“Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck … proclaims ‘that [human] evil can be defined as a specific form of mental illness and should be subject to at least the same intensity of scientific investigation that we would devote to some other major psychiatric disease.’ He defines ‘evil’ as a negative force ‘residing either inside or outside of human beings, that seeks to kill life or liveliness.’ For Peck, the primary root of most human evil is ‘malignant narcissism’, a term taken from Erich Fromm. Peck identifies evil people not 'by the illegality of their deeds or the magnitude of their sins’, nor by their evil acts, for then 'we should all be evil, because we all do evil things.’ It is rather 'the consistency of their sins’, says Peck, that makes people ‘evil’ or ‘not evil.’ In other words, it is the chronic self-deception, ego-inflation and 'unsubmitted will’, the constant lying to themselves and others, and their rabid refusal to confront their own flaws that characterize Peck’s 'people of the lie.’”
— Stephen A. Diamond, Anger, Madness, and the Daimonic: The Psychological Genesis of Violence, Evil, and Creativity
[alive on all channels]
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"If one ever has the good fortune to meet a living saint, one will have then met someone absolutely unique. Though their visions may be remarkably similar, the personhood of saints is remarkably different. This is because they have become utterly themselves. God creates each soul differently, so that when all the mud is finally cleared away, His light will shine through it in a beautiful, colorful, totally new pattern. At the other end of the human spectrum from the saints lie the least free, the evil. All one can see of them is the mud. And it all looks the same."
-M. Scott Peck
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Every time I revisit chapter 86 and the events right after the group talks Marcille down, I'm always struck by this bit here:
In particular, how similar it is to this:
The Winged Lion ate the same desire in both of them, more or less (I'm sure there are some nuances in both flavor and intent, but they are clearly similar things here). The Lion basically used this technique to kill Thistle, and for Marcille it was... not insignificant, but something she and her friends overcame without even fully realizing it was an obstacle.
I feel like this is another small piece of the story that shows how important support and love are - in navigating mental illness, in dealing with abuse or addiction, or in working through any other similar struggle that can be read into the Lion and his eating of desires.
It almost feels like Marcille was able to borrow the desires of her friends. She loves them and she trusts them, so even when she didn't have a desire to free herself from the Lion, the care they had for her well being still mattered to her.
It's the same thing later, with her hair.
She isn't able to notice the way her messy hair is making things harder, let alone do anything about it. But when Chilchuck points it out and then braids it back for her...
It's better. She likes it, things are easier now. Even though it isn't a desire she can feel for herself, it's not something that doesn't effect her. And because her friends care - because they know her well enough to notice the difference - she is given the chance to have a preference and to ask for their help.
We can obviously see some parallel ideas here with Mithrun and Kabru as well, but I'd also like to point out that Thistle gets this grace, too. Thistle, who had no one to help him up once he lost his will to resist, or to encourage him to find new desires once the Lion ate them all.
Thistle says he doesn't need anything, anymore...
But he is given an apology anyways.
It is not a kindness he desires. It is not a kindness he is able to ask for.
But it is a kindness that helps. It is a kindness that matters.
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something so fucked up about Chat Noir’s whole deal is that he is in a lot of ways Adrien playing a character. Like Adrien picked up his miraculous and was told he’d be a superhero so he was like “ok, time to act like a superhero!” and he lets himself have fun w it and play up the role and let loose and kind of just allow himself to be silly and goofy and have fun and for once in his life not care about performing Perfection™.
But. But none of the other characters KNOW THAT. So everyone just sees Chat Noir and is like “look at this guy’s ego. He’s so full of himself. Surely it’d be fair to knock him down a few pegs” without being aware of how few pegs he actually HAS. He’s like the “insecure character who overcompensates in ego” trope except he’s really not doing it unironically, he’s just having a fun LARP pretending to have self worth in his off-hours but nobody else is on the same page about it being a game and he refuses to tell them. He just dramatically pouts about it and lets them laugh and pretends like he’s not internalizing it and it is almost 3 am and my brain forced me to write this instead of sleeping I’m gonna take a melatonin
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i need well meaning cis people to stop attemping to steelman trans healthcare conversations because it basically always ends with them just lying about easily checkable things "no minors are getting irreversible treatments" wrong not true "no minors are having surgery" also false, like instead just say the truth: currently some minors (few, but some) are able to access hrt that will have some irreversible changes on their body, some (even fewer) minors are able to access surgery.
the counter to transphobes screaming "these kids are being irreversibly changed" isn't "no children are accessing this care" it's "puberty is also an irreversible change" and "i think under 18s and even under 16s should be able to make medical decisions actually"
"no minors are accessing this care" means that transphobes can easily point to the examples of minors who are accessing that care, which just make us look like liars. sometimes teenagers and children need to make medical choices on their own. i think a 14 y/o should be able to get an abortion. i think trans kids and teens should be able to have the approriate care, which for some will just be like, picking a new name or haircut, and for some, sure, could be surgery.
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"if you give people menstrual leave they will abuse of it to take days off" hell yeah baby!!!! lie to your boss! tell them youre on your period and get some holidays! tell them your period lasts 15 days and you need all of them off! work less and earn more! lets fucking gooooo!!!!!!!!!!
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If a transgender person asks you to deadname and misgender them in front of certain people. Misgender them and deadname them in front of those people. It doesn't matter how icky or gross it may feel, it doesn't matter you'd rather be honest. It doesn't matter if there's more of you there. Certain people aren't safe, and honesty IS NOT the best policy when honesty could put them at serious risk. It doesn't matter if there's a crowd, because when there isn't shit goes down.
Be an ally, do what they ask. Understand that the trans person knows more about their situation than you do, and this includes who's safe and who's not. Some one can be "trans friendly" to other people, but not to people they know or specific people. Do as the trans person asks, yes it's uncomfortable, but it's 10 times worse if the person we don't trust finds out. 100 times worse if they have access to us when you're not around.
Respect trans peoples safety. Misgender and deadname when asked.
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