Q (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
qcontinuum) wrote2008-07-15 11:30 am
qcontinuum) wrote2008-07-15 11:30 am
Entry tags:
Old questions
Crossposted from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
theatrical_muse, today.
A pile of old questions this time.
Prompt 215: Seduction. Have you ever seduced someone or has anyone ever seduced you?
That depends on your terms.
I tend to think humans use the term "seduction" to mean "persuade someone to have sex with you when they would otherwise not be inclined to do it." And I confess, most of the time I don't see the point to doing this. Sex is fun and all, but it's hardly the be-all and end-all of existence that mortals make it into. I don't usually allow myself to have a sexual interest in a mortal (being that sexual interest is entirely a matter of mortal, meat bodies with hormones and all that jazz, whether or not I allow the body I'm wearing to feel such a thing is entirely under my control) unless I already know for a fact that they are interested in me.
Occasionally I've persuaded someone who wanted me into sex that for some stupid social reason having to do with the mores of their culture they didn't think was a good idea. That can be highly entertaining. But I don't bother to work on persuading people who don't actually want me (with one exception, and that didn't work.)
Now, in the sense of "persuade people to do *anything* they would be inclined not to do otherwise", yes, of course, I seduce people all the time. I'm a trickster, a tester -- the process of talking people into doing what they *want* to do deep inside but think they shouldn't do is my life's work (well, one aspect of it anyway.) If I can corrupt you into violating your morals, then either you weren't a very moral person to begin with or there's something seriously wrong with the morals your society believes in, or possibly both. And occasionally I do this with sex but it's just as much fun to make people start wars for stupid reasons, sell out their friends, lie to the people that elected them, or any number of other things I can talk people into doing.
Prompt 236: What does respect mean to you?
An interesting question. To me, respect contains both the premise that one should be appropriately wary of my power, *and* that one should consider me a thinking, feeling entity with ideas of my own. I am not your god, a slavish projection of your own superego for you to pretend to worship while using my name to aggrandize your own power or make yourself look better; I am not your demon, spending my existence looking for ways to torment you or make you do terrible things so as to damn your soul. I don't care about your soul, actually. I do what *I* want to do, for *my* reasons, that do not revolve around *you*. You'd think this would not be so hard for mortals to comprehend regarding omnipotent entities, but actually they have an amazingly hard time with it. As for my own kind, treating me with respect means that while you can recognize I have a reputation as a jokester, occasionally I *am* serious, and paying attention to me when I'm serious might be a good idea.
Prompt 189: If you could read my mind right now... Talk about a conversation when what you said was not what you were thinking.
All of them.
In the Continuum there are multiple levels of mental communication, and only the surface, most superficial level translates to mortal speech. The other levels may be more akin to body language, or at the deepest levels simply empathy. In order to keep from flowing into each other, being devoured by one another into an overmind, we need to use communication to hold ourselves apart as much as to bring us together, so we tend to use the surface to say things that have a modicum of truth, perhaps, but hardly reflect the full truth of what we think or how we feel. Other Q generally understand the purpose to this, but most mortals tend to think I lie a lot because the things I say with my mouth aren't, shall we say, necessarily representative of the truth. Those who know me well, though, learn to understand me. I'm not trying to *deceive* when I say things that are exaggerations or just plain not true; I'm simply avoiding being unpleasantly blunt.
Prompt 229: If you could get anyone drunk, who would it be and what would you do?
I wouldn't bother. Talk about shooting fish in a barrel; getting someone drunk is entirely too cheap and easy a method of getting them to do things they wouldn't have chosen otherwise, and it lets them off the hook. If I'm going to get you to do something that you believe you shouldn't do, I'm going to make damn sure you do it when you're stone cold sober and can't excuse yourself later on with "Oh, Q got me drunk, so it wasn't my fault!" Oh no. You'll know it was your own choice for the rest of your life.
Now, I might choose to be present when someone has freely chosen to be drunk for their own reasons; when they know I exist and can instantly be anywhere I choose to be, and they choose to get drunk anyway, they should certainly expect that I might possibly show up when they're drunk. But the most I might try to get someone to do is admit to things they won't confess to when they're sober, things that they won't be able to deny the truth of when they sober up but that they'd never have admitted if they weren't drunk. *Getting* someone drunk for such a purpose, however, is cheating.
Muse: Q
Fandom: Star Trek TNG
theatrical_muse, today. A pile of old questions this time.
Prompt 215: Seduction. Have you ever seduced someone or has anyone ever seduced you?
That depends on your terms.
I tend to think humans use the term "seduction" to mean "persuade someone to have sex with you when they would otherwise not be inclined to do it." And I confess, most of the time I don't see the point to doing this. Sex is fun and all, but it's hardly the be-all and end-all of existence that mortals make it into. I don't usually allow myself to have a sexual interest in a mortal (being that sexual interest is entirely a matter of mortal, meat bodies with hormones and all that jazz, whether or not I allow the body I'm wearing to feel such a thing is entirely under my control) unless I already know for a fact that they are interested in me.
Occasionally I've persuaded someone who wanted me into sex that for some stupid social reason having to do with the mores of their culture they didn't think was a good idea. That can be highly entertaining. But I don't bother to work on persuading people who don't actually want me (with one exception, and that didn't work.)
Now, in the sense of "persuade people to do *anything* they would be inclined not to do otherwise", yes, of course, I seduce people all the time. I'm a trickster, a tester -- the process of talking people into doing what they *want* to do deep inside but think they shouldn't do is my life's work (well, one aspect of it anyway.) If I can corrupt you into violating your morals, then either you weren't a very moral person to begin with or there's something seriously wrong with the morals your society believes in, or possibly both. And occasionally I do this with sex but it's just as much fun to make people start wars for stupid reasons, sell out their friends, lie to the people that elected them, or any number of other things I can talk people into doing.
Prompt 236: What does respect mean to you?
An interesting question. To me, respect contains both the premise that one should be appropriately wary of my power, *and* that one should consider me a thinking, feeling entity with ideas of my own. I am not your god, a slavish projection of your own superego for you to pretend to worship while using my name to aggrandize your own power or make yourself look better; I am not your demon, spending my existence looking for ways to torment you or make you do terrible things so as to damn your soul. I don't care about your soul, actually. I do what *I* want to do, for *my* reasons, that do not revolve around *you*. You'd think this would not be so hard for mortals to comprehend regarding omnipotent entities, but actually they have an amazingly hard time with it. As for my own kind, treating me with respect means that while you can recognize I have a reputation as a jokester, occasionally I *am* serious, and paying attention to me when I'm serious might be a good idea.
Prompt 189: If you could read my mind right now... Talk about a conversation when what you said was not what you were thinking.
All of them.
In the Continuum there are multiple levels of mental communication, and only the surface, most superficial level translates to mortal speech. The other levels may be more akin to body language, or at the deepest levels simply empathy. In order to keep from flowing into each other, being devoured by one another into an overmind, we need to use communication to hold ourselves apart as much as to bring us together, so we tend to use the surface to say things that have a modicum of truth, perhaps, but hardly reflect the full truth of what we think or how we feel. Other Q generally understand the purpose to this, but most mortals tend to think I lie a lot because the things I say with my mouth aren't, shall we say, necessarily representative of the truth. Those who know me well, though, learn to understand me. I'm not trying to *deceive* when I say things that are exaggerations or just plain not true; I'm simply avoiding being unpleasantly blunt.
Prompt 229: If you could get anyone drunk, who would it be and what would you do?
I wouldn't bother. Talk about shooting fish in a barrel; getting someone drunk is entirely too cheap and easy a method of getting them to do things they wouldn't have chosen otherwise, and it lets them off the hook. If I'm going to get you to do something that you believe you shouldn't do, I'm going to make damn sure you do it when you're stone cold sober and can't excuse yourself later on with "Oh, Q got me drunk, so it wasn't my fault!" Oh no. You'll know it was your own choice for the rest of your life.
Now, I might choose to be present when someone has freely chosen to be drunk for their own reasons; when they know I exist and can instantly be anywhere I choose to be, and they choose to get drunk anyway, they should certainly expect that I might possibly show up when they're drunk. But the most I might try to get someone to do is admit to things they won't confess to when they're sober, things that they won't be able to deny the truth of when they sober up but that they'd never have admitted if they weren't drunk. *Getting* someone drunk for such a purpose, however, is cheating.
Muse: Q
Fandom: Star Trek TNG