Consumption
- Thread starter Alivaril
- Start date
- Original
Archeo Lumiere
The Prince's Archivist
- Location
- Lumiose City, Kalos
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
I honestly don't think we should take any of the body mods, since our drifting would mean that standards of beauty or neonatality would change between worlds.
- Location
- Lasha Tumbai
I think I wanted to do it before, but I'm still fairly fond of taking her with us. Although we've got a couple of days to see if this is something that we actually want to do. I'm also fairly happy with most of these options so don't mind so much what we pick, will come back in a little bit and vote.
Madou Sutegobana
Autocorrupt has been disabled.
- Location
- Twin Realms Mandala
[X] No Augments
I don't want Melia to just be a clone of Jade.
I don't want Melia to just be a clone of Jade.
- Location
- Europe
[X] Appearance Improvements ("Cute").
[X] Sponsorship.
Getting her to teach us how to leverage our strengths would be really useful. Be they socially with our cuteness or beauty or just with our affinity for elementals.
[X] Sponsorship.
Getting her to teach us how to leverage our strengths would be really useful. Be they socially with our cuteness or beauty or just with our affinity for elementals.
DB_Explorer
Purveyor of alternate realities.
- Location
- San Diego, California
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[x] Sonic Amulet.
[x] Stealth vs. Magic
No body mods please... seems like a hopeless battle but...
Edit: Also why cute? Was'nt half the idea behind the chosen age to balance being able to be listened while not falling behind in education? And now you want to be less seriously taken for some sort of possible social buff?
[x] Stealth vs. Magic
No body mods please... seems like a hopeless battle but...
Edit: Also why cute? Was'nt half the idea behind the chosen age to balance being able to be listened while not falling behind in education? And now you want to be less seriously taken for some sort of possible social buff?
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- Location
- Actually pretty lost
In the unlikely event that going from being a reasonably cute 16 year old to a very cute 16 year old somehow cripples our ability to be taken seriously - and this somehow outweighs our ability to convince people of things due to now being more attractive, which is the explicit social buff mentioned - we can always summon our scary elementals.
DB_Explorer
Purveyor of alternate realities.
- Location
- San Diego, California
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Ok and why cute vs beauty?
- Location
- Actually pretty lost
Mostly because dealing with a whole bunch of unrequited crushes doesn't sound all that fun, but I'd be fine with either. Bandwagon is heavily in favour of cute though, so I went with that.
- Location
- United States
Could vote for the amulet & stealth? Neither focuses on augmenting her body at least.
I wouldn't say going for beautiful/cute would be a clone of Jade. I kind of liked how artificial Jade's vessel was and thought it fit well with the soul gem/goddess themes going on. Jade's was an artificial body based on her own with the super capabilities and the human imperfections were gotten rid off as a side-consequence of the capabilities in the vessel rather than a main motivation.
This on the otherhand, it's getting rid of pretty much all of what Melia looks like aside from her hair color and facial shape so she can look like this society's idealized physically weak female noble whilst implementing some magical energy or change to the body itself to retain her physical capabilities.
Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
- Location
- Your nightmares.
...You doubt the ability of someone nearly unnaturally adorable to convince people to let her do things. If that's the case, I guess I know why we evaluate this entirely differently.
Then I guess we disagree on the speed. Personally, I suspect it would take precisely as long as it took Melia to do something that shows she knows what she's doing for me to treat her as such. If we're actually competent, then all we need to do is demonstrate that. Might get a tad aggravating, but it's not exactly rocket-science.
I meant the effect on people, not Melia. As in, that they'd continue to treat us as something to be protected, despite massive evidence to the contrary.
Given that my own physical infirmities have basically made me an old man with the exterior appearance of a 20-year old, I may just be fairly tolerant of the idea of changing one's body, as I desire to do so quite strongly, but I don't find appearance optimization that mostly works with what Melia already has to be particularly troubling.
Eh. Not by that much. Cute is actually surprisingly universal amongst humans. So long as we aren't dealing with, for example, dragon-people, it should still be fairly effective. And we've met humans wherever we've gone.
It also puts her closer to her picture. I dunno about you, but I don't exactly see noticeable muscles in that character portrait. The less cognative-dissonance I have to have between the character's portrait and actual appearance, the happier my brain will be. Along with all the other reasons. I'm running out of new ones.
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[X] Appearance Improvements ("Cute").
[X] Stealth vs. Magic.
The arguments have already been mentioned, but just to reiterate: the "cute" improvement makes Melia seem less threatening and obviously inspires protectiveness. Right now that is crucial, given she's pretty much defenceless against any serious aggressor. But it can also be useful later on when enemies underestimating her could mean the difference between victory and defeat.
Stealth vs. Magic is just fantastically useful considering we'll probably be dropping unannounced on a lot of places we're not supposed to be in. Additionally, someone mentioned it could also serve as a counter to divination, which if true could make the argument to choose this by itself.
[X] Stealth vs. Magic.
The arguments have already been mentioned, but just to reiterate: the "cute" improvement makes Melia seem less threatening and obviously inspires protectiveness. Right now that is crucial, given she's pretty much defenceless against any serious aggressor. But it can also be useful later on when enemies underestimating her could mean the difference between victory and defeat.
Stealth vs. Magic is just fantastically useful considering we'll probably be dropping unannounced on a lot of places we're not supposed to be in. Additionally, someone mentioned it could also serve as a counter to divination, which if true could make the argument to choose this by itself.
- Location
- United States
It depends on what things. Getting a librarian to let her access valuable or fragile books? No, I don't think it'd help much. It's hardly a general encompassing "things" however, she'd have an easy time getting someone to guide or protect her for example, I even said this in an earlier post.
Do we still disagree on this? That speed sounds about right and I don't see how that contradicts what I said.
True, once a group spends time with us and learns how capable we are it wouldn't be a problem. The problem involves new groups which are also some of the most dangerous times for a group and new additions to a group.
It doesn't really work with what she has, it completely changes her. Aside from her facial features, hair, and height what is really the same after Delight's tinkering is done?
Think he's talking about the fragile untouched noble like traits Delight wants Melia to have with her adorableness wouldn't be what many human cultures let alone other species consider attractive or worthy of respect.
Melia's muscles wouldn't be ripped like a bodybuilder, they'd be functional and toned. They'd hardly stand out in covering clothes like in that picture.
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[X] Appearance Improvements ("Cute").
[] Sonic Amulet.
I'm very tempted by the stealth vs magic option just because I like the idea of sneaking into places we aren't supposed to be, but we need something to survive RIGHT NOW. We'll probably be able to obtain a substitute or otherwise become an amazing thief if we work for it.
Cute because it's useful, fun, and I want Melia to think "I asked for this" whenever someone is being annoyingly patronizing to her. Them answering her questions with a smile on their face is definitely an appealing benefit for her
I quite like Delight but am leaning heavily towards not letting her come with us unless we're able to return to this dimension a second time at this point in time.
[] Sonic Amulet.
I'm very tempted by the stealth vs magic option just because I like the idea of sneaking into places we aren't supposed to be, but we need something to survive RIGHT NOW. We'll probably be able to obtain a substitute or otherwise become an amazing thief if we work for it.
Cute because it's useful, fun, and I want Melia to think "I asked for this" whenever someone is being annoyingly patronizing to her. Them answering her questions with a smile on their face is definitely an appealing benefit for her
I quite like Delight but am leaning heavily towards not letting her come with us unless we're able to return to this dimension a second time at this point in time.
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Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
I suspect that Delight has enough experience doing this to avoid body dysphoria issues.
- Location
- United States
I guess she could mentally force Melia to enjoy her new body, if anything that makes this more unsettling to me and not less.
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'm not sure if you're deliberately strawmanning or not, but if you are, please stop. I'm almost completely certain that's not what @Vebyast meant.
It was explicitly stated by Desire, who should should hopefully have an accurate understanding of what she is giving us.
- Location
- United States
I wasn't strawmanning, Vebyast didn't really give me much to go on. I admit "force Melia to enjoy her new body" is a bit strong in wording and implies a maliciouness to Delight that probably isn't there. It's likely more about easing the transition in her mind so all the little differences don't really bother her as much and it's not like Melia is being forced to choose this body so there would be no real reason to force Melia to want the body if she already does.
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- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Delight. I am greatly amused by how this is a persistent typo in the thread.
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
That or Delight's good enough to accomplish her goal without changing Melia's appearance in ways that'd cause problems, no mental fuckery required. Which is trivially possible even IRL - I recommend that you go look up some of the reddit communities focused on makeup to get an idea of how far you can stretch things without damaging recognition or body image.
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- Location
- US
[X] Appearance Improvements ("Cute").
[X] Stealth vs. Magic.
[X] Stealth vs. Magic.
- Location
- United States
Depends on what you mean by "problems". She mentioned what she plans on changing and modern make-up isn't really a good comparison at all considering just how vast the changes are going to be. The end result wouldn't really look or be made of the same stuff Melia currently is, if that's what she (and the players) wants then it's fine in-story. Just not a direction I personally want to go.
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
People remain recognizable when they're down entire limbs. Or when they're wearing high heels or using tongs to extend their reach. In fact, you'll find that the human brain is flexible enough moment to moment to incorporate tools like those claw grabber things into your body image so you can use them better. Badly applied makeup is one of the easiest ways to screw up your body image.
It's also worth mentioning that she specifically intends - and prides herself on her ability to! - maintain Melia's body image and appearance: