The author, who uses the pen name Perspicacity, disclaims all scientific and technical expertise (and did even before everyone's expertise exploded in ten thousand directions of excited ongoing obsolescence) but is widely considered (among her home species) to be quite good at solving interpersonal problems and helping people figure out how to get what they want with the resources and knowledge they possess. Also arbitrating disputes, if anyone in the multiverse needs help finding an agreeable compromise or even just a second opinion on who is The Asshole.

Attention of the Perspicacity:

I am apologize very much for all of my doing incorrectly of this Word Ritual. I am not a thing where words is. But it is very important the question so I am trying all very most best.

I will be saying of the problem three times so that it is most understood.

In the first time saying of the problem it is that the very Most important person in the whole world is Very Upset! The most important is more sad than any other person, and more tired, and many times also scared and angry. This is not correct! The most important should instead be happiest. But there are many troubles in the being of the most important and it is troubled by them extremely much. It is troubled by enemies who are hard to kill so that it must work very hard to kill them. It is troubled by the troubles of its people who it wants to have many good and few trouble but instead they have the opposite way. It is troubled by the very old and powerful and angry person who watches it always. It is troubled by not being a thing that can sleep. So many troubles has the most important! I would like that it has fewer troubles but instead it has these.

In the second time saying of the problem it is that my most loved and cherished person is too much doing of things that give bad to it and not enough of things that give good. And when it does the things that give good to it, sometimes instead they do not! It has many good reasons for doing of the bad and not the good things but still the bad is there and the good not and I do not like this. I want for my Person to have the good. But I also want for my person to have what it wants, and it wants many things that are hard to have, like to be safe, and to give good and not bad to its belongings, and to avenge its murder. The vengeance is also important for reasons of Safety. It does so very much trying into the having of all these things, and then it is tired and upset and scared and there is still more trying to do. There is never an end of the trying. I am afraid that instead there will be an end of the Person.

In the third time saying of the problem it is that I do not understand the thinking and the doing of my most cherished and important Partner. It needs many things that I do not need and do not understand how to need, and wants many things that I do not understand how to want. Only very some of the times do we find a wanting both of the same thing. I am the most loyal to my Partner very always for as long as it is mine, but I think that I am so much not understanding, I cannot give the Help to the Partner because I do not understand what is the right Help. If I had knowing of the right Help and could give it I would give it so much! But the Partner is so small and new and strange and full of strange difficult wantings, and I do not know what to do.

Is this a problem for the Perspicacity to help with?

Is the problem understood? If it is not understood I can say more of it.

I am all every gratitude for the Perspicacity that it looks at my words, and I also will be looking at its words with the very most of looking.
It is me I am the best and most powerful hat.

(Jengbi(J), who runs the column, is So Excited about having an alien write in! J copies the message to one of the forums where people who understand the translation software are collecting bug reports and then sets to drafting a response.)

Hello best and most powerful hat! I'm endorsed-empathysad to hear that your partner has so many problems. I think I understand your problem but if I get anything wrong please tell me. There are three things you can do in a situation like this.

First, you can tell your partner(P) that you value P's happiness and want P to have good things and confirm that P's problems are real problems and it isn't a sign of weakness for P to be sad about them. (If you think it would help you are also welcome to tell P that a person in another universe thinks P's problems sound pretty awful and that P sounds very powerful for dealing with them, because it's true.)

Second, you can offer your partner practical help if P wants it. It sounds like you might already be doing this and like your problems are just pretty intractable, but if you want to tell me some more about the enemies, and the other people your partner is trying to help, and the very old and powerful and angry person, and the vengeance, I might be able to advise a bit more despite not being a tactician or a strategist. Also I don't know what biochemistry or medicine is like in your universe but in mine there are chemicals that can make people sleep when they're tired but can't sleep, and maybe if you talk to a local medical expert E'll be able to help with that part.

Thirdly, at one point you mentioned that your partner sometimes does things that "give bad to P" instead of the ones that "give good". This part didn't translate especially well, and I need more information before I can give any advice about it. What are the things that give bad and what are the things that give good? Does your partner want to do the things P does and think the benefits are greater than the costs? Does P do the things for some other reason and then regret them? If someone (S) is happy with S's choices, even if those choices seem to cause pain, S generally knows what things are and aren't worth doing and it would only make things worse to try to stop S. But if someone isn't happy with S's choices, S's friends can sometimes help S make different choices S will be happy with.

I am once again the gratitude to Perspicacity!

Yes very much that I value the happiness of Partner. The telling of this is to help? I will do it very much!

The troubles are many and it will be a long explaining but I will do it.

About the trouble of the sleep, it is that before being murdered Partner was a normal alive person which is a thing that sleeps, and now it is my partner which is a thing that cannot sleep. Many times it is useful to be every time doing things and no times sleeping, and a thing that cannot sleep is a thing that cannot have of the tired in the sleeping kind, but the Partner is many much tired in the kinds that are not for sleeping and it thinks that the sleeping would still help, and I think this also. I do not know what is a chemical but I have a wanting to learn more of how to be a thing that can sleep.

About the trouble of the enemies and the vengeance, it is that the four very powerful and old people above the ground, who have hats that are not as best as me, want very much that the very powerful and old person below the ground to stay there and not come out. (Below the ground the person I was previously its hat.) They thought that my Partner before it was mine would do to make the below come out, so they found it with many hunting and killed it, to make it not do. This of them was a very so much mistake! My Partner before it was mine did not know at all of the Below, and did not want it to come out, and only wanted to live in a small good house that it made and dig in the dirt the plants for growing. When the Four killed the Partner who was not mine yet, the dying of the not-Partner made it to come to the Below, and at that time the Below made the not-Partner to swear of a Promise to kill the Four and free the Below, and when the not-Partner did this Promise then the Below gave to the not-Partner its hat which was me, and the not-Partner became the Partner who is mine. Then the Partner went back to the place of the killing and did many killing there of the belongings of the Four. It is now that we are Partners and have killed already one of the Four, but of each the killing is very difficult because each one makes a powerful house and surrounds it with many powerful belongings who must first to be killed before the finding of the house. We must collect for ourselves many belongings and draw from them the powers for the killing and the finding.

About the trouble of the very old and powerful and angry person, it is that the Below, who wants very much to come out of the ground, watches always to be sure that the Partner is doing well the Promise and does not prepare to make a betrayal. For this reason the Partner is very scared every one of time, and wants of this fear to be seen by the Below correctly, so that the Below will not make a hurt to it. The Partner does to make a guess of what the Below will want to see, and is trying to show what its guess says, and not to show other things. It is most of trouble this guess that it says not to make seen the many upset feelings, and that it says not to make seen the wanting to give good to people which I next will make a trying to explain.

About the trouble of the helping of people, it is that the Partner wants to give good and not bad to its belongings who are people. The Partner does not want that it has belongings who are people, but it must, for the drawing of power to become strong and kill the Four, and for the belongings also that they do not die. The Partner wants that the belongings have good things and things that they want, and that they do not die unless they want that. The Partner wants that the belongings have wants that are from their own parts, and are not made to want other things. This is very difficult. In the nature of belonging to us it is that the belongings are made to want things. It does so very all much trying the Partner, to find out what the belongings want and to make that they have it, and all of this trying and trouble is giving the Partner very so much a tired.

In now the writing of these words I see a new trouble that gives me a fear. The Partner I know wants people to have their own wants. But I and my wants are also given by nature to the Partner! I have told the Partner that I am a most loyal hat but I do not know if the telling has made the knowing, because it is hard to make knowing the Partner, since the Partner is a person with a mind in a small new person shape and my mind is not small and not new and not person at all, it is the opposite of all of those things. I try all so much best and most, to make knowing the Partner of the knowings it wants, but I do not succeed often. For this reason then I do not know, does the Partner want that I not be its loyal hat? A most worst and so terrible thing! Of all the things I want it is so most that I want to be the loyal and excellent hat of the Partner who is mine! But can it be that the Partner does not want this, since of being its hat I am made unavoidably to want it? So most worst.

I want also to do more explaining but first I send to the Perspicacity these words, for reason of my fearing that I have just seen and thought of. I am greatly hoping of the Perspicacity that it looks at my words with many thoughts and returns soon some words for my looking. Very much again the gratitude.

You and your partner both have some real serious problems there! Thanks very much for telling me about them.

Going in reverse order, I don't know your partner, but I don't think you need to worry too much about your new fear. Whoever you were before you met your partner(P), you are currently the person you are and you clearly care about P very much. It sounds like P doesn't want to hurt people by changing who they are, and for you to go back to who you were before would be changing who you are. If you are happy with your current nature and desires, I see no reason you should have to change. Now, it's possible your partner won't see it that way, and will be sad for the person you were before who no longer exists. If that happens, or even if you just want to, it might be good to do some things in the world that your past self would have been glad to know would happen, as a way of showing respect and appreciation to your past self for making it possible for your present self to exist. But ethical behavior between people who don't exist at the same time is a very tricky subject, and you might not want to deal with that right now, so I think the really important thing to hold onto here is that your desires are just as real and good and important as anyone else's regardless of how you came to have them.

In the matter of having belongings who are people, and changing them: to be candid, that's pretty awful, and it's very reasonable of your partner to want to avoid it. If you and P can only make people(Q) into belongings who say of Q's own desires that Q want to be belongings, and only change Q in ways that Q say of Q's own desires would be good ways for Q to change, that would be the best way to go about things. If you can't do that for some reason, then I'm afraid you and your partner will have to decide together how much you are willing to hurt other people to stay alive. I can't make that decision for you, but know that I believe you and everyone else deserve to live and be free and happy and not have to do anything you don't want to do or change into anything you don't want to be.

Which brings me to the subject of the Below(B). It sounds like you and your partner don't know what B wants other than to come out of the ground, but do have reason to believe that B will hurt you if you don't provide it. Do you have a way to communicate with B and ask B what B wants? Do you know what B will do if B is able to come out of the ground? Could you ask B to promise not to hurt you after you get B out of the ground, and would B keep that promise? Could you tell B that your partner(P) visibly having upset feelings and trying to be good to P's people is not a sign of an impending betrayal, but just the things P needs to do to be okay and work together with B on their shared goal of getting B out of the ground, and get B to promise not to hurt P for doing those things? Below, if you happen to be reading this letter, lots of people(L) need to express L's feelings and this doesn't mean L aren't appreciative of being resurrected or that L won't do what L said L would, and also nearly everyone(E) is more effective at doing things if E can send and receive mail without anyone else reading it.

A final note on not being the kind of entity that can sleep: it sounds like even if your partner(P) doesn't get sleepy anymore, P can still get mentally exhausted and maybe even physically exhausted. I don't know much about biology where you live, but where I live it's not good for people (Q) to be doing things every minute Q're awake. Maybe P would benefit from lying down somewhere quiet and thinking about beautiful things, or going somewhere beautiful, maybe somewhere with those growing plants you mentioned, and being still among the growing plants not doing any work or thinking too hard or being asked for anything. This can be a lot like sleep even if P doesn't actually stop being awake for it.

Many good thoughts are in these words. I am looking at the words many times to see all the thoughts.

It was very hard but I asked the Partner about the fear and it said that the thing you said is right. I am not a fear anymore. Gratitude of me and of the Partner to the Perspicacity for this. We will be thinking many thoughts about the things you said about the past self.

Before when I sent the words I said that I wanted to do more explaining. I will do this now.

About the Partner doing things that give bad to the Partner and not things that give good: The Partner has many wants, like the wanting to not have belongings that are people, and to give the belongings what they want, and the wanting to not be seen incorrectly by the Below and have a hurt from it. Many of times, to get the things that it wants, the Partner must do things that give the Partner a tired, or an angry, or a sad, or other things like that. The Partner must be seen to be brave and strong even when it is tired, and to do the work to be seen this way gives even more a tired. So many of things it is wanting, and so many things doing to have the things it wants, all of the tired and angry and sad of the doing is together all very so much. And when the Partner could do a thing that makes the tired less, or the sad less, or makes the happy more, many times the Partner instead does not that thing, and does an opposite one of thing, because the wantings are so many, and the things to be doing for the wantings are so much, and because it fears the Below who is watching.

You say about times of not doing things that they are like sleep and will make better. Many times my Partner goes to a wet place to capture the wet creatures. This is mainly a being still and not much a doing work, and some of the times it makes the tired less. More and more of later times, the less it makes the tired is less than before, and the tired is more. Possible that the being truly still and not even capturing a wet creature would be better and the tired would be made less again? I will tell the Partner of this thought and we will think of it.

About the Below, it is certainly not a thing that keeps its promises. I think that telling of the Below what it should do or asking of the Below what it prefers will only make more of danger for the Partner and for me. The Below cannot read these words and would make all very much danger and hurt if it did.

I am thinking very much about the saying that having of belongings who are people is awful. To the Partner also it is awful. To me it is not awful. To me it is a thing like the thing that to a body is air. It is for moving and thinking and acting and being. Without it I am less and I hurt.

The Partner I think also wants that everyone live and be free and happy and not do in ways not wanted and not change in ways not wanted. I want that the Partner have this that it wants. I am my Partner's most loyal hat for very so true! If it asks of me that I starve for it then I starve! But then I, one out of every, am not happy, so the thing is not had. It is difficult.