A scene from the evil chapter 12. Which nobody, including me, can figure out how the hell to get onto paper. Cut the artist some slack, that's not what I look like, but somebody can't paint faces.
Hey, uh - *steps back in, looks suddenly shy, blushes*
Yeah, the fire. That's what I do. I didn't get to learn much magic when I was at Eilieah but I knew how to do that before I even went there. I guess that's how they figured out to send me, they saw it in my brain.
That's the only thing that'll make speritu stay away.
*smiles slightly, makes a tree trunk, and plops down on it*
Hope you don't mind if I hang out here for a bit. I'm supposed to be here, Pyraxis says so, 'cause this is my post. She says she has to be creative. And she's already pissed off at the way I'm talking 'cause she wanted something else, but whatever. Wait, that didn't make sense. What I mean to say is my talking is supposed to help her be creative.
Yeah.
I almost feel sorry for her cause she has this story she wants so badly to tell but she messed up her brain and now she can't.
Hey, of course I don't mind. *summons a tree stump for himself to sit down on* Actually it would be really cool to get a chance to talk to you more, I still don't feel like I know you that well or what sort of things you do. I mean, I know you've got that kid Sha, and I know you're a squirrel-monkey- Oh shit! Sorry, sorry... *grimaces, looks away and covers his mouth with his hands for a moment* I don't know if you want to talk about that. Changing the subject now.
Um. Anyway. I actually do have some questions, if you don't mind answering. As always, feel free to tell me to shut the hell up.
I guess I'm mostly wondering about that place Ua I keep hearing people talking about. What's it like? Sha's from there, right? Did you live there for a while or something? How did you meet Sha and adopt him in the first place?
I did live on Ua for a while, but that wasn't till the end of everything. At first all I knew was I was in this city Tapolith, and I kept meeting people from Ua. First this merchant who let me stay the night in his tent when I didn't have a permit. Then this crazy kid busts out of what he claimed was a magic chest in the back of the tent. He's obviously trying to hide something, and the kid is obviously totally freaked out by the experience, and Gillian - that's the merchant - just wants to foist him off on a nanny.
Great, right, except a bunch of monsters show up and try to grab the kid, and I know that if he was with a nanny, darling nanny would just get ripped apart. And I know a world where he could hide.
But Ua - Ua's really hot and dry, at least the part of it where I was. The people there have an insane amount of magic. I'm used to - well, I can make a bit of fire, but it's not like I could jet it out and kill anyone with it. The people on Ua, they wouldn't even have to bother with fire, they can just think about it and do whatever they want. As long as they have enough uza. You get young men showing off to the girls by flying around, and making big fancy colorful light shows, and creating the most delicious food in the world from empty air, and jumping from place to place faster than you can blink. It's insane. I don't know why they haven't imploded and killed each other all off.
Well, actually I do. They have this tradition called the Dark. It's a tiny empty room in the center of every house, and it's magicked so that when you step into it, you're stepping into the dreaming. Kind of like Yonjuunana's room. They actually don't even believe in killing people, they think it's an automatic sign of insanity. If you - if you want to kill someone, they send you straight to the dark till you're healed. Or anything else that would put you off balance, it's straight to the healers and straight into the dark.
They're all telepathic, every one of them, so I guess they can't stand to have hateful people around, and they can spot it right away when it happens.
Erk. Um. What if I can only do it when I'm angry? Or that's when it works best anyway. And what if when I'm mad is when I reeeeally really want to do it?
Besides. Mad is good. Mad blasts the fuck out of speritu. I would be dead twenty times over if I couldn't get mad.
Sorry for the delay in replying... I, or shall I say we, have been really exhausted all the time lately.
D: Maybe your circumstances are different from ours. We try to avoid getting emotionally carried away, because that is when we can lose control over our powers and then they can become particularly damaging and then harm people and things we didn't mean to harm. We've come to see it as something to be used in self-defense only.
But you're right--being mad is what makes the powers all the more effective! That's when they come out!
I guess - I've not used it except in self-defense. So I've never had to look at what I've done and think how terrible it was.
Well. That's not really true. But it didn't have anything to do with fire magic. It was just me being.... stupid, I guess. But I didn't think so at the time. I was only trying to keep everyone safe. I'm not even really sure how it happened, but my son ended up seeing some things I really didn't want him to see. Stuff a four-year-old shouldn't have to think about. I don't think he remembers, and I'm not going to remind him, but it's my fault for going to a place where bad things could happen.
And I guess it's not true that I've only used fire in self-defense either. I play with it, and sometimes I use it for stupid everyday things like starting the cookfire going.
It's ok if you don't answer right away. What's going on that's making you so tired?
Avery: I've been in the *looks at what I've done* "Oh, how terrible!" position myself. =(
Deborah: As a mom, I understand the guilt and questions that must linger in your head after feeling like you put your child through something you shouldn't have.
About the tiredness, our "creator" has not been in very good health lately. She has been sleeping a lot and barely able to concentrate while awake. She blames it on her weight. I keep telling her she needs to exercise more and do something about her blood sugar, but she is having a hard time battling the fatigue. I've also suggested taking cohosh and cinnamon, to no avail.
Deborah - Oh, Pyraxis has that happen once, but it was 'cause of eczema and fucked up... what do you call it? Cortisol. Yeah. The chemical that gets used up if you're on edge for too long.
Was this the result of stress? I've noticed that I've been fatigued after getting extremely stressed out or awake too long. Sometimes I'm up all night because of my job.
Cohoshes are herbs that help with things like your hormones, menstrual cycle, and hot flashes. Actually, there has been research against their effectiveness against hot flashes lately, but I still believe in these herbs for other uses.
Um. It's a long self-involved explanation. Basically - no, never have, never will. But there's this thing. See, Pyraxis wasn't always Pyraxis. There's this thing. She calls it her "dysfunctional inner child" when she's trying to joke. It has other names -
Okay, before anyone gets any mistaken impressions, I have to make this very clear. She is not talking about a "little", an "alter", or any of the other words people use for a multiple's fragmented children. I don't identify as a multiple and I certainly don't identify with littles. I've met littles, I've gotten to know them, and that is not what is going on here.
You know what? You should get the fuck off me. I'm me, I've got my own life, and I know things. Like I know that there is a certain post where a certain person claims to be hiding in me. And you can claim you were just playing a game, that you were just faking things for his sake, and you can laugh off all of his and Walkie's claims as superstition and wishful thinking. And I'm not gonna claim that you've got some other person living in your head, cause you know as well as I do that it's more like a bunch of shattered fragments, and you know how they got shattered, too, and -
Whoa whoa whoa... Um. Sorry, guys. Maybe I shouldn't have asked that. Or next time I should ask Pyraxis about Pyraxis. :\
But- I guess- I'm still kinda confused and I don't know what's going on. Pyraxis, you say for Fiona to talk, and then she talks and you say to shut up. *shrugs*
I didn't know she was going to try and cross the wall. :/
You're right again, I was being a hypocrite. Maybe she can come back. It's just I have this habit of slipping into emo arguments, and when I do that, work doesn't get done on the book. I don't want to bleed off this energy here if I could channel it into telling a compelling story.
And Fiona doesn't seem to have any discretion. I was reading a writing newsletter the other day which said something like "Write what you're afraid to write, because those are the things worth saying." And I'm not really afraid to write on here. I'm concerned that I'm just distracting myself from planting my butt in the chair and doing the real work.
And- *nervous grin* Nobody set me on fire for saying this, kay? I'm already part of the club.
If Fiona's not fronting, then you're letting her post what she said, so that means there's gotta be something you're trying to say with this. Right? Although I totally don't know what it is yet.
Nah, you're totally right. By allowing this crap on my LJ, when I could hit delete or just not post in the first place, I have as much of a hand in the drama as Fiona does.
I thought it might go somewhere interesting. And I admit I know that when you say "this absolutely has to stop", people watching are gonna want to know what was about to be said. One of the things I'm supposed to be learning is how to do compelling writing, and you guys are my guinea pigs.
There is something I'm trying to get at here, but I don't know what it is. I just have a vague instinct for it. If I knew, then I wouldn't have to go to all this trouble in the first place.
Hey, can I ask about the "don't identify as a multiple" thing? I've been doing more research into multiplicity stuff and am still trying to figure out what the heck to identify as, or what vocabulary is best to describe myself. *grin* And then in the comments in that post by beauty_eternal you talk about multiplicity and it sounds like you are including yourself in that.
I'll probably be doing a lot more processing of this stuff in my new lj filter soon. I think I have a lot to say, both about the blurring between imagination and multiplicity, and about the communication in groups of multiples stuff you mentioned, but I'm pretty exhausted and pressed for time at the moment so I guess this is just another "I'm thinking about it and will get it out in words eventually" notification. :)
My first introduction to multiplicity was the trauma-based definition and there are still a lot of people that think of it that way. DID, extreme abuse, all that. I don't want to run the risk of people overhearing little bits of what I talk about and classing me that way. I would find it beyond embarrassing to have to explain to someone that I was not badly traumatized, and in a way I find it disrespectful to the people who have survived stuff like that to turn "multiplicity" into a half-game that writers play and can put aside whenever it's convenient. It's the same way that I make a clear distinction between "autism" and "on the autism spectrum".
I figured that beauty_eternal knew enough about different terminology that I didn't have to worry about that confusion with her.
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Yeah, the fire. That's what I do. I didn't get to learn much magic when I was at Eilieah but I knew how to do that before I even went there. I guess that's how they figured out to send me, they saw it in my brain.
That's the only thing that'll make speritu stay away.
*smiles slightly, makes a tree trunk, and plops down on it*
Hope you don't mind if I hang out here for a bit. I'm supposed to be here, Pyraxis says so, 'cause this is my post. She says she has to be creative. And she's already pissed off at the way I'm talking 'cause she wanted something else, but whatever. Wait, that didn't make sense. What I mean to say is my talking is supposed to help her be creative.
Yeah.
I almost feel sorry for her cause she has this story she wants so badly to tell but she messed up her brain and now she can't.
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Um. Anyway. I actually do have some questions, if you don't mind answering. As always, feel free to tell me to shut the hell up.
I guess I'm mostly wondering about that place Ua I keep hearing people talking about. What's it like? Sha's from there, right? Did you live there for a while or something? How did you meet Sha and adopt him in the first place?
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I did live on Ua for a while, but that wasn't till the end of everything. At first all I knew was I was in this city Tapolith, and I kept meeting people from Ua. First this merchant who let me stay the night in his tent when I didn't have a permit. Then this crazy kid busts out of what he claimed was a magic chest in the back of the tent. He's obviously trying to hide something, and the kid is obviously totally freaked out by the experience, and Gillian - that's the merchant - just wants to foist him off on a nanny.
Great, right, except a bunch of monsters show up and try to grab the kid, and I know that if he was with a nanny, darling nanny would just get ripped apart. And I know a world where he could hide.
But Ua - Ua's really hot and dry, at least the part of it where I was. The people there have an insane amount of magic. I'm used to - well, I can make a bit of fire, but it's not like I could jet it out and kill anyone with it. The people on Ua, they wouldn't even have to bother with fire, they can just think about it and do whatever they want. As long as they have enough uza. You get young men showing off to the girls by flying around, and making big fancy colorful light shows, and creating the most delicious food in the world from empty air, and jumping from place to place faster than you can blink. It's insane. I don't know why they haven't imploded and killed each other all off.
Well, actually I do. They have this tradition called the Dark. It's a tiny empty room in the center of every house, and it's magicked so that when you step into it, you're stepping into the dreaming. Kind of like Yonjuunana's room. They actually don't even believe in killing people, they think it's an automatic sign of insanity. If you - if you want to kill someone, they send you straight to the dark till you're healed. Or anything else that would put you off balance, it's straight to the healers and straight into the dark.
They're all telepathic, every one of them, so I guess they can't stand to have hateful people around, and they can spot it right away when it happens.
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Why was Sha in the chest? Was it one of those Tardis things? And why was there monsters after him?
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Besides. Mad is good. Mad blasts the fuck out of speritu. I would be dead twenty times over if I couldn't get mad.
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D: Maybe your circumstances are different from ours. We try to avoid getting emotionally carried away, because that is when we can lose control over our powers and then they can become particularly damaging and then harm people and things we didn't mean to harm. We've come to see it as something to be used in self-defense only.
But you're right--being mad is what makes the powers all the more effective! That's when they come out!
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Well. That's not really true. But it didn't have anything to do with fire magic. It was just me being.... stupid, I guess. But I didn't think so at the time. I was only trying to keep everyone safe. I'm not even really sure how it happened, but my son ended up seeing some things I really didn't want him to see. Stuff a four-year-old shouldn't have to think about. I don't think he remembers, and I'm not going to remind him, but it's my fault for going to a place where bad things could happen.
And I guess it's not true that I've only used fire in self-defense either. I play with it, and sometimes I use it for stupid everyday things like starting the cookfire going.
It's ok if you don't answer right away. What's going on that's making you so tired?
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Deborah: As a mom, I understand the guilt and questions that must linger in your head after feeling like you put your child through something you shouldn't have.
About the tiredness, our "creator" has not been in very good health lately. She has been sleeping a lot and barely able to concentrate while awake. She blames it on her weight. I keep telling her she needs to exercise more and do something about her blood sugar, but she is having a hard time battling the fatigue. I've also suggested taking cohosh and cinnamon, to no avail.
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What's cohosh?
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Cohoshes are herbs that help with things like your hormones, menstrual cycle, and hot flashes. Actually, there has been research against their effectiveness against hot flashes lately, but I still believe in these herbs for other uses.
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...Oh. You mean that.
Um. It's a long self-involved explanation. Basically - no, never have, never will. But there's this thing. See, Pyraxis wasn't always Pyraxis. There's this thing. She calls it her "dysfunctional inner child" when she's trying to joke. It has other names -
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Okay, before anyone gets any mistaken impressions, I have to make this very clear. She is not talking about a "little", an "alter", or any of the other words people use for a multiple's fragmented children. I don't identify as a multiple and I certainly don't identify with littles. I've met littles, I've gotten to know them, and that is not what is going on here.
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You know what? You should get the fuck off me. I'm me, I've got my own life, and I know things. Like I know that there is a certain post where a certain person claims to be hiding in me. And you can claim you were just playing a game, that you were just faking things for his sake, and you can laugh off all of his and Walkie's claims as superstition and wishful thinking. And I'm not gonna claim that you've got some other person living in your head, cause you know as well as I do that it's more like a bunch of shattered fragments, and you know how they got shattered, too, and -
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But- I guess- I'm still kinda confused and I don't know what's going on. Pyraxis, you say for Fiona to talk, and then she talks and you say to shut up. *shrugs*
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You're right again, I was being a hypocrite. Maybe she can come back. It's just I have this habit of slipping into emo arguments, and when I do that, work doesn't get done on the book. I don't want to bleed off this energy here if I could channel it into telling a compelling story.
And Fiona doesn't seem to have any discretion. I was reading a writing newsletter the other day which said something like "Write what you're afraid to write, because those are the things worth saying." And I'm not really afraid to write on here. I'm concerned that I'm just distracting myself from planting my butt in the chair and doing the real work.
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If Fiona's not fronting, then you're letting her post what she said, so that means there's gotta be something you're trying to say with this. Right? Although I totally don't know what it is yet.
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I thought it might go somewhere interesting. And I admit I know that when you say "this absolutely has to stop", people watching are gonna want to know what was about to be said. One of the things I'm supposed to be learning is how to do compelling writing, and you guys are my guinea pigs.
There is something I'm trying to get at here, but I don't know what it is. I just have a vague instinct for it. If I knew, then I wouldn't have to go to all this trouble in the first place.
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I'll probably be doing a lot more processing of this stuff in my new lj filter soon. I think I have a lot to say, both about the blurring between imagination and multiplicity, and about the communication in groups of multiples stuff you mentioned, but I'm pretty exhausted and pressed for time at the moment so I guess this is just another "I'm thinking about it and will get it out in words eventually" notification. :)
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I figured that