seems to me that patho-gen has the resources and power to perfectly well hide a top secret laboratory right in the middle of the city
and if they needed a top secret thing outside of the city they really only need it to be like two miles out in order for it to be hidden from the residents of the city (since it was presumably predating our arrival)
70 miles out is unbelievably inconvenient, especially considering the precautions they have to take with traveling
i think that if there's something top secret 70 miles out it's more likely that it's because they found SOMETHING
so it makes more sense to search where they might find things
i think you just want to search the mountains for cool secret mountain hangout spots
The intel was that they were sending scientists and engineers to investigate "something" 70 miles out.
Though searching where they might look themselves does make sense.
[He's too used to his own method of searching for hidden things. He forgets that humans are significantly more limited and therefore need to conserve resources.]
something, then i’ve reached out to brix to get clarification on the intel [ he does not have permission to use this nickname, he’s just decided on it ]
but we can go scout the mountains for your potential cool clubhouse location in case you decide to abandon me and choso after all
ok so north? mountains specifically? i sent ala, set, & mettaton up there to head in the direction of phantasia and ala says everything's fine but she wants to keep all discoveries a surprise for now so who knows how it's going beyond that
The first to find a path through. The second to investigate beyond.
I would like to investigate Phantasia and also Doxa eventually but I may need to take Set for that. Without needing to eat or sleep we should be able to cover the distance in less time overall.
[But that reminds him... He has a whole bunch of rocks he'd collected from the swamp expedition which he needs to deliver to Ala.]
what are these 'two trips'? two trips for ala, set & mettaton? two trips for us in the mountains?
do the 'two trips' also somehow involve these other additional trips to phantasia & doxa or are those part of other travel plans which we are strategizing simultaneously?
set is a plant, he can't move half as fast as i can. presumably there are other bird types, and johann (wolf) can outpace me on solid ground, but over the swamps? i have yet to meet anyone other than you who can outpace me. i can probably triple set's pace. so the 'strategic choice of companion' is based off of the fact that he doesn't sleep?
sure, you're not 'abandoning' me. i get that. you're just STRATEGICALLY planning to spend every possible moment outside of the city and also, strategically, planning to never sleep again. this sounds healthy. and strategic.
You asked about going north to the mountains. I clarified that it would likely require two trips. I mentioned offhand that I would also like to explore further eventually. I believed it went without saying that these were additional trips.
I don't see what the confusion is, here.
Set is a god. Traveling without needing to rest will allow for longer trips in a shorter time, even accounting for your speed. You still require sleep. You require we carry camping supplies and food.
If you know of others who can match my speed and also do not require rest or supplies, I would be interested to meet them.
you're being an idiot is what is happening here and i'm about eight different kinds of displeased about it
let me break it down for you:
-i've found myself in a position of leadership helping to organize the teams exploring outside of the city. you just *informed* me that you'll be setting your own destination and making your own team from now on, including disrupting the composition of another of my teams.
-you've also just informed me that choso and i don't meet your standards for traveling companions, so i guess we'll be on our own from now on? i'll let choso know.
-this immediately after we talked about you moving in with me and choso, about how we can handle anything that might go wrong with your shift, and that the three of us are good for each other. but no, you're making your own plans to minimize your time in the city and we won't be seeing much of you anymore. in which case i guess there's no point in you moving in? you can just get a storage locker for whatever stuff you want to keep in the city on your rare visits. or maybe we can reserve a cupboard in our place for your stuff.
-as part of your new plans, you won't be sleeping anymore, and you'll be minimizing your eating. from what i understand of exo structure, this is manageable but not ideal for healthy functioning. so if someone were to care about you and your self-destructive behavior, that might be pretty upsetting to them.
- but these other points are leading me to believe that you and your self-destructive behavior isn't my fucking business, so i guess i'll instead just be upset that i thought we were allies and travel companions and dating actually?? but it sounds like we're not anymore, because you're doing your own thing with no input from anybody.
- i do not require sleep. or food. or even air, actually. i can just heal the damage from sleep deprivation and starvation, as it accumulates. not ideal for healthy functioning, but i can do it just fine. so i'm also pretty fucking pissed about being told i can't keep up, since we've already established that at least one member of your little expedition will be pushing himself beyond what's optimal for his physical and mental functions.
[He is trying, desperately, to find the root of all this, because just addressing those various problems individually is meaningless if he doesn't understand why they're problems to begin with.]
i just logically spelled out for you the specific reasons i'm irritated and you're asking if it's actually because my gooey human emotions are sad?
no, felwinter. i do think you care about me.
but i think (7) that you want caring about people to be a one-sided thing. you care about your people, you protect your people, you worry about your people. but you actively try to avoid anyone else caring about you, protecting you, worrying about you. shall we dig into the reasons behind THAT some more?
[This all being about gooey human emotions would make it so much easier than Gojo actually having a point about his self-destructive behaviour that needs to be addressed. He doesn't want to have to talk about himself.
...Can't have shit around here.]
That's how it should be. Those with power protect those without.
I have a responsibility to help. This is the only thing I can do.
[ thanks for that extra brutal gut punch of 'the strong should protect the weak' ]
Listen to me, Felwinter.
We've talked about how my power (and to a lesser extent, my personality) makes it important for me to have things that keep me human. So I've spent a lot of my life learning about the things that a powerful, semi-human sentience needs in order to be human.
Those things include:
-To have people I care about and who care about me about in return
-Regular human companionship (as in, I can't just go live on the moon or alone in the mountains)
-Compromise (sometimes i have to listen to the people who care about me and not do things my way if it makes them unhappy)
-Rest
(And, worst of all ...)
-to be ... weak. sometimes. to have other people with whom i can be weak. and allowing that to happen.
So you tell me right the fuck now, Felwinter: shall I treat you like a human, going forward, or not?
It takes... quite a while for a response to come.]
Have I told you, before now, that I was alone for a very long time? Centuries. I lived entirely selfishly, only concerned with my own survival. And then I met a human, and through her I came to understand that I was a coward. Humans live fiercly in defiance of their short, mortal lives. All I'd ever done was run away.
So I came down from my mountain. I sought out the Iron Lords. With Lord Timur I searched for a miraculous technology that could change the world for our people: SIVA. We searched for so long, and then I found it. Too easily.
It was a trap. Set for me, specifically. I knew it was a trap, but in my hubris I believed I could overcome this. I led the Iron Lords to claim SIVA, and SIVA was turned against us as a weapon. They died. All of them. Hundreds of them. Some I had to kill myself, after SIVA twisted them into living puppets. I could have ran, or tried to. But I stayed, and I fought. I knew I wouldn't survive, and I accepted that.
And then I woke up here. I am alive, and they are dead.
[ He'd known that he was very precisely targeting a sore spot, and hadn't expected a prompt response. (He'd known, too, that there was a chance Fel might be angered enough that Gojo's words would end their acquaintance.) ]
That's brutal.
The mountain sounds restful.
I can identify with a lot of that--though there are certainly things in your experiences I'll never understand.
I was brought here straight out of a trap that was set for me, and I was locked into isolation in a thing called the prison realm. I don't know how many died because I failed to overcome the trap that was laid for me. Choso has offered to tell me, but I chose not to know.
The isolation of the prison realm was restful, though the isolation of it was also torture. I hate that a part of me was relieved that while I was in there, the rest of it was no longer my responsibility. Fighting, protecting people, being the strongest. Other people had to take it on, once I'd fallen into the trap, and probably a lot of them died horribly because of it.
We're here now. Kind of seems a lot like we might be dead, Felwinter. I've talked to a lot of people here who say their last memory was dying.
Anyway. The point I want to make is that it's an ongoing choice. Every day you're going to have to wake up and choose whether to go to the mountain.
Be a coward and run away, like you said. Or stay and be human, on human terms. Every day it's an active choice to try and keep ourselves human.
So let's do that, shall we? Come on. It'll make Choso proud of us.
The Speaker preaches four tenets to the new Lightbearers who choose to stay in the City: Devotion. Bravery. Sacrifice. Death.
He claims they come from the Light itself. That they are what it expects of us. That they are what our people expect of us.
I don't want to see more people die, Gojo. Leaving the city, finding a mountain... It would be so much easier. There will always be a part of me that craves it.
But I've enjoyed my time with you, and with Choso. Living with you both sounds nice.
Even if I do wish to throw you in the ocean sometimes.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Though I do still want to get back out of the city. Whatever we were looking for isn't in the marshlands.
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Any thoughts on where we look for this legendary location?
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[That's actual work!]
I think Patho-Gen wouldn't have sent so many people into the Asphodel Fields if they had something to hide there.
So north, instead. It would mean finding a way through the mountains, and there's nothing on the map within range that looks interesting.
Which would make it the perfect place to hide something "top secret."
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seems to me that patho-gen has the resources and power to perfectly well hide a top secret laboratory right in the middle of the city
and if they needed a top secret thing outside of the city they really only need it to be like two miles out in order for it to be hidden from the residents of the city (since it was presumably predating our arrival)
70 miles out is unbelievably inconvenient, especially considering the precautions they have to take with traveling
i think that if there's something top secret 70 miles out it's more likely that it's because they found SOMETHING
so it makes more sense to search where they might find things
i think you just want to search the mountains for cool secret mountain hangout spots
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The intel was that they were sending scientists and engineers to investigate "something" 70 miles out.
Though searching where they might look themselves does make sense.
[He's too used to his own method of searching for hidden things. He forgets that humans are significantly more limited and therefore need to conserve resources.]
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i’ve reached out to brix to get clarification on the intel
[ he does not have permission to use this nickname, he’s just decided on it ]
but we can go scout the mountains for your potential cool clubhouse location in case you decide to abandon me and choso after all
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The first to find a path through. The second to investigate beyond.
I would like to investigate Phantasia and also Doxa eventually but I may need to take Set for that. Without needing to eat or sleep we should be able to cover the distance in less time overall.
[But that reminds him... He has a whole bunch of rocks he'd collected from the swamp expedition which he needs to deliver to Ala.]
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(It's not even romantically jealous. He's irritated that anyone else is potentially more capable than he is.) ]
Are we having a strategic discussion here or are you just informing me of your travel plans? Because I'd originally assumed it was the former.
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It is.
Two trips makes more sense. We can cover more ground on the second when we don't have to waste time scouting a path.
And Set is a strategic choice of companion for longer trips.
[Is that the problem?]
I assumed you would prefer to know that I am not "abandoning" you.
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what are these 'two trips'? two trips for ala, set & mettaton? two trips for us in the mountains?
do the 'two trips' also somehow involve these other additional trips to phantasia & doxa or are those part of other travel plans which we are strategizing simultaneously?
set is a plant, he can't move half as fast as i can. presumably there are other bird types, and johann (wolf) can outpace me on solid ground, but over the swamps? i have yet to meet anyone other than you who can outpace me. i can probably triple set's pace. so the 'strategic choice of companion' is based off of the fact that he doesn't sleep?
sure, you're not 'abandoning' me. i get that. you're just STRATEGICALLY planning to spend every possible moment outside of the city and also, strategically, planning to never sleep again. this sounds healthy. and strategic.
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I don't see what the confusion is, here.
Set is a god. Traveling without needing to rest will allow for longer trips in a shorter time, even accounting for your speed. You still require sleep. You require we carry camping supplies and food.
If you know of others who can match my speed and also do not require rest or supplies, I would be interested to meet them.
[We're ignoring that last point.]
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keep me updated on any important discoveries.
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Help me understand what is happening here.
[Please he's so confused.]
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let me break it down for you:
-i've found myself in a position of leadership helping to organize the teams exploring outside of the city. you just *informed* me that you'll be setting your own destination and making your own team from now on, including disrupting the composition of another of my teams.
-you've also just informed me that choso and i don't meet your standards for traveling companions, so i guess we'll be on our own from now on? i'll let choso know.
-this immediately after we talked about you moving in with me and choso, about how we can handle anything that might go wrong with your shift, and that the three of us are good for each other. but no, you're making your own plans to minimize your time in the city and we won't be seeing much of you anymore. in which case i guess there's no point in you moving in? you can just get a storage locker for whatever stuff you want to keep in the city on your rare visits. or maybe we can reserve a cupboard in our place for your stuff.
-as part of your new plans, you won't be sleeping anymore, and you'll be minimizing your eating. from what i understand of exo structure, this is manageable but not ideal for healthy functioning. so if someone were to care about you and your self-destructive behavior, that might be pretty upsetting to them.
- but these other points are leading me to believe that you and your self-destructive behavior isn't my fucking business, so i guess i'll instead just be upset that i thought we were allies and travel companions and dating actually?? but it sounds like we're not anymore, because you're doing your own thing with no input from anybody.
- i do not require sleep. or food. or even air, actually. i can just heal the damage from sleep deprivation and starvation, as it accumulates. not ideal for healthy functioning, but i can do it just fine. so i'm also pretty fucking pissed about being told i can't keep up, since we've already established that at least one member of your little expedition will be pushing himself beyond what's optimal for his physical and mental functions.
i said eight but let's just start with those six
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He doesn't, apparently.]
And the other two?
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really just subcategories of points 3-6, likely to be resolved one way or the other once those points are resolved
and thus not worth the time or energy to include unless we're going to be debating any of those items enough to make their subcategories relevant
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Is that it?
[He is trying, desperately, to find the root of all this, because just addressing those various problems individually is meaningless if he doesn't understand why they're problems to begin with.]
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no, felwinter. i do think you care about me.
but i think (7) that you want caring about people to be a one-sided thing. you care about your people, you protect your people, you worry about your people. but you actively try to avoid anyone else caring about you, protecting you, worrying about you. shall we dig into the reasons behind THAT some more?
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...Can't have shit around here.]
That's how it should be. Those with power protect those without.
I have a responsibility to help. This is the only thing I can do.
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Listen to me, Felwinter.
We've talked about how my power (and to a lesser extent, my personality) makes it important for me to have things that keep me human. So I've spent a lot of my life learning about the things that a powerful, semi-human sentience needs in order to be human.
Those things include:
-To have people I care about and who care about me about in return
-Regular human companionship (as in, I can't just go live on the moon or alone in the mountains)
-Compromise (sometimes i have to listen to the people who care about me and not do things my way if it makes them unhappy)
-Rest
(And, worst of all ...)
-to be ... weak. sometimes. to have other people with whom i can be weak. and allowing that to happen.
So you tell me right the fuck now, Felwinter: shall I treat you like a human, going forward, or not?
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It takes... quite a while for a response to come.]
Have I told you, before now, that I was alone for a very long time? Centuries. I lived entirely selfishly, only concerned with my own survival. And then I met a human, and through her I came to understand that I was a coward. Humans live fiercly in defiance of their short, mortal lives. All I'd ever done was run away.
So I came down from my mountain. I sought out the Iron Lords. With Lord Timur I searched for a miraculous technology that could change the world for our people: SIVA. We searched for so long, and then I found it. Too easily.
It was a trap. Set for me, specifically. I knew it was a trap, but in my hubris I believed I could overcome this. I led the Iron Lords to claim SIVA, and SIVA was turned against us as a weapon. They died. All of them. Hundreds of them. Some I had to kill myself, after SIVA twisted them into living puppets. I could have ran, or tried to. But I stayed, and I fought. I knew I wouldn't survive, and I accepted that.
And then I woke up here. I am alive, and they are dead.
I wish I had stayed on my mountain.
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That's brutal.
The mountain sounds restful.
I can identify with a lot of that--though there are certainly things in your experiences I'll never understand.
I was brought here straight out of a trap that was set for me, and I was locked into isolation in a thing called the prison realm. I don't know how many died because I failed to overcome the trap that was laid for me. Choso has offered to tell me, but I chose not to know.
The isolation of the prison realm was restful, though the isolation of it was also torture. I hate that a part of me was relieved that while I was in there, the rest of it was no longer my responsibility. Fighting, protecting people, being the strongest. Other people had to take it on, once I'd fallen into the trap, and probably a lot of them died horribly because of it.
We're here now. Kind of seems a lot like we might be dead, Felwinter. I've talked to a lot of people here who say their last memory was dying.
Anyway. The point I want to make is that it's an ongoing choice. Every day you're going to have to wake up and choose whether to go to the mountain.
Be a coward and run away, like you said. Or stay and be human, on human terms. Every day it's an active choice to try and keep ourselves human.
So let's do that, shall we? Come on. It'll make Choso proud of us.
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He claims they come from the Light itself. That they are what it expects of us. That they are what our people expect of us.
I don't want to see more people die, Gojo. Leaving the city, finding a mountain... It would be so much easier. There will always be a part of me that craves it.
But I've enjoyed my time with you, and with Choso. Living with you both sounds nice.
Even if I do wish to throw you in the ocean sometimes.
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