#he's one of them innate evil believers i fear..................

[theophagie]

[shutupineedtothink]

Billy Theory - That boy and Agatha are the same

I know some people want Billy to have these hidden motivations and secretly he hates Agatha so that’s why he put the sigil on himself. So that he would show up with this false, aw shucks persona of Billy Kaplan and fool her into helping him walk the Road and bring his mother back at the end. Or get power, or his brother, or whatever.

But I want it to be the exact opposite. He did put the sigil on himself to hide his real identity from her, and from the other witches. But it isn’t because he hates them. He’s afraid of them. He actually is Agatha’s fan. And he idolizes and respects all of these women. And he’s afraid if they find out he’s Wanda Maximoff’s son, the ultimate witch gone bad, the personification of every negative, evil stereotype Lilia has been talking about around witches, they’ll reject him.

He’s afraid they never would have taken him on the Road to begin with, because somewhere along the last three years, and after the events of Multiverse of Madness, he realized oh my god, my mom was the evil one. (I’m assuming Wanda’s turn was publicized in the MCU, or maybe he sensed it magically.) And he (somehow) learns more and more about Agatha and realizes that she was never as evil as she pretends to be, or at least she never went on a killing rampage like Wanda did. But surely she must hate him, because she hates his mom. They must all hate him. That’s his motivation for the sigil. Fear, of himself, of what people will think of him, not anger. Starting to sound familiar?

Sure, I think it’s narratively interesting if he hates her and then he has to come to terms with who Agatha really is underneath it all. But it’s way more narratively interesting, for both of them, if his own journey, his own trauma, his own inner dialogue, very closely reflects hers. They’re mirrors.

What does Agatha, at her core, believe about herself? Her mother hated her because her mother believed she was evil. She internalized that and sees herself as evil, plays into that persona even as she tries to be the opposite of that. In her mind currently, she’s so innately evil she (directly or indirectly) caused the death of her own son.

It’s not quite an exact match for Billy, but the result is the same. He sees (or maybe even magically feels) how his mother turned bad, killed innocent people (listen I love Wanda, but she did). He thinks oh my god, I have the same magic. There’s no witch out there who will want to teach me. And probably, on some deep down level he thinks, maybe I’m evil too. Maybe just like my mom, there’s no other path for me.

Bottom line? That boy isn’t Agatha’s. That boy is another version of her own inner story. She and that boy are the same, on a deep fundamental level.

Stop here if you don’t want potential ep 6 spoilers! More specifics for how I think we move forward under the cut.

Where does that leave us after ep 5/going into ep 6? Here’s the breakdown.

Billy does what he does at the end of ep 5, basically becoming his worst fear, turning into the evil witch version of his mother.

But it’s not real (see my other post about the false trial). So Agatha, Jen, and Lilia, wake up from the false trial (thank you Rio), maybe they have to fight the Seven and defeat them together, and let’s say Alice is alive too, because I want her to be. Everyone’s still on the Road.

Billy is still trapped in the spell. They have to wake him up somehow. Jen’s already saying uncertainly, maybe we don’t want to wake him up, but Agatha immediately defends him. No, it wasn’t his fault, it was a trap, and she provoked him. That whole “trial” was a manifestation of her punishment by the Seven, it wasn’t really him. She’s adamant about this and the others (maybe reluctantly) go with it.

They wake him up — and in my head, they wake him up by destroying the sigil (breaking the illusion of his identity and the Seven’s spell in one go). Of course, it’s Agatha that has to do it, because she and Rio are the only ones who know. And really, Agatha’s known all along, right. I think she knew from the second he broke her out of the spell in ep 1. She just wanted to believe otherwise. So after a few failed attempts to shake him awake and probably a line from Rio along the lines of “You know you have to say it Agatha,” she does. “William Maximoff.” It’s sad, and soft, without any intention to hurt him. (A sigil is destroyed when it’s no longer needed.)

So the sigil is destroyed and our boy wakes up. There’s some initial remnants of anger on his face, but then once he sees them all staring at him warily, he starts to get scared. He remembers what he’s done to them, even if it wasn’t real. He scrambles away from them, please no, I didn’t mean to — I swear I want to be good.

It’s Agatha’s trauma, a version of herself, playing out right in front of her. Playing out in front of us, again. Only now she gets to do for him what her mother never did for her, and what the coven never did for her in the false trial either. She sees him. She defends him, his true self, the curious hopeful smart boy he’s been this whole time. (You don’t need to know someone’s name to know who they really are.) She goes to him and she says it wasn’t real. That wasn’t you. It was me, my punishment. Not yours.

But he’s not convinced yet. And now it hits him — But you know who I am. You said my name.

Agatha says, I think I always knew who you were.

Then why don’t you hate me?

She’s genuinely confused. Why would I hate you?

He looks at the rest of them and back to her. Because I’m… Wanda Maximoff’s son. She hurt you, she hurt so many people. And I have her magic. I was born… (evil? Bad? he can’t bring himself to say it.)

And this is Agatha’s big moment, and the big emotional pay off for us. She says, Billy (the first time we hear his casual name spoken) — Never let anyone else’s fear of you decide who you are. Not mine, not anyone else’s. Never let anyone else tell you you’re horrible, or worthless, or evil. You get to decide who you are, and only you. If you want to be good… you can be. Do you understand?

She’s talking to him, but on some level she’s talking to herself, her own inner child. Does she believe that for herself yet? No, but I digress.

And maybe wryly she adds, because Agatha can’t be serious for too long and I want this line, “Besides, as we’ve already established, I don’t punish children for the sins of the mother.”

Didn’t mean to turn that into a whole fic but there you go. Anyway, Billy gets the message. The coven sees him and accepts him. Maybe there’s hugs. I’d like there to be hugs. We move on to Agatha’s real trial.

Tl;dr? Agatha Harkness is walking out of this Road with Billy Maximoff as her apprentice, goddamnit.

[chronicbeans]

Hazbin Rewrite - Lucifer

I find that the show, itself, doesn't necessarily handle the conflict between him and Charlie as well as it should've. I don't mean it being rushed, either, as the problem seems to run deeper than that. He's not really a bad father, just bad at communication, yet they call it daddy issues? I also feel it could've handled Lucifer as a character better in a lot of ways to make him more recognizable as Lucifer and not just "another tragic character", while still keeping that idea of tragedy in there. However, he's meant to be sympathetic but still despicable enough for you not to care.

TW: Lucifer is both Slightly Sympathetic and Objectively a Bad Person, Neglectful Parenting, Lucifer Despises Charlie

To understand some aspects of this character, I'd like to explain a concept I have with angels in my storyline. Angels follow God's words, so many believe they know what is right and wrong, despite them not knowing it. They don't have the innate knowledge of good and evil that Adam, Eve, and Lilith have from the forbidden fruit. They can gain such knowledge by seeing evil and being able to know it as evil on their own, without God's input, this unlocking the ability of innate knowledge. However, that is a very rare occurrence for angels, because they fear that God might see them as tainted if they do learn such things.

So, the angels choose to follow God because they love Him, but when it comes to what is good and evil, they follow His words on what to do to avoid it instead of having an innate knowledge of it like humans now do. God is afraid of His angels becoming like humans because He doesn't want them to knowingly wrong one another. However, if they were to ever learn such knowledge, He would still love them all the same. He just wants to avoid the negative possibilities that could arise from it. The same went for the original humans, as He wanted them to be simple, eternally happy creatures. He loves joy, seeing joy, and creating joy.

In comes Lucifer. He loves God, only to grow a distaste for Him over time. This is because he began to see himself as higher than God and began feeling jealous of humans due to him perceiving God as loving them more than angels. He despised humanity for merely existing and getting attention away from him and his fellow angels, which is what caused him to rebel and try to overthrow God. It was a way of proving himself to God, as well as trying to take control. Once he was cast out of Heaven, he felt powerless, and tempted Eve into eating the forbidden fruit in order to have one last powerful act of rebellion against his creator. He saw it as ruining God's favorite creation by giving them free will. This is what started the fear of gaining knowledge of good and evil in the angels, because Lucifer brought the idea of that knowledge being a sort of poison to God's creations to the table in the first place.

Despite rebelling against God, Lucifer doesn't have the knowledge of it being wrong. Lucifer acts in ways we perceive as evil, but he doesn't perceive them as evil. He simply views them as actions, and due to no longer listening to God's advice, he now no longer has any guidelines to follow. The tragedy of his situation is no longer necessarily him being cast out of Heaven for rebellion. It is moreso him being cast out for rebelling while believing it to have not been a bad action, and his inability to see why it is bad resulting in him wanting to repeat it if he ever returned to Heaven. He's stuck in a loop because of a literal inability to learn what was wrong with his actions, and his own stubbornness as to proving it wasn't wrong in the first place to God. That doesn't mean he wants to learn why it was wrong, though. He truly doesn't, because his pride makes him see his actions as being right.

He was with Lilith for a short period of time, until Lilith left due to his controlling, narcissistic behavior. Then, he turned to Earth for another partner, finding a young woman who was following The Satanic Temple. Under the assumption that it meant she was worshipping him, he went to Earth under a human disguise and pursued her. That's when he created Charlie.

He made Charlie using white sand from a nearby beach, making her resemble the woman due to the idea that no parent could love a child that doesn't look like themself. This is, of course, objectively wrong and only because he couldn't love a child that doesn't look like himself. He then pretended to be a single father, letting the woman care for Charlie from time to time, resulting in Charlie and the woman getting close.

Upon realizing that The Satanic Temple does not worship him and, in actuality, doesn't believe him, he became offended. Taking it as an insult, he took Charlie back and returned to Hell, never to interact with the woman again and never letting Charlie even know about her. However, there was the problem of Charlie...

Charlie didn't look like him. Charlie didn't act like him. Charlie could see right from wrong. Charlie was nothing like him. She looked like the woman, and as she grew up, she acted more like God than himself. He genuinely, wholeheartedly, hated Charlie because of this.

Due to, once again, being unable to see right from wrong, he saw no problem in completely neglecting Charlie once she was old enough to care for herself. That age being 9 years old, in his opinion. He mostly only talked to her when he tried to teach her how to do things his way, which she never agreed with. This caused a reasonable strain in their relationship, which he couldn't understand, and made him hate her more.

It became worse when she began asking about the woman she barely remembers, being who he considers her "biological mother". Why would he tell her about some woman she'd never meet, much less one who humiliated him to such an extent? So, he lied, saying it was Lilith, despite Lilith looking nothing like Charlie's description and not being aware of Charlie's existence.

Once she moved out, creating her Hazbin Hotel, it was good riddance to her. She may still seek Lucifer's approval, but he won't ever give it to her out of spite.

[twin-wings]

Vash and Knives' dynamic in the manga is extremely compelling to me. I really like how their conflict isn't a matter of innate temperaments, but the different ways in which they react to their experiences.

When they were kids, Knives was the one with the strongest desire to connect with humans. He had so much hope – and fear of rejection – that he literally started crying when he felt accepted by Conrad, the second person after Rem to learn about the twins' existence. And it's important that it was Knives, and not Vash, to say something like this:

I've always found it so interesting that between the two of them, Vash was the more cautious one. He was more reserved, quieter, and less emotional compared to Knives. And most importantly, he had fewer expectations about humans and whether or not they could become friends with them.

Vash has never been naive. He's very aware of how difficult it is for people to come to a mutual understanding – and how two beings as powerful as them will likely be seen with suspicion and fear by humans – but this doesn't mean that trying isn't worth it, not matter how many times it might fail.

What this moment conveys is not naive idealism, but an impossibly strong determination. Vash does believe that humans and plants can coexist peacefully, but he also knows it's an uphill road to get there.

Obviously Knives doesn't share the same hope. All the hope he had about humanity was crushed when he found out about Tesla. That was the day his innocence was irreparably lost.

But Knives wasn't the only one who was affected by that discovery. Vash's reaction was just as strong: we see him adamantly refusing food, trying to kill himself because he couldn't stand to be in a ship full of humans. We see him lashing out, angry and scared and unable to trust humans at all, not even Rem.

The whole flashback adds a lot of nuance to Vash's character: he knows humans are capable of terrible things, he doesn't just blindly trust them and doesn't see the world through rose-tinted glasses. But he still chooses empathy and forgiveness instead of resentment and vengeance again and again, because he knows humans are also capable of good, of changing and learning from their mistakes. Rem herself was proof of that: how she did all she could to prevent the tragedy of Tesla from happening again; how she gave her own life for everyone else, to grant everyone a ticket to the future. It was Rem who convinced Vash to have hope and gave him a reason to keep living, and it's her legacy that Vash tries to protect with his life.

Knives, on the other hand, bottled up his emotions, refusing to share his pain with Vash and Rem and using it to fuel his hatred. Knives was afraid of humans as much as Vash was, but instead of facing that fear head-on and overcoming it, he decided to eradicate the source.

The main conflict in Trigun isn't just about two brothers' ideological divergences, nor is it simply about stopping the "bad guy": it's about how good and evil coexist in human nature. Vash and Knives were bound to discover the dark side of humanity sooner or later, and they were bound to make a choice. While Knives only sees the evil that humans have done and refuses to give them a chance, Vash chooses to believe in people's potential for goodness.

They are two sides of the same coin. Both are incredibly powerful beings with the ability to exterminate humanity if they so wanted, but the way they choose to use their immense powers is completely opposite.

[immortalnetizen]

The Ideology of Hatred

Probably the most crucial theme of Batman v Superman, and that which is most pertinent to our contemporary discord, is that of the empowerment and corruptive influence of hatred. Hatred is a natural human sentiment, the manifestation of our most profound sense of fear, regret, greed and envy and enabled by our innate fallibility, irrationality and selfishness.

The psychological catalyst which motivates and drives both Batman and Superman as well as Senator June Moon is that of hatred which emboldens us to tear down others for the sake of building our feeble and insecure sense of pride and self-perceived sense of righteousness. Bruce Wayne finds false solace through his cynical take on Superman being a false hero and god while projecting his own destructive and self-righteous tendencies as a crime fighter enforcing his own moral code those considerably weaker than himself upon Superman, thereby justifying Batman’s own jaded and uncompromising attitude and harmful behavior. Superman, likewise disheartened by the suspicion and contempt he has so garnished through the media and popular discourse, finds toxic comfort in focusing his hatred toward Batman while attempting to paint him and the society that enables him as the real hypocrites and threat to justice. In the end, neither character is really at war with one another, but a false perception that they’ve built up in their minds as the ultimate enemy while fooling themselves into believing that they are the ultimate and true hero.

I’m good so long as the other guy is more evil than I.

Both characters seek to affirm their sense of righteousness through the admonishment and destruction of the other as opposed to focusing on their own shortcomings and the real social issues and injustice going on around them; losing sense of who they really are by over-fixating on how they desire to envision and demonize the other. It is only through their blind and obsessive contempt for the other that Lex Luthor, a master of media and political manipulation, is able to deceive and play the two off of each other as he did Senator Moon and the Capitol bombing.

Hatred is a drug; it numbs us to our own shortcomings, projects demons where none be and inundates our most wretched sense of guilt and self-loathing by encouraging us to scape-goat those we prefer to see as a threat to our greatest wants and desires. Probably the most tragic irony of Batman v Superman is in how its core message went largely ignored by mass-audiences who, as opposed to walking away with any measurable degree of valuable incite, chose instead to indulge themselves in a campaign of blind outrage and hate-mongering, characterizing Snyder as an anti-christ or convenient strawman for their petty discord, dismissing people who either understood or showed any appreciation for the film as ‘cultists’ and peddling conspiracy theories such as claiming that film star Ben Affleck secretly purchased bulk copies of BvS DVDs in order to boost sales. Clearly no lessons need be learned here.

If only such individuals could be as perceptive as they are delusional about their own inflated sense of cultural taste and intellect. Indeed arrogance, haughtiness and intolerance is the death of objective film analysis and art critique.

[sentenceme-leni]

Tuesday. Minimum 2 sentences.

---

Belle supposed that she should be afraid. Anyone in their right mind would be, deep in the lair of the Dark One. Rumpelstiltskin's face had been a mask of horror, the moment he saw the magic cloud envelop her.

She hoped he called for help before coming for her.

She also hoped it took the rescue party another hour before they arrived.

Unlike the rest of the world, she had lived with the Dark One for years. She could read the moods behind those yellow eyes with even more accuracy than she could the man she had married in Storybrooke.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

He sneered.

Belle let out a frustrated sigh. This was a familiar battle, yet ever so tiring to climb up the same hill over and over again - and this time with two different versions of the same man! "You are cranky," she told him, crossing her arms over her chest. "Go on, Rumple. You know how this goes. You can keep your problems to yourself, or you can share them with me and we can---"

"We can?" He snickered. "Don't try to deceive me, dearie. You want no part of this," he declared with a hiss, essaying a grand wave at himself.

Belle felt like kicking something. Preferably that thrice-damned spell which had divided Rumpelstiltskin in these two stubborn personalities. She already has this discussion with the human version!

"As I already told you," she didn't bother to explain she meant the Rumpelstiltskin who had stayed in their home. He was smart. He could figure it out. "It could hardly be True Love if I only wanted parts of you."

He gave her a condescending look, but she noticed his claws curl nervously at his sides.

He was so tempted by the idea of a true love. He wanted to believe her. Rumpelstiltskin always wanted to believe he could be loved.

The fool still gave her a nasty smirk. "Oh, but I'm the evil parts, don't you know?" He leaned into her personal space with a leer. "Still eager to claim me?"

Belle leaned forward, maintaining eye contact until he blinked first. "Your counterpart just chased off two families from their apartments," she informed him "They refused to pay rent now that he doesn't have magic."

He snorted. "What does magic have to do with a contract?"

They were echoes of each other, down to the incredulous intonation.

"Exactly."

Taking advantage of his good humor, Belle shot out her hand to grasp his. He expectedly opened his mouth with surprise, but said nothing once he looked at her determined expression.

"Oh no," he said warily. Indulgently. Lovingly. Of course he knew her moods as well. "You have an idea."

"I do." She smiled. For all the chaos of the last three days, unlike every other idiot affected by the spell, Rumpelstiltskin had enough of an innate survival instinct that they hadn't gone at each other's throats. A truly soulless Dark One would have already razed the land, so the reprieve had been the springboard to Belle's theory. "I believe you've been happy to build yourself this castle and terrorize everyone with dire threats. I also believe your other half has been making everyone in Storybrooke fear the power of a signature with only Dove and his friends as back up." She shrugged. "You're no more evil than he is, and he is no more patient than you are. If anything, you're raw magic and he is all stubbornness. Power and Will, maybe."

"That sounds like too good a wish, sweetheart."

"I haven't worked out the details," she admitted. "But all the same-" she tugged on his coat "-you are all mine."

The End

16/04/24

[babybabymerrychristmas]

on my hunger games bullshit but to further my analysis of president snow, lets turn to Coin and why her arc mirrors snow so precisely as well as the symbolism of her being murdered right in front of snow and the others.

first, snow and coin are both power-hungry fascists. they do not give a fuck about the districts, they only want to be the one doling out punishment but Coin is just as arrogant in her own snake-like intelligence as Snow is that she makes a critical mistake just before her death. She confesses to Katniss that she was a pawn in her own mastermind strategy to take power from Snow not to end the games but to dole out her own form of justice against who she considered to be the ultimate "evil."

in this moment, we see the startling comparison to Snow in her belief that she could speak to the GIRL WHO WON HER REVOLUTION FOR HER like that and expect her to go along with these "punishment" games, as if she isnt all too aware of the official narrative of the CURRENT games SHE LOST HER SISTER to change, as if Coin didnt know she LOST HER SISTER FIGHTING FOR COIN, but Coin believed Katniss would cow in fear of her "leadership" over all 13 districts, believed Katniss would cow under her "cunning" strategy to win power for herself and believed Katniss would feel out-numbered by her superior wit and inteliigence to Katniss specifically. Thats why she invited the other victors, some of which she knew were angry enough to agree in the heat of moment with Coin, as a way to force Katniss to submit to her privately and then publically because Coin believed she was smart enough to control anyone, just like Snow did. Except unlike Snow, she differed in just one critical aspect.

Her hubris led her to lie to Katniss and everyone else around her because she believed nobody was smart enough to pick up on those lies. She believed that nobody could fool her, and that is when Katniss called her bluff by pretending to agree herself. if Coin was as smart as Snow, as smart as Katniss, she would have known right then and there that she had fucked up. not even Snow was presumptuous enough to believe he could lie to Katniss, no he KNEW he would have to be honest with her in order to get her to move even a little bit the way he wanted her and if Coin was even smarter than Snow, she would have realized that Katniss would never have let her get away with her identical plan to Snow.

The fact that she brought Katniss in front of her supporters, whom I fully believed she expected would protect her from Katniss because she thinks everyone is as image obssesed as she is, to kill Snow and then she stood right on top of him, the visual representation of being a bigger threat than Snow could ever be because at least Snow had fucking a moral code, and expected Katniss to do her bidding for her and usher in her reign of terror was absolutely brilliant of Collins tbh.

it shows us that the most dangerous move of all is the assumption that you are the smartest person to have ever existed, because other people are just as capable of lying to your face as boldly as you do. it shows us that even the most terrifying of villains can be taken down and stopped by another human killing them because ultimately their power is not innate. it is earned through fear, abuse, and terror and that is something that good humans can always overcome because we just fucking outnumber the villains.

the most powerful lesson from the hunger games is that we're all fucking human, every last one of us and we all have reasons to behave badly but at our core, we should try and be good because if we give in to our evil impulses, we will ALWAYS be outnumbered by the sheer amount of good that exists in the world.

[nardaviel]

I've been wanting to do this for ages but I was too lazy to turn on my computer. I got the template here! Only like three of these characters are any degree of well-known, and I think I might actually be one of the only people on Tumblr who knows of two of them... Under the cut I talk a little about how each of them has inspired Sora.

Ibushi Arima: The Original inspiration. The reason Sora exists. The mold that Sora was shaped to fit. Essentially, I needed an OC to fill some holes in my backstory for Ibushi, so I made Sora. He has many things in common with Ibushi for that reason (rich background, unhappy childhood, deeply devoted to a small number of people). He has some key differences, as well, because he needed to have them (less conflict-averse, more ambitious).

Light Yagami: Sora is incredibly, blindingly smart (though not to the degree we're meant to believe Light is, because I'm pretty sure no actual human is as smart as Light is meant to be), and gorgeous, and charismatic, and well-off, but feels a profound disconnect between himself and most others. It takes him in a different direction than Light, however, with more loneliness and self-loathing. Essentially, Sora, like Light, is a guy who seems to have it all, but his internal life is dark and dysfunctional and broken. One of my fav tropes!

Diora di'Marano: She is one of the characters who I might be alone in knowing, which is such a shame, because she's one of my favorite characters in all of media. She's smart as fuck, subtle and patient, good at manipulating people, and overall incredibly skilled at maneuvering through her society to become powerful despite some not inconsiderable barriers. Most importantly for this post, she's motivated by love for a few people, and she doesn't care about much else, including herself. All that cunning and subtlety, and she uses it to protect people, then avenge them, then to protect new people, all the while using herself as a tool like any other. She and Sora would get along, I think.

Haruka and Michiru: Specifically I'm talking about the 90s anime version of these characters. I never watched the anime all the way through, but I remember being drawn to their pragmatism, which influenced the way Sora thinks. The inner senshi don't want anyone to die, and neither do Haruka and Michiru, really, but they recognize that in order to save the most people, they have to commit to causing a few deaths. Sora would do the same calculations.

Amarais Handernesse ATerafin: She is another beautifully pragmatic character. She has more principles than Sora, but she's clear-eyed about what she wants, and she's willing to do literally anything to achieve it; it's simply that some of the things she wants are to never resort to assassination, to leave a positive legacy, to uplift the most vulnerable instead of crushing them under her heel, etc., which rule out some methods of taking and holding power. (Sora does not share these admirable principles; where they are similar is that he, like Amarais, knows what he won't do because he's considered and analyzed it already and decided that it won't produce an acceptable result.) Amarais is also an unapproachable character, aware of her position and expecting others to be aware of it as well, but isolated and made incredibly lonely by that distance. Sora can be very much like that. Lastly, like Sora, she wants power. She wants to get to the top, and she's not sorry about it or ashamed of it, and she's not portrayed as evil for that.

Daemon Sadi: (Look, is he from a Problematic series? Yes. Do I recommend it? Absolutely not. But I read it when I was young, it changed me forever, and now I'm stuck like this.) (Also, he doesn't even have book cover art I could use for this meme; I used @/veliseraptor's fancast of Sendhil Ramamurthy.) Daemon is The Most Powerful Guy To Ever Exist in his canon, which I think freed me early on from the fear of making characters OP. If there's magic or innate superpowers in an AU, and if Sora has them, he's going to be very innately strong, simply because it fits his has-everything-except-happiness-and-love concept and because I want him to be. Daemon is also a rich, beautiful, clever character, subtle and deadly, who lives through a youth full of abuse that follows him for the rest of his life and informs all the close relationships he ever has. Like Sora, he is deeply scarred by his early life and not nearly as stable as his smooth, charismatic facade suggests. His Diora-esque self-sacrificial depth of devotion to his closest loved ones is something else that's really stuck with me, and you can find it in Sora.

Josephine Montilyet: Josie is a diplomat. In a game where you, the PC, are a fighter, and your closest companions are people who fight with you, and two of your three advisors are a soldier and a spy-assassin type, Josephine stands out as the advisor whose skills lie in negotiation, manipulation of social circumstances, pulling strings, and destroying people without ever lifting a weapon. Sora, likewise, is very much a paperwork and private conferences kind of guy. Like Amarais, Josie is more of an idealist than Sora, but also like Amarais, she pursues her goals with Soralike ruthlessness.

[girlboss-enthusiast]

🌄&🧔‍♂️

🌄 What was the first thing that peaked you, and when did you peak?

(This is soooooo fucking long I'm sorry)

Peak trans and peak patriarchy were intertwined for me. It was mid-2021. I’d been identifying as nonbinary for about two years, but even while trying my best to believe in it, the whole concept of nonbinary just felt fake. At the same time, I had started questioning what I knew about porn and the sex industry in general. I hadn't watched porn in a few years because I’d read stories from ex-performers about the evils of mainstream porn, and I knew there was probably rape footage on porn sites, but I was still on the “sex work is work” bus. (I know—I was an idiot.) I saw a post on Tumblr about the pros of the Nordic Model vs legalization, realized I didn't know much about it, and did some research. I found a couple blogs here that were incredibly informative, and found radfem bloggers in the links. They were scary TERFs but they were right about porn, so I wanted to see if they were right about anything else. And that was that. I was connecting with radfems here by January 2022.

For gender specifically: I struggled with what I thought was severe gender dysphoria. Like, the hatred I felt for my body and particularly my reproductive organs made me want to carve them out of me. I was that TIF who truly thought her innate identity and rightful state of being was a sparkly mist. (In retrospect, this was profound dissociation stemming from my fear and hate of my disabled body. I can't believe that people thought I was fine when I was incredibly mentally ill.) But nonbinary as a concept never quite made sense to me, even when I wanted to believe it. I went by they/them, changed my style, but it was like a costume. Nothing had changed but the words I used.

Like I said above, I started reading radfem blogs because of their anti-porn posts. They poked holes in gender identity as an ideology, not just being nonbinary, and that + curing my PMDD made me discard gender ideology completely.

🧔‍♂️ If you could kill one man (excluding politicians, billionaires, and those responsible for world tragedies), who would it be?

The 22-year-old male who started dating my friend when she was 16, right after she got out of an abusive relationship, and who we all thought was great bc he was soooooo nice to Jane* and so polite to everyone else, and he bought us alcohol, and she seemed so happy, and of course he was just as abusive as her ex, just better at hiding it. I would like to travel back in time and run him over with his stupid lifted truck

[shutupineedtothink]

[Theory] Agatha All Along title meaning + character arc for Agatha

Back on the theory train — here’s another thing that’s bugging me. Why is the show called Agatha All Along, besides the cute allusion to the song. I know for a fact Jac Schaeffer is too clever and too good of a writer to not make it mean something more.

I’m feeling like it must tie into Agatha’s character arc for the show, so let me take you on a little hypothetical journey here.

Spoilers below the cut!

Now that I’ve rewatched those last few episodes of WandaVision, I can’t get Agatha’s flashback out of my head. Particularly her saying, practically pleading, “I can be good” and her mother replying “no, you cannot.” Like holy shit. That’s a condemnation if I ever heard one. A different kind of curse passed down by a different kind of mother.

I’m starting to wonder… what if Agatha was always this powerful, even without the Darkhold. What if she was so innately powerful, her own mother and her entire coven was afraid of her? Maybe they even suspected her of being the Scarlet Witch, and therefore capable of ending the world itself? And because she was so powerful, and every other witch around her didn’t even want to touch her much less teach her, what if she went looking for resources herself? And whether that was the actual Darkhold or something else “above her station” (… I’m not convinced she had the Darkhold yet at the time of this WV flashback scene) that only served as the indictment the other witches needed to finally attack her?

Basically where I’m going with this is… what if Agatha was raised to believe she was bad? If she was always told she was basically evil incarnate, always feared for her power, too powerful for her own good, too powerful to be good, to anyone… her own coven, her sisters, and her mother were afraid of her and shunned her… what would that core belief do to her?

Let’s also assume her coven were the first (maybe only) people she intentionally killed (and even then, in self defense). The way she looks when she takes the amulet from her mother’s body — she’s angry, but how much of that anger is directed at herself? How much of her thought, well, look, they were right. I am bad. I am evil. And there’s no turning back now. And I hate myself for it.

Except maybe, she tries. She’s constantly trying to escape this fate, this identity that was forced on her. She never joins another coven in the centuries after, not only because no one wants her and she has serious trust issues but because she doesn’t want to hurt them, intentionally or not. She doesn’t need their power, she’s already more powerful than just about any other witch. So she studies. She learns the craft. She controls her power. And she leans into the persona of Agatha the powerful evil witch, because why not? That’s what they all think of her anyway. Let her control the narrative then. She wears her reputation like armor, so that no one can betray her ever again. As Rio says, “you’re vulnerable.” And she replies, “only physically.”

Then at some point, the unthinkable happens. She meets Rio, falls in love with her, figures out who she is (not necessarily in that order) and maybe she thinks, what kind of person falls in love with death? Surely that must be even more confirmation that she’s horrible (despite the fact that Rio is not horrible, not really, and certainly not to her). But she tries not to care, and mostly she doesn’t because she’s in love.

And then she has Nicky, however that happens, and she’s absolutely terrified but he is hers, and she loves him like she never loved anyone before. And she’s determined — he will be powerful but he will never think he’s anything less than because of it. He is finally, finally something good that came from her.

And then he too, is ripped away from her, by her own lover Death, and however it happened (even though it definitely wasn’t intentional on her part), she knows it’s her fault. Because she is evil, she is horrible, and this is her fate. She is betrayed by the people she loves, and she is left behind.

But still! She can’t give him up. She can’t stop trying. And she feels the absolutely insane surge of power in Westview and inserts herself into the Scarlet Witch’s hex, when no other witch would even dare get close, because maybe with enough power, with Wanda’s power, she can remake Nicky. (“And you wanted him back.”) She can create somewhere he’ll be safe and everyone else will be safe, and she won’t cause any more damage, to anyone. Death will never find them. She can raise her son in peace. She never wanted Wanda’s power just for power’s sake, she wanted what Wanda created, but better. Her version.

And then that too, was gone. And once again, she was painted the villain.

And now? Now it seems like all the pieces of her past are coming back to haunt her all at once. A new coven of witches who seem impossible to get along with, her lover Death who she tried to escape for so long, and a boy who looks like he might be the version of her son she was trying to recreate, who seems to adore her despite everything she is and wants to learn magic more than anything else. It’s all come back around.

So maybe, through reasons and events currently unfolding, Agatha’s journey on The Road (and the show) is to realize, or at least begin to maybe believe slightly, that she’s not inherently evil. She’s not an inherently bad person, or bad luck, or horrible. It wasn’t all her fault. Nicky’s death wasn’t her fault, even if she couldn’t save him. Death is part of her journey, as it is for us all, and maybe she can learn to accept that, maybe even love the woman who carries that name again, or at least forgive her.

Maybe this boy isn’t hers, but she can care for him and teach him the magic she never got to teach her own son. There can be a coven who actually has her back, who even sees her as their leader, who knows her and accepts her for what she truly is. Extremely flawed, powerful as all fuck, snarky and sarcastic, but the real her.

Not Agatha the evil witch. Not Agatha the villain (because she never was one). Not Agatha the hero either. Just Agatha. All Along.

———

Eh?? 🤷‍♀️

Now maybe in the show it’s not quite as angsty as all this, but Jac Schaeffer is writing this character too complexly and Kathryn Hahn is playing her too complexly for at least some of this not to be true. Agatha’s not just a villain. She’s not true evil. It’s only episode 4 and we basically know for a fact based on her reactions alone that Agatha did NOT sacrifice her own child for the book of the damned. And I just can’t get over the way Kathryn Hahn almost seems to be playing two characters with Agatha, the (evil) witch and the vulnerable Agatha underneath that only seems to surface for Teen and Rio, so far.

It’s fascinating, and I just want to see her get the depth of story she deserves. And we deserve, tbh.

[angeltreasure]

Hello i would like yout opinion, i am catholic and i believe in God, but i feel attracted to tarot, i have not gotten to practice it, but i have gotten to participate in free games and readings sometimes.

I would like to get to practice it because it caught my attention also i know the tarot is based on energy and can be misleading at times.

You cannot serve two masters my brother or sister. You have to either choose God or choose the evil one, Satan. You cannot have both especially as Catholic! Do you know that our Catechism mentions tarot is bad?

III. "YOU SHALL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME" ….

2113 Idolatry not only refers to false pagan worship. It remains a constant temptation to faith. Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons (for example, satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, etc. Jesus says, "You cannot serve God and mammon." Many martyrs died for not adoring "the Beast" refusing even to simulate such worship. Idolatry rejects the unique Lordship of God; it is therefore incompatible with communion with God.

2114 Human life finds its unity in the adoration of the one God. The commandment to worship the Lord alone integrates man and saves him from an endless disintegration. Idolatry is a perversion of man's innate religious sense. An idolater is someone who "transfers his indestructible notion of God to anything other than God."

Divination and Magic

2115 God can reveal the future to his prophets or to other saints. Still, a sound Christian attitude consists in putting oneself confidently into the hands of Providence for whatever concerns the future, and giving up all unhealthy curiosity about it. Improvidence, however, can constitute a lack of responsibility.

2116 All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.

2117 All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one's service and have a supernatural power over others - even if this were for the sake of restoring their health - are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another's credulity.

….

Turn from away from the occult and its temptations.

That energy you feel attracted to isn’t from God it is from Satan himself. My brother or sister, you must not let Satan temp you into the occult. You might think you can handle. You might think you can control it. These are lies that Satan tells you. He is not misleading you “just sometimes”, Satan has you like a fish who does not realize he has a hook in his own mouth! Our exorcists even tell us tarot’s energy is of Satan. Delete those apps on your phone and devices! Stop associating and visiting those people and places! Block any occult blog and tag on here not just tumblr but all this social media and web searches! Throw away all of your occult objects! I wouldn’t not even be the least bit surprised if you are even suffering nightmares from this! Pray the Examination of Conscience and get to Confession as soon as you can. You must come back to God.

Blessed Bartolo Longo, pray for us.

[reflect-on-this-fully]

One Week Ago, I Asked Reddit What Happens When You Don't Remember Krishna at the Time of Death. Today, I Was in a Major Car Accident.

{Photo courtesy of Tomas Anunziata via Pexels}

Just before the New Year, I was on r/Hinduism and asked community members what happens if we don't remember Krishna at the time of death. If you're not familiar, Krishna tells Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, "At the end of life, whoever departs the body remembering me attains my nature without fail" (8:5).

And if you're one of my beloved pagan friends and very not familiar with Sanatana Dharma, Krishna can be reflected as the Supreme Person or God, and Arjuna, the warrior with whom he is speaking, can be reflected as the soul. Arjuna is distressed at the prospect of going to war and fighting the other side, consisting of many of his family and friends.

They are not just faceless enemies, but rather fathers and sons and people highly respected in their own right. Krishna counsels him in his chariot, and the Bhagavad Gita is their conversation.

The Gita has touched my soul in a depth that I find it difficult to describe. Sometimes, I try to avoid using the metaphor of awakening, because it's become somewhat diluted in modern culture (and even drawn a sort of stigma, at least in the US). Reading the truths in the Gita for the first time didn't reach me as being awoken to a higher truth. Rather, the truth has lived within me the whole time.

It makes up the indestructible, eternal nature of the self, lying in wait until being discovered again and again, in small moments and in big. And reading the Gita felt like a light shining on my soul, illuminating the profound truths that have always lived within me. (I once read someone describing this phenomenon as simply reading the Gita and going, "Oh yeah! That's what I've always believed, I've never seen it written down somewhere before." Perhaps I'm being melodramatic, but how could one not go on about this beloved text?)

Despite the profound wisdom of Krishna's words, the loving friendship between God and the soul described in truths both simple and complex, I hit the fifth verse of the eighth chapter and came to a standstill.

I don't like talking about it much, but I was raised in a very colonization-oriented, "fire and brimstone" religion. In fact, the term "fire and brimstone" in its modern day usage to describe proselytization and preaching practices originates from the very sect I grew up in.

In other words, there was a large focus on the afterlife and eternal damnation in my childhood spiritual education. Fear of God was something actively encouraged. And I mean that, genuinely-- to be described as "God fearing" is a compliment, indicating a high reverence of God.

I have a lot of religious trauma from these experiences, so I won't bother delving into them too much. I know it's exceptionally common, too. I find people with these experiences in many circles: Pagan, Wiccan, Heathen, and more. I think that those of us that wanted to explore an innate connection with God but were met with these traumas instead feel the pain that much more. But it gladdens my heart to see that these brave souls never gave up and found a connection with the divine in spite of the evils done to them.

Obligatory mention that I don't discriminate against any religion or personal beliefs, just sharing my (and others') personal encounters that continue to impact us moving forward.

But the reason why I mention this is that despite devoting myself to Santana Dharma and completely reorienting my perspective on the nature of the soul and the divine, my brain still went into fight or flight mode when it came to the mention of the afterlife and death. And why shouldn't it? After all, if the soul is eternal, of course it will experience distress at the thought or mention of death.

On Reddit, I was curious to see how people interpreted this passage according to their own beliefs and varying traditions. Did people take it literally, or believe that the only way to reach a heavenly realm is to remember God at the time of death? Or did people take it more fluidly, or believe that a lifetime devoted to God or strong sense of importance placed on God would be enough to reach the realm of Krishna.

My mind was caught up in the "car accident" phenomenon. If you were just driving along one day and in one instant, you died, what would happen? What if you were thinking about something else at the time of death, like where you were going or what you had to do that day?

If we could all choose our manner of death, we'd likely choose to be older and go peacefully, having full lucidity or perhaps being asleep. But accidents do happen, and I wondered what I would do if an accident happened to me.

8 days after posting to Reddit, I was driving back home after doing some shopping when a car came out of thin air and T-boned me. One second, I was driving through the quiet intersection, listening to bhajans, just barely dusk. I had a green light and was 3/4 of the way through. The car in the opposite direction was in the left turn lane. He decided to gun it (with no turn signal) and we collided instantly.

My car was near totaled, the engine busted and the hood mangled, but I was completely unscathed (as was the other driver). Before my engine and battery went out, I saw the bhajan that had been playing. It was "Shri Krishna Govinda Hare Murare, Hey Natha Narayana Vasudeva." And in that moment, I felt Krishna and his loving embrace enveloping me.

It struck me: my bond with Krishna is ingrained in my soul. If the soul cannot be touched or destroyed, neither can my friendship be forgotten with the Supreme Person. Everyone is entitled to their beliefs, and as for myself, I firmly believe that Krishna was with me then and would have been with me in the chance I had died and shed this mortal coil. As for my thoughts in the moment, they ranged somewhere between "uh oh" and a number of curse words that I would be quite embarrassed to admit.

My soul remembers his love and he remembers me, and this relieved me of a great anxiety, in which I had worried I wouldn't be good enough or have done enough to earn Krishna's love.

I've done a lot of reflection about this accident and wondered the best way to describe it. "Reflect on this fully" hits home more than ever. It's been a week or so, and posting this on Vaikuntha Ekadashi seemed fitting. I look forward to sharing more thoughts about this pivotal moment in my life in the future.

Wishing you a warm and wonderful Vaikuntha Ekadashi… Pax

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

[maleexperience-blog]

1

I'm not gay, but I love dick and the masculine spirit. Also, I am not a good writer, but I love to write. I struggle with being "gay." No, I don't hate gay men. No, I don't hate myself. Full stop. Save your projections and presumptions. Just read.

I struggle with the word. I struggle talking to other gay men or associated with the or even having small talk with them. I struggle with diminishing emotional maturity of many gay-identifying men and I struggle with the anti-intellectualism that has become the vapid LGBT 'community.' We live in different worlds. "Gay" anymore means an arrestment of one's masculinity, like it's some evil thing, to be a "man." Shoot, I'm not even sure I know what "being a man" means, but I know I cherish whatever sense of manhood that I have. I want to hone it, too. And not just because of the perks our androphilic society offers manhood either. No, I love what two men can share with one another. It is powerful, if not forbidden. I think our culture has done an excellent job keeping men afraid of each other. It has not, however, done a good job of squelching the innate attraction of men to the masculine spirit. So men, are left with this undefeated, unwielding desire to re-attach to the masculine spirit, while also being told we are to fear it, should we get too close. And the further we separate men from each other, the harder and more haphazardly we seek one another. We as men are starved of touch, and so when we are granted the opportunity--perhaps in female-free spaces or the seclusion of a locked room--we explore each other, quite intensely I might add. And when we exit this free (and yet imprisoned) space, we return to our roles as "men," at least a role that makes females most comfortable. Because if we do not, people can no longer look to us as the "strong ones." Females can no longer place themselves or list their value, outside appropriate proximity to another man. And, so, yes; we must return to our roles.

I'm wholly androphilic. Yes , in a culture that divides its humans into man and woman, that strict binary, and in that culture that further valuates the gender of man much higher than that of the female, I am androphilic. And so are you. We have made masculinity a commodity, to be exchanged, bargained for, accessorized, and coveted. Ever wonder why women in American culture can wear pants but men aren't praised for wearing a dress (unless you're being interviewed on NPR)? A woman "makes it" when she mimics masculine stereotypes, but a man "degrades" himself should he play the opposite role. So, indeed, we are all androphilic. Gay-identifying men are no different. They are walking contradictions, though...no different than their straight-identifying counterparts, they too crave the intimacy of a man and the masculine spirit, and yet are powerless, no, too cowardess to achieve it. You can suck a thousand dicks and never achieve intimacy with a man. You can fuck a thousand butts and smash a thousand more prostates, and never be any closer to becoming the man you think you should be--or perhaps more intimidating, the man you don't believe you could be, outside a hotel suite or dark room. "Gay" becomes a suitable substitute.

Same sex dalliances with men are powerful, but fleeting. And how could they not be fleeting? When there are no other spaces for men to express themselves to each other, without someone questioning their intention with another man? Without their manhood, their precious coveted manhood that they've clawed and fought for up until the current day, being called into question? And without all the respectability that comes with it? You ask us men to pay an expensive price should we admit our same sex dalliances; you force us out of a closet we never thought we were in, and with it somehow we are not allowed to be "men" anymore. How sad, because men need one another to build one another, and yet we've driven them apart. Women have been tasked, unfairly, I'll add, with raising men to "be men." But how can this be? And what codependent trap befalls this arrangement? Men strengthen other men. Men replenish other men. Men satisfy and validate and affirm other men, in ways a woman never could, in sexual and non sexual ways, in emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual ways. And why is this not okay? Why are women so threatened by this? Why must we placate women's sensibilities to have our own identity as men? Why is so much control over manhood given to women? The country is not controlled by men, because men's actions are dictated by their placation of females.

I'm not gay. I'm androphilic. And so are you.

[theprayerfulword]

June 15

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Isaiah 41:10 Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.

Matthew 6:15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

2 Thessalonians 3:3 But the Lord is faithful; He will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.

James 1:21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

John 3:16-17 For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.

May you not seek to know your fortune, but desire that God reveal your fault, that by turning from it in repentance to God you may fulfill your duty as you receive the whole counsel of God. 1 Kings 14

May you keep an account of God's mercies before you, always offering praise to the King Who cares so abundantly for you, that you may walk in thanksgiving toward the Lord and live in the blessings He bestows on those who acknowledge Him as their Source and obey Him as their Master. 1 Kings 14

May you ever exercise care and practice caution regarding your heart, realizing that simply being present when others seek God, and walking in traditions that once held meaning, will not keep you close to God, yet a single, honest, sincere cry to the Savior will never be drowned out or lost, for the King of kings is always alert to your needs and has prepared a way out when you turn to Him in repentance, desiring to know and obey His will. 1 Kings 14

May you do what is right in the eyes of the Lord, cleansing the temple of your heart and rooting out those things which are contrary to the worship of God, that you may trust Him in times of testing and peril, having learned of Him and drawn close by obedience. 1 Kings 15

My child, I have given you gifts, precious gifts, of great value and rare beauty. They are a part of your life, and, in so many cases, you have grown accustomed to them, thinking nothing of them, treating them as common-place, ordinary, and of no account. You ask yourself, “They have always been here, what benefit can they have?” You use your gifts, your talents, your innate skills for amusement to entertain or in a trade to earn a living, but you do not look to Me in acknowledgment as the Giver and in thanksgiving for receiving your gifts. This is a part of your redemption, My valued one, that the functionality which the potter shapes the vessel to have may be realized as it is placed in the part of the house it was made for and used as it was designed. That which is done through your talents is blessed, for I am the Source of what you have, but so often it is squandered on your lusts and given away to satisfy your appetites, bringing no lasting results or eternal changes. Do you think that those who rise to the top of their field do so on their own, My curious one? No, they have turned that which I gave them to the obedience of their own will and gone their own way. The people of the world recognize it as greater than their own ability, and honor it in their own way, but they are not pointed to Me for it was done in the flesh. Quiet yourself, calm yourself, draw near to Me and receive the peace that comes from submission to My Spirit and cease from your efforts. Learn of Me, and know My voice, that you may follow in humility. A pitcher does not pour itself lest the contents go all over the floor and be wasted, My dear one. Instead, it waits until the host pours to offer refreshment to a guest. Let Me fill you, and let Me pour you out, that others may know the true living water that brings cleansing and comfort to their troubled souls, and joy to your heart.

May you be willing to follow the leading of God outside of the boundaries of tradition so that you may discover pure and undefiled devotion where you would least expect it and be enriched by the unity of the Spirit as the prayers and mediation of Jesus brings the Body of Christ together. Acts 10

May your heart be always toward the Father, attentive and listening, always thankful, that you would not miss what He has to say by His Spirit and His Word, giving no room to doubts or prejudices, but in humility, as a servant, accepting His directions and learning His ways that His kingdom may be established and increased. Acts 10

May you dwell together in unity with God's family in the anointing of the Spirit for that is where the Lord bestows His blessing of life forevermore. Psalm 133

May lying lips and false utterances be as inconsistent and unbecoming to you as refined speech and eloquent words are to a godless fool. Proverbs 17:7

[basicsofislam]

ISLAM 101: AN INTRODUCTION TO HADITH: Part 19

Propriety and Modesty

As reported by Imran ibn Husayn, the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“Modesty only brings good.” (Sahih al-Bukhari, Adab, 77; Sahih Muslim, Iman, 60).

Imran ibn Husayn

Imran ibn Husayn embraced Islam in the year 628, during the conquest of Khaybar. He served as standard-bearer of the Khuda’a tribe during Mecca’s conquest.

He was appointed by Umar to teach the people of Basra Islam, at the city’s establishment. Later, upon the request of Governor of Basra appointed by Caliph Uthman, Ziyad ibn Abi Sufyan, he was appointed to the position of the chief judge of Basra. After retiring from office, he spent the remainder of his life teaching hadith in Basra’s mosque.

He passed away in Basra in the year 672.

Modesty (haya) or a sense of shame, like belief, prevents a person from committing evil and deters them from wrongdoing. Thus, modesty only brings good to a human being and it quickly becomes evident that it is altogether good. That is to say, irrespective of its source, a sense of modesty only brings goodness for the human being, from beginning to end. Unfortunately, there is an attempt in our day to debilitate this elevated feeling. Those who make an effort to show immodesty as a requirement of modernity and who dismiss it as nonsense, perpetrate the greatest evil in this regard:

Tell the believing men that they should restrain their gaze (from looking at the women whom it is lawful for them to marry, and from others’ private parts), and guard their private parts and chastity. This is what is purer for them. Allah is fully aware of all that they do. (an-Nur 24:30)

While this verse addresses believing men specifically, the verse below is directed at believing women:

And tell the believing women that they (also) should restrain their gaze (from looking at the men whom it is lawful for them to marry, and from others’ private parts), and guard their private parts and that they should not display their charms except that which is revealed of itself. (an-Nur 24:31)

Literally meaning reserve and shame, haya in the Islamic sense refers to the fear of Allah, refraining from saying or doing anything improper or indecent, to describe one who, out of fear and awe of Allah, seeks to avoid displeasing Him. Indeed, every human being has an innate, Divinely bestowed sense of modesty.

However, when this instinctive feeling of modesty is nourished and developed with the modesty at the essence of the religion of Islam, it forms the greatest safeguard against shameful or indecent Ayyub (Job), out of his modesty, did not entreat Allah to heal him, but instead was content with presenting his situation to his Lord and called out to Him, saying:

“Truly, affliction has visited me (so that I can no longer worship You as I must); and You are the Most Merciful of the merciful” (al-Anbiya 21:83).

When, according to one narration, Allah’s Messenger was at Al-Aqsa Mosque during the Ascension, and Archangel Jabrail asked him, “O Allah’s Messenger, ask the spirits of all the Prophets if there is any deity worthy of worship other than Allah,” the Prophet replied, “I will not ask them, because I have no doubt (as to the answer).” He thus demonstrated exactly what true belief and modesty entails.

LESSONS FROM THE HADITH

Haya, or a sense of shame, deters a person from the vile or shameful acts unbecoming to the character of a believer.

Belief distances a person from indecency and wrongdoing.

Modesty contributes to an increase and resultant perfection of belief.

[psychreviews2]

Object Relations: Melanie Klein Pt. 6

Epistemophilia

Melanie Klein had a system inside her mind, but she was resistant to organizing her theories. This is especially true since she was focusing more on which theories of Freud's needed to be updated as opposed to start from cart blanche. Klein instead found stages of childhood development appearing a little earlier than Freud believed was possible, while also adding in some of Karl Abraham's contributions. In Melanie Klein, Penelope Garvey summarized that "in the early oral stage the infant wants to suck and swallow goodness and then in the later oral sadistic stage when teeth are developing, he wishes to bite and also to destroy the loved object. The following early anal stage also contains destructive urges; during this stage the infant aggressively expels his faeces. In the second anal phase the infant attempts to hold on to and conserve the good within."

Infants observed under Klein's modality were already roiling with a desire to be free and unimpeded. "She conceived of the young child as alive with jealousy, envy and hatred of the parent’s creativity and filled with the desire to take possession of the mother and to banish and kill off the father and all rivals. Klein pictured these oedipal frustrations and urges as being fueled by oral and anal phantasies." For children to have these wishes and goals requires a desire to explore and understand. "She described the Oedipus complex as involving early oral and anal sadistic epistemophilic wishes; that is the wish to get in, to know about and to possess or destroy the contents of the mother's body. The child then fears that his mother or the united parents will get in and attack the inside of his body."

The desire to know then creates internal views of the world even at this early age. These "phantasies" were unconscious ones as opposed to regular daydreams. They would go anywhere, including into areas of darkness and evil that would frighten the child and make them fear retaliation from the parents. "Klein reasoned that the violent phantasies might lead to a fear of harming the mother, cause the child to become inhibited, leave him unable to be curious and lead to difficulties in learning." For example, anger released from repression in analysis could contain phantasies of revenge, which may then cause fear of punishment, and then those unethical desires would instill fear in oneself and low self-esteem for being so greedy and selfish. Already at an early age, the child is developing pathological secrets and starting to attack themselves. Like in my brief introduction to Klein in Sexuality Pt 5: Sadism, there are phantasies about getting the good from someone, without reciprocity, especially if you're a child with nothing to give back, while at the same time becoming more independent and warding off retribution. I used the example of treating people like a chocolate bar, enjoying the contents and throwing out the wrapper, but that exploited wrapper is what is left of the mother. "In Klein’s view the infant's oral, anal and oedipal desires drive the infant to want to phantasize about the experience of getting inside the mother, taking possession of her goodness and killing off the rivals."

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

Some of this early sexual knowledge Klein felt was already innate, like in other animals that seem to know how to cooperate with the mother in order to survive. Klein said, "infants of both sexes experience genital desires directed towards their mother and father, and they have an unconscious knowledge of the vagina as well as of the penis." This knowledge wasn't the kind of adult knowledge mixed with words and language. "Klein thought that infants have an innate capacity to phantasize and that they are born with an unconscious knowledge of the body and bodily functions: 'The fact that at the beginning of post-natal life an unconscious knowledge of the breast exists and that feelings towards the breast are experienced can only be conceived of as a phylogenetic inheritance.'" Klein said, "analytic work has shown that babies of a few months of age certainly indulge in phantasy-building. I believe that this is the most primitive mental activity and that phantasies are in the mind of the infant almost from birth." This knowledge of course is before the child has yet to learn how to talk. "Although Klein described the infant's sensations and phantasies in words, she was aware that the experiences that she was describing are pre-verbal physical sensations rather than thoughts; words can be no more than an approximation of the sensation."

The world is also one with no demarcation or boundaries and the ego is just starting development. "Klein pictured the infant as being engaged in powerful emotional relationships right from the start of life. She concluded that the infant's first focus is the mother and that all his longings, impulses and curiosity are focused on her body which is believed to be full of goodness, rival siblings and the father. Klein had the view that the infant treats the world as though it is an extension of the mother's body. In this way, his anxiety about the power of his own destructive urges towards his mother, along with his uncertainty about her capacity to survive them, is crucial to whether he then feels safe enough to explore the world around him."

Birth and the Paranoid-Schizoid Position

Agreeing with Otto Rank, Melanie felt that the entrance into this world from birth leaves a mark in the unconscious that influences the individual from childhood into adulthood. "The first external source of anxiety can be found in the experience of birth. This experience, which, according to Freud, provides the pattern for all later anxiety-situations, is bound to influence the infant's first relations with the external world. It would appear that the pain and discomfort he has suffered, as well as the loss of the intrauterine state, are felt by him as an attack by hostile forces, i.e. as persecution. Persecutory anxiety, therefore, enters from the beginning into his relation to objects in so far as he is exposed to privations...Birth is the first anxiety because of the combination of helplessness and need."

Object Relations: Otto Rank Pt. 1: https://rumble.com/v1gvrq9-object-relations-otto-rank-pt.-1.html

On Narcissism - Sigmund Freud (Narcissism 1 of 4): https://rumble.com/v1gtgdl-on-narcissism-sigmund-freud-narcissism-1-of-4.html

From the beginning, there's a seesaw between stress and soothing that continues throughout life. The main source of soothing for the infant is the mother's breast. "The gratification and love which the infant experiences in these situations all help to counteract persecutory anxiety, even the feelings of loss and persecution aroused by the experience of birth. His physical nearness to his mother during feeding—essentially his relation to the 'good breast'—recurrently helps him to overcome the longing for a former lost state, alleviates persecutory anxiety and increases the trust in the good object."

The difference between being in the womb and relying on a breast, is that the womb provides instant gratification, a human form of heaven, whereas the breast's availability is more intermittent. This already is a demarcation of Freud's Pleasure Principle followed by a need to accept the Reality Principle. The child's Id is already prepared to react with more or less patience. Those reactions are influenced by the life and death instincts, which for Melanie, all reside in the Id, but she treats the death instinct as more of a fear of death compared to Freud's Nirvana Principle of desiring to be free of tension in morbid repose. "This relation is at first a relation to a part-object, for both oral-[craving] and oral-destructive impulses from the beginning of life are directed towards the mother's breast in particular. We assume that there is always an interaction, although in varying proportions, between [craving] and aggressive impulses, corresponding to the fusion between life and death instincts. It could be conceived that in periods of freedom from hunger and tension there is an optimal balance between [craving] and aggressive impulses. This equilibrium is disturbed whenever, owing to privations from internal or external sources, aggressive impulses are reinforced. I suggest that such an alteration in the balance between [craving] and aggression gives rise to the emotion called greed, which is first and foremost of an oral nature. Any increase in greed strengthens feelings of frustration and in turn the aggressive impulses. In those children in whom the innate aggressive component is strong, persecutory anxiety, frustration and greed are easily aroused and this contributes to the infant’s difficulty in tolerating privation and in dealing with anxiety. Accordingly, the strength of the destructive impulses in their interaction with [craving] impulses would provide the constitutional basis for the intensity of greed. However, while in some cases persecutory anxiety may increase greed, in others it may become the cause of the earliest feeding inhibitions."

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

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

Beyond the Pleasure Principle - Freud & Beyond - War Pt. (2/3): https://rumble.com/v1gv855-beyond-the-pleasure-principle-freud-and-beyond-war-pt.-23.html

The paranoia in the Paranoid–Schizoid Position, involves anger and impatience that the baby has towards the breast and there is a fear of retaliation from the mother because of the baby's negative attitude and how it is so dependent. "In the paranoid-schizoid position, anxieties are connected with survival, with fears of persecution, annihilation and suffocation; being taken over or swallowed up." The main defense in the paranoid-schizoid position is that of schizoid splitting. The confusion about female breasts for the infant is in their potential to gratify or frustrate. The life instinct attaches to good experiences that make up good memories of periodic satisfaction. These memories are internal objects, and in this case a part-object, the breast. As time goes on the child is able to expand the breast to memories of a whole-person, the whole mother. The death instinct is afraid of abuse or neglect and attaches bad experiences with the breast as a separate "bad breast." Like with black and white, or all or nothing thinking, that type of thinking is needed in certain situations where survival is paramount, but needs to be relaxed when the environment is safe.

Because the child's ego is so undeveloped at this time, there is strong splitting with alternating experiences of being soothed and desperation. The ego is developed by memories, both good and bad ones. It starts with incorporation, or a sampling of experience. Introjections follow as preferences chosen from an array of sampling, and identifications are strong habitual tendencies developed from repeated imitations. You could say that each introjection becomes a re-introjection as experiences repeat and become predictable. If re-introjections are mostly positive, it creates a sense of trust that overcomes splitting. To add more detail, psychological splitting also has sub-defenses. "Klein links the life instinct with the good ego (good object relationship) and the death instinct with the bad ego (bad object relationship). She also comes to distinguish ordinary healthy binary splitting of this sort from pathological splitting or fragmentation, where the good as well as the bad object is attacked and broken up, often through envy or fear of retaliation: [paranoia]."

For Klein, splitting is necessary in all periods of life, but it's pathological when it cannot move beyond the paranoid-schizoid position. Repeatedly being unsatisfied, frustrated, neglected, or abused, leads to fragmentation. With abuse or neglect, fragmentation in splitting is experienced by the infant as a lack of integration and a feeling of falling apart and going to pieces. A loss of survival. When the breast and mother appear hostile, the infant is trying to annihilate the "bad-self" in relation to the "bad-object." Because the self requires memories and stories to hang reality together, there is a learning in identification when the mind copies behaviors based on external experiences. So the internal memories, stories, or ego, provide opportunities for adaptation, which connects the internal and external worlds with a sense of stability, but if there is a mental poverty, due to a strenuous environment, the consequence is a "bad-ego," where adaptation fails and resorts to fragmentated defenses. It makes sense that if good experiences are sparing or not at all, the ego cannot trust the world and finds good object relations in others as mysterious.

If the infant is stuck in fragmentation, there isn't enough good experience to provide an oasis in memory to trust in and rely on as an anchor to explore the world. The effort to hold experiences together into something understandable then gives up, but leads to a confusing world with repeated attempts to escape, where no escape is possible. "When bad experiences predominate, the individual may repeatedly resort to fragmentation. For bad experiences that threaten to overwhelm, the only defence may be to fragment the mind and break the bad experience into small pieces. Klein's daughter, Melitta, thought that fragmentation reduced the power of the bad experience. Klein agreed and wrote that 'the ego in varying degrees fragments itself and its objects, and in this way achieves a dispersal of the destructive impulses and of internal persecutory anxieties.' A fragmented individual is weakened and no longer has the mental capacity that is needed to piece things together and make sense of his experience. Some individuals whose lives are dominated by bad experiences may repeatedly resort to fragmentation."

In extreme cases, this kind of fragmentation can lead to Schizophrenia, a loss of connection with reality, especially with constitutional pathologies that already lean in this direction before birth. It's always a mixture of genes and environment, and the ego cannot split the object into all good and all bad without splitting itself, and its ego potentials, in the same way. This process leads to different pathologies depending on the child's genetic inheritance. If the mind develops in this direction, without Schizophrenia, the result is a fragmented goal orientation where bits and pieces of phantasy are challenged by the patient with fabricated successes, plans, and goals, to create a false sense of calm, mixed with repeated troubles arising. The other sense of calm comes from taking unwanted "fragments" of the personality and projecting blame externally. The mind is trying to find a way to feel better that works only temporarily. The unwanted parts of the self have to be understood and integrated via adaptation to a life that is a mixed bag between good and bad: Whole objects.

Fragmentation has been attributed by Melanie to many disorders, including hypochondria resulting from internal persecution. "Klein looks at loneliness in schizophrenia. Excessive projection and fragmentation leave the sufferer 'hopelessly in bits', and unable to internalize his primal object, [the mother.] He feels alone with his misery, often confused, and surrounded by a hostile world. He withdraws from people in a vicious circle of loneliness and isolation...The manic depressive patient is less fragmented but still cannot keep 'an inner and external companionship with a good object', because hatred and thus paranoia continue to intrude. Loneliness here is characterized by a hopeless longing to restore things, and in severe cases Klein comments that this can lead to suicide...Withdrawal to an inner world occurs through the fear of introjecting a dangerous external world; but such withdrawal brings not peace but heightened fear of internal persecutors. This vicious circle in turn can lead to a state of overdependence on the external representative of one's own good parts, as in situations where the mother becomes the ego-ideal to a point that the ego is weakened and impoverished...Klein had encountered the developmental connections between schizoid [splitting] and depressive positions in patients who, filled with self-reproaches and unable to surmount the anxiety of having destroyed their good object, slip back into a state of panic about their inner tormentors. That there is a connection between manic-depressive and schizophrenic disorders she recognized only as a 'tentative hypothesis' at this point..."

Since fragmentation involves continuous splitting with external and internal objects, the fear of introjection described above is connected with negative empathy, or projective identification, related to the fears of one's own potential for harming others and the potential for external figures to retaliate in the same way. The internal representatives of external people make predictions of retaliation and torture the patient to prevent them from acting on those impulses in reality. "Rosenfeld gave a good working definition of projective identification: 'Projective identification' relates first of all to a splitting process of the early ego, where either good or bad parts of the self are split off from the ego and are as a further step projected in love or hatred into external objects which leads to fusion and identification of the projected parts of the self with the external objects. There are important paranoid anxieties related to these processes as the objects filled with aggressive parts of the self become persecuting and are experienced by the patient as threatening to retaliate by forcing themselves and the bad parts of the self which they contain back again into the ego."

When things tilt out of balance, it's the positive relations, external and internal, that are attacked, leading to ever more intrusive thoughts of guilt that impair normal reality testing. "The psychotic ego attacks the idealized object with envy, oral neediness and sadistic demands. In the paranoid-schizoid world, the idealized object is unable to withstand this and is destroyed, only to return as a vengeful enemy. Many psychotic patients suffer with this type of primitive guilt for attacking the object. It is a persecutory guilt in which 'I will suffer and die for my sins'. This unbearable guilt engenders more and more paranoid defences and brings out phantasies of annihilation. The intrapsychic experience of killing off the object needed for survival combined with the belief in 'an eye-for-an-eye' retaliation results in ego fragmentation and psychosis." This becomes painstaking work for psychoanalysts to deal with when they are bombarded by negative accusations and criticisms that defy logic. If there is a pattern to fragmentation, it starts off as a trauma of some kind in infancy, or even more likely a repeated trauma. A projection of the world as unsafe is absorbed. Then there is a fear of introjection, because the world feels dangerous, but keeping in mind that the world may not in fact be as dangerous as the patient thinks. Afterwards, there's a projection that wants to attack the dangerous world, when in reality the patient's inner world is more dangerous, and that's why it's a projection, and then this is followed by an inhibition from the internal world to stop the attack, for fear of retaliation from the external world. The patient ceases to function properly for good situations in the external world. Rinse and repeat. In a manic situation, idealization of a good object leads to omnipotence and zeal for experiences without repression or suppression. When boundaries are violated, the guilt leads to a deep depression. With denial, the escape from depression is another manic episode. Rinse and repeat.

"Segal also noted the capacity of psychotic patients to experience guilt. However, she noted that the paranoid-schizoid ego becomes fragmented by the guilt and through projective identification puts the despair and grief into the analyst. Countertransference depression and confusion are therefore common with this patient group...This fight between love [idealization] and hate [devaluation] produces the moral conflicts so classic of neurotic, depressive patients. In the paranoid-schizoid position, however, the ego is not dealing with moral issues, but survival issues." So when external figures are exposed to this pathology, they also become depressed and confused. The patient may feel better when placing the blame on the analyst or other external figures, and this feeling better can be a dependency where the self is scaffolded on the therapist, which is a kind of parasitic exchange. Their internal justifications make them feel better, but the analyst is exhausted. Part of the exhaustion is that the mind of a healthy person tends to entertain lies and accusations from others as having some partial truth, which is a toxic introjection from the projection or suggestion from the patient. It takes effort to recollect and say "this is not me!" Lies also increase energy draining anger in the target being slandered. Therapists will also show counter-transference to the patient based on their past negative experiences and how they responded back then.

In Fragmentation, persecution and primitive guilt, Waska describes Doris' experience where she laid out her horrible childhood and how dangerous the environment was. With idealization she would contradict these dangers with denial by talking about family members and the environment as being ideal and harmonious. At times she would be helpful in the community but her idealization led to homeless people, that she was trying to help, taking advantage of her and robbing her, in one example. She had fears that she would kill in retaliation alongside intrusive thoughts of internal persecution preventing her from applying normal boundaries that are assertive, but not too aggressive. Without boundaries she would fear dependence on others, including therapists, which included foreboding projections onto them and the world. This is why having a strong core good object in the mind allows one to be more independent and capable of self-direction. Self-direction is possible when you know where all the good things are. "She felt independent thought caused her mind to spin out of control and 'talk to itself.' Doris had to split off and project her feelings. This led to her being plagued by panic attacks and phobias...She felt too that having her own thoughts and feelings was equivalent to being alone, trapped, in danger of attack and 'crazy'. She feared she would 'fall into the black hole for ever', which was her way of describing a terrifying experience of fragmentation and disintegration. These anxieties led to loneliness, desperation and hopelessness. Fear of losing the object was analogous with loss of self." Projection was so intense that when Doris was in the therapist waiting room she said "I can tell from the vibrations in the air what everyone is thinking. There is a lot of negativity here and that must cause you a great deal of stress. You could be so stressed out that suicide might be an option."

The Cure - Disintegration: https://youtu.be/MNZxs0TWz8s?si=YB8ADNhuFy5_r3Ew

On the other hand, when the child has positive experiences re-introjected more consistently, the negative experiences warded off by splitting provide that core trust that there are more good experiences to come. This comes about with idealization, which is an unconscious desire to rate experiences that are only satisfactory at the heightened level of instant gratification found only in the womb. Of course, these experiences aren't at that level of security, but it has the effect of increasing patience for the infant if they are capable of believing in abundance and that more good experiences will repeat. Good objects build from reality, so an adult mind can thread one good, but not ideal, experience after another and fill out in the mind a map that is more realistic. "It is characteristic of the emotions of the very young infant that they are of an extreme and powerful nature. The frustrating (bad) object is felt to be a terrifying persecutor, the good breast tends to turn into the 'ideal' breast which should fulfill the greedy desire for unlimited, immediate and everlasting gratification. Thus feelings arise about a perfect and inexhaustible breast, always available, always gratifying. Another factor which makes for idealization of the good breast is the strength of the infant's persecutory fear, which creates the need to be protected from persecutors and therefore goes to increase the power of an all-gratifying object. The idealized breast [comes after] the persecuting breast; and in so far as idealization is derived from the need to be protected from persecuting objects, it is a method of defence against anxiety...The idealized mother thus becomes a help against the persecutory one." In this case, the good object is not attacked or confused with the bad object.

Melanie felt that the process of idealization and the internal phantasies related, were hallucinatory and based on denial. We have a conscious short-term attention span that can handle fragmentary quantities of information at one time, so putting the attention on phantasies of future gratification keeps the mind distracted from memories of bad experiences. Denial is a distraction of attention focused on something positive, and one can glean a sense of ownership, possessiveness, and a belief in property with good objects, when reading Melanie Klein. "In wish-fulfilling hallucination, a number of fundamental mechanisms and defences come into play. One of them is the omnipotent control of the internal and external object, for the ego assumes complete possession of both the external and internal breast. Furthermore, in hallucination the persecuting breast is kept widely apart from the ideal breast, and the experience of being frustrated from the experience of being gratified. It seems that such a cleavage, which amounts to a splitting of the object and of the feelings towards it, is linked with the process of denial. Denial in its most extreme form—as we find it in hallucinatory gratification—amounts to an annihilation of any frustrating object or situation, and is thus bound up with the strong feeling of omnipotence which obtains in the early stages of life. The situation of being frustrated, the object which causes it, the bad feelings to which frustration gives rise (as well as split-off parts of the ego) are felt to have gone out of existence, to have been annihilated, and by these means gratification and relief from persecutory anxiety are obtained." Essentially a successful distraction.

Because this is only a temporary relief, and because new experiences continue, some of them will not be optimum. There needs to be a gradual acceptance of reality where trust and patience in the good experiences predict more to come. "In this state, frustration and anxiety derived from various sources are done away with, the lost external breast is regained and the feeling of having the ideal breast inside (possessing it) is reactivated. We may also assume that the infant hallucinates the longed for pre-natal state. Because the hallucinated breast is inexhaustible, greed is momentarily satisfied. (But sooner or later, the feeling of hunger turns the child back to the external world and then frustration, with all the emotions to which it gives rise, is again experienced.)"

The oasis of the good breast may become as reliable as a stream or river, so the energy in the mind to put together reality and to gradually increase in detail, begins to develop adaptive skills in the child's ego. "[If there is] a mitigation of the fear of the bad object by the trust in the good one and depressive anxiety only arise[s] in fleeting experiences, out of the alternating processes of disintegration and integration develops gradually a more integrated ego, with an increased capacity to deal with persecutory anxiety. The infant's relation to parts of his mother's body, focusing on her breast, gradually changes into a relation to her as a person."

For Melanie, life is a never ending experience of integration and disintegration, where ideally the integration makes up most of the individual's lifespan. Periods of disintegration can easily occur, like in the example above of a diagnosis of schizophrenia, or less destabilizing experiences of divorce, for example, or a loss of meaning, or extended periods of stress and depression. Ego-integration involves learning, adapting, and trusting in what is good. Trust comes from predictable routines that are positive. As the child develops in the positive direction, there is a "growing sense of reality and a widening range of gratification, interests, and object-relations."

The Super-ego and the Depressive Position

In infancy, skills aren't good enough for negotiation and integration when there are excessive environmental pressures. With more experience, new skills gradually reduce the intimidation of persecutory anxiety so that the depressive position can take place. Now, it isn't always a smooth ride to the depressive position, which Klein believes first appears within the first 3 or 4 months, because as the definition suggests, there are many humbling feelings that have to be tolerated in order to perceive more reality. There is also more development internally. With the mother's interactions with other intruding family members, especially the father, "oral frustrations release the Oedipus impulses and the super-ego begins to be formed at the same time."

So at first, there's a rudimentary ego supported and energized by the life and death instincts of the Id. "I see the formation of the ego as an entity to be largely determined by the alternation between splitting and repression on the one hand, and integration in relation to objects on the other." Because these two instincts are opposed, the ego cannot remain the sole operation outside of the Id. "In my view, the splitting of the ego, by which the super-ego is formed, comes about as a consequence of conflict in the ego, engendered by the polarity of the two instincts. This conflict is increased by their projection as well as by the resulting introjection of good and bad objects. The ego, supported by the internalized good object and strengthened by the identification with it, projects a portion of the death instinct into that part of itself which it has split off—a part which thus comes to be in opposition to the rest of the ego and forms the basis of the super-ego. Accompanying this deflection of a portion of the death instinct is a deflection of that portion of the life instinct which is fused with it. Along with these deflections, parts of the good and bad objects are split off from the ego into the super-ego. The super-ego thus acquires both protective and threatening qualities. As the process of integration—present from the beginning in both the ego and the super-ego—goes on, the death instinct is bound, up to a point, by the super-ego. In the process of binding, the death instinct influences the aspects of the good objects contained in the super-ego, with the result that the action of the super-ego ranges from restraint of hate and destructive impulses, protection of the good object and self-criticism, to threats, inhibitory complaints and persecution." The use of the word deflection has to do with the binary opposition between good and bad where good cannot exist without knowledge of what bad is. Good adaptation or bad disintegration in the ego results in commentary about what is good or bad coming from the superego, behaving as representatives of the life and death instincts.

So the good in oneself as well as the bad is knowledge of one's potentials, and because there isn't any knowledge that goes beyond experiences in the environment, that same knowledge is used to predict, or project, the good and dangerous aspects of the environment. It takes one to know one. Repeated experiences lead to hardened worldviews that are maladaptive for adults when they enter safe environments that appear subjectively hostile. The voices of the good super-ego or the bad, can be strengthened with repetition or weakened with inactivity: Re-introjections and re-projections. It's easy to see that we need to recognize something. If activities are occurring, or not, and they aren't recognized as such, it's the current limit for projections and predictions. Projection: "Something of the ego, [knowledge or past experiences,] is thus perceived as occurring in someone else."

Internal conflict is increased depending on the balance between imitations for helpfulness, criticism or self-sabotage. "The super-ego—being bound up with the good object and even striving for its preservation—comes close to the actual good mother who feeds the child and takes care of it, but since the super-ego is also under the influence of the death instinct, it partly becomes the representative of the mother who frustrates the child, and its prohibitions and accusations arouse anxiety. To some extent, when development goes well, the super-ego is largely felt as helpful and does not operate as too harsh a conscience. There is an inherent need in the young child—and, I assume, even in the very young infant—to be protected as well as to be submitted to certain prohibitions, which amounts to a control of destructive impulses. The infantile wish for an ever-present, inexhaustible breast includes the desire that the breast should do away with or control the infant's destructive impulses and in this way protect his good object as well as safeguard him against persecutory anxieties. This function pertains to the super-ego. However, as soon as the infant's destructive impulses and his anxiety are aroused, the super-ego is felt to be strict and over-bearing and the ego then, as Freud described it, 'has to serve three harsh masters', the id, the super-ego, and external reality."

Because the internal world is just developing at this time, the mother's helping attitude and care, or neglect and abuse, is at first attributed to the breast, like it has a personality of its own. It can appear alternatingly helpful or persecuting. The infant also is becoming more aware of its effect on the mother by his or her hostility, and her retaliations. The internal desire for hostility can turn into hostility to suppress one's hostile actions, an inner hostility against external hostility. Freud originally said "the prevention of [a satisfaction of craving] calls up a piece of aggressiveness against the person who has interfered with the satisfaction, and that this aggressiveness has itself to be suppressed in turn. But if this is so, it is after all only the aggressiveness which is transformed into a sense of guilt, by being suppressed and made over to the super-ego." This craving initially is oral sucking for Melanie, who was influenced by "Abraham [who] thus contributed materially to our understanding of the origins of anxiety and guilt, since he was the first to point out the connection of anxiety and guilt with cannibalistic desires."

The infant is beginning to notice the cause and effect of their own intentions on the mother. There is a desire to control external actions as well as internal attitudes. "The early processes of introjection and projection lead to establishing within the ego, side by side with extremely good objects, extremely frightening and persecuting objects. These figures are conceived in the light of the infant's own aggressive impulses and phantasies, i.e. he projects his own aggression on to the internal figures which form part of his early super-ego. To anxiety from these sources is added the guilt derived from the infant's aggressive impulses against his first love object, both external and internalized." One can feel guilt even if the threats of violence are only thought about, and not acted on.

In projection, the child is actively being hostile to the breast for its perceived bad behavior and it's also hostile towards it's own aggressive behavior out of fear of retaliation from the persecuting breast, which acts as the external representative of the death instinct. By the infant imitating the punishing aspect from the mother to control his or her attacks on the breast, there can be an identification with an oppressor introjected and re-introjected again and again. External bad experiences create memories and predictions, or projections, about future bad experiences. Defenses arise as a pre-emption to ward off any impending threats to reduce anxiety. "Any danger threatening from outside intensifies the perpetual inner danger situation. This interaction exists in some measure throughout life. The very fact that the struggle has, to some extent, been externalized relieves anxiety. Externalization of internal danger situations is one of the ego's earliest methods of defence against anxiety and remains fundamental in development...The child feels himself to be bad and he attempts to escape from guilt by attributing his own badness to others, which means that he reinforces his persecutory anxieties." And if one falsely blames another, there will naturally be a fear of retaliation leading to the said paranoia.

There ends up being a fear of external bad objects, a fear of future external bad situations, and a fear of one's own power to hurt others. To keep from disintegrating into fragmentation, the child needs craving for positive experiences and actual experiences of satisfaction to increase their patience and strength to make navigation in the environment smoother. Remember, pathological projection is going to happen when fears about an environment are unjustified, because the memories are so negative. "For while the infant's aggressive impulse through projection plays a fundamental part in his building up of persecutory figures, these very figures increase his persecutory anxiety and in turn reinforce his aggressive impulses and phantasies against the external and internal objects felt to be dangerous." If we take this last sentence and revise it towards positivity it would show us the direction of integration. For while the infant's helping impulse, through introjection, plays a fundamental part in his building up of helping figures, these very figures increase his feelings of being supported and in turn reinforce his helping impulses and phantasies that support the external and internal objects which are felt to be encouraging. The child is either helping itself and others or destroying itself and others. Another description for this comes from The Versatility of the Kleinian model by Daniela Carstea. "For the knowledge of a whole object to be kept in an integrated way in the mind, a lack of splitting or of automatic projections of the displeasing aspects, good or bad, is needed, which constitutes, alone, a fixed and loving attachment...Object relation[s] makes conscious the price paid..." for negative reactions like envy and paranoia..."The diminishing of the self is manifold: it is deprived of a connection with the good object and likewise deprived of those prized elements of itself [one's own good potentials] which were placed in the object by projective identification."

The external mother is doing her duty by feeding the infant, but the infant begins to think that it's also being rewarded for having good behavior, and being cooperative. The infant is dependent and feels the need to cooperate in order to survive and has no modern conception of social work and observation by the community towards the mother to reinforce her sense of duty to raise the child properly. The infant feels it's in the wild and totally helpless and must negotiate with the independence and power of the mother. "One comes to know that one's mother, for example, has her own separate relationships, indeed her own mind and private thoughts, that exclude oneself. This realisation, essentially a perception of the oedipal situation understood in its broadest sense, provokes a keener sense of need, dependency and loss, and a shrinking of omnipotence. It is also likely to provoke envy and jealousy. These elements are difficult to experience and they are likely to give rise to defences against the depressive position." Stephen A. Mitchell, in Freud and Beyond, symbolizes this split between good and bad as a projection that "the shit people will overwhelm and bury the delicate flowers...The flowers and the shit people can be integrated only if [the subject] can believe that the flowers will emerge from underneath the shit."

As the child introjects experiences, preferences, and identities, and projects or predicts future behaviors in the mother, a familiarity and trust develops so that predictability reduces anxiety. The child can empathize with an imperfect mother. "The anxiety relating to the internalized mother who is felt to be injured, suffering, in danger of being annihilated or already annihilated and lost for ever, leads to a stronger identification with the injured object. This identification reinforces both the drive to make reparation and the ego's attempts to inhibit aggressive impulses." Repeated introjection and projection is re-introjection and re-projection. Routine feedings, bathing, quality time, etc., is a sign of a stable external world and it produces a stable internal world for the infant. As the world expands, a mother's routine builds in the mind of the infant where the internal mother is now less idealized or devalued. The imperfections are tolerated when development is going well and a desire for reparation builds up for the infant to lovingly cooperate with the imperfect mother, which makes routines more pleasant and smooth. The child needs to see their way out with adaptive choices so that craving for accessible activities can takeover and calm down persecutory impulses.

Part of the weaning process is progressively the child seeing themselves being of more help to the mother as they age. Stressful situations that are unexpected and beyond what the child can handle can start off a domino effect of regression to the paranoid-schizoid position. Depending on the child's constitution and how unstable experiences are in the environment, periods of disintegration manifest. These positions can oscillate back and forth, especially when there are jarring changes to routine or threats arising that even parents cannot control. "Constitutional factors cannot be considered apart from environmental ones and vice versa. They all go to form the earliest phantasies, anxieties and defences which, while falling into certain typical patterns, are infinitely variable. This is the soil from which springs the individual mind and personality."

Mourning for Klein, which is similar to weaning, is the depressive position encountered again and a reestablishing of the lost external object inside of oneself (memories and imitations). With an actual death of a parent, the mind needs strong enough impressions made up from positive experiences of the past so that the child can learn to emulate and take with them those positive character traits of the lost parent and ward off feelings of emptiness or feelings that the parent was like a forgotten stranger. The depressive position is like mourning and weaning from old stages of development that have died. Failure to face those feelings leads to escape back into reuniting with paranoid-schizoid ghosts.

Love, Guilt and Reparation: And Works 1921-1945 (The Writings of Melanie Klein, Volume 1) by Melanie Klein: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780743237659/

Envy and Gratitude and Other Works, 1946 - 1963 (2nd Edition) by Melanie Klein: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780743237758/

The Psycho-analysis of Children by Melanie Klein: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780860682387/

Melanie Klein Her Work in Context by Meira Likierman: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780826457707/

Melanie Klein (The Basics) by Robert D. Hinshelwood: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781138667051/

The New Dictionary of Kleinian Thought by Elizabeth Bott Spillius, Jane E. Milton, Penelope Garvey, Cyril Couve, Deborah Steiner: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780415592598/

Melanie Klein by Penelope Garvey: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781032105246/

Melanie Klein: Her World and Her Work by Phyllis Grosskurth: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781568214450/

Melanie Klein Dr Julia Segal: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780761943013/

The Language of Psychoanalysis - Jean Laplanche: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780367328139/

Waska, R. (2002). Fragmentation, persecution and primitive guilt. Psychodynamic Practice, 8(2), 147–162.

Carstea D. The versatility of the Kleinian model. Melanie Klein’s theory and formulations of morality and forgiveness. J Psychol Clin Psychiatry. 2023;14(3):82‒86.

Essential Readings from the Melanie Klein Archives - Jane Milton: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780367337902/

Freud and Beyond - Stephen A. Mitchell: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780465098811/

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