#ITS SO FUCKED because i can draw other human characters fine but cherry ??? ONLY CHERRY I CANT

[angelfoodscake]

i cant even draw human cherry right what is happening

#ever #i am not a human artist #ITS SO FUCKED because i can draw other human characters fine but cherry ??? ONLY CHERRY I CANT #AND SHES MY FAVOURITE #ok bitch #its genuinley very frustrating and annoying #i can never draw her right and i don’t know what’s wrong #there will never be any human drawings of my ocs sorry guys #ugh my art style is reverting #it’s getting worse #txt

[incarnateirony]

Hi!

I saw your answer to that Christian anon and the whole Cas/Jesus and Mary/Dean thing. I get what you're coming from just, it comes off as "only one reading is valid". You can def make some of those parallels and that reading is ok too, although not as all-encompassing. There is no one singular way/lense to read a show, themes or characters.

It requires a stronger intertext argument than “I want my character to be jesus.”

YET AGAIN, not all readings are equal. Mine isn’t perfect but it doesn’t take picking and choosing around the parts you want. That’s a failed lit argument. It is. I have been very vocal about this “all interpretations are equal” nonsense around here being hot garbage. If you literally cherry pick out random details (ones barely even in the text), or moreover, ignore the elements of the things you’re trying to parallel, you end up with a weak argument. 

And that’s why it’s called arguments. You make arguments. Lit crit is all about arguments. That’s LITERALLY WHAT IT IS CALLED.

If your argument ends at “Christ symbol because he sacrificed himself”, you’re going to need to ask: what about all these other christ symbols associated elsewhere? Did he die to save anyone from sin, in the metaphor you’re using? Who is the Begotten Son that Chuck loved so much then? Are we implying Chuck sent Cas TO save the world? or are we just arguing if every hero that sacrifices themselves in the history of ever should be read as a Christ metaphor so deeply you start trying to fit everyone in their lives around them into being people Christ knew? Is THAT the argument? No other details of Christ need apply? And all christian iconography as actually presented in the show actually isn’t topically relevant to discussing christian parallelism? Is that where we’re going with this?

*pokes the theory with a poker and watches it fall apart*

Okay so who IS the only begotten son that was lost to save the world? Oh wild, worm, he was the one followed around by Jesus pictures all year? Wouldn’t it be fascinating if people tried to read the actual body of the text in full. Because then if someone needles that, it doesn’t fall apart like Lucifer’s house of cards, which is otherwise only held up by the pure magic of not actually being held to the rules.

Make an argument different than mine, that’s fine. That’s what my whole server is about. But make a sound argument. If your argument also only exists within a bubble, and doesn’t even extend out to the body of text, what does that say about the argument itself? Hell, there’s people in the server who have opted more into the Sophia lean of it all, and debating which face OF the Sophia beliefs should be applied--those aren’t mine, nor do I necessarily agree, but they at least are building this with sound arguments. 

There’s a difference between saying “my interpretation is the only one” and “uh, not that one, specifically.”

If you wanna try “all interpretations are equal regardless of the content, context, presentation or anything else” just because it’s one you /want/, you might as well concede the bronlies’ “Sam and Dean are soulmates” thing because they apply zero context to one fucking line they choose to read a certain way even though the rest of the text tells something clearly opposite.

Absolutely fucking not. That’s not how this works. And if you mock them for their ridiculous shit you absolutely should not turn around and argue this hot ball of nonsense.

How about an easy one: as denoted by Joseph carrying christ in early season in shadow of the brothers (And Mary, first, in the same cubby-hole, before Cas was sent away), and also denoted by other major motifs such as the altar, the Winchesters and Castiel served as father and mother to a demigod figure of man and divinity, reborn in the shadow of christ himself, who would soon walk forth into the world he saved; the cruel demiurge subverted is not his father, but rather, that of man and divine from the human family around him, who stood in the shadow of Joseph and Mary where he was reconceived.

Notice none of these statements actually require “interpretation”? They are literally just denotative statements of things that happened, and the connotations of these are so natural resulting I don’t even have to explain it?

That’s when you break down, for example, Joseph imagery. After all, it was there in the tomb at the start. It was there behind Dean in the church. It was there with Pastor Joe, and we ask then what people feel Pastor Joe was a narrative piece for. Who he represented. What is the actual natural connotation of all of these bluntly denoted elements?

And what of Mary? Be that Mary Winchester, Mary the Mother of Jesus, Bloody Mary with her secrets, 

or any other Marys in the show? Where are those storylines paralleling? What does that have to do with the backdrop behind Castiel, for example, or any other times? 14.20, 15.13, I don’t care. All of them.

lol

Where is Mary Magdalene even being drawn from, beyond the vaguest of vague Cas=Christ arguments I’m asking very basic questions on the establishment of above, and unlikely to ever get a true answer on? 10000 Marys in the show (all orbiting Cas) and never Magdalene, but we’ll delete Christ imagery while talking about Christ, what

This is where narrative interpretation/argument actually starts. Not randomly lobbing an idea into the room. And certainly not saying someone is saying their own argument is superior just because they poked a different one once with a stick and it tumbled. That’s disengenuous as fuck.

This is not a vs match. It’s not my meta vs your meta or anyone else’s meta. It’s my meta or your meta vs the text. If I poke a meta with a text stick and it falls apart, it has nothing to do with my meta. It has to do with the meta poked with the text stick.

All I’m saying is people can’t pick and choose when and where to apply their symbolism in any kind of meaningful, arguable interpretation, while literally deleting the bulk of the actual use of the elements in the proposed interpretation, and then call that a Good Interpretation, Actually. 

You wanna read them different than I do? Sure, but read them together as the text presents or just don’t introduce the argument. You don’t just read one tiny sliver of text off of a rough idea you insert on it and definitely don’t expect that to apply outward if you can’t address the surrounding elements of the exact same topic you are trying to draw parallelism on. And if they get offended that’s pointed out (not just “I don’t understand it!!!” or “I don’t think!!!” but literally [raises points on where this same reading has shortfalls in its own context]) that’s... not really lit crit, or interpretation, it’s idea spouting at best.

Hey, why not have an argument about the Mary or Joseph statues changing in the same spot between 15.01 and 15.03???

It’s kind of wild that someone even implied I was saying “my interpretation is better” to literally list off, in basic text, basic events that had happened without any kind of heavy descriptors or direct correlated ties--a list of things and events that people, reading the things and events, naturally came to understand the suggestion of, without me having to explain it--like?

No uh, you came to that interpretation actually, but if it happens to match mine as a result, then yeah, it’s probably a better interpretation than something completely pulled out of an ass at random that ignores the actual text?

[mannatea]

Excuse me I want the opinions about the apocalyptic humans are the real monsters please!

>Are you sure you would like to board this train?

Anyway, sure! I have a lot of thoughts. And opinions. And considerations. Hopefully this train of thought is worth the trip. All aboaaaaard!

Part I: This Mentality Doesn’t Exist in Just Fiction!

I take issue with this phrasing as a general rule because humans are still human. Calling them “monsters” for their evil deeds—something everyone is capable of performing, by the way—is just...asinine to the nth degree. Sure, we’d all like to imagine we’re not capable of Great Evil, but WE ARE. 

I don’t want to dive into Purity Police Politics here, but here’s a question for (general) you: where is the line drawn? What makes a “bad” person “a monster” vs. just being a bad/thoughtless/careless person? 

I think we can all agree that objectively some acts are evil. If you’ve been following the news this year, you probably have a million examples, but (TRIGGER WARNING FOR THIS LINK) here’s a particularly terrible one; they even call the abusers monsters in this news article. Why? I think you know why. They want to emotionally distance themselves. They want to believe that these people are unique in their ability to cause harm and suffering to another human being.

But WOWEE!!! Spoiler alert: the writer is just as capable of abuse as the people who committed the crime!!!!

Don’t get me wrong, I think most people are UNLIKELY to commit a crime like that, or even hurt another person with malicious intent or hatred in their hearts. But to pretend we are not all capable of it is putting yourself on a pedestal above the rest of humanity, and...I dunno. That’s awfully cocky.

Tumblr in particular loves to talk about toxicity and abuse, and they love to paint themselves as “better than” or “above” that behavior, but 1) we are all capable of toxicity, have been problematic in our lifetime, and have probably done something abusive to someone else at one point or another, and 2) we must remember that this is true of everyone else as well as ourselves. The important thing is that we strive to behave better, to learn to recognize when we are hurting someone else, to CARE THAT WE MIGHT BE HURTING SOMEONE ELSE, and to actively work to just be better/kinder people.

I totally get the desire to call a cruel, abusive, or evil person “a monster” but THEY ARE NOT. They are people. People are not infallible. Monsters by definition are imaginary creatures, but the abuse these people inflict is real. The crimes are real. The hurt is real. The effect these people have on those around them is as real as they themselves are, and to pretend for even a moment that it’s not, that they are somehow separate from  you and I, that the rules apply differently for them than you and I, is just...harmful? 

Because again, where do you draw the line? 

Part II: Using Monster as an Insult

Monsters are creations, always, as they are by definition imaginary creatures. I think some might look to the Nature vs. Nurture Debate when it comes to criminal acts to try and justify their use of the word “monster” to refer to people like the abusers in the link above (aka: “society shaped them into that, it was never their natural inclination”) but that feels vaguely like cherry-picking to me, and I don’t like it.

Also, “Monster” is used as such a joking insult online these days (you’re a monster for dissing my anime waifu headcanons) it’s lost its bite if it ever had it to begin with. My beloved cat CiCi’s nickname was ‘Monster’ because the first Christmas I had her she rolled around on the Christmas presents and hissed at anyone who tried to move them. We also have an energy drink named Monster. Cookie Monster. Created ‘monsters’ with their own lore like werewolves and vampires and kelpies and Bigfoot.

So you risk one of three things by calling someone a monster: 1) it comes across like a joking insult/cute pet name, 2) you’re putting them on par with beings that literally do not exist except in fiction, and that half of this hellsite wants to fuck MANY people actually enjoy talking/reading about as part of an entire literary genre, or 3) you’re saying they’re literally not human beings and therefore not worth being considered as such.

None of these options are good.

Part III: “Humans Were the Real Monsters All Along!™”

Maybe when literacy levels were super low and only the wealthy had the leisure time and access to literature they could read for fun, this kind of reveal was Intriguing, but I’m here to tell you that it’s never been interesting to any person who has lived in the real world, like, ever.

I feel like for children this may be different (I dunno, as a child you don’t always understand what’s going on around you/are more likely to be sheltered from these kinds of truths outside of fiction), but I highly doubt that, say, peasants in 1620 weren’t well aware that humans were capable of evil.

Sure, they did the same thing we like to do and called people who committed particularly heinous acts ‘monsters’ (probably for the same reasons we do as well as because they wanted to believe they were safe in their communities and that their neighbors were also different and not capable of doing that sort of thing) but again you see the general level of denial:

This person is not like me.

I am different.

I must call them something else.

Which, yes you are different, but the difference is NOT in WHAT you are, it’s in HOW YOU ACT and the emotions you act upon!

Society has a history of doing this separation, and of revealing in fiction that humans are actually the real monsters, but again, those of us who exist in the real world already know that human beings are capable of great evil. Even if we are surprised by the level of vileness or not is irrelevant; we all know that logically this kind of thing happens in the real world and that human beings are responsible for it.

Part IV: Bad Reveal. BAD!

In some pieces of media, the writers go out of their way to be like, “THE MONSTERS WE’VE HATED ALL THIS TIME AND HAVE BEEN FIGHTING WERE ONCE HUMAN LIKE US. WE COULD BECOME LIKE THEM! OH NO!”

Which...lol.

Let’s look at zombies, a monster created for the sake of this kind of narrative. They were “once human” but are now mindless beings completely unaware of the hurt they are inflicting, even on those they might have known in their lifetime. Zombies can infect living human beings, turning them into zombies. The humans in these stories don’t want to become zombies, so they fight the zombies (with varying results, depending on the particular piece of media you choose to consume).

Zombie stories have a huge cult following; people love this kind of thing. On the surface you might think zombie stories fit the above narrative, and they do, but like...literally. “They were human once but aren’t anymore!” is almost never a reveal in these stories; it’s something everyone already knows and is actively fighting against.

"Humans are the real monsters” rarely has much to do with the zombies. It almost always occurs when a human in the group of survivors betrays the others in a big way.

The betrayer is then painted as the REAL monster here, the REAL threat. You might notice that lot of post-apocalyptic and/or humans-vs.-monsters fiction follows the same pattern: humans fight monsters, (optional ingredient: the monsters were once human!), and then they find out that Actually, Humans Were the Real Monsters All Along!

Again, anyone reading this post already knows that. They go out in public and see people who can’t be assed to wear a mask. “Wah it itches.” “Wah I can’t breathe.” “Wah it’s inconvenient for me and I’m not infected I know I’m fine!”

These same maskless fools would tell you to your face that the betrayer in these stories is a monster. They themselves, however, are not capable of hurting other people! They’re better than that! That person is a monster! They would never betray their allies. Except they do, every day, by refusing to wear a mask to protect other people from themselves. “Just in case” isn’t a good enough reason for them because it’s an inconvenience and they don’t like how it feels.

Sure, wearing a mask during a pandemic seems like such a small thing compared to, you know, betraying your fellow survivors in the apocalypse, but you have to consider context. If wearing a mask during a pandemic that has literally killed huNDreDS oF thousands is so inconvenient they won’t even wear it for the 3 minutes they are in the gas station...would you trust this person in a post-apocalyptic setting? Would they gather food for a physically disabled survivor? Would they literally fight to protect someone ill? Share resources fairly? You know if they can’t wear a mask for three minutes in a whole damn day they wouldn’t step up like that. They could easily end up being the betrayer in a situation like that. They’ve never been desperate enough to do something like that before, and they probably don’t think they’re capable of it now, but we know what they do when something is a minor inconvenience to them. Imagine a major inconvenience. Imagine their whole life being turned upside-down!

My issues with the reveal of “Humans are actually the real monsters!” are many, but the biggest issue I take with it from a writing perspective is that it’s almost never accurate when you look at the scope of the story.

Tens of thousands of zombies vs. one (1) betrayer: and you’re telling me the betrayer is the real monster? The bigger threat??? BULLSHIT. Sure, it takes a real asshole to betray people during the literal apocalypse, but that act doesn’t take away from the fact that they are human, LET ALONE the fact that using this particular point as a Big Important Reveal tells me you’re a shit writer who thinks you’re smart.

(For the record, you might have a character who will prioritize this and consider that betrayer the bigger threat, but we’re not talking about character development/motivations so much as overarching narratives the writer includes in the story separate from that.)

Anyway, I’m not saying stories with this premise in them are shit, I’m saying that this concept as a big plot reveal/climax of a story is shit. How can this even be a reveal worth revealing? Has anyone ever turned on the news?

Part V: Drawing the Line and Other Particulars

I definitely do not have the expertise or the experience to make this a detailed point, so please forgive me for that, but let’s talk about that line again, because this point absolutely cannot be overlooked.

Where is it? What makes one person who commits a crime or evil act a monster and not another? Is it the act committed? Their mental state? What about the mentally ill? What about neurodivergent people? What about children?

As an extreme example: is a woman who throws her baby off a building a monster? NO!!! SHE’S HUMAN and she did something terrible. We might like to say we’re different and we would neVeR do that, but we don’t know because we have never been in her shoes. We are missing context even the courts will never have or fully grasp. We do not know or understand her mental state no matter what the doctors say. Calling her a monster doesn’t do anything but put her in a separate category from the rest of us, which is harmful on SO many levels, starting with the fact that it means nobody talks to her, nobody gets her side of the story, nobody listens, and so we have no perspective, no understanding, no desire to learn.

Things like this are why it took so long for PPD to even begin to be understood, and why EVEN NOW women are afraid to talk about it and all related issues. I follow a ob-gyn on YouTube and the amount of women in her comments who thank her (oftentimes VERY emotionally) for openly saying it’s normal to not immediately feel a connection to your baby when they are born is mind-blowing. Not everyone will feel that! Sometimes you have to get to know your baby because they are an individual person and that is how love works for some people! But 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 100 years ago: that was unthinkable to admit. You lied about it and you felt like a terrible person instead. What kind of mom doesn’t love their baby instantly? You must be the worst. Meanwhile, the woman you’re getting your information from doesn’t feel that bond either and is lying about it because she feels pressured and just as bad as you do. All this suffering, and for what?! Stigma. Being told you’re not human if you don’t feel like that.

Don’t you know the bond with that baby suffered from this issue, too? Don’t you think it affected the parent/child relationship for the rest of their lives?

Not everyone who commits a crime falls into a category like this, and maybe the woman in my example doesn’t either, but I hope your takeaway is that calling people monsters keeps them separated from other people to the point where their story becomes just as fictional as the monsters they are called, and when it is heard it is enjoyed as fiction, rather than seriously considered.

Let’s not pretend that this separation of humanity into “human” and “not human” based on the way someone acts hasn’t hindered progress in the mental health/medical fields for everyone. When people are not considered human they are not given human treatment, rights, consideration, or empathy.

Part VI: TL;DR:

we are all human and capable of doing bad things.

the difference between a bad person and you or I is a lot more complex and multilayered than “they did a terrible thing and I did not do that terrible thing.”

calling people ‘monsters’ for the bad things they do dehumanizes them and may:

strip them of responsibility for their actions by insinuating they were born that way or they aren’t actually human like you and I, and/or

prevent them from getting the help they need/from others who have not done anything bad yet getting the help they need

it’s not a good reveal in fiction

because most of us already know people commit evil acts,

and it is oftentimes is presented in a way that doesn’t actually make sense for the story.

--

Sorry that it got long and probably isn’t very well organized! I wrote it in bursts at work. But anyway yeah...

I don’t mind when characters feel this way about other characters, but to see it used as a narrative feature/reveal/et cetera in fiction is like, so tiresome. No shit, Sherlock. I turn on the news. I followed true crime for a while. WE ALL KNOW PEOPLE ARE CAPABLE OF DOING TERRIBLE, AWFUL THINGS TO OTHER LIVING THINGS.

Having *that* be your big reveal in a story is so childish it embarrasses me to see it. Wow, congrats on figuring out something at 47 that the rest of us learned on the playground before we turned 7!

:(

#highwind91 #answered mail #tw: abuse #long post #idk i feel like posting this is a bad idea...?? #oh well it's make idiot decisions day! #it's ok to reblog if u want thx for asking chi!

[lordprofdrnovesha]

“I can’t do that. It’d be . . . weird,” said Horatio.

“Why? Explain,” said Cicero.

“What do you think? I mean, I’m not some aloof spectator who just observes and watches from afar, like, just watching - watching and judging and commenting and telling their story. Yeah, their story.How fucking creepy is that? Like I was undercover and gathering details. Like I was pretending to be friends with everyone and then harvesting that, like, all their trust, to sell out, sell it. Like they were a farm. Y’know? Come on man. That sounds pretty weird to me.”

They both paused. They both allowed enough time to pass to let the heat fade. Cicero, with his hooked nose and sharp eyebrows, caught himself staring and poised to bark. He looked away an inch, relented his posture a degree. Horatio swung his head around, palms open and searching, lolling for a reply, a proper reply or a follow-up. Four seconds. Five seconds. He turned to Cicero. Cicero ignored this and maintained his statuesque pose. How else to convince Horatio? He’d only respond to-

“Like, there’s a thing. You can, you can base your stories on experiences, make it semi-autobiographical. I’unno - change the names, mix it up. Gender-swap. Set it in a different country. I mean, unless it’s important. But then what really carries is the story, right? The characters, the feelings, the relationships, the relationships you build and see develop and fuck up and all those connections. That’s the story, sure, yeah, but . . . how much can you change? How much do I make up? I mean, I’ll know which parts are made-up and which parts I’m just reporting. And the difference’ll be there. It’ll be obvious. Because those parts will be so much better, so much more human than the shit I gavel in, the magicked, fanciful trope-y nonsense I put in to stretch out. Y’know? It’d be like mud. No, it’d be like sewage and those few moments, those skits, those snippets of truth like goldfishing in- I mean, gold-panning - goldpan- no, like, panning for gold in streams of sewage. Rivers of sewage.”

“Alright, I get it, calm down.”

“Calm?” He jerked. “Ca- y- right. Okay. Just -”

A moment passed.

“It’s just that,” Horatio began, “I’m really struggling here and I’m just putting out ideas and I thought you could help.” Fuck. Past tense. “I mean, I was thinking you could help.” That didn’t help. You’re too aggressive, Horatio. You’re in his face. Loot at the snarl he’s hiding. His face is creasing. He’s regretting being here. He’s being nice to you. Drop your hands.

He lowered his hands, laying them to rest on his knees. His fingers arched out and slowly clutched his kneecap. Seeing how tense this made him seem, he let go and put one hand through his hair and one in his pocket.

Defuse, dewind, rewind, think again.

“Like, what would you do? All your stuff is stuff in your head.” Don’t say ‘all you do’.

“Erm, yeah. Course it is. So’s yours? I don’t understand.”

“I mean, like, all your lyrics, or, chiefly, like, you mainly, you tend to talk about how you’re feeling or what you’re thinking and they’re like long extended monologues but to a beat.”

“I suppose, yeah. That’s kinda it. But that doesn’t mean I don’t draw from experiences. I mention plenty of shit I been through. Good times and bad. Talk about getting fucked over, and honestly, fucking people over. Talking about shit I seen, shit I been, shit when where why who what. It’s just being honest. It’s all about thinking out loud. You know that old thing - saying what everyone’s thinking but ain’t got the heart to say.” Cicero leaned back a little. His eyes narrowed. He put his finger to his lips, adopting a deliberately thoughtful face and let the second of silence usher forth his conclusion: “Maybe that’s it. Maybe . . . you ain’t got . . . maybe your heart’s not in it.”

“Heart not- How do you- What do you mean my heart’s not in it?”

“Nah, listen. I mean as in you’re worrying about what to write when really you should be focused on that you’re not. Like, sure, you got a river of shit you gotta deal with. Then deal with it. Fuck man, this is what you used to tell me. It’s like you’re full of shit. I can’t believe I’m having to be telling you this.”

“Yeah, well, either I was bullshitting you or I forgot what I was,” he said and then said, “talking about.”

“Hmm. Well either way, I’ll just repeat it back to you. And repeat it and repeat it until you get it.”

Horatio scoffed. “What if I never get it?”

“Then, well, . . . I . . .”

“I’m kidding. Sorry, I’m being soppy. Look man, I appreciate it. It ain’t something you can just fix. I get it. I get that.”

Cicero accepted this. He nodded to himself and kept nodding to a silent beat. “So, what are you gonna do?”

“About? The stories?”

“Yeah. You changed your mind?”

“I don’t think so. I’ll write the sewage. It’ll be fine. A few specks of gold. It’ll be . . it’ll be like island-hopping, connect-the-dots, like a platformer. I don’t know. I’ll write what I can.”

“I think you should just shit it out. Vomit it and neaten it up later.”

“I know, I know. Write drunk, edit sober. Problem is, retching and spewing too long gets to be a real bitch on your insides.”

“Then take it at your own pace, man. Whatever works for you. Hell, maybe writing novels ain’t for you.”

Horatio gave him a quizzical look.

“I mean, maybe this ain’t your art. Sure, writing, cool, that’s your thing. But you could write other stuff. Movies, TV, erm-”

“Plays.”

“Yeah, sure. If you want. Why don’t you try that? You might even find out you’re better at that than this.”

“That is something. Something to consider.”

“I mean, honestly, like, I only realised this a few months ago but, I realised I don’t like novels because most of it, nothing happens. Like, I skip to the dialogue. I can’t help it. I just skip to that and then, like, that’ll get me through all the prose and exposition. Not exposition, I mean, like, y’know, in solitude, whatever the characters’ thinking and whatnot. That’s kinda what music is I guess. It’s someone talking to you. It’s someone telling you a story. Or they’re just having a rant or whatever and . . . yeah, so, maybe try that. I mean, all your stories are pretty dialogue-heavy anyway. You’re clearly more interested in people and what they say and what they do to each other. Write a sitcom.”

“Jesus Christ. What kind of hack do you think I am?”

“Look man, that’s on you. I’m only giving you ideas. It’s your problem what you do with it. I don’t know, make it all dark and sophisticated and about God and Death and how everything’s fucking useless. That’s what you want, innit?”

Horatio gave in. He smiled. “Sure. Maybe. I’ll try.”

Cicero, satisfied, began to get up, phone already out. “I’m gonna put something in the oven. D’you want anything?”

“Nah, I’m fine, man.”

“Cool. Actually, what if you just wrote this?”

“This . . .”

“Yeah. This conversation. Write that and see if that gets your creative juices flowing. Maybe that’ll help you pop your cherry.”

“Huh. I’unno, maybe, maybe I could just write stories from years ago. It’d be so long ago it wouldn’t matter how anyone feels.”

“Yeah, sure, I mean. If that’s what you can do, go for it. Until you actually have the heart to say what you see. Sure.”

He left.

The room resumed its natural quiet. The light seemed to fade brighter and dimmer. He stared into the middle distance. He thought about it.