from a guy who's never even looked me in the eye. listen to this... i didn't know shōto loved soba until today. why? because you never let him play with us failed experiments. i get the feeling that mom and sis here want to forgive you, but all i see is the same maniac who, all of a sudden, is getting rave reviews. you might look like a changed man, but you're not. you abandoned us as failures, left us to hear mom's screams, shōto's cries. and big bro tōya too... you being the top hero and beating some big baddie can't erase any of that. did you decide to have a change of heart?! think we can just hug things out and make up?! it's sickening! don't you freaking get that?! endeavour: i'm trying to make amends, going forward. natsuo: is that so?! [leaves] (ch 192)

for one, god fucking bless natsuo. i think he fully encapsulates my issue with this part of the endeavour redemption arc, which is solidified by shōto's own speech:

shōto: as a hero, this endeavour guy... is pretty darn amazing. but it's like natsu said. i'm not ready to forgive you... for abusing mom. so, heroics aside, what sort of dad are you going to be? that's what i want to find out. sure, the perfect turning point can actually change someone. i know it's possible. (ch 192)

endeavour doesn't need to be a perfect hero to earn redemption from his family. hell, even when shōto hated endeavour the most, he could admit that endeavour was a great hero. maybe his reasons for being a hero was off, but he saved people, he stopped the bad guys. i think it's even canon that he's technically saved more people than all might.

the problem was never with "endeavour", it was with "todoroki enji". todoroki enji was a shit father who didn't give a shit about his kids aside from what he could use them for. he was too obsessed with defeating all might that he lost sight of his family -- which endeavour finally seems to realise after this little speech.

endeavour's thoughts: [having a flashback to all might saying "what purpose does our strength serve?"] power... a reason to dominate... when he told me that, it came to me in a flash. an ordinary, simple thought. "i have to safeguard the future for them." that's the job for whoever's on top! and yet... what about the futures i cut short? [image of rei in the midst of a mental breakdown] just demanding forgiveness isn't enough. it's too late for that. at this point, i need to atone... there's no other route. endeavour out loud: fuyumi, i'm sorry for everything. that was the wrong thing to say to natsuo. (ch 192)

we see actual growth in his character, him actually starting to learn what he should be focusing on rather than what he was focusing on. he still slips up, like with him trying to demand shōto's attention through texting with contact information that he only got because FUYUMI gave to him (ch 203), which i have my own issues with. as in, fuyumi better have asked shōto permission before giving endeavour his contact information because, if not, then holy fucking shit, that's so gross.

in the next part of the endeavour redemption arc, we have shōto in chapter 242 invite izuku and katsuki to join him with training at endeavour's hero agency.

we still see hints of endeavour only really thinking of shōto as an extension of his will and his beliefs when he asks izuku and katsuki in chapter 247 what they're working on and what they want to achieve. he starts to move in without even asking shōto, which shōto objects to in his own way.

endeavour: let's get to it -- shōto: [clears throat] and me? endeavour: you're here to master flashfire, shōto! shōto: all the quirk training you beat into me as a kid... i've put it into practise with my right side. thinking back, it's no wonder i couldn't escape my own hatred of you. then i got into u.a. competing alongside these two [izuku and katsuki]... and everyone else... really opened my eyes. endeavour... in the end... i'm going to do exactly what you always wanted. but please understand... the man i admire... is the one mom and i watched on the tv back then. [all might]. as a fledgling hero... in order to become a man worthy of the title... i came here of my own free will! you're a rotten number one*. you were just in the right place at the right time -- that's all. sorry this isn't going the way you want it to, number one. so let's stop that father-son crap in front of my friends. endeavour's thoughts: since he was willing to come here, i thought the boy's heart was open and ready to accept me... what a fool i was! i had it all wrong! endeavour out loud: right. i'll be evaluating you three as heroes. (ch 247) *the translation isn't quite accurate, but i don't have access to the original japanese right now to translate myself. i just remember that this translation isn't the best.

once again, we do see that endeavour is learning. shōto expresses his feelings and endeavour tries to move on from there in the way that shōto wants him to -- and he does ! he stops acting like he's close to shōto as a dad in front of the others and acts only like a hero training an apprentice (without the abuse that happened all throughout shōto's childhood).

i think this and what happens in the next part of this internship arc, is probably the best written bits of the endeavour redemption arc.

by that, in chapter 249, we open with this inner dialogue from endeavour:

endeavour: i'm trying to make amends... going forward. it might be too late... but i fall asleep every night thinking about... what i can do for my family. lately, it's been the same dream. the wife and kids, looking happy... at the dinner table. but i'm... never there with them. (ch 249)

this kickstarts his decision that he gives to natsuo later, but before we get there, we get this awkward todoroki family dinner with izuku and katsuki. izuku finally finds out that katsuki overheard them during the sports festival, and fuyumi and shōto talk when they think they're alone.

fuyumi: it's not like i don't share some of natsu's feelings... but... it feels like we've been given another chance now... how do you feel about dad? shōto: this burn... i think of it as something our old man gave me. [cue horrific flashback of the aftermath of rei pouring boiling water on shōto's face and immediately apologising] mom endured and endured... until she couldn't anymore. so, i can't just decide to forgive the guy who wore her down... but... mom is trying to get past all that now. honestly... i don't know... how i should feel about him. i still... haven't seen anything. [...] izuku: todoroki, i think... you're getting yourself ready to be able to forgive him. just say "i'll never forgive him" if you really hate the guy. because you're so caring yourself... it's like you're waiting... or at least that's how it seems. (ch 249)

i think each of the siblings (including tōya / dabi!) really showcases a lot of the different reactions children can have towards abuse. fuyumi is the type who fully embraces the abuser back because they want to become a family again. shōto is the type who isn't quite sure but doesn't want to just kick the abuser down if he's actually trying to change. natsuo is the type who just does not want to be around the abuser at all and doesn't think the abuser can change. tōya / dabi is the vengeful one who literally wants the abuser dead or feeling how he caused them to feel.

i also have an issue with how izuku words this to shōto -- does that mean that natsuo is not caring? should he not be upset with endeavour for all of the abuse, and, in natsuo's thoughts, for causing tōya to die? he cares too much, and that's really it, and i think endeavour (funnily enough) encapsulates my thoughts on that completely.

for context, natsuo gets kidnapped and held hostage by a villain who wants endeavour to kill him. the villain is threatening to kill natsuo if endeavour doesn't kill him. endeavour chokes on the save aside from catching katsuki and natsuo after the boys implement their plans to rescue natsuo, stop the villain, and save the civilians. then, endeavour has this to say:

endeavour: i'm sorry! in that moment... i couldn't help but think... about how if i saved you... then going forward... you might feel... like you couldn't stand up to me... natsuo, believe it or not... i was never trying... to neglect any of you. but... all i could do was blame others and dodge responsibility. with tōya too... i might as well have killed him myself. natsuo: didn't neglect us? so what...? tōya has always told me everything. it'll be a cold day in hell... before i forgive you. 'cause i'm not as caring as shōto. endeavour: even so... even so... you keep showing up for fuyumi, right? and for your mom's sake? your sister loves the idea of being a big happy family... because... that's exactly what i ruined. she wants that back... she's so eager to fix everything. and that's why you're trying. because you care about how she feels, right..? because you are caring. so... you don't have to forgive me. i'm not looking for forgiveness. just atonement. natsuo: [starts crying] wow. you got a real way with words all of a sudden! i know how happy it makes sis, having us all together! but... when i see your face... those memories come rushing back. why do i gotta be the one to come around? atonement? how're you gonna make that happen? endeavour: i have an idea, actually. (ch 252).

endeavour saying "i wasn't trying to neglect any of you" is such a fucking backslide, but he somewhat saves it with explaining why. at the same time, the explanation doesn't really matter -- he did neglect natsuo and fuyumi. however, the next bit of it, when he says that natsuo does care, and that it's okay for natsuo to never forgive him -- that was real fucking character growth, and we see it come to a beautiful place at the end of the chapter where endeavour talks with fuyumi and natsuo.

endeavour: fuyumi. i've already talked about this with shōto and natsuo. you've been doing your best to create a safe and sound household for your mother to come home to. i've let you shoulder all of that... and i stood by while you worked hard... but it's all okay now. [thoughts: it's always the same dream. my whole family's there, but not me.] because i'm building a new house for you all. one that makes sense for your commutes. and one where you can give your mother a warm welcome back. fuyumi: what about you, dad...? endeavour: [thoughts: if i really care about how they feel...] i'll remain here. (ch 252)

this is where i fucking cheered. this is where i really thought horikoshi was going to save this arc. abusers forcing their presence on the family is absolutely the wrong way to do it. endeavour trying to be the "best hero" is absolutely the wrong way to do it. endeavour stepping back, making sure that they're all comfortable, but (most likely) being there when they want to reach out on their terms in the way that they want to -- that's beautiful. that's actual growth. that's literally the best decision any abuser can make ever; leaving it in the hands of the people he abused.

in this part, in this moment, i could have accepted the endeavour redemption arc. i might not have agreed when shōto decided that he could see endeavour as a father (depending on when it would happen in canon and what would cause it), but in this regard, i could actually see redemption.

and then we get the fucking shitshow that is dabi reveal arc and the dabi backstory arc, and then i just want to throw away the whole fucking redemption arc.

in chapter 290, we get the dabi is todoroki tōya reveal (surprise, surprise /j). tōya, being the dramatic bitch that he is, washes off the probably water-soluble black dye off of his white hair and tells endeavour and shōto that he's tōya and that he's been waiting for years to take endeavour down and that he's sending out a broadcast to every TV station live detailing about endeavour's abuse of his family.

dabi: when, at long last, you could stare your kids in the eye... didja finally start to feel the warm and fuzzy bonds of family?! you must've thought, "as long as i can face the future, i can be better!" i can tell you're at a loss for words, so here's the answer! the past never dies! get it, yet?! you reap what you sow! so let's tango, you and me -- todoroki enji! a dance with your son, here in hell!! (ch 290).

in chapter 291, we continue the dabi reveal (including a 99.9% match between his DNA and endeavour's DNA as proof of their relation! hint: that's not actually fucking possible, but i'm pretty sure that's either a translation error or a wording issue) in the public eye. we get this fun little monologue from endeavour in the beginning of the chapter:

endeavour's thoughts: i thought it could be you [tōya]. you could have been the one... to reach my eternal goal. my frustration... my envy... the ugliness in my heart... you could have been the one... to smash it all to dust.

again, we get that whole "using child as an object/extension of endeavour" thing that has characterised endeavour for a long time. tōya shouldn't have been created to fix his frustration about not becoming number one himself.

regardless, endeavour stays in shock for the rest of the battle, unable to even move despite the fact that shōto managed to pull himself together in order to try to save everyone on the battlefield despite dabi trying to kill him.

we then go to chapter 300, where endeavour wakes up in his hospital room and ruminates on everything that he had done. he cries and expresses guilt, especially on how things played out with tōya when he was a child, and he declares that "i might get to live on... but endeavour died back there. my son's a mass murderer, yet... i can't fight him." (ch 300).

then, shōto, natsuo, and fuyumi enter the room while endeavour continues to cry.

endeavour: sorry... i'm... so sorry. i'm sorry... i didn't realise until now... these regrets... this guilt... it's too late to matter! my heart... it's... rei: [walking into the room] yes? what about your heart? those regrets and guilt... the rest of us have borne that burden... much more than you have. endeavour: rei?! why are you here?! rei: i'm here to talk about our family. and about our son, tōya. (ch 300).

this jumpstarts into a flashback of what caused tōya's "death", and i think in some truly horrific scenes that i think horikoshi writes in a way that we're supposed to feel some level of sympathy for endeavour. reading all of that makes me feel even -infinity sympathy for endeavour.

in chapter 301, we start the flashback into the past, where tōya wants to continue quirk training but endeavour begins to discard him, saying that it was for tōya's own good (because he burns himself when he uses too much fire). unfortunately, tōya doesn't care about his own burns, he just wants his dad's approval and wants to surpass all might himself.

endeavour, meanwhile, is still focused mostly on creating a child that would surpass all might, as we see in this conversation between endeavour and rei:

rei: no... that would be too much! it's too cruel! especially now that tōya knows what you're hoping to achieve through the children! endeavour: no matter what i say... he comes home with fresh burns every day. he inherited that pigheaded stubbornness from me! that's the only way to make him give up! since he'll never be the one to surpass... [all might] (ch 301)

(sure, that's your motivation. you say that while you literally have the same eyes as when you think about all might being better than you).

endeavour's eyes when thinking about all might being better.

endeavour's eyes when thinking of "stopping tōya" through the birth of more children.

we see that shōto is born, and that tōya doesn't stop training on his own, which causes endeavour to snap at tōya:

endeavour: no! why won't you stop?! you're covered in burns... and you still don't get it?! why?! tōya! you have to... look beyond all this. play with natsuo and fuyumi! make some friends at school! there's a whole other world besides the hero stuff... i know you understand that! take my advice, and this'll all be a distant memory soon. tōya: the kids at school all say they wanna be heroes. i can't understand that. because i've got you as a father. you lit this fire in me, dad, and it's not going out! i can't just pretend it's not there! [uses his fire] look at me, endeavour! look... at me!! [goes to attack baby!shōto] (ch 301)

all tōya wanted was not to be discarded, and he could see just as well as anyone that endeavour didn't seem to care about the others as much -- that's why tōya went for shōto, not for any of the other siblings.

endeavour had no real idea how to talk to tōya, or even knew how to reach out and get some help, and that was probably (mainly) because what he was doing with rei and creating his children was illegal, as we hear from a doctor earlier.

and before anyone blames tōya, he's young ass kid who knows he's being discarded by his father, and he wants attention. just any sort of attention. yes, he's going to lash out. yes, he's going to keep on doing what originally got him his father's attention (aka training). yes, he's going to try to attack endeavour's "perfect child" for "taking his place". i don't blame tōya for that -- i blame endeavour.

rei: [in the present] you don't get to claim you're hurting more than anyone. and you're not the only one who didn't really see him. (ch 301)

this next chapter, the next part of the flashback, chapter 302, is particularly rough, and it's in part with what's hinted in rei's last part of this comment. (i agree with the first part! endeavour doesn't get to claim that he's hurting more than anyone else. it's the second in context with chapter 302).

we return back to the flashback where endeavour is talking to rei about separating shōto from the rest of his siblings.

endeavour: i'm too busy with work to look after him [shōto] 24-y... which is why i've hired help. but you -- don't you take your eyes off of tōya. rei: he just wants you to look at him. to notice him. that's all. endeavour: all i can show anyone... is the world of heroes. rei: heroes? aren't you just running away? (ch 302)

interestingly enough, endeavour's face in this conversation is covered by shadows. all we really see are the whites of his eyes and the side of his face where sweatdrops of stress are running down. rei's face, too, is practically covered aside from a close-up on her stressed eye. a lot of rei's downward spiral focuses on rei's eyes over anything, so i think this is where we kind of see -- well, not the start of that (we do see that focus in ch 301), but the continuation of her stress that leads eventually to her mental breakdown.

then, we continue on (with an interesting conversation between tōya and rei, but we're focusing on endeavour unfortunately, so alas) with tōya talking to endeavour.

tōya: listen, dad. next time you get a day off... you gotta come up to sekoto peak with me. endeavour: [grabs tōya's shirt violently and lifts it up. his thoughts: new burns! where he can keep them hidden! he's been training that way on purpose!] damn it! again?! tōya: no, wait! what i can do now is really cool! you gotta come see! i might be as awesome as shōto sooner or later! maybe i'll be even better than all might someday! then you've gotta give me some respect, dad! you'll be glad you created me! i just know it! (ch 302)

the next scene is a very clear domestic abuse scene (even if it cuts away from the actual hitting).

endeavour: why didn't you stop him?! huh, rei?! damn it, that's all i asked you to do!! shōto: [crying and stepping in front of rei, trying to defend her] don't bully mommy! stop it! don't be mean to her! endeavour: get out, shōto! it's none of your business! natsuo & fuyumi: [cowering, crying, and covering their ears] rei: i... can't stop him. (ch 302).

skip the next scan if the narrative hint of domestic abuse happening might upset you.

now, i'm putting in the scan to showcase that we essentially get to explicitly see this all go down. endeavour is a shadowy figure in the bedroom, we see nothing of rei's face except for her eye (crying, and again, that same focus where we see her slow descent into her mental break), and we see all of the children cry except for tōya because he's out training on his own again.

the fact that endeavour decides to berate, and most likely hit, rei instead of going after his son -- well, he'd come to regret it later when tōya supposedly dies because "all he [endeavour] taught me... was how to turn up the heat." (ch 302). tōya burns himself to death because endeavour decided that because his quirk wasn't good enough to beat all might that he rather not train him at all anymore. that -- ugh.

and then we get out of the flashback and back into the hospital room in some of the most abhorrent lines of the present moments of this arc.

endeavour: if only i'd given it all up that day... but having killed tōya... i felt there was no turning back, so i poured all my energy into shōto... at the expense of everything else. rei: once tōya was gone, you grew worse and worse, until i couldn't stand the sight of you. it got so bad, i even started seeing hints of you in the children's faces. fuyumi: i knew our family was broken, but i was too scared to interfere. all i could do was try to fix things just to keep up appearances. natsuo: it was you who started all of this. you're the root cause, but... maybe, if i'd just slugged you in the face and made you have a few serious talks with him... "dabi" never would've come about, and i would've been enjoying some good soba with shōto all these years. rei: you're not the only one who's responsible, and now we all have to take responsibility for what comes next. (ch 302).

ignoring the next part for now, holy fucking shit. horikoshi makes the decision to spread the blame of tōya's death to the rest of the todoroki family, never mind that rei was also abused by endeavour and that fuyumi and natsuo were twelve and eight respectively.

endeavour showed no signs of listening to ANYONE. rei told him flat out that he just needed to give tōya attention, and he didn't listen. the fact that fuyumi felt burdened on trying to keep up appearances and felt like she didn't try to fix things at the age of twelve -- horrific. the fact that natsuo blames himself for not trying to talk some sense into endeavour at the age of eight -- horrific.

this is the moment where i threw the endeavour redemption arc into the garbage -- the rest of the family taking blame onto themselves that they shouldn't blame just so that endeavour can just right back up and be a hero.

endeavour was not going to change, not for anyone. hell, even with tōya's death, and endeavour admits it himself, it made him even more stubborn in his ways because one of his extensions of his will sacrificed himself, so he best make sure that shōto becomes the best extension of his will he can be.

this is genuinely so disgusting that i can't even put into words just how terrible this is. the fact that horikoshi made this decision -- i lost all respect for horikoshi as an author and in the endeavour redemption arc.

this chapter ends with shōto being proclaimed as the family hero and that endeavour needs to come back as a hero and fight dabi and by this point, i already hate everything, so throw the bitch out.

i think if the endeavour redemption arc had stopped in chapter 252, i think it would have been great. i think if they had played off the dabi reveal in any other way, without the family blaming themselves to partially absolve endeavour of his guilt, i think it could have been fine. but the way that this played out, the way that the victims are blaming themselves in part to make the abuser feel better -- no. just, fucking no.

is that a thing that happens in real life? do abuse victims internalise the abuse and then think that the abuser was just trying to do their best? oh yeah. however, with how the rest of the arc seems to be going with endeavour (endeavour showing up in the newest chapter still going around as a hero -- the number one hero, even), horikoshi is condoning that instead of writing it as unhealthy as it should be written.

thus, nope. throw the whole fucking thing away. no thank you.

#⤷ shouto t.【 ❝ heroes also have times when they cry. ❞ 】metas.#this is a 5.9k meta #this is longer than some of my college essays #it's also a lot messier than a lot of my college essays #i don't go that deep deep into analysis and word choice like i normally would #but i think y'all can get my points #tl;dr: fuck horikoshi and fuck endeavour ty very much #mentions of child abuse //#mentions of domestic abuse //#mentions of suicide //#mentions of murder //

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hecohansen31 · 5 years

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hey! if you’re requests are still open, could you do a small piece with the foursome! maybe the reader finally talks about her own trauma (daddy issues?) and opens up for once.

(A/N): Hello there, lovely!

So I hope you won’t mind that I changed your request: I previously had an idea, and I thought this request was perfect to develop it (also because I am costantly scared to write badly any mental health issues, even ‘daddy issues’!).

Still, as always, if you feel uncomfortable or you didn’t like this, you just have to send me an ask and I’ll rewrite this again!

WARNINGS: Talk About Mental Health/Trust Issues/Problematic Relation With Therapists/Light Stalking/Poly-Relationship.

You had started seeing a therapist, before you had started your relationship with Duncan, Michael and Jim.

Although you weren’t ashamed of such thing, you hadn’t told them about it, more out of the constant habit of dealing things on your own than because you felt uncomfortable talking about such a thing.

And it hadn’t been a problem for you, you could juggle up perfectly your business and most of the time you could count on a perfect excuse to justify the hour you spent with your therapist, each Friday.

You therapist actually knew about your relationship and hadn’t pressured you into revealing them your problematics or the fact that you visited her weekly, but she had highly suggested that you talked with them about it.

‘There is nothing to be ashamed, (Y/N)’ she had told you, meanwhile you fidgeted with your hands ‘You know well that they aren’t the judging type and that, what you do here, is absolutely nothing illegal or wrong’.

You had nodded, but every time, right when you wanted to talk with them about it, the words died on your tongue and you quickly changed the theme of your chats and shifted their focus away from you.

But soon your small absences were noticed by your lovers: Duncan sometimes would call you to check on you, just to find your phone switched off, which was strange not only because nobody switched off their phones anymore, but also you were pretty active with it.

Jim and Michael had tried to propose some interesting activities to do on Friday afternoon, so that you could spend some time together, but you would always shake your head, and suggest either another time or another date, coming up with new excuses each time.

But they noticed that you would always keep each Friday at 4:30 p.m. free, and one day, they had chosen to follow you, although Michael had insisted that it was extremely stalkerish.

‘It isn’t stalkerish if done with love’ had muttered Jim, and Michael had just shot him a look before muttering about how ‘he shouldn’t have let him watch ‘You’ on Netflix’.

They had followed you, ‘discreetly’, although they were lucky that you hadn’t noticed them because you were too much on cloud nine, since they did nothing more than tripping onto things and running into people, but they had made it to a small building, which looked pretty normal.

Were you meeting with a friend?

Both Jim and Michael were surprised about you meeting with a friend, without telling them.

But they weren’t one of those ‘always together couple’, but they didn’t understand why you would hide them an outing with friends.

… but maybe it wasn’t simply an outing with a friend.

Were you cheating on them?

That would explain the secrecy and the fact that you were entering that building.

They also managed to enter it although clumsily, asking one of its resident to open the door, faking to be the friends of one of the other tenants, but once they were inside they weren’t able to actually look where you had gone and ended up exploring rather clumsy.

But their eyes were immediately caught by what looked like a private studio and they wandered inside, mostly because everything was better than the thought of you cheating on them: maybe you simply were having some problems you were too ashamed to talk with them.

They knew lately you had been writing some stories, maybe you had chosen to publish them and this was a talent scout or a publishing house…

Once they were inside, they realized it wasn’t a simple studio, but it was a therapist one, the secretary looking at them confused before she dared to ask them whether they had an appointment or needed to book one.

“Ahem we are…actually… in need to book one” lied Jim, and Michael was half thankful that the secretary didn’t seem to care enough about them to avoid noticing the fakeness in Jim’s tone, who continued on setting a fake appointment, giving the woman the same date of (Y/N)’s strange absence.

“I am sorry, but that spot is already busy” she mumbled and Michael managed to catch a glimpse of the timetable discovering that your name was signed down for that spot, showing that you were seeing a therapist.

That for all that time you had been seeing one, without telling them anything.

Were you ashamed?

Had they given you the idea of not being able to take care of you?

Had they given you the idea that they would make fun of you, if you told them that you were seeing a therapist?

They hadn’t certainly been truly angelic with you, but they were open-minded enough not to judge you about feeling the need of seeing somebody that might help you.

Michael couldn’t help but be both slightly disappointed and both a bit self-conscious of his behavior towards you.

As Jim finished settling the appointment, he grabbed him by the shirt, to let him know they had to leave, before you finished your session, saluting the secretary as she reminded one last time to them the date of the appointment.

“Please don’t tell me I just signed up for nothing” mumbled Jim, once they were outside.

“(Y/N) was here” mumbled Michael was they were inside of the car, gaining a skeptical look from Jim “… she is… she is seeing a therapist, I saw her spot on the timetable, meanwhile you were booking the appointment”.

“Why is (Y/N) seeing a therapist?” asked Jim, much more naively than Michael, meanwhile he rode off quickly making sure not to attract any attention on them “… do you think that it is because we make her crazy”.

“Jim, why do you have to make this funny whereas it isn’t in the slightest!” Michael’s outburst of rage made Jim tremble lightly and the blond man tightened the grip onto the steering wheel, coming to an abrupt stop “… I am sorry, it just… baffles me… that she…”.

“…that she doesn’t trust us?” completed Jimmy, before he softly pushed an hand onto Michael’s white knuckles “… Michael we hated her till a month ago… she has every right to keep us out of some things she thinks are personal”.

“Weren’t you the one who wanted to stalk her?” shot back Michael.

“Because I thought she was hiding someone, but… Michael… how long did it take you to open up with me and Duncan about your problems with your grandma? Or for me to open up about my substance abuse” Michael didn’t answer “… it took us long, and you can’t blame her”.

“So, we have to pretend nothing happened?” Michael didn’t know if he could do it and was thankful when Jim shook her hand.

“No, we need to talk with Duncan and her, at least to apologize, and to show our support towards her and her journey” replied Jimmy, meanwhile he quickly held and gripped Michael’s hand on the steering wheel.

“Then I think we should get some cake”.

You had come home after an entire afternoon of crazy errands, although you had wished, for the entire time, nothing more than to come back home, mostly since the therapy of that day had been rather serious, and again, your therapist had explained the importance of letting your partners know of your journey, both to help you and to be sincere with them.

You had actually thought about coming clean, and in the end swore to confess it to them at least before Sunday, but when you had come home, the climate… was strange.

Michael was avoiding you, without putting into it too much effort to hide it and Jim was exceeding with his usual cuddles, even going as far as to stick at you when you got up to get the dinner ready, awakening also Michael, who came to stand into one of the stool at the kitchen island, beside Jim, as if they wanted to talk with you.

“Did something happen, guys?” you asked, wondering whether you had forgotten some anniversary or birthday “… are you mad at me?”.

“We followed you today” spoke Michael, almost spitting out the words as if they were on the tip of his tongue “… Jim has seen too many ‘You’ episode and decided to finally discover what you do each Friday at 4:30 p.m.”.

You were petrified on the spot and Jim continued, Michael’s speech, with much more sweetness to the tone:

“I didn’t mean to, but… I just… I thought you might be seeing someone else” your expression quickly changed to baffled, mildly offended “… I am sorry, you know we have abandonment issues… but this is another problem, we have discovered you are seeing a therapist”:

Well the truth was now out and you couldn’t help but be nervous at their thoughts, although you were ashamed, you knew people had mixed reaction about you seeing a therapist, you had been even wary about sharing this with some of you more distant friends.

“Why did you hide it from us?” Michael’s accusing tone was enough to made you cringe, and he saw it, immediately backing up and muttering a light ‘sorry’.

“I… I don’t know… it just never came up” you replied, hiding slightly in yourself, shrinking a bit to appear smaller.

“Don’t you trust us?” asked Jim, his tone definitely lighter than Michael, but the accusation heavy on his tone.

“It isn’t that I don’t trust you, but…” you tried to mumble “… it’s difficult for me to talk about it… it took me years to approach a therapist, and I am not ashamed of it, but I tend to deal… with things… on my own, have always been”.

“You don’t have anymore” a deep voice, surprised you and you all turned to catch Duncan staring at them, and you couldn’t help but blush further, hiding in the kitchen “…I am sorry, I didn’t mean to overhear, but I just wanted you to know that at least for me… this is a judgement free place”.

“Thank you” you stammered, meanwhile your other two lovers nodded.

“I am not going to lie I felt a bit heartbroken when I discovered this, but…” spoke Michael, and held out an hand for you to take, a true peace offering “… I understand now why you might not want to talk about it with us, but… if you need anything, you are more than welcome to let us know”.

“Yeah, exactly!” backed him up Jimmy “… is there something you want to talk about with us? Is there something we need to avoid? Or any way we can help you?”.

You appreciated Jimmy’s questions, although you couldn’t help but be slightly nervous, gently encouraged by Duncan, who came behind you and hugged you softly, letting you know his presence in this.

“I might need wine to speak up a bit” you joked, and Michael joined the laugh before he promptly mumbled.

“We have a chocolate cake to share” he mumbled, before he promptly added “I mean you have one and I have my own”.

“I think that you also need an appointment to a therapist or some doctor to check on that sugar flow”.

“You are just jealous of my perfect weight, Jimmy!”.

You couldn’t help but laugh softly at that and cuddled a bit tighter into Duncan’s arms: you might have had bad and heavy days, but you had three lovers always ready to make you feel better.

You were glad to have them in your life.

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thewhumperinwhite · 4 years

Text

FBI AU: Father

Previous: Rescue / Interrogation / Awkward / Painkillers

This brings us up to speed with what I’ve already written for FBI AU, which means I’ll have to establish an Actual Posting Schedule where I post my stories more evenly again lmao

@whumpitywhumpwhump

TW for: implied/referenced child abuse; referenced noncon; Cops,; drugs/coming down off drugs/refusing pain meds;Rona in general, who is I maintain is Basically Good but whose brain is still uh.... a terrifying nature documentary; also Art in general which means references to suicidal ideation and just...…. generally discounting his own trauma.

Continues directly from Painkillers but if you don’t wanna reread: Art tells Simon not to let his dad into his hospital room and says “he killed my brother”; Simon passes this information on to Rona, along with the file on Art’s brother’s “accidental death;” she’s a bit skeptical.

Rona does, though this is information that doesn’t ever need to make its way to Simon’s ears, read the file. It’s suspicious, she guesses, but not as open and shut as Simon seems to think. It sounds like the senator and the kid were alone in the house; any court case would be about proving intent, which is a messy business she has absolutely no interest in bothering with. It might be possible--maybe--to prove Heinrich Senior pushed his kid down the stairs; even given that there’s absolutely no way to prove he did it with the intention of killing him. You could maybe offer a history of serious physical abuse as evidence, but the actual victim of the abuse is too dead to testify about it.

No, obviously what convinced Simon was the way the kid said it, and Rona--gets that. Simon’s shot a few cult leaders, and threatened a few more into surrendering, but he’s never carried a bleeding teenager out of a building before. That gets in your head, gets your, like, evolutionary mom-instincts all tangled up inside you. Rona still keeps track of a couple of kids she pulled out of drug dens, when she was younger. You get over it after a while; bad things happen to a lot of people, you can’t take care of them all. Trying doesn’t do anything but make you worse at your job.

“Heinrich Lange,” a terse voice is saying to the receptionist. “I’m here for my son.”

Rona’s head snaps up from the trashy magazine she’s been reading. She’s been sitting in the front reception waiting area for twenty minutes because she’s avoiding Simon, who is stalking the halls looking annoyed, and Farah, who may or may not be in her missing son’s hospital room, because she may also be where they’re holding her missing daughter for questioning.

“I have a personal physician at a facility upstate,” the voice is saying. “I want him transferred. Start the paperwork now.”

Rona looks at Senator Heinrich Lange and knows immediately that he pushed his youngest son down the stairs of his upscale townhouse. His intent in doing so seems kind of immaterial at this point. She’s on her feet before she’s consciously processed the decision to get up.

“You can’t have him,” Rona says flatly at Heinrich Lange’s back.

Heinrich Lange turns sharply, and does the old-white-man version of the double take everyone does on first seeing her. He’s taller than her, but that never really matters.

“Who the hell are you,” Heinrich Lange says. He isn’t really what she’s expecting--she’d expected the slimy kind of abusive father, the kind who donates to charity with the same hand he uses to touch his kids. Heinrich Lange Senior looks more like the good old-fashioned kind that hits his kids in public and expects you to be too scared to say anything. Rona smiles, letting him see her teeth.

“I’m one of the agents who pulled your son out of the torture chamber,” she tells him. “Arthur Lange is part of an ongoing FBI investigation. He can’t be moved to a private facility where he’ll be outside our protection.”

Heinrich Lange looks at her, like a water buffalo would look at a lioness, not sure which one would win in a fight. The answer is always Rona, if only because she doesn’t have to ask. She watches that knowledge register in his stance, but Lange still looks belligerent--he seems like the kind of man who pisses on his kill rather than let anyone steal it, even if it means he can’t eat it either. That’s kind of the type of man Rona has the least patience for. She feels her smile widen.

“Protection from what?” Heinrich snaps. “Your captain claims you caught the man who attacked my son.” He emphasizes the words “my son”, like he’s going to scare her with the legal claim he supposedly has, but Rona knows the legality is on her side and also that it doesn’t matter; he isn’t taking Art out of here.

“Maybe you haven’t heard the words ‘ongoing investigation,’ before,” Rona says. Heinrich’s face twitches at the insult, which wouldn’t’ve even really been an insult if she hadn’t known he’d make it one. “We caught the leader of a death-cult we’ve been investigating for a while now. We found your son in their compound. We don’t know the extent of your son’s involvement. We’re not letting him out of our sight until we’ve eliminated all possible threats to his safety.” Rona tips her head very slightly at the end there, and Heinrich’s eyes flash; nobody would assume he was included on that list unless they already knew he belonged there. Heinrich Lange isn’t a very sophisticated villain; after interviewing Micah Trent several times, it’s almost refreshing.

“You don’t have any claim on the boy,” Heinrich says, raising his voice and also calling his son “the boy;” even the receptionist is looking at him with alarm now; this is the easiest game Rona’s ever won. “I’m his goddamn father.”

Rona actually laughs at that one, which he recoils from like a slap in the face, as she knew he would. “This might be news to you, Senator, but your son’s nineteen years old. And I’m going to bet he wants to stay here, though I’d be happy to ask him for you. He knows there’s people in this city who want to shut his mouth any way they can.”

That one’s a little overt, but Rona’s sure enough now not to worry, and Lange’s expression of guarded alarm just makes her more sure. She’s gonna have to say all this stuff again to somebody who matters, and a U.S. Senator has enough money to make the Bureau nervous, but none of that matters now that she’s smelled blood in the water.

Heinrich turns to the receptionist, since he knows he’s lost; she takes almost a full step back from him, because he doesn’t know how badly. “Get me someone who knows what the fuck they’re talking about,” he snarls, and the receptionist doesn’t even reach for the phone, though her hand is sliding under the desk; there’s probably a panic button under there. Rona laughs again, though there’d probably be actual consequences if this little girl called security on a Senator and there’s no guarantee the hospital knows they need her like the Bureau knows they need Rona, so Rona claps a hand to Lange’s shoulder, transferring all his ire to herself immediately.

“Don’t bother,” she tells him before he can scream at her. “You’ll hear the same thing upstairs I’m telling you now. You can’t have him. Go home.”

“You bitch,” Heinrich Lange says, already turning to storm out of the hospital. “You’re fucking done working in this town.”

“The FBI is a national organization, kiddo,” she tells him, and pats him on the shoulder on his way out. He doesn’t take a swing at her, which would have been the best icing she could have asked for on this already-excellent cake, but he does make enough effort to leave with dignity that not even the onlookers who arrived too late to hear him talk can possibly have any respect for him left. Rona rocks back on her heels, delighted.

“Jesus, I need a fucking cigarette,” she says, turning to grin at the receptionist, who looks back at her, alarmed. “You need anything? Buy you a coffee.”

The receptionist blinks at her, then back at Heinrich Lange’s retreating back, and then to Rona’s delight she says, “Cappuccino. Was that really his father?”

“Yep,” Rona says, waving away the change the receptionist offers her.

“That poor boy,” the receptionist says, and Rona laughs all the way to the coffee machine.

----

Art’s head is clearing, which is always the worst part of being high.

The duty officer, Chase, finished taking his initial statement with a promise to “see what he could do about getting Karim in to see him,” which is not as strong as he remembers the initial promise being, but his memory on that is a bit fuzzy, so it’s possible he assumed it was more binding than it was.

The more awake he feels, the more every part of him hurts, some of the pain deep in his guts in ways that make him feel dizzy and sick, but he resists pressing the button that’s supposed to flood him with opiates. He needs his head clear for what comes next.

He remembers waking in the dark, every inch of him either burning or frighteningly numb, and seeing the face of the agent who carried him out; he remembers the man stripping off his sportscoat and dropping it around his shoulders, and he remembers being sure that no one would ever touch him again without wanting to hurt him, that he had been freezing and the jacket hadn’t even really helped, the cold was in his bones, blood loss probably, but the fact that this stranger had wanted to let him cover himself had made him cry when he’d thought he was done crying for good.

He could kind of use that jacket now, actually; some of the wounds that need dressing what seems like every hour are in places Art doesn’t want strangers touching even when he knows when he’ll next be able to shit without bleeding. The nurses are largely women and therefore apologetic and gentle about it, but the doctors don’t even always ask first, and one of them tried to move Art’s legs apart when he was half asleep and Art kicked him in the face, despite the immediate disabling pain in his broken hip. He isn’t sorry, but he won’t do it again; they pumped him full of sedatives afterward and he spent the rest of the day grinding against the fog in his brain, knowing he should be panicking, which is not all that much better than actually panicking, for the record.

None of that is why he isn’t asking for more pain meds, or at least not all of why. He needs his head clear because he’s heard from one of the nurses, who seems like she thought she was comforting him, that the whole Coven is going on trial, on charges starting at attempted murder and building from there, and that’s not fucking acceptable. He’s not that invested in the girls, though he’ll put in a good word for them if he gets the chance; he doesn’t feel too bad about that, given that he essentially didn’t meet them until they were cutting him open. But Karim isn’t going from nine years in a cult straight to a prison, thank you very much. He’ll bust him out himself if he has to, but they aren’t actually sure he’s ever going to walk again, so it’ll be more expedient to keep him from getting locked up in the first place.

The agent who found him, Simon, seems cut up and unsettled by his condition, at least as far as Art remembers--he’d been pretty out of it when he saw him again. Art’s sorry about that, and sorry he apparently got shoulder-shot during the dramatic rescue, too, presumably because his arms were too full of what was left of Art to draw his gun; but he isn’t too sorry to exploit that a little, if he can. He’s ready to spin the story, leave out Karim’s initial promise to kill him, since he knows what it would sound like to someone who didn’t know him before, and leave in all the parts where Karim saved his life over and over and is the reason he isn’t taking the current opportunity to overdose on opiates like he could so easily do right now.

It is fucking ironic, obviously, how close he came to dying just about the second he didn’t want to anymore.

The door to his room opens, and he looks up, hoping it’s Simon Blake and not any doctors holding needles, and then he stares, because it isn’t either of those, it’s the creepiest-looking woman he’s ever seen. She’s probably mid-thirties, and her hair is a thin side-shaved mess of curls so pale as to be almost translucent, showing the pale pink of her scalp underneath. She’s wearing dark glasses even indoors— though he can’t fault her for that; the fluorescents are murder on his eyes too— and a pantsuit, though she seems to be wearing combat boots underneath.

The woman leans in the doorway and looks at him over her glasses. Her eyes are a fairly unsettling shade of violet. “Morning, starshine,” she says dryly. “You lucid, or just awake?”

Art closes his eyes to settle into the pain, and then sits up a little. It’s bad, his hip and ass both screaming in different voices, but it’s doable. “I’m lucid. Are you with the FBI?”

The woman eyes him, maybe with curiosity. “Rona Cowl,” she says with a nod. “Blake’s my partner.” When she speaks, Art feels with a shiver down his spine that there’s something off about her teeth, but he shoves the feeling away.

“You helped carry me out, then,” he says. He folds the hand he can move in his lap and looks at her steadily. “Thank you.”

Rona Cowl narrows her eyes at him, though he can’t think of anything he can have done wrong. He forces himself to stay still and not visibly go on the defensive.

“You are lucid,” she says slowly, moving to sit in one of the chairs beside the bed. Rona Cowl looks at him, and then she reaches forward without changing expression and presses two fingers against his dislocated shoulder.

Pain shoots up Art’s arm, and a short wail tears out of his throat before he can smother it.

“Yeah, I thought so. I’m calling the nurse to get you more painkillers.” She starts to get up.

“Don’t,” Art says, and she stops, surprised. He takes a moment to catch his breath, letting the pain settle back into a dull ache. When he’s sure he’ll be able to see, he lifts his head and glares at her.

“I don’t need them. I need to talk to Agent Blake.”

Rona Cowl raises an eyebrow, and waits for him to go on. Art considers her. He doesn’t feel like he has a good enough handle on who this woman is to know what tack to use— but if she tells the nurses to dose him, they will, and he deeply does not want that. He’s got to try something.

“I want to tell someone what really happened. I want to make sure the FBI understands. So they don’t hurt people who have already been hurt enough.”

Rona Cowl looks at him for a long time, her violet eyes slightly narrowed. “You mean Karim Mun,” she says finally, which could be good or very bad. He feels his free hand clench, and forces it to relax, nods once, keeping his face blank.

“Karim never hurt me. He saved my life. I don’t want him to go to court until I’ve made that clear.” He makes sure his voice is calm and unmodulated; he knows emotion will make him easier to dismiss.

“I hear you’ve been asking to see him,” Rona Cowl says, and she raises an eyebrow again, so it might be a trap, but Art feels his heart clench in his chest.

“Yes,” he says, and it comes out husky and desperate, so he takes a breath to let his pulse slow again. “Yes,” he says again, more calmly. “He was held by Micah far longer than I was. I want to know for sure that he’s alright.”

Rona squints at him. She must be albino, he thinks, and he’s read that albinism causes vision problems. It sure feels like she can see him, though. Then her face clears, though she still has that dangerous tilt to her brows.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she says mildly, and clicks out of the room.

----

It’s— all very complicated. And a distraction from what Rona really meant to do, which is ask him about his father. Though she’s certainly ignoring her own advice now, and getting distracted from the actual case.

Broadly, Art Lange doesn’t have much to worry about. It’s likely Karim Mun will have a one-on-one meeting with a judge, not a trial, and given he was taken at fifteen and seems to be one of the few cult members who didn’t actually kill anyone on his own, he’s likely to get off without much more than mandatory counselling, which christ knows he’d need anyway.

But this thing with Art Lange’s father changes things, makes everything worse and more suspicious. Rona knows, to some extent, that beating Heinrich Lange Senior is just a welcome distraction from Micah Trent, who has a million more lives tangled up with his, not to mention better lawyers and a squirrely-er brain. It probably doesn’t actually change anything, but knowing Art Lange isn’t just a normal kid who got kidnapped by a cult does make her more suspicious of everyone else involved. It’s possible Art just has the worst luck of any rich kid on the planet, but it’s also possible someone saw vulnerability and pounced on it, and she’s not sure that person would have been Micah.

Which means it’s time to see whether Karim Mun is cleared to walk around or not.

#fbi au #whump #original whump #hospital whump #dislocated hip #aftermath of noncon #refusing medication #domestic abuse whump #confrontation

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angstmonsterwrites · 4 years

Text

About two weeks ago, I had a single, seemingly stray intrusive thought that managed set down poisonous roots, provoking one spiraling panic attack after the next: “You’re going to lose everyone.”

I began picking everything, and I do mean everything I read or heard with any emotional substance apart for the slightest disagreement and sifting through the myriad ways words could be twisted and defined and redefined. There was a constant argument raging in my mind where all the solutions were wrong and unsatisfying. No one and nothing was allowed to be right. (I needed to call everything and everyone wrong, because that’s how I felt.)

The topic that kept emerging was this idea I’d been emotionally or even outright spiritually crippled from being able to connect with others the way other people connect with other people. The idea that I could never be more than someone’s spare, third wheel became an object of sheer obsession. I was, for a short while, convinced that it was an absolute truth for me. A prison.

Today, on my birthday--because emotional trauma likes to ruin what are supposed to be happy days--all of that finally came to a head. I spent most of the day in near hysterical fits of tears. For most of the day, the singular thought I wrestled with was, “I wish people would stop assuming I want to be left alone. But what if they only do that because it grants them cover for not wanting deal with me at all? I wish they’d just come clean and be done with it.” (As few people as I have close relationships with, I hear the ‘I thought you needed space’ line quite a bit out of all of them.) I didn’t really give it words, though, because that idea felt too small.

What emerged from all of that was a gut-wrenching lament over a group of former friends who’d betrayed me back when I was 23, and over events that have transpired with my mother since then.

The “friends” and I worked and hung out for about 3 or so years before we all moved in together. Their father treated them like crap, so in spite of the underhanded insults they threw my way that should have served as red flags, I followed through with plans that we should all move in together. When they at last had me in the same house, paying way more than my agreed upon share of the bills and cleaning all the messes--essentially taking the place of a parent--they lost all interest in including me socially. I was ostracized. I grew increasingly depressed, I tried to express my upset, and was rewarded with eye-rolling and mockery for throwing “temper tantrums”. Imagine the sort of person who’d snap at someone they found one evening with slightly bloodied up wrists, telling her that she needed to “knock off the childish bullshit”. That’s who these people were. These “friends”.

After that incident, I made arrangements to rent a townhouse with my mom. We were both on the lease with equally shared responsibilities. It was meant to be an honest roommates situation. For about a year, it was good and quiet. We were both the type who were good at sharing a silent room together. I had time to lick the wounds that having one’s entire social life turn out to be a sham and collapse in on her tends to leave. But then her boyfriend--the man who is now a very abusive spouse--moved in with us. It wasn’t long before I found myself very unwelcome in that situation as well. She started drinking again after 5 years of sobriety. When I protested, it was met with shrill accusations of being a ‘controlling judgemental shit’ from my mother, and condemnation from the boyfriend for being a ‘disrespectful overgrown, clingy child’. From there, I moved out to a drafty apartment that...had quite a spider issue...

The tears finally stopped when I was able to say this: “Mom used me too. Right after what happened with those assholes, she did the same thing. She used me too. I was just a placeholder for the husband she didn’t have.”

And tragically, I have to admit that has often been the nature of our relationship since she left my father back when I was 13. In retrospect, I’ve been foolish to expect any different.

She’s been waffling over the past several months over the possibility of leaving him, as he’s grown increasingly physically violent. She practically begged my forgiveness for what happened back when I was 23-24, for “choosing him”. I told her I’d help her any way she needed--she’s disabled and would need help paying for meds and such. Sadly, those conversations have once again devolved into the occasional accusations against me for “having no clue” as to how much help she’d need, all but insulting me for daring to offer the help she actually asked for. It’s like being 15 all over again, listening to her drunk ramblings about how she’s going to wind up on the street, and any help or hope I try to offer, even after she outright asks for it, is shot down as the fantasies of a naive little girl who has no idea. (Oh, but I knew, even way back then. I was a snoopy little shit. I saw all of the bills. I did the math. I knew. I’ve always been painfully aware.)

I was crying all day today, because at last I became fully conscious of how badly my mother wronged me, and continues to do so. I finally understood that the sense of always being a third wheel and feeling unable to connect with others comes simply from having been treated exactly that way for years. I’m only important, only wanted, when I’m filling in for someone else or being useful, and I’m terrified that’s ultimately where every relationship I have will ultimately wind up. And indeed, if they do, I will lose everyone. Again and again and again, as it ever was.

I do believe at this point I’d be happier an orphan. My father raised me into an awkward, insecure, people-pleasing perfectionist, but it was my mother who hammered in the worst of the cracks in my ability to socialize anything close to normal. She’s the one who dropped the invisible wall between me and anyone I might care for so that there’s a limit to how connected I might truly feel.

So, instead of a day of celebrating another year of life passed, it was a day of mourning for life wasted and relationships lost. It was a day when I wanted to look at those I care for most and who haven’t used me and tell them that I love them, but the words kept getting trapped. And in my worst paranoia, I keep waiting to be told I’m a cog and a monstrosity who has no idea what love, of any kind, really is.

Because I was made to be used. I was made to get out of the way when the ones people really want come along, denied even the dignified right to complain about it without feeling like I’m just being a petulant child. (”Boohoo. Nobody likes me. Waah. Please. Get over it, kid,” my own mind mocks me.)

But no--I’m done with that. I’m angry--absolutely livid--and I am complaining. I have every right to it, and I want my soul back.

#personal #really long post #personal musings #emotional abuse tw #I think this is the last post I'll make on this at length.#Hey it still counts as writing.

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heironymous-smash · 6 years

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Yes yes, the title is a bad joke. I'm in a bad-joke mood right now, and I've written this post six times and am officially giving up and posting it, because ugh.

This is about a simple truth: Right answers are almost never easy answers, are they?

It's much easier to just be wrong, especially when tradition is on your side, than to admit the correctness of an answer that demands uncomfortable amounts of change and action. (And that's why being right is awesome, and worthy of admiration: Because it's damn hard to do.)

For example, it is far easier to punish victims for speaking out than to face the changes we need to make in order to stop their repeated victimization.

It's just effortless, in comparison, to take apart the story and look for emotional "outs". To autopsy the victim's character in public. To point out every "but what if?", no matter how irrelevant or far-fetched — instead of just hearing what's being said, and giving it at least a baseline benefit-of-the-doubt, prima facie and all that. Which is what we say we'd do logically, of course, but we don't, because, well, that way lies some Really Hard Answers.

We know, without a shred of legitimate doubt, that most people who come forward with painful stories of victimization stand to gain nothing from it — on the contrary, it often costs them as much or more, to come forward, as the crime itself did. We know that the vast majority of the time, people claiming to have been victimized are not outright lying. Criminals lie close to 100% of the time, and victims lie close to 0% of the time — even though we hear about "false accusations" with far higher frequency than they happen, for reasons I figure are obvious. And on top of that, there's all kinds of social and life-impacting horrors in store for anyone who accuses anyone, truthfully or not, which even further drives the percentage of false accusations (and accusations at all). So no, there's no logical or legitimate reason to silence or disbelieve victims. But there is a very big practical reason.

To even listen long enough to say "I hear you" or "you can press charges for that criminal act"…it's a terrible burden, isn't it?

The result of listening — even just listening — might very well be damning to some of our favorite cultural mores. And once it's damned repeatedly or, heavens forfend, in courts, it becomes a whole lot harder to ignore, not just legally but socially too. Keeping such things off the books and out of serious conversations is critical for maintaining the cultural view that "this is acceptable, or at least okay to ignore".

Look at the cultural norm that says that women's bodies are not, in fact, fully owned by them, and therefore that they don't acutally, in reality, have the right to determine how and when they will engage in sexual activity. That norm is deeply embedded in our social mindset, and even though it violates our own constitution, it's still pretty visible in our written laws, too. Hell, here in the 21st century, we're still not even sure if a woman is allowed to decide when she wants to be pregnant, up to and including if she has hard medical reasons to avoid it — so really saying and believing, as a society, that she should be allowed to say "yes" or "no" to sexual advances is quite a leap! The law technically says that all citizens own their bodies and nobody can force them to do stuff with those bodies…but the reality, for women particularly, is way, way off from the law. And that makes anything that shoves our faces in how badly we need to change it dangerous.

As long as you don't acknowledge that you see a problem, you aren't morally or in other ways required to DO things about it.

Simple as that: Victim-blaming and disbelief is ostritch syndrome.

And there are plenty of people who know this and still defend it, too. They'll claim that the change is just too hard, and that even though it's clearly the correct thing to do (to enforce sexual assault as a real crime, and to treat its victims like we know we should treat victims), it's simply impossible to actually face down that change.

These people, by the way, would have (and often do) say/whine the exact same thing about ending racism, and a zillion other horrors. Their opinions should be shot into the sun, still attached to them if necessary…but let's go ahead and look at their claims briefly anyway, just so we can say we were fair.

Dear gods, say the inevitably-white-guys-in-power, how would that even work? If we had to enforce, really enforce, the law that says that no-one is allowed to sexually assault anyone else without criminal consequences — what would that even look like?

Well, it would look different, sure. Just like it looks different now that we enforce child-labor laws, and no longer allow people to sell heroin over the counter as snake-oil remedies. Enforcing laws changes things, and change is scary, but listen to what we're saying here: We want to keep abusing women and girls (and others), because moving away from it involves prosecuting a bunch of (mostly) guys, and that's difficult and scary. How such an argument as that can hold any water is beyond me, but I swear I've heard it from sitting congresspeople at least five times this week.

The social calculus they, and those who think like them, are doing is clear: Years of trauma for X women is way better than civic punishment for X men. By not enforcing the law, we're enabling the behavior and we know it … but godsDAMN is it easier.

Not right. Easier.

What if sexual assault was just, like, a misdemeanor and a fine, but it actually happened to most people who did it, like traffic tickets or doing jail time for robbing gas stations? While it's easy and simple from one angle, from another, it's daunting even to imagine. How many men do you know who'd have records? I can't count, and I know mostly awesome, sex-assault-free men. I mean geez, when it comes to things like congresspeople, we'd probably have to make at least half of them women just to fill in the gaps from the ones now in jail! (Sorry…not sorry? Yeah, not really sorry.)

"How many men would be left?" someone actually said to me.

And that's a damn good point, but it's sure as hell not a point in favor of keeping the status quo, and keeping victims silent.

That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be.

But oh man, it's much, much easier to just ad hominem the problem away than to conduct a fair investigation.

Let's just do it among ourselves, or on the news, where misdirection and word-slinging and emotional appeals have much more power than they do in a courtroom.

That'll keep our chances of being able to ignore this a while longer at maximum.

It's just SO. MUCH. EASIER to find a reason, any reason, to not believe this one person this one time. Even if it's the 10,000th time this year, and the third woman this week.

Let's say "he said/she said" every time, when even little news blogs understand by now the psychosocial mechanisms that make it appear (falsely) that way — but it's so, so much easier.

Let's also claim, when we can, that it's about political parties, even though all political entities are beholden to uphold the law — and with the strictest and most careful hand, when we're talking about something serious like a Supreme Court nomination. If the person in question had counterfitted $5 in his life, he'd never have gotten the nomination in a million years…but let's say that this is political, because again, soooo much easier.

The thinking seems to be, let's say anything we can in order to avoid having to admit that we need to fix this.

That we need to prosecute sex-offenders, even (especially!) when they're powerful/privileged, and their victims are not.

It's so hard to admit, isn't it, that everyone has the right to not be victimized — assaulted, raped, murdered, robbed.

Black, white, anygendered, child, adult — you know, that whole thing we say we do, and take credit for at every opportunity, America.

It's the much-harder answer. it is. Shutting up or shouting down the people who complain about being victimized is sooooooo much easier. But it's provably wrong, and you can prove it by simply noticing that it hasn't worked. Silencing victims, shredding the reputations of women who speak up, continuing the grim march of unprosecuted and unpunished offenses, hasn't improved a damn thing since Anita Hill, who I heard my mother slut-shame when Ms. Hill was testifying on TV and I was still a child in elementary school — but had already been sexually assaulted once.

My own mother, who I'm sure if she'd known it was about me (i.e. affected her) would have changed her tune fast, taught me a good solid lesson with that comment, a lesson about how "good women" in this country don't make a fuss when they're assaulted, or abused, or cost their livelihoods because men wanted to do criminally-unallowable things with their bodies.

What if, I wonder, we admitted this, as a start at the hard path of right answer: People who are victimized deserve the space to speak up, without being shouted down, or shamed for not staying silent. What if kids sitting in front of the TV today didn't hear their parents say, "She's probably promiscuous" (figuring that you don't know the word, but being wrong) — but rather, "oh crap, that sucks, I hope there's a good and fair trial for her and that this douche gets jail-time if it's true"?

That's not so hard to imagine, I think.

Would there be any men left? Yes of course, there'd be plenty, because it's not a miracle when a man doesn't sexually assault women, or even when he screws up and does it a little and then learns his lesson and stops — you know, like regular people do with every other wrong thing out there. Criminals don't actually get shot into the sun, you know, and their lives aren't "over" — they suffer less than their victims most of the time, remember. That there's a victim standing there talking about it is a pretty good sign that the criminal will survive their punishment and be just fine, assuming they choose to, you know, stop assaulting women.

Repeat offenders, well, I'm all for the "shooting into the sun" solution if anybody else is. But probably they'll just be in jail a lot, like most serial criminals are.

Not exactly the scary apocalypse it's made out to be by those who are afraid of change. The people willing to sacrifice women and our entire national, and human, goal of equality to avoid the scary-scary change are defending…wait for it…the right of some percentage of men to avoid having to do time and pay legal reparations for their criminal behavior, after which they'd then (hopefully) go about their lives and be better people afterwards. That's the system we've got, and all we're talking about here is applying it fairly.

That's it. That's the scary thing we're avoiding by shaming, silencing, picking apart and refusing to listen to victims…over and over again, more every week and month. For what? To protect whom, and why?

And the men who wouldn't be "left", i.e. who would be convicted of their crimes and punished–yes, maybe even severely– we can do without. In the Supreme Court or elsewhere.

We'll be fine without their, uhh, sterling leadership. Promise.

#TranscendentalLogic #Public Blathering

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