#(​also no I'm not actually saying he's doesn't want power. it's a rhetorical trick to get people to continue going to WHY he wants it)

[kanayaks]

actually gale doesn't crave power he craves transcendence. he wants nothing more than to not be himself

[thewertsearch]

AG: You can do it, John. 8e the hero! AG: Just like in one of your movies a8out sweaty, rugged adult human males. EB: ah HA! EB: so you did watch that video I sent.

Lest we forget, John's a little responsible for Vriska's development, too. What goes around comes around!

AG: 8y the way, John, have you ever considered growing your hair out? AG: I 8et it would look fa8ulous. EB: no, it would look so stupid!

I'm not so sure. I mean, I couldn't see John with Cameron Poe hair, but I do think he could rock a ponytail.

EB: before i fell asleep, i was about to prototype something really ridiculous to make jack weaker. EB: i am pretty sure that it would have made jack lose both eyes, both arms, and give him silly blue hair, and possibly also make him be a girl?

Could I take a dip in the kernel, actually? HRT is slow as fuck.

EB: but instead, it was prototyped by jade's first guardian dog lusus. EB: and now he is unstoppable! [...] AG: Of course I realized that would happen. AG: It was pretty much the whole point, you goof!

Oh, boy.

AG: No matter what you or I or any of us did, Jack's here now. That's the reality! AG: And if I didn't stop you, it wouldn't have changed the reality for us here. We'd still 8e hiding on this rock, and he'd still 8e out there, sniffing around for us. [...] AG: All that REALLY would have happened is I would have allowed you to do something you weren't supposed to do! [...] AG: And then you and all your friends would exist in a splintered timeline. And you wouldn't even 8e a8le to talk to me anymore! ::::(

...alright. If I take my brain, and turn it Vriska-wards, I can kind of see how she'd be able to rationalize this to herself. Jack's ascension is already baked into the Alpha Timeline, so it can't really be 'her fault', even if she consciously, deliberately caused it to feed her own ego.

There is, however, one major problem with her line of reasoning.

Vriska didn't know that she was responsible for Jack - not until just now.

Before that, she'd have been able to see him falling asleep at the critical moment - but Vriska isn't the only source of Player narcolepsy in the Medium. For all she knew, her powers could have interfered with the actual reason John fell asleep - for example, some event involving his dream self, which she can't see.

She couldn't know for sure if she was fucking something up, by doing this - but she did it anyway.

AG: I did it 8ecause I wanted to 8e the one responsi8le for cre8ting him.

And she did it because she wanted to.

This is, I think, the most important point to drill in on. Everything else - all that equivocation about doomed timelines - it all adds up to nothing but justification after the fact. She wanted to do this, it was fully in line with her established attitude towards John, and she did it for selfish, but entirely genuine, reasons.

Vriska isn't a Paradox Space P-Zombie. She's fully in control of her actions, and the existence of the Alpha Timeline doesn't absolve her of their consequences.

.... and no, I don't care what Doc Scratch says. That's just a rhetorical trick he uses to get people - Vriska, usually - to do what he wants.

I'm half convinced that Vriska is only fated to do all this bad shit because she'd want to do it anyway. Maybe if she grows as a person, the Alpha Timeline won't be able to encode any more Vriska Incidents, since it could no longer maneuver her into a position where she wants to perpetrate them.

And if that's true, people like Doc Scratch have a vested interest in keeping her the way she is. Food for thought.

[tequiladimples]

I hope this doesn't come off as rude, but I saw that you dislike when collision is branded het cause you're not het, but no one's talking about you personally? like for me, I really like collision but I can understand the criticism in a way and that isn't an attack on you (or an attack at all lol). again hope I'm not rude but idk it seems unnecessary to get upset, it's better to take it as constructive criticism

sigh i don't think ur rude but it simply isn't constructive.

look i’ll talk abt this one more time n then i Beg we can put it to rest! (this is gna be a lot of word vomit but if i'm elaborative now i hope i won't have to talk abt this ever again)

i’m deeply insecure abt many aspects of collision. i don’t really keep that a secret. i also know some ppl don't like fantasy, some ppl don't like the kinds of dynamics i like, some ppl don't vibe with my style of writing (hell, i barely vibe with my style of writing). those things are fine. i can't control that and i don't take that personally. the reason why this is the one critique i do take personally is because it genuinely presumes wrongful, harmful things about me and my values, especially when i've made deliberate efforts to avoid writing the exact flavor of fic they're accusing me of having written. just because people don’t mean for what they say to reflect back on me, doesn’t stop it from doing so.

the thing about calling something a “het fic” is that the term brings along certain connotations which i don’t stand by at all and feel deeply uncomfortable and distraught to possibly have created. i’ve gone over this godforsaken story again and again just to be absolutely sure i didn’t actually do so. when people say “het fic” they generally don’t mean “boy meets girl and they fall in love”, they mean “super rude and mean boy meets uptight virtuous girl and makes her fall in dependence with him through manipulation and treating her like shit until she behaves how he wants.” and that is straight up not the fic i wrote. i’m not stupid. i know the dynamic i went with is widely and easily misused and there’s a lot of fiction depicting really bad, uneven, unhealthy relationships through it. i knew this going in, and i’ve tried persistently to avoid making those same mistakes. 

skipping over the fact that they’re both boys (bc duh)--harry doesn't exhibit any real manipulative power over louis. collision harry is a grumpy, fruity little nerd who happened upon a really unfortunate lot in life and managed to trick himself into believing he's evil for like half a second of the story and his resolves crumble like a danish pastry the moment he receives his first hug. he's kind of aloof and arrogant, and understandably hardened from his past, but he's not bad. he's just lost. that's the basis of his character arc. now on the other hand, louis has harry wrapped around his finger starting like chapter 4. harry’s the one who opens up emotionally first, harry’s the one desperately seeking louis’ approval and caring about his opinion, harry’s the one who makes himself vulnerable continuously throughout the entire story. the only time louis makes himself vulnerable on a comparable scale is during the smut scenes, and even then, harry is gentle and attentive and puts louis first. louis is less experienced than harry in that area, but he isn't scared or intimidated by harry, and he has full reigns of the progression and nature of their relationship as a whole. that’s kind of how it needs to go with tough x soft dynamics for the power balance to not feel uneven, and i wrote the story accordingly. if you then happen to still be so blindly determined to associate soft/small with weakness (and thereby uh, womanhood ig) that you still felt like louis had an inferior position to harry solely because he is indeed soft/small, that sounds quite frankly like a you problem.

now, the whole point of louis’ character is that he’s underestimated. sure, he’s naive and self-centered and sheltered from the real world--that’s the basis of his character arc. those things all change. but louis isn’t ever weak. like idk who apparently needs to hear this but you can be small and simultaneously not be a pushover. the two aren’t mutually exclusive. there isn’t a single time louis takes shit in this story, especially not from harry; he gives back as good as he gets every time. oh! and then he literally saves the entire universe and the execution of that whole thing was his idea alone. i tried really hard to underline how strong-willed and full of grit he is to contrast what others think of him. if you think he’s portrayed as a meek and frail damsel, you missed the point. once again, i feel like we circle back to this misconception of louis being kind of naive and physically small = louis being inferior = louis being female. just do some soul searching.

(i could also get into the fact that for a bunch of people who don’t know these boys personally (no matter how much we like to think we do), this fandom is weirdly opinionated about characterization. especially regarding sexual stuff. i know creating a version for ourselves of who we think these boys are based on things we recognize in ourselves or things we find endearing is part of the comfort with loving them. but that doesn’t really equate to actually knowing them, and besides, this is fan fiction; no one’s opting to write a biography, anyway. being experimental and explorative and putting different aspects of their personalities in different lightings is what makes fic fun. if someone’s writing harmful or one-dimensional characters, that’s one thing, and preferences is again whatever floats your boat. but the “out of character” argument feels mostly really strange to me. this is a bit of a tangent, though.)

lastly, the thing is that i will and i do take it personally if someone insinuates that a character--a gay character--that i, a lesbian, construed is a secret vessel for expressing heterosexual attraction. if someone calls louis a “self-insert”, that does reflect back on me. and to elaborate on that--i don’t particularly love to bring it up, but it's quite disheartening to pour personal PTSD experiences into a character and rly put effort into doing it right and justice and underline growth and healing, just to find out people disregard all that completely in favor of declaring that my self-projection lies in the attraction to a man--which is to say, the one thing i couldn’t possibly feel more estranged from. it's so incredibly tactless. i feel thoroughly whiny at this point but how is that not supposed to make me a little sad?

anyway. none of this is to say that you can’t dislike or critique collision. you can. sometimes ppl don’t like things. but i hope i’m clear about where i’m coming from with my discomfort now. people’s preferences and dislikes are indeed not mine to be hurt by, but these things are. this definitely got unnecessarily long and i probably look like i take myself unbearably seriously (i promise i don’t), so i’m sorry. but at least i've said everything now, and if i encounter this sort of rhetoric in the future, i have something to redirect people to. also anon, none of this is directly pointed at you, i know you mean well. take care <3