Monochrome

Hey so here’s that censored curse words thing I mentioned on page two. I might swap up my execution, I’m not sure yet.

Anyway the thing about that – it’s a funny world with curse words. There are people out there who sincerely believe it is literally never acceptable ever to swear and it’s a sign of lack of intelligence because you couldn’t take the time to figure out something else. The latter view confuses me because a swear word works to express oneself very well, perfectly, in fact, because it expresses, “I am experiencing some extreme emotions right now.” Pretty much no one calmly uses eloquence when they are not at all calm. Also in this case, “crap” or whatever replacement word is essentially still a swear word, just we agreed it’s not offensive, even though it literally has the same meaning as a different four letter word.

Contrariwise, you have people who get really upset at any kind of censorship. Which I get, but hopefully if you’re of that disposition, you can see my censorship as its own art form, rather than a suppression of anything in particular. (I mean, I was delighted to determine the word used here is much older than I had originally thought and therefore it wouldn’t be that weird for Saul to use it.)

The fact is, Saul might be both eloquent and swear. That’s the kind of person he is. It’s in character. It would be weird if he didn’t swear, the same way it would be weird if I suddenly started writing his dialogue in a completely different dialect. I, however, come from a background where quite sternly I was taught that swear words were evil to the point where it feels like even looking at the word will burn out my eyes. While I can, in fact, look at curse words without my eyes melting, the aversion to using them or at least being perceived as using them is so strong that the stress in including them uncensored fighting against my upbringing no matter how in-character it is is not something with which I am prepared to deal. The need to come off as a Delicate Lady Who Never Swears Nope Never Not Even When The Effing Video Game Is Effing Being Effing A…Um…Jerk is just too strong to fight, though if you play D&D with me, I won’t break character for milder words. So thus, censored curses: a compromise. Saul remains in character, and I don’t get this weird, itchy, severe discomfort knowing I swore a cuss in my comic. We’ll see how I feel about milder words. I mean, I’m probably not gonna censor “hell” and “damn”. They’re too contextually useful and it’s weird to me to not censor “hell” in “I guess we have to go to Hell to Do A Quest Thing” and then not in “What the hell are you talking about?” and ditto for “damn”.