#rosycrk

A VERY important thing that I see glossed over a whole lot is the fact that SM's feelings for PV aren't caring or compassionate. Like. Yeah, he does have feelings for him, and they're clearly INTENSE, but that doesn't mean that he actually has any amount of compassion towards him.

Now, lemme establish something up front before I get into this next part: low empathy does NOT make someone a bad person. Full stop, end of sentence. Empathy has nothing to do with being a good person. I know folks with almost zero ability to feel empathy and they're some of my best friends in this world who I would trust with my life. All that "empathy" really means is that you can relate to and feel the emotions of others. You are empathetic towards them. A lack of empathy doesn't mean you don't CARE about how others feel, or that you're incapable of caring for others, it just means you can't put yourself in their shoes or relate to their feelings.

All of that said: it's very clear that SM has little to no empathy for other Cookies. He doesn't connect with other Cookies, he struggles to grasp PV's emotions even though he can literally FEEL them directly. The issue with SM's limited empathy is that he also has forgotten how to be kind and compassionate towards others. In his isolation, he's grown bitter and detached, and he can't see past his own misery to find it in himself to truly care about how he affects the people around him.

Hence how his feelings for PV are selfish: he desperately wants to be near PV, he wants his attention and devotion, he wants to keep him by his side forever, but he doesn't have the kindness or compassion in himself to properly CARE about him despite that. And, without empathy, he struggles to even understand the way PV feels, whether it's towards him as a person or just in general. So, in the context of them as a pairing, SM wants to be beside PV, he wants to be loved by him, but he doesn't know how to love him in a healthy, kind way. It's why he tries to force PV into an unhealthy and one-sided relationship: that way, he's in control of their dynamic, and he isn't expected to give PV anything he doesn't know how to give, like vulnerability and understanding.

None of this means that their relationship is terrible and should never happen. It just means that SM has growth he needs to do and emotional healing to go through before they can connect in a healthy, mutually beneficial way. He has to learn to be compassionate, to allow himself to be vulnerable, in order for that to happen, and while it would be an uphill battle, it CAN happen.