#kept going about like nothing happened

[hizznbyte]

I Survived […Now What?]

Hello everynyan, Captain Neri speaking. I gotta set the record straight and clear up some… confusion about what happened on the night of January 29th.

Do be warned, this post may be long and will mention things like abuse, violence, self-inflicted harm, mental episodes and trauma and all that fun stuff. So if you’re sensitive to those kinds of things I’d suggest you sit this one out. No skin off my back, just make sure to take care of yourself!

I guess I gotta preface this by saying that I… was very hesitant to post this. I think I owe some kind of explanation, but..? I worry that this will come off ventish -which I guess it is- and I don’t really enjoy venting to people on the internet and subjecting them to my fucked up mental state. Even my mutuals who I call my friends.. don’t know me really. It’s weird, over sharing like this. It feels selfish of me, to come crying to random people out here who only really came for funny art and memes… but then again, this is a personal blog. I’ve been healing and using this very Tumblr blog to heal. And my mutuals who are the sweetest people ever have been so important in that journey. And aside from Yax, the people who I go to vent to in private? It feels like they won’t listen, like I’m being continuously shut out and ignored, even when I’m struggling to even wake up in the morning [so much for being everyone’s therapist…] I don’t know who will care listen but if you are, thank you.

Y’know, growing up poor in a family that could barely afford a proper house taught me something. Something I can’t put into words, but it’s an experience. A humbling on maybe but not one I’d really wish upon others, let alone my worst enemy. Because we struggled a lot, and that caused some stress and fighting.

I don’t like using the word poor to describe my family though, because the first thing that comes to most people’s minds is a group of homeless people begging on the side of the road you kind of tilt your head at and pity. We aren’t broke by any means, we can still afford nice stuff every once in a while, it’s just at the expense of proper living.

So I’ve always been financially dependent on my parents. And I guess, dependent on them for everything [they are my parents after all]. I try my best to help out but.. someone like me? It seems impossible. They have control over most of my personal possessions and money, so it’s not like I can ever run away. It isn’t easy. I live with them, and in turn I should at least respect them… right?

Strict, conservative, religious parents and some kid like me. Was there ever anything more ironic? If they knew half of what you guys knew about me, I think I’d be on the streets. I love my family… I love my parents.. but it’s not an easy thing to do. Sometimes I feel like I hate them. I sometimes I feel like they hate me.

I think in an older post I made some offhand comment about my dad being the source of most of my issues. That’s still true. Always has been. I want to say he’s nice, he sometimes is, can be at least, and other times he’s so so cruel. I don’t know anyone in my family that isn’t a victim. Sometimes I think he’s actually a good person, and then a switch flips and suddenly he’s been replaced by a completely different person. And it hurts to see. One time he got super sick with Covid and I guess me and my siblings were being annoying, so he threatened to stab us all with a knife he was waving around. He doesn’t recall. I do, that’s stuck with me for a while. I don’t trust to be around him in the kitchen anymore. With him, you never know what to expect. He can get mad over the most trivial things, like if you sigh too deeply or close the door wrong. Was I being disrespectful when I did that? Under his roof, it feels like walking on eggshells all while playing Russian roulette.

So I guess I should’ve been more careful where I walk.

But he was getting on my nerves and I impulsively pushed his buttons to get back at him. It was really quick [can’t say what] but it’s not like I yelled at him or cussed him out or even set a finger on him really. I was in my own room, and he was in his. And just like that I messed up because he’s coming over and chasing me into my brother’s room before beating at me and trying to pull me out of the house. He’s yelling at me and calling me names [Anjing. Indonesian word for dog. He spat the word like it was a fucking slur. He might as well have called me a bitch] and saying I don’t deserve to live, to be alive. He’s yelling at me to get out of his house and never come back, that I’m not his kid anymore and that i should be out on the streets.

My baby brother is watching it unfold. He’s following his father’s steps. He’s yelling at me too.

He asks me for my phone and takes it and hides it away. I’m surprised he didn’t just throw it on the floor and break it right there and then, like he did so long ago. He probably would’ve honestly. But I’m on the floor and sweaty and bruised mess, trying my damn hardest not to burst out crying like the bitch I am.

My mom just looks down on me and doesn’t just rub salt in the wound, she lathers it. She tells me to apologize, looks at me like I’m crazy. I love my mom, I really do, and I wish I could say she’s nicer and more lenient than my dad, but that’s not right. It doesn’t take much but sometimes she’s just as bad, if not worse than he is. And worst of all? She’s a fucking coward. I can’t say I blame her really, looking at the situation we’re in, but it makes me wonder just how much I actually mean to her.

It doesn’t take long for them to go to sleep. I’m sitting on the floor in my brother’s room [Fritz btw, he’s my older brother] and before he can say some stupid thing he’ll regret, I tell him to go to bed and ask to borrow his phone. First thing I think of is my phone and everyone waiting behind the screen thinking I’ve just gone to bed for the night. Usually he’d hate for anyone to look at his phone, let alone use it, but Fritz told me his password and had me log on to his discord account. That’s when I started frantically texting Yax.

I’m scared. I don’t know what to do or where to go. He’s already hurt me and I KNOW he can and will try to kill me. I’ve always had that feeling oh so long ago, that if I died it’d either be by his hands or my own. And I’m too much of a coward to really try. He isn’t. I heard him loud and clear the first time. And the many times after that. So I’m texting Yax and that’s when I start crying like a baby. Cause I’m scared that when I die she’ll be confused and worried for me and there will be no one to tell her the news till it’s too late.

So thats where the messages she sent out on Tumblr [on my behalf] came from. I just wanted everyone to know how much I love them and appreciate what they did for me. I didn’t intend on causing panic or whatever. Whatever Yax wrote in those messages specifically I’m unaware of nor had any control over.

I need to clarify this so people will stop asking: There was nothing else I could do. If I called the police or CPS or some shit I’d just cause even more trouble for my entire family, and they’d never forgive me. I have siblings I care about. I’m not going to destroy their lives to deal with my stupid shit. I couldn’t straight or pack my shit and leave either. They wanted to kick me out of their house yes, but they’d make sure they took everything from me before I left. It all belongs to them after all. No money no phone no fucking clothes in the middle of winter. I would’ve left right there and then for Yax’ place if not for that, and if not for the fact that it was the middle of the night and she lives farther away from me than my own school. I really fought back the urge to yell at her to come pick me up. Aside from her I have virtually no one else. No other family [they all live in Indonesia] and no one else I trust. Like I said, I was dependent on my parents to survive.

Just like that I’m stuck in this fucking hellhole.

It’s so very long before he finally goes into a deep sleep, skipping over the part where he tells my younger sister Fizzi that I mean nothing to him loudly enough that I hear it from the other room. And I’m scared for my life. I’m scared of what he’ll do to me when he wakes up. But I’m not sleeping on the goddamn floor of my brother’s bedroom so I sneak out, use the bathroom for like an hour and crawl back into my bed. I feel safe, if only for a while. And I’m just so so fucking tired.

But I don’t let my guard down. I’m hiding under the covers with one eye open and peeping through. And with every disturbance to the silence outside I’m holding my breath and praying and begging to god that it’s not him. That he hasn’t woken up. Only god knows what he’d do if he had. I barely got any sleep that night since I was up for hours. It’s not like I’m not already used to that, I am an insomniac after all, but I was fighting so hard to get a minute of peace. I just wanted to sleep.

And maybe when I wake up it’ll all just be a bad dream.

Maybe they still love me. Maybe I didn’t fuck up.

But the morning after is the same as always.

[momentomori24]

[This has been sitting in my draft for a while lol]

When it comes to Curly's failings, I always see people bring up his obvious failure to protect Anya and him prioritising Jimmy, who was the rapist in that situation. Which is completely valid btw and we should rake him through the coals for that alone even more. But I also see too many people saying that Curly "didn't enable Jimmy" or playing softball for his actions. And I could maybe see where that comes from if that incident was the only thing we had to point to-- but that wasn't all he did, is it? Curly being indifferent or not taking Jimmy's mistreatment and belittlement of Anya seriously was hinted at so much earlier than that.

Namely, the very first time we play from Curly's point of view. Let's just skip the fact that Curly was putting everyone in danger by not taking his psych evals seriously and simply giving the same answers to pass them even tho he was shown literal minutes after this scene being clearly not-sane, and go straight to the point I actually wanna get into. Which is this:

These scenes in isolation wouldn't be that bad. From his pov, it's played off as comical and it is. Jimmy being a brony (not really lmao) and getting playfully dragged over it is funny. But unfortunately this is the first example out of many for Curly's complacency. Anya is complaining about Jimmy not taking his psych evals or her seriously, which is easy to believe considering how much he rags on her for "not being a good nurse" (she kept Curly alive on hopes and dreams how dare you). So he keeps making her do silly and inappropriate reports she clearly doesn't wanna do, which is kinda shitty (also borders on harassment). But rather than actually saying something about Jimmy's behaviour or even acknowledging how it sucks he says this:

Mate, that's not a good thing 💀 He's clearly aware that the problem is Jimmy's lack of respect for Anya specifically. He knows that if he, his friend and a man in power, were the one doing the evals Jimmy wouldn't try that disrespect. But it's Anya, a meek woman who ranks lower than him so he thinks he can get away with it (which he DOES), and Curly's shown as comfortable in knowing that. He doesn't chew Jimmy out for making Anya uncomfortable nor does he reassure her that he will do something about it. All he does is take it off her hands this once and helps Jimmy power through it to get a good diagnosis (even tho we know he's DEFINITELY not sane either). He doesn't even mention Anya's discomfort or confront him on his inappropriate behaviour, just teases Jimmy in good fun instead because he doesn't think of it as anything serious. It's subtle and pretty minor in comparison to everything else, but I think it's worth pointing out. Especially because this convo takes place after Jimmy had assaulted her, which makes this so much worse.

If you need any more evidence of Curly being an enabler you need not look further than Anya herself. And I'm not just talking about the way he failed her here-- I'm talking about Anya's own view of Curly and the way said view influences her actions.

Just look at her choice of wording. "What would you have done". This is in response to him saying that she could've come to him if she were feeling stressed, which she-- in his eyes-- didn't. The question itself implies that she had no faith in Curly to actually help despite his insistence that he would've, which I think is significant because it shows that she's very much aware of Curly's shortcomings when it comes to her situation AND it's one of the first (or the first time) she actually verbalised her lack of trust towards him or anyone directly. Prior to this scene she had told him about her rape and the rapist, presumably because she trusted him to handle it. And he dismissed her because the rapist was his best friend, and that evidently deeply scarred her. Enough so that she secretly took the gun and hid it someplace else and didn't even tell Curly were that was, because she knows that if Curly has access to it there's a so much greater chance Jimmy will have too, insinuated by the line "the least I can do is make sure he never gets it either". Speaking about the gun:

It sucks so bad that this perception of him isn't even inaccurate nor unjustified. That despite everything Jimmy had done to her and everything he could still do to her, he'd very likely still not allow her access to the gun for protection. Because that's exactly what he didn't do anyway. He didn't attempt to keep her safe from Jimmy, instead he just pretended that nothing was wrong and still let Jimmy's belittlement of her pass. He didn't give her the gun after the incident, because she wouldn't have hid the case if he had. Despite his desperate reassurance that he'd do anything, he did nothing but make it worse for her and she KNOWS that. It's so frustrating knowing he entrusted the axe to Swansea when he needed it but not the gun to Anya when she needed it too. Also this:

The fact that his knee-jerk reaction to her admitting that she's pregnant was "Who would you--" is so fucked, especially considering she's already told him what happened. "Who would you" what? Who would you fuck? Who would you have sex with? That choice of wording drives me up a wall-- SHE wouldn't and didn't do anything or anyone. That was JIMMY. The potential sentence implies that she had any choice or agency in her pregnancy. She didn't. And the fact that Curly had to ask "who" insinuates that he's been putting Jimmy's action out of sight and out of mind the whole time, choosing to not think about them or what happened to Anya at all. And considering he still made her do Jimmy's evaluations despite being able to do them himself and literally didn't even think of making sure she gets psych evals done too--especially AFTER getting sexually assaulted--that might actually be the case (I haven't seen anyone make a stink about that piece of info so I'm going to because what kinda colossal fuck up IS that??).

I vaguely had a post like this in mind but seeing so many people be like "well Anya did some wrong stuff too like leaving Curly alone with Jimmy but you don't get mad at HER for that so why is Curly not doing anything about Jimmy being alone with Anya so different??" actually makes me want to blow some people up. Jimmy's an abuser, sure, but Anya has no real reason to believe that he'd actually harm Curly. From her perspective, they were close, close enough that Curly would not only let Jimmy continuously disrespect her but also get away with assaulting her too. That, and she knows that Jimmy was closer to Curly than anyone and more likely to be civil around him than he ever was to her. She has barely any reasons to suspect Jimmy would harm Curly when they're alone. Curly, on the other hand, has every fucking reason on the planet to think Jimmy would harm her when they're alone. He knows he raped her (likely in her room at night too). He knows that he sexually harasses her. He knows that he doesn't respect her at all. And that was BEFORE the crash. Anya tried insisting on giving Curly his medicine, only for Jimmy to keep aggressively insisting that he'll take care of it despite her protests. Curly didn't try to keep them separate at all even though he was the Captain and had the power to do so. And this should go without saying, but leaving your rapist alone with his best friend that he was close to and enabled/protected him and leaving your friend alone with the woman he raped (and might have repeatedly assaulted given his free access to her) is NOT THE SAME and I'm going to start chucking some people down a waterfall because what the fuck is that argument 💀 Actually leave it to the fandom of the game where the rape of a woman is the catalyst for the events that unfold to use her trauma to defend the guy that enabled it in the first place. Bloody hell.

The reason why this whole Curly discourse pisses me off is because it-- from what I can see-- ONLY brings up his failures 1-0 days before the crash and the Dead Pixel scene (or all the discussion around other points are drowned out by those two). Those scenes, while important to talk about, are not the only things he's done, and focussing on those as the only things is a mistake that comes short of understanding the issue. When it comes to Curly the main defences I see for him are "he was trying not to escalate the situation" and "he was trying to keep things under control the best he can" and "he was waiting for the right time to help Anya", but those don't work when you look at the bigger picture of everything he's done.

He half-assed through his psych eval despite clearly not being sane (and KNOWING he's barely sane, he literally admits it to Jimmy's face). He still continued to task her with Jimmy's psych evals. He brushed over Jimmy's sexual harassment of her as a joke. He didn't think about making sure she got psych evals done herself after being raped. He gave Swansea the axe but didn't give Anya the gun despite it being for "unrest amongst the crew" (whatever the hell THAT means). He let her assault slip his mind that she had to remind him. He's literally a blond man. He took no action to hold Jimmy responsible for anything, and prioritised how his violation of Anya would affect him rather than her. He ignored her demands for him to get rid of Jimmy. He still allowed Jimmy free reign of the ship as co-pilot even after he was openly fantasising about killing everyone and had a major motive and the means to do just that. He was potentially thinking of making her miscarry to cover up what happened. He was so accustomed to her sucking up being disrespected and disturbed that he didn't even notice a difference in her behaviour until she hid the fucking gun. There's so much other shit he's done and hasn't done, and not talking about them or glossing over them makes it so easy for people to argue that he isn't actually an enabler or just minimise the severity of his neglect.

And while I'm already dragging Curly through the mud, I might as well just drag Swansea too. I've seen too many people being like "Anya should've told Swansea instead" and "Swansea was the one that actually took responsibility". Like, y'all realise he's not that much better than Curly, right? He already knew about what happened to Anya-- he admits it to Jimmy's face-- but he didn't do shit. He knew, but he still got completely shitfaced for months despite her earlier protestation to that (for very understandable reasons). He knew, but he still let Jimmy have the axe AND be alone with Anya while having it. He knew, but when Anya locked herself in the Medical and Daisuke and Jimmy asked for his help he didn't budge nor really showed any care. He knew, but the reason he finally decided to do something about Jimmy wasn't Anya, it was Daisuke. Her suffering and her eventual death weren't enough for him to take action either.

This game, on top of everything else, is a great depiction of rape culture. It doesn't just include the rapists, but the people (mostly men) that stay silent, do nothing, make excuses for and protect the perpetrator for whatever reason, and Swansea and Curly (Curly way more so than Swansea) are both active contributors to the environment that allowed for evil to flourish and continue unhindered until it destroyed them all. And while that arguably doesn't make them evil themselves or as bad as Jimmy, they are so much more a part of the bigger problem than the fandom likes to admit.

[Ok since this is kinda gaining a bit of traction please consider helping these guys out here, here and here. Thanks!]

[lunarharp]

played dragon age 2...just simple scribbles

[waywardstation]

I still browse the submas tag so regularly but after all these inactive periods I used to take, I’d fallen into this sort of self-conscious slump of being too shy to interact with posts and the fandom for a long time and I know it’s been like that for months. Trying to do better about that now instead of being so nervous about it ^^

[devilsskettle]

i think everybody should think about how much of a privilege driving is before they judge people who don’t drive for being immature or whatever. like do you not realize that not everyone had a high school with driver’s ed or parents/older relatives who could teach them, not everyone had time to learn when they were younger, not everyone can afford a car and car insurance and any repairs that a car might need, not everyone lives in a place that is drivable anyway, and not everyone has good vision or a healthy enough brain and/or body to drive. and nobody needs to explain to you why they don’t drive! all you need to know is that the can’t, don’t want to, or it doesn’t make sense for them at this current time in their lives. fuck off!!!!! the response to inadequate public transportation isn’t that everyone should drive instead!!!!!! also everybody complains about bad drivers but people are incentivized to drive regardless of their actual driving ability because it’s shameful not to drive even if it’s a personal choice. and like maybe some people are just not self aware about their own driving abilities but some people just don’t understand that they are in control of a large machine that is dangerous if they don’t operate it properly and they have to be more responsible for the people they’re putting at risk because they don’t care enough to pay attention or follow the rules of the road or keep their tempers under control while they’re behind the wheel. anyway not everyone can or should drive, that’s all

[izloveshorses]

I GOT YOU FOR THAT !!!!!!!!!!!!! ASDHKLFJGFHLHHHHHNNNNNNGG!!!!!!!!

[maliciousalice]

Hear me out (or don't... it's fine I'm just venting and mean) yeah um I don't believe Chakotay was saved in Prod*gy s2.

[lucabyte]

I am literally obsessed with everything you do that involves sifloop you are THE sifloop artist to me

thank you!!! it means a lot to hear that haha

I've been like... near exclusively an OC artist for like 8 years at this point so every time i post fanart and ESPECIALLY ship art i feel like i have to fight every screaming cell in my body to post it because i feel like... RUDE? for projecting my own thoughts onto another creator's characters LMAO... so it's reassuring to know people actually like what i'm contributing!!

as for sifloop as a ship. i really should draw more isiloops because . rotates all three of them in my mind. but yeah. I think the thing I like most about the dynamic really is the like... way Siffrin and Loop canonically aggress each other despite an extremely persistent undercurrent of caring about the other not suffering.

Like. the back and forth between Loop constantly talking past/through Siffrin to really painfully insult the pair of them, and things like the [Forgetting Mirabelle's Name] event being so astoundingly gentle. just as a general example. (RNG event that only triggers after certain actions so you may need to look it up)

THEN adding the element of throwing them in postcanon with neither of them wanting to upset the party and thus having to keep a lid on it... I like the potential dynamics of such a painful and conflicted relationship having to be almost hidden and downplayed so as to try and not worry anyone, and thus becoming softer and introspective while still keeping a bunch of the more insidiously toxic behaviour.

Both of them acting with genuine best intentions in mind but still understanding each other to have way *way* more sadness and anger and guilt than they let on, and thus being able to clock it. Both for good and ill. Neither of them enjoy confrontation, but it's almost unavoidable when they KNOW the other knows what they're probably thinking.

. but yeah i just think they're neat! also a bunch of stuff related to asexuality but . shh

[tvonq]

longest day of my life omfg

[daisywords]

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[sparklecur]

not angry or anything but for the record ocd is Not some silly quirky Organizing Things Disorder it is a living nightmare in which your brain will Plague You With Visions of stuff like your mom getting brutally run over by a car, so now youre terrified that this secretly means you want your mom to get run over by a car, so to remedy this you gently tap on her door every time you walk past it to prevent her from getting run over by a car and you can never stop doing this because its the only thing standing between your mom and her getting run over by a car (it makes sense! dont question it!) and once you finally stop and think Wait this is really stupid and manage to force yourself to stop tapping her door as youre walking away your brain goes "oh so this means you dont care if your mom gets run over by a car? you sicko" so you go back and tap the door again (just to be safe) (because of course you care about your mom and you do not want her to get run over by a car) (if you dont stop tapping the door she will randomly get run over by a car and it will secretly be entirely your fault)

[nerenere808]

Twitter is so scary... i'm baffled at how anyone can even use that site still... people are just so cruel on that website that it terrifies me

[thedreadvampy]

The thing is I am definitely not happy or chill in the Immediate Sense lately but I am, big picture, so fucking happy with the person I am.

It's like. My brain was made by and for consistent trauma and since that trauma stopped about 5-7 years ago, it is incredible what the amount of resilience and cleverness and flexibility and thoughtfulness I developed to survive can do when it's not being all spent on surviving. like I had a hundred ton weight on me so I had to get REALLY STRONG to stay in the same place and not get 100% crushed, and when that weight came off I found I can use the strength it used to take to stand up and I can leap tall buildings in a single bound.

I was talking to my mum the other day and she said, "you've got the 'fuck it' energy at 30 that most women don't find until their fifties at least" and I'm like yeah man. Imagine how unstoppable I'll be in 20 years.

[faaun]

ok let's catch up quickly

[talkorsomething]

I have Got to get more transgender

[hauntingblue]

Castlevania is interesting but tell my why we get three episodes of internal conflict in the dracula castle (good) while the main characters are on a library and do fuck all. Well they have three scenes of relationship building that are supposed to mean something when they come out but they are so little and superficial imo