Sophinisba Solis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophinisba) wrote2007-07-01 10:39 am
sophinisba) wrote2007-07-01 10:39 am
Entry tags:
unpleasant HP fic - Merope (Tom Riddle's mother)
Here's a fic I started last summer, right after I read Half-Blood Prince (actually I started thinking about it while I was still reading chapter 10). I figured I should finish and post it before the last book comes out, just in case the relevant canon changes. Thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
danachan for telling me this was worth finishing and posting. Please mind the warnings!
Title: Merope
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters/Pairings: Merope Gaunt/various
Rating: PG-13? (strong adult content without explicit detail)
Warnings: Rape, incest, child abuse. (Also: miscarriage, abortion, love potion.)
Summary: Merope's reasons for leaving home
Words: 2835
The first time she saw the brown blood and then the next day the red, she thought she was dying. It was too dark to see in the outhouse but she'd gone around back, in the sun but still hidden among the trees. She'd already felt ill, and sticking around longer than usual meant the smell got to her too, and soon enough she was not only bleeding to soak her knickers but throwing up sick on the grass. She didn't want to die but she didn't much want to go on living either, and she decided to let it happen, rather than try telling anyone. She'd heard mentions of monthly bleeding once or twice but she had no idea that this was it. She had no way of knowing that this would go away in a few days, or that it would come back the next month.
And in fact, it didn't happen the next month or the month after that. But she felt strange, foreign to herself. She was dizzy and unsettled, and at the same time she felt the magic stronger in her than she ever had. Felt it in the blood that coursed through her, felt it down below, where the lifeblood had seeped out of her slowly for five days and then stopped dead.
Months passed, then one day came a pain like she'd never felt, all the times Father beat her or even that first time, years before, after Mother died, when he pushed his little girl down on the bed and pushed into her. Pain in that same place now, deep in the centre of her, so strong she couldn't stand, and collapsed on the floor, and Father pushed up her skirts and tore off her pants and saw the great mass of dark clotted blood, and slapped her face, hard. Said she should have told him she'd started her monthly, and told him when it stopped, and if she'd lost the baby now it was because she'd done it a-purpose.
And she hadn't, she'd had no purpose and no notion of all of what was happening to her. But once he said that she understood that it was possible for her to keep secrets from him, and from Morfin. And once more had time passed and she was strong enough to walk – and quiet enough to walk into Father's room while he was sleeping – she went to seek out what he'd kept secret from her all these years.
He'd never sent her to school, nor sent Morfin neither. It wasn't because he hated her or because she was a girl, though of course he did, because she was, and he didn't mind telling her so. But he kept them both at home because he didn't want his children mixing with the riffraff they let in that place. He said he could teach his own children better than any school that didn't value their ancestry. Anyhow, he didn't like their rules.
She'd held a wand before she'd ever held a pen, but she'd never learned to do much good with it. Father noticed all her mistakes but he was more likely to beat her over a misfired charm than a malformed letter, so books held less fear for her than magic, and by the time the bleeding and the sickness started she was better at reading and writing than her older brother and they all three of them knew it, though it didn't garner her any praise.
As a witch she was a failure. Father started calling her Squib before she was old enough to know what the word meant, but he never let her give up the wand and live like one, or like the neighbors, a normal girl from a normal family.
They don't trust her with any real spells, and they don't let her leave the family's tiny plot of land, but she's in charge of growing and cooking their food, had been ever since Mother died. For years she needed a stepping stool to be able to stir the pot on the stove.
And they thought she couldn't do magic. Couldn't even speak an accio when she had Father's or Morfin's eyes on her, and they watched her all the time.
But after the miscarriage, when she started exploring Father's library, she found out about the magic that doesn't take wands or words at all, magic that's as simple as growing and picking the right herbs, mixing the right ingredients and stirring a pot.
She found out that her own monthly blood had its uses. She learnt how to collect it, keep it, and keep it from them.
Father and Morfin have no idea, and in order to keep it that way she doesn't often use the potions on them. Of course there are potions to make a man impotent – those were among the first she looked up. She even made one once, mixed it in with the greens at supper one night and neither of them the wiser. And it was wonderful, for five whole days (the only days that really mattered that month) they hadn't touched her that way. They didn't know it was her doing but it made them angry anyhow, and they touched her other ways instead, and it had been frightening. Merope would be willing to take the bruises and the pain herself, but she couldn't take the risk of having them find out what she'd done, so she didn't try it again.
She found potions she could use on herself instead. They didn't stop her father and her brother from taking her, but they took care of the consequences. Years passed like that.
Sometimes Morfin would watch her at the stove, and when he complained about her cooking she wondered if he realised how little of her work went into that soup in the end.
He watched her when she started watching that lovely gentleman through the window. He was watching that first afternoon when it occurred to her that she needed to look up another kind of potion entirely. Not the kind to make them stay away, but the kind to make them come to her.
It must have shown on her face, that she felt some glimmer of hope, and that was such a strange look for her that he noticed it at once. He came up behind her, hissing in her ear, and pressing too close. Is that what she thinks? Thinks she's pretty? Thinks that Muggle idiot will recognize her for the noble heir to the House of Slytherin that she is? No, sisster, even the other wizards, even the other Slytherins don't see it now. It's only Father and me. We're the ones you can trusst. And we're the ones who can keep the line alive. Come here, leave those pots and cauldrons alone. That'ss right, we all know you're not really a witch. It happens. You don't need to be. Father and I will take care of you, and your sons and daughters, they can be the powerful wizards and witches. Come now, sit on my lap. I tell you, leave the potions alone.
Merope didn't think the other babies, the ones Morfin didn't know about, would have been great witches or wizards if they'd been allowed to be born and grow up. Well, certainly not if they'd had to grow up in this house as she did. But she wasn't stupid. She'd read about more than potion ingredients and she knew brother and sister or father and daughter wasn't the way it should be, and the baby might be born stupid, or born without arms, or born Squib. A real Squib, not like her. But she never let it go that far. The second time she felt that thickness in her she brewed the drink and swallowed it all down, and later that day the cramps started, and it all flowed out the next day like a bad monthly, and Merope hid herself in the outhouse and said it was female troubles, and for once they let her alone.
But she doesn't want to do it again. She's tried making a potion to keep the pregnancy from taking hold in the first place, but she'd need to take it every day, and she hasn't enough privacy for that. Morfin and Father watch her too closely.
It isn't that it hurts. When Father touches her he's about getting himself off first of all, and about getting her with a child of Gaunt and Slytherin second, but she's made a woman and she's learned how to touch herself at the right moment and make it bearable. Still, she always hates him afterwards, and hates herself more.
When Morfin touches her he's got the same motives, but it's different. He's watched what she does with her fingers since she was a girl, and started imitating her, getting her off, around the same time he started imitating their father and fucking her. He knows what makes her whine and what makes her moan, and he likes to hear a lot of both, and likes to make it last longer.
If only she could get out of this house, or get them out and bring that lovely boy in.
Merope doesn't care about the line of Slytherin or the House of Gaunt. She doesn't want to be the mother of great witches and wizards. She only wants to make a life for herself with the Muggle on the house on the hill. And a child. Yes, once they have a child together it will be real love, and she'll have no more need for magic.
She sees him passing almost every day, sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback or in his fancy carriage. She watches him out the window, or from the garden where she's kneeling in the dirt, digging for the roots she'll eat and digging up the herbs for the potions she isn't supposed to be making. Kneeling and dirty with filth all over her and deep inside her and filth is all she is. And this young man, so handsome, so clean, and when he looks at her all she sees is disgust and pity. Well, that's bound to change. It's a question of inviting him in on a hot day, offering him a cool drink. Or having a pot of hot tea ready one day when it's very cold.
But summer passes and another winter follows and she never has a chance to get him to herself. She starts to understand that it won't be possible until she can get these other men out of the way.
Morfin has never tried to hex Tom Riddle, but Merope is sure he would, if he knew that she thought about him, honest and beautiful as sunlight, while he brother and their father were rutting away.
As it is, the men of the House of Gaunt disdain the Muggle neighbours, but if they knew how much pull this particular Muggle has on their Merope's heart, then surely they would hate him, and surely they would hurt him. That's why she didn't feel any guilt when she wrote out and sent that owl to the Ministry, though of course she had the good sense to do it in secret, on a day when Morfin and Marvolo had gone into town.
She meant to try to hide when the Wizard from the Ministry came for Morfin, but in the end she's stuck in the same place as always, stirring the pot. She can feel the stranger's eyes on her, can feel his pity, so different from her Tom's. He's afraid, yes, but not disgusted. He seems to understand that Merope is capable of better things. Maybe he would even try to help her if she asked, but that isn't part of the plan. She stirs the pot and does her best not to look at him.
Only a little while longer.
She'd fairly expected them to take Morfin away, but when they take Father as well she can barely believe her luck. But then again, perhaps it's not luck but destiny. Or perhaps this is really what she deserves. To have this house and some time to herself.
She has a lot more time to spend alone with her father's books then.
She doesn't bother cleaning up the house or taking the snake off the door because she knows she'll be leaving soon. She doesn't want to make the place too comfortable for herself and forget that she needs to escape.
She still has no means of travel, and not as much money as she'd like. (It's all kept in a bag, under a floorboard in the study.) But she's also feeding just one mouth instead of three now, and no one asks her what she wants the money for. Besides that, once she makes this potion and gets it to do its work, she won't have need of money for aught else, will she now? Tom will take care of her. And once he gets to know her, once he's given her a chance, she'll have no more need of potions or any kind of magic, so she'll have no more need of sickles or knuts.
Still Tom Riddle passes her house every day and still he ignores her. By the time she's sure she's ready for him it's early spring, neither very hot nor very cold, but on that day she conspires a bit with the wind and the clouds to make it more urgent for him to stop. She knows what time he'll be coming around and she makes sure she's standing tall, wearing her best dress, and her hands and her face are clean despite the storm.
"Good day, sir!" she calls, and tells the wind to calm down so they can talk.
Tom slows his horse and stares at her but says nothing.
"My father and my brother are gone now!" she tells him.
"We don't give out charity..."
"No, you don't understand." And she smiles at him, but only for a moment, since her smile only seems to add to his discomfort. "I know you never cared for my brother. He's a bad man, and so's my father. But we're not all like that. They've been taken care of now, sent to prison for what they tried to do to you. So now you and me are both free."
"I don't know what you're talking about," he says.
Merope wrings her hands. She wasn't supposed to say it like that. Perhaps she's ruined everything. She thinks she hears her brother's laughter on the wind, and again she wills it to quiet. "You must be tired from your journey," she says to Tom. "Won't you have a glass of brandy? It's an old family recipe, I'm sure you'll like it."
At first everything goes according to plan. Within weeks they marry and he brings her up to the house on the hill. His parents are horrified but on her suggestion he simply sends them away. Tom is silly with love potion and Muggle obliviousness. He doesn't watch her the way Father and Morfin did, and he eats and drinks whatever she gives him. Every morning she puts a dose of love potion in his tea and some fertility potion in hers. Every night he makes love to her. Yes, it is love, even if it isn't quite natural.
Then it's time but her monthly doesn't come, so she stops drinking her potion but keeps giving him his, and he keeps coming to her at night because that's what she wants. He's gentle and kind and has no idea what's going on.
The months go by and the baby grows inside her. Merope gets to tend a much larger garden than she once did, and twice she's had Tom take her into London, where she brought him to the Leaky Cauldron and let him sit in a large, comfortable chair and administered a sleeping draught that would last for just the time it took her to visit the Apothecary. She doesn't much like the bustle of the city though, either the Muggle section or the crowds of Diagon Alley. She much prefers their house, where her Tom kisses her every day and every night.
She puts his hand on her belly to feel the baby kick.
"He's going to be a boy," she says.
"How do you know?"
"I know these kinds of things. He's going to be a boy and I'll name him after you."
He beams.
"Do you love me, Tom?"
"Of course I do."
"I love you too. I'll never stop loving you."
And even though he doesn't answer that with words, she can tell from the look in his eyes that he feels the same way. It's going to be a wonderful life for the three of them.
The next morning she serves her husband plain old Muggle tea.
danachan for telling me this was worth finishing and posting. Please mind the warnings!Title: Merope
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters/Pairings: Merope Gaunt/various
Rating: PG-13? (strong adult content without explicit detail)
Warnings: Rape, incest, child abuse. (Also: miscarriage, abortion, love potion.)
Summary: Merope's reasons for leaving home
Words: 2835
The first time she saw the brown blood and then the next day the red, she thought she was dying. It was too dark to see in the outhouse but she'd gone around back, in the sun but still hidden among the trees. She'd already felt ill, and sticking around longer than usual meant the smell got to her too, and soon enough she was not only bleeding to soak her knickers but throwing up sick on the grass. She didn't want to die but she didn't much want to go on living either, and she decided to let it happen, rather than try telling anyone. She'd heard mentions of monthly bleeding once or twice but she had no idea that this was it. She had no way of knowing that this would go away in a few days, or that it would come back the next month.
And in fact, it didn't happen the next month or the month after that. But she felt strange, foreign to herself. She was dizzy and unsettled, and at the same time she felt the magic stronger in her than she ever had. Felt it in the blood that coursed through her, felt it down below, where the lifeblood had seeped out of her slowly for five days and then stopped dead.
Months passed, then one day came a pain like she'd never felt, all the times Father beat her or even that first time, years before, after Mother died, when he pushed his little girl down on the bed and pushed into her. Pain in that same place now, deep in the centre of her, so strong she couldn't stand, and collapsed on the floor, and Father pushed up her skirts and tore off her pants and saw the great mass of dark clotted blood, and slapped her face, hard. Said she should have told him she'd started her monthly, and told him when it stopped, and if she'd lost the baby now it was because she'd done it a-purpose.
And she hadn't, she'd had no purpose and no notion of all of what was happening to her. But once he said that she understood that it was possible for her to keep secrets from him, and from Morfin. And once more had time passed and she was strong enough to walk – and quiet enough to walk into Father's room while he was sleeping – she went to seek out what he'd kept secret from her all these years.
He'd never sent her to school, nor sent Morfin neither. It wasn't because he hated her or because she was a girl, though of course he did, because she was, and he didn't mind telling her so. But he kept them both at home because he didn't want his children mixing with the riffraff they let in that place. He said he could teach his own children better than any school that didn't value their ancestry. Anyhow, he didn't like their rules.
She'd held a wand before she'd ever held a pen, but she'd never learned to do much good with it. Father noticed all her mistakes but he was more likely to beat her over a misfired charm than a malformed letter, so books held less fear for her than magic, and by the time the bleeding and the sickness started she was better at reading and writing than her older brother and they all three of them knew it, though it didn't garner her any praise.
As a witch she was a failure. Father started calling her Squib before she was old enough to know what the word meant, but he never let her give up the wand and live like one, or like the neighbors, a normal girl from a normal family.
They don't trust her with any real spells, and they don't let her leave the family's tiny plot of land, but she's in charge of growing and cooking their food, had been ever since Mother died. For years she needed a stepping stool to be able to stir the pot on the stove.
And they thought she couldn't do magic. Couldn't even speak an accio when she had Father's or Morfin's eyes on her, and they watched her all the time.
But after the miscarriage, when she started exploring Father's library, she found out about the magic that doesn't take wands or words at all, magic that's as simple as growing and picking the right herbs, mixing the right ingredients and stirring a pot.
She found out that her own monthly blood had its uses. She learnt how to collect it, keep it, and keep it from them.
Father and Morfin have no idea, and in order to keep it that way she doesn't often use the potions on them. Of course there are potions to make a man impotent – those were among the first she looked up. She even made one once, mixed it in with the greens at supper one night and neither of them the wiser. And it was wonderful, for five whole days (the only days that really mattered that month) they hadn't touched her that way. They didn't know it was her doing but it made them angry anyhow, and they touched her other ways instead, and it had been frightening. Merope would be willing to take the bruises and the pain herself, but she couldn't take the risk of having them find out what she'd done, so she didn't try it again.
She found potions she could use on herself instead. They didn't stop her father and her brother from taking her, but they took care of the consequences. Years passed like that.
Sometimes Morfin would watch her at the stove, and when he complained about her cooking she wondered if he realised how little of her work went into that soup in the end.
He watched her when she started watching that lovely gentleman through the window. He was watching that first afternoon when it occurred to her that she needed to look up another kind of potion entirely. Not the kind to make them stay away, but the kind to make them come to her.
It must have shown on her face, that she felt some glimmer of hope, and that was such a strange look for her that he noticed it at once. He came up behind her, hissing in her ear, and pressing too close. Is that what she thinks? Thinks she's pretty? Thinks that Muggle idiot will recognize her for the noble heir to the House of Slytherin that she is? No, sisster, even the other wizards, even the other Slytherins don't see it now. It's only Father and me. We're the ones you can trusst. And we're the ones who can keep the line alive. Come here, leave those pots and cauldrons alone. That'ss right, we all know you're not really a witch. It happens. You don't need to be. Father and I will take care of you, and your sons and daughters, they can be the powerful wizards and witches. Come now, sit on my lap. I tell you, leave the potions alone.
Merope didn't think the other babies, the ones Morfin didn't know about, would have been great witches or wizards if they'd been allowed to be born and grow up. Well, certainly not if they'd had to grow up in this house as she did. But she wasn't stupid. She'd read about more than potion ingredients and she knew brother and sister or father and daughter wasn't the way it should be, and the baby might be born stupid, or born without arms, or born Squib. A real Squib, not like her. But she never let it go that far. The second time she felt that thickness in her she brewed the drink and swallowed it all down, and later that day the cramps started, and it all flowed out the next day like a bad monthly, and Merope hid herself in the outhouse and said it was female troubles, and for once they let her alone.
But she doesn't want to do it again. She's tried making a potion to keep the pregnancy from taking hold in the first place, but she'd need to take it every day, and she hasn't enough privacy for that. Morfin and Father watch her too closely.
It isn't that it hurts. When Father touches her he's about getting himself off first of all, and about getting her with a child of Gaunt and Slytherin second, but she's made a woman and she's learned how to touch herself at the right moment and make it bearable. Still, she always hates him afterwards, and hates herself more.
When Morfin touches her he's got the same motives, but it's different. He's watched what she does with her fingers since she was a girl, and started imitating her, getting her off, around the same time he started imitating their father and fucking her. He knows what makes her whine and what makes her moan, and he likes to hear a lot of both, and likes to make it last longer.
If only she could get out of this house, or get them out and bring that lovely boy in.
Merope doesn't care about the line of Slytherin or the House of Gaunt. She doesn't want to be the mother of great witches and wizards. She only wants to make a life for herself with the Muggle on the house on the hill. And a child. Yes, once they have a child together it will be real love, and she'll have no more need for magic.
She sees him passing almost every day, sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback or in his fancy carriage. She watches him out the window, or from the garden where she's kneeling in the dirt, digging for the roots she'll eat and digging up the herbs for the potions she isn't supposed to be making. Kneeling and dirty with filth all over her and deep inside her and filth is all she is. And this young man, so handsome, so clean, and when he looks at her all she sees is disgust and pity. Well, that's bound to change. It's a question of inviting him in on a hot day, offering him a cool drink. Or having a pot of hot tea ready one day when it's very cold.
But summer passes and another winter follows and she never has a chance to get him to herself. She starts to understand that it won't be possible until she can get these other men out of the way.
Morfin has never tried to hex Tom Riddle, but Merope is sure he would, if he knew that she thought about him, honest and beautiful as sunlight, while he brother and their father were rutting away.
As it is, the men of the House of Gaunt disdain the Muggle neighbours, but if they knew how much pull this particular Muggle has on their Merope's heart, then surely they would hate him, and surely they would hurt him. That's why she didn't feel any guilt when she wrote out and sent that owl to the Ministry, though of course she had the good sense to do it in secret, on a day when Morfin and Marvolo had gone into town.
She meant to try to hide when the Wizard from the Ministry came for Morfin, but in the end she's stuck in the same place as always, stirring the pot. She can feel the stranger's eyes on her, can feel his pity, so different from her Tom's. He's afraid, yes, but not disgusted. He seems to understand that Merope is capable of better things. Maybe he would even try to help her if she asked, but that isn't part of the plan. She stirs the pot and does her best not to look at him.
Only a little while longer.
She'd fairly expected them to take Morfin away, but when they take Father as well she can barely believe her luck. But then again, perhaps it's not luck but destiny. Or perhaps this is really what she deserves. To have this house and some time to herself.
She has a lot more time to spend alone with her father's books then.
She doesn't bother cleaning up the house or taking the snake off the door because she knows she'll be leaving soon. She doesn't want to make the place too comfortable for herself and forget that she needs to escape.
She still has no means of travel, and not as much money as she'd like. (It's all kept in a bag, under a floorboard in the study.) But she's also feeding just one mouth instead of three now, and no one asks her what she wants the money for. Besides that, once she makes this potion and gets it to do its work, she won't have need of money for aught else, will she now? Tom will take care of her. And once he gets to know her, once he's given her a chance, she'll have no more need of potions or any kind of magic, so she'll have no more need of sickles or knuts.
Still Tom Riddle passes her house every day and still he ignores her. By the time she's sure she's ready for him it's early spring, neither very hot nor very cold, but on that day she conspires a bit with the wind and the clouds to make it more urgent for him to stop. She knows what time he'll be coming around and she makes sure she's standing tall, wearing her best dress, and her hands and her face are clean despite the storm.
"Good day, sir!" she calls, and tells the wind to calm down so they can talk.
Tom slows his horse and stares at her but says nothing.
"My father and my brother are gone now!" she tells him.
"We don't give out charity..."
"No, you don't understand." And she smiles at him, but only for a moment, since her smile only seems to add to his discomfort. "I know you never cared for my brother. He's a bad man, and so's my father. But we're not all like that. They've been taken care of now, sent to prison for what they tried to do to you. So now you and me are both free."
"I don't know what you're talking about," he says.
Merope wrings her hands. She wasn't supposed to say it like that. Perhaps she's ruined everything. She thinks she hears her brother's laughter on the wind, and again she wills it to quiet. "You must be tired from your journey," she says to Tom. "Won't you have a glass of brandy? It's an old family recipe, I'm sure you'll like it."
At first everything goes according to plan. Within weeks they marry and he brings her up to the house on the hill. His parents are horrified but on her suggestion he simply sends them away. Tom is silly with love potion and Muggle obliviousness. He doesn't watch her the way Father and Morfin did, and he eats and drinks whatever she gives him. Every morning she puts a dose of love potion in his tea and some fertility potion in hers. Every night he makes love to her. Yes, it is love, even if it isn't quite natural.
Then it's time but her monthly doesn't come, so she stops drinking her potion but keeps giving him his, and he keeps coming to her at night because that's what she wants. He's gentle and kind and has no idea what's going on.
The months go by and the baby grows inside her. Merope gets to tend a much larger garden than she once did, and twice she's had Tom take her into London, where she brought him to the Leaky Cauldron and let him sit in a large, comfortable chair and administered a sleeping draught that would last for just the time it took her to visit the Apothecary. She doesn't much like the bustle of the city though, either the Muggle section or the crowds of Diagon Alley. She much prefers their house, where her Tom kisses her every day and every night.
She puts his hand on her belly to feel the baby kick.
"He's going to be a boy," she says.
"How do you know?"
"I know these kinds of things. He's going to be a boy and I'll name him after you."
He beams.
"Do you love me, Tom?"
"Of course I do."
"I love you too. I'll never stop loving you."
And even though he doesn't answer that with words, she can tell from the look in his eyes that he feels the same way. It's going to be a wonderful life for the three of them.
The next morning she serves her husband plain old Muggle tea.
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Great fic! I think you captured Merope's character wonderfully, and the family dynamic, too. She's one of the most pitiable characters in HP, and it's so great to have fics from her perspective, to give her a voice.
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And now that I'm done pretending to sound wise beyond my years, why, you're quite welcome. It was a pleasure to read. :)
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(Anonymous) 2007-07-02 06:58 pm (UTC)(link)Another sentence that I liked was this one: "She'd read about more than potion ingredients and she knew brother and sister or father and daughter wasn't the way it should be, and the baby might be born stupid, or born without arms, or born Squib."
Why? Because the juxtaposition of being born without arms and being born a Squib expresses that Merope does share her family's prejudices after all. How couldn't she, being indoctrinated by Marvolo all her life? I don't think her falling in love with Tom Riddle proves otherwise, because emotions and values don't always correspond, you know. I think that got across well in your fic.
Anyways, sorry for rambling. You did a good job with this, and if you write more Meropefics I'll certainly read them:-)
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I was stuck for months on how to end this, so it's really nice to know that part worked for you. :) Thank you so much.
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My policy is, the story stands on its own. If people don't like it, if they want to savage it, hate it, put up a post saying how disgusting it is, that is entirely their affair. The story will speak to _somebody_-- me if no one else, and that's justification enough for doing it. If someone doesn't get what I'm after, then it could mean that _they're_ the ones who "missed", not me. :)
Cheers.
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But I always learn something when I delve into a difficult topic. Since I can't see much purpose to life beyond learning to grow and be the best, most compassionate human being I can be, taking on tough subjects in fiction seems a fairly painless way to grow (vs. having to deal with them in real life!). And I find that, the more honest I am in my writing, the more people respond to it. So those "personal" issues that won't let me go turn out to be the ones often the most people can relate to. It's the reverse of the usual expectation: what is most personal ironically becomes the most universally accessible.
It's such a pleasure to discuss writing with you. Hugs!
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