notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
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Ascensions and Transgressions: the Tales of Keris Dulmeadokht (Exalted game)
- Thread starter Aleph
- Start date
The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
Now to see how much damage Maryam caused while she was behind the wheel.
For an added horrible thought, if it can actually recognize her next time they meet, Maryam's yidak will probably be more capable of affection for Keris than her ghost is. Which will make putting her down Old Yeller-style all the more tragic.
Also curious as to whether Maryam's ghost will actually be sated just by killing the guy who owned the slaving operation or if it'll just whet her appetite for further, less discriminate revenge. Which would also be an unpleasant lesson for Keris. Although I suppose getting badly burned by interaction with your mother is part of the whole The Sea That Marched Against The Flame experience.
I wonder if any omen weather occurs in Krisity while Maryam is possessing Keris?
For an added horrible thought, if it can actually recognize her next time they meet, Maryam's yidak will probably be more capable of affection for Keris than her ghost is. Which will make putting her down Old Yeller-style all the more tragic.
Also curious as to whether Maryam's ghost will actually be sated just by killing the guy who owned the slaving operation or if it'll just whet her appetite for further, less discriminate revenge. Which would also be an unpleasant lesson for Keris. Although I suppose getting badly burned by interaction with your mother is part of the whole The Sea That Marched Against The Flame experience.
I wonder if any omen weather occurs in Krisity while Maryam is possessing Keris?
Man, when Haneyl finally gets back she's gonna be like "What the fuck did I miss?!"
Of course, when she does come back she'll may have figured out that Sasi's Inner World is effectively a condo shared by half a dozen or so demon lords who don't like each other, so I imagine the feeling will be going around.
Of course, when she does come back she'll may have figured out that Sasi's Inner World is effectively a condo shared by half a dozen or so demon lords who don't like each other, so I imagine the feeling will be going around.
So, to discuss what's happening with Rounen... well, we're getting closer to the second species of adult keruby showing up. I've totally rewritten all three of the Haneyl breeds from their initial drafts so whichever one he comes out as, he'll be something new.
It does appear that spending time around Keris significantly speeds up a kerub's evolution, especially if she's personally interacting with them and treating them as her adorable little proteges. After all, Keris is "Aunty" to Oula, and "Mum" to Rounen.
Possible writing prizes for anyone who can guess anything distinctive or interesting about what Rounen is becoming, and what he'll look like when he emerges.
It does appear that spending time around Keris significantly speeds up a kerub's evolution, especially if she's personally interacting with them and treating them as her adorable little proteges. After all, Keris is "Aunty" to Oula, and "Mum" to Rounen.
Possible writing prizes for anyone who can guess anything distinctive or interesting about what Rounen is becoming, and what he'll look like when he emerges.
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oh oh oh! I bet I can guess some things! Do I get a writing prize?
Oh oh oh! I bet I can guess some things! Do I get a writing prize?
If you guess, you get a surprise next Kerisgame.
It'll be fun.
(for me)
FTFY, if you get the reference.
meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
Hmmm. Looking at the wish-catalyst for the change (Do I have to be a demon?), the initial write-up that had them as arrogant yet severely neurotic court-nobles who retained their writing-magic, "bookishness" essence-flavor and the general mood that triggered this...
Well, I'm going to place my bets in something between a teenage angsty poet and Pinocchio (I wanna be a real boy!). Because I have heard and seen with my own eyes that Earthscorpion is terrible.
Well, I'm going to place my bets in something between a teenage angsty poet and Pinocchio (I wanna be a real boy!). Because I have heard and seen with my own eyes that Earthscorpion is terrible.
The Phoenixian
The Glacier Witch
- Location
- My own little world
Aha, that explains it. Rounen's reading everything and worries about whether demons are bad look like a bit like the posted plans for the rendszentkae (the whole vaguely neurotic courtiers thing) but the withering, uses of water imagery, and lack of everything else, (rather than balance of it) had been throwing me off.
I'm guessing that'll tie thematically into the way that the Swamp draws rivers from the Sea and Isles by the trees drinking them and pulling the water out, but how that will happen eludes me. Given that he's been around Rathan more than Hanely... maybe something about a nobleman attached to distant courts being tied into the idea of empires needing to feed on the wealth of their colonies? That... seems to fit with the idea of Szorenry and the mentions of Hanely's focus on using her envy of others to build herself up.
How that all fits together with everything else and looks in practice... I don't know. I'm having a hard time narrowing the possibility space into something concrete.
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The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
Between that description, and observing that ES has been very active in Number None, I think I've got this pinned down.
Rounen's obviously evolving into a slightly less emotionally constipated Ulquiorra.
So Rounen gives off the impression that he is dying, is angsty about being a demon, spent a ton of time hanging around with creepy ghost girls and already had an appearance that sounded a bit like those pumpkin lanterns.
I would guess that he will turn into something that seems more ghosty than demony at a glance.
I would guess that he will turn into something that seems more ghosty than demony at a glance.
Session 110
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Soooo... been a while.
Tbh, this has been sitting complete in a GDoc for almost a month, but I was recovering from surgery and just Could Not Be Bothered to format it all and put it up, so we got a whole extra buffer session done while it languished in despair.
Still, it's up now. Part 110, and it's a big one. In which Maryam Does Her Thing (and shows that she has the same love of poetic irony murder as her daughter), Keris continues keeping the maternal abuse she's getting a secret from her children, Ney remains a total ass, Oula is still yandere, we get some very interesting information on the local Solar rulers, and...
... yeah. That happened.
Tbh, this has been sitting complete in a GDoc for almost a month, but I was recovering from surgery and just Could Not Be Bothered to format it all and put it up, so we got a whole extra buffer session done while it languished in despair.
Still, it's up now. Part 110, and it's a big one. In which Maryam Does Her Thing (and shows that she has the same love of poetic irony murder as her daughter), Keris continues keeping the maternal abuse she's getting a secret from her children, Ney remains a total ass, Oula is still yandere, we get some very interesting information on the local Solar rulers, and...
... yeah. That happened.
Keris has her buttons - for all that she's actually pretty mentally stable outside of a few areas. But "family" and "people getting inside her secure spaces" are some of those vulnerable spots, and when they're prodded, she goes quite justifiably berserk. She's a creature ruled by terror, and so hitting her where she feels safe - stripping that perceived safety away... that's a really good way to get dead. I don't think I need to emphasise just how lucky Ney was to come out of that mistake intact. On two separate occasions, he succeded by a single success against her rage-fuelled assault on him, and it was only the goodwill he'd built up prior that stopped her from using lethal force. This is the kind of shit that digs right down to the root of her trauma; when she was a terrified child on the streets who had to fight for her life whenever her sanctuary/squat was invaded. Who was woken more than once by someone with malice in mind, who learned to sleep lightly with a sharpened nail or a knife in her hand. Who dreaded the times when she and Rat came home to find that "home" had been taken over by someone else. There was a legitimate chance of her having a flashback and shutting down, there, and only the fact that she's more inclined to "fight" than "flight" or "fright" along with the balanced and centred sense of self her soul-therapy has given her averted it.
And then yes, a fairly important Calesco moment. Which I may unpack in a later post when I'm not as tired as I am now.
And then yes, a fairly important Calesco moment. Which I may unpack in a later post when I'm not as tired as I am now.
Aleph: Oula can give her husbando some chocolate~
EarthScorpion: she has done so
Aleph: ...
Aleph: *sigh*
Aleph: Yeah, I suppose Keris walked into that.
EarthScorpion: Oula has excellent instincts.
Aleph: She does.
EarthScorpion: She is a yandere, who acts mostly dere.
Aleph: If she weren't so devoted to Rathan, she'd go through men like a buzzsaw to an even greater extent than Kuha.
Aleph: They wouldn't stand a chance.
...
EarthScorpion: Yes, Kali jumped onto the water to go after some floating ice.
EarthScorpion: At this point, she is even sillier than Vesta.
Aleph: Did she kill the ice, though?
EarthScorpion: It escaped her by bobbing under the water and then floating away.
Aleph: How dare it.
Aleph: Truly a cunning opponent.
Aleph: It's probably working with Adami.
Aleph: We're almost certain to see it again.
EarthScorpion: Unfortunately Kali is probably going to be very friendly to Ney.
EarthScorpion: He smells right.
Aleph: Keris: "Stop... stop trying to indoctrinate my daughter away from me!"
Keris: "... also stop bribing her with bits of bacon."
EarthScorpion: Ney: "It's beef jerky. I bought it along for you, Kiss. Turns out that just like you, your daughter is a biter."
Aleph: Keris: ">_>"
EarthScorpion: (he also smells like the sun to her, and she likes that)
Aleph: Yes, I figured. Heh.
Aleph: They're going to wind up her preferred envoys whenever she has to deal with Solars or Lunars, when they grow up.
...
EarthScorpion: Heh. Silver's basically the main thing Keris works with that isn't organic.
Aleph: Yes. Hee.
Aleph: Well, she's capable of working in any vitriol-bathed metal; she has a style for it. She just likes combining that one with her silverwork one, which is why vitriol-silver is kind of her signature.
EarthScorpion: Heh. That's probably why Haneyl prizes expensive inorganic things so much. They're things she can't make easily or cheaply.
EarthScorpion: And she loves gold because gold doesn't tarnish in the swamp.
...
Aleph: Oh Keris.
Aleph: She calls him "Adami" when she's being tsun or trying to seem haughty and unaffected, but tends to slip back into "Ney" when she forgets to.
Aleph: He probably hasn't picked that up yet since they've only really met for very short periods, but he's totally going to notice en-route.
Aleph: And smirk a lot.
Aleph: Like an asshole.
...
Aleph: sigh
Aleph: Haneyl isn't the only one who got some of Keris's inherent tsundereness.
Aleph: It's just that Calesco is the bitter sulky tsun to Haneyl's fiery haughty tsun.
EarthScorpion: Oh, Keris.
EarthScorpion: It is... uh, notable that the two souls who are most "her daughter" are the tsun ones.
EarthScorpion: Heh, yes. Haneyl is tsundere because she doesn't like acting "weak" and has a high opinion of herself so she always pushes. Calesco is tsundere because she's hiding her real feelings, since her love is pure Adorjan and is as bright and sharp as the edge of a knife.
EarthScorpion: ... so Haneyl's tsundere comes from a mix of Malfeas and her humanity, while, sigh, Calesco's is her hurting the one she loves under a layer of ophidian obfuscation.
Aleph: Keris: "Fool! You think I merely have a single type of tsun?"
EarthScorpion: Hmm. I don't think any of her other souls are tsundere, though.
EarthScorpion: ... though we don't know about Zanara yet.
Aleph: Rathan is more naturally yan.
EarthScorpion: Rathan has yandere tendencies, Vali is very open and... Hmm. Goddamnit.
EarthScorpion: Vali is the wrong way around.
EarthScorpion: He fights you if he likes you, and is just kind of affably open if he doesn't care.
Aleph: Deretsun? : P
Aleph: Lol
EarthScorpion: Which, sigh. Does kind of summarise her thing with Ney and her liking for people who tease her.
Aleph: The only point where the Venn diagrams for "designated rival" and "crush" do not intersect on Vali's personal radar is Haneyl.
Aleph: In almost any other case, if he declares that you're his arch-rival, it means he has a crush on you.
Aleph: ... and if he has a crush on you, he will probably declare that you're his arch-rival.
EarthScorpion: ... honestly, Haneyl is prone to that too.
Aleph: Yes. Sigh.
Aleph: Keris: "... is it a Dynast thing? A dragon thing? A Malfeas thing?"
Keris: "Sasi, help me out here."EarthScorpion: Vali ships Ichigo/Grimmjow.
Aleph: He also ships NaruSasu.
EarthScorpion: ... also Kenpachi/Ichigo.
Aleph: "Fuck yeah, don't let the stupid village tell you what you can and can't do. Break their rules and refuse to bring him in! Leave and go learn fighting from a
snake magic lady! Mum is a snake magic lady, and she's awesome! Also, use lightning! Lots of lightning!"
Aleph: ... Vali actually likes Sasuke quite a lot, even if he, um, sort of misses the point of the character in some fairly major ways.
Vali: "He swore to avenge his family, so he's doing it. Seems sensible to me."EarthScorpion: Goddamnit Vali, stop getting sziromkeruby to write you Independent Grey versions of existing stories.
Vali: "And then Naruto swore to bring him back, so he's doing that."
Vali: "They've both got the right attitude to keeping promises."
Haneyl: "What, 'stick to it even if it means you wind up fighting the combined forces of the five major ninja villages'?"
Vali: "Yeah."
EarthScorpion: "And then Harry told Dumbledore to fuck off, and then talked to his pet basilisk who be treated so much better and didn't keep locked up in the toilets and then had them kill Voldemort and also everyone else who kept a house elf. The end."
Aleph: : P
Aleph: Oh, Vali.
Aleph: He thinks dragons are way cooler, but he is aware that mum is a snake. So he approves of snake-themed characters, because they're like mum. And while they're not as good as dragons, they're still pretty neat.
EarthScorpion: Calesco, sigh, likes Hinata. Both for who she is and how she acts and how she dresses, and also that she spent from age 7 or something trying to get one guy.
Aleph: Hee.
EarthScorpion: Haneyl likes Sakura Ino shipping where they ignore the boys and just go around punching and possessing things. Eko just likes canon and Naruto specifically, although she can also make a lot of time for Orochimaru antihero stories.
Aleph: Dammit Haneyl.
Aleph: ...
Aleph: She may also like Konan, and have a story written where she dumps Pein and just goes off being awesome flying paper angel. And eventually joins Konoha, which Haneyl is adamant is the best village because it's hidden in trees and is fire themed.
EarthScorpion: Goddamnit, yes.
Aleph: Literally every fanfic Haneyl has written is an author screed on how Konoha and the Will of Fire are the best things ever. She thoroughly approves of Hashirama.
Aleph: ... naturally, Konan winds up becoming the Seventh Hokage. Because of course she does
...
EarthScorpion: Big cats.
Aleph: eeee so cute
Aleph: Kali is bullshit and can both purr and roar.
Aleph: adolescent Kali-tigress: *flops onto mama's legs and purrs demandingly*
EarthScorpion: Keris: "Well, I guess it's cheaper than her demanding more money to go to the market."
Kali, still a tiger: "Oh, I want that after tummy rubs. I want to buy a new mirror."Aleph: : P
Aleph: hmm
Aleph: Can she talk as a tiger and a hawk?
EarthScorpion: Just as she's always a tiger and always a hawk, she's always a human - and talking is the most distinctive human trait.
Aleph: heh
Aleph: sigh
Aleph: She doesn't let on that she can do it to many people, though
Aleph: because, sigh
Aleph: people tend to assume that if she can't talk in animal-form, she can't listen or understand as well
Aleph: Not consciously, but it's still there in the background - thinking she can't talk makes them slightly more inclined to act like she's a dumb animal that can't understand what they're saying within her hearing range.
Aleph: Goddammit, that's one of the things that the twins notice pretty early on, and immediately capitalise on.
EarthScorpion: "You didn't tell me you could talk as a cat!"
Kali: "You didn't ask."Aleph: Mama is never fooled, but a lot of their babysitters are.
"Yes, yes I did!"
Kali: "Look, I lied, OK?"
Aleph: Oh, human pattern-matching and subtle forms of bias.
Aleph: Talking is something intelligent beings do, so if something can't talk it's not intelligent. It's never a conscious thought, but it's an instinctive-enough reaction that it subtly shifts behaviour just a little.
Aleph: God, they're tiny little monsters.
Aleph: Who are frighteningly good at picking up on things like that and exploiting them.
Aleph: It won't happen until they start talking, but it won't take long after they start talking.
Aleph: Even if it'll take a while longer for them to understand it enough to explain it.
...
EarthScorpion: Heh. Haneyl's armies have the odd paradox that she rewards creativity and risk-taking, but also punishes disobedience to the greater plan.
EarthScorpion: It means her battle plans tend to be structured in such a way that they have plenty of room for chosen field elements (like the farissya) to grab glory for themselves.
Aleph: hee
EarthScorpion: It's honestly kinda Roman that way.
EarthScorpion: (of course, as people put on Discord, the Romans were violent swamp-hicks)
Aleph: : P
EarthScorpion: Sigh. That's the other thing Haneyl's tactics very much encourage.
EarthScorpion: Prize-taking.
Haneyl: "It's simple. When in a war with Calesco, every one of her soldiers we take alive is someone we can ransom back. Dead people are useless. Captives are profit."EarthScorpion: Keris: "... did you just coax Haneyl into having wars between the two of you being contests in taking prisoners?"
Calesco: "... you know what, I'll take it. Yes, I'll pay ransom for each one of my people you take alive, as long as I can ransom people back to you."
Calesco: "Shh."
...
Aleph: When Haneyl realises that Rathan and Zanara have a full akuma-sibling, she'll demand she and Vali get one too.
EarthScorpion: Eko bounces up and down on her toes, grinning wildly.
Aleph: And that Mama and Mother have to get married first! In a super-big ceremony that Haneyl can host and plan and staff with her demons! And everyone she invites has to bring wedding presents! And she'll make all the food for the event! And-
Keris: "I get the impression this is less about getting her parents married and more about having an excuse to really, really show off in Creation."EarthScorpion: Haneyl: "You don't want people calling me and Vali bastards, do you?"
Keris: "Also I bet she's planning on taking a tithe out of the wedding presents."
Aleph: Keris: "I am well aware of what you and Vali would do to people who called you bastards, which is either 'ignore them' or 'destroy them' depending on how insulted you decided to feel and whether you took it personally. Given that 'people' in this case would probably be mortals, and you two are demon lords, I feel more sorry for the people."
EarthScorpion: Haneyl: "But maaaaaaaaaama, imagine the wedding you could have in Hell if you got Lilunu to host it!"
Aleph: Keris: "... ... ..."
Keris: "Let's go talk to your mother."EarthScorpion: ... god, just imagine the wedding Keris could get Lilunu to gleefully and delightedly host, though
Sasi: "No."
Keris: ":c"
Aleph: Yyyyup.
Aleph: Keris: "..."
Keris: "..."EarthScorpion: Lilunu: "And then you enter, to the sound of a 10,000-angyalkae choir singing their praises of their sister, you."
Keris: *stomps off*
Keris: "Adami!"
Aleph: Keris: "Eeeeee~"
Aleph: ...
Aleph: dammit, almost worth marrying ney
Aleph: which, sigh
Aleph: is perfectly okay by Sasi's standards. They're both women, they both have husbands, they have a serious lesbian affair on the side.
Aleph: Normal Dynastic routine.
Aleph: ... admittedly Sasi also has Testolagh, who is her husband-in-practice as opposed to her husband-in-absence.
EarthScorpion: Sasi: "It's a good way to make sure our households are allied. And our husbands can sleep with one another, if they're so inclined."
EarthScorpion: Ney: "You want to drag me off to Hell? I'm... going to not acquiese to your request."
Aleph: Keris: "I want to drag you off to the most beautiful part of Hell, free from any cruelty, to get married by my beloved mentor in a ceremony that will rival the High First Age for beauty and splendour. And then thoroughly debauch you in ways that will make our first night seem tame. You ass."
Ney: *SRoI's that and finds that Keris is in fact being perfectly genuine, albeit very tsundere*EarthScorpion: Lilunu: "Bad news, Orabilis veto'd things on the grounds, and I quote, 'I'll be damned if we let a fucking Solar into the All-Thing where they can see every single green sun prince and discover about you'."
Aleph: Keris: "Goddammit he ruins all my fucking fun. And also all my fun fucking."
Keris: "Do you think I could convince him I'm seducing Ney to my cause?"EarthScorpion: The real question is whether Keris would sneak Ney in in disguise anyway and have a private ceremony with just Lilunu and a few select guests.
Aleph: ...
Aleph: but that doesn't have the 10k angyalka-choir conducted with 3CD-level skill and multiple Hellish artifact instruments~
Aleph: God, Keris would just be going FULL RATHAN/HANEYL/ZANARA there.
EarthScorpion: Yes, but on the other hand, Lilunu's standards for "private ceremony" are rather laxer than a mortal's.
Aleph: ... this is true
Aleph: sigh
Aleph: she might well
Aleph: Well, she almost certainly will, if she ever decides to marry Ney.
EarthScorpion: Keris: "And my best woman will be my girlfriend, of course. And Kali can be a flower girl."
Haneyl: *glare*Aleph: : P
Keris: "Haneyl, I can have many flower girls. You can be the chief one."
Ney: "Your best woman will be your girlfriend?"
Keris: "I'm marrying you for love, not for monogamy."
Aleph: Sigh. She'd have a Dulmea-Chord walk her down the aisle.
EarthScorpion: Ney: "Hey, so..."
Sasi: "You're marrying her, not me."Aleph: lol
Ney: "Oh, of course."
Sasi: "I'll only be open to the idea of sharing on special occasions, like birthdays, seasonal changes, Calibration, or if I'm bored or lonely."
Aleph: There's a remark there to be made about "you really don't know what you're getting into, I fear."
EarthScorpion: Ney: "Oh, I think I do. She's being fitted for her wedding dress today. She wore underwear specifically for that."
Ney: "I stole it."Aleph: To which Sasi would respond with Keris Stories. Which are similar in some respects to Nemo Stories; eg "that time she had herself flayed for an art project" and "how to make friends and kidnap random homeless city-children" and "we accidentally a whole nexus once".
Aleph: Ney: "Ah, let me tell you the tale of 'a mother, a daughter and a path of necromantic violence drawn across half of the Malran plateau'."
EarthScorpion: Ney: "I first met her and slept with her the night after she fought the hungry ghost of her mother, after we chased each other around a city and tried to stab each other a bit."
EarthScorpion: Sasi: "Oh Dragons, there are two of them."
Aleph: Keris: "I feel like you two are ganging up on me. :c"
Aleph: Sasi and Ney would totally swap stories about Keris being Keris, though. Especially art stories, because while Ney finds Nighting perfectly normal, neither of them really get why Keris is willing to maim herself or do other crazy shit like that just for the art.
EarthScorpion: oh god what art vandalism is Keris going to do to Malra?
EarthScorpion: is she going to Naruto the fuck out of the statues?
Aleph: Ney: "... at which point the island raised its head and turned out to be a shrieking carnivorous Wyld behemoth, to which her response was, obviously, 'I bet I can use its tongue for that painting I was having trouble with'. So..."
Sasi: "She didn't."EarthScorpion: o keris
Ney: "... she jumped into its mouth and started hacking it off."
...
EarthScorpion: Heh. It really is the Rathan Haneyl Calesco trio who Keris most treats as her children. Eko occupies an odd space, Vali kind of rebels against the subservience of childhood and Zanara is in a very strange place where they're more Haneyl and Rathan's siblings than Keris' child.
...
EarthScorpion: Hmm. I guess Keris needs wyld-shaping before she can make her beasts in the real world. So she needs that before she can acquire a kat to be a family pet.
Aleph: Heh. Which kat breed will Sasi like best?
EarthScorpion: Kat: *picks up Kali by the name of her neck and deposits her back in her cot*
Aleph: Kalaskan kats are, of course, foxes.
EarthScorpion: Hmm. I'm inclined to Sasi probably likes sleek, flowing tar-kats.
Aleph: Hee. Their breath smells honey-sweet. When they lick your face, it's actually quite pleasant.
EarthScorpion: Yes, but it's sticky.
Aleph: Well yes. But Sasi washes her face after waking up anyway.
EarthScorpion: Heh. They're also like tigers and swamp-kats in that they're gleefully amphibious.
Aleph: : P
EarthScorpion: They probably have greasy, shiny, waterproof fur like an otter. Oh, and tar-kats are obviously short-furred because it's so hot where they live.
EarthScorpion: (they're much better pets than swamp-kats, who are sort of tiger-leopards in that they're equally at home in the water, the land, or in trees, and like neck-pouncing things)
Aleph: Ruin-kats are mini velvet-cheetahs.
Sea-kats are Vaporeon otters.EarthScorpion: Hmm. They're probably the "pedigree cats", the Isle ones - the cats bred to be pretty.
Swamp-kats are fire-spitting bulbasaur-jaguars.
Tar-kats are oily-furred Umbreons.
Spire-kats are metal Jolteons.
Isle-kats... hmm.
Aleph: Heh. Yes.
Aleph: Fog-kats are rare, and almost all have ghostly white fur that blends into the mists, bar the even rarer few that are silver.
Aleph: The, heh, shiny ones.
Aleph: And city-kats are the most like Keris remembers from the streets.
EarthScorpion: Though, heh
EarthScorpion: city-kats sing
EarthScorpion: And not like Vesta.
EarthScorpion: they sing like the Aristocats.
EarthScorpion: (this means that in the city, people will throw their boot out the window at a male kat who's putting on an opera to attract a lady kat)
Aleph: : P
Aleph: Oh Krisity.
EarthScorpion: (city kats also sing things like 'Come here, little mousy, get in my tummy'. As far as everyone knows they're only cat-level smart, but they somehow know the appropriate songs for any occasion)
EarthScorpion: (it's probably the angyalka in them)
...
Aleph: Anyway, Keris suggests supernally-made drinks and treats that Xasan can share around instead of cold hard cash, to a) make it less blatantly obvious that he's buying information rather than sharing a recent haul of cool liquors with fellow shahsmen, b) probably loosen their tongues rather more than even the cash would, and most importantly c) not force Keris to spend money.
Aleph: ... this is basically The Haneyl Approach.
Aleph: The only non-Haneylian bit is that she's using alchemy to make drinks rather than cooking to make food.
EarthScorpion: Heh, yes. Oh Haneyl. You love bribing people with perishables made from cheap ingredients.
...
EarthScorpion: Kali's got her first real dialogue. : D
Aleph: ...
Aleph: Goddammit they're adorable.
Aleph: Hmm. Translating from babyese... that last bit she's complaining that Ogin is nomming her foot.
Aleph: Bloooo, then. Hmm. Does... she want something blue? Dammit, babies should come with a translator. : P
Aleph: "Ogin looks back up with gravely disappointed silver eyes, and deliberately grabs his sister's foot with a chubby hand. He doesn't say anything."
Aleph: "Ogin shakes his head, and refuses to let go of her foot. He looks at it, and on the basis that he has it in his hand, he puts it in his mouth."
Aleph: Ogin MVP
Aleph: <3
EarthScorpion: Eko shakes her head. She doesn't understand his accent in Ekoese. He must be too small to communicate properly.
Aleph: : P
Aleph: Oh wait, "san" is probably Xasan.
Aleph: ... still not sure what blooooo/gooooo is, but I'm guessing Kali just wants to play with her great-uncle's beard some more.
EarthScorpion: She is very confused that it is not a prehensile beard.
Aleph: Keris: "... do you want a prehensile beard, uncle?"
EarthScorpion: (Ogin is still confused by feet)
Aleph: Does Kali's repeated "floooo" sound have an actual meaning she's trying to convey with it, like "ma" and "Caa" and "san", or is it just a random noise she happens to like?
EarthScorpion: Honestly, I'm not sure. She might be trying to say she wants to go on the floor.
...
Aleph: Sigh
Aleph: Ever-Fire Manse Gardens, huh?
Aleph: So, fire manse, solar-built, nature-themed
Aleph: Kali will gravitate into it on sight and then refuse to leave and scream if anyone tries to make her.
Aleph: The only way to get a place more aligned with her essence would be to build a manse with heavy predator themes (so, probably something rebuilt from dragon king ruins) on a two-flavour Solar-Fire demesne. And then possibly put a demon in it.
EarthScorpion: Meanwhile Ogin is hilarious and scene stealing because he's Keris first child who's quiet and serious.
Aleph: Can this even be?
EarthScorpion: Rathan is a terrible influence on his little brother.
Aleph: Rathan is a terrible influence, period. : P
EarthScorpion: Calesco is hard suffering serious goth vegetarian lesbian little sister.
EarthScorpion: However, she is not quiet.
Aleph: Heh. No. Not at all.
EarthScorpion: In fact, she's less capable of being quiet than Haneyl.
Aleph: That is... saying something.
EarthScorpion: Haneyl, when confronted by something big and scary will hide and watch it until she feels safe to do something else.
EarthScorpion: Calesco will get in its face and demand to know what it's doing.
EarthScorpion: ... Calesco is Vali-level valour.
Aleph: Keris sort of wishes she wasn't, really.
EarthScorpion: ... she's also very high Conviction.
Aleph: Hmm. What's her Temperance like?
Aleph: ... not as high as the other three, but still above average, I think.
Aleph: Her Compassion can override it to make her break promises for people's own good, but in situations outside Virtue clash...
EarthScorpion: Low. She's a liar and self indulgent by natural inclination. She just uses conviction to fake it.
Aleph: Oh, right.
Aleph: Yeah, forgot about the lying.
Aleph: Still, sigh. It's obvious why she admires Testolagh.
Aleph: Heh. She might teach him how to Beckon her at some point.
EarthScorpion: Also, about as much of a casual thief as Haneyl when she thinks the person doesn't need or deserve it, or someone else needs it more.
Aleph: : P
Aleph: Oh, Haneyl and Calesco.
Aleph: Truly, you are Keris's daughters.
Aleph: (Whereas Eko is still more like her bratty little sister).
EarthScorpion: Vali, sigh, has a similar virtue spread to Testolagh.
...
Aleph: ... Ney.
Aleph: If you have Perfect Mirrored yourself as being Xasan.
Aleph: Keris is going to punch you so hard you'll leave an imprint of your face in the boat.
Aleph: Of course, sigh
Aleph: She can't make that leap of suspicion. She's too trusting of family.
Aleph: ... oh god, he is getting so very punched.
Aleph: I really don't know what he expected this to result in, if not her trying to punch him in the face until his jaw breaks.
EarthScorpion: So is she actually trying to hurt him, or is this just stress?
Aleph: ...
Aleph: She's... not trying to kill or maim him.
Aleph: She is certainly looking to do 2-3B that he'll feel for a while unless he's very, very apologetic or carrying healing creams.
Aleph: She won't use her blades, which I suppose is a big obvious sign.
Aleph: ... though she may summon her Lance just long enough to try and smack him across the shins with it.
Aleph: Sigh. If he'd done that while she was alone, she'd chase him for a while and then let it go.
Aleph: It was hovering over her babies that stepped on a hot-button.
EarthScorpion: He is, of course, playing the fool.
Aleph: Hmm. He's in confined quarters, and he doesn't know about her Valiant speed bursts. She has a range advantage in CQC plus six extra limbs, too.
Aleph: He may wind up actually taking some welts this time.
Aleph: ... also he's made her angry enough that she is entirely willing to go through interior walls to punch him.
Aleph: "may have slightly miscalculated"
Aleph: Lol
Aleph: Ney, considerably later: "... and I would advise heavily against going after her kids. She's normally kind of sexy-angry, but any kind of threat to them makes her flip straight to terrifying-angry."
Aleph: ...
Aleph: He's, uh
Aleph: Planning to let her knock him into the water?
EarthScorpion: Yes.
Aleph: This may not turn out for him as well as he is hoping.
Aleph: She's even faster there.
EarthScorpion: His "win condition" is giving her a non-injurious minor humiliation on him.
Aleph: ... admittedly she probably will cool down from pummelling him pretty fast once she's in the water, though.
Aleph: Yeah, I just mean that if she knocks him in, she's going to dive in after him, catch up, and punch him a few more times to get the message across.
Aleph: Though, heh.
Aleph: He has learned several things from this.
Aleph: He has learnt that she can boost her speed way above her already-unnatural baseline, that she's uncannily fast in striking speed, and he may also learn that she's way more at home in the water than anything with legs has any right to be.
Ney: "Technically still a successful recon mission, though I'd rather not get information quite like that in future."Aleph: Does his 12 sux victory over her 11 apply to "letting her get a minor humiliation in", or is letting her knock him into the water another miscalculation that he succeeded at without all the relevant info?
Aleph: Because while the comic pratfall... hmm. Have him roll Per+Pres to calm her down a notch against her MDV plus, like... a +4 modifier from her love for her family and her insulted pride? If he swings that, then he'll have calmed her down from blind rage, but she'll still want to make sure the message sinks in completely.
EarthScorpion: 10 successes.
Aleph: Fair enough. Then she's out of the blind rage. Barely.
Aleph: Heh. Just like he's probably uncomfortably aware that there was a very narrow margin by which he avoided her there.
EarthScorpion: Well, heh, this time he's taking water penalties while she isn't.
Aleph: Sigh. To the Tairan girls - if Keris succeeds this time - they looked up and the Jackal was right above them, watching, and then Lady Keris screamed in fury and threw herself at him, and there was a lot of noise and explosions and chaos, and then she dragged the Jackal of Malra back in, dripping wet, bleeding from the nose and mouth, and made him apologise to everyone.
Aleph: I mean, she's said that she'll protect them, but seeing it is something else entirely. : P
EarthScorpion: Yeah, he's at -2 external penalty in the water. She is not.
Aleph: Oh Ney. That's two severe miscalculations in as many minutes.
EarthScorpion: This, uh, turns out to maybe not matter.
Aleph: Urgh. Goddammit Ney. So annoying.
Aleph: Well, at the very least he's going to have to do a hell of a lot of grovelling to get back in her good books and/or bed.
EarthScorpion: poor keris
EarthScorpion: hated by the dice fairies
EarthScorpion: it's her fault for boolying the raksha
Aleph: Heh. Can she try to read him to see if he's hiding a bit of fear? Or at least concern?
Aleph: She's used Snarling Lower-Soul (without actually noticing) as a no-attacks deterrent to him trying to get past her to her children, incidentally.
EarthScorpion: Yep, Keris can tell he realises he fucked up.
EarthScorpion: How's her mote pool doing? : P
Aleph: He has infuriated her into blowing through most of it. She's basically tapped out now.
Aleph: Mechanically, she has 3 motes left, lol.
Ney: *quietly notes down 'not much endurance; can be outlasted' on a mental threat evaluation*
...
Aleph: Oh, Keris.
Aleph: In simpler terms, Ney showed her that what she thought was a safe space wasn't, and she got scared.
Aleph: That same old trauma from the streets, rearing its head yet again. : (
Aleph: Honestly, it's that more than anything else.
Aleph: She'd started thinking of the barge as a safe space.
Aleph: He showed her it wasn't one.
Aleph: That stomped on her childhood trauma in a big way.
Aleph: If she was less centred in herself, she might have legit had a flashback to Nexus from that.
Aleph: I bet that happened at least once; waking up in a squat or cubbyhole to find someone else there with malice athought and having to shriek and scrabble and stab them.
Aleph: Poor Keris. So much of her comes back to her trauma. : (
Aleph: And Ney probably has the Investigation to suss out what a deep well of trauma he just unintentionally stomped on.
Ney: "Right. Yeah. No invading her safe places. Gotcha."
Ney: "... oh, the temptation to make that into an innuendo."
...
Aleph: God, it is good having a PR-focused demon lord around.
Aleph: Keris is going to really miss him when he's off doing seasonal projects in the Southwest.
Aleph: And also miss the ability to just respond to a problem like "the locals and freaking out and worried and a hair away from forming mobs because they think there's a demon here" by just throwing Rathan at the issue until it stops being one.
EarthScorpion: Rathan is very useful as a "get that done" underling.
EarthScorpion: He needs a lot less micromanaging than some of the others.
Aleph: He's spoiling her.
EarthScorpion: Don't worry, she can send Haneyl instead!
Aleph: Oh god
Aleph: ... man, we are lucky Haneyl wasn't here for this.
Aleph: She'd have exploded almost as furiously as Keris.
...
Aleph: So, heh. Has Ney used some Investigation (and talked to Rathan about how mama was totally justified blowing up like that) and worked out a little about how Keris has serious deep-rooted trauma around her safe spaces being invaded?
EarthScorpion: He's kind of had very good reason to do so.
Aleph: Ney: "This is normally where 'don't stick it in the crazy' would come up, but I kind of already dropped the ball on that one."
Ney: "Or balls. As it were."EarthScorpion: : D
EarthScorpion: Ney is going to be honest - all the female celestials he knows are pretty crazy.
Aleph: Oh, Keris. In Ney Quest, this has been a very informative episode.
Aleph: And made the mysterious love interest both scarier and also more sympathetic.
EarthScorpion: It was probably a write in vote.
Aleph: FireSpider is chewing the thread out in depth about it now.
Aleph: He argued against it.
Aleph: ... heh
EarthScorpion: Hmm?
Aleph:
EarthScorpion:Ney Quest said:
Aleph: (Which does FireSpider vote for?)
EarthScorpion: FireSpider would probably go for the paranoia vote.
Aleph: Hee. Yes.
FireSpider said:
...
EarthScorpion: Heh
EarthScorpion: Keris hasn't really been using Calesco optimally this trip.
EarthScorpion: By contrast, she's been using Rathan pretty efficiently.
Aleph: What would you say optimal use of Calesco is?
EarthScorpion: Calesco is... well, she's primarily an ethical assassin and messager, with a minor in mono-target socialising (and when she's a bit older, seduction).
Aleph: Hmm. She's also one of Keris's three thieves.
EarthScorpion: But what she's really, really good at is killing people. Better in some ways than Eko.
EarthScorpion: Yes, she's the spy-assassin.
Aleph: Heh. It's hard to use her as an assassin, but she makes a very good spy, and it's a lot easier to use her as one.
EarthScorpion: She can walk into a town in disguise, find where her target is, sneak in in disguise and steal it or get up to a high place with her bow and just erase them.
EarthScorpion: Like, Keris could have sent Calesco ahead of the boat to spy out the locations they're going to.
Aleph: Yeah. Heh. Rathan's more intuitive to her because he does things she can't, really (or at least not as naturally). She's less willing to send Calesco off in a strange land to do stuff that Keris could do but isn't efficient for her to.
...
Aleph: Heh.
Aleph: The relationship between Keris and Calesco especially is sort of characterised by these private, painful and uncomfortable conversations about things that are very personal or intimate or both. Whether it's morality or Calesco's nature or the state of the world or whatever; it's how they connect.
Aleph: Unsurprising, given that Calesco is basically her conscience given form, but it's a very distinct flavour of mother-daughter relationship to Keris and Haneyl's, which is more characterised by big dramatic (or melodramatic) outbursts and heavily emotional or overemphasised displays.
Aleph: There are quieter moments in each, of course, but those are the ones that move them along and leave the strongest impressions.
EarthScorpion: Yes. I do love how those two are clearly her daughters - and Rathan's clearly her son.
Aleph: Yes, hee.
Aleph: And Eko is fundamentally more her little sister than her daughter, even if Keris calls her the eldest child, while Zanara is half hers and half not.
Aleph: Oh, Keris.
Aleph: She is very supportive mama
Aleph: Much unconditional love
Aleph: Very on her kids' side
Aleph: Calesco, heh, may want to find a more impartial view at some point in her subjective late teens who'll be less biased in her favour. Testolagh, maybe.
Aleph: And then Kerismama goes and dispenses, uh
Aleph: the kind of piercing comment that would usually be loosed by Calesco, not at her, I think.
Aleph: ... hmm.
Aleph: I'm gonna sleep on that "punishment" thing, because I can feel the shape of a good summation to this, but I need to get some rest now.
EarthScorpion: Yes, sure.
EarthScorpion: Oh, Calesco.
Aleph: Mou~
EarthScorpion: She's matured enough that, uh
EarthScorpion: the masochism is starting to get involved in her emotional reactions.
EarthScorpion: And of course, she's Calesco. She says things to shock Keris and shake her anyway. It's one of the ways she's Zanara's sister.
Aleph: She definitely just succeeded at that.
EarthScorpion: But yeah, Calesco is dealing with issues right now, including, Keris can realise, guilt over spending so much of the day hogging the body.
Aleph: Hmm. Yes.
EarthScorpion: And TLA towards Kuha so she's being erratic and her emotional responses messed up because she hates that she wants to hurt the person she loves when she's so much weaker than her.
Aleph: : (
EarthScorpion: Everyone else she's loved before has been family who are as powerful as she is - or more so - and they can take her barbs and tussling.
EarthScorpion: But she's terrified of actually hurting Kuha.
EarthScorpion: Keris getting a Calesco barb on Calesco was great.
...
Aleph: Hee.
Aleph: I have to say.
Aleph: One of my favourite bits of this session was Oula's little thing about how she's never seen Keris get really angry before, and how the sheer power and force of it was a potent reminder of why Keris is the High Queen while even Rathan is just a Prince.
Aleph: I love seeing the PoV reactions of other people like that.
EarthScorpion: Oula can say these kinds of things, yes. Especially since she's an E3 demon and thus really weak compared to Keris but towers over most mortals.
Aleph: Little Oula is a Fraccion whose Espada is generally really relaxed and chill and who might occasionally wipe out a settlement of base Hollows without visible effort but who doesn't often let loose.
Aleph: She just got reminded that said Espada is, in fact, still a fucking Vasto Lorde.
EarthScorpion: oh god, yes
EarthScorpion: Oula is super-Fraccion-y
EarthScorpion: (so is Rounen)
Aleph: And Kuha. : D
Aleph: The dolphin, owl and flower.
EarthScorpion: Nah, the owl, the dolphin and the croc.
EarthScorpion: It means when Rounen goes Res, he turns from a pretty boy to a hulking croc-man.
EarthScorpion: He's, heh, in the Tesla mould.
Aleph: : D
...
Aleph: ... aww poot.
Aleph: If Calesco and Kuha start cycling properly, Ney is totally going to recognise them as a demonhost situation, even with low Occult.
Aleph: Or spirithost, at least.
Aleph: Which tells him that Keris's elder children are spirits, rather than weird godblooded things like Kali and Ogin.
The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
Kind of sad Ney had no way of knowing that Oula was being literal about the heart thing.
Cacao trees would probably grow quite well in the bit of the Southwest Keris is setting up in, although actually getting them there and keeping them from dying of something might be difficult.
I would have thought that any type of cat from the Isles would be like a cheshire from Paolo Bacigalupi's "Calorie Man" and related stories. Think color-changing that would make an octopus or cuttlefish envious, meaning they're effectively invisible when hunting and can change their patterns and colors at will. Given that they're from the Isles, of course, they instinctively use this ability to make art with themselves as the canvas. Breeds might fall along stylistic lines, where there's some that prefer Impressionism, some that are more Romanticism, some that are abstract, etc.
I do wonder what data points Ney would need to piece together a more accurate picture of what Keris actually is, and how he might react if he knew. For that matter, I wonder exactly how much he's told his two Circle-mates about the potential catastrophe he's escorting to their capital.
I note that Keris is being sadly optimistic about her mother's concern for target identification, and the longer this continues the more disastrous it's likely to be when the first thing Maryam stumbles over one night and subsequently butchers is totally innocuous. As it is, I think there's an ever-increasing chance that she's going to have to send her mother's ghost on herself, because given Maryam's view that pretty much everything in Malra is a legitimate target I don't think she's going to be satisfied just by taking vengeance on the one most responsible for her enslavement and murder.
On that subject, does Keris feel an obligation to go deal with her mother's yidak at some point?
Thinks that's it for now. Although maybe one more thing, just for fun: what would the Kerisgame version of Nemo be? Greater Dead, Abyssal, or something else?
Cacao trees would probably grow quite well in the bit of the Southwest Keris is setting up in, although actually getting them there and keeping them from dying of something might be difficult.
I would have thought that any type of cat from the Isles would be like a cheshire from Paolo Bacigalupi's "Calorie Man" and related stories. Think color-changing that would make an octopus or cuttlefish envious, meaning they're effectively invisible when hunting and can change their patterns and colors at will. Given that they're from the Isles, of course, they instinctively use this ability to make art with themselves as the canvas. Breeds might fall along stylistic lines, where there's some that prefer Impressionism, some that are more Romanticism, some that are abstract, etc.
I do wonder what data points Ney would need to piece together a more accurate picture of what Keris actually is, and how he might react if he knew. For that matter, I wonder exactly how much he's told his two Circle-mates about the potential catastrophe he's escorting to their capital.
I note that Keris is being sadly optimistic about her mother's concern for target identification, and the longer this continues the more disastrous it's likely to be when the first thing Maryam stumbles over one night and subsequently butchers is totally innocuous. As it is, I think there's an ever-increasing chance that she's going to have to send her mother's ghost on herself, because given Maryam's view that pretty much everything in Malra is a legitimate target I don't think she's going to be satisfied just by taking vengeance on the one most responsible for her enslavement and murder.
On that subject, does Keris feel an obligation to go deal with her mother's yidak at some point?
Thinks that's it for now. Although maybe one more thing, just for fun: what would the Kerisgame version of Nemo be? Greater Dead, Abyssal, or something else?
Ney is lucky that Keris was so angry that she forgot she had Thousandfold Typhoon Hand.
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
ES did note that his conception of "base ghost, greater dead, deathlord" parallels "base hollow, adjuchas, vasto lorde" eerily well. No gillian equivalent, but gillians are kind of the odd ones out and are boring anyway.
Undead-Spaceman
Skeleton Supreme
- Location
- Somewhere in Orbit
I believe he already did.
Speaking of her mother's Yidak, that thing didn't just disappear and since the dead tend to hang around their bodies well... I do wonder if there have been any disappearances following their exact route.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
ES, we need to talk about your habit of making waifu ghosts.
So, yeah. This is one of the consequences of times when we run via PBP in a gdoc rather than live Skype play. It bloats. It bloats a lot. PBP sessions tend towards the 20k words, and I'm not even 100% sure where all the word count goes. Stuff happens, yes, but it doesn't feel like as much as it should. I guess adding 100-400 word updates as we alternate quickly builds up the word count, while live play has a lot more single sentence replies.
Oh well.
Ah yes. Calesco.
Sometimes, Keris forgets that her souls are demons and do not operate by human mental norms. A lot of this is because she's put huge amounts of effort into parenting them and teaching them to act like humans, and a lot of it is because their demonic urges are towards things she wants to do anyway. Haneyl's inhuman greed is part of Keris, and she understands where she's coming from. When Calesco shouts at Keris for being incompassionate, Keris was already feeling bad about doing the bad thing.
This is one of the times she can't forget or ignore it. Keris saw rather more than she usually does behind Calesco's mask, and perhaps even some of the issues with her shadowy form that she favours.
And yes, all of Calesco's Compassion works by TLA rules - and that means to her, teaching or hurting someone you love is just as compassionate as the traditional expressions. Calesco is not forgiving - not even to herself. Or, rather, her forgiveness comes in the form of punishment and lessons, because simple forgiveness is not how she works. And it's not some self-centred idea of justice. When she messes up, she demands to be punished to make things right.
Oh well.
Ah yes. Calesco.
Sometimes, Keris forgets that her souls are demons and do not operate by human mental norms. A lot of this is because she's put huge amounts of effort into parenting them and teaching them to act like humans, and a lot of it is because their demonic urges are towards things she wants to do anyway. Haneyl's inhuman greed is part of Keris, and she understands where she's coming from. When Calesco shouts at Keris for being incompassionate, Keris was already feeling bad about doing the bad thing.
This is one of the times she can't forget or ignore it. Keris saw rather more than she usually does behind Calesco's mask, and perhaps even some of the issues with her shadowy form that she favours.
And yes, all of Calesco's Compassion works by TLA rules - and that means to her, teaching or hurting someone you love is just as compassionate as the traditional expressions. Calesco is not forgiving - not even to herself. Or, rather, her forgiveness comes in the form of punishment and lessons, because simple forgiveness is not how she works. And it's not some self-centred idea of justice. When she messes up, she demands to be punished to make things right.
Hope you're healing well.
I recall that Rathan was described as Kaworu Nagisa, but with red hair and horns. Well, I've found a picture that I think portrays him quite well, if you disregard the wings.
https://images.search.yahoo.com/ima...t23j&.crumb=0fM6iviTVeh&fr=iphone&fr2=piv-web
https://images.search.yahoo.com/ima...t23j&.crumb=0fM6iviTVeh&fr=iphone&fr2=piv-web
Ney: "Circle-mates? Kinda overestimating our closeness, aren't you? The term is 'employers'. Tairans hire us highlanders to be their soldiers, because they know Harbourites are more trustworthy. We work for pay and won't betray you because of an old family feud or because our lord wants to usurp you."
Xasan: "He's annoying, but he's right."
Ney: "It's one of the things about Kiss that she doesn't even realise herself - and one of the reasons I like her. She's a proper woman, not one of these fainting veiled Tairan girls. Kiss is a highlander born in the wrong country. She does things for her clan, and things for money, and the two don't touch. I guess she takes after her mother."
Xasan: "Still annoying. Still right. Although... I don't see how you can call the shahbanu a fainting veiled Tairan girl."
Ney: "Oh, she's just mad, bad, and dangerous to be involved with. Not that I wouldn't say 'Yes', of course, because she is quite a beauty. But after last time I went to the capital, she wants my head on a pike."
Calesco, the Midnight Whisper, the Veiled Star
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
We are skipping Haneyl for the moment, because we haven't seen the results of her internship with Sasi yet and writing her up would be ~spoilers~ (also I literally can't do it properly because some of the spoilers are things @EarthScorpion is keeping secret from me as well).
So, let's move smartly on to the next one in line, shall we?
Calesco, the Midnight Whisper, the Veiled Star
Eighth Soul of Keris
Means: Sending messages.
Principle: Compassion.
Theme: Lies can hide the world's ugliness.
Attitude: Imre (Scorn)
The face of the Midnight Whisper is a lie. Her nature is split between sharp truths and sweet falsehoods, and she shrouds herself in the latter as smothering shadows that change her seeming. She is capable of appearing as a night-cloaked panther or a number of black-feathered birds, but more often is humanoid; preferring dark-skinned guises which are always lovely to behold. However, she can appear as anything from elderly men of the Realm to young children from the far North should she wish; only mirroring another's face exactly is beyond her. Her favoured form is petite and slight of stature; red-eyed and resembling her mother enough to show that they are family. Though she is prone to dressing in dark colours, there will always be a bolt of bright red among her dressings that is wet with blood - a veil, a sash, a cloak or even a banner.
The truth of Calesco beneath her veils is an inhumanly beautiful young woman who glows with a piercing, painful radiance. Her skin is alabaster, her hair snow-white and her teeth and bones are white jade. The only colour on her is the blood red of her eyes, and her face invokes the Silent Wind as much as her Infernal parent. Great angelic wings that dwarf her body sprout from her shoulderblades, hips and ankles, while her arms are feathered, becoming wings when she flies. Upon these huge wings are many closed eyes that never open, while white feathers woven together with her hair sprout from her scalp and soft downy feathers decorate her temples and cheeks. Calesco's true form is a thing of killing grace - her feathers are as soft as silk and their edges are as sharp as razors, while her fingers and toes are rending talons to match her bird-like knees.
It is this truest, most painful self that Calesco hates, and which she ever suppresses under her shadows and veils. Should she crack her veils open even an inch to let out her light, the stars above her seem to dance and flare in sympathy to their landbound cousin. Predators are drawn to her, and should they taste her blood, her tears or her honey they will follow her passively until they die of hunger, caught in thrall. Owls and doves flock together in the lands she treads, and will follow the cruel or the callous with judgemental stares and mournful calls. Only on occasion when her natures converge can she achieve her third state; dark as the night sky but shot through with points of painful light like stars. To hold this state is to balance on the edge of a knife, accepting the crueller parts of herself without giving into them, and she can never maintain it long. While she does, though, she is able to speak without being dominated by either shadow or starlight - and the Things In Corners mass in unusual numbers to serenade her with strange white lanterns and eerie song.
Compassion is the heart of the Midnight Whisper; a piercing, forceful, furious compassion that demands those subject to it feel empathy for all the suffering in the world. Her eyes cannot help but see the countless wrongs of Creation and the realms of spirits, and her light forces others to see them too. It is Calesco's curse to struggle against her nature, and she hides behind lies and deceptions because she hates these ugly truths she cannot forget - that the world is full of suffering, that love and pain are one and the same, that mortals are fragile and easily broken. She oscillates between kinder moods in which she tries to prove her truths wrong by protecting and uplifting the weak and those bleak, bitter depressions in which she lashes out to force everyone else to acknowledge them and berate the strong for their failings.
Her chief tools for the former are her shadows and tar, which are sweet-scented lies made manifest. It is with her shadows that Calesco changes shape, granting her great powers of stealth and subtlety. She is an exceptional thief and spy, able to infiltrate any stronghold as one of its own and leave it with treasures hidden beneath her robes. Greater even than this is her power as an assassin, for she is an archer par excellence whose bolts never miss their target and whose bow can split hill and castle in twain with a single shot. She is loathe to use such killing power except in the direst of circumstance, though, and refuses to kill unless it serves selfless ends. Her arrows of shadow cause sleep, her arrows of starlight inflict agony, and her arrows of amber kill.
The Midnight Whisper lies that she is a dream, a fragment of night, a dark angel of honey and tar. These are falsehoods. Though she is veiled, her true nature cannot be denied - a white star with scarlet eyes, blinding in its terrible radiance. The light of Calesco is sharp and cold and piercing, born of the Silent Wind's love and the Ebon Dragon's awful truths. Anything it touches is cut to the heart, forced to feel empathy for every wrong they have committed, every hurt they have done to another, every misery they have ignored. Calesco herself feels all that her victims do when she is so exposed, but without her veil of kindness she revels in the cruel sympathy that judges the worth of souls and teaches men their failings. The agony is crippling to those without inhuman constitution, and when she snuffs her brilliance beneath shadows once more, she hates herself for the pain it has inflicted. Even when she wreathes herself in shadow, her light seeps into her love, and thus she enjoys the pain of those she adores in equal parts to their pleasure. She hates herself for such sadistic desires - but when she wishes to teach friend or family a lesson, that hatred will not stop her.
Much like her sister, Calesco carries an artifact given to her by Adorjan. Drawn out from her mother's tongue after the Silent Wind cut it out, Szánalome is a bloody length of scarlet fabric that decrees her a messenger and envoy who none dare harm. It can be reshaped into a veil, a hood, a shroud or any other garment Calesco desires - as well as a bowstring, should she wish to shuck its protection and use it to kill. The only bow that does not snap under its strength is the vast longbow Éjszaka, carved from the wood of a star-demesne by her Infernal mother and heavy enough that Calesco must use both hands and hair to draw it.
The Veiled Star's goals are split between her natures. When shadow, she tries to provide for the weak and reward kindness. When starlight, she seeks to punish the strong and redress cruelty. She herself is no exception to her rules; she feels she should only allow herself luxuries when she has done sufficient good, and that her failings should be followed with masochistic penance. In Calesco's perfect world; suffering would not beget suffering, all men would be kind to one another and morals would be black and white without any shades of grey. That she knows this can never be is but one of the many truths she hates. She makes a superb assassin - though summoners should beware her ethics in their choice of targets - and an excellent thief and spy. Her honeyed lies and harsh truths pair well with her surpassing beauty to make an intimidating social force, albeit rarely a quiet one. Perhaps her safest use is as a messenger and envoy - this is the core of her self, and the role of courier is one she bears well, even to the most perilous of recipients.
Those who would entreat or ally themselves with Calesco should be mindful of the demands of her heart. She gains Limit when she is forced to suppress her Compassion, and she cannot be bound to keep her starlight muffled or veiled. When owls bear witness to a monstrous act under the stars that violates every principle she holds dear, they may let loose a terrible scream that brings her crashing down from the sky; piercing light radiating from every eye and feather.
Notes:
Calibration is the one time of year Calesco can doff her veils without causing pain. She is pale and white-haired; a beauty to break the hearts of princes, with the same uncanny resemblance to the Silent Wind as her sister.
Calesco is associated with bees, insects, owls, doves, predator traps, black, purple and other dark colours, feathers, red eyes, veils, tears, bells, tar, honey, amber, caves, tar pits, rolling hills, baking heat, red and white stars, painful blinding white light, darkness, night, shadows, archery, arrows, violin music. Her symbol is the bloody feather; a white pinion stained red at the tip, with eight drops of blood falling from it.
Calesco's relationships with her siblings are as complicated as that with her mother, and she names them each by their role. Her sister Eko she decries as the murderer and demands that she slow down and think, though despite this they are close and share affection freely. Rathan, the liar, was once her bitterest enemy, but while she still despises his self-centred nature they have come to an accord over their time in Creation. With Haneyl, Calesco alternates between naming her the disease for her cruelty and greed, and being pleasantly surprised by her episodes of kindness and generosity. Vali is another sibling she gets along well with; she is left somewhat off-balance by the enthusiasm of the brother she names the scab, although she does not spare him her tongue when he lets his desire to be free overwhelm his care for the harm he might do. Zanara is the perversion to her, and while Calesco acknowledges the beauty of their creations, she despises that they care nothing if it is beauty that hurts people. The choke-chain Dulmea is a sterner parent than her daughter, and while they argue whenever the pragmatism of a cautious demon abuts the relentless demands of compassion, Calesco appreciates her willingness to punish rather than forgive. Pekhijira, on the other hand, merits mingled pity and scorn from her - for she knows better than most the fear at the heart of the beast, and is contemptuous of how it acts on it.
So, let's move smartly on to the next one in line, shall we?
Calesco, the Midnight Whisper, the Veiled Star
Eighth Soul of Keris
Means: Sending messages.
Principle: Compassion.
Theme: Lies can hide the world's ugliness.
Attitude: Imre (Scorn)
The face of the Midnight Whisper is a lie. Her nature is split between sharp truths and sweet falsehoods, and she shrouds herself in the latter as smothering shadows that change her seeming. She is capable of appearing as a night-cloaked panther or a number of black-feathered birds, but more often is humanoid; preferring dark-skinned guises which are always lovely to behold. However, she can appear as anything from elderly men of the Realm to young children from the far North should she wish; only mirroring another's face exactly is beyond her. Her favoured form is petite and slight of stature; red-eyed and resembling her mother enough to show that they are family. Though she is prone to dressing in dark colours, there will always be a bolt of bright red among her dressings that is wet with blood - a veil, a sash, a cloak or even a banner.
The truth of Calesco beneath her veils is an inhumanly beautiful young woman who glows with a piercing, painful radiance. Her skin is alabaster, her hair snow-white and her teeth and bones are white jade. The only colour on her is the blood red of her eyes, and her face invokes the Silent Wind as much as her Infernal parent. Great angelic wings that dwarf her body sprout from her shoulderblades, hips and ankles, while her arms are feathered, becoming wings when she flies. Upon these huge wings are many closed eyes that never open, while white feathers woven together with her hair sprout from her scalp and soft downy feathers decorate her temples and cheeks. Calesco's true form is a thing of killing grace - her feathers are as soft as silk and their edges are as sharp as razors, while her fingers and toes are rending talons to match her bird-like knees.
It is this truest, most painful self that Calesco hates, and which she ever suppresses under her shadows and veils. Should she crack her veils open even an inch to let out her light, the stars above her seem to dance and flare in sympathy to their landbound cousin. Predators are drawn to her, and should they taste her blood, her tears or her honey they will follow her passively until they die of hunger, caught in thrall. Owls and doves flock together in the lands she treads, and will follow the cruel or the callous with judgemental stares and mournful calls. Only on occasion when her natures converge can she achieve her third state; dark as the night sky but shot through with points of painful light like stars. To hold this state is to balance on the edge of a knife, accepting the crueller parts of herself without giving into them, and she can never maintain it long. While she does, though, she is able to speak without being dominated by either shadow or starlight - and the Things In Corners mass in unusual numbers to serenade her with strange white lanterns and eerie song.
Compassion is the heart of the Midnight Whisper; a piercing, forceful, furious compassion that demands those subject to it feel empathy for all the suffering in the world. Her eyes cannot help but see the countless wrongs of Creation and the realms of spirits, and her light forces others to see them too. It is Calesco's curse to struggle against her nature, and she hides behind lies and deceptions because she hates these ugly truths she cannot forget - that the world is full of suffering, that love and pain are one and the same, that mortals are fragile and easily broken. She oscillates between kinder moods in which she tries to prove her truths wrong by protecting and uplifting the weak and those bleak, bitter depressions in which she lashes out to force everyone else to acknowledge them and berate the strong for their failings.
Her chief tools for the former are her shadows and tar, which are sweet-scented lies made manifest. It is with her shadows that Calesco changes shape, granting her great powers of stealth and subtlety. She is an exceptional thief and spy, able to infiltrate any stronghold as one of its own and leave it with treasures hidden beneath her robes. Greater even than this is her power as an assassin, for she is an archer par excellence whose bolts never miss their target and whose bow can split hill and castle in twain with a single shot. She is loathe to use such killing power except in the direst of circumstance, though, and refuses to kill unless it serves selfless ends. Her arrows of shadow cause sleep, her arrows of starlight inflict agony, and her arrows of amber kill.
The Midnight Whisper lies that she is a dream, a fragment of night, a dark angel of honey and tar. These are falsehoods. Though she is veiled, her true nature cannot be denied - a white star with scarlet eyes, blinding in its terrible radiance. The light of Calesco is sharp and cold and piercing, born of the Silent Wind's love and the Ebon Dragon's awful truths. Anything it touches is cut to the heart, forced to feel empathy for every wrong they have committed, every hurt they have done to another, every misery they have ignored. Calesco herself feels all that her victims do when she is so exposed, but without her veil of kindness she revels in the cruel sympathy that judges the worth of souls and teaches men their failings. The agony is crippling to those without inhuman constitution, and when she snuffs her brilliance beneath shadows once more, she hates herself for the pain it has inflicted. Even when she wreathes herself in shadow, her light seeps into her love, and thus she enjoys the pain of those she adores in equal parts to their pleasure. She hates herself for such sadistic desires - but when she wishes to teach friend or family a lesson, that hatred will not stop her.
Much like her sister, Calesco carries an artifact given to her by Adorjan. Drawn out from her mother's tongue after the Silent Wind cut it out, Szánalome is a bloody length of scarlet fabric that decrees her a messenger and envoy who none dare harm. It can be reshaped into a veil, a hood, a shroud or any other garment Calesco desires - as well as a bowstring, should she wish to shuck its protection and use it to kill. The only bow that does not snap under its strength is the vast longbow Éjszaka, carved from the wood of a star-demesne by her Infernal mother and heavy enough that Calesco must use both hands and hair to draw it.
The Veiled Star's goals are split between her natures. When shadow, she tries to provide for the weak and reward kindness. When starlight, she seeks to punish the strong and redress cruelty. She herself is no exception to her rules; she feels she should only allow herself luxuries when she has done sufficient good, and that her failings should be followed with masochistic penance. In Calesco's perfect world; suffering would not beget suffering, all men would be kind to one another and morals would be black and white without any shades of grey. That she knows this can never be is but one of the many truths she hates. She makes a superb assassin - though summoners should beware her ethics in their choice of targets - and an excellent thief and spy. Her honeyed lies and harsh truths pair well with her surpassing beauty to make an intimidating social force, albeit rarely a quiet one. Perhaps her safest use is as a messenger and envoy - this is the core of her self, and the role of courier is one she bears well, even to the most perilous of recipients.
Those who would entreat or ally themselves with Calesco should be mindful of the demands of her heart. She gains Limit when she is forced to suppress her Compassion, and she cannot be bound to keep her starlight muffled or veiled. When owls bear witness to a monstrous act under the stars that violates every principle she holds dear, they may let loose a terrible scream that brings her crashing down from the sky; piercing light radiating from every eye and feather.
Notes:
Calibration is the one time of year Calesco can doff her veils without causing pain. She is pale and white-haired; a beauty to break the hearts of princes, with the same uncanny resemblance to the Silent Wind as her sister.
Calesco is associated with bees, insects, owls, doves, predator traps, black, purple and other dark colours, feathers, red eyes, veils, tears, bells, tar, honey, amber, caves, tar pits, rolling hills, baking heat, red and white stars, painful blinding white light, darkness, night, shadows, archery, arrows, violin music. Her symbol is the bloody feather; a white pinion stained red at the tip, with eight drops of blood falling from it.
Calesco's relationships with her siblings are as complicated as that with her mother, and she names them each by their role. Her sister Eko she decries as the murderer and demands that she slow down and think, though despite this they are close and share affection freely. Rathan, the liar, was once her bitterest enemy, but while she still despises his self-centred nature they have come to an accord over their time in Creation. With Haneyl, Calesco alternates between naming her the disease for her cruelty and greed, and being pleasantly surprised by her episodes of kindness and generosity. Vali is another sibling she gets along well with; she is left somewhat off-balance by the enthusiasm of the brother she names the scab, although she does not spare him her tongue when he lets his desire to be free overwhelm his care for the harm he might do. Zanara is the perversion to her, and while Calesco acknowledges the beauty of their creations, she despises that they care nothing if it is beauty that hurts people. The choke-chain Dulmea is a sterner parent than her daughter, and while they argue whenever the pragmatism of a cautious demon abuts the relentless demands of compassion, Calesco appreciates her willingness to punish rather than forgive. Pekhijira, on the other hand, merits mingled pity and scorn from her - for she knows better than most the fear at the heart of the beast, and is contemptuous of how it acts on it.
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The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
I could see Calesco having a cult that deliberately summons her in order to be flensed by her light, as a way of recognizing all their sins that they might know to avoid them in the future. Also, her summoning would probably be how that cult differentiates between childhood, adolescence, and adulthood; children are those unaffected by her light because they're too young to comprehend right and wrong, adolescents are those who are affected by her light but where some sins are less agonizing because they stemmed from lack of control, and adults are those who bear the full weight of all their sins.
On a different subject, I note that Orabilis is turbofucked the first time Calesco enters Hell as an Unquestionable.
On a different subject, I note that Orabilis is turbofucked the first time Calesco enters Hell as an Unquestionable.
Session 111
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well then, wot 'av we 'ere?
Hey ho, it be Part 111. A whopper of a chapter, and one in which... well, not to spoil, but relationships in the extended Daiwye clan go somewhat downhill. Fast. The conflicting forces in Keris's psyche are starting to make it crack, as inhuman drives pull her in different directions with unrelenting and obsessive passion. Dulmea offers a really good viewpoint on exactly what Keris is becoming, in this sense, and Ney is starting to realise what he's got himself into as well.
We also see two new things; one familiar and one foreign! Rounen returns, and we get our first mosey around Malra - complete with Keris being adorably (or not-so-adorably) envious and torn about it. We're getting a lot of that, huh?
As usual, here are the extras - don't read until you've read the chapter, etc.
Hey ho, it be Part 111. A whopper of a chapter, and one in which... well, not to spoil, but relationships in the extended Daiwye clan go somewhat downhill. Fast. The conflicting forces in Keris's psyche are starting to make it crack, as inhuman drives pull her in different directions with unrelenting and obsessive passion. Dulmea offers a really good viewpoint on exactly what Keris is becoming, in this sense, and Ney is starting to realise what he's got himself into as well.
We also see two new things; one familiar and one foreign! Rounen returns, and we get our first mosey around Malra - complete with Keris being adorably (or not-so-adorably) envious and torn about it. We're getting a lot of that, huh?
As usual, here are the extras - don't read until you've read the chapter, etc.
Aleph: Calesco's light is never described with fire metaphors; it's sharp and cold and intangible.
EarthScorpion: Sigh. With knife metaphors.
Aleph: : P
EarthScorpion: Hmm. Although she is the hottest part of the Tiger Empire. She does have heat associations.
Aleph: Yes, but it's the heat of tar pools and summer days - very much an intangible, sourceless thing that's more connected to her shadows than her light.
EarthScorpion: Mmm, fair enough.
EarthScorpion: ... sigh, yes
EarthScorpion: Calesco's tar is warm and soft. Her light is the cold of space.
EarthScorpion: She gets the light from her other mother, after all; vacuum-chan.
...
EarthScorpion: Kerissssssssssss
EarthScorpion: also Zanaraaaaaaaa
EarthScorpion: ... or Calesco seeking justice
Aleph: In fairness
Aleph: Keris probably is a match for their kung fu.
Aleph: She just wants to demonstrate a more brutal lesson.
Aleph: Very Zanara though, yes.
EarthScorpion: Yes, but Keris wants to test out her new firedust cannon and hide that she's an infernal. : P
Aleph: Sigh
Aleph: That's exactly how Zanara would fight, actually.
Aleph: With a martial art, and then with a clever device/weapon that looks beautiful as it fires.
EarthScorpion: ... sigh. A white peacock with rainbow feathers is one of Zanara's symbols.
EarthScorpion: Maybe even one of their forms.
Aleph: Ten eyes on its tail.
EarthScorpion: Or ten eyes on each of its ten tails.
Aleph: Sigh. Oh, Zanara. There's a part of you that's almost goblin-like, except that instead of "many clever things though no beautiful ones", it's that all of the cunning things you make are beautiful.
Aleph: And the weapons are all the deadlier for it.
Aleph: Zanara would adore Shen's cannons, and may well make demoncraft versions of them - or sessile reptilian/serpentine demons that must be supported by carriers or hung from slings.
Keris: "..."EarthScorpion: Zanara: "Keris, find a way to let me go to the firedust priest temple to study and graduate from it."
Keris: "Zanara, I love you. Give me ten of them for each side of the Baisha."
EarthScorpion: And on that note, god, Tai Lung's escape is just the most Valiant thing.
EarthScorpion: Or the most Solar thing.
Vali: "Fly back there and tell them... the real Dragon Warrior is coming home."Aleph: Hee.
Aleph: Hmm.
Aleph: Is Vali that acrobatic, though? He's more explosions and straight-line brute force and Brawl, I'd think.
Aleph: That's, heh. That's Keris channelling Vali.
EarthScorpion: Well, he'd probably be less directly acrobatic and more rising up on trails of lightning like a rocket,
Aleph: Yes. : P
Aleph: He wouldn't have some complicated finesse trick to get out.
EarthScorpion: ... also, he has CCC.
EarthScorpion: So, uh.
Aleph: He'd just explode the restraints. As pressure built up to levels that make the laws of physics cry inside the shell and cuffs.
EarthScorpion: He's actually super acrobatic if it's getting out.
EarthScorpion: Because that success doubler means he can pull out all kinds of stunts.
Aleph: Heh. Well, it's more what the flavour of his stunting is. As you say, he's more the type to just rocket up on raw lightning and explosive force than bother with double-jumps and wall-running. Vali's escape from a pit deep in a mountain wouldn't be kung fu, it would be a volcanic eruption.
EarthScorpion: Heh. Calesco's one is just... there's a moment where she looks up and her pupils are glowing white. And then we zoom out and white light streams out of the entrances.
Aleph: : D
EarthScorpion: And she walks out, feathers fading from white to black.
Aleph: o calesco
Aleph: Y u so Ziz
EarthScorpion: Eko is... pretty Tai Lung. Only she's playing around, and when she gets serious she just reveals she can run up the walls.
EarthScorpion: ... sigh.
EarthScorpion: No, Eko runs up the arrow hail.
Aleph: dammit eko stop showing off
Aleph: Yeah, especially since... god. If you imprison Eko like that, she's had how long to decide what she's going to do to you?
Aleph: (And also how long to work up a furious head of rage).
EarthScorpion: Haneyl... sigh. Haneyl decides she's keeping the prison. She's not escaping; she's just establishing new ownership.
...
EarthScorpion: Ha ha, oh god. Just rereading bits of Kerisgame, and I realise that all of Malek and her family map to the Gamesverse Testarossas.
Aleph: ...
Aleph: Goddammit they really do.
EarthScorpion: So basically Keris is acquiring Precia as an underling and 'Licia has been flirting with both Rathan and Calesco.
Aleph: : D
...
EarthScorpion: Hmm. Sigh. I wonder if Keris is going to get Sorcerer's Second Skin anchored in her soul stuff so she can turn into beasts of Krisity.
EarthScorpion: Since her shintai sort of removes the need to turn into a giant snake.
Aleph: Fun though the idea is, I doubt she will. It just doesn't really bring much utility to her.
EarthScorpion: Yeah.
Aleph: A normal sorcerer can use it to swim long distances as a marlin or sailfin, or sneak into places as a wide-eyed cat, or fly around as a bird.
Aleph: But... Keris. She can do most of that natively.
EarthScorpion: ... sigh. Kalaskan kats are foxes. Of course they are.
Aleph: Yes, we said. : P
Aleph: And Rathanite ones are Vaporeon-otters.
EarthScorpion: Mind you, City kats ecologically fill the role of both cats and foxes, depending on their size.
EarthScorpion: Heh, one of the notable things about the Kerisland ecology is size variability. A lot of species have the cat like thing of "just copy paste them, but bigger."
EarthScorpion: In this case, it's because that's what her lazy children did.
Aleph: Heh. Does Kalaska have any numerology? A particular one she likes? Twelve, possibly, for how it has so many factors (eg: degrees of symmetry).
EarthScorpion: I was thinking 1 from her Pyrian and Cece stuff.
EarthScorpion: Perfect and indivisible.
Aleph: Heh. True. Well, she might like both.
Aleph: Eko has both fives and elevens associated with her, though more loosely than Rathan and sixes or Haneyl and sevens.
EarthScorpion: Haneyl stop being smug about 7s being a prime number.
Aleph: (Eko grins and holds up two knives to demonstrate why 11 is a fun number).
...
EarthScorpion: Heh. Keris focuses on pretty stereotypically "feminine" arts.
Aleph: Yes. : P
Aleph: But Keris is nonetheless a hypermasculine thug wearing a very good disguise.
EarthScorpion: Although, uh, she's not the one with lace and frills. That's Eko.
Aleph: Well, hmm. No. Not a thug.
Aleph: A feral.
Aleph: Keris was never really a thug; not in the mindset that word implies.
Aleph: Even when she wasn't particularly smart and was prone to violence, her instinct was always to flee rather than fight. The violence came when she got cornered, or to give her an opening for the fleeing.
EarthScorpion: Well, she kind of was. In that she was a poor member of an ethnic minorities prone to criminality.
EarthScorpion: Also, uh. She's now part of the triads.
Aleph: Thief, feral, street rat, casual criminal, yes. Thug, no. Thug, to me, implies someone who thinks with their fists and is inclined to solve problems with violence as a first resort. Keris's first resort on the streets was generally to run away from it. She's too much a coward to be a thug.
EarthScorpion: Heh, yes.
Aleph: She's still a violent hypermasculine possessive covetous barely-civilised criminal, of course.
Aleph: But she's not a thug, and she doesn't really identify as a street rat or a lower-class peasant anymore.
Aleph: Heh. When I say she's not a thug, it's less "she's not a [bad thing]" and more a "she's not that particular type of [bad thing]". : P
Aleph: Sigh. Yes. To use a Worm analogy, Hookwolf is a thug. Keris was more like the dogs in his fighting rings. Feral animal. Still violent, but a different kind.
Aleph: ... lol, Keris would absolutely have used Marquis's code against him. She would have abused the everliving fuck out of a weak spot like that. Well, the "women" part, at least.
EarthScorpion: Hmm. Is she so masculine, though? Within the Tengese idea, certainly. But not really by the standards of Harbourhead or really by Taira or Nexus.
Aleph: Well yes, that's the amusing thing. She takes after her mother more than she realises, and so what the Hui Cha (and we) see as her being very masculine in how she acts is honestly pretty close to normal for the culture of her roots.
Aleph: She's, heh. A lioness among... hmm, what's an animal where the females aren't aggressive that can stand in for An Teng? : P
Aleph: Whatever; you get the gist of the metaphor.
EarthScorpion: Maryam: "Of course a proper woman can track down and kill game and train a hawk. Men spend all the days watching the cows lazing around. Women are the ones who get the reliable food."
...
EarthScorpion: ... who is Keris' most extra soul? Haneyl, Zanara or Rathan?
Aleph: ...
Aleph: ... Haneyl, on the law of averages. Rathan is too laid back to hold the title, and Zanara is generally pretty passive in Nara mode and more deliberately provocative than EXTRA as Zana.
Aleph: Haneyl is the one who goes for the BIG EMOTIONAL DISPLAYS and MELODRAMA and EXTRA BLING EVERYWHERE.
EarthScorpion: Sigh, yes. Haneyl's keruby, after all, have the hungry ones as the most emotionally stable and low key ones.
...
EarthScorpion: Oh yeah, thought I had last night.
EarthScorpion: Keruby and prehensile hair. Do they have it?
Aleph: The ones that have hair, it's prehensile.
EarthScorpion: Especially the more human ones, like Oula and Rounen.
Aleph: I suspect most of them have equivalents.
Aleph: ... sziromkeruby may have little vines that can come out of their flower-bud heads.
EarthScorpion: That means moon wives paint mercury stuff with their hair.
EarthScorpion: And use it for precision crafting.
...
EarthScorpion: You realise, Ney will see the advantage of Rounen super fast too.
EarthScorpion: He's about as lazy as Keris when it comes to paperwork.
Aleph: That he can reliably calm Keris down when she starts gettin tsu- oh, right. Yeah, that too.
Aleph: Oh, Rounen. Perhaps it's a consequence of being Keris's familiar and her sort-of-raising him and getting really attached, or maybe it's a result of how she spent seven days terrified for him, or maybe even it's just a natural offshoot of his nature as a dragon aide.
Aleph: But he is actually really good at moderating his lady's temper and interposing himself between her and Ney (or others) whenever she starts getting pissed.
Aleph: He is Best Alfred.
EarthScorpion: Well, yes, he is a manifestation of Haneyl's neurotic standards based side.
Ney: "Hey, Kiss, can I have one? They look super useful. I'd be able to spend more time doing the important things if I had someone to file my reports."Aleph: Keris: "No you cannot have one, because currently there is only one, and he's mine."
EarthScorpion: Zanara: "Now, now, don't be hasty. We could give him a trio of keruby to spy on him! In return he has to train them as ninjas!"
Aleph: Keris: <gives serious consideration to this>
Keris: "Okay, but that risks ninja skills getting into the szelkeruby collective. Do you really want that, Zanara?"EarthScorpion: (he gets a spark cherub who wants to believe it, a wave cherub who wants justice against their sibling, and a sziromkerub who's crushing on the wave cherub)
Eko: *gestures that she totally does*
Zanara: *looks rather more dubious*
Aleph: o u
...
<Maryam's dream>
Aleph: Oh, Keris.
Aleph: If Ney is watching this, he just saw a Solaroid murderblender who he's almost certain must have mental defences walk into a pitifully weak ghost-phantasm that requires only minor effort to shrug off, and fold like a house of cards to it.
...
EarthScorpion: Hey. Something to terrify Keris.
Aleph: Lots of things do that. : P
EarthScorpion: Everyone who descends from her also descends from Maryam.
Aleph: ...
Aleph: Oh fuck.
EarthScorpion: Thought it would give you a soupçon of fear.
Aleph: u r mean
EarthScorpion: poor Keris
Aleph: This relationship is turning more and more abusive. It's great, in a way that is sort of horrifying.
EarthScorpion: Calesco: "So I see both you and Lilunu are in abusive relationships, then."
...
EarthScorpion: Hmm. How much is Keris missing Sasi? It's the longest she's ever been away from one of her children since they were born.
Aleph: Quite a bit - part of the reason she's latched onto Ney is because of missing Sasi, and I suspect part of the reason she's tsunning at him is because she's missing Haneyl. The messages help, but she's been getting antsy about leaving Taira for more than just one reason.
EarthScorpion: Poor Keris. And, heh, she's probably missing Haneyl's drive too. Calesco is too complaining and Rathan is too easy going.
...
EarthScorpion: So yeah. If Keris wants to, she can learn Firetongue (Harbourhead) from possession-induced learning.
Aleph: Keris will totally spend xp to learn her...
Aleph: ...
Aleph: ... are you giving me this option solely so you can make a pun about "mother tongue"?
EarthScorpion: I'm not not only doing it for that reason.
Aleph: Because if so, I'm still taking it, but I'm also going to hit you. >_>
...
Aleph: Oh Dulmea : (
Aleph: She can literally see how Keris is legit incapable of even seriously considering doing anything that counts as a betrayal of Maryam.
Aleph: She has a realtime look at her host's thoughts, after all.
EarthScorpion: Poor Dulmea. She's scared - and scared for Keris, too. It's certainly a lesson in how much she's come to see her as a daughter.
Aleph: She can probably see MBD as a giant unnatural hole in her thought patterns.
EarthScorpion: She's every foster mother who's found the real parents coming back into the child's life. And the real mother is abusive and maybe she wasn't so bad once, but now she's terrible for the daughter.
Aleph: ... nice analogy. : (
Aleph: And wow, we're really slamming this "parenthood" theme.
Aleph: Poor, poor Dulmea.
EarthScorpion: Poor Dulmea. She isn't human and even humans struggle with these kinds of talks.
EarthScorpion: And none of the souls in Keris right now are any use. Eko is split between abandoning Maryam and forgetting that she hurt Keris - she just wants Keris to be happy and the emotional pain to stop.
EarthScorpion: Vali currently thinks that since Keris promised to do it, she should.
EarthScorpion: And Zanara has a perverse fascination with Maryam - she scares them, but her imagery fascinates them. Plus, they really want to see this solar capital.
EarthScorpion: Heh.
EarthScorpion: I wonder what scars Maryam will leave on Keris behaviourally.
...
<possession>
EarthScorpion: So, yeah, Maryam can only control Keris human bodyplan.
EarthScorpion: Things that are of the bits of Keris that descend from her.
Aleph: Heh. No hair, then. And, lol, if Keris was snek-bodied, she'd be nearly helpless.
EarthScorpion: Yes. Shintai are things Keris can use to escape
EarthScorpion: Eko nods, because obviously the solution was ribbons all along
...
<sneaky covert hair-message>
Aleph: Hee
Aleph: Oh, Keris.
Aleph: This is the Eko in her. The same part that's on several occasions slipped things past truth detection Charms. The bit that's clever and quick and as hard to catch or pin down as the wind.
Aleph: It's one of the oldest parts of her; a survival trait that helped her cope on the streets. So fundamental that it pervades a lot of what she does. She's very Adorjani at heart. Unpredictable. Mercurial. Impulsive. She's very, very difficult to lead into a trap or back into a corner, just because of how she thinks.
Aleph: It's not even anything conscious like always being on guard. Just a natural developed trait of always being in motion, always being ready to change direction or adapt tactics. There's nothing solid about her, really. Not, mm. Not in her approach. She's very, very fluid. It means she's bloody murder to plan for, because she doesn't plan, really, and when she does she'll toss it out the instant she thinks things have gone wrong, or sometimes just if she gets an idea she likes better mid-mission. She's almost entirely reactive in how she tackles a problem; she rushes at it and works it out as she goes - and she's really, really good at it.
Aleph: It has flaws, of course.
Aleph: It means she's shit at thinking mid-to-long-term, and needs people like Sasi to do the politics and bureaucracy stuff.
Aleph: But it's a very effective survival trait when it comes to people working against her.
Aleph: ... am I about to find out that this is a trait she inherited from her mother?
EarthScorpion: Heh.
...
<maryam flirting>
Aleph: oh god why
Aleph: whyyyyy
Aleph: why would you do this
Aleph: goddammit she's dead and a vengeful ghost possessing her demon princess daughter and she's still managing to do the mortifyingly-embarrassing-mum thing
Aleph: how is this magic usurpation-ok
Aleph: it is too powerful nerf plz
...
EarthScorpion: ... heh.
EarthScorpion: Haneyl and Rathan are Keris' primary proxies.
EarthScorpion: The ones she can point at a problem and tell them to get rid of it over the course of a season and be fairly sure they will.
EarthScorpion: But Rathan is more of a defensive proxy while Haneyl is an offensive proxy.
EarthScorpion: Keris would point Rathan at a threat to her to buy them off or lul their suspicions or thwart their efforts to investigate her.
EarthScorpion: She'd point Haneyl at organisations she wants to destroy or subvert.
...
EarthScorpion: Hmm. What does Krisity have for currency so far? Are the demons still bartering, or what?
Aleph: hmm
Aleph: well, there's no way that Haneyl hasn't minted her own coins.
Aleph: Or more likely, grown.
Aleph: Beyond that, though, I suspect it's mostly a barter system - szelkeruby basically trade in sugar and ribbons, etc.
EarthScorpion: Hmm. I think money might actually be more Dulmea led. So she can tax people and trade through the City.
EarthScorpion: After all, the bits of Hell she operated in are a money-based culture.
EarthScorpion: (Haneyl probably also made her own currency, which is far less stable)
EarthScorpion: (it is entirely predictable that a Haneyl currency is going to be prone to wild swings in value)
EarthScorpion: Amusingly this serves Haneyl's goals, because it means people spend her money quickly because it doesn't keep its value, which, sigh, probably means it gets used for low-denomination trade across Krisity while Dulmea's large fancy coins serve as the high value thing.
...
Aleph: Hmm. Keris is dark-skinned. So when she's a po-Gale... qué?
Aleph: Only with slit eyes and sharp silver teeth and a snarl.
Aleph: ...
Aleph: ... yeah, okay, that would look genuinely kind of intimidating.
EarthScorpion: Heh. Meanwhile Haneyl looks a bit like a po gale - which makes sense for Keris' greed.
Aleph: Hmm. Her eyes are vivid green, and her hair is grey rather than white, and she's paler. But yeah, there are similarities.
EarthScorpion: Haneyl: "You have seventy seven seconds to change your look."
Po-Gale: *hisses at her*Aleph: Hee. Oh, Snarling Lower-Soul.
Aleph: As a fluff thing, it does look genuinely intimidating, because mechanically it's forcing reflexive Valour rolls to attack her physically or socially. And that's not a disassociated mechanic; she's not looking like a hot white-haired babe and the Valour rolls happen in the background. If people are being forced to roll Valour to attack her, it's because she looks legitimately scary.
EarthScorpion: Yes, heh. Lamia Keris is not a particularly sexy lamia.
Aleph: Lamia Keris is a fucking terrifying lamia.
Aleph: Even after you've hit her, you're scared of trying to do it again until you spend 3wp.
Aleph: If you hit her.
EarthScorpion: Sasi doesn't care because she's not attracted to physical appearances, but everyone else is quite aware that the topless snake lady is a feral monster.
Aleph: Even when she's just po-Gale Keris, a lot of mortals would immediately turn around and nope out of there, I suspect.
Aleph: Sigh. Lamia-Keris has fifteen metres of length, and quite likes rearing up to three or four (or five or even six) metres - two to three times the height of even Testolagh - so that she can be the one looking down as she speaks to people.
Aleph: The fact that most of that length is razor-feathered coils that carve divots and slices in solid stone is a very intimidating bonus (and one that puts her human bits safely out of reach and thoroughly discourages anyone from trying to get at them).
EarthScorpion: Ney: "I'd still do it."
Ney: *deliberately not backing away, because he's pretty sure she could smell fear*Aleph: Lamia-Keris: "Urgh. You're ssso annoying."
...
Aleph: On a personal level, how would Sasi react to seeing the... I dunno, the combination of effectiveness and sadism in Keris's high-tier terrorism skills?
Aleph: Keris's Occult stuff makes her proud, and the machiavellian social-fu turns her on, and the all-out Adorjani combat where she shows just how lethal she is probably scares her, but I dunno where things like what she did to Eshtock would fall.
Aleph: Sigh.
Aleph: Assassin, saboteur, honeypot, infiltrator, occultist.
Aleph: Yeah, if you summarise Keris's skillset under a single broad heading
Aleph: it basically is "terrorist".
EarthScorpion: Superspy.
Aleph: Mmm, but the subset of superspy that she falls into is "terrorist". That's her speciality.
Aleph: If Ney is a ninja commander, Keris is a terrorist cell.
Aleph: She couldn't - or at least is less suited to - run a spy network or manipulate the political landscape. Her spy skills are specialised towards breaking things. Like societies. She can infiltrate and honeypot, but she does so more to find intel and targets. She can play the social game, but she's best at it in the short-term to get up to a mark and then away without raising suspicion. She has occult knowledge of the sciences and magics, which let her get past obstacles and come up with tools and terror weapons. Etc.
EarthScorpion: Oh Keris
EarthScorpion: Yeah, her spy networks aren't so, mm, supernaturally good.
Aleph: Exactly. It's terror tactics where she really shines. People vanishing without any traces. Rumours and mutterings in the streets. Awful poisons or bombings that implicate other members of the group as culprits. Sudden strikes out of nowhere that leave everyone on edge, anticipating the next one. Leaks and exposed secrets that rouse the infighting and riots.
Aleph: The main limit holding her back is her Compassion.
EarthScorpion: Heh.
Aleph: (Which is a bit ironic, because Calesco is almost as good at it as Keris is.)
EarthScorpion: Amusingly, Greed is maybe second.
EarthScorpion: Because she hates indiscriminate destruction.
EarthScorpion: Although, heh, Rathan and Zanara also hold her back.
EarthScorpion: She doesn't like pulling out her full arsenal against people who don't "deserve it".
Aleph: Yeah, but Calesco's the main one. : P
Aleph: Heh. Yeah, Calesco can... honestly do a lot of that herself. She's probably second only to Keris herself.
Aleph: She's not quite as good at pointing the finger of blame at other targets of hers, but everything else, yeah.
...
Aleph: ... you say that Aizen fits your Szoreny perfectly. So does Keris - we've noted how she would probably have legit Favoured him over Kimmy if he'd been open when she Exalted. Are there similarities between them, or do they - hah - reflect different parts of the Silver Forest?
EarthScorpion: Keris is different because of Kimbery.
Aleph: ?
EarthScorpion: Keris clings to people she cares for and desperately can't face being alone.
Aleph: Hmm. Well yes, but what Szorenyn traits does she have, and does Aizen share any of them?
EarthScorpion: They certainly have this whole block in common: "The Thousand Recursions Prince masks his feelings, hiding his true sentiments undera smiling face. In truth he prefers his vengeance cold, slowly weakening his foes until he can defeat them in a flashy and melodramatic showdown which he has already rigged in his favour. When something does break his smiling mask he snaps, throwing everything he has into a violent outburst which leaves nothing in reserve."
Aleph: Hah. Yes.
EarthScorpion: Also "This Excellency aids actions to cheat, gain the respect of others, and steal. This Charm can always enhance actions which have the goal of defeating or exceeding a rival. The Mirror Tree discards those he defeats, keeping them only as trophies of old glories."
EarthScorpion: But, for example, they diverge here: "He can abide no superiors in his envy, but revels in the attention of others. As a result, he gathers adoring fans and rivals in equal measure, and cherishes them both, for he is vain and insecure."
EarthScorpion: Keris can abide superiors. She doesn't need to be the most powerful around. And she doesn't like having rivals.
Aleph: Yes, heh. She's curiously humble, but paranoid.
EarthScorpion: Keris would prefer to be a cherished servant than a hated superior.
Aleph: More than that... yes, actually, that's exactly it. She's low-Valour and doesn't have an ego. So she's fine with having a superior, because they won't attack her. But a rival is inherently someone who threatens her.
Aleph: She cares more about not being threatened than being on top.
Aleph: Especially since being on top invites threats.
Aleph: Oh, Aizen.
Aleph: Keris would just... not understand him
Aleph: at all
EarthScorpion: No, she wouldn't
Aleph: Your post about his host of angels
Aleph: she would not get why
EarthScorpion: Keris has her host of angels, and they're the keruby, who are friendly little children - some of whom she's basically adopted.
Aleph: Hee. Yes.
EarthScorpion: Heh. Yes, Keris has the keruby as her angels and honestly she likes them, heh. Sort of casually respectful and a little bit awed the first time they meet her, but for them to ease up as soon as they get to know her.
Aleph: Yes. And some of them are legit willing to argue with her or puff themselves up and tell her off, especially Calesco's.
Aleph: Also they're cute little weak things that are often silly or childish, not grand noble angels of awesome power.
Aleph: Well. Weak in comparison to her.
EarthScorpion: Well, at least until they grow up.
EarthScorpion: then they're just silly
Aleph: *coughs szilfward*
...
<Maryam accuses all of Taira>
Aleph: ah crap
EarthScorpion: But is she wrong?
Aleph: That would be what I'm struggling with. Hmm.
Aleph: Not in the headspace to get into panicky-Keris's thoughts right now.
EarthScorpion: Hmm. Well, I don't think Keris has ever been much of a fan of those kind of wide-scale ethical things.
EarthScorpion: Probably because as a Nexan street rat, she's taken money from all kinds of unethical sources.
EarthScorpion: You can't blame her for accepting a handout from a temple paid for by slavers, because that's a _meal_
Aleph: Yeah. : P
Aleph: So it's basically just the personal stuff, which is "I haven't seen this guy do anything bad" vs "mama really wants this and it will make her happy"
Aleph: Honestly, it'll probably come down to Compassion vs Mom.
EarthScorpion: Heh. Plus, now she's got "don't betray Mama" vs "Don't betray Calesco" fighting.
Aleph: Poor Keris.
EarthScorpion: Goddamnit Calesco, she can often pressure Keris enough that her Compassion is IBT-protected.
Aleph: Heh. Hmm. That does weight things differently, actually.
EarthScorpion: Hmm. Sigh, you know, most people with IBT weren't silly enough to fork their Compassion off as a new person who they care about a lot as their daughter.
EarthScorpion: Who in Keris' case she has all kinds of snarled up feelings about already about failing her daughter.
EarthScorpion: Sigh. And Calesco is much better at convincing Keris that not following Compassion is a betrayal of her than Haneyl is at framing not getting all she can get being betraying Greed.
Aleph: Calesco also gets to stack TLA on top of IBT.
EarthScorpion: Heh. Man, Calesco really is Keris' Guarding Dark.
Aleph: Hee.
EarthScorpion: She watches the Watchmen
Aleph: Calesco: <eyes Vimes with curiosity>
Calesco: <opens a gap in her veil for a moment to assess him>EarthScorpion: And yes, because Keris turned her compassion into her beautiful, seemingly fragile daughter who expects her to be better, compassion isn't just an abstract thing for Keris. She's not great with abstract things. She prefers people.
Calesco: "Hmm."
Aleph: Yes. Honestly, at a deep subconscious level, that may be why she did it.
...
EarthScorpion: For the current kerisgame bit, it's basically a quest vote of [ ] Try to talk mama down vs [ ] Give in. Well, and a write in, I guess. But either way, things will be moving along. And Keris is sort of finding just how much of her body doesn't count as Maryam's.
Aleph: keris goddammit
EarthScorpion: Oh?
Aleph: if you wind up confronting your mother by slashing your wrists open and bleeding out most of your blood so that she doesn't have as strong a hold on you until you finish regenerating
Aleph: someone is going to smack you
Aleph: that's nemo logic goddammit
EarthScorpion: Rathan for one.
EarthScorpion: Then Haneyl when she finds out.
EarthScorpion: Then Sasi will be Cirucci like at her.
EarthScorpion: "I love you dearly, but you're an idiot."
Aleph: : P
Aleph: Keris: "It worked, though!"
...
EarthScorpion: poor ney
EarthScorpion: he found he stuck it in the crazy
Aleph: in fairness
Aleph: this isn't crazy
Aleph: it's just possessed
EarthScorpion: Ney: "In fairness, she was crazy hot, too."
Aleph: When Keris doesn't have her mother's ghost inhabiting her body through their shared blood and puppeteering her as a Total Control effect bar the brief snatches of agency Keris can claw from where she's locked-in at the back of her own mind, she's... I mean, not a paragon of mental health, but she at least hasn't thrown up any major warning flags yet.
...
<Maryam's bones dissolve>
Aleph: welp
Aleph: this is going well
EarthScorpion: : D
Aleph: Keris is now in fullblown breakdown mode which still has room to get even worse if Calesco or Rathan make any threats to Maryam, since that'll instantly make her go "no I have to protect mama from you" and run into "but that means fighting my babies" and... yeah, that'll probably make her drop screaming again.
EarthScorpion: Poor Keris.
EarthScorpion: For all it's crazy demon metabiology making her like this, it's fundamentally a human sentiment.
Aleph: poor keris
Aleph: This arc really has been informative on the downsides of Mother Before Daughter.
Aleph: She does not do well with serious family strife.
Aleph: Calesco and Rathan are both going to learn from this, and the lesson they're going to learn is "if any Beloved people turn on us and need to be disposed of, keep mama out of it and make sure she never, ever finds out".
EarthScorpion: She's probably just very very glad that her brother and his family is safely out of here.
Aleph: God, yes. That would be the capstone to make this even worse.
Aleph: So, I assume this means that Maryam's abandoned her bones as a Fetter and her revenge and her yidak are only two left?
EarthScorpion: That would be a reasonable assumption, if Keris knew more about ghosts.
Aleph: Well yes, Keris is currently having a breakdown over the fact that her mama's bones have disintegrated and she might be gone forever and it's all her fault, etcetera.
...
<Rathan talking her into being truthful>
EarthScorpion: Rathan is trying to persuade her that telling them the truth doesn't go against MBD. His action is to try to go "it doesn't fall into this category".
Aleph: Hmm. Understood.
EarthScorpion: He's basically doing what a traitor might say if they go "oh, tell me where all the weak spots are, we'll need to up the guards on them".
Aleph: ... yeah, well, Keris is in literally no position whatsoever to spend WP here, lol.
Aleph: ... goddammit they're really good at this.
EarthScorpion: And Calesco can talk to Rathan in a way that Keris can't overhear.
Aleph: Yes.
Aleph: It really is fun how those two can get along when they have a common task or enemy.
EarthScorpion: Well, yes. In this case, Compassion and Justice are on each other's side.
Aleph: Heh.
EarthScorpion: Kill the ones responsonsible, and only them.
EarthScorpion: o rathan
EarthScorpion: he is rat-handling her
Aleph: Oh, Calesco.
Aleph: I rather suspect she is hunting ghosts.
EarthScorpion: Those two are awful when they work together.
Aleph: ...
EarthScorpion: They're two social monsters and Rathan handles Keris while Calesco goes out and Does Things.
Aleph: ah, yes, rathan and calesco
Aleph: I was wondering if you meant those two, or calesco and ney
Aleph: who are also pretty scary
EarthScorpion: Well, Calesco also synergises nastily well with Ney.
Aleph: : P
EarthScorpion: And yes, whenever Keris gets hit by a Calesco message, she finds herself dragged to the Meadows.
Aleph: Ah, yes, of course.
Aleph: Keris may have lost her mama
Aleph: so she will go cry on her other mama
Aleph: Oh, Dulmea. Laying down some wisdom.
Aleph: (also lol, Eko could make some interesting additions about Primordial behaviour if she were listening and so inclined)
...
Aleph: oh god
Aleph: Eko can never be allowed to learn about the concept of gattai
Aleph: ... nor can zanara, though for slightly different reasons
EarthScorpion: Aleph.
EarthScorpion: What do you think her keruby do?
Aleph: ...
Aleph: GODDAMMIT EKO
EarthScorpion: Eko explains that because the szilfa wear masks, that makes them superheros.
Aleph: eko
Aleph: mask culture means literally nothing to you
Aleph: you violate the unwritten rules by existing
Aleph: you can identify the civilian identity of a cape you've met by passing them a block away
Aleph: ...
Aleph: but, sigh
Aleph: you would totally 100% buy into Tattletale's "cops and robbers" dynamic
Aleph: and hide said knowledge under a mask so that you could be sure never to let on
Aleph: dammit eko
EarthScorpion: Of course she would. That's basically how law in the Ruin works.
Aleph: ¬_¬
Aleph: Possibly literally, if szilfa can get away with things by discarding the mask they did them under (which is harder than it sounds because it means giving up that mask forever and never using it again).
EarthScorpion: Ruin law includes principles like "if your crimes are suitably dramatic, they're legal".
Aleph: ... if crimes are attached to the mask, that also means that you totally want to trick another szilf into taking the heat for your actions by trading a- DAMMIT EKO.
Aleph: that law exclusively exists so that she can be a train-robbing wild west bandito
EarthScorpion: "also it's illegal to be too boring."
Aleph: nah
Aleph: it's not illegal
Aleph: it's just a misdemeanor
Aleph: you get scolded for it, or a minor fine
EarthScorpion: Murder is illegal in the Ruin, unless it's interesting murder, preferably done in costume or for dramatic reasons.
Aleph: sigh
Aleph: Calesco is not a fan of what can only loosely be described as the "legal system" of her neighbouring state.
Aleph: ... in either direction, actually.
Aleph: but the Ruin is worse
EarthScorpion: Haneyl finds that very unfair. Her legal system is very rigorous and doesn't believe in execution unless for very bad things. Also, its fines are progressive.
EarthScorpion: They get larger the better off you are.
Aleph: heh
EarthScorpion: Heh. Calesco law most resembles Dulmea law.
...
EarthScorpion: Oh, Keris. The Dulmea-Firisutu alliance is an important stabilising thing; working together to make Keris be more mature and responsible.
Aleph: she's growing up
Aleph: it's terrible
EarthScorpion: And also wanting the keruby to go away, or at least stop being so annoying.
Aleph: : P
Aleph: Keris: "I will consent to the first one, but never to the latter."
*distant keruby cheering*EarthScorpion: Keris: "How old am I, anyway? 'Cause I read somewhere the brain isn't fully mature until, like, 25."
...
EarthScorpion: Heh. I think it is kind of funny how Zana has wormed herself into an adversarial daughterly relationship with Dulmea.
Aleph: Yes. Hee.
EarthScorpion: Sigh. After all, that's a pretty defining thing about Zanara. They desperately want attention.
EarthScorpion: It matters less whether it's positive or negative.
EarthScorpion: But being ignored is what they hate most of all.
Aleph: ... goddammit they would like Naruto's pranks.
Aleph: Especially his decoration of the Monument.
EarthScorpion: It's why they adored Haneyl and then Rathan and especially when both of them were there and fighting over who got to play with them.
EarthScorpion: Zana is exactly the sort of girl who loves it when boys fight over her.
EarthScorpion: It's also why they're so distant with Keris.
Aleph: They want her to chase them?
EarthScorpion: Because Keris has ignored them relative to the others.
Aleph: ah
Aleph: yes
Aleph: : (
EarthScorpion: Vali doesn't care about being ignored. He's very self sufficient.
EarthScorpion: But Zanara is about as needy as Haneyl and hasn't got that from Keris.
EarthScorpion: It's another reason they act up, because at least Dulmea pays attention when they make trouble.
Aleph: Yeah. Bah. It's an organic problem, because Zanara turned up as things started to pick up pace and there was more outside-time. Which I sort of regret, but it's a Watsonian reason that Keris can regret too.
EarthScorpion: Yep. It's a very natural lastborn thing.
EarthScorpion: Haneyl ironically got the most firstborn benefits because Eko is self sufficient and Keris didn't know how to handle children at first, so Haneyl who appeared older than Rathan became the firstborn to Rathan's secondborn.
Aleph: Yes, hee.
EarthScorpion: Eko are bein' philosophical.
Aleph: So humble, too.
EarthScorpion: From her point of view, she's not wrong. She, heh, considers herself like a primordial avatar like Thorn.
Aleph: Sigh.
EarthScorpion: And, heh, yes. Eko is like "I cut away the chains of attachment that would make the world stagnate."
EarthScorpion: "that's why I'm the oldest"
EarthScorpion: "Because it means Mama isn't tied down by what happened to her before I showed up to show her what to do properly."
EarthScorpion: (much like the Shashalme, Eko has an inflated sense of her own importance)
EarthScorpion: I am actually really pleased at the realisation that Zanara has a physical, aching need for attention.
EarthScorpion: It just slots in as the missing piece of their personality that holds it all together.
EarthScorpion: And explains why Zana acts up so much - she didn't care if Keris found out that she was behind the chaos in Haneyl's land, as long as Keris paid attention to her.
EarthScorpion: And that is, I think, a bit of Keris too. Keris doesn't like being seen, but she still likes being in the centre of attention. She's the sort of person who might steal someone big and leave a signed note that has the entire town abuzz about the mystery thief.
EarthScorpion: ... sigh. And then show up in a new disguise, telling rumours and singing stories about the thief.
Aleph: goddammit keris
Aleph: Heh. That means that Zanara wraps around again into yes, having a close relationship with their keruby. Clay cherubs are their audience.
EarthScorpion: Yes. Sigh. And Zanara does religion.
EarthScorpion: Or to put it another way, everyone worshiping them and paying attention to them.
EarthScorpion: god zanara you're such a diva
Aleph: : D
EarthScorpion: ...
EarthScorpion: ... which does mean that one of Zanara's interactions with Rathan and Haneyl is being a performer at their courts and being paid in favours and resources for it
EarthScorpion: (and only being paid as much as they are due to their negotiating skill)
EarthScorpion: (because honestly they'd do it for a lot less to have the whole court looking at them)
EarthScorpion: ... oh, Zana.
EarthScorpion: in truth
EarthScorpion: you're Cinnamon's daughter.
Aleph: Yes. Yes, she rather is, isn't she? Oh, Keris.
EarthScorpion: And, heh. Fun thing. Zana is the Artist. But the Artist is also a term for the performer for things like music.
Aleph: Indeed. That's what I meant by it.
EarthScorpion: And Zana is Dulmea's daughter. And Dulmea is/was an angyalka.
Aleph: ... hah. I didn't make that connection.
Aleph: But yeah, when I called Zana the Artist, I meant in the sense of music or dance or writing as well. She's the creator, Nara is the product.
EarthScorpion: Oh. And that is why, particularly, they live between Haneyl and Rathan. Because both of them are generous with their attention. Haneyl loves beautiful things and wants respect from people below her. And Rathan rewards like with like - if Zanara puts effort into entertaining him, he'll return the same attention to them.
Aleph: Hee.
Aleph: cute~
EarthScorpion: If Zanara was stuck between Eko and Vali, say, they'd be miserable because the other two are far more self-sufficient.
Aleph: Keris: "I am very good at balancing my soul."
Keris: "No offence, Sasi, but you kind of suck at it."EarthScorpion: ...
EarthScorpion: oh
EarthScorpion: And that's why Zanara doesn't get along with Eko.
EarthScorpion: Eko forgets them and their work when she feels like it.
Aleph: Oooooo!
Aleph: nice
...
EarthScorpion: Sigh. So Oula has bright pink hair and Rounen has turquoise hair.
EarthScorpion: Keris
Aleph: y u so anime
EarthScorpion: why has your lack of colour coordination infected the keruby
Aleph: well, you know
Aleph: they are her host of angels
Aleph: Kerisian Heaven looks like it's been tie-dyed.
Aleph: Repeatedly.
Aleph: By colourblind macaws.
...
<Ney compliments Oula>
Aleph: Oh, Rathan.
Aleph: He is his mother's son.
Aleph: And considers things like "she will totally cut you" to be compliments.
EarthScorpion: Rathan expects women to be like that. He's got a Yozi-trained assassin as a mother, and his sisters are all ferocious little things.
Aleph: Heh.
Aleph: True.
Aleph: He would be, sigh, a mixture of surprised, confused and disappointed by a girl who wasn't.
Aleph: (Oula is feeling very smug about how she's a little murderblender by average moon wife standards who's been personally trained in spearwork by the All-Queen)
EarthScorpion: Heh. Oula is also very smug that she moves in the same circles as the Princes and Princesses.
...
EarthScorpion: kali liek solars
Aleph: prodding Ney in the curiosity~
Aleph: (keris doesn't want to voice her conclusion because he'll be so smug)
Aleph: ... the hilarious thing here is
Aleph: if Keris snaps "that's not what it is!"
Aleph: it'll probably read as half-truth
Aleph: because it is kind of because he tastes like daddy
EarthScorpion: oh keris
EarthScorpion: her lullabies are near magical in effect
EarthScorpion: o ney
Aleph: hahahaha
Aleph: Hee.
Aleph: If he's talking about her Pekhijirite side, the joke there is that it's not chained at all.
Aleph: Just lying in wait.
EarthScorpion: Heh. Pekhjira might well go "seduce him!" at that, because her serpent-self last got some over a month ago and, sigh. Sex and fear and danger are all mixed up in Keris. She falls for powerful people.
EarthScorpion: She wants to feel safe with her lovers, but she falls for dangerous people. Sasi, when they first met, was much more dangerous to Keris - socially powerful and so much more assured and confident, and Keris had basically no allies in the All-Thing.
Aleph: Sigh. Yes.
EarthScorpion: ... oh, Keris. As soon as her own mother is gone, her sexuality re-emerges.
Aleph: Hee~
EarthScorpion: Hmm. What's the mood here. Is Keris going to be vigorous and making herself feel good, or is she looking more for companionship after the mess with her mother?
Aleph: probs the latter, and that also fits into this being an outgrowth from showing her softer side
EarthScorpion: Oh Keris. She let down her guard around him, and some of that was probably linked to seeing how Kali likes him.
EarthScorpion: Sigh. She is a troublemaker, after all.
EarthScorpion: She feels an affinity for him.
EarthScorpion: Heh. Sasi very much wouldn't sleep with Ney for fun. He's too dangerous for her to relax around. She didn't plan to sleep with Keris, either - she just fell for her. Sasi prefers her fuckbuddies to be nice and reliable and simple, like Testolagh.
Aleph: Hee. Keris likes a bit of danger~
Aleph: nice and simple and reliable is boring
EarthScorpion: Heh. Some of it is probably that Keris has her Gales if she wants sex. There has to be something else from a lover she picks - and danger is something her clones can't give her.
Aleph: Yes, heh. If she just wants an orgasm, that's easy.
Aleph: "a one-off encounter between a man chasing a mystery and a woman who wants to let a boat pass by in the night."
Aleph: I do really like this line
Aleph: also hee
Aleph: "It's not chained at all, she doesn't say. They just came to an agreement."
Aleph: that is totally the sort of thing that, in a fully narrative work, would get some antagonist horribly killed when they made the default assumption.
Aleph: Keris doesn't chain her inner monster. She never did. She just made friends with it.
...
Aleph: you know
Aleph: in a lot of multiple-identity things, there's this theme of, like...
Aleph: "Argh, it's so hard balancing two lives, I have to spend half my day being Supergirl and the other half being Kiera and there's no time for me to just be me"
Aleph: But Keris doesn't really have that.
EarthScorpion: Well, no, she's not a superhero.
EarthScorpion: She's a super villain.
Aleph: She might struggle to balance the focus time of all her faces, but she loves it. She really enjoys being multiple people. She'd never complain that she doesn't get time to "just be Keris".
Aleph: Being Little River and Cinnamon and a High Sister of the Lintha and Riyaah MuHiitiyah and the Demon Kerisi all at the same time is fun.
...
EarthScorpion: ... lol, oh Keris. If she goes more into szoreny, she may find her grey eyes getting a little more pale and people calling them "silver".
EarthScorpion: So Szorenic she was born with grey eyes.
Aleph: Hmm. I do like the way that her eyes are the only part of her that remain entirely human, with no passive or permanent changes at all. They're exactly the same as they are when she was mortal; not silver or shiny or special; just sharp slate-grey. And yeah, sometimes they go slitted or flash green, but those are only ever brief changes - they always revert.
Aleph: (also technically when they're slitted, it's still her human side)
EarthScorpion: Fair enough. Just a thought.
EarthScorpion: oh keris
EarthScorpion: grey slitted eyes
Aleph: : D
EarthScorpion: ... sigh. the Snek isn't sure how to feel about Ney.
EarthScorpion: He's anger but also lust but also fear but also annoyance but also laughter.
Aleph: Much like in Dark Souls, the deepest depths of Keris's humanity are really not very human.
EarthScorpion: ... there may be little weird statues of something which slightly resembles Ney forming in the edgelands.
Aleph: lawl
Aleph: some of them are jackals
Aleph: some of them are men
Aleph: some of them blend the features of both
EarthScorpion: none of them are wearing anything
Aleph: ... sigh. Keris would say that his po is probably a great night-jackal with the bearing of a cat.
Keris: "I could make you a witch's brew that would let you dream yourself face-to-face with it, if you like."Aleph: ... heh. Solars probably could develop the Id background, too. Keris would just be contributing an arcane Minor action brewing up something to let Ney meditate to get it.
EarthScorpion: Unfortunately his po currently just looks human.
Aleph: Tch.
Aleph: ... isn't it, like, E8-9?
EarthScorpion: Because it's a human one fattened on Solar power, not on Yozi power.
Aleph: well yeah, but I can totally see Solar pos being able to be Solar-themed totem animals in the same way as Keris's.
EarthScorpion: Mmm. True. It might be a great proud Jackal-beast.
Aleph: Solar themes are mostly human excellence, but Solar essence isn't purely limited to that.
EarthScorpion: Keris: "OK, I have a plan. I want to hook my po up with yours. I think it'll feel great for both of us."
Aleph: It wouldn't be a monster like Keris's - it would be something proud and... okay, not noble, but at least heroic.
Keris: "I did a two-season, one-Major/two-Minor action study on this a couple of years back. There is a correlation. If someone's flaring soul has an animal or creature in it, there's a better-than-even chance that their po manifests similarly. Dragonblooded are always dragons, of course, but Lunars who've invested in a totem-form warp their po to match it, and Solars who hew closely to some noble beast tend to meet it in their visions when they drink my dreaming-the-lower-soul draught."EarthScorpion: Ney: "What about hell-things like you, then?"
Aleph: Keris: "Varies. There aren't many of us, and we're all kind of unique and weird. Mine's a serpent, but I know another woman whose actions from the High First Age followed her into this life, and her po is an exaggerated image of the ancient monsters those Solars became. She's terrified of what they were like - even more than you and I."
Keris: "Really, it's kind of obvious in retrospect. Your flaring soul is your flaring soul - of course it's influenced by the form your po takes."Aleph: o keris
Aleph: She's really rather good at phrasing things like there are a handful of Solars whose Exaltations got tainted back then, and some of them have found each other or banded together to work out wtf is up with their power.
Aleph: And none of it is a lie; there aren't many of them and they are all unique due to the different mixes of Yozi metabiology they imbibe.
...
Aleph: Kiss's Kids: a study by Ney
- Kali and Ogin (firsthand observations, youngest pair, twin non-humans, only(?) non-demon-lords. Or deva-lords or whatever Kiss insists they are.)
- Rathan (firsthand observations, has made reference to being the oldest boy, older than "Haneyl", younger than "Eko" - second oldest?)
- Calesco (firsthand observations, full sister of "Eko", younger than Rathan)
- "Eko" (name known, apparently very smart, apparently very talkative, apparently very annoying. Kiss and Calesco are so mean comparing her to me. Probably the oldest.)
- "Haneyl" (name known, connected to Rounen - probably his demon lord. Rathan very insistent that she's younger than him. Kiss seems to miss her(?).)
- "Vali" (name known, apparently has opinions on slavery, Rathan's little brother)
- ??? (One or two references hint there's at least one more. How many? Name? How old?)
...
Aleph: Oh, Ney. Even with his insight, he probably has no idea just how big an impact he's had on Keris.
Aleph: And how many Solar lives he may have saved.
Aleph: Just by being a sun-chosen who showed her - and got her to believe - that he's not hostile to her just for being what she is.
Aleph: I mean, she's still not quite convinced he'd be friendly if he knew all of it, but he's had a massive impact just by knowing she's Hellish and not attacking.
EarthScorpion: So under what circumstances could Keris become frenemies with a Sidereal?
Aleph: Hmm.
Aleph: It would basically have to be an under-the-table deal where the Sidereal decided that, bluntly, Keris is not a major threat to Creation. Likely by being convinced, through whatever means, that Keris honestly has no intention of letting demon princes loose, is broadly opposed to the Dead and the Wyld, and is too scared of Creation's superpower to try and do more than indirectly push the Realm out of the Southwest.
Aleph: The thing is, Keris is even more scared of Heaven than of Solars, so she'd never take the first step in trying to convince a Siddie of that, so it would have to be through some other means.
EarthScorpion: Well, heh. Ney is certainly going to want to take Keris to a party as his plus one. The question is whether Keris can repress her phobia enough to be in a room with multiple Solars.
Aleph: Heh. Oh, Keris. There's a certain security in knowing that she's a coward, for a certain level of Creation-scale player. You know she won't try to rock the boat because she's too scared she might get caught in one of the waves.
EarthScorpion: Except when she accidentally Nexus.
Aleph: She's not like Inks or Sabin, who have big conqueror-type goals. Keris wants territory, yes, but she's basically already staked out the entire region she wants, and what she wants to do is mostly just sit on it and be safe and left alone.
Aleph: Yeah, but that almost reinforces the point, because it was entirely accidental and her reaction was to freak out and run away.
EarthScorpion: Also, Keris doesn't want to rule that region. She just wants to be the dominant economic player.
Aleph: Yeah. Heh. I guess, from a Siddie PoV, if you know about her natural Limit Break she's actually less worrying, because it all but spells out that she'll only act aggressively in what she perceives as pre-emptive self defence against an attack that's already coming.
Aleph: She'll only lash out if she feels backed into a corner.
EarthScorpion: Yep. Oh Keris. Her and Sasi are basically massive cowards. The reclamation in the south West is mostly made of people who hate taking risks.
Aleph: : D
Aleph: Honestly, the most likely Keris-Sidereal thing I can see is if a big wyld incursion or Dead invasion happened and she wound up in a temporary alliance with a local Siddie on the front lines, and showed enough of her hand that they were like "she's a low-priority threat that's not worth going after in immediate terms because she's already as lethal as she's going to get and she's already pretty dug in", and then went "yeah okay, I'm willing to cautiously commit to under-the-table joint actions against more immediate common enemies in future".
Aleph: ... so, heh. Endbringer Truce, basically.
EarthScorpion: Lol, Keris being fed info for wyld pockets to shape out of existence.
Aleph: Hee. I do like the idea of someone being like "look, however much the demon princes hate mankind, most sources agree they hate the raksha more. That grudge is a lot older than the one against us."
Aleph: There's something inherently entertaining about alliances built on "look, I know we both hate each other, but we also hate that guy twice as much."
Aleph: Especially hero/villain alliances.
...
EarthScorpion: So how are you liking Malra? And how is Keris?
Aleph: Keris is Decidedly Nettled. She does not like Malra. It is presenting her with Uncomfortable and Difficult Moral Quandries.
Aleph: Also she hates how much better it is than anything she's in charge of.
Aleph: Hee. I'm very happy with how her reaction to Ney telling her about the bread dole being built on slavery was to get frustrated and tell him to shut up and then stomp off to the other side of the boat and start splashing him. And then change the subject to another argument she could "justifiably" get angry at him about.
EarthScorpion: Sometimes we need reminding she's college age.
...
Aleph: Oh Keris
Aleph: she's showing hints of why she's so prone to Shattered Solipsism Awareness
Aleph: How she's very suggestable when she's in a breakdown, even if it's not a true Torment.
EarthScorpion: Heh. And her Compassion and sense of justice are good at manipulating her.
Aleph: Yes. And so is her family.
Frakir's brother
Goodbye.
- Location
- The Sea of Trees
I always think of kung fu panda for terrestrial martial arts. Yes I get they don't exist in your setting, but the way the flash is part of the style and the style and practitioners fit each other are perfect. Peacock man fights like I imagine a Dreaming Pearl Courtesan should, and Po seems like that one debauchery based one.