#not two boys fulfilling some psychologist's brief about communicating perfectly

[not-poignant]

Are Sebastian and Alex going to learn about bdsm and safe practices/negotiation? Or do they keep fumbling around and doing what they're doing?

Hi anon,

People who learn about BDSM don't necessarily practice safe practices or negotiation.

And there are elements of negotiation in this story! It's not a black and white 'they're not doing this in a paint-by-numbers sort of way and therefore it doesn't count' situation, y'know?

They are two characters in their mid-20s who live in a tiny town, one of those characters is dyslexic to the point that he can barely read, and the other's method of doing things has worked for him all his life (or so he thinks), they don't have any reason/s to learn about BDSM, and it's not likely that either of them ever will.

That also doesn't mean that they can't enjoy their kinky sex life.

There has been a lot of discussion already, and there will be more and more going forwards. It might not be at the level most people want, but Sebastian has certainly obtained consent (more than once), offered and then insisted on debriefs and post-sex discussion, explained to Alex how to communicate if he hates something, and made it clear that what he likes is unusual and sadistic in nature. It's also clear that Alex likes being pushed, i.e. - not being forced to give consent in every circumstance when someone can take control and give him what he wants anyway. That's actually pretty common in some people with a child abuse background who become people pleasers.

If you want negotiation + safe practices at a certain level, you'd have to completely remake Alex's character into someone who can magically be a functional, communicative, healthy human being, and he's not that. Alex is getting better at communicating (that's how we go this far in the story in the first place), but if you expect this story to end on Alex being a perfect human who can do Instagram-level kink negotiation, then no, this isn't the story you want, anon.

If you look deeper and don't expect cookie cutter kinds of dialogue, there has been ongoing negotiation in the story since the early chapters. When Alex makes it clear through physical response and then verbal that he doesn't like yelling, Sebastian stops yelling. When Sebastian makes it clear that he has complicated feelings about hiring his ex-school bully as a cleaner, Alex makes it clear that he doesn't share those complicated feelings, especially in light of the pay rate. Sebastian consenting to Alex being his cleaner makes it clear that those terms are acceptable to him.

When Alex tries to undervalue himself, Sebastian makes it clear that he's not comfortable paying someone less simply because they value themselves less. When Alex then takes that pay, it's a form of consent to Sebastian's attitudes. Their relationship has been an ongoing negotiation since the beginning, and that's how they've grown closer. If you're used to only looking for very obvious signs of negotiation, it might be easy to miss the non-verbal and subtle forms of negotiation that are happening.

For example, it might not seem like it, but Sebastian - many chapters ago now - talking about how he likes control in the bedroom and that turning Alex on long before they'd ever shared anything sexual together, is a form of communication. Alex learns he likes the idea of it without it ever been forced on him, and Sebastian wouldn't have that conversation with someone he didn't trust (for example, Alex in the beginning of the story). They had to have trust to have that conversation, Alex had to have trust to ask Sebastian questions about it in the oblique way he did, and they had to share a common comfortability have a conversation in that direction in the first place.

In A Stain that Won't Dissolve, these things don't look like a psychologist's version of: 'Okay, what do you want, and this is what I want, and here's where we meet in the middle' - a lot of life doesn't look like this (but if you want that, I've written that in Falling Falling Stars - it still has dubious consent though, lol). Both Alex and Sebastian have poor communication on their side, and it's a growth story for the two of them.

But no, I have no intention of Sebastian ever learning terms like 'subspace' or 'RACK' or anything like that. A lot of people in the world, especially prior to easy access to the internet, figured this stuff out on their own and many of them made it work even without the rigid or codified structures of the world of BDSM (and some of those people went on to invent the world of BDSM that we take for granted today).

It's the kinks that make you kinky, not the knowledge of an acronym or the world it engenders.

There's also no reason to think that Sebastian has access to a healthy education about BDSM there, it's not like Elliott was practicing much healthy BDSM in my other Stardew fic, The Wind that Cuts the Night, :D Elliott knew all about safe practices, negotiation, and BDSM, and chose to ignore a lot of the safe stuff over messing around more dangerously.

The fumbling around is the point, basically. Growing up is messy, and dubious consent is hot (for some of us), and there are many ways we communicate with the people around us, especially when it's two guys in a town the valourises machismo and stoicism over emotional openness, and one of those guys was beaten by his father over not being macho and strong enough which makes him exceptionally resistant to communicating clearly even about basic subjects and needs.

That's the part I actually really love about this story.

[frownyfface-blog]

I Just Want All The Pies

I’ve been an indecisive person all my topsy turvy life. I could blame it on a lot of things but at the end of the day it’s on me completely. 

Even as a little kid, I never really knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. My mother taught me how to read and write when I was around 5 and I thought ‘this is it, this what i want.’ I filled construction papers with crayoned, crazy stories mostly themed around snacks and dogs, snacks for dogs, thankfully no dogs for snacks. Clearly, convincing my parents to get us a dog was an underlying theme (it worked). 

As soon as I started theater classes after elementary school though - and by theater classes I mean choreographing puppets to a backstreet boys song in a small dusty blackbox theater, I was convinced that having my name on the marquee was my destined gig. I gave that one up senior year of high school (yes, I kept at it that long!) when I had to spend my weekends practicing one-acts with my fellow acting classmates and realized that I wasn’t cut out for the constant one-upping. My short-term memory is also absolute shit.

There was a brief flight with singing in middle school - sadly, there is a possible chance that I am slightly tone-deaf. Hell, even teaching a pottery class had hmm’d and haa’d in my brain for a moment when I was seventeen because I’d loved molding something from nothing with my bare hands surprisingly so much in the hour between math and science class. 

These random potential career choices always kind of stuck with me all throughout my adolescence but I never actually pushed through with any of them - call it being a busy sociable teenager, maybe a teeny tiny bit of suppressed depression, a lack of motivation (is that the same thing as laziness? fancier words like self-starter always make letting dishes sit for three days or putting off studying for the SATs sound way better), but when it came time to leave high school and make a fucking decision on ONE SINGLE THING to be for the REST OF YOUR ENTIRE LIFE needless to say, I stumped and beyond overwhelmed. 

So, staying on brand - I chose nothing. I dropped out of college after two semesters, I even changed community colleges between semesters thinking that would somehow help me figure out my destiny and I just started hustling. I’ve had more small jobs than I can count on two hands since the age of sixteen. My boyfriend, Kevin, has a running joke where if he brings up some company or random job in passing I most likely will comment, ‘oh I’ve worked there/done that’. What can I say? I like money. 

For the lols, I’m supplying you guys with a rare photo courtesy of macbook photobooth of eighteen year old Taryn at her first job in California (I’d had three previous to this throughout high school) - look at that peace sign! Hiding the sad as hell eyes! Don’t even talk to me about that tan or that hair - everyone had a rough time in 2008.

I’ve toyed with a thousand different career ideas over the last nine years since high school, I could list them by year even...fuck it, let’s just do that now! 

A History Of Taryn’s Inability To Commit To A Thing, In Chronological Order:

2008: Child Psychologist (This is laughable because while I love therapy - I am terrified of most kids.)

2009: Restaurant Owner (I worked too many hours at a Mimi’s Cafe by SeaWorld, the ‘french inspired’ butter-based menu...it got to my head...and my butt.)

2010: Set Designer/Music Video Director (Blame this one on me trying to adapt to a boy that we’ll never speak of.)

2011/2012: Self help novelist (I think I mostly just needed help for myself and thought that if I did it for someone else, I’d be less nuts/shitty in return.)

2013: TV Staff Writer (I co-wrote a pilot and it was so god-awful, I’ve never even watched more than a quarter of it.)

2014: Some kind of a model? (Why???) Also a Beauty Blogger (I made one ‘entry’ and constantly got my nails done in hideously too long extensions thinking that it was an investment LOLOL.)

2015: Hairstylist (TBH I still would love to do this but thanks to my own poor credit card spending in my early twenties, getting a student loan for a technical school is next to impossible. I’ve tried everything, trust.)

2016: Novelist (This is actually still something that I aspire towards, but I don’t think I have the attention span to make it a full career choice.)

2017: ???? (TBA)

I tend to do this thing where I get really fixated on an idea and I just crack away at it piece by piece until it crumbles and I am no longer interested. I’ve done it with many things in life: jobs, dreams, people I love and once loved and mostly always with myself. 

I am always my own worst enemy. Where this self-doubt came from with deserving a happy ending I’m really not sure. I watched all the Disney movies, the women-centric rom-coms with their dreamboats and manic pixie Winona’s and Reese’s and yet here I am at 27 without a clue. Maybe that’s the thing that irks me - why do we have to choose just one thing? Who says I can’t be a Winona and a Reese? Why do I have to pick just ONE career for FOREVER. I want a resume that’s 1,000 pages long. I’ve had 1,000 small jobs not because I can’t hold one down but because I love learning, damnit! (Someone tell my teachers I said that, they wouldn’t believe their ears!) 

Why can’t I have all my fingers in all the pies? 

Why do I give up every time?

There’s a clear line in my head between a job: one that pays the bills and a job-job: one that pays the bills and is also inspiring, satisfying and makes me want to actually get out of bed everyday without groaning into my pillow for ten minutes.

That’s the bottom line at the end of the day - fulfillment. I believe that humans aren’t built to constantly be fulfilled and that is perfectly fine with me. I don’t want to be 100% satisfied but 95% would be pretty nice, right? 

I think it would probably be awful to be living at my whole happiest - what else is there to work towards? I’ll take a 2% milk type of life, no one likes non-fat anyway. Let’s save the ‘I think I’m lactose intolerant’ jokes for later. 

Writing will always be my thing - that is a constant. It is something that I've left and come back to countless times since that moment I connected letters together to form words twenty-two years ago in my bedroom with my mothers big whiteboard and her encouraging smile. It is both a part-time hobby and a full-time itch I couldn't get rid of if I tried. Some of my fondest memories are of little Taryn scrawling away in journals all throughout my adolescence for hours on end - but whether that will be my job-job? I’m still figuring that one out.