Is This What You Want?? You Sickos???

God I absolutely love your analysis on Sasha, it’s perfectly in character while also bringing in more complexities and details that fit justtt right and it’s just so good. I love seeing people digging into his backstory bc although his memory vault was played off as a joke it’s? Pretty peculiar? And it makes you wonder what happened afterwards too- there’s so many questions left unanswered with so much potential there. Also your work is stunning! I love your use of color and shading, it makes your work so beautiful while also making the emotions feel so vivid and lively in your pieces, you also nail the expressions! I love the lineless painting look as well, it adds a unique flare! Keep up the good work :)

Thank you...!! I've been thinking about sasha passively for years and it was about time he came around to be the focus of my attention again... overall this is the magical beauty of characters who are a bit two dimensional in their source material. If they're interesting enough as a concept, you can sorta run with it and do whatever you want. Not always, but sometimes. And he's always been fascinating to me.

Regarding what happened directly after he ran away from home, the youth welfare offices (Jugendämter) of the time we're essentially in charge of where homeless youth went after being found; this was a pretty big problem following WWII due to many children being left parentless + DPs + the massive wave of expellees coming in who got separated from their parents.

Here's a general overview of the youth welfare system from a paper published in 1948 ((3) on page 43 aligns, essentially, with the concept of the Kinderheim) (x):

It should be said that even though this article describes some criticisms of the youth welfare setup at the time, overall it's quite rose-tinted in regards to how thing actually were in institutions. These places were not known for being good to the kids there. Physical/sexual/emotional abuse were extremely common, so common in fact that Germany recently held a roundtable to seek reparations for people who grew up in one due to many of them now being incredibly disabled due to what they went through (x) (x). From first link:

I don't really think he'd end up in a facility with "correctional" education, what I've noticed in my reading is that children condemned to those places were a little ODD/stereotypical juvenile delinquent and I don't think that sasha has ever really possessed the disposition to act like that... not that kids who act like this deserve to be put in horrible institutions but I'm pretty sure that goes without saying. The condition in these institutions were markedly worse than general Kinderheime (somehow), sometimes neglecting to offer basic educational services to their charges. (x)

If anything, I think he'd ask for placement himself... I've always pictured him as someone who would've been pretty respectful and obedient as a kid (neglected child not wanting to cause issues), so it kind of makes sense that he'd go by the books so to speak... find the office himself, wouldn't really steal, etc. I don't really think he'd enjoy living on the streets at ALL... the vagrant Halbstarke lifestyle is absolutely not for him. there would've been no community or sense of belonging, for him, to be found in this subculture... interesting book detailing this called Constructing and Controlling Youth in Munich by Martin Kalb btw. Check it out if you so will.

Considering that I've placed his childhood in Bavaria, a historically catholic state, it's likely that the kinderheim he would've ended up in was of Catholic denomination... HUGE amount of Kinderheime were Catholic. Don't have precise percentages but you can peruse a registry here that lists the religious denomination of every Kinderheim in Bavaria ("kath." or "ev."; on p. 78 and onward) at the time it was compiled (1948) which is a few years before I think Sasha would've ended up in one.

There's also this:

“Charitable and evangelical educational homes“ (Catholic vs. Evangelical facilities organized by year, column contents are “Heime Plätze/Betten”; home places/beds, and “Mitarbeiter”; # of staff) (x)

Some of these institutions didn't allow the children to go to school, but that wasn't very common (x). Sometimes the education was either built directly into the institution and was heavily understaffed. As an example:

Station spokesman: From a letter from the Evangelical Lutheran Deanery in Regensburg to the National Association for Inner Mission in January 1950

"There are currently 75 children in the Castle Windsor children's home, including 70 school-age children. These 70 children are still being taught by just one teacher in the elementary school connected to the home. Such a mismatch places a disproportionately high strain on the teacher, who has to teach in two sections, morning and afternoon. Despite this, the children in the middle and upper grades receive too little instruction. Each department only has 3-4 hours of instruction per day. " (deu)

I should reiterate that Bavaria is extremely catholic and loved beating children. In fact, when corporal punishment at elementary schools was banned in 1946, Bavarian parents were outraged because what if they wanted teachers to beat their children. Did you ever think of that? And then when they overturned the ban a year later 61% of the population was glad about it. Just to give you some historical context. And also to help you think about sasha's Volksschule experiences. I don't think he would've been doing anything egregious to solicit physical abuse (e.g., being disrespectful toward teachers or not paying attention/never doing his work), but I do think the absolutely was the "weird" kid who had visible tics and was harassed a lot by his classmates so it's possible they would've set something up to facilitate this happening. Not picturing this as a common occurrence.

Additionally, most children had to perform some form of manual labor for (essentially) free, since these institutions were so egregiously underfunded that the Kinderheime would just loan them as farmhands/quarry workers/etc., often even before the age of 14, though this point is not quite relevant to Sasha because I think he was ~15 when he ran away. (x)

One other potential outcome for Sasha is that he could've ended up in an apprentice home (Lehrlingsheim), but sources on these places are quite difficult to find... the main information I saw was that "In the state of Bavaria there are 66 homes for uprooted youth, which are mainly apprentice homes" (x). This article (from 1949) like the first one I sourced reiterates the "vagrant youth" placement system (might as well share link of relevant passages plugged into a translator for those curious). Looking at the first sourced document it seems they were mostly for older children (16+). Can't imagine the circumstances would've been much better here than a Kinderheim, but if anyone has information about these I'd love to see.

I could continue to go on but I won't because this is already quite long, but before I go I want to share this transcription from the US Senate committee on foreign relations in 1950 because... I enjoyed reading it I thought it was interesting and I want to share. sue me!

(source)

It's quite hard to find sources on this in english, but here's several articles for you to peruse with google translate. I looked at countless more but those are kind of lost to the ether of my web history + these are the only ones I saved. Easy enough to find if you key in some combination of "kinderheim 1950er nachkriegszeit" and jump around.

https://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/inhalt.kinderheime-in-der-nachkriegszeit-pruegel-bis-die-seele-bricht.c3d5ed02-68bf-42e3-a6a1-84bb7b586e14.html

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.waz.de%2Fstaedte%2Fessen%2Ffrueheres-heimkind-dort-hat-man-uns-die-jugend-geraubt-id214824101.html%3Fservice%3Damp

https://www.br.de/radio/bayern2/sendungen/zeit-fuer-bayern/bayerische-heimkinder-nachkriegszeit-100.html

https://amp.focus.de/familie/erziehung/albtraum-kinderverschickung-wie-kinder-in-erholungsheimen-gequaelt-wurden_id_11460755.html

https://amp.dw.com/de/das-verdr%C3%A4ngte-leid/a-6323736

https://www.wkgo.de/cms/article/print/164

https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article5239904/Die-Gewaltherrschaft-in-deutschen-Kinderheimen.html

https://www.welt.de/welt_print/article2795104/Die-unbarmherzigen-Erzieher-der-Nachkriegszeit.html

https://www.evangelisch.de/inhalte/150261/25-06-2018/die-evangelische-kirche-ekhn-hat-die-geschichte-der-heimkinder-der-nachkriegszeit-aufgearbeitet

‘By looking far out into space, we are also looking far back into time, back toward the horizon of the universe.’ - Siebren De Kuiper

Can we appreciate how Bumi and Kya went to find comfort at their father's statue in the Southern Air Temple after having an argument with their brother.

We found Bumi first, talking to their father's statue and how he got so emotional, how much his father meant to him and how much he wanted to make him proud.

and somehow Kya was there, in the same place, either she was looking for her brother or wanted to take a look at their father's statue too. And after hearing Bumi's emotional speech, she reassured him that Aang was eventually proud of him, of them. Both being there in the Southern Air Temple, taking this trip with their brother, being around their father's statue and talking alot about him, proves how much they miss him, this loss wasn't easy for their mother but also for them.

Also, I have to point out how Aang is a role model to his sons, Aang had spent his whole life, keeping the world safe. Bumi and Tenzin have been following his steps in every way they can, they both became leaders, they both wanted to make their father proud by protecting the world, both Bumi and Tenzin want to be a man like their father, a man they are both proud of and admired. Plus, their father would want them to follow their own path.

meanwhile Kya has been following both of her parents' steps, she had been travelling around the world like them and being one of the greatest healers the world has been gifted just like her mother.

These episodes, Civil Wars from the Legend of Korra, we have explored Bumi, Kya and Tenzin's childhood and seen their anger towards each other, their sadness, the jealousy and expressing how their childhood wasn't easy since their loving father was busy protecting a world and rebuilding a nation, what they've been feeling, are signs of grief, they are still coping of their father's death. But at the end of the day, they are still a loving and happy family.

The three of them are proud, continuing their parent's legacy, and have immense love for them, even though their father is gone, it won't stop them of making him proud.

felicia telling irving the only time she ever saw burt scared was when he spent two hours fixing his hair before going to see him,,,,,, irving drawing burt over and over between the times he could see him,,,,,, felicia hugging irving the second she saw him, having lunch with him and telling him stories,,,,,,, irving's getting the "widow that's still loved by the family" treatment by o&d as he rightfully deserved

I don't want to be cringe, but I just had a vision that Bruno in a modern version of Encanto would upload his rat soap operas to youtube with titles like "RAT_WEDDING.mp4" (because he's an old man who doesn't know much about Youtube) and they would blow up in the ARG world because people would be convinced that there was some secret underlying message or code, especially once they realized that he was totally filming this in someone's walls. The only person who gets it is Dolores, whom the videos are intended for.

like the thing that i think a lot of ppl gloss over is that a large majority of the talon aligned heroes have little to no interest in the actual ‘goals’ of the organization (to the point where we still don’t entirely know what talon wants or why they exist, lmfao) so much as it just being a means to an end. like we can all conceptualize that sombra is pretty much just there because it gives her access to more resources she can use towards her own goals, moira is there for research opportunities and funding that she’d never get elsewhere due to the nature of her work, i can only imagine that ramattra’s alliance with talon (and thus null sector’s as a whole) is purely situational because it provides advantages he considers useful, reaper is pretty much just there because they’re against overwatch therefore he can use it as an avenue for his revenge, even doomfist doesn’t really seem to hold as much stock in talon as an organization as he does use his position as a tool to achieve his goals, if it stopped being useful he would likely just walk away.

in opposition to the overwatch aligned heroes who all seem to be coming together solely for the sake of this like, ideal of Overwatch as a concept being this paradigm of good and justice and doing what’s right, and rallying behind their faith in the organization and what it symbolizes… i genuinely don’t think any of the talon operatives really care all that much about talon at all. it’s just a job. like, sure, we’re doing cartoon supervillain shit, but the pay is decent and we’ve got benefits and i can continue to do my own thing on the side, no questions asked. it’s honestly a pretty sweet deal.

all of that to say i really don’t see why people seem so averse to the idea of sigma having that same mindset. like yeah, he’s not exactly thrilled to be using his research and abilities to assist in acts of violent terrorism, but does he have many other options? he says it himself in that interaction with baptiste, talon gives him everything he needs - funding, resources, something to fall back on after being in total isolation for decades and coming out with absolutely nothing. it’s a guaranteed safety net — so long as he’s with talon, there’s absolutely no chance of anyone dragging him off or locking him up again, and so long as he contributes when he’s needed, he’s free to pursue his research to his heart’s content. does he regret it? sure, sometimes. i think they all do. i doubt there’s a single talon-aligned hero who genuinely believes what they’re doing is genuinely morally correct and sound. but ultimately in his mind he didn’t have many options left, so he had to settle for something he knew would at least guarantee his safety and continued freedom. it doesn’t really mean he’s being manipulated or held against his will any moreso than most of the other talon heroes, imho. he’s not proud of it, but hey, it pays the bills.

i feel like he regards it with a similar level of resentment/annoyance as i felt towards my horrible soul sucking corporate retail job of several years - like don’t get me wrong, the company i worked for absolutely sucked and i HATED how they operated, policy was bullshit and so much of it was unnecessary and needlessly counterproductive. but i also really connected with my coworkers in the same situation AND i got to get paid to do stuff i already would have been doing on my own anyway, and ultimately the experience i got and connections i made were really helpful in pursuing what i actually wanted to be doing with my life. it’s like if your shitty day job required you to kill people but they also like, got you hooked up with a place to live and a healthcare provider and all that shit and paid for all of your living expenses no questions asked AND gave you a decent budget to screw around with so long as every now and then you showed them what you were making and maybe used it to kill people more efficiently sometimes. i wouldn’t exactly feel any amount of loyalty to the company paying me but i wouldn’t exactly be in a hurry to quit either

so gemma was orpheus all along. when she looked back, called mark’s name, and asked him to come home.. innie mark realized he had no feelings for this woman. if she had stayed facing forward maybe the allegiance to his outie would have won out. but gemma turning around made him hesitate long enough for helly to appear. and when she called his name.. it was game over. eurydice embraced the underworld with open arms.

horrortale comic I did month ago

frank, how did you readjust to the world after being freed of the well? that must’ve been really hard on you

< I was a child. >

< And then suddenly. I realized I was old. The house was mine. >

< They took pictures of me. Talked to me a lot. >

< Everyone spoke to me like I was still a child. But they also pushed me to make adult decisions. >

< Rose. >

< Rose handled everything. It would have been. Worse. Without her. >

A piece I commissioned from the insanely talented conversationparade (who is still open for commisions, check her out!).

Solaire and my Chosen Undead hanging around near a bonfire, talking about jolly co-operation, the Sun and killing things, probably.