#i can see how this would be a path to unhealthy habits for people who are prone to drinking more

[apotelesmaa]

I think the fact that u can just get prescribed ssris without being told about side effects to watch out for and then have your dose raised and suddenly have your mental health absolutely tank is. So funny. Absolutely incapable of feeling emotions to the point where all of my relationships are fucked (unable to feel affection/love) my academic career is fucked (unable to feel any sense of urgency towards assignments/attendance) my Everything Is Fucked (unable to gauge emotional well-being until things are actually hazardous) but at least I also can’t feel the Consuming Despair. Giving zombie realness. Going through the motions pilled. Apathymaxxing.

[highdefhoetry]

little prey.

summary: sylus finds out about your kink.

cw: nsfw!! lee!reader, female reader, tickle kink, chase/capture, pinning, pussy spanking, vaginal fingering, post orgasm tickling

a/n: i have nothing to say for myself. this fic is for me and like 3 other people who are actually into this lmaodlkfsdl. got inspired from sylus' level 25 affinity memory, and the fact that he can literally see a person's greatest desires by looking into their eyes. which means.... you know. pls enjoy dskjfhs

It was your own fault you ended up in this familiar predicament. Wrists pinned above your head, hips stuck in place, red eyes leering down at you with hands ready to attack. You had found yourself in a similar situation during the struggle to steal his crow brooch, but this was different. This time, he knew what you were playing at.

Messing with Sylus was like waving a red flag in front of a charging bull, and you had made an unhealthy habit out of doing it. For all the times he tormented you with sickly sweet pet names and unfair mind games with promising “deals” too good to be true, you made sure to pay him back in full, in your own little way. However, there wasn’t much you could really do with the massive strength difference between the two of you. Nothing besides being really, really annoying. And that was something you were very good at doing.

The current situation started off as a small touch. A brush of the hand against his stomach when you walked by him in the study, just to test the waters. He barely flinched when your fingers traced a gentle path across his abs, but he definitely took notice.

“What are you up to now?” he asked in an indignant tone. 

“Nothing.”

You put forth your best nonchalant persona, mimicking his attitude as best as you could.

“Seeking out the weak spots of your enemy?” he smirked. “Smart girl. You’re finally starting to use your brain for once.”

“Excuse you. Rude.”

At first aloof, he suddenly turned his attention to you and followed behind closely as you began to head into the hallway.

“Smart prey usually attack predators in areas they are weak to themselves.”

A jolt of fear struck through your heart, but you maintained your cool demeanor as best as you could.

“Is that so?”

“It is so,” he suddenly appeared in front of you, reaching out his hand to hover it over your belly. “Is this one of your weak spots?”

“No…!!” you wrap your arms around your stomach protectively.

“Oh, really? Then let’s prove it through actions rather than words.”

Shit.

You turned tail and started to scurry away, but he quickly caught you before you could gain any distance. With one long, strong arm looped around your waist, he picked you up and carried you to his bedroom, where he tossed you onto his bed like a sack of potatoes. You landed with a soft thump, too dazed by how fast it happened to try and get up. He crawled over you as if preparing to devour you whole, and now here you were. Immobile and helpless, at the mercy of the leader of Onychinus. 

“You’re pretty good at running away,” he croons, grinning down at you victoriously. “But I'm even better. Especially when it comes to catching little prey that thinks it can escape from me."

“Wait, Sylus-!”

“Now, let’s take a look…” he grabs your chin with his free hand and forces you to address him, leaning down so close you can feel his breath on your cheek. His crimson eyes intensify, emitting a strange otherworldly glow that compels your hidden fantasies to come forth, yanking them from the recesses of your mind. 

Images of Sylus’s hands fill your vision. Strong, elegant fingers tracing every nerve ending in your skin. Caressing your neck, ears, and collarbone before trailing down your chest. Fluttering over your taut ribcage and helpless sides before moving down to your hips, and then…

“Stop!” you cry out, trying to force the damning picture from your mind. Damn it! He was the last person you wanted to know about this little “oddity” of yours… now you would never hear the end of it.

“How interesting…” his grin widens as he runs a finger across your cheek. “So that’s what your plan was all along. I suppose I’d be a real bad guy if I didn’t go along with it, hmm?”

“Wait, hold on…!”

Your sentence is lost when you suddenly burst out laughing. A giant hand clamps onto your ribcage, pinching the soft spots in between each one with a surprising amount of gentleness. You lurch your body to the opposite side, trying to worm away, but he follows your movements effortlessly. He spiders his fingers down your side, hovering at your waist to feather it lightly. It’s like he instinctively knows where to touch and what technique to use to make it as torturous as possible. You would be screaming at him to stop if you weren’t so busy laughing.

He explores you further, dancing his fingertips over your stomach expertly, right where you had touched him earlier. The sensation is so electric that you actually squeal; he chuckles darkly while watching you buck your hips, trying in vain to get away.

“What’s the matter, sweetie?” he taunts you with faux sympathy. “Can’t handle a few light touches?”

“Fuck off!” you manage to splutter out in between giggles. He responds to your impolite words by rapidly tickling your underarms. Your laughs are starting to sound more like shrieks now. 

He holds you down like this, tormenting you without mercy, for quite some time. His attacks are calculated and brutal; he’ll tickle you softly in one spot for a minute or so before suddenly jumping to another, tickling harder just to throw you off. He pays special attention to your stomach, where light spidering seems to have the biggest effect, and your underarms, which garner more cackles from you when he digs in a bit. Once in a while, he strokes the length of your sides, relishing in your muted giggles and light squirming as you try and fail to shake him off. 

But the worst is when he touches your neck. Just a few light caresses there, and you’re begging hard. You try to block out his wiggling fingers by scrunching your shoulders and turning your head, doing anything at this point to escape from the intense sensation, but that only spurs him on. When you squirm to one side, he simply jumps to the other. Back and forth, until you feel like your mind is starting to unravel.

He pauses for a moment, for reasons unknown, and you take the opportunity to swallow as much air as you can before he decides to start up again. When you open your eyes that you’d squeezed shut, you see him gazing down at you strangely. Like he’s looking for something. It dawns on you that he’s mapping out his next strike, but by the time you open your mouth to protest, it’s too late.

His fingers take hold of your ear and rub it softly, tracing the shell and lobe with an uncharacteristic gentleness that makes you feel like you’re slowly losing it. It’s such a sensitive spot, and one that’s rarely touched. He elicits giggles and squeals by tickling both of them, one after the other. It’s mortifying. You let out tittered pleas in a weak effort to appeal to his sense of mercy. They go ignored.

He’s about to let out, you can feel his hand pinning your wrists loosen slightly. But something stops him before he does. His eyes drift down to your shorts, honing in on the small wet spot that’s appeared in between your thighs.

Shit.

“What have we here…?” he spanks your pussy, running his fingers over your swollen clit to feel the wetness for himself. You yelp at the unexpected impact, then moan when his hand rubs the length of your mound. He spanks it again, grinning as he watches you writhe beneath him. Then, without a word, he slips his fingers under your waistband and gives you what you want.

You moan as his expert hands get to work. His thumb presses against the hood of your clit, his thin fingers slip into your hole. His index and middle finger enter first, curling against your walls as they pump in and out in a steady rhythm. His thumb massages your clit, letting the sounds of your fluttery cries guide him towards your pleasure. He studies you carefully, observing your facial expressions and vocalizations with utmost focus. Each time you’re brave enough to meet his gaze, you find him staring right at you, crimson eyes boring into your soul. 

He takes his time building you up, and when you’re on the edge, he pushes you over. The orgasm wracks your body, sends shockwaves of pleasure through every nerve while your back arches and your hips thrust forward. Your vision grows fuzzy, then returns as the ecstatic feeling settles down. He pulls out his fingers, licking your juices from the tips with a demented smirk. 

But just when you think it’s over, he strikes again. He still hasn’t let go of your arms, so you’re helpless when he starts tickling you again. This time, he hones in on your sensitive hips and thighs, stroking the crease of your hip and skittering his nails on the tops of your legs. The orgasm has made you a million times more ticklish, and what he’s doing now is pure torture. You scream and kick your legs and beg him to stop, saying you’ll do anything, saying you’ll stop being a nuisance, only for him to ignore you once more. 

Fortunately, this round doesn’t last as long. He stops for good when your breathing is ragged and your voice is hoarse. He finally lets go of your arms, chuckling when you yank your arms down at your sides to protect them as you couldn’t before. You want to curse him out and hurl a plethora of profanities at him, but you’re too damn tired to even get a word out. 

“That was fun,” he teases while watching you try to compose yourself. “But just so you know, it’s pretty dangerous to reveal what you like so easily.”

“I didn’t… I don’t… ugh, screw you!”

He scoffs, then climbs off the bed and frees you for good. With his back now turned, he heads out of the room and leaves you with one last snarky comment.

“Next time you want to get the jump on your enemy,” he says, voice dripping with arrogance. “Come up with a better plan.”

[wordsandrobots]

I finished IBO recently, and I don't think I fully get why people call Mika and Orga's relationship one of "toxic codependence". That they depend on each other is obvious, but I feel like I'm missing out on why people think their relationship is unhealthy.

(Thank you for giving me a reason to procrastinate on the chapter I have nearly finished but my brain has gone 'nah' over.)

The way I look at it, there are two key levels on which it's unhealthy. These are related but I think it's worth distinguishing them, because one plays into wider problems within Tekkadan, while the other is a deeply personal matter between Orga and Mika.

But first of all, I think it's important to be clear: Orga and Mika's relationship is rooted in genuine care and affection. This is not apparent friendship built on a lie. These two really are together for life and there are many positive aspects to that. We see them joking about early on, Mika making sure Orga eats (whether he wants to or not), the ease with which they operate as a double-act -- and there's a real sense each would be dead before the series began if not for the other.

However, there is also a profound imbalance at the heart of their relationship. I've written before about how that imbalance is inverted compared to what it looks like at first glance; that is, Mika is the dominant personality, with Orga twisting to follow his wishes. At the same time, yes, Mika has absolutely outsourced his decision-making to Orga. No question. It might be Mika's desires and dreams that ultimately shape their path, but Orga is still the one making choices about where to go and who to shoot.

And it's the absolute degree of Mika's surrender that fucks Orga up. Because, to a very specific point, Mika will do exactly what Orga tells him without question. Period. Everybody else's opinions and orders are secondary to the man he's picked as his guiding star in life. I say 'man'; I mean 'boy'. This started when they were kids, after all, which is why Orga's sense of responsibility is quite so thoroughly warped.

As far as Orga is concerned, being in charge means working everything out on his own. Because Mika does not help him. Mika, at most, offers gut feelings for why something should be done; he never provides useful input on how to get from A to B. So Orga internalises that the buck stops with him, that he always has to be the decisive one, always has to have a plan.

It's masked to begin with because Biscuit is there as the angel on his other shoulder, offering useful advice and acting his second-in-command. However -- Orga never actually listens to what Biscuit has to say about the direction Tekkadan should go. That's the central tension in their relationship, in fact. Orga actively expects Biscuit to go along with what he chooses because that's what Mika does.

With Biscuit gone, there's nobody left to make even a token attempt at calling him on this tendency. Eugene utterly fails to, despite having a good set of instincts, because he's too committed to Tekkadan and too easily swayed by other people who seem to know better. Merribit gives it her best shot, but lacks the tools to approach the boys convincingly. Kudelia doesn't see it as her place. And the rest of Tekkadan fall in line over and over, reinforcing Orga's bad habits.

They trust him, is the thing. They trust him to deliver on the dreams he weaves, enough to offer up their lives on his say-so. None more than Mika himself, who literally gives an arm and a leg to make sure Orga's plans come through.

There is a point where this commitment slips out of Orga's control. I'm not sure where to pin it generally but the battle with the mobile armour is when Mikazuki makes it clear he isn't going to back down on the idea of becoming kings of Mars. He's seen Orga latch on to McGillis' offer as *the* destination, their place, where they can all be together and happy. And because he's always done whatever is necessary to see Orga's plans come through, he . . . does precisely that. Even knowing it's going to injure him further. Even with Orga literally telling him not to.

Making sure Orga gets his victory is more important.

I should stress how much this fucks Mikazuki up as well. I tend to focus a lot on Orga, but Mikazuki reduces himself down to a weapon for Orga's sake. To the point of breathing a sigh of relief once he's been sufficiently disabled he thinks he won't have a life outside Barbatos any more. Atra says at one point that Mikazuki is lazy over things that don't interest him -- that includes conceptualising an existence beyond fighting and following Orga. He does have his own dreams (being a farmer, seeing interesting sights) but actually working out how to achieve them after he's given away so much to Orga is beyond him. In the end, he simply gives them away too and chooses to keep following what he imagines Orga's orders would be.

Neither of these boys intended to do this to each other. That's the tragic part. Orga uses Mika as a weapon because it's the smart choice but it tears him up inside to see what that does to Mika as a person. Meanwhile, Mika insists what happens to him comes from his own choices and isn't something Orga should feel guilty over or see as a reason to give up.

And . . . here's where we move from the first level (Orga's no-middle-gear sense of responsibility coupled to Mika's unconditional loyalty) to the level on which Mika personally scares Orga into escalating over and over again.

It's that scene in the Montag Company ship. Or, no, it's not just that: Orga talks earlier about how he constantly feels Mika's eyes on him. Yet it's following Biscuit's death that this aspect of their relationship is laid bare.

I love this scene so much. It has the form of a triumphal rescue from grief, complete with swelling musical score, in much the way Mika often has the form of being the daring protagonist. But the content is Mika being the most blatantly scary he ever is in the entire show. The way he looks at Orga -- the way he always looks at Orga, his unblinking, uncompromising stare -- is at last framed as an overt threat. Mika is not going to let Orga give up because Orga promised to take him to the better place. What Orga wants is irrelevant.

Ah, screw it, I'm transcribing the dub script because it is so, so good.

"Tell me. What do you want me to do next, Orga?" "Hey give me a break. I'm just -" "Look I'm sorry. But I can't stop yet." "That's enough." "Now I wanna know -" "I SAID THAT'S ENOUGH -" Mika grabs Orga by the shirt, dragging him close. "Is this the place you told me about? 'Cos I won't stop. Not 'til we're there. I can't. On that day, Orga, I decided. So. How many should I kill? How many more until we get there? Because I need to know. Tell me, Orga Itsuka! You're gonna take me, aren't you? That's what you told me! What should I do next -?” "GET OFF ME! Orga throws Mika at the locker in the corner and stands up. "Yeah, alright, fine. I'll get you there. Can't turn around now anyway. That's what you want, RIGHT? No matter want kind of hell might be waiting for us. OK? Then I'll do it. And I'm bringing everyone with me." "Yeah. That's right. Take us there. So who do you need me to take out then? And what d'you want me to destroy? 'Cos if I finally get to reach that place someday, there's nothing that I won't do." SFX: lightning and thunder

This is not Mika pulling Orga out of the darkness. It's Mika driving Orga further into it, into a battle that kills dozens and very nearly ends with every single named character dead (in the real world, the commissioning of a second season saved them; in universe, it's stubbornness and pure fluke).

What would it be like to have someone so committed to what you've promised them, they would do anything for you, up to and including refusing to let you break your word? What would that be like if said person was the most dangerous individual you had ever met in your life, because there is a point past having no sense of self-preservation where no line is 'too far'?

That's Orga living with Mika as his shadow. That's not healthy. That's not sane. Orga comes loose at the seams attempting to be what Mika expects of him, and I think he's genuinely terrified of what might happen if he can't.

It goes the other way too. The scene in the ship is one of two times I'd say, yeah, that's what Mika looks like when he's scared. The other is immediately prior, when it seems Carta is going to kill Orga. 'That's what you told me' isn't just a reminder for Orga; it's the closest Mika gets to a crisis of faith. Seeing the one you believe in waver is its own form of terror and Mika has committed everything he's got to Orga. He can't conceive of stopping now.

[I should say, I primarily watched the dub and the vocal performances vary somewhat here even if the underlying intent doesn't. I love what Kyle McCarley does, injecting a note of increasing franticness into Mika's speech, but Kengo Kawanishi hits the volume rise hard on 'What should I do next?', hammering home just how much he needs an answer. Of course, they then both give Mika this deliciously bloodthirsty joy when he gets the one he's looking for.]

I don't know if there's anything Orga could do that would truly break Mika's faith or push Mika to turn that prodigious strength against him. I don't get the feeling Mika is the kind of person who'd ever hurt a friend for real. He isn't cruel and we see how much friendship matters to him (woe betide anyone who hurts the people close to him).

But what these two are actually capable of is beside the point. What matters is what they think of one another and they each think the other is the most amazing thing in existence. Orga sees Mika as near superhuman and Mika sees Orga as fantastically brilliant, and they're both afraid of being proved wrong, so they aim for an impossibility imposed by their mutual expectations.

The further they head down the shortest path to their goals, the more Mika crumbles physically and the more Orga crumbles emotionally. Like an engine shaking itself to pieces as it turns faster and faster. Love, hope, faith, determination -- and no brakes. A mad charge towards destruction.

I don't tend to describe things as 'toxic'. For whatever reason, it's not a word with much presence in my vocabulary. Still, I think it fits here. Mika and Orga's relationship might have been healthy, in a kinder world. It's undeniably the most important aspect of their lives. There's no intention on either on part to cause hurt. But the combination of who they are and the circumstances they are trapped in means they're ultimately toxic to each other.

No matter how much they care or want what's best, the very form of their relationship impedes their ability to grow, cuts them off from those who might be able to help with that, and eventually leads them to their deaths.

-----

Well, that's how I see it anyway. I hope this helped? I think Iron-Blooded Orphans does some pretty brilliant things in terms of presenting fucked-up relationships that have positive aspects while at the same time dooming the participants, so I'm always happy to ramble about that aspect of the show. Or indeed, any aspect of it at all!

[bluegekk0]

Here's a bit of a weird thought here. It's a bit out of scope for your AU, but with your particular interpretation of the characters I wonder. With Grimm and Radiance, if their places were switched. Perhaps if the "Desires to live up to their parent's legacy" part was swapped between the two, while otherwise mostly staying similar personality wise. How would things change for the two of them? Where they'd end up in the end?

oooh that's such an interesting idea. i've never considered that before, but i love me a good role swap scenario like this. let me think

grimm's personality is derived in big part from his rebellious tendencies. he had no interest in his father's legacy, or even ruling over the mortals the way a god is expected to, so he gravitated towards the mortals as an escape. at the same time, he does have the tendency to abuse his powers for his own amusement, for instance, whenever someone really gets under his skin, he often invades them in their sleep to manifest a nightmare, purely out of spite. there's also his blood sucking habits, he has no issue with occasional killing for that purpose

of course, in the actual au's timeline, that's as far as he'll go. but if he was obsessed with living up to his father's name and ruling over the mortals? i think this particular flaw of his would take a much more sinister turn. why act as the mysterious god to be worshipped when he can force them to do it? he most certainly has the means to do that. compared to his sister, who simply reacted out of fear and anger, and in doing so created the infection, i think he would be much more methodical in his approach. he most certainly wouldn't allow someone like pk to steal his worshippers, and since, unlike the radiance, he still has a physical form (he still has the promiscuous tendencies, so it makes sense that he'd need a physical body for that), he would simply take care of the problem with his own hands and get rid of the competition

so in short, he would be much more of a villainous figure than he currently is, i imagine. living in the shade of his sister, and having a fondness for the mortals that resulted from his lack of interest in the dream realm matters, had a great impact on his personality and how much he allows his ego to control his actions. without that, he would be a much different person than he is now, and i imagine it would influence the fate of hallownest and everyone in it just as much

as for the radiance, i don't personally see her as a villain. she had an unhealthy obsession, and that obsession resulted in her reacting way more emotionally than she normally would. i think it would be quite interesting if, similarly to grimm, she found a fondness for the mortals that extends past her desire for them to worship her. i imagine that need is a byproduct of her lack of confidence, so it would be quite interesting for her to deal with it in a more healthy (and certainly less destructive) way. in general i have a feeling her journey would mirror that of grimm's in the regular timeline, though perhaps with a much less chaotic social and love life than her brother

that is, if grimm even allowed her to do that. he can already be quite cruel as it is, so in this alternate timeline, i could absolutely see him getting rid of her if he saw her as a rival, whether it would be defeating her in battle and stripping her of all her powers, or simply killing her

though there are definitely other ways for this kind of timeline to go, perhaps it would have a much more optimistic outcome. after all, grimm is much better at controlling his emotions than the radiance is, so there's always a chance they could reach a common ground and rule together. but i quite enjoy the idea of grimm going down a villainous path. i definitely wouldn't call him a good guy in the regular timeline, i mean, he kills people for blood, and can be very cruel if he's driven to it. and i think the idea that he would've taken a much darker turn if you changed that single aspect of his personality is very fascinating

well, either way, that was a very interesting concept to think about, so thank you for this ask!

[haven-is-happy]

How Battle Changes: Jesse

Chapter 6

Pairing: Dogma x Jedi!reader, platonic Wolfpack,

Chapter description: Jesse reaches a boiling point with you

Warnings: unhealthy eating habits, reader has very little mental health stability, big emotions, angst

Wordcount: 1,3 k (it keeps fucking happening, most of the chapters are this long)

Masterlist

There are times when you just wish to be left alone. You lock yourself in your room, soundproofing it with technology and force as much as possible. Meditation is hard below the surface of Coruscant, but you suppose imagining the temple gardens will have to do.

It's been weeks since Fives left for Kamino. He volunteered to infiltrate it as a standard guard stationed there, as he felt useless just sitting in your apartment all day.

"At least this way I can get you any information about the living conditions there," he justified, when he pitched the idea to you.

Guard duty for politicians never really fit him, and now that you are a public figure, almost all he has to guard you against is poisons that he can't see.

It took only two sessions of laser tattoo-removal and shaving for him to lose all his outward individuality, a process that hurt to carry out and look at.

And Jesse, ever the leader, wanted to refuse him, even if he can't command him like an ARC anymore.

You never asked if it was because he wanted his brother to stay, or because he had been the one itching for action, even if the "mission" was stealth.

You rarely talk to him. He's grown cold in the months since the trial and his official exit from the GAR, mostly towards you.

Dogma relays him messages from you now.

Which leads to countless fights, as most of your orders are for them to guard you during speeches and senate meetings and dinners.

All things Jesse finds entirely useless, something he never fails to point out to Dogma in private.

“How are you alright with this? They can expose Krell and you can get your honour back! We could go back to the GAR! All they do is give grand monologues and chat with representatives!” Jesse points out. The conversation has been increasing in intensity, now visibly becoming a fight.

Dogma sucks in a trembling breath. That topic weighs more to him than the black hole at the centre of the Galaxy. His love for you never seems to end and he understands more than anyone why your path is the only viable option.

However, the ugly resentment doesn’t disappear on its own, and like a hydra, comes back no matter how many heads you cut off. He could have it all back, be a soldier again, follow orders, all three of them. Fives and Jesse could be back, be ARC troopers again.

This time, he isn’t explaining the situation only to himself. 

“For this to succeed, they need to have the bargaining chip against the Council and Senate.”

“WE’RE BECOMING THE CORRIE GUARD!” Jesse roars back in rapid fire.

He isn’t stupid. He knows that politicians face a different kind of danger. One not immediately clear to sight, something concealed with plots within plots within plots.

But those plots were aimed at bad people, no? Scum who live off profits and spoils of war, invest in machines made to destroy en masse.

“(Y/N) has put themselves into an early grave to save our asses! There would have been no official trial, once the verdict has been given, we’d have ceased to exist! They saved our lives and continue to do so by protecting us with their own body! Their shield only exists because they hold that information…” he yells it out for the world to hear, as if anything could get out of the bustling lower levels of the Coruscant streets.

—

The yelling match between Dogma and Jesse lasted until early morning. You emerged from your meditation room to try to dispel the tension.

Their auras were so loud they pierced your mind even through the walls and your own eyelids.

Just the door being thrown open is enough to make them both stop dead. Jesse with an open mouth, mid-retort, and Dogma with his hands up (which gradually fall).

"Dogma, please go to the meditation chamber and turn on the soundproofing system," you say softly. It isn't a command, more like a request poised like one.

He looks at you to plead his (or Jesse's) case, but the determination and subtle twitch in your eyebrow tell him that this is a conversation between four eyes.

You lock eyes with Jesse and stare. His mouth slowly closes and you don't look away, even when you hear the door click into place and the soft whirr of the soundproofing system booting up.

"I want to tell you something, and I want you to listen. I know you are angry because I took you from the only semblance of a home you had, and I want to tell you my perspective."

Jesse clenches his jaw and shifts his posture. A gesture with his arm, a sort of "by all means, go ahead" signal, tells you to sit down on the couch, while he sits on the small sofa angled towards you.

You sit and take a deep breath.

From the bottom of your heart, a string pulls.

One of sorrow, anger, longing and distress that has been tangling itself around your Force presence ever since the start of the war. 

"I was taken into the order as a child. I was three years old. I don't know who my parents were, or if they're alive. You've heard this speech multiple times when I gave it in front of the court, then the senate, and then in public who knows how many times."

"But that's not all I know. The best information I tracked down is a system under the separatist rule used as a slave world. The master who found me died on Geonosis at the start of the war. I was actively discouraged from finding my biological family."

"The Order, the one place where I felt safe when the colours of the world got too much, is no longer an option for me. My master, the closest thing I had to a father, cannot interact with me, unless we meet in secret. My friends, my pack, have strict orders to not interact with me, and I have only seen a handful of them since the trial."

"None of us have a support system currently. I know you have come to terms with what happened in the courtroom, but there is more. You may never go back to the GAR as is, maybe ever."

"They do not value an individual clone as human life. The Vode likes to joke and say they are replaceable, but the harsh reality is worse."

You exhale. Jesse is still listening, jaw set, unmoving.

"Jesse, the Vode calls me "brothers' vengeance", praise me and tell me of their stories, not knowing I can't keep solid food down if I have a speech in the same week."

His eyes finally leave yours as they look down at his feet.

He heard about your nickname and found it amusing, if a little ironic at the start. He flinches when he hears you repeat his name.

"I am fighting for my life to give you a chance, give all of your brothers a chance at life if this war ever decides to end."

"I have been in love with Dogma for two years. I know that if the clones got human rights tomorrow, I would marry him, Jedi code be damned. It feels like we are wasting the precious time we have left by fighting a losing battle," you feel like you're saying word vomit at this point. The thread unravelled so fast it snapped beneath the force of the pull.

"I know you want it all back. So do I. But by charging in, neither of us will live to see tomorrow."

You don't remember much after that. At some point, Jesse starts crying and you join.

When Dogma leaves the meditation room, he comes out to see the love of his life and his brother embracing and crying, finally setting aside their differences.

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[princessmia-tarot]

Journal Prompts I’ve Collected

I don’t know where these have come from so if you know please let me know and I can link the sources or take it down xx.

✧ What do I need to stop running away from? Why am I always running away from this and what is going to happen if I face it head-on?

✧ What is my definition of failure? What’s something that I have previously failed at and how did it make me feel? How can I deal with failure in a healthy way?

✧ What is a grudge I am holding onto? Why do I choose to hold onto this weight? What can I do to let it go?

✧ What can I do to accept myself more? How can I be more comfortable in my own body?

✧ What negative emotions am I most comfortable feeling? How often and why do these emotions show up?

✧ What unhealthy attachments (people, things, feelings, habits..) do I hold onto? What fears do I have around ending these attachements? What do I gain by ending these attachments?

✧ What emotion do I try to avoid? What makes me so afraid to feel it?

✧ What do I do that holds me back the most in my life? Where does this fear/habit/mindset come from? How can I move forward?

✧ How have I internalised my parents’ judgement? How do I free myself from it?

✧ What emotions do I rarely express infront of others? Why am I hiding these emotions? What would happen if I started expressing these emotions more?

✧ Am I okay with the fact that not everyone will like me? Why or why not? How does this make me feel?

✧ What relationships and friendships do I have that are unhealthy? How would my life improve/change if I let them go?

✧ What do I need to let go of the most right now? Why haven’t I already done it? What is stopping me?

✧ Who am I no longer willing to be? Why?

✧ What beliefs and assumptions are holding me back?

✧ What actions can I take on the daily to create change?

✧ Where is my heart pulling me?

✧ How do I define success?

✧ What are some things that I’m doing that make me unhappy?

✧ Where am I feeling stuck? Where am I fueling growth?

✧ Keep track of your feelings from day to day. Record how you felt and try to pin point why you felt certain ways in different situations. How could you habe handled it better? Why did you react the way you did?

✧ Write a letter to your past self, or your future self. Then break down your thoughts on why you said the things you did. Address any emotions that pop up during this process and record them. Why did you feel that way? What events in your life made you right what you did?

✧ What are your fears? Your REAL fears not just spiders or heights. Why are you afraid of those things? Are there any steps you can take to lessen that fear?

✧How do you treat the people in your life? Is there anything you could do for them to better your relationships? Are you being a positive, healthy influence on their life or are you being a toxic one? If toxic, what changes are you going to make to your behavior to stop being toxic?

✧What do you wish other people knew about you? Why do you keep it hidden?

✧ Are you healing from past traumas and or incidents or have you just distracted yourself? What healthy ways could you address unhealed trauma in order to move to a healthier place?

✧ Make a list of people you don’t like. Why don’t you like them? Are they actually bad or do you see bad parts of yourself reflecting in them and that’s why you don’t like them? Be honest.

✧ Write down everything that happens to you in a week that makes you feel bad in any way. Examine this list and ask why certain events make you feel bad.

BONUS: Write down what you believe about a variety of things (from religion and karma all the way down to relationships and your career path). Why do you believe those things? Are these feelings set in stone or are you willing to accept alternate views? Why or why not?

Remember Shadow work is all about unlocking your subconscious. This helps you understand yourself better which is important for many different aspects in witchcraft, and your star seed will thank you for it.

✧ what emotion do you try to avoid (e.g. anger, sadness, jealousy…)? what makes you afraid to feel it? what are you afraid will happen if you feel it?

✧in what ways are you privileged? what do you take for granted?

✧pick an adjective from the list below that would trigger you if someone would use it to desscribe you and then ask yourself: “why would this trigger me? what would be bad about it being true? is it the accuracy or inaccuracy that bothers me? what could be a positive aspect to being that way?”

list: arrogant, lier, jealous, mean, cruel, possessive, bitchy, bossy, loser, greedy, mysterious, sneaky, codependent, sick, fat, disgusting, stalker, stupid, idiot, fearful, unconscious, masochistic, narcissist, insignificant, frigid, sexist, manipulative, racist, victim, egositic, arrogant, ugly, careless, passive, aggressive, lame, boring, tactless, irresponsible, incompetent, lazy, unfair, childish, know-it-all, insensitive, psychotic, sad, ordinary, hypocritical, reproachful, gloomy, jealous, envious dirty, tyrannical, inflexible, heartless, resentful, dominant, bad, ignorant, uneducated, tasteless, insecure, depressed, hopeless, not good enough, cry baby, paranoid, pushy, stubborn, inferior, weak , impatient, unreliable, self-destructive, over-sensitive

✧ what do you need to forgive yourself for?

✧ think about a time in your childhood when you felt unhappy (small or big moment) and write a letter from your child self to the present you about how you felt and how you perceived the situation: try to take on that child as much as you can and write from its perspective as automatically as you can then write a letter back to that child, explaining the situation, showing empathy and understanding and asking how you can help now or which needs have to be met for that child to feel good again if you get answres from that child, then try to meet those needs today

✧ In what ways do you feel judged by others? Write them below. Explore how many of these judgments might actually originate within you first (and are displaced onto others)

✧What emotions do you rarely express around others – and when did you first start hiding these emotions from others? (Emotional suppression and repression often point to areas of shame buried within you.)

✧ What do you love about being a woman?

👒 What does womanhood mean to you?

🏹 How do you nurture yourself?

🩰 What’s knowledge has been passed down from your female elders that you follow?

💫 If you have a woman’s support group, what wisdom have you learnt from them? Do you heal better in the company of other women or on your own?

🖌 Who are your feminine role models? How have they inspired you?

❤️‍🩹 Is there anything you dislike about being a woman? How do you make it more bearable?

🕯If your spiritual/religious, how do you incorporate it with your femininity?

💭 What’s a misconception about femininity you dislike? Have those misconceptions directly impacted you?

💡What’s something you would tell younger women?

If you ex was right in front of you, what emotions would you feel? Describe your thought process.

Why did you separate? Describe the circumstances.

What coping mechanisms have you been using to deal with it?

Talk about the best memory of him. Teach yourself that it’s okay to think of the good things.

Talk about your worst memory of him. Remind yourself that they are human.

Do you believe everything happens for a reason? Why or why not?

What qualities make you such a good person to be around?

What would the future have looked like had you stayed together? Best and worst cases.

What never fails to make you happy?

When the world feels chaotic, how can I remain rooted firmly to the ground?

What does strength mean to me? What makes me feel strong? When do I feel strongest?

What does it mean to me to be rooted in the present moment?

What practices can I incorporate into my daily routine that will increase mindfulness and help me to remain in the present moment?

In what ways does my body always take care of me?

Do I feel like my loved ones support me? Do I feel like the Universe supports me? What do I need to feel more supported?

When my energy feels depleted, what can I do to nourish and rejuvenate my body, mind, and spirit?

What can I do every morning to increase my energy and greet the day with enthusiasm and vitality?

What can I do in my daily life to add more opportunities for play?

What are some creative activities I’ve always wanted to try but never have?

What are some creative activities I love to do but don’t make space for in my life as much as id like to? How can I create more space for these activities?

Why is it important to me to be an open and honest person?

Why is it important to me to be a forgiving person? Do I ever find it difficult to forgive myself or others?

When do I feel most confident?

When do I feel least confident? How can I support myself and create more confidence in these situations?

What does it mean to me to be a confident person?

What is the source of my confidence? Does it come from external sources or from within?

Write out a list of positive inner qualities you love about yourself and describe why you love each of those things.

Write out a list of positive outer qualities you love about yourself and describe why you love each of those things.

Do I believe I can achieve my goals and dreams? If not, what’s holding me back?

Write a list of ten to fifteen positive affirmations about your ability to achieve your dreams. Repeat each affirmation twice.

What does it mean to be a positive person?

Why is it worth it for me to choose positivity?

How can approaching situations with a positive mindset change my life for the better?

What does it mean to me to have self-respect? How do I show myself self-respect in my daily life?

What brings me joy in my daily life?

How can I cultivate even more joy in my life?

What does unconditional love mean to me?

How can I show myself unconditional love in my daily life?

What positive practices can I incorporate into my life to show myself more compassion, empathy, and self-acceptance?

What does it mean to me to be a compassionate being? Why is it important to me to be compassionate?

What are ten things I love most about myself?

What self-care practices can I incorporate into my daily life to show myself more love?

How can I cultivate the feeling of peace in my everyday life?

What thoughts, words, images, memories and/or sounds convey the feeling of peace to me?

Do I excessively self-isolate from others, or am I overly dependent on others to feed my happiness? How can I find a harmonious balance between the two?

What does it mean to me to be deeply connect to all beings in this universe? In what ways do I feel connected to all, and in what ways do I feel separate? How can I nurture that feeling of connection?

What self-care practice can I do in just five minutes a day to cultivate feelings of unconditional self-love?

What powerful affirmations can I incorporate into my life that will foster more feelings of love, compassion, peace, and serenity? In what ways can I incorporate these affirmations as part of my daily routine?

Do I possess any fears of limiting beliefs preventing me from accepting unconditional love? How can I begin to release these fears and limiting beliefs?

How do I communicate in one-on-one conversations? How much do I listen, and how much do I speak? Is this ratio balanced?

How do I communicate in big group settings? Do I tend to sit back and listen, or do I speak freely? How much do I listen compared to how much I speak?

Why is it important to me to be a patient and attentive listener?

Why is it important to me that my voice I heard when I speak?

How do I feel when others are distracted or not listening when I speak?

How can I clearly and effectively communicate so that I have the undivided attention of those I’m speaking to?

What method(s) of communication do I feel most comfortable with? What method(s) of communication do I feel least comfortable with?

Write 10 to 15 positive affirmations that affirm your ability to speak clearly and confidently as well as why your voice matters. Repeat each affirmation twice.

Write about a time when you spoke your truth and felt heard, respected, and listened to. How did this make you feel?

In what ways can words be powerful? What are some examples of times when words held immense power in my life?

Reflect on this statement: “my words and my voice matter.” List all the ways in which this it true.

Do I consider myself intuitive? Why or why not?

How do I most often experience my intuition? Does it come in the form of a gut feeling, a voice in my head, signs and synchronicities, or something different?

What are some past experiences in which I followed my intuition, and this led me to making the right choice?

Have I ever not followed my intuition and wished I had? What can I learn from these experiences?

Do I trust myself to make good decisions? Do I make decisions based on what’s logical or what feels right? Is there a healthy balance between the two?

Describe what your inner knowing is telling you about your life right now. Are there any next steps you feel you should take? How does it feel when you think about taking these steps?

If I could take a single step this week that leads me closer to my dreams, what does that step look like? What is my intuition telling me? Am I able to take that step?

If I could take a single step this week that leads me closer to my dreams, what does that step look like? What is my intuition telling me? Am I able to take that step?

What are some daily practices I can do to cultivate my relationship with my intuition? How will I make space for these practices in my life? (For instance, daily affirmations, working with a pendulum, meditation, etc.)

Fear is a normal experience hen we take a leap and follow our inner knowing. Write at least ten affirmations about your strength, power, and courage to feel the fear and move forward anyway. Repeat each affirmation twice.

In what ways does fear try to protect me? How can I tell the difference between fear that is telling me something important and fear that is holding me back?

Do I consider myself imaginative? What does imagination mean to me?

Was imagination encouraged or discouraged growing up? What was my relationship with imagination like when I was a kid?

Using your imagination, write a detailed account of the most beautiful life can imagine for yourself. Think big and don’t hold back!

What (or who) is God to me? What is my relationship with a higher power?

How do I communicate with the Universe? How does the Universe communicate with me?

Did I have any childhood experiences that negatively affected my belief, attitude, or relationship toward God? Have I been able to heal from these experiences, or is there still healing to be done?

What evidence do I see in my life of the Universe always looking out for me? What are some visible and non-visible signs of the Universe’s love?

Describe your connection to other living beings: people, animals, plants, the earth, and the universe as a whole. What does it mean to be connected to all?

Can I retain my sense of individuality while still feeling connected to all? Is this important to me?

Even when I’m alone, how can I forge a sense of connection with not only myself, but other living beings and the Universe as a whole?

What does it mean to mean to me to surrender to a higher power? Is this easy or hard for me?

What are three ways I can practice surrendering in my daily life?

Surrendering to a higher power can be difficult because it may feel like giving up personal control and losing a sense of personal power. However, in what ways does surrendering actually give me a greater sense of personal power?

Do I always feel worthy of the Universe’s love? Why or why not?

Write ten affirmations to affirm that you are worthy of unconditional love from the Universe (and from yourself). Repeat each affirmation twice.

Who is my highest self? How does my highest-self show up in the world?

How can I connect with my highest self in my daily life?

Do I consult my highest self in my actions and decisions? If not, how can I begin to include my highest self in my life’s journey?

While reflecting on my childhood, what makes me extremely angry or sad to this day?

My absolute dream life: How does my perfect day begin?

Do I handle my feelings in a healthy and constructive way?

Do I protect certain aspects of myself onto others?

Did my parents provide me with everything I needed?

What makes me really angry and why?

Would I describe my childhood as happy?

What is it that makes me sad?

What do I consider the most challenging for me?

Have I forgiven myself?

Have I forgiven all the people who ever hurt me?

When you hear the word forgiveness what does it make you feel and think?

Are there people in your life that you have forgiven for actions against you? Discuss specifically how you moved through forgiveness, or why you haven’t.

Discuss a time you chose not to forgive someone and why

Do you believe that forgiveness is necessary for healing childhood trauma?

Have you ever felt pressured to forgive someone? Discuss how you were pressured and how that made you feel.

How have you set boundaries with someone who is pressuring you to forgive? Or how would you set boundaries in this type of situation?

Letting go vs forgives: do you believe there is a difference? Explain.

How worthy do I honestly believe I am?

Who can count on me today?

What aspects of my health am I deeply grateful for?

What am I proud of myself for?

Who can I send love to right now?

How am I richly blessed?

What mistakes have guided me into a new and aligned direction?

How do I make a difference in the world?

What is my inner child excited about right now?

How has this week surprised me?

What is my heart really looking forward to?

When I felt scared or hurt, how did a parent address my emotions?

(inner child) What messages did I get around who I was or who I was supposed to be?

(inner child) what activities or actions did I take part in to receive love or approval?

(inner child) did I feel free to be myself or did I fear reactions?

What is weighing most on my heart right now?

What are the negative thoughts that I need to release?

What is self-care for me?

When I am alone, how do I feel?

When I am with others, how do I feel?

What are some habits I need to break?

What are some habits I want to start?

What is one thing  can do that will make me excited to wake up in the morning?

What do I need to forgive myself for?

Who do I need to offer forgiveness for and why?

What does the perfect day look like to me?

How can I make my perfect day a reality?

What does success look like to me?

How can I implement my passions into my daily routine?

What is one self-care ritual I want to bring into each day?

What was my favourite activity as a child? How did this activity bring me joy? When did I stop this activity? How did this make me feel? Did I ever get back to this activity?

Who was around me when I showcased my talent? How did they respond? Was it supportive or not? How did I respond to their reaction?

What did I want to be when I was younger?

What are my current hobbies? What brings me joy now?

What am I passionate about now?

How do I deal with emotional discomfort? What is my outlet? Do I have any addictions? When do I reach for them? When reaching for them, what is the feeling I am trying to avoid?

How do comfort myself? Do I believe I can comfort myself (my inner child) on my own?

What does your heart want to say today?

How does your body wish to move?

Who are you drawn to connecting with?

Where does energy feel tense in your field and where has this tension come from?

What message does Love have for you?

What food is your body craving?

What kind of rituals are you longing for?

What are you open to receiving from life?

What is true for you right now?

How deeply can you surrender all that is not yours or is too heavy to carry?

                        How deeply do you trust yourself?

[sisterssafespace]

@ the eating disorder anon,

Trigger warning: eating disorder, mental health if you don't feel comfortable reading this please skip.

Assalamualaikum beautiful soul 🤍

Can I first start by sending you a soft comforting hug? I want to let you know that I see you and I feel your pain, because I have been/ still am there and going through it, it is a journey of uphills and lows. That is why I can assure you the following: eating disorders are never about just the food. The issue is deeper than that. It's not about the way we eat or don't, it's not about the fact that we obsess over our weight, it is about the reason why we do so.

Here is what Orlando Recovery Center says about it on their website:

"Our society has become one that prides itself on body image and being thin. Everyday we are bombarded with ads for fad diets, fat burners and “get fit quick” methods, along with models and celebrities to compare ourselves with.

Almost everyone is conscientious of their weight to a degree. However, there are sadly some that take food and weight concerns to the extreme, easily developing eating disorders centered around unhealthy habits.

The most common eating disorders include anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder. All three of which occur when a person develops a distorted image of themselves, as well as a dangerous relationship with food. Unfortunately, eating disorders are about more than food and can have major psychological impacts.

The National Institute of Mental Health states that, “Researchers are finding that eating disorders are caused by a complex interaction of genetic, biological, psychological, and social factors.”

Typically, most think that an eating disorder is largely attributable to food and weight obsession. Conversely, those suffering from disorders around food usually begin on that path as a means to control or cope with devastating emotions and events that activate high stress levels. By controlling eating patterns, this can help an individual to feel more in control of his or her life in the short term. In the long term, these patterns can develop into destructive habits that wreak havoc on all areas of well-being.

While most are predisposed to personality traits and psychological dynamics that can contribute to the development of eating disorders, many people with these disorders suffer from low self esteem, feelings of inadequacy or helplessness, depression, anger, anxiety and body image issues."

Now, in your ask you did mention therapy and the fact that you have other issues, let me assure you that they are interrelated. If you were mentally and emotionally okay, there would have been no need for you to skip meals or weigh yourself so often.. Unfortunately though, I can not tell you how to overcome or fix this, because this is bigger than me, and bigger than you. To each one of us their own experience and their own relationship with food. Part of it, can even be genetic. We do carry more than our issues in our DNA. All I can do for you is tell you that I understand and that you are not alone in this. Please make it a priority to seek professional help. If there is a doctor or any medical figure at your school or uni you can talk to, please don't hesitate. If there's a green line you can call, I know a lot of countries have that like hotline available for mental health, please don't hesitate to make the call.

And please try to forgive yourself for whatever it is that's been eating you up, because you didn't know any better then.

Lastly, I would like to stress the point that Allah swt gave us this body as an amanah, something He swt entrusted us with and that we are supposed to take care of until we return it to Him. And He will ask us how good of a care we took. In Islam, we believe that a healthy diet and a healthy lifestyle is a must. Prophet Muhammad ﷺ in his sunnah did promote a lot of healthy ways to consume food. He said, "Nothing is worse than a person who fills his stomach. It should be enough for the son of Adam to have a few bites to satisfy his hunger. If he wishes more, it should be: One-third for his food, one-third for his liquids and one-third for his breath." And I know you're on the opposite end of that, in fact, you are not letting yourself eat but what about you try to apply this rule? Whenever your mind tries to convince you to skip a meal try to remember this Hadith and compromise. Tell your mind that you'll just eat one third of the food instead.

Another inspiration from the Quran that I want you to consider is how when sayyida Maryam (as) was in distress, she was having what she thought was the worst thing ever (when she was giving birth to Issa (as) and wished she would have died, Allah swt asked her to eat! In her worst state ever! He ordered her to eat! He swt said in Surat Maryam "So eat and drink, and put your heart at ease " [19:26]. I genuinely hope you take this verse to heart my dear.

May Allah swt ease your pain, ameen.

- A. Z. 🍃

[justicebled]

i was so busy organizing my blog and getting it down to below 50 people, because i genuinely wanted it to be private, that i forgot to make yuri's pri.de icon. his bio is extremely outdated.

ex: he's a sagittarius no shocker there, december 10th is his birthday. i genuinely don't know how the lower quarter survives winter but lemme tell you it's a team effort.

plus yuri has grown with me for three years even when i've taken breaks writing him on this platform. but in terms of loving someone?

he's demi-panromantic. he's not someone to really indulge in physical relationships unless he feels an emotional and spiritual connection to the person. it's crucial that this person understands yuri and yuri understands them, which...isn't really hard for yuri's end, because yuri can see through 99.9 percent of people. he just doesn't care.

what yuri is attracted to is a person's soul, and their heart, and their beliefs, and how well they get along. if they can laugh together, if they can grow together, however the pace. because yuri's actions are borne of a love for the people, a love for a future where people realistically can live unoppressed knowing full well he cannot solve every problem, and a love for the land not through rose colored glasses, but full realism of it's ugliness and goodness.

he embraces all of that, and continues his journey. so much of ves.peria is about love and the way it drives others to act for others good. it generally is a tale of agape love, which is the most selfless form of love, something yuri embodies even before he realizes he cannot stop his hero's journey, and instead embraces it, consequences and all, good things and bad things, like choices are.

edgelord? far from it. broody? far from it. he sees things for what they are, without forced idealism if it's too uncomfortable to face the reality, he does not, and will not ever look away. if he wants to change things, protect people, shake the foundations of a system so thousands may live and prosper, he cannot look away because it's grisly. he hasn't since he was born in a slum where people and bodies were on the street left and right. he's seen things no one should ever see in their life.

he will never judge someone for their orientation, gender or not committing to one, or a person's standing, although he is cagey around nobles, he's slowly growing out of that thanks to meeting estelle.

the hardest thing about even remotely getting near yuri's heart is that for all it's unconditional love and love of humanity in a realistic, non shonen protag way, a person-like way, he has so much trauma and a desire to not involve others in his problems and feelings as he often if not 95 percent of the time will place you above his own needs, and this has been ingrained in him and thrust upon him since he was a child, it will not be an easy habit to break, and he isn't going to coddle you in a romantic or relationship period you yourself, have to make your own choices. you yourself, have to make the decision every day to do good, and while yuri will support and help you along, there is no such thing as 'fixing a person', that is the person's job, and yuri himself will encourage, stay by their side, and walk the path with them, but he cannot walk it for you, and he wouldn't want you to walk it for him. it's unhealthy and unrealistic.

but if you do get yuri to love you in the romantic capacity, there is no more devoted, gentle, noble and kind partner at his core, and ultimately seeks your betterment and your good without coddling you in an unrealistic way that would denote you weren't equals.

yuri's story is a realistic labor of love to mankind and an attainable future, it's why he sacrifices and fights so hard and fights so fiercely without coddling the people who have given up on their life. look at raven. he doesn't give him a speech. it's not his job. look at estelle. it's her choice to live. but he encourages them to make the choice themselves, heavily emphasizing how much they matter to him. it's why he's such a unique fictional hero-protagonist among many things, and so once you have him romantically which....is quite a hurdle? he has his own trauma and baggage hoo. there are few more loving, noble, heroic or benevolent,

one of vesperi.a's strong points though i think it's such a tightly written story, is that yuri subverts the trope you'd think you see of him: 'dark brooding and morally grey bad boy' and shows you he's the exact opposite, a man who laughs until he has tears in his eyes. a man who adores children and can't close his heart to people who need him, resulting in many, many people viewing him as a role model and big brother figure / mentor figure.

but with romantic love . . . ultimately even if he does have feelings for you, don't expect him to act on them immediately. he just wants you to be happy.

tl;dr: yuri doesn't care about gender or no gender or undecided, loves the soul first, is demi-panromantic and so much love is stored in the yuri lowe.ll as much as unstoppable ass-kicking and king level snark.

[bbyeeti]

character analysis anon (I've got to shorten this to something)

You see I'm actually the devil tempting you with sweet sweet character analysis

(Also if you saw errors in my analysis, no you didn't.)

You hit on three other topics that I wanted to address about Sunghoon but wasn't sure how to include in the post: Sunghoon's reckless behavior, metaphorical and literal deaths, and Sunghoon's selfishness.

Sunghoon's selfishness in particular is such a fun thing to discuss because he's selfless in his love for those he cares about but outside of them his empathy is noticeably lower. Honestly, this aspect of him really makes me think of our vampire brothers. The two main scenes that makes me think of parallels between them. The first is when Sunghoon stands by Jake knowing that he (nearly) murdered Sunoo and murdered Kai which remind me of Heeseung's relationship with Jay. The second is when Sunghoon uses Heeseung's vulnerability to steal the card back which makes me think of Niki? Niki mainly in taking advantage of trust given but I think that could also apply to Jay.

There's also another topic that I included but wished I went more indepth in: Sunghoon's romantic relationships. As much as I adore JayHoon they're a concerning IRL couple. They do genuinely care about each other now and cleared some of the secrets between thm at least. (And Hajoon was Hajoon.) I don't have enough data to establish a pattern but I can defintely draw out some examples of Sunghoon (unconsciously/consciously) seeking unhealthy romantic relationships.

I also want to mention that I think that by the time we meet Sunghoon he's already found some stable footing which is why his boundaries aren't extremely unhealthy but he still has some unhealthy tendencies. Unfortunately, you can't just untraumatize yourself and making progress takes time. Unlearning bad habits and thinking patterns is difficult on its own, without having to deal the supernatural absurdity. (Meeting the vampires definitely made him backslide)

Thanks for expanding on why Sunghoon is drawn to danger! I had some inklings toward the notion but I couldn't narrow down the exact reason why Sunghoon kept going back.

Despite the numerous times Sunghoon has or has called himself weal or a coward, I've never truly considered him either? He's not the strongest physically or smartest but the fact that he's still standing despite everything (past and present) leaves me in awe. Being able to pick yourself up and rebuild your world from the ground up is strength. I really do love his character.

I'm glad you enjoyed it! It was a lot of fun to write :)

I loved the long response! Hearing more about the characters and what parts I've gotten right and missed is always fun to know!

(I'd probably only be able to do character analysis for Jay and Heeseung at this point! I feel like I have the most insight into what's going on with them due to their prevalence in the plot currently)

I fell for it😔

I've always found people who are wholly selfless a little bit alien, so there was no way Sunghoon would have been made this way. Why would you care about people who are not close to you T^T altruism, eh?

YOU CAN'T JUST UNTRAUMATISE YOURSELF, it's such a great sentence that I snorted

I don't know if Sunghoon seeks unhealthy relationships, but for sure jayhoon are not ahemmm *cough cough* very healthy. Since the beginning I knew there would be problems getting them on the right path and well, even though - as you've mentioned - they explained to each other a lot, there's still c: a lot they don't know. They don't have the greatest *base* but now I can at least say that they want their *narrows eyes* relationship to work out. Yeah, they're not boyfriends, but.

From Jay's pov, after his ehehe little ritual failed the second time, he thought about getting rid of Sunghoon for good (I mean, breaking off things with him), but he couldn't because he started liking him, and he grew to be grateful that the bonding thing work out. So, at least Jay's been genuine for some time now.

Still, Heeseung would probably be the best option, so if Jungwon didn't die, Jaywon were together, and Heeseung didn't have any deals this psycho vampire guy, maybe they would actually be together. If Jakehoon weren't dating. 'Cause it's probable they would by the end of college.

Oooohoo it was fun to read, but I feel like I've already told you this xD

(you should take care of hajoon. if it's not the most interesting character in the whole fic then i'm not sure who is🙄)

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: I'm an Infj in highschool and before I entered high school I was dealing with an abusive home life and it made me extremely depressed and anxious and I've dealt with a lot of anxiety and mental illness my whole life so school is a lot different for me than for everybody else.

There is a program in place for me at school that helps lessen the burden of classes and homework but because of everything I've been through, I feel ashamed of it. I can't help but feel different from everybody else because of my own issues. I feel like a failure and I feel stupid because I need more time with certain things like projects or homework and when I can't measure up to the same standards everybody else is at, I feel even lonelier and lonelier. It's been hard making friends and while I'm improving, it always seems like everybody else is progressing at the same pace.

I know that it's not fair to compare myself to others but it seems like I'm the only one who's behind on everything. I have to take classes a grade behind mine, I have to avoid certain situations that'll give me panic attacks and sometimes I can't even get out of bed in the morning and I end up feeling like I'm disappointing everybody around me. While I still have my own personal strengths, I'm tainted by the fact that I feel so different from everyone else around me. I don't know what I'm not seeing or acknowledging.

-----------------------

The social comparisons you are making are illogical, naive, and unfair. Relying on social comparison to evaluate yourself is a bad cognitive habit that you need to kick (it is also a sign of unhealthy Fe, see the study guides). No matter how good you are at something, there will always be someone better. Worrying about "measuring up" distracts you from the real task at hand: discovering your personal potential for growth. You should want to succeed not to prove something to the world, but for the sake of your own well-being. Only then will you be on the right path in life.

Social comparison is foolhardy because 1) it fails to recognize that everyone starts out life with different circumstances, and 2) it fails to honor individuality and the fact that everyone moves through life at their own place and in their own way, due to having their own unique set of problems to grapple with. If you truly want to become the individual you're meant to be, constantly trying to be like everyone else is going to hold you back.

When you have obstacles like abusive parents, poverty, or a learning disability, yes, it's true that you start your life in a different place than those who don't have those obstacles. However, these factors are called "accidents of birth" for a reason, to emphasize the fact that they are beyond your choice and, thus, not something that should be used to define your identity. If you use accidents of birth to define your identity, your identity ends up being false or dishonest, which can impact you negatively in many different ways. You can severely damage your self-esteem by getting lost in meaningless social calculations about who is "better" or "worse".

For example, if you take personal responsibility for your abusive parents, you are not only letting them off the hook, you will doom yourself to always feeling inferior for having been born to them. Or, if you believe that being rich makes you a better person, you are likely to treat poor people as inferior or irredeemably bad, and what would happen if you ended up in financial difficulty one day?

It's not a crime to be "different". It's not a crime to "be behind". These are simple facts. Facts are neutral. If you see it as "bad", it is a matter of choice, i.e., you have chosen that perspective when another perspective would be just as viable. For instance, special programs like the one you're in are designed by teachers to remedy unfairness. They are meant to give you the time, resources, and attention that you missed out on due to your accidents of birth. They are not there to punish you, stigmatize you, or label you inferior. If you see them that way or listen to others who describe them that way, it is your choice. You could just as easily see the programs as opportunities to overcome the obstacles you were unfairly saddled with. You could just as easily nurture gratitude for being given a chance, in your own time, to rise up to the level that you know you could be at had you not been saddled with those obstacles.

As INFJ, your perception is within your ability to control, and you need to change your perspective when it's wrong, especially if that perspective was instilled in you by unhealthy people. Until you realize the power you have to change your perspective to better align with the truth, it will be very difficult to have healthy Ni.

[psychreviews2]

Object Relations: Fear Of Success Pt. 1

Fear Of Success

One of the ancient pressures mankind faces, and all animals face, is the pressure to succeed. Originally it was just the ability to feed oneself, protect loved ones, and to procreate. In modern times, this pressure is still omnipresent, even if technology has relieved many past labor activities that led to more wear and tear and shorter lifespans. But like Kurt Cobain's Something In The Way modern life still has plenty of obstacles, and regardless of the age we live in, those obstacles are often people and the difficulty of finding a respected place in society. These obstacles start in childhood and then can build into a personality crossroads where some people thirst for challenges but many others loathe them.

Something In The Way - Nirvana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YhR5UfaAzM

Going back to Freud's day, in his Some Character-Types Met with in Psycho-Analytic Work, he found patients who were inhibited by their very ability to function optimally even when success was found or one was approaching it. In Freud's early understanding of somatic reactions to psychological influences, which was very general at the time, "people succumb to neurotic illness as a consequence of refusal. What is meant is the refusal to satisfy their libidinal [energetic craving] desires..." Because the world is full of obstacles to satisfaction, there are myriad ways to encounter frustration. To keep it clear, in psychoanalytic dictionaries, "Suppression usually refers to conscious, voluntary inhibition of activity in contrast to repression, which is unconscious, automatic, and instigated by anxiety not by an act of will." Some of this suppression is necessary in order to live with others and to delay gratification, which is Freud's Reality Principle. It's a self-preservation mode that Freud later called the Super-ego. "...Conflict between an individual's libidinal wishes and that part of his being that we call the I, which is the expression of his drive to self-preservation and which encompasses his ideal sense of his own being."

The Pleasure Principle - Sigmund Freud: https://rumble.com/v1gurqv-the-pleasure-principle-sigmund-freud.html

This doesn't mean that delayed gratification is unhealthy, but if the mind sees that the delay is going to be extended or permanent, or that the goals are near impossible, that's when it can turn pathogenic. "Pathogenic conflict arises only if the libido seeks to throw itself into the pursuit of paths and goals long since overcome and [forbidden] by the I, thus also prohibited for all future time..." Your Ego actions have to bump into situations that activate the Super-ego and then images of Object-Relations related to authority figures and internal censure arises.

For a person who anticipates endless frustration, conflict, and obstacle, how craving turns pathogenic is when the Super-ego overprotects one so that anything related to success can in fact be infused with a long standing habit of fear. Accessible forms of success are also treated as inaccessible. Long periods of frustration for the libido leaves one with no skill for celebration, and success is warped by the anticipation of punishment. These "...individuals fall ill just at the time when a deep-seated, long-cherished wish is about to be fulfilled. It would then appear that they cannot bear their good fortune, for there is no doubt as to the causal connection between success and illness." Again, this is a strong craving that's connected to actual possibilities of success, not something that is too distant. It's just that the belief is that it's too distant and one should stay away from the goal because the success will be stolen away by others or one is not worthy of the success because of low self-esteem towards skills and potentials. "...It is not at all unusual for the I to tolerate a wish and consider it harmless as long as it exists only as a fantasy, unlikely to be fulfilled, whereas it will be fierce in its own defence as soon as the wish appears to be close to fulfillment and threatens to become a reality...It is normally inner intensification of craving-charge that turns a fantasy that has been disregarded and tolerated into a dreaded opponent."

The Super-ego for Freud is a parental imitation lodged in one's mind, and it's later developed to be a complex group of authority figures in Object-Relations where rehearsals and predictions are made of what these people or similar people with authority will behave like: Projection. Objects show up as stress-images of actual people or composites in the mind. The Super-ego is the "...power of conscience that forbids the individual to enjoy the benefits of this long hoped-for turn for the better in the circumstances of his life." There's a sense that success involves a fight over scarcity and the original prohibition for Freud is the prohibition of access to the mother by the father. It's almost like success is only truly free of this taint of defensiveness and guilt when authorities and gatekeepers applaud it. "Will they even allow me to have this?" "Psychoanalytic work teaches us that the forces of conscience that cause an individual to fall ill on the brink of success...are intimately bound up with the Oedipus complex, with our relationship to mother and father; indeed, this may be true of our consciousness of guilt altogether."

The Ego and the Id - Sigmund Freud: https://rumble.com/v1gvdo1-the-ego-and-the-id-sigmund-freud.html

Now success does have pathogenic qualities when the opposite extreme is entertained. Certainly religions remind people that all success is temporal and one can't rely on endless success because of limitations with resources and the need to share rewards that require everyone to partake in some of the time to maintain a cohesive society. There are economic downturns, and personal health reasons for limitation. There are even strange scenarios of boredom where too much success can spoil one's zest and freshness. Like with sports teams that win too often, the hunger to win naturally evaporates. That knowledge in religions allows people to share more easily because they know deep down that even if they are supremely greedy, no object, relationship, or power will satisfy the mind eternally. There will always be a "what's next?" mentality that will marshal the individual on to the next endeavor. This is even when a person is aimless and they are compelled to find targets of desire in the near environment simply because they are accessible in the short-term. The examples we are talking about here instead are for those where success is so rare, treated as a source of conflict, and people feel the need to resort to self-sabotage to protect against threats to self-esteem. In slang it's what the general public call a Loser, but in fact that category includes large sections of the population. The category can also adjust through time as fortunes of a society advance or decay. In psychoanalysis, many patients have been through enormous obstacles, often human obstacles in the past, that lead to old templates of reticence that over-protect and deny when a modicum of success is actually available.

In Fear of Vocational Success, the author lists out some of the deeper unconscious motives usually not found in any career counseling and can hobble those results for career counselors who don't have any therapeutic background. Providing exciting employment opportunities to listless, depressed, and inhibited clients inevitably leads to failure. Many Career Counsellors have no idea what is lurking in the depths of the unconscious of their clients. Lionel Ovesey encountered Freudian situations where patients felt "[unconscious implications of] retaliation and punishment by the father. Hence, it was the ever-present threat of castration that forced these patients to abandon their aspirations." Castration is a psychoanalytical term for inhibition couched in sexual metaphor for low self-esteem reactions, shame, intimidation, narcissistic wounding, leading to repression. Criticism in the workplace often leads to desires for revenge and a need to vent frustration. There's guilt in wanting to express aggression because the lack of skill to deal with negative emotions leads people to treat reactivity as either one extreme of lashing out violently with sadism or to attack oneself excessively in masochism.

Sexuality Pt 5: Sadism - Sigmund Freud & Beyond: https://rumble.com/v1gtssd-sexuality-pt-5-sadism-sigmund-freud-and-beyond.html

Sexuality Pt 4: Masochism - Sigmund Freud & Beyond: https://rumble.com/v1gtrq1-sexuality-pt-4-masochism-sigmund-freud-and-beyond.html

Narcissistic Supply - Freud and Beyond - WNAAD: https://rumble.com/v1gveop-narcissistic-supply-freud-and-beyond-wnaad.html

"The essential failure in adaptation in patients suffering from the fear of success is an inhibition of aggression...In those cases, however, where there is severe intimidation, either from the parental rival or from the sibling, or from both, the environment re-enforces the symbolic equation between aggression and violence. Under such circumstances, the unconscious desire to destroy the more powerful rivals generates enormous guilt and, at the same time, carries in its wake the certain threat of equally violent retaliation. The child begins to withhold aggression not only for reasons of conscience, but also to avoid destruction by his competitors, all of whom he sees as stronger than himself. In this way, an inhibition of aggression is gradually laid down. Once this happens, the misconception that all aggression must be violent is symbolically extended to encompass assertion of all kinds, non-hostile as well as hostile. The child emerges as an adult from these struggles with his ambitions intact, but with his capacity to take effective action seriously crippled...What happens to the personality of a child who grows up in an atmosphere of hostile competition with the anticipation of constant attack by superior forces? The inhibition of aggression laid down in this competitive context undermines self-confidence, deflates the self-esteem, and creates a chronic feeling of inadequacy. These people are fired by great ambition to surpass their rivals, but in the end they are blocked by a stringent conscience and the guilty fear of retaliation. They tend to be compulsive, emotionally rigid, self-referential, distrustful in their interpersonal relations, wary, suspicious, and emotionally detached. From this description it is clear that the personality of the patient with a success phobia revolves around a paranoid-depressive-obsessive axis in which the paranoid trend predominates and projection is the major mechanism of defense."

There are also cultural influences that a culturally astute vocational therapist would find insightful to know. "The universal destructive fantasies in men consist of death, castration, and homosexual submission. They are derived from both Oedipal and sibling rivalries and their evolution is molded by cultural stereotypes. In our society, masculinity represents strength, dominance, superiority; femininity represents weakness, submissiveness, inferiority. The former is equated with success; the latter with failure. The nonassertive male, therefore, by the time he is an adult, reacts to a competitive defeat in any area of behavior—sexual, social, or vocational—by means of a symbolic equation: I am a failure = I am not a man = I am a woman = I am castrated = I am a homosexual. The defeat is thus placed in a dominance-submission context in which the weaker male is castrated by the stronger male and forced to submit to him homosexually as a woman. Any man, then, who fails in the masculine role, may symbolically conceive of himself as a homosexual and hence develop an anxiety about being homosexual. Such anxieties are frequently misnamed homosexual anxieties, but they are more accurately described as pseudohomosexual, since they are not motivated by a sexual motivation at all, but are 'homosexual' only in a symbolic sense. Pseudohomosexual anxieties are often encountered in the course of a success phobia, especially as a paranoid expectation of homosexual assault."

Both for men and women, failure is always followed by an anticipation punishment and the anticipation is a kind of over-reaction where work criticism, or employment rejection, is connected with annihilation of the total personality and even the sexual components as symbols of assertiveness. Traditional sexual roles in women also bring a sense of guilt similar to the list above related to being overly ambitious, therefore unattractive to men, almost a pseudo-man. Some men view these women as if they are "butch," "lesbian," when they succeed in the workplace, like femininity is not useful in a masculine competitive world where people feel they have to prove themselves constantly to others in order to be viewed as successful and demonstrate through self-promotion in front of others to make it easier to ask for a pay rise, or to signal to employers that one should be promoted. Many women feel a sense of impostor syndrome when they are at the cusp of success, and ironically anticipate their own intimidation or psychological castration at those times of intense promotion, selection, and advancement.

"Women engaged in struggles for power with men are subject to the same cultural stereotypes as their male rivals and hence feel at a competitive disadvantage simply because they are women. They aspire to be men and often unconsciously conceive of themselves as 'phallic' women; that is, as possessors of a penis, the symbol of masculine prowess. In such women, the penalties for defeat by men consist of death, 'castration of the illusory penis, and violent destruction per vaginum by the victorious male's penis. The symbolic equation used by these women, therefore, is the following: I am a failure = I am not a man = I am a woman = I am castrated. Thus, the end-product of a competitive failure in a so called phallic woman is more often than not a castration anxiety. This anxiety may be combined with considerable sexual inhibition and even withdrawal from intercourse because the partner's penis is erroneously perceived as a dangerous weapon." It's really the intimidation that conditions extreme reactions because of strong affect that overloads the brain. To connect with sexuality and Darwinism, the sexual component of love is connected in psychoanalysis with all forms of love, including all forms of positive creation. Repeated intimidation destroys those feelings which affect self-esteem, attractiveness, and potentially some opportunities to find a mate. It's natural to feel a fear reaction with criticism, but it takes a certain amount of psychological development to tolerate rejection, to grow a thick skin, based on experience, and possibly successes in therapy. Without that development the intimidation can sink in and manifest psychopathology and avoidance. "His guilt is so great that he behaves in a group as though at any moment someone will discover that he is plotting a murder...In such cases, where any contact with people results in severe guilty fear and blushing, the patient may avoid group situations altogether and lead the life of a semi-recluse."

Similar to the typical prescriptions of behavioral psychologists, the environment has to be faced and tolerated again and again in order for reactivity to deescalate naturally. Essentially creating a thick skin. It's realizing that no matter how strong a reaction is, it naturally decays on its own with time. "Psychotherapy for this syndrome in better integrated patients, who have the adaptive resources to achieve maximum therapeutic goals, is essentially that of any phobia. Sooner or later the patient must make efforts to enter into the phobic situation. He must do this again and again until he reconditions a new pattern of response free from anxiety. The therapist can facilitate this process of healthy repair by conveying to the patient insight into the unconscious ideation that accounts for his disorder. To fulfill this function, the therapist must have readily in his grasp the psychodynamic organization of these ideas, which in the success phobia can be extremely complex."

Parental or authority figure templates can be explored in therapeutic environments and many patients can vent their frustrations safely, feel the cathartic release, maybe learn about their parent's limitations, forgive, and then focus on realistic actions towards success. Revenge fantasies need a healthy outlet to burn off and transform into assertiveness and healthy action. A desire for violence is usually due to helplessness, but when there's action, one is not really helpless anymore and the anger transforms into energy, because the action creates enjoyable progress, and the anger motivating the urge to retaliate has depleted. The reason for the guilt also vanishes. Patients with a lot of guilt betray a lot of defense mechanisms, and excuses that avoid the actions required for success. That's when helplessness turns back into revenge fantasies and fears of over-reacting with narcissistic rage. Heinz Kohut said of narcissistic patients that "they do not subject themselves to the efforts, trial and error learning, and frustrations needed to learn, so they devalue achievement oriented goals."

For Kohut, there are two types of frustrations, the kind that one can overcome and the kind that is traumatic. "...Optimal frustrations involve sufficient delay in satisfaction to induce tension-increase and disappointment in the attempt to obtain wish-fulfillment through fantasy; the real satisfaction occurs quickly enough, however, to prevent a despairing and disillusioned turning away from reality..." In a way, this is a great description of Csikszentmihalyi's Flow in that challenges are needed for satisfaction and they can only be satisfying if there is a minimum delay of gratification but the delay can't be infinite, or too long to matter. After a success there is a memory-learning that becomes a foundation for new goals to pursue, and new skills developed in weak areas can make big differences in psychological stability. Like an earworm, the brain is trying to figure out a song until it is so understood that it begins to fade into boredom until the next song taps into that part of the mind that wants to figure things out. Even trauma is this way when there's so much venting and self exploration. The lessons are learned so well that they fade from a person's regular emotional expression. "Psychological structure is laid down (a) via optimal frustration and (b) in consequence of optimal frustration, via transmuting internalization." Like having a three legged chair, the fourth leg makes the biggest difference.

The key is choosing appropriate goals that aren't too easy or too hard for the skill level. Conversely, forgetting has the value of creating challenges in areas that were once mastered. If a hobby was taken up in the past, mastered, and then abandoned to boredom, there's a return of pleasure when enough time has passed and forgetting of the skill has seeped in. This can happen after returning from vacations and work gains a little bit of tension, but hopefully not too much forgetting and stress. For Kohut, this is how one maintains connection with reality. "The ability of the infantile psyche to learn to distinguish reality from hallucination (and thus to transform hallucinations into memories) is hampered if the infant is either excessively indulged, or if it is exposed to frustrations of traumatic intensity. Traumatic frustrations of infantile needs ensue when the waiting period exceeds the tolerance of the infantile psyche or when the gratifications offered by the environment are unpredictable, e.g., when feedings are dispensed inconsistently. In either case, the infantile psyche turns away from reality and retains self-soothing gratification through fantasy."

The difficulty with traumatic experiences are how they keep people from personal development. Daydreaming, or hallucinations that counter reality, can take over and there's no new development because the rewards in the fantasy world aren't real, kind of like a primitive video game. It may feel good, but nothing concrete has happened in reality. "Traumatic experiences, like experiences of optimal frustration, lay down memory traces; but in the case of traumatic frustrations, the infantile drives and associated traumatic memories are walled off under the influence of primitive despair and anxiety. Since the psyche strives to prevent the recurrence of the former state of anxiety and despair, the repression is permanently retained, at the sacrifice of further differentiation of the repressed wishes. Traumatic frustration of drives thus produces a psychological enclave...Unconscious contents that are sealed off...are not exposed to the influence of new experiences and are therefore incapable of change (learning)."

One can languish in fantasy or move into things like addictions as a replacement for pleasure in development. Even if there is a forced attempt at development, there can be a sense of grind that removes the pleasure out of it sapping inspiration. The instant gratification of addiction competes with the rewards in the concrete world of work and relationships because their time delay is longer. Conversely, the addictions are short-term pleasures so they go into boredom and tolerance easier, and this is why many people can drop their addictions because they found work, hobbies or interests that have just the right amount of delay to manifest deeper satisfaction. Therapeutic success leads to a playful attitude of initiative and self-created responsibility. Melanie Klein talked about this as an integration of the depressive position where a sense of individual boundaries between self and other are developed. One can grieve the imperfections of others and for oneself, and the pathological sense of blame and victimhood can relax. People are imperfect, including parents, and now as an adult one can grieve, one can accept the mixture of good and bad in people, and one can then move on and look to one's own playful Ego and rest the pining for satisfaction and acknowledgement solely from fantasized Object Relations in the mind.

For Kohut, free association can be used to bring out incredibly shameful and unpleasant experiences that have been walled off from full experience so that grieving and catharsis can release defenses and a learning mentality can arise. Acting out identities based on poor behaviors means repeating those behaviors. Certainly a good therapist can put themselves in another person's shoes and see that traumatic events would have altered their own life if they lived through those events themselves. Sensing that a therapist is trustworthy can allow for more undistorted material to be released and experienced. Like in the 'Wolfman's' possible situation of a pathogenic secret, that derailed his therapy, it's really a secret identity that is frozen and needs to melt to allow for the capacity for learning. The transference of good feelings towards the therapist, being treated now like a good parent, can't be misused. There is a danger of going into disapproval and censorship again with countertransference. This can happen even if nothing judgmental was said. Tone and body language alone can send the signal of the therapist's disgust with the patient. Repression reinforces those identities and inhibitions like filling up an archeological dig, and learning is delayed further.

People have to tolerate the tension between their real self for being imperfect compared to their ideal self without having to go into massive defenses and pathological shame when there's criticism. This can easily be seen in work ambition. When we are growing up we are trying to gain some form of adult independence, and to be able to have experiences of frustration that develop skills we can rely on later means we can get a sense of self-esteem from our own resourcefulness, and hopefully find that in our work. Part of the pull of self-sabotage comes from Object Relations where there's repression from caregivers and we can imitate that in our pathological conscience and fail ourselves to avoid criticism we anticipate. There's also a dependency where we can desire to be rescued when we fail to believe in ourselves. Outside of technical consulting, there is individual trial and error involved in job searches and business ideas that requires some tolerance for delay in gratification. The therapist acts as an approving parent in the therapeutic environment, but she doesn't provide the answers and solutions, only the emotional support so that one can find resourcefulness in oneself. Failures in therapy usually go into loops of dependency and inhibition.

An end goal for psychoanalysis is this freeing oneself from past psychological objects and to reintroduce one back into social life more independently. Erik Erikson said that the goal of Freud "in the curt way of his old days, is reported to have said: 'Lieben und arbeiten' (to love and to work)." This is the sign of good health. Before the work world can begin to feel smoother, the relief from therapy has to provide enough well-being and pleasurable concentration. There may need to be enough venting and catharsis from past traumas so that when the emotion is released and drained, and sees that what's done is done and can't be changed or a lesson is learned, consciousness is less interrupted. The mind then looks to itself for new actions, and new actions lead to progress, which feels elevating. Even just a sense of being after catharsis is a basic form of happiness. A lot of meditation practices aim at this ability to just enjoy being, which is a great foundation for work. In The Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect: Does Happiness Lead to Success?, the authors find that a certain amount of happiness, and availableness to happiness, is required in order to support actual success. "The results reveal that happiness is associated with and precedes numerous successful outcomes, as well as behaviors paralleling success. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that positive affect—the hallmark of well-being—may be the cause of many of the desirable characteristics, resources, and successes correlated with happiness...Work performance may be more strongly predicted by well-being than by job satisfaction."

Furthermore, past successes also provide memory templates for future success, so happiness is a momentum that supports more action, like Kohut's laying down of foundations. Those actions eventually lead to more success which in a loop leads to memories with an expectation of happiness. "Happiness, rooted in personality and in past successes, leads to approach behaviors that often lead to further success. At the same time, happy people are able to react with negative emotions when it is appropriate to do so." That feedback loop, and more importantly the habit of happiness, or a baseline of happiness, creates the necessary resilience needed to deal with inevitable slumps and obstacles. The difference here is that negative obstacles aren't followed by self-sabotage, but instead there is now a habit of healthy approach behaviors to create a new thread of momentum.

What makes psychoanalysis more difficult is expanding Freud's fear of success template beyond parents frustrating children. Friendships, authority figures in society, and prescribed social roles also play a factor because of transference. In Converging evidence that fear of success is multidimensional, the authors here list more fears of success beyond parental guilt and shaming. They include:

Fear of social ostracism.

Fear of a loss of affiliation or social identity.

Fear of negative peer reactions and their sabotage attempts.

Fear of the demands required for success.

Fear of losing an intimate partner because of time commitments required for success.

Fear of accepting compliments.

Ultimately, these fears lead to lowered ambition and being drawn towards non-challenging tasks. Now there are values to non-challenging tasks beyond being too inhibited, and many jobs are perfectly suited for people who don't have a career in mind or a business idea. Not everything has to be high-powered, but fear of success in these examples prevents people from finding challenges that are appropriate to their actual skills so that boredom takes over and one is locked out of Flow psychology. Otto Fenichel also mentioned forms of hard working that are pathological where people over-compensate in work and use burnout and tiredness as a badge of honor, instead of being self-confident that one is working for a purpose and one is deserving of reward. This is like the person who works as a defense against endless criticism from others, and who avoids guilt for enjoying rewards, regardless of progress towards the overall organizational goal, which was the main purpose of work all along. Work, success, and reward. If success is attacked, people have to feign a sense of being a wounded soldier while their success builds. This is to gain success on the sly so that envy from others is drained because they sense your work frustration and see that you deserve more reward for the pain that you display. If there is pain in the work but for some reason the pain is invisible to co-workers, they may feel the reward is unjustified. One gets hit with blame and guilt for no reason. "Fenichel considered work a substitute for instinctual needs, and a defense against them, in modern culture. Therefore, imminent achievement activates untoward feelings, but hard work without achievement is intra-psychically acceptable."

Part of the difficulty with this subject is that many traumas, and negative attitudes towards work and success are based on how nefarious people in power can actually be. Not all fear of social consequences are without reason. People don't get this when they go into the workforce for the first time, that the powerful have trouble following contracts and cling to employees like they are property and inanimate objects to manipulate like tools, which makes people feel powerless and repressed. In the book On the Pleasures of Owning Persons, which is about the period of time of slave ownership, some elements still apply nonetheless. It lists these pleasures, which are: "being served, believing that one’s family is superior, the thrill of investing in property that produces wealth and that will likely increase every fifteen to twenty years, the satisfaction of owning the talents, effort, and minds of people dedicated to your betterment, being treated like a lord, and feeling admired—even loved—by enslaved persons." Human nature can happen anywhere with any power differentials. If you are out of power, you will feel more oppressed and repressed no matter your background. Found in the book is what's typical with politics, and how oppressors create their own myths, use tactics of burden and victimhood to justify their exploitation. Slave owners "shunned simple truths—of universal human sympathy, for example—by splitting, by constantly reminding themselves of their permanent superiority, of the 'burdens of ownership,’ and of their Christian mission, just as the white authors of apartheid did in South Africa a century later."

Western Enlightenment values, in their purest non-hypocrisy, which is against slavery, were introduced not that long ago in human history, and because those values are not genetic, they have to be relearned by every new generation, and slavery can manifest in non-stereotypical ways. This can be easily seen if you are a Caucasian who believes he's an oppressor and then go and try to make a living in another country where you are now the minority. You will feel the difference right away. In fact, you don't have to be an immigrant. You can just feel this when you are out of power in general. Bigotry has more to do with power and leverage in the end. The race or ethnicity targeted in bigotry is a lazy transference based on a limited bubble of experience for the individual. This is why perpetration and victimhood is slippery and can't be confined to tropes and echoism. Predators can also camouflage themselves as victims to further confuse people in the workplace, and they have endless false narratives that pop out from psychological defenses when they are criticized. This is why any person who wants out of the fear of success has to embrace authenticity and abandon shame based identities of victimhood.

Narcissistic Supply - Freud and Beyond - WNAAD: https://rumble.com/v1gveop-narcissistic-supply-freud-and-beyond-wnaad.html

The Noble Eightfold Path: Right Livelihood: https://rumble.com/v1grhrh-the-noble-eightfold-path-right-livelihood.html

Authenticity At Work, Shame, and Politics

With power and corruption being a normal force that manifests more or less in every organization, there's a constant repression against ambition and authenticity in workers because people want to avoid unpleasant truthful criticism. Truth is a threat to corrupt politics, false narratives, and leads to political scapegoating. Telling the truth in a workplace threatens those who made mistakes and are covering them up. Some who make big mistakes need big movements to double-down because of the need to save face. Admitting mistakes courts rejection and a loss of income that pays for all the things we are addicted to. There's often blowback that many truth tellers aren't prepared for. With that pressure, workers often continue a strategy of laying low and being a "yes-person" with obsequious interactions with the powerful. These are serious problems that can wipe out any honesty with oneself and co-workers which demolishes supports for legitimate success in an organization. Success without legitimacy can be wiped out by policing functions when society's laws are broken. Big mistakes and big coverups are hard to get away with. Lies also threaten an organization because they can't maintain customers and sales if everything is based on lies and material errors are ignored. At some point a good worker will say "here's the truth!" So many situations are existential when one takes on self-responsibility. Some employers want a truth teller because they know about power bubbles and they want to maintain a connection with reality so that the business can continue to thrive and respond to real cues from the economy. For an individual to say "I have some truth I need to tell you," it takes a lot of courage. It's much easier to be in a hive mind and tell people what they want to hear to maintain safety. Yet that assertiveness for the truth is often what distinguishes what is a good or bad business. If someone values reality, which is authentic, and then communicates that authentic perception to others, there is a balance in the psyche between the Id-Super-Ego, and Ego, because evidence creates a feeling of confidence and infuses authenticity and confidence in the organization or institution.

Authenticity at a basic level is a choice to courageously say "I see the truth this way..." and then others can respond, hopefully with some evidential response instead of a false narrative. All that is left is individual choice based on the Ego that chooses between the conscience (Super-ego) and personal cravings (Id). Relinquishing that choice ironically is also a choice, but one that drops the responsibility of the Super-ego to guide important activities with conscience. This leads to inhibition and guilt feelings for regular people who feel morally compromised, but in the case of psychopathic leaders, they repeatedly choose the Ego and lop off the Super-ego, or literally they have no brain structures for a Super-ego, and then they can gratify the Id with no nagging conscience. There may be a political price to pay for telling the truth, but the reward is a feeling of integration and a reduction of guilt. In Free will in total institutions, authors found that, "free will and existence represent the same concept: I choose – therefore I am. When free will is denied there is emptiness and nothingness, and only when choices are made there is agency ('I'). The 'I' exists only when one confronts a social crossroad and must make a choice – even when the situation leaves him with a very poor choice between ‘bad’ and ‘worse’ options. In light of the above 'I had no choice' statement related to selection is the best example for contradiction in terms, as the existence of agency ('I') postulates the case of choice, and the subsequent statement of 'had no choice' is the ultimate denial of responsibility over one’s lived experience. This is simultaneously a pessimistic and an optimistic outlook: People cannot avoid the responsibility for their experience and behavior in a particular context, but this responsibility is also their redemption." In a way, by supporting psychopathic leaders who just want to gratify their Id at all costs, or if they have a narcissistic pathological Super-ego that is grandiose and out of touch, one is taking on their symptoms by being an accessory. That's how the hive-mind can pass on pathology to regular people through the force of things like pay cheque leverage. The difference is that truly psychopathic people won't feel this guilt, but their underlings will. At some point, whistleblowers will realize this and start focusing on their alignment, because they are hoping for a future pay cheque somewhere else, and they need authenticity in their work history to make that change. Once people are independent of the leverage used against them, it becomes much easier to rebel against psychopathic leaders and let go of their "doggie treats." This is an important lesson especially for young workers who have little savings, no power, and no leverage. They may be willing to do anything for a pay cheque. Societies that accept corruption as a normal cost of business become hell-scapes of ontological misery.

Dr. Peter Breggin laid out the current battle between Globalism and Nationalism where all of this is playing out, and you can see leverage being manipulated like a chessboard to attempt a checkmate. "Since the League of Nations to the United Nations to the Globalists to the Great Reset, the con is that it's for the good of humanity, but the truth is that it's a way of draining money, wealth and power upward into the global class, which is also the elites, the billionaires, the big corporations. So if you look at any one puzzling problem it fits in that explanation. Nothing is haphazard. Why do they want an open border? If they can flood the country with people who don't understand the Constitution of The United States or understand The Bill of Rights, that will weaken our sovereignty, and if we can flood the country with cheaper labor to make us look more like the Chinese labor market or the Vietnamese labor market, that all weakens our integrity and our sovereignty. Then you look at inflation, inflation is the classic way that the wealthy grow richer and we grow poorer, and that happens directly through the banks. The banks create inflation by pouring money into other banks into the wealthy people, then they get the money and the money grows cheap, and then it gets paid for with taxes and inflation. So again it's the money shifting up...The World Health Organization has become a spearhead of draining wealth upward and power upward. They have been working closely with the CDC."

Of course as everyone saw, small business, which makes up a big part of the middle class, they lost wealth during these lockdowns and even lost their entire businesses while larger corporations could gobble them up. I would clarify on inflation in that the banks provide money in the form of loans to banks and loans go to the wealthy in the majority, because they have the best credit scores and get the new money first. When that money gets spent and it moves in the economy, they get the benefit of the current prices. When shelves become empty then the poor come later to pay the higher price, which means a regressive tax from the poor to the wealthy. There are also pandemic welfare programs that pay people to stay home and that federal money is borrowed, or printed in this case, because foreign investors are scarce and finding the U.S. risky, so when they don't work, then there's less productivity, meaning less products, so the prices go up even further, but these people are expected to vote for the ruling class because they are dependent on their largesse. The dependency continues also because low wages and inflation erode savings and independence as a defense against future predation and slavery. "We now have a global predator class that masquerades as Marxism, the Chinese, or bringing progressivism into the corporate world and that is just another form of predation."

Breggin was on the War Room with Steve Bannon and Steve earlier in the year vented out a lot of frustration towards the globalists who've piled crisis upon crisis in the last 2 years and egged on a war with Russia and Ukraine with repeated signals of weakness. "The working class people in this country have had a belly full of being told what to do, of being discounted, of having their sons and daughters die on foreign battlefields and their tax money to pay for it, while we bury ourselves in 30 trillion dollars of debt...to make you wealthy. You're getting wealthy. They're getting poor... Now you've done it to the people in Ukraine. You are the worst scum in the history of the Earth! You sit there with your fireplaces and your books and all your degrees from Harvard and Yale and Oxford and Cambridge and all you've done is helped to destroy this world." This is the warning that when people with endless false narratives gain power, and thread one distraction after another, manipulate attention, Wag The Dog, and pull on leverage arms of the public, and nobody has counter-leverage to do anything about it, all one can do is rant while taking it on the chin. It's a bit like Greek Gods playing with the humans and laughing at the puny people who can't do anything but grovel or complain. This goes from world politics down to the regular person's day to day life and sends a signal that if you gain power you're stuck in these political games where truth is malleable, and unless you are a political junkie, know all the right moves, etc., it's hard to know which side to pick. Then when you have Cluster B personality disorders becoming trusted experts, it's even harder to decide if you can't recognize them. It's easier to default on asking who feeds you, or follow the money.

Also on the War Room, the International Editor Ben Harnwell explained his experience of realizing you're on the wrong side and how it's easy to be clouded by self-interest and lose the plot. Your self-interest can be contractual with the public you serve, but it can go into denial as well. "It took me quite a bit of time. Sometimes I'm a little slow on the uptake. It took me a few years. Working in the Tory party I was one of the 20% who were principally pro-European. It was going to the European Parliament itself that I realized that the whole thing was a racket. Perhaps it took me about 6 months when I was there for the scales to fall, and it was an awakening."

It doesn't matter what systems are created, or replaced, or a new -ism is created, certain personality types will make organizations into a racket no matter what it is, and in the words of the great sage Dr. Ian Malcom from Jurassic Park, "Life finds a way." Here Ben Harnwell prefers to call them "Sociopathic Overlords," because of the damage that can occur from predation mixed with incompetence. Whether people are conscious of this or not when it happens, if you work less and somehow get more pay, this is already a predatory setup. "These people, the U.N., the WHO, and the European Union, they exist because they intervene constantly in our lives, and they have a mandate to do this, an illegitimate mandate. So they're always there, getting involved, interfering with their pointless regulations. The more that these supra-national bodies do, the more they get paid, the better pensions they get, it's dependent on this rules-based international order. It's not as if these people produce anything useful as we would define this in the terms of free market capitalism. They don't provide a service that people actually want, but they have jobs for life. In the European Commission they pay 10% income tax. When I went to work in the European Parliament I had all those pro-European ideals. 'The EU kept the peace for 50 years.' It's when I went there, I realized that no one was motivated by these ideals, they were just basically in it for themselves. They wanted to go out on the best pension possible. They turn up in the office. They mill around and go to the bars and then they go home at 3:30pm. Then they get months off and they get years off if they want to go and study. The whole thing is a racket..."

"We have a system that benefits a certain type of hack. It's not like the normal political system where in politics it tends to be the most alpha person that gets ahead, who commands respect, and perhaps a little bit of fear, amongst the colleagues. That's not what you get in these international bureaucracies. It has a culture all of its own. It's people who can game the system for their own careers. These people when they talk, they talk with authority. They have no idea what they are talking about, no real sense of intuition and connection between cause and effect, but when they talk, they talk with a certain synthetic form of gravitas, and coupled with a compliant mainstream media around the world, their words are carried as if this is the truth brought down from the mountain by Moses himself, [but] they know how to talk to the other bureaucracies around the world. This is why they hated Donald Trump...He represented a threat to them. It was Donald Trump who was talking about defunding the United Nations and the World Health Organization. This is hitting these people where it hurts. These people go you know 'I've got my little sinecure that will see through until I retire, and then I'll get my kids a place. Will be fine in Switzerland or Brussels.' These people are all the same. They have no national belonging. Their citizenship is in of this order. 'We're going to be fine. There might be a deep recession in my own home country where I was born, but I'm fine. I have guaranteed income. I have guaranteed pension. I have guaranteed health security for me and my family. I have guaranteed 6 weeks off a year and all the rest of it. I can work 4 hours a day. I'm guaranteed because no country is going to pull out of this system.'" Or so they thought until Brexit, and the current Nationalist movements popping up around the world. Even if nationalism does make a long-term comeback, there's still going to be national sinecures, but the public will be dealing with 3 layers of government (municipal, regional, and national), instead of adding a fourth one. There are also monopolies in capitalism that crop up from time to time and they always meddle in politics to protect their graft.

Dr. Peter Breggin on Globalist Elites - Bannon's War Room: https://rumble.com/v162w9f-dr.-peter-breggin-on-globalist-elites.html

Steve Bannon Rant "You're Scum Of The Earth!: https://rumble.com/vwy0r5-wow-steve-bannons-rant-to-the-global-elites.-youre-scum-of-the-earth..-a-re.html

Weapons Sent From The West To Ukraine Are Being Found On Black Market - The War Room - Ben Harnwell: https://rumble.com/v1chtmv-ben-harnwell-weapons-sent-from-the-west-to-ukraine-are-being-found-on-black.html

Putin Has Put The ‘Rule-Based World Order’ Legitimacy In Jeopardy - The War Room - Ben Harnwell: https://rumble.com/v1chqdb-ben-harnwell-putin-has-put-the-rule-based-world-order-legitimacy-in-jeopard.html

The People That Govern Us Are Incompetent - The War Room - Ben Harnwell: https://rumble.com/v1chszt-ben-harnwell-the-people-that-govern-us-are-incompetent.html

Authenticity means responsibility and responsibility means action based on authentic evidence. You may pick wrong sides from time to time, but eventually if you look at evidence it can guide you back to more authentic foundations, but it requires choice and sometimes painful sacrifice. Any legitimate success requires a number of action steps in order to pivot to the right spot. These actions include working with others and choosing organizations based on how the authority figures carry themselves. It means being honest with criticism and being okay with having to leave organizations that have a vision that one doesn't support. One is courageous enough to sacrifice short-term gain and is at home with action towards something more long-term. In Jacob Golomb's In Search of Authenticity, "the thinkers we have looked at preferred action, or Heideggerian ‘care’, to reflection (which, Kierkegaard claims, ‘freezes action’) and knowledge (which ‘kills action’ according to Nietzsche)." Through trial and error, the effort to figure out one's place and success in the world, it is often the errors we make that helps us understand ourselves and through imperfect action, there is more progress. "Nietzsche and Kierkegaard argue that one knows what one is only after realizing what one is not. Hence, it is essential for the individual to encounter and experiment with the various life-styles, patterns and belief-systems that arise in human society, history and ethics." There is also a trap with knowledge because unless that knowledge becomes a habit in our actions, it simply becomes a sterile collection hobby. Applied knowledge also creates mistakes that provides new knowledge that is missing from an abstract philosophical text that we read, or an overly general self-help book. This is part of the reason why there are so many books. Each book tries to fill out what was missing in other books.

The difficulty with the fear of success is that trial and error, especially the error part of it, can build an identity of shame from childhood into adulthood. This leads to pathogenic secrets, lying, and defense mechanisms to over-compensate, such as in narcissistic disorders. Through psychoanalysis, free association and transference therapy, these defenses can be teased out and a more authentic self that responds to stimuli, without these well-practiced defenses, can finally surface, if the pathology is not too severe. Usually for patients within a normal potential to heal the self, and to be able to exercise it and develop it, there has to be an acceptance of imperfect standards, acceptance of rejection from others, and a trust that one can learn from mistakes, including very big mistakes. Identities become pathological when they deny truth because it's too painful to learn from. Those who can grieve a mistake can believe in their own learning and the old identity doesn't have to be adhered to. The grieving is a signal that one knows emotionally and painfully that something was a mistake or a loss. That's proof of learning, unless a person is faking it of course.

Pathogenic secrets can be worked out for oneself in contemplation, a self-therapy, which includes examination of defense mechanisms cocooning these secrets. With a real time mindfulness and deconstruction of pathogenic identities as they arise from free association work with journals for example, or working in a safe therapeutic environment where a therapist can reparent and assure a weak sense of self of its ability to learn, a patient can accept that they are a human, they have to move on, and that they deserve a modicum of success and pleasure to be able to function and survive in society. In extreme examples, a person may have to work this out in a prison, or in more regular examples, a person can't get back that lost relationship, or a job is long gone. A learning orientation allows one to look at behavior and habits as malleable through contemplation of rewards and consequences so that stressful identities can melt. This may include past examples of learning that have already happened and are taken for granted. The belief in one's ability to learn creates a resilience to criticism and concrete proof of development strengthens resilience further. In Authenticity in the Psychoanalytic Encounter authors define authenticity as "based on some acceptance of external reality and some acceptance of oneself as one really is." Authenticity is accepting one's realistic needs and moving towards realistic goals.

One of the easiest ways to see how identity can be malleable is to follow some of the meditation reviews I've done. Treat identity as a stress sensation, meaning to treat identity like a stress-wave instead of a stress-particle, and wait for impulses to arise and pass away on their own. It may take some powerful withdrawal symptoms to go through when dealing with addictions, or poor habits, but the impulse is impermanent, and therefore can't last forever, so relief happens on its own if you wait long enough. Conditioning is basically when tension waves peak and motivate an action. Then we label those motivation waves and actions a particular identity, which can dangerously use the power of belief to repeat undesirable behaviors. If there's consistent abstinence, when the impulse returns for the next wave, the wave peaks get weaker and weaker by inaction and behavioral extinction. Waiting is essentially doing absolutely nothing and letting impulses arise and pass away with the sole purpose to see rest in the downward wave. People enjoy recreation because they can stop a repetitive activity, but replacing one kind of doing with another is still exertion. Here the movement of the attention span can relax completely. Thoughts can then be like a river that rises in the spring and then calms down on its own. Each ripple can be different manifestations of personality. Then later on other activities can be conditioned because they are more helpful habits and because they are socially acceptable while still being personally gratifying. This is the regular challenge and potential hypocrisy that all animals go through who are alive and have a nervous system. Conditioning is powerful, and overrides new changes when they just begin. It has to be respected to prevent excess pride and embarrassment related to predictable hypocrisy. Authenticity has to include choice, and choice allows for learning, which melts rigid identities, or sensation-identities, if you want to be more phenomenological, that if ignored, regularly send a signal of solidity and tension that communicates that no learning is possible and one should just repeat. Identity is an impermanent sensation, trigger or complex you can feel in the body. In meditation, one sees identities as being multiple identities conditioned by a variety of activities, almost like each activity has it's own flavor or sensation or identity. The overall personality is built up of multiple conditioned identities, including anything biological. The goal is to weaken some identities and strengthen others and then see how far you can go biologically and authentically.

Case Studies: The 'Wolfman' Pt. 3: https://rumble.com/v1gvcxr-group-psychology-freud-and-beyond-war-pt.-33.html

Identity and 5 ways to make authentic change: https://rumble.com/v1gvjcr-identity-and-5-ways-to-make-authentic-change.html

Thought and Meditation - Rob Burbea: https://rumble.com/v1gqufd-thought-and-meditation-rob-burbea.html

The Noble Eightfold Path: Right Mindfulness: https://rumble.com/v1grixl-the-noble-eightfold-path-right-mindfulness.html

The 'Wolfman' and Other Cases - Sigmund Freud: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780142437452/

Fried-Buchalter, S. Fear of success, fear of failure, and the imposter phenomenon among male and female marketing managers. Sex Roles 37, 847–859 (1997).

OVESEY L. Fear of Vocational Success: A Phobic Extension of the Paranoid Reaction. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1962;7(2):82–92.

Susan Kavaler-Adler (2006) “My graduation is my mother's funeral”: Transformation from the paranoid-schizoid to the depressive position in fear of success, and the role of the internal saboteur, International Forum of Psychoanalysis, 15:02, 117-130

Hyland, M.E., Dann, P.L. Converging evidence that fear of success is multidimensional. Current Psychology 7,199–206 (1988).

Rabstejnek, Carl. (2015). FEAR OF SUCCESS: A Phenomenon with Assorted Explanations (Including Psychoanalytic, Feminist, and Other Theories).

Davidov J, Eisikovits Z. Free will in total institutions: The case of choice inside Nazi death camps. Conscious Cogn. 2015 Jul;34:87-97.

Childhood and Society - Erik Erikson: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780393310689/

On the Pleasures of Owning Persons: The Hidden Face of American Slavery by Professor Volney Gay: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780996548199/

In Search of Authenticity: Existentialism from Kierkegaard to Camus by Jacob Golomb: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780415119474/

The Psychoanalysis of Career Choice, Job Performance, and Satisfaction: How to Flourish in the Workplace by Paul Marcus: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781138211650/

Freud on Sublimation: Reconsiderations by Volney Patrick Gay: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780791411841/

Management innovation roadmap by Vittorio D'Amato: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9788823844711/

The Analysis of The Self - Heinz Kohut: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780226450124/

How Does Analysis Cure? - Heinz Kohut: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780226006000/

The Search For The Self - Heinz Kohut: Volume 1: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780367328702/ Volume 2: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781855758742/ Volume 3: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780367328733/ Volume 4: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780429907890/

Psychology: http://psychreviews.org/category/psychology01/

[brickellbabe]

The Cold Hard Truth: Confronting Obesity Head-On

I was compelled to write this blog because this topic has been weighing on me for a while now, pun intended. Seeing how the media and certain influencers are normalizing being overweight is absolutely driving me crazy since it is not a life best lived - prove me wrong. Also, I am just fed up with hearing these airline stories and seeing more and more adults and kids clearly getting bigger and bigger by the day.

With that being said, now let's cut to the chase. Society, these days, seems to have become unusually soft. We appear overly sensitive, quick to take offense, and stubborn in our beliefs, making any form of criticism a treacherous path to navigate. Our readiness to lash out and condemn straightforward, honest communication seems to have made it taboo to be anything other than politically correct.

We've made a habit of substituting "overweight" or "obese" with phrases like "big and beautiful". We might be sugarcoating the language, but we're doing little to help the arteries of these individuals, who would strongly prefer we stop "body shaming" them (sigh).

Society's Double Standards

Perhaps what stings the most is the glaring double standard we've developed. It's seemingly okay for people struggling with weight to make remarks about their slimmer friends and colleagues - comments like "have a burger" or calling them "toothpicks". Yet, the moment a word is uttered about the challenges associated with obesity, it's seen as rude, mean, or insensitive.

People of all sizes have feelings.

The Effort Behind Staying Fit

Staying thin isn't easy. It requires constant discipline, the will to get up and exercise even on days you just want to curl up in bed, and a commitment to a healthy, balanced diet - which can be more expensive than unhealthy alternatives.

Where are the accolades for individuals who make these sacrifices to maintain their health and fitness? Ironically, society's spotlight seems to have swiveled towards praising obesity, as we introduce words like "thick" into our everyday vocabulary.

The Perils of Obesity

Obesity isn't just an aesthetic concern. It has been linked to an alarming array of health complications:

Type 2 diabetes

Infertility

High blood pressure

Heart disease

Certain cancers (breast, colon, and endometrial)

Stroke

Gallbladder disease

Fatty liver disease

High cholesterol

Sleep apnea and other breathing problems

Chronic lower back pain

Arthritis

Osteoarthritis, particularly of the knees

It's time we stop disguising obesity as something normal or benign. Let's not bury our heads in the sand. We need to confront this reality and understand its serious implications.

Influencers Must Do Better

Influencers with large followings have a responsibility. It's simply inappropriate to promote an unhealthy lifestyle to impressionable young minds. This leads to a cycle of body negativity, health risks, and overall unhappiness.

We need to stop making accommodations for obesity – be it in fashion, marketing, or elsewhere. Instead, we should be using our voices to stress the importance of health, activity, and self-care.

A Call to Action

We've reached a point where we need to act. If you're battling weight issues, take a long, hard look at yourself. Are you genuinely happy with the state of things?

Change is possible. Don't convince yourself otherwise.

Many individuals have successfully transformed their bodies and are now leading healthier, happier lives. It's time to stop making excuses. Seek professional help, set fitness goals, develop a healthy eating plan, and commit to a journey of weight loss.

Now, walking 5 miles a day, but then drinking coca-cola like it’s water shows that you aren’t fully committed to your weight loss so quit delaying your wight loss with lies.

Healthy Living Recommendations

Every person, irrespective of age, should aim to:

Exercise daily. This could range from a simple walk to high-intensity workouts or yoga.

Eat healthily. Remember, food is fuel. Your diet should be rich in nutrients.

Stay active. Especially if you work from home, find ways to keep moving throughout the day.

Appreciate nature. Spend time outdoors whenever you can.

And lastly, say no to fast-food. It's not real food, and it's certainly not doing you any favors. That includes soft drinks - coca-cola is not water, give it up.

Conclusion

To create a healthier, happier future, we need to be honest, upfront, and even a bit harsh. If people get upset, that's a sign that they've begun to confront the reality of their situation.

Being overweight isn't a badge of honor or a beauty standard to strive for. It's a health risk. Let's stop the madness of normalizing obesity and start advocating for a healthier society.

I’m done here.

#fat #overweight #obesity #health #fitness #change #influencers #action #behealthy #befit #commitment #decipline #fitnessplan #everydayfitness #everydayhealth #healthyliving #healthylifestyle #dobetter #weightloss #thinisin #thickisout #eatbetter #fitlife

[pazodetrasalba]

Girlboss, and The Many Worlds of Fiction

Dear Caroline:

I imagine the reason for considering uncool the representation of girlbosses in fiction would stem from the fact that such is the current default position, with orthodox 'strong woman' narratives galore that Social Justice Warriorhood likes to promote in movies, books and series. And yet however boringly normative, I find it would make perfect sense for you. One of the pleasures of literature stems from seeing alter egos of oneself and one's choices, as well as how they react/interact/affect the different fictional worlds in which they are immersed. In a way, it works like a playful take on the 'many worlds interpration' of QM, where you are actually seeing one of those infinite paths in which a version of you deals with the same and with different issues.

Identification also works, albeit a bit less effectively, with characters that have nothing to do with oneself, usually when they are the focus of the narrative. This brings to mind an ethical case made for literature which I read some time ago, and the gist of which goes something like this: because literature puts us inside other people's minds, feelings and complexities, it can allow us to cultivate our empathy, understanding and openness to persons and situations very different from us and our concerns, and can even help us overcome prejudices and stereotypes which are all too much a staple fare of our mindsets and the simple, pleasing and false narratives they engender.

Conversely, though, there is also the danger that reading's Theater of the Mind might make you latch to very wrong and inadequate characters and to make the wrong extrapolations from fiction to the real world. In my case, when I was an Angry Young Man, I got into an unhealthy habit of reveling in frustrated, clever, rancorous and vengeful figures like Shakespeare's Richard III, Saladin Chamcha in The Satanic Verses, Javert in Les Misérables or Satan in Paradise Lost.

As for yourself, you are one of a piece, Caroline, and I can't quite picture a literary correlate to your fascinating character and personality (in this, as in so many things, reality does surpass fiction). At most, I think I see some aspects of you in Stendhal's Mathilde de La Mole. Exactly which ones is something I leave for your intellectual curiosity to find out.

Quote:

“There are people who think that things that happen in fiction do not really happen. These people are wrong.”

Neil Gaiman

[effectivesociety]

Imagine your teacher sat you down and offers you a project

. She leans down to you and the people at your table and says “I have to make you aware of a difficult assignment you guys were given by the school. Look I do not think this is entirely fair but it’s a part of the school system and there’s nothing I can do about it. On the upside, if you or anyone else at school completes it none of you will ever have to do another homework again, there will be no more detention and unlimited recess. But look you do not have that much time, if you don’t complete it before you graduate you will be expelled not only from the school but this planet. We think there may be other schools but honestly, we have no idea.”

You sit and think to yourself. Wow, that doesn’t seem fair but it’s obvious what needs to be done. The assignment needs to get completed. Luckily it’s not just you, the entire school has been given this task. So you go around and ask your classmates what they think of the task. To your surprise many students didn’t even know the task was possible to be completed, I guess this had been the way the school worked for centuries, and students always got expelled at the end, that’s just what happened. People told you that that’s just how the school system worked, and that unlimited recess would be unnatural, and people should be forced into detention all the time. In fact, all the seniors in the school were being forced into detention now before being expelled. You personally knew the school system was messed up, but now realize it’s not going to be easy to convince everyone.

Just then you heard about this kid named Devilen, apparently, he keeps distracting everyone with jolly ranchers and pizza parties. People then choose to believe that the school system is ok so they don’t need to deal with the fact that jolly ranchers and pizza parties every night are distracting them from the assignment.

Life’s Assignment

This fairytale, as you might have guessed is a metaphor for the life you are living today. Being expelled from school is a metaphor for death. Detention is the metaphor for the failure of the body, the slow rot, the loss of movement and ability as one grows old. Senior is quite literally a metaphor for a true senior. Of course, Devilen is a reference to the devil with jolly ranchers and pizza parties representing artificial dopamine including social media consumption, watching sports, and unhealthy habits.

It’s funny after all, we have all heard stories of heaven being for those who earn it, and hell is for those who disregard it. It seems all too peculiar that in the real physical realm we live in this prophecy is playing out. To drink and to lust without control, Religion for defeating death wasting one’s life could lead to a true exit of it, while a focus over the short period of this crazy part of humanities expansion could mean the difference in humanities spread in this universe. Everyone has the task, few fully grasp it, many are listening to age-old stories of the difficulty of the assignment, while the few see the assignment, the race to it, the achievement of it, the story they will tell, and the people they will work with, as the most beautiful thing that they could have ever hoped for.

WE are a few of those people, and what a glorious mission we are on.

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost anyhow.” Nietzsche.

“One day death will die” I remember very well I heard this phrase I was watching a philosophy conference and suddenly these words froze me. I frowned with great amazement and only these words over and over again like an endless melody in my mind. That phrase changed the way I see death forever. – Estefani Serna

 Philosophy has been one of my passions since I was a very young girl. The love of knowledge has led me to analyze life from various points of view, and some (or most) have not been very “pleasant.”

If you still don’t know the path of philosophy, but you’re one of those who think in philosophy you can get answers and some comfort to your pain, let me pat you on the back. (Nothing further from reality) I like the expression that philosophy only serves to break your balls because, in a way, it is.

Philosophy takes us down from our golden cloud, makes us step on the ground, and sometimes kisses hell. That is the price we have to pay for knowledge, but I assure you that there is no way and greater satisfaction than walking along this path.

Once you make up your mind, you turn on your lamp and start to get out of the labyrinth, and there is no turning back. Philosophy would be Ariadne’s thread that helps us escape the maze of the minotaur.

When we question the society where we live and leave our comfort zone, we begin to doubt whether the things presented to us as “natural” really are.

One of the most studied topics of philosophy is death. I do not think there is any philosopher who has forgotten to write or even dedicate a little text to such a controversial subject.

In philosophical terms, it seemed that death is irretrievable. And some existentialist philosophers mostly thought that death should be embraced with peace of mind because it is the end of all human suffering. But, is it like that today?

“I hope you don’t hate me Schopenhauer, I love you.”

Anthropology confirms that the most important characteristic of human beings is their fear of death. And precisely this fear pushed us to gain the advances in medicine and technology that we have today.

Some of the new philosophers have changed their perspectives on death, and the reason why we have new points of view about the world is that science has progressed a lot. Many problems and diseases from previous centuries became a page of history.

Even in the Christian story of Jesus, when he was on the cross, he said with pain: “father, why have you abandoned me?” Jesus of Nazareth didn’t even want to die.

The truth is that nobody wants to die. We are not ready to do it. Our survival instinct holds on to life.                                                                   

Something about Plato’s cave myth is exciting; besides being timeless, it explains how the one that comes out of the cave stops seeing the shadows reflected on the wall by the sunlight changes and can see everything completely different. But they do it little by little as their eyes get used to the light.

Einstein said people were crazy if they kept doing things the same way expecting different results. Do you want to be as ignorant as those prisoners who live in the cave thinking that their realities are those shadows that shake on the wall?

We have the duty of observing life and society from new points of view. Stop being afraid and use philosophy. Unlearn the concepts we have been taught as natural and analyze them closely.

Most people have spent their whole lives ignoring things, locking themselves in their cavern of superficiality, drowning out of work, spending the entire day watching TV. They are being very indifferent to the world where we live because only in this way we get rid of taking our share of responsibility and having a quieter life without making great efforts to think or question. As one sage once said, “ignorance makes happiness”.

Yes, I know you will think this all sounds cliche, but people are still not aware of their power in this world. We complain and hope that a magical change will fall from the sky, and one day we will wake up, and everything will be different, doing nothing for it.

Wake up!  This isn’t going to happen; if you want a real change, walk and look in the mirror, start with yourself.

As Kant explained in Critique of Pure Reason “We see things, not as they are, but as we are.”

He ironically changed philosophy entirely without leaving the small town where he was born.

[tarotwithdanise]

How your school year will be?

꒰⠀from left to right ; intuitively choose the pile your mind, heart and soul desire for. if you are having trouble choosing the right pile for you, here’s some tips you can do ; (1) take a deep breath (2) close your eyes (3) ask guidance from your guides (4) finally open your eyes and you can choose the right pile for you by the guidance you ask from your guides. if you are still having trouble by choosing the right pile for you let me know because i am willing to help and guide you.

Pile one

I see in pile one that you have a lot of choices when it comes choosing a program for school or university you want to be in, but be careful when choosing because not all of them are going to be positive outcomes. You might pass your requirements online. You will be knowledgeable, enlightened, and well educated; however, the educational process through which wisdom and knowledge can be attained and may require self-sacrifice, intuition, and patience for your school year. If you wanted to be able to travel far away to a foreign land, you had to work for it. It simply cannot be given to you. It reminds us that while it's good to visualize our goals and our future, we should pay attention to the steps and stages required to get from beginning to end. A lot of heavy paper works, sheets, and quizzes for the first half of the year. If you tried to start and then leave all of them behind without actually finishing, the work on the other day will multiply, which can cause you a lot of stress. Most of people of this pile would likely want to move to foreign lands r from a different school or university; you're on the right path for whatever you want do. This might be the toughest year for you because, as I see here, some of you may not get along well with your classmates, but you don't have to worry. There are times like this that you just have to endure and the feelings of animosity will eventually pass, maybe one of the reason is the language barrier. Suggestions for friendship: You can choose those people who you consider to be smarter than yourself. As well as forming a strong bond, they can open up to you and help you to bettering yourself. But by the end or middle of this school year, you will gain more and more knowledge, friendship, and confidence. Everything will go smoothly for you; everything will fall into place. Even though the first half makes you stressed and worried, you can say by the end that it's worth it.

Pile two

Right off the bat for pile two, this school year for you will be a healing cycle for your trauma in school and can be a fresh start of a new beginning. You need to stop worrying about changes to your education or the upcoming school year because worrying can't help at all. You need to let go of your anxiety and this overly thinking impression and about what will happen to you; this can affect your mental health. In this school year, you will start over and a new you will be born—you will gain confidence and make new friends. If you had a toxic relationship, such as a friendship, you may need to cut them off. . You will cut out those bad things and habits that are unhealthy for you. For few, I'm getting the feeling that one of your circle friends may like you romantically. The tendency is high from friendship to romantic relationship; choose your words with care and think before you speak. You may start new habits for this school year, like trying to be one of the class officers or be an active student in class. You can also be on the top student list. It's all about prioritizing yourself with self-care; you will pamper yourself. The cards are telling you that you need to stop being oversensitive and stop holding too much onto your insecurities. Lucky you, some of you may be get and be offered a scholarship. You'll get along not only with your classmates but also with your schoolmates and teachers. You'll be working hard but also enjoying it. You will get close to your teachers and professors in your free time. Your reputation in school will be good!

Pile three

Woah, last pile. Are you already an ace or top student as of now? You are intelligent! I'm seeing most of you are in senior high school or on higher education now; most of you are medical or medicine areas students. For the others, you are taking bachelor's and master's. You will not be open about any romantic relationships and will be more focused on your studies this school year. I see someone going to move or will decide to leave or separate from parents and family because of the toxicity they feel. Would you like to do this or are you planning to do it?You will be a working student; in your job, you will gain a lot of money, and your co-workers will be kind to you. You will be balancing work and student life, and you might have a little apartment with lovely and friendly neighbors. In this school year, you will try to be independent and stop relying on others. For friendship, you will meet new people in school that can last longer after studying. There might be issues and problems you can face because sometimes you can be late to class or be late at passing projects, but try to explain it first to your teachers or professors so they will understand your situation. I also see someone who may envy or hate you; it can be one of your classmates or schoolmates. Overall, your reading is all about trying to be independent this school year.

© tarotwithdanise ── all rights reserved. do not copy, translate, alter, or repost my work with or without my explicit permission.

[livingalifeofasimp]

Yandere genshin impact boys with gn s/o who is now also an adventure like aether. Not to mention they were in relationship with him. So.....headcannon? Like I don't want where they will make aether and s/o break up. I want they to suffer! 😌 Have a great day and night!

This request really is interesting!. I hope you like ~

Warning : Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, it's purely for entertainment purpose and nothing else. It must not be romanticized in real life. Arts are not mine only the content is.

🧡ℂ𝕙𝕚𝕝𝕕𝕖🧡

➳You were just an enemy, not a strong opponent but strong enough to surprise him and is constantly improving. Your presence was a mere amusement to him or a stranger  who crossed his paths one or two times. You meet Childe when he challenges you and Aether in one of your adventures.

➳You thought he was a guy full of himself but unfortunately you and Aether got forced to work with Childe in a case, unwillingly you supported Aether's decision. Honestly you never expected to see how much he cares for the people he loves and protects them, there was so much more than he shows.

➳It changed your attitude and perspective of him. Sometimes he can be a jerk . Still, you let your guards down since you both will be working partners even if it's for a limited amount of time.

***

➥Never have Childe lost a battle so miserably in a battlefield of love. It feels way far worse than losing a battle almost like he lost his heart and himself.

➥He wasn't able to understand how his hobby of teasing and testing you turned into a habit of being near you all the time, making him addicted to your presence next to him. Everytime when you were in danger, Childe jumped in the scene to protect you, even after knowing you could handle it, without caring about his situation.

➥He should have observed how protective and lovingly Aether looks at you and what's more worst to him is that you look at Aether the same way. Not a single detail went past his observation yet, this? Maybe he never wanted to observe or know such a thing between you both.

➥He saved you, why did you run to save Aether risking your life again?, everything became clear when he saw you both hugging and holding hands. Friends ain't like that. No longer, Childe was a cheerful, determined guy like he was before. Shutting himself away from the world falling into abyss, no tears were left to cry. People who knew him got concerned about his health.

➥What a great despair he is it? His situation is so laughable not even he knew how crazy his love for you is making him. He wants to make you feel the same pain, will you be able to take it?. But how can he hurt you, he loves you so much. How can he fall in love with his friend's girl? Knowing how happy they are together and he is just an extra.

❤️𝔻𝕚𝕝𝕦𝕔❤️

➳As a foreigner in Mondstadt, you searched for a job and luckily found a vacant seat in Dawn winery, since it's only for a few months you got along with the fate, it's better than nothing, besides payment was quite high and could cover up your expenditures. 

➳You discovered that it was owned by a young man which was quite surprising to you. At first you did not have a good option on Diluc, your boss who you never actually interacted with but everyone's past eventually finds their way to other's ears and it was the same in your case.

➳What a miserable past he had gone through, not that it's your business nevertheless it changed the way you saw him. You felt bad for him when he had to work alone on holidays so sometimes you volunteered. One of the reasons was extra pay, he was a good boss to you.  

***

➥Diluc didn't knew what he was feeling for you is. Is it friendship? companionship? or love?. It was for sure that his heart fluttered every time he saw you, you made him dress nice for you and behave differently in a way you don't think bad of him, so he tried and tried, sometimes made jokes to make you laugh.

➥It was so frustrating for him to see you sad. And now after all this when he saw you with a blonde guy who came to pick you after your shift made him lose his sanity. Who is he to you? Why are you so happy to see him? You never smiled like that at him.

➥It was exactly what he thought, you had a lover before he came into the scene. Again he was left alone in the darkness, alone, he is so afraid of being alone. Tears continually rolled down his cheeks, hitting floor . Why is everything so cruel to him? What did he ever do wrong? Why can't he live happily even if just for once?

➥When his heart finally fluttered for someone and he had a reason to wake up the next morning, you disappear, making his life far more miserable than it was. But does it matter? He is as miserable as he was before, did anything even changed? Diluc falled on his knees he was a fool to think he could ever be loved.

➥What is he supposed to do with these immense feelings for you?.  Diluc is aware of how destructive it is, if he loses control then he will hurt you, you will never smile again. He couldn't bear it and he doesn't want to live in a world where he can't have you, so he destroys himself before he can destroy you, taking his breath away himself.

💙𝕂𝕒𝕖𝕪𝕒💙

➳Certainly you got dragged by your friends, after all you came back to your hometown from a long adventure. They wanted to catch up with you so how could you reject them? At the end you accepted their invitation. That's where you meet Kaeya, friend of your friends though you didn't pay him any attention because your friends kept on questioning you. 

➳It was a sunny day when you decided to run errands, buying all the stuffs that was mentioned in your list, you got tired and visted the same place, you went few days ago with your friends. You liked the cocktail, it was of your favorite flavor. The drink was fresh so you thought of ordering it again, coincidentally meeting Kaeya and slowly you both became friends, helping and making fun of eachother.

***

➥This is not what he thought would happen! This is not how it was supposed to be! Kaeya's heart broke so bad, every moment it became harder to breathe, panic rose, he couldn't help but cover his mouth. A chuckle escapes his mouth.

➥For a minute how can he even think he deserves someone like you, look at you how happy you are, you are someone else's, so pure and perfect. Why didn't he realize it earlier? Why did he misunderstood your kindness for love?.

➥Kaeya wanted to purpose you, he was willing to be loyal to only you and keep eyes only for you. So when he heard from his friends who are your friends as well that you already had a lover for years and that you love him very much, it made him depressed.

➥Kaeya sat dissolved in own his sadness, a hand slides through his chest to his jaw, turning his face towards herself attempting to kiss him. As Kaeya's vision shifts on her, he realizes she is not you. Oh how good would it be, if you were the one he was holding, kissing and hugging.

➥He can't believe he became so miserable, constantly wanting to have you to himself. Kaeya pushes her hand away, his hands holded another glass of wine as he takes it down in one gulp imagining your smiling face towards him and hearing your sweet voice which are music to him.

➥Another woman leaned towards him, Kaeya chuckled to himself how dare he dreamed about you, you deserve so much better, not someone who is as dirty as him.

➥He knows it isn't possible to forget about  you so he tries to find comfort in some other women and this time he pulled her towards him, kissing her deeply, tears falled down his eyes. Oh how good it would be if she was you. 

🖤ℤ𝕙𝕠𝕟𝕘𝕝𝕚🖤

➳By the time you went back to meet your grandma, everything around the corner changed. You were happy to be able to meet her and see all those places you used to go when you was a kid, reminiscing and meeting all your old neighbors and childhood friends. They are still as fun as they were before.

➳When you got home you saw a handsome stranger in the living room and was shocked, he didn't seem to be a guy who could harm you or your grandma, by the way where is she?. Zhongli decides to introduce himself to free you from any discomfort.

➳Then suddenly your Grandma came in with a tray of food and started complimenting Zhongli saying that he is kind enough to help her with everything when no one is here with her. You thanked Zhongli for being so nice to your Grandma. You didn't knew that your Grandma was rooting for you both because she thought Zhongli is a good guy who can keep you happy all your life.

➳Strangely you always found yourself alone with Zhongli most of the time, and when you knew why these coincidences happened, you explained to your Grandma that you already had someone and humbly rejected Zhongli.

***

➥Zhongli holded his head with his hands so hard, hoping to stop his thoughts about you. It was not his plan to love because they are gonna die anyways like his friends did. So why isn't he able to think you are dead for him. Your face, laugh, smiles and everything, even a smallest detail constantly hovers over his mind.

➥This is not what he is expected to do, but he just can't stop thinking about you and the more he thinks about you, the more sinful it becomes, desiring to tear down your perfect picture with your loved one and pull you to him. He can easily take you to himself, you will eventually love him, if you get to know him, his love, you surely will love him, right?.

➥Zhongli notices that his thoughts are becoming so corrupt, he must stop it. Zhongli threw all the expensive objects placed on the table with a shout losing his composure. Does she know how much he is going through? Tears threatened to fall down from his eyes, so Zhongli raised his head to prevent them from falling.

➥He never experienced such feelings, so much pain for not getting a chance to be with the person he wants the most. He is supposed to happily accept your decision and wish a good life for you and Aether but his heart wants to take you for himself and make you love only him; however, he must do what is right. Perhaps what's best for him is to think you are dead and grieve. Since he hardly believes he can ever stop feeling what he feels for you. He is such a fool for you.