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yesmissnyx · 4 months

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Dear Ms. Nyx,

(Asking on annon cause im nervous of ridicule)

I am a sub exploring kink with my partner and i have been reading your posts about how subs can stand out/interact healthily as part of the kink community. (I believe it was specifically about finding a dom but it had a lot on good healthy interaction too.) And the follow up ask from a dom adding their thoughts.

And i had a question. In both there was an emfasis on recognising thak kink is play/a game/a fantasy. (The ask also mentioned the red flag of subs who just want to be taken care of. Which feels related and linked to my point). And that is all understandable on some level. But not on others.

Like for me some aspects of kink are a game or fantasy that we engage in. (Bondage aspects, petplay and others) but some aspects for us are... lifestyle/relationship patterns? Like i have a praise kink and generally act pretty submissive in our relationship. So we will use praise and nicknames/petnames as a way of showing affection and connection. Or we both take care for eachother and account for each other's needs, but she often does it informed with the ways of care and being that we have explored in more explucitly kink and sexual spaces and takes the soft dominant aspects through other parts of our life together.

And i get how in sometimes it feels like play or a game but for the most part it just feels like here is love and kindness and what that means. And what a relationship means for us? Like its not a game or just a fantasy

Im just worried that i am doing it wrong or causing harm/ being unsafe.

(All of the interactions and dynamics i have duscribed have been talked over and negociated properly to be clear. We are pretty good at communication like that and well address when things go wrong(but again thats just normal relationship things its not a scene we aren't acting?))

Thanks for offering your thoughts.

Ooh, hmm! Interesting question!

I'd never thought that thinking of or referring to D/s elements as "play" or "fantasy" could feel potentially confusing or invalidating for some people.

While BDSM is often in the realm of RP/fantasy for many, that doesn't mean that it can't be Very Real and Very Much a part of a relationship. Especially a long-term committed romantic one! Not all D/s relationships have traditional scenes, or an on/off switch. Not all aspects of D/s feel like play.

That being said, you aren't obligated to think of it as "play" (read: Not Real) if that isn't what feels good for you and your partner.

Personally, I LOVE lifestyle dynamics. I enjoy D/s as a part of a relationship, all the time, 24/7. It's not necessarily play for me--sometimes it's just two people making each other feel loved and cared for in ways that are decidedly kinky.

On the note of the aforementioned red flags, it's only when a potential sub acts entitled to being taken care of, that it's a red flag. ESPECIALLY when they do so before any negotiation or communication, which is often the case.

(General sidenote: this is why the "uwu mommy breastfeed me" DMs to strangers usually don't get aspiring subs anywhere except with scammers, cum-and-go types, and abusers.)

THIS is why communication is key! I've known Dom/mes who WANT someone to be their useless little kittycat fucktoy meow-meow brat, but because everyone's negotiated, everyone's needs are being met.

But, back to the other part of your question! I think the fact that you're continually communicating and negotiating and listening to each other (I hope!) should help you navigate away from harm.

If referring to certain aspects of your relationship as "play" makes you feel bad, then it's worth having a conversation about it!

All in all, it's good to interrogate why you might feel different or weird about a common kink practice, but at the end of the day, your relationship is YOUR relationship. Everyone involved is an individual.

Think about what you learn, be honest and communicate. Luckily, there's no one template for kink relationships. (This is a good thing!)

Keep communicating with your partner, stay safe and hope this helps!

#ask nyx #kink advice #New drinking game: Take a drink whenever I say “communicate” in an advice post.#Hopefully I didn't get too lost in the sauce! I forgot to eat dinner while writing this! (This has been resolved.)

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fictionfreedom · 9 months

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My DNI/BYF/ETC.

Heavy Christians

Homophobic, transphobic, sexist, racist, etc

Pro-Capitalism/Anti-Anarchy

Antishippers

Anti-Kink

Anti-Abortion/Pro-Birth

Pro-Gun

Theriscum/Othermeds

Sysmeds

Queer exclu groups (Battleaxe Bis, Longsword Lesbians, etc)

Supports heavily controversial people with no good reasoning (mostly politicians)

Anti-Furry/Avian/Scalie

Think queer is a slur

Use Slurs you can't reclaim (ex: white person using n-word)

Queer exclus (anti-mspec lesbians and gays, etc)

Anti-Sex Work

Radfem, TERF, FART(lmao), TER, TEHM

Flag discourse on stupid stuff (ex: saying vincian flag is lesbophobic cuz it uses a similar line style like what-)

Police pronouns and labels

Pro-Trans X (If you use transabled I will kill you /hsrs That term hurts both trans people and people with BIID, learn to use the proper label.)

Pro-Contact harmful Para (maps, zoos, necros, and other seriously harmful shit)

Anti-Inclus/Anti-Critinclus (we aren't exclus for being against pro-contact/neu-contact pedophiles- we're decent beings omfg)

RadQueers (basically pro-harmful para, pro-ed, medpunk, and pro-trans x dipshits)

Medpunk (excluding BIID, basically shit like transabled, but excluding BIID, or other similar terms.)

"Safequeers" you aren't inclusionists, you're an exclusionist in sheep's clothing

Partake in cringe culture and/or on cringe subs

Xenosatanists (I've heard bad things, but I don't fully know what it is)

Police others trauma and coping mechanisms

Anti-Cishets (like.. I don't like most cishets, but c'mon..)

Misogynistic and Misandry

Against AMAB transmascs and AFAB transfems (they're transitioning to be MORE fem/masc, it doesn't hurt us)

Support AI "art" (Kind of, I'm iffy on the topic for a few small reasons, but generally don't without maybe DMing me to explain why first??)

Anti-Intersex or discriminate against intersex people

Xenomeds/Xenoscum (Peeps who believe you need dysphoria to be Xenogender like what.. eugh)

Supporters of the creator Fuboo/InvertedMindInc (Again, don't know much but have heard bad things)

BYF (Before You Follow)

We/We’re

Pro-Kink

Pro-Abortion

Pro-Furry/Scalie/Avian

Pro-mspec lesbians/gays

Pro-GNC lesbians/gays

Pro-PNC lesbians/gays

Support ALL good faith identities

Pro-NSFW artists

Pro-Xenos and Neopronouns

We are a RADICAL INCLUSIONIST (sort of)

We support ALL systems! (No, that doesn't necessarily include endos and whatnot, though I do support educating them and helping them find out if they might have hidden trauma)

We don't censor queer

We use reclaimed slurs (rtard,fggot,dke)

We are a Critical Inclus (transx isn't trans, paras don't belong in queer community)

We understand the difference between harmful paraphilia and kink, please know the difference!! Don't rope us kinksters in with fucking pro-contact pedos/zoos/etc!!

Proud pro-fiction, pro-shipper, and com-shipper

We support non-contact paraphiliacs (if the paraphilia is harmful)

We have a few paraphiliac disorders (sadly necrophilia and zoophilia but we are strictly anti-contact and coping healthily)

We support paraphilias that are not harmful and the harmful ones that are strictly no-contact (unless there are ways to "act" on them that aren't actually harmful, such as CNC for ppl with rape-related paraphilias)

Pro-BLM, StopAsianHate, #MeToo, & Land Back Movement

We call ourselves a femboy occasionally. We understand its history, but we are not using it with malicious intent. We're a femboy. Deal with it.

We support transspecies used in their original way, as for alterhumans/therians/otherkins!

DI (Do Interact)

If you/you're:

Part of Creepypasta, ATSV/ITSV, Unrealities/Horror, Gore/Guro, Cannibalism, and Analog Horror Fandoms/fans!

Metal, Punk, Rock, or genuinely any other music genre fan

Fictionkins from ATSV/ISTV/Spiderman 2099 comics (PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE BEGS CRIES SOBS PLEASE PLEASE)

Use ANY xenogenders <3

Satanists or Astrotheologists

Followers of Lucifer and Lilith, or just any God in general who can talk to me about their worship (if they'll be respectful, obvi)

Like Sex Pistols

Kinky asexuals

Brandon Rogers fan

Radqueer, but not really?? If you support people like RCTA and others with harmful "identities" or labels, or are pro-contact for harmful paraphilias.

Etc Info on us:

We use plural personal pronouns for a few unlisted reasons, but very rarely unless on big posts like this

We are Otherkin, Therian, Fictionkin, Otherhearted, and Alterhuman. We support any labels of similar extent except for people claiming to be "transspecies"

We use a LOT of labels, and plenty of them contradict each other. We may make a post specifically to give the list I have of ALL labels we use/are comfortable using.

We use lots of pronouns but just use it/thou/AI for us.

We are a necrophile and zoophile, as well as having many generally harmful paraphilias. We are anti-contact for all of them and make sure to properly cope with them in ways that keep us from possibly harming others.

We LOVE guro/gore, and will repost things about it.

We sometimes struggle with tone indicators and putting tags on posts, please be patient with us!

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phynali · 3 years

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Canonization and Fandom Purity Culture

I wrote a 1k-word twitter thread (as proof that I am Not made for Twitter and it’s goddamn 240-character limit) and am pasting it here with edits and updates (it’s now 2k words).

I have thoughts to share (which I know have been stated more eloquently before by others) about this trend of demanding/obsessing that certain ships become "canon" and how it overlaps with the rise of fandom purity culture.

Under the cut.

Here in 2021 there is a seemingly large and certainly loud and active contingent of online fandoms who desire (or even demand) "canon validation" for a given interpretation of a source material. This is more true with shipping than anywhere else.

First, it is important to note that the trend is not limited to queer ships or to any single fandom. In the past few years I've seen it for Riverdale, Voltron, Supernatural (perhaps most extreme?), The 100, etc., and less recent with the MCU, Sherlock, Teen Wolf, Hawaii 5-0, etc. It is a broad trend across ships, fandoms, and mediums.

So if it is more common for queer ships, it is hardly unique to them. Similarly, pretending that it is about queer representation is a clever misdirect to disguise the fact that it is most often about ships and shipping wars. If you ever need proof of that, consider that a character can be queer without being in a given relationship or reciprocating another character's affections. Thus a call for more/better queer rep itself is very different than a call for specific ships to be made canon.

Also note that when audiences frame it as wanting to recognize a specific *character* as queer, it is almost always in the context of a ship. Litmus test: would making that character queer but having them *explicitly reject* the other half of the ship be seen as a betrayal?

(Note: none or this is to say we shouldn't push for more queer rep and more *quality and well-written* queer rep! Just that that isn't what I'm talking about here, and not what seeking canon validation for a specific interpretation or a specific ship is almost ever about.)

Why does this matter?

the language of representation and social justice should not be co-opted to prop up ship wars

it is reciprocal with a trend toward increasing toxicity in transformative fandom spaces

Number 1 here is self-explanatory (I hope). Let's chat about 2.

Demands for canon validation correlate with a rise in fanpol / fandom purity culture. What is fandom purity culture (and fandom policing)? This toxic mentality is about justifying one's shipping preferences and aiming to be pure (non-problematic) in your fictional appetites regarding romance and sex.

Note that this purity culture is so named as it arises linearly from American Protestantism, conservative puritanical anxiety around thought crimes, and overlaps in many ways with terf ideologies and regressively anti-kink paradigms.

It goes like this: problematic content is "gross" and therefore morally reprehensible. Much like how queer sex/relationships get labelled as "gross" (Other) and thus morally sinful, or how kink gets labelled as "harmful" and thus morally wrong. The Problematic label is applied by fanpol to ships with offset age or power dynamics, complicated histories, and anything they choose to label as "harmful". As such, they would decry my comparison here to queerphobia itself as also being harmful, because their (completely fictional) targets are ~actually~ evil.

(The irony of this is completely lost on them).

This mode of interacting with creative works leaves no room to explore dark or erotic themes or dynamics which may exist in fiction but not healthily in reality. Gothic romance is verboten. Even breathe the word incest and you will be labelled a monster (nevermind Greek tragedy or GoT).

As with most puritanical bullshit, fanpol ideology only applies these beliefs to sex and never to violence/murder/etc, proving what lies at its core. It also demands its American-based values be applied to all fictional periods and places as the One True Moral Standard. It evangelizes – look no further than how these people try to recruit others to their cause, aim to elevate themselves as righteous, and try to persuade (‘save’) others from their degenerate ways of thinking.

“See the light” they promise “here are our callouts and blog posts to convince you. Decry your past sins of problematic shipping, be baptized by our in-group adulation and welcome, and then go forth and send hate to others until they too see the light.” In many ways “get therapy” by the antis is akin to “I’ll pray for you” by the Christian-right (and ultimately ironic).

(Although it has been pointed out to me that these fans are likely not themselves specifically ex-evangelicals, but rather those who have brushed up with evangelical norms and modes of thinking without specifically being victims of it. In many ways they are more simply conservative Christian in temperament and attitude without necessarily being raised into religion by belief).

What this has to do with canon validation is that these fans look to canon for approval, for Truth. On the one hand, if it is in the canon then it must be good / pure or at least acceptable. The authority (canon) has deemed it thus. It is safe and acceptable to discuss and to enjoy watching or consuming. In this way, validation from canon means a measure of safety from being Bad and Problematic.

For example, where a GoT fan could discuss Cersei/Jaime's (toxic, interesting) dynamic in depth as it related to the canon, fans who shipped Jon/Sansa (healthy, interesting) were Gross and Bad. The canon as Truth provided a safety net, a launch point. "It's GRRM, not me, who is problematic." It wasn’t okay to ship the problematic bad gross incest ship, but it being in the canon material meant it was open for discussion, for nuance, for “this adds an interesting layer to the story” which is denied to all non-canon ships labelled as problematic.

(Note: there are of course people who have zero interest in watching GoT for a whole slew of very valid reasons, including but not limited to the incest. That’s a different to this trend. A less charged example might be The Umbrella Academy, where a brother canonically is in love with his sister and antis still praise the show, but if you dare to ship any of the potential incest ships then you are the one who is disgusting).

On the other hand, a very interesting alternate (or additional) explanation for this phenomenon was raised to me on twitter. (These ideas aren’t mine originally, but I wholly endorse them as a big part of what is likely going on): Namely, as with authoritarian individuals in general, they see themselves as right and correct, but the canon (which has not yet validated their ship) is not correct, and is in fact problematic, and so they can save the canon from itself.

As mentioned, these fanpol types see their interpretation as Good and Pure. So if they can push (demand, bully) the canon into conforming to their worldview and validating their interpretation, then they have shown the (sinful) creators the light and led them to the righteous path. This only works if the canon allows itself to saved though, otherwise the creators remain Evil for spurning them.

How is this different from fans simply hoping for their ship to be canon?

For a second here, let’s rewind to the 90s (since Whedon has been in the news recently). This “I want it to be canon” thing isn’t 100% new, of course. We saw this trend then for the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but it was different then. At the time, fans who hoped for a ship to be canon might have been cheering for a problematic one to begin with (Buffy/Spike). So shipping was still present, minus vocal fanpol.

(And Buffy fans learned that canon validation...can leave a lot to be desired. A heavy lesson was learned about the ways that fan desires can play out horrifically in canon, and how some things are best left out of the hands of canon-writers).

These days, this is still largely true. Many fans hope for their ships to go canon, as they always have. There are tropes like “will they/won’t they” that TV shows may even be designed around, which a certain narrative anticipation and a very deliberate build up to that.

But while shipping *hopes* occur for many fans, almost all ships fans that *demand* to go canon and obsess over are now the ones deemed as Unproblematic, or as Less Problematic. I’m talking here about the ships that aren’t necessarily an explicit will/won’t they dynamic but do have some canon dynamic that leads them to being shipped, but which the creators aren’t necessarily deliberately teasing and building up a romantic end-game for.

These ships often have fans who are happy to stick to fandom, but there has also been a huge uptick in the portion of fans who are approaching shipping with an explicit lens of “will they go canon?” and “don’t you want them to be canon?” and now even “they have to go canon” and “the canon is wrong if they don’t make this ship canon”, to a final end-point of “if the ship doesn’t go canon, the source material is Wrong and Bad.”

These latter opinions are the one we see more by extreme fans (‘stans’), hardcore shippers, but especially by fanpol-types, the ones who embrace fandom purity culture at least to some extent.

Why them?

In pushing for canon validation, fanpol types seek to elevate their (pure) interpretation of canon. As mentioned above, it’s validation of their authority, a safety-net, and a way to save the canon from itself if only they can bully the canon into validating their right and good interpretation.

There’s also another reason, which is that canon validation is a tool to bludgeon those seen as problematic. They can use it to denounce other (problematic) ships as Not Being Canon and therefore highlight their own as Right and Good, because it is represented in the True Meaning of the Work.

Canon validation then is a cudgel sought by virtuous crusaders to wield against their unclean enemies. It is an ideological pursuit. It is organised around identity and in groups sometimes as insular as cults.

How does this happen?

Fanpol tend to be younger or more vulnerable fans, susceptible to authoritarian manipulators. As many have highlighted before, authoritarian groups and exclusionary ideologies like terfs are very good at using websites like tumblr to mobilize others around their organizing beliefs. Fanpol tend to feel legitimate discomfort, but instead of taking responsibility for their media engagement, ringleaders stoke and help them direct their discomfort as anger onto others; “I feel ashamed and uncomfortable, and therefore you should be held accountable for my emotions.” Authoritarian communities endorse social dominance orientations, deference to ringleaders, and obedient faith to the principles those ringleaders endorse.

As these fans attach more and more of their identity to a given media (or ship), and derive more and more validation and more of their belongingness needs from this fanpol community, they also become more and more anxious about being excluding from this group. This is because such communities have rigid rules and very conditional bases for social acceptance. Question or "betray" the organizing ideology and be punished or excommunicated. If that is all you have, you are left with nothing. Being labelled problematic then is a social death.

What this means is that these fans cannot accept all interpretations of a media as equally valid: to do so Betrays the ideology. It promises exclusion. And, in line with a perspective around ‘saving’ canon and leading others into the light – forcing and bending the canon to their will is what will make it Good (and therefore acceptable to enjoy, and therefore proof of them as righteous by having saved others). As was also pointed out to me on twitter, endorsement from canon or its creators also satiates that deep need they have for authority figures to approve of them.

Due to all of this, these fans come to obsess over canon validation of their own interpretation. In a way, they have no other option but to do so. They need this validation -- as their weapon, as their authority, as their safety net, as their approval, as their evangelical mission of saviorship.

Canon validation is proof: I am Good. I am Right(eous). I am Safe.

(In many ways, I do ache for some of these people, so wrapped up in toxic communities and mindsets and so afraid to step out of line for fear of swift retribution, policing their own thoughts and art against the encroaching possibility that anything be less than pure. It’s not healthy, it’s never going to be healthy.)

In the end, people are going to write their own stories. You are well within your rights to critique those stories, to hate them, to interpret them how you will, but you can never control their story (it's theirs).

Some final notes:

This trend may be partially to do with queer ships now being *able* to go canon where before so no such expectation would exist. Similarly, social media has made this easier to vocalize. Still, who makes these demands and the underlying reasons are telling. There are also many legitimate critiques of censorship, queerbaiting (nebulous discussions to be had here), and homophobia in media to be had, and which may front specific ships in their critique. But critique is distinct from asking that canon validate one's own interpretation.

#fandom purity culture #antis #discourse

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accio-ambition · 7 years

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I know, I know, I broke the rules, but aren't rules meant to be broken on occasion?

Four million thanks to @captainswanbigbang, @sotheylived, @shipsxahoy, and @queen-icicle-fandom for supporting and even encouraging the feels in these last couple of chapters.

Now have some more angst.

Summary: Bouncing around with her son for the majority of her life, Emma Swan has told herself she’s happy in the city. It’s where the most camera operating jobs are, and that’s how she makes her money. But when an old friend calls her and asks for her help on a new project in small town Maine, Emma finds herself in a place she’s never been with people she doesn’t know filming a profession she knows nothing about. But when the captain of the ship she’s filming begins taking a keen interest in her and her life, she finds herself wondering whether she might just catch something other than fish. Deadliest Catch AU Rating: M Content warning: Character death, some violent situations

FFnet/Ao3/Cover/Snapshots/Gifset/Manip

Chapter Twenty

Emma Swan has endured some long nights in her life. The cold ones where her shivers were the only way to keep her warm at night. The empty ones where she sat awake, eyes wide and stomach growling. The lonely ones where the closest thing to human interaction – to a friend – was the car that served as her bed. Even the single night she sat in a jail cell, ankle cuffed to a bed while contractions wracked her body.

Those were nothing compared to this one.

Not only is Killian lying in a bed, lifeless and pale, so far away from the vibrant, innuendo-ready man that he is normally, but Liam is gone.

And his little brother – the light of his world, the only blood to ever care for him – doesn’t know.

The tears roll down Emma’s cheeks almost nonstop.

The nurses work around her, like she’s another machine working to keep Killian alive at the side of his bed. And, in a way, she thinks, she is. Without Liam, he needs a reason to fight, to come back.

To fight and come back to her.

When she first came into his hospital room, about four hours after initially arriving, it was jarring. Killian was breathing on his own, thank god, but the sheer number of wires and tubes leaking into his body was breathtaking. And his arm: his left arm stopped short of his wrist.

“Be careful of his left side,” the nurse advised her. “It got the brunt of the wreck. It’s going to be tender for a while.”

Emma nodded wordlessly, the image before her choking back any sort of verbal response.

“He’s going to be fine, Ms. Swan,” the nurse said quietly. “He’s a fighter, but he probably won’t wake up for 12 hours at the least. He can hear you, though.” Gently, she pressed Emma into the room. “Talk to him. It’ll help his progress.”

A scratchy “thank you” was all Emma could say. The nurse nodded and headed back to the nurses’ station, leaving her all alone with her hurting, healing pirate.

The nurse was the first of many to tell her to talk to Killian. They said so every time they came in to check his vitals, but it feels wrong. She wouldn’t be talking to him – talking to him involved banter, a back-and-forth, god even his incessant flirting. No, she’d be talking at him.

So she does the next best thing: she scales her own walls to cross over his while they are down. Her hand slips into his where it’s lying on the bed. It’s cold and there’s an IV in the way. But she doesn’t let go. Not even to itch her nose. Her hand stays in his because it is the one reassurance she can give him.

During the night, when she finds herself uncomfortable or her back aching, all she does is glances up at Killian’s face. It’s peaceful, laugh lines evident and eyes flitting behind the lids. If not for the slight bruises forming and marks on his cheeks, she could be sitting next to him on his bed, waiting for him to wake up and partake in round two of three of mind-blowing sex. Maybe she’d even been able to persuade Killian into torturing Liam with theatricalities through the thin bedroom walls.

Then she remembers the news that’s waiting to be told when he awakes and Emma reevaluates her circumstances.

At some point, she miraculously falls unconscious, her head pillowed on her elbow resting on the bed. She doesn’t hear the nurses come in periodically or the hum of the machines. The only reason she knows she ever fell asleep is the sensation of pressure squeezing her hand.

Slowly uncurling from her hunched position, Emma squints. The sun peeks through the blinds, far brighter than it should be. There’s a kink in her neck and her back and – well, she’s going to pay for her sleeping arrangements all day.

But then the pressure grabs her attention again. Looking down at her hand, she begins to piece together the meaning. Her eyes follow the lines of his body – from his wrist, up his arm, across the scratches that marred his face to the hazy blue of his eyes.

Killian’s awake, and the first thing he sees is her, puffy eyes, rat's nest hair, and all.

She doesn’t think she’s ever been this happy and sad in her life.

“Swan, darling,” he says, his voice scratchy and low. “What are you doing here?”

Ten minutes ago, Emma would’ve said she was fine. She’s been through hell and worse in her eyes. But the moment Killian asks his question, the tears start anew. Without saying anything, he can read Liam’s death in her eyes and he shakes his head minutely. He squeezes his hand and hers by default.

“No.” It’s desperate, but not begging. He sighs in distress, turning so his eyes stare up at the ceiling instead of at her. “I was with him,” he says quietly, eyes closing. “The storm was too much and he was getting cold, so he and I hung on to each other to keep warm.”

Biting her lip is the best she can do to keep from breaking. The pain and threat of blood centers her, lets her focus on Killian’s pain. That’s what matters most right now: he’s lost everything.

“We’re survivors, Emma, Liam and I. We get through anything together.”

But that rips her heart to pieces, and the waterworks begin in earnest. “Coast Guard picked you both up at the same time,” she tells him, trying to keep her sobs to a minimum to get the information out. “They had the hardest time prying you two apart, but once they figured out…”

She needs to get the words out. They both know that. Killian will not be able to start grieving properly until he knows without a shadow of a doubt. Emma takes a deep breathe before quietly, solemnly saying, “He’s gone, Killian. Liam died honorably.”

“What?” Killian spits out. “In a crash? In a storm? He survived that, Swan. To be killed as he’d already been beat isn’t honorable.”

Emma shakes her head and squeezes his hand. The motion brings his attention back to her, his eyes shooting to hers. “He died protecting his baby brother, Killian,” she whispers. “He died so that you could live.”

Killian corrects her immediately, a pavlovian response – “Younger brother.” – and she watches his eyes widen as he realizes that never again will his elder brother tease him.

And that’s when he breaks.

0000

Having had the misfortune of being around Killian when he’s tired, hungry, angry, and just about every other negative emotion on the spectrum, she has an idea of what to expect with grieving Killian.

It’s completely wrong. While she suspected he would rage, he doesn’t: he just sits silently more often than not. He’ll greet her when she comes to visit, engage in small talk because he’s gentleman enough to not leave her hanging, but that’s really it. He doesn’t laugh at her bad jokes. He doesn’t crack a smile. He just...doesn’t.

The only time he seems remotely happier is when she brings Henry along on her visits. It’s like her son can understand where Killian is mentally. They discuss the weather and the basics of Henry’s schooling, but then Jones will fall silent. So Henry fills the air with stories – he brings in the story he has to read for class or the anthology of fairy tales he loves and reads them aloud. Emma can see the tension slowly ease out of Killian’s rigid positioning while her son’s young voice bounces off the walls.

It all comes back, though, when a nurse walks in, or she sneezes, whenever the magic of the moment is broken. And it breaks her.

She knows that he’s strong – hell, he fought back death for a couple more decades at least in his weakened state – and she knows that he’ll recover both physically and mentally eventually, but his emotional state has her worried.

He needs to talk about it, to someone. If not her, than David or one of his crew boys. A therapist even, though she knows he won’t approach or even contemplate that method of healing.

So for now, Emma brings Henry along with her as much as she can. Because at least when her son’s around, Killian seems almost like his old self.

And she knows that their time together is helping Henry heal, too. Emma insisted on being the one to tell him, coming home from the hospital to shower once Killian was stable enough. Belle had taken the seat by his bed, had decided to talk to him because, as it turns out, she and Liam were together. They were supposed to go camping that weekend, and they were going to tell everyone officially once they returned. They were going to pick out a Christmas tree for Belle’s apartment, have the holiday dinner together. He was going to meet her father.

But some stories get cut short.

(It’ll do her good, Emma reasons. She gets to tell Killian about a different side of his brother. It’ll help both of them cope somewhat healthily. Hopefully.)

Henry’s still in his pajamas, staying home from school at her request under David’s eye. When she goes to pick him up, ragged and tired beyond belief, he immediately rises from the couch and hugs her. He has no idea what’s wrong, but he can tell she’s in pain. Her baby boy knows that, right now, she needs to be sure that he’s okay, just like he needed to make sure he was okay when the storm nearly mowed the Roger over.

The favor is returned mere minutes later, after Emma explains the whole ordeal and he’s sobbing into her shoulder on the couch. He’s lost one of his best friends, if the Jones’ spot on their Christmas list was any indication, and she’s sure it hurts more than anything he’s ever experienced. Liam was nothing if not an older brother to all three of them - knocking Killian into shape for the majority of his life, teasing Emma at every opportunity, and entertaining Henry when no one else had the patience or wherewithal to do so. Together, they’re a little quartet that’s lost their leader.

And they’ll get through it, eventually.

Together.

#csbb #captain swan big bang #cs ff #ouat #captain swan #i know #im the worst #tbh the beginning of this chapter made me emotional #like i was teary eyed writing this #which doesnt happen often #or at all really #there are at least three more chapters #one might be an epilogue #also i love the idea of henry being one of the biggest bright spots in killians life in this post liam world #it makes my sad heart a little happier #storytime #my words #ditlot

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morbidly-queerious · 7 years

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I really wish people could find a way to talk about the how's and whys of anti-kink minors being inappropriate without saying stuff like "kids shouldn't be thinking about sex and toys and whips, that's so gross you should just be cute and innocent!" Because like......this has been me since I was six years old. I wasn't sexually abused until I was 14, and I was abused specifically because people were always calling me gross and filthy (for a lot of reasons) and abusers know how to spot that and groom it. Like, the fact that I could not and should not safely interact with kink as a kid doesn't have to do with me being "innocent and cute" it has to do with the fact that, as a child, I was not stable enough in my own identity and self-authority to enter equally into a relationship that played with power dynamics. I was always going to enter at a disadvantage, which meant I was always going to be unsafe. That had nothing to do with my interests, knowledge, or anything else, and frankly I really DO think that a comprehensive sexual health education should include the kinds of safety and consent discussions that come from kink communities, so positioning ourselves and our knowledge as "inherently too dirty for children" feels really unsafe to me. It's not about our knowledge being bad and inappropriate. It's about the disenfranchisement of children and their uneven footing with respect to social capital and authority. That's why I think that kink is still inappropriate even between minors who ARE able to consent to each other. Two 16 year olds can consent to sex with each other in most places. I do NOT believe they can (currently in any social environment I've seen proposed so far) consent to kink. Because they do not have enough experience interacting safely and healthily on each side of power dynamics to perform kink safely. That doesn't mean they're too immature to know it exists, or to learn about why that safety is so necessary, or the ways in which people will subvert their authority to abuse them. "You can't because I said so" is condescending and reminiscent of abuse. "You can't because you're a child and that means you're immature and ignorant and can't help being incapable" is ALSO fucking condescending and reminiscent of abuse. "Right now, you are at a serious disadvantage to any partner you could take through no fault of your own, here are things that cause such disadvantages, here are things that mitigate them, here are the methods abusers use to manipulate those disadvantages, and here is the kind of knowledge that you will learn to contextualize with time in order to one day safely navigate your specific disadvantages" is complicated and difficult and nuanced and not easily generalized, but at least it's honest and educational. It's important to me that minors keep their distance from kink activities. It's important to me that they do even if the laws changed today and it was totally legal and had no repurchasing for them to get involved. But it's also important to me that kids like I was, kids who are clever and abused and afraid and trapped don't get made to feel like garbage for existing the way they are, or like it was because of how they are that they got abused, or that they are lesser and less worthy of respect and dignity just for being kids. I think, in the end, essentialism will always be a problem, even on our end. We need to understand that some kids ARE mature enough to understand kink issues, and lying to them by saying that immaturity is the only reason they're not safe is actively abandoning them to another very real danger. Kids can know and understand kink. Many kids are just......like I was. It's who and how they are. And that's okay. But they still need to keep their distance from kink activities, and they still deserve to be safely educated about how to be healthy and safe, and they still deserve not to be told they're freaks.

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