spellbinders | [PLAYER PLOT | HUB SCANNING SYSTEM INSTALLATION]

Entry tags:

[PLAYER PLOT | HUB SCANNING SYSTEM INSTALLATION]

Who: Any coven members interested in installing the hub scanning system OR exploring the (???) on the map!
Where: From the mansion to the peak of the hub's tallest mountain.
When: Day 128
Open/Closed: OTA!

[ Come one, come all, it's time to head to the top of the Hub mountain! Whether your character has been involved in the preparations up till now or not, anyone near the mansion on this clear morning can join the expedition that's going out. The mission: to boldly install some monitoring equipment up on top of a mountain, and see what's there while you're in the area. Time for departures and last-minute tinkering! ]

((ooc note: If you'd like to backdate any participation, please feel free to comment to the post linked above -- if not, jump in from here!))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Geir is such a cute floaty pal. Dirk does not think this in those exact words; mostly he thinks flying like this is kind of cool.]

You're implying that precisely what you need in your life is more sarcasm.

What I need is a bunch of things including sarcasm!

[he could elaborate.]

You mean you've had so few experiences that you need to sample the wide variety life has to offer in order to know what options are out there and choose what kind of person you're going to be.

[Geir shifts into telepathy; the air is getting thin enough that it's hard to talk and be heard here, and as unconcerned as he is with the public setting, he thinks Dirk might want more privacy for this part of the conversation.]

That's true. But I also need people who I can trust to talk to about it without getting mad, or scared, or defensive. I've started to realize that not everyone accepts my past or my options. I can't...

[share? reach out? connect with people?]

I can't really think about things when I'm upset and trying to explain, all the time. You're really open, did you know that? I got lucky.

[That actually surprises him. He can assume there must be people who get upset and scared and defensive—well, everyone does sometimes. But Geir must not have known that, and encountered that.]

'Open' isn't usually the first word people think of to describe me. But I guess if my chill approach to helps you out, then I've got no objections.

Are you okay, Geir? It seems like something about this has [not ruffled his feathers] metaphorically unsettled your scales.

If it's not, they're wrong. You listen and you answer questions when people ask. If they don't talk to you long enough to find that out, that's not your fault.

[Geir's very definite about this opinion. it's an educated and sincere one. affect isn't the only way to express openness, and all it takes is talking to Dirk long enough to hear him express a few opinions to see that he's very accepting of connection and willing to help others past his deadpan delivery. do people judge Dirk by appearances a lot? how stupid.]

Which "this?" I've been thinking about a lot of things, I guess. But when am I not these days...

[it's exhausting, when he pauses to notice it, but tiring himself out more by thinking about how he's thinking too much sounds like the worst idea possible.]

[It's an actually really nice thing to say, and Dirk isn't sure how to handle it. So, like a mature adult, he decides to not handle it and focus on the other thing.]

Sounds like you're kind of tired of it. What have you been thinking about?

[Geir doesn't miss that Dirk ignores the first thing and moves on to the other. does Dirk not believe him, or does he just not know how to respond? maybe people need to give Dirk updates on his strong points more often. well, Geir can handle that.

he's not even sure how to answer Dirk's question. there's so much.]

I don't know. How people are people, I guess.

It is an extremely complicated topic, if admittedly more simple-seeming when you put it that way. Multiple branches of human knowledge have been dedicated to trying to answer that question.

[Dirk, of course, tried to study them, and in some ways he was good at it—the abstract, the theoretical—but in others he always finds himself falling short. How people are people is hard.]

Really? Most humans seem pretty good at it naturally. Maybe because they're people already?

[that's either extremely insightful or a tautological fallacy, Geir. Charles Taylor would shake his head.]

I wondered if I could just do people things and be a person that way, but that seemed too simple. Then I figured if you were born a person, everything you do is a person thing by default, and I can't be one. But that was really depressing. Now I'm just sort of confused. I can't tell if that's a person thing or not.

Confusion is definitely a thing persons do, although it likely isn't the exclusive provenance of people. But that depends on how you're defining personhood. Right now, it seems like you're structuring your definition to by default exclude you.

[Here we go: philosophy time]

Well, yeah. Whether I can be a person or not, I'm not starting as one.

[his default is monster, cats-paw of the apocalypse. they've talked about this, gosh, Dirk.]

Why not?

[They have but Dirk has an argument to pose here. Because Dirk, too, is an annoying person who calls it like he sees it.]

Don't get me wrong, I understand feeling like you aren't a person. It doesn't however seem like a philosophically rigorous argument.

[Geir wouldn't expect anything else from him, but at least in his own mind, he does have good reasons for feeling that way. because it's Dirk, and this is what they do, he patiently tries to explain rather than getting defensive or upset. Dirk isn't going to attack his experience, just give his own thoughts on it -- he already trusts in that much.]

People have, umm-- an independent view? Motivations of their own? Things they want. People-- decide.

I don't even know if I can do that. It's not what I exist for. I was born to take my name and play one part. Some of the other gods are different, but Jormungand was never anything but a monster, and the name is stronger than "me."

[he's quiet for a few beats, flying up along the mountainside.]

I worry about it a lot. I know Vern wants me to be a person, and sometimes I want to be too, but even if I manage it, I don't know if I'm strong enough to fight that.

That might be possible. At the same time, it isn't like human babies are born with independent views and motivations of their own. Similarly, there are cases where human children are isolated and brainwashed until they serve exactly one purpose and have no apparent autonomous desires. It's a fucked up thing, but it exists.

So am I to understand your argument as saying that these aren't people? I don't mean this as an attack, I genuinely want to know if you'd define them as not-people.

[It's kind of one of the main issues here, at least considering all of this.]

I don't think it's unreasonable to worry about your ability to turn away from what part you were meant for in the grand cosmic scheme. Where I'm from, it's sort of literally impossible in the sense that everything you ever do is probably part of that scheme. I'm just not sure if considering it as an issue of personhood is ideal. I think it does a disservice to how much potential you have, and how much you've already lived up to your own definition of a person with independent desires and motivations.

I know you're not attacking! And I don't know if I think that. I don't know much about humans. I think they're probably people anyway? They'd want their own things if they got the chance.

[he's silent for a moment, thinking that one through.]

The troll girl said a little about that. "Paradox space?" It sounds hard. I'm not sure it's the same, though. I have a chance to see what kind of person I'd want to be because of Vern, but he could take it away again.

[Geir's a little anxious about saying that, because he doesn't want Dirk to say anything against Vern; but it's probably okay. Vern hasn't done anything wrong, truly. it's just the nature of being summoned by him.]

In that case, don't you also fit that definition of a person who wants his own thing now that you're at least partly given a chance? Or is that not the case?

[It's the same tone, because maybe Geir doesn't want things? Maybe Vern just wants him to want things? He's confused.]

Yeah, Paradox Space is pretty stupid and likely not relevant.

How can Vern take it away? I noticed your souls were linked, back when I had my powers, but I do not have the frame of reference to understand what was happening there except that his soul seemed to be pulling on yours.

Oh... I mean, he's my summoner. What he says goes, you know? So if he told me not to think about it any more, I-- wouldn't be able to. Um, that's a bad way to put it. I wouldn't have the right? I guess I could fight it, but I don't know if I'd win, or if I'd want to. It's like being something other than Jormungand in the first place. There are rules...

[it sounds sort of lame put that way, but Geir can't think of another way to explain it. the thought is something like asking Dirk whether he could be a different aspect than Prince of Heart if he tried very hard. m...aybe? is that a question that makes sense? it's hard to say.]

I want things now, but I don't know if I could make it stick. That's why I don't know if I'm a person yet.

I think I follow. You have free will, but Vern can slap on a leash at any time. He won't, I assume— [because if he did Dirk would shank him BUT NOT THINKING THAT AT GEIR] —but it's still a possibility and that would change things.

Is that inherent to your existence? Do you have to be either summoned at someone's will or as the world snake?

I don't want to take Vern's right to do that away. I'm Vern's.

[Geir gets a little upset at the thought, and then tries to dial it back down. right, right. they're just explaining things. everything is cool.]

...it is, the way I exist now. I was just going to be Jormungand and start Ragnarok before I met Vern, you know. I hadn't thought about it at all. And I wouldn't have tried to build-- a person who could do something different-- who could create a new way to exist, so I wouldn't have had a chance to change that, even if I hadn't wanted to.

I mean, I still don't know if that's an option, but it extra wouldn't have been.

[Dirk recognizes the distress and, alas, can't make the 'it's cool, chill' symbol from sitting on Geir's back. He attempts the mental calm equivalent.

He doesn't know how to feel about it, exactly? He wonders how Vern feels. And then his mind strays to D/s relationships and he makes it shut up.]

Right. Vern's relationship with you opened up that potential.

It's hard to find an exact analogy for this in my experience of philosophical reading. Still, any person can have their autonomy taken away from them. Would you really say that it negates their personhood?

No, I don't think so. That's sort of what you said before, about babies. Babies are people too. Probably.

I'm really sure that I'm starting out a monster, though. It's what I was born for. Is that feeling just wrong, because of some words?

[Geir's... not going to dismiss the idea out of hand... but it's a little disturbing, and definitely hard to swallow.]

[Geir you can't just call them 'some words' oh my god???]

It's less the words than the ideas behind them. I'm not trying to semantically manipulate here. Rather, I'm trying to understand the frame of your argument. It seems that you have started with the point that you are not, or at least were not, a person, and have built your ideas of what a person is from there, but that it doesn't actually match up with how you view others. Basically, your self-image is getting in the way of a logical definition of personhood.

Which is pretty common. Generally people have a few key, strongly-felt ideas around which they build more logically set out opinions. So I don't think that you're wrong or that your feelings are negated, but I do think that you're capable of interrogating that point with more self-reflection on potential inconsistencies in your point of view.

I see what you're saying. Um, I think it's harder, too, because gods are different than humans where I'm from. We're closer to the Tree. Humans can't even touch the Tree unless they earn their way into Valhalla, usually. So it's not completely that I'm not listening! I can't figure out how much human definitions work here.

Right, you're a special case, and it's worth factoring. Like the thing with Vern's summoning.

You touched on it earlier, but do you view Gods as being people?

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