there’s a difference between the ‘enemies-to-lovers’ trope and shipping someone with their abuser

Not the Star Wars character I wanted to care about

Help I’m feeling protective of Kylo Ren

(Fandom parses him as a whiny eno teenager and makes fun of him for it; my whole career in complex trauma is based around people not taking the mental health of teenagers seriously. I’m normally waaaay opposed to defending villains, but that’s because I believe we should take their actions seriously and hold them accountable despite the pain they’re in, not that we should deny that they’re in pain and mock them for being tacky and unoriginal.)

You really should read the novelization when you get a chance, because there seems to be some interesting insight into his character. Especially That One Moment. “Following through on the act ought to have made him stronger, a part of him believed. Instead, he found himself weakened.”

I just. Spend so much time having to pry into the minds of abusers. Professional hazard.

And so many of them are disaffected boys with poor empathy who get taught the way to solve their problems is violence, who think that feeling an emotion is a good excuse to hurt somebody else to relieve it.

In the field we run our shelters and victim support groups and wring our hands and say, “If only someone could teach abusers not to abuse. If only we could change the public consciousness on masculinity and violence.”

Kylo Ren has the power to do that. I think so many people make fun of him, he makes us all so uncomfortable, because he’s so precisely at the nexus of our cultural tensions, too accurate a mirror of so many men; he’s simultaneously monstrous and relatable, terrifying and pathetic.

And his example says to men like him, “This pain you’re in? You can’t kill it. You’re responsible for the harm you do because of it. This is not a winning strategy.”

So I really HOPE he gets a redemption arc. I hope he learns how to take control of the pain he’s in and soothe it. I hope he learns how to come back to the side of the Light. He could bring so many people with him.

It doesn’t mean we should send them back for seconds.

#elementary #sherlock holmes #irene adler #moriarty #tw: abuse #mine* #even though sherlock has obviously done his research on abuse and abusive relationships #and even though it is heavily suggested that he removed himself from an abusive situation as a child #he still falls straight into irene’s arms #she gives him a monologue full of textbook abusive phrases #((‘i’d never lie to you’ #’you don’t really want to come with me so you’re inventing a reason not to’ #’when you’ve realized the mistake you’ve made don’t try to find me. i don’t ever want to see you again.’)) #and he still can’t escape the hold she has on him #abuse happens #abuse happens to smart people #abuse happens to GENIUSES #abuse happens to people who ‘should know better’ #abuse can happen to anyone #and bless elementary for addressing this #while im in the midst of tags that have already gotten away from me i also want to talk about #people who accuse morirene’s arc of being anti-feminist because her downfall was her ‘love’ for sherlock #they’re missing the big picture #because she didn’t LURVE <3333 him #she loved abusing and manipulating him #she loved having that power over him #morirene’s downfall wasn’t her weak feminine romantic leanings #it was her addiction to systematically destroying another human being