Gabs

matter cannot be created or destroyed in an isolated system.

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you know me, you know how I work

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I have the same fear as you I have the same goals as you

We're practically the same person

I kinda just wanted to look cool

back then, he held onto this vague idea of heroism in order to feel like she had a place in the narrative, to feel like she belonged. a naive, but sincere belief that she was ultimately doing The Right Thing by fighting against "The Villains" (brotherhood), which allowed that purpose to persevere even when the people they originally meant to protect (team friendship) weren't really There anymore. in joining brotherhood later on, silva functionally gave up on that purpose (aside: it’s funny, that the moment he Gave Up on the idea that playing hero would get her anywhere, silva losing the DG mugm duel, took place on the island that team friendship was meant to move to. something about childish dreams that never came to fruition). but the transition to brotherhood went fine despite the loss of that purpose and direction because bhood had a rigid structure in of itself—that being how the team applies roles to its members alongside their pre-established ultimate finale end goal—to give that same sense of security.

it’s kind of funny that what usually would mark a now-forever-jaded type of character development for most other people, silva joins bhood and. gets More empathetic towards others than she was before. the real thing silva loses when she joins bhood is the ability to mark certain people off as Evil Supervillains That Must Be Killed because with their experience with bhood, that means they've been on and seen every side of the argument. so, when even the brotherhood's structure collapsed, silva was thrown into a situation where he deeply understood everyone else’s—nezo feeling used and taken for granted, mugm feeling unappreciated for the work he’s put in, puqi desperately wanting to hold a team together that’s actively slipping through her hands—it's no wonder silva just kind of. Shut Down. nothing was holding him together anymore, and growing past the childish hero/villain mindset he had before now only meant that all he could see now was clouds of grey.

but right before the formation of iris, silva chose to pick the role of protector back up in order to give herself a purpose, no longer wanting to wander aimlessly. but the thing is that this inherently necessitates a mindset separating the "to be protected" from the "to be protected against", something that's directly contradictory to the immense empathy that silva displays, because of what silva understands to be true—that everybody is just another person with their own struggles. and you can't exactly unlearn any of that (which is why we get the moments of impulsive kindness that silva consciously rationalizes herself Out of because they arent Supposed to be doing that, especially not on the bliss smp of all places), so instead, silva becomes willfully ignorant. the idea of morality is no longer relevant to this version of their protector complex. the only thing that matters, above all else, is that quakitus is safe. and so silva represses, brushes off, shuts down her own critical thoughts of whatever quakitus is Actually Doing on the server. because getting caught up in all of that distracts from The Direction. fulfilling Their Purpose.

“not being there for me, just being there with me that makes me happy”

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ILOVE MGAU<3

dol9 and silva desings by @ torchdaisies

The way people see/treat stormz is actually a really good representation of how people with BPD are treated irl. 

BPD(borderline personality disorder) is mainly characterized by factors such as Emotional Volatility, dissociative symptoms, risk of self-harm, severe abandonment fears, etc. These traits, when seen and experienced from a third person perspective, seem very abrupt and hurtful. It is also incredibly villainized due to these traits. You’ll often find people label them as ‘insane’ or ‘crazy’ with no regard to their experiences or point of views. 

The way Stormz acts has been stigmatized to so many levels, leading to just slapping a label on him and calling it a day. (Note; most of these labels are usually just insults.) BPD defines very deep self-hatred and struggle with a sense of identity along with emotional pain that oscillates very frequently. This is also what alludes to conflict in interpersonal relationships for those who have BPD, making it the main target. The ‘manipulation’ that is noted, is mostly a way to cope with the abandonment and rejection issues.

Stormz’s obvious struggle with sense of identity, struggle with sense of purpose, is what has made him lash out multiple times when attempting to be put in a mold of what he ‘should’ be by others, which was usually to make sense of Stormz by just constricting him. These issues are further cemented by the ‘weapon’ and ‘human’ talk. 

Interpersonal relationships are very targeted because of very quick attachments paired with severe fear of abandonment lead to very volatile actions and desperate attempts to be in control, which may lead to obsessive distancing to oscillating views on the people close. This can lead to ending relationships and hurting those people. 

Another trait is devaluing things down to be black and white, evil and good. This may not seem prevalent to Stormz, but a very good example is his early on impression of mugm being ‘the villain’ and a blind attempt to take him down, only later seeing Mugms POV and discarding that view. Stormz also exhibits traits of a very unstable perspective on his relationships with/perspective on others that depend on obscure criteria. POVs fluctuating between putting someone on a pedestal to accusing them wrongly. 

Stormz may seem like an advocate for change, but he’s not. His actions of seemingly leaving others and distancing himself are just a desperate attempt at protecting himself from the abandonment issues he has. Because surely he wont be rejected/abandoned if he’s doing the abandoning and rejection, right? In his, he may have put up the act of ‘moving on’ from his relationships/teams, but he hasn’t. (Tb, Te)

This is not to defend Stormz or be an apologist. Stormz is still responsible for the actions he has taken. Stormz has internal confusion over shame and guilt, his shame takes form in superficial ‘accountability’ saying that he ‘knows he does it to himself’ and that ‘he dug this grave.’ but this does nothing as stormz exhibits the same traits and destructive methods over and over again. He has a ‘I am a bad person and I have accepted it.’ mindset of sorts. While if he was genuinely guilty and had genuine acknowledgement, he would attempt to get better. This is not to say Stormz doesn’t have guilt, he does, at a very severe level but it’s also mixed in with shame.

(^this is also a characteristic of BPD in infantile behavior and a way to shrug of any blame of their own actions.)

All of these traits experienced by a third party or a third person POV can seem very confusing and desperate attempts to understand it can make it very. Very. frustrating. When Stormz’s words dont match his actions, when his actions dont match his words. Many times when someone talks about Stormz, it is straight up wrong or very… stigmatizing.

We, yes, we kinda live in Stormzs head so of course we can make sense of his actions and mental state that dictate them but others, cannot. And it makes for a very interesting perspective that people who have stuck with him still manage an extremely superficial image of him because of these long running debilitating traits of his. It seems like he’s given the space to be vulnerable and then immediately given labels that only encourage the villainization in the long run, just like real life cases of BPD.

His coping mechanism in the form of self-harm is not traditional, but takes place in throwing himself in dangerous and stressful situations and dying over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. Most of these situations being fights or conflicts. He repurposes this as an ‘easy acceptance of failure and ability to get back up again’ but when it really counts, he falls apart. (Heretic)

BPD, at its core, is fear and instability(in various factors ofc). Attempts to protect yourself from this fear can come in varying methods, but when protection is achieved via achieving power, Stormz is going to strive for that. 

Also, Anarchy servers and the treatment of PVP-ers cater an environment that only encourages Stormz’s degrading health and actively take away any chance of self-recovery or even betterment(WHOSAIDTHATT) Stormz isn’t going to learn because he actively avoids it and because he Cant. 

I guess what I’m getting at is that i feel a mild irritation spike up whenever people call stormz ‘switchup’ or things of that nature. But it’s also very interesting to me. yeah ok im done im never doing an analysis again