#perceptional bias

[theomnicode]

Hello! What do you think about how the society in OPM accepts that King is the most powerful being in the world? While Saitama is hinted at what may become a danger to society if his strength were to become known? Considering that King has (accidentally and through his own fault) stolen Saitama's merits?

Sorry this one took a bit to answer, I had other business to attend to. This one is another long piece, but I dropped a tl;dr at the end lol.

Honestly though? I think it's perceptional bias.

Perception bias is a broad term used to describe different situations in which we perceive inaccuracies in our environment. It is a type of cognitive bias that occurs when we subconsciously form assumptions or draw conclusions based on our beliefs, expectations, or emotions.

There are several subtypes: Implicit bias: individuals hold attitudes towards people, or associate stereotypes with them, without being aware of this. Fundamental attribution error: individuals tend to blame their failings on circumstances around them, but consider that others are responsible for their shortcomings. Selective perception: expectations about people or situations affect perception.

King is revered as a strong hero and so people would accept and expect him to have strong abilities. Child Emperor pictures these abilities and describes them to King. (Cpt 152, Check) King is also tall, large and mysterious man who somehow exudes a strong aura of being strong willed, capable and a just person. But the public does not know him well enough to actually see through their bias: A physically weak and anxious man who just tries to live his life in peace, but who has heart of gold, wise beyond his years and incredible sense of justice.

Yet despite all this, I worry for King a lot, because the cognitive bias working against him is too strong, almost unnatural. It makes little sense about why this false image is so strong, considering he nor Saitama have THAT many actually proven feats on record or even publically observed. I mean, Saitama literally destroyed a meteor and got accused for it and killed Sea King and the public turned against him...and yet none of those actual, legitimate feats are being exaggerated to this degree like Charanko describes them as in Chapter 192: Level up.

Charanko's examples are so utterly ludicrous without a single shred of actual evidence that the utter shock being told they were lies of it was enough for him to at least start shaking off that cognitive bias and question his perception and seeking out the actual truth. The guy is completely overlooked as just being a weak nobody comic relief character archetype, but he is strong willed, like when he had the guts to attack Garou in direct confrontation.

But I mean, look at this thing, this is completely absurd. Where is the entirety of OPM people's critical thinking skills?

Who in their right mind would seriously believe rumours like solar system destroying level of bomb with a bonus black hole from some rando dude on the internet? Or King not having even been born yet, somehow being the second coming of christ itself?

Plus there is only one goddamn mythology piece in this entire manga that even closely fits the bill of a human(oid) character's birth being foreshadowed and that is OPM's God's mural in a place where literally nobody has seen it before.

Who the F would even be crazy enough to imagine up and spread such a rumour that King, of all people, is actually OPM God who legit nobody even knows exists? So absurd. :D

(Above image is from volume redraw)

It's such a malicious and cruel rumour too, capable of sowing distrust and discord in the entire Hero system when people stop believing in their heroes because they think the entire system is a lie. And they would blame King for it, thinking he's to blame for the lies because he broke their idea of an hero fantasy.

The only hero I can think who actually knows about OPM God is Blast, but he's not malicious. Zero motive whatsoever.

I heavily suspect Psykos for spreading it because this kind of rumour could only come up straight from the source itself. Because she's an alarmist (Cpt 175, Visitor) and OPM God has her in his backpocket to emotionally manipulate. Fubuki might uncover some more information to discover the truth, but I'd take it with grain of salt because Psykos appears to be under some kind of mental illness, possibly psychosis, as Fubuki has pointed out that she had never been a tough girl and something changed her. But I'm no detective and I'm not void of any bias, so here's a sherlock holmes quote:

"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? We know that he did not come through the door, the window, or the chimney. We also know that he could not have been concealed in the room, as there is no concealment possible. When, then, did he come?"

Honestly, the magic man in the sky is prolly doing it, we just don't know how because there's not enough evidence, only context clues.

-*-

Bang on the other hand, cannot shake off his bias even if his heart is in the right place. But he was just directly told face to face by King himself that he is weak and he still refuses to believe it because he stubborny keeps believing in his own biases, thinking he's always correct.

Old people do oftentimes think they're always correct don't they? Because they're oh so old and wise and experienced. He does the same thing with Garou and Garou won't accept it.

-*-

Anyways, I worry for King's flailing mental health for reasons because he's thinking about self-harm and he wants to unalive himself by monster hand because he thinks it's already Game over for him.

The cognitive bias around people's minds is actually and ironically, shielding him from the cascading effects of the mass public outcry since he's not ready to face it yet. He lacks willpower, that mental fortitude, to withstand that kind of attack on his psyche. He might do it if people suddenly just snapped out of that cognitive bias.

Some might even say... that he's the cognitive bias itself. King can bullshit so effectively because he's can literally project bullshit out of his every orifice if he needs to. If say, he needs to protect himself or other people. And as long as people keep their cognitive biases, it would help him sustain the image that he's strong and not be hated by everyone if they suddenly snapped out of their cognitive bias. So you could say that...the cognitive bias is helping him survive and protecting him.

A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behavior in the world. Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, and irrationality.

Look, they're instantly second guessing themselves. Seems to be working very effectively. And Atomic Samurai did some incredible mental gymnastics to convince himself that just by sitting there, King just casually cut the apple even when he saw nothing and nothing literally happened in front his very eyes. (Chapter 189, Blade test.)

At least he has Saitama at his back, because Saitama has a bullshit radar a mile wide and Saitama believes he can change to be stronger. He respects King's opinion to do what is right despite knowing he lacks real power to be that force of change himself. He does not appear at a glance to show implicit bias towards King. He originally saved the guy just because he needed saving and then did it again, despite not knowing a thing about King, aside from the assumption that he must be a strong hero, even if he was asking for information to form an opinion. And then tries to dig deeper into that and questions the logic of King running away and showing lack of bias with his objectivity. (Chapter 38, King)

So as long as Saitama believes in King, he probably won't come to any real harm. But Saitama also has to believe in his own ability to actually help King if the need arises and act upon it, because otherwise it'll just be 166 chapter redux in the absolute worst case scenario.

-*-

So, about perceptive biases towards Saitama, they come out in negative light by default unless proven wrong by him directly.

I'll let the following panel demonstrate. (Chapter 55.7, Sense, vol 20 Extra)

The judge became immediately biased without any reason and attacked his integrity and pretended to know all about him when he actually knows nothing, despite this being ONLY a hero suit contest, not a character judgement and ignoring Saitama's explanation to why he likes to wear what he wears.

The judge won't acknowledge what he saw with his plain eyes as he refuses to believe what happened, Genos is showing different kind of bias because he too, is biased in favour of Saitama and thinks Saitama should win a hero suit contest just because he's strong, despite objectively having a really bland and cheap outfit even HE didn't like. Like a cosplay contest gone wrong if the judge just picks their favourite without any objectivity to their actual suit or performance and what is the point of the judging in the first place. Other people, despite cheering him on...show their true facets with their snide negative comments with their leaps of logic, attempting to tear him down for his good deed and nobody criticises them.

Now for a different kind of perception bias. (Chapter 16, Passed the exam)

Chewing gum might on a first glance, seem very disrespectful when towards authority figures who want your full attention because it inherently implies that the person is too busy chewing gum rather than paying attention, thus creating bias.

However the act of chewing gum in a situation where one wants to study and retain information has been seen as beneficial by studies.

Turns out, chewing gum may have more effects than simply making your breath smell good, or giving you something to do when bored. In fact, some studies show chewing gum can actually increase feelings of relaxation, increase attention, lower stress levels, and improve memory.

Saitama has shown even at the early stages of his teenager years that he DOES actually possess the attention span to study...as long as the subject actually interests him and he has selective interests. Despite all the chatter around him, he's able to tune them out and focus on his study. Give him something really dry and boring that just won't seem to stick and his attention span will waver, because attention is a resource to be managed.

Things like studying psychology can have their humble beginnings often in the interest in what affects human health, because personality types who are keen about bettering others like knowing what makes people tick in order to help them.

So it can be assumed that Saitama, knowing he has a poor attention span in boring seminars but has studied the subject before, anticipated this and simply brought chewing gum to help him focus just a bit more. Unfortunately, Snek became hostile to him and Saitama completely lost his focus and his attention wavered. This is how negative perception bias affects Saitama in his everyday life.

Another example of this selective attention span is where he watches the television because he's also interested in bettering the world as a whole, again because he likes helping other people and it brings him satisfaction. He often watches tv as an adult as well, to the point of doomscrolling. He even has Mob Psycho shirt on, a nod to ONE's other series to show that he's very empathic at his core. (Chapter 8.5, 200 yen, Vol 1 extra)

However, it is also shown that Saitama is incredibly sensitive to baseless judgement, hostility, bias and outside influence and he will get defensive and angry when faced with such and when challenged. (Meteor and Sea king fiasco) People like this who also have high moral integrity like Saitama has shown time to time again, also care great deal about their reputation in other's eyes, because it shows to them if they are doing a good job or not in their moralistic actions. Like a peer review.

Not getting any good feedback and instead met with various levels of hostility just conditions them to not try at all because they think it's their fault that everyone is against them. So Saitama early on has been faced with conditioning and now for instance, he thinks he just can't learn anything new even if he made an honest attempt. He has become insecure and self-critical and will think of himself in a negative light. (Stagnation and growth, chapter 76.) He has effectively build cognitive biases about himself and his true identity.

Here is Saitama attempting to unravel the cognitive bias around himself because he made a self-discovery. King, in his infinite wisdom, gives Saitama some objective perspective when Saitama immediately wants his second opinion about his perspective surrounding this new discovery. King, bless his heart, attempts to genuinely help Saitama but he misses the point of the discussion when Saitama was trying to see if he could bounce his ideas around, such as throwing a video game analogy to King that Saitama knows he SHOULD understand well. Saitama is just very poor at expressing his words due to his upbringing and loneliness and detatchment from emotions, especially without properly parsing it out first. He often thinks a lot louder than he seems to talk, which is why he's often misunderstood.

That is, unless he apparently connects on a deep level like with Genos and then the two of em could talk about anything and everything that comes to mind for days or until they run out of breath lmao. (Maji Drama CD vol 1, Saitama makeover)

King's perception bias towards Saitama is because he just does not know him well enough and his perspective is a bit skewed because of media influence that bring him comfort for his own emotional loneliness...because Saitama is always hung up about something or another because he has so much issues it hurts. King just does not see it or is not willing to believe "Super strong Saitama" could possibly have any issues since Saitama hides them well.

Saitama has far too much free time to think and ruminate, but his own cognitive biases stop him from seeing his true self without all the negativity surrounding him. The negativity of things such as his upbringing as a lonely boy who's sensitive to hostility. (Chapter 15.5, Brushing up, vol 2 extras)

-*-

Perception bias also serves another more...sinister purpose for Saitama. Psychological conditioning. There is potential evidence for deprivation of basic needs, conditioning for violence for protection and subliminal messages for suggestion, among other things. I won't go into details because I'm afraid of also potentially spoiling stuff, so I'll keep the suspense. :D

Here's maslow hierarchy of needs pyramid that explains about our intrinsical needs as human beings to have wellness in both body and mind.

Being deprived of all these needs is akin to mental torture. But so is facing all of the underlying issues at once via hypnotherapy and cognitive behavioural therapy if the patient is sufficiently dysfunctional in a societal setting like Saitama happens to be. Especially if the therapies are performed...poorly.

CBT has shown to be the most effective intervention for people exposed to adverse childhood experiences in the form of abuse or neglect Criticism of CBT sometimes focuses on implementations (such as the UK which may result initially in low quality therapy being offered by poorly trained practitioners. However, evidence supports the effectiveness of CBT for anxiety and depression. Evidence suggests that the addition of hypnotherapy as an adjunct to CBT improves treatment efficacy for a variety of clinical issues. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and its symptoms have been shown to improve due to implementation of hypnotherapy, in both long and short term. As research continues, hypnotherapy is being more openly considered as an effective intervention for those with PTSD.

In short, in order to heal mentally, Saitama may need to face mental torture because he has such strong willpower and such strong mental barriers shielding his vulnerabilities on a basic primal need. He can essentially dip himself on lava and ignore the shock reaction from the extreme heat (Chapter 112, Sacrifice) and does not even need to breathe in space and does not notice the extreme cold or pressure of space nor the sun's harmful rays, that's how strongly he shields himself from outside influence. (Saitama vs Garou fight, cpt 167-168) But there only needs to be a sufficient trigger.

ONE sent Saitama home to restore his energy levels in Chapter 197, What only I can do...because he's going to sorely need them for the upcoming confrontation.

Empty Void's ability to genjutsu people casually and cause parallel shifts in the reality and using these to abuse emotional dependencies is like a loaded Chekov's gun on Saitama's forehead. Because Saitama has been roleplaying to re-learn his emphatic skillset after he had suffered too much mental trauma and he's done that a lot with Genos just via interaction. I heavily suspect that Saitama's emotional regulation and empathy suffered when he became too strong and he was emotionally blunting himself.

So, if they so happened to use Genos against him and trigger his PTSD, there's no telling how Saitama will react.

Saitama more than likely has some mental illnesses like disorders and at the very minimum PTSD, not just depression, which can be used maliciously against him and the entire OPM world. There is one more thing about psychological conditioning, but I'm not gonna say it out loud here on this meta, I'm afraid to spoil it. :p *rubs hands gleefully*

There is also a high chance that if he's stressed enough and sleep deprivated enough, he could honestly go into psychosis if the entire world suddenly turned on him because he's sensitive to criticism and hostility.

Psychosis is a condition of the mind or psyche that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavior that is inappropriate for a given situation. There may also be sleep problems, social withdrawal, lack of motivation, and difficulties carrying out daily activities. Psychosis can have serious adverse outcomes.

That's where he would truly become a danger to both himself and the entire Earth he's living on if he starts to have delusions, hallucinations and becomes out of touch with reality and also paranoid. So unless Saitama's mental health is adressed in a proper environment, he's a ticking time bomb till someone pulls the trigger on that PTSD and other issues he has. Empty Void can easily do exactly that by abusing his attachment to Genos in a cruel way, just like he tried to do with Flash and Sonic, starting from Chapter 200, Void.

Even seemingly normal, kind and well-adjusted people at the core can become very unpredictable when under high amount of duress and psychosis.

As underlined above, everyone always seems to default to the negative viewpoint of Saitama due to their perception biases and if Saitama's true strenght became more know...public would outright fear him simply because they cannot understand the scale of how powerful Saitama actually is, abnormally strong. Like they'd suddenly become prey to some unknown entity. Add in Saitama becoming more and more loose with his inhibitions from things like sleep depression and they'd have a huge mess in their hands.

Even Garou who fought against Saitama with everything he has, is completely shocked about how insane Saitama's abilities are, because they defy physic laws like it's nothing, so Garou goes "This is insane! What the hell IS this monster!?" when Saitama sneezed jupiter apart. (Awakening of the gods, chp 168)

Saitama has also shown dubious morality by attempting to punch and kill Garou to avenge Genos, but not really thinking or caring that the entire Earth would become collateral damage like Blast mentions as he portals and contains the explosion in Earth atmosphere. Chapter 166, Squared & Cpt 167, I.o) Saitama's mental state, when normally calm and seemingly well-adjusted, was thrown out of the window when he saw Genos died on him and has now become a PTSD trigger. He literally vented out all that anger in his fist in a massive clash of divine power, as told by the Blastice league.

So if perception bias surrounding Saitama was to turn sideways and he'd get dumped the pressure of the world against him, the consequences might become...bad. Saitama needs to be able to regulate his emotions far better in order to withstand mass scale attack from public opinion. Otherwise ONE is playing with fire with Saitama's mental health state, because he does NOT react well to criticism an such and will lash out like he did during the meteor incident, but far worse.

Thus, a danger to society.

-*-

Tl;dr: King has always been viewed in positive light so people perceive his powers as good thing and non-threat because they believe King is a great hero, whereas Saitama has always been surrounded by negative preconceptions about whatever he seems to be doing and public opinion about his hero status is not good, so Saitama busting out his massive, unknown power would instead cause uproar and mass scale panic that someone is even capable of such.

Thanks all for reading and thank you itsmaferart for this question. :)

[elsannej]

He got dragged into a wedding dress butique at the girls' night out.

As much as i like putting robots in dresses, i hc that Omega honestly kinda dislikes/doesn't care for women's/fem apparel. In his eyes they emphasize all the wrong things (looking soft/dainty/sweet). Not to mention how impractical e.g. dresses are.

It took a lot of convincing get him to try the stuff on:

Rouge (currently rocking a party dress herself): “Do i give off [any of the words on Omega's list] vibes? How about Blaze (in a light summer dress) over here?"

Omega (who hasn't & doesn't associate either of them with "softness" etc.,): "mmmmmmmmmmm" (If he answers truthfully he's gonna get roped into "Say Yes to The Dress")

And Omega finds out that he doesn't mind some of the dresses. That a select few actually... look quite good on him:

They either clash nicely (depicted dress) in a way that accentuates his form by putting something soft & light against his angular & heavyset build, or bring up other positive aspects - things Omega only now learned to look for/analyse in fashion - e.g. boldness/grandness/fierceness. He doesn't mind that at all.

@generic-sonic-fan

[universetalkz]

The ego has a negativity bias-

“It tends to focus on what is missing rather than celebrating what you already have. When we do not understand this nature of the ego mind we are always hungry for more, never truly enjoying what we have already accomplished. Learn to appreciate where you are and through that you will snap out of the ego’s grip. Seeking more without focusing on what you already have will always leave you feeling like you have nothing. Always be grateful.”

~Pawan Nair | The Higher Self

[cheer-soli-art]

My personal take on the lamb <3

Support me on ko-fi

[zebratimw]

[diamondseaside]

i have long been saying this as much as i LOVE taylor’s work with aaron it’s objectively more monotonous than her work with jack

[the-descolada]

love to see post after post about how obvious it is that trans women are being held to an impossible double standard on this site and how obviously related to broader transmisogyny that is directly after being treated like shit and abandoned (and then betrayed in a vile fucking way!) by someone who I thought would be a lifelong friend justified by a conflict they started that existed primarily in their own head in sheer projection and I was blamed for without even knowing what was happening, whose idea of conflict "resolution" was jumping directly to verbal abuse and sanctioning the friendship instead of communicating at literally any point that it mattered and utterly refused to give me any benefit of the doubt for yknow. having human reactions to what was practically emotional abuse and not being a Perfect Angel, and that just serving as further justification to start unpersoning me, when it was so clear nobody else in their life was being treated in such a black and white way. it's so fucking galling man

many people can talk Real Big about how trans women getting banned is bad but will immediately find self justified reasons to participate in whisper networks, or even start them themselves, or, in this case, reach out to someone who did to buddy up and find that justification to chase a sense of moral purity, because they can't be wrong, so this has to be the exception and the transfem in question is Evil Actually. almost every single trans woman I know has a or several stories like this, and it's why seeing these cauterizations from a social network stings and terrifies.

[sanctiphera]

If people are basing their opinion of what we read in our news, they are deeply misled about what happened and what is happening. It was the same thing with Ukraine. People still believe that they are fighting for democracy and Putin attacked out of the blue for no reason.

[dichromaticdyke]

i really do see the value of being a hater and i really do think everything deserves to be criticized, but i also do think it's better mentally and better for art as a whole to spend more energy focusing on propping up stuff you love instead of relentlessly tearing down stuff you hate.

[theomnicode]

Perception bias, round 2 Director's cut, Saigenos edition!

(or basically, how my brain jumps into another topic only loosely related to the original ask)

Thank you @itsmaferart For the wonderful ask again. :)

Warning: Long post ahead

-*-

Perception bias also serves another more...sinister purpose for Saitama. Psychological conditioning. There is potential evidence for deprivation of basic needs, conditioning for violence for protection and subliminal messages for suggestion, among other things.

Being deprived of all these needs is akin to mental torture. But so is facing all of the underlying issues at once via hypnotherapy and cognitive behavioural therapy if the patient is sufficiently dysfunctional in a societal setting like Saitama happens to be. Especially if the therapies are performed...poorly.

CBT has shown to be the most effective intervention for people exposed to adverse childhood experiences in the form of abuse or neglect Criticism of CBT sometimes focuses on implementations (such as the UK which may result initially in low quality therapy being offered by poorly trained practitioners. However, evidence supports the effectiveness of CBT for anxiety and depression. Evidence suggests that the addition of hypnotherapy as an adjunct to CBT improves treatment efficacy for a variety of clinical issues. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and its symptoms have been shown to improve due to implementation of hypnotherapy, in both long and short term. As research continues, hypnotherapy is being more openly considered as an effective intervention for those with PTSD.

In short, in order to heal mentally, Saitama may need to face mental torture because he has such strong willpower and such strong mental barriers shielding his vulnerabilities on a basic primal need. There only needs to be a sufficient trigger.

ONE sent Saitama home to restore his energy levels...because he's going to sorely need them for the upcoming confrontation.

Empty Void's ability to genjutsu people casually and cause parallel shifts in the reality and using these to abuse emotional dependencies is like a loaded Chekov's gun on Saitama's forehead. Because Saitama has been roleplaying to re-learn his emphatic skillset after he had suffered too much mental trauma.

That's why early Saitama did not even bat an eye when Beefcake killed his own brother but now he's empathizing with Hamukichi. That's what I call character progression.

Even a compulsive planner like Saitama cannot predict what will happen because he's not familiar with Blast's maladaptive coping methods deep down. Blast is great at masking because they are coping methods so he can bear with his guilt and other issues and just wants to do things on his own, without assistance.

This causes Saitama's perception bias about Blast who seems capable and emphatic, when he is in actuality unscrupulous and amorally indifferent if you really, REALLY study him hard enough.

My bro casually invited Saitama, who is sensitive to aggression, hostility and violence, to watch literal torture of human turned monsters, with an actual smile on his face. And justifying it with his end justify the means philosophy. That's awfully too close to being sadistic and cruel when you consider the ramifications.

They say "love is blind" and Saitama is wearing some rose tinted glasses on because Blast is straight up shady, but he does not see it because he's probably identifying with Blast so hard. Middle-aged, number 1# hero, powerful, confident, outwardly caring, intuitive, ruggedly handsome, positively masculine, secretly gay...you name it. Everything Saitama more than likely fantasies about being because he's so emotionally dependant on Genos and he wants to better himself for Genos due to all his insecurities.

Oh yeah time for some saigenos. *rubs hands*

The very first Genos tells him is to tell Saitama to hide in order to protect him. Saitama has a lot of dependency issues since he has been a small child because he was so emotionally lonely and never got the safety he needed to cope well in life. There are definitely some underlying anxieties or disorders laying about.

Second thing Genos does is show just how smart, capable, cool and devilishly attractive he can be when he gets passionate and engages in combat. Genos can get an awed reaction even from Saitama who's emotions were being blunted during their first spar.

Third is showing he's not gonna judge Saitama for completely embarassing himself, even if he was to get naked around him and lower his inhibitions and showing him it would be ok to trust him on the level of intimacy he craves so dearly. (Season 2 Blu-ray & Dvd: Saitama and the mysterious heroine)

Fourth is showing that Genos is also extremely resilient even when getting hurt...because Saitama hates to see others hurting and he doesn't want it to happen because of him.

And finally the fifth...is because Genos is just as emotionally lonely as he is, but he's unable to let go of his emotional dependencies because he trauma bonds so deeply. He would rather double KO for a Game Over screen than let the monsters win over him and his loved ones on pure principle and take those he trauma bonds with him, because emotional abandonment and guilt would kill him deep inside, so he would rather end it himself for a shred of agency before he withers away.

All these draw in Saitama like moth to a flame and he easily lets Genos into his life. Because he identifies with the lonely teenage boy Genos with traumas who is so familiar to him like coming home.

-*-

Despite everything that has happened to Saitama, he tries to remain optimistic. He's not naturally prone to cynicism unless under great amount of duress. The worst thing to do against him would be Genos emotionally betraying him, betray everything that he perceived in him since the first day they met.

But Saitama has perception bias towards Genos too...such as that Genos is no longer the small teenage boy who needs to be sheltered and cared for, but a battle-hardened soldier. Neither is he a lost naive little sibling in need of guidance or chaperone but an adult wanting mentorship where he can be truly open about his own issues. Would be such a shame if these wrong illusions about Genos were to be shattered...painfully. If Genos were to ever violate that implicit trust Saitama gives to him.

My brother in christ Saitama, he's not actually related to you and he's not your family member even if you'd love him enough to adopt him or something. Not letting go of this notion will spell trouble, like wonky image of relationships and intimacy.

(Yea Saitama please he's not actually related to you, even if it's kind of endearing that Saitama considers Genos to be as close like a family member)

It'll just get worse if Saitama confuses emotional intimacy with sexuality because of his bad upbringing when he's never had any friends and missing his parents too and all his role models have been aggressive and toxic people.

Funny how Saitama's first conclusion about Dr. Genus being interested in his body was sexual in nature and he immediately got defensive. He essentially revealed himself as someone who doesn't even know for sure which way he swings. Which would be quite classic for infj demi but I'll get to that if it becomes more relevant.

Genos naturally knows best though, poor guy looks so disappointed haha. Doesn't stop Genos from attempting every trick in the book besides outright throwing roses at Saitama and arranging dates to get into his good side and woo him, he dressed up so nicely for a spar haha. Dressing to impress, yup. And then he got himself new shiny body and practically walked weeks without a shirt on just so Saitama would see it. (Chapter 185: Updates) My guy has it down bad for Saitama, but Saitama seems oblivious to Genos indirect advances and Genos gave up and finally found a shirt to put on.

(I would pay to see Genos actually chuck roses at Saitama though.)

Even Saitama has to acknowledge that Genos is objectively a hottie though, because in the webcomic he says something along the lines of "he's not even pretty" about Amai-mask and it really makes you think the standards of who Saitama considers pretty when even ikemen like Amai-mask won't do.

-*-

Genos unfortunately is growing up some pretty large perception bias about Saitama after the time travel fiasco. His idolization of Saitama is becoming obsessive and objectifying, like Saitama can do no wrong and that Saitama is some kind of messiah.

Genos also does not take no for an answer. It would be incredibly damaging to both Saitama and Genos when this perception bias is broken when Saitama gets too much on his plate to handle. Like for example...Empty void's specialty, messing with emotional bonds and inducing traumatic events like the illusion of death to break any emotional bond, just like he did to Flashy flash and Sonic.

I do greatly anticipate how Empty Void's fight is going to proceed, we might be in for very big perceptional bias shifts all around, like Flash was forced to acknowledge that he's emotionally dependant on Sonic. (Chapter 201: You pass) And Saitama's idolization of Blast will come crashing down when he finds out what Blast is really up to.

I'll throw some funny perception bias at the end.

[awayintheend]

dot dot

[tomatoluvr69]

Bro I fucking hate the armed forces why are you sitting there signing up for a gym membership in full camouflage and combat boots it is NOT THAT SERIOUS…

[absurdist-shitpost]

Seen a lot of arguments about whether or not it was in character for c!Tommy to attempt to reach out to c!Dream in the finale, but not a lot about how OOC it felt for Dream to respond the way he did?

Like. I’m upset about how Tommy’s character was handled for a variety of reasons but judging the stream purely by ‘do the characters act in ways that feel realistic based on how they’ve previously been characterized’ I actually think c!Dream was done far dirtier.

C!Dream is genuinely one of my favorite characters. He makes for a terrifying villain while also feeling deeply human, (and I really don’t think we needed a sympathetic flashback to further humanize him, but that’s a different topic) he’s cruel and controlling and deeply self-centered, but at the same time he craves connection to others while refusing to admit to feeling any sort of attachment out of fear.

C!Dream has always struck me as a character Deeply Afraid of vulnerability. Deeply afraid of Losing Control. I’ve seen posts floating around about how Dream’s planning relies much more heavily on improvisation and luck then he admits, and this is for a reason! Dream doesn’t want to say that he messed up, or that something went wrong, instead he’d much rather say that he was sabotaged (usually by c!tommy) or that This Was Totally the Plan All Along Guys.

It makes perfect sense for Dream to act like this! He was always a competitive and prideful person, even before Shit Got Bad, so when he (and the server more broadly) started taking things farther and farther, committing acts that he likely would have considered Too Far in the past, he responded by by digging his heals in. Because This Was Totally the Plan All Along Guys. If nothing else, c!Dream is a goddamn master of Committing To The Bit.

It’s what gives his character it’s tragedy. Because he would truly be happier just hanging out with his friends. But in the end, /he’s/ the one who cuts them off, not because of anything Tommy or anyone else did, but because he was scared that keeping them around would make him vulnerable. He becomes so blinded by his stubborn attachment (heh) to his own plans and power and this idea of godhood that not only does he ruin the lives of those around him, he ruins his /own/ life too.

And you’re telling me. That Dream, the same Dream that has tortured and abused multiple people, who has gotten /himself/ tortured and jailed, who cut off his friendships, ruined his own reputation on purpose and literally /died/ multiple times all in service of a plan that /he could’ve abandoned himself at multiple points/, That Dream, suddenly decides he gonna call it all off after a 15 minute conversation? Really?

And to be clear, I’m not saying that it feels unrealistic for Dream to regret his actions. In fact, I think it’s likely a part of him has regretted them since he started doing them. But Dream’s reaction to things going wrong has always been to either deflect or dig his heels in. To convince himself that it’s worth it. And above all, to never show Anyone that regret, because that would mean being vulnerable.

C!Tommy ‘understanding his motives’ wouldn’t make c!Dream happy or willing to listen to him, in fact it feels more in line with his character for him to be deeply angered and disturbed by this. There’s no way I can believe that c!Dream would want anyone, much less c!tommy, seeing what he likely considers to be deeply personal memories. C!Dream may want to be understood deep down, but that desire is overwhelmed by his crushing fear of being known. It’s why he cut off c!george and c!Sapnap in the first place, and why he’s dodgy in acknowledging c!Punz as more than just an ally. To c!dream, being understood means being hurt. It means giving someone else control over you.

And maybe c!Dream could overcome this, could realize he was only hurting himself and everyone around him, could realize that /this wasn’t really what he wanted/ but not in 15 goddamn minutes. Not when, from his perspective, his plan had finally come to fruition and he was in a position to obtain Goddamn Immortality. The Only Reason c!Dream was written to have such a quick turn around was because cc!Dream wanted to soften his character at the last second, despite his entire arc before this being built on him essentially sunk-cost-fallacying himself into self destructing and dragging everyone down with him.

Justice for c!Dream. In my heart of hearts you died drunk on your own hubris attempting to become an immortal death god.

[pandelacreme]

dr stone being one of my fav animes ive seen recently is pretty crazy given how turned off i was by senku's character design + the weed man memes + i thought based on the visuals it was going to be some type of seinen/shounen overloaded w tropes im not a fan of...and it kinda is LMFAO the way women are drawn compared to men terrifies me

but it completely blew me out of the water wrt expectations on the story. the science niche it fills is genuinely so enjoyable. the scene where they remade the "edison" lightbulb is so unforgettable. and i loved the reinventing glasses arc

ofc i am also watching this w a critical lens and do notice a lot of questionable tropes/ideological commentary that make me go ?!?!?!?!?. but dr stone being an anime ive rewatched was not something i was expecting

[canichangemyblogname]

No, Republicans do not actually care or suddenly care about antisemitism. Not on college campuses. Not in government. This is the same party whose members routinely go onto Fox News to espouse antisemitic conspiracies about Jews controlling the military or “transing” our children. This is the same party whose members have defended the Charlottesville Nazis. This is the same party that is currently led by a man (Trump) who enjoys playing with antisemitic stereotypes, namely those related to greed. This is the same party that insists the Jan. 6th insurrectionists we’re innocent, peaceful protestors rather than violent, right-wing racists.

The Republicans see this as an opportunity to further US geopolitical interests and as an opportunity to— hopefully successfully—malign Palestinian movements, higher education, anti-nationalism and anti-colonialism. But their constituents do not care, and neither do they. They do not care about the safety of Jewish people domestically or abroad.

Stop painting Republicans as the sudden bastions of pro-Semitic sentiments in the US or as leaders in the fight against antisemitism. Unconditional support for Israel is not an indicator that someone is pro-Semitic, especially considering that this is the party of “Jewish Space Lasers.”

And before someone “bean soups” this post with something like “What about the Democrats; there are antisemitic Democrats” or “There *are* leftist antisemites” or “college campuses aren’t bastions of anti-bigotry, they *do* have an antisemitism problem” or “there are antisemitic anti-Zionists,” I would like you to go back, reread the post, and point to where I denied these things. And would you look at that! I didn’t. Engage in good faith. Don’t purposefully derail or distract with whataboutisms. Thank you!

[egg-emperor]

okay I'm doing it fr now I'm gonna properly make that vid I've been wanting to make where I compile all of Shadow 2005 Eggman's personal thoughts/reaction dialogue with the action button and boss fight lines removed. I NEED more people to know how well characterized he is in this game it makes me so insane. his actual role in the plot aside that people say they don't like (even though I personally ADORE it too, him being murdered aside), he's captured really well

I learned so much about him from it and how he acts more "casually" when he's not trying to kill you and his mindset and thoughts on random stuff that's super interesting to me. so much funny and charming stuff in there too. there's just hardly any other game that gives a more personal look into him like that, aside from the SA2 journal entries and Egg Memos and I fuckin love it

there's probably no audience except for me and going through 420 files to get them out again takes a while, especially after I already went through them all once to individually name all the files but my dedication to him gives me the power to do anything lol