#responsibility denial

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Wilfred Reilly

Published: Jan 1, 2025

It’s always worth remembering that the person responsible for probably 95 percent of what you do is you.

Now that we Westerners know we mostly do have free will, no one seems to like using it. A few days before New Year’s Eve, writing for a — nay, the — conservative magazine, this strikes me as a point worth discussing.

We saw what I’ll call agency-rejectionism first — in very recent discourse — from the feminists. A few weeks back, British pornographic actress Lily Phillips opted to have sex with 101 men in a “gang-bang” scene which she orchestrated and choreographed. The almost universal reaction from women’s advocates was that the fit but slender, blonde Phillips was being abused.

Self-described lesbian radical feminist Julie Bindel penned a raging column for the U.K. Guardian, bold-headlined “Shame on the Men Exploiting Lily Phillips.” Tens of thousands of angry women supported this take across social and digital media, with one typical take being Polly Clark’s: “Lots of men congratulating other men . . . in the face of televised abuse of a woman. Evil is always legalistic and careful with its terms. The Lily Phillips case is not about ‘sex.’ This isn’t about sex. It’s bestial abuse of another human being.” A full list of these responses, including Bindel (again), calling for prison for “any man involved in the torture of this woman,” and the more gender-neutral Hot & Freddy demanding “death penalty for all the dudes,” can be found here.

Unfortunately for Phillips’s unrequested “defenders,” however, there exists basically no evidence of (actual, legal) abuse in her case. Phillips is a 23-year-old adult from a fairly wealthy family, who cleared five British GCSE (“G-level”) exams and went on to college. She has never been sexually abused and describes herself — in one of the articles just linked — as not being a victim of any kind. Her financial manager is her own, feminist, mother. The young woman currently runs a for-profit OnlyFans business, managed by an all-female staff of eight, has made more than $2,500,000 (£2,000,000) to date, and stands to make hundreds of thousands more from her most recent stunt.

As it happens, she not only choreographed that event but booked the setting for it — a nice little Airbnb, now very worried about cleaning and fumigation costs — invited all of the male participants, and contracted with the professional film crew. She now, apparently, plans on a larger-scale repeat. The actress’s new goal is to break the “world sex record” by engaging with 1,000 men in a day (the current mark is 919). Those interested in a casting call may apply here. Perhaps women simply have personal agency, just as men do.

Moving on, a similar wailing cry of, “How could society fail (X amoral person)?” was heard an ocean away at about the same time, when U.S. Marine veteran Daniel Penny was acquitted on the charge of the choking death of vagrant Jordan Neely during a subway fight. A simple Google search for “We all failed Jordan Neely” turns up hundreds of thousands of hits, including predictable drivel from the New Yorker (“The System That Failed Jordan Neely”), USA Today’s main opinion editorial (“Daniel Penny’s Acquittal Isn’t Cause for Celebration”), the Washington Post (“Penny Verdict Reveals How New York City Failed Jordan Neely”), and a major piece from the National Coalition for the Homeless (“Justice Denied: Honoring Jordan Neely and Demanding Change”).

A consistent theme throughout this national coverage is that “America” failed to provide Neely with housing or clean clothing or medical treatment — and that Penny went too hard on him in that train car, perhaps for this reason. But is this empirically true? Not really.

As it happens, Jordan Neely had pretty high-quality housing available to him at the time of his death. He simply opted not to live in it. As the New York-focused website Vital City points out, “in lieu of prison” in a recently decided criminal matter, “Neely was offered 15 months of (free) supportive housing and intensive outpatient psychiatric treatment.” However, he “absconded” from his bungalow after less than two weeks. He was given psychiatric medications while in treatment, but also opted to stop taking these pills: obviously, by default while still under their influence and aware that he could not safely do so.

Not only was Neely’s overall situation largely his fault, so was the very specific situation that led to his death. What is often misleadingly described as Neely “using colorful language” with other passengers on his train car, or “asking them for food and water,” was actually — per my best-possible compilation from several articles and police reports — the phrase: “I’ll hurt everyone here! I will KILL you! I don’t care if I go back to prison!” This obviously insane behavior prompted not merely Daniel Penny but several other random male citizens to confront and restrain Neely.

One glance at Neely’s arrest record would only have strengthened the unsurprising, absolutely correct conclusion that Daniel Penny and his fellow subway heroes drew from their opponent’s crazed ranting and filthy appearance. As it happens, Neely had been locked up some 42 previous times, for crimes including an unprovoked subway attack on a 67-year-old woman (which shattered her orbital bone), breaking the nose of a different subway rider, “pulling down his pants and exposing himself” to an unsuspecting young woman on a train, and attempting to snatch a pre-teen girl away from her guardians . . . in a train station. Neely’s encounter with Penny was only the latest — and, as it turned out, the last — time he fought with strangers on the NYC public rails.

On X and Facebook, we are currently seeing a broader example of the same trend of personal responsibility denial — and one which may hit closer to home for tax-paying readers of this article. Monorail salesman, likely genius, and of-late GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy just began a major conversation and attracted an apple-throwing mob by — while defending most recipients of H-1B foreign “talent” visas — pointing out that white and black American youth may not be the hardest working imaginable occupants of the classroom.

Quoth he: “The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over ‘native’ Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH: Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.”

Ramaswamy was greeted with, alongside some support, an immediate wave of anger and excuses. Elijah Schafer of The Blaze argued: “Vivek — white people built marvelous nations and were almost completely white until 1965. We didn’t have H1B visas replacing jobs and were fine. (H1B support) is only about cheap labor!” Other debaters agreed, with some suggesting that the U.S. should immediately end upper-end foreign migration totally. Our kids? Best in the world!

An honorable and tempting idea. However, as I once noted at book length, a ton of objective statistics indicate that Ramaswamy is largely correct. The average American SAT score was 1024 in the most recent year on record. It’s well below that for Latinos, and below 950 for blacks. Despite this, as writer Adam Grant noted in a sourced response to Ramaswamy, one-third of native-born American college students expect a “B” grade for showing up in class. In contrast, Asian-American students, many foreign born, study roughly three times as much as black kids and twice as much as white kids — and post a 1250 on the annual aptitude test. They tend not to expect a B+ for — forgive me — “being” present.

Delano Squires, a black conservative writer whom I personally know and like, pointed out during the whole Vivek-induced controversy that no one objects to the invocation of personal responsibility or responsibility culture when this is made in the direction of failures or poor people, or even working-class blacks as a whole, or Appalachians. However, we all tend to get a bit testy when similar reminders are made to us or our beautiful children.

Let’s make them to everyone. I intentionally opened this essay with extreme cases, but, as New Year’s Day approaches, it’s always worth remembering that the person responsible for probably 95 percent of what you do is you. Let us all work on ourselves, each other, and the country.

[ Via: https://archive.today/YE3uZ ]

==

This is part of the larger victimhood industry. We have to stop rewarding self-professed "victims" - while not ignoring actual victims - who just refuse to take responsibility for their own actions and choices and feel compelled to blame others.

[nartothelar]

disbelief

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

Anyway, while people are discoursing about men and not sharing Shubble points, here’s the actual advice I got from watching the stream bc I think that probably needs to be spread more. Shubble elaborates it much better but if you can’t watch it’s better than nothing.

Physical abuse is not just hitting or kicking, anyone causing physical pain intentionally to you without consent is physically abusive, regardless of how that manifests or if it seems silly.

Pressuring someone into using a safeword on something that’s not, like, a mutually agreed thing and is just something one partner wants is controlling and creepy.

Partners who push at the edge of your boundaries and avoid safewords are abusive.

A partner insisting you’re remembering things wrong and making you seem crazy is abusive (specifically, it’s gaslighting)

Grand romantic gestures from the beginning can very easily be a sign of abuse, as abusers use it to endear themselves to their victims.

Controlling behaviour and refusing to break up while also refusing to make changes is possessive and unhealthy at best.

Abusers will manipulate things to make it seem normal to those outside of their victims- by being kind and helpful even as they neglect their victim, by pressuring their victim to treat their abusive behaviour as a joke, ect. It’s often very hard for an outside observer to know if something is abusive, and making assumptions off of what you know in front of closed doors isn’t helpful.

It’s very hard to tell that you’re being abused, and you'll often still retain affection for your abuser for a long time- this is normal, and this isn’t your fault if you wanted to stay friends.

Even if an abuser is struggling with their own problems, taking it out on you is not acceptable. People can be bottling up their emotions and struggle with depression and past trauma and that gives them no excuse to hurt you.

If your partner relies entirely on you to take care of them, and support them financially, that’s financial abuse one way or another.

Abusers tend to hurt more than one person, and their actions escalate without outside influence (be it intervention if possible or something that keeps them away from victims if not.)

Listen to your gut, if you think a relationship is bad. Even if you’ve been through this before, sometimes you can’t realise in it, but you’ll feel it subconciously.

Also, Shubble is being supported by friends who helped her cope and went through different but similar things. She's specifically mentioned right now keeping the stories anonymised, but she might change her mind, if I interpreted the last bit correctly. She's doing alright, she's healing, and it sounds like she's being believed by her friends, at least most of them. I wish nothing but growth and healing for them, and wish them the best moving forward.

[terrorgirls]

Armand + "Bad Faith"

Sartre explained: From bad faith to authenticity, David Detmer // Interview with the Vampire // Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre

[part one]

[shhhsecretsideblog]

you were a big shot attorney. You always won your cases and had the highest success rate in your firm. You thought now you could settle early and start a family. but you didn't realize that nine months later, you would be representing the defendant of the biggest case in the county.

Your firm suggested that you should take leave since you were so close to your due date, but you refused. You taken all the notes and documented all the evidence to prove your client's innocence.

As you arrived to the court house, you were feeling twinges in your hips and lower belly but you passed them as practice contractions. Soon as you sit down, you couldn't help but feeling restricted as you felt your belly lower than usual as it planted all over your lap. As the trial goes on, you breathe heavily when you sit but had to cover up the pain as you were questioning other witnesses.

The finishing statements come and you slowly get up, scrunching your face as you felt a small pop go in your pants. You look down at your seat and see your water just broke. Your client sees it too and looks panicked for your state. You give them a look saying you got this and was relieved that your pants were black.

"Your honor, members of the jury, my client has more than enough proof that-" You stopped mid sentence as the worst contraction hits you, making you lose your breath. You hold onto the table for stability, as everyone in the court had all their eyes on you.

"Five witnesses have a record of seeing my client 14 miles away from the crime scene and has no skill or experience of committing the charges against them. May the record show that - mmmmmmmmmm" You bit your lip as you widen your stance, feeling a force coming down your pelvis.

You couldn't notice the commotion around you as the blinding pain forced you to spread your legs as you felt the baby's feet pressing down your pants as you could not control your pushing.

I was winning the case but swiftly losing the battle against my body. Throughout the long drawn out day I’d tried to ignore the cramps, dismissing their rising strength and frequency. I paid no mind to the way my belly hung lower on my aching hips, or the weight that had dropped into my pelvis. It was the final day of the court hearing, the last day to make my case to the jury and implore my client's innocence.

My closing speech was suddenly lost to my uncontrollable groaning, the blinding pain all consuming, and I could distinctively feel something coming out of my body. “Ohhhh god…” I moaned, gripping the desk in front of me and bearing down with the rampant contraction.

I could feel something moving, my eyes widened in panic. It wasn’t coming from inside my womb, this movement was outside between my thighs. My heart jumped to my throat in fear, having seen one too many horror films, and irrationally worried what on earth I was giving birth to… One of my hands left the desk and drifted between my legs and I felt through the fabric a foot sticking out of my vagina. Breech. Oh fuck, my baby is breech.

I had no idea what was happening in the courtroom, where my client was, what the jury were thinking, all I could focus on was the unbearable pressure filling my pelvis. My body was crying out at me to push, to deliver the baby and stop all the pain. I growled, bearing down once more, and I felt myself stretch wider and wider beneath my clothes as the baby descended.

It was coming out… my baby was literally coming out of me right there in the middle of the courtroom and there was nothing I could do to stop it. My underwear was soon filling with the torso of my baby, pulling and stretching the fabric beyond recognition. I wanted to remove my clothing, to hold my baby as it slipped further and further out, but I couldn’t get my body to move. Wider… my hips had to be wider. I curled forward, leaning far over the table on my elbows and pushing my hips backward. “Mnghhhh…. My baby… it’s coming….” I grunted, pushing the shoulders past my sensitive lips, the head of the baby still to be born.

“Fuck…. Hurts… oh god, here comes another contraction…” My fingernails clawed at the wooden desk as I bore down against the large round mass of the head. I pushed and screamed and mooed and grunted… the head painfully slowly inching out. Then the pain stopped, my body sagging with relief as the head slipped out and my baby was completely born into my underwear.

[compaculaaa]

Hello I'm new and also love your art ❤️ .

So here's my question : does sentinel still hold feelings for alpha after he was found alive and had birth 4 babies or just only saw him as a tool if neither . What does he do for the babies aswell , does he offered to care for them ???????

Hiii welcome!! TQSM I’m so grateful for your support^^

Sentinel thinks he never held any feelings for alpha then and now, only using him to potentially leech off the primes influence and power. He never wanted sparklings and really wanted to get rid of them when the death trackers brought alpha to him but something in his spark couldn’t make him do it. Afterwards he devised a plan to win over the sparklings sparks and hopefully lure them away from alpha as they grow under his influence, but alpha is very protective and doesn’t let his babies get influenced so easily. And seeing the way alpha cares for their little ones makes the feelings sentinel was trying to bury slowly resurface

[uhyeahnoabsolutelynot]

the gradual shift in joel from being the guy who’s so desensitized that he can carry a dead kid the same way he carried sarah to the site of her death and toss the corpse into a fire without blinking to being the guy who has a massive breakdown and almost nukes his whole life from the fear of ellie being irreparably harmed while under his care......and the way the last few episodes the show go out of their way to specifically test him on that fear.....like hey joel you’re mortally wounded and can’t protect or take care of her, what do you do. hey joel while you were bedridden she went through the worst experience of her life, what do you do. hey joel [insert spoilers for last ep here, you get the idea]. and he rises to the occasion, he pushes through the fear for her, because she asked him to. she wanted him to be the one to deliver her. she didn’t want anyone else. and he’s decided he’s going to give her whatever she wants

it takes time for the realization that he’s gonna have to confront his worst nightmare to really sink in. he’s built up a mental fortress against what happened to him 20 years ago. and you see that when he really starts to care is when all of that comes back up. the time skip between ep 5 and 6 was probably the Joel Quietly Freaks Out with Increasing Frequency and Intensity variety hour

and him telling her she’s not his daughter. aside from being that thing where you say the worst thing you can think of to someone when you’re trying to end your relationship with them so you can’t go back and change your mind later. but also, when you peel back all the layers of pain and fear, that’s him saying “you are not going to die.” up until that moment it’s the most honest and open expression of his feelings that he’s shared with her. his daughter died in his arms. that’s what happens to “joel’s daughter.” so ellie cannot be his daughter

that probably should’ve been 3 separate posts but it’s season finale day and i’m unmedicated, fuck it

[5mcsinatrenchcoat]

I honestly think we don't appreciate enough how much this whole sequence says in terms of Sera's characterization

Right from the incredibly transparent "wrong kind of elf" phrasing and down to the "let's help him in a way that's consistent with his beliefs so he can live well, but also let him know that being threatened with being ostracized for literally being disabled it shit and offer help there too"

[itstwoamandimcursingyourname]

confession: I love how crazy Aleksander is for Alina. My mewmew had a whole bankrupt country to run. but instead spent the whole trilogy and row chasing after an inexperienced cranky flashlight. And I love him for it

[ftmdilfmode]

Why does my brain keep getting turned on at the idea of being pregnant and doing things pregnant people shouldn't do.

Drinking? I'd never drink while pregnant myself, but if you don't know, it's not like it's your fault.... Plus, what's one little drink to take the edge off...?

Smoking cigarettes and vaping? Yeah, it's not healthy, but they say it makes babies smaller. Wouldn't that make birth easier on me?

Fucking strangers raw. Yeah it's risky. What if they hurt me? It's just a chance I have to take.

Hiding the pregnancy. Yeah I wouldn't be getting prenatal care and I'm not getting any supplies together for the baby, but why do I need to tell everyone my business?

Trying to delay or induce labor to give birth on the day I want. Yeah there are some safe methods to do induce, but trying to hold it in? Or trying to induce labor as fast as possible? Maybe that's actually risky....

Giving birth unassisted at home. Yeah, people have died trying this, but I'm sure I'll be okay. After all, I can't have the orgasmic birth experience I want in a hospital, can I? They'll make it so awkward and uncomfortable.

Maybe I just want to be a "bad" parent... Maybe I just want to pretend...

[autumnal-thunder]

"the picture of the burned baby is a fake" "the picture of the burned baby is a fake" "the picture of the burned baby is a fake"

oh, turns out it was real.

[lovesickeros]

lord its so dark in here the sahara desert of tsaritsa content you are like a shining oasis. your characterisation of her compels me & mihoyo would be hard pressed to top it imo.!! caaaaan i humbly request yr thoughts on her first meeting w a reader of any kind, or maybe even multiple kinds (sagau, sagau god au, isekai, etc) if you so desire...

it really is like a desert here. being the fan of a character we aren't getting until the last damn nation is driving me up a wall but i will persevere bc if nothing else i support morally bankrupt women in media. we r in a severe drought over here but i do my best. unfortunately nothing i say is ever coherent so pull out your translation notes its abt 2 be messy

also this got out of hand but thats bc first meetings w the tsaritsa are tricky to write + a LOT of her characterization lies in deeper exploration then just surface level yknow...NOT A DIG AT YOU this is just my excuse for rambling. gently pats the tsaritsa she can hold so much complexity i do not have the word count to delve into it completely :]

gonna talk cult au for a bit here though because that's 99% of my content. and honestly? she thrives in sub au's of the cult au like villain au + imposter au. it's basically made for her. i mean, early days, the imposter au had been going around for a little while but one of the first few ideas was the Fatui taking reader in so like. it kinda technically actually was. pretty sure cult au Tsaritsa popped up because of the imposter au. a lot of it's writers kinda left though which. man am i getting old or.

anyway.

there isn't much of a chance her first impression is all that positive. at best it's usually neutral, imo, but rarely if ever positive. specifically because i view the Tsaritsa as someone who isn't as fanatical as most of the acolytes typically are towards the creator. she's not exactly going to worship the ground you walk on unlike a certain geo lizard. which is partially why i think she thrives in the sub au's i mentioned.

imposter au, for example. she meets you at your lowest. there's no gaudy extravagance or pampering from the acolytes waiting for you because your own acolytes have turned on you. for all intents and purposes you aren't a "god" at all. which is why i don't think she meshes well with normal cult au reader. the Fatui are made up of outcasts, basically, and imposter au slots right in just perfectly. you're weak, at your lowest, when you meet the Fatui in the imposter au. and the Fatui can help you, too.

a mutual exchange, really. the Tsaritsa sees a tool she can use to one up the rest of the nations and especially Archons, and she has no qualms about you using her and the Fatui in turn. you both want something out of it, after all. whether you just want to be safe from the rest of the acolytes, or you want revenge, or whatever else..she'll give you the power to fulfill it, and she gains the strongest piece on the chessboard when all is said and done.

the best way i can describe the first meeting is "practical", i suppose. she sees an opportunity in you. the ultimate gamble. because if she "saves" you, and you dont trust anyone else because they tried to kill you, well..she holds all the cards, doesn't she?

but the Tsaritsa, imo, is just as capable of being just as fanatical towards you as anyone else. she just won't worship you as the creator. but as yourself? clawing your way back to your divine power and taking back what belongs to you? the Tsaritsa is, to me, a character who's character flourishes in long-term fics more because she changes a LOT between "just met reader" and after having been with reader for some time. she's practically apathetic at the beginning but a lot of her character, in my characterization, shines through LONG after the first meeting.

[thirdity]

Oh, what have we done! It’s a biblical question, and we do not seem able to pull ourselves out of its familiar — essentially religious — cycle of shame, denial, and self-flagellation. This is why (I shall tell my granddaughter) the apocalyptic scenarios did not help — the terrible truth is that we had a profound, historical attraction to apocalypse. In the end, the only thing that could create the necessary traction in our minds was the intimate loss of the things we loved.

Zadie Smith, "Elegy For A Country's Seasons"

[mizuthe-cat]

you like gay people? Detective Beebo has that

you like time loops? Detective Beebo has that

you like mutiny? Join the discord

what do we not have? Sandwiches probably

[grapejuicegay]

people staring at him and judging him isn't scary to mhok because it happens to him all the time. it's not that it doesn't suck, it's just not scary because everyone does it to him and he's still here. what's scary is not knowing what people think of him. because he sees the way people look at him. because when he has nothing going for him, no job prospects, nobody to take a chance on him he still has the knowledge. he always knows. and to not know? to not have the one thing he's always relied on? that's so scary.

and every new thing we get to learn about day is so visual. his career relied not just on sight but sharp eyesight. so much of his room is visually appealing. he has frames and pictures all over his walls because he likes looking at them. he has a computer and a tv in his room and a theatre in his home that he doesn't use not just because he can't see but because he can't be seen in his house because he's being hidden away in the US. he has his trophies all on display. everything in his is set up in a way that it is visible from his bed - including the fish tank with the fish that he never wanted but now makes sure to look at every day with his few seconds of vision. he had surrounded himself with things he likes to look at. and suddenly losing not just his future with his career but so many of the things he cares about? that's scary.

and for him to not know what people think about him? when he's been in the public eye because of his career? to know that he's recognisable? that his mother is also recognisable? to know that anywhere he is goes he or someone he knows will be seen? and for him to never see what they think of him? terrifying

[plumbewb]

it’s “eat the rich” until a billionaire gets executed in broad daylight w no remorse and then it’s

“but his wife and kids!”

i don’t give a shit abt his wife and kids. eat the rich.

don’t speak abt a movement to seem cool unless you’re actually for the movement! thanks! and a reminder that the 1% doesn’t care abt you! you will never be them!