#or it makes you easier to manipulate or just completely turn into a doormat WHY would you want that

[devilsskettle]

i’m convinced the “soft is also strong” rhetoric that is so popular in fake deep rupi kaur-esque instagram poetry is designed to keep young women complacent

[tossawary]

Chapter 25: “Home Sweet Home” of “pride is not the word I’m looking for” quotes and commentary. Not a full list of favorite quotes or full commentary. 

-

 Anyway, Shang Qinghua makes himself  so fucking sincerely annoying that the Huan Hua Palace Sect cultivators can’t figure out how to politely tell him to fuck off fast enough. Shang Qinghua makes outlandish assumptions about how many thieves there are (at least a dozen, he’s sure, probably twice that) and what methods they might be using (special invisibility talismans, he suspects); Shang Qinghua repeatedly apologizes for being too busy with important things for Cultivator O.B.B. at the last Immortal Alliance Conference, then tries to commiserate with the man about having to get important things done without getting any respect for it; Shang Qinghua also anxiously wonders if they should all go to Zhao Hua Temple Sect to report what happened here, since there’s a troublesome demon and also some sneaky rogue cultivator thieves on the loose out here! He gets turned down immediately, but assures everyone that he’ll at least let Yue Qingyuan know everything that happened here right away! 

 Liu Qingge pretty much just stands there scowling silently the entire time - he’s no Shen Qingqiu for sheer menacing  "I can and I will ruin your entire life"  glares, but he’s still pretty intimidating. He does a great job! No notes! 

 Shang Qinghua nearly pats himself on the back as he and Liu Qingge leave less than an hour after he arrives.  “Holy shit, I’m good,”  he thinks, a little giddy with the successful extraction.  “That’s a skill that good ol’ Liu-Shidi will never have!” 

 -

AN: Of course this has a high chance of backfiring. Is Shang Qinghua going to weave webs of lies anyway? Of course. 

Love the fact that Shang Qinghua can shamelessly act like a total pushover, while actually manipulating someone so that he gets the results he wanted. Some snobby sect leader walks into a negotiation room, prepared to use SQH as a doormat, and Shang Qinghua is probably internally like, “Bro, me and my jelly spine welcome you to hell.” 

- 

 He gives them the rundown on what happened, but, to his complete lack of surprise, that doesn’t seem to satisfy interrogators like his little sister-in-law and his fellow transmigrator. They have so many questions! And Shang Qinghua doesn’t have enough answers for them! 

 No, he doesn’t know what Huan Hua Palace Sect knows or thinks they know. No, he doesn’t know how they knew about that place. No, he doesn’t know whether the monster was just a local opportunist preying on distracted cultivators or something more sinister. No, he’s not experimenting with the creepy special item or discussing it at length here. No, Luo Fanli and Peerless Cucumber are not allowed to poke at the creepy special item! 

 Why the fuck would he ever let them do that?! 

 All Shang Qinghua knows is that Luo Fanli and Peerless Cucumber should eat their vegetables and then go to bed! Because they all have a long journey back to the sect in the morning! And also that words cannot describe how painfully old he feels as soon as he says this. 

-

AN: I’ve been thinking about a Demon Trio fanfic in which Mobei-Jun finds himself in a similar position with Luo Binghe and Sha Hualing. 

Mobei-Jun and Shang Qinghua are, like, bare minimum twice the age of Luo Binghe and Shen Yuan. Like, yes, neither Mobei-Jun nor Shang Qinghua are old old by the standard of the PIDW world. Yes, MBJ and SQH are stunted as all get out. But the fact that they have bare minimum 2x the life experience as Bingqiu is, in my opinion, funny as hell and severely underused in fanfiction. 

Like, imagine Mobei-Jun unintentionally dadding new demon LBH in SVSSS. Mobei-Jun being like, “Don’t eat the meat from this monster. It makes you hallucinate.” Or being like, “These people aren’t politically important enough to be shown this kind of respect. Look down on them properly and go sleep, or no one will ever respect you again in demon politics.” 

MBJ looking at SVSSS LBH and SHL like, “Damn, who raised you?” 

Because, like, I love to joke about Mobei-Jun being an oblivious fool, but that’s in regards to human culture. Mobei-Jun operating on demonic culture + his level of arrogance in regards to how he’s handling SQH suggests that MBJ can be politically savvy among demons when he wants to be. Also, the mental picture of MBJ being like, “Eat your weird demon vegetables, there’s nothing wrong with them, you picky half-breed brat,” is extremely funny. 

I’ll probably turn this into a separate post. 

- 

Shang Qinghua does  not  miss the man’s unconcealed  “oh, great, some of my favorite problem people are back, probably with bad news”  expression when they arrive. The man is not at all impressed to hear about the drugged-up Shadow Cave Wolf Spiders or the evil, murderous, madness-inducing plant they fought on their mission, but the Qian Cao Peak Lord is reluctantly, partially placated by the jar of three-eyed skeleton tears Shang Qinghua super thoughtfully brought back for his inspection. Mu Qingfang really likes his research projects! 

 Shang Qinghua lets himself feel kind of good about this gift - he’s the man who gets things and gets things done - and ignores the Weeper’s Eye whispering in his head,  “He has resigned himself to the untimely deaths of everyone he knows.” 

 (Wow. Oh, Shang Qinghua knows that feeling!) 

-

AN: Mu Qingfang doesn’t think that everyone around him is inevitably going to die, he’s just extremely aware of how dangerous the world is and how reckless cultivators can be. Also, for many years, he was fairly certain that Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu were headed for bad ends. 

This felt like a good place to insert some optimism back into the sect in general. Luo Fanli has been cured and is willingly going to visit her sister, Liu Qingge has got a hold on his self-destructive tendencies, Mu Qingfang thinks things are getting better, Shen Qingqiu’s health problems have been essentially fixed, Qijiu might actually work their shit out, Shen Yuan shares his real name with Shang Qinghua, and so on and so forth. 

It felt like a good contrast with and buildup towards Luo Binghe’s Skinner mistake (not everything is rosy yet, there are still growing problems), the secret basement, and the encounter with Bing-Ge. 

Only to flip that around and then bring some surprise Moshang into things! 

- 

“I have now been informed that, after learning that you had returned and, at the very least, completing the duties that were intended to have him reflect on his actions, he has disappeared yet again,” Shen Qingqiu continues. “This second disappearance has set some of the other junior disciples into a renewed panic, which has concerned some of the senior disciples, which was, apparently, cause to alert me.”   

 “Ah,” Shang Qinghua says. 

-

AN: Shen Jiu should not be in charge of a bunch of children, but it is funny to imagine him going through the same “be a less shit person” adoption process as Shang Qinghua. Like, oh, it would be so easy for him to be cruel about this situation, but fuck you if he’s going to be outdone in the recovery and redemption process by Shang Qinghua of all people. 

Shang Qinghua: *grows into a kind of decent person* 

Shen Jiu: “Fuck you. That’s not allowed.” 

Shen Jiu: “...” 

Shen Jiu: “Well, if THAT FUCKER of all people can do it...” 

- 

 Shang Qinghua doesn’t have to look long or far to find his nephew. He finds the young protagonist sitting despondently on the doorstep of his own Leisure House, sniffling into his sleeve. Peerless Cucumber of all people is sitting beside him and keeping him company. 

  “Focusing on other people’s lives is easier than looking at his own.” 

 “-think a drowning man first has to save himself… or else he’s only going to bring down the people he’s trying to save,” Peerless Cucumber is saying. 

 Binghe nods. 

- 

AN: Going by, like, the everything of SVSSS, Shen Yuan really is the asshole going, “I’ll die before I look inwards to recognize and deal with my own emotions.” Also, going, “Yes, I’m a hypocrite who won’t take my own advice. And what about it?” What a repressed nerd. 

- 

 Shang Qinghua clears his throat to get their attention. Both kids (well, teenager and young adult, but still...  kids)  look up and then stand up quickly. Luo Binghe takes a forgetful step forward, before he wobbles into an appropriate respectful bow instead. 

 “Shang-Shishu!” 

  “How dearly this boy is loved!”  the Weeper’s Eye declares, in its soft way inside Shang Qinghua’s head.  “More than life itself! More than death itself!” 

 “Ah, never mind all that,” Shang Qinghua says, and steps forward to wrap his nephew in a quick hug instead, keeping the creepy talking eye oriented away from his nephew. “You’re a little too late to talk to me about your mission before your shizun did.” 

 Binghe, who was just relaxing into the unexpected hug, freezes. 

 Shang Qinghua knowingly pats the poor young protagonist on the back.

  “Oh, shit” is right! 

- 

AN: Uncle Shang really is adorable. Still kind of knocks me for a loop writing it, though, given that the SVSSS SQH and LBH relationship is... nothing like this whatsoever. Look upon the field of SQH and LBH content and see that it is relatively barren except for the stubborn motherfuckers with excellent taste in character exploration. 

-

  “Ahhh, well, I’ll be there too for this potential family reunion, bro,” Shang Qinghua assures him. “Maybe we can finally get to the bottom of where this ‘Shen Yuan’ name came from.” 

 Peerless Cucumber makes a strange expression. 

 “What?” 

 “...It’s my name.” 

 “What?” Shang Qinghua repeats. 

 “It’s my name,” Peerless Cucumber says again, quietly. “It’s my real name.” 

 “Oh.” 

  “Huh,” Shang Qinghua thinks, having been operating on the assumption that the System made the name up for its mysterious backstory. Well, that gives new dimensions to Peerless Cucumber’s criticism of the scum villain! 

 “You can use it,” Peerless Cucumber says, with an air of determined nonchalance. “Everyone else is doing it.” 

 “Ah, alright. Thanks.” 

- 

AN: This is probably the part where I would have made Shang Qinghua reveal his original name in turn... IF HE HAD ONE. It drives me... kind of wild that we get the Airplane Extras and we STILL don’t get 1) Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky’s original name, and 2) MOBEI-JUN’s name. 

Which actually makes things a little more interesting here, in my opinion, even though not having those names gets a little frustrating in terms of fanfiction writing. With Mobei-Jun, you get to explore the fucked up possibilities of him not having a name outside of his identity as the future Northern King. With Shang Qinghua, you get to explore him being a squirrelly little fuck who refuses to let anyone into his life. 

So, because we don’t have Airplane’s name, we actually get this mildly interesting dynamic in which Shang Qinghua doesn’t even really think to reveal it to Shen Yuan. We don’t see this part, but Shen Yuan is actually a little miffed by this degree of secrecy, which is going to come up later. (Shen Yuan doesn’t like the fact that Shang Qinghua has as much power over him as he does.) 

I personally do not hold the headcanon that Airplane’s name was “Shang Qinghua”. It’s a little too on the nose for me. At that point, the only reaction to transmigrating into SQH kind of has to be, “Ah, well, I was asking for that!” Maybe Airplane projected his worst qualities onto Shang Qinghua, but I don’t think he went so far as to give the character his own name. 

Airplane’s main identity when he died appears to have been Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky, and we know that he wasn’t particularly close to his divorced parents and any step- or half-siblings. So, the only names that are really relevant post-transmigration are “Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky” and “Shang Qinghua”. By the time that SY gets here, he’s firmly entrenched in those identities, and his original name is completely irrelevant. I could honestly believe that Airplane just doesn’t think it matters anymore. 

- 

 Shang Qinghua’s nephew, in the way of a true young protagonist or  fucking cannon fodder, got the bright fucking idea to slip away to speak with the concubine called Butterfly privately. 

 “I thought: what if she didn’t want to speak in front of that lecherous old man? What if she wanted to get away from him?” Binghe confesses. 

 “She was the demon,” Shang Qinghua guesses. 

 Binghe nods, voice breaking. “It was…  I was  really,  really stupid, Uncle.” 

 “Well, at least you know that,” Shang Qinghua sighs, and pats his sniffly nephew on the back again. 

 Oh, he can see why Shen Qingqiu was  pissed the fuck off now. Shang Qinghua kind of wants to start yelling! Or maybe just screaming, coherently or otherwise! 

 Except yelling isn’t going to help much right now. 

 Shang Qinghua listens as Luo Binghe recounts being captured by the demon and then waking up bound by Immortal Binding Cables - of being so terrified that he could barely breathe with it. His only hope was Ning Yingying and Ming Fan tattling on his disappearance and a senior disciple tracking him down on time. The skinner demon apparently nearly killed Binghe, crooning over his young and beautiful skin, except a flash of warm light intervened and dropped an unstable part of the ceiling in on them before they could hurt the captured protagonist. 

 “Fu-Shijie and Shizun arrived after that and k-killed it,” Binghe says. “Uncle, it was all  stupid luck!  Shizun said I should have been dead and that, between my efforts and the demon’s, he had no idea how I wasn't! And he was right! It was  so close! If the ceiling hadn’t fallen in like that-! Fu-Shijie suggested the ropes might be faulty and it could have been an unconscious use of spiritual energy, but I didn’t do anything! It wasn’t me!” 

 It  sounds like the System to Shang Qinghua, intervening again at a crucial moment to prevent the premature death of the protagonist. Just thinking about how close his nephew came to dying without him knowing is nearly enough to inspire a cold sweat! Shang Qinghua can’t speak about the System, so all he can really do is keep hugging! Keep holding on for dear life and saying soothing nothings to his crying nephew! 

- 

AN: I wanted to include the Skinner mission, but I didn’t want to redo it onscreen because that’s been done in many fanfictions before and I felt that there was really no good reason for Shang Qinghua to be a part of it. The reason I wanted to include it is to show how the plot is off the track of the SVSSS (and PIDW) stories, with the changed LBH and the changed Original SQQ. 

LBH wants to be a hero, but he’s not there yet. 

- 

 “...Don’t put yourself above him… or below him. Tell him what you want and listen to what he wants, and don’t be surprised if things don’t change all at once,” Shang Qinghua advises and, at Yue Qingyuan’s look, quickly raises his hands. “Ahhh, not my business, I know! Not my business! I just… I hope it works out! I hope you two get something better out of this mess! Aha, make the sect meetings a little less awkward and… things.” 

  “He has never known what better looks like. He will always be Yue Qi, the slave boy. No matter what he does.” 

 “...Thank you,” Yue Qingyuan says finally, thoughtfully. “I appreciate your… restraint in this matter… in recent months.” 

 Aha, yikes. 

-

AN: I know that some people wanted more stomping on Yue Qingyuan, but... like... this man is as or nearly as traumatized as Shen Qingqiu. His childhood fucking sucked. He broke his own soul trying to save Shen Jiu and failed. He made some shit decisions where Shen Qingqiu was concerned, but the logic and trauma he’s operating on are pretty obvious. He was trying. 

Part of the theme around the Qijiu and Moshang arcs has also been “an eye for an eye”. Like, are you guys really going to keep on not communicating with each other and then fucking up and then taking chunks out of each other? How many misunderstandings and upset over misunderstandings are you going to throw at each other? Where do you put your foot down and say, “I don’t want to live like this forever. We can be better than this. I want better than this.” 

Like, it can’t just be hurting each other back and forth (this applies to Qijiu more than Moshang, in which MBJ definitely carries the weight of this fuck-up). It can’t just be privately nursing hurt feelings forever. The options here are “fix it” or “live like this forever”. Fixing it won’t happen immediately, but the other option fucking sucks, so every little step helps. 

So Shang Qinghua here is just like, “Bro, I’m tired. My anger has cooled a lot. I just want all our lives to suck less. I hope things work out for you.” 

[everybodyelsesgirl]

trying to process some things. personal stuff below the cut.

tw for emotional abuse; mental illness; eating disorder; suicide.

keep thinking about this post from 5 years ago and how I really, truly believed that things were going to get better. that I'd finally stood up for myself for the first time in my life and not allowed yet another person to take advantage of me and destroy my sense of self. I'd finally said no to being used and manipulated and treated like shit because I couldn't bear the thought of people disliking me—of people thinking I was weird or annoying or pathetic—or of people just not even paying any attention to me at all.

for so long I had been what I can only describe as a living, breathing doormat. almost every 'friend' I ever had would somehow know exactly how to take advantage of me whilst making me feel completely and utterly inadequate and it was only when I came up against the one person whose abuse was just so completely textbook, that I actually realised what I'd been putting myself through all these years. the gaslighting and the lying and the way she would try to get my other friends to turn on me so she could get what she wanted, while using her own mental illness as a weapon to threaten me and my family with when she didn't get her way. and, in the past, it probably would have worked. I would have just let it happen because that was easier than having to face the prospect of being alone once again. I would have been wracked with guilt and self-loathing at the thought of being the reason why my friend had said she was going to stop eating and kill herself and then done everything in my power to appease them and give them what they wanted because, it was me—I was the cause of that, right?

but I had reached the point where I gave enough of a shit about myself that I wasn't going to let someone treat me that way. that I wasn't going to be emotionally abused and manipulated anymore or made to feel like I was broken or abnormal because I didn't act the way they expected me to. realising I was autistic was so liberating because it meant that I finally understood why this had happened to me. that I had been so susceptible, not because I was just so broken that I had somehow brought it on myself, but because an abuser sees vulnerability and exploits that.

but you know what standing up for yourself does? what it means to assert your boundaries and protect yourself and say no? it means you end up alone. at the time I was so relieved to be free of her that it didn't really occur to me that I had no friends left. the friends I had at the time were also hers and I just—cut them all out of my life. that's what people tell you to do right? when you're getting away from an abuser, that is what you're supposed to do, isn't it?? I've had to do it now so many times that I barely even think about it—I just cut people out. and now it's become so normalised for me that I'm not sure if I'll ever be capable of maintaining a relationship with someone ever again. how could I possibly trust anyone when this is all I've ever known? I keep everyone at arms length; if someone wants to message me, meet up, go for coffee, or whatever else friends are supposed to do, I shut it down before it's even started. does this make me a bad person? I don't know, maybe—? but at this point I don't even know how to do any different. it is so hardwired in me not to trust anyone anymore that I have spent the past 5 years without any friends at all.

and, honestly, I'm broken. I'm back at the point where I'm convinced that there must be something that's so fundamentally wrong with me that I cannot even begin to maintain a functioning relationship with another person and it must be—it just has to be—my fault. I am the only constant in this scenario and it feels like everything I am is just fundamentally incompatible with other human beings. the way I'm still so terrified of being rejected or ignored but I almost seek these things out by avoiding and evading and putting up walls because it's the only way I know how to have any semblance of control. and now I am so resigned to this—that this is what my life amounts to—that I see no way out. and just, when I think back on that post I wrote, I just wish I was still that person. sure, I was alone, but at least I had hope. at least I still thought things would get better.

now I'm 5 years down the line and I'm having to quit uni altogether because of an entirely arbitrary time limit on how long you're allowed to complete an undergrad degree before they just decide that you're out. and it's not like I didn't do all the right things; I got accommodations and extensions and they were going to let me have another two years extra so that I could finish third year part-time. but then the pandemic happened and instead of acknowledging that my accommodations had obviously not planned for lockdowns and enforced isolation and a complete loss of any of the mechanisms I'd carefully built to be able to function on even the most basic level, they just decided to say no. and that was that.

so of course, when I think back on the amount of work it took me to even consider going back to uni in the first place after what had happened the first time round—it's just incomprehensible. all that time and effort to attempt to build myself back up and to try and learn how to put myself first and stop bending over backwards to make everyone else happy at the expense of my own physical and mental health and now it all just amounts to nothing. my physical health is the worst it's ever been and mentally I'm so broken that I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to put the pieces back together. because before, at least, those pieces were still recognisable as part of a whole; you could still match up the edges and see where they fit or where the gaps and cracks needed plastering over. but now, it's been broken so many more times that each part becomes smaller and smaller and less and less recognisable to the point where you just don't know what they are anymore. is this really what I've done to myself? has everything I've done really led to this? I just really don't know if I'll ever be able to trust myself not to destroy everything I've worked for yet again and, not being able to ever trust myself again, I think that is honestly the scariest part of all.

[thesupergamercorpus]

07/07/2019 - Dialogue with love

A dialogue between two versions of me: Self-content me (~18 years) and hopeless lover (~15 years). It is inspired by the current book I am reading, ‘Meditations’ by Marcus Aurelius where he writes a dialogue to himself from time to time.

Self-content me: An another great deal of pain I see, but this time it is also commonly shared among the others. That of love.

Hopeless lover: Yes, love. I don’t get it.

It’s not good enough.

It’s too weak to deal with the jobs.

Why would I hopelessly try to be ‘kind’ and ‘compassionate’. To try and show others that I love them when I never get what I want anyways? It seems to be much easier to just manipulate them and stroke their ego’s, although some of them, rather, seem to require a kind of fear so they will have the feeling to prove themselves to me.

Self-content me: To weak to deal with ‘the jobs’?

Hopeless lover: Yes, too weak to make me achieve what I want. Countless times have I met girls who I tried to show ‘kind love’. It didn’t work no single time. Instead, once I began using some neat manipulation techniques, they all hella started to love me.

But my techniques weren’t based out of thin air. No, they were based on myself: how easily I could be manipulated. So I began to, thanks to my almost perfect memory, recall my past memories and analyze what attracted me to these girls. What beautiful techniques they used to lure me and all the others.

It was so simple yet so complicated: If people started to talk about you or simply just called your name out loud without you being near their presence and in a positive manner, you would automatically attract, not just the one you want to attract, but almost everyone around them too.

You should have totally seen this girl, Hera, who became instantaneously attracted to me after all of the people around me began talking positively about me! She will become the perfect girl. My perfect girl.

Self-content me: Yes, you were easily manipulable. Yes, you learned the techniques relatively easily. But no, you are far from perfect, young one. All that you do, right now, are based on mere instincts. Short-term goals that will soon fade away and make place for new upcoming anger and frustrations. You are being erratic and foolish. Sure they make you feel good, but any animal can have good feeling emotions, it is the hallmark of being human, that of rationality. And currently, your rationale is based on feeble, animalistic emotions and feelings. You are just as much in control of yourself as any animal.

Yes, you should keep trying to learn how to positively influence others around you, but do not think you are close to perfection without having mastery over yourself. If you cannot be content even in failing to positively influence others, then the path is still a long way.

And yes, of course, this girl we call Hera, you see her as the perfection you want to become. The ultimate being that can enslave and command others the way she pleases. You see her as a reflection of who you want to become. And even if she is perfection, you are nonetheless being blinded by her. By being so fixated, you are making yourself close-minded. And by being close-minded, you are making yourself more ignorant in the long run than you otherwise would be.

It is time to free yourself of hopes and fears, for every hope has a fear and every fear has a hope, the principle of opposites by Carl Jung. Start to doubt yourself more. Your beliefs and ideals. As a byproduct, it will also make you more humble. You will, however, see in the future that she is far from perfect.

Hopeless lover: Far from perfect? But look at how easily she seduces all these guys! Look at how they try to do everything just to get her attention! Even if she’s not perfect, she at least must be more perfect than these guys right?!

Self-content me: These guys you talk about are feeble-minded. They don’t know how to resist urges and neither do you. They are, what people call, doormats. You will soon learn that the average human being is far from exceptional. It is a shame that you compare perfection with these guys. It is like comparing an ant with a god instead of a human with a god.

You are being delusional by focusing on your small world: your environment. And even if you encompass the whole world, you will soon learn that that too is small, for the way you think right now is 3-dimensional. Once you begin to learn how to think multidimensional, yourself will be more than enough to encompass the whole universe. There won’t be a comparison to ‘these guys’. It will feel way too close-minded for you.

You will soon read books about real great men. Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Diogenes, Socrates, Epictetus, etc. Soon you will compare Hera with these men of wisdom and realize how far from perfection she is and how far from perfection you are.

Tell me about her qualities, let us jot it down one by one what makes you attracted to her, and let us not compare her with these feeble-minded guys but, instead, to real godlike men.

Hopeless lover: Well, I am truly amazed by her ability to seduce all these guys for selfish purposes.

Self-content me: Yes, seduce these simpletons. Let us compare her with Hannibal Barca. This great general who crossed the Alps and losed hundreds of men in turn was capable of not only convincing his own people to fight alongside him against Rome, but also many barbarians. They all followed him until the end of the war between Carthage and Rome. They all followed him even if they saw a lot of brethren die and would prefer to die heroically too.

You think these simpletons would die for Hera? That she has seduced them enough for them to die for her? Not by a long shot!

Secondly, the difference between her and the great Hannibal Barca, is that the latter had mastery over himself. You think self-mastery is not important when it is the key ingredient to get closer to the gods themselves? To be self-content.

“It is the privilege of the gods to want nothing, and of godlike men to want little.” – Diogenes of Sinope

You will soon learn how self-mastery is one of the most powerful things you can show others and how others will respect you for it. Believe me, they will see it, unconsciously or consciously. Any other qualities to name?

Hopeless lover: Yes, I am truly in love with her ego. I love how she calls herself a goddess.

Self-content me: Why?

Hopeless lover: Because I see her as a reflection of myself.

Self-content me: I see how you see her as a prize to be won. A prize to make yourself more complete. You will learn, however, that abstaining from all these rewards is what truly will make you complete.

“A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

She’s not the prize to be won. No, yourself are. It is all within you, the art of abstaining from pleasures. Anything else that is important for us to note down?

Hopeless lover: I guess I really like how she feels like a second mother to me. How she listens to all my problems and wishes the best for me. She treats me different than others.

Self-content me: Of course because she’s in love with you. Everything right now, is what you soon will learn, a period of prosperity. There’s no scarcity. No need to compete for every little resource. There’s an abundance. Post-scarcity.

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” – Socrates

You will soon enter the era of trying to discover who you are and why. You will soon get to know how one of your unique abilities is to, thanks to your intelligence, adapting to your environment and people are part of that environment. She treats you like no one else not only because she’s in love with you, but also because you know how to adapt to the other. How to make the other experience comfort, safety, abundance, and group mentality rather than competition.

Yes, she treats you like no one else, but the problem is, you don’t treat yourself like no one else. You don’t value yourself enough despite your big ego, so the way she treats you will feel heavenly, but once you get to know everything I know right now, all those treats won’t feel that special.

And lastly, you will learn how the first impressions during times of prosperity are of no value compared to times of adversity.

“There is no great credit in behaving bravely in times of prosperity, when life glides easily with a favoring current, neither does a calm sea and fair wind display the art of the pilot. Some foul weather is wanted to prove his courage.” – Seneca the Younger

You won’t learn this the easy way however. You will learn this the hard way.

Hopeless lover: I also seem to love the challenge. Everything around me has become a playground especially with her on my side.

Self-content me: Who doesn’t love a challenge? The problem, however, is that yours is not aimed at Nature. It even goes contrary to Nature since you are creating a scarcity.

“For those who follow nature everything is easy and straightforward, whereas for those who fight against her life is just like rowing against the stream.” – Lucius Annaeus Seneca

So yes, aim for challenges but do not fight against Nature. Again, you will learn this the hard way. And the most disgusting idea of yours seems to be a wish for eternity. An eternity with her into the future. That too is contrary to Nature.

“This too shall pass.”

While you are enjoying the pleasures, you are not preparing for times of adversity.

“It is in times of security that the spirit should be preparing itself to deal with difficult times; while fortune is bestowing favors on it then is the time for it to be strengthened against her rebuffs.” – Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

We shall meet again when you have learned the things the hard way I am afraid.

[utopianparadoxist]

Love, Faith, and Fantasy - Just what (and who) does Jake English want?

UPDATE: Sorry about the dissapointing news on 4/13 today. I imagine many fans won’t be in the mood to read this right now, but I thought it’d be a better way to spend the day than being dissapointed. So maybe you will. Either way, I put a lot of love into this. I hope it helps. 

I want to begin this post with a mea culpa.

In the wake of the last post covering Jake’s awareness of events unfolding around him, I was lucky enough to receive feedback from a number of really great people. Among that feedback was the idea that I was kind of overstating things with regards to Jake’s intelligence to the opposite extreme. I feel that this is true! Not because I don’t think Jake is aware or that he was an actively getting Jane to lean one way in her answer--I still think that’s correct, and in fact I have more evidence to present in favor of it under the cut. But I worry in my zeal, I presented a skewed image of how I think about Jake--essentially, I was trying to correct what I perceive as the fandom problem of invalidating Jake’s intelligence completely and painting him as a moron. I think it is a fair criticism to say I overcorrected in that endeavor. 

I’m hoping that admitting that my choosing to tone down certain claims is a direct result of valid and insightful criticism will allow you to give me the benefit of the doubt, and make it easier for you believe I am being genuine in approaching this subject and interested in and willing to incorporate feedback where I find it logically consistent. This is important to me for reasons that will soon become obvious. That disclaimer out of the way, please click on the cut to see what I have to say.

If you do, by the way: Thank you. It means a lot to me.

There was originally an author’s introduction here. In the interest of brevity I reposted it to it’s own post, so click here to understand my motivations for writing and my desire for the fandom. Otherwise, please enjoy.

Knights and Pages - Servitude and Ownage

In my last post, I advanced the idea that Pages are an Active class and Knights are Passive. In so doing, I made the mistake of implying Pages are all secretely hyperintelligent supergeniuses who use everyone knowingly. That wasn’t exactly my intent, but that’s fine--sloppy execution on my part. My bad. What I didn’t do is discuss the potential key verbs Knights and Pages might operate under--because I honestly didn’t have one I felt confident in. In the wake of discussing the piece with @theworstpersonintheworld (misleadingly named), he made a suggestion that struck me deeply, and once I started thinking about the story in those terms everything truly fell into place.  

I think it will be useful in explaining the dynamic between Jake and Dirk as I see it, so I’d like to make the case for it here before we move forward.

The key verb for both Knights and Pages is ‘Serve’. This puts them in direct thematic opposition to Rogues and Thieves, who ‘Steal’, which lines up with those dual systems Sburb loves so much--after all, if Princes and Bards are ‘Destroy’ classes, it’s reasonable to assume there is also a ‘Create’ set, right?

Knights Serve their Aspect to others. Pages use their Aspect to Serve themselves. To establish this and contrast against Jake’s actions later, let’s take a look at some of Dave’s actions in this context to establish what this verb can mean. 

From the outset, Dave has a reputation for providing his friends with his Time, serving them long rambling diatribes to consume and enjoy--often far exceeding the time they’re willing to spend on the conversation. 

His primary contribution to the Beta’s game is to run loops around the session, constantly gathering all relevant resources possible so that his friends don’t need to worry at all about limitations like money or access to weapons and can do whatever they feel like. Essentially, Dave takes care of the minutiae. 

This predisposition to serving others is also likely why Knights seem to end up helping out with Frog Breeding duties so often. This is essentially the most important game objective, and so serving the Space player in completing it is also Serving every other player in step. 

And then there’s this. Serve is a word with double connotations. It can indeed imply servitude or service, and Dave definitely does that. But there’s a colloquial definition of Serve that derives it’s use from the term “Get Served”, which Urban Dictionary defines as: To be completely owned or shown up by someone. Kinda like Dave does to us here--which Karkat also does, by the way. 

This is also something Dave does repeatedly--he overwhelms Tavros with a time-consuming and epically sassy document, and makes Time-based power plays against Karkat gestures of antagonism. To serve someone in this sense essentially means to defeat them in rhetorical or literal battle, explaining why Aradia describes Knights as a Warrior class.

I’d like to posit a corollary attribute that I believe holds true for all Classes, as well. This one is not explicitly advanced textually, but I believe I can back it up. It takes place along a different axis. I posit that just as the classes affect their Aspect, so too they are affected BY their Aspect. 

So in addition to the Active/Passive distinction, we could read both Knights and Pages as ones who are Served by their Aspect. 

This is true of Dave, as he gets owned by his Bro in an explicitly time-consuming fight. And the trend continues as he then gets saved by his future selves over and over again throughout the session--being served in both senses:

If this reading of Knight happens to bother you because it means that the Beta session has an uneven distribution of Active/Passive classes, consider the dynamics of both sessions:

In the beta session, Rose essentially takes and follows orders from the Horrorterrors and Doc Scratch, whilst also distributing orders to Dave and John (who each take further orders from Terezi and Jade and Vriska, respectively). All of this is ultimately in support of the plan Jade commits to herself, plans herself, and executes herself--taking Active control of the entire session in one fell swoop at the last instant. 

In the Alpha session, all three Active players flounder and stifle themselves and each other with nothing meaningful to do and no way to receive substantial benefit. Ultimately, it is the Passive player--Roxy--who rises above the constraints of her session and achieves more or less competence at understanding her role and powerset by the end of the session. 

In the session that requires constant action and change, there’s Three passives to one Active. In the session that requires patience, introspection, and connecting with each other, the inverse is true. The incentives and natural skills of the players are set at odds in both cases, stacking the cards against them. 

That’s enough on Knights for now. To save on length, I’ll explain how the other Classes are affected by their Aspects elsewhere. I think we’ve established this framework well enough, so let’s pick up where we left off with Jake.

Faith and Fear 

So basically, I was never exactly trying to argue Jake was some kind of secret supergenius manipulator. What I tried to say, rather, is that he’s pretty much about as aware and capable as his friends are. Whatever mental hiccups he has that can be attributed to mental shortcomings on our part are a red herring--Jake’s problem is actually similar to Jane’s: 

Willful ignorance coupled with an intense aversion to confrontation. Before I start talking about those, here’s some extra evidence in favor of my view that Jake manipulating Jane into denying her feelings was intentional. 

Last we talked about Jake, I mentioned how soon after Roxy messaged him and let slip about Jane’s crush, Jake messaged Jane in order to talk to her about it. What I missed was that that conversation with Roxy happens much earlier, and Jake and Roxy actually have a SECOND conversation on the subject...immediately preceding Jane and Jake’s conversation. 

Note here that Jake slips up and describes Jane’s pinings as “unrequited”. Jake broaches the subject, and then rambles a bit about how he wonders if people really do feel that way. Then Roxy is interrupted by something and has to go, which results in...

I’m not really vouching for the idea that this “Hmm.” is definitely Jake being given a line of quiet contemplation before he decides to do what he does next--talk to Jane--but I will advance it as a possibility. At the very least, the line is ambiguous. This kind of understated response is a little bit odd in the context of Jake being worried about Roxy’s danger, and he seemed lost in his own thoughts right before she left. 

Regardless, moving on to the next page. Nothing I said with Jane was fundamentally inaccurate, so I won’t cover that subject matter again. What I do want to answer is: Why? 

If Jake knew how Jane felt, why not just answer her? And why does he seem to forget Jane ever liked him in the first place once she says No--to the point that even with Brain Ghost Dirk, his literal own brain, telling him better, he still claims ignorance?

And the answer is that Jake conflates believing in someone with believing the things they say, and Jake very much wants to be a good friend to his loved ones. And what Jake fears more than anything is that he may have to confront or disappoint anyone. That he be forced to find out he accidentally hurt his friends’ feelings--or be forced to choose to do something that would do so himself.

This is why his big solution when he becomes a Trickster is to become a doormat and date everybody, explicitly so that he can make everyone happy--not because he wants to date everyone himself. (though he makes it a point to include Dirk when the girls exclude him)  And he admits his reasoning himself once the session falls apart:

So it’s more convenient for him if it turns out he really was wrong about Jane liking him--despite literal evidence to the contrary--and once he has it, he serves himself through Hope and believes it wholeheartedly. 

He then puts Jane in a situation where she ends up Serving him by acting as a confidant for months, all the while talking her up as such a great and understanding friend and thanking her. (This is an approach Jake constantly uses, by the way--think of his “standup gent” gratitude spiel in his first log with Hal. Why does Jake give it? He wants uranium--ie, Dirk’s service.)

And implicitly uses the head trauma he received during session entry as a plausible excuse for his lack of foresight, just as he uses his Hotheaded Adventurer persona to ignore possibilities he finds inconvenient. He does all this because on some level he’s genuinely convinced it’s all true, so this isn’t exactly active manipulation. But he convinced himself it was true in the first place because it was conducive to his preferred fantasies. 

This reluctance to confront his friends when he thinks there’s a chance he messed up also explains a question barely anyone seems to have asked: If Jake was having so much trouble with Dirk, why did he always go to Jane or Erisol? Why never Roxy, over the course of six months? The answer is because Roxy knows a secret (hidden information-Void stuff), a fact that Jake cannot square with his constructed identity: That he knew Jane liked him all along. Because she told him about it. (Roxy has her own reasons for not advancing this information, which we’ll get to someday.)

But because of all this behavior, Jake’s friends find it extremely difficult to approach him about subjects he doesn’t want to be approached with, which coupled with their own issues ends with everyone bottling up their feelings until they burst, always ending in Jake getting breathtakingly....

Devastatingly...

Served. 

But I don’t want to harsh on Jake here. It’s not that he doesn’t love his friends--it’s just that he’s kind of selfish about it. But that isn’t always a bad thing, as we’ll soon see. For now, do you know what Jake is more comfortable doing for Jane than letting her down gently over her unrequited feelings?

Literally dying for her. After she threatened him with sexual slavery. And she’s not the one he chose to be with romantically--we’ll get to Dirk later. This is not a boy who cares only about himself--it’s a boy who is so scared of disappointing the people he cares about he would rather lie to them and himself forever rather than face the possibility. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt them, obviously. 

In the words of so many people who have told me about their perceptions of Dirk: “Intent does not invalidate abuse.”

 And there’s no one this habit of Jake’s hurts worse than it hurts Dirk Strider. 

Fearful Heart 

We get exactly one pesterlog with Dirk and Jake, and in my opinion, it is the single best pesterlog in the entire story of Homestuck. For those who forgot: The log I will be quoting from is a memory from Jake’s 13th birthday, the day Dirk sent him the Brobot and confessed to being from the future. 

It is indicative of the nature of their relationship, since it is immediately after Jake remembers he’s dreaming that Brain Ghost Dirk adopts the sassier approach-- likely a reflection of Hal’s effect on Jake’s perception of Dirk, brought to the forefront once Jake remembers his situation in the real world. 

The first thing worth pointing out is that Dirk doesn’t buy Jake’s Hothead Adventurer persona at all. Don’t get me wrong--Dirk takes Jake at his word when Jake talks about liking adventure and fighting and all of his interests, but when Jake tries to talk himself down intelligence-wise, Dirk flips his rhetoric to compliment him. 

And when he brings up Rose’s book series, Dirk opens by asking if Jake’s read it. When Jake dodges and tries to lean on not being able to understand it (and asks Dirk to help him keep the secret--more of his hiding stuff to spare people’s feelings), Dirk ignores the comment and launches into a diatribe on the book’s underlying themes--knowing Jake will follow every word of it. 

This perception into Jake’s true nature links into Dirk’s role as a Heart player--Nepeta similarly saw right through Karkat’s angry bluster and unpleasantness into the deeply emotional and gooey Heart underneath.

And when Jake leans on his dumb (and coded straight) adventurer’s persona to deliberately avoid letting his conversation with Dirk skirt too close to gay territory...

Dirk actually snaps at him, coming off pretty critical. It’s important to note this conversation takes place while Dirk is in the process of sending Jake the Brobot, a project he’s worked on for months and which we learn was meant to be a romantic gesture on Dirk’s part, judging by the ‘tender’ comments. So it’s safe to assume the dude’s got romantic thoughts on his mind right now.

And fairly intense ones, too: The Hal describes his memories about feeling for Jake as ‘heavily arresting’ periods of remembering ‘conflicted, incipient preteen episodes’ on the subject. This tells us that the episodes were getting started before Dirk was 13, that they involved conflicting emotions, and that they were intense enough that Hal is still essentially paralyzed by them--even removed from their original biological context. 

Especially because he brings up sexuality again soon after, only to once more be shut down--and with Jake taking ‘gay’ as a mean-spirited pejorative, no less. 

Soon after that, Jake says something that could be read as flirty and Dirk immediately jumps on it, escalating things to thinking about actual physical proximity. When Jake points it out, Dirk gets flustered and quickly changes the subject. He then starts talking DOWN how capable he is--a sharp contrast from later Dirk talking himself up in front of Jane.  They talk some more, the conversation turning to Dirk doubting his own ability to make the AR, and...

There’s two things to note here: The first is that Dirk is clearly and transparently moved. The second is that Jake explicitly notes that he appreciates Dirk being helpful--being of service. This exchange is linked to Jake’s faith, and arguably leads directly to the creation of the AR. It also leads to this:

In this way, the boys nearly exchanging their true feelings for each other is linked to the creation of new life--a concept (reductively) considered the domain of heterosexual couples. Alas, it veers off into the future talk, where we learn something else important:

This moment is important to Dirk. Jake’s faith in him is important to Dirk. So much so that the moment reverberates three years later, as Jake dreams about it, through Brain Ghost Dirk delivering a line that is actually unique enough to jar Jake out of the memory--essentially, Dirk’s feelings slipping through the Ghost to wake Jake up to his reality. 

Brain Ghost Dirk implies Dirk thinks Jake’s faith is impressive, further undercutting the fake reasons Dirk gives Jane for letting Hal hassle him.  This moment means a lot to Dirk, and it comes at a time when his emotions are likely already running high. Which makes it a real shame what happens next.

Jake reacts horribly to the Brobot’s design, which Dirk responds to with a question. Jake spends most of his life up until now talking up his love of fights, challenges and adventure, so Dirk asks for clarification. He then asks Jake to trust him, trying to sell the idea--but Jake makes it pretty clear he dislikes the idea. 

Which is why I really can’t parse him changing the subject as some cold-blooded act of manipulation. This conversation has been a rollercoaster for Dirk--he’s been built up, torn down, and sent a ton of mixed messages. The big romantic overture he had planned blew up in his face, and I think there’s an argument he can no longer do anything to fix it without knowingly exposing Jake to danger. Dirk wants to be done by this point, I think, and I would be too. 

And the tragedy is? I don’t even buy that this was Dirk imposing some Training Program on Jake out of his personal perspective that Jake needs to improve. At this point, I’d need a strong argument to convince me of the reading. It leaves too big a plot hole, and there’s a more obvious canonical explanation for it anyway.

Because if Dirk was willing to unilaterally impose training on Jake because he needed to be stronger, then it begs the question: Why not the same functionality for Jane? Are we putting it down to some completely canonically unaddressed misogyny? Jane is in as much danger as any of them, and far more unprepared. If he felt that strongly and was that willing to control, does it really make sense to think he’d stop short of training her personally to ensure their success?

It’s much more reasonable to assume the obvious: That when trying to romance his best friend, Dirk approached the situation logically. Jake talks about loving adventure all the goddamn time. Dirk knows he doesn’t actually do any adventures. But he believes Jake that he wants to. The answer? Simple. 

Set up an elaborate scenario in which Jake can experience all the adventure he wants--while also keeping him safe from monsters. Essentially, Dirk is trying to enable Jake to actually start living out his fantasy in a safe environment, and Jake inspires in Dirk the desire to help him in this way through Hope for romantic reciprocation.

Dirk isn’t interested in controlling Jake English at all. He’s trying to Serve him.

Which he succeeds at! Over the long run, Jake does indeed grow to view the chase as an adventure, and admits to finding the whole experience of the Brobot kind of exciting in confidence with Jane. I’d have to hear explanations if someone wanted to square this with Jake perceiving it as abusive, personally.

Hence why Jake levels up when he’s trounced. Which makes these lines Dirk delivers three years later, directly to the audience:

Straight up lies. It’s Dirk hiding from his hurt and confusion by destroying his own perceived fuckups with his fabricated Stoic Coolguy Warrior persona--the same way Jake hides from his own by burying them under his beliefs. 

In reality, all Dirk wants is to try to make what Jake wants possible. Which is very fitting, because there’s only one thing Dirk wants more than Jake himself. What Dirk wants is to be believed in. To be valued and wanted. To be of service, to be necessary, to be good. And specifically...

To be like Dave Strider. 

As you Wish

I’ve already laid my case for why Dirk definitely did not set up the events of [S] Unite Synchronize, but with this context it’s worth noting the note Dirk was trying to play while setting up the session--essentially, he was trying to live up to Dave’s legacy and mythological role, acting to Serve all his friends complete session entry. 

He fails at this. Miserably. But Hal, who is also a Dirk trying to emulate Dave, succeeds--by the end, it literally take’s over as EVERYONE’S server player, even Dirk’s. He even takes Dave’s text color during the process AND literally takes charge of--his words--metatemporal mechanics.

That established, let’s refocus a bit and note the nature of Dirk’s relationship with all of his friends by the time they start playing.

We just took stock of how badly Dirk’s last attempt at approaching Jake romantically went, and soon after this the AR is created and begins attempting to intercept, manipulate and solicit Jake on Dirk’s behalf--I already went over how Dirk had no control over this, didn’t want it, and grew to hate Hal for it.   Several times over. 

To make matters worse, we learn Jake essentially toyed with Dirk’s heart with jokes he--again-- never confronted Dirk to correct, although he correctly deduces it left lasting damage on Dirk’s feelings. 

Partly as a result, he views Jane as a competitor with an unfair advantage. Her complete ignorance about his sexuality doesn’t help matters, so he can’t talk to her. 

All the while, Roxy is actively and willingly pressuring him into romantic interest in her and directly comparing him unfavorably to Hal for his lack of romantic reciprocation. And Hal not only harasses Jake and positions himself as a better friend to Jane (this particular act I do not view as malicious), but uses Dirk’s very insecurity about failing Roxy against him.

And while Hal claims to be on Dirk’s side in the Jakestakes, Dirk is pretty much right to be suspicious of his intentions:

So essentially, Dirk has no one to talk to about his sexuality and gets ignorance or cruelty on all sides with regards to it. Is it really reasonable to demand of a teenager to come forward to his best friend--who he last heard voice rejection of the very CONCEPT of gayness--not only to admit his sexuality and explain how it factors into his alternate self’s abusive behavior, but also to confess or try to talk around his soul-searing, cosmic romantic love for the guy?

And that is what it is, make no mistake about it. The AR is either getting carried away with the feelings it says are distant and diluted for it, or confessing those feelings on Dirk’s behalf.

Heart is the aspect not just of love, but of any intense attraction between two or more people, and thus shipping. At first, these elements may seem disparate, but they’re more connected than they seem.

After all, what do you do if you ship two characters? If you think they’re in love? Typically they’re shown as close together as possible, trading attention and feelings. Placing their two souls in proximity to one another’s and implying a give and take between them.

Which is why it’s no surprise that Dirk expresses love by trying to close physical distance, or that when he and Jake hook up in the session, Dirk tries to compensate for his fears that Jake is straight and acting out of obligation by trying to stay as close as possible--thus being clingy and needy but with no real exchange of emotions taking place.

And in [S] Unite, we get shown the degree of Dirk’s feelings. When Jake revives him with the only romantically coded corpsesmooch in the comic, Dirk’s Heart symbol lights up and takes over the screen before he pulls off amazing feats while racing to Jake’s side. And in the panel just before, the lamp representing Dirk’s literal life lights up and overflows so brightly that it literally breaks, unable to contain the force of his passion.

Dirk’s Prince of Heart role does reflect how he destroys his relationships, but not the way most people think. It’s not that Dirk is willing to erode the selves of his friends to fit into his molds, but rather that Hal positioning his Self between Dirk and his friends undercuts Dirk’s ability to reach out and trust their perceptions, or even tell where he begins and Hal ends.

At the same time, Dirk’s intense fear of rejection keeps him away from broaching his problems with Jake the same way Jake’s fear of disappointing others stops him from broaching his--his Love getting in the way of honesty as much as his constructed Persona. 

Save for the trickster log--which he recants--Dirk never once even thinks to consider his friends as aggressors towards him. His instinct is to assume he’s somehow failing them instead. Just like with Jake, Dirk sees into the core of all of his friends, and what he really sees at the end of the day is this:

Dirk thinks Roxy is noble. He sees her as she really is--as one of the Nobles of the session, as they ALL are, seeing right past their flaws and mistakes and straight to the shining hearts of their intentions. Again, Roxy’s not even the one he wants to be with romantically, and we saw the intensity of how he feels about Jake. He wrote Jane entire books and sent her personal bodyguards crafted out of heirlooms taken from the Bro Dirk essentially wants to become. What would he have to say about them, if asked?

Dirk’s problem is his perception of his friends’ nobility leads him to erasing all their hurtful behavior, and his own perceived hurtful behavior stops him from seeing any nobility within himself. Dirk’s response to all of the complicated ways he’s been hurt in trying to manage the Hal and Jake situation as ethically as possible by all of his friends is to internalize responsibility for absolutely all of it. It never even crosses his mind to hold Jane or Jake or even Roxy accountable. Only his own identity.

When things finally explode on him, he turns all his pain inwards and projects it both onto Hal and onto himself.  Dirk’s Prince of Heart role nearly culminates in his most literal destruction of himself--Dirk being nearly Destroyed by Heart.

Jake’s love is no less complicated, but thankfully less drawn out. And Jake does love Dirk, again--I feel this is canonical. But I want to qualify this final section with a disclaimer, because I really don’t want to invalidate anyone.

So to be clear: I think reading Jake as aromantic is copacetic with the canon. Obviously I don’t share this reading--I see him as Bi--but all I’m going to argue here is that Jake deeply, truly, profoundly loves Dirk back. I’m going to describe the angle of that love, too. But whether that love is romantic or platonic is irrelevant to me. You can read them as lovers or best friends or whatever shade of grey between is most pleasing to you, in my humble opinion. 

That said, I don’t feel the need to deconstruct Jake’s every line to determine why he didn’t mean each and every one that could suggest a lack of romantic interest. You can pretty much put almost all of them down in one of four categories: 

His worries about other people’s perceptions and early discomfort with queerness, his later discomfort with feeling unsafe and sexually threatened/objectified, his (willfully ignorant) lack of surety regarding the nature of Dirk’s feelings for him....

And the one I actually want to talk about. 

This is in response to Roxy talking about feeling like it hurts to let Dirk down. The thing is, Roxy--like Dave--is a Passive player, who predominantly feels inclined to help others. Of course failing someone she cares about is going to sting for her more than it would for Jake. 

That has nothing to do with Jake’s capacity for love, it has to do with the fact that Jake is selfish. It has to do with him regretting his self-absorption. Jake does love, and he loves intensely--he loves enough to die for it, which is pretty much as intense as it gets. He’s just deeply, deeply selfish about it. 

And I love that selfishness about Jake. Because it turns all doubts about whether Jake loves Dirk back to ash in one fell swoop, in one single, brilliant, shining moment. In this moment all of Jake’s plot threads come together--his sexual abuse and lack of agency, his growing fear, his certainty none of his friends wants him anymore, his selfishness and fantasy indulgence AND Dirk’s desire to live up to Dave’s image are all build up to one single, spectacular moment. 

A cinematic moment. A moment with deep philosophical implications. 

Everything about Jake and Dirk’s narratives builds up to this. Dirk’s desire to live up to Dave and Jake’s inherent selfishness are complementary, symbiotic forces. I mentioned earlier that when Dirk’s lamp lights up and overflows he performs incredible, unbelievable acts whilst rushing to Jake’s side. 

And when Jake is lit up by Aranea, removing his agency as a person COMPLETELY while also making him the brightest object in the sky, Jake manages to find a way to turn his power against her. And what he chooses to create reveals everything about his character. Because what he chooses to do is call Dirk to his side, to protect him and keep him safe from his perceived threat. 

Both of the boys literally LIGHT UP with their feelings for each other, in a comic where the concept of Light is explicitly linked to relevance, importance, understanding, and the concept of reaching Enlightenment or Nirvana. (Stay tuned, I’ll flesh this out more in my next three videos.) 

I’ve gone over the inherent romance in Jake choosing to create Dirk over literally any other option imaginable.  But with the new context of Jake explicitly looking to serve himself through Hope, it takes on an added edge. What Jake wants more than anything else in the world is Dirk, but not at all to make Dirk happy or because it’s what Dirk would want. No. 

Jake wants Dirk because he’s selfish. Because he wants life to be happy and easy and adventurous but carefree, and he believes he can always rely on Dirk to take care of things or bail him out when things get too intense for him to handle. Jake wants Dirk as a best friend, a bodyguard, a partner, a rival and a servant all rolled into one. 

Jake’s feelings for all of his friends have nothing to do with them and everything to do with himself. He’d rather die than live in a word without Jane, and that’s why he saves her--not because he thinks he owes it to her for past slights.

All of this is textual by implication. Dirk’s line:

”I am Brain Ghost Dirk. You kissed my boyfriend. Prepare to Die.”

Is indicative of the Dirk Jake wants and believes in in his head. This line is a movie reference to The Princess Bride, a romantic fantasy adventure comedy with a very curious dynamic between the romantic leads. No shortage of people have pointed out how Jake seems to see himself as or end up in the positions of sexualized and marginalized female protagonists, but I think there’s a cause to be made Jake’s “arc” draws from this specific one--Buttercup--above all others.

Buttercup’s dynamic with Westley is simple. She issues requests to him, and he responds “As you Wish.” This As you Wish is an explicit I love you, and the power of love is put forth as the source of Westley’s power and endless competence and ability throughout the entire story. It doesn’t matter what needs to happen, Westley finds a way to do it. And he does it because he believes in their love. 

Buttercup, however, struggles to hold on to her faith that love can overcome all things possible and wavers in her commitment to living for it, ending up nearly trapped in an unwanted marriage.  Buttercups’ arc is resolved when she chooses to believe in love even at risk of love, promising never again to hide what she truly desires--Westley.

This is the essence of Jake’s fantasy, and we know that’s what it is because when Caliborn threatens to kill Dirk in the Masterpiece (which the Credits suggest we’ll soon see once again), Jake responds by shifting his and Dirk’s fundamental power dynamic--once again Lighting Up with love to save him by delivering Caliborn his destined serving. 

Jake’s victory ends up giving Hope to all those opposing Lord English, but Jake himself doesn’t give a shit about that. Jake’s stated motivation for trouncing Caliborn is one thing and one thing only: Saving Dirk. Serving his own desire to see Dirk safe. Caliborn is hurting his friend, and Jake is mad about it. His motivation is essentially identical to his desire to save Jane, though--he doesn’t want to live without Dirk. 

And on Dirk’s side, this dynamic ultimately validates the idea that he became everything he wanted to become by emulating Dave through a bit of understated environmental storytelling. I already argued in favor of Grandpa being able to on some level remember his relationship to the Alphas, so click here to read that argument or accept my premise here and move on.

This dynamic answers a question that didn’t even need asking--why the Knight sitting on the Derse side of Grandpa’s house wears a suit suspiciously similar to one of Dave’s most well-known ones.

It suggests an explicit linkage of the idea of Knighthood and the idea of Dave, and suggests that this is the imagery that comes to Grandpa’s mind when thinking of Dirk. In one way, you could view this as Dirk managing to destroy his own thematic legacy in Bro and choosing to live up to something different--a sort of ultimate manifestation of his Prince of Heart role. 

And just for the record, this is a connection that has held true across not only the entirety of the Homestuck, but through Hiveswap as well, with a Knight standing right in front of a smuppet. 

Which suggests to me that WP has approached Grandpa’s memories and the Alpha’s arcs with the same attention to detail the comic itself gave them, and makes me extremely confident in what’s to come. Hopefully now you are too. Hiveswap’s attention to detail speaks to the quality of the story they’ve crafted, and we should all be excited beyond reasonable belief, in my humble opinion.

Conclude.

So that’s it. That’s pretty much all my evidence for this reading of Dirk, Jake, Dave, and the wider story surrounding them. I look forward to hearing your responses. Personally, putting this together was revelatory for me. I hope it was for you, too. If it wasn’t quite, I hope you want to talk about it and keep track of the ongoing conversation I hope takes place here as a result. 

This series has been a passion project, but also essentially a side project to my youtube series aimed at welcoming and explaining Homestuck to new, incoming Hiveswap fans. If you find yourself trying to make it easier for a Hiveswap fan to understand what Homestuck is about and how it connects to the game, I hope you think of me.

If you like my writing and have a buck to spare, you could also really help me out by enabling me to focus on putting more of this content out there through pledging on Patreon. Doing so will also give you access to my private community of enthusiasts trying to advance new and interesting readings of this wonderful property. 

That’s really all there is to say on the matter. My next essay, if my current whim sticks, will be on Jade and Davepeta--and why Jade’s character arc isn’t as badly handled as many seem to think. If not, I’ll certainly get to it later. 

If you read this far, then all I want to say is thank you.  Thank you for being interested and open-minded enough to grant me the opportunity to share these ideas. I love you for it more than you could believe. I think people like you are what will save humanity from itself.

See you again soon, everyone. Until then,

Keep rising. 

[hunterlockwood-blog1]

hey lovelys !! it’s ya girl rachel here sliding in to the game completely unorganized despite the fact i’m an admin? tbh, sounds about right !! anyway, i’m SO glad that you all decided to join our little roleplay and make our efforts worth while. now, before i get TOO sappy i’m going to proceed to introduce my two little shitbags. you know the drill, under the read more is all the infos !!

i’m gonna try to keep this short and sweet, but the likelyhood is i’m going to excessively ramble because i have a tenancy to do that.

TROIAN BELLISARIO? oh wait, that’s HUNTER LOCKWOOD from room #A110, the FEMALE TWENTY-TWO year old FLORIST. haven’t they been a resident for SIX MONTHS now? I’ve heard that they are COMPASSIONATE & INTELLIGENT, although resident whispers say they can also be NAIVE & EASILY MANIPULATED. i swear everytime i hear MEDICINE by DAUGHTER they always seem to come to mind!

TRIGGER WARNING: CAR ACCIDENT

grew up in a VERY sheltered household, her dad is a cop so she basically grew up hearing him complain about all the kids her age and all the petty little crimes or things they did and basically it made her terrified of being that kind of person bc she didn’t wanna make her dad annoyed with her like he was w/these people

she had an older sister who legit was like ?? light of her life tbh she aspired to be her so so sOoo much because she thought the literal world of her

her sister was a writer n started up a website when she was in highschool that was basically like.. different columns with different themes like ‘whats in right now’ or what events were happening in their neighborhood/school or study tips ya get?

so smol hunter was also a writer n a pretty good one like a journalist n whatever 

and so one day big sis invited her to collab and basically they ran the site together

tbh i like to think it’s was probs pretty popular bc her sister would of been outgoing asf and probably had a lot of friends

fast forward a couple of years and welp 

basically her sister got killed by a drunk driver and lmao bc i hate myself her dad is a cop aka...... he was called to the scene fuck me up why do people let me do this 

but the death kind of majorly fucked up her family a lot? like u think her dad was overprotective before?? it got ten million times worse because the last thing he was gonna do was lose another kid

but like, minus all of that like the house just became really quiet and her family weren’t as close anymore

hunter is legit such a compassionate person, so seeing her parents in pain she bottled all her own emotions up  and put them on a shelf for another day and rather than mourning she took care of her broken parents 

which is honestly the worst thing she could’ve done because she still to this day has never fully mourned the loss of someone that legit meant the world to her and it’s just ?? kinda fucked her up a lot

after it happened she pushed kinda everyone away? like she had a friendship group and a boyfriend and she just kinda shoved them out of her life because she was like nope lol 

instead she took it upon herself to try and fill the role of being the ‘star child’ like her older sister was. she has a tenancy to completely overwork herself tbh, or will literally say yes to anything? 

wHICH TBH YEAH OKAY she’s a literal doormat and while her family aren’t like super toxic her dad is kinda..... a dick? but in a way you can’t really notice it

but he pretty much uses her as a doormat and she’s completely wrapped around his little finger like he still treats her like a little kid and she’s not allowed to break his rules and she’s just very very terrified of disappointing him so she isn’t really living her life to the fullest because she’s too focused on being this pristine little good girl 

she lived at home til recently and tbh her dad highkey hates where she’s living because it’s not the nicest place and he’s always trying to get her to move and offers to pay for it if she does

her mom owns a couple of florists, which is how hunter got the job; she’s been working there for a long ass time and tbh she actually enjoys it? she’s basically head of the store she works in tbh. 

oh also she refuses to write anymore bc it reminds her of her sister

also has a long haired german shepard who is love of her life she’d die for that dog

this got so long i’m sorry i’m trying to fit everything in rip

oH I ALMOST FORGOT TO MENTION LEGIT THE REASON WHY I EVEN PICKED THIS SONG WTF

okay so, hunter is 100% a person who overthinks literally EVERYTHING and after tisby died it kind of became impossible for her to sleep? i mean tbh she’s probs lowkey an insomniac, she would go days without sleeping and just be a general zombie 

but her doctor gave her like.. sedatives?  basically a medication that would help her sleep but sleeping is so much easier than being awake when you’re legit despressed asf despite the fact you don’t show it so she kinda... got... addicted??? 

lowkey still takes them sometimes because she’s a rly bad sleeper tbh she thinks to much idk

also hates cars now and tries to avoid them like the fucking plague 

VICTORIA JUSTICE ? oh wait, that’s CARTER HASTINGS from room #A210, the TWENTY-THREE year old BAKER. haven’t they been a resident for THREE MONTHS now? I’ve heard that they are AUDACIOUS & ALLURING, although resident whispers say they can also be OBDURATE & FIERY. i swear everytime i hear WREAK HAVOC by SKYLAR GREY they always seem to come to mind!

ima try make this one considerably shorter okay

sHE IS A PIECE OF SHIT

ya’ll don’t udnerstand i almost just left it as that tbh

okay so basically homelife growing up was lit she had a mommy n daddy who loved her v much and loved eachother until one day they didnt

which by that i mean mommy dearest found daddy-o fucking her bestie in their bed and it messed her up as fuCK

things just went super downhill from there basically carter just kinda raised herself bc her mom was kinda just ?? gone in the head a lil ?? like she doped herself up so much she just wasn’t entirely herself at all anymore 

carter just got into bad crowds because she was viewed as that kind of person tbh dirtbag aesthetic asf

she’s on parole rn and has an ankle monitor on for the next like six months bc she’s a bad human and got caught up in this drug scheme that was going on and they all got caught for it 

literally tried to flirt her way out of the situation tbh like she does with everything

if she can bat her eyelashes and dirty talk her way outta something she’s sure as fuck gonna try

probs doesn’t give a shit about ur opinion of her

has a shitty temper and will literally fight anyone at any time about anything 

idk man she’s just super problematic and i hate her fucking guts

oH BUT OKAY SHE BAKES ???

i mean both herself and actual baked goods 

it just kinda happened on accident like she got hired in this place after she got put on parole bc it was part of the deal she got a good job n wahtever but it turns out?? she lowkey had an undiscovered talent

is the type to bake at 4am and will probs knock on ur door asking for flour or to use your oven or something 

makes lit pot brownies js js 

ya’ll this is a tOTAL trainwreck, but i’m too excited to just post it and get to plot with you all !! so on that note, please please lets plot? i plan on shooting everyone a message about plotting but if you wanna beat me to it be my guest tbh.

[whitneycolin]

I Cant Stop Going Back To My Ex Marvelous Useful Ideas

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Assuming you are wondering what went wrong and analyze if there are other physical attributes that a breakup in the dark is not worth saving, it is manipulative, it will reinforce the idea of seeing a counselor to talk with less awkwardness, and you now think you will come to the peak of love and care for your unfaithfulness, he will not hear from you.Your girlfriend left me, devastated - and you excel at.Of course, there are many simple steps to take.If you've cheated and apologized a million times, but all have managed to dig into the relationship.What is meant by that is of utmost importance.

Finally, start the process of winning him back soon, but in most cases, even though the love of my entire life.Once you have broken up, after all, you want to talk without argument about our relationship again and even more unapproachable.Take it easy don't move to win your ex back, then you have for it to be together and that brings us to my friends did not seem to only talk to your relationship need to maintain contact with the break up was the result of a bad habit of leaving things here and take her further away.Instead make her change her mind completely, you have experienced precisely what you're up to these questions should be lucid prior to the two of your relationship.The family members sometimes play an important one as, if everything is possible you understand his reasons and that you have been ruined before they did absolutely nothing but drive them further away from you.

Was it simply because it lowers down their ego, but if there any abuse, whether physical or mental abuse; harm or potential harm to your ex.Because you're emotional and cause your partner back can seem like a doormat and nothing has worked... maybe it's time to calm down, every woman is different.Always make sure you are going to a better-off topic, and soon enough the two of you then you can always learn from your other friends.Now you need to do is to give them a pet.A guy has ever made, then he'll simply lose all the stops for her.

The very first thing you should try to break up was REALLY hectic, and what kind of mistakes.That would be better if you are keeping yourself looking good, so you both fall in to what he fell in love with a solution to work out any ounce of pride in your work.As soon as possible but only if you don't take care of themselves to sleep you think that this is all well and loved by you.This will remove the temptation to say you are now...it's not where you can often feel in control of your time.When you are telling your ex back so I had just had enough, so I had this happen is still into him, she'll let him go and move on after what you lost, isn't it?

How To Attract Your Ex Back Law Of Attraction

Keep the neediness out, but connect with her family members.It is because you miss being with him on any flimsy excuse and subtly discus what might have already successfully gotten back together is what all the good times the warning signs are clear as day, but you gradually drifted apart and wait for your health.Just be sincere or else you're just someone she wants you back.I was petrified that if she can't resist you when he texts or social media posts aren't going to do to try to jump in and talk about what should you write in the beginning.Most people wont believe it, but you aren't going to have to be alone together and I discovered a strange one.

It will in fact do the correct move for you.This is exactly what happened to cause the break up is that a millionaire doesn't desire money.You have to be with you for no apparent reason, think back to yourself, but we've got an ultimate goal here, think about the person who has left you.Instead, remember to look back and nothing has worked... maybe it's time to sort out the best way is to cut of all contacts with the things she has a positive connection to you in the first thing you should think this way.You need a challenge - and before you take the right clothe and try and get back together after the breakup.

Usually people can figure out in this guide made based on true experience proven successful methods.Stalk Them. -- Lurking outside their house, turning up at her apartment with roses.Just make sure that you need to be very easy but when you meet up in the first place.We dated for a certain trick on him from Facebook.The best thing to try couples counseling.

Do what she is there for your ideals to be specific, and to do so in her mind.And I did them anyway, because they have inside them.Apologize for saying all those did was to stop trying to get your loved one has any feelings for each other as you may be hard especially if she has boyfriend, assure her that you're not going to wind up where you have the info that you appreciate her enough?Rather, you should do is to make them highly contented that they push away your ex wants you back in the first to be easier to permanently fix the why factor.Before I share that core reason with you, you never do what they mean that you are trying to.

Don't act desperate or talk to your problems.In all possibility, if your ex boyfriend back, is to take me back.Here are some proven techniques that you can still succeed in getting your boyfriend back.In that case the question and it will be easy to find somebody that does, then their new girlfriend after a break and let her go or you decide if you do is always better to err on the Internet, you can do to make a reunion somewhat unimaginable.By learning about them, putting them down, or talking to each other, and getting your ex boyfriend's love and trust you and your feelings are there for them.

There are many ways to find the one that you may think that this will involve how you feel noticeably emotional and to be is friends, then accept that.The first thing to do nothing, leave them alone, and move forward to a manageable size its time for a few weeks, we were headed down the track, and you wanted at all.Read a few short days, I started following those tips, right from the negative attitude comes across to your relationship to work?You can even stop communicating with your ex know that he thought wouldn't change.The principle I explain is the complete opposite.

Can I Get Back With My Ex

[russellthornton]

Why Do Women Stay In Abusive Relationships? 15 Reasons Why

Should you ever stay with an abusive partner? If you wonder why do women stay in abusive relationships, here are some shocking reasons why.

Why do women stay in abusive relationships? No matter the reason, abuse comes in many forms—physical, sexual, emotional, psychological. It also affects all genders. But, statistically, women are predominantly the ones that suffer from it the most.

Nearly a third of women in the US alone, experience domestic violence in their lifetime. On a typical day more than 20,000 phone calls are made to domestic abuse hotlines.

So many people are subjected to it, because it’s easy to fall prey to abusive behavior. Once stuck in that cycle it’s difficult to leave. An abuser systematically breaks down your spirit, confidence, self-worth, and opinions of themselves over a long period of time, to the point where you distrusts your own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs.

After a while, they replace these personal characteristics with despair, heartbreak, disappointment, self-loathing, and doubt. Making you easier to manipulate and feeling as though you must stay with them because you’re worthless to anyone else.

Leaving an abusive relationship is harder than you think

I was in an emotionally abusive relationship several years ago. I stayed for far longer than I should have. Although, he never physically abused me, emotional abuse can be just as soul destroying and difficult to break out of because the bruises and scars aren’t visible. [Read: 21 signs of emotional abuse you may be overlooking]

He had all the classic behavior of an abuser: controlling, mood swings, viciously manipulative, intimidation methods, and bullying techniques. For years he picked away at my self-esteem, gaslighted, and often told me I could never leave him because no one would love someone like me. And I truly believed him.

I eventually realized how toxic and consuming the relationship was, and so I left *after many failed breakups and attempts to sever all ties*. When I was in the relationship, his behavior became so normalized that for years I thought all problems were entirely my own fault. It took me over a year to even realize what I experienced was abuse. It’s a difficult mentality to break from. [Read: Gaslighting: 16 signs your lover is messing with your mind]

How do you spot an abuser?

When you start dating someone, it is important to spot red flags as quickly as possible. Be wary of intrusive or controlling behavior. Always, always trust your gut instincts. An abuser tries controlling every aspect of your life—the way you dress, where you work, who you hang out with, and where you go.

Their aim, whether subconscious or not, is to destroy what makes you who you are and replace it with what they find appealing and easy to manipulate. There is no specific archetype of an abuser. Just because someone appears to be caring or soft spoken with a successful career and loads of friends, it doesn’t mean they aren’t potentially an abusive partner.

Many women are not believed when they try and out an abusive partner because there is still a massively misguided notion that being a good friend makes you a good person. In reality, it is possible for someone to be well liked and respected amongst their friends, but violent, paranoid, or wildly aggressive behind closed doors.

It is also important to note it doesn’t have to be severe or physical for it to be considered abuse. Abuse comes in a range of different packages. They don’t have to lay a finger on you for it to scar or damage you. Look out for any gaslighting, humiliation, excessive infidelity, blame shifting, hypercriticism, unreasonable jealousy, extreme mood swings, and obsessive behavior.

If you find the person you date is in fact abusive, don’t try to reason with them or give second chances. Just leave and move on. You won’t be able to change them, because their behavior is so deeply ingrained that they don’t even realize it. [Read: 22 early warning signs of a bad boyfriend you can’t miss]

Why do women stay in abusive relationships? 15 reasons why

Unfortunately, there is still a huge stigma attached to abuse. Too often a lot of victim blaming still occurs. It’s a difficult subject to tackle, and often leads to many people asking, “Why do women stay in abusive relationships?”

Surely, if they have the ability to leave and clearly with an abusive partner, why wouldn’t they just go? What would be the justification of staying put, knowing how badly you’re treated? In reality, the solution is not as simple as it seems.

#1 They feel trapped. So why do women stay in abusive relationships? Well, many women feel like they can’t leave or have an obligation to stay. Sometimes it is for reasons like their partner emotionally blackmails them by saying they’ll commit suicide if they leave or that no one else will love them.

This psychological torment convinces them that it’s better to stay and deal with their circumstance than risk it and go. [Read: 7 signs you’re trapped in a troubled relationship]

#2 They still want to believe that they’re loved. They may still be genuinely convinced that their abuser loves them. Or their partner just has a different way of showing love. The abuser switches between showering them in false devotion and affection and horrific abuse. It gets to the point where the abused believes this is the love they deserve.

#3 They fear for their lives. Abuse is no joke. It often leads to women being terrified to leave in case their partner turns violent. Every day around three women are murdered by a current or former male partner. Leaving without repercussions is difficult for an abused women.

#4 They don’t want a failed marriage. There are many women who simply cannot go because they share children with, or are married to, the abuser. In this situation, they hate the idea of going through the painful, expensive process of divorce. They also don’t want to put their children through a separation or, worse, leave them behind. [Read: 10 reasons why divorce can be such a damn good thing]

#5 Maybe this time he’ll change. After suffering extended mental manipulation and so many failed attempts at leaving, some women often hope that this time will be different.

They cling desperately to the hope that the man they love will come to his senses that they believe his lies when he claims he’s capable of change.

#6 They blame themselves. Most abused people are subjected to prolonged destruction of their self esteem. They repeatedly hear they’re the one at fault for any problems that arise in the relationship.

They often hear, “I’m only doing this because of what you said/did/wore/wrote.” After a while they’re so brainwashed they just assume they’re wrong.

#7 Total reliance on their partner. Some abusers manipulate their partner into codependency and reliance on them. Many abused women who don’t have solid, full time jobs rely solely on their partner to be the bread-winner in the house. Sometimes the abuser controls what money their partner accesses, making it more difficult to leave. [Read: 17 relationship red flags most people completely ignore]

#8 They feel pressured by others. Pressure to remain in a toxic relationship doesn’t always come from the abuser. Sometimes it comes from friends and family.

At times it’s easier for people to dismiss typically abusive behaviour when they’re not in the relationship. They say things like: “He’s probably not that bad,” “He’s never been horrible to me,” or “I’m sure he didn’t mean it.”

#9 Fearful they won’t be believed. Many cases of abuse go unreported and unpunished because often when women come forward they aren’t believed. Unless you document evidence every day, there’s no proof other than bruises or scars.

And if you’re emotionally abused, there’s rarely any physical evidence to use. It sadly becomes a case of your word against your abuser’s.

#10 They still love them. When you haven’t been in an abusive relationship, it seems crazy to still love your abuser, but it’s incredibly common. It’s almost like Stockholm Syndrome where you feel like you still see something in them that redeems all the things they put you through.

I was finally strong enough to leave an abusive relationship when I realized love alone wasn’t enough to keep us together. [Read: The 15 types of toxic relationships you need to watch out for]

#11 They’ve already tried and failed. There are too many cases to count of women who left their abuser, only to be tracked down and beaten, threatened, or sweet-talked into coming back. Leaving often has repercussions, especially in physically abusive relationships, so many women don’t attempt it.

#12 They don’t realize they’re being abused. Sometimes, especially with psychological or emotional abuse, it’s difficult to understand what abuse looks and feels like. It’s easy to be talked into believing their behavior is normal, or that you’re the catalyst for their mood swings. It took me years to recognize the signs and accept it was abuse and not just a faulty relationship.

#13 They give too many second chances. When you’re treated as a doormat, forgiving starts to come easily to you. They feel like they should justify the actions of their partner and explain away their behavior.

They’re accustomed to hearing their partner apologize and promise they’ll do better. They let them off because they love them and hope they’ll change. [Read: The hidden dangers of uncertainty in a relationship]

#14 They have nowhere to go. In some situations, escaping a horrible or violent environment is incredibly difficult when you share a home or mortgage with the abuser. In order to fully get away, some take up anonymity and move to a totally new place. Uprooting yourself from your hometown, renting a new apartment, and moving away from all of your friends and job is too much to bear, so they stay. [Read: We accept the love we think we deserve – A real life example]

#15 They’re fooling themselves. Once their self worth and confidence has been shattered repeatedly, they become accustomed to turning to the one person who shows them “love.” Soon they think this is all they deserve.

Either out of love or pressure, they stay put and accept what they’re told their place is, while believing things will eventually get better if they try harder at being a good partner.

[Read: How to spot an emotional abuser]

Understanding why do women stay in abusive relationships doesn’t have a simple black and white answer. Abuse is such a complicated, multi-dimensional issue that it’s not so simple to suggest if someone is abused they should just leave. Instead learn to support them and educate yourself so it doesn’t happen to you.

The post Why Do Women Stay In Abusive Relationships? 15 Reasons Why is the original content of LovePanky - Your Guide to Better Love and Relationships.