#candy smiles

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ugh gross

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ew go away

god now he’s invading other peoples’ universes

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Oh man I've missed seeing Candy around on your blog! To me he's among the best characters you've created. Could be just because I really, really enjoy the trope of villains he represents but he's just incredibly interesting to me from a psychological perspective. If you'd ever plan to go into detail on it at any point, I'd love to see some more of his background and how he was as a foal and how any experiences he had during that time shaped him.

Erhwell most of those experiences are inappropriate for showing because a lot of it involved him experimenting in ways he really shouldn’t have as a foal, because he was exposed to the concept of sex fairly early on since his family are dog breeders and it was just something that was easy to stumble on. I do have a few posts of him as a foal in his tag, where he’s dropping puppies off of a balcony and another where he assumes if he ‘mingles’ with a dog it will result in pink puppies, which of course doesn’t happen and it makes him upset. He just managed to get away with a whole bunch of awful shit as a kid and even learned how to easily talk his way out of anything. Also in his tag I explain a bit more of why he targets foals and dogs the way he does.

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So you don't think that some people are naturally selfish and/or just have little to no ability to empathize with or show an interest in the feelings of others?

Everyone is “naturally selfish”.

Empathy has to be developed, and it’s super easy to miss a vital developmental stage in an unhealthy environment.

Unhealthy doesn’t just mean abusive homes, it can also be emotional neglect, spoiled neglect, pressure of high standards, abusive relationships and friendships, high stress situations, traumatic experiences, etc. 

A person is not defined by their flaws. They are defined by their strengths, flaws, interests, and their own individuality. When you water someone down to their flaw, you remove the rest of them. 

There is a REASON that person does not have the ability to empathise. There is a REASON they are selfish. There is a REASON they are hurting people.

But no one bothers to ask.

They just say ‘you’re a selfish jerk’.

they don’t ask ‘why do you feel you need this so badly?’ ‘why don’t you like people?’

When I brought Flannel in, I wanted to prove a point to all of you. I gave you his major flaw first before anything else, and he was immediately labelled as a ‘cheating bastard’ and an ‘asshole’. No one asked him about who he was. They all immediately began attacking him over Petal, and focusing on their relationship and on Petal’s feelings. 

When people finally began asking about his strengths, interests, and the things he enjoyed, and they stopped asking about his flaws, he finally started to open up. And then people learned there was more to him, and he had reasons for his actions, and that he does love Petal and is suffering from an addiction and depression thanks to his need for validation instilled by his narcissistic mother.

Meanwhile, Candy Smiles is a psychopath who was raised in an environment where he was coddled to a point where his real actions and feelings were being ignored. He lashes out at kids because he hates feeling like a child and is always treated like one. He lashes out at dogs because he feels like dogs are more important to his family than he is. And he can’t bond and connect in healthy ways with adults because he was treated like a kid so much and disrespected as his own individual with flaws. (his mother and father both deny he has flaws, he’s their perfect, precious little boy)

So never just assume it’s that simple. The person might be simple, but the reason might not be.

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winning smiles are hard when you don’t feel like a winner

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Am I a horrible person yet

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ew go away

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Candy E9

e9 c1 combo