I'm Gay

When you're The Guest Star™…

fireheart calm down it’s part of cinderpaw’s training

“DEATHS DESIRE” The Clexa grim reaper AU literally no one asked for

It’s bad enough that Clarke is a doctor who saves lives; suturing wounds, restarting hearts, and re-inflating lungs. But when Clarke survives a freak accident, she subverts her own death as well. Now, death stalks her trying to kill her at every opportunity, Only, she refuses to die.

Death hasn’t been able to take her soul, but can it steal her heart?

Me: 

WE ARE BEING NOTICED!

Keep on spreading the word guys!

Also, when we move too much during an argument, or lean forward, it’s scary, and I never knew. I was even a little insulted at first, because surely she didn’t think I would hurt her. But see, that doesn’t matter. It wasn’t a sign that she mistrusted me specifically; it’s a conditioned response. (Although if you keep doing it once you realize it scares her, she SHOULDN’T trust you.)

Not every woman has been physically harmed by a man she trusted, but every woman KNOWS a woman who has.

I used to be horrible about this, because I didn’t realize how intimidating it was. I didn’t understand why the woman I was with clammed up or tried to tell me what she thought I wanted to hear, and I only got angrier, and acted even more like an asshole. It was wrong. It was abusive. It didn’t matter if I INTENDED it that way; it was still emotionally abusive. And it was inexcusable.

I get that when passions are high, and when you’re frustrated, it’s a natural tendency to let your voice get louder, to shout and gesture and lean forward. But you can train yourself to do better. You can train yourself to keep more of an even tone, to refrain from large and fast gestures, to not lean into her personal space. I did. I’m not perfect at it yet, but goddamn it, I WILL be.

History is littered with the bodies of women who believed a man “would never.” This includes women killed by men who honestly, deeply, truly believed they “would never”… right up until she said that one thing or moved in just that way and he just got so mad, just that once, and pushed her or punched her or slashed her or shot her… just once, y’know, to shut her up, or because she was flinching and didn’t she know that HE’S NOT LIKE THAT and I’LL TEACH HER TO BE AFRAID OF ME…

We are trained, from infancy, that Men With Loud Voices are a source of pain from which we cannot escape, and attempts to escape may result in more pain. And as soon as we’re old enough to comprehend a world broader than our immediate circle, a world that extends into the past and will run into the future, we realize that there is no way, no way at all, to tell which men “would never” and which men “would never… except if.”

We live or die on that “if.” And any man who doesn’t like facing that hyper-vigilance can work on fixing OTHER MEN, not women’s fear.

The reaction shouldn’t be “not all men are like that;” it should be “no woman should have to live in fear.”

My ex, as gentle a man you could hope to meet, did this once, along with grabbing me by the neck and pinning me to the wall because I was doing something he didn’t want me to do. 

my partner used to be a head chef in a resort, used to build cars and he’s a manager in a factory, he’s used to yelling at everything and everyone when stuff isn’t working but once he realised how painful it was for me he controls himself when I’m there and comes and finds me to explain why he was mad when he’s calmer (so I stop freaking out that it’s my fault).

he’s a loud, explosive, confident man with a hair trigger temper and he can still pull himself together and control that anger for the most part around me now, so there’s no “but I’m just like that” or “I can’t help it” excuses to be had.