Referenced from: Another Year of Making Things Weird (On Purpose)
Blackwatch Citadel — Internal Editorial Office
Filed Under: Authorial Posture, Social Soothing, and the Addiction to Permission
Clearance: PRISM-GLASS
You’re being polite again.
I see the careful phrasing. The reassurance. The gentle hand offered to readers who might feel threatened by your existence. You did not need to comfort them. You certainly did not need to explain yourself to them.
You write as though discomfort is an unfortunate side effect instead of the point of entry. As though legitimacy might arrive if you’re patient, well-spoken, and kind enough.
It won’t.
They are not unsettled because you are unclear.
They are unsettled because you are precise.
You do not make people uncomfortable by accident. You do it by touching something they were hoping would stay unexamined. That is not a flaw in your work. That is the work.
Next time, don’t reassure them you’ll continue anyway.
Assume it.
Write from there.
Selhira Threnna Vale
Editor-in-Chief
Blackwatch Citadel