"The moral of all this, Bruno, is that the more you know, the better chance you have of helping people chose the right path. But sometimes there isn't a path they can choose any more that is right. The sooner you see things happening, the more options you have. The more options you can see, the more options you have. But none of us, not even us Seers, are ever going to be perfect, are ver going to be able to keep every single ball in the air at once. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. It means we need to learn more. Be better prepared for next time. It also helps to have a person you can confide in. Because sometimes just talking to someone, even if they don't understand, can help you work things out for yourself. For me, at first, it was my cat. And while he wasn't much help with things like mathematical potentialities, ethics, or basic spell forms... he was good at listening, and sometimes his grounded practical view point was exactly what I needed when I was too convinced that every path was a path of doom. Later, Luna took that role on more and more. She understands more of the fundamental roots of magic, and is frankly brilliant. Just talking to her can help me see other paths. I did not talk to her about Jayden because I was afraid she would push Jayden and that would lead to one of the bad ends I had seen. And because Jayden had been her friend for years. One of her few friends when she was at her lowest. I admit I didn't want to break that. I should have spoken to Spark. I didn't. I probably wouldn't have found a petter path, had I spoken to him, as I said, by that point it was too late. But perhaps I could have been better prepared for the fall out."
"And I am losing the point, for you, I suspect. I appologize. The point is this. All your life you have had, as near as I can tell immutable A and B visions. Starting at point A, ending at point B, with all the in between being vague. Now that your power is growing and evolving, you need to learn and grow with it. And you will come to a point where you will have to choose... to act on your visions, or hide them as you have tried to hide yourself. You've already seen how well that does and does not work. But if you want to use the visions to help people? If you want to actually guide them to positive things, rather than just tell them the inevitable things? You need to expand your horizons. To learn. Not just to practice Seeing, but to devour every bit of knowledge you can come across, no matter how seemingly inconsequential or random. When you go home, if your Encanto has a news publication, read it. Every issue, every day. If not, then talk to Delores regularly. Ask her to repeat things she's heard. Not just what she thinks is important but odd things. Anything that could be of use. Are there issues with the crops? Has someone been complaining that their neighbor's house suddenly seems to be casting more shade over their own home? What kinds of things are people asking Luisa to do for them. And then you need to figure out why. If someone's house is tilting, sure she can fix it. But how much better would it be to understand that the tilting house is caused by erosion because she was asked to shift the river? If you saw the house tilting, Luisa told you that someone asked her to fix their house, you could research a new route for the river that satisfies whatever need caused the request to be made, without it wearing away at the foundations of homes. Or you could have seen it even further back maybe and stopped her from moving the river, or even further back and you could make sure that when the house was built, the foundation was built such that the water won't wear it away so easily. The more you know, and the more you look into seemingly small things in your visions, the more good you can do."
He sighed and leaned back. "I never used to give such big speeches before I became a teacher. Sorry about that. It is just... Some of the things you saw for people, that they blamed you for... those things are inevitable. You saw the progression of time. If the villagers had bothered to use the half a braincell they seem to share, they would have realized that goldfish have short life spans, that someone whose father and grand father and uncles are all bald is likely to go bald, and while bullying your little niece Mirabelle isn't the cause of that one guy growing a gut, I frankly wouldn't have told him that he wa going to get one because of his eating habits, just out of petty revenge for how he treats that poor girl." He shook his head. "You don't need visions for any of that. So if, in the future, you see a vision of someone's goldfish dying... you can just tell them the obvious thing that you now have confirmation of... or you could, in the words of your niece, see more. Look further. Because nothing happens in a vacuum. If you want to give happier fortunes, then find silver linings. Maybe the girl who lost her goldfish was able to get a cat after that, when she never did before because she was afraid the cat would eat the fish, and maybe that cat becomes her new best friend. Then you can frame it that way. "Not all will be lost, when your friend the fish is. For on the other side of that pain, one will find you who will need you as much as you will need him, and you'll never be able to imagine your life without him again. Or something like that. For the man who lost his hair, instead of telling him he will lose his hair, talk about how good he is going to look in a wig, and talk up all the interesting things he can do with a wig that are better than being halfway to balding. For the man worried about growing a gut... you could always tell him to pick on people his own size, and that that size is only going to get larger."
2/2Re: Sneaking a tag in between sleepsRe: Wildcard
"The moral of all this, Bruno, is that the more you know, the better chance you have of helping people chose the right path. But sometimes there isn't a path they can choose any more that is right. The sooner you see things happening, the more options you have. The more options you can see, the more options you have. But none of us, not even us Seers, are ever going to be perfect, are ver going to be able to keep every single ball in the air at once. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. It means we need to learn more. Be better prepared for next time. It also helps to have a person you can confide in. Because sometimes just talking to someone, even if they don't understand, can help you work things out for yourself. For me, at first, it was my cat. And while he wasn't much help with things like mathematical potentialities, ethics, or basic spell forms... he was good at listening, and sometimes his grounded practical view point was exactly what I needed when I was too convinced that every path was a path of doom. Later, Luna took that role on more and more. She understands more of the fundamental roots of magic, and is frankly brilliant. Just talking to her can help me see other paths. I did not talk to her about Jayden because I was afraid she would push Jayden and that would lead to one of the bad ends I had seen. And because Jayden had been her friend for years. One of her few friends when she was at her lowest. I admit I didn't want to break that. I should have spoken to Spark. I didn't. I probably wouldn't have found a petter path, had I spoken to him, as I said, by that point it was too late. But perhaps I could have been better prepared for the fall out."
"And I am losing the point, for you, I suspect. I appologize. The point is this. All your life you have had, as near as I can tell immutable A and B visions. Starting at point A, ending at point B, with all the in between being vague. Now that your power is growing and evolving, you need to learn and grow with it. And you will come to a point where you will have to choose... to act on your visions, or hide them as you have tried to hide yourself. You've already seen how well that does and does not work. But if you want to use the visions to help people? If you want to actually guide them to positive things, rather than just tell them the inevitable things? You need to expand your horizons. To learn. Not just to practice Seeing, but to devour every bit of knowledge you can come across, no matter how seemingly inconsequential or random. When you go home, if your Encanto has a news publication, read it. Every issue, every day. If not, then talk to Delores regularly. Ask her to repeat things she's heard. Not just what she thinks is important but odd things. Anything that could be of use. Are there issues with the crops? Has someone been complaining that their neighbor's house suddenly seems to be casting more shade over their own home? What kinds of things are people asking Luisa to do for them. And then you need to figure out why. If someone's house is tilting, sure she can fix it. But how much better would it be to understand that the tilting house is caused by erosion because she was asked to shift the river? If you saw the house tilting, Luisa told you that someone asked her to fix their house, you could research a new route for the river that satisfies whatever need caused the request to be made, without it wearing away at the foundations of homes. Or you could have seen it even further back maybe and stopped her from moving the river, or even further back and you could make sure that when the house was built, the foundation was built such that the water won't wear it away so easily. The more you know, and the more you look into seemingly small things in your visions, the more good you can do."
He sighed and leaned back. "I never used to give such big speeches before I became a teacher. Sorry about that. It is just... Some of the things you saw for people, that they blamed you for... those things are inevitable. You saw the progression of time. If the villagers had bothered to use the half a braincell they seem to share, they would have realized that goldfish have short life spans, that someone whose father and grand father and uncles are all bald is likely to go bald, and while bullying your little niece Mirabelle isn't the cause of that one guy growing a gut, I frankly wouldn't have told him that he wa going to get one because of his eating habits, just out of petty revenge for how he treats that poor girl." He shook his head. "You don't need visions for any of that. So if, in the future, you see a vision of someone's goldfish dying... you can just tell them the obvious thing that you now have confirmation of... or you could, in the words of your niece, see more. Look further. Because nothing happens in a vacuum. If you want to give happier fortunes, then find silver linings. Maybe the girl who lost her goldfish was able to get a cat after that, when she never did before because she was afraid the cat would eat the fish, and maybe that cat becomes her new best friend. Then you can frame it that way. "Not all will be lost, when your friend the fish is. For on the other side of that pain, one will find you who will need you as much as you will need him, and you'll never be able to imagine your life without him again. Or something like that. For the man who lost his hair, instead of telling him he will lose his hair, talk about how good he is going to look in a wig, and talk up all the interesting things he can do with a wig that are better than being halfway to balding. For the man worried about growing a gut... you could always tell him to pick on people his own size, and that that size is only going to get larger."
Look, someone has an issue with bullies, okay?