#context is they're doing acting exercises

[stillmevalz]

/ gsnk spoilers /

"Hey, senpai... Don't stop loving theater. Even if you're on stage, even if you're not, keep those eyes on the stage and never take your eyes off me. Not even once. Keep your eyes fixed on me, your Kashima."

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Do you have any advice on how to write characters doing things while talking? Not just body language, but actual scenes, like playing games or (my default) eating

Writing Tips: Mixing Action & Dialogue

Striking a Balance

There are no hard-and-fast rules about when and when not to blend dialogue, action, and narrative.

To weave them together well is to find your story's rhythm.

But there are a few questions you can ask yourself about your story, especially in the rewrite stage, that can help you know which elements are most effective for a particular scene, and which might be better used elsewhere.

Ask yourself:

Is the story moving a little too slowly, and do I need to speed things up? (Use dialogue.)

Is it time to give the reader some background on the characters so they're more sympathetic? (Use narrative, dialogue, or a combination of the two.)

Do I have too many dialogue scenes in a row? (Use action or narrative.)

Are my characters constantly confiding in others about things they should only be pondering in their minds? (Use narrative.)

Likewise, are my characters alone in their heads when my characters in conversation would be more effective and lively? (Use dialogue.)

Is my story top-heavy in any way at all—too much dialogue, too much narrative, or too much action? (Insert more of the elements that are missing.)

Are my characters providing too many background details as they're talking to each other? (Use narrative.)

Whether we're using dialogue, action, or narrative to move the story forward, any or all 3 of these elements are doing double duty by revealing our characters' motives.

Your story's dialogue can reveal motive in a way that's natural and authentic because whether we're aware of it or not, we reveal our own motives all the time in our everyday lives.

And to understand a character's motive is to understand the character.

Action Beats - the descriptions of the expressions, movements, or even internal thoughts that accompany the speaker’s words.

They’re always included in the same paragraph as the dialogue, so as to indicate that the person acting is also the person speaking.

On a technical level, action beats keep your writing varied, manage the pace of a dialogue-heavy scene, and break up the long list of lines ending in ‘he said’ or ‘she said’.

But on a character level, action beats are even more important because they can go a level deeper than dialogue and illustrate a character’s body language.

When we communicate, dialogue only forms a half of how we get across what we want to say.

Body language is that missing half — which is why action beats are so important in visualizing a conversation, and can help you “show” rather than “tell” in writing.

Here’s a quick exercise to practice thinking about body language in the context of dialogue:

Imagine a short scene, where you are witnessing a conversation between two people from the opposite side of a restaurant or café. Because it’s noisy and you can’t hear what they are saying, describe the conversation through the use of body language only.

Remember, at the end of the day, action beats and spoken dialogue are partners in crime.

Examples

From Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, which highlights the power of interspersing action beats within dialogue:

“Tommy,” I said, quite sternly. “There’s mud all over your shirt.” “So what?” he mumbled. But even as he said this, he looked down and noticed the brown specks, and only just stopped himself crying out in alarm. Then I saw the surprise register on his face that I should know about his feelings for the polo shirt. “It’s nothing to worry about.” I said, before the silence got humiliating for him. “It’ll come off. If you can’t get it off yourself, just take it to Miss Jody.” He went on examining his shirt, then said grumpily, “It’s nothing to do with you anyway.”

Using a beat to interrupt the flow of dialogue:

“I love to write books!” John sat at the keyboard and cracked his knuckles. “But I don't like editing them as much.”

Sources: 1 2 3 4 ⚜ More: Writing References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

Choose which of these writing tips from the above sources work for your story. Hope this helps with your writing!

[smallnico]

durge desensitizes to casual positive affection and friendship compilation

also known as real feline durge hours. esper's companions look at them and say Is Anyone Gonna Manhandle That Murderous Twink and then not wait for an answer. contexts/explanations under readmore for the curious

lae'zel and esper do morning exercises and meditation together. most of the time they pass the time in silence, but sometimes they're joined by the local wildlife. esper is a great fan of showing their friends things they might find interesting as a form of affection instead of words, especially with lae'zel, since they have a common discomfort with small talk.

esper doesn't like looking at themself in the mirror, so their makeup is always ancient and haphazardly applied, a fact that distresses the more image-conscientious shadowheart. she and esper have a sibling-like relationship fuelled by mutual amnesia and goth solidarity, among other things, but sometimes a sister has to take it upon herself to fix her stinky sibling's wings.

i already expanded on wyll and esper's dynamic a bit in this piece and i didn't feel like drawing the same thing twice, but suffice it to say, they have absolutely no idea how to talk to each other, but still look out for each other. the joke here is about how i've done a couple of long rests in-game with just alcohol i've found. hey 5 camp supplies is 5 camp supplies

jaheira unearths esper's forgotten mother issues. no real things to add here. no thoughts only cub.

gale said way back in act 1 that esper reminded him of tara, and esper isn't leaning into that on purpose per se, but as i said for lae'zel, they like getting their friends things those friends might enjoy. they also love chaos. show your evocation wizard some love by bringing him extremely destructive spells to play with. show your durge some love by casting chain lightning and letting them watch

i have no justification for this one lmao. esper isn't a Huge fan of being picked up and hefted around like a sack of oats, but maybe they should've thought of that before being small and scoop-uppable. socially, esper and halsin don't click especially well, but esper is fundamentally a creature, and therefore pretty easy for halsin to understand. obviously they don't mind that much :J

esper and karlach voted two most touch-starved nerds in faerun, they help each other cope by sleeping in a cuddle pile like cats. karlach runs warm even after getting her engine tuned up, but esper doesn't mind. she's cozy

astarion is by far the person esper is the most verbal with, probably because he's the only one who really thinks the durgeisms that slip out are funny and #relatable. everyone else errs on the side of caution with esper, but astarion knows he's allowed to take liberties with them, and he does. they have the same sense of humour. these two freaks are completely insufferable together because they're vibing so hard on a level incomprehensible to everyone around them, but astarion can put a stop to esper's self-destructive internal stress engine, and esper can drag him into helping and working hard. the others have no choice but to tolerate them as a couple because no matter how unhinged they are as a unit, they're so much worse for society on the whole as individuals. do not separate them

if you read all this, hope you enjoyed this illumination of esper's party dynamics, i love you <3 enjoy

[mixelation]

Do you have any advice about writing humor? It might be the case that it's just instinctual, but if you have any tips, I'd love to hear!

interesting question! unfortunately for advice giving, i do think writing humor IS pretty instinctual for me. like most skills, it's something that's improved with practice, and i've spent a lot of time practicing, but i don't have much in terms of techniques or resources i can point at. what's funny is often also pretty subjective so what i do might not work forever! but here's some random thoughts for writing humor in the context of fic

"rule of three" is actually a pretty good rule. if you don't know it, it's common advice for writing (and presenting) that people's brains find a concept/idea/list of examples/whatever to be most satisfying when grouped in three. for humor writing purposes, what this usually means is that a recurring joke will have the most impact if it's brought up three times, and your third use should be the biggest punchline. any more, and the joke has probably overstayed its welcome, but only twice will feel like "weird that happened twice." like any writing rule, there's ways to break it effectively, but it's a good rule of thumb

writing humor in fiction is often an exercise in timing and pacing, and how your word choices and what parts of your setting you choose to linger on affect that. you know how the timing/delivery of a joke makes a huge difference IRL? it makes a difference in fiction too! you don't want something to drag on too long, but also a good joke (imho) needs adequate build-up. writing a funny conversation? you can artificially add beats by padding it with actions or dialogue tags. circumstances really funny? you might need to set up a setting really well, or establish someone's characterization really well BEFORE making something weird and zany happen.

i love writing jokes that play with the reader's foreknowledge or expectations. this is especially easy in fanfiction, where you don't have to explain some aspect of worldbuilding, plot, etc necessary to understand why something is so funny.

personally, i don't like when fiction sacrifices established characterization or internal logic of a story to emphasize a joke. especially in fanfiction, many fics are already working with worlds that have something bizarre or stupid about them to play with, and have room to add details (potentially for humorous reasons) that fit with the logic of the world.

i would recommend against over reliance on references and memes for jokes. these are fun in realtime conversation, but for writing, often will simply stop being funny within months of being written because of how quickly pop culture changes, or else will severely date whatever you're writing. i do love a well-placed reference or in-joke, and for fic, I think they can be especially effective if they're in-jokes about the canon in you're writing for (see: all of my yugioh fics). however just SAYING a reference often isn't like.... an actual joke? and i see a lot of writers (and some readers/fans) acting like it is.

[but-the-library-of-alexandria]

honestly I think a big part of the reason that I find TTRPG Show Characters so particularly Blorbo-able is because the nature of the format makes them do things that don't make a lot of sense outside of the meta context, but the reason they act out of character isn't because the writing sucks, its because a good player/dm has to put the dice and the party above fidelity to character, so it's a fun exercise instead of like a disappointment lol - you get to go Super Big Brain on complex watsonian explanations for these doylian choices

It's not just individual moments either, but bigger overarching things too: improvised characters on shows that are played and aired in real time rather than edited and released as a final package when the season is over end up getting edited live as they play, simply bc the dm or player realised something didn't work, or had a new idea, or another player gave them a thread they wanted to pull on, and that's not necessarily retconned, so again, applying logic or psychology to these changes allows you to envision wickedly complex and very human explanations for their unusual behaviour (because of course, a real human DOES do strange and out of character things and change for no reason)

I LOVE to think about what was going through a character's head for them to refuse certain reasonable requests on a low persuasion roll, or agree to crazy shit on a high one. I LOVE justifying why someone with a headstrong personality decides to take a back seat and play support on adventures because they're an npc and the dm doesn't want to interfere with the party's autonomy too much. I LOVE accounting for the 180 a character who didn't seem interested in Person A at all to begin with but who's crazy for them now because Person A's player decided to romance them and the dm/other play decided okay fuck it I wasn't planning for it but let's try that

[itsbasil]

Spartans from Halo are probably agender: a mini-thesis I thought way too much about

hi happy pride month I have thoughts on Spartans and gender that I have coalesced after many months of being influenced by my insane (affectionate) halo friends and I would like to share.

Spartans, specifically Spartan-IIs and Spartan-IIIs, are for the most part probably agender.

Spartans, as Halo lore presents them, were raised and trained in an environment that is insanely far removed from any real exposure to normal social roles/dynamics. There are countless social experiences and expectations they never had because it was never a priority.

These are people who grew up understanding themselves as sacrifices already made, as weapons against the insurrection and later the Covenant. The "social experiences and expectations" they had took the shape of fireteams, chains of command, and tactical exercises.

This is the 26th century and I'm assuming that being queer/trans is so unremarkable that most terminology to describe it is considered archaic, and also that gender politics are very loosey goosey, but people are still using standard masculine and feminine pronouns for each other, so I think it's safe to assume that in Halo, gender as a social construct remains alive and well. Thus, labeling yourself as any gender means something about yourself and the social role you're trying to play.

For Spartans, gender is one part of a social world full of expectations, context, and shared understandings that are completely meaningless to them. These are boxes they never learned how to and thus cannot fit into.

If gender is a social role you play, the role they fill is Spartan.

This probably doesn't look like much for most of them from the outside; "agender" isn't a gender identity they're actively assuming, it's a total lack of curiosity about any of it. It doesn't matter to them. It's not what they're for. There is other shit they have to worry about.

Most of them use whatever pronouns people have always used for them. John-117, for example, uses he/him because... that's just what everyone has used for him forever? Consciously changing that or questioning it would be really weird and uncomfortable for him. For almost any Spartan, for that matter; these are people who have completely subsumed themselves into being weapons in service of a much larger cause. Interrogating personal identity or who they feel like they "really are" outside of the only thing they think really matters about themselves is going to be SUPER uncomfortable.

Do not ask a Spartan to "man up" or "act like a lady". That would require them to understand things they have long since accepted are not for them.

This is fine; this doesn't make them broken or less human. They like what they are, there's job satisfaction in it.

They're just being the only thing they know how to be, the same as anybody else.

[loassbarbie]

The science behind "Act as If": it's actually a CBT technique

Although science has yet to prove the 3D manifesting effect of the Law of Assumption, the “act as if” manifestation technique we so very often read about and practice does have some research support as a cognitive-behavioral intervention.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) has long been a cornerstone of modern psychology and psychotherapy, offering individuals practical tools to understand and improve their mental well-being. "Act As If" has emerged as a powerful and transformative intervention technique.

"Act As If" is a behavioral strategy that encourages individuals to consciously adopt the mindset and behaviors of the person they aspire to become, even when faced with self-doubt or challenging circumstances. Whether you're seeking to enhance your self-esteem, overcome obstacles, or simply better understand the inner workings of your mind, the "Act As If" approach can be a valuable addition to your mental health toolkit.

🎀 Why "Act As If" Works (in psychology, anyway)

At its core, the "Act As If" technique is a cognitive-behavioral strategy designed to encourage individuals to adopt the mindset and behaviors of the person they want to be. It is rooted in several core principles that guide its implementation. "Act As If" requires individuals to consciously act as though they have already achieved their goals, even when they may doubt their abilities or face daunting challenges. This helps build self-confidence and creates a self-fulfilling prophecy, where the mind and body work in tandem to manifest positive change.

The theoretical underpinnings of "Act As If" are deeply intertwined with self-perception theory - people infer their own attitudes, emotions, and abilities by observing their own behaviors. In the context of "Act As If," this means that by consistently engaging in the behaviors associated with their goals, individuals can alter their self-perception, ultimately reinforcing their self-belief.

🎥🎲 The Role of Role-Playing

By immersing oneself in the character of the person they want to become, individuals can better understand and internalize the attitudes and behaviors required for success. Role-playing provides a practical and hands-on approach to "Act As If," allowing individuals to experiment with different mindsets and behaviors and assess their impact on their self-perception and real-life outcomes.

We often engage in "self-sabotage," acting ineffectively despite knowing better ways of handling difficult situations. There are many reasons for this, and one is our dysfunctional, automatic thoughts. Thoughts like "I won't succeed no matter how hard I try" or "I can't do this" can hinder our actual abilities to do something well.

For example: you believe you are too overweight to go to the gym and not feel bad about yourself, or you don't believe you can actually lose the weight you need. When you let these kinds of thoughts influence your behavior, you might find yourself avoiding situations you find intimidating for thinking they're not for someone like you, or believing it's a lost cause. "Acting as if" can help alter these dysfunctional thoughts. Instead of engaging with these thoughts, "acting as if" might have you engaged in all of the activities someone who believed they could succeed would engage in: for instance, making an appointment with a personal trainer, which would result in more accountability, a better ability to perform exercises correctly, and a more rewarding experience overall. If you were out of shape before, "acting as if" can help you get in shape sooner.

The catch in the "act as if" technique is that we can use it even if we are 100% sold on our dysfunctional automatic thoughts. We don't have to wait until our thoughts change to step into the role we'd prefer. We instead step into the role, which can result in our thoughts changing more quickly and more permanently. Better yet, we don't have to wait for the law to kick in before we get what we want.

🧸👩🏻‍🏫Steps for "Acting As If"

💭Step 1: Identify the automatic thought or dysfunctional belief that is getting in your way.

🔄Step 2: Identify all of the things you would do if you believed the exact opposite of that thought to be successful in your goal.

🎭Step 3: Rehearse those behaviors: Act as if. Literally role-play. You can do it talking to yourself when you are alone, you can do it in your head during mindless moments of the day; you can even do it with your eyes closed, laying in bed, and visualize yourself engaging in those behaviors. The point is to be familiar enough with the behaviors that you can use them without thinking about them too much.

🎬Step 4: "Act as if" some more. Rehearse the behaviors some more. Maybe get more creative (start dressing up as the person you want to be, make a journal of all the things that happened on your role playing day, don't feel stupid - no one has to know anyway!)

💁🏻‍♀️Step 5: Engage in the behaviors you rehearsed. Each time a dysfunctional thought comes to mind, smile at it, and continue as planned.

By following this you may, at the very least, come across more confidently. Most people find that in practicing this regularly, they start to disbelieve the self-defeating thoughts. Having several experiences of success is a great way to undo the assumption that you will always fail. And after a while, there's no "acting" necessary. ;)

[seleneroserm]

Hello! I have not been posting because I keep forgetting. I'll probably post the next Bat logo in a bit, but for now I'll share how the Robin lineage starts in my project!

For a little necessary context, in my project nobody becomes a Vigilante until they're 16 (Bruce wanted 18 but Dick is stubborn and the rest of the bats are clever enough to argue for a standard age once Dick sets it), because anything else is child abuse and I really can't imagine Bruce or Alfred allowing that to happen. Before becoming proper vigilantes at 16, they receive training if they desire.

Anyways, point is this revolves around a 19yo Dick who is still Robin as it's his title but has left Gotham to do cross-country Vigilante shit, and has/is setting the Titans up with other young heroes he meets.

Dick was upset at Bruce pretty much coddling him for 3 whole years as well as being unable to separate their home life and Vigilante life, exacerbated as opposed to canon due to him being more trained and older. I haven't decided what exactly was the final straw, but it doesn't matter too much since it was a final straw and not a major singular breaking point.

So when Dick, angry at Bruce but finding himself, heard he had taken in another kid, he both panicked a little and was severely pissed that Bruce would take in another kid when he hasn't even made it up to his first one yet.

So, TLDR, Dick kidnaps a Preteen Jason to take him on a cross country Road Trip. They evade Batman for about 2 months, both as an act of spite from Dick and him showing off that he's very competent without Batman's help and even against him.

A lot of this is accomplished by Dick calling in his new friends to delay Bruce under the guise of a training exercise which leads them to think he's just super intense, and he doesn't hurt them for obvious reasons but he IS super severe the whole time so he doesn't exactly disillusion them of that notion.

Anyways, long story short Dick has a lot of heart to hearts with Jason over those 2 months, and comes to terms with being an older sibling a lot sooner than in Canon (because he's not as fucked up from trauma), and decides to train Jason as a Vigilante after realizing he's practically destined to be one.

Dick hands over the title of Robin to Jason, telling him that it's his family's name and practically adopting Jason then and there. Jason is very touched by this, because he's more than smart enough to understand the connotations, and gives Dick a name as well- Nightwing.

(The explanation I'm going for here is that it's a folk legend basically in Crime Alley about a dark hero who would save children, because this is a Batman project and the JL doesn't exist yet so Superman cant exactly have too much interaction with Dick yet. The explanation could be a time travelling super in Gotham or something, haven't settled yet, but I really wanted the narrative of the first two Robins trading names).

This is also the mini arc where Starfire is introduced, since I really like the idea of allowing Dick and Jason to do their first team up on this trip, and it sets up Starfire being basically a step-sister to Jason (Inspired by but greatly deviating from Outlaws), and of course her joining the Titans and eventually marrying Dick.

I really love this solution to the Robin lineage, since it lets the characters breathe and bond while still staying relatively faithful to their relationships and characters, but also allowing Dick to choose who gets to be Robin- because it's his title to bestow.

[ckret2]

How married are you to shapes carrying pregnancies at all? As opposed to other methods of making babies, such as spores or eggs or more outlandish sci fi options like parts assembly

Bare minimum, we know that shape reproduction needs a mother and a father.

I'm going to take it as a given that for Euclideans "mother" and "father" refers to "two individuals performing two different but necessary parts of a reproductive act to produce offspring," and not something like "they're totally not necessary at all but the government requires two people to sign up to co-parent before they'll hand out a baby" or whatever.

I'm taking it as a given because if I didn't, the contrary alien worldbuilder in me would go "well if mother and father are made up social roles rather than social roles derived from pre-existing biological roles, then why did they have to make up social roles that just so happened to be so similar to humanity's? I'm calling bull, bad worldbuilding, how dare you foist mom/dad pairs on a species that had no reason to develop mom/dad pairs as if we're supposed to just accept that that's the only NATURAL and NECESSARY way to rear offspring—" so I'm not giving my inner worldbuilder that option.

So, with "reproduction requires two different roles" as our starting point: at the moment, my own personal purpose in worldbuilding how Bill's species works is for use in the post-canon fic I'm working on that explores Bill's home dimension in flashbacks. That's what I'm keeping in mind when I worldbuild.

And I say that to give context to this: for my own personal purpose, my motivation is to worldbuild the way Euclideans' reproduction works in a way that ISN'T so interesting that mentioning it in fic will cause the readers' imaginations to immediately veer off the plot and focus on that detail. I'd rather how they do the do to be unremarkable as hell.

Anything mentioned about Bill's homeworld in the fic is put in either to explain who and what he is and why he's that way, or to sprinkle in a jazzy little bit of flavor. I'm trying to avoid turning his species into a deep exercise in alien speculative biology, since that doesn't mesh with the vibes of the story I'm telling. (As I say this i'm covering that "which shape sexes are reproductively compatible" chart with my body so you can't see it. I said I'm trying to avoid getting deep into the biology, not that i'm succeeding lmao. I'm too interested in how Bill sees his gender.)

Every aspect of Flatland was worldbuilt specifically to comment on the horrors of contemporary Victorian society, even the stuff that surprises readers that don't know much about the Victorian era like "well surely the stuff about irregulars being euthanized or poor babies being stolen and given to middle-class families is a dystopian invention," and anything that DOESN'T serve the social satire is handwaved away with "we have a very interesting way of propelling our bodies but unfortunately I don't have time to talk about it." Bill is written into Gravity Falls to be a foil to every member of the Pines family and to show what they could be like without love, trust, support, and family. That's the same role I want Euclydia to serve in my fic. Anything that diverges from rather than reflects Gravity Falls' contemporary society is out of place.

Putting in something like "eggs" or "spores" opens up cans of worms. How would laying eggs make their society different—are they less attached to their own kids, is trading eggs around and pre-hatching adoption more common, do people steal a neighbor's egg and leave their own? If it's spores, is it even possible to identify your own kid, does anyone care to, do kids ever just spawn out of a rotten log in the forest that spores settled on, are babies self-sufficient since they might be born without an adult nearby? These are fascinating avenues for some great alien worldbuilding! However I'm currently motivated to keep alien worldbuilding to a minimum lol.

In truth, I'll probably never need to know or explain HOW the shapes reproduce—pregnancy, eggs, spores, ritualistic magical waltz, collaborative geometry homework, whatever. Taking time to explain it means talking about details that aren't relevant to the fic, and the ghost of Edwin Abbott Abbott would sadly shake his head at me. However: if I don't explain reproduction, and if it requires two roles, most people are gonna default to assuming pregnancy. I can live with that.

All I need to figure out is how the two roles in the Two Roles Needed For Reproduction are assigned—like, can every member of the species automatically perform both roles at any time? (I don't wanna do that.) Are they born performing one of the two functions? (I don't wanna do that either, because now we've just invented a new male/female sexual dichotomy.) Does which you perform depend on your sides, the one with less sides does X and more does Y? Does it switch seasonally? Does it switch based on your age? Does it switch based on the number of each shape in the local population? Etc. (I'm not attached to any of these ideas, they're just examples.)

And the only reason that's something I need to figure out is that that could affect how Bill thinks about himself and his identity. Like, if which role you perform switches based on the amount of similar shapes in the local population, then it would have some kinda impact on him knowing that his body's been locked into the Lmao There Are NO Other Triangles Nearby role for the past trillion years. If it switches based on your age, then the fact that he never got old enough to switch would be one of many examples of the way his biological age has been in stasis since his dimension was destroyed. Etc.

[shadowshrike]

Astarion on Halsin Leaving

I can't stop thinking about Astarion's lines when Halsin chooses to leave your party, so have a fun mini-analysis. Note that this text is pulled via datamining because I don't have all the appropriate saves atm. Since the context of your personal story is everything in this game and can wildly change how lines come across, please take my thoughts here as a fun exercise with the text and nothing more.

I think the things that are needed to fully understand where my head is at regarding his lines are two fold:

1. How Astarion talks about other companions leaving

Shadowheart and Wyll can both also leave in Act 2. His responses are as follows.

Astarion: I don't see what Shadowheart got so upset about - it was not that nice of a temple.

For Shadowheart he gently deflects the crux of the matter. This isn't surprising because he is a master of minimizing other people's grievances when he thinks they're legitimate but inconvenient. Otherwise, he responds fairly mildly.

Astarion: So, that's how the legend ends. The Blade of Frontiers, cast down to the Hells. Hardly a fitting ending. But so few are.

Unlike Shadowheart, Wyll is forced to leave by being dragged to the hells. There's no justification he needs to rebuff for Wyll leaving the party's side, so instead, he uses it to double down on his philosophy that 'nice guys finish last and the world is a dangerous and horrible place.' Which, ironically, is not entirely unreasonable given the circumstances.

2. How other companions talk about Halsin leaving

The Good companions don't blame Halsin for leaving. Wyll even blames himself for not doing enough. Karlach also regrets the loss of another strong person around, reminding us once again that Halsin is physically imposing in the narrative, even if the stats say otherwise because of how D&D balance works.

Gale: Druids will always follow nature's purpose over any mortal threat. Halsin goes where he is needed, as must we.

Jaheira: Halsin long urged the Harpers not to abandon this land to the curse. I cannot blame him, for being unable to bear it a second time.

Wyll: I can't blame Halsin for leaving. We could have, should have, done more for him and for the cursed lands. They may never again feel the breathe of life on them. What a shame.

Karlach: Pity about Halsin. I was getting used to having an extra Strong around. He smelled nice, too. Like outside.

(Fun fact regarding Karlch's comment: Astarion has a line where he refers to Halsin as "musky bear-fellow" - musky is also the word used to describe the attractive smell of corpse flowers - and Halsin's underwear smells like an herb garden according to its flavor text. Apparently, the guy canonically smells really good?)

Even Shar Path Shadowheart expresses regret in losing Halsin. Not because she wants to end the Shadow Curse, but because Halsin's nice to look at.

Shadowheart: This land remains cloaked by Lady Shar's power - good. A shame it cost us Halsin as a travelling companion though. He may have been misguided, but I liked looking at him.

That brings us to...

Astarion's tantrum over Halsin leaving

Go ahead and listen to it yourself first, and then I'll dive into both lines.

Astarion: Just like that hulking bear to stomp off in a huff. I swear, druids care more about the plants of this land than the people.

"Just like that hulking bear to stomp off in a huff."

This first statement is not only indignant and deflecting, it's so factually false that it's laughable. Halsin is always calm and regretful when staying behind no matter how you treat him.

Player: You have to come - I need you. Halsin: This place needs me. I wish it were different - I truly do. As long as the curse remains, so must I.

Player: Do as you wish. Halsin: This isn't what I wish. It's simply the way it has to be - I'm sorry.

Player: The shadow curse was always your burden - not mine. Halsin: Yes, and so it must remain. I wish you success on your path. Had things been different, I might have walked it with you.

Player: Perhaps we can still do something to lift the curse. Halsin: No. If you linger, you'll only jeopardise your own mission. This is my burden alone now until either the curse is lifted, or I breathe my last.

Halsin is renowned for letting people treat him horribly and taking it on the chin. Him pushing back is usually related to calmly setting boundaries or expectations. The only times I can think of offhand where he raises his voice in anger is with Kagha, if you interfere with the portal, and briefly after certain parts of the Evil companion routes, though not as intensely (I might do a write-up on that later because his reactions are interesting). He certainly never "stomp[s] off in a huff", and he's not doing it now either.

However, the way this is worded gives me pause. Because "just like [him]" said so angrily gives the impression that Halsin has reacted this way to Astarion before. Given Astarion's habit of rewriting exactly how events went down to absolve himself of accountability, it makes me wonder if Astarion's tried to get a rise out of Halsin in camp and been shut down. Since Halsin is the only Good companion at that point who is also old and worldly enough to not get flustered by Astarion's cruelty, mind games, and flirting, it wouldn't surprise me if Astarion has built up resentment. Halsin refuses to be manipulated or confirm Astarion's cynical worldview, and Astarion isn't ready to consider changing his mind with Cazador on the horizon.

"I swear, druids care more about the plants of this land than the people."

This is, again, a false statement wrapped in a little more truth than the first. Druids are indeed infamous for putting nature above humans (see: Shadow Druids), and Halsin talks a big game about Balance and Nature. However, Halsin is probably the most people-oriented traditional druid we see in the game, going so far as to cause chaos in his grove by aggressively taking in refugees and personally traveling with an undead and servant of Shar because they need help. He chooses people over Silvanus' classic teachings so often that it's fascinating.

That aside, given what the shadow-cursed lands are doing to anyone on the way to Baldur's Gate, choosing to stay and attempt to lift the curse is hardly serving plants over people - the Absolute and the Shadow Curse are both significant threats to people. What Halsin is doing, however, is prioritizing his own problems over those of Astarion. He's setting aside the tadpole cause, not because he's selfish or duplicitous, but because he's not willing to abandon the other people he swore to help a century ago and has obsessed over ever since.

Some fun implications

Given all this information, there are many interesting ways to read Astarion's language beyond a surface "he hates Halsin and/or druids" level (gotta love his charlatan background making almost every line capable of ambiguity). Some personal favorite interpretations of his feelings:

Begrudging affection towards Halsin. Astarion has no reason to get so angry and make such absurd statements if he didn't want Halsin to stay. He certainly didn't make such a big fuss about other companions. However, since Astarion isn't in an emotional place to be able to consider Halsin's worldview seriously now that he's staring down Cazador, that admiration gets bungled into a "well screw you, I didn't like you anyway" attitude, much like how he handles some partner breakups.

Resentment and fear of being left behind or rejected. Astarion is selfish. He's been fairly consistent that he doesn't want to help others, but he also hates when no one helps him. That self-fulfilling prophecy is a rather large part of how he moves through (un)life and can easily continue through Act III depending on whether your dialog choices give him an opportunity to express it. Seeing a good person that he truly believes is good choosing something else over him makes the 'truth' of this cynical, self-centered worldview sting harder, especially as he is at his most vulnerable heading into Baldur's Gate.

Guilt for not doing more. Halsin has been clear about his priorities from the start. He's one of the most straightforward, reasonable communicators in the whole game. That means Astarion knew he would leave if the Shadow Curse wasn't lifted, especially since Halsin doesn't have a tadpole and, therefore, has no reason to risk his life for them. Since Astarion is almost universally unwilling to take blame for his own actions or inactions, he's trying to push the responsibility onto Halsin by painting him as unreasonable for following through on his stated priorities rather than let himself feel bad about not helping Halsin.

I'm sure there are even more readings you can think of, too. Hats off to this hidden bit of dialogue, the incredible delivery, and how much depth it brings to a relationship which is easy to ignore.

[vamptits]

i have a (genuine) quastion sir do you feel that people that shave are “bad” in some way? or that no matter what the desire to shave or use hair removal of some kind is something that should be gotten over or worked through like a character flaw? do you find it unacceptable or unreasonable that someone might want to remove it for sensory reasons of some sort? idk if this particular question is something you’ve addressed or answered before, i’ve only seen your anti shaving posts with minimal context so sorry if you’ve already given a full explanation

i could think shaving your legs for any reason is morally wrong and shameful (i don't) and that would not impact the lives of anyone materially because women and people perceived as such are punished for existing in their body's natural state. literally a non-action.

i really, really don't care if someone shaves. even as a thought exercise it bores me. they're your legs, go nuts. what bothers me is how disingenuous it is to act like your desire to shave exists in a vacuum, and how so many people are just enacting misogynistic violence on each other (wow, your legs are so hairy, i could never do that, it's so ugly, you should really shave, you're like a dude) while acting like they're #liberated feminists about it. it's laaame it's all so tired.

[painted-bees]

There's a question that has been microwaving in my brain for a very long time now, and it won't just let me be. So now I have to try and akwardly ask you about it.

For context: I have adhd and am very forgetful like Margie is. My friends and family have a tendency to take it really personally when my forgetfulness affects them. They treat it like I did it intentionally just to upset them. They're not bad people or anything they just don't seem to realize that I really don't want to forget things and cause problems and that I actually do care it's just hard to remember. None of them have Raf's personality disorder.

So the question I have is: How does Raf avoid taking it personally when Margie forgets things? Especially big things like those concert tickets, which probably cost a lot of money to purchase and a long drive to the venue? Wouldn't his paranoia make him more prone than anyone to assume that her forgetfulness is a deliberate action against him? He handles it better than anyone I know and I want to know his secret!

Aw. Firstly, I am sorry that this is the case between you and your loved ones. I understand how it feels to be punished for something that already punishes you enough, and the lack of understanding or empathy towards the fact that the person who suffers from your forgetfulness--more than anyone else--is you. I hope that understanding arrives to them someday soon and that they learn to exercise patience. Being frustrated and disappointed in a situation is understandable, but accusing you of doing it on purpose and reacting under that assumption is hurtful and unhelpful. I am sorry on their behalf ;;♡

Now, to answer the question at hand! Unlike most people who don't suffer mood or personality disorders, Raf has grown acutely aware that his thoughts, assumptions, and emotional responses are disordered. He knows he has the "takes everything extremely personally, and in extremely bad faith" disorder. And he's aware that this has negatively impacted his life and ruined his relationships in the past. He finally caved to getting help for it years ago because he was tired of blaming everyone and everything but seeing no way to fix it--and thinking, hoping praying that there's gotta be a way to live better than this.

He still doubts his paranoid personality diagnosis. He's done his own research into it. It could just as well be obsessive compulsive personality disorder. It could just be his unique life situation, making him an ideal target for abuse and exploitation. It could be an assortment of things. But an important thing that he's learned--that addresses all of this--is that he can't control other people's behaviour. He can blame them for it all he wants--but the only behaviour he can control is his own. And so--he has been working really hard on that. He's changed his behaviour in a variety of ways just to see how it changes his day to day experiences--and the behaviours that have seen positive results are the behaviours he has maintained and developed further. It doesn't fix his trust issues, it doesn't dispell his suspicions... but it helps give him space and removes a lot of the surface friction in his day-to-day interactions.

One of the harder ones he has forced on himself is to counter every bad assumption in his mind with a good one. It's like pulling teeth a lot of the time. A lot of the time he doesn't want to give fuckers the benefit of the doubt--because he doesn't trust that they deserve it. But he forces himself to consider it anyway. No matter the perceived severity. Another behavioural habit he's worked hard to develop is to not act on a kneejerk reaction nor respond on an impulse. He's had to assume that his first reaction is the -wrong- reaction and to delay his anger until he has had time to appropriately process things and account for all the variables. He can be hit or miss with this... but he really tries.

And so, when it comes to Margie forgetting things, he is uniquely conditioned to discard the feeling of "you did this to me on purpose, because you wanted to take this from me, because its your way of gaining power over me" as quickly as possible--like touching a hot stove. Yeah he feels it, his brain even -begs- him to chew on it. But he's well practised at responding in contradiction to this feeling of being personally slighted. He holds onto these experiences, though, and looks for other, longer-term cues to assess whether or not someone is behaving deliberately against him. He tries to find and identify behavioural patterns in the people he interacts with. He's spent enough time around Margie to recognize and reason with himself that Margie's forgetfulness and disorganization has impacted her just as much--if not more--than it has impacted those around her. If it was really done to spite him, why would she also sabotage herself in this same manner, with things that don't matter to anyone else but her...and with such consistency?

Raf is in his head a lot of the time, and it's over things like this. Assessing other people's behaviour so that he may behave "fairly" in response. Gives him the reputation of being a very quiet, chill guy who keeps to himself and stays out of interpersonal drama haha

If he doesn't spend all his resources actively forcing himself to find neutral-to-positive reasons behind people's behaviour, he'll default to obsessively verifying for himself that they're all bad. There's not really a middle ground for him, here. It's either an active, constant effort towards one...or an easy, destructive, and isolating slide into the other.

[vasito-de-leche]

I saw your post regarding the Self-Aware R1999!AU and it was good and mind-blowing! Now I'm wondering how will it go with 6 or 37 regaining consciousness, considering that they're always seeking for the "truth", and maybe the Reader's existence would heighten the quest for the truth more!

;R1999 37 - Self Aware AU

Headcanons about how 37 would act upon becoming self-aware. Related to this Self-Aware AU post.

I RECENTLY FINISHED 6'S ANECDOTE, SO NOW I HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS THIS ASK IS A GREAT EXERCISE TO GET THE BRAIN GOING o7

this post only contains 37, since it got a little long and I didn't know how to format it the usual way because I LOVE rambling and rambling. I think there's another ask somewhere about 6 in the self-aware AU, so I'll get to that one soon!

also I think this post is impossible to read if you haven't read chapter 5 at least, bc I use a lot of the terms used in Apeiron!

37 is such an interesting character. Okay okay, bear with me for a bit while I get all of my 37 thoughts out of my brain!

I feel like people downplay how cruel or detached she can be. Because of her innate ability to see numbers in everyone and everything, essentially seeing "the truth" and being able to provide Proof to support her claims, 37 lives disconnected from her entire community while also being upheld as a genius and beacon of progress. She's the "Star of Hermes," after all.

A lot of her character focuses on this alienation and "othering," how her mindset and beliefs set her apart from others as she cannot understand the importance of soul numbers from an emotional standpoint--like she says in the main story, she's always known she's 37. Everyone's known this. And she does not understand the importance of knowing WHY she's 37. She doesn't care about the traits assigned to each number, that is meaningless rhetoric to her, what matters is the final result. She's 37, and that's it. She upholds the purity of numbers, practically worships this pure aspect of the world of Forms. She's at her happiest when she talks about how numbers will always be numbers, no matter who tries to figure them out, or when or how.

And we also see the cruel aspect of her that I believe people overlook--37 admits that she enjoys revealing people's numbers because she wants to be the first to prove this truth. It's only near the end of Chapter 05 that she wonders, if only briefly, whether being the first to prove someone's number means that she knew the truth better. Other than that, she has absolutely NO trouble revealing Vertin's number, nor attempting to tell Sophia her own number as kids--and 37, while she does not care for the rhetoric of numbers and their assigned virtues, knows how much the journey of self-discovery means to her entire community. And she still chose to do this, because she does not see the value in the process.

This isn't to say that she's exclusively a cruel character nor a misguided little baby, I would say that she's cruel the same way a child can be--37 is a very lovely and complex character! I just think people take her cute appearance at face value and forget the extent of her abilities and her perception of the world.

In the context of a Self-Aware AU, I believe that this self-awareness would be recontextualized as yet another eternal truth for her. Her curiosity wouldn't be applied to this, because there is nothing to figure out--the world has always been a game, that's it. Instead of focusing on the emotional or existential aspects, 37 would focus instead on the "guidelines" that rule this fake world.

It would revolve around the mechanical aspects: she understands that every fight follows a set pattern, as this is a turn based combat game. She wants to know why some people stand out, why they're assigned as 6 or 5 or 4 or 3 or 2 stars. Why not a 1 star? Why not 10? Why this system in particular? Why doesn't Sophia have any stars? Is it because she hasn't figured out her number yet? No, that can't be, because 210 also lacks stars. And so on and so forth.

The focus will still be numbers, so she would be the perfect assistant for Players who care a lot about meta!

I'm also willing to say that 37 would be one of the very few characters who has no trouble at all coping with the fact that she's a character in a videogame. To know that she's a bunch of "code" wouldn't change a thing for her, because she was already 37 in the first place!

There is also the aspect of finding out that her mother's death (as well as Sophia's father) was scripted. I'm going on a long tangent here, so bear with me for a second.

I feel like... 37 would see that as a positive thing? First of all, we know that the death of everyone in that boat was caused because of a miscalculation from Sophia and 37's part, which is the catalyst for 37's Emanation research. I do believe that, even though 37 shows little to no (conventional) emotion in that specific moment, she still grieves and mourns in her own way--and the way she does that is by clinging onto the one thing that is left of her mother: her pneuma analysis and research, the computer that stopped working, the pattern of the "Storm". We are told that 37 became a recluse, isolating herself even more from her community, when her and her mother's research was proven to be wrong, that she only came out of her lab when Vertin and her team arrived. We see her muttering while unconscious in the cave with Vertin, calling out for her own mother and telling her that their research wasn't wrong, that they were right all along (because they were missing one vital piece of information that only an outsider like Vertin could deliver).

Second of all, we know that 37 does not understand nor care about fate, she does not care for wordplay that muddies the true essence of numbers. So she would not think that the death of all those people can be attributed to something as vague and nonsensical as "fate."

Third and final point of this tangent, 37 does not like to be proven wrong. Or rather, 6's character event shows us that, no matter what she's told or how she behaves, 37 will always believe that she's in the right.

With all of this in mind, I think that finding out that this accident was something scripted--that is to say, part of the "truth" (or canon, from our perspective) of this world--would reinforce 37's beliefs. This miscalculation was a mistake born from her former self, the 37 that did not truly understand the world, before she achieved self-awareness. And now that she's wide awake, there's no way that she could ever make a mistake like that ever again. If else, I can see her being mildly irritated that it took her this long to open her eyes, struggling with the fact that she's not the first person to become self-aware. And just like she casually reveals other people's numbers, she would dangle the knowledge of self-awareness in front of others instead of keeping it secret.

On the subject of finding out about the Player, I'm not quite sure how 37 would react. Sure, 37's life is ruled by the same dogma that rules everyone else within Apeiron, but her approach is devoid of that same spiritual and religious devotion that others like 210 carry. Like we see in 6's character event, 37 does not care about the importance of the number 6 nor whoever holds the title, because the "truth" is that everyone within that bloodline is going to inherit the title at some point or another. Compare this to 210, who treats the previous 6 (Atticus' aunt, Alma) with such reverence.

So perhaps that's how 37 would act, then? This "divine" figure is yet another 6 for her, someone who has all relevant knowledge, nothing more and nothing less.

I like to think that 37 is able to see the Player very clearly right away, the same way she can see people's numbers, whereas 6 is the one who can hear them clearly, the same way he inherits the Revelation from his ancestors.

And unless you're another super math genius like her, I can absolutely see 37 pouting about it. How come someone like you gets to be "outside" in the world of Forms? Maybe she becomes curious about finding "proof" of your world, to confirm whether you live in the world of Forms or something else entirely, perhaps yet another world of Matters, full of Fragments. Realizing that the world the Player lives in is practically identical to her own--minus the existence of integers and fractions, just a world full of imaginary numbers--would be a curious experience for 37.

I can also see 37 telling Vertin the Player's own soul number the moment she figures it out, perhaps as a way to repay the favour for the events of Chapter 05. Assuming she survives that bomb, I actually don't know what happens in Chapter 06 LMFAO....

Long story short, not many would realize that 37 has become self-aware, since her behaviour remains largely the same. And it wouldn't affect her as deeply as it affects other characters.

[aguineapigcouldntdothis]

I do not find it reasonable that the term "ashkenormativity" is frequently used to mean "asheknazi jews, aka the white european ones, are racist, colorist, and even antisemitic against other jews". not only is that an improper definition with loads of information, it fails to recognize that the people who are most likely to perpetuate ashkenormativity are goyim.

for the purpose of this post, I will be going with the definition that ashkenormativity is the belief that ashkenazi people are the default jews, which leads to them getting more respect, opportunities, recognition, etc. goyim, especially in the western world, have likely only been exposed to ashkenazi jews, meaning that they are likely to view them as the blueprint. they are simply drawing conclusions from the available information, which in my eyes is not a huge issue. the true problem arises when they learn about other types of jews and immediately decide that we are "improper". because we don't fit their idea of what a jew looks like, acts like, etc., we are either bad jews or not jewish at all.

it is not the fault of ashkenazim that goyim think this way, and it is not their responsibility to fix it. it is also not their fault that most jews in the western world are ashkenazim. it is absolutely the responsibility of goyim to learn that there are many types of jew and we are still one people.

ashkenazim are less likely to spread ashkenormativity than goyim because they are exposed to other jews more often. they may have different norms than a sephardi, mizrahi, etc. jew would, but they're usually able to recognize that we are all jews with a shared culture. and by usually I mean I can count on 1 hand the number of times an ashki jew genuinely thought they were better than us. 2 hands if we're counting repeated offenses from the same person. I believe that has nothing to do with their heritage and everything to do with them being an asshole. point is, learning by observing other jews is an effective tool to combat prejudices. the more examples you see of a non-ashki jew, the more likely you are to correct yourself when you promote ashkenormativity.

i feel like a fun exercise would be to compare 2 separate interactions ive had with a goy and a ashkenazi jew. both contain examples of ashkenormativity. neither is significantly worse than the other so they are close enough to compare.

interaction with goy:

context is we were talking about jewish traditions and it got to the topic of food. I actually cooked a ton this year i didnt know what I was in for.

me: I won't cook that much this year, but usually id eat a lot of unleavened cakes and rice for passover

goy: i thought you guys ate matzah

me: I mean yeah but we eat other stuff too. im sephardi so I get more options which is fun (this was said as a joke, not judging anyone)

goy: oh so you're not really jewish then?

me: no im still jewish, Im just not ashkenazi and we have some cultural differences

goy: but like you're not jewish religiously, right??

me: I mean im not orthodox but yeah im still a religious jew. i just practice based on my culture its not hard to get

goy: wouldn't it be easier to just do what everyone else does though

me: yeah I just like doing this more it's fun for me

goy: yeah whatever I dont get this im done

interaction with ashki jew:

context is i was at shabbat dinner chilling on a couch and talking to a friend i made

ashki jew: so you know that shul down by (location)

me: the what?

ashki jew: ...the shul??

me: I've never heard that word in my life what is that

ashki jew: its just the synagogue. you've never heard that word before?

me: no i was so confused ive always just called it synagogue. sometimes the old people would call it kal never shul though

ashki jew: ok just like tell me if I confuse you with my yiddish again

I feel as if the differences between these interactions is quite clear. so, I wont go into heavy detail analyzing them. the basic idea is that during the conversation with the goy, I kept explaining myself and they refused to listen. they believed that ashki jews were better than me and that they themselves were also better than me. I was essentially told that I do not know anything about judaism because in their eyes I am not truly a jew. during the conversation with the ashkenazi jew, they explained themselves immediately because we are equals. they know we are both jews and we're more similar than we are different. it surprised them that I didn't know what shul meant, yet they did not use that as an excuse to tear me down.

I truly think people do ashkenazim a disservice by assuming that they are power hungry jews (*cough* antisemitic stereotype *cough*) who will stop at nothing to be better than the sad little sephardim and mizrahim. in reality, most of them, like my lovely friend, are more than willing to learn and share with other jews. the people who are truly hurting us are the goyische antisemites.

this is gonna sound hypocritical because I just made a long ass post about an intracommunity issue, however, can we please just focus the majority of our energy on the actual antisemites who are truly hurting us instead of other jews? this is an important topic that we need to discuss it's just not the most important thing us jews have going on. other jews are my friends and I refuse to be separated from them for the approval of goyim, and I know they will show me that same kindness.

note: I am just not feeling like myself today forgive any weird writing mistakes ill fix them later or maybe not

[carlyraejepsans]

I really respect your dedication to these characters and the fine nuances in writing them with pinpoint accuracy but lord it must be really really hard to find any amount of fanfics by people who feel the same and don't unintentionally do something kinda ooc once that makes you stop reading a story. With short comics and art and whatever you have to go out of your way to mischaracterize characters since there's not a ton of internal substance, they're just kissing or telling a line of dialogue, but with fic it's so descriptive and so much more thought on how a character's inner workings carry on, and I feel a lot of people have fun writing fanfiction in a way that does not result in 100% accurate characterizations because that would take so much continual, constant effort and very thorough character analysis skills and applications to get right pretty much all of the time. I'm not sure what I'm trying to say beyond it must be tough for you specifically to find stories that don't annoy you- or perhaps that is not accurate! I don't read much fic so I don't know, it just seems like it'd be exhausting from an outside perspective

BAHAHAHA the eternal struggle of the Hater. I'm kind of obsessed with how you described it here. You're mostly correct! And kind of missing a crucial detail at the same time.

It's true, it is extremely difficult to find fanfiction that agrees with me--especially for a fandom like Undertale with 1) a very young audience and 2) a very heavily character-centric form of storytelling, which inevitably results in nuanced personalities that are hard to grasp without full context (which means analyzing the canon... a lot!)

There's two very important things you should note though!! Undertale is a HUGE fandom. As hard as finding really accurate fics might be, they ARE out there, and when i find them I'm so invested in their accuracy and analysis that I enjoy them 10000 times more than someone who just... doesn't think about this stuff. It's about quality over quantity.

The other thing is: being this ""picky"" and analysis focused doesn't actually stop me from reading fanfiction. Just lately I've been going through the entire fandom tag on ao3 in reverse alphabetical order and trying out anything that doesn't immediately put me off via tags/summary. Is there a lot of stuff that reads ooc or that I just plain don't like? like, a LOT of it? absolutely. But at the end of the day, that ALSO becomes an exercise in analysis. Why did this portrayal come off as ooc? Was the character voice accurate to canon? If not, what made them differ? Was it the way the character acted, rather? Is this the author's bias or exaggeration? Why do I feel like it would be at odds with the person they are in canon? Would they ever be driven to behave like this? What would push them? Was that accurately justified in this fic? and so on.

it's true that engaging with fandom on the regular can heavily skew your perception of the original, but i feel that engaging with fanon and habitually returning to the canon as a point of reference, as contrast, as fact checking, is one of the best ways to truly understand both the characters and the fan communities that they gathered around them. overall, it's good fun!! well worth the occasional cursed content, and even then it gives me something to inflict psychic damage on my friends with.

[stvlti]

"you can't wake up if you don't fall asleep"

Rewatched Asteroid City today and I think I finally cracked the meaning of that line - or at least, a possible interpretation of it

Look at the visual language of the scene. Just like any other sequence that exists on the metanarrative level of the "making-of" TV documentary that encloses the actual play, 'Asteroid City', the scene that line comes from is shot in black and white. HOWEVER. Whenever one of the lead actors/main characters say that line, a spotlight is cast on them, and in that moment, they're shot in colour - with the same colour grading as the scenes from the play itself. They are also, notably, the only actors "awake" and alert during this entire sequence of a "slumber" improv exercise.

There are a few connections we can draw here:

Because of the 'Asteroid City'-style colour grading, "waking up" is associated with the fictional reality of the play itself rather than the level of reality that the TV documentary occurs on.

Therefore waking up = immersing oneself/engaging with the fictional world?

The act of "falling asleep" can also be linked to the state of dreaming...which tracks if we think of imagining stories and creating fiction as a version of dreaming (or daydreaming)

You can't "wake up" unless you fall asleep, perchance to dream, imagine, and engage with your fictional worlds

Interestingly enough, in the scene right before this one, Augie Steenbeck/Jones Hall exits the stage and has 2 conversations about the meaning of the play: one with director Schubert Green, and then one with the actress who was supposed to play his character's wife. To Schubert, he says, "I still don't understand the play", but this line comes in conjunction with a direct reference to "Woodrow's line about the meaning of life". This conversation also occurs in the context of Schubert's revelation, that Jones "didn't just become Augie; he became [Jones]". He's lived in Augie's skin for so long that the play might as well be synonymous to life itself. When Augie/Jones grapples with the meaning of the play, what he's really grappling with is the meaning of life.

This makes a lot of sense in the context of his grief for his late lover + playwright Conrad Earp (which is revealed to us after his conversation with the wife's actress). "Isn't there supposed to be an answer somewhere out there in the cosmic wilderness?" He's seeking some sort of answer, closure, solace to the suddenness and randomness of Conrad's death. So when he goes to the balcony and speaks to the wife / actress (and do note the phrasing in the line, "you're the wife who plays my actress" - it's jumbled up because just like how Augie the character subsumed Jones the actor, the wife has "become" the actress), and the wife / actress retells to him a scrapped dream sequence set on the alien's home planet, out there in the cosmic wilderness - she is granting him that answer to life that he is looking for, in the cosmic wilderness. But also, more importantly, this cosmic wilderness is linked to the dream state, in the fictional world of 'Asteroid City' (the play). It is through engaging with this scene of a fictional dream sequence that Augie/Jones finds some solace for his grief and existential anxiety.

It seems to me that what Wes Anderson is trying to say is that the only way out for those grappling with existential anxieties is through engaging with fiction, letting it subsume your immediate level of reality, and allowing oneself to dream.