Shades After page 96
Interesting that while I was writing these pages I thought the comments would lean in Chris’ favour, you’ve surprised me by being more on Anwar’s side than I expected.
While writing this I was like ‘everyone should be directly apologising for the things’ but every way I tried to word it sounded fake and like a bad sitcom. I think people say they’re sorry with body language more than words in real life, I hope this comes across here.
It comes across well. :) But I honestly wasn’t on either person’s side. I thought they both made mistakes in the situation, and they both needed to apologize for things. They could have handled it better, but they are both are also in a new relationship. They need to learn things about each other, and that will sometimes lead to fighting. They still don’t know every single detail. Like how when Chris’s kids were over the way ‘War’s dad died was revealed. The one rule with me and my fiancee is if the fight gets too intense, then walk away and come back to discuss. It has to be talked out, and no one can go to bed angry.
I’m glad they worked it out, though I favor Anwar implicitly I think Chris is probably good for him
yay happy resolve. I think it could have been hadled better but ultimately it was a fight/agrgument then needed.
I wonder if it is as simple as “who do we feel more like”? Stronger, secure people will team Chris, because “come on Anwar, you knew what you were in for!”, while insecure people will team Anwar because “but that’s difficult!”.
I’ve come to terms with what and who I am, I like myself and I don’t see a reason to fear being different and stand out – I’m already taller than most people [192 cm], so I stand out no matter what. I may as well wear heels.
But other people are insecure, fragile and afraid, they have yet to accept themselves and grow stronger, like Anwar.
Ah, but then there are the empathic people who actually think they both should buck up (seriously, Chris should have said something to Anwar before disrobing—even Dan Savage would agree ;) ).
Don’t be disparaging to other people by calling them insecure and fragile. I’m Team Anwar here, because you just don’t dismiss people who clearly care for you – those are few and inbetween, and if you end up being dismissive of them, you end up being absofuckinglutely alone. It has nothing with accepting yourself, but it has a lot with realizing that your boyfriend gives a damn about your well-being and recognizing that.
So how should I call the people who are insecure and fragile? Since when is “fragile” offensive? I didn’t say “weak”.
And yes, I am dismissive of them – so I won’t hurt them. I am not gentle, I am very straightforward and expect the same. That’s why I always warn peple beforehand. And yes, there are a lot of confident, strong people. I’d rather have 5 mentally strong friends than 20 fragile ones. We don’t have duty to be friends with everyone, we can chose. I chose strong people. And fragile people won’t want me, so everyone is happy.
Chris’ boyfriend cares about his well-being. Great. But he’s the one attacking. I’d rather ask or hear “how does that work?”, not “have you tried to stop?”.
Wow. Thank Cthulhu you’re not my friend.
Exactly. We both are happy this way. Noone gets hurt.
Wait why are fragile and insecure bad things? I am both of those things and it can suck sometimes when I sink too far into them, but the same can be said of confidence. These are just traits in myself.
I think the ‘this is disparaging/rude’ comes in making a judgement that “people that like team anwar aren’t mentally healthy yet and the team chris people are”. Calling one side strong is…kinda heavily implying the other is weak? I mean you’re using ‘strong’ for one and ‘fragile’ for the other + saying it’s the opposite of the ‘strong’ one, I think you can have BDSM hang-ups/concern-trolling tendencies without having an insecurity problem going on.
I mean, you’re basing a value judgement on peoples’ mental health/confidence/whateverthefuck off of “which fictional characters’ side are you on”, that’s kind of rude to voice out loud.
Pretty much.
hhhhhhh: Um, not exactly. It was the other way around. I didn’t say that people who team Anwar are weak and Chris strong. I was wondering if people who are confident liked Chris’ attitude, because he’s the stronger and more confident one here. So not “team A/C means strong/fragie”, but “maybe being confident/insecure leads to teaming respective person”. Also, it wasn’t a statement but a question, so everyone can answer.
Melissa – yes, it’s a trait, likeable or not, you understood me. I hate hip-hop and wouldn’t get on well with its fans [the ones who listen to it constantly]. And it’s nothing wrong with liking hip-hop, it’s just I don’t like it so I avoid it. And similar with fragile people – I don’t like this kind of personality, so I choose to be friends with other people.
A list of some of the people who hurt me while “giving a damn” about my well being and just wanting what was best for me:
My step mother who told me that anything outside of a heterosexual, monogamous marriage was wrong and could never work and so I should leave my husband of (at the time) six years because we were only going to hurt each other by being open.
My grandmother whose religious background has her convinced that I’m going to hell for being poly, queer and trans and is just worried about my eternal soul.
My aunt and uncle who think my being trans is just a phase and it’s best for me and my kids if they don’t acknowledge it at all.
Religious friends of the family whose religious backgrounds have taught them that shame and guilt are the only way to get people on the “right” path.
The point is, although someone cares about you or is doing what they think is best for you, they can’t still be 100% wrong and hurtful and toxic people. All of the above were toxic influences in my life who, in their attempts to help me, did a lot of harm. I am better off without them. That having been said, I don’t feel like Anwar was ever at a point where he couldn’t learn. He was wrong about Chris’s apparent injuries – which were a. not that bad and b. the result of safe, sane, consensual kink – and while he was worried because he cared about Chris’s well being, he was also wrong in how he expressed that worry. If Chris were perfect, he would’ve handled that better also but the fact that Chris over reacted doesn’t change the fact that Anwar also overreacted and was patronizing.
You argued before that you didn’t think War was patronizing and I went and looked it up. Patronize: to treat with an apparent kindness that betrays a feeling of superiority. This is exactly my problem with your argument. You suggest that people (including Chris) ought to recognize that a person cares about them and not dismiss those concerns, even if those concerns are misplaced. That premise requires at least some level of patronizing, of the concerned person thinking that they know better than the person they are concerned for. For many of us who have been patronized by people like those on my list, our immediate reaction to being patronized by people who could do better like Anwar is to get upset, to dismiss their concerns right out because that person isn’t trusting our own judgment and is basically telling us that they know better.
JustSayin has said everything I ever wanted to (but couldn’t coherently articulate) about this arc. While both parties could have clearly handled the situation better, Anwar’s reactions came off as EXTREMELY patronizing and condescending, and I’ve been shocked by the comments folks have made that have basically boiled down to Chris’s anger being invalid and he should be grateful someone cares about his well-being.
As someone who’s been in a relationship where that logic was used to invalidate my feelings all the time, I’ll tell you right now that it’s easily used to keep people in abusive situations; I was just one of the lucky few to finally realize it and get out.
It is HURTFUL for someone to imply that your judgement can’t be trusted – especially concerning your personal likes, dislikes, and limitations. It can turn into a situation where you’ll start second-guessing yourself – the old, “hear a lie long enough that you start to believe it”.
Sometimes, it’s better to be “absofuckinglutely alone” than it is to be with someone who makes you second-guess every decision you make.
No, I don’t think you understand what “giving a damn” really means. Don’t take people who want to care about some version of you that you’re not. Make a list of people who want to care about who you are right now.
@meteor-echo
And where do you draw the line? At what point does someone’s own standards and own ideals and lack of trust in your ability to judge what’s right for you and lack of respect for your personal choices regarding your body become proof that they don’t really care for you but rather some version of you that you’re not?
I am going to once again disagree with you. I am absolutely certain that my grandmother genuinely believes my “choices” are going to land me in hell and is sincerely concerned for my well being from a threat I consider to be imaginary. Likewise, my stepmother genuinely believes that I am either faking being okay with my husband being with other people so as not to lose him or that eventually one or both of us is going to want a monogamous commitment and the end result will be a lot of hurt for the both of us and our kids. They give a damn but their religious backgrounds have taught them that the world doesn’t work in such a way to accommodate what they view as my choices. They are wrong, for sure, but that doesn’t make their feelings any less real. And, to be honest, your insistence that they don’t actually care about me is patronizing as well.
All that having been said, for me, I draw a line between those who can put aside their own conflicting world views (as Anwar did for Chris after it finally clicked that Chris wasn’t in any sort of danger and didn’t need any sort of protection) and can stop themselves from hurting me and patronizing me with them. When someone crosses that line and refuses to see that they need to trust and respect my decisions for my body, it doesn’t matter if their concern is genuine. They’re no longer worth being in my life.
If they don’t accept you as is, with all the aspects of your personality, don’t give a fuck about their opinions and intentions, no matter how honest they are. That’s pretty much it. Also, if Anwar acted like your lousy, offensive relatives, he’d have been less about protecting Chris from possible pain and injuries and more about making him quit the whole dom session thing.
Again, I made a pretty clear distinction between them and Anwar but at its root, it’s the exact same behavior and mindset. Anwar isn’t nearly as bad, nearly as offensive and is, as demonstrated on this page, able to learn, but the behavior was still rooted in thinking he knew what was better for Chris than Chris knew. It’s still patronizing and demeaning and every bit as upsetting as those people worried about your eternal salvation because of your “sinful choices” (if not for some even more upsetting because of the person it’s coming from.)
The argument could easily be made that when Anwar was having his little freak out, he wasn’t accepting of the masochist side of Chris. You can argue it was out of concern for Chris but hey, so is, as you put it my “ousy, offensive relatives.” Chris got justifiably upset without cutting Anwar off entirely. Anwar realized what he’d done wrong and apologized. In my opinion, if a person is capable of doing that, they’re worth keeping around, even if it’s pretty clear that there’s potential to slip up again.
Replying to myself because the comment allocation got weird.
No, Anwar’s behavior is fundamentally different from that displayed by your relatives. He *accepts* Chris’s need for his dom sessions, he’s just put off by the resulting bruises because he thinks that Chris might be hurt too badly during. He doesn’t try to dissuade Chris from going, instead he cares about his boyfriend’s well-being (as well he should).
Your relatives never really accepted the actual you, it seems – they cared not for *you* but for the idealized, straight cis mono version of you they devised in their minds. The direct analogy to the Chris/Anwar thing would be if they accepted the fact that you’re queer/poly etc, but would think that your partners are hurting you.
And the distinction I see here is that it still comes down to what is viewed as innate and what is viewed as choice. War accepted the concept of Chris seeing a dom but not the results, thus the patronizing and demeaning comments. When presented with proof of what Chris was doing, it was no longer safe BDSM in his mind but Chris choosing to let someone hurt him and take it too far. At that point, he ceased accepting Chris or trusting Chris to know his own limits. Again, it’s hardly as extreme as my examples (which again, is my point) but at its core, it’s the same behavior. Though War wasn’t flat out demanding he stop seeing his Dom, War was saying he was taking it too far and that it had stopped being an acceptable choice.
You know, for being condemning towards Anwar for being patronizing, you sure are pretty patronizing yourself, Vaira.
I’m afraid I can be. It’s probably due to the fact that I am strong to the point of jaded and insensitive, so I sometimes say brutal things without realizing they may be brutal to other people.
Also – I often can’t tell between coming for help, coming to unburden oneself and coming to whine. And people tend to come to strong-looking people for all of those things. I can help, I can listen, but I can’t and don’t want to be all “oh you poor thing!”. My first instinct is to solve the problem I am confronted with and can’t see/feel when people come just for sympathy. So they come and whine, I present solutions, they disregard it, I get irritated they neither can solve it themselves nor accept my advice, they get offended that I don’t see the problem… And both parties end up frustrated.
So sometimes I judge the situation too quickly and it’s good you point it out in this case.
Also – it’s very hard not to feel “I know better”. I try to keep judgement to myself, but as we wee, I don’t always succeed.
If you enjoy the brutal part of brutal honesty more than the honest part, perhaps it might do well for you if you rethink the way you deliver your honest opinions to people. You can be honest and respectful at the same time.
It’s not enjoying. I’m just unaware of how people may react to something I think is “just” honest. I don’t care for many things so I’m not used to other people caring. The problem is what wasn’t brutal from my point of view, but was from theirs. It’s like I say something, they say something, I’m glad we finally understand each other.. And then they say that they were brutal only to show me how it feels. Wait, that was brutal? And I was begining to enjoy the honesty..
I don’t enjoy brutality, I enjoy not having to be careful. Wooden figurine, not porcelain one. Oops, I dropped it to the floor, my bad, I’ll pick it up this instant. With wood it just that, with porcelain it’s smashed to pieces. So I prefer wood because I’m not subtle.
I’ve understood both sides through this whole arc, but definitely sympathized more with Chris. I’ve been on the edge of my seat the whole time though so it’s nice to see this resolution!
I’m another who really isn’t picking sides in this. I’m seeing two people that still need to learn to communicate and trust one another, but no one that’s wrong, exactly. Chris needs to talk more about his needs with Anwar, but part of that is going to be learning to be open and honest about them (both to ‘war and to himself, actually.) Anwar’s reaction is also understandable, but he needs to learn that this isn’t something from which Chris needs protecting. (Pain is not the same as injury, for example.)
It’s beautiful to see them learning this communication and I wish them the best of luck with it.
Haha love the last panel. <3 your comics Tab
It’s from all the Savage Love I read. :) Anwar is totally GGG about a lot of the relationship and flexible on the parts he can’t fulfill. Yes, Anwar was being judgmental, but his intentions were good and he *is* a newbie and Chris could have educated him better before disrobing. Got to respect those camp site rules.
I forget, what does Anwar do for a living?
He works in a hardware store and Chris works with computers.
Oh yeah! We haven’t really focused at all on Anwar’s work. He hasn’t brought up any issues at work as I recall. What was he going to school for?
Aw, they’re so cute together! I’ve always hated the “refusal to talk it out leads to massive fight and they never work out the problem” trope in romantic stories, talking it out is the smart solution and much nicer than 5+ chapters of frustratingly contrived angst from two grown-ass adults refusing to voice their concerns. (I’m looking at YOU Junjou Romantica). The way the Anwar and Chris can openly discuss what bothers them and work through the more awkward parts of their relationship is really sweet and shows how much they care about each other. *continues fawning over Tab’s character development and relationship writing skills*
I secretly love reading stories that are hundreds of pages of miscommunication and angst. These two are way too straight (ha!) forward for me. XD
“I guess love and pain goes hand in hand, for some more so than others”
Powerful words Tab. Words to remember I think.
He said the l word. :) Also, I’m not taking sides either, they both messed up with their communication and then they fixed it.
So sweet! So happy to see these two resolve it quickly with communication.