feotakahari: (Default)
It took a long time for me to figure out why Hannah’s mother sucks so much, because Hannah herself can’t think objectively about it. It’s too painful and too close.

Hannah’s mother is very concerned with doing the right thing as a parent. She will always try whatever should be reasonable and should solve the issue at hand. But children aren’t one-size-fits-all, and sometimes what should be the right thing backfires. It’s simply not possible to parent perfectly.

Hannah’s mother wants to solve whatever issues crop up, but this is secondary to her desire to reassure herself, Hannah, and anyone else around her that she made no mistakes. She will always emphasize that she did everything perfectly. Hannah interprets this as an assigning of blame, and since her mother isn’t to blame for whatever went wrong, Hannah herself must be. But her mother either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care how hurt Hannah feels to be “blamed.” She just sees it as Hannah continuing to act like she did something wrong, so she keeps insisting her choices were perfect, and keeps forgetting that there was originally a problem they were supposed to solve.

Hannah learns that if she brings up a problem to her mother, her mother will make her feel at fault and probably not even solve the problem. So she stops opening up. Hannah’s mother takes this as an accusation of error—why wouldn’t Hannah talk to her unless she made a mistake? So she hounds Hannah to talk to her, while insisting she didn’t do anything that merits not talking, and she can’t get it through her head that it’s beside the point who screwed up or didn’t screw up.
feotakahari: (Default)
I’m still not over Kevin Can Fuck Himself. I may never be over Kevin Can Fuck Himself. I’ve seen excerpts from more horrifying stuff like Lolita or the visual novel Euphoria, but this is the most vomit-in-my-soul thing I’ve watched a full episode of.

There’s a bit in the first episode where Allison thinks about how Kevin always told her she was a bad driver. She’s never been in an accident, but she listened whenever Kevin said she was doing the wrong thing, and now Kevin is the only one who drives the car.

I looked on TV Tropes to see how bad it was gonna get, and in a later episode, sitcom antics result in a dead pig in the backyard. From Kevin’s viewpoint, the pig is never actually shown, because it’s just a fun joke for him. Allison is the one who has to get rid of the overripe pig carcass. Kevin lives in a world where cleanup doesn’t exist, because he doesn’t have to think about it when he can just make Allison do everything for him.

There’s this neighbor character who’s . . . probably mentally disabled? It’s unclear what his deal is, but there’s a “joke” that his sister changed his diapers even though he’s three years older than her. He doesn’t seem to have any friends outside of Kevin’s social circle, and he’s desperate for Kevin’s approval, even if that means playing along with Kevin’s sick games. TV Tropes says a character later tells him that Kevin “laughs when you bleed.”

Kevin feels real to me in a way a lot of fictional villains don’t. You know how some people say “you’re not the protagonist of real life”? Kevin feels like a plausible way someone could be the protagonist of real life. All he had to do was surround himself with vulnerable people, sabotage any chance they had of getting away, and give them just enough scraps of affection to keep them hanging on.
feotakahari: (Default)
 "This message can't be sent to [REDACTED] because the recipient has chosen not to receive messages."

Hey!

Well, I
 might as well post it. 

I've been wondering what you would make of this story. It seems like this author is trying to invent you without knowing you exist? (And also go on weird rants about consciousness, but that's neither here nor there.)

https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781618248992/9781618248992___2.htm

Warning for all kinds of emotional manipulation and power-dynamic fuckery.

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