#my mother ends up being the one to become a tumblrina

[itstimeforstarwars]

My mother has a tumblr account now because she found a historical medicine blog she wanted to read, and tumblr has made it so you can't browse blogs without an account anymore. I now live in fear.

[ultraericthered]

Re: Lusamine Is The New Cyrus

So there’s this one triggered Tumblrina whose response to my post was to go “bawww, you’re comparing a child abuser with an abused child, that’s disgusting!!!!” And I just.....huh?

1.I love Cyrus as character/antagonist, and I love Lusamine as a character/antagonist too. I compared the two villains based on the way in which they were handled in their debut games, how the majority of players seemed to interpret their characters based on that handling, and how the games’ third versions handled them different in order to clarify the misinterpretations. How the fuck do you pull “comparing a child abuser to an abused child” from that? Oh right, because Lusamine was even involved, and she can only ever be defined by her abusive parenting. That’s her whole character, just a one-dimensional, cardboard cutout of an evil child abuser! How is it that “BUT CHILD ABUSE!” is such a knee-jerk response to seeing or reading anything about Lusamine, even things that do not so much as mention her abusive parenting? I could just as easily use “BUT UNIVERSAL OMINCIDE!” for anything having to do with Cyrus. But I don’t, ‘cause I understand that characters are more than just their deeds.

2 Cyrus is a fucking 27 year old man. He’s not “an abused child” at the point in his life where he was leading Team Galactic and was the villain of the Gen IV games, and having been abused as a child doesn’t detract from his sins or absolve him of responsibility for his actions. It’s the same thing with Guzma. Guzma’s a 20-something year old man who’d have no problem with beating up children if he felt the need to, thinks nothing of Pokemon abuse (even though he doesn’t partake in it himself), and threatens the grunts on his team with physical violence to the point where they hide from him because they’re afraid of invoking his wrath. Yet people downplay his sins and act as if all his actions are excused because he was abused as a child by his awful father. (And I know it’s not like Guzma doesn’t care about the people on his team - he does. But he often took them for granted and saw a need to keep them in line through intimidation because he didn’t grasp the depths of the loyalty and familial love they had for him, making the “scary, physically violent tough guy” front and approach to leading them needless. The revised ending in USUM demonstrates this beautifully in the scene where we see him disband Team Skull, expecting all the grunts to leave him and go their separate ways, but they all show him that they’ll continue to follow him anyway, even if no longer as Team Skull, because they all like, respect, and appreciate him and the family he’s kept together more than he’d realized, which moves him to tears.) I have to wonder if we’d learned that Lusamine was abused in some way by her father and/or mother as a child, people would start going easier on her despite her still being a scummy person as an adult.

3. At least one version of Cyrus was a child abuser. In the manga Diamond and Pearl Adventure, Cyrus raised a little orphan girl named Mitsumi (though he was apparently old enough to be her big brother when he started doing so) and he conditioned her into becoming a cold, merciless, immoral, apathetic fighting machine of a person who’d live only to battle, and who’d only battle to win and crush her opponents, all so that she be could used like a living weapon by him for Team Galactic. He taught her that friendship was an illusion and that she was all alone in the world - no one would ever help her, so she needed to take what she needed, beliefs based in his own jaded worldview. This isn’t that far part from Ghetsis and N levels of sick and wrong abusive parenting/guardianship of a child, and Cyrus went through with this despite having been abused as a child himself (possibly - that backstory never comes up in this manga). Yet despite this, Cyrus still finds redemption here, and gets the support and forgiveness of his victim, especially after he tells he that he’s let her go and that she doesn’t have to be loyal to him and Team Galactic anymore - she’s free to live her own life and make her own decisions to shape her own destiny. This is similar to the outcome for Lusamine and her two kids in USUM. So within the Pokemon franchise, child abuse is unquestionably a horrible sin, but it’s also a horrible sin that one can come back from if they choose to make that effort. (Ghetsis chooses to stay unrepentant for his abuse of N and all the other vile stuff he’s done, refusing to ever consider a perspective and view in which he’d done wrong and was thus something less than perfect, and that’s what puts him far beyond redemption. DPA Cyrus and USUM Lusamine aren’t like that, making them redeemable.)

I get that the “Dolores Umbridge effect” applies for Lusamine. I really, really do. She’s unquestionably a child abuser, was written as a chillingly believable, realistic child abuser, and so her brand of villainy hits a lot closer to home than other Pokemon villains. I can’t count all the times I’ve read “Lusamine reminds me of my own mother” as a reason given for hating her. But idiots like this who cannot stand for characters who are canonically abusive being analyzed or talked about in any capacity in which the abuse isn’t THE focal point to be used to hate on the character and espouse willing denial that they have any redeeming features, and who deem any and all fans of the character as being “apologists” (Use that word by it’s right definition, dumbass. And also learn what “dysfunctional” means before you use more unfitting words like “abuse” and :abusive” in relation to Anime!Lusamine) really need some help in the areas of objectivity and maturity, as opposed to letting their emotional biases cloud their sense of understanding and rationality. If they even have such a thing, that is.

[ser-yolomere-of-swagalore]

Man, I’m honestly so exhausted with all of this family-related drama. It’s gone well past the point where it was a “look at how fucked up my family is isn’t in wild” point of conversation and has just turned into something genuinely exhausting, and yes, people are most likely sick of me moaning and complaining about it, but I’m honestly just so tired. This whole crap with my sister-- helping look after her kid, putting up with her abuse, seeing the effect it has on my brother and my mam-- has just gotten so out of hand so long and drawn out and ridiculous that I really just don’t want anything to do with it any more. I love Liah, I really do. I’ve helped raise her for over a year and in that time I’ve learned how rewarding it can be to help raise kids, and it’s made me realize that I definitely do want kids one day, but this responsibility and the drama that comes along with it was something I never asked for. I took it up out of sheer necessity. My mother is 51 years old, with a bad back and a heel spur, and she just doesn’t have the energy to look after a growing, five-year-old girl any more, and so I’ve left to do a lot of what a traditional parent does. I get up with her in the mornings my mum doesn’t have to be up already, I get her ready, I bring her to school, I pick her up, I entertain her while mum is working, feed her, dress her, put her to bed, read her bedtime stories, do her homework with her... the list goes on. And like I said, it’s not like these are the parts that I resent; Liah is so loving and such a funny little kid, and I love her so damn much. These are valuable, bonding experiences that I have with her and every time she tells me she loves me or any time she laughs whenever we’re playing our games or we share one of our little jokes is so lovely that it does make it all feel as though it’s all worthwhile. But, the perpetual, constant effort and the time and the energy that doing stuff like this takes on top of knowing that the whole reason I’m even doing this is because my sister just isn’t capable and to a large part unwilling to is making me increasingly bitter and angry. Then we have the periodic battles with Sean over custody and access, the stuff that my sister does all of the time seeking attention or otherwise just doing what she wants to do without regard to the consequences or other people’s feelings, seeing my mam getting so stressed out and anxious as much as I am, seeing the lies and the horrible things that my sister has said affecting my brother, the anxieties that I have over my own future, over Liah’s future, the impacts it has on my mam’s health... it’s just so enraging. To think that my sister can so casually, so effortless relinquish the responsibility of raising the child she gave birth to, but then turn around and claim me and my mam are X, Y, and Z, cause more drama and more worry and more anxiety, just because she misses her and has decided she wants to be a half-decent mother for five minutes.  I remember when I last met with my aunt and uncle from the states (two of my absolute favourite people in the world, and people who I should try and keep in contact with more) and we were in Brother Hubbards in town, and I talked to them a little bit about what was going on with my sister, the pressure I felt like I was under, and they were so wonderful and understanding. They’ve always been incredibly supportive and encouraging (they see potential in me somewhere, I suppose, or perhaps they just feel sorry for me knowing what’s going on-- god that sounds pathetic) and when I gave them all the details they said that my sister was a vortex, and that I was getting slowly dragged into what she was doing to herself. If I didn’t pull myself out of it I’d end up trapped in it indefinitely, but what does pulling myself out of it even mean? Leaving my mam here alone to deal with all of this? Leaving Liah when she’s already so attached to me and end up hurting the both of us, but perhaps her moreso because she’s already lost her dad and her mam? I don’t want to do that. I don’t think I’d be able to happy knowing that I’ve just jumped so much responsibility and left it all with my mam, and knowing that Liah would miss me. And besides, how am I supposed to get out anyway? That kind of idea requires mobility, which requires money, not something I have a whole lot of. Hopefully, when I do get a job (THAT I WAS SUPPOSED TO GET TWO MONTHS AGO HELLO COSTA???) I’ll be able to save up and maybe just get an apartment somewhere? Maybe that would be enough to erect some very much needed distance? Or would I just get dragged into it no matter how far I go? I honestly don’t know at this stage, and don’t know if I’ll even be able to do that if the opportunity does come around.  I mean, I’m sitting at home with Liah, watching Tangled with her, and as much as I’m trying to put on a happy and funny face for her, I’m also waiting for the guards to come because Sean decided that he wasn’t going to pick Liah up like he was supposed to last weekend and moved it to this weekend instead, even though the court order says it’s only every two weeks. He came, I had to argue with him at the door, he said that we breaking a court order for the third time(???) and then went to my aunt Mandy’s, because my sister, on the phone, told him that’s where she often brings her when she’s in work, then he gave Mandy shit when she’s nothing to do with this, said he was bringing the guards to her house too, then my mam got a call off the guards... etc., etc. So right now I don’t know if he’s going to turn up still, with the guards and my loud, unpredicated, batshit insane sister and demand to see her. I’m here, on my own, with Liah, trying to keep her entertained and pay attention to her cute little commentaries on Rapunzel's hair or respond to her silly little faces, but in reality I’m anxious as fuck worrying about what I’m going to do should that happen.  I never asked for any of this. I never did anything in all of this to warrant this. I wasn’t the one who had a child and got with a man who turned out to be a domineering, imperious asshat with the emotional intelligence of a laminated sheet who decided, all of a sudden, that he was Liah’s father. I should be working and saving up for my master’s degree and planning my future rather than rushing home to look after my niece and entertain her. I should be texting friends on my days off and asking if they’re free for a few pints or if they want to head out somewhere and hangout. Instead, I’m sitting here with my niece on my lap, looking out the window like a paranoid schizophrenic every time a car goes by thinking it’s either Sean and the guards and planning about what I’m going to say or do-- I can only imagine what my neighbours think every time I peek my goofy looking head out the window to check if it’s him. I’m incredibly anxious, feeling almost as though I’m on the verge of an anxiety attack (I probably sound like a right Tumblrina atm but that is something I’ve actually started having since all this started), and even when there’s nothing immediately wrong there are still these underlying issues and worries-- how long is this going to go on? Am I even doing a good job doing what I’m doing or am I only making things worse? Is this what my whole life is going to revolve around now? Liah is only 5, how long am I going to have to be an informal parent / steward / guardian for her? Until she’s 18? What impact is that going to have on my future? Despite being unemployed I feel as though I have so little time to myself any more. I can’t really read uninterrupted because I feel guilty about just plopping Liah in front of a television screen for two long and not interacting with her, and the same applies to playing games or even just hanging around on the internet for too long.  And people are probably wondering; well, why not just let Sean look after Liah? He’s clearly quite willing to considering he’s going through so much trouble himself to even just get access. And the truth is that we’re uncomfortable with Sean. Beside me and my mam’s own personal distaste for his character (he’s, as I said, imperious, demanding, condescending, disdainful, etc.) he’s also got a weird personal history that we feel is pretty suspect. I mean, the guy has sort of casually slipped into a number of family’s lives and taken on a very, well, “affectionate” attitude towards these people’s kids. I think he seems himself as a form of surrogate father for these people’s kids, and that makes me... uncomfortable. Why does he feel the need to become so close to these kids? He’s done so against the wishes of at least one family, as people have cut off contact with him for telling them how to raise their kids when he’s not even related to them and their parents are doing a perfectly fine job. Then there’s the duplicity, the willingness to listen to Michelle’s bullshit when he probably knows full well that she’s spouting lies because it provides an excellent starting point for legal invectives in court, the fact that he insists on Liah calling him Daddy when we’ve already expressed we’re uncomfortable with that, the fact that he sent messages to Liah’s father’s biological family implicating that Michelle attacked his mother... it’s just a whole load of bullshit, and we’re not happy with it. But, unfortunately, the courts ruled that he’s entitled to loco parentis because, when Michelle got involved with him, he spent enough time around Liah to be entitled to it. Now, the judge the last time we were in court said that we it up to him and had he been there at the ruling where he had been given it, he wouldn’t have given it at all, but unfortunately due to either a case of the judge’s oversight or simply because it appeared at the time that he was a good man worthy of it, he was awarded it. So that’s what we have to deal with. His constant butting into our lives because he was awarded loco parentis and visitation rights. Plus, Liah does love him. Misguidedly so, but she’s five, you obviously can’t blame her for that. And it’s painful to think about how heartbroken she would be were it a case she wouldn’t see him again-- although we do believe it’d be better in the long run. 

So that’s really it at the moment, anyway. I’m so fed up but I don’t know what to do.