#until I came to terms with abuse neglect and grooming

[justa-lil-guy]

Day 23: Favorite Hero (Real or Fictional!)

Sarah, The Labyrinth

"Through dangers untold. And hardships unnumbered. I have fought my way here to the castle; beyond the goblin city, to take back the child that you have stolen. My will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom as great...You have no power over me."

🌕sources

[tenkos-heart]

tenko/tomura and fenrir: similarities

Welp. I consider this my proper post for the MHA fanbase, as I've been a lurker because the fanbase can be... something! If you wanna know more about me, pinned post!

Anyways, I've been thinking over the past couple of days of how strikingly similar Tenko is that of the figure of Fenrir in Norse Mythology. Also, if I DO get anything wrong in terms of Tenko, please let me know! My memory is shit and this manga is 400+ chapters long.

The thing with Fenrir is that his fate was already pre-destined, in a way. One of the seers told Odin that Fenrir would be apart of Ragnarok and being told to "swallow the All Father," as so as been told. Fenrir's tale already starts with tragedy. Being separated from his mother, his sister Hel was taken to... Hel, to be imprisoned in there, in a way. His brother, Jörmungandr, a regular snake was tossed into the sea, with hopes of drowning him. Instead, he grew so large, he became the Midgard Serpent, or World Serpent. For those who don't know, Midgard is our world within Norse mythology. But, the Gods had a different plan for Fenrir.

They decided to take Fenrir with them and to keep an eye on him. The one who took care of him the most, and cared for him the most was the God Tyr. The God of War, and even Justice. He was formerly apart of the Æsir. Also, something to note of, Tyr is also a God of Justice. So, Fenrir is raised in Asgard, home of the Gods and Goddesses, and fallen soldiers. Fenrir was a very happy, excitable pup who loved having a lot of fun. However, the wolf pup seemed to grow quite larger and larger. This worried the Gods, and because of the prophecy that Fenrir would eat Odin, they put together a plan to trap the wolf.

The Gods disguised their efforts as a game for Fenrir. Fenrir, the excited wolf he was, loved playing games. So, for this first "game", they chained him to a rock. It was a contest of sorts to test his strength. Even then, Fenrir broke through the chains. The chains weren't strong enough to hold the wolf down. So, the Gods turned elsewhere.

To the dwarves. They asked the dwarves to make the strongest chains, ever. This chain was quite different from the others. It looked more something like a ribbon. In some different stories, this happened twice before the ribbon idea. And naturally, the third time this happened Fenrir is suspicious and isn't sure what's going on. The wolf agreed to only be chained, IF only one of them would placed a hand in his mouth.

Tyr, the closest God to Fenrir to him offered his own arm up. Then, Fenrir couldn't be freed. He couldn't get out of his bindings, and thus, bite off Tyr's arm. Then, they teleported the wolf far away, and placed a sword within the wolf's mouth so he couldn't use his jaws. Then, it's said that the only way Fenrir will be free is during the destruction of Ragnarok. Odin confronts the beast on his stead with 8 legs, Sleipneir.

He will swallow Odin whole. However, Odin's son wouldn't let this stand. Vidarr would slay the wolf with his magical boots, splitting the wolf's mouth in half, thus his fate had befallen him.

I promise, there's a reason why I gave a lot of the backstory, we'll get into it!

If you haven't read up until MHA chp 425, spoilers will be here!

Tenko, since birth, had his entire life planned and trapped by literally one of the most awful people to ever exist. It didn't help that his father would emotionally berating him, leaving him outside. Even physically abusing him when he was 5 or the people in his life who were suppose to protect him, being bystanders. While Tenko does love his family, the bystander effect is very real. Or no one on the streets helping a bloodied, orphaned child on the streets.

Wondering for days and many nights without shelter, home, and food. That is, until All For One "found him and took him in." I.e. kidnapping his grooming victim, and then molded and neglected this kid for literal years until the LOV came around. I could go on about how much of a brillaint character Tenko is, but so many people have done that already and I wanna get into the meat of this.

Tenko and Fenrir were both happy, hopeful people who were molded and shaped by the very environments they were made in. Even before birth. For Fenrir, he was destined to be this destroyer of the world, and bring an end to a mighty King of Gods. While Tenko was going to be All For One's next vessel. The next Symbol of Fear. Both Tenko and Fenrir were molded into being their own separate Symbols of Fear.

Fenrir and Tenko never had a chance. Fenrir and Tenko never had a chance since birth. Fenrir and Tenko's destinies were already pre-determined. Both were left to rot by the societies they both were in, and no one bothered to give a helping hand. With Tyr, he did give justice, in a way. He had to deal with the consequences of his own inaction when he placed his hand into Fenrir's mouth. They both got something the other wanted, in a way.

Fenrir got some semblance of justice. While Tenko did gain friends, in the end. All Fenrir and Tenko (before his hatred was destroyed) thought they could do was bring destruction, violence, and chaos onto the world. I mean, fuck. They weren't taught anything else. I remembering reading a comment on a YouTube channel going over Fenrir's mythos and some others, and it perfectly sums up their situation.

The Gods just created their self-fulfilling prophecy. That is something that can absolutely be applied towards the heroes. Instead of trying to PREVENT Fenrir from being this symbol of destruction, and treating him nicely because of the prophecy, they decided that Fenrir was evil from the get-go and already plotted of leaving him to rot when he was a fucking pup. It was said of being a hopeful, happy pup who just loved to play games with his family. If someone had stepped in and actually HELPED Tenko, he wouldn't be dead.

(Or supposedly dead, with that one mysterious guy.)

If someone didn't ignore and just swept the problem of a stumbling, scared, child, they could have prevented so much. And now with Tenko being dead, they just created a self-fulfilling prophecy of another Symbol of Fear being groomed again.

Fenrir and Tenko were just two kids who were happy and hopeful of their world, and their innocent got snatched away from them from their respective societies. At the start of it all, they were just kids who loved their families.

[tylernation]

Explaining Tyler Galpin

Ok, just thought I might post this because I need to say this. I don’t care who you ship in the show, whether you’re Wenclair, Wyler, Wavier, or no ship for Wednesday at all (since Jenna favours that). But lack of understanding for someone like Tyler completely annoys and angers me greatly.

His whole life from the day he was born has been a curse. His mother Françoise had her Hyde unlocked just afterwards via severe postpartum depression which led her to be institutionalised in a psychiatric facility for the rest of her life. As Tyler would have been weeks to months old when this more than likely happened. He probably spent his childhood seeing his mother in hospital under limited and supervised visits, leading Tyler to develop confusion about this and later leading him to frequently press his father about her to which Donovan would ignore or try to change the subject as he was to engulfed in his own grief and depression to answer his son.

Everytime he looked at Tyler, Donovan would have instantly been reminded of the woman he loved and what became of her. And as Wednesday deduced in the last episode, he spent the past years living in fear of the possibility that Tyler would suffer the same fate as his mother. So rather than face that possibility and further heartbreak again, Donovan chose to bury himself in his work and alcohol and keep his distance from Tyler. From Tyler’s POV, seeing his father rarely would have led him to feel unloved or unwanted. And it would have led him to grow up on his own without any help and lead him to be easily influenced by certain figures within his life such as Lucas, Jonah, and Carter, and develop feelings of resentment and perhaps self-hatred to which he took out on others such as when he assaulted Xavier Thorpe a year prior to the first season. Though another theory is that he only attacked Xavier AFTER he learned about his mother from Laurel and how Nevermore refused to help her because she was a Hyde, but that's a theory for another time. Now instead of helping Tyler deal with his problems, Donovan once again decided to let someone else handle this by sending his son off to a boot camp, and while this might of helped somewhat in terms of his behavioural problems. It did nothing to help him when the inevitable came.

When Thornhill began grooming Tyler a year before Wednesday’s arrival. She did so by taking advantage of his neglected life, and emotional insecurities that craved for affection and care. Caressing his hand in the Weathervane and slowly but surely luring him into a false sense of security (probably acting flirty and sexual towards him as well). So when Laurel finally shows Tyler his mother’s psych file about her being Hyde, it leads him to realise he could potentially be one as well. And when he likely finds out about Nevermore’s rejection of Hydes this would have led him to develop even more resentment towards outcasts as not only did they refuse to help his mother once she went spiraling, but not even they of all people would accept his type. Tyler could have had a life of belonging in Nevermore instead of the life of neglect and abandonment he got from his distant and grieving father.

When Laurel tries to get Tyler to allow her to unlock his Hyde, he becomes against it, as he was fearful of where that would lead. Which is why Laurel kidnapped and chained him up in a cave where she subjugated him to chemical experiments that would lead to his Hyde being awakened. Whilst the Hyde would automatically become loyal to her, Laurel would have needed Tyler’s cooperation as well. Which is why she tortured him until he fully submitted. The use of physical abuse as well as the plant derive chemicals would have brainwashed him completely. May I remind everyone who reads this that he is still a minor in the series when this happens. The more times she orders him to transform, the more the Hyde consumes him and becomes attached to Laurel, like a sort of Stockholm Syndrome in which a person becomes attached to their captor / abuser if they are brainwashed to a degree, which Tyler definitely was.

Now we get to his actions. People who are so against him (haters) like to point out what happened to Thing and Eugene to justify their arguments. But here’s where I discredit that. 1. Thing was stabbed by Laurel, not Tyler. Yes, Tyler was assigned to distract Wednesday which resulted in Thing getting stabbed, but I sincerely doubt he knew that his master was going to stab Wednesday’s closest companion since childhood and probably thought that she was going to go in, get the Faulkner diary, and get out. Yes, Thing has a right to be mad, but I'm hoping that he can see, that deep down, Tyler is not the true villain here, Laurel is. 2. Tyler could have killed Eugene yes. In fact, as a Hyde, he should have been able to easily kill him, but he didn’t, Eugene lived and managed to recover well enough from his coma to the point where he easily assisted Wednesday in subduing Thornhill with his bees. The only person chasing after the Hyde the night of the Rave’N was Wednesday, who had already seen the monster, and was no match for such a creature. Therefore her arrival shouldn't have been able to disrupt his act. The fact that Eugene survived is proof that Tyler chose to let his humane side take control for once. With Thornhill’s orders being “take care of it”, it wasn’t an explicit instruction to kill him, therefore Tyler was able to interpret that as a way where he didn’t have to let Eugene die.

Haters also liked to point out that he manipulated Wednesday and used her. Yes this is true. But people who read this, I implore you to remember that Tyler was manipulated himself, though in a much more cruel manner. Tyler is a tragic character and a tragic villain. His actions came from being abused and brainwashed by Laurel, and had she not been in the picture, none of this would have happened. In fact, had Donovan told his son the truth about what he potentially was a lot earlier, it would have helped Tyler be on his guard on who to trust as he would have been made aware of the creature living inside him.

Tyler is someone who has had his life constantly fucked over completely by the following:

His father (for neglecting him)

Laurel (for abusing and manipulating him)

Nevermore (for rejecting him)

The thing I worry about is that the writers are gonna overlook Tyler’s past, and that they’re going to disregard him or make him suffer some cruel fate when has already been through enough already. They should not do this. Tyler needs HELP and a chance to HEAL. I can’t stress that enough everyone.

[oxtoxtoxto]

i think i had an epiphany about pokemon black and white.

i think it was released about 5 or 6 years too early. what do i mean by that? BW came out in 2010, around a decade ago, and im going to assume it probably started full development not that long after HGSS finished up development, which would have been somewhere in 2009.

2009 was definitely a complex time, especially in Japan, but it was a *very different* time to now.

See, I think team plasma would have had a much more smooth narrative if they had incorporated the idea of *misappropriating progressive language*, and otherwise misusing certain terminology to the point of rendering it completely meaningless in its prior context.

we know the language bigots use to talk about minority groups nowadays, right? how there's pieces of language that used to serve a *very specific purpose* to refer to a *very specific kind of act* (such as grooming, a term which is now just thrown at the LGBT community whenever a bigot feels they need to drum up hate) which have now been sandblasted down into just another sneer to spit at people they hate?

and how by doing this they've tainted the usefulness *of those terms* to the point where it's genuinely impacting people's ability to report on certain things?

this was not as close of a topical issue in 2010 as it is today, where language is increasingly being weaponized due to the availability and reliance on social media our society has increasingly found itself with. this is why i think in a better world, pokemon bw would have come out in 2015, maybe even *later*, when this shit not only really began to develop into the cancerous issue it is now, but also when people began to actively speak out about it in a way that was wide-reaching.

think about a reframing here. at its core, team plasma is a pokemon welfare organization being used as a front as an elaborate way to dismantle any potential threats ghetsis might have to succeeding in a coup. ideally, this means trainers are pressured into releasing their pokemon and the ones who aren't have theirs *taken by force*, causing immense trauma to both pokemon *and* person, thereby necessarily weakening them in the process.

so, lets approach it as it might be done today. the first thing you do is you start widening the meaning of *abuse* and applying it in situations where it absolutely isn't the case, just to *force* people to legitimize a conversation that, say, owning a house pet might qualify as pokemon abuse.

you muddy the meaning of abuse until you have caused schisms in local culture. you rely on what examples of abuse you can find--neglect, power-hungry trainers who do view their pokemon mostly as instruments to increment ever-higher in ranking, but you do not turn you ire, *specifically*, on them. you turn that blame on your real targets: everyone else.

and all the while, what *abuse* or *neglect* or *mistreatment* even means when it comes to pokemon is muddled. people start reporting people for what they perceive *as* abuse even when it's not, and wasting the time of the organizations designed to look after this kind of thing, while also making anyone who reported things and got a "this wasnt abuse" feel validated that, yes, *everyone is in on it*.

with of course the occasional group of aggro anti-trainers reporting in such large numbers that the legal bodies involved have to investigate and maybe even separate pokemon and human because, well--look at all of these reports. there might be something going on.

and this snowballs. those who dont immediately bend to the pressure are targeted. they get picketed, they get people screaming at them. they have their organization decried as "abuse enablers" and with the way social media flattens nuance and these people already making sure to leave out all of the important details, many of these figures become hated by people who have been caught up in a cultural hate furor towards someone who has really been the one looking after these issues. people who are good, but are now demonized by a very vocal and aggressive group.

and then, you twist the knife, because with the eradication of all meaning to terms like *abuse*, you also make it a lot easier for abusive trainers to get away with what they're doing so long as they just pay the correct kind of lip service. just look at ghetsis: he has a hydreigon that genuinely seems to fucking hate him, judging by its frustration. abuse doesnt actually *get reduced*, because the words have been muddled so much the kind of clues and hints that might help a pokemon abuser get caught and put away are lost in the endless froth of vitriol.

abusers dont get hurt by this so long as they know how to phrase it.

and when you add in that the people who would actually be handling cases of abuse and mistreatment being either demonized, bent to the will of an angry mob, or too terrified to speak out, real abuse goes untouched.

people, *figureheads* of the movement, become untouchable because they crusade for the campaign with the right combination of words that *surely* they're not using this as a smoke screen to cover for their own goals.

this, this right here? i think people have always been aware of how language can be shaped like this, but genuinely the last 5 to 8 years have been the absolute worst of it, and most obviously criticized. if BW came out during this period, and used this as a touchstone rather than the absolute stance it does, it could have been a much more nuanced and compelling narrative.

the point is, though, Pokemon BW could have come out in the late 2010s and probably had a much stronger real-life example to build on and work with. The conversations we are having today are eminently relatable to Team Plasma's goal, it's just *too early* to have that connection.

It also would have permitted some nuance within the narrative. As it stands right now, the Pokemon universe simply rejects the idea that mistreatment of Pokemon is a realistic idea in the first place. Even among some of the darkest, and arguably the most likely teams to abuse their Pokemon (Galactic and Rocket) mainly view their Pokemon as integral sources of power that they must nourish and improve for their own benefit. It's not a purely benevolent reason, no, but Cyrus has a Crowbat (only evolves with high friendship) and while some of it is anime apocrypha, virtually *nothing* implies that Giovanni mistreated his Pokemon, and that Team Rocket mainly mistreated Pokemon via stealing them in the first place or by attempting get rich quick schemes (slowpoke tails).

In other words, the only group that has been shown to actively and aggressively *abuse pokemon* is team plasma itself, where in one of their first appearances two grunts, claiming to want to protect Pokemon, repeatedly kick a fucking Munna not ten feet away from you.

These would be the leaders, the problems, the actual criminals stringing the others along who have been caught up in the momentum of finally having someone to just *hate*.

This would let the story also progress as you work your way up from the grunts (who may fall anywhere on the scale between shitheel or ideological warrior consumed by the movement) to the admins (who are all eerily powerful, well-connected, and giving away hints that their Pokemon are mistreated, its just that they have the language and reputation to avoid scrutiny) and finally to Ghetsis, who is the embodiment of these leaders in the worst way possible. Part of the story, then, would be figuring out where N falls, if what he's saying is just lip service or the truth, and it would make his struggle to reconcile the world Ghetsis has painted for him (one of casual Pokemon cruelty and Pokemon forced into subservient roles to do as humans wish) against the one he faces (one where Pokemon and humans work together--not always perfectly, but with a lot of care) and the slowly dawning realization that everything he's been told is a projection of how Ghetsis and his admins actually feel about Pokemon a lot more meaningful.

You could even include hints. Admins putting their Pokemon away whenever N is around, almost in a panic because if N got a single chance to speak to any of their Pokemon, the entire plot would go up in smoke.

N not knowing about certain operations or being intentionally redirected to you to keep him occupied as Ghetsis and his admins are finally allowed to throw their weight around.

By making it much more reflective of trends we know about today, you could get a fair bit more intense narrative about deceit and the real fucked up consequences of this kind of thing.

[ashesandhackles]

The Abandoned Boy And His Problematic Fathers: Snape with Voldemort & Dumbledore

"He and Voldemort and Snape, the abandoned boys, all found home here..” - Forest Again, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

This comparison line of Harry, Snape and Voldemort being abandoned boys is not an accident. There is an intentional parallel being made between three of them - not only in terms of their parallels with the Hallows (as Tumblr has astutely pointed out), but also the commonalities in their upbringing. Given that Harry empathises so deeply with both of them, I am going to argue one of Harry’s attributes was present in all of them. We know that as an abandoned boy with lack of male authority figures to model after, Harry strongly craved a father. Here is a meta by u/metametatron4 that tracks Harry’s feelings about James (and Snape) through the series.

In Voldemort’s case, Tom believes his father to be the magical one and keeps his father’s name until he could no longer prove that it was his father who gave him his “special” lineage. He goes as far as searching Hogwarts records for his father because in his mind, his mother was “weak” to die. Once he is forced to concede that his mother is the magical one, he chooses to emphasise her ancestry in a paternal sense - “Salazar Slytherin, greatest of Hogwarts four”, tying himself up in grandeur. He also killed his father and his own paternal side of the family, his source of rage and shame. He sheds his father's name and becomes someone else, only known by his "special" magical lineage - cutting off that undesirable part of himself. Voldemort’s reaction to both his parent’s abandonment is to be special in every way, and choosing to discard love and seek power and control - a place where he is not rejected at all.

Snape is different from both Harry and Voldemort is that he specifically rejects his abusive father, having known him. As a child, he is seen wearing his mother’s clothes, only with an overlong coat that might belong to his father on a hot sunny day. As per Pottermore, he occasionally got whipped - so one can assume the coat is to hide that. Harry identifies strongly to Snape wearing overlong clothes that don’t quite fit him - a clear sign of neglect, if anything else. The fact that he wears his mother’s smock (and is willing to comfortably wear it in private with Lily in the scene before Hogwarts express) is an interesting detail to me. It feels like a rejection of his father and a sense of identification with his mother. With a person who he is comfortable with, he cuts an "impressive figure" with his smock. We see this detail pop up again in his textbook - where he is proud of being “Half A Prince”, emphasizing his magical lineage, his refuge in a violent, neglectful home.

Snape rejects his father (implied to be a violent man) by also rejecting hypermasculinity - as he tells sneeringly to James Potter: “If you’d rather be brawny, rather than brainy-” and by mocking “foolish wand waving” and how Potions is much more complex than that ("bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses" - thanks for some sensual imagery, Snape :D). His skillset, with the exception of Sectumsempra, is further testament to his rejection of hypermasculinity: Potions (a witches’ brew), spying (again, noted to be something women were famous for in war), branches of mind magic such as Occlumency. He is also strongly associated with mother figures - Eileen Prince (by his own admission), Lily Potter, Narcissa Malfoy. He has a feminine Patronus, in memory of his love and devotion to Lily. The insults also thrown his way are also emasculating: “Snivellus” “a lapdog”, and Dumbeldore’s own “a basket dangling on the arm of Lord Voldemort”. So if he rejects his own father, who does he look to as a male figure to model himself after? After all, he does discard the smock quite eagerly when he gets on Hogwarts Express - so he is keen to perform masculinity.

But we see that teenage Snape and Adult Snape are entirely two different personas. Teenage Snape is anxious, twitchy and walks around like a spider. He swears, he is barely in control of his emotions, is often rendered incoherent when he is emotional and lashes out. And he lashes out in ways that is reflective of a power dynamic he models from home: he feels small, so he will look for someone else to make feel small.

Adult Snape, save for being around Harry where he regresses, is the opposite. He glides when he walks or "swoops like a bat" and if you see him in scenes apart from Harry’s, he is very in control of himself and his jabs are intended to discomfit rather than lashing out. (See the Bellatrix scene in Spinner’s End).

We don’t know too much about this phase of life - we can only speculate. Adult Snape has choice words to say when he witnesses Harry's lack of control over his emotions. He may have been speaking of himself: "Fools who wear their heart proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked so easily - weak people, in other words - they stand no chance against his powers!"

Speculation aside, what we do know is that teenage Snape shows signs of unstable identity, insecurity - all prime for grooming into a cult. He also shows a disorganised attachment style. His caregiver, his mother is too preoccupied by her own abuse to be there for her son - we see this in glimpses Harry sees in OOTP: " woman cowering" where a man shouts at her, and a young, neglected Snape cries in the corner. Children born in homes like this have trouble regulating their emotions, simultaneously displaying tendencies to aggressively lash out or show disassociative symptoms. Both of which Snape displays. Statistically, this is also seen more in low income households where economic instability and resulting domestic instability creates an unsafe environment for the kids to safely form ideas of their identity, or express emotions in healthy ways, modelling instead out of behaviour seen at home.

I believe Voldemort, as the man who has experimented with boundaries of magic in ways no one else has, is an attractive father figure for someone like Snape ( and Barty Jr. as well). After all, Snape spends his spare time inventing hexes, making great shortcuts to Potions. He has a genuine thirst for learning and is inventive and original. In SWM, we see that he has written far more longer answers than anyone else, he is poring over his paper after exams. Voldemort, as a man who pushed boundaries, is an attractive mentor who shows him a new path. Joining a cult not only gives you power and protection (one he desperately needs because of his social inferiority and as someone who is relentlessly bullied), but it also gives you an identity.

Cults usually instill a homogenous, stable identity centered around charismatic leader. Cults turn your unbearable feelings (sense of rejection, social inferiority), and externalise it and manage to a higher purpose. A cult acts as a safe container for people who cannot understand their trauma or overpowering feelings. As a boy with an unstable identity, it is easier for him to project on Voldemort and re-enact an attachment that he has rejected in early childhood: the one with his father. Voldemort also reinforces a world view that the system had taught a half blood working class boy with nowhere to go arrives at: "There is no good or evil. There is only power and those too weak to seek it".

And then, Voldemort does something Snape doesn't believe a father figure could do, something he cannot conform to or abide by - he threatens the only relationship in his life that he puts on a pedestal. To ensure Lily Potter’s survival beyond asking Voldemort (who he no longer trusts to keep his word), he goes to Dumbledore. Why doesn't he trust Voldemort to keep his word? We don't really know, but given the dynamics we see at play in the first chapter of DH, where Voldemort employs Legliemency to confirm the information from Snape, the trusted spy who at that point had killed Dumbledore - it is safe to say ruling through absolute control can only take you so far. Contrast this with his later scenes with Dumbledore, where Dumbledore trusts him with magic he does not trust himself with: "I am very fortunate that I have you, Severus" .

But before we get there, we see their first scene. In his very first scene with Dumbledore, there is a power dynamic established. He visibly shrinks from Dumbledore’s judgement: “you disgust me”. He is also "stricken" when Dumbledore says "perhaps we sort too soon" - indicating a need for Dumbledore’s approval and validation. (Dumbledore’s own reaction to Snape is interesting - he doesn’t express this kind of strong disgust with Fenrir Greyback in HBP, for example. Perhaps he sees something of himself in this man who lost his way?)

Their next scene together is a grief stricken Snape, who has turned his misery and self loathing inwards and wishes to die. Dumbledore is cold, harsh: “What use will that be to anyone? If you truly loved Lily Evans, your way forward is clear”. Once Snape accepts the path of atonement Dumbledore lays out for him, Dumbledore is demonstrably gentler with him and is even exasperated that Snape asks him to keep “the very best of him” between them.

Once Dumbledore becomes his new father figure, Snape’s loyalty to him is absolute. He will back up and defend Dumbledore where it is not even required - when people accuse Dumbledore in GOF of being unfair, Snape is quick to say: "Don't blame Dumbledore for Potter's lack of respect for school rules. Potter has been crossing lines ever since he first came" (Defending Dumbledore and insulting Harry, he has a talent lol). And at the end of GOF, he shows his Dark Mark to Cornelius Fudge, essentially outing himself as a former Death Eater, to back up Dumbledore's claims because Fudge was insulting him. Even in front of Bellatrix, he emphasises: "Dumbledore is a great wizard, yes he has - the Dark Lord acknowledges it".

He is also resentful of Dumbledore's trust in Harry with secrets that he is not privy to. He enjoys being Dumbledore's closest confidant..("why may I not have the same secrets?" "You trust him, you do not trust me"). It's a less intense version of Harry's "This isn't love, this mess he has left me in. He shared a damn sight of what he was thinking with Grindelwald than with me”. He angrily tells Fake Moody that Dumbledore happens to trust him and he "refuses to believe" he gave permission to search his office. Similarly, he tells Umbridge "jerkily" to ask Dumbledore why he doesn't have the DADA job. Snape is offended at any suggestions of Dumbledore's lack of trust in him.

He also has a similar disillusionment like Harry's with Dumbledore - "you have used me. I have spied for you, lied for you, all intended to keep Lily Potter's son safe and now you are telling me he is being raised like a pig for slaughter". All of this and yet, just like Harry, he chooses to do what Dumbledore would have wanted of him. He goes as far as committing a sort of patricide, just like his former father figure (who did it for different reasons) on the wishes of his current father figure.

And ultimately, he chose Dumbledore's plan of Greater Good rather than Lily's fierce intention of keeping her son alive. It’s also interesting that Dumbledore, a queer, non conforming man is what Snape ultimately chooses as a father /mentor to his path of atonement.

There is a cyclical projection of father among all three boys: Harry inadvertently projects a desire for a father figure on Snape when he wishes that the Half-Blood Prince was his dad. (Read more about Harry’s relationship with Prince in wonderful meta by @thedreamermusing here) Snape projects a wish for a father figure by projecting on to Voldemort. Ultimately, both of them project this desire onto Dumbledore, and it is Dumbledore who ends up being the ultimate guide and father figure for both of them, guiding them through their respective roles in the war.

Thank you to @thedreamermusing and pet_genius for the inputs for this post 🌻 here is a suggested reading from pet's treasure trove relevant to this meta: Death Eaters As A Cult.

[newbrn-moved]

tagging:  @monstyres​ (riley) , @rosefromdeath​ @eclipseloved​ @rivalrus​ @butvic​ @brideblooded​  @arachnidfangs​

—    BASICS.

▸     IS YOUR MUSE TALL    /    SHORT    /    AVERAGE ?   Short.

▸      ARE THEY OKAY WITH THEIR HEIGHT ?  It makes it hard to reach anything on a high shelf but otherwise she doesn’t mind it.

▸      WHAT’S THEIR HAIR LIKE ?  Bree cut her hair just after joining the Cullens and dyed most of the length an ombre teal. After a couple conditioning treatments, it’s soft again but due to her natural texture, her locks have some curl and wave to them. 

▸     DO THEY SPEND A LOT OF TIME ON THEIR HAIR     /    GROOMING ? Only when she has to maintain the color. Otherwise she just brushes it out with her hands (brushes make what frizziness she has worse).

▸     DOES YOUR MUSE CARE ABOUT THEIR APPEARANCE   /   WHAT OTHERS THINK ?  Bree doesn’t have a lot of opinion on her appearance. She bathes and shows and cleans her face and brushes her teeth, but she doesn’t usually wear make up except to cover the shine of her skin if she absolutely MUST go out in the sun. But in terms of what she WEARS, Bree doesn’t put a lot of care or consideration and just wears what’s comfortable. Alice usually tries to help convince her to wear otherwise.

—    PREFERENCES.

▸     INDOORS    OR   OUTDOORS ? ▸     RAIN    OR    SUNSHINE ?  ▸     FOREST   OR    BEACH ?  ▸     PRECIOUS    METALS OR AND GEMS ? ▸   FLOWERS    OR  AND   PERFUMES ?  ▸     PERSONALITY    OR    APPEARANCE ?  ▸     BEING    ALONE  OR    BEING    IN    A    CROWD ? ▸     ORDER   OR    ANARCHY ?  ▸     PAINFUL    TRUTHS    OR   WHITE    LIES ?  ▸    SCIENCE   OR AND    MAGIC ? ▸     PEACE    OR    CONFLICT ?  ▸    NIGHT    OR    DAY ?  ▸   DUSK  OR   DAWN ?  ▸     WARMTH    OR   COLD ?  ▸     MANY   ACQUAINTANCES    OR    A    FEW    CLOSE    FRIENDS ?  ▸     READING  OR    PLAYING    A    GAME ?

—    QUESTIONNAIRE.

▸      WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR MUSE’S BAD HABITS ? Doesn’t look people in the eye often, even when she’s talking to them. She wrings her hands when she’s nervous.

▸      HAS YOUR MUSE LOST ANYONE CLOSE TO THEM ?  HOW HAS IT AFFECTED THEM ?  Bree never much becomes close with anyone, the only time was with Diego that one day during her time in the newborn army. Even then, they weren’t all that close but he was at the same time all she had-- up until a couple days before they started heading toward Forks she had never even spoken to Fred. Losing Diego -the only person who had been kind to her, and the only person who wanted to talk to her- devastated her. It was enough that in the peak of battle, it made Bree lose her will to live, or to fight to live. Between the Volturi leaving and joining the Cullen family, she hasn’t had much time to actually process the death of him but when she does, she grieves. It’s mostly a guilt that wallows up inside, over all the things they could have done different, and a despair that of course, the only good thing to happen to her out of all the shit is gone. She finds little comfort in the Cullen family during this time, since everything is so fresh and new and they are mostly occupied with Bella’s wedding then baby and transformation. The grief ends up blending into a thick black mess of all the other things that are happening at the same time that she’s forced to process--- so she never ends up coming to terms with it much internally. She’s only ever forced to face it as a blunt fact without much closure.

▸      WHAT ARE SOME FOND MEMORIES YOUR MUSE HAS ? She has very few memories from when her mother was present, before she “left” and most of them have blurred out. The most clearly she can recall is her mother reading her The Giving Tree at bed time. As a teen, she hates that story but she can still somewhat vaguely recall the tenderness her mom treated her with when it was read out loud.

▸     IS IT EASY FOR YOUR MUSE TO KILL ? It is terrifyingly easy for Bree to kill other humans, at least for the feed. In the army, humans weren’t people anymore. They encouraged the idea that humans were now just food to hunt and kill and drink from and as a newborn it was easier not to fight that idea because the thirst was so powerful, so intense, it didn’t leave any room for guilt or empathy. Bree described herself as “shutting off her brain” when it came time to hunt. She becomes predator and erases all feelings of guilt and fear and sadness, and lets the thirst take over. When she joins the Cullens, a lot of this begins to get brushed off and she remembers humans have value, that they have lives and hopes and dreams. It helps keep her from wanting to feed on humans again.

▸      WHAT’S IT LIKE WHEN YOUR MUSE BREAKS DOWN ? It’s quiet and withdrawn. Even in her grief Bree tries to take up very little space, tries not to make a show of it or draw attention. She’ll bite and cry into her hand to avoid making noises, or into her shirt and holds herself (she doesn’t count on anyone else to do it for her).

▸      IS YOUR MUSE CAPABLE OF TRUSTING SOMEONE WITH THEIR LIFE? Yes, but it takes an enormous amount of trust. In case of the Cullen family, she had very little choice but  Carlise and Esme saved her life and she is very aware of the fact she trusts them with her life every day she stays with them. 

▸  WHAT’S YOUR MUSE LIKE WHEN THEY’RE IN LOVE ?  Bree has no experience with love before Diego and this is a stretch to say, since I don’t consider them having been IN love... I don’t think it was possible to have escalated that fast when they only knew and talked to each other one day. I believe Bree had become infatuated with him and vice versa-- it was puppy love. He was the first person to treat her like someone of value and with kindness in YEARS. She suffered abuse and neglect her whole life and then came along someone who for the first time besides Riley, had conversations with her. And unlike Riley, Diego treated her with compassion and humanity- he made her laugh and appreciated her intelligence and encouraged her and invited her to think and criticize which is millions more than anyone else in the army. In love, though, Bree doesn’t change who she is, but she becomes more open. Sadly she will put the other person ahead of herself, whether it is their needs or their safety. She will become a little more tactile and willing to touch, but otherwise it will depend on the person.

[loadsuperior898]

Snow White Progenyamerican Meadow's Equestrian Center

When I found Meadow Creek Farm, I knew right away it was a place I would make many memories at. I've been fortunate to ride the amazing and skilled horses at the farm and looking forward to many more years of happiness with this awesome group of people I have met.

Kristie Alexa with Berkshire Hathaway Hudson Valley & Wappingers Homes and Happenings, stops by to visit us and provide her review of Meadow Creek Farm. If you are looking for a place for horseback riding lessons or somewhere to board your horse, you should definitely check this place out! Meadow Creek Farm is THE place to ride! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGavpBrHZro

Kristie Alexa with Berkshire HathawayBerkshire Hathaway Hudson Valley & Wappingers Homes and Happenings

The farm is truly my favorite place in the world and everyone is so friendly. There is always something to do at the farm so it is never boring! It is my home away from home. Thank you, Helaina, for creating such a great place for all of the horses, animals and your visitors.

The number one reason I love having my daughter at Meadow Creek Farm is confidence building. She has also gained responsibility, determination and physical strength while pursuing something she loves.

Snow White Progenyamerican Meadow's Equestrian Center Nj

Snow White Progenyamerican Meadow's Equestrian Center Facebook

Snow White Progenyamerican Meadow's Equestrian Center Michigan

Snow White Progenyamerican Meadow's Equestrian Center Nj

Summit Meadows Adventures offers guided snowmobile tours this winter as conditions allow. Touch points on snowmobiles are sanitized between tours. Helmets and boots are available for rental, but pants, coats, gloves, and goggles are not. Guests should be prepared to provide this equipment. Limited retail is available on-site. Trailhead directions: From Morton, follow US 12 east for 55 miles to White Pass. Turn left and proceed to parking area near the Yurt behind the Village Inn Condominiums. Well known for its excellent family-friendly tracked and groomed cross-country ski trails; the White Pass Nordic Center also offers family-friendly snowshoeing trails. Snow tubing, Skiing, Skating Center, Horse Drawn Sleigh Rides and more! TripAdvisor Rated #1 All-Inclusive Family Resort in the US. Reservations 800-647-2624. We are a wedding venue in Wasilla, Alaska. We offer a Sperry Tent for reception and a mountain view ceremony site.

“A place where horses can heal”

Mission Statement

Our goal is to provide a safety net for severely neglected and/or abused horses, which after veterinary care, nursing, treatment, and management, can eventually return to living as healthy, active horses. This will be accomplished in a number of ways:

A state of the art treatment facility with an eight stall barn and several outside corrals, two round rings and turnout area.

Medical equipment to assess the health and condition of each horse and monitor its recovery.

A foster care network to house healthy horses until they can be adopted.

An adoption program designed to ensure each healthy animal will be well cared for the rest of its life.

The History of Mountain Meadow Equine Rescue & Rehab

Mountain Meadow Equine Rescue & Rehab Center, while a newcomer to the horse rescue community, comes from a long history of saving animals from neglect and abandonment. It started as the Animal Trust Foundation which was founded May 16, 1973 by Patrica Woodbridge Nelson. Originally named the Animal Trust Sanctuary, the foundation owned a five acre ranch in Ramona, California, where Ms. Nelson established and maintained a rescue center for dogs and cats. Years later the ranch was donated to Fund for Animals, a New York animal rescue of which Cleveland Amory was the head. The Animal Trust Sanctuary changed its name to Animal Trust Foundation (ATF) and continued in the ensuing years to donate funds to many local animal welfare and rescue organizations. It was in November, 2014 that the decision was made to create an offshoot from the Foundation designed to rescue and care for injured and starving horses. Thus Mountain Meadow Equine Rescue came into being.

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Snow White Progenyamerican Meadow's Equestrian Center Facebook

Substantial investment was made in creating a state of the art care facility, including an eight stall steel barn, weight scale, and medical equipment. There are also six outside corrals with a half-acre paddock. As we grow there is room to expand to about double our current capacity. Being limited in space to about four acres, we focus on horses with urgent medical issues in the need of long term (six to twelve months) care, rather than warehousing abandoned animals. There are many rescues in San Diego County doing a great job in taking care of these orphaned horses and they deserve all the praise they receive. Our doors are open to any organization which may find itself overly burdened by the health care requirements of some horses with special needs. Additionally, equine veterinarians occasionally encounter an injured horse which requires long term care and which the owner cannot afford to address. In these circumstances, often the unfortunate choice is made to euthanize the animal solely because of the unbearable cost placed on the owner. These are our patients.

Snow White Progenyamerican Meadow's Equestrian Center Michigan

ATF continues to operate as it always has, contributing to the support of welfare and rescue organizations under the direction of Anthony Clark, one of the original founders. The former president, Douglas Stoodt, became and continues to be the CEO and Director of Mountain Meadow Equine Rescue.

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[shizzymcfizzy]

*******PLEASE READ*********

This is my request for justice to be brought to the land in between Ashcroft and Logan Lake, British Columbia, Canada.

The SPCA and Highland Valley Coppermine have been trapping wild horses and selling them to meat markets.

The Government of Canada better be prepared for a petition and a protest.

I noticed 5 the stallions just over a year ago, trapped on the little hill that you can see from the cinder hill viewpoint. I have spent the last year observing that they never get water to drink, they are terrified of the trucks that go round and round and never stop, they are trapped. They never leave that hill. *******THERE IS NO WATER FOR THEM TO DRINK. THEY SPENT THE ENIRE WINTER ON THAT HILL, WITH NO TREES TO PROTECT THEM FROM THE WIND.

These Feral Horses are native to that area of the world and have been there for a long time. Free-roaming horses are being held captive on the copper mine property to aid in “population control” when the proper term would be “animal abuse”

These Feral Horses are unique in their physical features and native to the highland valley. They are uniquely structured to run. Since someone seems to be the “owner” of the horses trapped on the copper mine side of the road, they don’t get to run. Their muscles are DEPLETING, they have no shoes on their feet, their tails are dragging on the GROUND BECAUSE THEY’ve never been groomed, and they aren’t being fed. The copper mine has no fresh water to drink AND THAT IS ANIMAL CRUELTY.

The Ashcroft gas station owner told me “someone owns them and they are grazing them there.” WHAT GRAZING, THEY BARELY HAVE ANY ROOM. THEY ARE ALWAYS EITHER TRAPPED ON THAT LITTLE HILL, OR STUCK ON THAT TINY PIECE OF GRASS. THEY ARE DYING OF THIRST AND ONE OF THEM CAN BARELY WALK.

They are DESPERATE TO GET BACK TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD BECAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN STOLEN FROM THE WILD, AND THEY, BEING ALL STALLIONS, HAVE MARES ON THE OTHER SIDE WAITING FOR THEM.

I have been camping in that area since I was a small baby. EVERY SUMMER. I HAVE KNOWN THISE HORSES.

I remember they were so hard to spot. The only time you ever seen them was when they came down for a drink, always just before dark, THROUGH BINOCULARS. And they would disappear again and not be seen by human until they were thirsty.

They do not usually go near humans.

THE ONLY REASON THOSE HORSES REMAIN IN HUMAN AREA,

IS BECAUSE THEIR STALLIONS ARE TRAPPED ON THE OTHER SIDE.

Leaving THE MARES AND BABIES TO FEND FOR THEMSELVES ON THE other SIDE OF THE ROAD

AND MOST OF THEM RIPPED APAPRT BY CYOTES BECAUSE THE STALLIONS ARENT THERE TO PROTECT THEM.

POPULATION CONTROL..... YOU WOULDNT EVEN KNOW THEY EXISTED IF YOU WERENT TRAPPING THEM ALREADY, THEY ARE NOT NORMAL HORSES. THEY ARE VERY INTELLIGENT. THIS IS LIKE SELLING HUMAN BEINGS ON BLACKMARKETS.

IF THAT HERD GOES EXTINCT I WILL NOT STOP UNTIL I FIND A WAY TO SHUT THAT COPPER MINE DOWN FOR INVESTIGATION.

ANIMAL ABUSE IS ILLEGAL. INCASE YOU FORGOT.

I AM GOING THO BE FORCING THE GOVERNMENT TO SECURE THOSE BEAUTIFUL CREATURES A HABITAT.

*AS A MATTER OF FACT******

*WHY ARE THEY NOT IN THEIR PROTECTED LAC DU BOIS GRASSLANDS******

THE SPCA AND HIGHLAND VALLEY COPPER-MINE ARE SELLING THEM FOR MONEY!!!!

******* THIS IS ILLEGAL*************

INSTEAD, THIS IS WHERE THEY ARE FORCED TO LIVE ON THE COPPER MINE PROPERTY.

THAT WATER IS NOT SAFE TO DRINK!!!!!

*********YOU ARE FORCING THEIR EXTINCTION BECAUSE YOU WANT TO EXPAND YOUR MINE, And THEY ARE IN YOUR WAY.********

One of the stallions has a bad leg, I believe it is a dog bite that is infected.he will die if it isn’t treated. IT IS EITHER A SOG BITE OR HE HURT HIMSELF TRYING TO CRISS THE CATTLE-GUARD, TRYING TO GET BACK TO HIS FAMILY.

YOU ARE TORTURING THE POOR THINGS.

they are all incapable of going for a run, AND THEY ARE FREE-ROAMING WILD HORSES.

they are skin and bone, have nothing to drink, I do not see a water source for them.

****** THIS STALLION SHOULD BE AT A WILDLIFE PRESERVE******^*

THEY NOW HAVE A SMALL BABY WITH THEM, SOMEHOW, ALTHOUGH THEY ARE ALL STALLIONS.

AS SOON AS I STATED “THEY ARE ALL STALLIONS”

THEIR LAST NIGHT ON THE HILL WAS THE NIGHT OF SOME OF THESE PICTURES.

in the photos you clearly see the baby,

THE BABY WAS NOWHERE TO BE FOUND THE NEXT DAY.

4 STALLIONS WERE BY THE ENTRANCE AND THIS INJURED STALLION, STOOD BY THAT FENCE, I DROVE PAST HIM 3 times and finally pulled over. He showed me he can barely walk. I SPENT THE REST OF THE MORNING, AFTERNOON AND EVENING WITH HIM. I named him (Hadouken)

He Was put on the other side of that little hill BY HIMSELF to be ripped apart by the coyote THAT LIVES ACROSS THE STREET.

BY THE HIGHLAND VALLEY COPPER MINE.

I HAVE SEEN THE CYOTE I SPEND SO MUCH TIME UP THERE.

The police PULLED ME OVER DURING THE NICHT WITH THEIR LIGHTS ON, WHILE I WAS SLEEPING IN MY VEHICLE PROTECTING THAT INJURED STALLION,

but I stayed with him all night,

His buddies found him the next day. They protect him. WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TOHIM ONCE THE OTHER 4 ARE SOLD!!?!!!

YOU SICK FUCK!!!!

The day after that, all 5 stallions were on that small piece of grass beside the small hill there are photos of 2 of them, Hadouken laying down. THE BABY IS STILL MISSING.

They’ve been missing for over a week.

Now over 3 weeks.

I DO NOT BELIEVE THEY LEFT THE PROPERTY AND THAT PLANT SHOULD BE SHUT DOWN AND INVESTIGATED.

UNDERNEATH. THEY MUST HAVE A DOG FOOD FACTORY UNDERNEATH.

WHERE IS THE BABY. AND WHERE IS THE REST OF THE HERD THAT EXISTED IN THE ONE PHOTO FROM A PRESS CLIPPING??

******GOVERNMENT OF CANADA,*******

GIVE THOSE HORSES A PIECE OF LAND AND I WILL TAKE CARE OF THEM FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.

YOU ARE DISGUSTING FOR ALLOWING THIS TO CONTINUE.

********THE LAW REGARDING

ANIMAL ABUSE***********

Causing damage or injury

* 446. (1) Every one commits an offence who

* (a) by wilful neglect causes damage or injury to animals or birds while they are being driven or conveyed; or

* (b) being the owner or the person having the custody or control of a domestic animal or a bird or an animal or a bird wild by nature that is in captivity, abandons it in distress or wilfully neglects or fails to provide suitable and adequate food, water, shelter and care for it.

* Marginal note:
Punishment
(2) Every one who commits an offence under subsection (1) is guilty of

* (a) an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than two years; or

* (b) an offence punishable on summary conviction and liable to a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars or to imprisonment for a term of not more than six months or to both.

* Marginal note:
Failure to exercise reasonable care as evidence


* (3) For the purposes of proceedings under paragraph (1)(a), evidence that a person failed to exercise reasonable care or supervision of an animal or a bird thereby causing it damage or injury is, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, proof that the damage or injury was caused by wilful neglect.

#animalabuse #animalcruelty #governmentofcanada #bcrcmp #savethehorses #highlandvalleycoppermine #ashcroft #loganlake #animalrescue #wildliferehabilitation #endangeredspecies #canada #animalactivists #animalrights #horses #feralhorses #wildhorses #help #spca #britishcolumbia #justintrudeau #parliament #primeminister #justice #freedomoflifeandliberty #suffering #protest #anonymous

[gch1995]

@cienie-isengardu @redrikki @tragicfantasy-girl @gamebird You’re right, though. There are no excuses for Anakin’s crimes. He had more agency than he believed, even if it was pretty limited. He was selfish in his fear. No one deserved to die. After awhile, he did stop trying to fight it. If this were real life, though, I definitely think he would have more than enough mitigating factors in his favor to keep him from the death penalty. Long-term to life imprisonment with psychiatric treatment? Yeah.

The Jedi Council of adults who raised him definitely contributed to the creation of Darth Vader, though. They’re definitely responsible for creating that emotional/mental instability in Anakin with the 14 years of emotional/psychological abuse and neglect they put him through. Yeah, they mistreated all of the Jedi with them, but it negatively affected Anakin the most because he knew the ways in which they interacted were not emotionally/individually/psychologically healthy. He knew what abuse, anger, love, fear, and oppression felt like. He could sense that was what the Jedi Council were doing to him and these other recruits, but they gaslit him by teaching him to deny his feelings, rather than expressing them healthily, and Palpatine had been given the opportunity to groom him for 11-14 years, so by the time we get to AOTC and particularly RotS, Anakin doesn’t know who to trust anymore, including himself.

Before he came to be a Jedi, the only way he knew how to survive was through forming close relationships with other people. Yet, he kept trying to fit in with them by living a double life to try to please and protect everyone he loved until it broke him because he didn’t feel confident enough to stand up against it. It’s like the story of an extreme doormat/people-pleaser gone wrong when taken too far. That’s a huge part of the tragedy for Anakin. He never learned how to have a balance between being true to himself and serving others because he was too afraid and rarely got to deal with any of his feelings in a positive way, so eventually, he cracked under the pressure. The fact that he lasted for the first half of his life without totally losing his shit under such consistently horrible circumstances with limited options for escape and help is pretty impressive.

As for Padme, yeah, it does kind of bother me that she encouraged Anakin to stay with the Jedi when he repeatedly told her he wanted to leave, rather than taking it more seriously. However, I also think it goes back to Padme’s tragic flaw of being naive to the flaws of the the world she grew up in as a young woman of privilege within it as a Senator of the Republic. She’s lived her whole life in the Republic. She was a monarch of it. She’s only ever seen how good the Jedi look from the outside serving the upper and middle classes of the Republic, which she benefitted from. She’s never actually been involved with them as a soldier and/or padawan and seen firsthand just how emotionally/psychologically abusive, deceitful, irresponsible, isolating, and hypocritical the Council can be in service of “the greater good.”

The sad thing is that I don’t think Padme really understood just how problematic the Jedi Order was in regards to Anakin’s well-being until after finding out he turned to the dark side and Yoda’s and Obi Wan’s immediate solution was to plot to execute him, and she found out Obi Wan snuck on her ship.

would ani leave his job for ahsoka if she asked him to 👀

No. Anakin,among other things, lacks Ahsoka’s self-confidence. Over and over again he’sput into these situations where he should walk away, where he KNOWS he shouldwalk away but he stays because he doesn’t know how to leave. He doesn’t know hecan leave. That’s why he stays withthe Jedi and then Palpatine.

Anakinwouldn’t leave with Ahsoka for the same reason he didn’t stay with Shmi, forthe same reason he didn’t immediately disobeyed Obi-wan’s orders to not checkon Shmi, he didn’t left the Order when he fell in love with Padmé, he didn’tleft the Order when the refused his promotion, when Obi-wan played dead, whenhe realized the Order didn’t care about slavery or when he found out Padmé was pregnant.He was unhappy with the Order but he felt couldn’t leave. He thought aboutleaving, but until he was pushed to the extremes, he never did anything aboutit.

Anakin wasborn into slavery and indoctrinated to be obedient. What comes so easily to us, it’snot so easy for him. I mean, it’s hard to walk away from abusive orunhealthy/unhappy situations when abusive and unhealthy situations is all you’veever known.

The factAhsoka realized she could and needed to leave is practically a miracle. It’s a testamentto her and Anakin. Thanks to his training, Ahsoka was able to realize she hadoptions. Unfortunately, no one ever did that to Anakin. No one ever told Anakin, “It’sokay, you can leave if you want”. They took him from slavery but they neverexplained to him what it means to be free.

Add that toAnakin’s unstable personality and need for reassurance, and you will havesomeone who will destroy themselves and everyone around them before they can say“this is not for me, I’m walking away”

[mynarcissticex]

Because, in essence, they do exhibit multiple personalities. I think that is one of the most unsettling aspects of dealing with someone with NPD. Because, at least in my experience, when the loving, doting boyfriend was presenting himself, I believed him. He was very thoughtful, very considerate, he made me feel important, loved, and special. He’s the man that I fell in love with. The man I still love, much to my irritation.

However

The other individual who I came to know, the darker, scarier, intimidating, domineering, control freak was one that terrified me to my core. That’s why most people who end up caught up in this vicious cycle emerge with something referred to as cognitive dissonance. I learned what that term was when I started researching the behavior I was witnessing. It’s the mind-blowing experience of holding two conflicting beliefs about the same subject. He was both the nicest, and the most ferocious, person that I knew.

In essense, this man, who I fell in love with, once managed to make me feel like the most important, lucky person on the planet; and has just as equally caused me to feel debilitating terror with the belief that my life may possibly be in danger I was killing myself slowly by staying with matt.

So, I would say, that by their very nature, they do exhibit at least two distinct personalities. But here’s the kicker. One of their personalities persists, throughout their life, as it is the true personality behind the many masks they create. The true personality is the dark, unhappy, insecure, miserable, maladaptive, often cruel, and almost always vindictive personality you end up seeing if you are around them often enough. The others are simply masks they create to fit in and to forge their tenuous relationships with those around them. Narcissists don't always know they are narcissists. We have to keep this in mind.

A narcissist is like speaking to a tree. A tree is convinced its a tree. But what if the tree was really a bush but the bush just thought it was a tree? ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Narcissists assume they are kind, wonderful human beings. They are unaware they are not trees--they are NOT kind--they are not LOVING and instead they are self-absorbed and only exhibit kind and loving behaviors when it SUITS THEM. They are only able to appear to be kind and loving when doing so helps make THEM look good.⠀

Being a victim of narcissistic abuse is as painful as having bones broken all at a time or even much more. You are drained and sucked out a lot mentally. My ex was an absolute narcissist. It was an emotional whip for so long for me with him. The sad part about being a victim to people with this disorder is that we just don’t realize that we are feeding their narcissism more and more by being obedient and considerate just to hold them back from breaking the relationship.

The burden of working out the relationship becomes so torturous that we unintentionally start to transform ourselves into their slaves. They start treating you in the harshest way possible. You feel like a piece of shit. They can get absolutely barbaric both emotionally and verbally & financially, They start ignoring you. They no longer bother to make plans or care about your needs They always need dominance in the relationship. They no longer respect your emotions or how you feel. They ignore or avoid calls and texts on purpose, lie tremendously, behave sensitive and make you feel guilty about anything and everything.

If you behave even a little like them, they’ll make a big issue out of it and keep threatening you emotionally. This behaviour of theirs is so powerful that they can even turn a strong individual into a most inferior one. They criticize you, abuse you, mock at you, bring you down make fun of you and make you look like a fool. They deliberately do things that hurt you pretty hard and make you cry and then say that they hate being with weak people. They start rubbing their insecurities on you. They start digging for reasons to discard you but shall never do until they find a replacement because they constantly need someone to feed their ego. Once they do, they will never look back at you no matter what. Even if you are dying, they just don’t care. Because of this, eventually you will feel/become like this.

It's the most confusing thing to be told "i love you" by the very same people or person who is destroying your heart. When we hear these words of affirmation, we are so inclined to believe them that we choose to dismiss or move past all the horrible treatment we've undergone from being in a relationship with them. We all want to be loved. Toxic people prey upon this natural need for love and belonging and use it is as a game of putting us in between the extremes of despair and hope. They discard us and make us feel as we mean absolutely nothing to them and just as they feel we may be moving in they capture us from our pain by telling us they love us. They dope us up on hope with little bits of counterfeit love. When it comes to toxic people we need to pay very little attention to their words. We need to pay attention to the consistency and persistency of the actions they take that break our hearts again and again. Our answer is in our despair.

They stay BECAUSE they are selfish. If they are getting attention, admiration, sex, a place to stay or whatever they need as supply, why wouldn't they stay?

Narcissists are lazy. While they get easily bored and are always on the lookout for a fresh piece, they invest a considerable amount of charm and effort into grooming someone they believe will supply their needs.

Once they have that victim under their control, they will satisfy their other desires and needs with whoever triggers their fancy. But unless they find a new supply that is superior to the one they have, they aren't going to end the relationship.

The “discard” phase of a narcissist is not always indicative of them physically leaving their main supply. Sometimes, it just means they have no interest in you other than what they can use you for, so they neglect you emotionally and sexually but stay in the relationship. You basically become roommates at that point, being little more than a glorified maid or babysitter.

If they find someone who is willing and able to give them a better status, you will be unceremoniously discarded. Otherwise, you are stuck with them as long as you will tolerate their abuse

[elljayvee]

Severus, Harry, Albus, & Tom

(This post is based on some thoughts I spewed all over Twitter a bit ago.) 

I was thinking about the final duel in Deathly Hallows, which first of all has Albus Dumbledore’s fingerprints all over it -- Harry calling Tom “Tom”, lots of talking intended both to drive Tom right up a wall & to reach for his humanity.  There’s a lot of talk of love in it, which is something Harry understands and Tom doesn’t. (Has Tom ever loved anyone?) 

Tom understands sexual desire, and knows that sexual desire is not love -- but he doesn’t understand that Snape loved Lily. As far as he is concerned, there was only desire there, and he clearly perceives desire as fairly shallow. He says that Snape agreed that there were more worthy women: basically that Snape just wanted to fuck Lily. 

Harry understands love a lot better. (He’s been protected by love all his life. There were limits and flaws in that protection, but it was still there.) Harry knows that Snape could both desire his mother, & love her in other ways as well: for their shared past, for his childhood friendship. (I mean I'm not denying that Snape was kind of a creep, here, because there's all kinds of ways in which he was.) But I am saying that Tom only understood "Snape wants to fuck this lady" & not "Snape has a complicated emotional relationship with this woman that includes sexual desire." 

Also, re-reading that scene after reading Cursed Child puts a new complexion on Tom's knowledge of sexual desire. 

The whole duel works its way through two of the major triads in the series: Tom-Snape-Harry and Tom-Dumbledore-Harry. (Rowling uses triads & 3-vs-1 setups a lot, which I love. They’re very appealing. One of the notable things about the Horcruxes is that they aren’t triadic; they are unbalanced and scattered, symptoms of Tom’s broken and irredeemable soul.) 

The Tom-Dumbledore-Harry setup is about their relationships to love and power. They're all extremely powerful wizards who have very different approaches to both love and power. 

Harry cares much more about love than he does about power. There’s a deep satisfaction, for me, in seeing Dumbledore's infuriating dueling style used against Tom by Harry, a wizard whose strength lies in his ability to love. Harry understands love AS a force, as a power in its own right, but a power that lies in being given away. In open-heartedness. This makes Harry naming his second son after Snape more understandable: he understands love's complexity & has a generous heart himself. It also makes his complicated relationship with Albus Severus in Cursed Child more understandable: Albus Severus sees that same openness as nonspecific and uncaring. 

Dumbledore craves power & only resists it out of love, & only after tragedy. He is never again open-hearted as he was with Grindelwald, because for him love has been complicated by fear, pain, resentment, manipulation. He does love -- it seems to me that he loves both Snape and Harry -- but his love is always at a remove, never letting anyone too close. Dumbledore, at the liminal King's Cross, tells Harry that going to Hogwarts was resisting power; that’s either a bit self-deluding or he’s straight-up lying. There's a lot of power in controlling the education of generations of children, Albus. People make fun of the Slug Club, but at least Slughorn is open about what he's doing. Dumbledore cultivated people, too, and he used Hogwarts to do that cultivation -- which included recruiting children to war under his command. Dumbledore knows he has a lust for power, & maybe he honestly tried to avoid power, but he failed. I mean: "You will find that I will only truly have left this school when none here are loyal to me." Come on, Albus. I think he's VERY clear that he wants power too much & shouldn't have it, but NOT clear with himself on how much power he has via Hogwarts.

Tom loves only power and nothing else. It’s not clear to me that Tom has ever loved another person. 

Albus Dumbledore is very present in that duel, and so is another: Severus Snape. Harry, in talking to Tom, in centering a narrative of love, protection, and remorse, talks a fair bit about his mother, & about Snape, & he does it in front of EVERYONE. Snape spent his time living "no one must know"; Harry, by contrast, is about emotional accessibility. Everyone must know. It is all right to love people and not to hide it. 

The Tom-Snape-Harry triad is one of the most interesting in the series. It is formed by similar heritage, early lives, their relationships to Hogwarts, to Albus, to power, and to love. There are so many ways in which they are three men who could have been similar, but their choices define them. (Love. Choices. Respect. Names. These are some of the recurring themes of the series.) They’re all abused/neglected halfblood wizards who found their first real home at Hogwarts. Tom & Snape both loathe their Muggle fathers, & let that lead them to a very nasty belief system. In Tom’s case, he picked up his belief system at Hogwarts. We don’t know exactly how but there are implications that it was at least in part through a fascination with Salazar Slytherin -- his ancestor and fellow Parselmouth. In Snape’s case we know he probably didn’t start out with those beliefs, and also adopted them to a certain extent at Hogwarts. He tells Lily, before they go to Hogwarts, that birth doesn’t matter. He apparently doesn’t start using the word “Mudblood” until sometime after that. He leaves the Death Eaters and began to distance himself from their views for love, & renounced them entirely in at least two timelines (in Deathly Hallows, he tells Phineas Nigellus not to use the word "Mudblood", and in Cursed Child he says that he came to believe as Lily did). Harry...did not learn to hate Muggles or Muggleborns at Hogwarts. He had as much reason to hate his Muggle relatives as Snape or Tom, and he DID, but unlike them he didn’t generalize.

Tom, Snape, and Harry also all had relationships with Dumbledore beyond usual teacher-student relationships.

Of the three of them, the one whose relationship with Albus is the most obscured is Tom’s -- partly because so much of it was so far in the past, but partly because Tom doesn’t have normal human feelings. Albus knows a lot about him, and Tom hates that. (If you were trying to be a powerful Dark Lord, would you like it if your old teacher kept reminding you of when you were a young, vulnerable student? If you were trying to be more than human, would you like it if someone kept pointing out how human you still were?)

Severus Snape might have the most complicated relationship of all of them with Albus, and we see a lot of that in his memories in Deathly Hallows: there’s genuine dislike and disgust, there’s friendship, protection, sacrifice. How much Albus saw Severus as a tool to be used vs how much he cared is, I think, something of an open question. But I do think he did care, and that Severus cared for him -- Severus’s reaction to Albus putting on the Gaunt ring, for example, shows that. (Sidenote: given Albus’s issues with power, you’d think he’d be more understanding of Severus’s cravings for it. Shut up, Albus.)

Harry is very clear that he is “Dumbledore’s man”, despite a fraught relationship at times. He knows that Albus is manipulating things, and he isn’t exactly pleased about that, but he is also very clear that he knows which side is which and on whose side he stands. Even when he’s angry or frustrated with Dumbledore, he is still loyal to him. (As a sidenote, I think it’s clear in-universe that Dumbledore’s sexuality was either not secret or an open secret, at least among the adults. The Daily Prophet article by Rita Skeeter says Albus had an “unnatural interest” in Harry. “Unnatural interest” is a specific anti-gay term used to indicate sexual abuse of male children by gay men. Skeeter is using a homophobic slur towards Dumbledore. The Prophet article is written to imply to adult wizards that Albus had been AT LEAST magically & sexually grooming Harry, if not molesting him. It’s meant to cast aspersions on Dumbledore and on Harry’s emotional stability. Given how Rowling uses the Prophet and Skeeter throughout the series, I suppose one could say that readers were not intended to see any truth in that article -- but what always made Skeeter’s work effective was that there was just ENOUGH truth in it to build belief on.) 

All of Tom, Severus, & Harry have a lot of anger (& a lot of JUSTIFIED anger) but how they direct it is very different & it comes down to love.

Tom doesn’t love. He thinks of love as silly; he tells Harry that love didn’t save Dumbledore or his mother, after all. He mocks Lucius Malfoy for caring about Draco; he treats Bellatrix callously when she shows him affection (because I do think Bellatrix loved him, in her way). Tom only cares about power: the power of his weaponry, of his army. 

Severus comes to understand the power that love can have but he remains always twisted up about it, ashamed & secretive. That’s real tragedy of his life, I think. If he could have learned some openness he probably would have been happier. Moved on from Lily, at any rate. He did care for Albus, who up until very late rather thought that Severus HAD moved on from Lily -- I think, to an extent, Dumbledore also felt that Severus’s love was mostly desire-based, and so was surprised that almost two decades later it was still strong. 

And then there’s Harry. When thinking about choices, and about love, and about anger, Harry has at least as much reason as Ariana Dumbledore or Credence Barebone to become an Obscurial & doesn’t. He has at least as much reason as Tom Riddle or Severus Snape to hate Muggles, and doesn’t. Rowling implies that a lot of that has to do with Lily’s sacrifice, with her love protecting her child. It also has to do with Harry himself, though, and his choices: his choice of Ron over Draco, his choice to go after Ginny in the Chamber, his choice to be offended on Luna’s behalf when he sees she is being bullied, his choice to love Sirius, to share victory with Cedric, to trust Albus Dumbledore, to free Dobby, to bury Dobby. Not all of his choices work out for the best, and his anger at Snape (which is largely justified because Snape really is a jagoff to him) clouds his judgment at times. But largely, he is making choices that show him to be a caring and loving person -- when, like Tom and Severus, he has plenty of reasons not to be that kind of a person.