Name: sunshine_locks (Signed) · Date: 29 Apr 2020 04:36 AM · For: I Have to Be Strong

hey lily! i’m here for our review swap! this fic caught my eye, so here i am! :D

 

hmm, so dom doesn’t really seem to be all the comfortable around teddy—she’s even crying! i really wonder what happened that she feels so unsafe? either way, i’m pretty wary of teddy right now.

 

oh lord. dominique watched her own sister commit suicide? that’s got to be horrible to watch and have on your conscience. i can’t even imagine the pain that the poor girl is to the point that she’s haunted by her own sister’s ghost.

 

damn, victoire is trying to be helpful but in the end none of it helps dom because she knows the reality of things, and at this point it just seems that seeing this image of victoire is straight up painful. not to mention that she’s literally reinforcing that she died to make things better for herself, but it’s just a cruel reminder of how helpless dom feels or has felt.

 

i, and i cannot emphasize this enough, hate teddy. i literally have no sympathy for abusers so fuck! him! it is so awful to be in an abusive relationship and even just a month in one can cause such lifelong damage. he doesn’t so much deserve to be alive!

 

i don’t blame victoire at all for feeling pressured to keep quiet about what has been going on behind closed doors—it literally takes so much back and forth between yourself to even speak a word about it to anyone. and then there’s the denial, points where you’re wondering if you’re just lying to yourself and nothing wrong’s happening at all. it is awful to go through.

 

and dom’s hopefulness as she resolves to tell their parents about what’s been going on behind their backs is just so… look where things are now, huh? i wish things could have gone better but it doesn’t always happen that way, does it?

 

speak of the devil and he comes. is it possible to beat someone up through a computer, possibly a fictional character?

 

i am so so glad that dom got the courage to tell her dad about what has been going on. and i am also very glad that her dad really tries his best to not ask too many questions or even try to deny her experiences; that’s really important when someone opens up to you about this.

 

i am really glad that teddy’s been put in jail for the disgusting shit he did, and it is a victory, but it doesn’t feel like one. not when victoire doesn’t get to feel the freedom of being away from him at all.

 

i really hope that dom will go to therapy and move on from all of this. i hope she gets to live a good life, especially after all the sacrifices victoire and her had to make to leave this awful situation.

 

this was a really well written oneshot! you did great with exploring the emotions too, since they are sentiments that ring so true with many abuse survivors.

 

thanks for writing! xx

Author's Response:

Hey there sunshine! Thank you so much for leaving such a long and thoughtful review. Honestly it broke my heart to make Teddy so evil because I realize that I haven't really written many fics about him and yet normally I'm such a huge (happy healthy, obviously) Teddy/Dom and Teddy/Louis shipper. But, in my quest to be a more versatile author (and also *cough* *cough* gain certified author status) I thought that I would experiment with new issues and try out some new advisories. I was definitely super nervous about this fic because it was my first time writing such a self-harm, dub/non-con, domestic abuse kind of thing and I was really scared that I would unintentionally glorify it or something, so I am very glad that you enjoyed it and thought it was well written. 

I think definitely that the original abusing Teddy could have got/made use of some sympathy and understanding. I might do a prologue type thing. In the beginning he was really going to try to stop and he loved Victoire. But by the point he's at, at and near the end he's too far gone and his personality has changed completely. His dominant controlling side has completely eaten up everything that's good in him. Definitely a possible pscyhopath. But really I don't know much about that?? Because in my mind he wasn't always like this. And it's not like he doesn't feel anything or takes pleasure in it, he really just feels a need to be in control. So he's not a sadist. But like I said, maybe another one-shot would go better into depth with this. 

I feel really bad for Dom and Victoire and I'm glad that I ended this story with Dom finally having the courage to tell everyone. 

I do wish that I had juiced more of the Teddy going to jail part because as a reader you hate him and want him put away. But I also wanted it to feel like it was almost too painful for Dom. I mean, she absolutely hates Teddy's guts but there was also a point in her life where none of this was going on and he was like family... So it's hard and satisfying at the same time to see him put away. For Dom in my mind she'll always hate him and would never forgive him even if he got better and was given help, but she'll still miss the Teddy he was.

 

Thanks so much again for reading!