Anyway this post this post this post this post going mad about this post because YES this is so, so close to the mark for me but to add something & something I often think about from my own analysis / hc particularly on Henry:
Also think there is definitely something to be said about how Vecna preys on his victims shown in S4. Yes, he targets those with trauma & he “hurts” them but there is this weird, freaky "soothing” quality about it. He tortures them but he’s telling them he's going to free them, he's going to take their pain away. I’m not sure how to completely explain but its almost reminiscent to me of the way Dr. Brenner manipulates the children, he makes them think their suffering is their fault but he has this creepy ass mother gothel esque quality to all of it that serves to manipulate the victim into thinking that he cares about them & what he’s doing has some kind of love / kindness behind it. That he's only hurting them because he has to. Because they’ve forced his hand. Keeping in mind Brenner was a psychiatrist. He was VERY good at fucking with people’s heads.
Vecna’s attack methods seem to mimic this in how he tortures them mentally & emotionally. He starts with making the victim question reality, then he emotionally abuses the victim, exaggerates their feelings of guilt & self loathing, breaks them down. He traps them & finally the physical assault & torture begins. When the victim “gives in” & dies, its over, they’re “free.” They’re no longer trapped waiting to end it. That also mirrors Henry’s experiences in the lab/ ‘hospital”. He spent all his time trapped. Suffering. Waiting. Waiting for it to end.
& through all this he tells them he’s going to take their pain away. He’s ending their suffering. Speeding up the inevitable. He’s “helping” them somehow. Like somehow this is a kindness. I don’t think it would be a stretch of the imagination to think that this pattern comes from Henry’s own abuse. It starts with the gaslighting, making the subject question their reality, then the emotional abuse, judgement, blame, belittlement & finally the physical assault / agony > then freedom.
So suffice it to say Vecna’s personal attack ritual probably goes like this because its a super twisted projection of the pattern Henry internalised from his own life experiences, particularly with Brenner while he was human. & honestly I think El’s confrontation with Benner in the final two episodes show’s Benner gaslighting & emotionally abusing El in a way VERY reminiscent of the middle stage of a Vecna attack so this seems to be right on the mark. Moreover, we also know Vecna has psychic power so great he can APPERENTLY see the future. He’s shown it to Nancy & related during this we see another moment of Henry’s own suffering when he attacks Nancy. He straps her to a chair & we see then that this is another twisted protection of something Henry experienced himself. In the same scenes we see Vecna as Henry when he was a little boy, he's strapped in a chair & Brenner is tattooing his arm putting the number “001″ on it. Henry is visibly scared & in pain, he's been strapped to a chair to hold him still while this is going on so we know its all entirely against his will. All the while what is Brenner doing ? Kindly assuring him everything is okay & there is nothing to be afraid of. Again this seems to link back to Vecna’s attacks on his victims where, despite brining them pain, he’s “kindly comforting” them as well.
So if Henry/Vecna can see the future somehow & he only started attacking these very particular victims at this very particular time maybe we can think that the reason he chose them to “end their suffering” in particular is because he sees suicide in their future. The whole thing is def an analogy to falling mental health, isolation & suicide outside of canon but its possible that this was going to be the ‘future’ of these characters IN canon.
NEXTLY, I think there is something important in how Henry & Vecna claims his victims aren't really gone. This pre-dates Henry’s time as Vecna so its not a Vecna only quality. Herny tells Eleven that all the other test subjects aren't really gone. They’re still with him “in here”, pointing to his head. He never gets to explain what he means by this & maybe we should take it as just he means he wont forget them but I’m not sure that is the case.
I’ve mentioned this before but I have a theory that he means this more literally. This ties into Vecna’s method of killing. The way the characters theorize Vecna’s not just killing he's “absorbing” his victims. The aesthetic is to draw parallels to a spider dissolving & consuming the insides of a meal, leaving nothing but a empty husk but I think its deeper because freaky supernatural psychic mind fantasy horror stuff. Vecna ( & Henry ) leaves his victims body as mangled husks after “sucking” out whats inside them & assimilates it into himself, meaning, in some way, they're psychically connected to him. They’re not really gone, as he literally says, their physical bodies are dead but it might indicate that their mental / spiritual selves, THEIR SOULS if you will, still exist within some kind of pocket realm within Vecna / Henry somewhere.
Which may also be why Vecna, in particular, assures his victims he’s freeing them, viewing himself as their saviour. Why the whole thing is kind of portrayed to be some kind of twisted mercy by him. Like he’s doing them a service. He’s killing them, at least in our very physical plane of existence but is he ? Is he if he’s keeping their spiritual / mental forms in some other realm ? It would make sense if you think that Vecna hates the physical world as we know it. He views it as a broken, cruel, oppressive place that needs to be torn down & reset. It would make sense that he must see what he’s doing as a mercy, he’s destroying the physical body but perhaps “rescuing” the soul from crossing into oblivion or whatever other world a soul might drift away to upon the loss of the body & putting them somewhere he deems better ?
I mean it might not be the case but it seems it might not be a completely insane theory either if you consider how we last see Max. Elven was able to psychically interfere with this process & stop her body from dying but Max “slips” into a “coma.” Later, when Eleven tries to reach into Max’s mind she can’t find her. Max’s mind is completely empty. Its just Eleven standing in an empty space. This could indicate that Max’s coma was brought on by the fact her spiritual / mental / soul self has been captured by Vecna. The one difference between her & Vecna’s other victims being Eleven was able to stop him from completely destroying Max’s body thus killing her in the physical world, at least, giving her a vessel to come back to from wherever she might be if this theory holds any truth.
( Also side note: I don’t think Henry/Vecna collects the “”Souls”” of all his victims. There are some he just outright kills. But the children from the lab & his main victims throughout s4 like Chrissy & Max were definitely “soul snatch” moments if any of this is true. )
LASTLY. Since I’ve finally discovered the like handful of smart people in the fandom & I’ve seen some good posts talking about inspos in ST things like starwars, the nightmare on elms street, IT, & Harry potter in dealing with some of ST’s themes & dynamics I would like to offer some personal points of reference of my own. I’m not saying these are what canon was going for but they’re def places I draw from so:
Silent hill : Alessa > Cheryl > the “otherworld”
Henry > William > the upside down
Carrie. Self explanatory.
Xmen : Gene Grey > Phoenix force / Dark phoenix
Henry > the entity / mind-flayer
& VERY VAUGELY Elfen Lied. Look it up, I’m not going into it in this post. SJJFKDF.
0 notes
Round 4: Mabel Pines (Gravity Falls) vs. Amane Momose (MILGRAM)
Propaganda below the cut
Mabel Pines (12):
I literally saw a tiktok today about how Mabel is a bad person. She’s 12! Like yes, she has made some mistakes and bad choices, but so has everyone else. And I never see any of the other characters in the show criticized the way she is. Everyone in the show has made mistakes (Grunkle Stan commits crimes practically every episode ffs) but because Mabel is a 12 year old girl and acts like it, she gets the most hate. Mabel deserves to be loved 🩷
----
girl gets so much flack for being... immature and kind of selfish at age 12? like she had whole video essays made on why she is a horrible person who deserves punishment. god forbid girls be silly
----
!!! Spoilers for Gravity Falls last 5 episodes !!!
This has gone down a lot but when the Weirdmaggedon arc was happening, the finale of the series, a big part of the fandom started hating Mabel because she accidentally caused the Weirdmaggedon (basically an apocalypse + bizarre shit like the water tower becoming an eight-legged monster with a giant mouth).
For context, in the episode that starts this arc, "Dipper and Mabel vs The Future", Mabel is really excited to the end of their summer vacation at Grunkle Stan's house, since it will be her and Dipper's 13th birthday and they will enter high school (her idea of high school of course coming from teen movies). But then this whole idea starts to shatter when Wendy tells her that high school isn't like a Disney musical, but it's okay, she will get through this since she will be with Dipper, her twin brother...
Except, that Dipper receives an invitation by Grunkle Stan's scientist brother Ford to become his apprentice after summer ends, staying in Gravity Falls, without Mabel. When she discovers it, she gets really mad at him and in a fit of rage, she accidentally picks Dipper's bag instead of hers and runs off to the woods.
When she gets there, Blendin, a time-travelling friend of theirs finds her and tells her that he has a way of making her brother stay with her, and make the summer take a little more to end, and that he just needed a little thing that Dipper has in his bag. That thing is a dimensional rift that Dipper and Ford contained to not cause the Weirdmaggedon, but Mabel didn't knew about that and gives it to Blendin. Blendin then breaks it and it's revealed that Bill Cipher was controlling Blendin to get the rift and release the Weirdmaggedon. He then traps Mabel in a bubble, starting the final arc of the series.
So, a few episodes later, that bubble she's in is revealed to be a world of fantasy that she controls, and that she didn't want to leave that world, as she was scared of growing up etc.
Context given, A LOT OF PEOPLE HATED HER FOR THIS. Suddenly people started seeing Mabel as just a selfish girl who wanted things only her way, when she was only a 12-year-old scared of growing up without her twin brother (they do end up going back together at the end but still).
The worst part is that apparently the people behind it took note of this, and on the comics that where released after the finale, she is a selfish spoiled brat. I haven't read the comics though so I'm going off what some people said about it.
Amane Momose (12):
Amane was voted guilty in the first trial so that she would acknowledge her guilt. It backfired, and now she’s considered a threat. Well, everyone is a threat, but nobody’s threat level has been as heavily discussed and debated as hers. Consider the next prisoner in line, Mikoto. He’s objectively more dangerous and cannot be restrained. He beat up the guard in trial 1, and he was able to hold his own when the other guilty prisoners were attacked. But a good incentive to forgive him is so that he will calm down. You know what? That’s a good incentive to forgive Amane too! But she *can* be restrained, so a good portion of the discussion went into how she should be voted guilty so she *will* be restrained and not a threat. Since her vote was a near 50/50, of course a good chunk of the voters expressed dissatisfaction with her forgiven verdict. Some are already planning to vote her guilty for trial 3, calling her a “lost cause”. She hasn’t even done any concrete harm yet. Hold the pitchforks until she actually causes harm, please? And what if she *was* voted guilty in trial 2? We’ve been warned that she will continue to deny our judgement. A second guilty verdict won’t make her better either, and then what? She’d be called a “lost cause” as well. There is no winning with her.
----
Where do I even start? So first of all she’s an cult child who was physically and mentally abused and tortured by her parents and then (presumably) murdered her mother after her mother killed a cat that she took care of.
Now everyone in Milgram is a murderer but when Amane came and her MV showed her murder and circumstance in an admittedly highly fictionalized depiction of it the audience decided to…repeat the cycle of abuse!
She was voted guilty for the main reason of “teaching her” and helping her “realize that she was abused.” I would like to note that this tough love approach is something her parents utilized against her. “We are only doing this to help you.”
So the audience replicates Amane’s abusers and repeats the cycle of abuse and that’s pretty shitty but it isn’t exactly “Fuck Em Kids” level.
And then Trial 2 happened. Cause Amane is bitter and angry and horrifically traumatized so she acts aggressive and hostile. Especially towards another prisoner.
Now, again, everyone here is a fucking murderer (of atleast could be constructed as one) These people being able to Harm is a core concept of this series.
Yet for some reason it feels like people treat Amane as a “delusional creepy kid who wants to kill people” which completly takes away the nuance of her character. She does have the capacity to harm! Everyone here does! She’s not Uniquly Dangerous! She just has a Reason to be Dangerous. A Reason we GAVE HER by REPEATING THE CYCLE OF ABUSE.
In short: In a series full of Murderers I’m honestly a bit pissed that the 12 year old abuse victim is the one who’s treated like the guy from American Pyscho.
----
TL;DR: "We metavoted this abused, indoctrinated child guilty in trial 1, but it didn't work. Now she is a threat to three grown adults: one who is fully free and two whom she has been shown to get along with. Please metavote her guilty again so she will be restrained and unable to attack them, even though that means subjecting her to further psychological torture." Amane Momose is the youngest of ten murderers, prisoners of Milgram who are to be judged innocent (forgiven) or guilty (unforgiven). In the first interrogation (voice drama), she said that what she did was in line with her religion's doctrines. If we judged her the "wrong way", she said she will just deny the verdict. Combining the voice drama and music video, you could piece together that she was raised in a cult and abused, even though she is cheerful and downplays her pain. She never shows *who* she killed, only *why* she did. After the first day of her vote, she was 81% innocent, but this wouldn't last the whole three months. Many people voted her guilty so she would "see her sins", part of the practice commonly known as "metavoting". Her innocent percentage rapidly decreased, and she hit guilty in the last 15 days, finishing at 51% guilty. At the end of the first trial, Jackalope (who is something like a host) went over all the prisoners' verdicts and commented on the general reasoning. When he got to Amane, he *laughed* at the audience for voting that way to make her realize her sins. Trial 2 rolled around, and it was revealed that Amane's victim was her abuser. On day one, she was at 74% innocent. Seems like a cut-and-dry case now, right? Well... in the intermission, two of the prisoners (Fuuta and Mahiru) were badly beaten up and became reliant on the care of Shidou, a doctor. Amane became hostile to Shidou because what he was doing was against her beliefs. She visited all three of them on their birthdays to convince them to change their ways. She seems to be especially close to Fuuta, who is now murmuring about salvation. Guilty prisoners are psychologically tortured, forced to listen to voices that reject their beliefs. Fuuta and Mahiru both say that the mental strain is worse than their physical injuries. But Amane, who also looks worse for wear, was thrown under the bus because she isn't injured and is considered a physical threat to them (never mind that she gets along with them). She's considered a threat to Shidou, a grown man who is twice her size and fully free, while she is partially restricted by the long sleeves in her trial 2 uniform. She might indoctrinate Fuuta even though, in a prison of ten people and one guard, she's the only voice of her cult. Fortunately, she got a break. Her vote was falling at a similar rate to the first trial. But this time, it stabilized at 51% innocent, 12 days before the end of her vote. But there's no way this is over.
105 notes
·
View notes
screenshotting this one bc I can acknowledge that I’ve got shipper goggles on and op isn’t about that life which is fair but
I feel like batfam fans misunderstand the term parentification a lot and conflate it with Dick filling a parental role for his siblings, which might be part of the “oldest daughter syndrome” that’s so often pinned on him but that isn’t what parentification actually means
If I say that Dick Grayson was parentified, then that isn’t referring to him taking care of his siblings, it refers to the way Bruce treated him. As someone capable of taking care of his emotional needs and not as the child in need of care in the relationship
Parentification is a term that’s been around for decades, and while having to care for younger siblings might be a part of the definition, it focuses mostly on the role reversal of the parent-child dynamic. I’m not going to get into the psychology of it but being parentified has very little to do with if he actually acted as a parent for his siblings and everything to do with if he acted as a parent for Bruce
This is honestly why I prefer the term spouseification, which is less ambiguous than the term parentification and I feel accurately describes their “equal” relationship and the type of emotional abuse that Dick went through
Also from what I’ve read, Dick doesn’t act as a parental figure for any of his siblings except for Damian. While he might have given extra emotional support to Tim due to Bruce being Bruce, Dick still fits solidly into an older brother role. I’m not even going to touch on Dick’s relationship with Jason which is too weak to even be considered fraternal never mind parental
162 notes
·
View notes
Homura did nothing wrong. And I stand by that. Because, she didn't do anything wrong towards anyone nor did she do anything with malicious intent. The only thing she did wrong is entirely in regards to herself. Rather than basing Homura's entire character around an act she made out of love or reduce her character to an evildoer with no morals nor love in her heart like some people still do to this day under the poor facade of “valid criticism,” I'm going to explain what Homura actually did wrong in Rebellion and her what her act of selfishness actually was.
What Homura did wrong was condemn herself to suffering as an immortal deity, the Devil whom acts as a rebellion against God, The Law of Cycles, strict laws of the original universe, which included Madoka Kaname not existing. That is what she did wrong, but not in the black and white, Good-vs-Evil way most people interpret this as. Yes, they are meant to be enemies one day, but because God favors rules and always doing the right thing, whereas the Devil favors her desire to stay in a world where Madoka is happy, where her friends are happy, where they are safe and have a chance at a life. A desire for happiness vs maintaining order of a broken world for the greater good, even if maintaining order means making sacrifices and making hard choices that directly rebel against that desire and yearning for happiness.
But, here is why Homura is wrong in dooming herself to her fate as the Devil. It's very subtle, but seconds before the Flower Field scene, as they are walking, Madoka turns and tells Homura that it really hurts her seeing her in so much pain and not being able to do anything about it. This may seem like a simple thing a friend would say, but remember that Madoka lost her memories as a goddess. And, as a goddess, she was stuck alone in Heaven having to watch life go by, Homura's life go by, and wasn't able to interfere. Think about that for a second. Think about being Madokami.
Think about when she could finally understand just how much Homura did for her, just how much Homura fought for her in all those time loops; the moment she's able to reciprocate her feelings, she fades from existence as the consequence. Wanting so badly to comfort Homura as she bears the psychological burden of being the only person to remember her, to know her, to miss her, to grieve and mourn her. Thinking the only time she’ll ever be able to see let alone talk to Homura again is when she’s essentially dying from all the grief, the pain, the guilt, the sadness of not being able to save her from her fate of being a goddess trapped in isolation. Think about that, then look at what she says here again. Of course it hurts Madoka seeing Homura hurting so badly and feeling powerless to do anything about it. Because that's what she's been doing as The Law of Cycles. Much like how she said she'd never make the decision to become a Goddess in the first place a few seconds later, she says this because this is the real Madoka who loves and cherishes Homura, who hates to see her hurt.
Take that into consideration when looking at what Homura turns herself into at the end of Rebellion, how she's suffering and you can see the exhaustion on her face and in her eyes, how you can see the immortality essentially sucking the humanity out of her to the point where she herself believes she is evil. This was never about Good vs. Evil. This is about Homura hating herself so much not only for being unable to save Madoka, but possibly even for loving her in the first place considering her love is what made her powerful enough to condemn herself to her fate as a Goddess trapped in Heaven with her wish. This is about Madoka hating herself so much to where she only deems herself worthy so long as she's helping others, her self-loathing making her reduce herself to a sacrificial lamb and throwing away her life for the better of everyone else, caring so little for herself and being unable to even fathom that she'd be mourned or grieved if she were to die, thus sacrificing herself over and over, seeing herself as a means to an end if it means freedom for everyone she loves. Madoka has always been there to comfort Homura and protect her since the first timeline. How can she do that if her memories and powers to do so are locked away? She can't. Because Homura doesn't believe she deserves Madoka's love.
Homura doesn't believe she's worth Madoka's sacrifice in becoming a God and Madoka doesn't believe she's worth Homura's sacrifice in becoming the Devil. Madoka cannot understand that she is so so much more than what she can give to other people whilst Homura is the only one that does. Homura can't understand that dooming herself to immortality pains and hurts Madoka because she can't do anything about it thus she can't save her from her suffering like how Homura ceased her suffering. It's a cycle. A snake eating it's own tail. A pumpkin that spins round and round and round. They're both selfish and they're both selfless. Homura is selfish in the sense that she's not taking into consideration how Madoka would feel if she knew how much she were suffering as the Devil for her sake yet she is being selfless because she's only suffering as the Devil for Madoka and her family and their friends to have a happy life. Madoka is selfish in the same sense that she's not taking into consideration just how psychologically damaging it is for Homura to not only have to watch her die over and over again throughout 100 timelines but to then erase herself from existence with Homura being the only one to remember her and she is selfless by of course only sacrificing herself so much because she cares for everyone and all Magical Girls, Homura especially included. They both love each other enough to sacrifice themselves for the other but they both hate themselves so much to where they believe they are undeserving of the other's love hence they keep dooming themselves to suffering in isolation and in turn dooming each other.
94 notes
·
View notes
gentle reminder that gaslighting isn't always an abuser blatantly calling you crazy. they may lecture you about how you're misinterpreting something. they may say something very serious is no big deal. they may get passive aggressive and leave you feeling irrational. or they may get furious at you for being overdramatic without ever directly calling you that.
gaslighting is a form of manipulation, and manipulation is most effective when the victim doesn't even notice it's happening. "you're just insane" is a lot more obvious than "i don't remember that happening, are you sure it wasn't just a bad dream?" and whether it's over or covert, both are horrible. both are dangerous. both are abusive, and oftentimes neglectful.
be careful out there, and know you know yourself best. you are the expert on you - your mind, your body, your life. no one can change that. not even the people who wield so much power over us.
391 notes
·
View notes
Hector and Trauma
You know what. I wanna talk about Hector from Castlevania, specifically the Netflix version of the character. (Again: I hate CoD Hector, who just replaces his dead girlfriend for her fucking clone. That's just fucking low.)
As people might've noticed... I am kinda obsessing about this man right now. And the main reason is that... I really do identify with him in a way I have not identified with a fictional character before. I read him as autistic (though I am not sure whether he was supposed to be read that way or just happens to be written in a way that every single autistic person I know reads him so...) and I very much identify with the C-PTSD that he clearly has.
We do not know much about his childhood, other than "lonely kid revives animals to have friends" and "abusive parents". We do not know how far the abuse went, so whether it was just verbal abuse (which we know about) or went into physical abuse. All we know is that at some point he could no longer take it and killed his parents by setting the house on fire and locking them inside. We don't know, how old he was after this and what exactly he did after that. Only that in his early 20s he is somewhere on Rhodes with his undead animals, has already met Dracula once and then agrees to "cull" humans and then creates night creatures for Drac.
Again, there is little information for what has happened in the time in between. But we get enough information to understand that he has been at least somewhat mistreated by other humans, making him wish for humans to be somewhat culled.
Here my interpretation of him being autistic comes in, too. Because... an autistic child with an abusive home will completely lack social skills and hence will probably meet with a lot of abuse from other people. Because he would not know how to act around them.
Something we do see: He kinda seems to understand that Dracula is doing a genocide and not just a cull. But he very willingly ignores it or keeps himself soothed by thinking that he is just misunderstanding it until Carmilla comes in.
Now, Carmilla makes it clear that Dracula lied to him. But she obviously also betrays him and then abuses him. Something that is kinda ignored: During the march to Styria he is constantly abused. He has fresh bruises, when he arrives at Styria, making it rather clear, that he got beaten up constantly during the long march there. So: Say hello to even more trauma.
Along comes Lenore, her original violence against him and then obviously her betrayel. And let me make one thing clear: What she does to him in the finale of season 3 is sexual assault. Maybe not in the legal sense, but speaking of a psychological effect, it clearly is SA.
Obviously at that point we do have season 4. Where he seems kinda... fine. Like, what we see is, that he presents as fine. He is joking with Lenore. He is making his escape plan. He appears to be okay. Which is a state that seems to continue till the end of the show. Heck, we see him smile as Lenore dies........
And that should be a hint on how not-okay he is.
Let me talk about child abuse first. See, here is the thing: Children do not only develop physically, but also psychological and neurological. In that, they need to learn certain things at certain points in time. One of the first things children are supposed to learn, is to trust and mistrust. But for that they need a stable surrounding in which they can trust that they are cared for. Which children, who get abused or neglected, usually do not have. Especially with the dialogue we have from his mother: "I knew you were wrong from the moment you came out of me." (Note: This is another reason I read him as autistic, because at times autism shows even at infant age and without the information it might lead to parents not quite bonding with the child.)
They also need to learn some basic autonomy early on and to deal with self-doubt and shame. Which again abused children, who do not get encouraged to develop autonomy in a healthy environment and often might get shamed cannot develop.
Some other things they need to learn is how to deal with guilt, how to understand consequences, how to develop an identity and also what role they have in society. All things that children, who are abused, cannot properly learn. Additionally here, because Hector clearly has not found his own place in the society he lived in.
And this is something we actually do see in the show. He is absolutely unable to understand whom to trust or to see any red flags. He also is so clearly longing to be loved and praised by someone. Which is why he falls for Dracula and Carmilla and then Lenore. Heck, good chance that his understanding with Varney went something like that.
He is obviously not aware of this, but he is very much compensating for what was not given to him.
There are several characters over the entire story, that note how he has the mind of a child. And part of that is just, that he has childhood trauma and developmental delays because of it. And this delay is used again and again against him.
Something that is very noticable in the show is, that Hector never once cries. No matter how much he is abused and betrayed, he does not cry outside of the flashbacks where he is a kid. Now, in any other show it would not be that noticable, because we rarely do not see men cry in media........ but Castlevania is different here. Castlevania has no qualms letting the men cry.
Now, IRL it is obviously that a lot of men got taught not to cry. Because our society has the entire "boys don't cry" thing going on. BUT... I kinda doubt that is what is going on here.
See, one thing that happens in some cases, when people have amassed too much trauma, is, that they loose the ability for appropriate emotional responses to things happening to them. Mostly because the brain cannot process the emotion normally any longer.
Which is also why I think he is smiling in that last scene. Because... I mean, let's face it. The Lenore death thing has to be fucking traumatizing too. But he just... doesn't quite have the ability to process it in any proper way.
Now, how much of this is intended reading?
Honestly, I do have no idea. But at some points his behavior does make a lot of sense from the CPTSD point of view - and it is even called out by other character. Which kinda makes me think that at least some of it was intended.
Either way: I am rather thinking the man has a lot of healing to do post-canon. Because he not only has to heal from the stuff that happens to him in the series, but also the entire childhood trauma, that so very clearly is not addressed.
And if he addresses that trauma, there will also be a point in which he has to face his guilt. Because that is very much another thing he has not yet done.
Anyways. I adore him. And I want him to be alright. Q-Q
54 notes
·
View notes
Hi! I would very much love to hear the entire long rant about Ted and Jamie’s relationship!
I love you for indulging me.
A little disclaimer that I in no way hate Ted. I love him. He has good intentions. He's just a flawed human with a lot of his own baggage that hinders him from actually being able to objectively see Jamie's situation for what it is. And that leads to him offering shit advice. He seriously fucked up when it came to Jamie, (in my opinion), even if his heart was in the right place. So here we go.
TW- mentions of mental health issues, canonical suicide, and abuse and trauma
The way I see it, there are several things happening here. 1) Ted sees Jamie as a surrogate son-figure, because he misses his own son and Jamie is a little bit wayward and lacking his own father-figure, and that activates Ted's savior-complex-I-can-fix-him ways. 2) Ted sees Jamie as a little part of himself- his own inner child. The sixteen year old boy who brutally lost his own dad and never worked through the grief. 3) Jamie sees Ted, at least a bit, as a form of father figure, in the way that he both wants his approval and is innately distrustful of him. (Mind games.)
The problem then lies in the fact that Jamie is not truly either of these things that Ted sees him as, and Ted cannot be a healthy male figure for Jamie because he has too much of his own shit to work through, first. And Jamie also has his own.
I think that, at his core, Jamie wants to be a good person. His time at Richmond has seen him growing into one, and in his head I think he at least partially equates that to Ted's influence. So he wants to stay in Ted's good graces, because like he's said he never got a lot of support from older male figures, and that's clearly something he craves. He wants Ted's approval, but there's also the fact that Ted has left him during confrontations with his dad twice, and in Jamie's eyes, sent him away to Manchester City right after he started trying. Need for approval paired with feeling like he's walking a very fragile line and can't quite trust anything about his relationship with Ted to stay safe.
Ted holds onto a desperate need to fix things. When you see someone hurt themselves, or lose them to mental illness, it's traumatic. It makes you wonder if you could have, should have, done more. Seen it coming. If you could have stopped it. Ted said to Dr. Sharon that “I wasn’t ever gonna let anyone get by me without understanding that they might be hurting inside.” So now he walks through life trying to make sure everybody stays OK, except for himself. And you can't do that. It's not healthy. So when he sees Jamie, this twenty-something-year-old kid with a fucked up relationship with his dad, Ted can't see it clearly. He's so caught up in his own father-related trauma that he projects that onto Jamie. He gives Jamie the advice that he means for himself. Ted needs to forgive his father, so that he can process the grief and the trauma and move forward. Ted needs to give that to himself. But that is incredibly dangerous advice to give someone who's father is clearly shown to be emotionally and physically abusive.
Ted and Jamie both have a lot of father-related trauma. But their situations are not at all applicable to each other, it's just that Ted can't see that because he hasn't worked through any of his own issues. Which leads to complicated relationships and shitty, dangerous advice. There we go.
Woo! That was long.
42 notes
·
View notes
(mild spoilers for TWEOS)
13 notes
·
View notes
WARNING: HORROR, IMPLIED ABUSE, SHOWN CUTS, AND MALE TIDDIES.
A man born into abuse. A man ignored by the town. A man stolen and shut away to never escape. Another John Doe in the vast sea of lives untold.
-"I want to go home!"-
A man born into comfort. A man who helped those in need. A man that hid dirty secrets. Another criminal in the vast sea of lives thrown away.
-"Please, Ashley, I just- I just want to go home!!"-
.....
Through the fear.
Through the breaths.
Through the pain.
I tried to keep it together
.....
I gripped the knife. Ashley smiled.
The one with the wrapped handle.
Stuck it out. Approached closer.
It just showed how bad I shook.
How unsure I was. Laughed at me.
-"Give me the knife, Juno."
-"Before you hurt yourself."
(Juno belongs to my bestie: BROKENBONES. If you like horror with an anime touch, give her some love!)
8 notes
·
View notes
Round 5 (main finals): Chara Dreemurr (Undertale) vs. Amane Momose (MILGRAM)
Propaganda below the cut
Chara Dreemurr (?):
They were constantly blamed for killing all of monster kind in the no mercy route, despite players choosing to go that route. People ignored that they sacrificed themselves to attempt to free the monsters from the underground.
----
everyone wants to blame their own actions (genocide route) on chara, who is a literal child. i don’t know how to tell you this but you are the one playing the game. it’s about YOUR CHOICES. chara is there is punish you for that, you killed the only family that ever loved them! how could they not be upset at that! also if you don’t mind, here’s a good video essay on the subject
Amane Momose (12):
Amane was voted guilty in the first trial so that she would acknowledge her guilt. It backfired, and now she’s considered a threat. Well, everyone is a threat, but nobody’s threat level has been as heavily discussed and debated as hers. Consider the next prisoner in line, Mikoto. He’s objectively more dangerous and cannot be restrained. He beat up the guard in trial 1, and he was able to hold his own when the other guilty prisoners were attacked. But a good incentive to forgive him is so that he will calm down. You know what? That’s a good incentive to forgive Amane too! But she *can* be restrained, so a good portion of the discussion went into how she should be voted guilty so she *will* be restrained and not a threat. Since her vote was a near 50/50, of course a good chunk of the voters expressed dissatisfaction with her forgiven verdict. Some are already planning to vote her guilty for trial 3, calling her a “lost cause”. She hasn’t even done any concrete harm yet. Hold the pitchforks until she actually causes harm, please? And what if she *was* voted guilty in trial 2? We’ve been warned that she will continue to deny our judgement. A second guilty verdict won’t make her better either, and then what? She’d be called a “lost cause” as well. There is no winning with her.
----
Where do I even start? So first of all she’s an cult child who was physically and mentally abused and tortured by her parents and then (presumably) murdered her mother after her mother killed a cat that she took care of.
Now everyone in Milgram is a murderer but when Amane came and her MV showed her murder and circumstance in an admittedly highly fictionalized depiction of it the audience decided to…repeat the cycle of abuse!
She was voted guilty for the main reason of “teaching her” and helping her “realize that she was abused.” I would like to note that this tough love approach is something her parents utilized against her. “We are only doing this to help you.”
So the audience replicates Amane’s abusers and repeats the cycle of abuse and that’s pretty shitty but it isn’t exactly “Fuck Em Kids” level.
And then Trial 2 happened. Cause Amane is bitter and angry and horrifically traumatized so she acts aggressive and hostile. Especially towards another prisoner.
Now, again, everyone here is a fucking murderer (of atleast could be constructed as one) These people being able to Harm is a core concept of this series.
Yet for some reason it feels like people treat Amane as a “delusional creepy kid who wants to kill people” which completly takes away the nuance of her character. She does have the capacity to harm! Everyone here does! She’s not Uniquly Dangerous! She just has a Reason to be Dangerous. A Reason we GAVE HER by REPEATING THE CYCLE OF ABUSE.
In short: In a series full of Murderers I’m honestly a bit pissed that the 12 year old abuse victim is the one who’s treated like the guy from American Pyscho.
----
TL;DR: "We metavoted this abused, indoctrinated child guilty in trial 1, but it didn't work. Now she is a threat to three grown adults: one who is fully free and two whom she has been shown to get along with. Please metavote her guilty again so she will be restrained and unable to attack them, even though that means subjecting her to further psychological torture." Amane Momose is the youngest of ten murderers, prisoners of Milgram who are to be judged innocent (forgiven) or guilty (unforgiven). In the first interrogation (voice drama), she said that what she did was in line with her religion's doctrines. If we judged her the "wrong way", she said she will just deny the verdict. Combining the voice drama and music video, you could piece together that she was raised in a cult and abused, even though she is cheerful and downplays her pain. She never shows *who* she killed, only *why* she did. After the first day of her vote, she was 81% innocent, but this wouldn't last the whole three months. Many people voted her guilty so she would "see her sins", part of the practice commonly known as "metavoting". Her innocent percentage rapidly decreased, and she hit guilty in the last 15 days, finishing at 51% guilty. At the end of the first trial, Jackalope (who is something like a host) went over all the prisoners' verdicts and commented on the general reasoning. When he got to Amane, he *laughed* at the audience for voting that way to make her realize her sins. Trial 2 rolled around, and it was revealed that Amane's victim was her abuser. On day one, she was at 74% innocent. Seems like a cut-and-dry case now, right? Well... in the intermission, two of the prisoners (Fuuta and Mahiru) were badly beaten up and became reliant on the care of Shidou, a doctor. Amane became hostile to Shidou because what he was doing was against her beliefs. She visited all three of them on their birthdays to convince them to change their ways. She seems to be especially close to Fuuta, who is now murmuring about salvation. Guilty prisoners are psychologically tortured, forced to listen to voices that reject their beliefs. Fuuta and Mahiru both say that the mental strain is worse than their physical injuries. But Amane, who also looks worse for wear, was thrown under the bus because she isn't injured and is considered a physical threat to them (never mind that she gets along with them). She's considered a threat to Shidou, a grown man who is twice her size and fully free, while she is partially restricted by the long sleeves in her trial 2 uniform. She might indoctrinate Fuuta even though, in a prison of ten people and one guard, she's the only voice of her cult. Fortunately, she got a break. Her vote was falling at a similar rate to the first trial. But this time, it stabilized at 51% innocent, 12 days before the end of her vote. But there's no way this is over.
67 notes
·
View notes
Page 91 of "For Your Own Good Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence." by Alice Miller, 1980 - (Am Anfang war Erziehung, 1980) / Chapter 7 of "Another Time" by @imadewritingmyjob on Ao3.
Theres so much I can analyse from chapter seven in regards of Julius, and the interesting language he uses which was highlighted in this post. It's clear in Julius' speech highlighted in the post that he is both parroting his own fears about what he could be himself, a "pansy" or "weak", descriptors that Julius despises in others, and most certainly fears to be true about himself.
Alongside the quote "The child's plasticity, flexibility, defenselessness and avaliablity make it the ideal object for this projection," particularly stuck out in regards to Aaron, since in AT as a child he has a heightened sensitivity to his surrounding, compared to Franklin due to being a much younger child and also autistic, and Julius definitely did not like to deal with that further vulnerability of his younger son, hence treated him much much worse as a result of that fear and disgust Julius holds.
It also implies failure on his part to "toughen" Aaron up as well, and in his mind he is too perfect to "fail" to parent the desirable son. Instead in Julius' own mind, its soley the child's (Aaron's) fault for his own flaws, as it is believed and stated in the practice of poisonous pedagogy Miller speaks about.
And so punishment and retribution is the only way Julius expresses his negative feelings of that failure and percived disobedience/disrespect from Aaron, in the form of those training sessions, not to truly prepare Aaron from the horror's he'd seen at war, but rather punish and also discipline what Julius sees as a part of himself which is wholly unprepared, something which the older man cannot allow, lest he allow an extention of himself and also his property to be harmed in the process.
10 notes
·
View notes
do you ever experience a wild moment of sudden empathy for everyone in the world. like yeah i knew a guy who bullied people a lot, and who i really used to hate, but then i found out he got beaten by his stepdad and watched his sister die a horrible and graphic death first-hand, and suddenly the hate didn't come so easy. yeah i knew a girl who abused me for the better half of my life, but looking back, she also definitely had no one in the world who loved her, including her own family. my issues with her are a lot more personal, but i just don't have it in me to really loathe her the way i once did. i've never had a good relationship with my father, but he never had a parent worth looking up to. and i'm not saying any of that trauma excuses being a horrible human being, and i'm not saying you have to forgive everyone who ever wronged you, or even really that you should.
but i guess i'm saying maybe i forgive the people who wronged me.
7 notes
·
View notes
(september 2023) tfw you're trying to impress your new fancy gf but get ambushed on the way to your date 🙄 smh
i do think rusty can defend himself and in a fight easily take on multiple trains from the gang at once, but when it comes to greaseball he's just . . . too scared to really fight back.
12 notes
·
View notes
I'm... disgusted. Honestly. Up until now, I thought psychiatric hospitals weren't nearly as scary as rumored. I thought it was just horror stories told by ableist people. But... today I listened to a friend of mine talk about their experiences in multiple different psychiatric hospitals, all of which essentially forced them and their parents to PAY for them to be kidnapped and tortured. I'm thoroughly disgusted with the world right now. I feel so terrible for them, and for anybody else who has gone through the system and come out the other end worse than they were when they went in. My goals as a future psychologist are not to abuse and neglect my patients, but to research and help them to publish my findings and make mental health aid a better world. The friend in question is currently trying to sue the hospitals and I'm standing behind them in every way possible. I'm just... appalled.
10 notes
·
View notes
Illness #02
Finwë does not beat his son.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Fëanor babbled, stumbling after his father, his wrists pinched tightly in Finwë’s grip.
They drew near the barn.
“Please,” He begged now, tears streaming down his face. “I didn’t mean to.”
Without a word, Finwë pulled him through the open doors. His stride didn’t slow when the boy’s shoulder hit the heavy wood of the door, and he cried out again.
Fingolfin looked up from where he was cleaning one of the stalls, the horses all turned out to pasture. Finwë’s second son held his pitchfork in a white-knuckled grip and quickly turned back to his chore, ducking into the back of the stall so he wouldn’t be seen, but he couldn’t escape from the older boy’s cries.
Fëanor’s entire body shook as his back was forced against one of the support pillars in the middle of the isle holding up the hay loft. He bit his tongue and tasted blood.
“I won’t say those things again,” He promised weakly as his father pulled his arms around the worn wood of the pillar and tied his wrists together with a leather cord.
Still without a word, Finwë forced him down to his knees, pressing on his shoulders until, with a sob, he crumpled like a dry leaf.
“Please don’t leave me here.”
He glowered down at the weeping boy and spoke for the first time since grabbing and dragging him out of the house. “You’ll stay here and think until you’re ready to be a part of this family and apologize to your mother.”
Fëanor’s face tightened at that, and he bared his teeth and screamed, “She’s not my mom! You killed my mom!”
Finwë’s fingers flexed, but he didn’t lash out. Instead, he crouched in front of his son and said, with all the calmness he could muster, “Míriel took her own life,” pain flashed across his face. He forced it down. “Indis raised you and cared for you as her own. She’s suffered your poor behavior for years and is undeserving of your scorn. I’ve let this go on long enough because she loves you like any of your siblings, but you will not speak to her like that again. If you insist on acting like a wild animal and lashing out at kindness, then you can stay here like an animal.”
He stood, looming over the cowering boy. They stayed like that for a moment, and then he turned and stormed away.
Fingolfin stayed in the stall for a minute more as Fëanor’s tears faded into silence. Then he crept out into the aisle behind his brother and fled through the doors on the far side, trying to shake the tightness clinging to his skin and making his throat hurt.
16 notes
·
View notes