#this is for Me. i want to write about abuse and recovery and trauma and love 🙂‍↕️ | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

adventures-in-mangaland · 6 months ago

Text

Another Dead Boy Detectives Fic Rec List

Netflix sucks and I'm sad, but the Dead Boy Detectives fandom continues to be awesome, so here are some more very quick fic recs!*

Tonight's the Night You Fight Your Best Mate's Dad by Opossum_Subatomic

Everyone's Alive College/University 5+1 things fic featuring Charles bringing Edwin coffee and slowburn payneland. Also Family/Wedding Drama involving Everyone Thinks They're Dating so acute is verges on Fake Dating. This author is seriously fantastic, everything they write is gold.

You should also check out Kissing Lessons, which is a high school AU that does what it says on the tin while also giving non-binary Monty and polyamory.

Ornithology by Rosie447

Monty gets a job working at Tragic Mick's. This one's not actually payneland, being gen and Monty-centric. I know, gasp. It's a fantastic and very sweet exploration of Monty discovering his sense of self post canon and works as a great metaphor for recovery from toxic family/relationships. Also, the ex-animal solidarity and bonding with Mick is lovely.

what some circumstance stole by Chrome

The Sandman crossover featuring Edwin and Hob being kidnapped and tortured together. Their friendship is really wholesome with eventual Father Figure and Found Family Feels for the whole agency and background Dreamling.

dandelion wine (life and death in summertime) by world_wanderer

Payneland Right Person Wrong Time AU in which neither of them die but they still meet and become friends. The May/December friendship is sweet but tragic, with a bittersweet ending. Superb.

Mirror Image by Anonymous

Charles' afterlife gets taken over my an evil shape-shifting doppelganger, leaving him with plenty of time to regret never talking to Edwin about his feelings. Angsty but with Feelings Realisation and the Power of Love and Friendship vibes.

my healing needed more than time by babyseraphim

Case fic with de-aged Charles! Baby Charles is precious but be prepared for discussions of childhood trauma/abuse.

The same author has also written I'm So Aces at Babysitting, which is a really cute two-chaptered AU featuring Charles and Edwin babysitting the kid versions of each other, with bonus Crystal and Niko doing the same. It's very wholesome and the author writes little kids really well.

Pouring into me by tragedy_machine

Love me some "Charles wants to date Edwin to figure out his feelings but gets turned down" fic. Feelings are hard, OK?

thank u, next by KiaraSayre

Edwin fucks and Charles seethes. It's very funny and also features some interesting worldbuilding with the Fae.

Like We've Never Known Hurt by dearheartdont

Just cute established relationship PWP and praise kink. So good.

all of these hollows by handwrittenhello

The boys are alive again but sans memories. Can they still find each other and prove their devotion to the Night Nurse?? While also evading heavenly and hellish forces trying to keep them apart??? Very interesting concept executed well.

Suo Gân by emryses

The agency takes on the case of a traumatised Edwardian ghost searching for her missing baby... Read it for Edwin family feels.

Where Primroses Bloom by PantryJesus

Reading aloud as a love language and Watership Down feels. Idk, I'm now convinced that Edwin is kind of rabbit-coded with the whole "if they catch you they'll kill you. But first they must catch you" thing. A lovely well written fic.

I'm so sick of online love by Hse11z5

College/University AU where the boys meet through a dating app. It's cute.

you can have the best of me, baby (and I will give you anything) by aletterinthenameofsanity

Again, it's the Friends with Benefits but with real feelings and mutual pining for me. Now has a Charles PoV companion fic.

True Love's Kiss by Asidian

In which Charles curses himself with a Sleeping Beauty enchantment in order to confirm his feelings for Edwin and Crystal is the real MVP. I love this one because the boys are both SO stupid but in very different in-character ways.

I also recommend Promised, in which they kind of play the Green card angle to keep Edwin out of Hell? Which honestly needs to be more of a trope. And Tight Quarters, starring the boys trapped in a magic circle, leading to Forced Proximity induced Feelings Realization (in more ways than one! 😉).

Something I Can Turn To by DontOffendTheBees

I love some domestic fluff, in this case as an Everyone's Alive/Childhood Friends AU in which the boys are poor but happy living together. I liked how they both survive their respective traumas, but Reality Ensues.

I also recommend Lived My Whole Life Before the First Light for a lovely but melancholy Soulmate AU that goes for the "seeing colours" trope for extra wistful angst.

Dining at the Ritz by TerresDeBrume

Meeting the Parents fic in which Edwin's parents are awful and Charles is Not Having It. This has Everyone Thinks They're Dating and autistic Edwin stimming representation, plus discussions of racism, classism and ableism. The fic is also part of a great Modern AU series in which the boys attended St Hilarion's at the same time and Charles saved Edwin from a non-supernatural but still almost deadly prank. Highly recommended!

The Case of the Couples Retreat by juliasfanart

Listen, I can't get enough of undercover fake dating/relationships at a couples retreat, OK? Some minor angst but overall very cute and fluffy.

acu (aysar cinematic universe) by ObsessedWithFandom

The agency is hired to solve the mystery of Charles' death and bring his killers to justice. I'm genuinely obsessed with this series; I love its OCs and Charles having an exboyfriend gives Edwin a fun crisis. Plus haunting Charles' killers is very satisfying and cathartic. Just imagine they're Netflix execs, y'all.

*Not actually quick, as it turns out. 😅

I love doing these lists because I always think I've only got a few recs and then I look back over my recent bookmarks and I've got a metric ton of great fics to rec. You guys are so talented. ❤️

300 notes · View notes

violetflowerswrites · 9 months ago

Text

I’ll Be Here

Summary: After a traumatic injury, your SWAT roommate turned boyfriend (?) Jim Street strives to take care of you, and meet all of your needs.

Pairing: Jim Street x (Female) Reader

Disclaimer: Minor mentions of leg injury, meds, and recovery with wheelchair, casts, and crutches. Reader has a protective older sister. One scene of nightmares, mentions of trauma. Discussion of child abuse, drug use, drunkenness, in Street’s family history. Filthy Smut. Oral sex (female receiving). Consensual P in V sex. 18+ for explicit smut, and language

Word Count: 4.0k

A/N: I felt like there needed to be one more epilogue / ending to this Street x Roommate fic series. It picks up directly after the ending of Part Two (Taking it Slow). I got a little caught up fleshing out her backstory and recovery journey, but there’s a bit of angst, a bit of fluff, and quite a bit of smut. I added some details from Season 4, Ep 2 as well. It’s a slower paced story than what I normally like, but I still had a fun hell of time writing it. Enjoy!

Part One Here - “Too Complicated”

Part Two Here - “Taking It Slow”

Masterlist Here

…

The click of the door makes the two of you startle, and quickly.

“Commander Hicks is gonna put you on armory duty for a week for pulling a stunt like that.”

“Hey, Tan.” Street smiles at his teammate’s lack of greeting. Classic Tan — a bit of hard-ass, but always means well. “Hicks already chewed my ear off on the phone earlier.”

“Figured. I just wanted to come down, see how my friend’s sister was doing. I already briefed her on what happened. She’s on her way back from a case up in Burbank.”

“Thank you, Victor.” You breathe out a sigh of relief.

Victor Tan was co-workers with your older sister back from his days in LAPD’s Hollywood Vice division. When you decided to move to LA, she figured you being roommates with a SWAT officer was the safest place you could be.

But the world is a dangerous place, even if you live with Jim Street, LAPD SWAT.

Victor looks you up and down, noticing that besides being a little pale, and having a massive cast on your leg, you don’t seem to be in pain.

Then, he notices the way that Street is standing— body turned to yours, hand hovering on the bedside protectively, as if he wanted to hold your hand at any given moment.

“Hold on, don’t tell me you two are a thing now.”

A hot flush creeps up your skin and you and Street immediately stumble over your responses.

“We were trying to take it slow—“

“and not make things too complicated…”

“but then this happened so…”

“We don't really know what we are, but I do know that I am so so grateful for you Victor. You and Street helped save my life.”

You end your rush of words with a watery smile, emotion cracking your voice.

Tan looks down sheepishly, immediately trying to be casual about it.

“Nah, Y/N. It was the tourniquet you made that probably saved your life. You gave us a big scare today, but I am glad to see you’re okay.”

“That makes 3 of us.”

A petite, fierce-looking female cop stands in the doorway of the hospital room, her hand sweeping back some stray hairs that fell out of her tight bun in her rush to get to you.

…

Your bad-ass cop sister stays over for a week while you recover, watching Street like a hawk. You’re so hopped up on pain-killers that you barely notice the tension between them.

Street on the other hand, feels like he’s being evaluated in some test he didn’t train for. He couldn’t take time off, so he’s eager to see you whenever he gets home. But most of the time, your sister is hovering over you, helping you adjust to moving around in the wheelchair, and making sure you are eating your meals and taking all your meds correctly.

One late evening while you’re supposed to be sleeping, you overhear your sister confront him.

“So. When were you gonna tell me you’re fucking my sister?”

Street spits out the beer he just took a sip of. He’s barely exchanged more than a few sentences to your sister, and that was when she helped you move in a few months ago.

“Uh…”

“I see the way you look at her. I’m pretty sure I warned you that this arrangement was solely to keep her safe while living in this neighborhood. Didn’t expect you guys to fuck so quickly.”

Damn. Your sister is known to be blunt, but this is next level. You remembered how she reacted when your dick-head of a college ex-boyfriend broke your heart. He was sorry to have ever known you after that.

“About that…” Street starts, but gets cut off with a raised palm in his face.

“Before you say anything, I’m not an idiot. I’ve seen the way she looks at you. She hasn’t told me yet, but I know. She’s down bad for you, Street.”

You automatically pull your covers up in embarrassment, hearing your sister lay all your feelings out in the open like that. She’s right though, you’ve fallen hard for him and it’s not just because he saved your life a week ago.

It’s because he's an empathetic listener to your rants about work, LA traffic, anything.

It’s the way he notices the small things, like when you're stress baking, or when you have your shoulders hunched up in frustration at the kitchen counter.

It’s how he gently pries your closed off doors open, helping you heal from your past.

It’s how he loves you, in such a sweet, gentle way that only he can.

“So you have 2 days before I go back to Vice to show me that you can take care of her.”

“You’re leaving?”

“Well, I don’t want to, but we’re about to make a big drug bust and my team needs me. Y/N is strong. She can take care of herself, but I worry about her. Her surgery was intense, and it’s gonna be a long recovery. I was gonna have her live with me for a few months, but I don’t think she wants to be away from you.”

“Thank you.” Street lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. He may be a big bad SWAT officer, but your 5 foot nothing of a cop sister scared the shit out of him.

“Don’t thank me yet.”

…

That weekend, you get the full princess treatment from Street. He helps train your upper body strength to be able to lift yourself on and off your wheelchair. He takes you to the park to get some sun, and makes sure the entire house is wheelchair friendly so you can move around independently. He rearranges the fridge and pantry so that your favorite foods are all easily reachable from your lower height. He even meal-preps some home-cooked lunches to have while you go back to work on Monday.

Working with your sister, he re-arranges his schedule so he can drive you to the office in the morning and your sister can take you home.

On Sunday evening, you read out a long string of dates as Street writes all your upcoming appointments on the fridge-calendar and your sister says which ones she can take you to, and which ones she needs Street to help drive you.

“Well…fuck.” Your sister swears, which only happens when she’s particularly exasperated.

”What? What’s wrong?” You look up from your laptop with your Google calendar open.

“Y/N, I didn’t wanna admit it, but you got a good one here.”

An ear-splitting grin spreads across Street’s face as he realizes what she means.

You obviously told your sister that you overheard Friday night’s conversation, and all of what’s been going on between you and Street…minus the mind-blowing sex.

“He passed?” You ask eagerly, hopeful stars in your eyes.

“He never had to pass anything in the first place, Y/N. If you chose him, that’s all the approval I needed to know. I trust you. I was just giving him a hard time, because I love you.”

You burst out laughing while Street spits out a flabbergasted “The hell did I try so hard for?!”

“That’s what big sisters are for. Y/N deserves all the princess treatment she can get. We put our lives on the line every day, but she doesn’t normally have to. She’s gonna need you, Street.”

Street places a reassuring hand on your sisters’ shoulder.

“I’ll be here.”

…

Street lives up his promise, taking care of you through some of the worst physical and emotional pain you’ve ever been in.

He’s there at your physical therapy appointments, making sure you’re practicing the exercises at home even when you just want to lie down from exhaustion.

He’s there holding your hand even though you squeeze him until his fingers go numb. It hurts him to see your face contort with unexpected pain when the meds wear off and you try putting some weight on your leg for the first time in weeks.

He’s there when the trauma sets in. He notices when you’re on the couch in the evenings, the TV on, but you’re not really watching. He holds you tightly while you wake up in the middle of night crying, reliving the moment you almost died.

He’s there through it all.

…

“How do you deal with it?”

You’re sitting upright in bed, the soft yellow glow of the bedside lamp warming the darkness of the middle of the night.

“Deal with what?”

Street’s sitting next to you, holding your hand while your sweat-soaked forehead leans against his shoulder, your racing heartbeat finally slowing down.

Your breath draws in and out in a steady rhythm as you calm yourself from your latest nightmare with his comforting presence.

Street ran into your room when he heard you. That’s been the third night in a row that you’ve woken up to the sound of your own screaming.

“Deal with trauma. Not the physical pain, but those horrible moments that just keep flashing before your eyes every time you close them.”

“Well, I’ve been dealing with trauma my whole life I guess.”

Street has already talked to you about growing up in the foster system, because his dad was a drunk. You knew that his mom was in jail for killing him, but Street didn’t go into details. You knew as much as he hated talking about his past, he hated talking about his complicated relationship with his mom even more.

“Last week, we were surveilling a house, trying to get someone for the CIA, and I saw a kid. A little boy, covered in bruises on his back porch. He looked so alone, and so scared.”

“What happened?”

“I got into it with Hondo a bit, almost compromised the mission because I wanted to get him out of that abusive home.”

“Did you?”

“Yes. But it brought back a lot of memories, and none of them good.”

It was your turn to comfort Street as you could hear his breath come in shudders as he thought back to his rough childhood.

“Have I ever told you that my earliest memory of kindergarten was my mom putting makeup on my chin to cover up my dad’s crappy weekend?”

“No.” The word comes out in a saddened whisper. “You’ve never told me that one before.”

“Well, it’s not something that comes up in casual conversation. And I’ve tried a lot of things to make sure I never have to mention those moments.”

“What kinds of things?”

Street lets out a wry chuckle.

“What haven’t I tried? Drugs, alcohol. Thrill seeking. Street racing. Driving way past the speed limit.”

“You still do that one.”

Street laughs genuinely now. “Yeah, but not where I’ll get caught by cops.”

“You are a cop!”

He chuckles again, but quiets down into contemplative silence.

“For many years, I just poured myself into my job. Climbing the ladder until I could make something of myself. Run away as far as I could from that childhood me. The one with the drunk dad, jailed mom. The helpless foster kid.”

“It didn’t help, did it?”

“No. Not really.”

“Then, how did you heal?”

Street looks down at you now, his heart breaking to see tears streaming down your face. He’s certain those are empathetic tears, tears for his hardships. His rough childhood. Pangs of guilt wash over him.

He doesn’t deserve your tears.

Then, he sees the way you’re looking at him. The way you’re holding him in a bone-crushing embrace. Well, as tightly as you could possibly hold all of his heavily-muscled torso.

So, he sucks in a grounding breath and reminds himself that you’re crying because you care about him. Because you love him.

And it’s okay to accept your love.

Street caresses your cheek with a strong hand, and thumbs off a few of your tears.

“I’m still healing. But when those moments come, I’ve learned that it helps to talk about it.”

All those late-night bike rides down the California coastline could never truly help him escape from his problems.

He thinks back to all the people in his life who’ve helped him open up. Who’ve confronted him on his bullshit and made him stop running away.

Hondo and Buck.

Chris, Deacon, Tan, and Luca.

Even his ex-girlfriend, Molly Hicks.

As much as he hates to admit it, putting his trauma out in the open was better than keeping it in.

Your hand in his starts trembling and that small movement pulls him out of his thoughts.

“What if I’m not ready to talk yet?” You choke, as if you could barely get the words out.

“Then I’ll be here waiting until you are.”

…

Weeks pass in a whirlwind of work, doctors’ appointments, and recovery exercises at home. Eventually, the nightmares subside, and you start seeing a therapist to help you work through the trauma.

You graduate from the wheelchair and giant full-length cast to a bootie on your calf and ankle. The hardwood floor is littered with little dents from the first few days you learned to hobble around on crutches, but you get the hang of it quickly.

Both Street and your sister feel much more at ease leaving you at home alone, knowing that you can take care of yourself more easily now.

Except today.

Because your idiot brain put the crutches by the bathroom door instead of next to the towel rack.

And here you are, butt-naked in the shower, the floor wet and a slipping hazard, and 6 feet away from independence.

Just as you debate bear-crawling across the cold tile to grab your crutches, you hear the front door open and close.

“Street!” You call out.

Heavy footsteps rush over to the bathroom and skid to a stop as Street quickly leans his head against the door and asks urgently, “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine! I just left the crutches by the door and I can’t reach them. Can you help me get out of the shower?”

Street breathes out a sigh of relief. Ever since the accident, he finds himself panicking easily about any situation that has to do with you getting hurt.

“Of course. I’m coming in.”

You’ve managed to dry yourself off, wrap your body in a fluffy white towel, and sit on the edge of the tub.

It doesn’t go unnoticed by Street how your damp hair clings to your skin, flushed from the hot water. Lavender-scented steam hits him in a rush as he opens the door, a familiar smell to him. You love lavender shampoo, soaps, lotions, candles, anything.

He scoops you up gently, trying not to think about the last time he carried you like this was when you were bloodied, unconscious, and barely alive.

A small moan draws him out of his head immediately.

Not a moan of pain.

A moan of lust.

What?

Street freezes and gently places you on the bathroom counter, carefully holding your injured leg against his hip.

His eyes dart across your flustered face as you realize just what kind of inadvertent sound escaped your lips as soon as you were in Street’s strong arms, and you inhaled the familiar leather of his bike jacket.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Street kisses you breathless and pulls your towel down, inhaling your damp skin and that damned lavender soap that is making him dizzy with lust.

Water drips from the ends of your hair down your body, and Street licks up the river trailing from your shoulder, down the swell of your breasts, all the way to your core.

He pulls you to the edge as he kneels down in front of you. Ever-conscious of your injury, he lifts your hurt leg onto his shoulder, which only serves to widen your thighs, giving him full access.

Your knuckles tighten against the counter and your moans bounce off the tiled walls the second he licks your dripping pussy.

Street is a master at oral and it’s been weeks since you’ve had the pleasure of being his pupil.

His tongue dives first into your center, stretching your hot, leaking core. Then his lips find your clit, sucking it in gently, until the nerve endings in the sensitive nub light your body up with pleasure.

Before you have a moment to recover, his fingers find your entrance and enter with ease. Your slick gushes out, dripping onto the towel as he thrusts two fingers in and out. His knuckles curl up, searching for the spongy spot that he knows will drive you absolutely wild.

Filthy sounds of wetness fill the bathroom as he eats you out and fingers your clenched center, once, twice, three times.

Before long, his moans mix with your own as you voice your pleasure, cumming on his face in moments.

“Keep going.”

Street freezes at the first words you’ve uttered since he kissed you. It was an impulse, a lack of self-control that got him to this point in the first place.

It was seeing you nearly naked, with that damned lavender filling his nostrils that drove him crazy.

But he was going to stop. It was enough to get you off.

”I’m not done yet, Street.” You demand arrogantly, and look pointedly at the hard erection pushing against his dark-blue jeans.

“But—“

“I’ll be fine. Just hold my leg up and fuck me.”

You pull him up by the collar of his leather jacket, and kiss him roughly, panting in his ear as you lick and suckle the skin of his cheek, his neck, the underside of his jaw.

It’s been too long since you’ve had his body, his touch, his cock. You crave him with a hunger you’ve never known before.

And now that you’ve had a taste, every cell in your being is vibrating with one simple word.

More.

Needing no other encouragement, Street strips off his jacket only for you to take it and pull it over your bare shoulders.

The sight of you, fully naked except for his jacket, makes him suck in a breath.

His eyes darken immediately and he can hear his heart beat in double time.

You make him go feral.

It takes no time at all for him to rid himself of his remaining clothing, and line himself up with your pink entrance.

“You’ll tell me if I’m hurting you?” Street asks, still hesitant, even as the pre-cum of his throbbing member mixes with your juices.

“Yes.” You affirm breathlessly, feeling the round tip of his hard cock start to breach your center.

“You’ll stop me if you can’t handle it?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure about this, Y/N?”

“Yes! Street, fill me with your cock already!”

He blushes at your filthy words, feeling the heel of your good leg dig into the small of his back, trying to draw him into your waiting core.

You finally feel him push through the tight circle of your center. You’re especially tight, having not had sex since the accident over a month ago.

Street lets out a growl as he feels your pussy gripping him, struggling to push in deeper.

But instead of pain, you only feel pleasure.

“Fuck—! That feels incredible. Go deeper, Street. Please!” You beg him, desperate for more.

He grabs your thighs, fingers digging into your soft flesh as he pulls you towards his pelvis. You can feel his cock thrust to the end, finally completely filling you with all of him.

You throw your arms around his waist, breathing heavily as the heady lavender steam only serves to make the two of you even more sex-drunk.

You hear Street suck in another deep breath before he pulls out, and slowly inches his way back into you, experimenting with how fast he should go.

How much you can handle.

But the slower pace feels heavenly to your hot, needy core. His cock stretches every part of you, pressing against your spongy center, all the way to your cervix as he thrusts down to the hilt once more.

”How’s that, Y/N? Does it hurt?” Street checks in with you again, a vein popping out of his neck as he strains to maintain his self-control. All his cock wants is to fuck you with total abandon, but he refuses to put himself first.

Your voice comes out in a stream of incoherent whimpers as you wordlessly express just how good it feels to be filled by him.

So Street cups the back of your ass, and presses you flush against him, and you cry out, feeling him impossibly deep inside.

“Oh my god! Street!”

“I’m just getting started.” He grins, licking the side of your neck as he starts to roll his hips into you.

You feel his cock slip out just a few inches only to thrust back in as far as it can go, over and over.

As you look down, you are blessed with the magnificent sight of Street’s abs clenching with every sensual roll of his body against yours.

Every slight motion pushes you to the brink of orgasm, your body almost unable to handle all the stimulation after having only known pain and discomfort for the past several weeks.

Impulsively, you bite down on Street’s shoulder, trying to expend all the pleasure you’re feeling somewhere else, muffling your moans against his muscled flesh.

“Shit! Are you biting me?” Street growls, incredulous, but also massively turned on.

“Does it hurt?” You grin mischievously, pulling his lower lip in between your teeth next.

“Yeah.”

“A good hurt, or bad hurt?”

“Good.” Another sharp inhale. “Fuck, I’m already close!”

Street’s body shudders as you feel his grip slide back to your hips, his slow thrusts giving way to a faster, more desperate rhythm.

You nibble and nip the side of his neck, the bottom of his ear, as you feel just how hot his skin is under your tongue and lips.

Another loud moan is wrenched from your throat as he hits a particularly sensitive spot inside you. His cock satisfies your body in a way you can’t describe.

You can’t wait any longer.

“Cum for me.” You whisper into his ear, demanding his obedience. His brow furrows as he tries to delay his incoming orgasm, and you kiss it, giggling as you watch him come undone by your body.

Street pushes his cock into you, your wetness making the movement easy, but your tightness gripping him like he is never supposed to separate from you again.

You lock your fingers behind the small of his back, pulling him in and clenching down until you feel his cock spurt out jets of hot cum into your core.

Street grits his teeth and heaves out the sexiest, most overstimulated moan you’ve ever heard from any man.

Your own orgasm follows right behind his, your entire being vibrating with pleasure, wetness repeatedly gushing around his cock. Your pussy stutters, muscles spasming as it tries to recover from the best sex you’ve ever had, with the biggest cock you’ve ever had.

With the most loving, caring man you’ve ever had. Your heart fills with love and contentment at the moment the two of you just shared.

This is what sex should be like - intimacy, pleasure, love.

It is truly something else.

“Y/N?” Street murmurs against your damp shoulder, slowly regaining some semblance of control and coherent thoughts.

“Mmm?”

“You know I love you, right?”

“I know.”

“I never want to hurt you.”

“I know.”

“I’ll always be here for you.”

You find the rough skin of his jaw and pry him off your body, and instead, pull his face towards you, your forehead pressing against his. As you lock eyes with the emotional gaze of your lover, you notice that he’s a little teary, and your heart melts for him even more. Jim Street. The love of your life.

“I know.”

…

#jim street x reader #Jim Street #swat #swat fic #swat smut #swat cbs #cbs swat #jim street fic #Jim street smut #jim street imagine #street x reader

255 notes · View notes

drdemonprince · 4 months ago

Note

I remember a while back you did a fun ask game where people sent in kinks and you rated how good an investment they are and it keeps popping into my mind because of how chill you were about kinks that even kinky people tend to view really negatively in the sense of ethics. I was wondering if you had any advice on how to *feel* chill in terms of my own kink ethics. I intellectually believe that fantasies can’t be immoral and that kink with other adults is moral as long as there is consent (and appropriate risk awareness).

But I am still pretty triggered on the topic when it comes up. Eg, earlier a friend told me they are cutting someone they love off for being friends with someone who “sexualizes trauma”. And yeah, that is definitely where some of my darker kinks come from—though not all. They’re entitled to that opinion and action of course! But hearing all the things they said against this person triggered me, making me feel like I’m dangerous and that it is wrong of me to interact with them going forward even though this isn’t a topic I would discuss with them anyway. Until writing this I hadn’t even considered if they are still a person I *want* to interact with given this. Though I’m sort of unclear on whether it is actually wrong of me to interact with them still.

I am working with my therapist on this. And I know it will take some time to work through. I was just wondering if you had any words of wisdom on the topic.

My thoughts are that if I had a friend who cut people off for having problematic (or in this case, just like, unsettling?) kinks, I would not feel safe around that friend. It would seem to me that they were judgemental, moralizing, and had a completely different viewpoint on how the world operated than I did, and that sooner or later they would demonize me for things I thought, fantasized about, felt, and so on. I might have sympathy if the person was a trauma survivor early in their recovery, as it's quite common for people to think in very dogmatic, black-and-white ways about morality in order to protect themselves and to be highly reactive to perceived threat. But their feelings of safety are their own business to guard over, and mine are mine, and I just wouldn't be able to get along very intimately with someone like that. I'd have to give them a wide berth until they started to get over it, if they got over it.

Recently, a friend of mine was completely ostracized from their local queer community simply for writing a piece that touched on a taboo fantasy -- a taboo fantasy they had concocted as a way to cope with some really gnarly early childhood abuse. They lost performance gigs and friends, had hate campaigns erected against them, had mobs of people threatening all their remaining friends and colleages, all based on a rumor about a piece that they never even got to perform anywhere because someone had heard it was about a taboo subject and even the IDEA of what it might be made them uncomfortable, and so they assumed my friend was condoning abuse when they were literally just describing what had already happened to them and how they found healing from it. Shit like this sucks, and it comes down most heavily against queer people, especially trans femmes, and I've seen the fear mongering ruin enough lives that I try to steer really clear of it.

My life has been so blessed by inclusion of people with really intense, taboo, stigmatized kinks into my life. I was afraid to even breathe a word of my hypnosis fetish to anybody until I was in my late 20s, because I thought it was so freakish and evil. and now I routinely talk with people about really animalistic feral fantasies, harkness rule violating monsterfucking, rape play, necro fantasies, abdl, age regression, incest roleplaying, blood, eating bodily fluids, and everything else that freaks people out but harms no living being. Even when it's not my stuff, even when it's something I might personally find a little squicky to actually be in the room with, it makes me feel seen, safe, and free to express the depths within me. I think surrounding yourself with more people like that or just consuming their stories can help a lot. And trying to find some mental distance from the people who do fear monger and get triggered. They have their reasons for feeling as they do. But that doesn't mean we have to align with their values or actions.

130 notes · View notes

schizodiaries · 1 year ago

Text

a guide to hearing voices

(Note: this information was given to me by my therapist and is not my original writing. The information provided in this post comes from the UK based mental health charity known as Mind, and is paraphrased by me.)

What are voices?

A hallucination is a perception you may have that is not shared by those around you. Hearing voices is a type of auditory hallucination where you hear voices when no one is present, or that other people cannot hear. Some examples of voices you may hear include:

Hearing your name called when no one is around.

Hearing things as you fall asleep.

Feel as though you can hear other people’s thoughts.

Threatening voices that tell you to do dangerous things.

Friendly voices that encourage or support you.

Multiple voices arguing or talking with one another.

There are many reasons why you might hear voices. Some reasons include lack of sleep, hunger, physical illness, being under the influence of drugs, grief, abuse/bullying, physical illness, trauma, spiritual experiences, or mental health problems such as psychosis.

How can I help myself cope?

Understanding your voices and how they relate to your past may help you feel more in control, recognize when voices cause problems, stand up to your voice, or develop a better relationship with your voices so they don’t interfere with your life.

Some questions to help you think about how your voices relate to you are:

What was happening when I first heard voices?

Where was I and how was I feeling?

What did the voice say?

What did they sound like?

Do they represent a person or a problem?

Are there any patterns to the voices?

What do the voices want me to do?

What do I want to do?

It may be helpful to keep a diary and record when you hear voices or what they say. This can help you identify patterns and understand how they affect you over a period of time.

Here are some suggestions to help you feel more in control of your voices:

Ignore them, block them out, or distract yourself.

Give them times when you agree to talk to them and times when you won’t.

Tell them to wait.

Stand up to them, ignore their commands and threats. They have no power over you.

Try to ignore the voices you don’t like, and focus on the ones you find easier to listen to.

Use grounding techniques, like taking note of the things you see, hear, smell, etc.

The recovery approach

This helps reframe the way we see recovery. The main principles of the recovery approach are:

Live the best life you can have the you can with your experiences and the consequences they’ve had.

Focusing on what you can do, not what you can’t.

Making your own choices and being your own person.

Seeing recovery as a journey, not a destination.

Seeing setbacks as ways of learning more about yourself.

Maintaining hope.

How other people can help

If someone you care about hears voices, you might find it hard to understand what they are experiencing. But there are many things you can do to help support them.

Accept that their experiences of voices are real, even if you don’t understand it.

Try not to make judgements about what hearing voices means for them.

Learn their triggers.

Remember that they are still the same person you’ve always known. Hearing voices doesn’t change who they are.

Ask them what would help, and avoid making assumptions.

Reassure them that they are not alone. There are lots of reasons why people hear voices.

Encourage them to talk about their experience. To you, to a doctor, or to a support group.

Learn more about the experience of hearing voices and fight the stigma.

Help them seek treatment and support, if they want it.

#mental wellness #psychosis #schizoaffective #hallucinations #hearing voices #coping skills #coping mechanisms #schizophrenia

291 notes · View notes

branwyn-says · 4 months ago

Text

Dear K'diwa readers

The K'diwa epilogue will be up by the weekend probably.

A handful of people reread K'diwa last week for comfort and left comments about it, and so to comfort all of us including me, I'm writing that last piece of it I always meant to write. The background of K'diwa, as many of you intuited, is steeped in my own trauma and more importantly my recovery journey. The message of K'diwa is that deep healing and comfort are possible even if you've survived devastation. The trick is to stay alive long enough.

I haven't slept in several days. The election put me into the worst PTSD regression I've ever experienced. I'm American. The people who just hijacked my country raised me. I escaped a predestined life of jean skirts and submission when I was a teenager. Coping with the fact that these people have managed to regain a form of authority over me has been impossible to take in without falling apart somewhat. As a survivor of rape and sexual abuse, the air stings with an ambient threat these days. And as a woman with a girlfriend I want to marry, there is a lot of immediate uncertainty in my life and community. But PTSD works like it works. I know its tricks pretty well by now. Once the adrenaline and the cortisol cycle out, what's left will be me, and the hugeness of my resolve. For the last year I have been training as a community organizer. Community is our safety now. I wanted to make it known that if you are an American in the mid-Atlantic (DMV) region and if you have an interest in attending a trauma writing workshop that I teach in Baltimore, message me privately and I will give you details.

I am not despairing and I hope you aren't either. We're going to look after each other. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it.

#star trek #kirk/spock #k'diwa #us american politics

49 notes · View notes

littlewomenpodcast · 3 months ago

Text

About Snow White, The Prince And The Trauma (And Greta Gerwig Stuck In A Mirror)

Well friends, it has officially started. I have received requests to roast the new Live Action Snow White, the moment it appears and I don't even want to see it hahah. I have been working on a new video essay about the glorification of male abuse in Gerwig's movies, and I hope to release it before Christmas.

Here are my thoughts about the original animated Snow White from the 1930s and the fairy tale and the meaning of the prince. When I post this I have not seen Gerwig’s live-action Snow White and I don’t know if I have the stomach to watch another movie where she tries to shovel white feminism down my throat. According to the leading actress and the director, there is not going to be a prince in the movie, dwarfs are idiots and Snow White is a girl boss.

To be honest I don’t think Greta Gerwig cares at all about feminism or any of the original sources of her movies. I think she only cares about fame and money. The reason why I dislike white feminism or pop feminism, however, you like to call it, is because it is never about equality. It always tends to be more about misogyny. It is not about equality to all genders, body types, or races, it is all about ”I am superior to you”. When I heard that she was going to direct the live-action Snow White, my first thought was ” That is very ironic”, because at its core Snow White is a story about the destruction of narcissism, but when it comes to this live-action, all I see is Snow White messaging ”I am not the fairest of them all, am superior to you all”.

But what if I don’t want Snow White to be a girl boss? What if I like her just the way she is? with all those Beth March vibes and all.

The prince is not very present in the 1937 animation, which I think is a bit of a shame, he seems like a good guy. I would have given him more screen time. There is a German story called Richilde, which is an early retelling of Snow White and it is believed to have inspired the Brothers Grimm to write their own version. In Richilde after the prince saves Snow White, they actually start plotting together against the evil queen. It is quite nice that there is at least one version, where the prince is more active and I always support a couple getting to know each other before the wedding.

I always thought that the evil queen killed Snow White’s parents. We know that she wants power. Maybe she killed the first queen and tricked the king to marry herself and I guess she left Snow White alive, because killing her might cause suspicions and perhaps she wanted a free slave to herself.

When I think about the prince, I think he is a crucial part of Snow White’s recovery. Specifically recovery from trauma. Let’s imagine she is five years old when the queen murders her parents. Queen forces her to be a slave at her own home. She needs to do the laundry, cook her meals, and wash the stairs. Together with all that labour, she very likely experiences physical abuse and emotional abuse. You can not show this directly in a Disney film, but I’d say the scene where the old witch brings her the apple, is a very good example of emotional manipulation.

If you grow up in this kind of environment, where someone is a narcissist, there is always gas lighting. We know that Snow White likes to think the best of people, she might have thought something in these lines ”oh the queen didn’t think I was productive enough today, so she only gave me dry bread to eat, at least she remembered me”.

Small gestures of caring, might appear bigger in the mind of the victim, than they are in reality. She eats the apple because she feels sorry for the old woman, but also because the witch is pressuring her to eat the apple, and Snow White is conditioned from a very young age, to believe that abuse is normal.

Another 13 year old girl in the middle ages, might not have done the same, not if they recognized that it was manipulation. Narcissistic people play mind games, so much that they twist your views on reality.

It is possible that when Snow White lives in the palace, other servants were told not to be friends with her, otherwise the queen would punish them, which would also explain why we only see her having animal friends at the palace.

She has a kind heart, which is why the dwarfs like her and the prince falls in love with her, but if we think about her trauma,

this 13-year-old girl has faced years and years of emotional and physical abuse from the queen.

The queen killed her parents and made her to be her slave,

Snow White was forced to escape to the woods at night, which can be a scary experience even for an adult,

queen tried to kill her friends,

the queen tried to kill her more than once

the queen put her into a coma.

That's a lot of trauma. She is 13 years old. It’s child abuse.

The way I see it, the prince represents the possibility for Snow White to heal from the trauma. Sometimes you hear stories of people who have been abused as kids, and there are those who thrive, and those who are prisoners of their trauma, The people who thrive, are the ones who have at least one person in their life who helped them through the traumatic experience. It can be a spouse, a friend or a good therapist.

It would be very difficult for Snow White to find a trauma therapist from Middle Age Germany, but with the Prince, there is a promise of a better future, and him being stable person and someone who unconditionally loves Snow White, she can recover from these traumatic experiences and get that emotional support from him and truly live happily ever after.

P.S. Since the live action is a Gerwig film, bet your life, any form of male abuse is normalized and there is going to be a big speech from a leading lady, how the world is against her, because she is a woman. If instead of pop feminism, she would focus on trying to fix the unequal system that she is always complaining about, maybe her characters wouldn't have these problems..

but then she could not be the center of attention, could she?

@selkiesstories @heather-field @princesssarisa @fandomsarefamily1966 @thatscarletflycatcher @mysoftboybensolo @librarydame @rainbowmilk1996

#snow white #fairytale analysis #trauma #people who hate greta gerwig #little women podcast

31 notes · View notes

ghostwriterofthemachine · 2 years ago

Text

friends. babes. dears. I am literally begging all of you to not fucking trauma dump in AO3 author's notes. I respect you and I want you to feel better but do not hit me out of nowhere with "this is a vent fic which is basically just pulled from my own experiences <3" on a piece of whump/trauma/abuse recovery fanfic. I cannot stress to you how much I am aggressively not reading fic to think about stuff like this happening to real people. I am not browsing blog posts, I am browsing fanfic. you don't need to justify what you write. in fact I'd really rather you didn't.

Link to a tumblr/other social media post explaining why you wrote it the way you did if you really feel the need to do it. But, listen to me — pretty much everyone who clicks the fic is going to see author's notes. There is no way to filter them.

“Fictional portrayals of this thing do not upset me me but irl instances do” is a real, valid thing for a lot of people. I don’t wanna be accosted by that non-fictional thing in an author’s note the same way I don’t want a murder mystery comic to all of a sudden show me actual crime scene photos. This is also a privacy issue but that's a whole other can of worms.

Don't do this in author's notes, don't do this in summaries, don't do this in tags. It is unsafe for several reasons. Just don't do it.

#useless text post #fandom stuff

415 notes · View notes

kn-1013 · 3 months ago

Text

Alligator Blood (AU) Part 1 - Tall Child

Summary: Travis isn't living with his father anymore, he's taking care of his sister and living in the Addison Apartments, because his father's been arrested and he's an adult now. He just wishes he felt like it. Word Count: 5,221 Rating: T Pairing: Gen/None Warnings: Alcoholism/substance abuse, mentions of past childhood abuse

A/N: This is the first thing I've written and finished about my non-magic cult AU. The basic premise is that the cult exists within Nockfell, but it's a lot smaller and, as the title suggests, magic isn't real, so none of their efforts amounted to anything. A lot of this AU just focuses on trauma recovery, because that's what I enjoy writing about most. Enjoy :)

========

“You’re gonna be able to drive me to school, right?” A voice rung in his head, the echoes pounding in rhythm with the throb. “Travis?”

He groaned, registering the matted bath rug underneath him, and the hard linoleum floor he sat on with it. There was something sticky on the side of his face, and his shoulder ached from how he’d been sleeping on it all night. He tried to move, but his entire body felt like a magnet was pulling it back to the ground.

“Ugh, nevermind, just tell me where the keys are.” His exasperated sister flipped him onto his back, digging through the pockets of his pajama pants and sighing when she came up with nothing.

“No, no, I got it.” Travis slurred his words a bit as he managed to sit up, leaning against the tiled bathroom wall for support. He pretended he could blame everything on the sleep inertia rather than somehow managing to wake up both drunk and hungover at the same time.

“You have wine all over your face and in your hair, you don’t ‘got’ anything.” Madeline snapped, gesturing to his head. Travis blinked dumbly as he reached up and touched his temple, realizing that’s what the sticky sensation was. He was just glad it wasn’t vomit this time.

“Whatever, I’ll clean up. It’s fine. I’m fine.” He didn’t sound very convincing, and based on the look Madeline gave him, he wasn’t. He slowly stood up, gripping onto the sink for support, and looked at the mess in the mirror.

The right side of his face was now colored a mild reddish-purple, but it didn’t stand out too harshly against his tanned skin, it was the sticky feeling that bothered him the most. His hair was a different story, though; blond strands stained a reddish-pinkish-purple depending on where you looked, bunched together in ugly clumps. His dark eyes were flanked with a sharp redness from all the drunk crying he did the previous night—or, one of them was still dark. The right one was faded, now, and his vision had been going along with it as time went on. He tried not to think about why as he stared directly at it.

To his left, Madeline sighed. Travis didn’t want to look at the sad, pitying expression he knew was on her face right now. “Just, hurry up, please. I don’t wanna be late.”

Again.

That was the part she left out.

Travis washed himself up rather quickly after managing to get himself started, only nicking himself shaving once this time, which was a good sign. He didn’t bother getting dressed since he had nowhere to go today, but he did change out of the clothes he slept on the bathroom floor in, covered in wine, snot and tears, maybe a little blood of unknown origin.

He wore some thin, plaid pajama pants and a band shirt that Larry had gotten him, somewhat of a housewarming gift and a reconciliation gift at the same time. He swore they were really good, that Travis should check them out because he’d probably like them more than other metal bands, but he never did, he just wasn’t sure he’d be able to get into a band called Acid Bath.

He trudged out of the apartment after Madeline. As he left, he spotted Sal’s dad, Henry, exiting the elevator with some mail in his hand. He looked tired, but he perked up as he spotted Travis and his sister, and Travis tried to mentally prepare himself for a short conversation with the man.

“Ah, mornin’ guys. How are you?” He smiled. Travis couldn’t explain why that made him anxious.

“Tired, the usual. What else can you feel on a Monday?” Travis shrugged.

“It’s Wednesday, moron.” Madeline said.

“Wednesday, whatever. It’s one of the days of the week. I got close.” Travis fired back sharply.

“Well, at least you were only two days off, I woke up thinking it was Friday for some reason.” Henry shrugged, and Travis tried to let himself feel normal for a second, but it was just another face he put on. Just another long-practiced photogenic smile he pulled out. “That’s being an adult for you, huh?” He said back.

He could speak the part all he wanted, he’d always been praised by the adults for sounding a lot older than he was, but when he shut the door to his bedroom at night, he curled up in the sheets he brought from the house he grew up in and he felt just as small as he did at eight years old.

“Yeah, it sure is. Well, I’ll let you go, get Maddie to school before she’s late and all and I’ll catch you later. Say hi to Sal for me if you see him, alright?” Henry gave a stiff yet polite smile as he grabbed the doorknob with one hand and waved goodbye with the other. Travis and Madeline nodded, waving back as they stepped into the elevator.

“Will do, Mr. Fisher.” Travis said as the doors closed.

The two of them ran to their dad’s–right, now it was Travis’s–old pickup truck, trying to dodge the rain as best they could. The truck sputtered to life as he turned the key and he pulled out, only hitting the curb once as he turned out of the apartment parking lot.

“Why don’t you go on dates or anything fun like that?” Madeline asked as she adjusted her hair and makeup in the flip-down mirror, and Travis rolled his eyes. He was too tired for a conversation like this, too caught up in his head about all his flaws, and he scoffed bitterly. “That won’t be happening any time soon.” He said, focusing on the road.

Madeline pouted. “Why not? You clean up pretty nice when you lay off the booze, I’m sure plenty of girls are in-”

“I’m gay.”

The car went quiet.

“Oh.”

He didn’t know why he’d said it at all, let alone right now instead of in a situation he could escape from if she got angry. But she didn’t seem angry, she seemed like she was just… Thinking about it. The anger would probably come later, he was sure, when she realized the social repercussions of having a half-blind faggot for an older brother.

Nevermind the fact that the only other faggots he knew of in Nockfell he’d had a very strained relationship with, considering how he used to bully them for being faggots in high school, back when he was still convinced he could become normal if he’d just prayed hard enough.

Normal. Hah. What a fucking joke.

Larry’s shirt felt like it was choking him.

The rest of the drive to Nockfell High was quiet. It didn’t exactly feel tense, but the air still felt thick with realization.

“See you after school. Don’t get too wasted to pick me up.” Madeline’s movements and tone were hesitant, awkward. She left the car in the drop-off line, and Travis just nodded, his mouth dry.

When he got back to the apartments, he stood by the entrance for a while underneath the awning looking at the pathetic little life he’s managed to make with his sister in the wake of their father’s arrest. Of the arrest of a number of other townspeople. Of the arrest of their other sister.

It was raining when the FBI had arrived, too, easily pulling him off of the bloody pulp he’d been beating his father into in front of the church when his sister struggled. He’d been screaming so hard his throat was raw, his own blood and tears mixing in with the weather, and a woman pulled him into her arms, thrashing and shrieking like an animal. He couldn’t tell if she was trying to comfort him or restrain him.

He didn’t know they were coming. Nobody did.

Looking back on it, Travis thought there must’ve been a God, because that was the only way to explain the cosmic irony of finally being saved from their father the moment he’d finally accepted that nobody was ever coming to save them. That’s why he was prepared to kill his father that night, and he still feels like he should’ve, but when the social worker held his head into her chest as they put his barely conscious father into handcuffs, he curled up in her arms and wailed.

Now he was here.

Twenty-one, almost twenty-two, but he didn’t feel like it. In an apartment that didn’t feel like it was his, full of a lot of nostalgia and second-hand things.

He went to the bathroom and properly cleaned up the mess he’d left on the floor that morning, finding that his wine bottle still had a bit left inside. He finished it off as he cleaned, letting the alcohol lubricate his mind. When he was done, he tossed the bottle in the garbage and grabbed some more from the small wine rack by the kitchen as he continued around the house, grabbing his and Madeline’s laundry to bring down to the basement, then doing the dishes, vacuuming the carpet, mopping the kitchen, wiping the counters, cleaning the toilet, dusting the tube, re-organizing the fridge and pantry, cleaning out the kitchen drawers and doing anything else he could think of to keep his drunk mind off of the weight on his back.

He was going to bust out the grout to fix some holes in the tiling in the bathroom when he realized his insober hands would be far too imprecise. He needed to cut himself off if he wanted to be sober enough to pick up Madeline later.

He checked the time, assuming it had to have been several hours since he’d dropped his sister off, but it was only half past eleven. He gave a shaky sigh, unsure of what else to fill the time with if he didn’t want to keep thinking about it all but couldn’t get any drunker than he already was.

Sitting on the couch, he decided to flip on the TV. Maybe he could find something that would turn his brain off.

He channel surfed, flipping through morning talk shows, news channels, sitcom re-runs. He sat on an episode of Family Batters for a bit before deciding that Sbeve Urkel just wasn’t doing it for him today and went back to searching when something caught his attention.

It was the beginning of some children’s show he was only vaguely familiar with, My Glitter Ponies: Rainbow Spectacular. Madeline used to like the toys when she was younger, but she’d grown out of it in recent years. They never got to watch the cartoon, they didn’t have a TV growing up, so the only times they’d ever got to watch it was when they’d gone to a friend’s house. Maybe it was fun.

He pulled his knees to his chest and leaned against the armrest of the tattered love seat Lisa had pulled from the dumpster for him and let the episode play.

It made his chest hurt to think about childhood more often than not. Both his own childhood, and the concept itself left him feeling a deep seated ache. He was often familiar with a feeling he didn’t know the name of, he just called it ‘bad nostalgia’, named as such because nostalgia was usually supposed to feel good, and this generally didn’t. He mostly felt it when he was reminded of the good periods of his childhood, times he wanted to go back and relive just to feel like a child one more time before he had to grow up. Maybe if he was able to have just one good, strong childhood memory to point to, to orient himself under, he would feel ready for all of it to be over and he could finally move on.

But you only get one childhood, and he could never get those years back.

As the cartoon flashed in front of his drunken eyes, magical problems solved with the power of friendship, he was reminded of the figurines his sister handed to him when she wanted him to play with her. The two of them were so small. It was so easy for Kenneth to grab them and throw them around however he wanted, by the arms, by the ears, by the collar, by the hair. But he wasn’t home that day he was thinking of, it was just them in Madeline’s bedroom, and Mary making lunch in the kitchen—macaroni—back before her eyes went so dark and she still smiled. Nobody could get them here, not in Madeline’s bedroom or in his mind.

He woke up a couple of hours later, his face damp with tears. The sound of someone knocking at the door cut through the fog of his fatigue and got up fast enough to make himself dizzy, checking the time as fast as he could. He was thankful to find it was only three, and Madeline got off of school at around three forty-five. Plenty of time.

He stood up more carefully and wiped his face off.

“I’m coming.” He uttered, just loud enough to be heard through the door as he peered through the eyehole to find Henry.

He unlocked the door and opened it, hoping he didn’t look like total shit, but Henry’s grimace told him otherwise.

“Bad time?” He asked.

Travis shook his head. “No, no, I’m just… Y’know.” He wiped his face again.

“I just wanted to check in on ya, see how you were doin’.” Henry gave an apologetic smile. It felt like there was a weight to it that Travis didn’t understand, but he was never good at reading people.

“I’m- I’m alright, Mr. Fisher, thanks.” Travis gave an exhausted one back.

“You sure? ‘Cus you’ve got a stain that’s either blood or wine in your hair, and either way that’s not a good sign to me.” Henry gestured vaguely to a spot on his head, his mouth flattening itself.

Shit, he thought he got all that out.

Travis sighed and leaned against the door frame more heavily, arms loosely crossed, letting go of some of that mask and letting himself look as bad as he felt. Not that he was trying that hard in the first place to look fine, but he definitely looked worse as he took that extra layer off of himself.

“It’s nothing, really. Same shit as usual. Nightmares, bad memories, et cetera.” He smiled to try and make himself seem more lighthearted about it than he was, but he had a feeling it just made him look bitter. Whatever, he was bitter.

“Well even the same shit needs to get talked about, ‘specially if you’re drinking about it at three PM.” Henry’s voice was low and sympathetic, tilting his head inward while his thumbs hooked themselves through his belt-loops.

Travis really did not want to have a conversation like this right now. “Look, Mr. Fisher, I have to pick up Maddie soon, so-”

“Hey, doesn’t have to be with me. It could even be in a journal or something, that’s what Sal and Lisa do. Just as long as you’re not completely leaving it in here.” He tapped his temple with a raised brow, as if he was giving some kind of sage advice that Travis wasn’t already aware of. It’s not like he was trying to keep all of this in, it’s that he didn’t have anyone but Maddie, and she already occasionally has to comfort him when he wakes up from nightmares in the middle of the night, he can’t keep putting her in that position.

And Henry… That was Sal Fisher’s father. As in, Sal Fisher, one of the guys he used to bully for being a faggot in school. The guy who’d given him a lot more patience and grace than anyone else did, much more than he felt like he deserved. They’d long since reconciled, they’d never really hated each other anyway, but it wasn’t easy to pretend like tension wasn’t still there, especially when facing his father. He’d rather keep his distance.

Travis sighed. “…Alright, I will. And,” He flicked his eyes downwards. “Thanks. For checking.” He didn’t want Henry to feel like he was being completely rejected, even if he was going to take his suggestion of talking about it and immediately throw it into the garbage.

“No problem, kid. Just remember that people need people to live. Take care, I’ll see you around.” He walked back to his apartment, his socked feet padding over the matted and stomped-down carpet. Travis watched him until he opened the door and went inside, wondering why the man kept coming over like this, checking on him, trying to be friends with him. Travis didn’t want or need friends right now, and as nice as the guy was, he kind of wished he would take the hint and fuck off. Must be a family trait.

He shut the front door and went to clean himself up in the bathroom so he didn’t look like total shit when he went to pick up his sister from school.

He showered, moisturized, combed his hair, put cold spoons over his eyes to try and keep the bags underneath them at bay, and by the time he was finished, he almost looked like a person. He still felt somewhat disoriented as he put on his shoes and walked out of the apartment, but he could drive with one eye closed if he needed to.

He pulled out of the apartment parking lot and managed to stay in one lane for the majority of the drive.

In the drop-off line, Madeline flung her backpack into the back seat aggressively before getting in, slamming the car door shut and leaning against the window with her arms crossed. Travis raised a brow as he made his way through the line and back onto the main road. “Bad day?” He asked. Madeline just rolled her eyes. “I don’t wanna talk about it.” She huffed. Travis shrugged and decided to leave it alone. “Alright, then.”

The drive was quiet for a few minutes before Madeline spoke up again.

“It’s just that Celine is pissed off at me because I told her George Michael is gay and that stuck-up bitch won’t let it go.” She glared at the passing fences and power lines.

Travis blinked. That was news to him. “He is?” He asked into the rear view, and Madeline just looked at him incredulously. “Duh!” She said. Travis hummed contemplatively as he watched the world pass by from his dashboard. Just more pop-culture bullshit he was out of touch with, nothing new, but if George Michael was gay and doing alright, maybe he should listen to the guy sometime.

“And… You too, apparently.” Travis tensed as they made eye contact in the rear view again.

Right, he’d told her that this morning. He had no idea why. Maybe he was drunker than he thought he was this morning, maybe he was tired of her asking when he’ll go on a date or something, he wasn’t sure. That was the first time he’d ever said it out loud and he barely remembered it.

“Yeah.” Travis said quietly as he focused back on the road.

“How come you never told me?” She asked, and Travis could hear the disappointment in her voice.

He paused, focusing on the way his head swam a bit as he drove through the old roads. “I wanted to be normal.” His answer was shockingly honest, but it’s not like he had many options.

Madeline scoffed. “You know everything dad said was bullshit.” She said, looking back out the window.

A bitterness bubbled in Travis’s chest. She didn’t get it, she was normal.

“Knowing and believing are two different things when your dad beats you because your hair is too long and he doesn’t want you looking like a faggot.” That was a bit harsher than he’d intended for it to be. Madeline looked through the mirror with an apologetic expression before looking back out the window.

“Sorry.” She said quietly.

“It’s okay.” He replied, his face softening.

They arrived back at the apartments a couple of minutes later, wiping their shoes off on the doormat. Madeline made a beeline for the elevator while Travis stopped and double checked the mailbox first.

Bills, bills, local news station, a less local news station, oh—he’s pre-approved for some credit card he doesn’t care about. Awesome.

“Hurry up or I’m letting the doors close without you, dickhead.” Madeline called from the elevator, her arm held out, and Travis rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, whatever, I’m coming, you little shit.”

They stepped into the apartment and Madeline tossed her bag on the couch before pausing.

“It’s really clean today.” She looked around and made her way to the kitchen, looking for something sweet. She seemed careful, knowing what it meant when things were too put-together. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. It was nothing.” He grabbed his copy of Carrie off the coffee table and sat down to read it again.

It went silent as Madeline started heating up some of their apple cider on the stove. When it was done, she poured two glasses and left the rest on a low heat setting and covered it for later. She walked over to the couch, nudging her brother’s leg with her foot to get his attention, and she handed him the warm glass.

“Thanks.” Said Travis.

She hummed as she sat down close next to him, her head on his shoulder, watching the quiet TV he’d left on all day as he sipped his cider and read.

“You know we’re in this together, right?” Madeline asked, after a few moments of silence.

Travis looked at her out of the corner of his eye. She was staring straight ahead. “Yeah, of course.” He replied.

“Then why don’t you tell me stuff?” She sounded more than just disappointed this time, she sounded betrayed. “I tell you everything, but you don’t tell me what’s bugging you, you just drink. I’ve been asking you about dates for months and it’s only now that you tell me you don’t even like girls. Now you’re stress cleaning again and you won’t even tell me why. Is it money?” She turned to face him, and Travis looked at her apologetically.

“If it’s money, I could get a part-time job. I’m not in any clubs or anything special like that, and my grades are fine, I promise I can help.” Travis sighed and put the book in his lap.

“No, it’s not money, we’re okay on money.” Travis said, and they were. They didn’t really have any savings at the moment, but other than that, they were alright, so it’s not like it was a complete lie.

“Then what is it, Travis? Just talk to me, please?” She pleaded.

“I don’t need to be putting my shit on you like that, Lin, you just need to worry about finishing school.” His voice was soft as he tried to dodge her questions.

“Bullshit! How am I supposed to worry about finishing school when I’m not even sure you’ll be able to drive me there in the mornings because you keep drinking yourself to sleep every night?” Now she really looked pissed, and Travis had a feeling that it wasn’t Celine’s indignancy that put her in that mood on the way home.

He didn’t respond. He didn’t have a good answer to any of her questions, but especially not that one.

“I’m worried about you, Travis.” Madeline replied to his silence. “I know it’s been hard with the trial coming up and Mary being put away, but we’re not gonna get through this if you don’t talk to me.”

Shit, he’d forgotten about the trial. It was supposed to happen in late February. He’d been so stressed with other bullshit that he forgot to get stressed about that. And Mary—what day was it? They were supposed to visit her in the hospital that Saturday.

Travis set his book aside, and his drink on the table, sighing. He wrapped an arm around his sister tiredly. “It’s just bad memories. It’s nothing I can’t handle.” He said. It wasn’t exactly true, but it wasn’t entirely false either.

“Then why do you keep drinking about it?” Madeline’s voice was quiet and bland.

Travis sucked in a deep breath through his teeth. “It just makes things easier.”

“Easier than talking to me about it?”

“Look-” Travis started, but he cut himself off, staring at the wall behind the TV as he held her. “It’s just hard.” His voice shook as he realized he didn’t even know what to say. He hardly understood why he was so upset this morning. He knows he’d been drinking, but he felt so alienated from the ache of that familiar smallness he felt, curled up on the couch. Madeline looked up at him with a soft expression, and he looked away.

“I used to think that when we got away from dad, I would know exactly what to do and I’d be able to handle it, but now that I’m here, I don’t understand anything anymore. I went from having no control over my life to having complete responsibility so fast my head is still spinning.” He leaned back against the couch and tugged on his earlobe as he stared at the ceiling. “When you’re a kid, nobody tells you that all the adults are just winging it because you have no idea what’s going to happen next. I don’t even feel like an adult yet, I don’t know if I ever will.”

“Everything changed so fast it feels like I got whiplash.” Madeline replied. “I still can’t believe it’s over. My classmates keep asking me questions, and they make fun of me for it. They call me the cult girl.”

“Yeah, they used to call me church boy. I still can’t believe I tried to hand pamphlets out to people all the time.” He laughed bitterly, and he was hit with familiar pangs of loss over what his father robbed them of. “I wish I could tell you it gets better, but I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I’m sorry.” Travis’s expression grew anxious as he stared at the ceiling.

“I believe they will.” Madeline said, wrapping her arms around Travis. “As long as we stick together and work hard, things will get better. They have to.”

Travis felt like that outlook was rather naive, but then he remembered Sal Fisher, the boy who’d started it all by moving here and sticking his nose into the Phelps family’s business, not stopping until Travis’s father was arrested. He believed from the start that things would get better, and when Travis walked out of the police station early the morning after his father was taken in, Sal was there with his hair down, damp and clumped together from the rain that happened the previous night. He hadn’t even showered yet.

Travis was shaking, and it wasn’t from the cold, with his arms wrapped around himself. It wasn’t easy at 5’11, but he tried to make himself look as small as possible. He wanted to go home and pull all his hair out, but Sal wrapped a skinny arm around his waist because it was the best his height would allow for, and he led him outside to Larry’s van.

“This is it, Travis. A new start.” He’d said, his voice gentle. “Things are gonna get better.”

“I think you’re right.” Travis said, swallowing the lump in his throat. “As long as we stick together, it’ll be okay.”

Please God, don’t let her be wrong, Travis thought to himself. I don’t think I could take it if she was.

After a comfortable silence between the two of them, Madeline spoke up again. “Drink your cider before it gets cold, I made that for you, asshole.”

Travis let go of her and punched his sister in the shoulder a bit roughly. “Shut up, you were the one who made it and then decided to have a gut-wrenching conversation immediately afterward. Do we have any bourbon or anything to put in here?” Travis got up from the couch and went to look in the kitchen.

“Oh come on, seriously?” Madeline got up from the couch looking about ready to throttle him.

“Don’t worry, you can have some too, if you want.” Travis smirked as he picked the large bourbon bottle from the corner of the kitchen floor. It was too big to keep anywhere else.

She grumbled under her breath before giving in to the teenage allure of a trusted older family member offering her alcohol. “Okay fine, scoot over.” Madeline grabbed her glass and bumped herself into Travis’s side, causing him to almost spill the bourbon he was pouring into his cider.

“Oof- you little shit.” He glared at her, but there was no fire behind it, and Madeline laughed at him. “C’mon, my turn.” She gave up her cup and made her best puppy-dog eyes. Travis rolled his and poured a good amount of bourbon into her drink.

“Now c’mon, they’re about to play The Odd Couple on the ABC channel. That’s a fun one to watch drunk.” Travis began herding his sister back to the living room.

“Oh, great. Speaking of,” Madeline started as they sat down. “When are you gonna get a boyfriend? If you lay off the booze, I’m sure plenty of guys are into tall twinks with problems.”

Travis did a double take and nearly choked on his drink. “I am not a- where did you even learn that word? Fuck you.” Madeline just laughed at him a lot harder than he wanted to hear. “My friend Georgie. He said you’d get mad if I called you that.” Travis sneered. “Yeah, because he’s wrong. Tell Georgie to go fuck himself.”

Madeline raised her brows as she put her legs on his lap. “Mm, I don’t know, I think he’s right.”

Travis scoffed and continued bickering with his sister as he flipped through the channels, catching the opening credits to The Odd Couple just in time.

As Madeline kicked him in the shoulder and he threatened to kill her for almost making him spill his drink, he was reminded of his conversation with Henry earlier, about making sure things don’t stay in his head. He certainly felt better than he did before, he didn’t even feel like getting completely wasted tonight. It felt like he was drinking for fun, and not to make himself sleep as quickly as possible. He actually wanted to be awake as the afternoon faded into evening, to watch the movie with his sister, to get some drunk cooking done for the two of them later.

He sunk into his couch and smiled as the bourbon started to hit him a little bit.

Henry was right. People need people, and no two people needed each other more than Travis and Madeline, because they were all each other had right now.

As long as they held onto each other, things were going to get better.

#my fics #sally face #travis phelps #madeline phelps #alligator blood (au)

15 notes · View notes

honeyhotteoks · 20 days ago

Note

oh chai, we'd love to hear your thoughts on unpacking trauma and sexual exploring through fiction!

i feel like it's such a deep topic to explore and talk about!

✨anon

okay i’m putting on my social sciences/literature hat on for this one, but it’s also about to get a little personal in here, so i’m throwing my reply under the cut :)

cw for discussions around trauma, grief, SA, violence, child SA, taboo kinks etc.

this is most certainly going to get a little rambly, but i have a lot of thoughts about this and personal experiences to bring to the table. i’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because i was recently watching a conversation in a discord server dig into more niche kinks in a way that was using so much problematic and shameful language i was really disappointed. this is also a huge reason why i am a big proponent of tagging fics accurately, and spills over into all the big thoughts i have about the romance genre and dark romance in particular.

i’ll start from a personal perspective so everyone understands my reference points. without getting into too much detail, i have a lot of childhood trauma around emotional and physical abuse / neglect that i’ve been unpacking in therapy for a long time, but writing has also been a place for me to work through many of those issues. i’ve also personally experienced sexual harassment and attempted assault, and as many of you probably already know, i experienced the sudden loss of my father several years ago. writing has always been, and will probably always be, the place where i work through those complex thoughts. in aurora the reader’s mother suddenly passed away and was dealing with an alcoholic father, and i was writing that at the same time i was dealing with the sudden traumatic loss of my father and my mother’s battle with alcoholism. it was beyond cathartic for me to write through that experience, especially in a way where my alternative “self” in reader was being cared for, listened to, validated, and held through that grief. while it wasn’t intentional at the time, i didn’t set out to write that to make myself feel better, when i read it now i realize how much i was trying to process at that time and how helpful it was. the same can be said for TNT, the attempted claim scene in retrospect really was my attempt at processing something very personal and almost ‘re-writing’ it with yunho and mingi as protective heroes, something i did not have at the time.

that is all to say, romance as a genre has used particular tropes, kinks, or taboos forever and i think it is a really reductive reading of that genre to assume women are just writing and reading things because they think it’s ‘hot’ or ‘sexy’ or whatever. i’ve been reading hurt/comfort and SA recovery fics and novels in the romance space forever, it’s honestly a personal favorite of mine. while i know some people hate that trope, i would argue that through fiction people who have suffered a trauma might be able to safely expose themselves to those ideas / triggers and find comfort in storylines that don’t turn out as painful and awful as the real world. in the real world victims of SA for example often do not get justice, they may have many re-traumatizing experiences, and they may struggle to get the help that they need or to find a partner who is understanding and supportive. fiction is an opportunity to explore the alternative. what if the worst thing in the world could happen to you (or did happen to you) but instead of the system failing you etc., what if someone had been there to emotionally and physically support you in the ways you wanted and needed?

that is one way of exploring those concepts, but another is through kink. i’m specifically thinking about CNC for this example, and i know that some people find that kink not only triggering but distasteful, but there are many people who have experienced a traumatic incident where they were out of control that a properly organized cnc scene can help them feel fully in control, because they are. for some, cnc is a kink that makes no sense and seems no different than a ‘rape fetish’, but for many it is a way to safely process trauma or fears while always having the control to say when too much is too much.

as a note, i’d extend this further to other concepts, kinks, or taboos as well. i’m not saying everyone should be comfortable reading or engaging with kinks like ddlg, age play, incest kinks, etc. etc., but this can be a safe way to unpack trauma for some. specifically for something like ddlg, the safety of a dominant caring for their partner as they play in a child-like headspace can be incredibly healing for some. it’s not something i personally understand or have experience with, but i have spoken to those in kink spaces who feel this very intrinsically and are in deeply healthy relationships with this as a dynamic. from a writing perspective, these kinks can be explored safely within the bounds of fiction and comfort characters in ways that can be very healing and very safe.

now, this isn’t to say everyone writing dark concepts has had a trauma that they are working through, but it certainly is my personal experience and in talking with a lot of different writers and readers, this is a common thread. the safety of fiction, particularly in the romance genre, allows spaces for people, particularly women, to rework and process concepts of trauma, safety, and security. i particularly emphasize the concept of a ‘safe man’ here. i don’t know a woman alive who hasn’t had a traumatic or distasteful experience with a man, misogyny is rampant…. but many of us still love men, want relationships with men, and want to feel safe and validated by men. there are lots of good guys out there to be sure, but fiction is a great way of exploring something traumatic or scary with the knowledge that the character will be saved/safe/cared for/healed by a man, something many women might want in a partner.

one disclaimer i do have though on the dark romance genre as a whole - while i understand that a bully romance or very serious enemies to lovers romance (i.e. a villain who is actually abusing the FMC) can also function in the same ways, to unpack trauma, i do read this genre with a lot of caution and i think we need to be careful in the ways that we talk about these romances. again, this is not to shame anyone’s preferences whatsoever, but i do think we need to be careful about how we discuss certain dark romance concepts. i personally will not read and will never write work that features a relationship where the male romantic lead starts off as a physical or emotional abuser, for me this is too triggering and offers too many gray areas for young readers to misinterpret healthy relationships vs. kink exploration and fantasy. It’s totally fine if this is how you as a reader explore and unpack trauma, or even just what you find hot outside of that, but I personally think we need to be careful hyping these books up etc. HOWEVER - dead dove content has existed for a very long time, and everything i’ve said about unpacking and reworking trauma through fiction applies here, it’s purely a personal preference that i limit this content for myself.

lastly, on the note of sexuality and sexual exploration - fanfiction has been a space for people to safely explore this too. to be more than exceptionally clear, sexuality is not a “kink”, has nothing to do with “taboos” or trauma or anything i’ve spoken about thus far. but in the same way that fiction, particularly fanfiction, is a place to explore the interior, this applies to sexuality. In fiction, you can explore same sex relationships, het relationships, cis, trans, and nonbinary experiences alike, to say nothing of polyamory. Outside of just sexual acts and bodies, it’s a place to explore romantic attachments of all different kinds. As a bisexual woman who grew up in a very conservative, very christian household, fanfiction was a place for me to explore the idea of f/f relationships, m/m relationships, and all kinds of combinations in between. In fiction, these relationships can be explored without the threat of ostracism or physical violence, something many people in the lgbtqia+ community know too well. whether reading or writing, it’s a way to explore those internal thoughts, impulses, and interests safely and often in stories that have a happy ending to look forward to.

hopefully that makes sense if you’re still here - and feel free to ask any questions you may have! :)

#answered anon #✨ anon

11 notes · View notes

deaddovestellnotales · 1 year ago

Text

BG3 Companions and the Abuse Cycle / Trauma - Astarion

It has been itching in my fingers to write an analysis about the main cast and their trauma (responses). As it happens, Baldurs Gate 3 stumbled into my life at the very time in which I began my trauma recovery, and as such seeing the very struggles I go through represented so well in the game, it will forever hold a dear place in my heart. Alas, enough about me, I will begin my analysis with Astarion, because his trauma (response) is the most like mine, followed by Karlach.

Astarion

From what I can gather of his background, his dialogue, and his actions, Astarion's greatest traumas stem from being controlled and sexually, as well as physically abused. Ever since he had become one of Cazador's Spawns, he had no say about his own life. He was a plaything to be messed with. His opinions did not matter, they were mocked and ridiculed. His boundaries didn't exist to Cazador, neither sexual nor moral ones. Astarion had to live feeling powerless for centuries, made to use his body as a tool for his vampiric abuser.

But that changes when he gets infected by the tadpole. For the first time in so many years, Astarion can make his own choices, can feel in control over himself and his own body. And he relishes in it!

He doesn't want to hold back anymore, he wants to experience everything that was denied to him; The rush of being your own master not being held back by moral obligations, judgments, or most importantly his very nature as a spawn, any longer, is intoxicating.

But Astarion is at the beginning of his trauma recovery journey and suffers from Cazador's bad influence still. So, Astarion doesn't know how to set proper boundaries yet, he doesn't know how to respect other's boundaries either and he enacts what his abuser did to him onto other people. He says he doesn't care about saving others, finds killing fun, and finds hurting other people entertaining if it gives him an advantage. And why? Because this is how Astarion learned to be powerful! Nobody has been kind to him for centuries, or respected a simple word like "No". It's been a big fight, his life is "kill or be killed".

His relationship with his "siblings" is also interesting in that context. He was Cazador's "favorite", reminding me of a Narcissist's golden Child. So even experiencing a healthy relationship with the other spawn was denied to him and this shows as well, as he pities them but he is willing to throw them aside if it means he will gain power (over them).

And if you let Astarion ascend and don't set a good example in his life, by simple respect of his boundaries, he will not break the cycle. He will become Cazador, he will become the abuser.

Now, in contrast, if you respect Astarion's wishes, if you don't force him to do things he doesn't want to do if you stop him from ascending, it is interesting to see his reactions.

For example, if you don't involve yourself with the Drow twins, and read between the lines, recognizing Astarion being uncomfortable, you can see the relief in his facial animation and hear it in his voice (props to the voice actor!), being glad that you are respecting his wishes. Or if you don't rat him out to the blood alchemist in Moonrise Tower (i forgot her name, sorry!), he will be surprised by someone respecting his boundaries for the first time! All those actions change him for the better, the change culminating in his final romance scene - in the case you are dating him - where he will openly state how you showed him that he has a voice even without being all-powerful and abusing others. That you changed him.

Astarion's trauma journey is about learning to set boundaries and using the freedom he has without at the same time becoming what he hates. Astarion's trauma response is fight!

And I find both of these awfully relatable.

There is honestly so much more I want to write about him, but I will save this for another post.

If you want to see where I am going with this about Karlach, await my next rambling post!.

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #astarion #bg3 astarion

74 notes · View notes

aevallare · 7 months ago

Note

I was thinking about your response to that ask about abuse/being a survivor and i think it really highlighted for me why I enjoy Kindred so much. A lot of times in fandom it seems like people recognize trauma as a thing that means a character needs healing, like to be coddled and protected. "Poor precious baby nothing bad can ever happen to you again" type thing. It feels rare for people to fully engage with the reality of recovery as being both non-linear and something that often leads to lashing out. Hurt people hurt people, y'know. And obviously that's not an excuse for harmful behavior, but it's a reality of the process. People need room to fuck up and have their loved ones call them on it but be empathetic about it. It's clear you're writing your work with a lot of love and care and I just wanted to say that I am also glad you're here and that the work you're doing matters.

i think there's a lot of room for those stories and i don't mean to diminish them, but it's hard for me to fully fall into them. what happened to me hurt and was horrible and a lot of other things.

and it also made me do things unconscionable. i hurt so many people. i still do sometimes, if i'm not careful.

but the thing that was more important than anything was that i was allowed to fuck up. and i got called on it. and i grew for it.

to be clear, kindred is a lot of wish fulfillment for me. i think i would have truly benefited from a softer hand than i found myself taking for much of my "healing journey," so i thought, hey. i'll give it to astarion. but a softer hand isn't one that shields from everything. astarion's a grown fucking man. i'm a grown fucking woman. my victories and mistakes are mine. what kind of story about healing would i be writing if astarion, train wreck that he is, didn't fuck up?

hell, it's one of my favorite things about him. if you put him in a narrative car, he'll crash it every time.

#asks #kindred #i love you.

24 notes · View notes

autistichalsin · 1 year ago

Note

Okay, I’ve been a bit scared because I’ve been observing from the sidelines, but I do want you to know this isn’t a hateful or troll ask, I’m genuinely asking for clarification.

In my experience, “pro-shipping” has always meant ‘problematic shipping’, and all of the people I’ve talked to about this have said the same thing.

Am I the one who’s misconstrued? I really don’t get it.

Being called “pro-harassment” or “pro-censorship” is hurtful and confusing as all hell.

I don’t harass people for what they create. I don’t care to do that. I block and move on, and warn people if I know they could be upset by the content.

But I also don’t understand how certain things are justified.

I am personally not bothered by much, but I have watched friends and acquaintances go through visceral traumatic reactions because people have decided to air out their coping by sharing it with the public. (I.E, people who write romantic incestual fics, etc)

I don’t give a shit what people write. I really don’t. But it feels harmful to use the excuse of coping when you, in turn, could be hurting dozens of others.

Like I said, I genuinely am not trying to be hateful here. I’m confused, and still distraught that all of this is happening. I don’t think anyone deserves to be harassed. I just also don’t get the logic here.

Pro-shipping never once meant problematic shipping. It meant opposite of "anti" because antis would come and invade the tags and asks, calling them all kinds of names if they found their ships distasteful.

Sorry that being indirectly accused of supporting harassment hurt your feelings. Imagine how I felt, being DIRECTLY accused of supporting rape in real life because of my taste in fiction. You are throwing in your lot with people who can't distinguish fantasy and reality.

I don't like incest fics either, anon. They are triggering for me. So you know what I do? I don't read fics tagged as incest. For that reason, I have never been triggered by an incest fic. I suppose I would be if I read an incest fic that wasn't tagged as much, but you will never find a single pro-shipper who defends posting such content without a tag. You are responsible for your own experience online; it is your job to curate the content.

If it was just seeing that the fic exists that triggered the response, then I'm sorry to say they're still in the wrong. As a survivor, learning that triggers exist and how to navigate those triggers is on you. We are responsible for how we deal with our trauma. Your friends didn't deserve their traumas, and they deserve kindness and support, but requesting that people never be allowed to write distasteful fiction so that they don't have to be upset by the idea that someone somewhere shipped incest is not reasonable. Their feelings are valid; it's totally reasonable to be triggered, to strictly curate your online experience. It's reasonable to block everyone who ships the upsetting incest ships, to put an "incest shippers DNI" on your page, all of it. It's not reasonable to call them supporters of IRL incest or to accuse them of causing your trauma. It isn't hard at all on AO3 or Tumblr; they even give you the option to blacklist/filter out certain tags so you can avoid it without blocking users. There's easily half a dozen safeguards that already exist that are a lot less radical, a lot less likely to be weaponized against queer users, and a lot easier to enforce than trying to remove them.

Me writing fics, such as a character using kink to cope, can only harm a user who doesn't curate their feed (and who reads fics they know will trigger them, which I can only assume would then be a purposeful form of self-harm). Denying other survivors their coping mechanism, though, IS a direct form of harm. Stigmatizing recovery by saying that survivors are in any way akin to abusers for creating fiction is a direct form of harm.

It sounds to me like you've absorbed some very harmful and very narrow ideas of what recovery should and should not look like, and what is and isn't a good/valid survivor. You might want to reflect on why you're turning your attention to policing what survivors do to cope so much.

#proship #proshipper #discourse

70 notes · View notes

yinyuedijun · 9 months ago

Note

You can answer this when you're off hiatus or... Not since I feel this is a bit uncomfortable to ask for, but may I ask how to write characters who had undergone csa? And how to write how they recover from it. Again I'm sorry if this is uncomfortable you can just delete this if this brings up an uncomfortable feelings I didn't know who else to approach w this question but you as your nightflower fic is wonderfully written and I want to write a character who went through something similair

But I'm afraid of coming off as insensitive and cruel or possibly even worse someone who's writing this as simple shock value or something along those lines as I have (thankfully and luckily) never experienced something like that which makes me afraid that I might write or put something very harmful in my work

I'm sorry if this is too much to ask ^^;;;; I hope this isn't a burden....

Hi anon, thanks for the question! This is a topic that is quite important to me (as I'm sure you've noticed lol), so I'm happy to answer your question. Please forgive me for the length of my answer though because I accidentally wrote a fucking thesis 😰

So, in my opinion, the first and most important thing to remember when you're writing about people who have experienced sexual abuse (underage or otherwise) is that no two survivors are the same. Even if there are many commonalities between the stories of different survivors, ultimately the experiences and recovery process (or lack thereof) is going to be unique for everyone. As such, I can't really give you a "how-to" guide on ways to shape your story, and in fact if I tried to provide you with one then you'd probably accidentally write a caricature of an SA survivor.

However, I do highly recommend that you read stories/anecdotes from real-life survivors in order to get a realistic grasp on the experience and psychological impacts of SA. If you don't have firsthand experience with this type of trauma, I think this is the single most important thing you can do in order to create a story or character that feels authentic and nuanced, rather than coming up with a caricature of a victim/predator or accidentally writing a pointless shock value narrative. An equally helpful thing you can do is read fictional stories relating to SA that were written by actual survivors, or fictional stories that resonated with actual survivors. This will give you insight into how this type of trauma, or survivors carrying this type of trauma, can be depicted in interesting or thoughtful ways - which is not something that intuitively translates from having real life knowledge on the subject.

Now, the second point I'm going to make is somewhat controversial, and you don't need to agree with it by any means. It relates to your fear of writing something "insensitive" or "cruel". While it's amazing that you want to write your story carefully and with intention, you should also keep in mind that "insensitive" and "cruel" are very subjective terms, and different audiences will have different thresholds for them. For instance, there are some people who feel like any meaningful representation of sexual abuse (especially child sexual abuse) is inappropriate to depict. There are many others who feel that your story must exist within certain boundaries to be considered an "acceptable" narrative about sexual abuse. If these people are your intended target audience, then obviously I would try to minimize any kind of discussion of the abuse - and certainly do not write any onscreen depictions of it lol.

However, if your goal is to create a story that feels authentic and nuanced, and you want it to be enjoyed by audiences who are interested in authentic and nuanced narratives, then I can tell you that paying attention to the above group of people is literally the worst thing you can do for yourself. Sexual abuse of any kind is an inherently insensitive and cruel act, and thus detailed narratives about it will always feel insensitive and cruel in some capacity. So, when you consider the execution of your story (the events depicted, the dialogue, the level of detail, etc.), I would advise you not to think about it only with the mindset of "how can I avoid writing something insensitive/shocking/fetishizing" etc. Instead, think about it in terms of the events and thoughts you must depict in order to bring to life the feelings of your characters, and in order to make their struggles and recovery feel real. You may end up with something wildly controversial. You may also still end up with a story that shows nothing onscreen, and does not go into any detailed discussion, and is nevertheless very powerful. Wherever you land though, you'll have landed there because it's the way the story needs to be told - and not because it's how someone else dictated it should be told.

This is what I do, and unsurprisingly a lot of my stories are offensive to people lol. But ironically, many actual SA/DV survivors tell me that my characters are relatable for them, and the stories make them feel seen. While I don't write my fics for SA/DV survivors in general, I do write them for me, and I generally prefer to read SA narratives that feel authentic and nuanced, rather than ones that are gutless or sanitized. That's why I prefer this approach, and I think this is also why my approach tends to produce stories that resonate with other SA survivors. But if you think your target audience will have very different tastes from mine, then this advice may not apply. It really depends on your intent!

All that being said - whatever you may write, or however you approach it, it is already a lot that you are thinking seriously about ways to write your story thoughtfully. This is already more than what most people do when they write about characters who have gone through SA, especially CSA, and I'm sure it'll come through in your work. I know I gave you a shitton of advice just now, but honestly, don't be afraid to just give it a shot and see what comes out of it LOL. You may come up with something that is exactly what you were aiming for. And if it isn't, then you'll at least have a better sense of how to execute it in the future!

I hope this helps!!!! Sending you love 🫶

#yueshuo.asks #asks.anon #THIS IS SOOOO LONG IM SO SORRYYYY 😭😭😭#cw.sa #cw.csa

34 notes · View notes