So deeply hurt, but the rare moments where I see a glimpse of the care they have for each other makes me think they can make it. (Happy ending)🥺

I’ve come across people who say that the drama feels like it’s crossing the line into gratuitous trauma porn. That it doesn’t need so many scenes of Haoren being abused and attacked to make us understand him. Because his background, the way he’s currently acting, gives us enough indicators of what he’s survived. So the way the drama has chosen to dwell on the details of his past exploitation feels unnecessary.

Well, I disagree. We needed to know exactly how difficult, how unfair, how traumatic his past experiences were in order to empathize and really understand why he behaves the way he does, why he reacts the way he does, why he abused Chihiro in episode 3, why he would try to >! commit suicide!< in the following episodes. We needed it in order to convey the story as clearly and accurately as the production team wants. Wishing for something to be censored because the content makes us uncomfortable is not right in general, but it feels out of place in this story in particular, because that is what it wants to show. They know it will be uncomfortable, it is meant to make us feel uncomfortable, to feel provoked by it.

Episodes 3 and 4 are heavy and overwhelming as Haoren’s past experiences show what is a harsh everyday reality for so many people. This is Haoren’s reality. If he has made it to this point after all he has been through, we should be strong enough to see it too. When I say this, I don’t mean everyone, because you should check the warning signs I shared in the On Air post before you decide to watch this series.

Last week’s episode did a good job of highlighting how Haoren’s abuse of Chihiro and Chihiro’s abuse of herself stem from their own abuse.

Even though Haoren doesn’t know how to love, how to care, how to be gentle, or how to be loved, he still wants Chihiro for himself. So when he realizes he might lose him, he does the only thing he knows how to do to keep him, the only thing he’s seen that might work. Given Haoren’s background, it makes sense that he would use sex against Chihiro in this way. Hurt people hurt other people, and both of them are deeply hurt.

We’ve seen how abuse was used as both a form of punishment (when Haoren made someone angry) and a way to silence him and make him obey, to become someone who would take everything while denying his own pain. To become someone who, no matter what was done to him, shouldn’t react, shouldn’t scream, shouldn’t say no. I believe Haoren was projecting his own life experience onto Chihiro when he told him that he was a cock sleeve. There are many moments in this scene where Haoren seems lost in his memories, as if he is not really there. And that moment is broken when Chihiro refuses to play the role that Haoren was once forced into, by verbalizing his pain, visualizing his pain by crying, and denying its continuation by pushing Haoren away. All things that Haoren was never allowed to do and this is why Haoren looks so surprised for a moment.

What many stories leave out is how victims can slide into perpetrators. Episode 3 showed how Haoren’s abuse can manifest itself in victimizing another, because sexual abuse is often about disempowering your victim. We saw how his sexual trauma affected his sex life: always needing some semblance of control over it, being uncomfortable with being touched, avoiding showing his body, etc.

One of the sad things about trauma is how it can affect your belief system, how you see yourself, the world around you. How it is possible to fall into a cycle of abuse if you don’t unlearn, heal, learn to deal with the potential pitfalls that can lead to victimizing others, self-harm, or substance abuse to cope…

Ep.3 & 4 did a brilliant job of highlighting how both characters are still affected by their trauma even though they are no longer in direct contact with the abusive situation itself. How abuse can make it easier to fall back into abusing someone else or make someone think they need to go back to someone who has no real concept of love for them and doesn’t mean well at all.

I’ll close with a bit about my thoughts on Chihiro.

After being treated like trash, constantly abused by those around him. With life reminding him every time he wanted to believe otherwise, someone might start to believe that about themselves. He is trash. No one can love him. So he just won’t allow himself to hope for anything more.

He wants to be loved and important to people, but he never is. That’s why he prefers to be used by other people, to let them use his body, which causes him pain over and over again.

The way Chihiro reacted to Haoren’s coercive and violent sex was telling. He’s probably survived much worse, but he didn’t expect Haoren to treat him like this and it clearly took him by surprise. Some part of him must have trusted him, otherwise he wouldn’t have been so upset and let him go as far as he did.

At this stage, they seem to want to give each other something they’ve wanted for themselves for a long time, but they don’t really know how. They have to find a way to express their care for each other, no matter how twisted and unusual it is. It doesn’t matter. As long as it works for them.

Despite Haoren’s immense trauma and Chihiro’s sad past, they still want to try.

After seeing Haoran, he said: “I’ve done almost all the painful, dirty, hateful things. But pain and fear, they are inevitable. What I fear even more than such things is wishing. Wishing for a normal life. Wishing for happiness.”

I think the scene where Haoren as a child tells his adult self to go protect them will always stick with me… It was just so well done.

I just want them to experience a normal life, whatever that looks like. They deserve to feel safe and loved.

I’m done here.

See you on the On Air for Ep.5 and Ep.6 soon… Get ready. Already caught a few glimpses. It’s going to be a rollercoaster of emotions.😍