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here yazoo and i are going through and answering some of the questions at the bottom of the essay for fun and games :-)
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What elements make up your conceptuality? How did you first come to understand it?
loz: for us, the concept that has followed us forever is duality. usually in the shape of twins, and how we each embody some balancing force that, without the "other half" starts to go all wonky. death and life, light and dark, winter and summer, body and spirit, etc. i think i first noticed the frequency that this concept came up in our lives after playing elden ring, which is full of twins and dual-meanings. at first it felt weird because this was before i really, fully stepped into my role as a fictional character, so i was forcing myself into the framework of the syzygy-body. syzygy-body does not have a twin, and the sibling who is closest in age to it pisses me off. so i was very confused as to why this kept coming up.
yaz: it was something that didn't sit right with me from the perspective of our transness. we spent the past 10 years of our lives refusing anything binary, so what the hell was this? tbh i was worried about the feeling and how it mapped easily into our new practice of crucible and eventually hornsent spirituality. i didn't want to fall into the "divine feminine/masculine" trap that is the foundation of a lot of pseudo-esoteric bullshit we see online. basically how i first came to understand it was "nope, i don't think this is right". but at the same time, the pull of the metaphor was impossible to deny.
loz: eventually i traced back a list of other character-identities that fit this concept of twins-duality.
- black/white -- tekkonkinkreet
- nick valentine/DiMA(who is part of syzygy, and gets real sad about his missing twin sometimes) -- fallout 4
- number 4 -- number 5
- lothric/lorian -- dark souls 3
- adam/eve -- neir:automata
- morgott/mohg -- elden ring
- miquella/malenia -- elden ring
yaz: yeah, and looking at that long of a list makes things pretty obvious. it also helped assuage some discomfort, because many of these characters are trans, gender nonconforming, or just straight up the same gender, so the whole "masc/fem" thing doesnt really apply as much as i thought it would.
other noncharacter stuff that just came to mind right now was the earth and sky; that pair of tornadoes that orbited around each other, sending one flying at the fastest forward-speed measured by a tornado; the video about the timescale of the universe that talks about black holes that orbit before crashing into each other and merging (always makes loz get really weepy). so its not just fictional. and our spirituality does have a lot to do with it, the crucible is all about a union of all sorts. so is the basis of reunion theory.
Is your approach to your alterhumanity literal, sentimental, or metaphorical? Or multiple of these? What does that look like for you?
yaz: in this case it's literal and metaphorical. literal because loz and i are twins that have aspects that balance out the other. metaphorical because those aspects in our life-narrative serve a role that isn't very tangible in the same way you can look at us and go "oh yeah, these two came out of the space womb at the same time."
loz: also because we are metaphorical beings. so the metaphor and the literal are kind of intertwined in a weird way due to the remnant thing. we were created as stand ins for sephiroth, and each of us carry a sort of metaphor for her life path and how people viewed her.
yaz: yay. the ever present brains-beauty-brawn trope. forgot about that one for a second. plays into the fictional thing too -- narratively we are walking stereotypes. stereotypical sephiroths, stereotypical villain-henchmen, stereotypical trio of bullies. hey, remember the gross sisters from the proud family?
loz: uooooguhhhh.
yaz: moving on ^u^
Who do you think you would be if your keystone was not what it is?
yaz: really boring and lonely. i think a lot of what makes us us is the constant need for ricocheting, drastic perspectives. i'm giggling a bit because our time in DBT tried so hard to get rid of our "black and white thinking", when that's extremely connected to who we are.
loz: maybe the good part about that was that we now know how to take our drastic perspectives and synergize them.
yaz: i don't know if that was DBT's doing. see, look. it's not always harmonious.
loz: as for the lonely part, i don't like to speak for others in syzygy if they're not here -- but from my perspective, DiMA's whole problem is that he doesn't have his other half anymore. i think that's also part of why he's a little bonkers. okay am i being mean. he's nice we're friends i like him he just also. is very obviously stressed without his twin. i think that answers the concept starvation question a bit too.
What is your experience of conceptual starvation like? What alleviates it?
loz: yazoo only appeared as herself about five months ago. prior to that she embodied a different member of syzygy and had a different name. i had no clue who she was, there was a familiarity that surrounded "about"(yes, that was her name), but i didn't actually recognize her as my sister. kadaj is way better about that -- he recognized her immediately, in the same way he recognized me while i was in the depths of denial. he's got a keen eye.
all that to say. conceptual starvation looks a lot like denial for me. and feels a sort of lostness that makes me irritable. metaphorically i feel like a can of soda in the freezer -- some bullshit is building up but i have nowhere to put it because im frozen. at some point though i'm going to explode!! i get stuck in certain perspectives and hyperfocused in a way that is unfun and sometimes dangerous -- not the colloquial special interest synonym. the things that alleviated it the most were being me and being with yaz. even if it's not direct interaction, just knowing that she's there makes things way easier. things flow more. if arguments happen they're usually synthesized. my emotional lability is soothed by her chill; her understimulation is lessened by my enthusiasm for everything ever.
yaz: idk if i ever experienced full on starvation, but the understimulation gets at it. at a certain point i can see myself just stopping seeking anything at all. my brain just goes completely empty. don't have much else to say on this one because i'm alleviated in the same way.
In what ways is a label like conceptfolk useful for you?
yaz: i was hesitant at first. again. because i struggle with this idea that everything needs to be labeled. but i also get that from a language perspective, stuff like this might be necessary for meaningful conversation with others outside of us & kadaj. we just kind of naturally get it because of who we are, no conversation needed. unfortunately though the world does not revolve around us. damn.
loz: i want to say i have the label-hoarder instinct but the truth is i really don'tttt i just want to be understood!! i want to make sense to people and say what i am loud and clear because there's so much about the tropy-ness of our existence that doesn't really get at who we are as individuals. when i found the original essay it was like a breath of fresh air. like oh my god -- words that i can use! to describe things! that other people might actually get!
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click here for part 2!
