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枝垂桜 // Weeping cherry blossoms

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My friend said this about AO3 and it’s honestly so true

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As a psychology grad would you say that Stavrogin has ASPD? Considering how he's so uncaring about others and has a record of criminal behavior?

hm. okay, i have seen this take before, and while i agree to some extent (like... 50%?), i personally would not say so definitively. please take my opinions and assessment with a grain of salt — our field in particular doesn't necessarily focus on these pathologies. psychometry is different from psychology, and so i can only offer you insight based on what i've learned and am learning right now. think of this as just me, analyzing nikolai's character as part of what i do on here.

more below the cut!

let's start with the basics, for anyone else who's reading this and isn't very familiar with this psychopathology. someone with Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) is typically aggressive, irritable, impulsive, reckless, and self-centered. this is a kind of illness that is ego-syntonic, meaning it is aligned with their self-image, values, and beliefs. the same generally goes for other PDs, because that is their personality, however maladaptive. they don't necessarily see anything wrong with their behaviors because they are consistent with their identities.

now i understand why you might think so for nikolai. anyone who's read Demons knows why. he's got his laundry list of crimes and has, in general, destructive behaviors that often implicate or affect those around him. he doesn't care about the people he hurts, and he also derives pleasure from hurting them (or being hurt himself).

yes, nikolai has thrill/pleasure-seeking tendencies, but ultimately they don't serve any purpose for him other than just doing it for the sake of doing it. those with ASPD have this cognitive error in which they believe that others don't deserve anything from them, especially empathy or kindness, which is why they do the things they do. i don't think this is the case at all with nikolai. he just doesn't really care. i doubt it does anything for him at all, because ultimately, that's what his character is about. he's empty.

another contrary evidence to this is that distress is not part of the diagnosis for ASPD (because again, it is an ego-syntonic illness). but if you look deeper into nikolai, he's quite disturbed by the things he's done, despite the nonchalant, apathetic front he has. he's very much haunted by his demons.

also, one thing i've been taught that clinicians look for when assessing ASPD is the presence of Conduct Disorder in a client's younger years (childhood). it's part of the diagnostic criteria that there's evidence of CD before the age of 15. given what we know, textually, about nikolai, he wasn't an unruly kid. he was meek and shy; and often kept to himself. we could say that stepan's unregulated and inappropriate behavior could have led to nikolai's egocentric view of the world, but from what i remember, it was he, nikolai, who consciously chose to become like that (that is, to exercise his will and act amorally) when he made it past 16 (iirc). you don't choose to have ASPD. it's something that's borne out of a number of contributing factors, beginning from childhood to adolescence and until adulthood.

sure, nikolai does exhibit the symptoms, but when we take into consideration the historical context in which he is as well, his behaviors were characteristic of the kind of men/phenomenon that dostoevsky was warning about. in a way, he was "period-typical", and we've been taught to take into consideration the times/culture/politics in which someone exists, so as not to readily pathologize their behaviors. in their era (that is, during the rise of nihilism), nikolai's character (much like kirillov and pyotr) was an emerging, albeit terrifying, norm. their emergence was a reaction to the western liberalism that their fathers imported into russia (though arguably, this is more evident in stepan and pyotr's axis).

so with all of this considered, i really wouldn't pathologize nikolai and his behaviors. he's not ill. he's just horrible.

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getting harassed online for not writing for a specific ship in the fandom was not in my bingo card this year but that certainly doesn't cancel out the possibility!

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Dostoevsky loves to explain the psychology of a criminal on his way to his execution doesn't he.

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Itsuko Azuma - The Little Mermaid

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I saw this photo and my mind immediately went to alyosha and zosima :')

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your fanfics are so unbelievably well-written, and to think that english isn't even your first language!!!!! you've such a unique command of words. thank you for sharing your art to us.

thank you 🥹🙇🏻‍♀️🫶🏻

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“nobody is making you do this” i am driven by unnatural forces you will never even begin to comprehend

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forgot to post these here but yay more serpentine tears art ^^

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pencil drawing

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sheepish is a really funny word. fuck im so nervous (turns into this)

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Hello! I've always been really shy to comment on your work on AO3, but I just want to say that I love Serpentine Tears. Sometimes it even seems like it's a work of it's own just from how "alive" you make it feel through your writing. The most interesting part of it is how you bend and explore Stavrogin's character when he's faced with someone like Alexandra, who's always resisting/refusing to play his game, because then he wants to find out why and how she's doing this, and simultaneously he finds him getting more and more entangled with her! She also doesn't just function as a "savior" or some untouchable character, since we get glimpses of moments where she breaks down from having to uphold her wall against him, too.

Sorry, I didn't mean for this to get long, I just have many thoughts about it! I can't wait to read more from you 🧡

(crying, shaking as i type this) thank you so much...