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asksoldieron · 29 days

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Reblogging because I added the art!

SO-20: "I just… um… Words. Sometimes. You know."

If there's a lot of engagement on this, this post is liable to get real long, beware before you expand.

Welcome to the Engagement Lounge, for A Little Loopy (249|20) an instalment! Short comments can go in the replies, but there's a 475 character limit. Longer ones will need a reblog. Remember to @asksoldieron if you're reblogging someone else's reblog, so I can see it too!

Okay! I may get myself in trouble here because I have to talk about this instalment when I'm still a little messed up about someone (with the BEST intentions) correcting the language I use to talk about, uh, loosing my language. They increased my anxiety about a word I need to use sometimes to get appropriate care, to the point where I won't be able to use it to get appropriate care right now, if I have to. I'm slightly less safe going out in public alone, with one less way to catch myself if I fall, and that makes everything worse because I know it. No matter how noble the intent, that's not okay. But Tumblr is the sort of place I could get in trouble for saying it's not. Because some folks here want to file me according to their perception of just how disabled I am, and then tell me how I should be acting. I'm really not sure how that's supposed to help everyone, but some folks are convinced it will.

But, Erik's meltdown here is mine, at least as far as the words go. I went back and changed it out of spite after I wrote it, because someone induced that kinda meltdown in me, and sometimes I wanna punch people until they develop empathy. I know it won't work, but I really, really wanna. I opened the doc and said to the spouse, "Fuck it, no words at all. If they love him, they'll figure it out." But, of course, I didn't say that. I said "totally nonverbal." And there is discourse about that. My God, is there discourse!

I don't like performing my pain in an attempt to get others to treat me how I want to be treated. And how I want to be treated is please, please don't make it harder for me to find a word I can use to get people to back off and let me put myself together when I can't find hardly any words. Erik has a hard time finding words he doesn't use a lot, so that word's not likely to come out of him. I have a hard time finding words that aren't specific, so it might come out of me. But I do need to be able to use it when I'm not struggling, sometimes, or it gets harder to find. Like now.

I did go write down some of what my deal is, and how I feel, after that person politely nudged me into my place. But I didn't post it anywhere because I don't wanna tell it to the world. At least not right now. That's inviting more well-meaning people to categorize me and I have enough on my plate. Please just remember, not everyone who fails to play by the rules is dog-whistling to cause harm, or just being entitled. And you're not entitled to demand, "Prove it."

I know if Erik could say "nonverbal" someone would pop up to tell me, "no, bad writer." But I do wonder, if ya had to sit him down in the hotel room and say it to his face as he breaks down crying with no words to explain how to help him, would anyone say, "You can talk most of the time. That word is wrong for you. Pick another"? I really hope not. But, if someone said that when he was having a good day, he'd remember it. He'd still remember (at some point, heh, poor kid) when he's having a meltdown. Being scared and upset doesn't erase someone trying to take that word away from him so he can't use it ever, because he's not having a hard enough time in comparison to someone else.

It's hard for me to stick up for myself, but - oh, man - I will come for you if you hurt my boy. Please try not to. We all hurt each other without meaning sometimes, so all I can ask is that you try.

There is so much that would make this world better and more accessible for all of us. Just for example: safe, affordable housing for all, and not having to drive everywhere to get healthcare and/or food. It can't just be for the least of us, because then we hafta fight each other for the title of "least." I don't wanna. I'm real tired of it. Why isn't everyone?

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*Art Edit: My reference image is from Voodoo Child by Rogue Traders, and I think I pulled it off. I mean, if you've seen the video, I think you'll recognize it.

And if you haven't, it still makes sense. Poor Erik!

I can point out exactly where I screwed up, too, and the Glaze artifacts stick out like crazy (to my eyes, anyway). Nevertheless, Erik look like Erik, and I'm happy with his design in this style. Happier than I have been with how he looks in my art-deco-ish style! I'll have to put the HQ version in the Ko-Fi store.

#tin soldier and soldier on #instalment #engagement lounge #art #reblog

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asksoldieron · 29 days

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Reblogging because I added the art!

SO-19: Out with the Old Problem, in with the New!

If there's a lot of engagement on this, this post is liable to get real long, beware before you expand.

Welcome to the Engagement Lounge, for The Taming of the Twit (248|19) an instalment! Short comments can go in the replies, but there's a 475 character limit. Longer ones will need a reblog. Remember to @asksoldieron if you're reblogging someone else's reblog, so I can see it too!

Well, impatience plus Tumblr's meltdown prompted me to start posting new stuff - whether I can do the art for it or not! I think I can. I'll come back with it. But I'm gonna tell you right now, Erik looks wrong in makeup with David's expression. As well he should, I suppose. David's cute and all, but he's still a hazard and he needs to get lost.

Man, that guy's a hazard to me too. When I write a lot of David-centric stuff, I wind up with his voice in my head, prodding me to be more fabulous. Not the worst thing in the world, but he has no sense of decorum, or self-preservation.

In the most convoluted way possible, I've finally written one of his three backstories, but you'll hafta wait for me to write music for it and put it up on AO3. (That really got out of hand. Heh.) None of the three are true, as suits him, but they contain elements of truth. He's lying to the NDA, too, but this time he's trying to do the right thing, instead of just fucking with them.

This is what it looks like when a bunch of people trying to do the right thing collide!

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*Art Edit: There they are! The Twit himself, and the Twit driving Erik around and trying to look less conspicuous. It's... not very effective, David, but that doesn't really matter now.

You can see John did his best to put together David's preferred outfit, but it was easier to get saddle shoes than spats, and it's hard to get a custom coat made in a particular fabric when you're doing terrorism. Erik's gonna be stuck wearing most of this shit until they can get him to a store. He's gonna hate it so much, but he will make some alterations.

I can't get over how creepy and wrong Erik looks this way. He should, but, yuck. Ugh. David, that's not yours! Not matter how much you want it to be!

Glaze is still coughing up artifacts, and worse this time. I'm willing to put up with it, I guess, but I don't like how it looks. I'm going to have to put the HQ art in the store. And, eventually, in ebooks for DL. I've been meaning to make nice ebooks FOREVER, but that's the dream!

#tin soldier and soldier on #instalment #engagement lounge #art #reblog

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asksoldieron · 29 days

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SO-24: Whatever Happened to Poor John?

If there's a lot of engagement on this, this post is liable to get real long, beware before you expand.

No art, but I am working on it and I will add it retroactively. The eyes are letting me draw, just real slow.

Welcome to the Engagement Lounge, for La Goualante du Pauvre John (253|24) an instalment! Short comments can go in the replies, but there's a 475 character limit. Longer ones will need a reblog. Remember to @asksoldieron if you're reblogging someone else's reblog, so I can see it too!

Woo! We just got back from a 2 night stay on a houseboat, it was definitely trying to kill us (I'll do a post on the main blog later, I have so many scary pictures), and we loved it anyway. So I'm distracted, but I did manage to unwind a little. No wifi, only phones! But I think I got pretty much everything formatted OK before we left. We'll see!

Now it's time to back up and see what happened to John after he smacked into the Elysium Inn's glass door and escaped into the wild! His friends picked him up and they're ready to do more terrorism together! ...Well, maybe in a little bit. They all need a break to unwind, too, but they're not gonna get it. Jenny will put her big brother back together as best she can, but she's going to be a little irritated with Erik and Co. and everyone else who allowed him to break down that badly.

And we end on a cliffhanger! The "real spy" is suddenly revealed! Unfortunately, that'll be all you get for about two months, unless I can put something cool together for our birthday in April. It's doubtful.

The spouse and I are about to have the most stressful two months of the year (probably... hopefully). He's got to prep for his CPA exam, which is 8+ hours of testing over multiple days. They will require him to do two practice cases a week, timed, the longest of which will take 5 hours. We expect adding that much fake accountant business on top of his actual job and everything else we gotta do will fry his brain. And there's the added stress that the test costs thousands of dollars. If the unlikely happens and he fails this time, taking it again will hurt. We can swing it, but it'll hurt.

It looks like his current employer has his back, though. The capitalist exploitation is different up here! A promotion to a better-paying position that will qualify for the experience he needs to be a full CPA (he needs 2.5 years) is in the works. If he gets it, he can stay with them, and they'll pick up his school costs. His dream job is still doing actual, meaningful work for a nonprofit of some kind, but he can hack this one for another 2.5 years if necessary. As long as we can still afford food and housing! I think we can. The whole immigration thing seems a bit backed up, but when we're allowed to own property, we can afford a floating house like that houseboat we stayed at. Not exactly like it, dear god no, but similar. That may be what our future holds.

But we gotta make it to June, first! I have no idea what my internet life will look like or how often you'll see me, but I'll try to get some stuff done. Hopefully, I can come back with another six, illustrated, as soon as the stress abates. Thank you for your patience until then!

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#tin soldier and soldier on #instalment #engagement lounge

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asksoldieron · 1 month

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SO-23: Meet Marc!

If there's a lot of engagement on this, this post is liable to get real long, beware before you expand.

No art, but I am working on it and I will add it retroactively. The eyes are letting me draw, just real slow.

Welcome to the Engagement Lounge, for Picture Book (252|23) an instalment! Short comments can go in the replies, but there's a 475 character limit. Longer ones will need a reblog. Remember to @asksoldieron if you're reblogging someone else's reblog, so I can see it too!

I'm excited for everyone to meet Marc, and appalled at his situation, and still very aware that everything I do to this broke-ass website is built on sand. Mixed emotions!

Welcome to the wonderful world of trying to fix social issues with eugenics! We still do this! We're a bit more subtle about it, but we do it! I was naturally disposed to be "one of the smart ones," so I got thrown in a class with more people like me, and we got more resources and higher expectations! Then, later, I was naturally disposed to be one of the loser, burn-outs, and I got thrown in a class with more people like me, and we got fewer resources - but lots more supervision! - and lower expectations! Except then they decided I was smart again, and then dumb again, and now Capitalism and I don't have much to say to each other. I need money to eat, but I'm not worth any. All things considered, I haven't earned a place here. I'm a burden! Some people would like to be rid of me!

And sometimes those people have really fun ideas about how to be rid of me. Sometimes allowing me to exist at the edges, as long as I figure some way to get by, just isn't enough, ya know? There's a little bit of that folded into this as, if you'll recall, immies are as many of us at once as possible. We do try to train the children to be a little more convenient when their way of being is inconvenient - not just the autistic ones, but it's still considered a legit "treatment" for them, and a few others. And psychosurgery is not that far in the past!

It's not fixing the social issues in my story any better than it works IRL, of course. They've just created entirely new ways of being divergent that are no easier to control. ...Except maybe that last guy on the sheet, the smoke, but we'll deal with that later.

Marc will return too! As you can tell from the tags at the site.

I needed something happy to mitigate the horror, so I got to write a tiny short story for the NDA to find. It's hard to keep pushing to heal from damage someone inflicted on you, sometimes it's hard to even figure out what "healing" means, but it helps to keep trying. You do pick up a few wonderful things when you keep trying.

I want to write what really happened to him, for continuity reasons, but I'm still murky on the circumstances of the reveal. I'm pretty sure I know who'll help out, but not exactly how. Broken is just the beginning!

(Man, I dodged several bullets with David, by putting off writing his past for so long. I managed to connect all the dots! Even if you'll probably never get the whole truth out of him. I could tell you if I had to. For now, only the spouse knows!)

Marc would not be happy with the NDA taking Erik home, but he also wouldn't be happy with how Erik ended up helping the RA. He'll have to reconcile on his own time, but I think he'll manage. For now, at least he gets to register an objection, even if he may issue a partial retraction later. I think he's justified. I'm still gonna send Erik home, but Marc's not wrong.

I prrrobaby should've made Marc a girl, just for gender diversity in pathetic, lovable characters, but I like my men pitiful and damaged and my women competent but conflicted. (You can tell!) I can only self-correct so much. And, in this case, Erik's not into boys, so that prevents things from getting to complex on my end. The romantic entanglements are gonna be bad enough as it is!

And now, I need to leave off with minimal proof-reading, and just post this early to get it out of the way, because Windows 11 installed an AI on my computer without my permission, and I need to kill it if I can. Thanks, Microsoft! I didn't have enough to do today! I NEED TO BUY COFFEE, YOU ASS!!

...This inst. is gonna go live without me finalizing and formatting the song lyrics, isn't it? *headdesk* Sorry, Readers.

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#tin soldier and soldier on #instalment #engagement lounge

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asksoldieron · 1 month

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SO-22: Don't Be So Specific

If there's a lot of engagement on this, this post is liable to get real long, beware before you expand.

No art, but I am working on it and I will add it retroactively. The eyes are letting me draw, just real slow.

Welcome to the Engagement Lounge, for The Rainbow Connection (251|22) an instalment! Short comments can go in the replies, but there's a 475 character limit. Longer ones will need a reblog. Remember to @asksoldieron if you're reblogging someone else's reblog, so I can see it too!

OK! I got super distracted talking about autism and diversity in media on the main blog. Now I get to talk about the Holocaust!

Except, no, that ain't it. And I've got to bend over backwards to show you that, because "Holocaust" and "genocide" have become synonymous. Way back when Donald Trump took Obama's children-in-cages idea and ran with it, I decided to try writing a serial. I was working on it in 2016, but it didn't come out until Trump was already President, saying the quiet part loud 24/7 and dismantling the system that already wasn't working. And I got to see the conservatives shitstains running DC's Holocaust Museum try to prevent people from comparing children in concentration camps to the Holocaust. Also, they're not "concentration camps," call them something nicer, you're being antisemitic.

I WENT to that museum as a young teen, and I got laid into like a red-headed stepchild (sorry red-heads and stepchildren, but you know how it is, idioms come from somewhere) for pushing back when my mom said, "It could never happen here." I didn't think that was what I was supposed to be learning! And, it turns out, for political reasons, that was actually what they were trying to teach me.

The Holocaust is sacred, and special, and it will never happen again. If something similar seems to be happening, you better shut your whore mouth and not compare it. Nothing compares.

And so we lose a significant portion of the language and historical context that we need to identify a genocide and respond to it, or maybe even prevent it. Well, it's not like THAT. Don't respond to it like THAT! Maybe be more reasonable, and do something incremental, because it's not THAT.

I knew what I wanted to do. I knew it would be hard as hell to get there. I knew you'd have to trust me first. And so I started to write.

Now I'm there and I don't have much of an audience that trusts me. Maybe three people are gonna read this. Five, if you count me and the spouse. If anyone rolls up after this, they're gonna know what I'm about and they'll already have opinions of me based on what I've done here, and what's going on in the world while I do it.

I already knew comparing children in cages to the Holocaust had been declared a sin. I did not expect to be pushing back against that while pushing back against a genocide in progress is also a sin, because Israel is in charge of it and Joe Biden OKed it. That got really fucking complicated on me, real fast.

There is a lot rolled into this burrito already, because eugenics did a lot of lasting damage and the Holocaust is only part of that. People come at all kinds of differences with a genocidal mindset - for example, looking to "cure" queerness, disability and neurodivergence, so there won't be people like that anymore.

Thus, the gays are here, they're involved, they're trying to help out, and they're comparing it to their experience. And so are the NDs, being an immie has some aspects of that, as well as some aspects of disability. All of these people ALSO went into the meatgrinder during the Holocaust, and are still liable to get killed when eugenics and genocide are on the table.

And Jewishness is there! Immies are somewhat Jewish, because I was trying to be sensitive to the fact that they're marginalized in fake Europe and we're going to have a war about it. It would be erasure if I didn't fold some aspects of Jewishness and the Holocaust into that! (And now it's appropriation. *sigh*) But I can't make them 1:1 Jewish, because religion doesn't work like that where they are. They can be close, like Milo and Calliope can be close to lapsed Catholics, but they're not exactly.

Immies are so many things in part because I'm trying to get you to understand that the Holocaust itself wasn't just antisemitism run riot. Fascism doesn't have to look like Nazi Germany, 1:1. We're doing it right now, and it doesn't look like that! It's wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross! We knew it would be!

And we still can't stop it. In the States, you're either gonna vote for a pro-genocide candidate this November or abstain and render yourself irrelevant that way. Either way, genocide remains on the table. And I know who's in danger when that's on the table. It's me, it's definitely me, and a lot of other people similar to me. Immies are as many of us as possible, at once, and I want you to see it.

When Vladek Spiegelman, a Holocaust survivor, goes on a racist rant against Black people, which is faithfully rendered in Maus, his son Art, the author, despairs. So does his therapist, who also lived through the Holocaust. He wonders if a newer, bigger Holocaust is necessary to teach us the lessons we somehow failed to learn. So I'm giving you one in fiction, because I don't want one in real life.

But I'm not supposed to do that. You're free to reject everything I'm trying to do because I'm not supposed to do that, and I'm being antisemitic and doing leftism wrong and I'm just one imperfect human being who will not perfectly represent everyone in my work. You can stick your fingers in your ears and go "lalala you don't mean meeee" or tear me apart so anyone who sees me will ignore me for all my faults. Or you can just never read me, which is what most people will do. I can scream until I pass out or die, and no one will hear and come help. Not systemically, which is what we need right now. I need to motivate large amounts of people to push back and keep each other safe, and I can't. I'm autistic with social deficits, limited resources, and no corporate master to promote me. It's my abusive childhood all over again, on a societal scale.

I'm going to keep writing. I will try. I do try. But it's so very little, when so many big things are so very wrong.

If any of you out there know someone bigger than me who might help me, please point them at me. Because, at this point, that's the only thing that's going to make my work matter. And this is the best thing I know how to do that might help. Otherwise, what even if the point of me and all my pain? I want to mean something more than my existence. And I want to help so much. Look what happens when nobody helps.

#tin soldier and soldier on #instalment #engagement lounge #genocide #writing #vent #i guess this is a vent too yeah sure

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asksoldieron · 2 months

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SO-21: The Problem with Trolley Problems

If there's a lot of engagement on this, this post is liable to get real long, beware before you expand.

No art, but I am working on it and I will add it retroactively. The eyes are letting me draw, just real slow.

Welcome to the Engagement Lounge, for Black Box (250|21) an instalment! Short comments can go in the replies, but there's a 475 character limit. Longer ones will need a reblog. Remember to @asksoldieron if you're reblogging someone else's reblog, so I can see it too!

And so we come to the point! Well, one of many points, it's a long work. But this is one I'm going to hammer into the ground, because I think if people don't engage with it and understand it, bad things will keep happening. A person can get so used to there only being bad decisions, that they don't even look for good ones anymore.

I don't feel good about the gang doing a war crime, and you shouldn't either. I stacked the deck so you'd forgive them; not everyone is going to read from the very beginning and new readers may not trust me, so I pulled my punch. (You can blame my spouse for advising me to have mercy on you now, so you won't stop reading and run away.) You don't get a lot of humanizing interaction with the innocent tourist they assault, and Erik will, of course, forgive his family once he's able. They lay out their decision process for you, and it really does look like they're making the best decision with the information they have - but it's NOT a good decision. I don't want you to duck that.

And it doesn't matter that it's not. One-by-one, they make their peace with it, each for their own reasons. They even get Maggie to help, because she sees they're going to do it anyway, she can't stop them, and she doesn't want Erik to get hurt even worse. And they do it. It's done and they can't take it back, they can only move on from here.

Then we all find out John did the same thing, and why.

When he saw unknown numbers of innocent lives tied to the track, including children, John elected to throw the lever and run over Erik's family and autonomy. They're not dead, the damage isn't irreparable, but they sure are hurt. Likewise, Erik's family will throw that lever to save Erik's future physical and mental health, at the cost of his and an innocent stranger's ability to consent.

I've been planning this plotline since at least 2017 (My original inclination was to force people to compare the mass kidnappings of immigrant and Indigenous children to the Holocaust, but, uh, my focus has broadened out of necessity. Clearly.) , so I had no idea it would go up while my country of origin is trying to decide between one of two genocidal Presidents, but it has. Much like Maggie, I'm sitting here with the full knowledge that one of two bad things will happen, we will not be able to take it back, and we can only move on from there. And, to add insult to injury, she's got to listen to a person she respects explain why sexual assault is OK in this case, and try to square that up with her opinion of him in general. It's not even like he doesn't care, but it's the only thing he can see to do, so he'll defend it. And she'll let him.

Of course, these weren't the best decisions they could've made, but they would've had to take risks that could've ruined everything to get a better result. Neither John nor Erik's family feel secure enough to do that. They've been hurt enough. So (slight spoiler, but I won't go into it) John missed his chance to pick up Diane to help him, and the NDA rejected calling David back with little consideration.

It may not be obvious, but David was telling lies with purpose. He's trying to protect John and the Rainbows from people who could get them all killed. (Given how mad Milo and Ann get later, this is a valid concern.) If they called him back and he saw they weren't buying that Erik would be fine, he'd explain about the battery and try to take all the blame, even at the cost of burning his bridges with Hyacinth. Then the shopping bag with the info would've arrived and confirmed the nature of the damage. (As well as the decent odds that Erik would recover from it within a week, with better operating instructions to help.) But they didn't even give him a chance. It didn't seem worth doing.

When we have to solve a lot of trolley problems, we get used to the idea that someone is going to get run over and we're just deciding who. It's very difficult to reject the entire premise and find another way. While you're trying to take a third option, the trolley might run over someone you don't want to lose! So you pull the lever and move on to the next awful scenario. You're doing your best!

OK, but we sure are running over an awful lot of people. I do wonder how many more will die before the majority of voters decide the risk of a derailment is preferable to running over whatever's on the tracks. I mean, we're going ahead with the genocide. It's far away and we don't have to look at 'em dying, there is that. If it gets a little closer and both choices involve mowing down (more) immigrants on the southern border, will that do it? I'm really scared that it won't, and I could get confirmation on that during this election too. If we're willing to allow that, what's next? (I'm constantly gripping the edges of my seat and waiting to hear, "Well, both candidates are going to send all the trans kids to conversion therapy, so can we please focus on Roe v. Wade/the Supreme Court/healthcare/student loans/etc...?")

I think, I hope, there's a point where everyone will refuse to engage with "choose who" and refocus on "MAKE IT STOP." But we're not there yet. I don't know what happens when we get there, either. A lot of revolutions just rearrange the hierarchy and change the nature of who gets tied to the tracks. I don't want that, and I don't want this. Maybe, if my work survives, someone in the future will be in a position to make some better decisions, and stop the goddamn trollies forever.

So I keep writing and hoping like hell.

Future readers, if you're wondering how we knew it was wrong and did it anyway, I've tried to express that in capsule form with its own context. I hope you can understand, if not forgive, and go on from wherever you are too.

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#tin soldier and soldier on #instalment #engagement lounge #trolley problem