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[vrdantwind]

"Hey, this is Claude! Pretty sure I'm doing this correctly. You can leave me a message here, and I'll get to it as soon as I can. Talk to you soon~."

Comments

[fingersandteeth]

From what I can tell--and admittedly, this is from someone who did not actually *finish* reading Homestuck which is hella long and unfortunately contains troll typing quirks--Dirk's tendency to be as shady as hell is something leftover from his mortal live(s) and possibly not anything he can help. He also has bountiful issues with control--and I say this as someone who's a closet control freak *myself*. I can see why he'd think you were the trespassers if he hadn't known you were friends with her yet--and if he expected the house to be empty and the door locked, I can see why he'd also leap straight to picking that lock.

Still, that *is* a terrible second meeting. Not something that can't be recovered from--I met Shinobu back in my world when he was breaking into *my* apartment on my dead sister's behalf and he's one of my more important friends here--but something that takes effort on the parts of both parties to overcome.

That said, good intentions but condescending approach is very *much* how Emet-Selch operates. He's not only a god, but a god with the personality of an irritable college professor who asks pointed questions to stimulate critical thought and doesn't care if you like him as long as you *learn*. It takes time to get used to him at his Emet-Selch-iest and I absolutely do not blame you for losing your patience. If that's your first exposure to his attitude, I absolutely do not blame you for misinterpreting him. Honestly, you're doing a better job of dealing with him than I did.

Granted, I was hella PTSD at the time for a variety of reasons and Emet had himself just come off a long stint of method acting as the Worst Person In The World in order to test mortals--as one does as a god, I suppose--and most of Emperor Solus zos Galvus' mannerisms and attitude were clinging hard to him... but still, you were able to figure out he was operating from good faith on your own and I needed Hythlodaeus to guide me to that conclusion and not until I went through something like two months of therapy with him first.

But yes, you're definitely on the right track with Emet. From my experience, what he wants most is for mortals to show they're capable of considering other viewpoints and try to make peace with each other. Believe me, if my relationship with him could recover to the extent it has given all the bullshit I pulled on him last summer--including one ill-considered attempt at psychological warfare--then yours will recover from one conversation's worth of misunderstanding. You're showing flexibility of thought in admitting you misread him and Emet loves it when mortals do that.

No clue about Dirk, though. Indulging his bullshit grandstanding does help, but it's not a guarantee. I've made a lot of missteps with him myself, particularly before I fell asleep for a week and went home for six and a half years. (Including, I suppose, thinking we were better friends than we actually were... but I'd rather not get into that.)

Anyway. Gods are condescending assholes: who would have thought? It doesn't matter if they're a very old god that's always been a god (Emet-Selch) or a much more recent god that probably started out as mortal (Dirk.) As far as I can tell, it's endemic to the condition.

[vrdantwind]

I mean, I can get why he reacted the way he did readily enough, as far as that goes. It's more that he acted as though there was no reason for us to question him - like he didn't even look at things from our perspective and go "hmm, yeah, I can see why I might look sketchy to someone without all the facts under the circumstances". Which I feel like is his main attitude problem, really. He has all these myriad, complex reasons for what he does, I'm sure, but he doesn't give anyone else any credit for the same. He acts like the only reason anyone else ever does anything at all that he doesn't instantly, 100% agree with is because they're idiots who are being wrong because they've never had a thought in their life. That's the attitude I get off him.

One of the other things he criticized me - well, our entire group - for was for staying in Jane's house waiting for her to wake up, instead of leaving while she was unconscious. He acted like it was sketchy for us to do that. And honestly, I can see where he'd think that - definitely weird to have a pack of guys hovering around an unconscious woman on the face of it. But on a deeper level, well, we were all worried about her, and ditching her while she was sleeping for a week as though we had no investment in whether or not she ever woke up, so she would (as far as we knew) wake up alone and disoriented? That also seemed bad. Equally bad, at least. But even in a very subjective situation in which there are no great answers, whichever one Dirk arbitrarily decides is the correct one is the Objective Right Answer. I won't deny, that attitude of his gets under my skin in a way that not a lot does anymore. I've fielded actual death threats with more of a smile. I'm not sure why it's so hard to control my temper with him specifically.

Maybe I've spent too much time being considered smart to handle being treated like this much of an idiot - on what feels like baffling, if not outright subjective, grounds - too gracefully.

Wait, are Emet and Solus the same person, then? I was told to talk to a Solus about...oh, something awhile back, when I first arrived. Some sort of musing on people, I think. I think the guy indicated he'd talk my ear off about it...and he seemed to have some definite Opinions on the guy. Having talked to Emet now, I can see where that guy was coming from in a lot of ways.

I think things are going better with Emet now, at least. It sounds like, in broad strokes, he and I consider the same sorts of things our priorities, even if our methods and perspectives are vastly different in the details. With the kinds of things I want to achieve, it's important for me to figure out how to put that exact sort of thing into practice - seeing things from different points of view and respecting them, no matter how far outside my experience they might be. So if there's a path to that, I'll find it.

Who's Hythlodaeus?

[fingersandteeth]

Emet-Selch's former fiance and the third man in that set of pictures. They were separated when Amaurot (the ancestral home of Emet's race of gods) fell and Hythlodaeus ended up dying in the process. And then he ended up here, about a month after Emet did and eons after his death from Emet's perspective, and you have no *idea* how much ridiculous drama ensued between him and Emet and Dirk as a result, thanks to Emet trying to have his cake and eat it too.

But yes, Solus is Emet-Selch is [REDACTED]. Emet-Selch is his title from Amaurot. He had a personal name, which Hythlo has told me in confidence, but prefers not to use it with strangers. Emperor Solus zos Galvus of Garlemand is the name he was going by when he first got here, as it was the identity of the last role he took on to tempt and test mortals. It took until Hythlodaeus got here for most of us to even *hear* the name 'Emet-Selch,' so a lot of people who met him before that think of him as 'Solus' because that's the name they were introduced to him by.

I don't, entirely because of how bad and contentious things got between him and I last summer. The name 'Solus' for me is too badly associated with the man I believed he was, who turned out to be the role he hadn't yet shed by our first encounter and someone he despised nearly as much as I did. 'Solus' is the man who repeatedly made me flashback to the worst time in my life, who drove me to fits of mental desperation that resulted in me shoving him down stairs when he was trying to force a conversation by blocking them and later led to me attempting the aforementioned ill-considered psychological warfare.

*Emet*, however, is a tired old man with a penchant for drama and terribly high-standards, who reminds me of my grandfather more often than not. It's a method of reframing, I suppose.

But yes. That's Dirk Strider and his terrible attitude to a goddamn T. I consider myself to be friends (if not close ones) with the man and his hypocrisy when it comes to accepting that other people have complex motivations that disagree with his own is one of the most irritating facets of a man who is in fact *extremely* irritating (if ultimately rewarding) to know.

As someone who (while not the smartest member of my family) hasn't usually considered myself to be a idiot either, I understand very well how hard it is to deal with Dirk's attitude gracefully. Before I knew he was a god, I had a *lot* of trouble not blowing up at him for it. Now... well, I try to grit my teeth and put on my agreeable face, then when the conversation is over I go off to the gym--or more recently find my boyfriend--and attempt to physically work out my frustration and aggression until I exhaust myself.

[vrdantwind]

Wow, you've really learned their whole story in-depth, huh? They won't object to you telling me all this, will they?

I'm sorry you had such a miserable time with Solus, though. It sounds like it must've been brutal on you. And I'm glad you and Emet have had better luck with each other, to the point where your experiences with him feel split between two completely different people. It...kind of reminds me of things with Dimitri, in a way.

Not that he's anything like Solus or Emet, of course, but there was a period of time not long ago where he was so lost in trauma that he was a totally different person from his normal self. A cruel, violent person who was focused on nothing but revenge against the people who he considers responsible for a massacre he was the only survivor of. He did some pretty horrible things. You've seen what he's like now, and that's much more the authentic Dimitri that was buried for...well, five whole years, to my understanding. But people who've interacted with both...honestly, they really do feel like two different people. And it's hard for me to hold the current Dimitri accountable for what the violent Dimitri did. He certainly wasn't that way by choice, and I don't think he had any real control over himself. He's even said that the dead were talking to him, goading him on, so...there's no way he was in his right mind.

Dimitri still holds himself accountable, though. I can't tell you how many times he's called himself a monster. I wonder if it might be help his guilt if he could think of the violent Dimitri and the kind Dimitri as two separate people...if only so he'd stop blaming himself for things that weren't really his fault.

Probably not, I guess. He's only just gotten his grip on reality back, I don't know that telling him to suddenly start thinking of himself as two people would be good for him.

Ah, sorry for getting sidetracked. It was just...interesting, to think of one person as two people, and I couldn't help seeing some similarities to how I think of Dimitri.

Out of curiosity...you don't make any secret of how aggravating Dirk is, but you mention he's rewarding to know. I can believe that, especially since I've known my share of aggravating-but-ultimately-worthwhile people, but what is it about him that makes him worth the aggravation to you? I've heard a lot about his good qualities, but the people I hear them from...well, I haven't really mentioned how challenging he is to them, and they haven't acknowledged it to me themselves. So I want to know what someone who does acknowledge he's a pain in the ass sees.

That said, if you go to Thace to work out your annoyance with Dirk, Thace must be a very happy man. On a very regular basis, too.

[fingersandteeth]

... I meant by sparring, not by sex. Not that sparring doesn't often lead to sex with us, but I'd rather not go to bed with him angry if possible, even if it's with someone else. It feels like setting a bad precedent.

As far as Emet and Hythlo's story... there's a lot I'm actually *not* telling you? I feel like if they knew I've told you what I have, they'd roll their eyes and maybe make a comment about me being a gossip... but honestly, Hythlodaeus is just as bad. He's the reason I know a lot of this.

As far as Dimitri goes, trying to convince him that the self that did horrific acts and his other self are two different people is a *terrible* idea. I'm sorry, Claude, but it is. And yes, I *know* you acknowledge it is, but I need to stress how bad it really is. I understand the temptation to, because it's hard knowing that the people you love (in whatever fashion) are capable of such acts, but sometimes people *are*. And trying to make him think of his prior self as a different man altogether is just asking for him to dissociate. It'll foster a sense of unreality that will *mess him up*. Trust me on this.

I get that it hurts for you to hear him call himself a monster. But while it's not *healthy* that he is, it does show that he understands what he did was awful and he grieves doing it. And that's good for *him*. It's better he knows than he thinks everything awful thing he did was perfectly fine, because he's the hero. That's how you get people like Handsome Jack.

As someone who's felt like a monster at various points in his life, what helped me was to say to myself something like, "Okay, I'm a monster, but am I a monster that preys upon people or a monster that protects them? How can I be a monster that can do good? Or at least bad things with good outcomes?" I don't know if that'll help Dimitri, but it might. It'll focus him on the future, at least, and not the past he can't change.

(That said, I don't mind the digression at all. And I do get the need for *you* to separate them in your mind.)

Dirk is worth knowing even though he's a pain in the ass, because... well, for one thing, you'll have some interesting as hell conversations. He's very knowledgeable as well as being very opinionated--and while his opinions can be stupid, he's usually got the facts straight. Sometimes he's very funny (and sometimes he's really *not*.) And he's actually quite capable of being kind, despite everything. He'll obscure it in bullshit, of course, but that's just his way. He's usually willing to help people if they ask him to--and when he does, he's very capable at it. So yeah. He's an asshole, but the kind that's worth it.

[vrdantwind]

Hah! You should be more specific next time...although I agree your logic is good. Besides, who wants frustration souring intimacy with someone you love?

And yes, I get it, it was a bad idea! I was just musing out loud, though, and I concluded on my own it was
a bad plan. It's just frustrating, like I said. I don't think Dimitri ever would or perhaps even could do those things, except when his state of mind was so altered that he was barely himself or even fully understood what he was doing. Would a Dimitri not goaded by hallucinations of past trauma ever have done the things he did? Not in a million years. That's why saying I need to accept that he could or would do those things seems somehow...wrong, to me. Aside from sharing the same body, the Dimitri who committed atrocities was basically an entirely separate, entirely different person at the reins. Saying he and Dimitri are capable of the same things doesn't feel true at all - not from what I know of them. I know it sounds like I just don't want to accept Dimitri is capable of bad things, but I swear it's deeper than some mere discomfort or an unwillingness to accept hard truths on my part. And that's why it's hard for me to see Dimitri feel the need to take responsibility for things I know he'd never have done if it had truly been his hands on the reins when they happened.

But it's like you say - even if it wouldn't mess up his sense of reality and self, it's better that he wants to make up for those things than if he tried to deny any responsibility for them. Better to take too much accountability rather than too little. But I do want to be clear - I was never, EVER suggesting that those terrible things would have been okay, no matter who is considered as having done them. I'd never have excused those actions, or considered having him excuse them, either. The idea of re-categorizing atrocities as okay was never on the table at all, and I think you might be applying your ex to a scenario where nothing like him was being talked about.

I have to say, Dirk and I are currently talking, and it is interesting. It's certainly going better than my last encounters with him. I'm not sure if the way he talks is more accessible than Emet's speech or less, though. He's got a habit of throwing in terms and phrases I don't seem to have any context for. I can't tell if it's unconscious, a deliberate challenge to see if I can work things out from context to keep up, or if he doesn't even give the illusion of a damn if people can understand him.

[fingersandteeth]

You did. You did conclude it was a bad plan and I probably didn't need to spend all those paragraphs expanding on why it was such a bad plan. I just-- Oh, I don't know. I just have feelings about culpability and how one moves on after doing reprehensible things. And... you're right that I might have gotten my feelings about Jack mixed up into things, admittedly. Or rather, my feelings about my own... I'm not sure what the right word should be. That is to say, when I was with Jack I found out about various things he did before coming here and *I* gave him a free pass on all of them until I found out it had led to him doing something *I* found unforgivable--when a better man might have left long ago. *I* was the one who re-categorized such things as 'okay.'

(He hasn't done most of it yet, if it helps you or your friends when it comes to interacting with Baby Jack.)

But about Dimitri... are you saying he was *possessed*?

[That seems to be what Claude is implying, anyway. Which is a bit worrying, but hopefully if Dimitri did have any passengers, they were left behind when he came here.]

Regarding Dirk and his idiosyncratic way of speaking... I've known the man for a year and I'm still not sure which of the three options is accurate.

[Honestly, Steven blames Andrew Hussie.]

[vrdantwind]

Ahhh. I understand now. And yeah, that...must've been awful for you. You want to believe the best of someone you love, that if they have done horrible things that they were somehow misguided, or the circumstances justified them, or it was some one-off mistake...that it doesn't mean they're a horrible person. But then, if you find out they've done something so horrific that no excuse could ever be good enough...then naturally you'll end up wondering how you could have let all the other stuff slide.

As I said, though, I don't think this is too comparable. No, I won't go so far as to say Dimitri was possessed, but...as far as conscious control of his actions goes, I don't think that the end result was too far off from that, even if the cause wasn't at all the same. Dimitri's been...traumatized beyond all belief, really. I don't want to lay out his whole history for you, even though he doesn't keep it secret or anything; it feels a little invasive, all the same. But when I say it starts with that massacre I mentioned earlier, and that the hits just kept on coming after that...I'm putting it mildly. Anyone would have broken under that, and Dimitri did. He was actively hallucinating the dead speaking to him for a lot of the time he was on a single-minded revenge mission. And the revenge...wasn't even for him, which is maybe the saddest part. His country has a pretty horrific religious belief - that if a person dies with regrets, they go to a fiery pit of torment until the living either recompense their sins or ease their regrets. So those friends and family that died in the massacre...Dimitri was taught they were burning in hell until he avenged them. That their souls couldn't rest easy until he killed who was responsible. And those voices were in his head, blaming him for their deaths, demanding he seek vengeance on their behalf...

Dimitri wasn't possessed, but he was absolutely not in his right mind. And it's hard to look at a man who suffered so much that he went temporarily insane and blame him for the things he did when life had broken him entirely down. Nothing he did was a conscious choice made in his right mind, that's for sure. And that doesn't make the things he did any less heinous, I know that, but...I can't exactly say that the Dimitri who's in a healthier state of mind bears even the faintest resemblance to the Dimitri who'd been driven into the pit. I don't know whether you consider that an excuse or not.

As for Dirk, my guess it's that it's a mix of all of them.

[Blaming Andrew Hussie for nonsense is rarely a bad plan.]

[fingersandteeth]

I'm sure you're right about Dirk.

And I do understand how I let all that other stuff slide, because I was at a fairly low point in my life and found it hard to care about anyone past a very small circle of people and the things I found out about he mostly did to people in his own world and time. I'm just-- irritated with myself *anyway*.

(I do hope I'm not boring you by talking about my issues about him, by the way. You're just-- well, easier to talk to about this sometimes, because you got here about when the Jack *I* knew disappeared and so you don't have any preconceptions about him, which nearly everyone else does.)

But I understand, I think. He broke for a while due to what he endured and he's managed to reconstruct his old self from the pieces, as much as he possibly could. I've been through that as well. Nothing so horrible as what you're describing, but I had my own five years of hell once and I had to do a lot of reconstructing of myself too.

But honestly, it's not up to me to determine whether or not Dimitri's madness born of trauma was an excuse or not. It's not up to you either. It's up to Dimitri and Dimitri alone to make that decision. I'm happy to believe that Dimitri's a changed man now. I *like* Dimitri, Claude. I really do. We talked when he first visited Fight Club and I was impressed by what a sweet, thoughtful guy he is. I'd like to talk with him again.

But I still hold myself culpable for what I did during my own five years of hell and I understand why Dimitri might continue to hold himself culpable too.

[vrdantwind]

Nah, I don't mind in general. I just wanted to point out that there might not be any real parallels here between what was being talked about and what happened with him. I get the feeling your experiences with him loom pretty large in your mind, and sometimes stuff like that creeps into unrelated conversations, so I just wanted to mention that it might not be relevant here. Not because I mind you talking about it in general, but because I think you might be jumping at shadows a little. Or letting your past experiences color things they shouldn't. It's good to have someone call your attention to it when you might be going off-track, or when something's influence on your thinking might be waxing a little too strong, you know?

And sorry, I think we might be talking at cross-purposes again. I just meant whether you perceive my explanations as being just me making excuses for him. And, I guess, I was also referring to whether or not you consider those circumstances to have been genuinely out of his control, and his actions having been done under such an altered state of mind that it's hard to consider them conscious decisions to hold his saner self accountable for...which is to say, I don't know whether or not you consider my personal reasoning compelling. But I wasn't saying that what either of us think of it is some objective truth, or that it should influence - much less overwrite - how Dimitri feels about it.

I know I did speculate about Dimitri maybe being helped by the idea of himself and the Dimitri who did those things as separate entities, even if only briefly, but that was never out of a desire to just...absolve him of culpability, or to excuse him from trying to make reparations. It's more that I tend to feel like he never really acknowledges fully that he wasn't in his right mind at the time. It feels like he considers himself a monster because he treats his actions as though his every action was guided by a conscious decision, in full awareness and with nothing influencing his actions, to be horrific for the fun of it. Which everyone knows isn't true, frankly. It feels like he doesn't take the extenuating circumstances - of which there were plenty - into account at all when it comes to judging himself.

I think I'd feel better about it if he'd just say something like "I couldn't help it, but what I did was still awful". Not making excuses for himself to escape accountability, but just...giving himself the tiny and completely reasonable bit of credit as never having wanted to do those things, and having ended up in the place where he did due to a lot of circumstances that were never up to him. There has to be a middle ground between "I did nothing wrong" and "the fact that I was completely insane at the time is immaterial, I'm just as awful as if I'd decided to do those things for fun". I don't want either extreme for him.

[fingersandteeth]

*Oh*. You're right, we were talking at cross-purposes. Acknowledging that he wasn't in his right mind when he made those decisions isn't a bad thing to do, no. It won't change the fact that he did them, but it'll help him remember that he won't necessarily be liable to repeat them without those particular traumatic circumstances.

You're also right that everything with Jack does loom large in my mind, which I'm still a bit frustrated about. For me, it's been six, nearly seven years, but as soon as I woke up on Armin's houseboat in this world again, it was almost as if nothing had changed but me. I can only credit it to getting my memories of this world back--and of course, the entire mess with Jack had been entirely on my mind when I fell asleep on Armin's houseboat.

Just-- being messed up about Jack was my past self's problem. Why is it still mine? Is it just that I'm angry at myself for putting in more effort than he ever did? Is it that I'm still furious at how even at my lowest point, hurting someone I loved would be break me and he did it without even realizing it was *wrong*? I remember being terrified of him before I went home, because if he could (and would and did) hurt people he loved for power, then *I* certainly wasn't safe--the only reason I wasn't terrified when I woke up was that I'd had all those years of sharpening my skills that I was reasonably sure that I could easily defend myself from him, at least on a physical basis. Maybe I just still feel like I was played for a sucker in every aspect of our relationship.

In a way, I got out of a very messy break-up by him disappearing while I was asleep. In another way, I never got the closure I needed, even if it would have come with our hands around each other's throats.

(I'm sorry. I really didn't mean for this to turn into another round of me ranting about my ex- that I've had trouble getting over. That this happens with *all* my significant exes makes it worse, not better.)

(Please no overt references to not remembering VR during canon updates to avoid pime taradoxes btw)

[vrdantwind]

That's it exactly! That's what I want him to understand. The actions were monstrous enough, but his mental state was so altered that it wasn't because he is himself inherently monstrous. He'd never do those things in his normal state of mind, so he shouldn't treat his everyday self as a monster. If anything, he's just a man who has lapsed into monstrousness when he's been pushed too far, which...honestly, I wonder if everyone isn't like that. Surely we all have our breaking points, past which all logic and ethics may well break down? We just haven't all been pushed to it.

If you're saying you had one of those 'canon update' things Dirk talks about, like Jane had where she went to sleep for a week or so and then woke up after having lived for some longer amount of time back home...well, that sort of makes sense, in a way. A lot of time back home passed for you, but no real time passed for you here, did it? A week in time that you weren't awake for, at most. So...why would the stuff with Jack, here, feel like it happened in your past? From your perspective here, it's still very recent. If you'd been living all that time here, dealing with Jack and the place where your relationship with him had happened, then maybe you'd be over it, or at least further along in getting over it. And you're saying Jack disappeared while you were gone, right? So you never got closure...but you didn't know you'd never get that closure until you came back here. You've only had since waking up to deal with being denied that. I'm guessing that's been a lot less time than the six or seven years you spent back home.

Waking up here again must have been like being dropped right back into the thick of that specific part of your life, with no warning. Of course that's going to affect you. It'd be weirder if it didn't.

Do you think this stuff keeps breaking into unrelated conversations with other people because you don't have specific times or people to talk with this about? I'm just saying that maybe if you accommodate your obvious need to discuss these things in specific times and ways, you can at least direct how and when the outbursts happen. When dams keep breaking, then channels are the next best option.

understood!

[fingersandteeth]

I mean, the thing is that I *do* have someone I should talk to this about. I've got a friend who basically volunteered to serve as my ad hoc therapist since summer. I see him for a few hours around noon every Wednesday. I just-- haven't been talking to him about *that* so much, because a lot of what I'd been doing with him was reconstructing myself from what was left after *I* broke, which was some time before I came here the first time.

(I think you're right that everyone has a point at which they're broken. I know when mine was.)

But yes. I did have one of those 'canon updates' as Dirk calls them and since then it's been-- difficult. Mostly because I changed in quite a few ways in those six years and with most people I met before I 'updated' I sometimes feel the unconscious pressure to revert to the younger self they'd be more familiar with in their company. There's a few exceptions, such as with Thace, but for the most part it's a thing. That might be why I enjoy talking to you and your friends. You've never known the old me.

[vrdantwind]

You realize you're saying "I have someone to talk to this about" and "but I'm not actually talking to him about it" in the same breath, right? Maybe eventually you'll get to this subject with him, but until you do, maybe you need another person to talk about this specifically with.

I know six years can drastically change a person, but you make it sound like you and your past self are such completely different people that you're tempted to consciously act differently around people who knew the younger you, and might expect you to be someone else. Six years is roughly the amount of time it's been for me since the civil war in my country broke out, so as it happens, I have a major life event and a similar timeframe to compare to as you do. I'm certainly different, but I have to say that I don't think my base personality has shifted all that much in that time. Is that not the case with you? Did you undergo more of a radical shift?

I mean, I understand that you appreciate that I've only known you this way, and I'm glad you like that. I'm certainly not trying to undercut that by learning a little more about the differences between current you and past you. I'm just wondering how much of a difference those six years made. Granted, for the people here who, from their perspectives, saw you make a six-year shift in attitude over the course of a week's worth of sleep, I imagine it would've seemed kind of dramatic even if it wasn't objectively that big of a change. War made me a little more serious than I used to be, and while I don't think that's a big or shocking change, if my friends saw me go from one point to the other in a week, they might be taken aback.

[fingersandteeth]

Mm. It's complicated. I didn't go to war or anything. I did become a more dangerous person.

I don't think my essential, core self is that very different, save that I was a broken man when I came here and by the time I returned, I'd managed to repair myself as much as possible. It's just-- behaviors, I guess.

I suppose one way to explain it was that as a young man, as a member of a minority population that often experiences institutionalized discrimination--and as one who is fairly solidly built besides--I developed habits of body-language built around... well. Minimizing the space I took up. Making myself appear smaller. Non-threatening.

I was still doing that when I was first here and when I fell asleep in Armin's houseboat. I'd stopped doing that in those six years I was home, not the least because my position in my community of survivors *relies* on me being able to present myself as a threat if need be--and over those six years I'd amassed a good deal of skills to back it up.

Now I catch myself going back to those old habits and it's very frustrating.

[vrdantwind]

Funny...I know someone who does similar to that. I've been working to help them understand they don't have to shrink themselves down or hold themselves back here out of fear of what people will think - helping them embrace their confidence more. I'd say more about them, but the specifics of their marginalization were shared in confidence, so it's not something I have the right to explain...and I don't want to invite speculation even by making it obvious who I'm alluding to. Suffice it to say that I've got a nice clear picture, though.

I've got plenty of experience being hated myself, but I reacted very differently to it, so those experiences aren't too applicable. Also, as you've noticed, I'm not all that physically intimidating. Certainly not compared to some of the company I keep. Even if I'd been more reclusive or done more to avoid confrontation, I'd never have had much need to try to make myself smaller unless it was just to present a harder target to hit.

That said, I doubt you have much call to try to make yourself bigger or more imposing here...but you've obviously got no need to minimize yourself around anyone, either, especially people you've known for awhile. Is it only with people who knew the old you? Or do you sometimes fall into the habit around other people as well?

[fingersandteeth]

[... Steven is maybe going to guess Grant, but only because he's also not white.]

Not *only*, but so much more often than with other people. And it's just-- it's irritating. When I find myself slipping into my old habits of holding myself, it's *irritating*. And frustrating.

I've been thinking about *why* I do it and I wonder if I'm responding to people's expectations of me too. Not even necessarily conscious ones? But when you get to know someone, you start expecting them to act a certain way. Just, well, consistent with how they have before. If someone starts suddenly holding themself differently, you'd notice right? It would be really weird, wouldn't it?

[A thought strikes him and Steven swears out loud.]

My first time here, one of my best friends was a man named Tyler, about your age. We were from the same world, even though we never met each other there. I know now that he went to university with my friend Gil back home, but the first time I was here, I hadn't met Gil yet.

But here's the thing: Tyler hates when people change on him.

And here's the other thing: technically, I came back here once during the six years I was away. It was a weird weekend, the first one, and I didn't *remember* being here before at that time. It happened *months* before I even fell asleep and got 'canon updated.' But I did encounter myself as I am now (technically myself as I was a year ago from my perspective) and I remember the old me being a mix of envious and jealous of the me I am now, because he seemed like he had everything together in a way that I didn't--though I suppose it went both ways, as me a year ago envied the old me for being happily in love, not realizing how shaky a foundation that love rested upon. Basically, the entire thing was timeline shenanigans and a complete headache for both old me and me-a-year-ago.

The point is, me-a-year-ago ended up encountering Tyler and he *hated* me almost instantly, because I wasn't the Steven he expected me to be, but some new and different asshole.

Tyler disappeared about a week after I got back from my 'canon update.' I hadn't had a chance to have a real talk with him since said update? Honestly, I'd been dreading doing it. And then it never happened. Because he was gone.

And I just realized, just now, that possibly the whole Tyler thing has a *lot* to do with why I feel tempted to slip back into the old me with people I used to know.

[vrdantwind]

[Hilariously, it is Grant, but for completely different reasons than Steven thinks.]

Isn't it also possible you're projecting what you expect them to expect of you onto them? I mean, just as a possibility? Maybe they don't actually expect you to act like your old self, but part of you thinks they do, and you respond to that. Or maybe you're worried that your relationships with them are contingent on you being like the old you, so you try to mimic your old self on a subconscious level. That certainly wouldn't be surprising. You're very aware of how you've changed to them, and how they haven't changed to you. There might be some subconscious effort you're making to go "see, I'm still the same me" to them, even though in many ways you're not. But if those relationships are worth preserving to you, then you've definitely got a motive to try and preserve them, and if you think that requires being the person you used to be to some degree, well...

Mind you, I'm just theorizing. It could also be them expecting something different from you, too. But they're not here, and I don't even know who we're talking about, so I can't even begin to hazard a guess what they think or expect. All I can really analyze with even the faintest possibility of accuracy here is you, and what you might be thinking and doing. And a lot of that is just projecting anyway, so take it for whatever it's worth. Which could be nothing!

Still...the whole Tyler thing you mention definitely seems to lend some weight to the possibilities I'm suggesting. That maybe it's your idea of what other people expect from you, and your worry about how much change the people who used to know you perceive in you - and how that will affect your relationships with them - that's influencing your behavior, rather than it necessarily being what they want or expect.

The upside to all this is that if it's you assuming what people expect, and how they might react to your meeting - or not meeting - their expectations, then there's a chance that your assumptions might be wrong.

[fingersandteeth]

[Well, we're not entirely sure if Steven really realizes that Grant's a werewolf and not just a very attractive bear.]

... ah hell. I think you're *right*. I really do. Especially since... well, the whole thing with Tyler happened. And I know Tyler's been uniquely traumatized in his own way and not everyone will react so badly to change... but even if I know that consciously, I think my subconscious mind is just-- expecting people to react that badly anyway now. And I just need to start actively fighting back against it.

I mean, hell, I used to have the same reaction only in reverse to Shinobu, before I got 'updated.' I knew he knew me in the future and I always felt so awkward with him because I was sure he was expecting my older self, even though he's always tried to treat my past self like a different person than the self I am now. And now he's one of the few people I feel really *knows* me now, because I'm the one he met a year ago in our world.

(It's a funny story, actually, involving him getting talked into stealing my DVDs by my sister's ghost and me threatening him for the attempted break-in, but don't worry, everyone's friends now. Including all the ghosts involved.)

[vrdantwind]

So basically, you're letting your own ideas of how other people perceive you color how you react to them, rather than simply being yourself. Which I can understand, certainly, say, if you're trying to be diplomatic or win someone over, but...acting that way all the time, not just as a conscious decision to try to achieve an end? That sounds exhausting. It also sounds like a really good way to lose your way to knowing who the real you even is, especially if you're wearing different faces for different people.

After facing discrimination back home, I'm guessing you've had plenty of times where you didn't exactly have the luxury of not being concerned with what people thought of you. And then Tyler kind of reinforced that idea for you here, probably, even if you probably don't face that kind of discrimination anymore. I'm betting that's going to be a hard habit to break.

I'm assuming by this point in the conversation the indeedee cards came

[fingersandteeth]

You have no idea.

But yes, actually, that *has* been a life-long problem for me. It was even worse when I was younger, given how badly men who love other men were regarded when I first came of age. Between my ethnic group and my sexuality, I've always had to worry about other people's perceptions.

I thought I was finally growing out of always needing to play to my audience. I really did. And I'm just so damn frustrated that evidently I haven't. Not here.

(I even got a damn Indeedee card on the subject, from Emet. It was kind of a kick in the gut to read, but he wasn't *wrong*.)

[vrdantwind]

I'm fortunate in that sexuality wasn't as much of an issue where I'm from, although I had other things I had to worry about. That said, for most of my life the things that made people perceive me in ways I could have done without...well, they weren't things I could change about myself at all. So I personally never really worried about trying to fit in so much as I worried about doing what I could to impress, or charm, or outright deceive if necessary. Anything to make people more congenial...or at least more malleable.

That said, old habits die hard. Old survival habits die even harder. It's hard to kill something when its sole purpose is staying alive. I wouldn't beat yourself up about it too much.

Anyway, rather than trying to get rid of the habit, have you tried making the habit superfluous? Something that doesn't feel necessary is much easier to set aside. So instead of trying to stop yourself from trying to accommodate your acquaintances' expectations, figure out what it would take for you to become so comfortable around them that you don't feel any concern about how they're looking at you. I mean, I feel like for anyone who you'd be willing to be your real self around, you'd have to trust them, right? (And obviously for those you don't trust, it's fine to keep tailoring the image you want them to have of you.) But I get the feeling that perhaps you don't trust those people enough to be natural around them yet. So maybe you need to figure out what's holding you back there. I'm guessing, for instance, that you don't have this issue with Thace, because if you trust anyone at all, I'm sure it's him.

holy shit, i didn't know he'd say this much until he did

[fingersandteeth]

I don't have this issue with Thace, no. But Thace knows where my bodies are buried. (In a metaphorical sense, I mean, obviously, since any bodies I'd have would be back home and we're from different worlds.) He doesn't have any illusions about the kind of person I am and hasn't since... well, since I went to him for advice when everything started going wrong with Jack and then blew up at him when I thought Thace was treating me like a child or a naif over it all. But obviously I can't go around telling *everyone* these things. The only reason I could *then* was because Thace was already one of my closest friends, he knew a few things already that he hadn't condemned me for, and I was fully prepared to lose him over him knowing everything I'd done at that point. And then, after I came back, I told him the rest of it.

And Shinobu, who is the only other person I trust as much as Thace now, knows exactly who and what I *am* back home. I've explained my position to Thace and I've hinted at it to a few people--I told the less controversial part of it to Carly and gave abbreviated explanations to Hythldaeus and Emet-Selch--but most people? They don't know. Or they know something of *what* I am, like Armin does, but not the position I serve.

Back home? Everyone in my community of survivors knows. They know *what* I am, because none of us are human anymore. And they know what I *do*, because it's an open secret that I do it. And yes, some of them fear me for it, as well they should, but that's the price of serving and protecting my community in that fashion. I don't regret it. I don't regret anything I've done for their safety.

And I'm talking circles around what that *is*, what I *am* and what I *do*, aren't I? Well, that's the whole point. Not being human anymore is the *easiest* part of it to talk about and it's taken me this long to even *mention* it to you. As for the rest?

[And Steven stares at the screen for a long moment before he finally types,]

I'm my monarch's assassin and executioner. I have been for the last three years. It's not something you can just bring *up* with people. Hell, I'm taking a gamble telling you *now*.

[And then he presses send before he can talk himself out of it.]

[vrdantwind]

I appreciate the show in trust in me, even if I do feel that being in a whole new world that forces humanity on everyone and that isn't affected by any politics or actions we might have been part of back home means that a lot of the details we consider most significant about ourselves have surprisingly little meaning here. You're not the only non-human here by a long shot, which definitely waters down what alarm that idea could inspire in those who are human. You're also not the only one with an ethically questionable background, but unless that carries over into this place, how much practical concern is it for people here?

I'm not trying to undercut the importance of what you've said, mind, even though I suppose in a way that's how it sounds. Rather, I'm trying to say that maybe you don't need to be as worried about sharing these things with people as you are. In a place like this, the threshold for what people are willing to accept, what people have no particular reason to condemn or fear, is a lot higher than it probably is in any of our worlds of origin. The spectrum of people and experiences here is just so vast.

Anyway, I just had the thought if you could let go of some of the anxiety tied up with the secrets you're keeping, perhaps you'd be less worried about being your real self with others. I don't know if I've communicated that very well, though.

But on a personal level, you don't have anything to worry about entrusting me with this information. I'm a pretty secretive guy myself, and I don't let any secrets slip easily - mine or other people's. I've got no reason to condemn you, either. I've used some fairly underhanded tactics of my own on occasion...and while I've never gone so far as to employ assassins, I still have enough political savvy to know that there can be grim necessities. And for all that I'll always prefer diplomacy, I may not even have the luxury of avoiding that sort of thing in the future.

I forget how much I've mentioned to you, but I used to be the duke - and de facto leader of the ruling council - of a country called the Leicester Alliance. I stepped down from that title after reunifying that country with Dimitri's own country. What I definitely haven't mentioned before was that, due to some complicated international tangling of bloodlines, I had to give up being duke of my mother's country so I could return home and become the king of my father's country. (Of course, both countries hate each other. And me, for having a foot in both worlds. Life's never easy, right?)

So, as a king myself, am I supposed to judge you? When I might have to ask someone just like you to get his hands dirty for me someday? If anything, I can only hope I can find someone who's as devoted to serving the greater good by finding the lesser evil as you.

That said...I'm curious that you say assassin and executioner. Do you mean to say you handle deaths both judicial and, shall we say, extrajudicial? I wouldn't expect those roles to both be played by the same person.

[fingersandteeth]

Well, I don't suppose they would be in most ordinary communities. Changelings, which is what in fact I am, are different.

I don't know if your world has the Fair Folk in it, but the easiest way to explain is that there's powerful otherworldly entities that live in a realm distinct from but also adjacent to everyday reality and they often kidnap people for their own uncanny purposes--and their realms shape us into creatures that aren't actually human any longer, even as we have magic to fake it in the company of normal humans.

Almost twelve years ago, I was one of the humans they stole away. And almost seven years ago, I escaped with five of my friends, although my five years away broke me in the process. I'm not for the most part broken *now*--but it was slow-going at points.

Changelings can see through the illusions that make us appear as normal to ordinary mortals. It helps us find each other. We have a tendency to form communities of various sizes in the wake of our experiences, called Freeholds. I'm from a large city, with well over a million people living there--even as rare as we Changelings are, that makes for a local Freehold population well into three figures.

I suppose you could consider it a secret sub-population living among the greater population of ordinary mortals? Officially the government of the land that I'm from knows nothing about us. Unofficially... they still very well may know nothing.

Each Freehold divides itself into 'Courts' of like-minded Changelings according to how we cope with our captivity and newfound freedom. The Courts share governance of the Freehold community, either geographically or temporally, depending on which system a Freehold follows, and each Court has a monarch, who best embodies the ideals of the Court. There are various other positions with the Court that people can fill.

The Autumn Court, which I am a part of, traditionally has a position which is poetically called 'the Barrow-Tender' or sometimes the 'ghul.' A Barrow-Tender's job is to protect the Freehold through killing those who threaten it, both inside and outside the community. When those threats come from outside the community, I'm an assassin. When they come from inside the community, I'm an executioner. Since it's not an excessively large community, I don't get deployed very often, but I usually am a few times each year and not always during my Court's season--though it's an Autumn job, our monarchs tend to share us with the other seasonal monarchs.

Freeholds, even in the largest cities, generally don't end up being *too* large themselves. I suppose when you've less than a thousand people, combining both roles into one whose job description is 'killing threats' makes sense. And believe me, Claude, the threats I killed *were* nasty pieces of work, one and all of them. I don't regret a single one.

Still, I'm glad you *do* understand, Claude. If you put this kind of thought into governing your father's country, you'll be a very *good* king, I think. One I can only hope to be as good as, should the Ashen Crown ever pass to me--although if it does, I'll likely have an easier time, with so many fewer subjects.

(And yes, actually, you *did* communicate things well enough and you have a point too.)