after the Waking World log

[claudiometer]

Hoo boy. I realise this phrasing may be treading on thin ice right now, but strange things are afoot at the Aratta Skyhook.

First things first. Leah took the news that she was chosen to be the first Conductor deliberately... about as well as we figured she would. She has a theory as to why and asked me to run it by you guys. [And so she does, letting the memory play out from the linked point until Leah says she'd like to talk to the Oracle who uncovered this.]

So yeah, Thace, if she hasn't found you already, find her.

Second. I made sure to get a planetside view while I was out and about. Alexandra had never bothered before, and apparently wouldn't have understood what she was looking at anyway, and for an uninhabitable planet there's a shitton happening on the surface. And, uh, I found the source of the mysterious ticking noise, probably.

They're building a computer chip the size of fucking WYOMING.

Comments

[youandyoualone]

Truly, the apothecaries of the future are more advanced than I could have imagined. Where might one procure such things as to keep black moods away?

[Look. He's a lifelong depressive. It's a problem.]

[helborn]

Yeah. I explained this to Drizzt once - there's doctors to treat wounds of your body. There's doctors to even treat wounds of the physical parts of your brain. But there's also doctors to treat wounds of the medical heart.

It's... a long process and it doesn't work for everyone, but it's worth a try.

I haven't been to one myself, but I kind of ended up doing a rudimentary version of it growing up for the grieving families at my dad's funeral home.

[eldritchwheelies]

Also, this is one of the things that religion was for. Cognitive-Behavioral Theory is even based on Buddhist meditative exercises.

Show of hands who's surprised Leah is a Buddhist? Anyone? Bueller?

[youandyoualone]

'Tis true that religion can work to combat black moods and their presence. I have oft attempted to find surcease in my earthly devotions to Namaah and have even once or twice, when my guilt felt unbearable, gone to the temple of Kushiel to be scourged.

Too, if one visits Gentian House and goes to sleep beside one of their adepts, one shall dream in symbols one what one is troubled by and the adept who shared that dream shall puzzle out what one must do. [He's often wished to have a Gentian adept in liminal space whenever he's hit by one of these awful nightmares.]

[eldritchwheelies]

Show me an impractical faith and I'll show you one that didn't survive. Ask me to tell you why pork was originally forbidden to the Jews.

[No comment on getting whipped by Kushiel's boys.]

I mean, I'm mostly vaguely the Japanese bouillabaisse of Buddhism and Shinto, but comparative religion and the difference between religions and (notionally toxic) cults is something you get drilled into your head at a school for fighting things like Nyarlathotep. Confession does salve the soul. Mitzvot do give you good habits. Meditation is good mental hygene. These aren't arbitrary rules; they're different ways to be happy.

[youandyoualone]

I am familiar a bit with confession. Thorne has described to me the Catholic rites of her childhood and too have many of my infiltrations been brought up so--at least when they have originated in France. In fact, on the walkabout to the world of Pogemon, my childhood friend David, who in my own world became a Cassiline Brother much like Joscelin, was himself a Jesuit priest.

[eldritchwheelies]

Jesuits are real "glorify God by understanding His creation" types. Does that track with the Cassilines?

[youandyoualone]

Hm. Not specifically the Cassilines per se, but 'tis usually just old Siovale families who still practice the old tradition of sending second sons to the order and that is very much in line with traditional Siovalese thought and Shemhazhai's priesthood... so I can see that, yes.

[youandyoualone]

The doctors who are known as shrinks, yes? I have heard mention of them from the Durante siblings. I did not know they could prescribe pills and potions, merely that one would go unto them to talk of their problems, much as we all do with Claudia.

[helborn]

More specifically therapists. Therapists do mostly talk therapy. Psychiatrists are specialized doctors who can prescribe mental health medications. Psychologists are the ones who study the field in general.

It might be hard to find a therapist after all of this, but... well. If I make it past the second titanomachy brewing in my world, I'll probably end up as a god. But there's no reason why I can't just... also go to school in disguise. ... I wanted to be a mortician like my dad, but now I want to be a grief counselor.

And if we're going to be able to visit each other like I hope, that might be a good sort of person to have on hand, yeah?

[youandyoualone]

From what Thorne's brother has said, grief counselors are good and useful fellows, yes. They are the only sort of 'shrink' he has not assiduously avoided.

But this is all very fascinating, Casper--I would like to learn more in time.

[helborn]

I can tell you what I know later.

... And I mean, I'm not exactly trained yet, but you can always talk to me if you need.

[youandyoualone]

I shall, for I am still oft troubled by grief, even all these years later.

[helborn]

I'm sorry. ... We'll talk later, okay? I gotta go give people a ride.

[eldritchwheelies]

I'm not a pharmacist, but it's in the arsenal of any modern day drugstore chemist. Not all of them work the same way, or work on the same deficiencies, and expect to be a zombie for a day or two when you overshoot the dose.

I cannot stress how much I am talking from the experience of a friend and not from direct experience. I'm not qualified to throw lithium and Prozac at you. Find someone who is.

[youandyoualone]

And so I shall. Mayhap when I go to visit Alcuin and Thace's almost-in-laws, when this is over--if indeed they would have such people in Thorne, Gil, and Jules' world.

[eldritchwheelies]

Early twenty-first century should be late enough!

public -> private

[youandyoualone]

'Twould be in the 2010s, I believe, yes!

[Going to switch this to private:]

I wonder why it is that Thorne does not take pills or potions against her mind's weasels, for her brother says she has been to the shrinks and does have a diagnosis. Indeed it seems to me that she and little Maria are subtly alike, only that Thorne has been taught better to mimic others around her.

private

[eldritchwheelies]

Vampire.

Depending on how vampires process things, and how technically alive they are, they might not be able to get any damn benefit from human medication.

Re: private

[youandyoualone]

Ah. True. Though she does prefer to wear her human form as often as she might and indeed, will often wear it for days upon end.