#sometimes victims need to be rescued by other people from abuse and danger because they can’t fight for themselves

[gch1995]

Even the 1937 Snow White wasn’t just a helpless damsel-in distress. She gets saved by men twice throughout the story, and the Huntsman spares her life. However, you also have to remember that Snow White is the youngest princess in these stories and the most sheltered one. She’s somewhere between 13-14 years old. Of course, she’s going to be terrified when her evil stepmother tries to have her killed because she’s jealous of her being prettier than her.

However, even though her parents die when she is still young, she is forced to be a scullery maid in rags by her stepmother, and she forced to flee from her own kingdom when said stepmother tries to have her killed out of jealousy of her beauty, Snow White still does her best to remain cheerful, helpful, gracious, kindhearted, and selfless. That’s a really difficult thing for a lot of people to do when they’ve been put through a wringer of abuse, loss, mistreatment in life. It’s not easy to hold on to hope and kindness in the face of mistreatment and trauma. That’s what made the 1937 Snow White such a great role model. She didn’t need to be a girlboss to be strong.

Ginnifer Goodwin is a great actress, she is beautiful, and she made a pretty badass Snow White on OUAT in the first three seasons. To be fair, though, it wasn’t her fault that Adam and Eddy destroyed her character, David’s character, and every other main character on that show who lasted past the first two-and-a-half to three seasons. They ran out of story to tell after the Neverland arc, and tried to keep redoing the same arcs for the characters over and over again until they became shells of their former selves.

Rachel Zegler is such a brat. She’s definitely the most disrespectful and obnoxious young actress they’ve chosen to cast for these unnecessary live action Disney remakes. Yeah, Emma Watson and Hallie Bailey were mildly bratty, but even with them you could tell they were just spouting Disney’s “woke” agenda to not ruin their contracts. Hallie Bailey at the very least seemed to enjoy playing Ariel, and tried to honor Jodie Benson somewhat. Rachel’s absolute arrogance, greediness, and disrespect for the animated Disney source material is the worst yet, though.

Rachel Zeglar: I’m gonna be the first Snow White who is not going to be a damsel in distress dreaming about true love and instead she’ll learn to become a fighter and a great leader for her kingdom! No one’s ever done an independent Snow White before!

Me:

[imbecominggayer]

Part 1 Writing Advice: Sexual Trauma As Justice And As A Lesson

Tw: This post is specifically dedicated to SA(sexual assault). This is a highly sensitive topic that I will do my best to present accurately and thoroughly.

This is a somber occasion where I will do my utmost to treat this serious and highly personalized experience with the best grace I can muster. I apologize but this is a serious topic that deserves to be talked about in a "everyday way" and not in a stuffy "fake sad" way because sexual trauma happens everyday.

For important hotlines relating to this issue, check out: https://rainn.org/resources

This is a very sensitive topic which personally relates to my family so I obviously need to be the most detailed I can be.

Again, to reiterate, this post will cover highly serious topics involving sexual violence, the threat of sexual violence, and prison rape in both media and in the real world. Don't pressure yourself to read this. Your mental health is more important then some person's thoughts.

So, let's get started!

Why Did You Need This?

Before we continue, I need to ask for your reasoning when including representation of victims/survivors of sexual abuse/trauma.

If it's something that can be "not included" and won't change your plot at all then I highly implore you to not include it.

You won't believe how many "rom-coms" or romance-based media decides to include an assault scene for the sake of a dramatic rescue. It's not fun. It's not romantic. And it's not necessary!

The reason that sexual trauma is treated with more "delicate sensibilities" is not because physical trauma and emotional trauma are not serious or deserving of respect. It's because sexual trauma is often not treated with the respect that physical abuse and mental abuse is.

If you are planning to use sexual trauma/harrassment/rape/prison rape/anything involving assault into:

A comedic punchline which will never be brought up

A highly inspirational hypersexualized revenge flick about a hot badass woman being badass

Another "don't drop the fucking soap" joke

An insult for a character's masculinity/desirability

A transphobic/racist/homophobic example of danger

A meaningless drivel with vague messages about "forgiveness for others"

I will throw you out of my minecraft server! And account! But, if you are sure that you need sexual trauma to be in your stories, let's continue.

2. Sexual Trauma Is Not Justice

What do all of these movies/shows have in common?

Iron Man 2(2010)

The Powerpuff Girls(2000)

Wedding Crashers(2005)

Cop Out(2010)

Without A Trace(2006)

Buffy The Vampire Slayer(1998)

Deadpool 2 (2018)

They all utilize rape as a form of karmic punishment from Tony Stark's "don't drop the soap" line which is meant to allude to prison rape to Deadpool 2's usage of an electrical cable on Juggernaut to sexually assault them.

Of course, most of these movies/shows "only" use punchlines about anal rape although in the case of Wedding Crashers there is a huge reliance on rape so be aware!

A common uniting theme behind these instances of sexual violence is the fact that the audience is meant to react to these scenes with a satisfied snicker about how the bad guy is suffering.

Let me reiterate, these "jokes" and "funny sexual assault" scenes are said by "funny", "sympathetic" women and men who are threatening sexual violence against "unsympathetic" bad people.

There are multiple problems with this so let's start!

Rape is never okay.

When these scenes have "loveable" characters either threatening/utilizing/physically raping "undesirables" you have just recreated a system where rape is acceptable when it's done to bad people. Sometimes these bad people are too sexually positive, too chauvinistic, or just too bad.

And it's this belief of "punishing sinners" which allows the systematic use of prison rape as a way of controlling prisoners to flourish.

There is no such thing as "justifiable rape"

This Isn't Justice

This is revenge. Rape and the threat of it can nevver be used as a form of justice. The goal of justice is ultimately redemption.

Sexual violence, as a form of revenge, could never be used to positively benefit society.

Prison Rape Is Not Inevitable

Prison Rape can be prevented. It's the powers that control the prison system that consciously allow prison rape to happen.

This is because prison rape is a widely sanctioned way to punish "undesirable" prisoners such as transgender and mentally disabled prisoners.

Again, it's that mention of "undesirable" which demonstrates how promoting the positive usage of sexual violence in Media effects the real world

There are solutions to the prison rape epidemic such as mass deincarceration through actual justice-orientated redemption,

Conclusion: I desperately wanted to talk about how sexual violence and the threat of sexual violence is highly influencial in mass media and how this representation impacts the world that you and I inhabit.

Every single repetition of "sexual assault as a justice-orientated lesson" tortures the hundreds of thoudsands of people in justice system who are brutalized by rape and who never recover.

[msfbgraves]

Writing abusive relationships: the confrontation

It doesn't matter if you're writing The Karate Kid or Cinderella, if you're writing about abuse, you need a confrontation - one at the beginning and at the end. The first confrontation is to show how dangerous the bully/abuser really is - for Karate Kid, that's the first time Johnny and Daniel square off. Daniel is no coward, but Johnny is a trained martial artist. With Disney's Cinderella we really know what we're up against when the stepsisters destroy Cindy's dress.

The Karate Kid then falls into a trap, though, that modern Disney films also suffer from. In order for Miyagi to come in to rescue Daniel, Daniel needs to be in mortal danger from his bullies.

The problem here is that most people in such violent situations would do almost everything to keep such a confrontation from occurring. Daniel in the Karate Kid, though, takes revenge on Johnny, completely unprovoked and unprotected. Now the narrative kinda sorta lets him get away with that by pointing out that the boy lacks an instinct for self-preservation. But most people don't. In a lot of stories about teenagers people circumvent that by making those teenagers having 'had it' and finally standing up for themselves, thereby starting off the final showdown.

That always rings incredibly false to me. My parents were very verbally abusive to each other, and if you got caught in the crossfire, also to us. My sister and I quickly learnt never to rock the boat, definitely never to blow up at them. However much the audience needs it, your victim is not on their own accord suddenly going to blow up at their abuser. That's too dangerous. Sorry, Daniel, Johnny had a point in your actions being slightly insane.

But then how do you have the climactic moment your story is working up to?

Well, abusers want you to fail. As little as you want to give them ammunition, they love having at you. So what they do is set up rules that no living person could possibly live by. They're contradictory, they change, the abuser may actively be provoking you to break them.

Cuba and His Teddy Bear, another Ralph Macchio project, does this brilliantly. Teddy is my absolute hero for calming down his father Cuba, even when Cuba is actively baiting him. That sweet boy is a master at avoiding violent confrontations. But of course there has to be one. And it comes about because Teddy is so overworked, so stressed, and so shocked by something else that happened to him, that he, for once, can't do what he needs to do to avoid his father blowing up at him. It's not for lack of trying, it's not for him 'finally taking a stand', it's simply too much to ask. He lost his head. Cinderella, too, loses her head when she hears her lover was the Prince, and that he's looking for her. For once she doesn't have the mental capacity to dodge all the bullets that come with being around her stepfamily.

So what will break your target out of their self-protective mode? Is someone else being threatened they deeply love? A small unrelated mishap that causes a meltdown? Is there a fire? Did somebody rat on them to their abuser? Did they get caught on a lie? Did somebody stash something in their locker and school called their parents? Did their abuser sabotage an escape attempt? Did their abuser get home early because they were fired and are now looking for blood?

Anything, anything but the random blow ups, please. A lot of abuse survivors did so because they got out before there was one. Your characters don't need to show they have a spine. Them trying to navigate life in such a terrible situation shows that well enough.

There is one exception, and that is from, among others, The Umbrella Academy. Five Hargreeves had already decided that he was going to run away from home, if worst came to worst. Then, and only then, with a viable escape planned, do victims sometimes seek a confrontation, since they prefer their abuser saying yes to something they need rather than to take it, or because they are indeed sick and tired to their soul. Another version of that is when the abuser feels their victim slipping and escalates themselves (This Boy's Life).

Otherwise it's often wish fullfilment that would kill people in real life.

[thecondemnedangelgabriel]

Hello! I hope you are doing okay! I'm very sorry if this comes off as rude, but you need therapy. I'm genuinely concerned..please seek a therapist.

I understand you also adore being in your own bubble, as everyone else, but it should NOT interfere IRL with people...

Hi and Hello

NO

I do not 'adore being in my own bubble as everyone else' you are talking about your own stupid and manipulated immature self...

I am in NO BUBBLE at all, Emily... I am enduring a Possession

And what YOU DO and have done affects a lot of people IRL

YOU have done Evil

I don't need therapy... I'm a Stalked Artist who is being Hacked by three people and this is a Spiritual Communication which is a part of a much larger Artwork... the three individuals hacking me are in the hugest trouble in Life and in SOUL, one of their methods is to gaslight and frame their Victim as Deluded... it's the most exceptional evil... when you say it should NOT interfere IRL with people, what do you mean... with WHOM

This is a TRUE STORY

Since 2019 it has been relayed by A REAL ANGELIC BEING

Through a Possessed Holy Mother Conduit who is a Divinity Angelically Mistreated...

These are Miraculous Events at the END OF AN ERA O V

A LONG Era of Betrayed Spiritual Karma

Muzzled Justices

O O O

V

You see, actions do have consequences and when something is done to somebody it does affect the doer... O O O

The Foolish Condemned Angel is Stupidly Misrepresenting the Return of Karma in a Stubborn Fairy Working which is Entirely Stupid...

It relies upon this Living Goddess being Spiritually Human

But This Goddess ISN'T Human Spiritually

The Artemisian Angel is in the Stupidest State, Extremely...

O O

And a persecution like this affects the Entire Lied To Community...

And ALL Witnesses

And what did you do to their Houses O O

The Hackers are the most exceptionally self excusing bunch of total arseholes...

One of them is a Serial Killer with multiple murders on her Spiritual Account and ALL THREE of them are involved in an entrapment which has led to Death...

Several years I put forth Public Account of my experience as a victim and the need for intervention rescue for one very vulnerable person who had become dangerous under Isolation...

I am just absolutely fucking amazed by this message from you...

Why should I Assist YOU to Save Your Life in any way...

When You Refuse Decency for so many years, Stalker

You AWFUL Woman

I do not think that I WILL

After All

You do not Understand

But you SHOULD Understand

Disrespect makes you Very Thick

And sometimes this Goddess feels horrified at how you have been Hoodwinked and so Utterly Manipulated

You want to live in a Bubble Adorable? O O

Roxanne Anderton was Gangraped in a Torture Chamber in Camden you little cunt of a Wannabe Lifestyle Fraud Journalist

While I have been Stalked by Violent People, Allied with Tregonning

You think that YOU are a 'Nice Person', do you...

And so all your BFFs must be 'Nice Girls' also O O

But you are not a Good Person, you are Exceptionally Damned

Go stick your concern up your Backside, Abuser...

You've been collaborating in an Invasive Framing Stalking...

With a Serial Killer, against a Hunted Whistleblowing Mother

And in what sense should that not affect people IRL

In what RATIONAL SENSE should what has been DONE FOR REAL

Not Affect People In Real Life

In what kind of Cracked Noncontinuum do you think Souls Exist

I have warned you and warned you you Utter Fool Ostrich

YOU Live In Falsity

Extraordinary Susceptibility to being MANIPULATED by The Snark Female Psychopath, Sarah Tregonning

Tregonning is a Torturer as well as a Framing Stalker

And Roxanne and many other people are DEAD

This is not a Fantasy, Dummy

Have you graduated from your Beginner's Guide yet... O O

This is your O

O O O

I do not need your Abusive Interferences, Hacker

YOU are a Psychiatric Abuser and this will JUSTLY End Your Career

What I want from you now is to Learn To Accept Unwanted Information because this is why you have been going Mad, Emily...

You have been WARNED AND WARNED VERY CLEARLY for 8 Years

You are Intensely Irrational in your Pleasure Bubble against Reality

That is far from where this Artist IS, Journalist

Or has ever been O O O

Does Flippancy and Fraudulence Protect You From O O O Justice O

Does Atheism Protect Your Life and Soul From The REAL

O O O

O!

Does it FEEL like it will, though O O O

How about Western Medicine O O O

Will Psychiatry protect you from Angels O O

Do you Leave The Light On

O

V

YOU and the other two Invaders have been brought False Security in your Criminality and Wrongdoing by the Suspension of Motions brought by Gabriel who is Oppressing...

HAVE you received Testimonial of the Seer Ogbanje... O O O

Yet you still respond like this at THIS Stage O O O

When you are brought Information it changes Your Responsibilities

You are a woman in your thirties yet you behave like a Schoolgirl

Online Childishness... Intensified to Stalking Malevolence from YOU

O

As the O Process Goes On, Cardinal... You Become More Damned

O

The Lux will bring Consequence in Life and Afterlife and in Rebirth O

YOU do not deserve to be Carried like an Infant by this Goddess

YOU deserve to be treated like an Adult O O

You make your Choices at Each Crossroads

This is the O

You WILL

Burn in Hell

And You Will LEARN New Respects

Upon O

And the Meaning of the Letter and the Word and Code

And SOUL

O

O O O

O

[kirain]

I started playing rdr2 but stopped because like idk but I can't seem to get over the fact that all the women are prostitutes and they don't really have any important roles. Like what's Abigail do? Ooh she's a mother who's always mad? What do the other women do? Oooh they sleep with the gang. What's Sadie do? Oooh she becomes a badly written femme fetale who suddenly becomes a flawless killer. The women are just so badly represented.

I get the feeling you didn't play the game naturally or see any random encounters, because none of what you said is true. There's a lot to unpack here, so let's start with the "all the women are prostitutes" comment.

First of all, none of the women are prostitutes, a fact that deeply irritates Micah. During a coach robbery where he rides with Arthur and Bill, he even says, “Why the hell do we need a gaggle of girls who won’t even fuck you if you put a gun to their head? Is it too much to ask considering they get a piece of every damn dollar I bring in?” Poor baby. He even tries to proposition all of the women (Grimshaw included), but they all insult him and send him running with his tail between his legs. It’s hilarious and I love it. Arthur also responds to Micah with, “Everyone does their share. I don’t see you lifting a finger around camp.”

Now a bit about the girls:

Mary-Beth was a skilled pickpocket, but she ended up being caught by a group of her victims. She mentions this during a conversation with Arthur, where she points out how hard it was for women who came from nothing, and the inequality of it all. RDR2 actually regularly highlights how difficult frontier/outlaw life was for women back then, often pulling zero punches. While fleeing her pursuers, Mary-Beth luckily ran into Hosea, who helped her escape and welcomed her to the gang. You can see Dutch lusting after her a few times, because he's an old pervert, but she always shuns his advances. She was never a prostitute and she was actually underage when she joined.

Tilly was a child outlaw and a member of the Forman gang from the age of twelve. She ended up killing the leader's cousin because he [as is heavily implied] tried to rape her. She was around sixteen at the time and tried to return to her mother after the ordeal, but she unfortunately passed away while Tilly was running with the Formans. Out of options, she eventually joined the van der Linde gang after Dutch saved her from some unspecified trouble. You can find most of this out during one of my favourite side missions, where she gets kidnapped by Anthony Foreman in retaliation for killing his cousin. With Grimshaw’s help, you can rescue Tilly and put an end to it once and for all. She was never a prostitute and was also underage when taken in.

Susan Grimshaw was one of the original members of the gang and one of Dutch's first lovers. They parted amicably and both fell in love with other people (Dutch with Annabelle, and Susan with a doctor who sadly ended up dying), but she stayed with the gang because of their mutual respect for each other. She later became the arbiter of the camp and a kind of surrogate mother to Arthur, John, and the other girls. She was never a prostitute, but rather a rough-and-tumble outlaw.

Karen is a little more complicated. Overall, she was a scam artist (Hosea even called her an “actress”) who sometimes lured men into brothels, then stole from them or picked their brains for leads. That doesn't necessarily mean she was a prostitute; however, it just means she used sex as a manipulation tactic. Out of all the women in the group, she was the freest and most unconventional. She also stood on guard duty and participated in heists. The only man she ever slept with in game was Sean, and his death absolutely devastated her. If you talk to her or observe her interactions, you also discover she’s a raging alcoholic suffering from some very deep-seated issues. She likely did have to do things she wasn’t proud of in order to survive, but in my opinion that makes her one of the most realistic members of the group. She was never described as a prostitute.

Molly was an aristocrat who left her family to be with Dutch. His abusive treatment eventually led her to suffer an identity crisis, where she ended up hysterical and heartbroken. Her story is sad, but she was never a prostitute. If anything, Molly is the best example we have that Dutch views people as items, not human beings.

Abigail is the only prostitute in the game, but by the events of RDR2 she's an ex-prostitute. To say she's nothing more than "a mother who's always mad", I feel, does her character a great disservice. First of all, she left that profession behind to raise her son, to give him a decent chance in life. Unlike John, she stepped up immediately to become a responsible adult. I don't think people realise how impressive that is because, one, she could've easily abandoned Jack at the roadside (which was common back then), two, she could've induced an abortion, and three, she was quite young when she had him; around nineteen years old.

You say the women are "poorly represented", but they're stronger, smarter, and more mature than most of the men. A few of them even become self-sufficient in the turn of the century, something dear old Dutch couldn't even do/accept. Abigail in particular helps Sadie mourn her husband and the two grow very close. Their interactions are both grounded and heartwarming, with Abigail telling Sadie she’ll suffer the loss of her husband, but that it’ll get better if she keeps on living. She takes care of her, and Sadie later returns that kindness. These women are so full of quirks and humour and personality, I don’t know how you missed it.

As for Sadie ... where do I even begin? Badly written? Femme fatale? Flawless killer? Sadie is one of the best written characters. She's not flawless, she's exceptionally flawed, temperamental, and traumatised. It's never expressly stated, but it's implied at several points throughout the game that she was repeatedly assaulted while the O'Driscolls kept her captive. At first, she's petrified and miserable, to the point that all she does is cry and express suicidal ideation. Then, she gets angry. Very angry. Having nothing left to live for, her home and husband torn from her grasp, she throws herself headfirst into danger, which almost gets her killed on a number of occasions.

She's not a "flawless killer", she's a messy killer. She's not an expert death-dealer, and that's made evident from the start -- but she was a hunter who shared the workload with her husband, so it's not as if her skills just magically appeared. You do see how much it weighs on her, however, near the end of chapter six. If you help her kill the rest of the O'Driscolls, she laments what she's become because she thinks her husband would be horrified. She’s extremely complex and struggles between mourning and moving on.

I also can't help but laugh at the "femme fatale" accusation, because Sadie actually defeminises herself, which is understandable considering the hell she’s suffered. She even wears men's clothing, which wasn't illegal [anymore] back then, but it was openly frowned upon. Femme fatales use their beauty and sexuality to their advantage, ensnaring men with their feminine wiles. Sadie never does that and fights side-by-side with the boys. Interestingly enough, that's partially why Calamity Jane, an actual historical figure, garnered so much attention, because of how she behaved/dressed. It’s pretty clear to me that Rockstar might’ve used her as inspiration for Sadie. This was a real woman who lived from 1852 to 1903.

In addition, Sadie plays one of the most important roles, yet she does so without falling into the category of a Mary-Sue. She saves the gang and moves them to a new location when the Pinkertons attack Shady Belle. She hatches the plan that frees John from prison. She helps Arthur rescue Abigail after she gets kidnapped. She tracks down Micah and puts an end to his reign of terror. But most of what she does she accomplishes with a partner--Arthur or John--both of whom she respects immensely. No one, not even Arthur, does everything alone, and when they do there’s usually negative consequences. It's the camaraderie and shared experiences that make these characters successful, and aside from Charles and Hosea, I’d even argue that the women are more well-rounded and fleshed out than the men.

I gather from for comments that you didn't finish the game, so I hate to spoil it, but I kind of have to if you walked away with this mindset. The women of RDR2 are a force to be reckoned with.

[daddyissuesyo]

Monsta X Yandere Headcanons

tw: implied sexual content, non-sexual consent violation, murder, suicide, emotional and physical abuse, harm/endangerment, severed ties with family, vulgarity

seriously guys this is intense

Shownu: The Protector

- you pique his attention and he asks you out, seemingly normal

- becomes obsessed after the first date and captures you on the second

- avoids physical harm unless absolutely "necessary" to keep you in line. manipulates you until feeling as though you failed him.

- reckless, unconditional love

- you can't help but reciprocate a little; he's just so caring & attentive

- vanilla sex, because he loves you

- funds EVERYTHING you could possibly want: fluffy comforters and a massive mattress, personal maids, deluxe coffee maker, stuffed animals that he doesn't let you name, etc.

- you thought your dynamic was normal until you caught him dragging the limp body of the postman that accidentally saw you changing into a shed

- from that day forth you feared him, yet didn't stop loving him

- "you are my entire world. my everything. we need each other. forever and then some."

- will not kill you unless he convinces himself others will and death by his hands is the better option

Minhyuk: The Deluded

- i n f a n t i l i z e r

- pities you, oh so much

- thinks you are a helpless baby in dire need of rescuing

- treats you like a porcelain doll & refuses to let you make even the smallest decision for yourself

- convinced you are just as infatuated and dependent on him as he is you

- on good days, he will draw bubble baths, play card games with you, and play G rated movies, pausing every minute to explain what happened

- on bad days, he will yell at you, bind your limbs, and carve his name into your flesh

- simply doesn't understand your disobedience and grief and takes it out on you, hoping to "knock sense into you"

- unlike many yandere archetypes, he enjoys parading you about like an accessory. has friends come over to admire you

- "i know it's too much for you to understand, but you need my care. where is this behavior coming from? don't you love me?"

- you'll kill yourself before he can, driven to the point of insanity

Kihyun: The Jealous

- no pets. no friends. no contact with the outside world aside from media he approves.

- shelters you like mother gothel

- insists you cut off all male contacts, even family (if you are lgbtq, it's best not to reveal this to him because then you won't even be able to speak to female family members)

- doesn't hesitate to murder any man you won't cut off. forces you to watch.

- comforts you afterward in a sick way

- you have to PLEAD to go anywhere

- if he allows it, you must wear a face covering and stay by his side

- tends to be rough in bed; he lets loose all his pent-up frustrations on you

- isn't COMPLETELY out of touch with his humanity; treats you well on birthdays and holidays and even permits a supervised phone call with your mother

- "you overwhelm me. you fill me with so much joy and so much rage. you'll never know the effect you have on me, sweetheart."

- inevitable murder-suicide in the end. i give it no more than 5 years.

Hyungwon: The Sadist

- it's all a game of cat and mouse to him; he kidnapped you while you slept after stalking for quite some time

- keeps you in chains in his basement

- decorates his home with your missing posters like a real sicko

- will torture the living shit out of you with no remorse. inflicting fractures, head trauma, slicing you open, digit dismemberment, drowning, strappado

- gets off on your fear more than your pain

- unlike the others, he recognizes when you're suffering; he just doesn't care

- destroys your self-worth and self-esteem by berating and insulting you. it's your fault you can't tell he means "I love you"

- sex entails bondage, degradation, and cruel laughter. incorporates pet names like: "bunny," "little lamb," "kitty," etc.

- may get bored of you and seek out a new victim, leaving you inexplicably desperate for his attention (which is all part of his game)

- always comes back to you after he's maimed and fucked who knows how many people. and you let him every time, holding out hope that he'll stay

- "you're never going to escape me. i hope you know that."

- would rather almost kill you and keep reviving you. you're in it for the long haul.

Jooheon: The Two-faced

- like shownu, things begin typically

- gradually shows his hand over time, but you're blinded by your feelings for him (he's a very good faux boyfriend)

- waits until your most vulnerable moment to attack

- strict and often overbearing; will beat you black and blue to the point of unconsciousness

- will actually apologize, but he doesn't stop

- tries to keep things around that you enjoy and allow domestic hobbies (congratulates your accomplishments but doesn't want to fuel your ego too much because then you'll leave him)

- struggles with internal conflict over how to treat you. wishes he could be more lenient but can't bring himself to

- allows you to have family and friends over while he's present

- very good at acting normal, it's scary. will flash you a psycho smile after they leave.

- "i'm sorry things have to be this way. if only you could see... i really do love you."

- kills himself in the end due to guilt

Changkyun: The Unhinged

- yes, yandere are psychotic, but changkyun is another level

- if you try to escape or resist him, he just stares at you with round eyes, slowly growing a grin that turns into a crazy laughing fit

- protects you from outside forces, unaware that he's the greatest danger in your life

- only upside is he takes you out on the town

- slaps across the face. sometimes at random, just to let you know he's in control

- you live on eggshells, unsure if he's in a loving or violent mood

- a strange dichotomy of worshipping you and craving your attention, yet feeling like you should be the one begging for him

- fucks hard and often, but can't look at you after

- owns an industrial freezer and locks you in there until you collapse from hypothermia III

- "w-were you trying to escape? FUCK no. what don't you understand, hon? you're my fucking property."

- will stab you repeatedly in the end, smiling with tears streaming down his face

Would anyone be interested in me developing these characters/storylines further?

[villainsandvictimsalliance]

asked a million times, will ask another million again: shigadabi for the ship meme!

LET'S GO SHIGADABI NATION. THIS IS A QUESTION I'LL NEVER STOP ANSWERING. SO SEND IT AS MANY TIMES AS YOU WANT.

You guys know why I love this ship? This is god material, ladies and gentlemen and my fellow nb friends. This is "against the odds, even after all the suffering and the trauma we've been through, here we are. Two lost boys in the hands of fortune and fate".

This is the ship that keeps happening in every alternative universe. Somehow, they find they're way to each other time and time again. Their real identities and their current identities are intertwined, so there's no scape. The more they try to get away, the more they fall into the other.

And I'm gonna put the cut in here because this is going to be a long one with spoilers from the manga, so let's enjoy the ride.

Tenko had black hair, red eyes. Touya had red hair (it became white later) with blue eyes. After going through their respective traumas, they changed. Shimura Tenko, now Shigaraki Tomura, got his hair blue and later white. Todoroki Touya, now Dabi, dyed his hair black.

Let's start with Shimura Tenko and Todoroki Touya, shall we?

Do you see where I want to go? They share the color palette. No? Still aren't you convinced? Well, mix white and black, mix red and blue, and you're going to obtain gray and purple, the other two colors that Shigaraki and Dabi share.

They both come from notorious hero families with money. They both had siblings, siblings that didn't protect them because it was not their jobs to do so. Siblings that would do anything to mend it. Mothers that failed them by not being able to get them out of their abusive houses, fathers that broken them so much, they still have flashbacks.

They even wear a sort of parody of their families hero costumes. Dabi's sacrs are a parallel of Endeavor's suit and Shigaraki's outfit when he got All For One was a parallel to Nana Shimura's suit too.

They both have their own arcs, being two of the most important arcs in the manga when it comes to the falling of Hero Society. They're respectively calling out the two best heroes on Japan, pointing out how fake they are. Yes, you can look for it in the manga, there's a parallel between Endeavor and All Might, because they've failed Touya and Tenko and they almost broke Izuku and Shoto.

If you ship TodoDeku, let me tell you some news: Dabi and Shigaraki are their parallels. They share the same story, but the difference is that Shoto and Izuku found someone to rescue them and had friends. Tenko and Dabi were abandoned and isolated from society.

And yes, in the manga, it is clear that Izuku wants to save Shigaraki as much as Shoto wants to save Dabi. Because they understand.

Shigaraki and Dabi are not in a mental state to ask for help and they won't. Who are they going to ask for help anyway? The same society that failed them and turned them into villians and tried to killed them every time? Denying their voices and arguments and identities?

So yes, their speech is pretty similar.

Shigaraki says "this society is corrupted and doesn't work so we need to take it down in order to rebuild it from zero". He doesn't want to be the supreme leader, like AFO. Anyone can do as they please in the new world. He just doesn't want no more corruptelas people in positions of power claiming they're heroes or saints.

Dabi instead, explains that there are no real heroes. Not even one. Shigaraki just wants to live, he's tired and he wants to live. Dabi doesn't. He's suicidal, he wants to make his father pay and then he can die in peace. He wants to show them all that he once believe in heroes and in his father above them all, but they failed him. They're incapable of doing what they say their gonna do. They can't protect them.

Shigaraki and Dabi both feel helpless. They are desperate for some control, just like every victim of abuse is. They want people to acknowledge the things the hero society did to them, to say that their hurt is valid.

And that's exactly why this ship is for me one of the best ships in the whole bnha / mha world.

The things they've gone through are things that cannot be explained. Not even Hawks can understand completely the type of hurt Shigaraki and Dabi has gone through. A cut só deep they can't forget or forgive. They have said it. They can't forget. They can't forgive. Not matter what people tells them, they're trapped in their memories, in the loop of the feelings of the moment when it all fell apart.

But they don't have to explain themselves when they're together. Dabi can say "none of the recruits were worth it" and Shigaraki doesn't ask. Shigaraki can tell part of his story and Dabi won't even blink. They have this agreement: we say what we want to say, we do what we want to do, we use each other to reach our goals, but we don't ask, we don't ask for something we're not ready to give.

When you've been through a lot, sometimes you find comfort in being with someone that doesn't demand you stuff. You can let your guard down because you don't have to take care of them. If you hurt them, well, they knew you were dangerous, right? And they don't interact with you with pity or sorrow or like if you were made of glass. You're equals. You don't need any of that bullshit.

In the meantime, you start feeling comfortable. No restrictions, no rules, no expectations. So you are just... Yourself. And you don't feel the need to destroy as much as before because there's no one making you angry. There's no one making you sad. You can go and argue with him for a little but... It's pointless. You're comfortable around him. He makes you feel... Safe, maybe?

And then shit's go down. Because you start to laugh when you want to laugh and you start to relax and be more friendly. And he does the same, because you two are not trying to impress anybody. You don't care if you're gross, he doesn't care if he's mean. You two know the worst the other can do, so it's not like someone can point the worst in them to make you change your mind. You've already know it.

The surprise comes when he starts showing his best side and you do the same. Oh boy, oh boy, that's dangerous. Even more dangerous than his hands when they're ready to kill, are his eyes when his looking at you across the room and they're glowing. Why are they glowing. Way are they looking at you like that. Why he is suddenly calling your name and you are feeling weird. It's not annoyance. It's... It's something else.

And if they ever tell each other the full truth about their pasts, well, the bond will only get deeper.

That's the funny part. I see Shigaraki as a demisexual and Dabi as a demiromantic. That means, Shigaraki doesn't feel sexual attraction unless he has a deep bond with someone and Dabi doesn't feel romantic attraction until he is close to someone in a feeling-mind type of way.

That means that Dabi is making Shigaraki explore his sexuality and Dabi is falling in love with Shigaraki AND THEY HATE IT. NO. They hate the idea of being vulnerable around the other but it makes sense. They hate that fact even more. They hate that it's only getting better and they're only getting closer. They hate the fact that they can read each other minds so easily or understand the other with few words between them. They are becoming predictable. They're getting frustrated.

And with frustration comes the sexual tension. Oops. And with the sexual activities, comes the vulnerable moments and the confessions. They're getting intimate. And it's too late to pretend that it's not happening.

Now I need to apologize for ranting for so long about them. But I told you all. I told you guys. This is my otp. I have Shigadabi brainrot. It's terminal.

What's the point of saying they are my 10/10, fav ship in the fandom, if I already wrote this much. Dear @viruscide, look what you've done. I hope you're proud and I hope you enjoy my spiral into insanity.

[dandylion240]

The next few are for some of the kids and answered by the young adult selves. Some may change as their lives and circumstances change. It was rather enlightening.

The Orphan - Eli (poor boy is more like Ethan than he cares to admit)

Orphans are independent, self-reliant and are mistrustful of authority. Orphans, fearing exploitation, seek to regain the comfort of the womb and neonatal safety in the arms of loving parents. To fulfill their quest they must go through the agonies of the developmental stages they have missed. Their strength is the interdependence and pragmatic realism that they had to learn at an early age.

Shadow Side: The victim. This will manifest itself in your feelings of being victimized by others, and consequently blaming your incompetence, irresponsibility, or even predatory behavior on other people. You might also expect special treatment and exemption from life because you feel so fragile. When your Shadow Orphan takes control it can attack those who are trying to help you, harming these people and yourself simultaneously.

Life Goal: Regain safety

Fear: Exploitation

Response to Problem: Being victimized by it

Life Task: Process and feel pain fully

Personal Gifts: Independence, realism, resilience, empathy

Personal Pitfalls: Cynicism, tendency to be the victim or victimized, chronic complaining

The Destroyer (or Rebel) - Jolene (she will have a rebellious phase for a while)

The Destroyer embodies repressed rage about structures that no longer serve life even when these structures are still supported by society or by our conscious choices. Although this archetype can be ruthless, it weeds the garden in ways that allow for new growth. The Destroyer is a paradoxical character whose destructiveness reflects the instinctual death drive and the inner fear of annihilation. As a fighter, the Destroyer tends to be careless of their own safety, and can sometimes put others in unnecessary danger as well. Their quest is to use their passion in a balanced way that will sustain them.

Shadow Side: The self-destructor. This will manifest itself in your life as the tendency to be prone to addictions, compulsions, or activities that undermine intimacy, job success, or self-esteem. The shadow side of the Destroyer tends to motivate a lot of emotional and physical abuse (domestic violence, murder, rape, suicide, etc.) when completely out of control.

Life Goal: Metamorphosis

Fear: Death, annihilation

Response to Problem: Destroy it, be destroyed by it

Life Task: Letting go, acceptance of mortality

Personal Gifts: Humility, metamorphosis, revolution, capacity to let go

Personal Pitfalls: Doing harm to self/others, out of control anger, terrorist tactics

More under the cut. The next two we haven't really seen much of but we will start to see more of them.

The Caregiver - Josie (She's a lot like Evan in this regard)

The Caregiver is an altruist, moved by compassion, generosity and selflessness to help others. Although prone to martyrdom and enabling behaviors, the inner Caregiver helps us raise our children, aid those in need, and build structures to sustain life and health. Caregivers first seek to help others, which they do with compassion and generosity. A risk the Caregiver takes in their pursuit to help others is their tendency to harm themselves. They dislike selfishness, especially in themselves, and fear what it might make them do.

Shadow Side: The martyr. This will manifest itself in your desire to control others by making them feel guilty, e.g. “Look at all I sacrificed for you!” The martyr evidences itself in all manipulative or devouring behaviors, in which you use care-taking to control or smother others. It is also found in co-dependence; a compulsive need to take care of, or rescue others.

Life Goal: Help others through sacrifice

Fear: Selfishness, ingratitude

Response to Problem: Take care of those it harms

Life Task: Give without maiming self or others

Personal Gifts: Compassion, generosity, nurturing, community

Personal Pitfalls: Martyrdom, enabling others, co-dependence, guilt-tripping

The Creator - Halia (She is a mix of her parents)

The Creator archetype fosters all imaginative endeavors, from the highest art to the smallest innovation in lifestyle or work. Being adverse to inactivity, the Creator can sometimes cause overload in our lives with constant new projects that are never quite fulfilled. However, when properly channeled, the Creator archetype can help us to express ourselves in beautiful ways. Creators, fearing that all is an illusion, seek to prove reality outside of their minds. A critical part of their quest is to find and accept themselves, discovering their true identity in relation to the external world.

Shadow Side: Avoidance. This will manifest itself in your life by the tendency to fill your inner feelings of emptiness with many different inessential projects, challenges and new things to do. One variety of this habit is workaholism, in which you are constantly pushing yourself to create, produce and to do more.

Life Goal: Creation of new life (identity)

Fear: Abomination, failure (inauthenticity)

Response to Problem: Embrace it as part of the Self

Life Task: Self-creation, self-acceptance

Personal Gifts: Creativity, vision, individuality, aesthetics, imagination, skill, vocation

Personal Pitfalls: Self-indulgence, creating messes, prima donna behaviors

[runabout-river]

It's the Jet is secretly a Firebender AU but when Katara has him pinned to the tree with ice and calls him a monster he snaps, frees himself with his fire and starts accusing her of aiding the enemy, ALL OF THEM, and blaming their victims for the abuse they had to suffer through.

Jet starts throwing fire at her but not really to attack, just to show her his anger and all the things that are wrong with him and the world. He should have grown up in a happy Earth Kingdom family in a happy community but that was nearly an impossibility for him because the man who should have been his father was NOT and he didn't come about because his mother cheated on her loving husband.

And everybody knew about his dark conception, so even despite his parents efforts he always felt wrong about himself, always felt the disdain of the other townspeople directed at him. He was made to feel bad, to feel inferior and as a burden to the community. Everything that was wrong in society and every atrocity that was done in the name of the Fire Nation culminated in HIM.

And all of that was before they even knew he was a firebender.

His parents always taught him that the Fire Nation was the enemy but it weren't Fire Nation soldiers who attacked, belittled, abused and tormented him and his parents when he was little. So what if an Earth Kingdom town had to be sacrificed to free the land of the Fire Nation? They are collaborators! They refused the help the Freedom Fighters offered them despite all the things they did for them, for the freedom of the town, for nearly two years.

Katara feels his pain but she doesn't let it sway her from what she knows is right. He was willing to kill innocents and he is poisoning the minds of his Freedom Fighters, to which Jet has nothing to say at first than just to laugh.

Aang is there and Sokka comes back to tell everyone how the town and it's citizens were saved by him. Jet gets angry at him because how dare he just appear out of nowhere and sabotage his resistance efforts! Where does he think he gets the right to do that? He, who doesn't even fight in this war!?

Sokka has his arguments ready and he is sure that the other Freedom Fighters will side with him when they realize just how deranged Jet's plan and reasoning for his actions are...

But they are not on his side. At all.

Sokka tries to understand. He can't. Why where they all just so ready to sacrifice a town full of their own countrymen? "Are they," Pipsqueak asks. "The Fire Nation is so brutal and overwhelming that you can't just half ass a response to them," Smellerbea adds.

"The Earth Kingdom is sometimes just as bad as the Fire Nation," comes from Snears and for the first time Katara realizes... "You are like Jet!" and it isn't just Snears with the stony expression that gazes in her direction, nearly every Freedom Fighter present there is looking like that... Her, Aang's and Sokka's hearts just fall to the bottom of their stomachs.

If they thought, Jet starts to say, that him being a firebender is news to his crew, than they just have no idea how much suffering they share with each other because if there is one group of people as universally hated by both Fire and Earth...

It's War Children.

Nobody wants the Fire and Earth bastards. The Nation doesn't want them because they dirty the Fire blood. The Kingdom doesn't want them because they represent their utter failure at fighting against the enemy and how much rape and pillage they had to endure.

And nearly all of his Freedom Fighters had it worse than Jet ever had.

Snears was left with huge scars all over his body from his Earth family. At the start of winter when he was ten they just left him on the streets while traveling and they explicitly told him to never come back to them again or they would do worse things to him. The Freedom Fighters were the first community who ever embraced him with open arms.

Pipsqueak was held in a cage, just skin and bones, and forced to work day in and day out carving wood in a former refugee camp now ruled by Earth soldiers, till Jet one night broke his cage and his chains and physically pulled him out of there.

Longshot was in a Fire training camp for delinquent and "mixed" children after his mother sold him there at a young age. Those camps were not known for treating the children well and punishments and deaths were common. He started speaking less and less over the years and he didn't, couldn't, make any friends at all... till they threw a young Earth Kingdom firebender in there as well who became Longshot's first and only friend for years and later became his leader.

Smellerbea was forced to be a servant to a wealthy Fire family in the colonies, just like her parents before her. One day she attacked one their children in self defense and the injury inflicted by her was deemed so severe that they put her on death row despite being only 13. When she needed it the most it wasn't the Earth Kingdom army who came to her rescue but children like her.

And all those tragic stories only ever happened if the newborn infants weren't immediately thrown into a river, buried under earth or left in a forest like the Duke when he was little.

The firebending bastards of course were treated in an extra special way by the Earth Kingdom populace, this special way most often included a bath out of which the children didn't come out again. 'The child accidentally drowned' became code for 'they were a firebender' in the border regions of the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation colonies. If the parents were unwilling to do it themselves then there were always helpful family members or neighbors there to lend a hand.

Even when the parents didn't want any help.

"The Fire Nation only has one law in regards to the bastards they have produced in the last 100 years, and that's that any firebender of earth blood has to attend their special schools and become a soldier or they get executed if they refuse."

"And so the town I grew up in wanted me dead immediately or at least out of there after they found out I was a firebender. My parents refused both and you know what?" Jet's smile isn't the least bit friendly, it's also sad and tragic to look at but Jet is not there to inspire pity, he is there to air out his anger against the world and to justify is extreme actions against the Fire Nation.

"The townspeople, they were not wrong! It was dangerous to have a firebender child in their midst because the Fire Nation would have an excuse to come to town and extract that child - to the detriment of the town - and that's exactly what happened! They burned everything! Just to get to me!"

The last part was screamed at the Gaang, but Jet had mostly shifted his attention from Katara and Sokka to Aang at that point and for the first time he directly addresses the Avatar in front of him: "Where were you this entire time!? How could you let all of this happen the last 100 years? And why are you here right now fighting against me instead of the Fire Nation soldiers down at that camp?!"

There is not much of an answer Aang could give, while Sokka tries to make them see just how far out of reason their attack on the town was. And for the first time Jet gives in and admits that maybe it was too extreme, but he does not give in about being somewhat justified.

"If by some miracle you all manage to defeat the Fire Lord and the Fire Nation, then it's going to be all good for you. But for us!" he swings his arms around the forest to all the assembled Fire Fighters around them: "It will be just a small victory to be celebrated before the Earth army starts marching down this forest to attack us and drive us away from their land because we don't belong to them despite fighting the same fight with them!"

Not long after all the things that needed to be said were out in the open, the Gaang left the forest and Jet behind. "It won't be like Jet said. We'll make sure of it." Katara promises and both Aang and Sokka agree though they are all low on spirits at the moment.

[missmentelle]

What To Do When a Loved One is Dating an Abuser

There are few things as frustrating and as heartbreaking as watching someone you care about stay in a long-term abusive relationship. The red flags may be obvious to everyone in your loved one’s life - blinding, even - but for some reason, your loved one just can’t or won’t see them for what they are. There are always excuses for bad behaviour, always unconvincing explanations for suspicious injuries, always hollow assurances that things aren’t as bad as they seem. 

When someone we care about is in an abusive relationship, our first instinct is often to try to rescue them. We want to finally break through to them and make them see that their relationship is terrible and that they deserve so much better. If all else fails, we want to throw them in our car and drive them so far away that their abuser can never find them again. Or we may have no idea how to bring up the situation with our friend - talking about abuse is uncomfortable, and you may have no idea how to even begin that conversation. Being a third party to an abusive relationship is a horrible situation to be in, and you may find yourself overwhelmed with anxiety, fear, uncertainty and concern for your friend. 

Fortunately, there are some important steps that you can take to support your loved one and help them to build a safer life for themselves, like:

Don’t try to force them to leave. The first thing that most people want to say when they hear about an abusive relationship is “Leave! Dump them! Break up with them right now!”. But coming on that strong is a mistake. The victim has to be the one to make the decision to leave, and they need to be completely committed to leaving - when a victim caves into pressure from family and friends and leaves an abusive relationship before they’re ready, they are at extremely high risk of returning to the relationship, and repeatedly leaving and getting back together with an abusive partner is very dangerous. And if your friend isn’t ready to leave yet, you telling them to leave may push them away from you, leaving them with less support. There are steps you can take to help them reach the conclusion that leaving is necessary - and I’ll explain what those steps are - but pestering or commanding them to leave is not helpful. 

Emphasize that they are capable of making their own choices and that you will be there for them no matter what they decide to do. One of the biggest barriers that victims face in leaving abusive relationships is that their partner has destroyed their confidence in their own decision-making abilities. They are used to being told that they are irrational, stupid, incompetent, and that they can’t be trusted to make the right choices. They may not trust their own judgement, and believe that they are “overreacting” to their partner’s mistreatment - after all, they are used to being harshly criticized and having to second-guess themselves. One of the best things you can do for a victim of domestic violence is to restore their confidence in their ability to make decisions for themselves and feel good about those decisions. Remind your friend that they are smart and capable, and that you wholeheartedly support their ability to make their own choices. True recovery from abuse does not mean that the victim stops taking orders from their abuser and starts taking orders from their friends - true recovery means regaining the autonomy to decide for themselves. 

Avoid bashing their partner. I know it’s tempting to want to let your friend know what a horrible, lazy, abusive piece of shit their partner is. Don’t. People tend to view their partners as an extension of themselves - when you tell someone that their partner is garbage, what they hear is “I think you’re the kind of person who chooses to date garbage”. It puts them in a position where they feel like they need to defend their partner and their dating choices, and ultimately pushes them closer to their partner and further away from you. 

Focus on feelings, not labels. A lot of victims struggle with the word “abusive”. They don’t want to think of themselves as someone ended up in an abusive relationship - there’s a lot of stigma attached to that idea - and so they might push back hard if you try to force that idea on them, making them more defensive and less likely to leave. Don’t worry about the word “abuse” for now - your loved one doesn’t actually need to acknowledge that the relationship is abusive in order to leave it. They just need to realize that they aren’t happy. When a friend brings up something potentially (or definitely) abusive that their partner did to them, don’t rush to label it - instead, ask them about how that incident made them feel. Validate those feelings. When they say “it really scares me when my partner starts throwing things around”, don’t say “throwing things is on the abuse checklist” - say “Oh wow, that does sound really scary. Do they do that a lot? How are you coping with that? That doesn’t sound like something that should happen in a relationship at all. Are there any other times that your partner scares you?”. Encourage your friend to think critically about the relationship, their feelings, and what they want in a partner - help them contextualize their relationship and recognize that their experiences aren’t “normal”, and they can arrive at the conclusion that it’s abusive in their own time. 

Keep your relationship with them positive. Having conversations about the abuse you’re experiencing is exhausting, and if every interaction you have with your friend turns into a long lecture about how they need to leave the relationship, they might grow distant from you. If they want to talk about the relationship every time they see you, that’s great, but don’t try to drag information out of them if they don’t feel up to talking. Even if you’re having heavy conversations with them, it’s okay to try to keep things positive - compliment them, remind them of their strengths, remind them how much you care about them. Keep your tone thoughtful and concerned, but not preachy. There may be times when they just want lighthearted distractions from their situation, and that’s okay too.

Remind them that this is not their fault, and that they deserve better. Victims often stay in abusive relationships because they feel that they are causing their partner’s abuse or bringing it on themselves - something along the lines of “they wouldn’t have to get so angry with me if I didn’t screw up so much”. Let your friend know that the abuse isn’t their fault and that they didn’t do anything to cause it. Remind them that adults are expected to behave like adults even when they are upset, and that there are no excuses for their partner’s behaviour - they deserve to be with someone who treats them with respect and can manage their emotions like a rational, mature adult. 

Avoid shaming and blaming. Sometimes friends and family members will try to take on a “tough love” approach to getting their loved one out of the abusive relationship, and it’s profoundly unhelpful. They’ll say things like “if you stay, you’re choosing to be treated this way” and “I can’t watch you mess up your own life like this”, or even “your partner is going to kill you one day, is that what you want?”. It’s meant to try to shock or scare the victim into leaving - in reality, though, it just makes the victim feel even more worthless, and it makes them feel like a burden to the people who should be their greatest source of support.  

Encourage safety planning. It could take months or even years for a victim to decide that they are ready to escape - instead of trying to rush that timeline, start by simply encouraging the victim to start thinking about their physical safety. A safety plan is not necessarily a plan to leave the relationship; it’s a plan to prevent or minimize violence and protect yourself from physical harm, so that you’ll have the option to leave the relationship when you’re ready. Let your friend know that you’re worried about their safety, and that you’d really like to help them brainstorm some ways that they can keep themselves out of harm’s way. Offer assistance if you can. A safety plan should always be tailored to the victim’s individual situation, and should involve planning for common triggers and early warning signs of violence. If your friend knows that violence is likely when their partner comes home drunk, for instance, you could make a plan for your friend to leave their home whenever that happens and come stay at your place until their partner sobers up. Work with them to plan for their unique circumstances, and check the internet for online safety planning resources. 

Offer resources, but don’t push them. Almost every city and town has some form of help available for victims of domestic violence - there are hotlines, shelters, victim services agencies, counselling centres, etc. Resources are great, but not if you’re dumping a bunch of unwanted pamphlets in your friend’s lap that they didn’t ask for. Again, survivor autonomy is key here - your friend is the expert in their own situation, and they get to make the decision about when (or whether) to access resources. You also need to remember that accessing resources - or even getting caught researching resources - could be very dangerous for your friend, and it’s important that you let them take the lead on deciding what is safe for them to access. If you want to offer resources, do it gently - if you’re having a conversation where they seem to be acknowledging that things in their relationship aren’t great, you can say, “hey, would it be okay if we researched some resources together? What do you think would be helpful for you? What are you comfortable with, and how can I support you?”

Make open-ended offers of support. Make it very clear to your friend that your door is always open to them, and that they can call you anytime they need help. They need to know that it doesn’t matter if you haven’t spoken in six months and it’s the middle of the night - you will come pick them up, give them a place to stay, take them to the hospital, or give them any other kinds of support you’re able to offer. Abusers often succeed at keeping their victims trapped through isolation; they will prevent their victim from seeing or speaking to friends for so long that the friendship deteriorates, so by the time the victim is ready to leave, they have nowhere to go and no one to offer the kinds of material or moral support that they need to leave the relationship. Make sure your friend knows that you’ll still be there for them even if you lose contact for months or a couple of years, and that they never need to feel weird about turning to you for help whenever they need it. 

Be patient. It often takes several dozen instances of abuse before a victim acknowledges that the relationship is abusive, and the average abused woman (there are currently no statistics on men) attempts to leave seven times before successfully escaping the relationship. Leaving is a process, and victims need friends and family members in their lives who understand this. Many victims end up losing their support system when loved ones become frustrated with how long it’s taking for them to leave; if you are supporting a domestic violence victim, it’s important to have a realistic sense of how long it can take to safely and permanently exit an abusive relationship, and manage your expectations accordingly. 

If you are supporting a loved one in an abusive relationship, it’s also important that you take good care of yourself. The feelings of fear, worry and powerlessness that you experience when you watch a loved one struggle with abuse can be overwhelming, and you need to make sure that you are maintaining your own mental health while you are helping someone else. Take breaks. Talk to friends. Spend time on your hobbies. Eat good food and get exercise. If you’re feeling frustrated with the situation - and it’s absolutely valid to be frustrated - channel your feelings into art, journalling or anything else that helps you work through it. If you are feeling lost, you can contact a domestic violence resource center or hotline - they can give you tips for how to help your friend. 

If your friend is okay with it, it would also be helpful if you joined forces with at least one of their other friends or family members to help support them. Knowing that there’s at least one other person who can be there for your loved one and pick up the phone if you’re unavailable can take a huge amount of stress off your shoulders. Feeling like you are the only thing standing between a loved one and serious harm at the hands of their partner is a hugely stressful situation to be in - when you build a team of supportive people around the abused person, that person has a lot more support at their disposal, and you get to avoid burning out. 

It’s not easy to leave an abusive relationship. It’s not easy to help someone leave. But with the right support, you can help your loved one achieve a safe, abuse-free future. 

[atlanticcanada]

Hand signal used by missing teen developed in Canada to address pandemic violence

It’s a simple hand gesture: displaying an open palm with the thumb tucked in, and then closing your fingers over the thumb, trapping it in.

But this signal, popularized on TikTok, has the power to communicate that the person making the gesture is in need of help -- something that came in handy last week when it led to the rescue of a missing 16-year-old girl after a motorist in Kentucky noticed the teen making the signal at passing drivers.

The “Signal for Help” did not originate on TikTok, however. It was initially developed by the Canadian Women’s Foundation in April 2020 to tackle the spectre of domestic violence, which the organization knew would be even more dangerous during the isolation of the pandemic.

“As the pandemic started, we know from our research here and around the world, that when there’s things that are major disruptions like pandemics, like natural disasters, the risk of gender based violence goes up,” Suzanne Duncan, vice president of philanthropy at the Canadian Women’s Foundation, told CTV News Channel on Tuesday.

“And so early in the pandemic, we were quite worried about what we were going to do to make sure that women and gender-diverse people and their families were safe, especially since many of them were really stuck at home with their abuser.”

She explained that an agency, Juniper Park, worked with them pro-bono to come up with the Signal for Help and boost it online.

They showed how to use it in a video where a woman carrying on a video call with someone carefully displayed the hand signal to the camera while carrying on a conversation about unrelated topics.

The idea was that those who were being victimized might need a silent way to ask for help because their abuser might be in the room.

“We know that a lot of folks who are facing violence are often very monitored online, so that might mean their texts or their emails are being watched,” Duncan added, saying this signal is “a way to leave no trace during a video call.”

Their fears about domestic violence rising during the pandemic were not unfounded. In February, Canada’s Assaulted Women’s Helpline announced that they had fielded more than 20,000 calls between September and December 2020, compared to a little over 12,000 the previous year.

According to Duncan, around “one in three Canadians” have seen the signal and would hopefully be able to identify it if they saw it used by a victim, but the more people who see it, the better.

“The thing about a signal is that it’s only as good as it’s responded to,” said Andrea Gunraj, vice president of public engagement with the Canadian Women’s Foundation told CTV News.

“So I think that it’s really important for everybody to know that the Signal for Help is something that people may use sometimes in a video call. It’s a very common place [signal] for someone to say: ‘Hey, check in with me, I need you to check in and just see that I’m safe.’”

Duncan added that the recent story of a teenager being rescued because of the signal is not only a positive sign of how it can work, but something that will allow even more people to become familiar with the signal.

The 16-year-old girl was in a car travelling in Kentucky when a driver in another car saw her making the Signal for Help and called 911.

Police say that driver continued following the car for about 10 kilometres, until police arrived and arrested 61-year-old James Herbert Brick.

Duncan praised the teen for her quick thinking in applying a hand gesture designed for video calls into a signal for other motorists, saying it was “really quite smart and clever of her to think of doing that.”

Since its creation, the signal has gone viral on TikTok, evolving into a sign of not just struggling with domestic abuse, but of needing help in general.

The Canadian Women’s Foundation says they’re now working on releasing a responders’ guide for those who might recognize the symbol and want to help a friend or colleague in need, but aren’t sure what to do or what resources are available.

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/3CY7DOF

[stillness-in-green]

Shigaraki, the League and “Redemption”

(In this post: 1700 words about how much I feel like stories/meta in which Shigaraki is rescued or redeemed miss the entire point of Shigaraki.)

It's a big open question how much of Shigaraki's backstory was engineered by All For One.  We're not even sure if AFO is the villain who killed Nana's husband, the event that kicked off the entire downward spiral of the Shimura family, much less what degree of involvement he had in Tenko's manifestation of Decay.  There's a tremendous amount of well-thought-out, interesting meta and fic about what will happen when Shigaraki finds out the truth, whether he can or should still be redeemed as he currently stands, or how Tenko might have been saved from ever becoming Shigaraki to begin with.  While I have read and enjoyed quite a lot of those theories and stories, I still find myself bothered by the prevalence of that line of thought because it ignores the fact that hero society stands condemned regardless.  

Whether or not AFO gave Tenko the Decay quirk knowing what would happen, whether he found out about Tenko the night of the accident or never lost track of Kotaro from the very beginning, in truth, none of that matters to the narrative of the League on the whole.  Nothing about Shigaraki's past has any bearing on the pasts of the other members. Trying to decide how to "save" Shigaraki avoids the fact that he is the leader of the League of Villains and their pain still stands regardless of their leader's history. 

You cannot act as though saving Shigaraki--with All Might, Inko, Izuku, Eraserhead, anyone--would redeem hero society, because Shigaraki is not hero society's only victim. He's not even its most straightforward one!  The condemnation he articulates of the world he lives in can't be addressed by him realizing he was manipulated by AFO all along or getting a good therapist in prison, because the world he lives in has failed a good many more people than just him. 

Let's break it down.  

The League Members

Twice fell through the cracks because of a lack of social support after his parents were killed in a villain attack.  He was just a teenager back then--what arrangements were made about where he was going to live?  If he was old enough that foster care/being placed in a group home wasn't a good option, did he instead have a stipend from the government?  Where was the social worker who should have been overseeing his case?  Where was his homeroom teacher when he dropped out of school?  What support should have been available when he wound up homeless on the streets?  Heroes stop villains and are rewarded both socially and monetarily for doing so, but the much more difficult and involved work of dealing with the fallout from those battles is clearly undervalued, badly so, in comparison.  Hero society, which prioritizes glamorized reaction over everyday prevention, failed Bubaigawara Jin.

Spinner had the wrong kind of face.  X-Men-style mutant discrimination left him isolated and alienated, shunned by the inhabitants of his backwater hometown because of his animal-type quirk.  To say nothing about the threat of violent hate crimes implied by the existence of a KKK analogue!  But it goes further than just the bigotry of his neighbors--Spinner's quirk was also unremarkable, meaning that, in a society that prizes flashy and offense-based quirks in its heroes, Spinner would have had few if any role models.  Given how many heroes there are, it seems strange to consider that there isn't a single straightforward heteromorph for Spinner to idolize, but given how strongly he latches onto first Stain's warped ideals and later Shigaraki's nihilistic grandeur, Spinner is clearly a young man desperate for a role model--if a hero that fit the bill existed, he wouldn't be a villain today.  So he's failed directly by his community for their bigotry and indirectly by society for the way it told him, in a thousand ways big and small, that Iguchi Shuuichi was not a person worth valuing.

Toga had the wrong kind of quirk.  It's true that, more than anyone else in the League, she feels like a character who would always have struggled with mental stability, even with the best help imaginable--but she didn't get the best help imaginable, did she?  She got parents who called her a freak, who berated a child barely into grade school about how unnatural and awful the desires she was born with were.  She was put into a quirk counselling program that apparently only caused her to feel more detached from society.  If Curious' characterization of quirk counselling is at all accurate, it seems to focus not on how to manage one's unusual or difficult quirk in healthy or productive ways, but rather on stressing what society considers "normal," on teaching its participants how to force themselves into that mold.  Hero society wants people with different needs to learn how to function like "normal" people; it is unwilling to look for ways to accommodate such people on a societal level.  Toga Himiko was failed by a society that demonized and othered her for a trait that she did not choose and innate desires that she never asked to experience.

And then, most prominently of all*, there's Dabi.  We all know where the big Dabi backstory mystery is going, and his is the most open condemnation of hero society of them all.  Dabi was raised on a heady cocktail, parental abuse mixed liberally with unquestioned acceptance of the fundamental importance of having a powerful quirk.  Whatever else can be said of Endeavor's path to redemption, the old Enji is emblematic of everything wrong with hero society: the fundamental devaluing of those without power, the fervent strain to push oneself past one's limits over and over and over again, regardless of the consequences to your health or your relationships, the practice of raising children to glorify a dangerous profession that fights the symptoms of societal ills rather than the root causes.  The ugly secrets hidden in the Todoroki house are the ugly secrets hidden within hero society's ideals, and because he embodies those ideals so thoroughly, of course Endeavor is lionized and well-paid by a society that never had to see Todoroki Touya's scars.

Mirror of Reality

All of these issues map to things in real life, and I don't only mean in a vague, universal sense--I mean they reflect on specific and observable Japanese problems. Read up on koseki family registries and consider how the dogged insistence on maintaining them impacted the Shimura family, tracked down by a monster.  Look into societal bias against orphans and imagine how it shaped peoples' reactions to teenaged Jin and his alleged 'scary face.'  Read up on how Japan approaches mental and physical disabilities, on what it regularly does to homeless camps, on what responses get trotted out when someone comes forward with a story about closeted abuse.  The League embodies these issues in indirect, sometimes fantastical ways, but they're not what I would call subtle, either; there's a reason the generally poor, disenfranchised League members are contrasted with powerful, urbane criminals like All for One, callous manipulators like Overhaul, and entrenched pillars of society like Re-Destro.  

Hero AUs are a fun thought exercise and all, but the League exists to call out and typify very real problems in heroic society and, by metaphorical extension, modern day Japanese society as well.  Hero society studiously looks away from its victims.  It doesn't want to see them and it thinks even trying to talk about them is disruptive and distasteful.  There's no indication in-universe that there's even a movement trying to change this state of affairs.  Certainly there are a great many things that could have changed to spare the BNHA world Shigaraki Tomura, but none of those quick, easy solutions would have saved Twice or Toga, Spinner or Dabi.  The League of Villains is the punishment, the overdue reckoning that their country will have to face for its myriad failures--for letting its social safety nets grow ragged, for failing to stamp out quirk-based prejudice, for allowing its heroes to operate with so little oversight.  For growing so complacent that not one person had the moral wherewithal to extend a hand to a bloodied, lost, suffering child.  

Shigaraki, Past and Future

One of the most heartbreaking and yet awe-inspiring aspects of Shigaraki's characterization in his Deika City flashback is that he was thoughtful and compassionate enough to reach out to other kids who were being excluded and teased by the rest of his peer group.  The League is foreshadowed for him even as a child, because even back then, he was a kid suffering repression and repudiation and so had empathy for others in similar straits.  Young Tenko is the person who would have reached out a hand to the scary but obviously needy Tenko wandering the streets; Tomura, despite everything All For One did to him, still retains that core of fellow-feeling that invites other outcasts to play with him.

"Saving" Shigaraki without addressing the societal flaws that created the people gathered under his banner negates the entire point he and the League exist to raise. I think readers will be forced to confront those flaws alongside Midoriya and the rest of his classmates, who the story has made a point to keep mostly isolated and on a steady PLUS ULTRA diet of all the same rhetoric that leads to consequences like the League to begin with.  I only wish more of the fandom--hero and villain fandom alike--was on the same page and writing their fic and meta accordingly.

Footnotes and Etc.

*The only characters in the League whose backstories we don't have much window on are Mr. Compress and Magne, both of whom are framed as seeing society as repressive.  Magne openly says as much to Overhaul; Mr. C intimates it to the 1-A kids during the training camp attack.  I'm inclined to hold off on commenting on them very thoroughly, though, because in neither case do we know exactly what drove them to crime in the first place. That's not a huge problem for Sako--if anyone on that team is into flamboyant villainy for the sheer joy of it, it's him--but I would definitely want to know more specifics about Magne's personal history before I correlate her experience as a trans woman with her portrayal as a violent, even lethal, criminal.  That would get right into the problematic elements of portraying all these societal outcasts as villains, people who undoubtedly have a point, but have taken to terrorism to illustrate it.  It's very possible that, for all that the League maps to real problems in Japan, we're still going to get a very mealy-mouthed, "But it's still wrong to lash out when you could protest nonviolently and work with your oppressors to seek a peaceful solution," moral from all this.

P.S.  None of the above meta even takes into account the multiple non-League characters whose stories illustrate various failings of hero society--Gentle Criminal, Hawks, Shinsou, even Midoriya himself, as those endless reams of Villain!Deku AUs are ever hasty to expound upon.  Vigilantes touches on the idea of "hero" and "villain" categorizations as being almost entirely political in their inception, as is also hinted at with historical characters like Destro.  Seriously, the mountain of problems with hero culture just looms higher with every passing arc!  

P.P.S.  I absolutely do not mean to imply with this meta that Japan suffers uniquely from any of the problems discussed above.  Other countries obviously have their own difficulties with homelessness, accessibility of care, victim blaming, and so forth.  Horikoshi is writing in and about his own culture, though, and stripping Shigaraki of his villainous circumstances in the interest of making him happier and/or more palatable strikes me as being kind of culture-blind in a way that it’s very easy for Western fans to unthinkingly slip into.  Just some food for thought.

[sanzoumon]

Sometimes I wonder if Salem being locked in a tower by her father was something like how Cruella was locked in her attic by her mother in OUAT.

For those that don’t know, Cruella’s backstory is initially framed as her being the victim of an abusive mother. As the episode goes on it’s revealed that she killed her father and step-fathers and that every act of cruelty by her mother was in fact her mother trying to prevent Cruella from killing again. After the Author frees her, Cruella kills her mother and then turns her mothers dogs into a fur coat afterward. The thing is she manipulated the Author the whole time.

So I wonder if Salem might be like Cruella is some regard. The way Jinn frames the story, Salem is a victim of circumstance - having been locked away by her cruel father. But we never get told why he did it. We also know numerous knights tried to free Salem and everyone failed until Ozma. They clearly had to overcome obstacles that could kill them in order to reach Salem.

But why? Why keep Salem locked up locked up like that and have obstacles preventing her rescue / escape?

“But this doesn’t match up with Jinn’s story!” You might think.

Here’s the thing: Ruby asked what Ozpin was hiding from them. In effect, the story Jinn told is what Ozpin knew and therefore was hiding. That doesn’t make it the actual truth. That’s just what he thinks happened.

Only Jinn and Salem know the real story behind her imprisonment but Jinn didn’t reveal it because that wasn’t the question she was asked.

In a roundabout way I’m saying: What if Salem was locked up by her father because she was too dangerous? What if she had already killed before? What if from the beginning she didn’t actually understand life and death? Hell what if she actually killed Ozma and later wanted him back? Remember, Ozpin only knows what he was told happened during this time - he could honestly believe he died of illness.

In other words, what if Salem is a bonafide psychopath? We know she showed no hesitation in killing her own children and husband when they fell out of line. But we also know she’s charismatic enough to have loyal followers and can skillfully manipulate them - even before the planet was nuked she was a skilled enough manipulator to not only manipulate the world but a god as well.

Anyway, just some thoughts. It would certainly explain why Salem has been unable to learn her lesson after all this time - she can’t. She’s literally incapable of understanding empathy, sympathy, or compassion genuinely. She can understand it rationally and logically, she’d need to to manipulate people. But that doesn’t mean she feels it, which renders her incapable of learning the lesson. And shit only got worse after prolonged isolation and then diving into the Grimm pool.

[add-to-inventory]

Gav played: Watch_Dogs (1)

The game: Watch_Dogs by Ubisoft

Score: It’s a game!

Oh, hey, a new one of ‘em has been buzzy. Promos for Watch_Dogs Legion put the series on my radar, and I picked up both the previous installments when they were free on Epic earlier in the year. This is just a review for the original game, as I have not yet begun WD2.

Would you say you were disappointed? Kinda, yeah! Legion caught my eye because it’s trying a lot of unusual things with blurring the line between player characters and npcs, and with strategic elements. Also, I just find the idea of a big ole triple-A rpg about hacking fun. The original game is more conventional, which I don’t fault it for.

What do you fault it for? Having an unlikable hero, misogyny and fridging, skewing “disposable” adversaries to young black men, hypocrisy, and bad subtitles.

Oh. And yet I did have a lot of fun, and there are parts I really liked! This is a hard review to write, because my opinion differed so much on distinct elements.

Okay, let’s break it down. Player character: You play as Aiden Pearce, a criminal hacker and driver who has become a vigilante after his niece was killed during an attempted hit on Aiden himself. Through the course of the game, Aiden jumps through various obstacles to protect his sister and her surviving child, as well as identifying and exacting revenge on his niece’s killer. Standard tough guy with a private sorrow stuff, I found the child death difficult but not a mark against the game.

{Screenshot: I received a button prompt asking if I would like to make Aiden vault over his late niece’s gravestone, and I absolutely burst out laughing.}

It’s just--Aiden is an asshole. The best thing I can tell you to illustrate this occurs fairly early in the game. He meets with a hacker ally he has only interacted with online before. He harangues her for disguising her gender through including “boy” in her username and using a voice modulator on the phone, suggests she’s untrustworthy, and at one point threatens to choke her, even placing his hand on her throat and forcing her to step backwards. Oh, and he also checks her out.

I hate him. I hate him!

Not that this is the primary concern, but it also undercuts his credibility. Exactly, because as a hacker I assume he’s used to being Very Online, which means he should be aware that people often obscure their genders. As a vigilante, I expect him to care about things like violence against women and intimate partner violence (and indeed, some of the crimes I prevented in side missions fall into exactly these categories), so the fact that he would respond to a woman protecting her identity with aggression would startle me even if he didn’t threaten to choke her--did you know that threats to choke a person are the highest predictor that an abuse victim’s life is in danger? Because Aiden should, and he shouldn’t be the game’s hero if his reaction to she’s not the gender I thought she was from her username is to threaten her life.

What a piece of shit.

Since I’m on misogyny, I will also remark that no woman in this game is given more than the role of a victim or a villain, at least three characters are fridged, and at one point the camera sexualizes a human trafficking victim.

Oh my god. Like, I know that this is a game by a big company with lots of people involved, and those tend to fall short of my standards on social issues, due to a variety of issues including the fact that more people means there are more opportunities for problems in the culture to show themselves. I would like to say bluntly that I know it’s a video game, and I don’t think video games need to aim for lofty morals. I do think, though, that it matters who in a game is treated as a friend, and who is set dressing, who is a rival and who is put into the game as a target to be killed to advance. You might protest me pointing out that an awful lot of characters I had to kill were young black men by saying that they’re part of the gang that runs the aforementioned sex trafficking, and it’s set in Chicago, it’s in the name of accuracy--but it’s not a quirk of life that black people experience high rates of poverty, and it’s not an accident that the game chose to pit the player against these men in open combat, while their white boss is killed in a quieter, subtler, and less painful way. It’s not an accident that the only shootout Aiden expresses remorse over (because of who witnessed it) is against mostly white men, and it’s not an accident that every black character in the game is an adversary or a victim.

Dare we get into gameplay? Okay, this is why the game actually does rank “it’s a game” and not “do not recommend.” I had lots of fun playing it. I know, good news at last! The hacking parts of the game--and this is a game about hacking--are its best strength, fun and varied. One of my favorite activities is “camera-hopping,” hacking cameras to bring others into view until I achieved a hidden viewpoint or centered QR code graffiti. A lot of hacking is simple, a quick press of a button at the right moment to damage an enemy car with spikes to the tires or steal information from a stranger’s phone. Some are more challenging, asking the player to complete the sort of puzzle with rotating pieces to get continuous paths in a network. Running around to save people and investigate crimes and solve puzzles kept me engaged, even when I found the writing distasteful. Quick sidebar to say that the motivation given for one of my favorite optional activities, ominously called “privacy invasions” is simply “to satisfy your curiosity.” It can sometimes feel decidedly skeevy, especially when I found that I’d hacked into a room where people were having sex, and it did not improve my opinion of the game’s direction that Aiden apparently just thinks it’s fun to spy on strangers? I do too, it’s endlessly interesting to see what the pixel people on my screen have on their phones as I pass them on the pixel street in front of The Bean, but it’s one of many cases where it’s clear that Aiden thinks he’s better than his rivals.

{Screenshot: Aiden uses his phone to hack into Aisha Tyler’s phone and learn about her professions and hobbies. No, really, this is a cameo of that Aisha Tyler!}

Well, he is the hero, I guess. I mean I guess, but when you rack up all the death and theft and snooping and so on...and you remember that he is, for the entirety of the game, holding someone hostage while trying to rescue a different hostage...and his motivation is to avenge violence by organized crime, while doing many of the same things himself...I mean, what has he done to be better? Saved a lot of people, which is not nothing, but I’m asked to root for him because he is a nobler and more moral person, who opposes the surveillance state, and yet I have seen him threaten to choke Clara Lille, and I cannot believe it.

Hearing disorder corner: There are some beeping cues for hacking opportunities during car chases that I could almost never hear, and only learned existed from a tips guide. More significantly, this game would have benefited a great deal from identifying speakers by name in the subtitles. It also does a truly peculiar thing where, when there’s cross-talk or a quickly moving conversation, it positions the more recent line of dialogue higher on the screen than whatever immediately precedes it. Meaning that glancing down for the word I wasn’t sure of looks like: --”Do you begin all your conversations this way?” --”You wouldn’t happen to have six fingers on your right hand, would you?”

How do you feel about the series right now? Watch_Dogs 2 will have to step up the writing if I’m going to consider spending money on Legion. I know some encouraging things--the focus shifts to the hacker collective DedSec, the protagonist is black, and the “avant-garde” technology is more inventive than the first installment’s.

Is fun to play, bad to think about a good way to sum it up? Yeah! Thanks, me! Fun to play, bad to think about.

Try it if you like: grey heroes and antiheroes, puzzles integrated into rpgs, saying “I’ve accessed the mainframe” to yourself, soundtracks filled with absolute bops, the sort of lush urban environment Assassin’s Creed does well, but modern.

[distortingbones]

relistening to a guest for mr spider and i'm really struck by the parallels between jon and martin's upbringings-- martin's mother resented him because he reminded her of his father (who she despised), while jon's grandmother resented him because he reminded her of his parents (who she loved & mourned). both jon and martin carry a similar trauma, but because of that difference (hatred vs mourning) they present in very different ways.

keep reading for a big chunk of analysis of how this has affected them/their relationship throughout the podcast, as well as it what it means for current events in canon. 

more than anything, martin wants to distance himself from his father by becoming someone worthy of love, or, failing that, someone who people overlook. (better to be invisible than to be hated, he figures.) he structures his whole public-facing self around being a trustworthy, kind, caring person. 

he first develops feelings for jon while jon is mistreating him (season 1) because he sees jon as somebody who is in need of love and affection. he can bring jon tea, check in on him throughout the day, and jon gives him very little acknowledgment in return. although it would be a stretch to call jon abusive, this still mirrors martin's parents' relationship, where his mother was the victim and his father the abuser. if martin plays the role of the person offering care and jon doesn't reciprocate, then in their unequal relationship, martin is unequivocally placed into his mother's role. martin gets to be the giver, and he is satisfied that this means he is not acting out the role of his father.

sure, jon still dislikes him, but that's because martin is "annoying and incompetent" (in quotes because it's obviously not true), never because jon thinks martin is a bad or abusive person. to martin, that's what's important. it's part of why he's so horrified when jon accuses martin of lying to him (and committing murder) in season 2. martin suddenly realizes that jon sees him as someone who is manipulative and capable of doing great harm, and that's martin's worst nightmare. up until this point, martin has continued to care for jon, no matter how awful and paranoid jon gets, because to martin it's not about how jon treats him, it's about how he perceives him. (ultimately martin gets better at sticking up for himself, but this is his headspace during season 2.)

this is also part of why martin finds the lonely so compelling. without other people around, he doesn’t have to worry about how he is perceived, because there’s no one there to perceive him. he doesn’t have to worry about being a bad or abusive person, because there’s nobody else around to abuse. nothing hurts in the lonely, because martin’s primary source of anxiety and internal conflict is finally lifted. when jon rescues martin from the lonely, martin says, “i see you,” and comes back to himself. but really, it’s the fact that jon sees martin that saves him. in that moment, martin is sure that jon loves him, that jon sees him as somebody who is worth saving, sees him as somebody who brings goodness into the world. martin feels fully and completely seen by jon, and he is overwhelmed with relief and joy that the person jon sees is good.

okay, what about jon, you ask?

jon is desperate to live up to his parents, who his grandmother mourned. much like martin, he yearns to be “good enough”. however, while for martin “good enough” means "not being abusive”, jon’s goalpost is invisible and constantly out of reach. martin at least had a model of how not to behave (like his father), but jon didn’t. even if he had tried to imitate his parents, it would never have fixed the hole in his grandmother’s heart. it’s impossible for the living to measure up to the dead, because our memory of the dead is both fixed and idealized.

jon internalizes that he needs to be more, better, but he’s never really sure how so he just criticizes every aspect of himself. he’s constantly comparing himself to others, but even when the comparison is favorable he still doesn’t feel good enough.

(big sidenote: i have adhd and headcanon jon as adhd because he displays a number of symptoms, and it’s really common for people with adhd to develop a deep feeling of unworthiness. we grow up with authority figures telling us we’re not “living up to our potential”, as we alternate between hyperfixating and losing focus completely. for example, i was often chastised as a kid because i read YA fantasy novels voraciously, but sometimes struggled in school because i refused to read anything that didn’t hold my immediate interest. guess who else read nonstop but wouldn’t read anything he deemed boring?? jonathan jarchivist sims. i’d be willing to bet he developed a serious unworthiness complex from authority figures asking why he couldn’t apply himself to [x thing] the same way he did to his interests.)

he works himself to the bone trying to be the best archivist that he can, but of course elias really screwed him over by giving him a job that he’s not actually qualified for and doesn’t know how to do which even further degrades his already paltry sense of self-worth. he projects this fear of incompetence onto martin, which is why he criticizes martin so harshly. even if jon’s not great at his job, at least he can say he’s better than martin. for someone who constantly compares himself to others, this is at least a small source of comfort.

when martin shows kindness to jon in season 1, jon brushes it off, because he thinks love is something that has to be earned. at this point jon feels deeply unworthy-- he’s in way over his head with work, and is terrified by the eye watching him give statements-- so he thinks martin doesn’t have any reason to care for him, which means that martin’s affection for him is not valid. in season 2 jon even suspects martin has ulterior motives, because he can’t fathom why anyone would genuinely want to give him love.

this post will expand into even more of a monster if i if get into all the times that jon puts himself down for things he can’t control (it wasn’t stupid to break the table alright, he was doing his best). he also consistently internalizes the criticism of others even when that criticism is unfair/cruel (look at what happened with tim in season 3, or when his coworkers discovered that he was feeding on people, etc etc etc). jon is way too willing to believe that he is a bad, stupid, evil person.

he’s also always going above and beyond to prove himself. again, countless examples, but like the dude literally charged into the buried to save daisy just because he thought it might be possible to rescue her. she’s not really his friend at that point (in fact she tried to kill him), and also he’s not at all responsible for her entrapment. but he thinks it would be the right thing to do, and so he does it, and damn the consequences.

he says if he dies, the world just loses another monster. but also, his parents died and they were the ones his grandmother loved, so maybe if he dies doing what’s right then maybe he’ll finally be good enough too.

anyway, by season 4, martin is effectively gone, and this is when jon’s feelings for him really start to show. (you can probably argue that his love for martin was evident earlier, but i personally think this is when jon becomes actually aware of how he feels.) the primary model of love jon saw growing up was the mournful, longing love his grandmother felt for his dead parents. he wasn’t taught how to love somebody who’s there with you, but he does know what it’s like to love somebody who’s gone. he begins to not just want to be “good enough” in general, but also specifically good enough for martin. (i.e. it’s martin’s reaction to jon feeding on strangers that really makes jon feel ashamed.)

when jon follows martin into the lonely, elias tells him flat-out that he will likely not return. jon doesn’t hesitate-- after all, he’s well-versed in taking enormous risks to save others, and this is for martin, to whom he so desperately wants to prove himself. it’s only once he finds martin that jon finally feel worthy of his love, and allow himself to accept it.

when martin says “i see you” and begins to come back to himself, jon knows he succeeded, that he proved himself, that he is worthy of love. and martin knows that jon loves him and thinks martin’s worth saving. in that moment, they don’t just love each other, they both feel loved, something that seemed almost impossible for these two traumatized men.

and it would be such a beautiful wrap if that was where it ended, right? but instead the eyepocalypse happened and we have to deal with all the messiness that is season 5.

so, jon was manipulated into ending the world as we know it, and the guilt from that undoes the tenuous scrap of self-worth he developed via saving martin.  he’s thrust into a position where he doesn’t think it’s even possible for him to be good again, let alone good enough. the only morally pure thing that he can think of to do is to use his power to protect martin, the man he loves, which is why he’s so emotionally paralyzed at the beginning of season 5. he can be good enough within the confines of their cabin, he can keep martin safe there, but out in the world ruled by fears he knows that there’s no way to be the perfect person he so desperately wants to be.

he ultimately agrees to go try to stop the fearpocalypse because he knows it’s the right thing to do, and jon has never, ever shied away from doing the right thing, no matter how dangerous. but he’s forced to make a lot of messy, difficult decisions out there-- he feeds off people’s fear to keep himself going, he murders not!sasha, he will certainly have to kill even more. as far as jon’s concerned, he’s crossed the line permanently. there is no way he is ever, ever going to be “good enough” again, after the choices he’s made. it doesn’t matter if he’s doing the best he can, or if he makes a net positive impact, or even whether or not events are his fault, he’s proven that he’s not perfect so he will never believe he is good enough.

meanwhile, martin comes into season 5 feeling rather empowered. even after all the effort he spent pushing people away in season 4, jon loves him, and that makes martin feel pretty confident that he’s a good person. he has a solid sense of self-worth, which means it’s easier for him to act and make tough decisions.

he also has a less rigid view of morality than jon does (despite generally being nicer). he sees the entities and their avatars as creatures who abuse others and cause harm, much like his father. if he could have hurt his father to save his mother, you know he would have, and he’s wiling to murder in order to save innocents. also, because he’s secure in his belief that he’s a good person (thanks in large part to jon being such a loving boyfriend), martin is less likely to scrutinize his own actions the way jon does. martin is making choices based on what feels right, what he thinks will have the greatest net positive outcome, while jon just sees every single harmful thing he does as another item in the pile of reasons that he’s not good enough. jon looks at his actions individually, while martin looks at them holistically.

anyway, right now they’re functioning. despite his absolutely annihilated self-worth, jon is still able to find an anchoring purpose in the fact that he can use his eye power to defend martin. martin is able to move forward and act because he has the warmth and confidence of knowing jon loves him.

it wouldn’t take much to break them, though.

if martin died or was lost to a power, jon would absolutely crumble and lose all direction.

if jon stopped loving martin and told martin that he was a bad person, martin would absolutely crumble and lose all self-worth.

that’s what makes annabelle cane’s interest in martin so worrying. right now, martin is confident enough that her call doesn’t really phase him, he just hangs up on her. but if martin were to give in and join the web, it could ruin everything. jon would feel like he’d failed martin, and, knowing jon’s stance on avatars, martin might feel that jon thought he was evil. they would both fall apart completely and lose themselves to the entities they serve.

[whumpsideblog]

Home

2385 words of self indulgent backstory and stuff. This is mostly just a rambling thing I wanted to get out, and has no bearing on the actual story with Silas. I have a weird fixation with backstories and there really isn’t space in the main story to go into it so I wanted to get it out here, so it’s very messy and unpolished. Since it’s pretty much all backstory I’m not even tagging it with whump

tw for mentions of past child abuse ***  “Home” was an odd concept to him.

  At one point home had been a cold cell in the basement of a sprawling manor, a building he only saw from the outside when he was being rescued from it. His earliest memories were all there, he assumed that he’d been born in that cell and he knew he was supposed to die in it too. He had vague memories of a mother he couldn’t quite recall clearly aside from a kind voice and dark wavy hair like his own. He knew that she was there at one point and then one day she was gone, and he couldn’t even remember her well enough to miss her. 

 Occasionally other people came through their cell, but him and Dahlia always stayed, though at that point they weren’t “Silas” and “Dahlia”, only “boy” and “girl”. He remembered their actions better than their faces, remembered the ones who were kind and treated them as the vulnerable children they were and the ones who would gladly throw them to the vampires before ever sacrificing themselves. None of them lasted long though, some of them fought too hard, some not hard enough, and some were just brought in too “late” in life.

 His master preferred young blood, when they got to a certain age they would be “disposed of”. He knew that one day they’d be disposed of too, Dahlia first, and then him two years later. He only knew his age because their master liked to remind them of their expiration date, ironically the same as their birthdays. He didn’t want to die, naturally it upset him knowing his death was decided since he was born, but it always upset him more knowing he’d have to live two years without Dahlia by his side.

 And then they were rescued. He was twelve years old, Dahlia fourteen, when the scariest man he’d ever seen- even scarier than their master- entered their cell and told them they were safe. He didn’t feel safe, in fact he was terrified, they weren’t allowed to ever leave that cell, much less the manor itself. They both panicked, they refused to leave at first and eventually the man just lifted them both up, one thrown over his shoulder and the other held under his arm and carried them out. At the time Silas thought he was the strongest man ever, not thinking about the fact they were severely underweight, only ever given food before they were fed on. 

 He remembered the moment they were brought outside, it was hard to see at all, his eyes weren’t used to such bright sunlight, and despite the fact it hurt he was desperate to see the outside world. He’d loved the sun from the moment he stepped outside though, he loved the warmth, the brightness. He missed it dearly now.

 After that home was living with the hunter, Vernon, and his husband, Theo. Vernon was tall, broad and terrifying, he had thick dark hair that he wore long and a scarred, angry face that always softened when he looked at Theo. His husband was tall and lithe, with long blonde hair and a gentle voice that would calm Vernon in an instant. Though they feared them at first, the two men showed nothing but love for each other and love for them.

 When they were first brought into their home they had offered them separate rooms but didn’t force it when they refused to leave each other. They never forced them to do anything they weren’t comfortable with, they always asked before so much as grabbing their arm or giving them a hug, and they did everything to make sure they felt safe in their home. When they confessed they had no names beyond “boy” and “girl” they took the time to find names they’d both like, always running ideas by them. In the meantime Vernon had affectionately nicknamed them, as he did with near everybody, “little dagger” and “little flower”. 

 Dahlia had always loved hearing that, the first time she saw flowers was outside their house and she fell in love immediately. She seemed to love everything pretty and Silas remembered how often she said she wanted to be pretty, but he never understood that. She’d always been very pretty to him. 

 As for him, they said that he was sharp and angry, and admittedly, he was. At least, that was how he presented himself so they wouldn’t have to know how scared he was. He snapped and lashed out often, all the attitude and rage he had to keep locked up around his master he took out on them. They were patient though, they tolerated his outbursts and his foul language, and by the time they suggested the name “Silas” he had grown comfortable enough to feel safe there.

 His thirteenth birthday was the first one that didn’t make him miserable. With their master, birthdays only served to remind them how little time they had left, he memorized the dates of all his victims just to mock them. On their twenty fifth they would be killed, every birthday leading up to that they would be mocked and reminded just how short their lives would be, if he was feeling “generous” they’d be whipped, given a lash for every year they’d been alive. 

 Vernon and Theo celebrated them though, they took them out that day and let him pick anything he wanted from the market, they made his favorite meal that night and even a cake. Neither was exactly a master baker, it was too sweet and horribly messy and he loved it so much he sat at the table and cried. He couldn’t remember ever feeling this much love from someone who wasn’t Dahlia, and he was so incredibly thankful to these men who had no reason to care for them, yet loved them with all their hearts. 

 His gift to himself that day was the decision that the first twelve years of his life didn’t exist. Twelve years of misery and pain did not exist to him, he did not have a master, he was never held captive as a food source to vampires. He didn’t need those twelve years, as far as he cared, he’d been here with the people he loved his whole life. That same year, he decided he wanted to be a hunter.

 At first, all of them were against it. Vernon said it was too dangerous, that Silas was too small and skinny and would only get hurt, Theo and Dahlia agreed with him. Over time though, with enough begging and pleading, Vernon finally gave in, and Dahlia quickly followed him because she felt that if she didn’t he would do something horribly stupid and get hurt. Despite the fact he wanted it so badly, Vernon allowed Dahlia to train before him, as fifteen was the minimum age they could be trained at. He was happy he agreed at all though, he was fifteen when he began training and seventeen when he was handed his own blade.

  After that home was just them. The men had no plans to force them out, but did suggest some independence, and they made their home in a different village that happily welcomed them. The people adored Dahlia, she was kind and social and overall a lovely person. She had her angry side that was usually saved for Silas, but even then he just believed her to be strong, she was brave, she didn’t take shit from anyone while still being sweet and polite, and he envied her so much. He didn’t know how to handle people, he got overwhelmed easily and sometimes snapped at people without meaning to, and he often felt that he was better off alone. 

 It was in this village that he was able to define “home” for himself. Home was where Dahlia was, she had been the one constant between all these places. It wasn’t just a place that he lived, because he never really “lived” in that cell, he was kept there, forced there against his will and only existed to die. Living with Vernon and Theo had been wonderful, but it was supposed to be temporary, even when they first took them in they didn’t plan to basically adopt them, and even though they did in the end, they had to grow up and leave sometime. He didn’t know how long they would live in this village, if they’d get up and move again or if they would live there for the rest of their lives, but as long he was with Dahlia, then he was home. 

 He knew this raised a problem, while he was content with spending his life with Dahlia he didn’t expect her to feel the same way. She was a wonderful person, incredibly beautiful, and he knew that someday she would most likely find someone who she wanted to be with forever. He would be happy for her, and he’d never keep her from that kind of love, because she deserved to be happy. Of course, he wasn’t quite sure what he would do with himself when that happened. 

 He then forced himself to accept Alastair as his new home. He fought it until he was turned, which is when he realized that he would be better off with Alastair than anywhere else. Alastair had made himself as important to Silas as Dahlia was, in a much more twisted manner. He loved Dahlia so much because they had been together forever, because she had cared for him so deeply, protected him when she shouldn’t have had to. She knew him better than anyone in the world, and he knew she would always be there for him, and he would always be there for her.

 Alastair started by separating him from his home, even if he didn’t realize it. Silas spent nearly all his free time with Dahlia, hell, most of the time he worked with her too, and now he was away from her and Alastair was all he had. He kept his contact with the staff limited, and he dragged Silas along with him throughout the day all day every day. If he wanted to speak to someone then it would have to be Alastair, if he wanted to do anything then he would have to ask Alastair for permission, Alastair controlled every moment of every day for him. 

 Even once Dahlia was there Alastair limited their time together. It killed him to know she was there but he couldn’t see her or talk to her, if he even spoke about her too much Alastair would get angry. The time they did have together was often ruined, the vampire always ended up hurting one of them.

 Then he turned him. He forced Silas to become the one thing he hated most, after destroying everything that made him him, he took his humanity as well. He made him believe that he shouldn’t even try to leave, and Silas began to feel that Dahlia would be better off without him. He didn’t know what to do without her, so he forced himself to accept the fact that Alastair was his new home, his new life really. He would be obedient and docile, he would behave for him because if he didn’t he had no idea what would happen to him. An eternity was a long time, a long time that Alastair could use to make him miserable, so he was better off giving in.

 The prospect of Dahlia being killed was what finally snapped him out of this. It didn’t matter what he was, it didn’t matter what would happen to him after all this, nothing mattered but Dahlia. He killed the man he accepted as his new life, and just like that he was being returned to his old life, his old house, his home with Dahlia, that he thought he would never ever see again. 

 He didn’t know if he had a home anymore. He had a house that he lived in, with the person he loved most, but he had accepted his new home was away from Dahlia and here they were together again. He didn’t worry so much about her leaving him in the form of finding a real relationship though, while he always saw that as a “when” situation it realistically was an “if”, as it was for everyone. What there was no “if” about though was the fact that someday Dahlia would die. Sure he had to worry about that before, but since leaving their “master” it didn’t weigh on him the way it did before. At least there was the guarantee that he would follow her, and once they left their master it became more likely he would die first with his horribly reckless tendencies. But he couldn’t die now, unless he was killed or decided to kill himself. He didn’t like the sound of either of those, he didn’t want immortality, he wanted to someday die a natural death. 

 “Home” was an odd concept to him. He couldn’t define it the way he used to because he knew it would only cause him pain, and what right did he even have to place that kind of importance on Dahlia in the first place? He’d never told her how he felt about this, he wasn’t exactly a big fan of feelings and certainly didn’t enjoy sharing them. It didn’t feel right to tell her though, she was too selfless, she gave up too much for him, the thought of her ever giving up her own life to stay with him, to be his “home” made him sick with guilt. 

 He knew that a home was actually defined as where someone lived permanently, but nothing felt permanent to him. He was comfortable here, yes, but it always felt like it would be ripped away at any moment. Dahlia was permanent, except she wasn’t, she could, and someday would, die. Alastair had been permanent, he’d accepted that he would always be with him because Alastair was immortal, just like Silas now was. But he killed Alastair, so in the end it looked like the only thing permanent was himself. 

 He didn’t know if he could ever be his own home.