#if you can relate im sorry

[cicadastoner]

Realizing your parents don't respect you is not for the faint of heart. Fully digesting the meal in front of you, a narcissistic mom and emotionally absent father, leaves you with stomach pains. You'll spend countless nights in your bed wondering what you did wrong, when it changed, if they ever loved you at all.

They have to love you, you're their child, but as a person, do they truly like you?

They don't show it in words. Commenting on your weight, belittling your fears, mocking your secrets. They don't show it in actions. Invading your space, breaking your things, forgetting you exist. They don't remember the things you like, what flavor is your favorite or what colors you refuse to wear. Instead they buy you vanilla flavored treats and an orange jumper hoping to make up for the words they spewed in anger.

Your mom will force you into hugs that feel suffocating hoping to bandage the bullet wound she left to get infected when you were a child. She'll buy you all the useless items you never wanted filling the gap in your relationship with rampant over consumerism. She'll tell you she loves you daily but wait expectantly for you to return the sentiment that leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. She'll break down crying and apologizing for what she did, the mess she made, only to repeat the cycle again tomorrow.

Your dad will stand off to the side and watch it happen. He'll encourage you to patch a relationship you dismissed years ago. He'll spoon feed you sentiments of how hard life is as if you're not living it. He'll snap and yell only to apologize and insist he loves you, you know that right? Though now, the apologies are few and far between. You'll have to bite your tongue as you watch the conflict behind his eyes. You know he's just as trapped as you are but you can't feel sorry for him anymore.

You'll mourn the loss of your mother as she serves you dinner and despise what your father has become as he picks at his food. None of you eat. A bite or two followed by a rushed excuse to leave is the normal, that's if you don't eat in your room.

You'll search for them in the crowd, hoping they took your invitation, but you're disappointed again. You eventually stop inviting them, the pain of their absence too much. They'll find out and ask you why you're ashamed of them, why you don't want them around for your accomplishments, and you'll shrug absent of emotion. You learned not to show emotion years ago.

You'll go to your friends houses and watch as their parents dote over them and they complain, the longing look in your eyes doesn't go unnoticed. You'll spend the night and pretend you belong, you take advantage of the kindness you seldom feel knowing that once morning comes its back to your parents. You'll relish in the radiating warmth and baby photos of a family you wish you had lining the walls. You'll wonder if you deserve the kindness and warmth, even if for just a moment.

This, of course, doesn't come without guilt. Every action has a reaction and as much as you can defend your side with logic you still feel bad for taking it. It isn't in one's nature to defy their parents, yet you do it with so much confidence you wonder if you're really a good person. After all they gave you a home, food and water, they paid for you to do sports in school and bought you all the newest technologies. But the shelter and food didn't come without a reminder of its source, and how easily it could be taken away. You never really liked sports either and the countless phones and laptops were just to steal your attention so they didn't have to give it to you.

You gave up the idea of a warm home and loving parents years ago. Left with a hole in your heart you fill with partners who act just like them. You're stuck in the riptide being thrown around and flipping in every direction until you don't know which way is up. You try desperately to break this curse you're under but old habits die hard and you're stubborn.

You know how to break the curse, by giving yourself the love you seek. Affirming the child in yourself that there's still time and work to be done. But you're so tired and not even sure you're capable of love much less deserving.

So you swallow the bite you're chewing and will the bile back down your throat. You ignore the tears stinging your eyes and the hammering in your chest. You ignore the pulling feeling leading you out in favor of laying back down in bed. You ignore the persistent ache in your heart. You sit with the stomach ache from your meal knowing deep down you have to feel it, there's no way around it. You sit and you hope that one day you can swallow something softer, something kinder, that fills your heart with warmth instead of wanting.

[busylickingsatansballs]

My whole personality is a bunch of mismatched jigsaw pieces mashed together , so the shapes don't quite fit, and it's all wrong, but if I take those pieces away, I am empty.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

obligatory beach divorce doodling

bonus rough cover redraw of x-men #41 (1995) But Beach Divorce below cut

[ch3rr13zk1n]

Lamperty hfjiONE

I also have multiple alternative versions of this image since i never know which version i like more!! (I have a problem please help)

Like and reblog or i'll force you to like Gnarpy or smth

[asgardian--angels]

keep fighting the good fight against this weird misconception that vik is somehow stoic and unemotional, bestie 🫡 cause idk where the hell people picked that up lol

thank you!!! fandom is always gonna fandom, reducing characters to two-dimensional tropes to make them mix-and-matchable. it's especially unfortunate when the characters we're given in Arcane are so rich and nuanced. the best antidote is to go back and rewatch the source material imo lol.

thanks for enjoying my tags also!! I used to write actual meta many years ago but at some point lost my nerve or lost the time. now it lives in the tags. I don't know many people in the jayvik fandom here, it seems mostly active on twitter, but I'm glad to be noticed by at least a couple people here :) your blog is great!!

[budugaapologist]

still dont see how so many people say that dawntrail is poorly written in comparison to other expansions like. what, did you realize you had to learn about a new culture and immediately not care anymore lmao? you've done it before, was this one not white enough for you?

genuinely i think more people should do side quests during msq so idk you can form a heart about the characters you're interacting with if you struggle with that and understand the land better so when impactful shit happens your illiterate ass can actually read and have empathy. theres no excuse for this.

if you can't handle storybuilding and character introductions from the expansion that feels like stormblood and shadowbringers had passionate gay sex that got one of them pregnant and birthed a beautiful daughter they both love and care about then idk what to tell you, maybe youre just lame and can't read. best of luck with that.

[instantpansies]

life is hard for us oz fans who are only meh about wicked. have half a meme.

[hakusins]

T-The devil came and and she made me do terrible things and made me feel weird and and strange and maybe horny and she made me not focus on my work and gave me funny ideas and I want to draw them so bad and she’s bad right? And I had a little dooodle but I can’t attach it so uuuuuuuu

hang in there dollya !!! you can do it, you'll survive this !! i promise !!!

[nestastits]

I stopped listening to people when they said the house of wind was abusive to nesta…

The house of wind was abusive to nesta? The. House. Of. Wind. Was. Abusive. To. Nesta? The house that was her first friend? The house that has comforted her? The house Nesta literally made? The first house that nesta has ever called her home, is abusive to her?

[smilebug]

alright call me crazy but. how do folks feel about an android wall-e jesskas au

[toscanasoups]

i lowkey hate that mouthwashing has got the attention it has because now right wing grifters are getting ahold of it and defending gross people who entirely misinterpret the game without knowing the source material. the whole game has been fandomized and joked upon. i rarely see a serious discussion on it and people ARENT getting into it because of the actual game's content, but because of how watered down the current artworks makes it seem. like no. if you play the game youre gonna get hit with a story of a man who raped a girl and because he couldnt kill her he was going to kill EVERYONE, and failed, and so everyone but the captain dies in other ways because he, (the captain), failed to prevent the rapist being wreckless and having him put in charge. there is your basic uncensored summary. dont get into it because of the influx of drawings of daisuke in a thong, or the "woke crowd" reasonably getting upset seeing anya so explicitly sexualized in a game where her being sexualized is a major plot point and NOT in a good way. dont get into it because curly or jimmy or any of them are attractive. please only try out the game if you want immersive, beautiful storytelling about a heartbreaking and gruesome situation.

[fried-manto]

What?

[celestialdancer]

Read mizu5 because it got into my IRL friends circles and...

People using they/them for Mizuki right now. Do you realise that you are part of the point the event is making? Mizuki has always presented as a woman, refers to herself as a woman. She lives as a woman. Yet because it is now explicitly clear she is trans, in some way to be.... Safe. Or correct. Or something. People who think they're being respectful to a trans character are now misgendering her? Using the wrong pronouns? That's the shift that she fears. That's the exclusionary problem. Because for no other character would you use they/them. Mafuyu? Woman. She/her. Kanade? Ena? Women she/her. What makes Mizuki different? Being transgender?

Are you seeing the problem?

[xxplastic-cubexx]

if i had a nickel every time magneto, charles, and amelia were all featured on a cover that framed them as having a wack love triangle then im sure im missing more than just these two but im still baffled i naturally found two so easily anyway

[olivewormz]

ELLO!!!! GUESS WHO REDID HIS METAL SLUG DESIGNS!!!! i guess you could call it that uuhm

but YEA!! i've been thinking a lot about metal slug lately and i just... couldnt resist redrawing my versions, hopefully i do more in the future for more characters n all, i really want to post more metal slug stuff, i love LOVE these silly guys

im not writing anything at the moment cause i really didnt change my headcanons and im kind of tired to write proper paragraphs (i should stop staying up until 3 am to finish drawings? maybe).

[sleepy-crypt1d]

One of my favorite parts of COF that I find is commonly overlooked is the fact that it doesn't sanitized itself for a broader audience, it comes in with a message, with a story to tell that's hard to swallow with characters that are realistic and heartbreaking, and it doesn't apologize for this once.

Something interesting that occurred to me was how people who have never experienced severe mental health struggles view COF- the specific instance I'm thinking of is when I was explaining the plot to my mom, and had explained the different endings to her and how to get those endings, and what each one seemed to imply both for Simon and his relationship with those in his life, and her takeaway from the conversation was- "I don't like that the mentally ill main character becomes a killer. I don't like that he's the bad guy"

And this was interesting to me because, that's kind of the whole reason why I started to love Simon in the first place.

So infrequently are we shown mentally ill characters who do bad things yet still deserve redemption. Who still deserve to be treated as a person, because they are one. In a world that is becoming largely comfortable with the idea "bad person = deserves to die" it was insanely refreshing to see a character like Simon, who we see hurt people, who we see become obsessed and stalkerish and violent, gain redemption through healing. Through therapy and community and the belief from others that he will get better. That he isn't a lost cause.

In ending 2, one of the darker endings of the experience, we learn that Simon is alone. That his friends and family have all left him. That he's been abandoned due to his disability and general mental health struggles, and this was devastating to me. Upsetting to a degree that had me thinking about it for days afterward. Not helped by Simon's plea to Dr. Purnell to not feel bad because "not everyone can be saved". The way Simon views himself is much too similar to my own view of myself as someone who has struggled with similar issues.

As someone who was led down a path of harm due to untreated issues and still struggles with believing I "deserve" redemption.

Because I do, and so does he.

And it's always so upsetting seeing so many people who view victims as one note stories. As people who just cry sometimes and have trouble talking to people or get sad every once in awhile. Mental health is messy and hard to live with and life ruining at times, and this stripping of it's nuance is so frustrating to see happen over and over and over again.

Victims are not your savior story. They are not cookie cutter helpless children that need to be protected. Abuse and severe struggles do not make you stronger, they do not make you better, they do not magically make you more empathetic or loving and I'm fucking tired of that narrative. I'm tired of being talked over by people who've never experienced it or other victims who think they're the "good" ones because, well, they never did that which means anyone who did is horrible. I'm tired of stories of illness being sanitized for other people's comfort.

Victims can become perpetrators, that does not take away from their victim status. That does not change the fact that they still deserve help. That does not take away from their personhood. They are a human being that needs help, not a death sentence. Should they take accountability? Of fucking course. Does their trauma absolve them of wrongdoing? No. But I'm tired of people acting like cycles don't exist, like the second you act out on your trauma you're past saving.

Simon's story is perfect the way it is. A story of redemption and acceptance, of learning to live and grow and learn from past mistakes and find a way to live peacefully. To take responsibility and attempt to rekindle the relationships you lost, the ones you hurt.

Ending 4 and his admittance to the hospital, as well as his continued friendship with Sophie but acceptance of his loss of a romantic one, is heart breakingly bittersweet in a way that is hard for me to describe. Him getting better but living with what he's done, growing from it and learning to live anyways.

Another part of this is that, in his happy ending, in the ending where he does get better; he doesn't do it alone. Largely, the narrative of community is lost in these stories, how helpful a support system can be. Simon gets better because he has people there for him, because he has Purnell and Sophie and his mom looking out for him. He has his doctors and the staff at the hospital and people who know he can get better, that he's still a person deserving and capable of good.

People need people, and this seems an obvious note to me in the story of COF. Simon needs people. He needed people the entire time. Someone, anyone, to listen to him and give him the hand he needed.

And it's so refreshing to see a character like Simon still be loved and cared about and helped even when he was "the bad guy". Let mental ill characters be realistic. I'm begging you.