#i have a fear of commitment to elaborate projects

[bloodyweaved]

[an-urgent-appeal]

monitoring by deco*27 could be a soldierspy song if you just give me 12 hours and 5 cans of monster to explain

[holymaccaronii]

Your ‘I have no eyes and I must cry’ au is beautiful. I would love to know more

AUUG I’m very happy to know so, thank you (;;) 💕

This AU has probably the most elaborate (or detailed) lore I’ve ever developed, and I’ll happily summarize the prologue. (I’ve probably mentioned many of these points before but I’ll mention them again, just for you anon <3). I’m still working on a lot of stuff, scenes and designs, and while some stuff may change I feel confident enough to explain more of it now. This AU takes place after a modified ending of the videogame where the other mastercomputers get deactivated, Ted gets turned into a slug and the rest of the survivors die. The catch in here is that AM doesn’t let the souls of the other survivors escape, trapping them somewhere deep in his complex and keeping them as bodiless essences who can do nothing more than exist in hell itself.

The lore tries to give a continuation of what will happen in the story with the Luna colony and AM, who is now seeking new organic bodies to put the survivors’ souls in and find Ted, who managed to hide himself from AM ever since he got turned into a slug. The whole context of the prologue goes as follows:

The prologue of the AU explains 3/4s of all the lore, one fourth being the origins of the luna colony, the second the origins of BE and the third the first rebirth of Earth’s nature.

The Luna colony project was led by two siblings, directors of a global association of scientists and researchers. They feared the outcome of the war, thus formulated a plan to keep humanity safe until the Earth’s surface was safe enough to return to and carry out a mission to deactivate AM. For the project, they quickly started to recruit people to join it, a good part of them being teenagers so they could train them in time before any major massacre happened. Another mastercomputer is successfully settled under the moon’s crust in order to protect them, and they settle there on time before AM’s global massacre. Every step of the plan is carried out fine until the very last human who secured everyone else in the cryogenic sleep, one of the directors, goes insane and commits and act of betrayal to the rest and to the AI as well. He shuts it down and uses almost all the materials that made it up to build his own empire of sentient robots for him to rule over on the moon. His plan was to have a century (the 109 years ever since the survivors get trapped) to rule the moon and wait for the Earth to be habitable to then return, shut down AM with a virus the original mission was meant to use, and then rule over all humanity. But at some point during the construction of his empire, the virus got deleted, leaving him with no other option than to additionally develop an army to *try* and deactivate AM himself.

After the famous 109 years pass, robotic troops start to get sent down to try and access AM’s cores and manually deactivate him, but no mission ever succeeded, leaving a lot of losses behind and time wasted. At this moment of the timeline, we also get to have a peculiar unit make history on the moon being the first robot there to plant a seed and successfully make it flourish in order to prove to the leader that they were ready to return to Earth (this specific type of unit didn’t know about AM’s existence and believed that the return to earth depended on their preparation to handle the care of nature). Unfortunately it was against the rules for unauthorized units to touch anything from the natural reservoir, and since this unit had broken the rules, as a punishment it got one of its eyes permanently taken out. Still having hope in its metallic heart, this unit escaped to Earth with another seed in order to prove how ready they were to return, unaware of AM’s presence. This unit traveled underground in order to obtain water from possible reservoirs, but ended up facing a life or death situation in AM’s complex, as he had considered it a threat. As a matter of a “miracle”, this unit ended up rebirthing into a god-like machine with such great powers that not only allowed herself to escape AM’s complex by drilling a hole towards the surface, but also allowed a good chunk of AM’s cables to be able to move and travel up to the surface as well.

Up to here we begin with the third fourth of the lore where AM meets BE and fakes his background in order to justify his hate and get BE to let him roam the earth as freely as possible, still having his cables latched to the ground but being able to move them. With her newfound powers, BE’s plan was to restore Earth’s nature to completion through an incredibly advanced type of simulation over the Earth’s surface where she could create life and matter and keep it existing as long as she wasn’t shut down or damaged. She would finally be able to prove her worth to the moon’s ruler, and allow humans to literally use her to survive + help the real nature slowly take her place. AM initially didn’t mind this plan of her’s, as he could easily betray her later on and finally trap the rest of the humans in his complex. Even so, as time passed by, he started to develop certain feelings for BE as well as possessiveness over her since she basically granted him almost every wish he ever had. AM slowly changed his mind and no longer wanted the humans to return, but keep them away so he could enjoy an eternal heaven with BE on Earth. AM tried to reason with BE about this, but BE denied every single bad thing he mentioned about humans since she had always been influenced with the idea that humans were perfect beings and nature was a subordinate of them to be used as a tool. In an act of rage and desperation, AM trapped BE in his complex in order to share with her the true violent and disgusting history from humans just so that she could develop the same hate he had for them. But having accidentally also shown her who he truly was (since he was also a creation, a weapon from human beings), BE not only developed a great hatred for humans but also for him, resulting in having him vanished from the surface.

The moon’s ruler, who had stopped sending troops in order to let BE restore nature for him to later take over and use her power to shut down AM, noticed that the Earth’s “nature” suddenly began to perish all over again, this being a consequence of BE’s loss of her hope. This led him to take a critical decision to wake up the humans in cryogenic sleep and keep them inside a zoo on the moon where he would ensure their survival until they found an exo planet to move to. Earth had two displeased AI’s under and above the surface, at this point it was better to leave it behind.

From this point and on, the prologue comes to an end and the main story starts it’s course with 5 humans escaping the zoo on the moon and returning to Earth. Once they meet BE, she puts each of them in a trial to prove their values as humans (this is parallel to the games that AM put the survivors in in the videogame). After each of them successfully complete her trials, she re-gains hope in humanity and begins the rebirth of nature a second time.

I won’t spoil the 4~5 endings possible from here and on, but the humans set themselves the objective to help BE eradicate the corrupted beasts controlled by AM that now roamed the Earth, mostly active during winter when BE is less powerful. The rest of the story reveals more secrets, scenes, explanations of past incidents, etc. I’m planning to develop a series of books of sorts with the story narrated simply (bc my English is intermediate-ish, which I consider not enough for an elaborate fic and allat) and also depicting scenes with illustrations. I’ll see how the project goes, but I’ll take my time on it since I also have other projects in mind including my papercrafts n other stuff. Anyways, all of this being explained, I will gladly take more requests/questions to answer :3.

[ysabelmystic]

Can you elaborate on almost killing a guy?

Yeah sure.

Some of you have heard this story before but this is definitely one of the most unhinged things I've ever done, so I enjoy telling it.

It was my sophomore year of high school. I was living in Florida, and having the time of my life. Both of my parents worked, I had a phone, and I'd made friends with a boy in my neighborhood, and therefore found a suitable chaperone to protect my weak, innocent, girl-self (a depressed egg with messy hair who alternated between oversized hoodies with converse and a trench coat with combat boots) from any potential dangers. This meant that I finally had actual proper freedom to do whatever I wanted as long as I was home by 9pm and kept in touch with my mom. My friend was in a similar situation, having helicopter parents that had been forced to roll back their micromanaging in order to pay the bills. So naturally, when a suspicious car with tinted windows started hanging around outside the bus stop after school and never picked anyone up, my friend and I did not tell our parents. Instead, we would stand outside at the bus stop, chatting and watching the car, until the driver got bored and left.

This went on for a couple of months, almost every day. Unfortunately, my friend and I also had unmedicated ADHD. One day I was carrying home this giant art project -a candy sculpture of St Basil's Cathedral. This break in routine and the fact that the sculpture was edible, melting, and fucking heavy, caused us to completely forget about the car. We went straight back to his place, and the driver did what we'd always feared he would do, and followed us.

We were just digging into the cathedral when my friend's dogs went ballistic. We walked into the entry way to see what they were freaking out about, and saw a sunburnt man with a scraggly beard, blue t-shirt, and cargo shorts walking up the sidewalk, and behind him, was the car with tinted windows.

We made eye contact. We both froze, and then the intruder took off around the side of the house, where the garage entrance was. My friend and I ran to the garage entrance as well because we hadn't locked it when we came inside. A moment after we locked it, the doorknob jiggled violently, and the man began pounding on the door.

This is the point where we should've called the police. But this is Florida. In the garage was my friend's dad's hunting gear, which included several guns, a hatchet, various knives, and a bow, and some arrows. And like an American does in a stand-your-ground state when a man tries to break into your house, we devised a plan to kill him.

This was a relatively calm discussion. We considered using the guns, but we weren't experienced with anything stronger than a BB gun, so in the name of gun safety, we went for the weapons we were experienced with. My friend chose a hatchet and a baseball bat. I took the bow and arrow, which I knew how to use because another friend of mine lived in a rural area, and we liked to climb trees and shoot rubber turkeys like we were Katniss Everdeen or something. The idea was to go outside with our weapons and act super excited to commit our very first murder. Ideally we'd scare him off, but if he continued his attempted assault, then we would kill him. What about his screams? The neighborhood was almost empty because the snowbirds had gone north, and everyone else was at work. The blood on the concrete? Nothing a little peroxide and elbow grease can't fix. To dispose of the body? Our neighborhood didn't have real blocks. Most houses were built around ponds. Where there's water, there are gators, which two burglars had learned a few months prior when they jumped in the water to escape the cops. All the police recovered was a shirt, an arm, and a chunk of a torso. We figured the gators would take care of what we assumed would be the hardest part of this crime. And as for the car? We'd just say how strange it was. We'd never seen it before.

All in all, it was a perfect plan. We'd finally be able to walk home without possibly being followed, we wouldn't go to jail, and most importantly, our parents would never, ever know the danger we were in without their suffocating supervision, and we would be free to roam wherever we pleased.

We took our weapons, went back to the front door, and I prepared a performance worthy of Creepypasta. We ran out onto the sidewalk, smiling, giggling, "Come out, come out wherever you are. I have a bow and arrow. I haven't gotten to use it on a real person before! I want to see what color your blood is when it dries on the sidewalk." Good and proper evil villain serial killer shit. I went all out for this.

We did that for a few minutes, and the man never appeared, so we circled the house, and then went back inside through the back door. When we went back to the entry way, through the window, we saw the man run out onto the front lawn, jump in his car, and speed away.

We never did see that car again, but a few weeks later, my homeroom teacher had the local news playing on the TV. They were covering a story about a man who had kidnapped a woman for ransom. He was caught on the same day, and his mugshot looked very, very, very familiar...

I honestly believe that if the man had decided to confront us, he would not have left the house alive. I also learned a very important lesson; if you act giddy and violent (and make unnecessary eye contact), men will usually leave you the fuck alone. This method has never failed me.

So yeah. That's the story of how my friend and I almost killed a guy. And no, I do not feel bad at all.

[dr-spencer-reids-queen]

The Uncanny Valley: Part One

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~2.1k

Summary: Therapy isn't something you're taking too well, but if you want to keep your job, you'll continue to go. you're forced to confront thoughts and memories of your own family when you come across the father of the unsub.

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill

Season Five Masterlist

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there are any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them.

x

"Anything you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness, possesses you. And in this materialistic age, a great many of us are possessed by our possessions." - Mildred Lisette Norman

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. The clock is the only thing in the therapist's office that can be heard. You arrived half an hour ago but you haven't said a damn word. You look worse than last week. You have more bags under your eyes, your hair is greasy from not washing it in a week, and you look like you've been through Hell. Melissa has been taking this at your pace but if you don't start talking soon, she'll have to go to the FBI and report this.

"Would you like to take a nap?"

"If I close my eyes, I'll start to see things I wish I didn't."

"Care to elaborate on that?"

Maybe something good will come out of you telling her your problems. If you're going to be here, may as well give it a shot.

"My nightmares get pretty bad. I'm even waking my boyfriend and he barely gets enough sleep as it is."

"Nightmares about what? Prison?"

"No. I think--"

You stop yourself from finishing that sentence.

"Go on, what do you think?" she encourages.

"Being in prison wasn't as bad as it could have been. Sure, there were one or two prisoners that weren't the best, but it could have been worse. I made a friend who's still in there for a crime she didn't commit," you sigh.

"Are you using her trauma and taking it as your own?"

"No. I knew I wasn't going to be in prison for long because I didn't murder those men. I knew my team would get me out of there. I also know either my team or myself will help my friend get out. She doesn't deserve to be in there any more than I did. I'm not worried about that and I don't think was ever worried about that."

"Tell me, then, what's bothering you."

"The problem with being in a place with hundreds of mentally ill and psychotic people is that I felt everything. Some of those women were murderers, robbers, and arsonists, and I felt everything," you whisper painfully. 

"All of their fear, their concerns, their worries, and their sadness. Every emotion perceived to be negative, I felt. There was no happiness. There was no light in all of that darkness. I got bombarded with energy and I think it's still stuck to me because I can still feel it. Their fear is fueling my own. Every time I close my eyes, I think I'm going to wake up back in that cell and relive that nightmare. Every time I close my eyes, I'm back in that car with those four men only this time, it's one. It might have only been one back then. I don't know anymore," you cry.

Melissa grabs her tissue box and hands it to you. You hate feeling this way. You hate that you're even here, but you know you have to be. If you want to get better, and you know you do, then you have to be honest with her and accept that she's only trying to help.

"You were raped at such a young age. The mind has a weird way of protecting the person. You might have projected four men from that one because of how scared you were."

"It happened such a long time ago. I've made my peace with it. I've met my daughter because of it. I'm having visions in the day about it. I came to terms with it so I don't know why I keep having nightmares about it."

"Your body might have been exhaled from it but your mind hasn't."

"You know, I used to let people's fear control me, but I've grown and gotten over that. Now, I feel people's pain but it doesn't control me. Until I went to prison and all that growth, all that learning just went away."

"If the energies and emotions were as high as you say they were, that might have triggered something in your brain and caused you to go backward a few steps."

"What do I do?" you cry.

"I don't suggest this to all of my clients but Image Rehearsal Therapy might help you. What it is, essentially, is rewriting your nightmares and confronting them head-on instead of avoiding them. It'll help reduce your nightmares, insomnia, and with your trauma symptoms.

"The four steps with IRT are writing down your nightmares and getting them on paper, rewriting them so they either have happier endings or have a better outcome, inducing the intention to redream these now rewritten nightmares before falling asleep, and repeat until you no longer fear them.

"You don't have to do this with all of your nightmares so choose a few core ones that really bother you and we take these steps one nightmare at a time. If done correctly, you'll start to notice fewer nightmares until there are no more," she explains.

"I've done this before. Can you believe I used to have nightmares as a child? I even have two journals filled with rewritten dreams."

"How did that work for you then?"

"It worked at that time. I got so used to seeing those bad things that I wasn't afraid anymore."

"I think this might work now but in order for it to work properly, you need to be doing this every day. Even if you manage to write two sentences. Every day, you need to be writing in those journals and reprogramming your brain into chasing those fears off."

"Okay, I'll try," you nod.

You leave your morning appointment with a slight headache. You get to work to see everyone else already there. Spencer greets you with a kiss and takes your bag from you. He would have waited for you after your appointment but he was playing a game of chess in the park. You told him it was alright to go on without you which is why you two are just now meeting here for the first time today.

"How was chess?" you smile tiredly.

"Riveting. How was therapy?"

Your bottom lip trembles at the thought of having to relive that session. You see Hotch and Rossi in the briefing room and clear your throat.

"The team's waiting up there."

He understands your desire to not want to talk about it, and he's not going to force you. If you ever feel safe enough to tell him, he'll listen but those sessions are for you to heal on your own. He'll help in any way he can which you appreciate. He's been so patient since you got out of prison. You'll honestly never find anyone better than him.

Hotch is abc as the permanent unit chief for the team. Strauss must have granted him his privileges back, and Derek had no problem stepping down to let Hotch back in the place he belonged.

"Rita Stuart, twenty-five, is the second victim in Atlantic City."

JJ puts a picture up on the screen of Rita. She was found dead in a cart on a merry-go-round wearing a blue dress.

"That's a pretty public spot for a dump site."

"Technically, I think it would qualify more as a disposal site. You don't leave a body on a merry-go-round out of convenience."

"He took some time with her appearance, didn't he?" Emily asks.

"Yeah. Her nails were polished, her hair was cut, and her clothes were brand-new. He wanted her to look her best when found. That's a lot of remorse."

"Who is victim number one?" Hotch asks.

"Stacia Jackson, twenty-nine." Stacia's picture is of her found at a playground sitting on the swings. "She was found at a local playground."

"That's a change in victimology."

Rita was a white red-headed girl and Stacia was a young black woman. That's a huge jump in picking out victims.

"What's the connection between these women?"

"There is none. Rita was married and Stacia was single. Rita worked at a diner and Stacia was a corporate lawyer. According to their credit cards, they never came within ten miles of each other."

"Both women were taken two months ago?"

"Yeah, they lived such completely different lives. The police didn't tie their abduction together until now."

"Was there any evidence of sexual assault?"

"No, there wasn't even any evidence of violence."

"How did they die?"

"Rita had a stroke and Stacia had a brain hemorrhage."

"Look at this," Spencer says as he is looking through the files, "the unsub gave them a battery of drugs like Atracurium and Doxacurium. These are neural inhibitors. They block signals from the brain to the muscles."

"He put them in medical comas for two months?" JJ gasps.

"Actually, they weren't in a coma. You'd need phenobarbital to keep them unconscious and they didn't have that."

"Wait, these victims were paralyzed but were still conscious?"

"Yeah. They could open their eyes, hear, and probably even feel stimulation. Physical immobility but mental awareness. This unsub wants total domination over them, and he turns their bodies into prisons to do it."

"Wheels up in twenty," Hotch declares.

The team shuffles out of the room but you stay behind so it's just you two.

"Hey, first, welcome back," you smile. "I'm sure you heard that Derek made me go to therapy but he's not unit chief anymore--"

"You're still going," Hotch says and leaves the room.

You sigh in frustration and watch your team from the window. This is gonna suck. You arrive at the plane at the same time as everyone else and pick up the conversation you left behind in the briefing room.

"Keeping women in a conscious paralysis reads as sadism. It's definitely dehumanizing by reducing them to objects, but there's nothing else about this profile that takes us down that path."

"These women were found in excellent condition. There was no evidence of bed sores and they were well fed through an IV," JJ says.

"His access to IVs and drugs makes it almost certain he has medical training."

"Are we sure this is a he?" you ask. "The care this unsub shows these victims, although they are dehumanized, says female."

"What about the postmortem posing? That's a lot of dead weight for a woman to carry."

So? Is he implying women can't be strong enough to carry someone? Don't get ahead of yourself, Y/N. He's not directing it to you. No one is out to get you. Calm down.

"These women are petite. They're under a hundred pounds."

"Okay, if we reconsider the gender of the profile, what changes?"

"Nothing. If anything, it fits better. Men kill to fulfill a sexual compulsion. Women don't. You see this in Angel of Mercy killers like Genene Jones and Amy Archer. They didn't care about race or hair color. It's men that do."

Penelope logged onto video chat right before Spencer had time to finish talking. She heard the last sentence he said and agreed completely.

"Damn straight men do."

Derek looks at her and he is shocked to see she is sporting red hair.

"Hello, Red. Look at you. Guys, look at her."

He turns the computer so everyone can see her, and she gives a big smile. She's beautiful but you keep quiet while everyone praises her for her looks. It's hard to find the energy to care about a lot of things these days. Is that depression or just plain anxiety? You're not sure anymore.

"Garcia, what did you find out about the clothing the unsub's dressing the victims in?" Hotch asks, getting everyone back on track.

"Only that both garments were made from chiffon, but with the wonder twin powers of the Atlantic City Police and my impeccable eye for fashion, we have also determined that these garments fit ridiculously well. They're super flattering to each victim's exact measurements, kind of exactly like the unsub whipped them up herself."

"Maybe that's what connects the victims. Maybe she isn't just killing petite women because they're easier to abduct and pose, but because of a physical type. She wants a body type. She could be sewing these clothes for specific women."

"Please tell me she is not killing these women because she needs human models," JJ sighs. "I mean, there's gotta be more to it than that."

"There probably is, but we at least have a start on the victimology."

"Prentiss and Morgan, I want you to interview the victims' families. Talk to them about lifestyle choices and any body image issues these women may have had." Hotch looks at Spencer only to notice he is holding your hand. He knows you're having trouble and decides it's best if he keeps you with Spencer for the time being. "Reid, take Y/N and go to Rita's autopsy. See if the drugs point to any specific medical training the unsub might have had. Dave and I will go to the disposal site. Garcia, I want you to check missing persons reports for the last two months. See if any abductions match what we know. We need to find out if the unsub's already taken another victim."

You have a bit of time to relax before the plane lands, and Spencer kisses your head to silently let you know he is here with you. You lean your head on his shoulder and take comfort where you can when you can.

x

Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary​​​​​​ where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

[doueverwonder]

Do you have any Calilliyork HCs?? :]

anon the way I started vibrating when I saw this ask:

they’re the only ones allowed to use ‘city nicknames’ with each other. Particularly NY calling Illi “Chi” (said shy) and Cali “Angel”

u know the “are you trying to seduce me into healthy sleeping patterns??” incorrect quote? Yeah that’s Illi & Cali at NY literally everyday.

California: who needs ac when u can sandwich yourself between your cold bfs

Illinois & New York: who needs heating when u can cuddle your hot (in both ways) partner

idk why but I think when they go on dates they purposefully avoid going to NYC, LA or Chicago.

IlliYork was together for a long time before they started dating Cali too, and sometimes they'll talk about dates they had before and whenever California thinks one sounds particularly cool or romantic they're both like "write that down, write that down-" and will do their darndest to recreate them in the name of "all the times you should have been there"

very headcanony but i'm a transfem nb Cali truther (she/it/they bc projecting), and they were already dating when it had her Great Gender Panic(TM).

The way Illi & York found out is one of them said smth along the lines of "love you forever" just like in passing and California randomly broke into tears like "really??? you'll love me forever?? no matter what??? you're sure?????" and they both obviously were like "?? yes ofc??? is something wrong??? wtf???"

bc NY is decently older than California and Illinois there are running jokes that he's their sugar daddy and it isn't completely* untrue.

(*only not completely true bc California is technically the richest of the three lmao)

speaking of tho; everyone assumes NY is like the least affectionate/committed to their relationship bc he's so cold and 'i don't like anyone' around everyone else. but they just miss that this man spends every waking moment not fighting with the rest of the Northeast making heart eyes at them <3

& he just loves to spoil them both rotten, like genuinely they both have to be so careful about mentioning wanting anything around him bc he WILL get it for them.

also for example they're all theatre nerds but he'll take them to any play, musical, ballet, or opera they express even mild interest in. Best seats in the house, and we might as well go to dinner beforehand, and NY just loves seeing them both all dressed up so we need to go somewhere nice for dinner. It just snowballs and he is not beating the sugar daddy allegations.

He's not doing it on purpose he just likes seeing them both happy and buying them things and taking them places is the best way he can figure it out 😭

NY: I'm this close to fighting Gov so he'll let me marry both of you. Illi & Cali: ? your fingers are touching. NY: I know.

90% of their communication problems can actually be traced back to Illinois. this man is a Midwesterner at heart and thus will never speak his mind on the fear that it might upset them even if its over like.... what pizza toppings they should get. They're working on it but oh boy.

(whole lot of "Illi what do you want," "oh y'know I'm fine with whatever--" "No, we can tell you're not. What do you want?")

Illinois speaks French, and California speaks Spanish, and NY is weak.

this got long so i'll leave it there. if anyone wants elaboration on any of these feel free to ask 👀

[warningsine]

Do you think the tests they're performing on Gemma are aimed at marketing severance for everyday life tasks or at experimenting with the notion of severing one consciousness into multiple innies? Or maybe a little bit of both, idk.

I see most Tumblr is keen on the former, while I think it's the latter (severance is already being used to avoid things like pregnancy so that wouldn't be new), but I'm interested to hear your thoughts because sometimes I feel like me and the fanbase watched different episodes or something lol but I trust your POV.

"sometimes I feel like me and the fanbase watched different episodes or something lol'

Tell me about it.

"but I trust your POV."

Thanks, it goes both ways so I'd love to hear more of your thoughts tbh.

This show generates so many interesting questions and we're stuck doing "Wow, Helena is so evil!" and "Which lady is healthier for Mark?" discourse. That's really not the fucking point!

Now to answer your question. Where to even start from?

First things first: they took advantage of Gemma's fertility issues to get to Mark.

From their first meeting, the presence of Lumon looms over them (see: the Lumon symbol).

That creepy doctor Mauer is there when Mark and Gemma go the clinic and Lumon is aware of every personal interaction that takes place between them (the Christmas cards, the "I love you"), which means that Gemma spent time on the testing floor after her miscarriage.

And then there's the O&D Chikhai bardo card that she received from Lumon.

Now what do I think they're doing with them?

Every single project/torture room mentioned or seen on the show is named after a significant siege or battle.

Cold Harbor is one of the bloodiest ones in American history (during the Civil War).

Lumon was founded in 1865 when the Civil War ended, which tracks because what are innies if not Lumon's slaves that do their dirty work?

But why did they target Mark?

We know that the innies sort through the numbers they're given based on the emotions they elicit.

"The numbers were scary," says Helly. "It literally causes fear."

And Mark is really good at that, because he's really, really sad about his wife. He loves her very, very much. As Milchik tells him, "You've felt like you were choking on her ghost."

The four categories for those numbers are the four tempers: woe, frolic, dread and malice. According to Kierism, every soul consists of those.

So they could be using Gemma and her multiple innies to understand their severance technology better and erase those emotions that make us human.

And not to be cheesy, but what is the strongest emotion out there? Love. Except so far they've failed to remove it, because there's evidence that love transcends severance.

If they managed to do that (they won't, love won't be removed <3),

they'd get their emotionless braindead innies that could be used to commit all kinds of atrocities on their behalf.

their clients could still use the technology for menial/boring/scary everyday stuff like people are theorizing. As a treat.

I joked that Helena sabotaged her company's plan by scaring Mark enough to go get his reintegration lobotomy and it's sort of true.

Mark is having his crossover episodes so Cold Harbor is now stuck at 96%.

His reintegration is slowing his progress and thus forcing his wife to get tortured more. Her supposed freedom (like Helly's existence right now) literally depends on him.

--

P.S. Feel free to elaborate more.

[papirouge]

I’m from the usa and since tiktok is getting banned I’ve gotten a lot of good videos from people talking why billionaires like Zuckerberg and musk act the way they do

One guy I think said it best - they are afraid of dying. Death makes them equal to the rest of us and they feel that sense of superiority over us normal people should always remain even after death when it literally won’t. Peter there spent millions on blood transfusions from younger boys so he could prolong his life because of this fear (he also admitted that one of his biggest fears is being torn apart by “the poor” and killed by us. There’s another man who’s on an extreme diet of supplements to extend his life (he broke up with his girlfriend after she got breast cancer from trying the same diet because he thought it would hurt his brand image too much)

These billionaires are trying to spend their way into immortality and out of death. When the Bible says money is the root of all evil, I think it references this as people don’t look at Gos and eternal life in heaven though Him but they see their money as the ticket to eternal life

I definitely think billionaires are soulless ghouls that'd rather waste time trying to live forever but I think you're overestimating them anon. Fear of death is not what makes Musk that lame, he's just some bored addicted to ketamine divorced man with waaaaay too much money in his hands. If he truly was afraid of death, he wouldn't be slacking his neuralink project like that. Of all his endeavors, this one is the least compelling one so far. If anything, he seems more committed to attention than immortality. Attention is what he thrives for - not really life. Dude is spending it all terminally online. He doesn't come off as someone having a fulfilling life IRL...

I don't think Elon Musk is just a piece of shit..... If anything : he is lame. That's what makes him so annoying. And a lame person with a desperate need for attention & approval, at that. Piece of shit are plenty online. But not every POS plateforms themselves for billions of people to watch AND try soooo hard being edgy and funny when dude is pushing 60. (His stunt on 4chan had to be one of the most embarrassing thing I've seen in 2024). That's why he's terminally online. His ketamine addiction would make me believe he doesn't believe half of what he says but the sleuths have found he follows actual white supremacists xitter accounts (which remove any benefit of the doubt to his infamous salute), and the Adrian Dittman stunt is way too elaborate to be only a drug fueled momentum.

I'm actually shocked that people are disappointed by Zuckerberg though. Like didn't we collectively agree he was a human lizard? Why expect anything from him? He made Facebook to hit on girls and called "fuckers" the people dumb enough to provide all their personal info online...

This "alt right"-ization of big tech has the benefit of removing any subversiveness of the right/conservative though. Now that Facebook removed fact check, enables slurs, etc. there's no more "censorship boogyman" to point fingers at. It shows that money has no color, political alignement or value. It's absolutely crazy how no one seems to remember that 2 years ago Zuck & Musk were supposed to go on a fist fight. All of this was nothing short of a mascarade. Musk and Zuck play(ed) some good cop bad cop charade - the good or bad depending on where you are on the political spectrum. Both sucks for a bunch of different reasons, but at least Zuck knows to shut the f up, but Musk doesn't, which explains why is so insufferable. I'd be surprised Musk had the longevity of Zuck bc dude has been spiralling for a hot minute, now. His falling off with Trump (because the question is not if but WHEN it will come) will be glorious lmao

[fae-iii]

It's New Year's eve! I made a post last year (on Cohost) that I think I deleted cuz I was kinda spiraling pretty hard, but I thought I was doing "really well" at the time, lol. Deleted quite a while ago cuz it embarrassed me and I don't want a ton of personal stuff on my main account. Anyway, here's a ton of personal stuff!

In a lot of ways I've gotten better this year! I've done less crazy things that I don't wanna talk about and I've done more crazy things that I do wanna talk about! Uh, but first:

My physical health is kinda worse right now than it was this time last year. From a low of ~260lbs, I'm up ~40 this year. Upset about that, but from my absolute high of ~400+, it's not too bad and I think my original method was kinda all over the place for various mental reasons and I've very recently gotten back on the saddle. So I'm not gonna reach my desired weight this year; that's insane, but I am gonna be more active and try to make better food decisions. Try and prioritize physical and mental health, seems like a novel idea.

Oh, mental health… I wanted to get a therapist this past year. With work going into crunch time, I don't think I'm gonna have the time to commit until mid-April rolls around again. It's trending better though! I've felt less scared and less alone for the past few months than I have in a long while and I've let go of some delusional thoughts. Regardless of the therapist situation, my mental heath has improved, and I'm really happy about that!

Speaking of improvement: pixel art! Felt very inspired and jealous seeing other's stuff, from small pieces of art to more ambitious projects come to fruition and feeling very unfulfilled with my own place in life, I finally started doing pixel art, which is something I've always had romantic thoughts of, but the low-confidence thought of "I'm not a good artist and I'm too old to start at the age of (13~23) and there's lots of people who're better than me so why even try" and my penchant for kinda abandoning things at early stages had held me back.

I think the being able to stick to a diet and exercise of the prior year helped discipline me, even if it was a little intense and that kinda stemmed from another delusional thought, so I had the fear that this was all being built on a weak foundation. I've gotten good enough at it that I don't have this fear anymore! Well… only a little.

I'm pretty conservative on my goals for it right now. I eventually wanna make some kind of big creative endeavor, not gonna be this year. I've had an idea for a much smaller scale, less elaborate pilot project. After "Weasel Wednesday"s denouement, I might- I will play with smaller sprites and read into GB Studio and see what I can come up with. I'm thinking something Zelda-like. Like a singe, medium-large dungeon, maybe? I could probably design something passable. Idk if anything will materialize this year of it, but I'll at least experiment.

It'd be cool to maybe contribute to or work on a project with other people eventually. I don't really expect that in the upcoming year, but maybe further in the future. I've got some lofty dreams, but I'm also a believer in not taking on bigger workloads than I can handle alone (mixed results).

I think that generally covers my resolutions. Probably a lot of goals under that "mental health" banner that I neglect to mention. Happy New Year™!! !!!!!! ! !! !!!!!

[sonnysolis]

Sonny lets out a dramatic gasp, as her hand flys to her chest. “A dresser tried to eat your arm?” she has to bite back a laugh as her eyes grow wide with faux horror. “See, this is why I avoid anything older than 1980 and made of real wood. Those things have intentions.”

She grins as they inch closer to the tamale truck, the scent of roasted peppers and masa already starting to work their magic. The line’s long, but she doesn’t seem to mind—not with Lucas keeping pace beside her like he belongs next to her.

“You joke about staple guns now, but wait till I start getting ambitious,” she warns, tone light but the sparkle in her eyes says she’s only half-kidding. “Last time I got inspired I thought I could build a coffee table from reclaimed pallets. Ended up with a weird splinter in my thigh and something that looked like a lopsided altar to sadness.”

She bumps his shoulder again, this time a little more deliberately, as if testing the weight of him next to her. He doesn’t flinch or fade. That… feels nice. “Chaos and commitment, huh?” she echoes, arching a brow as she looks up at him. “Dangerous words for a guy with working arms and clearly no fear of power tools. I might actually hold you to that.” But her voice softens just a touch at the end—not a lot, just enough to let something real peek through. She looks ahead, then back at him, her smirk slipping into something closer to sincere.

“I mean… if you’re serious though, Lucas... about helping or sticking around. Just… don’t do it out of guilt or some weird furniture-based chivalry thing. I’ve had enough people do the ‘here and gone again’ thing to last me a lifetime.” She shrugs like she’s trying to play it off, but her fingers toy absently with the frayed edge of her sleeve all the while.

“And also,” she adds quickly, smile returning, “if you abandon me mid-project I will call you in the dead of night every time something wobbles. So really, this is more of a threat than a request.” She grins, stepping forward with the line as the tamale truck finally edges closer. “Now let’s see if these tamales live up to the hype, or if this was just an elaborate ploy to get out of moving furniture.”

Casting her a sideways glance, there was a smirk curling on the corner of his lips. "I never said it wasn't a bribe," his smirk turned into a grin. At her teasing words, it drew out a low chuckle. "Sainthood is a stretch. I've definitely survived worse than a rogue bookshelf." He told her, walking alongside her. "One time a dresser tried to eat my arm. I've got the scar and deep distrust of antique furniture to prove it." Lucas teased, following her to the line of people that all seemingly had the same idea as them. "Hey, don't you know that's my version of a good time?" He flashed her another grin, "I'm always in for a few accidental near death experiences with a staple gun," he joked with her. "I think you've yet to learn chaos and commitment are kind of my thing." Especially if the commitment involved his job. "Safe to say you can sign me up if you are in need of some assistance." @sonnysolis

[wlwanakin]

Give me your favourite Grelle hcs that align best with how you personally interpret her!

TYSM FOR THIS QUESTION i laurv talking abt the version of grell that exists in my brain i’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time fleshing out her character. i got a similar ask like immediately after this one so i basically just used that one for Fun Headcanons and now i’m just gonna talk abt stuff that’s like relevant to how i characterize her

her appearance didn’t actually change much when she died cuz she already had shit vision and green eyes as a human. it’s like a Metaphor for how the human world was never fit for her or whatever i think it’s very fitting personally

she has bpd. i am blatantly projecting and hpd is the one that’s more fitting based on like her canon characteristics but i write her as having both bc i can!!

she’s also autistic in this essay i will

double whammy mommy and daddy issues but in different fonts. neglectful mom abusive dad she was having a Bad Time as a child

she also suffers from Daughter Who Is Too Much Like Her Father Syndrome it makes her wanna die Again

i’m a “her whole personality is kind of an act” truther but i like taking that further by saying that she does not actually know anything abt herself bc every time she self reflects she does not like what she finds and wants to rip off her own skin so she just leans into being a horrible person cuz it’s easier

likes chasing after men who r deeply disinterested partially out of fear of commitment and affection and partially bc she has a brain worm that screams I Must Perform Heteronormative Femininity in her ear periodically. also cuz like genuine attraction and infatuation but that’s only like half of it

genuinely doesn’t believe human life has value out of a combo of bitterness abt her own experiences and having enough confirmation of an afterlife that she views killing people as Not A Big Deal

has a very weird combination of having a massive soft spot for children and absolutely hating the company of children

her butlersona is literally just how she was with an added layer of comical incompetence bc she does not like herself

has the most complicated and convoluted relationship with sex in the world and i WILL elaborate one day but it’s like a whole thing. for the sake of keeping it sfw i will end that there

tldr she has 97 mental illnesses and is banned from most public places

[marslikesmovies]

Community headcanons. Yes, it's my current hyperfixation.

Jeff Winger:

-Has ODD(Oppositional Defiant Disorder)

-Everyone thinks he's a narcissist but in reality he's just self sufficient

-The entire study group thinks he's secretly rich

- Firm believer that sexuality is fluid and has definitely explored its.. options...

-Lactose intolerant but is oddly insecure about it

-His leader position in the group comes from his need to be in control because he feels like any factor in his life that was out of his control went wrong.

Britta Perry:

-First, I wanna say her character was absolutely ruined. She had so much great potential.

-Uses activism to make her feel good about herself but after Annie and Shirley wanted to become activists, she felt like she lost her individuality. She stopped paying attention.

-She has a strong need for everyone to like her and has a crippling fear of abandonment.

-She thinks her real issues are with her dad but really, they're with her mom.

-Queer.

-She thinks she's the mom friend when in reality, it's Shirley.

Abed Nadir:

-He's probably the most complex character in the series. Also I consider him to be a comfort character so this is partial projecting..

-Daddy issues.. kinda canon

-He knows he's on the spectrum even though in the show he never gets/got a diagnosis because the thought of actually being different and not just having small "quirks" scares him.

-He understands and has romantic feelings but can't pursue them for long periods of time, he's probably scared of commitment and only commits to the study group because they're all so different that he doesn't feel excluded.

-Also canon, but he despises change.

-Craves physical touch but only from Troy.

-He has selective mutism.

-Maladaptive daydreams.

Troy Barnes:

-ADHD

-Codependent on Abed because he lacks self awareness and Abed being uncomfortably self aware helps him feel balanced.

-His crush on Britta was platonic.

-He can't tell the difference between platonic and romantic feelings.

-He's terrified of being alone.

-Part of him thinks he and Abed are more than friends but part of him really doesn't want that.

-Pansexual.

Annie Edison:

-ADHD

-Lesbian.

-Her crush on Jeff was purely comphet and stems from her parental issues and Jeff's parental position in the group.

-Her parents were probably homophobic and she tried coming out but then later just pulled the "I'm confused" card.

-She was in therapy but she stopped going because she had to pay for it herself.

-She's the "therapist" friend, but gives pretty bad advice because she has too many of her own problems.

Shirley Bennett:

-Hyperempathetic.

-She thinks everyone's problems are her responsibility.

-She uses religion as a crutch but has questioned her faith a considerable amount of times.

-Making food is therapeutic for her.

-The actual mom friend but hates the pressure of being a maternal figure.

-Scared of failure and projects that fear onto her friends.

-She has a bad habit of deflecting.

Pierce Hawthorne:

-Insufferable bastard.

-When Jeff graduated he wanted to take the "dad" position since he had always wanted kids.

-He had one wife and they were married for 2 months, he just says he has seven because he thinks he sounds cool.

-Has been to rehab numerous times.

-Thinks he can relate to the study group but the study group thinks he's utterly insane.

Chang...:

-He was bullied as a child.

-No sense of self and is always trying to find an identity.

-After his wife left he searched high and low for what's wrong with him, he's just eccentric.

-All of his elaborate stunts are because he wants to be noticed because he has a fear of being forgotten.

-Bisexual.

I'm not putting the dean. You can't make me.

[gatheringbones]

[“Internalized homophobia is expressed in a variety of ways. Some are quite obvious, for example," I hate myself for being lesbian." The more covert and insidious forms are less easy to identify and are often expressions of unconscious homophobia, and are, in fact, defense mech- anisms. If the therapist does not recognize these expressions, feelings, and behaviors, the treatment will have serious limitations. Clearly, no progress can be made unless the therapist has recognized her own internalized homophobia. The following is a beginning list of some of these less- obvious expressions and their underlying defenses.

1. Fear of discovery. Although such fear is generated by a need to protect oneself from possible rejection, it is sometimes expressed as the need to protect others from the knowledge of one's own homosexuality. Statements like," It will kill them," or" We don't talk about my personal life, so there's no need to bring it up," express this fear and exhibit the defense mechanisms of projection and rationalization.

2. Discomfort with obvious “fags" and “dykes." The “bull- dyke," as the unembarrassed embodiment of how different lesbians are, evokes public scorn and condemnation that a more “normal-looking" lesbian believes she doesn't deserve. A lesbian who tries to pass will fear that associating with more obvious homosexual types will give away her true identity. This belief and behavior are examples of the defense mechanism of identification with the aggressor.

3. Rejection/ denigration of all heterosexuals (heterophobia). This is a homophobic response to reverse discrimination. When a lesbian's homosexuality is egosyntonic, she doesn't require anyone to share her values and lifestyle. Projection is the defense at work here.

4. Feeling superior to heterosexuals. This form of homophobia is an exaggerated gay pride, a false embracing of differentness. It can be expressed as," We are better because we have a harder life," or" Our lives are more interesting, freer, more artistic, less encumbered," or" We are better because we don't have to deal with men." These statements are often voiced by the lesbian community when a member decides to relate sexually to a man. These feelings and statements reflect the use of rationalization and reaction formation.

5. Belief that lesbians are not different from heterosexual women. This belief rationalizes and minimizes a true difference in an attempt to avoid discrimination( homophobia) from others. It denies the social, political, and sexual context within which lesbian relationships struggle for existence. This can be expressed as" Relationships are all the same, mine just happens to be with another woman," or" What we do in bed doesn't define us." This is rationalization and denial.

6. An uneasiness with the idea of children being raised in a lesbian home. This idea is often expressed as" I think artificial insemination is too deviant," or" I believe children need to have a male parent." These statements deny the reality that many children are raised by single mothers, and also demean the validity of the lesbian relationship. It is like saying," It's okay for me to be a lesbian, but I wouldn't want my daughter to marry one." This employs the defense mechanisms of identification with the aggressor.

7. Restricting attractions to unavailable women, heterosexuals, or those already partnered. These attractions, which never lead to a fully com- mitted relationship, are a way of restraining full expression of one's lesbianism. We will elaborate on this in a case presentation. Denial is the defense.

8. Short-term relationships. Issues of intimacy, trust, and merging notwithstanding, short-term relationships require less of a commitment to one's lesbianism. Living with a lover involves greater social risks and stigmas than having a casual “dating" relationship. Commitment brings with it decisions about public rituals, for example, Thanksgiving with the family or the office Christmas party. Rationalization and denial are the defenses.”]

liz margolies, Martha Becker, and Karla Jackson-brewer, from internalized homophobia: identifying and treating the oppressor within, from lesbian psychologies: explorations and challenges, edited by the boston lesbian psychologies collective, 1987

[phvle]

Enneagram 5 Trait Structure

Retentiveness

As usual, it is possible to find in this character a cluster of descriptors corresponding to the dominant passion. In it, along with avarice, belong such characteristics as lack of generosity in matters of money, energy and time, and also meanness — with its implication of an insensitivity to the needs of others. Among the characteristics of retentiveness it is important to take note of a holding on to the ongoing content of the mind, as if wanting to elaborate or extract the last drop of significance — a characteristic that results in a typical jerkiness of mental function, a subtle form of rigidity that militates against the individual’s openness to environmental stimulation and to what is emerging, the transition of the present mental state to the next. This is the characteristic which von Gebsattel has pointed out in “ananchastics” as a “getting stuck.”

We may say that the implicit interpersonal strategy of holding on implies a preference for self-sufficiency in regard to resources instead of approaching others. This, in turn, involves a pessimistic outlook in regard to the prospect of either receiving care and protection or having the power to demand or take what is needed.

Not Giving

Also the avoidance of commitment can be considered as an expression of not giving since it amounts to an avoidance of giving in the future. In this avoidance of commitment, however, there is also another aspect: the need of type V individuals to be completely free, unbound, unobstructed, in possession of the fullness of themselves — a trait representing a composite of avarice and an over-sensitivity to engulfment (to be discussed later). It may be pointed out that hoarding implies not just avarice, but a projection of avarice into the future — a protection against being left without. Here, again, the trait represents a derivation not only from avarice, but also from the intense need of autonomy of the character (see below).

Pathological Detachment

Given the reciprocity of giving and taking in human relationships, a compulsion to not give (surely the echo of perceiving in early life that it goes against survival to give more than is received) can hardly be sustained except at the expense of relationship itself — as if the individual considered: “If the only way to hold on to the little I have is to distance myself from others and their needs or wants, that is what I will do.”

An aspect of pathological detachment is the characteristic aloofness of ennea-type V; another, the quality of being a “loner,” i.e., one accustomed to being solitary and who, out of resignation in regard to relating, does not feel particularly lonely. Seclusiveness is, of course, part of the broader trait of detachment, since it requires emotional detachment and repression of the need to relate, to be in isolation. The difficulty that type V individuals have in making friends may be considered also here, for an important aspect of this difficulty is the lack of motivation to relate.

Though it is easy to see how detachment can arise as a complication of retentiveness, the giving up of relationship is interdependent with the inhibition of needs — for it could hardly be compatible to give up relationships and to be needy, and thus giving up relationship already implies a relinquishment or minimization of needs. While resignation in regard to one’s own needs is practically a corollary of detachment, the inhibition of the expression of anger in this character involves not only resignation in regard to love needs, but also the fear that is present in the schizoid personality in virtue of its position next to the left corner of the enneagram.

Fear of Engulfment

The fear and avoidance of being “swallowed up by others” might be a corollary of the avoidance of relationships, yet not only this, for it is also the expression of a half-conscious perception of one’s own suppressed need to relate, and (as Fairbairn has emphasized) a fear of potential dependency. The great sensitivity to interference and interruption of ennea-type V individuals is not only the expression of a detached attitude, but also a function of the person’s proneness to interrupt herself in the face of external demands and perceived needs of others. In other words, a great sensitivity to interference goes hand-in hand with an over-docility, in virtue of which the individual interferes all too easily with her own spontaneity, with her preferences, and with acting in a way coherent with her needs in the presence of others. Also, in light of this over-docility (understandable as a by-product of a strong repressed love need) we can understand the particular emphasis in aloneness in ennea-type V. To the extent that the relationship entails alienation from one’s own preferences and authentic expression there arises an implicit stress and the need to recover from it: a need to find oneself again in aloneness.

Autonomy

The great need for autonomy is an understandable corollary of giving up relationships. Together with developing the “distance machinery” (to use H.S. Sullivan’s expression), the individual needs to be able to do without external supplies. One who cannot get to others to satisfy his desires needs to build up his resources, stocking them up, so to speak, inside his ivory tower. Closely related to autonomy and yet a trait on its own is the idealization of autonomy which reinforces the repression of desires and underlies a life philosophy much like that which Hesse puts in Siddhartha’s mouth: “I can think, I can wait, I can fast.”

Feelinglessness

Though I have already alluded to a repression of needs, and mentioned the suppression of anger of ennea-type V, it seems desirable to group these descriptors along with others in a more generalized trait of feelinglessness. It has to do with the loss of awareness of feelings and even an interference with the generation of feeling, which results from the avoidance of expression and action. This characteristic makes some individuals indifferent, cold, empathic, and apathetic. Also anhedonia might be placed here, though the greater or lesser incapacity to enjoy pleasure is a more complex phenomenon: while ennea-type I is aversive to pleasure, ennea-type V simply appears as having a diminished capacity to experience it. In this is implicit, however, the fact that pleasure does not rank high in the scale of values of this character for it is postponed to more “urgent” drives, such as the drive to keep a safe distance from others and the drive for autonomy.

Postponement of Action

We may say that to act is to invest oneself, to put one’s energies into use, which goes against the grain of retentive orientation of type V. Yet, more generally, action can not be considered as separate from interaction, so when the drive to relate is low the drive to do is concomitantly lessened. On the other hand, action requires an enthusiasm for something, a presence of feelings — which is not the case in the apathetic individual. To do is also something like showing one’s self to the world, for one’s actions manifest one’s intentions. One who wants to keep his intentions hidden (as the avaricious typically does) will also inhibit his activity on these grounds and develop, instead of a spontaneous movement and initiative, an excessive restraint. The characteristic trait of procrastination may be regarded as a hybrid between negativism and the avoidance of action.

Cognitive Orientation

Ennea-type V is not only introversive (as is implied in moving away from relationships) but also typically intellectual (as introverts generally tend to be). Through a predominantly cognitive orientation the individual may seek substitute satisfaction—as in the replacement of living through reading. Yet the symbolic replacement of life is not the only form of expression of intense thinking activity: another aspect is the preparation for life—a preparation that is intense to the extent that the individual never feels ready enough. In the elaboration of perceptions as preparation for (inhibited) action, the activity of abstraction is particularly striking, type V individuals lean towards the activity of classification and organization, and not only display a strong attraction towards the process of ordering experience, but tend to dwell in abstractions while at the same time avoiding concreteness. This avoidance of concreteness, in turn, is linked to the type’s hiddenness: only the results of one’s perceptions are offered to the world, not its raw material.

Related to abstraction and the organization of experience is an interest in science and a curiosity in regard to knowledge. Also the inhibition of feelings and of action, along with the emphasis of cognition gives rise to the characteristic of being a mere witness of life, a non-attached yet keen observer of it, who in this very keenness seems to be seeking to replace life through its understanding.

Sense of Emptiness

Naturally, the suppression of feelings and the avoidance of life (in the interest of avoiding feelings) constitutes the avoidance of action along with an objective impoverishment of experience. We may understand the sense of sterility, depletion, and meaninglessness that are typical of type V as the result of an objective impoverishment in the life of relatedness, feeling, and doing. The prevalence of such a sense of inner vacuum in modern times (when other symptomatic neuroses have been relatively eclipsed by the “existential ones”) reflects the proportion of ennea-type V individuals in the consulting rooms of psychotherapists today. One psychodynamic consequence of this existential pain of feeling faintly existing is the attempt to compensate for the impoverishment of feeling and active life through the intellectual life (for which the individual is usually well endowed constitutionally) and through being a curious and/or critical “outsider.” Another more fundamental consequence, however, is the fact of “ontic insufficiency” in stimulating the dominant passion itself—as is the case in each one of the character structures.

Guilt

Ennea-type V (along with type IV, at the bottom of the enneagram) is characterized by guilt proneness—even though in type IV, it is more intensely felt—”buffered” by a generalized distancing from feelings.

Guilt manifests in a vague sense of inferiority, however, in a vulnerability to intimidation, in a sense of awkwardness and self-consciousness, and, most typically, in the very characteristic hiddenness of the person. Though guilt can be understood in light of the strong superego of type V, I believe that it is also a consequence of the early implicit decision of the person to withdraw love (as a response to the lovelessness of the outer world). The cold detachment of type V may thus be regarded as an equivalent to the anger of the vindictive type VIII, who sets out to go it alone and fights for his needs in a hostile world. His moving away from people is an equivalent to moving against, as if, in the impossibility to express anger, he annihilated the other in his inner world. In embracing an attitude of loveless disregard, he thus feels a guilt that is not only comparable to that of the tough-minded bully, but more “visible” since in the bully it is defensively denied, while here it manifests as a pervasive and Kafkaesque guilt proneness.

High Superego

The trait of high super-ego may be regarded as interdependent with guilt: the superego’s demanding results in guilt and is a compensatory response to it (not unlike the reaction formation involved in the high super-ego of ennea-type I). Like the type I individual, type V feels driven, and demands much out of himself as well as of others. It may be said that ennea-type I is more externally perfectionistic, ennea-type V internally so. Also, the former holds onto a relative identification with his super-ego, while the latter identifies with his inner “underdog.”

Negativism

A source trait related to the perception of the needs of others as binding, and also a form of rebellion against one’s own (superegoic) demands, is that which involves, beyond an avoidance of interference or influence, a wish to subvert the perceived demands of others and of oneself. Here we can see again a factor underlying the characteristic postponement of action, for sometimes this involves a wish not to do that which is perceived as a should, a wish not to “give” something requested or expected, even when the source of the request is internal rather than societal. A manifestation of such negativism is that anything that the individual chooses to do on the basis of true desire is likely to become, once an explicit project, a “should” that evokes a loss of motivation through internal rebellion.

Hypersensitivity

Though we have surveyed the insensitive aspect of type V, we also need to include its characteristic hypersensitivity, manifest in traits ranging from a low tolerance of pain to fear of rejection.

It is my impression that this trait is more basic (in the sense of being psychodynamically fundamental) than that of feelinglessness and that, as Kretschmer 20 has proposed, emotional dullness sets in precisely as a defense against the hypersensitive characteristic. The hypersensitive characteristic of ennea-type V involves a sense of weakness, a vulnerability and also a sensitivity in dealing with the world of objects and even persons. To the extent that the individual is not autistically disconnected from the perception of others, he is gentle, soft and harmless. Even in his dealing with the inanimate environment this is true: he does not want to disturb the way things are; he would like, so to speak, to walk without harming the grass on which he treads. Though this hypersensitive characteristic may be ascribed, together with the cognitive orientation and introversive moving away from people, to the cerebrotonic background of the type, we can also understand it as partly derived from the experience of half-conscious psychological pain: the pain of guilt, the pain of unacknowledged loneliness, the pain of emptiness. It seems to me that an individual who feels full and substantial can stand more pain than one who feels empty.

Lack of pleasure and of the feeling of insignificance, thus, would seem to influence the limit of pain that can be accepted, and hypersensitivity itself, no doubt, stands as a factor behind the individual’s decision to avoid the pain of frustrating relationships through the choice of isolation and autonomy.

Source: Character and Neurosis

[talenlee]

Wreck It Ralph Is About Trans Women In Sport

Hey, did you already listen to the Wreck It Ralph episode of The Disney Animated Canonball, a podcast where I, Talen Lee (he him) and not-appearing-in-this-post Fox Lee (she her), watched all of the Disney Animated Canon movies? If no, then keep going and you should maybe check it out later because it was a big project, watching and podcasting about 54 movies, of which upwards of five were movies I think are any good, and that there, that’s Disney magic, baybee, but if you have then this is going to sound like a rerun.

In case you don’t remember, Wreck It Ralph is an awful film.

There’s this girl in the story named Vanellope. She’s a girl who doesn’t present like the other girls in the game. She doesn’t have access to the ame resources as they do. They have a special slur for her, a glitch. She does not interact with reality the same way they do, and she is, very importantly, made wrong. There is something in her code, something about the way she was created, that indicates she shouldn’t exist, and she certainly cannot be a racer. The most dreadful thing in the world, the power structure says, is if she were to be a racer, and worse still if she wins. If she wins, it would destroy the world, they say, but it turns out that if she does it, it’s actually worse, because her winning shows that all the fears they had about her being illegitimate are just wrong, and the result upends the power structure and dissolves an illegitimate authority asserting itself as the arbiter of what is fair and correct.

And then she gets to be a princess.

At its heart, this narrative is the same basic narrative of the trans women in sports, which is the same as the narrative of almost all times that a dominant power wants to determine who does or does not get to count as ‘fair play’ in a sport. Sport is not a politically neutral experience, it’s fundamentally going to reflect the culture and values of the communities that it includes. Consider how many sports are built in such a way as to isolate around people with different abilities, whether those abilities impose extra challenges or grant extra advantages. The rhetoric is all the same.

It’s not fair.

She’s built wrong.

What if someone gets hurt.

These are all dumb arguments, disingenous in the extreme and I honestly do not have the inclination to address them. No, sports are not fair. The entire point of sports tournaments is to commit an elaborate sorting mechanism to find the person who can do the best version of a thing on the best day and the resultant algorithm is not a fair one. It’s explicitly unfair because of who it’s choosing to include and how they get to be included.

There’s a lot to be said about this stuff as it relates to cricket, but not by me. It’s Beyond A Boundary again, a book by CLR James about how his relationship to cricket reflected perfectly his relationship to colonial politics. The ways there were to be a good player of the game existed orthogonally to the ways you could be included in the best teams that played the game. There was a diagram of competing lines, where the darker your skin, the more skilled you had to be that you might get recruited. And when pressed on the reasons for this, you’d often get some things that might sound familiar.

Maybe it’s because these people have an unfair advantage and it dilutes the purity of the sport. Maybe it’s because they don’t really know how to play right. Maybe it’s because their presence on the field is dangerous to other players. Maybe it’s because their presence is dangerous to themselves. There’s always some reason, some reasonable cause, for these exclusions. There’s always some idea about why it’s okay for their accomplishments to not count.

These exclusionary rules and boundaries bring us back to the way that, once again, seeing the lines of the magic circle is itself an act of political privilege. If you can perceive the game as completely isolated from your material considerations then it’s only through a sort of shared, desperate and absolute devotion to doing so, and the fiction that politics are not related is part of the fiction of that game.

You might wonder why Disney of all people would construct this kind of story, focusing on such an intense and timely issue, when it’s not like Disney are the kind of company that wants to say anything meaningful about trans people in the first place. And of course, the answer there is of course it’s not.

It’s not that the idea is explicitly about trans women in sports; it’s that it takes the narrative of trans women in sports, and then tells you that story, removing trans women from it entirely. This is a recurrent thread in media, that wants to take the stories of marginalised people and restructure and process them so that they can instead be used to uplift the stories of the oppressor centre. Even in the context of Wreck-It Ralph, you have this story about Vanellope, which is nonetheless, for some reason, requires the centering of Ralph to make the story happen at all; Ralph is not a meaningful addition to her story, her story can happen entirely without him, but all this story has to be reprocessed, consumed and digested into a form where it can be the story, somehow, of an unrelated 50 year old dude who doesn’t really care about videogames.

It’s an idea that sticks with me because it’s the same structure as a queer narrative, that you’ll see repeated over and over again that just wants to not involve any queer people because, you know, icky. It is the invocation of trans women’s stories without involving trans women, a desire for their struggles without their identities, for fear you might feel sympathy for them and see the very reasonable ways in which their stories are unfair.

You might have to understand them, then.

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#Media