forum This MUST be addressed publicly

Started July 31, 2020 by Deleted user

tune

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NOTE BEFORE YOU READ

THIS IS NOT A CALL-OUT POST. IT IS A MASTERPOST OF ALL THINGS THAT OFFENDED US ABOUT A BOOK THAT WAS PIRATED. I DO NOT MEAN TO OFFEND OR ATTACK THE PERSON WHO POSTED IT.

https://www.notebook.ai/forum/topic-q-a/the-writer-s-guide-to-character-traits-chapter-4-psychological-disorders

https://www.notebook.ai/forum/topic-q-a/the-writer-s-guide-to-character-traits-chapter-5-criminal-styles

https://www.notebook.ai/forum/topic-q-a/the-writers-guide-to-character-traits-chapter-6-sexual-styles

(in case you aren’t aware)

(TW for those with sex-aversions and triggers)

Look!! A big ol’ masterpost just for @SupernaturalSyGuyEdt!!! Leave me alone and don’t clutter my PM anymore.

i can't put up with this anymore
you're taking each chapter of a book
a published book
and posting them as separate threads
that's the equivalent of piracy
like with movies
and it's not legal
unless there is explicit permission from the author that you can prove
and anyone else involved with the book as well i believe
like publishing and whatnot

i do not understand how you don't know this
and yes, i realise you have credited the original author and the book
but that does not make this any less illegal
i do appreciate that you have credited them
although, it still doesn't mean that you've gotten permission from them

so for the love of god
please take the threads down

From what I've seen, everything is super outdated and innacurate. And extremely self-indulgent on your part.

Pirated information being redistributed without the author's permission? Lame. Pirated outdated misinformation being redistributed without the author's permission? Super lame. I'm disappointed, honestly. I thought you were a better writer than that.

Honestly that type of book feels insulting nowadays. You could easily just ask if a writer on this site has those mental illnesses/knows criminology. The mental illness stuff is what really gets to me. You posted a chapter of a book that demonized autism to a site that actively has on-spec autism individuals. I personally don’t have it and I’m upset about it. Not to mention the other bullshit that the story had about mental illnesses I have, and listing things that aren’t mental illnesses as disorders.

Yeah, the autism section you posted was disgusting, misrepresentative bullshit that serves to demonize people like me. Did you put even a second of research into the topic before posting outdated and, frankly, offensive misinformation in a masterpost for how to write characters.

He's also treating it like it's an actual guide to writing that he's, like, serious about publishing? At least that's the vibe I get. And like, you can't just copy-paste chapters of outdated sexual information into a book that'll come out in the 2020s, both due to it being out of date and it being fucking plagarized.

yeah it’s still sorely just bad to post on public forum without anyone asking. The 1990s thing gets me the most honestly bc gay and trans rights weren’t really a big thing until the early 2000s at least

I'm reading his other chapters and ughhh

• There's a lot of sweeping generalizations in the Crime one, which I might just be noticing because one of my leads is a criminal, and also just some weird sexist stuff?
• Like specifically pointing out the feeeemale delinquent and her apparent mommy and daddy issues, competition with other girls, and desire to yiff older men, and how the mother of the feeeeemale delinquent is an addict who "chooses men over her daughter" What about the girls who commit crimes to help their mothers and provide for them?
• He also lists "gambler" as a crime, but gambling…isn't illegal? Cheating might be, but gambling isn't.
• Also again, weird mother stuff with the Late-Blooming Criminal who's kept in check by their "domineering mother"
• Apparently pyromaniacs are "socially inadequate, particularly in heterosexual relationships" whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean
• Also Skyjackers are apparently bottoms. I don't know how or why that's relevant, but it's mentioned twice
• As well as a ton of "oooh spooky PSYCHOPATHS!!!!" throughout the post
• Also I'm pretty fucking sure that sexual predators don't just have "poor boundaries" :/ and can't just be divided into two categories
• "Avoids violence" oh yeah like that makes child rape any better, but he feels gUiLt too-
• Gotta love how they just list "psychopath" as a type of criminal, toss in a lukewarm "they're not all criminals but you're more likely to be one!" and then go on to list solely negative and scary-sounding traits
• I get that it's important to show the statistics and stuff, but generalizing it like "this is almost only men" just rubs me the wrong way. Any crime can be committed by any person of any gender, and to pretend otherwise is ridiculous and harmful.
• Also how there'll be multiple different sub-categories on different "male" murderer styles, and then just one on the "feeeemale murderer"

Even the Religious section is inaccurate (at least for the Christian one, I dunno about other religions)
It says sex is only for procreation but like
God created sex as a good thing??? Yeah, only between married couples, but those married people can fuck for pleasure all they want

“Eyes look needy
Looks physically weak“

well sorry guys I’m physically weak so i must be depressed

• "Many children outgrow their anxiety completely" sure, Jan
• "Defiance" is….not a disorder? At least, not as far as I know? It can be a sign of some sort of mood disorder but it isn't a condition in itself. Also funny how the defiance section uses female pronouns, cuz women showing strong emotion has gotta be some sort of disorder, amiright ladies?
• The "story" for the "Obsession" section….doesn't even seem like obsession? Since it's from the parents' POV you just see "oh no my daughter is serious, I wanted a fun daughter :(", when something like Megan getting dirt on her hands and repeatedly washing them and sort of breaking down about how the dirt won't come off or something
• Tourette's should have its own category as opposed to being a footnote in Tics :/
• While ADHD symptoms do overlap with other disorders (namely autism, and this is a major reason why autistic women are underdiagnosed), the way it's written gives a "pfft, all these snowflakes just want to feel special so they're saying they have ADHD when they're actually just dumb kids who can't focus :/" vibe and I hate it

OH BOY, TIME TO FUCKING FLEX!! I can already tell that I will get Angery

• No, autism (ESPECIALLY in women) does not always appear in childhood. Look up literally anything about autistic women and you'll learn that, but nope! Gotta use the shitty outdated 90s book!!
• We don't treat people like objects either lol, if anything we're the ones who just pushed around and held up like objects. "Look, I'm such a good mother for not loathing my poor rtarde-er, *autistic child :(((" shit is super common on the "autism mom" forums and stuff
• NO ABILITY FOR EMPATHY? SAY THAT TO MY FACE, YOU LIMP NOODLE! Do we experience empathy a bit differently? Yeah. Do I sometimes scare myself by my occasional lack of empathy? Yeah, but we're not incapable of it. One of the sweetest guys I know is an autistic guy who I last saw reassuring a nonbinary teen that they wouldn't have to wear a dress for the choir concert if they didn't want to. We're not these fucking emotionless monsters, you bigoted bitch.
• No ability to play??? Bitch??? Not only did I play a lot as a child, I continued to play with childlike toys and stuff (Barbies come to mind) until I was towards the end of middle school. If anything I played a bit too much. In fact, I'm planning on spending a good chunk of August rebuilding my younger sister's LEGOs so that we can display them.
• Y'all know extroverted autistics exist, right? Also look me in the eyes and tell me I'm passive lmao
• I would bet actual money that I've got more friends than the bitch who wrote this book lol. Was making friends difficult? Yes, and sometimes sharing would be hard (but usually in a "this is mine, I own it, why should I give it to someone else?" way, not a "waahhhhhh that's mine!!!" way)
• Absence of attachment is also bullshit, a very common sign of autism is over-attachment to something. Y'know, the "special interest"?
  -…..alright, fine, I'll give her that one. I had a double ear infection with blisters as a kid and only went to my mom when my hearing felt a bit off since I just…didn't feel the pain?
• Again, nope. Sometimes we miss out on social cues involving privacy, but so does literally every kid.
• While delayed speech is a common sign, not every autistic person is nonverbal. The "50%" statistic seems like bullshit to me.
• Gotta love how we simultaniously have no attachment and too much attachment to an item, very internally consistent.
• Alli's story is horrifying, but tbh I doubt that it's real. Autistic women are very rarely diagnosed that young. Also gotta love how it ends with her being sent off and institutionalized as a happy ending.
• We don't "dislike" social rules, we struggle with them and often point out their stupidity and lack of sense
• I wouldn't really say that we're more likely to fight? If anything, we're more likely to be dragged into fights due to bullying.
• Very male-centric view of autism, all of the "outbursts" and such are the stereotypical male behaviors
• Half of these…aren't true?? At all? Just admit that you hate autistic people and leave, Jesus fucking Christ
• "Gender Identity Disorder" is an outdated term, iirc
• Also gotta love the not-so-subtle transphobia with the "it's EXTREME if they tell you that they're a boy"
• Also it kinda rubs me the wrong way with how it's sort of presented as "hahaha my silly little girl says she's a boy :)) how cute :))" and sort of brushing off the fact that the kid could actually be trans?
• Not to mention how they misgender Johnny throughout the example, plus the "they might choose to live out their life as a woman" reeks of "you're just a mentally ill man but sure, pretend you're a woman :))" transphobic shit
• "RETARD" IS GENERALLY CONSIDERED A SLUR BY AUTISTIC PEOPLE AND OTHERS. IT'S AN OUTDATED TERM. PLEASE DON'T USE IT FOR US.
• I don't really buy that self harm starting in adulthood is rare? Especially with how mental health is generally seeming worse in our current time period
• Granted I've never self-harmed, but I don't think it ends spontaniously. Don't you usually wean off or go to rehab?
• I don't think they "must cut until blood flows", especially since that means the wound will be harder to hide and also leave a mess?
• "MANIPULATIVE OR ATTENTION SEEKING" I-
• That's such a toxic and reductive view, Jesus Christ-
• "Other adolescents want to die" is objectively a great sentence, this is the only good thing in the post sorry I don't make the rules
• Oh really? The person with previous suicide attempts might want to commit suicide? Great job finding that one out, Sherlock!
• You heard it here first folks, sexual promiscuity is a sign of suicidality.

(INCREDIBLE LIST FROM MENTAL ILLNESS WRONGS FROM @PatienceKills ^^)

Yeah if you scroll down on this one he says he knows it might be out of date but
He's still using it
Why??? I don't even get the point of any of this??

if you're going to plagiarize, then at least do it with a book within this century and with less misogyny and inaccurate information

fucking hell, respect the art

If you couldn’t tell, these are opinions and facts about the horrible threads you uploaded. They have been called to be taken down by you, for they are a blatant take on piracy and copyright info, as well as just… offensive? Did you not look at what you were posting before you posted it? Asexuality is a disorder? Autism is hopeless for families to overcome and tears them apart? Depressed individuals are physically weak and disoriented? Self-harmers are those just begging for attention?There are so many disgusting, outdated facts and opinions that this author obviously doesn’t belong on a forum where authors with all of these problems reside.

Don’t PM me.

It deserves to be public. I’m offended and so are those I genuinely care about. I’m not trying to call you out. I am trying to resolve something that I have become directly involved with due to you trying to bully me in PMs to shut up about. I will not accept that behavior. Ever. You’re older than I am, and yet somehow I’m acting more mature.

Please take down those threads.

And don’t ever PM me again. Or I will block you.

(thanks for the users who posted these love you guys)

If you attempt to PM me, Sy, I will block you. This needs to be known, and I'm "sorry" if you don't want it to be.

Okay so I don't know this person but they did PM me with some plagiarized stuff in a kind of uncomfortably direct way? I mean they were civil and chill but whatever. Just thought it might help. I don't have anything against them but this does help me see the user in a very different light.

I hope I'm not hijacking your post by adding this!

Not at all! I don’t mind.

May I ask before it happens to keep conversation civil here? I don’t want this to seem like a call-out because it isn’t. We need to be the bigger people in this situation.

wait wait wait

i didn't know one of the things was about self harmers being attention seekers

i. i didn't tell anyone when i was self harming, and the only reason anyone found out, my mother each time, was because i forgot to cover them or in one instance, i had to roll my sleeves up to help wash the dog.

i didn't do it for anyone else. i did it because i wanted to feel something, and i hated that i couldn't. it was for me and me only, not because i wanted someone to notice

and even beyond that! sometimes people do want others to notice and that's okay, because usually when that happens, they want help but don't know how to ask for it. they want someone to alert an adult or to offer alternatives or help, because they feel hopeless and trapped, but don't know how to stop doing what they're doing.

rarely have i ever met someone who did it for attention's sake, and the couple people that did, did it once or twice, very shallow scrapes instead of cuts or anything, and that was it.

so yeah i have a bit of a problem with someone promoting that fucking idea

^^^ ooh this cuz like I was self harming for a while and. I just. I relate.

sorry emi, this isn't a callout either, this is me trying to explain how harmful that particular stereotype is.

it takes away from the importance and seriousness of self harm, and it makes people assume that they shouldn't try to get that person help because 'theyre just doing it for attention' and that's literally how people end up hospitalized or dead.

Yeah the SH bit really got to me, actually, which is why I was so upset in the first place.

Also speaking as a rape victim, trust me, "poor boundaries" doesn't cover it and I'm sure my assaulters felt ZERO guilt.

Plus, all that autism stuff is like… I know I'm low empathy most of the time but honeycakes that's taking it too far.

yeah i just skimmed this not having read much else on the situation but

1. “psychopath” isn’t like, an actual diagnosis or scientific category of person
2. the only mental illness that has any correlation with criminal behavior is aspd, and it’s not a strong correlation or (obv) a sure thing at all.

i looked at the book in question earlier after reading the accusations leveled in the rudeness chat, and maybe this is me being sensitive, but the author’s claim to have been working in the field of psychiatry since the 1970s does not inspire confidence in me or make me want to trust her as an authoritative source. that means most of her education in psychology probably occurred in the 60s and 70s, and psychology as a field was fucked up in the 60s and 70s. like, this is when “homosexuality” was still in the dsm as a mental disorder. “been around for longer” does not at all mean “knows more,” especially with regards to something as young as psychology, with as much researcher bias and with as many casualities

wait wait wait

i didn't know one of the things was about self harmers being attention seekers

i. i didn't tell anyone when i was self harming, and the only reason anyone found out, my mother each time, was because i forgot to cover them or in one instance, i had to roll my sleeves up to help wash the dog.

i didn't do it for anyone else. i did it because i wanted to feel something, and i hated that i couldn't. it was for me and me only, not because i wanted someone to notice

and even beyond that! sometimes people do want others to notice and that's okay, because usually when that happens, they want help but don't know how to ask for it. they want someone to alert an adult or to offer alternatives or help, because they feel hopeless and trapped, but don't know how to stop doing what they're doing.

rarely have i ever met someone who did it for attention's sake, and the couple people that did, did it once or twice, very shallow scrapes instead of cuts or anything, and that was it.

so yeah i have a bit of a problem with someone promoting that fucking idea

a cry for help and seeking attention are two very different things, even if sometimes the latter will pass into the former. and it's entirely unfair to the people who actually need help to perpetuate the idea that it's not.

wait wait wait

i didn't know one of the things was about self harmers being attention seekers

i. i didn't tell anyone when i was self harming, and the only reason anyone found out, my mother each time, was because i forgot to cover them or in one instance, i had to roll my sleeves up to help wash the dog.

i didn't do it for anyone else. i did it because i wanted to feel something, and i hated that i couldn't. it was for me and me only, not because i wanted someone to notice

and even beyond that! sometimes people do want others to notice and that's okay, because usually when that happens, they want help but don't know how to ask for it. they want someone to alert an adult or to offer alternatives or help, because they feel hopeless and trapped, but don't know how to stop doing what they're doing.

rarely have i ever met someone who did it for attention's sake, and the couple people that did, did it once or twice, very shallow scrapes instead of cuts or anything, and that was it.

so yeah i have a bit of a problem with someone promoting that fucking idea

Spoiler - click to show.

yeah, i’m someone who will openly admit that in the 8 years i’ve been self-harming, it’s often been a cry for help, even if it didn’t start that way. but to say it’s an “attention-seeking” behavior is to completely misrepresent my rationale. there’s a lot i could do for attention that doesn’t hurt as much, that isn’t as harmful, that won’t get me in trouble. sometimes, i have definitively wanted attention for it, but is a desire for attention alone going to put me in the hospital? no sir

All this, and I'd like to reinforce that calling it a cry for attention dismisses the fact that it's serious and an actual important problem.

a cry for help and seeking attention are two very different things, even if sometimes the latter will pass into the former. and it's entirely unfair to the people who actually need help to perpetuate the idea that it's not.

Dammit stop phrasing my brain words better than I can

If you go and look, I did remove them, so let's just fucking drop this and move on. Again, as I said in the venting thread, becasue I wanted to, not because I wastold to (you can go ahead and doubt that all you want; I don't give a fuck at the moment).

Little side note here…. I politely asked to be pm'ed, I didn't demand nor even bully anyone into doing that; I ASKED! You demanded that we did this publically when I repeatedly asked (here twice and once back in the rudeness chat).

Sure, I totally buy that you deleted the threads you constantly promoted because you wanted to, not because you had a tiny bit of heat on your ass from the misinformation in them. 100%. Not questionable at all.
And no, you really didn't. You pitched a fit like a child and refused to address anything in Rudeness until we PM'd you. Nice try though.

GREAT! YOU ASKED. I DO NOT CARE.

I wanted this to be addressed publicly. This is offensive. Genuinely a problem. The entire community deserves to know about this.

Yeah, you asked nicely, then you entered the DMs of a minor and bullied them about it, then pinned bullying onto them. Me. Nice try.

if you're going to say that you never demanded anything, then allow me to tell you that no one fucking demanded it be done publicly. we said that it deserved to be done publicly because it wasn't fair to anyone to hide the problems. we said that we wanted to do it publicly, not that if you didn't do it publicly there would be some sort of repercussion

sy, all we're doing is bringing up problems with a book. yeah, you posted the book. but that doesn't have to be the big problem if you would just listen to what we're actually saying. i'm expressing my problems with bad rep and the ignorance pertaining to self harm. not with you as a person. nobody is having problems with you as a person.

the problem is the book itself and we all know that

If you go and look, I did remove them, so let's just fucking drop this and move on. Again, as I said in the venting thread, becasue I wanted to, not because I wastold to (you can go ahead and doubt that all you want; I don't give a fuck at the moment).

Little side note here…. I politely asked to be pm'ed, I didn't demand nor even bully anyone into doing that; I ASKED! You demanded that we did this publically when I repeatedly asked (here twice and once back in the rudeness chat).

Omgold you went to my friend's PMs and told her she was bullying you by telling you to go back a page and see why you were tagged, fOrGiVe me if I don't want to let that go.
Once again, you don't get to control how people call you out when you do something wrong.
And if you wanted to remove them of your own accord and not because people were calling you out and asking you to, you wouldn't have posted them in the first place.

If you go and look, I did remove them, so let's just fucking drop this and move on. Again, as I said in the venting thread, becasue I wanted to, not because I wastold to (you can go ahead and doubt that all you want; I don't give a fuck at the moment).

Little side note here…. I politely asked to be pm'ed, I didn't demand nor even bully anyone into doing that; I ASKED! You demanded that we did this publically when I repeatedly asked (here twice and once back in the rudeness chat).

i think that addressing this publicly is something that’s important to a lot of people here, since they have a lot of reason to take the misinformation in the book personally. i get the impression that taking a little bit of accountability (beyond simply deleting the chapters) will go a long way. i know you might feel attacked right now, i’m sure i would too; i don’t mean to patronize you, but if i were you i’d take a break, take a step back to think about this situation, and come back when you have a measured response instead of just your initial emotional reaction.

Yes, none of us here are trying to attack you. We’re attacking the book you posted and pirated. As stated in the beginning of the first post.

Just a quick statement, I'm fully aware of how detrimental and factually incorrect those threads were, and yeah I agree that these things should be addressed in a public setting for the sake of everyone. I'm happy they were deleted, and I'm happy how you addressed everything, Emi, but I'm just here for oWEN'S NITPICK OF THE DAY and to add on to what you said in the master post way up there :)

"Defiance" is….not a disorder? At least, not as far as I know? It can be a sign of some sort of mood disorder but it isn't a condition in itself. Also funny how the defiance section uses female pronouns, cuz women showing strong emotion has gotta be some sort of disorder, amiright ladies?

Oppositional Defiance Disorder is a real thing. And you're absolutely right! Female Hysteria was a legitimate diagnosis! Granted, way before the 1990s came along, but yeah, the same attitude is expressed by using female pronouns there. eye roll.

He also lists "gambler" as a crime, but gambling…isn't illegal? Cheating might be, but gambling isn't.

Gambling was illegal in the US pretty much from 1910 all the way to 1978, when the first legal casino opened in Nevada. In the 1990s, only 10 states had legalized gambling. But yeah, not illegal in most cases anymore.

You heard it here first folks, sexual promiscuity is a sign of suicidality.

I don't really know the context this was in, but for some sexual promiscuity can very much be a symptom of suicidal thoughts. It, again for some, fits into that box of risky behavior that can come along side suicidal ideation.

That's all I wanted to add. I just don't want misinformation to be combated with more, smaller bits of misinformation. But anyway good job on addressing those things and I'm happy we can all recognize how it was bad.

Some of the stuff was like.. it could be, but it was painted at THIS IS FOR SURE A DEFINITE SIGN GUYS

I don't want to add fire to the flames here, but I do want to confirm that everything said here about self-harm is very true. Being told it was because I was "seeking attention" ironically made it so much harder for me to get help.