#but i'm not going on physically harming and emotionally abusing and manipulating people i supposedly love like that

[desnaa]

thinking about catradora and catra and how much i dislike both and it still makes me a bit crazy that so many lgbtq+/queer people love it despite how clearly toxic and abusive it is. do people just like them so much because they're gay/two women?? because i feel if catra was a man things would be so much different, and feel that we have more than enough to choose from so that we don't need to gravitate towards liking this relationship/this character but yet....

[theremina]

And Now An Irregularly-Scheduled Public Cervix Announcement Featuring Your Friendly Neighborhood Harpy Who --For Better Or Worse-- Is Somehow Not Dead Yet

Oakland, Not Long After. 2007

[Content Warning: raw discussion of SA ]

Doin' my best to pick my battles better as I march deeper into middle age. This month's been extra activating and terrifying, tho, so pardon my dust-up, I guess? Here goes. A refresher: Denying an intimate partner informed consent is SA. Period.

Consent can only be given with full knowledge of what is going to happen.

Consensual sex can only take place without manipulation or coercion. It cannot happen under false pretenses. It cannot occur under force or pressure. It cannot happen under threat of harm. Manipulating a partner into sex, either by actively lying to them, or failing to disclose overlapping sexual activity with others, is SA. (To be clear, I'm not talking about ethical non-monogamy. I'm talking about cheating, lying, or witholding vital health-related information.)

One must be of sound mind in order to give consent. Engaging in intercourse with anyone who is blacked out or unconscious is sexual assault.

Engaging in sex with someone while they are in the middle of a mental or physical health crisis is a form of SA. Stealthing is sexual assault. It is every person's right to withdraw consent at a moment's notice, whether with a predetermined safe word, by saying "no, stop, you're hurting me, I don't want this", or with clear non-verbal cues. Ignoring a partner and continuing after that point is SA. Manipulating someone's trust or luring them into sex under false pretenses is SA. Full stop. Lying to a partner robs them of making an informed decision. It means informed consent is impossible. Once again, that's SA. Taking advantage of a person's vulnerability, trauma, youth, or disability in order to fuck them is SA. Bullying a person into giving birth, or into having an abortion, or into being sterilized is SA. Habitually abusing someone who loves/trusts you and then telling everyone that person is "crazy" once they've finally had enough, broken down, and spoken out is an especially egregious form of accountability-dodging. My ex, in conversation with multiple peers, for years: "I don't see why she has to make such a big deal out of everything." Because sexual assault IS a big deal, dude. Sexualized abuse often leads to permanent and irreversible damage for a survivor, not only psychologically, but physically. This year I'm having my breasts, uterus, and cervix surgically removed in order to (hopefully) survive what repeated instances of sexualized abuse and assault have done to both my body and psyche over the course of my life. Maybe once these body parts are gone, I'll feel less terrified, less furious, and more free. I hope so. I'm not worried about pain but I don't want to die. Please, gods, grant me time to stick around and enjoy things as a more fully-integrated and self-aware being. Thing is, tho, even when I was a flamin' hot Cheeto mess, I never deserved to be emotionally abused, financially exploited, physically assaulted, or sexually violated by dishonest people. No one deserves to be dehumanized like that. No one. Looking around, seeing all these supposedly rational peers who still protect and promote unapologetic rapists even after learning about what they've done, and realizing that the communities I cared about would rather center the safety and comfort of serial abusers who are more resourced, talented, powerful, or likable than those they've assaulted...

That's a nightmare I'm not sure I will ever wake up from.

Every single day I live with what my abusers did to my body. I live with knowing that a lot of mutual peers don't think it matters.

It's not my fault that my body's been fighting off cervical cancer since at least 2006 as a result of having been assaulted, abused, and discarded by people I loved and trusted.

Precious few serial abusers I've attempted to create consequences for have ever held themselves accountable, let alone made amends. I'm the one who continues to be shunned and scapegoated... Cuz I'm gross and annoying, I guess.

"If it was so bad, why didn't you leave?" "It was a long time ago." "You should have known better." Really? Folks are still trotting out this trash in 2022?

My complex PTSD and mental illness may make me unpleasant to be around, but they have not made me delusional. Neurodivergence doesn't prevent me from seeing the suicide forest for the trees. I am not hyperbolic in the slightest. My perceptions, if not my behavior, are reasonable.

"Just get over it already"? Nah. Eat my entire steaming, bleeding heart. Choke on it.

I am very hurt and angry, yes. I am also lucid. I am sane. It's rape culture that is madness. Ignoring and/or scorning those of us who are pissed off enough to openly discuss what's happened to us is violence upon violence upon violence upon violence and in case anyone's still somehow failed to notice, MOTHER EARTH IS NOT HAVING IT ANYMORE, OKAY? "I've suffered way worse than she has but you don't see me complaining"? Really. Really? You're gonna try to "Karen" me over this? In conclusion... FUCK SHAME. When I am dead and gone, please remember what I wrote here and share it with others who have been similarly dehumanized. Whatever comes, I trust that death is not the end. I see you. I hear you. I believe you.

Meredith Yayanos

March 3 2022

Written with huge gratitude to Alexfaith Nonya, who recently posted this. Sobbed while watching it. I've adapted some phrases from her statement into my own words, because her voice is so clear and strong. Donate here.

[brooke-the-poet]

The Fantasy Adventure Trope and Autistics.

Currently I am fascinated with narrative framing. The structure of a story and how that gives us the meanings that we draw from it.  

What I have noticed is that neurodivergent consciousness isn't taken into consideration very often. In fact many narratives, especially in children's literature and films have a gaslighting affect when it comes to the experiences of neurodivergent children.

Children who are different are portrayed as having an overactive imagination, big emotions or too reserved, shy, afraid, a little adult, low impulse control, not very social, bullied at school and are ignored by adults.

This jumble of traits pretty much fits most neurodivergents. But just enough so that they are endearing and don't seem "too weird".

Unfortunately many children are thought of in the same vein as the biblical prodigal son. Disabilities and difficulties are seen as trials to be fixed, or to fix "us" as if we need some form of chastising.

That our ways are wrong and we choose to bring difficulty on ourselves by not ignoring the things everyone else ignores and doing what everyone else does.

 People expect neurodivergent children to be doormats and when they are shoved into that role they naturally become distressed and hide or rebel.

Such children then go on a magic adventure, where they learn about who they are as a person and then return home better off than when they left, able to cope and function better in their world.

That's a very general idea of the plots of most magic adventures. And there's nothing wrong with that, if indeed that is what is occurring.

But too often it is not.  Most of these narratives portray the child as in need of a rude awakening, again with the prodigal image, spoiled, lack of discipline, bad attitude, needing to burn off energy, needing confidence, needing change over all.

And how this occurs is through what is known as exposure therapy.  A theorized technique where non-biological anxiety is reduced through exposure to the source of the anxiety.

This does not work on neurodivergents nor many with trauma related conditions. It only serves to burn out energy and destroy our nervous systems and peace of mind if we had any to begin with.

The adventure supposedly  leads the child to become used to physical stress, work and decision making. It assumes that the child has had no trauma or stress before this. That their difficulties came from being uncooperative with adults.  What it comes down to is that it is the child that needs to change, not their world.

And what that means for the neurodivergent child whose experience of the world can not change through a change in attitude, is that they are made to feel flawed, that unlike the "good" children in those stories, they are bad.

Which leads them to hiding their difficulties and masking. And if they are autistic, the feeling of being nonhuman increases significantly.  

*On a side note: Fantasy gives neurodivergent traits to majority non-human characters. I really do enjoy fantasy but the characters I related to most were the non-humans or the villain, and both.

There are a lot of non-human characters that should just have been human. When only "make believe" species have your sensitivity and traits, it makes it very hard for people to take you seriously. That's a whole other article though.*

Back to narrative:

Two examples come to mind. The German novel "The Neverending Story"  by Michael Ende and and the Japanese film "Spirited Away" by Hayao Miyazaki.

These were big impact stories, I'm only going to cover 3 items from each.

Someone with more energy can dig in deeper.  Also if the plots sound really similar to you, children going off into fantasy worlds and receiving help from dragons, it is because Michael Ende loved Japan and was inspired by Japanese folklore.

His second wife is Japanese and his stories became huge in Japan where he toured and gave lectures and was honoured with his own museum shortly before he passed away.

First, The Never Ending Story.

Yes, the story with Bastian, Atreyu, the child-like empress and my personal favourite, Falcor the luck dragon. Who doesn't love the ending of the film version where he scares the shit out of those bullies as he chases them  into the dumpster?

There are a lot of very good things in this story,  Bastian fits completely the profile of the neurodivergent child,but for those who have read the book there are some glaring details, and Yes, I know all the other interpretations and cultural symbolism going on.

But I'm looking at these from an autistic perspective, being as personal and  literal as possible. Because that is how I viewed them and many others will, as a kid and teenager.

1. Despite Bastian's trauma from school and his mom's death it is up to him to fix his emotionally shut down father.

There's a new term for this, emotional incest. Google that.  Emotionally Bastian has a lot going on,he and his father should really be seeing a therapist.

This topic can be controversial as it crosses into many cultural expectations of what a family is and the required roles within a family.  There are various levels of toxicity that can occur in parent child relationships that result in anger later on in the child. But a parent relying on a child for emotional support is seen as the most benign.

One could say that is traditionally what children are for.  From the outside pushing back at this role looks like "modern selfishness" but the inside reality is that the stress placed on a child who needs support and understanding themselves is damaging. When suppressing growth for a parent, the child does not learn to become an emotionally healthy adult.

For many neurodivergents this can look like carer abuse, infantalisation, a parent guilt tripping for all the work they do for the child. Expecting full loyalty to a parent with punishments imposed for perceived infractions.

Demanding all of a child's time. Not allowing friends, becoming jealous of online friends, hobbies, and anything that takes their attention away from the parent.

Given that as adults many disabled neurodivergents rely on their parents for support, these relationships remain complex and complicated.

2. Spending too much time in your inner world makes you less human.

For those not familiar with the second half of this book, for every wish and fantasy  Bastian lives out he loses his memory and humanity. WTH?

As someone who has memory and dissociation issues this really freaked me out and made me question whether or not my dissociation, frequent need to retreat and loss of self at times was due to me being a bad, selfish person like the townspeople in the book.

Autistics and other neurodivergents have rich inner worlds that are just as real as what is going on outside them.

They are a part of this world as nature, and it is there that we often find and preserve our sense of self instead of getting lost in a sea of others.

Without them we would lose ourselves. Our humanity should never be equated with how much we outwardly participate.

3.  Bastian wasn't capable of being loved before his journey.

When Bastian loses his humanity he nearly kills Atreyu but is stopped. He repents by working hard in a mountain, as a miner where he loses the last of himself, including his name in order to learn selfless love.

Hard stare. Really? Neurodivergents tend to be born selfless it seems, and we have really hard times creating boundaries for ourselves in how much we will give others and are much too open to manipulation because of it.

In my mind Bastian is already doing far too much emotional labour for a child to sustain and shouldn't be required to have to work on top of that  for love to be given him.

More messages towards us about being selfless only harms us and makes us feel guilty for not draining ourselves dry for others.

Reiterating again, that Esoterica and symbolism, metaphors etc...are my special interest, I know what the esoteric symbolism of all this is but most children will not and Will take this aspect literally.

Overall none of his physical issues such as Body positivity, the school and bully situation nor any other issues were addressed. His real fear was part of his "overactive imagination" that he had to overcome.

This gaslights many neurological disabilities and experiences with the world, where synesthesia, sensory processing differences and executive Dysfunction are labelled imaginary and trauma around them is exasperated.

Spirited Away

This is the film that inspired this. Because I loved this. Miyazaki truly knows how to capture the soul of nature.

Some back story about anime you truly need to know before we move on.

If you're autistic, and fan of Anno Hideki creator of Evangelion, also a fellow autistic, who also worked with studio Ghibli, then you probably know what he means when he stated that anime and manga are an inherently autistic medium.  

Paraphrasing Anno: 

Your goal is to reach out and connect with others deeply and emotionally.  

The main way this is achieved is having the emotional interior of people reversed, showing every emotion externally.

In anime all the huge feelings, trauma and anxiety that usually go on inside someone are shown on the outside. This makes it really relatable and easy to connect emotionally to the characters.

Big secret though, non-neurodivergents assume a lot of the emotions are exaggerated and the trials and stages the characters go through are metaphors.

If you are neurodivergent, you know they are not. Many things are literally what is happening to us on the inside, how certain things feel.

I'll give examples when I talk about Spirited Away, but if you are further curious, Google Newtypes from the Mobile Suit Gundam saga and Evangelion.

This unique feature and style, of emotions began in the Tokugawa Era as a form of non-violent rebellion against the imposed socially rigid caste system and militarism of the era that saw creativity as superfluous.

Anything different, mysterious, unknown, imaginative and emotional did not meet the new "social norms" of the shogunate era and were rejected.  

Artists and writers, the creative castes, started making woodblock prints of fantasy scenes and stories in a style now known as manga.

They kept Non-linear, neurodivergent thought and ways of being alive during that violent time period when many creators were imprisoned.  

     Ok, with that on to Spirited Away.  I'm going to focus on Autistic masking. Masking plays a huge role in this story.

Briefly, the plot is: 10 year old Chihiro, on the way to her new home is spirited away with her parents. Going against her instincts she follows them into what turns out to be the holiday and pleasure district of the gods.

Her parents eat the god's food, turn into pigs and Chihiro must then sell herself to the onsen ( bath house) in order to work off the debts of her parents and save them.  

The main characters that I personally relate with in this piece are Haku, the dragon boy/river god,  the Faceless Spirit/Noh Face and the witch Zeneba.

So again, 3 things.

1. Masking, Chihiro is The Mask.

Chihiro, the cool, collected,lovely mixture of innocence and maturity is the mask that many autistic women grew up wearing in order to handle trauma. Be strong, brave and stoic for the sake of others. This is one set of strong messages that the film puts out.     

In the bridge scene where Haku and Chihiro, under an invisibility spell, cross the bridge to the bathhouse; in order to cross without being seen Chihiro must hold her breath.

That is what Autistic masking literally feels like, the fear of being seen, caught and punished for who we are and the sharp pain of inhaled breath held, for too long, and slow suffocation.

             Chihiro's journey  will feel familiar to many young autistics who are learning about themselves and the people around them and how they fit into the social structures here. Chihiro is a foreigner and awkwardly trying to stay out of trouble.

There isn't a structure that fits her.  She's scolded and hindered for simply existing in that space not meant for her. But she has a task to complete, so she has to figure out a way to make things work.

Being survival, task and mission oriented is a strong point of being Autistic. It's part of our ability to be perseverant.

It can be so strong that your mind creates different ways of being to hide and protect the most sensitive parts of itself, to protect the parts that are different.

Chihiro's final line in the film is:

"Don't worry, I think I can handle it."

She's resolute in her maintaining a stoic mask, which is implied as part of growing up.  This message is toxic to Autistics

For a lot of us Autistics this line recalls childhood trauma and masking. The exact phrase we would say to "make things work" for ourselves. Suppressing our needs in order to appear mature and keep our parents and those around us comfortable.

If the bathhouse is supposed to represent life and the social- economic reality, then it's the same reality so many face, forced to change and pretend they fit into society.  This message about masking feels at odds with the "re-discovering your true self" message that we get with Haku.

   The river dragon spirit, Haku literally represents what masking your true self can look like. Under Yubaba he loses sense of his true nature, physically grows pale and steely eyed. He isn't conscious of the spell Yubaba has placed in him. Masking isn't conscious to a lot of Autistics either.

     As an apprentice Haku carries out orders no matter what the danger is to himself. Putting ourselves in harm's way and being abused without us knowing is an outcome of masking. When masking we are in the position of copying others feeling very much like "apprentice non-autistics".

We want to please in order to survive and feel adequate with others. In the scene when Haku is bleeding to death and Yubaba kicks him into the incinerator to be disposed of, that unfortunately is a real emotional outcome to many abusive relationships built through masking. Relationships fail once we burn out.

In order to show his true nature, Haku actively fights inside himself when helping Chihiro. He plays double agent throughout the film. And then has to be saved from himself by Chihiro.

Do I need to be saved from myself?

Do I seem as cold and distant as Haku?

Am I and my masking setting a bad example, a burden to seemingly purer people like Chihiro who haven't quite learned to mask yet?

These questions flitter and linger for a long time. There's a pang of sadness in them.

    It's an extremely complicated issue which is further complicated when navigating personal  boundaries and what is felt to be personally owed to others, it changes with each situation.  

During the train scene when Chihiro is given time to process her predicament you can literally see her mentally forming her mask, the mask that's prepared to take responsibility for others mistakes.

It's the same mask we create to carry the burden of being social and appropriate when no one else is, the mask that self blames and takes up energy.  Chihiro takes responsibility for everything.

There is again that message of sacrificing your well being for others that is pushed. She is the only one actively trying to save both her parents and Haku.

    Being a heroine doesn't have to be about saving others, or being responsible for them, especially when they are capable of finding their own solutions. There are so many different ways to show love and support.  

It isn't about being selfish and just taking care of yourself, for many Autistics and those with multiple disabilities, caring for others in this manner isn't an option but feeling guilty for not doing this is a constant to many.    

   Who this message is being directed to, needs to change. It should not be directed at vulnerable girls or any children who will worry and have anxiety about themselves.

The reality of many situations where change is needed from someone in authority, parent or any other institution is that it fails to occur. Children or other exploited parties are made responsible for that failure.  

If an Autistic fails to fit in, it's never societies fault, the burden of change and guilt is always put on the autistic. And in order to shoulder it, masking occurs.  How long is she going to be able to keep up that tough girl facade?

      2. Home   

     In the opening of the film Chihiro is  upset at what would honestly be devastating for someone who relies on "their world" to make sense of who they are.  Moving, no home to return to. This concept literally is played out with Haku and Noh Face.

Haku's river is destroyed, because of this he loses his identity and falls prey to those who would enslave him.  An identity that changes with physical environment is common. Some autistics, like myself, unconsciously build an identity or mask that fits specifically to our environment.

     Environment becomes routine along with all of the sensory stimulus and sensitivity, our bodies physically bond to what is comfortable to us.  And when that changes, so does a whole persona or personality mask.

When it is an unexpected and forced change, it is traumatizing. In my own experience, I've moved 10 times in a single year at the age of 14. Only 4 years older than Chihiro.

That caused a shutdown that I'm still experiencing the effects of 20 years later. Losing those connections is never a matter of letting go and moving on. They are grieved and must be processed at length.  

    On the way out of the forest Chihiro's father notices how quiet she is, both parents finally are paying attention to the emotional reality of their child. If they had listened and paid attention to her intuition, warnings and signs of trauma, in the beginning, their predicament would not have occurred. They might not have even moved in the first place.

"A new home and school, it is a bit scary," her father says. To which Chihiro replies that she can now handle it.

Chihiro, suppressing her original concern and the trauma of her experience, now gaslights herself, after she's gone through the process of learning how to perform emotional and mental labour for others through masking as an act of love.

An act of love, that's how mainstream society positions suppressing the needs of the disabled. You're told if you love your parents, your family, don't cause problems, don't cause trouble.

Oh, your having trouble at school, at work, at home? Disabilities are framed as trouble in this manner, the same way one speaks of a misdemeanor or crime. It subtlety shifts feelings of fault and blame onto the disabled.  When it comes to Autistics the way we understand our self and our experience of the environment is often blamed as the cause of troubles.

For us the Non-autistic world is assaulting both physically and emotionally. It's a mess of social and psychological mind games and head traps that make us chronically ill.  We have to create our own environments to dwell and recover in each night.

For a large proportion of us, we experience time and space Non-linearly. Which means events are not chronological, they don't neatly line up in our minds.

Our experience of the world is like the concepts of Ukiyo and Yugen. Transience, ethereal and profound depth of feeling. Events, people, places float in and out with moments of deep joy and sadness to help us make sense of time.

Miyazaki makes full use of this narrative tradition in his storytelling with vast spaces and characters who on the surface are only loosely associated with each other yet deeply connected.

In our world connection is not linear, nor emotions. Associative thinking leads us to make broad connections in ways that branch out and lead us to discoveries that seem impossible or were unknown to many because the right associations couldn't be made in their linear minds.

Non-linear emotions mean that we don't process events as they happen. It's too much to take in, emotions float in us, incubating until they are ready to be understood. The moment this happens is usually triggered by seemingly unconnected events but to which our minds have made connections to, enough to bring us to full circle. Different mental processing times mean reactions and effects come later, long after expected.

3. Noh face.  Portraying other as grotesque.

The best for last.

Noh face as in the Noh theatre, because the mask they wear, delights and troubles in it's accurate yet disturbing qualities. The spirit does not speak except to make pleading utterances. The faceless spirit  is sad, mysterious, interesting,terrifying and revolting all at once.

When it is invited into the bathhouse it begins to eat several of the workers and gains the ability to speak and their personality traits.

It is one of the most grotesque and extreme moments in the film. It can make you squirm. But it's also the most literal example of what it can be like to mask.

There is a certain type of masking that occurs for autistics who also experience dissociation, derealisation and depersonalisation.

It's the least understood and most vital to  understand; this is how the brain involuntarily forces command or auto-pilot, for survival in situations it deems life threatening.

 When around other people these autistics physically feel themselves absorb the energy, the personalities, emotions and desires of other people, so much so that it overwhelms their mind/ soul, their identity and sense of who they are.

They can lose track of where they are and what they say and do ; literally becoming "drunk" on other people, acting erratically or hyper with a loss of inhibition.  

They may do and say things they wouldn't have before and never would alone, when caught in the energy of the crowd or moment. And often they can't quite remember what occurred until afterwards. It's an uncomfortable and frightening experience to not be in control, to feel like a slave to others wills .

 With this type of masking the autistic may be aware of it or might not be, but they are not in control of when it happens or with who. It occurs on a daily basis this absorption of personas and others traits. It's chaotic inside, an ever changing kaleidoscope of thoughts and feelings that are almost never your own.

Physically, after socialising, especially if it's from a party, when this type of  autistic is alone, people hangover sets in.

People hangovers, even though I don't drink that's the best definition I have of it, you feel ill enough that you vomit; as you would expect with all of this swirling chaos.

The only way to end it is to sleep it off as you psychologically purge all the fragments of others out. This is another  physical sensation as you feel yourself emptying and regaining control. This process can feel like being scrubbed raw, internally.

This masking isn't done out of "loneliness" as is the reason given by the Noh Face. But having no one to understand and going through this alone, does build up and can increase the feelings of desperation to have a stable self.

In the scene when Chihiro gives the Noh face the expectorant, and they vomit just as Haku did, as all the people they consumed left, they returned to their original small form, no longer able to speak.

Chihiro, in that scene is the only one with boundaries, she masks her fear and listens, using her knowledge to give the Noh Face what they really need. She presents a kind, calm and stable force that counters chaos.

It's no wonder the Noh Face wants to absorb her. She's the ultimate mask that it can then have to feel whole and interact with others finally.

But it still would not be their own.

On a side note, it is for this very reason that Noh Face is finally paired with the witch Zaneba, whose line "hmmm, what else can we mess with?" is my favourite. Zaneba sees the structure of the bathhouse and wants to disrupt it.

Due to the chaos occurring inside these type of autistics, instead of trying to order life in a structured or "tidy" way, they impose chaos externally. As long as it is their chaos, this ordered chaos approach is effective in coping with life.

Roles, duties and tasks bring about more structure than superficial order as in the bathhouse. If there's a specific function and purpose that is clear, it makes it easier to not mask, which is why the noh face is able to remain calm.

At the end of the day Zaneba and Noh Face retreat to their quiet home, where function and roles are simple. Personally that's where I'd like to stay, if I were Chihiro I wouldn't have returned.

That's a final point, the "fantasy" world is always made out to be lesser than our shared reality. But is it really? Our inner worlds are what make it possible to survive in the outer world. It's where we process and draw strength to combat the hostility we encounter daily.

They aren't something you abandon in childhood, but a necessary life skill that develops further with age. The fantasy retreat is vital for rest and reclamation of self from society. Not something to be left behind.

So there you have it. My rough autistic sense on what messages an autistic/neurodivergent might take away from popular story narratives and elements in children's fiction and film.  

[sulietsexual]

not gonna lie i'm super surprised you don't consider delena to be abusive in any way. however, i think it's great that you didn't let other people's opinions sway your own judgements, which can be hard to do when you go into watching a new show where everyone seems to have similar opinions. i know you're probs bored of answering tvd asks, but if you have time would you consider writing WHY you don't think delena are abusive and why you like their dynamic? thanks :)

Okay, before I get into my answer (which will be rambling and long and probably not make sense to anyone but myself and possibly @we-pay-for-everything because we seem to have similar takes on Delena) I need to clarify that when I say that I don’t find Delena abusive that doesn’t mean that I think it’s a good or healthy ship. There are a lot of aspects to Damon’s behaviour and to the relationship which make it a pretty unhealthy ship and I would never try to pretend otherwise. But I don’t feel that Damon is abusive towards Elena (even if he does cross some lines) nor do I feel that the ship is abusive as a whole. 

I was caught in a very abusive relationship when I was younger and while that by no means makes me an expert on the subject it does mean that I tend to recognise and identify abusive behaviour in fictional characters and react badly to said characters. I don’t react the way I normally would to an abuser when it comes to Damon in regards to Elena. 

Now, I make this distinction because there was a relationship of Damon’s which triggered my reaction to abusive relationships and that was his early relationship with Caroline, which was textbook abusive. Caroline was raped by Damon and compelled to be under his control. He emotionally and verbally abused her by calling her names and telling her she was worthless, he controlled her by compulsion, made her do things she didn’t want to do, separated her from her friends and caused her to feel extreme trauma and fear. She was terrified of him and he made her feel unsafe, while at the same time she felt that she was attracted to him and that made her hate herself. Damon was Caroline’s abuser and treated her appallingly. But he doesn’t display this same behaviour with Elena.

Damon never rapes Elena. Her never compels her in order to physically take advantage of her (with the exception of an early Season 1 episode where he tries to make her kiss him and this is more an attack on Stefan than Elena and he never tries this again). In fact, the one time he does compel Elena is to make her forget his declaration of love because he recognises that she is with his brother, that his brother is the better man and that it would be unfair of him to put her in a position which might make her uncomfortable and divided. That’s pretty much the opposite of abuse.

Damon doesn’t physically harm Elena or threaten her the way he did Caroline. He doesn’t make her fear for her life, he doesn’t emotionally abuse or manipulate her and, as said before, he doesn’t force himself on her or rape her (physically or by compulsion). In fact, when he discovers that she’s sired to him he refuses to even kiss her until the sire bond is broken, recognising that it would be wrong to be physical with her when she has no agency. Again, pretty much the opposite of abuse. He tries to break the sire bond to set her free, not wanting her to be compelled to be with him.

Now, none of this means that Damon didn’t display some pretty shitty behaviour at times or that he never crossed lines or didn’t hurt Elena or that he was even good for her. He encouraged her to feed and kill when she became a vampire, knowing that she would feel torturous guilt over it, he allowed her to feed from him without informing her of the intimate nature of vampires drinking from one another, he turned off her humanity which allowed her to become a ruthless killer. Even before that he crossed quite a few lines such as walking around naked in front of her, lying in her bed and letting her think he was Stefan and the aforementioned attempted compulsion to get her to kiss him. But, for me, none of this constitutes abuse as none of it truly victimised Elena or traumatised her in any way. Damon’s a shit person, a bad influence and an enabler but he’s not Elena’s abuser.

Before I started watching TVD there were two incidents which I constantly heard about which antis would use to prove Damon’s abuse - the fact that he snapped Jeremy’s neck after Elena rejected him and the fact that he forced her to drink his blood so she would come back as a vampire after Klaus fed off her. What I didn’t have was the context for either scene and once I did, both scenes became vastly different to what the fandom had convinced me they were.

When antis talk about Damon snapping Jeremy’s neck because Elena rejected him, they seem to fail to take two very important factors into account - one, that just one or two episodes before, Jeremy had expressed a desire to Damon that he wanted to die, because he wanted to feel nothing, because the world was too awful and feeling nothing was better than feeling something. Damon even parrots this back when he is about to kill Jeremy and even though Jeremy has since changed his mind, Damon is so deeply identifying with what Jeremy said previously that he’s almost killing himself through the act of snapping Jeremy’s neck. He’s killing someone who, in his mind, wants to die and if he can’t give himself that freedom, he’ll damn well give it to someone else.

Secondly (and this is more important as it directly ties into Damon and Elena’s relationship and dynamic) I firmly believe that Damon snapping Jeremy’s neck was in response to Katherine rejecting him, not Elena.

Damon has always loved Katherine and always desired that she love him back, something which she did but would never admit. Earlier in the episode in question, Katherine and Damon engage in physical intimacy, during which he practically begs her to admit that she loves him, telling her that he will leave everything and everyone behind for her and be with her forever, if she will just give him what he’s always wanted - an admittance of her love. Katherine refuses and twists the knife even further by saying that it will always be Stefan, not Damon. 

This devastates Damon, to discover the woman he loved and longed for for over a century never felt the same way. So he gets drunk and goes to Elena, not to confess his love for her (because I genuinely believe that he doesn’t actually love Elena at this point) but to use her as a Katherine substitute, to somewhat desperately try to prove that someone could choose him over his brother. And - again this is important - he doesn’t react badly until Elena says the exact same words as Katherine “It will always be Stefan”. Hearing the same words which Katherine said and already in a very heightened state of emotion (remember that it’s canon in this ‘Verse that vampires feel emotions at a much more intense level than humans) Damon kind of snaps (no pun intended) and he takes it out on someone whom he believed wanted to die. 

I don’t see this as abusive towards Elena as A) she wasn’t the person harmed - Jeremy was and B) this wasn’t a response to her rejection. Was it a horrible and completely effed-up thing to do? Sure but no one’s denying that Damon’s a horrible and effed-up person. In fact, this isn’t the last time he snaps someone’s neck because he’s pissed off (poor Alaric). And Elena is rightly angry at him for a decent time afterwards. But, again, this action doesn’t victimise Elena it victimisies Jeremy and it wasn’t Damon trying to force Elena to love him or him reacting to her rejection and as such I don’t think it counts against the relationship. Also, given that, like, two episodes later Jeremy’s trying to get “Big Brother” advice from Damon, I think it’s fine that Elena eventually forgives him, given how easily Jeremy - the actual victim - moved on.

Now, regarding Damon to force Elena to drink his blood. First of all, I find it very interesting that no where did I ever read or discover that Stefan also forces Elena to drink his blood with the intention of turning her into a vampire, and he does it in just as violent and forceful a manner as Damon - possibly even worse given that he does it at the site of her biggest trauma and then threatens to drive her off a bridge, the same bridge where her parents died. And he does all to piss of Klaus. He threatened to kill the woman he supposedly loves just to get revenge on Klaus. 

Damon, on the other hand, is trying to save Elena’s life. I’ve seen a lot of antis saying that Delena shippers shouldn’t use that as an excuse but my response is why not? People do crazy, stupid and reckless things when someone they love is in danger. Stefan agreed to follow Klaus and kill countless people just to save Damon’s life and no one is running around screaming about that. What Damon did by feeding Elena his blood did cross a line and took away her agency but he was desperate and trying to keep someone he deeply cared about alive at whatever cost. I don’t really understand how anyone could fully fault him for that.

As for why I enjoy the dynamic, maybe because it’s just so interesting. Damon and Elena have a connection from very early on in the series. Elena is one of the first people to actually see and acknowledge Damon’s emotions and losses. She expresses sympathy towards him when she learns that he also loved Katherine and Damon’s expression when she does says it all - he’s never had anyone consider him before. Everyone has always focused on Stefan, no one has fully considered Damon’s suffering. But Elena does.

There’s something dark and twisted about Damon and Elena. You can see how much she’s drawn to him, even when she’s with Stefan and, as Rose points out in Season 3, Damon challenges her and her worldview. He pushes her and brings out darker, more emotional responses in her. When she becomes a vampire, he is the only one to allow her to give in to her darker, vampire urges. One of my absolute favourite scenes in the whole series is Damon and Elena feeding, getting high off blood and dancing. It’s seductive and dark and oh so very vampire-y. I love that Elena can give into those darker urges with Damon, even if it’s not necessarily good for her.

Wow, that got really long. Hope it was coherent and cleared things up for you!