hadriel | 006 [Video]

[So, the event's officially over, everything's back to cave-normal, and Lance has had some time to sort out his thoughts on everything. He's also had time to debate with himself on whether he should address something bothering him or just ignore it.

Although he's decided, finally, on the former, it took quite a bit of mental debate; he probably wouldn't have said anything at all if he weren't a psychologist, and weren't concerned that other people might be seriously negatively affected if the issue weren't brought up. Regardless, he's still not exactly looking forward to this entire thing because he can't see it going over all too well, but then again when does anything go over well here?]

Now that the event is over there's something I wanted to address, regarding it and others in the future. I expect there will be disagreement, which is fine, but it would be nice if that disagreement could be discussed in some sort of reasonable manner.

[In other words, not with yelling or threats or murder. He has high hopes for you all!!!]

I'm not going to go into a lot of psychological details and reasoning unless anyone is actually interested, but to summarize: although the idea of simply resisting a compulsion is theoretically appealing, it's not exactly that simple in practice. It also has no correlation at all with being weak, feeble-minded, a failure, or any other negative descriptor I've seen used so freely lately.

[Which he's none too pleased about, even if it doesn't bother him much personally.]

Considering that so many here have so much to worry about and are under enough mental stress already, adding blame for something caused by an outside influence is not exactly helpful, especially in the long run. I'm also just generally unsure that being angry with each other over something caused by an event is the best use of everyone's time and energy.

[Especially when things done by people while completely in control of themselves tend to be overlooked entirely, but he's not even going to touch that topic right now.]

That said, if anyone who has been here for some time has any sort of advice or strategy for identifying and attempting to control an event-caused mental effect, that would be useful. I don't doubt that there might be some techniques that could help, depending on the individual and the specific nature of the event.

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Noted, but also completely irrelevant.

[And he almost leaves the first part at that, not caring to further explain, but then reminds himself that's against the entire point of this post and conversation. So after a moment, he elaborates--]

Having a preferential course of action is very different from only having one in mind.

[But there's only so long he can maintain the patience here.]

I'm not talking about irresponsible use of weaponry; that's a completely different problem. I was more referring to the fact that reasoning with someone doesn't usually involve insults, because that's tends to be the opposite of effective when it comes to convincing someone to listen to your judgement.

If it's bedside manner that you're looking for, then it should have been a professional in that field to have spoken up. Unfortunately, most of those types were just as happy to shoot one another at the time, and somebody had to say something. As it is, it's fucking pathetic that someone who actually used to kill people for a living was the one in the right mind to tell everyone not to shoot one another.

And telling them that they are not accountable for their actions because of outside influences is irresponsible and, frankly, wrong. The gods don't turn you into a different person -- even when they do make you think you're a different person; they just amp up an emotion in attempt to get you to give them a good meal. You still have some semblance of control, and there have been plenty of evidence of that in the past. Convincing people that they have no control is just as dangerous as shooting them.

You told everyone not to shoot each other while threatening to shoot people, just with a different weapon.

[And it's a good thing, again, that this is voice, because he's starting to have trouble controlling his agitation. His voice is at least still steady, but more distant and colder when he responds.]

You clearly don't understand any of what I'm saying, which is probably to be expected considering that my views on the subject require background information that I haven't explained.

[And he's not going to bother, both because he doesn't think anyone will listen and because it'd be exhausting.]

But I'm not going to talk in circles either, especially when I don't believe we're going to get anywhere further in this discussion.

006 [Video]

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