have the light of day obscured

[msglam]

You guys captured Purity?

Comments

[first_and_final]

No?

[msglam]

Nope! I'm already too overconfident for my tastes, saying I'm exactly as smart or as good as I think I am won't actually help.

[first_and_final]

But if you think you're less smart than you think you are, don't you end up in fact thinking you're less smart than you thought you thought you were...? Where does it end?

[msglam]

Well, in theory the feedback loop could be dampened and it'd end at a finite specific quantity, but in practice I basically just consciously keep all my unconscious thoughts about my smartness and goodness in check.

[first_and_final]

As long as it works for you, I guess.

[msglam]

Not very well, actually! But it's better than the alternative.

[first_and_final]

That'll have to do.

[msglam]

Yup!

Do you have the new weapons to try, by the way?

[first_and_final]

I've been doing a lot of design work to distract myself from my real problems, so yes.

[msglam]

Your real problems?

[first_and_final]

Not being able to apologize to the person I nearly killed, that sort of thing.

Well. Allowed. Not being allowed to apologize to the person I nearly killed. I'm sure I am technically able to manage it if I try.

[msglam]

Yeah. I mean, she didn't actually die, she might not even know there's something you should be apologizing for.

[first_and_final]

She will have noticed that I hit her with a staff-sized force blast. That's not the sort of thing that's easy to miss.

[msglam]

Well, yes, but she doesn't necessarily know she almost died of it.

[first_and_final]

It's still worth apologizing for on its own, by most people's standards. At least when the people involved are Aluvai. Do capes who hospitalize each other just go about their business afterward with no hard feelings?

[msglam]

No more hard feelings than otherwise, more or less. In fact, if a cape who hospitalized another came back to apologize I'm pretty sure the other would assume that was taunting and there'd be more hard feelings.

[first_and_final]

That seems stupid.

[msglam]

Well, think about it from her perspective. Someone just literally almost killed her, and then they go and say, 'I'm so sorry I was powerful enough to drop you in one hit,' not bound to help, yeah? And of course you won't phrase it like that but capes are selected for liking conflict and drama.

[first_and_final]

Seems like a cultural difference, then. If I was almost killed and woke up in the hospital and the person who did it had the capacity to visit me and apologize but didn't, I'd be tempted to send a strongly worded letter, depending how I felt about the incident. If they did show up, I'd expect to be able to tell the difference between gloating and a sincere apology. And even gloating I might accept if it came with good-faith observation of the principles of reconciliation.

[msglam]

That's probably true among normal people anyway. It's just, capes.

[first_and_final]

I still would prefer to at least try reconciliation. Capes can't be that bad, at least not unfailingly. My teammates are capes and they mostly aren't.

[msglam]

If you say so. I mean, they did go through horribly traumatic experiences to get powers, and then went ahead to join an organization dedicated to basically fighting other people.

[first_and_final]

Hasn't anyone tried being nice to villains? They haven't, have they.

[msglam]

Define 'being nice to villains'...? Most interactions with them seem to follow the general script of "Hey, you, stop doing that illegal thing you're doing!" "Make me!" *fight*

[first_and_final]

Finding out why they are doing illegal things. Encouraging them to pursue alternate forms of income/entertainment/etc. I can't be the only person who's thought of this. Maybe everyone else was too cynical. Or picked the wrong villain to befriend and got themselves killed.