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VanSandman posted:Honestly I don't think Olisha is as bad as you describe, Ice. I think the UTTER lack of deception on her part makes her far less dangerous than Joyce or any other corp agent. Olisha will tell you not to trust her because she will betray you if you do. Others will just betray you after you trust them. Maybe. I will freely admit that I have a bias against cats and prefer them over dogs, even though I'm a cat owner myself. Mine is perhaps the nicest cat I've ever met, so we tolerate one another and occasionally I'll give him head scritches. So the way I have spirit mentors set up is that someone really has to be dedicated to their values to get one in a deep way. You don't choose the mentor, the mentor doesn't choose you, instead the mentor notices you. I suppose someone could really force it, but what you'd be forcing yourself into is extremism. Joyce is an extremist of peace and understanding for Dove. It makes him an excellent negotiator. Kenji is an extremist of loyalty, friendship and protectiveness. It makes him a staunch friend. Olisha is an extremist of playfulness, cruelty and laziness and also loves to collect secrets. It makes her...Complicated. Right now she's really pushing against her natural laziness by being extra cruel. Right now her cruelty is focused on Joyce in a sustained attack, but she's still going to need an outlet for it. She's fueled by the impulse that plays with the mouse before killing it or the impulse to knock a glass off a table to shatter it on the floor before running away. She's a jerk, but not a total jerk. A cat can be friendly and playful and will rub up against you one moment, but may scratch you to tell you stop the next. You call for a dog and they'll almost always come. You call for a cat and you get an ear flick as they acknowledge and then ignore you. They'll come running when you have something they want. They're also pretty low maintenance. You can leave a cat alone for most of the day and he'll tend to himself. Olisha is not a good person very often and she can be a bad person. She delights in a sort of playful cruelty. I want to write her as having a normally aloof personality, a dry humor and you can empathize with her in those moments when she's not being a jerk. If she's treated well, she'll treat you...Well...Usually well in return. Mostly okayish. I'm going to do my best to treat her as someone who is mercurial and ambiguous, doing largely what pleases her in the moment. She's a jerk at times and definitely spoiled, but she's also not as spoiled and entitled as she could be. And she has the ability to be funny and charming in other moments when she wants to be. She's complicated and I like that, and I hope to keep her squarely as someone the thread both loves and hates, with that love and hate waxing and waning as she acts out or acts right depending on her whim.
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Feb 19, 2019 01:09
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The best one sentence explanation of fascism I have heard, and I wish I remembered the source, is the importation of colonial exploitation to the parent country.
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Feb 19, 2019 01:24
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I swear to god this is not a joke I think Matt Christman is the source on that. Not Lenin, not Bookchin, but the drunk Chapo guy. He's right tho, fascism is very well summarized as "doing colonial exploitation on the metropole." Concentration camps, after all, were originally invented for using on unruly colonials in the 1800's. E: Ok to be fair he didn't personally synthesize the idea from whole cloth, it's sorta unclear who did but I see references to "fascism is colonialism brought home" from at least 2003 and maybe earlier. He's probably where you heard it in 2018 though. Crazycryodude fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Feb 19, 2019 |
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Feb 19, 2019 01:57
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This scene is probably one of the best encapsulations of Olisha's character. Trying to make Joyce acknowledge his country's fascism is the most in-your-face way possible, rolling her eyes at Kenji's attempt at comfort and then reaching out for it later on her own, and gobbling up everything private Kenji is telling her about himself.
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Feb 19, 2019 02:55
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tbh it's hard for me to hate Olisha because I'm basically a cat shaman irl as described
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Feb 19, 2019 03:49
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I very much enjoyed Olisha in these past few updates. The deeper view into her character backstory makes her nature more understood and when you plop Cat Shaman onto that, welp. When Olisha leaves Joyce's cabin I am absolutely anticipating the walls to come crashing down again, whether Kenji remains behind or not. A mutual WTF session as with the contemporary equivalent of a drunken latenite wikipedia crawl would not be out of place.
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Feb 19, 2019 05:28
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Ice Phisherman posted:Olisha is not a good person very often and she can be a bad person. She delights in a sort of playful cruelty. I want to write her as having a normally aloof personality, a dry humor and you can empathize with her in those moments when she's not being a jerk. If she's treated well, she'll treat you...Well...Usually well in return. Mostly okayish. Joyce doesn't deserve this cruelty from Olisha, and Olisha is completely dishonest about her motivations for 'enlightening' Joyce. You can't blame a person who's raised in a vacuum on propaganda and lies for believing that world view. Showing them the 'Truth' and helping to deprogram them is a noble cause; breaking them out of a sense of self-righteousness is not. Would you tear a North Korean highschooler to shreds just because you can, so you can lord over him by showing him the error of 'his ways'? The South Koreans don't, in fact, they spend a fortune on re-education programs. Olisha is justifying her cruelty as 'educating the fascists', which in this case is really just beating up on the 'dumb kid' from out of State. Not saying the Rape of Guess what I'm saying is the way Olisha crusades against the sins of her Grandfather rubs me the wrong way.
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Feb 19, 2019 23:23
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Kenji, Olisha and Joyce - Saturday, August 3rd, 2075 – Late morning – Blake Island An elf dressed in a pastel colored polo shirt and white trousers appeared on the trideo screen in full 3D. In the foreground stood a single golf ball on a tee among perfectly cut grass. In the background, a picture picturesque golf course. The elf teed up, squared his shoulders and feet. His golf swing was perfect and the ball went sailing into the distance with a satisfying thwak. He raised his hand to his brow, still away from the camera as if to watch where the ball went. Then he turned around, and a focus tested, trido star handsome face became ever so slightly surprised and then broke into a smile. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t see you there,” he said in Sperethiel, “Nice day for it, huh?” There were subtitles in English were at the bottom of the screen. Otherwise Kenji wouldn’t have been able to understand. Bland but upbeat music, heavy on the acoustic guitar and drums began to play. “What the hell is this?” he whispered to Olisha, “I thought this was about birth control, not golfing.” “Just a guy, golfing, yeah,” she muttered, quietly, “It’s an infomercial for politicians. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to get a focus group for politicians. Now hush.” “Hi, I’m Emmyth Faerona, but you already know that,” he said, in sibilant foreign tongue, “You might remember me from such trids as Chrome and Honor, Fatal Punishment six and Master of Overkill. Now when I’m not doing my patriotic duty defending my country from the forces of evil, I like to hit the links.” He leaned on his golf club, smiled knowingly and tilted his head over so slightly as he winked. “And I bet most of you do too,” he said with a chuckle. “End me now,” slurred Olisha. It was taking longer than Kenji expected for the subtitles to fade. After a minute of speaking it occurred to him that this wasn’t an error. Sperethiel was a language spoken slowly and so it added a certain deliberateness to his movements and gave him time to think. Olisha splayed over the couch as she cradled an empty bottle of alcohol in her arms. Kenji squinted to read the subtitles as they were in white and the background would sometimes shift to white as he moved. Joyce leaned forward, eyes wide, jaw hanging. “Now when I’m working on my short game with my buddies it’s not all talk about fast cars, loose women and the latest Fatal Punishment release,” he schmoozed, “Sometimes it’s about more serious stuff. Business, politics and the news of the day have been what my friends and I talk about on the green. And lately I heard about the demographic smoothing program or DSP. I have to say that it definitely had me interested.” He handed his golf club to an attractive, redheaded female elf who nodded her head deferentially to him. “Thanks sweetheart,” he said. “Of course Mr. Faerona,” she said, flirtatiously. He smiled knowingly at the camera as it panned away from him and to the right. The language here was in sperethiel, but smaller subtitles appeared underneath them and Kenji had to squint to see. “The demographics smoothing program, or DSP, is how we keep disturbances from racial diversity to a minimum,” he said, “Gone is the violence of yesteryear and now we’re more in the business of management. The current demographics…Well I’ll try and keep the numbers to a minimum. I’m usually not a numbers guy you see, unless it’s about counting the number of bullets left in the chamber.” He chuckled for the camera, showing off far too many of his perfect white teeth in the process. “Joyce, who is this tool?” asked Kenji. “He’s a war hero turned action trideo star,” said Joyce, quietly, without looking away from the trideo tank, “He's been working longer than I've been alive. I don’t watch his work, but my dad has all of his trids. He’s a big name.” “Now the current demographics work out a little something like this,” said Emmyth, “Elves, well we’re on top at eighty-one percent, as it should be. Next up are the dwarves at seven percent, a model minority race used to long hours and zero complaints. Trolls are…Well…You know what they’re good for. Strong bodies but not much between the horns if you know what I mean. They come in at one percent. The orks, our troublesome…Lesser metahuman friends come in at five percent. There’s a miscellaneous two percent of what I’ll just call the special snowflake races: Gnomes. ogres, hobogoblins, etcetera. Basically the races which are so few in number that we basically have to lump them all together to count them. And the humans, ha ha…Well the humans come in at four percent, because we need someone around to do the jobs no one else wants to do while making us look good. I mean am I right or am I right?” Olisha made a drunken growling noise that bubbled up from her throat. “Now in the land of promise we call home we have just over five million people and that sounds like a lot, but it was hard work to get it the way we like it now,” he said, and raised a stern looking finger, “If we’re not careful, we’ll have humans and the less desirable metas growing out of control and stirring up trouble. We can’t have that. So that’s why I’m asking you to renew funding for the DSP for 2075. Every year some of the best scientists in the world think up new and improved ways to control the population and let me tell you, they’re drat good at what they do. All it takes is a little pill once a year at the annual checkup and you can consider those birth rates fully in control.” He held up a tiny white pill in his fingers. The infographic on the right changed to the rotating white pill. “Oh no,” whispered Joyce. “Don’t worry, Joyce, there’sh…There’s more,” said Olisha. “No muss, no fuss, just this little pill. Not that we halt all of the birth rates. Those percentages I mentioned? We keep those smooth as silk, no ups or downs,” he said, with small flourish of his hand, “The total population though? Well we have plenty of living space to stretch out and grow thanks to the hard fought battles of yesterday. Our population though? We can easily hit ten million people before we need to even think about finding more room for ourselves. That’s the thing about demographic smoothing, for every handful of elves born, we allow for a few more metas to be born. When we win, they win." “Hey, where did you get this, Olisha?” whispered Kenji. Olisha flicked her eyes to him and scowled. Then she shrugged and snuggled with her empty bottle of wine. He was almost sure she wasn’t going to respond when she spoke up. “Horizon Group still does some media work for Tir,” she whispered, “Emmyth Faerona is on a long term contract with us. He’s who Horizon whips out when we want to do infomercials for politicians. Most of them grew up watching his movies and trids since the forties. I hear he’s a creep off camera, but that’s not hard to believe.” Kenji realized that she hadn’t actually answered the question and she wasn’t volunteering anything more. So he turned back to the infomercial. Since the language of sperethiel was so slow, this gave Kenji some time to think. It made him wonder what this was all about and why Olisha insisted on watching this after Massacre at Redding. What was she getting out of this? Sure she was exposing Joyce to some hard truths, but she’d promised to stop bullying Krupa for the rest of the schoolyear in a way that sounded serious and binding. It sounded like she was giving up a lot for very little. Emmyth Faerona was continuing to talk in corporate doublespeak about what amounted to population control and Kenji cut through it with what he knew from being around corporate students all year. What he figured out was that this was about who got to breed, who didn’t, about excluding dissidents and looking for worthy genetics for the non-elven population which came later in the infomercial. It made his skin crawl to know that the experiments on people didn’t just happen to those in the ACHE. It was probably a worldwide thing. “Creeping on some girl,” muttered Olisha. Emmyth had his hand circled around the waist of the pretty, young elven woman from before and that’s when it clicked. Olisha's tone was almost the same tone and the same short speech that she’d been using the entire time. She was making short descriptions of whatever was on the screen whenever things changed. Quietly to be sure so Joyce normally wouldn't hear, but Kenji was right next to her so he heard every time. There had been more emotion in her voice during the scenes of death and carnage, but it wasn’t how she was saying it, but that she was talking about the mundane at all when previously she'd been talking about atrocities. So he waited for her to speak again to confirm he wasn't being paranoid. Sure enough, two minutes later, she spoke again. “Sitting at a table with a drink,” she sighed. That was when Kenji flicked his eyes upwards and spied the window she’d opened earlier. A window that someone could listen through by being next to it, but that didn’t make sense. She was often muttering or whispering. Then he remembered that the cabins were proofed against people coming in through astral projection. It kept the students from spying on one another like when they were getting dressed. Many windows could be frosted with a touch so people could get real sunlight but keep their privacy. Someone couldn't just hang outside without getting an alert from island security or the security spirits. Besides, you couldn’t see past a window while in the astral. That’s why he’d gotten the drop on the spirits in Pinchface’s shop. They weren’t able to see through the glass. And then he looked at the glass of the trideo tank. Then it clicked. Someone was here…No, not just someone, Krupa was here. She could astrally project and from what he knew about it, one could basically stay invisible or become visible if they wanted and they were incredibly mobile . It’s how she’d helped those people at that terrorist attack earlier this semester despite miles of the Puget Sound between here and there. Most likely her body was in one of the mana lodges for protection, but her spirit was in the room and Olisha was talking to her. Then he decided no, that didn’t make sense. Why would she do that? Why would she spy on Joyce? And then her words from before came to him. “Have you ever thought about doing something you’d be ashamed of?” came the unbidden memory. She hadn’t been interested in him. He’d probably read her all wrong, far too used to thinking that girls just made passes at him. What if spying on Joyce and working with Olisha was what Krupa was thinking about in that moment? Olisha had already made a bet with Joyce, why not make one with Krupa too? He’d mentioned that she’d run off as soon as they came to the island this morning. There was at least an hour, maybe two where Krupa was unaccounted for as well as much of last night, feeling scared and alone while Joyce ignored her. And then finally, he considered the the movie and the trideo informercial. One was violent and horrifying in the extreme and the other spoke of a horrible peace. It felt like a rhetorical trap, something Joyce could convince himself of supporting because it was better than the violence. However he wouldn't do it in front of Krupa, who believed in justice and hated bullies. What was this if not bullying on a national scale? Kenji felt like he might not know everything or that he’d gotten some pieces wrong, but he would bet anything that right now Krupa was either listening from outside or more likely, astrally projected into the room. He wasn’t sure if Joyce could see Krupa, but even if he was able, the cabins were proofed against most stealthy intrusion. Even Olisha’s drinking might have been there to put Joyce off guard, though knowing her she might have just been drinking just the alcohol was here. She was hard to read. Kenji came back to his senses, his heart hammering in his chest, suddenly alert and trying not to betray to anyone else what he knew. He still didn’t know what to do with it. That’s when the infomercial was almost at its end, now with an attractive woman on each of Emmyth Faerona’s arms. “And like I always say, I’m doing my part, are you?” he asked. Joyce said it along with him, though he seemed horrified, not delighted. “My dad always says that,” whispered Joyce. “Now if you’ll excuse me,” said Emmyth, with a look to each of the giggling girls, “I’m think I'm going to do my part for Tir Tairngire.” “Us too,” said the girls in unison. They walked away from the camera, his hand on the lower backs of each of the women. The screen transitioned to the Horizon Group logo, a stylized sun over a horizon that looked almost like a crown. It flashed golden. “Horizon, we already know what you’re thinking,” said a woman’s voice. The screen faded to black, the credits rolled and Kenji furiously considered what to do. CYOA Time What does Kenji do? -- So Kenji has realized that Olisha has baited Joyce into a sort of rhetorical trap. The killing in Tir is mostly over and now they’re going about the business of suppression and population control via using birth control on the populace. This is not just the human populace, but everyone but the elves in an ongoing program called the “Demographic Smoothing Program” or GSP. Now this isn’t just some sort of ethical exercise. As I’ll mention in the next update, Joyce is going to be given a small fiefdom by his parents to rule over at some point in the future after he graduates (not high school, college most likely) in order to start his own way to living his own life as a duke of Tir with Krupa as his wife. He’ll be governing over about 10,000 people after his education in the county of Ar Eru, which is southeast Oregon. Not to mention he’ll be granted a sizeable windfall from Krupa’s parents due to their political marriage which will help kick start their life together. So state ordered population control when he himself is in charge of that population is a direct ethical concern. This isn’t just over the humans, but every meta group that Tir is supposedly there for. It flies in the face of a “nation for metahumanity” and “A Land of Promise”. However, it’s all so very peaceful. No one dies, there is no more state sponsored genocide and the homogeneous culture makes the minories much easier to tolerate and control. All it takes is that every non-elf is unwillingly and unknowingly having their reproductive rights regulated and even stripped. Their birth rates are only allowed to increase when the birth rates of elves increase. The demographics are as follows: Elf: 81%. Dwarf: 7%. Troll: 1% Ork: 5% Human: 4% Other: 2%. The policy now is not only to hold those numbers as static, but there’s definitely an informal racial caste system designated for those who get to breed and those who don’t get to. The people who get a priority to breed are those who approve of the Tir government and they do this not only by gauging their behavior, but choosing for “desirable genes”. People who go along with the Tir government? They get to breed. Maybe. If they have the right genes. Those who don’t? Well their breeding rights get restricted. So it’s not just about numbers, it’s also about choosing who gets to pass down not only their genes. Not only which genes are being passed down, but also the ideas passed from parent to child from generation to generation. It’s a mixed population control, thought control and eugenics project that is meant to work over many generations which works well with the fascist elf long view. And it’s currently in effect too. It has been ever since the revolution. The bloody business of genocide is over, but the genocide itself is not done. It just moved to a new phase and that phase is a peaceful mixed population control, eugenics program and thought control program at the national level. All told by some action hero trideo star who’s like some ultra-fascist Troy Mcclure (not a stretch). I wanted to go for darkly comedic while dispensing the ultra-fascist horror. Here’s the problem with this system though as it related to Joyce. It’s peaceful. No one dies in this system because the dissidents are largely not allowed to be born in the first place. There is suffering by stripping people of basic rights that we take for granted, but no one dies. This is negative peace writ large. Joyce is probably one of the better people out of Tir. He’s willing to admit fault and blame, but this is a rhetorical trap for him because Olisha wants to talk afterwards. Either he agrees with the program and goes along with the flow or he rejects the program and thereby rejects Tir. Kenji also deduced that Krupa is somewhere nearby because if he just embraces the program she’s going to hear and it’s going wreck their relationship. It’s why Olisha opened the window, has been repeating what’s on the screen and why Krupa asked Kenji about doing something shameful. She’s either outside and listening or astrally projecting inside, because someone astrally projecting wouldn’t be able to see what’s on screen and she’s not only describing what’s on the screen, but no one is disagreeing with her. Krupa is 100% against bullying and injustice and this is bullying and injustice on a national scale. And before you ask, Olisha is not going to allow him to cop out by the “working within the system” excuse that so many collaborators fall for. She’s going to laugh in his face and tell him that he’s full of poo poo. You don’t change the system. The system changes you. Not when you work with it. She’s at the top of the corporate ladder and this that’s just how to convince people to collaborate. So this is me orchestrating the scene very tightly with all of the characters in mind. This scene has a ton of working parts in it and I've been planning it for RL months. I hope you like it. Kenji gets to play the wild card in this situation. However, he's out of edge (I spent it, it'll be in the write-up at this end of this). So while he's good at convincing people, others will get bonus dice for having their biases challenged. And if Kenji tips Joyce off that Krupa is watching, Olisha is going to be furious. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Mar 9, 2019 |
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Feb 20, 2019 06:05
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So while this is darkly comedic, or at least that's the attempt, I've met a number of politicians at the local, state and federal levels. My family is friends with a republican congressman at the federal level (I don't like him on a personal level) and I'd probably know the governor of South Carolina if he hadn't been told to step down for Trump's pick and then gotten screwed over in the republican primary for the aforementioned candidate. So I know my poo poo. This kind of infomercial would appeal to a statistically significant number of country club republicans and a small handful of the shitdems. Please be aware that while this is something of a comedic farce, I'm trying to stay just true enough to life that it's believable. And if you don't believe it, boy oh boy just be a fly on the wall around some of the more horrible politicians. They're not really known for their intelligence, but their ability to raise money, their ruthlessness, their rhetoric and their ability to build consensus. I've done some work in politics and it has brought be into contact with some extremely gross people. Not to say everyone is bad. There are some pretty cool dems out there and I wish I lived in a state where I could vote for them. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 06:27 on Feb 20, 2019 |
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Feb 20, 2019 06:17
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Krupa and Joyce agreed to all this; Kenji's just in the crossfire. They're nice to him, but they're not Pack; he's not jumping in front of a social bullet to stop what's about to happen. Try to keep neutral, try to deflect from taking a side, and be ready to help Saanvi if/when the documentary fallout reaches her. Kenji only stands to get burned by being too involved here; neither Olisha nor Joyce managed to actually snare him into their conflict, though.
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Feb 20, 2019 07:24
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Like Jag says we're really just caught in the crossfire here, let it happen, the little fascist prince either renounces the Tir or he proves his true colors. I'm fine either way. E: Wait poo poo Saanvi will be super pissed if she finds out we knew her sister was about to be hurt and let it happen. Hell, WE might be super pissed at ourselves because of Dog's stupid loving memory transfer. So instead of just sitting back and letting it happen, try and convince Joyce to renounce the Tir. We're not gonna stop Olisha from pulling the trigger so the only hope for keeping Krupa happy is getting Joyce to realize that fascism bad.
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Feb 20, 2019 07:50
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Bit behind, but I'm thinking ten out of ten for ACHE hosed up ness is something we haven't heard yet. Kenji's origin is a good solid eight or so, but there are worse things down there in the basement.
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Feb 20, 2019 07:57
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Kenji does not tip Joyce off. I lean toward Kenji taking the side that is anti-negative peace. Because a) it's pretty hosed up and I want him to acknowledge that on some level, b) this should make Olisha happier, c) Kruppa would also probably appreciate it and d) on the off chance that Kenji can actually convince Joyce to reject the negative peace, it probably does the most overall good. I don't even want to think about what Saavni's parents will try to do once this goes down.
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Feb 20, 2019 08:21
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Kenji tries and convince Joyce not to stan for fascism This is honestly the best option since it makes everyone who is not a fascist happy.
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Feb 20, 2019 08:29
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Stay Neutral This is nothing but a power game that we're better off not being involved in. They're not pack, just contacts and aquantiances. Whether or not Joyce comes to the realization that fascism is bad is something he needs to do on his own.
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Feb 20, 2019 09:03
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Boogle posted:Stay Neutral I think Kenji could play off their conversation earlier, that Joyce is really, really loving Krupa up by keeping things from her and if he loves her he won't do so.
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Feb 20, 2019 12:35
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Crazycryodude posted:
Kenji is an incredible oddity in this situation. He's got a thorough outsiders perspective of politics in general and fascism in particular. I think he should at the very least tell Joyce that Yo man, this is really hosed up. VanSandman posted:I think Kenji could play off their conversation earlier, that Joyce is really, really loving Krupa up by keeping things from her and if he loves her he won't do so.
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Feb 20, 2019 13:06
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Kenji pointing out that he recognized Gebranth in that video and what it says about Tir that he’s still free is probably the most potent line of attack. He can leave the implications with Saavni unsaid. E: Kenji could also frame an argument from Kruppa’s perspective. Trap question variant, especially if he’s already come out for team fascist: “do you think Kruppa would accept this?” Dr Subterfuge fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Feb 20, 2019 |
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Feb 20, 2019 19:36
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Ice Phisherman posted:And if you don't believe it, boy oh boy just be a fly on the wall around some of the more horrible politicians. They're not really known for their intelligence, but their ability to raise money, their ruthlessness, their rhetoric and their ability to build consensus. I've done some work in politics and it has brought be into contact with some extremely gross people. The fact that I know you're right horrifies me and makes me want to secede California from the Union. Vote: Kenji intervenes; he gives Olisha a chance to back down with a “I know what you're doing, you’re about to ruin at least 3 lives in your misguided crusade to reclaim some form of Familial Honor. It’s vie, and it’s meaningless. Stop now. Please.”, and when that doesn’t work, he tells Joyce For those I can appeal to with empathy; put yourself in Joyce’s position. If you were being ambushed in this manner, wouldn’t you want someone to watch out for you? Wouldn’t you want someone to speak up? Joyce doesn’t deserve to be toyed with in this manner; its lose-lose for him, all for some vague sense of self-righteousness from a cruel adolescent. For those looking at the long-game; we help Joyce now and we’ll have an ally for life. Olisha will never be a true friend for us, and, she’ll dangle those art contacts in front of us to get her way every time until we smarten up; she’s not the only way to get into the Art Scene. Even if Joyce and Kruppa renounce Tir, they’ll make potent friends in the future. Olisha is playing 3 card monte with people’s lives, and she’s palmed the ball (because of course she did). Are we really going to get her get away with it?
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Feb 20, 2019 21:55
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On the other hand, if I were Kruppa’s friend, I wouldn’t want her entering into a marriage with Joyce in Tir because I can only see days like this getting more common, with Joyce getting more distant as he sinks further into the system and shoulders it all on himself. And that’s the best case scenario. And I think that kind of perspective makes more sense for Kenji because he knows Kruppa way better due to Dog.
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Feb 20, 2019 23:19
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Dr Subterfuge posted:On the other hand, if I were Kruppa’s friend, I wouldn’t want her entering into a marriage with Joyce in Tir because I can only see days like this getting more common, with Joyce getting more distant as he sinks further into the system and shoulders it all on himself. And that’s the best case scenario. And I think that kind of perspective makes more sense for Kenji because he knows Kruppa way better due to Dog. I agree that Kruppa and Joyce need to have a honest discussion, no question. That discussion won't happen if Olisha gets to force a conclusion to this episode on the current track; either Joyce breaks and finds out that his fiancee was manipulated into betraying him, or, Kruppa breaks and Joyce realizes he was manipulated into gutting their relationship. Everyone loses, no matter the choice, and Olisha slinks away feeling proud of herself while she cleans her claws and savors the meal. Please, don't let Olisha do this to Joyce, Kruppa, Kenji, and Saanvi.
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Feb 20, 2019 23:34
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OTOH making fascists (even little babby proto-fascists) cry is good and making them renounce fascism is even better. On a personal level Joyce's mental wellbeing here is distinctly near the bottom of the priority list and if he just wholeheartedly embraces something which is completely antithetical to Krupa's worldview she's going to be crushed. The veil has been peeled back and both Joyce and Krupa now know that the sanguine homeland that they learned about at school is actually an authoritarian shithole, either they become dead inside and live within the system or they reject it. There is no happy ending. Kenji is still very capable of being a total rear end in a top hat especially if it means prioritising his pack, Joyce is already completely shaken up and if he's ever going to confront the truth then this is the right time for it. Kenji tries to convince Joyce that this is hosed up, particularly leaning on the argument that Krupa would not be OK with it
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Feb 21, 2019 00:08
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I'm changing my vote to trying to maneuver Joyce into an anti-fascist position by framing a 'negative peace' as an imbalanced conflict. The overlap between Dolphin and Dove is 'punching down is still a conflict.' Kenji doesn't owe any of these people anything, but seriously, gently caress fascism.
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Feb 21, 2019 00:29
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jagadaishio posted:I'm changing my vote to trying to maneuver Joyce into an anti-fascist position by framing a 'negative peace' as an imbalanced conflict. The overlap between Dolphin and Dove is 'punching down is still a conflict.' Kenji doesn't owe any of these people anything, but seriously, gently caress fascism.  same
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Feb 21, 2019 00:33
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Speaking personally, I'm the sort of person who believes that, at some point during your formative years (for example, I was 15 when our history teacher had us watch the Auschwitz film, and I feel like that was perhaps not soon enough for some people) you need to be sat down made to see the awful, awful things we have done to each other. With appropriate after-care and reminders of all of the ways we have also been awesome to each other. Joyce is due for this. He doesn't need us to swoop in and rescue him from the mean old cat shaman that's forcing him to confront all of his assumptions about what his world is actually like. In order for something like this to work, it has to hit you like a punch in the face, so that you don't have a chance to rationalize your way through it, to do the mental gymnastics that allow you to pretend that you and the people you care about have done nothing wrong. Like I said, Joyce needs this. Kenny described getting in his face earlier as a tough-love situation; so is this. He gets the chance to recognize and admit that the Tir are a bunch of shitbags and thus make himself not be a shitbag by association. I hate that Krupa is hiding in the shadows here (if only because I'm not sure if she's getting to see what Joyce is seeing, or if she's already seen it), but it does mean that Joyce's reaction will not be tempered by know that she is present; he can't manipulate her. So yeah, I'm on Team gently caress Fascism. Sorry Cour, I know you're on Team Fairplay and Love, but this poo poo is capital I Important and we can't afford to pull punches.
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Feb 21, 2019 01:34
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Dr Subterfuge posted:Kenji pointing out that he recognized Gebranth in that video and what it says about Tir that he’s still free is probably the most potent line of attack. He can leave the implications with Saavni unsaid. This - note that Krupa didn't see the vid, and knowing that such a man was still around, prospered, and was her sister's abusive CO will get Krupa to change opinions - possible including "we gotta get my sister outta there". Now, thing is - this is a delicate situation - need a scalpel and a fine hand (not soft, though). And I ain't sure Olishia is up for this, as opposed to brute force. Could play this as good cop/bad cop - or, let Olisha say a few things, "okay, I think that enough for today - he gotta sleep on it first", and then have a go at him. Also - unless Joyce and Krupa decide to spend the rest of the together, go and talk with Krupa 42 seconds after we done with him. Not to try and be sweet, but to help swallow the bitter. After that, Kenji's going to, in no particular order: Write a letter to Pink, ask Julian how did his date go, and join the scoobies in order to say "What a weekend!" (Planning a raid on a gang is normally the highlight of your week ; not a almost-forgotten side note) As for arguments: First, I'm reminded of a pair of quotes; a bibical one - "Haven't you committed murder and taken possession of the property of the deceased?" ; and the second from rome - "To plunder, butcher, steal, these things they misname empire: they make a desolation and they call it peace" Except, the victim's only mostly dead, and plants try to regrow at the wastle land - but Tir ain't letting 'em. They like the desert more. Ask if it's a real peace or a false one, if the seething hatred still exist, but one side will by annihilated if they try to act - and the order oppress them to keep it that way. That if they suffer under the peace - what kind of peace it is? Losing side I don't think it's called peace.To use a historical analogy (despite having no right to, not being either educated nor local) - 1861 America; Even if it ain't enough to convince that some peaces are a sham - you are not asking the slaves, are you? As for - “working within the system” - well, look at Gilbrand. He got far. He's the sort of man who get to work within the system - radical reformers? Don't got to be there. You fooling yourself if you think you can. However... Does rejecting the system mean war? Not neccesary. Not even breaking it, or rebeling against it. Gandhi's a famous example; the abolitionists another (even if not all the way).
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Feb 21, 2019 02:28
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Gun Jam posted:(Planning a raid on a gang is normally the highlight of your week ; not a almost-forgotten side note) Wait that was this weekend? Feels like a month ago.
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Feb 21, 2019 02:54
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So it looks like Kenji is going to try and convince Joyce to abandon fascism. This is a hard sell and even if Kenji succeeds, this is going to take a long time for Joyce to process and comprehend. This isn't the dam bursting. What's more believable is the dam cracking and Joyce tentatively allowing himself to be deprogrammed. It's going to take months or possibly even years, and he may stop at some point. He's not going to suddenly start an anarchist commune. If Kenji crits then the process is accelerated. Also if Joyce begins to abandon fascism, this is going to cause problems for himself, Krupa and Saanvi, because Joyce and Krupa's explicit purpose is to push the propagandized Tir to the elves. So even if he succeeds, their problems aren't over. This is the problem with being raised on propaganda or the mythology of some organization that you belong to. If you depict said organization as good, eventually people who are raised without a counter-narrative will begin to believe it. And they'll be better than the people who created that propaganda for the sole purpose of white-washing their history. However, the thread seems to be about rejecting fascism instead of staying silent. Kenji is going to meddle despite it perhaps not being the best move for him. He's done very well so far, but it's going to come down to a single roll. I'll start writing immediately. Crazycryodude posted:Wait that was this weekend? Feels like a month ago. It was last week. We're currently in week two. And yes, this is the longest book that spans only two weeks and change. Kenji has been a busy boy. Thank you for this. Not a lot to say though. -- So I've been asked about the rolls and so I'm going to post them. Kenji critted nearly every single roll, but did have to spend his last point of edge. It's going to come down to a roll between Kenji and Joyce. Kenji has more dice, but Joyce has a point of edge. That edge might be exhausted in the conversation though if he doesn't get his point across to Olisha when she speaks. We'll see. It's not as long as the 8k post because I had a mix of story in here and that got stripped out and put into the updates themselves. So here it is. -- Kenji refreshes 1 edge from getting sleep. He’ll need it as that’s his only one. Krupa approaches Kenji. They have a conversation. She is thoroughly demoralized having cried all of last night because Joyce didn't talk to her save to tell her that he was going to fix their problems, not really saying what their problems were. He failed to actually talk to her and reassure her, thinking that he knows best despite Kenji explicitly telling him just to talk to her. So she opens up to him. Why is Joyce talking to him instead of her? Did she do something wrong? Is something wrong? And this presents a dilemma for Kenji. He knows what’s wrong, but Krupa has zero idea what’s happening, only that she feels like something is wrong and no one is telling her. I roll Kenji’s composure of charisma 8 + willpower 3 – Those darn Patels 3. He gets 5 hits, pretty good for 8 dice, so I give him a +1 to reassure Krupa. I roll their etiquette. Kenji rolls charisma 8 + etiquette 4 + street cred 5 – notoriety 1 – Those darn Patels 3 + his bonus from the good roll 1. Krupa has 6 dice. Kenji gets 3 hits and Krupa gets 0. He decides to reassure her. He’ll talk to Joyce again and try his best to make sure he talks to her this time instead of fixing some problem and she’s thankful for it. Due to his success, she opens up to him, but it’s in a way that doesn’t automatically make sense. Kenji rolls 5 intuition + 2 logic and doesn’t use his kinesics power since it’s still obvious. He fails with 2 hits when he needed 3. He thinks that she’s confessing to him. Kenji is invited into Joyce’s house, but Krupa doesn’t go in, saying that she’s going on a walk. This leaves Kenji with Joyce. His cabin is tastefully decorated like a sixteen year old doesn’t actually live here. Everything has a flowing style to it, his furniture primarily made from some sort of reddish brown wood with intricate carvings. Upon them are plush, comfy seats. And there is a low coffee table that sits balanced precariously on curved wooden legs. Even his trideo is housed in a fine cabinet, currently hidden. Besides a single picture of himself and Saanvi on a nearby desk, currently shifting between pictures of him and her in different locales, there are no personal effects. I roll composure for Kenji after Joyce acts like an idiot. Charisma 8 + willpower 3 – those darn patels 3 – 2 for Joyce acting like an idiot. He gets 2 hits which is a failure. Kenji rolls intimidation as he momentarily loses control. Charisma 8 + intimidation 6 + notoriety 1 vs Joyce’s charisma 5 – defaulting 1 because he’s not used to physical intimidation. He’s used to being surrounded by bodyguards and even if not, people just not threatening him because he’s wealthy and connected. 5 v 0 is a crit. Joyce is really scared and I give Kenji a +2 to his next roll. I roll etiquette for the two of them. Joyce has 10 dice and Kenji has 18 (no Patels debuff here as it’s just about Kenji and Joyce now). Kenj wins 7 to 3. Another crit and so Kenji is able to convince Joyce not to take out his anger on Kenji at all. Joyce is a pacifist, but he can make life suck in all sorts of ways for Kenji without resorting to violence. However the crit also gives Kenji some time alone with Olisha. This is an encounter worth 2 karma if Kenji succeeds. Everyone in this scene has 1 edge to spend. Olisha spent it earlier! While Krupa was wandering around feeling depressed and sorry for herself, Olisha approached her on her own as guided by Cat. Olisha rolls 8 dice for etiquette + 2 for the wager and Krupa rolls 6 + her loyalty to Joyce of 6 to resist. I reroll failures for Olisha and she gets 6 hits. Krupa rolls a 3. Last night, Olisha asked Cat what to do. Cat said (“said, Cat doesn’t talk and is prelingual) that Joyce wishes to learn the truth that has been kept from him about his nation, but still wishes to keep secret from his love. So after asking her entourage for something particularly awful about Tir, Olisha is going to play a documentary called “Massacre at Redding” which is fairly famous, if a little old. It’s made up primarily of found footage and has some of the survivors talking about their experiences. So Olisha makes a wager with Krupa. They’re going to watch this documentary and another documentary that she brought. Since Krupa can’t actually see the movie in the astral (people in astral space can’t see electronic displays, Sasha has to wear her glasses or go full sim when using the matrix), she’ll only hear it. So Olisha will casually talk about what’s going on from time to time. And between that and the context and the lack of correction, Krupa can piece together what’s going on while observing. Olisha will go into the bathroom and open the window so she can astrally project in and listen at the bathroom door, since hearing much from outside of the cabin would be extremely difficult. If Krupa listens to the entire documentary, the presentation and conversation afterward, Olisha will stop saying mean things to Joyce for the rest of the year, swearing on her relationship with Cat. So in fact, Olisha has made much the same deal with both Joyce and Krupa and is getting a pretty great deal by exploiting their temporary division and Joyce’s unwillingness to talk to her. Krupa, being extremely naïve but also curious about what’s being said behind closed doors, asks Olisha if she’ll promise and of course Olisha does. I roll negotiation for Olisha and Joyce for what Joyce gets in the negotiation. Olisha glitches with 4 hits and Joyce gets 6 hits. So Joyce gets Kenji off the hook too. She’s not going to take her anger out on him. You know, for lying to her, or going behind her back, or making her look foolish. She goes on for a while when Kenji arrives and is seriously angry, but she allows Joyce to get the better of her because this isn’t about Kenji. He’s a sideshow. This is about Joyce and Krupa. So Kenji is mostly out of danger at this point, but if Kenji offends her further she’ll pretty much take any excuse to mess with him. He still made her look bad after all and there needs to be an answer or she’ll lose face. I roll composure for Kenji and he makes it with 3. Okay, things are bad. If he walks away, he risks offending Joyce and further offending Olisha. But he keeps cool. I roll etiquette for everyone here. Olisha gets 3, Joyce gets 3 and Kenji gets 7. So he crits and remains fairly unflappable. This is bad, but not the worst position he’s ever been in. He plans to stick it out, watch the documentary, keep his mouth shut and see what’s salvageable later. The best thing to do is remain quiet and allow Joyce and Olisha to have their argument. Then he’ll leave. This isn’t about him and if he interferes too much, he may provoke a response from Olisha and Joyce. So he wins primarily by not talking. Olisha rolls con of 10 + 4 for being as subtle as she is as she’s just offering commentary on the movie. Joyce rolls 10 on perception – 2 for the distraction (the documentary) and I roll Kenji’s composure, succeed, and so he rolls 9 for perception. Olisha gets 3 hits, Joyce gets 1 hit and Kenji gets 3 hits so he wins which will allow him to get a bonus to a logic + intuition roll later. So while the documentary is going, she has a sort of rolling description about what is going on. Whatever is on the screen she describes. I give Joyce a perception test to spot something while in there -2 because he’s distracted and he fails. He does not notice the open window which allowed Krupa a way in while astrally projecting. Joyce critically glitches a composure after seeing Gilbrand and realizing who he is with no hits. It’s the worst possible roll and he just throws up in the bathroom and cries for a while. He’ll be at a -2 for the scene. However, this reinforces Krupa’s view of him as a kind and sweet person, making him more sympathetic to her. He has a heart. Krupa rolls composure and gets 4 hits. She does not come running or reveal herself to comfort Joyce. Otherwise she’d break the bet. Kenji and Olisha start drinking, as any self-respecting malcontent with access to alcohol should do. The moscato really didn’t hold that much alcohol, but the super dry wine is 15% and they both drink half even though she’s an average teenage girl and Kenji is a practiced drinker. I roll body x2 for both of them and they need 4 hits keep from getting drunk, each hit reducing the negatives to all rolls by 1. Olisha has a body of 2 and rolls 1 hit on 4 dice, so she’s at a -3 to everything. Kenji has a body of 4 and rolls 4 hits on 8 dice. Kenji of the iron liver. Now I roll composure tests for Olisha and Kenji. Olisha needs a 3 on composure and Kenji only needs a 2 as he’s used to horrible places. Olisha fails with a 0 and Kenji fails with a 1. This effects Olisha now, but it’ll effect Kenji later. I roll etiquette between the two and even with a malus of her being angry at him (it’d be way more without the previous etiquette crit) he gets 5 hits on 13 dice and she gets 1 hits on 5 which is a crit. Reluctantly, she accepts comfort from him during the movie in the form of a held hand, but only when she wants it. So Kenji will be allowed to keep her as a contact if he makes some sort of peace offering to her later. I roll assensing for Krupa, because she’s watching and might not understand their touching. She just needs a single hit. She gets 2 and that’s enough. The hand holding is about comfort and so it doesn’t come up later to Saanvi. I roll etiquette for the two of them. On 16 dice, Kenji gets 1 hit while Olisha gets 2. I decide to use edge to reroll failures as that’s pitiful and get 7 more hits to crit which eats his single point of edge. And so Kenji tells his story with a crit which will give him a +2 at some point in the conversation or prevent Olisha from interfering. However, Olisha is curious about the real horrors of his life, so he rolls intimidation. Kenji gets 11 hits on 15 dice and Olisha gets 0 on 5 dice. Kenji can’t get 11 hits as his limit is 9, but he just crushes Olisha. That’s that. No more questions about Kenji’s past. Olisha shares her story, which morphs into her dad’s story. She’s drunk and petulant, but it affirms her hatred for fascism, her identity and why she bullies Joyce and Krupa. They spread fascism, Olisha hates fascism because her dad hates fascism, but for her the root of her hatred is the result of her “noble” Tir extended family. Joyce emerges from the bathroom with a -2 modifier from low morale from the crit glitch. Olisha is drunk and has a -3 penalty. She finishes up the story because she gets to dunk all over Tir. I roll composure for Kenji, Olisha and Joyce for the “DSP” or demographic smoothing program which is a fancy way of saying that Tir has stopped killing people and is now controlling the population through birth control. Not just humans, but everyone who isn’t an elf. Joyce fails with 0 hits and so this really strikes at the core of his identity and what he believes about his nation. It will give Kenji another +2 for his roll. Olisha fails with 1 hit, but she’s expecting it. She’s disgusted with everything and wants this to be over. Kenji succeeds with 4 hits, so it doesn’t distract him. This allows him to put the pieces together. I roll intuition 5 + logic 2 + bonus dice of 2 for realizing that Olisha repeating what’s on the screen was weird. He gets 6 hits on 9 dice, but his mental limit is 5. Still enough though. He puts it all together. Krupa is here, this is a rhetorical trap, she’s trying to split Joyce and Krupa up. Kenji gets a +2 on his roll to convince Joyce and either another +2 or negate Olisha’s roll to gently caress things up because she’s going to roll intimidation later to try and goad Joyce into screwing up. Joyce has 1 edge and no one else has any. It’ll be a straight etiquette roll of 10 along with Joyce’s patriotism of 5 but -2 from low morale. Kenji is going to get his etiquette + charisma + Joyce’s loyalty of 2 + his street cred 5 + Krupa’s loyalty (to Joyce) of 6 + his either +2 or +4 bonus. So Kenji is going to have a ton of dice, but Joyce will be able to reroll. Kenji's 23 (or 25 dice) vs Joyce's 13 dice and 1 edge. Those are the stakes. Kenji is slightly favored to win unless that edge is drained in the upcoming conversation. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 03:20 on Feb 21, 2019 |
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Feb 21, 2019 03:06
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Somehow even the rolls are engaging to read and I'm all tense anticipating to see how this resolves. No edge but boy did most of those rolls line up well for Kenji.
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Feb 21, 2019 03:34
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jagadaishio posted:I'm changing my vote to trying to maneuver Joyce into an anti-fascist position by framing a 'negative peace' as an imbalanced conflict. The overlap between Dolphin and Dove is 'punching down is still a conflict.' Kenji doesn't owe any of these people anything, but seriously, gently caress fascism. Good idea! gently caress Fascism.
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Feb 21, 2019 03:50
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Remind me about Joyce’s hunger strike when his parents tried to separate the “betrothal” to Krupa?
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Feb 21, 2019 03:59
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JUST MAKING CHILI posted:Remind me about Joyce’s hunger strike when his parents tried to separate the “betrothal” to Krupa? So Joyce Sartel and Krupa Patel's bethrothal is meant to be a political marriage in the old style. It's for wealth and power. The fact that Joyce and Krupa love each other isn't very consequential. What is of consequence is bringing together two families who can help one another achieve their goals. The Sartel family has land and excellent titles, but the land isn't great (it's only good for grazing and some power) and the rents from their land aren't that great either. Their titles as a duke is one step shy of being prince which means it's one step away from greatly reduced taxes and greater influence on the government as the ranks for nobles can go up or down. The Patel family have no nobles titles save for Saanvi, whose title exists primarily to keep her from applying for political asylum which would cause an international incident. Their lack of titles means lack of access to traditional centers of power (think good old boy's club) and their taxes are higher. However, they're absolutely loaded with money and one of their daughters (Krupa) has magical talent which is highly prized in Tir. So she's on the path to nobility. So it's a pretty good political match. At this point, Krupa has magic and Joyce doesn't. However, Joyce develops magical talent. Suddenly the Patel family is not the optimal political and economic marriage alliance. The Sartels can do better for Joyce. At this point, Joyce is absolutely in love with Krupa and doesn't want that. They're young, maybe thirteen or fourteen, so Joyce's parents just break off the betrothal because this is about wealth and power, teenage love be damned. Joyce goes on a hunger strike not just once, but repeatedly for love. He wastes away and he's the Sartel family's only child. It gives him leverage and also seeing your only boy starve himself will break the will of a parent who cares about their child given enough time. Eventually Joyce wins as his parents cave. The betrothal is renewed. His conviction and peaceful method of resistance has attracted a spirit mentor and renews the betrothal with Krupa. The Patel family, seeing that they're getting more than they bargained for, are eager to renew the betrothal despite it being broken off. Joyce, by being born with a high rank, is currently being groomed for a position in government (as he liaises with the local embassy) and if he's successful at Blake Island by creating his own power base of well connected corporate contacts, he could ascend to the status of prince which would give him real political power. If he plays his cards right, you could see him in the Star Chamber in ten to twenty years after some political seasoning, which you could imagine as him becoming the equivalent of a US senator. You know, if he buys whole hog into the fash. To turn him away from fascism and thus against Tir is to deny Tir the corporate power base (that he'd be the gateway drug for fascism to) that he's forging at Blake Island and strategically deny someone replacing him so the future leaders of the corporate world are denied to Tir for four years. It will be a nasty blow to Tir in the short, medium and long term. Edit: Trimmed this down because I think I sound silly. Good roll means no fash. Bad roll means fash. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 07:34 on Feb 21, 2019 |
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Feb 21, 2019 05:39
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Not an update, but some ideas for Kenji's progression. Kenji has a ton of unspent karma. We're looking at 25-35 or more unspent karma at least and probably more, especially if he gets 10 karma from donating 15k nuyen. I'd need to comb through everything to get a proper tally. 8 of this will be going towards initiating to hide his messed up aura, 5 towards learning the ritual spell to make his magic friends thing and another 5 for joining, but after that he actually has quite a lot of karma to spend. His character sheets hasn't changed a ton. At the moment he's a hybrid face, infiltrator and ranged fighter, though he's not fast enough to be a dedicated fighter like Fuzzy is. His adept magic is woefully undeveloped though and unless he starts spending nuyen and time outside of school developing those skills, that isn't changing anytime soon as he's not taking adept classes this semester. So I wanted to pitch the idea of Kenji continuing down this line, but including some melee skills. During the fight with Pinchface, he brought everyone together, but actually didn't contribute that much during the fight in terms of raw damage. Spirits can eat a ton of bullets and will probably be standing by the end of it and most of them aren't going to stand still during a fight to get shot in the first place. They only reason that they did was because they were protecting Pinchface. Otherwise they would have waded into melee or flanked and caused problems. However, if you have a weapon focus you can dispatch them in one to two hits like Fuzzy did rather than hosing them down in bullets and praying like Kenji and Saanvi did. So I thought for a long time about what Kenji might learn for a melee skill if he did learn melee. And I wanted to choose a weapon which isn't instantly lethal, but he can choose if he wants to do stun damage or lethal damage. Killing is taken very seriously in this story. I thought about the Chinese jian, which is a straightsword used primarily by nobles. If you've seen a sword in a Kung Fu movie, that's probably a Jian. However that's lethal and probably too high brow for Kenji. And then again the Chinese Dhao, which is a larger, single edged saber. Again, it's super lethal. And I thought about blunt weapons, but Fuzzy already has her spearknife, which she mostly uses as a staff and Sasha is picking up a shock baton pretty soon. I don't want everyone using blunt weapons because it would feel redundant. And so I came to the idea of unarmed combat. Seriously, he sucks at pretty much everything close combat with a 1 in unarmed and edged weapons and this makes sense because if he's in melee, things were bad because he was the guide in the Delve. Now though, Kenji is getting soft at Blake Island because he used to be a Delver and shadowrunner, but now he's a student and sometimes fixer. However with that soft life comes softening of what made him fierce. He's afraid of losing his martial edge. On paper, no, his stats are static, but in a narrative sense I can see him wanting to keep his edge and martial arts would help him do that. The thing about unarmed martial arts is that they can definitely be non-lethal or lethal, you can't be disarmed (outside of literally having your arms and legs broken or removed) and you're dangerous wherever you go. Plus it would help him rediscover his toughness. So I thought about which kind of martial arts he'd be interested in. I personally know Kyokushin, which is Okinawan karate, which would allow him to explore his Japanese racial identity as he has almost zero connection to it. With his new connections to Touristville's east end, he could learn Kung Fu/Wushu. However, again, he doesn't have much cultural connection to this. The people he was raised around were primarily Southeast Asian. A mishmash of Hmong and Cantonese gangsters. So he does have a cultural connection to a specific martial art. I've mentioned this a couple of times in passing, though briefly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGUlbKjlMBk Kenji has a connection to Muay Thai boxing. Specifically he'd sometimes go with Clever to go see the fights in the ACHE. Shadowrun loves its bloodsports. American style boxing is dead as a spectator sport and MMA is still around, but it's constantly evolving so it wouldn't look like it does today. As for the cyberpunk dystopia part, there's combat biking where people who are firing shotguns on motorcycles while trying to score goals like...Sort of hockey, Urban Brawl which is a capture the flag game with live ammo and the new martial arts in which people are cybered out to the gills martial arts fights is on either the trideo or the matrix. However, a lot of martial arts are still around and traditional martial arts are morphing back into combat martial arts from their formal, ritualized places. But what I see as resistant to change would be Muay Thai due to its brutality as a combat martial art, its cultural significance with the Thai people, its religious significance again with the Thai people, the culture of gambling surrounding it (so much gambling) and like martial arts such as boxing and MMA, someone who is desperately poor can make a living with their violence. Muay Thai is how a lot of young men in southeast Asia make their living and unlike boxing or MMA, a lot of Muay Thai boxers can have several hundred fights before they burn out. Having 300 fights under your belt and still going so long as you're winning more than you lose is just part of the culture. You don't have fights every few months like boxing, you have them every few weeks and fight whether you're injured or not. You fight to feed yourself and your family, and I can see combat martial arts as a way that a lot of fighters in the ACHE feed themselves and perhaps even see it as a way out. And I can see combat and religion being pretty popular among people in the ACHE as their violent lifestyle is a gateway to religion. Religions of peace would be almost completely alien to the people of the ACHE. I'm imagining a super old school style of Muay Thai training, which would be walking drills (punch and move, punch and move) through rice paddies. In the ACHE you say? Well, space for offices and cubicles and break rooms all got knocked out and on the very first level of the ACHE there's now a rice farm there. Students practice their kicks and punches while slogging through ankle deep water in a slum hive. And in a small corner of that rice farm would be a Muay Thai gym, just like in Thailand's Isan province. Just like the ACHE and Isan, they are desperately poor, and the desperately poor learn to sell their fierceness. And when you bleed. Because that's when, not if, well your Muay Thai master, the ajarn, says that blood and sweat and tears makes his rice taste better. So you go ahead and bleed all you want. So that's the pitch. It'll be what Kenji has going on sometimes until his next book. Maybe he invites Saanvi too or maybe she just invites herself. Let me know what you think. Kenji learns unarmed combat, creates and bonds a weapon focus for unarmed combat to deal with spirits and picks up some Muay Thai skills. And when he's not having tea with Auntie Liu, spending time with friends, going on dates with Saanvi or fixing, he's doing walking drills through a first level cubicle farm turned rice paddy in the ACHE in order to rediscover his fierceness after a year of soft living. Plus I could eventually see Muay Thai boxers coming to him for tattoos and possibly recruiting shadowrunning talent from the boxers. It all strikes me as cyberpunk as gently caress and I'm eager to see what the thread thinks. Remember that the ACHE and Touristville are not very far away from one another.  Give me a yea or nay. Also let me know if you want Kenji to have a magic tattoo or if it should be a physical item as his weapon focus if you say yes. The tattoo could be just be the color of his skin pigment, so he could hide it if he chose to do so. His weapon focus on the other hand would be a physical item of some sort. If he spent enough money to buy extra dice he could make a metamaterial weapon focus like Fuzzy's spearknife which would be a bitch to make (see below if you're a masochist), but it would possible. Or he could just go for a normal weapon to enchant. -- For the super grognards, I've also been thinking about the crafting system since Kenji can soon start making magic focuses. I want to repair the focus crafting system and making it actually interesting and worthwhile taking as a skill. As they exist in the core book right now they're either nearly useless or worse than useless because they eat up karma that could go towards worthwhile skills. So I have examples. So let's say that Kenji wants to make an enchanting focus so he can make better gear. This would be his toolkit for making mundane and magical items and tattoos, so imagine something pretty bulky. It's the one he got from Julian and it's nice and maybe he likes Julian just a little so he decides to use it. Since he only wants to do this once and not mess up, he'd want to enchant a rating four enchanting focus which would cost him 5000 nuyen per rating level, so 20,000 nuyen and it would cost 3 karma per level to bond it to himself. So it'd be a very significant investment for him in terms of time and material. So Kenji at the moment has magic 4 + enchanting 2 + his artisan bonus of 4 + his nimble fingers power 1 + facility 2 since Blake Island has a great place for crafting for 13 dice. He really wants to make sure he doesn't screw up though. I institute the house rule of 1 die per 5% up or down in terms of cost. If he spends 5% more, he gets 1 extra die. If he spends 1 die less, he gets a 5% discount and he can pocket the savings. He wants to make sure he doesn't screw this up, so he spends 10% more to get 2 extra dice. He adds 2000 nuyen more to the total price, because if he does screw up, bye bye money. So now he has 15 dice. None of it can be recouped. He needs a total of 16 hits (force x force and this is force 4) with one roll per day and edge can't be spent. I roll and he gets 4, 6 and 7 hits, so he finishes on the third day which is pretty good. He spends 12 karma and bonds it to him, and now he has 4 extra dice when making magical focuses. Fuzzy wants a magical tattoo that allows her to see into the astral like Sasha does because mystic adepts (someone who has adept powers, can fling spells and summon) can't see into the astral naturally. This would be a ki focus and they're way cheaper than his magic focus at 3000 nuyen per level. Her ki focus would cost a total of 12,000 nuyen as it needs to be force 4 for it to work. Better still, she wants it to be a tattoo so he gets his bonus dice. Now he wants to charge her nothing, but Fuzzy and Sasha have been talking and Kenji needs to actually start taking money for his services. So after some talking they decide to go 50/50 on the savings and so he sheepishly agrees because she won't do it otherwise. With his handy dandy new enchanting focus, he has 4 extra dice and an extra 2 dice from his skill for crafting ki focus tattoos. So instead of the 13 dice from before, he has magic 4 + enchanting 2 + artisan 6 (since he has a specialty) + nimble fingers 1 + facility 2 + enchanting focus 4 for 19 dice. Now Fuzzy isn't really in a rush to get the tattoo done early and she's more than willing to spend some quality time with Kenji while getting stuck with a needle. So they take 6 dice away for a 30% discount on the total price which lowers the cost to 9000 nuyen. Kenji takes 1500 and Fuzzy saves 1500, which is a bargain, and she pays him 10,500 nuyen. Oli even helps design the concept for the tattoo (her pressed flowers) so it looks super neat, but Kenji makes sure that it conforms to actually being viable as a magic tattoo so he actually makes it. So with 13 dice he takes his time poking her with a needle for a number of days and filling in the magic between pokes. Kenji needs 16 hits. With 5, 6, 3 and 6 hits, he spends four days of quality time with Fuzzy and she comes away with a flower tattoo on her shoulder. She needs to spend 8 karma to bond it, but when she's done she can see into the astral though she'll need to spend karma on her assensing skill too. Kenji is 1500 nuyen richer and Fuzzy saves 1500 nuyen too. Not bad. Julie wants something super big, a power focus. This would give her bonuses to all spellcasting and summoning skills. It's a crazy big buy at 18,000 nuyen and 6 karma per level, but she has plenty of nuyen after defeating that toxic shaman. Now as a Christian she's not interested in tattoos because she knows her Leviticus and it talks about not putting tattoo marks on her skin or cutting herself for the dead. The debate is murky on tattoos for Christians, but she wants to err on the side of caution. So she's interested in something like a necklace or a bracer. Kenji prefers a bracer because it's easier to conceal and it'd be less fragile. Fuzzy donates the leather from one of her kills and Julie donates interesting magic stones that she found on Blake Island beaches to imbed into the bracer. When it's done, Kenji will apply a lacquer to help preserve it. She wants a level 2 power focus and it would normally cost 36,000 nuyen, which is a ton. So Kenji decides to try and get that down as much as possible in order to save her some money and take half for himself. So he rolls magic 4 + enchanting 2 + artisan 4 + nimble fingers 1 + facility 2 + enchanting focus 4. Now he only needs 4 hits on this (rating of 2 x 2) and so he figures it'll only take a day, maybe two, and so he can shave off a lot of dice and cross his fingers. He has 17 dice and he decides to take 8 dice away for a 40% discount, leaving him with 9 dice which should be safe. With 2 hits on the first day and 4 hits on the second, he finishes in two days and it's not only serviceable and comfortable, but the leather work is lovely because Kenji definitely has artistic talent. Julie spends 12 karma bonding the thing, which sounds like a lot, but getting a +2 to all of her skills normally would cost something like 35 for the summoning skill group from 2 to 4 and 55 for the spellcasting skill group from 3 to 5, so it's a serious bargain because skills are drat expensive to develop with karma. She's getting her hands on 90 karma like never. Instead of costing 36,000 it costs 21,600. The 14,400 is split into 7200 savings for Julie and Kenji pockets 7200 nuyen for himself. All in all excellent for the work of two days. Not all focuses cost the same. Now she can cast spells, ritual spells, counterspell, summon spirits, bind them and dispell them all at a +2 bonus. And if she wants to upgrade it someday, she just needs to take it back to Kenji, pay the 18,000 nuyen fee per level and the 6 karma per level. Julie is happy, because this will make her a better spellcaster and summoner, and even help her heal people at her doctor's office! Finally, let's say that Kenji wants a transforming weapon like Fuzzy's, but instead of a staff they'd be a muay thai gloves that extend to the elbows and leg guards that extend from the top of the foot to the knee. They are just way too bulky to carry around, but if he has the metamaterial he can just keep them on him. Now this is a problem because everything before was made of natural materials so they don't really have much of an object resistance, which eats dice. Refined objects have high object resistance. Steel would have around 8 to 10 dice to resist for instance. A metamaterial has a object resistance of 21 because it's crazy futuristic and he'll need to beat the hits on 21 dice (!) to make progress. Even in Kenji's wildest dreams he couldn't reliably make it with just his skills as he can get maybe 17 dice total for a weapon focus like that. Each time the object bonus beats him, he makes no progress and he wants to get this done. He just wants a rating two transforming weapon like Fuzzy has. So he buys 4 extra dice for a 20% increase in price and the weapon focus which costs 7000 nuyen per level and 3 karma per level now costs 8400 nuyen per level. So he's rolling 21 dice v 21 dice and he just needs 4 hits. He gets 3 hits on the first day, but fails on the second, third and fourth day before getting 1 last hit on the last day, making the level. He's frustrated and exhausted, but now he has his weapon. He's spent 16,800 nuyen on his weapon focus on 6 karma, but now he can take down spirits. You know, when he learns the unarmed skill or manages to land a lucky hit, maybe he should get on that. He also gets a +2 to his unarmed skill while they're active and because they're a custom item, a +1 to his damage value from having it and +2 to his armor while they're active, but a -2 to his social limit while active as well. It looks cool though and he can take his gauntlets and shin guards with him, dispatching both spirits and people alike with his fists, forearms, elbows, knees, shins and feet. Four limbs of fury, baby. So the short of it is that for every 5% up or down that Kenji wants to adjust the cost of focuses, the more or less dice he gets. The fewer dice he uses, the higher his pay as he gets more efficient. The more dice he uses, the more it costs but the more likely a thing is to be created. If he glitches, he loses all of the money too. So there's definitely some risk, but the reward is greater. And this rewards him boosting his dice pool higher because he can either get the work done faster or pocket the money from being efficient. I'd probably cap this at 50% cost or 150% cost so people aren't minmaxing and churning it out. I think this would actually make the enchanting skill worthwhile instead of the joke that it is now in the Shadowrun sourcebook. Disenchanting though? idk, it sucks and I don't know what to do with it.
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Feb 22, 2019 03:00
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Absolutely give him a tattoo focus, why are you even asking.
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Feb 22, 2019 03:24
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Definite gently caress yes on Muay Thai, and definite tattoo focus.
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Feb 22, 2019 03:27
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Yeah 100% learn to hit good and also get a tattoo focus, that's a no brainer why would anyone ever use an item that can be taken away or lost or you get caught without it while a tattoo is always at hand and can't be taken away (or at least is a lot harder and more involved to take away than a trinket)? E: Well ok no offense to Julie, but why would someone without moral/cultural reservations against tats not use them?
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Feb 22, 2019 03:33
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Absolutely Muay Thai Also I liked the shoutout to the Isan province. Lao people consider that chunk of land to be Lao despite being under Siamese/Thai control for several centuries so Thai Lao/Isan Lao living there are in a weird place, culturally, especially since the 20th-century Thaification campaign to stamp out the Lao ethnic identity there.
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Feb 22, 2019 03:33
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That all sounds good to me. I get connecting it to his Asian heritage but then youre making the only Asian main character into a martial artist which could come across as gimmicky. I'd be down with him starting to train with Fuzzy and Javons boxing and maybe progressing towards using legs. Also does Min have any martial arts? The ideas for the tattoos/foci are great. You're giving this a ridiculous amount if forethought but then again you're a writer. I have no objections just that one concern. Do elves have a martial art of their own?
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Feb 22, 2019 03:43
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Xarbala posted:Absolutely Muay Thai I'm glad that you liked it. This is just me doing my research again for the 1% of people who notice this stuff. I know that Hexenritter is a big Muay Thai fan for example. If I'm going to put Kenji into a Muay Thai school I'm going to make sure I get a grip on the culture before I talk about it. Only then will I really feel comfortable in changing it to fit Shadowrun and the ACHE. I like the idea of blending new and old, because combat martial arts, sports and anything that sells someone's toughness and fierceness is how they either support themselves in the ghetto or make it out. And I don't see that changing so long as there are people who are poor. Toughy posted:That all sounds good to me. So this is a point well taken and I'd like to explain my reasoning. Please don't take this as a criticism of you as I appreciate the point. To begin, Min Yun doesn't practice martial arts beyond her pistol skills. Personally, I regard any use of armed or unarmed combat that takes training as a martial art, so technically I guess Min Yun does practice martial arts though most people wouldn't make the connection of gun training equals martial arts training (spoiler alert, I'm a martial arts nerd). But no, she has no unarmed skills and just a little bit of blades skill. Clever probably has a decent amount of unarmed skills, but probably doesn't practice martial arts. He's a gang leader and street tough, or corridor tough I guess. If he needs to hit someone his style is whatever he developed on his own along with whatever is most effective. But mostly he just those "clever hands" of his which are submachine gun hands and if seriously threatened he'll shoot the poo poo out of people rather than take a stance and punch them. Gun-fu. I think that part of the problem of "I am Asian and therefore I must know martial arts" could be solved fairly easily because Kenji is not the token Asian person in this story. Min Yun, Clever, Mrs. Liu and Pinchface are all racially east or southeast Asian and they have demonstrated no martial arts (beyond pistol skills for Min Yun and Clever's gun hands), and of them only Clever would really be the one to use his fists. Min Yun is just too small to be effective as a martial artist as she's something like 5'2, Mrs. Liu is a middle aged restaurant owner (technically ex-shadowrunner, but I may or may not elaborate on her past) and Pinchface ran an electronics store before he died. If you include our Indian cast as Asian (and I do), Krupa definitely doesn't know any martial arts and Saanvi knows some military martial arts from basic training. So out of the seven people who could be considered racially Asian in the book, only two of them know any unarmed combat and none of them would have any unarmed martial arts background save for Saanvi, whose was very basic. If you include gunplay as martial arts, Kenji, Min Yun, Clever and Saanvi all have those skills. There's also the martial art itself. The Karate kid is just that, based on karate. The Chinese films that people are familiar with are primarily Kung-Fu films. If pressed I'm pretty sure that if you asked someone to name a martial arts movie you'd end up with The Karate Kid, Kung-Fu Panda or maybe some piece of Chinese cinema that actually breaks through to mainstream audiences every ten years or so. These are not Muay Thai films. Someone might have watched Ong-Bak or The Kickboxer, but Muay Thai films are not part of what English speaking audiences expect of the martial arts genre. Seeing the traditional dance before a fight, the wai kru ram muay or just wai kru would be strange to someone who doesn't know martial arts intimately. People generally tend to associate Kung Fu and Karate as portrayed in movies with grace or straightforwardness or skill or power, and always history, but history as mythology as if mystical, not really respecting the actual history. And if there's a white person in the film it's really about passing down something hidden to someone young or if they're older, invading this space and being the only white guy in the vaguely Asian underground death match circuit or whatever. It's all very 80's. And then you get Muay Thai and it's definitely not karate and it's definitely not kung-fu, it's brutal and the other dude is spitting up blood and unconscious because he ate a spinning elbow to the face and suddenly the fight is over. But it's also wrapped up in the cultural history and even religion of the Thai people and it's taken seriously. It's its own animal is what I'm saying and by not treating it generically but treating it respectfully without the fake mysticism it becomes new. Kenji is not some wide eyed white protagonist who is getting bullied and some old Asian guy is here to train him in painfully stupid and awful ways which somehow work out in the end. He's not some white dude who is dominating in this vaguely Asian death match circuit. He's not going to learn martial arts because he's Asian or be good at it because of that fact. And his interaction with it would probably be through watching dudes beat the poo poo out of one another and gambling with Clever (as is tradition), but when he gets into the space where they train and live, it's not going to bend to him. He will bend to it. It's part of the history of a people and is a profession, not an after school program, though they will take your money if you don't waste their time. Money always spends. So beyond that I don't think that Kenji learning martial arts would be a problem as there's enough representation and characterization to keep him from a token Asian character. Him learning martial arts wouldn't define his character as he's heavily fleshed out. He's not learning it because of his race, but his upbringing and personal needs. Fuzzy herself learned what we'd call martial arts (Spear and bow martial arts) first and this doesn't define her character either. Kenji doesn't want to learn martial arts because he is Asian and because he gets some sort of D&D style racial bonus, but because he wants to ward off the effects of soft living and be prepared in case another spirit comes by. It's practical and slots into what he needs. Also it might be handy to have a martial skill which doesn't come with dubiously legal fully automatic weapons. Sometimes you need to fight, but not kill someone. He's got a pretty big hole in his skillset for dealing with spirits and not murdering people. In this story he doesn't start out knowing martial arts at all and his reasoning for learning it would be to keep his martial edge. He'd also have an existing cultural connection to it through watching fights and gambling. So I understand your worries about tokenism, but out of the seven Asian characters in the text, only Clever is good with his fists, Saanvi is basically trained and Kenji doesn't know anything. And I'd do my best to treat the culture with respect and show development over time rather than him suddenly being good at Muay Thai because he has epicanthal folds. In fact he's going to be way behind because he's starting to learn at age sixteen instead of age eight and learning Muay Thai at a young age is part of the culture which would slot into ACHE culture as well. So Kenji would be getting in late and be at a disadvantage. The difference between a Western style Muay Thai school and a traditional Eastern style Muay Thai school would be that in a Western school, Muay Thai is a hobby. Even if you go to shows and have bouts against people from other schools it's not what puts food on the table unless you're integrating it into your MMA style. For a traditional Eastern style school, Muay Thai is what puts food on the table and feeds your family. If you win you and your family get to eat better, or at all. If you lose then you're shunned and the school may drop you. You're probably starting Muay Thai in your preteens in this scenario. I'm actually imagining the book "The Wise Man's Fear" where the main character, Kvothe, learns martial arts but he's so far behind for his age in comparison to others that the sparring partner that is selected for him is a preteen girl. Spoiler alert she just thrashes him mercilessly for the majority of that section of the story and at the very start, repeatedly hits him in the balls until he learns to block that during sparring practice. Kenji is probably going to spar against some twelve year olds for a while and they're probably going to beat his rear end until he gets better because they've training for four to five years and living in the ACHE as well which is no picnic. Their dice pool for unarmed combat is probably going to be about 8 to 10 and Kenji's starting out will be 7, not to mention they'll have martial arts powers (mechanically, not throwing around thunderbolts) which give bonuses and Kenji won't have any of those. He's not going to look very cool while losing sparring bouts to preteens because all of the people his age will have dice pools from 12 to 14 because they've got six to eight years under their belt as well as the full compliment or close of martial arts powers from the book. The adults would just mop the floor with him due to the lack of experience, no contest. He just wouldn't learn anything from fighting the older students because they'd be far beyond his skill. Anyway, sorry about the ramble. This is behind the curtain stuff. I condense this down to a few sentences or perhaps paragraphs in the story. Just enough to give the illusion of feeling real because the behind the scenes explanation is nothing but a burden to the story. When I talk about culture or history or really any topic that is complicated, my priority is to keep from breaking the illusion of the story being real. When I show what I'm talking about when it comes to complex subjects that maybe 1% of the population understands I get to reinforce the illusion, but with a different 1% each time. And when I do that enough times, the fact that elves and humans and other fantasy races are around and doesn't seem as strange. The fact that they're learning magic at a magic school seems more plausible. And that's what I'm aiming for. Verisimilitude, the seeming of being real. And one of the ways that I do this by slowly generating momentum by knowing what I'm talking about when it comes to complex subjects, but simultaneously doing my best not to bore you with them. Short, sweet and a wink to people in the know, but people who don't know don't come off shorted for not noticing the wink. Plus at some point in a totally crass way someone might smugly say to Kenji, "Oh, you're Asian, so do you know karate?" And he'll say no, the guy will fight him because he falsely senses weakness, Kenji beats his rear end and says, "I don't know karate, but I do know Muay Thai". The deal with it shades descend from the heavens to shield the eyes of the smugdog shaman from what bitches might look upon his eyes, lest they be incinerated by the radiance of his smugness. quote:The ideas for the tattoos/foci are great. You're giving this a ridiculous amount if forethought but then again you're a writer. I have no objections just that one concern. Do elves have a martial art of their own? They actually do have a martial art of their own. It's called carromaleg and it's focused on a lack of a stance, explosive power and counterstriking. From the book. quote:Some believe that this martial art dates back further than any other—as far back as what is theorized to be the Fourth World, when elves previously lived among humans. This art is a concentration of will and energy. There is no outward stance of someone ready to employ Carromeleg. It is the silence before the explosion as the practitioner of Carromeleg waits till the last moment before striking or counterstriking the opponent. When two masters meet, it is sometime anticlimactic as they size up their outward stance; what follows is a silent battle of will, which ends when one bows, ending the contest. It is only taught to elves and it is fiercely guarded by masters who want to keep it as an elven tradition. Bounties have been placed on those who attempt to teach this martial art to outsiders. It's an elf only martial art and the masters have sort of mind duels where nothing happens which is like someone watched too much anime. I do like lack of a stance or casualness followed by explosive power when striking though. I wouldn't have to do research like I would with Muay Thai, but I like the research. Carramoleg doesn't have the history, but I'm pretty sure that as an "elf only martial art" that sneering at non-elves might be part of the warm-up drills. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Feb 22, 2019 |
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Feb 22, 2019 05:07
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Crazycryodude posted:E: Well ok no offense to Julie, but why would someone without moral/cultural reservations against tats not use them? Julie's tradition is shamanism, but she's culturally a Christian too. The shamanism I have in mind if fairly non-ideological. Respect nature, respect spirits, but it makes no theological claims. Julie is a Christian too, but this doesn't effect her mechanically, only narratively. While I'm sure that her Christianity might somehow try to override even these basic tenets somewhere, especially about spirits, she'll just ignore that part or interpret it differently or super narrowly to fit her needs. If pastor Devin tries to tell her that spirits are evil for example, Julie will just flat out reject that because Chip is a part of her and she's not abandoning Chip no matter what the bible says. But if the bible says no tattoos, she'll respect that, especially since she probably doesn't want any because getting jabbed with a needle won't be much fun. It's pretty easy to follow the rules if they don't effect her much. If she really wanted tattoos, she'd probably just get them anyway and either ignore the passage or misinterpret it on purpose or just find a theological argument that supported her claim no matter how vague or bad faith it is. Then she gets inked. People are weird like that. But she doesn't want the ink so she doesn't look for theological loopholes. Very few people are fundemantalists who try their best to literally do and believe everything that their religion says they should. Most people tailor religion to their circumstances and personal desires. If you dig into the history far enough, you'll find that religion tailors itself to people too in order to grab more followers. Both people and religion can be flexible or inflexible according to their needs and desires. Also if Fuzzy and Kenji are getting tats, it stands to reason that at least one of the main characters would have a different opinion.
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Feb 22, 2019 05:41
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