ليث ريحــــــان

unfortunately it isn't something i indulge in anymore, at least publicly, but even then i've been having too many traumatic flashbacks & intrusive thoughts lately for it to be enjoyable to me now lol. it was good for a while, but now it's not really something that makes me happy anymore.

the way i viewed them was complicated. i used to project the people who made me happy onto reigen, then it turned into projecting the people who hurt me after a specific incident in my life happened around 2 years ago & i had no idea how to handle it, so i went with what i was always taught to do because that's the only thing i've known for all my developing years. i guess it would be missing the feeling of being loved by someone older than me so i was clinging onto whatever. people call it "missing your abusers", but i don't think it sounds right. i didn't want them to love me at all, i just wanted them to pretend they did. that's why reigen is always distant, i think. i don't really know what i'm feeling most of the time so i have no idea if this is sincere or i'm just bullshitting lol

for where i got the idea of drawing these 2 together in the first place... it was the only scene where they interacted, the one where reigen was sitting on her bed. he spoke to her in a way that was too reminiscent of how adults would talk to me & treat me in the past & i was never sure how to react or feel about it 😕 it was both comforting & uncomfortable at the same time. i'm cursed with both mommy & daddy issues & it's embarrassingly obvious.

minori has a very different school life & personality from mine (and i'm also very far from being rich lol) but it didn't really stop me from projecting myself onto her. i could however still relate to some parts of her... i was (unintentionally) an asshole when i was a kid because i sucked at social cues & said whatever was in my head. i'd make offensive & weird jokes all the time too. nothing bigoted or anything like that unless it was towards myself. even now people online are always mad at the jokes i make for some reason. not to be all "heh i like dark humor & all of you are stupid snowflakes" but i'm gonna joke about everything bad in my life even if it's extremely distasteful because it's funny & i hate taking my problems seriously. i can't imagine all the discourse surrounding me if i were a fictional character. think of that cute pure innocent purple lady from the lgbt circus show. awful.

sorry this is getting all personal lmao i just don't know how to explain it without oversharing because all of it was 100% related to my personal life. i realized i prefer to express those complicated feelings through adult characters, mainly because i find adult bodies aesthetically pleasing & like looking at them, and i have trouble getting motivated whenever i draw children because i have little interest in that. even when drawing petite women who get mistaken for children, i feel like it's always obvious i'm drawing an adult who looks very young instead of drawing a kid. it's funny that everything related to underage characters interacting with adults or underage characters in questionable situations became too triggering for me now so i avoid it as much as possible, unless the child depicted is me because i don't care about seeing myself getting hurt

and i also distanced myself from all that because i hate to think about who i was as a child & wish i could self-inflict amnesia. no joke i actually googled how to do this before because i was desperate LMAO. the only thing that works for me is going to the bar to drink a g&t so i can waste my time yelling "I WANT AN OLDER WOMAN TO TAKE CARE OF ME & BREASTFEED MEEEEEEE" on the phone with my friends while walking on a busy boulevard. actually i didn't even drink alcohol when i yelled this in public i was completely sober