#an exercise in empathy

[cypreus-and-willow]

I wanted to try drawing like how they do for fantasy card games and whatnot

This is supposed to be Miu from my fic, An Excercise in Empathy with an eldritch creature behind her. (It's shellmon lol)

And fairy Saki from the same fic.

[ahb-writes]

I was never that far away. I'm glad to be here, I wouldn't have it any other way, and I'm grateful to be doing the job that I love.

Brendan Fraser (on his "comeback," via interview w/Variety)

[reactionimagesdaily]

[unstatedmartini]

Welp. Looking forward to 100% turnout and a lot of fundraising and door-knocking from the "literally anybody else" crowd

[numbmontezuma]

Please don't respond to a person being ill due to overwork from a shitty insdustry with "deserved" or "had it coming" because they "didn't treat your fave character right" for the love of fuck.

[kyliafanfiction]

I sometimes feel like characters who do truly monstrous things while also having been victims of some pretty insane shit themselves are sort of an exercise in empathy. Or at least, should be seen as such.

Like, in real life, if a person who has been horribly broken by their experiences and failed by society than proceeds to rape someone - it's hard to feel the justifiable sympathy/empathy for that person (without excusing their rape, never do that) because well, you can look at this actual human person they hurt, or worse, and it feels gross and disrespectful to the rape victim.

And this is understandable. (And applies to more than just rapists/rape victims of course, that's just the most visceral one and thus picked for that reason)

But a fictional rape victim is... fictional. You can't 'disrespect' their trauma, and while obviously rape/whatever else is real, and people may related to the rape victim and thus see your comments about the rapist also being a victim as somehow being about their experience...

Well, it's not.

Because the rapist here, didn't actually hurt a real person. Fictional characters are objects. They're objects that often grab us by the throat and refuse to leave our fucking heads, yes, but they're objects. They are tools used by writers to tell a story, and readers to tell a story.

And one of the things fictional characters are good for is allowing us to consider experiences we never had, and imagine ourselves in other circumstances and lives. (Also just fun and fascinating and interesting to watch their stories).

It's very easy to feel for the rape victim in fiction, and rightly so. That's Level 1 Empathy there. Granted, some people IRL fail that, but that's not really what we're talking about here.

Advanced Empathy, hard Empathy is feeling for the rapist. Not for the rape, of course, even if they feel guilt about it, but if someone really was failed on multiple levels and was broken and damaged and went through the sort of psychological wringer that would leave most of us here on tumblr catatonic - they do deserve the same Empathy any human (any person) who went through all that.

Even after they also do the bad thing, critically they still deserve Empathy. And that is fucking hard. I very often have a hard time feeling bad for truly awful people who also deserve empathy and sympathy, real and even fictional (despite all this, yeah, I'm not perfect on this) for what they (separately) went through.

It also becomes even harder when what they went through is utterly bound up with what they did. How what they went through and experiences is in part responsible for what they did - because they still made a choice. The circumstances may have left them not in their right mind, may have left them feeling without choice, may have driven them to things they normally might not think of or do, but they still chose to do that bad thing. And that's not okay. They still hurt someone.

And yet - one cannot remove the action from the circumstances. So you can still feel empathy, and elucidate all the factors and circumstances as to what led up to their choices and why, and it doesn't change that they did the horrible thing. The rape, or the murders, or whatever.

But circling back - with a fictional character... they didn't hurt a real person. There's no one who is real that suffered. The things the character did IRL are bad because they hurt real people.

So you're not being disrespectful to the victim by feeling that empathy, or sympathy. By exploring the things that they were a victim for. Even by wanting to focus on those things - fictional characters should be compelling in all their aspects, if they're written well.

And yet, of course, if you do that empathy and do talk about what the bad person went through and all that context, people come at you. They call you evil, just as bad as the (again, fictional) character, or they say that you're treading dangerously close to the arguments people use to defend the real people who do these things in real life. Or you're disrespecting all the victims of these crimes IRL. Especially of course, if the person coming at you has a reason this comes close to home.

But again - fictional.

In an ideal world, we'd all feel sympathy and empathy when it's called for, regardless of what the person did. Even the worst most monstrous people deserve human treatment in prison. And if you don't have empathy, that's hard. Even if you do have empathy, that's hard.

So if you look at a fictional character (who doesn't hurt a real person by virtue of being fictional) that does horrible, vile things, but went through so much, and you still can't empathize or sympathize with them... I mean, it doesn't make you a bad person, not even close, this is still fiction, and there's people I should empathize with in fiction that I don't, but...

It's still a failure of your ability to be empathetic. And we're all humans. We're all failing at that, among other things, all the time. But... it's good to be aware of that. at least?

At the very least, bear that in mind when other people are talking about that context, and that victimization. And please, for the love of god, don't fucking pretend that the victimization didn't happen, that this person who did do terrible things (in fiction) suddenly didn't also (in fiction) experience awful shit, as if doing a bad thing erases all the bad things done to you.

Again - it doesn't necessarily make you a bad person, but like... the horrible state of prisons in our society is a real, actual problem. The way we as a society dehumanize people who do bad things is a real actual problem for a lot of reasons (not least because it creates an incentive for authority that wants to dehumanize a person or a group to expand the definition of 'did bad things' to make their dehumanization now acceptable, among other things).

So yeah. Fictional character who suffers but than also makes others suffer - that's a useful exercise in Empathy. And doing that doesn't make you or anyone else a bad person, or actually defending the sorts of crimes, IRL or Fictional, that this character did. Contextualizing is not whitewashing, empathy is not erasing, and humanizing is not disrespecting the victim(s).

So yeah, they fictional character did bad things. But there's more to them than that. And you can say but and talk about what comes after but without disrespecting the fictional victim. Because the fictional victim... is just as fictional. Just as not real.

Is it possible for this to end up being taken too far? Yes. But that's a reason to be mindful of yourself when it comes to real people, not to never do it. And when it comes to fictional people - again, fictional. Nobody was actually, really hurt.

(I really do want to make clear, before people read the tags, that this applies to all crimes these sorts of characters do, rape was just picked as the one to use as the example.)

[kushanna]

i'm hurting too, who's gonna take responsibility for my wounds... sooo sad, sooo messed up... also the "i love maria, i have my own way of loving her"... sooo sad, sooo messed up... rosa number #2 in the ranking of umi characters who make me very sad

overthinking™ moment: i do believe she's tired and fed up and hurt but, first of all, why are you trying to hide the fact that you're tired, want a vacation and have a boyfriend? are you afraid of being mocked? i could think of seven healthy solutions for this issue on the spot (...a nanny perhaps?), but the most blatant thing to me is that it's stuff like this that puts into perspective how much the ushiromiyas, individually, yes, but collective, as a group, suck. there's no support system at all in place here (it feels hilarious just saying this, i'm laughing), not using rosa's status as a single mother as munition against her really is the barest of the barest minimum, the bar IS on the ground and it never raises an inch cause it's so scary and sad how rosa is a very, very single, hurt, violent and neglectful mother making the worst decisions of her and her daughter's life and no one bats an eye, god bless... again, are you afraid of being mocked? very much a "it really didn't have to be like this" type of situation, as is every time we dig into any of the ushiromiya's private lives

hm on a good note and completely changing the subject (i am now speaking of witches and magic and game boards) i do think i have a bigger understanding of all of this now, not in the sense that i have any answers but in that, for example, i used to be very caught up in the idea that i had to figure out what was "real" and what was "not real" in order to comprehend and solve "the mystery (which one?? it's a different one every time!)" but now i don't even conceptualize things like this anymore, it doesn't even make sense to do so at this point. i do have a bigger comprehension i think of how i'm supposed to tackle and work with the information that's given to me... the voices of the internet were right and the path does gets clearer as it progresses... AND it's been fun, which i think is the most important thing, and it's more fun now than it was two episodes ago when i didn't know what i was doing

[sisterdivinium]

Liking or disliking fictional characters is wholly dependent on subjectivity, but as there will be those baffled by others' attachments, I thought it might be interesting to delve into an unforgettable, uncomfortable scene featuring Ava and Mother Superion to see if the latter's so-called cruelty "should" soil our opinion of her as some apparently believe it must despite later developments.

Let us begin with a quick recapitulation and a summary of what we see when we arrive at this scene: we are at the Cat's Cradle soon after Ava's coercitive conduction there (rather than autonomous arrival), hostile ground very reminiscent of the orphanage where she was mistreated by another group of nuns for years on end. On the other hand, the convent is familiar territory for Mother Superion, her turf, her natural habitat, even, something she would protect at any cost. She is the active enactor of "cruelty" while Ava is its (not-so-passive) recipient -- a woman facing a girl, the representative of an institution facing a lonely individual with no such backing, a believer facing a sceptic, a master and a rookie, someone who once held a certain position and lost it to someone else who holds it now.

There are a number of opposing values embodied by these two characters in this moment, but perhaps, most of all, what thickens the atmosphere around them is their own relationship to the halo: the object which brought Ava back to life, thrusting this outsider into a secret, hermetic order, is the same coveted object that ambiguously rules the OCS, the cause of both grief and anticipation, essential to a beloved sister warrior's death as well as to the aborted ascension of another to the simultaneously prized and feared status of halo bearer.

Here is a dead girl reborn and hungering for some new kind of life, set against a living woman so well-used to and prepared for death as only an experienced, battle-worn soldier can be.

The clash is inevitable.

Even their positions in the scene itself announce it: the vertical aspect of it, with Ava on the floor, her foot stuck in the wall (the same extremity which first twitches and denounces her resurrection after her being unable to use it for so long) while Superion towers darkly over her, symbolically supported by the dogma of centuries with which she is all but blended while Ava pops out in contrast with the empty, colourful wall. The hierarchy is more than clear and, as the one more advanced in said hierarchy, Superion is bound to be the one wielding the metaphorical whip for which her cane is an apt replacement as an instrument of visible, chastising power.

Here is a superior ready to admonish an unruly subordinate, heartless rules and expectations ready to punish someone who did not even choose to be placed under their majesty to begin with.

Of course we side with Ava, how could we not?

She is the weaker link, an innocent being condemned of a crime she did not commit, moved to tears by vile accusations and conduct -- she is the protagonist whose point of view we have followed from the start of the show two episodes ago, whose inner thoughts we are privy to through voice-over comments the likes of which we do not receive for any other characters for the duration of the story.

Superion, however, is introduced only now, a few running minutes prior to this conflict. We don't know her, we don't trust her, we are not allowed any intimacy with her and so the only impression we can rely on is the one provided by Ava's perspective.

Boss bitch, wicked stepmother... Those words are not neutral.

Our opinion, then, is smartly "manipulated" thanks to the lack of independent information we can gather at this point. We have no choice but to condemn Mother Superion, her bluntness, her harshness by the end of this tense dialogue with Ava.

Interestingly, as vicious as her words about Ava are in the following confrontation with Vincent -- callous, hurtful words that stick with us and reinforce our negative impression of her ("a sinner" who "killed herself", an "aberration", a "cancer") --, those terrible words Superion uses were never directed at Ava, not to her face. Calling someone a coward, as she does within the study, might be offensive, but poor Ava's tears might have flowed more abundantly had she heard these other terms being used about her.

Turns out Mother Superion was honest when talking to Vincent earlier.

She didn't go easy indeed, but she also never revealed to Ava the full extent of her contempt. There was some amount of self-restraint and regard for the newcomer despite appearances.

When speaking of Superion's "cruelty" towards Ava, it's "sinner", "aberration" and "cancer" that come to mind... But she never spoke those words to Ava, just to Vincent.

We hear them, we may judge her sternly, but what did Ava actually get from her? Is it really that much of a stretch to understand Ava's forgiveness, to the point where she demonstrates she cares about the nun's view even before their encounter at the Vatican in 1x09 is over, when she attempts to sway Mother Superion's opinion of her by telling her how she is fighting and protecting her friends even if it looks like she's running from trouble yet again?

In reality, what Suzanne speaks of within the red room is Ava's accident, of her death caused by overdose, of how it must have been a nightmare... There are bits of false or biased information given her source, but there are bits of truth in there as well, if tactlessly delivered. The accusation of suicide is heavy, that of coward is perhaps a tad too strong... But nothing of the words exchanged in that moment, however heightened they are by Sylvia de Fanti and Alba Baptista's shining talent, can come close to the rawness displayed in the conversation she has with Vincent -- a conversation Ava is not present for. "Coward" is a speck of dust compared to "aberration".

Of course there's a reason for this mixture we, as an audience, are likely to make between points of view. This was a practical, clever way to nudge us towards sympathy for Vincent and antipathy for Superion, as a means to enhance the later effect of the former's betrayal and the latter's change of heart at the end of s1. Without this scene, both of those events lose their lustre -- but with its inclusion, it seems there are those who are distracted by it and who will still point an accusing finger at the nun, insisting on seeing her in a much more negative light than Ava herself could, oblivious to the character's evolution as the story unfolds.

If at first we rely on Ava's impressions, this scene provides us with Vincent's perspective, which flattens our view of the situation and might lead us to ignore the surprisingly emotionally charged reaction on Superion's part -- which should vehemently suggest to us that there is much more happening underneath her mask of severity.

Moreover, taking Vincent's "side" seems reasonable enough in this episode, but the revelation of his shaky moral grounds further on should at the very least cause a viewer still full of antipathy for Suzanne, even in spite of her redeeming actions, to question whether they truly wish to maintain their ideas when this fallible man who is cruel in his own way has helped cement them.

We could make a case for these two scenes, the one between Ava and Suzanne as well as the one between Suzanne and Vincent, as being only one. Looking at them together is the best method of ascertaining their effects to the fullest extent.

As a result of their confrontation, Ava is left crying... And, at the end of the debate between the priest and the nun, Suzanne leaves the scene in tears as well, if more contained ones. There's a strange sort of equivalence for both women, as the consequences are the same, their emotional reactions are essentially the same and both are left feeling deeply hurt.

That correspondence is perfectly understandable, if shocking at first to those who haven't yet regarded these events with a wider consideration. For, despite all the evidence pointing to the contrary, despite their myriad differences, their power imbalance, the way they are shown on-screen, visually antithetical to one another, the truth is that Ava Silva and Mother Superion here are precisely the same.

The environment, the camera cuts, the authority... It's all a decoy.

If we look at the relationship between speaker and listener, between two individuals who are supposedly participating in the same process of communication together, both Ava and Suzanne choose the same approach: one which negates the very possibility of dialogue, of exchange, of alternating turns between speaking and listening. They are as two negative magnets, irrevocably repulsed by one another's identical charge -- hence the also identical result of both women being moved to tears in the outcome to their meeting.

Mother Superion is, as we know well, strongly prejudiced against Ava when first they are brought together... But so has Ava formed an opinion on her and on the Order of the Cruciform Sword. Both of them have judged the other based on sources of knowledge they see no reason to suspect: Suzanne takes the word of a fellow nun for granted, keeping to class loyalty, while Ava trusts her empirical learning in the direct contact she had with other nuns. Opening an interesting epistemological debate, illustrating how serious the failures of understanding the world through only one fixed method are, ignoring that a complex, multiple existence requires multiple points of view in order to better perceive its truths, neither Suzanne's faith nor Ava's direct experience can fully qualify them in dealing with the other. Both fail to see through the image they have construed of one another, trusting in the surface, in stereotype all the while closing themselves off to genuine connection with one another.

They have both made up their minds about the other party prior to any real dialogue, so their interactions simply cannot be done in good faith -- not by an Ava who doesn't take the nuns or their vocation (or their grief) seriously, not by a Mother Superion plagued by issues of self-esteem and envy.

Another element determines their proposed equality. It is possible that some degree of recognition regarding Ava and their common status, on Suzanne's part, takes place fairly early on, feeding the animosity.

I've been asked before whether Suzanne might not have seen her younger, foolish self in Lilith's arrogance, but it would be just as feasible to assume she might see herself reflected in Ava as well, in her impulsiveness.

If Suzanne might be linked to Lilith through a shared instinct of aggression, then she might as well see a connection to Ava through her indiscipline, her refusal to conform during that initial stay at the Cat's Cradle.

The horror of seeing oneself in "the other" should not be underestimated. It is a moment of realisation wherein this "other" is revealed as not-so-other to begin with as it carries a portion of ourselves in it -- or vice-versa, which only serves to denounce how artificial the obstacles we erect between one another truly are. We can't separate life into neat little boxes of "us vs. them", we can't build hierarchies, rigid orders based on how alien someone else is when we see through the lies and accept that either we, too, are monstrous or that those "monsters" out there are just the same as we.

And if Superion does see something of herself in Ava early on, it's no surprise that she would reject it as well as Ava just as she rejects herself and the echoes of her own actions, her own brashness on that fateful night where her Mother Superion was indirectly slain by her own hand, as a result of her own indiscipline.

That preoccupation with her girls and their safety which Suzanne demonstrates, despite Vincent's inference of her having other intentions when she pushes Ava away, is highly unlikely to be insincere.

Moreover, Ava is an outsider... And, in some capacity, so is Suzanne.

Imprisoned within her own guilt and sentiments of inadequacy, she distances herself from others to such a degree that she might well be on the outside looking in.

Just as Mary can pinpoint this fault with unerring precision and play a central part to Mother Superion's turning the tides at last, so does Mary fulfil the same function in regards to Ava, opening her eyes as she does Suzanne and strengthening the parallel between the two women.

Mary identifies and helps correct both women's conduct as Ava and Suzanne both pushed others away in their own fashion and for their own reasons; the problem is much the same, as is the catalyst that ultimately drives them towards a solution.

That solution, of course, is building bridges instead of burning them down; it's coming to terms with the fact that there is something shared between even those who seem most inimical. Ava and Suzanne are the same, like an estranged pair of mother and daughter who finally set aside their generational differences or incompatibilities, who finally reject the power of fabricated opposition to embrace a much more authentic, honest way of seeing the other as well as themselves and meet in the middle. They accept the fact that what sets them apart is not as important as what brings them together; they overcome the easy, lazy, automatic barrier of antagonism (not without a struggle) with the end of mutual benefit where once there was only mutual injury, lifting the veil or banishing the shame or fear of seeing underneath it only the most familiar of faces.

It's no surprise, then, that their ultimate reconciliation comes through a literal scene of recognition as that in 1x09. Whatever horror there might have existed in Suzanne's facing her reflection in Ava fades as Ava gets the opportunity to be the one staring into the mirror for once.

This scene, once again masterfully played out by Sylvia and Alba, wouldn't even be possible without the previous negativity surrounding their relationship. Now it is defined by what renders them equal; now that equality is not denied and so there is no further miscommunication between them.

This is all reinforced, of course, in s2, when Suzanne opens up to Ava about her time as the halo bearer (thus, as someone who has been in Ava's position, someone just like her) as well as when Ava tells her she will do what she must alone, for the sake of the others -- and Suzanne understands and supports her despite the lessons learned during her own tenure as the warrior nun.

In a world so large and complex, where we are more and more prone to defining ourselves against others as we attempt to reduce some of that maddening complexity, the definitions that really allow us to approach and coexist with our fellows are those that provide healing, that pull them towards us rather than not. Only they can reopen the routes for clean, generous communication, unhindered by problems of malicious (mis)interpretation, and, therefore, facilitate the genuine human connection we all so crave.

So, once more, it would seem that a negative occurrence in Warrior Nun begets positive outcomes.

What we think of as a vicious, savage, unforgivable attack is, first of all, bad but not as vicious or savage as we might initially feel it is -- just enough to affect the very person responsible for it as much as her target, which should be enough of a hint as to how truly merciless this character is(n't). Moreover, it is the first, shaky step both characters take in the sinuous, parallel journey with a common destination that betters them both.

Funny how all of that "cruelty" amounts to a fairly (or deceptively) simple question.

One which, like it or not, prompts Ava to ponder and act, to move, faithful to herself. Her more immediate answer is what we see at the end of 1x03, of course. But the following events in the narrative, in Ava's life, force her to consider what it might actually mean to live -- and we know how that progresses, where that takes her.

And so might we reconsider alongside Ava: our sympathies, our understanding of characters' motivations, whether any of them can be fully right or wrong... If we're paying attention, we shall see that all of them triumph and commit blunders regardless of whatever moral standing they possess, of how central or marginal they are to the show, of how much we might individually like or dislike them. They're built as human as can be, themselves a reflection of our own sprawling, complex world, where most things are relative rather than absolute.

Prejudice is blinding. Identifying and not shying away from our commonality is infinitely more conducive to social life, however difficult it might be to act so. We all of us are susceptible to judging others incorrectly. Even difficult experiences can make us grow us as people in the end -- if only we're willing to find out how.

Now, I cannot speak for all self-avowed fans of Mother Superion, but I find that her presence and importance in the story and in Ava's path is abundantly clear.

There are other reasons to love her, but the next time someone claims it strange to be so keen on a character who was so "mean", perhaps it will be a jolly good opportunity to help them realise how, as Ava and Superion themselves, this person might just be a little too caught up in their own premature conclusions. They are, by choosing to ignore the very well-wrought development of both characters, thanks to one another, adopting the very posture they claim to abhor in Suzanne by denying her complexity and groundlessly seeing her as nothing more but caricature.

And to do so is to fall for the very trap this wonderful show is so earnestly trying to warn us against.

[g0thsoojin]

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[neverendingford]

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[commanderfreddy]

also here's a free lana png

[taibhsearachd]

Finally been formally diagnosed with POTS. Which I knew I had for years and years now, but yay, it's official.

The thing that was best about the interaction was how clearly he understood how much this sucks. Like. He apologized multiple times for what I've been going through, with apparent real sympathy. Offered medication that might help a bit, but pointed out that it is up to me to keep taking it or stop, because I'm the only one who can tell if it's helping or not. Told me to exercise more, not to lose weight, but to build up muscle in the parts of my body that will help keep blood flow consistent, and very much empathized with how much that process is going to fucking suck. Literally didn't bring my weight up once, which is shocking for a cardiologist (look they're kind of shitty sometimes). Stopped on his way out of the room to apologize again about how I've been dealing with this for over a decade without medical support.

At the same time, he was entirely brusque, business-like, straightforward, without ever being rude or dismissive. One of the best new doctor experiences I've had in ages.

[specialmouse]

I think we need to start realizing that understanding people we disagree with does not mean we agree with them. If you dont understand your enemy you will not defeat them

[cntarella]

fr just had to see "but killing the rich isn't the answer!" on my killing rich people site. tragíque. its not the answer TO YOU. i for one grew up in the global south and my country's biggest "export" is migrant workers. so shut up.

[bronoun]

generally uncomfortable with people trigger tagging my art with scars for non-self harm pieces . i hope sooner rather than later you can confront why you feel the need to filter normal human bodies

[stillfruit]

it's so difficult to articulate the feelings i get when i see my friends engaging in healthy and good behaviors like asking for emotional support and taking the time they need to arrive because i just can't and i know i'm wrong for it but it still feels incredibly isolating