- Location
- United States of America
Here is where the sonic amulet is explained
Consumption
- Thread starter Alivaril
- Start date
- Original
Madou Sutegobana
Autocorrupt has been disabled.
- Location
- Twin Realms Mandala
Your method wouldn't take into account those of us who just do not want to change Melia's appearance at all. We would have to be voting cute or beauty despite not wanting Melia to be the type of character that has body issues driving her to remake herself as a fairy princess.
It'd be better for Appearance to have three suboptions, one for "I'm comfortable with the way I look thank you."
I don't believe most of us voting for the sonic amulet actually even really want it, it's just the one perk that has a chance of nudging out the makeover perk.
[X] Appearance Improvements ("Cute").
[X] Stealth vs. Magic
Don't like the Sonic Amulet.
[X] Stealth vs. Magic
Don't like the Sonic Amulet.
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Reminder: Voting will lock in about 1 hour and 40 minutes.
- Location
- United States
I'm not that attached to sonic amulet myself even if I do like it, would be fine switching it. Problem is, sonic amulet is the only one that has a chance at beating cute since even though more people didn't vote for an appearance change their votes are spread on the various boons aside from the sonic amulet.
Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
- Location
- Your nightmares.
That would make sense, were we not already a budding mage. As it stands, our education has been so slip-shod and spotty that we're probably more of a danger to ourselves and others if we're not trained. It seems to be a pretty universal aspect of magic in these worlds that the magically inclined need training to master their powers, and could be dangerous if they don't.
Given that I'm not voting for beauty, and that such alterations make sense for the effect that Delight is going for (and are fairly universal in human cultures, possibly for biologically driven reasons), I don't agree. I've said it multiple times now, and people keep giving me approximately the same response every time. Either I'm not getting something, I'm not framing my objections properly, or this is a subjective/emotional thing.
Given that people generally respect power no matter the source, I don't consider that to be an issue long-term. It doesn't really matter what the girl with the laser gun pointed at your junk looks like. All that matters is if she's going to pull the trigger. Hell, in that situation, I'd actually find a small, adorable girl more intimidating. Especially if they're smiling radiantly.
The thing about cute is that it can be subverted more easily than beauty.
Given that she never actually specified which several of those changes were a part of (or if they were both), I find them a faulty basis on which to base an understanding.
And what if it's not supernatural, but rather very specifically natural? As in, the effect on others is equivalent to their natural response? Delight seems highly focused on the physical, rather than giving us some sort of mental manipulation field. That means the effect will vary wildly, partially based on our actions.
And I disagree. I've stated why so many times it's not even funny at this point. I find the problems easy to subvert, and merely extensions of problems we've already had.
Exactly. I find the advantages large enough to outweight the issues.
Okay. And? I have very little pity for fools who jump into situations without analyzing things. Assuming makes an ass out of them, not me.
That's...actually a decent point. Problem is, the Sonic Amulet kinda sucks, IMO. And that's the third place option.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I freely accept and concede that Cute is more useful than Beauty under present circumstances. I don't have a problem with that.
The thing is, "adorable" beauty and "face that launched a thousand ships" beauty are both potentially useful to an ambitious mage whose welfare depends on her ability to win friends and influence people. You can reasonably argue that Cute is a better choice than Beauty under the circumstances, but what I'm getting at is that a priori, you'd expect someone to have voted for Beauty if it were just a matter of debating which of the two is more useful. Sort of like how there are all sorts of people who debate whether magic-stealth, sonic amulets, magic-overload protection, or 'sponsorship' are more useful.
All of those are straightforward 'upgrades' with no downside, and while there seems to be a strong consensus about the hierarchy of which upgrades are best, there is at least some disagreement.
By contrast, "Beauty" has attracted zero votes, the same number as "zap Melia in the brain to make her asexual." ALL the other options have attracted at least one or two votes. I don't think that's only because everyone agrees that "Cute" is more useful. There are a quite a few people who didn't vote for "Cute" at all, after all.
I think that in addition to "Beauty" being incrementally less effective than "Cute" at filling Melia's needs... It's also because "Beauty" (much like "zap Melia in the brain to make her asexual") has some potential drawbacks. Having the face that launched a thousand ships can be kind of awkward; Helen of Troy did not have the most unambiguously happy life that could be desired.
The point I'm trying to make is that from my own perspective "Cute" has different, but related, drawbacks.
Personally I only believe in the downsides that are directly related to Delight's own words and admissions, or that involve me thinking of things Delight might not normally think of or care about. I'm entirely prepared to accept that she's acting in good faith. However, she's going to have her own set of mental baggage, including culture-specific notions of physical attractiveness and the fact that this is her enthusiastic hobby that she's very proud of. To the point where she's probably prone to falling prey to the law of the instrument when it comes to magical bioenhancement and cosmetic surgery. She sees it as a good solution to more problems than it really is.
[Also, we're talking about cosmetic surgery, not a temporary spa treatment; if we're roleplaying Melia as kinda-sorta-sensible, she should be planning ahead as much as possible here]
I'm not asking myself, "what is Delight hiding from us?" I'm asking myself "what issues might Delight simply not foresee or concern herself with, that we should concern ourselves with?"
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
...Eh.
Well, I'm not that attached to the idea of playing a character who yearns for beauty either because she has deepseated appearance issues OR because of some coldblooded calculation that being prettier makes her more likely to get what she wants. Both those personalities are... well, the former is easy to sympathize with but hard to want to emulate, while the latter is hard to sympathize with and hard to emulate.
But then, I guess I didn't pressingly need to be attached to this quest in the first place.
[sigh]
Well, I'm not that attached to the idea of playing a character who yearns for beauty either because she has deepseated appearance issues OR because of some coldblooded calculation that being prettier makes her more likely to get what she wants. Both those personalities are... well, the former is easy to sympathize with but hard to want to emulate, while the latter is hard to sympathize with and hard to emulate.
But then, I guess I didn't pressingly need to be attached to this quest in the first place.
[sigh]
Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
- Location
- Your nightmares.
As a general rule, guilt-tripping the people voting in opposition to you is considered a foul, mate. Especially phrased like this.
Note quite. The object of the game is "make Melia the most beautiful women known according to an amalgamation of cultures that Delight used to learn what 'beauty' is."
Delight is not just working with one culture as a reference; she is using all the cultures she has experienced, which is a far greater sample. Admittedly it doesn't go as far as extending to ALL possible cultures (though it may come close in some respects by appealing to things that are more or less constant across all humans), but it is still far exceeds what you would get from a single culture in universality.
It should be noted that Beauty has as few votes as it does because proponents of that option saw the vote and collectively went, "whelp, that is a lost cause". You will note in the discussion that a couple of people said they preferred Beauty or were ambivalent between in and Cute but weren't voting for it because they knew the vote wasn't going to go that way.
Point is, that shouldn't be taken as the voter base expressing a near-unanimous consensus on the issue.
Madou Sutegobana
Autocorrupt has been disabled.
- Location
- Twin Realms Mandala
Here's another thing to consider...
If the opportunity comes along later to actually go full transhuman, this perk is wasted.
Hell any magical makeover opportunities that come along later mean you wasted a chance at resistance to poison or some other useful ability.
If the opportunity comes along later to actually go full transhuman, this perk is wasted.
Hell any magical makeover opportunities that come along later mean you wasted a chance at resistance to poison or some other useful ability.
On the other hand, I think the latter could be interesting to play. All lawful good characters all the time gets boring.
Counterpoint. If we chose poison resistance and get a poison resistance spell in the future, this perk is wasted. If we take the sonic amulet and our elementals grow a couple of levels to the point where they are strictly superior to it, the perk is wasted. Etc.
Madou Sutegobana
Autocorrupt has been disabled.
- Location
- Twin Realms Mandala
Magical makeovers are far more probable to encounter than immunity to every poison*. And the amulet could be sold or traded when no longer of use.
*Due to the fact that even without magic, we can do the one but not the other.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
What PrimalShadow said. But also...
The worlds we've been to have been pretty homogeneous, all things condsidered. All populated by humanoids that are closer to humans in appearance than not, all have similar magical rules, and Meria, hailing from a completely different world, understands perfectly what Delight is getting at.
I am not too worried about the objections raised.
This train of thought leads nowhere. If we assume that such things are world-specific, then you can make an argument that Delight works with her understanding of what constitutes an intelligent being, and an amulet of her crafting could cause mass murder somewhere down the line.
The worlds we've been to have been pretty homogeneous, all things condsidered. All populated by humanoids that are closer to humans in appearance than not, all have similar magical rules, and Meria, hailing from a completely different world, understands perfectly what Delight is getting at.
I am not too worried about the objections raised.
Last edited:
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Locking voting.
Even if that's true, and no one tries to seal away our existing power "for our own good," that still means they'll be less likely to offer training on anything that might be dangerous. I'm reminded of a Dresden Files book where a minor practitioner asked the MC for his help with a containment spell. He took one look, and told her to stay away from anything that would require a spell like that and to leave that sort of thing to the professionals. A few chapters later he's standing over her eviscerated corpse realizing that if he'd been less condescending and gave her the spell she'd still be alive.
It's only not a problem for us if they don't succeed. Admittedly, the possibility of encountering someone who is both powerful enough to permakill elementals and stupid enough to make assumption like that is not high enough to really matter.
More likely it'll just end up worsening existing problems by distracting us at the wrong moment
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
The fear about someone trying to "save" us from our elementals is silly. We give our elementals orders and hide them in our hair. Missing that requires such enormous stupidity that its exact manifestation isn't worth trying to predict or avoid; an idiot of that magnitude is going to find something moronic to do no matter how we present ourselves.
Also, I ran into a thought that I think I should've had a few hours ago: Morgan's probably going to be a little bit weirded out by this.
Thankfully, we have the advantage of already being in deep shit, so they can't casually dismiss us as "not needing it". We can also demonstrate some skill, hopefully a lot of skill if we can spend some time learning from Delight, and our basic problem discourages "I'll protect you!" type "solutions". I think that we'll have to play with it a bit, but we won't have too much trouble finding a way to get what we need.
Also, I ran into a thought that I think I should've had a few hours ago: Morgan's probably going to be a little bit weirded out by this.
Madou Sutegobana
Autocorrupt has been disabled.
- Location
- Twin Realms Mandala
Votes over guys.
Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
- Location
- Your nightmares.
See also: The Worst Inquistor Ever. Or the Worst Assassin Ever/the cop who was the first responder, if you want to look at Ignition.
Point. Ah well, we'll deal with that when the time comes. Delight did say 'most' divination, so we can maybe work around it.
Edit: Come to think of it, we should probably learn divination ourselves, anyway. Our allies won't know when we're on their worlds unless they have a constant scan for us going, so it would make more sense for us to find them, and not the other way around. Also, they could always scan for our elementals, instead.
Last edited:
3.6: Tweaks
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[x] Stealth vs. Magic
[X] Appearance Improvements ("Cute").
You barely even need to think about accepting the stealth enchantment. You don't think you'll be doing much breaking and entering, but being able to hide from those who want to look for the dimension-hopping Drifter? Yes, please.
Your other reward requires a lot more thought. Along with the obvious applications, poison immunity sounds like it would help you survive in hostile environments, ones where you might not know what is and isn't safe to eat. Magical failsafes might let you practice spells far, far above your alleged skill level without fear of spontaneous detonation. The sonic amulet would keep your face from being eaten by giant animals with entirely too many teeth.
'Beauty' is discarded out of hand. You don't like the idea of manipulating people like that. Sponsorship is rejected for many of the same reasons; you'd be going out of your way to break multiple hearts for your own benefit. Delight may love that sort of thing, but you do not. Plus, it seems like something that's best combined with an appearance upgrade and you'd much rather have improved stealth.
Reclaiming your imagination is discarded with a similar level of speed; while you'd like to stop having your trains of thought hijacked by embarrassing and inappropriate topics which will not be thought about even if you have to start mentally singing, your current situation takes priority. Having a clean mind wouldn't do you a whole lot of good if you're injured or worse.
In the end, the promise of more welcome interrogations is what convinces you. While you're perfectly comfortable with how you look now, if a 'better' appearance would make other people feel better about answering your questions, you'd like to jump for it. Having other people avoid you was never fun. You can't just stop asking questions; how would you ever learn anything? Certainly, you're a bit worried about condescension and the like, but if that starts to be a problem, you figure you can always train your elementals to harass any offenders. Nothing too harmful, just a few disapproving stares and the like. Even if that doesn't work, you'll take condescension over active dislike any day.
"Stealth and, um, 'cuteness?'"
Delight nods and picks up one of the larger shards of crystallized mana. She deliberately breaks off the sharper spikes before placing it in the exact center of her palm.
As you watch, it slowly darkens and turns blood red in her palm. You really hope you're not going to have to eat it; it still looks pointy enough to cut your mouth.
"Are you certain about the latter? I'd expected you to choose something else instead."
"Nope," you admit easily. "But I'm picking it anyway. And, um, could you leave my tears and the like as-is? That seems really, really awful. I don't want to make other people feel guilty—okay, I usually don't want to do that—when I'm upset and would just feel worse if that started happening."
A patch of inky black forms at the center of the crystal. After a small delay, it spreads out to cloud the rest of its container, not at all unlike a drop of ink spilled into fresh water.
"How about something similar instead? I've never seen you cry, and as such, I might not need to change anything at all. If I do, I'll change it so you don't look ugly when crying and thus make others think worse of you. Would that be acceptable?"
"I guess?"
"I'll need a 'yes' or 'no' response, dear. And if you consent to the measures I've previously outlined, could you please specify such along with your full name?"
You look down at your own hands. At one point, you remember either Ines or Eugene looking at them before they had you collect firewood. You're not quite sure how they would've reacted if Delight actually goes through with her plan to remove your calluses.
"Yes to the first part, maybe to the second. Do we have to smooth out my hands and hide my muscles? I'm not sure I agree I'd be better off without them showing."
Delight's mouth quirks to one side. You think she might be amused, but aren't sure.
"It's not to fit into a standard of appearance, but upbringing. You got those through hard work, which is perfectly fine, but those who pay attention would know how you got them. Those who belong to the upper classes seldom have to do any sort of manual labor; signs of such are indicators of a house which has fallen on hard times or of a commoner. Both are looked down upon. Their absence would similarly mark you to those among the lower classes, but quite frankly, their opinions aren't as important. I don't mean to say they are somehow inherently inferior, but if they had more assets to offer you, they wouldn't be lower class."
Delight's mouth straightens as she shrugs.
"It depends on the sorts of social circles you plan on navigating. If you're planning on being an hedge-witch or someone else who performs what amounts to charity work, yes, their presence will help you. If you intend to spend time around the upper classes, most notably the vast majority of Arcanes? You're better off letting me remove them. I'll also need to alter other bits of your appearance to fit either niche, and I admit it'll take me longer to compensate; I've never really met anyone who preferred mingling with the lower classes. Nothing unmanageable, of course, and being comfortable with bodily changes is always important."
You try to think back on the examples you had of other worlds. Ines, Eugene, and Morgan all possessed callused hands and muscles. You can't remember if anyone else on that world did or didn't possess one or both. Vanessa had about your level of visible muscle, but didn't have any of the calluses of hard work. Tessa, the girl accompanying Galya in your vision, might have fit what Delight is referring to, but you aren't sure; everything from her neck down was covered by her skintight clothing. Delight herself fits the specified profile.
Still, you admit you aren't likely to do any farm work in the future. You really should've started your education a few years ago, and if you'd been somewhere more populated, you would've. You can easily see how the population ofArcanes mages could skew toward those from the upper classes. Plus, didn't Delight mention something about the children of Arcanes being more likely to become Arcanes themselves? If it's easier for an Arcane mage to make money and thus break into higher society, second-generation mages would always have the sort of hands Delight planned for.
The laziest part of your mind points out that Ines and Eugene might not have insisted on assigning you work if you looked like an upper-class girl. Of course, if they'd been even a little less nice, you could easily see them assigning extra to try and get you used to it. Maybe the other appearance changes would offset that...?
Ugh. Why does everything have to be so complicated?
You don't want to manipulate people. You just want them to like you. Is that really too much to ask for?
[] Leave the marks of hard work. (Actual apparent upbringing?)
[] Hide/remove the marks of your labor. (Higher apparent upbringing?)
[] Write-in
[X] Appearance Improvements ("Cute").
You barely even need to think about accepting the stealth enchantment. You don't think you'll be doing much breaking and entering, but being able to hide from those who want to look for the dimension-hopping Drifter? Yes, please.
Your other reward requires a lot more thought. Along with the obvious applications, poison immunity sounds like it would help you survive in hostile environments, ones where you might not know what is and isn't safe to eat. Magical failsafes might let you practice spells far, far above your alleged skill level without fear of spontaneous detonation. The sonic amulet would keep your face from being eaten by giant animals with entirely too many teeth.
'Beauty' is discarded out of hand. You don't like the idea of manipulating people like that. Sponsorship is rejected for many of the same reasons; you'd be going out of your way to break multiple hearts for your own benefit. Delight may love that sort of thing, but you do not. Plus, it seems like something that's best combined with an appearance upgrade and you'd much rather have improved stealth.
Reclaiming your imagination is discarded with a similar level of speed; while you'd like to stop having your trains of thought hijacked by embarrassing and inappropriate topics which will not be thought about even if you have to start mentally singing, your current situation takes priority. Having a clean mind wouldn't do you a whole lot of good if you're injured or worse.
In the end, the promise of more welcome interrogations is what convinces you. While you're perfectly comfortable with how you look now, if a 'better' appearance would make other people feel better about answering your questions, you'd like to jump for it. Having other people avoid you was never fun. You can't just stop asking questions; how would you ever learn anything? Certainly, you're a bit worried about condescension and the like, but if that starts to be a problem, you figure you can always train your elementals to harass any offenders. Nothing too harmful, just a few disapproving stares and the like. Even if that doesn't work, you'll take condescension over active dislike any day.
"Stealth and, um, 'cuteness?'"
Delight nods and picks up one of the larger shards of crystallized mana. She deliberately breaks off the sharper spikes before placing it in the exact center of her palm.
As you watch, it slowly darkens and turns blood red in her palm. You really hope you're not going to have to eat it; it still looks pointy enough to cut your mouth.
"Are you certain about the latter? I'd expected you to choose something else instead."
"Nope," you admit easily. "But I'm picking it anyway. And, um, could you leave my tears and the like as-is? That seems really, really awful. I don't want to make other people feel guilty—okay, I usually don't want to do that—when I'm upset and would just feel worse if that started happening."
A patch of inky black forms at the center of the crystal. After a small delay, it spreads out to cloud the rest of its container, not at all unlike a drop of ink spilled into fresh water.
"How about something similar instead? I've never seen you cry, and as such, I might not need to change anything at all. If I do, I'll change it so you don't look ugly when crying and thus make others think worse of you. Would that be acceptable?"
"I guess?"
"I'll need a 'yes' or 'no' response, dear. And if you consent to the measures I've previously outlined, could you please specify such along with your full name?"
You look down at your own hands. At one point, you remember either Ines or Eugene looking at them before they had you collect firewood. You're not quite sure how they would've reacted if Delight actually goes through with her plan to remove your calluses.
"Yes to the first part, maybe to the second. Do we have to smooth out my hands and hide my muscles? I'm not sure I agree I'd be better off without them showing."
Delight's mouth quirks to one side. You think she might be amused, but aren't sure.
"It's not to fit into a standard of appearance, but upbringing. You got those through hard work, which is perfectly fine, but those who pay attention would know how you got them. Those who belong to the upper classes seldom have to do any sort of manual labor; signs of such are indicators of a house which has fallen on hard times or of a commoner. Both are looked down upon. Their absence would similarly mark you to those among the lower classes, but quite frankly, their opinions aren't as important. I don't mean to say they are somehow inherently inferior, but if they had more assets to offer you, they wouldn't be lower class."
Delight's mouth straightens as she shrugs.
"It depends on the sorts of social circles you plan on navigating. If you're planning on being an hedge-witch or someone else who performs what amounts to charity work, yes, their presence will help you. If you intend to spend time around the upper classes, most notably the vast majority of Arcanes? You're better off letting me remove them. I'll also need to alter other bits of your appearance to fit either niche, and I admit it'll take me longer to compensate; I've never really met anyone who preferred mingling with the lower classes. Nothing unmanageable, of course, and being comfortable with bodily changes is always important."
You try to think back on the examples you had of other worlds. Ines, Eugene, and Morgan all possessed callused hands and muscles. You can't remember if anyone else on that world did or didn't possess one or both. Vanessa had about your level of visible muscle, but didn't have any of the calluses of hard work. Tessa, the girl accompanying Galya in your vision, might have fit what Delight is referring to, but you aren't sure; everything from her neck down was covered by her skintight clothing. Delight herself fits the specified profile.
Still, you admit you aren't likely to do any farm work in the future. You really should've started your education a few years ago, and if you'd been somewhere more populated, you would've. You can easily see how the population of
The laziest part of your mind points out that Ines and Eugene might not have insisted on assigning you work if you looked like an upper-class girl. Of course, if they'd been even a little less nice, you could easily see them assigning extra to try and get you used to it. Maybe the other appearance changes would offset that...?
Ugh. Why does everything have to be so complicated?
You don't want to manipulate people. You just want them to like you. Is that really too much to ask for?
[] Leave the marks of hard work. (Actual apparent upbringing?)
[] Hide/remove the marks of your labor. (Higher apparent upbringing?)
[] Write-in
Last edited:
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Leave the marks of hard work. (Actual apparent upbringing?)
Given our Drifterness, we're probably closer to hedgewitch status than a hobnobber anyway.
Although maybe a compromise halfway?
Given our Drifterness, we're probably closer to hedgewitch status than a hobnobber anyway.
Although maybe a compromise halfway?