#if someone can't cope with that that really isn't my problem.

[lith-myathar]

.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Keeping a suspense file gives you superpowers

I'll be in TUCSON, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

Two decades ago, I was part of a group of nerds who got really interested in how each other managed to do what we did. The effort was kicked off by Danny O'Brien, who called it "Lifehacking" and I played a small role in getting that term popularized:

https://craphound.com/lifehacksetcon04.txt

While we were all devoted to sharing tips and tricks from our own lives, many of us converged on an outside expert, David Allen, and his bestselling book "Getting Things Done" (GTD, to those in the know):

https://gettingthingsdone.com/

GTD is a collection of relatively simple tactics for coping with, prioritizing, and organizing the things you want to do. Many of the methods relate to organizing your own projects, using a handful of context-based to-do lists (e.g. a list of things to do at the office, at home, while waiting in line, etc). These lists consist of simple tasks. Those tasks are, in turn, derived from another list, of "projects" – things that require more than one task, which can be anything from planning dinner to writing a novel to helping your kid apply to university.

The point of all this list-making isn't to do everything on the lists. While these lists do help you remember what to do next, what they're really good for is deciding what not to do – at all. The promise of GTD is that it will help you consciously choose not to do some of the things you set out to accomplish. This is in contrast to how most of us operate: we have a bunch of things we want to do, and we end up doing the things that are easiest, or at top of mind, even if they're not the most important things.

GTD recognizes that you can be very "productive" (in the sense of getting many things done) and still not do the things that you really wanted to do. You know what this is like: you finish a Sunday with an organized sock-drawer, all your pennies neatly rolled, the trash-can in your car emptied…and no work at all on that novel you're hoping to write.

You can't do everything, but you can control what you don't do, rather than just defaulting into completing a string of trivial, meaningless tasks and leaving the big stuff on the sidelines. Organizing your own tasks and projects is a hugely powerful habit, and one that's made a world of difference to my personal and professional life.

But while good to-do lists can take you very far in life, they have a hard limit: other people. Almost every ambitious thing you want to do involves someone else's contribution. Even the most solitary of projects can be derailed if your tax accountant misses a key email and you end up getting audited or paying a huge penalty.

That's where the other kind of GTD list comes in: the list of things you're waiting for from other people. I used to be assiduous in maintaining this list, but then the pandemic struck and no one was meeting any of their commitments, and I just gave up on it, and never went back…until about a month ago. Returning to these lists (they're sometimes called "suspense files") made me realize how many of the problems – some hugely consequential – in my life could have been avoided if I'd just gone back to this habit earlier.

My suspense file is literally just some lines partway down a text file that lives on my desktop called todo.txt that has all my to-dos as well. Here's some sample entries from my suspense file:

WAITING EMAIL Sean about ENSHITTIIFCATION manuscript deadline 10/24/24 WAITING EMAIL Russ about missing royalty statement 10/12/24 WAITING EMAIL Alice about Christmas vacation hotel 10/8/24 10/20/24 WAITING EMAIL Ted about Sacramento event 8/12/24 9/5/24 10/5/24 10/20/24

WAITING CALL LA County about mosquito abatement 10/25/24 WAITING CALL School attendance officer about London trip 10/18/24

WAITING MONEY EFF reimbusement for taxi to staff retreat $34.98 10/7/24

WAITING SHIPMENT New Neal Stephenson novel from Bookshop.org 10/23/24

This is as simple as things could possibly be! I literally just type "WAITING," then a space, then the category of thing I'm waiting for, then a few specifics, then the date. When I follow up on an item, I add the date of the followup to the end of the line. If I get some details that I might need to reference later (say, a tracking code for a shipment, or a date for an event I'm trying to organize), I'll add that, too, as it comes up. Creating a new entry on this list takes 10-25 seconds. When someone gets back to me, I just delete that line.

That is literally it.

Every day, or sometimes a couple of times a day, I will just run my eyes up and down this list and see if there's anything that's unreasonably overdue, and then I'll send a reminder or make a followup call. In the example above, you can see that I've been chasing Ted about Sacramento for months now (this is a fake entry – no plans to go to Sacto at the moment, sorry):

WAITING EMAIL Ted about Sacramento event 8/12/24 9/5/24 10/5/24 10/20/24

So now I've emailed Ted four times. Maybe my email's going to his spam, and so I could try emailing a friend of Ted and ask them to check whether he's getting my messages. But maybe Ted's trying to send me a message here – he's just not interested in doing the event after all. Or maybe Ted is available, but he's so snowed under that he's in danger of fumbling it, and I need to bring in some help if I want it to happen.

All of these are possibilities, and the fact that I'm tracking this means that I now get to make an active decision: cancel the gig or double down on making sure it happens. Without this list, the gig would just die by default, forgotten by both of us. Maybe that's OK, but I can't tell you how many times I've run into someone who said, "Dammit, I just remembered I was supposed to email you about getting that thing done and I dropped the ball. Shit! I really was looking forward to that. Is it too late now?" Often it is too late. Even if it's not, the work of picking up the pieces and starting over is much more than just following through on the original plan.

Restarting my suspense file made me realize how many of the (often expensive or painful) fumbles I've had since the pandemic were the result of me not noticing that someone else hadn't gotten back to me. In essence, a suspense file is a way for me to manage other people's to-do lists.

Let me unpack that. By "managing other people's to-do lists," I don't mean that I'm deciding for other people what they will and won't do (that would be both weird and gross). I mean that I'm making sure that if someone else fails to do something we were planning together, it's because they decided not to do it, not because they forgot. As GTD teaches us, the real point of a to-do list isn't just helping us remember what to do – it's helping us choose what we're not going to do.

This is not an imposition, it's a kindness. The point of a suspense file isn't to nag others into living up to their commitments, it's to form a network of support among collaborators where we all help one another make those conscious choices about what we're not going to do, rather than having the stuff we really value slip away because we forgot about it.

I have frequent collaborators whom I know to be incapable of juggling too many things at once, and my suspense file has helped me hone my sense of when it would be appropriate to ask them if they want to do something together and when to leave them be. The suspense file helps me dial in how much I rely on each person in my life (relying on someone isn't the same as valuing them – and indeed, one way to value someone is to only rely on them for things they're able to do, rather than putting them in a position of feeling bad for failing you).

Lifehacking gets a bad rap, and justifiably so. Many of the tips that traffick as "lifehacks" are trivial or stupid or both. What's more, too much lifehacking can paint you into a corner where you've hacked any flexibility out of your life:

https://locusmag.com/2017/11/cory-doctorow-how-to-do-everything-lifehacking-considered-harmful/

But ever since Danny coined the term "lifehack," back in 2004, I've been cultivating daily habits that have let me live the life I wanted to live, accomplishing the things I wanted to accomplish. I figured out how to turn daily writing into a habit and now I've written more than 30 books:

https://www.locusmag.com/Features/2009/01/cory-doctorow-writing-in-age-of.html

A daily habit of opening a huge, ever-tweaked collection of tabs has made me smarter about the news, helped me keep tabs on my friends, helped me find fraudsters who were trying to steal my identity, and ensured that all those Kickstarter rewards and other long-delayed, erratic shipments didn't slip through the cracks:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/25/today-in-tabs/#unfucked-rota

Daily habits are superpowers. Once something is a habit, you get it for free. GTD turns on decomposing big, daunting projects into bite-sized, trackable tasks. I have a bunch of spaces around the house – my office, my closet, the junk sheds down the side of the house, our tiki bar – that I used to clean out once or twice a year. Each one was all-day, sweaty, dirty job, and for most of the year, all of those spaces were a dusty, disorganized mess.

A month ago, I added a new daily task: spend five minutes cleaning one space. I did the bar first, and after two weeks, I'd taken down every tchotchke and bottle and polished it, reorganizing the undercounter spaces where things pile up:

https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=37996580417%40N01&sort=date-taken-desc&text=tiki+bar&view_all=1

Now I'm working through my office. Ever day, I'm dusting a bookshelf and combing through it for discards to stick in our Little Free Library. Takes less than five minutes most day, and I'll be done in about three weeks, when I'll move on to my closet, then the side of the house, and then back to the bar. A daily short break where I get away from my computer and make my living and working environments nicer is a wonderful habit to cultivate.

I'm 53 years old now. I was 33 when I started following Getting Things Done. In that time, I've gotten a lot done, but what's even more relevant is that I didn't get a ton of things done – things that I consciously chose not to abandon. Figuring out what you want to do, and then keeping it on track – in manageable, healthy, daily rhythms that bring along the other people you rely on – may not be the whole secret to a fulfilled life, but it's certainly a part of it.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/26/one-weird-trick/#todo.txt

[bunkerjking]

The emotional breakdown later in the chapter will get most of the attention, but for my money, this is the most revealing moment in this week's chapter. A teenager so disconnected from his real emotions that he desperately rationalizes his hypersexuality not as a coping mechanism, but as 'this is what guys are like.'

It's easy to make fun of men for burying their emotions and then asking, 'why doesn't anyone know who I really am' - hell, Denji literally does that during the Bomb Girl arc - but Denji is a pretty direct criticism of both the way boys can get forced into unhealthy gender roles, and the way men self-regulate themselves and others into them.

The other boys Denji is with don't have the problem of being horny at inappropriate times. They have WAY bigger problems.

But Denji can't think properly when someone dangles the idea of sex in front of him. It's like a switch flips and he becomes a completely different person.

He shuts down and reverts to trying to embody masculine stereotypes he's been ingrained with, both through the social conditioning of growing up male in the 90s and the psychological conditioning Makima put him through to strengthen 'Chainsaw Man' - itself a hyper-masculine ideal that a human being physically cannot measure up to - and emotionally cripple Denji.

Denji is at his happiest when he's at rest with the people he loves. Power and Aki were not always easy to be around, but they loved him back and they wanted him to be happy. Nayuta is a child who doesn't understand her place in the world - how could she - but she earnestly wants to help her big brother as best as she can.

He isn't some cock-swinging alpha badass constantly on the prowl to crush puss, but for a lot of people - especially a teenager who was groomed to be an expendable child soldier - this unhealthy masculine 'ideal' isn't just something to live up to, it's the expected norm for men to be.

Being Chainsaw Man doesn't make Denji mentally stronger. As shown in the Falling Devil fight, he literally chops up his brain with his chainsaws to avoid confronting his trauma. Whenever he has to think about what he's lost and what's still left to lose, he runs toward something he isn't and away from a 'normal,' healthy response to the issues at hand.

"You stupid boy."

You'll notice that Katana Man, a perfect embodiment of an overly masculine dickhead, a misogynistic moron who refuses to grow in character or even basic combat skills, is totally on board for throwing Denji in a brothel and letting what happens happens. Katana Man perfectly represents the bad ending where 'traditional masculinity' wins the war for Denji's soul.

Denji needs help. Not some quick gratification. Not a meal and a nut and a nap. He needs genuine help, and a better male role model than the ones he's got. Even Kishibe, the only adult in his life other than Aki who actually did more good than harm, is an alcoholic recluse.

God help the boy.

[ink-asunder]

The absolute separation and dissonance american people have from the concept of illness is insane to me. American culture (I know it's not the only one) is so hung up on preserving youth, health, ability status, privilege, etc to the degree that they moralize uncontrollable (and sometimes harmless) biological occurrences to the point of actual delusion.

You can't have wrinkles, you can't have grey hair, you need to look 24, you need to fit in the prom dress you bought when you were 16. And the way this extends into healthism and ableism is detrimental to the collective conscious, I think. People act like you're a "bad person" if you get covid. They act like if you get sick, it's because you did something wrong. They say you should get into health and fitness not to make yourself happy or to have something to do, but to "prepare our bodies to age gracefully."

As someone who was chronically ill and disabled since childhood, I've always had a bit of a disconnect with this culture?? Like, having to LIVE with a facial difference for 15 years before "cosmetic reparation" was an option for me taught me that the way you look and how healthy you are really has nothing to do with you at all. But the main reason people aren't "unlearning" these issues is that americans refuse to accept that they coexist with disease at all.

Cancer treatment only happens in movies or to people you don't talk to anymore. Covid isn't real. Covid is over. Everyone with lung cancer got it because they smoked and they knew the risks. If you're on a chemo drug, you must have cancer. If you have cancer or a spinal condition, you MUST be dying. If you're in a wheelchair, you can walk if you really wanted to. Don't be visibly sick or disabled around me; it makes me uncomfortable. Don't talk about your health; it reminds me of my own mortality. Deny, dissociate, don't think about it.

When the reality is that new illnesses and outbreaks happen all the time. "Chemo" drug units and dialysis centers actually encompass a range of drugs and disease treatments. Some people have to get a year's supply of iron infused into their blood once a year. Does that scare you? If you've had cancer, you have cancer forever. You're in REMISSION because the root cause of the problem is still in your body. You're cancer free now, but maintenance diagnostics will be a permanent part of your life.

But we can't talk about that. Because the concept of BEING ill is so deeply dysphoric for the generally healthy, abled public. Getting sick is TRAUMATIZING to the point where if you can fully recover, you tend to not dig deep into your feelings about the situation ever again. And you're doing it to yourself, but it's also kind of being done to you by everyone. Honestly, just normalizing illness and coping with our close proximity to it would do wonders for society.

[gravegroves]

Something I haven't seen in a lot of fics, but I wish I saw more of for Billy, is the scorched-earth reaction to being betrayed or feeling attacked.

Abuse survivors tend to go one of two ways when it comes to upsets in relationships:

One is overly forgiving, putting their own needs last, worried that they'll lose the other person if they push back or stand up for themself. They'll sacrifice their own comfort to avoid confrontation.

But the other one? (The one I'm 100% sure that Billy is) Is scorched earth, motherfucker. You betray his trust? He'll never forgive you. You apologize? It means nothing, because if you were really sorry you wouldn't have done it in the first place. You work on yourself and promise to never do it again? Good for you, now go do that for someone else, because you're never getting close to Billy again if he has anything to say about it.

How do I know Billy for sure is like this? Because I was like that for a long time and I needed to unlearn a lot of the unhealthy coping mechanisms that I used to deal with my anger and the way I reacted to people who let me down or triggered a response in me post-abusive situation.

I would essentially erase them from my life. You told someone else a piece of information I had revealed to you in confindence? Welcome to me never speaking another word to you ever again and pretending you don't exist in situations where I can't avoid you. You raise your voice at me? Welcome to me kicking you out of my house and never letting you within 10 feet of me ever again, even to apologise.

Because once you're out of that bad situation you can become hypervigilant about how people treat you and you promise yourself that you'll never be treated that way again. Problem is you don't have a good gauge on what is and what isn't an attack on you, so you often just go ham on people who are genuinely making mistakes. I lost out on a job opportunity once because the person who I was doing volunteer work for wrote me an email that was pretty rude in which he tried to rush me. My reaction? To immediately tell him to go fuck himself before walking out of the office and never returning.

I had to learn what things were healthy to react to and to what extent, because in the beginning, anything that caused a spike of adrenalin was taken as an attack and so I defended myself in any way I could, be that verbally, with evasive manoeuvres or even physically, once.

Just, yeah. Billy who is so hypervigilant about how he's being treated that he's fucking up his life and relationships because of it and maybe Steve who fucked up and is the only person stubborn enough to claw his way back into Billy's life and maybe Billy, for the first time, lets someone try to prove him wrong.

[marshemillow]

You know what? I'm talking about "phone addiction" again because I'm not done.

Do you know what an addiction is? Addiction isn't "you do it just out of habit because you don't think about it" addiction is "if you stop you will literally be in agony and that's why you keep turning to the thing."

We have this baked-in idea that addiction is a moral failing, that if you have a phone addiction, it really just means you need to get off your phone. Yeah, addicted to alcohol? Just stop! Don't drink it anymore! Withdrawl? What's that? If you drink alcohol, it obviously means you just don't have enough willpower! If you can't stop drinking alcohol, it means you're a bad person. You basically deserve to have liver failure at that point!

Yes some people actually believe this! They don't know that paramedics carry alcohol with them specifically because it saves the lives of people going through alcohol withdrawl, they don't care! It's something they cheer themselves up with because they aren't addicted to alcohol, and that means they're a good person.

I am so sick and fucking tired of people pathologizing and moralizing non-moral issues. Addiction, or Substance Abuse Disorder, is an actual physical health condition. It's a disease. You can't stop it with enough willpower, it's something that needs actual medical treatment. Just looking at coping mechanisms or even just things that make you feel good because they release dopamine in your brain and calling that an "addiction" does so much damage to people's understanding of real addiction and makes addicts look like evil weak cowards instead of people with a disease that needs treatment. That's fucking evil. Imagine telling someone with cancer that they just didn't have enough willpower to stop it. Disgusting.

And it's extra ironic coming from these people who think they're addicted to their phone saying "you just need to stop" and then not stopping, meanwhile I have often just forgotten I don't have my phone with me and then get confused when I don't have it. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Why is the person who "knows" it's an "addiction" (in the moral failing way) still not have enough willpower to stop whereas I have to consciously remind myself to go find my phone because I just forget it exists when I don't believe in phone addiction? Literally half the time I take my phone out of my pocket, it's just to check the time.

It's almost like "phone addiction" is just another way to make people feel guilty for doing things they like doing. It doesn't make them stop, they just feel worse about it. They don't think about it as a coping strategy that fades as their life circumstances get better.

And every single time, when you find these people who feel bad for doing things that make them happy, they grew up christian. Every fucking time. "Struggle with addiction" and it's just guilt applied to something normal.

STOP MAKING YOUR CATHOLIC GUILT EVERYONE ELSE'S PROBLEM!!! IF YOU CARED ABOUT "PHONE ADDICTION" YOU WOULD BE TAKING ACTUAL STEPS TO MINIMIZE HARM, NOT THROWING GUILT AT PEOPLE JUST FOR ITS OWN SAKE!!!

[neversetyoufree]

Since writing my last post about how Vanitas understands "salvation" as the preservation of one's self, even at the price of death, I've been thinking about how that plays into Vanitas's thoughts on resurrection. It's only two short lines, but I find the view he expresses in this scene absolutely fascinating.

Vanitas tells Misha that the dead "don't come back," and the fact that he phrases it that way stands out to me. He doesn't say that resurrection is impossible on a physical level; he implicitly concedes that maybe Misha could "bring back" something that looks and acts like Luna. He doesn't quibble about the practicalities of reanimating someone whose body turned to ashes or bring up whatever concept of the afterlife he may have.

Instead, Vanitas says that a resurrected Luna would simply be "something else that looked like her." A resurrected Luna would lack some fundamental part of whatever it was that made Luna who they were in their first life.

But what would they lack? I don't think he's implying that a resurrected Luna would lack their soul—not really. Setting aside the absence of souls as a conceptual presence in VnC, I think that would be too concrete and specific for what Vanitas is gesturing toward. Rather, he's conceiving of the Self in a somewhat ineffable way. On a metaphysical level, a version of Luna brought back from the dead simply Wouldn't Be Her, and he can't put it in more concrete terms than that.

So why does he think this way?

I think the concept of resurrection is awful enough to Vanitas that he has to reject it outright for his own stability. He cannot even slightly entertain the notion that resurrection might be possible, because that would destroy one of his main coping mechanisms.

Resurrection is nightmarish to a man that relies on death as an escape. Vanitas is suicidal, but beyond his self-hatred, his relationship to death is very particular. He's someone whose body and being has been corrupted and violated several times—through violence, through experiments, and through Luna's bite, and he's desperate to retain control of himself in the aftermath. He's desperate for control in regards to everything in his life, but especially his body and his death.

Vanitas is being slowly transformed into something inhuman, and he plans to die someday to escape that fate. The idea that after he's gone, someone could override that decision and force him back into living a life he doesn't want must be unacceptably horrific to him. He dismisses it out of hand because he has to.

Vanitas says a resurrected Luna would, on some level, not really be Luna. Whatever comes back might look like them, but it would lack some fundamental self that makes Luna "Luna." Thus, if Vanitas himself were ever "resurrected" after his death, it would be the same. Death remains an absolute escape for him, and even if someone contrives to bring back something that looks like him after he's gone, it won't be him. That life won't be his problem.

In addition to whatever beliefs Vanitas might have about death and afterlives the feasibility of resurrection, I think this is a key part of his relationship to the concept. He lives his life knowing that death waits for him as an escape valve. He needs that looming death as his salvation. Thus, faced with the concept of resurrection, his argument basically boils down to "nuh-uh." He shoots down the concept and declares that a resurrected person wouldn't be themselves in some nonspecific way, because the possibility of anything otherwise isn't something safe for him to consider.

[ditizygirl]

Editblr is a breeding ground for idolatry, ableism, racism and so much more all for a community about putting images together.

I've been here for only a year but I feel like I've seen it all, and the excuses oh my god the excuses. You are all 15-19, you should not have the mental capacity of a 8 year old. Your common sense is non existent and almost all of you guys are so fucking stupid it's pissing me off more than any god can understand. You are old enough to have logical thinking skills, you may have a disorder and it may be a reason but not an excuse.

Alot of you have forgotten the saying "Think Before You Talk" and I've sure as hell done alot of thinking. This is my deep dive into editblr.

Ableism

Typing quirks are a way of personal expression but why do so much of you hate to add plain text. I can understand to extent because plain text hates my head because of how long it can be but I'm not gonna act like a little bitch about it. I'm gonna add my typing quirk or even fonts itself to it.

I'm gonna ask someone to help me, or to do it for me. Stopping making excuses for ableism. Alongside with the typing quirks, your psds are ugly and eyestrainy. Psds also fall under racism because I have no idea why you guys are ignoring the fact some make dark skin characters lighter but in the case of ableism most of them are really bright and makes it hard to see.

Orange and brown? Green and yellow? Blue and brown? Why are you putting colours that can be so much eyesore together? And won't even tag as eyestrain and when someone does ask you only do it for one post.

Romanticization

This one is weird as fuck and I see no one mentioning it. Editblr highkey has a ddlg problem, this "little girl" aesthetic you guys have going on borderlines ddlg alot and its icky. The baby talk typing quirk is disgusting, stop it.

I'm not one to judge how someone copes with their trauma but what I DO judge is how you act when majority says its uncomfortable. Now this section I'm a bit unsure how to phrase it, gotta love dyslexia, but that isn't going to stop me.

There's alot of very uncomfortable romanticization of stalking which I've seen so much of alongside abusive relationships and the justification of these things.

Racism

Really can't escape this one unfortunately. Many of you are like kpop idols, you're too dyslexic towards the difference between appropriation and appreciation. Incase you forgot let me remind you.

You can not gift japanese names. Gifting names is a native practice therefore you can only gift native names. Also I've noticed you weirdos befriending people just to use their cultural names. I can't even say it east asian fetishization because its only Japanese.

Also for the love of God can you guys stop saying nonmem and non women especially when referring to sexualities. It's not hard to simply say "queer attraction to women" and "queer attraction to men".

Coming back to the "gifting" names thing, I think it's interesting how all of you conveniently have a Japanese friend who "gifted" you the name of a cute pink anime girl. Maybe I'll do a post later on how much of a bad liar you guys are.

Closed symbols is also another big problem you all have. No matter how much times you're told you can't use something you always cry "but my friend from xyz culture said it was ok!" One person can't speak for a whole culture. You're nothing but a coloinzer in disguise hiding behind the idea of aesthetic. If you want to know if a symbol is closed just use this site.

Goddess Personas

Yea this one is getting a whole section of its own. Like any people I am uncomfortable with goddess personas, especially being someone with biblical sources. Now the idea that a teenager on the internet is making people call them a goddess is strange isn't it?

In my opinion, they're all annoying, copy and paste, and I think not a lot of people talk about how the really bad ones get. You all love to indulge them, make them think they have power over them. You put them on a pedestal and praise them and get surprised when it all goes to their head?

Stop giving 14 years old power, stop indulging in their habits and letting it go their head. Forcing people to refer to you as their goddess? Their Lord and saviour? Their idol? Someone they must listen to? It creates a power inbalance which always leads to the weirdest of manipulation. Also all the engagekiss copiers are so obvious why would you want to copy the identity of a groomer? It says alot of about yourself if that's what you think is ideal.

Callout Posts

Now, personally, I believe that the only reason a callout post happens is because someone was affected, does it not? Very rarely would a callout post would be a fake one, especially if someone has more then one. If you defend someone who has more than one call out post that's on you and you're gonna end up making one some day I can genuine you that. People don't make them for no reason.

This is all I have to say for now. I hope you guys really consider what I have written here, or not, considering the fact you guys have shown multiple times you lack reading comprehension

@starriesse @dollicous @doveinne @firstgf @kiochisato @lamboll @cherryshh @narcbf @lavendergalactic @npditary @sprinkleoverdose @necroangelz @eskeys

[thelunastusco]

Oh my fucking GOD.

The ISSTD information about CDDs is NOT about system accountability. It is NOT about "well you have to make sure that a demon system member knows they're in a human body and anything they do will also hurt them too". The ISSTD isn't supporting the personhood of system members.

"This translates to--"

Stop.

Y'all are literally jumping through hoops to convince yourself and others that the ISSTD sees systems as different people sharing one body if-that-is-how-someone-identifies when that is flat out not the case. Will some providers be good about it? Sure! There are definitely providers who accept systems as different people if that's what they say they are, but that is ABSOLUTELY NOT what the ISSTD suggests.

The DID patient is a single person who experiences himself or herself as having separate alternate identities

It can be helpful to use the terms that patients use to refer to their identities unless the use of these terms ... would reinforce a belief that the alternate identities are separate people or persons rather than a single human being with subjectively divided self-aspects

the patient is not a collection of separate people sharing the same body

patient should be seen as a whole adult person

You can't "translate" these quotes away as being "actually they mean--" because no, no they don't mean anything else. They mean exactly what they say: that plural folks coming in are not separate people even if they say they are, but one person with fractured aspects of their singular psyche.

Yes, you can agree to call them "people" or "individuals" if that's what the patient (singular) calls them, but they are ONLY alternate identities of ONE SINGULAR person, not their own people, and if calling them "people" makes the patient see them as separate people different from the One True Singular Person you're talking to, you are NOT to call them "people". The idea that a system is actually different people in one body is a false belief.

You are not a collective. You are, in their eyes, One Person. Period.

Yes, parts of the ISSTD sound really close to what the plural community would call system accountability-- the idea that "clinicians must hold the patient accountable for the behavior of any or all of the constituent identities", for example. But that is not system accountability. That is "you are one whole adult person, not separate people, and so accountability must be maintained as if you were one whole adult person regardless of what you believe or circumstances".

Yes, parts of the ISSTD sound close to accepting system members as separate people-- specifically the passage of "countertherapeutic for the therapist to treat any alternate identity as if it were more “real” or more important than any other". But again, that isn't because they see individual system members as their own, separate, whole people sharing a body. It's because "all alternate identities represent adaptive attempts to cope or to master problems that the patient has faced". Meaning, they are pieces of the One True Singular Person that have formed to cope or deal with problems, but are still that One True Singular Person nonetheless. So, sure, they're all "real" because they're all actually that One Person.

And for some systems, that might be how it is! For some plural folks who aren't systems, that might be how it is! But under no circumstance should the plural community allow themselves to be fooled into thinking that the ISSTD actually allows for the plural community to ever see themselves, in any way, as separate people sharing one body. It doesn't, and too many providers do not and will not see their plural patients in that way. Even if they mirror your language and play along. They can and will stop doing so, if they think that your system ACTUALLY considers themselves separate, unique individuals instead of "self-aspects" of One Person.

You can "translate" the passages into anything you want, but that doesn't change what is actually meant. Glossing over the fact that it flat out denies personhood because some other lines sound almost like community rhetoric changes nothing. We can't believe systems are literally talking themselves (and others) into thinking that the ISSTD sees systems as fully realized individuals when it says in plain language it doesn't.

We knew reading comprehension was dead, but c'mon.

What horrifies us is the potential that younger or less savvy systems will see that shit, accept it, and then walk into a therapist's office thinking "oh the ISSTD says to accept us as different people if that's what we say we are so it'll be okay". When that sort of thing USED to get plural folks put into mental hospitals against their will. When that sort of thing STILL winds up with systems being discriminated against, and in some cases denied treatment like trans health care.

Most singlets in the psych field DO NOT see you, a system, as different people sharing the same body-- even if they use your language. You HAVE to be careful and screen potential therapists. You HAVE to interview people to make sure that they will respect your system, and treat you/you all as you want to be treated. The ISSTD is NOT your friend, and providers who follow it will by and large NOT be the people you want to see, unless you're the sort of plural/plural system who sees themselves as "subjectively divided self-aspects" of One Singular Person.

The plural community has been fighting this bigotry for DECADES.

It has NOT stopped.

[ourhomealien]

Don't gatekeep feelings, please.

TLDR

I'm autistic and so I have a unique vocabulary, so bare with me please.

Hermitcraft to me is a community for all ages, that's what I expect of it. In the same way a child deserves and expects to be able to trust and learn from their parents without abuse or them being literal criminals. People are as bad as they want to be, and you can 100% grieve your expectations of them. Disappointment can hurt anyone. In the same way you invest your feelings into pets knowing they will die, and then grieving when they're gone, you can invest feelings and expectations into people you know about and that isn't childish or naive, it's human. Hermitcraft is in no way culpable for an individual's actions. The amount of distress caused by this VC's actions is widespread and not limited, in the same way an earthquake has aftershocks.

I'm genuinely grieving over iskall, The character and the community they built and the stims and autistic scripts I've built into myself because of them. I was shocked on Saturday, but at the same time, after reading that first line it didn't make sense to be any other hermit (I did not in any way predict this) at the time of reading nothing was confirmed so I felt that, innocent until proven guilty, was the way to go. My heart sank, I felt sick and I wanted to cry, I was on my way home from a long day at work and it was the first day of my hormone cycle at it's worst. The first thoughts I had were, 'no no please, it's not true, it's true, maybe it's the bullies again and he can't cope anymore'. Then the hermits started acting and I thought maybe he doesn't want to be affiliated anymore. But that didn't 100% add up. <33 to the good hermits for being amazing.

In my experience being autistic means 75% of my existence is made up of scripts I've adopted and will continue to adopt, from other people around me locally like my family, from movies, shows, and books growing up, to everything I've consumed information wise, this includes so many people, some that at one time were my hyperfixation, these scripts can be unlearnt, and I have another script that helps ('we don't do that here') but it's still a process and It's stressful and unpleasant.

VC was one of the only people I've subscribed to on twitch, I didn't even watch his live stream (they were way too stressful for me, the pay to win quality of his streams was really frustrating) I just subbed to support him. At least to me he had a 'victim' persona especially when it came to the other hermits and their success in comparison, and this translated to me the need to support him more. (He was a hermit for crying out loud, he was fine, I tell myself now), then I read the truth and the pay to win made sense because he Was showing favouritism, after reading K's statement before I was finished I knew M would be involved too and I just felt incredibly sad and heartbroken for them, no one deserves to be treated like that, and people except a certain level of human decency. I'm sorry that this happens and I'm so sad that it has.

He made me feel Grian was a bad sport and that Grian was wrong to be in videos with his friends because he was more popular, that Grian couldn't be sincere in his joy 'because he was always stealing the limelight' (I was 15 at the time and irl was tough and I had bigger problems going on, I loved C! Grian a lot) and didn't trust anyone, so I started to dislike CC! Grian a lot. (Again young n Major trust issues); I like Grian again now but felt uneasy for a long while.

VC always pops at the end of his videos when he says bye and I always watched to the end just because of it, and at a certain point I started associating popping with saying 'I love you' I did it to my family and it's been a part of my autistic script since late 2018. Others include (Hallo, Omega, of doom)

Iskall's Minecraft character is canonically non-binary/agender and in fanworks they use they/them pronouns and as someone who's a fan of mcyt, Minecraft and is gender q, that was a big deal for me to be canonically represented. They also inspired me to write incredibly niche and rare minecraft lore and head canon's for them (them being a villager/player hybrid); iskall's character is a separate entity but the association is horrifying now and that is extremely disappointing, it was the same with William Gold.

VC has made fun of people's differences and difficulties and has been generally rude at times under the guise of humour. He has laughed at people's trust in the creepest way, that even though I liked him I was scared and put off for days, I was so genuinely angry at him, because I felt humiliated. He knew who he was and laughed at our trust in him. That hurts and angers me even more now.

[faerise-fae]

Not really a marauders character but: Tom Riddle #20!

YAPPING WARNING ABOUT ASPD TOM RIDDLE AGAIN

Ok so sorry for taking so long to do this, but my brain crashes every time i try to think about something that isn't obvious or just fucking boring. BUT I REALLY WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT WITH YALL SO GIVE ME YOUR THOUGHTS

The hill I'll die on is that he is an ASPD baddie, tho I bet he would prefer thinking about himself as sociopath, as edgy teens do. It doesn't mean I think he is totally emotionless, i think he is very emotional. Just not empathetic? This man is purely driven by his emotions from the start. Be it fear of death, resentment, and hatred towards Dumbledore or just general anger directed at the stupidity of the wizarding nation. In ASPD it's just that the intensity of expression of those emotions is different. He can look totally put together and like an oasis of peace, but inside planning whatever insanities only he can think of.

Because the thing is, anger issues are not rare in ASPD. ASPD is associated with impulsiveness and violent or risky behaviours, which can result in lashing out in anger. It's just that when you don't have many emotions to begin with, controlling the stronger ones can be difficult.

People have very different headcanons about him in that matter, i see a lot of totally stoic, calculating tom riddle who doesn't have absolutely any emotions and stuff like this, but I really can't see it. My man is a dramatic, cruel, entitled and IMPULSIVE edgelord BUT:

HOT TAKE #1:

Canon Tom Riddle headcanonned himself as fanon Tom Riddle.

He might have thought of himself as emotionless, but he just didn't acknowledge it. Growing up in an unstable environment, he hadn't learned how to stabilize himself.

Because ASPD is partialy caused by genetics, yes. But a very big factor in developing it is childhood and home life. We can agree his was very unstable, he has probably witnessed violence and definitely experienced emotional neglect. ASPD is all about lack of security. Its defence mechanism. That means:

My man just doesn't know how to cope, LMAO. When it was too much even for him to stuff into the back of his brain, he just lashed out. Acting on impulses was his relief from it. Adrenaline from it also helped to mute his feelings.

But at the same time, he just didn't think of himself as unreasonable. "It was never his fault, he was just provoked!" He also didn't feel guilty about causing harm to others because he didn't have any empathetic feelings towards anyone. How can you feel bad about idk, cursing someone if you don't see them as an individual with feelings of their own. Because how could he think about their feelings when he didn't have much of his own to compare and to even comprehend what they feel beside some very shallow understanding. AND BY THAT I DONT MEAN HE DIDNT KNOW HE WAS HURTING PEOPLE AROUND HIM HE WASNT A POOR LITTLE MEOW MEOW. HE KNEW, HE JUST DIDNT GET IT SO HE DIDNT CARE. But he obviously knew. So no empathy but more like an educated guess. Masking king. He learnt how emotions worked for other people and used it whenever he saw fit. Pure manipulation.

Because again neglectful caregiving = problems with attachment to people and forming relationships. In the end it's all about him in that aspect. His feelings are always about himself and making himself feel comfortable and stable. He was fond of his friends till they were useful and till he felt good with having them around. He took pride* in gaining their respect and loyalty. He was using them to stroke his ego basically. And was using them in general. For stuff and things.

*HOT TAKE #2:

And here i have my latest hot take: his similarity with Harry in that matter. Harry is a gryffindor with some slytherin traits. And imo Tom, with him being the most slytherin to ever slytherin, his crazy pride and impulsivity is so gryffindor.

So there's that beside how we can all agree he was a liar and manipulator.

[gremlingottoosilly]

krueger mentioned!! i was so excited to see his name in IYNTBM! do you have any silly/dark hcs or plans to write about him?

Yes!! Krueger my beloved!! I feel like the only reason he isn't as popular as Konig is because he has a canon height that is shorter than 180, so people literally don't see him hehe. Hc and my plans under the cut!

I imagine him like a childhood best friend of Konig - probably around the same age, maybe Krueger is 2 years younger. He is a lieutenant in rank(idk about the mercenary ranks bear with me here, Konig is a colonel) and he wasn't promoted as much specifically because of his violent tendencies. PMC doesn't really care about war crimes as long as it's not a public spectacle, but even the companies he was working in were quite weirded out by the shit he was pulling. yes, he is the best man if you want to torture someone - and then again, he is the best torturer out here, and he sleeps next to you, drinks next to you, hits on the same girls as you etc... He is a nasty, nasty gremlin. The type to hit on the waitresses in a very sleazy manner, the type to say "Hey guys, let's protect this one" in a creepy manner if he sees a woman agreeing with him on his very controversial statements. Currently, in the timeline of IfYouNeedToBeMean, he is sitting home because of his arm injury(got stuck in the burning car, and had to break his arms to get out) and is very angsty and bored about it. Like Konig, he can't really enjoy civilian life, medical discharge is literally his worst days, and he actually has a history of depressive episodes. He DOES NOT cope well with civilian life, and his preferred hobby at home is drinking and ignoring his therapist's messages. Konig helped him quite a bit in his habit - gave the number of his therapist, bless this poor human, trying to support him as much as he can. Konig asks him to babysit his darling because he knows that more than one month at home would probably make Krueger consider killing himself, and he also trusts the man with his life - and his wife. Sebastian has a very perverted sense of morality, but he recognizes the reader as Konig's girl, and he would not touch the stuff that belongs to him. Yeah, we are "Konig's stuff" for him. If I was writing a different story and if Konig and Krueger met the reader at the same time, I would actually see them sharing her - they are not attracted to each other, but they feel like brothers sometimes and could have this mentality of sharing everything between them. Darling stuck with two nasty perverts...yeah, not the best scenario. Unlike Korangi x Reader, Konig and Krueger wouldn't sleep with each other - so you'd have to be their release every time, each time, giving him equal attention because Konig is insecure and Krueger just loves causing problems on purpose.

[heartach3d]

fights

Wayne McCullough

a lil thing I decided to write as I wait for requests so sorry this sucks and the ending is HORRID.

The cafeteria chatter was loud and typical tuesday at this school. You sat at your usual table with your friends a tray of half-eaten food forgotten in front of you as you absentmindedly watched all the arguing unfolding in the distance.

Wayne was in the middle of it all as usual but that still doesn't make any of it better to watch. a group of people had gathered near the center of the cafeteria with voices of taunt and of course Wayne was in the middle of it. the kid infront of him saying nonsense stuff to his face or stuff you can't particularly hear from this distance.

"come on just fight already!" one of the students watching yelled. you groaned quietly already know what's gonna happen with all this instigation. It wasn’t that wayne wasn’t strong or intimidating as hell. he thrived in particular situations like this never backing down from a fight no matter what.

which can cause some problems but oh well its gotten to be a usual drill now for someone to stop him before it goes too far.

so when it starts and In the middle of the scuffle waynes fist connected with the other kid’s jaw sending him reeling back. you thought maybe I need to step in before things escalated even further. you stood up quickly but soon got lost in the crowd for a while.

You pushed through the people standing close, making your way toward him. and when you reached out trying to get his attention he turned abruptly his elbow accidentally catching you in the side.

You groaned in pain as the impact left you stumbling back. You placed a hand to your ribs trying to steady yourself but it only made the pain more unbearable. when he realized what he did and what happened he looked shocked

“Shit!” Wayne cursed rushing to your side. His face drained of any color and unsure of what to do. “I didn’t mean to—”

You swallowed hard trying to push away the pain You were hurt and wanted to cry but you didn’t want to show it not ever. it'll seem like your too weak to handle something little like this. I mean a kid just got beat for crying out loud and your gonna cry over this?

his eyes softened and he reached down to help you stand up. he was surprisingly gentle with his grip for beating a kid to a pulp. “I’m sorry I didn't see you there." You stood up with his help and shook your head trying to force a weak smile.

“It’s fine, really.” But it didn't feel fine. At least not now. It'll probably bruise up a little later and not ache as much except for touch.

You tried to walk away and to go roam the halls for a bathroom but your stomach still felt wrong. and you could feel a tightness in your chest. You tried to take a deep breath to steady yourself but Before you knew it you were on the sitting on the ground crying.

you didn't want to feel this way because this wasn't a true reason to start crying. it was a mistake and you could get over it! I mean he didn't even mean it and it's kinda your fault for coming up behind him.

but the thing is that its just everything around you and all of your problems adding up and going against you. so now this is where you are. crying in the school hallways like a weirdo.

wayne came and found you since he knew something was wrong. before he took care of himself he wanted to take care of you. and that means being by your side at all times. so when he saw you crying he couldn't help but feel bad.

"are you okay y/n? I swear I didn't mean to and it was just probably a reflex and I didn't know it was you" he had began to feel very guilty especially after seeing you cry.

"it's fine wayne I promise its just everything added up against another and this is my only way to cope apparently. so it really isn't your fault." you said sniffling before wiping your eyes and giving him a faint smile.

[call-me-copycat]

BNHA Spoilers:

(Also this is just a complaint post, I'm not very good at explaining my thoughts so please don't try to argue :⁠-⁠( Feel free to add on thoughts but I can't argue )

I have to say I'm not too happy with the leaks, which is hard for someone like me to admit!

As an AceAro person, I was thrilled with the original ending and the fact that no ships were confirmed nor denied, because it left enough for the fans to work with while not shutting anyone down outright

I'm not really a fan of ships, I'll be honest, and I don't really like romance in anime (hard to avoid! I know!), but I never really saw anything wrong with people and their ships and whatnot, and I never minded analyzing some of them for some friends - it was all in good fun after all!

The pairs in the leaks felt like something out of character almost, it didn't feel very... Horikoshi Style I suppose

I do enjoy getting extra MHA content, I always always will, but it isn't a good feeling to me seeing these characters in this anime that focuses on motivation and inspiration and becoming Heroes eventually getting together and dating - I'm not sure, I guess it's the unfitting themes? Something about it unnerves me

I don't know, I've always been adverse to romance my whole life, I always preferred plot and writing instead of two characters getting together (if the plot and writing lead up to two characters getting together? I'm fine with that)

I've seen people saying Uraraka and Deku are canon and I have to say... I don't really feel comfortable with that

I can see it as cute, yes! But I feel that he didn't have as deep a relationship to her as he did with Bakugo (they're always themed around each other, and I found whatever relationship they have with each other very profound, as it ran very deep for a very long time)

Same goes with Toga and Uraraka - it happened over the course of the series, I got to see them learn and struggle together, I got to see them talk about their problems and desires and it felt overwhelmingly different than when it's Deku and Uraraka

I may be biased in the end, I have friends who ship Deku and Bakugo and I have friends who ship Uraraka and Toga, but I've seen some very informative takes that explain it a lot better than me why I think they're such good parallels to each other

I like that Deku and Uraraka are good motivators to each other, Uraraka inspired him in the beginning when he really needed it and he returned it to her as well - but I can't really see it as romantic? Then again, ignore that because I can't see anything in MHA as romantic

I dunno, I feel the romance really overtook the whole plot away from the ending and I'm devastated - that's all what everyone's talking about right now, no?

Deku and Uraraka

Denki and Jiro

The rumor of Bakugo being married (?)

Kinoko and Kuroiro are dating

That's not even all, there could be more that I easily missed

It feels very unsatisfactory, it makes it seem like Love was the entire meaning of the series My Hero Academia when it was not! I'm a big full-circle person, I would have adored a call-back! Something that alludes to the beginning of the series, like what they did with the cover

I want to see how Hero Society is, I want to see Deku and how he coped with the loss of OFA, I want to see Aizawa, I want to see Present Mic! How is he doing, I want to know if he's okay? Is Nezu still the principal? There are less demand for heroes since there aren't as many villains, I want to see that change and its effects! I want to hear more about Vigilante Heroes, and I want to see other Underground Heroes, I want to know more about the Quirk Doomsday Theory, and more about what the world was like when quirks first formed, and I would like to see Hisashi Midoriya! There's so much, see? I would rather talk about that and more over who's dating who ( ･᷄ὢ･᷅ )

It has its good moments, I will always love seeing the (former) class interact with each other, and I really liked seeing the new Hero Rankings, especially with some of the aged up designs for the characters - I can feel how much love Horikoshi has for these characters no matter what's going on in the series

I don't know, don't take me too seriously because I am a biased person after all - I've dropped one of my favorite book series as a kid because my favorite (the most competent) character died, and then every person in the book had gotten together with another person - it was a similar disappointment because it ignored the plot (it was a post-zombie apocalypse series) in favor of looking towards romance once more

Fairy Tail recently came out with their 100 Years Quest, and I know I dropped the anime early on as a kid (in favor of MHA ironically), but coming back to it only to see almost (if not) all characters together in a relationship, some with kids? I know, don't go near anime if you don't like the tropes, I've been told that before - I'm just complaining a little because I didn't expect to see it in MHA so I'm a little shocked

Nevertheless, I'm still looking forward to seeing the rest of the epilogue, I'm always a fan of Horikoshi even if I don't like some things (⁠；⁠^⁠ω⁠^⁠）. It's still a treat for me to get more MHA content, I love the art and I love being a part of the fandom -

I'm sure some time in the future I'll even miss the shipping wars that went on lol

[archivalofsins]

I will say one thing it's always so impressive to me how most analysis of Futa's behavior end up playing directly into his mentality and on his terms while seemingly being unaware that they are doing so.

By that I mean most fans tend to met Futa on his level because it's the only level they know. They only know how to critique him from his playing field because they've failed to recognize his playing field are the spaces they frequent every day.

I think this is due to no one being comfortable with critiquing the issues Futa and Mu as a pair represent. So their stories get reduced to bullying instead of the structural and societal issues that incentivize the mindsets they have.

Usually analysis of their behavior never gets further than Mu is a bully but it's fine because she had a hard time as well what was going on directly impacted her, Futa is a bully but it's wrong because nothing these people were doing ever impacted him personally he just inserted himself into the situation so that he could feel superior.

The level of proximity between Futa and his victims makes it easy for people to judge how rational his actions were.

Because to an extent a lot of people consciously or subconsciously recognize if something isn't impacting them they don't have to get involved or up in arms about it. Many have realized that just because someone is doing something wrong doesn't mean they have to swoop in and be a hero.

This is why his takeaway from his guilty verdict was this,

Q.02 What do you think of Haruka?

Futa: I can’t afford to be worrying about other people at the moment. Anyway, he's not a little kid.

Q.04 Would you make the same mistake again?

Futa: I don’t think so- I don’t think I could take this kind of pain again.

Q.18 Do you regret anything?

Futa: I do. What was I even doing that stuff for in the first place? What other people are doing doesn’t have any impact on me.

It's better to sit back and do nothing than try to do something then wind up getting hurt too. Other people are hurting who cares I'm trying to take care of me. They need to figure it out on their own. What happens to others isn't my problem I need to worry about myself. It doesn't matter if what someone else is doing is wrong, harmful, or can end in their death I shouldn't intrude, mind my business, and take care of me first and foremost.

That's right. You know those people who just wanna convince themselves- So, they intrude on other people's affairs even though it's not their place?

20/05/26

Kazui: Ahh, this old man’s gonna go and smoke in the corner a bit. I checked with the guard, and apparently we can use our free time however we want. Man, I’m glad this place is so relaxed.

Shidou: ……! Are…… we allowed to smoke……?

Kazui: Huh…… Shidou-kun, was it? You smoke too? That’s kinda unexpected.

Shidou: Ah, yes. ……I only started fairly recently though. I’ll go with you…… to smoke.

Futa: Ahh, those old men really stink of tobacco. Are they idiots or something? They should know better at that age…… If they really can’t cope without relying on something like that then I worry about their sanity.

Yuno: ……it doesn’t really matter does it? They’re making sure they’re staying far away from the people who don’t smoke. Personally I quite like the smell anyway.

Futa: Huh!? What are you talking about? It means you’re more likely to get sick, it costs money, it’s a nuisance for everyone around you, what’s even the point. Our tax money is being wasted going towards paying for that, you know? If you were really smart, you’d know not to smoke at all!

Yuno: I see~

I despise them. That's what I was saying. They only do that to make themselves feel better, don't they? Those people don't actually end up doing anything.

Q.09 What do you think about the first trial’s results?

Futa: You and me are the same, aren’t we?

You and you, throwing around rules for fun, hoisting up morality and feeling good. (Backdraft)

Don’t weigh me measure me against your morality. - Who needs your self-righteous pardon? (Tear Drop)

Just shut it, will you? You know it all - I ***'t *e b**h**ed... (I won't be bothered. or I can't be bothered.)

Q.16 Do you have anyone you hate?

Yuno: People who like to lecture you.

21/07/05 (Mu’s Birthday)

Mu: Yuno. Don’t you have something to say to me?

Yuno: Huh? To you? Me? ……ahh, uh? Your birthday, right? Happy birthday~

Mu: How mean… Since it’s my birthday, I really wish you’d said something before I had to come and tell you myself.

Yuno: Right, right, I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful in future~ Later! Haha… things have become even more of a bother… ……so was that Mu-chan’s real personality, then? It’s probably because the guard did something, right?

22/07/05 (Mu’s Birthday)

Mu: Hey~~~ Isn’t everyone a bit gloomy lately? I get that this situation isn’t ideal, but you’re really bringing down the mood for my birthday.

Yuno: Haha, surely even you can tell now’s not really the time for something like that right. Nobody’s really in the mood, or rather nobody has time time to deal with something like that.

Mu: Boo, how boring. You seem to be free, you can celebrate for me. Go on, celebrate.

Yuno: Wow, what a pain. I’m reading the atmosphere properly and keeping quiet. Well, you just go and have fun with Haruka. In the corner somewhere so you’re out of everyone’s way.

We are just the same. (It's Not My Fault)

I see~ I’ll be more careful in future~ Later! Wow, what a pain.

Futa and Mu both impose themselves on others.

They insert themselves into situations they shouldn't be in for attention. They make drama where there is none. They do it to feel good about themselves. All because they were bored.

So to me when people meet the prisoners on their level and take everything they've presented at face value they're extending them a lot of good faith. Good faith I frankly believe none of them deserve. Whenever someone talks about the situations they present in their music videos regardless of how much these characters are shown to lie the authenticity of their recounts are rarely ever questioned.

For example with Futa none of the incidents illustrated to us in Bring It On are scrutinized fully.

Except possibly the incident with replicating the stores hat which is something that is mostly scrutinized for how far he took the incident and not on the basis of the incident itself. In fairness with two of the incidents, the hat one and the one with the person who laid down in freezer both parties took pictures of themselves doing the thing and posted those online of their own volition.

Yet, with the incident involving the teacher Futa took that picture.

There's discussion around taking pictures with out the consent of the individual of course. Yet this is meeting Futa on his level. People are playing into Futa's way of thinking by trying to find a more ethical way to create a callout post. When Bring It On implies in a few ways that Futa only cared about getting that teacher fired.

The music vide even starts with him complaining about the teachers at his school and his university classes in general. The first tweets we're greeted with in Bring It On is him complaining about school,

流＠しずくと読みます: School work has really been a pain lately… I don’t want to type another word るめりえ＠D_T: Know any good games? キマ注意＠ダークトラ…: Nothing’s happened lately, it’s boring まっすMAN（強化中）: …wait, it’s Monday? Which means uni today??? I haven’t… done my homework… Storm Pazuzu（＝Futa）: A L L M Y C L A S S E S A R E S O D U L L . W A S T E O F M Y S C H O O L F E E S Storm Pazuzu（＝Futa）: Everyone else there is an idiot so it’s boring YU-TA:Let’s go to the arcade then!!!! Storm Pazuzu（＝Futa）: The people in charge here are shit. I could do a much better job Avyxs@D_T: Uni is so much fun! It can be a pain depending on your subjects but my friends and teachers are hilarious

He's still heading to the arcade during this exchange. He seems to be leaving school. So he can't be talking about the service at the arcade yet.

They even transition to the arcade center when he arrives.

So he's still very much talking about school when he says the people in charge here. When he gets to the arcade they're talking about a completely different thing.

I'm not understanding how his music video can starts off showing the audience him complaining about his classes being boring and his teachers being stupid. Yet when the same audience is shown him initiating an attack for the first time against a faculty member at the school he just complained about it goes unquestioned.

Instead people accept his framing of events immediately.

Similarly to how many would accept any other callout that they see online without question. It's fine to discuss the girl not consenting to allowing her photo to be used. The fact that he posted an individual in appears to be a vulnerable moment without their consent. Yet, we don't even know if this is what he was presenting it to be and there's more evidence that it wasn't then it was.

Certainly this teacher may have been committing sexual harassments or misconduct and Futa just got super lucky he was in the area and able to get a picture to bring attention to it online under some anonymity. Yet, if this was really the case why not just report it? Why didn't anyone else in the area hear or say anything. Why do students from the same university as him respond with fear, shock, and confusion?

♡MANA♡: Mr Inoue……? That’s scary……

Why doesn't the girl in the photo he provided ever step forward for it to be taken down or say anything about the incident? Especially if it's already reached other students at the university who know this teacher by name and have probably seen her.

Storm Pazuzu（＝Futa）: Please spread this around. Some sexual harassment I came across from a university teacher. Don’t think he realised someone was watching lmao. Please report to the uni 恐縮です: I’m amazed you were able to get a photo 自由（ちきゅうじん） My uni is done for now wwww ♡MANA♡: Mr Inoue……? That’s scary…… io :Sexual harassment is pretty much the worst thing a person can do. How are you gonna explain this??? 毒門第一号: Oof lmao she looks like she’s gonna be sick kakikukeko@ド: What an idiot, you should just (…) already まっすMAN（強化中）: Super gross, thanks for exposing a lowlife sexual harasser AAA@DT: Has he got no shame!!! Go to hell!!! That’s so gross!!! るめりえ＠D_T: What a fucking pig, that’s just gross lmao

I'm fine with walking down this bridge with anyone willing to interrogate this.

Let's go over the facts that would make this situation true. Firstly, Futa would have to have been the only one in that area that day. Something incredibly unlikely because this is a college on a school day. He also conveniently shows a map of the floor he's on with all the people on it.

Including himself as the blue arrow. Yet there could be more people on this floor and these are just the people he knows about given as many will be able to see here the people he sees in the room aren't on the map. So basically the green dots are more than likely Futa's friends at school or people who he associates with online who go to the same college. I speculate this because when he's complaining about uni he's immediately invited out to the arcade by someone else online.

So he wasn't just friends with these people online but irl as well. Which would explain why some people are on the map and not others.

This is the ground floor of a university on a school day. There are fourteen people on this floor outside of Futa himself. Two in the room right next to the one this incident takes place in.

None of those people heard or saw anything? They just never left those rooms after Futa went to class. No one had to go the same route he was going to get to their classes. I don't know like one of the two people in the hallway behind him.

They were just going elsewhere I suppose that's convenient. Though maybe they all wanted this teacher fired if they are affiliated with Futa it would explain his glitched voice line trial one,

"Everyone else was having fun weren't they? What about them? Why is it just me?"

Well, I guess no one could have done or heard anything besides him. That's why no one else from that school corroborates what he was saying in all of those replies we're shown.

Alright, that may be possible.

I do have a question though... If this was really the teachers intent by isolating this student why was door wide open? Like not even cracked just ajar making it more likely for them to a be overheard and get seen.

Like he couldn't close the door? Also we only see one half of this room which from the map we're given appears to be quite large. How do we even know that no one else was in here? He never shows us the count of people within this room specifically. Even again he does show counts for everywhere else. However, as I just said those dot's may just represent his team members within the school.

As these are the same dots that indicate his comrades within the game map as well,

So there's that. Didn't think I would be proving that Futa had so many real life friends through this but uh fuck it we ball- Either way you know who is angled perfectly to see the rest of the room and not just the side we're seeing?

Futa.

I mean not to quote Blue Lock but if we all bothered to pick up a book on how the human eye works we wouldn't keep falling for this shit now would we?

But fuck all that- Again let's look at what this bridges foundation is.

This bridge we're walking wants me to believe that this teacher had the intent of sexually harassing a student, got her into an isolated/unused room within the college during school hours- At a time that they are just starting in fact, then did not close the fucking door to said room. He just had zero concern of anyone walking to class at that time or even just needing to use that room at all? A time he would know there are classes because he fucking works there?

That's the bridge we're walking and it's mighty flimsy.

I gotta admit that bridge is as sturdy as Jenga tower right before the last move. But let's keep walking it regardless we haven't fallen yet. Because for this to actually collapse we would need a much sturdier alternative bridge to cross over to because I refuse to die on this one.

So, what we know is Futa had complaints about his school environment. He thought his classes were boring, beneath him and implied the people in charge were inept at their jobs. Considering all of that I feel like he viewed this incident more as a way to get rid of a problem of his own than actually help someone else or do the right thing.

It wouldn't be a stretch to me for him to just not like that teacher. Beyond that it wouldn't a leap to believe that he may have assumed and jumped to the conclusion he wanted instead of fully checking out the situation.

It certainly wouldn't be the first thing he has lied about. Though to be honest I personally don't believe he's in here for any of the things he showed us and like Kotoko he is deflecting by highlighting situations where he is more likely to look in the right than in the wrong. This is something both of their first trial songs have in common.

Personally I don't believe that someone as online as Futa has only engaged with three callouts. Though I also believe that Milgram is highlighting the instances he had the most prominent roles in. I just believe he did something offline as well which goes past just taking pictures of things. Something this online incident and the hat girls have in common.

In both instances Futa was the one to take the picture,

Now, I've made it clear I don't think Futa was responsible for the doxing. Yet there is precedence for him to do something like this. Given that he did post the picture of this teacher and student.

It would make it easier to believe that he would dox someone because that's technically what he's doing here. Releasing this teacher's face and place of work. All while telling people to call in and report him for sexual misconduct that we have questionable proof of at best.

It wouldn't be hard for people to believe that Futa would do this again with the hat girl after this situation. This is another one of the reasons I believe it was highlighted as well. It gives a good idea of Futa's online reputation and contextualizes the aftermath of the hat girl incident a lot more.

Lending more credence to his statement in Backdraft of,

"Me, the result of blame-shifting, no, can’t find that funny." - "Flames closing in, are both sides losers?"

It makes sense to me that a lot of people were willing to believe that he would take things this far again because he already had. This would make it much easier for another party to shift all of the blame on him because he'd already have a bad reputation. It wouldn't matter if it was true or not as long as it made sense to the most people.

We're also never told how the situation with the teacher resolves. It looks like Futa had won but the teacher was only knocked down. It would be more accurate to say he was stunned for the moment. Unlike the last incident he didn't die. So, this incident may have come back to bite Futa in the ass too. Especially if it was proven later that what he said wasn't true. Even more so if that happened around the same time the incident with the middle schooler was at it's peak.

Now do I think this incident is important to Futa's murder not exactly. I don't feel like it's the most important thing. I think it contextualizes how he wound up in this position where it was easy for someone to convince others that he's the sort of person who would dox a student. Regardless of if he did or didn't I personally think he didn't and there are more allusions to it not being him who did that than there are of it being him. Which I've gone over in other posts.

However the fact remains that Futa is suffering the consequences of his past actions even before he gets into Milgram. If he had never done this with this teacher and gotten into the habit of taking pictures like these maybe things wouldn't have escalated to this point. If he didn't get into the pattern of doing anything for just a fleeting bit of attention maybe none of this would have happened. In my eyes though none of this is murder it's negligence and a complete disregard of people whom he shared a space with.

It's a disregard his schools staff, classmates, and online peers who he viewed himself as better than in some way. I personally feel like trying to find a way that he was somehow morally flawed on his own standards makes it appear as though there was a right way for him to do these things. That there's a morally correct way to make a callout post and broach this behavior.

It's the same as him going,

"Now let’s be reasonable. We are the ones that blow the horn for justice. We will punish you down, this is a warning."

But the bitter truth of the matter is their is no completely peaceful way to have a conflict. There is no one hundred percent moral way to bring a wrong to light. There are always going to be people who act with ill intent to take advantage of the modern tools that have been made to discuss the exploitation and abuse of others.

There are always going to be people who lie who know for certain that their are going to be good people out their who instead of fact checking them will go better safe than sorry. Because they don't want someone else possibly getting hurt. People who lie bank on people who care about others doing just that so they can keep getting away with it. We saw this with Shidou trial two,

"There are lives that need safeguarding- So hey, prolong my life, I’m indispensable."

People who are intent on doing harm will always be secure in knowing people who care will want to avoid that harm. This is something that some individuals will always be willing to use to their advantage. They know that their opposition doesn't want anyone getting hurt and leverages that over their heads.

So, when people make allegations like the one's Futa did about people in positions of authority,

They're taken at face value.

People are treated as though they're guilty until they can prove themselves innocent. Because no one likes when it feels like individuals are being taken advantage of. Regardless of if they're a student or small business owner. When people see someone being put through a difficult time for no reason or ripped off it upsets them.

They immediately think,

"That's not fair. That's not right."

Something that tends to outweigh the question of is this true. Especially in an age where so much information is thrown at people daily. It's easy for us to fill in the blanks and go well of course another teacher is a pervert. He probably didn't close the door because he's just so used to getting away with at this point. He probably did it while classes were going on and people were walking around the halls because he was just so certain he'd never face any consequences. He didn't think that some good samaritan would be walking past and get proof of his transgression and share so now he can't get away with this anymore. See this is the problem with the school system they just keep hiring teachers like this disgusting glad to know now though.

We don't question the how, why, when, or where anymore. It doesn't matter that there's a giant crack in this door and this is at a

It doesn't matter that the door is in the shot. It doesn't matter how he managed to take this picture. Why the door was cracked when this took place. Because most people would rather engage in good faith and assume that no one would lie about something like that. Than assume Futa who has shown every reason he has to lie and misrepresent facts about the faculty in his school was in fact just blatantly being dischonest. That he saw an instance that would look bad out of context snapped a picture of it and posted it online.

From an audience perspective we actually have more reasons to believe Futa than disbelieve him here. For one the other two instances covered in his music video are represented fairly. The two others he calls out took those pictures of themselves and posted them of their own volition. That's what they decided to do with their day and there's no debating that.

So, since this guy was put in here as well most of the audience is primed to believe well we saw her admit to making the hat, the first guy posted that himself so why would Futa ever lie about any of these cases. Sure he took the picture himself but that doesn't mean he fabricated the entire incident I mean why would a teach need to be that close to a student anyway. He's practically pinning her against the wall. They're talking near a bookshelf in the photo he's not even touching her.

The thing we see before this is Futa vision. The thing online is actually just the fucking picture. That is the picture in reality.

Futa actually has no way of seeing this from the angle it's presented to us in because again he's outside the room and he never goes in it.

I mean not to quote Blue Lock but if we all bothered to pick up a book on how the human eye works we wouldn't keep falling for this shit now would we?

We literally see his perspective of the incident from the picture he posted. Yet each time this particular case is engaged in it's always under the framing that Futa is telling the truth. When this motherfucker introduced himself by lying about not committing a crime to begin with!

Q.09 Do you want to apologise to the person you killed?

Futa: I didn’t kill anyone. Listen to me- Aren’t you supposed to be a guard?!

To me taking everything the prisoners present at face value isn't always the most helpful. Sometimes it could be lowering oneself to seeing things their way. When in honesty there is no ethical way to make a callout post. Even if what Futa was presenting was the truth regardless of how little since it makes when one takes in the whole environment presented to us.

At a point it becomes less of an individualistic issue and turns into a systemic one. The fact of the matter is even with evidence many sexual crimes remain unresolved and pursuing them can further isolate and retraumatize the victims of them. A lot of sexual misconduct by teachers and students within universities goes overlooked everyday. Just as often as bullying gets overlooked.

Sometimes the only time that victims of such crimes can get justice or perpetrators be held accountable is through the means illustrated here.

It sucks but that is one of the many realities of the modern era. The reality of the power of the internet and news outlets.

Something Yuno touches upon way before Futa comes onto the scene.

For example, news outlets. They always make a big fuss about adultery, inappropriate comments, immodesty and so on, right? And then they start criticizing the people who make an appearance there. Don't you think it's all so ridiculous? There's no end to how much people punish one another outside of the law.

"Found one…! Countdown till I make you say sorry!"/"Don’t you think it’s wonderful to control them with my gentle sting."

The mindset that allowed Mu to get away with all her mistreatment of her peers just because she was bored. Is the same mindset Futa and Kotoko use as an excuse to do the things that they do. Mu takes advantage of the fact that most schools do not intervene when it comes to matters between others students such as harassments and ostracization to have fun at other people's expense fearing that eventually one day she'll be on the receiving end of everything she's dished out.

Meanwhile Futa and Kotoko weaponize the frustration of the masses at the ills of society to excuse their own mistreatment of others regardless of the size of the transgression. It's easy to discuss Futa's victims more than the rest of the casts because people involved in the series see individuals like them every day online.

Those sorts of stories are common place in the environment fans tend to frequent. It's easy not to question any of Futa's allegations because the internet has a guilty until proven innocent mentality. So people take everything Futa and Kotoko present in their stories as fact without a second thought. Because why would someone lie about that and of jeez but what if it is true.

Never really realizing that's exactly where bad actors want people to meet them at. Bad actors expect considerate people to care more about the possible harm than the chances of them being dishonest. Because allegations like this can and have ruined the lives of many people who never did anything.

Because people who act in bad faith don't care about the problems they discuss they only care about it getting the right people in the wrong spots. Something highlighted with Mikoto someone who comes out the gate consistently complaining about people making up things about him to ruin his reputation and possibly make him lose his job.

It's not a topic that Milgram has shied away from. It's definitely not a topic that Yamanaka has shied away from either. In Caligula Effect there's a whole side quest where you literally have to prove a student is lying about a teach committing sexual harassment/assault. I'm not saying this to say that's definitely the case.

We don't know anything about this teacher and at best this is simply a petty thing that Futa did seemingly because he was just bored like Mu. I'm just saying when someone starts complaining about their classes being boring, a waste of money, and their teachers being shit than posts something like that maybe question if they may have some vested interest in doing that.

I still have mutiple other posts to do but no one can say I've forgotten my roots talking a shit ton about Futa.

[t-t-tau-me]

Steven should have been grounded in episode 10 of future

Hello, welcome to my blog/post. Before I say anything, I just want it to be known that I'm not making this simply to crap on Steven universe future. I do like some of the ideas in it, Even if I personally don't like it. I hate how I even have to preface this for my opinion, But I've seen how vicious the Steven universe community can be. You're free to open discussions about this post of course, But I'm not tolerating petty insults or death threats.

So you're probably wondering why I believe Steven should have been grounded, especially considering his mental state. I won't be covering every second of the episode in question, But I'll go over the most important points for my argument.

In the episode 'Prickly Pair' we get to see Steven after quitting little homeschool, throwing himself into gardening and clearly not coping as well as he thinks. While tending to his plants, Steven pricks his finger while transplanting a cactus cutting, then heals it with his saliva and touches the cutting to finish the process. Like we've seen in the past the plant comes to life, But this time with the ability to parrot with Steven says.

Steven later on in that episode begins to rant to the cactus about some of the more negative thoughts he has, Which seems to result in it growing and becoming a monster later. (Obviously, there's finer details I'm skipping, but they're not important to my point. Feel free to watch the episode for the full context)

Cactus Steven grows into a monster and proceeds to attack the gems, destroying a bit of the house in the process and parroting all the horrible things Steven said. (I know they're supposed to be rusty, but they get their butts thoroughly kicked here). After good old-fashioned violence doesn't work against the cactus, Steven apologizes and gives it a hug, being gifted with a flower in return as the cactus Steven leaves by making a hole through the door.

So thanks to Steven's choices, the home has been damaged and He has put the others in danger, he also said some arguably hurtful things that got back to the crystal gems. (Granted, they don't really react outside of moments of pausing before getting wrecked, But that's besides the point). And what does Steven and the Crystal gem have to say after this whole situation?

Amethyst: "hey, dude?"

Pearl: "is there anything you need to talk about?"

Steven: "I think I said enough..."

...excusez-fucking-moi?

Steven, You think you said enough? How about "My powers have been acting crazy and I might need your help" or, And hear me out on this one,

A goddamn apology?

For someone who is so quick to pick apart the people who have done nothing but show you love, You got real quiet when they actually wanted to talk about what you said.

Before someone calls me out for being insensitive to the mental state of Steven. Number one, someone's mental status doesn't necessarily negate their criticism, number two, I have multiple disorders including depression and PTSD, and number three, Your mental health does not excuse you from the consequences of your actions.

And don't bother telling me "it happened off screen." There's no evidence for this, and even if it did happen off screen that wouldn't make it good. (Yes I'm aware of Lars and Sadie, I like what they did, just not how they did it. Might make a post on it.)

But despite this, there's actually someone I have even a bigger problem with.

The Crystal gems

If you'll entertain me for a sec, imagine you had a kid, now imagine that kid drove a car through your house, You tried to meet them with kindness and ask what's wrong and all they reply with is "I think I've done enough." I imagine that most of us would be a little bit more than angry, Even outside of the damages done to the house.

It would be one thing if Steven did all this damage and was willing to at least give an apology, But he can't even do that. Love isn't patiently sitting on your ass hoping the other person corrects their behavior, sometimes it's doing stuff that you or the other person doesn't want in hopes of helping. Steven himself has done things others don't like in order to try and fix things in the past. I understand it's the end of the episode, they could have simply moved the consequences to the next one.

I understand wanting to show compassion to your kids, But if they're starting to show a pattern of destructive behavior and won't even give you the time of day to try and help them through it, sometimes you need to put your foot down. What happened to the pearl who participated in a competition against peridot for her respect? What happened to the Garnet who could be laid back at times but knew when to put her foot down? Where did the amethyst who attempted to throw peridot's tablet in the ocean So she listen go? I'm not saying each of these actions are justified per se, I'm just saying it shows a certain level of care.

As someone who grew up with mental health problems and became a rather shitty teenager because of it, I'm honestly thankful people in my life were willing to call me out and at least attempt to work with me. It showed a level of self-respect and care, Knowing that I was going through something but not letting that fact allow me to hurt them.

Do I think actually grounding Steven would have done anything?...Not really, I wouldn't even be surprised if he didn't follow the grounding. Attempting to do so would just show the gems are taking an active parental role and doing something, trying to make sure someone they care about doesn't hurt others or themselves while taking the time to cool off.

If Steven was my kid, and I had asked him what was going on after he wrecked our home and I only got "I think I said enough." He would be grounded for months. Of course I care about the well-being of my kid And I want to give them the space they need, But when what they're doing is clearly not working and is actively hurting themselves or others, That's when parents should have a problem.

Not only would this give the crystal gems a bit more of an impact in future, But the consequences would give weight to Steven's actions.

(Hope you liked my ramblings and and it entertained you for a bit. I plan on posting more Steven universe stuff, especially in the regards of the show and AUs, So maybe hit me with a follow if you think that's something you like.)