#personal perspective

I was talking with an American follower, and he shared that he had the impression that Japanese people might dislike Americans, or that Japanese people are often upset about things related to the U.S. presence in Japan.

That honestly surprised me.

He mentioned that this impression came from Japanese media, but I feel that it may show one perspective rather than representing every individual’s experience.

So I wanted to share my personal perspective, based on my own experiences, the people around me, and stories I’ve heard from older generations.

Before Japan lost the conflict with the U.S., the country had a very structured society, and it was harder to express yourself than it is today.

I’ve heard that expressing dissatisfaction with the country could be difficult, and that certain things, such as choices of belief, were more limited.

There was also a well-known phrase that children were encouraged to say: “We will not desire anything until we win the conflict,” referring to things like toys, good food, or new clothes.

Because of that history, I feel that some Japanese people today may feel hesitant about ideas like expressing strong loyalty to Japan, as it can remind them of that period.

At the same time, I’ve also heard a variety of perspectives about the period after the conflict.

For example, I once heard an older person say that Japan might not have developed the way it did without the U.S.

My grandmother also shared memories from when she was a child—she said she was given chocolate by an American soldier, and that was her first time eating chocolate. She also remembered American soldiers playing with children.

Those were very meaningful memories for her. Of course, opinions can vary greatly depending on the person and the situation.

In Japan, there are also movies and dramas that portray the conflict with America in a tragic way.

From what I’ve seen, these stories are often meant to show the sadness of conflict itself and reflect on Japan’s past, rather than encourage negative feelings toward Americans.

From my experience, many people I’ve met seem to feel a sense of respect toward the U.S., or at least curiosity.

In fact, in Japanese anime and comics, American characters are often portrayed as cool or admirable.

For example, characters like Terryman from Kinnikuman or All Might from My Hero Academia are well-known examples.

My own OC, Jack, is also American, and he’s actually the most popular character among my Japanese readers.

This is just one personal perspective, but I wanted to share it because I found the conversation really interesting.

Over the years, I’ve noticed an alarming trend: mental illness and trauma being used as justifications for toxic behaviour.

I wonder if you have noticed the same?

Instead of mental health discussions centering around awareness, healing, and support, they are often hijacked by individuals who weaponize their struggles to excuse manipulation, cruelty, and attention-seeking.

Mental illness is real. Trauma is real. And the way people process them isn’t always healthy, which is completely understandable. But neither gives anyone a free pass to mistreat others, refuse accountability, or act superior.

~

From Awareness to Entitlement: The Dark Side of Online Mental Health Culture

From what I’ve witnessed, certain patterns have become disturbingly common in online spaces.

Such as:

But I am a business major and I know way too much about private equity and financial deregulation and scams, so what I’m actually reacting to is probably less psyops and more Dunning-Kruger—that’s a nuanced thought

I know I’m not wrong about private equity because private equity has become so oversaturated everyone is noticing the correlation between them “investing” in businesses and those industries deteriorating in a cynical race to the bottom (sources: Wisecrack, Last Week Tonight, Wired, ProPublica, some actual textbooks I don’t want to dig out right now)—that’s literacy

The rich are puppeteering private equity to avoid the three generation cycle and are causing capitalism (as it’s meant to work) to stagnate and fail because they’re too lazy to teach their kids real skills and they are preventing information and knowledge sharing and literacy to prevent market competitors that would likely lead to their business’s end in the future (I am not the first to notice this)—that’s a perspective

And that’s why everything knowledge- and information- related has become so fractured, compartmentalized, paywalled, and saturated—to bury or hide anything that could derail this train of events—because they don’t believe in capitalism either, but not the same way the middle class doesn’t—that’s a perspective-based conclusion

It is not a question that I can answer correctly because I do not know the girls, but I can talk about my perception when seeing them interact.

Camila

Camila is a girl with skin, that means that she needs the touch, to touch the person she loves, to have her close to her. Camila likes to draw attention to the person she loves in a constant way and at the same time she is very jealous of other people, but her jealousy is not shown in such an extreme way as Lauren did, for example. Camila's face said it all, especially when she was jealous.

I'm not really sure if she really liked being so "in control" of the independent fandom relationship that she jokes that Camila is top. Camila, from what I remember from her Tumblr, saw herself as the artist / poet in love with the person she liked and at the same time made her her muse. Something that we have obviously seen in her music.

I think Camila was always very romantic and I suppose that leads to her relationships, she will always be the poet who dedicates love songs to the person she loves and that is something very nice to see, but be careful not to have her on her bad side because I have always felt that she is a person who tends to detach from the other person and leave. Indifference is something I think she can do when she is really not on good terms with the person she loves, but at the same time she needs her space to discover her feelings and try to fix what she needs to be. fixed up. I hope that she has grown beyond that and is more outgoing with her partner and doesn't keep up those old patterns that were never good for her or the person she loves.

Another detail about Camila is that I feel that she always knew what she was and what she really wanted, she never hid her true essence even knowing what it would mean to have to hide what she was / is for the sake of her artistic career and I think Gaymila is all the example I can give. Camila has always been proud to be who she is, even though she can't express it publicly yet.

Lauren

My perception of Lauren ... Well, she loves being courted and having the attention of the person she loves who feels bad when her partner is indifferent to her or does not speak to her. Lauren has always had to deal with many insecurities in her life and the issue of her sexuality was always something important to her, especially coming from a family like the one she has, religious and conservative. Lauren always had a lot of pressure in her life, because she was the oldest of her siblings and had to set an "example" for them, something she complained about a lot on her blog here on Tumblr. I feel that Lauren likes details, that her partner is detailed and always gives her the attention that she seeks and that they do not lie to her because her past love relationships had that problem.

I think Camila complements Lauren a lot in that sense being Camila the artist / poet and Lauren being the muse or at least I've always seen them that way. I also see Lauren as very motherly so I suppose she will want to start a beautiful family in the future, I hope she succeeds.

As for her relationships, she has always said that she is very loyal and I believe her. I do not know if she really is one of the people that she cannot be without a partner, but I feel that she is one of those who falls in love with only one person and she can be with the same person for years without needing anyone else.

An important detail, that many of us have never had and I include myself because it is true, is that the girls have had good examples of healthy relationships with their parents and according to psychology, that means that the children will surely imitate / want to continue or have that same example for their love lives because it is something that they grew up with and that is something very positive for both of them, regardless of whether they are together or not. I think that stability is another important issue, but of course, what I have said is only a perception. They are both very private and Camila loves being private, but not secret because she feels like she has always wanted to show the person that she loves, and we know that she has done it through what she loves to do. Music.

Amongst the the strands of the storm

Bright and loud threads

Which tied me to their core

It was the start of me

That essence

Chaos from which

I was formed

It was also the end of me

All the flaws

Rage.

Sadness.

Anger.

Helplessness.

Futility.

After 9/11, American children were indoctrinated into believing in the American military war machine. Those of us who came of age post-9/11 thought that when we sold our souls to Uncle Sam, we would have an opportunity to do good, not only within our own communities, but on the world stage as well.

I, myself, enlisted when I was eighteen. I was sent to Kandahar in 2010, and I saw firsthand the plight of the Afghan people in that city. The children would run up to our convoys, hands held out for food we could not give them, for water we could not give them. The wrappers to the candy we had in our pockets could be used to create IEDs, the water bottles could house said IEDs.

The rational side of your brain thinks, “these are fucking children! They just want some candy! What the fuck?”

But we had been trained, from the word ‘go,’ that this is a country that had been at war for far longer than half the battalion had been alive. And these people wanted us gone. If that meant they would Macguyver an IED out of the random shit in your pockets, they would do it. They had the capability to do it.

We were told that we were wanted there, that we were improving the lives of people who had been oppressed by the Taliban for years. And, in some cases, that were true. But the staggering amount of white flags with words written in a language I could neither speak nor read told me so much more.

The Taliban hadn’t been beaten. They had just gone underground. They had centuries of invading forces coming in and trying to impose their way of living on the people of Afghanistan, only to pull out when everything got to be too much, as their example.

The British tried in the 1800s. The Afghan people outlasted them.

The Russians tried between 1977-1988. The Afghan people outlasted them.

We came in, screaming “America, Fuck Yeah” at the top of our lungs in 2001, intending on Freedom and Democracy-ing the Afghan people. The Afghan people outlasted us; the Taliban outlasted us.

We have essentially shot ourselves in the foot by leaving all what we did behind, like Afghanistan was just some big dumpster. Vehicles, tools, weapons. The Russians left behind approximately 30 MILLION land mines.

Every time I see that another city was taken, the government has fallen, or that the Taliban has taken Afghanistan, I have to ask myself, “why the fuck were we there?” All of the ‘good’ we supposedly did has gone the way of the dodo. Twenty years of change were undone in the span of a few weeks.

I try to keep politics out of my social media posts, as I had very much (and still) disliked Donald Trump. But I am very disappointed in Joe Biden this morning, for believing that the Taliban wouldn’t immediately be back on their bullshit the minute they reclaimed power. One must always assume that, when making a deal with the Taliban as a Westerner, it is always Opposite Day.

Seeing these people fleeing their country, the country we were supposed to have helped, kills me on the inside, and I wish there was something I could do. The Afghan people I met during my time in country were the kindest people I had ever met.

“But what about other first world nations? Why can’t they send in the cavalry?”

That’s because they did. ISAF was a joint coalition force, and some of the finest people I had ever had the pleasure of serving with. But ISAF disbanded when they thought the job was done, leaving us to hold the bag (not that I blame them—we got ourselves into this mess, we gotta get ourselves out of it).

Wars are expensive, and the money set aside in our government’s budget doesn’t go to paying our proud folks in blue (or green, or tan), or even to funding decent equipment so we don’t get dead (half of my 782 gear smelled like it had been manufactured long before my dad met my mom at a bar outside Homestead AFB). I don’t know where it goes, but it doesn’t go to helping the people we have forcibly Freedom and Democracied, nor does it go into helping our vets deal with the trauma we’ve dealt with in fighting another man’s war.

Revisiting trauma when you thought you were okay honestly feels like you’re Sisyphus, climbing that mountain every day, pushing that big ass boulder up, up, up to the tippy-top, only to have the ground give way beneath you and your boulder comes tumbling down to rest at the base of the mountain.

My proudest accomplishment in life has been a lie, and that pride was nothing more than a puff of smoke that was blown away in the slightest breeze. The humanitarian work I did while a Seabee has gone to benefit the enemy—100%.

All that’s left is a bitter, angry husk of a woman whose heart aches with fear for the women and children of Afghanistan who had hope within their grasp, and had it snatched it away.