#prof bruce

in my head they'll find their way back to each other they have to 😭💔

it was so gut-wrenching !!!! the ending was a difficult one for me to write, both because it wasn’t the typical ‘happy’ ending and due to the message I wanted to convey! i intentionally left it satisfyingly unsatisfying lol

i know you didn’t ask for me to ramble on about this but it’s reminding me about my beloved COE and what it was like to write it <3 there were three things I was really trying to thread the needle on: having (proper/accurate, non-harmful) OCD representation, not shaming the kink of a professor/student relationship, and not co-signing a harmful dynamic.

it can be hot to imagine a relationship or hookup with a fancy professor !! i don’t want to shame anyone for thinking that’s hot—hell, that’s why I wrote the fic! the concept of him being a professor and getting to hook up w him ?!?!?! develop a lil personal relationship? so alluring. but also, irl that would be shitty !! (this is also why I made reader a grad student and him around reader’s age, bc it would be a whole other conversation if it was someone fresh out of high school, esp with a seasoned professor)

so I wanted them to have their fun, see/appreciate everything for what it was and move on. incorporating Bruce’s character too, since Bruce is all about what is just / justice, it seems like what he would do. they both enjoyed it, it was genuine, and it won’t happen again.

that’s also part of the reason i ended it on the chapter name ‘forward’, especially related to his OCD arc! so much of OCD surrounds being ‘stuck’—in rumination, in doubt, and I didn’t want this to be another cycle for him. it’s also why that last conversation was so important with the both of them, helping him see while it wasn’t the best situation, it was bittersweet. not miserable, not euphoric, but a nice, nuanced in-between. having so much of the rumination and emotional charge siphoned off was crucial. he can tolerate talking about it, even if it’s hard (tolerating feared/activating/distressing situations is a major component of recovery!) and can start to relax.

i didn’t want to create a new ongoing worry about doing it again, because that would be harmful OCD rep. this idea that if you don’t constantly think about and do things to ‘prevent’ a distressing thing happening (sleeping with another student, in Bruce’s case) then it’ll happen. just not true! basically, how does someone with moral scrupulosity ocd handle not being exactly morally scrupulous? initially that cycle of avoidance, rumination, and panic, but eventually subsiding. him being able to hold that nuance of it being a possibility, of course, he’s in a position of power with ample opportunity, but not letting the fear of possibility control his life and going about his normal mundane day after acknowledgement/accountability was so powerful to me :’)

but yeah !! that yearning and pining for them to be together is not a bad thing, I’ve wistfully envisioned them crossing paths again in a few years at a café and possibly reconnecting, but for the purposes of above, I left it a bit heartwrenching !!!!

Growcast Interview Prof Bruce Summer 2015

Growcast’s Paul R Stevenson and Greg Campbell interview Bruce M Firestone about his Ottawa Senators experiences, his career, his books and life in a two part series.