Leave now if you don't like people tearing off on occasionally self-righteous #%*#&%* sessions.

This rant is for April 9th, 2002.

Lately people have been linking to the ol' Soulbonders talks I and Sammi and Sparrow have done, and then come roaring back about how *they* take their lives seriously and how rude we're being about 'accusing everyone that they can never be as powerful', yadda yadda, fill in the rest here.

To which I have to reiterate, guys:

Do I want to be given more consideration than a video game fragment that only exists to fill a fan's quota? Yes.

Will I be fine if compared to a person who started with qualities of a manga character, but who grew and adapted to daily living? Yes.

Why? Because the latter can work on their own, has more purpose to their lives (whether self-given or assigned) than just 'getting the whole set', and those are the type that I consider to be people and start to ignore the soulbond vs person debate. If you are capable of independent action, motivation, interest and all that good stuff, I consider you a person.

If you're only capable of saying endless 'oro?'s as a Rurouni Kenshin clone, I will not. This goes for if you're a 'character' or a 'fragment' or a piece of cheese. And this comes because I want people who work hard for their everyday lives--*again* whether you're a soulbond or person or whatever--to be given credit for it rather than just get dumped in the lump sum.

It's about people demanding *special* treatment while plurals are still trying to desperately hide all of theirs because one's in the DSM and one's not. What's there is that I'm pissed about is the abdication of responsibility.

I respect soulbonders *and* plurals when they play by the same rules that go by being responsible for yourself rather than saying you're just so Uber-Frood that you don't need to be excused. I respect *people* overall when they do this. I *resent* when people say any variant of 'It wasn't me, it was someone else, so I'm scot-free and won't say sorry.'

Do you see what I mean?

Take right now, as we're trying to change the public impression of plurality. What we're getting upset over isn't if people are 'characters' or 'real people' (whatever the hell real is), but the fact that it's damned *hard* to try and convince someone that plurality isn't anything flashy if their only exposure has been to Geraldo. And soulbonding is like that--when we get annoyed at some SBers, we do so because we're seeing one big block of people who will just play around and not think about what it means for the whole group trying to get acceptance. We get just as pissed off at other plurals. I can't stress that enough. Anyone who keeps in mind that they're representing others who desperately want to get things leveled out is fine in our book, but anyone who just likes the latest fad for their own personal attention is getting our ire.

That's why we've always been of the opinion to just drop the names and titles and if someone's a person, if they can have their own life and not just hang around to provide entertainment at your beck and whim, that they're a *person*. I think we've resented in turn the line that's been drawn by people that X is a soulbond and Y is a 'personality' because it's always seemed as if the former were holier under some degree, sanctioned, while the latter is a 'dysfunction'. People are -people-. I hate it when it goes down to the 'We're Us, They're Them' situation.

And as a side note, this is also what annoys me about the whole soulbonder vs. plural bit:

I see too many soulbonders making the flat-out statement or comparison of plurals to insanity.

Which is damned frustrating.

We're working to get plurality accepted as a type of sanity as good as any other. Soulbonding? Sure, that's fine too. Anything that's a negative example is something that just doesn't help though, so if you are just out there for attention? We're aiming at you. Anything that's seriously trying to work for acceptance? We're good with you, and we don't really care if you're from this world or another or a book. I think everyone can understand that one.

To anyone who thinks that we're adamantly on one side or the other, in politest terms, don't. Don't assume that we're against all soulbonders out there or that anyone who bonds comes under attack by us for being 'a character'. Read the damn rant again--it's about soulbonders who misuse it as a clique--and then get back to us. Right.