<It'll probably be something like, this practitioner did a bad job establishing my comfort level and making sure we understood each other, I understand the subtle arts industry is pressured for availability in general but waiting another month for an appointment would have been better than what happened, I would not recommend her to a friend.>

He doesn’t entirely understand what the first part of that means and isn’t sure why he’s supposed to not recommend her to a friend.

Also not only would waiting another month have been better, so would never getting any subtle arts done.

(Also he kind of wants to not be conscious until they have the summary.)

Ashkon had some things he was planning to do but he can do them later. He turns on the sleep song.

There is barely any time in which to appreciate this but he very briefly does.

He doesn’t remember any dreams.

<That seems probably better than your baseline?>

<Maybe.>

Pt presented with nightmares, anxiety, flashback-triggering trauma associations, eating disorder, selective mutism. Provided advice wrt accessing standard therapy for some issues. Performed standard two-pronged nightmare block (subject: Purgatory) with trainee observing. Unable to provide confident outside assessment of pt emotional state as no formal consent to reading was secured. Recommend second visit for closing off trauma associations and followup mundane therapy with spot assistance from artists.

Well, that’s... not terrible. Maybe he didn’t say he was fine with mind-reading? He thought he did but why would he remember anything right. Or maybe Vyn failed to understand; it’s not necessarily always his fault for not knowing anything ever. Probably he just remembers wrong, though.

Maybe he should believe Vyn without bothering to reread what he wrote since he wouldn’t rather be made to. But for some reason this is wholly unpersuasive. The note exists; if he can’t read it or remember it Ashkon will notice. It could in theory have been altered; Ashkon might also notice that.

At least all that actually happened was fine and not very important. - Why does he believe that but not that he didn’t actually consent to mind-reading? Actually he thinks Vyn could pass a truth spell about it, probably on some technicality about the definition of "formal consent"; he doesn’t expect malice at all -

<Did I think there was a substantial chance Vyn was evil before?> He thinks he did but it feels very stupid of him and that's concerning.

<You... have generally thought all people have a substantial chance of being evil.>

<Yeah, but...> He can basically sort the possibilities into categories. There’s the category where his beliefs aren’t entangled with any part of reality other than what some subtle artist or precog wants him to think. Given their abilities, basically all possibilities where Vanda Nossëo is systematically deceptive about its basic nature fall into that one, and there’s nothing to be done about it anyway. There’s the category where they merely have some statistical fudging about how effectively they prevent crime, or something like that, and actually there’s something going on like underreporting of crimes that are basically embarrassing, or something else about that small, something where the system as a whole has the components it’s supposed to. And there’s the broad category of possibilities where they’re basically fine.

And in the whole third category, they’re putting really tremendous resources toward avoiding subtle artists doing things like blatantly lying about doing subtle arts to people. He can think of ways to be fairly confident that’s not a major issue, using only resources he knows they have. And in the second category - why would anyone specifically target their patients? It seems so obvious; their patients are known to be associated with them. It’d really only make sense to do that for reasons that specifically have to do with them being customers (getting good reviews, getting people to come back...) or for the thrill of betraying people's trust, or maybe if they just fuck with everyone, customer or otherwise... and he wasn’t worried about getting fucked with at other times, and he should have been, but he can’t think of any ways he’s changed for the worse lately - and he thinks the only thing he'd have been suspicious of in advance is how many things he likes and wants, which is really only bad insofar as it makes him more selfish or easier to coerce and he doesn’t think those things have happened. And at any rate, he won’t give Vyn a good review or go back for another session, so he clearly wasn’t altered to do those things.

But if he considers his behavior it doesn’t match that threat model, and also doesn’t match a threat model where Vyn might misunderstand anything. It matches a threat model that assumes Vyn wants to do the worst things she can get away with and can specifically get away with things she can get consent for. And that seems like it’s singling out Vyn as a bad actor - or modeling her as an Elf who has sworn something, maybe, but that’s a stupid threat model - only it’s not really singling Vyn out at all, is it, because he’s like that about absolutely everyone except Ashkon and Nocawe and frankly he's like this with them too but the mind-reading helps. And now that he looks straight at it it feels absolutely insane. But is that a thought he would have had last week if something managed to get him to think about it instead of refusing to trust his own judgment enough to try?

<Yeah, I think you could have, you just have habits that steer you otherwise.>

Maybe his habits are stupid.

Maybe he’s closer to okay than he’s been thinking.

<I’m so glad I didn’t bring you.> This would really suck if Ashkon had gone near Vyn or come to her attention. And instead it just... sucks even less than everything sucked before the appointment. He trusts Ashkon. He trusts himself. He doesn’t especially trust Vyn but just in a way where he thinks she’s incompetent.

<I'm glad I can, like, reality-check you. Love you <3>

<<3!>

He kind of wants to pentest Vanda Nossëo now and he’s annoyed to notice himself caring at all if that would get him sent to prison forever.

<I think that's a real job that exists but I don't think it would be very compatible with my class schedule.> He's packing for his morning class now.

And - he still can’t eat, and he still has no intention of pulling the rug out from under Ashkon even if he could.

He’s known for a while that he would at some point want his own life. Now he actually does. It’s still a vague future thing; he’s not impatient to make that happen this year. But he wants it.

<I'll miss you but you can go do your own thing whenever you're ready.>

<<3!!! I’m not quitting today, though. I really like you and...> And he wants Ashkon to succeed here more than he wants to do anything else. And he’d miss Ashkon so much, as a friend and because he really does still suck at taking care of himself. And he said he wouldn’t yank the rug out from under Ashkon and he meant it and he very badly wants to be someone who can mean things like that. And he can’t offer Ashkon the same kinds of presents as Ashkon gives him - he has money now but half of what’s so good about it when Ashkon does nice things for him is having someone see his problems and show him how they can be solved, and he can’t reciprocate because Ashkon doesn’t need that - but if it were ever less than a delight to host him, well, the amount that he’s willing to endure for Ashkon isn’t zero. It’s not infinite, either, but.

<I love you but I don't want to be burdensome!>

They can cross that bridge if they reach the same galaxy as it. <You could think about looking for someone else but it’s probably way too early, I don’t know for sure if I'm quitting this decade.>

<Yeah. If it gets to be any closer than the horizon of a planet of unknown size I'll put in to the matching system again. But you're very good <3>

<<3>

Ashkon goes to the review. <Do you want me to write it for you or do you want to?>

<I don’t have an independent idea of what to say but it’s not your opinion they care about...>

<Yeah. If it ever matters who wrote it somehow, it should be you, but you can borrow my wording if you want.>