Hmmm. What’s this red stuff on the tip of my needle?
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It’s a pity that when a position becomes indefensible, some just grasp at any excuse so they can pretend digging themselves in deeper is the right thing to do.
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If the words of one or two people push you to feel threatened, well Those feelings must have been stirring long before. The phrase “grasping straws” comes to mind…
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Actually, it’s less these two than a certain third, fourth, and fifth-- maybe more-- who I still have to thank personally.
If I’m lucky, I’ll get to thank them again, and again, and again.
No rush. There’s time.
(That’s cute. Even after the fire we’ve exchanged, Miz still thinks I need a reason aside from, “you threaten the ones I love.” I don’t mind continuing to prove my sincerity to you, though. …)
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Both sides have their firebrands. Joining their choir doesnt exactly help the situation, nor will threats of retaliation for “threats” from third party affiliated people even matter in the long run.
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I think it’s more the blatant hypocrisy in your position that amuses some of us. “It’s perfectly ok for me to resort to violence the moment Napkins threatens people from my world, but I’m gonna insist on preaching patience and diplomacy when literally countless Amarr conduct systemic cruelty and viciousness against trillions of Matari for exactly the same weak-ass reason of ‘God Told Me To’.”
‘Ok for thee, but not for me’, I guess.
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I completely missed the irony in Ms. Arrendis’s statement. More caffeine, or similar stimulants, required.
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Hm? … No.
All this time and you still don’t get this? Well … okay.
You’ve said it yourself: there is no objective moral truth to this world.
Your path is your own to judge. I might quibble here or there, but, in the end, I don’t deny you the validity of your grudge. I don’t need to, to stand in its way.
All I need, is my own reason, my own path to follow.
I have one.
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Oh, I totally get it. I’ve even called you out on it in the past. And you’ve denied, evaded, and insisted that I was making things up whole cloth.
It’s just nice to see you finally being honest about your own callous cruelty and self-indulgence.
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Don’t smug too hard. We all called it. Publicly even. Doesn’t make it something other than to mourn.
We saw the chains she was wrapping around her spirit. We warned her of them. Today, perhaps it would even have been better if she’d truly converted, rather than become… this thing. Turning her “Directrix” into some Idol, and in place of fervent faith there’s just… a cold, broken mess that could have been something more, even if it were faithful to the Rite.
This is to be mourned, Arrendis. Not to be sneered at. The latest victim to the Empire’s failures, not even reclaimed, just… broken.
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Incidentally the people you care about are people who are threat to the people I care about, so I guess we’re at an impasse.
Anyway, is it still too early to start handing out mental gymnastics of the year awards?
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That it happened is the former. That she seems to think this is a good and proper thing… the latter.
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That’s sweet of you, Miz. But, this isn’t the Empire’s doing, or the Directrix’s. There’s a story, a really old one …
Once, after a bad earthquake, a man climbed the ridge above his seaside home to escape the terrible wave he knew would come. But the weather was stormy, and looking to the clouds he saw that sword winds were also coming, terrible winds that scour even moss from the rocks. In desperation, he clambered down to take shelter on the cliff face above his home. Only, just as the sea rolled in beneath him and the winds blasted pebbles and rocks from the ridge above, he felt the cliffside shake, and shiver, and heard a rumble, low, but clear even over the crash of the sea and shriek of the wind. It was another quake, and as he clung between sea and sky the man felt the stone beneath his hands begin not only to shake, and shake harder, but also to shift and tilt.
As the cliff face began to come loose, a gleam of light painted the stone a pale rose. With death below him, death above, and death there beside him on the cliff, with all his strength the man turned. The sun was setting beneath the storm, and the storm, and land, and sea, and evening sky were all laid out there around and before him.
The beauty of the sight took his breath, and brought tears to his eyes.
…
That’s my faith, Miz. I just want, before I die, to turn and see that sunset.
It’s not so easy, of course. The sunset’s a metaphor, and the act of turning to see it can easily be the work of a lifetime. It doesn’t depend on gods or ancestors, or even on will or strength of character; only on insight.
I’m an illusion, a shadow and figment. My fate is to cling for a while to this transient existence, then vanish. Probably the world after my passing won’t be too different from one where I never happened at all. (And if it is different, it probably won’t be in a good way.)
Succeeding-- finding that insight and understanding I’m looking for-- won’t save me. But it’ll make it a little easier.
That’s who I am, child of a tradition that found the place where poor Arrendis lives thousands of years ago and kept going. It’s who I’ve always been, I think, even when I was her. But, when I was her, that famous former self of mine, I was so much more afraid. I was terrified of death. Now, not so much.
And now? … In this brief time, I have a part to play. An oath to uphold, and a debt of gratitude, yes, but a bond of friendship, as well. If that puts me on the wrong side of history or something … well, your story need villains, too, after all, and it’d get boring if they all had the same motivation.
But, I’m not so sure I’m the villain in this tale to begin with. I’m not sure this story even has villains, or just flawed, stupid, doomed creatures doing flawed, stupid, doomed things. Just like everywhere.
Either way, your judgment, or Arrendis’s, or Teinhyr’s, isn’t very meaningful.
When I can see with clear eyes, I don’t blame you for what you are, but you stand in my path, and your pain is not my problem. Even if I’m interested in what you believe, and why, it’s because I want to understand you, not because I want to emulate you. I won’t violate my sense of self by becoming what you want.
And because you’ve targeted those I’m close to, I can’t just let you do what you want, either.
Your agreement, approval, or even comprehension is not required, Miz. But believe this: it makes sense to me.
I will be your opponent.
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In this whole story I do not see this man facing the light and diving from the rocks. Why are you choosing to do so? Considering, I’d imagine Miz, Arrendis, ect are the rocks below to you, the sky is your adopted faith and the light behind you is the conflict between them, you choose to turn around and plunge into the rocks rather than hold out until the end. It seems odd to me at least in the confines of your story. Your own story seems to say, “Face what is coming and hold strong” yet mobilizing to meet a side is the exact opposite of that.
To put it bluntly, in light of the wisdom to be taken from your story, you choose to shut your eyes and swan dive into the rocks below rather than face the future with quiet dignity.
Take that as you will.
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Oh, Aria. You’re no opponent. You’re a distraction. Opponents take a stand for something that matters.
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Hee. Well, as you might imagine, Ms. Vess, I read the symbolism of the story a little differently. The storm and water and so on are the inevitably deadly troubles of this world-- the man’s state is the state we all share: being doomed, transient, small, mortal creatures.
(Capsuleers sometimes make noises about being immortal, but, maybe talk to me in a couple centuries and I could be convinced to take that idea a little more seriously.)
Anyone living is clinging to that cliff face. One way or another, we’re all doomed-- not because we did something wrong, but because that’s our position.
Only … actually, that’s not so important. We’re not so important. (Depending on how you look at it, we’re barely even here.)
Then again … it’s really kind of hard to realize, what actually is.
… Uh … right; you know what? Sure.
I will be your distraction!
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Really?
It might be the nation of my birth, but I don’t really see the Republic as a viable threat to any of the other empires. A particularly motivated Tribe or two, maybe. Individuals to other individuals, certainly. The Republic though… Too fractured, too discordant, too disorganized to ever actually do anything.
I don’t know in what manner you look back on your time in PYRE, but I’m sure you remember that the general quality of capsuleer we faced from the TLIB was… well, to be honest, pretty ■■■■.
So I wouldn’t worry Aria. I highly doubt you actually have much to fear.
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Well, if you force people to take sides with absolutist “us or them” rhetoric, this is what you get.
I told Vesper many times not to commit fully to us unless she was absolutely certain it was the correct path for her. I suggested she remain as neutral as possible by not taking up arms so that she might move on and gain her desired perspectives from all peoples of the cluster unhindered by accusations of loyalism and murder in the name of an incorrect cause. I hoped she could develop a unique reputation as a neutral, cosmoplitan ambassador to all four nations and help us all understand one another better on peaceable terms; a living demonstration that we all have valuable perspectives and workable flaws that can be shared and reconciled.
But some Minmatar, predictably, rejected her long before she rejected them for the mere fact she was not murdering us in our sleep. And now those same Minmatar smile to themselves, happy they were right in the self-fulfilling prophecy they created.
A rather baffling turn of events, considering we are supposed to be the baddies here.
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You realize, of course, that absolutely none of what you’ve said is in any way something we all haven’t heard before, right? That really, I look at the florid metaphors you use to erect philosophical constructions in your effort to find insight and understanding… as baffles and screens that only blind you to the very understanding you seek. Constructions that can only reflect bits and pieces of yourself back at you in ways… you already knew, else you’d never have been able to build them in the first place. It’s something we moved past thousands of years ago and discarded for the useless, meaningless nonsense it is.
Let me put this in more… flowery… terms for you:
You want to see the sunset, but you don’t yet. And you don’t… because you want it… because you long for it. To long for a thing… means you believe you don’t already have it.
The sunset’s never something you have to turn to find. The sunset exists not just behind you, but in every direction, because the sunset only exists inside your eyes. It’s not something you have to fight to see, it’s not something you have to struggle to earn. You just have to let it happen, to get out of your own way and let yourself see the sunset that has always been there.
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Oh no, Vesper is a human with feelings.
What a revelation.
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