#abuse detailed mention

[cavityinmybrain]

its kinda cathartic to have moved back into my abusive parents house after having been out of it for so long (almost a whole year i believe, i moved back out of necessity), which sounds weird to say but hear me out.

even though my stepdad is still abusing me and my mom is continuing to enable it, i finally am able to recognize the cycle of abuse they've been putting me through nearly to a T. i have the words to describe whats happening to me. im able to see events that have happened in the past, even ones that are happening now, and im able to point out the bits and details of them and reflect. and while that doesn't make it perfect, i am still being abused obviously, it makes it feel almost better because i now know what i have to do in order to keep myself safe.

i'll go into more detail of this under the cut but it's going to have mentions of specific instances of abuse i have faced. i figured if reading my reflection on how i've been abused could help anyone, that it will find the people it'll help. please keep yourself safe and heed the trigger warning.

tw: emotional abuse mention (detailed), cycle of abuse talk (identifying the stages in a specific instance of abuse)

my stepdad emotionally abuses me. kinda obvious, i already stated that. my mom enables this abuse by turning a complete blind eye and denying it entirely, which in it of itself isn't specifically abuse but silence is violence. the fact that she allows my stepdad to do the things he does to me and she simply takes a passive role ("i wasn't there so i don't know what happened", "im not picking sides", "im not getting involved" etc etc.) means that she is also actively abusing me. that doesn't even mention the extreme amounts of gaslighting she uses against me to try to invalidate the experiences i have had at my stepdads hands.

yesterday brought all this to light for me because of a specific incident. i had been on the phone with my boyfriend, preparing to clean my "room" (a sectioned off area in our basement) when he had come downstairs to do laundry. as i was getting up to clean, my stepdad started speaking to me and said "after i get the dog poop, you're going to come help me and the boys (my brothers) pick up sticks." i replied, "no im not, im about to clean my room." he began to get agitated very quickly, and because i've experienced years of treatment similar to this i was also extremely agitated.

quick piece of context, my parents have kicked me out multiple times for long periods of time. every time i had been kicked out and came back, they basically denied having kicked out at all and tried to make it seem like i had left of my own accord. this is gaslighting. i just moved back into their house after about half a year of living in a group home and with my moms father and then my moms mother, all three of the places i stayed this time i believe caused me more problems than i had before. in total, being kicked out repeatedly by my parents has caused me noticeable trauma relating to my living situation. the fear of being kicked out follows me no matter where i go and live.

the next sentence my stepdad said during the sticks argument was, "it's things like this that'll get you living like you were before." while thats not a direct threat at my living situation, it is still a threat to kick me out. the statement directly implied that my not helping was going to result in kicking me out. i held it together until he had gotten upstairs again and i immediately burst into tears and started settling into a panic attack.

i texted my mom and asked her to come talk to me about something because i was in so much distress and had become so unregulated that i needed to ask for help. she got downstairs and through tears i explained to her what happened, the first thing she said was "why is your room so messy? i've been telling you to clean for three days." she then proceeded to say she would talk to him about it and went upstairs, and that was expected to be the end of it for her. i had the worst panic attack i've had in years after i was alone and on the phone with my boyfriend, he ended up providing the emotional compassion i needed in that moment. after i had calmed down from the brunt of the panic attack, i went upstairs to talk to my mom about the event. the only thing she said about it was, "stepdad didn't threaten to kick you out." she brushed it off completely, not even listening to me and physically walking away from me a few times. later that night, everything was "fine" between my stepdad and i and he tried showing me some funny videos on his phone. when i went inside from the attempted talking to my mom, i boiled over. i screamed something or the other, hit a wall, went downstairs, and then continued to kick the wall while yelling.

in this incident, i can point out the four cycles of abuse very easily. tensions building - he told me to help pick up sticks and i tried to explain i was about to do something else. incident - he threatens to kick me out and my mom enables it. reconciliation - mom telling me it wasn't as bad as i had perceived ("he didnt threaten to kick you out"). calm - everything is back to normal.

because of the years of abuse i have faced similar to this, i do something called reactive abuse. reactive abuse is when the victim of abuse gets pushed to a breaking point and they lash out during incidents of abuse, the abuser then uses this as leverage to say that the victim is actually the abuser. its a vicious and painful cycle, one that my parents have been putting me through for my entire life. if you get abused in a similar way and react similarly to me, i want you to know that you are not abusive. being pushed to such an unregulated state where you lash out is a sign of abuse being committed against you. its not your fault.

while this post didn't really have a solid point and was mostly me reflecting on my personal situation, i really hope someone gets something out of this. whether that be courage to label what their going through as abuse or the ability to think critically about their situation and start identifying their cycle of abuse. i hope anyone that has reached this point takes care of themselves, maybe do a couple acts of self care.

be kind to yourself.

[aintnopartylikeaprideparty]

as someone who has experienced abuse from someone with a personality disorder, it's actually incredibly easy to not dehumanize everyone with a personality disorder. i've seen people do borderline eugenic rhetoric surrounding people who have npd, aspd, bpd or other personality disorders, and then be like "I'M allowed to say these things because i'm a survivor, and if you disagree you are hurting abuse victims."

and frankly? i'm tired of it. as an abuse survivor i'm here to say that you're NOT allowed to turn into a fucking eugenicist the moment you're hurt by someone with a personality disorder.

does hurting and belittling other people who happen to have the same disorder as your abuser, people that are already suffering and that are already looked down on by society, bring you any healing? does it bring you peace?

Being hurt by someone isn't an excuse to hurt others that you feel justified in lashing out on. you're literally in control of your own actions,

you may claim to be making a safe space for abuse survivors, but i will never feel any solidarity with you, and i ESPECIALLY don't feel safe with you considering i might have a personality disorder.

you are excluding a large amount of abuse survivors in the name of "advocacy". a lot of people with personality disorders developed one or multiple due to heavy abuse. in the aim of creating a safe space, you are excluding the ones who need a safe space the most.

[dykedvonte]

Curly not immediately punishing Jimmy for assaulting Anya is something I don’t think a lot of people are viewing in the complex context for Curly as the superior to both of them and closest confidante they had.

Like I am in no way saying he didn’t under react or fail Anya by not being harsh or direct with Jimmy but it really is the case that he really couldn’t. Imagine being stuck in such a confined space with very little areas to genuinely hold someone if they commit a crime. It’s not like this was an event that occurred before they departed or that they have easy communication with The Pony Express to ask for how to proceed when something like this arises. Not to mention, Jimmy’s relative power in relation to Anya as the co-pilot and second in command, he has the knowledge and access to do something to her had Curly directly punished him in this setting.

They were also Curly’s friends. It’s not just the case of him mediating something between his subordinates but people he is personally invested in don’t want to see spiral further in Anya’s case while also not wanting believe his friend go that bad in Jimmy’s actions. They were both suicidal and Curly putting Jimmy’s stability first is both out of bias but also the fact he’s aware at some level Jimmy is a danger to himself and others if not constantly placated. Combined with the fact he was in denial or just not piecing together what Anya said it’s hard to say what he buying time for and what he had treat as urgent. This isn’t even saying he doesn’t care about Anya but he’s not going jump to the worst conclusions about his friends even if part of him acknowledges the evidence saying so. It’s a complicated thing but he’s still human and needed to process it on top of trying to keep a ship that already took on a lot of water from further sinking, metaphorically.

I just personally think that while Curly failed Anya, it was a scenario where there wasn’t much he could do to the best thing by her safely and like Jimmy, we are underestimating what a good leader would do in a very fragile and tense situation like he was in. By the time he may have been ready and had a plan, things were much too late.

[dinodogs]

I automatically lose any trust in someone who says they don't like Blake. Not even because I'm a huge Blake stan or anything. But like most of the time its because she happens to be a survivor of abuse who was forced into a situation where she had to kill her abuser/groomer and they think she's a bitch for that or some bullshit.

[14dayswithyou]

I don't understand why didn't Rendacted approach our MC sooner? Like if he'd been obsessed with them for MORE THAN A DECADE(?like since the ring incident?) he could as well just try to befriend them or ask them out many many times earlier.... What made him go "THATS IT! I'LL FINALLY ASK THEM OUT!! TODAY!!!"?

✦゜ANSWERED: I've explained this before, but Ren had an extremely horrible childhood growing up, and formed an inferiority complex because of his father >.< After the ring incident, he didn't feel adequate enough to approach Angel again for a long while.

I've also mentioned before that Ren has tried multiple times to talk to Angel throughout his life, but none of his personas were perfect enough to really stand out to them. His Haruko persona was the first time Angel actually noticed him and paid full attention.

Also! It's just a silly lil fantasy game, so sometimes you don't need logic lmao

[astrobuggy]

2022 October Takeover

Rewatching the Eclipse and Lunar takeover makes me remember what Eclipse truly did to Lunar. We already knew what Eclipse did to Lunar, but as of now, Lunar always dumbs it down to "hitting" and "name calling"

Never does he over go over the details of that situation. Whenever Eclipse is angry at Lunar, Lunar starts to become scared, shaken up (I don't blame him).

One scene that stuck to me was when Monty took back his deal with Eclipse about killing Lunar. Eclipse is clearly upset about this, and Lunar says, "Don't hurt me.". Implying whenever Eclipse ever got angry, he projected his anger onto Lunar. Making Lunar live in fear whenever Eclipse was angry.

Another scene that made me think was when Lunar and Monty talk secretly about Bloodmoons reconstruction (if I remember correctly). Monty talks about Lunar's safety after finding out that the other day Lunar was hit by Eclipse, but Lunar says he has it covered because he has hiding spots Eclipse doesn't know about or places he can't get to. The abuse Lunar endured during that month got so bad that Lunar had to find places Eclipse couldn't reach for his own health.

And tell me why Lunar glosses over the fact that Eclipse strangled him... 😐

AND that Eclipse used his prototype weapons on Lunar to see if they worked 🧍‍♂️ The mf tazed him

There's probably more since most of this was from like the 4 episodes I watched, and from what I can vividly remember

Tbh, I don't blame Lunar for keeping a grudge 🤷

[bxttxrflybxddie]

Sigh...thinking about Rolan taking comfort in your image during his apprenticeship.

He imagines your physical and verbal reassurance during his days and nights at Sorcerous Sundries. A customer is testing his patience and suddenly, you're there. You'd rub his arm and lean in to whisper that he has the answers to the hundreds of questions; it's surely a part of his journey to be a great wizard.

Lorroakan is especially brutal, something must've ticked him off terribly today. Your hands would graze over his wounds like a caress, and the most impressive healing spell you know would mend his skin together again (You're great at reuniting broken things, apparently). You'd mutter a joke at the ginger's expense, so he smiles and exhales a laugh for secrecy. His master catches it anyway and the beating is worse.

That night you'd continue to nurse him to health; using magic or otherwise. You'd press gentle kisses where your lips could land and cuddle him. The pillow he practices his kisses on and holds into the depth of night is something he's learned to cherish, it and memories are all he has of you.

Yeah, him <3.

© BXTTXRFLYBXDDIE

[nazskoll]

IT fanart in 2024 is crazy 😭

(i did add some hcs that i put an explanation for in the tags)

[andtheclockstruckthirteen]

I’ve seen a few works in this fandom on ao3 that portray Ursa as a worse parent than Ozai and as ungrateful for everything she had as a princess and then Fire Lady becuase it was a position of privilege that most others in the Fire Nation were too poor for yada yada

I just want to remind people that while she might not have been a great parent to Azula and while she was fortunate to not have to worry about being poor, Ozai is canonically physically and mentally abusive and Ursa was literally forced into a non-consensual marriage under threat of harm and it can be assumed (depending on your preferences, because that would be in headcanon territory not canon as of right now) that the act of producing Zuko and Azula was also non-consensual (through coersion at the very least because even if she participated in it or wasn't expressly fighting back, it's not like she realistically would've had much of a choice)???

And her not having to worry about being poor was replaced by her having to worry about living under an extremely powerful abuser that she physically cannot get away from because he is the highest level of authority in the country under the firelord and crown prince? nevermind that i think Azulon actually arranged the marriage himself? (that might be fanon i will admit, I haven't read the comics and by the sounds of it, I don't really want to see my favs get nerfed like that)

Like Ozai is an abuser from the royal family in an imperialist, war-mongering country??? She was a random girl from a Fire Nation village unfortunate enough to be related to the past fire avatar?

we don't even know if she was a neglectful parent to Azula for sure because families living under powerful abusers have a lot of nuace that people refuse to acknowledge (and who are incredibly fortunate themselves not to understand), especially when that child starts resembling their abuser (and I'm not talking about having anger issues, I'm talking about Azula making fun of Zuko for their father being ordered by their grandfather to comit filicide and their father agreed). but i digress.

even if she was emotionally neglectful of Azula, she would still be a better parent than Ozai who LITERALLY MELTED HALF HIS SON'S FACE OFF AS HE BEGGED FOR MERCY AS A 13 YEAR OLD

in what world is emotion neglect more severe than a murder attempt??? like all abuse is bad 100% but demonising the other parent as horrible and ignoring the parent who tried to murder their own child multiple times in canon??? that's some top-tier victim blaming (and woman-hating, considering I don't see Ozai getting the same treatment for emotionally neglecting Zuko in the same fucking work) right there.

[revacholian-girl-utena]

There are no stars. There is no light. There will be no future. (Requested by @thediscoelysiumlesbian )

Alt text: Screencaps from Revolutionary Girl Utena with overlaid text. 1: A closeup of Anthy's eyes, hair down and no glasses, staring down Utena in the moment she discovers Akio abusing Anthy. Text: "Oh, yes."

2: A closeup of Utena's eyes, wide with shock, from the same scene. Text: "This is real darkness."

3: A framed photo of Akio and Anthy, half in shadow as the window shades rise to reveal the room. Text: "Real darkness has love for a face."

4: Anthy's silhouette, hair flying wildly, pierced by many blades. Text: "The first death is in the heart." End alt text.

[affectionatecorpse]

Okay as a distraction from my previous post, I'm going to do another analysis. Yay! This time we'll be covering another video game, but this isn't actually a horror like the previous posts, so untense your shoulders. Today I'm going to be talking about Yinu, from No Straight Roads, from the perspective of an ex child prodigy.

No Straight Roads is a vastly underrated game, so I'll give a brief introduction. The game focuses on protagonists Mayday and Zuke, two members of a rock band who go on a mission to take down their oppressive EDM based government, NSR, and reintroduce rock to the city. The plot sounds simple enough, but the layers go incredibly deep, so I highly recommend playing/watching the game for yourself to form your own thoughts about it's complex messages. Obviously, spoilers ahead.

Now NSR is made up of 6 EDM artists who power the city. But one particular artist greatly stands out from the rest. This artist is Yinu.

Yinu is by far the youngest of the artists, for starters, at only 9 years old. She's a child prodigy, and at this young age, she's already won many awards for her music and gained a massive following. But unlike the other artists, Yinu isn't actually an EDM artist. She's a classical artist, who's skills are in piano. Now this usually wouldn't matter, but when she's one of the EDM based leaders, it's immediately a bit odd how she herself isn't an EDM artist.

We'll come back to this. Now, Yinu, as mentioned, is a child prodigy. She was taught from a young age to play piano by her father, and quickly mastered the art. But when her father grew ill and passed away, it was just her and her mother left, with Yinu inheriting his beloved piano. As she continued to play in his honour, her skill began to grow, and so did the attention she received. She quickly became a celebrity, and her mother used this as a distraction from their shared sadness.

By feeding the fans and the attention, Yinu's mother developed an unhealthy coping mechanism. She began to lose sight of what the piano meant to them. And I expect, so did Yinu. It's a very common thing, when your hobby becomes a job, it just loses it's fun, and is no longer a luxury to do. More a necessity. It's never said explicitly, but I interpreted this phenomenon to have a strong effect. Yinu played because it was a job, and what her mother wanted. Her mother became blind to her daughter's struggles, as she never really noticed the fact Yinu didn't want to play for other people, but for herself, and her father's memory. This is shown through her eyes becoming white and cloudy during the battle, while Yinu's stay the same.

I may be projecting. I was actually a child prodigy myself. I had a knack for my writing, and it was my greatest passion. My interactive imagination kept me distracted from the war my parents were fighting against each other. As a kid, I was never really their child. I was a weapon. A way for them to get at each other. I'd trail between houses, passing on messages and information they could use to slander one another, and I was rewarded for doing so by being shoved out the way and left to do what I wanted, while they paid no attention.

I used my imagination, my worlds, my characters, to escape my reality. To keep me company in my depressing solitude. To avoid forgetting them, I began to write them down. This was what got me the attention I so desperately craved. By 10 years old, only a year older than Yinu, I had published my first book in my local town. Finally, my parents were proud of me, so I kept going. I wrote until my hands were sore and fragile with blisters. I wrote until every page of my notebook was fuzzy from correcting my spellings.

It wasn't an escape anymore. It was a necessity. Something I had to do in order to be recognised. It wasn't fun anymore. It was no longer a way out.

As I got older, I began to matter less. I wasn't a smart child anymore. I was just a Person. I wasn't Somebody, I was just... Anybody. I found my parents stopped caring when I lost that spark again, and this time, I didn't get attention when I tried fixing that.

I see my own struggles in Yinu. The song she plays starts simple, and slow. Relaxed and full of passion. She finds herself completely in her element. But when her mother gets involved, her playing becomes more desperate. It gets faster and more tense, as her mother doesn't even consider putting her aside. A parent's normal reaction to her child being physically attacked by two adults would be to take the child away from the situation and make sure they're okay, but Yinu's mother just lifts her up, and tells her to keep playing.

Yinu obliges, and plays more determined than before, like she's terrified of letting her mother down. She constantly assures herself under her breath, and repeatedly mutters reminders to herself to keep her fingers curved as she focuses. In the next phase, Yinu and her mother have been repeatedly hit and injured, yet her mother still doesn't remove Yinu from the situation. Instead of being mad at the attackers for hurting her daughter, she yells at them for ruining her performance, as if that's the more important thing here. She destroys the walls around them, outraged, and orders Yinu to play even harder.

The song gets incredibly intense here, and it's here that you notice the piano fading out. At the start of the song, it was purely piano playing. But by this time, the piano is playing alongside EDM music, at just around the same volume. In the next phase, Yinu is knocked to the ground from a great height, and calls to her mother to catch her. But... she doesn't. She isn't caught, and alongside her piano, she crashes to the ground. Her mother doesn't even notice she's fallen and is hurt. She just completely ignores Yinu's cries, and focuses entirely on the destruction of the concert.

The song is almost completely EDM now. Yinu is out of frame, and it's the mother you're battling at the end. And even as Yinu sits alone on the ground, without looking at her at all, her mother just tells her not to stop playing no matter what. But despite Yinu's continued efforts, the piano barely shines through the techno anymore.

I should also mention the visuals. At the start of the fight, Yinu's mother was completely out of sight. Then, she poked her arm out of the curtain at the back of the stage to lift Yinu's piano out of range, but she remained out of sight. The curtain then gets moved, and she is now fully visible, but still further back in the dark than Yinu. After she rages and destroys the hall, she is very clear and visible, taking up a lot of the battlefield while Yinu is mostly out of frame of the camera. In the final phase, Yinu is no longer there, and her mother has completely taken over the battlefield.

First phase

Final phase

After defeating Yinu's mother, Mayday and Zuke prepare to celebrate their victory. But... they're interrupted. By Yinu, the one everyone involved forgot was part of this battle. She knocks the two off the giant rose they were standing on, and also probably their high horse. She's muddy, injured, roughed up, and still, her mother never asks her if she's okay. She doesn't even praise her for knocking them down by herself. She goes to nearly acknowledge it, saying "Yinu, my dear, you got them!", but that isn't actually praise. It's a mere acknowledgement, which she thinks is enough. And after saying that, she once again orders Yinu to play for her.

To which Yinu completely breaks. She finally loses her patience and just snaps, screaming that she hates them all, while slamming the piano keys in a burst of anger to triple the speed of before. But her outrage is still in beat. She still plays her song for her mother.

When our main characters get back up to her, and recklessly knock down the rose, Yinu plummets near to her death. She clings desperately to her piano, the one thing she has left of her father, but ultimately cannot hang on, and while she's protected from the fall by her mother, the piano is not, smashing into pieces as it hits the ground. And while she solemnly mourns this valuable part of who she is as a person, her mother STILL doesn't acknowledge it. She moves past Yinu and goes straight to yelling at Mayday and Zuke again, ready for another round of fighting without even checking on her daughter.

But Yinu stays strong. For herself, for her father, and for her mother. She feels she's the only one who can. And even when her piano is in pieces, her concert hall is destroyed, her appearance is tattered, and her injuries are stinging, she plays on. She just sits there. And keeps playing the song. Slow, and sad, like she's completely burnt out. But feels she's not allowed to quit, or she'll be letting her mother down.

This is when we cut back to the EDM detail. Because Yinu is not an EDM artist. The EDM, the unbearable fame, the place in government... it's all her mother. The EDM starts when her mother joins, and completely takes over when Yinu is no longer part of the battle. Only at the end does the piano come back, as Yinu steals back her own song from her mother's hands, and plays her classical music her style, with the Rock/EDM metre spiralling out of control, as the music now is neither of those genres. It is 100%, completely authentic, Yinu.

Holy shit. This whole sequence hits hard. From the desperate attempts to please her mother, putting up with the demands to keep playing no matter how hurt or stressed she is, only to break down and immediately get punished for it, and sadly go back to what she was doing before, because her rebellion resulted in her most treasured possession getting destroyed? Yinu is an incredibly tragic character. No child should have to put up with the grief, the pressure, the stress, and the burnout that she feels.

The activity that bonded her and her late father ended up being what ultimately hurts her, all because her mother couldn't process her own grief in her own way, and put her daughter at major risk because it stopped the hurting, instead of actually sitting down and talking with Yinu about the mourning and pain they both feel in their hearts.

I wish I'd had exactly what I want for Yinu. I wish my parents had talked to me about their separation. I wish they had figured out their issues and stopped feeling so angry at each other all the time, so they could live their separate lives in peace. I wish they had kept me out of their hatred for one another. I wish they had treated me like their child. I wish they'd loved me more than they hated each other. But they didn't. And I ended up alone, sadly writing this post, in the same way Yinu ended up sadly playing what's left of her piano in the ruins of her once polished, sparkling concert hall.

https://youtu.be/s1BEh5gZ90k?feature=shared

Here's a link to the song Yinu plays throughout the battle. Take a listen for yourself, and you'll see what I mean by the intensity growing, as the EDM takes over the classical more and more.

[pinkinsect]

going insane over shidou ryusei recently and seeing your posts about him being connected to hide songs are making me even more crazy. can i know more about your thoughts.. maybe what you think his backstory will be like.. (<- i have clinical shidou disorder)

hi sorry to hear about your shidou disorder. as a fellow sufferer i have to say it doesn't get better.

i don't have a set backstory in my head for him, just conclusions of things it's like from all of the supplemental info we've gotten for him. to succinctly sum up my thoughts about what his backstory will be like: Not Great!

tl;dr: there's so many dots to connect that anything could happen at this point. but i think that possibly, shidou's backstory is one of deprivation; either deprivation of physical needs, self-determination, or both. though i don't have a set idea of how exactly that may have happened, there's a few options—poverty, an abusive household, family members with too many expectations, too many restrictions on himself or his behavior. i wouldn't be surprised if he'd been arrested at some point (it's happened before. it could happen again) or if he had been in the foster system, where the aforementioned conditions occurred, given there's absolutely no mention of any immediate family members in the egoist bible—and he seems to really hate santa, though that could be for other reasons.

the rest of this is basically explaining why i think so—it ended up being awfully long (it turns out i cant Not summarize rocket dive/pink spider/ever free) so the rest of this is under a cut. let's go!

there are plenty of people view shidou as someone who is Just Horny And Violent; Born A Freak Forever A Freak. and you know what? i fuck with that type of character, but i think there's more to shidou than that.

during the U-20 match, he has his trademark "football is a biological phenomenon" speech (which is probably quickly overshadowed by its last line, "right in the womb," and i can't blame everyone. it is baffling), that gives us some of the first deeper insight into shidou.

"Every human on the planet wants to leave proof of their own existence behind. The act of passing on their own genes has been programmed into all living beings. They connect with others, wound others, do things that make them persist in the memories of others. Those who create something, those who want to become something, and of course, those who make children. They're doing something that leaves behind proof they existed."

shidou often says he wants an explosion, but another way to think about it is freedom. he wants the freedom to play the way he wants, to live the way he wants. and for soccer, that's through finding people he can create an explosion with—people he can play freely with.

(i think this has been acknowledged by other characters too; given shidou's placement on the Isagi Yoichi Type Indicator compass and noa telling kunigami to "take away [shidou's] freedom" by marking him. i choose to look into individual word choices in blue lock since kaneshiro seems to like making specific word choice relevant later)

shidou is all about freedom, and i think that could come from being deprived of it, in some ways.

a lot of the supplemental info we're given about him could be described as "things someone does just because they can." people often go through their lives taking certain things for granted, until it's taken away. once it's returned to them, you'll see a sort of appreciation that might seem a little out of the ordinary.

(personal experience, so it might not be great evidence, but plenty of people who've spent a lot of time in prison seem to gain a newfound appreciation for couches and making food late at night.)

his morning routine consists of "going onto the balcony naked and soaking up the sunlight, dancing however he likes, and yelling whatever comes to his mind ("stuff like capillaries and flesh rupture!!")." is it strange? yes, but to me it's an appreciation of freedom; one's free will to do and say anything, and to let the sun hit you while you're doing it.

something else that sticks out to me from the egoist bible is his favorite and least favorite foods; yukhoe and bean sprouts respectively. i normally wouldn't mind it, but the juxtaposition of something that can be so indulgent and really cheap produce is interesting to me, especially because of his reasoning for hating bean sprouts: 「フォルムが貧弱で萎える」, which I would translate as "They look weak and wilted," but the words used for weak and wilt can also mean "insubstantial" and "to lose passion." that extra translation detail could be a reach and extraneous information, but similar to my earlier point, kaneshiro seems to really like using words with multiple meanings instead of more clear cut synonyms. the top of shidou's scale being a rich, fatty dish of raw meat and the bottom being bean sprouts is interesting to me, and fits this picture of shidou that isn't necessarily hedonistic, but is "living deep and sucking the marrow out of life" in a very explosive way.

now a section specifically for hide songs because there's so much

as you mentioned, i really think that the hide songs will tie into shidou's backstory; an awful lot of the characters' favorite songs represent their character in the past or present. pink spider is his favorite song, and rocket dive is mentioned in chapter 253 in regards to shidou's goal.

for those less familiar with hide's work, pink spider was written as an answer to rocket dive, and the cd for the single contained a third track: five minutes and twenty-seven seconds of silence, then a short clip of ever free, the titular single released several weeks after his death.

all three songs deal with a desire for freedom, and to break out of the monotony of one's surroundings for something new—but with varying tones and approaches.

rocket dive has an endlessly encouraging tone, ending happily with a new star being seen in the sky (and this is a reach, but shidou's given name—ryuusei—is a homophone with the japanese word for meteor/falling star, ryuusei).

pink spider, shidou's favorite song, is about a spider so trapped in its surroundings it kills anything that comes close, until it learns there's more. and to reach it, it steals a butterfly's wings and flies and fails and tries again, and we never know if the spider succeeds at its second attempt at flight, or is resigned to watching the sky from the ground.

ever free's speaker is trapped on the ground, and faced with the questions "how much does love cost?" "can you eat a dream?" in response to their own questions about how love feels and what it's like to feel their dreams. but still, they dream of flying toward freedom, of escaping. like pink spider, and unlike rocket dive, we don't ever know if they make it off the ground.

despite the order of songs released being rocket dive -> PINK SPIDER -> ever free, i think that the order the songs represent shidou may be the opposite. he started, trapped, wings closed, uncertain, but had the dream of freedom inside of him. and though he may have hurt someone—or lost someone—in the process, he seized that freedom, and the expanse of the future awaits him to live in and make a name for himself.

something specifically about love being something that could be bought, or a dream being something that could be eaten, makes me want to think that shidou had a lot of expectations, or restrictions, placed on him as well.

hide in general is shidou's favorite, though, not just that one song of his. hide's live performances are high energy, and he's just really funny when talking to the audience between songs? it fits the massive amount of his songs are upbeat lyrically and about sex and desire, but an equal amount are about difficulty controlling unhealthy behaviors, cynical, or reflecting on one's own flaws and the loss of others.

the duality there makes me think of shidou's other favorites, chainsaw man and a clockwork orange—both media that can be, and often are, interpreted on the surface as simply spectacles of violence and sex, but are also acclaimed for their deeper themes. it could be like shidou, in a way. there's layers.

to sum it all up. i think shidou probably was in foster care. maybe was sexually abused. probably also saw a lot of bad things happen to other people, so it's nothing personal to him on a surface level, at least. he's out of that situation and deciding to enjoy the hell out of life. probably repressed and that's why he cries when alone at night (possibly nightly ?) for reasons he doesn't know.

[gloriousmonsters]

tbh the more setting details i notice the more i realize how the other Vees are signaled as complicit/participant in Angel's abuse.

It's not just Velvette's 'love potion' being used in an attempt to roofie him out in the world - it's a huge poster of her advertising the 'love potion' put up in Val's studio, notably paired with a Voxtech 'Trust Us' poster on another wall. When Vox is walking past posters in his first appearance, Angel Dust posters are noticeable, along with a Love Potion advertisement that features both Val and Velvette and a poster that just seems to be for the Vees in general. When Angel backs away from Val in his dressing room, a scene where he's been taken out of sight of Charlie and is alone with Val - up pops a Love Potion on his dressing table to one side of him, and a Voxtech camera trained on him on his other side. The other Vees are present, in spirit. When Vox and Val fuck off at the end of Poison (and there's YET MORE to be said about that moment) and Angel finally has his moment of genuine breakdown, there's a Voxtech camera in the foreground pointed at him. Even when he's 'off-camera' he's not safe from observation, and even when he and Val are 'alone', the other Vees are there.

also Velvette is wearing the same outfit she's wearing in the Love Potion poster as she is in the finale, I don't think that necessarily means anything but well. i noticed it

[hajihiko]

I don’t think the intent is for fuyuhiko’s family to be abusive but it’s definitely not.. the environment to be raising children in

Probably not script-wise and maybe not even Kaz either but child endangerment is child endangerment

[dead-dove-dolly]

With the Hazbin Hotel leak going around, as well as a certain person on this hellsite saying that any media containing SA is glorifying/fetishizing SA (or even CSA or RAMCOA), please know this is what you're doing.

You're making victims/survivors feel dirty and like their abuse was their fault.

You're demonizing talking about SA/CSA/RAMCOA, making it more difficult for victims/survivors to come forward.

You're making it more difficult for victims/survivors to cope, because some of them cope with exposure therapy.

You're pushing this idea that coping should be private, even though publicly coping can help a lot of people. Not everyone can draw or write, so they rely on OTHERS to make said content for them to cope.

And saying that someone is coping the "wrong way" is incredibly harmful, because what's healthy for them, may not be healthy for you and vice versa.

Victims/Survivors are not all uwu pure babies that have Normal Emotions™. Some of us are violent. Some of us romanticize what happened to us. Some of us are emotional. We need access to ways to cope with what happened to us. Fiction happens to be a great outlet, as long as it's not distressing to us.

And if you fucking DEMONIZE coping via fiction, whatever it is, you are making it MORE difficult on survivors.

We're allowed to openly cope. We're allowed to be angry. We're allowed to vent the complex feelings we have towards abusers.

Quit making us feel DIRTY and like it's OUR fault we were abused. Let Victims/Survivors COPE.

[void-proxima]

One of the more heartbreaking episodes of this show was released on April 28, 2019: "This is Not A Drill", featuring Drill Man (...and his absolutely abysmal excuse for a father). To commemorate it, I drew him over the weekend (and touched up the shading today). As always, the poor guy is not having a good time.

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