The Wordsmith's Forge

>> ...So hey, Tony again. Various beasties (that's what we call ourselves) keep wanting to comment to you but we're all kinds of nervous right now, hah. I've been wanting to reply here for ages. <<

Yay, comment! :D

>> Thankyou. You're doing a good job! I hesitated a lot before deciding to comment here, but with the memory files available on you and your spaces I found I did feel safe to. So thanks for that! <<

I'm glad I could help.

>> My friend Ara saw your post the other day about guardians/protectors (the one where you linked that amazing article about veterans being awesome), and really wanted to comment but we didn't have the energy. But that resonated very strongly with them, and they wanted to mention how they'd noticed those guardian tendencies in you, too.<<

That's good to hear. It's okay to conserve energy when you're low. People are work. Sometimes being people is work!

I second Ara there, we love what you're doing.

>> ...Oh wow I get hugs and everything! Score. *offers hugs in return, if desired*

Re: squish - Oh hey, yeah! I recognized that word as soon as you said it, turns out it's stored in the shared memory here. Thanks! <<

It's a useful word. And *hugs*!

>> Huh. Yeah I guess it is. Thankyou. Though... I wouldn't call it a step forward exactly. We don't privilege this universe over the one we live in, or all the others we can visit in exactly the same way as we visit this one. It's no more valid, being here isn't better. But a big step... yeah. Yeah it is. It's good to hear you say it.<<

I was thinking of it not in the sense of privileging one universe over another (this one is not special just because I'm standing in it) but rather ...

1) Progress into a new area or activity is generally described as "forward" motion.

2) The multiples I know speak of their interface with meatspace as "Front." It can be like the driver's seat of a car or the cockpit of a plane. They speak of moving toward Front as "forward" and moving away from Front into their own headspace as "back."

>> Like I said, your stories were the reason I came here, and I gotta say, it's been so worth it. Your work is not only great storytelling but it's really healing stuff, too.<<

Yay!

>>Hah! Yep. Noticed. It's cool though, I'm kinda used to messed-up worlds~ *grins* I gotta say though, Homeworld (the universe we beasties live in when we're not here) is pretty awesome. Thanks for doing what you can for this one, I'm sure those of us who share your desire for a better world appreciate it (I know I do).<<

*bow, flourish* Happy to be of service.

>>Yeah. Accessing info in shared, I can see that a lot of folks in the beasts really love your Polychrome Heroics stuff. I'm finding at least two 'tried & failed to post comment' reports here, but way more records of people just really enjoying reading it, and feeling grateful for it. (We're often without the spoons to talk to even our close friends and partners when we want to, so.) <<

It's okay if folks can't always comment. Feedback is welcome but not required. I'm glad you are enjoying it!

>>But while I'm rooting around in these memory records here, may as well throw some up for ya... Of the failed comments, one was for... there was this poem about a broken sink? And about community and supporting one another and helping an abuse survivor heal and learn life-skills. And that was all really awesome and helpful for us and made a gorgeous happy space to visit,<<

That's good to hear. Cassandra has had a really rough time, but now she is with people who can teach her a lot of life skills that she missed, and be patient when things go wrong like the sink.

Some other abuse survivor storylines are in Antimatter & Stalwart Stan (both Lawrence and Shiv) and Officer Pink whose poems don't have their own guidepage yet but you can watch for the ones about Turq. You might also like Turq because he is aspected: not exactly a multiple with wholly separate people inside, but he's kind of a different person in each shape. So far Ansel has met his human, caney, and ferret forms and their personalities are all distinct.

>> but someone here in particular really wanted to thank you for the character of Yona, who was in that. Because my friend here's a man who's given birth and he'd been feeling really, really excluded and feeling unwelcome and unsafe even in his own spaces (for other reasons than just that but yeah) and it made a huge difference for him that day.<<

I'm so happy to hear that! I have some ideas for more male-mother poems, if that's something you want to read then you can prompt for it.

Not collated into a thread, but appearing several times, is the trans character Hyperspaceman who was assigned female at birth and had a daughter while en femme. He is proud of being a mother, but other people are often weirded out by it.
"If You Do Not Change Direction"
"Through the Loop"
"Hostage to the Character" (not sponsored or posted yet)

>> And then there was Strong At The Broken Places, that was a real good pickup on a bad day for us, and we ended up coming back to read it again several times on other days when we were struggling. <<

There are several more in Gray's storyline, including "Switching Out" which is sponsored but not up yet, should appear later this week. They tend toward a lot of hurt/comfort. <3 my kinky gangsters, it is hilarious to me how different the various gangs are.

>> And It's Your Body - everyone loves that. The whole concept of the shop is just fantastic and awesome. We love the atmosphere and the philosophy there, the attitudes of everyone on board, and so many other things. It made us so happy. <<

I'm so glad that one resonated for you. It's an important place because it's one of the few where people really quash the cape politics and so the common ground among soups becomes more visible.

>> ...Hahah, yeah this body totally fell over asleep before the end of the next one I read anyway. But thanks. I do make sure to read warnings, yeah. Honestly, I'm glad it's heavy in places. A series like this, dealing with what this deals with, it'd be inappropriate for it all to be fluff in my opinion. Feels more like you're handling these issues with the respect they deserve, so thank you.<<

I'm glad people use the warnings. Once in a while people gripe that the warnings -- and the footnotes, my most popular feature! -- are condescending because "everyone knows that." 0_o But most people like them even if they don't always need them. Everyone has days of low spoons and then you just do not want to get hit in the face with something ouchie.

There is so much that conventional superhero comics just don't cover. They are all about the fight scenes and the soap opera angst, but there is almost no thought to how superpowers would affect politics, laws, family dynamics, sex appeal, etc. One of my more fascinating discoveries is that the crayon soups -- people with unusual hair/skin colors -- can often see ultraviolet and/or polarized light. Well, birds and insects use those to signal sexual availability. Even if you can't see the patterns, the UV reactivity in the colors makes them shinier or iridescent. So they look sexier to some people.

>>And like I saw you and another reader saying in comments somewhere - the overall feel of the series is still comforting because even when it's heavy it's safe. People are caring, supporting each other, and dealing with things in increasingly more healthy ways together. No-one's denying the gravity of the issues and you know it's gonna be alright.<<

I'm still learning this part of the hurt/comfort equation. I know how to write it well. Predicting which poems people will find tense or cozy is more challenging! But it is fun to practice. It does seem that the more comfort provided and thus the more positive the subjective experience, the more likely people will read it as hurt/COMFORT instead of HURT/comfort. Heck, Gray got tortured and the aftercare was so good that he came out of it mostly okay.