Oh *Grant*. I'm so sorry. I don't know if you'll believe me, but I *do* understand. For the first forty years of my life, *I* spent a lot of time trying to come off as non-threatening. Well, I'm a gay man of color with a non-typical psychology and no particular desire to draw the ire of racists and homophobes. Keeping my head down always seemed like it was the better part of valor.
You never met me before I went home for six years, but I even held myself differently when I was younger, like I was *trying* to minimize how much space I took up. Because I was. I'm not a big as you, but I'm *not* a small man either. And people can find that intimidating.
Well. I won't really go into what changed there. But I *do* get it.
And I know Thace would too. He's very conscious of not coming off as the big scary alien invader with people, especially ones like Shiro who've encountered Galra before.
[He hesitates for a moment before adding,]
(Regarding Thace's people... the kinds of things he's told me happened were done *to* the Galra and *by* the Galra, to each other as 'disciplinary measures' and to the people they conquered. The Galra as a whole are far from guiltless... but they weren't *always* like that and their nigh-immortal emperor did a *lot* to twist them.)
Oooh, god, yeah. Just ends up feeling like a matter of safety - sometimes even in a place like this where it doesn't seem, objectively, like it's quite so necessary. I absolutely believe that you guys get it, yeah.
Shit, that sounds awful... no wonder Thace wants to move away from that image of his people.
From what I can tell, things got better at some point after Thace's death back home, due in no small part to Shiro and his friends, but yeah. The Galra were pretty screwed up by their emperor's policies and the people they conquered suffered worse. Thace ended up joining a revolutionary group that wanted to restore the old ways before the corruption.
So Thace is always very conscious of how he can't really show too much negative emotion lest people find it threatening. It comes from a place of power over other people rather than weakness, but it was one of the things I was grateful to see that he understood.
(And while I hate that you've had enough experience to understand, I'm also slightly grateful that we aren't alone in that here, that there's other people outside us that understand.)
Well, that's something he's gonna have to process, because it feels... somehow inappropriate, weirdly, to draw attention to it?
God, he hopes Dimitri doesn't find out about that.]
Yeah, absolutely - that's always an odd experience. Being bothered by knowing someone else has suffered, but appreciating that you have experiences in common. While it'd obviously be best if neither of you had been put through the experiences that left you with those feelings at all, it does sound to be good for you both to have each other's understanding and support on that.
[There's a long pause where Steven's typing out another reply, deleting it, and typing it out again, before he finally sends,] And it helps, I think, that we both believe in each other when we can't believe in ourselves.
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You never met me before I went home for six years, but I even held myself differently when I was younger, like I was *trying* to minimize how much space I took up. Because I was. I'm not a big as you, but I'm *not* a small man either. And people can find that intimidating.
Well. I won't really go into what changed there. But I *do* get it.
And I know Thace would too. He's very conscious of not coming off as the big scary alien invader with people, especially ones like Shiro who've encountered Galra before.
[He hesitates for a moment before adding,]
(Regarding Thace's people... the kinds of things he's told me happened were done *to* the Galra and *by* the Galra, to each other as 'disciplinary measures' and to the people they conquered. The Galra as a whole are far from guiltless... but they weren't *always* like that and their nigh-immortal emperor did a *lot* to twist them.)
no subject
Shit, that sounds awful... no wonder Thace wants to move away from that image of his people.
no subject
So Thace is always very conscious of how he can't really show too much negative emotion lest people find it threatening. It comes from a place of power over other people rather than weakness, but it was one of the things I was grateful to see that he understood.
(And while I hate that you've had enough experience to understand, I'm also slightly grateful that we aren't alone in that here, that there's other people outside us that understand.)
no subject
Shit.
Well, that's something he's gonna have to process, because it feels... somehow inappropriate, weirdly, to draw attention to it?
God, he hopes Dimitri doesn't find out about that.]
Yeah, absolutely - that's always an odd experience. Being bothered by knowing someone else has suffered, but appreciating that you have experiences in common. While it'd obviously be best if neither of you had been put through the experiences that left you with those feelings at all, it does sound to be good for you both to have each other's understanding and support on that.
no subject
[There's a long pause where Steven's typing out another reply, deleting it, and typing it out again, before he finally sends,] And it helps, I think, that we both believe in each other when we can't believe in ourselves.