delta v over delta t when there is no t

[ertia]

In a bar, there is a girl.

She looks like she has saved up all of her decadent and slothful impulses for a solid decade and is indulging them all at once. She is sprawled on a couch with a book she's only half-reading, and an ice cream sundae, and smiiiiiiling.

Comments

[first_and_final]

"...Huh. That's not how I'd go about it if I were hubristically demanding that the universe conform to my expectations as regards people being harmed," he says. "I wonder if the difference is significant or if my way would work just as well."

[ertia]

"What's your way?" she asks, turning to look at him again.

[first_and_final]

"I - hm - it's a little difficult to articulate, but it goes something like: this is a problem, and it's been brought to my attention so it's now my problem, and it will now proceed to be fixed because I will accept no less," he says. "Thinking of the person as 'mine' would involve a - level of commitment that I'm not sure is appropriate to the task. I could heal someone who was my friend or my teammate your way, but for a more 'that person over there' sort of situation I'm better off relying on the bottomless depths of my hubristic and meddlesome nature if I possibly can. Thinking of a person as mine is a long-term assumption of responsibility, the way my mind works; thinking of a problem as mine just requires noticing it and giving in to my instinctive response."

[ertia]

"Well, I guess that might work, although it's not how it's usually taught. I find it pretty easy to take temporary mental ownership of a person but if you have trouble putting them down again it'd be worth seeing if your thing works."

[first_and_final]

"My outlook's a bit feudal, comes of where I grew up. I guess we'll see if I can succeed with the alternate method."

[ertia]

"If it works I might try it, although I'm almost to the point where I don't have to go stepwise at all."

[first_and_final]

"Happy to help." Pause. "Because I am hubristic and meddlesome."

[ertia]

She giggles.

[first_and_final]

He grins.

[ertia]

"If you do approach my level we're going to have to talk territory. Unless you're happy enough just playing with pointless things in a corner somewhere."

[first_and_final]

"My end goal is still overthrowing the gods; if I have to spend a while playing with pointless things in a corner somewhere first, so be it. But I'd really rather cooperate, and if cooperating is as intractable as all that, I'll take a neighbouring territory if one is on offer."

[ertia]

"It's not completely intractable. Cooperating sorceren can do bigger projects as long as they can agree on what they're aiming at in sufficient detail. It'd just mean we'd have to find bigger projects to do."

[first_and_final]

"I'm sure we can come up with those."

[ertia]

"Quite likely. And I just recently gave the local rulers of things beads to talk to me from a distance so they can call me up for anything me-sized; if you get significant momentum I can notify them that me-sized has taken a jump."

[first_and_final]

"Well. We'll see how well my fairy blessing helps me along."

[ertia]

"Yep."

[first_and_final]

"I wonder if the bar, being from neither your world nor mine, might have a valuable perspective on translating between the two."

[ertia]

"What do you mean?"

[first_and_final]

"Well, it seems like you're having a little trouble explaining your world to me in enough detail, perhaps because you don't know which information I'm missing, and I know I'm having trouble asking the right questions because I don't know what they are. That's the sort of problem I imagine someone who hangs around this sort of place a lot would have a lot of experience dealing with."

[ertia]

"We can talk to her, I guess, but she won't know what you want to know in particular."

[first_and_final]

"I want to know whatever I'll be better off knowing as someone who's going to move from my world to yours and then live there. You might know all that information but it would be hard for us to compare notes thoroughly enough to figure out that you do have toast and healers and you don't have skirmish or fae and so on for all potentially relevant phenomena - I can stand here going 'dwarves? a-mail? universities? paladins? lawyers? cats? trees?' all day, and you can do the same to cover the things you have that I might never have heard of, but it would be kind of a haphazard way to go about it. If the bar knows the relevant things already, she'll have a much easier time getting me up to speed."

[ertia]

"Oh, fair enough. Well, she's over there." Gesture.

[first_and_final]

Milan looks at the piece of demonstration toast in his hand, eats it, and wanders over to the bar.

"Hello," he says.

[alicornucopia]

Hello. Can I interest you in a beverage? says a napkin.

Says a second napkin, Also, you might want to know that my hearing is fairly good.

[first_and_final]

"Well, that would've been good to know much earlier," he says of the second napkin. "But then I suppose you must already know what I've come to ask. Can you help me?"