Let Me Be There

Author's Note/Rant

It was so frustrating to me that even as 3x21 was airing, Choni fans were STILL adamant that Toni was faking being brainwashed so she could save Cheryl from The Farm. It's like fans just thought (and hoped) that Toni was going to save Cheryl (because that seems to be all fans want and expect her to do), and nobody seemed to even consider that Toni having issues of HER OWN might be the reason why she got sucked into a cult. Nope. People only see Toni as Cheryl's girlfriend, so they didn't think that Toni joined The Farm for reasons OTHER than Cheryl. While at The Farm, Toni told Betty that she's "been searching for a family her whole life", she told Cheryl: "me first" when talking about getting their treatments and she said: "I can't wait for him to take away mine" when talking about Edgar and her emotional pain. When Toni said she's been searching for a family her whole life, a lot of Choni fans got mad at her because Cheryl just gave her a "new family" with the Poisons... even though the Poisons were just a guilt gift from Cheryl (like if Toni hadn't had confronted Cheryl in the bathroom in 3x12, then Cheryl wouldn't have done anything about Toni losing the Serpents). Toni basically said that she never really had a family and instead of focusing on that, Choni fans made it about Cheryl (as usual) and how "wonderful" and "selfless" she was for giving the Poisons to Toni and how "ungrateful" and "unappreciative" Toni was for not considering the Poisons/what Cheryl gave her as being her family. Fans really thought Toni was saying she wanted to go first (to get the treatment) so she could save Cheryl. I don't understand how she would "save" and "protect" Cheryl from The Farm by getting the treatment herself. Like how would her losing a kidney and it being sold on the black market help Cheryl in any kind of way? Anyway, it's like NO ONE even considered that Toni might have her own shit going on and that she ACTUALLY had real/legitimate emotional pain that she wanted to get rid of. She's not allowed to have issues (or storylines) of her own because, apparently (to the writers and the fandom), EVERYTHING about her character has to relate to Cheryl somehow. 

So in this chapter, I was going to give Toni a backstory, but I decided not to because the idea I had was really messed up, and I just didn't feel like writing it. And even though barely anyone reads my fics, I didn't want to get attacked for it either. I always had a feeling that Toni was abused (physically and sexually) by her uncle, and I was going to have that be a reason for her emotional pain. And not to sound like an asshole, but I feel like since Cheryl outed Moose, she just keeps adding onto whatever emotional pain Toni was trying to get rid of. Anyway... I saw one person comment on a Toni backstory fic: "I love to one day read a Toni centric fic that doesn't include rape or sexual abuse because it's such a disturbing theme I've noticed in so many of them". It just annoys me when people say shit like that because these SAME fucking people have Cheryl getting beaten by her parents and actually getting raped by Nick, etc. in their fics... how is that any less "disturbing" than when people do it for Toni? I'm not trying to minimalize or trivialize her pain or anything, but if she got sucked into a cult, and was THAT fucking desperate to get rid of her emotional pain, I think it would take more (like her being physically and/or sexually assaulted) than her mom abandoning her or her dad going to jail or whatever for her to be that upset over not getting that treatment. 

Based on what little we do know about Toni's backstory, it would make sense for her to have experienced some sort of sexual abuse or rape in her life. Not wishing that on Toni, but think about it: she (most likely) had to do the "Serpent Dance" (which is basically a pole dance) at a young age, she's been in a gang and working at a bar since before the age of 16, she lived in a trailer park with an uncle who's homophobic and clearly wasn't the best caregiver (seeing as he locked her out on more than one occasion), she grew up poor and on "the wrong side of the tracks", she's been in so many dangerous situations from such a young age, etc.... it would make sense for something like that to have gone down. These people go around saying by writing Toni an accurate backstory, we're trying to "out-trauma" Cheryl. Like you're the ones writing her being actually raped, which didn't happen and brutally beaten by her parents, which once again, ISN'T CANON. Like you guys are the ones trying to worsen Cheryl's backstory and honestly, it's kind of odd. Like it's not the canon we saw in the show, it never happened, so what is the obsession with wanting Cheryl to be raped, and to have her parents physically abuse her? And then try to hit us with the "oh it's 'fanon' get over it". I even had one person try to tell me that I was "invalidating" Cheryl's physical abuse because I said it wasn't canon. I KNOW abuse is abuse, but Cheryl was MENTALLY and EMOTIONALLY abused (I'm NOT "invalidating" that because that IS actually canon)... it was NEVER physical. People just like to exaggerate Cheryl's trauma tenfold so Toni can be even more of an emotional support towards her than she already is... while also saying that "poor baby Cheryl deserves to be happy, hasn't she been through enough?" and "Toni is more than just Cheryl's girlfriend", etc.... hypocrites. Like if Cheryl being raped and abused and having extra traumatic experiences getting added onto what's already a shit ton of emotional baggage gets to be "fanon", why can't Toni having a realistic backstory be fanon too? It honestly annoys the fuck out of me. Like just say you hate Toni and go.