It's a Girl's World -- And Lilly wants Adventure

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It's a Girl's World -- and all the girls are traumatized as fuck and Lilly is the only one who can save all of them.

Seriously; Myah, Kaymie, Valerie... At least Marigold seems like she can take care of herself, although she'll need to be reined in a bit most likely.
 
It occurs to me that while @Slyvena said it's a girl's world, Slyvena never said it was the world of any of the girls we've encountered so far.

Hypothesis:

There is one girl out there who has the power to put a stop to all of this, but won't, because she's enjoying it entirely too much, and it's her world. The rest of us just live in it.
 
Slyvena said:
Officially, they could come as late as sixteen (or perhaps even longer) and everyone was sure she'd receive an excellent Ethos. Unofficially, father had already stopped paying for the Lotusing ritual six months ago, she was no longer a prospect worthy of the cost.
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I'm interested in this ritual. We know from earlier back that Lilly knows (and this was very early IIRC so before Lilly knew much of anything) that nobles tended to have better Ethea so she suspected there was a way for people of sufficient means to maximize the chance of getting a good/strong Ethea. This... sounds like this may be it? Or at least one way to do so? Only Valerie's family gave up on bothering because they started viewing the cost/benefit to have turned sour. ....Which is another thing of interest, why did Valerie stop being worth the cost? Sure, getting an Ethea later in life would mean less time to strength it but that alone hardly seems like a reason to pull the plug when you're talking a handful of years. Something specific to this ritual?
 
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Good question. What is the Lotusing Ritual? Is it possibly related to Lilly's knowledge about nobles and other upper-class people tending toward more powerful Ethea?

Tentative guesses (paraphrasing @Alcor basically): It's a way to try to curry favor with Flower, or it's a way to slightly/moderately boost odds of Premium Ethae distribution. Likely to have a low or unlikely rate of success but an inflated cost, and/or age limit, given that a noble family would decide to stop pursuing it after one year without results for one of their daughters. Probably not anything outwardly dangerous, given that Valerie appeared to have no misgivings toward the actual process.


Other thoughts: It's no wonder Valerie was so reliant on Aboleath for direction, if she rarely left the manor unaccompanied. Very consistent with how unprepared she seemed to be in Interlude 1.1, getting her dress all dirty. Her thoughts about memorizing the sculptures and artwork are a little endearing too, and her sadness at the thought of leaving Thomas and getting married off.

Valerie had or has 6 siblings. Do all noble families try produce more children, to maximize the chances of a powerful heir? Or is that only a "goblinoids are your mortal enemy" thing? If Lord Waters has jealous siblings lying around, that could be a weakness to exploit.

Also, irony. A girl in high standing, feeling distanced by her family, possessing little influence but no control, is given a power to control and dominate on a near-inviolable level. Of course, she herself loses her family, then gradually loses control over her own decison-making, ceding more and more influence to an entity that speaks in blue text. Defeated by a girl with low standing, formerly distanced but now desperately clawing to save her family, who wields a power to connect and repair others.

Edit: Going by this Interlude, Valerie was first contacted by Aboleath about 2 months ago. What other threats besides Waters and the Child are out there, starting to snowball like Valerie? When Lilly has the chance, she might consider getting Madam Silva's help to somehow combine widespread Divination with {Contention Prognosticator}. Unless it's useless or if it attracts too much attention. There's still so much we don't know!!
 
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I wonder how the Lotus Ritual has any effect on Ethea choices/rarity if it has any at all. Cause we know Ethos and what type of package they are decided years in advance so I doubt not being 'lotused' for 6 months or not would really matter that much. But then again we do know what Ethea you can pick depends on your situation at the moment of your choice since if we had our first choice in our Dad's woodshop our odds of getting Duty of Wood would had been a lot higher. So maybe the Lotus ritual is a placebo thing where the kid is treated special and therefore thinks they deserve a special ethos and therefore they get the ability to pick one?
 
TheBiggerFish said:
@MC200 can I convince you to add my [AC] about talking to our mother about the Thing between our father and Zach, though?
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Sorry for taking so long to reply I saw this at the time but forgot. I'd be willing to add that, do you have a specific one written up or should I write one?

That interlude is pretty good. Makes me pretty happy "Abby" just got killed by Evie, he seems like he was a real asshole. I had originally thought that Valerie was an asshole to begin with and Aboleath just played into it. But reading this and comparing it to Interlude 1.1 makes it seem like he might have had a much greater sway over her mind than I previously thought, even prior to her starting to use her power to brainwash herself. Cause going from, a seemly nice enough person for a noble, to, making people tear their eyes out and eat them, is a pretty big change. My guess is that once she chose Abby as her ethos, he fucked with her mind a bit to make her more willing to go along with him, upping her bloodlust among other things. Granted of course this still a fairly preliminary assumption, since our all we know of her pre-abby state is this small interlude. Hoping we can make friends with her post healing, she's probably gonna need one.
 
Alcor said:
I'm interested in this ritual. We know from earlier back that Lilly knows (and this was very early IIRC so before Lilly knew much of anything) that nobles tended to have better Ethea so she suspected there was a way for people of sufficient means to maximize the chance of getting a good/strong Ethea. This... sounds like this may be it? Or at least one way to do so? Only Valerie's family gave up on bothering because they started viewing the cost/benefit to have turned sour. ....Which is another thing of interest, why did Valerie stop being worth the cost? Sure, getting an Ethea later in life would mean less time to strength it but that alone hardly seems like a reason to pull the plug when you're talking a handful of years. Something specific to this ritual?
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At some point, the probability that a child will get no Ethos, or a somehow 'deformed' Ethos, starts to exceed the probability that the child will get a normal Ethos late.

Suppose that 94% of children get a healthy (if usually unremarkable) Ethos at a normal distribution centered on their thirteenth birthday with a standard deviation of two months. 2% of children get a normal Ethos after the age of fourteen. 4% of children get no Ethos or the Ethos formation process is somehow 'crippled-' we haven't seen examples of that yet but it would hardly be inconsistent with the overall character of the world.

If your girl is thirteen and a half, roughly 99.8% of the 94% of children in the normal distribution have an Ethos by now. She is in either the 0.2% of the population that is a late but 'typical' bloomer and will probably get it in the next three months, OR she is in the 2% of the population who will be getting a normal Ethos late, OR she is in the 4% of the population whose Ethos formation is significantly impaired somehow.

Run the odds- you've got a girl with a roughly 60% chance of having a severe Ethos disability. If she doesn't have an Ethos disability, there's something like a 80% or higher chance that it will be years before her Ethos comes in, which means spending money every day on some kind of special ceremony is just a waste of time and resources at some point.
 
Ooooh, Interlude! Nice!
Some thoughts re: Valerie discussion:
1) Valerie probably is nobility from the High Kingdoms, it was mentioned in her first interlude that she entered the low counties from elsewhere:
Slyvena said:
'Not quite the course I would have chosen myself,' Valerie thought as her foot stepped in something slimy on the mushy 'barely a path' way into the low counties.
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2) I doubt that the Lotusing ritual does something wrt the mechanics of the world, since the quality of a person's ethos is decided years in advance (probably at birth), though it most likely has a placebo effect on a person's mindstate when it comes to picking their Ethos

3) I'm pretty sure that Valerie's Ethos isn't Inverted Oath, yes, that makes the Ethos run off non-consent, but I doubt an Inverted Oath user can suddenly command the air. imo it's much more likely that she's Apotheotic-level Flow and got the {Holistics}-equivalent power from consuming a Deific fragment, since that lets a psion use Flow against more things as the definition of a mind becomes looser.

4) It's interesting that Abby contacted her before her Ethos choice apparently, so her possession by Abby was likely not a result of her Ethos pick. In fact I'd assume that Abby was aligned with Colossi and led Valerie to picking [Will Winnower] when it was her time to chose.

5) We also have no indication that Valerie got the multi-ethos treatment from Colossi, so she's probably limited to [Will Winnower] at least.

6) I'd assume that most of Valerie's family is still alive, it's very doubtful to me that even an Apotheotic level Ethos would enable anyone to massacre an entire noble family of the High Kingdoms at basically level 1. I'd expect it's much more likely that she harvested someone's Divine Fragment and then struck out on her own, beelining it south to meet the Silases..
 
It was mentioned in the past that the voted-for interlude would be related to Flower's Bloomlings, which Valerie is not as far as we know at this point.
 
Though, thinking about it: since this is Part 1 of the Interlude Part 2 might include Valerie and Aboleath harvesting another one of Flower's Deific Fragments, so might still be Bloomling related.
 
Well, that's why I'm asking, it would be a big deal if Valerie was a bloomling. I personally would guess that part two isn't, since I'm pretty sure she's not in Lira. If I were to give a guess, I think she's probably in northern Lolisv.
 
actuallynotanegg said:
Would it be possible to confirm this interlude is not the one we voted for?
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The voted-for interlude is not complete and will show up at a later date.
Lilly's access to Flow means she will come around on accepting Valerie's past a hell of a lot quicker than most people can emotionally. So I'm sparing you all the whiplash of 'Valerie didn't use to be evil' a bit in advance via the flashback.


Oh btw, parts 2 and 3 will be coming out tomorrow and the day after. Similar length.
 
Slyvena said:
Lilly's access to Flow means she will come around on accepting Valerie's past a hell of a lot quicker than most people can emotionally.
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By the sounds of that {Affective Radiance} has its work cut out for it. As Lilly delivers her speech to her followers it'll have to churn away converting all that negativity into acceptance.
Hopefully by the time Valerie is healed all the emotional pain will have been burned asunder by [Shine, my Gentle Heart]. Otherwise, Lilly will be in a whole lot of trouble with her minions and they may turncoat as well.

And if Valerie is any indication, there may be more borderline criminal, if not outright criminal, people Lilly will adopt. Which she will have to convince her followers that they are good now and should be accepted. Marigold is quite infamous, I recall.


On the other note. Since Lilly's [Tower] is all about messing with souls and ethoses. Having Zach gain his ethos while in contact with Lilly's domain should help things along. Like with [Meta-Ethic Control} for example. Gently easing him into his power.
But note that Domain Min/Max: 1cm / 20cm ::Grasp:: 8/10
20 cm is enough to cover a heart, if done slowly overtime. How much would Lilly need to envelop Zach fully in her domain? And how much would we need to expand the domain Min/Max size. Using MR to upgrade the domain allows Lilly to double the size and make any future expansion bigger.
However. Could Lilly, if she takes her time, over the course of a hour envelop Zach with her domain? Wriggel her domain beyond 20 cm. Maybe by using {Stray Vector} or {Remodian Geometer} to make the space within her domain overlap.

I come to this conclusion because of the talk from "Lotus Ritual", and the [Tower] sounds like something that can reduce the load by doing a lot of heavy lifting in the formation of the Integration Vector, connecting Ethos and soul.
Edit: heh, I misremembered Lotusing Ritual as Load Reducing Ritual. :p
On the ritual, yeah I think it's a placebo sort of thing, it works in some cases but mortals don't get a view behind the scenes. Probably simple superstition on their part. But what the hosts of the powers want, feel, and believe plays a role in what Ethos they get. Someone with low self-esteem may pick something unimpressive, simply because they don't think they are worth more for example. Even if they have premium allocation or something along those lines.
 
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Wasn't the lotusing ritual mentioned in story as something that tells people when the ethos will appear so that they can be in a specific place when it drops to raise compatibility.
 
And just like that Aboleth rockets up in priority on The List. I don't know if we can punch cosmic entities that exist on a higher plane of reality in their stupid, smug faces but goodness am I looking forward to making the attempt.
 
Slyvena said:
Lilly's access to Flow means she will come around on accepting Valerie's past a hell of a lot quicker than most people can emotionally.
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...Huh. I mean, I guess that I had mainly thought about Flow in terms of "how users affect others" and "countering Flow effects on our minds", instead of considering its capacity to RECIEVE information. Granted, [Intuitor] better highlighted that aspect of Flow for technical information, but it's not too much of a stretch that [Shine] will be suited for reading emotional states (Slyvena did call it out as a good "social combat" Ethos). Being able to see a person's heart on their sleeves will probably help Lilly to more intuitively determine the degree of Valerie's guilt and contrition once she's in a state for conversation.

...Gosh, each Source-wielder must feel that their counterparts are practically blind half the time. Pithe Wielders can anticipate movement, Essence Wielders see how life courses through people, Flow Wielders can determine thoughts and emotions, and Concordance Wielders can know "how it all goes down". There are so many mechanisms to affect the world, each pulling through dimensions that the others Sources don't even have a "vocabulary" for. An uninitiated would only be able to detect the end result of a power, leaving them the loser of a game they didn't know they were playing. But now that we've got access to almost all of them (Oath still needs to be developed), Lilly will have very few blind-spots left.
 
Silverking said:
...Huh. I mean, I guess that I had mainly thought about Flow in terms of "how users affect others" and "countering Flow effects on our minds", instead of considering its capacity to RECIEVE information. Granted, [Intuitor] better highlighted that aspect of Flow for technical information, but it's not too much of a stretch that [Shine] will be suited for reading emotional states (Slyvena did call it out as a good "social combat" Ethos). Being able to see a person's heart on their sleeves will probably help Lilly to more intuitively determine the degree of Valerie's guilt and contrition once she's in a state for conversation.

...Gosh, each Source-wielder must feel that their counterparts are practically blind half the time. Pithe Wielders can anticipate movement, Essence Wielders see how life courses through people, Flow Wielders can determine thoughts and emotions, and Concordance Wielders can know "how it all goes down". There are so many mechanisms to affect the world, each pulling through dimensions that the others Sources don't even have a "vocabulary" for. An uninitiated would only be able to detect the end result of a power, leaving them the loser of a game they didn't know they were playing. But now that we've got access to almost all of them (Oath still needs to be developed), Lilly will have very few blind-spots left.
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You forget that Lilly is actively using her Flow powers on herself to get herself to move past the emotional trauma. Lilly can guide others into accepting Valerie and her past using the same methods. But Lilly has noted that flow powers, subversion as well, are a lot easier to work with when self-applied - probably domains doing.
Instead of physical force [Shine] is about using words to convince people. And then pressure from {Radiance} to get people onto the same wavelength much quicker than they naturally would.
Lilly wants to forgive Valerie and get her as an ally, and the same accelerated acceptance works self-applied as well.
Mitigating the influence emotional baggage has on judgment.

Or in the case of villains, talk them into good people through a heavy application of mind control hidden beneath 'reasonable' arguments. To make the tiny glimmers of good burn brighter and outshine the bad irky darkness of whom they use to be.
 
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I think it's more that "Lilly understands that 'When people claim they're not themselves, they have a leg to stand on' " because her awareness of the Construct shows that 'Free Will' is kind of a lie and that bad actors with access to the guts of the Melange can really turn you into anything they want.
 
I find myself wondering, based on the grand goal of {Dream}, if {Bedrock} is somewhat similar. If it is designed to aim toward a world where people are themselves and can't be warped by random flow-users so easily. If the {Bedrock} is meant to eventually grow as all-encompassing as the {Dream}, forming a solid foundation for anyone to dig into and remind themselves that they are themselves. For while the {Bedrock} is Lilly, the full name {Thy Foundation, My Bedrock} suggests that letting others build on it is part of its fundamental purpose as well. Lilly would eventually become a solid anchor for anyone willing to ask for support against the tyranny of mind-control and personality-alteration to lay their foundations upon, granting universal resistance to such to all who did so.
 
Razzocnor said:
I find myself wondering, based on the grand goal of {Dream}, if {Bedrock} is somewhat similar. If it is designed to aim toward a world where people are themselves and can't be warped by random flow-users so easily. If the {Bedrock} is meant to eventually grow as all-encompassing as the {Dream}, forming a solid foundation for anyone to dig into and remind themselves that they are themselves. For while the {Bedrock} is Lilly, the full name {Thy Foundation, My Bedrock} suggests that letting others build on it is part of its fundamental purpose as well. Lilly would eventually become a solid anchor for anyone willing to ask for support against the tyranny of mind-control and personality-alteration to lay their foundations upon, granting universal resistance to such to all who did so.
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I note that they had incredible Synergy. To the point where we'd have to 'Win the lottery to find a similar boost among all Essence Ethae', so they probably had compatible goals but differing approaches.

Every Ethos though does seem to have a Mission Statement behind it. And awareness of this is what lets you truly make it your own.
 
A thought I had, regarding Micah and Valerie, was this:
Valerie might be in for a painful execution before she gets to try and be quietly blended into Lily's followers, and poor Micah went boom, because Abo wanted to make Lily Pay for denying him.
Now, if people are paying attention, they might recognize Valerie, and Micah might not be able to be restored as Lily's younger brother.
But Good news is, Lily is hooked up to the Tower, and as such has an ability to craft items AND MONSTERS.
Now, I realize this sounds horrible, but should Micah not be recognizably Micah anymore, or if people start freaking out about Valerie being back from the grave, we might be able to 'disguise them' in another form.
 
Since we know what the [Dreams] end goal is. For all to be connected.
We can interpolate what [Bedrock]'s goal is as well. Between the title, and the unified connection.... I'd say [My Resolution, Thy Bedrock] goal is a unification around Lilly herself. Everyone will be connected through Lilly, all minds orbiting around her and her resolutions. Lilly becomes the world on which all live on, all are connected trough. Or the black hole around which the universe orbits, what holds it all together and unifies. All rely on Lilly.

I think that [Shine, my Gentle Heart] has synergy with both of them as well. So it's potentially possible to affect them through essence vectors. Whether they are an application of rest state or communion. More so with [Bedrock] then [Dream], because if my guess on [Bedrock]'s end vision is then that puts Lilly above the people who rely on. [Shine] seems to put Lilly above other people as well, instead of a black hole that holds all together it's the brightest star that gives all warmth and holds the collapse away. While [Dream] seems a more co-operative ethos, equal partners with {Petal}, orbiting around each other and swinging them to higher heights through co-operation.

And in hindsight, It looks to me that [Cleaver] is also giving Lilly advice on how to connect more people to her. Like how he got the captain wrapped around her finger, talking to dad and mom at the right time about the right things, advice in dealing with Zach, getting Myah loyal beyond question. Tho Lilly's internal narration that she's not fond of having so much power over people she ends up going through with it and using it. Bringing more into her orbit.
[Cleaver] puts Lilly above others, but I think it's not concerned about the communion aspect at all but it still helps Lilly with that because it makes her more important, and can form the relations Lilly forms to have an imbalance of power in favor of Lilly. [Shine] and [Bedrock] could be a very nice link that ties [Cleaver] into [Dream]. Because from how I'm reading [Shine] and [Bedrock] also intrinsically make Lilly out to be more valuable than other people, just like [Cleaver]'s goal seems to lean towards.
 
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Razzocnor said:
For while the {Bedrock} is Lilly, the full name {Thy Foundation, My Bedrock} suggests that letting others build on it is part of its fundamental purpose as well.
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only trouble is that the full name is [My Resolution, Thy Bedrock] :V
It's definitely meant to be shared though, otherwise it probably wouldn't be an Essence ethos. I'd assume that most Essence-based Ethea are probably somewhat compatible in their goals, since they probably need to share some fundamental similarities due to drawing from the same source type.

Zaealix said:
Now, I realize this sounds horrible, but should Micah not be recognizably Micah anymore,
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I doubt that most of the people we'll be traveling with will mind us having an ability to bring people back to live if we can indeed finagle that through {Entities} (which I think is likely), since that would be to their own benefit as well. It'd make sense for Valerie if we end up having to yield on having her executed tho.
 
I'd want to push for [Shine] to be used actively by Lilly to have everyone get over emotional hurt, so they could accept Valerie as Lilly can.
But I imagine that feels too close to removing free will to many. Also what the waters flow using minion mentioned about why he didn't actively use his powers on Lilly to 'convince' her towards coming, only used subtly, was that the watch would notice.
It's not just the readers who would throw up flags that Flow is intrinsically evil, since it's mind control, but also some people like the captain. However, a subtle use gets around the appearance of unethical behavior because it will be covered beneath the rhetoric.

Which may be how the power is meant to be used. Instead of alongside the rhetoric, below the rhetoric. Thooo. Maybe not. Many ways to use power, being a beacon of good is its blurb.

An open use can make people stop looking deeper into it, and it's made clear on how the power is used. An obvious display often stops people from looking deeper. And with power like [Shine] the only right use is for the greater good of all; so it can't be called evil, at least not directly; not to mention an active use would work towards Lilly given the benefit of doubt and instinctively viewed from the better light.
A convincing speech delivered with Lilly beaming it out to make herself feel and look radiant, going full out to tip those around her into immersing themselves in her speech, the sentiment, the words. Enkindle the good within their hearts. For it is the power of goddess Aurora, or at least one given to Lilly by its sublets.
 
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