the thing about abusive and manipulative people is they that will be able to explain their actions and they will sound convincing and they will be genuine about what they say. We demonize these people so much until they fit into a category of evil monsters that are obvious to the naked eye and hold nothing but malice behind their actions. The truth is that they’re just people. Normal people who have failed in their ability to be honest with themselves about anything they do and possess an ability to reframe every event into something that suits how they want to interpret it. And you’re going to fall for it. Someone you love will tell you they didn’t mean something hurtful they said, didn’t you know they clearly meant it in another way? And they mean it, not because they didn’t mean it when they said it, but because they don’t mean it now, after they’ve realized it was a bad thing to say. And they can’t bear the possibility of saying something cruel like that, so they reframe it in their own memories and experiences as a joke, something they didn’t mean. If you had never told them your feelings were hurt, they’d’ve never apologized or realized that what they said was wrong. And that’s a pattern that will continue and only worsen. So many people ask why someone abusive in their life can’t just…admit to mistreating and undervaluing them instead of carrying the charade on, because it makes it so much harder to end things. And it’s because to them they haven’t mistreated or undervalued you. They can’t face a world where they are the bad guy or where they have to improve upon themselves, so they won’t. Or, on the flipside, they’ll switch back and forth between being awful and cheerful or crying and begging and pleading you to stay because they know how awful they are and they’ll treat you right this time they promise. And they mean that! They know what they are. It sticks in their stomach and turns to a pain in their heart. But once they’ve achieved their goal for immediate comfort, once you agree to stay, they don’t have a reason to keep themselves in that discomfort. Why would they want to be continually reminded of how awful they are? It’s painful. They don’t want to go through life like that. So they forget. They go back to normal. They have you again, they don’t need to face that side of themselves anymore. And they won’t see any issues with that. They are capable of reframing every event and action in their head into something that suits them and I don’t mean that in a gimmicky way I mean that they will be able to explain to you in perfect clarity why they truly love you despite their mistreatment and why their feelings of pain and discomfort are more important than how you feel about how they mistreated you. And it will be convincing. You will question yourself because they seem so sure of themselves and they seem to genuinely believe it. And it will lead you down the wrong path. These people frequently stand against abuse and repost ideas you agree with that make you feel safe. And they will mean it. And years later you will ask yourself why they supported such causes and things when they were clearly abusive themselves, and you’ll fail to realize that they saw themselves as a normal good guy the whole time. Just like we all do.
The right person will tell you when they’ve done wrong. The right person will be able to give you space to heal and do the *right* things to help you heal from any pain they cause, not love bomb you until it’s forgotten. I don’t know this wasn’t very coherent but I just wanted to say that abusers and manipulator are so good at it because they aren’t trying to do so and they don’t believe themselves to be doing so. Don’t fall for moral high ground bullshit, it only makes you easier to fall for bad situations.
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Discussing the NCR (Fallouts NV's Military Industrial Complex)
Fallout regularly discusses the idea of the military, its faults, its strengths, and most importantly, the psycho-social aspects of it regarding those who are members. We have seen a direct critique of the military generalized through the Enclave's overt nationalism, the hoarding of resources and indoctrination through the Brotherhood of Steel, and an almost eerily modern critique of the whole military-industrial complex through the NCR in New Vegas. In these series of posts, I will be focusing primarily if not exclusively on the last one.
The NCR we see in the game is strictly the military side of things and the depiction of active occupation during a time of eminent war, conflicting factions, and resource scarcity. It is in this we are missing a major factor that negatively affects the view of the NCR in the game and out: Civilian life along with citizen opinion on the military. While we do get Mojave civilian opinion on the military (often neutral or negative) we do not get those who are New California Republic citizens, not those who actually discuss the military more so not understanding the importance of the occupation and the President's choices.
We do not see how life is regularly lived by the average citizen as we have not seen New California in New Vegas, though, we get words and glimpses that the people are relatively content in the growing country minus the fact many people are not happy with the choice of encroaching on the Mojave. This most similarly reflects it's real-world application that many civilian citizens reject acquisition and war due to the economic effects it has on the country and the general violence/loss associated.
In this, we come to an issue of losing a perspective that is unique to the NCR as a military representative. The Brotherhood is notably a place where its active members are intertwined with its efforts, the young are raised to be scribes, paladins, etc... To where even if one is not fighting for The Brotherhood, they are still intertwined, it's propaganda is the life. The Enclave is even more cut n' dry in that it is mostly made up of government representatives. It is a group even smaller than the former, even more selective and intertwined that their propaganda IS a form of Eugenics. The NCR is unique in that there is a clear distinction between what is the military force, the civilian population, and the choice if one wants to be a part of the former.
There is a distinct difference in the cultures of the factions you are born into and those you must enlist or join (forcibly for some). While this is a long-winded way to get into the actual discussion I want to facilitate throughout these posts I wanted an initial background post to understand the aspects I am and am not exploring and explaining along with a hub post to link everything I intend to discuss in the coming days and weeks, starting with:
Why Do People Join the NCR?
...which will be discussed and linked back here like everything else regarding to this topic.
Links: TBA
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My mom just reminded me of the way a "friend" of mine from highschool kept telling me to change my graduation dress just to show up with a dress that looked like a cheaper version of mine. I say cheaper because it hers was unfinished and I was wearing a Calvin Klein dress and that dress had been a gift from one of my dad's friends and legit that dress was great (for 2013 fashion) and the price tag had me on the floor and then she had the nerve to say I didn't tell her what I was gonna wear as if we didn't coordinate the dresses between 37 girls to make sure that wasn't gonna happens and she just, changed her dress in the last minute.
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my issue with movie peach isn't that she's not feminine because obviously she is, and anyone sensible already knows "she's too feminist" or whatever is dumb. my issue is they made her into every generic cool serious surface-level "strong female character" action girl in a group of all men whose only character trait is "capable" that they've been writing over and over and over for the past ten years. I genuinely feel like they erased any personality she had past her appearance in favor of the single superficial female character type men tend to write when they want to be feminist and "modern." I'm not saying she shouldn't be capable and she shouldn't be cool or fight things because (I love paper mario) those things already are a part of her personality. this point is difficult to make with all of the "they're erasing feminine dainty proper women" takes because that's not what I'm taking about at all. I've seen people say if they wanted a character like this daisy was right there, but I wouldn't switch her character over to this trope either. daisy's LOUD and energetic and fun and the subdued woman whose role is being picking up the men's slack doesn't really fit her either (although I agree the two of them together would balance each other out (and it'd be nice if there were two women and they could interact)). it's exactly what I'd expect from a movie like this so I don't know why I complain, but I wish they would've done her differently. the character mario is about the whimsy but so is peach
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