spellbinders | [PLAYER PLOT | HUB SCANNING SYSTEM INSTALLATION]

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[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

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?

Some of them are. I think my sister is. Dad and Thor are. They're... um, they know what their decisions will lead to, but they decide them. Sort of like your paradox space? I think that's what it's like.

I don't know if my brother is. Me and Ag-- and Fenrir are monsters. And there are a lot of other monsters that can speak, here and there. We just get to wait for the end of the world, or fight heroes, or... whatever.

Your Dad's also a dick.

[Thanks, Dirk. That was needed. You sure were helpful there.]

What makes monsters different from people?

Of course he is.

[AT LEAST GEIR ISN'T OFFENDED...??]

Monsters are, um... forces of nature. Or tools. They don't decide, and you don't reason with them. They're contained, or used. They're too dangerous to treat like people forever.

Edited 2017-11-27 06:01 (UTC)

Like a storm or a hammer. To refer back to Thor again, apparently.

Does that have to be all they're capable of for them to be a monster?

I've never thought about it. I think it doesn't have to be all, but it has to be... the most important thing. If your ability to destroy is so great that nothing else you can do changes that. In the end, nothing else makes sense but to just do that. It's just in you.

I dunno if that's all I can be, but I know I'd have to fight my Name to be more. So all this is a little...

[his mental voice is soft and contemplative.]

I worry about it with Vern sometimes. But maybe since I'm his, it will be okay either way.

You mean that as long as you're with him you'll be okay no matter what? Or that being with him will help you be a person.

I mean, I think that's true too, but what worries me is if I can't. If I'll hurt him.

[he flies in silence for a few wingbeats.]

I don't think monsters can really turn on their summoners much, though. So maybe I only have to worry about that if we... go through with things.

[and destroy the world.]

[He thinks he knows the blank being left there.]

Why would that change things? Does it have something to do with your Name? You keep saying it like it's its own capitalized thing.

...how much have I told you about the Tree? I forget.

I know some of it from what's Norse Mythology on my world. Yggdrasil is the tree that connects all the nine realms. You bite it, that kicks of Ragnarok, you participate in the grand Shitwreckoning.

[Geir can't see his pun but Dirk is proud of it.]

Nidhoggr bites the Tree. That's a name I know Dad wanted me to take, too. Jormungand's the one I already had, before I... gave it up.

[he considers how to present it for a moment. he's had some practice explaining at this point, but he wants to get things right, because it's Dirk.]

You'll probably get this better than most of the people I tell it to, but the Tree isn't in the same place as rocks and trees and grass, and everything like that. It's part of our world, but not physical, unless you're close enough to it. "Close" is about the power you can grasp. If you're strong enough to take a Name... or if you're born to one... you're part of the power that surrounds the Tree.

Nidhoggr is the one who brings the Tree down. That's a Name much closer to the Tree, so close that it gets embodied more than taken. No one was born to be Nidhoggr, but someone with the teeth and power for it could be Nidhoggr, for long enough to bite.

A lot of the rest are further away, but still part of the Tree's power. Jormungand is the one who starts Ragnarok and kills Thor. Geir is... Geir isn't a Name at all. It's just a child-name. I was born to be Jormungand. I mean... I am, just, it's complicated.

It is complicated, that's cool though.

[He wants to reassure Geir about that. That the Tree is not physically present in the same way as normal things does make perfect sense. That 'proximity' to the tree makes it physical, and that proximity is defined by poweer, also makes sense. He isn't sure he fully understands names, but he's trying to get it set properly.]

If I'm understanding correctly, this is partly in the structure of fate. It's set down that these Names have roles in the inevitably theomachy. You aren't Nidhoggr unless you destroy the tree, but you have that potential and are intended to take that role. You already are Jormungand, int that you've been born into that name, but you also aren't it because you haven't yet taken the action that makes you truly embody that Name. But you're Loki's serpent kid; it's your fate. There's no ambiguity about it.

And Geir is just what you're called.

Is that right?

[of course Dirk picks up on it fast. Geir's inordinately relieved by this, and also pleased. he knew Dirk would.]

Almost right. I wasn't doing things right as Jormungand back home, so I'd stepped back from the Name a little. It was still mine to take, just...

Everything else you said is right though. It's what I'm supposed to do.

But, Qri's had the name "Jormungand" in her caravan since I got here. So that's really strange. I don't know exactly how she's doing it either; that's a Qri thing, not a Tree thing.

[.........]

Okay yeah that's super fucking weird.

[She took a NAME. WHAT.]

I think she wrote it down on something and then did a thing. Best guess. This is why poets are scary.

What does that even mean for you?

It hasn't really come up a lot. Vern and I were already going to try something different for a while before we decided about Ragnarok, so unless I need to take it back all of a sudden, we don't mind if the something different is here...

Not being able to touch it is weird, if I think about it. I've never not felt it within reach.

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