Happy National Siblings Day! for April 10th, I'm posting something a bit different than my usual daily flowey art. I'll be talking a bit about Flowey's character and comparing the nuances of his character with my personal experiences.
talk of PTSD and sibling death ahead:
Day 28 | I see you
Before I dive into the meat and potatoes of his grief I just want to add how I view flowey in terms of how he Feels Emotions because I forgot that not everyone is on the same page:
-him lacking a soul to feel compassion or most of his own feelings (besides anger and fear) feels very representative of how the brain will protect itsself after experiencing extreme stress situations like the shit he went through… There will be a wall that feels impenetrable between you and your emotions and it takes sooo much to find your way over that wall. and when you get over it its just one time and you wont really remember how to get back over that wall. yeah.. It gets a little easier each time at least.. And people who love you can help make it easier too ❤️
-him being immortal but getting reincarnated before reaching adulthood… feels very representative of how PTSD works on the brain and how ultimately it will just take Much longer before your brain can fully mature.. He needs some more time to live! Him further traumatizing himself by going through constant resets is not living!!
Ok. Now lets start the post:
He just misses his best friend. He misses the only one that understands him. He just wants to talk to them one more time. He doesn't understand why hes alive or why he was left behind. It's a weird feeling to be alive and be forced to live through so many years without that once-familiar company. The longer you go on without them, the harder memories with them are to recall. You start to fixate on a set few that you feel are most important, and soon it becomes your mantra. It starts getting harder to recall what their face looks like, but you remember when you look in a mirror. (I talked about this before on my sideblog too)
It being almost 6 years now since my brother passed away, this has been the culmination of how I've felt throughout the years. Maybe it wasn't intentional of Toby Fox to have Floweys simple smile resemble Charas smile, but I can't help but see it that way. You may not notice the similarities you have to your sibling at first, but once they pass on, those features really start to shine. In Floweys case, he didn't start to resemble chara until after losing them. It can certainly feel this way-- that the features just sort of appear out of nowhere. Parts of you that you ignored are now more apparant than ever.
Flowey/Asriel talking about how Chara is the only person that understands him is something I get more than anything. The sibling you lived and grew with would absolutely understand you more than anyone else... They know what your home life is like, what you get for dinner, secrets you dont tell anyone... Regardless of how close you feel with your sibling, they know you better than anyone else.
Losing someone that you have this kind of relationship with can very easily cause your whole world to fall apart in front of you, and you're left to pick up the pieces. It's usually preferred that you have others in your life to help you with this process, but if you don't... It could be hard to heal. Not only that, but it could be easier to hurt a lot more than you should in the grieving process.
Isolated and alone, there isn't much to do besides hope for something better than this. Mom or Dad couldn't fix me, so maybe... maybe They can. They'll come back for me. They know I can't live without them, right?
For some time, I wanted to believe this. It was so scary being in a world without my sibling. Hes the one that protected me from those that hurt us, and with him gone, I'd be vulnerable. For many months, I'd have the same dream, night after night...
They show up in your dreams, telling you that they're alright. They're not dead! It was just a lie someone made up. You feel their warm embrace. And then, you wake up. For a second, you still believe that its true--They really didn't die. But, then... You lie there in bed for just a bit longer. You realize the truth. You realize you have to live through today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, next decade, and next century without them from now on. You get up.
For Flowey's case, he never fully made peace with Chara's passing until Frisk comes along. He needed someone to pull him out of the constant trauma he was inflicting upon himself (his power to reset) and ... a bit of kindness and patience... to finally move forward. To finally get to live life again, day by day.
Before Frisk, however, all he had was himself. With his best friend seemingly not coming back, and his family unable to help him ...
He simply can't continue. If it wasn't for the fact that he came back to life by being combined with concentrations of Determination, the grief he felt upon being left behind would've caused him to be gone again for good. It makes so much sense to me that his parents couldn't help him in this state. They don't understand how different the grief of losing a sibling is from losing a child. Both hurt deeply and last a lifetime, but the loss of a sibling is a loss of someone who you've known your whole life. its the loss of someone who was growing up with you.
So, of course, since he found out he can't die AND that he can reset the timeline whenever he wants to... He decided to start playing god to cope. He can't have his body, soul, or best friend, so... this is his compromise for some sort of control. As the years DONT go by, and he continues to reset the timeline for the fun of it, he only continues to get worse... And theres no one there to help him. Of course someone does come around to finally help him, but its been so many years already. It's horrible he had to wait so long to finally move on and live again.
Cuz of this, I like to think frisk remains his friend and he starts to find himself again after everything that happened. He needs gentle people in his life to let him heal however he needs to. And, I feel out of everyone, he could only ever talk about the trauma he went through to frisk... No one else would understand. Like literally. they'd go "What the fuck are you Talking about". except maybe sans. But it wouldn't be a good idea to open up to sans about that kind of trauma 9_9;
Frisk may not be able to fully understand (If we are going off the premise that Chara is aware of all the Resets and Not Frisk) but Flowey doesn't need someone to fully understand...just someone to talk to and have a shoulder to lean on.
Okay I'm done speaking my stuff heres art I made last September with a cool background I drew up recently on it:
This drawing is rather personal to me because this drawings actually a memory I have of me and my brother in the last years we shared where we Didn't have to worry about us being hurt anymore. We were playing each others favorite games at the time.
I decided to post this on this day because:
A. April 10th is National Siblings Day!
B. the day after today, April 11th, is the day my brother died. Once a year, I like to do something cathartic for myself. Whether I'm just getting bottled up feelings out of me or I'm letting myself understand where I am with my grief, I like to always try and do something like this to remember my brother. Hes the only one that could understand what I went through and how hard it was to get here.
C. In general, I feel its important to post this because I know personally how hard it is to write about things like this. There have been many times where I've tried writing or drawing about my PTSD and, even though I didn't even write the first word or draw the first line, All of my days energy would get zapped out of my system just thinking about it. Its been long enough now that I can write as much as this post and still feel okay! So if anyone out there reading this is in the same boat, just know that healing truly does take time. Sometimes it also takes a certain person, or a certain phrase. Be patient, take care of yourself, and appreciate the ones around you while theyre still here.
Sticking this here because I didn't have any reason to include this in the main post But the 9 year anniversary letter Asriel wrote about Chara really messed me up </3 for many reasons, but also because my brothers favorite number is also 9... ❤️🤝🌼
tfw when you're bored so you randomly listen to the song that reminds you the most of your brother because the title is his name so you would sing it as a kid just for fun because the title was his name and now he's been gone for 4 years 4 entire tyears can you believe it guys 4 whole years you knw how it is
