#dealing with the fear of future harassment

[3liza]

I agree that the pushback against White Woman Paranoia About Men is warranted but

I also see a lot of posts by men and people who situationally may never experience this, about how being wary of men as a class is delusional due to the actual crime statistics being basically negligible compared to, for example, being hit by a car or getting into a car accident. and what this kind of post doesn't acknowledge is that there are lot of ways to have an exceptionally bad experience caused by strange men in public that have nothing to do with anything that is classified as criminal, bodily harm, and specifically any behavior that would actually be worthwhile to report, making it unknown to the statistics. the guy who followed me for two blocks one night and then brushed by my back and said "don't fall" very pointedly as I was standing on a freeway overpass wasn't doing anything illegal and certainly nothing any cop would do anything about if I "reported" it (lmao) but yeah that is an unpleasant experience I remember vividly and would like to avoid in future. one example of many, obviously, I'm not making a whole post about a single experience

it is absolutely the case that the only rapes and most of the physical assaults I've experienced have been from men known to me socially or intimately, but until I got a large dog, going outside was about 60% likely to involve being harassed. which is a lot more than I have been hit by cars (zero times)

being harassed is extremely unpleasant regardless of its likelihood to progress to physical assault. sometimes it can be so unpleasant it affects our daily lives, and a single incident of harassment can impact a person's mental health. the expectation of ongoing harassment does this moreso, it creates a continual expectation of being pursued, questioned, and then having to deal with someone getting angry at you when you don't accede to their demands. in any context this is unpleasant. people who do not experience sexual harassment in their daily lives may be able to empathize with this experience if they were ever bullied as children. people chasing you around, calling you names, creating unpleasant confrontations for no reason, and then the next day you have to get up and go do it again. people change schools, quit jobs and move out of shared living situations to avoid this kind of stress, it's reasonable to develop an aversion to it. it's reasonable to develop reactivity and hypervigilance as well. verbal and social harassment without any physical assault is more than enough to cause a trauma response.

it's also just inconvenient. even if you are not menaced or belittled or traumatized by an episode of harassment, having to Manage a Harassment Situation in the grocery store or post office when you're just trying to get an errand done is a massive waste of time. a lot of women have to plan for extra time during errands or travel to account for getting out of situations like that.

a LOT of the paranoia about men from women that you can read everywhere in the culture is based not in a fear of getting physically harmed or killed, but simply avoiding more harassment.

I think a lot of women have defaulted to explaining this desire to avoid men and avoid being alone with men, or explaining their suspicion of men, as fear of physical harm, because that's the only way people who don't get harassed are able to take it seriously. but it's completely reasonable to want to avoid being annoyed, bothered, harassed, questioned, inconvenienced, interrupted, or to have someone just be rude to you, completely apart from the actual percentage likelihood that they are a serial killer. even the act of telling these men politely that you can't talk right now, aren't interested, have to go, have a boyfriend, whatever, is annoying and often escalates into a confrontation or to the man being angry at you or insulting you. we can agree that getting into a verbal argument for no reason on the street is a negative experience. it can be annoying and unsettling without being a threat to life and limb. and no this isn't a "i have bad social skills and can't handle normal human interactions" thing, it's not a social interaction required by common decency or manners or basic function, it's someone putting you into a bad situation for no reason and then getting mad at you when you decline to entertain them. the harassers are the ones being rude. it is a violation of the social contract to catcall someone. it's just annoying and I want to avoid it. most women want to avoid it, and behave accordingly.

no terfs on this post. everything I just said about being bothered by strangers applies double (at least) to the experiences of most trans women

women aren't the only people who get harassed by strangers either, but it is overwhelmingly an issue experienced by women, and people who are perceived as feminine or as women.

it's also not just men who do the harassing, but again, it is overwhelmingly men who are doing it.

some women experience no harassment or very little of this harassment and won't identify with this post. that's true and real, but doesn't make it not true that a very very large percentage of women, maybe even most women, have experienced this. no experience is universal

[towasdandelion]

Meet my first OC - Rina Yuzuki

I had so much fun creating this. Honestly she's still very 'fresh' so I might add some things with time. Unfortunately I'm not doing very well with illustrating/drawing so I made something using picrew! I tried drawing her full silhouette cause I had an outfit for her in mind but.. yeah. I don't know how you people do that. I attempted to draw her full body using a template and then for the clothes I drew within my very limited abilities (⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠) (added the full one at the end of the post)

"The girl who sees what might be."

Once seen as a gift, but now whispered about like a curse. Now she walks the halls of Darkwick, a half-broken oracle with one eye on the future.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶

Name: Rina Yuzuki

“Hey, I didn’t mean to predict your heartbreak. I was just trying to eat lunch!"

House: Obscuary (second year)

Personality: calm, sleepyhead, friendly, observant.

Loves: cats, cleanliness, food, sleep and fashion.

Dislikes: Ed (hates dealing with his mess literally and figuratively), mess, waking up too early.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶

Backstory: She was born into the most ordinary of families, her life rather unremarkable - until her tenth birthday, when something awakened within her. Her right eye began to see fragments of the future. At first, it seemed like a gift, but over time, she realized the visions weren’t always true. The line between what would happen and what might happen were blurred, and even now, she struggles to tell the difference.

In her early school years, she hid the eye’s unusual color behind a contact lens, doing everything she could to keep it secret. And for a while, it worked. But everything changed in high school after a single incident exposed her ability. Curiosity quickly turned to fear. People began seeking her out, asking for glimpses of their futures, only to turn on her when reality didn’t align with what they hoped for. They called her cursed, blaming her for misfortunes she never caused.

When the harassment grew too much, she was forced to leave. One transfer led to another, but each time the cycle repeated: fascination, fear then rejection.

Then one day, a white cat crossed her path. Drawn by her love for them she followed it - only to find herself aboard a mysterious train known as the Astral Express. It led her to Darkwick, an Academy that quickly took interest in her gift. To them she was an asset, a potential key to solving various investigations.

But what they didn’t know was that her ability had weakened. Years of strain had taken their toll, and now she could no longer summon her visions at will.

And so she was placed in Obscuary. Now, she seeks answers about her unusual gift and its origin.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶

Random facts:

- Her blazer? Oh, she doesn't wear it. She claims wearing too much black dims her features. Whatever that means.

- One of her favorite activities is following the cats around the Academy, much to their dismay...

- To her, cleaning is like a relaxing ritual. Nothing is better than a tidy room to nap study in!

- Has a small crush on Ed, despite acting like she hates him. Lyca already criticized her tastes in men.

Yes I did end up pasting the face anyways cause mine came out funny looking lmao. This... needed a lot of adjustments in my editing app

[trumpamerica]

America’s Future Depends on DOGE

Wall Street Journal

If Trump and Musk don’t succeed in showing the bureaucracy who’s boss, it’s likely no one ever will.

Critics view the Department of Government Efficiency’s emails asking federal employees for evidence of productivity as chaotic, arbitrary and even cruel measures to impose on a devoted civil service. But Elon Musk is simply bringing normal private-sector standards to a government that desperately needs them. Since the Pendleton Act of 1883 introduced merit-based selection and civil-service job protections for federal workers, the administrative state has proliferated without sufficient checks and balances from the president or Congress.

The federal bureaucracy has ballooned from a few agencies to more than 400, many of which are “independent” of the president. Americans often view the president as responsible for the actions those agencies take. The system nudges new presidents to give up and go along. And that’s exactly what they’ve done. No president—not Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan—has cracked this nut. Most reforms have made the administrative state larger, not smaller.

As we’re seeing now, substantial opposition awaits anyone who challenges the bureaucracy. Unions are powerful. Intimidation from those with institutional knowledge can be overwhelming. Fear of the media has also been a deterrent to action. Every president has been at least somewhat fearful of the intelligence agencies. Industry leaders who have captured the agencies, including many campaign donors, have been too powerful to unseat or control.

Countless cabinet secretaries come and go with the intention of changing the system. They get big offices, a nice portrait and social status, but the bureaucrats know that the political appointees are temporary and easily can be ignored. Frustrated by institutional inertia, the appointees often leave outwitted, outgunned and demoralized.

Meanwhile, the American people feel increasingly oppressed, taxed, regulated, spied on, browbeaten, hectored and harassed. Voting never made a difference because the politicians no longer controlled the system. The bureaucracies rule all. We’ve come to know this in our gut, which is why voters’ trust in the system has eroded as agencies’ power has built up.

The Biden years underscored this point. We didn’t even need a conscious or active president, only a figurehead. Behind the scenes, institutions ran everything.

How can the U.S. deal with this problem? President Trump alone figured it out in his last term: He simply took charge of agencies in a limited way with selective firings, which he believed he had the legal authority to do. This unleashed howls of horror and whispers of plots from his critics, including in the media. Entrenched administrators hatched clever schemes to thwart his plans and show him who was boss—not the democratically elected president but the bureaucracy.

The message from today’s civic elites is that the president’s job is to pretend to be in charge while doing nothing meaningful. Shut up. Don’t disturb the administrative state. Let it keep doing its thing without oversight or disruption, and you’ll get your library and bestselling memoir.

Mr. Trump refuses this deal. In his second term, he’s determined to slay the bureaucratic beast he knows all too well from his first term and the Biden years. DOGE’s efforts are epic, breaking more than a century of acquiescence to the deep state. The Trump team is courageously confronting the problem head-on, come what may. Mr. Trump’s allies know that they must act quickly and with some degree of ferocity, even recklessness, lest we default back to the status quo of leaders who pretend to be in charge while the embedded “men of the system”—to adapt a phrase from Adam Smith—run things behind closed doors.

It’s critical that this bureaucracy-gutting effort succeeds. There might never be another chance.

[pressplay-if]

I was wondering if more things would be customizable in the future, for example body type. Btw I love your game. I rarely like every character, but in Press Play everyone captured my interest. Especially Angel, im a sucker for that type of characters haha ❤️

<<<3

Thank you so much nonnie! I love to see an Angel fan. Lots of stuff about body things in answer to your ask below this cut:

As for your question, this is sth I've been putting off. In the beginning, I didn't add it bc I figured "oh, it won't come up anyways" but now that I'm realizing that perception body types and especially disordered eating is a big theme in Zima's storyline, I fear that it actually would... in a negative way.

Like, I'm thinking of the toxicity an MC with a bigger body type would be on the receiving end of. I don't know if I'm in the right mind to write that, BUT at the same time, I don't want to ignore that it's a real life issue?? Thinking of Adele and how a lot of the time, hateful audiences made it about her weight and not her music. Think she even said sth about that in an interview herself a couple times.

Now, of course there's people who'll give artists hate for anything, thin folks aren't exempt from that either, so don't think I forgot about that! Like how people will bash really skinny folks for promoting unhealthy images when they can't really help how they look and don't intend to set an example for anyone. So that could happen to MC too. (It already will happen to Stevie at some point, and I think I'm just more okay with writing it being targeted at an NPC than first person.)

Both ends are just really really sad to me, and I realize MC getting harassed by haters will happen either way in the story, I'm just still figuring out to which extent I'm ok with that. Leaving body types for the MC ambiguous is a big cop-out, I know, but I just haven't decided how to ultimately deal with that yet.

So to summarize this rambling stream of consciousness; I'm really indecisive.

[quitealotofsodapop]

Holy crap! I can only imagine how the Stalwarts are dealing with all this.

You mentioned that they have been keeping an eye on Wukong all these years. Did they know about the mysterious Stone Egg their King took in before his disappearance, or did Wukong keep it secret?

Did they know about the fight that cost their King his memories, or did they find him after the fact once they were informed that he disappeared?

If so then why haven’t they come forward? Why haven’t they said anything? Why are they only here when Peaches already has a new life and family? Why are they only here when he’s having a full blown existential crisis? This is what’s going through Peaches’ head as he’s essentially being info dumped to by these strangers who claim to know him.

No doubt Peaches is feeling so overwhelmed by all of this. So, Dadsy puts his foot down and shoos everyone away because he can see that his eldest is seconds away from a breakdown.

I feel like, despite his grumpy exterior, Pigsy is the more emotionally sensitive parent. He’s not and did not start out perfect, but he has learned read his boys like the back of his hand. Peaches, particularly, he found quite easy to read and understand his quirks and habits. He doesn’t know how, or why they sometimes made his feel strangely nostalgic. Oh, well 🤷

+ bonus anon ask;

The Stalwarts were def panicking when they checked in on their King and found evidence of a scuffle. They knew he had been tending to an odd rock for a while, but they had assumed at first it was a case of him brooding like a hen over a regular stone.

An alarm is sounded off across the Realms when the King fails to return that morning.

Eventually it's Nezha who finds a patch of destroyed woodland just outside of Megapolis, along with scraps of the King's nightclothes and pieces of shell-like rock...

The Stalwarts had debated for a while over whether or not to walk in and claim "Peaches" as their missing brother, but after seeing him with a newborn Stone Monkey and a pair of his Pilgrim brothers reborn, they decided it was better for him to heal where he couldn't be harassed by Heaven or Diyu.

They also made sure to keep the *Amnesia-thing* to themselves. The Celestial Realm nor Wukong's enemies need to know about that. They had found the smell of a suspicious-smelling liquid on the King's clothing scraps.

The Stalwarts take care of the island with it's King away, driving out villains and humans alike to preserve the Monkey King's home.

The four also keep a close eye on their King and future Prince. A gym teacher here, a kind granny there, a grumpy regular here, a market stall owner etc... just to make sure they stay out of world-ending trouble.

Their little brother deserves a happy childhood after all he's been through.

They do reveal themselves however, after the chaos of New Years throws Peaches/Sun Wukong's condition into the limelight. He's not just some kid claiming to be Sun Wukong's successor - he IS Sun Wukong with his memories stolen!

They help his adoptive family with the cleanup around the city, and formally introduce themselves as Peaches' *first* found family. There's a minor panic that they've come to "take him away", but the older monkeys quickly calm that fear - they've been around for a while, and have no interest in ripping their brother from his present troop. They explain their side of the story, and how they felt it would be a kindness to let their little brother live happily and for his little miracle to have a normal childhood. Had they come forward, he would have been immediately recognised and targeted for his condition.

Peaches does get a little overwhelmed by all this lore though, and the Stalwarts take the cue to leave from a concerned Pigsy, promising to continue protecting him and his family from harm. Pigsy appreciates their ability to read the room (unlike Tang, who's been interviewing them for the past hour or so).

They do however joke that Pigsy is now their Dadsy too since he's adopted their baby brother! And MK is now the "baby-est" brother of their little family to spoil! Pigsy grumbles a little at that, but doesn't object. XD

[enivez]

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (written .9k)

SYNOPSIS…. Gaming is a common hobby for college students nowadays, with Overwatch being the game of choice for both Lee Heeseung and his favorite streamer loved.venus. The boy shows his love for his favorite streamer behind the screen name lee.bambi, though he doesn’t realize it was the campus fashionista that he hated ever so much behind the screen.

PREVIOUS | MASTERLIST | NEXT

DING! DING! DING!

You were awoken by the sound of your phone continuously going off, at first you ignored it - letting your fatigue carry you back to sleep. Though after feeling Jake shove you and Sunghoon burying his head further into your pillows to escape the noise, you finally decided to search for your phone. Reaching around the space around your pillows, you finally find the device that had disturbed your well needed beauty rest.

Oh how you wish you would’ve just stayed asleep, now finding yourself sat up straight running your hands through your hair as you read all the notifications. The two others in your bed now stirring as you begin to panic, unable to believe you had missed the stream you had promised to do. Sunghoon sat up first, rubbing your back as your breath began to become sporadic and tears welled up.

When did streaming begin to become the stress that you had first tried to escape through streaming?

“Hey what are you thinking right now,” Jake says as he hands you the bottle of water that was sitting on your bedside table. When you’re reluctant to drink, the boy opens it for you, ushering you to take at least a sip.

You didn’t have the courage to take a sip, nor to answer Jake’s question. Feelings of guilt, fear, and frustration racing through your mind. You felt silly for feeling all this over a single missed stream, it wasn’t even the first time you had missed a stream. Though suddenly you felt like everyone was watching for the downfall of Venus, the downfall of you.

You suddenly felt a small presence lick your hand, Artemis saying ‘take your time’ in his own way. Holding the small kitten up to your chest, feeling it purr against your skin. You take a deep breath, closing your eyes before you speak.

“I don’t think I can be Venus anymore.”

It was like a weight was lifted off your chest, the stress of managing these two sides of you being dispersed.

“You never were Venus, Venus is you,” the voice of none other than Park Jongseong rang out.

Looking up you’re met with the new guests in your apartment. Jay and Tsuki climb into your bed, whilst Ningning sets down a tub of ice cream on your bedside table. Tsuki rests her head on your shoulder, wrapping her arm around you.

“I remember when you first started streaming, you were so happy. I was so happy that more people got to see you be you. You’ve been running from yourself for so long.”

You can feel Tsuki’s voice vibrating through your body as she says the words you didn’t want to hear but needed to. Looking down at your lap in embarrassment, a sudden face was in front of you.

“When was the last time you genuinely enjoyed streaming or fashion,” Ningning questions as her head rests in your lap, her gaze piercing into you.

Truth is, you can’t remember. You hadn’t enjoyed anything since the start of this semester. You have felt the weight of your future crushing you, desperate to prove to the world you’re more than the name you were born with. Venus was the way you escaped that name, and now that so many are trying to take it away from you...

Jay was right, Venus is you, that’s why she exists. She wouldn’t exist without you, but as of recently she’s become more and more of what you believe you should be.

“I wanna keep streaming, it makes me happy, or at least it did. I just want to be myself, I just feel like everyone has the predetermined idea of me and I don’t want that to be Venus’ fate as well. Ever since the gossip page started harassing me, as Venus, about my identity I’ve had so many more eyes on me. I can deal with the eyes when I have my guard up, when I’m acting as [Name], but that’s not me. I wanna be silly, I wanna go on tangents about games fashion, and I want to be able to make connections without there being an agenda.”

“Then keep streaming, it's the minority of people trying to unmask you. Majority of your viewers are there because they genuinely love you. They won’t care when and if they find out that you are Venus,” Jay says as he pulls the comforter over his body, ready to go to sleep.

Despite the tears still staining your cheeks, you find yourself rolling your eyes at the eldest member of your group. You know what he says is true, though it's hard to believe when you’re so stuck in your own head. You let out a sigh, looking up at your friends that are now squishing you into your bed. A lopsided smile escapes your lips, you felt loved.

Jake and Sunghoon were devouring the ice cream that Ningning had bought, earning an earful from the girl as she braids Tsuki’s hair. Jay was already well on his way into dreamland, truly amazed by how the boy could sleep despite the chaos around him.

These were your people, you were so happy that at the end of the day it is them that you can rely on.

Ding! Ding!

A/N: angst? comfort? idk drama

TAGLIST⊹₊⋆

@cholexc @woninluv @myjaeyuns @eleanorheartschishiya @dimplewonie @heelovesmeknot @lprww @haechansbbg @xuimhao @defnotfertilizedtoesw @kgneptun @jwnghyuns @mypapergirls @bomi-ja @woozixo @icepshrince @allisonleannn @infpistj @mwahvvis @vantaetastic

[sylver-drawer]

I think the worst part about the tea party scene where random noblewomen accuse Jen of having incestuous feelings, and Athy doesn’t even try to defend her, is that Athy knows Jen can’t defend herself. She knows that Jennette knows she isn’t actually Ijekiel’s cousin or a relative for that matter, so her feelings are acceptable.

But to reveal that would mean revealing she’s royalty, so Athy knows that Jennette has two options—admitting she’s not related to Ijekiel, or accepting the incest allegations. Athy expecting Jennette to defend herself as ‘the original female lead who was going to deal with this anyway’ is also absolute bull, knowing Jennette never had to go through this harassment and defamation because she was revealed as Claude’s daughter immediately. Jennette never had to defend herself because she never needed to, people already knew she wasn’t related to Ijekiel. But Athy’s whole presence and changing the original story means this never happens, and Jennette’s pure love that was always honest and true has been slandered and dirtied by strangers Athy herself invited to her own tea party. They’re not even given names. Unlike ‘Lily Girl’ or ‘Hari’ who Athy supposedly befriends, the girls who jump on the wagon and dissect Jennette and her feelings for Ijekiel aren’t even given names or faces. Nameless, unneeded, if only to target and offend the discarded female lead.

Athy trying to justify her complicity in this targeted harassment as some kind of obstacle the female lead has to go through in the future anyway, even going so far as to basically insinuate she’s doing Jennette a favor by letting Jennette clear her name now, is such a horrible thing to do knowing she never would’ve been subjected to this had she—in her point of view—never taken Jennette’s place. Hell, Jennette probably wouldn’t have been in this situation if it weren’t for the guests she herself invited. The whole reason she’s going through this is because Athy became the ‘female lead’, and her insinuating she’s doing Jennette a favor by subjecting her to torment she never would’ve been subjected to originally is utterly disgusting and disappointing.

And at this point, Athy is Jennette’s friend. Athy doesn’t think so, but by god, has she convinced at least Jennette that she cares about her that way. Athy has long realized Claude would never accept Jennette, and has long passed fearing for her life, which has resulted in her undeniably comfortable relationship with Jennette. In her head, Athy constantly claims to put Jennette at arms length and to not get close to Jennette—but narratively and in Jennette’s point of view, Athy has been sneaking out of the castle to spend time with her one-on-one, taken her out to see sights she’s never seen before, been a source of comfort for her, as well as always knowing what to say to affirm her feelings when she starts doubting them. Athy can claim it all she wants in her head, but her actions show so much more than things she’s never acknowledged out loud. If in the manhwa Jennette sees Athy as her little sister who she longs to be with and protect, to the Jennette of the novel Athy is the protective figure instead. So when she is vulnerable, placed in a situation at her beloved elder sister’s tea party and a group of her sister’s guests start digging deep into a secret she hasn’t even thought of revealing yet—Athy does nothing but sip her tea nonchalantly. And she can’t dare reveal it now—not there—not with Athy listening and at an event her Athy is hosting. So if Lucas had not interrupted when he did, shaking up the tea party’s mood completely and unintentionally putting the attention and subject off of her to where they all forget what they were doing, Jennette would’ve been screwed.

Because Jennette would be forced to affirm that she has feelings for her ‘cousin’ knowing that’s false, and that Athy was the one who backed her into that corner.

And what’s worse in all of this, after Jennette leaves and the girls go back to the conversational topic of Ijekiel’s romantic feelings, that’s when Athy decides it’s time to speak up. Not when her friend was placed in an uncomfortable situation by her guests at her party concerning her friend’s reputation, but when the topic directly involves her and her reputation. So quickly does she rebuke any rumors concerning her and Ijekiel—and how quickly she resolves to turning a blind eye to any rumors or scandal that would become of this tea party as a result of her ‘giving Jennette an opportunity to defend herself’. It was only two years prior when Athy was swearing like a sailor while beating up men who were creeping on Jennette. Now, she won’t speak a word to defend her.

[the-alarm-system]

Anti Endos and Projection of Decisions and Hurt

I'd like to start this off with my story and how it relates to the experiences of many hurt anti-endos.

I don't remember a big chunk of my original trauma, most of it feels like a dream that has chunks guarded by Red our protector. I do have bits and pieces, and I know for a fact that I went through RAMCOA.

Growing up I got hurt by a lot of women, and one of those woman's personas got introjected into my system and would retraumatize me consistently for a few years. This was before I realized I was plural.

What Im trying to say is I have survived a lot of horrible shit, and I know it's why I'm plural, and I have had horribly abusive headmates before.

Anti Endos bring these forms of exo and internal abuse up whenever attacking the slogan "The future is plural". I saw an anti endo say

---

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And I got angry enough to make this. Maybe it was rage bait, but I'm convinced most of them genuinely believe this.

Using your own trauma and hurt to invalidate the existence of others is one of the most vile horrible things you can do. Not every traumagenic system is formed from programming, not every system existing is formed from programming. Trust me I know the pain of being hurt that way, but are you serious? Don't use your trauma to hurt others. No endo wants to fucking program a child and abuse them, this is just a false analogy used to bring fear to others and towards the movement. We are not the enemy.

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I have experienced strong negatives, I've felt strong dissociation, memory loss, and Scald has gotten lost before and we do struggle a lot in disordered experiences. But this is expecting that every system puts the negatives above the positives. This is expecting that your experience and perspective of your own system lines up with everyone elses. I don't care that I have so much to deal with, being a system makes me extremely happy and I would love to share that with others. Obvious negatives? Yes, but "few" positives? In my experience with DID, psychosis, and even BPD I do my best to see the lighter side of them because I wouldn't be me without them. I have so many more pros than cons that comes with being a system because I actively changed my perspective in order to accept ourselves. I had to see the joy of it because I was abusing Scald by not accepting him and giving him individuality. I understand a system seeing their DID as more negative than positive, but this is projection to others which is simply narrow minded.

Before going deeper, I want to affirm that I have no hatred towards those who go towards final fusion or uses parts language. This is an argument about those who project their end goals and hurt and suffering onto other systems in order to invalidate them.

While I may not experience this towards my own system, I can understand why others may despise being many and/or desire to end as a singlet. However in the argument against endos; being broken, wanting fusion, using parts language, and hating yourself as a system is bought up multiple times. Here are some examples:

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Their views on their systemhood, while valid, is narrowed to the expectation that every other system should see it that way and if they don't they are put into the pile of fakes and subject to harassment. Anti endos have called me disgusting simply for expressing how happy being a system makes me. It reminds me of when I was a transmedicalist(essay for later) to be honest.

If you don't want to fuse, if you don't see your systems existence as an abomination, and you desire better acceptance from the world

You are a fucked up groomer who is anti recovery, never wants to heal, and wants to abuse children.

I'm sorry I love my system

I'm sorry I found so much joy in my system that I would love for there to be more of us and better acceptance of us

I'm sorry that I'm not all pessimistic on my system

To be honest, I can't change the past I went through, I can't delete my system,

But maybe to me it's ok to see the good that came out of it even if its hard then and hard now

Projecting your perspective of your systemhood onto others though, projecting false analogies based on your own trauma, and expecting every experience to be the same as yours is vile and just self victimizing in order to hurt vulnerable systems looking for community.

Giving your sob story, ranting about how you hate your pieces/headmates, and then tying it up with "and thats why endos want to hurt children" is a different level of fucked up

small personal note: if I had to endure everything again just to be with Scald, I would Over and over and over Piss yourself mad about it antis, I love my system and we aren't faking because of it

[mariacallous]

WASHINGTON, D.C. ��� Building Back Together Communications Director Blake Goodman released the following statement on the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA):

“Today, we celebrate three decades of the Violence Against Women Act, a transformative piece of legislation that has saved countless women’s lives from dangerous, potentially deadly situations. “President Biden’s laser-focus commitment to ending domestic and intimate partner violence is nothing new. Thirty years ago, then-Senator Biden authored the original bill that would become the VAWA — pushing our nation’s representatives to recognize and finally deal with the scourge that is domestic and intimate partner violence. Now, he and Vice President Harris continue to lead the most pro-survivor administration in our nation’s history. Their unwavering dedication to strengthening and expanding the VAWA has resulted in groundbreaking protections for underserved communities, increased funding for life-saving services and a renewed national focus on preventing violence before it occurs. “From President Biden’s authorship of the original bill as a Senator to Vice President Harris’s tireless advocacy for women and survivors throughout her career, this administration’s commitment to ending gender-based violence is not just good policy — it’s personal. At Building Back Together, we stand proudly with President Biden, Vice President Harris and survivors across the nation in celebrating this anniversary. We recognize that while we’ve made tremendous strides, we remain committed to supporting the Biden-Harris Administration’s bold vision for a future free from gender-based violence — a future where every individual can live, work and thrive without fear.”

Thirty years on, VAWA has seen many significant successes in the fight against domestic and intimate partner violence:

VAWA has helped reduce intimate partner violence by 64% between 1993 and 2010.

Over $9 billion in federal grants have been awarded to support community-based organizations working to end violence against women.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline, established under VAWA, has answered over 7 million calls, texts, and chats since its inception.

The 2022 reauthorization expanded protections for BIPOC women, LGBTQ+ individuals and immigrant survivors.

The Biden-Harris Administration continues to build on VAWA’s legacy by:

Ending forced arbitration for sexual assault and harassment through the signing of the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021.

Signing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which narrows the “boyfriend loophole” by helping to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers by prohibiting people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence crimes from possessing guns for 5 years.

Reforming the military justice system to address sexual assault, harrassment, and related crimes through the National Defense Authorization Act.

Strengthening regional leadership to prioritize the crisis of Missing or Murdered Indigenous people, including gender-based violence.

Supporting multinational efforts to address online harassment and abuse through the Global Partnership for Action on Gender-Based Online Harassment and Abuse.

Expanding national programs to combat human trafficking through the Department of Health and Human Services Innovation Challenge to Prevent Human Trafficking and the new National Human Trafficking Prevention Framework.

For more information on steps the Biden-Harris Administration has taken to prevent and respond to gender-based violence at home and abroad, see the White House’s Fact Sheet here.

[ruddyhotelau]

If this Universes Val & Angel met would they have a different relationship?

Valentino and Angel didn't have a good relationship in our AU, especially in the ss1.

In our AU, despite the fact that Valentino wasn't a rapist because he thought of himself superior to his employees and they had no chance to be on the same bed with him. He's still a pretty much fucked up boss, Val still harass, manipulate and constantly abuse them if he felt like shit or when they made some minor mistakes. Angel was no different but he needed money to buy the medicine, plus there are some sides of the job that he at least enjoyed doing, the job let him worn what he wanted and be true to himself, even just for a tiny bit. Compared to what his father used to do to him, this was still a whole lot better.

Yet, every time Valentino tried to control him, hit him and Angel couldn't even fight back. He couldn't stand up for himself. He felt like he was in that house again, feeling the air being taken away from his lungs. Fear and desperate filled in his eyes. His father left a huge scar to his mental health and Valentino did nothing if not made it worse. Soon, both his father and Valentino became the ghosts who were constantly haunting his mind, making him believe that he would never escape their chains and will always be their puppet, toy to play with.

The day Valentino lost his title, Angel was finally free from his abuse. He felt relief but also fear because what could he possibly do to make money now? He needed those for his meds to soothe the pain in his head and his soul, the pain that constantly attempted to drag him to the eternal darkness...

And before he knew it, his father found him and chained him to the family business again, just like when he was alive. His current life even worse than the previous...

About Valentino, after his title was taken away thanks to Vox, he no longer had the ability to make deals and gain power again since every deal he made, all of those souls would go straight to Vox. Val was hunted down by many of his enemies, old employees or old business partners that he had wrong in the past. They tortured him for 6 years straight until eventually he was finally able to escape. Thanks to the help of Velvette, he recovered a bit or at least recovered enough to act like nothing happened and he wasn't in pain.

The moment Valentino and Angel met, both of them have different thoughts, Angie felt those old helpless feelings again in his chest while Val saw Angel as someone who he can have the upper hand and used to make him feel like he was still in his prime, that he was still feared by the people. Using Angel as a way to run away from his cruel reality and allowing him to helplessly cling onto the idea that he can be his old self again and not some crack headed whore who would sleep with anyone for money to buy his meds. Having Angel fear him makes Val feel better about himself 'cause at least there are still people who are more pathetic than him, someone who fears him.

But some events took place and let just say that even in the future, Angel will never forgive Valentino for what he did to him but their relationship did get better than the past. The future where they are still not friends but at least they are standing on equal grounds, where Angel no longer fears Val and Val treats Angel with a little more respect.

[stari-hun]

You're no storm au Isolde is so funny to me 🤣

She gives off strong: "You are a lesbian because you like women. I am a lesbian because I hate men AND love women" vibes, it's great 🤣

I also appreciate the implication that while Isolde "hides" a lot about herself, it's not because she thinks she needs to out of shame or fear but more so she works off a "well you didn't ask" mindset mixed with a bit of "it isn't as bad as it sounds" when discussing anything about herself. Which works great (it worries them deeply) when dealing with inquisitive/sensitive people.

Does she still suffer from seizures or (non paranormal) hallucinations in this AU, by the way? Or take any medication to help balance out her potential mental health issues if she has them in this AU?

✰. Yeah I wanted to address as much of canon as I could while still staying on true to what Isolde would be like with modern day. Also, hating men and liking women are separate to her from her experiences and PTSD. If she stopped liking women she'd just be aroace, there is zero reality where someone like her would even consider liking men.

She pretty actively resents all men, even Theopil, in the original story, but for women she can recognize that Evangeline IS sick and out of her mind, so it’s not the same with her. Mr Dittarsdorf is “perfectly sane” keeping his child around someone who wants to climb up to being a higher class noble, and even if he does his best later to find her help Theopil basically stayed away from the house as long as possible as a child… She rightfully resents them for a long time, but I think if she had time away from her family and home with a good support system, she'd realize how Theopil was a child just like she was.

✰. Isolde hiding herself is also modeled off canon because a part of her possession with The Small Room is the fact that she was hiding herself away from the world. She was tired, traumatized, and sick of the real world. Mr Karl groomed Isolde into a lot, and one of those things was conditioning her to not consider leaving Vienna. Her sense of duty is close to Mesmers where she doesn’t actually hold any sentiments towards her work, it’s something she MUST do. Fate made her a Dittarsdorf and she’ll be cursed like one in her opinion: it’s the template of her fate.

If Kakania was in the modern era then she’d absolutely want to explore and get away, and while her father disapproved of her practice, he would still be somewhat interested in the fact that his kid got a full ride scholarship to one of the most famous institutions in the world. Isolde doesn’t think of leaving cause it’s all she’s ever known, and like Mesmer, someone with severe PTSD she’ll seek something she knows for comfort. Isolde has such a massive dependency on Kakania as a source of comfort that if she left, Isolde would do everything to leave as well.

Actually, if she wasn’t possessed I’d probably write her in with Disassociate Identity Disorder cause her detachment, memory loss at times, and disconnects in personality would’ve made for a fun read, but there’d be an issue with possession being DID is ehhhh and also it be a lot to juggle. But I’ll probably write a lot more things of her in the future alongside Trista because she’s heavily implied to be the main ghost in control of Isolde.

✰. Isolde’s tendency to brush things off also comes from the fact that one of the first things she was taught for opera singing was that she WOULD get stalkers. Not that she needed to stay safe even, but that she would be harassed and obsessed over in life, and there was nothing anyone would do to protect her or even SHE could do for herself. Any issue she had and tried to bring up was immediately diminished, and only Theopil cared about the warning signs and similarities to the way Evangeline suffered. Tooth Fairy is upper middle class in the way Kakania is, her family has a long line of distinguished medical professionals. She’s also spent a lot of time in the SPDM by now, so she’s seen a lot of signs that children or even staff in the Foundation suffer from. Tooth Fairy is an extremely empathetic person, and she’s content to listen to others and takes enjoyment from it too.

✰. As for seizures, she definitely still suffers from them. I still wanna stay close to how they are in canon, just them getting older and living their lives without the Storm and inching towards the modern era. The timeline still goes like, Isolde childhood, letting the ghosts (mainly Trista) take over her life, and meeting Kakania at 15 when she got attached to her, and the ending of that possession at 18 when Kakania promised to treat her (it’s just a promise to do so in the future this time). I don’t have much of their backstory IN Vienna built yet, but Isolde had an incident where she was forced to stop letting the ghosts possess her (likely an incident surrounding the death of Mr Karl still).

I'll probably retcon it later by accident, but for medication, if the story's time would've been in 2007 and they were 18 then, they'd JUST be getting to 2024. I think medication would be hard for both of them, I'm gonna say Isolde would be sensitive to medication cause yes and also her issues are mostly a side effect of years of possession.

I do think Kakania takes some mild anxiety medication though. In her later years, once she can't spin herself up the wall to cope with not knowing what to do in any give situation, she turns to silent panicking until she has an answer (something she's working with in therapy).

As for Isolde, she can cope with the after effects of spending her childhood possessed. She also does a few small things to stop it from getting worse like sewing wards into the inner sides of all her clothing.

Another kind of fun tidbit is animals can sense she's been possessed and they're VERY wary of her. Even a very friendly dog wouldn't even be seen in the same room as her (I have a separate WIP of Isolde's normal girl adventures).

[chaifootsteps]

[major spoilers for Netflix's Baby Reindeer]

so it's a show about a comedian Donny Dunn based autobiographically on the creator's experiences having been stalked and sexually harassed by a woman and in his past having been groomed and raped by a man

the show treats it with care and shows all the side effects of SA and rape - he questions the effect of his past assault on his sexuality, he ends up accepting the stalker's facebook invite and not reporting her for a while because despite how scared he is of her he feels validated by the attention, etc etc

my point here is if a show wants to talk about abuse, or about rape, it should actually do that. and if it wants to represent female on male abuse it should do that, too

but as it is, abuse or SA is just something that gets mentioned once in Helluva and then never again.

like, how have his experiences with Crimson shaped Moxxie? does he ever think about the murder of his mom? Crimson could come back in a future ep (probably) but is Moxxie at all concerned about that? idk, because the show doesn't bother giving characters a consistent emotional state except when it remembers to

same with Stolas and Stella. Fans leapt to claim Stella raped Stolas based on flimsy evidence, yet only cared if Stolas was slightly tipsy (and tied up) the first time he slept with Blitzo the moment they could use that information against Blitzo. and yet they're all for stol!tz despite how bad a person Blitzo supposedly is? We also see Blitzo and Stolas both have lousy dads but the effect of this on them is largely unknown. worse still, the show could have had a good lens on cycles of abuse by showing how Stolas was neglected and mistreated, but he still turned that treatment on someone with less power and made self-serving excuses for it, but nope. we can't have that

the closest the show has gotten to a realistic depiction of the effects of abuse is Blitzo himself. he's seemingly hypersexual in present day because of how his father made him feel like nothing by literally selling him off for an afternoon to a rich family and also because his trauma around the accident has left him with a deep seated fear of letting people in, in case he lets them down and them loses them. he behaves in contradictory ways that are frequently unheathly. he reads like someone who has compartmentalized the living daylights out of his poor treatment by Stolas because he maybe thinks he doesn't deserve better, and previously when he had someone better he self-sabotaged by stealing their car and maxxing out their credit cards so they would dump him

and how does the show treat him? victim blaming him for being sexually coerced by Stolas & being unable to give informed consent to Stolas' deal, then levelling every 'not a perfect victim!' excuse and 'not if he enjoyed it!' rationalizaion against him. it's honestly been morbid to watch the show do backbends to excuse Stolas and the fandom not only swallow it but say worse things about Blitzo on the regular

Morbid is an excellent word for it. I know that there's really no comparison, that Baby Reindeer is based on a true story (and basically one long therapy session for Gadd) and HB isn't, but if Baby Reindeer was about how how all of Donny's problems could be solved by marrying the man who abused him, you'd have HB.

[manorpunk]

Teach Me, Maria-sensei! 6️⃣

Usonia is a supranational union of states, roughly akin to the European Union, located within the former contiguous United States (often called the ‘former 48’) as well as parts of Canada. It was formed as a joint effort between the major post-crisis states (New England, the Great Lakes Republic, Texaplex, the Chicago Daimyoate, Tripartite California, etc) in the hopes that a centralized authority would bring order to the vast and ungoverned Midwest Autonomous Zone, and because the respective heads of state all agreed that it should be someone else’s problem. It remains to be seen whether the election of Sunny Roosevelt as the first president of Usonia has thrown a wrench into those plans.

+++++

Maria: So here’s the thing. All of this didn’t have to spell the end for the federal government. Zombie Covid, the Yellowstone eruption, Florida sinking… These were all bad and killed lots of people, of course, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that the government would collapse.

Sunny: Was it a straw that broke the camel’s back type of deal?

Maria: Partly, perhaps, but that’s not where I’m going with this. You see, at the time, the American aristocracy was storing a significant amount of their wealth in the form of real estate, for boring and complicated reasons. The destruction of the Polycrisis quite literally wiped a significant portion of their assets off the map. Property values plummeted across much of the nation, and hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth evaporated essentially overnight. This activated a panic amongst the billionaire class, who, fearing total societal breakdown and/or any repercussions at all for their actions, preëmptively retreated to their specially prepared underground bunkers, each containing their own small town of support staff, effectively immune from government intervention - though they were not immune to angry mobs, as they would learn in the forties.

Sunny: That’s the 2040s, because we’re in the future.

Maria: Have you seen the footage where [REDACTED] gets dragged out of his saferoom and publicly cannibalized?

Sunny: Omg my gosh, who hasn’t seen that? So bonkers.

Maria: It’s so good. But in any case, it was that withdrawal of support and psuedo-independence of the billionaire class, resulting from the destruction of property being used not for housing but as wealth storage, which ultimately broke the back of the federal government, or in other words… America died as a real estate scam.

Sunny: Callback!

Maria: In the immediate aftermath of the federal government’s collapse, the state governments attempted to pick up the slack. Results were mixed, in the sense that everyone failed at it but some people failed harder than others. The larger and more populous states had a better chance, but they were all dealing with their own problems - California was dealing with the Jefferson rebellion, Texas was caught up in the Norteño wars, and New York was being constantly harassed by the murine legions of Grunst the Rat-King.

Sunny: Didn’t Grunst run for lord-mayor of New York back in the fifties?

Maria: Indeed. Honestly he wouldn’t have even been in the bottom third of New York mayors.

Sunny: That’s the 2050s, because-

Maria: You did that joke already.

Sunny: It’s a good joke, Maria.

Maria: Anyway, the less populous states in the Midwest and Great Plains barely even managed an attempt at independent governance before any semblance of central government disappeared and the situation deteriorated into general banditry and warlordism.

Sunny: Okay, I get why all that happened, sorta, but how did it all happen so quickly?

Maria: There are two reasons. One, smaller states were more dependent on the federal government to provide funding for services like healthcare and education, and secondly… I’ll put it this way. If you had to choose who was in charge, and your choices were an ax-wielding Mad Max biker or, say, an average member of the Nebraska state government, which would you pick?

Sunny: …

Sunny: …

Sunny: …ough, that’s grim.

[clatterbane]

That was actually one thing that exasperated me the last time I dealt with my uncle in person.

He had a serious mad on at my stepdad, which had obviously built up over the years. There are plenty of legitimate criticisms to be made there! I lived with the man for many years, and he really is difficult to deal with and kind of a big jerk. I am very aware of this. I have talked to the man maybe once since the last time I was back home.

Inserting a cut for long and ranty shit, dealing with some family drama and rather traumatic financial happenings. Also nobody wanting to fucking listen to me about things they were invested in not hearing.

My mother had her own problems, or she would have run far away before they ever got more than a date or two in--much less stayed with the guy for 20+ years until she died. Marinara flags all over the place.

I am sure that some of the man's persistent financial problems really were kinda self-inflicted. I mean, on top of legit being multiply disabled and going through two bouts with cancer when I was still a kid.

But...to my original point? Said uncle (my only surviving blood one) also has the Family OCD, and worse tendencies than I do to fixate on things that piss him off as a handy distraction from other anxieties. Easier to rant than to deal with the other fears. I understand this probably better than he does, and it's still really hard to take sometimes.

Anyway, on this occasion he had partly managed to get fixated on the specific idea that Stepdad The Jerk must have been making a bunch of shit up all along about that big looming medical debt from the cancer surgery. Because (his wife, the longtime hospital administrator and CPA) knows very well how medical debt works, and that ain't it!

The thing is, Jerky Stepdad is very very bad at straight-up lying. He will just make shit up sometimes to cover his ass, but it doesn't work so well. (Usually he WILL just try and rules-lawyer his way through, and that really does tend to work better than you might expect. People often just don't know what to do.)

And yeah, I was there to see up close how that went. The key: it wasn't normal medical debt, legally. Because the surgery was done through Big State Medical School Hospital in Richmond, leaving him in like $60,000+ in mid-'80s money worth of direct debt to the Commonwealth of Virginia itself once Blue Cross refused to pay after preapproving it.

(The same surgeon was ready to do the exact same procedure at the VA hospital just down the street instead otherwise, but Medical School Hospital had so much better facilitate overall. Stepdad is part of probably the last group of Vietnam vets where the VA was still theoretically on the hook for covering all future medical treatment for literally anything, but yeah you're better off going elsewhere if you can at all. The freaking VA was willing to cover this surgery. That's how experimental a treatment it really was by then.)

So yeah, that was why we had actual state employees from the Attorney General's office calling nonstop and actually harassing me too starting from when I was like 12. (I am not exaggerating. Half of what they were doing was anything but legal. They were even trying to get me to accept responsibility for his debt before he died from a cancer with a not great prognosis. Knowingly dealing with what was obviously a kid who was not even blood related to him.)

Jerky Stepdad also managed to personally piss off the sitting state Attorney General at the time. Which is honestly no wonder. But, over most of the like 7 years she was in the position? He really did kinda get targeted by that office--with the whole household along for the ride.

Oh yeah, being the actual state? They really could pull shit like seizing every penny of state income tax returns, seizing a sizeable chunk of your damn unemployment checks, placing liens on any property you have (yep, very much including your house!), and so on. Ad nauseam. Then ring your phone some more to hassle anybody unfortunate enough to answer, like the worst collection agency ever, working on the state's dime.

They did try to foreclose on the house at least once. I was there. I saw the legal papers and the (broke) scrambling to forestall that. He was still in that house at last check, very much alive decades after that liver resection and still a giant PITA to deal with.

Normal medical debt doesn't work that way. Debt owed to the Commonwealth of Virginia very much does. And I had a front row seat for most of that shitshow, like it or not. It directly impacted me a lot, and I saw the various official paperwork to confirm pretty much every story the dude I didn't even particular like had supposedly pulled out of his ass pertaining to that whole mess.

Of course, Darling Uncle didn't want to hear a word about how some assumptions were very seriously off base there. As little as I even enjoyed being put in a position where I felt compelled to defend somebody I was pretty mad at myself at the time for some other reasons.

It was much easier to continue on that misplaced rip, and make up his own stories to justify all of it.

He was actually being unusually careful to make it clear that he was righteously pissed at Stepdad, and knew I had nothing to do with any of the shit he was ranting about. I still resented the hell out of getting put in a position like that YET AGAIN. By somebody who wouldn't fucking listen to anything he didn't want to hear.

But yeah, family.

I got extremely sick of ending up smack in the middle of too much shit, trying to play moderator for people behaving very unreasonably whether I wanted to or not. As the kid of the (at least equally loud!) Designated Scapegoat who had just thoroughly departed the scene, or was maybe still in the process of doing so. I don't remember the exact timing of that exasperating interaction. There was rather a lot going on. NOBODY needed that shit on top of it.

[simply-ivanka]

America’s Future Depends on DOGE

Wall Street Journal

If Trump and Musk don’t succeed in showing the bureaucracy who’s boss, it’s likely no one ever will.

Critics view the Department of Government Efficiency’s emails asking federal employees for evidence of productivity as chaotic, arbitrary and even cruel measures to impose on a devoted civil service. But Elon Musk is simply bringing normal private-sector standards to a government that desperately needs them. Since the Pendleton Act of 1883 introduced merit-based selection and civil-service job protections for federal workers, the administrative state has proliferated without sufficient checks and balances from the president or Congress.

The federal bureaucracy has ballooned from a few agencies to more than 400, many of which are “independent” of the president. Americans often view the president as responsible for the actions those agencies take. The system nudges new presidents to give up and go along. And that’s exactly what they’ve done. No president—not Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan—has cracked this nut. Most reforms have made the administrative state larger, not smaller.

As we’re seeing now, substantial opposition awaits anyone who challenges the bureaucracy. Unions are powerful. Intimidation from those with institutional knowledge can be overwhelming. Fear of the media has also been a deterrent to action. Every president has been at least somewhat fearful of the intelligence agencies. Industry leaders who have captured the agencies, including many campaign donors, have been too powerful to unseat or control.

Countless cabinet secretaries come and go with the intention of changing the system. They get big offices, a nice portrait and social status, but the bureaucrats know that the political appointees are temporary and easily can be ignored. Frustrated by institutional inertia, the appointees often leave outwitted, outgunned and demoralized.

Meanwhile, the American people feel increasingly oppressed, taxed, regulated, spied on, browbeaten, hectored and harassed. Voting never made a difference because the politicians no longer controlled the system. The bureaucracies rule all. We’ve come to know this in our gut, which is why voters’ trust in the system has eroded as agencies’ power has built up.

The Biden years underscored this point. We didn’t even need a conscious or active president, only a figurehead. Behind the scenes, institutions ran everything.

How can the U.S. deal with this problem? President Trump alone figured it out in his last term: He simply took charge of agencies in a limited way with selective firings, which he believed he had the legal authority to do. This unleashed howls of horror and whispers of plots from his critics, including in the media. Entrenched administrators hatched clever schemes to thwart his plans and show him who was boss—not the democratically elected president but the bureaucracy.

The message from today’s civic elites is that the president’s job is to pretend to be in charge while doing nothing meaningful. Shut up. Don’t disturb the administrative state. Let it keep doing its thing without oversight or disruption, and you’ll get your library and bestselling memoir.

Mr. Trump refuses this deal. In his second term, he’s determined to slay the bureaucratic beast he knows all too well from his first term and the Biden years. DOGE’s efforts are epic, breaking more than a century of acquiescence to the deep state. The Trump team is courageously confronting the problem head-on, come what may. Mr. Trump’s allies know that they must act quickly and with some degree of ferocity, even recklessness, lest we default back to the status quo of leaders who pretend to be in charge while the embedded “men of the system”—to adapt a phrase from Adam Smith—run things behind closed doors.

It’s critical that this bureaucracy-gutting effort succeeds. There might never be another chance.

[the-npd-culture-is]

Nice blog you got there cherri

ok so i have like fifteen other asks but i need to address this first because it's been an issue for nearly a month now and these anons tried to find my main and did what i think was an attempt at doxing me.

this is a post to spread awareness to my followers, despite the person concerned not being aware that i'm doing this at this moment (i will tag them and DM them about it soon). long post, but important.

i may reblog this with additional info in the future, so if you feel this gives limited information check the reblogs or comments.

these anons tried scarying me off of running my blog by constant harassment for days straight, which thankfully stopped as i ended up blocking them. as you can see they ended up bypassing my block or asked someone from another account to continue the harassment and attempts at inducing fear. frankly, what this is causing me is anger as im not the only one involved in this unfortunately.

one of the first hate anons on this blog was a spam of four or more anons asking me if i was the person the anon im replying to is mentioning here. i didn't think much of it as they came with another roughly dozen of hate anon spam which (surprise surprise/s) disappeared in its entirety once i blocked one of them. meaning a single person was harassing me.

i ended up contacting the person these anons were thinking i was, and decided to not reply to the first batch of hate, as first they had the url fully typed out in the ask and I didn't want to expose the person concerned, and second I didn't want to bother any of my followers with one salty hater. they were as weirded out as me that they got involved into this without any logical link between my main, their main, or this sideblog, asides from the fact that they were one of the handful of people that supported me early on and even accepted in dms to share my blog to a discord server (a small one, but they were excited about my blog and asked if i was ok with them sharing it and i said ok).

i had asked them to not make a callout post on their own blog about this nor to go and harass anyone. which they didn't. additionally, i sent them screenshots of the hate anons and explained to them that i didn't want to put their blog url publicly by answering the anon as I felt it was a safety issue. but they insisted that they didn't mind it and that if i changed my mind about the whole issue and decided to go public i would.

so here's their url -> @cherrifruiti (they're getting free promo lol, hopefully it balances out the harassment and targeting they went through. they're an artist and honestly good friend. we bonded more over this. go check them out)

the insistence of this anon on trying to find my main was confusing to me at first. i did not choose to remain anonymous on here for privacy reasons, hell, not even safety reasons. i deal with worse bullshit on main than here. i wanted this blog mainly to have an anonymous moderator as a way to leave space for the community voices. i felt like a faceless blog was a more welcoming environment than having the baggage of a whole person, moral alignments, blend into a space that's catered towards a specific goal and discussion. which to be fair was a huge hit for my ego. id love to share my full identity with y'all and have the accomplishments of this blog linked to me. but im stubborn and attached to my values.

to put it simply, i did not want to make the same mistake as the admin from @narcissisticpdcultureis did.

that being said, i did not lie on any of my values linked with my DNI. i wanted this blog to be accessible to cluster b personality disorder havers and the wider community regardless of their backgrounds, but with some limits for my own mental health and personal boundaries, that i tried keeping limited. notably regarding discourse. of any kind. and as another addition for resources in the npd and cluster b community. just as another community space, not a monopoly.

despite the amount of hate and adversity expressed from the admin of @narcissisticpdcultureis , i had not made this blog with adversity, harassment, anger, or "rebellion" in mind. unlike how the admin seemed to take my act of creating my own digital space and express emotional distain for my blog for the sake of existing. blaming me of doing so to put them in a bad light, while the only thing i did was point out information they already had made accessible to the public about themselves in their pinned post. which i didn't give a moral alignment to it, just stated that i was personally uncomfortable with it.

i am not condoning harassment, but I will not police your actions either. this individual(s) had put the url of my sideblog publicly in a rant of theirs aimed to put me and my work in a bad light without regards of my safety or mental health, and lead many, potentially themselves personally as well, to put me through constant anonymous harassment while i had expressed since the beginning i didn't want to be affiliated or interact with their blog, and never mentioned their url publicly up to now, to avoid the same scenario that just happened to me from their doing.

additionally, in their rant about my blog, they mentioned another npd culture that apparently was created adjacent to theirs, potentially for similar reasons as mine although this is unknown.

im gonna say one thing.

if anything, i like the attention. you decided that i, a small account, who didn't have the self estime to ever think would get traction, caused enough of a problem to make your, way more popular, blog feel threatened. i feel honored.

my only issue is that you failed to find my main blog, which frankly offended me. now my friend is the one getting all the spotlight instead of me </3

i did not judge you on morality when i decided to distance myself from your content due to your syscourse stance. but i am judging you now by your actions. i will be reporting you for harassment and encourage everyone in my social circles to do so as well.

i am not going anywhere.