#THE MISCHARACTERISATION goes CRAZY

[kavehater]

Can I speak my truth 😓 all these alhaitham simps he would not like you all 😰

[lokativa]

People calling Hobie×Miles (punkflower) shippers proshippers as if we didn't ship them for longer than the movie even came out will always be crazy to me.

I've seen lots of people sending threats, or reporting people because they made punkflower, goldenflower (pavxhobie), ghostbyte (gwenxmargo), flowerbyte (margoxmiles), etc, arts or videos. Going to assume that it isn't because most of these ships are POCs ships, there's just literally no point to do that.

First of all, there's no confirmation of hobie's age. If ur basing urself of that one interview, then it was of the CONCEPT of hobie, and even so remember it was only one person who said it. Its heavily implied thats he's a teenager throughout the movie. (Also in the art book, its said that he's slightly older than Miles).

For the thing about him going to the pub and all, minors can and will go in pubs, (not saying that its always legal) are yall living under a rock or just dense on purpose? Teenagers do wtv the fuck they want, even when theyre not allowed to. Youre all going to tell me teenagers respect the rules of not drinking and go to clubs becuz theyre underage? Come off it. Also hobie literally merked his president and u think he'd draw the line at drinking alcohol as a minor? HA.

Aside from that, to be fair to everyone, the directors keeps on changing what they're saying about hobies age, one day they'll say and imply he's a minor and the next second say he's an adult. It's like they all have different idea of this character's age. So, nothing is really comfimed, and his age is really up to interpretation.

Now that we're past THAT point, the other kind of people talking about his age are people saying "oh but he looks old" "that man is most definitely 30yo" "there's no way he's underage" things of the sort, u get it. And I'm just over here like??? Why is it impossible for you to think that this guy could be a teen? Is it the air? The wrinkles? What makes it seem like for you that there's no way he could be around the other teens' age? And 30??? Cmon. People often assume black people are older than they look, which is a universal experience for all of us. Did none of u ever see a blk teen who doesnt have a baby face? Because thats literally what hobie looks like to me. To others we can seem too "mature" for our age, or just look too "old" to be the age we say we are, so is it really impossible for him to be a teenager? Think about it.

(Speaking of him being black, this discourse turned into some kind of racist thing that honestly was not unexpected at all. Yall come over here shitting on people talking and educating u about a character they relate to cuz hes like them, and the representation is making them go bonkers. I don't know why yall can just sit ur arses and listen for a bit, its not that difficult tbh. And dont get me started on the mischaracterisation of his character. Marking him as "an angry black man"? Really? Be. Fucking. Original.)

Same goes with Margo?? Yeah in the comics she's in college, but cmon now u guys know damn well she's a teenager in atsv😭. Gwen is also much older in the comics but i never see anyone talk about it, so what does that mean???The only reasons I can see that you all don't want Miles & margo to be together is because you're all stuck on the milesxgwen ship. News everyone, other ships exist, not everyone is going to like the same ships as you, so either move on or stop being on the Internet.

Also, the thing about pav being 13 is bonkers, where'd u even get that from? I need to know asap. "Oh, but he has a gf!" Yeah? Well he has two hands. (Idk why u all act as if that has ever stopped anyone)

Everything just seem like a race thing to me tbh.

The movies might be inspired from the comics, but not everything is going to be 100% the same. For exemple: gwen is 2 yrs older than Miles in the comics, but in movies she's only 15 months older, Jess Drew is white in the comics and black in the movie, Miguel O'hara is white passing in the comics, compared to his version in atsv where he has brown skin, lyla's disign is also different.

You get it? Things are going to differ as much as things are going to be the same, because (get ready!!) this is the multiverse! Just as earth-616 is just one universe in all the marvel comics, atsv is another universe.

All in all, im not saying u can't view them as adults, or wtv u want, thats ur interpretation, but don't go around being pissy at people around u cuz they have different point of views.

[hartleyscoat]

Mischaracterisation in the Until Dawn fandom goes crazy omg 🫢

[nvuy]

how do you write and characterize characters so well? do u have any advice for a newer writer on the platform :)

i like to picture fictional characters i write for as real people, and real people do things that fictional characters do not.

for example: people get distracted, people stammer and stutter, people have tells for certain things, people have habits, ways of speech, etc etc.

i think what helped me figure this out is that i’m an avid people watcher because i’m insanely introverted, so to curate that, i put it in what i do.

take an unrealistically perfect green flag of a character by example: kaedehara kazuha.

traits in game: can wax poetry for three hours straight with no breaks, great hair, very kind and compassionate, patient, etc.

now, if you stand back and slap a fat REALISM sticker on his forehead, you get: can wax poetry for three hours for sure but will mess up the further along he gets as even his improv skills aren’t perfect, kind and compassionate to those that return the favour and is actually rather sceptical of everyone he meets (being a wanted criminal), cannot sit in one place for so long unless he’s completely distracted with another task (music, poetry, meditation)… list goes on.

if you take what he already has and spin it to something more accurate to what it would be like if he was real, it becomes a bit easier. that way, the characterisation sounds better because he’s a much more believable character, even if in reality the characterisation is complete dog water.

it’s how to make yourself sound smart when you’re really not, and it’s how i get around writing smart characters, though i do tend to avoid them. you won’t see as much dr ratio on my dash because i have no idea how to sound smart in my works without smashing a bit of his character down to get my point across.

bottom line is: if you can’t tell it’s blatant mischaracterisation, then most likely it isn’t. you can have spouts of it, sure, because nobody is perfect, but if the overall character still shines, then you’re fine.

the example that comes from this is: i don’t think sunday is a huge controlling manipulative dom in bed but some people do, and that’s totally fine. i write him the opposite way. same character, two completely different characteristics, and they both work.

that being said, don’t be afraid to rip a character from THEIR comfort zone. don’t be afraid to change them — i like to read crazy scenarios where, canonically, the character in question wouldn’t ever find themselves in.

but again, that comes down to making them realistic (adding TO traits that they already have) and then spinning them just enough not to break, but to push the limits of what they can do.

it’s just playing with barbie dolls. you can twist her limbs off, cut her hair, take her face off, completely destroy it, but it’s still a barbie doll. do whatever you want as long as you have fun.

[honeyydrunk]

I NEED SOMEONE'S OPINION !! i'm going to write a satosugu fic, but i have two options of the fic and since i'm REALLY busy, i can't do both. so can someone please 🙏 help me decide which to invest my energy on?

just dm me w a request or anything !!

option 1: bittersweet a slightly angsty 'confession on the tip of your tongue but never said'. very canon compliant bc i really love writing as cc as i can and there is something about ooc i despise. i'll write like cute pre plasma arc slice of life scenes ofc. but smth about a symbolic bittersweet 'i love you' but never said is so appealing. i want to write something so horrifically bittersweet you don't know whether to HATE me or not.

i'm the strongest after all, is it wrong i'm hurt by the fact that a goal you'll never achieve was more important to you than me. be lucky that my love for you is more than my want. you knew i never cared about jujutsu society or for the weak. but i'll never tell you that you were all that mattered. as i saw you standing there like you never cared i realised i prefer cherishing my memories of you than to risk ruining them for you

after all, i'm the strongest

option 2: cute high school fall in love okay the plasma vessel arc will happen, but instead of it all going wrong and sour (i'm still killing that girl) they continue on with their days but eventually there's a confession. they talk things out? i get to finally say how IDIOTIC geto's whole ideology is because i've got annoyances for days.

i perhaps just want to use every trope i get my grimy long fingers on and yank it in there because i'm nasty like that idk 🤷‍♂️ (ex: 5 + 1 things, they end up at the gojo mansion for no reason at one point, "cherry flavoured. want to taste?", basketball but there's flirting, gojo wearing crazy outfits for attention, truth or dare,)

love makes you do crazy things. he used to be the easiest person to be around. but gradually, without me noticing, it's no longer comfortable. wanting him to like me, no longer not even thinking about it because i knew he did. is he tolerating me now because we"re friends or now i'm wondering if he's even friends with me because he likes me or because i'm 'the strongest'? whatever that's meant to mean.

"hey what would you do if i said i love you?"

my final opinion:

this was originally going to be a kfc breakup but gojo tweaks out and goes "nah uh". because i couldn't actually fathom how someone how went crazy insane when dealing with toji round 2 just let geto go like that. but what changed my mind was that if i was gojo, i would've acted the exact same way he did. so i was going to write the bittersweet one showcasing what gojo wanted to do, but never ended up doing. however then i thought about the fact that i was him, i would've badly confessed during high school.

i'm also REAL sick of people mischaracterising the both of them. getting this close 🤏 to making a whole new post about how i think the should be characterised and why everyone should follow suit with my opinion.

(if this whole post looks messy it's because it is. i wrote this with no editing no proofread just whatever i managed to somehow manifest. i'm actually listening to she a wolf by wayv and growling like taeyong did in the tiger inside superm)

(did you know i know like japanese to a certain level?) (i watched jjk in sub)

[brighteststar707]

🧩 and 🧃 for the ask game maybe? 👀👉👈 And as a bonus question: how was your day today? <3 (Or if it's morning how was your last day hehe)

Hi Mia! It feels like forever since we've spoken, I hope you're doing well. Summer is coming to an end, and hopefully this heat will finally leave us (I hope it's not still a problem where you are!)

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

I'm both extremely picky and extremely not picky when it comes to the kinds of fic I read. I often read fics from fandoms I'm not even in just for the story/ skill of the writer.

Something that will immediately make me click off is bad grammar/spelling. It takes me out of the story every time (doesn't help that now that I teach English my radar for mistakes has gone up).

Another thing that makes me click off quickly is mischaracterisation. This goes especially for Saeyoung fics. He's such a complex character with so many sides to him, it's really hard to get into a fic that paints him as a goofy character with nothing else.

That being said, I love reading fics from people who have differing headcanons from me. Often times they pick up on different character traits than I have or read into certain lines in a different way and I love to see the different things we can glean from the same text.

🧃 ⇢ share some personal lore you never posted about before

I used to play the piano for a few years, though I had a chronic problem of memorising the notes instead of reading that drove my teacher crazy. In the end, I never got very far, though I sometimes miss it and wish to go back to it. Who knows? Maybe in time I will.

I also tried to write novels on two seperate occasions as a child (and had whole series planned out). I wrote on notebooks that I still have stowed somewhere. It's very funny to think back to what I was planning with them.

As for my day! I got back from a road trip early this morning so I mostly slept and rested today. I'm staying at my family home for a few days which is really nice, I've missed my old room and space. The highlight was a few hours ago when it was pelting rain, it's been so long since I've seen a storm.

How has your day been, Mia? And, how would you answer these questions (if you wish to answer them, of course!)

ask game

[mihai-florescu]

Uhm I guess I have been thinking about this for a while and could use an opinion, but like during an event there would be someone who goes “XYZ event sucks and stuff” so you kinda press on seeing their opinion, only to realise they haven’t read it at all, the whole time their opinions have been based on that one line.However that one line completely mischaracterises the character and stuff. So I have been thinking is it right to judge the story or completely ignore the story because of that one line. I get that’s it’s because like XYZ character has been screwed up but at the same time it’s just one line , and one’s opinion on a story shouldn’t be based off one line. it’s the whole book your supposed to look at not a single line of dialogue. I don’t know if this is a stupid take so please correct me if I have made a gigantic mistake

Im not exactly sure what the problem is, i dont see what the stupid take can be, youre just saying very common sense things... i'd always recommend reading the story for yourself? I get that discussing it with people is fun but lately i've really been more and more put off by the thought of interacting with a fandom cuz i simply dont trust most people to have the same willingness to analyze why something might've been written. Plus the game of telephone where ppl think they know what's going on in a story from one out of context screenshot is crazy (there's an instance im thinking about with an izumi story rn...eye twitch). I dont think completely ignoring the whole story because of a line is the way to go, even with the worst of the worst you can still sit with it and analyze why you disliked it. Or why that line was said: was it really just random, or was it reflecting a seemingly contradictory duality the character has? Was it there to convey a message? What was that message? How does it connect to what the others were saying? Etcetc. It's so easy to take the doylist perspective but the watsonian one is more rewarding and fun (well, neither should be discarded, but the doylist one shouldnt be the first and only one used)

The only thing i ever hope for is that people dont just make up their opinions from what theyve heard from other people, and actually look into it themselves. The only other thing i hope for is to distance oneself from the concept of a great fandom with its mainstream fanon thoughts if you want to stay true and untainted. I made this sound more serious than it probably is but also it's life or death serious. To me. Also good morning, if anything sounds off i had another vivid, long and stressful dream im still recovering from. If youd want to talk, as always my dms are also open; ive not been the biggest fan of answering asks for quite some time now, i dont know why they can take up so much energy from me. I think a dialogue in dms where you can also give me more concrete examples and we can discuss them case by case would be more productive than me just yapping about my views unsure of who im talking to exactly. Not that i dont like a monologue, but it's scary when it should be a dialogue yet im talking to a veiled ghost in the form of an anon ask instead:(

[foodiepoll]

SEQUEL TIME!

Hey gang! I had a lot of fun running this poll, so I'm opening submissions for a second run of it!

SUBMISSION RULES:

There's an option to vote for an IRL joke option, but other than that, please keep it to fictional characters

Make as many submissions as you like, but spamming the same character will not help their chances. This is more vibe-based than number based.

With very few exceptions, no one who was in the first tournament will be in the second tournament, the exceptions being:

Sanji (i forgot to tag one piece in his poll and i felt bad)

Tsukutabe girlies (i made a solemn yuri vow)

and thats it :) thats eeeverything no one else from the first tournament gets in :) i prommy

Sequel poll submissions here!

This will be open until I have enough contestants, so in the mean time, I'll be doing a bit of a mini tournament, but it's uh. a bit weird to explain.

So. You know when a character says they have a favourite food and the fanbase goes nuts over it? You can't escape art, fic, etc making your blorbo obsessed with this one food? I present you with a question:

WHO GETS MISCHARACTERISED THE WORST OVER IT?

Have you being driven insane over hope bagels and pancakes??? Submission form here!

(no set end date, and no real rules. if they are obsessed with a certain food in canon, you can also submit that, but times when the fandom blew it up and got crazy annoying about it is preferred)

[thatstheproblemwithnapkinman]

ok very quickly

in the main continuity as of the current timeline (just roll with it) there have been 5 or 6 robins depending on who you count plus other bats, currently there are 2 using the robin name

1. dick grayson, the first robin and gave the role the name, parents murdered at the circus and became bruce waynes ward, was robin for about a decade before getting fired by batman and is now nightwing, an incredibly important character for dc as a whole. in fanon he's the flippy bimbo one (*cries at the mischaracterisation*)

2. jason todd, was taken in by bruce after stealing the wheels off the batmobile (like straight after he fired dick) and was robin for around 3 years before he was lured into a warehouse, beaten to almost death by a crowbar, and then blown up, all by the joker. he came back as the red hood years later after some timeline and reality shit caused him to come back to life and he’s sort of a part time vigilante and part time crime lord, more towards vigilante these days. in fanon he's the angry *tries to murder tim* one (also just no)

note under jason, the lazarus pit did not bring him back to life, he came back bc of the reality shit with superboy and was put in the pit by talia al ghul a good bit after he came back. he also doesn’t really get the green over his eyes and the whole pit controlling him thing.

3. tim drake, was robin then not robin then robin again then red robin currently robin again. i know, nice and confusing, i will explain more in the next 2. he convinced batman to take him on as robin after jason’s death, he also figured out bruce wayne was batman, dick grayson was robin 1 and jason todd was robin 2. in fanon he's the sleep-deprived coffee addict one (still a big nope)

tim often goes by red robin in fanfics bc a) it's easier for hi to have a different name to the other robin and he has been red robin before, and b) wayne family adventures

4. stephanie brown, the forgotten robin. she is the daughter of clue master and the first robin to be her own vigilante before taking up the role, spoiler, when tim drake’s father made him quit and some things happened and she didn’t it to prove to herself and tim that she could. she got fired pretty quick and has been spoiler and a batgirl. in fanon she's the bimbo *not surprised is she isn't mentioned* one (also the girl one)

she is sometimes portrayed as a bimbo which is kinda rude to her as a blonde woman bc she is also super smart but because she is more comedic and quippy, she gets belittled to being a dumb blonde (similar to dick tbh)

5. damian wayne, tHe BlOoD sOn, long story but he’s real and bruce’s biological kid. raised in the league of assassins and had to learn to be less violent and also not kill anyone when he moved, he’s doing better now, also currently robin. in fanon he's the stabby *loves animals more than people* one (ok yeah that's pretty similar to canon, he is still mischaracterised but *shrugs*) EDIT: damian took over from tim forcing him to be red robin until recently when he went off to be with the teen titans and tim took over being robin for batman

6. duke thomas, not a robin under batman but was a robin during the we are robin movement and so some people do include him in the list. metahuman with light-based shit that i am not qualified to talk about as i’m only just starting to read his character but he is awesome and also just as batshit mental as the rest of them and is signal. he is the also forgotten *not as crazy as the others* one (just nope this dude risked his life and saved loads of people specifically during the robin war event with no powers and no suit and is wild he's great)

also need mentioning is cassandra cain aka either orphan, black bat, or batgirl depending on the writer, has her disability constantly mischaracterised but is a badass and is just so cool and i’m also starting to read more of her. in fanon she's the mute and uses sign language one (not how her disability works tho, it's a developmental disability as she never learned who to read or write or talk so she struggled to actually find the words which is something that sign language doesn't help with. she is not mute in the comics and has been learning how to read and talk and is almost at the same level as everyone else now)

and barbara gordon aka the original batgirl and now oracle or sometimes batgirl she is amazing, she got shot and more by the joker which paralysed her and she became the eyes and ears of the bats and then most of the hero world, has had experimental surgery and braces so she can walk again and currently in the comics acts as both batgirl and oracle. she is actually not done too badly in fanon bc she's just that awesome, she is often still wheelchair bound bc fanon isn't scared to show that physically disabled people are also badass

other potential figures that are less part of the family but still feature sometimes that i don’t know a lot about (i am reading up on them more)

- kate kane aka batwoman

- harper row aka bluebird

- luke fox aka batwing

and theres still more than hopefully other people elaborate on but there’s a super quick overview :)

oh and on the dying note, they have all died and come back, have fun with that

i want so badly to understand the batman lore because i want to read the fan fiction and actually know who’s talking but there’s just.

so.

many.

people.

why are there so many robins? from what i’ve gathered i think one of them died, came back to life, and isn’t TECHNICALLY a robin anymore but kind of sort of still is? i have that one narrowed down to being either nightwing or red hood, but i DONT KNOW because i’m trying to keep track of another two dozen children whose hero names are just variations of Robin.

there’s also someone named Signal who can maybe i think see ghosts or something? who is he? where did he come from? was he also a robin?

i just need like a google doc or something with summaries of who everybody is, with personalities and generally agreed upon fanon descriptions, along with WHO IS CURRENTLY OR USED TO BE A ROBIN. (WHY ARE THERE SO MANY OF THEM)

[hostilemuppet]

okay so I’ve never seen HTF but I want to know who all the characters are cuz they seem cool and also I wanna know which ones you’re talking about. and I think it’d be fun to ask you that. so like, feel free to ignore this if you don’t want to, but here is an excuse to infodump about every HTF character and who they are and what they do

you dont know how much this ask means to me. i will be dumping all my thoughts about the characters (not all of them just the ones i think about the most) under the cut so im not ruining everyones day. some of the things might not necessarily be """"true"""" but are extrapolated from what IS true and there hasnt been an episode since 2016 so it basically belongs to the fans now sorry graff if only you accepted flakys gender

cuddles! semi-official mascot of the show. star of a fall out boy music video. hes rowdy and reckless and likes to pull pranks and be a general nuisance, but is still really cute so its hard to stay mad at him. usually either seen with toothy (best friend) or giggles (sometimes girlfriend sometimes friend).

giggles! referred to in out-of-show texts as "shy and sweet" but is one of the more sociable characters, being the go to girl for when the writers need to write a romance. has been romantically involved with cuddles, russell, flippy, the mole and cro marmot. she also swoons over splendid a few times. bc of this shes typically characterised as being boy crazy, if not slutshaming her which is an INSANE thing to do to a pastel pink chipmunk. she also cares a lot about protecting the environment and loves animals! shes a sweetie. when not treated as "token female character for a romance plot" shes usually with cuddles or petunia (her best friend)

toothy! imma be real with you. he does NOT have a personality. the tv series was mostly dedicated to fleshing characters out and giving them a personality (since thats hard to do in 2 minute shorts) and he is the ONLY character that didnt get a starring role. bc of this he tends to be mostly ignored by the fandom (he can be drawn next to cuddles and thats it) and i personally like to take his "lack of personality" to mean hes just. a normal guy. hes got a 401k he doesnt have time for all this death and dismemberment. hes also canonically had plastic surgery on his tail. is usually seen with cuddles or sniffles.

flaky! technically one of the most popular characters but is insanely mischaracterised to the point its basically a different character. was originally designed to be a male character but is generally accepted as a female one, the creators still have mixed opinions on it so id say their gender is ????????. is sporty, collects baseball cards, doesnt take care of their personal hygiene as well as they should, is allergic to peanuts. is a COWARD, theyre the only one who acknowledges how dangerous the world they live in is. they are one of the few characters to kill flippy bc they are terrified of him and their fight or flight instinct is unusually strong. typically seen with cuddles bc cuddles is brave and flaky is a coward.

nutty! you can tell from his design but this fellas obsessed with candy and all things sugar! seeking out sweets and treats is usually his downfall. in the episode false alarm its actually treated as an addiction he gets help for, and then immediately replaces with an addiction to video games. hes a gamer! but he goes back to normal by the end of the episode bc its a cartoon. in sucker for love he gets so into his obsession with sweets he fantasises about falling in love with various confectioneries. he gets a box of chocolates pregnant. yes i have to live with this every single day of my life. is usually seen with sniffles.

handy! as you can probably tell he is one of my ultra faves. hes a handyman / carpenter / architect / whatever the episode calls for that has had both arms amputated, either by the wrist or elbow depending on the episode but i go by elbow. hes a dude with a 'tude, except the 'tude is justified bc everyone in town is an asshole towards him and his disability. is probably THE most unlucky character in the show bc even when he doesnt die (or his death isnt the focus and happens briefly off screen) bad things still happen to him (in double whammy flippy offers him a foam finger, in see ya later elevator he asks them to hold the door of the lift for him but they let it close on him, in a change of heart he dies off screen before the episode even starts so they can have a heart donor and he is the ONLY PERSON TO DIE in the whole episode 😭 do you know how rare that is???). dislikes basically everyone around him bc they are, as i mentioned, assholes, and rarely cares when others get hurt or die (he even laughs when cuddles loses both of his arms in the wrong side of the tracks) but the two people he likes are petunia (his girlfriend) and the mole (his best friend, was his roommate in one episode). is usually seen with mole or lumpy.

the mole! or just mole in later episodes (they dropped the "the" fsr). hes a blind mole with a mole on his face who used (currently is? i usually see it as a past thing but theres no way to really know tbh) to be a spy, so. triple mole! you love to see it. is also blind, bc yk hes a mole, and is frequently given hobbies or activities that require. vision. usually has very little problem unless the episode calls for something funny to happen. is responsible for a lot of peoples deaths and while its generally accepted he cant tell whats going around him, in wipe out he knows his actions caused handy pain and he does his best to fix it, so he DOES know when hes hurting people but just doesnt care unless its someone he cares about. sadistic king what a legend we LOVE a lack of empathy this is why hes handys bestie. is usually seen with handy or lumpy.

petunia! shes a skunk with very VERRRRRRY bad ocd, hence the air freshener around her neck and the flower on her head; she wants to be clean and smell sweet or she freaks out! her starring ep of the tv series wishy washy was all about her ocd being triggered and her having a real bad time about it and as someone with ocd it is GREAT. idc if "ocd haver freaking out about germs" is """"problematic"""" she is just like me fr. shes also the only character on the show to commit suicide and bc of that the latter half of wishy washy is the only episode mondo do not have on their yt channel! she does it like no other. but she is very nice, and she was the first to reach out to lammy when she moved in (even tho it didnt end well for anyone involved). is usually seen with giggles bc as much as it pains me to say it sometimes the show sees her as nothing more than "girl #2" so shes paired with girl #1, but other than giggles she is seen with a lot of different characters a couple times each so when you think about it shes got a wide social circle you go girl

[unillustratedadventures]

Stuck between Bombs and Love Bombs: How Splitting and Projection Got You Here

In the first part of this video, Sacha Slone talks about how the idealisation phase continues to haunt the targets of narcissistic abuse, after they have been discarded. To oversimplify, targets continue to experience cognitive dissonance after the discard, and thereby recapitulate the intermittent reinforcement that bonds them to their abusers. They are denied any understanding or closure, or else there is just no satisfactory explanation for how they were treated. As a consequence, they can’t reconcile the dream with the nightmare. They can’t reconcile the fact that they were idealised, and the way their abusers behaved during the idealisation phase (the love-bombing, future faking, extremely positive proclamations and promises) with the fact that they were devalued and discarded, and the way their abusers behaved during the devaluation and discard phases (the viciousness, hostility, contempt, indifference). The narcissistic abuser’s abrupt shifts between idealisation and devaluation are instances of splitting. Splitting, in turn, often involves psychological projection.

In this connection, the second part of the video covers splitting and projection, along with projective identification. These are unconscious defense mechanisms that typically underlie narcissistically abusive behaviour. Much narcissistically abusive behaviour can be explained by the assumption that these defense mechanisms are amplified, rigidified, and more regularly employed within the narcissistic abuser, as well as by the fact that the abuser is either unwilling or unable to subject the products of these unconscious processes to timely self-reflection.

I think it is especially important that the mechanism of projective identification is more widely understood, even though it is the more complicated of the three mechanisms discussed. (Projective identification is discussed by Rune Fardal at the end of the video.) If there’s a most helpful defense mechanism to learn about when it comes to explaining narcissistically abusive behaviour (and especially covertly abusive behaviour), then that mechanism is projective identification. The abuses that are explained by projective identification are among the most mind-fucking and crazy-making of the lot. Accordingly, even just knowing that this mechanism exists is a huge help, when it comes to dissolving some of the toxic mess that remains after the discard.

Understanding projective identification is important even for those who’ve not been narcissistically abused. As Fardal points out, abuses that are driven by projective identification are covert and difficult to expose. However, already knowing about projective identification increases the likelihood of exposing the true nature of such abuses. Projective identification, as well as any abuse that it underlies, basically amounts to a form of unconscious blame-shifting. The interpersonal dynamics of projective identification make it difficult to recognise that a person is being emotionally manipulated and abused in this way. Moreover, the widespread failure to understand these dynamics makes victim-blaming far more likely. For this reason, the wider understanding of projective identification is incredibly important. The majority of chronic emotional abusers have cluster B personality disorders (narcissism, psychopathy, borderline personality, or histrionic personality), and projective identification is responsible for so much of the toxic behaviours of these abusers. It follows that much of the abuse that is occurring around us goes unnoticed, or else is misidentified or mischaracterised in a way that condemns and further traumatises the targets of this abuse.

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On Paranoia and Projection

Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. Or so the platitude goes. Of course, there’s a reason that this platitude is recited almost exclusively by the paranoid. It betrays the sort of uncritical, dichotomous thinking that so often goes along with paranoia. Specifically, it presupposes that a thought is only bad if it’s false—and, conversely, that all it takes for a paranoid thought to be good is for it to be true.

But thoughts can also be good or bad for another reason. They can be good or bad with respect to the thinker’s justification for them, or with respect to her evidence for their truth, regardless of whether they are in fact true.

It just so happens that paranoid thoughts are usually bad in the former way—i.e., bad insofar as they are false. For this reason, crticisms of paranoia correlate with the falsity of paranoid thoughts, and so they can look very much as though they are criticisms of this falsity. But the fact that paranoid thoughts tend to be false is only a byproduct of what makes them paranoid; it is secondary to the definitive problem with paranoia. By definition, paranoid thoughts are bad with respect to justification. A thought is paranoid only if it is unjustified. Moreover, so long as a thought is unjustified, it can be a paranoid thought—and bad for this reason—even if it happens to be true. In other words, just because they’re out to get you, it doesn’t mean that you have a good reason to think they are. And if you think they’re out to get you without a good reason, then you have a true thought that’s bad in spite of its truth. Paranoia is precisely this badness of thought.

Paranoia often comes from a place that is extremely counter-intuitive. It’s always worth keeping in mind that paranoia might come from this counter-intuitive place. To this end, it’s worth emphasising that paranoid thoughts are quite often psychotic. When a paranoid thought is not just unsupported by one’s evidence for reality but also contrary to this evidence, and when it rigidly persists despite continuing evidence to the contrary, such a thought qualifies as an instance of psychosis. It is a paranoid delusion.

Delusions, or psychotic thoughts, are variously caused. However, one cause that is relatively common—but often counter-intuitive—is psychological projection. When the psychological defences of repression, splitting, and projection are sufficiently inflexible and extreme—as is observed with certain personality disorders—this can give rise to paranoid thoughts and associated behaviours. This doesn’t always look like outright paranoid delusion. In a friend, family member, or romantic partner, it usually manifests as the unpleasant tendency to adopt an accusatory attitude. It can just look as though the person is treating you unfairly, or accusing you without any clear justification, or blaming you for genuine reasons of which you aren’t aware. However, in reality, such a person is projecting her own malice, aggression, self-loathing, bad intentions, or bad deeds onto you, without being fully aware of what she is doing. Projections of this sort are instances of paranoia. After all, the person is believing that someone (you) is out to get her without sufficient evidence, and (usually) in stark contrast to the evidence.

If you don’t know about psychological projection, and you don’t know about the character disturbances that can make it an everyday occurrence for some people, then it’s natural to always give your accuser the benefit of the doubt. It’s natural to try to reassure your accuser, and to defend yourself; to emphasise the contrary evidence that is already available; to point out that you’ve only ever expressed good intentions and never bad; to try to indicate your innocence. However, when projection is responsible for the paranoid thoughts or behaviours, such pro-social and well-intended reactions are bound to fail—at least in the long run. Moreover, when projection is responsible, it is often the case that you are trying to square things with someone who has in fact wronged you twice—once by wronging you somehow in the first place, and once more by keeping this from you and unfairly accusing you of the very same bad deed.

Since you tend to assume that the person has a healthy relationship with the truth, and that the person is not interpersonally exploitative or manipulative, it is natural for you to believe that her accusations are authentic, even though they seem to be extreme or unsupported. But to keep taking this attitude to another person’s projections is rapidly crazy-making. Indeed, whenever gaslighting is not a fully conscious and deliberate attempt to control and pervert a person (as it is with many psychopaths and malignant narcissists), it results from paranoid projections of the sort that I’ve been describing, combined with the target’s good will and willingness to please.

So, if you ever find yourself being accused of something out of the blue, and you’re totally confused about how you gave the wrong impression, or what reason you might have given the person for thinking ill of you—just stop for a second, and take a look at the accuser. Carefully consider the possibility that this person is psychologically projecting, and that this is why her accusations and attributions of blame seem disproportionate, unfair, or unprovoked. Consider that this material might be spewing out, uncontrollably, from something toxic inside the accuser herself.

If the paranoid person is indeed projecting, then, on some level, she is likely to be having exactly the same bad thoughts or intentions about you that she is accusing you of having about her. And she is likely to be wronging you—hurting you, cheating on you, exploiting you, or otherwise thwarting your preferences—in exactly the ways that she is accusing you of wronging her.

E.g., if you’re accused of cheating or playing games out of nowhere, for no sensible reason, then the actual reason might be that the accuser herself is cheating, and is projecting this onto you. Alternatively, perhaps your normal emotional reactions (such as being hurt, feeling jealous, expressing confusion or shock) are mischaracterised as excessive or inappropriate despite their normality. This is a form of gaslighting. The gaslighting veers into paranoia if you are accused of intending to harm or guilt-trip or control the person, simply for reporting such normal emotional responses. All gaslighting of this sort is dangerous and abusive. It is likely due to the fact that the accuser is repressing the relevant feelings in herself, and then projecting her self-loathing for having these feelings onto you. Or it might be that your reactions make her feel guilty or ashamed, and she is projecting her self-loathing about this onto you, in the form of punishment. Another possibility is that you’re accused of being controlling or belittling, simply because you’re asking questions that the accuser doesn’t want to answer (or even reasonably decline to answer), or simply for saying or doing something that the accuser doesn’t like. Here, the accuser is certainly projecting, for this is itself a form of coercive control. To respond in this way is to avoid having a frank and compassionate discussion, and to avoid respecting you as an agent, by the use of coercion and manipulation. I.e., it is to coerce rather than to cooperate and converse. Lastly, if you are baselessly accused of being crazy or of being a narcissist or anything like that, then—especially if the accusation is oddly specific—it could well be informative as to the things that the accuser knows about her own nature, and is projecting onto you.

In ways of this sort, being able to recognise that someone is projecting onto you can provide you with a valuable key to the truth. Such a key isn’t valuable in the way that keys typically are. It’s not going to open a door to some vast warehouse of truths, equally well-stocked, well-lit, and meticulous. Unfortunately, whatever door this key opens, it’s likely that you’re still going to be confused and uncertain. You’re probably going to find yourself searching through piles of junk, in the dark. And because of the way in which the key is forged—because you must fashion it by reverse-engineering the projections of your tormentor—the truths that you find in those junk heaps are going to hurt.

Such a key is still valuable, because it is likely to provide you with your only access to the truth, or at least your only access to certain kinds of truths, however incomplete or ambiguous or hurtful this access might be. It will open up a foggy window, overlooking some concealed information about your tormentor; about the things that she is keeping from you; or the bad things that she thinks about herself; or the bad things that she is doing to you. For a chronic projector, the act of projecting could well be the closest she ever comes to telling the truth for its own sake, without any ulterior motive. It could well be the closest she ever comes to being authentic, or sincere, or telling deep or uncomfortable truths about herself. It’s just that she’s twisted these truths inside out, and is hurling them at you as weapons. She means to penetrate you with them. She wants to open you up. She wants to make you carry their weight instead. All the while, the projector intends to remain closed, unyielding, and invulnerable.

Fuck that. Find the key.

More concretely, when a person seems to be paranoid, or seems to be unjustly accusing you or blaming you for something out of nowhere, it’s always worth considering whether the person is projecting, and thereby inadvertently revealing important truths. This is always worth considering, but don’t over do it. Just because they might be projecting, it doesn’t mean you’re not paranoid.