Azmeltosh: isnt it weird how theyre called cats in this show despite being less catlooking than katia who is CLEARLY not a cat.i was just watching this show the other day pretty fun. i think it made me realize more about why i think katia would be a nice character to be friends with. i thought at first the reason i liked the idea was because i wanted someone to help to feel better about myself but i realized that cant be true as i would not stand in the same room as yani if she was real. im still in a rut trying to get out of it. i have a much dumber crossover planned after i get used to krita. i probably should have done it in that
Azmeltosh: oh yeah also i was originally thinking of making katia nakey and having tatsune say something about how this must be just like one of her manga plots but drawing mosaic censor bars is a pain and the black box felt lazy
Auserr: Gonna be honest, I'm totally out of the loop when it comes to anime(?) stuff and have no idea what this is referencing. (I am curious what it is though) But regardless it's my favorite of your drawings posted here so far! Katia looks super cute! I love the pose and expression.
Azmeltosh: @Auserr:
thank you although i dont understand why. so many of the details are sloppy
especially the writing its barely legible. also its the show chainsmoker cat. its a show about a bunch of catgirls with drug addictions or other mental illness like being a streamer. this one, Aru, is such an alcoholic that her hair has become combustible although shes more of a calm drunk so i thought that would contast with katia. like seriously the only one who isnt on something has to be yani's sister imouko with the white hai. its fun but also requires a stomach as its fairly gross. while most of them just have acouple of quirks like saying nya or eating bugs the main character, yani seems to have a very cat-like personality which i love but also would make her unbearable to be around. i think this is a topic i want to explore more as i think the reason katia is so hurt by the cat burns is that due to her past she very much at least partially sees herself as a cat. i think the most obvious thing separating her from a very intelligent bipedal cat is the presence of shame and remorse for her past actions. i think if she ever met yani she'd realize shes not as cat herself as she thought.
Auserr: @Azmeltosh: Hmm.. I can't seem find the words to describe exactly why. Other than what I already said about the expression and pose. I find this Katia to be very charming, I guess? It is a bit rougher sketch than your others but there's just something about it that's adorable!
Oh and I don't judge bad handwriting much as mine is fucking terrible. I could read this, which is more than I can say for mine sometimes.
I can see why the show made you think of Katia! haha That is an interesting point about cats not feeling shame or remorse, I had not considered that before. I'm also very curious to see where Kaz is going with Katia's self doubt and unintentional Khajiit racism. The latter is caused by the former I think. Also it seems to be the reason she can't do restoration magic. Which was being brought up again in the most recent updates before the server exploded. So I'm predicting it's gonna get expanded on further soon! (Soon in the comic time that is)
Azmeltosh: @Auserr: i hope so too. i have some other ideas as to whats holding her back. i dont think kaz will write the character this way because im not entirely sure he views this part of her as contributing to the problem but i do think the way she is written if she were a real person she would benefit from taking a new perspective on the matter, as what shes doing now is just unfair to herself. i think whether its written intentionally or not she is a great example of how i think such a thing could be a problem. sorry for being all vague about this i know its quite frustrating. i want to make a fanart exploring an alternative ending for her and i really dont know how to get the message across without just eexplaining the message all heavy handed like
honestly when i think i sound this way when i talk about this stuff
Azmeltosh: i guess should actually give more context. my concept of what makes a person who they are was something i formed in therapy. what caused this is the therapist sharing his ideas on what makes up that and his ideas were so fucking stupid that it helped me realize the opposite is true. usually when i talk about my ideas of what makes people who they are it usually devolves into a rant about how therapy is a scam and how theyre all so far up their ass that they actually will look you in the eye and tell you that you look like you must be feeling great after you tell them youve felt like shit since youve started taking the new meds.
anyway im trying to come up with a script for this that is more distanced from my experience and instead of just making katia my mouthpiece because obviously shes her own character and we wouldnt see eye to eye on everything if she were real
Auserr: OK I'm all for this! :D Thanks for sharing this, it's very interesting.
I've had somewhat similar problems to Katia's, and I guess she actually acted as my "new perspective" as you called it. I've never been to therapy or taken antidepressants or anything like that. As I always had the (probably very stupid) idea that the problems are my own and I should be able to solve them myself. And I have been struggling with them for a long time. Over the past 3 years or so though, I've slowly started to have a fairly major shift in perspective on some things and recently I've made some big changes (for me that is, in hindsight they were pretty straightforward) that have helped me a lot! All directly caused by finding Prequel as silly as that might sound. Katia's reinvention of herself has been very inspiring to me.
I said all that I guess to show that I am very compelled by this topic! And I think your idea to explore it through fanart is extremely cool! It's neat to get to see another point of view on this stuff. I look forward to seeing what you come up with! (Also if you want to discuss it more I'd be happy to.)
Azmeltosh: @Auserr: i dont think thats very stupid to say that. ive been offered this stuff a lot, ive also had it literally shoved down my throat as a kid. if i cant succeed or even be "acceptable" unless i am on drugs. i also dont think you understand what i meant by new perspective. i wasnt talking about her current strategy of getting through things. i was saying she might need a new strategy because although better than drinking, i think its quite unhealthy. not only are the characterizations and expectations she gives herself not quote inaccurate theyre downright inhuman to assign to anyone (or in khajiit?)
for example how she hot brainwashed by sigrid and immediately found herself to be worthless and unworthy of being compared to a person despite the fact that she has evidently tricked people more familiar with magic and alchemy over at the anvil guild.
Auserr: @Azmeltosh: That may be true about the antidepressants, I've always thought of them as a bandaid solution, but they also help a lot of people, and sometimes I think it may have been unwise to not at least try them, I guess?
I believe I did understand you about the new perspective thing, actually! You see, Katia does still have a lot of problems including holding herself to impossibly high standards but she also has come pretty far in a short time. She has made a good start, but still has more to do. She did this largely just by trying things, ideas that might not sound the best at first, or she may not be confident in. But she tries them anyway. She just keeps going, even if things don't work out. That's something I had not been able to do for a long time. I had grown extremely adverse to risk. Because I had tried things in the past and been burned. I wanted change but I had grown comfortable in my unhappiness and addiction. I knew it well and I didn't think I could ever escape it, so I pretty much just wallowed in self pity and did nothing about it for a long time. Searching for some perfect answer that was never gonna come. (I am probably explaining this really badly) Katia made me realize that I should just try some shit like she did even if it seems crazy and stupid. Then all the sudden all these things I had always dismissed as impossible didn't seem quite so far fetched. It's not been easy and I still struggle with it but I am making progress, like Katia is doing I think. Does any of that make any sense?? Basically I realized if she can do it then maybe I can to.
Auserr: Also sorry if this is getting way too personal, I don't mean to make this a public therapy session or something. Like I said I'm doing quite well now, so no need to worry. I've been trying to be more open lately but I think I might go to far sometimes.
Auserr: Should add that I realize you were talking about how Katia could use a new perspective on things. I was trying to say that I can see how that would help because she was a new perspective on things for me, and it did help! I'm finding it hard to discuss these aspects of the comic without bringing up my personal experience for context because a lot of my thoughts on it are based on parallels I've found between Katia's experiences and my own.
Azmeltosh: @Auserr: eh fuck it im probably not going to draw the comic i have too many ideas on the backlog. i think your idea of medicine being a bandaid fix is a good example of something i would write to not make the character a mouthpiece while still making a story that i think conveys my ideas of what makes someone who they are. multiple doctors have told me that was the plan but after i (unwillingly) took it for a while they started trying to ease me into taking it perpetually and when i said i hated that they insisted i just wanted to be miserable.
thats still not what i meant when i said new perspective but this is my fault as i was being vague in order to keep it a surprise for when i finally made it a comic. i more than understand why you thought that though. i think one of the biggest reasons why she improved is she started to see instances where she wronged someone and them being generously forgiving not as her taking advantage of a stranger but that person being a friend that she needs to make up with, obviously refering to quill
when i meant new perspective i meant how she describes herself. when she first arrives she says she wanted to change her name so people could actually pronounce it and stuff which is cool, then you realize she might be doing it so she wont be recognized which is probably not a good way to handle it, fianlly it becomes clear that she actually is trying to convince herself that the name change makes her a new person. personally the experiences i had make me uncomfortable with thinking of my name as anything more that just something people use to make sure theyre talking about the same person (also preferably something that sounds pleasan). it all seems superficial to me. although i dont think its the best i understand that some people have emotional attachment to their names, however what katia is doing goes far beyond just being a little attached, she seems emotionally reliant on using the name change as a means to dissociate herself from her past self in hammerfell. this both ignores how her past plays a role in her current success, with the shame and unfulfillment in past being the metaphorical (and in cases involving pyromancy literal) fuel that drives her to chase the life she desires, but it also cheapens those successes. remember after she got robbed by sigrid she said she didnt deserve the name katia managan? her idea of katia seems to be someone who doesn't have setbacks and fuck up. if who she is now is viewed as separate from her past self then she cant really give herself the credit she is due for improving. her perceived start point will only ever be someone very close to who she is now, never the absolute self loathing mooch she was back then. this would tie into the troubles shes experiencing now with the healing spell as its pretty hard for someone like that to ever believe they can do something that they just saw themselves not do. for someone who was able to change from someone who cant help but spend all their cash on booze when they cant afford to eat into someone who was able to save the city from an evil brainwashing witch the act of changing from someone who doesnt know the bandaid spell to someone who knows it doesn't seem daunting at all.
i think if she wants to acknowledge how far shes come shes going to need to at least say her old name once and acknowledge that its another way to refer to her, even if she wants to continue referring to herself as katia fucking managan (because it is a pretty cool name i must admit)
i would love to see the story ending with her accepting that she is still the girl from hammerfell but that doesnt mean she never achieved her goal of being someone people can respect, in fact we all love her for it
Auserr: @Azmeltosh: Ok, wow! That's a lot to unpack. I want to make sure I got this part right: your main point is that you view Katia's name change and life restart as a sort limiting factor, right? One which causes her achievements to seem smaller than they actually are. I think that is a good point. Is her realizing that fact the different perspective you're talking about or am I still missing that part?
I always viewed her reinvention and new identity as a mental tool which she is using to self actualize and become the person she wants to be, which to her is "Katia Fucking Managan". I think it represents more than just a name, if that makes any sense?
The idea that it could also be a sort of crutch had not really crossed my mind. But it does make sense. (Holding yourself to way too high of a standard does tend to be pretty crippling when you inevitably falter in my experience.)
Azmeltosh: @Auserr: im sorry i meant to say i did a bad job interpreting what you said. you were clearly talking about new experiences but the example i gave for something like what you said was with quill but that wass closer to what i originally meant where i was talking about how she needs to start looking at situations shes found herself in the past differently so she can find a better approach
i think you get exactly what im getting at is that the idea she needs to start over and be "a new person" treats her old self as unsalvagable. she needs to learn more self forgiveness which will lead to future improvement. i also think it would benefit her relation with quill to be more forgiving with herself. she was very upset over the submissions suggesting (factually) that quill was drinking booze at the party saying that would make quill a bad friend. if she is able to consider herself to be a good person despite her shortcomings she might start viewing others with less harsh standards. i mean shes done much worse so if she starts to believe shes still redeemable so itd be pretty hypocritical to not aply the same standards to her friends. quills clearly going through some stuff and is just trying to not be a stick in the mud worrying about impossibly unlikely "what ifs"
Auserr: @Azmeltosh: No need to be sorry, I've really enjoyed this conversation so far! I like your perspective on things, and you've made me think about the comic in a new way. I'd still like to see it made into fanart if you decide to! I also wouldn't be surprised if something similar to this concept gets included in the story at some point.
(I feel like there are other parts of this I want to discuss but I'm pretty tired atm and I think that's keeping me from forming coherent thoughts right now)
Auserr: @Azmeltosh: Ok I have organized some of my thoughts, hopefully they are not too rambly and tangential.
So I think that maybe Katia believes both of these things simultaneously. That is, she's proud of her accomplishments as well as thinking she's kind of worthless. And these thoughts are fighting each other in her head. From my experience, you can kind of build up a fragile "confidence" that you're on the right track and doing well. That maybe you can be something of value, but it can all fall apart at a moment's notice. Sometimes there is a cause, sometimes it just fucking happens. And then all the self loathing comes in and mopey bullshit ensues. Thoughts that previously helped like "Look at all these good things I did!" become "I could've done so much more if I wasn't such a fuck up. These things only look good when compared to how useless I've been in the past." stuff like that. You turn stuff around, and instead of looking at your past and thinking about how far you've come, you start to just see how much it has held you back. It's as if no matter what you do your past is this albatross around your neck holding you down. Making every accomplishment lesser. It's like starting life over again but from a negative score. So you feel you have to do a bunch of good things to come up to everyone else's baseline.
For example, her response to a command about self esteem in the update reposted yesterday:
"That just sounds like a very roundabout way of asking 'do you like being a talking animal that panics about everything'.
And no, you take more pride in the fact that you worked stuff out okay despite being a talking animal that panics about everything."
To me this basically says, "Yeah, I've been doing pretty good, despite being what I perceive as pretty worthless" Like she is acknowledging who she is and where she came from but not exactly in a good way. It's a similar line of thinking as what you described just used to the opposite effect.
Even knowing that it's objectively a way too harsh and reductive to view oneself, it still happens all the same. She might already be aware of the new perspective that you're talking about but not be able to truly believe it. When someone has such ingrained ideas of themselves it gets messy, and they can be pretty hard to get rid of.
That's my read on the situation anyway, but maybe I am unintentionally projecting my issues onto Katia or something. I don't really know.
Auserr: So I've been thinking about this EVEN MORE, and also reading the update today reminded me that Katia also has had a pretty big problem with over confidence! I think that may be an extension of the what I was talking about before, where she will go and try stuff even if she's not sure about it. Which is generally a good thing I think. But if she meets the task with anything other than success she is super hard on herself, which is the bad part.
I think it could also tie into what you were talking about, where she has two different images of herself that are separate, her past self and her current "Katia Fucking Managan" self. So when Katia fails to do well at something, it breaks that perceived reality. Reminding her that she is still the same Khajiit from Hammerfell, which makes her get all sad.
It's pretty interesting to me that she has both over confidence and low self esteem. (maybe something to do with the thousands of internet voices in her head?) Makes me wonder if she actually even has low self esteem? Maybe it's something totally different! There are so many possible answers!
I'll stop inundating you with my rambling now, sorry! I just can't stop thinking about it.
Radiocaster: Bravery isn't an absence of fear, it's the mastery of it. In other words, it's possible for Katia to have low self esteem and still do things that require confidence, and often that pushes her to come up with a plan instead of going in head-first. Likewise, regrouping her thoughts in a negative light is a core habit that she owns rather than decries, which is why telling her to be nice to herself doesn't work. It's not something solved by laying out her accomplishments either, because she isn't denying their existence, she just isn't ready to consider herself an achiever with confidence. In other words, I feel like her self image upgraded from "I'm a paranoid fool who does nothing right" to "I'm pretty sure I'm a paranoid fool who does nothing right, but this seems to be working, so I guess I'll do it anyway."
Auserr: @Radiocaster: :o I feel like you just said a lot of what I had been trying to say for like 6 paragraphs of stumbling over my thoughts and getting distracted. Then you also added to it and made it better, while still being concise. Amazing, thank you!
I wouldn't mind some further explanation on what you mean by "regrouping her thoughts in a negative light is a core habit that she owns rather than decries". As she does seem to have problems with that, like in the first few days where her being hypercritical of herself ended with her drinking. Or in the chapel after she got robbed. Obviously addiction was a major factor there, but I think she'd still rather avoid some of those thoughts if she could, I guess?
Only other minor thing would maybe be the planning part, often she doesn't plan much. And she seems to go into almost every situation head first, which I find admirable! She has definitely gotten better about planning though.
Radiocaster: I think I mostly meant it in the sense that a negative state of mind can feel like a concrete place to return to, and allowing yourself to feel more positive can be difficult. She acts more openly apologetic or deadpan about her problems rather than harshly emphasizing what she's doing to fix them. As for the planning, it ebbs and flows. Sometimes she doesn't plan and it comes back to bite her. Sometimes she elaborately plans when running towards or away from something is the only real option. But she does get better at that over time, and generally got more time to make plans that at least somewhat work.
Auserr: @Radiocaster: Okay, yeah. I get what you're saying, and I agree! I think we are on the same page when it comes to her planning as well. Thanks for your input, very well said.
Off topic side note: I hadn't told you that I quite enjoy the comics that you've posted here, so I'm rectifying that now. They're cool! I'm curious if you're planning on continuing either of them/making more? I actually made an account here originally to submit a command for Dragonbreak Protocol a couple years ago. Sorry about not interacting with them more, I really should have!
Radiocaster: @Auserr: My Prequel comics are on the backburner for right now so I can focus on other projects as well as my own comic, though I wouldn't be against coming back to them at some point. I also considered re-tooling the format AGAIN to be more like a light novel with illustrations so I can spend more time focusing on the story, but we'll see whether or not I go through with that.
Auserr: @Radiocaster: Alright, thanks for letting me know. I can see the appeal of a more text focused format from a story telling perspective. As drawing all of those panels has got to take a lot of effort! I really like pictures of Katia though, practicality notwithstanding.
Azmeltosh: @Auserr: sorry i took so long to reply. i couldnt find the right words, then i forgot, then i got embarrassed because what if you dont even care anymore. anyway i think you phrased it well, theres an overconfident and unrealistic facade which is easily broken that she uses to try to cope, then theres the reality of being the drunk from hammerfell that wasted years that could have been spent getting better. shes definitely not completely delusional, she does refer to her past, but she seems to like pretending something special happened that makes her a definitively new person even though she probably knows how ridiculous that is. its a coping mechanism and i think the fact that shes aware of the fact that shes using coping mechanisms (not unlike the dinner party) only makes her feel worse. katia will only start to feel better once she not only accepts herself as the person who fucked up for years but forgives that person because she fixed herself late rather than never. i mean i personally know how hard that is but its the truth
@Radiocaster: my point wasnt just "be nice to herself" i acknowledge that she needs to recognize all the bad shit she did. like even if "i need to make it up to my friend" is more positive than "oh my god they hate me i can never show my face here again" its still negative to be indebted to someone but at least here there is something she can do about it which makes her more responsible for her actions. i also agree that she has a lot of issues with not planning. i think her impulsive actions are the result of her not acknowledging her past failures that were caused by that. i also dont think that laying out her current successes is actually in opposition to acknowledging her past failures. it would not be fair to give yourself so much credit for your successes when you also dont take all the blame for your failures, pushing them onto a "different person" when they become to much to bear, and she probably knows this. Its more about taking it all in good and bad, making her more accountable for her mistakes as she has proven to herself that she can do something about it.
im explaining this very poorly
Auserr: @Azmeltosh: :D I appreciate the reply! And don't worry, I still care! (I'm always up for talking about Prequel)
I agree with you! I've been thinking more about how this could tie into her problem learning healing spells. It really seems this past self/current self separation could be it. As having to project an image of her past self onto her current "Katia" self while at the same time "believing in herself" all seems pretty incompatible with the way she views herself now.
It could be that's being hinted at here:
"You don’t… think that’s the issue? Sure, you’ve had plenty of times where you comforted yourself with lies, but you feel like your overall self-perception isn’t off base. It might seem like you’re hard on yourself sometimes, but really you just have a lot of problems and you’re extremely aware of them. And you’re not blind to the good things about yourself, either! Like, you did a cool thing last night and saved the day. Plus, you’ve been in Cyrodiil for less than a week and have already become a hundredaire. A high-end hundredaire too, over halfway to thousandaire. You’re okay.
And if your self-perception is screwed up in some weird way you don’t understand… well, that just makes you feel a little worse about yourself. Like, there’s something broken inside you that you can’t see, and it’s keeping you from learning the magic spell you want to learn. The thought is making you sad, which is pretty much the opposite of the snake’s advice to 'believe in yourself'."
(Sorry for the long quote! I couldn't figure out a good way to trim it, it all seems relevant.)
What I get from this is that she's conflicted over whether or not her self perception is the issue. She doesn't want it to be, because the coping mechanism is working well right now so she doesn't want to give it up. And after this she changes the topic to mess with her clothes. Which makes me think she doesn't want to think about it anymore, because she's afraid she knows the answer. (Not overly confident in this interpretation though, I could be reading too deep into it)
I'm really looking forward to seeing where this goes! It's fun to speculate about. It'll be interesting to see whether we're onto something or if this is just headcanon.
Describe This Image As Dramatically As Possible
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thank you although i dont understand why. so many of the details are sloppy
especially the writing its barely legible. also its the show chainsmoker cat. its a show about a bunch of catgirls with drug addictions or other mental illness like being a streamer. this one, Aru, is such an alcoholic that her hair has become combustible although shes more of a calm drunk so i thought that would contast with katia. like seriously the only one who isnt on something has to be yani's sister imouko with the white hai. its fun but also requires a stomach as its fairly gross. while most of them just have acouple of quirks like saying nya or eating bugs the main character, yani seems to have a very cat-like personality which i love but also would make her unbearable to be around. i think this is a topic i want to explore more as i think the reason katia is so hurt by the cat burns is that due to her past she very much at least partially sees herself as a cat. i think the most obvious thing separating her from a very intelligent bipedal cat is the presence of shame and remorse for her past actions. i think if she ever met yani she'd realize shes not as cat herself as she thought.
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Oh and I don't judge bad handwriting much as mine is fucking terrible. I could read this, which is more than I can say for mine sometimes.
I can see why the show made you think of Katia! haha
honestly when i think i sound this way when i talk about this stuff
anyway im trying to come up with a script for this that is more distanced from my experience and instead of just making katia my mouthpiece because obviously shes her own character and we wouldnt see eye to eye on everything if she were real
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I've had somewhat similar problems to Katia's, and I guess she actually acted as my "new perspective" as you called it. I've never been to therapy or taken antidepressants or anything like that. As I always had the (probably very stupid) idea that the problems are my own and I should be able to solve them myself. And I have been struggling with them for a long time. Over the past 3 years or so though, I've slowly started to have a fairly major shift in perspective on some things and recently I've made some big changes (for me that is, in hindsight they were pretty straightforward) that have helped me a lot! All directly caused by finding Prequel as silly as that might sound. Katia's reinvention of herself has been very inspiring to me.
I said all that I guess to show that I am very compelled by this topic! And I think your idea to explore it through fanart is extremely cool! It's neat to get to see another point of view on this stuff. I look forward to seeing what you come up with! (Also if you want to discuss it more I'd be happy to.)
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for example how she hot brainwashed by sigrid and immediately found herself to be worthless and unworthy of being compared to a person despite the fact that she has evidently tricked people more familiar with magic and alchemy over at the anvil guild.
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I believe I did understand you about the new perspective thing, actually! You see, Katia does still have a lot of problems including holding herself to impossibly high standards but she also has come pretty far in a short time. She has made a good start, but still has more to do. She did this largely just by trying things, ideas that might not sound the best at first, or she may not be confident in. But she tries them anyway. She just keeps going, even if things don't work out. That's something I had not been able to do for a long time. I had grown extremely adverse to risk. Because I had tried things in the past and been burned. I wanted change but I had grown comfortable in my unhappiness and addiction. I knew it well and I didn't think I could ever escape it, so I pretty much just wallowed in self pity and did nothing about it for a long time. Searching for some perfect answer that was never gonna come. (I am probably explaining this really badly) Katia made me realize that I should just try some shit like she did even if it seems crazy and stupid. Then all the sudden all these things I had always dismissed as impossible didn't seem quite so far fetched. It's not been easy and I still struggle with it but I am making progress, like Katia is doing I think. Does any of that make any sense?? Basically I realized if she can do it then maybe I can to.
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thats still not what i meant when i said new perspective but this is my fault as i was being vague in order to keep it a surprise for when i finally made it a comic. i more than understand why you thought that though. i think one of the biggest reasons why she improved is she started to see instances where she wronged someone and them being generously forgiving not as her taking advantage of a stranger but that person being a friend that she needs to make up with, obviously refering to quill
when i meant new perspective i meant how she describes herself. when she first arrives she says she wanted to change her name so people could actually pronounce it and stuff which is cool, then you realize she might be doing it so she wont be recognized which is probably not a good way to handle it, fianlly it becomes clear that she actually is trying to convince herself that the name change makes her a new person. personally the experiences i had make me uncomfortable with thinking of my name as anything more that just something people use to make sure theyre talking about the same person (also preferably something that sounds pleasan). it all seems superficial to me. although i dont think its the best i understand that some people have emotional attachment to their names, however what katia is doing goes far beyond just being a little attached, she seems emotionally reliant on using the name change as a means to dissociate herself from her past self in hammerfell. this both ignores how her past plays a role in her current success, with the shame and unfulfillment in past being the metaphorical (and in cases involving pyromancy literal) fuel that drives her to chase the life she desires, but it also cheapens those successes. remember after she got robbed by sigrid she said she didnt deserve the name katia managan? her idea of katia seems to be someone who doesn't have setbacks and fuck up. if who she is now is viewed as separate from her past self then she cant really give herself the credit she is due for improving. her perceived start point will only ever be someone very close to who she is now, never the absolute self loathing mooch she was back then. this would tie into the troubles shes experiencing now with the healing spell as its pretty hard for someone like that to ever believe they can do something that they just saw themselves not do. for someone who was able to change from someone who cant help but spend all their cash on booze when they cant afford to eat into someone who was able to save the city from an evil brainwashing witch the act of changing from someone who doesnt know the bandaid spell to someone who knows it doesn't seem daunting at all.
i think if she wants to acknowledge how far shes come shes going to need to at least say her old name once and acknowledge that its another way to refer to her, even if she wants to continue referring to herself as katia fucking managan (because it is a pretty cool name i must admit)
i would love to see the story ending with her accepting that she is still the girl from hammerfell but that doesnt mean she never achieved her goal of being someone people can respect, in fact we all love her for it
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I always viewed her reinvention and new identity as a mental tool which she is using to self actualize and become the person she wants to be, which to her is "Katia Fucking Managan". I think it represents more than just a name, if that makes any sense?
The idea that it could also be a sort of crutch had not really crossed my mind. But it does make sense. (Holding yourself to way too high of a standard does tend to be pretty crippling when you inevitably falter in my experience.)
i think you get exactly what im getting at is that the idea she needs to start over and be "a new person" treats her old self as unsalvagable. she needs to learn more self forgiveness which will lead to future improvement. i also think it would benefit her relation with quill to be more forgiving with herself. she was very upset over the submissions suggesting (factually) that quill was drinking booze at the party saying that would make quill a bad friend. if she is able to consider herself to be a good person despite her shortcomings she might start viewing others with less harsh standards. i mean shes done much worse so if she starts to believe shes still redeemable so itd be pretty hypocritical to not aply the same standards to her friends. quills clearly going through some stuff and is just trying to not be a stick in the mud worrying about impossibly unlikely "what ifs"
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(I feel like there are other parts of this I want to discuss but I'm pretty tired atm and I think that's keeping me from forming coherent thoughts right now)
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So I think that maybe Katia believes both of these things simultaneously. That is, she's proud of her accomplishments as well as thinking she's kind of worthless. And these thoughts are fighting each other in her head. From my experience, you can kind of build up a fragile "confidence" that you're on the right track and doing well. That maybe you can be something of value, but it can all fall apart at a moment's notice. Sometimes there is a cause, sometimes it just fucking happens. And then all the self loathing comes in and mopey bullshit ensues. Thoughts that previously helped like "Look at all these good things I did!" become "I could've done so much more if I wasn't such a fuck up. These things only look good when compared to how useless I've been in the past." stuff like that. You turn stuff around, and instead of looking at your past and thinking about how far you've come, you start to just see how much it has held you back. It's as if no matter what you do your past is this albatross around your neck holding you down. Making every accomplishment lesser. It's like starting life over again but from a negative score. So you feel you have to do a bunch of good things to come up to everyone else's baseline.
For example, her response to a command about self esteem in the update reposted yesterday:
"That just sounds like a very roundabout way of asking 'do you like being a talking animal that panics about everything'.
And no, you take more pride in the fact that you worked stuff out okay despite being a talking animal that panics about everything."
To me this basically says, "Yeah, I've been doing pretty good, despite being what I perceive as pretty worthless" Like she is acknowledging who she is and where she came from but not exactly in a good way. It's a similar line of thinking as what you described just used to the opposite effect.
Even knowing that it's objectively a way too harsh and reductive to view oneself, it still happens all the same. She might already be aware of the new perspective that you're talking about but not be able to truly believe it. When someone has such ingrained ideas of themselves it gets messy, and they can be pretty hard to get rid of.
That's my read on the situation anyway, but maybe I am unintentionally projecting my issues onto Katia or something. I don't really know.
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I think it could also tie into what you were talking about, where she has two different images of herself that are separate, her past self and her current "Katia Fucking Managan" self. So when Katia fails to do well at something, it breaks that perceived reality. Reminding her that she is still the same Khajiit from Hammerfell, which makes her get all sad.
It's pretty interesting to me that she has both over confidence and low self esteem. (maybe something to do with the thousands of internet voices in her head?) Makes me wonder if she actually even has low self esteem? Maybe it's something totally different! There are so many possible answers!
I'll stop inundating you with my rambling now, sorry! I just can't stop thinking about it.
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I wouldn't mind some further explanation on what you mean by "regrouping her thoughts in a negative light is a core habit that she owns rather than decries". As she does seem to have problems with that, like in the first few days where her being hypercritical of herself ended with her drinking. Or in the chapel after she got robbed. Obviously addiction was a major factor there, but I think she'd still rather avoid some of those thoughts if she could, I guess?
Only other minor thing would maybe be the planning part, often she doesn't plan much. And she seems to go into almost every situation head first, which I find admirable! She has definitely gotten better about planning though.
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Off topic side note: I hadn't told you that I quite enjoy the comics that you've posted here, so I'm rectifying that now. They're cool! I'm curious if you're planning on continuing either of them/making more? I actually made an account here originally to submit a command for Dragonbreak Protocol a couple years ago. Sorry about not interacting with them more, I really should have!
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@Radiocaster: my point wasnt just "be nice to herself" i acknowledge that she needs to recognize all the bad shit she did. like even if "i need to make it up to my friend" is more positive than "oh my god they hate me i can never show my face here again" its still negative to be indebted to someone but at least here there is something she can do about it which makes her more responsible for her actions. i also agree that she has a lot of issues with not planning. i think her impulsive actions are the result of her not acknowledging her past failures that were caused by that. i also dont think that laying out her current successes is actually in opposition to acknowledging her past failures. it would not be fair to give yourself so much credit for your successes when you also dont take all the blame for your failures, pushing them onto a "different person" when they become to much to bear, and she probably knows this. Its more about taking it all in good and bad, making her more accountable for her mistakes as she has proven to herself that she can do something about it.
im explaining this very poorly
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I agree with you! I've been thinking more about how this could tie into her problem learning healing spells. It really seems this past self/current self separation could be it. As having to project an image of her past self onto her current "Katia" self while at the same time "believing in herself" all seems pretty incompatible with the way she views herself now.
It could be that's being hinted at here:
"You don’t… think that’s the issue? Sure, you’ve had plenty of times where you comforted yourself with lies, but you feel like your overall self-perception isn’t off base. It might seem like you’re hard on yourself sometimes, but really you just have a lot of problems and you’re extremely aware of them. And you’re not blind to the good things about yourself, either! Like, you did a cool thing last night and saved the day. Plus, you’ve been in Cyrodiil for less than a week and have already become a hundredaire. A high-end hundredaire too, over halfway to thousandaire. You’re okay.
And if your self-perception is screwed up in some weird way you don’t understand… well, that just makes you feel a little worse about yourself. Like, there’s something broken inside you that you can’t see, and it’s keeping you from learning the magic spell you want to learn. The thought is making you sad, which is pretty much the opposite of the snake’s advice to 'believe in yourself'."
(Sorry for the long quote! I couldn't figure out a good way to trim it, it all seems relevant.)
What I get from this is that she's conflicted over whether or not her self perception is the issue. She doesn't want it to be, because the coping mechanism is working well right now so she doesn't want to give it up. And after this she changes the topic to mess with her clothes. Which makes me think she doesn't want to think about it anymore, because she's afraid she knows the answer. (Not overly confident in this interpretation though, I could be reading too deep into it)
I'm really looking forward to seeing where this goes! It's fun to speculate about. It'll be interesting to see whether we're onto something or if this is just headcanon.