Comment by Calli on Dearest - Chapter 48

@Calli real.. I hated him.. Like bro try.. If you made a promise for a solid relationship why still be I'm the talking stage with your ex..

@Calli in*

@Calli are you guys incapable of reading or are you blind to the truth? theo is not willingly getting graped because he wants to, he simply does not the choice to refuse. if theo had completely turned gunner down theo knows gunner is capable of doing anything to get back into his hands. gunner will not hesitate to hurt dylan or even theo's close ones just because theo cut off ties w him, gunner will stop to nothing. try using some common sense next time

@minor you’re so deep in your Theo Defense Arc you’ve stopped making sense. No one’s denying Gunner is dangerous—what we’re saying is Theo’s response to that danger has been frustrating to watch. And it’s not because we ‘don’t understand trauma,’ it’s because the way it’s written makes it look like Theo’s passivity is being romanticized instead of confronted. You talk like Theo’s just a helpless puppet, but even victims have moments of resistance—and Theo barely tried.

@Calli try going through back chapters as that might refresh your memory because theo has been very well resisting everytime gunner tried to attempt himself, he was just never sucessful. im not even trying to 'defend' him im showing basic courtesy which everyone seems to lack here. in the last chapter theo tried to run away when gunner banged him down on the car. pick a side because you're not making sense

@minor Gunner did messed up stuff, but the plot kept dragging Theo back to him like it was some tragic love story. That’s not healing—that’s just romanticizing trauma. And yeah, Theo cried and ran, but he never really grew or got space to process. They kept him stuck. And Dylan? He deserved way better. He was there, he cared, and the story treated him like a side quest. If you actually paid attention, you’d see the problem isn’t that people ‘don’t get it’—it’s that the writing didn’t do justice to the damage it showed.

@Calli if you were really just disappointed w the story you wouldn't have dragged theo down along w your dislike of how this story is pacing. instead of well wishing gunner to just get away from theo, he, the root cause of all the current problems you resolved on bringing up theo too. he possibly cannot just live a normal life comfortably living w dylan as long as gunner is running loose, which most of the people blaming theo are refusing to acknowledge. no rapist will back down even if you put up a fight.

@minor Theo can’t live a normal life while Gunner’s out there—agreed. That’s obvious. But you’re acting like that justifies him doing absolutely nothing about it. I’m not blaming him for being a victim, I’m criticizing him for staying passive while the story pretends that’s noble. He could have taken steps toward healing, justice, something—but instead, he just emotionally flatlined and kept gravitating back to the person who destroyed him. I’m not “well-wishing” Gunner. I’m disgusted the story let him linger around like he still had a place in Theo’s life. And yeah, I dragged Theo—because the plot let him drown and called it love. That’s not a pacing issue, that’s a failure of character writing. If you’re going to talk about trauma, talk about what healing actually looks like. Because this ain’t it.

@Calli the irony of you saying "healing" while admittely saying it's bad character writing instead of pacing is unfathomable. theo is not getting in contact w gunner nor is he wishing to do so by choice. he hasnt completely moved on, true, and it's a given "healing" will undoubtedly take time. all he wants to end things in good terms because resolving by cutting off ties is simply not going work, as far as we know. idk what your concept of healing is, because it is different for everyone else and just because it does not fit the concept of healing to you does not mean it applies to everyone. you probably just want theo to downright cut gunner off or maybe fightback when he forces himself on him.

@minor Healing is not a static state of preservation—it necessitates agency. I’m not demanding linear resolution, but I am expecting a modicum of psychological resistance or self-assertion. Instead, the narrative sustains Theo in a state of emotional inertia, pathologizing his trauma while aestheticizing his paralysis.
Yes, recovery manifests differently across individuals—but romanticizing dissociation as a form of closure is narratively disingenuous. At a certain point, survivorship should be depicted through reengagement with autonomy, not endless retraumatization veiled as emotional profundity.