Honestly, I have tried to ignore this. I have tried to let it go, telling myself that it’s just fiction, but I just can’t do it anymore.
I am begging you, please, please, don’t stand with Grant Ward, and I’m pleading with you to understand why it terrifies me if you do.
I work in law enforcement, and on a very regular basis, I see what happens when women stand with their Grant Wards. I take their statements. I photograph their injuries. I try to reassure them that we will do what we can to keep them safe from the violent men that hurt them, but it is, so very often, a losing battle because the battle is for the mind of the victim.
The stories have so much in common. When violent men tell the women they profess to love, “I’d never hurt you,” as though those women are the exception to their lack of control, it inevitably becomes “You make me hurt you.” The women believe it, too. They believe that they are the only one who can change the abusive man that they try so hard to love, that they owe it to him to give him another chance and then another. And another. They say things like “he didn’t mean it” and “he loves me” and “he promised to change” and, quite often, “it’s not his fault, it was because he was abused.” I am here to tell you that all of these things are lies, and you should never believe them.
I married a man who was badly abused by his mother as a child until his badly disabled father managed to get custody. Many years later, when his father, who protected my husband and whom my husband greatly admired, started going on misogynistic diatribes about me after we were married, my husband told his father to stop and that he would leave if he didn’t. So, considering that my husband was willing to stand up to his actual father, refusing to allow the man to even speak poorly of me, he wants to know where Ward gets off with saying “I owe him” when it comes to anything and everything he does for Garrett. My husband certainly could have become violent like his mother or bitter like his father, but he chose not to. He chose to do the right thing when it is hard and to be a good man, and that choice is why I love him.
An abuser’s history as a victim never excuses their victimization of others.
Grand Ward’s actions are his fault. He is not being controlled. No one is making his choices for him. Bucky Barnes was being controlled. Mike Peterson was being controlled. Grant Ward was not.
When you hear people say that Natasha Romanoff was just like him, you need to remember that that isn’t true. The moment she was offered a chance of a new life, a chance at self-determination, she took it. She chose not to be something that someone else made her. Grant Ward has rejected that opportunity repeatedly.
When you hear someone say he loves Skye or that Skye could save him, I am here to tell you that is bullshit. Someone that really loves you does not force you to do be with them, does not threaten to take what they want from you regardless of your wishes, and does not hurt the people you care about, and nobody, nobody, is responsible for making another person into someone good. You cannot change another person, and even if you could, that is NOT YOUR JOB. You should never, ever tell a woman, or anyone else for that matter, that it is their responsibility to change someone. Placing that kind of burden on someone is just another way abusers control their victims.
I am not saying that people never change, and I’m not saying that Grant Ward can’t find redemption. What I am saying is redemption is a choice, and he has to be the one to make it. Until he makes that choice, he doesn’t deserve your loyalty because, as he has proven time and time again, he won’t reciprocate it.
Please, stop romanticizing the abuser. I have seen it over and over again in popular fiction, and I have seen the very real physical and emotional damage that it does all the time.
Please, don’t tell people to stand with Grant Ward because, if they listen, that’s one more assault report I have to take.
*When talking about the abuser and the victim in this essay, I usually refer to the abuser as male and the victims as female mostly because that is, by far, the most common combination in my experience, but I want it understood that all combinations of gender occur in these situations. All combinations can be relevant in this context.
Month: May 2014
the owner of this server I’d been playing on gave me a whole pile o’stuff. just spewed it at me, right?
so I put it into my locked chest, because jesus I don’t need to be carrying all of that stuff around with me
logged in today after a week of not being on
all of it is gone
and one of the mods was all “oh you own this house? wouldn’t you rather buy a house in my town?” and then fucking ATTACKED ME when I ignored him in favor of crafting a new pickaxe, since hey. all my spares were in that chest that I’m fairly certain got destroyed because my lock-sign wasn’t on it
I’m seriously not happy right now
Videogames are great, they let you try your craziest fantasies
For example, on the sims, you can have a job and a house
So bricks have been falling from a downtown building in my city and someone made this.
LEEEETTTTT’S PLAY
So I have officially watched every single Let’s Play Minecraft as well as most of the GTA V’s and quite a few of the VS and I can’t stop. I need people who also watch and reblog such things so I can get them on my dash so please like this if you reblog
- Let’s Play
- Team Nice Dynamite
- GTA V
- Minecraft
- VS
- R and R connection
- The Lads
- The Gents
- And pretty much anything
And I will check out your blog and follow you
another space mermaid, this time without shitty background
Educating a Friend
Me: So, let’s say that you’re at school and you see a guy you know. I mean, you guys talk every once in a while and he’s pretty cool, but you’re not like friends or anything. You just talk to him every once in a while.
Guy Friend: What’s his name?
Me: I don’t know. Frank?
Guy Friend: No.
Me: Okay, fine. His name is Will. Okay?
Guy Friend: I don’t think it really suits him, but okay.
Me: …So anyway, you’re at school during lunchtime and you see Will. So, you notice Will’s not eating anything. That’s when you realize that Will has no lunch, no money for lunch, and no way of getting either. He’s just sitting there like he normally would. He’s not acting any differently and he’s not asking anyone for anything. Not money, not a fry, not even a salt packet, but you know he’s gotta be hungry. So, what do you do?
Guy Friend: Do I have any money?
Me: Yeah. You have enough for you and another meal.
Guy Friend: Duh, I buy him lunch.
Me: Okay, cool. So, like you said, you buy him lunch. You buy your lunch and you buy his lunch and you go over and hand it to him. And, he says, “Wow. You know, that’s really nice of you, but I wasn’t gonna ask anyone for lunch. I was probably just gonna wait until I got home to eat.” And, then you say–
Guy Friend: Nah, it’s cool.
Me: Exactly. You say, “Nah, it’s cool. I’m just being nice. It’s a gift.” And, Will says, “You know, that’s awesome. You’re really nice, bro.” And, after that, you guys start hanging out. You guys are like really good buds. You are always hanging out and laughing and just having a good time. So, you guys are friends for a few months, and it’s tons of fun. Then, one day, you go up to Will and you say, “Hey, Will, you know, I’ve been thinking, and I kinda want that five bucks.”
Guy Friend: What five bucks?
Me: Hold on. I’m getting there. So, Will says, “What five bucks?” To which, you reply, “Well, we’ve been hanging out for a long time and it’s been really fun, but like, I’ve done a lot of really nice things for you. Like, I’m always nice to you and I always listen and do things you wanna do, so I was thinking that because I’ve been so nice, you should pay me back that five bucks I spent to get your lunch right before we started really hanging out.”
Guy Friend: What? Why would I–
Me: I’m not done yet. So, then Will looks kinda hurt and he says, “But I thought you were just being nice. I thought that was just a gift.” So, you say, “Whether or not it was a gift, don’t you think you kinda owe me that five bucks since I’ve been so nice to you?” And, Will says, “No. I don’t think I owe you that!” And you get mad, so you say, “Well, I think that you do, so I think you’re being really shitty and stuck up about this and I feel like I’ve been completely wronged.”
Guy Friend: Oh, my God. That’s so fucked up of me. I would never do that to Will. Will was nice. We were buds. That’s way screwed.
Me: I know, right? Hey, just wondering, have you ever heard of this fictional place called “The Friendzone?”
Guy Friend: Well, yeah, but…
Guy Friend: …
Guy Friend: …
Guy Friend: oh
I want to draw more space mermaids now
except I need sleep
dammit
Okay but consider this: mermaids in space
Space mermaids? As in: alien mermaids that live in the vacuum of space and swim between the stars? A setting that uses the analogy of deep space as the open ocean but keeps all the sea monsters? DO WANT!!
Luring astronauts into black holes with a song that carries across the void where no one can hear you scream
Not audible song, though—maybe they sing in frequencies that ship’s sensors pick up—as distress beacons, as spaceports, as fleets. They would have to be huge, to travel between stars, massive space-black bodes with biolumescent patterns, photosynthesizing pure starlight into fuel, too enormous and frail to hold up in the atmosphere of a world. Fins that catch solar radiation instead of water, schools of them slingshotting between stars. Eggs laid in the tails of comets that warm and hatch as they rocket around suns. Voices that are heard in the slow radio pulses of quasars; language of half-light. Homes in the shelters of nebulae, like clownfish and sea anemone. They gather together star-stuff, shape solar systems like we build houses. Maybe, like certain breeds of lobsters, they never stop growing, so there are a few really ancient ones, star-eaters, curled up and sleeping in the warm glow of red suns, layered over with a crust of asteroids; so big passing ships assume they are young worlds, the slow thrum of their heartbeats like the pulsing of a binary system. Mermaids so large a fleet of ships is little more than krill; the universe is vast, and they live in the darkness between tiny islands of light.
Young space mermaids, curious about the strange new creature drifting into their midst…