LaPorte Caves

Woodclaw wrote: Chapter 21 it's a really interesting turning point, but it also highlight one interesting dycotomy in how Julia is currently handling herself. On one hand it's nice to see her finally playing her strength, not the ones given to her by the Nourishment, but those she has because of who she is and how her experience has shaped her so far. On the other her relationship seem to be getting closer and closer to the breaking point: Julia clearly means well and she want to help Howard somehow, but her approach so far has been so ham-fisted that it's kind of surprising seeing her understanding other people so well. I think that the biggest problem is that she hasn't really adjusted to the idea of having the upper hand on Howard so completely: with the people at Ruth's company she was able to empatize because she had been in their spot for most of her life, but with Howard she just can't find a balance point.

Woodclaw wrote: Chapter 21 it's a really interesting turning point, but it also highlight one interesting dycotomy in how Julia is currently handling herself. On one hand it's nice to see her finally playing her strength, not the ones given to her by the Nourishment, but those she has because of who she is and how her experience has shaped her so far. On the other her relationship seem to be getting closer and closer to the breaking point: Julia clearly means well and she want to help Howard somehow, but her approach so far has been so ham-fisted that it's kind of surprising seeing her understanding other people so well. I think that the biggest problem is that she hasn't really adjusted to the idea of having the upper hand on Howard so completely: with the people at Ruth's company she was able to empatize because she had been in their spot for most of her life, but with Howard she just can't find a balance point.

“Your skin has lost all of its color. And your mind seems somewhere else. What’s going on in that head of yours?”

“Not as much as what’s going on in yours.” He replied in the direction of the ceiling. “Everything I’m thinking, everything I’m capable of thinking, probably seems so trivial to you.”

“That’s not true honey.” Her heart ached to watch the machinations of his feeble brain. “What you think is very important to me.”

Pepper wrote: There's another passage from chapter 21 that is kind of nagging at me. From right at the beginning (Julia speaking first).

“Your skin has lost all of its color. And your mind seems somewhere else. What’s going on in that head of yours?”

“Not as much as what’s going on in yours.” He replied in the direction of the ceiling. “Everything I’m thinking, everything I’m capable of thinking, probably seems so trivial to you.”

“That’s not true honey.” Her heart ached to watch the machinations of his feeble brain. “What you think is very important to me.”

I kind of expected Howard to say something like "everything I'm thinking may have been put in my head by you."

Julia replies that what Howard thinks is important to her, but is it? It's just a few lines later that he says he's not in the mood to sleep, but she knocks him out and he sleeps anyway. Julia may tell herself that Howard's thoughts are important, but they aren't so important that she won't override them and replace them with other thoughts that she likes better.

smoki07 wrote: I did not expected this twist about Julia's behavior to howard, relationship seems going on good track. Now there is maybe a mindgame played by her even if she means well. If the video game project will be a sucess, Ruth may offer a job in company and that will cause a crisis in the couple. can't wait for more.

grungykitten wrote: Chapter 21 is fantastic! Totally moves the story in a new and very welcome direction. Julia's newfound spine is exactly what she needed, and i can't wait to see where it takes her.

Woodclaw wrote: In a recent chat Njae pointed it out for me: in a world where everybody has powers, none is really super (misquoting Syndrome a bit). This is actually a very valid point, for the people of the weald the fact that Julia can benchpress a house or hear them sigh from across town is utterly normal (albeit still terrifying), none of that makes her special because that's what they expect out of a woman. What sets Julia apart and might make her super is her ability to empatize with the men of the weald. From our perspective this is trivial, but from theirs it's huge. I said many times before that the real bane of the Weald isn't Nourishment, but Pre-Nourishment, because getting powers -- however limited -- from a young age robs most women of the ability to empatize and understand the hardship men are experiencing. Even women that are exceptionally perceptive and understanding, as Ruth seem to be very often, only understand these problems on a rational and intellectual perspective. It's the same difference that there is between reading about a illness and getting infected for real. In this sense the ability to see things from the perspective of these men is Julia's actual superpower.

Pepper wrote:

Woodclaw wrote: In a recent chat Njae pointed it out for me: in a world where everybody has powers, none is really super (misquoting Syndrome a bit). This is actually a very valid point, for the people of the weald the fact that Julia can benchpress a house or hear them sigh from across town is utterly normal (albeit still terrifying), none of that makes her special because that's what they expect out of a woman. What sets Julia apart and might make her super is her ability to empatize with the men of the weald. From our perspective this is trivial, but from theirs it's huge. I said many times before that the real bane of the Weald isn't Nourishment, but Pre-Nourishment, because getting powers -- however limited -- from a young age robs most women of the ability to empatize and understand the hardship men are experiencing. Even women that are exceptionally perceptive and understanding, as Ruth seem to be very often, only understand these problems on a rational and intellectual perspective. It's the same difference that there is between reading about a illness and getting infected for real. In this sense the ability to see things from the perspective of these men is Julia's actual superpower.

Interesting analysis, and I agree that Julia's history gives her a unique perspective on how to deal with men. I still wonder if a nourished woman could achieve the same result through purely rational and intellectual means. Ruth or Kylia (the manager that Julia is replacing in Ruth's company) could have done just what Julia did when making the flashcard program for Howard. They could have read all the psychology papers, learned just what level of vocabulary would work best when interacting with male programmers, what sort of facial and verbal feedback indicates that they have maximum understanding, how often to check on their progress, whether to use a carrot or a stick as rewards, that sort of thing. I think it's telling that neither of them did.

A huge part of the problem, and I think I've mentioned this before, is that the women have created a world in which they have all the power and none of the accountability. What I describe would be trivially easy for a nourished woman (Isn't everything?), but she'd still have to think of it. If every misunderstanding is the man's fault, why should a woman do anything different than they always have done?

And we don't really know if the intellectual approach will work; let's see how Howard is doing after a day or two with his flashcards. It's kinda fascinating (and I wonder if circes_cup did this deliberately) that Julia is able to empathize immediately with total strangers at work, but reads academic papers online to understand the one man she's supposed to know intimately.

AuGoose wrote: Finished part 21. I'm enjoying the ongoing world building. Our protagonists are a train wreck but at least they're talking to each other .

Some idyll musings on Howard's free time, with Julia out of the house.

Warning: Spoiler!

"Ruth?" Of course she could hear him. He'd worked out pretty quickly that his sense privacy was an illusion. one he chose to play along with, most of the time.

"Yes, Howard?" She answered from across the house. Her volume perfectly modulated to deliver a conversational tone through two walls and a closed door. Almost as if she were standing next to him. Spooky. And yet so typical.

He wanted to see her for this, see if her face or body would give away anything that exquisitely cultured voice concealed so artfully. He left his room and found the master of the house in the open living room, scanning a stack of papers he still found agonizingly arcane. Her business matters, most likely. Some things seemed universal. It was in fact the most human thing he'd seen the Nourished doing.

He strolled up to her. Even seated in a fully reclined lounger she was still eye-level with him standing fully erect.

"So what do you think is your mysterious benefactor's motive?" He nodded to her slightly emphasizing the difference between the her personally 'you' and the 'you' of all of Womankind in the Weald.

She cocked her head slightly, not certain what he meant, even with her hypercognition pouring over his words from a hundred different angles before he'd even drawn another breath. If he'd been a child she would have the dismissed the question as silly blather, but he clearly had a focus to his thoughts she couldn't place.

Howard wanted to chuckle at having stumped her, but admitted to himself it was probably more a cultural gap than any cunning insight on his part that had made his inquiry opaque. He was almost certainly plunging headlong into the worst imaginable social taboo. But boredom and frustration had made him reckless. Reckless enough to open up this particular gambit.

Still, seeing her expression he couldn't resist the chance to walk her through his reasoning at his pitiful male speed. "Your people are trying to fix the parasite problem the Diana trees are suffering. The source of womanly power is threatened and you're taking action. That means you don't think the Diana trees are so sacred that something like this is the will of the fates to be blindly accepted. If they aren't sacred you must of thought about how the Diana trees came to be at all. There's no way something like that evolved naturally - its too perfect. There's no loose ends. All the elements add together towards a pre-designed purpose. Someone DESIGNED the Diana trees. If you don't think the trees are the inscrutably sacred work of some Goddess or Fate, then you must have wondered WHO did it and WHY they did it. Thought about it longer and harder than some male just dropping by from another world. So again, what do you think is your mysterious benefactor's motive?"

Ruth smiled somewhat cryptically. "Well, 'Mister just dropped by', what do you think with your outsider's perspective."

Howard made a gently mocking half-bow. "This lowly male would scarcely dare to offer an opinion... but I think you'd better hope it wasn't as a test. Because its quite possible if it were, your people failed."

Ruth blinked in surprise. Her patience was wearing slightly thin, but on the other hand it was also fascinating to see a man with such unquenchable fire. For the first time she started to see why Julia took such care to nurture and cultivate her mate from the other side. She was reminded of a precious evening with her first husband and his quicksilver mind, so long ago now- 'Just because I'm not smart, that doesn't mean I'm stupid.' He had delighted in crafting puzzles and riddles for her that made even a Nourished mind dig deep to untangle them.

She'd unwound his knots in hours, structures he'd taken a month or more to create. It was still a more formidable demonstration of wit than almost any man she'd ever heard of. It was his small brilliance that had inspired here to try the current software development model that threatened to consume her. 'Just because they're not smart, that doesn't mean they're stupid.'

She missed him so much.

Howard went on, "If the Diana tree isn't natural, then its possible the parasite isn't natural either. Maybe that mysterious someone has decided to shut down this little experiment and return the world to a state more like my own. Minus the Nourished of course. From what you've described of the chemical dependency it imposes...If the parasite spreads unchecked, not many woman are going to outlive the trees."

Ruth added just the slightest bit of reproach to her tone, still unwilling to shame or break this rare creature before her. That was Julia's prerogative. "You seem in rather good spirits describing mass extinction. Do you like seeing women suffer? Withdrawal is an agonizing death. A threat looming over all of us."

"Not the part of 'us' that includes men, obviously." Howard chided her. "I'd like to think I like it less than some women here seem to like watching men die agonizing deaths. Your people could have cleared out those alligator-things in a month, but hey, if they only eat little boys, who cares about their safety? Still, its probably too big for my weak male brain to take in. Or maybe I'm still a bit bitter about having been raped within days of getting here and having my fiancé entrapped into joining the endangered species list."

"You truly want to wash your hands of this place, don't you?" Ruth asked evenly, somewhat astonished at the seething vehemence the man hid within the jocular tones.

He smiled. It wasn't a pleasant smile either. "I've never claimed otherwise. But I admit, now I'm morbidly curious to see how this plays out."

efelton wrote: Long time reader of the LaPorte Caves here, since it was on brawna in fact. Love the work and eagerly await each new installment.

I have lots of thoughts on the Howard-Julia confrontation in the new chapter and might share them in a bit but really just wanted to delurk and thank circes for all the entertainment.

efelton wrote: I have not read a scene as romantically awkward as the one between Howard and Julia at the end of ch 22, since the dinner party in Lois Bujold's "A Civil Campaign" (recommended for those who read this website since the male lead is physically inferior to his romantic partners and for other reasons). For me, the story is going in Romantic comedy direction, in fact it's almost Screwball comedy. And I'm really enjoying it.

Julia goes in with the intention to check in with him, maybe romance him a bit, get him a cup of coffee and a back massage. Five minutes later, after staggering ineptitude she leaves him furious, humiliated and burned.

I don't think she has any excuse. Her apologies have worn thin for me. She's pulled the same move too many times for it to be accidental. Again and again she's rubbed Howard's face in the fact that he is strictly inferior to her. Now, I have no problem with her unapologetically showing him who she is. The situation between them has changed and he has to understand that. But even someone as inflexible and infuriating as Howard has pretty much got it by now. The underlying narrative to their every dialogue is an appraisal by her of his abilities and how much they now lack in comparison to her. She knows he's sensitive on this point. And yet on and on it goes. She can't help but draw attention to it. One brief conversation: he can never learn back massage as well as she can; he has only made meager progress on learning the Weald's written script; he can't distinguish the two coffees by sense of smell. (And countless, countless other examples since ch6.) I think most people would find being subjected to such treatment quite tedious. She's being a jerk!

Howard scalding his hand on the paperweight was a telling story beat for me. Could she not have stopped this from happening? Doesn't she have a super senses? She can accurately estimate altitude from air pressure, yet she can't tell the temperature of hot metal across a room. Her book learning or at least common sense would suggest that picking up the metal would be extremely damaging to Howard. Did she not realise? Having put two and two together would her catlike reflexes not have allowed her to intervene? No, I'm not buying it any more. At some level, consciously or otherwise, she wants to rub Howard's nose in it, wants him to burn his hand.

She needs to own her actions and her words. Wringing her own hands and offering to sort everything out by recourse to the Boob don't cut it any more. She needs to admit there is a pattern to her behaviour and do the work to figure out what's causing this.

I was cheering Howard on as he "slunk out" making his parting shot. He's not emotionally intelligent, not great at explaining his feelings. But he was pretty on the money here: "the less time I’m around you, the better I feel about myself."