Dumpster #3: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

[trashmod]

Holy shitballs, look at us go. Welcome to Captain America fandom's resident wretched hive of scum and villainy: ROUND THREE. AKA Bad Guys Do Dirtybadwrong Things To Your Faves, AKA the Hydra Trash Party kinkmeme. As usual, BLANKET NON-CON AND NSFW WARNINGS apply: just assume going in that everything in this landfill is unfit for human consumption.

Rules in brief: don't be a jerk except to fictional characters, warnings for particularly fucked-up garbage are nice but not required, thou shalt not judge the trashiness of thy neighbor's kinks unless thy neighbor is trying to pass off their rotting banana peels and half-eaten pizza crusts as a healthy romantic dinner for two, off-topic comments may be chucked out of the dumpster at management's discretion, management's discretion decrees that omegaverse, soulbond AUs, D/s-verse, non-superpowered AUs, and dark!good guys AUs are off-topic.

[Round 1] [Round 2] [Fill post] [Chatter post] [hydratrashmeme Pinboard archive (maintained by greenkirtle)] [Round 3 in flat view (comments in non-threaded chronological order, most recent last)]

Round 3 is closed; comments and fills in existing threads are still welcome, but all new prompts go to Round 4.

Comments

(frozen comment) Re: more for less, 7c/~10

[(Anonymous)]

I have a few points to make.

1. Predatory behavior. As someone else pointed out, the list you posted is just some things predators do, and it's meaningless outside the context of other predatory behaviors. Here's a better sampling from the grab bag of tricks that abusers use to hurt and control people. Does Sam belittle and demean Bucky? Does he seek to destroy Bucky's self-esteem? Bucky came into the relationship vulnerable, but does Sam try to make him more vulnerable by distancing him from his support network? Does Sam ignore Bucky's consent? Does he create a power imbalance where Bucky has to kowtow to him? Does he ignore Bucky's personhood in favor of forcing him to be an object or a servant?

The answer to all these questions is no, no, no. Sam tries to support Bucky to be healthier, happier, and less vulnerable. He supports Bucky's therapy and independent life, as seen in his law school attendance and his apartment. The one time Bucky did something that could be construed as displeasure with the sex (breaking Steve's grip on him), both Sam and Steve stopped immediately, and they only resumed at Bucky's urging.

Also, this is fiction. In real life, you can never really know what someone's motives are. In this story, we can say with absolute 100% certainty, given the bounds of the prompt and the author's explanations, that Sam is a well-intentioned guy who wants to love and support Bucky, and that he genuinely believed he had Bucky's full consent.

Finally, what you're saying about Sam not even making sure Bucky had support before he withdrew is totally untrue. It's right in the last update that Steve told Sam that Bucky was getting the help he needed. Indeed, Bucky promised Steve he would tell his therapist, and that he would stop sleeping with people. If anything, blame Steve for thinking it was that simple, not Sam for believing Steve was taking care of Bucky when Sam couldn't. As many others have said, Sam believed Bucky was getting help, and he knew he couldn't help, because he was too upset. So he decided to take some time to calm down so that he could support Bucky later. This is actually the most helpful and responsible thing he could possibly have done.

2. The rules do say not to romanticize garbage. Here is what that means:

DISALLOWED FIC: Person A has been raping and abusing Person B. But that's fine! This is so beautiful and romantic! uwu

That's not what's happening here.

THIS FIC: Steve and Sam have accidentally been raping and abusing Bucky, because Bucky has been performing consent so well they had no idea he didn't like it. Wow, that's really fucked up.

This fic's brave, complicated examination of all the fallout among these three flawed people is the exact opposite of romanticizing abuse.

3. Triggers. Look, anon, this isn't tumblr. This is a choose-not-to-warn, enter-at-your-own-risk, triggerific experience. Even aside from the abundant rape, the trash meme commonly features emotional, verbal, sexual, and physical abuse, systematic dehumanization, torture, sexual torture, surgical torture, non-consensual body modification, medical experimentation, forced infantilization, brainwashing, victim-blaming, rape tape scandals, Nazi kink, homophobia, eating disorders, drug abuse, STDs, and this is just off the top of my head.

This is Trigger Central Station.

When you come into this kinkmeme, you accept that you are going to see content you find disgusting, objectionable, offensive, and yes, triggering. And when you come across that stuff, you do what everyone does: let it be. Because if we were tossing out triggering stuff, we'd have to burn the whole dumpster. Because the person who writes something that triggers you today might fill your prompt tomorrow. Because we can't create rules for the whole meme based around what you, personally, a single anon, don't like to see.

So yes, when you encounter something that you find triggering and scary, you are not supposed to attack it. You are supposed to ignore it. Like everyone here ignores what they don't want to read. The author isn't responsible for designing stories according to your taste. You, however, are responsible for accepting that this is a place where anything goes, and not insulting the stories and authors you don't like in their own threads. This is why I find your behavior here extremely inappropriate and in violation of common meme courtesy.

(frozen comment) Re: more for less, 7c/~10

[(Anonymous)]

Exactly. Thank you anon for saying so perfectly what I couldn't find words for.

(frozen comment) Re: more for less, 7c/~10

[(Anonymous)]

That's a heck of a lot more coherent (and kind) than I was ever going to manage to be. Thanks.