Keltham hugs Carissa closer to himself.  It's an honest reaction, of course, he's not going to start faking things, that would be a sign something had gone dreadfully wrong with an equilibrium; if people acted fake in that way, then Carissa would be expecting the fakery, and if they don't then he's not going to be first to defect, etcetera.  Keltham is moved and feeling empathetic suffering, as one would expect, what with Carissa's story being more awful than anything you'd almost ever hear in dath ilan where the news coverage tries to be statistically representative of how often things happen in reality.

But Keltham is also concealing another thought, one that seems not especially helpful to speak right now, which is about the way that Carissa made sexual sounds despite her low objective arousal.  It blatantly rhymes with the Permanent Cheerfulness - he is beginning to suspect it is not dignity - of the women who were students to his lessons.

There is, Keltham is beginning to suspect, a kind of damage to the self that non-psychiatrists like himself have never heard of, maybe a kind of damage that approximately doesn't exist in dath ilan; something like an illusion spell, something like the Eagle's Splendor spell, something that unglues seemings from actualities.  Keltham suspects, he intuits, that isn't just in the outer social world, it's not like a lie told to other people, it reaches deep into people's own selves.  It is a form of damage that dath ilani mental training protects against so thoroughly that he was never warned against it as a danger; or maybe it's a socially-inflicted hazard that requires your society to be doing everything wrong simultaneously.

Fighting endless demons at the Worldwound and that making you tense to the point where you have a hard time getting off during sex even after you leave, well, yes, that's bad; but it's the ordinary kind of bad you would see in a movie or novel out of dath ilan.  The thing where you make noises like you're fine, that seems very, very, very much worse in ways that Keltham is finding hard to describe.  That cannot possibly be something that would not damage a person, nor a thing that an undamaged person would do.

...he wants to find whatever did this to Carissa and unmake it.

Ha.  Keltham has never felt that way about another person before.  It isn't ordinary limerence either, Keltham thinks, it doesn't feel like descriptions he's read of limerence.  More like he owns equity in Sevar or, or he doesn't even know.

He's supposed to set aside sad thoughts like this, but Keltham can feel that he should not, or should not do so that quickly.  The current running through him now is deep, not lightly to be told to go away and come back later.  Still, he can at least not say any such things out loud.  If his Carissa is broken and doesn't know it, he shouldn't ask about that or try to explain his hypothesis to her in the middle of sex; under previously decided meta-policy, it should not be said tonight at all.

Keltham hugs Carissa closer to himself.  It's an honest reaction, of course, he's not going to start faking things, that would be a sign something had gone dreadfully wrong with an equilibrium; if people acted fake in that way, then Carissa would be expecting the fakery, and if they don't then he's not going to be first to defect, etcetera.  Keltham is moved and feeling empathetic suffering, as one would expect, what with Carissa's story being more awful than anything you'd almost ever hear in dath ilan where the news coverage tries to be statistically representative of how often things happen in reality.

But Keltham is also concealing another thought, one that seems not especially helpful to speak right now, which is about the way that Carissa made sexual sounds despite her low objective arousal.  It blatantly rhymes with the Permanent Cheerfulness - he is beginning to suspect it is not dignity - of the women who were students to his lessons.

There is, Keltham is beginning to suspect, a kind of damage to the self that non-psychiatrists like himself have never heard of, maybe a kind of damage that approximately doesn't exist in dath ilan; something like an illusion spell, something like the Eagle's Splendor spell, something that unglues seemings from actualities.  Keltham suspects, he intuits, that isn't just in the outer social world, it's not like a lie told to other people, it reaches deep into people's own selves.  It is a form of damage that dath ilani mental training protects against so thoroughly that he was never warned against it as a danger; or maybe it's a socially-inflicted hazard that requires your society to be doing everything wrong simultaneously.

Fighting endless demons at the Worldwound and that making you tense to the point where you have a hard time getting off during sex even after you leave, well, yes, that's bad or even grimdark; but it's the ordinary kind of grimdark you would see in a movie or novel out of dath ilan.  The thing where you make noises like you're fine, that seems very, very, very much worse in ways that Keltham is finding hard to describe.  That cannot possibly be something that would not damage a person, nor a thing that an undamaged person would do.

...he wants to find whatever did this to Carissa and unmake it.

Ha.  Keltham has never felt that way about another person before.  It isn't ordinary limerence either, Keltham thinks, it doesn't feel like descriptions he's read of limerence.  More like he owns equity in Sevar or, or he doesn't even know.

He's supposed to set aside sad thoughts like this, but Keltham can feel that he should not, or should not do so that quickly.  The current running through him now is deep, not lightly to be told to go away and come back later.  Still, he can at least not say any such things out loud.  If his Carissa is broken and doesn't know it, he shouldn't ask about that or try to explain his hypothesis to her in the middle of sex; under previously decided meta-policy, it should not be said tonight at all.

Keltham hugs Carissa closer to himself.  It's an honest reaction, of course, he's not going to start faking things, that would be a sign something had gone dreadfully wrong with an equilibrium; if people acted fake in that way, then Carissa would be expecting the fakery, and if they don't then he's not going to be first to defect, etcetera.  Keltham is moved and feeling empathetic suffering, as one would expect, what with Carissa's story being more awful than anything you'd almost ever hear in dath ilan where the news coverage tries to be statistically representative of how often things happen in reality.

But Keltham is also concealing another thought, one that seems not especially helpful to speak right now, which is about the way that Carissa made sexual sounds despite her low objective arousal.  It blatantly rhymes with the Permanent Cheerfulness - he is beginning to suspect it is not dignity - of his students.

There is, Keltham is beginning to suspect, a kind of damage to the self that non-psychiatrists like himself have never heard of, maybe a kind of damage that approximately doesn't exist in dath ilan; something like an illusion spell, something like the Eagle's Splendor spell, something that unglues seemings from actualities.  Keltham suspects, he intuits, that isn't just in the outer social world, it's not like a lie told to other people, it reaches deep into people's own selves.  It is a form of damage that dath ilani mental training protects against so thoroughly that he was never warned against it as a danger; or maybe it's a socially-inflicted hazard that requires your society to be doing everything wrong simultaneously.

Fighting endless demons at the Worldwound and that making you tense to the point where you have a hard time getting off during sex even after you leave, well, yes, that's bad or even grimdark; but it's the ordinary kind of grimdark you would see in a movie or novel out of dath ilan.  The thing where you make noises like you're fine, that seems very, very, very much worse in ways that Keltham is finding hard to describe.  That cannot possibly be something that would not damage a person, nor a thing that an undamaged person would do.

...he wants to find whatever did this to Carissa and unmake it.

Ha.  Keltham has never felt that way about another person before.  It isn't ordinary limerence either, Keltham thinks, it doesn't feel like descriptions he's read of limerence.  More like he owns equity in Sevar or, or he doesn't even know.

He's supposed to set aside sad thoughts like this, but Keltham can feel that he should not, or should not do so that quickly.  The current running through him now is deep, not lightly to be told to go away and come back later.  Still, he can at least not say any such things out loud.  If his Carissa is broken and doesn't know it, he shouldn't ask about that or try to explain his hypothesis to her in the middle of sex; under previously decided meta-policy, it should not be said tonight at all.

Keltham hugs Carissa closer to himself.  It's an honest reaction, of course, he's not going to start faking things, that would be a sign something had gone dreadfully wrong with an equilibrium; if people acted fake in that way, then Carissa would be expecting the fakery, and if they don't then he's not going to be first to defect, etcetera.  Keltham is moved and feeling empathetic suffering, as one would expect, what with Carissa's story being more awful than anything you'd almost ever hear in dath ilan where the news coverage tries to be statistically representative of how often things happen in reality.

But Keltham is also concealing another thought, one that seems not especially helpful to speak right now, which is about the way that Carissa made sexual sounds despite her low objective arousal.  It blatantly rhymes with the Permanent Cheerfulness - he is beginning to suspect it is not dignity - of his students.

There is, Keltham is beginning to suspect, a kind of damage to the self that non-psychiatrists like himself have never heard of, maybe a kind of damage that approximately doesn't exist in dath ilan; something like an illusion spell, something like the Eagle's Splendor spell, something that unglues seemings from actualities.  Keltham suspects, he intuits, that isn't just in the outer social world, it's not like a lie told to other people, it reaches deep into people's own selves.  It is a form of damage that dath ilani mental training protects against so thoroughly that he was never warned against it as a danger; or maybe it's a socially-inflicted hazard that requires your society to be doing everything wrong simultaneously.

Fighting endless demons at the Worldwound and that making you tense to the point where you have a hard time getting off during sex even after you leave, well, yes, that's bad or even grimdark; but it's the ordinary kind of grimdark you would see in a movie or novel out of dath ilan.  The thing where you make noises like you're fine, that seems very, very, very much worse in ways that Keltham is finding hard to describe.  That cannot possibly be something that would not damage a person, nor a thing that an undamaged person would do.

...he wants to find whatever did this to Carissa and unmake it.

Ha.  Keltham has never felt that way about another person before.  It isn't limerence, Keltham doesn't think, it doesn't feel like descriptions he's read of limerence.  More like he owns equity in Sevar or, or he doesn't even know.

He's supposed to set aside sad thoughts like this, but Keltham can feel that he should not, or should not do so that quickly.  The current running through him now is deep, not lightly to be told to go away and come back later.  Still, he can at least not say any such things out loud.  If his Carissa is broken and doesn't know it, he shouldn't ask about that or try to explain his hypothesis to her in the middle of sex; under previously decided meta-policy, it should not be said tonight at all.

Keltham hugs Carissa closer to himself.  It's an honest reaction, of course, he's not going to start faking things, that would be a sign something had gone dreadfully wrong with an equilibrium; if people acted fake in that way, then Carissa would be expecting the fakery, and if they don't then he's not going to be first to defect, etcetera.  Keltham is moved and feeling empathetic suffering, as one would expect, what with Carissa's story being more awful than anything you'd almost ever hear in dath ilan where the news coverage tries to be statistically representative of how often things happen in reality.

But Keltham is also concealing another thought, one that seems not especially helpful to speak right now, which is about the way that Carissa made sexual sounds despite her low objective arousal.  It blatantly rhymes with the Permanent Cheerfulness - he is beginning to suspect it is not dignity - of his students.

There is, Keltham is beginning to suspect, a kind of damage to the self that non-psychiatrists like himself have never heard of, maybe a kind of damage that approximately doesn't exist in dath ilan; something like an illusion spell, something like the Eagle's Splendor spell, something that unglues seemings from actualities.  Keltham suspects, he intuits, that the ungluing isn't just in the outer social world, it's not like a lie told to other people, it reaches deep into people's own selves.  It is a form of damage that dath ilani mental training protects against so thoroughly that he was never warned against it as a danger; or maybe it's a socially-inflicted hazard that requires your society to be doing everything wrong simultaneously.

Fighting endless demons at the Worldwound and that making you tense to the point where you have a hard time getting off during sex even after you leave, well, yes, that's bad or even grimdark; but it's the ordinary kind of grimdark you would see in a movie or novel out of dath ilan.  The thing where you make noises like you're fine, that seems very, very, very much worse in ways that Keltham is finding hard to describe.  That cannot possibly be something that would not damage a person, nor a thing that an undamaged person would do.

...he wants to find whatever did this to Carissa and unmake it.

Ha.  Keltham has never felt that way about another person before.  It isn't limerence, Keltham doesn't think, it doesn't feel like descriptions he's read of limerence.  More like he owns equity in Sevar or, or he doesn't even know.

He's supposed to set aside sad thoughts like this, but Keltham can feel that he should not do so that quickly.  The current running through him now is deep, not lightly to be told to go away and come back later.  Still, he can at least not say any such things out loud.  If his Carissa is broken and doesn't know it, he shouldn't ask about that or try to explain his hypothesis to her in the middle of sex; under previously decided meta-policy, it should not be said tonight at all.