#Theme: Parental Love

[bittasol]

smile, iruma! | hey ive been here before

[qkmlh]

I’m a simple soul

I see a hot blooded trauma fueled man with an ego and daddy issues become an unwilling single mother who then steps up after multiple trials and errors to grow into a proper parent that fights tooth and nail for his daughter AND face said daddy issues head on for the betterment of his child thus reconciling and healing his own relationship with his father and bringing an enthusiastic grandpa into the mix

and I crumble

[snidy]

a little ideation collage about failstates viktor and the concept of anamnesis (both the philosophical and theological meaning) i made while planning/writing

[vaguely-concerned]

just had the thought 'in the end the most important thing varric taught rook was how to make a home for, with, and in other people' and then I had to go lie down on the floor and clutch at my head in unceasing agony for a few hours, as you may well imagine. hawke and the kirkwall crew........ in the end you kind of saved the world a bit in the most characteristically indirect and chaotic of ways. not by anything in particular that you did or achieved or accomplished (lmao imagine!), but just by -- having existed, and by the love that was always there, despite it all, in all its imperfections, even when no one was saved by it in the end. you're not here right now and you're not quite haunting the narrative but I hear your voices bickering and arguing and laughing from the other room. (and so, I think, does varric. all the time.)

'did you think you mattered, hawke? did you think anything you ever did mattered?' yeah actually, varric says with da2 and keeps saying through the series. you were here. and I loved you. and as it turns out that mattered more than almost anything in the world, no matter how long it lasted or how fucked up it was at the time or what else happens, because varric manages to pass that feeling, that intangible... home, that echo of you all as you were together, that love, hopefully the best parts of it, on to someone else for them to bring with them on their journey, with their family. and maybe the world will be kinder this time. you never know. merrill's line of 'Everything affects everything. We were born, a bunch of things happened, and now we're in a mess with our friends.' varric's greatest fear of becoming his parents. even through the wreck and the ruin of the world, ghosts upon ghosts upon ghosts of love -- malcolm hawke, who we never even see, but his life touched hawke's and hawke's touched varric's and varric's touched rook's and rook is passing it on to the family they're creating. the unbroken legacy of love shines through in ways that are stronger and stranger than any magic. help

[ikamigami]

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT THE DOCTOR

You know..

There's something so genuine about Harley Sawyer..

I don't know how to word it..

But the genuine shock in his voice when he realized that Dr White betrayed him..

I'm not saying that Harley liked Dr White, no.

But I genuinely think that Sawyer didn't mind Dr White's presence around him..

Harley tolerated Dr White enough to be surprised that he backstabbed him..

I think that this is a part of the reason to why I love the Doctor so much <3

He's just one of the most genuine characters in Poppy Playtime.

Hence why I believe when he says that Poppy isn't so innocent.

That Prototype is afraid of us.

That Elliot isn't as wonderful of a man as he may seem.

Something about Doctor feels.. genuine.. honest.. sincere.

I think that Sawyer is such a good at being a monstrously evil character because he's driven by something.. human.

He's a broken man.

We still don't know much about him but from what we already know Harley Sawyer appears as someone who was betrayed too many times.

Something about him always paying more attention to trouble kids.. troubled kids just like him..

There's definitely more to this. There has to be..

It just feels like he's trying to connect with someone.. anyone.. but he's doing it in the only way he knows..

Very wrong way.. very twisted and messed up way..

I'm not saying that he's capable of creating normal connections with others..

But it doesn't mean that he doesn't feel the need for it..

Everyone wants to be understood.

Some may not feel as much need for closeness as most people do.

But everyone wants to be understood.

Everyone feels this deep desire for a connection.. simply by being understood.

Harley Sawyer had a mental breakdown after Elliot kicked him out of Young Geniuses Program..

He was crying. There were teardrop marks on torn pieces of paper..

Where he wrote that he thought that Elliot understood him..

That Elliot cared..

But he didn't.

Nobody else did.

Maybe that's why Harley groomed Yarnaby?

To have someone who will pay attention to him..

And only him.

I don't condone Doctor's actions at all. He's just very interesting character who has more depth than people see.

Because most of the time all I see is people saying that Doctor was always evil or that he's just sociopathic sadist who doesn't care about anything and anyone.

But I simply disagree.

Sawyer is still very human in his core.

And maybe that's why he's so terrifying.

I really hope that Mob Games won't dehumanize Doctor. I hope that they will make him humane.

Not to excuse his actions but to show that humans are capable of atrocities.

Dehumanization helps us detach ourselves from one's monstrous actions to the point that we no longer see that the one who did all those awful things was simply a human.

Dehumanization often leads to no self-reflection and no reflection regarding society as a whole.

"A monster did that!"

But then there's..

"How could this happen? I could've never thought that X,Y,Z could do that."

I hope that Mob Games will make Doctor more humane because they show us that their story tries to explore more heavy topics than simply being just a mascot horror game.

[getosugurusbangs]

bleaching the bathtub puts me at ease.

[himejoshiangels]

well aware that this is common knowledge but it'll always kill me that bruces grief will last forever. Batman is a concept, a character in a comic book and because of the nature of comic books lasting for like ever he's going to repeat the same plots and learn the same lessons over and over and over. Closure quite literally doesn't exist for Bruce Wayne because he'll be in that alley for eternity, he'll keep holding his kids in his arms as they die and failing to save people for eternity. Concepts are eternal, batman is eternal. His grief will last forever.

[fuedalreesespieces]

i know this episode is dumb filler but:

and what pisses me off is that we could've had THIS with him and moroha. we could've had him helping her train, taking care of her when she's ill, and just...being the father figure he wished he could've had in his life. there's this repeating theme of him seeing himself in other youkai children and taking care of them, or at least emphasizing with them. he relates. he gets it. he doesn't want them suffering the way he did. and yashahime was like "hm...what if...amazing idea incoming...he didn't get to raise his daughter? lol."

[theartsyhognose]

I really really love some of the design choices they went with for the fairies in anw so I wanted to doodle myself as one

[mandyzoe]

i love that jimmy has a set of pajamas with no practical use in the game at all. like it’s not even an unlock-able outfit that can count towards completion, he comes with them and they have zero purpose except to appeal to people who (like me) find joy in dressing him up and down like a little ken doll. this game is truly for everyone

[dreamyblanket]

Imagine how your f/o wraps gifts, be it for the holidays or just your birthday.

Are they really good? Is it a clean wrap first try or do they need to scrap the whole thing couple time to get it correct?

Are they really bad? Do they try their hardest but you can still see bits poking out?

Do they use ribbon? Stick on bows?

Plain or patterned paper?

Or maybe they'll use bags!

Do they tape it shut or fill it with paper then?

There are so many things to choose...!

[solargeist]

for over a week now i keep thinking abt grian and kid xelqua. something abt him taking care of this alternate universe child version of himself. i just stare at the ceiling and my eyes blur

[daughter-of-sapph0]

never forget that you are deserving of love

[galaxygermdraws]

so instead of get back into art after the basic recovery of my surgery, I instead replayed Mario and Luigi Partners in Time…and why does nobody talk about this game?? Hardly ever see it in the Super Mario tag. Like. It’s actually insane how dark it gets. People die. Like actually die. Not as dark as SPM but like we see the dead spirits of Toads get siphoned through tubes. They had their life force sucked out of them via genetically modified trees. Yoshis were eaten by a larger alien Yoshi and were gonna be turned into more alien Yoshis via a factory IN THE GIANT ALIEN YOSHI. We see a town that’s literally just “Christmas is Cancelled” the city. Their mayor probably died. We never see these places restored because there are no survivors to restore them. The citizens of Hollijolli village probably all died by the time the bros shut down the Vim factory. And also there’s the entire scene with the Star Gate. Like. Hello??

maybe I’ll stream or let’s play this game and share it here because I think. More ppl should talk about Partners in Time. I’ll say it too: I like it more than Bowser’s Inside Story. By like a LOT. That’s my ramble for the night. Ttyd day tomorrow. Yippee

[afinestoutlove]

things i love about heartstopper 13/?

Jane Spring. Hoo boy I have Feelings about Jane Spring. This is going to cross over a bit with my post about Julio, so sorry but also I’m not sorry.

Jane’s relationship with Charlie reminds me so much of my mother and me. When I was a teenager (6 million years ago), my mother was also strict, quick to anger, had high expectations, and had no way to understand what it was like for her struggling teenager (unrecognised autism and queerness ftw). But she also really, truly loved her kids and wanted to do right by them. She just didn’t know how, and that's how I read Jane. For a different kid, maybe Jane would have been an okay mum, but no one gave her the tools to be a parent to this kid - the sensitive, queer, mentally ill one, who struggled to get along in this world. No one gave her the tools to parent Tori either, and that's tragic in a whole different way. Jane's parents had hurt her in ways she was trying not to replicate, but she hasn't fully healed from it and it comes out in her parenting.

It's also true that, while Julio is gentle and kind, he also leaves Jane to bear the brunt of their kids' anger and resentment. She's the one making the decisions and he allows that dynamic. It's not that he can't - they clearly don't have an abusive dynamic or anything - he chooses to stay out of it. Julio gets to be the "good guy" (and he is, a lot of the time, but...), while Jane is left to try and carry the rest of the load - most of the load. Yeah, she's not great at a lot of it - but she also shouldn't be mostly responsible for all that. It's such a common dynamic in parents of that age, and it sucks. (I could write a whole other essay on parenting and gender just around this point, but I'll spare you guys that torture.)

It’s bloody hard being the kid that forces your parent to confront that in themselves. Tori clearly did this a little bit, but at least in the show, Charlie bears the brunt of it. He’s the one whose struggles are the most unavoidably obvious, he’s the one asking for help, demanding to be seen, forcing Jane to confront herself and her own unhealed pain. And she does, or at least she starts to. Because she does love her children. I think that’s clearer in the show than in in Solitaire in particular. She isn’t heartless, but it feels to her kids like she is, because she fundamentally lacks the skills and healing to parent them the way they need and deserve. It's not that Tori and Charlie are wrong in the novel, we just don't get the extra insight into Jane's character we get in the show. (Although this little story about Jane and Julio meeting adds a lot of context and I love it!)

Their story is so goddamn real to me. Just by being himself, Charlie forced his parents to confront all the ways they hadn’t measured up as parents. And that really, really hurt him. It really, really hurt Tori. They deserved better. And that doesn’t mean their parents don’t love them. We can see them - especially Jane - trying to change, confronting their failures. Because at the end of the day they do genuinely love their children, and want what’s best for them. But they need to be shown what that looks like, and they need help to heal so they can provide it.

[mollysunder]

I think it would be neat if Vi and Jinx weren't sisters, but were actually cousins instead. Back when I wrote that Lunari theory post I really dwelled on how immigration works for cities like Zaun and how it took on waves of refugees and migrant labor.

I ended up headcanoning Vi and Jinx as first cousins, their respective mothers were sisters instead. I imagined that Vi's mom moved to Zaun first to support their family in Targon. Eventually she met Vi's dad and they had Vi together. Things aren't great for them (not even close), but things are getting far worse in Targon for the rest of her family, where Solari aggression is only rising.

By the time Vi's maybe 6, Powder, Powder's mom, and a few extended cousins move into her home. It's pretty disorienting for everybody to get their bearings with. Powder doesn't even speak the Zaunite language, she's really young at this point, practically still a toddler. She clings to Vi because their the closest in age and Vi's still young enough to decipher toddler babble, even if it's in a language Vi only half knows. Vi was naturally frustrated by the influx of relatives but was quickly attached to Powder. It was helped by the way young children can look at kids no more than 3-4 years younger than them and think, "That's a BABY :D".

All the teens and adults in their family are working for the mines in some capacity, and they often got shafted with the most dangerous work, including Powder's mom. It wouldn't have been too long before Powder's mom was killed in a mining accident (gas, collapse, crowd crush, just so many ways for things to go wrong). Vi's mom informally adopts Powder (there's no paperwork), Vi and Powder are inseparable and the rest is history (for better or worse).