Some things bend, some things break
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Out-of-Placers
A story of inconvenient changes
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This actually helped me understand and describe something I experienced to someone I love, allowing us to work through the bad stuff a bit better. Thank you for that, this was very insightful.
Well dang, I wasn’t expecting this metaphor to be useful in an IRL situation! I’m glad to hear it was able to have some application outside the comic itself. : D
I’m glad we’re seeing Kass work through this, but having the comic still respect the differences in processing.
The easy out here in the writing would be to have Kass suddenly, with Vizlet’s urging, “deal with all this” and “let it all out” or whatever–but in doing so I think it would cheapen and honestly ignore the frankly well-worn and common masculine manner for handling long-term accumulated stress.
Kass, in spite of all his current physical configuration, is socialized as and views himself as a male, and having him suddenly outright reject that would do both his character a disservice and also make a rather judgemental statement about an alternate mode of processing that some large fraction of the planet uses. Bluntly, it’s refreshing to see a comic that doesn’t just shit on masculinity and men as being defective forms of the feminine and women. It’s nice to see a fair assessment of different coping mechanisms that doesn’t immediately imply that one truly lacks agency or efficacy.
This feels like a more nuanced approach, and is one of the reasons why I respect this webcomic so much in its handling of issues around identity and gender.
I don’t really get the distinction. Don’t women bottle up their emotions, too? Ever?
Everyone holds things in
Everyone lets things out. I mean, drop a car on the Patrick warburtons foot you’re going to hear at least an “…..Ow……..That….. Hurts….”
The frequency of the degrees are different across genders. That appears cross cultures and species. It appears to have a biological basis (that society exaggerates, because you have to fit in) The frequency and degree are enough to create a noticeable difference, it doesn’t need to be binary.
We do bottle things up in exactly the same way, but there is some extremely toxic sexism in these comment trees, and they honestly think men are different to women in some fundamentally exotic (and, obviously, untrue) ways.
My understanding is that it is a common, necessary (don’t think about this now, keep going, deal with it when you have time) coping mechanism that should be part of a toolbox but has been warped by culture into something that can be actively harmful. So basically what biblioholic says but in far less words. I think humans are more varied than any binary, and what works, or seems to work for one can make another miserable. Extremes and one-size-fits-all are the enemy, not the entire way of being of specific genders.
Of course, there are specific situations where pushing those coping mechanisms to the breaking point may be necessary. But then one may argue that a better society, and culture, should be built where those situations are rare. There is enough nuance in this debate to talk it out for hours and entrench oneself in really weird positions.
Not that the one guy wasn’t taking it too far and in some weird directions, but the idea that the differences aren’t there is just nuts. We’re a dimorphic species. We evolved differences in body types and instincts. The instincts didn’t go away just because we attained sentience. We see many of the same differences across cultures and across species. There’s no basis for the belief that there’s no differences and that idea has less than zero evidence.
That doesn’t make anyone better but it does make them different.
Those instincts aren’t morally right, but it helps to know that they’re there and why because you have to deal with them somehow.
Do you have any sources on how suppressing emotions to an unhealthy degree is an instinct specific to men? Because I’d be really interested to know how they figured that one out.
I’m definitely not claiming its a unique situation to men. Just that you almost expect a guy to hold it in. Again… it seems impossible to have a conversation without the nuanced getting straw manned into a binary, but the frequencies are different. Like there are female dogs that will lift their legs to pee sometimes or all the time, and male dogs that squat to pee some times or all the time, but the difference in frequencies are noticeable to the point that if you see a dog raising their leg you’d conclude they’re male.
I do not get this social justice insistence that the lines are blurry so there are no discernible patterns in the distribution.
https://www.thewalkercenter.org/blog-posts/why-are-men-less-likely-to-get-mental-health-help
And in Japan https://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0213-61632011000200005 In both the west and in Japan, men are generally expected to be self-reliant, stoic, emotionally in control, competitive, independent, and successful, while women are generally expected to be dependent, emotionally expressive, affectionate, and passive25.
Africa, south America, Russia, china… same thing.
Can you name a society where men are MORE likely to go in for counseling?
Zhere is a difference between needing time for working out one’s own problems, and zhinking dat dey have to do so alone. It is important zhat one recognizes zhat dey have allies, friends, or family to help plug de holes in one’s personal defenses on bad days.
Kass by stating zhat dey feel like relaxing, even for a moment would destroy zhemself, gives insight into how alone dey really feel. Zhat instead of a single yinglady trying to hold back de tide of excrement, dere are many dere filling sandbags, or desperately bailing out de safe side alongside Kass. It is a truth for all soldiers, zhat ultimately when one fights, one stands in de face of danger because dey will not abandon de person dey stand wizh. Yings are not so, so different in zhis, we understand zhat we are weakest when alone.
It will be interesting what response zhat Vislet comes up wizh, philosophically. We are a young people, but all zhose sleepless nights, we do have time to zhink on how fekked the universe is.
Been there, done that. Sometimes you need a good mental breakdown to feel better. I say this from personal experience.
It took me 37 years to learn that lesson. Nothing was more terrifying or liberating than losing control and watching my future burn. It was either me or what I was supposed to be–one of us had to die, and I wasn’t gonna let it be me.
Personally my life got a whole lot worse when my metaphorical emotion dam burst and it took me multiple years to recover. I wish I had the ability to lighten the load and prepare myself so I could handle it, but I didn’t get the chance. I survived but I wouldn’t really say I lived for the time I spent just recovering. Everyone’s got different circumstance, trauma, and capability; life would be easy if there was a right answer for everyone.
holy nuts, way to call me out! and anybody else in the “unhealthily bottles up emotions” gang
So what Kas saying is, it needs to be gradually drained using spillways.
thus behind the transition to being a web comic about civil engineering
Back to, you mean? That’s why the domain is ValSalia; it’s originally all about the town’s civil engineering, hence the early focus on the Indrel and (to an extent) Baxxid who’re helpful there, as explained in e.g. prologue 05. The Yinglet stuff is just an extended side-arc.
Mental health talk is funny like that. Anything vague enough actually might have application. Especially when speaking of personal coping mechanisms that might not be the best ones in theory, but end up being practiced a lot more than most others because they’re more intuitive to develop in line with what people actually say to the other attempts to cope on the surface. “I don’t want to see your tears, cry about it later.” “You just gonna give up? Grow a pair.” See, this can be far less than flowery and nicely put like this here. It is fairly inherently ugly a way to approach things.
Some people see it as the only way to live, still. Live with themselves, and with and within this beautiful and terrible world.
I hope he knows that he isn’t alone in holding back that metaphorical tide of razor-ladden sewage. He’s got a practically lil engineerin buddy in Vizlet who knows about, has a master’s degree OR TWO, in working fast and loose with crazy and is VERY MUCH INVESTED in his mental health whether or NOT he does what she’d like him to. He’s got Elim who will stand next to him in the shit whether or not it floweth over, and an Isher who would happily hold them both over her heads if it would help them a fraction like they’ve helped her. I wouldn’t call Viracrox’s overwatch anything more than benevolent selfish curiosity, but he’s not ah… discountable in this equation either.
Yeah it’s a difference in culture, of the sexes as well as races. (Not trying to make this about me but that is after all, one of my only points of reference.) TBH, have not been through that much trauma in my life. Sometimes it feels like my pain shouldn’t and doesn’t even matter in the scope of things that happen and have to be addressed. Eh… it matters, never let anyone tell you otherwise. Especially yourself, if it didn’t matter it wouldn’t hurt like trying to grasp a candleflame over and over, or trying to walk on a sprained leg. It does matter. But the interlapping, so called “masculine” theme here is this ultimatum statement:
If they end up continuing to warp our lives after so long that practically no one else remembers their name as they rot in prison? Or even if they thrive over there in quiet, neutered ‘peace?’
… Then they’ve won, haven’t they? In the same sense as He Who Angers You, Conquers You, it applies to broken hearts too. And eh… cracked, minds, I guess. I won’t be so dramatic to say I’m broken or ever was. It can sure feel like it. They have power over enough. You can’t control the world. You can’t control how you feel. You CAN control how you RESPOND. It is the thing that seperates us from beasts and from the rest of the primapes. The power of will. Choice. Self-control within our self-awareness.
And as toxic as that outlook can be when you really should retreat at least a little from absolute stubbornness to admit you could use a fuckin rest being The Special Boi Species and just kinda fold down. Because the greatness of humanity is also that we come together, our strength and variety and ingenuity when no one person has to do and know every single thing and task necessary to keep the wheels of civilization from grinding to a halt. Mmm but as toxic as those absolutes can be, both things are true at the same time, intellectually. While humanity is not an embodiment of the “Weakest Link” effect and far more like the crystaline bonds of metal, power in their strength AND in their numbers, in the delicate balance between hardness and brittleness. The fact remains that our STRONGEST links can and do shape the world. That self control and self actualizing are potent FACTS of how the world works. And “Everything In Moderation” includes both your personal times of strength. And your times of weakness. You can’t depend on everyone at all times. You can’t depend on only yourself at all times either.
The Alaskan bushman myth is a terrible one. You know their average lifespan there is like seven years, right? And most of them absolutely do rely on supply drops across the years of things like clothing, medicine, reading material, GLUE, oh gods, you have NO IDEA how many things use glue and how fkn hard it is to even HUNT enough animal that you have enough cartilage and BONE to make real actionable GLUE, damn it! And making it alone, WHILE keeping the bears from wanting to come knock you over and eat your precious, precious boiling paste?
Them little shites. Little BIG shites.
Ha, running out of serious brain-juice… Everyone could use a life coach at some point or another. Whom they can be honest with, and do anything from just defrag your brain to be pointed out a few self-impeding styles of thought and ACTUALLY learn “this one neat trick” of the month that’s kind of giddy to do better, to the dramatic but merely truthful sounding, seek to drain the septic wounds deep in our minds that poison our way of interacting with the world, that we don’t really even see for ourselves without going over it a bit and having it pointed out by a professional in actual coping mechanisms, or at least someone who can tell you flaws in your current one.
I guess I have been a little passionate about him getting it out, draining the poison that festers within. That’s what worked for me, I have a hard time admitting this way of coping HAS some merit in some cases, especially non modern ones. This “don’t think about it” approach is… definitely double edged a sword. But yeah it can be necessary and it can work for some people.
For a time. I think there’s more than PHYSICAL health reasons that the average age of the dark ages were like… thirty for women and forty five or so for men. A man can live on spite alone. But it can be fekken tiring.
I should have figured it was something like this considering what other sorts of stuff Kassen has said about his mental wellbeing recently. And how sensitive to other things he’s been, like walking into a room for Lopin to flee covering himself and saying he feels naked, fleeing from Ran? Funny, but dramatic there wasn’t it?
Minor point here, the average lifespan of the dark ages (and the rest of the middle ages, and the early modern era, and antiquity, etc.) is skewed downwards by a sky-high infant/child mortality rate. Control for that, and it ends up closer to the mid-sixties for both genders.
Your point is sound, though. Biology kinda fucks us with its “good enough is good enough” philosophy, and that applies to our brains just as much as the rest of us.
This makes me think of that old Pink Floyd album
(On a separate note, this comment box doesn’t seem to work on some browsers; I could only get it to work by opening the comic in firefox)
To clarify this, it’s the post comment button that seems to be broken on chrome based browsers, not the comment box itself
Or rather the “post comment” button doesn’t work in opera and chrome; the comment box itself is fine