Usagi Quest (CK3/Princess Maker) (Sailor Moon)

Out of curiosity, @Lunaryon, how did you come to the number of points we have to spend? Was it a d10 roll?

[X] Plan Foundations without a House With Add-ons
-[X][Loot] Wand of Washing
-[X][Loot] Shattered Stone Shishi Statue
-[X][Loot] A few random magical books
-[X][Loot] Faust's Reagents
-[X][Loot] A favor

Timaeus said:

We have good reason to believe he is likely not a Pandora created Genius Loci. He might be but with our current understanding of the Silver Millenium timeline it would be very odd for a child of the person who acted as Serenity's Tour Guide and part of the reason Serenity wasn't supposed to go to Earth would also have Child who is an advisor to Selene and who regularly regaled Serenity with stories of what he has seen.

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Like you said, that just depends on the timelines. Pandora could have created Bacchus a thousand years before she met Serenity. And, sure, he might be different than all of the other gods we've met. Your quote is good evidence that he might be different. He could also be a Genus Loci child of the All-Father instead. It is very hard to know for certain without getting a lot more information on him. So, using him as an example of a someone who is clearly not a Genus Loci when we don't know that is... bizarre?

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Simon_Jester said:

Well for starters- and this may be another one of those "size of Phobos" things you didn't know- even within Greco-Roman mythology, the figure of Dionysus is mythologized as a 'newcomer' to the pantheon, one who isn't quite the same as the others and doesn't quite fit with them. Bacchus being a different category of being than the other Roman gods would actually not surprise me very much.

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And I acknowledge that is possible. He could also be the Son of Zeus as some myths say. But you wished to use him as a clear example of a "God" who is not a Genus Loci... when we don't know that. We just know he was old and Advised Selene. Do we know that Selene would never have had a Genus Loci advisor? I certainly don't know that.

But this is a tangent. And we have bad habits of going down tangents.

Simon_Jester said:

...You know what?

Lately you've been prepared to write at considerable length and with (by all signs) great passion about how much you want there to be struggle in this game, how you want the characters to sometimes have to fight hard, be in danger, rise above challenging circumstances.

This isn't me knocking that, by the way. I'm with you there, that's not the point.

...

But you know what I want to see, too?

Poetry.

Fantasy, perhaps above all other genres of fiction, lends itself to bringing us in touch with the poetic, the symbolic, the mythic. It is a genre where the metaphorical becomes literal. It is a genre where imagination and reality blur together. It is a genre where the act of keeping a promise can be as profoundly significant as the act of setting off an incendiary charge in the enemy's main ammunition stockpile.

A big fantasy crossover like this, especially one that touches on the heights of high fantasy with extraordinary magic powers and world-altering stakes, but also on much of what we now call "urban fantasy," about the intersection of magic with a recognizable reality that is akin to our own... A big fantasy crossover like this is a wonderful place to cultivate our often-stunted sense of the poetic. To encourage each other to speak imaginatively, to use tools of rhetoric and metaphor and emotion.

But as implied above, for us to have poetry, we have to have a certain respect for each other's ability to make use of metaphor. We have to be comfortable with it when another person says "let us make swords into plowshares," instead of pointing out that swords haven't been a relevant military weapon in hundreds of years, and for that matter plowshares are obsolete too. We have to be prepared to accept that someone talks about "the forces of darkness" even though the bad guys don't seem to be any more literally interested in night operations than we are, and are not working for a literal absence of light.

...

And so...

When someone jumps in to squash something that is literally incorrect but, and this is important, true in a poetic sense?

Sometimes, it strikes me as distasteful.

This is one of those times.

This is an Internet forum full of nerds. Most of us, in our secret hearts, cherish the distinction of "lorekeeper of the facts." Most of us like to be the one who remembers all the trivia and sets people straight when they mischaracterize some real or physical thing.

But sometimes that goes too far, and sometimes we hurt each other, or the quality of discourse among ourselves, in our desire to ensure that everyone around ourselves is factually correct.

I think you are pushing against that line.

Not out of malice. But perhaps out of an exaggerated sense of the importance of correcting everyone until they stop being wrong. Or perhaps out of something else. In any case, I do genuinely think it would be a good idea- not to ask you to apologize, but just to bear this in mind going forward, that not everything needs to be first nitpicked to death, then further bludgeoned by having the nitpicks themselves defended just in case someone says "well, this could be metaphorically true or things could be more complicated."

It's okay to let people be wrong or 'wrong' on the Internet; you are under no contractual obligation to police our word usage.

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As someone who has admitted they were wrong multiple times in the last week, do you somehow think I have a driving desire to be the person who corrects everyone until no one is wrong? That I see myself as some sort of final arbiter?

I wasn't saying no to poetry and that everything must be concrete and factual. But the post I responded to wasn't trying to be poetic. Or if it was, I certainly didn't get any sense of poetry from it. It sounded like they were asking a factual question. And I wanted to point out that, as a factual question, it was conflating two things that I want to make sure we don't accidentally conflate. Not to kill poetry, but to make sure people aren't operating under the wrong information.

But you know what is really raising my hackles? You of all people stepping in to tell me that I'm under no obligation to police word usage. How many times have you stepped in to clarify something for someone? How many times have you stepped in when someone has stated something that you don't think is completely correct, to try and guide them? Somehow it is perfectly fine for you to police everyone's words, but when I do it I'm trying to kill the poetry of fantasy? I was doing nothing more than what you have done dozens of times in this thread, multiple times this past week, yet somehow when I do it, it is a problem. I'm killing poetry by reminding someone that Naru is the fount of all life that is not of the den of beasts or the tribes of men, not a mere genus loci.

Simon_Jester said:

Because I'm getting tired of people playing conversation police and justifying themselves with righteous concern that this time they had to step in, because "someone might misunderstand and get confused and make a mistake!" It's one thing when someone makes an objectively counterfactual statement ("night is black, white is day, Sailors Uranus and Neptune are just really close friends.") It's another matter when it's something that has a certain level of metaphorical validity to it and can be a useful tool for understanding reality, just not in the exact tone and choice of technical vocabulary favored by the quest's OCs.

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Yeah, I'm done with this conversation. Doctor heal thyself before lecturing me that I don't need to step in and clarify something I saw as being mistaken information.

This could have been a simple "yeah, we know she isn't literally a Goddess, but the words are vague and this was more poetic" which, you know, I've literally stated that I understand that the terms are vague and that I wasn't blaming anyone or calling anyone out, but that I just wanted to remind people that despite the terms being vague, they don't actually fit well. But no, it is now that I should never try and clarify unless someone is stating a concrete counter-factual lie. That vaunted position is yours alone.

And I know I'm being searingly sarcastic and angry right now. But this sort of thing just smashes every button I have. You know you have done exactly this same thing. You just feel that I shouldn't have done it. Why? Any guess I make right now would be spiteful. Because the reason you've given? I find it laughably off-base.

[X] Plan Drive me closer, I want to hit them with my kanebo!

memoryofglory said:

@Lunaryon, is there any chance we could ask MCAT for access to the house on the condition that we share whatever we learn about it with MCAT?

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Yes, if MCAT keeps the store, you will have the ability to access the house. Further, they don't have anywhere to put the store, so if they keep the store, then it is going to be sitting in the exact same place.

Chaosmancer said:

Now do it without the lights. Which was my entire point. The Magellan castle likely wasn't lit up considering it had been turned off until the past year.

However, since I now know it is similar enough in size to Phobos, I can agree that it might have been spotted earlier if it was merely orbiting the planet without any sort of cloaking

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Amusingly, that is part of what Simon has been trying to argue separately from all of this, that the light scattering and reflecting off of Venus's Castle would be enough to find it using even simpler telescopes.

Ternasta said:

Out of curiosity, @Lunaryon, how did you come to the number of points we have to spend? Was it a d10 roll?

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So I originally came up with the costs of the different items, and then worked back to figure out a good cost.

[X] Plan Drive me closer, I want to hit them with my kanebo!

Lunaryon said:

if MCAT keeps the store, you will have the ability to access the house.

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Don't mind us, we're just taking our house out on a walk.

[X] Plan Foundations without a House
-[X][Loot] A few random magical books
-[X][Loot] Faust's Reagents
-[X][Loot] A favor
-[X][Loot] Shattered Stone Shishi Statue
-[X][Loot] Wand of Washing

Chaosmancer said:

Like you said, that just depends on the timelines. Pandora could have created Bacchus a thousand years before she met Serenity. And, sure, he might be different than all of the other gods we've met. Your quote is good evidence that he might be different. He could also be a Genus Loci child of the All-Father instead. It is very hard to know for certain without getting a lot more information on him. So, using him as an example of a someone who is clearly not a Genus Loci when we don't know that is... bizarre?

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For Pandora to have created beings that Selene would trust and respect around the court, and who would have close proximity to Serenity to be able to tell her stories growing up, Pandora would need to be quite old and well established on Earth, and her children would need fairly easy access to the Moon Kingdom.

By contrast, Pandora's own story, as she herself told it, suggests that she was relatively ignorant of affairs on the Moon, and that she had to make exceptional efforts to create a yokai who would be trusted and able to gain Serenity's confidence.

It would be hard to reconcile the story Pandora told, of Cloch Ghlas embittering her against Serenity, of her going to considerable lengths to infiltrate the Moon Palace with a single servant, and of her trying to lure Serenity into a trap, with the idea of Bacchus having been created by Pandora and having had Queen Selene's trust around the lunar court for so long that he told Serenity stories when she was a little girl.

As someone who has admitted they were wrong multiple times in the last week, do you somehow think I have a driving desire to be the person who corrects everyone until no one is wrong? That I see myself as some sort of final arbiter?

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No, but I think we all do it now and then. We get overzealous about correcting specific perceived factual errors; it's the cumulative effect of a lot of us doing it all the time that's problematic, not some kind of unique thing that only you ever do.

I've done it too, yes. I invite you to call me on it when you actually do it, because I'm increasingly realizing that it's a bad thing.

If we want a good thread culture, I think we need to start being more collectively aware about these sorts of things. Even if that means imperfect people informing other imperfect people that they think they're making a mistake.

I wasn't saying no to poetry and that everything must be concrete and factual. But the post I responded to wasn't trying to be poetic. Or if it was, I certainly didn't get any sense of poetry from it. It sounded like they were asking a factual question. And I wanted to point out that, as a factual question, it was conflating two things that I want to make sure we don't accidentally conflate. Not to kill poetry, but to make sure people aren't operating under the wrong information.

But you know what is really raising my hackles? You of all people stepping in to tell me that I'm under no obligation to police word usage. How many times have you stepped in to clarify something for someone? How many times have you stepped in when someone has stated something that you don't think is completely correct, to try and guide them? Somehow it is perfectly fine for you to police everyone's words, but when I do it I'm trying to kill the poetry of fantasy? I was doing nothing more than what you have done dozens of times in this thread, multiple times this past week, yet somehow when I do it, it is a problem. I'm killing poetry by reminding someone that Naru is the fount of all life that is not of the den of beasts or the tribes of men, not a mere genus loci.

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The original statement was:

Naru just had a big thing happen because she kept a promise. What kind of effects might that have on her deific maturation process?

I look at that and I definitely don't see that and think "this person is asking a factual question based on a false premise."

I see that and think "Naru is developing into something transcendentally more than human, something that we have a shortage of nice, simple, compact words for, because the entire concept is one made up for this homebrew setting. This person is using the word 'deific' to describe what Naru is changing into, simply because it is the kind of word that conveys how... exceptional... a being Naru is developing into."

...

I'm not telling you you never should correct people about matters of fact. But in this case, you zoomed in on something that I don't think was a problem. And when I said "eh, I don't think it's a problem" in a relatively short, concise statement, you responded with "I don't want to have "closest template" leaving us blindsided by unexpected developments."

Which, in this case, I don't think is a realistic concern.

So yes, I think that in this specific instance, without prejudice to anything you may or may not do at some other future time... I think you are being overzealous about 'correcting' a perceived 'factual error.' An error committed by someone who was, as far as I can tell, just trying to use appropriate figurative language to describe something English isn't exactly overburdened with normal words for.

The next time you see me being similarly overzealous in a similar way, I encourage you to say so!

...

But... Well, quite frankly, if you wanted "a simple "yeah, we know she isn't literally a Goddess, but the words are vague and this was more poetic..." " You had that hours ago.

I feel that here, now, in this instance in particular, you went a little overboard about whether something was an appropriate use of the word 'deific.'

And when I disagreed with you about the appropriateness, you started fortifying on that hill, and your own stated motive is to make sure that people don't make mistakes due to believing factually correct things. And your actions suggest that you feel strongly about that, so... I don't know what I'm supposed to think, Chaosmancer.

What the current winning vote? I hope books are in it. We can use them to improve the school.

I think foundations without a house is winning.
Well, the house and without house are equally balanced but there are other versions identical to the foundations without house except with the free loot added.
Not sure if they have the exact same voters or if combined they would have higher vote number.

And, yes, that would include books.
Though we will need to take time to read them before we can start adding them to the curriculum, so they might not be as much of a boost as expected compared to just going with the knowledge we have already translated and included.

@TheForgottenOne

It's currently a tie between Drive Closer I want to hit them with my Kanebo and Foundation without a House But With a Statue. Drive Closer doesn't include the books, and Foundation does.

You can use the vote tally option under thread tools if you want a more accurate picture.

[X] Plan Foundations without a House
-[X][Loot] A few random magical books
-[X][Loot] Faust's Reagents
-[X][Loot] A favor
-[X][Loot] Shattered Stone Shishi Statue
-[X][Loot] Wand of Washing

Currently on my messed up phone. Im dependant on autocorrect just to type coherent messages.

People voting for Plan Foundations without a House: Silverking, frozenchicken, DarkN0va, TerrisH, Parabola, Indivisible, Aeondrac, TopHatWearer, Jack of Olives, vaar, veekie, Phht, ThatGuyWithIdeas, Waela. (14 votes)
People voting for Plan Foundations without a House With Add-ons: Angelform, RioVenaFeht, Phht, Timaeus, WallFlower, Simon_Jester, Wolfy098, ThatGuyWithIdeas. (8 votes, 6 unique votes)
People voting for Plan Foundations without a House But With A Statue And Magic Scrubbing Bubbles: Emanyzal (1 vote)

Total unique votes for the three plans (all three of them are exactly the same plan: Statue, Books, Reagents, Favor, Wand of Washing are taken as loot): 21 votes

[x] Plan Foundations without a House

[x] Foundation without a House But With a Statue

[X] Plan Foundations without a House
[X] Plan Drive me closer, I want to hit them with my kanebo!
[X] Plan Foundations without a House With Add-ons

ThatGuyWithIdeas said:

People voting for Plan Foundations without a House: Silverking, frozenchicken, DarkN0va, TerrisH, Parabola, Indivisible, Aeondrac, TopHatWearer, Jack of Olives, vaar, veekie, Phht, ThatGuyWithIdeas, Waela. (14 votes)
People voting for Plan Foundations without a House With Add-ons: Angelform, RioVenaFeht, Phht, Timaeus, WallFlower, Simon_Jester, Wolfy098, ThatGuyWithIdeas. (8 votes, 6 unique votes)
People voting for Plan Foundations without a House But With A Statue And Magic Scrubbing Bubbles: Emanyzal (1 vote)

Total unique votes for the three plans (all three of them are exactly the same plan: Statue, Books, Reagents, Favor, Wand of Washing are taken as loot): 21 votes

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Well we managed to overcomplicate that didn't we.

[X] Plan Foundations without a House With Add-ons
-[X][Loot] Wand of Washing
-[X][Loot] Shattered Stone Shishi Statue
-[X][Loot] A few random magical books
-[X][Loot] Faust's Reagents
-[X][Loot] A favor

[X] Plan Foundations without a House

Angelform said:

Well we managed to overcomplicate that didn't we.

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It doesn't help that everyone appears to be voting for multiple plans at the same time, either.

Sir_Braazmiir said:

It doesn't help that everyone appears to be voting for multiple plans at the same time, either.

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No, that is normal. The tally accounts for that.
What it has trouble accounting for is multiple plans, each with a different name, that all have the same contents.

Which is why the usual practice is to not modify plans after they have been posted and instead make variants.

Plan "Foundations without a House But With A Statue" would be yet another duplicate plan if not for the fact that it lacks the Wand of Washing.

Too late, vote locked.
Goodbye chickenhouse, you shall live on in our hearts.