-Overflow- for 24 - Autumn Reception

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: Autumn Reception
When: September 30, 6 PM
Where: The Gods' Meeting Hall
Summary: The Heavens are throwing a formal party! Old and new gods alike are invited, so put on your nicest outfits and some good dancing shoes, and come see what this shindig is all about.

Continuing from HERE!

Comments

Lenneth

[revolutionfalcon]

[[From here.]]

Aren't you the one giving up easily, then? If you think there's no hope if it's not something we can see clearly.

[Shun's used to an enemy like that - a shapeless malice that never seemed to get smaller no matter how much was chipped away. To him, it's only a reason to fight harder, not to say it's impossible to combat.]

[nibelungvalesti]

If the responsible force is so absolutely competent that no effort of ours can reveal it or affect its plans outside of what it will permit? Then it is as far above the gods as the gods are above mortals. I do not believe that is possible.

[revolutionfalcon]

Think what you like. But some hard-headed charge isn't going to solve our problems in this case.

[As much as he would like it to. This, unfortunately, is a situation for diplomacy, something which he's never been terribly good at.]

[nibelungvalesti]

Such was not my proposition, although such an element may have its place in a grander plan.

[Don't get her started on failure at diplomacy.]

[revolutionfalcon]

That's the sort of thing that's going to take time regardless, so you might as well see what comes up in the interim.

[Especially since making a grand plan with no idea what they're planning against is pretty unwise of itself.]

[nibelungvalesti]

That is truth, but there is quite the difference between 'actively looking' and 'merely waiting to stumble across information by luck'. [Which to her makes all the difference, especially with so many people involved.]

[revolutionfalcon]

I didn't say anything about not being active. But you can be active in doing other things and find information that way, instead of trying to charge for something unreachable.

[Complacency isn't something Shun ever advocates, but finding one thing through another is something he's had happen often enough that it's hard not to say it works.]

[nibelungvalesti]

And yet the surest way to not see is to not look.

[She isn't quite sure what they're arguing at this point.]

[revolutionfalcon]

You're missing the point if that's what you're taking out of this. [The surest way to let everything else around you slip is to focus on looking for one thing you might never find. He knows that one from experience.]

[nibelungvalesti]

The point I am making is that even if we do not take direct action to investigate, we can learn much simply by keeping our eyes open and our minds prepared. More than we would see if we simply shrug and go about our business, waiting for information to be dropped on us from on high.

[revolutionfalcon]

Do you really think I'm the kind of person whose going about their business doesn't involve keeping my eyes open and mind prepared?

[The entire point he was making was essentially the same thing, so he's getting the impression they're talking past each other a bit at this point.]

[nibelungvalesti]

Not in the least. It is others I am concerned about, who may not have realized they should look for this.

[revolutionfalcon]

If discussing that between us would actually stop anyone else from being that oblivious, we wouldn't still need to be talking about it.

[Shun sounds a little exasperated, but unfortunately, alert people discussing reasons to be alert among themselves isn't going to change anyone else's habits.]

[nibelungvalesti]

It would stop them if it did not occur to them to think of this whole structure as 'created' to begin with. [In other words, they should be spreading awareness, right?]

[revolutionfalcon]

I doubt that's going to be something people will just be convinced of. Everyone's going to have their own opinions, and people tend to be stubborn about those.

[If there's one thing people will cling to with their life beyond all else, it's an opinion.]

[nibelungvalesti]

A fair point. Yet it is difficult to imagine how any could reconcile this system, as it exists, with no element of intervention or creation.

[Particularly with the experience of a true god to support it.]

[revolutionfalcon]

It's hard to say, but then, I never saw any indication of anything like this in my world. So this is my first experience with any kind of pantheon or afterlife.

[It's made certain things annoying, not having any kind of proper comparison point for it, but most of it is the kind of thing a lot of others here wouldn't be familiar with either, so that eases it a bit.]

[nibelungvalesti]

You had no knowledge of the gods that ruled your world, or existence after death?

[Now that startles her.]

[revolutionfalcon]

There were legends, obviously, but they never came to anything. People believed in different gods or pantheons, like this world, but there was no actual proof or real signs of a life after death or gods watching over. People had to take it entirely on faith.

[Which was never something Shun was all that interested in doing, and even less so after the war broke out and confirmed for him that even if there was a god, they didn't give a damn.]

[nibelungvalesti]

...That was insufficient?

[Here she lacks utterly the mortal perspective. What else did mortals require to understand? They were told, and so ought to have such faith...]

[revolutionfalcon]

Faith isn't good enough for most people. Having no beliefs like that isn't uncommon, but I especially turned my back on it in the last few years. I saw too many people beg and pray for help and die unanswered.

[Shun may be a rather pessimistic version of the mortal perspective, but it's also not an uncommon one, and so one Lenneth should probably be made aware of.]

[nibelungvalesti]

...Ironic, then, that the answers only come after death.

[What an empty life that must have been.]

I wonder what I would have made of you, had I been called upon to deliver your fate.

[revolutionfalcon]

I suppose it depends on whether you consider faith or a worthy death more important. [Because chances are if he'd died, it would have been in battle. He's not all that well-versed in other pantheons despite his research, but he does know that's the role of a valkyrie.]

[nibelungvalesti]

Both matter little compared to a worthy life.

[That is the goddess of fate speaking, with a slight shake of her head.]

[revolutionfalcon]

Everyone has a different opinion of what that is.

[So neither of them could judge unless that situation actually happened, which makes him think the tangent is a little pointless in the end.]