Hmm.

What even are our objective here?

We want information on Einstein, with a side helping of wtf is up with that radio tower.

I would certainly like to help the small children.

...It would be tremendously convenient if these two priorities happened to align.

I know write-ins can directly manipulate the world-state somewhat, we've done that before, so

The boy wants to go get help. Presumably, that means there's some expectation, whether reasonable or not, that there is help to be had somewhere outside the village. The girl doesn't want him to go - because it's dangerous? Because she'd rather they both stay with their ill mother? Hard to say.

We want to find Einstein. Process of elimination suggests she's in this bubble somewhere.

So, all we need to do is contort reality such that the solutions to both problems are in the same place; such as, for instance, arranging the world such that the help the boy wants to go get is a certain blue-haired mophead of an eccentric sage. Then, Seele and Vel just need to offer protection on the way there and back.
 
Hmm.

What even are our objective here?

We want information on Einstein, with a side helping of wtf is up with that radio tower.

I would certainly like to help the small children.

...It would be tremendously convenient if these two priorities happened to align.

I know write-ins can directly manipulate the world-state somewhat, we've done that before, so

The boy wants to go get help. Presumably, that means there's some expectation, whether reasonable or not, that there is help to be had somewhere outside the village. The girl doesn't want him to go - because it's dangerous? Because she'd rather they both stay with their ill mother? Hard to say.

We want to find Einstein. Process of elimination suggests she's in this bubble somewhere.

So, all we need to do is contort reality such that the solutions to both problems are in the same place; such as, for instance, arranging the world such that the help the boy wants to go get is a certain blue-haired mophead of an eccentric sage. Then, Seele and Vel just need to offer protection on the way there and back.
Finally having caught up with the story, and at the risk of shadowrunning a bit - but I can't help but notice that the moment the story started becoming coherent (because Baughn took explicit control of it) happens to match the moment that Seele put herself back together, and that the way GPT-3 tends to forget things and change state around, and the way that Baughn is stabilizing the setting, is unpleasantly similar to the way that Honkai erodes things and Seele stabilizes herself - and if this is anywhere close to accurate, then overriding Baughn may not be good for Seele.

That or there's nothing to worry about and we should charge ahead with gleeful abandon. :)
 
Last edited:
It's a work in progress, but I'm writing some character sheets for the characters, here; they should be done by Sunday. For now, we've Seele and her family.

Might be worth a look. It'll tell you how Seele sees them, if nothing else.
 
That or there's nothing to worry about and we should charge ahead with gleeful abandon.
Probably a coincidence. :whistle:
I'm sure it's fine.

After all, our QM is famously trustworthy and 100% absolutely never lies; and any tags that claim otherwise are vicious, vicious falsehoods.

That said -

Outright attempting to edit established reality out from under the narration via writein strikes me as ... possibly not the greatest plan imaginable. Sure. I can agree with that.

But that's not ... really what I'm suggesting?

...I don't particularly feel like, when presented with a canon flexpoint and explicitly asked "hey, how do you want the story to go from here?" that suggesting "I would like the story to proceed in this fashion" is a dangerous, hubristic, taboo-violating contravention of @Baughn's authority which will call down the wrath of the heavens upon us?

Like, maybe I phrased it poorly, in which case I apologize. Literally all I'm suggesting is, in response to being asked to provide a direction, replying "I would like to move the story in a direction where finding Einstein and helping these children are goals which align in a convenient fashion."
 
...I don't particularly feel like, when presented with a canon flexpoint and explicitly asked "hey, how do you want the story to go from here?" that suggesting "I would like the story to proceed in this fashion" is a dangerous, hubristic, taboo-violating contravention of @Baughn's authority which will call down the wrath of the heavens upon us?

I mean, I was mostly being silly to begin with. That said, it's more a matter of...

Like, Baughn is, relatively speaking, by his own claim at least, trying to be nice to the characters. There's a plan, and if we don't mess up, everyone should get at least some flavor of happy end.

I'm not convinced that GPT-3 even knows what being nice is. Even if it does, it is certainly not bound to such behavior.

There are aspects, dimensions of the configuration space of the story, that are in Baughn's control, keeping them from going in incoherent directions. A plan that messes with the narrative directly risks "jumping tracks" in ways that Baughn's control normally prevents.

So I'm just suspicious of any plan that overrides Baughn's narrative power on the basis that we know that the "other player" is, if we can call it by human terms, an amoral psychopath.

That said, it's probably fine in this case. And, you know, maybe learning to do this explicitly is part of Seele's endgame too.
 
Last edited:
I mean, I was mostly being silly to begin with. That said, it's more a matter of...

Like, Baughn is, relatively speaking, by his own claim at least, trying to be nice to the characters. There's a plan, and if we don't mess up, everyone should get at least some flavor of happy end.

I'm not convinced that GPT-3 even knows what being nice is. Even if it does, it is certainly not bound to such behavior.

There are aspects, dimensions of the configuration space of the story, that are in Baughn's control, keeping them from going in incoherent directions. A plan that messes with the narrative directly risks "jumping tracks" in ways that Baughn's control normally prevents.

So I'm just suspicious of any plan that overrides Baughn's narrative power on the basis that we know that the "other player" is, if we can call it by human terms, an amoral psychopath.

That said, it's probably fine in this case. And, you know, maybe learning to do this explicitly is part of Seele's endgame too.

There's also the fact that one of his betas will beat him over the head with a side of salmon if he Baughns cruelty at the cast :V

After all, our QM is famously trustworthy and 100% absolutely never lies; and any tags that claim otherwise are vicious, vicious falsehoods.
:Citation Needed:
 
Last edited:
I think that we should check the radio tree, and then visit the village after that. As sad as a sick mom is, we don't have any medical personnel. The radio tower may be our best lead on einstein's location.
 
I think that we should check the radio tree, and then visit the village after that. As sad as a sick mom is, we don't have any medical personnel. The radio tower may be our best lead on einstein's location.
As @Thelxiope got into, that's not really what I'm asking.

I've written quests where the reality of the story is decided ahead of time. Where, regardless of what you choose, Einstein would have a fixed location that you need to find in order to find her. In a story like that, bypassing the village would be... perhaps an arguable choice, but a reasonable one. Of course, you might then feel silly if it turns out she's the mother they're talking about.

This isn't that sort of story. You should think in terms of collaborative writing, not... role-playing games.

What sort of story do you want to see?

"Seele needs to ignore the children's plight in order to save more people" is certainly a possible story, but I'm not sure you realize that's what you'd be voting for.
 
This probably isn't the best vote, I certainly don't want to try my hand at any conscious molding of the narrative to get all our goals to align - knowing me, actually trying for that would lead to the opposite result somehow - but for the sake of maybe getting some ideas brainstormed on how to best approach this, I'll try to turn my previous musing into vote form.

[] Approach the children and ask if they need help, you can't make promises but you'll try
-[] Try to make revealing yourself to them as non-threatening as you can
--[] If they agree to let you help, ask if they can get you into the village without it being a problem
---[] While in the village, if possible, ask the children or anyone else willing to talk if they know anything about the tree

I... really am not too fond of that vote just... structurally. Too many subvotes? Should some of them not even be subvotes? No real built-in contingencies if things go off-script (to some extent this would probably be best handled by breaking to let us re-evaluate regardless, but, for instance if the children decide they'd rather not work with the mysterious strangers who emerged out of the darkness that could happen very quickly and lead to a very short update LOL)

I think my general intent comes across in the vote, it's just there has to be a better way to write it up.

I do, however, believe it's worth the time to get in the whole "non-threatening" part though. From their perspective we really would be emerging from the pitch black of night and we've seen first hand that outside the village limits is not always safe... well, unless they're us. I'm worried we'll frighten them and they may just run off (which could be very much not good depending on which way they run) instead of talk if we treat this too casually. Similarly I have Seele ask them if they need help despite us hearing the general problem just out of politeness and not alerting them to the fact they were being unintentionally eavesdropped on - though this part is less important probably.
 
I do, however, believe it's worth the time to get in the whole "non-threatening" part though.
It is a concern.

It's been mentioned in update, it's been mentioned in thread, and I'm going to mention it here: The twins have horns, tails, and their eyes glow. It's the middle of the night.

Liliya feels much, much better these days—seriously, I need to get you a scene from her perspective just so you realize how serious Roza was about her "But Lili feels better now..." line; she'd happily die for her, let alone merely risk some body horror—and so she's more energetic, carries her sword instead of dragging it, and generally doesn't look like she has one foot in the grave.

...but when it comes to the "Do these girls look scary?" question, I'm not sure if that helps or not.

No matter what the vote is for, I refuse to have anyone break character. Which means, you need to be very specific if you ever want Seele to do something that'd scare a pair of children for no good reason. Otherwise she'll try very hard indeed to avoid that.

And that's probably for the better. It just means the second line of your vote is redundant. She'd do that anyway. If you want an equivalent, useful line, you should give her some hints as to how.

In this particular case, as it stands, it means Seele will go in alone.

= = =

Here is Seele's current outfit and appearance. It's a comfortable, mostly practical hiking outfit that Rozaliya bought for her; she likes it a lot.

1608431004578.png
(Yes, Delta still exists. I know precisely what I'm doing.)
 
Last edited:
Right. I've been revising some stuff, which can eat up arbitrary amounts of time, but I guess I'll just be giving you nice folks a deadline again.
 
Which means, you need to be very specific if you ever want Seele to do something that'd scare a pair of children for no good reason. Otherwise she'll try very hard indeed to avoid that.
Well, I wasn't concerned that Seele would intentionally try to scare them, just that this could be a delicate situation where they'd be easily spooked if not careful, but that's good to know!

Also since we have a time limit I guess I'll actually vote for my plan so we have actual votes but I will hop ship to practically anything else because I know this could be better.

[X] Approach the children and ask if they need help, you can't make promises but you'll try
-[X] If they agree to let you help, ask if they can get you into the village without it being a problem
--[X] While in the village, if possible, ask the children or anyone else willing to talk if they know anything about the tree
 
[X] Approach the children and ask if they need help, you can't make promises but you'll try
-[X] If they agree to let you help, ask if they can get you into the village without it being a problem
--[X] While in the village, if possible, ask the children or anyone else willing to talk if they know anything about the tree
 
I'm happy to give you as long as necessary for votes... so long as there is active discussion.

Historically, taking too long between updates is the main way I end up stalling, so I want to avoid that possibility. I'm sure you understand.
 
[X] Approach the children and ask if they need help, you can't make promises but you'll try
-[X] If they agree to let you help, ask if they can get you into the village without it being a problem
--[X] While in the village, if possible, ask the children or anyone else willing to talk if they know anything about the tree
 
Vote closed
Scheduled vote count started by Baughn on Dec 21, 2020 at 5:25 AM, finished with 5 posts and 3 votes.

  • [X] Approach the children and ask if they need help, you can't make promises but you'll try
    -[X] If they agree to let you help, ask if they can get you into the village without it being a problem
    --[X] While in the village, if possible, ask the children or anyone else willing to talk if they know anything about the tree
 
...
that's actually kind of hilarious?

Because I'm fairly certain those two words have no particular relation, but

...

it's not like she's wrong, exactly?

sidebar why is Seele named that anyway? That's German. And not really a name? Like I don't know anything about Estonian naming practices and for all I know she's actually Estonian-German or something but still.
 
Last edited:
What sort of parents decide to name their baby girl "Soul Gluttony" though?!?

...admittedly, given that at least one of her parents was presumably a Gluttony, from a long, storied family of Gluttonies, I guess that does... sort of answer my own question.
 
Last edited:
What sort of parents decide to name their baby girl "Soul Gluttony" though?!?

...admittedly, given that at least one of her parents was presumably a Gluttony, from a long, storied family of Gluttonies, I guess that does... sort of answer my own question.
Parents that know how to have fun. And they used a foreign language on purpose, I suspect.

Although mind you,
Seele said:
You can hardly find anything to fight, and you think Undine's Tale is hungry for souls—no, bad Seele, don't start repeating Veliona's absurdities, even if you're starting to see why she enjoys it.
...the skill descriptions for Swallowtail Phantasm suggest strongly that she has an appetite for souls, and I won't even get started on Stygian Nymph.
 
Back
Top