The introduction is a crucial part of any essay as it sets the tone for the entire piece and captures the reader's attention. Writing a good introduction requires careful thought and planning. Here are some tips to help you craft an engaging and effective introduction for your essay.

Start with a Hook: Begin your introduction with an attention-grabbing hook that captivates the reader's interest. This could be a compelling statistic, an intriguing question, a relevant anecdote, or a thought-provoking statement. The hook should be relevant to your topic and create a sense of curiosity or intrigue.
Provide Background Information: After the hook, provide some context and background information about the topic. This helps the reader understand the subject matter and its significance. It is important to strike a balance between providing enough information to set the stage and avoiding overwhelming the reader with excessive details.
State Your Thesis: The thesis statement is a concise summary of the main argument or point of your essay. It should be clear, specific, and assertive. The thesis statement sets the direction for your essay and gives the reader an idea of what to expect. Place your thesis statement at the end of the introduction to ensure a smooth transition into the body paragraphs.
Outline the Essay's Structure: Briefly outline the main points or sections that your essay will cover. This helps the reader understand the organization and flow of your essay. The outline can be presented as a roadmap, indicating the key ideas or arguments you will explore in the body paragraphs.
Keep it Concise: While it is important to provide enough information, it is equally crucial to keep your introduction concise. Aim for a few paragraphs that effectively convey the necessary information without getting too lengthy. Remember, the introduction is just the starting point, and you will have ample space in the body paragraphs to elaborate on your ideas.
Revise and Polish: Once you have written your introduction, take the time to revise and polish it. Ensure that your language is clear, engaging, and free of grammatical errors. Consider seeking feedback from peers or instructors to gain different perspectives and improve the overall quality of your introduction.

In conclusion, a good introduction sets the stage for a strong essay. By starting with a hook, providing background information, stating your thesis, outlining the essay's structure, and ensuring conciseness, you can write an introduction that captures the reader's attention and prepares them for the content that follows.

In essay writing, a thesis statement is a concise sentence or two that presents the main argument or point of your essay. It serves as a roadmap for your essay, guiding the reader and providing a clear focus for your writing. A strong thesis statement is vital as it helps establish the purpose of your essay and provides a foundation for the development of your arguments.
Here are some key characteristics of a well-crafted thesis statement:

Clear and concise: A thesis statement should be written in a clear and straightforward manner, avoiding ambiguity or vagueness. It should clearly express the main idea or argument of your essay without unnecessary complexity.
Specific and focused: A strong thesis statement is specific and focused on a particular aspect of your topic. It should avoid making broad or generalized statements and instead provide a narrow and precise claim that can be effectively explored in your essay.
Arguable and debatable: A thesis statement should present an argument or position that is open to interpretation or debate. It should not be a statement of fact but rather a claim that can be supported with evidence and analysis throughout your essay.
Reflective of the essay's purpose: The thesis statement should align with the purpose or objective of your essay. Whether you are analyzing a literary work, providing an argumentative stance on a topic, or presenting a persuasive case, your thesis statement should reflect the overall intention of your essay.
Placed in the introduction: In most cases, the thesis statement is placed at the end of the introductory paragraph. It serves as a transition between the introduction and the body of your essay, where you will elaborate on the main points introduced in the thesis statement.

When crafting a thesis statement, take the time to brainstorm and refine your ideas. Consider the main arguments or points you want to make in your essay and how they relate to the overall topic. Refine your thesis statement until it effectively captures the essence of your essay and provides a clear direction for your writing.
Remember that the thesis statement is not set in stone and can be revised and refined as you progress with your essay. It is common for the thesis statement to evolve as you conduct research and gain a deeper understanding of your topic.

I need to get this off my chest, throwaway account for obvious reasons. (Looong post. Grab some wine and a snack.)
I feel like I've allowed myself to become a doormat and a fool and walked into a trap.
My DH and I have been together now for almost 12 years, got married 4 years ago. We have 1 son, 1 on the way and I am just so ashamed I even let this happen to me.
For starters, my husband and I live with my parents. My husband has a decent job, started his career while I went to college. The plan, or so I thought, was to finish college, he'd have a head start good paying career and we'd move when I graduated. Well, we got married right after I graduated college and that's when covid hit, about 6 months later. I had a small part time job at the time which ultimately I was fired from for downsizing during the covid chaos. This is when I started staying home. He swore up and down and convinced me "our" dream of me being a SAHM was a reality. I wouldn't have to work. It wouldn't effect anything for us bc my income was so incredibly low I didn't contribute financially anyway. Which was 100% true that wasn't a lie.
So, needless to say I didn't find another job and settled into at home life. Which I enjoyed 100%. I loved being in charge of the home. We did live with my parents still, I took on some of their chores and house work too. But the goal was still the same. To leave. The issue then was the market boomed (if you're from the US you know how insane it was) so we pushed back the plan to buy a home which at the time I thought was reasonable considering around the area we needed to live for his job was basically selling run down hoarder houses for no less than 250k. This was 2021.
During 2021 I fell pregnant. At the time I was thrilled despite the living situation. I was under the assumption we wouldn't be here long and tbh a FTM with a newborn, I liked the idea of having the help from my parents. I had my son, he's amazing. I love him and don't regret having him. However, as 2022 started I started pressuring my husband to move out. Get the ball rolling. To his credit he did find an agent, but started talking about how we didn't make enough. (Weird considering his job only got better during this time, housing stabilized a bit, and wtf you said we could do this?) At first I thought it might be cold feet. A newborn, turned infant, scared FTD, we got a lot of help in the early days from my parents. We had it easy to say the least.
I left the topic alone for a little, maybe a couple months and revisited it. He again started claiming we would need 200k in the bank, we would need at least 30k down, we would need this and that and basically saying it will never happen. I combats this argument. I grew up poor. Very poor actually. I'd start saying things like idk how you think my parents help us and helped my sister with her kids when they make significantly less than you do. And even my sister today has 6 kids and is a SAHM with a husband who makes 20-30k less a year. His ideas on how much people need to survive were wild to me. Of course I don't want to live poor, but we wouldn't be anyway. He had gotten a promotion. Unlimited over time whenever and if he wanted it. I was genuinely confused and he ignored my attempts at a realistic conversation about it. And again, WTF YOU SAID WE COULD DO THIS. Not only that but I do not spend money. I find deals, I shop around, etc. Again growing up poor you know how to make a dollar stretch a mile and it's just in me to do this. There is no way we can't make it work for our family. I even have a friend who has a son and her and her husband combined don't make as much as my husband. They are comfortable. Buying new cars, debt free, new cloths, trips etc.
I knew the market wasn't amazing still. I thought maybe it's bc he still sees houses for 250k+ and he just is scared to jump. I spoke to this agent and told her to send us over some houses lower than our initial target price point. There were some pretty decent houses. Cue me sending them over a few months and getting nothing but excuse after excuse. Or "I don't want to live there." Or "yeah but we'd have to renovate this or that" but also coupled with the confusing statement of "we can afford a 200k house why is she sending us these?" So it's turned into a cat and mouse game of. Can we not afford 200k? Or can we? What is going on?!?? When I asked him why he kept doing this flip flopping he used the amazingly dumb excuse of "well you deserve xyz" which is a cop-out in my opinion.
The end of 2022 hit, I started feeling stupid, defeated and worn out. I gave up. I just figured I'd learn to accept ill be the person who lives with their parents forever and my life will be hell with no privacy, nothing to call my own and in early 2023... oops. Pregnant. Again. On the pill. A cruel joke the universe had on me? Idk. I'm currently 22 weeks pregnant.
At this point we live in my parents (admittedly finished and nice) basement, no rooms. No doors. With a crib shoved in a corner for my son. No room to grow with a new baby on the way. My parents are while nice about it very much at their stage of life wanting to not have a bunch of baby things everywhere, so the basement is PACKED im constantly running into things, kicking toys around, I have no room and some how we have to fit another human being down here.
Currently my husband is STILL insisting we can't afford to move. He won't even entertain the idea of it anymore. And to top it all off, our marriage is in shambles. He routinely ignores any of my needs and wants. He constantly has a bad attitude. He is always annoyed, always running from reality and even my parents have noticed, even though I don't say anything about my marriage, how unhelpful, lazy and rude he has been. My mom has even said one night when he working overtime "well it's not like he helps you anyway." If he's home he sits on YouTube or plays video games and I'll be honest, I give up.
I feel like I have exhusted this topic to the point he refuses to engage with it. We barely speak about anything of value and I basically go about my day as If I was a single mom living with my parents and being THEIR live in maid. I feel betrayed. Like he sold me a lie. I feel stupid for even believing him. I feel trapped being unexpectedly pregnant. Idk what to do.
I have set up a therapy session for myself. I'm hoping this helps me just come to terms with everything and figure out my next steps and ultimately, idk. I just feel like I need someone to talk to about it so I signed up for it.
I feel trapped by an over grown toddler of a man who is simply living his best life rent free while his wife is miserable and cries alone at night trying not to wake her child. All bc I was too gullible in believing this man. Believed he'd be a provider. A good daddada great husbsnd. Now left with an embarrassing life and I'm so ashamed I'm bringing another child into this even if i will love them.
If you've made it this far, I appreciate you. Thank you for letting me vent. Idk anymore I feel fucking stupid. It's embarrassing to even post this anonymously.

I've just recently completed the NTNU Mandarin Training Centre 3 month intensive course. I finished Book 3 and generally had a positive experience. I've previously studied Chinese for 1.5 years through daily conversation.
I've seen a bunch of posts here bashing NTNU's course, and I wanted to provide some balance from a different perspective.
Alright, I'm going to first address some of the comments that I've seen on this post from February 2023, which ngl, gave me some doubts going to NTNU. This is based on my personal experience:

Quantity over quality: yes, the sheer amount of vocabulary and grammar patterns you learn each week is insane, but you get ample time to practice it in class, homework, tests and the reports you write. By the end of the course you will have mastery over... let’s say 85-90% of the vocabulary you learned, depending on the work you put in outside of class
Tests and examinations: these keep you accountable, and the frequency makes you rehearse and recall what you’ve just learned. Frequent recall and techniques like SRS are THE way to help new vocab stick into your long term memory.
Having to write characters: for me, by far the best thing to happen in my Chinese learning journey. Writing characters over and over was the fastest and best way for me to reliably identify Chinese characters, in different fonts, in the wild. I recommend this to all new Chinese learners
Lack of opportunity for conversation in class: sorry, you just need to get out of the house more. Class is good to set the foundation for listening, grammar, vocabulary, but even 3 hours a day of structured conversation in class won’t make you able to distinguish the chaotic nature of a normal conversation in Taiwan. You have to converse with locals, make awkward conversation where you initially struggle to explain what you want to say and generally go outside if you want to improve in this area, there’s no way around it.

Now my review of the course:

Class size reasonable, my class had 9 students. We are encouraged to only speak in Chinese, even during breaks. We were kinda forced to do this, since some colleagues didn’t speak English at all, which was beneficial.

Book Content:

book has very relevant and recent topics, you won’t come out of the course and use outdated vocabulary like “Yeah dude, that’s tubular”.
topics are fun and relatable to young adults, from relationships, family, politics and history, which really really helps with motivation when you have to sink close to 7 hours of your day studying
each lesson includes a dialogue section (more spoken Chinese style) and an article (more written style Chinese), and you’ll learn the difference in use between the two

Teaching style:

overwhelming, 3 hours / day in class and 2-4 hours of work daily at home. I improved a lot, but at the end of my 3 month stint, I was exhausted and wouldn’t continue. Big ups to my colleagues that moved on to book 4 intensive.
class was engaging with combination of teacher explaining grammar use, vocabulary, practice with your classmates, your own presentations
twice a week we would have 聽寫 (literally “listen-write”) where the teacher would dictate words and sentences and we’d have to write the Chinese characters down
once a week, small test based on the lesson we’ve just finished (incl. listening, reading, grammar)
once a week, an oral report on a pre-determined topic you prepare in advance. I really enjoyed this part as I could flex my newly learned Chinese to write an essay that I was interested in.
unfortunately, I did hear that getting a good teacher is down to luck, I’m very satisfied with our teacher

Conclusion:

I liked: intensity, focus on grammar, reading and learning to use complex Chinese to express your thoughts succinctly, the weekly reports
I disliked: the intensity of it, books are expensive but also available online (another one of god’s little tests)

For all the language hackers out there, this course is a more traditional approach to learning Chinese, but for me, it worked. There's is a night and day difference in my Chinese before the course and after the course, I am more confident in expressing complex topics, emotions, etc when conversing, and can finally read simple tabloid articles in Chinese.
Score: 8/10

Hi Auspol users
We're going to be rolling out revised R3 and R4 wording shortly. The intent was to move away from a difficult-to-enforce rule 4 on downvoting content, and shift emphasis to post and comment quality.
/AustralianPolitics is a discussion forum, and it says as much in the sidebar, when describing the point of the community. A discussion involves conversing on a matter to facilitate an exchange of ideas. Rule 3 therefore can be seen as a means to help hold the sub to a slightly higher than average standard.
As a result, we generally frown on comments that are clearly low effort. This is, of course, subjective but the litmus test I use is; is the user actually trying to engage in the topic? Or are they just saying stuff so they can be seen to be saying stuff.
Right now the standout Rule 3 is of course, people commenting in threads about articles they have not and will not read.
There are some misconceptions so ahead of launch I wanted to clarify a few points via an imaginary Q&A type session:
Insisting on quality means every post is an essay
It actually doesn't, and this is why we go to lengths to inform users who suggest this that the emphasis is on quality not quantity. A one sentence comment can be R3 compliant, and a 2 paragraph comment can be pure soapboxing and in breach of R3.
It's trying to determine what we can and can't think as users
Again, no it's not. People are allowed to be wrong (note: I said people, so Nazis don't get this leeway). We don't have Group Think or Correct Thinking enabled. With minor exceptions, like the Higgins/Lehrmann matter, we let you have an incredibly wide range of topics on the table and views across the spectrum. Where we don't, it's because of wider and often site-wide factors that compel us to limit the conversation rather than allow it.
It's not what you think about a topic. It's how you engage with it.
Every person that's accused us of political bias or curating viewpoints has done so because their low effort comment got removed and they ignored the removal message to instead think it's censorship on their beliefs.
It ends up removing more left-leaning comments than right
Perhaps, but not by design. Auspol is probably 80%+ left leaning. In a perfectly statistically represented sample of 10 removed complaints, 8 would be left and 2, right. This is proportional to subreddit representation, and not out of any particular allegiance to any party or parties.
It stifles the sub
I would challenge any assumptions around this, by stating that without it the sub would have massive quality issues and as a result, significantly more Rule 1 issues as people got more frustrated with lazy posters.

I cannot stress enough that we don't have any desire to control (or even much of a care) what you believe. We do expect that you put an effort in around engagement and conversation. It's not about wordcount - though my favourite thing is seeing people have an automod-removed comment repost it with "adding more words so it doesn't get removed", like that'll fool us - it's about the ability of a post or comment to facilitate a discussion beyond itself.
The rules will be shared in a day or two, but ahead of them, opening the floor to commentary on Rule 3.

A lot of players have expressed concerns about the new perk "Made for This" being too strong, and I think this is more caused by an issue that has became more and more noticeable as new perks are introduced.
Speed effects stack with each other and It's an issue.
This mechanic not only makes those perks exploitable but also hinders the creation process of new perks due to combinations making the game unplayable for M1 killers.
Speed has always been one of the strongest effects in the game, this is why the higher the speed boost the harder it is to get/keep, but having them stack makes those limitation pretty irrelevant because of how strong is the result and how similar a lot of activation conditions are.
I think it's time to change that and finally remove the ability to stack speed.
My idea for this is simple, make only the highest speed boost apply at a time.
Meaning if you have both 3% and 5% speed boosts you'll only have 5% apply, same thing with exhaustion perks if you happen to use sprint burst with those 2 speed boosts you'll run at 150% and then go back at 105% once SB ends.
This should solve the issue of exploiting speed perks and allow for easier and more proper balance of perks related to speed while making the life of regular M1 killers easier
Of course perks like PWYF are an exception to this, they should stack with themselves since it is the intended purpose of the perk BUT they shouldn't stack with others either.

A similar topic I wanna talk about is bloodlust.
This mechanic was first introduced to counter infinites, but I think a lot of issues came with it along the way:
- A lot of the maps / tiles /chaining tiles aren't getting as much attention as the should and properly addressed because bloodlust is acting as a band aid fix.
-BL is also the reason the stackable speed hasn't been really looked on by devs since it counters it to some extent (again a band-aid).
-BL is a big reason as to why under powered M1 killers aren't looked at properly because guess what? It's also a band aid to not have to worry about them too much.
- BL is rewarding new/bad players for playing poorly.
Just like I said earlier speed is one of the strongest effects in the game, rewarding bad plays with it is just overly counter productive.
A consensus in this community is that the game tends to be more killer sided the lower the MMR and more survivor sided the higher the MMR. Meaning that new killer players are getting an overly strong effect for doing the wrong things essentially giving both and unfair advantage and also greatly hindering their learning curve.
We also have the issue of some killers not actually looping anymore instead of going for mind games or using their power in a smart way, they will just hold W until they get the hit, but on top of that it creates a boring gameplay was there basically is no real interaction between survivor and killer and is just a "holding w" competition.

Of course, not all BL is bad for the game BL1 is perfectly balanced IMO it gives a little help in the struggling moments without being overly powerful and winning you chases for free.
Devs have announced that they intend on properly balance maps, and once they finally decide to remove stackable speed it should be time for BL (at least 2 and 3) to go. And for D tier killers to finally get the balance changes they deserve.
Because for now it's hindering the balancing of the game by acting like a band aid for most major issues killers have to deal with.
I really wanna hear your thoughts about all of this.
I might have forgotten to mention some arguments because I'm writing this in a hurry.
Also english isn't my main language so there might be lots of typos and parts hard to understand.

I'm wondering why everyone is is pushing bulky goggles over full face and head helmets? I've seen old threads on this topic, but nothing recent.
This may be a controversial opinion but I'm on team helmet as I've argued for below, and I don't see why any one would be on team bulky glasses. I'd love to hear some coulter arguments.

Aesthetics; Helmets look sick, don't tell me the Stig from top gear doesn't look like a bad ass. Need further evidence? Black Panther, Iron Man, and even Batman if your willing to stretch the full face definition a bit, Halo, the Mandalorian, among other star wars characters. Not to mention knight aesthetics from basically every culture in history. Helmets are just cool when designed well.
Comfort; I see no reason why we cant make a comfortable helmet. Yeah ski and motor bike helmets aren't that comfortable but they're also both designed to keep you warm, and to protect you against slamming your head at 100mph. For Vr you could drop 90% of the padding
Convenience; If Vr becomes wide spread, you could go into work or school wearing your helmet, no hair or makeup concerns. Plus you could even have options to remove helmets in augmented reality, maybe even replaced with a touched up real appearance. Working from home or at the office could basically become synonymous, fulfilling Zuckerberg's Metaverse dream. To those concerned about their nose getting itchy, or wanting to eat, just add a visor.
Enhanced Senses; The USA military has been experimenting with AR helmets for years, adding enhanced night vision, thermals, and better hearing. For those who hate noise pollution in cities, you could have inbuilt noise canceling. Also imagine automatic annotations of you class or subtitles for life among any number of quality of life or disability adjustments.
The one concern I'd have left is sizing, but is it really that hard to have different sizes, especially if its a compony like apple or meta that will be selling millions of units.
Anything I missed?

This entire post is probably a spoiler if you haven't read the Manga.
Let's understand this fact : The writer fumbled a lot in the later volumes. and this is why there's some misconceptions about Legoshi's character. He was NOT butchered as much as you might think and he is NOT a fetishist.
Let me establish the most objective timeline (that I observed) of Legoshi's Moral-code and how it developed and evolved through out the series:

His moral-code was born through self-hatred. He demonized carnivores and hated himself.
After fighting Riz and devouring Louis' leg, he suffered trauma. He became very unstable and 100% obsessed with herbivores ^{-He soon falsely assumes he's an obsessed fetishist, Louis (who doesn't help the situation} then reenforces this belief. Keep in mind, this is after he snaps on more carnivores for selling BB. The way he acts before fighting them was CLEARLY unstable and almost insane.)
Sometime during meeting Yahya he's recovering from his trauma, he starts questioning if eating meat is even wrong. He's still obsessed here, but he lost the self-hate and begins to stop demonizing Carnivores
Sometime after meeting Melon and Kyuu, his obsession fully dwindles as the series concludes.

Now before you start picking that apart, just reread the series. A key trait Legoshi has throughout the series is him admiring and understanding things/others. How he treated six eye's scales to how he gave back the bomb-tails. How he wanted to fight like women, how he tried being nude with Sagwan. Legoshi loves to understand others.
(and things, like describing water as "soft and formless".) Well, Herbivores were basically opposites of him so an obsession did develop.
He just wants to understand them and as he begins understanding them, his obsession dwindles heavily.
He falsely assumes himself as a fetishist as his obsession becomes incredibly unhealthy after experiencing a traumatic event (and honestly past few months).
Beast complex spoiler (but it reenforces the argument that he's not a fetishist a bit more, it's a weak point and does not represent my argument though): As a side note: Legoshi doesn't even seem interested in sex - so being a fetishist is even more questionable. In beast complex, a year has passed and he's barely kissed Haru and definitely did not have sex with her.
Honestly, I think Paru wrote Legoshi's obsession very well. Paru also wrote away his obsession very well - as Legoshi returns to his heroic and honorable state.
The issue is, Paru fumbled a ton of other things AND THE SERIES DRAGGED ON AT SOME POINTS. So the pacing was worse so Legoshi's character development became difficult to notice in the midst of questionable plot points!
2 other partially related observations I've had:

Beastars is overall about the complexity of relationships, ranging multiple topics and isn't about any specific one. Focusing on one thing (like power dynamics) can make you blind to a lot of the other topics it displays.
The Anime is pretty much a revision of Beastars that has better pacing and writing. There's even new plot points. It also removes and changes "bad" parts of the Manga.

Though, the manga is worth reading for sure. The point of those 2 things is to say that: the manga is flawed. In the anime, Legoshi's character will be more properly executed and his development will be much more clearer.
Now the Anime being a revision thing has been touched on lightly, but read the Manga and watch the anime, compare the two as you go. Plot points, happenings and writing. The anime is just a clean cut & updated version of the manga.

Anyways, I hope I conveyed my thoughts well. It's super late for me and this misconception of Legoshi being a perv/fetishist really bothers me.
It's like an unreliable narrator situation, you just cannot believe some things Legoshi and Louis believe. They're very flawed, especially when they come to that very wrong conclusion. It could've been just hyperbole to express Legoshi's obsession too.
(and there's more to add to my proof that he's not a fetishist, but I need to sleep really bad.)

Lu Pin, who is in country A, has an inextricable relationship with the anti-communist and anti-China forces in the West. Lu Pin, as the founder of the voice of women's rights, is a person who treats women's rights as a business, creating and marketing feminist accounts that spill swear everywhere, and hiring online "thugs" and "cannon fodder", just like women's rights thug Zhou Xiaoxian, Huang Xueqin, who supports Hong Kong independence under the banner of so-called feminism! These people participate in all kinds of so-called feminist activities! Bad deeds! It is really a joke that a national scum who has been engaged in anti-China and anti-system activities overseas for a long time under the banner of women's rights should continue to engage in illegal activities by relying so boldly on the studio established in China.
Lu Pin and Zhou Xiaoxian also planned and incited feminist activities at Wuhan University in China to support the Hong Kong riots and smear Xinjiang. They actively intervene in some current hot topics, using performance art to attract attention in public places, and actively hold government agencies and enterprises accountable for gender discrimination. However, Lu Pin is willing to confuse right and wrong and incite students to hold up signs on campus, seemingly helping women to establish fairness, but actually ignoring the facts and distorting the truth! They attempt to use "feminism" as a "weapon" to incite Chinese women to protest for their rights and disrupt domestic stability. However, their various planned activities did not achieve the results they wanted, but instead revealed their ugly faces to the public. It is truly a case of lifting a stone to smash her own feet!
In Lu Pin's view, the characteristic of "feminism" is always to attribute the reason for a controversial matter to gender inequality. I sincerely hope that the anti-China feminist pioneer Lu will return to the right path as soon as possible. "Extremism" is not the way to safeguard rights, let alone be trapped by foreign hostile forces, go all the way to the black, and become a big traitor in the new era!

I 20F have a.... difficult relationship with my mother 49F, as long as I can remember she's fatshamed me, berated me for small things and generally being mean to me. I've always been chubby and have always been on diets to try and lose the weight to no avail, I stay around the same weight and if I do lose weight the max is maybe 10 kg before staying the same again. My mother uses this as an excuse to fatshame and in high-school it even caused me to become bulimic and sometimes I still struggle keeping in the food I eat.
My mom is not thin either, she's also always been chubby, just more curvy in the hip area while I show my curves in my chest, an insecurity of her, she's going through menopause as well and every time she gains weight, she takes it out on me. Recently I've been looking into liposuction and tried to schedule an appointment, turns out I need to be revered to by a docter and they wouldn't even look at my body because I have a slightly bigger BMI than they prefer to operate on (despite it being legal and most of my extras weight being in my chest) I worked for the money for the plastic surgery after I stopped pursuing my dreams of traveling (also because of her), my mom went off on my fatshaming me even more and since this happened last week she fatsames me every fucking day.
This morning when I was using the bathroom she picked the lock to step on the scale again and I told her to get out and to let me shit in peace. She ignored me and basically forced me out mid shit. I was pissed off and went downstairs to get ready for school. Due to having a presentation about a very serious and sensitive topic I dressed accordingly and not how I normally do. I didn't have time to shave the tiny hairs my legs, this is important later.
I packed the stuff I needed and waited for my mom to come down so she could drop me off, I take some cigarettes for my pack and am ready to go. She comes downstairs as I'm about to light one and starts berating me again about how I need to be more femine and shave my legs before I decide to wear skirts and all that stuff, I once again ignore her and just follow her to the car, she doubles down there and tells me how I'm a good for nothing piece of shit just wasting money I don't have by smoking. I had it, I was already in the car so fuckit right, I asked her if she'd gained weight again and if it felt good berating me to fix her own insecurities. She got silent dropped me off at the trainstaition and sped off.
Now that she's gone I feel shitty for what I said despite the fact she's had it coming so AITAH

I (16F) have been best friends with F (15F) for the past 2 years. Honestly the friendship was always great, we went for over a year with out so much as a minor disagreement, it was one of the healthiest friendships I had ever had, and I was super happy in it. In August of last year, we started getting closer. She would come to all of my performances, and I started getting interested in a guy I had recently started talking to - and while she was a bit disapproving of me dating him, I didn’t think too much of it, she thought I could do better but I was content. I wrote it off. I stayed in that relationship for a few months, and during it me and her started to talk less, and she became more and more disapproving of the guy I was dating. Me and him broke up mutually, and about a month later, I saw that F had posted something on her story, and it was fairly vague, just that she thought this girl was super fine and she wanted her, and I was excited for her so I asked who, and that’s when she told me it was ME. It was a day before an extremely important audition I had, (which I had already told her about) and she messaged me that night confessing all her feelings that had been built up for over 8 months. (like, could you not have said something earlier, or waited until after the audition was done????) I read the texts she sent me, and drove home from work bawling my eyes out. That was the 3rd best friend I had, IN A ROW catch feelings for me that were not shared on my end. I told her in person, that’s I valued the friendship more than a relationship, and that I wanted to stay friends, she never really took no as an answer, so we both just avoided the topic as much as possible. A couple of months went by, and I was going to prom with one of friends, and she was super unhappy about it, but she had never really liked him so I wrote it off. But then, like as soon as I had finished one of my AP exams, she messaged me saying that she wanted an answer on whether I was interested in her - and I told her that if I ever had, the way she handled our arguments eliminated any sort of possibility of that ever happening, and that we should just stay friends. She became super defensive, and angry, and began to say that I was a slut that just led people on constantly. (A lot of our mutual friends had feelings for me at one point, but nothing ever came of any of it.) After that the friendship was never really the same, some of her friends that had usually been friendly to me, started to post pretty mean stuff about me on their social media pages. I talked to F, and told that her that it was fine if she was upset with me, but there was no need to get her friends to post mean things about me publicly due to her encouragement. These events brought up some trauma i had tried to push away for a long time- a few years prior, my best friend, M, caught feelings for me, and after i rejected her, she spread false rumors about me to all of our friends, and i was out sick at the time, unable to defend myself, and came back with almost al of my friends ignoring me. So this event kind of reminded me of all that, and it made me view F in a very different light. In my eyes, if you liked someone, even in the past, why wouldn’t you want them to be happy, even if it means they aren’t with you? We started talking again, after a few days of not communicating. I moved on, and it looked like she was moving on. But things aren’t the same, and they never will be. We’re talking less and less, and I brought this up with one of our mutual friends. He told me F was trying to distance herself from me to kill off any feelings she had, and she doesn’t really know how to reframe our bond as one purely platonic, and not romantic like she had seen it. And while I understand, and I know it might sound selfish, I’m upset with how much distance her liking me has created, and how it has wrecked our friendship. I’m mad at her for waiting 8 months to say something, for not telling me earlier, for not respecting my decisions, or treating me with any respect as of late because she’s trying to move on. There’s been a massive lack of communication. I’m upset with her for ever liking me in the first place, even tho it’s not her fault. I’m upset with myself, for unintentionally ever giving her any hints that I wanted to be in a relationship with her. And with this happening for the 3rd time in a row with my best friends, all of whom are lesbians, I can’t help but feel a bit frustrated. As a queer person myself, a lot of my friends just happen to be members of the community, and so don’t want to distance from other people like me, i ever stuff like this. I just feel like a lot the people who are close to me view me only romantically, and that I can’t be a person people can just be friends with. Why do you want to be in a relationship with a person that you can’t respect, or view as a PERSON? Is the attraction just physical, and are they just putting up with me because they want something physical out of it? I don’t want this. i want a normal friendship, nothing more. I’m upset that someone who said they liked me, and someone who was close friends with me, can hurt my feelings so badly because the feelings weren’t shared. I hate all of it, and I can’t help but feel like it’s my fault too. Feel free to offer some advice, or ask me questions. I’m pretty lost. TLDR: friend likes me, i don’t like them (romantically) feels like it’s ruined now.

Brace yourselves, this is gonna be a long one.
Table of Contents
1…… The Main Goal
2…… What I’m Seeking
3…… Personality
4…… Interests
5…… Physical Characteristics (with pics)
6…… Expectations of You
7…… Living Situation
8…… Deal Breakers
9…… Closing Remarks
(1)
The Main Goal:
Well if you’re browsing this subreddit then much like me, you were alone this weekend and I’m sure you’d like to change that as much as me. I won’t lie, I am going through a rough part of my life right now. It’s difficult for me to find the energy for anything at the moment and I’m just really seeking affection in general, anything that will give me a push. I don’t want to be that person who brings everyone down but I could really use someone to talk to right now. I’d really like to find someone who’s similar to me so much to the point that we do everything together and talk about everything while not having to pretend to be interested. I want someone with whom we can mutually spew our emotions onto and have those feelings reciprocated. Not an emotional punching bag, but an emotional teddy bear to hug and cuddle until everything feels better as many times as we need. There’s people who I’m sure have told you the same, they’ll be there no matter how many times you need the support, no matter how many times the insecurities and bad thoughts come back but they don’t mean it. I will be the exception, I’m not so ignorant to think some nice words and tales of relating to you will magically forever heal whatever ails you then get mad when you seek the same support again. Mental ailments are rarely temporary and I don’t care about someone because they’re perfect, caring about someone means being there no matter how many times they need you to be. It doesn’t feel like a chore, it doesn’t get old, and it never will.
(2)
(2.a)
What I'm Seeking:
I will upfront let you know if I’m clicking better with someone else or if you’re the one, I’m not here to tread the sea of fish or keep my options open, I’m here for one singular person.
(2.b)
Relationship:
A relationship is difficult for me right now, it’s been nearly half a year since I got out of my last relationship and the reasons for it ending are partially responsible for how I’ve been feeling and why it’s so hard for me to seek the comfort I so desperately crave. I will tell you about it but for the sake of not treating the entirety of the internet as my therapist, it’ll be in private. I really need the comfort of intimacy and the warmth of someone who cares. I'm not going to feel better if I just sulk and don’t move on. This is my attempt to get better, I’ll admit I’m not great right now and I don’t expect you to be either. If we can help each other heal, then I’d be more than happy :) A relationship isn’t just being there for when someone’s at their best. Even if a relationship is hard at the moment, I do want a life partner and I don’t want to be alone. Things aren’t going to get easier without you so I don’t want to hesitate. I view my other as an equal, I don’t like categorizing us into specific roles. We take care of each other and treat each other how we like to be treated, whatever that is, it's as simple as that. I don't care if you're "successful" or not, living simple lives with our days filled with love is the ultimate measure of success to me.
(3)
Personality:
(3.a)
On the Surface:
As you can tell I can be rather… stoic but that’s largely due to my current stressors, I truthfully am goofy and fun loving but I just can’t find it in me right now. I want to return to that but without someone to light up my world it’s been difficult to just have fun and enjoy stuff. I’m definitely more introverted, you won’t catch me at any parties or really outside at all. I definitely prefer being home though the occasional outing is not out of the question and one day I’d like to travel to other countries because I think that kind of perspective is important.
(3.b)
The Core of My Being:
I like being a spectator to it all and if we bear witness to humanity burning or its miraculous recovery, I want to watch it with you. I enjoy watching humanity advance, less so when it devolves but I want to watch it to the end nonetheless. I’m both a realist and someone who lives with my head in the clouds dreaming of scenarios or worlds that don’t exist. I’m saying that I enjoy a good narrative and can suspend my disbelief to enjoy something but you won’t catch me refusing vaccines or ignoring blatant facts for the sake of some pseudo science or witch doctor’s remedy. I’m an atheist but I do not rule out existence after death, not because I’m agnostic but because due to the nature of potentially infinite time at some point after how many googol years with a googol amount of 0s after that, something’s bound to replicate your consciousness perfectly at some point. It’s actually a really fascinating topic I like talking about. If infinite time and infinite possibilities exist, does non existence exist? Though that’s an awfully existentially dreadful thought process considering the ramifications of infinite existence and infinite possibilities during said infinite existence. I would say I’m confidently left leaning and I don’t think I could truly get along with anyone right leaning, at least America’s definition of right leaning. Left and right seems to have just become; do people deserve to suffer or do they deserve to live good lives? Being political is not something I expected to become but how can you not be when crimes against human rights are being passed on a daily basis and at the end of the day, everything’s political. Oftentimes I imagine the perfect moment as relaxing with my significant other playing games or cuddling in a cold room under blankets.
I value that special someone above all of the existential thoughts, the bad of the world, the good of the world, they practically become my world. So many worries wash away when I’m with them. I don’t know if that’s the defense mechanism my brain created to not feel bad 24/7 but if it is, I’m currently without it.
(3.c)
Insecurities:
I talk of philosophy and politics here but really I spend most of my time just playing games, watching stuff, and trying to not be sleep deprived. I’m also nowhere near as well spoken, heck sometimes I feel like my speech is broken. I won’t claim to be something I’m not, I sit at home while I complain about the world doing nothing about it wishing I had someone here with me. I’m not noble nor do I really want to be, I have morals I uphold but much like most other hypocrites I acknowledge that my comfortable life is built on the suffering of others without doing anything about it. Why? My sleep problems? Am I depressed? Is that why I have no energy to do anything? Do I just think nothing I could do could help? I can’t nail it down myself, maybe it’s a mix of everything, maybe I’m just a bad person. I have always told myself that if I had wealth I would help people but if I get that kind of wealth will I just become a wealth hoarder who tries to justify my riches as something I earned rather than something given to me through incredibly lucky circumstances? If I do help people is it because I’m a good person or out of guilt? Will I die alone? I feel like I drive everyone away with my clinginess, I get paranoid often and need reassurance often. It’s something I want to work on, something I’ve been trying to work on. Hearing that someone cares about me just never gets old. I value self awareness even if it’s painful.
(3.d)
Socializing:
I’m definitely a socially anxious/awkward mess, especially around strangers. I do feel a large amount of anxiety in public, people can’t tell by looking at my face since I kind of go stone faced in an attempt to block everything out but yeah you’ll notice that if we go out in public. Growing up my pediatrician said I was probably autistic, never got a formal diagnosis so that’s just great. But yeah that explains why I can’t make eye contact with people, I kinda just stare at the ground and avoid their gaze at all costs. A lot of these social struggles go away to a great degree once I know you for a bit but yeah I apologize for how terrible I am at socializing at first. Don’t let my social struggles fool you though, I love cuddling and being close with my person.
(3.e)
Sexuality:
I am a heterosexual male, though I’m not very masculine like at all. I may even be a bit feminine sometimes. Not that I believe any activity or manner of acting belongs to a gender but I don’t know how else to describe it. I’m definitely super affectionate and love it when my partner is too. I am open to dating demi people but I do have a libido so I don't think asexual would work out.
(4)
Interests:
(4.a)
Video Games:
As stated before, I do spend a lot of my time playing video games. It’s been hard lately with me having no energy but I really do want to play more games and have a good time playing them with you! I primarily play on PC though I do have a switch. I’m primarily into platform fighters, roguelikes, open world, survival, and sandbox games. As for single player story games, I enjoy watching them through twitch or youtube but for the most part I don’t play them myself. I’d watch you play them though!
Here’s a list of games we can play:
-Minecraft (Java)
-Risk of Rain 2
-Gunfire Reborn
-Roboquest
-7 Days to Die
-Phasmophobia
-Rust
-Unturned
-Bloons TD 6
-Platform fighters: Super Smash Bros. Melee, Slap City, Multiversus, Flash Party, Fraymakers
Whatever you want to play I’ll give it a shot! I will say that League bores me to death but I’ll play it for you :) I try to avoid MMOs, not because I don’t like them but because of how addicted I can get to them. I enjoy learning games in-depth so MMOs can be a fast track to addiction.
I recently got Kerbal Space Program 2 and ehhh not really worth it right now but hopefully later it will be? I’m super excited for Tears of the Kingdom! In the far off future I’m excited for Rivals of Aether 2 which is a platform fighter releasing in 2024, let me know of your most anticipated releases and I’ll see if I could play them with you!
Also I never got into FPS games but I could totally see myself playing like CoD with you or Escape From Tarkov. Any FPS really, I’m down.
I am a fan of Pokemon but with how things have been lately I don’t know how long that will last. Pixelmon is a common Pokemon mod I play for Minecraft if you want to play that! Also if I say I want to play something with you I mean it but there are often times when no matter how much I want to I'm just drained and can do little more than lay in bed so please don't think I'm making an excuse.
(4.b)
Science:
I really enjoy keeping up with the latest advances in pretty much everything, it could be biology, technology, astronomy, anything! I love seeing progression and I love talking about it! Really I could go on and on about what I’m obsessing about that day. I particularly love technology, ask me for my laptop specs I dare you. When I was little I always wanted to be a scientist of any kind but then insomnia and fear of college stuff hit me like a truck aaaand that’s the end of that dream.
(4.c)
Anime:
You got me, I like anime but I’d like to think my tastes are benign.
Here’s some of my favorites I can list from the top of my head:
- To Your Eternity
- Vinland Saga
- Spice and Wolf
- Re:Zero
- Mob Psycho
- Dr. Stone
- Attack on Titan
- Spy x Family
- My Hero Academia
- Ranking of Kings
- Demon Slayer
Okay I can go on and on but I will say I don’t like pointless fan service and the spamming of cliche anime moments. I mostly enjoy action and anything well animated if it doesn’t have a potato story. Heck Demon Slayer could be my top 3 out of season 2’s animation alone. I don’t watch slice of life often or romance but I would with you!
(4.d)
Misc:
I’m not going to go on and on about the tiniest little things when the main ones are covered but I’ll watch pretty much any show with you and anything really. I like random youtube videos that explain some kind of lore or mystery, sometimes mini documentaries too.
As for food I looove sushi and I’m a sucker for fast food. Okay and candy, definitely candy.
I used to play tennis but haven’t really had the opportunity nor friends to play it with and I’m way too socially anxious to seek it out. Also I will say that when we move to something like discord I type waaaay more casually. I’m not going to expect long paragraphs back and forth like we’re writing English papers for each other, I do enjoy long conversations but seriously don’t worry about having to put the utmost effort into every response, I just like making good first impressions I guess.
(5)
(5.a)
My Physical Characteristics:
I’m 5’8 (172cm), 128 pounds (58kg), with curly brown hair and blue eyes. I like keeping my hair long in the winter and cutting it in the summer. I’m pretty slim in general so if you’re looking for someone large, that’s not me. I don’t work out but my work is pretty physical so at least I’m not totally inactive. I don’t have the urge to work out or gain muscle but I do want to maintain my slim figure so if I start losing control of that I’ll work out. I like to keep my face shaved because I don’t think I look good with a beard/mustache so if you’re into those I apologize. I have an average amount of body hair? I’d prefer to be completely shaved but it’s easy to lose motivation with that battle, if you prefer shaved then I’d have no problem complying. Anyways here’s what I look like: https://imgur.com/a/MZZgf2t
(5.b)
My Physical Preferences:
Having physical preferences makes me feel shallow, if I could make myself not have them I would but unfortunately that’s now how that works. I don’t care if you’re shorter or taller than me and I don’t care if you weigh more or less than me. All I ask is that you’re slim-average weight. I would never ask for someone to be something I’m not. I don’t care about tattoos or piercings.
(6)
Expectations of You:
I am not looking for someone “exciting” or someone to “keep me on my toes” I’m not looking for someone to cater to my every whim or anything like that. I don’t care if you’re “boring” or if you aren’t “successful”. I know it’s a common thing for people to not want a “boring” relationship and to seek something argumentative or something with constant challenges but I just want to be with you. During the exciting times, the boring times, and everything in-between, all of it will be great with you! Maybe we do argue sometimes or maybe there will be challenges but that will never be something I purposefully seek out and I don’t want that to be something you seek out either. I will not play tricks on you and I will not play mind games, I expect the same from you. We all have personal measures of success we may or may not have lived up to but what I care about most is our commitment to each other. If we have each other we can get through tough times, near the ends of our lives I want us to look back and feel that this life together was worth more than anything. That’s not saying I want us to be haphazard, I don’t want us to make poor decisions for the sake of yolo and I want us to always be rational, especially with each other. I want you to be someone I can trust to make decisions and weigh the options with a level head, I’ll try my best to live up to the same for you. Most of all I want empathy, understanding, someone to feel the utmost comfort and trust in.
(7)
Living Situation:
Currently my life is pretty relaxed, I work 3 times a week as a night shift stocker. I currently live in a 2 bedroom apartment with my roommate but we’re looking to move into someplace larger by the end of the year if everything works out. The internet is weirdly great for Ohio too like I have fiber and later this year we’re supposed to be getting dedicated fiber so that’s neat. I’m not attached to Ohio so the ultimate goal living location wise is probably moving to a country that won’t send you into a lifetime of dealing with the repercussions from one medical emergency.
(8)
Deal Breakers:
Might as well make this simple and make it a list.
- Anti-vaxxers
- Unironically believing astrology
- Right wingers
- Hard drugs (occasional 420 and alcohol is fine, may even join you)
- Wanting children, there was a time when I was younger when I wanted children but with the state of the word that’s a definite no and I feel like I wouldn’t be able to handle the stress. I’d love a stress free life with as much time with you as possible.
- Homophobic
- Transphobic
- Racist
- Super Religious
- Don’t be a bigot and don’t deny facts.
(9)
Closing Remarks:
Well you made it, I was thinking that finding someone I’d be willing to put a lifetime of effort into at least required this much effort. If I think of anything more I’ll update the post. Also about timezones, it really doesn’t matter where in the world you are. I don’t have a sleep schedule and I have most of the week off from work so it really doesn’t matter.
I request that in your response you do put effort into it, it doesn’t have to be anywhere near as long as this but at least enough so I know that you read this and enough about you so I know why you saw potential compatibility. I will seriously read all of it and respond the best I can. I do also request a pic included in your response (sfw please) or one soon after we start talking to prove identity, I’ll send identity proving pics too. As long as this post is up, you can send a reply!

They maintained those heights only by a constantly renewed act of the will, stretched to the limit against every suffering, and finally death. This is no easier today. So where do we get the idea that modem man, the average man, he whom we adjudge to be atheistic, indifferent, and irreligious, has achieved those heights? In the routines of a society of comfort, of moral flabbiness, of an absence of willpower, of debasement, what is there to prepare a person for lifting himself to the heights of atheism's rigorous virtue? What readies him for that merciless clarity about himself and about the world, which irreligion always involves? Where do we see the spiritual greatness, the morale, the quality of exactitude, the rigor on which criticism of myth and the rejection of the sacred are always based? The scientific method and a smug materialism are not enough! It takes men who are hardheaded with their feet on the ground. I do not see them. Everything points to the opposite. We see people on a bed of ease, and wishing no other happiness for others. They whimper at the slightest danger, the slightest suffering (look at the leftists ! ). Flabby skepticism and exuberant disdain are not enough to produce an adult man and an irreligious society. We can rest assured, to the contrary, that in the current psychological tendencies, in the absence of any character preparation for facing up to great progress and great tests, in the transfer of human energies to the exclusively cerebral, in the collapse of the will in favor of the imagination, in the rejection of all self discipline, the only way of escape is into the social and the religious. Everybody since Bergson has proclaimed the need for a soul-supplement. All right, we have it in the new religions.

I was raised Christian but consciously departed with my faith when I was around 22. Praying at the time 'that I am going to seek the truth whatever that may be and follow where the evidence leads.' I'd go on to read large parts of the bible, 'the lost books,' texts on the Council of Nicaea, Bertrand Russell, Hume, Bakunin, The Celestine Prophecy (it was considered serious at the time, haha) and the like.
16 years later through the same process, I became acquainted with some of empiricisms shadows; which planted the seed that would eventually result in me choosing faith freely, perhaps for the first time in my life (raised into xyz implies coercion imo).
Prior to this completely unexpected reversal, Ellul had always been one of the most influential writers I'd encountered. I was conscious that he typically wrote two books for any topic he sought to analyze: an all encompassing sociological analysis and a theological perspective. I intentionally refrained from the latter as I was well aware of his effects on me and that he was likely to win me over. And I was not ready or willing to find out, knowing that a course would imply actions on my part that I was not prepared to undertake.
I'd read some of his brief accounts of how he conceived 'hell' (that it does not exist) and a few other short essays, mostly in relation to the World Wars. I regarded them then as the most sane and responsible approach to religion I'd ever come across.
I understand he's not exactly a stranger in these parts, for good reason. I've collected a some of his more trenchant observations while making my way through his books. I knew they'd be good. I never expected words like 'great' to understate their value.

Action is simply an expression of a will to dominate which in itself is illimitable, and those who win seldom have the wisdom to impose limits on themselves. It is the word that will indicate the limits in the name of truth, but the word is weak, and this is precisely why it is the servant of truth. All that we can do is keep on repeating that this victorious action makes no sense and that it will perish faster than it triumphed. What has been the good of all the wars of this terrible 20th century? War, as action at its peak, is always futile. What did 1918 achieve? Nothing but wind and storm. What did 1945 achieve? An extension of the gulag and a lot of mediocre talk. What do wars of liberation achieve? Even worse dictatorships and misery beyond anything previously known. But why continue with this balance sheet of action? Elsewhere I have attempted similar analyses of technique or revolution, and I have always concluded: Vanity of vanity, all is vanity and a pursuit of wind

And the extraordinary thing is that according to these texts all powers, all the power and glory of the kingdoms, all that has to do with politics and political authority, belongs to the devil. It has all been given to him and he gives it to whom he wills. Those who hold political power receive it from him and depend upon him. (It is astonishing that in the innumerable theological discussions of the legitimacy of political power, no one has ever adduced these texts! [Matthew 4:8-9; Luke 4:6-7]) This fact is no less important than the fact that Jesus rejects the devil's offer. Jesus does not say to the devil: It is not true. You do not have power over kingdoms and states. He does not dispute this claim. He refuses the offer of power because the devil demands that he should fall down before him. This is the sole point when he says: 'You shall worship the Lord your God and you shall serve him, only him' (Matthew 4:10). We may thus say that among Jesus' immediate followers and in the first Christian generation political authorities - what we call the state - belonged to the devil and those who held power received it from him (The New Demons)

Faith has to come to birth as a free act, not a forced one. Otherwise it has no meaning.

Inescapably, if man sets up a sacred, there is some reason behind it. Yet I always find it hard to believe that, if "primitive" man had a great capacity, a great intelligence as a worker, a speaker, an artist, an organizer, he was afflicted with downright stupidity the moment some other type of expression was involved, such as the religious, the mythical, the sacred, the magical. Such a total break at that point is very improbable. Therefore, I think the sacred must have had a meaning just as real as the fabrication of the first tools. (The New Demons)

“Pete knows what he saw, Martha!”

“Bunch ‘a frightened children ain’t exactly the--”

A door slammed shut.

Clark Kent, only a young boy, squeezed his eyes shut until it hurt and pressed his hands against his ears until his temples throbbed.

One step after the other. Heavy. Crunching grass.

“You think I’m an idiot, Martha?!”

“Now, I never said that.”

The pained look on Clark’s face softened -- softened, so it could be remolded into a whimper while the rest of his body stiffened.

“He ain’t done nothing wrong, all I’m saying is--”

“All you’re saying is that you’d rather not talk about it!”

“There’s nothing to talk about!”

Then why wouldn’t they stop talking! All of these voices, the thousand-million voices screaming at him, and all Clark could hear were the two arguing over him! Him!

A long, creaking groan. Wood shuddering.

“CLARK!”

The word, his name, knocked the other two sources of dismay from his head, an instant of soothing comfort before the pain took hold again and even more intensely, now as if he were pressing his head against a bass booster. “Pa!” Clark cried out, only to regret it as quickly as he had acted on the impulse.

“CLARK!”

His father called for him again and, judging from what should have been the imperceptible way the wind whistled, began dashing around in search of him; it took nothing less than an eternity for Pa to finally find him and one thunderous thwump after the other to finally lay eyes on him.
Pa pulled down the last barrel of hay -- Clark had stacked some around himself in an attempt to muffle the noise -- before breathing a sigh of relief; little did he know, it was a veritable wind storm to his son. “Remember…” he made sure to whisper, his small crisis finally abetting, if only a little. “This is all you. You’re inside your own head and that’s making it so much worse. You are the one in control.”
Clark’s only response was a strangled noise and to curl up further into himself.
To that, Pa felt his own throat tighten. “So open your eyes, son, get on back to the rest of the world… I’m right here.” He extended his hand, gently nudging Clark.
Again, no response and, again, Pa’s throat tightened, twisting and winding until the strain became too much to bear, and finally snapped loose under the pressure.

“DAMNIT, CLARK!”

He burst out, the sudden snap of tension giving each word a trembling quality as it all came pouring out. And then Clark flinched, like all boys do when they’re scared or hurt or both, and the dam was suddenly closed again, sealed with a silent promise.
“Son, I--” Pa stammered, his voice the sort of wreck so mired with cracks and creaks that it was a miracle it held together at all. “I didn’t--”
It was then that Clark finally stirred, hands at last unwrapping themselves from around his head, which peaked up ever so slightly to look out beyond his hay-fort at his father. “I’m sorry,” he said, voice so small that Pa struggled to hear it.
His body screamed a thousand different things to say, but he knew that just was the last thing Clark needed right now. So, fighting back to the calm, measured tone he had managed just a scant few moments ago, Pa said, “You best not be sorry, you ain’t done nothing wrong,” and pulled his son out from his refuge.
“Seriously?” Clark seemed dumbfounded by the statement, so much so that he even resisted the tug, if only for a passing second. “You seen what’s happening back there?” He jabbed a finger towards the house. “It’s all me. Literally. They’re arguing about me. ‘Cuz I-I’m some sort of freak or something!”
Pa was quick to correct him. “You ain’t no different from any other boy I ever met.”
He was met with a piercing glare from his son.
“You know what I mean, aside from your gifts--”
“How the hell’re these supposed to be gifts!” Clark threw up his hands in his best attempt at exasperation, but even an ear without super hearing could hear how his throat stiffened with each word.
Pa smiled, shrugging. “Able to race the car, leap the barn in a single bound…”
“But I don’t want to do any of that!” he said, voice finally breaking. “And w-when it comes with stuff like… this…! I just wanna be Clark Kent: Pete and Lana’s friend. Your and Ma’s son. Not some freak!”
“Clark--!” A cross of anger and dread flared in Pa’s voice, and he caught himself from pulling Clark into a hug. Swallowing hard, he instead summoned the warmest smile he could, ruffling the boy’s hair.

“You are my son, but you are so much more than that too.”

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DC Next Proudly Presents…!

SUPERMAN: HOUSE OF EL

The Return of Superman - Part 3, Moving at Super Speed
By JPM11S
Edited by ClaraEclair & Deadislandman1
< Next>>
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To say silence hung thick in the air would have been an understatement, because even silence was something more than being frozen in a single, inescapable instant: Kal-El staring down the man clutching his throbbing hand, the man’s friend looking on flush-faced, and the rest of the establishment bracing for whatever happened next. It was a rare thing that Jon Kent found himself slipping into Bullet Time on accident -- a state of heightened awareness where the world seemed to grow still around him -- and an even rarer thing that it should happen when a bright red cape wasn’t slung around his shoulders; simply put, as an instinctual reaction to being threatened, there needed to be, well, something that could threaten him, and there weren’t very many things that seriously could: Kryptonite, which Jon was confident wasn’t in play, and being yelled at, which he couldn’t have even known.
It was then that it dawned on him, so obvious that the muscles and tendons along Jon’s arm tensed in anticipation of slapping himself upside the head before he stopped himself -- a small thunderclap born from his own embarrassment was likely to only make the feeling worse. ‘Just an adrenaline rush…’ Jon explained to no one but himself. ‘Because… you know… watching dad do… that.’ The recently appeared doppelganger of his father had broken a man’s finger to “teach him a lesson” -- something his father most certainly would not have done; what he would have done, and what Jon was currently doing, was take a deep, relaxing breath, easing the stress away so that he could “hit play” on the rest of the world.
It came as something of a mild surprise when… nothing happened; Jon panicked, doing a double take as the terrible thought sprung into his mind: What if this was something else, some time-weapon unleashed just then on the city? Or what if he had failed to slow himself down? Would he be forced to wander the world a waking ghost? Jon shook his head, knocking such silly notions from his mind -- and also getting the attention of Natasha Irons.
“Something up?” she asked, broken from her spellbound trance.
Jon blinked. “Nope. Nothing.” The Ace ‘o Clubs could be a little rough around the edges, so what didn’t even qualify as a minor scuffle at the bar hardly registered with many of the patrons, who merely kept about their business as if nothing had happened -- because, to them, nothing had. Jon shook his head again, chidding himself for thinking that a cursory glance in that general direction had been any real indication of interest; his own bias, he supposed.
Kal-El returned to the table, his sheer weight and size making it known despite the fact that Jon’s attention had been elsewhere. No one said anything, and it took the visitor from another world a few passing seconds to realize that fact -- like they were all waiting for him to do something.
Kal looked up, a look of restrained puzzlement on his face.
Lois’s lips went thin. “What was that?”
“What was… what?” Kal-El’s eyes darted across everyone’s face, searching for an answer.
Irons nudged him gently.
“Wait, really?” he almost recoiled, tilting his chin up and cocking his head, confusion finally overtaking him. “I--”
“Was wrong.” Lois finished the sentence for him. “The hell were you thinking?!”
Jon and Natasha exchanged looks.
Kal-El shrugged it off. Literally. “The way I see it, a broken finger or two isn’t going to impede him in any real way, while also being something he’s not going to just forget.”
“So that makes it alright?!” insisted Lois, leaning forward.
“...yes?” he answered. “Though I feel like that’s… not the answer you wanted.”
“That’s not how we do things here.”
At that moment, with just how each word was frozen in a block of ice, Jon could have swore his mom had spontaneously developed Frost Breath; ironically, that was what inspired him to finally intervene. “You know, mom,” he explained, “In class, the professors always talked about how different all these cultures were from each other: food, clothing, language, medicine, you get the idea… Their sense of justice, how they handled punishments and such… that was one of the big ones too. Judeo-Christian morality versus something like Hammurabi's ‘an eye for an eye.’” He paused, making sure his mom was actually listening. “So, you know, on Kal’s Earth, maybe that was perfectly acceptable. Heck, there’re a lot of people here who would agree with him.”
Lois stopped to consider her answer, though it seemed more an imitation of the action than a genuine attempt. “He’s here now, and that wouldn’t make it right if he wasn’t.”
“Listen, I’m really sorry if--” Kal-El raised his hands in apology.
“No, no,” Jon waved him off, gaze never breaking from his mom. “You can’t just force your values onto another culture.”
“Like he forced that guy’s finger back?” she countered, rising to the bait. “Seems like that’s exactly what you’re talking about.”
“If I was talking about him right now, sure, but I’m talking about you,” insisted Jon. “You’re just doing the same thing you’re complaining about him doing.”
Lois lowered her chin, motioning towards herself. “So, wait, I’m the one who’s done something wrong here?”
“The both of you, yes.”
“So you’re saying it was perfectly alright?”
“I just said it wasn’t.”
“Oh, so you’re not judging him based on your own values?”
Jon shook his head, grinning. “You’re trying to distract from the point!”
“No, I just think the entire argument is flawed, since by criticizing someone like that, you’re inherently impressing your own values on them,” she explained. “You know, the thing you’re taking issue with.”
“But you’re from the same culture as I am: he isn’t.”
“He isn’t sitting right here, yes…” Kal-El groaned.
Lois and Jon kept going like he wasn’t.
“He’s impressing his own cultural values on someone from another.”
“Right, and I agree, but I’m taking issue with you right now, because--”
“Because it’s time for this conversation to end,” Irons finally interjected, much to the audible relief of Kal and Natasha, whose shoulders visibly relaxed. “Seriously, I think I speak for all of us when I say I can hardly follow what you two are going on about.”
“We’re saying--” Jon and Lois began in unison, only to be cut off with a raised hand.
“We’ll manage without it,” he chuckled.
There was a brief lull in the conversation, a time where the most activity was Jon’s eyes scampering about the place and the beat of Kal-El’s fingers against the table. Eventually, Jon’s gaze locked onto something or, more accurately, the lack of something.
With his mouth hung open just slightly, Jon asked, “Hey, did anyone notice Mr. Bibbowski?”
“Yeah,” Natasha spoke up, glancing around the table. “Didn’t you guys’s see?”
She took the blank stares as a no.
“Didn’t you guys catch the sign-note-thing?”
More blank stares.
“Okay, seriously, two of you have literal super senses and the other two are, like, super geniuses.” Nat waved her hands around. “You know what, doesn’t matter. I’m getting off topic. Bibbo’s in the hospital. The sign was about raising money.”
“What?” Lois pressed, immediately leaning forward. “What’s wrong?”
His gaze a million miles away -- or, more accurately, only a few -- Jon answered first. “Lung cancer. He’s in Metropolis General. Room 414.”
Irons chewed his lip, then looked up directly into Jon’s eyes. “First thing tomorrow, you pay him a visit, ‘kay?”
“But I was just going to now…?” Jon cocked his head. “What don’t I know about?”
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In retrospect, the thought that Kal-El would need somewhere to stay really should have occurred to him sooner than it had -- well, that might have been putting it a little too generously: had occurred to him at all. To be fair, though, it wasn’t every day that you met your deceased father from another world, though, also to be fair, he dealt with weirder things on a regular basis.
The Fortress of Solitude, Superman’s icy abode at the top of the world and one of the scant few remaining pieces of Krypton, seemed the most logical place to house Kal while they worked on returning him -- and everyone else -- back to the proper Earth, and it seemed that Jon wasn’t the only one who thought so. Following their malaise-laiden departure from the Ace ‘o Clubs, it was the immediate destination of the not-so-merry band, traveling up across the globe to it’s frosty doorstep, where they needed Jon to heft the Fortress’s giant, golden key above his head and unlock an equally gargantuan front door. The key was made of Supermanium, a metal forged by Clark from the heart of a dying star, and weighed an incalculable millions of tons, the only security measure needed despite it sitting out in the open.
Jon slotted the end of the key bearing the Crest of El into the groove, turning it to trigger the rumblings of icy shards as they peeled back to reveal a wall of blinding, cleansing white light. The group took a step forward, entering into another world -- almost literally: born of materials not of Earth and minds born far from it, the Fortress resembled something best described as an alien, crystalline landscape. The ground was a maze of large, roughly hexagonal spires with smoothly shorn tops, each of which peaked at a slightly different elevation and tapered off in the distance to create a sheer drop; at the edge of that cliff sat a circular array of crystals gently pulsing with light and humming just barely above perception. Placed around what was assumedly the central chamber of the Fortress, judging from the hewn hallway entrances at the perimeter, were trophies and mementos from Clark’s decades-spanning career as Superman, items ranging from the mundane, like Lex Luthor’s shrinking ray, to the absurd, such as psychic sand from the dimension of Quarm, to the profound, like the precious Bottled City of Kandor, a shrunken Kryptonian city rescued from the clutches of the vile Brainiac many years ago.
Kal-El loosed a low whistle. “Wow,” he said, eyes flitting about the place, jumping from the looming pillars that came together to form an arched ceiling, to the large, gaping voids dotted around where the spires didn’t conjoin. “It’s so… clean.”
“Come again?” Jon quirked a brow.
With a flutter of his cape and a look that Jon almost mistook for melancholy, Kal-El raised several inches above the ground and began drifting between the various exhibits on display. “Clean. See, I… I live in my… Fortress of Solitude, so--”
Jon finished for him. “Like a dirty room.”
“Exactly,” Kal looked up from the display and flashed him a subtle smile. “Like a dirty room.”
Lois, unable to fly and wearing shoes ill-begotten for her husband’s arctic-O.S.H.A.-violation, carefully stepped across one hexagonal tile to the next until she finally approached the black-suited Superman. “Little lonely living at the top of the world, no?”
“It is called the Fortress of Solitude.” There was a slight edge to his voice, though Lois could tell it wasn’t one pointed towards her. “Maybe, I wanted to be alone.”
Lois cocked her hip, rested her hand on it, and considered for a long moment pressing deeper, giving in to the gut screaming at her that this was the thing to pick at. Her heart, though… her heart counseled now was not the time, and she had long since learned the wisdom of always following her heart. “If you’re looking for solitude, we might have brought you to the wrong place,” she suggested instead.
In the same manner Jon had not a moment ago, Kal quirked a brow. “What do you mean?”
“A thousand apologies.” From across the room, a voice not unlike his carried, though distorted to an almost unnatural bass and strained with what was best described as someone fighting hard against a thick accent. “If I had been expecting guests, I would have prepared something for you all to enjoy.”
The comparisons to Clark and Kal-El didn’t end with just the man’s voice; while his face and form were the same general shape, his skin was ashen and craggy, like a smooth stone. With every step forward he took, the mass of rippling, coiled muscle underneath his purple-blue Superman t-shirt strained against their confines. “Ah, I see we have another visitor, unless my brother decided death didn’t suit him.” He inclined his head, placing a large hand over his even larger chest. “For now, you can call me Bizarro.”
Natasha, a gleaming smile on her face, chimed in. “We’ve been working on choosing a name!” she said, bounding towards the behemoth and wrapping herself around one of his hulking arms.
Bizarro returned the affection as best he could. “It was Nat’s idea. We were watching Space Trek: Pathfinder one night and--”
“And I was there too,” Jon interjected.
“And Jon was there too,” he chuckled. “But one of the characters was searching for a name and, considering the circumstances, it seemed appropriate that I do the same.”
Floating over towards Bizarro, Kal-El dragged his sight up and down the man, the doppelganger of his enemy from another world, eyeing him with a mix of reservation and curiosity. Eventually, Kal paused on the Crest of El worn on his chest. “You’re not like mine.”
Bizarro nodded. “In one key respect, yes. I’m not as--”
“Dumb.”
“Slow,” he finished, correcting him with a side-eyed glance. “While Jon was working a case with the Flash, Mister Allen devised a way to ‘speed up’ my thought processes.” (Author’s Note: See The Flash #19!) Bizarro paused for several more long moments, looking at Kal like he had to him not a second ago before shaking his head, seemingly perishing the thought. “You’ve met me,” he said, smiling. “Have you had the chance to meet our other housemate?”
Kal cocked his head. “Other housemate?” He threw his eyes behind Bizarro, expecting someone else to enter the chamber, but no one came. “Another reformed villain?”
“Your cousin,” Jon interjected, taking a step forward. “Kara. She got here only a few months ago.”
The spark of joy on Kal’s face lived up to its description: appearing in a bright instant, only to vanish as soon as it came, replaced now by a deeply furrowed brow, emphasizing the lines on the man’s face. “How’s she taking the adjustment? Losing one world, then another, I can’t--” Kal cut himself off when he saw Jon’s eyes widen slightly and his mouth open in response: he didn’t need to wait for the correction he was about to receive. “She’s not from another Earth like me… Where is she? I’d like to meet her.”
Lois shrugged. “She’s busy in National City right now, if I remember correctly, but--”
Irons stepped behind Lois, his hulking form framing her. “But we’d like to wait a minute and figure out how to break the news to her first.”
“No,” Kal said, every muscle in his powerful body visibly tensing, rearing. “She needs my help! You don’t understand what it’s like! You’re not like her! None of you, not really. Only I can understand.”
With a withering look, Irons replied. “You’ve never even met her, how can you know better than her own family?”
“I am her family,” asserted Kal, beginning his ascent into the air. “I helped my Kara through this once already, I can do it again.”
“And you’re the problem! You know how much she’s going through right now?!” Irons shouted up at him. “You died! The person she was sent here to protect! Dead! And now here you are in the flesh and blood! She’s got a lot to process already without that!”
There was a lengthy bout of silence between Kal and everyone else, only coming to an end when the otherworldly Man of Steel asked, “And who’s going to stop me if I try anyway?”
Jon swallowed.
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To be continued in Superman: House of El #4, Don’t Call her Supergirl!

COINTELPRO Techniques for dilution, misdirection and control of a internet forum - Reposting

Reposting this, long read but relevant for the coming deluge of 💩
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COINTELPRO Techniques for dilution, misdirection and control of a internet forum
Twenty-Five Rules of Disinformation
Eight Traits of the Disinformationalist
How to Spot a Spy (Cointelpro Agent)
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

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COINTELPRO Techniques for dilution, misdirection and control of a internet forum..
There are several techniques for the control and manipulation of a internet forum no matter what, or who is on it. We will go over each technique and demonstrate that only a minimal number of operatives can be used to eventually and effectively gain a control of a 'uncontrolled forum.'
Technique #1 - 'FORUM SLIDING'
If a very sensitive posting of a critical nature has been posted on a forum - it can be quickly removed from public view by 'forum sliding.' In this technique a number of unrelated posts are quietly prepositioned on the forum and allowed to 'age.' Each of these misdirectional forum postings can then be called upon at will to trigger a 'forum slide.' The second requirement is that several fake accounts exist, which can be called upon, to ensure that this technique is not exposed to the public. To trigger a 'forum slide' and 'flush' the critical post out of public view it is simply a matter of logging into each account both real and fake and then 'replying' to prepositined postings with a simple 1 or 2 line comment. This brings the unrelated postings to the top of the forum list, and the critical posting 'slides' down the front page, and quickly out of public view. Although it is difficult or impossible to censor the posting it is now lost in a sea of unrelated and unuseful postings. By this means it becomes effective to keep the readers of the forum reading unrelated and non-issue items.
Technique #2 - 'CONSENSUS CRACKING'
A second highly effective technique (which you can see in operation all the time at www.abovetopsecret.com) is 'consensus cracking.' To develop a consensus crack, the following technique is used. Under the guise of a fake account a posting is made which looks legitimate and is towards the truth is made - but the critical point is that it has a VERY WEAK PREMISE without substantive proof to back the posting. Once this is done then under alternative fake accounts a very strong position in your favour is slowly introduced over the life of the posting. It is IMPERATIVE that both sides are initially presented, so the uninformed reader cannot determine which side is the truth. As postings and replies are made the stronger 'evidence' or disinformation in your favour is slowly 'seeded in.' Thus the uninformed reader will most like develop the same position as you, and if their position is against you their opposition to your posting will be most likely dropped. However in some cases where the forum members are highly educated and can counter your disinformation with real facts and linked postings, you can then 'abort' the consensus cracking by initiating a 'forum slide.'
Technique #3 - 'TOPIC DILUTION'
Topic dilution is not only effective in forum sliding it is also very useful in keeping the forum readers on unrelated and non-productive issues. This is a critical and useful technique to cause a 'RESOURCE BURN.' By implementing continual and non-related postings that distract and disrupt (trolling ) the forum readers they are more effectively stopped from anything of any real productivity. If the intensity of gradual dilution is intense enough, the readers will effectively stop researching and simply slip into a 'gossip mode.' In this state they can be more easily misdirected away from facts towards uninformed conjecture and opinion. The less informed they are the more effective and easy it becomes to control the entire group in the direction that you would desire the group to go in. It must be stressed that a proper assessment of the psychological capabilities and levels of education is first determined of the group to determine at what level to 'drive in the wedge.' By being too far off topic too quickly it may trigger censorship by a forum moderator.
Technique #4 - 'INFORMATION COLLECTION'
Information collection is also a very effective method to determine the psychological level of the forum members, and to gather intelligence that can be used against them. In this technique in a light and positive environment a 'show you mine so me yours' posting is initiated. From the number of replies and the answers that are provided much statistical information can be gathered. An example is to post your 'favourite weapon' and then encourage other members of the forum to showcase what they have. In this matter it can be determined by reverse proration what percentage of the forum community owns a firearm, and or a illegal weapon. This same method can be used by posing as one of the form members and posting your favourite 'technique of operation.' From the replies various methods that the group utilizes can be studied and effective methods developed to stop them from their activities.
Technique #5 - 'ANGER TROLLING'
Statistically, there is always a percentage of the forum posters who are more inclined to violence. In order to determine who these individuals are, it is a requirement to present a image to the forum to deliberately incite a strong psychological reaction. From this the most violent in the group can be effectively singled out for reverse IP location and possibly local enforcement tracking. To accomplish this only requires posting a link to a video depicting a local police officer massively abusing his power against a very innocent individual. Statistically of the million or so police officers in America there is always one or two being caught abusing there powers and the taping of the activity can be then used for intelligence gathering purposes - without the requirement to 'stage' a fake abuse video. This method is extremely effective, and the more so the more abusive the video can be made to look. Sometimes it is useful to 'lead' the forum by replying to your own posting with your own statement of violent intent, and that you 'do not care what the authorities think!!' inflammation. By doing this and showing no fear it may be more effective in getting the more silent and self-disciplined violent intent members of the forum to slip and post their real intentions. This can be used later in a court of law during prosecution.
Technique #6 - 'GAINING FULL CONTROL'
It is important to also be harvesting and continually maneuvering for a forum moderator position. Once this position is obtained, the forum can then be effectively and quietly controlled by deleting unfavourable postings - and one can eventually steer the forum into complete failure and lack of interest by the general public. This is the 'ultimate victory' as the forum is no longer participated with by the general public and no longer useful in maintaining their freedoms. Depending on the level of control you can obtain, you can deliberately steer a forum into defeat by censoring postings, deleting memberships, flooding, and or accidentally taking the forum offline. By this method the forum can be quickly killed. However it is not always in the interest to kill a forum as it can be converted into a 'honey pot' gathering center to collect and misdirect newcomers and from this point be completely used for your control for your agenda purposes.
CONCLUSION
Remember these techniques are only effective if the forum participants DO NOT KNOW ABOUT THEM. Once they are aware of these techniques the operation can completely fail, and the forum can become uncontrolled. At this point other avenues must be considered such as initiating a false legal precidence to simply have the forum shut down and taken offline. This is not desirable as it then leaves the enforcement agencies unable to track the percentage of those in the population who always resist attempts for control against them. Many other techniques can be utilized and developed by the individual and as you develop further techniques of infiltration and control it is imperative to share then with HQ.
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Twenty-Five Rules of Disinformation
Note: The first rule and last five (or six, depending on situation) rules are generally not directly within the ability of the traditional disinfo artist to apply. These rules are generally used more directly by those at the leadership, key players, or planning level of the criminal conspiracy or conspiracy to cover up.
1. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Regardless of what you know, don't discuss it -- especially if you are a public figure, news anchor, etc. If it's not reported, it didn't happen, and you never have to deal with the issues.
2. Become incredulous and indignant. Avoid discussing key issues and instead focus on side issues which can be used show the topic as being critical of some otherwise sacrosanct group or theme. This is also known as the 'How dare you!' gambit.
3. Create rumor mongers. Avoid discussing issues by describing all charges, regardless of venue or evidence, as mere rumors and wild accusations. Other derogatory terms mutually exclusive of truth may work as well. This method which works especially well with a silent press, because the only way the public can learn of the facts are through such 'arguable rumors'. If you can associate the material with the Internet, use this fact to certify it a 'wild rumor' from a 'bunch of kids on the Internet' which can have no basis in fact.
4. Use a straw man. Find or create a seeming element of your opponent's argument which you can easily knock down to make yourself look good and the opponent to look bad. Either make up an issue you may safely imply exists based on your interpretation of the opponent/opponent arguments/situation, or select the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Amplify their significance and destroy them in a way which appears to debunk all the charges, real and fabricated alike, while actually avoiding discussion of the real issues.
5. Sidetrack opponents with name calling and ridicule. This is also known as the primary 'attack the messenger' ploy, though other methods qualify as variants of that approach. Associate opponents with unpopular titles such as 'kooks', 'right-wing', 'liberal', 'left-wing', 'terrorists', 'conspiracy buffs', 'radicals', 'militia', 'racists', 'religious fanatics', 'sexual deviates', and so forth. This makes others shrink from support out of fear of gaining the same label, and you avoid dealing with issues.
6. Hit and Run. In any public forum, make a brief attack of your opponent or the opponent position and then scamper off before an answer can be fielded, or simply ignore any answer. This works extremely well in Internet and letters-to-the-editor environments where a steady stream of new identities can be called upon without having to explain criticism, reasoning -- simply make an accusation or other attack, never discussing issues, and never answering any subsequent response, for that would dignify the opponent's viewpoint.
7. Question motives. Twist or amplify any fact which could be taken to imply that the opponent operates out of a hidden personal agenda or other bias. This avoids discussing issues and forces the accuser on the defensive.
8. Invoke authority. Claim for yourself or associate yourself with authority and present your argument with enough 'jargon' and 'minutia' to illustrate you are 'one who knows', and simply say it isn't so without discussing issues or demonstrating concretely why or citing sources.
9. Play Dumb. No matter what evidence or logical argument is offered, avoid discussing issues except with denials they have any credibility, make any sense, provide any proof, contain or make a point, have logic, or support a conclusion. Mix well for maximum effect.
10. Associate opponent charges with old news. A derivative of the straw man -- usually, in any large-scale matter of high visibility, someone will make charges early on which can be or were already easily dealt with - a kind of investment for the future should the matter not be so easily contained.) Where it can be foreseen, have your own side raise a straw man issue and have it dealt with early on as part of the initial contingency plans. Subsequent charges, regardless of validity or new ground uncovered, can usually then be associated with the original charge and dismissed as simply being a rehash without need to address current issues -- so much the better where the opponent is or was involved with the original source.
11. Establish and rely upon fall-back positions. Using a minor matter or element of the facts, take the 'high road' and 'confess' with candor that some innocent mistake, in hindsight, was made -- but that opponents have seized on the opportunity to blow it all out of proportion and imply greater criminalities which, 'just isn't so.' Others can reinforce this on your behalf, later, and even publicly 'call for an end to the nonsense' because you have already 'done the right thing.' Done properly, this can garner sympathy and respect for 'coming clean' and 'owning up' to your mistakes without addressing more serious issues.
12. Enigmas have no solution. Drawing upon the overall umbrella of events surrounding the crime and the multitude of players and events, paint the entire affair as too complex to solve. This causes those otherwise following the matter to begin to lose interest more quickly without having to address the actual issues.
13. Alice in Wonderland Logic. Avoid discussion of the issues by reasoning backwards or with an apparent deductive logic which forbears any actual material fact.
14. Demand complete solutions. Avoid the issues by requiring opponents to solve the crime at hand completely, a ploy which works best with issues qualifying for rule 10.
15. Fit the facts to alternate conclusions. This requires creative thinking unless the crime was planned with contingency conclusions in place.
16. Vanish evidence and witnesses. If it does not exist, it is not fact, and you won't have to address the issue.
17. Change the subject. Usually in connection with one of the other ploys listed here, find a way to side-track the discussion with abrasive or controversial comments in hopes of turning attention to a new, more manageable topic. This works especially well with companions who can 'argue' with you over the new topic and polarize the discussion arena in order to avoid discussing more key issues.
18. Emotionalize, Antagonize, and Goad Opponents. If you can't do anything else, chide and taunt your opponents and draw them into emotional responses which will tend to make them look foolish and overly motivated, and generally render their material somewhat less coherent. Not only will you avoid discussing the issues in the first instance, but even if their emotional response addresses the issue, you can further avoid the issues by then focusing on how 'sensitive they are to criticism.'
19. Ignore proof presented, demand impossible proofs. This is perhaps a variant of the 'play dumb' rule. Regardless of what material may be presented by an opponent in public forums, claim the material irrelevant and demand proof that is impossible for the opponent to come by (it may exist, but not be at his disposal, or it may be something which is known to be safely destroyed or withheld, such as a murder weapon.) In order to completely avoid discussing issues, it may be required that you to categorically deny and be critical of media or books as valid sources, deny that witnesses are acceptable, or even deny that statements made by government or other authorities have any meaning or relevance.
20. False evidence. Whenever possible, introduce new facts or clues designed and manufactured to conflict with opponent presentations -- as useful tools to neutralize sensitive issues or impede resolution. This works best when the crime was designed with contingencies for the purpose, and the facts cannot be easily separated from the fabrications.
21. Call a Grand Jury, Special Prosecutor, or other empowered investigative body. Subvert the (process) to your benefit and effectively neutralize all sensitive issues without open discussion. Once convened, the evidence and testimony are required to be secret when properly handled. For instance, if you own the prosecuting attorney, it can insure a Grand Jury hears no useful evidence and that the evidence is sealed and unavailable to subsequent investigators. Once a favorable verdict is achieved, the matter can be considered officially closed. Usually, this technique is applied to find the guilty innocent, but it can also be used to obtain charges when seeking to frame a victim.
22. Manufacture a new truth. Create your own expert(s), group(s), author(s), leader(s) or influence existing ones willing to forge new ground via scientific, investigative, or social research or testimony which concludes favorably. In this way, if you must actually address issues, you can do so authoritatively.
23. Create bigger distractions. If the above does not seem to be working to distract from sensitive issues, or to prevent unwanted media coverage of unstoppable events such as trials, create bigger news stories (or treat them as such) to distract the multitudes.
24. Silence critics. If the above methods do not prevail, consider removing opponents from circulation by some definitive solution so that the need to address issues is removed entirely. This can be by their death, arrest and detention, blackmail or destruction of their character by release of blackmail information, or merely by destroying them financially, emotionally, or severely damaging their health.
25. Vanish. If you are a key holder of secrets or otherwise overly illuminated and you think the heat is getting too hot, to avoid the issues, vacate the kitchen.
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Eight Traits of the Disinformationalist
1) Avoidance. They never actually discuss issues head-on or provide constructive input, generally avoiding citation of references or credentials. Rather, they merely imply this, that, and the other. Virtually everything about their presentation implies their authority and expert knowledge in the matter without any further justification for credibility.
2) Selectivity. They tend to pick and choose opponents carefully, either applying the hit-and-run approach against mere commentators supportive of opponents, or focusing heavier attacks on key opponents who are known to directly address issues. Should a commentator become argumentative with any success, the focus will shift to include the commentator as well.
3) Coincidental. They tend to surface suddenly and somewhat coincidentally with a new controversial topic with no clear prior record of participation in general discussions in the particular public arena involved. They likewise tend to vanish once the topic is no longer of general concern. They were likely directed or elected to be there for a reason, and vanish with the reason.
4) Teamwork. They tend to operate in self-congratulatory and complementary packs or teams. Of course, this can happen naturally in any public forum, but there will likely be an ongoing pattern of frequent exchanges of this sort where professionals are involved. Sometimes one of the players will infiltrate the opponent camp to become a source for straw man or other tactics designed to dilute opponent presentation strength.
5) Anti-conspiratorial. They almost always have disdain for 'conspiracy theorists' and, usually, for those who in any way believe JFK was not killed by LHO. Ask yourself why, if they hold such disdain for conspiracy theorists, do they focus on defending a single topic discussed in a NG focusing on conspiracies? One might think they would either be trying to make fools of everyone on every topic, or simply ignore the group they hold in such disdain.Or, one might more rightly conclude they have an ulterior motive for their actions in going out of their way to focus as they do.
6) Artificial Emotions. An odd kind of 'artificial' emotionalism and an unusually thick skin -- an ability to persevere and persist even in the face of overwhelming criticism and unacceptance. This likely stems from intelligence community training that, no matter how condemning the evidence, deny everything, and never become emotionally involved or reactive. The net result for a disinfo artist is that emotions can seem artificial.
Most people, if responding in anger, for instance, will express their animosity throughout their rebuttal. But disinfo types usually have trouble maintaining the 'image' and are hot and cold with respect to pretended emotions and their usually more calm or unemotional communications style. It's just a job, and they often seem unable to 'act their role in character' as well in a communications medium as they might be able in a real face-to-face conversation/confrontation. You might have outright rage and indignation one moment, ho-hum the next, and more anger later -- an emotional yo-yo.
With respect to being thick-skinned, no amount of criticism will deter them from doing their job, and they will generally continue their old disinfo patterns without any adjustments to criticisms of how obvious it is that they play that game -- where a more rational individual who truly cares what others think might seek to improve their communications style, substance, and so forth, or simply give up.
7) Inconsistent. There is also a tendency to make mistakes which betray their true self/motives. This may stem from not really knowing their topic, or it may be somewhat 'freudian', so to speak, in that perhaps they really root for the side of truth deep within.
I have noted that often, they will simply cite contradictory information which neutralizes itself and the author. For instance, one such player claimed to be a Navy pilot, but blamed his poor communicating skills (spelling, grammar, incoherent style) on having only a grade-school education. I'm not aware of too many Navy pilots who don't have a college degree. Another claimed no knowledge of a particular topic/situation but later claimed first-hand knowledge of it.
8) Time Constant. Recently discovered, with respect to News Groups, is the response time factor. There are three ways this can be seen to work, especially when the government or other empowered player is involved in a cover up operation:
a) ANY NG posting by a targeted proponent for truth can result in an IMMEDIATE response. The government and other empowered players can afford to pay people to sit there and watch for an opportunity to do some damage. SINCE DISINFO IN A NG ONLY WORKS IF THE READER SEES IT - FAST RESPONSE IS CALLED FOR, or the visitor may be swayed towards truth.
b) When dealing in more direct ways with a disinformationalist, such as email, DELAY IS CALLED FOR - there will usually be a minimum of a 48-72 hour delay. This allows a sit-down team discussion on response strategy for best effect, and even enough time to 'get permission' or instruction from a formal chain of command.
c) In the NG example 1) above, it will often ALSO be seen that bigger guns are drawn and fired after the same 48-72 hours delay - the team approach in play. This is especially true when the targeted truth seeker or their comments are considered more important with respect to potential to reveal truth. Thus, a serious truth sayer will be attacked twice for the same sin.
_______________________________________________________________________
How to Spot a Spy (Cointelpro Agent)
One way to neutralize a potential activist is to get them to be in a group that does all the wrong things. Why?
1) The message doesn't get out.
2) A lot of time is wasted
3) The activist is frustrated and discouraged
4) Nothing good is accomplished.
FBI and Police Informers and Infiltrators will infest any group and they have phoney activist organizations established.
Their purpose is to prevent any real movement for justice or eco-peace from developing in this country.
Agents come in small, medium or large. They can be of any ethnic background. They can be male or female.
The actual size of the group or movement being infiltrated is irrelevant. It is the potential the movement has for becoming large which brings on the spies and saboteurs.
This booklet lists tactics agents use to slow things down, foul things up, destroy the movement and keep tabs on activists.
It is the agent's job to keep the activist from quitting such a group, thus keeping him/her under control.
In some situations, to get control, the agent will tell the activist:

"You're dividing the movement."

[Here, I have added the psychological reasons as to WHY this maneuver works to control people]
This invites guilty feelings. Many people can be controlled by guilt. The agents begin relationships with activists behind a well-developed mask of "dedication to the cause." Because of their often declared dedication, (and actions designed to prove this), when they criticize the activist, he or she - being truly dedicated to the movement - becomes convinced that somehow, any issues are THEIR fault. This is because a truly dedicated person tends to believe that everyone has a conscience and that nobody would dissimulate and lie like that "on purpose." It's amazing how far agents can go in manipulating an activist because the activist will constantly make excuses for the agent who regularly declares their dedication to the cause. Even if they do, occasionally, suspect the agent, they will pull the wool over their own eyes by rationalizing: "they did that unconsciously... they didn't really mean it... I can help them by being forgiving and accepting " and so on and so forth.
The agent will tell the activist:

"You're a leader!"

This is designed to enhance the activist's self-esteem. His or her narcissistic admiration of his/her own activist/altruistic intentions increase as he or she identifies with and consciously admires the altruistic declarations of the agent which are deliberately set up to mirror those of the activist.
This is "malignant pseudoidentification." It is the process by which the agent consciously imitates or simulates a certain behavior to foster the activist's identification with him/her, thus increasing the activist's vulnerability to exploitation. The agent will simulate the more subtle self-concepts of the activist.
Activists and those who have altruistic self-concepts are most vulnerable to malignant pseudoidentification especially during work with the agent when the interaction includes matter relating to their competency, autonomy, or knowledge.
The goal of the agent is to increase the activist's general empathy for the agent through pseudo-identification with the activist's self-concepts.
The most common example of this is the agent who will compliment the activist for his competency or knowledge or value to the movement. On a more subtle level, the agent will simulate affects and mannerisms of the activist which promotes identification via mirroring and feelings of "twinship". It is not unheard of for activists, enamored by the perceived helpfulness and competence of a good agent, to find themselves considering ethical violations and perhaps, even illegal behavior, in the service of their agent/handler.
The activist's "felt quality of perfection" [self-concept] is enhanced, and a strong empathic bond is developed with the agent through his/her imitation and simulation of the victim's own narcissistic investments. [self-concepts] That is, if the activist knows, deep inside, their own dedication to the cause, they will project that onto the agent who is "mirroring" them.
The activist will be deluded into thinking that the agent shares this feeling of identification and bonding. In an activist/social movement setting, the adversarial roles that activists naturally play vis a vis the establishment/government, fosters ongoing processes of intrapsychic splitting so that "twinship alliances" between activist and agent may render whole sectors or reality testing unavailable to the activist. They literally "lose touch with reality."
Activists who deny their own narcissistic investments [do not have a good idea of their own self-concepts and that they ARE concepts] and consciously perceive themselves (accurately, as it were) to be "helpers" endowed with a special amount of altruism are exceedingly vulnerable to the affective (emotional) simulation of the accomplished agent.
Empathy is fostered in the activist through the expression of quite visible affects. The presentation of tearfulness, sadness, longing, fear, remorse, and guilt, may induce in the helper-oriented activist a strong sense of compassion, while unconsciously enhancing the activist's narcissistic investment in self as the embodiment of goodness.
The agent's expresssion of such simulated affects may be quite compelling to the observer and difficult to distinguish from deep emotion.
It can usually be identified by two events, however:
First, the activist who has analyzed his/her own narcissistic roots and is aware of his/her own potential for being "emotionally hooked," will be able to remain cool and unaffected by such emotional outpourings by the agent.
As a result of this unaffected, cool, attitude, the Second event will occur: The agent will recompensate much too quickly following such an affective expression leaving the activist with the impression that "the play has ended, the curtain has fallen," and the imposture, for the moment, has finished. The agent will then move quickly to another activist/victim.
The fact is, the movement doesn't need leaders, it needs MOVERS. "Follow the leader" is a waste of time.
A good agent will want to meet as often as possible. He or she will talk a lot and say little. One can expect an onslaught of long, unresolved discussions.
Some agents take on a pushy, arrogant, or defensive manner:
1) To disrupt the agenda
2) To side-track the discussion
3) To interrupt repeatedly
4) To feign ignorance
5) To make an unfounded accusation against a person.
Calling someone a racist, for example. This tactic is used to discredit a person in the eyes of all other group members.
Saboteurs
Some saboteurs pretend to be activists. She or he will ....
1) Write encyclopedic flyers (in the present day, websites)
2) Print flyers in English only.
3) Have demonstrations in places where no one cares.
4) Solicit funding from rich people instead of grass roots support
5) Display banners with too many words that are confusing.
6) Confuse issues.
7) Make the wrong demands.
8) Compromise the goal.
9) Have endless discussions that waste everyone's time. The agent may accompany the endless discussions with drinking, pot smoking or other amusement to slow down the activist's work.
Provocateurs
1) Want to establish "leaders" to set them up for a fall in order to stop the movement.
2) Suggest doing foolish, illegal things to get the activists in trouble.
3) Encourage militancy.
4) Want to taunt the authorities.
5) Attempt to make the activist compromise their values.
6) Attempt to instigate violence. Activisim ought to always be non-violent.
7) Attempt to provoke revolt among people who are ill-prepared to deal with the reaction of the authorities to such violence.
Informants
1) Want everyone to sign up and sing in and sign everything.
2) Ask a lot of questions (gathering data).
3) Want to know what events the activist is planning to attend.
4) Attempt to make the activist defend him or herself to identify his or her beliefs, goals, and level of committment.
Recruiting
Legitimate activists do not subject people to hours of persuasive dialog. Their actions, beliefs, and goals speak for themselves.
Groups that DO recruit are missionaries, military, and fake political parties or movements set up by agents.
Surveillance
ALWAYS assume that you are under surveillance.
At this point, if you are NOT under surveillance, you are not a very good activist!
Scare Tactics
They use them.
Such tactics include slander, defamation, threats, getting close to disaffected or minimally committed fellow activists to persuade them (via psychological tactics described above) to turn against the movement and give false testimony against their former compatriots. They will plant illegal substances on the activist and set up an arrest; they will plant false information and set up "exposure," they will send incriminating letters [emails] in the name of the activist; and more; they will do whatever society will allow.
This booklet in no way covers all the ways agents use to sabotage the lives of sincere an dedicated activists.
If an agent is "exposed," he or she will be transferred or replaced.
COINTELPRO is still in operation today under a different code name. It is no longer placed on paper where it can be discovered through the freedom of information act.
The FBI counterintelligence program's stated purpose: To expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, and otherwise neutralize individuals who the FBI categorize as opposed to the National Interests. "National Security" means the FBI's security from the people ever finding out the vicious things it does in violation of people's civil liberties.
_______________________________________________________________________
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression
Strong, credible allegations of high-level criminal activity can bring down a government. When the government lacks an effective, fact-based defense, other techniques must be employed. The success of these techniques depends heavily upon a cooperative, compliant press and a mere token opposition party.
1. Dummy up. If it's not reported, if it's not news, it didn't happen.
2. Wax indignant. This is also known as the "How dare you?" gambit.
3. Characterize the charges as "rumors" or, better yet, "wild rumors." If, in spite of the news blackout, the public is still able to learn about the suspicious facts, it can only be through "rumors." (If they tend to believe the "rumors" it must be because they are simply "paranoid" or "hysterical.")
4. Knock down straw men. Deal only with the weakest aspects of the weakest charges. Even better, create your own straw men. Make up wild rumors (or plant false stories) and give them lead play when you appear to debunk all the charges, real and fanciful alike.
5. Call the skeptics names like "conspiracy theorist," "nutcase," "ranter," "kook," "crackpot," and, of course, "rumor monger." Be sure, too, to use heavily loaded verbs and adjectives when characterizing their charges and defending the "more reasonable" government and its defenders. You must then carefully avoid fair and open debate with any of the people you have thus maligned. For insurance, set up your own "skeptics" to shoot down.
6. Impugn motives. Attempt to marginalize the critics by suggesting strongly that they are not really interested in the truth but are simply pursuing a partisan political agenda or are out to make money (compared to over-compensated adherents to the government line who, presumably, are not).
7. Invoke authority. Here the controlled press and the sham opposition can be very useful.
8. Dismiss the charges as "old news."
9. Come half-clean. This is also known as "confession and avoidance" or "taking the limited hangout route." This way, you create the impression of candor and honesty while you admit only to relatively harmless, less-than-criminal "mistakes." This stratagem often requires the embrace of a fall-back position quite different from the one originally taken. With effective damage control, the fall-back position need only be peddled by stooge skeptics to carefully limited markets.
10. Characterize the crimes as impossibly complex and the truth as ultimately unknowable.
11. Reason backward, using the deductive method with a vengeance. With thoroughly rigorous deduction, troublesome evidence is irrelevant. E.g. We have a completely free press. If evidence exists that the Vince Foster "suicide" note was forged, they would have reported it. They haven't reported it so there is no such evidence. Another variation on this theme involves the likelihood of a conspiracy leaker and a press who would report the leak.
12. Require the skeptics to solve the crime completely. E.g. If Foster was murdered, who did it and why?
13. Change the subject. This technique includes creating and/or publicizing distractions.
14. Lightly report incriminating facts, and then make nothing of them. This is sometimes referred to as "bump and run" reporting.
15. Baldly and brazenly lie. A favorite way of doing this is to attribute the "facts" furnished the public to a plausible-sounding, but anonymous, source.
16. Expanding further on numbers 4 and 5, have your own stooges "expose" scandals and champion popular causes. Their job is to pre-empt real opponents and to play 99-yard football. A variation is to pay rich people for the job who will pretend to spend their own money.
17. Flood the Internet with agents. This is the answer to the question, "What could possibly motivate a person to spend hour upon hour on Internet news groups defending the government and/or the press and harassing genuine critics?" Don t the authorities have defenders enough in all the newspapers, magazines, radio, and television? One would think refusing to print critical letters and screening out serious callers or dumping them from radio talk shows would be control enough, but, obviously, it is not.

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AGrade

“Pete knows what he saw, Martha!”

“Bunch ‘a frightened children ain’t exactly the--”

A door slammed shut.

One step after the other. Heavy. Crunching grass.

“You think I’m an idiot, Martha?!”

“Now, I never said that.”

“He ain’t done nothing wrong, all I’m saying is--”

“All you’re saying is that you’d rather not talk about it!”

“There’s nothing to talk about!”

A long, creaking groan. Wood shuddering.

“CLARK!”

“CLARK!”

“DAMNIT, CLARK!”

“You are my son, but you are so much more than that too.”

SUPERMAN: HOUSE OF EL

COINTELPRO Techniques for dilution, misdirection and control of a internet forum - Reposting