12/30/2024

ACK

Okay admittedly. I got distracted by gaming 😭. I've been playing this visual novel fangame I have like 53 hours in it. It's not even finished bruh the game isn't even halfway done.

Anyway. Hi! Merry Chrimmas 😁😁😁 Long ass comic time.

This one in particular needs a TW 😭😭 for. Suicide discussion/ideation. Um. Yeah. I promise they're not all like this, just this one.

This takes place sometime post ep10!!!

😭 Okay. Thought process/rationale.

Dawg I've been thinking abt this comic since THE BEGINNING OF THIS OI PHASE BRUH anyway I was thinking that like. Post ep10 Ph's mental health might not be Very Good. Even putting the Oreo betrayal + his strained relations with PC aside (although those are Major Factors), a lot of things happened (okay it's nore like 2 or 3) that I feel would affect him personally.

AKA it's 'Kit nitpicks every detail in this goddamn show for an inch of characterization' time

First and foremost WHO BROUGHT A BOMB INSIDE THE HOTEL THAT'S SO ILLEGAL. Idfk what strings WiiU pulled to nullify the legal consequences but nevermind that for now. This point actually isn't that important but I thought about it and I went "wait a goddamn minute". So yknow adding that onto his baseline stress levels of having his 2 closest friendships ruined.

What's MORE important is that during the elimination when Ph accuses Watermelon and Gumball of cheating, Watermelon says verbatim "well actually there were no rules"

So not only does she basically admit she was part of it, but she's saying this to POLICE HAT, the same person who freaked the fuck out when WiiU said there were no challenge rules in ep7. I honestly think Ph hates that phrase with every fiber of his being. """""no rules""""" doesn't justify unethical and dishonest behavior in his eyes and that's partially why he's such a stickler for HAVING rules in the first place, so people can't just PULL THAT SHIT OUT OF THEIR ASS AND SAY IT'S OKAY 😭😭😭

She even 'well actually'd him. The fucking disrespect 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

So now he's stressed AND mad as fuck. But let's keep going.

Fire Axe, who he knows by now is completely innocent and only wanted to help him/PC, gets eliminated! And he voted for it! And considering his line of work which revolves around protecting the innocent/catching bad guys (conceptually. I'm not touching the beehive that is the police institution irl.), I feel that wrongfully accusing someone who literally only wanted to help him and """"succeeding"""" was like. Idek how to describe it. For someone like Ph who's as passionate as he is abt what he does it probably felt like a fucking punch to the gut. Like mentally it's the same to him as arresting an innocent person. Which is. You know. Horrible and awful and it means he's a failure at what he does.

Even in the ep11 teaser with him and Pudding Cup, they're briefly talking abt Fire Axe and Ph says that yeah they're responsible for his elimination bc they voted for him. Contrast with PC who blames it on Oreo (😭). And yeah they were working with incomplete information, it's reasonable enough that they'd react like they did, but Ph still insists they're to blame.

And then obviously u have the Oreo betrayal reveal. I can make this even more fucked up if you consider Ph might've went behind WiiU's back to access the security cameras. Recall that contestants weren't allowed to watch the show. I ASSUME that rule applies to any recorded footage.

I am thinking. If he thinks it was worth it to know the truth or not. He already suspected Watermelon or Gumball, but didn't call out Oreo at the time, despite knowing Oreo was allied with them. Was it worth it to break the rules. Was it worth All of the hurt. Honestly I think he would rather know than not but he's Far from happy about it.

So at this point A Lot of shit has happened and changed, and he's stressed and pissed and hurt and guilty, but he's trying to repress all of it because god forbid he has another outburst (and also for the sake of his and PC's plan the worst he's allowing himself is giving Oreo the cold shoulder)(also x2 who tf would he confide in with anyway. Oreo betrayed him. PC doesn't like him. Like who else is there). And all of it builds up and eventually he cracks and spirals. Hence the comic.

Since it's not a chronic thing it's fairly easy for PC to talk him down from it (also I only have so much attention span), and it collapses into him being So Fucking Tired of this.

Ph's mentality is the main thing I wanted to talk abt here but it's interesting thinking abt all this from PC's perspective too and how she and Ph handle things differently. She has a lot more outwardly directed anger but her hurt is also likewise buried underneath so she can at least Pretend she doesn't feel it 💀💀💀

To me her coping mechanism is kinda like "idc about this" (Very Prevalent in NC AU). Idk where that hc comes from actually. Extrapolated from ep9 maybe? A derivative of her sarcasm? While this does generally make her more stable than Ph, it's still repression lmfao

But also like her ass obviously Cares About It and about Oreo and Ph. But both of them have wronged her and feelings are complicated so. Into the repression it goes.

......It's almost 6am and I haven't slept yet cut me some slack 😭🙏

Oh also there was an incorrect quote that I thought went well with this comic so here it is

😭 okay. I'm going to bed. Goodbye!