EarthScorpion: Hee. Keris is E9 now, and thus prettier. That will be a nice surprise for Sasi next time they meet.
Aleph: ... oh, Sasi. Hahaha. You know what else?
EarthScorpion: The unquestionable are getting less attractive to her?
Aleph: From a fluff perspective... well, when Keris IEI'd the chunk of Shattered Crystal, it read as Enlightenment n/a, right?
EarthScorpion: Mmm.
Aleph: So yeah. Uh. Those scars Adorjan left on Keris's face, which aren't healing because a trace of Primordial power is left in them from the direct touch of the Silent Wind.
Aleph: Sasi: "..."
Aleph: Sasi: "What. Happened."
Aleph: (on the plus side, they look like very pretty scars to her.)
EarthScorpion: More like gorgeous ritual scarification.
Aleph: Sigh. Dammit Keris. Since Sasi last saw you, you have got facial scars from a Primordial, attained E9 and become pregnant. And will be noticeably showing when you next see her, despite it only having been about a season.
EarthScorpion: Oh yes, won't she have Yozi sickness again?
Aleph: It's lessened inside her soul and with the turbulence of Calesco, but yes. At the point of the last session she hasn't noticed it yet because the dream is still pretty fresh, but, uh
Aleph: that arousal and flushed feeling isn't actually going to go away for, like... a month.
Aleph: And not the comfortable simmering type of arousal, either.
EarthScorpion: Temporary 3-4 dot principle of "Arousal (All-Consuming)" which... uh, she can reduce with a scene of... entertainment. And which gains a dot for each scene she doesn't entertain herself in some way, up to its cap.
EarthScorpion: Keris: "... this is really getting in the way of my research."
...
Aleph: Okay, so this is "experimentation fortnight 2", "bombshell halfway through" and anything evil you have cooked up and waiting. Remind me what I need success-wise?
EarthScorpion: Okay, so you've done a Theory phase and an Experimentation phase. You have one more Experimentation and a Refinement phase to go.
Aleph: Cool. Oh yeah, we changed it up, didn't we. So I just have to succeed at the roll Difficulty.
EarthScorpion: Okay, so this is again Cog + Occult, and now you're testing on Kuha. So what's your pool and what do you get from Charms?
Aleph: Okay, right. So 2+4+4 Empyreal Alchemist Style bonus+2 Manse+a 2-die stunt=14 dice. And... sigh. Yes, I think I'm going to say that Keris has TLA'd Kuha, partly because she's adorable, partly because Keris has been putting a shitload of work into her and cares deeply about this issue, and partly because of the Yozi Sickness. So she's also channelling Compassion to add 3 autosux to her roll, and it upgrades her stunt to a 3-die one, making it 15+3 sux.
Aleph: Sadly, she has completely destroyed her spare workshop, and thus can't render that down for parts - and she's not willing to render Kuha down. Hmm. What raw materials and exotic components can she get from complete, usable items at this stage... testing on demons won't work. Oh, hmm. Unless she boils a metody down herself for some really high-grade vitriol.
EarthScorpion: She can totally hunt one down, although that might take some time. Oh wait, no. She can just summon it.
...
EarthScorpion: So that's a success, and she got sufficient threshold successes that Kuha is fine. At this stage, Keris has a working prototype and thus she should be transformed by it at some point during the week. Also, what TLA intimacy is Keris making towards her?
EarthScorpion: Actually, honestly, depends when she generates it. Pre-change, it'll probably be 'oh, she's so cute and admirable for how she copes with her sickness'. You know, like how Keris would probably have towards Hayate.
Aleph: True. Okay, I'll have it be "Kuha (Very Cute)".
EarthScorpion: Well, that might be "Motherly Love"
Aleph: No, slightly distinct from that, I think. That will, sigh, be more likely to be what it shifts into if she has it hang around post-change and realises what Kuha now looks like.
...
EarthScorpion: One of the darkly amusing things I find about my Lilunu rework is that she's still an abuse victim. It's just a lot more low key and realistic - it's the abuse of a younger woman married off to a powerful older man as a trophy bride. And it's not very overt, because quite a bit of it is already so internalised. Rather than the atrocities of canon, it's just implied with how she doesn't argue too hard with anything he says, and is immediately apologetic if he doesn't let her win.
Aleph: Oh, Lilunu. : (
EarthScorpion: And because of things like that, she still loves him and he's fond of her. She's just also scared of him.
...
Aleph: Hmm.
Aleph: Heh.
Aleph: One of the things that always bugs me in fanfics (especially angstfics, urgh) is when characters who have problems - depression, self-esteem issues, that sort of thing - just sort of outright spill things like "I'm useless and I don't deserve to be loved and so on". I'm not sure if I'm right or not, but it's always seemed to me that while people very well may believe such things, internally, they also tend to keep them internal with an almost savage intensity.
Aleph: So they don't helpfully voice the toxic ideas so they can be refuted, and you don't get blunt statements like that. They just colour other things they say. You won't hear someone say "I don't deserve to be loved" or "I'm stupid and no good at anything and can never succeed", but that sentiment will colour the things they do say as a foundational assumption, while at the same time they try to hide saying it directly.
Aleph: Hmm. Ah, yes. It's defensiveness from pity, and pride. So probably not a universal thing, but it definitely does suit Keris, who says "I'm not good at planning" and "I don't bother thinking long-term" to hide the underlying belief of "I'm not very smart" that she's built up from spending all her life around people like Rat and Sasi, letting them do the brains stuff.
EarthScorpion: Echo points out that Keris is smarter than she thinks she is, because Echo wouldn't be a super-genius if Keris wasn't at least part clever.
EarthScorpion: Echo waves her hand, and admits that Haneyl is also quite clever for someone who thinks so slow.
Aleph: ... huh. Actually, come to think of it. I totally can have Keris hit Cog 3 without removing that little insecurity, and... hmm. In some ways that might be a more interesting character trait than to just have her stay at average levels of Cog. Keris always has been bad at measuring herself against other people, in either direction.
Aleph: Hmm. I shall think about this thing.
Aleph: Sigh. And she's justifying her work in vitriol-alchemy with "well this is just pretty easy" and "guess I have a knack for it".
EarthScorpion: And yes, since Sasi is her main associate and Sasi is a... uh, very clever and above that, very very well-educated lady.
Aleph: And Sasi also hasn't - I don't think - realised that Keris thinks this way, and thus hasn't yet gone "... Keris. Vitriol alchemy at this level. Is not easy."
EarthScorpion: Oh, Keris.
EarthScorpion: ... huh. Will the experience of having been bimbo!Keris actually strengthen her own self-confidence in her own intellect?
Aleph: Hmm. Not these ones, since these she's interpreting as "they're very stupid" rather than "I'm smart". But once she gets a full Gale working, and realises the difference between mortal genius and her intellect... yeah, that might.
EarthScorpion: Well, it's more that she could be a lot more stupid, and there are bits of her that are rather smarter.
Aleph: Yeah, but she still has people like Sasi defining the high end.
EarthScorpion: Mmm. Especially since Sasi tends to use her excellency dice quite a bit, if she's focussing on the academia.
...
Aleph: Oh, Calesco. You know, it might be half-and-half there. Half sincere happiness, because she's Keris's compassion and criticism aside, she knows Keris will be kind and generous and loving and doting as a parent - will go overboard, if anything. And then, yes, half cynical barbed amusement at how her souls weren't enough, and nothing ever will be - she'll never fill the hole that craves people loving her.
EarthScorpion: There's a bit of Calesco which resents being shaped into being Keris' daughter
Aleph: Hmm. I might use this as a good point to give her that, hmm, "hope that Keris can overcome her failings and be better" Principle that counterbalances her "angry criticism" one. How to sum that up?
EarthScorpion: Guarded Optimism
Aleph: Hah. Yes. Oh, Calesco. <3
Aleph: Haneyl is Clingy Affection / Demanding Expectation towards Keris. You're Angry Criticism / Guarded Optimism.
Aleph: ... though the two of you do both agree on neither liking Rathan much. : P
...
Aleph: ... on the plus side, assuming those automata are sending or carrying a report back to Ligier, Keris is probably going to get away with any embarrassment she caused him, since a) "Adorjan is stalking me" is a pretty good excuse as such things go, and frankly b) the fact that she had a personal encounter with the Silent Wind and was able to attend his banquet less than two weeks later is pretty fucking impressive, depending on how it's spun.
Aleph: I mean, status-wise she's equal to the Second Circles, and any of them who'd had that happen would be unable to attend on account of being dead.
Aleph: ... admittedly this might make people slightly less keen to associate with her, since, uh
Aleph: yeah
EarthScorpion: This is one of the reasons Lilunu is sort of a recluse and seldom leaves her own flesh.
Aleph: Hmm?
Aleph: I can't imagine Infernals go crazy and blurt out telenovella pregnancy reveals frequently when she leaves the Conventicle. Unless you mean the her-getting-possessed thing.
EarthScorpion: When she gets nervous and when she is ill-at-ease and concerned, her swings get worse.
Aleph: : (
...
EarthScorpion: Oh, Calesco. You will likely have a lot of abortive and ending-in-tears relationships in your teenage years, because you're looking for love, want to prove that love isn't just pain, and... well. You're Keris' daughter.
Aleph: : (
Aleph: She needs hugs from Madoka. Or Usagi. Hee. I do like that... yeah, unlike most "cynical characters who point out people's flaws"... Calesco would love Usagi. She'd take one look and immediately adore her, because the vast majority of Usagi's flaws are surface things, and deep down she's a truly good person, while Calesco's scorn is directed at people who are smooth and impressive on the surface and flawed or hypocritical deep down.
Aleph: ... okay, she'd probably criticise Usagi's fashion sense.
EarthScorpion: Oh, Calesco. She's bad at relationships because she's too cynical, and thus overcompensates and is willing to believe assholes or people who are bad for her because she can't separate people apart.
EarthScorpion: ... also, lol, Haneyl-Calesco hair-pulling is just hilariously petty.
Aleph: : P
Aleph: It's more like arm-wrestling than a conventional hair-pulling fight.
Aleph: Calesco has the advantage due to being a) bigger and b) having stolen Wild Alleycat Style somehow.
EarthScorpion: Echo dances by, practicing Friagem Serpent katas.
Aleph: ... *facepalm*
Aleph: how many szelkeruby have 1 dot in friagem serpent
EarthScorpion: Honestly, Keris' styles are probably proliferating through the keruby
Aleph: goddammit keruby
EarthScorpion: ... sigh
EarthScorpion: they're breaking into her Style storage repository in the Domain
Aleph: Hahaha. The Library? And reading the scrolls in there.
EarthScorpion: and mucking around self-teaching themselves from the pretty pictures
EarthScorpion: It's almost like dancing!
Aleph: ... yeah, okay, let's be honest. The first szelkerub to master Mendaciloquent Maverick Style is probably going to insta-evolve into the first szilf.
EarthScorpion: Echo's eyes widen, and she falls over laughing.
Aleph: ¬_¬
Aleph: She will be delighted, yes. Or possibly responsible. I can see her deciding to teach it to one of her friends.
EarthScorpion: Keris: "... Echo. What have you done now?"
Aleph: Szilf: *braids long red ribbons into her hair, stomps over with her hands on her hips and wags an exaggerated finger at Echo*
Aleph: Echo: *laughs even harder*
EarthScorpion: Heh
EarthScorpion: How did Keris feel about Rounen and the way he called her 'mum'?
EarthScorpion: (this was probably picked up from Echo)
Aleph: She thinks it is adorable and very sweet, though suspects it's more in a generic sense than literally seeing her as a parent.
Aleph: Heh. Similar to the Tengese and "Honoured Grandmother".
EarthScorpion: ... she probably wishes her own children were as sweet as him, rather than being mega-brats
Aleph: In fairness, her children can be individually sweet.
Aleph: At times.
...
EarthScorpion: Oh, hey
EarthScorpion: Keris has narrowly avoided being a teen mother.
Aleph: : P
Aleph: I think she's coming up on 21 now, actually. Ish.
EarthScorpion: Echo objects to that and says Keris is certainly a teen mother
Aleph: Keris: "Okay, so how old am I? Because all I've got is 'probably between 19 and 21', and I doubt you know any better."
EarthScorpion: Echo points out that she is eleven, so Keris must have had her when she was between eight and ten.
EarthScorpion: (echo gonna echo)
Aleph: Keris: "..."
Aleph: Keris: "Aha! That means that BY YOUR OWN LOGIC, I was not a teen mother!"
EarthScorpion: Echo points out that she was a mother in her teens, so nya.
Aleph: Keris: "... damn."
Aleph: (you cannot out-echo echo)
Aleph: Hee. I do love her being the smartest one.
Aleph: It fits so well.
EarthScorpion: Echo tilts her head, and considers when Keris will become a grandmother and who's the most likely to have children first of them.
EarthScorpion: Echo adds that she wonders if Sasi is a grandmother yet.
...
EarthScorpion: So, among other things, Keris will have certain dietary requirements for her pregnancy.
Aleph: Indeed
EarthScorpion: She'll need to find a diet of food associated with the essence types of the babies.
Aleph: ... this is going to be fun, then.
EarthScorpion: Kali will... um, probably be considerably easier.
Aleph: Yes. Oh, Keris. Eating Tengese gold jewellery as snacks. And silver for Ogin, heh.
EarthScorpion: Oh, I was talking about actual food here. Heavily spicy sun-dried tomatos, for example, are a Kali-favoured food.
Aleph: Ah, kay.
EarthScorpion: Keris can't actually digest metal as it stands, for one. And she's eating for three. : V
Aleph: Yeah, I'll need to look into getting that Metagaos thing sooner rather than later.
EarthScorpion: ... also, uh, her Splintered Gales are going to have phantom pregnancies Which, hmm, actually will be inconvenient, because it means her one for An Teng will appear to be pregnant out of marriage.
Aleph: Well, no, because she can alter them with surgery. And she'll already be altering that one extensively to look Tengese.
EarthScorpion: Ah, fine. Hmm. Probably not actually Tengese, though - that'd make it misbegotten.
Aleph: True. More Tengese, then. Possibly... sigh. An "exotic" half-Tengese-half-Dynast who leans close enough to conventional Tengese looks to pass, but is "exotic" and cultured and posh because she's from the Realm.
EarthScorpion: Keris: "Damn, she's sexy."
Aleph: Sigh. Sareh can have "brought her back" from the Blessed Isle.
...
EarthScorpion: Part of Sasi's tragedy was that she was a genuinely devoted immaculate, the kind that gets moderate Solars going about how it might be lies, but it gets some people doing good things.
Aleph: : (
EarthScorpion: A rather better immaculate than her husband, incidentally.
Aleph: Oh?
EarthScorpion: Well, yes. He was a sorcerer, and was rather more interested in his sorcery than running the satrapy. Pre-Exaltation Sasi was a lot kinder, in a paternalistic, white-imperialism sort of way. She genuinely believed it was her role as her husband's second to ensure that the slaves and serfs in the satrapy would be born to better next lives and that they not be drawn into corruption or temptation and she worried a lot about how her own actions would affect her karma and sought to compensate for the things she liked less about effectively running her husband's satrapy for him.
EarthScorpion: And so if you'd found her, you'd have found a simply dressed (by Dynastic standards) middle-aged woman with a quiet voice and a persuasive manner, seldom seen without a monkly advisor, surprisingly liked by the serfs because she followed the social contract and supported the Order when it brought complaints to her about breaches in the social order.
Aleph: Oh, Sasi. And then she found herself an Anathema. : (
EarthScorpion: Also, looking thirty years younger.
EarthScorpion: Notably, a lot of her change in how she presents herself wasn't from sorcery sacrifice - it was just from the trauma and the rationalisations and the failed suicide attempts. So it's not that she sacrificed that side of her. It's down there, somewhere under the layers and the lies and the "I'm an Anathema and that's... that's a good thing!"
Aleph: Oh, Sasi. Hmm. Whereas Keris was, in a lot of ways, too low to really pick up much of the Immaculate Faith. Honestly, part of that might have been because she got annoyed at their attempts to teach her to read, and so didn't go to their charity events as much - and she was a good enough thief that she didn't need to very often; she could generally find food.
Aleph: And the lure of power and family were far more attractive to her.
EarthScorpion: Aiko is certainly helping bring that side of Sasi out a bit more, at least around her. She won't ever be like that again, but it'd certainly be possible to nudge her back a bit into a more motherly, caring side that's a bit less cynical and who's recaptured some of that quiet faith that things will turn out all right in the end.
Aleph: Heh. You know, if you ever get struck by inspiration, it'd be cool to see a short side-drabble from her PoV.
