marve

"(...) To say that a violent offender has suffered from trauma does not provide them with a legal excuse or absolve them of their moral responsibility. Instead, it simply states that many of those who commit violent acts, especially homicides, will have experienced actual and permanent psychological harm as a result."

"(....) McGlothlin then uses Freudian concepts such as repression, latency, and compulsion to repeat to explore how the trauma of becoming a perpetrator can develop and persist over time (...) the psychological strategies perpetrators employ to manage the cognitive dissonance between their actions and their self-image. These strategies are not presented as excuses. They are presented as recognizable human responses to an unbearable internal conflict."

"(...) Congo and his co-conspirators fluctuate from boastfulness to suppressed anguish; cheerful reenactment to sudden visible distress (...) Congo views footage of himself reenacting a victim, finally facing something he spent decades trying to avoid. Though the trauma might be cathartic, it does not create comfort; it is a crack in the defense mechanism that has sustained for forty years. Viewing this moment is indeed difficult."

It's probably something subtle, something you wouldn't know to pay attention to unless you were specifically looking for it. A particular piece of jewelry or another accessory. A small tattoo, or even a scar. Maybe just a particular combination of colors the person is wearing.

And the person so marked? Maybe they have no idea, it's just a gift after all, or they got a bit carried away in the heat of the moment, it happens. They just go about their days and nights, not knowing they've been claimed. Or maybe they do know and wear it like a badge of honor, because they're something special to someone.

LIKE THE OCEAN??? OR DEVOTION????