Lithospherio - Just Your Local Guy

my name's apollo justice and i'm having a familial crisis

Mental Health in Media - Lacey

The Lacey Games series is an interesting webseries, first presenting itself as a lost flash game upload, then presenting itself as a horror series, and finally showing its colors as a heartfelt piece about trauma.

*Heavy topics below, proceed with caution.*

Through mainly Lacey's Diner and Lacey's Petshop, it is shown that Lacey has suffered CSA and neglect from her uncle, starting at a young age. But this is found under a layer of 2000s-style flash games, presenting the perfect looking Lacey in a upbeat 2000s girl life. But of course, with this genre, the deeper you get into the game, the more the truth is revealed.

In other series following similar formats, this transition is used to amplify the feeling of the unexpected; taking something innocent and turning it into something horrific. But the Lacey Games series adds many more layers to this. You see, Lacey is an in-universe stand-in for the creator of the fictional games, Rocío Yani, who like Lacey, is a survivor of this trauma. In the cases of both Rocío and Lacey, they've already escaped their abusers. Lacey is a chef, a pet shop owner, and goes about her day to day life within these flash games. But despite escaping her physical situation, her past always leaks into the present. In Lacey's Petshop, she returns to the house she grew up in -- the house she was abused in. Just because she has escaped her abuse doesn't mean she's escaped her trauma or the ways that effects every other aspect of her life. And so, so many pieces of media don't recognize this.

Lacey also isn't the "perfect victim" that media likes to portray abuse survivors -- especially CSA survivors -- as. The whole climax of Lacey's Petshop is that she killed her uncle, her abuser. Not because she was actively trying to escape, but because he killed her dog. Lacey's Diner also implies that Lacey (and by extension, Rocío) deals with substance abuse, another thing that media discussion mental health loves to demonize. After she escapes her uncle, she still has these destructive habits, she still deals with self-h4rm and su1cidality. She wasn't just some innocent girl, she was a human being who had everything taken from her.

I believe the Lacey Games series can be powerful to people who have survived what Lacey has. Society and media recognize and accommodate victims until they break the mold of a "victim". Trauma doesn't go away with the situation, it persists throughout one's life and seeps into aspects that could otherwise seem normal. And the thing that makes this worse is the constant demonization of the "imperfect victim". We may not be killing our uncles or baking various health-violating items into food like Lacey does, but feeling like shit and going through shit doesn't make you a horrible person.

Thank you for reading. I wasn't quite sure how to end this, so I just did. If I got anything wrong, please make sure to tell me!

References below the cut:

Some info on long term affects of CSA

Ghosttundra's Channel

Sorry I had to use alternate letters for some words, I didn't want this getting overly flagged.

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