Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust (RWBY AU/CKII Villain Quest)
- Thread starter Redshirt Army
- Start date
- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
- Location
- Hyperborea
There were some other questions raised that haven't been answered yet.
- Location
- Virginia
[X] Plan To the Moon!
'The Waste Land' Themes by tricholysis (Analysis)(+10)
- Location
- scrabbling
Ah...The Waste Land. The first thing to note is that the opening is ultimately an inversion of another famous opening, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. That opening is the juxtaposition of comedy, spring/weather, sex/new life, and religion. Eliot's opening is...obviously very different. Everything is wrong, the world is broken, and narrators have a constant sense of wanting to fix what can't be undone. Things are tired. Things are stupid. There's a ton of turns to find something to replace what obviously isn't working anymore but eventually one narrator finds a direction, 'fragments I have shored up against my ruins' being building something new out of the broken remnants, all directed by gifts of wisdom through nature (thunder): giving, compassion, and self-control respectively. It's in Sanskrit of course because 'fuck you plebeian why didn't you study Sanskrit and high culture and all that in school' is one of Eliot's basic sentiments of what's wrong in the world. Then it ends with a transcendent peace ('shantih shantih shantih' all without any interrupting punctuation to ever end it).
One of the most important images of apocalypse ever.
That's the horribly sloppy rundown summary of The Waste Land in general.
Things relevant to this quest in particular as I run down whatever comes to mind:
The dedication is from Dante's Inferno: 'the better craftsman', since Ezra Pound was Eliot's editor; the linked version leaves out a famous epigraph about the Sibyl who wished to live forever but didn't get youth, and so she wants to die:
"Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σιβυλλα τι θελεις; respondebat illa:αποθανειν θελω."
Yes, that's how it was published. Aren't you glad you studied Latin and Greek in school?
1. Themes of loss, sterility, and degradation (of life, of culture, of society...list goes on)
Obvious. Little to no explication required. Popular culture, Eliot perceived as chaotic, making little sense, and discarding everything good about the high culture of the past in favor of personal like and dislike, which he thought totally missed the point. What the common person perceives as amazing and good, the emergence of spring, he recasts as awful and dangerous, exposing people who are not ready for the reality of the world. This is Krom's point of view almost exactly.
2. Incompletion (the enjambment of phrases at the beginning, for example)
Lines don't finish their thoughts...Things are left, hanging
all the time. There's something to complete. Krom is pretty good about this, honestly, though there are some things she drops and others she pursues doggedly.
3. Authenticity of identity (national, class, personal)
The German about being a real German, not one of those Russified ones, and the references to a Austrian archduke's...niece? Marie was a niece of either the archduke or the Empress, I forget which. WWI has just ended the AH Empire, though. The worst war the world ever knew, followed by sickness and decay in the Spanish Influenza: bye bye nation...bye bye royalty.
Socialisation appears as the development of the self—our first human subject, and our first subject after two time markers of 'April' and 'Winter', is 'us'. Krom is less good about this than anything else.
4. The nostalgia for better times
A narrator describes when they were young and free. All a lost time, of course. All of Krom's 'improved mental stability' actions have been about nostalgia, I think.
5. Education and personal betterment
The stanza ends on reading through the night, and abandoning something for the sake of better pastures...one of Krom's favorite things other than planning genocide, honestly, followed by something she had to do because she was forced into it.
...that's the first stanza. Obviously the analysis is not practical in terms of cost/benefit at this point. (It'd be writing a paper for an internet interactive fiction. I like the quest, but come on. I don't got that sort of time for a throwaway reference link.
)
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- Location
- Hyperborea
This is a lot better than my analysis.
Dust is really cool and we should get even better at using it.
Bhrama (Gervain's daughter) is the ancestor of the Belladonna family, wouldn't it be neat if she became a Maiden that we had under our control?
Anyway, I'd like to take a moment to talk about Vale, Diplomacy rolls, and why taking Foreign Affairs might be a terrible, terrible mistake.
I know it's tempting to dismiss Vale as inconsequential because of how some of their poor rolls allowed us to infiltrate it as deeply as we has, but if there's one thing they do know, it's Diplomacy. It wasn't Cherise who gave the Faunus equal rights, however much of the credit we got for (accidentally) getting the ball rolling.
In my opinion, the +15 bonus to The Trap Springs really isn't worth the chance that Vale will end up critting Diplomacy (again) and convince everyone that "Yes, Faunus rights is important and we should all work on making it a reality".
That could be a disaster for us. Why would we want to risk reducing Societal Instability when we have so much to profit from keeping it going? With all the bonuses counted in, we already have a +53 bonus to the roll for The Trap Springs, how much more do we really need?
Voting isn't over yet, but if Howl at the Moon wins, this is how I would assign my +15 and +20 bonuses. Even though it feels a little awkward to be hogging almost all of the actions available.
@Muer'ci has a +15 and two +10, and @tricholysis, @Panory and @Pathos all have a +10 each, I was thinking I'd let you place those before I do anything with my own +10s. Otherwise, we're pretty much set. Everything that isn't ??? is guaranteed at least a Partial Success, and fully half of all actions have a 50% chance or better to crit (more than half if someone drops at least a +10 on CC: Verticality).
@Muer'ci
1. Suddenly Ninjas (+10)
2. For Narnia (+10)
3. Cherise Cheshire (+15)
@Ashmaker
1. Deserts and Dust 2 (+15)
2. Deserts and Dust 2 (+15)
3. Atrous Plateau (+15)
4. Let's Go Bowling (+10)
5. A Dust Mogul Is You: GAME OVER (+15)
6. A Dust Mogul Is You: GAME OVER (+15)
7. Wicked Witch of the West (+15)
8. Wicked Witch of the West (+15)
9. Round Two (+10)
10. Dust, Steel, Will Page 200 Bonus (+15)
11. Dust, Steel, Will Page 200 Bonus (+15)
12. Ash Falls, Hope Pervades (+20)
13. Ash Falls, Hope Pervades (+20)
@Panory
1. An Afternoon's Work (+10)
@Pathos
1. Stormtrackers (+10)
@tricholysis
1. 'The Waste Land' Themes (+10)
1. Suddenly Ninjas (+10)
2. For Narnia (+10)
3. Cherise Cheshire (+15)
@Ashmaker
2. Deserts and Dust 2 (+15)
3. Atrous Plateau (+15)
4. Let's Go Bowling (+10)
6. A Dust Mogul Is You: GAME OVER (+15)
7. Wicked Witch of the West (+15)
8. Wicked Witch of the West (+15)
9. Round Two (+10)
11. Dust, Steel, Will Page 200 Bonus (+15)
12. Ash Falls, Hope Pervades (+20)
13. Ash Falls, Hope Pervades (+20)
@Panory
1. An Afternoon's Work (+10)
@Pathos
1. Stormtrackers (+10)
@tricholysis
1. 'The Waste Land' Themes (+10)
They're pretty good.
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Panory
The Omake Dragon
- Location
- New York
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'll be that someone then. Drop my +10 there.
Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
Thank you for doing that tricholysis.
And thanks for reminding me why I never went into Poetry.
I may be a Liberal, but even that's a bit... wha?
Hm.
Hm... Point of view, justification for hate, probably just a semantic difference. I think that if Krom sat down, really divorced herself from her emotions, and tried to articulate why she dislikes the new order, that'd be it. That is Krom's logic.
That said, there's a maelstrom of dark, angry emotion interwoven with, and arguably supplanting, that. A detail that Spring and Silica both remarked on is not something to dismiss. Krom's 'blow the world up' goal is not the product of logic, but emotion. For 'daring' to rebel, to tear down the old order, that is the source of Krom's rage.
That's just the nature of Krom being controlled by, well, a bunch of pop-culture lovers. If this were a conventional story, I can absolutely see her being much more methodical.
Throw in the Russian Revolution, and that's a sentiment more than a few people shared. Krom'd certainly agree that without a King and Queen, there is only petty, in every sense of the word, kingdoms. There is no 'I am a Mantle Citizen' anymore. There's Valien, Atlesian, Vacuoan, Mistralian, and however many other you can think of. If I can be a bit of stereotypical, snooty old-school historian, there's comparison to be made between the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of 'barbarian' kingdoms. The perception that the hight of the ancient world, Rome, fell and was replaced by these lesser, less educated and refined germanic tribesmen is an idea that people have held and chased after for centuries. Even in the days of Napoleon, even in the eventual recognition that empires like China and the Mongols expanded far larger, longer, and stronger than Rome, that cultural image persists.
I think there's something to that. I don't think Krom will ever really acknowledge the errors of her father's system, and I'm not just saying that because of the divided votebase on that issue. Krom's core identity, even deeper than her hate, is a relentless drive to perpetually better herself. Semblance, Dust, Science, Magic, Diplomacy, Economics, Krom is always looking to better these skills and squire new ones. Like Spring and Fall said, Krom has an insatiable desire of knowledge. This is not only something she's basically continued uninterrupted since her childhood, but that she's used to carve out her own personal Kingdom. And that's what I think she's using to draw out the nostalgia: The feeling that this was always what she did, and has regained a small part of that former glory through it.
If I had some more time to organize my thoughts and notes, I think I might even make an argument for Krom's empire as a kind of pseudo-Byzantium.
Thanks again for doing that analysis Tricholysis, I loved it.
- Location
- Hyperborea
Having gone over the character sheets again, I noticed a couple of things.
This one is new, but I don't know how new.
When the character sheet was first posted, she had this one instead, but it's been lost at some point. Trying to meet with her again is a bigger risk than the other Martial option, but leaving it alone is also a risk.
Was this intentional? Is Leader a trait that can change stats depending on who has it?
I hope Clara loses this soon.
I suspect it's the reason (or at least part of the reason) for the increased difficulty of the Teaching action.
@Redshirt Army, while we're on the subject of Teaching, I noticed that you accidentally copied the description for the Turn 9 teaching action for Turn 10 instead of writing a new one. It's not that important since it's locked in anyway, but I like how the description for that action has changed over time as we became more experienced and took on greater responsibilities.
Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
Spring got something to believe in and went full Reimu. What that cause is, that's the big question.
And between you and me, I think we know who lit the fire under her ass.
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- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
I should have some free time today, so I'll fix up as many of the little bugs like this as I can. I'll try and post the SDC results, and SDC and Vale Influence Turn 10, as well.
- Location
- scrabbling
Man, I have no involvement in ck2 style quests other than reading to the extent that I don't even vote. I have no idea where to put that +10 I wasn't even expecting. (it's -lysis, by the way, not -lisis as in the threadmark. It's very different! '-lysis' is the root meaning to loosen, let go, release. lisis ain't even that. )
I'll take pretty much any suggestions.
but eliot's important enough that I need to be able to give it a lousy shot
Anyway, some of you drew up some thing in particular:
That line is actually kind of hilarious in this context, now that you snip it out like that. 'Dust to dust'/'the unstoppable grind of eons' becomes EXPLOSIONS.
...what's Dust again? The Breath of the World or something? Some sort of expression of magic? I'm not all that familiar with RWBY's setting.
Originally this is a Tarot card as part of a reading drawn by a crappy fraud of a fortuneteller (who nonetheless predicts the rest of the poem). With my mighty Tarot experience (none) as far as I can tell it's...the Queen of Cups? Not a Major Arcana. Water aspected, focused on self-reflection and rejuvenation cut away from the world by trials, unreachable but willing if any obstacles are overcome.
Winter is Water's season, funnily enough.
So there's another few directions, though I wouldn't take anything from this poem as actually having any bearing on how the quest'll get written.
Anyway, over the course of the 19th century Sanskrit was established as the 'origin' of all Indo-European language like Greek and so on, so in universities, having a working understanding of it was a mark of prestige and competence.
Eliot was a bit of an elitist.
From my memory and spotty Latin rather than a true translation, so something about it might be wrong.
Not at all semantic. An important distinction to make that changes the interpretation of the character.
Personally, while it's true that characters/people are not always honest to themselves of their motivations, I think that Krom's 'dark emotions' stem from her PoV. It's true that some of her antipathy stems from the pathos of losing your everything, but at this point it's more than raw emotion and has been bound up into her entire thought process.
I mean, personally, the fact is that systems will always have marginal areas where people feel betrayed by the system. The Kingdoms' (and our) attempts to establish more representative rule is just one way to organise power. I think eventually technology consolidates power into focal points and only the struggling to hold onto the 'nice' things prevents this.
For sure Mantle was not ideal—something something security, liberty, deserve neither something something rah rah Enlightenment principles. Krom will never attribute that to the system, though. It'll be the fault of individuals who failed, some of whom she knew, at most. IMO.
and why is this post now longer than my original post? why did I do this to myself? I have three papers to write
It's very different! '-lysis' is the root meaning to loosen, let go, release. lisis ain't even that. )I'll take pretty much any suggestions.
since I'm a Central Asian studies major this was a bit out of my wheelhouse
but eliot's important enough that I need to be able to give it a lousy shot
Anyway, some of you drew up some thing in particular:
That line is actually kind of hilarious in this context, now that you snip it out like that. 'Dust to dust'/'the unstoppable grind of eons' becomes EXPLOSIONS.
...what's Dust again? The Breath of the World or something? Some sort of expression of magic? I'm not all that familiar with RWBY's setting.
Originally this is a Tarot card as part of a reading drawn by a crappy fraud of a fortuneteller (who nonetheless predicts the rest of the poem). With my mighty Tarot experience (none) as far as I can tell it's...the Queen of Cups? Not a Major Arcana. Water aspected, focused on self-reflection and rejuvenation cut away from the world by trials, unreachable but willing if any obstacles are overcome.
Winter is Water's season, funnily enough.
So there's another few directions, though I wouldn't take anything from this poem as actually having any bearing on how the quest'll get written.
I'm serious. And so was he. Every stanza is packed with this web of allusions to other parts of the poem or to old 'high culture'. The second stanza includes an excerpt from opera next to 'hyacinths' references that are only meaningful if you know obscure Greek myth. 'If you don't understand it, why don't you all just go to the library and educate yourselves, plebs?' basically drips from the rest of the poem. There's a bit where he describes 'normal' people, except they live a dreary mundane life of greys and browns in a smoggy city with a polluted river (London was bad but had improved), and every day the man (sort of) forces himself on the woman, and her main thought is 'well that was boring, I'm glad I can get on with my life' and then she just sits down and listens to bad music.
Anyway, over the course of the 19th century Sanskrit was established as the 'origin' of all Indo-European language like Greek and so on, so in universities, having a working understanding of it was a mark of prestige and competence.
Eliot was a bit of an elitist.
I think it goes something like 'With my own eyes I saw at Cumae the Sibyl hanging in a cage, and the boys asked her: "Sibyl, what do you want?" And she responded, "I want to die."
From my memory and spotty Latin rather than a true translation, so something about it might be wrong.
Not at all semantic. An important distinction to make that changes the interpretation of the character.
Personally, while it's true that characters/people are not always honest to themselves of their motivations, I think that Krom's 'dark emotions' stem from her PoV. It's true that some of her antipathy stems from the pathos of losing your everything, but at this point it's more than raw emotion and has been bound up into her entire thought process.
Well...my comment is honestly sort of missing the point. The Incompletion suggested by Eliot is so much greater than the incompletion of 'oh my to-do list doesn't have all the boxes checked' that I'm not quite sure where to start trying to pin it down. Poetry sits in the inexplicable, the mystery of words and meter that can't be 'loosened up' the way that the word analysis implies.
o yea that one, I forgot that one somehow
Man, the lost Golden Age is literally the oldest story in the world. The stories of what we now call the Garden of Eden, or the age of Heroes, or the standard-naming Golden Age before Prometheus gifted Fire, or Krita Yuga, or whatever else example you care to bring up—it's been around a lot longer than Rome. Cultural images of stories are always about degeneration and loss. Gilgamesh's whole thing is fear of the reduction of death.
What errors? Literally none.
I mean, personally, the fact is that systems will always have marginal areas where people feel betrayed by the system. The Kingdoms' (and our) attempts to establish more representative rule is just one way to organise power. I think eventually technology consolidates power into focal points and only the struggling to hold onto the 'nice' things prevents this.
For sure Mantle was not ideal—something something security, liberty, deserve neither something something rah rah Enlightenment principles. Krom will never attribute that to the system, though. It'll be the fault of individuals who failed, some of whom she knew, at most. IMO.
Analysis of The Waste Land, and Eliot's other stuff and tons of other High Modernist things, basically goes on forever and unto eternity. I'm sure you could Google all sorts of things in this vein.
and why is this post now longer than my original post? why did I do this to myself? I have three papers to write
UbeOne
Daydreaming CPU
- Location
- Philippines
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Dust is the energy source of Remnant's civilization.
- Location
- scrabbling
I know what it's used for, but what is it? That was the question.
- Location
- Hyperborea
Well, you're in luck. There's only one thing left to put it on, unless you want to wait for another turn (or until @Redshirt Army answers the question of if we can use the bonuses on rolls we aren't directly involved in, like the Artifact Acquisition Chances mentioned in Crime, Organized).Man, I have no involvement in ck2 style quests other than reading to the extent that I don't even vote. I have no idea where to put that +10 I wasn't even expecting. (it's -lysis, by the way, not -lisis as in the threadmark.
I'll take pretty much any suggestions.
Teaching, the mandatory Personal Action that's only there because we actually have a day job when we're not conspiring against literally the entire world.
World of Remnant 1: Dust.
Such is the power of the Internet.
- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
RWBY canon doesn't go in depth - the origins of it are a mystery even to the people in the story. I have my own interpretation for the quest, of course.
Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
It's called "Nature's Wrath" at one point. Additionally, mankind's origins are stated, by Salem as we'd later learn, to have been born from dust, and are to return to dust, and Monty's gone on record saying Dust is comparable to Materia. Those of us who played FF7 know there's particular connotations behind that.
No kidding.
Hm. Given the Moon landing stuff that'll soon be relevant.
Hm. I don't see Krom as really having 'antipathy'. She's too focused, too often running herself to her body's limit for me to agree to that. But to address your point after doing a bit of further thought, I don't think there's much point in arguing whether or not Krom's logic or emotion drives her more. There's too much strong evidence for both sides. I think the more accurate to describe it as:∞
Two equal parts of Krom's personality sustaining and growing off of each other.
The logic fans the flames of the emotion, and the emotions strengthen the bindings of logic.
And what's the next thing everyone who uses that lost golden age as a justification says? 'Follow me, and I shall reclaim (a shadow of) that golden glory). It's a lovely little piece of propoganda.
I concur with that analysis. But it's easy to see why people on Remnant want Krom to come to their side and succeed. Krom would never accept that there's something wrong with her system, that someone will invariably not like it because she's never happy with any sort of flaw existing and left to fester. Whether its making the system better or grinding opposition under her heel, she'd do something to fix the problem. A literal, tirelessly working, expert-in-everything Leader.What errors? Literally none.
I mean, personally, the fact is that systems will always have marginal areas where people feel betrayed by the system. The Kingdoms' (and our) attempts to establish more representative rule is just one way to organise power. I think eventually technology consolidates power into focal points and only the struggling to hold onto the 'nice' things prevents this.
For sure Mantle was not ideal—something something security, liberty, deserve neither something something rah rah Enlightenment principles. Krom will never attribute that to the system, though. It'll be the fault of individuals who failed, some of whom she knew, at most. IMO.
Wouldn't last beyond her lifetime, but there's a real spark of brilliance there.
So do I, one of which is a Thesis, yet you see me here too.
It's basically a break to have a bit of fun. We all need them.
- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
>implying the reign of Queen Wrachïod Krom could be anything less than eternal
>laughing_grimm.jpg
- Location
- Hyperborea
Then again, we are working on the whole "lifetime" issue.
This turn, even. @Redshirt Army has confirmed that we can learn to copy Semblances, and this is an incredibly important step on the way.
Soon* we will be able to copy the time-power Semblances of Clara and Oswald Ozpin, giving us a longer natural lifespan and with it, more time to discover proper immortality.
*In Valve Time™.
- Location
- Germany
>implying that Enternity could exist after we are done with reality
Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
There's immortality, and then there's not dying. Even if she kills everyone on Remnant and turns them into her golems... it's a big galaxy, and an even bigger multiverse out there.
Krom would never be satisfied with just one anything, and the larger a threat she becomes, the more likley a Bigger Fish takes notice of an up-and-coming threat.
- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet