#genuinely what are some people doing i need to know. like the cognitive dissonance is so funny

[eddiegettingshot]

let me be shady w no context

[ineffable-endearments]

When you (generic, universal) talk about theories about the end of Season 2 and Aziraphale going to Heaven, you often run up against either:

taking everything at face value to the point of ignoring that some details contradict one another

or

accidentally nullifying major emotional, plot, and character beats by implying that they Didn't Really Happen.

A lot of the differences in analyses, especially ones that I like (LOL), can be explained by the fact that we're analyzing a character who is experiencing massive cognitive dissonance and believes a number of contradictory things at once.

Nobody is wrong to point out Aziraphale's need to Belong to a Good Cause, which makes his acceptance of the Supreme Archangel position entirely in-character; nobody is wrong to point out Aziraphale's anxiety around the Metatron, which indicates that he may have been coerced.

Did Aziraphale go back to Heaven because he's afraid of what will happen if he keeps refusing, or because the Metatron made an implicit threat? Did he go back to Heaven because he's vulnerable to flattery and wants to feel important? Did he go back to Heaven because he thought it would be a way to be permanently safe with Crowley? Or did he go back because he missed belonging to something Good, something bigger than himself? All of the above. It's all of them.

Yes, even though it's incredibly dissonant to believe a system that he KNOWS is dangerous and coercive can accomplish true Goodness, that is in fact his belief.

Admittedly, this is no one I follow - just random comments I see around from people I don't know very well - but it seems like some people out there are assuming Aziraphale can't possibly be making any plans to do anything remotely intelligent, because this would mean that he is already aware that Heaven is bad and would therefore leave no room for character growth.

Except no, that's not necessarily what it means. In fact, the cognitive dissonance is the main thing he is going to have to resolve. Having that dissonance - the belief that Heaven's ideals are genuine, along with the understanding that Heaven is dangerous and needs to be carefully manipulated - is what will move his plot forward. Mindless obedience wouldn't progress his story any more than magic brainwashing coffee would, and it would be equally inconsistent with his story and motivations so far.

The dissonance is the point. And part of the dissonance is that he already knows Heaven is dangerous - he just hasn't accepted what that means yet. It would make sense for him to simultaneously try to work within Heaven's system and watch his own back.

Also, only partly related: Neil might write a story about how the worst people exploit the need to belong and to be Good. He might write a story about how we have to become our own greater good. He might write a story about how to rebuild after you discover your greater good is not so great or good after all. He is not going to write a story about how having any faith or trust in something objectively bigger and stronger than yourself makes you a stupid clown who is wrong about literally everything and shouldn't have even tried.

Let Aziraphale fuck up. He needs to and he will. Whatever plans he was making in that elevator won't actually succeed. But give him credit where it's due.

Edited to add: And you know what? When he fucks up, he's going to get through it. And then he's going to do the right thing. And he's going to get it right when it matters the most.

[fortunatelychaoticphantom]

Why is the fact that Jesus and Jews were from Israel considered controversial? It’s what we’re taught at school (and for Christians - church) in the US.

I’m genuinely asking, this isn’t sarcastic. No one I know has ever disputed that fact before.

Hello!

You're referring to this post.

It's controversial because denying the connection of Jewish people (especially Ashkenazim but not only) to the land of Israel is a fundamental aspect of post-modern antisemitism.

Classical and modern antisemitism, particularly in Europe, relied on the Jewish people's foreignness to dehumanize them. It was obvious they were Not From Here, despite living there for centuries and longer, and many demanded that they Go Back To Where They Came From. And then they did.

But antisemitism didn't go away just because Israel was founded, it simply morphed, just like it had between its classical phase (centered on religious otherness, religious "crimes" and blood libels) and its modern phase (centered on race theory and economics).

Of course, right-wingers are still classically and modernly antisemitic. They usually don't bother to hide their hatred, it's pretty fundamental to their ideology and identity (though there are aspects of hiding, especially with holocaust denial). But the left has always been just as antisemitic as the right. But it has also grown in the post-modern age, after world war 2, with specific ideologies, centered around notions of humanism and the importance of human and minority rights. And antisemitism doesn't sit well with these notions, especially not after the holocaust... So something had to change. Unfortunately, it wasn't the antisemitism.

This is a classic cognitive dissonance; I feel something (hatred for Jews) that is inconsistent with my ideology (hating people based on their ethnicity is bad). In such instances you can either 1) work to change your actions (it doesn't matter what I feel, as long as I don't harm Jews, and eventually I might change my feelings for them); or 2) change your believes (Jews aren't a category worth protecting).

Now, "hating Jews" is still a big no-no in western left circles. Even now you can't actually directly say it (obviously this was true before October 7th. It seems like even these rules are changing as we speak). So westerners needed to do two things: 1) white-ify the Jewish people (especially the Ashkenazim) and 2) shift the focus on Israel.

The white-ification of the Jewish people is a major theme is western leftist circles in the past 70 years, especially in the US because of its complicated history with race and ethnicity, but it's prevalent in many other countries as well (it should be noted that Jewish people themselves have contributes to this phenomena for many reasons, but this is not the place for this discussion).

In the post-modern age, "whiteness" means "evil" and it is connected to European and western imperialism and colonization. So, essentially, they change what being a Jew is - a white person, as opposed to a Levantine person. This is where some of these people will do mental gymnastics to deny where Jews are originally from, whether denying modern Jews have anything to do with the historical ones (and many choose this route) or somehow both admitting they are from Israel but saying it doesn't matter because it happened a long time ago and then with the same breath talk about how Palestinians are the indigenous ancient people of the land (they are both indigenous, the world is just that stupid). Now, since white people are evil, they are open for criticism, especially if they are colonizers. And since Jews are white now, it makes no sense for them to live in the Middle East.

Which brings us to refocusing their criticism on Israel. Here, people have to walk a fine line between a legitimize political criticism of the Israeli government and the society itself throughout the years (and there are MANY justified criticisms...) and just being antisemitic. Unfortunately, western leftist circles tend to lean more heavily into the latter. And, again, as has been particularly evident for the last three weeks, their focus is on identifying Israel as colonizing enterprise, not just beyond the 67' Green Line, but by it's very nature of existence, since Jews are white now and don't belong there.

And now, once again, they call us to Go Back To Where We Came From (just to be very clear - Palestinians and the rest of the world are doing it as well), despite that part of the world literally saying "don't bring them here, they are not from here", like they always did, just like the post OP was sharing. Only those Europeans aren't saying "Jews are from the Land of Israel and they deserve to live there", they are just saying what the entire world has been saying for the past two thousand years - we don't want Jews anywhere, period.

They don't give a shit about where Jews are from. Some of them say we're from Europe for the sole purpose of destroying Israel. And they would gladly displace millions of Jews and send them to live again with the people who tried and nearly succeeded to annihilate us. Everyone else just don't care, as long as they can hurt us, but also refuse to accept us as their own. And trust me - if and god forbid when millions of Jews will once again become refugees, not a single nation around the world from which We Came From would take us in. Not one.

I know that people know where Jews are from, but the fact remains that huge sections of the world right now, especially on the left side of the political map, will actively deny it.

Because the truth is - the world doesn't give a shit what Jews are or are not. The world doesn't give a shit where Jews are from or aren't from. The world doesn't want Jews in Israel, and it doesn't want Jews anywhere else.

The only place the world deems the Jews to belong to is their graves.

[raayllum]

You think I've done awful things, and I have. But I'm not evil. It's me. You know me. I'm still the same person.

I actually think these lines / scene from Claudia is one of her most interesting in the entire show, so let's talk about it, beat by beat.

You think I've done some awful things, and I have.

This line, along with others from Viren (his "I had to" is another form of justification, and what's to justify if you done nothing 'wrong' or nothing to be blamed for?), i.e. "In the name of love, you will perform acts so unforgivable, you will never forgive yourself" as well as Claudia's explanation in 4x01 ("I had to do things... I never imagined I would be able to do" with tears in her eyes) and Terry's assertion ("I've seen you do a lot of awful things, dark magic things") is like... while Claudia still doesn't see the error, I'm willing to bet, with the bulk of her actions (elves and dragons are still clearly not wholly people to her), she's still done things that she considers awful. Things that crossed her previous moral lines, beginning, I'd bet, with the deer in 2x09, and that which only escalated from there.

Claudia still thinks she's a good person (which we will get to in a second, believe me) but she doesn't think she's squeaky clean. She knows, just as Viren knows (and just as Callum knows/believes) that she's done genuinely awful, terrible things.

A character feeling bad about doing something, or a character recognizing that something they've done is terrible ("It's horrific, Viren" "We have no other choice"), is not a get off scot free card in this show, and it never has been. Not for Claudia, and not for anyone else.

While Claudia has been manipulated by Aaravos, everything she's done is of her free will, and without lying to herself about the exact nature of them (even if there's still plenty she's in denial of like the plague, but I digress).

Claudia is like 5 different cognitive dissonances in a trenchcoat, but she's not stupid, either.

But I'm not evil. It's me.

This to me shows the mask slipping the post, because if there wasn't even a hint of possibility at being evil, you would feel no need to declare otherwise. I forget where I've said this before but Claudia cares (esp in arc 1, less so in arc 2 but it's not nonexistent) about being a good person. It's kinda like how Viren doesn't really care if he's good or not, but he wants to be important (matter). Bonus points for Claudia's hypocrisy/shields being worn down over time ("She kidnapped you and Prince Ezran, how can she be good?" -> attempting to do the exact same thing an episode later). She's cracking, but desperately trying to convince them (for mostly manipulation reasons) and herself (genuinely) that she's not, that instead...

You know me. I'm still the same person. I am.

TDP has always been very interested in identity, most notably for characters like Callum, Rayla, and Soren in arc 1, but it's fun to see it be expanded and interrogated further by looping Claudia in during arc 2. S5 and arc 2 places a lot of emphasis in particular on the idea of knowing yourself ("That's not my name. I am Elmer") or knowing others ("She's not the elf, she's Rayla") / preserving your sense of self in the face of change or hard circumstances ("But violence tests us" "Callum, you're the 'destiny is a book you write yourself' guy").

Claudia highlights this twofold. She asks the boys to know her, despite how much time and bad blood has gone by. She appeals to the many years of friendship they had in contrast to their few months turned years of being foes. It's barking up the wrong tree (Callum's Spellbook asserts that even as of s2/s3, "I feel like I don't know who she is anymore" on his end) but I am actually inclined to believe her.

This may be a misread, simply because from S1 but especially S2 onwards I always figured Claudia would end up precisely where she is now, so I don't know if it's the consistency influencing my judgement call possibly clouding more intense changes (she refused to use Harrow against the boys in 2x02, to a degree) but... I don't think almost anything Claudia does in S5 is something she wouldn't have done the bulk of in S1, other than threatening the boys, and she's done that multiple times by the time the end of S2 and S3 rolls around, most notably towards Ezran.

She's still the same person, but her circumstances and therefore her responses have gotten steadily, consistently worse. But this has always lived inside her. She's the same person (but worse), they know her and see her more clearly than they ever did before, and both of those things are precisely the problem.

[skyclan-funny-name-squad]

I think the fact the erins can write abuse so well but never call it abuse and even think its right isn't some weird quirk but in fact, a natural progression. Most abusers think they're in the right after all, that they are justified in their actions no matter how horrific. So if you take a character who is abusive and are determined to write them in a way that gives justifications to their actions and you want show they arent actually that bad, you'll write realistic abuse because that's how actually abusers present and view themselves.

If you think a character you write is just troubled and misunderstood or not that bad even if they do horrific acts of violence and abuse, you're going to write them like that and try to convince the audience to agree with you, which requires the character to use actual abusive tactics to try and keep the audience on their side by downplaying and hiding their actions, in ways real life abusers will.

This isn't to say I think the erin's are abusive of course, just that abusive tactics don't come from a playbook that Evil People tm just get one day and no one else has, it comes from rationalizations and excuses. Which a writer can easily end up tapping into if they want to justify why this character they like did that domestic abuse to the audience.

If an author needs to rationalize why a character like Clear Sky is good and misunderstood secretly while still having him do a lot of crimes and have the protagonist like him, it's going to end up looking like realistic abuse just because theres that cognitive dissonance from what's actually happening that reflects reality of how abusers get away with it.

It's a lot harder to actively write abusers because you have to fight your brain more to get into that mindset when you already know the character is terrible. If you don't believe the justifications, they become flatter to write other characters believing it without a lot of skill.

If you believe a character is secretly a hero or misguided but not bad or even the one who was wronged actually, it's easier to make up and implement the justifications for their bad actions because you are looking for those same justifications in the same way as the abusive character would be, while if you know a character is abusive, you're not going to inherently dig as deep to find the reasonings and justifications the character would use and want to make it more obvious to the audience and characters, which isn't how abuse works so it can come off as flat or over the top. Not doing that requires genuine skill and practice, it can be done obviously, but its a tricky skill to learn to be subtle when actively writing abuse.

TLDR: See Ashfur defenders pulling out 300 pages of notes to justify or remove blame for his every actions vs people who view him as a clear villain but just go "ashfur's an abusive asshole who wants to control women" and leave it at. The defender ironically has a better grasp on how abusers actually think and act and justify

Erin's writing such realistic abuse isn't a bug of their seeming inability to recognize it, it's a feature

[caintooth]

i am so apathetic to liberal doomerism lol.

i remember being a child and seeing the whole body of a pig, butchered and opened at a barbecue roast for the first time. party-goers pulled the pork directly from a cavity carved into the corpse, onto their plates. and i, the illusion of where food comes from shattered, sobbed over my first realization that “oh god, i am an animal. i am an animal who has been eating animals.”

and we have always been animals to the liberals, but they have always viewed themselves as separate, and superior. do you understand? we have always been The Other to them, while they view themselves as the most truly Human. they are pretending now to have that same moment of realization which i did, that we are not so different after all, that we are all the same in actuality.

but they continue to benefit from our slaughter and our pain. and they never think twice about it, except to pretend, except to hold us up in photos like we are fragile squealing piglets and say, “Look! Look how much I care for this creature,” only to throw us back in the mud pit and scrub their hands clean. only to shove a fruit in our mouths, tell us to be thankful for the meal, and then serve our heads on platters. because continuing to separate themselves from us garners them benefits and praise. treating us as livestock gets them praise from the people who control this metaphorical farm (the farm being capitalism, and those in control being conservatives), and treating us as pets gets them praise from their peers (other liberals). treating us as Animals, overall, allows them to remain in secondary position of power, and thus to remain Human.

but we have always known that conservatives view the liberals as Animals, too. that liberals are in fact abused pets living as in-denial hostages in the laps of fascists. and we know conservatives view us as both Animals and some unspeakable third thing, as Monstrous…

when i saw that pig corpse in my youth, my emotional response was overwhelming sympathy. i sobbed for days and did not consume meat for a very long time. but i did not feel fear, at any point, that i may be barbecued like the pig– because i understood at even the most subconscious of levels, our society fundamentally views actual pigs and actual human beings as separate.

what i need you to understand, what i am trying to say here, is that liberals are not reacting to the current political climate with genuine sympathy. they are reacting with abject TERROR. because they know they treat us as Animals, but also know we are not actually separate. they know in their most subconscious minds that they have been undeniably cruel to us, and live in fear that someone may begin to treat them the same way. that they will lose their precious illusion of comfort and security in the laps of fascists.

and liberals are never going to admit this. the cognitive dissonance is too strong.

they are only going to become crueler to us. they are going to try and further separate themselves from the “true” degenerates. they are already publicly discussing trying to “save” the few of us they find most palatable, those of us willing to act like house pets alongside them. and all the while they will continue pushing the rest of us deeper into social Otherness, into the label of Monstrous.

because the ultimate goal of liberalism is NOT genuine change or liberation. their goal is maintenance of the status quo. maintenance of THEIR comfort and safety.

they have been resting calmly alongside the fascists for their entire lives, only occasionally lifting their heads to speak out against particularly unignorable injustices. but now that they’ve been thrown out back with the rest of us, they will do ANYTHING to get back to their previous position. this includes stepping over us, stepping on us, ignoring us, even intentionally harming us, to get us out of their way, and to avoid being associated with us…

for folks who would appreciate this communicated more literally:

while liberals do tend to be people who are marginalized in some way, or are friends/family of marginalized people, they are still typically white, cis, financially privileged, and/or able-bodied, etc. this intersectionality of experience means they can and do still benefit from many social privileges which also benefit far-right conservatives.

for this reason, many liberals do not actually want complete eradication of fascism, whether they admit this or not. they may claim they are trying to “fight back” or “resist”, but the truth is, their efforts only go so far, because they don’t want to lose what social, financial, and political privileges they do have. this resistance to change is the reason the USA has existed as it has for so long.

liberals do not actually want major change. they want to maintain the status quo which benefits them. for this reason, they view many people who are marginalized in different, more visible, or simply less “palatable” ways as a danger to their personal comfort. they may genuinely believe we are degenerates, too, or over time come to fear association with us for fear of being treated like us.

either way, liberals value their comfort more than they value our lives. where has the panic and despair been all this time? they are only experiencing it now because their positions as conservative lapdogs have come into danger…

and i feel no sympathy for dogs who howl only for themselves, when they did not cry for the rest of the pack.

[another-goblin]

Quantum AU 

Where Dr. Ratio (quantum Erudition) caught the gaze of Nous and got accepted into the Genius Society, and little Aventurine (quantum Hunt) was rescued by the IPC rescue party after the genocide.

(why Quantum? no reason.  Just that it's as abstract as Imaginary, but different.)

Dr. Ratio:

he's what we'd have if some players' misconceptions about the canon Ratio were true. Science is above all; knowledge and truth are the biggest values;

looks down on less scientifically enclined people, but in a benevolent condescending way: "It's our responsibility to take care of them and save them";

doesn't teach, considers it beneath him. If you can't acquire knowledge by yourself, then you aren't worthy of it;

met Aventurine during a collaboration between his lab and the IPC. They found it mutually beneficial to continue their cooperation on a more personal level. Yep.

actually betrayed Aveturine in Penacony (justified it with "this new knowledge about Stellarons can save billions of lives"). Aventurine knew that he'd do this. Ratio knew that Aventurine knew. Is it even a betrayal if both parties know about it beforehand and count on it?...

would actually die himself for scientific progress (first of course he would make sure there's somebody equally capable to continue his work);

despite doing well, suffers from a severe case of impostor syndrom. You know, his canon passive-aggressive inferiority complex stuff about the Genious Socielty, minus the passive-aggressive part;

tries to avoid useless vanity projects. A lot of his discoveries are legitimately beneficial for humanity. Despite this, he grows more and more dissatisfied with his life because of some artificial principles and limitations he imposed on himself (the way a Genuious Society member is supposed to act in his understanding). Bonus HC - I think that the canon Ratio is quite satisfied with his job. His life seems quite fulfilling - not just helping people with his discoveries but also actually healing people as a doctor, teaching students, and of course his estracurriculum role as a "supposing"character"—basically secretly saving people, the way he did on Herta station;

in terms of appearance - outside of his lab, he pays even less lip service to the "generic modern western IPC" style of clothing than the canon Ratio, just wears this loose toga-like thing traditional to his people. Wears a full laurel wreath.

Aventurine:

I heard an idea that aventurine is a cheap gem that's sometimes passed off as other more expensive gems, and it reflects the way Aventurine sees himself. So in this AU he might have been assigned a different stone. I know nothing about gems though, so Aventurine it is;

his unique abilities caught the IPC recruiters' attention early on, so he was basically groomed into becoming a loyal follower of the IPC;

grew up feeling much safer about his life (no need to strife to protect himself), but very dedicated to the IPC, therefore Hunt;

got very rich from gambling before all the major casinos figured out that something's off and banned him from playing. Proceeded to increase his fortune many times over through some risky financial stuff. Now owns a famous casino himself;

known for curating and donating to all kinds of child care and resque organizations (bonus HC - the canon Aventurine does the same, but secretly);

was lucky to have some genuinely kind and caring people in his life growing up;

sincerely believes that the IPC are the good guys. Whatever dirty business he has to do, it's for the greater good;

despite all this, has been suffering from cognitive dissonance and doubt for a long time. He heard about the IPC's true role behind the tragedy of his people, but he struggles with accepting it. He's actually very close to breaking out of the IPC indoctrination;

in terms of appearance - no slave brand obvs, slightly taller than canon Aventurine from having enough food available to him growing up. His clothes are much less flashy than the canon Aventurine's but even more expensive.

[eastgaysian]

Hey, as you are the resident Tom expert: why do think Naomi and Stewy seem to pick up on the fact that logan is abusive or at least damaging, but Tom remains almost willfully oblivious / genuinely oblivious the whole show? Do you think he was playing dumb? Or is it out of his desire to *be* powerful, be wealthy, be like Logan? just really interested in your thoughts if you’re still up for analyzing that insane slimy man clown <3

it's been fully a month since i got this ask i was on a trip with my friends and then went into lemming lockdown. but i have been thinking about it and i do still have thoughts on succession i prommy

this is kind of a complicated knot to untangle - i'll say first off that the way logan treats kendall vs shiv is markedly different, and kendall and shiv respond very differently. naomi and stewy also come from wealthy backgrounds and have some amount of disillusionment with Wealth and Power as a result while tom is, obviously, fixated on social climbing and caught up in the allure of money being a superpower.

with stewy, the biggest thing is that he's been a part of kendall's life since they were kids. while cut script canonicity is always iffy wrt things like 'dinner for winners' etc he's known kendall for, what, 30+ years? the fact is he's been around long enough and closely enough to see a lot more of the roys than most people do - he's also not going to turn a blind eye and enable or excuse like members of the old guard. he doesn't work for logan, he's kendall's best friend. while this doesn't necessarily mean he has always kendall's best interests in mind or that he encourages him towards what we'd consider 'healthy' behaviors, he's had a front row seat to the Kendall Show for decades. he knows first-hand how damaging it is for kendall to remain in logan's proximity/under his control

naomi obviously picks up on How Bad It Is much more quickly, which i would say is a combination of her seeing a lot of herself in kendall, not only with regards to addiction but also wanting to get the money and get out from the family company and all its baggage. in season 2 kendall is also at his absolute lowest, completely under logan's thumb, and everyone's aware of this.

on the whole it's just much more immediately obvious that kendall's fucked and that logan plays a huge role in this. compared to shiv generally being understood as logan's 'favorite,' trying to distance herself from logan/royness at the beginning of the show, and presenting a Cool and Composed front to everyone while kendall walks around with his big brown doe eyes and injured baby bird swagger. neither of them are fully willing to acknowledge just how much damage logan has done, but shiv is much better at hiding the extent of it from other people than kendall is

which is not to say that tom doesn't have some serious cognitive dissonance/conflicts of interest going on, like him asking shiv at the beginning of austerlitz if it's cool to speak to logan 'in a bridge-building way' despite the fact logan accused shiv of knowing about kendall's coup and blew up at her as a result. tom's not totally, willfully blind of what's going on - he saw logan hit iverson at thanksgiving, he got boar on the floor'ed. he correctly assesses in vaulter that 'you saw what your dad did to kendall. there's gotta be the chance he'll do the same to you? get bored of you, once he's got you?' which is again not totally separate from his own self-interest. he needs (or 'needs') to be in logan's proximity and in his good graces in a way stewy or naomi don't, which means smoothing over the fact he's abusive and awful

but i also don't think tom would be able to justify sucking up to logan to himself if shiv didn't okay tom talking to logan in austerlitz, then take logan up on his offer in the summer palace/fixate on the idea of becoming ceo. in an objective sense it's still awful for him to do, of course, but logan has kind of always been between tom and shiv. from his perspective shiv's chosen logan over him before and hasn't stopped him from choosing logan over her in small ways. shiv is chronically unwilling/unable to admit when she's been hurt and tom is unwilling/unable to look past that and recognize when he does something terrible, especially when everyone else is doing the same terrible things

[elumish]

Hi, asking because I recently got some feedback on my writing that I'm not sure how to process:

So I read a group a snippet from my manuscript in beta, and one person gave me some light criticism about the narrator. The book is close first person from the POV of a college-aged bookworm, though that scene doesn't really focus on her book reading or education. This person told me that my use of words like "verdant" or "penultimate" didn't fit with her dialogue in the moment. I got a bit defensive and clarified that she is established as well-read, so he let it go. (He also questioned why characters in 1945 were drinking Champagne out of coupes and not flutes, granted.) But that did send me on a bit of an anxiety spiral, so I have to ask... When is fancy language too much?

I genuinely don't know. I use words like "perchance" and "superfluous" and "ergo" in my daily conversations; I'm just naturally wordy. And people have told me as a kid to tone with the language because it makes me sound pretentious. It might just be me being autistic and not understanding conversational mores, but it does make one worry.

How do you tone down fancy language when it comes naturally to you? Or am I just needlessly worrying?

I know that this isn't exactly the question that you're asking, but it seems to me that there are two issues here: is using "fancy" language something that must be toned down in writing and if so how, and did the language the character was using match the context in which they were speaking?

To answer the first one, which seems to be your question, language like that isn't inherently bad if it's the language that the character would use. You are allowed to make specific linguistic choices for your character, and it seems like you're doing that here. But if you feel like you want/need to, I would look at other dialogue and listen to poeple speak. What words are they using in place of words like perchance or ergo? How are they phrasing things instead?

You probably need to do this anyway--unless all of your characters have the same background/education/etc (and honestly even then), they won't all be speaking the same way, so you should be varying your dialogue.

But now for the other part: from your description (and obviously you know better than I do), it seems like the comment isn't necessarily "I don't know if this character would ever use these words" as "there feels like a mismatch between this specific word choice and the broader dialogue in this scene."

And that is absolutely an idea worth looking into. You may ultimately decide that you disagree, but I wouldn't dismiss off-hand the idea that the reader is feeling cognitive dissonance when reading dialogue. That's the sort of thing that will jar a reader out of your story, which you generally want to avoid.

What is it that makes the reader feel like there's a mismatch? Is the dialogue otherwise crude or rough? Is everyone else using very different linguistic patterns? Is the character having an emotional outpouring that may feel academic to the reader because of the longer/more "well-educated" word choice?

These are all points that are valid and worth looking into.

I also just want to say--I wouldn't extrapolate a beta reader getting a historical fact about champagne consumption wrong out to them not having any worthy comments. I totally understand getting defensive about your work (I think ever writer does) but dismissing them out of hand because of a random factual error does you no favors.

[kaiserkisser]

so- i wanted to specify what i meant about the concept of dazais actual personality clashing with his masks in mam- i think the main example i can think of is dazai and genuinely liking/caring about the gang, where his first year act allowed him to unconsciously accept caring for them (in his own special way), since mori’s become more involved in the story we’ve seen quite a few moments of dazai seemingly forcing himself to act like or think that they don’t matter to him and he doesn’t care about them. i think there’s also a major element of cognitive dissonance in both canon dazai and mam!dazai where both act like they don’t have emotions or care about people when they very clearly do to some extent even if it’s not in a normal way.

on my other point of guilt- i don’t think it’s really guilt for an action- not for pomfrey, not for pansy’s arm, not for manipulating the people around him- but rather if anything it’s for the fact that he exists and feels as though he just passively brings misfortune to people around him. i think he could be responding to being directly reminded of this by mori and his new mission. more than guilt whatsoever though, i think the self destructive behaviors would more-so come from the fact that the previous year at hogwarts, dazai had a task, but after winter break, he is the task. while the positive environment would have helped him to feel more like a person, the actual mission given directly makes him a tool instead of an agent and would influence him to be even more self destructive. this is just my read on it though- and i could very well be interpreting it completely wrong!

- fable

wait yeah that actually does make sense like in the first year even though he did keep saying he hated emotions and shit, he did allow himself to care for them in his own way, but then after that cursed convo with mori, i think he's passively trying to pull away of sorts?? or like not show to anyone that he actually cares for them because then he knows that will become something that mori or anyone else can use as a weapon against him? and yes, agreed, both versions of dazai pretend that they dont care for whatever reasons, hiding that they actually do, that they're human in a way too

again, i think u do have a point, and agree with the 'he is the task now', his mission right now is to lean into the demon student persona rn if im not wrong (i very much may be bc ill have to jog my memory) and its unlike first year when he had to merely retrieve one of the wizarding worlds important artifact thingys. this time he is his mission. he needs to act like yhe demon student everyone believes he is, and in mori's eyes it should be easy enough for someone like him, and dazai knows that, and that puts pressure on him bc of how he thinks the wizarding world is pretty different from yokohama and the pm. and the demon student is supposed to be uncaring. since he has to lean into that image, he has to be uncaring, or attempt or pretend to be. leading to his self-destructive tendencies. but he tries to do this in a subtle way i think so that the gang doesnt suspect

I honestly have no idea whatsoever where im going with this or even if im going anywhere bc my thoughts r scrambled 😭😭😭 but your interpretation is pretty interesting and has valid points! thank u for rambling and sharing ur thoughts with me omg <3

[elftwink]

finished reading lightlark yesterday. ben-affleck-smoking.jpg

i want to complain but there's so much that i genuinely dont know where i would even start. got out the second book from the library because i was curious to see if it was any different since it had been published after the criticisms of the first book were published and i quit after 3 pages because this time I already know nothing will change. if you describe most stories as being woven, this novel was fraying and coming unravelled. loose plot threads everywhere and it only became more obvious it would not come together.

words cannot describe how fucking irritating, presumptuous, needlessly stubborn, and flip-floppy the main character is. if you're asking how she can both be stubborn and change her opinion on a dime it's because no matter what her opinion is she believes in it 100000% and will not ever let up on it UNTIL some stupid ass plot contrivance happens and suddenly she believes the opposite thing with equal enthusiasm but without any actual character reason. girlie acts suspicious of everyone all the time and is somehow STILL betrayed like FOUR TIMES??? her stubbornness is I think meant to be a character trait (or flaw, idk) but due to the way the world is so fucking undetailed and the characters only act because the plot requires it (because they are paper thin and have no motivations. Isla also has no motivations or agency its just harder to spot because she keeps telling you in her narration that she has sooo many motivations omg she's so complex... ok well then can ms. complexity like do ANYTHING other than follow other people's plans???) it comes across as though obstinate stubbornness simply is the correct way to act because of how the plot bends itself to make isla's stupid assumptions correct. shes never incentivized to change her behaviour nor is it challenged in any substantial way (one characters calls out her stubbornness but it's clearly meant to be part of a cute bicker back and forth to build the romance. it isn't cute it comes across as though they dislike each other. when they end up together the characters also seem confused. wow what a great romance where neither party is quite sure why they like each other. ok)

and I want to be clear I have no problem with stubborn characters, nor do I think all characters need an arc to be less stubborn. but it's so poorly written it seems even the author, hell, even the character herself, has NO IDEA why she is acting this way other than that she is a stubborn person. no thought is given to why people are stubborn or how being stubborn (and needlessly antagonistic) will impact your interpersonal relationships. there is no consequence, by which I mean there is no causal link between the events of the plot, the facts of the world, and the way people behave. at all. this book was a series of events, none of which ever connected together in any meaningful or even slightly clever way. the plot twist comes out of left field but you can guess it several pages in advance of the reveal because of how hamfisted it is so it starts to feel like isla is just stupid or pretending to be stupid because there's no other reason she should not be able to see this coming because of how spelled out it is (I mean, aster clearly thinks her readers are stupid enough to need that kind of spoonfeeding, but in her defense I suppose you need to spoonfeed is you refuse to lay any fucking groundwork or do properly paced foreshadowing)

Isla is a characters whose internal monologue tells you all about how skilled and talented and independent and strong willed she is, all the while following orders from anyone who gives them with only a snarky quip to try to cover the cognitive dissonance produced by the lack of agency Isla actually has vs the amount she tells you she has. Isla barely passes the sexy lamp test, and the only reason she does is because sexy lamps can't be injured dramatically. also the other women basically exist exclusively so isla can be #notlikeothergirls, and by the end of the book all the other female main characters end up being evil anyway. maybe this kind of shitty faux feminism would have been compelling 10 years ago, but this was published in 2022(?I think). what the hell is this

can't even get into the worldbuilding because it would require another 17 paragraphs. soulmate pov tiktoks have more consequential worldbuilding than lightlark

[yonpote]

I need to know why and how you were anti-phannie from 2014-2016

alright here we go i get to talk about THIS shit now.

i was generally anti-rpf at that point, and honestly? i think it was for fair enough reasons as some people were a bit too eager about showing (general) youtubers stories they wrote about them sucking and fucking their friends. i think i was also pretty high and mighty about being a somewhat oldhead phannie tbh, like ugh do these gaming-channel-only people even know about dan being super edgy and offensive 🙄 and lowkey it was a lot of subtly misogynistic "i'm not like other girls" type shit like i was sooo much better than yall cuz i hadn't watched that video (yet.)

i was generally not into these sorts of fandoms to begin with. i wasnt on the superwhopotterlock side, i was on the homestuck/dangan ronpa/anime of the month side of tumblr, if that gives you an idea of what i was like lol. around 2014-15 i was very much in a community that is kinda similar to what you might see on twitter now, where if you had any interests in media that portrayed anything problematic, that means you are in full support of that problematic thing. if dan howell said something racist in 2010, it doesn't matter that he wasn't being racist in 2015 he's still racist and liking him makes you a racist etc. and of course, rpf is included in problematic topics. if you ship real people, even if said people say they don't mind it, you are a sick pervert and you should be in the loony bin for being so depraved. and if you write or read any fiction that has immoral acts, it means you support those acts in real life too and you are trying to normalize abuse and SA (yknow as if whitecishetpatriarchy hasnt normalized that enough) and you're a danger to children and you deserve to rot in prison (yknow as if a queer person writing stories about queer people hasnt heard that one before)

now here's the real kicker. in 2015-2016 i ran a game grumps fan blog where i did talk about shipping the grumps. "wait how were you anti-rpf if-" well have you ever heard of this thing called Lying? or perhaps even, Cognitive Dissonance? i HAD to run a separate blog for this interest, because if my friends knew i consumed slashfic about arin and danny they would stop being friends with me and think im this evil horrible monster etc. genuinely that was where my brain was at, and is a little bit the reason i decided to this day, to make my phannie accounts completely separate from my main accounts.

nowadays, none of my non-phannie friends actually give a fuck and i do occasionally talk about dnp being silly gay white boys w them! at this point i dont post about em on main just out of respect like "hey im sure you dont actually want to hear about british yaoi constantly regardless of our level of friendship so i'll keep it over here okay?"

also, yeah i grew out of thinking consuming media with deplorable acts makes me deplorable. my favorite tv show is hannibal. i know its shocking, but i dont actually support serial killer cannibals. i will say, i dont fuck with "pro/anti" language with regards to what is considered "problematic" or having that be an identity marker. i think that people are free to write fiction as they please so long as its all properly tagged for people who dont enjoy that kind of content to avoid. but i also think there can be and often are problems in the way these stories are written, and yeah if all the romance stories you read growing up involve some sort of force or danger, that CAN normalize this sort of action as inherent to romance stories/real life romance. but i think thats an issue with like, society at large, and it's not on an individual fic writer to be educating teens who read their dead dove fic despite the explicit rating and tags.

TL;DR: BASICALLY. I WAS A DUMBASS KNOW-IT-ALL BUT DW I GOT BETTER.

[egg-emperor]

Your analysis has been really interesting to read through, but ngl the whole mess around text interpretation has led me to ruminate on the fandom's doings a little. This probably will turn into disjointed ramblings, so please bear with me.

What I think is causing this cognitive dissonance is exactly that cutesy framing of some of Eggman and Sage's moments. Like, I don't believe that Sage was intentionally made to soften Eggman up or something, I believe that he can play the "family" act to keep her loyal to him. However, I won't deny that during my watch of a friend playing it, this specific framing left a slightly weird aftertaste, which I now see is what can easily cause so many misinterpretations of the scenes. Like, for example, the memo with Sage's pronouns. After seeing a lot of talk around the memos in general, what seems to throw people off from thinking that Eggman could be just using this as yet another play into her view of him as her father to keep her loyal is "why does he suddenly care about endearing himself to his own creation when he freely disregarded his previous creations". It can be interpreted in character, but there's just a smidge of off-ness that can be hard to wash out for some.

Not gonna lie, I kinda envy the ability of people like to at least mostly ignore the majority of the fandom's shenanigans and drama, cause I think that also plays a part imo, specifically this weird need to somehow ingratiate Sonic as a series to the mainstream, generally non-fan crowd. Like, the onus obviously should be on the people who misinterpret the text and see what's not there, yet these people also tend to be the loudest. And most non-fans seeing it just assume that's what the fandom as a whole thinks, and that's what the text actually is about. After all, nowadays Sonic is all but advertised as "its a kids game for babies so don't think about the story too much, it doesnt make sense in the end anyway", even by fans trying to genuinely recommend the series sometimes. And you'd think that there'd be pushback against this sort of mentality, but somehow, a majority of the Sonic fandom remains almost... defeatist? Like, either they can't argue to save their lives or just passively accept the misinformation. The people actually doing the analysis and all get disregarded as no-life nerds and are told that "no amount of analysis can make a product worth the money".

It's just... I dunno how or why or when it all started going like this, but at some point, the way people talked about media in general just caused immensely screwed. Discussions only seem to happen when someone wants to further validate their pre-established biases about a thing and it all just feels wrong.

Thank you, I appreciate you taking the time to read and consider my analysis.

We seem to feel quite similarly. I'm not a fan of the cutesy framing of certain moments because it's not my thing and definitely makes it easier for fans to misinterpret. The casual fan, especially if they don't catch all context in the memos and apply them to the scenes to notice the undertones and understand Eggman's side of the dynamic, or if they're the kind who that stuff can appeal to and affect emotionally/they'd rather ignore the more unsettling aspects in discomfort, they're going to get it wrong.

I think the cutscenes mostly have the issue of focusing too much on Sage's side of the dynamic over Eggman's. A bunch of most important details of Eggman's side comes from the memos, which is great from the standpoint of being right from his personal perspective and words, so we get to know exactly how he thinks and feels- but not so great for those who won't listen or piece together what they learned from them with the scenes for needed context.

But Sage wasn't supposed to soften Eggman up. In the story he's still a bad guy wanting to do bad, wishing he could get out of Cyber Space to, and Sage appeals because of what she can do for him, how she's crucial to his survival, supports his desire for world domination and shows undying loyalty. The way some moments are framed as cute doesn't take away from it, a unhealthy dynamic can appear as cute and wholesome with unsettling undertones.

Ian Flynn pretty much describes it that way by saying you're supposed to feel happy for Sage but Eggman is a bad person and warming up to it for all the wrong reasons. It's intentionally more complex than what the loudest people who love and hate it are saying. I can see what Flynn means because all the pieces are there in the actual game for me to point out and analyze. They just could've been emphasized a bit more.

All you need is the memo where he talks about liking how Sage is loyal and efficient and accepting the father role because it can emphasize his genius and the pride he can take as her creator, then apply it to every interaction and you can see it. Eggman can play the act to appeal to Sage's desire for that dynamic and praise her actions as a way to further encourage her for her loyalty and efficiency, all for those selfish benefits.

It's how manipulation works and Eggman absolutely can and will play up the part with these conditions for the benefits, he's done similarly in the past. It's intentionally not done in the common verbal and physical abns!ve way like he does most commonly with his other creations, it's more emotionally manipulative. It makes the most sense for how he wants to further encourage her good work and loyalty, not lose it.

I can get why you felt that way. It's part of why I had the wrong idea of Frontiers Eggman's at first and it ruined my first experience playing it. The cute framing of certain moments, combined with fans taking these scenes and latching onto the misinterpretations from the moment it dropped and drilling into your head how they think we should think and feel while ignoring key details that disprove it, made me believe it for too long.

But had I not seen the misinterpretation and paid attention and did my usual analysis, which I closed my mind to in my first playthrough in ignorance, I would've caught on a lot faster. Just like how knowing what I know now after properly analyzing it then going into Final Horizon and avoiding what fandom was saying, made my experience more pleasant and let me think and interpret for myself. The fandom is still mostly to blame.

Yeah, the cute moments can give the wrong idea when you don't have all the context. But the context is in the game to piece together and understand why it's happening in a way that works for Eggman's character. I also think while he is of course playing the act, it's also framed cute as it is because we're seeing it more from Sage's side in the scenes, as it's a very different vibe in the memos where it's actually Eggman's side.

Maybe always being able to see the worst in Eggman (positively and affectionately lol 🥰💜) helps but I only see the memos as unsettling now. His creation starts to appear as more of a person to him so he thinks about how he can use it to his benefit by taking pride in his impressive scientific ability to create something so life-like as an artificial creation over the unimpressive traditional organic way he scoffs at and expresses aversion to.

He says if he created life it'd be "loyal and perfectly effective", which is fucked up thing to look for in your child, and says it's specifically because he's the genius creator/father, giving himself all credit and taking pride in her accomplishments as a reflection of his genius. It's selfish, egotistical, creepy, everything a parent shouldn't do. I can see what makes it unsettling in all his words. So many things are wrong with him I love it 😋💘

I really don't have much of an issue with that memo. It's one of the most misinterpreted but it's simply where he starts to realize that almost the whole time he's been calling her a "she" instead of an "it" like the program she was created to be. He actually starts just five after first mentioning her, in memo 13. He subconsciously sees her as a person and refers to her like such that fast due to how human and life-like she is.

Three memos after he's like wait why am I calling it a she? And wonders whether to call her an it like the program she was created to be or a she like he's seeing her as instead. Then another three after comes the disturbing memo about him creating life, so him establishing whether he's going to call her "she" or not leads to him thinking about how he can take pride and credit in her by establishing himself as her genius creator/father.

It's another of those cases where if context is removed it's more likely for people to get the wrong idea, especially if they're the type to be blinded by the cuteness factor but when you have the context of before and after and considering the important terms of why he values her at all with the she's an impressive life-like loyal and efficient creation and her dad is a genius memo, again it makes sense and is in character.

The "she's the best" line is one of the only parts I'd change, he's far too egotistical to say that about anyone else. It doesn't make sense because the whole reason he values her is what she does for him and the pride he can take in her, literally because he sees himself as the best person ever lol. Just specifying what she's the best of, like of his creations or something would've worked, not making it sound like he's saying in general.

But guess what? Apparently it was changed in Japanese in the translation I saw, to say she was just doing great or something lol. It's a case where I can make sense of it in English as her being the best in a specific area can again give himself credit as the creator as he's intentionally supposed to but the word choice was poor. But every time I felt a line should've been changed a bit, the Japanese version had me covered. XD

Back to the point- it's also important to consider that he's praising her in this memo with the important preface of saying that Sage has been crucial to his survival in Cyber Space and listing the ways she has served him well. It's on the condition of him getting something out of it every time. And in memo 19 we know he wants to take pride in her skill and accomplishments and take credit as her creator, so any praise is self praise.

So I can't be mad at the game, I think even in moments that had some level of cuteness factor to appeal to those into that which certainly worked on them, there was established context that made it work and in character, enough to piece it together and understand it. But some people's minds go blank with the "aww so cute" reaction and desire for it to be simply pure and wholesome so they don't think about it any more to do so.

I've been learning to avoid it just by stepping back from fandom because I'm less interested the more I see the drama and bad takes. Now I only see things if I'm forcibly subjected through someone else putting it on my dash/it's recommended/etc. A large majority of fandom is anti canon and literally admit it so I feel like I don't belong in it as a huge fan of it that enjoys celebrating it in my fan creations and discussions.

It suffers from the simplification and sanitization that modern fandom tends to do now, so they can fit all characters and stories into certain boxes and use them as bases to project fan character traits and concepts onto instead of celebrating canon. It makes it more appealing and mainstream and easier to consume by the crowd that stuff succeeds in appealing to. It's to the point it replaces people's memory/idea of it.

So of course from the outside looking in especially, non fans are going to believe that's what the text actually contains, especially since they get exposure to the fandom's twisting of canon and it's drilled into their heads how to think and feel about it by them, before they've even seen the games themselves. Then they find it hard to shut that out and look at the games alone for what they are. That happened to me with Frontiers.

Then of course you have people acting like the series "is just for babies and inconsistent and not good anyway you shouldn't think too hard about it", as if Sega JP especially haven't shown themselves to be incredibly passionate about the stories and characters they write. It is supposed to be that deep lol. And thinking that deeply is a good thing, as if it's better than just shutting our minds off and consume product.

That's why I've allowed myself to think as deeply as I want about Frontiers. I love analyzing every moment and line down to the last word and detail. Regardless of opinion on the concepts and how they were executed, it was intended to be thought about. I don't think it should be considered micro analyzing and thinking too hard about something ever. I'm looking at it in ways official writers have described it to be anyway.

The mentality is popular so there isn't much pushback. Plus I'm starting to see it in both people who say they don't like the games and those who say they're fans so I feel alienated for wanting to think deeper and seeing there can be more than meets the eye with characters and scenes. While clarification can be important so things aren't misinterpreted quite as easily, it's nice for there to be stuff to think about.

Nobody really wants to debate and discuss now. A majority intentionally oppose learning more about the media or hearing out other people. They take the challenging of one's perspective or a disagreement as an argument and act like it's intended as hate from the other person when that's not the case. They're like "I don't want to change my opinion, nobody can convince me, let me enjoy things how I want", etc.

I myself was a bit ignorant at first on the topic of Frontiers. I was convinced I didn't like Eggman's portrayal but it was all based on what fandom was telling me it was and how to feel when the actual game was actually way different. When I finally took suggestions of new perspectives, then shut fandom out and focused solely on canon with my mind open and willing to analyze it again, I saw it in a new light and enjoyed it.

Now some certainly think I'm a low life nerd, as I've been told "it's nice to be a fan until it "becomes serious" and by people saying they don't care what I have to say as if I have to do exactly what they want- because it's bad to be passionate and wanting to think deeply about something I guess. :P I'd rather be doing that than shutting it down. Canon is cool, analysis is good, being passionate and thinking about stuff is fun.

You really hit the nail on the head with that. I've always enjoyed being open minded, analyzing media carefully, hearing out different perspectives, and having discussions. But I made the mistake myself at one point with Frontiers and I regret it because as soon as I realized I almost became what I was against and changed it for the better, it became a lot more enjoyable again. It's always good to stay open minded!

[existslikepristin]

Okay, so I had someone send me an ask last night and now I've been thinking about it all day. It wasn't anonymous, which I appreciate, but I'm not responding to it directly for because

I reached out already to say I'd do some editing, and I've let them know the rest of what I'm about to rant on below, but I want to make sure at least a few more people see this

I flip flop around on how to say this shit all the time. Like, do I say that everyone's a good writer in their own special way? Do I say that you don't need likes and reblogs for validation? I don't fucking know what to say except for maybe one more thing that I'll reiterate until the day I die with various embellishments that will fade in and out

You. Yes you, the person who's reading this who is also a writer/aspiring writer. Come closer. We share a bond, you and I, so really get in physically close

Art can't be contained, you scrunge

If you don't think whatever you're creating is art, go to a damn museum. Or do a virtual tour. Or google the phrase "modern art". It doesn't matter. You're going to see some shit in there that, I would hope, makes you think the artist was a dipwad

I'm ranting more than I thought I would. Here's a keep reading line

You know who fucking sucks at art? Pablo Picasso.

Look at this absolute pile of bullshit, then look me in the eye, and tell me this isn't the colorized manifestation of an elementary school dropout's Wattpad account

"But ELP, Picasso demonstrated actual working knowledge of anatomy. This is just his AbstRACt sTyLe"

SHUT UP. Nobody asked you, Barbara

Picasso, Piet Mondrian, Andy Warhol. Their artworks are money laundering schemes. Their fame doesn't come from their talent. It comes from obscenely rich people trading blood diamond money for crisp, clean, still-fake money by claiming that poor people "don't get it"

And yet, despite popular opinions being developed because of ridiculous sums of money being pegged up these guys' assholes, artists today still find meaning in their works, tunneling straight through their cognitive dissonance to tell themselves that, no, I actually enjoy staring at blocks of washed out color until my retinas have burnt in just the right spots that I can see an actual human face because an art teacher once told me that these pictures got the most likes on the pre-internet Tumblr

Does that mean people don't actually like this art? Am I trying to tell you you shouldn't like this art? Maybe, but then you'd be obligated to remind me that Churchgirleum Yawjinius is a disgusting assault on your imagination and yet has as many likes as Definitely Real Medicine, which you wouldn't believe was actually written with all the earnestness my void of a chest cavity could muster

Take it from someone who willingly threw away the opportunity for automatic dozens of reblogs and hundreds of likes per post by telling people to fuck themselves (and still gets a bunch for some reason):

The validation is cool, but it's not worth it

The validation does not define what is good or not

What is good or not doesn't even matter

You're not going to make money off this shit

Someone who is genuinely terrible is going to get more validation than you, and is going to flaunt it in your face, and their writing is still somehow going to mean something to way too many people, and it doesn't matter because their soul is just as unfulfilled by the validation as yours is unfulfilled by the lack of it

What is fulfilling is doing something because you can

You are your only source of real validation, no matter what fuzzy dopamines you get from the vapid click of a like button

Oh, and if you do get the validation of Tumblr notes, that doesn't mean your work is shit or you don't deserve love or whatever. Accept it graciously because it's definitely not uncool that people like your shit, but recognize that it's not going to cure your depression

Art is art. We can look at Roman columns and marvel at how their art built modern civilization (though the Romans can fuck themselves IMO (oh wait they literally did haha)), but did it really? Art makes otherwise brutalist architecture tolerable, but the curly Qs at the bases and tops of columns isn't what kept the coliseum from collapsing on thousands of people watching live murder

If you have a story that has overstayed its welcome in your head and needs to be on paper or on a screen, then write the fucking story. Nobody actually cares about the qUaLiTy of your spelling or grammar. They care about being given permission to think about Karina's tits. Do you think their opinion matters?! I mean, they may have great contributions to make on their own, and they should have voting rights, and it's chill if they have something nice to say to you, but the point is that they're already thinking about Karina's tits regardless of your writing. They're just your thralls to manipulate into thinking about Karina's tits in the way that you, the all-powerful artist, want them to think about Karina's tits. If they try to tell you "Karina's tits would have tan lines" then write a whole fic about how Karina is a nudist and has a perfectly even tan, and who's going to argue about it? The idiot who wrote a pedantic comment? No! It's YOU. THE ALL-FUCKING-POWERFUL ARTIST WHO ACTUALLY MADE SOMETHING TO PROVE YOUR POINT WHETHER OR NOT IT IS CORRECT

If you're an artist, then fucking act like one. Embrace the chaos inherent in creativity. Maybe gentleman is vampire. The poison contains joy. We exist in these devastating, beautiful worlds of contradiction in which we hate people and how lonely we are, we crave kindness and embody violence, and we beg the universe to give us direction despite knowing full well that we're going to zigzag between paths. Maybe you relate. Maybe you don't. THAT'S THE POINT. You're not right. I'm not right. We both write (wow, bars)

I keep saying that everyone should just write, and it's not because I think everyone is secretly a good writer. It's because someone out there needs permission to write after being told their entire lives that their value lies in A, or they're not good if B by all the non-artists in who genuinely don't understand why someone needs to make something impractical to begin the infinitely long road to completion

The dumb fucks who don't understand want to contain you because it's in their nature to desire order. They like to come up with metrics to categorize what counts as art and what doesn't so they can change the rules on you. Chaos always wins though

So WRITE. The world doesn't need your artistry. YOU DO. If you write a bunch of shit and people like it but you quit anyway or nobody likes it and you quit, then idk. Maybe you weren't an artist in the first place, which is perfectly fine, or maybe you're giving your corporate overlords too much control over your mind. If you're an artist, you'll burn with the need to create, no matter how much you create. If you feel that, keep writing

[derangedhyena-zoids]

sorry not sorry we're still on a Cal spree. honestly it's more a "tee hee look at this creative outlet for my backdraft idiocy" spree but, whatever 17 pages with some shoved under a cut because comic has cw: drug use

And for the record, I know the comic is rough and probably not terribly clear on its own, as it was very gratuitously just me rolling in my idiot mud. The context & extended backstory: Two brothers, Cal and Marek. Cal is the older brother. Marek joined Backdraft and was disowned by their mother. Cal also doesn't approve. Marek is not terribly happy about losing out on what very small family he has, so really keeps bugging Cal to join Backdraft also. It would also objectively benefit Cal to do so, as he operates very roughly and is under the protection of no groups, so frequently is robbed/ripped off. He is extremely stressed and has a drug problem, but still thinks he's better off than Marek. Marek has a longtime girlfriend/spouse that also did not approve of Marek joining the Backdraft, but the stability it brought to their lives really couldn't be argued with. In my Zi canon, having children is a very deliberate choice, and it can actually be very difficult for couples to get pregnant. So Marek is going to be a father and is excited about it, and wants to tell Cal. Cal is also genuinely excited because he knows their mother wanted grandkids, BUT... well, reality sucks. Marek knew that Cal was not doing well, but remained unable to convince Cal to come along. Marek quickly gained a reputation within Backdraft, as the "Wild Dog." He was very successful. One of the many things Backdraft does is deal with drugs and drug money. However, as with other things, they pride themselves on providing high-quality stuff to rich clientele; they are very derisive of and destructive towards other dealers, especially who might infringe. Marek happened to overhear/be part of a convo about a specific supplier being dealt with. But Marek was concerned as it was likely someone Cal was in contact with; he was right, and Cal had OD'd. Marek had fortunately been able to save Cal, who knew he'd Disappointed His Brother and fucked up. Once Cal also joined Backdraft, he got clean because he had support, and was able to actually engage his whole brain, dramatically improving his outlook. He tried to get his mother to see reason and understand that BD was a net positive for both him and Marek, but she refused and disowned them both. Such being the strife BD regularly creates for people on Zi. Several years later Marek was killed during a battle. Cal lost his brother and any kind of positive relationship with Marek's wife. He'd been disowned by his mom, and he had to deal with the cognitive dissonance of both having everything given to him - and taken away from him - by Backdraft. Such was life. It's been a long time and that's just how things are. He doesn't want to worry or think about it. He tells himself it doesn't matter. He's a fucking liar.

I have no idea why anyone would bother reading this but, well. accidentally OCs and all. even more side-notes: probably not good for you to work on some parts of Zoids without some stripe of PPE (looking directly at Layon and Brad also) drugs on Zi aren't just 1::1 drugs that we'd know about. Some of them might share names out of habit, but picture the majority as compounds specific to Zi. and probably having something to do with metals, salts, and REALLY fucking you up. I don't know or have the specifics worked out so don't @ me, but I'll make some new shit up if I need to.

[rin-and-jade]

How does someone know the difference between being a system or just having a really fluid/unstable personality/identity? like In bpd or in any way

In the eyes of the inexperienced, this really is a tough job to know wether a person is a system, or just having an unstable foundation of self (bpd) but thankfully for you, I know how. As a system myself who is a bpd holder, with another friend i have with bpd itself,, i will give you this comprehensively detailed (but compacted) answer:

Am i a system?:

There are some highlights that shows someone is one by having a plethora amount of dissociative symptoms, constant shift in identity, unexplainable memory gaps, people seeing them as inconsistent within various aspects (likes and dislikes, etc), places felt unfamiliar, caught yourself having different accents and handwritings and even walking, feels like you are not control in your body, alters as voices that are consistent with it’s own opinions and preferences.

Do i have bpd?:

While it looks similar when compared by a system, there are some different features it represents itself by unable to be consistent due to not having any genuine value in preference and etc, constantly influenced by other people, have episodes of identity crisis, needing comfort from people, constantly unhappy with its current self, devalues itself thinking it is unworthy of any kindness, fear connections, have a high degree of distrust, lives up to the motto: “i am the problem”, highly likely being passive aggressive and isolating due to no healthy social skills, black and white thinking, can have episodes of “im the best”. The similarities that it can have from systems can be seen by some form of dissociation and or anger issues to cope as well as negative voices.

Do i have both?!:

You absolutely can and thats the least wanted option i could wish for yet still unlucky enough to draw this lottery.. anyway, this is a bonus answer. Be it a holder (like me, which means no one else is affected and im jealous af) or in the genes (the collective is affected) i doubt it has any difference so from my perspective, it can look as having dissociative symptoms as well as cognitive dissonance, obviously have alters, more likely to split due to the nature of bpd’s constant distress and questioning (yeah its a thing, thats me right there), also a general sense of distrust especially due to severe trauma, obsessive with Favorite Person, tend to always rely on someone in filling their needs or helped due to 0 independence (it might be different for others, maybe the opposite by trying to be super self sufficient), still have identity confusion, poor memory alongside with gaps. Basically overlaps the two as the general idea but i did some examples, its not the whole list because its way too many..

Nonetheless, this might still be helpful to you as i believe,, this is my own view of what is a system and or bpd so im still reccomending you to do extra research, and goodluck in doing so! (Im sorry for not writing the whole thing)

- j