#cn abuse

[soft-pine]

i think something that is easy to forget since so much of pre-series spn is, you know, PRE series, is that 26 years is a really long time. hell, even 22 years is a really long time.

and what i mean by this is 22 years is long enough for john to have been kind and cruel and fiercely protective and physically abusive and remorseful and loving and absent and overbearing. it's enough time for him to have tried to force lessons about strength or manliness or emotionality on his kids and then been hypocritical and inconsistent and changed. and then gone back again. and again. it's enough time for him to have said over and over that this isn't what he wanted for his kids, that it was temporary, and then to have gone on another hunt and another. it's enough time for him to have used dean as bait so frequently that it's a given and enough time for him to have made it clear how much he relied on dean on hunts or made it clear how dissappointed he was with dean on hunts. enough time for him to have kept sam out of hunting and then wanted sam in hunting. enough time for whatever the goalposts were for being A Good Son to have moved a thousand times. and enough time for him to bring a feast home with him after a hunt and enough time for him to leave dean with not enough money for food and enough time for him to have taught his kids to hustle pool to get cash. it's enough time for him to have abandoned dean in jail on one occasion and enough time for him to come swooping in at the last minute to save him on another. enough time to take them to ten different school districts a year and also to wrestling matches. for dean to have been relieved john was home and terrified john was home and desperate for john to be home and to feel like he was gonna feel relief one moment and then have it turn to dread. to feel angry resentment right up until the moment john showed up with a bleeding forehead at 2 am. it's enough time for john to have had moments where he never wanted to talk about mary and moments where he couldn't stop. to give orders and to get dangerously drunk and to laugh and to cry and to yell and to sing along with the radio and to hug his kids fiercely and then to be gone for weeks a thousand times over.

canon john's actions are a mess. he was constantly in crisis mode. constantly torn between guilt for his actions and the cognitive dissonance of trying to justify them to himself. he made promises he couldn't keep. he was both crushed by circumstance AND crushed his children more than the circumstance demanded. abuse like this is just not consistent. that's a huge part of it.

26 years is long enough for all of this to have happened. and frankly, i think all of it did.

[pusong-mangga]

favorite shitty dollhouse children from non-gothic-horror media ranked in order of explicitness / depth, from least to most

[criteria: must have significant screentime demonstrating the realities of dv/neglect/incest, with an emphasis on incest; works that actually show the psychological consequences instead of just showing the abuse itself rank higher. focus is on specific characters/arcs and not the stories they're from as a whole, except characters whose stories are dedicated to exploring their abuse will usually rank higher]

11. the delightful children from down the lane, codename: kids next door (literally physically enmeshed but this is only joked about at best)

10. caduceus clay, critical role (not enmeshed, did try to drown himself just to hear god while rotting alone for his family)

9. olivia park, knights of guinevere (still in pilot stage so barely any canonical information, but points for guts and implications)

8. orin the red, baldur's gate 3 (would rank higher because of canonical sexual incest in her lineage and the expectation that she should continue that regardless of consent, but she doesn't get to explore it beyond one meltdown. arguably her mental instability can be read as that of a survivor but it's played up for high fantasy drama and doesn't feel that grounded)

7. zuko and azula, a:tla (not enmeshed, character arcs surrounding their abuse explored in great depth. only lower than zagreus because hades revolves around the abuse)

6. zagreus, hades (not enmeshed but routine patricide and violence counts for something, and his relationship w his abuser is explored in detail. also kills himself casually)

5. steven quartz universe, steven universe (grounded mental breakdown directly related to enmeshment that takes an entire epilogue series to illustrate earns him this spot despite a lack of more "extreme" forms of violence. the caveat is his story is a bit over-idealistic - but that is genre-compliant so w/e. i like that he was abused by non-abusers if that makes sense)

4. the hollow knight, hollow knight (sacrificial lamb, failed at their one job which was to not love their father. repeatedly tries to kill themself about it. their story revolves around the futility of their sacrifice and the continuation of it through the abuse of other children)

3. orel puppington, moral orel (not enmeshed but god i wish. otherwise a raw portrayal of child abuse that balances grim reality with heart, has him directly confronting his relationship with his abuser throughout the show and unpacking it piece by piece. bonus points for going through it all without losing himself - rlly tough narrative to find)

2. thistle, dungeon meshi (even if he wasn't onscreen assaulted by his brother's god while crying for said brother he'd still be one of the most strongly csa/incest-survivor coded characters here, but his relationship w his brother isn't explored outside of a few pages. otherwise a scarily accurate portrayal of what mental illness looks like for someone in that situation - if not for this and his assault scene being well-executed imo he'd rank much lower)

1. helena eagan / helly r, severance (had to be split in two and pit against herself the whole show on behalf of a cult run by her father, just to make it perfectly clear. maybe not the most "graphic" example but the most well-balanced one - her story has a little bit of all the others listed, in the right amounts)

[leo-fie]

So since Sophie From Mars decided to post a video again after 9 months of silence, I went and looked how the abuse scandal actually played out.

On the 12th of December 2023, November Kelly and others came out with a statement accusing Sophie From Mars of sexual abuse on Twitter.

Sophie responed to this by admitting the allegations to be true, but that she somehow didn't notice. She did not apoligise. It's noteworthy that she did so on Twitter and in form of a solemn jpeg, ie the text cannot be searched for. Sophie always said that Patreon is the center of her online presence, and her work is mainly found on youtube. Yet she kept this entirely to Twitter, knowing most of her audience will not see it. That's cold. Controlling.

I was one of Sophies patreons at that point and had no idea, if it were not for an anon ask. I subsequently blocked and reported Sophie on everything save Patreon, where I demanded all of my money back. Crickets.

If Patreon really is the center of her online presence, that's where she would post an explanation, or apology, or anything. She didn't.

Months pass, now Sophie is back with a new video essay (which Youtube recommended to me despite me blocking, downvoting and not-intersted-ing everything). Someone posts it on r/breadtube, all the comments are about her being an abuser, yet the poster is fangirling too hard and alluding to some more statements that had been made about the scandal, yet refusing to provide any proof.

So I make a fucking Twitter-Account again, just to see what this could possibly be about.

Sophie From Mars made a further statement on Twitter on 11th of Janurary 2024. And only on Twitter. And it's solemn jpegs again. No apology, no responsibility. But a psychotic episode.

I'm not saying Sophie could not have had an episode. I'm saying it's very convenient to have something to blame her admitted blatant disregard for kink etiquette on. She's literally disguising her abuse as kink! That's not how mental illness works!

I have no words for my disgust.

[flightfoot]

Hello. :) I've been seeing the post about Ladybug's unknowingly poke Chat's traumatic trigger but I don't remember there's a list about the event? As in, which episodes where she did that and the trigger that she poke. Instead whenever I tried to find it, all I found is Chat bashing. Do you mind if I ask a few examples of those triggers? Thank you in advance. :D

Dang, you just found a load of Chat bashing? That sucks. Seriously wish people would lay off him already.

Glaciator - she doesn’t show up to the dinner he set up, same as his father just stood Adrien up, even after forcing Adrien to cancel on ice cream plans with his friends. Abandonment trigger.

Syren - Leaves Chat in the dark about Rena’s identity and where Ladybug’s getting Miraculous from, WHY he’s being kept in the dark about those things, and then leaves him to just sit and wait when they were in the middle of fighting an akuma before, to go off and do something for some unknown reason. Some abandonment trigger with thinking that Rena could replace him, along with, well, leaving him to wait while she scarpers off to do some unknown thing. Second (arguably more prominent trigger in this episode); lack of trust and secretiveness without clear cause (they’re kinda bundled together in this case), as well as being shut down when he begins asking questions.

Anansi - very minor one. Ladybug recruits another hero. Fear of abandonment.

Frozer - Kinda counts? This one’s iffier. Just being rejected in general treads close to the abandonment trigger, I think, with how his father is constantly rejecting Adrien’s attempts to spend time with him or talk to him about personal matters.

Desperada - Her comment when they were initially waiting for Chat in the first timeline, with dismissing his lack of presence with “Come to think of it, we’re okay without him”, feeds into the whole “fear of abandonment” thing, along with general lack of self-worth.

Those are the main ones I can think of. It was mostly a season 2 thing. Honorable mention to Sandboy, which doesn’t have Ladybug actually step on any of his triggers, but which did SHOW a pretty big hint to one of them, with Nightmare Ladybug yelling about how she never loved Chat and she wants to get rid of him. Something which Ladybug’s concerned by at first, but doesn’t realize the true significance of - probably because it’s inconceivable to her that she’d actually do or think any such thing.

The fear of abandonment/lack of trust/secretiveness without clear cause all kinda play into one another, with how Adrien’s mom disappeared/died and Gabriel apparently pulling away more than he was already doing so, leaving Adrien bereft of parental figures, and social interaction and support in general until he ran away to school. Nathalie was the closest he got, and even then she didn’t really give him the emotional support he needed.

Combine that with how his father chastises him when he’s anything less than “perfect”, denying him even the opportunity to go out with his friends, much less giving him actual affection when he does something “wrong” (fueling the abandonment + loneliness + low self-esteem bundle), and with the lack of trust/secretiveness feeding into a general feeling of “he doesn’t know or care about me as a person”, and well... it’s no surprise why Chat reacts badly to anything related to those triggers.

[just-diedie]

Miraculous Law Firm

Because my brain demanded this while I was in the shower. Kinda a redo of an AU I did long ago that sucks.

SHOULD BE NOTED THAT I HAVE NO IDEA HOW LAWYERS DO THINGS OR HOW THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM WORKS IN FRANCE SO PLEASE DON’T TAKE THIS AT FACE VALUE

Marinette and Adrien are lawyers

Met in law school, though on different sides of a mock debate, leading to something like Gum Incident(TM)

Learned what each other wanted to specialize in while in practice, decide to start a partner firm

Both want to help victims of abuse

Marinette has an uncanny way of taking the evidence presented and making it work in her clients favor

She would take on the cases that seem nigh impossible

Especially those where men were the victims of abuse bc of course stigma

Adrien mostly works with children and is so nice to them

But he will absolutely rip the abuser a new one while they’re in the witness stand

The kids whose cases they take call Marinette Ms. Ladybug and Adrien Mr. Chat or however they’d be called in France I’m so sorry

It’s hard trying to get the kids to open up

At first, they brought in therapy animals

But some kids found them intimidating or are allergic

Marinette has the bright idea to use dolls

Kids would talk to the dolls, but some only when the adults are out

With some help from Max, they now have large soft plushies that record the childrens testaments

Alya works as a detective, and whenever someone comes in reporting abuse, she recommends this law firm

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO CONFLICTS OF INTEREST NOR BIASES BC THEY ARE ALL PROS AT THEIR JOBS AND WERE TRAINED PROPERLY

Oh and Nino is Alya’s informant for cases

Or switch those roles idk

@ladyblargh can I throw in some chouette cameos when Mari and Adrien visit the station?

Someone under the alias Hawkmoth runs a [blank] trafficking ring (fill in the blank with whatever you want

Every couple of months, someone escapes from said ring and seeks out help, leading them to Miraculous Law Firm

Maybe let me know what you think of all this? Also came up with more stuff like Kitty Section being a part of that bikers against child abuse group, and Tikki and Plagg are trained therapy animals first brought in but now became Mari and Adriens own personal therapy animals/pets that help them destress.

[the-dao-of-the-zerg]

“So here's a model for abuse. Nobody's born knowing how to be abusive. Instead, it happens when the normal give-and-take of a relationship, the normal low-stakes negotiations, start resolving in one person's favor. Consistently.“  - Stolen from the Book of Rats Uhm. Wow. That is... such an intensely validating framing. All my abusers fall squarely in to this narrative. And, not surprisingly, they all took pains to define abuse differently. But fundamentally, the thing that freaked me out, the thing that made me leave, was that pervasive sense that conflicts would consistently resolve in their favor. They’d still do nice things. They were wonderful as long as I agreed. But there was no room for the concept that I might have a valid point when we disagreed.

[pusong-mangga]

moral orel has permanently ruined my sense of humor if i ever hear someone say something adjacent to this all my mental energy is going into not laughing

[curlicuecal]

i really needed your post about how someone can love you and still be abusive because i've really been hating myself lately for not begging my mom for a relationship again because, like, idk maybe she does love me. your post made me think hey i'm still allowed to ... not. subject myself to constant abuse. and not be a bad person. like people aren't entitled to requited love.

Thanks a bunch for this message–I’m really glad if that post helped you. I hope you have lots of supportive people around you in your life to help you through this! Right there with you on how complicated it all feels–if people were all one way or another it would be *easy*, but they’re not, they’re complex and flawed and beautiful, and it’s hard.

For me it was really important to keep reminding myself that interacting with other people isn’t supposed to hurt; that I had plenty of relationships in my life that *didn’t* feel this way. That anyone who loves me wants me to be happy. That *I* want me to be happy. That other people have choices, and can manage their own lives and happiness independent of me. I’m not taking care of myself *at* them, I’m just…. living my life.

My presence is not a de facto in anyone's life. My emotional energy isn't *owed* to anyone; you can't be awarded me for good behavior or something.

The upsurge of this post has come at a really weird time for me–because after 5+ years of non-contact (during which my dad has substantially but not completely shifted his behavior), I am, as of last week, and w/ frequent check-ins with my therapist, tentatively feeling out establishing some kind of… not the previous thing, but distant-acquaintanceship-via-letter. Maybe.

….Which all comes with a huge bundle of mixed feels (b/c what if he gets pushy and/or fucks it up for permanent and that’s it forever, or what if *I* mess up and just slide into old patterns). I have had a nightmare every night for a week, which is fun, but not entirely unexpected. It’s week one, we're proceeding entirely on *my* terms, I'm keeping in touch with my therapist, we’ll see.

So, yeah, suddenly seeing this post all over my notes was sort of… terrifying, but all the comments have been incredibly nice and thoughtful and moving, and actually made me feel very…. not alone in this complicated, messy topic, so thank y'all.