Old Douchebag Out; New Douchebag In
Mar. 31st, 2025 10:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lb_leeI haven’t made a multi-specific abuse post in ages, but this is something I’ve seen so often that I have to make note of it: beware any multiple that, when caught in misbehavior, simply retires/kills/throws the relevant headmates under the bus, gets new ones, and continues the exact same shitty behavior.
Some people do this cynically and on purpose, like Andy Blake’s “core switches.” They just change their names and pretend to be totally different. If a singlet con artist can pretend to be someone they aren’t, why can’t a plural? Especially since it’s a lot easier to prove that a corporeal person does or doesn’t exist. If I insist I’m Headmate Harry now and never give up the bit, who would know?
Other people aren’t that Machiavellian, but that doesn’t make it any better. Sadly, there are plenty of plurals who treat individual members like objects to be thrown out when their usefulness ends. I have even know people who did this while being very publicly loud about being pro-headmate personhood! People can say one thing and do another! The proof is always in the behavior. If troublemakers just keep coming, doing shitty things, disappearing, and being replaced, that doesn’t mean a plural is fake... but it does mean that the overall behavior is worrisome and chronic.
Why does this trick work? Well, in certain plural circles, it is Not Done to recognize a gestalt’s behavior patterns; that is supposedly denying individual headmates’ identities and thus their personhood. So you can keep pulling the non-corporate equivalent of Scumbag Company firing its wrongdoers, hiring new ones, and continuing on its scumbag way. “You can’t blame ME for what Old Douchebag did! I’m New Douchebag!” You probably wouldn’t fall for that with a company, but some people get so blindfolded by plural social mores that they get tricked.
“But we aren’t a company! We are rugged individuals! I have nothing to do with the rest of those guys!” Then surely your behavior will prove itself in time and you will make many friends. But sharing a vessel can be like sharing a house. You might not be close to your roommates at all, but if they keep stealing other people’s pets and playing avant-garde accordion solos naked bloodstained on the lawn in the middle of the night, people might not want to come to your house! That’s not dismissing your personhood, that’s just logistics! And unfortunately, it is much easier to escape a house and roomies than a vessel and headmates.
If a person is truly different, it always shows in the behavior. Nothing replaces the hard-won process of getting to know people and gauging their decency by their actions. That’s true no matter what kind of person they are.
Some people do this cynically and on purpose, like Andy Blake’s “core switches.” They just change their names and pretend to be totally different. If a singlet con artist can pretend to be someone they aren’t, why can’t a plural? Especially since it’s a lot easier to prove that a corporeal person does or doesn’t exist. If I insist I’m Headmate Harry now and never give up the bit, who would know?
Other people aren’t that Machiavellian, but that doesn’t make it any better. Sadly, there are plenty of plurals who treat individual members like objects to be thrown out when their usefulness ends. I have even know people who did this while being very publicly loud about being pro-headmate personhood! People can say one thing and do another! The proof is always in the behavior. If troublemakers just keep coming, doing shitty things, disappearing, and being replaced, that doesn’t mean a plural is fake... but it does mean that the overall behavior is worrisome and chronic.
Why does this trick work? Well, in certain plural circles, it is Not Done to recognize a gestalt’s behavior patterns; that is supposedly denying individual headmates’ identities and thus their personhood. So you can keep pulling the non-corporate equivalent of Scumbag Company firing its wrongdoers, hiring new ones, and continuing on its scumbag way. “You can’t blame ME for what Old Douchebag did! I’m New Douchebag!” You probably wouldn’t fall for that with a company, but some people get so blindfolded by plural social mores that they get tricked.
“But we aren’t a company! We are rugged individuals! I have nothing to do with the rest of those guys!” Then surely your behavior will prove itself in time and you will make many friends. But sharing a vessel can be like sharing a house. You might not be close to your roommates at all, but if they keep stealing other people’s pets and playing avant-garde accordion solos naked bloodstained on the lawn in the middle of the night, people might not want to come to your house! That’s not dismissing your personhood, that’s just logistics! And unfortunately, it is much easier to escape a house and roomies than a vessel and headmates.
If a person is truly different, it always shows in the behavior. Nothing replaces the hard-won process of getting to know people and gauging their decency by their actions. That’s true no matter what kind of person they are.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-31 08:01 pm (UTC)that was first instance which clue in this was shit actually , and at least only ever digital friendship , but ugh . terrible fucking people - hope manage to change , but never want to interact again . good post .
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Date: 2025-04-01 01:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-01 01:23 am (UTC)this incident in contrast was like , seriously what ? clearly able to handle far worse than one asshole , no matter how hostile - just why is there need to set loose on kossai ?
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Date: 2025-03-31 10:31 pm (UTC)I'm not proud of this now. But back in the 2009/2010, I know there were a few Soulbonders who were also Multiples who unfriended me on LJ over a post I made to the effect of "nothing Andy Blake has ever claimed about himself has been true or constant, so are we even sure that Andy Blake is Trans?" Which, 1. I know now is super ick and problematic and awful, and 2. I only ever did this in regards to Andy Blake. But a metaphor I made a lot in regards to Andy Blake was like his body was the equivalent of a getaway car with the motor perpetually left running, and it did seem like it was all too easy for him to go "new Alter, who dis?" whenever the consequences of his actions inevitably came back to haunt him.
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Date: 2025-04-01 01:17 am (UTC)Man, do I NOT miss that fucking identity buzzword rules-lawyering.
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Date: 2025-05-10 11:00 am (UTC)There is a... strain of thought among a small minority of trans people, which I was unlucky enough to encounter in a few places before Tumblr, but got currency on Tumblr because of course it did, that you shouldn't even call trans people trans, because doing so implies there was a time in your life when you were not really a man or a woman.
While there still aren't many people (as far as I know) who say it that explicitly, it feels to me like a close relation, at minimum, to the philosophy that demanded everyone change from FTM/MTF terminology to AFAB/AMAB/CAFAB/CAMAB terminology because Saying "Anything-to-Anything" Implies That There Was A Time When You Were Not Really A Man Or A Woman, And Anyone Who Uses It Has Internalized Self-Loathing And Cannot Be Trusted.
...there are so many problems with this, one of the most obvious being that it assumes every trans person's endpoint is to be seen as a man or a woman who was never anything else. But if you point that out you tend to get dogpiled with truscummy rhetoric accusing you of having a frivolous luxury identity and you really don't feel like having goddamn Discourse at a time when having an ambiguous physical appearance and presentation may affect your ability to get into a fucking homeless shelter.
-Istevia, posting from my own journal.
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Date: 2025-04-09 04:38 pm (UTC)I kid. But this is so very true. The I’m new douchebag now thing just makes us so angry. Like, we’re all individual people. But that doesn’t mean we don’t happen to share the same brain wiring and body. And sometimes people’s own individuality does get curtailed by the brain. But still. Yes, that’s a plural-specific abuse tactic.
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Date: 2025-04-09 04:53 pm (UTC)EDIT: waaaaait a minute! YOU PLAY THE ACCORDION AT NIGHT CHICA!!! THE DREADED ROOMMATE IS YOUUU!!!
no subject
Date: 2025-04-10 08:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-11 03:35 pm (UTC)YOU CANNOT FOOL ME!!!
Hiraeth
Date: 2025-04-10 06:45 pm (UTC)Re: Hiraeth
Date: 2025-04-11 03:36 pm (UTC)