[network] @curiouschloride | Day 360 | Video | There'll be peace when you are done [open]

[motherserpent]

[CW: references to religious violence; disrespectful discussion of both Abrahamic and Nahuatl religions fairly likely in comments.]


[OTA]
[The Tess who appears on the screen is a rather tired-looking Tess.]

I, uh.

[She glances down; clears her throat awkwardly.]

If anyone actually, uh. Actually took the blood sacrifice thing seriously? I need you to just not. Please. Offer's rescinded, no blessings for blood. Even if it worked--and it's not going to work; I was just being--I was being stupid. Even if it worked I don't...I don't want that. And I'm sorry, I'm sorry I said all that stuff. I'm sorry for the things I called everyone.

[Her face contorts in guilt, but she forces it neutral again.]

And...if anyone's seen my snake? I know you don't owe me anything, but if you could let me know if he's okay, I'd just...I'd really appreciate that.



[Private to Flynn]

Flynn, I...I'm really sorry. That wasn't okay; none of that was okay. I shouldn't have put you in that position. I'd get it if you didn't want to talk to me again.

Comments

[warriorscribe]

I wish I could say that should never have been in question. [He sighs.] Where there is great value, as with a person's life, there will be people who would use it wrongly, and think they're right.

[motherserpent]

Well, yeah. Usually people who don't remember what it's like being human. Or just don't give a shit.

[warriorscribe]

...Do humans regularly transfigure into other beings in your world?

[He just meant humans that happened to have either poor ethics or ethics not good enough to use any power they have correctly...]

[motherserpent]

...Not regularly. Just...a lot of the people I know used to be human.

[warriorscribe]

[Every world but his has immortals who had known mortality it seems...]

I see. A matter of being among the right circles, then. What are they, that these people have become?

[They can't all be gods, right?]

[motherserpent]

Gods. Demigods. Not all of them started human, but...enough did that they should know better.

[warriorscribe]

Some might not want to be reminded. It's not a good reason, but- those are the sorts you might be able to reason with most easily.

[He means the whole wrinkle of, well, everyone you ever know and love who isn't also immortal dying. He held on to his sense of humanity - mostly because he was never under the impression he was ever anything else - but he knows full well by now that others may not.]

[motherserpent]

And some of them are just colossal dicks. Some of them were colossal dicks even when they were human.

[She calls it like she sees it.]

[warriorscribe]

Ah. I would hope immortality would be worth some wisdom, but, I suppose it's too much to ask for some.

[He pauses a little, weighing the idea again, so strange, of a world that just does this.]

Immortal humans simply...almost never occur in my world. It's strange to even imagine it.

[motherserpent]

Give a dickbag more power, and they're just a more powerful dickbag. Give a good person more power...and sometimes they turn into dickbags, too.

It's just how things work where I'm from. Having kids with mortals has a lot of advantages over having them with other gods.

[warriorscribe]

...Such as the opportunity to grow up away from such power and come from a place of understanding of the flock one is to guide?

[That's infinitely more optimistic than anything she just described. Maybe he's aware of it, but he isn't showing it.]

[motherserpent]

Yeah, actually. Of course, that can be a disadvantage if you're a megalomaniac and want your kid to listen to you, but hey, those are the risks you take if you don't want to raise a fully awakened god-child.

[warriorscribe]

That seems rather...unusual. Why would a megalomaniac want their child to grow up apart from them when they have plans for them? I'd think someone like that would want to control their child's development - and I mean that with the least amount of kindness.

[People who raise their children as tools and not people are bad enough, honestly, and that's without villainous designs. And this coming from someone from an age when children were part of one's workforce.]

[motherserpent]

It's the child-god thing. There's losing control over their development from being hands-off, and then there's losing control because they have literal divine powers. Ever seen a trickster goddess toddler? It's...exciting, even when they turn out to be a good kid.

[warriorscribe]

That... I suppose in the case of those who don’t truly care about their child as a person it is a hidden blessing for the child to never know their godly parent...

[motherserpent]

Maybe? I dunno. Probably. I mean, you get to meet them when they show up and tell you your entire life has been a lie and they have a job for you to do.

[warriorscribe]

That sounds rather personal.

[He pauses a moment, wondering if it's proper for someone who was simply chosen by a god to relate here, but... He does know all about the normal human life abruptly ending, so he runs with the assumption, because the route of empathy is, actually, the one of least resistance for him.]

...Your human life was just as real as the rest of you. I suspect you didn't take your hidden parent at their word, though, by your tone.

[motherserpent]

...I mean.

[Looking back at this conversation...yeah, she's vented some too-personal stuff at him in the last couple of minutes.]

I did, actually. That's part of being awakened; you know it's all real. And that was kind of exciting at first, but that only goes so far when part of the job you're given is to look the other way while they start a war.

[warriorscribe]

[He meant that more as an acknowledgment of this being her own story of awakening.]

But...what you said about your life before being a lie - was that something they tried to convince you of, too?

[This is highly important, of course. Because that's how you let immortality make you into someone else, you convince yourself that the old you wasn't supposed to be, or doesn't matter anymore.

Never forgetting where you came from is important - it's good that some of these gods, it seems, understand that. Not so much that Tess's divine parent clearly wasn't one of them...]

[motherserpent]

I inferred it. What's it supposed to matter at that point? No one gave a shit. Gio's the only one who has anyone left from before, and it's...weird. Awkward.

[warriorscribe]

It matters because it's where you came from. It was your life, and you did say some gods have children with mortals to give them an understanding of normal life. Being...ascended...that doesn't make everything before cease to matter.

[motherserpent]

Maybe. Maybe it doesn't have to be that way for everyone. For the ones that come after us. Just...a lot of shit happened really fast.

[warriorscribe]

Things that made...all the things you learned, practical and moral, not matter anymore? Things that made your interests and beliefs, cultivated over the course of your life, not matter anymore?

[motherserpent]

No, I mean, of course it matters. If it didn't matter I'd just, y'know...bathe in the blood of my enemies. And my non-enemies. Just all the blood-bathing. I'm still me. It's just everything else that's changed.

[warriorscribe]

As long as you recognize that it does matter...it always does, where we come from.

[It sounds much like some of what Tess has said in tone: the personal couched in the abstract. Part of it is his time here, but there's a lot of it informed by the upheaval of his own life those centuries ago.]