#i LOVE true crime/criminal psychology

[winged-self-indulgence]

Why Do People Like Yanderes?

Hi everyone, my name is Diya, and this was going to be a YT video-essay-type-thing but I'm too poor to afford a mic and too busy with college to learn how to edit videos, so here's my vague exploration of the psychology behind why people like yanderes so much through the lens of my favourite Visual Novels.

TW for uh. yandere content. Mentions of sex, gore, and non-con, particularly in the last topic. This is more like the first draft of an academic paper so while it's not explicit, I do go into some detail.

Introduction

If you’re a fan of anime or visual novels, then you’re probably already aware of what a yandere is, or at the very least you’ve seen that one picture of Yuno Gasai. Still, for the sake of thoroughness, let’s take it from the tippy top. The term ‘yandere’ is a Japanese portmanteau of ‘yanderu’ – the progressive form of ‘yami’ – meaning ‘sick’, and ‘deredere’ which roughly translates to ‘loving’. Together, the word refers to someone who is – in short – extremely lovesick. Obsessive to the extreme, and with little morality to spare, the standard yandere is characterized by a dangerous fixation on a chosen target, often appearing shy and caring at first only to flip the script and become violently aggressive towards perceived threats (Kroon, 2010).

It should be noted that yanderes are not a strictly romantic or sexual trope. The Ancient Greeks classified at least six forms of love, from familial (storge) to guests (xenia). Modern psychologists may distinguish love as either Companionate or Passionate (Kim & Hatfield, 2004) or consisting of three dimensions of Intimacy, Passion, and Commitment (Sternberg & Sternberg, 2018). Realistically, possessiveness shows up in a variety of relationships. However, people are generally primed to view certain dynamics as inherently amorous. Societal norms tend to encourage the idea that romantic bonds ought to rank above all others, and therefore if Person A is bizarrely fixated on Person B, then clearly there must be an element of sexual interest involved regardless of the actual relationship between the individuals in question.

Regardless, yanderes remain quite popular in fiction. Many dismiss it as a fetish, which it can be, but that isn’t the case for everyone. While there is nothing wrong with indulging in kinky fiction, not all of us get horny at the thought of being chained up in someone’s basement, no matter how hot our captor may be. So why is it so pervasive? Why is this trope so appealing that most writers cannot help but include at least a single line of dialogue implying that – if circumstances had been ever so slightly different – my wholesome shoujo romcom might have turned into a psychological horror?

Hybristophilia

‘Hybristophilia’, also known as Bonnie and Clyde Syndrome after the titular criminal couple, is a word is derived from the Greek word ‘hybridzein’ meaning ‘to commit an outrage against someone’ and ‘philo’ which means ‘a strong preference for’. Sexologist John Money reportedly defined it as a paraphilia in which an individual is sexually aroused by a partner who has a predatory history of hurting other people (Money, 1986, as cited in Matuszak, 2017). In his book, Serial Killer Groupies, true crime and crime fiction author RJ Parker distinguished two forms of hybristophilia: passive and aggressive. The former is when an individual contacts a criminal with the intention of striking up a relationship with them, allowing themselves to be seduced and manipulated but having no interest in committing a crime themselves. The latter are far more dangerous, as the individual not only derives sexual pleasure from their partner’s atrocities but are active participants in carrying out or covering up the crime. To quote Griffiths (2013, as cited in Pettigrew, 2019):

“[They] help out their lovers with their criminal agenda by luring victims, hiding bodies, covering crimes, or even committing crimes. They are attracted to their lovers because of their violent actions and want to receive love yet are unable to understand that their lovers are psychopaths who are manipulating them.”

In some ways, hybristophilia is the nearest thing we have to a realistic understanding of why people love yanderes. I mean, much of the fantasy surrounding such characters and their media tend to be filled with posts begging to be spat on or calling the rightfully terrified main character ungrateful for being a teeny bit upset about finding surveillance cameras in their ceiling. However, enjoying fictitious immoral activity does not predict real perpetration, so what does? There exists little consensus amongst psychologists as to what sparks this particular predilection, and that was strange to me. You would think there would be more studies into this topic, in spite of or perhaps because of its controversial nature. Heck, that one dude wouldn’t shut up about white women’s obsession with Bundy and Dahmer, and I assumed he had gotten that information from somewhere, but it turns out that was just him using modifiers to justify sexism.

However, I believe that we can hedge a few guesses, and over the course of my research, I’ve organized the main rationalizations under four umbrellas which I will explore through the lens of my favourite yandere-themed Visual Novels. Please keep in mind that most of these games are rated as mature due to sexual scenes and/or gore. Additionally, in the spirit of transparency, this ramble will be focused exclusively on male or masculine yanderes. So, without further ado:

Call Me Bob the Builder Because I Can Fix Them

If you’re familiar with DC Comic’s Batman, or just happen to have attended any costume event held over the span of the last 20+ years, you may be familiar with the character of Dr. Harleen Quinzel, better known as Harley Quinn. Initially created as the Joker’s one-off sidekick in Batman The Animated Series, she was so well-received by audiences that she became a recurring character in the cartoon and was eventually given a proper origin story in the form of a one-shot titled Mad Love.

Harley’s origin story has seen some alterations over the past decades, but the core aspects remain largely untouched. In the beginning, Harleen Quinzel was a promising young woman who wanted was a degree from the university’s prestigious psychology department, which she gained through…less than scrupulous means.

(Listen, I’m not sure if the authors were leaning on the Dumb Blonde stereotype, or if they simply thought that casting her as a genuinely bad student would make her later actions more believable. Either way, the idea of Harley as someone with a legitimate PhD came later)

After landing an internship at Arkham Asylum – a half-hospital and half-prison straight out of the 1870s that might as well be built out of one-ply tissue-paper soaked with gasoline and left next to a crate of fireworks – Harleen set her sights on the then incarcerated Joker. At the start, her fixation on the criminal wasn’t remotely sympathetic. She didn’t want to help him, she wanted to use him. Harleen Quinzel wanted piggyback off his infamy and write a tell-all tale detailing what sort of messed up childhood resulted in Gotham’s Clown Prince of Crime. Yet the more she interacted with him, the more the Joker took advantage of her empathy. By the end of their sessions, Harley no longer saw him as a violent serial killer with a clown schtick, but as a “lost, injured child looking to make the world laugh at his antics.”

But Diya, you may be asking, what does this have to do with the video? The Joker never loved Harley, and it could even be argued – as Shehadeh did in a 2017 essay – that her obsession with the pasty-faced clown is more akin to Histrionic Personality Disorder. While that may be the case, I believe that Harley’s story provides one of the reasons yanderes are so popular: their backstory.

Whether they were abandoned by their family, bullied by their peers, experimented on by evil scientists, starved on the streets, died under mysterious circumstances and then trapped in a haunted VCR tape for decades, or are simply so impossibly inhuman that they frankly do not understand why it isn’t socially acceptable to imprison their crush in a pocket dimension made of meat and non-Euclidean geometry, yanderes often have fairly sympathetic or at least understandable explanations for why they are Like That. Your mileage may vary significantly depending on how much you sympathize with these motives, but the point is that yanderes always make sense to some degree. Their morality and priorities may be twisted or even completely incomprehensible, but the audience almost always knows the reason, and that can be comforting. In the real world, other people aren’t always straightforward, and we never really know what they’re thinking, but narrative coherence demands a semblance of internal consistency lest the audience end up frustrated and confused. So yanderes are not only easy to sympathize with, but also fairly predictable. In-universe they may be unhinged freaks with a blood fetish, but to you watching from behind the safety of the screen they’re just acting out the script written for them based on a prototype. And if you understand the why behind their loose gears, then you might just be able to put them back together again.

The concept of rescue romances or “I Can Fix Them” has been around in our stories for thousands of years. The Epic of Gilgamesh detailed how Shamhat essentially ‘civilized’ wild man Enkidu through ritual lovemaking, and a concerning number of religions push the idea that women are dutybound to save men from the follies of sin. Yet men are not exempt either, with one notable example being the German fairytale, King Thrushbeard. Call it what you will regardless: Knights in Shining Armour, the Florence Nightingale Effect, or a plain old case of Because You Were Nice to Me, studies have shown that human beings generally like helping [DA2] others, even when the reason doesn’t necessarily stem from pure altruism. I will delve deeper into this later, but care and compassion are deeply ingrained in human nature, and arising from those roots is the appeal of this mentality: You can save them. You can change them. You can make them better. You are special, and the way you treat this person carries a weight that has not and will never be matched by anyone else for the rest of their mortal or immortal existence.

The illusion is a delicious one, especially if the person you’ve helped turns out to be a billionaire CEO with cash to burn, a super powerful ghost king willing to raze continents to dust for you, a demon having fun on a Friday night, or just your average hot creep with a knife. Moreover, different people have different ideas of what ‘fixing’ even means. Maybe you want to single-handedly rehabilitate your yandere into a functional member of society. Maybe you’re cool with the incessant stalking but would like them to stop slaughtering your friends, family, and local service workers. Maybe you want to make them much, much worse.

Not only do yanderes provide immediate proof that your actions have a tangible impact on the lives of others, but the fantasy also includes the desire of being seen as special. Of being admired and adored by someone whose life you inexplicably made better by virtue of simply being yourself, or an idealized version of yourself. In this fictional world, in this imaginary setting, the person you are is so uniquely, impossibly irreplaceable to someone. And if that’s the case then they can’t risk losing you, can they?

The Allure of Obsession, or ‘Til Death Do Us Part (Literally)

It shouldn’t be necessary, but here is my obligatory disclaimer anyway. Ahem: obsession is not a good thing in real life. Fixating on another human to the detriment of your own wellbeing and that of those around you is dangerous, as is encouraging someone else to obsess over you. You might think you are being worshiped, but real life is not a visual novel. The outside world doesn’t come with an age rating, the author’s guiding pen, and a convenient fade to credits sequence once you’ve reached an ending. The consequences will still be there in the morning, so don’t do it. Just don’t.

PSA out of the way, it’s natural to want to be wanted. Maslow’s Hierarchy places it just above physical safety, but I’d argue that it could easily be compared to baser drives. According to many psychological and anthropological studies, much of humanity’s continued survival and environmental dominance is largely attributed to our ability to form groups, cooperate with one another, and maintain complex interpersonal networks. Social support, intimacy, and a sense of belonging are linked to emotional and physical benefits, such as more optimistic health perceptions, higher subjective well-being, increased creativity and innovation, and greater self-efficacy (DeWall & Bushman, 2011; Harandi et al., 2017; Wang & Sha, 2018). Therefore, it’s perfectly understandable that rejection of any sort would be construed as a threat.

But if someone is obsessed with you, then you have no reason to worry about that, right? No more nights spent agonizing over how they feel about you, asking yourself whether your last text made you sound too desperate, or if you’re boring them because you spent the past hour info-dumping about Stardew Valley farm layouts. With a yandere, there will never be any doubt that they care about you. Sure, they might go about it in weird, manipulative, and insidious ways that violate your physical and mental autonomy, but you can’t deny their loyalty. They do love you in their own bizarre way. You are the sun around which they orbit. When you’re in the room, no one else exists. Every single messy flaw is just another bullet point on the mile-long list of why they adore you.

In essence, yanderes are not only attentive, but their love can be virtually unconditional. A yandere might know everything about you, and still revere you. It’s unhealthy as hell and you might genuinely question their taste, but it can be tempting to pretend that all of you, right down to the ugliest parts of yourself – the traits and choices that you would never share with another living soul even at gunpoint – are worthy of understanding, if not open praise and affection.   

Attractiveness, or Okay but Have You Considered That They’re Hot Though?

.

.

.

I mean what am I supposed to say here? They’re hot, what do you want from me?

No, but in all seriousness, fictional media paints an idealized version of the world, and most yanderes are hot because they have the freedom of existing purely behind that screen; artfully arranged and edited to forever appear compelling to anyone who happens to enjoy their particular style. And there are a lot of styles to choose from. Whether you want them pretty faced and disarmingly cute, or scarred up and big enough to pin you like a butterfly, yanderes come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes that are meant to pique your interest and draw you in like a naïve little fish being lured towards the mouth of an angler fish, unwilling to believe that anything bad might happen to us when the bait is this pretty.

This is often referred to as the Halo Effect, a form of cognitive bias referring to the tendency for people to assume that a single obvious positive trait must be associated with other positive traits. The go-to characteristic is typically physical attractiveness, but a nice voice, good humour, and cooking skills are also factors which serve to influence our perceptions.

So, conventional physical attractiveness is one thing, but that’s only skin deep. What about beyond that? After all, the yandere still has to talk to you before they enact their master plan of tying you up in their basement until Stockholm Syndrome kicks in.

When I showed my friend a picture of John Doe from the game John Doe, she told me that he looked like a creepy slob, and she’s far from the only person who’s ever thought so. Look at them. I feel like if I tried to comb that hair it would simply eat me, and some of the CGs really put the scopophobia in Scopophobia Studios. I love Doe, but he is not hot, and he doesn’t behave in a normally appealing way either. If the player chooses not to take a bath, Doe will immediately comment that you “smell good” before following you home, breaking into your house, and leaving a bloody organ on the floor for the player to trip over. Many yanderes can at least fake a veneer of normalcy, but from the get-go Doe doesn’t even bother to pretend he’s anything less than an otherworldly creature stuffed into a vaguely person-shaped meatsuit. In an effort to find out why so many people had latched on to Doe – including me – I shopped around social media and YouTube for answers, and what I found was a widely unanimous sentiment.

While some were drawn to his fun design and goofy personality, most simply thought that he wasn’t inherently malevolent, just very confused. In addition to being a supernatural being with a completely alien axis of morality, Doe’s meta-awareness and unbridled attempts at winning the player’s affection lends him quite a bit of support from the audience, especially if you yourself also happen to struggle with social cues and relate to his pure earnestness. In Ending 7 of the extended version, the player character has the option to tell Doe – who has altered himself to pass as more ‘normal’ – that they prefer who he truly is, at which point he grows visibly flustered and sports an adorable pair of literal heart-shaped pupils.

Whether they’re charismatic, seductive, cute, sweet, funny, nurturing, or generous, the best yanderes have engaging personalities. Even while they’re committing truly heinous crimes against God, man, and your guts, you still kinda want to hang out with them, and you want them to acknowledge you as being just as interesting. And this is all fine in fiction because you’re the one in charge, and if you ever get bored or uncomfortable or busy with something else, then you can simply close the tab or window with zero consequences, which brings us to the final and most important reason.     

Power Dynamics and Consent in Fantasy (I Couldn’t Think of a Joke Here Guys, This Is Kinda Serious)

Once again, I feel that I must preface this section just for the sake of my own peace of mind: sexual coercion and assault are vile and disgusting crimes that should never be emulated or tolerated in the real world. We are speaking purely of fictional media, specifically adult-oriented media in this case, so please be mindful.

In 2009, Bivoni and Critelli conducted a study on 355 undergraduate women with the goal of assessing the reasons behind fantasies of non-consent. At the time, there were two leading explanations of this phenomenon. One stated that women with high libidos but repressed views of sex used these imaginary scenarios to alleviate the guilt they had grown to associate with sex. Because the simulation was a purely mental exercise and they themselves were cast as helpless victims in the scenario, they were able to remain blameless while still finding sexual gratification. The second stated that these fantasies were an expression of liberation by women who were adventurous and comfortable enough with their own sexuality to engage with taboo ideas that they weren’t at all interested in performing in real life. Which do you think was more common?

.

.

.

If you guessed the second option, you’d be right. The study found that of the 220 women who had experienced such fantasies, 45% found theirs erotic, 46% were mixed, and only 9% reported pure aversion. One justification for this outcome relies on psycho-biological theories, for example masochistic preferences or the unintended activation of the sympathetic nervous system and subsequent mis-attribution of arousal. Other reasons have to do with higher order thinking and are tied to the power dynamics within such fantasies. On the surface is the appeal of being so desirable to someone that they simply cannot control themselves, but then there is a deeper impulse, which the researchers referred to as Adversary Transformation. To quote the article: “[fantasies] involve a struggle between an assailant and a potential victim in which it is relevant to consider who is the winner and who is the loser. At one level, it is a struggle over sex, but the woman's non-consent may be feigned or token. At another level, the woman may be seeking a victory that is not about whether sex occurs, but about what happens emotionally between the protagonists.”

Basically, the imaginary perpetrator may have ‘won’, but the self-character need not have ‘lost’.

Media provides an extra layer to the illusion, one that you as the viewer have absolute control over. If you are choosing to engage with a piece of media that explicitly labels itself as including R18+ yandere content, then you clearly have some expectations, and that background awareness goes a long way in reducing long-term discomfort and allowing audiences to make informed decisions. If you don’t like the plot, you can simply turn it off it with the click of a button, and when the screen goes dark it’s not like the yandere is going to punish you for saying no. Strade isn’t going to break into your house with a drill, there are no homicidal clown ghosts hiding in your TV, and no suspicious pink-haired hackers watching your webcam. They aren’t real, and the consequences aren’t real either. You have all the power here.

Conclusion

In summary, Yanderes are appealing for a variety of reasons. Whether you want to save them, think they’re attractive, wish to indulge in a dream of being utterly coveted, or simply enjoy a bit of spice in your me-time, it’s obvious why the trope has persisted for so long and will likely continue to do so. If you enjoy yanderes but are worried that having a taste for the less wholesome side of things might imply something about who you are as a person, don’t be. The notion that fantasies and media preferences directly reflect subconscious desires is not only painfully out of date debunked nonsense but also indicative of restrictive ideologies wherein bad thoughts = sin. This isn’t 1984. You haven’t committed a thought-crime by having a weird kink. You aren't going to superhell for fantasizing. The human mind is hardly ever so mathematically rational, and the point of fiction is to allow us to safely engage with and explore various ideas, provided the everyone involved is mentally, chronologically, and emotionally mature enough to do so.

Thank you all for listening to me. If you learned something or were just a little bit entertained. If you're curious about knowing more, I've listed my sources below

REFERENCES

Bivona, J. M., & Critelli, J. W. (2009). The Nature of Women’s Rape Fantasies: An analysis of prevalence, frequency, and contents. Journal of Sex Research, 46(1), 33–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224490802624406

Critelli, J. W., & Bivona, J. M. (2008). Women’s Erotic Rape Fantasies: An Evaluation of Theory and research. Journal of Sex Research, 45(1), 57–70. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224490701808191

DeWall, C. N., & Bushman, B. J. (2011). Social acceptance and rejection. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20(4), 256–260. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721411417545

Flynn, F. J., Reagans, R., Amanatullah, E. T., & Ames, D. R. (2006). Helping one’s way to the top: Self-monitors achieve status by helping others and knowing who helps whom. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91(6), 1123–1137. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.91.6.1123

Harandi, T. F., Taghinasab, M. M., & Nayeri, T. D. (2017). The correlation of social support with mental health: A meta-analysis. Electronic Physician, 9(9), 5212–5222. https://doi.org/10.19082/5212

Hazen, H. (1983). Endless rapture: rape, romance, and the female imagination. https://openlibrary.org/books/OL3161300M/Endless_rapture

Kroon, R. W. (2010). A/V A to z: An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Media, Entertainment and Other Audiovisual Terms. McFarland.

Matuszak, M. (2017). Hybristophilia White Paper. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55dfd21ee4b0718764fb34cc/t/5cb7cabee5e5f00ab13be58b/1555548863275/Hybristophilia+White+Paper.pdf

Oarga, C., Stavrova, O., & Fetchenhauer, D. (2015). When and why is helping others good for well-being? The role of belief in reciprocity and conformity to society’s expectations. European Journal of Social Psychology, 45(2), 242–254. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2092

Parker, R. (2014). Serial killer groupies. RJ PARKER PUBLISHING, INC.

Wang, T., & Sha, H. (2018). The influence of social rejection on cognitive control. Psychology, 09(7), 1707–1719. https://doi.org/10.4236/psych.2018.97101

[bnhaobservation]

Did Enji atone to Touya (and his family) and stepped up on his role as a father?

Boku no Hero Academia has a grave 'flaw'. The fact that's strongly tied to Japanese culture and Buddhism makes it a very interesting work but also makes it a hardly international work because way too many cultural things are left unexplained because they're assumed to be a given. Only they're not when the work is read by foreign readers. And this lead to confusion.

The Todoroki plotline is an example of this.

In the west many feel Enji did nothing for Touya or did too little because the little he did is a given in the west. The point is... it's not a given in Japan. In Japan is a BIG DEAL. So let's go though it.

First, the fact that he doesn't want to kill Touya even though he's a criminal

Todoroki Enji ‘Ore wa ikinobite mo... ENDEAVOR wa shinda. Tairyō satsujinsha (read: musuko) to tatakaenai.’ 轟炎司「俺は生き延びても...エンデヴァーは死んだ。大量殺人者（むすこ）と戦えない。」 Todoroki Enji “Even if I survived... Endeavor is dead. I can't fight against a mass murderer (read: my son).”

Let's compare it to these two scenes of "Death Note" and see how Yagami Soichiro, a policeman, is taking the idea his son might be a killer and how, although Misa protests, the story doesn't present it as him being crazy but as it being his duty.

That's why Hawks doesn't want to send Enji, who's on an atonement path, to face Dabi, because Enji might end up in a situation in which he would have to kill his son and he would refuse... which is more or less what happens.

Second, Enji acknowledges that what Touya said is true, Touya is his son and Enji did what he did. In such a situation many would lie. Dabi's video proves nothing. He is a Villain, they had a doctor in the team who could create Nomu, the paternity test could be fake, even if Dabi were to provide a sample of his blood or skin they could insist that's fake.

Society didn't want the truth, they don't want Enji to confess, they wanted him to reassure them, they even commented he should have lied because yes, that's what's done often.

Basically he put his honor on the chopping block. A public apology like this one is a BIG DEAL in Japan. It's much more serious than in western countries and he does it when he could have spared himself and say Dabi lied but that would have meant to deny his son.

Third, it connects to the first in a way. While Enji is unwilling to kill Touya, he's willing to die with him. It's ‘shinjū’ (心中 Lit. “Mind/heart center/inside” but more likely means “oneness of hearts”, probably reflecting a psychological link between the participants) and it’s a word used in common parlance to refer to any group suicide of two or more individuals bound by love, typically lovers, parents and children, and even whole families. People who commit shinjū believe that they would be united again in heaven, a view supported by feudal teaching in Edo period Japan, which taught that the bond between loved ones would continue into the next world, and by the teaching of Pure Land Buddhism wherein it is believed that through shinjū, one can approach rebirth in the Pure Land. By volunteering to die with him, Enji is basically agreeing to remain with him in their next reincarnation.

For us it's crazy, it's Enji giving up on saving him. In Japan it sounds like 'I love you and I want to be with you'.

Forth, he'll apologize to Touya. As said before it's a BIG DEAL, especially since Enji is the family head and, although for us most of what he did is wrong, in Japan most of what he did is well within what he can do. Marrying a woman you don't love in a combined marriage to expect the child who'll be born from it will fulfill your ambitions and not really bothering to raise it because that's a mother job, well, things are changing in Japan but none of the above is a crime. In a not so distant past it was actually the norm. Yet Enji apologizes even though normally a family head wouldn't.

Fifth it's a bit in the first point and in the second but it'll drag on through all the story, Enji won't reject Touya. He's the only one (except Fuyumi who however doesn't get to say much) who never calls him Dabi after the reveal, and he won't strike him out of the family register but will keep on considering him his son.

Look at the Tobitas instead and at how they kick their son out.

Don't think Hawks is cutting strings with his parents solely because they were abusive, the Tobitas show us how you should just cut strings with a criminal. Same as the Togas.

Have "Theseus no fune" in which a man accused to be a murderer, send a birthday gift to his son and watch the reaction of his wife.

They don't want to keep contact with a criminal. It's scary because they'll be mistreated if they are discovered to be related to him.

And, in this vein, the fact he wants to go see him, that he'll keep on seeing him till the end instead than turning his back on him, is seen as important. It's seen as him being his father.

To many of us it seems as if he's forcing his presence upon Touya. Actually, from a Japanese perspective he's instead not abandoning him like many others would.

And since Touya is dying, very likely the talking will be the talking that's done in a Buddhist culture when someone is dying. Death should occur in a calm and peaceful environment, with close friends and family in attendance. Together they should reflect on the good deeds the dying person has done throughout their life, in the hopes it will help them in their next reincarnation. Additionally, family and friends can perform good deeds on behalf of them, which they believe will be of merit to the deceased.

So, since Touya is dying he won't get a scolding like Chisaki, they'll all only tell him nice and soothing things so he'll die peacefully.

Now... in the west all this is absolutely way too little, and in some points even feels wrong. Dying together instead than insisting in trying to save him? Deciding unilaterally to show up every day? Not our thing...

We can totally say 'thanks, I hate it' because we grew up with Darth Vader who instead gave his life to SAVE his son. All this accepting that Touya instead is going to die so Enji can at best die with him or keep him company until he does... well, it's mostly not our cup of cultural tea.

In in Japan though, all Enji does is important. Enji is doing something for Touya as a father, something important many fathers wouln't do for their sons.

Does it would satisfy a Japanese audience? They'll get the message better than us... but things are changing and anyway it can still feel too little. "Death Note" is dated 2005/2006 and back in it Misa was already questioning the idea of a father killing his son and then killing himself. BNHA is more innovative as Enji doesn't think to kill Touya but he still goes for the 'let's die together' route... and Horikoshi subtly criticizes it by having the rest of the family decising they'll try to stop the fire before just giving up. They're willing to die, but not before trying.

Enji represents plenty of old theories after all, which Horikoshi acknowledges were moved out of wrong beliefs, not moved by mean intents... which, is possible, would still not be enough for Japanese readers either because among teenagers, the target audience, there's an increasing number of teen who, in Japan, are forced to leave home (the Toyoko Kids) and often ends up committing crimes to survive and the league seems to be based on all the kind of homeless people Japan has.

While for a kid at home with a loving family being told that your father will die with him if he messes up instead than just dumping him might be comforting... for a kid that was abused and forced to leave home this might feel not enough.

People want to be saved, being told it's too late to save them, might be a lesson for those who hadn't done anything wrong yet so that they won't do it, but it's surely not a hopeful message for who instead got himself into troubles.

But well, that's something for the Japanese audience to ponder.

There's also to point out that, even though the message is not hopeful, Horikoshi is seeing the homeless people and acknowledging they should be helped.

Japan in regard to the Toyoko kids is mostly like the old woman who pretended not to see Tenko but that, in the end, helps that new boy.

I think Horikoshi's message desperately wants to be hopeful even for them, that he wants BNHA be like Midoriya's final stand, something that will push people to acknowledge they exist and reach out to help them.

It just that... it gets lost in what I'll call the 'litteral translation'.

No one explains us how we should jusge the scenes and, since we lack the cultural background, to us they are perceived differently because to us things work differently.

And, personally, even when I think I figured out the author's intent and can see the positivity of it, the cultural filter is still too tick and the picture gets blurried.

It's like being beginner at speaking a foreign language and having to constantly translate it in your head. The message loses its natural beauty, get simplified and not fully grasped.

I think I understand how Enji's atonement work in regard to Touya... it still doesn't feel fulfilling to me. But enough about Touya.

'Now,' you might rightfully say, 'fine, I'll bite, let's assume what Enji has is an atonement arc for Touya. It doesn't work at all in the west but let's give it a pass. What about his other kids?'

Natsuo and Fuyumi's wishes are in conflict.

Fuyumi wants the five of them to be a family (at the time she doesn't know Touya is alive), Natsuo doesn't want to be part of a family with Enji.

Enji's solution is giving Fuyumi a house in which she can welcome her mother and live with Natsuo (and Shouto when he comes home), while he removes himself from the equation. The solution fulfills Natsuo's wish of not seeing Enji because it makes him feel bad. It only partly fulfil Fuyumi's wish because it'll allow her to have her mother back (Rei couldn't bear meeting Enji either) and to stay with her siblings... but Enji takes responsibility for it, he doesn't tell her it's due to Natsuo that he can't live with them, so, in theory, it won't be Natsuo the one who's stressed to be at home when Enji is there and the one who has to leave home because he can't stand the sight of Enji.

There are many things I can say on how this is not a good solution (it doesn't make Natsuo feel better, it just stops him from feeling worse), but there are two points to consider. The first is that Enji is getting old and it would be his children's duty, due to filial pity, to take care of him, instead he's basically giving them the means to leave and take his wife with them.

Actually, since Natsuo is now the oldest MALE, it should fall on him specifically. Yes, Enji always intended to have Shouto inherit his mantle but this doesn't free Natsuo from his duties. Instead Enji is letting all his children free.

Even with Shouto, he doesn't insist anymore for Shouto to learn Flashfire Fist as his heir but just as an intern.

I take this is big in Japan.

Here again, not so much, especially in the countries in the west that think kids should leave their parents' home as soon as possible and we don't think our children are obliged to inherit our mantles.

Note how the story implies that this was meant to be the end for the Natsuo/Enji arc.

Natsuo made clear he didn't want to meet Enji again, he does it solely because they've to stop Touya and, once they've stopped Touya, he makes clear he doesn't want to see him again.

If we want though, the fact he's leaving the family can be seen as a concession in a way.

Since apparently Rei wants to stay with Enji (and likely their old house was devasted because that's what happens to relative of criminals) Enji can now move with Fuyumi and Rei and Natsuo won't have to see him because he'll leave home... to make his own home.

As for Shouto... Horikoshi answered his request by basically showing him Enji being a father for Touya and then promising he would protect them from the fiery fallout, which Horikoshi doesn't show at all because it's another thing that's a given in Japanese culture, it'll be hell for Enji to protect them, but not for us.

Just to get an idea of the fiery fallout here are some images from "Theseus no fune" again showing you how bad is this sort of thing.

Back to Enji, Horikoshi gives us verbal confirmation that Enji is now being a father by being willing to do this, by having Natsuo, who never called him as such, calling him father for the first time.

For Horikoshi that's Enji being a father.

Again, we've no idea of which hell Enji will suffer because that's not part of our culture. I've posted above screencaps of "Theseus no fune", that's how the fallout should be so not pretty at all.

So the fact that Enji will try to protect them from it is, again, BIG.

So yeah, Enji did do BIG things to atone and keeps on doing them and if he'll ultimately get forgiven by Natsuo (the rest of his family wanted to forgive him way before he were to do something), that's up to Natsuo... Horikoshi likely left this as open ending because he wanted to let it up to readers so as not to make them feel they were forced to forgive Enji.

In the general hopeful theme of the manga and with Natsuo acknowledging him as a cool father I guess his idea is that Natsuo too will eventually forgive him because he's kind.

I don't want to say that Natsuo forgiving Enji would be a culture clash because there's people even here that forgive their horrible parents and that's valid. Forgiving is a personal choice and one has the right to make it even if said horrible parent did nothing to deserve it.

It's up to you.

But sure is, if again we take the story at face value and not in its cultural contest, we can't see what Enji does to atone, because for us is nothing big.

It's even made worse by how Horikoshi doesn't show at all the hell Enji will go through (as for him is a given) so for us IT DOESN'T EXIST. We see Enji as having it easy, talking big but not having to face anything at all.

Honestly though... I think this is a bit of a flaw of the manga as a whole.

Way too often it prefers to focus on the good than on the bad so that the bad gets sidelined to much to the point people forget it.

There were horrible Heroes who committed crimes and had no intention to repent or stop... and we never met them. Nagant killed them off but we never met them.

Mountain Lady, who became a Hero for money and fame, then sticks to the job even when it's bad. Desugoro, who left the job when it turned bad, then came back to help. Enji is on an atonement path and, anyway, on work he was always a good Hero.

In the same way Horikoshi prefers not to show Enji's hardship but focus on how he'll have the support of his sidekicks, driver and Hawks... partly also because it ties in so well with the general message of everyone reaching out.

The result is that the Midoriya plotline of everyone reaching out becomes more important of the Enji atonement arc and overshadows it.

Enji's atonement arc ends in 426, chap 430 doesn't feel the need to tell us if Enji is keeping up with it despite the hardship, nor how his family is doing. It feels the need to reassure us that people will reach out for him even if he's in hell, that even if he had to give up on his family, he now as a new found family.

It's thematically consistent with the theme of reaching out but... the fact it overwrites the atonement arc honestly FOR ME doesn't work so great.

I think it's an overall problem of the 'reaching out message'.

While in itself is beautiful... it saves nothing I was lead to care about.

In Enji's case I was interested in his atonement arc, in how he could help his kids. I wanted more of that, partly because his atonement arc is so far from my culture, partly because it touched characters I cared about, I wanted to be reassured he would keep on working on it and that his family would be well.

Yes, he should be in hell, but the story didn't really work hard on trying to make me worry for him as it established already a support network for him. The story made me worry for the kids, for Touya, who was dying, for Fuyumi, who wanted back her family and won't have it, for Natsuo, who's marrying an unknown character so young, for Shouto, who has to cope with the loss of the brother with whom he wanted to connect.

I don't really care Burnin, Onima, Kido and Hawks are willing to continue to protect Enji, to reach out to help him, I knew they would, I wanted to be reassured Enji's kids are safe, well and protected. I wanted to see ENJI reach out and help them.

In this vein I don't really care the old grandmother saved a nameless abused kid, or, at least, not as much as I cared for Tomura to be saved. It's nice she saved him, it's nice he gets to live the life Tomura was denied but honestly, he's a mob character with a super tragic backstory created deliberately to force us to emotionally connect to him.

The message he now will be saved is good, but my emotional investment to him is too little.

The same applies to Uraraka's Quirk counsueling program, we knew next to nothing about the Quirk consueling previous program beyond that it didn't work (a real problem in Japan as they have a school consueling program that didn't work... and changes are in progress) and that now it supposedly does.

To how Shouji now solves peacefully plenty of conflicts caused by Heteromorph discrimination, which Horikoshi tossed in later and never really showed how to solve (and, don't take me wrong, it's not solved even by Shouji, he just solves peacefully the conflicts, how is up to everyone's speculation).

Long story short, I think Horikoshi worked really hard for BNHA to have an optimist, hopeful message... but part of it goes lost in cultural differences and part of it goes lost in how the story didn't try to get me invested in the things it's now saving.

So yeah, I'm still sad for this little panel in chap 430

I guess I'll eventually get over it. Today though, it's not that day.

On a positive note... if we count the pages of all the chapters that should go in vol 42 they're only 132. The chapters that were meant to go into Vol 39 had 165 (which yes, Horikoshi further expanded once the volume was released).

So yeah, unless Vol 42 will be slimmer than usual or that he'll add to it some sidestory or extra story, it's possible we'll get more plot in terms of epilogue. We'll see.

(also yes, I'm not touching Rei in this post. Rei is another can of worm entirely and one, I fear, Horikoshi doesn't care about. The poor woman doesn't even get a profile while Ikoma Komari does. And really, I do think Rei is much more important than Ikoma Komari)

Last, but not least, since someone seems to get the wrong idea, in case it wasn't clear enough, I'm not Japanese. I research on this. Through books, through the net and yeah, since I like to read manga and anime also through them which I often use as a source of comparison because they're easy, accessible to many and represent the same kind of media BNHA is so they more or less move according to the same or similar rules. I might have messed up somewhere. I encourage you to also research on the topic and take everything with a grain or two of salt.

[yesimwriting]

Without Faith

a/n giggling and kicking my feet rn btw, this is meant to be a set up for something longer! lmk if you're interested in part 2 :)

Summary: After a news story that was only meant to be an internship assignment spirals into a crime story that earns national attention, you feel conflicted enough about your involvement to join a criminal psychology class despite being a journalism major. Despite your good intentions, the universe seems to have it out for you considering your slightly older professor is extremely attractive and the only person that seems to understand what you're going through.

Warnings/info: age gap (reader is of consenting age tho!!), future student-professor relationship, slow burn, slight changes to how college works for the sake of plot, a surprising amount of lore (i got carried away), me writing for a character for a first time on here so be kind 😭

----

It's not often one finds their enemy crumpled up and lying helplessly next to an overflowing garbage can. It's even rarer to see that and still feel the bitter sting of defeat.

"He didn't text me back, which is weird because when I ran into him on Friday--" Carlie, who might know you better than you know yourself, pauses.

You turn your head away from the trash in an attempt to abandon the newspaper as completely as the person who had thrown it away. "You saw James last week? You didn't tell me."

She watches you for a moment, her eyebrows pulling together in a way that tells you she won't accept your lie just because you're offering her an opportunity to re-dissect her most recent interaction with her latest target. "You know I did."

Carlie shifts her weigh from one foot to the other, her eyes drifting towards the ground. "It's there because it's old--it's over."

It's over. The words crack themselves against your skull. More than a sentence, more than a promise. The only consolation the state's attorney could offer grieving families. The sound ringing in your ears as a mother gave into her agony, a choked sob ripping its way out of her throat.

It's over--the catalyst that sent the mother to you in a parking lot illuminated by stale, synthetic lighting. They're the reason for her confession, that in some off-kilter way she thought the verdict would make her feel better.

It's over--the syllables that accompany the sound of the needle leaving Josh Robinson's lifeless body. Killed by the justice system or the media?

"You didn't do anything wrong." Carlie's voice is careful in its unflinchingness. "He was a serial killer. You--you wrote the truth."

And while this awareness has bound itself to your bones, it is rarely enough to make you forget what you did wrong. Journalists are impartial, they don't--they're supposed to understand, they're supposed to be careful. You took it a step further.

"I know."

You don't need to look up to know that you haven't convinced her. However, you must have sounded okay enough for Carlie to accept moving on. "And you're doing more than anyone else would do to make your true crime even better."

It's an exaggeration. Journalists have done a lot more for their careers than request to join a class that belongs to a department unrelated to their degree. But Carlie seems so happy to be able to compliment you, you decide to go with a less sentimental correction, "Not true crime."

"I know, journalism." She sighs, but continues to walk forward in a way that feels oddly optimistic. Maybe even relieved. "Make sure you point out the difference to the professor. I'm sure he'll love that."

You roll your eyes at her sarcasm, but follow her lead anyway. You've already perfected the elevator pitch you're planning to present to Dr. Spencer Reid. A brief but genuine description of the importance of ethical journalism, especially when it comes to writing about serial killers.

You're well practiced and far from worried about winning him over. Academic authority figures have always taken well to you...it also doesn't hurt that you spent all night googling him just to be safe.

"Actually," she begins, pulling open the door to the psychology building, "I bet there's no room for original material in the interaction that you've already imagined, planned, and mentally rehearsed."

You scoff as you step past the door's threshold. "No," the word is dismissive and entirely unconvincing. You instinctually move past it. "Go talk to your advisor about your thesis, I'll meet with Dr. Reid, and then we can order food or something."

The reminder of her own meeting seems to kill the mood, her smile morphing into something more focused. Carlie lets out a small breath. "Right. We got this." And with one final assuring nod, Carlie turns towards the stairwell.

----

The thought is a dull ache that wedges itself into your chest before you can bring yourself to knock against the door. It'll follow you forever.

When you step into the room, Dr. Reid will inevitably ask why you want to join his class. And then you'll have to answer.

You exhale as you extend your arm, knuckles rapping against the wooden surface before overthinking can hurt you any further. After a brief silence, you hear a slightly muffled, "Come in."

You reach for the brass handle, pulling the door open before stepping past the doorway's threshold.

The office is comfortable, a large desk and two plush chairs manage to share the space without seeming cramped. There's a pencil holder and several stacks of papers on the desk's surface. If one ignores the degrees--and the age of the recipient when he received them--on the walls, the office seems normal. Almost suspiciously so. There's even a partially wilted plant sitting on the windowsill.

After taking in the room, you let your attention fall to the individual behind the desk. He's--he--while you've read enough about Dr. Reid to already respect him, and are fully aware that he is far from your peer, you're also now looking at him.

Last night, you did stumble onto a few pictures of him that forced you to reluctantly make a mental note of the fact that he's aesthetically pleasing, but those occasionally blurry snapshots did him and his sharp features little justice.

"Hello," the word is an instinct, slipping past your lips before you're ready to speak.

"Hi," his response is as sudden and lacking in context as your own--a fact that immediately eases you.

Dr. Reid shifts, back straightening against his seat. "You're here for your appointment." You barely have the chance to nod in confirmation before he's continuing, "Come in, take a seat."

In all honesty, you're more glad for the direction than the excuse to sit. You enter his office fully, approaching the plush chair in front of his desk. You sit down, lips parting before you're ready to speak. All structured thoughts have abandoned you.

"Hi." You realize your mistake immediately. You blink, a sound between a self deprecating laugh and a sigh escaping you. "I already said that."

If Dr. Reid thinks anything of your mistake, he gives no indication of it. His expression remains steady, with the exception of the corner of his mouth briefly tugging itself upwards.

Your hands come together on your lap, one of your nails pressing into the nail bed of the thumb on your opposite hand before forcing yourself to relax. You've read enough about his work with the FBI to know that he's so adept at analyzing behavior, you don't need to make it easy for him by giving into obvious signs of nervousness.

"Like I mentioned in my email, I'm interested in joining your class even though it's not an elective and in an entirely different department than my degree." This part is easy, a perfunctory explanation of what he already knows. "However, there is enough overlap that my advisor is supportive of the idea and has already signed off on it."

He shifts again, his pointer finger tapping against the surface of his desk. "Right, she mentioned that, but she didn't mention why."

Okay. This is the part that matters. "I'm a journalism major, and I've recently completed an internship with The Washing Sun." In an act of total self betrayal, you study his expression for any hint of recognition. Finding absolutely none makes it easier to breathe. "And spending time in such an active, journalistic environment has made me fully aware of the way that morals and personal views can complicate ethics."

You pause, pressing your lips together. "I'd like the opportunity to learn about certain behaviors in order to develop a perspective separate from my own.

Though still politely neutral, something behind Dr. Reid's eyes implies an uncertainty that has the rest of your pitch jamming itself down your throat. Whatever's changed doesn't feel like disbelief, and you're far from worried about being accused of lying. You were careful to comb through your mess of emotions before you had even pitched the idea to your advisor--you do feel those things, they're just not the only things you feel.

How delusional had you been to assume the same answers that hid their vagueness behind a heavy layer of altruism that worked on Mrs. Carol would work on a FBI profiler?

"I um--" The sound of your own voice surprises you. "I know what it's like to write something when you can't feel anything for the person everyone's already rooting against, and I'd like to not feel that again." Another glimmer of honesty, barer than your curated story, but still not exactly everything.

Dr. Reid is quiet for a moment, studying you with an openness that should make your skin crawl. "What did it feel like?"

The question throws you. Friends, family, strangers--they've all asked you things about the case, about your article, about hundreds of other things so barely connected you couldn't fathom an answer. No one has ever asked you about that feeling.

"Uh..." You're not even sure you have an answer. "Weird." Your blankness feels like such a cop out, you feel the need to try again. What did it feel like? A hybrid beast made of a festering not-quite-guilt, an over awareness of your every action, all held together by an uneasy pride...that only served to further aggravate the not guilt. "Like I was doing something right and wrong, with no way of knowing what it was more of."

You squeeze your hands together, allowing yourself to focus on the action instead of him. "I'm sorry, that probably doesn't make much sense."

When you finally lift your head, Dr. Reid is already looking at you. A moment passes, the somberness of his features growing heavier in the silence. Maybe he's looking at something past you. "It does."

The affirmation is a small, fragile thing, so faint and far away it almost feels like an intrusion to have heard it. Some selfish part of you latches onto that, his unexpected understanding a lifeline you can't let go of.

You almost thank him before realizing that you have no idea what you'd be thanking him for. "I'm glad," you settle on, fingers carefully coming apart on your lap. "The writing thing's no good if I don't make sense."

The attempt at humor seems to pull him back from wherever he had gone. "Then you have nothing to worry about." He doesn't exactly smile, but there's something easy about the way he's looking at you. "I'll approve your enrollment request."

Relief floods through you immediately. "Really?"

"Maybe it'll help you feel less...weird." From him, your too plain adjective feels a lot more fitting.

You nod once, the motion quick and polite. "Hopefully." The beat of silence that follows comes closer to kinship than anything you've ever felt in someone's office. You're also fully aware of the fact that you've gotten what you came for and that Dr. Reid is likely a very busy man. "I shouldn't take up anymore of your time."

His fingers tap against his desk. "Right. I'll see you in class."

You smile as you stand. "See you then."

The walk towards the door is a lot less intimidating now. Still, once you reach it, you can't bring yourself to immediately reach for the handle. You pause, letting out a breath before turning around. "Dr. Reid?"

He looks up, nodding once in a way that's meant to prompt you. Maybe it's overkill, but it feels necessary and it's too late to back out now. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." He doesn't look away from you after responding.

There's nothing left to expect, there are no words or anything else meant to be said. That's not enough to stop some unknown feeling from wedging itself between your ribs, urging you to something, to say anything that might come close to offering him the same kind of understanding he's given you.

"I hope you find a less weird, too."

He doesn't respond, but something about the look behind his eyes and his slight nod makes you feel okay about leaving him.

----

There are few ideologies that have clung to him, and even fewer that have managed to bind themselves to some integral part of his being that exists beneath his skin.

The pursuit of knowledge is one of the few constants Spencer Reid allows himself to rely on, one of the only things he allows himself to consider a saving grace. However, circumstance has prevented his views on the subject from skewing. The irony of the fact that some things are better left unknown is not lost on him.

For example, the girl that walked into his office and immediately saw through him, is better left a mystery. He'd see her in class, he'd answer her questions, he'd grade her work and offer her necessary feedback--but he will not know her.

It's a mantra, a promise that he repeats in his head again and again as his attention falls to the desktop in front of him. He attempts to grasp onto this lack of knowledge, to transform it into a tangible entity to keep him from typing your name into the search engine.

----

a/n spencer entering his garcia era while googling reader 💻🧑‍💻

anyways in ur interested in part 2 or would like to be tagged let me know!!

[lychee-angelica]

8th house lord through the houses ✧˖°

vedic astrology

disclaimer ~ this is based on my own research & opinions, so if it doesn’t resonate please let it go. this should go without saying but please do not plagiarise heh

how to find your 8th house lord ~ for starters please only use your vedic/ sidereal chart & whole sign house system. the 8th house lord planet is indicated solely by the sign that falls within the 8th house of a chart. look for the house in your chart where your 8th house lord planet is sitting in. i have included a guide at the very bottom of this post as well but if you need clarification feel free to dm me x

✧˖° 8th lord in 1st house

these people are very seductive & alluring! high physical sex appeal & most likely has very high sex drives. they have a very mysterious & hypnotic presence. highly mystical & intuitive - it is very hard to deceive these people. sensitive & has a very emotionally vulnerable side to them - they try to keep this side of them low-key. comes across as mystical, deep & sensitive. may have health issues that deteriorate their vitality whether mental or physical - keep on top of your well-being. these people have powerful potential to transform one’s self physically - like they can drastically transform other’s perception of them. as per stereotypes, may be prone to seclusion & secrecy on a characteristic level

✧˖° 8th lord in 2nd house

people with this placement have very sexually attractive facial features, especially the eyes & lips. seductive voices! these people are very ‘sensually seductive’ - if that makes sense. may have very deep issues related to self-worth. may be prone to disordered eating & consumption of intoxicates as a means to pacify psychological issues - please be careful of diet culture & intoxication if you have this placement. ability to benefit off other people’s money - just saying reminds me of sugar baby archetypes (8th house is the finance of others & 2nd house is material items). other wise, benefits financially from work related to investigation, research, psychology, astrology, mystical practices, sex, finances or health 

✧˖° 8th lord in 3rd house

people with this placement may be very interested in occult, fantasy, mystical, true crime or mysterious topics. has a mind for mystery. these people are most likely shy - especially when it comes to talking to others. seductive & hypnotic way with words - other people may often take what you say as suggestive even if it’s not. amazing placement for creative writing, especially fantasy or criminal genres. these people may be very sexual inclined, however be careful of not over doing it with sexual activity or becoming too infatuated with it (8th house is sex & 3rd house is hobbies). may be interested in longevity & anti-aging

✧˖° 8th lord in 4th house

highly intuitive, empathetic & good at supporting others. has a great need to connect with others intimately & usually does so intensely, especially within emotional & sexual relationships. for this reason sex & love tend to go together for these people, they often desire devotional bonds/ relationships. these people may harbour or bottle up feelings of shame, isolation & victimhood. usually these feelings are associated with the mother, childhood or home environment in some way. mother may be a scorpionic person or if there are no afflictions the mother may just has interest in spirituality/ mysticism. these people should be very cautious of attracting people who treated poorly within their intimate relationships 

✧˖° 8th lord in 5th house

these people most likely express themselves creatively in a scorpionic way, whether that is intentional or not - megan fox has this placement & she has always been subject to roles that objectify & sexualise her (8th house is sex appeal & 5th house is theatrical entertainment). these people likely enjoy having sex very much, especially within romantic/ committed relationships. has a good understanding of occult, taboo, sexual topics although may be to overly obsessed with these themes. their creativity comes in sudden bursts of energy. if this person has children/ is wanting to the relationship with them may be challenging & dramatic. most likely able to financially support their children. people with this placement should be extra wary of accidental pregnancy

✧˖° 8th lord in 6th house 

profound ability & strength to overcome their obstacles whether they are financial, emotional or psychological. prone to feelings of victimization & vulnerability, be very cautious of others who may try to take advantage of you especially sexually or monetarily. prone to other’s competing with them due to their sex appeal, attracts jealousy from other people - jealousy could even be very low-key, ik this sounds bad but it’s just because you’re so gorgeous! may routinely deal with unwanted attention. very talented in research & investigation. monetary gains can come from disasters, health issues, insurance or injuries. take special care of your own health & the health of your pets x 

✧˖° 8th lord in the 7th house

these people relate to others in a very primal, seductive or intimate way, vice versa. people with this place have many admirers for this reason but be cautious of other people maybe getting the wrong impression of where your interests lay. may be the types who may are good at stalking/ gathering information on a love interest usually via social media. enjoys having sex & is sexually skilful. likely to desire marriage/ commitment. your partner may be passionate & mysterious, a scorpionic type of person. may have sudden disruptions or changes in relationships & marriages

✧˖° 8th lord in the 8th house

deeply interested in occult or taboo subjects, understands & contemplates things deeply. may be detached & caught up with fantasy rather than reality. may be prone to disturbing fascinations related to occult, hidden aspects of life or sex. psychic & intuitive. highly sexually appealing & connects with others intensely during sex. likely to desire commitment & marriage. sometimes this applies but work toward bettering negative thinking patterns & emotions like spite, meanness & manipulative tendencies. additionally, always take care of your mental, emotional & physical health x

✧˖° 8th lord in the 9th house

non-conforming & breaks traditional faith/ beliefs. challenges, tempts or even disturbs other people’s moral compass & faith whether this is intentional or not. greatly intelligent, opinionated & insightful on topics of occult, mysticism, sex & death. most likely occultist or atheists. may be very lucky & experience sudden increase in fortunes. most likely able to benefit from inheritance, wills & insurance - by any legal means. powerful & skilled at manifestation through intention & prayer. that being said, manifestation is so powerful that these people need to be very mindful of negative thinking as this may also manifest itself. be very wary of teachers or older men who may cross boundaries or establish inappropriate relationships. may have sudden disruptions or changes in your higher education - beyond high school

✧˖° 8th lord in the 10th house

people with this placement may seem to be shy, reclusive or deep in thought in the eye of the public. otherwise in more extroverted people the sexual side of the 8th house can be more aligned with their public prominence. these people may be overlooked by other’s but when they do receive attention from authority figures or older men it is intense & overwhelming - always be wary of older men who are sexually interested in you, particularly if they are of a higher status than you. great research & analysis skills which makes them well suited for careers related to secrets, scandals, psychology, investigation, death & surveillance. avoid scandalous behaviour as it will most likely hinder your public image or even career. may experience many sudden changes in status & work     

✧˖° 8th lord in the 11th house

people with this placement may have trouble fitting in & feels like an outcast usually due to issues w/ social anxiety. often attracts friends & people within their social circles that are sexually interested in them - so be cautious of people in your circle for this reason. prominent placement for people who gains financially through sexual, mysterious, investigative or esoteric activities - i noticed this placement to be prominent in top only fans creators. may  experience very sudden rises in wealth/ gains & fame/ social status, although be wary of scandals as they may cause sudden negative turns in luck the same way. generally these people will have a better adult life than their childhood

✧˖° 8th lord in the 12th house

these people are highly skilled at spiritual practices such as detachment, yoga & meditation. they have true understanding of spirituality & reincarnation. most definitely can be shy & introverted types. people with this placement may have emotional or psychological issues that stem very deep. deeply fascinated with fantasy or mystical topics. prone to feeling victimised, at a loss or trapped. high sex drive although may be frigid toward sexual intimacy with others. may have sleep troubles or disorders - please take care of your sleep. be wary of taking bad/ negative actions as they may lead to loss. be very cautious of sexual relationships that debilitate your energy especially via pressuring  

guide ✧˖°

[anitalorimer]

𝐕𝐄𝐈𝐋 𝐎𝐅 𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐎𝐑 |𝐣𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐞

𝚜𝚞𝚖𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚢 | 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚍𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚓𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗 𝚌𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊 𝚏𝚎𝚠 𝚖𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚑𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚠. 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚘𝚋𝚜𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚏𝚎𝚊𝚛 𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚜 𝚑𝚒𝚖 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚞𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚢 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚔 𝚘𝚏 𝚏𝚎𝚊𝚛. 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚍𝚊𝚛𝚔𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚞𝚖𝚎𝚜 𝚑𝚒𝚖, 𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚡𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚎𝚜 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚝𝚘 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚏𝚎𝚊𝚛 𝚝𝚘𝚡𝚒𝚗, 𝚛𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚏𝚎𝚊𝚛 𝚘���� 𝚊𝚋𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚘𝚗𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝. 𝚊𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚘𝚡𝚒𝚗'𝚜 𝚎𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚜 𝚜𝚞𝚋𝚜𝚒𝚍𝚎, 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚓𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗 𝚛𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚜𝚎𝚏𝚞𝚕. 𝚍𝚎𝚜𝚙𝚒𝚝𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚏𝚎𝚊𝚛, 𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚖𝚒𝚜𝚎𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞.

𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 | 𝟷𝟾+, 𝚍𝚊𝚛𝚔 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚜, 𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚏𝚎𝚊𝚛 𝚝𝚘𝚡𝚒𝚗, 𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚜, 𝚗𝚘𝚗 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚏𝚎𝚊𝚛 𝚝𝚘𝚡𝚒𝚗, 𝚌𝚛𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚜𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛!𝚓𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗, 𝚙𝚊𝚒𝚗, 𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜, 𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚜𝚝

𝚙𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 | 𝚓𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗 𝚌𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚎 𝚡 𝚏𝚎𝚖!𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛

𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝 | 𝟽𝟺𝟹 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚜

When you first met Jonathan Crane, you did not expect for him to be the reason you would be fighting for your sanity. You have been dating Jonathan for a few months now, your relationship shrouded in a certain mystery that seemed to surround him. You knew he had a peculiar interest in fear, studying it’s effects on people’s minds with an almost obsessive dedication. Despite your closeness, he had managed to keep his Scarecrow activities hidden from you.

Your paths had crossed in the chaos of Gotham City. You, a determined reporter, had been working on the Raymond Falcons case, delving deep into the criminal underbelly of the city. It was during this investigation that you first met Jonathan. He was a professor at a local university, offering insights into the psychology of fear and the criminal mind.

Your conversations started as interviews, but they quickly evolved into something more. There was an undeniable connection between you, a shared passion for unraveling the mysteries of the human psyche. As you delved deeper into your investigation, he became your confidant, a safe haven in a world teetering on the edge of darkness.

Back to that fateful night when fear took hold of him, his own vulnerability sparking something within you. You awoke with a start, the air around you thick with a suffocating sense of dread. And there he was, Scarecrow, his presence looming over you like a nightmare come to life.

"N-No... What...?" Your voice trembled as you struggled to comprehend the surreal scene before you.

His eerie, distorted chuckle sent shivers down your spine. "I couldn’t help but watch from afar. The peace in your body as you investigate crimes in Gotham. I’ve seen you, Y/N. You show no fear and that makes me intrigued. Fear, my dear, is a powerful tool. And tonight, you'll understand its true nature."

Panic surged through your veins as he exposed you to his fear toxin. It was as if the world around you twisted and warped, reality giving way to the darkest corners of your mind. Images of your worst nightmares began to flash before your eyes, an onslaught of terror and despair.

"No, stop! This isn't real!" You cried out, your voice quivering with raw fear.

But his voice, chilling and intoxicating, echoed in your ears. "Fear is the reality we choose to embrace. Embrace it, Y/N. Show me what’s hiding in that peaceful head of yours!"

The room seemed to close in around you, shadows morphing into grotesque figures. Your breath came in ragged gasps as the images intensified, your heart pounding as if it might burst from your chest.

The fear of being abandoned surged within you, a tidal wave of raw emotion. Memories of past hurts, moments of feeling alone and unwanted, all converged into a torrent of anguish. The faces of loved ones fading away, leaving you in darkness.

"Please, no more!" You screamed, your voice cracking as the weight of your terrors pressed down upon you. "Jonathan, no! Don’t go!"

Watching the fear curse through your body, something snapped inside of Jonathan. Your body lay before him, converged in sweat and tears and tried to scramble out of the shadows of your fear. Jonathan became aware of your fear, however he became aware of his presence in your life.

A raw connection, an unbreakable bond, a gift of love. This was not how Jonathan wanted to hear the confession, but his sinister actions got the best of him. Aware of the current actions, Jonathan felt useless to try and calm you down. He had to let it run its course.

The sounds of your cries, screams and the sight of your body trembling with fear made Jonathan remorseful. Jonathan pulled off the Scarecrow mask, gripping it tightly in his hands. The material felt heavy, his own fear and obsession weighing it down with sorrow.

As the toxin's grip began to loosen, you found yourself shivering, trembling not just from the aftereffects of the toxin but from the rawness of the emotions it had dredged up. And then you saw him – Jonathan, no longer Scarecrow, but a broken man before you.

Tears streaked down his face, his hands trembling as he clutched the mask that represented his alter ego. In that moment, your fear transformed into a profound understanding. You saw the man behind the mask, the vulnerability he had always hidden, and the pain he carried.

Upon hearing your shuffling against the bedsheets, Jonathan turned to face yours. " Y/N… I-"

"Why did you do this to me?" You felt betrayed, hurt, but in all emotion, you felt fearful.

"I never meant... I didn't want you to experience this. I wanted to understand, to know why you're different. But I never wanted to hurt you like this."

Seeing Jonathan in this state was foreign to you. Looking into his glossy eyes, you saw raw feeling, the real Jonathan.

Tentatively, you reached out to him, your fingers brushing against his tear-stained cheek. "Jonathan," you murmured, your voice filled with compassion. "We both have our fears. I didn’t want you to know mine because I fear of losing those important to me. You are important to me, Jonathan.”

His gaze met yours, a mixture of relief and contentment in his eyes. "I don't deserve your forgiveness. I brought this upon you."

Your fingers found their way to his lips, silencing his self-blame. "We're all haunted by something. What matters is how we choose to confront those demons."

His voice cracked as he spoke, his vulnerability laid bare. "I never meant for you to see this side of me. I never wanted to lose you."

The weight of remorse bore down on him as he realised the extent of what he had done. He had brought your deepest fears to life, subjected you to the torment he himself had inflicted on others. As you trembled before him, his heart shattered, the pieces scattering at his feet.

But forgiveness was not an immediate gift. Fear still lingered in your eyes, and his self-doubt was palpable. The days that followed were heavy with the weight of what had transpired. There were moments of silence, when unspoken apologies hung in the air, and moments of distance, when you both grappled with your own insecurities.

It was a slow journey, navigating the landscape of your emotions. You were fearful of him, of the darkness he could tap into. He was fearful of himself, of the damage he had inflicted upon you. Yet through it all, the connection you shared acted as a guiding light.

Finally, after weeks of uncertainty and soul-searching, the moment of forgiveness arrived. It was a quiet night, a gentle breeze rustling the curtains. You sat together, the weight of your experiences hanging between you. And then, he spoke.

"Y/N, I can never erase what I've done, the fear I've subjected you to. But I want you to know that I'm truly sorry, that I never wanted to hurt you."

Your gaze met his, the wall between you crumbling. "And I'm sorry for shutting you out, for not fully understanding what you were going through."

He reached for your hand, his touch warm and reassuring. "We both have our fears, Y/N. But I promise you, I'll do everything in my power to protect you from them."

A tear glistened in your eye as you looked at him, the connection between you growing stronger. "And I promise to face my fears, as long as we face them together."

It wasn't an easy path forward, but through shared moments of vulnerability, you learned to trust each other on a level that transcended the surface. And as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months, your bond only grew stronger, grounded in the understanding that fear could either tear you apart or bring you closer together.

With time, you both found solace in each other's arms, knowing that you were no longer alone in your struggles. And as the nights grew quieter, the darkness no longer held the same terrors it once did, for you had each other to chase away the shadows.

[rootjin]

𝓦𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞

call me azade (the free), i‘m 24 years old, living in europe

sag with my second house venus – scorpio, infj, ex-christian atheist who loves her crystals and candles

i‘m a radical feminist but i also believe in the kurdish feminist ideology called „jineolojî“ as well as the other ideologies from the kurdish philosophist abdullah öcalan

yes, i am gender critical. yes, i also criticize religions. i‘m also anti-sw (also porn and of!), anti-capitalism, anti-hook up culture, pro-choice and more

you‘ll find stuff i love under the cut

shows:

+ criminal minds, strangers from hell, aggretsuko, good girls, gilmore girls, black mirror, juvenile justice, mask girl, squid game, death note

movies:

+ blair witch project, the platform, the devil wears prada, incantation, the craft, cadaver, midsommar, unlocked

books:

other interests:

the kurdish freedom movement, true crime, psychology (i‘m a psych major), natural religions, gym, rnb, criminal psychology, the dark web, art, ypj fighters, politics, hunting pedophiles, uncovering religious extremists and their dog whistles

[bungone]

Actually no im not done because I know it gets talked about a lot but Lolita is such an interesting piece of media; not just the book itself but people's attitudes towards it.

like, first off, there's the actual author (nabokov) who goes out of his way to talk about how childish, mokeyish, immature and whatnot Dolores is in the most unnappealing possible ways, and then specifically said that he didnt want the kind of cover that every single fucking published edition of Lolita has?? With girls who are either being sexualized or very obviously having "a good time" which is absolutely not what Dolores was doing in the book?? I really, really, don't think anyone who designs these covers has even opened the first page because what. the. fuck.

It's so obvious that my man Humbert Humbert is an unreliable narrator, but gee, I guess we learned to take everything we read at face value, and also everything that comes from a protagonist's mouth as the "correct" way of viewing things, both in the book and in real life?

And even then, maybe, just MAYBE I can excuse the people who talk about how the book is fucked up because it's "glorifying pedophillia".

Maybe they had a really shitty english teacher. At the very least, they're reading it and understanding that the actions of Humbert Humbert aren't okay? They got to the halfway point. Maybe their education sytem failed them.

Maybe they had a really shitty high school english teacher that never taught them the skills necessary to understand this kind of writing. Maybe they're just dense, that's who they are as a person, and it would take someone going out of their way to point it out for them to consider the possibility.

But then there's the fucking apologists?? Like, putting aside the whole Dolores being 12 (which, yeah, is akin to putting aside the whole book, but bear with me for a second), Humbert Humbert not only kidnaps her (illegal), lies to her for a long time about her mother (not illegal but generally shitty), but is implied to have committed murder (illegal, not sure if implied is the right word here because it absolutely happened and everyone knows it), and sexually abuses Dolores (very illegal). These are crimes. He is a criminal. Say what you want about the justice system these are crimes that absolutely should be crimes.

He's clearly not an upstanding citizen, and I fail to understand how some people look at all his behavior and go "oh yes, the the man who killed a woman and kidnapped a 12 year old girl is just misunderstood, and he did those things for true love" like fuck no.

I like Lolita. It's an objectively good book. The quality of writing (high quality, I mean, I normally hate first-person writing but I actually liked Lolita), it's a great psychological horror piece that doesn't rely on things like shock value and overused tropes. The characters are all multi-dimensional and frankly, act realistically. But that's all it is. A psychological HORROR piece. It's not romantic. If anything, it's meant to make you sympathize with Humbert, and then you're supposed to take a step back and be like, "Wait. Why am I sympathizing with him? I'm not a pedophile." Because yeah, he's a complex character but that only goes to make him realistic in terms of the kind of pedos that exist in real life.

Pedophiles are people too. Mentally ill people, really, really shitty people who need serious help, but reducing them to "not human" only makes them an "other", which makes you forget that on the outside, they look like normal people. That have friends and family and go to school or have jobs and order coffe and read in libraries and yeah, maybe you sat next to one of them an entire year in organic chemistry. They're not weird stalkers that hang out in bushes in parks. Some of them, maybe, but not all. Nowhere near all.

man that derailed fast.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

By Chauncey Devega

As I have previously explored in a series of conversations with cult and mind control expert Steven Hassan, Donald Trump meets most if not all the characteristics of a cult leader. Trump holds extreme power over his followers, who subsume their own identities and will to him. He persuades them to reject their own perceptions of reality and to trust only him and his approved messengers. To a large degree, they have lost the ability to engage in what psychologists describe as "reality testing."

Trump's mug shot, taken at the Fulton County jail in Atlanta last Thursday, is as an image of murderous rage and a bottomless lust for revenge. Trump has already used it to raise yet more campaign cash. In all probability, Trump's upcoming criminal trials will only make him more popular and powerful among his core followers, not less.

Like other cult movements, the MAGA phenomenon is rooted in manipulation and psychological abuse. Trump effectively exploits the death anxieties and other existential fears of his followers, presenting himself as their only protector and savior. The MAGA cult is authoritarian, preying on lonely, socially isolated and otherwise vulnerable people and providing them with a sense of order, meaning, community and destiny.

A poll conducted from Aug. 16 to 18 by CBS News/YouGov demonstrates just how firm Trump's power over his followers continues to be. A large majority of Republican voters view Trump as "honest and trustworthy," which would be hilarious if it were not deeply alarming. Furthermore, "Trump's voters hold him as a source of true information, even more so than other sources, including conservative media figures, religious leaders, and even their own friends and family." When asked who they believe tells them the truth, 71% of Trump voters picked him, more than picked friends and family members (63%), right-wing media commentators (56%) and religious leaders (only 42%).

Beyond the numbers, mental health expert Dr. Justin Frank, author of the bestseller "Trump on the Couch," perceives a tragic and pathetic human dimension to the CBS News poll, as he told me by email:

“What this poll doesn't measure or explain is the cause and effect of the profound loyalty of Trump's core supporters. It's this factor that continues to baffle pundits and call into question everything we thought we knew about American politics and the future of democracy. How did these startling figures come to be?

Trump taps into specific needs certain people have to love and to feel loved in return. People who feel they have been lied to — whether as children or adults — yearn for a person or group to trust, in which to place unwavering faith. While I think this type of blind loyalty to Trump is a delusion, it's also a common human experience. In some people it overwhelms an otherwise healthy emotional state in which most of us simultaneously understand that authority figures can be both admirable and disappointing. Televangelists are able to captivate and exploit their vulnerable audiences for this reason. It's also why cash (from many who can ill afford it) pours into Trump's coffers each time he's indicted for a new crime.

As I wrote in 'Trump on the Couch,' Donald Trump himself felt lied to by his parents, which binds him and his fan base even closer. Trump provides the kind of love they crave because he instinctively meets those unconscious needs, in part because he shares them unconsciously himself.”

Frank further suggests that Trump "invites maternal love" from many of his followers, who "are touched at a deep level by their awareness of his neediness, which endears them to him":

“In his rallies he repeats 'believe me' the way a child does when telling a lie or feeling unloved. He is quick to ... paint himself as a maligned victim. He becomes someone they want to protect from assault ... [by] sharing his sense of betrayal with his audience and psychologically merging with their own histories of having been disappointed. What evolves is an inability to differentiate oneself from the idolized other that results in an emotional bond that is deep and thrilling to share. To those outside the mystical Trump romance, this unconditional love makes no sense. We call that kind of love a cult. How can such an overt liar and accused criminal can be so admired?”

What we don't remember when we see such a cult in operation, Frank says, is that all children seek to protect "the image of their loved parents from the inevitable disbeliefs and hurts that even the best parents create":

“They do this by splitting their early experiences into good and bad, black and white. What evolves is a yearning for comfort, aided by binary thinking, from a figure who is only good, despite any evidence to the contrary.

So, here we are as a nation, confused and divided in the darkness of our deepest fears and needs. Trump offers his devoted flock a shared sense of purpose and meaning. They've been groomed to look outside for someone to safeguard their best interests and provide shared faith and support. I think it may not be possible for those diehard Trump adherents to discover that this a dangerous illusion.”

I also asked Jen Senko, director of the documentary "The Brainwashing of My Dad," about what insights she could share on the findings of the CBS News poll regarding Trump's hold over his followers. She said she found it "stupid, and maddening, that many on television 'news' seem shocked" by the poll's findings:

“Have they been living under a rock? More likely they've been living in denial because it's a lot easier than accepting the truth. ... Though many of us understand this now, too little emphasis has been put on how millions of Americans lost their minds and became right-wing zombies. It's the media, stupid! ... As someone who saw the writing on the wall decades ago and made a documentary about it in 2016, it's particularly frustrating. Too many people laughed at Rush Limbaugh. Too many people thought Fox News was a legitimate 'conservative' alternative to the 'liberal media.' Too many people didn't question the barrage of email propaganda (often put out by think tanks and disguised as homespun bits of wisdom) emphasizing over and over: Democrats bad, Democrats evil. Democrats not real Americans. Republicans are all that is good and holy.

Limbaugh was allowed to get on the Armed Forces Network. Fox News is still on it, and became the go-to news station for bus stations, airports, restaurants, bars, doctors' offices. When humans immerse themselves in false information that gets repeated, it stands to reason that millions of them become "cultified" right-wing zombies. What can be done about it, I leave to the experts. When will America acknowledge that we are in an information war? That's what worries me every day.”

Former right-wing pundit Rich Logis was immersed in TrumpWorld and the MAGA movement for years, but managed to escape. He said it was an "irrefutable fact" that MAGA had a cultlike ethos:

“I know this because I was once quite deep in the MAGA rabbit hole. Had Trump won in 2020, I probably would have gone deeper into it, with the odds of escaping close to zero.

There are two prevailing ties that bind the MAGA cult. The first is that Trump is an omniscient, omnipotent, martyred savior of America; some believe him to be sent by God. (Note that Ron DeSantis poached this heresy last year, in his re-election campaign.) Martyrdom is the final stage of cult leadership, and to those in a cult, it is the outside world who are deceived. Those in this first category are willing to see through the cult to its fiery end. The second is among those who are ... politically traumatized by their hyper-partisan, paralytic, paranoid worldview that Democrats, socialists, communists and Marxists have long conspired to tyrannically infringe upon their rights and freedoms. I knew some who fell into one, or both, categories.”

Logis suggests that Trump's voters should not be dehumanized "and had some valid motivations for supporting Trump, even though he exploited those concerns and fears":

“We must, as a nation, build a broad consensus that electing Trump was one of the most egregious mistakes in our history. Admitting when we're wrong is an unnatural act, but it is possible — and liberating. When I look back at my MAGA time, I remain stunned at the level of political trauma I put upon myself; my hope is that others will begin to recognize their own trauma, which has been, to some extent, self-inflicted.”

The only real hope for awakening or deprogramming MAGA cult members, Logis said, will come from "resounding losses of MAGA candidates next year, up and down the ballot. Though such losses will probably not 'save' most MAGA voters, it will, likely, save some — and 'some' equals millions of Americans."

Former Republican congressman Joe Walsh, now a leading never-Trumper conservative and democracy advocate, described the CBS News polls findings as "the least surprising thing ever." I conclude here with his words of warning:

“Three and a half years ago, while campaigning in Des Moines against Trump, I asked 40 people in line to enter a Trump rally if Donald Trump had ever told a lie. All 40 Trump supporters said no, Donald Trump had never told a lie. I knew then and there that my primary challenge against Trump was hopeless, but I also knew then and there that my soon-to-be-former political party was hopelessly gone too. I knew then and there what I'd sensed for the past six years: The Republican Party is a cult, an authoritarian-embracing, truth-denying cult. So what do we do about it? Well, we all come together in 2024 to defeat this anti-democracy cult. Again. That's job No. 1. But my other job is to continue to try to rescue members of the Trump cult. That's not a job for everyone, but as someone who helped create the cult and then escaped from the cult, it's my job. It's my penance.”

[emberfrostlovesloki]

Criminal Minds ABCs...

Hi all! I hope you are having a good week so far. I made a Criminal Minds ABCs for fun. All of the ABCs deal with characters or concepts from the show. This took a long time to make and I'm very proud of it, so I hope you enjoy it! See all of the ABCs under the cut and all photo credits are at the end! Please be kind to yourself today and I am sending you a hug. All likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated - Love Levi <3

A stand for Aaron Hotchner: Unit chief of the BAU.

B is for the BAU a department of the FBI the researches cases on serial killers.

C is for Criminology: The scientific study of crimes and criminals.

D is for Derek Morgan: Former Chigaco cop and friend to Penelope Garcia and Spencer Reid.

E is for Evidence: The available body of facts indicating whether a belief is true or valid.

F is for Fingerprint: An impression made on a surface by a person's fingertip.

G if for Penelope Garcia: Spunky Technical Analyst of the BAU.

H is for Homicide: The killing of one person by another.

I is for Interrogation: The action of interrogation or the process of being interrogated.

J is for Jennifer Jareau: The Media Liason for the BAU.

K is for Kill shot: To shoot a gun with the purpose of killing someone.

L is for LDSK: The FBI's acronym for Long Distance Serial Killer.

M stands for Murder: The unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.

N stands for New Agent Training: The Basic Field Training Course is designed to train new special agents and intelligence analysts together to prepare them for the field.

O stands for Organized: Arranged in a systematic way.

P Stands for Prior Record: An individual's previous criminal record.

Q stands for Question: A sentence worded or expressed so as to elicit information.

R stands for Revenge: The act of inflicting hurt or harm on someone for an unjury or wrong suffered at their hands.

S stands for Spencer Reid: Eidetic genius and youngest member of the BAU.

T stands for Trophy: A souvenir or memento of a crime.

U stands for Unsub: The FBI's slang for Unknown Subject.

V stands for Victimology: The study of the victims of crime and the psychological effects on them of their experience.

W stands for Witness: A person who sees an event, typically a crime or accident, take place.

X stands for eXamination: A detailed inspection or investiation.

Y stands for Yellow Journalism: A style of newspaper reporting that emphasizes sensationalism over facts.

Z stands for ZZZ's on the jet home

Text Break Banner by @cafekitsune

Tag list: (🩷) @tgskitten @geminitapestry @silk-spun @alicewonderao3 @ssahotchnerr @cumulo-stratus @criminalskies

Want to be added to my tag list? Please check out this post (linked) 

Want to send in a request? Please check out this post, CM Request Post (linked)

Photo Credits:

A @hotchs-big-hands B @bau-bitch02 C @elysianmuses D @pennyspearl E @sewertrashmax F @dienette-666 G @pinkiebieberpie H @baekkku I @magicbecameouragenda J @tokyocyborg K @animefan-2013 L @its-where-the-wild-things-are M @roting N @moodboardmix O @study-sphere P @finalchokehold Q @aurorasoleil R @bebs-art-gallery S @tokyocyborg T @wheresmyfuckintea U @lieutenant-bixbyV @thesorceresstemple W @shegetsburned X @cloverdaisies Y @dumblr Z @notoneofyouhere

[merakiui]

Ohhhh I love true crime documentaries and psychological analysis of criminals

Do you have any favorite ones?

I really enjoy watching Explore With Us youtube channel! They cover a lot of very interesting cases through an educational and psychological perspective, which is immensely fascinating to me. The Conversations with a Killer series are all very riveting as well. Listening to the interview tapes is always a chilling experience, and hearing from the people whose lives were impacted by these serial killers and what they were doing at the time or how they managed to narrowly escape death and so on is also very interesting.

I enjoyed Don't F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer. It was edited in a way that made me feel so tense,,, like I was on the edge of my seat. But it was so impressive just how many people on the internet were so diligent in their detective work that it managed to help the actual detectives catch the man who likely would have gone on to hurt more people. Worst Roommate Ever was also an interesting documentary series. I highly recommend it.

I like watching Coffeehouse Crime as well!! There are tons of unique and horrifying cases that Adrian covers on there. I like the way Adrian presents the information in each video and goes into details of what the victims' lives were like before tragedy. Sometimes true crime can often focus on the killer(s) or perpetrator(s) and not spend much time on the victim, so it's nice that Adrian is able to shed light on the victim(s) as well as present it in a way that humanizes them and doesn't just reduce them to a corpse. Because before the unthinkable, they were each human beings with their own lives, loved ones, hobbies, interests, goals, etc.

It's been a while since I've watched true crime, but I'd like to watch a documentary soon. :D usually I limit the amount of true crime I consume within a timeframe because if I watch too much it frightens me easily. ;;; aaa but do you have any favorites?

[neonacity]

Blood Red | Ch.2 | Haechan x Reader

Summary: You’re a forensic psychiatrist assigned to one of the country’s high-profile criminals. You want to unravel him, but he’s set on catching you in his web instead.

Characters: Haechan, Reader, Jungwoo, Johnny

Warnings: crimes, blood, weapons, toxic dynamics, psychological themes, personality disorder, mental health disorder, dissociative identity disorder, alcohol use, smut (protected sex, humping, intoxicated sex). Please, please, please, do not interact if you are a minor]. This work is not meant to romanticize any personality disorders or toxic dynamics. Also, I am not a trained psychologist or medical professional so there might be inconsistencies on some of the scientific things here. Most medical references mentioned, however, are based on a book that I’ve always loved way way back, “The Minds of Billy Milligan” which is based on a true story. This is a work of fiction and I am not implying any likeness between the characterization here of the boys to their real life counterparts. I also reserve the rights to all my work—I do not post anywhere else other than tumblr. 

CHAPTER 1

"What exactly are you looking for again?"

You barely looked up from the pile of folders half-covering your face as you heard Jungwoo's voice from behind one of the massive steel cabinets in the room. The place was so badly illuminated—an almost forgotten area in the headquarters where old file cases are stowed away—that you had to squint just to read the small text on the browning pages. You sighed at another useless document you skimmed through and pulled out another folder to read.

"Lee Haechan's criminal history. His case files said that he has been arrested as a minor for juvenile crimes but I feel like there's something lacking," you tried to explain as you went from one page to the next. Jungwoo poked his head from the cabinet he had been rummaging around and frowned at you.

"What do you mean lacking?"

You clicked your tongue in frustration as you closed yet another folder with useless information. Everything in the files are exactly what you've been given already when you started the case, but somehow, you just can't shake the feeling that there's something incredibly important that you are not seeing.

"I don't know. A missing link. My gut feel says I am not seeing the full picture."

Your friend finally stepped away from his corner and went over to where you are, a pile of new documents now gathered in his arms. You didn't need to glance at him to read off the look he is drilling on the top of your head right now as he approached your crowded table.

"Don't you think that… maybe you are reading too much on this? The boy is damaged. A criminal. Maybe there is no missing link and he's just evil?"

You winced internally as you considered that. If you follow regular logic here, what he is saying could exactly be the truth. Your role in this case is not to unravel everything, but to simply try and give the boy a diagnosis. You've already done that, which means your job is almost done, but there is also something about the whole thing that still rubs you differently.

"When I talked to him, Haechan said that Donghyuck only started acting out when he turned eighteen. He only had records of doing minor offenses before, but after coming of age, his crimes escalated. He became violent. It doesn't make sense that someone would do that—even if they have dissociative identity disorder—unless there is a trigger."

"A trigger?"

"Yes. People like him usually have these situations that set them off. For example, the first splintering of his personality happened because of abuse he experienced as a child. The fact that Donghyuck, who has been 'protecting' Haechan since then, started becoming violent means that there must be something that set him off."

Jungwoo was quiet as he thought that over. As the assigned detective in the case, he believes that the two of you have already covered everything, but he is also slowly starting to see where you are coming from. On the other hand, he is also aware that this might be just another fixation for you. After being friends for years, he knows that one of your faults is that you can’t stop yourself from getting at the bottom of something once you've set your mind to it.

"Look, if you want to dig more, I won't stop you. But… make sure that you don't go too far, alright? I’ve personally met the boy a few times, and I'm pretty sure he's not like any you have handled before.”

You gave your friend a thankful smile. Reaching over the table, you wound your fingers with his before giving them a squeeze.

"Thank you, Woo. How about you let me treat you since you decided to spend your weekend with me? Anything you want.” 

The man rolled his eyes but stopped as if to consider your offer. Finally, he gave you a small nod as he decided on something.

"You said anything?"

"As long as it doesn’t involve drugs, yes."

"Let's go clubbing tonight then. Nobody goes home until one of us passes out drunk. Deal?"

You hesitated, but only briefly. Personally, you're not someone who is big on partying, but you've been stressed out in the past few days anyway with so many things on your plate. Maybe... this is exactly what you need. With a pointed move, you closed the folder spread out in front of you and slid out of your stool.

"Last man standing books an uber for the drunk one, okay? Let's go. Drinks on me."

******

You've never really been good at keeping promises every time there is alcohol involved.

You made a mental note to text Jungwoo back first thing tomorrow as your phone vibrated for nth time in your purse. Muttering a curse under your breath, you finally stumbled inside the foyer of the apartment after fumbling through the threshold of an unfamiliar doorway. Your head was spinning, but you weren't plastered enough to miss the warmth that circled your hips as you almost fell face first to the floor. Straightening up, you let your bag fall with a dull thud somewhere as you hurried to get out of your heels.

"Bedroom… Where—"

A low chuckle came from behind you in response. Before you could even lose your balance again, you felt a warm breath fan over the back of your neck before lips trailed up and down your sensitive skin there. Goosebumps rose on your skin at the feeling, and your lips parted slightly in a wordless gasp.

"Easy, sweetheart. Turn around. I'll carry you there."

Your world was tipping so bad that you didn't need telling twice. It lacked any grace, but you somehow managed to angle yourself correctly for the stranger to hook his arm behind your knees and lift you bridal style. The walk from the living room was quick, and soon enough you felt the softness of the bed cushion your already burning up form. You slightly rolled your head to the side then, your eyes landing on the man currently standing by the side of the bed, his hands fumbling with the buckle of his belt. His shirt was already discarded on the floor, revealing the hard planes of his lean form that the filtered light from the outside touched. How you got into this situation now with this stranger, you could barely remember anymore, but even in your drunken state, you couldn't fail to notice how the spot between your legs throbbed just by looking at him.

"Like what you're seeing?" His voice was low but teasing when he noticed you gawking at him. Maybe it's the alcohol, but you felt bold enough to look at him straight in the eyes without blushing.

"If we're going to fuck, you need to help me out of this skirt," you said plainly, almost in a matter of fact tone. He laughed in return, and soon enough you felt his big hands go over your hips and peeling your clothing off of you. You let him do the job, using the time instead to run your hands over his smooth skin. You dipped your fingers lower, resting just on the top of his jeans which he merely unbuttoned earlier. The same second he finally removed your skirt, you hooked your fingers on the loop of his belt and pulled him down so that the hardening bulge in his pants pressed directly on your growing wetness. Both of you moaned at the same time—your voice gasping and stuttering while he hissed broken curses—when you hooked your legs around his hips and started rubbing your still clothed wetness against his. The friction of his jeans against your soaked underwear was delicious, and you soon enough felt the start of a tightening knot at the pit of your stomach.

"Fuck, you're such a dirty girl. Look at you humping against me. You were acting like a prude  just an hour ago."

Your retaliation came in the form of a long winded groan, but you did bury your blunt nails into the skin of his back, a move that earned another low hiss from him. As if to punish you, he started rubbing himself harder against you, his hips rutting against yours. You gasped, the action making you close your eyes in pleasure.

"Are you going to cum, baby? Are you going to cum with just this?"

You were on the verge of an orgasm, but your body was craving for more than just simply reaching your peak. You didn't know what it was about tonight that was different, but you were sure it was just not the alcohol that was influencing the almost desperate need that has your core burning. It was almost like there was a part of you that was screaming to get out—a part you could only appease by having someone fill you up right at this moment.

"Fuck me," you whispered almost brokenly, your voice sounding almost alien to your ears. The gaze of the man above you darkened with desire, but his jaw also set as if he's hesitating about something.

"Are you sure? You're drunk."

If this was any other day, you would have found his consideration very gentlemanly. You knew for a fact he wasn't against burying himself in you right now with how hard he feels against you, but you also honestly couldn't care about manners at the moment. All your mind was zoned in was your need to release, something you know you can only reach with him filling you up to the hilt. To prove your point to him, you arched your back and grinded against him harder, a move that made him groan loudly and fall halfway on top of you, his weight supported by his arms on both sides of your head. You stared at him, eyes burning on his face.

"What's your name again?" You whispered as you rubbed your slit against his length. He cursed, but managed to push out an answer between his teeth.

"Johnny."

"Believe me, Johnny. I'm not drunk enough to forget your name tomorrow. Now, can you just fuck me? Because I'm almost there."

The way he looked at you said that you've made your point clear. Jaw tightening, he pushed himself off of you again to reach out for something from his bedside drawer. You were still dizzy, but you managed to prop yourself up as well, hands grabbing and pulling at his pants while he unrolled the condom. His cock finally sprung free on your hand, heavy and hard with pre-cum glistening on his tip. He wasted no time slipping the condom on despite his pants and boxers only shoved halfway down and you temporarily busied yourself by pressing kisses against his chest and leaving marks there. The next seconds that followed had him slipping off your soaked underwear off of you, before turning you around so fast that you fell face first on the mattress as he lifted your bare ass up. You moaned against the covers when he slipped two fingers inside your dripping hole with no warning, scissoring them before pulling out again to spread your wetness all over your pussy lips.

"Shit, you're so wet. You're such a freak."

His words only made heat shoot up from the base of your spine straight to your head. As you managed to prop yourself up by your elbows, you felt his cock finally prod your entrance, the tip slipping between your folds with no resistance at all. Just when you thought he would finally bury himself to the hilt though, he pulled back again before slipping shallowly inside once more.

That continued for a few more moments, during which you would desperately try to push back against him so you could finally feel him in your guts. His grip on your hips stopped you though, his hold tight enough to limit your movements. His shallow thrusts were doing nothing but tease the orgasm that you could still feel at the tip of your tongue, close enough for you to almost tsste. His teasing was making you frustrated by the second, especially with your walls desperate to close in on something as you dipped in and out of the verge of orgasm. 

"Can you stop and just—"

Your words were cut off into a scream when he suddenly buried himself balls deep inside of you. Eyes growing round, you collapsed on the bed again at the sheer force of his thrust as you felt him fill you up completely. A low groan rumbled through his chest as your walls finally swallowed him whole, but you barely heard his hiss of pleasure when the cord of tension inside of you finally broke due to the sudden action action alone. You squeezed around his cock like a vice as you rode your orgasm, waves and waves of pleasure rendering you numb for a moment. The feeling of your velvety walls trying to suck him in deeper made Johnny whisper a string of curses behind you, his hips stuttering as he almost collapsed on top of you while you rode out your orgasm. His bare chest pressed against your back as he tried his best not to cum from your walls fluttering around his length alone.

You have barely recovered from your high when your eyes closed again and he finally started thrusting in and out of you. The moment he started moving, you realized just how big he is, his length filling you up so well you could swear he is rearranging your guts. The stretch was almost painful, but the discomfort slowly ebbed away when he finally started pounding into you at a faster pace. He was pistoning you so hard his hipbones rubbed deliciously against the curves of your ass every time he would bury himself balls deep into your aching cunt.

"You're so fucking tight. How are you so tight. When was the last time you got fucked, baby?"

You would have answered, but the pleasure that was running through your veins was so delicious that all you could do was to grab fistfuls of his duvet as you tried to match his pace. Slapping sounds filled the room, and you could feel the wetness from your earlier orgasm trickle down your thighs. Your head is still spinning, and you’re only half aware of the broken words and groans that left your lips as he pounded you at an unforgiving pace. When he angled himself a little lower, you could have sworn you saw stars when the new position finally let him hit that spot deep inside of you that always makes your toes curl.

You must have screamed, because he reached out to cover your mouth with his massive hand afterwards. He pressed his lips against your temple now as his other free hand slipped under you, his fingers moving your bra deftly out of the way so he could tug and play at your hardened nipple. The new angle had him crowding on top of you, his massive body covering yours as he planted his knees deeper on the mattress. His pace have gone brutal, that you almost felt like a ragdoll as his cock hit your sweet spot again and again and again.

"Squeeze around me more, honey. God, I want to ruin you so bad."

Maybe it's the alcohol mixed with the brain-melting pleasure you were feeling, but for a moment there, you thought his voice changed for a second. It sounded a little higher, almost breathy as the words rolled from his tongue. Just the sound of it alone made your walls squeeze around him again so hard he cursed loudly behind you. That was the last trigger he needed to finally lose control, his hips pressing down on you so hard that your legs finally gave way under you, leaving you pressed flat on your stomach on the mattress. Johnny didn’t wait another second to loop his arms under yours, his elbows propped on the bed to lock you under his weight. The new angle let him pummel deeper inside of you, your wetness leaking and ruining his bed covers. Everything was so messy, rough, and primal, that you know it wouldn't take long for you to finally reach your second high of the night.

"...So beautiful. You're so beautiful…"

"Noona."

Your eyes suddenly opened in shock. You were so lost in the heat of the moment, but the word still rang loud and clear to your ears that it broke through the haze of the impending wave of orgasm that you were about to go under. It was in the same voice you thought you heard earlier—the one that absolutely didn't belong to Johnny.

"I'm going to cum. Will you let me cum inside you? I want to do it raw."

No… What is happening…

"Mm… you're so close, too. You're squeezing me so hard. You want it just as much as I do, don’t you?"

You know that voice... But how could he… Why is he here…

"Are you wearing your red lipstick? Turn around. I want to see it when you cum around my cock."

Oh my god. Oh my god.

The last thrust hit the deepest part inside of you so hard that the tight cord in the pit of your stomach finally snapped. A wordless scream was ripped out of you as waves and waves of pleasure crashed against you again, making your whole body shake and your walls lock around the cock still pistoning in and out of you. You were so lost in the pleasure that you didn't even notice that you've been turned on your back again, your legs now spread wide open. You were still riding the crest of your orgasm when your gaze–that had almost gone white from your peak–finally focused on the face hovering above you. 

"Now, my turn."

It was like the breath was knocked out of you the moment your brain registered what you were seeing. Instead of Johnny, a pair of dark eyes peered at you now from between locks of blood red hair. You froze.

Haechan… No, Donghyuck smirked at you as he made one last thrust to bury himself to the hilt deep inside of you. It must be the shock and the feeling of his cock twitching as it kissed your deepest parts, but the last thing you could remember was his iron grip on your waist as your body was overtaken by pleasure again, before darkness swallowed you.

*****

"Hey. You okay?"

The words traveled slowly from your ears to your brain as your consciousness slowly swam into focus again. You have no idea where you are or how long you've been out, but you groaned softly at the throbbing pain that shot like a needle at the back of your head when you tried to move.

"Easy there. You'll get dizzy."

Your eyes snapped open the same time your brain finally caught up with what was happening. Turning your head to the side, you felt your heart suddenly jump to your throat as you tried to look for the source of the voice. It was like your lungs stopped working for a good few seconds when your gaze finally landed on its owner.

"Joh..nny…"

The man smiled at you with what looked like relief from the other side of the bed. He was clothed, a fact that made you instantly check your own state. A big shirt clung around your form now which is currently half covered by the duvet. You feel warm and dry too… which means he might have cleaned you up as well. The look of confusion on your face must have been so obvious because Johnny chuckled beside you before speaking again.  

"You fainted earlier. I would have loved to say it's because I made you feel so good, but I have to partly admit that it might also be because of the alcohol."

"I… fainted…?" You asked slowly as you tried to sift through your thoughts one by one. So Johnny was the one who was there with you all along. Why then did you see what you just saw before you lost consciousness?

"More so collapsed," he answered before a slightly guilty look flashed through his features. "I was honestly worried, thought I pushed you a little too hard. You're not… feeling unwell or hurt anywhere are you?"

You slowly shook your head in answer. Yes, there's a throbbing dull pain at the back of your head, but other than that you feel okay. If anything, the one thing that you would chalk off as concerning is the queasiness in your stomach—though the source of it is not because of the alcohol, at all.

No, it's caused by something much worse. Nothing can wash away the bitter taste in your mouth at the moment, especially after realizing what just happened earlier.

You've hallucinated.

Saw Haechan in your head at such a vulnerable, intimate moment.

The thought of it alone made your stomach turn. You're confused, but most of all you feel disgusted over yourself. Even now, goosebumps are rising in your skin as you try to analyze the why and how of what just ocurred.

"You good?"

You turned to look at Johnny again who was now peering at you with a concerned look. Seeing him made you reel in your emotions temporarily and focus on the situation at hand.

"I'm—yes, I'm okay. Look, I am so sorry for what happened. I didn't mean to stay longer here than I should have. I'll just go pick up my clothes and then I'll—"

"Whoa, wait, it's fine. You're not leaving, especially at this hour."

"But I…"

He smiled.

"Don't worry about it. I don't mind you staying for a little bit longer. This might be a casual thing, but that's not a reason for me to not be a gentleman. Besides, I already put your clothes in the wash. You can just stay here until morning."

You would admit, the offer did make you relax a bit. The truth is that you are still shaken by what happened, and you would rather not be alone with your thoughts at least for now. Hesitantly, you gave the man a thankful smile.

"Thank you so much, Johnny, I really appreciate it."

"No problem. You did make my night really interesting anyway. And you do remember ny name," he said with a playful wink. "Why don't you go back to sleep? Your hangover will kill you tomorrow if you stay up more."

"Uh… yeah. I guess I'll try and rest more."

You gave him one last smile of thanks before easing deeper into the covers. It's a little bit strange trying to relax in someone else's bed since you have always preferred not staying the night over for situations like this, but you at least tried to cope by turning on your side, your back on Johnny, to give him his personal space still. He had just settled in too when he spoke again.

"Hey, I know it's not my place to ask this, but can I ask you something if that's okay?

You angled your head a little to show him that you are listening.

"Sure. What is it?"

There was a slight pause before he spoke again.

"Who is Haechan?"

*******

"Noona!"

You looked up from staring at your hands at the sound of a familiar voice from the doorway. A smiling Haechan half ran, half walked towards you, his eyes dancing as it fixed on your form sitting in the middle of the room. You tried your best to return the gesture as he joined you on the table, his expression clear and open.

In the past few weeks that you've started visiting him more for follow-ups, you've managed to build a different kind of rapport with the boy. You wouldn't exactly call it friendly, but more of a trusting type of connection, at least on his side. Outside of his case files and the fact that you meet in a literal prison, Haechan seems like a normal boy. A little shy at first, but easy-going and even charmingly funny at times when he really relaxes.

One thing that stood out to you, however, is how Donghyuck never seems to resurface during your sessions. You know he is still there because his lawyers and the police still interact with him for interrogations, but ever since the time you first met his counterpart, he has never talked to you again. You never asked why because it is not best practice to tell people with his condition to 'push' personalities out into their consciousness, so you simply assumed that Haechan's growing trust on you was the sole reason behind the behavior.

You have already learned to be more relaxed and casual around the boy, but you flinched ever so slightly now as he sat on the long bench beside you and grabbed your hand. You have tried to push back the unwitting thoughts from last night at the back of your mind on your ride here from Johnny's place, but you still can't help but feel a little awkward now that he is close. It was only thanks to your training that you were able to mask whatever discomfort you are feeling now, your smile remaining plastered on your face as you regarded him.

"Hi, Haechan. Good morning. How are you feeling today?"

"I'm okay. I started doing art therapy yesterday. They said you asked them to let me try it. I enjoyed it a lot! Thanks, noona."

You nodded and gave a slight pat on his hand before you surreptitiously pulled it away from his hold under the guise of writing something in your record.

"That's great. Tell me more about it. What did you enjoy the most while you're doing it?" You asked, your eyes dipped away from his face as you started scrawling on your notes. The boy paused for a bit, thinking over his words.

"I like choosing colors and just blending them together on the canvas. It's very relaxing."

"Oh, are you doing abstract painting?"

He leaned his head slightly to the side in answer.

"I think so? I don't use paintbrushes, just my fingers. I just put whatever color I find pretty on the paper."

"That's very interesting. What are your favorite colors so far?"

"I like the greens and blacks. And the cobalt blue. It reminds me of the sea. And then red… because I remember your lips."

Your hand froze in the middle of writing at what he said. Slowly, you looked up to him as a cold feeling started climbing your arms. The tone of his voice was the same, and you confirmed it was Haechan who was still with you when you finally met his gaze. He still had his easy-going smile on and he looked back at you with that open, friendly gaze of his. If not for his choice of words, you would have thought something had switched.

"I see…" you tried to smile back before tearing your eyes away and focusing once again on your paper. You tried your best to push it back, but something was trying to press against the edge of your consciousness again, like a bird beating its wings against its cage. It was the same feeling that you had last night with Johnny, the sensation of something wanting to escape from somewhere deep inside of you.

“Have you ever tried doing art before? We’ve never talked about your hobbies outside of this place."

“Not… really. I didn’t really have time to do anything for myself before. I was always working odd jobs just to make sure I survive and send money to my mom. I still support her even though I moved away from our home.”

“That’s very nice of you, Haechan,” you said, glancing at him to give him a smile. “Now that you’re here though, would you say you have more time for yourself to… gather your thoughts and focus on yourself?”

His lips tipped upwards as if he found something funny about what you said. “Do I like being here? Noona, it’s a prison. I don’t think my situation is any better. But then again…” he trailed off, his eyes slipping sideways momentarily. For a moment, it almost looked like he was listening to someone behind him. It was quick, and soon enough he was looking back at you, his smile back to normal. “If it means being here stops me from hurting people, then I guess I won’t mind staying here a little bit longer.”

You stared at him, processing that slowly. More and more you could see the awareness in him, which only worked to fan your hope that he could get better. Finally, you smiled back before turning back to your notes.

“That’s great, Haechan. I think we can get this sorted out as long as you want to work on yourself.”

“Mm… Besides, being here makes it easier for me to see you more. Otherwise, you won’t visit me that often. Right... noona?”

The way his tongue rolled over the last word made you freeze again in your seat. It was so swift and so subtle, but there is no denying the change of tone in his voice from the lighter one he used just seconds ago. Just like that, you felt as if ice was injected into your veins, your body reacting as if a switch has been turned on. When you slowly raised your head again to look at him, you felt your heart temporarily stop in your chest.

Donghyuck’s lips slowly tipped into a slight smirk, his eyes burning against your face.

“By the way... I don’t like the smell of your shampoo today. It's very… manly for my taste.”

CHAPTER 3

*******

Permanent Taglist:   @negincho, @jhornytrash, @aaasteroidsky, @huangberryyy, @marijmin, @ashkuuuu, @lostlovesoul11, @johnniverse, @traint0tokyo, @lilyinthewinter, @byunniebaekhyunnie​​, @ellatizw​

A/N: So... it’s my first time writing smut. I’ve always thought it was never one of my strongest suits, and I think that thought was proven just now. I did try though, but this is the most of what my creativity level could take me lol. Anyway, enjoy. 

Story Taglist (please let me know if I missed anyone!): @tyongf-sunflower99, @chelzinha26, @vaerinri​, @minshookie29, @grandmasterslickfox​​

[pixietheclown]

♡ Introduction Post ♡

Hihi! My name is Pixie/Pix, I'm new to tumblr n looking for people with similar interests to interact with! To start, heres sum info about me!

- I'm 19 years old and only really feel comfortable interacting with people 18 or over!

- I use they/them pronouns exclusively

- I'm from and reside in northern ireland!

- I identify as trans and queer, i don't really label myself other than that but i do consider myself sapphic!

- I'm t4t and engaged to my lovely fiancee who i adore with all my heart <3

- I'm autistic and disabled physically, although i'm only rly diagnosed with autism, anxiety and depression atm (under investigation for a ton of other things 😭)

Some of my interests include...

- the shows supernatural, criminal minds and the boys (although i havent finished any of them yet 😭 s12 supernatural, s12 crimimal minds and midway thru s4 of the boys)

- gaming! mainly cozy games like stardew valley, minecraft and sims but i sometimes branch out to things like skyrim, warframe, xdefiant etc! i also LUV playing games with friends, literally any game ever i will enjoy if im playing with someone else.

- listening to music! i'm not very involved in fandoms surrounding bands i listen to anymore although i used to be, but some musicians i listen to include mayday parade, pierce the veil, sleeping with sirens, of mice and men, mitski, paramore, chapelle roan, black veil brides, twenty one pilots + more!

- true crime, but i promise not in a strange way!! i'm interested in the psychology behind why people kill, and how they're caught!

DNI

- Basic dni criteria (racist, lgbtphobic, ableist etc)

- You're under 18

- You're overrall bigotted

- Anyone who identifies as 'proship' (pls stay 10ft away from me at all times!)

- You plan on flirting / being romantic and/or s3xual with me

PLEASE INTERACT

- lgbt people (specifically other trans and sapphic ppl)

- neurodivergent ppl

- you'll teach me about tumblr (im so clueless how do u use this)

- clown enjoyers

- irish people (pls i need more friends i can see irl)

- you wanna be friends (I NEED MORE FRIENDS IN GENERAL)

[luvtonique]

"Hey I can't help but notice you stopped preaching the good word of the Gumbo Brigade. Why is that?"

"Oh, I preached their word, defended them and was actively part of them for over a decade of my life, and they kept attacking me, trying to destroy my career, psychologically manipulating me, verbally insulting me, and trying to justify horrifying criminal activity such as straight up protecting pedophilia and violent felons. Plus, they stole thousands of dollars from me, forced me into the darkest depression I've ever been in, attempted to actually kill me for real, and when I went public about getting multiple of them arrested for actually owning CP, they attacked me and my reputation so heavily that to this day people think I'm heavily against their movement and am an evil person and they even said that about me when I was literally part of their movement. Also, literally every single friend I have that's part of the Gumbo Brigade is borderline psychotic and impossible to have a normal conversation with because of how constantly they talk about how evil they think everyone else is and how they want other people to die for disagreeing with them on trivial matters, and multiple of them have blocked me for speaking out against such serious things as pedophilia and felony crimes that I am and always have been very strongly against. I also came to notice that my friends who are either middle-ground, non-political or a supporter of Mombino have been very respectful, easy to talk to and human to me."

"So you're a Mombino Supporter, then?"

"I'm a good person supporter. Don't care what you believe as long as you're a good person."

"Alright. Just finished filling out your EvilFuckingAssholesPedia page saying you're a Mombino Supporter and you would vote for Hitler."

"What?"

"You cannot send messages to this person because they have blocked you."

--

See the funny part is people are gonna think this is a joke or that I'm making this up because it sounds unbelievable but literally every single word of this is 100% true whether your bitch ass believes it or not, and this literally happened to me (but it was KiwiFarms) a month ago.

Just letting everyone know, you can be an activist all you want, that's fine, but when a fucking overwhelming majority of the attacks against your character, your career, your financial wellbeing, your family, etc. are coming from the people that you're an activist for? Maybe you're an activist for a group of people who you should not be an activist for. Just maybe. Just maybe those people are psychopaths and you need to put your picket sign down and just go home and focus on yourself and maybe, just maybe, JUST MAYBE, rethink who exactly those people are that you're defending.

Like if I'm doing a fundraiser for the Gumbo Brigade, and the Gumbo Brigade is literally making hate-posts about me telling people not to give me money because I'm Gumbophobic

I think I'm just gonna stop doing the fucking goddamn fundraiser and tell you stupid fucking idiots to eat shit

Seriously, my guy, my dude, my man, if the people you're supporting are manipulating and attacking and emotionally abusing you

You're not a freedom fighter

You're a cornered abuse victim begging your abuser to love you

I got out and I've been happier in the last 2 years since than I've ever been in my literal entire life

You should get out, too.

PS: Best part about this post is Gumbo Brigade supporters have such terrible reading comprehension that they won't even know this post is about them.

[chaosfairy18]

bumswiftery nickname origins in sparky’s influencer au!!!

skittery (it/they, it heavily preferred): skittery got its nickname because it is a paranormal investigator and it jumped just a fewww too many times in videos, and its audience dubbed it Skittery.

swifty (ne/nis/nem): swifty got nis nickname pre-taylor swift, and got it because ne is trying to be the youngest person to climb the highest point on each continent. ne also hikes and runs, and nis channel is based around travel, and places to hike while traveling.

bumlets (they/he): i might steal your idea for how bumlets gets their nickname, i had no idea, and couldn’t ever think of one. but their channel is dance-based, so “they fell on their little bumlet” getting spammed in comments or twitch chats would eventually just turn to them spamming “bumlet” in chat. 🤭🤭they change the channel name on april 1st and forget to change it back, and they end up just leaving it

Ohhhh those are all so good. Skittery absolutely would be a paranormal investigator, I also think Skittery would like True Crime or criminal psychology.

Swifty's is especially interesting to me, I would have never thought of that! But it fits nem :)

And gladly take the Bumlets idea, it really seemed like the most logical idea here and in my AU he also dances but it is looong after he got the nickname in Gymnastics so can't be the origin

Loved to see your ideas Sparky!!

[roosterforme]

as a true crime podcast lover, a crime show afficionado, and a criminal justice major/forensic science minor (who also loves psychology)... the way Kevin talks to Bob outside Anna's place. the words he says. the way he phrases it. i would fear for her life. he's already proven to be a narcissistic abuser. she feels emboldened by the love and support she feels in San Diego. he feels Anna "humiliated" him in front of his peers (because she's the one who used and abused her loving husband and cheated on him and got pregnant??? oh no, that was his wretched ass). he's probably pissed she found someone, and trying to twist it to his advantage. this is going to end. BADLY.

(but you're not roosterbruiser or ohtobeleah so i don't think i should be afraid of unaliving, but i'm still nervous)

Hahahaha, this is too funny. But you're right about Kevin. He's a narcissist and a bully, and he is going to keep twisting things around to make it seem like everything is Anna's fault. He even tried to gaslight Bob. Anna needs to play smarter not harder.

[nicoline1998enilocin]

Off Limits I | The one where it all began

PAIRING | Steve Rogers x Female!Reader

WORD COUNT | 1.5K

SUMMARY | You get hired as a new team member of the Avengers, and get introduced to Steve by your father, Tony. You have heard and seen a lot about him, being Captain America after all, but you never expected him to take that much of a liking to you as he has.

WARNING(S) | This is your official trigger warning. Do not proceed if any of these topics upset you. Use of readers middle name (Lily) but Tony says Y/N when they're alone, reader's age is mentioned twice.

Likes and reblogs will be very much appreciated 💜

Main Masterlist | Steve Rogers Masterlist | Series masterlist | Part II

''Are you ready for your first day, darling?'' Tony asked, and you are. You have been looking forward to this day ever since finding out you will be a part of the Avengers. You have been to the Avengers Compound many times of course, especially since your dad owns it, but you have never really been around the Avengers, at least, not since you were little. Once you started high school and college after that, you moved away for a few years to California to get your degree in criminology, which had piqued your interest ever since being a little girl. It turns out that this degree would be even more helpful than you thought before becoming an Avenger.

''Yeah, I am. But can we please stick to what we discussed earlier? I don't want them to think I became a part of the Avengers because of you. You know I love you, but I did this on my own and I want everyone to know that.'' you said, and even though it did hurt Tony a little bit, he was still accepting of the fact that you felt that way. ''Anything for you, Y/N,'' he said, and he means it. ''I'm proud of you, and I can't believe I will be working so closely with you now. It's a dream come true for me,'' he said and he pulled you into a bone-crushing hug, or ''papa bear hugs'' as you called them. ''I know Dad, but we should go now, Steve will be waiting and I don't want to make a bad first impression,''.

The two of you walk toward Steve's office, and Tony knocks on his door. ''Come in!'' you hear a deep voice say, and you get goosebumps when you hear it. ''Cap, I have someone I'd like you to meet. This is Lily (Y/L/N), and she is the newest addition to the Avengers,'' he said with a proud look on his face, and Steve is slowly looking you up and down. ''Hi, it's nice to meet you!'' you say with a cheery voice and extend your hand out to give him a handshake, and he quickly does the same. ''I'm Steve Rogers, it's nice to meet you as well,'' he said and the both of you felt a little shock of electricity when your hands touched. When he got up out of his chair you saw how big he is, towering over you, and it intimidated you a little.

''So, tell me a little bit about yourself, please,'' he invited, and you happily did. ''Well, as you now know I'm Lily, I am 25, and I've been born right here in New York. I recently got my degree in criminology at the University of California and now I plan on using the knowledge I got from that to help out the Avengers,'' you say with a proud look on your face, remembering how you graduated top of your class just a few short months ago. ''If you don't mind me asking, what is criminology?'' he asked with a bit of shyness laced in his voice, not feeling comfortable admitting he doesn't know something when Tony is in the same room as him.

''Criminology is the study of crime and criminal behavior, based on principles of sociology and other non-legal fields, including psychology, economics, statistics, and anthropology. It means I study the behavior of a criminal and the effect that has on society and people around them,'' you tell him, trying to keep it relatively simple and not wanting to use too many field-related terms. ''Sounds interesting! Congratulations on your diploma,'' he said and he gave her a big smile before moving on to the next topic. ''Has Tony perhaps told you what your role as an Avenger would be in your case?'' he asked and you shook your head, your dad wanted Steve to tell you that.

''Hm, alright. Your role is trying to figure out why the criminals do what they do when possible, and what we can do to stop them. This means you and I will usually be working together when coming up with a plan for missions. Besides that you will be trained in fighting by all of the Avengers, so you can be helpful in the field as well as behind the scenes.'' he explained, and you slowly let it sink in. You did have some training in fighting since Tony already taught you quite a lot growing up, but now you would be training more than you were used to. You were looking forward to it nevertheless. ''Sounds good!'' you say and let out a little chuckle, excited to be starting your new job as an Avenger.

''I believe that will be all for now, later you will have a meeting where everyone is present, so you can get to know the rest of the team, too. I have to run because I have another appointment now, but it was nice to meet you, Lily, I'm looking forward to working with you!'' he said with a big smile, showing his perfect teeth. ''You too, Captain!'' you say, but Steve quickly corrects you and says you can call him Steve, you don't have to address him by his title. ''I'm sorry. It was good seeing you, Steve,'' you say with a little wink, making Steve blush a little bit before he goes to his next appointment. ''So, what do you think Y/N?'' Tony asked, and you tell him how excited you are now that you know what your role will be in the team.

When the time for the meeting with all of the Avengers rolls around, you get nervous, meeting large groups of people has never been your favorite thing to do. You remind yourself it will be okay, they're gonna be your teammates after all, so they can't be that bad, right? Before the meeting you go to the bathroom to fix your hair and make-up a little, making sure your shirt is still neatly tucked into your jeans and your boots are still laced properly, you didn't want to make a bad first impression on them. Walking into the conference room, you notice you're the last person to walk in, ''You can sit here,'' Steve said, and he points to the chair he left open next to him. You say a soft thank you and give a small smile to Steve, and say hi to your dad.

''Now that everyone is here, I would like to introduce you to the newest member of our team, Lily (Y/L/N). She will be a part of our team starting tomorrow,'' and she gives everyone a small smile while looking around the room. ''Welcome, Lily!'' most of them say in unison, and Steve asks you to introduce yourself further to the team. ''So yeah, I'm Lily, 25 years old and I recently graduated from the University of California with a degree in criminology. I will be putting that degree to use by working with Steve to come up with plans for your missions, and I will also be joining all of you to help you fight when necessary,'' you say with confidence now. Everyone introduces themselves quickly. Bucky introduces himself as Sergeant James Barnes, but you can call him Bucky. Next up there's Natasha and Wanda, Clint, Bruce, Peter, Vision, Scott, and Thor.

After the meeting, Tony brings you home, knowing how much a day like this drains your energy. ''So, how did you think it went?'' he asked and looked at you before turning his eyes back to the road. ''Well, it is a lot to process, but I'm sure that after a good night's sleep, I'll be more than ready to start work tomorrow,'' you say with a bit of a sleepy smile. ''Thank you for everything, Dad. I'm eternally grateful that you helped me to get this opportunity,''. ''You're welcome darling, I love you and I want nothing but the best for you, you know that!'' he said and he felt like the proudest dad ever. Although, he felt even prouder when you accepted your diploma a few months ago, and he was there to witness it. Your mom couldn't make it due to work, it was a busy time as a nurse and she couldn't get the time off, but Tony made sure he would be there for you, he would always show up for his little girl.

The next few weeks went by in a rush, training a lot with all of the Avengers, each of them is training you on different aspects of fighting and self-defense, but your favorite people to work out with are Nat and Wanda, because of all the girl talk you have, and Steve because conversations with him just flow so naturally. You have noticed that Steve seems to take quite a bit of a liking to you as well, which took you by surprise. You weren't sure why Steve would like you so much, but you didn't look into it too much. You just enjoyed the conversation, occasional flirty comments, and lingering touches as much as you could. Your favorite moments, however, would be movie nights with the Avengers where you could cuddle up to Steve. His body heat was always very welcome since you usually were pretty cold.