#i know abuse survivors will sometimes keep what they got from their abuser as a way of taking the control back but like

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for breaking up with my boyfriend after uncovering his web of lies?

Ok. I’m going to try keep this as short as possible, and there’s some things I’ll keep out because I don’t want to accidentally reveal our identities. I (31, m) just broke up with my partner (35,m) of 3 years. We met on an app during Covid, and lived together for 2 and a half years of that. I truly loved him, he was a challenging person which sometimes led to fiery arguments that I hadn’t experienced in past relationships, but he also pushed me to feel more comfortable with confrontation and conflict which I needed. He was also really ambitious and supported my ambitions; I’ve had 3 promotions since we got together and I wouldn’t have dared to go for them if it hadn’t been for his encouragement. Basically, on the surface it all seemed really great.

That is until I discovered he had lied about his entire past - and some of his present. It all started when I stumbled across pics of “his home” online and discovered they were a museum (he claimed to be from a wealthy background). I asked him and he said it was to protect his family’s identity and swore there were no more lies.

I have never met his family, nor talked to them on the phone - they are in another country and he claimed they were old fashioned and wanted to meet in person, but Covid was in the way at first, and then his mum was unwell. After discovering the pictures were a lie, I started to really think about other stories he’d told me and what evidence I really had for them. The more I thought, the more I realised things didn’t add up.

A few examples: his mum and dad both apparently had high profile jobs but I couldn’t find anything about them online; he claimed to be from money but wouldn’t buy himself a car and borrowed mine; he claimed to have a brother my age but I couldn’t find any social media of his.

There was a lot more, but that was enough to make me question whether there were more lies. I asked him a few weeks later why I couldn’t find anything about his parents online, and asked to be introduced to his brother on social media. I told him that this felt like the most normal thing that would happen in relationships - I was very clear that I didn’t want to test him, I just wanted some contact with someone who knew him before I did. He said it wasn’t possible because he was more distant from his family than he’d led me to believe, due to childhood abuse that his parents had refused to acknowledge. I’m also a survivor of childhood abuse so this touched a nerve and the conversation shifted to me wanting to support him and make him know I believed him.

Anyway. Fast forward another two months and nothing has changed. Tonight, it came to a head in a discussion where he wanted to get rid of my favourite chair in order to make room for a new TV. I told him I wasn’t comfortable with this because I felt insecure in the relationship as nothing had been resolved. I went over my concerns again and suddenly his whole tone shifted. He asked if I was “ready for the truth” and asked me not to share it with anyone.

The truth turned out to be very different from everything he’d said over the past 3 years. Whether it is the truth, I don’t know, but he claimed that his mum was actually a drug addict and he hadn’t known his dad until he was 18, he was removed by child services at 14 and the character he created as his mum to me was based on the woman he lived with during that time. He never studied abroad as he had first claimed, and a whole load of other lies. The worst lie was that his mum had cancer - the reason why we couldn’t visit because she didn’t want him to see her while she was weak (this made sense with the strong character her created for her). It turns out apparently the woman who took him in died from cancer when he was 18 and he based it on that. Now, I don’t even know how much of this is true, but it feels closer to the truth than the original stories. The thing is, he’s cried on me about his mums cancer, and he’s told my mum about it (a cancer survivor), and regularly talks about it in detail. In fact, all his stories have had incredible detail - which is what made us all believe them.

Now, here’s where I may be the arsehole. After he confessed all of this, I said I can’t be in a relationship with him because I can’t trust him. But he took a big step in admitting it all to me and he’s clearly very unwell if he is lying on this scale. He clearly has had a traumatic past and he told me that his lies were because any time he opens up to people about his past he loses them. I worry that by breaking up with him, I’m reinforcing this cycle where he feels he has to lie to be loved. The thing is - none of what he told me in any of this was the reason why I love him. I didn’t care where he came from, or his claims of wealth, etc. I just liked who he was as a person. I really feel torn because on the one hand he is clearly in need of help, stability and love in order to heal himself so that he doesn’t feel the need to lie. On the other hand, I can’t foresee being able to trust him in the near future. So, AITA for breaking up with someone who is so desperately in need of love and support?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

[autistichalsin]

I'm really fucking tired.

All I wanted was a space to obsess over a fictional man, who brought me a ton of healing, in peace.

This group has made it their mission to chase not only me away, but anyone associated with me. They called me a rape fetishizer for writing CNC fic. They called me a pedophile for making an omega Halsin headcanon. They called me a self-hating lesbian/lesbophobic for saying it's TERFy to demonize queer male sexuality. They mocked my abuse by my mom, and when called on it, laughed that I deserved it for saying how Mint's actions remind me of her sometimes. They accused me of retraumatizing myself because of the fic I wrote, when THEY were the ones who retraumatized me by causing me to have a flashback to my mom abusing me. They accused me of absolutely vile things, and today they questioned if I even was "really" abused because of the fic I wrote. They repeatedly mocked my special interests and then got offended and played victim when I said this was ableist. They've sent suicide bait to me and my friends.

They've harassed others: they harassed a bi SH fan for asking them to stop saying it was icky to ship her with men until she left the fandom, they harassed someone who made a mod to turn Scratch into Astarion so they could see the animations (even calling this person as bad as Cazador), they harassed someone for making a headcanon about Astarion dancing with Tav, they harassed a lesbian who herself headcanons Karlach as a lesbian and doesn't like Karlach/Dammon but explained why others do, they harassed my friend Mish for saying she was okay with me writing CNC, they sent suicide bait to another friend of mine and said she deserved to get raped so she would sympathize with Mint, causing her to have a mental breakdown and have to go to the hospital for 24 hours, and every time someone pushes back against them, this group weaponizes their identity by saying that person is bigoted against their identity- while ignoring (at best) the marginalized identities that person has, or at worst, furthering oppression against them (I.E. their repeated ableist comments, including one of them snarling at another user about "enjoying your grippy sock vacation")

And despite all these vile things this group of people have done, people are still believing them and sending more harassment to myself and my friends in their defense.

I'm fucking tired.

I'm tired of defending myself. I'm tired of losing people I considered friends to their lies. I'm tired of having my inbox invaded by these vile people.

They are wearing at my mental health and this already made me relapse on one of my addictive behaviors and I am fighting really hard not to do the other one. I'm tired. I loved this fandom and I loved contributing my ideas. I get so many messages from people saying I made them feel seen or made them connect to Halsin's character, and getting a message from a survivor that my posts gave them the words they were lacking for what happened to them and they were able to work through it in counseling was honestly one of the best things to ever happen to me. I really don't want to lose that. Ever. But I can't keep doing this.

I'm not bigoted to my own identity. I don't hurt people. I don't fetishize rape. I'm tired of being a broken record and not being believed because that group is so good at fragilizing themselves. I can't do it anymore.

I just wanted to share my thoughts about a fictional bear man because it made me happy and so many parts of him gave me courage. I wanted to give up cynicism like he did. I wanted to find his strength to take care of people.

But I am honestly very close to regretting ever joining this fandom. I have gained so much from it, it helped my mental health immensely, but this shit has put me in an even WORSE place mentally than i was before I joined.

I don't know what to do. I'm just tired of the way, no matter how much I epitomize "living your best life" I get treatment from these people that I honestly wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

I have a lot of painful feelings right now and I don't know what to do anymore. It just hurts and I think everyone would be better off if I'd never made this blog to begin with.

[lionydoorin]

I'm now humbly requesting angsty Tara headcanons

now we're talking >:)

cw gonna talk about substance abuse and some disturbing thoughts here !

we need to talk more about post-5/pre-6 tara and her recovery process. the legacy killing happened in late september, so from what i know the 2022 school year had just started. tara and sam move in with the meeks-martin's for the rest of tara, chad and mindy's school year. they take two to three months to get back to school, still recovering from their injuries and having to deal with pitiful looks from their peers. tara absolutely despises it.

because the looks her classmates give her are haunting. they seem scared, imagining what she'd been through. they absolutely won't talk when she's nearby. they'll open up hallways, stare at her from their lockers. it just makes her grip on her crutch tighten and she just wants to look at someone and yell at them.

her senior year experience is what makes her hate the whole situation the most. it's what makes her yearn for the normalcy she'll never have the most, as well.

she lashes out during their lunch break, once, when she hears two girls whispering about them. tara turns to yell and tell them to shut up, to mind their own business, because she's just so fucking tired of them and their fake pity and whatever the fuck they think of them. they're not only survivors, for fuck's sake, they are people and they should treat them as such.

mindy and chad help her out of the cafeteria before she can hit them with her crutches. she sobs onto their chest for at least an hour before martha is there to pick them up. when she gets home, sam welcomes her with a warm embrace, telling her it's fine, that she can let it all out.

she's so wary of new people after 6 as well. her trust issues reach its peak. tara was already the worst at letting other people in, but knowing that, at any moment, someone new might be a masked killer trying to take her and her loved ones down?

it makes the classes that she doesn't share with chad and mindy so lonely.

she feels lonely most of the time. it's hard to smile when everything reminds her of everything she's been through.

with rapid weather changes, tara's injuries bother her a lot. rainy days are the worst, and she skips class a lot on winter. she relies on painkillers a lot to keep her going; they're not enough. they're never enough.

the stronger ones were off the chart after sam found out she got a bit of an addiction to roxanol.

having been through terrible things makes her mind wander to intrusive, disturbing thoughts a lot. she imagines what it would be like to be murdered anywhere she goes, how ghostface could crack her body, cut her into tiny pieces and leave its parts there to be found by someone. after the bodega episode, she thinks of people she doesn't even know dying a lot, as well. tara has panic attacks and has to leave class early constantly.

nightmares. constant nightmares. she sees amber a lot, sees her disfigured figure, remembers the night she first got attacked and wakes up to her leg hurting more than ever. sometimes, her mind plays the moment she stabbed ethan again, and again, and again, reminding her that she's a monster, because no normal person would do something like this.

she's not normal. she'll never be normal. she'll always be this empty shell, this dead girl walking.

tara thinks about it a lot. how she could've been dead. how, maybe, it would be better for everyone if she was.

#i LOVE the evil version of the memes maxie keep it up. #ask #autism swagger #tara carpenter #scream #ma talks scream

[furiousgoldfish]

You know how abusers tend to accuse people of being overly sensitive? Now. I am a survivor, and I am realizing that I am, in fact, overly sensitive.

Because of the abuse.

I am noticing that if any arguing is happening around me, if anyone is tense, if someone is having an issue and being angry about it, I very easily fall into... fear mode? imma call it that. For me, that means i want to escape reality while still being nervous. It freezes me. I sit in one place for hours on end, doing something to keep myself busy, even though i should be doing something else -- but the thought itself makes me too nervous to do the thing, which means the thing is still not done, which makes me more nervous.

This got to some absolutely idiotic level when I was nervous about missing a train. I should have gotten up to get ready, after i had a minor argument. I kept thinking about how i was missing the train, and that scared me so much I could not stand up to start getting ready, which made me miss the goddamn train.

Do you have any advice on what to do with this kind of thing? The closest that came to working was telling mself that I have all the time in the world.

Yeah I feel the same about all of those things, but we feel it for good reasons. We spent a good chunk of our formative years in the environment where people arguing, people being angry, people yelling or being frustrated or stressed, meant that they would be likely to take that anger and use us as a target for it. And this was a major danger for us, sometimes these people traumatized us so badly we wouldn't be able to recover for months, or ever. Sometimes they did it periodically so we could basically expect to be subjected to abuse every time someone was angry or frustrated for any reason whatsoever.

So our brain mapped that as a major source of danger, developed specialized senses to figure out how people feel before they even show it, to sense it in the atmosphere, to even feel their feelings sometimes, just so we could have a little heads-up to when the torrent of abuse would be incoming, so we could dissociate, or even just get ready and get our defenses up (even being a tiny bit prepared could mean a lot for us).

The only way to feel safe again would be to only be around people who do not yell, do not express their anger in a loud and violent way, or to be around people who even when angry, have absolutely no way to take it out on us, even by bad behaviour. I found I won't be particularly threatened by angry children, while any angry adult will still feel absolutely terrifying.

But I wouldn't call this over-sensitive, it's a trauma response, and a very logical one. I described it few asks ago, we as a society completely understand that someone is terrified of dogs if they got bitten once, and almost died as a child from it. We also understand the same way that if someone got hurt by a specific natural disaster, that they're now very sensitive and scared of it, because it damaged their life in a very terrifying way. This is the same. We got damaged and traumatized by people who were angry and yelling, in such a terrifying way that when our brain senses even the beginning of that pattern, it starts sending the signals of fear, telling us to get away, to keep safe, to expect abuse, to escape, to protect ourselves.

And that's exactly what I do in those situations; I get away. As an adult, there's very few situations you cannot walk away from, and people arguing and being noisy and distressing close to you, you generally can walk away from, or even tell them to stop doing this where you can hear it. I've reprimanded any of my roommates for any kind of yelling, and told them I can't stand it (it didn't stop them, but they will apologize for yelling sometimes, and I won't stick around while they're doing it.)

Your response isn't idiotic at all, it sounds like you immediately go into deep dissociation in order to protect yourself - unfortunately, this also means losing control over what your body is capable of doing, and I've had a lot of experiences with that, it's both scary, frustrating, and feels very stupid not to be able to do a basic thing just because you're suffering a trauma response. If you're getting so scared you paralyze, then it's okay to assume you can't just walk away either, it seems like in the situations where you were hurt like this, you couldn't leave, and had to stay put and endure whatever they were doing to you, that's why your body is now not capable of doing much while distressed and triggered.

I'm sorry you missed your train. The level of distress you were going thru is actually a reason enough to miss a train. I had this extreme paralysis response slowly resolved over time, after being away and safe from abusers for long enough to no longer paralyze, but jump into action if I feel threatened (even if that action is just to escape).

I know it's both scary and frustrating to lost control over your limbs and actions because of your trauma response, and it affects your function in real life severely, and it sucks. Sadly I've found nothing else to it but to wait it out, and try to process the original trauma that caused it, if possible. I got better over time, but just by keeping myself away from anything that would trigger me, and developing a space where I was feeling more safe, able to relax a bit and not feel like I'm about to be hurt. I hope you're easy on yourself and give yourself infinite time and space whenever you're triggered like this, know that what you're going thru is traumatic and that you cannot be expected to do tasks or catch trains in moments like that. You need comfort, safety, gentleness, reassurance, grounding, time, rest, and something safe and pleasant to engage in, so you could slowly come back from the dissociation, and use your body again.

#trauma response #emotional flashbacks #cptsd #complex ptsd #furiousgoldfish #trauma symptoms #dissociation symptoms #paralyzing out of terror #execusive dysfunction #losing functionality over trauma responses #mistaking trauma response as over sensitivity #this is normal level of sensitive when you think about what you've been thru

[cheeseblind]

Hello! Hope you're doing well and thanks for keeping us all posted!

Because sharing is caring - just wanted to muse that its nice to see a part of a fanbase actually dealing with this rather well? I've kind of removed myself from fandoms on the whole as spaces I've thought were progressive have turned on female survivors on a dime just for quietly posting about harassment. I dunno - guess I'm kind of scared now of liking anything to the point that instead of giving it up I'd choose to be sus of accusations just because I like a persona. But at least from what I can see as a lurker, you guys have all been really cool about it, despite how difficult it is to deal with once you've invested in making content and a community. Even as someone who has only been into NRB for a couple of months, the last few days have really sucked but this lil slice of tumblr has helped. So yay <3 faith: restored!

I think for me now my main concern is why Carley thought it was maybe being swept under the rug, and if they did infact, deal with the situation as soon as they were made aware. Certainly, the statement is promising, even if its impossible to know if we would have got one if it all hadn't blown up like it did.

I wonder as well, if Adam does sadly need to be let go, if it's not better for them just to keep the accusations vague for the sake of privacy and not opening it up for debate like last time where everyone comes out of the woodwork to defend abusive behaviour. But then again, maybe that just gets the cast harassed for further info, who knows. Not sure how they'd handle it if he does remain with NRB.

But ive rambled in your inbox enough! Hopefully 4 player communipoly will get me excited for NRB again even with these caveats, because right now I'm being productive instead of watching BOTC all day and ugh, gross.

Enjoy D20!

i agree! while i have seen a couple of gross comments by and large this fanbase has been a kind and supportive place since we found out, which is definitely very nice to see (also my recent big fanbases before (and alongside) this were all sports, imagine the hell that is) so comparatively yeah. not awful. its been nice bc it hasnt felt like an argument at any point which sometimes it can in worse fanbases.

and yeah, idk, i def dont like it at all that nothing was said before it became a big thing but also i understand that from a legal + pr pov ig? and yeah ig im just hoping their statement is completely honest + they werent gna fully ignore it if it never came up but we will never know that now ig

and honestly personally i would prefer we get details bc of who i am as a person, but idk what theyre gna decide and idrk how im gna react to anything anyway icl

<3 hope youre well

#ive realised my answers to asks atm aren't particularly well written and i apologise for that #im just tryna get my thoughts out sincerely and it doesn't necessarily translate to grammar also im writing on my phone so #anyway the thing i would truly love to know is how carley feels about the statement but we will not find out i imagine #asks

[kittykat299]

Thundercats (1985) Headcanons

As per my last post this is entirely conjecture based exclusively on the 1985 cartoon and nothing else. I have never watched the 2011 show or read the comic.

Reader beware, you're in for.... a lot

Thunderans in general

They have tails. idc what the show says they have tails. Some of them have lost their tails, in battle or otherwise. Will note which characters have which.

They can purr and hiss. Also they slow blink to show affection (like real cats!)

Wildly different heights from canon. Might update with height chart to elaborate later.

OG Thundercats all come from nobility and their paranatural abilities are a noble bloodline thing.

Thundera homophobic? It's more likely than you think. You know we love to hurt ourselves.

Lion-o

Was 12 when Thundera was destroyed. 17 after being sent to Third Earth. 20 when they discover the new Thundercats.

Autistic Himbo who loves ancient history. Could spend hours every day studying ancient history and views what little remains of First Earth as a treasure trove of ancient mysteries.

Bisexual. Had a crush on Cheetara as a teen, but once the new Thundercats showed up he fell head over heels for Bengali.

Cis man (he/him)

Speaking of which, marries Bengali, who he adores. He would die for his wife but he won't let him.

Has a tail. It only reaches his knees so is fairly out of the way.

Grew up feeling very isolated in the palace. There were servants, sure, and his nanny Snarf and mentor Jaga, but rarely got time to leave the palace and didn't interact much with his parents. He'll do about anything to get people to like him and fears the people closest to him will eventually abandon him.

Survivor's Guilt hits heavy when someone says to your face "we cannot save these people, we are prioritizing you". Even worse when your mentor dies to save your life.

Loves going camping and spending time in the wilderness. He picked up many survivalist tips from the people of Third Earth. He hates being cooped up inside and is slightly claustrophobic, and roughing it out in the woods every so often keeps him happy and calm.

Every so often he comes to Lynx-o just to ask him about his father, about Thundera's history. Lynx-o likes any excuse to tell his stories to people who haven't heard them a hundred times already.

Tygra

Was 20 when Thundera was destroyed. 25 on Third Earth. 28 when they find the new Thundercats

Gay gay homo sexual gay

Cis man (he/him)

Perfectionist with self-destructive tendencies. Addictive personality (both drug abuse episodes in the series were about Tygra, much to think about)

Has a tail. It used to be longer but he lost around half of it in an incident he still doesn't like to talk about.

Long term relationship with Panthro, they get married on Third Earth

Adopts the Thunderkittens along with Panthro. These two are the first the kittens turn to for parenting and comfort. At first they don't want to broach the topic in case the kittens get hurt but the kittens approach them after hearing Bengali and Pumyra talk about how Lynx-o has become a father to them and they call him dad sometimes.

Had strict, demanding parents who expected nothing less of perfection from him in everything he did: architecture, gymnastics, science, mental abilities, all of it. He regularly burned himself out trying to earn their approval until he became a Thundercat, at which point he ignored all contact from his family.

Had a hero crush on Panthro for a very long time, thought he'd grown out of it but when he became a Thundercat and began seeing Panthro in person it changed into a real romantic attraction.

Had multiple casual flings before actually dating Panthro.

Views Bengali as a little sibling, he sees his own naivety in relationships in her and wants to protect her but also they pick fights with each other a lot (mostly Bengali starts fights tbh).

Panthro

Was 29 when Thundera was destroyed. 34 on Third Earth. 37 when they found the new Thundercats.

Gay asf look at that harness. In the 80s??? That is a gay man

Cis man (he/him)

Had a tail, but it was cropped when he went down the route of becoming a fighter. A tail is just another weak point.

For relationship and adoption of kittens, see Tygra's entry above.

His and Tygra's relationship has been strained and they separated shortly before Thundera's destruction due to tension, but never stopped loving each other. Got back together shortly afterward.

He's not very good at expressing his deeper feelings, especially love and fear. This has been a source of tension in his and Tygra's relationship but it's mostly because Tygra can't see the way Panthro looks at him when he isn't looking at Panthro.

Grew up in a competitive household with a brother who would hurt him for fun, and always got away with some excuse or other. His brother was the golden child while he was often left out of the spotlight.

Actually pretty good friends with Bengali, they often end up working in the same spaces on their projects and occasionally collaborate on new gear.

Cheetara

Was 27 when Thundera was destroyed. 32 on Third Earth. 35 when they found the new Thundercats.

Bisexual

Cis woman (she/her)

Has a tail almost as long as her legs. Uses it for balance while she's running.

Has been athletic all her life, she finds comfort and destresses by working out regularly. Sometimes forgets her duties and responsibilities because she gets so in the zone.

Cheetara and Pumyra spend a lot of time working out together, both being more athletic than the other Thundercats, and developed feelings towards each other through athletic competition.

Goes on a morning run every day, usually to the Tower of Omens to go see her girlfriend.

She used to resent her psychic abilities, back on Thundera she was often made to use them as essentially a party trick despite how exhausted and hurt she would get afterward. As such she barely practiced using them. On Third Earth she was only rarely called upon to use them, only in emergency, and always given time and help to recover afterwards. She slowly grew to appreciate her ability and began to practice it until she could execute it more safely.

Struggles with feeling valuable when she isn't being useful, but has difficulty telling that to the others to get the support she needs as she's used to having to support herself.

Pumyra is her "exCUSE me, she asked for NO PICKLES" girlfriend.

Wilykit

Was 8 when Thundera was destroyed. 12 on Third Earth. 15 when they found the new Thundercats.

Still figuring herself out. She/her

Has a tail. Tries to take care of it, but with all the running around she and Kat do it's hard.

Has far more teenaged behavior than in the show. IDC what the show says those two are teens by s2 and dont talk or act like little kids anymore.

Usually the instigator of their shenanigans, especially the ones that land them in hot water.

She looks up to Panthro especially and often spends time watching and learning as he works on machines, even when she doesn't have to. Wants to build her own super cool vehicle, maybe with a sidecar for Wilykat.

She's the one who decided to talk to Tygra and Panthro about being adopted by them. They already had been, essentially, but nobody wanted to actually say anything in case feelings got hurt.

Wilykat

Was 8 when Thundera was destroyed. 12 on Third Earth. 15 when they found the new Thundercats.

Still figuring himself out. He/him

Has a tail.

See again: teen behavior. They still make poor decisions and can be childish, but they're not little kids anymore.

He's the first to break when they get in trouble, he's a bit more sensitive than his sister.

He doesn't start shenanigans, he just has very poor judgement and emotional control and will often make bad choices especially when he's angry.

Most likely to argue with the others, but also the first to apologize once he's cooled down.

Cheetara takes him under her wing in a sense and teaches him how to use exercise as an outlet for his excess energy. Tygra joins them too every so often, happy to see his adoptive kid enjoying himself.

Snarf

Age indeterminate.

He/him

Has a habit of still treating Lion-o like he's a child, even after he's a fully grown man and officially Lord of the Thundercats. Lion-o doesn't mind most of the time.

Much grayer in the face than the show depicts.

Doesn't really like sleeping in his own bed, will nap pretty much wherever in common areas so if something happens he can know about it.

Spends a lot of time worrying about something bad happening to Lion-o, especially when he can't come with and has to guard Cat's Lair.

Often thinks about retiring to the planet of Snarfs but can't bring himself to leave. He does retire eventually but mostly stays on Third Earth with the Thundercats he's gotten so attached to. Regularly visits the other Snarfs.

Initially distrustful of Bengali but has grown to like him, especially after seeing how happy he makes Lion-o.

Lynx-o

Was 50 when Thundera was destroyed. 58 when found by the Berserkers.

Kind of beyond dating for the moment, but prefers men.

Cis man (he/him)

Has a tail, but it's a bobtail like real lynx.

Was a martial arts instructor on Thundera, highly adept at most forms of hand to hand combat.

Never intended to be a father but after meeting Pumyra and then Bengali, has developed intense paternal instincts. He'll adopt everyone in this team if he has to.

Tygra and Panthro made up some braille signs for doorways and equipment for when Lynx-o visits Cats Lair.

As a young fighter on Thundera had a huge hero crush on Jaga. Used to be embarrassed by it but honestly is beyond that by now. Nobody's sure how to tell him Jaga's spirit is kind of hanging around still and can hear Lynx-o talk about him like that.

Will randomly approach Pumyra, Bengali, and/or Snarfer and drop Dad Lore before walking away. Those three are still trying to piece together his life story based entirely on Dad Lore Drops.

Pumyra

Was 21 when Thundera was destroyed. 29 when found by the Berserkers.

Lesbiab. Lesbiam. Less bien. Girls

Trans woman (she/her)

Has a tail. Sometimes grabs it by accident when she's going for her belt/sling.

Not really a specialist in any area beyond her athleticism, takes interest in learning as many skills as she thinks could be useful. Combat, first aid medicine, building, hunting and fishing, crafting clothes and tools. She'll climb the walls if she isnt learning and practicing some new skill or other.

Views Bengali and Snarfer as her little siblings, for better or worse. Was the first to be essentially adopted by Lynx-o and is the oldest of the three.

Short tempered, and just plain short. She's around Bengali's height- he is also short.

Sometimes spars with Cheetara. Always claims it's for training, but really she just wants an excuse to engage in homoerotic battle with a taller, stronger woman.

Lived stealth on Thundera, Lynx-o helping connect her with the medical assistance necessary to help her transition.

Speaking of which, once their survival needs were met her new biggest worry was not being able to get estrogen anymore. Once the Thundercats arrived she realized she could use the medical database and computers along with material found on Third Earth to create a new, steady supply.

(if they can solve all their problems with magic and if science can make shit like invincible superpowers real in this universe [i.e. the ep where vultureman does just that], i think sustainable HRT isn't too big of an ask)

Bengali

Was 17 when Thundera was destroyed. 25 when found by the Berserkers.

Genderfluid (he/him or she/her, depending on the day. Mostly prefers he/him) Gay (just likes men)

Had a tail. Lost her tail in an accident. Doesn't mind because without it he can show off his ass better.

Eventually marries Lion-o. Fell in love the moment he laid eyes on Lion-o. Anyone else notice throughout the series Bengali says that "Lion-o needs us" to do XYZ thing, when he means the team as a whole needs them to do it? His first line on seeing Lion-o is him stammering.

Didn't start experimenting with gender until Third Earth, at which point went nuts w it. Loves being called the Queen after marrying Lion-o. She doesn't have a name for it but it's essentially what we'd call genderfluid. Sometimes feels fem, sometimes masc, sometimes neither or both.

Grew up in an isolated tribe of Tygrans called the Ben-Gal whose culture was distinct from other Thunderans. They're smaller than other Tygrans and more likely to be born with white fur instead of orange.

Apprenticed at a forge from a young age at his parents' insistence (his father was a former blacksmith and wanted his kid to follow in his footsteps). Was something of a prodigy.

Entered a secret relationship as a teenager with one of the smiths working the forge who was in his twenties. When his parents found out, they kicked him out. His "boyfriend" refused to take him in and he ran away to the capital where he met Pumyra and Lynx-o, who took him in and tried their best to keep him safe. Pumyra became an adoptive older sister of sorts and Lynx-o was a father figure to both of them.

Partied hard after running away. Faked ID to get into clubs and drink and hit on men too old for him. His self destruction only really stopped when Thundera was destroyed and he lived for 7/8 years on an island with nothing but his found family and two Berbils.

She has adopted Snarfer as her baby brother and if anything were to happen to him she'd break the code of Thundera and end lives.

Snarfer

10 years old.

He/him

The fridge at the Tower of Omens is covered in his drawings.

Has a habit of standing in the room with people he wants attention from and just staring at them until they pay him attention. He has accidentally scared the others countless times doing this. The only one immune is Lynx-o, who will always eventually start up a conversation.

Listens to music as he does chores since it helps him focus on doing the work. The others don't really get his taste but if he's happy they're happy.

Has something of a know-it-all attitude but kind of grows out of it as he gets older.

Ropes the others into playing games with him. Hide and seek is his favorite but he needs to be careful because one time he fell asleep in his hiding spot and when they couldn't find him they were beside themselves and Bengali was about to disassemble the Tower before Snarfer woke up and came out of hiding.

#thundercats (1985) #thundercats #lion-o #tygra #panthro #cheetara #wilykit #wilykat #thunderkittens #snarf #lynx-o #pumyra #bengali #snarfer

[coldresolve]

A huge part of the whump being torture apologia discussion comes from the fact that people exoticize torture. It's foreign. It's something you see in spy movies and read about in thrillers. It's a pain that most people can safely distance themselves from in order to experience emotional catharsis or simple enjoyment. The thing is, some people don't get to have that distance.

It's hard for me to describe the sheer grief that comes with it all. I know a man who was tortured in prison. People who faced abuse from family so severe that it amounted to torture. Someone whose torture was to watch their friends be deliberately hurt. I wish whump writers could learn to have compassion for these people as well, even if their lived experiences are not exceptionally common or openly spoken about.

If an author portrays domestic abuse in their writing, it's generally considered necessary and responsible for them to either write the abuse in a realistic way or to state outside their writing that their portrayal of this very real issue is unrealistic. This respects people's lived experiences with abuse and prevents creating a culture of normalizing and glorifying abusive behavior.

It's most definitely not too much to ask of whump writers to uphold those same standards when writing about torture.

you have no idea how nice it is to get someone well spoken and well thought out in my inbox every once in a while. uh im on like hr 30 of being awake and kinda struggling piecing my thoughts together right now, so forgive me if i dont make a lot of sense, but i wanna say sth

the tone of your ask for some reason really hit a nerve for me. like getting slapped in the face, kind of. i think its the fact you come across really compassionate and just. calm, thoughtful in this. kinda puts my approach into perspective lol

i think im just angry about this topic. like ive got a passion for wanting to get it right, but its driven by anger and frustration. having ppl nitpick the fuck out of everything i say instead of actually having the sorts of conversations that should be had about the topic. i know me being angry edgy tantrum controversial oh whats he gonna say now guy and all that, turns people away from listening to me but i dont know how else to approach it sometimes, i don't want to make excuses for people who i feel should know better. i dont have that kind of patience i guess, at least not right now

i think that anger is like a manifestation, symptom. im angry about the people this happens to, and how catastrophic it is. angry at the people who let it happen. the systems that are built around it. people don't see how systemic torture can be. im angry that the fucking war on terror media frenzy was so effective, because your average person still fucking believes in all the bullshit. or the idea of torture survivors being "broken" like its a personal failure, like its the result of their own shortcomings when they're some of the strongest people you can meet. just all these unfair ideas about it that are everywhere. and people still somehow find it necessary to keep spreading those ideas, even if they know theyre wrong. when it doesnt add anything of value, youre not saying anything about it, youre not actually adding something to the conversation by going along with the bullshit, youre literally just entertaining yourself

i dont know how to not be angry about it, i think. thats the growth goal for me i guess, cause i know this isnt the sorta thing thats gonna fix itself tomorrow. and i dunno your ask just made me think about that, like how i handle this on a personal level. and i think itd be healthy for me to step away from the discussion for a couple days at least and just. accept that i tried to reach people this round, maybe it didnt really work, thats fine, ill try again some other time. also i am writing all this very slowly cause my skull is kinda collapsing in on itself so to speak and maybe that has something to do with me being sorta hopelessly frustrated lmfao. apologies

#asks

[snowviolettwhite]

WIP Wednesday / Tease Tidbit Tuesday

Was tagged by the lovelies @actualalligator @im-overstimulated-and-im-sad @anewkindofme

Don't know how I feel about this, it is a bdsm world au about Owen Strand from 9-1-1. I have never written something like this.

The higher ups brought Owen down Texas because he is a white straight man and thinking he is a dom to add diversity, but is actually a sub. He is pretending to be a dom while he is actually a sub to keep his job and taken seriously in the intense kind of work, along with dealing with cancer and taking care of his son after relapsing.

-----

he is a liability so hard to please but, he’s a forest fire

Owen Strand is many things. He is age forty-nine and member of gen x. He is a firefighter. He is Father. He is an ex-husband. He is a 9/11 survivor. He is the fire captain of the 252 stations in New York City. He is a bit of a playboy and gets around. He falls hard and fast. He is still in love with his ex-wife Gwyneth Morgan. He is a repressor of his emotions and needs. He is an ex-Californian. He is a New Yorker. He is a hero but even heroes fall and reach a breaking point.

The Strand and Morgan families are sometimes too open for their own good but too closed off for their own good as well. Owen and Gwyn are strong resilient people. They met, fell in love, got married, had their baby boy. They were man and woman, husband and wife, firefighter and lawyer, father and mother, sub and dom. They were not enough for each other. Now they are nearing their fifties and Owen never got over her and became self-destructive.

Now is moving himself and his twenty-five-year-old kid to Austin, Texas for a fresh start. When he was first offered being captain to rebuild a firehouse 118 after tragically losing ninety eight percent of their people, he turned it down. He did not want step in on a grieving town, he knows what is like. He did not want to move to the south, New York was his home. He has been in New York since he was thirteen years old. His family is here. His kid is here and does not want to be far away from him. The south in known as being more dynamist in terms of behaviors and laws and he did not want to deal with being discrimination for being a sub fire captain or just being a sub in the south or having to hide and lie about part of who he is. They brought him in to bring in diversity because he is a straight white man, they do not want it to be too diverse and assumed Owen was a dom.

But then Owen got diagnosed with lung cancer and his 9/11 ptsd was getting worse and his kid Tk relapsed after his failed proposal to Alex, his now ex-boyfriend and borderline abusive dom. Alex left him and was cheating on him for a year. They want to stop being reminded of their pain.

-----

Tag Whoever Is Interested In Doing This.

#911 lone star #owen strand #911 lone star fanfiction #911 lone star fic #snowviolettwhite

[granulesofsand]

Hay, I hope you’re having a nice day.

Do you have any tips about dealing with survivors guilt, especially around m*rder.

We are trying to come to terms that we:

A. Where a literal child, much less one who understood the extent of the situation 

B. That we are to not blame for someone death, no matter what our handler said 

There is a few more things to be said, but honestly my brain is way too foggy to even try to process it. 

Easing Guilt

I had to take a few therapy sessions for this one. CW for death, torture, forced perpetration, RAMCOA, guilt and shame. Though I do appreciate the greetings with asks, they do sometimes read like a punch in the gut.

This article is about coercion under torture, but I read it and found pieces helpful for less related guilt. https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/1FqT248H1e6w9P2zWheTnaMXsrvT-ZqzJ/1M7i7t3WBPwrcjtIlb6ii4XD8zyRd6Fza?usp=drive_link&sort=13&direction=a

This should take you to the Legion system’s Drive, which has a bunch of other RAMCOA resources.

Guilt vs Shame

Treating each other with respect and dignity is good for relieving guilt. Adult perpetrators shovel shame onto alters they want to keep cooperative, and holding space for those actions makes it easier to move away from that. Turning the “I am bad” to “I did something bad” and eventually resolving that.

Regardless of whether a death is caused by forced perpetration or external circumstances, it’s in the past. You are here now, and you can move forward into a better future.

Responsibility

For those who were hurt but not killed by others, even others who were significantly older than they, many don’t hold those people in a negative light. In the linked text, page 18 (2nd page under VI) talks about co-victims holding their coerced perpetrator blameless.

I’ve heard of adults in combat from both ends, one endlessly guilty and the other holding them without contempt. The same chapter, about a paragraph down, mentions a young girl who releases her perp and the perps before him.

Not everyone forgives the hurt caused to them, but many survivors do believe “justice” is less about retribution and more about guaranteeing safety for themselves and healing for their abusers. I say “abuser” because this comes from Judith L Herman’s book, Truth and Repair, which is not about forced perpetration.

So you are allowed to move forward without knowing how they would feel. If you want, you can consider it a kindness to them to heal. To live a life that they can’t, and to make your life meaningful to you. You are what is left behind.

Moving On

Depending on your faith tradition, you may want to outwardly show penance of some kind. Not to suffer, but to demonstrate your care for this history. Some of us hold safe ceremonies for those that they hurt, offering things they know or think they might like and providing what closure we can for both whatever remains of them and ourselves.

It can be difficult if you had a bond with the dead or if you did not know or care for them. You might change your assumptions about what happened and your role in it based on that, which can effect your grief and guilt.

That’s important, I think; making your guilt into grief. I don’t know that the pain we feel will ever fully dissipate, but it does get lighter. There’s a peace you can find as you go.

As a Victim

Having seen both sides myself, I don’t hold the children who hurt us at all liable for what happened, even the few who got close to killing us and probably think they did.

Some were in the same boat as us, and even then we forgave them long before ourselves or each other. Others were being hurt in another context or simply weren’t receiving appropriate care.

They were so young. I think it’s only in the upper 20s that I might consider someone responsible, but I don’t feel that anger. I agree with that book, I want to be away from them and I want them to be better. I think I worry more about the children who hurt us than anything.

If I could reach them, I would want them to know how much they deserve to heal. I don’t think of them as bad or dirty or anything else, I just want them to please be okay. I wish it hadn’t happened, but I feel worse for however my pain was interpreted for them than anything they did to me.

I’m not going to ask for more context, but we might be more helpful if you are ever okay with sharing details. We are not qualified to be a therapist, but we can handle a vent if that’s something you need.

#forced perpetration #survivor’s guilt #tw ramcoa #ramcoa #torture #mentions of violence #guilt #shame #did osdd #osddid #cdd system #dissociative identity disorder #did system #polyfragmented system #ramcoa system

[ghost-of-a-slave]

" radqueers are all super privileged assholes "

meanwhile most radqueers do have trauma . meanwhile most radqueers are disabled . meanwhile a lot of radqueers are bodily poc .

im radqueer , bodily disabled and bodily poc as well as severely traumatized . am i suddenly not a minority or oppressed or actively struggling because im radqueer ?? why is your support of minorities so conditioned ?? the moment someone doesn't fit into a little box you shame them and say they have everything you've ever wanted like no , if you were me you would still be miserable .

The thing is I genuinely do not have the capacity to believe any of what you've said given everything that the community is founded upon.

Are you actually traumatized or are you "trans trauma" and had a perfect life and never got hurt? I'd rather have never experienced what I did. Yet your community encourages people to not only pretend to experience what I did (trafficking) but also encourages purposefully endangering yourself and trying to GET PEOPLE ABUSED. On the flip side are you someone who actually experienced something as extreme as I did or the same situation or are you "trans severity" of your trauma because you have refused to do any of the work that is necessary to get over your own insecurities and accept that you can come away with the same kind of horrific fucked up mental state as people who go through a variety of things and by speaking over real survivors of specific areas not only are you doing self-harm (emotional) but you are ruining the chances of real survivors getting help and aid. I am sick and tired of having to placate people who come crawling to me for validation that their trauma is actually that bad or throwing a tantrum because I have it worse than them and they cannot handle it. I do not understand people who are that fucking annoying and weird. Guess what? I know many people who have it worse than me- sometimes I feel like things should have been even worse- sometimes I wish my scars were more clear or bigger or worse, but that isn't healthy that's a trauma reaction that needs to be worked through because NO I'm still a victim and a survivor of horrific things. I would never be so evil and cruel as to pretend I went through the things they did and lie about my actual trauma (which transtrauma people do).

Are you actually disabled or are you "transabled" ? and not in the BIID sense because those with BIID are super valid and matter a lot (and are also by definition actually really disabled with a neurological condition. And I also am for those with BIID being able to have amputations if needed as all the data and science shows that it improves life quality and makes them happier and able to go about their life better). Because if you're actually disabled then yeah your disabilities matter and you should be able to be given aid for them but your own ableism because of whatever internalized issues you have going on is now externalized when you join a far right extremist group which let's be clear is what "radqueer" is. You deserve to not have people mocking your disability and just because you're fine with ableism doesn't mean all of us are or have to be. The majority of radqueers however are not actually disabled or at least have a series of disabilities they pretend to have to make fun of people with those disabilities or because they think it's funny/cool. Example; people with "transASPD" are a fucking laughable joke because it's honestly incredibly funny to see them try super hard to be like me and others and have the fucking weird mental detachments and inability to feel guilt aside from the persons who are your "exceptions" and just being a piece of shit asshole because they're incapable of understanding how REAL sociopaths operate and how we can easily function in society and keep ourselves from doing harm because of ya know- self control.

Are you actually POC or are you "transrace" ? Because let's be clear so many radqueers are super fucking white and are larping as POC because they want brownie points or want to be allowed to say slurs. Those are literally the only reasons outside of real mixed people having internalized issues about their own race or actual POC dealing with the consequences of racism so horribly that they feel like they have to be white or they don't matter. This by default is racist- like it is literally just the bullshit "I don't see color" race is a social concept sure but it's based off of REAL immutable characteristics. If your fucking people were not genocided you will NEVER understand what it's like to be Native American and you doing shit like redface only makes things worse. I have no idea why you struggle to understand blackface is bad it's actually very fucking concerning you can even pretend you're not just a reactionary who's no different from the Jan 6thers.

I don't know if I can believe any radqueer who claims minority status because your community is based on making fun of real minorities and larping as us. It's based on racism, antisemitism, ableism, and queerphobia. That's why you fuckers have shit like "trans nazi" and use that to allow again LITERAL NAZIS into your community. Get fucking real you're a bigot and it's pathetic you pretend otherwise.

"why is your support of minorities so conditioned" because a) I don't believe that the majority of you chucklefucks are actual minorities so this doesn't apply and b) bigots aren't deserving of rights or anything similar and that applies even to self-hating minorities who advocate for harm to minorities :)

I don't care about fucking idpol, if you're causing tangible harm to the majority of minorities (which radqueers do via nazi bullshit) then you're just as bad the cishet white men doing the exact same. Like I'm sorry you think your racist ass is better because you have minority points or something?

And sure if I was you I'd be miserable because I was a bigot and bigots are miserable. But you could just no longer be like that if you stopped being a bad person maybe.

#racism tw #ableism tw #anti radqueer #radqueers fuck off #radqueers dni #radqueers you are literally all fucking bigotted alt-righters who would kill minorities given the chance #like literally just look at what Oli-london did. He's your poster boy- going alt-right and pushing anti-trans activism #if you are able to spend most of your day pretending to be more of a minority than you are without consequences you're privileged.

[ftwdb]

Don’t Say Go.

Chapter 17.

Summary: Soulmates find each other through what is known as The Pull. A sense within a persons body that their soulmate is within reach that guides them to find them. You find yourself following this Pull, guided by vague dreams of a man you can't quite see, until you collapse in the wild and are found by Troy, your soulmate, who has been following the same feeling toward you for days.

Once connected soulmates are able to share emotions through their bond, as well as being able to sense where the other is. But how this force works is very much a mystery still, it can vary from soulmate to soulmate, and just sometimes a connection too deep can lead twist a bond from something beautiful to, well...

Warnings: Dark themes, sexual content, violence, non-graphic description/implications of SA, child abuse and domestic violence. References to addiction. Unhealthy love/obsession/relationships. Soulmate AU. Eventual smut.

Time seemed to pass by both so slowly it was unbearable and with such speed you couldn’t keep up with what was going on. You eventually moved from the bed beside Troy to a chair at his side. You kept your hand in his and you focused everything onto the bond you shared. You could feel it growing stronger, pulsing, and you weren’t surprised when you finally felt his fingers twitch in your grip.

You called Jake over immediately but he kept his expression controlled and his voice calm as you were sure this was a sign Troy would wake up soon. You could feel it. But when you tried to explain that to Jake he only looked at you with sympathy.

You refused to acknowledge the other part of your heart. The one that was like a steady throb. An ache. You knew when the people at the gate had left because you could sense the Pull like a tight wire being stretched until it almost snapped.

Your hand clamped harder around Troy’s when Jeremiah walked back into the tent, looking tense and tired.

“Why aren’t they dead?”

You say bluntly, catching the look Jake gives you.

“Because it ain’t that simple.”

Jeremiah replies, his voice stern but not filled with the usual loathing he has for you.

“Not simple?” You repeat in disbelief. “Which one was it? Which one tried to kill Troy? Because that seems simple enough to me!”

Jeremiah looks at you now and his eyes are… soft. You blink, confused. It almost like he feels sorry for you.

“Dad,” Jake interrupts. “What really happened?”

You look at Jake. Cooper had already told them. They found survivors who were hostile? What more did they need to know?

Jeremiah cocks his head for Jake to follow him outside but you stand up quickly.

“Oh no you don’t. I have a right to know too!”

Jeremiah snaps at you impatiently.

“And what right is that missy?”

You grit your teeth but ignore his condescending name for you.

“I’m Troy’s soulmate!”

Jake looks at you and his face is filled with understanding. If anyone knew what it was like to be at the bedside of a sick or injured soulmate, it was him. But Jeremiah looked almost amused.

“Yeah. So you keep sayin’. Fine, you wanna know so bad? It was because of you.”

You blink, shocked and more than confused.

Jake gives his father a strange look but Jeremiah continues.

“Troy opened fire first. Apparently he didn’t want to risk bringing anyone back, letting anyone find the ranch. You got any suspicions as to why that might be, little lady?”

Jake looks appalled at his father’s words.

“Dad what happened before wasn’t-”

You sit back down in your seat. Troy had shot at innocent people based on the chance that they found their way to the ranch… because the last time he had shown mercy to a survivor it had been the man who had hurt you.

You shake your head and look at Troy. You could understand the desire to protect him from anything. Even now, knowing those people had acted in self defence, you still wanted to kill the person who had almost stolen him from you.

“But why did they follow the militia back? Surely they l’d expect to be killed or taken prisoner at least?”

Jeremiah’s lips are pulled into a thin line.

“Their reasons are irrelevant for now. They asked for a truce while we clean up Troy’s mess. I agreed until we know exactly what, and how many, we’re dealing with.”

You swallow as your stomach turns. A truce with these… savages?

“And then what? What happens to the person you tried to kill your son?”

Jeremiah’s eyes grow dark for a second before he turns and walks away, muttering to himself.

“Troy… has to take responsibility for his actions.”

You stare after him. How could he just not care?

Jake looks torn. He knows who his brother is, maybe even more so than their father. It wasn’t hard for him to believe that Troy took the first shot. Could he blame these other people for just trying to survive? No.

He watches as you turn away and press your head on Troy’s hand. And honestly… Jake wonders if he actually wants his little brother to wake up again.

XXX

Your feet carry you back to the bunkhouse. You can’t stop thinking about what Jeremiah said. The woman’s face at the gate and how she’d looked at the ranch with an almost hungry expression. And the boy… the messy haired boy at her side.

His face flashes in front of your eyes and you shake it from your head.

“Go away.”

You grumble to yourself as you step inside the bunkhouse.

A voice makes you jump and spin on the spot.

“So that’s a “No” for that haircut today then?”

“Mike?”

Troy’s best friend is sitting at the small table, watching you, his eyes looked red. Your stomach drops. Of course it shouldn’t be a surprise that you’re not alone in your grief right now. It doesn’t surprise you that Mike seems to have more of it than Troy’s own family though.

You sigh.

“Now’s not a good time.”

“No shit. But I came to tell you something.”

Mike says flatly. He leans forward on the table and gestures for you to come closer.

“A group of us are going out after dark. We’re gonna find the assholes who did this… and we’re gonna finish what Troy started.”

Your heart begins to pound.

“What? Does Jeremiah know?”

Mike shakes his head. You stare at him before you continue.

“But the truce…”

Mike makes a dismissive sound and sits back.

“Who gives a fuck? When they’re all dead we won’t need a truce.”

You can feel the heat in your veins flooding through you. It’s calling for you to take action. But your head is saying something else.

Stop.

Think.

“Jeremiah said… they weren’t hostile…”

Mike shrugs.

“They are now and that’s all that matters. You think they’re gonna let it slide that our people attacked theirs? No. They’ll come for us. So we need to strike first.”

You sit on the edge of your bunk and take it all in. Mike can sense your doubt, your trepidation. He leans forward again.

“It’s what Troy would want. It’s what he would do for this place. To keep it safe. To keep you safe.”

But that was the problem, wasn’t it? The only need for more blood to be spilled was because Troy had acted in haste to protect you from something that might not have been a threat at all.

“That doesn’t mean more people have to die…” you say slowly. And you wish you were only speaking from a place of goodness. With humanity. But honestly, all you see now was the boy with the white flag.

“… maybe just the one who almost killed Troy then?” Mike says slowly.

You shake your head. That would never happen. There would be a bloodbath no matter intentions they went in with.

Your eyes snap to Mike’s and your voice is set when you speak.

“You know where they are?”

Mike smiles. He pulls a map from his pocket.

“Cooper showed me.”

You hesitate… and then you reach out and take it, examining it.

“What time?”

Mike looks at you. He’s sure you’re behind this plan now.

“Midnight. Let everybody settle into bed, then we sneak away. Just a few of us. We end it quick. We end it quiet.”

You nod your head.

“Yeah…” You throw the map on the table. “I got it.”

XXX

You figure it’ll take a few hours to get to the location in a vehicle. The main problem is leaving the ranch with said vehicle to get to where you need. You check the guard rota. Tonight is one of the fairly new members of the militia, you might have a chance at blagging your way out without raising suspicion.

You know where Troy keeps his keys and you take his jeep as the sun starts to go down. As you approach the main gate you smile casually as the guard on duty approaches.

“No one in or out the ranch for now. Jeremiah’s orders.”

He says flatly, sounding board.

You nod your head and keep smiling.

“Of course I know that, but Jeremiah gave me permission. It’s just a quick trip, I’ll be back before dark.”

It was a total lie of course but you kept your expression controlled as you sat with one arm leaning out the open window, totally relaxed.

The guard looks at you with a frown.

“I’m not sure if…”

You roll your eyes.

“You know who I am, right. I’m Troy’s soulmate.”

The mention of Troy’s name and your position as his soulmate seems to be enough to almost convince the guard.

“Look,” you continue, “we need supplies for Troy from McCarthy’s. You wanna stop me and let Troy die? You’ll be next and I’ll do it myself.”

There must have been something in your voice that convinced the guard to let you go. He opened the gate and waved you through. You nodded and started your drive, pulling out the map and the gun Troy kept in the glove compartment. Just in case.

You set your path in the right direction, barely having to use the map as you felt The Pull in your chest growing stronger as you drive closer to the location Mike showed you on the map…

#troy otto #fear the walking dead #ftwd #ftwd fanfic #troy otto x reader #fanfic #fanfiction #fear the walking dead fanfic #ftwdfanfic #don’t say go #soulmate fanfiction #soulmate au #soulmates #Nick Clark x Reader #love triangle

[half-man-half-lime]

OKAY here's my rant about Twig 9.x (spoilers abound, I'm still only at arc 16)

Sorry if this is obvious or has been analyzed before, but as I alluded to at some point in an earlier post- the Primordials are kids, literally speaking. Metaphorically speaking, they're the Lambs, and of course they're also Frankenstein's Monster, very overtly. And the thing that this parallel does, is it puts the entirety of Twig in perspective.

Like, just parsing out the events of the chapter- the Primordials are built as weapons and as tools. They have no frame of reference for this, they have no frame of reference for existence except what they're taught by the scientists that created them. And what they're taught, from the beginning is violence- they are regularly mutilated if they grow a head with a brain, and even internal brain-like structures, so the first lesson they learn is the dangers of existence, and how to hide. They communicate in secret, because any overt expression of intelligence would be punished.

And of course, being Primordials, this makes them dangerous. They pick up and understand speech, they secretly plot to escape. They've never even seen the sky or the outdoors. Their teachers, the closest thing they have to parents, are the people who hurt them, so their whole frame of viewing the world revolves around hurting and being hurt.

And then they're released into the world for the express intent of hurting others. And they're good at it, because it's the only thing they know, but at the same time it wrecks and scars them. Their entire existence was built for the purpose of hurting, and Mauer, piece of shit that he is, never even considered the damage that does to a living being. And when the last Primordial, the POV for the chapter, faces its own death, it responds the only way it knows how, with violence, with a sadistic plague only meant to hurt.

And the thing that Mauer doesn't understand is that this was inevitable. Creating something and then choking it to make it comply, that was always going to end with the creature lashing out against its master. Were the Primordials always going to be a danger to the planet no matter how they were raised? Maybe! Probably, even! But Mauer, like Dr. Frankenstein before him, only amplified and sped up that process, bringing that likelihood up to 100%.

Which made it abundantly obvious that the same was inevitable for the Lambs, before I ever got far enough into the story to see what shape that was going to take. The Lambs, for all their skill and intelligence, are kids at heart. They're fast at understanding the world, but that doesn't change the fact that they're new to it. In fact, much like we learn about children of Practitioner families in Pale, the only way they reach the emotional maturity and sheer competence they actually have is through horrible abuse, violence, and danger. But they're still kids, still vulnerable in their own individual ways, even if that's not obvious given their massive intelligence.

And the parallels to the Primordials are there- their wings are clipped to keep them from becoming too dangerous. They communicate in secret, and disguise their personalities, making themselves seem less canny. They dream about food (calling out Helen specifically). And the violence of the world they're sent out into slowly destroys them, killing them one by one, until the survivors are too broken to do anything but run away or lash out, or both. This, too, was inevitable.

(further spoilers here-) Sy's rebellion, you should note, utilizes violence, it sacrifices people for the greater good or sometimes even selfish ends. Sy mimics Mauer, an important adult in his life, and stirs citizens into a frenzy with violence he secretly enacted or lied about. And as he gets closer and closer to adulthood, he becomes more of his own person, but that person was defined by his upbringing. The cycle of violence is upheld by new adults, learning from their forbears.

And and and! You can extrapolate the parallel to the entirety of the Crown and the Academies! They're the parents here! They build people into weapons, they crush society under their heel, all in the name of their own personal gain. And the consequences are obvious.

I think Wildbow at some point said that a good mode of worldbuilding is to build a society founded on an irrational perspective that it can't let go of, and this is clear when it comes to the Crown. They bring dominion, they choke their people, and they somehow expect compliance. And even if you cut away all the moralizing and horror of that fact, it is ultimately an irrational, self-destructive perspective. No bread and circuses, only compliance and fear. And the consequences are, as you might guess, inevitable.

#Twig Spoilers #Wildbow #Twig Web Serial #Parahumans #Twig #Child Abuse

[nerves-nebula]

Oh boy, that last comic really made me sad/pos

As you said, it changes everything and it changes nothing, they'll probably start being paranoid about any interaction Leo and Splinter have going foward

They will look at how happy Leo is to spend time with him and just wonder how he is able to do it, then again that's what grooming does to you. You might hate it, be disgusted by it, be afraid of it and the person but you still spend time with them because you are used to it

Leo has a survivor streak, But it's directed mostly to himself as self-preservation. What would he get from running away? Unlike his brothers he doesn't want to go away from everything he knows and deems "safe" because of how isolated he is from them

He has no friends(Like Raph)or someone who cares for him more than at à very basic level (Like Mikey and Donnie who have eachother and Raph)

He might be their sibling and he cares for them at à minimun because even when he is told how little they should mean to him Splinter also makes them "important enough" that he wants to keep them with him

I guess I just see myself in her but very different because even when I found out what my abuser was doing was wrong I stayed well into adulthood to protect my siblings since my abuser fixation was me(I used to daydream they would one day say I was "too old" but that never happened)

Had to fake I cared and they were very delulu about my feelings and our "relationship" which started when I was a literal toddler, didn't want to endanger my siblings until I got all of us out and they never knew what was going on, I've never told anyone even when the bitch kicked the bucket

And I guess Leo would have been the same? I can't see him opening up because he want to about it, he would rather be in denial than see herself that way

leo WOULD rather be in denial, but unfortunately one of the things his brothers required for them to not abandon him was to work on his emotions. he does talk about it eventually, but not as extensively as some of his brothers. he mostly just acknowledges it and sometimes brings it up if its relevant to current emotions, but most of that trauma is saved for THERAPYYYY BABYYY

GUH I love ur reading of leo here its really fun to see all the stuff you pick up on and how you related to her mindset

ugghghghhh this ask is making me dream about the farm house arc. if i ever get around to it that might be the next Big Comic, or, alternatively, the next Big Fic (after I finish caracal carousel) (which lets be honest at this point its going to take a LOT of time to do)

though I kind of think I need to develop the PLOT/world/background cast more because they would play into how The Boys end up at the farm house. And the turtles fighting Shredder is what makes them work more as a team and get closer as siblings- so i should really get on it with designing shredder and his goals and shit. GUH.

sidenote: I'm sorry you went through that, and I'm glad the BITCH is dead. I know how fucking hard it is to decide between your own safety and your siblings safety and frankly doing what you did sounds hellishly difficult.

#nnstuff #ask #asks are sweethearts #child abuse tw

[compo67]

Good morning/afternoon My Friend!

Hope all is well with you. 🙂

I was wondering if you would answerable couple questions regarding the Punzel verse?

You are not obliged to if you are not comfortable doing so.🙂

***SPOILER ALERT** For those who have not read the verse...

Milo....what were the circumstances of his death?

He told Tristan he didn't want to die a virgin...so Tristan sets him up with Jared. There's some stuff to unpack there...

Why would Tristan do that to Jared...that seems so...skeevy.. and very wrong....

And then Milo died..was he ill?

I have always wondered about this, everytime I do a re read..and I've always meant to ask...

Thank you for your time. Have a happy Sunday...hope you are doing well.

Helloooo, my dearest. <3

I'm doing all right! I had a night out with the gentleman caller tonight. We went for pizza and ice cream. When I got home I got struck with some medication side effects (damn you, Mounjaro!), but they have subsided now.

Let's go with under the cut on this one, since it'll be long and there's possibly some folks who haven't yet read Punzel.

CN: discussion of rape, sexual assault, self-harm

I made Milo a very generic character so that the reader could fill in the details however they wanted. In my head though, Milo had a genetic heart condition and died shortly after his trip to California. Honestly, I didn't want to spend too much time on him. He doesn't deserve that much background.

Tristan had a lot to work on while he wasn't on speaking terms with Jared. It was more than "I'm sorry that I was neglectful when you needed me." BUT, I do wanna say that he also didn't know that Milo forced himself on Jared after Jared changed his mind and said no. Jared never told him--or anyone--what happened until way after the fact. This isn't to say it excuses Tristan for what he did. We just can't know what happened to someone unless they talk about it. And Jared had no one to talk about it to, not even Jensen, for a lot of reasons.

Punzel is a very personal fic for me. There's a lot of "me" in there. And part of "me" was dealing with rape at the time, from someone I knew and trusted. I didn't disclose what happened to anyone until years and years later. I carried what happened to me in silence for the longest time, until I broke down from the weight of it. That experience made it into Punzel. Jared didn't disclose this to anyone, until finally, in a timestamp, he just couldn't hold it in anymore.

I think a lot of survivors do this. We hide what happened very well when we want/need to. And some of us want/need to.

The way Tristan saw it, he was helping both Jared and Milo. Milo wouldn't die a virgin and Jared would get to have his first sexual experience without any strings attached, with someone they sort of knew.

I think, looking back, I was trying to convey that sometimes we leave out big portions of our experiences when we're getting to know someone better. We don't want them to run away or think about us differently. I was also trying to convey (later on in the timestamps) that no means no--period. It doesn't matter when you say it, if someone doesn't immediately stop, there's a huge problem. It's no longer, "He didn't hear me, it's okay" or "I changed my mind last minute, it's my fault." It's rape. And it's okay to call it rape.

I'm so glad I didn't go the route of writing a sequel with Punzel. I'm glad that I went the timestamps route instead, because I feel like I've grown up with Punzel in the last... what... 10 years? I worked through a lot of my own grief in regard to infertility, rape, trauma, and abuse.

I think this is also why it matters so much for commenters to be kind. You never know who is writing through something big in their lives. If you don't like what they're writing, move on. Don't be an asshole and leave an asshole comment. Just keep scrolling.

I used to write a lot of non-con/graphic stuff because I was still processing a lot of what happened to me. It made me feel better to write whumpage and brutal scenes. Maybe you can tell, but I don't write those things a whole lot anymore. I'm super proud of that. Instead of taking things out on my characters (it became a form of self-harm), I worked on things in therapy. I have a much better relationship with my writing now. I still live in my head a lot, but it's a much more content and positive space up there.

There's still a lot of "me" in what I write. Just different facets of me. It's not all about pain anymore. Time, space, a lot of work, and the right therapist have made this possible for me.

So. There you have it. We've come full circle.

TLDR; Milo's death isn't important. Jared's survival is. <3

#cal answers #authorial rambles #punzel verse fic #how do i tag this? #tw rape #cn rape #r*pe tw

[msfbgraves]

Writing abusive relationships: the confrontation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#writing #abusive relationships

[miguel-owhora]

Angsty anon moot again😍

I think of leaving sometimes, I don’t know where I’d go- maybe a small sleepy town where nobody knows who I’ve been, maybe then I don’t have to keep up and live to this reputation on another abuse survivor. Hell I don’t even know if I’d want to stay alive if I did drop off the grid but maybe if I’d disappear to a new city, or a new country. Different life, one I actually want to live. But no matter how much I think of it or how tired I get of where I am I can’t just leave. There’s people that depend on me - that still stuck around after seeing my reputation or how much I actually struggled outside of all this lavish ideology and I can’t even convince myself it’s genuine. You guys help that though - you help prove that you don’t care - you never knew the reputation I got handed to me, you knew nothing about me but still took me in and made me welcome. There’s a line from Young And Beautiful by LDR : “Will you still love me when I got nothing but aching soul?”. I’m starting to think maybe people will. Maybe people I haven’t met, maybe people I have - no matter what though - while there are people who can’t have me gone - I would probably be disgusted with myself to give up my friendships with you all. Maybe when this chapter ends I’ll be gone. Maybe then I’ll be ready and if that’s what happens - I’ll hold my memories of all of you, maybe in the dome my ring, or on my chain like charms. no matter what though you all have and always will be one of the best experiences, you’re indifferent with me despite barely knowing shit about who I am outside of the blogs. Maybe if I do drop off the grid we’d pass each other - any of us and we wouldn’t know but yet we share memories. You know only what I’ve told you about myself. Maybe sometime I’ll tell my story publicly. On my blog, or through dm’s or someone’s blog. If I do, you all helped me. Because you all cared about me without knowing my story. A story I wear like prison chains. Something that has held me down and ruined me. Maybe just maybe before I go, maybe even before then, maybe sometime soon, I’ll tell my story, my way, through my perspective. Something that dragged me down I might be able to cut off. Maybe I’ll finally get over my fear of the water just to swim to the surface, to show I live despite it all. Maybe by the time I die, by my own hands or not I can say I met good people. Because I can say that. I’ll say that because I knew alll of you long before you fully knew me, long before I fully knew any of you. I met good people.

i saw this earlier today n held off on replying to it, but truth be told, i am in shambles

#mr. parker's inbox !