heads up! mentions of a past abusive relationship (for reader). this should really go on wooahaes but i'm too lazy to format it rn and i need sleep so take this ig??? i might repost over there some other time....
there's things that are unfair about having a boyfriend like vernon. you think one of them is how pretty he can look when he's sleeping.
of course, he's still human. he ends up with messy hair, and sometimes he drools, and there's about a thousand other things you can list off about him when he sleeps... but he's still your boyfriend. and thus, every little 'flaw' he has is something you consider pretty on him. he would (and will, when he's in a sappy enough mood) say the exact same about you, to be fair. he shifts a little in his sleep, stretching and reaching for you.
you still remember overhearing him talk to his mom the morning after you slept in the same bed as him for the first time. it'd literally only been sleeping, but you heard him quietly say 'they trust me a lot,' to her while on the phone. he'd been unpacking breakfast. when she asked about it, he merely said "they fell asleep next to me. they've never done that before. i think... i think they trust me," in that pensive way, like he's thinking more than he's actually saying.
(i do, you told him later. trust you. i think i love you, too. and it'd been what made him say that he loves you for the first time--something he didn't expect to hear back without that 'i think' to protect yourself. you said it to him a few weeks later, and he teared up--although he'll always deny it when you bring it up now.)
"you're staring again." he pulls you out of your thoughts with ease, and his eyes meet yours in the low light. "what's wrong?"
you saw today's date. some birthdays never leave you, and that's true of the person who hurt you. the person you only told vernon about a few months ago in full, although he knew of the person's existence before then. you remember what that person said to you, too. that you didn't need anyone else aside from them...
"nothing," you say, and it's a half-lie. it'll bother you a little more, but you don't want to have this talk now. not when you're already starting to drift off, safe in his presence. vernon's good at protecting you from ugly feelings that settle into your bones like an unwanted guest. "we'll talk later, honey."
he gives you a uncertain look. "you only call me honey when you're upset."
(it's a mutual thing: he calls you either by your name or a casual dude any other time, and baby and babe and love of my life whenever he's trying to avoid a topic temporarily. the two of you communicate: vernon's good at making you feel safe in that, too.)
"right," you say. "we'll talk in the morning... homie."
it earns a crackling snort from him, and he smiles that cute gummy smile as he hides his face for a moment. "ah, really... god, you're such a dork sometimes, i swear."
"a dork who landed you," you always remind him. yet when his eyes meet yours a moment later, you feel something warm in your chest that washes away that ugly feeling all too easily. you reach out, holding his face. "i think... i won."
"you won?"
"you love me," you say. "my friends love me... i'm loved," you say quietly, and the feeling still feels a little foreign. you are loved, you repeat mentally for a moment: because they see you as you, not the broken mess you feel you are. "so i won."
vernon gets it soon enough, and he nods. "you won," he says quietly. "i'm glad you're here... homie."
you crack up, too, and he quietly laughs at his own little moment with you. his laugh and his smile always make you giggle, too, and he pulls you in to kiss you happily.
"i love you," he mumbles against your lips, "i love you, i love you, i love you--" and he keeps planting kisses against against and around your lips to punctuate every repeat of the phrase, before he draws back, satisfied after being struck with the need to be overly sappy. "alright?"
gone is that bitter feeling that once flashed through your veins and settled into your bones. all you feel now is love, soft and sweet, as you're so openly reminded that you're not alone. that the two of you shoulder these problems together. you won, you think, because you are alive and being loved and learning to love wholeheartedly again.
"yeah," you settle in to sleep, planning to keep to your promise of talking come morning. "i love you, too, you big sap."
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i feel like people say "abuse is always intentional and a choice" because it helps them believe that they haven't and will never abuse someone so long as they believe abuse is wrong.
Do you think every abuser woke up and thought "today I will abuse someone on purpose"? Probably some of them, but not all. Some abusers genuinely think that abuse is just how relationships work. Sometimes kids abuse other kids before they grow up and realize what they did was fucked.
If you decide that abuse means "person intentionally abusing another", what about people who were abused by people who weren't intentionally abusing them? Is that not real abuse?
I'm not saying that you shouldn't be angry at your abuser. I think you should be angry at whoever you want to be angry at. But I think looking back at your actions and checking "was what I did okay? how did my actions impact the people I love?" is very important, especially for people with NPD, where having issues understanding how your actions impact others is a symptom.
Having NPD makes forming and maintaining healthy relationships way harder. I would know. It's also way harder to control emotional outbursts while you're having one (and emotional permanence issues mean once you stop having one, it's hard to imagine what it felt like).
Introspection about why you did the things you did, if/how you hurt someone you care about, trying to make it up to them, and minimizing the chances that it will happen again, are very important. In "npd abuse" spaces, this introspection is usually shut down by "well, if you think you might be a narcissist, you're not one". But I think this introspection can be very helpful, so long as the introspection doesn't begin and end with guilt/shame.
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Homura did nothing wrong. And I stand by that. Because, she didn't do anything wrong towards anyone nor did she do anything with malicious intent. The only thing she did wrong is entirely in regards to herself. Rather than basing Homura's entire character around an act she made out of love or reduce her character to an evildoer with no morals nor love in her heart like some people still do to this day under the poor facade of “valid criticism,” I'm going to explain what Homura actually did wrong in Rebellion and her what her act of selfishness actually was.
What Homura did wrong was condemn herself to suffering as an immortal deity, the Devil whom acts as a rebellion against God, The Law of Cycles, strict laws of the original universe, which included Madoka Kaname not existing. That is what she did wrong, but not in the black and white, Good-vs-Evil way most people interpret this as. Yes, they are meant to be enemies one day, but because God favors rules and always doing the right thing, whereas the Devil favors her desire to stay in a world where Madoka is happy, where her friends are happy, where they are safe and have a chance at a life. A desire for happiness vs maintaining order of a broken world for the greater good, even if maintaining order means making sacrifices and making hard choices that directly rebel against that desire and yearning for happiness.
But, here is why Homura is wrong in dooming herself to her fate as the Devil. It's very subtle, but seconds before the Flower Field scene, as they are walking, Madoka turns and tells Homura that it really hurts her seeing her in so much pain and not being able to do anything about it. This may seem like a simple thing a friend would say, but remember that Madoka lost her memories as a goddess. And, as a goddess, she was stuck alone in Heaven having to watch life go by, Homura's life go by, and wasn't able to interfere. Think about that for a second. Think about being Madokami.
Think about when she could finally understand just how much Homura did for her, just how much Homura fought for her in all those time loops; the moment she's able to reciprocate her feelings, she fades from existence as the consequence. Wanting so badly to comfort Homura as she bears the psychological burden of being the only person to remember her, to know her, to miss her, to grieve and mourn her. Thinking the only time she’ll ever be able to see let alone talk to Homura again is when she’s essentially dying from all the grief, the pain, the guilt, the sadness of not being able to save her from her fate of being a goddess trapped in isolation. Think about that, then look at what she says here again. Of course it hurts Madoka seeing Homura hurting so badly and feeling powerless to do anything about it. Because that's what she's been doing as The Law of Cycles. Much like how she said she'd never make the decision to become a Goddess in the first place a few seconds later, she says this because this is the real Madoka who loves and cherishes Homura, who hates to see her hurt.
Take that into consideration when looking at what Homura turns herself into at the end of Rebellion, how she's suffering and you can see the exhaustion on her face and in her eyes, how you can see the immortality essentially sucking the humanity out of her to the point where she herself believes she is evil. This was never about Good vs. Evil. This is about Homura hating herself so much not only for being unable to save Madoka, but possibly even for loving her in the first place considering her love is what made her powerful enough to condemn herself to her fate as a Goddess trapped in Heaven with her wish. This is about Madoka hating herself so much to where she only deems herself worthy so long as she's helping others, her self-loathing making her reduce herself to a sacrificial lamb and throwing away her life for the better of everyone else, caring so little for herself and being unable to even fathom that she'd be mourned or grieved if she were to die, thus sacrificing herself over and over, seeing herself as a means to an end if it means freedom for everyone she loves. Madoka has always been there to comfort Homura and protect her since the first timeline. How can she do that if her memories and powers to do so are locked away? She can't. Because Homura doesn't believe she deserves Madoka's love.
Homura doesn't believe she's worth Madoka's sacrifice in becoming a God and Madoka doesn't believe she's worth Homura's sacrifice in becoming the Devil. Madoka cannot understand that she is so so much more than what she can give to other people whilst Homura is the only one that does. Homura can't understand that dooming herself to immortality pains and hurts Madoka because she can't do anything about it thus she can't save her from her suffering like how Homura ceased her suffering. It's a cycle. A snake eating it's own tail. A pumpkin that spins round and round and round. They're both selfish and they're both selfless. Homura is selfish in the sense that she's not taking into consideration how Madoka would feel if she knew how much she were suffering as the Devil for her sake yet she is being selfless because she's only suffering as the Devil for Madoka and her family and their friends to have a happy life. Madoka is selfish in the same sense that she's not taking into consideration just how psychologically damaging it is for Homura to not only have to watch her die over and over again throughout 100 timelines but to then erase herself from existence with Homura being the only one to remember her and she is selfless by of course only sacrificing herself so much because she cares for everyone and all Magical Girls, Homura especially included. They both love each other enough to sacrifice themselves for the other but they both hate themselves so much to where they believe they are undeserving of the other's love hence they keep dooming themselves to suffering in isolation and in turn dooming each other.
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