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The Last Daughter -- Dragon-Blooded Sorcery School Quest

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Gazetteer said:
Amiti drifts down toward your ledge, an Arctic wind carrying her gently through what should have been a leg-breaking drop. One hand clasps her soulsteel pendant over her heart ... Sickly green light crackles out from the pendant — it filters through her fingers to combine eerily with the pallid blue of her anima, already beginning to wreath her body in clinging wisps of freezing vapour. Just as the monsters converge on her, there's a torturous, ear-splitting scream. You're confused for a moment; it's obviously Amiti's voice, but her mouth is closed.

As an orb of pale light begins to expand out from Amiti's hand, you only belatedly realise that the screaming is coming from her pendant. The first monsters caught up in the expanding orb scream as well, briefly, as numerous tiny, white shapes swarm their bodies. Those a little farther away scream a little longer. The smarter or luckier of the creatures manage to peel away entirely.

Amiti lands gently on the ledge, amid the sad, grizzly remains of the chimeras. In the end, you suppose, she hadn't exactly been lying about having found a good spell for cleaning bones. Even as you and Deiza approach her though, and she flashes you a relieved smile, she's not done — she's casting again:

The pendant's screaming intensifies, and a trickle of red drips out of the fist clenched around the pendant. Black lightning spills out of her free hand, striking the monstrous carcasses all around her feet. They stir to lurching, hideous pseudo-life in time to hurl themselves bodily at their still-living fellows, who are just now back around for another attack.
...
"Fucking marry me," Deiza says, grinning at the necromantic carnage that Amiti has set loose in front of you.
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Oh if only Peony could see things more as Deiza does...
 
[x] Explain to Maia what exactly Deiza said to make you try and hit her, and try to explain why it upset you
 
One has to wonder if Deiza's 'relationship' with Keric is some attempt to use him to fuel his sorcery that backfired.
 
"You're the one who wanted to go first," you're not quite able to keep yourself from saying.
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Instead, you hear yourself saying: "You're wrong about her."
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There's something incredibly fascinating to me about how Ambraea is operating under so many levels of dynastic propriety and stoic repression that she's like... an observer to her own emotional outbursts. She's so far from feeling her feelings that it's like someone else (with a lot less propriety) is the one having them.

Deiza musses a hand through her own hair, unknowingly smearing blood in it, muttering something probably-unpleasant in Flametongue. "Do you think I actually give a fuck about your relationship drama? Fuck her or don't or profess your undying love for each other, for all I care! You pissed me off, I just said what I knew would get to you!"
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"lady i didn't say those things cuz i thought they were true i said them to hurt your feelings, gimme a break"

I love her.

[X] Try to tell Maia how you felt when she smiled at you after the fight with the mercury ants
 
Randino Treviani said:
Oh it's worse than that. She realises they have consequences but doesn't care. She's like this deliberately with whoever she can because her sorcery rewards her for provoking them into trying and force demands of propriety on her. So long as she refuses to submit, it strengthens her sorcery. Ambraea is simply the easiest target, but also the one who is most adept at actually hurting Deiza with her comments, because Ambraea is an honest girl who believes in civility and equality and the fact that Deiza's actions see her one of the few denied Ambraea's respect hurts Deiza, but it's not worth more than the boon to her sorcery she gets for provoking and defying her.
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I don't think Deiza's antagonizing Ambraea just to fuel her sorcery. For one thing, it isn't even confirmed that she has Unbroken Spirit as her shaping ritual. It's only one of three potential shaping rituals listed for the Simendor in Heirs to the Shogunate. I think the qm was mainly listing it to show that Deiza learned her defiant streak from her family.

I think that Deiza might be angry at Ambraea because she had expected to bond with her over their shared outsider status. Both Prasad and House Simendor firmly hold to traditions and values viewed as strange and improper by the rest of the Realm. Deiza has been shown to be very proud of her house's eccentricities, and I think she is frustrated that Ambraea, daughter of a Prasadi, is not also eccentric. This is not the most mature reason to be angry with someone, but it does make sense for someone so proud of being improper.

Whatever her reasons, I think Deiza is antagonizing Ambraea out of genuine frustration rather than just fueling her sorcery.
 
[X] Explain to Maia what exactly Deiza said to make you try and hit her, and try to explain why it upset you
 
Kymme said:
There's something incredibly fascinating to me about how Ambraea is operating under so many levels of dynastic propriety and stoic repression that she's like... an observer to her own emotional outbursts. She's so far from feeling her feelings that it's like someone else (with a lot less propriety) is the one having them.
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This is a great insight, and I think it's worth keeping in mind when assessing whether Ambraea's narration is reliable when it comes to something like whether she's being catty or cold towards someone. Because I think she is very capable of simply Not Perceiving her own tone or attitude whenever it even might conflict with the self-image of flawless dynastic propriety she rather rigidly forces on herself, on a completely unconscious level. Turns out that having an emotionally-distant mom with incredibly high expectations that are rarely explicitly conveyed can do a number on a kid; who'd have thunk it.
 
Fayhem said:
This is a great insight, and I think it's worth keeping in mind when assessing whether Ambraea's narration is reliable when it comes to something like whether she's being catty or cold towards someone. Because I think she is very capable of simply Not Perceiving her own tone or attitude whenever it even might conflict with the self-image of flawless dynastic propriety she rather rigidly forces on herself, on a completely unconscious level. Turns out that having an emotionally-distant mom with incredibly high expectations that are rarely explicitly conveyed can do a number on a kid; who'd have thunk it.
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Well, yet another thing she can bond with Mnemon about if she so desires. For all that her Redness is impressive in many ways, the only way she is impressive in regards to her children is how impressivly she fucked them up.
 
At Ambraea's age, Mnemon had already been dodging covert assassination attempts by her elder brother who was already a fucking adult Dragon-Blooded with his own Great House for years, and mom did not actually meaningfully intervene until Mnemon was like, thirty. The Empress took this long to do anything for a number of reasons which make some sense (Ragara maintained deniability, his house was already integral to the Realm's economy, she seems to have had real affection for him), but also probably don't make you feel better about a decade and a half of your brother trying to kill you while you watch a bunch of your other siblings drop like flies.

I think that they do have some actual things in common, but like... despite everything, Ambraea has had a much easier time of it growing up.
 
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Vote closed, Year 3 04
  • Voting
    • Scheduled vote count started by Gazetteer on Nov 27, 2022 at 2:57 AM, finished with 54 posts and 39 votes.
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  • Voting
    • "Calm down, I only said that because I wanted to hurt you."

    I haven't hated a character this much in like… two weeks, good work.
     
    Gazetteer said:
    It's too late, though. You turn around to face Deiza, frowning. "Simendor, this is childish," you tell her.

    Deiza raises her eyebrows. "Childish?"

    "The names and the stubborn rudeness and the snide remarks." You regard Deiza with a flatly unimpressed expression. "It's embarrassing at our age. It's unwomanly."
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    A shitty thing to say, in general, because gender is a social construct anyway and Ambraea doesn't really get anywhere as a person by being a shitty enforcer of conventional societal norms, and, as Deiza said, she doesn't really give a fuck about it.

    Ambraea probably meant it as a maturity issue, like, Deiza is an annoying little girl instead of an adult, but that also doesn't really make it better.

    After calming down, I think that Ambraea, if not equally at fault here for the simple fact of not flinging enough shit at Deiza and involving other people in it who had absolutely nothing to do with their mutual hostility, played a large role in that falling out.

    I dunno if it's protagonocentristic trappings compelling me to still think Deiza was way shittier about it, and I am happy enough not to analyze it. Like, at all. Whatever. Deiza and Ambraea fought, they were together in a life-threatening situation, now they can go back to barely interacting with each other, as far as I'm concerned.

    I'm not overly enthused with the idea of becoming Simendor's frenemy and learning to appreciate her crass disregard for social conduct as a means of discovering how the stifling chains of Ambraea's upbringing prevent her from growing as a person. Or something. She talked shit about Maia and hasn't apologized, I'm allowed to dislike her without any guilt whatsoever.
     
    Gazetteer said:
    Out of curiosity, what about what Ambraea said do you think set Deiza off badly enough to go nuclear on her like that? Why might Ambraea have been unable to perceive what the actual problem was?
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    Oh god. Deiza was one of those idiots doing the hair pulling bit to get her crushes attention. Ambraea took it badly and they ended up at odds but it still hurts Deiza to have her former crush imply she is undesirable. She was lashing out in wounded self worth and jealousy.

    Yuck yuck yuck. Let's never pick her again. We already chose Maia.
     
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    Randino Treviani said:
    Oh god. Deiza was one of those idiots doing the hair pulling bit to get her crushes attention. Ambraea took it badly and they ended up at odds but it still hurts Deiza to have her former crush imply she is undesirable. She was lashing out in wounded self worth and jealousy.

    Yuck yuck yuck. Let's never pick her again. We already chose Maia.
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    Ew.

    eeeeeeew.

    No. Why.

    you made me understand it. This is your fault, I'm footing my therapist's bills to you, thank you.
     
    I would like to see Deiza and Ambraea have some kind of confrontation where Ambraea finds out why Deiza dislikes her so much. This arc would feel incomplete to me if we never find out why Deiza's been so rude to her.
     
    Randino Treviani said:
    Oh god. Deiza was one of those idiots doing the hair pulling bit to get her crushes attention. Ambraea took it badly and they ended up at odds but it still hurts Deiza to have her former crush imply she is undesirable. She was lashing out in wounded self worth and jealousy.
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    Do you think so? I was under the impression that Deiza was attracted to Keric from all the way back in year 1. Although I suppose it's not mutually exclusive either way.
     
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