@shash

[gyve]

I was shown by Noctis how to adjust my implant's text-to-speech settings
It's my hope that by the end of the week very few of you will sound like an overenthusiastic woman
Select the voice you want to be represented by using the link below
It'll go a long way in helping me to distinguish your messages from other people's

Thanks

[LINK]

( kaladin's implant reads to him in tiktok's "female-original" voice, but there are so many more to choose from. if you're savvy, you can even record clips of your own and have them uploaded so that it's your voice—personally—telling this idiot to stop using bar soap to wash his hair.

feel free to go wild with it. he'll have no fucking idea. )

Comments

[gyve]

Maybe

( wow, he said it................ )

Maybe
But I'd spend most of the time I had left searching for a third option

I suppose that's cheating to get out of answering the rhetorical question
All I know is that I'd protect my world first and foremost
My friends
The people I love

Is it easier to make that decision as a god
Or do you have to sit on the sidelines and watch

[fursuit]

who said it was rhetorical?

[ teehee anyways!! ]

nowadays I just watch. the time where gods could step in and make those decisions has passed. the world belongs to humanity now, whatever that brings

but back when I was younger sure. it was easy. the world of humans isn't the first one that existed. there were four before it, and the destruction of each of them was either by my hands or caused by my deeds.

that's why I'm hands off with the fifth. more or less.

[ There's a lot more to the story, but he intentionally doesn't elaborate or try to justify himself. It's not that he feels that there isn't any need, but any Creation myth is a parable. It's meant to be interrogated, not to have an easy answer. A god's existence also straddles the line between a life lived and a living story, after all. ]

[gyve]

( o.............. )

Well that's my answer
Maybe

I don't understand why you'd do that
What was it all for
To test yourself
For fun
Human lives aren't playthings
Gods should have rules like the ones you've imposed on yourself
That amount of power must remain in check or you wind up like the very tyrants you tested
Perhaps it exists beyond my comprehension but that's how I feel

You made a wise decision to stop interfering

kaladin getting satoshi mikami asmr, lucky,

[fursuit]

you don’t have to understand. the answers aren’t all that satisfying anyways. but hold on a few minutes since this aint the kind of story I want a shitty robot telling.

[ And indeed, a few minutes later, a voice message comes through instead. There's still ambient background noise of the city as he speaks, though there's nothing specific enough to identify where it might be. However, it's not a farfetched guess that Tezcatlipoca is at work and had stepped out for this. Sticking to text even after learning Kaladin couldn't read it wasn't actually him being a jerk--it was just practical. ]

In life, all centers around the sun. There’s not many peoples in the world—hell, the universe—that don’t have that kind of principle at the foundation of their civilization. It might get steeped in metaphor, it might not become as important over time, but it’s still the fundament. In the dominion of my “family”, that’s why the sun is exalted as a precious responsibility to Creation, since without it, night—that is, death—descends. So, there is no single god of the sun. It’s a title that has to be carried with humility and responsibility.

So, naturally, it was yours truly who was the First Sun. I cast myself into fire, and from my blood and power came the first people. They were giants even bigger than you, in fact. But thing is, I’m the Smoking Mirror. All that’s dark, all that’s unseen, and forever incomplete because I sacrificed my leg to create the lands. A half-sun. My brother Quetzalcoatl figured he could do better. He knocked me out of the sky, and from that, we created conflict. The world of the First Sun fell to darkness, and letting people die a slow, hopeless death isn’t my style. With my sacred beasts, I killed them all and ferried their souls to the afterlife I created.

Quetzalcoatl became the Second Sun. He’s my opposite in every way, so naturally, his sun was radiant. The people he created did alright for a while, but the gods gave too much. The people didn’t respect those that gave freely, and their world became corrupt and cruel. Quetzalcoatl refused to see their flaws, so I showed them instead. My magic revealed the nature of their souls and transformed them into monkeys. That’s all it took for Quetzalcoatl to forsake them. His hurricane blew them away, and his sun set.

The Third Sun was Tlaloc, god of rain and flood, and his people coexisted with the water. Yet, Tlaloc is as passionate and dangerous as a storm, and his attention often fell on his wife Xochiquetzal instead. The people were neglected from time to time as he didn’t watch over the waters. So, I stole Xochiquetzal away. He took away the water completely, and as the people prayed for relief, his anger turned to fire and scorched the world and its people to ash.

The Fourth Sun was sweet Chalchiuhtlicue, a goddess who loved all and was beloved by the people in turn. These people were almost perfect, but their world wasn’t. Chalchiuhtlicue loved her people as protectively as a mother, but they couldn’t grow as a result. Their civilization stagnated because their mother sun wouldn’t let them experience the difficulty of life. I whispered cruel, untrue words in her ear, and that’s all it took for her to crumble and cry blood that filled the world and drowned the people.

[ There’s a pause, the sound of a lighter flicking open, since clearly, he’s lighting a cigarette at this point. ]

—All because those worlds never had a chance. It was destiny that only the Fifth Sun would flourish. I knew that from the start.

[gyve]

( tezcatlipoca, who nurtured giants with his body. quetzalcoatl, who pampered the entitled with unneeded gifts. tlaloc, who forsook the lonely with his lover. and, chalchiuhtlicue, who provided the sheltered with no forward motion. and the fifth sun, the mortal sun, flourishing with little influence from the gods.

kaladin listens intently, stopping all that he's doing to focus. because this is crucial to his understanding, a part of a world overseen by gods. is it also his planet's "destiny" to fail? is his home an experiment like in tezcatlipoca's stories? )

... I don't understand, Tezcatlipoca. By your telling, you were the only one who tried to cultivate balanced worlds. It isn't fair that your creations suffered. That your family's mistakes ended their lives because you couldn't cope with what you'd made. It isn't.

But... your world was interfered with by Quetzalcoatl. Then you showed him how shallow he was, resulting in him choosing to destroy his people instead of trying to teach them. And you knew you had to make Tlaloc pay attention, so you stole his lover to ensure this, and he also chose destruction instead of trying to spend time with them. And Chalchiuhtlicue, who had to know the reality of things—that the cosmere is cruel and always will be—was given the truth of the matter, and she chose to let her children drown instead of trying to let go of them.

You all had an opportunity to be better—to learn from your mistakes—but you decided to kill. But you take the blame, saying it was "your hands," "your deeds,"... You're not responsible for the actions of others, Tezcatlipoca. You didn't want what happened to your people to happen again, and it sounds like you tried to help your siblings see.

It wasn't destiny that taught gods to stay out of the affairs of the mortals of the Fifth Sun. It was you.

[fursuit]

[ As Tezcatlipoca listens to the response, he laughs first. It’s nothing he records, so it’ll remain unheard, but he’s amused in the way that’s hard for him to explain. The easy explanation is that Kaladin gets the point of the stories, but there’s more than that. He also gets them quickly, whereas it tends to take some contemplation for others.

As a person, he feels warmly for that. What person would dislike being understood, after all? But in his larger scope as a deity, it’s speaks to the kind of man Kaladin is—what he’s already experienced in his short life, he thinks. It’s a good thing, ultimately, but the journey to arrive there isn’t an easy one.

But that understanding doesn’t carry in his voice or his response as it’s still smooth and calm. He is the Smoking Mirror, after all—a god meant to show someone’s reflection more than himself. When he’s taking his duties seriously, anyways. ]

That’s where it becomes real tricky, doesn’t it? Just knowing something is certain doesn’t always mean the path towards it is clear. There are some things that are the same, no matter if you’ve got no divinity in your blood or you’ve got nothing else.

[ A puff punctuates the words—clearly he’s smoking something by the time he was waiting for Kaladin’s reply. ]

What can I say? I’m a big picture kinda guy. It’s why I’m “the venerable enemy” just as much as I am “the merciful”. The big picture is rarely kind to the individuals within it.

[gyve]

( ever the honourable one, kaladin takes offence on tezcatlipoca's behalf. )

You can't be made the fall guy every time... Your siblings, the people here... It's not fair if they only come away with one side of things.

( he pauses, contemplating. )

You've made mistakes. Hurt mortals. If you've changed and learned from that, then why let them make assumptions about you?

[fursuit]

[ The smile in his voice is easy to hear, but it's cool. Rather than his usual toothy, sarcastic little smiles, it's easy to imagine this one as something gentler. Regal, even. The question is a good one, because it's ultimately what he thinks that people have the hardest time understanding about any god. ]

Because I am conflict.

[ Gods were thinking, living beings, but they were also concepts and metaphors. It's a difficult thing to conceptualize for anyone, especially when he appears to be human by every measure. ]

—But that usually confuses the hell outta people, so just think of it like a job and it's a little easier to understand. It's my job to make sure things are always movin' forward, and if part of that is people being pissed at me or getting the wrong idea, is what it is. Don't exactly feel the need to correct them, since that's fulfilling my duties too.

[gyve]

Is it so impossible for gods to change their natures? ( kaladin asks softly. tezacatlipoca is right; it is confusing the hell out of him.

he doesn't understand why the cosmere created beings with a single identity when he's had so many. the soldier, the surgeon, the bridgeman, the slave. humans are bent and shaped by circumstances, and they are victims of it almost every time.

but gods? )

Do you... like being this way? Working this job?

[fursuit]

Ha. You won't like the answers to those questions.

[ But he still sounds amused and unbothered, like he's talking about someone else rather than himself. The questions are kind ones, but they're misplaced. ]

Ain't a matter of whether I like it or not. Even if I hated it—which I don't, to be clear—wouldn't matter. It's part of me as fundamentally as your heart as to you. Doesn't mean it can't shift a little over time, so I wouldn't go so far as to say a god's nature is immutable, but it's slow. Our natures change like the night sky changes. Stars dim and die over periods of time so vast that most people don't notice.

[ But, knowing how Kaladin is likely to take that, he adds: ]

But don't go feeling bad about it. That's just the way our lives work and it's the sacrifice we make, since, y'know, think about it. If a god was as ever-changing as a mortal person, wouldn't be good for the world. Our consistency is stability, which is pretty important when you've also got the power to wipe away a civilization without much effort at all, yeah?

[gyve]

It's human nature to apply emotions to things we shouldn't... I'm afraid you'll have to put up with my asking.

Though, I suspect you don't mind. ( he adds after a short pause. )

Thank you for always taking the time to explain things to me. I feel like I never get a straight answer, but that's not a concern with you. It must be that consistency you mentioned, or... maybe Death must simply be patient.