thecruellestmonth - Tumblr blog

[thecruellestmonth]

there are characters for whom “poor little meow meow” doesn’t quite cut it. To me he’s like a traumatized pit bull mix with a bite history and I’m the white girl with a savior complex trying to stop them from putting him down

[thecruellestmonth]

kingdom hearts

[thecruellestmonth]

yes, i want to see dick grayson get angry because he deserves to get angry and express that anger but also i think it's really cool and realistic that we always see him push it down.

dick lost his parents when he was 9 or 12, depending on the comic you read. there's a ton of research out there that shows that losing one of/both of your parents at a young age can cause abandonment issues. like, serious abandonment issues. sure, they didn't leave by choice, but it doesn't change the fact that the two most important people still left you alone. and yeah, he had bruce, but as much as bruce tried, he wasn't a parent.

so dick, realistically, would have abandonment issues. and there's also a lot of research that shows that sometimes- not all the time, but sometimes -people with grief-related abandonment issues are terrified of showing their anger because that means people might leave them. ya know, people pleasing. and this happened! several times! anytime we see dick get mad/make people mad, they treat him terribly. even if he was justified, even if it wasn't his fault (like bruce making his siblings think he was dead). dick is shown over and over that if he gets mad, the people he loves will treat him badly or leave him.

and i know comics aren't realistic, especially batfamily ones. not at all. but i think it's kind of cool that even if it's an accident, dick grayson forcing himself to push down his anger is really realistic for someone with grief-related abandonment issues and idk man it's sad and a tragedy and i eat it up when characters behave in ways that readers can trace back to their trauma

[thecruellestmonth]

The concept for this was entirely by @zippyyyyyyy after a convo we had about this post:

[thecruellestmonth]

Ok ignore Bruce being an asshole for a second let’s talk about “you’re not deliberately quoting pretty woman—are you?”. Much to be read into Jason jokingly likening himself to a sex worker who was picked up by a rich guy and taught to be “civilized”. Does he see himself that way? Does he think Bruce sees him that way? Scott Lobdell when I catch you…

[thecruellestmonth]

the government "checking in" on disabled people to make sure were still disabled is one of the most demeaning and humiliating things out there, how is there no checkbox that says "this persons disability is lifelong and incurable" why do you think people's amputated limbs will grow back, are you on the hunt for the return of jesus christ and your way of catching him is hoping that the blind will see again????

[thecruellestmonth]

[thecruellestmonth]

As a kid, when your parents are poor, you're poor. If they don't have money, that means none of you have money. But if someone's parents are rich, that doesn't necessarily mean the kid is. Sometimes rich peoples' kids aren't rich kids, they're just some rich freak's exotic pets that can talk but aren't allowed to.

[thecruellestmonth]

Therapy dog Cass is an abomination but Cass absolutely would be that friend who notices whenever someone's going through it and wants to do something to help. The issue being she's really bad at this so she just thinks of what always makes her happy and winds up shoving a chocolate ice cream cone in their face and blurting out, "hey, feel better. Okay?" in a way that sounds a lot more like a threat than a reassurance before quickly grappling away to avoid further awkwardness.

[thecruellestmonth]

i don't pay attention to the world ending. it has ended for me many times and began again in the morning.

― Nayyirah Waheed, Salt

[thecruellestmonth]

saw a poll about whether you prefer corruption or redemption arcs and i realized that for me it's not really either, it's a distillation arc: when a character becomes the most intense version of what they could be, everything inessential falling away or being discarded so that only the core remains.

[thecruellestmonth]

[thecruellestmonth]

I had drawn this before I saw @spiders-in-the-city 's art and I'm so glad there is a natural consensus on the kind of cat Jason would/should have.

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I love how often people on this site call random things which they disagree with but don't have any actual argument against either puritan or catholic, regardless of the subject in question's actual relevance to either puritanism or catholicism. it's like 17th century england in here

[thecruellestmonth]

A MASTERLIST OF THINGS YOU SHOULDN’T SAY TO EXPLAIN WHY BRUCE WAYNE BEING ABUSIVE IS OUT OF CHARACTER: MADE BY A PARENTAL ABUSE SURVIVOR.

“why would he adopt a child if he didn’t want to take care of them?” or anything related to adoption. saying that implies adoptive parents cannot be abusive, which is wrong on so many levels and invalidates real life abuse victims whose abusers were adoptive. a study once showed 18% of russian adopted children by american parents were murdered, and an even bigger number had been abused. there is also a case in which three children were abused in prestbury, cheshire by their adoptive parents. these cases and statistics, as well as many more, are all just one google search away. not to mention, bruce didn’t want children, he wanted sidekicks. there's a difference.

“he’s a loving father sometimes!” or anything related to him loving his children. i have talked about this before, most abusers do not know they are abusive. sometimes it’s all they know, after all abuse was (and still is) horribly normalized back in the day, so they may be somewhat normal parents 99% of the time even – but that 1% matters, it is traumatizing and scarring. especially for a child. it is also an abuse strategy, the one to be affectionate and loving just so the person stays for that reason, because the abuse is “worth” the good moments in their mind… and for already traumatized children longing for a parental figure? they’re very easy targets.

“he hates abusers!” or anything related to him having said he would never be an abuser or that he does not support abusers. as previously said, most abusers do not know they are abusive. that is especially valid for psychological or emotional abusers, but it may also go for physical abusers – because “if i hit my child just a few times, it’s not abuse” or “it’s discipline”. again, it may be how they were raised, and to them it is completely normal. but murdering a child or sending them to school crying and covered in bruises – that’s the more widely recognized as unacceptable type of abuse, which is the kind the oblivious abusers tend to be against. and they will excuse their actions because “this is not abuse, you are lucky you’re not being abused like those children”. and honestly if you think someone saying they wouldn’t do something is proof they wouldn’t actually do it, you must be very naive.

“when x happened, they were adults!” or anything implying adults cannot be abused by their parents. while parental abuse is different in children and in adults, it is still abuse nonetheless. if your parent hits you (and it isn’t out of self defence – and even then their reaction should be proportional to your offence), they are abusive. end of the story. your age is not a factor in deciding whether or not they are actually abusive. this invalidates all adult parental abuse victims, which are out there. they exist, and they are valid. said abuse can be both physical, as seen in this article, and psychological or emotional, as seen in this other article. usually, parents who were abusive in your childhood will likely keep being abusive even after you become an adult, as seen in this article too.

“it’s because of his trauma!” or anything related to his trauma or mental illness justifying his actions. i cannot stress this enough: trauma & mental illness as explanations, but not excuses. that is especially not the case if, after an episode – say perhaps a rage attack, there is no apology on their part. i suffer from tourette’s (which is not a mental illness, but a neurological disorder – but still) and that, for me, also causes me to get really angry for no reason at times, but if that happens then i will apologize if that ended up affecting anyone else. several abusers were victims of abuse themselves, or they have untreated trauma, or they have a mental illness: that does not mean what they do is right. it still hurts and affects other people, and it isn't right to simply let them off the hook because of their trauma. it isn't and never will be an excuse to traumatize somebody else.

“then why would the kids love and admire him? they aren’t stupid!” or anything related to his children loving & admiring him. first of all, someone admiring or loving their abuser does not make them stupid. secondly, several abuse victims do not know they are victims – similarly to how several abusers do not know they are abusers. this is especially the case in psychological and emotional abuse, but it may also be the case in physical abuse due to the extreme representation of it in the media, as previously explained in the previous points. not only that, but in many abuse strategies, being loving and caring is part of the cycle, and even abuse victims who are aware they are victims may end up believing the abuse is worth the good times, or that since they are usually so nice, then they deserve the abuse the times it does happen.

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what studying literature feels like

[thecruellestmonth]

excuse me what the fuck