Hello, Sherlock Holmes Adaptation Writer. I Have Trapped You In This Room. It Is Fully Furnished And

"Saw traps for people with moral OCD" is a phrase that has embedded myself into my brain because, well, Saw traps for people with moral OCD are everywhere.

Stuff that basically amounts to...

"You have to listen to my opinions on [issue], or else you don't care about [issue]. (Constantly talks about how people like you are the absolute worst.)"

Anything that's functionally like, "you have to let me tear you down over things you can't control or you're a bad person."

Anything that's functionally like, "you have to let me vent to you whenever and however I want or else you're a bad person."

"If you enjoy X media/trope, you just hate Y people."

"Everyone knows that X thing is harmful/hateful; if you engaged in it, it's just because you were fine with perpetuating hate/harm."

"You should have just known better/should know this already!"

This thread over here talks about the inherent issues of putting this kind of stuff out there. The TL;DR is that it really only works on people who are mentally unwell and have poor boundaries, while just pissing off everyone else. It really doesn't matter if you're technically correct; you're still attacking people, and that means they're not wrong to block you.

I think that many of these Saw traps are created when people effectively write posts directed toward people who don't want to help, rather than the ones who do. Like, if you catch yourself writing an angry, shame-laden post, ask yourself: who are you writing it for and what are the odds you're going to change their minds? If your mental image is some smug fuck or angry reactionary, you're writing for the wrong person. Write for the person who's curious, who's willing to learn.

Also? Work on figuring out how to transmute negative feelings into positive, encouraging rhetoric. EG:

"Why is there no X positivity?" -> "Let's hear it for X!"

"No one cares about Y problem!" -> "Hey, we need more recognition of Y problem" or "I haven't seen many people talking about Y problem, so here's some info on what's up."

"If you don't reblog this, you don't care about [group]" -> "Please reblog this, it would mean a lot for us [group]."

And if you're really super duper frustrated and want to vent with a lot of nasty words and sentiments? Consider taking it to a private vent channel or a journal or somewhere that a stranger with moral OCD/scrupulosity isn't likely to run across it.

Remember, most people don't want to hurt anyone. More people are ignorant than malicious. People naturally want to do the right thing, so if you feel like you have to guilt them or shame them into it, there's probably a fundamental communication issue somewhere, or they simply lack the context to understand why what you're saying is so important.

Pictured: Gale rolling a nat 1 on his insight check

Safe <3

Just so we’re all clear, it is okay to miss people you no longer want in your life.

New favorite B Dylan Hollis quotes:

"Tomato spice: if pumpkin spice got hit by a bus."

"If this red flag was any bigger, it would be a blanket."

"Looks like barbecue sauce, smells of death."

"It tastes like someone killed Italy."

"How do you know when a laxative is done baking?"

"Good morning, it's time for mayonnaise."

"Mid-century America has produced many suspect salads, many of which continue to leak out of the angsty states of Wisconsin and Minnesota."

*incoherent screaming upon salt package spilling onto the floor*

"This tastes like a diagnosis."

Lessons I have learned:

People in the 60s were very creative with gelatin, for better and for worse.

The absence of sugar in WW2 encouraged the use of raisins in desserts, which raises a number of questions as for why they continued to be used after.

Margarine is the work of the devil and should be treated as such.

nightly rituals

(bad) Idea: Pronoun selections for multiple pronoun users where you have the ability to set relative rates of each pronoun. Like maybe like:

See you could set relative frequencies of each pronoun, and order them.

And yes I did mock this up using Visual Basic 6. That's just how my brain works.