#exploded houses

it's not necessarily a permanent status to be one--people can change--but my deeply held instinct is that once you have done something monstrous you will always be a person who has been a monster by your own choices, and that it's your duty to learn how to accept that while still living your life, and act accordingly from thereon out. you have to reconcile that you are a person with the fact that some doors are closed to you now, and it's up to you to decide what you do from there.

just. like. even when i hate someone and as far as i'm concerned they can go fuck themself, even in the multiple Heavily Badger social environments i've been in over the course of my life--church, progressive circles, the way the structure of the internet kind of just affects you in general--even on occasions where i've gotten swept away and given in to the pressure to dehumanize (or perform it) for a minute, there's always, always been a voice in the back of my head saying this is a person. this is a person. this is a person. this isn't right.

unintentional dehumanization sets off my '...should we really be doing this? we are getting into not good territory here, it's time to pull up and start questioning' alarms. explicit, intentional, purposeful dehumanization sets off the whole ass tornado sirens. if people on my side are doing it it's enough to throw me into a system-destabilizing crisis, because NO NO NO I WANT TO GET OFF THIS RIDE, I WANT NO PART OF THESE PEOPLE'S MORAL SYSTEM, I FEEL UNCLEAN. it's a good way to make sure i will never, ever, ever trust someone again.

things that are Really Really Badger, off the top of my head (after the cut because Long and trauma talk):

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-i've always loved playing adoptable games, pet simulators, etc? any game with randomly generated characters that are Yours Now and a Community, in a deeply badgery way. including games where they can die (the satisfying part is making sure they don't). except that, no matter how much fun the gameplay is, if it gets to the point where they start feeling disposable, and the only way to really keep playing is to stop humanizing them, i lose interest. it's super fucking depressing. it feels like part of me dying inside a little. i don't like it at all.

-i've always been drawn to fandoms and roleplaying communities. i was fiercely loyal to, and proud of, my first rp community on dragoncave as a 13-year-old. when my abusive mom found out about it and completely isolated me for half a year, the promise of being able to make it back to them--just sneakier this time--kept me going; when i finally got back and the group had drifted apart in my absence, it.... was absolutely devastating. i never really recovered from it. even then, i spent years trying to get the group back together every now and then, until i finally gave up.

-i am always keenly, painfully aware of the life cycle of a community. every time i hear the sentiment 'you guys are all great and i love this group' my stomach drops, because i know it's only a matter of time before things go sour or the group dissolves. rp groups, skype chats/discord servers, fandoms, you name it, i am always bracing myself or staying away entirely to avoid the inevitable and it hurts. and it hurts to see people taking part in a community i don't dare be part of, which makes lurking in fandoms... really rough. frankly, it takes me a lot of courage every time i express my appreciation for the shc community because i've been burned so many times.

-on that note: i went through some really traumatic stuff at the end of 2020 that completely turned my life upside down, and i was doing bad until i stumbled across the shc community. the moment i started engaging, it was a huge boost to my mental health, and my ability to cope with circumstances under which i was about to break down spectacularly. and it has been ever since! contributing to The Group Project and seeing other folks being friendly with each other gives me the happy feelings.

-i used to go out of my way to build and run spaces, mainly fandom and rp spaces, and took a lot of pride in engineering them so that they Functioned Well. unfortunately it wore me the hell down over the years for Burnt Badger Reasons, and now i'm too jaded, bitter, and exhausted to give a shit about being a mod/community leader anymore because of it lmao

-among those burnt badger things i relate HARD to the Red Ledger narrative. hoo boy.

-i wish i could find it again, but there was an mlp comic i saw once which went into luna's observations of what each element of harmony Means. with the element of friendship, she says that twilight has a massive amount of love to give; right now it's all focused on celestia, but when she learns to expand it outward she'll have grown into her full potential as a person, and she'll change the world. that struck a chord with how i used to feel, hard, and it's really stuck with me ever since. (hello, unhealthy snake model)

-emphasis on 'used to feel,' lmao

-got super invested in a really toxic '''mental health''' community at a low point in my life; exploded HARD trying to help everyone i could; got into vicious, protracted fights with the shitty mods for years about the harmful way they ran their community until i finally managed to go 'fuck this it's not getting better' and leave.

-had to numb myself emotionally to the people around me for a long time once i really started learning about mental health and trauma stuff, because now i was seeing signs of their pain and baggage everywhere i looked, and i couldn't handle not being able to help.

-the imagery with which i think about my bird primary is overwhelmingly negative. whether it's my actual primary or a model, i uh. i feel like a healthy relationship to one's primary doesn't involve associating it with gore.

-i saw a conversation recently about how birds think of morality in terms of 'if you can, you should,' and how that's scary for badgers because their definition of 'can' involves destroying yourself for the sake of that 'should,' and... yeah, that's a mood. that's a BIG mood. thinking about bird primary stuff is hard--and i had to pick up my lion model to deal with it--because it's so easy for me to spiral into a self-shredding spiral of other people are counting on you to do the right thing, how dare you pull back for your own health and sanity. how dare you turn your back for even a minute. how dare you rest. the work is never done.

which is... a very exploded badger approach to exploded bird morality. whoops.

-fix-it and time travel fiction in which Everything Went Right This Time and It's Going to Be Okay are one of my very favorite self-indulgent fantasies. i will enjoy putting characters through the wringer in all kinds of creatively horrific ways which may or may not end on a downer note, certainly, i love that shit, but i will also 90% of the time have a backup version of the arc or dynamic that's softer and lighter and Actually Healthy This Time. it's the dichotomy there that really gets me tbh, a story where Everything Ends Happily by default will mmmaybe pull me in? but stories where there's the constant shadow of this could end horribly, it's supposed to end horribly, and we got a happy fucking ending anyway are just... that shit will make me cry, man.

it's also why i kind of really hate stable time loop stories where it initially looks like this is going to be The Good Timeline this time around, but OOPSIE everything went to shit anyway! we're right back where we started, just like it was meant to be all along! it's a tired cliche by this point and an unsatisfying one for me, and it makes me roll my eyes every time.

-this is relevant to the bird vs. badger because like... my gut instinct is to prioritize people over systems. when shit hits the fan, when someone's fallen into the machinery and is about to get hurt, i don't feel right about it if i just let it happen. i'll break the machinery if i have to to keep it away from them; i won't feel great about that, and it might cause problems, but fuck it, we'll figure it out later. throwing people into the gears of a system when i'm convinced it's the only option makes me feel Awful.

-related to the above, another trope that really speaks to me in fiction is when a character defies the rules of reality through sheer force of will. no, this is not happening, i don't give a shit what the limits are supposed to be. i refuse to let this be the way things are. (there's that lion model.)

-i've just kind of... always wanted to be an Everyone Badger. it makes me sad how much of that i've lost over the years as i've gotten more cynical, but it's what i wish i could be.

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Philio

philio is 100% an exploded lion primary. with a REALLY LOUD exploded badger model, but he's definitely not a badger. for one thing because he doesn't seem inclined to dehumanize anyone, even the undead; for another, he's absolutely willing to let people get hurt for the sake of the cause (including himself). 

i briefly considered bird for him, because he values the test so much as an external thing that shows you who really are, but given everything else about him and his themes i'm thinking probably not. he’s all about immovable, rock-solid certainty in his cause, and any attempt to reason otherwise with him rolls off him like oil off a duck’s back. 

another interesting thing is that on the surface his morality seems to be fairly obvious ‘be kind do good help everyone...’ but when you look at it closer, it’s a little bit to the left. the actions that lower or increase his approval are actually really hard to predict until you’ve played it a few times, and have made an effort to pay attention to his actual goals and morals. otherwise, so much of the time his opinion just seems like it’s contradicting itself. 

this could be a birdy thing--building his systems around logic, just maybe not the logic you’re expecting--but the way he goes about it also seems very lion-flavored. he doesn’t explain the underlying systems well, and he certainly doesn’t seem willing to change them; he just says things and expects other people to understand, end up at the same conclusions he did, and act on it. he comes across to me as a lion with a bird model, but instead of the classic--using it to replace his intuition because he doesn’t trust it--he uses it to convince other people that he’s Right, and explain to them how to follow his morals. except he’s, uh. not great at doing that! because he leaves out some pretty critical factors in his logic! it’s all so self-evident to him!

and my GOD will he judge you if you don’t follow his morals. on the flipside, no matter how far you’ve gone against them, the moment you turn around and start going The Right Way he’ll be completely fine with you again. which... on the surface it’s almost like he models bird, only it’s how he thinks everyone else should act, and in some ways it’s kind of admirable: he believes it’s never too late to turn back and start doing better. except that for him, the emphasis isn’t on so much changing your system; it’s on whether you were secretly a good person all along and just had to dig down beneath surface-level shittiness to reveal it. it’s REALLY unsettling. 

(side note: this is by his standards! sometimes those standards are 'willing to do morally dubious things, in this case shoot a willing victim, to reach the goal you’ve set yourself on when there's absolutely no other way. but while refusing to kill unwilling people or do harm otherwise.' hell, that's how you get the best ending. it’s also entirely possible that he just really wants kirell to live, hence the contradiction; he doesn’t judge you or show any disapproval if you can’t bring yourself to kill him. either he’s working off a logic system here that i still haven’t quite figured out, which leans more bird, or he’s a lion who goes with his gut when it comes to what he thinks is right and therefore contradicts himself a lot.)  

the secondary, now... the secondary is harder.

initially i thought he was a self-hating snake secondary with a lion model, but now i'm not so sure? he values truth and authenticity above all else, but a lot of the language he uses and the way he approaches it feels very... burned snake who's consciously choosing to tie their own hands behind their back, and forgo their masks, because they think that's the right thing to do. he's really, really frustrated by people not believing him, even when he's baring his intentions as much as he possibly can--them being suspicious of him because he’s trying so hard to convince him he’s being genuine, even. this might be a lion thing, or it might be ‘oh come the fuck on, i burned my snake already, what more do you want from me?’ talking. 

a point that seem to lean in favor of lion: the fact that he’s so oblivious to the fact that people will be freaked out by his sheer frankness, especially about his motives and the things he’s willing to do for them. he realizes he’s distressing kirell by inviting her to kill him for her test, and is just like ‘oh. i’ve upset you, haven’t i. sorry about that (offer still stands, though).’ i feel like a self-hating snake secondary would probably be more aware that people could be upset by too much honesty about something like that, instead of it just not occurring to him... but it might also be that he’s neurodivergent and relies so much on masks to socialize like a ‘normal’ person. when he doesn’t have them available because he’s refusing to use them, he doesn’t know what’s appropriate, or how to tell that it’s not going over well, until the signs are obvious enough for him to pick up on them.

another point that initially seems to lean lion, but seems more snakey on closer inspection: throughout the game there’s only one part i can think of where he outright lies about something, and he’s brutally honest about some things, but at other times he’s perfectly willing to be cryptic, leave out information, and work with ulterior motives (benevolent though they may be). you might read that as a particularly slippery lion being selective about what parts of the truth they choose to emphasize, but i think the major thing that makes me lean burned snake is how he behaves in the bad endings. 

if you turn out to be a piece of shit, on the last day he gets blisteringly sarcastic and passive-aggressive, and taunts you with things like ‘oh, who, me? not like you very much? no no no, of course not, where would you get that idea. :^))))’ that kind of spiteful delight in playing with the truth reads a whole lot more to me as a hurt, furious burned snake, bleeding through the iron control they normally have over their masks, than a pissed-off lion. which REALLY says something about the sheer strength of that lion primary, because holy shit. 

...you know what? yeah, snake. i’m gonna call snake on this one.