#i also just wanted to explore secondhand trauma a little bit

[thetomorrowshow]

froze in shock

empires superpowers au masterlist (incomplete)

i'm this close to dropping my title scheme

cw: angst, nightmares, seeing someone dead in ur dreams?, relationship fights

this story takes place approximately 7 months after the end of 'poisoned rats'.

~

For the most part, Scott loves Jimmy’s strange behaviors and quirks. He loves the way he knocks four times before opening any door. He loves the way he glares through slitted eyes at any sort of electronic appliance. He loves the way he never takes his wallet anywhere and tries to just waltz out of stores without paying.

Something he doesn’t exactly love is just how stiff Jimmy is all the time.

Not personality-wise, or emotionally, but physically. When they watch movies all cuddled up together, Jimmy stares at the screen without seeming to need to shift his seating position, even as Scott readjusts about a billion times. They read together and Jimmy doesn’t move an inch from where he’s curled up on the couch. They lie in bed and Scott tries to sleep, but Jimmy is absolutely motionless in his arms.

It’s just frankly weird, and too many times Scott’s poked Jimmy to make sure he’s still alive only for Jimmy to turn those big puppy-dog eyes on him, terribly wounded by a little prod. Scott always rolls his eyes and cuddles Jimmy a bit closer, putting it out of his mind. That is, until today.

It’s the weekend, and Scott wakes up this morning after a terrible nightmare (He’s too late, Jimmy’s on the ground with blood dripping from his mouth and utterly motionless, he hasn’t got a pulse and no matter how many times Scott shakes him he doesn’t rouse), but he shakes it off and slips out of bed to make pancakes, eyes lingering on the sleeping form of his boyfriend.

Ever since he was eighteen, cooking’s something he’s done to keep his mind occupied. It had taken quite a bit of work on Aeor’s part to get rid of the idea that only women cook, only women do chores, but once that particular brand of toxic masculinity had been debunked, he’d grown to love cooking. It's a safe haven, a place to stretch some mental muscles and focus solely on the task at hand. Plus he usually gets something delicious out of his labor, so while others may consider cooking a chore, Scott sees it as one of his favorite pastimes.

He’s just finished the first couple of pancakes when Jimmy shuffles out of the bedroom, pajama shirt half off and hair sticking up. He yawns, leans over Scott’s shoulder for a kiss (Scott smiles and acquiesces, taking in his boyfriend alive and safe and moving), then heads off in the direction of the bathroom.

“Love you!” Scott calls after him. He gets a faint grunt in reply.

When Jimmy exits the bathroom after half an hour, his hair is tamed and his eyes are actually open. He hasn’t showered, which isn’t exactly abnormal, but Scott’s not sure if it’s a trauma thing today or if he just wants pancakes.

Jimmy makes a beeline for the cupboard, retrieving a plate, then a fork from the drawer below. He kisses Scott on the cheek when he reaches over him for the steadily growing collection of pancakes, nabbing two before continuing to the table.

“Sleep well?” Scott asks lightly, blinking back images from his nightmare.

“Fine, I guess,” Jimmy says, and there’s still traces of sleep in his voice that make Scott grin to himself. “Thank you for breakfast.”

Scott nods, flips a pancake. He reaches up into the cupboard above the stove, pulls out the syrup and hands it to Jimmy, who is currently bent over in the fridge for butter.

“Do you have to superhero today?” Jimmy asks after a few minutes, and Scott shrugs.

“It’s not my day for patrol, but I could be called out at any time. If that happens, do you want me to ask Lizzie to come over?”

“Nah, I’ll be fine.”

Elle curls around Scott’s legs, purring softly. He knows what she wants, which is why he’s already made and set aside two tiny pancakes. One of these he dangles between his fingers, drops into Elle’s mouth when she leaps up to catch it. Norman skitters into the room as if sensing the food, gives Scott the most innocent look ever. Scott chuckles, kneels down with the other tiny pancake and holds it out to him. Norman barely takes it in time, Elle lunging forward to try and snatch it.

“You’re such a good cat dad,” Jimmy mumbles around a mouthful of pancake. “Makin’ ‘em pancakes an’ all.”

Scott rolls his eyes. “Right, because they would never whine at me until I gave them one anyways.”

He finishes up the pancakes, clicking the stove off and rinsing the mixing bowl out in the sink. Then he serves himself some pancakes, sits down next to Jimmy, stifling a yawn.

Jimmy, of course, notices, brows crinkling with concern. “Scott, dear, did you sleep last night?”

He did sleep, of course. Just not very well. Scott doesn’t need to answer, though, because Jimmy keeps speaking.

“You look exhausted. Maybe you should nap after breakfast.”

Scott shovels a bite of pancake in his mouth. Now that he’s sitting down, he really feels what Jimmy’s saying. He just wants to lean back and close his eyes for a little bit, and his bed sounds almost heavenly.

“Maybe,” he agrees. The more he thinks of it, the more appealing it sounds. It's not like it takes much convincing to get him to do something he wants to do, though. “Wake me up if the hero phone rings?”

Jimmy smiles, bounces a little in his seat. “I didn’t actually think I would convince you!” he says. “You must be really tired. Of course I will, of course! Just go rest, my love! I’ll clean this up.”

Scott chuckles, leans over for a sticky kiss. “Okay. I’ll go to bed.”

-

Scott shoots up with a gasp—Jimmy’s gone, he’s dead, he’s lying unmoving on the floor and there’s no blood but his skin has taken on a grey pallor and there’s nothing Scott can do but take his pulse over and over with no results—and Jimmy’s in front of him, hands up placatingly.

What?

“Are you awake?” Jimmy asks cautiously, and Scott glances around the blurry world only for his bedroom to come into focus. He blinks at Jimmy again, trying to reconcile the man in front of him with the one he’d just seen.

A dream. A nightmare.

The Jimmy before him—the real Jimmy, the living, breathing Jimmy—is shirtless, a towel tied around his waist. The scars that mar his torso are a shiny pink, his hair wet and flat against his head. In his hand is a flip-phone, outstretched toward Scott.

“They’re calling for you, but I can tell them you’re sleeping if you like,” Jimmy says, squinting at him. Scott takes a moment to regulate his breathing, still out of control after a repeat of last night’s dream.

“Yeah, no, I’ll go out,” he mumbles, rubbing his eyes and kicking off the tangled sheets. “Does the message say who the villain is?”

“The Oracle,”  Jimmy reads. “Apparently Joel went up against him, but you know how sensitive he is to the Oracle’s powers.”

Scott sucks in a breath, suddenly fully awake. That’s bad news. “They should’ve called me right away. Is Joel okay?”

Jimmy shrugs.

“Right, tell them I’m getting ready.” Scott rolls out of the bed, heads to the closet. “Sure you don’t want to come?”

Jimmy snorts. “Right. I’m gonna get back to my shower. Have fun out there, love you.”

“Love you,” Scott calls after his retreating back, before slipping his supersuit on. Apparently he’s got a villain to fight.

-

The Oracle is a quiet villain with haunted eyes, and Scott hates fighting him these days because of how much that reminds him of Jimmy. He scares him off anyways, helps Joel (who is tugging on his own hair, eyes squinted shut as he lies curled on the sidewalk) to Lizzie, then returns home, somehow more exhausted than he was before he took his nap.

Jimmy’s on the couch when he gets back, Norman on his lap as he watches whatever it is he’s watching. He lights up when Scott stumps through the back door, kicking off his boots and pulling off his mask.

“Hello, my love!” Jimmy says brightly, pausing his show. “I’d get up to kiss you, but Norman is asleep on me.”

Scott can’t help but smile at him. “It’s fine, Jimmy. How about I go change out of this and then we put on the next episode of Stranger Things?”

Jimmy agrees and soon enough they’re both on the couch cuddled up to each other, Norman having slunk off to some other room. Scott flips through the episodes until he finds the one they’re on, then settles in, the bowl of popcorn that Jimmy had prepared resting on his lap.

They’re barely past the title screen of the second episode when Scott feels the exhaustion start to take over. His limbs grow heavy, his eyelids flutter shut, he sighs and lets his head rest more heavily on Jimmy’s shoulder.

And then Jimmy’s dead under him, too still to be anything but that, and his heart isn’t beating under Scott’s ear and he doesn’t know how it happened—

“Scott—Scott!”

Scott’s eyes shoot open and he sees Jimmy, eyes wide, hands pushing gently against his chest. But he’s still so motionless—Scott’s hands are gripping his shoulders and he shakes him, Jimmy has to wake up he can’t be dead he just can’t be—

“Scott!” Jimmy cries out, fear flashing across his face before he fully pushes him away.

Scott blinks, takes in his surroundings.

He’s on the couch in his living room. The TV is playing something—Stranger Things—on low volume, like Jimmy had turned it down so he could rest easier. Jimmy’s on the far end of the couch from him, hands up defensively.

And maybe Scott’s just exhausted. Maybe it’s because he hasn’t been able to sleep lately without being haunted by nightmares of Jimmy dead under his fingers. Maybe the fight with the Oracle had tipped him over the edge. But instead of doing what a good partner would do, instead of apologizing and explaining his actions, instead of offering Jimmy a hug and safety, Scott lashes out.

“I thought you were dead!” he spits, hands clenched in fists. “I—I keep dreaming that you’ve died, that I was too late to save you, and then you make everything worse by how freakishly still you are all the time! It’s like cuddling with a statue, I swear! I woke up from a nightmare that you weren’t moving and you weren’t moving here, either! I just—” dread (or maybe tears) chokes him, but Scott continues— “I just wish you weren’t weird like that.”

There’s a moment of silence as all those ugly words hang in the air between them, and for a moment Scott feels viciously pleased, pleased that they’re finally out of his head. Then that moment is gone and Jimmy is rolling off the couch and running into their bedroom, the door slamming shut behind him.

Scott sits there for a moment, fuming. Oh, so he doesn’t get to be critical of anything? Jimmy’s just scared him half to death, and Scott doesn’t even get the chance to ask him to not do that?

And then his brain seems to catch up with his mouth.

Oh no.

Scott may have no idea why Jimmy doesn’t fidget. It may bother him a lot. That doesn’t mean he gets to blame Jimmy for it. It doesn’t mean he gets to be mad at Jimmy. If something about Jimmy’s actions truly bothers him, he’s meant to talk it out with his therapist and figure out the best conversation that can be had for the both of them over the issue, and remember that they both have to make concessions for this relationship to work. This is certainly something he can concede.

Not anymore. Not now that he’s ruined everything. Jimmy hates him. He’d yelled at him for something that he probably didn’t even realize that he was doing, for something that Scott had never even expressed bothers him. And now Jimmy’s going to break up with him and Scott deserves it.

Maybe he can fix things, a little bit. Or at least find a way to apologize to Jimmy before he leaves him.

Scott dashes away the tears that have begun to roll down his cheeks, kicks off the blanket that he doesn’t remember putting on and trips over the overturned popcorn bowl, knocking even more kernels all over the carpet. He sighs, crouches down, and begins picking up each piece to throw away. He could get the vacuum out—he should get the vacuum out—but this is more difficult, and he deserves more difficult.

Once he’s collected it all, he carries the bowl to the kitchen and dumps it in the trash, then puts the bowl in the sink. From there, he rinses any other various dishes and loads them into the dishwasher, then opens the fridge and gets out the ground beef he’d set to defrost the day before.

They’d planned lasagna for dinner. He sets a pan on the front right burner, plops the ground meat into it with some oil and onion flakes, then sets a pot of water to boil on the back left burner. He moves mechanically, just following step after step, repeatedly blinking back tears. This is something he knows how to do, something he knows Jimmy will enjoy eating.

As if summoned by the thought of him, the bedroom door creaks open and Jimmy sidles out, pads down the hall and into the kitchen. Scott doesn’t look at him, just wipes his nose on his sleeve and stirs the meat.

“Babe,” Jimmy says softly, stepping closer. “Baby, you’re overworking yourself. Sit down, yeah? You literally fell asleep on my shoulder earlier.”

Scott sucks in a shuddering breath, reluctantly lets Jimmy pry the spatula from his fingers. At another nudge, he falls into his chair at the kitchen table.

He hadn’t realized just how far he was pushing himself until he sits down, feels his muscles relax, soreness he hadn’t noticed resolving into relief.

He shouldn’t be feeling relief. He should still be struggling. He deserves to struggle.

“Now. We need to talk about what just happened,” Jimmy tells him, tossing the meat around. “To start off, I’m sorry.”

Scott blinks. “I—sorry for what?” he asks incredulously. “You didn’t do anything!”

“I’m sorry for running out when you were hurting,” Jimmy says simply. “I should have stayed and tried to talk you through it, but I panicked and bolted. I want to get better at staying in uncomfortable conversations, and it’s something I’m going to talk to my therapist about.”

He’s so perfect. Jimmy’s the most perfect boyfriend in existence, and that’s why Scott doesn’t deserve him. He didn’t do anything wrong, Scott was the one to freak out on him for no reason—

“Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Scott sniffles. “Thinkin’ about how much I don’t deserve you.”

“Okay. And what upset you earlier?”

Scott’s not sure how to say it, because now that they’re in the brightly lit kitchen and Jimmy’s tapping the spatula against the rim of the pan, it seems ridiculous. “I—” he cuts himself off, arms twitching up like he’s about to hide his head in them. Maybe he should. “I’ve been having bad dreams,” he says eventually. “Where you . . . where I’m too late. And they’ve k-killed you. And it always ends the same way—I’m listening for your heartbeat, and there’s nothing, and you’re so very very still—and I should’ve never freaked out at you about it, you—”

Jimmy snorts. “‘I should’ve never freaked out at you about it’ should be the title of my autobiography.”

“Yeah, but—” Scott’s hands are shaking, he’s not sure why— “but I had literally no reason! And you might have a reason for not fidgeting, and—” “Whoa, back it up!” Jimmy sets the spatula down, turns to him, his brows raised in concern. “Do you think I have no reason for freaking out when I have a panic attack over the door being closed?”

“I—what? No! But that’s a trauma response, it’s—” “And you think your nightmares aren’t a trauma response?”

Scott stops. Thinks. 

It’s . . . it’s certainly possible that rescuing Jimmy was a traumatic enough experience that he can’t stop dreaming about it. But. . . .

“But that’s your trauma,” Scott whispers. “I—it wasn’t bad for me. I shouldn’t be upset over it when it didn’t even happen to me.”

Silence for a moment. “Scott,” says Jimmy eventually. “After you rest, I hope you realize how stupid that just was.”

“I—what—?” Scott sputters, but Jimmy continues speaking.

“Trauma doesn’t discriminate! And secondhand trauma is a thing that exists. It doesn’t have to happen to you for you to be traumatized. Like—uh, like when Mythics accidentally flashed you that one time? I may have just been in the crowd, and I wasn’t the one who had to help him pull his pants back up, but I was certainly traumatized.”

Scott laughs in spite of himself, some of the tension oozing out of him. Jimmy’s right, and he knows it. He’s even talked to Nora about secondhand trauma and what signs to look out for. He really is just exhausted.

Still.

“I’m sorry,” he says after a minute, “for saying what I did. Sure, it could have been a trauma reaction, but that doesn’t mean I had to say all that.”

Jimmy nods. “Thank you. It sounded like it was something that’s been building up for a while.”

Scott shrugs. It has been, but he doesn’t want to say it.

“I don’t know why I’m so still all the time,” Jimmy says thoughtfully, opening a box of lasagna noodles. “I don’t remember if I used to fidget or not. If I had to guess. . . .” He pours the noodles into the boiling water, pokes at them with a wooden spoon. “Y’know, thinking back I think I did fidget a lot in school. But you’re looking at a guy who had to spend days lying frozen on an operation table.”

Guilt surges through Scott, but before he can open his mouth Jimmy continues.

“But then again, I’ve had to sleep in a lot of tight spaces over the years where there wasn’t room to move. And there was a year or so when I was younger that I was so scared of myself that I barely dared to move. And also, the education system sucks for neurodivergent kids and they might’ve just trained it out of me when I was real small. I really don’t know. I have my theories, but there’s no way to really know. In any case, I never meant to scare you.”

“If I didn’t feel like a jerk before, I definitely do now,” Scott admits. “Being tired is no excuse. I shouldn’t have been so nasty about it. I’ll talk to Nora, try to work out why I responded like that.”

“And I’ll work on moving occasionally, so you feel more comfortable!”

“What?” That’s—no— “Jimmy, no. I don’t want you to change your behavior, you haven’t done anything wrong!”

Jimmy turns the heat of the lower right burner on low, sets down the spatula. He leaves the food to sit beside Scott, takes his hands in his own.

“Petal,” he says seriously. “When you started leaving doors open for me, that was a change in your behavior to keep me safe, even though you weren’t doing anything wrong by closing them.”

“Yeah, but—”

“When I asked you to not stand over me if I’m on the floor, that was a change in your behavior that you made and you definitely didn’t have to, but you choose to crawl across rooms sometimes so that I feel safe. When I asked you not to touch my head, you immediately stopped, even though it was an instinct for you.” Jimmy kisses one of Scott’s hands, smiles softly. “This isn’t a big change for me. And it’ll help you feel safe. Let me do this for you.”

Scott bites his lip. “But what if it is a big change for you? What if you try to fidget and have a flashback?”

“Well, then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Jimmy shrugs. He stands, squeezing Scott’s hands before letting go. “Now how about I finish making this, and you hop in the shower, and then we can eat and go to bed. Sound good?”

It sounds wonderful, especially when Scott had convinced himself not long ago that he deserved to be dumped by Jimmy. Maybe his thoughts today haven’t exactly been rational.

He showers, and they eat, and they turn in early but lie in bed and finish their episode on Scott’s laptop. When it’s over and Scott puts the laptop to the side, Jimmy snuggles up to his chest and closes his eyes.

“I feel like I really messed up today,” Scott whispers.

Jimmy hums. “Maybe you did mess up. But we’ll get through it. And tomorrow we can talk about it more to really sort out the issue, okay?”

“Okay.”

Jimmy tilts his head up, presses a soft kiss to Scott’s lips. “I love you.”

“I love you.”

Scott wakes in the middle of the night, frantically reaching for Jimmy’s arm to take his pulse. Jimmy just sniffs, mumbles something in his sleep, presses himself closer to Scott.

Scott watches his chest rise and fall until he feels secure. Then he lets his eyes flutter closed and finally falls into a dreamless sleep.

[silvysartfulness]

1, 2, 12, 16 and 22 for the ask game! No particular fandom, up to you.

the character everyone gets wrong

Gonna say a toss-up between Xiao Xingchen and Xue Yang here.Guess it depends on whether you mean in fic or just in The Discourse in general?

I see so so many bad takes on Xue Yang, especially people utterly glossing over his trauma, and... I'm happy for you guys, I guess, who've apparently never known trauma and what it does to a person? It's not a matter of Xue Yang deciding to be a murderous asshole because he broke a finger once. It's that his entire personality and the way his mind works were brutally shaped by severe abuse and trauma at a very young age. You don't have to like him or at all condone his actions, but have a little compassion, for fuck's sake.

As for Xiao Xingchen... I don't know which rubs me the wrong way the most, the "lol XXC can't do math" crowd claiming he's outright stupid, or the "lol XXC was raised by hippies" who utterly disregard his whole cultural context. Personally not at all a fan of mean (dom) Xiao Xingchen either, I just can't see it work with his canon personality, but to each their own, I guess. I won't read it, though.

2. a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

Hmmm. That's actually a tough one, because I hc Xue Yang (And Xiao Xingchen for that matter) as rather fluid switches without particular preference as long as things are sexy and feel good.

I guess you could argue that Xue Yang would be wary about who he'd let top him because of his rough and precarious childhood and how badly the world's hurt him, but then, the boy also has a self-destructive high-risk-behaviour streak a mile wide, so.

I guess the closest I can get is that I don't think Song Lan enjoys the idea of bottoming, partly because of his more ingrained ideas of masculinity and femininity and the power roles he feels are inherent in topping/bottoming, but more importantly because he already struggles with physical touch, and the idea of being held down, touched and "trapped" in any way during sex is a bit scary. Not to say he wouldn't come around to it, but it'd take a lot more mulling over - and gentle experimentation. 😏

I already answered 12, so moving on to 16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

Oh man, is this my cue to mutter about mean dom Xiao Xingchen again? Like, I get the appeal of exploring characters far outside their canon constraints, I really do, and if mean dom Xiao Xingchen tickles your metaphorical pickle, by all means, have fun! I just personal really dislike it. (I am super grateful to all writers out there who have started tagging for it, though! It makes it easier to avoid - and find, for those who are into it. Everyone wins!)

As for pairings, I just don't like SangCheng or XiCheng, they both feel very pair-the-spares to me, and are just... Mm. Not for me. Honestly, funnily enough, SongXiao goes here, too, 95% of the time. I pretty much only like these two as part of SXX - I don't know if it is because of many SongXiao shippers' way of treating Xue Yang like dirt, or just because the two characters on their own don't interest me much, but yeah. On the whole, I won't read fic for just SongXiao unless recommended by people I trust, and I'll only like/reblog art if it's very pretty and doesn't imply dead Xue Yang.

I also really don't like most modern au BDSM fic? So much of it reads like a wholesome manual - and I'm sure for people in that scene, it's really hot! It just doesn't do anything at all for me, except give me secondhand embarrassment. If sex is going to be a bit painful and having undertones of dominance and submission, i want it to be very, very real, borderline dangerous and not done for play or politely negotiated beforehand. Gimme the hot mess or nothing.

(Mandatory disclaimer that these are just my personal squicks and mehs, not passing any judgment on anyone who does like them! My Kink Is Not Your Kink And That's Okay, and ship and let ship. ✌)

I already answered 22, too, but... Hm. I'm sure I can think of more if I try...

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

I think Xue Yang's and a-Qing's relationship is a lot more complicated than a lot of people seem to want to think! Especially for those who've only watched CQL, where a lot of the Yi City arc was either cut or angled to make it into more of a psychological thriller - but they were a family! All three of them, and in the text there is such clear evidence that they all really cared about each other! Even Xue Yang.

A-Qing stole his candy without fear, asked him "why were you like that when you were little??" when he told the first half of the story of his childhood trauma. When she claimed to have been bullied to the point of crying, he protectively told her how to defend herself and made her apple bunnies to cheer her up. Even after Xiao Xingchen's death (and he must have known by then that she was the one who sold him out) one of the things he did while cleaning the house was to make her bed, waiting for her to come back home.

Not least of all, Wang Haoxuan said in his in-character farewell note that Xue Yang would have protected a-Qing as long as their happy 'dream' in Yi City lasted.

They ended horribly, yes, causing each others' deaths, but there was a time where they cared deeply about each other and looked out for each other, and that still matters.

[sammy8d257]

Do you think that the sticks ( minus purple ) avoid him due to what he did? Like he did hurt them and all.. maybe cause some trauma for them in the process? What do you think Sammy?

I- ALSKDGJLDSGS

I'm gonna assume this is in reference to my last Ask I answered about Dark and Chosen, with this specifically talking about Dark.

This is also assuming the Dark Lord is going to be coming back, which is a possibility because we never learned his fate after Second blasted him into the side of a mountain.

But let's say he does come back and is no longer seeking revenge.

In canon, I would imagine a lot of fighting that ends with the Color Gang maybe not forgiving him, but coming to an understanding.

For me personally, my headcanon? Is a lot more dramatic.

alskdjljgsg

I mean, hell, me and like half of the Enthusiasts discord created an entire "Dark Lord Redemption" arc back in 2021 and I still think some of the ideas created for that arc slaps

In regards to the Color Gang themselves, honestly, I do think it's hard at first for them to be around Dark. RYGB specifically, since they were actually "killed" by him. That's like some heavy shit to deal with.

And I've actually explored a little bit of the trauma that can be associated with that in the "A Ghost in the Machine" comic with Yellow.

But time heals wounds and all that jazz. And the Color Gang are a pretty forgiving bunch in canon, so maybe it's not that dramatic

But I still will make it dramatic for the sake of making the stories I tell more interesting alskdjlskjgs

Also, if you see me drawing Dark interacting with the Color Gang in a friendly manner, always assume it takes place after they're able to work everything out and heal. Or it's an AU alskjdlsgs

(ALSO ALSO, what makes you think Purple couldn't also have been affected by Dark's actions. Remember, Dark and Chosen spent a while causing havoc throughout the interweb. Even before we got a backstory, I was always under the assumption these attacks affected more lives than just Char!Alan's. And now that we know Purple was most likely a born stick figure from the interwebs?

Even if they and their family were never directly attacked, can you imagine the fear they might have had over the news that 2 random stick figures appeared out of nowhere and started attacking things? How it could affect other things in their lives?

Anyway, this is me saying, I have a story idea that I want to draw/write that involves the secondhand effects of Dark and Chosen's Interweb Attacks)

[faebriel]

ok ok I'm insane and couldn't pick one so have two (no need to answer both if you don't want to)

“You talk to him.” Not kindly, but he does.

“I’m used to him,” he shoots back. “I’m the only person who is.”

That makes Niki feel something, some uncomfortable tug in her chest. She mentally kicks herself. It’s not jealousy, she reminds herself, because despite the near-cliff jumping and the long nights without food and the nuclear fallout that has punctuated her last few months, being jealous of Tommy would be the least reasonable thing she’s allowed herself to be, maybe ever.

“You don’t believe me,” Tommy says flatly. “You never - eugh.” He cuts himself off with another ragged sigh, running a hand down his face. “Look, Niki, it’s - we were all together in Pogtopia, right? But I was there first. With him. And you didn’t see the start of it, it was horrible, and I’m glad no one else saw the beginning of it either but it was still just so shit and he kept saying all these terrible things about Tubbo and Fundy and you and,” he takes a shaky breath, “then, when I died, I saw him.”

Her breath catches in her throat.

Well, the voice in the back of her head whistles. If you were still wondering about all this afterlife bullshit, if you want to know where you’re going after your third life, here you go.

and

“You didn’t even - this isn’t about L’Manberg, Wilbur!” Niki shouts.

And then he stops, breathing hard, and he looks at Niki the same way he does whenever her voice is being drowned out in a crowd - the way he does when he wants to hear her, when he wants to know what she has to say.

“What else is there?” he asks.

Niki freezes. Stock still, unable to move, unable to breathe, ice threading its way through her gut, her chest, her shoulders, chilled down to the bone. With slow-dawning horror, she can feel hot tears welling up behind her eyes, sitting in her throat, threatening to spill over into a sob. She swallows - to keep her cool, to stay calm, to keep it together -

And then, something in her chest just snaps.

“You said you’d come back for me!” she cries, and her voice hitches on the lump of tears at the back of her throat and god, she sounds absolutely pathetic. Wilbur’s face softens immediately, which somehow just makes her feel even worse. “In Manberg. When Schlatt put me in prison, and you and Tommy were in Pogtopia, you said you’d break me out when it was safe. I waited for weeks , Wilbur. It was… it was horrible.”

“Niki…” a kaleidoscope of emotions flicker across his face, and he seems unsure which to settle on. “We got you out though, right? After the festival.”

“You looked for the button first,” she says quietly, and he stills.

Her sniffling sounds embarrassingly loud against the quiet background of night.

thank you sm!!! i’m gonna put these under the cut because they got a little long sorry (tw for discussion of suicidal ideation)

to preface: tommy is kind of the accidental but incredibly necessary invisible support beam for niki and wilbur’s making amends in bitter. niki cannot accept wilbur’s actions and apology without first acknowledging her own actions and making steps towards an apology, because otherwise it kind of falls flat? in that ending scene niki finally gets what wilbur is feeling and wilbur finally gets that someone else knows how he feels (it’s not perfect 100% yet, but…. that’ll get explored later)

onto the actual snippet! “tommy talks to wilbur - not kindly, but he does” was very important to me! tommy has stuck by wilbur ever since pogtopia, but the tragedy is that he is not equipped to deal with wilbur’s issues, and it shows. wilbur’s first stream after revival depicts this really clearly, where tommy tails wilbur around the whole time but insults him, is still stuck on calling him the villain, physically fights him at some point, etc. on one hand this isn’t healthy but on the other hand tommy is actually around, which is more than can be said for basically any other ally wilbur has had on the dsmp, maybe excluding his dad, who literally killed him lmfao.

this whole issue is exacerbated by the fact that tommy believes that he is the only person who properly understands wilbur, the only person who gets what happened to him, and feels like wilbur is generally his burden to bear. he failed to stop wilbur from both 1. hurting other people and 2. killing himself after the pogtopia-manberg war - and he doesn’t trust wilbur not to do either of those things again, so he’s stuck hovering around wilbur while wilbur is inadvertently setting off his own trauma and feeling responsible for any way he might fuck up and hating that but not wanting to leave. tommy’s memory isn’t perfect and he isn’t a perfect narrator, what he remembers from pogtopia the most were the scariest parts and that’s understandable but it means he’s holding wilbur to the worst expectations of behaviour (and he does so very vocally). the others showed up later, sure, but in tommy’s eyes he’s the only one who saw wilbur’s descent, and by the time they showed up wilbur had already changed irreversably. tommy tries to rationalise this by splitting the ‘different wilburs’ apart from each other in his head (he does this in canon too - there’s one quote from like late 2020 where he says he and tubbo need to keep on going for who wilbur used to be, not who he became, even though they’re,, the same person), and no one challenges that perspective, so he just keeps doing it even though it’s not healthy for him or wilbur.

and then limbo happened and, oh geez, THAT didn’t help jhfaskjjfsa

tommy is on a bit of a knife edge with niki in this fic. niki’s in this state of “ok, he’s annoying whatever, i’m moving on”, but all tommy knows is that she tried to kill him that one time, disappeared off the face of the map, joined a book club with two people who definitely do not like him, and now is just acting weirdly mellow and polite. she is not someone he wants near wilbur bc what the fuck is she gonna do? what is he gonna do? who knows. he’s frustrated that niki doesn’t seem to acknowledge how he’s feeling (especially bc once upon a time she would have been someone he trusted to acknowledge them - they were friends, they fought together) and he’s taking a big step by telling someone about his concerns here, especially bc tommy doesn’t really like talking about them at all. he wouldn’t be saying absolutely anything to niki if he didn’t truly believe she should stay away from wilbur, even if he’s wrong about him. (sometimes i think i write tommy as a little too emotionally mature here but it all goes out the window when wilbur’s brought up. idk if that balances it out)

ok onto niki: this is the first she has actually heard of limbo! she’s only just come around to the fact that resurrection is possible at all. death is kind of a touchy subject for niki both in general and re: wilbur in the fic - she’s coming off of a period in her life where suicidal ideation was, uh, a big thing (whether you want to read that into canon or not is subjective, that’s just the angle i went with in this fic). the sudden existence of a life after death, miserable as it is - and whether she really believes in such a place, when it only exists in tommy and wilbur’s words - that is a lot of information for her to absorb all at once. death is a weird connection point for tommy and niki here, coming right off of the fact that they’ve just acknowledged each other having those problems - tommy, out of, yknow, altruism, would very much like to keep niki out of that place, and niki is quietly reckoning with the fact that that is where she would have sent him. the concept of limbo from the perspective of a character with no experience of it, even secondhand, is so interesting to me like what kind of eldritch location would you feel like you’re living in asghjkl

(also - i gotta be honest the jealousy angle here but mostly when she’s talking later about dream not deserving wilbur’s companionship kinda came out after this post came across my dash while writing. whoops /j)

-

fun fact, this is the very first snippet of bitter that i ever wrote! all the way back in may!! this is like the moment of the fic - it's where the miscommunication that niki and wilbur have been having is shattered entirely - and so sticking the landing was uhhh kinda important to me lol.

wilbur's entire being in this fic is basically consumed by L'Manberg - he equates his self worth to it entirely. in his eyes, everyone (rightfully) hates him because of what he did to L'Manberg, because L'Manberg was corrupted and he himself with it, etc. niki tries to tell herself this, and while it definitely does form part of her issues with him, it was the betrayal that causes her this much pain - that he seemingly brushed her and their friendship off entirely when he supposedly left her for dead in manberg. because here is what we as the audience know: wilbur couldn’t leave niki in trouble when he heard her life was in danger, even when he was trying to find the button (pretty much the only thing he sees himself as having left at this point) and so he returned. here is what it looks like from niki’s perspective: wilbur told her to wait in manberg until it was safe to come to pogtopia, laid the place with TNT, went to blow up the place, and only returned when he couldn’t find the detonator (and then the first thing she saw him do in pogtopia was encourage the pit behaviour but that’s not what we’re talking about asdfgh). that is massive miscommunication and it’s been brewing between them for months - to make a quirky little reference to the title, niki has been carrying that anger with her so long it's gone bitter. it was never just about l’manberg with niki - not that anger, not her and wilbur’s friendship (hence the little flashback earlier in the fic, bc niki’s relationship to anarchism and statehood or statelessness juxtaposed with her friendships with wilbur and eret - she loves l’manberg bc she loves wilbur, but she loves eret too and those national ties don’t undermine that - is Real Interesting to me) - so when wilbur asks what else there could possibly be (because in his mind, what else could she have bothered staying around for?), she just fucking breaks.

“Niki freezes. Stock still, unable to move, unable to breathe, ice threading its way through her gut...with slow-dawning horror, she can feel hot tears welling up behind her eyes” - prose discussion time! heat and cold are two big throughlines in this fic - particularly for niki, cold is what she is. admittedly when i started with it i mostly wanted to subvert hot = angry and cold = dead but i kinda ended up enjoying this take on it for what it is instead of just as a subversion (also i like the idea of revived people running hot, their bodies r working hard to keep em going). she’s holding onto her feelings and refusing to deal with them, she’s frozen over. descriptions of cold are key to niki’s mental state throughout the fic - cold weight on her chest, feelings of frostbite when she and wilbur hug the first time, ice cold water during the dinner scene, waking up in the cold flat, etc. this was an attempt at describing a more visceral feeling of like, when you’re really mad and you can just feel the adrenaline running through your veins. always felt more cold than hot to me. when she starts to cry, the facade she’s been putting on is finally thawing out and cracking the ice she’s buried her feelings under. (also gives an excuse to write warm comforting hugs towards the end /hj). it’s a loss, it’s catharsis, it’s a whole mess.

and ofc this is all news to wilbur and he feels terrible, because as unintentional as it was, he really really hurt her - because the destruction of l’manberg fucking sucked but above all else wilbur hurt the people he loved because they loved him so much and not in spite of it, because they cared about him so deeply and his death was a massive blow to them. this hasn’t even dawned on him, because how could it? he respects deeply niki (lowkey respects her opinion more than his own at this point) so he has to listen, because it’s niki (“and he looks at Niki the same way he does whenever her voice is being drowned out in a crowd - the way he does when he wants to hear her, when he wants to know what she has to say” - because he does), and what she says fucking floors him. in his eyes, he failed her by putting her in danger and then by destroying her home - the idea that she valued him and their friendship so much flies entirely over his head until this moment, and he is forced to re-evaluate the mindset that has motivated him since… basically since pogtopia! the way i write wilbur is like… yes, he’s one of niki’s closest friends and he’s more aware of her insecurities and issues than most (which is why he does always take the time to listen to her, etc) but he does over-idealise her a bit. tbf, i think he does to some extent with everyone (calling tubbo strong on the anniversary stream, for example). also the fact that he really wasn’t around for niki’s lowest moments as a character! he still thinks of her the way she was in l’manberg - confident, steadfast, respected - and this moment shatters that for him as he realises exactly what effect he and his death had on her and everyone else, not just by his actions, but because they loved him and cared for him so deeply.

sorry that this got horrifically long!! and thank you so much for sending snippets in <3333

[jenanigans1207]

Hi, i love your fics! The memories we share, 1,4,5?

Hi! Thank you so much for the love!! This is actually my favorite of my own fics. It’s my baby, I love this fic so incredibly much!

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

So, this fic was actually born from a challenge. If you know my friends, you know that @profoundprincessface notoriously writes angst. One day I was challenging her to write fluff and she said she would, if I wrote angst. Not one to back down from a challenge, I agreed. I started seeking angsty ideas and it did not go well, lmao. A few days later on my drive to school, I was listening to Fall For You by Secondhand Serenade and the idea just sort of fell into place. Though it was never supposed to grow as big as it has.

As far as the way the fic is structured– meaning writing both POVs– I did that very intentionally for very specific reasons. I think it’s incredibly important for us to see both halves to this story. First, seeing the flashbacks and memories through Lance’s eyes shows us who they used to be. Seeing Keith fall for Lance all over again, despite having no memories of their time together shows us that they will always find and fall for each other, no matter the circumstances. I also want both POVs to show that the affects of the accident go further than we think. It’s obvious how it has affected Keith– he lost his memories. But Lance is also affected. I think a lot of time people only think of the person involved and never explore how everyone around them also has their life drastically changed. We get to see Lance struggling with it– see how the relationship he’s used to is stripped away. He thinks at one point about how he’s used to being able to just ramble and let Keith put the pieces of his point together and now he can’t do that. I think it adds a layer to the trauma. Also, lastly, it’s really important to me to show how they’re both feeling. They both make some decisions that we may not necessarily agree with but showing it through their POV at least offers us why they chose to do it. And it also gives us depth to their miscommunications.

Okay that got way longer than I anticipated so I hope it actually answered the question!

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

I’ll have you know that I just reread most of the fic trying to pick a favorite line and wow?? I really enjoyed myself. So thanks for these questions because you just gave me a lot of my mojo back!! (Also I couldn’t just pick one line so I picked one exchange but it was actually hard for me to do??)

“Are you—” A smile was spreading across Keith’s lips. He bit his bottom lip in an attempt to stop it from forming. “Are you asking me out?”

The smile on Keith’s face finally took over and he ducked his head, letting his bangs cover his eyes. Lance could feel a sort of relief washing over him at that smile. “Yes,” He said, breathless, nearly laughing at himself. “That’s exactly what I’m going for.”

He could see Keith’s shoulders shaking with silent laughter but he wasn’t offended. A moment passed and Keith composed himself, finally lifting his gaze back up to meet Lance’s, “Yes,” He reached across the table and grabbed Lance’s free hand, “I will go out with you.”

Lance could feel his own face break out into a large grin. “You will?”

“Yeah,” Keith repeated, giving his head a squeeze. “But not until after this big test that I need to study for. Fair?”

“Isn’t your test in, like, three hours?” Lance asked.

“Sure is.” Keith pulled his hand back, picking up his pencil again. “So you have to wait until tonight. Do you think you can do that?”

“I’m honestly not sure,” Lance laughed, turning back to his own textbook, knowing full well that he wouldn’t be able to focus anytime soon.

5: What part was hardest to write?

So the hardest thing I’ve written so far, you guys haven’t seen yet. It’s a scene from chapter 11 that I already have written. I’ll give you a peek:

Instantly there were tears in his own eyes and he couldn’t look away. His heart ached with each beat, slowly breaking with each second he let pass in silence. He could feel it, the way his heart was tearing itself in two. “Lance, you know I love you, right? I love you so much.”

Of things you’ve already read, the hardest to write was the scene where Lance is alone in the apartment, wrapped in Keith’s jacket, crying on Keith’s cold side of the bed. And he falls asleep like that. I write from a place of emotion and that was a very painful scene to write. I felt so bad for him and that pain was just really relatable and tangible to me, so that was hardest for me. 

But I will say that we have some pain ahead of us and chapter 13 will destroy everyone’s souls, including mine. @winter-and-little-brunettes can attest to this. And she can attest to the pain of the scene hinted at above. So…

[trendingnewsb]

Quentin Tarantinos History of Disturbing Behavior Toward His Actresses

For Quentin Tarantino, a man whose taste for portraying violence against women has often been mistaken for feminist filmmaking, the line between fiction and reality is equally blurred.

As a writer and director, Tarantino is famous for pushing his female heroines towards acts of brutal violence; but more often than not, Tarantinos women find themselves on the receiving end of the directors graphic imaginationraped, beaten, killed, whipped and branded.

Like so many (male) directors before him, Tarantinos work has relied on the rape-revenge fantasyan outdated trope that throws in a sexual-assault backstory instead of doing the work of female character development. As a Mic article, Kill Bill and Our Troubled Relationship with Rape Revenge Movies elaborated, While sexual assault is worthy of in depth exploration on screen, these rape and revenge films do not depict the reality of how these assaults can affect women. Rather, they look to fetishize the act and use it as motivation for unabashed gore and violence. What should be empowering films featuring women rising out of past trauma to exact justice are often instead turned into a form of torture porn.

And yet, Tarantino has often been called a feministusually by other men. Hes the auteur of choice for cinephiles who like their directors male and their feminist films full of sexualized violence and lingering feet footage. Harvey Weinstein himself called Tarantino the most pro-woman ever, continuing, [Look at] Uma Thurman [in Kill Bill], Pam Grier [in Jackie Brown], Melanie Laurent and Diane Kruger [in Inglourious Basterds].

Since Weinstein, who stands accused of sexual assault by more than 90 women, asked, maybe it is time to revisit those iconic Tarantino heroinesand take the director to task not just for the female characters hes created, but the real-life women he mistreated in the process.

In recent years, Tarantinos legacy has come under fire by increasingly skeptical critics. In 2015, The New York Times A.O. Scott called 2015s The Hateful Eight an orgy of elaborately justified misogyny. And new allegations by his former muse, Uma Thurman, threaten to unmask Tarantino as little more than what his films would suggest: a man who is altogether too interested in torturing women.

I have to say it was very strange being strangled by the director.

Diane Kruger on Quentin Tarantino

Over the weekend, Thurman accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault in The New York Times.

In a series of painful, shocking anecdotes, the actress also revealed that Tarantino pressured her into a potentially life-threatening scene while filming Kill Bill. Thurman told the Times that this incident occurred after she had disclosed to Tarantino that Weinstein, who produced Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction, had previously assaulted her.

Thurman had expressed that she wanted a stunt person to do the dangerous-seeming scene, which involved operating a wobbly car that she described as a death trap. But Tarantino was insistent. He was furious because Id cost them a lot of time. But I was scared. He said: I promise you the car is fine. Its a straight piece of road, Thurman recalled. Hit 40 miles per hour or your hair wont blow the right way and Ill make you do it again. She added, The seat wasnt screwed down properly. It was a sand road and it was not a straight road.

Newly-released footage shows the subsequent crash, which Thurman says resulted in a concussion and knee damage. She described the accident to the Times, remembering, The steering wheel was at my belly and my legs were jammed under me. I felt this searing pain and thought, Oh my God, Im never going to walk againWhen I came back from the hospital in a neck brace with my knees damaged and a large massive egg on my head and a concussion, I wanted to see the car and I was very upset. Quentin and I had an enormous fight, and I accused him of trying to kill me. And he was very angry at that, I guess understandably, because he didnt feel he had tried to kill me.

Thurman also told The New York Times that Tarantino withheld the crash footage from her for years, saying, Quentin finally atoned by giving it to me after 15 years, right? She added, Not that it matters now, with my permanently damaged neck and my screwed-up knees.

A recent Sydney Morning Herald article fleshed out the connection between the directors oeuvre and the new accusations: No matter how Tarantino might defend his blood-spattered back catalogue as pro-woman or true cinematic equality, violence in the QT pantheon so often seems to be, with a few exceptions, something done by men to womenTarantino loves to put his female characters through hell. We know now, from Thurmans account of his on-set behaviour, that he also likes to do the same to at least one of his actresses in the name of authenticity in performance.

In the past, Tarantino has admitted that he knew enough to do more than I did about Harvey Weinstein. He told The New York Times that, There was more to it than just the normal rumors, the normal gossip. It wasnt secondhand. I knew he did a couple of these things.I wish I had taken responsibility for what I heard. If I had done the work I should have done then, I would have had to not work with him. Tarantino said that his ex-girlfriend, Mira Sorvino, had told him about Weinsteins unwelcome advances and unwanted touching, and that he also knew about Rose McGowans settlement with the producer. Weinstein distributed his directorial debut Reservoir Dogs in 1992, and has served as a producer on every Tarantino project since.

In the New York Times story, Thurman briefly summarized other abuses she suffered on the set of Kill Bill, with the Times reporting that, Tarantino had done the honors with some of the sadistic flourishes himself, spitting in her face in the scene where Michael Madsen is seen on screen doing it and choking her with a chain in the scene where a teenager named Gogo is on screen doing it.

In a subsequentDeadlineinterview, Tarantino called Thurmans car crash one of the biggest regrets of his life. He told Deadline that the good things I did are in the Maureen Dowd article, butcomplained that, they are de-emphasized to not make any impression. Thesegood thingsseem to include making Weinstein apologize to Thurman for assaulting her, and the herculean task of going to a storage facility to find the tapes of Thurmans car crash, which she told theTimesshes been trying to get for years. Tarantino expressed zero regret for strangling and spitting on his heroine, essentially bragging to Deadline about the skill with which he spat on Thurman for aKill Billscene. So the idea is, Im doing it, Im taking responsibility, Tarantino explained. Also, Im the director, so I can kind of art direct this spit. I know where I want it to land.

Actress Jessica Chastain commented on this perverse directorial dynamic in a series of tweets on Saturday, writing, I keep imagining Tarantino spitting in Umas face and strangling her with a chain for KILL BILL. How many images of women in media do we celebrate that showcase abuse? When did this become normalized entertainment? When violence against women is used as a plot device to make the characters stronger then we have a problem. It is not empowering to be beaten and raped, yet so many films make it their pheonix [sp] moment for women. We dont need abuse in order to be powerful. We already are.

Chastain concluded, Directors inserting themselves into a scene depicting abuse is crossing a boundary. How can an actor feel safe when your director is strangling you? Judd Apatow also reacted to the allegations on Twitter, writing, The number one job a producer and director has on a set is to make sure that everyone is safe. That can mean safe from reckless stunt preparation or safe from predatory producers physically attacking them. There is no excuse for not protecting your cast and crew.

Thurman isnt the only woman who has suffered from Tarantinos boundary-crossing.

Diane Kruger, another actress whose Tarantino role Weinstein pointed to as one of the directors feminist credentials, told Parade about her unique death scene in Inglourious Basterds: I get strangled, which was especially weird because you feel it when someone is choking you, so it was an interesting day at the office. The funny part is that Quentins hands are in the close-up. I wont give away the name of the actor who kills me, but Quentin said, Hes not going to do it right, itll either be too much or too little. I know exactly what I need and I think I should just do it. I have to say it was very strange being strangled by the director.

In an appearance on The Graham Norton Show, Tarantino recalled asking Kruger if she would let [him] strangle her: And so I just said to her, what I want to do is, Im going to be the hands, and what Im going to do is, Im going to just strangle you. Im going to cut off your air for just a little bit of time, were going to see the reaction in your face, and then well cut. He bragged, It was real. It looked really good, explaining that, When somebody is actually being strangled there is a thing that happens to their face, they turn a certain color, and their veins pop out and stuff. In other films, he complained, It always just seems fake.

In an interview promoting 2007s Grindhouse, Fergie recalled being bitten by the director during one rehearsal. She said, He came to the set and ran lines with me. In one scene Quentin got really into the character and bit me. My manager has it on his camera. Im not going to sue him or anything, but I wanted documentation. It was crazy cool.

Rose McGowan, who also starred in Grindhouse, wrote in her new memoir Brave that, The first time I met Tarantino, and for years after, every time hed see me, he said, Rose! I have your movie Jawbreaker on laser disc! I cant tell you how many times I used the shot where youre painting your toes!' She continued, That means Tarantino paid extra money to jerk off to my young feet and told me about it loudly, over and over, for years, in front of numerous people.

Additionally, according to The Telegraph, McGowan writes that for all the praise Tarantino receives for depicting strong female characters in his films, he also beats the s— out of them for his enjoyment.

Thurman, who has spent years fighting for her video evidence, and even more years staying silent, has some of the strongest insight into the cult of Tarantinothe fictional women he brings to life and the real ones he endangers. Personally, it has taken me 47 years to stop calling people who are mean to you in love with you, she told the Times. It took a long time because I think that as little girls we are conditioned to believe that cruelty and love somehow have a connection and that is like the sort of era that we need to evolve out of.

Tarantino is currently on the hunt for an authentic Polish thespian to play the part of Roman Polanski in his upcoming film, which will reportedly take on the 1969 Manson Family murder of Sharon Tate.

This piece has been updated to include comments from a Deadline interview with Tarantino published late Monday.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/quentin-tarantinos-history-of-disturbing-behavior-toward-his-actresses

from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2IslkJV via Viral News HQ

[trendingnewsb]

Quentin Tarantinos History of Disturbing Behavior Toward His Actresses

For Quentin Tarantino, a man whose taste for portraying violence against women has often been mistaken for feminist filmmaking, the line between fiction and reality is equally blurred.

As a writer and director, Tarantino is famous for pushing his female heroines towards acts of brutal violence; but more often than not, Tarantinos women find themselves on the receiving end of the directors graphic imaginationraped, beaten, killed, whipped and branded.

Like so many (male) directors before him, Tarantinos work has relied on the rape-revenge fantasyan outdated trope that throws in a sexual-assault backstory instead of doing the work of female character development. As a Mic article, Kill Bill and Our Troubled Relationship with Rape Revenge Movies elaborated, While sexual assault is worthy of in depth exploration on screen, these rape and revenge films do not depict the reality of how these assaults can affect women. Rather, they look to fetishize the act and use it as motivation for unabashed gore and violence. What should be empowering films featuring women rising out of past trauma to exact justice are often instead turned into a form of torture porn.

And yet, Tarantino has often been called a feministusually by other men. Hes the auteur of choice for cinephiles who like their directors male and their feminist films full of sexualized violence and lingering feet footage. Harvey Weinstein himself called Tarantino the most pro-woman ever, continuing, [Look at] Uma Thurman [in Kill Bill], Pam Grier [in Jackie Brown], Melanie Laurent and Diane Kruger [in Inglourious Basterds].

Since Weinstein, who stands accused of sexual assault by more than 90 women, asked, maybe it is time to revisit those iconic Tarantino heroinesand take the director to task not just for the female characters hes created, but the real-life women he mistreated in the process.

In recent years, Tarantinos legacy has come under fire by increasingly skeptical critics. In 2015, The New York Times A.O. Scott called 2015s The Hateful Eight an orgy of elaborately justified misogyny. And new allegations by his former muse, Uma Thurman, threaten to unmask Tarantino as little more than what his films would suggest: a man who is altogether too interested in torturing women.

I have to say it was very strange being strangled by the director.

Diane Kruger on Quentin Tarantino

Over the weekend, Thurman accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault in The New York Times.

In a series of painful, shocking anecdotes, the actress also revealed that Tarantino pressured her into a potentially life-threatening scene while filming Kill Bill. Thurman told the Times that this incident occurred after she had disclosed to Tarantino that Weinstein, who produced Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction, had previously assaulted her.

Thurman had expressed that she wanted a stunt person to do the dangerous-seeming scene, which involved operating a wobbly car that she described as a death trap. But Tarantino was insistent. He was furious because Id cost them a lot of time. But I was scared. He said: I promise you the car is fine. Its a straight piece of road, Thurman recalled. Hit 40 miles per hour or your hair wont blow the right way and Ill make you do it again. She added, The seat wasnt screwed down properly. It was a sand road and it was not a straight road.

Newly-released footage shows the subsequent crash, which Thurman says resulted in a concussion and knee damage. She described the accident to the Times, remembering, The steering wheel was at my belly and my legs were jammed under me. I felt this searing pain and thought, Oh my God, Im never going to walk againWhen I came back from the hospital in a neck brace with my knees damaged and a large massive egg on my head and a concussion, I wanted to see the car and I was very upset. Quentin and I had an enormous fight, and I accused him of trying to kill me. And he was very angry at that, I guess understandably, because he didnt feel he had tried to kill me.

Thurman also told The New York Times that Tarantino withheld the crash footage from her for years, saying, Quentin finally atoned by giving it to me after 15 years, right? She added, Not that it matters now, with my permanently damaged neck and my screwed-up knees.

A recent Sydney Morning Herald article fleshed out the connection between the directors oeuvre and the new accusations: No matter how Tarantino might defend his blood-spattered back catalogue as pro-woman or true cinematic equality, violence in the QT pantheon so often seems to be, with a few exceptions, something done by men to womenTarantino loves to put his female characters through hell. We know now, from Thurmans account of his on-set behaviour, that he also likes to do the same to at least one of his actresses in the name of authenticity in performance.

In the past, Tarantino has admitted that he knew enough to do more than I did about Harvey Weinstein. He told The New York Times that, There was more to it than just the normal rumors, the normal gossip. It wasnt secondhand. I knew he did a couple of these things.I wish I had taken responsibility for what I heard. If I had done the work I should have done then, I would have had to not work with him. Tarantino said that his ex-girlfriend, Mira Sorvino, had told him about Weinsteins unwelcome advances and unwanted touching, and that he also knew about Rose McGowans settlement with the producer. Weinstein distributed his directorial debut Reservoir Dogs in 1992, and has served as a producer on every Tarantino project since.

In the New York Times story, Thurman briefly summarized other abuses she suffered on the set of Kill Bill, with the Times reporting that, Tarantino had done the honors with some of the sadistic flourishes himself, spitting in her face in the scene where Michael Madsen is seen on screen doing it and choking her with a chain in the scene where a teenager named Gogo is on screen doing it.

In a subsequentDeadlineinterview, Tarantino called Thurmans car crash one of the biggest regrets of his life. He told Deadline that the good things I did are in the Maureen Dowd article, butcomplained that, they are de-emphasized to not make any impression. Thesegood thingsseem to include making Weinstein apologize to Thurman for assaulting her, and the herculean task of going to a storage facility to find the tapes of Thurmans car crash, which she told theTimesshes been trying to get for years. Tarantino expressed zero regret for strangling and spitting on his heroine, essentially bragging to Deadline about the skill with which he spat on Thurman for aKill Billscene. So the idea is, Im doing it, Im taking responsibility, Tarantino explained. Also, Im the director, so I can kind of art direct this spit. I know where I want it to land.

Actress Jessica Chastain commented on this perverse directorial dynamic in a series of tweets on Saturday, writing, I keep imagining Tarantino spitting in Umas face and strangling her with a chain for KILL BILL. How many images of women in media do we celebrate that showcase abuse? When did this become normalized entertainment? When violence against women is used as a plot device to make the characters stronger then we have a problem. It is not empowering to be beaten and raped, yet so many films make it their pheonix [sp] moment for women. We dont need abuse in order to be powerful. We already are.

Chastain concluded, Directors inserting themselves into a scene depicting abuse is crossing a boundary. How can an actor feel safe when your director is strangling you? Judd Apatow also reacted to the allegations on Twitter, writing, The number one job a producer and director has on a set is to make sure that everyone is safe. That can mean safe from reckless stunt preparation or safe from predatory producers physically attacking them. There is no excuse for not protecting your cast and crew.

Thurman isnt the only woman who has suffered from Tarantinos boundary-crossing.

Diane Kruger, another actress whose Tarantino role Weinstein pointed to as one of the directors feminist credentials, told Parade about her unique death scene in Inglourious Basterds: I get strangled, which was especially weird because you feel it when someone is choking you, so it was an interesting day at the office. The funny part is that Quentins hands are in the close-up. I wont give away the name of the actor who kills me, but Quentin said, Hes not going to do it right, itll either be too much or too little. I know exactly what I need and I think I should just do it. I have to say it was very strange being strangled by the director.

In an appearance on The Graham Norton Show, Tarantino recalled asking Kruger if she would let [him] strangle her: And so I just said to her, what I want to do is, Im going to be the hands, and what Im going to do is, Im going to just strangle you. Im going to cut off your air for just a little bit of time, were going to see the reaction in your face, and then well cut. He bragged, It was real. It looked really good, explaining that, When somebody is actually being strangled there is a thing that happens to their face, they turn a certain color, and their veins pop out and stuff. In other films, he complained, It always just seems fake.

In an interview promoting 2007s Grindhouse, Fergie recalled being bitten by the director during one rehearsal. She said, He came to the set and ran lines with me. In one scene Quentin got really into the character and bit me. My manager has it on his camera. Im not going to sue him or anything, but I wanted documentation. It was crazy cool.

Rose McGowan, who also starred in Grindhouse, wrote in her new memoir Brave that, The first time I met Tarantino, and for years after, every time hed see me, he said, Rose! I have your movie Jawbreaker on laser disc! I cant tell you how many times I used the shot where youre painting your toes!' She continued, That means Tarantino paid extra money to jerk off to my young feet and told me about it loudly, over and over, for years, in front of numerous people.

Additionally, according to The Telegraph, McGowan writes that for all the praise Tarantino receives for depicting strong female characters in his films, he also beats the s— out of them for his enjoyment.

Thurman, who has spent years fighting for her video evidence, and even more years staying silent, has some of the strongest insight into the cult of Tarantinothe fictional women he brings to life and the real ones he endangers. Personally, it has taken me 47 years to stop calling people who are mean to you in love with you, she told the Times. It took a long time because I think that as little girls we are conditioned to believe that cruelty and love somehow have a connection and that is like the sort of era that we need to evolve out of.

Tarantino is currently on the hunt for an authentic Polish thespian to play the part of Roman Polanski in his upcoming film, which will reportedly take on the 1969 Manson Family murder of Sharon Tate.

This piece has been updated to include comments from a Deadline interview with Tarantino published late Monday.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/quentin-tarantinos-history-of-disturbing-behavior-toward-his-actresses

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