#child abuse cw/

[reasonsforhope]

"Colombia’s congress has voted to change a law that allowed minors to get married with parental consent.

The proposal would make the minimum age for marriage 18, and seeks to protect the rights and development opportunities for minors. It still must be signed into law by President Gustavo Petro.

Currently, the country’s civil code allows person as young as 14 years old to get married with parental consent.

The initial proposal to reform the law – presented in 2023 – used the slogan “they’re girls, not wives” and aimed to prevent young girls from being forced to marry, to be subject to different forms of violence and to miss out on education and development opportunities.

“Minors are not sexual objects, they’re girls,” congresswoman Clara López Obregón said in a statement after the proposal was greenlit.

Child marriage remains a widespread practice worldwide and affects around 12 million girls per year, according to the UN’s agency for children, UNICEF.

But there’s been a global drop in child marriages over the past few years, according to the agency’s statistics. “Ten years ago, one in four young women aged 20 to 24 was married as a child. Today that number has fallen to one in five,” UNICEF said.

In Latin America, poverty is the main factor leading to minors getting married, according to UNICEF."

[vague-humanoid]

[sun-marie]

Something that makes me. insane about Lydia/Lucanis is that, deep down, I think they both have a part of themselves that desperately needs someone to look out for them, and they feel they can be there for the other person when they weren't there for themselves 🥲

[autolenaphilia]

I don’t care about accusations of ”pedophilia.” I will not give a fuck, I won't investigate your claims, I will just ignore it.

For one thing the accusation of pedophilia is often entirely meaningless. This is because pedophile/pedo etc are words that carry the taint of child rape, of calling up the disgust such an act naturally produces, but are accusations that don’t require such an act or a victim of it. If you call someone a “child rapist” that has weight, but you also have to back it up with a victim this person supposedly raped for the accusation to actually be meaningful. But words like “pedophile” carries no such demands, it literally just means “someone who has an attraction to children.” It doesn’t require an actual victim. It’s an accusation about how someone feels in their head and can thus be liberally applied. Someone criticizes your asinine submarine idea to rescue some children in a cave? Call them a pedo. And even words that once had a more specific meaning, such as “grooming” can be stretched beyond all meaning to mean whatever it wants to. Someone talked to under-18 people about sex and gender in a way you don’t want to? Call them a groomer.

In a culture of pedohysteria, pedojacketing is easy. And it’s especially easy to weaponize it against queer people, the idea that queerness spreads through queers recruiting children by molesting them is one of the oldest queerphobic narrativeness out there. I’m using “queer” here because this is a narrative used both against gay and trans people. But in the present transphobic/transmisogynistic backlash it’s most often used against trans people, especially transfems, as transmasc people are more often infantilized.

But on a more deeper level “pedophilia” is the wrong framing of the real problem of child sex abuse. It’s literally a medical term, a diagnosis. It makes child sex abuse a problem of some sick individuals with a diseased attraction.

This is of course a bad and antifeminist understanding of what rape and sexual violence is. It’s an inevitable and natural expression of power. The widespread rape of women is caused by the patriarchy, of men having power over women. And the misogynist oppression of women with sexual violence naturally extends to young girls. But all children are disempowered in our society. Adults have power over them in the patriarchal family, in the capitalist school system and other institutions of our society. Sexual violence against children flows from the power adults institutionally and systemically have over them. The vast majority of sexual violence towards children comes from the family and schools, not the “stranger danger” of creepy weirdoes hiding in bushes.

This is the reality that the framing of sexual violence as the result of sick individuals with a diseased attraction obscures. And it inevitably calls for a reactionary carceral and psychiatric response, justifying the police, prisons and psychiatric institutions. That’s why “what will we then do with the pedophiles?” is such a popular clichéd response to prison and police abolitionism. This very framing of the problem calls for a carceral response. If the problem of child sex abuse is sick individuals instead of the system, if we constantly root out and punish individuals we will eventually solve the problem.

In reality carceral responses actually make the problem of sexual violence much worse. The police, prisons and involuntary psychiatric hospitals are violent expressions of power and thus create the conditions for rape.

Pedohysteria is constantly used to justify the expansion of state power. Here in European Union we have had a legislative push to ban end-to-end encryption and make all online communication accessible to law enforcement, total online surveillance. And the reasoning is because otherwise pedophiles can use e2e communication to secretly send child porn to each other without the police being able to do anything, which is of course true, that does and will happen, but doesn’t justify killing all online privacy. This “chat control” act is literally called “regulation to prevent and combat child sexual abuse.”

The pedohysteria also justifies vigilantism, which tumblr callout culture is part of and is also a deeply reactionary and even fascist phenomenon. Vigilantism rests on the idea that what the police do is right, but they are not doing it well enough, because they are too reigned in by liberal ideas such as laws and regulations and the courts. So random people should take on the role of police to punish “criminals”, like pedophiles. And this goes through tumblr callout culture. A subtext running through pedojacketing callouts of transfems is the idea that transmisogyny does not exist and does not lead to transfems being disproportionately punished, but instead transfems are using their minority status to get away with sex crimes.

This standard conservative rhetoric about how liberals often literally let minorities get away with murder justifies their reactionary vigilantism. Of course in reality, transfems are far less likely to commit sexual abuse of children than other groups of people, because we are systematically excluded from the very institutions where such abuse happens, such as parenthood/the family or schools, because of the transmisogynist stereotype that we are all perverted child rapists. And the callouts of transfems as sex predators are in themselves abusive and protect actual abusers, just like how police and prisons are.

So no, I will continue to not give a fuck if you call someone a pedophile.

[pincushionx]

A high effort shit post based off of this post I saw a while back and tagged Hunter core.

(Click image for better quality)

[bluegiragi]

human.

early access + nsfw on patreon

more backstory that i wrote up for patreon heh:

Simon and Tommy had a complicated relationship as brothers. 

At a young age, Simon basically wrote himself off as a lost cause, and did the best he could to make sure at least Tommy had a chance to be a functioning human being. After all, Tommy was the gentler brother, the dreamer, the one who looked like their mother (who'd walked out on them years ago to escape their father). But Tommy got bitter, got sick of the one always being protected, being babied. He lost respect for Simon, for the way he wouldn't fight back, and in a twisted way, grew closer to his father as a way to learn how to be powerful, strong. It backfired, and Tommy got wrapped up in some bad business.

Simon's kid brother died while he was deployed. He got the news in the letter, and it broke him in a big way. In the story timeline, it was years and years ago but it still hurts like hell whenever Simon thinks about him. 

[yeehawpim]

[duckysprouts]

big brother, season 2 episode 2

[solarmorrigan]

Saw someone mention how Steve tends to get defensive when he's anxious and it stuck with me, so here's my take on the "Steve breaks a dish and has a panic attack about it" trope

cw: descriptions of nonstandard panic attack, implied/referenced child abuse

-

The distinct sound of shattering porcelain is followed by a vehemently hissed, “shit,” and then silence.

“Steve?” Eddie calls from the couch into the kitchen. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Steve calls back, but his voice sounds tight in the way it does when something definitely isn’t okay.

Eddie pushes himself up and moves to the doorway, looking in to see what the trouble is. The kitchen of the house he and Wayne had been “gifted” by the government isn’t exactly huge, and he has a straight line of sight to where Steve is standing by the sink, eyes squeezed shut as he pinches the bridge of his nose, and to the red and white shards of porcelain on the floor by his feet.

“Hey,” Eddie says, but Steve doesn’t look up; if anything, his posture only gets tenser. “You’re not cut or anything, are you?”

“No,” Steve says, and his tone is still a little off, but he doesn’t sound like he’s lying.

“What was that, anyway?” Eddie asks.

Finally, Steve takes a deep breath in and opens his eyes, looking down at the mess on the laminate. “Mug.”

As soon as he says it, Eddie recognizes the colors for what the design must have been. “Shit, the Campbell’s one?”

Steve doesn’t say a word, just gives one sharp nod.

Eddie sucks a hiss of breath in through his teeth. “Shit,” he says again. “That was Wayne’s favorite.”

“I know,” Steve says tersely. “I’m sorry.”

His tone is definitely weird. “I mean, I’m sure it was an accident, Steve–” Eddie starts.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says again, almost snapping this time. “I’ll clean it up.”

“O-kay,” Eddie says slowly, watching as Steve jerks into motion and moves over to the corner where they stash the broom and dust pan.

“I’ll apologize to Wayne when he gets home,” Steve says as he starts sweeping up, even though Eddie hasn’t said a word.

“He gets home at, like, six in the morning.”

“I’ll make sure I’m up,” Steve says shortly.

“Steve, you can just tell him what happened later, he’s not going to stand around demanding an explanation. I mean, seriously, you think Wayne is gonna be pissed if you’re not there, immediately scraping at his feet when he comes through the door?” Eddie scoffs, but Steve remains silent. Eddie watches as he finishes sweeping in short, sharp motions, brows pulling together as Steve apparently fails to pick up on the joke. “…he won’t be, y’know.”

Steve shrugs. His expression has gone eerily blank, and he takes the dustpan over to the garbage can to dump it.

“Hey, don’t–” Eddie reaches out, and Steve jerks to a stop just in time. “You don’t have to toss it, man, we might be able to glue it back together.”

Steve sends Eddie a sharp look. “I’m not gonna be able to hide that it was broken, Eddie,” he says slowly, as though this should be painfully obvious.

“I’m not suggesting we hide it, I’m just saying we might still be able to use it,” Eddie answers in the same slow manner. “It’s not junk until you’re sure you can’t fix it.”

“Right,” Steve snaps, dropping the dustpan on the counter so sharply that the shards of porcelain clink against each other. “Can’t even clean up right.”

Eddie frowns, stirrings of defensiveness rising up in his gut at Steve’s continued sour mood. “I didn’t say that. I just said we might be able to fix it.”

“Fine. We’ll try to fix it,” Steve bites out, turning away from Eddie so he can put the broom back in the corner.

Eddie shakes his head, unwilling to engage with whatever snit Steve’s got himself worked into. “What happened, anyway?” he asks instead.

Apparently, this is the wrong tactic.

“What happened is, I’m too stupid to even do the dishes right,” Steve declares as he whirls back around. “Is that what you want to hear?”

“What?” Eddie is baffled, suddenly caught in the middle of an argument he hadn’t even realized was happening. “No! Why would I want to hear that?”

Steve throws his arms up, a demonstration of giving in. “Well I already said I’m sorry, and I am, and I don’t know what else you want from me!”

The heat of Eddie’s own temper is beginning to flare, but he does his best to shake it away because he still doesn’t know what the hell is going on and he doesn’t think getting angry will help. “I don’t want anything else from you! Why are you acting like I’m yelling at you? I’m not, I’m not even upset about the stupid mug, so what the hell is your deal?”

He takes a couple of steps into the kitchen, reaching out for Steve, hoping just to touch some part of him. Physical contact has always been grounding, has always been a comfort for them both; it almost seems like they can communicate better if they can just be in contact somehow. Instead of reaching back, though, Steve tenses up; it’s not exactly a flinch, but it’s as if he’s bracing himself, as if he’s waiting for Eddie to–

Eddie takes in the painfully blank expression on Steve’s pale face, the way his chest is rising and falling in quick, shallow breaths that he can’t quite seem to control, the way he’s angled himself just slightly away from Eddie, and suddenly Eddie feels cold.

It’s as if he’s waiting for Eddie to hit him.

Eddie wonders how the hell he hadn’t realized he was walking through a minefield until he was already standing in the middle of it.

(It still takes him by surprise, sometimes, that Steve’s anxiety, his panic, tends to look more like anger. That he tends to lash out like a wounded animal when he feels backed into a corner, hurt too many times in moments of vulnerability to do otherwise.)

(It takes him by surprise, but he’s learning.)

“Steve,” Eddie says softly, dropping his hand slowly back to his side, “I’m not angry.”

Steve stares at him, almost confused, like Eddie’s not doing it right, like this isn’t what’s supposed to come next. Eddie sort of wants to break something (he thinks, briefly, that he’d like to start with the fingers on Mr. Harrington’s right hand, and then move on to his left).

“It’s just a mug, Steve, it’s okay. No one’s upset about it,” Eddie says. “I’m preemptively speaking for Wayne, because I know he’s not gonna be mad at you. Seriously, getting upset over a broken cup? Does that sound like something Wayne would do?”

Slowly, once he seems to realize that Eddie is waiting for an answer, Steve shakes his head.

“Does that sound like something I would do?” Eddie asks.

Steve shakes his head again, though he’s still watching Eddie with something approaching trepidation.

“I promise it’s fine. I’m not angry,” Eddie repeats, and chances a couple of steps closer to Steve.

Steve doesn’t react this time, no tensing, no flinching, no verbally lashing out, and so Eddie lifts a hand again, reaching slowly for Steve’s. Steve lets him.

When he gets his fingers wrapped around Steve’s own, Eddie can feel how cold they’ve gone, can feel the fine tremble of adrenaline working through them, and can’t quite choke down the noise of sympathy in his throat. He tugs on Steve’s hand.

“C’mere,” Eddie says, invites him by lifting his other arm, but leaves it up to Steve.

It only takes a moment for Steve to step in close, and when Eddie lets go of his hand to wrap his arms around Steve’s shoulders, Steve reciprocates by cinching his own arms tight around Eddie’s waist. He takes one sharp breath, and then another, and Eddie can hear the way they shake going in and out.

“There you go,” Eddie says quietly, rubbing Steve’s back.

“I just dropped it,” Steve says, his voice a little hoarse. “It was an accident.”

“I know it was,” Eddie assures him. “It’s okay.”

“It was an accident,” Steve says again, and Eddie wonders how often someone has believed him – how often he’d ever even been given a chance to explain.

“It was an accident,” Eddie agrees. “You’re okay, Steve.”

Steve lets out a little noise, like maybe he’s trying to laugh, but then he pulls in another shuddery breath and rests his chin on Eddie’s shoulder. “Okay.”

In a little bit, Eddie might lead Steve to sit down on the couch, or maybe just take them both up to bed, because fuck doing the dishes after this anyway; he’ll make sure to leave a note for Wayne about the mug (ask him not to bring it up until Steve does, to not even jokingly make a thing about it), but for now, he concentrates on holding Steve close.

He’ll stand with him as long as it takes for the shaking to stop, for his breathing to even out, for him to relax even just a little against Eddie, and he'll promise, as many times as Steve needs to hear it, that it’s okay. Things will be okay.

[Prompt: Embracing your partner]

[hajihiko]

It runs in the family

[windybluebelles]

A lot of the justice league canonically have children who they raised more or less since birth,

(there’s a few time travel/rapid aging/losing them for a few years issues, but ignoring those)

,It’s not entirely out there to think that one of them would bring their kid to the watch tower.

I want there to be a fic where someone brings their kid, and have that kid meet Captain Marvel. There’s no doubt on this persons mind that Cap will adore the kid, he’s great at interacting with children, and their right! He’s great with the baby, answering their questions, picking them up, giving them hugs and high fives, all the cool shit!

He’s this 9 foot tall god speaking to a 3 foot tall toddler and answering all their questions with the seriousness of an actual interview, it’s going wonderfully!

When the kid toddles off to go interview another one of the supers, Billy turns with this big grin on his face and asks the parent,

“So how old did you say they were? 2?”

And the parents like,

“No? They turn 5 in a couple months,”

And Captain’s smile just, drops.

His face pales, he looks back at the child who is chatting with one of the more human members and doesn’t even reach their waist. That’s what a four year old looks like, laughing at everything, chubby cheeks, small curls, and teeny tiny body.

That’s how big four year olds are.

That’s how big Billy was.

That’s what Billy looked like after his parents had died and he was sent to live with his uncle.

That was what Billy looked like right before he became homeless

Oh God-

That’s the day when he found that he could technically throw up while powered up.

[toringo]

Sleepover at Jimmy's this au is consuming my life idk

[Part 2]

[meruz]

i watched kore-eda's recent film Monster this past week and i truly.. cannot stop thinking about it. maybe my favorite kore-eda film yet

[nopanamaman]

What’s the deal with Tsar and Arthur?

Today we’ll look at the two most popular members of Sanya and Yura’s friend group, Tsar and Arthur, a.k.a. Anger Management. How did they meet? What’s their life like? And most importantly, why the hell are they so angsty?

Let’s start with the older one.

Arthur Sokolov

Joining the orphanage

Arthur was brought to the orphanage not long after being born. He never met any of his parents.

Growing up in a state-funded shelter meant developing a clear understanding of what kinds of behaviours will and won’t result in getting your shit kicked in. You can’t be too cocky, and you can’t be too weak. Follow the hierarchy, but don’t let your fear of elders show.

Arthur learned to navigate that little society well. He had earned respect among kids his own age and younger, and avoided being pushed around by the older teenagers too much. Less due to a noble heart and more because of being too proud to act like a doormat. 

However, that didn't make him immune to peer pressure.

Correctional psychiatry

Business trip.

Many low-end orphanages across the former USSR had been essentially transformed into incubators for future gang members. “Businessmen”, either by bribe or threat, came to these institutions to recruit impressionable children into their organisations. One such uncle visited Arthur’s foster home.

For kids like him, the course of action was simple:

misbehave;

get sent to a mental institution for corrective treatment;

sneak as many bottles of trihexyphenidyl as you can into your bag during your stay;

leave the hospital as normal;

transfer the trihexyphenidyl to a gang representative and get your paycheck.

Under that business model, Arthur became a frequent guest at psychiatric wards. Having witnessed their indifference and medical callousness firsthand, he had developed a massive disdain for all kinds of mental health professionals.

It started even before joining the gang, of course – way before. It’s hard not to foster a vendetta when you get thrown to the looney bin for any misstep. At first he tried to honestly convince the doctors working there that he was fine, but he eventually realised it was futile: they were always in on the punishment.

Hustling continues

Arthur and Ivan at 15 and 17 respectively.

As Arthur grew older, he got more deeply involved with the gang’s activities alongside other kids. This meant participating in transfers, standing watch during certain deals, acting as a “treasure man” (i.e. hiding drugs in agreed upon places for clients to pick up), and so on. Fights were frequent.

He knew it was a slippery slope, but getting out was not an option – not an easy one, at least. This was the period during which he grew close to Ivan, who was commonly assigned to work with Arthur and other children from their institute.

They bonded on the basis of wanting to leave the business, though for different reasons: most of all, Ivan didn’t want to disappoint his grandma.

Getting out

First meeting with Yura.

The sudden disbandment of the gang was a relief to both Ivan and Arthur. A major member got caught and ratted almost everyone out, except for the dozens of orphans involved. So while Ivan went to turn himself in, Arthur got to walk free.

Before going, Ivan suggested Arthur replace him at his pop’s car repair salon. The boy seemed to have a knack for fixing things, and the two had developed a trusting relationship over their time working together.

While everything was looking fine, Arthur still wanted to destroy all traces of his activities - even those that couldn’t reasonably be tracked down to him. This led to him encountering Yura. Despite the very rocky start of their acquaintance, they went on to hang out together pretty regularly.

As of today, Arthur continues to do part-time at the workshop alongside Ivan. Both are committed to never getting back into the criminal business. Unless you count Sanya's Dynamo. Which you shouldn't. Having experienced what actual gangs are like, Arthur finds it hard not to look down at the girl's little roleplay.

Tsar

Joining the orphanage

Before coming to the orphanage, Tsar lived with his grandma. She died when he was 6. Since his parents had lost their parental rights due to alcoholism a couple years prior, there was only one place for him to go.

Tsar had a very hard time adjusting to the rigid hierarchy of the foster home. He was lucky enough to catch Arthur's attention and, in a sense, got scooped under his wing. The boy disliked relying on the older kid too much, but was too weak to stand on his own.

Gang involvement

How come mom lets you have two trips to the mental ward

Since Arthur got dragged into gang activities earlier than Tsar, the younger kid felt jealous. He, like most other children, fully bought into the romanticised idea of criminal life that was pushed by the uncles visiting the orphanage.

But as years went on, he saw the toll it had begun to take on Arthur. Tsar had taken a couple of correctional trips to mental wards as well, though he'd never participated in any illegal schemes. Those times were bad enough - he couldn't imagine going there again and again on purpose.

By the time Tsar would be old enough to get recruited into the business, Arthur forbade him from it. The kid still wanted to join to prove his worth, to earn his share, to show his guts. But his trust and respect for Arthur were stronger.

As much as he hated the idea, he stuck to the sidelines.

Contact with parents

Teatime with family.

Tsar’s parents reached out to him a couple years after he was transferred to the orphanage. He could only meet with them under supervision up until he was 13 years old. Afterwards they were allowed private meetings.

Today, he occasionally comes to visit them at their apartment. They still drink, but to Tsar, they just seem quiet and pitiful. He usually lends them the pocket money he receives from the orphanage. He knows they won't return it.

Anger Management

Ural models are known for their incredible durability and a baffling number of switches.

Tsar found a creative release in music and wrote songs to vent his frustrations. The orphanage had an old acoustic guitar that he learned to play, but it got completely broken when the boy was 13. After Arthur joined the workshop, he bought a black Ural from Ivan’s dad for cheap, upgraded its port, and gifted it to Tsar.

As it turned out, Ivan’s dad was hopping from one band to another in the 80s-90s, so he was happy to accommodate the kids' creative endeavours. He allowed them to use the spare garage space to practise and even supplied an incomplete drum set.

Tsar begged Arthur to back him up with drums. The latter begrudgingly agreed to learn them, but ended up really enjoying hitting barrels with sticks. Right now their band has a tiny local following, mostly in the face of Sanya Kazarina.

Some notes

I remember sitting down and reading about actual orphanage experiences in the post-soviet space – it was eye-opening, but also gave me a lot of material to work with, as heartless as that probably sounds. A lot of things simply clicked into place.

I didn't go into too much detail here, but FYI, I've downplayed the severity of certain situations. Trauma aside, I'd say both Tsar and Arthur got quite lucky in the end.

[becomingvecna]

#my writing

[motherofplatypus]

Killed an 8 years old girl along 36 others of her family

This post has been compiled in Record of Genocide.