<But I'd also be borrowing your...> Imaginary shrug. <Your way of thinking about what's wrong and whether anything is wrong. I think I should think about it until I know what I think and then I can decide whether to say your thing.>

<Okay. I don't think there's a rush. You might want to tell Nocawe sooner though.>

Oh! He wants to talk to her about that. He’ll email her as soon as Ashkon doesn’t need to move.

He can have a chance after Ashkon's class.

I wish I hadn't gone to the subtle arts appointment. Ashkon suggested I email you and I thought that would be a good idea because I don’t really know what to make of it. I don’t think I communicated well with Vyn even though I tried to. (Ashkon suggested if I leave a review I might want to say Vyn did a bad job at establishing my comfort level.) I tried to proactively suggest that she could read my mind if it’d help, but I guess that wasn’t clear and I don’t believe she asked, either. She didn’t explain anything afterward until Ashkon talked to the receptionist about it. She kind of rubbed me the wrong way afterward; she told me to make another appointment "to complete the obvious work you require" instead of telling me what she did and what she would do with another appointment. The notes we got afterward are more explicit but not as much as I wish they were. I’m really upset about it and I think I made a bad choice.

Sounds like a bad fit, I'm so sorry. Did she do anything you didn't want done at all and might need reversed or was it a communication issue altogether?

I think just the second thing. I kind of wondered because I ended up changing my worldview a lot right after but Ashkon doesn’t think it’s necessarily an unnatural change. Maybe it was a long time in coming.

How did it change your worldview?

I trust myself. I have specific questions (that I still don’t know how to answer) about Vanda Nossëo's trustworthiness as an institution instead of not even having questions.

That does sound like an improvement but I'm not sure it's related to the subtle arts therapy at all.

How would you feel about going to a session with an unpowered counselor who could talk through your problems with you and maybe eventually recommend more arts work if and when you were ready for that (with another practitioner, of course)?

I want to say yes but Vyn also recommended that so maybe it’s a bad idea.

I'll do it if you set it up and it doesn’t cost a lot.

I promise I didn't get the idea from Vyn. I'll set it up and I can probably find you something subsidized. Any sort of person you'd be more or less comfortable with talking to?

I don’t know. Maybe if you get more specific I'll have a preference.

Some people have preferences for a particular gender, species, cultural background, age, practice specialty, therapeutic philosophy...

His next email is a little slow in coming because he needs to look up therapeutic philosophies.

I think I communicate badly with people who can’t read my mind. Especially lately. But I don’t know if that’s a real pattern or if it’s just that the people I know can mostly do that because I'm a Yeerk host surrounded by Elves. You seem fine and I don’t think you read minds. I can’t confidently say that any combination of the kinds of traits you mentioned would be a good fit.

Okay, I'll filter for ones who can read minds. You will have to find a way to tell them that it's okay to read your mind, though if it's a flat Elf leaving thoughts public and making it clear you know how not to will most likely do.

He probably won’t achieve this by designing an incredibly garish t-shirt that says "I KNOW HOW TO KEEP THOUGHTS PRIVATE AND I ❤️ MIND READING" but he’s briefly mildly tempted. It’s fine. It’s not really about avoiding accidentally technically agreeing to the wrong thing; that’s probably the wrong thing to optimize for. It’s more important to make it clear to people what he wants. And ideally also to avoid accidentally technically agreeing to the wrong thing.

I think I can do that. I can try, anyway.

I'm sorry the culture around explicit consent is inconvenient for you, it's there to protect vulnerable people but different vulnerable people turn out to need different things.

I think I can deal with it better now than I used to.

You seem to be improving really encouragingly.

Every day in every way I’m getting better and better~

<You're adorable.>

Good, he likes making Ashkon happy.

Eventually Nocawe emails him about an appointment with a therapist over in Ithil; bit of a bus trip but he has good reviews.

He's apparently an Utumno survivor (for generous values of 'survivor') and she wants to check in to see if that's a good thing.

He has no idea if that’s a good thing. Presumably if this guy were too emotionally fragile to deal with hearing about Purgatory he wouldn’t do this job but maybe not?