*LMS was sitting in the back corner of 'Av's' Dinner. hmmph. only started the place up so he could watch everyone... but, you would agree, communication is important... you just wish Av didn't promote communication in such an environment as one where he was the one considered to own the place... So many issues with Av... and, just so many issues in general... you were tired... and Av makes it hard to get any good feelings of rest... maybe you needed some one to talk to about everything... someone that Av wouldn't be able to claim any hold on, else he'd run the risk of overstepping his bounds in a way that could not ever be ignored... maybe... ... the muse Av liked to talk about... she had a friend who was a lord, right? A lord of hope... failed though... still, maybe you could just, talk... Talk to someone other than Av about the mess your life was forced to be* *you keep an eye on the 'entrance'. If they were to come, then they'd show up right over there...*
*Santek G'fevtk, unascended Lord of Hope, steps inside, his head tilted as per usual to compensate for his imbalanced horns. He slowly looks around, taking his time about it; without imminent death hanging over his head anymore, he's enjoyed finally feeling like he has all the time in the world to do as he chooses. He doesn't really know what this place is, but he has an idea of why he's here, and his brief interaction with Av before gives him a sense of what he's dealing with... He sees LMS, and makes his way towards you* Someone wanted to talk to me?
*LMS feels a strange sense of relief upon seeing them* "yes. thankyou... but, we should get into a private booth first. I'd prefer to talk without Av being so obvious about listening in." *LMS goes to lead the way into a back room, the door blocked off with a dark blue curtain* "I... Can't tell you how much I need someone to talk to about everything. Someone who won't tween and joke and mock and... Someone other than Av..."
*he thinks that given the nature of their host, the less it seems like he's listening in, the more he actually hears, but Santek keeps this observation to himself. It wouldn't make LMS feel better* Well, I do have the time to listen. And I know how it is to not have anyone to talk to about everything...and the catharsis of finding the opposite.
"its. its hard to figure where or how to even begin. or if i even should... part of me hates that Av's joked at me about how i'd need to talk with someone eventually..." *sighing heavily, the seemingly perfectly ordinary human with an unsettling shadow sits down* "I hope I can talk to you about things without instantly having to bring up stuff in the past..."
*sits across from them* Start wherever you feel most comfortable starting.
"well, I guess i'll just start with what the biggest issue is... If I try to do anything that 'reality' considers unfitting, then It hits back hard, and I end up right where I started anyway... Also, beyond that, Av's managed to stick me with needing to have to do his dirty work. Av goes to do something, and he does it with the total expectation that I follow through and help him. If I don't, then that usually means that I'm letting someone down big time. someone who doesn't deserve to suffer because I wanted to spite Av... He's got me worked good... Either I do it, or he does it in such a way that it makes things ten times more complicated for whoever he's 'helping'... Can't stop, but it can't just continue either..."
Hm. I have a friend who's struggled with something very similar. And a lot of it was my fault, in the beginning.
"Would this friend be the Muse? If so, we've got something in common. we've both had our hearts broken apart... except in my case it was far more literal. being brought down to a tenth of a gram, and needing to collect the dead remains of the rest of your soul scattered across a tower full of shadows is probably much more for a soul to go through than just playing the game and having a family member die. ... but. I'm trying not to judge, or assume that my issues were worse. I've learned that much, even if I still can't think of anyone who's had it worse than me."
*chuckles* If we start to argue over whose issues are worse, we'll sit here until the end of time. It's a pointless argument. If there's one thing I learned from my humans, it's that we're each made to withstand different levels of suffering. And we all have something that is the worst thing in the world, that we cannot handle, that if it happens to us, once it happens to us, nothing in our life is ever the same again... and when we reach that thing, no matter what it is, we are all equally helpless, equally caught off guard, equally too young and unprepared, equally shattered... Metaphorically in most cases, of course. I believe you that your journey has had a terrible impact on your soul. But I don't doubt that somewhere in these dreambubbles is a person who'd find climbing that tower as easy and insignificant as climbing the staircase in their house. Hm, and some who would find even the staircase difficult.
... I guess that makes sense... Though I wouldn't wish my life on anyone, even if they could handle it better... I just want to be able to do things, and try things without Av breathing down my neck about, 'this better be used to start a new beginning somewhere', or 'see, I told you you'd do things like this eventually.'. He's always right despite being so wrong. Its... mmhh... Av's a jerk. I just want to be free of him.
You, and my Muse, and probably a lot of other people. I don't have a wide sample to draw from, but I think Lords in general are insufferable. The ones who haven't had a Muse to teach them how to back off once in a while, to think of how the ants feel about a boot.
"well, then that'd explain why Av's my eternal punishment... I'll try and start closer to the start of it all..." ... "so, First version of me, went through the game on his own, and went on to discover how to create 'tools' capable of bringing a true, final end to different realities... It was supposed to be used to help simplify reality, give everything their clear starts, and ends, so that the mess of total self-causative timeline stuff could stop forcing tragedy to manifest around those with both extreme control over the flow and creation of time anomalies, and every case could be a closed case... however, just 1 time, the device got set off early by those within the reality, and Av's 'parents' sacrificed their lives to stop it... his mom would have been a Muse of Light, but they were totally and absolutely stripped from any possible form in a reality within this realm... not even Av can bring them back with how Law declares them gone... So, taking a step forward, Av... he went through some kind of crap I'm not sure on the exacts about, and came out of it a Lord of Void... then, he shows up and finds me, this me, before I ever entered the game... I go through the game, and he makes me team up with him to totally eradicate the version of me that had created the 'tool' made to end realities..." *he stops to get some breath. that was a bit of a story*
"yes. it is. thats why I'm telling you about it."
"He's got this idea of 'reforming' me. to make the person who had thought to permit true endings to exist to do the exact opposite and make it so that every ending is always the start of something else... I'm actually helping him with a special project right now. I hope that the end of it is the end of his forcing himself upon me... We're trying to create a space 'tree', as opposed to a space frog. its... got a little bit of what we both want in it... He gets a totally different reality that follows new rules, thus letting him see his parents again, and I, get to see a reality where the fruit grows ripe, falls down, and eventually rots away in an independent cycle. My only fear is that Av is going to do something that will negate my hopes to let those who live independently do so, and open them all wide to being able to be altered by those who can do so."
"He's got this idea of 'reforming' me. to make the person who had thought to permit true endings to exist to do the exact opposite and make it so that every ending is always the start of something else... I'm actually helping him with a special project right now. I hope that the end of it is the end of his forcing himself upon me... We're trying to create a space 'tree', as opposed to a space frog. its... got a little bit of what we both want in it... He gets a totally different reality that follows new rules, thus letting him see his parents again, and I, get to see a reality where the fruit grows ripe, falls down, and eventually rots away in an independent cycle. My only fear is that Av is going to do something that will negate my hopes to let those who live independently do so, and open them all wide to being able to be altered by those who can do so."
I can't pretend I know what he's planning. But he has no reason to stop. Not with all that power, and all that certainty that he's doing the right thing. If he's anything like I was... He's absolutely sure that he knows best, and that he can make it work, and in the most literal sense of everything, he's right. An existence in which entropy leads to new life instead of the end of all things? Much happier for all involved than life in a cancerous frog. Stopping the other you from causing the disaster you did? Arguably worth any cost, especially since it involves making you a person who did not do such a horrible thing. Nudging, prodding, whispering to a young Muse and her friends, dropping hints about better outcomes? It gives them better outcomes, obviously. He's literally right that he knows best and is doing what's best. And that's what makes him so dangerous. I mentioned ants and boots before; my Muse once accused me of seeing her kind as nothing but ants, that I didn't care about how they felt about what I was doing. I told her she was wrong about me, that I did care, that I was doing what had to be done, getting what I wanted and leading her and her friends to greatness along the way, it was the best possible outcome really. And of course, of course I was aware of how they felt. The owner of the boot is aware on some level that ants can feel pain. But that pain, in the grand scheme of things, the scheme that a Lord lives in, is so utterly insignificant. Unless, one day, the little things that a certain ant has said to him become noisy enough in the back of his head, too noisy to ignore, and he takes a closer look.
Sophie wrote:
I can't pretend I know what he's planning. But he has no reason to stop. Not with all that power, and all that certainty that he's doing the right thing. If he's anything like I was... He's absolutely sure that he knows best, and that he can make it work, and in the most literal sense of everything, he's right. An existence in which entropy leads to new life instead of the end of all things? Much happier for all involved than life in a cancerous frog. Stopping the other you from causing the disaster you did? Arguably worth any cost, especially since it involves making you a person who did not do such a horrible thing. Nudging, prodding, whispering to a young Muse and her friends, dropping hints about better outcomes? It gives them better outcomes, obviously. He's literally right that he knows best and is doing what's best. And that's what makes him so dangerous. I mentioned ants and boots before; my Muse once accused me of seeing her kind as nothing but ants, that I didn't care about how they felt about what I was doing. I told her she was wrong about me, that I did care, that I was doing what had to be done, getting what I wanted and leading her and her friends to greatness along the way, it was the best possible outcome really. All of that was literally true. And of course, of course I was aware of how they felt. The owner of the boot is aware on some level that ants can feel pain. But that pain, in the grand scheme of things, the scheme that a Lord lives in, is so utterly insignificant. Unless, one day, the little things that a certain ant has said to him become noisy enough in the back of his head, too noisy to ignore, and he takes a closer look.
*grits his teeth slightly, before relaxing* "I was afraid you might agree with him somewhat, but it is a relief that you think he's dangerous... And the other me didn't cause that disaster. it was some other being, some 'ant', who played with something they shouldn't have, and they set the device off early... you ever see a universe thats entered thermodynamic chill? or a reality that has had the possibility of life torn from it by some terrible power? thats what the devices were made to close the book on. not on worlds that still possessed any sign of life. doom was only supposed to come after life had nothing left to give to a universe. is that bad? to wish to help put to rest what was dead? because thats all the other me ever wanted. and he was punished for the actions of another, just like how I was punished for the actions that were considered to be his. and I would much rather leave the 'ants' alone, rather than either stomp on them, or put honey out for them. I've seen what Av has done to this kid in a session involving another lord. Av gave them all kinds of unknown support, and then all at once, he just stopped. whats an 'ant' to do when the only food they've ever understood is taken?"
I don't agree with him. I think I might understand him, but I don't agree with him. Once I would have. Now, I wouldn't...and I was born at the end of a universe, created as a last-ditch effort to make something out of nothing. The last hope for Alternia. And I could have fixed everything. I was going to fix everything. The remaining humans would just do as I told them, and I would provide them with everything in the same moment that I restored what once had been, and taken all of us into the future... I would have fed them all, been their only food, and I could have done it. But it wouldn't have been them, in the end. Not really them, and never really the future. Just me, and the past... The past at the expense of the future, and me at the expense of them... Av is chasing the past. Exploiting the future for the benefit of the past. Oh, we have a lot in common, me and him... I wonder if he'll learn? Our duty is to a future that we will not inhabit, not to a past that has already given way so that the future may occur. To do otherwise is selfish, no matter how much we try to dress it up with stories of a greater good. *pauses, laughs* Look at that. I've become as long-winded as my ancestor.
"thankyou. I'm glad you were able to come up with the right words for that. that helps so much."
"but, I'm also not forgetting that Av's thing is Void. he could help without helping, already in a future he doesn't inhabit..." *shakes his head*
"I don't want to talk about Av."
"I just want to find a way to just, get some real feeling of rest, not needing to think about what Av has planed out for me, knowing that i'll do it to minimize his impact and help someone. I might want to not interfere with the 'ants', but I'm not one to watch someone else tip-toe around them, getting way to close for comfort."
"but, I'm also not forgetting that Av's thing is Void. he could help without helping, already in a future he doesn't inhabit..." *shakes his head*
"I don't want to talk about Av."
"I just want to find a way to just, get some real feeling of rest, not needing to think about what Av has planed out for me, knowing that i'll do it to minimize his impact and help someone. I might want to not interfere with the 'ants', but I'm not one to watch someone else tip-toe around them, getting way to close for comfort."
Moderators: SanityFallen dave_pod