What is he supposed to do with that?  How can that possibly be a thing?

There's a very obvious thing to think out of dath ilan and Law and every pattern Civilization ever taught him, which is that putting Carissa into chains causes her to think anything Keltham does is correct, but obviously that can't actually make it correct, thereby removing Carissa as a potential source of error correction and putting all responsibility on himself.

But Keltham knows on a deep level that's not what she meant, and that there's something going on here that he doesn't understand; and while feelings that feel deeply true are often mistaken, at least sometimes they are not.

Keltham speaks carefully, then; he has no cached response to something like that, but it seems he has a deep one.  "There is a thing that dath ilani are trained to see themselves doing, to have the option of not doing, which is that thing a person does when they fill in their thoughts and words and behaviors from pattern and memory, from an image in their mind of how they usually are, or how they are supposed to be.  Contrasted to filling in those thoughts, words, choices, from those original sources that made the memory of the original thoughts, that came before you remembered them and starting filling them in from memory instead.  I know you've been doing that about the broken sexuality inside you, that you've been filling in the pattern to hold it all in place."

"When I'm hurting you this time, I want you to not do that.  I don't want to hear the sounds you remember yourself making, I want to hear the sounds from the same place they came from when you formed those memories.  I don't know if it's something you can do, only because I ask it of you, when you don't have any training in making that a kind of internal choice that's available to you, and I definitely do not mean that you should remember your usual reactions and suppress any reaction that matches your memory."

"But if I'm causing you pain with whatever Subirachs brings, that should be enough, I hope, that you can let go of the pattern and the memory and let natural reactions come back in; and that will be enough for me, I hope, if I know that it's real.  And whether or not it's enough for me, it's the best idea I have for how to make any progress on your sexuality.  If I'm going to be remaking you with this pain at all, and not just arousing myself with it, that's the obvious thing to try, and it is something that I want."

"And maybe need, because I am so lost, right now, in Golarion, and in this moment I need there to not be any surface appearances that aren't real, even if it means that nothing in Subirachs's collection can force a sound or a flinch from you.  If in this world you don't naturally react as much as you might wish, I ask of you that you react naturally anyways, to protect the happiness of all the Kelthams in all the other worlds where your natural reaction is something different from that, so that they know the reality they are seeing is reality.  Even if it's not the nicest reality that could be, I need to touch reality whatever reality is."

What is he supposed to do with that?  How can that possibly be a thing?

There's a very obvious thing to think out of dath ilan and Law and every pattern Civilization ever taught him, which is that putting Carissa into chains causes her to think anything Keltham does is correct, but obviously that can't actually make it correct, thereby removing Carissa as a potential source of error correction and putting all responsibility on himself.

But Keltham knows on a deep level that's not what she meant, and that there's something going on here that he doesn't understand; and while feelings that feel deeply true are often mistaken, at least sometimes they are not.

Keltham speaks carefully, then; he has no cached response to something like that, but it seems he has a deep one.  "There is a thing that dath ilani are trained to see themselves doing, to have the option of not doing, which is that thing a person does when they fill in their thoughts and words and behaviors from pattern and memory, from an image in their mind of how they usually are, or how they are supposed to be.  Contrasted to filling in those thoughts, words, choices, from those original sources that made the memory of the original thoughts, the first sources that came before you remembered any answer and could fill in answers from memory.  I know that when it comes to the broken sexuality inside you, that you've been filling in the pattern to hold it all in place."

"When I'm hurting you this time, I want you to not do that.  I don't want to hear the sounds you remember yourself making, I want to hear the sounds from the same place they came from when you formed those memories.  I don't know if it's something you can do, only because I ask it of you, when you don't have any training in making that a kind of internal choice that's available to you, and I definitely do not mean that you should remember your usual reactions and suppress any reaction that matches your memory."

"But if I'm causing you pain with whatever Subirachs brings, that should be enough, I hope, that you can let go of the pattern and the memory and let natural reactions come back in; and that will be enough for me, I hope, if I know that it's real.  And whether or not it's enough for me, it's the best idea I have for how to make any progress on your sexuality.  If I'm going to be remaking you with this pain at all, and not just arousing myself with it, that's the obvious thing to try, and it is something that I want."

"And maybe need, because I am so lost, right now, in Golarion, and in this moment I need there to not be any surface appearances that aren't real, even if it means that nothing in Subirachs's collection can force a sound or a flinch from you.  If in this world you don't naturally react as much as you might wish, I ask of you that you react naturally anyways, to protect the happiness of all the Kelthams in all the other worlds where your natural reaction is something different from that, so that they know the reality they are seeing is reality.  Even if it's not the nicest reality that could be, I need to touch reality whatever reality is."

What is he supposed to do with that?  How can that possibly be a thing?

There's a very obvious thing to think out of dath ilan and Law and every pattern Civilization ever taught him, which is that putting Carissa into chains causes her to think anything Keltham does is correct, but obviously that can't actually make it correct, thereby removing Carissa as a potential source of error correction and putting all responsibility on himself.

But Keltham knows on a deep level that's not what she meant, and that there's something going on here that he doesn't understand; and while feelings that feel deeply true are often mistaken, at least sometimes they are not.

Keltham speaks carefully, then; he has no cached response to something like that, but it seems he has a deep one.  "There is a thing that dath ilani are trained to see themselves doing, to have the option of not doing, which is that thing a person does when they fill in their thoughts and words and behaviors from pattern and memory, from an image in their mind of how they usually are, or how they are supposed to be.  Contrasted to filling in those thoughts, words, choices, from those original sources that made the memory of the original thoughts, the first sources that came before you remembered any answer to fill in from memory.  I know that when it comes to the broken sexuality inside you, that you've been filling in the pattern to hold it all in place."

"When I'm hurting you this time, I want you to not do that.  I don't want to hear the sounds you remember yourself making, I want to hear the sounds from the same place they came from when you formed those memories.  I don't know if it's something you can do, only because I ask it of you, when you don't have any training in making that a kind of internal choice that's available to you, and I definitely do not mean that you should remember your usual reactions and suppress any reaction that matches your memory."

"But if I'm causing you pain with whatever Subirachs brings, that should be enough, I hope, that you can let go of the pattern and the memory and let natural reactions come back in; and that will be enough for me, I hope, if I know that it's real.  And whether or not it's enough for me, it's the best idea I have for how to make any progress on your sexuality.  If I'm going to be remaking you with this pain at all, and not just arousing myself with it, that's the obvious thing to try, and it is something that I want."

"And maybe need, because I am so lost, right now, in Golarion, and in this moment I need there to not be any surface appearances that aren't real, even if it means that nothing in Subirachs's collection can force a sound or a flinch from you.  If in this world you don't naturally react as much as you might wish, I ask of you that you react naturally anyways, to protect the happiness of all the Kelthams in all the other worlds where your natural reaction is something different from that, so that they know the reality they are seeing is reality.  Even if it's not the nicest reality that could be, I need to touch reality whatever reality is."