#trying to convince victims that they're at fault for not existing only how the abuser demands them to exist

[furiousgoldfish]

abusers will go 'it makes me feel sooo upset when you live your life the way you want to and do the things you want to do, actually what you're doing is victimizing me by not existing only as a support and validation to me you are so abusive and selfish and you should think more about how your sense of freedom and boundaries is negatively effecting me'

[oddsacky]

7, 8, 32, 48 ? :0

Any world building you are particularly proud of? This universe I made in my head which started out as "Payday but the members are their masks". What I mean is this:

Basically it was just a thought that I had in my head that later turned into a storyline which eventually turned into this huge world. There's these gods that exist (Bain's one of them and he has a family), there's different species of humanoid creatures (reptiloids, furries mammaloids, plasticans, and demons), I even came up with the biology for demons (mostly because I was in a horny mood but let's not talk about that). This simple Payday AU turned into a whole universe that even comes with a "spinoff" that takes place many years after Payday with a little friend group that gets together and makes friends with a ghost (the story here being that humans died out years ago and this ghost is basically the last human). I am quite fond of this universe and honestly wish it could become more.

What song would make a great fic (to either write or read)? There's a lot of songs I listen to that gives me ideas for fics. Probably some of the best songs for fic inspiration (at least that I've heard) come from Ghost and Pals. They're angsty songs. The best song for this fandom would probably be The Distortionist cuz it's about a manipulative abuser and I could totally see this as a song for the Dentist. Maybe the fic could be about the Dentist's day maybe him trying to convince someone, perhaps a victim, how he's not a bad person while torturing the victim and having fun idk

What's your ideal fic length to read? I prefer shorter fics mostly because I have the attention span of a puppy. Unless I'm really hooked on the plot in which case I will hyperfixate on that long fic until I get bored and move on or until I finish. And when I say get bored it's either cuz the story is boring or I'm just not as into the plot as I was a week ago.

What's the last fic you read? Do you recommend it? Soft by @/lilspacewolfie. I do recommend it if you want loving WolfHox NSFW. The only problem I had, and this is a completely personal problem that has nothing to do with the author I'm just a sensitive little shit, was the use of real names (yes it was tagged I just didn't read all the tags, again that's my fault).

Now feel free to skip this last segment as it's just me venting(?) but a couple months ago, I tried to post this fic. It was based on some wacky dream I had and the main character was Wolf's wife and because she didn't know Wolf's nickname, she referred to him by Ulf the whole time. I thought it was cool but then a day later someone gets upset and starts telling me that I was being really mean to the real Ulf because I was supposedly comparing the real guy to the character. My first reaction was to delete the fic and cry (I know I have problems). I guess I just kinda thought I had gotten over this incident but when I read Soft, I got a bit sad. This ain't the author's fault and I don't want her to change it just cuz I felt a bit down I just wanted to get all that off my chest.

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

Tw: csa

Hi, this is the same person who sent the ask about telling the most important person in my life I was a csa victim and them reacting badly.

So, after their initial reaction, they’ve been telling me over the past few days that they don’t believe me and that I obviously made it up. (I can’t cut this person off bc they’re my main source of support and my family before anyone suggests that). They say they don’t believe me because I can’t tell them what exactly happened or who did it or when/where/etc. this is all true. I don’t have clear memories of anything, just bodily memories/flashbacks and frequent nightmares. Is there anything I can do to convince them I’m not lying/delusional? I could tell them more about medical problems I have which I believe were caused by csa but frankly it’s really gross and TMI so I don’t want to tell them.

I also am stuck between hating them and wanting to spill all my trauma to them. I desperately want to talk to someone about it and I can’t get a therapist for reasons.

Hi anon,

It makes me angry to hear that. No survivor should be told that they're obviously making it up. No survivor should have to prove themselves in order to be valid.

This strikes a personal chord with me because I had kept a digital journal when I was abused, and when my abuser found out he deleted the whole thing. So my idea of "when" is extremely vague. That is not my fault, you know?

Another thing is that I don't have really any evidence of what happened to me, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Not all survivors have evidence. Just because someone can't "prove" it happened doesn't mean it didn't. The truth doesn’t need anyone's validation to exist. 

Quoting my expose, "I will not be taken seriously if I don’t memorize my story, and I will not be taken seriously if I admit that I memorize my story. I may not be taken seriously no matter what I do." I don't know what deniers expect. They want you to have a clear story but if it's too clear then it's rehearsed, and if it's unclear then it's easily discarded. There is no winning with them.

Nobody is entitled to your story. You shouldn’t have to hand anyone your story like it’s your license and registration. This person sounds ignorant, not only about what it's like to be an abuse survivor but how repression and trauma memories work.

Ask yourself if you think it's worth the time, energy, and emotional labor to try to convince this person that you are in fact a real survivor.

I hope I could help. You're welcome to talk to us about whatever you need to get off your chest. We try our best to facilitate a supportive environment if you need one. Please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

[lorillee]

speaking for myself, the concept of irredeemability isnt about choice per se but about the weight of the outcome. to say someone is irredeemable is to say that the outcomes of certain choices they have made are so severely harmful that they cannot outweight that result with other good decisions that dont correct the bad. same premise as not being able to pay off a debt in USD w kiwi bc theyre not equal. youll never convince an abuse victim their abuser became "good" after x number of good deeds

i'm going to try to explain my own perspective here so bear with me for a second (or several because this is a bit long).

i... really don't understand the idea of "x amount of good > x amount of bad" makes you a good person, and "x amount of bad > x amount of good" makes you a bad person. just because you choose to do a whole lot of good in your life doesn't mean that you can't or won't later consistently choose to do bad things, and i really don't understand why the reverse can't be true.

now obviously this may not be what you meant to imply as generally trying to explain perspectives on morality via words can really easily get muddled, and if that's the case i apologize.

i'd also like to question who gets to decide what counts as a bad deed of appropriate weight to... never be able to consistently choose to do good things again? what one person may consider to be the worst crime in existence may be tuesday to somebody else. which then gets into thousands of years of human debate on what morality is and what it means and who gets to have the final say, so this is more of something to think about in general given we probably won't agree on any sort of authority.

but i will say, this fundamental concept of somebody no longer being capable of choosing to consistently do good things will never ever make sense to me. it just... doesn't. if we have the choice to do anything and yet consistently choose to do bad, then we still had the choice to do good and chose not to. and because we could have chosen to do good, we could have chosen to consistently do good. and if we didn't have any choice at all, then how can we be at fault?

i also don't think our moral states or their future should be beholden to the judgement of any other person who will 1) never be truly impartial and 2) never truly understand the situation/mental state/knowledge of the person who has done whatever deed has been done, good or bad. which, again, goes back to the question - who should get to decide whether we are good or bad people? who gets that right? people who we've only hurt? people who we've only helped? i think these are things worth thinking about.

naturally, redemption is different than forgiveness, which i feel like kind of gets muddled in when people talk about this whole debate. choosing to be better does not mean your victims will forgive you (or that they should forgive you), and forgiveness from your victims does not necessarily mean that you're choosing to be better.

i also don't mean to say that "well if your abuser does some nice things sometimes you have to forgive them because they're a good person111!!1!!!" because that is. obviously untrue. after all, just because we make mistakes and hurt people sometimes doesn't mean we're bad people.

i also generally believe we should refrain from passing objective judgment other people's moral state because ultimately as stated above, 1) we'll never be truly impartial simply due to the fact that we are shaped by our situations and worldviews and personalities and are, as a result, biased, and 2) we really don't know what's going on inside other people's heads and their situation and mental state and knowledge of the situation at hand and so on and so forth and we never will. this, notably, applies for both people perceived to be good and people perceived to be bad.

we can create informed opinions based on how we perceive their personality, their past behavior, the choices they've made, and so on and so forth, and these opinions may very well be right! in regards to people who you've dealt with intimately, they likely are. i'm not saying that you cant think or say that "i think my abuser straight up sucks as a person", nor that you cant think or say that "i think my friend straight up rocks as a person". that is not my intention. i think a lot of people suck and a lot of people rock and i'm certainly not saying that you can't think that.

which then begs the question - well, if you think that we can never really understand somebody's moral state then how can any of us make a statement on who sucks and who rocks?

and... well. honestly i don't have an answer for you. i think we can make a judgement that we believe to likely be true based on our perception of the person, but we can never really say for certain. again, this opinion, if we've known this person particularly well, is likely correct, but it should be noted that we'll never truly know why somebody chose to do something, even if we can be pretty sure about it. after all, a lot of people don't even know what's going on inside their own heads - how can we be so certain about what's going on inside somebody else's? again, this does obviously apply for actions we perceive to be good as well - we don't know, necessarily, why somebody chose to do a good thing or if they're really trying to do good things at all. we can guess, we can make informed judgements, but we simply cannot truly know.

which then begs the question, "well if we can only guess then why bother having this discussion at all, since we're going to need to pass judgement on people one way or another" and to that i can say: i don't know. i think it's important to recognize and to think about. obviously pointing out that we're not omnipotent impartial beings isn't really going to change much on that front, but i feel like we should at least acknowledge it when talking about somebody else's moral state.

and on another note (i should clarify, this isn't targeted at you specifically, anon, more of just a general observation), i find that people are far more happy to throw around the word "irredeemable" at just about anybody else other than themselves. because, naturally, they could never do [x bad thing that fits the size of bad enough thing to be considered irredeemable until the end of time], because only a bad person would do that, and good people don't become bad people. because if a good person became a bad person, that might (god forbid!) imply that bad people could become good people.

this, again, leads back into this terribly pervasive idea that redemption is only for the good. that "redemption" is only for minor mistakes. nobody who actually screws up can be redeemed, because they're bad. because what they've done is ugly. because their choices are repulsive. and people don't like that. but if your redemption is only for the good... that's not redemption. i'm going to be honest - if you think that, at some point, somebody is incapable of redeeming themselves, then you straight up don't believe in redemption. owning up to a handful of mistakes isn't redemption, and if you think it is then we'll never be able to have a coherent discussion about this because we have two fundamentally different definitions for the word.

if somebody who was repeatedly doing bad things said, "well, i'm already irredeemable, so there's no point in trying to be better", wouldn't that come across as a completely shallow cop-out? of course it would! because it is. no matter how much you suck, nor how much of a good person you are, you are always always always expected to continue to try to do good and try to make the right decision. if you weren't, then there'd be no such thing as morality at all. nobody would care. but there's no threshold of good or bad in which it doesn't matter anymore, because people's choices always matter.

either way, that went on a huge, barely related tangent to the original statement because these are things i think about sometimes and i do love to never shut up.

regardless, to sum this whole, terribly long tirade up in a sort-of nutshell: surely to make a judgement on the future actions of somebody else before they've even had the chance to choose is unfair? how can somebody's "redemption" not be based entirely on their own choice and the actions they choose to take? somebody's moral state isn't be dictated by other people, whether they've affected those other people for good or ill or not at all - their moral state is dictated by what they're choosing to do. it's dictated what's going on inside their heads as they take actions. as others will never truly understand what influenced them to make the decisions they did, others cannot, by definition, dictate their moral state, and certainly not dictate their future moral state. (again, this isn't to say that we can't look at an abuser and say, "wow, that person sucks!" - we can form opinions based on perception and past behavior and so on and so forth that, if we know them personally, are likely highly accurate, but the point remains above all that somebody else cannot dictate their future moral state, whether that person is their best friend whose done nothing but unspeakable good, or that person is the worst thing that literally ever happened to them.)

again - i firmly believe that nobody is irredeemable, they just choose not to do better. and if they do choose to do better because they are choosing to become a better person... then that's that. you don't have to like it, you don't have to forgive them, but you can't decide their morality for them.

[brookeolin]

TRIGGER WARNING/TW: emotional and physical abuse and violence

Hi! I've been paying attention to the stories of assault that have been shared by brave survivors over the past week... and years... Every time a movement to share revives, I consider talking about something I've been through... but usually by the time I feel like I can, I tell myself "it's too late, the moment passed". I am finally realizing that this mentality was a stupid way of silencing myself--and it's truly never too late to speak up.

I don't have a games industry person to call out. I'm sharing my story just to get it off my chest.

A couple years ago, in my late 20s, I was dating a guy named Mike. The relationship was pretty toxic from the start, but I was naiive as hell (yes you're still probably naiive about a lot of things in your late 20s btw) and thought his mean streak was sort of... refreshing? I fooled myself into thinking that I'd finally met a guy that would be honest with me about my flaws, and who would love me despite them. Because of this infatuation with a mean streak and the emotional highs and lows that come with it, I ignored all of the red flags. Some examples related to games: If we played a new game and had different opinions about it, mine were always wrong. If I tried to make an argument for my opinion, he'd accuse me of trying to make him feel stupid. My opinions were always invalidated without a discussion. We would play games together--he would tell me I was bad at it. He wouldn't even play the games I'd worked on, and told me he didn't like them. Everything I did or said was bad or wrong, but he'd always sugar-coat it and comfort me with encouragement that I could "do better". It was a rollercoaster of emotions every day. My self-esteem was so low that... I believed he was right. His gaslighting prevented me from seeing the reality of the situation--I was being emotionally abused, constantly.

Time flew by during this relationship. I was always either ecstatically happy or deeply depressed, and so I developed intense anxiety and panic attack problems. I would have a panic attack and would try to talk to him about it, and he would get mad at me or ignore me. The next day, he'd apologize and we'd make up. This happened more times than I can count. The relationship was so all over the place all the time that my emotional energy was always spent. I got too tired to talk to friends, and cut myself off from everyone without realizing it. I was also shipping a couple games at the time, and stopped working on them in the normal way... I didn't playtest, I didn't proofread, I just hacked things out as fast as possible so I could get back to putting out fires in my relationship. Every single disagreement about games or anything else was always turned back on me, and used to further belittle me.

Things continued to escalate with Mike, and maybe... a year into our relationship, one day, he was mad at me for arguing with him about... something. I was probably mad at him about rent--at this point, he was playing games all day and not working. I was paying for our entire existence, including rent, so we'd fight about that a lot. Anyways, we were fighting and it escalated and he started to hit me. He then shoved me onto the couch and started strangling me. I couldn't get him off. I was seriously at the limit of being conscious when I managed to pry him off of my neck, and then he hit me some more. That went on for a bit, until I managed to run out of the apartment. I wandered around in the streets for a while before coming home.

Guess what! Even after something like that, I stayed with him! People aren't kidding when they talk about how difficult it is for abuse victims to leave their abusers. Why? He convinced me that he beat me up because I pushed him to that point. He managed to manipulate me into believing it was my fault. Turns out, this kind of gaslighting is pretty typical in these abuse situations, but I didn't know that at the time and was... so traumatized and fucked up that I believed him. It took me almost another year, and more physical abuse, to finally leave. I almost died multiple times while dating this guy. On the last occaision, he strangled me again after slamming my head into the wall. He stopped strangling me at my breaking point again and started running towards the kitchen, saying something about a knife. I sprinted out the door with only a shirt and underwear on.

An old guy was closing up at a bar nearby and he let me in and called the cops. Of course, the cops weren't helpful--they stood there asking me "but how bad was it, really"... even asking me to rate my fucking beating on a scale of 1-10 while I was sobbing and covered in bruises. Eventually, they finished questioning me and taking pictures of my neck, and finally drove me home. We got there and they asked... "Do you want us to arrest him? You need to decide." These fuckers made me decide if I wanted my abusive boyfriend to go to jail, outside of my apartment, while I was shaking like a leaf, with no pants or shoes on. It was the lowest point of my life, by far. I was like... seriously in disbelief that they were asking me, the victim, to make this decision. Thankfully, I said yes, and he went to jail. I went back into my apartment, alone, surrounded by broken furniture. I called my mom and a friend. I'll never forget how strange it was to just lie there in my ruined apartment, not really knowing what to do. I went to the ER the next day and the nurses there told me they see girls like me in this condition every day, and they told me that a lot of those girls go home and it happens again and again. They asked me sincerely to never speak to Mike again, and I didn't. I have not seen him since. Oh, but I was still effected by the gaslighting so deeply that I gave money to a friend to bail him out of jail a couple days later, because I still felt like everything was somehow my fault. It was NOT my fault. He chose to violently assault me. That was his choice. It took me a long time to recognize that, because his gaslighting really effected me to my core. The power of abuse is truly incredible and horrific, and the power an abuser has remains even after they are gone.

I was was lucky to come out this alive and on my feet. I am no longer in that relationship--I am safe and happy. As lucky as I've been to come this far, I've been through some very real PTSD since then, and still struggle with the physical and financial repercussions of my assault to this day. Things have gotten a lot better though, so I thought it'd be a good time to share this with folks.

I hope that anyone out there who is also a domestic abuse victim can see that they're not alone, and that they can get out of the situation... hopefully faster than I did. I can't advise anyone personally--I'm a victim, not a professional. However, I can promise you, if you're a survivor/victim of domestic abuse, that there's hope. You can get your life together, as impossible as it might seem--I am living proof of it. Trusted friends, therapy and local domestic abuse centers are incredibly helpful. I have personally literally used all of these methods to help with my own situation, when it was at its worst. There is no shame in asking for help.

If you're not a victim, or don't personally know anyone who is... I hope that you might now recognize that domestic abuse is a very real and pervasive thing. It doesn't happen to one specific kind of person--it can really happen to anyone, and often for long, drawn out periods of time. Relationships are complicated things that can be incredibly difficult to get out of, especially when abuse (emotional and/or physical) is happening. Please keep this in mind, watch out for your family and friends, and support victims as much as humanly possible.

-Nina Freeman

[hippityhoppityyourenowmyproperty]

Reset!Rant (part 5)

Gemini Ascendant

Chapter: 1

Max: "Are they always like this?" Helen nodded and turned the page of her bodice-buster romance novel. "This is the status quo for them. Bart gets bored. Bart annoys Thad. Thad overreacts. Chaos, followed by a scuffle in the back yard. Boys come in dirty and exhausted. Repeat."

She forgot to mention the part about Thad abusing Bart and being the one who insults him. And getting murderous thoughts and viciously beating Bart up is something a little more inexcusable than just overreacting, as Helen puts it.

Thad stared at his costume that he still held in his hands. "I don't think this is going to fit, either." At least Bart was good for making the embarrassing mistakes first, so he didn't have to.

Sums up pretty well all that Thad sees in him. Because despite proving his worth and helping out numerous times in this story, Thad still refuses to acknowledge how essential Bart was to the mission and how helpful he can be.

Thad was not letting go of the subject. "You used to just cook out of box or can, too," He accused Bart. "Well yeah, but I leveled up." He stuck his tongue out at his brother. Thad's arm shot out and he grabbed Bart's tongue, eliciting a yelp of surprise.

This is another one of those scenes that is creepy and makes me feel very uncomfortable. This is a physical threat and it's aking towards physical abuse. Bart is playfully teasing him, and Thad sees that as such a big threat to his position of power that he feels the need to physically intimidate him and maybe even elicit pain. His actions aren't justified. They're not okay.

Thad complied and Max sighed. "Can't you two keep your hands to yourself for one day?"

Can't any of you see that Thad is always the one who starts fights and gets physical first? If you want to stop their fights, then maybe start by punishing the one who starts them.

Chapter: 2

"It's your own fault that they don't like you." Thad ducked a flying shirt and smirked at Bart's angry glower. "You let your nature get the better of you." Without lowering his chin, he sneered down at his twin. "You always do."

Weird, I could've sworn that you were the one who wasn't able to control his angry outbursts one chapter ago and tried to hurt Bart because he was teasing you. You're the one who resorts to abusing Bart because you can't control your anger, so get off his back for being impulsive. He's better at not letting his impulses control himself than you are, you're just too deluded to understand that. Impulsive anger is still impulsive.

Helen leaned against the counter and looked Thad in the eye. "He's a little excited right now, and we all know what happens when he's wound up like that. None of his friends can keep up with him if he gets too enthusiastic." Thad knelt down to rub Dox between his ears. "Fine, I'll babysit him."

Yeah, great idea Helen, give the person who's ripping on Bart and abusing him even more power over him, what could possibly go wrong? Isn't Bart the one who constantly had to stop Thad from doing stupid, reckless stuff because he was mad?

Max: "Do you see what I'm aiming for? Helen has done wonders in turning a potential Cain and Abel into Castor and Pollux. Now, we have to make sure that it sticks.

Sure, except for that Pollux actually loved his brother and gave up his immortality so that he could be with Castor, and that he wasn't an abusive jerk. Thad is the opposite of Pollux. He would never sacrifice something for Bart, he would let him die if it wasn't for Max. He's callous and toxic to Bart. Helen didn't make Thad less hostile towards Bart, if anything she encouraged his vile behavior. She doesn't deserve credit for this. Making sure that it sticks means that you are keeping up an abusive relationship. Max should work with Thad on his behavior if he really cared about Bart and their whole team dynamic.

Chapter: 3

Anita: "I remember us joking around that you couldn't be normal if you tried."

"Hey! I can too!" Bart glared at Thad, who was snickering at his expense. "Like you're any better." "I am", Thad replied with a grin. " I can fake being normal just as easily as I can fake being you. How else do you think I get through the day?" Bart ticked off the items on his fingers. "Picking on me, chatting with your internet girlfriend, playing with Dox..."

Thad really has a problem with self reflection in this. Then there's the immediately trying to embarrass Bart for his short comings, and saying that he's so much better than Bart. He's condescending as ever.

And not being able to fake being normal a.k.a. neurotypical is funny because..?

Thad braced against the wall and raised a golden eyebrow. "It doesn't look so much like he's joining it, as it seems more like he's owning it."

Kon's sudden frown and the telekinetic ejection of Bart was just the payoff he was looking for.

Because when Thad is in company of Bart's friends and therefore can't hurt Bart, he will try everything in his power to get them to hurt or humiliate Bart for him.

Bart: I don't get these guys. They don't act like zombies are supposed to. They're tearin' stuff up, yeah, but the're not biting people or eating brains." Thad leaned over Greta's sketchbook with his hands folded behind his back. "Then maybe they're not zombies, moron."

While casually calling him a moron (for the fifth time, by the way) Bart's friends are standing right next to him. They say nothing in response to Thad being an absolute dick to him.

Thad decided that he had enough of Greta play fashion designer and je hovered over Bart's shoulder to supervise the monitor. "Use the traffic cameras, idiot. You can follow the pseudo-zombies and extrapolate their path. Then you can tell your team where to head them up."

"I am using the traffic cameras!" Bart snapped back.

"You're not doing a very good job of it."

"Yeah? I don't see you doing this job!" Bart challenged.

Thad sneered down at him and countered, "I'm not part of your little team, and I wasn't asked to sit here."

This is the very definition of senseless criticizing and abuse that's disguised as advice. He's chewing Bart out for supposedly not doing a good job, but offers no help whatsoever. He's criticizing just because he can. He reigns Bart in for mistakes that don't even exist. Despite saying "You suck at this" He gives him no advice how to do it better. Imagine having to live with someone like that. Imagine having to listen to someone ripping on you for everything you did, even when there was nothing that you did wrong. There will always be something the abuser will be upset about, whether that thing exists or is just made up in order to be a reason to judge and criticizise the victim. Everything the victim does is somehow false.

As always, there's the put down directed at Bart's intelligence.

"He did," Thad grumbled. "I wish I could say that I had no obligation to save him, but I made a promise to Max that I would look after my idiot brother."

This confirms that Thad really would let Bart die and/or suffer right in front of him if Max wouldn't have told him to do otherwise. Also another put down.

Greta: "You're not moving very fast for a speedster saving his brother." Thad shrugged and kept his eyes on the monitot. "I'll let him dangle a bit just so he appreaciates my timely intervention more. Bart's a little dense." The last word came out with a derisive grimace.

He's risking Bart getting hurt or killed in a fight just so that Bart will learn to appreactiate his time more. Thad is the one who needs to learn to not take Bart's support for granted. He's the extremely demanding one who wants more than he deserves. In his eyes, Bart is a worthless idiot who needs to show more respect to him. And don't forget the insult. Thad wants everyone to understand how shitty Bart is because he has ADHD.

Conclusion

From the very start of their relationship Thad is a manipulative abuser who uses every opportunity he gets to ridicule and belittle Bart and continually wears his self esteem down. The lack of punishment Thad receives from his parental figuers for his damaging behavior not only turn Helen, Wally, Max and Jay into neglectful and borderline abusive guardians, but also lead to his toxic demeanor intensifying. The lack of indignance the characters show when faced with Thad very obviously and aggressively abusing Bart right in front of them makes it seem like abuse is something normal and acceptable, and not something that is contemptible and needs to have consequences. Moreover, the fanfiction is ableist in that it paints insults that are directly meant to degrade ND people for being mentally disabled (such as r*tard and shortbus) as harmless and appropriate swear words for that group of people. It is infuriating that so many people praise it as 'the best fanfic about Bart and Thad out there with the most accurate characterisations of them' when the mental torture he inflicts on Bart is objectively so plain obvious. I think I know why the readers of this work failed to recognize the maltreatment. Sibling abuse isn't as known as parental abuse is, and even more people deny that it exists. Many people excuse abusive behaviors in sibling relationships because they're under the false assumption that siblings can't be abusive. They're even harder to convince that it is abuse when the siblings are twins and don't have a significant difference in age and physical appearance. Abuse always includes a power imbalance, and you can definetly see that in Bart's and Thad's relationship. It starts in that Thad is chronologically and mentally way older than Bart. He is also more knowledgable and well versed in combat situations and fighting. Through the use of intimidation, put downs and threats Thad enhances that already existing imbalance and makes it easier for himself to abuse Bart.

This version of Thad is one of the most evil, reprehensible and crude monsters I had the misfortune of meeting in fiction. Living with someone like him is a nightmare and through the entire work I felt bad for Bart. Despite what this work is trying to make you belive, abuse is never justified, no matter who is the victim and who is the perpetrator.