So there's this character who as a young child was very outgoing and boisterous, but matured as they aged. They were smart, but not in a does-well in school-nerd manner, more like a brilliant but lazy way. They were kind of ostracized by peers as they got older, but then they got excepted into a clique who were all like, "Oh, yeah, we'll be your friends! And don't worry, we know JUST how to fix you!" Not only did they "improve" the character, but they made them a complete card board cut out, and whenever they acted or expressed the urge to act the way before, the people would get all bitchy about it and say, "Don't you want people to LIKE you?!" Eventually the group gets a big "The reason you suck speech" from the main character, but I can't figure out how to keep it in character, because it gets slightly wordy and philosophical, which kind of isn't said character's style. Also, I don't want it to be a Broken Aesop that tells people, "If making a positive change is too much of an effort, don't bother." The real message is, "You don't have to change who you are to better yourself" (The main character had already come along way, the problem was that everybody was accentuating the negative and taking into account his childish actions beforehand were the result of being, well, a child.)
So there's this character who as a young child was very outgoing and boisterous, but matured as they aged. They were smart, but not in a does-well in school-nerd manner, more like a brilliant but lazy way. They were kind of ostracized by peers as they got older, but then they got excepted into a clique who were all like, "Oh, yeah, we'll be your friends! And don't worry, we know JUST how to fix you!" Not only did they "improve" the character, but they made them a complete card board cut out, and whenever they acted or expressed the urge to act the way before, the people would get all bitchy about it and say, "Don't you want people to LIKE you?!" Eventually the group gets a big "The reason you suck speech" from the main character, but I can't figure out how to keep it in character, because it gets slightly wordy and philosophical, which kind of isn't said character's style. Also, I don't want it to be a Broken Aesop that tells people, "If making a positive change is too much of an effort, don't bother." The real message is, "You don't have to change who you are to better yourself" (The main character had already come along way, the problem was that everybody was accentuating the negative and taking into account his childish actions beforehand were the result of being, well, a child.)