synnet | [text] @xXdarkwarriorXx

You think I have battle shock.
Boy, I've never been in a battle in my life. The fights I've been could not have been called battles.

[ does he understand what this really is? Naw dog you can't tell him he has ptsd...]

You are correct about one thing, Kaladin. We are incompatible. Something I knew from the beginning.

Perhaps consider that your ire is my gain, in my own ways. I don't expect you to see it, but understand that it is for a reason. Just not one you're privy to.

Battle shock
It's
Well it's hard to explain Silco and I'm still learning about it myself but it doesn't need to be soldier against soldier
Haven't you been battling your whole life
With injury
With betrayal
With the very air you breathe
Acute stress on the body and mind can cause imbalances even illness
A broken bone that heals wrong but in the mind

Will you tell me what the reason is
You think I'm an idiot
You constantly call me a fool
So dumb it down for me
Even if I can't accept it I want to know

Oh, I see. You seem to think there is something wrong with me, is that it?

I hate to disappoint you, but I think you have projected your own issues onto me. I have experienced nothing of the sort.

[ you can never help someone who doesn't want to go to therapy. ]

As for a reason, perhaps, let me explain this in a metaphor.

You see, when I was a boy, there was a man who occupied the alley near where I lived. I was fairly young, but even I understood that what he did there was working quite well for him. He did not have to work the mines, and instead sat on the street, with a small tray in front of him, with three cups. Whenever the topsiders would inevitably come down looking for entertainment — of the illicit or dangerous sort — he would always call them over, and ask them for a coin in exchange for something of greater value if they played his game.

They would say yes, of course, because he would show them. Not just a single piece, but a piece that was worth ten times the amount. He would hold it in hand, and then, place it on the tray in sight. Most were swayed by the prospect, the game. He was finely dressed, and spoke quick. With the piece down on the table, they would hand their coin over, and he would put it beneath one of the cups.

Then he would begin shuffling them. They would listen to his words as he spoke, inevitably greed takes over, and they pay attention to the piece beneath the cup. He shifts them. He tells them a story. He insults them if they are of a particular sort to get worked up. Anything to make them distracted.

Then, he would ask them which cup it was under. They would guess, and inevitably, his quick fingers and quicker words would have disappeared the coin from every single cup, and they would have lost their investment, and walk away empty handed.

Occasionally, some would steal the piece on the tray, and do you know what they would find? That it was carved of wood, and painted with lacquer, shiny and new and gold. They would be left with nothing more than yet another worthless trophy for their inability to follow all of the pieces moving at once.

Does that explain the reason?

( ... )

Silco I appreciate that you took the time to write this out for me
But I'm no good with metaphors

I think you're implying you're distracting me with one hand while getting to your business with another

Am I the idiot winding up with the wood coin

( pure of heart, dumb of ass )

[ OH MY GOD KALADIN
Silco legit asking himself why did he even try ]

Such a simple read of the story.

Sometimes the fool, sometimes the wooden coin, and occasionally sometimes the cup. There is no one method that I use.

Edited 2025-03-28 17:18 (UTC)

I'm simple
I thought you of all people would be the first to realize that

Is that the only thing that stood out to you about that man
I think he was impressive too
The methods he used took advantage of his situation and taught men not to underestimate him
But not through violence
They walked away poorer and he walked away richer
Both groups with the understanding he was the cleverer one

Thank you for telling me

[ HIS EYEROLL AT THAT KALADIN!!! ~~he's right~~ ]

Do you know why there was no violence? Just guess.

You'll just tell me I'm wrong but
Okay

Is it because it was his home and he knew it better than they did
And was able to disappear
The men or women being cheated weren't familiar with the area and were outnumbered

No, it's that topsiders that get hurt in the undercity lure enforcers, boy. If we are too dangerous to them, they remind us of our place.

Then remind them of theirs old man
Violence is righteous when it's in defence of oneself
It's a last resort yes but unavoidable sometimes

There are degrees to things
Spectrums
You weigh too heavily on one side
To an extreme that's unnecessary here
We must adapt to the situation we're in

I don't think you understand the power dynamic, boy. That is precisely what I was working toward all this time. It's everything we've done and everything we will do until we're out from under their boots.

It's also what loses a man everything, and forces him to start over. I weigh heavily because it is the only language that speaks. It's the only one that works. I know this because that other way is ineffective and poor. It leaves people starving and withering away while the fat and complacent feast on their shares too.

Here, too, I see it. They feast on our work, when all I ask is for them to pull their weight as well. They could be the monsters too, if they simply just tried.

If you think your method of obtaining power and success for your people will be effective in the future I shudder to think of how many men and women will abandon you by the end
If this is how you treat your comrades
By belittling them pumping them full of drugs and claiming to be above everyone then you're going to destroy morale and they're going to betray you
But that's a self-fulfilling prophecy for you isn't it

Silco human beings are possessed of facets
A small percentage feast on our work yes they'd let the world end to fill their stores
I wouldn't be surprised if they wrote the land off completely
That's what the rich have always done

But the civilians in this city are trying
I work with paramedics and firemen who do more for this world than you do every day
Even just the people volunteering or trying to help by simply staying indoors during the attacks
They're trying
Don't lump them all together like that's representative of anything more than your paranoid delusions

[ They just keep doing this. They say they can't understand each other, but then they just get back into monologuing ]

Oh yes, I do not doubt that they do more for this world. To their own detriment too. And how does this world reward them? Do they even have livelihoods that pay for their meals? Do they have comfortable places to live? While they save the man whose heart is giving out in the middle of his office, what home do your companions go to?

Once, I would have believed that there was value in that sort of work. Oh, but it's easy to believe it when it hasn't been challenged, isn't it?

No, I've seen how quickly it melts away, Kaladin. Your paramedics, your firemen? How many burn out? How many are left with nothing because they have lost their ability to care? How many of your fellow workers take their frustrations out when you aren't looking?

I suspect the number would surprise you. Because people so often will default to the person that they truly are deep down, where they try to conceal it.

You ask me countless questions you think you know the answers to
But you don't Silco
The truth of the matter is you're scared to look at the positives

This is the last time we speak on this
We'll never agree and the breath we waste on each other is better spent elsewhere

( says it at least ONE MORE TIME )

Again, you assume. I am not scared of the positives. I simply see them for what they are. Little things to deceive us, when they are as fleeting as anything else.

[ God why is he so secretly edgey? ]

You are correct, however. We will never agree. Kaladin, it has never been my intention to convince you. Has it been yours to convince me?

( they're both in an edge competition and not the sexy kind.........unless )

I was trying to bridge a gap between us
Seek mutual understanding to better work together
Come to some kind of accord
Convincing you would've been a nice accident but I don't believe in those
That'd involve good luck and I have none

Honestly I did think you were trying to convince me
Or break me somehow

[ unless...? ]

Oh, now breaking sounds a great deal more like me, actually.

That is quite the thought, isn't it?

Yes it is
Quite the useless thought
I'm already broken Silco the cosmere already beat you to it

Oh, did they?

I never would have guessed. I suppose some of us just break differently, don't they?

[text] @xXdarkwarriorXx

🔒 locked; CONGRATULATIONS KALADIN

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no subject

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