Companion Chronicles [Jumpchain/Multicross SI] [Currently visiting: INTERMISSION]

[Chloe Sullivan]

I don't want to come across as like hostile or anything, but to be quite blunt, the last two posts sound like "I identify with the protagonist and therefore tend to excuse them" syndrome.

Sure, by all means sympathize with the MC, but also consider the other character's viewpoints. You say Kasey was pushed into second trigger territory?

What about Lisa's emotional distress?

Kasey's antics pushed her to edge of "literally died of sheer fright" territory multiple times. Lisa probably lost actually years from her lifespan (yes, cortisol flooding can actually do that) due to the stress that Kasey caused her by (unintentionally, but that just makes it negligent instead of malicious, still not innocent) throwing visceral existential horror at the thinker who is known to get stuck in analysis loops. Kasey did this with actions taken not because they were strictly was needful, but because they gave Cass/Kasey the narrative she wanted.

Lisa absolutely, 100%, has a case for Kasey being incredibly shitty to her in a casually cruel way that was totally not okay. They Kasey didn't realize the implications of how her behavior looked to the thinker doesn't excuse the fact that she cause Lisa massive emotional and physical harm.

Lisa then going out of her way to cut Taylor out of Kasey's life was also cruel, and a better person wouldn't have been as vindictive as Lisa was - but like Lisa does admit that in-story.

 

[RandomOTP]

Sure, by all means sympathize with the MC, but also consider the other character's viewpoints. You say Kasey was pushed into second trigger territory?

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I do assert that the way Lisa treated Kasey would be second-trigger material. It compounds on the emotional trauma that followed her first trigger (many major sudden life events, being cut off from her social network, being forced to relocate to a new environment) and it followed on the heels of Lisa making Kasey suicidal --which is my biggest point of contention.

I have a world of sympathy for Lisa (Lisa, a sexually repulsed ace, was willing "to love or fuck" Kasey for Kasey's connections).

I'm not excusing Kasey's decision, I'm pointing out the circumstances surrounding them. Context is key, especially if Kasey wasn't cognitively capable of making major decisions due to the severe emotional trauma (her first trigger) that she was recovering from.

Does that context extend to Kasey's month-long lies and manipulation of the Undersiders? No. But I'm not talking about that. I'm specifically commenting on Kasey's initial decision not to run to Taylor's locker and prevent Taylor from triggering.

Kasey was, again, still reeling from her first trigger. And, imo, there wasn't time for Kasey to regain an appropriate level of emotional equilibrium to be held (wholly) accountable for that choice.

And I'm not arguing with Lisa's reasons for doing what she did. I'm arguing against what Lisa did. I'm arguing against the fact that Lisa talked Kasey into suicidality, talked her down, and then immediately went right back to verbally beating Kasey into the ground.

Cass is well into her 60s/70s and still hasn't recovered from what Lisa did to her ("compensating with an abundance of truth due to learning the wrong lesson from Worm").

The reason why Kasey's adult friendship with Lisa upsets me so much is because Lisa talked Kasey into suicide, talked her down, and then kept hammering the cruelty down Kasey's throat.

I simply don't grok how Kasey could move past that.

 

[Chloe Sullivan]

I simply don't grok how Kasey could move past that.

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if nothing else, clean-up perks at the end of the jump.

But honestly, I find this "someone hurt me so bad, I can never get over it" thing… just doesn't fit with what I understand of psychology. Yeah trauma is a thing, but people can work past their trauma. People can forgive. What's unrealistic about it?

 

[Krazyfan1]

People can forgive.

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Thing is, they don't Have to.
its not Mandatory.

 

[veteranMortal]

Thing is, they don't Have to.
its not Mandatory.

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It also is not mandatory that you do not forgive your abusers. Interpersonal relations are complicated, actually.

 

[Vongrak]

I maintain that Companion-Chronicles-Lisa was depicted as an absolute monstrous person (drove Kasey to suicidality, talked Kasey down because that reminded her of Rex, and then immediately resumed her cruel kicking once she was assured Kasey wasn't going to kill herself) and the fact that Kasey agrees with Lisa and befriends her viscerally sours something within the depths of my soul.

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Yes! This, this right here was one of the biggest reasons for starting that rant. Even after going through the rest of the story I just could not get over the ending to Worm. It feels like such a Worm ending despite how much better of the world was. It was frankly disgusting on Lisa's part. I don't quite hold Taylor to the same standard, but Lisa created her own worst nightmare and then wants to punish Kasey for the nightmare that Lisa herself caused. The worst part really is that Kasey agred.

In my mind. After that conversation. Kasey died. Cass did not. I think, if Cassandra didn't have Homura, not Emily, Homura and an enitre lifetimes worth of other memories she would have just gone through with it. And I do not think Kasey survived Cass took over almost in full as a substitute to dealing with her trauma properly.

 

[Vongrak]

What about Lisa's emotional distress?

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Sorry, I didn't see this before my bigger post, but as I address in my point above. Lisa caused a lot of her own emotional distress. Kasey's "background music" was never to harm Lisa. Lisa turned it into her own worst nightmare because she's so insecure she cannot trust the good in anyone without her power telling her it exists. Probably because unlike Kasey, she is the kind of person who would do the things she fears from her "friend"

 

[Chloe Sullivan]

Sorry, I didn't see this before my bigger post, but as I address in my point above. Lisa caused a lot of her own emotional distress. Kasey's "background music" was never to harm Lisa. Lisa turned it into her own worst nightmare because she's so insecure she cannot trust the good in anyone without her power telling her it exists. Probably because unlike Kasey, she is the kind of person who would do the things she fears from her "friend"

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"i didn't consider the consequences of my actions and how they would affect others" is perhaps mitigating but in no way exculpatory. Lack of malicious intent does not erase the harm caused, and frankly Kelsey was very very irresponsible.

Lisa treated Kelsey's relationship with her as coercive, because quite frankly, it was. when there's that great a power imbalance, the situation is inherently coercive, even if that power remains potential and the threat implicit. Kelsey walked into a situation where the mere amount of power advantage she had was, on it's own, threatening and coercive, and then causally strutted around with no care for how that affected other people.

Not realizing is no merit in such a situation. It's dickishness.


TL;DR: #yesallwomen

 

[Tempestuous]

This is a wonderful discussion and I'm grateful to @Vongrak for starting it. These kinds of questions are exactly why I wrote the Worm Jump the way I did, and the fact that people are engaged enough to argue about it is as big or bigger a success than people merely 'liking' it. (And yes, the challenge of 'Would you not make the same mistakes, dear reader?' is part and parcel of that theme.)

I'll be honest: I'm surprised that Kasey didn't second trigger from that. It was traumatic for all the reasons you've said, and it's a trauma that Cass is still grappling with. Cass is now well into her 60s/70s and she still hasn't healed from that trauma. And Wildbow's WoG (which is shaky ground to tread, I know) says that second triggers never recover from their trauma.


I'd argue that Kasey was still reeling from the trauma of her trigger. Kasey notes that the "fake" memories feel real for her. So real that she thinks she dreamt up the Jumpchain that first day. And her Drop-In memories are intertwined with realities from Cass's "real" history (friends are re-skinned and planted, then are all killed in the flood).

So not only is Kasey acting with the cognitive function of a real adolescent teenager (Which impairs her decision making in all the obvious ways), she is also still reeling from a very major personal trauma. Grief, loss, sudden change, unsupported by her maternal authority figure... Is it any wonder why Kasey makes such mistakes?


I maintain that Companion-Chronicles-Lisa was depicted as an absolute monstrous person (drove Kasey to suicidality, talked Kasey down because that reminded her of Rex, and then immediately resumed her cruel kicking once she was assured Kasey wasn't going to kill herself) and the fact that Kasey agrees with Lisa and befriends her viscerally sours something within the depths of my soul.

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First, for the trigger discussions: Cass didn't trigger from the death of her friends, she triggered from the physical trauma of being swept away in a flood, battered bloody, and nearly drowned. She also double-triggered (as her first trigger didn't get her out of the flood, so she was still drowning and being beaten against the rest of the flotsam). That's why she can barely bring herself to shower and completely lost her faculties when she fell into Leviathan's wave attack, but was "only" inconsolable after getting kicked out of BB: while it was playing on past trauma, it was not playing on Kasey's trigger trauma, for what little that's worth.

I disagree that Cass 'still hasn't healed' from her trauma regarding Lisa. Healing from trauma doesn't mean 'erasing' it, it means no longer being retraumatized every time the memory surfaces. The fact that Cassandra could have a frank discussion about Lisa with Megan without flashbacks, panic attacks, or emotional flooding is the clearest indication of 'healing' I can think of, even if it was as much from the Fiat Mental Health Fix as anything else. She picked up some bad thought-habits from the experience that she hasn't purged yet, true, but that's mostly because she wasn't consciously aware of the need to address them.

I think calling Lisa 'monstrous' is reductive. You can call her 'actions' monstrous, but said actions were the product of a traumatized teenager lashing out like a caged animal at a (subjective) abuser. It was only after Kasey left that Lisa was able to think clearly enough to realize what she'd done - a mirror to Kasey's own distance-fueled realization of fault.

I also think saying Cass 'agrees' with Lisa is an oversimplification; agreeing with Lisa's claims of her maleficence does not mean agreeing with Lisa's reactions to the same. "Lisa had valid complaints" and "Lisa was beyond cruel in delivering them" are not mutually exclusive.

if nothing else, clean-up perks at the end of the jump.

But honestly, I find this "someone hurt me so bad, I can never get over it" thing… just doesn't fit with what I understand of psychology. Yeah trauma is a thing, but people can work past their trauma. People can forgive. What's unrealistic about it?

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Yes. Part of Kasey's healing (Kasey's healing, during the Jump) was forgiving Lisa for returning the trauma Kasey had inflicted on her five-fold. If that forgiveness helped Kasey deal with the trauma, it doesn't matter if Lisa "deserved" it or not.

Sorry, I didn't see this before my bigger post, but as I address in my point above. Lisa caused a lot of her own emotional distress. Kasey's "background music" was never to harm Lisa. Lisa turned it into her own worst nightmare because she's so insecure she cannot trust the good in anyone without her power telling her it exists. Probably because unlike Kasey, she is the kind of person who would do the things she fears from her "friend"

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I think the 'died of sheer fright' moments Chloe was referring to were things like Lisa's shard seeing Homura and 'screaming in existential terror', not the background music stuff. I do think you've hit the nail on the head in that she can't trust anyone her power can't verify (and to some degree control). Lisa has control issues and Kasey is fundamentally in control, and that means every moment Lisa spends in her presence is playing chopsticks on her childhood/early life trauma.

Does this excuse what she does to Kasey? No, but I think it provides enough context to say that she isn't a "monster" either, just a damaged person reduced to the basest form of empathy: making other people hurt the way you hurt.

 

[Vongrak]

I suppose I am getting a little too much on Lisa's case... but I never did think at any point Lisa did things that made no sense. I think it was a logical (if very sad) way for her to look at the world. @Tempestuous. I think the anger comes from the fact I see what she did as a worse betrayal then Kasey's but I do wonder how much of that is because we see her as the perspective character.

"i didn't consider the consequences of my actions and how they would affect others" is perhaps mitigating but in no way exculpatory. Lack of malicious intent does not erase the harm caused, and frankly Kelsey was very very irresponsible.

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I think I'd like to comment on that. Sure Kasey didn't consider how her actions would affect others, but I don't think that if she thought about it she could ever possibly understand that Lisa would have such a big deal about it. This isn't "I didn't realise I was hurting your feelings sorry" I feel it is more like "I cannot possible comprehend what this background stuff did to you. It is not something I can or will understand and unlike you, who CAN nearly read minds, I cannot, and as such I had no no way of knowing this was such a big deal because it is so far outside of my comprehension" if that makes sense.

Like... there is a duty of care to your friends, but your friends have a duty of care as well, if they have big issues with something your doing, you need to tell them. For something like this, I can't see how Kasey or Cass could have ever figured it out. I think you'd need Max or someone with equivalent social perks to do so.

As to the power imbalance. Frankly, I don't really know what to do about that one. Someone will always have more power in the relationship, and I think the issues Lisa has stem more from her not being able to deal with it then that it exists at all.

 

[Vongrak]

Also, I want to ask. Did people enjoy the little skit with the shoulder figures? I see a lot of people adressing my rant, and going back and forth with that is fun, but I'd also like to hear people's thoughts on how I outlined the way I felt about things in that manner. Was it fun?

And can I encourage other people to try it? It was surprising enjoyable to write that section.

 

[TransientHorizon]

I think I'd like to comment on that. Sure Kasey didn't consider how her actions would affect others, but I don't think that if she thought about it she could ever possibly understand that Lisa would have such a big deal about it. This isn't "I didn't realise I was hurting your feelings sorry" I feel it is more like "I cannot possible comprehend what this background stuff did to you. It is not something I can or will understand and unlike you, who CAN nearly read minds, I cannot, and as such I had no no way of knowing this was such a big deal because it is so far outside of my comprehension" if that makes sense.

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Kasey/Cassandra is the self-insert of Tempestuous, the person who wrote that story and Lisa's actions.

I cannot be made to believe that Kasey wouldn't have understood it if she had stopped to think about it for a good while.

 

[cranical form]

My memory isn't the best since It's been a while since I read that section, so forgive me if this was all covered in text or in the replies.

My take on all this is that, at the end of the day, Kasey's foreknowledge and position as a jumper meant she held a great responsibility by interacting with canon characters, and then even more so once she befriended them.

The reality is that while Kasey became the closest to the situation, any one of the people who imported could have stopped her trigger or been right there to help her out after it occurred. Personally if I was in Taylor's shoes I would absolutely be livid that more wasn't done by a group so intimately familiar with my fate and life and with so much power, and Kasey is a face and a name taking the full brunt of those feelings.

We also can't forget that, even beyond the individual situations that face Taylor or Lisa or Kasey, Earth Bet is a really bad place. I feel constantly drained and numb from the state of our world, I couldn't imagine the mental toll everyone faces in a world so much more degraded and dangerous like Bet.

It was a complicated and emotionally charged situation, and I think Kasey decisions were more than reasonable given her complicated circumstances. But I also think it's only because of our potion as readers that the insight into her perspective and situation we have allows us to understand that so readily.

I can't blame either side, just like I think the relationship failing in EGS was a situation where both could have made better choices but weren't awful people for the ones they made. The writing in this story has been superb in part because these situations come up where I can see how a conflict came to be and understand why people hold the positions they do.

 

[Vongrak]

Kasey/Cassandra is the self-insert of Tempestuous, the person who wrote that story and Lisa's actions.

I cannot be made to believe that Kasey wouldn't have understood it if she had stopped to think about it for a good while.

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While I am aware of that, Cassandra isn't JUST the author self insert, they are mostly the author self insert. I feel the distinction needs to be made and I'm not sure the argument is fair at all.

My take on all this is that, at the end of the day, Kasey's foreknowledge and position as a jumper meant she held a great responsibility by interacting with canon characters, and then even more so once she befriended them.

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You are outlining Cass' beliefs. We see later on and through other people that they don't really aree with that. Zero for example thinks it's perfectly fine to "become" the insert. Really immerse yourself. Other people have other arguments for it but while Cass was able to explain it to other Companions, and have a few understand her problems, most of them don't agree with her line of logic.

Which, regardless of what that means for your point is also extremely fascinating. Seeing that deversity of opinion has been one of my favourite things about the extended cast

 

[Chloe Sullivan]

As to the power imbalance. Frankly, I don't really know what to do about that one. Someone will always have more power in the relationship, and I think the issues Lisa has stem more from her not being able to deal with it then that it exists at all.

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I think that this is a difficult topic to approach. But like, I tagged #yesallwomen because I think it's the most obvious metaphor here.

That tag exists because a lot of men tend to view everything through a lens informed by their masculine socialization and have a hard time grasping a feminine viewpoint.

Specifically they have a hard time realizing how differently women are socialized to respond to social engagement with people they don't know well and the inherent feeling of threat generated by a (relatively) unknown guy persistently trying to engage with them and often unthinkingly denying social or physical lines of retreat.

Many men reject this viewpoint (this basically denies that women's perspective is valid, which is not a good start) because they are, under their own threat assessment metrics, "a physically unimposing, nice guy -not threatening" or something in that range.

Except the women they socially and physically impose on have a very different metric - "won't take hints to give me space, blocks my avenues of disengagement, likely physically stronger - conclusion: very threatening, would like to leave now"

And unlike so many women who are socialized to default to minimizing their own concerns to avoid conflict, Lisa does indeed actually express her fear out loud. The red flags are pretty blatantly there in the narrative.

And Kelsey just bull-in-a-China-shops her through everything. "Look how colorful and silly and fun I am, nah I'm not threatening."

"Bitca, please, you told Lisa that the (second?) most Dangerous assassin in the world is your sister and will intervene on your behalf."

Lisa is very much on the same social context as the woman in a locked car with a guy she is increasing frightened by and he won't let her out and the door locks are set to driver-release-only, and hey wait I don't recognize these roads where are we going?

And she's there for months, in narrative.

If she wasn't already a cape, that would be a trigger event right there.

 

[Tempestuous]

While I am aware of that, Cassandra isn't JUST the author self insert, they are mostly the author self insert. I feel the distinction needs to be made and I'm not sure the argument is fair at all.

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I think it's an entirely fair argument, to the point I might have raised it myself if no one else had. (Don't forget we later learn Cass has an innate perk for understanding other people's perspectives!)

And unlike so many women who are socialized to default to minimizing their own concerns to avoid conflict, Lisa does indeed actually express her fear out loud. The red flags are pretty blatantly there in the narrative.

And Kelsey just bull-in-a-China-shops her through everything. "Look how colorful and silly and dun I am, nah I'm not threatening."

"Bitca, please, you told Lisa that the world's (second?) most Dangerous assassin in the world is your sister and will intervene on your behalf."

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The irony is that if Kasey had been willing to ease up on that power imbalance and let Lisa cold-read her, Lisa might not have been so terrified because she could have understood that Kasey really was a clueless tourist without any ulterior motives beyond thinking Lisa was a Super Cool Person she wanted to associate with (a little creepy but whatever). It wasn't like Kasey didn't know almost as much about Lisa as Lisa would learn about her! But Kasey wouldn't offer that reciprocity because she felt like it was her prerogative as a Self-Insert Protagonist to have all the privileged information, and it blew up in her face in an entirely preventable way.

 

[Blaflaix]

Lisa is very much on the same social context as the woman in a locked car with a guy she is increasing frightened by and he won't let her out and the door locks are set to driver-release-only, and hey wait I don't recognize these roads where are we going?

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So here's a bit of mind-bending.

To a certain extent, the rest of the Undersiders are in the same situation with Lisa.

Lisa is the one in contact with Coil, who pays for their hideout, equipment, paychecks, access to medical care.
Lisa knows all their secrets.
Lisa could destroy Brian's prospects, report Alec, and Bitch is basically always assuming people are plotting behind her back and limits herself accordingly.

And none of them know she was threatened by Coil.
In fact, she never even gave a hint that Coil might not be a good person to work for, just let them get recruited and ensnared.
All while she kept a stranglehold on the entire team, socially speaking.

If Lisa decided to throw her weight around, it could get ugly.

And all of them lived with that for months, without even thinking about it, because that's just the way things are.
No matter what they'd never have absolute control over their lives, and they didn't really expect to.

 

[Hestia&theCourt]

The irony is that if Kasey had been willing to ease up on that power imbalance and let Lisa cold-read her, Lisa might not have been so terrified because she could have understood that Kasey really was a clueless tourist without any ulterior motives beyond thinking Lisa was a Super Cool Person she wanted to associate with.

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...now that you put it like that, there seem to be some serious parallels between that and Cass's later argument with Max. We're a little too tired right now to really dig into the ramifications of that, but we're suspecting that was a very deliberate choice of your part.

 

[RandomOTP]

I think it's an entirely fair argument, to the point I might have raised it myself if no one else had. (Don't forget we later learn Cass has an innate perk for understanding other people's perspectives!)

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I know that tone and intent can be misinterpreted or murky over textual mediums, so I want to preface my question with the statement that I mean this with total sincerity and no ill-intent or maliciously intended sarcasm.

Since Cass is "mostly" a Self-Insert character, should we refrain from examining Cass's character in detail?

I have a habit of analyzing other fanfics on this site with the same degree of focus I bring to classical literature (insert "curtains are blue" joke here). However, an SI is a fictional representative of yourself, and I can understand how such a thing might be uncomfortable for you, the author herself.

I ask because I don't want to make you in any way uncomfortable, or otherwise reluctant to engage with we-the-readership.

 

[Tempestuous]

I know that tone and intent can be misinterpreted or murky over textual mediums, so I want to preface my question with the statement that I mean this with total sincerity and no ill-intent or maliciously intended sarcasm.

Since Cass is "mostly" a Self-Insert character, should we refrain from examining Cass's character in detail?

I have a habit of analyzing other fanfics on this site with the same degree of focus I bring to classical literature (insert "curtains are blue" joke here). However, an SI is a fictional representative of yourself, and I can understand how such a thing might be uncomfortable for you, the author herself.

I ask because I don't want to make you in any way uncomfortable, or otherwise reluctant to engage with we-the-readership.

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I have submitted myself for examination. Analyze away!

(I sincerely adore anyone who treats my work with the same blend of 'respect' and 'dissection' usually reserved for the "high art" of classical literature.)

 

[OxfordOctopus]

I think that this is a difficult topic to approach. But like, I tagged #yesallwomen because I think it's the most obvious metaphor here.

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I really shouldn't have to be the one to point this out, honestly, but framing your criticism of a trans woman's actions through the explicit lens of how men coerce and abuse women while maintaining a facade of being a "good person" and "nonthreatening" is... not a good thing to do, I feel?

I do honestly see where Lisa and Taylor were coming from. Broadly speaking Lisa was getting a lot of mixed signals from her power and I imagine that added to the issue, but Cass did enter their lives and behave as though it was, in a lot of ways, a game. Their reactions are, to me, fundamentally coherent in a way that isn't hard to track along a line of logic: there were a lot of open ends and even more complicated questions that Lisa's power was picking up on, which culminated in the situation they ended up in. I was sad for how that entire situation played out, but I understood how all of it could feel like a kind of penultimate breach of trust and decency to someone who is so highly sensitive to the actions of other people.

On the complete other hand, however, I can say that without making comparisons between creepy, aggressive men who lock women in their cars and drive them in the opposite direction, when the person I'm talking about is a trans woman. Decoupling the two examples is, I think, key in here, because we can talk about how there was a distinct power imbalance, and how in a lot of ways Cass's situation leveraged that power imbalance (sometimes without her realizing it, other times less so) to get what she wanted.

I'm just saying that maybe that was... really the wrong kind of comparison to make, especially in this current news climate and especially considering the rhetoric going around about trans women right now? Especially in a situation where, while Cass was involved in a power imbalance, there was no part of it which was even close in context to the examples of men using their own inherent power to push women into being sexual with them when they do not want to. Because that is, honestly, a bit of a transphobic argument.

 

[Enthusiast#117]

Kasey/Cassandra is the self-insert of Tempestuous, the person who wrote that story and Lisa's actions.

I cannot be made to believe that Kasey wouldn't have understood it if she had stopped to think about it for a good while.

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That strikes me as a theory/practice divide.
As an author, understanding how events and situations affect your characters is expected.

In theory, that sort of insight in to how people work can be used to understand other people in real life.

In practice, I doubt authors are any more equipped to avoid dropping the ball like this than anyone else.

People are generally pretty blind to their own behavior unless something or someone points things out to them.

Is it really being a dick if there is no malicious intent? It strikes me as merely being tragic.

Dickishness is more about not caring about the harm you cause, not being unaware of it.

I think that this is a difficult topic to approach. But like, I tagged #yesallwomen because I think it's the most obvious metaphor here.

That tag exists because a lot of men tend to view everything through a lens informed by their masculine socialization and have a hard time grasping a feminine viewpoint.

Specifically they have a hard time realizing how differently women are socialized to respond to social engagement with people they don't know well and the inherent feeling of threat generated by a (relatively) unknown guy persistently trying to engage with them and often unthinkingly denying social or physical lines of retreat.

Many men reject this viewpoint (this basically denies that women's perspective is valid, which is not a good start) because they are, under their own threat assessment metrics, "a physically unimposing, nice guy -not threatening" or something in that range.

Except the women they socially and physically impose on have a very different metric - "won't take hints to give me space, blocks my avenues of disengagement, likely physically stronger - conclusion: very threatening, would like to leave now"

And unlike so many women who are socialized to default to minimizing their own concerns to avoid conflict, Lisa does indeed actually express her fear out loud. The red flags are pretty blatantly there in the narrative.

And Kelsey just bull-in-a-China-shops her through everything. "Look how colorful and silly and dun I am, nah I'm not threatening."

"Bitca, please, you told Lisa that the world's (second?) most Dangerous assassin in the world is your sister and will intervene on your behalf."

Lisa is very much on the same social context as the woman in a locked car with a guy she is increasing frightened by and he won't let her out and the door locks are set to driver-release-only, and hey wait I don't recognize these roads where are we going?

And she's there for months, in narrative.

If she wasn't already a cape, that would be a trigger event right there.

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When you speak of men imposing on women, the tragedy is that the guy is still trying to be non-threatening. The fact that he's failing is due to his lack of experience with the differing perspective. Or his being an idiot and not picking up on more explicit social cues. Either or. None of that makes him a dick.

I find it telling that I had to learn about the "Don't ask someone out while they're working" rule from this thread, instead of it being part of any dating advice I ever received in adolescence.

Intuitively, being at your place of work where people you know are around to defend you from a potential physical aggressor strikes me as a place where one should feel safest.

It's meeting a stranger where you have friends around to help and they don't.

I might know intellectually that male aggression tends to manifest physically, while female aggression tends to manifest as reputation destruction, but that just means my intuitions for what registers as aggression to women are wrong, it doesn't actually help me predict how to avoid tripping over landmines such as this. I needed to be taught where the limits of my perspective were.


For this reason, I think your analogy with Lisa is flawed: With the car, the subtext of being stuck alone with a guy you don't want to be alone with should be obvious to everyone. Pretty much everyone is socialized to see problems with that.

However, in this day and age, who realistically has the power of life and death over the people around them and has been socialized to deal with it?
As a society we generally try to avoid that situation coming up in the first place, instead of figuring out how to live with it.

When would Kasey have been taught how to ethically relate to people you have that much power over, that the blame for getting it wrong can be laid at her feet?

 

[TransientHorizon]

Enthusiast, I'm sorry I have to be the one to tell you this, but "I didn't know I was doing something harmful" is not universally exonerating. Even aside from situations where the consensus is that you should have known- and there are a lot of those- there are situations where the harm you do is sufficiently great that your profession of ignorance will not make anyone besides yourself feel better.

 

[redironwolf]

When you speak of men imposing on women, the tragedy is that the guy is still trying to be non-threatening.

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It's funny, because even when men are 'trying to be non-threatening', they are still trying to exert social pressure to coerce someone towards their goals.

They know what they're doing, they just don't accept that its bad.

In this thread:

a lot of men tend to view everything through a lens informed by their masculine socialization

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When would Kasey have been taught how to ethically relate to people you have that much power over, that the blame for getting it wrong can be laid at her feet?

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It's not about blame. Lisa (WoG) had enough, snapped, and bit the hand outside the cage. She then realized that no, Kasey was a dumb tourist, and felt bad about it. However, being an actual teenager, she doubled down. Later, she felt bad about it.

Kasey was a dumb tourist, made dumber by accepting trauma, which looks really bad to capes who actually undergo triggers. It's like she was saying "Oh, the worst day of your life? That looks fun, I'll have two scoops plskthx. Hey look! Now we're samsies lets be biffle."

Dumb American stereotype? Check. Actually harmful? Yup. Now she's learned better? Definitely.

FWIW, Companion Chronicles certainly opened my eyes much wider to the ethical implications of how people internalize their inserts. In particular, the tourism. Is bad. Thank you, Tempestuous. You're amazing! Keep being you

 

[dhasenan]

Kasey/Cassandra is the self-insert of Tempestuous, the person who wrote that story and Lisa's actions.

I cannot be made to believe that Kasey wouldn't have understood it if she had stopped to think about it for a good while.

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The problem with this sort of thinking is that it only allows an author to write Xanatos pileups and each chapter takes thirty times as long to write. Also, an author is taking on a duty to think through different people's points of view in a way that people normally don't do in daily life.

FWIW, Companion Chronicles certainly opened my eyes much wider to the ethical implications of how people internalize their inserts. In particular, the tourism. Is bad. Thank you, Tempestuous. You're amazing! Keep being you

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"I want to see an Endbringer battle" style tourism is bad because you're using people's suffering for entertainment. "I want to see the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire from Doctor Who" style tourism is fine; there are tons of tourists native to the empire, after all.