#a purpose of absolute self-denial & sacrifice

[myfanfictiongarden]

Oh. My. Gods….

The ending to Loki s2 was beyond all measure of epic-ness.

[rxshl]

rational egoism

the principle that an action is rational if and only if it maximizes one's self-interest.

"Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute is self-sacrifice—which means self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial self-destruction—which means the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good. Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether you should or should not give a dime to a beggar. This is not the issue. The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist without giving him that dime. The issue is whether you must keep buying your life, dime by dime, from any beggar who might choose to approach you. The issue is whether the need of others is the first mortgage on your life and the moral purpose of your existence. The issue is whether man is to be regarded as a sacrificial animal. Any man of self-esteem will answer: No. Altruism says: Yes."

*

kindness and altruism are mutually exclusive

kindness is not possible if it's your duty to give away any penny to anyone who might need it.

in this case, you are only giving the beggar his due because altruism would say, it is his right to demand your penny.

[meli-r]

“Did you honestly believe we want laws to be enforced? We want them violated. Innocent men cannot be ruled. The power a government has is to crack down on criminals. But when there are not enough criminals, you create them. You declare so many things a crime that it’s impossible for men to live without breaking the law. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? You gain nothing by that. But you pass the kind of laws that cannot be obeyed, implemented or objectively interpreted, and you create a nation of lawbreakers to exploit the guilt. One way to rule men is through guilt, through what they themselves have accepted as guilt.

“If a man finds money on the street, you can impose on him the punishment prescribed for a bank robber, and he will accept it. He will feel he deserves no better and won’t even think of a second option. If there is not enough guilt, you create it. If a man believes Hobbes' unwarranted hypothesis that no one would honor a commitment in the absence of coercive power and imminent penalties, thus favoring state authority and absolute monarchy, because all men are evil by nature and unfit for freedom, that their basic interests are to steal and murder one another, and that therefore men must be governed by coercion, which must be the exclusive privilege of government, for the purpose of compelling men to work, teaching them to be moral and keeping them within the bounds of order and justice, or that there is no such thing as intellect, for man’s brain is a social product, a sum of influences, since no one invents anything and ideas belong to society, we can do as we please with him. He will not defend himself. He will not feel that he is worth it. He will not fight.

“It's a matter of understanding and ruling the soul of a single man in order to understand and rule the rest. A soul cannot be ruled. It must be broken. Use man against himself. Destroy his ideals and his integrity. Once you learn to pull the lever, the mechanism will work for you and the man will be yours. It has been done for centuries, but no one has ever succeeded in sustaining it in the long run. Even the worst of men yearn for an ideal of their own. Use it against himself. For example, preach selflessness. Tell man he must live for others. That altruism is the ultimate ideal. No one will ever attain it. His instincts fight against it. Can you see what you accomplish by this? Man realizes he is incapable of following his ideal, which gives him a sense of guilt and sin. He eventually gives up all ideals, aspirations, notions of personal value and moral code. Since he cannot practice what he preaches, preserving his corrupted integrity, his soul gives up his self-respect. Then he will gladly obey because he can no longer trust himself.

“Another way is killing men’s capacity to recognize greatness or to achieve it of their own free will. Great men cannot be ruled. But don’t deny greatness or denigrate great men. We need people willing to reach for it and to seek it. As our economists would say—money does not fall from trees, wealth must be produced and what is important is the mind, the creative capacity of men. If these ideas had been implemented in the economy, this country would have gone back to the times of steam locomotives and boilers, and we cannot afford that. After all, the Sibyl System is expensive and difficult to maintain.

“Here is another one. Probably the most important one. Don’t let men be truly happy. Not on their own volition. Happiness makes them free and free people cannot be ruled. We don’t want any free men. Therefore, take from them whatever is dear or important to them. Never let them have what they want. Make them feel that the mere fact of a personal desire is evil. Altruism helps in this. Unhappy men will always come to you for support and escape.

“Go back in history, look at the systems of ethics. Didn’t they preach sacrifice, self-denial? Now look at today’s moral society. Everything enjoyable, from cigarettes and alcohol to sex and ambition, is considered a shameful admission that will eventually cloud your crime coefficient, making you a depraved, sinful, pathetic man. That’s how far we’ve come. We have tied happiness to guilt. Systems that preached sacrifice grew into world powers and ruled millions of men in the past. As will ours. We are kings and prophets all at once. Of course, you must dress it up. You must tell people that they will achieve a superior happiness by giving up everything that makes them happy. Fear is what moves men, what drives them to action. Learn to use it against themselves. Tell them that they must give up their freedom, their sense of morality, for safety.

“Beware of a weapon men have—reason. Take it away. Don’t say it’s evil, but limited. That there is something above it, like instinct, feeling, revelation, Sibyl’s oracle. There is no way to rule a thinking man and we want none of them. However, the brain of an independent man will feel the social pressure and will eventually explode, like deep-sea fish brought to the surface. So much for future Takahashis and Tsunemoris.

“Anyone might say that I am a vicious man, but I am the most selfless yet self-aware person you have probably ever met. I am even less independent than you both. While you always used people for what you could get out of them for yourself, I never wanted something for myself. I always used people for what I can do to them. I never really had a private purpose. I just wanted power. A world of unlimited submission where no one owns their own thoughts and everyone thinks the same as everyone else. A stagnant generation where each one will be exactly like the previous one, not in terms of production and economic development, but culturally, socially and morally.

“Well, that was the system, the game played in the past. We have automated it, but the principle is the same. You two were amateurs while we were going for power and we meant it, and once the inspector understands it, she will be much easier to deal with. Both crime and the Sibyl System are necessary to keep society functioning, in the same way that censorship requires people willing to sell banned books, and peace needs the constant fear of war. Our system is perfect in its imperfection and its adaptation to unforeseen situations. The inspector can help us evolve by recognizing those flaws.”

Kasei Joushuu

[valkerymillenia]

So many people are misunderstanding the whole point of this line. It has become a whole debate and I see the fandom divided about this in all forms of social media.

I keep seeing people whining and saying

"she held a while town hostage! She is bad!"

"but she is a villain! She always has been!"

"she's dangerous! She's destructive!"

"strange didn't mean any harm, she did!"

FINE!

Let's fucking talk about it, shall we?

⬇️

Wanda is not evil, she's not a villain and never was.

She's a highly traumatized person that keeps losing everyone she loves and being placed in extreme pressure situations over and over again and yet still has the moral fiber to try to fight for a greater good.

Yes, she held a town hostage. In Wandavision she had a mental breakdown from the sheer amount of complex trauma and grief she was going through. On top of that she was S.W.O.R.D.s scapegoat and manipulated at every turn by Agatha while she was emotionally vulnerable.

The problem is that she's very powerful and altered reality in an attempt to escape her pain. I do not know a single person that wouldn't do the same thing (escape the pain by changing reality, bringing back lost loved ones) if given the chance, the problem was her execution. That's beside the point though!

The point is she made a mistake and she accepted the blame, she didn't mean harm but she admitted her guilt and suffered for her mistakes, suffered immensely to fix what she did.

"she held a while town hostage! She is bad!", "strange didn't mean any harm, she did!"- she was having a mental breakdown and though she was deluding herself and in denial, she did try to give all her hostages happy lives and spare them pain. Yes, it's absolutely no excuse, but if you're going to say Strange didn't mean any harm, then you have to admit she didn't either.

Wanda was traumatized over and over and over again, she was USED over and over and over again, all she wanted was a moment of happiness. So many other "heroes" have done awful things for so much less and nobody says a thing.

Strange though? He did what he did out of pure hubris.

He knew the possible consequences, he was completely sane, he was warned not to do it, he just wanted to prove he could do it and his only excuse was that he wanted to help a kid with something mundane that he could have helped with in a hundred other ways.

Strange might not be evil but he broke the rules out of arrogance and narcissism.

Sure, Wanda affected people's lives directly while Strange did so indirectly, he didn't target anyone personally. But it's still one town vs the whole world (or more accurately, multiple worlds, even if he didn't know that at the time).

(And, just to be clear let me highlight this again, Wanda had no idea the amount of power she had, she had no idea she could do what she did. Westview was ACCIDENTAL. But Strange in NWH? Absolutely on purpose.)

Wanda is 100% right in saying that it's unfair that he's still treated as a hero while she's seen as an enemy. It's true, it's a fucking double standard.

And another thing!

So many people say she got off easy. EASY.

She had to willingly give up the only people that still loved her.

She had to give up her husband.

She was a mother that had to indirectly kill her own children, whom she loved.

(And she placed herself in self-isolation afterwards.)

How exactly could she have suffered more? Honestly, tell me what's worse than having to sacrifice your own children for a greater good?

You need to have ENORMOUS strength and character to do that, to give up all the happiness you have for the sake of other people, and not truly turn into a villain. A selfish person wouldn't do that!

Stop acting like the death (or "erasure" or whatever you want to call it to sanitize the situation) of literal innocent children isn't important, stop acting like it was deserved, stop acting like it wasn't a punishment for her actions.

"oh but they weren't real, she created them!" - yeah, well, my mom might not have used magic but she created me too. How the kids were born doesn't change how real they are or how much Wanda loved them, stfu!

Meanwhile, there's Strange.

Yes, arguably he tried to clean up his mistake but did he take accountability for that mistake? NO, he blamed a kid, he made Peter pay the consequences of his hubris and got away scotch free and still holding his titles of hero and sorcerer supreme!

(And then he went beg Wanda for help.)

You see, here's the real problem- Wanda IS dangerous, she has A LOT of power. And that generates fear. And fear generates hate.

That's true for the fandom too, not just the characters.

Plus she's a woman, and there's always double standards with women (why is Loki so loved but Wanda so hated?).

TD;LD: Wanda is fucking right.

Wanda is right and you not liking her doesn't make her wrong.

If you're going to treat her as a enemy, then you have to treat him the same way. It's a vicious double standard and the fandom is falling for it the same way the fictional characters are, which is stupid because the fandom has all the information and many are simply choosing not to use critical thinking.

[askmalal]

Is the Emporer an Avatar of yours? Could have fooled me if not.

I apologize to the Little Mortal who wrote this. My mortal scribe dictated my response and posted it... at which point Tumblr promptly buried it somewhere, where even I cannot find it... Perhaps it has gone to the upper heavens, perhaps it has fallen into Oblivion. And perhaps somewhere Nuffle is using it in a poorly constructed craft project.

So, I shall answer again.

I would like very much to answer in the affirmative. The delight I could take in such a thing. The way I would rub it into the faces of my "peers." But no. Unlike others, some of whom use this social media platform, I regret to tell you that I do not take credit for things have not done. That random blog down the street doesn't have its own collection of Gloriana class battleships, the one around the corner written by an "ordinary Imperial Guardsman" never "arm wrestled Ferrus Manus and won," and I regret to say that the Emperor is not mine.

(Scribe notes here that The Dark Father is in a snarky mood today, and apologizes on his behalf...)

The Emperor is, of course, not a being of his own making. A surfeit of the Blessed sacrificed themselves in order to create a being with the foresight to unite humanity and, I am sorry to say, "save the galaxy" from the forces of Chaos.

(Which would be fine, if Khorne and I weren't the only ones who represented marginally chaotic concepts in the modern era. But I digress...)

The point is that the Emperor is who he is entirely as a matter of the sacrifices of others and, subsequently, his arrogant denial of those responsibilities in order to elevate himself to godhead - something that was never intended for him - sort of soured the whole deal. It sounds like a delicious thing to do, destroying the Gods of Order from the inside, and by Ishtar's warm and bouncy boobies I'd love to claim I had something to do with that, but I certainly did not. At least not directly. Perhaps he read something, picked something up.

We did have a meeting at Molech. It was not fruitful.

Fortunately, my meeting with Horus absolutely was....

And then, of course, Horus absolutely cocked that up, too. Because the only one who could be more arrogant than a self-elevated Hittite perpetuual cosplaying as a god would of course be the one among his hundreds of children to demand that he be daddy's favorite.

My gift to the Emperor is not forgotten, however. Khorne gave his sons bloodlust beyond reason. Slaanesh tempted their base nature. Tzeentch gave them a taste for forbidden knowledge. Nurgle violated their purity of purpose.

Mine was nothing so fanciful. But when they were done, all I had to do was to whisper the word "Doubt."

Given the right push, even the most powerful of mortals will destroy themselves. Hell, four of my siblings prove that immortals are just as capable of it.

I thank you for your exceptional question, Little Mortal. And a blessing: you will not be first against the wall when the revolution comes.

-M.

[adifferenttime]

Andrew Ryan vs. Robert House

On almost every House post I make, someone in the notes will reliably reference Andrew Ryan. I totally get it - they look similar, they're based on the same guy, the parallels are so clear that the NV dev team added an achievement for killing House with a golf club - but I think these commonalities tend to engulf both characters, blotting out some of their more interesting ideological/personal differences. It's useful to examine them in relation to one another, but part of that is figuring out what distinguishes them, which is just what I’ve attempted to do.

It's difficult for me to talk about Randian objectivism because I don't think it's sound enough to address on its own terms, but considering this is the philosophy Andrew Ryan has adopted, I kind of have to. What I’d identify as the core premise of Randian ethics is this: altruism is a moral wrong. Some Randians have argued that isn't really what they believe - that the real point is anything resembling altruism is self-interest in disguise - but they're departing from the beliefs of their icon when they make those claims. Per Rand:

The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute is self-sacrifice – which means self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction – which means the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good.

The way Rand defines altruism is by linking it to self-sacrifice, which she uses to differentiate it from kindness or benevolence. Aiding others at no cost to yourself is benevolent, but not altruistic, and therefore not evil. Sacrificing your happiness to help another human being is, from Rand's perspective, evil, as is any philosophy that prioritizes the other at the cost of the self. This whole idea has been broadly rejected by most scholars on account of it being really fucking stupid. What justifies the leap from "man is naturally selfish" to "selfishness is good"? If selfishness is moral, wouldn't the most moral behavior be to exploit others through whatever means necessary, favoring force over the market? Rand defines happiness as "using your mind’s fullest power," achievable only when you "do not consider the pleasure of others as the goal," but why is this the only definition? What if your only options are self-sacrificial in nature? How do you weigh them if neither sacrifice is linked to values, individual achievement, or "your mind's fullest power" at all? Rand didn't care because she was too busy trying to ethically justify cheating on her man with her best friend's husband, but nonetheless, this is the philosophy Andrew Ryan’s adopted. He claims that "Altruism is the root of all Wickedness," in what's almost a direct quote from Rand herself.

To that end, Ryan builds a system that doesn’t just accept selfishness but actively incentivizes it. Every other principle he expresses is subservient to the ideas that selfishness rules man, and that for Ryan to act on his own selfish impulses is the highest good in the world. His lesser political principles (individual liberties, negative rights, the creation of a stateless society) don’t matter to him as much as the central precept from which they stem: that selfishness is his moral imperative.

What is the greatest lie every created? What is the most vicious obscenity ever perpetrated on mankind? Slavery? The Holocaust? Dictatorship? No. It's the tool with which all that wickedness is built: altruism.

It doesn't come as a particular surprise to me when he starts imprisoning dissidents or executing rivals or banning theft (standard practice in most societies, but not what an egoist would pursue; if you can get away with taking it, you deserve to have it, or so the thinking goes). I’ve seen him described as a hypocrite, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true considering everything he does is in line with his opposition to altruism. He'll adhere to his other principles only if they don’t sabotage his pursuit of personal power. This is evident in the fact that he only adopts a negative perception of Fontaine when his own interests are threatened, but doesn’t give two shits what Fontaine might be doing to sow conflict and harm people before that point. A guy named Gregory asks Ryan to step in against Fontaine early on before Fontaine's fully established himself as a threat to Ryan's power, and Ryan's extremely blase about it.

Don't expect me to punish citizens for showing a little initiative. If you don't like what Fontaine is doing, well, I suggest you find a way to offer a better product.

Contrast this with how he reacts when Fontaine has risen as a genuine business rival. This is from the log titled "Fontaine Must Go."

Something must be done about Fontaine. While I was buying buildings and fish futures, he was cornering the market on genotypes and nucleotide sequences. Rapture is transforming before my eyes. The Great Chain is pulling away from me.

This double standard is the natural outgrowth of his prioritization of self-interest. If your most deeply-held belief is that you should never give up your interests for others, ancillary rules become flexible in times of personal crisis, and Bioshock makes the case that putting someone like that in charge of a city will leave you with a crumbling, monstrous ruin.

Superficially, House has some similarities. Ryan executes political rivals; House has you blow up a bunker of his ideological opponents. Ryan is the highest authority in Rapture; House is the absolute monarch of Vegas. Their goals and moral codes, though, are almost diametrically opposed. When you ask House why you’re expected to trust him when he’s openly admitting to installing himself as the despot of the New Vegas Strip, he says this:

I have no interest in abusing others... Nor have I any interest in being worshipped as some kind of machine-god messiah. I am impervious to such corrupting ambitions.

Most of his resources are devoted to large-scale, impersonal projects, aimed either at building the power of Vegas or securing his long term goal of “progress” as he sees it. He’s rejected selfishness as a moral good because House is very far from Randian objectivism. He's a Hobbesian monarch.

In that respect, he shares an outlook on human nature with Ryan that I deeply disagree with (that human beings are essentially selfish), but in terms of what that means for the structure of a utopian society, House takes a very different position. From his perspective, human nature breeds suffering, not industriousness, and the only way to stamp out conflict - and, in a post-nuclear age, ensure the continued survival of the human race - is through a strong sovereign. The purpose of a state as laid out in Leviathan aligns very, very closely with the one House expresses.

...the foresight of their own preservation, and of a more contented life thereby; that is to say, of getting themselves out from that miserable condition of war which is necessarily consequent, as hath been shown, to the natural passions of men...

The monarch's successes are reflected in his society and the well-being of humanity as a whole. To subvert his goals is to subvert society's goals, and to doom humanity to the war, death, and suffering that exist in a state of nature. When you destroy his Securitrons/kill him, he doesn't plead for himself or get offended on his own behalf. He accuses you of betraying not him, but mankind.

Single-handedly, you've brought mankind's best hopes of forward progress crashing down. No punishment would be too severe. Fool... to let... personalities... derail future... of mankind? ...Stupid! Slavery... the future of... mankind? What... have you... done?

An important corollary of this idea which again distinguishes House from Ryan appears in Leviathan’s description of the political/moral responsibility of a monarch to his subjects:

...that great Leviathan, or rather, to speak more reverently, of that mortal god to which we owe, under the immortal God, our peace and defence. For by this authority... he hath the use of so much power that, by terror thereof, he is enabled to form the wills of them all, to peace at home, and mutual aid against their enemies abroad.

Hobbes and House give the monarch virtually unlimited power but match it to the monarch's duty, which he lives to fulfill. His obligation is to speak for the people, act for them, and protect them from all threats, internal and external. House generally abides by this, orienting his decisions around his goals for society irrespective of the personal cost (the negative consequences of his actions are a product of his fucked evaluations of what’s best for society, not personal greed). It’s not just a departure from Ryan’s philosophy but a complete refutation of it. He's almost died for what he's misidentified as the greatest good.

Given that I had to make do with buggy software, the outcome could have been worse. I nearly died as it was…. I spent the next few decades in a veritable coma.

This is not the behavior of an egoist. This is the behavior of an extremely arrogant but marginally altruistic (from a Randian perspective lmao) guy. This is some distorted “from each according to his ability” shit if you’ve managed to convince yourself your abilities exceed those of everyone else who has ever lived and that you can get the Mandate of Heaven by being really good at statistics.

The reason these guys develop such similar structures and hierarchies despite the ideological gulfs between them is because both of them are elitists who’ve experienced a massive failure of self-consciousness. They’re unable to conceive of other people as being fundamentally like them. Ryan separates people into the clearly-delineated classes of “producer” and “parasite,” ignoring the fact that everything he’s ever “produced” was reliant on a huge, coordinated effort between workers, architects, accountants, middlemen, and others, all of whom, in conjunction, contributed more to the realization of his dreams that he ever could have alone. Rather than realizing his own position is more parasitic and reliant on other people’s labor than that of anyone else in Rapture, he adheres to his doctrine of selfishness even when it’s not reflective of reality and is ruining the the lives of an entire city of people. He deludes himself into believing he’s a superman among ants instead of one flawed man who is reliant on the goodwill of others to help him survive, as are we all.

House, too, thinks he’s exceptional. Unlike Ryan, he acknowledges the necessity of the worker to a functioning society, but while he’ll accept his reliance on that labor, he doesn’t trust the laborer enough to share political power. House knows he’s invested in humanity’s survival and the creation of a better world, but he refuses to consider that he might not be alone in this goal. He chalks up the existence of the Legion to fanaticism/the ambitions of a sultanistic dictator and attributes everything the NCR has done to greed, without it ever occurring to him that the massive harm these nations have done was partially motivated by the same goals he’s devoted himself to - and that the atrocities he’s committed since his rise to power are, in some respects, very similar. House knows himself to be invested in the well-being of humanity, but he’s too arrogant to ask himself if his methods are wrong or trust other people to build a new path, one that doesn’t necessitate his complete control over the land and people of the Mojave. Ryan and House’s worldviews are distinct, and their flaws, as highlighted by their respective narratives, say some interesting things about how each set of devs view power and the pitfalls of elitism.

Anyway. If you put these two men in a room, they would probably try to murder each other, and I think that’s great.

[drfitzmonster]

Do you have any headcanons about butch!kara and packing and (more specifically) her relationship with gender

yes i absolutely do, and this is something that is still coalescing in my mind, bc packing and gender stuff is not something i thought about a lot until sort of recently, so it’s still in development i guess

ok so here are just my initial thoughts: kara is sort of in the process of coming into herself and coming to terms with her gender and how she actually desires to express that

i think that the things she's done before to feel more whole and complete have been littler things, or things that are more socially acceptable

like cut her hair short, wearing more masculine style clothes, those are simpler

packing is something that seems different though, and i think she sort of discovers it accidentally, because she allows herself to wear a dick for sex with lena, and she's able to rationalize it bc she's wearing it for someone else's gratification and not so much her own

kara's such a giver that of course she'd have no problem putting on a strap to make lena feel good, but she'd literally never even consider doing it just for herself, but then she gets accidental feelings about it, and that creates a lot of turmoil for her

so she's in denial and wrestling with that, and like how her whole life she's been taught to live for other people, and so it feels selfish to want something just for herself

so i think she gets really sad about it. she strikes me as a person who is used to carrying tremendous burdens bc she feels like that is her purpose (and what good is she if she's not doing for other people), and so this is just another thing she's meant to carry, even though it's like killing her inside

sacrifice is such an intrinsic part of her character, and having an identity built around loss and grief and sacrifice is so damaging to the psyche

she fully intends to just feel incomplete forever, because she feels like she's not allowed to live for herself, but also because she's just scared and doesn't want to lose lena

she’s terrified that lena won’t accept this part of her

and kara is so scared of losing her because lena is the only thing she’s ever felt even a little bit selfish about, it’s the only thing she allows herself 

so losing lena would be losing everything

this breaks kara’s heart, but she wants to protect lena from her sadness and so she tries to hide it, but lena is not someone she's ever been able to hide from

kara is willing to mold herself into whatever shape lena wants, but lena just wants her to be her true self

lena sees kara, and lena helps her see herself for who she really is, and helps her embrace the parts of herself that she's afraid to show anyone

[4thsun]

What connects the Square/”incompatible” signs

Aries and Cancer: Both are extremely caring and loyal to a fault. Even if their ways of nurture sometimes clash, each one of them is someone who would kill for their loved ones and wouldn’t hesitate to fight someone for them. Both of them are leaders, albeit in different ways. The Aries is a stereotypical leader, the strong and loud one of the pack, wanting to protect their people from the front while the Cancer prefers to be in the back and be the glue in their friend circle, being there to care and nurture everyone from the shadows and make sure they feel alright. Also, both can tend to be quite immature, especially emotion wise and can sometimes tend to be selfish when upset.

Taurus and Leo: In my experience, these are actually quite similar signs. Stubborn to a fault, extremely caring and kind, but also the capacity to be cruel and vindictive when angered. Usually self-centered, they can overlook other people’s needs, but not on purpose. They can be labeled as attention seekers, but in truth they are just so eager to share things about their lives to anyone willing to listen and want to make them laugh with their stories. Their kindness is like no other and they are the first to take sacrifices for their friends. But if betrayed, their whole demeanor shifts and they can be petty and aggressive, but only because they cared so much and have an undying loyalty towards the ones they love.

Gemini and Virgo: These two signs are both ruled by Mercury and are the intellectual powerhouses of the zodiac. Their minds are constantly working, constantly fixing things, never at a stop. They can relate to each other’s intellectual and calm approach to everything and how they prefer to show love by either giving advice or doing acts of service for them. Both of them talk a lot, their mouths trying to keep up with their minds and likewise they criticize a lot, not out of malice but out of genuine willingness to improve things, although they tend to give unsolicited advice and criticism as well. Also, both of them can become razor sharp when upset or in an argument. Enjoy intellectual stimulation a lot.

Cancer and Libra: The obvious thing that connects these two is that they are both people pleasers. Both of them are preoccupied with other people and how they get perceived by them and so become social chameleons, wanting to gain their favor and fit in. They can lose parts of themselves because they want to be with other people so much. Likewise, they discard their ego to build up the other person, always preferring to be there for them instead of venting out their own problems. Both of these signs are infatuated with romance, friendship and how media portrays those. They want a dream relationship, either platonic or romantic and want someone they can give their all to and sacrifice everything for. However, when angered they tend to become passive-aggressive and childish, thinking they are being non-confrontational and keeping the peace but really just dishing out bitter and snide comments and building up tension.

Leo and Scorpio: These signs are signs of pride and they will make sure you know it. Even if they differ in how they show that pride, it is very gallant and obvious. And in some way, it causes these two to be like predator animals circling each other, wanting to be the dominant one. They can be prone to childish fights and outbursts of anger and can be easily irritated by one another due to their clashing natures and need to be dominant. However, that also means that when they get to know each other and can put their pride away, they accept each other and become the alpha pack together. They can feel unstoppable together, their sense of humor similar and their power and energy when together obvious. Developing a partner in crime relationship, these two are an absolute force to be reckoned with when together and can bond over many things, good and bad, like their intensity, their flair for the dramatic, their energy, etc.

Virgo and Sagittarius: These two share a love for intellectual topics and debate, viewing each other as ideal conversational partners and appreciating someone who can stand on equal grounds with them. Both of them can have a certain god complex, thinking they are better than others and expressing that in passive-aggressive ways. Both of them are confident in their theories and advice and think their plans are always the best. Similarly, both of them can act as martyrs, taking on the pain and suffering of others to make them happy and to please them. This however can cause them to suffer from a victim complex and think they cannot be criticized since they are doing so much, even if those sacrifices aren’t asked for.

Libra and Capricorn: While maybe not obvious at first with the first party, these two are businessmen. These two signs study people and their ins and outs, they know how to exchange emotional labour and compliments for services they desire and they aren’t afraid to get what they want. They know what people want and give it to them, to gain what they themselves are after. Nonetheless, they naturally also use this ability for good, using it to calm down and cheer up people in the exact way they know the other needs it. While they may be selfish in some regards, the people close to them are extremely important to them and they are the best cheerleaders, always knowing how to be there for someone and give them a confidence boost.

Scorpio and Aquarius: Ride or die, these two are all or nothing with their interpersonal relationships, always seeking out intense affairs that make them feel something, think things over and challenge their mindsets. Additionally, they enjoy being “the odd one out”, the “special” one. These signs love being alternative and edgy and liking and knowing things no one else knows and thinking about things nobody else does. They bond over this similar mindset and can feel like the other is the only one who understands them, the only one who thinks about similar deep and unconventional topics.

Sagittarius and Pisces: Both of these share the same love of philosophical topics and a love for people in general. While they may not like other humans per say, they love humanity and studying it, seeing how they work and function, how they act and how their habits show in little ways. They love seeing those knacks in a person and completely figuring them out. They love probing deep into a person’s mind, even pushing topics that should not be talked about and be the first and only one to completely envelop the person’s mind. Furthermore, they share a passion for similar interests such as religion, humanity, religion, psychology, etc. However, these two also share a tendency towards escapism through media, self-denial, substances etc. and tend to run away from problems instead of facing them.

Capricorn and Aries: Both of these have a very imposing, brooding presence that is felt by everyone around them. Thus, people tend to either hate or love them and never be inbetween. These signs have confidence and aren’t afraid to show it and while their distinct energies may be different, people tend to have be conflicting when met with such a great presence. Likewise, they have a blunt and sometimes even rude way of talking and even if they mean well, their words can be perceived as unnecessarily harsh which can turn people off. In reality however they just want to be straightforward, thinking honesty is above all else and necessary to take the necessary steps towards improvement.

Aquarius and Taurus: When people look at these two signs, they may come off as unapproachable, as on another level somehow. They seem to exist in their own world, somehow standing out even though they aren’t doing anything special. People either admire or loathe these qualities and tend to make up their own image of these signs based on what they see from the outside rather on the inside, seeing a completely different thing when they ultimately step into their world and actually experience their personalities and how warm and kind they can be. Nonetheless, this can also lead to them living their lives in their own bubble, never wanting to shy away from what they know and not face people from the outside, content with never being challenged.

Pisces and Gemini: Quite easy-going, these two signs bond over their their mutual want for peace and a light-hearted, fun relationship. Never taking things too seriously, they share a similar sense of humor and are also able to stimulate each other intellectually and talk about deeper things and humanity as a whole, Gemini is eager to talk and Pisces is eager to listen, likewise both of them are eager to learn, especially from other people. They have an equally curious attitude about everything they see and want to experience new and exciting things, bored of routine and things that are too serious, though this also shows in their shared immaturity and inability to maturely handle criticism, feeling personally attacked when someone expresses dissatisfaction with them or their mindsets and opinions.

[crimsoncondor]

Kakegurui: Psychological Analysis of Yumeko Jabami (Anime)

This is a description of the ENTP personality type:

https://www.16personalities.com/entp-personality

Pathological gambling presents itself in ways akin to Yumeko's derangement:

https://www.ukessays.com/essays/psychology/a-study-on-pathological-gambling-as-an-addiction-psychology-essay.php

(Note the latter source is theoretical. It is possible psychosexual and nurture-related factors contribute to gambling addiction.)

The neuroscience behind pathological gambling directly aligns with Yumeko's mindsets and functions:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3858640/

Color Symbolism Theory:

https://bloodorangesangria.tumblr.com/post/162532139590/kakegurui-color-theory-yumeko-jabamired

Footnotes:

Yumeko is Kakegurui in the form of a character. The series itself is tailored specifically towards her. She is the essence of gambling, addiction, and the combination of both. She symbolizes a myriad of different concepts such as capitalism and Christianity. While Kirari embodies God, she represents Satan. This is implicated in the first opening theme, which is fittingly titled "Deal With the Devil"; this "deal" is the agreement to gamble with Yumeko. She and Kirari appear in the track encompassed by fruit and fish. The former alludes to the serpent's enticements in the Adam and Eve anecdote while the latter refers to Ichthys, a fish-shaped acrostic deemed sacred by the early Church. Because Kirari often compares the order she has established to an aquarium, let us assume the fish is her insignia. The fish may also insinuate the duo are manifestations of Yin and Yang, which is reasonable considering their black and white designs, but this is less likely. In addition, a shot where Midari shoots a girl whose head is a strawberry is featured --- after shooting, a banner stating "Heaven or Hell" appears. In terms of roles and actions in the series, Yumeko carries the debts of others, disrupting the system, and Kirari maintains the debt system itself. This symbolism also exposes some undertones of Christianity, as Yumeko and Kirari are not the polar opposites people perceive God and Satan to be. The color schemes of their designs differ entirely. Black is a prominent color in Yumeko's design, signifying darkness, and Kirari's design is primarily white, representing light. However, these can also represent other notions. Black is associated with mystery, rebellion, sophistication, elegance, formality, aggression, evil, power, strength, seriousness, and authority. Kirari is the authority of the school despite this representation, but Yumeko is gradually climbing up the hierarchical ladder, nevertheless. Given Yumeko's well-kempt, 'yamato nadeshiko' appearance and courteous dialogue, the messages of formality, elegance, and sophistication are valid. However, this design is also reminiscent of many symbols in Japanese horror such as Tomie, Enma, and Sadako. It implies she is a mixture of both and further reinforces her duality. Her breaching of Kirari's system is rebellious, and her largely unenumerated background is mysterious. Regardless of these alignments, darkness suits her as well. Elementally speaking, red and black are respectively affiliated with fire and water, further reinforcing the notion Yumeko has duality. Meanwhile, Kirari's white color is incredibly contradictory, but this is not an analysis of her, so I shall not digress. I will probably analyze her in the future.

Regarding capitalism, the gambling den which serves as the setting of Kakegurui and each of its ties comprise a purely capitalist society. Money is the key to both power and caliber. Yumeko passively defies the system, which exemplifies her alignment: Chaotic Neutral. Kirari and her accomplices such as Runa, Sayaka, Midari, and Yuriko are the government; they perpetuate the class system. The -bami clan has politics of its own and can torture and rampage as much as it wishes due to the money and authority it possesses. Yumeko is a member of this clan but seems to be quite disinterested in its affairs. Many of her relatives are or were dedicated gamblers, so it seems to have become second nature to her. For example, her older sister lost her sanity after risking everything in a clan conflict, resulting in hospitalization. Yumeko's parents died of allegedly unknown causes, insinuating their demises were concealed by the clan and involved them.

When asked by Mary if she was familiar with any of the -bami students, she hesitated and then answered dismissively, which was clearly fabricated. She seems not at all bothered by this baggage, meaning she either suffers from self-induced denial or genuinely does not care. Rei, who had a pleasant relationship with Yumeko's sister before her hospitalization, took her apathy personally, inquiring about whether she felt any guilt towards those she has obliterated via gambling. Yumeko's response was the epitome of addiction: she claimed to feel guilt for not feeling guilt. When Rei unintentionally walked into Yumeko's sister's hospital room while Yumeko was visiting, she saw little sympathy in her eyes. She adds the following inquiry: "Do you know what it feels like too? When a person sinks into despair?" The manner in which she phrased this refers to both her sister and herself. Given Yumeko's circumstances, she most likely "sank into despair" and coped through gambling. However, referring back to "feeling guilt for not feeling guilt", this guilt could have consumed her. The powerful possibility exists she and her sister were in similar situations, but it could also be quite the opposite, resulting in disconnection and therefore apathy. This apathy may be innate as well.

This leads to the core of my theory. Yumeko was born into a gambling family and conditioned into valuing it. She was likely born detached from others and genetically more susceptible to addiction due to the family's customs, but her current state was probably ignited by conditioning as well. The Jabami family was a lower-tier party in the -bami clan, and the capitalist theme of Kakegurui comes into play here, as they possibly gambled for a higher position in the clan --- or simply for the thrill like Yumeko. It would also be psychologically plausible for Yumeko to have experienced trauma due to the clan's harsh and violent ways. Torture was commonplace in several branches of said clan, and Yumeko may have witnessed some of it due to the loss of her family or the natural process of living in this environment. Being poisoned in Season 2 did not seem to affect her greatly; she may be emotionally numb to these acts due to past experiences, or she could have merely been born this manner. She never reacted to Rei's enrollment in the academy either, meaning she was either apathetic or unsurprised. Her relationship with Rei before the events of the story is unknown but most probably meager and distant, founded solely on external observations such as those acquired during the two's mutual visit to the hospital or the auction gamble towards the end of Season 2. The girl has a photographic memory and excellent analysis skills but nonetheless resorts to hunches to shake gambles up; were these characteristics attained over time because of her experienced past in gambling, were they present at birth, or are both the case? Notice my repetitive usage of the terms "either" and "or"; much of this is hypothetical. It is ultimately an enigma whether nature or nurture was the dominant factor contributing to her instability, but both seem to have played a role. Some people are born like Yumeko, others obtain her identity over time, and some are the result of a mixture. Another aspect of her identity implying sheltering and isolation is her lack of familiarity with basic popular culture, but anhedonia and hedonism may have lead to a general absence of interest in the most simplistic of hobbies, which is similar to Midari's situation and another reason the latter empathizes with her.

Yumeko is aware of her gambling addiction, and she is obviously correct, but has she been formally diagnosed? She may have been evaluated when her sister was hospitalized to ensure she would not meet an identical fate; this is not evident, however. It was practically a given for her to be a gambling addict due to her lineage. When push comes to shove, nobody will risk anything they cannot afford to sacrifice. Yumeko has absolutely nothing worth living for and resorts to gambling because it is the final shred of her identity remaining despite her loss. Since it is her lifeline, she assigns different purposes and emotions to it such as lust. Nothing else will satisfy her, so she must force this fetish on herself. Many other members of her clan deal with the same issue because of filial traditions. Gambling preserves and defines her being rather than the loved ones she does not have, so she never quits. She associates the thrills of gambling with those of intercourse to cope with a lack of affection, which is additionally a habit of Midari's and the main reason Midari resonates with her. Despite her fixation on gambling and disregard for those she harms, she does not gamble for the purpose of hurting others, and she seems to possess a morsel of kindness. She wishes for everyone to experience the same thrill she does but cannot comprehend the fact they lack her passions and mindsets. She is also shown to have some level of integrity, as she never cheats and seldom bluffs. This enhances the experience of the game to her, but it may also be a sign of "guilt for not feeling guilt". In Yumeko's unfinished game with Midari during Season 1, she plainly stated she is incapable of feeling fear. Is this natural for her, was it acquired through intense suffering, or are both the case? I honestly believe Yumeko gambles partially due to her "guilt for not feeling guilt". She wishes for someone to strip her of everything she has as punishment for her apathy or any past errors she committed in regards to her late and incapacitated relatives. While she claims she cannot feel fear, one reason other than addiction which motivates her to try whilst gambling is fear of being defeated and having to face herself. She lacks the courage to accept it on her own. Paradoxically, she is utilizing her addiction to scold her for her addiction, and she is risking what she does not need because there is nothing else to sacrifice. She has lost everything.

Why does Yumeko abhor Midari? Their desires are very similar, but Yumeko prefers an intellectual challenge rather than a game of chance. I hypothesize Yumeko relates to Midari in a way which causes insecurities and "guilt for not feeling guilt". Essentially, Midari hits too close to home and is a more impulsive, minimalistic, dramatic, blunt version of her minus the clan controversies.

This character is the subject of the show and is considered a foil; instead of independently developing, she contrasts with others like Yumemi and Sayaka to facilitate their development . . . thus far. This is one of she and Suzui's only similarities.

On multiple occasions, Yumeko is compared to a Joker. As aforementioned, Yumeko has duality, and Jokers are very versatile in a deck of cards depending on the game one employs them for. In Wicca, the Joker is represented by the number zero, a character which includes the meanings of all or nothing, stoicism and comedy, wisdom and idiocy, and delight and despair. The message a joker brings is cryptic, disguised, and mysterious. There are typically two in each deck --- dual jokers. Playing cards have been in existence for more than a millennium, but jokers were added fairly later; the system Kirari established thrived for quite some time, but Yumeko appeared and challenged its rules, much like the Joker.

"Yumeko" translates to "dream child"; at first glance, she seems too good to be true as if she came out of a dream, but in truth, she is diabolical and sly as if she came out of a nightmare. Her surname contains several meanings. The translation "heavy drinker" alludes to her addiction. "Snake", "serpent", "bite", "eat", "drink", and "receive a blow" are other potential solutions. The idiom "snake in the grass" applies to Yumeko and may be one reference appended to the translation; she "thirsts" or "hungers" for gambling. In "Deal With the Devil", she is shown removing Suzui's tie with utensils, preparing to "consume" him with her nature. Her eventful and detrimental background may have “taken a blow” to her sanity. Most importantly, "serpent" may relate to the Adam and Eve tale, making the fruit in "Deal With the Devil" a symbol of her. She succumbs to her desires and encourages others to do the same. Kirari, Rei, and many other characters in Kakegurui are also members of the -bami clan, so "bite" is a section of their names' translations as well, but "snake" is not, making this biblical reference uniquely her own whilst "bite" originates from the nature of her clan.

Yumeko's personality type is easily ENTP. Her extension is A, and her alignment is chaotic neutral. Laws matter little to her, but she is not particularly invested in specific platforms either. The woman's insecurities are subtle to the extent of nonexistent, she is very straightforward and simple-minded, she is able to maintain conversations and presence in given situations, and she is largely separated from reality, which is mostly by choice. Her manipulative rhetoric in tense situations would be quite resourceful in a debate, and since ENTPs are frequently referred to as Debaters, this is sensible. Kirari is an ENTJ-A, which further defends my argument about the two being similar despite representing God and Satan. Hence, her acronym stands for “Extroverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Prospecting, Assertive”. The enneagram is highly controversial, so it shall not be applied to Yumeko.

"Insanity is repeating the same action again and again whilst expecting different results." -Unknown

[depressedandasian]

The differences between Adora and Catra are easily separated into two motivating factors corresponding to one of the two characters: Adora was and is focused on the bigger picture and doing what is best for everyone overall. Catra is primarily concerned about the things that personally impact her, and usually the overlapping quality of immediate impact.

It goes beyond the usual titles of "selflessness" and "selfishness" despite their actions throughout seasons manifesting as examples of said qualities.

Their issues are not derived from naturally occuring personality traits and quirks but from survival strategies both picked up from enduring the childhoods they lived. Adora was raised to be a savior (sacrifice) by any means, and Catra was inadvertently conditioned to value close personal relationships above all else.

It's why Adora fits in so well with the rebellion and why Catra outright despises the idea of it. The rebellion gives Adora the same purpose the Horde did even if it's on an opposing side, it offers Catra nothing (on the surface).

If I'm reading Catra correctly, someone like her picks and chooses who she bonds with carefully, or at least is miserly with her affections. It takes a long time for her to allow for the level of vulnerability needed to even make friends let alone keep close intimate ones. She cannot so easily transpose her relatively isolated and laser-focused attraction to Adora (someone whom she has been possessive over since early childhood) onto a much larger group of people. Her wants and needs are more like really selective burrs that'll latch onto people in contrast to Adora's perpetual "Gotta do what I gotta do" blanketing mentality.

What I'm saying is: It's easier for Adora to switch tracks with her hero-complex ideals, than it is for Catra to make new friends.

MelinaPendulum's video on Catra brings up a great point about how she is someone who automatically believes that love is finite and not unconditional (despite all the evidence that her own love is indeed unconditional once you break through her thick outer layer). Catra also believes that because love is not something people can consistently give to others, she seems to view it as something that cannot be equally bestowed upon more than one or two people by a single individual. Maybe it's a result of living under the unfocused and uncaring guardianship of the Horde, and the very hostile wardship of Shadow Weaver, but Catra shows that time and time again she cannot handle the idea of Adora showing anyone else attention or affection. She also extends this to how she treats others: she cannot show warmth and affection to others when she is hyperfocusing on Adora at all times.

This is one of many traits she shares with Glimmer, the prejudicial assumption that the momentary loss of attention by a close friend is a signal for eventual abandonment. This is rooted in deep self-doubt of their own worth as individuals and people in regards to the value their friends place on them. However Bow is a much MUCH better influence than Shadow Weaver is, and Glimmer can actually talk to him whereas Catra is probably terrified of breaching the subject of her own feelings towards Shadow Weaver with Shadow Weaver. Something tells me SW wouldn't particularly care for Catra to go "Hey I want to talk about how your continued condescension, belittling, and physical attacks really burst my bubbles, can you spare some time?"

Glimmer and Catra both show signs of extreme abandonment issues which is fascinating seeing as how the two weren't technically abandoned by the main objects of their trauma.

Shadow Weaver's denial of affection towards Catra while directly piling on adoration for Adora caused this rift where Catra sees Adora as competition for Shadow Weaver's love, but also Shadow Weaver as competition for Adora's love. This is why her "Adora chose Shadow Weaver not me" is so poignant because it describes a breaking point where the percieved finite amount of love that exists among all three parties is now only being recieved between two of them.

And I am describing a non-defined nebulas form of love that can be molded into any form of love.

This all impacts Adora greatly as well, although we don't see the emotional turmoil existing within her as it does within Catra until perhaps the very very end when Adora is finally allowed to consider what she personally wants. Adora ultimately comprehends that love is infinite and everlasting primarily because despite all the bullshit Catra pulls she is still holds a deep and unshakable amount of love for her. And this is due to several reasons, many not even having to do with Shadow Weaver, Adora as a person is just a more outgoing and bubbly woman than Catra is. But Shadow Weaver's constantly and openly showing her approval for Adora in direct and purposeful contrast to her hatred of Catra absolutely allowed for Adora to eventually accept the love and admiration of the rebels (although season 5 throws some cold water onto the idea of this being wholly a good thing).

But don't get me wrong, I believe all three women love squally as strong as one another (even Shadow Weaver). In my view love isn't finite, but it can be applied in varying levels of intensity on openness. Catra learns from Shadow Weaver: favoritism and holding affection hostage as a bargaining chip. Adora doesn't learn how to love from Shadow Weaver but how to perceive love given to her (in the form of praise and expectation to preform a duty) and she never withholds and bestows love in varying amounts to others as she see fit.

This is ultimately where I both agree and disagree with Stevenson's description of Adora and Catra obtaining traits from one another. I don't think they incorporated unique elements of one another's psyches into their own, but better come to understand how to deal with their affections, they begin to process their relationship to the ones they love through healthier and more mature lenses. But they do it through learning from one another, it's more like normal human growth from experiencing another's existence. But I'm probably overthinking it.

I think what makes the ending beautiful (aside from the extremely powerful and well executed climax) is that Catra ultimately understands that Adora's love for the universe does not exclude her at all, instead it is a vital part of her love for Catra. The universe/world/reality as we know it and Catra are not on different plains of existence. But it's hard for Catra to realize that she part of the grand idea of the universe that Adora is willing to die for because she personally does not recognize herself as being part of anything but her own little world with just Adora. Catra's eventual come to Jesus moment where she stands firm behind Adora's decisions and puts herself in harms way so that the latter won't be alone is so powerful because it represent Catra now knowing that she IS part of something bigger, that Adora is fighting so hard to save the universe because without it there'd be no Catra, and that she is loved, and that there are more things to life than just clinging onto the fear of losing your socially isolated way of life.

[brandtmax]

welcome back to gallagher academy, soo-yun ‘maxine’ brandt ! according to their records, they’re a first year, specializing in research & development; and they did not go to a spy prep high school. when i see them walking around in the halls, i usually see a flash of ( sugar-free mints, a messy low bun, wisps of hair alongside her face, the end of a pen between her teeth, the patek philippe calatrava 4897r-010 in rose gold, off-white pants in every fabric ). when it’s the ( virgo ) ’s birthday on 08/23/1997, they always request their japchae from the school’s chefs. looks like they’re well on their way to graduation. 

henlo it me again i hope u guys aren’t sick of me yet bc i have a new bby named max! i’ve written a lot™️ so brace urself but it’s worth it ( i think ) + trigger warnings: death and alcohol dependency under the cut xxx

the basics

full name: soo-yun ‘ maxine ’ brandt

nicknames: max — just max

age: twenty-two years old

birthday: august 23rd, 1997

gender: cis female

preferred pronouns: she / her

sexuality: bisexual

major: research & development (  formerly a b.a. political science degree from yale university )

known languages: english ( native ) / german ( native ) / korean ( native )

background

nationality: american

birthplace: new haven, connecticut, new hampshire

current location: gallagher academy, roseville, virginia

financial status: upper class

religion: non-theistic

appearance

eye color: brown

hair color: black

height: 5′8.5″

notable features: curly hair on lazy days, rosy cheeks

usual mood and expression: calm, furrowed eyebrows whenever her eyes are on work; lethargic and irritable when she’s overworked ( or without alcohol )

family

birth order: second born

parents: soon-bok ‘ vivian ’ jang and stephen brandt ( d. 2018 )

siblings: min-jun ‘ parker ’ brandt ( b. 1995 ) & georgia ‘ gigi ’ brandt ( b. 2001 )

significant others: chris harmon ( 2013-2015 ) / ava carrillo ( 2015-2016 )

her story so far (this is so long n serious lol)

soo-yun 'maxine' brandt was born and raised in new haven, connecticut, to jang soon-bok ( vivian ), a surgeon, and stephen brandt, a ( n allegedly shady ) criminal justice lawyer.

the brandt siblings were raised like any other blue-blooded, very strict but loving household ( strict = mom / loving = dad )

brandt house rules: get straight a’s, follow the 12 am curfew and don't bring anyone home that you know you’d get disowned for. follow those three rules, and you can do whatever you want.

there was pressure for the brandt siblings to be academically accomplished, but it wasn't anything they couldn't handle. they were well-tutored, semi-popular, attractive teenagers, which were common in new haven, and everyone knew they were destined for ivy league.

in high school, she dated chris harmon, and it was the kind of relationship that could only be described as the personification of a kinder egg. sweet on the outside, a waste of time and money on the inside.

which is fine; it took max about 2 months to get over it when they broke up halfway through senior year, because neither of them thought of their relationship going far. the joy of getting into yale ( already expected ) trumped the feeling of losing a boyfriend. she even bet parker $5,000 she'd get early admission. she won.

during college, she had an on-off relationship with ava carrillo for a year, which inevitably became a permanent off. it turned out that it wasn't a good idea to throw herself into a committed relationship the minute she stepped foot into yale. max never had the time, and ava didn't have the patience. at least she tried it tho !

things seemed to be on the up and up for their family, and the worst thing max has ever been through is being awake for 24 straight hours to prepare for a final presentation. but ! you know what they say about the calm before the storm.

( tw: death ) on december 18, 2018, their father unexpectedly passed away from a heart attack during a layover flight in new york. the brandt family was at home when they heard the news. needless to say, they had a quiet christmas and new year.

the family tried to move on as best they could, but the siblings knew their dad's death irreversibly changed their mom. they have a rocky relationship to begin with, the siblings always feeling like vivian never wanted to become a parent and only did so for their father. they have absolutely no mother-children bond, and it got worse when stephen died. being the older brother, parker took it upon himself to take care of vivian, balancing that with running the home stretch with his undergrad degree.

on the other hand, maxine still had a few years left at yale. no amount of therapy helped her cope with the loss of her father, the way her mother seemed to become a shell of herself, how parker had to break the momentum of his career to be there for their mom, and the constant pressure to do good academically.

( tw: alcohol dependency ) it started with buying bottled moscow mules because she didn't like how beer tasted, and she wasn't dumb enough to go straight to hard liquor. just one to take the edge off whenever stacks of coursework became too much, or when her mother would send her an email talking about her day, and she didn't have the courage to read it. then it went from a one, two, three-time thing to a whenever-i'm-upset thing, which slid into a whenever-i-feel-like-it thing. after a while, it became a daylight thing where she would add a splash of soju ( or whatever ) to her lunchtime drinks, and she genuinely thought it was just a funny idea at first. max wasn't the only day drinker in her social group, anyway. she found it acceptable, no different than how other people would pound red bull every 6 hours like it's their life force. it was manageable for her since she was able to schedule when she'd be indisposed, and she still can.

parker had ( and still has ) no clue. despite the two being close, max spared him the burden of having another thing to worry about. as long as she can control it ( or she thinks she can ) then nobody had anything to worry about.

eventually, both maxine and parker were offered the opportunity to join gallagher academy, with parker in line to graduate with honors in global affairs and maxine, not far behind with her own impressive academic portfolio in political science.

though really, her acceptance into gallagher has less to do with her published papers ( still impressive, tho ) and more to do with her covertly helping her father win cases by doing some expert sleuthing, strategizing, witness dispatching + discrediting, sexc breaking and entering, and good, old-fashioned manipulation !

it was something they both wanted; to be a part of the bigger picture in the world, but they knew they couldn't leave their mother alone. parker, who chose to make the sacrifice, let maxine go and stayed behind to take care of vivian.

( but if we’re honest, maxine would’ve left for gallagher regardless if parker was coming with her, but she’ll never tell him that )

despite the guilt and telling parker she wasn't going anywhere ( cough ), he insisted on her taking the once-in-a-lifetime chance to be a part of something they never knew existed. he knew they were going to end up resenting each other if they both stayed. at least one person in the family should be doing something that made them happy.

and so max dropped out of yale and left for roseville, even though she hadn't thoroughly planned out her career trajectory.

she’s eager not just because of the school, obviously. she can't handle going back to their childhood home and seeing how hollow everything is. plus, the immense anger and denial she feels over her dad’s untimely death has no place in new haven anymore.

she promised parker she'd make it up to him, though. somehow, someday.

who is this b*nch

max is relatively easy to get along with, tbh !

she’s a mood matcher; meaning if you’re nice to her, then she’s nice to you ( and if you’re gonna be a punk bitch, then she’ll be a punk bitch right back )

she’s a lil spoiled, lil sheltered, and lil ignorant but her general friendliness makes up for it, she’s the type to be friends with ( almost ) everyone

internally: perfectionist to the point of being ruthless, first place is the only acceptable place, meticulous, neurotic, workaholic, overachiever, if you’re not useful then what’s your purpose?, slightly egotistical, etc etc

externally: caring, protective, and supportive mom friend who just wants people to get their shit together because inadequacy is unacceptable, fixer, likes to dip into different social circles, consciously makes the effort to be more patient with people

she’s incredibly ambitious ? morally ambiguous ? slightly self-serving and self-involved ? her father’s a criminal “justice” lawyer whose clientele doesn’t exactly consist of the beacons of society so... she learned a lot of lessons about how you can win any case in the courtroom if you’re smart enough to a ) make a good story, b ) get the fitting evidence by any means necessary, c ) discredit and discard the necessary people, and d ) be charming and persuasive enough to rock the jury

she’s actively trying to be more open-minded and assimilate to a diverse group of people because back in yale she was definitely in a wasp bubble, and admittedly there are times where she will come off as super snobby without meaning to and tbh sorry about it

she’s still an extremely sociable person because yale also taught her how to network like a motherfucker, and how it’s important to know / be friends with everyone

honestly, intense people turn her off ( both positive and negative ) a little because she can't handle concentrated personalities in one sitting

even though she’s a little intense herself sometimes but it’s fine, we love hypocrites in this house !

neat freak ? but honestly who doesn’t like a friend who squeegees the shower every day and has a tiny can of lysol in their bag and an aroma diffuser with three ( 3 ) oil blends

she’s like... weirdly aggressive sometimes and most definitely has anger issues ( still in denial over her father unexpectedly passing away and getting stuck with a mom who doesn’t like her own children very much )

but also, she’s just agro in general and has a number of physical hobbies. she’s an ice skater, equestrian, a soulcyclist, and a kickboxer. she can fite.

she’s not the type to make fun of herself because she's not at a point where she sees qualities in her that are okay to laugh at ( unless you’re tight )

keeps her negative juju to herself because she’s a very private person

will prioritize work over play because she'd hardwired like that, but that doesn't mean she's anti-fun ( clearly )

definitely needs to loosen up a little that doesn't involve alcohol... jenga perhaps ? or actually try therapy again ?

very effectively sneaky about her growing alcohol dependency ( sugar-free breath mints, brushes her teeth + uses mouthwash after every meal )

dry sense of humor

at all times: wears a 1-carat, emerald cut, pavé diamond ring ( family heirloom ) + carries her trusty black hydro flask with her ( 24 oz. ) and no one is allowed to drink from it !

her signature scent is le labo bergamote 22 🤍

hmu on my discord @ tin#0697 for plottage !

[faelapis]

something about Rebecca discribing White like, "White's way of thinking is that she is eveyone and everyone is her" really caught me because something about White in her first appearance that i noticced is that she keep saying *eveyone* ("you certainly gave everyone a scare" and "everyone is so relieved" ) instead of referring to herself as herself. does that indicate a lose of self for White?

oh yes. in fact, as RS goes on to say, white doesn’t truly have an identity at all. it’s all collective - as the superego, her existence revolves around the perpetuation of the source of her moral identity, the system itself. selfless logic in the coldest sense of the word. and that’s also the source of her fragility, because a perfect robot cannot be confronted with its own subjectivity. not if its existence revolves around the moral logic of perfect “objectivity”. 

i’ve compared homeworld to a clock in the past, but it would be just as accurate to call it a computer system. much of gemkind borrows its aesthetic from this: 

a gem’s form can glitch out.

a gem can read and translate code.

a gem’s body can be machinized if their powers aren’t adequate. 

through the dehumanization of the self, a faulty computer part can be replaced with an identical replacement part. 

all of this works within the moral logic of absolute self-sacrifice to the society at large. there are hierarchies primarily because some parts are considered rarer, or more essential, to this self-perpetuation than others, but it is ultimately a system where everyone is only as good as what they contribute. 

and that includes the diamonds.

and that’s ultimately what breaks them. each diamond’s sense of purpose hinges on the ability to justify themselves within the system - and none of them can truly do that once they’re confronted with the subjectivity of their emotions. devotion to a singular purpose seems great (to them) in theory, but in reality, they all have attachments that fly in the face of that. 

that’s what allowed white to be the last holdout. her self-isolation was something that, especially in the immediate aftermath of pink’s death, probably felt essential to hold on to the denial of not feeling anything at all. being open with the others would be too much to bear - she would break. she couldn’t be perfect.

how fitting, then, that it is the undeniable fact of pink’s demise that finally does her in. a fact delivered with the least emotion of anything steven’s ever said.

[theessayist]

Movies that have made me cry like a baby

For a movie buff who’s more inclined to the gruesome thrill of horror flicks and the ingenious narration of crime films, I’m pretty in love with emotional movies. It takes a lot for this ENTJ to shed a tear; even on purpose; and in fact, I can only name a few titles that really got these eyeballs of mine watery. 

I think a major part of the reason why I love emotional movies is that the way that I still get affected by them helps me determine if I still have a moral, empathetic anchor... You know... Somewhere deep down there. It gives me solace. 

Moving on, knowing that I’m not an easy shell to break, I can guarantee that the films I’m about to mention will absolutely tear your heart apart. 

S/N I haven’t watched Miracle in Cell No. 7 or any Frank Darabont masterpiece yet, so if they hit hard enough, I might make another list. 

S/N #2 Animated films will be separated. 

5. Marriage Story (2019) dir. Noah Baumbach 

I’m a 17-year-old single girl living with my perfectly stable parents who love each other so much and I’m happy and eternally grateful for that; but why the hell am I crying?! 

Starting off on our list is a movie that made me cry because of the immense confusion I felt as I watched two exhausted, beautiful humans go through a painful separation when they clearly still love one another. 

I think the main reason why this film made a waterfall out of me is because I didn’t know how to feel. I didn’t know if I should side on Nicole, since she was the one who made more sacrifices and considerations; or Charlie- since he was the one who was suffering in the ugly end of the stick. It made me feel frustrated and angry in a way that I wanted to push them back together, and at the same time, pull them both apart. 

I’d like to say more- but now I just want to credit Scarlett and Adam for the most heart-wrenching fight scene I have ever endured in all seventeen years of my life.

4. Train to Busan (2016) dir. Yeon Sang Ho 

I watched this Korean zombie horror flick thinking it was going to quench my thirst for some brutal flesh-ripping, blood and gushing gore. I NEVER got tired of zombies- whether in movies, video games or soap operas, I eat that crap up. And so I dived in ravenous as hell, thinking I was gonna get purely that. 

But instead I got a pretty, pregnant woman and her protective husband, an inadvertently neglectful dad and his adorable child, a hobo, and two teenagers my age who’re just as afraid as everyone else would be. 

Oh, and a scumbag whose selfish deeds are so unspeakable I’d rather say ‘Voldemort’. 

Seokwoo didn’t have to smile like that, you know. It’s little contrasting details like that that make emotional scenes so goddamn irresistible. 

This movie got me by surprise- my unsuspecting self who did not expect any tear-jerker was cut up from behind with a father, and an almost-father, sacrificing for the love of their lives. Who doesn’t cry to that kinda stuff? Please cut their chests open and install a heart. 

3. Titanic (1997) dir. James Cameron 

Oh yes, the popular royal tear-jerker, sitting right next to the campus queen bees, The Notebook and A Walk to Remember (to which I didn’t cry, for what it’s worth). As much as I loved the romance that so beautifully blossomed between Jack and Rose, quite frankly I did not cry because the former died. Although that was really sad, too.

You know what gave me a stuffy nose and two red eyes for three days? The other passengers, for gosh’s sake. 

The guy who got shot by the seaman. That seaman who shot himself afterwards. The band who played through the chaos. The maids that drowned in the ballroom trying to look after everyone else. The lone kid in the hallway who could’ve drowned. The mother tucking her children to bed. And most of all, the old couple cuddling each other as water rushed in their room! 

I don’t think I’ve to explain why that subtly painful montage broke my gold-titanium alloy heart. It didn’t help that the lovable Captain Smith chose to sink with his ship, too. 

2. Forrest Gump (1995) dir. Robert Zemeckis 

Before I watched it, I didn’t know what to expect from this movie. But it had Tom Hanks (who, to me at that moment, was purely Sheriff Woody), and I knew it was iconic; so I sat through, thinking it was another one of those great films that was going to bore me. And boy, was I wrong! 

So, unlike all the other films on this list, Forrest Gump actually made me cry in a heart-warming, happy, beautiful way. We watched this guy persevere through the challenges of his universe, we saw the way he rewrote history, we laughed at his utter stupidity, we lamented the come-and-go relationship with Jenny, we grew to love Colonel Dan; everything about it was amazing and touching and the end was just so incredibly satisfying, I didn’t know films could make me happy that much. 

I was just really, really proud of our boy Forrest and how he lived, okay? Leave me alone. 

1. Scent of a Woman (1992) dir. Martin Brest

So, I’m a really big fan of Al Pacino. Why? Because, like I said- crime is my #1 genre. Specifically, organized crime. And who’s the prince of the organized crime genre? You guessed it- this man. He was Jimmy Hoffa. He was Tony Montana. He was Michael Corleone, for crying out loud! 

As a new, young fan, he has established in me the image of a tough, hard-wired man who would stop at absolutely nothing to achieve what he wants. Not morals, not friends, and definitely not family (F stands for Fredo). So what did I expect when he became the blind, eccentric, women-obsessed war veteran Lt. Col. Frank Slade? I had no idea.

That was why it got me so hard- because I was viewing Al play a largely different role. And what’s astonishing about it is that I didn’t see him as Al Pacino. Didn’t see him as a godfather, a union leader, or a drug lord. I saw him as that in-denial old man- washed up, empty, and feeling unwanted for the things he’d brought about in his life. For half the movie, I was admiring every nuance, the clever dialogue, the relationship-building, the philosophical aspects. The other half, I was crying profusely. 

To be specific, I cried four separate times through the two-hour feature; especially during the Ferrari scene. It’s weird I know, but I cried there the most. The film was a very remarkable experience; and all these is why it is my number one pick for a film that will definitely gouge your eyes out. 

I highly recommend all of these features for both lovers and non-lovers of the emotional aspects of film. Even I, as a crime and horror fan, could attest for the fact that these films are not a waste of your fast-paced time. You will be awed.

[mbti-notes]

INFJ having trouble developing Fe. Whenever I talk to someone around me, I feel no compassion or love, almost indifferent. I sometimes get annoyed when talking comes in the middle of me doing something more 'interesting' (like coding). My focus is narrow and most of my attempts to 'socialize' are done for the sake of self-development and not for the sake of itself. I used to feel really good about belonging once but it's all gone now. I can 'harmonize' people but don't really have the urge to[1]

[con’t: I keep wondering about why I am so dissatisfied when people are all around me, what my purpose of life is. Can you offer any insights?]

Are you a perfectionist? Do you always automatically create an ideal image of yourself to live up to? That’s what many, many infjs do, and then, after a lifetime of living a fake life, they turn around and wonder why they know absolutely nothing about themselves. People who live like they always have something to prove are usually stuck at the lowest level of ego development; they are all about defending and protecting their ego and doing anything to feel good/superior for a moment because, deep down, they have no real sense of self-worth and live in constant fear of nothingness/inferiority. The reasons for getting stuck in such a state are different for each individual, you should reflect on it for yourself.

Developing a function for the wrong reasons often leads to negative results. You’re trying to “develop” in order to prove something? Why? What’s the point? Why do you force yourself to do something you don’t care about? What I hear you saying is that you want to live your life exactly the way you please and not have to worry about all this development stuff and feeling lost all the time. If so, then walk away. Don’t want to care about Fe? Then don’t. Nobody’s forcing you. Just stop. Stop trying to be someone you’re not and just be whatever you are right now, can you? Being fake is how you got here.

You claim to want to “develop Fe” or to “find a purpose” only because you believe those are the things you “should” want in order to become whatever perfect image of yourself you are trying to live up to. If today I said that all of it is bullshit, just forget about it, what would you do? Are you capable of thinking for yourself or are you waiting to hear an authoritative answer from on high about how to live your life so that you never have to take responsibility for carving out your own unique path in life? You show no genuine willingness to do what it takes to really get to know yourself and understand your issues, why? Because deep down you know that your motivation for development is fake and the perfect image of you is an empty one. Am I wrong?

I’m not a magician, I can’t convince people to change their whole outlook on life when they want to keep it, and people in a loop want to stay in a loop because they’ve fooled themselves into thinking that it’s somehow easier to live inauthentically. Different people need different things out of life. You are woefully out of touch with your needs. Your concept of “need” is just your emotional whims and impulsive reactions to get away from whatever you don’t like. But, beyond that, who are you? What do you stand for? What do you hope to do with yourself? How do you want to live your life? Nobody can answer these questions for you because it’s YOUR life to live as you see fit. You ask me for “insight” but perhaps what you really want is for someone to tell you what to do, as though life is about following the right rules to get to the right finish line. But I won’t play along. Whatever answer I give you, you won’t like it, because it’s not what you want to do, in the end you’ll just turn it into yet another fake image of perfection to strive for. Am I wrong?

If you need a purpose in life, you have to be willing to give up egocentrism. You have to give away something worthwhile to get something worthwhile in return, you have to love and care for others if you want to be loved and cared for, and you make it sound like the notions of “giving” and “caring” are foreign to you. Devoting oneself to a life purpose or a higher calling requires you to explore the world and go where you’re needed, it requires thinking beyond yourself to see the bigger long-term picture, it requires you to sacrifice and make yourself useful to the world. Until you’re capable of the kind of selflessness that allows you to leverage your talents and skills to make a genuinely positive contribution, you won’t be able to discover any meaningful purpose because you’re not able to see anything past your own emotional problems. 

When an infj says they “can’t find purpose”, there are several possibilities to consider: 1) they are afraid of making big life decisions and keep putting it off because all they can imagine is horribly botching the whole damn thing (fear of failure), 2) they are afraid that committing themselves to caring deeply about things results in taking on too much responsibility and all they can imagine is how they can’t handle it (fear of success), and/or 3) they desperately want to be considered “great” but extreme greediness for affirmation and delusions of grandeur lead to embarrassing failures (shame in low self-worth).

When an infj only knows to shit on the world because they’re unhappy, they are deep in Ti loop. When an infj wants the freedom to do whatever the hell they want, consequences be damned, it is Se grip. When your Fe is so unhealthy that other people’s well-being means absolutely nothing to you, stay far away from everyone, because how could you ever be a positive influence in their life? And when you can’t be a positive influence but even a negative or destructive one, when you’re a person that others should avoid for their own good, how does that make you FEEL? If you say that you don’t care, it’s a lie. Nobody can exist comfortably in knowing that they are essentially a useless piece of shit, especially not an infj. A person who claims to be “numb” is actually in denial of their pain, it seems that you have a lot of work to do to get in touch with the full extent of your pain and ugliness within. What is your greatest pain? Do you FEEL anything now? Pain is a great guide when you honor it and know how to listen to it. But “perfect” people should never have to experience pain, right?

[firelxdykatara]

🔥 tvd. unleash the salt.

YOU BROUGHT THIS ON YOURSELF MEEKS

-cough-

no but ok, my biggest unpopular opinion re: tvd? (judging mostly from what i’ve seen come out of what’s left of the ‘fandom’ since s6 when 99% of it jumped fuckin’ ship, but anyway)

the show turning to shit had absolutely nothing to do with delena becoming canon

like, i’ll be reading someone’s anti tvd post, and i’ll see something like ‘it started going downhill in s4′ and nod along, but then ‘when dullena became canon’ and it’s like -record scratch-

no. hold up. -squirts with a waterbottle-

anyone who didn’t realize that damon and elena were being set up to become canon down the line as early as season one were either in denial or just weren’t paying attention. i could write for days about all the signs and all the ways their relationship developed and how they each developed as characters, but i don’t have the energy to focus on the good about tvd anymore so i don’t feel like it. (i always have energy for salt, though. must be my high-sodium diet.)

there are a couple things we know for a fact about early tvd. one is that kevin williamson was largely in charge of the show as head showrunner for the first three seasons. another is that williamson left the show after season three–his name was still on it, but he moved onto another project, and julie plec was left in charge. given those two facts, and my belief that the show’s decline in s4 was far more gradual and less visible than it was in s5, when the show jumped the shark and over a fucking cliff, we (or at least i do, you don’t have to agree but it’s the story that makes the most sense to me so i’m sticking to it) can infer that kevin williamson left at least something of an outline behind for the season following his departure, and the rest was left up to julie as she meandered her way through three more seasons–two of which the show should never have had–with only the vaguest idea of an endpoint in mind.

(as early as season 2, julie said that she and kevin already knew how they wanted the show to end–or at least, they knew what they wanted the last words to be. given that the series finale ended the same way the pilot episode did, with damon showing up on stefan’s porch wearing his trademark smirk and saying ‘hello brother’, i can buy that they had this particular scene in mind when initially planning the overall series arc. i also think that julie plec went mad with the power she suddenly had over the story once williamson left, and any other tentative plans that may have been made were either forgotten or discarded in favor of magic vampire uteruses and pointless romantic arcs and killing characters off right before the end of the show for no real reason. but anyway, i digress.)

I THINK I’VE GOTTEN A LITTLE OFF TOPIC. anyway. if delena wasn’t the beginning of the end (we’ve established that delena–if not as an endgame, but certainly as a relationship that would need to be explored–was in the cards from the very beginning, and had achieved most of its crucial relationship beats by the s3 finale [all that remained was elena gaining closure for her decaying relationship with stefan before she could fully move on]), what was?

two things, primarily: the sire bond, and the cure.

now, neither of these things seemed particularly egregious at first. in fact, up until the end of the season, i was convinced the sire bond would be revealed to have never actually existed, because the ‘signs’ were so badly contrived that they had to be red herrings designed to make the characters doubt themselves and their feelings. in hindsight, i realize the piss poor writing surrounding the bond was emblematic of issues that would plague, and eventually destroy, the rest of the series. and until it came back in season six and undid literal years worth of character development for the central character of the fucking series, i actually thought the cure plotline in s4 was a stroke of brilliance–shoddily handled in a few places, but still solid enough in execution to make up for it.

because elena, having become a vampire, needed to have the option to become human again presented to her–and then she needed to reject it. Which she did, twice, at the end of the season–first when she offered it to Stefan without a second thought, and second when she shoved it down Katherine’s throat, again without a moment of hesitation. (Technically three times, if you count the fact that she was ready to force it on Damon, but that, at least, was motivated by her desire to save his life, since he was dying from werewolf venom at the time.)

elena’s arc throughout season 4 (and that’s another of my unpopular opinions–elena didn’t change into an unrecognizable monster when she became a vampire, becoming a vampire allowed her to let go of the gloomy graveyard girl and finally learn to love LIVING again, and the fandom was so used to her as the suicidal martyr ready to sacrifice anything and everything without a second’s hesitation that they turned on her, en masse, when she realized it was actually ok to want things for herself but…. that’s a different rant altogether, ahem ANYWAY) was about learning how to be herself again.

not herself as she was immediately pre-vamping–herself as she was before her parents died. it’s no coincidence, i think, that the s3 finale (when she was being turned) and then s4 were some of the only real glimpses we got of elena’s parents, and her life with them before they died. she literally hallucinated her mother, in one of the most heartbreaking scenes of the entire show, trying to convince her to kill herself because of what she’d become–but this, notably, was a curse enacted on her by a vampire hunter. (here’s another unpopular opinion–elena killing connor had nothing to do with the sire bond. she would have killed him anyway, because he was threatening her brother’s life. am i the only one who remembers that elena, as a human, went to denver with the sole purpose of figuring out which original sired mary, so she’d know which ones it was safe to kill to protect her family? she was a human and willing to kill 75% of all remaining vampires on the planet. girl could be fucking ruthless when it came to protecting the people she loved, especially after losing so many.)

“mommy, i never meant to disappoint you.”

and then the sun came up. and just as the light hit her and began to burn, because she’d thrown her ring into the river, she looked to damon and whispered his name, panic in her eyes–because she suddenly realized she didn’t want to die. she wanted to LIVE. she DESERVED to live. and damon did what he always did best–he saved elena gilbert’s life. and that’s when she realized she couldn’t keep ignoring the things she felt for him, the way her feelings for stefan had never really recovered, the fact that she wanted to learn to enjoy the life she had instead of subscribing to stefan’s tortured broody vampire bullshit.

(ok, in fairness to stefan [loathe as i am to be fair to mister Hero Hair], i don’t think he actually realized what he was doing to elena. i don’t think he quite understood just how badly he was feeding into her self-loathing and how much he was making her think she would become a monster just like him–just like ripper!stefan if she didn’t take to the bunny diet and make like a good little vampire who never stepped a toe out of line. but i do think that as those first few episodes wore on, elena realized, more and more, that she would not survive being a vampire if she had to do things stefan’s way. and it became clear that the elena stefan was in love with was the idealized, human version of elena who’d died going over that bridge–the elena who could remind stefan of his own humanity and be his anchor to non-ripperness. she couldn’t be his sober companion/humanity anchor if she wasn’t subscribing to his bunny blood ideals.)

the bottom line being, season 4 was about elena not only becoming a vampire, but learning to enjoy her life AS a vampire. no, it wasn’t something she’d chosen for herself, and maybe it wasn’t something she ever would have chosen for herself–considering that even as far back as the end of s2, when the possibility of turning was first presented to her as a real possibility, she was talking about a future where she grew old and maybe even had kids and started a family, things she wouldn’t be able to do with stefan, meaning that even then, in the back of her mind, their relationship came with a potential expiry date (and then we got ‘i can’t think about always, i can only think about right now‘ in the s3 finale, further cementing that)–but while she’d gotten exposed to so much of the darkness inherent in being a vampire throughout the first three seasons and then her own vampiric awakening, she also got to see the good.

her no-humanity arc was kind of essential for this, btw. (is this an unpopular opinion? probably. i’m gonna pretend it is so it doesn’t seem like i’ve gone too far afield here.) which is another reason i hated that stupid fucking sire bond, after i gave up the idea it’d be revealed to be fake, and choose to ignore it in my own interpretation of canon–because there was no need for it. elena just lost her brother, the one remaining member of her immediate family, the one she’d gone to extraordinary lengths the entire season to protect. she was in unimaginable fucking pain. she was in agony, because not only was her brother dead, but she was still a very new vampire and her emotions were spiraling out of fucking control.

she would have absolutely destroyed herself in her grief, if she hadn’t been presented with an outlet. something she absolutely would have chosen for herself, in that moment–damon talking to her softly, reminding her that there was a way she could just be without needing to feel everything, and elena latching onto that one tiny bit of hope, that maybe for now she didn’t have to be in so much pain she thought she might actually fucking die on the spot from it. elena making that choice for herself–actually, you know, having some fucking agency as the central character of the series–would have been a much better choice, both from a narrative and character perspective. BUT ANYWAY.

it was during her stint with the switch turned off that elena first got a real taste of how fun and how freeing being a vampire could be. if the Idiot Brothers hadn’t banded together to try and force elena to be human again against her will, i really don’t doubt that the worst she would’ve done was snatch-eat-erase a whole bunch of people and live it up in the seedier unberbellies of various big party cities for a while. but whatever, the damage was done and eventually elena had her switch turned on by watching matt die, and feeling the relief at seeing him wearing the gilbert ring, and etc.

she largely had vengeance in mind once she was back to her more or less ‘normal’ self, but a crucial part of her development over that particular arc was the fact that she no longer hated herself for existing.

that was huge. it wasn’t given the focus or prominence it should have had, and i’ll again blame that on the weaker writing that was filling the gaps left by kevin williamson’s departure, but elena was no longer the suicidal martyr she’d been since the beginning of the show. she enjoyed living. she reveled in the strength she had, in the fact that she was no longer the Token Human, the doppelganger whose blood attracted all kinds of atrocities. she could protect herself now. she got closure with her brother, when the ghosts came back for a while, and with alaric, and she basically gave herself permission to want to have forever with the man she loved.

(and the fandom villified her, for it. because of fucking course they did. because she was a teenage girl who’d spent most of the previous four seasons dying or preparing to die or literally ready to slit her own throat without a second’s hesitation when it came to protecting people she cared about, but now that she’d decided it was ok to want to be selfish for a while and be with who she wanted without feeling guilty, suddenly it was open fucking season. but ANYWAY.)

where was i?

oh. yeah. season 5.

like i said, season 4 was a little shaky, but more or less solid–it wasn’t until after season 6 that i realized the signs of the show’s downfall had started in s4, with the cure and the sire bond heralding much worse things to come. it was s5 where the show really went off the rails.

here’s another unpopular opinion–it was absolutely character regression to have damon acting out the way he did that season. yes, in seasons past, damon acting out was a big part of his progression–two steps forward, one step back, but still slowly but steadily moving forward. but by the time we get to s5, damon had literally everything he wanted. he was BLISSFULLY happy, with the woman of his dreams, living in utter domestic bliss for an entire summer before she went off to university. and this trashfire of a show actually tried to convince me that he would’ve left their bedroom for more than five minutes, let alone long enough to drive across the state and murder some innocent human woman over a sixty-year-old grudge he’d never so much as thought about the entire time he was in mystic falls????? really?????

as if that weren’t enough, this man who witnessed, first hand, elena’s love for her brother, and who had grown to love him too–who was desperate to save his life on more than one occasion, including VERY RECENTLY in the show–would let enzo waltz in and nearly murder him??? i’m????? god

and then katherine stole elena’s body, and i was fucking done.

 literally ragequit the show once elena got her body back, because i was that fucking pissed. they literally had to do so much character regression and assassination to even make it work???? they had to put bonnie on a bus to ‘away from the main plot’ville just so that she couldn’t tell anyone that katherine hadn’t actually crossed over–even though she was right fucking there in the living room with them when she saw katherine’s ghost, and she would have known immediately that something was wrong because katherine disappeared rather than crossing over. and then they had to make damon devolve so he wouldn’t be in a position to realize elena wasn’t herself. and then everyone else carried the fucking idiot ball, except matt who was promptly compelled, and TYLER who nearly died about it, ALL so that no one would notice what had happened until damon was right there with katherine!elena trying to get him to kill her so she could kill him so he wouldn’t reveal what she’d done, and i JUST.

anyway. the awful thing is, the last few episodes of season 5 were really fucking good. it felt like the show had gone back to circa s3 levels of writing. and then s6 was ok for two episodes and then…. fucking nosedived off a cliff and into the abyss.

elena losing all her good memories of damon just so she could fall in love with him all over again was one of the worst writing decisions ever made. just, in history. completely. we didn’t need to see them fall in love in a rushed and half-assed manner when we’d already gotten a beautiful four-season arc of their love story. at the VERY LEAST, they could have had her just lose all her memories, similar to stefan’s s5 memory wipe, so that it wouldn’t seem weird that she thought he was a monster and loved him anyway because something something toxic bullshit. (oh, yeah, i’m still bitter af that they had to beat us over the head with DELENA IS TOXIC YOU GAIZ as if they didn’t have one of the healthier relationships in the show until it was decided that there wasn’t enough drama so they had to make damon regress and elena excuse it in a series of increasingly ooc writing decisions)

UH. ANYWAY YEAH.

as a sidenote, tyler and elena’s friendship had a lot of potential to be something kind of fucking amazing, and it’s one of the most underrated friendships in the fandom, which is a fucking shame because i would have loved to see them get closer and have a real bond as supernatural orphans who’d had almost everything and everyone they cared about torn away at one point or another.

god. ugh. TL;DR: delena was planned from the beginning and was in no way responsible for the show going to shit, it just had the unfortunate timing of becoming canon right before the show became terrible; elena gilbert was an amazing protagonist and character in general, who should not have been hated for daring to be a teenage girl who wasn’t always fully aware or in control of her own feelings, and who dealt with so much grief and trauma in such a short time that it’s nothing short of a miracle that she eventually found her way back to the girl she’d been before, happy and sure of herself, and people just couldn’t recognize elena when she was happy so they decided she randomly changed when she became a vampire and it was All Damon’s and Delena’s Fault; stefan was a terrible boyfriend for most of their relationship; damon was wildly out of character for most of season 5; and the memory loss arc in s6 was pathetic and actively harmful to the show as a whole and especially damon and elena’s relationship and perception in fandom; oh, and tyler and elena had an amazing and horribly underrated friendship that should have gotten a lot more focus than it did. (i’m still mad tyler was put on a bus so much rather than allowed to be like, present in the lives of his only remaining friends lmfao.)

[xcwbrghz-blog]

Fire burns deep below our routine in the abyss of subliminal shades freedom is a manic breeze of need a stench of false light unity

Underneath of this broken monolith lies well organized chain of command where archetypal justice is served where the handle of power is open

Cold blames of dis-improvement at the altar of decaying universe eyes closed on shattered platform exiled hatred towards all shapes

Mist within i am bound to master spirit like disease i spread the deepening way no matter of praise or prayer we invoke the emptiness to dim the cosmos

Morbid obsession of unearthly realms progression towards the True Name silent emptiness as origin of whole tearing the structures of enslaved soul

Touched by laments of forbidden ones buried away from our receiving receptors i have grown into an opening as if i would have chosen myself

When the prognosis turns into will which runs from the void into matter there lies your forsaken skill holy darkness in scattered selves

Against the celestial made synopsis within every step in road of ash i hear the hauling of restless souls no time will overwrite our fault

Saturate the confirmation bias insights against the limit of psychotic chaos which is the die of impossibilities rising as it rolls quietly behind every decision

Open the monologue with thyself as godhood initiate spirits to participate the circle due time you will learn to suffocate the external world from your thoughts completely

As the pyramid grows with conversations these thoughts begin to come self aware no matter how much it takes from you this system will now inhabit your soul

Exalted vision may now rise from the depths as you give permission to these thoughts to live share your vessel with these abandoned deities supernal synthesis without any limitation

Saturate the social deprivation insights against the limit of total destruction which is the urge of possibilities rising as it grows exponentially in every disappointment

When the pyramid is built upon nothingness there is no cure for that sickness to wield it no matter how much it will give to you this system will now intertwine your soul

All litanies of pure black realizations will enhance your clarity of parallel realms this cannot be undone once the mind has opened conversation will continue through eons of space

Now it is done what you were secretly looking for metaphors unravel and mysteries get solved you will learn to love the black hole you are becoming a quasar in the light of Morningstar

Vivid ever-grey skies above soil poison runs trough veins of betrayal stampede of clones in frenzy of sun winter has return from the oblivion

Doors nailed shut aside from great work sacrifice of fertile train of thoughts more aware than is allowed in this place mold into murky arts behind the gates

Seer and listener in our own worship guilt and sorrow as pushing pressure in timeless machinery of symptoms fallen from the hand of poltergeist

So soon it becomes irresistible presence strengthen at eve of nights buried in these aehtyric changes we practice ourselves off lies

Mandatory rituals of silencing whole only creative and altering goals inside our vessel the occult content breathes absolution and subjective deeds

Equilibrium is at winter solstice where fires paint the picture so old there lies the only surrendering dark creates light for those after it

Maturing fluid non-linear patterns fulfill the utmost need to personalize as we are only splinters of void who have came to be sentenced in the fallout

Rest may come for those who understand without corruption of the higher self seer and listener in our own worship guilt and sorrow as pushing pressure

Tunnel in total denial of consensus radiant exception in preset existence immanent control of overall perception firey milestone pointing to every direction

When hearts of man emit the black light into realm of dogmatic greed and vice the creation of plastic paradise will be treated like pest and parasite

When ocean floods over earth and man all the frivolous tissue will wane altar of concept of solid emptiness takes place in marriage between life and death

For so long there has not been an aim for peeling the filth off the scales altruistic versus sanctimonious your duality is due to times you fail

For so long there has not been an aim for peeling off the sickness of mankind eradicate all prisons of hope so that the milestone of beyond will rise

Now it crushes the veil completely out of sight and the delusions will become reality in this process the alien will come our only purpose and only constancy

As it proceeds into deeper roots of worlds our whole being is torn into chasm between the opposites in individual mind emptiness and matter will fuse together

Luciferse will abate and void the abomination this faulty feces we have made for ourselves triumph of mind over matter is completion brink for the dogma to dissolve

Rings of the central moon of none-verse before actualizing any form of being this cold hell awaits as womb of shadows therein meditates the master of existence

I would not open your hatred towards me scintillating excellence enlighten me this sacred initiation creates abundance unlike flickering visions of consciousness

Nothing is perfect in unison or harmony it is the inertia of living things everything i haul is towards deepening as a messenger of ethereal forces

Trance of unfamiliar occurrences holds same trajectories as mankind the nuisance of paradox in nature before we gain much higher plane of life

Now the triumph is anchored in unknown our lives compete against the life itself none will stand in this flesh for long we are apprentices of cosmic throne

Now the triumph is anchored in unknown our lives compete against the life itself none will stand in this flesh for long we are apprentices of cosmic throne

The central moon is not of this horizon but implosion of widely opened wisdom a communion between the ancient masters and the living force of beings in form

I shed my woe off the parasite of temple we all know we are here for a reason put the rings around your icy fingers and the solution is no longer your treason

Irrational survival through the aethyrs Into the black galaxy of True Name where no boundaries cannot pillage against your full potential and spirit

Wherein this illusion of separate frequencies have no power over the drone of unity our majestic Hivemind Beholder will cut down all chains to misery

Life is long gone replaced by immatter our beloved void gives nourishment of soul to be one with this darkness of whole is the only absolute subjective matter

Farewell and begone my life as i mold into nothingness beyond space and time with joy i accept this hell as if i would have chosen myself