#that you're not worthless if you can't be the perfect victim and pull yourself up by your bootstraps

[etherealsign282]

Imagine an abuser posting about how much they value apologies and correcting behavior

But they never once did those things, and/or played victim right after their fake apology and pretended to have already corrected the behavior while they were being abusive

And they simultaneously apply the concept of those things to people's reactive abuse bc gods forbid someone was less than perfect whilst dealing with an abuser abusing them (and also they will always think your behavior was the worst and most unacceptable thing ever bc they conveniently can't even remember all the abusive shit they did to cause a reaction, so an apology would never have sufficed, let alone you don't even need to apologize for your reaction. Even tho you most likely DID apologize anyways in the first place! They just don't remember/care bc they "had to apologize last" without an "I'm sorry too". Lol)

Which is still playing the victim card/still not changing behavior to not see themselves as the victim (even tho they'll scream that they did change)

But the fact that despite them giving a shitty apology, you didn't apologize to them for reacting to their abuse at the last second, and didn't *permanently* change your behavior to fit their mold bc you realized it was bullshit- such as be less talkative unless its about them, never sleep again, don't act depressed ever again, don't be good at video games, etc- its obvious to me that when they post that shit it's actually more of a defensive jab at the people they permanently scarred to try and combat their feelings of shame and embarrassment and anger for getting "fked over" rather than an actual pat on the back for themselves

(Despite the fact that the abuser is less than worthless on the concept of apologies and change)

The idea is so rage-inducing sometimes

*If the confidence in yourself has to be based on putting down the people you hurt, by acting like they were breaking you because their reaction to your behavior was creating a deeper insecurity about how much of a pos you were being

And you have to chalk it up to the situation being their fault, or that they couldn't do what you did which is apologize, as if we haven't been apologizing for simply breathing the entire time (and also YOUR apology is usually so severely pathetic and half-assed and we practically had to pull teeth to receive some sort of apology)

Maybe you need to stop running away from sitting in actual accountability and acknowledge that you were 100% the problem and you can't just shove more than half to full responsibility on the abuse survivor?

But ya know, having seen someone actually ask if them being abusive means the blame is fully on them around the same time they bragged about their abusive behaviors and how much they lack compassion and empathy (yes, bragged most of the time, the other half being used as an excuse to withhold love and affection bc they didn't get what what they wanted), it's not a surprise that they're more hyperfixated on finding even the most miniscule thing to hold up to the world and scream "SEE??? IT WAS BOTH OF US AND I ALREADY APOLOGIZED WHICH MEANS THEY'RE JUST DOING THIS TO DESTROY ME AND ACTUALLY I'M THE VICTIM". C'mon. It's pretty clear what's happening. Please go to actual therapy so you stop using defensive techniques for a facade of confidence. You don't need to jab at others to feel good about yourself and be proud of "changing".

Also the fact that you can stew and hold onto things people did to you for YEARS but have the audacity to "process" your abusive behaviors for less than a week before turning once again back to pathetic, manipulative victimized behaviors, and then act like you've actually sat with the accountability and that I'm just encouraging your downfall for finding this egotistical shit gross and wanting you to properly sit with it, and then years later continuing to defensively jab at everyone else to prove that you're worth it, is also a pretty huge sign that you lack the changed behavior and growth that you constantly brag about. But I digress.

#abuse #emotional abuse #trauma #mental abuse #abuse survivor #emo #demon #666

[frumfrumfroo]

I’m new here and couldn’t tell from the tone of some asks (sorry) but did you like what they did with Ben in TRoKR ? I saw the discussions abt him lacking agency in it and I 100% agree but did you personality agree w/ the passive, “things only happen to me” vibe they gave him? And second question: can u give examples of how soule’s writing was telegrsmed in TFA? Thank u for taking the time xx

Like I’ve said before, it’s exactly the kind of backstory I would have written for him/always imagined. I had expected to find out he didn’t kill the other students/fought them in self defence/it was some kind of accident or emotional overload incident in TLJ. That was where everything was pointing.

Someone this insecure and conflicted about what he’s doing, someone who prays for help to resist his loving nature and cries when he sees his dad, who is so uncomfortable with himself he is covered head to toe not even his voice unmasked, who immediately latches on to the protagonist as a kindred spirit in loneliness and needs her to know he’s not a creature and wants to help her rather than hurt her- that’s not a person who had an eyes-open, all-in fall to the dark side full of decisive action and unhindered agency.

Leia saying ‘it was Snoke’ told us from the get go we’re in a situation where he was haunted and manipulated. His subservience and rote, childish repetition of ‘the Supreme Leader is wise’ when Han tells him Snoke doesn’t care about him. The constant, ongoing contradiction of his behaviour and motives tell us he has no conviction in the cause he’s supposedly supporting. His self-harm and naked suffering in the face of his own actions, his recklessness and inability to commit to selfishness and lack of ambition tell us those aren’t qualities which drove him here. He is highly emotionally driven, there’s no tangible goal and he doesn’t have a vision of the future. So why is he on the dark side?

It’s not that things only happen to him or that he’s passive, it’s that Ben has never pursued or been comfortable with what darkness really is and that has always been obvious. He tries very, very hard and fights tooth and claw to cling to something good in the comic until all of it is in ashes- he’s not passive, but he can’t win. No one can hold out forever against that kind of relentless onslaught. That he was absolutely a victim doesn’t mean he has no agency in his later choices. He’s not absolved of responsibility. But his reluctance and victimhood only makes sense, anything else would be incongruous with TFA.

There was never pursuit of power for power’s sake from him- there’s nothing he wants that the dark side can give him, he is there literally because he felt he had nowhere else to go. I said this before TLJ even came out. He felt he could not escape it, both because of the fatalism his family unintentionally instilled in him and because Snoke convinced him none of them loved him, that he is only useful or valued as a tool. Ben is a person who doesn’t believe he has any inherent value just for himself- just Ben, he believes that he can’t be forgiven for the sin of being born a disappointment, and that everything is his fault because he’s wrong and bad no matter what he does. None of his choices feel to him like real choices, all of his options appear to have been taken from him, and he feels compelled to plunge forward on the only remaining path. The comic provided an emotionally and logically cogent explanation for exactly why he would feel that way which is completely consistent with all the implications about his past and his characterisation from the films.

As I’ve pointed out before, there’s a reason he says ‘it’s too late’ to coming home not ‘I don’t want to’. There’s a reason he says ‘what I have to do’ and ‘he (I) was weak and foolish’- there’s a reason he needs Han’s help to go through with killing his father. It’s not about what he wants (he wants to go home with his dad- he thinks he can’t), he has never felt free to make his own choices or that freedom is possible for him.

Even at his darkest he never became cruel, he never enjoyed killing or hurting people, and he totally fails to suppress his instinct to be compassionate. He has a highly developed conscience and an overflowing core of empathy he can’t seal off. That’s why he’s so miserable as he pushes himself to do things he finds abhorrent- but he thinks he has to, there’s no escape, it’s the only way. In the sequence which establishes this character, even before any layers are stripped away or the investment we naturally have in him because of who he is is revealed, one of the first things we see him do is have compassion for F/nn. Those two characters are connected and a comparison is invited- this is visual storytelling showing you that they have something in common (it will be made clear later on that Ben saw himself in F/nn and that’s why he takes his actions so personally- cognitive dissonance).

F/nn was a good person trapped in the mask of the stormtrooper by circumstances beyond his control, but he is able to reject it and reclaim his identity. Ben is a good person hounded into the mask of Kylo Ren by his family’s failure to reconcile with Vader. The crushing weight of their expectations and their total lack of faith in him combined with their lies and Snoke’s manipulation convinces him there is ‘too much Vader in him’ and that Ben Solo isn’t and never will be good enough for anyone. That his love, compassion, and selflessness are all weaknesses which will only cause both him and the galaxy further suffering.

He is the most morally sensitive person in the new gen, he is the most outward-orientated and loving. His impulse is to be selfless and helpful, but that impulse has been relentlessly punished until he mistrusts it and thinks he must repress his wrong instincts and serve a ‘greater order’ guided by someone stronger than him. He has an acute sense of the impact of his actions and he considers it (even when he loses control of his emotions, he overwhelmingly targets things rather than people and his angry threats are empty).

In contrast, Anakin (who was committed on the dark side and successfully cut himself off from his empathy for many years) was all in on the pursuit of power even when he still had good intentions. Anakin also knew that power was the foundation of the dark side and he and Palpatine would always be at odds, that some day he would overthrow him and take his place. Ben only values power out of fear, and solely primal fear not more abstract, possessive fear like Anakin’s, he wants safety. He doesn’t go to Snoke thinking he’s ever going to take his place or gain his power- he wants Snoke to give him belonging and acceptance. He’s then convinced that the ends justify the means and doing things he knows are wrong and which cause him pain are necessary because his whole life and Snoke’s machinations have set him up to believe that. He is still trying to create safety and doing what he’s convinced must be done and will be done one way or another.

Ben is a beautiful compassionate person and always has been and that is why he’s in such constant, excruciating pain trying to shut himself off from love and vulnerability. He is following Snoke’s demands and trying to kill his past to stop the pain, to kill this vulnerability and need and weakness in himself. Connection was always what he wanted most and he is trying to cut off and cauterise all of the broken, abandoned bonds of love his family has left him with. And even here, he still wants Snoke’s acceptance, Snoke’s validation and esteem. He is still pouring himself out for an other, giving everything to please someone else, the last person left who tells him it’s possible he can achieve value.

He latched on to Rey instantly when he realised they were alike and did everything possible to lift her up and spare her what he went through. He only rejected Han and Rey’s offers to come with them because he thinks their love is conditional and that small, dirty, broken Ben Solo will never be able to meet the conditions. He thinks he is a tool or an obligation to them and it’s easy to understand why he thinks that. Han couldn’t wipe away a lifetime of baggage in a few words. Rey pretends it’s about the cause, she doesn’t tell him she loves him.

He thinks he must ‘become who he was meant to be’ and that his destiny is to become a new Vader. Everyone told him that. Whether with their fear or directly with words. When he finds out the truth about his grandfather, it’s a complete confirmation of what Snoke has told him and how his parents have treated him. Luke deciding he can’t be allowed to live because it’s that inevitable is the nail in the coffin in Ben believing there’s any place for him with his family. There is nowhere for him to exist as himself, he has to be someone else, someone less weak. And in running away from himself, his legacy, and his identity he puts himself under Snoke’s thumb and Snoke can finish inculcating his worldview.

Being able to love is freedom to Ben. He is an immensely loving person who feels like he is not worthy or allowed to love people, that his love has done nothing but make things worse for everyone. The tension and repression of trying not to need or care about people is what makes him so emotionally unstable. Kylo Ren is a mask and a shield and a prison built by Ben’s hurt and anxiety but equally built by Snoke out of his boyhood fancies to control him and shape him into an instrument of pain. Ben could never have conviction in it because it is so alien to his nature. He is so fundamentally unselfish that he never coveted like Anakin eventually did, his love never became possessive or jealous, he never sold his soul for a boon, the only way he could be selfish enough to murder is out of animal fear and pain. Wanting the hurting to stop. Rationalising it post-facto with the philosophy that the ends justify the means.

He pours himself out for Snoke because there is no one else left. All he wants is the safety and acceptance that he has literally never had anywhere. Anakin received unconditional love from his mother, Obi-wan, and Padmé and was warped from giving compassion into selfishness by his fear of loss and need for control. Covetousness became his tragic flaw and thus his fall culminates in trying to kill Padmé rather than lose her. Control became so important that others ceased to matter and love became possession. Anakin (despite also being a victim of manipulation and Jedi hubris) got to make real choices, he had real options, and thus he was a villain with conviction. Ben’s attempts to take control of his life are unfocussed and mostly involve abnegation, he pushes people away instead of trying to clutch them close; his response to loss is to isolate himself not seize power to recover the lost thing by force. Ben never received unconditional love until Han’s sacrifice on the bridge and the experience immediately shatters him from his already tenuous position in the dark. The only thing keeping him from coming home after that is sunk cost and the idea that he can never be forgiven. That it was too late.

He just needed someone to show him it wasn’t.

#ben solo #this is repetitive brain vomit my apologies #I can't words any more everything is too terrible #he is a good boy though okay #the fact that he's a broken person rather than someone more inclined to dark paths doesn't lessen his redemption #he still did Very Bad Things and being convinced it was necessary or inevitable doesn't make it okay when a part of you knows it's not true #healing is the thing everyone has trouble beleiving in #and it's just as difficult to heal from misguidedness you were traumatised into as willful shittiness #maybe more so #because it feels less like a bad decision and more like you're just fucked up and can't help being fucked up #he'd still be just as redeemable if he were far more evil #but he is baby and I LOVE that about him #because there's nothing I love more than characters who are not what they appear to be #anyway reason 487389750783 he needed to live #it's not that he 'deserves' it more it's that you have to show you can recover #that you're not worthless if you can't be the perfect victim and pull yourself up by your bootstraps