[Welp. Way to make Steven feel like a total shit for telling John Egbert that you and Dirk were fucking. Not that he hadn't been a unbelievable shit to a lot of people last summer--honestly, getting therapy from Hythlodaeus had been one of the best things he'd done for himself--but it only now occurs to him that he'd basically outed Dirk to his little brother's best friend.
Tio Carlos would have been so disappointed in him.]
No. I get it. I do, Hades. I may be a bit of a gossip, but if Dirk isn't out to his little brother, I'm not *going* to out him.
It would probably make him feel *better* if he told his brother and his brother accepted him, but if he doesn't think Dave *would*, then I understand why he'd want to avoid that emotional anguish. It's horrible when the people you love reject you for something that's such an intrinsic part of yourself. Fuck knows there have been times when I've regretted telling Abuelita and Abuelito and they eventually (mostly) came around.
And, honestly, I can also understand why he'd be a little leery of Dave knowing about you two even if he *was* out to his brother. *I* know that despite the age difference, you're both basically gods that have been jammed into regular human bodies. I *was* one of you yesterday, unless my weird weekend memories have been extra fucked up, and what little I still have of the whole experience is... well, I really *do* understand why you're on your whole mission to squish everyone's souls back together back home. It's profoundly different from being a normal mortal.
I know that shit. But Dave won't necessarily realize that you and Dirk are peers. He'll see his brother with a man twice his age and he'll think you're taking *advantage* of him, that you're a goddamn chickenhawk or Dirk's sugar daddy and react accordingly. I can state this as a *fact*, because people (mostly Lydia) have called Jack *my* sugar daddy and the apparent age difference is much less profound than between you and Dirk.
So yeah. Don't worry. I won't say anything. I mean, I get why you're having to actually tell me, because I've been here too long and I've gotten used to how oddly and delightfully accepting things are here--but I think the last thing any of us want is for Dirk to lose his brother over the question of who he fucks.
[This...is not exactly what Hades was going for, nor what the take away thereof was meant to be, however, it serves the same purpose, and so...]
Indeed.
These private and personal matters can be complex and trying. Withering, in some ways. You have the right of it, that this is something Dirk must needs contend with when he is good and ready, not when others have decided for him. I do believe he will feel better once the truth is out, but there is nothing to gain by sullying the truth with hastily robbing him of control over it.
I myself have no qualms with how others perceive us, and neither does Dirk in a more general sense, however, matters of kin certainly holds a unique power over us that none other does.
As for your time as an Amaurotine, it is a shame that such a state could only be temporary for you, but I am gladdened for your broadened perspective on such matters nevertheless. It can be difficult to imagine such with naught to go off of, as I had attempted to live like mortals countless times, but truly being one in this world has given me a perspective I otherwise could not have. I am sure now you can see why the frailty of mortals begets the tragedies that otherwise ought not exist. When one can live forever, create aught they imagine, such petty things like differences matter so very little compared to everything else.
Did your family truly have such a problem with your sexuality? For a time, mortals of my own reality cared about such pettiness, and I do suppose some still do, yet more pressing matters seem to keep them occupied. Though, not too occupied that they stop warring over such trivialities such as race and cultural differences, but I digress.
Not my parents or my little sister, no. Or my dad's side of the family, the Durantes. Tio Carlos, my uncle that I talked about during Dia, my dad's little brother... he was gay too. And so they'd all come to terms with the idea that someone in their family could prefer their own sex *long* before I told them I did. At worst, it made them worry for me, because of the way Tio Carlos had gotten sick, the way he died. Because he'd been beat up for it before.
My mother's family, though, the Espinozas... her parents and some of her siblings...
Well. When I was little I never knew why Abuelita and Abuelito hated Tio Carlos. If anything, I assumed it was because when he came down to live with me and my parents when I was five, so that he could attend medical school at UC San Diego, I didn't spend as much time at their house as I used to, because he could babysit me when he didn't have classes. And maybe they felt displaced in my affections, because I did love him so much. We understood each other. I feel like I'm always looking for someone who understands me like he did.
(Charley did. I thought, once, that Jack did, but I was wrong.)
Anyway. It... wasn't because they were jealous, even though as a little boy I thought it was, because I really had been quite close to my maternal grandparents, who took care of me while Mom worked. They hated him because he loved men. And when they found out about me, when I was seventeen, they threw a fit and blamed him for it. If my parents hadn't let me spend so much time around him, I wouldn't have grown up into a damned maricon.
(I don't know if Charley ever completely forgave them for that. Or at least, that's when she started calling them 'Abuela and Abuelo' instead. It's... less affectionate, I suppose. More formal. But then again, she wasn't... quite as close to Mom's side of the family as I was, if only because we moved north when she was five and I was fourteen.)
Anyway, they... got over it, more or less, by the time I finished university. Enough so I felt comfortable living with them for a short time when I first came back to San Diego and couldn't yet afford my own place. But Abuelito's been disappointed in me ever since. About the best he'll admit is that while I might be a butterfly, at least I'm *trying* to still be a man. I don't wear dresses or paint my face for men and when I'm dramatic, I'm dramatic in a sufficiently masculine fashion.
That said, Abuelita and Abuelito *aren't* bad people. They're kind and generous. They help out at church. They volunteer and give to charity. They do a lot for their community--they helped *teach me* the importance of community. They along with my mother taught me how to *be* a person, about the importance of treating people as people.
Abuelita's gently bossy, she's nosy and a bit stubborn, but in a way where you know it's because she cares. She pushes food at people. I'd always come home with a corningware dish of *something* when I'd go over. And Abuelito's got high standards, but it's only because he wants you to be as good as you *can* be. He does community theatre now that he's retired--he taught me how to love the theatre and how to love wrestling--he took me to my first live match.
They aren't bad people. A little old-fashioned, maybe. And I do love them and I know they love me in return, even if they're disappointed. And even if they don't approve, they defend me to their friends--I've overheard them doing it when they didn't know I could hear them. I might be a big butterfly but I'm *their* big butterfly.
Well. Anyway. Regarding the fraility of mortals etc etc, I actually *was* somewhat aware of the basic principles, at least the idea that when people in a society don't have to be worry about how they'll be fed and clothed and housed etc etc, that society as a whole tends to be much healthier and its people happier.
I mean, that's why the idea of universal basic income is so very important, why *social services* are so important and unions are so important. I never was able to really explain that to Jack. For all that there are a lot of holes in the social safety net back home, at least one *exists*, albeit a shitty one. The planet he grew up on didn't have one, so he never had the concept of one when he was younger and it's nothing he can fit into his worldview as an adult. You take care of yourself (and your own) and everyone else can go hang.
(And that admittedly is a *very* seductive worldview for a fundamentally selfish person like me. But if all this therapy with Hythlo is doing anything, it's reminding me *why* I can't let myself get back in that headspace, the one Jack's never left.)
I do find it interesting that selfishness seems to be viewed as mutually exclusive to rationality for you. Commonly you mention views that you conflate with selfishness, when far more it weighs upon irrationality. Not that such sentiments are not selfish, but that one would be so beholden to it is not entirely to blame on such. One can be self-serving, yet rebuke world views that are utterly illogical and end with benefits that are naught more than ephemeral. If you make all your enemy, save for a select few, then that is far less beneficial for oneself, than the alternative.
Being selfish does not intrinsically entail being self-destructive, just as being selfless does not guarantee you will not self-destruct. Jack's world view is thinly veiled suicide, by my measure. Even with a terrible society, he still had one, and much did that likely instill that view within him. Not all societies work towards the betterment of all, in fact, few mortal societies truly do. Nevertheless, the values his society, regardless of its cohesion, imparted to him—that he chose not to question—ultimately narrowed his scope and crafted him into the man he is.
One could blame him for not changing his ways, for not seeking a different path. While others might say it was the fault of this society. Regardless of whose fault it is, he is who he is, and he's done what he's done, but you need not follow his erroneous path when it is far from the only one available.
Now, as for the matter of your grandparents, I do have to wonder what you believe my standards are for whether a person is "good" or "bad". From what I understand, they have negative opinions on those whom are taken with members of their own sex, but other than perhaps having harsh criticism of such, they act not to impede the autonomy of those people? They harm them not, but otherwise actively help others as they can, correct? Having thoughts that do not align with yours is no crime, nor does it make one inherently evil.
Misguided, misinformed perhaps, but so long as they bring about far less harm than good, I see little reason to believe they are "bad". Rather, I might view them as petty, for caring about aught so arbitrary. What fascinates me the most with mortals is their ability to learn, yet their oft refusal to do so. They hold onto a belief, regardless of the evidence or lack thereof, and will choose to die for it at times.
It is not that I am unfamiliar with the concept of hope, faith, or belief, quite the opposite. It's more the fundamental disrespect for life, when yours are so fragile and fleeting, that astounds me. Not that I am saying your grandparents have gone so far as this, in fact it seems quite contrary. Rather, mortals seems to latch onto the most ridiculous reasons to scorn one another, to the point of murder, and when you live as long as one such as I, well, it's honestly all rather childish.
My apologies for the tangent, I suppose you provoked my mind into wandering for a moment. I am certain it was rather distressing losing your uncle, but to likewise have such a conflicting relationship with your grandparents. Yet they certainly could have been more cruel to you. It speaks of their character that they were not.
It's fine, Hades. I went on a tangent as well and will probably do it again.
I'm glad you think they were good people. I suppose I assumed you would find them hateful, given those opinions they have about people like us. My ex-, the only real long term relationship I had before Jack, thought they were. Not that he'd had a chance to meet them more than once before everything exploded between us, but once was enough.
Liam had been a very active part of the 'No On 8' Campaign... ah, Proposition 8 was the one that took away our short-lived right to marry (although I think it got struck down while I was gone.) I couldn't take as much of an active role in it as I wanted to, because I was very busy with covering the election season for the TV station I worked for. I'd just made newscaster at that point. He'd wanted me to come out and publicly put my weight behind it, since I'd achieved a small amount of local popularity--and I didn't want to jeopardize my career.
Anyway, I remember him telling me during that terrible fight that ensued the day after--when I was too tired and heartsick from Prop 8 passing to pretend I was that better self I'd always tried to be for him--that it was people like Abuelito who got Prop 8 passed--people in minority communities who were socially conservative--and I shouted back at him that if it was, it was because *his* people had never bothered to try to reach *out* to them. Which they *hadn't*. The minority outreach for 'No On 8' was awful.
(I don't actually know how Abuelita and Abuelito voted on Prop 8. I've purposely never asked.)
Anyway. I'm glad you agree with me about them, especially... well. After that slip of the tongue back on Dia, I don't think it'll come as a surprise that as I've come to know *you* (as opposed to that asshole Emperor Solus), you've come to remind me a bit of Abuelito--and more in a good way than not.
I suppose I have a tendency to say 'selfish' rather than 'irrational' because... well, there are certain schools of thought back home, unfortunately popular, that see trying to help other people *as* irrational and prioritizing one's self-interest as the height of 'rational egoism.' I mean, a perfect would, people *would* understand that it *is* for everyone's self-interest for everyone to be provided for--but my world isn't that kind of place, I'm afraid.
But you *are* right that it really is the difference between rationality and irrationality, not selfishness and selflessness. *Kindness* is a rational choice. *Helping people* is a rational choice. I'm as self-serving is all hell, but I can and often enough *do* chose to be kind to people, to help them, because in the long run it makes things better for *me*. (And, well, usually they owe me for it, which is also nice.)
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fingersandteeth) wrote2022-02-21 05:11 pm
Re: text; right after dave's post to the network
Tio Carlos would have been so disappointed in him.]
No. I get it. I do, Hades. I may be a bit of a gossip, but if Dirk isn't out to his little brother, I'm not *going* to out him.
It would probably make him feel *better* if he told his brother and his brother accepted him, but if he doesn't think Dave *would*, then I understand why he'd want to avoid that emotional anguish. It's horrible when the people you love reject you for something that's such an intrinsic part of yourself. Fuck knows there have been times when I've regretted telling Abuelita and Abuelito and they eventually (mostly) came around.
And, honestly, I can also understand why he'd be a little leery of Dave knowing about you two even if he *was* out to his brother. *I* know that despite the age difference, you're both basically gods that have been jammed into regular human bodies. I *was* one of you yesterday, unless my weird weekend memories have been extra fucked up, and what little I still have of the whole experience is... well, I really *do* understand why you're on your whole mission to squish everyone's souls back together back home. It's profoundly different from being a normal mortal.
I know that shit. But Dave won't necessarily realize that you and Dirk are peers. He'll see his brother with a man twice his age and he'll think you're taking *advantage* of him, that you're a goddamn chickenhawk or Dirk's sugar daddy and react accordingly. I can state this as a *fact*, because people (mostly Lydia) have called Jack *my* sugar daddy and the apparent age difference is much less profound than between you and Dirk.
So yeah. Don't worry. I won't say anything. I mean, I get why you're having to actually tell me, because I've been here too long and I've gotten used to how oddly and delightfully accepting things are here--but I think the last thing any of us want is for Dirk to lose his brother over the question of who he fucks.
no subject
Indeed.
These private and personal matters can be complex and trying. Withering, in some ways. You have the right of it, that this is something Dirk must needs contend with when he is good and ready, not when others have decided for him. I do believe he will feel better once the truth is out, but there is nothing to gain by sullying the truth with hastily robbing him of control over it.
I myself have no qualms with how others perceive us, and neither does Dirk in a more general sense, however, matters of kin certainly holds a unique power over us that none other does.
As for your time as an Amaurotine, it is a shame that such a state could only be temporary for you, but I am gladdened for your broadened perspective on such matters nevertheless. It can be difficult to imagine such with naught to go off of, as I had attempted to live like mortals countless times, but truly being one in this world has given me a perspective I otherwise could not have. I am sure now you can see why the frailty of mortals begets the tragedies that otherwise ought not exist. When one can live forever, create aught they imagine, such petty things like differences matter so very little compared to everything else.
Did your family truly have such a problem with your sexuality? For a time, mortals of my own reality cared about such pettiness, and I do suppose some still do, yet more pressing matters seem to keep them occupied. Though, not too occupied that they stop warring over such trivialities such as race and cultural differences, but I digress.
no subject
My mother's family, though, the Espinozas... her parents and some of her siblings...
Well. When I was little I never knew why Abuelita and Abuelito hated Tio Carlos. If anything, I assumed it was because when he came down to live with me and my parents when I was five, so that he could attend medical school at UC San Diego, I didn't spend as much time at their house as I used to, because he could babysit me when he didn't have classes. And maybe they felt displaced in my affections, because I did love him so much. We understood each other. I feel like I'm always looking for someone who understands me like he did.
(Charley did. I thought, once, that Jack did, but I was wrong.)
Anyway. It... wasn't because they were jealous, even though as a little boy I thought it was, because I really had been quite close to my maternal grandparents, who took care of me while Mom worked. They hated him because he loved men. And when they found out about me, when I was seventeen, they threw a fit and blamed him for it. If my parents hadn't let me spend so much time around him, I wouldn't have grown up into a damned maricon.
(I don't know if Charley ever completely forgave them for that. Or at least, that's when she started calling them 'Abuela and Abuelo' instead. It's... less affectionate, I suppose. More formal. But then again, she wasn't... quite as close to Mom's side of the family as I was, if only because we moved north when she was five and I was fourteen.)
Anyway, they... got over it, more or less, by the time I finished university. Enough so I felt comfortable living with them for a short time when I first came back to San Diego and couldn't yet afford my own place. But Abuelito's been disappointed in me ever since. About the best he'll admit is that while I might be a butterfly, at least I'm *trying* to still be a man. I don't wear dresses or paint my face for men and when I'm dramatic, I'm dramatic in a sufficiently masculine fashion.
That said, Abuelita and Abuelito *aren't* bad people. They're kind and generous. They help out at church. They volunteer and give to charity. They do a lot for their community--they helped *teach me* the importance of community. They along with my mother taught me how to *be* a person, about the importance of treating people as people.
Abuelita's gently bossy, she's nosy and a bit stubborn, but in a way where you know it's because she cares. She pushes food at people. I'd always come home with a corningware dish of *something* when I'd go over. And Abuelito's got high standards, but it's only because he wants you to be as good as you *can* be. He does community theatre now that he's retired--he taught me how to love the theatre and how to love wrestling--he took me to my first live match.
They aren't bad people. A little old-fashioned, maybe. And I do love them and I know they love me in return, even if they're disappointed. And even if they don't approve, they defend me to their friends--I've overheard them doing it when they didn't know I could hear them. I might be a big butterfly but I'm *their* big butterfly.
Well. Anyway. Regarding the fraility of mortals etc etc, I actually *was* somewhat aware of the basic principles, at least the idea that when people in a society don't have to be worry about how they'll be fed and clothed and housed etc etc, that society as a whole tends to be much healthier and its people happier.
I mean, that's why the idea of universal basic income is so very important, why *social services* are so important and unions are so important. I never was able to really explain that to Jack. For all that there are a lot of holes in the social safety net back home, at least one *exists*, albeit a shitty one. The planet he grew up on didn't have one, so he never had the concept of one when he was younger and it's nothing he can fit into his worldview as an adult. You take care of yourself (and your own) and everyone else can go hang.
(And that admittedly is a *very* seductive worldview for a fundamentally selfish person like me. But if all this therapy with Hythlo is doing anything, it's reminding me *why* I can't let myself get back in that headspace, the one Jack's never left.)
no subject
Being selfish does not intrinsically entail being self-destructive, just as being selfless does not guarantee you will not self-destruct. Jack's world view is thinly veiled suicide, by my measure. Even with a terrible society, he still had one, and much did that likely instill that view within him. Not all societies work towards the betterment of all, in fact, few mortal societies truly do. Nevertheless, the values his society, regardless of its cohesion, imparted to him—that he chose not to question—ultimately narrowed his scope and crafted him into the man he is.
One could blame him for not changing his ways, for not seeking a different path. While others might say it was the fault of this society. Regardless of whose fault it is, he is who he is, and he's done what he's done, but you need not follow his erroneous path when it is far from the only one available.
Now, as for the matter of your grandparents, I do have to wonder what you believe my standards are for whether a person is "good" or "bad". From what I understand, they have negative opinions on those whom are taken with members of their own sex, but other than perhaps having harsh criticism of such, they act not to impede the autonomy of those people? They harm them not, but otherwise actively help others as they can, correct? Having thoughts that do not align with yours is no crime, nor does it make one inherently evil.
Misguided, misinformed perhaps, but so long as they bring about far less harm than good, I see little reason to believe they are "bad". Rather, I might view them as petty, for caring about aught so arbitrary. What fascinates me the most with mortals is their ability to learn, yet their oft refusal to do so. They hold onto a belief, regardless of the evidence or lack thereof, and will choose to die for it at times.
It is not that I am unfamiliar with the concept of hope, faith, or belief, quite the opposite. It's more the fundamental disrespect for life, when yours are so fragile and fleeting, that astounds me. Not that I am saying your grandparents have gone so far as this, in fact it seems quite contrary. Rather, mortals seems to latch onto the most ridiculous reasons to scorn one another, to the point of murder, and when you live as long as one such as I, well, it's honestly all rather childish.
My apologies for the tangent, I suppose you provoked my mind into wandering for a moment. I am certain it was rather distressing losing your uncle, but to likewise have such a conflicting relationship with your grandparents. Yet they certainly could have been more cruel to you. It speaks of their character that they were not.
no subject
I'm glad you think they were good people. I suppose I assumed you would find them hateful, given those opinions they have about people like us. My ex-, the only real long term relationship I had before Jack, thought they were. Not that he'd had a chance to meet them more than once before everything exploded between us, but once was enough.
Liam had been a very active part of the 'No On 8' Campaign... ah, Proposition 8 was the one that took away our short-lived right to marry (although I think it got struck down while I was gone.) I couldn't take as much of an active role in it as I wanted to, because I was very busy with covering the election season for the TV station I worked for. I'd just made newscaster at that point. He'd wanted me to come out and publicly put my weight behind it, since I'd achieved a small amount of local popularity--and I didn't want to jeopardize my career.
Anyway, I remember him telling me during that terrible fight that ensued the day after--when I was too tired and heartsick from Prop 8 passing to pretend I was that better self I'd always tried to be for him--that it was people like Abuelito who got Prop 8 passed--people in minority communities who were socially conservative--and I shouted back at him that if it was, it was because *his* people had never bothered to try to reach *out* to them. Which they *hadn't*. The minority outreach for 'No On 8' was awful.
(I don't actually know how Abuelita and Abuelito voted on Prop 8. I've purposely never asked.)
Anyway. I'm glad you agree with me about them, especially... well. After that slip of the tongue back on Dia, I don't think it'll come as a surprise that as I've come to know *you* (as opposed to that asshole Emperor Solus), you've come to remind me a bit of Abuelito--and more in a good way than not.
I suppose I have a tendency to say 'selfish' rather than 'irrational' because... well, there are certain schools of thought back home, unfortunately popular, that see trying to help other people *as* irrational and prioritizing one's self-interest as the height of 'rational egoism.' I mean, a perfect would, people *would* understand that it *is* for everyone's self-interest for everyone to be provided for--but my world isn't that kind of place, I'm afraid.
But you *are* right that it really is the difference between rationality and irrationality, not selfishness and selflessness. *Kindness* is a rational choice. *Helping people* is a rational choice. I'm as self-serving is all hell, but I can and often enough *do* chose to be kind to people, to help them, because in the long run it makes things better for *me*. (And, well, usually they owe me for it, which is also nice.)