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furiousgoldfish · 2 years

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If you've been living with an abusive or toxic person, it's likely you've faced DARVO tactic of abuse at least once. Ever stood up for yourself only to be accused of being abusive and having to defend yourself, or comfort your abuser about it? You've been darvoed.

DARVO stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. This tactic is what abusers use to avoid being held accountable for their actions. The accusations shift the focus from their original offense to discuss the imaginary offenses the victim has done instead, making it extremely hard to hold the abuser to their original deed. It also enables the abuser to receive sympathy and compassion, often even from bystanders, and sometimes from the victim themselves, after being called out for abuse.

For example, you recall an incident where your abuser has called you an offensive insult. You bring it up, and they respond with 'I never said that', and you know they did, but for the sake of the argument, you give a little way to allow that maybe you remembered it wrong (you're being gaslit). Next, they accuse you of imagining things, being crazy, making things up only to hurt them, and claim you're actually doing this to abuse them. They attack your credibility, your sanity, and find more and more outrageous things to accuse you off, making you busy with defending yourself, being outraged at the lies, and unable to stick to your original grievance.

Being accused of being abusive while you're trying to hold someone to their actions, will make it harder to try to address it, harder to argue, and harder to feel that you're correct in doing so. The point is to make you doubt your experience, doubt your sanity, and never try to hold them accountable again.

DARVO is specifically often used by sexual offenders, who are ready to deny it, and on top of it, accuse victim of 'wanting it', or 'making it up on purpose only to smear their name', and then shift the focus to attacking the victim's credibility and morality, so they're no longer able to be held accountable.

Abusers playing the victims and shaming the actual victims is a powerful and effective technique, it's extremely difficult to counter, especially with abusers who know what accusation or insult will work to trigger you, and to cause you an emotional flashback that will make it unable for you to think clearly or hold them accountable for anything. You will be called to justify and explain your own behaviour, when you're already in a vulnerable position asking for explanation and justice for yourself.

The only way to counter darvo is also the only way to counter the most of abuse – having support and community on your side. One person will not be able to shame and gaslight you if you have an entire community behind you, supporting your cause and understanding exactly what happened. During the argument, the best you can do is to refuse to get side-tracked by the accusations, and shift focus back to what the abuser has done, regardless of how much they try to deny and reverse it. It's not always possible, especially if you're experiencing a flashback during it, in which case the best thing to do is to get distance, and to no longer interact with the abuser personally if possible.

Abusers trying to frame the past situation differently, insisting it was a 'misunderstanding', 'not how it happened', or 'they remember it differently', is also DARVO, and part of trying to discredit your memory and your senses of the events in your life. If it had happened differently, you would have remembered it. If it was a misunderstanding, it would have felt like one, it wouldn't have felt like abuse. You know exactly what happened and how it felt. Abusers indulging into long stories about how what you accuse them of hurts their feelings, or triggers them, is especially effective type of darvo attack, where they aim at your sense of guilt and compassion, to drop the accusations and comfort them for being called out for hurting you. You are always, in any situation, correct to call them out. If the truth will kill them, let them die.

Sources: choosingtherapy, banyantherapy, wikipedia

#darvo #tactics of abuse #victim playing #victim shaming #gaslighting #psychological abuse #reversal #deny attack reverse victim and offender #abuse tactics #blame shifting #avoiding accountability #loathsome behaviour

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aronarchy · 1 year

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Why we don’t like it when children hit us back

To all the children who have ever been told to “respect” someone that hated them.

March 21, 2023

Even those of us that are disturbed by the thought of how widespread corporal punishment still is in all ranks of society are uncomfortable at the idea of a child defending themself using violence against their oppressors and abusers. A child who hits back proves that the adults “were right all along,” that their violence was justified. Even as they would cheer an adult victim for defending themself fiercely.

Even those “child rights advocates” imagine the right child victim as one who takes it without ever stopping to love “its” owners. Tear-stained and afraid, the child is too innocent to be hit in a guilt-free manner. No one likes to imagine the Brat as Victim—the child who does, according to adultist logic, deserve being hit, because they follow their desires, because they walk the world with their head high, because they talk back, because they are loud, because they are unapologetically here, and resistant to being cast in the role of guest of a world that is just not made for them.

If we are against corporal punishment, the brat is our gotcha, the proof that it is actually not that much of an injustice. The brat unsettles us, so much that the “bad seed” is a stock character in horror, a genre that is much permeated by the adult gaze (defined as “the way children are viewed, represented and portrayed by adults; and finally society’s conception of children and the way this is perpetuated within institutions, and inherent in all interactions with children”), where the adult fear for the subversion of the structures that keep children under control is very much represented.

It might be very well true that the Brat has something unnatural and sinister about them in this world, as they are at constant war with everything that has ever been created, since everything that has been created has been built with the purpose of subjugating them. This is why it feels unnatural to watch a child hitting back instead of cowering. We feel like it’s not right. We feel like history is staring back at us, and all the horror we felt at any rebel and wayward child who has ever lived, we are feeling right now for that reject of the construct of “childhood innocence.” The child who hits back is at such clash with our construction of childhood because we defined violence in all of its forms as the province of the adult, especially the adult in authority.

The adult has an explicit sanction by the state to do violence to the child, while the child has both a social and legal prohibition to even think of defending themself with their fists. Legislation such as “parent-child tort immunity” makes this clear. The adult’s designed place is as the one who hits, and has a right and even an encouragement to do so, the one who acts, as the person. The child’s designed place is as the one who gets hit, and has an obligation to accept that, as the one who suffers acts, as the object. When a child forcibly breaks out of their place, they are reversing the supposed “natural order” in a radical way.

This is why, for the youth liberationist, there should be nothing more beautiful to witness that the child who snaps. We have an unique horror for parricide, and a terrible indifference at the 450 children murdered every year by their parents in just the USA, without even mentioning all the indirect suicides caused by parental abuse. As a Psychology Today article about so-called “parricide” puts it:

Unlike adults who kill their parents, teenagers become parricide offenders when conditions in the home are intolerable but their alternatives are limited. Unlike adults, kids cannot simply leave. The law has made it a crime for young people to run away. Juveniles who commit parricide usually do consider running away, but many do not know any place where they can seek refuge. Those who do run are generally picked up and returned home, or go back on their own: Surviving on the streets is hardly a realistic alternative for youths with meager financial resources, limited education, and few skills.

By far, the severely abused child is the most frequently encountered type of offender. According to Paul Mones, a Los Angeles attorney who specializes in defending adolescent parricide offenders, more than 90 percent have been abused by their parents. In-depth portraits of such youths have frequently shown that they killed because they could no longer tolerate conditions at home. These children were psychologically abused by one or both parents and often suffered physical, sexual, and verbal abuse as well—and witnessed it given to others in the household. They did not typically have histories of severe mental illness or of serious and extensive delinquent behavior. They were not criminally sophisticated. For them, the killings represented an act of desperation—the only way out of a family situation they could no longer endure.

- Heide, Why Kids Kill Parents, 1992.

Despite these being the most frequent conditions of “parricide,” it still brings unique disgust to think about it for most people. The sympathy extended to murdering parents is never extended even to the most desperate child, who chose to kill to not be killed. They chose to stop enduring silently, and that was their greatest crime; that is the crime of the child who hits back. Hell, children aren’t even supposed to talk back. They are not supposed to be anything but grateful for the miserable pieces of space that adults carve out in a world hostile to children for them to live following adult rules. It isn’t rare for children to notice the adult monopoly on violence and force when they interact with figures like teachers, and the way they use words like “respect.” In fact, this social dynamic has been noticed quite often:

Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority” and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person” and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay.

(https://soycrates.tumblr.com/post/115633137923/stimmyabby-sometimes-people-use-respect-to-mean)

But it has received almost no condemnation in the public eye. No voices have raised to contrast the adult monopoly on violence towards child bodies and child minds. No voices have raised to praise the child who hits back. Because they do deserve praise. Because the child who sets their foot down and says this belongs to me, even when it’s something like their own body that they are claiming, is committing one of the most serious crimes against adult society, who wants them dispossessed.

Sources:

“The Adult Gaze: a tool of control and oppression,” https://livingwithoutschool.com/2021/07/29/the-adult-gaze-a-tool-of-control-and-oppression

“Filicide,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filicide

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liberalsarecool · 1 year

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Reframe the narrative.

Patriarchy reverses the victim and the offender. We need to start talking about older men preying on young girls and how conservatives want to steal the rights of the girls, leaving them powerless and without domain over their body.

#smash the patriarchy

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lilacsupernova · 3 months

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Lesbian feminist Julie Bindel being attacked by a bearded man in June 2019 would, under normal circumstances, have been seen as an occurrence of men's violence against women, as well as a hate crime against homosexuals. Yet when the attacker claimed that he was a woman, this analysis was entirely nullified. The attacker turned out to be a rabid Twitterer, who on top of all things called himself Cathy Brennan after a famous feminist. Progressive commentators came out in support of the perpetrator and claimed that Bindel was the actual perpetrator of violence due to her views. What we see here is a symbolic reversal, eerily similar to that which occurs in abusive relationships, where the perpetrator assumes the role of victim. This generally referred to as DARVO: Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender. Men assuming the role of women and then perpetuating violence against women is an extremely advanced form of gaslighting which presumably has very little to do with wanting to be trans or a woman. What we are dealing with is a neo-patriarchal political movement whose purpose is to silence and intimidate women. By sporting a beard and behaving violently, “Brennan” sends clear signals to women that he is a dominant male, while simultaneously claiming that he is oppressed both as a woman and as a trans woman and thus deserves sympathy. But both personas in the same body are not possible: a bearded biological man who does not pass as a woman cannot be treated like, nor oppressed like, a woman by society nor be the object of transphobia. Claiming otherwise is an advanced form of manipulation, in which both the role of the oppressor and the oppressed are occupied by “Brennan” himself, leaving the woman without a position. The underlying message is all too familiar: the woman spoke, and thus provoked the man to hit. Indeed, it is possible to analyse the violence and boycott campaigns around “terf”-accusations as patriarchy entering into DARVO-mode. While the patriarch of old would proudly state that he is the one in charge and no disobedience is tolerated, the trans-era brotherhood achieves the same by claiming victim status, and declaring that any female who disobeys us in fact dictator.

– Kajsa Ekis Ekman (2023) On the Meaning of Sex: Thoughts on the New Definition of Woman, pp. 290-1.

#kajsa ekis ekman #on the meaning of sex #feminism #radical feminism #julie bindel #darvo #male violence #trans #lilac posts

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bonefall · 3 months

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God I am so tired of Bramble fans who refuse to use critical thinking and believe that brambleclaw and squilf are equally bad. Many also hate on moonkitti's video which they most likely haven't even watched or misconstrued points in it. You can like a character without defending all their actions please I'm begging you

And people will sometimes jump to their defense, saying that people just dogpiled them for liking a character the fandom doesn't like, and while that can happen, sometimes people are actually dogpiling them for ignoring abuse and insulting creators with different opinions

(Some discourse happened on Twitter recently about this but it's something I've seen happen before, I'm not specifically talking about anyone)

I'm going to be honest and drop my feelings.

Never have I ever actually SEEN a Bramblefan "get dogpiled" for liking Bramble.

I come out here on my massive soapbox every couple of weeks and drop whole essays on this guy, I chat casually about how important he is to me as a character, both as someone who was abused in a way similar to Squirrelflight AND as someone who can relate to Bramblestar's situation, and before BB got so large and my attention was easier to divide I even ran an AU called Sweet Nothings which had a "big brother" Bramble take in it.

There is no shortage of Bramblestar-related posts around here, yet, I have never, NEVER gotten shit for when I talk positively about Bramble.

In fact, he's commonly cited as one of the favorite cats to see on this blog from my audience. I get praise for addressing him with nuance, explaining how his actions are abuse while also keeping him human, talking about how his life is a painful cycle of self-doubt that makes him double down on his worst decisions. Every time I post about him, I get an influx of comments centered around how my takes on him are appreciated.

What I DO see is people who make art where they try to bothsides him and Squirrelflight, or say something completely false about his behavior, or straightup post DARVO tactics to defend their fav's honor. When someone makes a comment that goes "uhmm? Bit strange innit?" they call it "harassment." Or when people block them, they call that "receiving hate."

OR when someone makes a vaguepost like "Heyyy, DARVO is an abuse denial tactic where the abuser or their apologists Deny the abuse took place, Attack the accuser, and then Reverse Victim and Offender to claim they were actually the person harmed. Bramblestans are playing this out, step for step, and that's bad!" they call THAT dogpiling.

Meanwhile Moonkitti got death threats and was actually harassed for posting Bramblestar Is Worse. To the point where she is hesitant to ever make another video on the topic.

So y'know what? Hot take? The stans don't actually like Bramblestar. They like the vague idea of a sadboy character who broke free from his dad's legacy so they slurp up the framing of the notorious abuse apologist writers, and they get mad when people who have critically engaged with the books don't see what they desperately crave.

How can you really LIKE a character if you can't engage with their actions? If you need to surround yourself in an unpoppable bubble and can't accept anything he's done in the 20+ years he's been active? How can you truly love a man without all his mistakes?

It's sooo hard to be me, Tumblr User Bonefall, the ONLY one who likes Bramblestar correctly. It's rough out here.

#bone babble #Bramblestar #abuse apologia #tw abuse

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starks-hero · 10 months

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Oh, Little Horned One of the Old Oak Tree

Pairing: Steven Grant x Reader

Summary: Becoming the avatar of an ancient Celtic god came with some unforeseen side affects; side affects which you are yet to tell Steven about.

Word Count: 3.5k

Warnings: language, slight body horror if you squint, Steven is a ridiculously supportive boyfriend in the face of fuckery and we love him for it

a/n: giving the reader a supportive god/avatar relationship because it's what they deserve

It's not that you hadn't tried to clean the blood, you'd done your best. But it stained the tips of your fingers and left the porcelain tiles of the bathroom a dark red.

You weren't entirely sure where it had all come from, but the damp, matted hair surrounding where the antlers had sprouted from your head served as a good indicator.

It shouldn't be happening, not yet. You had at least another fortnight till the next eclipse, (if your notes were anything to go by.) But you knew the moment your muscles began to ache and your bones began to creak that it was indeed happening, and it wasn't going to stop regardless of how upset it made you.

You'd tried to call Jake. Then Marc. But you didn't want to risk Steven answering the phone.

The bathroom was the closest refuge you could find and as it would seem it was far from the most ideal of places. You'd torn down the shower curtain in your haste to hide and all but shattered the delicate tiles beneath your feet.

The mirror had also fallen victim to your havoc, an almost artistically applaudable webbed crack spreading out from the centre of the glass where your elbow had made contact. A handful of rouge shards littered the floor and made quick work of slicing open your palm.

You glared at the offending piece of glass before picking it out of your hand and throwing it across the room with enough force that it was embedded in the opposite wall like a well-aimed dart.

You could still make out your reflection through the broken glass pane. Antlers sprouting from the crown of your head, winding off in all different directions. There was a pale glow to your eyes and ruins and ancient symbols wrapped around your arms and the expanse of your chest. And if your abundance of new features hadn't already qualified you for your own Magic: The Gathering card, you'd also doubled in height.

This would be a fucking delight to explain.

You took a moment to thank the gods for Stevens's late shift at the museum before steadying yourself with a deep breath.

You'd felt every bit of it; the stretching, twisting and growing of entirely new bones. And if the persistent pain in your chest and spine was anything to go by you figured it was far from over.

You could hear the deep, resonant voice of your deity, distant and far off, like rushing water over rock. His words were gruff and shaped by his accent as he apologized profusely; and as ego-boosting as it was having an eldritch being admit defeat and practically beg for your forgiveness, you found yourself in too much pain to truly enjoy the moment.

“Cernunnos,” you cursed the god's name.

Your legs were still crammed uncomfortably against your chest and the bathroom door whilst your antlers continued to do a glorious job of scrapping the paint job off the ceiling.

Another wave of pain hit, burning through your veins and seizing hold of your lungs. You coughed and spluttered, each attempt at a breath snagging in your throat like leaves catching on dead branches. The horrid sensation of shifting bones hit your chest and you doubled over with a hiss.

“Please make it stop.”

“I'm sorry, fia beag,” (little deer) the god said, his reflection appearing in the mirror shards. His antlers filled out the frame, putting your own to shame and his eyes, (despite, like the rest of his body, being those of a stag, which as far as species go aren't the most emotionally expressive–) were almost apologetic. “I've tried my best, I asked Manannan to reverse the tides to change the lunar phase and buy us time but it's too late.”

It was heartwarming really; how Cernnunos cared so much, enough to ask a fellow god to inconvenience the entire ocean all in the name of saving your love life. You were glad to have him, even if he was the reason you were going through pain worse than fucking childbirth.

“I'm sorry.” The god's ears flattened against his head and you wondered if you'd said the last part aloud.

“What's the point of all this again?” You'd shifted before but it was never irregular and never this bad.

“A thousand years ago my worshipers adored when my avatar arrived at Imbolc in this form!” Cernnunos sounded excited.

“So it was to show off?”

“To make the people feel seen and protected,” he countered.

“And it's something I have to go through because–?”

The god was quiet for a moment. “Old habits die hard?”

Cernnunos had off-handedly mentioned (downright bragged) about the pact he'd made with the moon sometime before the construction of Newgrange. That his avatar would be gifted with a godly form the night of each lunar eclipse. You weren't well versed in ancient deals between eldritch beings but apparently, it's not the kind of agreement you can back out of a millennia down the line.

And apparently, another moon-related god had initiated an eclipse two weeks ahead of schedule. (your money was on Khonshu over Artemis.)

“It will be alright, little one,” Cernnunos promised. It was soothing having him near, but he tended to have that effect. With him, you were like a fawn, comforted by the knowledge that it was protected by its elder. “Besides, it's not as though this night could get much worse for us.”

Almost comedically, the struggle of key in lock sounded and then the front door opened.

You and the god stared at each other, quite literally, like deers in headlights.

“Love? I'm home–”

Steven's voice sent your flight, fight, freeze response to full throttle and you beckoned for Cernnunos to leave as quietly and frantically as you could. The god seemed reluctant, but another chorus of a British accent from the other side of the door and he relented.

The glass rippled like water on a lake and then he was gone.

You could hear Steven moving around the flat, carrying out his usual routine of removing his name tag, unbuttoning his over shirt and tossing his bag on the couch.

You held your breath when the floorboards of the bedroom creaked and silently prayed he'd just call it a night in favour of finding you hiding in the bathroom looking like something straight from Pans Labyrinth. When he called out for you again you sent your head back against the wall with enough force to crack the tiles.

“Love, you alright?” There was three gentle raps on the door. “Darling?”

“I'm fine,” the words were unsteady. And had your voice gotten deeper?

There was a beat of silence outside the door then, “You don't sound fine.”

“I'm just not feeling great,” you managed. Just go, Steven. Please just go.

“Oh, darling, are you sick? Here let me–” The terrifying sight of the door handle turning caused your heart to almost hammer out of your chest. You rushed to press your foot against it and watched in horror as the timber split right down the middle. The door was barely clinging to the hinges.

You could hear Steven's shock on the other side of the door, a string of curses followed suit. “Y/N–”

“Just leave it, Steven!” you bit out. You hadn't meant for the words to sound so animalistic, so angry. But the only thing currently preventing your life from crumbling was a splintering door and your refusal to move your foot. You were allowed to be rash, you thought.

“Alright, you're scaring me now–”

The universe really wasn't letting up with its ironies today.

The wooden door panels creaked and splintered as Steven tried to open it from the outside. You kept your foot firmly pressed to the middle, but as the hinges began to groan you felt the sturdiness give way. It felt like you had your foot against a wet piece of tissue paper; you were going to tear right through it.

With one more shove from Steven's side, you were forced to surrender.

The door swung open with truly theatrical measure and Steven stumbled in behind it. Instinctually, you pushed yourself against the back wall, forgetting your new height and putting your head through the ceiling as you did.

Chaos is too kind of a word for what followed.

The sound that left Steven fell somewhere between a startled shout and a scream of genuine terror. You reached out and Steven fired back, his feet tying themselves in knots and sending him to the floor.

You struggled to pull your head out of the crater you'd left in the roof. A fine layer of debris and dust covered you and somewhat important-looking wires were strung across your antlers like poorly hung Christmas lights.

Almost on cue, the bathroom light flickered twice and came away from the ceiling, ending up in several pieces on the floor.

The dark apparently did nothing in making you look less menacing as Steven continued to voice his fears. And loudly at that. He hadn't moved, still frozen to the spot just outside the door.

“Steven, please–” you crawled forward at a snail's pace, each movement purposely slow.

He watched you with frantic eyes, his heart hammering like a rabbit against his chest. You'd never seen him so scared.

As he clambered to his feet, you dared to inch closer, but it was the opinion of the shattered tiles beneath your feet that you weren't moving nearly fast enough. You slipped on the porcelain shards and were all but thrown in Steven's direction.

Your rack broke your fall by all but embedding the tips of each spike in the wall surrounding the door frame. You'd put your head through so much wood and plaster in the past few minutes you were beginning to sympathize with mounted deer heads.

Steven was staring now, expression boarding on mild fear and absolute confusion. Then, his eyes flicked to the broken mirror behind you, and then his reflection in the window to his right.

Marc and Jake had taken their sweet time.

Steven looked between you, the mirror and the window and then back at you. Then it visibly clicked.

“Oh, oh my gods, Y/N you, you're-” he swallowed. “-what's happening?”

“It's my time of the month.” The joke went down like a led balloon. Steven swayed on his feet.

“Steven, are you alright?”

“Yeah, sort of. No, not really.”

You craned your neck as far as your current predicament would allow for. “Are you going to pass out?”

“Maybe.”

“Okay,” you said the word beneath your breath. He hadn't run which, all things considered, meant this was going fairly well. Even from the awkward angle you were stuck in you could feel his eyes on you, shifting from one monstrous feature to the next, lingering on the markings and the fucking antlers and the–

“Love, you have blood– you're bleeding.” And just like that, a flip switched in Steven's mind at the sight of you wounded. This man was a true enigma and a wonderful one at that. “Here–”

He approached and then almost immediately hesitated, bouncing back on his heel the moment you shifted.

You weren't exactly a threatening sight, shoulders wedged in the door frame, covered in dust and splintered wood and head practically pinned to the wall. You looked like a drunk stag that had lost a fight to a tree.

Steven shook himself and stepped close enough that your laboured breaths ruffled his curls. He was doing an admirable job of hiding the fact that he was shaking.

“Alright, bloody hell um–” He regarded the situation and then nodded. “I'll push, you pull.”

Steven braced his hands against your shoulders and you grabbed hold of the door frame. It's not that you needed the extra help; out of all the things you'd conquered whilst serving as an avatar freeing yourself from a plaster wall ranked fairly low on that list.

But Steven was touching you in this form, his palms pressed to your broadened shoulders and you weren't about to jinx it.

The wall cracked and fissured as you freed yourself, several deep punctures left where your antlers had been. You twisted and manoeuvred your way out of the bathroom until you could straighten up to your full height.

Thank god Steven lived on the top floor. Higher ceilings.

“Okay, woah–” Steven took several steps back as you stood. You towered over him, antlers bleeding into darkened shadows against the ceiling. Okay, now 'intimidating' might be a more fitting word.

You lowered yourself to your knees in an attempt to seem less frightening. Now that you were eye to eye, Steven could see the worry in your expression as you regarded him softly.

“It's alright. I'm adjusting,” he said, voice still trembling. “Just need a quick adjustment period...”

You gave him time and let him lead.

And that's how you ended up in the kitchen, legs crossed as you sat on the floor whilst Steven sat on the counter in front of you. He held a wet flannel in his hand, droplets of water creeping down his arm.

A dry cloth sat folded on the counter beside him, as well as a box of plasters with 'good job!' written across each one.

It was as if his rationality was being overridden by his need to care for you as well as his overall steveness.

Steven dabbed the crown of your head gently, his hands shaking as he did. There was still a dull ache where the antlers had sprouted. Steven rung out the flannel over the sink and the sight of the blood running through his fingers and over his knuckles made you feel ill. His hands were always so soft, they weren't meant to be stained with blood.

You blinked as a small trail of blood seeped from your head and trailed down between your brows. Steven diligently stopped the flow with the cloth and cleaned you up. Your nose twitched at the dampness of the cloth and Steven smiled.

The first smile you'd seen all night.

His actions slowed, hand stilling as he watched you. Beneath the pale glow of your eyes there was something so familiar. He smiled again.

“Hiya love,” the words were so soft they made you feel warm.

“Hi.”

You raised your arms, the markings and symbols on your skin catching in the dim light. Your hands circled Steven's wrists gently. He pulled back and for a terrifying moment you thought he'd gone completely; deciding that he'd had enough, that you were too much like this and he was drawing the boundary line here.

Instead, he dropped the blood-stained flannel in the sink basin and held his hand back against yours, palms pressed together. It was an adorable comparison. The tips of his fingers barely brushed the top of your palm, in fact, you were certain you could close your hand over the entirety of his own. There was a moment shared in comfortable silence then Steven asked, “Y/N, what is going on?”

The question was gentle and filled with wonder. There was still a trace of a smile on his lips. It made you feel like you could finally tell him.

“Avatar stuff. I suppose my god is a little more... flamboyant than yours.”

Steven laughed and the sound comes as a relief. “Khonshu didn't want to give me the time of day, let alone a– a bloody godly alter ego.”

A beat of silence.

“Did it hurt?”

It was heartwarming that that was his next question.

“A little,” you answered somewhat honestly. “But I'm alright now.”

He finished cleaning you up in a peaceful silence. He took the time to wash the blood from your hair as best he could and plaster your injured hand, (for the emotional boost more than anything.) It took several plasters to cover the expanse of the wound, each overlapping so the supportive catchphrase now read 'good good job good.'

He sat in front of you now, having spent the last few minutes tracing the spirals and patterns on your arm. His earlier fear had completely given way to wonder; it wasn't easy to forget that the man was a mythology nerd through and through.

A boyish laugh crept past his lips. “I wonder how Marc and Jake will react.” He looked up at you to gouge a reaction and his smile fell slightly. “Oh.”

“Steven–” you scratched the back of your neck. This was going to be a bitch to explain. “-Jake only knows because... well–” you made a vague motion with your hands that the four of you had come to recognize meant 'Jake.'

Steven nodded in understanding.

“And Marc just sort of found out by accident.”

Steven nodded again and you could visibly see the process going on behind his eyes.

“And um– why didn't any of you tell me?” His voice adopted a higher pitch at the end of the question, likely in an attempt to take the edge off.

You took a sudden interest in the floorboards. “I didn't want to– you know.”

It was quiet for a moment. Then Steven gasped.

“Oh, oh love, you didn't think... you didn't think I'd be scared did you?”

A quick exhale of amusement from you. “You seemed fairly scared.”

“I- well yeah, yeah.” He conceded. “But not of you. Never of you.” His hands found yours again, the staggering difference in size almost humorous. “I just wish you could have felt like you could have told me, that's all.”

A warmth settled in the centre of your chest and you felt the corner of your eyes dampen. Any attempt of yours to not cry was immediately foiled as he inched closer and put his arms around your neck. His knees buckled against your crossed legs and he sank against your chest.

“For what it's worth,” you smiled against the crown of his head. “I think your reaction probably ranks highest out of the three.”

“Yeah?” He asked lightly. His curls tickled the end of your nose.

“Yeah. Jake used some pretty colourful language, most of it was in Spanish. And Marc pulled a gun on me–”

“He pulled a gun on you–?!” With the exclamation, Steven shot back to look at you.

“Like I said, you take first place.”

“Well, the bar wasn't set awfully bloody high was it?” He glared at his reflection in the kettle and you smirked, closing your arms around him and caging him to your chest. There was something so soothing, so primally comforting about being able to hold him, hold all of him, like this.

You nuzzled against his chocolate curls and to anyone on the outside looking in the action would have looked downright primal. Animalistic. But it couldn't have felt more intimate.

“I could get used to this, I think.” Steven's words were barely above a breath. “You're just a big teddy bear, really. More of you to love.”

His hands slowly and deliberately retraced your shoulder, then your neck, down the expanse of your chest... “What do the patterns mean?”

“Some of the symbols stand for attributes or characteristics; strength, courage, loyalty,” you regarded your arm, from your bicep down to your wrist. “Some of them are his symbols, some he added when I agreed to be his avatar and others, I've never really taken the time to find out–”

Steven hummed, not in a dismissive sense, rather in a way that showed he'd listened to each word like the gospel.

“I've got a book on ruins and ancient symbols, only bought the thing for the hieroglyphics really but maybe we could have a look? Do some homework?” A playful nudge accompanied the last question and you caved. As if you stood much of a chance to begin with.

That's how you ended up laying on the bed, (well, mostly on the bed. Your back was against the headboard and your legs still hung over the edge. Steven straddled your middle, an open book and notepad to his right, a highlighter between his teeth and a marker in his hand. His glasses sat on the bridge of his nose and his brows furrowed as he traced his thumb over a symbol just beneath your collarbone.

You shivered despite yourself.

He'd mapped everything out, using the marker to gently draw on your skin, making connections and jotting down notes. It was like watching a scholar at work and you were honoured to be his study.

“Sorry about the bathroom,” you said rather out of the blue.

Steven glanced up at you, rebellious curls falling against his brow. His confusion melted into gentle amusement. “Don't worry about it, love. Needed redoing anyways, I reckon.”

Then, as if it were the most mundane thing in the world, he went back to his translations.

In a form that most could only phantom in the darkest corners of their imagination and with a god willing to bend the seas and skies at your will, Steven Grant somehow remained among both the most curious and most cherished things you had.

Key ➳

Cernnunos - Celtic god of wild things, fertility and animals

Manannan - (Manannan Mac Lir) Celtic god of the sea

Imbolc - the Celtic festival that marks the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It celebrates the return of life and light as it is the time when the ewes come into milk, when the first flowers appear and when the day noticeably lengthens.

Newgrange - famous 5,200 year old passage tomb in Co Meath, Ireland

‘fia beag’ - gaeilge for ‘little deer’

thank you for reading!

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#mary on a cross “you're beauty never ever scared me” vibes >>>#steven grant x reader #moon knight x reader #marc spector x reader #jake lockley x reader #moon knight imagine #steven grant imagine #steven grant x y/n #steven grant #moon knight #☘️#one day I'll stop making all my stories have irish themes #but not today

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