Highway to Heaven [23 Consimbs 4385]

[sythyry]

Mirrored from Sythyry.

hCevian: “One old instinct urges me to take revenge for the wrong you have done to me! One new instinct urges me to thank you for the labors you have performed to rescue me!”

Me: “Well, which will you be following, and why?”

hCevian: “A parallel bundle! Both at once!”

Me: “Vae, you wrecked hCevian once; can you do it again?”

Vae: “Not a bit can I, for I have not made up to him yet for the first one.”

Me: “But you could if you needed to.”

Vae: “If I were so rude, I could, but it would be a rude thing and a mean one.”

Me: “You only have scruples when it’s inconvenient!”

Vae: “The sorrow for that is on me, greatly!” And she started to cry.

hCevian: “There is no need to wreck me! I have brought you safely to a delightful place, Heaven, a Heaven, a true Heaven of kindness and sweetness!”

Me: “Vae, can you get us back home from here? Wherever this here may be?”

Vae: “The way back I can open, if I can find it.”

Me: “hCevian, take us back now, or show her the way back, or it will go the worse for you.”

hCevian: “But I have brought you to a Heaven — a Heaven of Mircannis!”

Half the Crew: “Ooh, what’s that?”

Other Half: “Gah, get us home now!”

Me: “I agree with the Other Half, being very concerned with safety.”

hCevian: “In ages past, the goddess Mircannis created this little universe, as a place where she could exercise her transcendent and polypotent merciness!”

Half the Crew: “That sounds more interesting than any city on the World Tree could be! We want to see!”

Other Half: “We are curious, but more cautiously than the first half.”

Me: “I do not want to bring a shipful of innocents and children into a different universe!”

Inconnu: “Hey, who are you calling ‘innocent’?”

Quendry: “I like Mircannis! She is a nice nice goddess!”

Everyone But Me: “We want to see this!” Their exact words were more nuanced and layered, and took a long time to say.

Me: “After an hour and a third of debate, I acknowledge the following agreement: I permit the exploration of this Heaven of Mircannis, as long as Everyone But Me admits that you are a bunch of crazy, crazy adventurers.”

Everyone But Me: “This is true! But you got everyone who was not a crazy, crazy adventurer off the ship already.”

hCevian: “Welcome to Heaven!”

He became a little black anemone sitting on Feralan’s shoulder. Feralan turned his head and kissed him; his spikes passed harmlessly through Feralan’s muzzle. Feralan said, “I’m glad to see you, finally, after all this time we’ve spent together.”

Comments

[goodluckfox.livejournal.com]

Can Mircannis heal their souls back to spec?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

In principle she could, but Verb Gods rarely take personal action for individuals. But of course we're not on the World Tree at the moment, and Mircannis is.

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

“This is true! But you got everyone who was not a crazy, crazy adventurer off the ship already.”

Well, I daresay that they have you on that one.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

They did have me, truly. (Actually, Saza and Vareltree aren't crazy adventurers either, but they are somewhat adventurers.)

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

You worry about everything Sythyrs if Mircannis built this little universe how bad could it be?

Also it's sweet of Feralan to kiss hCevian it's nice to see that they get along after being separated at least at first.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

In some ways you'd fit right in with my crew. If you and Boomer ever decide to elope, you know where to go.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Eeeeeeewwwwwww me eloping with BOOMSY? That'd be like eloping with Voidsy! EWWWWWWWWWWWW.

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

A smirk!

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

If the relationship wasn't forbidden and horrible, you wouldn't need to go to Castle Wrong.

[rowyn]

No doubt there will be Doom, but I gotta admit, I'd have to go with the exploring half myself. You can't leave a new universe without at least *looking* at it.

Besides, there's Doom *wherever* you go, so it's not a big difference getting it here. Right?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Alas!

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

No, no... there WAS doom. They're in Heaven now. Hence, how much more doom could there possibly be?

[rowyn]

.. I'm not entirely sure that word is translating any better than angel/demon does for hCevian. O:)

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

Even Accanax's afterlife is apparently a quiet place!

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

A place where everything is destroyed == quiet, yes.
A place where everything is controlled == quiet.
A place where everything is sustained == quiet.

A place where everything is created? Noisy!
A place where everything is known? Noisy!
A place where everything is changed? Noisy!

A place where everything is healed... not... really sure. Healoc is like the bastard child of sustenoc and mutoc.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Only if they're designing their heavens after their World Tree arts. The creators are not like, oh, Flokin or Here. The creators can use all the Verbs, and, I suspect, any one of them could have run all of them. Pararenenzu, for one, isn't even all that fond of zir Verb, though Reluu and Accanax evidently are for theirs.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

I would think a place where everything is known would be very quiet as well. Nothing to disagree about, no suprises, just an endless wait for the envitable.

[rowyn]

A place Pararenenzu where everything was in charge of making everything known would not be quiet. >:D

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

The powers of the World Tree gods are not so simply limited to the Arts they govern on the Tree. Every one of the Verb Gods has created extensively - Accanax might not be known for taking great care in his creations, but he does make a great many of them at times.

(p. 167, footnote: "Accanax's afterlife is open to scrying; it is simply a large but unadorned pocket universe with a sparse population of sleeping spirits." There might not be much there, but the spirits are peacefully resting and there's no sign of anything having been there to destroy.)

[brynndragon.livejournal.com]

It occurs to me that Feralan, having already spent several years of his life with empathy and emotions, might not turn into a psychopath, that it might only be if one is born without them that a person will behave as a psychopath. I hope the memories are enough to get him through to when they grow back, and that he doesn't regret their return when they do.

[(Anonymous)]

Perhaps he's going to be obsessed with emotions -- measuring them, quantifying them, understanding them. You know. Mentador stuff.

And he's got that Locador demon buddy.

What we have here is an Evil Wizard in training!

[stryck.livejournal.com]

Just a technical note... somebody without emotions is a sociopath, not a psychopath.

And yes, I'm glad they should eventually grow back. A baby born as a sociopath would be much harder to teach how to relate to people than someone who has already has a lot of practice.

[brynndragon.livejournal.com]

Actually "a personality disorder characterized by an abnormal lack of empathy combined with strongly amoral conduct but masked by an ability to appear outwardly normal" was called Psychopathy until 30 years ago, when the name was changed to Antisocial Personality Disorder. AFAICT "sociopath" is not actually a term of art but was derived from the new name by laymen (which explains why it is frequently confused with other disorders such as Borderline Personality Disorder). I was trying to keep the term as specific as possible, since Feralan ending up with BPD is not the thing that worries me. I should have said "become antisocial" instead.

[stryck.livejournal.com]

Ah, but as far as I'm aware, not all sociopaths are amoral or appear outwardly normal. I've known a few who gave off the "weirdo" vibe loud and clear, and there are those that adhere to morality even if they don't get the emotional connections that make them easier.

That's the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath. A sociopath has difficulty with empathy. A psychopath is a monster that looks normal. All psychopaths are sociopaths, but not all sociopaths are psychopaths.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

There's sociopath in layman's terms and sociopath the mental illness. From what I remember you don't get diagnosed with the mental illness if you've found a way to act normal. There was a theory that most people with the same basic malfuction as sociopaths were able to function normally (and just be ordinary assholes, as someone put it) and that it might be as high as 5% of the population.

[brynndragon.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not a prime, so of course I'm a monster. Although I certainly don't look like anyprime on the World Tree, so no one would mistake me for normal in that context. ;P

So I felt the need to do a little digging. Turns out "sociopath" was coined by a psychologist in 1930 to indicate that the origin of Psychopathy (now known as Antisocial Personality Disorder) was not biological but instead environmental. (I'm actually not sure which side of that conceptual divide Feralan's circumstances would fall under, since the soul is not considered a biological entity but the surgical removal of empathy would probably be considered a biological cause.) Thus the distinction has nothing to do with mental or physical behavior at all. That would certainly explain why the terms are generally used interchangeably when talking about behavior rather than its origin. I think I'm going to use "antisocial" from now on to avoid the whole damn mess (although "antisocial" is frequently used to mean "asocial". . . is there any profession more fraught with laymen's misuse of its terminology?).

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

Yes, the legal profession.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

So... the revenge would mostly be against Vae, wouldn't it? Is the heaven of Mircannis especially bad for nendrai? They *are* one of the monsters Mircannis really doesn't like.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Against all of us for imprisoning him and not immediately freeing him, I think.

[yotogi.livejournal.com]

What a fascinating critter he/it is turning out to be.