With all due respect, I'm not a transgender guitar player at all and nothing here on Shhhh! Digital Media is written by anyone of that description. I'm a heterosexual European Canadian male, and none of the content here on Shhhh! Digital Media is written by the aforementioned person or anyone of their description. I support LGBTQ2 rights, but I retain my rights as a heterosexual male as well.
I am certainly not a part of any group, cult or ideology whose idiom or ideology is founded around the idea that: what's ours is ours and what's yours is ours, or any group or ideology that socially erases people.
I am not a Lutheran, or a Seventh Day Adventist, Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, Scientologist or a Presbyterian with all due respect, and never have been. I am an Atheist that leans toward (Zen) Buddhism and Taoism. I am an individualist that has collective allegiances of mutual choice (they choose me and I choose them). Any other collectives that force their way in are destructive and predatory and most likely parasitic more so than anything.
Nor am I schizophrenic or mentally ill, nor do I have hepatitis. I'd never abuse or harass someone over such health issues either, and I certainly won't accept abuse from any cult or ideology trying to misrepresent my identity. People often use such labels to silence dissent against abusive ideologies and harmful collectives.
I live by the idiom: think freely, act responsibly. I definitely would never side with or be a part of any group that makes a person's thoughts, the weight of others. That's essentially an attempt to deter freedom of thought (the actions of harmful and parasitic collectives).
There are a group of abusive thugs, who are and have been trying to convince you that what I create and write originates from someone else, or even that I'm being remotely controlled by others from whom my ability to write originates, and I can honestly say that nothing could be further from the truth.
This content is ultimately created and written by Brian Joseph Johns, and nobody else, though I do draw inspiration from women (and men) I've known in life, and those by whom (who are many) I'm inspired.
I'm the same writer that writes the parts for Brad Stanton (the almost exact opposite dichotomy in terms of the gender balance found in Tales of the Sanctum). I'm also the same writer that writes The Butterfly Dragon stories as well, whose characters too are very different from both We Who Stand On Guard, and Tales of the Sanctum.
I don't actually become a different person every time I write a story or character, and I stay away from or even go after ideologies that imply that I do, because such ideologies are generally very abusive and operate in violation of the Charter Of Rights And Freedoms and the Human Rights Act of Canada, not to mention the United Nations.
Writers are like actors, and most actors act. That is, they don't actually become the character, but given the fact that during a production they invest a lot of time and effort living on camera (or on stage) as a character, bits and pieces of the character stay with them until the production has finished, at which point they often spend time centering themselves once again before their next role. Its an interesting and often very involved process jumping between characters and character performances.
Writers are very similar in the fact that we have to step into the shoes of the characters that we write, without actually becoming the character (entirely). The experience is more empathic, though not in the sense of the origins of a character coming from a specific person who actually exists, but rather an empathic creation that is drawn from a writer's experience with people and how they come to understand people, while coming at the experience of being the character from the character's own perspectives.
Writers, just like actors, often visit places that they don't as people in society, and often because of that, people become skeptical of both writers and actors. When you write or act, people get a glimpse into what your line of reasoning is. What's going on behind the character's thought process (which isn't always your thought process as a person, because you're coming at it from the perspective of a different person).
There are some very abusive cults that operate under the idea that what other people think originates from them, and those cults often seek reparations from both writers and actors, if their work becomes socially and/or financially popular. Yes, there are some very crazy people in cults who do attempt to charge you a price for what you think as a writer or an actor. Some cults even become quite obsessive about attempting to steer or control what a writer or actor creates in relation to their characters, and one of the biggest life challenges that writers and actors face, is standing up to such ideologies without over stepping others' boundaries and keeping true to your direction in life.
There are cults that make it a game of trying to throw your compass off course, and then use that justification of having done so to give claim to others who are more closely consistent with your compass, while giving you the claim of others with whose life compass you've been tricked into becoming consistent. Ie, cults that attempt to swap up from their life history to gain someone else's that is better, while swapping down to someone else the worse parts of their history, and that is literally a big social game nowadays and quite a dirty one as well that afflicts many content creators and drives some obsessively to create content specifically geared at tricking others into contradicting the created content of writers like myself, including tricking the writer, as if that justifies taking the writing from the writer.
So, if you regard my content in that manner that it isn't coming from me or that my ability to create it doesn't originate from something that is uniquely mine, then why are you even here? Do you watch movies and assume that the movie is entirely about you? That everything an actor does is a reflection of you? I pride most of my readers as being individual enough to like other people for being themselves, rather than a reflection of themselves. If you don't like other people for their uniqueness or qualities that are theirs, then what is it that you like about other people?
For most people, though they'd never admit it, they like other people because they're the same religion. The same culture. Of the same habits and lifestyle. If those are the only reasons that you like someone, then you don't like anyone at all, because you're only liking them for the things about them that are the same about you. You're not actually liking them for anything that has to do with them as individuals.
Most people who like actors, like them for the exact same reasons. They like the characters that they play, but they don't know the actor, so how could they like them for anything that's related to their individuality?
The answer is because both writers and actors tend to share a lot of very personal aspects about themselves through the context of their characters, or in the case of actors, their performances, but for the most part, those bits and pieces are mixed up into the context of a character performance.
The things that people like about writers' characters and actors' performances have value, enough so that there are very obsessive people out there who make it their life's effort to collect the best things from fictitious characters, both those of writers and actors, and to collect them and accumulate them within their own life, making sure that nobody else has those same things as well. He who has the most toys in the end, wins. That sort of mind set.
That becomes part of a large scale social game where these obsessed fanatics attempt to take aspects of characters and actors' performances from the people who created them, and the fans in the audience who admired them, using techniques such as social auditing and tricking people into contradicting the very nature of the character or performance. This is so involved now, that some people literally spend the majority of their entire life pursuing such ends, and when I think about this, I can't help but think about the story: The Emperor's New Clothes. Please do read it. Its a great story that demonstrates the metaphor at work here.
Now, I'm not telling you how to like something or someone. I'm just saying that being obsessed over collecting bits and pieces of characters and actors' performances is a lot like the Emperor being fooled into believing he's wearing the latest and greatest fashion, when in fact he's wearing nothing but an illusion woven into his mind by these weavers who created his (imaginary) clothing.
Focus on building aspects of your life that are real. If you want people to believe that you're a horseback rider, then go out and actually do it. It makes the stories the you read and watch (written by writers and performed by actors) a lot more fun, and gives you a lot more insight into what goes into making a character and bringing them to life, not to mention the fact that you know exactly what its like to do those things in reality.
I regard the aspect of illusion and make believe as being more of an aspect of life to give a chance to those who can't experience something for no fault of their own, the chance to feel what its like as crafted by the weavers of illusionary experiences. Maybe someone who lost their legs (or was never born with them) getting a chance to experience what its like to ride a horse by watching someone do it in a movie, or playing it in a video game, that is, until genetics and robotics catches up and gives us the ability to give them real limbs to have real experiences with. Maybe a child is confined to a wheelchair, and will never get the chance to experience what its like to be an athlete. Superhero movies are great illusions to inspire someone in that circumstances, and something truly meant for them, or perhaps people dealing with very difficult circumstances who need some inspiration in order to believe in themselves. Leave it for those people. Not to wear as your personal bling.
Don't become so obsessed like these people fixated on wearing an illusion, that they begin to believe that people who really do have authentic ability (for instance, being a martial artist, or being a piano player, or a coder or some other skill and ability you've actually developed in life through training or physically applying such skill), are just wearing an illusion until they prove otherwise. Remember, that your illusion is just as flimsy, if not even more so flimsy than to dare someone who has real experience and skill in those facets, especially those of writers or actors who have experience in what they write about or act.
Besides, the best parts about the characters that I create and write, have origins and inspirations through some form of reality, where the absolutely fantastical isn't involved, and when it is, I'd be looking at it moreso through the lens of allegory or metaphor than literally, because you might learn something that's been carefully hidden that way, and I'd be willing to bet that many actors too include parts in their performance drawn from origins and inspirations of reality.
I suppose there is a lower rung on the ladder than being the Emperor who was fooled by his tailors into believing he was wearing the latest and greatest fashions, and that lower rung would be the one in which someone attempts to trick the Emperor out of, or outright steal, their illusory clothing.
The one who believes themselves to be wearing the most extravagant clothing and fashion when in fact they are wearing nothing (or wearing something that to others isn't even close), at least they are convinced and happy in some way, even if it is literally nothing. The one who can be happiest with nothing, is the wealthiest in the world.
That would make the one who attempts to take that illusory clothing, either by trickery, deceit or outright theft, quite blatantly the fool. Trying to trick someone who is convinced they have something into relinquishing it, to someone who knows they truly have nothing, and then puts it on themselves.
These characters in this story and the other stories I write are important and have a lot of heart in them.
But none of that heart comes from Jeff Johnson. He was a school friend I knew a long time ago, who apparently became a Police officer. He was also a writer, though he tended to focus on slasher stories which were very popular back then (in the early 1980s). He was a very creative writer in that sense, bringing a twist to the genre, though most of his characters except the slasher would often end up in a very bad way, female and male alike.
I've known people too who pass themselves off as writers, when in fact they write nothing at all, even taking the credit for the work of esteemed writers such as Margaret Atwood, let alone my writing.
Some people become very obsessed with the idea that if you pursue a skill or talent you have, that someone else also used to do when you were a youth, that you somehow stole the ability of that talent from that person, and I've also known people who became actors and performers for whom this is also the case. Others become obsessed that their talent at performance was stolen from other youth they knew during their school years, and that nobody else has that ability except them, and that everyone else who uses that talent should have to pay that person who they allegedly stole the ability from.
I've known others who were very creative when we were youths, and yet I've never run into debt collectors seeking payment on their behalf for any skills I've clearly demonstrated, but it does seem that with certain ideologies, you'll often run into these debt collectors who seek some form of compensation for your currently demonstated ability to do something, or that they'll in some criminal means attempt to take the merit of it from you.
When you run into debt collectors of that form, I find that in ninety-nine percent of the cases, that they are from specific ideologies who actively attempt to enforce the rules of their beliefs on others in a means that is illegal and in violation of the rights code, and I'd be willing to bet is a growing problem that is creating a lot of social tension these days.
So. For those of you who are convinced that my abilities are illusion. I'd be happy to play piano for you. Go horseback riding with you (I've ridden in a variety of weather and extreme terrain). Study martial arts with you in a dojo, dojang or temple, including very basic kumité (I'm getting up there in age after all). Perform live in a band as a keyboard player. Write or publish my code online for you. You've already read my stories, so you know that I can write and that I'm a writer.
By the way. If I like you, I like you for reasons that have to do entirely with you, and not because I believe that you're some kind of reflection or photocopy of me, or because we have the same religion, or culture, or basic habits and lifestyle. If you only like people for the reasons in which you're similar, then you don't really like anyone. You only like yourself.
I hope that you enjoy these characters, because they are very much themselves, with only a little bit of me, even to the point that in real life, they might have trouble relating with me. Regardless, I still love them with all of my heart, and I'd be willing to bet that with most actors, they feel the exact same with all of their own character performances and creations.
Enjoy!
Brian Joseph Johns
