#though how can he see himself clearly when so many perceptions of him have distorted his vision so? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

forasecondtherewedwon · 3 years

Text

À la Carter

Fandom: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Rating: T Word Count: 1572

Summary: Even when she’s helping Sam, Sharon has her own agenda.

Sharon’s fingers tap. They spread and pinch, manipulating the scale and definition of Riga’s rooftops. When she feels like she must be zeroing in, she stops, straightens from where she’s been leaning over the screen of her tablet.

She tosses back a swallow of her drink, a flinch around her eyes as the alcohol stings her cut lip. It had been a while since she’d had to fight her way out of a tight corner (or configuration of shipping containers), before Sam, Bucky, and their pet baron showed up in Madripoor. Her tongue prods the cut.

Her satellite access came through, like she knew it would, and John Walker’s no needle in a haystack. On her screen, he’ll be displayed as TRACKER 01, but his position might as well be stamped with the shield—that symbol of justice and virtue and treachery and regret and whatever else the thing stands for these days. She’s a little behind on American public perception when she only feels very loosely American herself. An expat snagged on the last unravelling thread of her former country’s flag.

Another sip, another wince, is punishment in advance. Sharon’s about to do what she does in this new life of hers: take her cut. Her deal with Sam is going to develop a deviation he doesn’t know about. It’ll be seamless, wasting very little of anyone’s time, a detour on the streets of Riga; the view lies between her forearms, resting on the glass surface of the table.

She likes Sam, likes him a lot. The patience and problem-solving in his eyes that say he’s actually listening. The way he looks without his shirt. His persistent trustworthiness when trust is something Sharon thought she no longer dealt in. No giving it out and no inviting it. People don’t just trust her here. That’s why she has hired security. But she’s already expecting Sam to follow through on his end of their deal and sort out her little being-labelled-an-enemy-of-the-state issue, so she’s committed to helping him. The instinct to is annoyingly natural.

Here’s the wrinkle in their verbal contract: the job’s personal. Sam and Bucky are aware of that, she’s certain, and she wonders if they’ve considered that she might be too. It isn’t about her freedom of travel between countries or the do-gooder urge—which Sam in particular appears to overflow with—to ensure Zemo is once again caught and held to account. It’s a Steve thing. She’s heard a lot of rumours (there’s one circulating in High Town at the moment, that Steve is on Mars, building the bones of Elon Musk’s Martian colony in exchange for a couple billion dollars and, presumably, his own self-respect), and it hurts that she can’t dispel any of them, even to herself. Sharon doesn’t know what happened to him. All she knows is that there’s a new guy slinging his arm through the straps of Steve’s old shield and that she doesn’t really feel as casual about it as she might’ve led Sam and Bucky to believe when she mentioned Walker to them. She’s angry. Because she looks at New Cap and wonders what it was all for.

She drums her fingers on the tabletop.

With a deep breath, Sharon touches the screen again. Now swiping intently, she finds TRACKER 01, AKA John Walker. She pulls her phone towards her because she should call Sam to tell him the location. And she will. What she’s going to do first is just for herself.

Hacking into Walker’s comms is surgical and effortless, not requiring payment or bartering like the satellite access, just the skills she keeps honed. Sharon enables a moderate vocal distorter and slides into the ‘secure’ channel. She’s determined to keep her anger and bitterness out of this side-mission, but with nowhere else to go, resentment climbs the back of her neck as an uncomfortable, spreading heat.

“Hey, John.”

“Who is this?” his voice snaps at the other end of the line.

“Oh, don’t you worry about that.” Sharon tilts back in her chair until she can prop the heels of her boots on the table, posture perfectly at ease as she goads him. “Do you prefer ‘John’ or ‘Captain America’?”

“Who are you? A fan?”

Well, she has to laugh at that.

“Um, yeah,” she gushes, channeling the preteen goddaughter she might’ve had if she were living a life where she could make real friends and have neighbours instead of hosting underground art auctions and sniping hostiles from an open window while two idiots from her old life sprint past on the street below. “Is this the Captain America Hotline?”

“Let me tell you, you are seconds away from being located and identified by the U.S. government,” Walker threatens. At least he’s smart enough not to hold on to his fan theory any longer.

“At ease, Cap. I’m not doing any harm.”

“What you’re doing is something incredibly foolish and you will reap the consequences.”

“It’s been a few seconds,” Sharon taunts. “Either the government’s found me and they don’t want to rudely interrupt our conversation or my capabilities exceed theirs. Which one do you think it is?”

“What do you want.”

It comes out flat and hard.

“No more warnings? You’re not going to try to brute-force your way to the conclusion of your choosing?”

“That isn’t always the best method.”

“Something tells me somebody taught you a lesson recently,” Sharon observes, crossing her ankles and rocking her feet side to side on the table. “How bad were you humbled?”

“I went up against the Dora Milaje.”

“So you really got your ass handed to you. I’m surprised you’d be so forthcoming about that. Stiff-upper-lipped soldier type.”

“I figure you could find that information if you really wanted it.”

“You’re being generous then? Saving me time?”

“I just want you to get the fuck off this line.”

“Back to business then,” she says.

She can hear Walker’s breathing change, from a heavy pant to the sound of him clearly trying to control it. Less background noise too, like maybe he just entered a building. She assumes he’s trying to be stealthy. That means he’s either sneaking up on the Flag-Smashers or fears they’re sneaking up on him. It’s almost time to quit toying with New Cap and alert Sam so he can soar in, kick a few asses, maybe save a life. While she goes back to drinking alone in High Town, knowing Madripoor is beginning to tear itself to bloody shreds with so many sharpened claws.

“What do you want?” Walker repeats.

“To tell you I wouldn’t have minded calling you ‘Captain America.’” Sharon shrugs for her own benefit. “It’s just a name, and yet… I think it’s going to bother you. Realizing that you won’t live up to it, I mean.”

“You’re pathetic.”

His breathing’s a little harsher again. He might be climbing a flight of stairs.

“John Walker, I almost feel sorry for you,” she says. “I might if you came off as less of an asshole.”

“Don’t waste your condescension on me. I don’t give a fuck what you think.”

She laughs at him.

“That’s ridiculous. What sort of man agrees to be Captain America when someone as incredible as Sam Wilson has just given up the shield? When the world doesn’t need to close their eyes to picture Steve Rogers still standing behind it? Walker, you stepped into a shadow that was still fading because you were too vain to miss your opportunity. Well now that shadow’s never going to fade,” Sharon hisses at him, her feet hitting the floor as she hunches forward, studying the orange tracker. “You think you’re standing in the sun, but you’re not. And it’s only going to get darker for you.”

“I’ll take my chances.” His voice is hushed, but the tone is arrogant.

“I’m sure you will. You’ll take them without any regard for anyone around you.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lectures. “I’m helping—”

“Of course you’ll say you’re helping people when, really, you can’t see past the larger-than-life persona you borrowed like a rental tux. It’s never going to fit, John. While you’re watching yourself, all those people are seeing the guy in the ill-fitting suit, the guy who thought he was going to pick up that shield and turn into Steve Rogers. You’ve got one thing in common with Steve: a name that would be forgettable without the actions you attach to it. Soon, you’re going to wish you really were that forgettable, but it’ll be too late. The world will be watching.”

Sharon closes the connection and throws herself back into her seat, slapping her phone to the table, almost too hard. She rubs her temple and mindlessly watches the tracker flicker back and forth; Walker must be moving around the building more rapidly without her in his ear to distract him. She could’ve done worse, gotten him discovered by the Flag-Smashers, gotten him shot. That’s further than she’s willing to go though because Sam’s given her this pesky sense of hope that her life won’t always have the blinding lustre of destruction. The high shine of a speeding car, the glint of the sun peeking past Icarus’s silhouette. It’s time to let Walker destroy himself.

And, because he must think he can get in the way of that and mitigate the fallout, it’s time to call Sam.

#my writing #tfatws #tfatws spoilers #The Falcon and the Winter Soldier #Sharon Carter #John Walker

18 notes · View notes

the-order-of-fools · 3 years

Note

There was a knights cheering up the reader when theyre sad post, but how about the reader cheering the knights up when theyre upset?

King Knight may be a decadent dandy with enough charisma to resurrect the dead (despite Specter's scoffs), but he has a soft... inner... shell... that needs to be tenderly stroked. Which sounds wrong. Very wrong. He can take quite a few insults as long as he has wit on his side. Though, once he doesn't, things take a turn for the worst. He doesn't consider himself a fool, no, he's the greatest! The fairest in all the land! The perfect king! Even so, they still think of him like that. Is that why none of his banquets are ever attended? Do they consider him enough of a simpleton to ignore his very status? That can't be... No, no, no. There's only one person he trusts, even more than his dear... mother. He sheepishly explains himself, underlining how these words "don't exactly" hurt him in any way, they're only bothersome thoughts. He looks up from his hands, rubbing at small grey spot on his crown. The royal Blacksmith seems to be doing a poorer job every-time he asks for a new finish. Speak to him, tell him he's great. List off what makes him worth it all, what makes him "kingly”. He'll listen for hours, blinking away the tears behind his helm

Specter Knight isn't new to moments of sadness. Whenever he looks back at what he has accomplished, he either sees a reckless child who managed to forsake the only family he has ever had, or an empty shell, wasting away after an oath that was ripped from him by the Enchantress. Depressive thoughts come and go, you can't really blame him when you catch him staring silently at the moon - you know, he would be gazing at his beloved locket instead, if someone hadn't stolen it. It's like he has lost a part of himself. You promise yourself that you will have retrieve it, someday, somehow. Anything to make him happy. The only thing you can currently do is walk up to him, quietly - he's mumbling words under his breath, curses addressed to either himself or the universe - and hold him into your embrace. He won't return it, he's be lost in his own thoughts. Words aren't needed, he's not in any condition to hear them anyway. Sit next to him in silence, make your presence known, remind him that he's not alone and, despite all the evil he has done, someone is still beside him

Treasure Knight is able to withstand both extreme physical and emotional pressure. Still, he has his limits. If he has a berserk button, it would be gold. Insult it, tear it apart with your words and he'll want to snap your neck with his bare hands. After the surge of rage, he grows awfully quiet. He turns detached focusing on the task at hand or searching for a way to resolve whatever may be weighing on his mind. He becomes quite frightening, standing as still as a statue. You're sure the diving suit he inhabits turns otherworldly when he's like this. His voice is monotonous and cold, he's curt and doesn't seem interested in your presence. This can last for days on end. He doesn't seek affection, comfort or anything of the sort. You typically avoid him when he's in such a state, rarely checking in on him to see if he has recovered. It's only after his recovery that he's able to voice what upset him. Even then, he seems awfully calm for someone who was practically alone for a week straight. Strangely, he only enters his vault when he's in a better state of mind, which makes his whereabouts quite easy to guess when he’s “missing”

Tinker Knight normally doesn't let himself be distracted by moments of sadness, as his work requires almost all of his time and effort. This becomes a problem when his work turns into the source of his sadness, frustration or stress. Dreadful lack of inspiration, him not meeting his own impossible expectations, burnout moments that everyone experiences from time to time - he hates not being at the top of his capacity, which always results in him losing all of his confidence, blaming himself for mistakes that don't exist and for his so-called laziness. Sometimes, he even hits the working table or his own forehead out of rage, not hard enough to cause damage thankfully. His depressed state distorts the perception he has of himself and of his own productivity, and that's where you come in. Let him vent out, no matter how awful his complaints might sound. He might even cry from stress if he feels comfortable enough in your presence. In any case, just wait for him to calm down, then explain that productivity isn't all, that he needs to take care of himself before taking care of his projects, and remind him that you don't value him any less during his moments of unproductivity. He'll be thankful for each of your words

Propeller Knight tends to be laid back. Sure, he can be very overdramatic at times. He has played the "offended" card quite a bit, draping melancholically over a couch, waxing poetically about what "horrors" he has faced. He acts, he follows his charismatic sky pirate persona. You can hear it through his expressive tone and see it through his ostentatiously exaggerated gestures. There are few things that truly strike a cord with him, and when they do, the mask shatters. His crew have grown accustomed to it. They know the ins and outs of their captain, even his rare yet present anger. He barks orders and seems utterly detached from everyone around him, he only has his goal in mind and the rage tearing him from the inside out. Avoid him as much as possible, attempting to reason with him will worsen his state. There have been cases of Propeller throwing himself into combat despite being outnumbered, he clearly lacks self-preservation when his anger bubbles over. At most, the only sign of self-preservation he has is hiding himself away. The presence of Plantos helps him a great deal, they calm his nerves and steady his hammering heart. If sadness still fills his mind, he will cry either alone or seek you out if you're particularly close. He has grown quite worried of this unfortunate trait of his. Aggressive fits of anger have deterred many of his past partners, and for good reason. He will tentatively seek affection in this state, requiring reassurance. Not lies, meaningful, honest, reassurance from you.

Polar Knight has a unique way of dealing with negative emotions. At first, you would say he has no emotions at all, let alone emotions that could possibly crush his portentous vigor - instead, he's very much affected by them. He became much gloomier after joining the Order and he spent his days shoveling intensely and training regularly to keep his mind focused. Now, his preferred method of dealing with negativity remains training. He never seeks help or speaks at all, even his signature grunts turn into silence. You might see him training intensively, sometimes even in the middle of a snowstorm, all alone. There's no use talking to him when he's upset, he will barely give any sign of appreciation. You could surprise him with warm blankets or a hot beverage that you have purposefully made for him instead. He appreciates gestures much more than any kind word you could ever tell him. He must be one of those people who don't think others would be able to understand how they feel, so don't bother him with that. Give him his space and respect his sadness even if its source is unknown to you, he will greatly appreciate it. If he's comfortable enough, he won't be opposed to you caressing his beard out of affection sometimes

Plague Knight rarely seems down in the dumps. He's off giggling, creating massive explosions and discovering new alchemical formulas with Mona. He doesn't give a squawk about anything. He takes the town's folks insults and answers with venomous retorts, still laughing. You would absolutely describe him as overzealously confident if you didn't know him better. He's... awkward. A part of you suspects that he has raised himself. He covers up his asocial behaviors with mockeries and... well, laughter. You have grown able to easily recognize his dreadfully nervous laughs. You know for a fact that he wouldn't admit his true feelings even if his life depended on it. So secretive, trying to hide himself for fear of rejection. It's only through learnt-behavior that he eventually manages to soften up. He minimizes what bothers him, another attempt to impress you for fear of losing the very person he loves. If there's one thing that he won't distort, it's his need for cuddling. He has become a touchy person over the years, maybe because he was lonely for so long? Perhaps, for now he's relentlessly tapping his fingers against your back. Nervous tic.

Mole Knight's sadness usually doesn't turn into anger or frustration. He's not good with emotions, even though teamwork has taught him how to interact with others. He seems to know himself little, which didn't allow him to develop the ability to defend himself from negativity. Not entirely, at least. You will see him dig with much more fervor than usual, pushing himself further and further and being as active as possible. Work cheers him up and helps him forget his sadness, but running away from his emotions doesn't always help. His flames burn very faintly, their hue is dim, they don't sway as energetically as they usually do. He can't ignore his sadness forever, no matter how focused he is at the moment. Take him aside and stop him from digging further, let him focus on you instead. Strangely enough, considering the thick armor that protects his essence, he is quite sensitive to physical touch. Hug him and let his claws envelop your figure, see how the flames will start burning as brightly as ever - he's very warm, so don't feel embarrassed if you find yourself blushing after having hugged him

Black Knight is, by definition, a loner. On top of being a loner, he has trouble admitting his emotions. He tends to push them aside as he wants to be seen as powerful and resilient. Still, he can't keep himself as composed as Polar Knight. He avoids your gaze when upset. Do not touch him, he can be... harsh when expressing his need to be left alone, which makes him feel even worse deep down. Terrorpin, despite not joining him in battle anymore (not after the incident at the Tower), helps him, rubbing its head against his chest until Black places his hand on it. His failures are too fresh in his mind. He can't bear the thought of failing to protect his friends again. This often makes him feel inadequate, sometimes even unwanted. The extended period of time he spent all by himself made him quite resilient, physically speaking, but left a deep scar in him. He must have experienced something similar when he left Shield Knight and Shovel Knight to venture out alone, but the rest of his thoughts are unknown to you. Words won't cheer him up, flashy demonstrations of affection won't either. Sit next to him by the fire and don't hold back a sympathetic smile, it might not seem like it, but he's intently watching you from under his helmet. Slowly but surely, his hand will look for yours while he's caressing Terrorpin's shell absent-mindedly

~Mod Propeller and -Mod Tinker

#shovel knight #black knight #king knight #Specter Knight #plague knight #mole knight #treasure knight #propeller knight #Tinker Knight #polar knight

14 notes · View notes

deathing · 3 years

Text

HEADCANON : DISSOCIATION & STATE OF MIND .

WARNING FOR : mentions of mental health, childhood abuse and trauma.

in short, tomura’s state of mind and over all mental health / mentality is very damaged and unstable. he doesn’t quite fit into any one classification and rather seems to have an amalgamation of dissociative disorders with aspects from each of the three major disorders ( dissociative identity disorder, dissociative amnesia and depersonalization-derealization disorder. )

first of all, dissociation is a coping mechanism that is used to disconnect from stressful or traumatic situations, or to separate traumatic memories from general awareness. by dissociating painful memories from everyday thought processes, a person can maintain a level of functioning, as though the trauma had not occurred. this all stems from his experiences of abuse as a child from his father and the subsequent deaths of his family when his quirk manifested. dissociation is actually quite a normal trauma response, it’s a way to disconnect from external situations when you cannot physically get away from them. it does, however, become an issue when this is someone’s only coping mechanism and shigaraki has been doing this almost continually for over fifteen years. not to mention, the act of wearing the hands of his family served to effectively re - traumatize him or at least substantially raise his stress levels to keep the dissociation going.

1 : IDENTITY .

tomura separates his identity from tenko, effectively to the point where they are two different entities to him. this is a little similar to dissociative identity disorder ( previously known as multiple personality disorder ), but that’s really where the similarities stop. he doesn’t alternate between himself ( as tomura ) and ‘tenko’ — rather just separates them in his mind. it’s stressful and confusing for him to be reminded that he is both of them, that they are one and the same person, because he seeks to distance himself from his trauma and so that he is able to continue to function.

tomura seeks to have a lot of control over many aspects of his life, becoming stressed and dysregulated when things don’t go the way he’s planned. it’s to compensate for the lack of control he experienced as tenko and, unfortunately, it’s just as he’s said, that violence breeds more violence. violence was perpetrated onto tenko and therefore tomura enacts that violence on others in turn. ( in keeping within the context that he was coached and manipulated by all for one to be violent and destructive, not that the abuse itself made him this way. )

additionally, i think it’s worth noting that tomura has never really been allowed to form his own identity. tenko wanted to be a hero and he was continuously denied this by his father. he was then taken in by all for one, given tomura as an identity and then manipulated into how to think and feel, without really haven ever been given much of a choice. society as a whole rejected tenko when he needed it, it continues to do so as tomura, and so he seeks to destroy what continues to deny him.

2 : MEMORIES .

perhaps the most obvious is that tomura was unable to actually recall his childhood memories and therefore experienced dissociative amnesia. or rather, until his ‘awakening’, he saw flashes of his childhood but could never see the whole picture, describing it as like a broken record. he also muses on that he had ‘no memories’ but that he could ‘remember the emotions.’ most interestingly is that in this particular panel when tomura is recalling a flash of a memory, tenko is a black silhouette. at this point, he was continuing to separate himself from tenko, at least on a subconscious level, with the actual memory of his place in the family continuing to be distorted. after his ‘awakening’, the memories have clearly been pieced back together but i think he continues to quietly push them to the back of his mind. again, the trauma is readily available to him now so it’s more of a conscious decision to not think about it.

another small point, but given he dissociates so often or just generally gets lost in his thoughts, and not necessarily for extended periods of time, tomura experiences blank spots in his memory in day to day life. not particularly in relation to information —– more so if you just ‘zone out’ while doing something mundane and lose concentration or awareness of the outside world.

3 . 1 : PERCEPTION / DETACHMENT FROM REALITY .

tomura’s perception of reality can be quite warped and can occasionally question whether something in real or not ( including himself. ) it’s usually because he feels very detached or disconnected from the real world, as he’s been isolated for a large portion of his life. one of his main coping mechanisms has clearly been video games —– leading him to make references to gaming and game terminology in relation to real world situations. this continues to allow him to be somewhat detached from the situation but can also sometimes struggle with differentiating between fiction and reality. this doesn’t actually occur that often, the derealization is more likely to be a sense of him feeling as though his surroundings are foggy / unclear / distanced or that time is moving slower.

this generally gets worse in collaboration with his chronic sleep issues / insomnia. the longer he’s gone without proper rest or sleep, the more likely it is that his perception will become more and more warped. to the point where he can experience visual and auditory hallucinations. in the villain / meta liberation army arc, he comments in this panel that ‘it always gets like that when i get sleepy; i see things moving that shouldn’t be moving, i hear sounds that shouldn’t be heard.’

3 . 2 : DETACHMENT FROM EMOTIONS .

tomura is also incredibly detached and disconnected from his emotions ( to a certain extent, this one is quite complicated. ) obviously he experiences anger, rage, resentment. he experiences a lot of negatively associated emotions daily, but generally lives in a state of hollowness or numbness. it’s like that big empty feeling in your chest or that anything remotely positive has a wet blanket over the top of it. you’re not fully able to feel it. that’s what it’s like for him. however, this detachment also means he will struggle to develop substantial connections and relationships with others, or it takes him a long time to learn to trust others. any close relationship he has had in the past or currently is ( or has been ) largely dysfunctional and this is unlikely to change — given the other dysfunctional people he surrounds himself with, and his own experiences.

his emotional range is quite restricted and his emotional reaction won’t always necessarily fit the circumstance. for example, violence and destruction elicit some kind of manic joy from him when this shouldn’t be the case. to be even more confusing, he is both emotionless and too emotional. he can’t control or regulate his emotions the same way a ‘normal’ person can. he can go from one to the other in a split second and then back again; he can be manic, impulsive and unpredictable.

the ‘itch’ that tomura experiences is also psychosomatic. that is, it is created or caused by his own mental or emotional state, usually stress. it was previously linked moreso to his traumatic memories and experiences and seems to have been mostly alleviated after his ‘awakening.’ however, it can still occur when triggered by substantial emotional stress or when he’s struggling to regulate himself. scratching at it to relieve the itch is a self - soothing mechanism to help him calm down, however the pain associated with it also assists in grounding him.

#* ㅤ 𝚂𝚃𝚄𝙳𝚈 ㅤ \ ㅤ headcanonsㅤ .#mental heath /#trauma /#child abuse /

11 notes · View notes

brooklynislandgirl · 4 years

Text

@mynameisanakin {{xx}}

To say time was immutable was the worst kind of fallacy. It can be stretched or dilated. It can be shrunk. Filled to the very possible edges or shut up and forgotten. It was subject to individual perception which then was galvanised by a cohesive agreement to believe in the same fractured set of moments corresponding to external reality. At least that was what her Master had explained to her once. She wasn’t sure she understood what he meant then, nor is she sure she has a grasp on it now. Or if both were the same and she just chooses to see it differently. What she is absolutely certain of is limited to a minor handful of things. The first being that hours ago the Temple had come under attack. Which meant that somehow, somewhere, something had gone catastrophically wrong. It’s the sound of screaming and pounding feet that first alert her. So of course instinct takes over. She ushers her charges ~younglings that are injured, sick, and otherwise impaired~ to the safest place she can think of.

Thrulan knows even the forgotten places, pathways that most Jedi are unaware even exist. There aren’t so many. Only three. She gives him medicine for them. All of the credits she can scrounge so they aren’t a burden on his small family. The only other thing she knows with absolute certainty is that Anakin is still alive. The agony he was in was significant. Had nearly buckled her to her knees and she wasn’t sure if he felt her reaching out to him. Offering what strength she could that he might take it, enfold it around himself, to protect him until she can find him. Likely wishful thinking, but she wanted to believe it so much that she simply accepted that as a truth. Especially when she can’t feel him reaching back. That there’s distortion thick and heavy between them.

She can only fear the worst; that Anakin is here, and she knows he is. That he is trapped in some corner unable to free himself. That he is hurt. That he is...no. Twisted and cloaked as his brilliant presence in the Force has become, it isn’t waning. She won’t let that be the truth. She won’t let him go so easily.

That becomes a third thing. The halls as she moves are too quiet in places. Too loud in others. The great library is empty. There’s so very little to find there. Even the Temple Guards are not at their posts, and of course, why should they be? They were under an attack, there was better places for them to be. Her sabre flashes as she makes her way ever closer to Anakin. Though she’s brought up short when she sees who the invaders really are. As if she wouldn’t know the legion by sight. These men, never just clones, who have been under his command, whose wounds she’s mended, whose grief she tried to ease, whose deaths and sacrifices she’s recorded painstakingly for the archives so that they might be remembered beyond purpose, beyond what they had been created for. Only to be betrayed. Why would they have turned on Ana-

No. Not...turned. Parrying blaster fire as best she can, she senses....a link. They...They... Two clones go down and she tries to press forward, stopped in her tracks seconds later by a third trooper she hadn’t seen in the shadows. His rifle is aimed at her, held level. But he hesitates. Brows knit above her eyes, sweat damp strands of hair threatening to slip into her vision as she tilts her head. “....Biscuit?” Against all hope, the trooper removes his helmet, confirming that this was in fact the one she thought him to be. The one who still had an both legs thanks to her. “My Lady. I am so sorry. I don’t want to do this.” Not General. Not Master or even Knight Ivers. Not Melakeni. But...lady. She swallows past the rapidly constricting lump in her throat. “Wha... what is happening, here?”

The trooper looks sick, green under his tawny skin in a way that is both natural and unnatural to her and the more he speaks, the more his face hardens into a mask of duty and remorse.

He doesn’t attempt to kill her when she staggers back under the weight of this new knowledge, one palm splayed against the smooth metal wall to catch herself mid-collapse. Her mind reels. Her sabre thumps dully against the floor as that hand comes up to her chest.

She takes hold of the Force and wraps it around her like an impenetrable wall that nothing can escape from or press advantage into as her heart breaks. The faces of her friends sweep through her memory alive and full of life. They are gone. As are the Masters she has spent the last decade serving.

Remember these lessons well, little padawan, for suffering is a crucible of strength. Her Master’s voice comes to her unbidden and she knows he still lives as well. Where she cannot quite tell. But the voice, a silken thunder of a whisper in her ear, is not wholly wrong. She knows as terrible as the Dark Side must be, that the Jedi had long ago become corrupt. They slaved under the will of the people, currying favour and gathering quiet power until they no longer resembled what they once purported to be; servants of the Force.

And the Force is a living and breathing thing. A river that flows through everything from the most infinitesimal speck of stardust to the edges of the galaxy and perhaps even beyond, to places unknowable beyond the imagination of even the greatest enlightened minds. Its intention was not to steal and enslave infants. Its will was not to be ruled by fear of upsetting those in power in exchange for some small semblance of a voice in galactic matters. The Jedi Order, she can see more clearly now than ever before, was nothing more than rotting fruit on the Force’s branches, dragging it down with the weight of its corruption. And as surely as the tears flowed freely down her face for what she knows has been lost because of it, for the innocence and sweetness and life that was now nothing more than a guttered candle, she understands that the will of the Force was for Anakin to... to wipe clean the slate. To destroy every last vestige of what was, in order for what could be to come about. The restoration of balance, to restore the Force itself and not what sentients had made of it.

She recalls a poem she had read in the archives, only a fraction of it as she let go of her anger. Her confusion. As she gave herself as always, to the Force and its will.

Even as it is for your growth, so it is for your pruning. Even as it ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall it descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Biscuit retrieves her lightsabre without a word of protest from her. She can hear the sigh as she looks up into his face. Despite this directive of his, there is some kindness left in the clone. “I’ll make it quick, Lady. Painless.” “A moment more, please?” He nods. She straightens up as sharply as her spine will allow, and levels her chin. She passes a hand over her face to wipe away any traces of emotion that lingered damply on her cheeks and tried, ridiculously, to straighten her hair. Doing so, she conceals clever little gestures with her fingers. “You should take me to him. He will want to do this himself.” “I...I should take you to him. He will want to do this himself.” She takes a step forward, relieves him of her sabre, and wraps a delicate hand around the white and blue armour. Her steps to the grand hall are silent compared to his own and they do not speak during the trek. She looks neither left nor right. Doesn’t look at the bodies strewn where they fell. Does not acknowledge the char and pockmarks that scattered across the walls from blaster fire. The fire and smouldering ash does not make her tremble though she fears that only second to what they will find. The smoke doesn’t bother her at all. In fact she forgets to make herself breathe in those achingly long moments. The Temple all around her that was once home is now a tomb.

Biscuit leaves her there in the centre of the hall. Takes a stance somewhere out of her periphery and she wonders later how badly he will be punished for allowing her to cloud his mind. For allowing her to come into the presence of his Lord armed and utterly capable of cutting him down if she were fast enough, clever enough.

And what does she find? Significantly more than she had hoped but disturbingly less than what she feared. He looks like a ghost haunting himself. Blurred and fractured at the edges, worn so thin she can practically see Coruscant beyond the doors behind him. Awash with old blood and new, and light that could be either from the dying of the day. His eyes are so hollow. His face drawn and remote and before he even acknowledges that she is there, she can feel him crawling over a threshold of breaking. This is not a man proud of what he has done, not a man who will ever sleep again knowing he has done the right thing, even if that is exactly what Anakin has done. Frangible arms wend around her in his terrible silence. Her eyes close as he brushes his mouth against the crown of her hair and breathes her deeply as if for the first time he can. Breathe. Take air deep into his lungs and scour his psyche with her presence. A hand comes up to his chest where his heart beats strong but erratic. And then? It isn’t a question. Nor is it a command. It isn’t even a choice because choice implied she had a say. No senator, no chancellor, no master, no living being loves Anakin the way she does. Nor had they in all the years before except for maybe his mother. And in an entirely different way. No. It isn’t a choice. And no one would ever have been foolish enough to believe that it was. She untangles herself from Anakin. Braces one foot behind her, shifts her centre of gravity. With preternatural reflexes, she reaches for and takes hold of her sabre. Thumbs the near flat depression on the hilt and allows the purple blade to ignite in the gathering gloom around them. Sees its glow flash in glossiness of his eyes.

Her other hand comes up. There’s a little flip and suddenly the blade is laid across both hands, and she curtsies before him, deep and tired and inscrutable. She does not have a heart, but if she did, it would be bleeding for her little sun, for her Anakin. “In all things, in all ways, I am yours to command, my Lord.” Loud enough to be heard by the gathered clones. Then quietly, more intimately, meant for his ears alone... “That is maybe the stupidest thing you have ever asked of me, Ani. The answer is always yes.”

#mynameisanakin #Images of Broken Light|Anakin Skywalker #Pools of Sorrow Waves of Joy|Anakin and Melakeni #Across The Universe|Star Wars AU #tw: political viewpoint #tw: child death implied #tw: Order 66

13 notes · View notes

kittycat-plisetsky · 6 years

Text

Mental Disorder Analysis of Killing Stalking

I did a bit of a project (for school) here where I analyze the actions in Killing Stalking from the perspective that Yoon Bum and Oh Sangwoo are mentally ill individuals. I attempt here to explain and defend the characters, as well as try to educate the fandom to alleviate hate rooted from ignorance. I’ll share a preview tand then add the rest under a read more bar; I went a tad overboard.

So maybe you’re a fan of Killing Stalking. Maybe you’re an anti. Maybe you’re a closet fan who’s ashamed to admit having a liking for the manga. For me, upon my first interaction with the fandom, I’ll admit it, I was nearly repulsed, but I’ve come a long way since that time and become an active member in the fandom, and even cosplay! After some consideration, I’ve realized the themes presented here aren’t much different from any crime-themed tv show, like Criminal Minds or something similar. Then I began to question myself and why I was even an anti to start off with, and the answer to that boiled down to ignorance. Upon a first glance, it isn’t hard not to view this simply as a toxic relationship that gets its readers off on some BL sadomasochism about a killer and, who I assumed at the time to be a kidnapped boy, who gets tortured. That’s simply not what this manga is, and it’s belittling to pass it off as much. If you know of killing stalking, you can bypass the next paragraph, but through my little ramblings here I’m hoping to defend this manga for what it is and to explain to you all (whether you’re a fan or an anti) some realistic reasonings for the actions/reactions of these characters centered around some potential mental illnesses here at play. The creator and these boys need some defending in this fandom, and so do us fans (who some of you, like me, I’m sure have been told we’re gross, need to kill ourselves, etc. We deserve more credit 😉 )

Killing Stalking is a psychological thriller manga with one protagonist being a stalker, and the other a killer, as the name suggests. Our first protagonist, Yoonbum, is a man in his late twenties who stalks his crush Oh Sangwoo, who he met in the military and later during his time in college. Yoonbm excessively follows his crush on social media and spends months trying to unlock Sangwoo’s house passcode. Upon entering the code correctly, Bum enters the home, where he discovers a naked woman bound and gagged, struggling to free herself. Panicked, Bum tries to help, but is then found by Sangwoo, and confesses his love before being pushed down the stairs, knocked unconscious, and later wakes with broken legs. Rather than ending Bum’s life, Sangwoo spares his life, keeping him in the basement for some time before allowing him upstairs, and eventually out of the house, though he’s kept close. As the story progresses, the two characters, in my way of seeing, develop a sort of symbiotic relationship with each other. Bum feeding off of his theorized love with Sangwoo, and Sangwoo feeding off the power he has over Bum. Thinking about it; these two need each other.

Now the above mentioned point, the theory of their symbiotic relationship, is often the basis for the fans to send their ships sailing, thinking, “clearly their in love”. Sure, why not, Sangwoo spares Bum’s life but murders others, treats his wounds, kisses him, and Bum still pines for Sangwoo and tries to please him, not to mention their physical moments together, but a story this deep deserves a deeper insight. Plus, the author herself said she hasn’t intended their relationship to be viewed as romantic. So instead, through my rather messy thoughts, maybe I can guide you into your start of deeper thinking based on real life mental disorders that should be considered here. This explanation should help you realize why Sangwoo and Bum’s relationship isn’t simple enough to be viewed as “traditionally romantic” but also I really wish to address fan’s individual outlooks on these characters and defend their characters for what they’re written as: mentally ill (I’m not knocking shippers here; ship what you want. I myself ship their theoretical existence, though I understand in canon it can’t be viewed that simply).

To begin, the words Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) appear in the first season of the manga, already giving insight to one of the disorders that Bum possess. Though I plan to cover a few disorders in this post, for the sake of my analysis I’ll be showing evidence for BPD as well as psychosis at the same time, as psychosis is a symptom versus an illness. Many people with BPD have the symptom of psychosis (psychforums.com), and in the case of Yoon Bum, I believe this to be true. For starters, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, BPD is defined as “a mental illness marked by an ongoing pattern of varying moods, self-image, and behavior” with symptoms such as impulsive behaviors, self-harming behaviors, problems controlling anger, feelings of dissociation, and a distorted/unstable image of oneself (NIMH). Psychosis then is a delusional disorder, characterized as disruptions to a person’s thoughts and perceptions that make it difficult for them to recognize what is real and what isn’t. Found from a discussion online, it isn’t common for stalkers to suffer from psychosis (aminoapps.com). Though right off the bat you may recognize Bum as possessing qualities from both of these, I’d like t point out too that for those who have BPD, it isn’t uncommon for them to have a favorite person (FP), which in Bum’s case would be Sangwoo.

Looking at BPD from the standpoint of someone who suffers with the disorder, one person reports having issues with obsessing over people, “almost to the point of stalking them” (medhelp.org), and in relation to how someone with the disorder views an FP, their FP is their everything. To quote someone that this applies to, having an FP is “dangerous. It’s needing someone so bad it’s physically painful when they leave. It’s apologizing for every tiny thing because you don’t want to give them a reason to leave you (TheMighty.com), or “[that FP] is sometimes all I can think about. Male or female. I think about them 24/7 romantically or like a friend, but that person just becomes so perfect and put on a pedestal” (medhelp.org). The above quotes can all sympathize with Bum, especially if we’re choosing to look at Sangwoo as his FP. From chapter one, we’re shown that Bum obsessives over Sangwoo; stalks his social media, watches him on the train, and even fantasizes about him sexually, wondering “how he would have sex”. Through internal monologue we see how Bum views him; perfect, while noting “his empathetic, considerate, gentle aura”. Even after being hit by Sangwoo, he recalls his perfect image of his crush, noting, “The Sangwoo I know is a much more considerate person.”

Because those with Borderline Personality Disorder have troubles or inabilities regulating their emotions, Bum has a hard time maintaining his image of Sangwoo and is often caught having many back and forth emotions. He’s caught up on his love one moment, and during the next, he’s trying to convince himself that he hates him. Of course, things get harder on Bum when we realize that Sangwoo too is emotionally unstable, but we’ll talk about him later on.

For those with BPD, “relationships build quickly and intensely. They are unable to see the faults of their partner” (borderline-personality-disorder.com). This isn’t surprising; Bum’s always had troubles seeing the faults in his crush. Even upon discovering Sangwoo was a murderer, he apologizes, realizing he’s upset him, and takes blame for the situation. He resorts back to his idealized image of Sangwoo after remembering the reasons that he fell in love with him, claiming to love him despite the current situation he’s in. Not only that but he even confessed repeatedly to liking Sangwoo as he’s being assaulted, calling out, “I like you” over and over even as Sangwoo shouts at him to shut up. He’s unable, in many situations to see the faults that Sangwoo has (even though Sangwoo’s faults are pretty extreme). Recall too Bum questioning the police, asking “could you kiss somebody like me? Could you love somebody like me?”, etc. To him, he doesn’t view himself to be likable by anyone but Sangwoo, as he truly believes that Sangwoo has feelings for him.

If, as I suspect, Bum also suffers from psychosis, his inability to regulate his feelings for Sangwoo could be amplified. This could explain why he can’t quite rationalize what is real about their relationship and what isn’t (or any of his relationships, for that matter). Below, remember when he was under the impression that him and his female classmate were dating when she removed her shirt in front of him? And then he believed that all along he and Sangwoo were dating when Sangwoo said such a thing to the police.

Psychosis in Bum’s case not only prevents him from knowing what reality is in terms of his relationships with others, but it also alters his perception of the reality surrounding him. Psychosis can cause hallucinations and delusions. Hallucinations aren’t new to him, just recall the hallucination of dead bodies in Sangwoo’s washing machine, the hallucination that made him see Sangwoo murdering him on the kitchen floor, and he even hallucinated that the Jieun was the girl from his past during his fist semi-forced murder.

Since psychosis is a delusional disorder, it’s also known that those who suffer from it may believe that events or objects hold personal meaning or significance. Going back into Bum’s past again with his female friend, remember that he held personal meaning to objects that he otherwise should feel no connection to, objects that simply belonged to her. He’s stolen not only her bra, but her nail polish, and because he had such a connection with these items, used them to calm himself down when he would go into mood shifts.

He’s mentally ill, and because of these disorders that alter his reality, he lives unaware of his problems. So, no, he isn’t stupid. To him, he’s doesn’t think his thought processes are out of place. In the first chapter, he claims that it’s complexly normal to stalk his crush and to want to know everything of his personal life. In regards to his obsessive behaviors and his kleptomaniac actions, he’s convinced it’s “because of love” over and over.

Though Borderline is the confirmed disorder at play here (and we can find many more examples to agree with it) it’s not a bad idea to toy around with some other possibilities. Other disorders are very likely in the cases of these characters and can help you reason with their actions. Take Stockholm syndrome for example. Stockholm syndrome is a condition that causes hostages to develop a psychological alliance with their captors as a survival strategy during captivity…Victims of the formal definition of Stockholm syndrome develop "positive feelings toward their captors and sympathy for their causes and goals, and negative feelings toward the police or authorities" (Wikipedia).

I’m sure you all remember this scene here, where the police officer tries to come to the rescue, yet Bum crawls away and keeps himself hidden. Or even the part where he chooses being back with Sangwoo over admitting to the police that he is need of some help. However in the case of Stockholm syndrome the positive feelings are rooted to the idea of survival, “captives often fear that their affection will be perceived as fake, they eventually begin to believe that their positive sentiments are genuine” (Wikipedia). Though I believe BPD is a bit more of Bum’s situation versus Stockholm syndrome, I think it’s worth a mention whilst defending Bum, anyways.

Though I haven’t really heard this one talked about prior to my mental disorder research for this analysis, I think Obsessive love disorder is worth a mention. Obsessive love disorder (OLD) is an extreme form of love that transcends into an obsession over time. It is characterized by an unhealthy attachment towards someone and can be triggered off by many factors such as anxiety, insecurity, and vulnerability (Buzzle.com). OLD is very similar to Borderline Personality Disorder, attachment disorders, and even erotomania, and so this could easily apply to many of my examples in the BPD paragraphs above. However, “depending on the intensity of their attraction, obsessive lovers may feel entirely unable to restrain themselves from extreme behaviors such as acts of violence toward themselves or others” (Wikipedia). Though we see that Bum has had self-harming instances in the past due to his living situation, we see the return of self-harm when Sangwoo was unpleased with these stories of his past. Bum spirals, feeling worried about the reaction and he quickly tries to make Sangwoo feel better, yelling at him to take it out on him physically. Sangwoo remains unresponsive, and Bum resorts to self-harm using a knife on the countertop, while shouting and sobbing that he knows he is disgusting.

Though my main focus here seems to be on Yoon Bum, it’s definitely no surprise that Sangwoo would fall into some mental disorders of his own. I’ve read fan discussions claiming that he too suffers from BPD, but I think too that he has psychosis, and sadistic personality disorder. Yes, that last one is a thing. “Sadistic personality disorder (SPD) can be defined as a type of personality disorder in which an affected individual inflicts sadistic, cruel, manipulative, aggressive and demeaning behavior on others. Violence and abusiveness are the hallmarks of the social relationships of a sadist. Such people lack empathy and concern for other individuals and derive pleasure by hurting or humiliating others” (hxbenefit.com). This shouldn’t need much textual evidence, as this is practically a description of the character as a whole. Backing up to psychosis, which remember is a delusional symptom, it wasn’t uncommon for Sangwoo to hallucinate or become delusional when panicked. For example, remember when he carried Bum’s fainted body to his bed to tuck him in?

He becomes delusional, hallucinating that his mother is outside of the door, telling him to clean up his messes downstairs. His hallucination of his mother becomes angry and she rattles the door handle viciously, screaming at him. Then, he even hallucinates that Bum (who in reality is passed out beside him) raises his head to remind Sngwoo that he’s becoming his father.

So now to reiterate my point; these characters are not dumb. They are not “asking for it”. Bum is not a “creepy, gross attention whore”, but he has trouble regulating his emotions and has a hard time grasping a distinction on his reality. One of the largest reasons for hate in this fandom is ignorance to the reality and depth that this story possesses. Especially to younger fans, who simply were seeking some twisted BL, it is important to consider this story in terms of our mentally ill paired protagonists as honestly being mentally ill. Because this story is talked up as “horror yaoi”, many people aren’t aware or don’t consider the seriousness that this story aims to share. This is why there is a “you’re gross”, “go kill yourself” stigma on readers of Killing Stalking. Instead, us readers should be viewed as readers of a psychological thriller who analyze and respect the depth here for what its intended to be. The romanticizing and narrow-minded interpretation of this storyline is what causes so much hate and controversy. I’d love to see more serious consideration and in-depth analyzation going on in the fandom to remove the stigma that us fans are nasty, twisted, or gross.

I hope this was easy enough to follow and that you’ll give this story another read-through with these points in mind, and even change your outlook with the soon release of season 3. Let’s work to defend the author, these boys, the storyline and us fans with some knowledge! Also, again, disclaimer that I’m no professional nor am I “attacking” anyone with these disorders. Remember too though that psychosis is one of my most prominent beliefs here (so even if you suffer from BPD for example, without psychosis some of this may not sound accurate in terms of your own self).

#ks #killing stalking #killing stalking meta #killing stalking analysis #koogi #yoonbum #sangwoo

683 notes · View notes

alertreadingquotes · 6 years

Text

The Psychology of Human Misjudgment

“ I was aware that man was a "social animal," greatly and automatically influenced by behavior he observed in men around him. I also knew that man lived, like barnyard animals and monkeys, in limited size dominance hierarchies, wherein he tended to respect authority and to like and cooperate with his own hierarchy members while displaying considerable distrust and dislike for competing men nor in his own hierarchy.“

“ First, I had long looked for insight by inversion in the intense manner counseled by the great algebraist, Jacobi: "Invert, always invert." I sought good judgment mostly by collecting instances of bad judgment, then pondering ways to avoid such outcomes“

“ And I was dubious of any approach that, when two things were inextricably intertwined and interconnected, would try and think about one thing but not the other. I was afraid, if I tried any such restricted approach, that I would end up, in the immortal words of John L. Lewis, "with no brain at all, just a neck that had haired over.“

“ Psychological tendencies tend to be both numerous and inseparably intertwined, now and forever, as they interplay in life“

“ And Harvard's great E.O. Wilson performed one of the best psychology experiments ever done when he painted dead-ant pheromone on a live ant. Quite naturally, the other ants dragged this useful live ant out of the hive even though it kicked and otherwise protested throughout the entire process. Such is the brain of the ant. It has a simple program of responses that generally work out all right, but which are imprudently used by rote in many cases. Another type of ant demonstrates that the limited brain of ants can be misled by circumstances as well as by clever manipulation from other creatures. The brain of this ant contains a simple behavioral program that directs the ant, when walking, to follow the ant ahead. And when these ants stumble into walking in a big circle, they sometimes walk round and round until they perish. It seems obvious. to me at least. that the human brain must often operate counterproductively just like the ant's, from unavoidable oversimplicity in its mental process, albeit usually in trying to solve problems more difficult than those faced by ants that don't have to design airplanes. The perception system of man clearly demonstrates just such an unfortunate outcome. Man is easily fooled, either by the cleverly thought out manipulation of man, by circumstances occurring by accident, or by very effective manipulation practices that man has stumbled into during "practice evolution" and kept in place because they work so well. One such outcome is caused by a quantum effect in human perception. If stimulus is kept below a certain level, it does not get through.“

“And even when perception does get through to man's brain, it is often misweighted, because what is registered in perception is in shockingness of apparent contrast, not the standard scientific units that make possible science and good engineering.” “Some psychology professors like to demonstrate the inadequacy of contrast-based perception by having students put one hand in a bucker of hot water and one hand in a bucket of cold warer. They are then suddenly asked to remove both hands and place them in a single bucket of room temperature water. Now, with both hands in the same water, one hand feels as if it has just been put in cold water and the other hand feels as if it has just been placed in hot water. When one thus sees perception so easily fooled by mere contrast, where a simple temperature gauge would make no error, and realizes that cognition mimics perception in being misled by mere contrast, he is well on the way toward understanding, not only how magicians fool one, but also how life will fool one.“

“The natural consequence of this profusion of tendencies is the grand general principle of social psychology: cognition is ordinarily situation-dependent so that different situations often cause different conclusions, even when the same person is thinking in the same general subject area.“

---

One: Reward and Punishment Superresponse Tendency

“Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives.“

“ He demonstrated again and again a great recurring, generalized behavioral algorithm in nature: "Repeat behavior that works." He also demonstrated that prompt rewards worked much better than delayed rewards in changing and maintaining behavior. And, once his rats and pigeons had conditioned reflexes, caused by food rewards, he found what withdrawal pattern of rewards kept the reflexive behavior longest in place: random distribution“

“One of the most important consequences of incentive superpower is what I call "incentive caused bias." A man has an acculturated nature making him a pretty decent fellow, and yet, driven both consciously and subconsciously by incentives, he drifts into immoral behavior in order to get what he wants, a result he facilitates by rationalizing his bad behavior, like the salesmen at Xerox who harmed customers in order to maximize their sales commissions. “

“Widespread incentive-caused bias requires that one should often distrust, or take with a grain of salt, the advice of one's professional advisor, even if he is an engineer. The general antidotes here are: (1) especially fear professional advice when it is especially good for the advisor; (2)learn and use the basic elements of your advisor's trade as you deal with your advisor; and (3) double check, disbelieve, or replace much of what you're told, to the degree that seems appropriate after objective thought.“

“ One implication is that people who create things like cash registers, which make dishonest behavior hard to accomplish, are some of the effective saints of our civilization because, as Skinner so well knew, bad behavior is intensely habit-forming when it is rewarded“

“'The strong tendency of employees to rationalize bad conduct in order to get rewards requires many antidotes in addition to the good cash control promoted by Patterson. Perhaps the most important of these antidotes is use of sound accounting theory and practice“

“ For instance, economists, speaking from the employer's point of view, have long had a name for the natural results of incentive-caused bias: "agency cost." As the name implies, the economists have typically known that, just as grain is always lost to rats, employers always lose to employees who improperly think of themselves first. Employer installed antidotes include tough internal audit systems and severe public punishment for identified miscreants, as well as misbehavior-preventing routines and such machines as cash registers“

“The inevitable ubiquity of incentive-caused bias has vast, generalized consequences. For instance, a sales force living only on commissions will be much harder to keep moral than one under less pressure from the compensation arrangement. On the other hand, a purely commissioned salesforce may well be more efficient per dollar spent. Therefore, difficult decisions involving trade-offs are common in creating compensation arrangements in the sales function.“

“Another generalized consequence of incentive caused bias is that man tends to "game" all human systems, often displaying great ingenuity in wrongly serving himself at the expense of others. Anti gaming features, therefore, constitute a huge and necessary part of almost all system design. Also needed in system design is an admonition: Dread, and avoid as much you can, rewarding people for what can be easily faked“

“Of course, money is now the main reward that drives habits. A monkey can be trained to seek and work for an intrinsically worthless token, as if it were a banana, if the token is routinely exchangeable for a banana“

---

Two: Liking/Loving Tendency

“One very practical consequence of Liking/ Loving Tendency is that it acts as a conditioning device that makes the liker or lover tend (1) to ignore faults of and comply with wishes of, the object of his affection, (2) to favor people, products, and actions merely associated with the object of his affection (as we shall see when we get to "Influence-from-Mere Association Tendency," and (3) to distort other facts to facilitate love. The phenomenon of liking and loving causing admiration also works in reverse. Admiration also causes or intensifies liking or love. With this "feedback mode" in place, the consequences are often extreme, sometimes even causing deliberate self-destruction to help what is loved.“

“There are large social policy implications in the amazingly good consequences that ordinarily come from people likely to trigger extremes of love and admiration boosting each other in a feedback mode. F or instance, it is obviously desirable ro attracr a lot of lovable, admirable people into the reaching profession. “

---

Three: Disliking/HatingTendency

“In a pattern obverse to Liking/Loving Tendency, the newly arrived human is also "born to dislike and hate" as triggered by normal and abnormal triggering forces in its life“ “Disliking/Hating Tendency also acts as a conditioning device that makes the dislike /hater tend to (1) ignore virtues in the object of dislike, (2) dislike people, products, and actions merely associated with the object of his dislike, and (3) distort other facts to facilitate hatred.““Such factual distortions often make mediation between opponents locked in hatred either difficult or impossible“ ---

Four: Doubt-Avoidance Tendency “The brain of man is programmed with a tendency to quickly remove doubt by reaching some decision“

“ what usually triggers Doubt-Avoidance Tendency is some combination of (1) puzzlement and (2) stress. And both of these factors naturally occur in facing religious issues. Thus, the natural state of most men is in some form of religion. And this is what we observe.“

---

Five: Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency

“The brain of man conserves programming space by being reluctant to change, which is a form of inconsistency avoidance. We see this in all human habits, constructive and destructive”

“Also tending to be maintained in place by the anti-change tendency of the brain are one's previous conclusions, human loyalties, reputational identity, commitments, accepted role in a civilization, etc. It is not entirely clear why evolution would program into man's brain an anti-change mode alongside his tendency to quickly remove doubt“

“ Similarly, other modern decision makers will often force groups to consider skillful counterarguments before making decisions. And proper education is one long exercise in augmentation of high cognition so that our wisdom becomes strong enough to destroy wrong thinking maintained by resistance to change“

“One of the most successful users of an antidote to first conclusion bias was Charles Darwin. He trained himself, early, to intensively consider any evidence tending to disconfirm any hypothesis of his, more so if he thought his hypothesis was a particularly good one. The opposite of what Darwin did is now called confirmation bias, a term of opprobrium“

“Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency has many good effects in civilization. For instance, rather than act inconsistently with public commitments, new or old public identities, etc., most people are more loyal in their roles in life as priests, physicians, citizens, soldiers, spouses, teachers, employees, etc.

One corollary of Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency is that a person making big sacrifices in the course of assuming a new identity will intensify his devotion to the new identity. After all, it would be quite inconsistent behavior to make a large sacrifice for something that was no good“

“Moreover, the tendency will often make man a "patsy" of manipulative "compliance-practitioners," who gain advantage from triggering his subconscious Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency“

For example, Ben Franklin raised subconscious regard of himself in the ranks of great men by first getting them to lend him a book. Triggering inconsistency in action with disregarding him.

“ When one is maneuvered into deliberately hurting some other person, one will tend to disapprove or even hate that person. This effect, from Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency, accounts for the insight implicit in the saying: "A man never forgets where he has buried the hatchet.”

“While Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency, with its "status quo bias," immensely harms sound education. it also causes much benefit. For instance, a near-ultimate inconsistency would be to teach something to others that one did not believe true.... Of course, the power of teaching to influence the cognition of the teacher is not always a benefit to society. When such power flows into political and cult evangelism, there are often bad consequences.“

--- Six: Curiosity Tendency

Man’s innate curiosity greatly enhances the ability to advance knowledge.

---

Seven: Kantian Fairness Tendency

“Kant was famous for his "categorical imperative," a sort of a "golden rule" that required humans to follow those behavior patterns that, if followed by all others, would make the surrounding human system work best for everybody. And it is not too much to say that modern acculturated man displays, and expects from others, a lot of fairness as thus defined by Kant.”

“Also, strangers often voluntarily share equally in unexpected, unearned good and bad fortune. And, as an obverse consequence of such "fair-sharing" conduct, much reactive hostility occurs when fair sharing is expected yet not provided.“

--- Eight: Envy/Jealousy Tendency

“Envy/jealousy is extreme in myth, religion, and literature wherein, in account after account, it triggers hatred and injury. It was regarded as so pernicious by the Jews of the civilization that preceded Christ that it was forbidden, by phrase after phrase, in the laws of Moses“

“Non discussion of envy/jealousy is not a phenomenon confined to psychology texts. When did any of you last engage in any large group discussion of some issue wherein adult envy/jealousy was identified as the cause of someone's argument? There seems to be a general taboo against any such claim. If so, what accounts for the taboo? My guess is that people widely and generally sense that labeling some position as driven by envy/ jealousy will be regarded as extremely insulting to the position taker, possibly more so when the diagnosis is correct than when it is wrong.”

--- Nine: Reciprocation Tendency

“The automatic tendency of humans to reciprocate both favors and disfavors has long been noticed as extreme, as it is in apes, monkeys, dogs, and many less cognitively gifted animals. The tendency clearly facilitates group cooperation for the benefit of members. In this respect, it mimics much genetic programming of the social insects.“

“The standard antidote to one's overactive hostility is to train oneself to defer reaction. As my smart friend Tom Murphy so frequently says, "You can always tell the man off tomorrow if it is such a good idea.“

“ reciprocate-favor tendency operates to a very considerable degree at a subconscious level. This helps make the tendency a strong force that can sometimes be used by some men to mislead others, which happens all the time“

“Wise employers, therefore, try to oppose reciprocate-favor tendencies of employees engaged in purchasing. The simplest antidote works best: Don't let them accept any favors from vendors“

“And the very best part of human life probably lies in relationships of affection wherein parties are more interested in pleasing than being pleased-a not uncommon outcome in display of reciprocate favor tendency.

… Before we leave reciprocate-favor tendency, the final phenomenon we will consider is widespread human misery from feelings of guilt. To the extent the feeling of guilt has an evolutionary base, I believe the most plausible cause is the mental conflict triggered in one direction by reciprocate favor tendency and in the opposite direction by reward superresponse tendency pushing one to enjoy one hundred percent of some good thing“

---

Ten: Influence-from-Mere-Association Tendency

“Some of the most important miscalculations come from what is accidentally associated with one's past success, or one's liking and loving, or one's disliking and hating, which includes a natural hatred for bad news.”

“The proper antidotes to being made such a patsy by past success are (1) to carefully examine each past success, looking for accidental, non causative factors associated with such success that will tend to mislead as one appraises odds implicit in a proposed new undertaking and (2) to look for dangerous aspects of the new undertaking that were not present when past success occurred.“

“People disagree about how much blindness should accompany the association called love. In Poor Richard's Almanack Franklin counseled: "Keep your eyes wide open before marriage and half shut thereafter." Perhaps this "eyes-half-shut" solution is about right, but I favor a tougher prescription: "See it like it is and love anyway.“

“Hating and disliking also cause miscalculation triggered by mere association. In business, I commonly see people underappraise both the competency and morals of competitors they dislike. This is a dangerous practice, usually disguised because it occurs on a subconscious basis. Another common bad effect from the mere association of a person and a hated outcome is displayed in "Persian Messenger Syndrome.“

“It is actually dangerous in many careers to be a carrier of unwelcome news“

“The proper antidote to creating Persian Messenger Syndrome and its bad effects, like those at CBS, is to develop, through exercise of will, a habit of welcoming bad news. At Berkshire, there is a common injunction: "Always tell us the bad news promptly. It is only the good news that can wait." It also helps to be so wise and informed that people fear not telling you bad news because you are so likely to get it elsewhere.“

“Influence-from-Mere-Association Tendency often has a shocking effect that helps swamp the normal tendency to return favor for favor. Sometimes, when one receives a favor, his condition is unpleasant, due to poverty, sickness, subjugation, or something else. In addition, the favor may trigger an envy-driven dislike for the person who was in so favorable a state that he could easily be a favor giver. Under such circumstances, the favor receiver, prompted partly by mere association of the favor giver with past pain, will not only dislike the man who helped him but also try to injure him.“

“A final serious clump of bad thinking caused by mere association lies in the common use of classification stereotypes“

“ Pete's antidote is not to believe that, on average, ninety-year-olds think as well as forty year-olds or that there are as many females as males among Ph. D.'s in math. Instead, just as he must learn that trend does not always correctly predict“

“destiny, he must learn that the average dimension in some group will not reliably guide him to the dimension of some specific item . Otherwise Pete will make many errors, like that of the fellow who drowned in a river that averaged out only eighteen inches deep.”

---

Eleven: Simple, Pain-Avoiding Psychological Denial

“That's Simple, Pain-Avoiding Psychological Denial. The reality is too painful to bear, so one distorts the facts until they become bearable. We all do that to some extent, often causing terrible problems. The tendency's most extreme outcomes are usually mixed up with love, death, and chemical dependency.“

“ some people hope to leave life hewing to the iron prescription, "It is not necessary to hope in order to persevere." And there is something admirable in anyone able to do this.“

“.One should stay far away from any conduct at all likely to drift into chemical dependency. Even a small chance of suffering so great a damage should be avoided.”

--- Twelve: Excessive Self-Regard Tendency

“There is a name in psychology for this overappraise-your-own-possessions phenomenon: the "endowment effect." And all man's decisions are suddenly regarded by him as better than would have been the case just before he made them. Man's excess of self-regard typically makes him strongly prefer people like himself“

“Given this quality in psychological nature, cliquish groups of similar persons will always be a very influential part of human culture, even after we wisely try to dampen the worst effects. ”

“Intensify man's love of his own conclusions by adding the possessory wallop from the "endowment effect," and you will find that a man who has already bought a pork-belly future on a commodity exchange now foolishly believes, even more strongly than before, in the merits of his speculative bet.“

“More counterproductive yet are man's appraisals, typically excessive, of the quality of the future service he is to provide to his business. His overappraisal of these prospective contributions will frequently cause disaster. Excesses of self-regard often cause bad hiring decisions because employers grossly overappraise the worth of their own conclusions that rely on impressions in face-to-face contact. The correct antidote to this sort of folly is to underweigh face to-face impressions and overweigh the applicant's past record.“

“On the personal level a man should try to face the two simple facts: (1) fixable but unfixed bad performance is bad character and tends to create more of itself, causing more damage to the excuse giver with each tolerated instance, and (2) in demanding places, like athletic teams and General Electric, you are almost sure to be discarded in due course if you keep giving excuses instead of behaving as you should. The main institutional antidotes to this part of the "Tolstoy effect" are (1) a fair, meritocratic, demanding culture plus personnel handling methods that build up morale and (2) severance of the worst offenders. “

“The best antidote to folly from an excess of self-regard is to force yourself to be more objective when you are thinking about yourself, your family and friends, your property, and the value of your past and future activity. This sn't easy to do well and won't work perfectly, but it will work much better than simply letting psychological nature take its normal course.“

“Of all forms of useful pride, perhaps the most desirable is a justified pride in being trustworthy. Moreover, the trustworthy man, even after allowing for the inconveniences of his chosen course, ordinarily has a life that averages our better than he would have if he provided less reliability.“

--- Thirteen: Overoptimism Tendency

“Demosthenes, the most famous Greek orator, said. "What a man wishes, that also will he believe.“

“One standard antidote to foolish optimism is trained, habitual use of the simple probability rnath of Fermat and Pascal, taught in my youth to high school sophomores“

---

Fourteen: Deprival-Superreaction Tendency

“That is, the loss seems to hurt much more than the gain seems to help. Moreover, if a man almost gets something he greatly wants and has it jerked away from him at the last moment, he will react much as if he had long owned the reward and had it jerked away. I include the natural human reactions to both kinds of loss experience-the loss of the possessed reward and the loss of the almost-possessed reward-under one description, Deprival-Superreaction Tendency. In displaying Deprival-Superreaction Tendency, man frequently incurs disadvantage by misframing his problems. He will often compare what is near instead of what really matters“

“It is almost everywhere the case that extremes of ideology are maintained with great intensity and with great antipathy to non-believers, causing extremes of cognitive dysfunction. This happens, I believe, because two psychological tendencies are usually acting concurrently toward this same sad result: ( 1 ) Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency, plus (2) Deprival-Superreaction Tendency.

One antidote to intense, deliberate maintenance of groupthink is an extreme culture of courtesy, kept in place despite ideological differences, like the behavior of the justices now serving on the U.S. Supreme Court. Another antidote is to deliberately bring in able and articulate disbelievers of incumbent groupthink“

“Deprival-Superreaction Tendency and Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency often join to cause one form of business failure. In this form of ruin, a man gradually uses up all his good assets in a fruitless attempt to rescue a big venture going bad. One of the best antidotes to this folly is good poker skill learned young. The teaching value of poker demonstrates that not all effective teaching occurs on a standard academic path.“

“Some people may question my defining Deprival-Superreaction Tendency to include reaction to profit barely missed, as in the well documented responses of slot machine players. However, I believe that I haven't defined the tendency as broadly as I should. My reason for suggesting an even broader definition is that many Berkshire Hathaway shareholders I know never sell or give away a single share after immense gains in market value have occurred. Some of this reaction is caused by rational calculation, and some is, no doubt, attributable to some combination of (1) reward super response, (2) "status quo bias" from Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency, and (3) "the endowment effect" from Excessive Self-Regard Tendency. But I believe the single strongest irrational explanation is a form of Deprival-Superreaction Tendency. “

---

Fifteen: Social-Proof Tendency

“For some such reason, man's evolution left him with Social-Proof Tendency, an automatic tendency to think and act as he sees others around him thinking and acting.“

“When will Social-Proof Tendency be most easily triggered? Here the answer is clear from many experiments: Triggering most readily occurs in the presence of puzzlement or stress, and particularly when both exist.“

“Because both bad and good behavior are made contagious by Social-Proof Tendency, it is highly important that human societies (1) stop any bad behavior before it spreads and (2) foster and display all good behavior.“

“In social proof, it is not only action by others that misleads but also their inaction. In the presence of doubt, inaction by others becomes social proof that inaction is the right course“

“Social-Proof Tendency often interacts in a perverse way with Envy/Jealousy and Deprival Superreaction Tendency“

“If only one lesson is to be chosen from a package of lessons involving Social-Proof Tendency, and used in self improvement, my favorite would be: Learn how to ignore the examples from others when they are wrong, because few skills are more worth having.“

--- Sixteen: Contrast-Misreaction Tendency

“the contrast in what is seen is registered. And as in sight, so does it go, largely, in the other senses. Moreover, as perception goes, so goes cognition. The result is man's Contrast Misreaction Tendency“

“" Large- scale damages often ruin lives, as when a wonderful woman having terrible parents marries a man who would be judged satisfactory only in comparison to her parents. Or as when a man takes wife number two who would be appraised as all right only in comparison to wife number one."

“Contrast-Misreaction Tendency is routinely used to cause disadvantage for customers buying merchandise and services. To make an ordinary price seem low, the vendor will very frequently create a highly artificial price that is much higher than the price always sought, then advertise his standard price as a big reduction from his phony price. Even when people know that this sort of customer manipulation is being attempted, it will often work to trigger buying“

“Cognition, misled by tiny changes involving low contrast, will often miss a trend that is destiny. One of Ben Franklin's best-remembered and most useful aphorisms is "A small leak will sink a great ship."

--- Seventeen: Stress-Influence Tendency

“ For instance, most people know that an "acute stress depression" makes thinking dysfunctional because it causes an extreme of pessimism, often extended in length and usually accompanied by activity stopping fatigue. Fortunately, as most people also know, such a depression is one of mankind's more reversible ailments. Even before modern drugs were available, many people afflicted by depression, such as Winston Churchill and Samuel Johnson, gained great achievement in life.“

“ But not many scientists would have done what Pavlov next did. And that was to spend the rest of his long life giving stress-induced nervous breakdowns to dogs, after which he would try to reverse the breakdowns, all the while keeping careful experimental records. He found (1) that he could classify dogs so as to predict how easily a particular dog would breakdown (2) that the dogs hardest to break down were also the hardest to return to their pre breakdown state; (3) that any dog could be broken down; and (4) that he couldn't reverse a breakdown except by reimposing stress.“

---

Eighteen: Availability-Misweighing Tendency

“One consequence of this tendency is that extra vivid evidence, being so memorable and thus more available in cognition, should often consciously be underweighed while less vivid evidence should be overweighed. Still, the special strength of extra-vivid images in influencing the mind can be constructively used (1) in persuading someone else to reach a correct conclusion or (2) as a device for improving one's own memory by attaching vivid images, one after the other, to many items one doesn't want to forget“

“The great algorithm to remember in dealing with this tendency is simple: An idea or a fact is nor worth more merely because it is easily available to you.“

--- Nineteen: Use-It-or-Lose-It Tendency

“All skills attenuate with disuse“

“Throughout his life, a wise man engages in practice of all his useful, rarely used skills, many of them outside his discipline, as a sort of duty to his better self. If he reduces the number of skills he practices and, therefore, the number of skills he retains, he will naturally drift into error from man with a hammer tendency. His learning capacity will also shrink as he creates gaps in the latticework of theory he needs as a framework for understanding new experience. It is also essential for a thinking man to assemble his skills into a checklist that he routinely uses. Any other mode of operation will cause him to miss much that is important. Skills of a very high order can be maintained only with daily practice.“

“The hard rule of Use-It-or-Lose-It Tendency tempers its harshness for the diligent. If a skill is raised to fluency, instead of merely being crammed in briefly to enable one to pass some test, then the skill (1) will be lost more slowly and (2) will come back faster when refreshed with new learning. These are not minor advantages, and a wise man engaged in learning some important skill will not stop until he is really fluent in it.“

--- Twenty: Drug-Misinfluence Tendency

--- Twenty-One: Senescence-Misinfluence Tendency

“With advanced age, there comes a natural cognitive decay, differing among individuals in the earliness of its arrival and the speed of its progression“

“Continuous thinking and learning, done with joy can somewhat help delay what is inevitable.“

---

Twenty-Two: Authority-Misinfluence Tendency

“Living in dominance hierarchies as he does, like all his ancestors before him, man was born mostly to follow leaders, with only a few people doing the leading. And so, human society is formally organized into dominance hierarchies, with their culture augmenting the natural follow-the-leader tendency of man.

But automatic as most human reactions are, with the tendency to follow leaders being no exception, man is often destined to suffer greatly when the leader is wrong or when his leader's ideas don't get through properly in the bustle of life and are misunderstood. “

“So strong is undue respect for authority that this CEO, and many even worse examples, have actually been allowed to remain in control of important business institutions for long periods after it was clear they should be removed. The obvious implication: Be careful whom you appoint to power because a dominant authority figure will often be hard to remove, aided as he will be by Authority Misinfluence Tendency.“

---

Twenty-Three: Twaddle Tendency

“And it's a very important part of wise administration to keep prattling people, pouring our twaddle, far away from the serious work. A rightly famous Caltech engineering professor, exhibiting more insight than tact, once expressed his version of this idea as follows: "The principal job of an academic administration is to keep the people who don't matter from interfering with the work of the people that do.“

---

Twenty-Four: Reason-Respecting Tendency

“. It makes man especially prone to learn well when a would-be teacher gives correct reasons for what is taught, instead of simply laying out the desired belief ex cathedra with no reasons given. Few practices, therefore, are wiser than not only thinking through reasons before giving orders but also communicating these reasons to the recipient of the order.“

“In general, learning is most easily assimilated and used when, life long, people consistently hang their experience, actual and vicarious, on a lattice work of theory answering the question: Why? Indeed, the question "Why?" is a sort of Rosetta stone opening up the major potentiality of mental life. Unfortunately, Reason-Respecting Tendency is so strong that even a person's giving of meaningless or incorrect reasons will increase compliance with his orders and requests“

---

Twenty-Five: Lollapalooza Tendency-The Tendency to Get Extreme consequences from confluences of psychological Tendencies Acting in Favor of a Particular outcome

---

“Tendency is not always destiny, and knowing the tendencies and their antidotes can often help prevent trouble that would otherwise occur.“

#mungerism #poorcharliesalmanack #CharlieMunger #misjudgment #inversion #psychology

3 notes · View notes

blogrivendell · 2 years

Text

#30 Surrender to Love.

“When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, “at home, even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! I will go to my Father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant. So he returned to his father. And when he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him. His son said to him “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.” But his father said to his servants, “Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and now has returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found” So the party began. Luke 15:17-24

Jesus shouted to the crowds, “If you trust me, you are trusting not only me, but also God who sent me. For when you see me, you are seeing the one who sent me..........I don’t speak on my own authority. The Father who sent me has commanded me what to say and how to say it. And I know his commands lead to eternal life; I say whatever the father tells me to say.” John 12: 44, 45, 49,50,

So many of the words and concepts of Christianity have taken on negative connotations that provoke aversion due to distortions and misunderstandings. This makes it is difficult to speak about the essence of what it is all about without triggering some reaction. Words such as “obedience, submit, commands, authority, slaves, sin”;... can come across as legalism, or authoritarianism or sounding like we have to earn God’s acceptance, etc. We can try to use different words but we still need to retain the biblical truth of how God sees humanity and how He sees our dire situation and the remedy for it, because at the heart of our human problem is self-deception - left to ourselves, we don't see ourselves honestly (nor do we see the character of God clearly.) Many of the distortions come from our own personal woundedness, as well as genuinely bad “religion”. We react to God as though He is other than who he really is, and mostly we attribute to Him the human versions of emotions like anger, conditional love etc.. We effectively create God in our image, e.g, if He is the ultimate authority figure then we react to him in whatever way we feel towards human authority figures and perceive Him as behaving the way we expect authority figures to treat us. He is God, we can’t change the fact that He really is the ultimate authority figure and in the end, all creation will submit to Him whether they like it or not. But none of us have ever known any human authority figures who are like him, whose essence is perfect love. God is at pains to reminds us that He isn't at all like us humans.

If we don't wrestle with the concepts that trigger bad reactions and just dismiss them, we are just accommodating to our woundedness, not actually allowing God to bring healing to those distortions so we can worship him in the fullness of who He actually is. We are still making for ourselves a comfortable God, to our own liking. And this brings us to the other factor that complicates this issue. It is not just about our being deceived or wounded that muddies our perception of God, it is also the intractable tendency to pride and the enthronement of Self. Right from the beginning, the enemy has always whispered to each one of us that God does not have our best interests at heart and that we need to take charge and look after ourselves, creating our own identity and deciding for ourselves what we need to make us feel fulfilled. I can truly say that I have lived my life showered in kindness, treated with gentleness and protectiveness by God, but as soon as God shows any sign of thwarting what I want for myself, my first reaction is for Self to rear up and accuse Him of being against me, and not having my best interests at heart. I am choosing to agree with the enemy, Satan, and it suits my sinful self to agree with him. I am not just a victim of a lack of love, I am like a petulant child who says accusingly “you don't love me any more!!” to a parent who has to deny a child because what they want it is not good for them. The battle between good and evil is fought in these moments, this is the arena of the transformation process. This is why becoming Christlike is painful and difficult and it feels like we are struggling with an addiction that we are powerless to overcome.

But it is in the acknowledgment of our total inability to win this war, lies the wonder of what Christ can do for us and the freedom it brings. When Christ calls us to "deny ourselves” and become like Him by surrendering ourselves to him, it is that very act of surrender to a God of perfect Love that empowers that capacity to obey his request to “deny ourselves.”

Here are some quotes from David Benner in his excellent book “Surrender to Love”. Surrender goes against the grain of autonomy and self-control. Under any circumstances other than trustworthy love, it may be extremely unwise. But in response to Perfect Love, personally known, resistance can quickly dissipate and surrender become effortless - almost natural. ...The surrender Jesus invites from us - choosing his will and his life over our own - can never be motivated by anything but love... doing what God asks is not something we can ever achieve in ourselves. Not only did God never mean us to do so, he intended that our failures in obedience lead us to surrender. Rather than drive us to .ever-increasing efforts to get it right ourselves, God wants our sin to make us aware of our need of him. This is what Paul means by God’s strength being made perfect in Paul’s weakness... “

“the second problem in simply trying to do what God asks is that it leaves the kingdom of Self intact. I remain in control, and my willful ways of running my life remain unchallenged. The whole point of the kingdom of God is to overturn the kingdom of self. These are the two rival kingdoms. we need to be very suspicious when self-control and egocentricity are left unchallenged in our Christ-following... Relying on the will to make things happen keeps us focused on the self. Life lived with resolve and determination is life lived apart from surrender....Willingness, on the other hand, involves release of control...It is giving up our illusory control. And it is relinquishment of the keys to the kingdom of self. Christ is the epitome of life lived with willingness. “Your will be done” he prayed in what we call the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:10). And more than just in prayer, he lived this posture of preferring God’s will to his own. Christian spirituality is following Christ in this self-abandonment. It is following His example of willing surrender.

0 notes

theopennotebook · 6 years

Text

Skins FanFic

Chapter 6: Hit the Road Jack

Cook and I kept hooking up for a few weeks after the night we all went out, many hot and heavy make-out sessions but never going all the way. But things cooled down pretty quickly and we realized that though we had a great time together, we didn’t want to pursue anything else romantic, we much preferred just enjoying each other’s company as friends. Sure, we had a connection. But I was me and he was… well… Cook. I would always be a bit of a princess, and he would always be brash and crude and abrasive and… well, Cook. He was a lot of fun, but not the kind of guy you introduced to your mom. Plus, he was Freddie’s best friend. And I couldn’t stand being around Freddie.

Seeing Freddie at school over the next few weeks was beyond uncomfortable. At first, Freddie would try to talk to me in the hallways, to which I only ever responded with icy silence. I still couldn’t believe that I had started to fall for such a disgusting human being. It was probably just the drugs distorting my perception. Yet, I still found myself being drawn to him. What was wrong with me?

I was lost in my thoughts at the end of the school day, still in my own little world as I walked home. I barely said a word to my family that evening, I just went through the motions of dinner and homework before heading up to my room to read. What a way to spend a Friday evening.

About an hour after passing out with a book in my hands, I was awoken by the sound of my buzzing cellphone

FR: Maxxieeeeeee

Friday 5:30pm

Pack a bag, we’re going to the cabin for the weekend.

I rubbed my eyes, attempting to orient myself. Afternoon naps always left me groggy.

TO: Maxxieeeeeee

Friday 5:31pm

What?

FR: Maxxieeeeeee

Friday 5:31pm

Jack and Finn’s cabin. Hurry. Jack will be at your place in 20.

TO: Maxxieeeeeee

Friday 5:32pm

Maxxie, I’m already in my “not leaving the house again” clothes. And what am I supposed to tell my parents?

FR: Maxxieeeeeee

Friday 5:33pm

Not my problem. Stop being such a grandma. Figure something out. 17 minutes. See you soon.

I tossed my phone down on my bed, put my bookmark back in Pride and Prejudice and found myself absentmindedly beginning to pack a weekend bag. I tossed in the essentials and even dug out the bag of skittles that were left over from the night we went clubbing. They may come in handy. I slunk downstairs to find my dad sitting in the living room, watching the news.

“Hey, dad?”

“Yes pumpkin?”

“Maxxie and some of our friends are headed to a cabin for the weekend. Can I go?”

“Where is this cabin?” He asked, pulling himself away from a story of a skateboarding dog.

“Not sure, I’ll text you the address. Dad, they’re on their way here… I need an answer.”

“It’s getting late. How are you evening planning on getting there?”

“Jack is coming to pick me up.”

“That’s one of the twins, right?”

“Yes.”

“He seems respectable enough. Alright, have a good weekend. Say hi to Maxine for me. When will you be back?”

“Probably Sunday. Thanks, dad!” I said, placing a kiss on his cheek. I ran out of the living room before he could ask any more questions.

At 5:50pm, I saw Jack’s familiar SUV pull up outside of my house. I grabbed my backpack, camping gear and the bag of snacks I had thrown together and slipped out of the house. Jack sat in the driver’s seat, the back-seat empty. Jack hopped out to help me toss my stuff in the trunk.

“Where is everybody?” I asked.

“Don’t worry, I’m not kidnapping you. You’re just the first one on my pick-up list.” He said flashing a debonair smile.

“Where’re Finn and Maxxie?” I asked, climbing into the passenger seat.

“Maxxie is driving herself and Finn took our other car. We wouldn’t all fit in one car.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t sound so disappointed to be alone with me.” Jack teased, starting the car.

I stuck my tongue out at him playfully.

“I’m trembling in my seat.” He teased.

I smiled back at him. The skin around his eyes crinkled when he laughed, and his green eyes glinted in the sunlight.

“What?” He asked, taking a few stray locks of my hair in between his fingers.

“Nothing…” Still smiling, I turned to stare out of the window instead.

After a few moments of silence, I remembered what Cook had told me about Jack. I wasn’t sure when I was ever going to get him alone again, so I decided that this would be the best time to clear the air.

“I know what happened between you and Cook’s girlfriend, Jack…”

“What?” He took his eyes off the road for only a second, but his face flushed. “What are you talking about?”

“Cook told me,” I said, not taking my eyes off of him. I studied his response. I saw the muscles around his jaw tense and release. He let out a long exhale.

“Okay.” He signaled and pulled into a gas station parking lot.

He turned off the engine.

“I had been hoping to avoid having this conversation with you, but if it has to happen, I want to make sure to give you my full attention.”

“I’m listening.”

“Okay. Me, Finn, and Cook were really close. The three of us had been friends since primary school. Cook’s mum was and Finn and my piano teacher as a kid. We ended up spending more time playing with her son than practicing the piano. The three of us were inseparable. Then about two years ago, Cook met Eden and they started dating. I’d seen Cook with a lot of girls, but this was the first time I saw him do the whole ‘boyfriend’ thing. He dove in head first, like he would have given her his left kidney if she had asked him to. But we could all tell that she wasn’t as invested as he was. She was a lot like Effie - very free-spirited, rebellious - except Eden had a mean streak and a penchant for vodka and pills. She would use Cook for his money and then blame him for her shortcomings.” Jack looked over at me to make sure I was still following.

“Anyway, after two months or so they started fighting like cats and dogs. At first, it was just playful bickering, but by the 8-month mark, we all thought they may actually kill each other. We all told Cook to end it with her, for his own sanity. One day, Eden shows up at my apartment while Finn was at work. She was a mess, she had clearly been on a bender. I let her in and asked her what was wrong. She told me that she and Cook had gotten into their biggest fight yet and that it was over between them. She had been staying at his place at the time because she and her mum didn’t get on well, mostly because of Eden’s rage and the substance abuse. I invited her in to collect herself. She went into my room, said she needed a nap. I went into the kitchen to make her something to eat.” He paused and wiped his hands over his face. I could see him growing more anxious.

“Jack… what happened next?”

He looked at me, his eyes begging me not to make him go on. But I needed to know, I needed to hear it from him.

He exhaled. “When I went back into my room, Eden was lying on my bed… naked… I was in shock. I just stood there in the doorway holding a grilled cheese like a pansy. She slowly made her way over to me. I asked her what she was doing, and she backed me up against the doorframe. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to touch her… I knew I couldn’t. But then she undid my pants and began to pull them down… I… I…” He let his head fall into his hands.

“Did you sleep with her?” I interjected.

“No! Is that what Cook told you?!” He looked horrified by my accusation. “The only thing that happened is that she tried to give me head and I pushed her off! She was embarrassed so I tried to downplay the situation. I gave her a shirt to put on and went back to the kitchen. Eden was a bit messed up, you know? I didn’t want to set her off. Anyway, I heard the buzzer ring, but before I could answer it, Eden ran to the door. I heard Cook explode and ran out to try to diffuse the situation, which of course only made it worse. He accused me of sleeping with her, which I adamantly denied. Eden didn’t say anything, she just stood in the corner of the hallway smirking like she had planned it all along. Ever since then, he’s wanted me dead. But I swear to you, I didn’t do anything with Eden. I wouldn’t do that. Especially not to Cook. He was like another brother to me. Zye, I swear to you. That’s what happened.”

I searched his face for any sign that he may be lying, but everything he said seemed sincere. His eyes were wrought with grief, I had clearly hit a nerve.

“Did you ever try to reach out to Cook? Tell him what happened?”

“Every day for 6 months. By the end, he told me that if I ever spoke to him again, he would jam his fist so far down my throat that he’d pull my balls out through my mouth… I took that as a hint to leave him alone.”

A heavy silence fell over the car.

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me, Zye?”

I shifted in my seat uncomfortably. “Well…”

“I mean… I get it… if I heard that about someone, I wouldn’t want to hang around them either.”

“I’m sorry Jack…” I placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Are we alright now though? You don’t think I’m some low life woman stealer? Am I back to being the ridiculously good-looking guy you know and love?”

“We’re fine now Jack.” I smiled sincerely. I felt as if a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Between finding out that Jack stole Cook’s girlfriend and that Freddie was such a creep, I didn’t know how much more I could handle.

Jack nodded and started the car.

“Hey, Jack?”

“Yes?”

“Whatever happened to Eden?”

“I went to her house a few days after things blew up with Cook to try to get her to explain to him what had happened. Her mom answered the door saying that Eden had transferred to an all-girls boarding school four hours away. She seemed surprised that I didn’t know, apparently, they had been planning it for months. She hadn’t even bothered to tell any of us she was leaving. I wouldn’t be surprised if she planned the whole mess as a means of leaving her mark on us. Typical Eden.”

I noticed his hand lingering on the gear shift. I placed mine over his.

“I’m sorry about you and Cook. I’ll see if there’s any way I can help.”

He smiled warmly at me. “Thank you.”

Before long we had picked up Cook and Effie. Initially, I felt uneasy around Effie. After all, she had seen me almost kiss her sort-of boyfriend. If she and Cook were anything alike, it meant she may be holding a grudge against me. But, to my surprise, she and I fell into easy and comfortable conversation and before I knew it we were on our way to the cabin.

---

When they said we were coming to a “cabin”, I pictured a homely wooden structure, hidden amongst the trees. What I saw in front of me as we drove up was a sprawling, modern, angular structure nestled into the rolling hills of the countryside. As we drove around the side into the driveway, I had a full view of the dock and the lake just as the sun was setting over it. I jumped out of the car as it stopped to take it all in. It was absolutely breathtaking.

“Earth to Zye!” I heard Jack call from the porch.

I snapped out of my reverie and turned to help Cook and Effie empty the trunk.

Jack showed me to the room I’d be sharing with Maxxie.

“Will you be okay in here?” He asked, leaning against the doorframe.

“I think it will do quite nicely!” I said flinging myself dramatically onto the best nearest the bay window. Jack rested my things on the floor beside the bed and helped me up.

Jack headed down the hall to his own room while I began to make my way downstairs.

I ran down the stairs so quickly that my socks slipped on the hardwood floor. I felt myself beginning to fall and then being grabbed out of midair. I felt strong hands grab my waist and set me back on solid ground. It was Freddie.

“Are you alright?” He asked gently as I turned to face him, his hands still around my waist, his eyes with a glint of playfulness in them.

A sudden memory of his body pressed against mine in the dark, humid club flashing through my mind. As I stood only inches away from him, I felt the same burning desire in the pit of my stomach that I felt before. My hand traced its way up his arm again my better judgement. I shook away the memory and commanded my mind back to the present.

“I’m glad I bumped into you actually, Zye. I’ve been meaning to talk to you…”

“Thank you for catching me. I have to go.” I said curtly, pulling myself from his hands.

“Oh, right. Of course.” He said, awkwardly running his hands through his hair. Oh, how I wanted to run my fingers through that hair, gripping it as he placed hungry kisses on my collarbone and nibbled on my earlobe… I shook away the thought.

“Just be careful, wouldn’t want you to fall.” He said with a faint smile.

I turned and ran down the rest of the stairs, this time being sure to hold the railing. I walked into the living room where Cook was tending to the roaring fire. Looks like I would be going 2 for 2 today. This was just the opportunity I needed to try to get him to make up with Jack and I wasn’t going to waste it.

4 notes · View notes

withoutjoy · 5 years

Text

hmf

gasoline runs in pale blue veins; bright city lights, scratching of needle against vinyl disc, shouts of victory accompanying the kisses lovers shared with their loved ones upon returning from war. ivory skin made of cemented road and daunting skyscrapers. monochromatic is the photo that serve as the only reminder of homeland, where gunpowder is suffocatingly thick in the air and earth dyed red from the spilled blood of brothers in arms. mingfei has never fit in anywhere, not even in the comforts of his blood and flesh. his skin is too dark to blend in with the crowd when he walks in the main road. soil-colored eyes dull--boring, even, compared to the cerulean blue or forest green of his friends'. his black hair seem to be a stark contrast against the lighter colored hair everywhere he goes. but he understands.

he understands that he is different. he understands that it is okay to be different. he learns that it is better to retreat than to be deemed ill-fated. he learns that to get by he’d have to cast that identity aside by blending in. he understands and learns to accept that compared to the prismatic hues of this foreign land, he’s just an analogous scheme of beige, black and white.

( vibrant red with dark crimson, sunny yellow with elm, spring green with dull cherry-wood, and sky blue with thick grey )

he also understands that it is human’s nature to never be able to have their thirst quenched; no matter how many lives are taken, how many youth and old spirit ripped away from the warm embrace of their families, how much mothers starve just so their children can survive, humans will always be there to destroy anything in their path. to get rid of everything that shares a different view from them over a baseless paranoia.

and him being here--in a land far away from home--is the living proof. heck, he might as well call himself the very product and victim of war.

ii.

ironically it started when a life ended.

papa thinks he’s sick in the head. gege thinks he’s a morbid freak. mama is too busy rotting in her coffin to care, dawn-colored discoloration adorning her pale skin beneath broken ribs and damaged internal organs--a complete contrast to the white dress and lilies held by nimble fingers.

mingfei thinks he should be sad--or scared at least, but why would he be when his dreams have shown him worse things?

( his fingers bleed grotesque; vermilion jarring upon the dull white of paper. black outlines the shape of a woman sprawled upon gray concrete. a small car as if complimenting the lifeless body next to it )

so papa sends him to a place far, far away. no, not the place where you get your happily ever after, where the princess marries the prince. or the monster that threatened the town vanquished by the knights in shining armor. or the place where all the rainbows point to. no.

to the place where normal people fix people like him. where any methods are used in order to straighten crooked lines.

then mingfei thinks again; maybe, he can finally fit in somewhere after this.

iii.

the sensations hit him abruptly like a tsunami.

first, head up in cloud nine. vision swimming. mingfei lets the current carry him anywhere they want to. ignoring the buzzing sound near his ears or the poking on his eye. he sees the distorted blue of the sky with cotton white clouds. he sees his parents’ smiling faces when they arrived at their new house. he sees the colorful billboards scattered around in downtown new york. his mother smiling at him, mouthing “it’s going to be okay”.

second, the pain is sharp enough to cut through everything, even the daze inflicted upon him. brown iris dilates, light coming in too much at once. gauze obstructs his left eye. black locks are shaved clean. two pair of holes pierce both sides of his head, on top of his ears. his sight are blurry, no matter how much he tries to focus. how long has he been out?

third, confusion settles in. why is it still here? the man in the white suit promised he’s going to be okay. but if anything his ears catches the voices a lot easier now. the dreams gotten worse, to the point where he would wake up in someplace else that his awake state doesn’t even recall. faces seem like a disarray of oil color on wet canvas in his mind.

well, perhaps that’s what happens when one attempts to cure something that has been there from the very beginning.

fortunately, the madam that came to pick him up one day understands that clearly. her features lost in soil-colored hues, yet the red lipstick burns in the back of his mind as clear as the daylight. she picked him up like how a grandmother would to their grandson at school, warm hand enveloping tiny one as they walk towards the outside world. golden strands gleaming when the sunlight filters through them. he thinks her voice is croaky, but it’s not exactly unpleasant.

“you’re coming with me, young man. i’ll show you how unique you are.” she said, pearly white teeth bared while looking upon him. mingfei smiles back, ignoring the amount of bodies scattered behind them, their blood splashed on dirty green of the asylum’s interior. could this really be it?

iv.

miss heron is very nice to him. she lets mingfei eat delicious food until he’s full for two-times a day. never to raise her voice and always patient while explaining the things he doesn’t understand. she let everyone embrace their ‘peculiarities’ by encouraging them to utilize it, like listening to the dreams he has each night and putting him back to bed when he sleepwalks. its almost his first year of staying with her yet never once mingfei has been hit with a belt or a wooden stick whenever he missed a target with his knives during training sessions. and he is more than happy for that.

but what’s better is the amount of books in her library. it’s almost like a room of endless shelves, each one containing books mingfei doesn’t even know exist. from the illustrated storybook that miss heron would read to the younger kids in her orphanage to the books with difficult words in it. yixing decided that he’s fond of the psychology and medicine sections and would spend hours there even if it’s just to look at the diagrams.

he learns that the name of his peculiarity is extrasensory perception; esp for short. people around the nation has been conducting research on people with peculiarities like him, but some is skeptical and try to cure them by driving stakes into the patient’s head instead--just like what they did to him.

either way mingfei is pleased, because he knows he’s not the only one now.

it always ends as soon as it begins for him.

he was never one to lose his temper over things so easily, but the very composure he thought he possessed flew away upon finding out that the invisible creature that took miss heron’s eyes were the same runt that couldn’t keep his mouth shut during his reading sessions in the library.

he thought about abandoning the remaining children--he really did. but the responsibility of leading them automatically falls onto his hands as the oldest of the group. and who is he to say no if their caretaker herself decreed so in her last breaths?

so in the end mingfei gave in. the role as the guardian taken with a heavy heart and watery eyes. the task of finding loops for the other children to live in wasn’t easy, and there are sacrifices he had to make. but what’s that compared to a gratitude of a lifetime?

he’s all but sunken cheeks and hollow eyes when he stepped out of the last loop, leaving the last child for the ymbryne to take care of after five years of living in the streets. saccharine voice convinced him to stay, but mingfei rejects the prospect of living in momentarily peace if the same incident will only repeat itself again.

( he eventually stopped his travels and settled down in a loop somewhere in russia, though. twenty five and he becomes the headmistress’ most trusted keeper )

vi.

six decades of waiting for a chance to strike back, six decades of gritted teeth and clenched fist. his disease decided to make an appearance on the moment that counts.

it was just one, minuscule cut to his finger, courtesy of the throwing knife he hadn’t touched for so long. the cut wasn’t even deep yet the red that flows from it managed to put him into a state of unconsciousness for almost a day.

the headmistress’ voice is clear as the day even in his dazed state when she told him he’s not cut out to be a hunter, that he’s going to teach the ones that has the potential instead. empty eyes glanced at the spot on the wall across his bed, words lost to deaf ears save for the occasional mentions of ‘new loop’ ‘mara-do’, and ‘transfer’.

the world is so fucking unfair. but what’s new, really?

#profile #mine #peculiarity au #zyx fc

0 notes

farfromempty-blog1 · 7 years

Photo

HEADCANONS #01 . yu's palace : the deep dark .

No spoilers.

PALACE KEYWORDS AND APPEARANCE

Yu Narukami, old house, abyss. These are the keywords. Yu's got quite a list of "old houses", considering his family moved pretty much every year (or even two!), but the one that he lived in before moving to Inaba is the one where the Palace is located, because that was the one where his mental situation was the worst. It's also the one he remembers most clearly. Therefore, it left the most impact on his psyche.

The abyss part has to do more with Yu's perception of himself and the world around him. To this day he has a fear of empty houses, because he spent so much of his life trapped in them. It's near impossible to make friends when you're only living in a place for one year, baby Yu learned, so eventually he stopped trying and began actively trying to push people away — but he was also an incredibly lonely person, an extrovert forced into introversion because of circumstances beyond his control. It really fucked him up, mentally.

His issues are similar to Teddie's in that beneath the way he acts to others, Yu doesn't think that he has any personality, identity, or existence at all. (After Inaba, this changed to "doesn't think he has any personality, identity, or existence at all when he's not around other people".) He's also very desperate to hide these things in the darkness so that none of his friends ever find out, because he realizes how fucked-up they are and is convinced that if anyone sees, it will be the final straw that leads to them leaving him.

And therefore, we have a dark and spooky abyss where Yu's house (and if you ask him, heart) should be.

TREASURE WITHIN THE PALACE

This one is difficult because the real source of Yu’s distortion is not a physical object at all; it’s a culmination of his terrible life experience and his assorted psychological disorders. The only way to express it in a singular concept is void.

So I’m going to say that inside the Palace, Yu’s Treasure is a giant cloak that he wears on his person at all times. Most of it is black, but not just black fabric – it seems like it is woven from a black hole itself. The only distinguishing feature is a strange white insignia on the chest, reminiscent of the flag from a certain card. It just has this deeply unsettling aura about it, as if merely touching the thing will make reality begin to tear at the seams — let alone wearing it. In fact, reality does start to distort a little around it…

Its hood is always up and drawn, making it impossible to see anything except an approximate outline of Yu’s face. Sometimes the ‘approximate outline’ is of someone else’s face. Even though there is a dramatic black cape attached to the cloak that billows menacingly in nonexistent winds, the main garment falls all along Yu’s body, head to foot – it makes distinguishing any sort of movement or body shape very difficult. He often attempts to pull it tighter around himself, as if desperately trying to hide whatever is beneath.

TREASURE OUTSIDE OF THE PALACE

Outside the Metaverse, the cloak disappears. Nothing takes its place. It’s just gone.

SHADOWS' APPEARANCE.

Unlike many other Palaces, the Shadows in Yu’s do not have a significant hierarchy except perhaps for size. In fact, they barely have physical forms at all. Their bodies are constantly twisting and morphing in on themselves in unnatural ways – faces and limbs appear everywhere only to be washed away in the twisting dark energy seconds later. They have almost kaleidoscopic moving patterns on their bodies by “default”, and their forms are vaguely humanoid if you squint, but they do not walk like humans. At any given time, they will have at least one head with a mask painfully stitched to their face. Each mask is labelled with a Roman numeral from I to XXI, and they all seem to smoothly change colour through the spectrum of colors. All of the masks have an expression of abject despair.

If you are seen by any Shadow in this Palace, your screen gradually begins to get darker, the longer you run from them, until all you can see is a black void. Your movement gets more sluggish, too, making it easier for the Shadows to catch you. For that reason, it is highly recommended that you bring stealth-boosting items into this Palace.

The smallest forms kind of resemble Mayas in their appearance and movements, though any sort of head or arms could reach out from the pool of concentrated darkness, often more than one at once. And no, they don’t have to be human, or anything else recognizable for that matter. (In case you couldn’t tell, the Shadows in this Palace have a very high potential for body horror.)

Later, the Shadows begin as pools of dark matter like the other ones, but they are able to pull up entire bodily forms out of the goop and stand on (things that are probably supposed to be) legs. Sometimes you get a face where a foot would be, and the Shadow is putting its entire weight on one of its faces or masks. Sometimes you have a mostly human-ish one, but it’s a TV head with a head far too large for it to balance beneath. More than one mask can appear on these Shadows at a time.

It’s not uncommon for them to turn and look at you but not chase you – if you see one doing this, avoid it at all costs. It is the strongest type of Shadow there is in this Palace, and there is a non-zero chance that it will fucking wreck you. If you accidentally get too close, they will reach out with some of their ungodly eldritch limbs, and if that happens you are helpless; you will enter into a battle surrounded, no matter what. If one of these Shadows has a hold of you, all twenty-one masks will appear on its body at once, and the battle-entrance animation will treat you to a lovely view of all of them deforming at the same time into a slurry of darkness.

SHADOW SELF'S APPEARANCE + PERSONALITY.

Shadow Yu's appearance is described in the Treasure part. He wears a giant cloak that obscures every part of his body, and his face cannot be seen, not even the glowing yellow eyes.

In the beginning, Shadow Yu does not speak much. Or at all. He just stands there with his cloak of darkness and watches, activating traps and summoning monsters to keep the party away from the 'core'. This used to be Yu's first line of defense against 'intruders', shooting them down and making them leave him be, a habit which Yu learned to stop doing after Inaba changed him and his stance on other people — but of course, that 'habit' never went away. It only went to his Shadow.

Once the party reaches the core, a Persona 4 style cutscene and confrontation between Shadow and Other will begin. You don't need to have Yu on your four-member team for this, because he'll show up either way.

Shadow Yu is not interested in making Yu accept him, because Yu has already accepted him. Initially Yu tries to make this exact argument, but the Shadow swats it away, because he doesn't want Yu's acknowledgment; he wants more. He's interested in making the world see him — the identity issues, the depression, the dissociation, everything Yu desperately tries to hide from his friends for fear that they'll be scared and run away. The Shadow addresses the rest of the party more than it does Yu, laying out all of his character flaws in precise detail, and watching as Yu gets more and more panicked. Yu's convinced himself that if anyone finds out about any of this, they'll leave immediately, so having all his friends find out at once is just too much for him to bear.

And eventually, even though he knows he shouldn't, he turns to the rest of the party and frantically tries to tell them, "That's not me!"

DEADLY SIN.

Yu’s sin is Sloth, also known as Acedia – and in fact, Acedia is closer to what is actually going on with him. Acedia is a lack of interest, the inability to bring oneself to care about things. According to Wikipedia, initially it was observed in monks who lived a solitary lifestyle and could no longer muster the energy to perform their duties to their people and to God. Sloth is… well, we all know what Sloth is. It’s laziness, or perceived laziness – a refusal to get out of bed in the morning and do things.

In Yu, this manifests as depression. A lack of purpose. The paralysis that washes over his mind and body when he begins to question his reality and identity, and the fear that beneath all of the pretending there is nothing there at all.

#⤷⋮〖 headcanons 〗

5 notes · View notes

banterandwit · 4 years

Text

A Narratological and Freudian psychoanalysis of The Turn of the Screw

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James has been open to many interpretations and debate from the date of its publication; be it from a Marxist perspective, a structuralist perspective, or even through the looking glass of queer theory. All questioning James’ intentions and how they covertly effect the perception of the reader and their interpretation of the novella. In this essay, I will be looking at the story through firstly, a narratological perspective. This is to look at the story through its narrative structure- how the story is told instead of its contents and the implications of this. Also, looking at it from a psychoanalytical perspective; this entails using psychoanalysis (which is the study of the link between conscious and unconscious in the mind) and how it effects a piece of literature via inadvertent suggestions of hidden meanings unforeseen in the conscious mind. The Freudian version of psychoanalysis, often makes use of symbols and how they have sexual meanings behind them. This is key to unlocking James’ concealed ideas in the text. It is through these perspectives that I will be addressing how the author creates a layered story formed by three narrators in which the secondary narrator (as opposed to the primary or main)- i.e. Douglas, is also the main narrator in disguise. The essay will follow this idea and explain how the governess’ tale is in fact Douglas’ memories of his first sexual encounter and his ‘unconscious’ coming of age. The tale is recounted in first person. Yet, it is not initially from the perspective of the governess, who’s narrative involvement is a large part of the text, or even the narrator of her tale (Douglas). Instead it is told from the view of an ‘I’ who recalls an event close to Christmas a while before where supernatural stories were voiced to a small assembly for the first time from ‘long ago’. Douglas, who is in fact the narrator of the record is the secondary teller of the story which are the supposed memoires of ‘his sister’s governess’ who was troubled by ghostly entities. Hence forth the main narrator of James’ novel is supposedly ‘the governess.’ However, although originally it is seen that Douglas’ recount is from the governess’ manuscript, he does admit that it is in fact ‘made much later.’ This connotes that although the events that took place may have happened, they have been distorted from the absolute truth through time. It is from this that the basis of the argument being presented is made. Alterations through time are highly likely. Stories are forgotten memories after all. In James’ novella the alterations are made by Douglas who tells the primary narrator and the gathering of the time that although he had the original record, it was in fact ‘his own.’ From this, it can be interpreted that Douglas is describing his perspective of what happened through the eyes of the governess; where the entities are his subconscious creating an output for his budding sexual feelings. In addition to this, it can be seen in the text that the focalisation of the text is centred internally. This is to say that the audience is told from the perspective of how the governess is thinking and feeling. Or so it seems. Although the assumption of internal focalising is sound, we must look at who’s perspective it is from. From a basic point of view, to say that the text is by a woman would be sound. However, this is hardly the case. In my reading, it is rather evident that although it is plausible that it is by a woman, this is in fact a ploy by Douglas to hide his erotic fantasies for ‘his sister’s governess’ from when he was a child (coming towards the beginning of puberty) which he subconsciously writes in her viewpoint to throw off anyone listening as he has deemed it unwise to express these feelings so brazenly. In the opening chapter the governess speaks of a ‘faint and far…cry of a child’ which are essentially out of reach. This in fact is the ‘unconscious’ sexual idealisms, manifesting themselves in the young Douglas as he begins development towards sexual maturity. In this we see the true nature of the recollection. It is not a governess and the children in her care in danger from apparitions, instead it is the fixation and hyper sexualisation of a boy becoming a man.

Delving deeper still, it can be seen that Douglas is in fact embodied within the story as Miles. It is his recollections after all which are voiced by the governess. Initially this is evident via the body language of both characters. The external narrator notes that Douglas had his back to everyone ‘with his hands in his pockets.’ In comparison, the governess notes how Miles ‘had his hands in his little pockets with his back to me.’ Clearly if Douglas is in fact a teenage Miles as an adult, their body language would not differ according to Freud and his idea of puberty being the stage where everything becomes ‘normal’ for a person. As such body language and sexuality become set for Miles (or Douglas) in the period where the governess is narrating, and is why Douglas would have the same habits as young Miles. James’ subtle hinting at this suggests that Douglas’ subconscious is creating memories and scenarios and feeding it through the governess’ recount to reinforce his sexual fixation with her; since he doesn’t know clearly the governess’ feelings he invents a subliminal manifestation of himself in her recount through Miles. Then Douglas talks about how the governess saw in him a ‘glow of freshness’ and ‘positive fragrance of purity’ suggesting her desires towards him; in this way, the mutuality of sexual desire is cemented between the pair. The climax of the story it is seen that supposedly Miles dies as ‘his little heart, dispossessed, had stopped’ in the arms of his beloved governess, likely from suffocation, as she shields him from the apparition of Peter Quint. Though, if this is interpreted from the point of view that Miles is indeed Douglas, then the apparent situation becomes quite different. Prior to the alleged death an encounter between the governess and Miles had resulted in her ‘moans of joy’ and his hard breathing. James’ uses many innuendoes and in this case, it suggests a sort of mutual sexual stimulation between the two. Moreover, when Miles is expelled it is due to him having done something ‘unspeakable.’ In James’ time the unspeakable would most likely infer to a sexual act; on Miles’ part this is self-gratification whist at boarding school. In the end before Miles’ heart stops, the governess speaks about Miles letting out a ‘cry of a creature hurled from an abyss’ and how she catches him in his supposed ‘fall’ as well as how she held him. The connotations from this suggests that Miles lets out a cry from an orgasm induced by the physical touch of the governess and his fall was a fall from innocence. Douglas therefore ends his account on the death of his own childhood and the birth of his Freudian norm as a postpubescent man.

In summation, atypically The Turn of the Screw is looked at from the governess’ perspective due to how it is narrated, and for this reason it is overlooked that it is in fact a recollection of Douglas’ memories written in an unorthodox way. James’ writes the story in a first-person perspective with the focalisation being internalised rather than externalised in order to covertly assimilate Douglas’ subconscious erotica into a ghost story about a governess and the children in her care. As such Douglas’ manifest himself into the story as Miles and speaks of the adoration that the governess showered upon him throughout, ultimately leading to the death of innocence in her arms through the culmination of his sexual desires- which results in an orgasm. Ultimately the story, with its plethora of narrators, is in fact the subconscious coming of age story of a child into a man written in the Victorian era where crudeness was condemnable and hence presented in an unorthodox manner. In any other analytical perspective, the Douglas-Miles link may not be made. Nonetheless, the sexual connotations are evident through and through. Consequently, the analysis presented is sound and produces many answers other theories fail to look at.

#turn of the screw #henry james #Wit #Freud #Narrative Perspectives #Freud really was a loon huh?

0 notes

oilandash · 5 years

Text

7 Ways Narcissists Manipulate Relationships

“Some people try to be tall by cutting off the heads of others” —Paramhansa Yogananda

“It’s not easy being superior to everyone I know.” —Anonymous

The Mayo Clinic research group defines narcissistic personality disorder as “a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance and a deep need for admiration. Those with narcissistic personality disorder believe that they're superior to others and have little regard for other people's feelings. But behind this mask of ultra-confidence lies a fragile self-esteem, vulnerable to the slightest criticism.”

Narcissistic supply is a form of psychological addiction and dependency, where the narcissist requires (demands) constant importance, “special treatment,” validation, and/or appeasement in order to feel good about him or herself. This insatiable craving to be “put on a pedestal” explains to a large extent the narcissist’s sense of conceit, entitlement, and self-absorption.

In order to constantly fill their “supply,” many narcissists deliberately find or create scenarios where they can regularly receive attention and the feeling of infallibility. They also purposely target relationships with individuals (victims) who are prone to their initial charm, gullible to their manipulation, and vulnerable to their exploitation. At home or at work, in ways large and small, the narcissist craves the constant stroking of their ego. They desperately depend on this “supply” to compensate for their inner emptiness and relieve their fragile self-esteem.

Below are seven manipulative roles that narcissists often enact in order to receive a regular flow of narcissistic supply, with references from my books, How to Successfully Handle Narcissists and A Practical Guide for Narcissists to Change Towards the Higher Self. While some people may engage in one of the behaviors below on occasion, which may not be a major issue, a chronic narcissist will habitually dwell in one or more of the following personas on a regular basis, in order to feel adequate about him or herself.

1. The Self-Anointed Know It All

“My father’s favorite responses to my views were: ‘but…,’ ‘actually…,’ and ‘there’s more to it than this…’ He always has to feel like he knows better.” —Anonymous

The narcissist may position themselves at home, at work, or in social situations as the “know it all,” “expert,” or “authority,” constantly marginalizing, correcting, and invalidating others’ points of view. Narcissist know-it-alls are also frequent conversation hoarders and interrupters. Notably, even when they’re not criticizing or correcting your views, they may listen briefly and then go right back to what they were talking about, as if what you said didn’t matter at all. You exist merely as a convenient tool for their supply.

“That’s enough of me talking about myself; let’s hear you talk about me.” —Anonymous

2. The Dominant Controller / Judge / Savior

“These picture frames in the living room are crooked. I told you to check when you clean the house. Come on! Don’t be stupid!!” —Anonymous husband to wife

The narcissist may target and position themselves in personal or professional relationships with those who allow them to dominate, judge, criticize, or marginalize on a regular basis. The narcissist feels full of themselves by controlling and subjugating others. A variation of this type of social domination is the narcissist who receives his or her supply by “rescuing” others, thereby proclaiming himself as the “indispensable savior.”

“Once again, I saved the day—without me, they’re nothing!” —Anonymous

3. The Merit Badge Collector / Pedestal Seeker

“My accomplishments are everything.” —Anonymous executive

Some narcissists purposely select professional endeavors where they can be regularly admired and/or feared. In this case, a major reason for the narcissist's choice is simply to be “superior," “important," and “special," rather than sincerely desiring to make a contribution for the greater good.

“He thinks he is a god because he’s a doctor.” —Anonymous

“She chose to be (a security officer) so she can be mean to people and get away with it.” —Anonymous

4. The Boundary Violator / Exploiter

“Rules are meant to be broken—that’s how you win.” —Anonymous

The narcissist may regularly use their charm, persuasion, or coercion to pressure people into giving them what they want, even when it’s clearly one-sided and unreasonable. Some are particularly fond of manipulating others into surrendering their boundaries. Here, the narcissistic supply is based on others succumbing to the narcissist's exploitative influence, which they consider “winning” and ego-affirming. Many pathological narcissists do not relate, they use.

“I take pride in persuading people to give me exceptions to their rules.” —Anonymous

5. The Grandiose Showoff / Braggart

“She likes to drop the phrase ‘I’m a lawyer’ into every social conversation, no matter how irrelevant.” —Anonymous

Some narcissists constantly engage in showing off, name dropping, status boasting, or “humble-bragging” about how great and wonderful their lives are, in hopes of receiving praise, recognition, and social media attention. They purposely want others to be envious of what they have, in order to feel better about themselves.

“My fiancé and I each drive a Mercedes. The best man at our upcoming wedding also drives a Mercedes!” —Anonymous

6. The Habitually Difficult / Negativity-Seeking Contagion

“My manager is deliberately picky and makes everything difficult. It gives her a sense of power.” —Anonymous

Certain narcissists are deliberately and persistently difficult, uncooperative, and/or confrontational, even when it is clearly unreasonable and unnecessary to be so. Here, the narcissist supply is the perceived power that comes from being dreaded and disliked. From the narcissist’s toxic and distorted point of view, it is better to be a thorn in the side of others than to be a nobody.

In some cases, although the narcissist may be unaware, making oneself difficult subconsciously confirms the narcissist’s inner self-loathing—that he or she does not deserve to be loved and accepted, and does not have what it takes to engage in positive and healthy relationships (narcissistic wound).

7. The Living-Through-Others Faker / Wannabe

“You have opportunities I’ve never had . . . After you become a doctor, you can do as you please. Until then you do as I say!” —Father to son in Dead Poets Society

Some narcissists live through others in hopes of boosting their own low self-esteem or vicariously fulfilling their own unrealized fantasies and dreams. The narcissistic supply comes from basking in the reflected glory of those whom they take advantage of and exploit.

“My mom used to love dolling me up in cute dresses, even though I was a tomboy by nature. I think she felt that when I received compliments for my appearance, she looked good in reflection. It boosted her self-worth.” —Anonymous

The common pattern of all the traits above is that the narcissist depends on a regular flow of narcissistic supply in order to sustain their superficial, egocentric, and conceited self-image. Those in a relationship with the narcissist are merely used as extensions of the narcissist’s self-serving needs. Deep down, however, most narcissists feel like the “ugly duckling,” even if they painfully don’t want to admit it.

Can a narcissist change for the better? Perhaps. But only if he or she is highly aware and willing to go through the courageous process of self-discovery. For narcissists no longer willing to play the charade at the cost of genuine relationships and credibility, there are ways to liberate from falsehood and progressively move toward one’s higher self. For those who live or work with narcissists, perceptive awareness and assertivecommunication are musts to establishing healthy and mutually respectful relationships. See references below.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/communication-success/201903/7-ways-narcissists-manipulate-relationships

0 notes

craftcrit · 5 years

Text

A Narratological and Freudian psychoanalysis of The Turn of the Screw

#Henry James #The Turn of the Screw #freudian analysis #academic writing #essay

0 notes