#man this made me sad

[niinnyu]

It would seem like my gallery really liked punching me right in the gut :D

[elderflowerprince]

yeah this

another thing i always think is that uh abuse isn't necessarily done on purpose? so often people paint it like it's all schemed deliberately, elaborate plans years in the making. and maybe sometimes it is like that? i'm no expert. but as someone who was raised by a terribly abusive person and picked up a lot of similar traits, i can tell you none of the behaviour i grew up mimicking was on purpose. i could have easily grown up to be someone who treated others like shit, and it would have been with zero self-awareness. or there are some people who do know what they're doing to an extent, but aren't actively planning in advance. lying was like second nature to me. throwing other people under the bus was so easy. i was a kid. and now i actively fight with myself every day to stop myself from doing it, but i can definitely see a path where i never really started caring about others and manipulated people semi-actively as well.

not a defense of abusive people, not trying to say "oh you should feel sorry for them because they don't know better" or anything like that, you don't have a responsibility or obligation to educate and "fix" them, but... sometimes i wish i saw more depiction of this, lying-like-breathing blaming-like-walking using-like-sleeping easiness, instead of even people who are good at lying always being shown as step-by-step thinking through their lies in the way those not used to lying do. i guess.

Abusers have human sides to them too.

When abuse, whether real or fictional, is talked about in media, one of two things usually happens. The abuser is either completely dehumanised and painted as an evil caricature, or given a tragic backstory that makes the victim feel so sorry for their abuser they end up forgiving them.

And I think this is part of why it can be so hard to believe we ourselves are going through abuse. Because when it's you going through it, you see the human side of your abuser too. You see them cry, and laugh, and overcome adversity, and be vulnerable, and feel scared and small. You see them struggle and you see them genuinely try to spend quality time with you, and you see them show the ways they love you. Sometimes, you can even see that they mean it when they say they love you.

And because we've been taught that "actual" abusers are all bad, heartless, merciless, and lacking in humanity, and everyone else is just a suffering person who hurt others because they were hurting inside, we think what we're going through can't possibly be abuse. We think we're exaggerating, or being weak, or selfish. We punish ourselves for not being more understanding of what they're going through. We convince ourselves we're making it all up and we're the monsters in our own story.

But we're not. We're just not used to acknowledging that abusers are human, and that their humanity does not negate their abuse.

If you've ever questioned your abuse because your abuser was struggling, or genuinely loved you, or was trying their best, or expressed conflicting emotions, or was abused themselves, this post is for you. I believe you. I believe what happened to you was abuse. Their circumstances did not justify their actions.

I believe you, and you are not alone.

[egophiliac]

still ruminating over Lost In the Book With Spooky Skeletons Part 1, so here's a selection of some of my favorite little bits! (...some more loosely paraphrased than others) (I just feel like Idia has no room to criticize in general, okay)

anyway, I'm sure we're just going to have a fun time celebrating Halloween and nothing bad is going to happen whatsoever! :)

[doomedclockworkdotmp3]

his therapist woulda had a field day at their next appointment

[sforzesco]

something. about. the horror of being sent on an impossible (death) quest and obligations and hospitality politics. the trauma of not having a home, and then the trauma of being in a house that becomes actively hostile to you, one that would swallow you whole and spit out your bones if you step out of line. all of this is conditional, your existence continues to be something men want gone.

it's about going back as far as I can with the perseus narrative because there's always a version of a myth that exists behind the one that survives. the missing pieces are clearly defined, but the oldest recorded version of it isn't there! and there's probably something older before that!! but it's doomed to forever be an unfilled space, clearly defined by an outline of something that was there and continues to be there in it's absence.

and love. it's also about love. even when you had nothing, you had love.

on the opposite side of the spectrum, this is Not About Ovid Or Roman-Renaissance Reception, Depictions And Discourses On The Perseus Narrative.

edit: to add to the above, while it's not about Ovid, because I'm specifically trying to peel things back to the oldest version of this story, Ovid is fine. alterations on the Perseus myth that give more attention Medusa predate Ovid by several centuries. this comic is also not about those, either! there are many versions of this story from the ancient world. there is not one singular True or Better version, they're all saying something.

Perseus, Daniel Ogden

Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation, edited & translated by Stephen M Trzaskoma, R. Scott Smith, Stephen Brunet

[bunnieswithknives]

Creepy old guy

[timethehobo]

Once again thinking about Emmy during those weeks when Rook was gone. The angst potential. 👌

[punkaches]

And when you kiss me I am happy enough to die.

[yuyonyu]

Gogol’s unrequited love

[equinox-86]

Anime Yui smiling compilation [UPDATED]

Throughout the entire anime, Yui genuinely only smiles twice, and I'm not counting in Cordelia's possession.

1. When she found her father's diary

2. When she ate Yuma's tomato

this is depressing 😭

[UPDATE] OKAY YEAH YOU WERE RIGHT. SHE SMILES MORE THAN TWICE

3. When she found out that her father didn't know that she was getting sacrificed.

4. Admiring the World Tree

5. getting roses from Kou

6. Amazed by Yuma's garden

7. Complimenting Ruki

[fatedroses]

zenos, but he's getting spammed by his weirdly tech savvy great-grandfather.

[royaltea000]

Putting my pretty princess in different outfits again

[deoidesign]

One of my first digital pieces (2010) versus one of my recent ones (2024)

We all start somewhere!

[camphorror]

the fact that paul was so bothered and hung up about their plans changing and he kept saying he doesn't even understands why he's moaning about it but he wants what they're doing to have a "pay off" then he justs says this to john and it's like. oh. ok. I Get It now....

and then he sits there like this

[thatonechocogirl]

"He needs me."

[xyrw]

Vault of Knowledge got me really sad while seeing spirit’s memories but these two in particular just made me so so sad.

And others in that place, I really loved their backstories and how they all became friends even after losing important people.

They found light within each other and I think it’s so beautiful.

Found family trope never disappoints