If you fuck up the kitchen, then you should do the dishes (Later in the week)

[lightnovelexperiences]

Conducting can't be healed, but the damage it causes - impulsiveness and the compulsion to meme - can, while still making us utterly dauntless and incapable of being paralyzed by shame, fear, or doubt. Partitioning your thought processes in combination with advanced psychic shielding allows you to stay in contact with the Conductor Network safely. This will probably also help the people working on decoding the fractal do it safely, but I can't absolutely guarantee that.

Sensory Conditioning helps with the compulsion to meme, as well. It's one reason that Paraiba hasn't turned yet. Protecting the Conditioned Diaphoron is now a priority; defer to Paraiba on how.

Speaking of, IOU one deinfiltration, Gil. Just show me how it's done, and who you want restored.

Yes, this is Deedee; yes, I'm a Conductor, still, and when I'm in the driver's seat I'm the Conductor of Heart; yes, Leah has heard all of this from her end; no, there is no risk of infection from talking to me, or her. Not any more.

Also: is it just me, or does Questing Country have a definite resemblance to Skaia?

Comments

[youandyoualone]

Skaia?



Welcome back, my dear. Leah was a sweet girl, but I'm happy to see you as yourself once more.

[lightnovelexperiences]

A dreamworld from a particular... it's difficult to describe what Homestuck is or was; it was an extremely innovative, multimedia work at the time that was only possible with a fairly mature Internet. Suffice to say there are a number of resemblances between the dream of Skaia from Homestuck and the dream of Questing Country here.

I'd love to show it to you, but given how densely packed it is with pataphorical injokes, that seems like a terrible idea at the moment. Maybe after the Jaunt.

[And all without going "let me tell you about Homestuck."]

Hey Anafiel. Yes, she is. She deserves none of this, and now that I've shielded her from making things worse, I can start doing the same for the other Conductors.

the problem with sharing a boyfriend with a 21st century nerd

[youandyoualone]

Oh, Homestuck. I am peripherally aware of such. I have not actually read the narrative myself, given that it is only on the internets, as I have been assured, but I have heard it referenced before. Two of Thorne's hooded jackets have symbology from it. She told me once it infrequently drove her to drink.

[lightnovelexperiences]

That sounds accurate, particularly if she broke out the vodka for Act 6 when they literally doubled the cast.

Given her, I would not be surprised if it was, hmn, the same half-heart I'm sporting right now, a white vortex on black, or a... green, trilaterally symmetrical ball with three hooks. Heart, Space, Mind. Space especially since she taught us most of what we know about Liminal.

[youandyoualone]

The first and second, yes. When I first met her, she wore the black one. Later, she took up wearing the dark rose.

[helborn]

[He sounds very sleepy.]

Hey there, Deedee. You guys - uh. You all okay over there or do you need anything?

[lightnovelexperiences]

Casper, do you need me to sit on you with my tails as a blanket so you can actually get some goddamn sleep?

I'll do it. Don't think that I won't.

[She's fine, thanks for asking.]

Leah is doing a hell of a lot better than she's been for the last two weeks Terran, thanks in no small part to you and Gil. Take a break. You both need and deserve it.

[helborn]

I can literally go a month without food or sleep.

[Please don't ask how he knows that.]

I want to help. ... There's still people who need help, and I have the ability to help...

[lightnovelexperiences]

That sounds like a power you should only use when sleep and food are impossible to acquire, Casper. I can go breathatarian for a little while too, thanks to my - goddamn, I was already basically Physically Conditioned by virtue of speccing into Five Guardians, wasn't I? - and the end result was always a hard crash after burning that emergency fuel.

I will make you poutine and tuck you in if that's what it takes.

[helborn]

I...

[He just throws a filter on the conversation.]

[Private]

... I'm scared, to be honest. Scared that this is my last chance to do something big without immediate world-ending battles looming in the background where I've got a good chance of dying.

I don't think we ever really... talked about my home situation, huh.

[levelthreehooligan]

Welcome Back, Deedee.

Let Leah know that we're still rooting for her, okay? I care about her wellbeing, and I'd like us to leave QC a better place for her when we go.

[Her voice is warm and concerned, because she knows what a shock it can be to realise you've been piloted by someone else and vice-versa.]

How did you stop the spread?

the link does not digetically exist; it's for the benefit of folks on the Conductor Net.

[lightnovelexperiences]

She can hear you, and she knows, and she's thankful. She's probably about to make her own announcement.

...I think it's safe to say that the impulsiveness and the compulsion to meme are mental wounds. Status effects. Ones that you get when you start Conducting. But, crucially, ones that you can negate with psychic healing techniques after the fact - they won't cure Conductivity per se, but removing the logorhheaic impulse to meme like you're on Tumblr combined with restoring an ounce of common sense means that you won't spout memes unless it's on purpose, a de facto cure.

Also, can I just say for the record that someone deliberately inflicting this particular cocktail of neuroses on a mentally ill woman because she's mentally ill needs to hang for crimes against sophonity?

Re: the link does not digetically exist; it's for the benefit of folks on the Conductor Net.

[levelthreehooligan]

Hmmmn~

In which case, I have Psychic healing of my own, and I can help anyone in need if they seek me out.

And yeah, I know I'm not nearly as angry as you right now, but I think that says more about the depth of your rage than the lack of mine.

[lightnovelexperiences]

Good. Psychic healing needs to be voluntary as well - I wouldn't cut open someone's leg to take out a bullet without asking first; I sure as hell would ask to pick a trauma out of someone's mind - but I doubt any Conductors would object.

...I have. An idea for some just vengeance. The very definition of Chaotic Good, so long as we get Shacklebreaker first. We should talk about it, Pinya.

[levelthreehooligan]

I am at yours and the other Conductors disposal, as always.

And you have my interest. I hope this will be sufficiently mischievous?

[awitchdidit]

Oh good, more people than just Thorne have read that nonsense. It's probably the last thing we want to discuss while quarantining memes, though. Certainly, geography working on dream logic is a commonality, although Questing Country could use more chess motifs.

Speaking of quarantining memes, however, do you have any guarantee that what you're saying is...helpful? It makes logical sense, but how can we be sure it's not going to advance the agenda of Conducting regardless?

[lightnovelexperiences]

Oh, yeah, no, someone’s brain filling with metal smoke because they hummed a song that’s coincidentally four minutes and thirteen seconds long is the absolute last thing we need. With you on it needing more chess. Maybe Leah will get in a game on an oversized board as part of the Quest for Shacklebreaker now that we’ve mentioned it.

Frankly, Beatrice? We DON’T know that. But I feel pretty good about it; call it an educated guess, based on healing myself with a combo of psychic healing and Heart Bolstering. Someone deliberately traumatized Leah to be impulsive and so she would literally need heroic effort of will to stop memeing; undoing that damage is going to piss off someone on the INVELP program. I can feel it.

[insidegalra]

Tell me more about how things can be healed, and how partitions of the mind aid in defense. I've never been as good at Psychic skills barring the purely defensive ones, but I've managed to make significant progress lately.

[lightnovelexperiences]

Okay, so; this is just what I've picked up this week by training relentlessly with Madoka and Casper. At least some of this is also having the Heart Aspect, but all of the important parts are psychic; that just let me error-correct faster.

Someone with basic psychic defenses can sense points of stress and failure for them, yeah? Can see the weak points. And they can also, if those are obviously wounds or scars, start to mend them. Absolutely intrusive, by the way, but so's surgery; I'm sure Choice understands the consent issues here.

If you'll pardon me for talking in video game terms, cause I lived in a video game for almost three months ysee, I can sense and cure mental debuffs and top off psychic hit points. There's definitely a plateau that I needed to get over to get the memelordship out; the poor impulse control was easier to heal.

As for the partitioning... it's how I have Conductornet on Read Only, no ability to post; I pass that onto Leah. Ditto what she has to say to us. You can use it to, among other things, have someone already compromised - like Thetan - pass info along to you after you can scan it for infohazards with Psychic Defenses.

Leah says hi, by the way.

[insidegalra]

We say hi in return.

I have been working on various techniques and ideas for healing, so that much I can do. I haven't been able to test it, but I had been wondering if Dreamcatchers could be used to aid in psychic healing.

I'm not sure I can master partitioning the mind so quickly though. Steven always handled the psychic skills between us.

At this point I suspect both Thetan and I are fairly well compromised. I do wonder if all of my resistance training is helping me. Being able to lie successfully to a druid is... difficult, and it may run on similar principles to conditioning? I would have to talk to a master, I suspect.

[lightnovelexperiences]

That sounds right but...

Ah. Close call. Conditioning does help. Instead, I'll say that I don't know if your Resistance training helps, but it's plausible.

If you don't mind my asking, what do you do to resist a Druid's probing? I can private and lock down the convo if you need it.

And Dreamcatchers I'm vague on - never had one - but if they're like a Tuner's ability to break down and purify Nightmares, you could potentially use them as psychic filtration units.

[insidegalra]

Focus, control, and I believe the word is compartmentalizing. Much of resistance training deals with physical torture, but the insidious part of torture are always the mental games that the druids play. Being able to spot their manipulations and resist when physically taxed, or drugged, is a part of it.

Another part of lying is a perfect control of the physical tells. Ear emotes, tension, heart-rate, scent... The other part is harder to explain. The druids employ quintessence in their magic, and resisting that is chancy at best, but is most effective when they're not just trying to fry your flesh from your bones.

You've seen my eyes, haven't you? The golden glow is actually an early symptom of quintessence exposure. Later symptoms can range from extreme physical dependance to mental and emotional decay.

[fridgeninja]

Welcome back.

[lightnovelexperiences]

Hey, you. Good to be back.

Leah hasn't had the chance to meet you yet. We should fix that. Down for anime night? Madoka assures me that getting the reference isn't Conductive, just making the joke.

[fridgeninja]

Actually, you haven't met this version of me yet, either. I'm undercover as a Gorgon.

Sounds like fun.