2022-05-05 4:22:17 ¶ ● ⬈

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I think in all those cases of destructive mind control it's a kind of call-of-the-void thing. When you stand near the edge of a high place, you don't really want to leap off so much as you become briefly obsessed with the fear that you secretly want to jump. Sollux doesn't so much want to kill Aradia as he wants to let go of the effort of control and, in so doing, destroy the happiness that makes him uncomfortable because of it's unfamiliarity. Same as with Tavros (more direct example) and Jane ("What if I stopped resisting and just did what she wants?") The effort to resist self-destruction can be tiring and there's a perverse relief in letting go that you don't regret until the consequences hit. The pleasure is in the (vain) hope that those consequences might not arrive. But everyone knows that ground eventually hits, so the call of the void is ignored by stepping away. I think the mind control you're describing is a mental nudge to prevent the stepping back.

lime-bloods:

> interesting insight, thank you for the input :) I was thinking Meenah’s double use of scorpio powers and taurus powers on Jade kind of made it seem like she was putting part of Jade to sleep so she could manipulate the other part, which is congruent with the idea that a scorpio inhibits moreso than outright controls

@sonntam (from here)

> Sollux self-destructive self-fulfilling prophecies are real. his first convo with karkat was “destroying” their friendship and then rewinding to make sure they are still friends.

good point! Vriska “can only control him about half the time”; probably not because he’s literally only psychically vulnerable half of the time, but because that destructive urge is only there in one half of his mood swings!