September 19, 2013 - As stated above, many of the upcoming comics will deal with storylines regarding rape. I'm going to try my best to make note of any comics specifically in the archive (and I possibly should go back and amend some pages to include trigger warnings), but in the interest of finding a compromise that is both sensitive to survivors of rape and not spoiling future storylines, I've decided to put up a trigger warning at the top of the main page as well as place this paragraph at the top of the blog with considerable lead time before the comics depicting such situations are posted.

Unfortunately, there are multiple stories I can link to about recent rapes, but I'm not sure what good it would do. It doesn't make living with such trauma easier nor does it make understanding such trauma easier for anyone, and most of the stories focus more on the perpetrators than the victims. Punishing these people, protecting the world from them, and raising awareness that such actions have consequences is certainly necessary but it only actually goes so far. The thing that many people seem not to understand about rape (like say Mark Millar comparing rape as equivalent to decapitation) is that after such trauma you keep on living. And furthermore there's an expectation to re-enter society with little concern that aspects of society may trigger negative emotional responses in victims and put the victim in a psychological state overwhelming the her (or him). It's time we actually begin a discussion on this complex aspect specifically instead of focusing on other aspects or looking for easy (often inaccurate) explanations, because even though this aspect may be complex, that doesn't mean we can't try to approach it.

-D