Hey, I wanted to tell you something a bit personal about your Abdirak/Halsin fic over AO3 (found you via bluesky), because it genuinely stuck with me and I don’t think a quick 'this was hot' does it justice.
I’ve had a really bad BDSM experience in the past, the kind that messes with your sense of safety and trust and makes you question whether that whole space is even something you’re allowed to enjoy anymore. It wrecked me for a long time, and I’ve been pretty wary of anything involving bondage, pain, or power dynamics since. So when I saw the tags, I’ll be real: I hesitated. A lot. I almost didn’t read it, even though the characters are some of my absolute favourites.
But I’m really glad I did.
The way you wrote this felt… gentle, in a way that surprised me. Everything is so intentional. The consent is clear, the care is constant, the power isn’t taken, it’s offered and respected. The ritual framing, the check-ins, the aftercare, the fact that surrender is treated as something sacred and grounding instead of something exploitative… it hit something in me I didn’t expect to be touched again.
It didn’t make me feel unsafe. It didn’t make me flinch. It actually made me feel seen, like you understand that kink, when done right, can be about trust, devotion, and healing just as much as it’s about intensity. There were moments where I had to pause because I realized I was breathing easier instead of bracing myself, and that… meant a lot.
I don’t want to be dramatic, but it genuinely helped heal a small part of me that I thought was just broken for good. It reminded me that what hurt me wasn’t the concept, it was the lack of care and consent in it, and your fic is overflowing with care, consent and love in general.
Thank you for writing something this thoughtful, this intimate, and this safe without ever losing its edge or heat. It takes a lot of skill and emotional intelligence to pull that off, and you absolutely did.
Asked by Anonymous
[𝕷𝖔𝖈𝖆𝖑 𝕲𝖍𝖔𝖚𝖑 𝖌𝖎𝖛𝖊𝖘 𝖙𝖊𝖉 𝖙𝖆𝖑𝖐 𝖔𝖓 𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖘𝖊𝖓𝖙, 𝖇𝖉𝖘𝖒, 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖌𝖊𝖙𝖘 𝖙𝖊𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖗 𝖆𝖇𝖔𝖚𝖙 𝖎𝖙]
[TW: talk about BDSM, consent and more!]
Hi Anon!! Thank you so much for this message. I’m sitting with it, and I don’t think there’s a way to answer it flippantly or briefly without doing a disservice to the trust you placed in me by sharing something this personal.
I want you to know first and foremost that I’m really glad you chose to read and even more glad that it didn’t hurt you. The fact that it didn’t make you flinch, that it let you breathe instead of brace yourself, means more to me than any compliment about heat or craft ever could!!!
Kink (especially BDSM) gets a bad reputation, and a lot of that reputation exists for very real reasons. When consent is unclear, when power is taken instead of offered, when care is missing or treated as optional, it can be damaging. It can be frightening. It can leave lasting wounds. What harmed you wasn’t the concept of kink itself, it was the absence of safety, intention, and respect. And that distinction matters deeply to me.
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