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

[Storyteller]

The first genuine bond to Myah is going to be Lilly. She saved her, she's powerful enough to protect her from her family, she can take her away and already did.
Now it's a question of if Lilly will reciprocate her need and accept her. Once she feels secure that Lilly's not gonna toss her to the side she'll likely feel more relaxed in trying to form a bond with our comatose family or other followers of Lilly like the captain.

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The bond with Lilly... honestly I think that Myah is going to end up being the person who sees Lilly mourn her brother Micah.

Zack has a nasty inversion Ethos only selection coming up. And after that it's only going to get worse. Marcus is even younger than Lilly. Lilly's parents are... Well. We know why Lilly sees herself as needing to be the family anchor. The rest of the family needs Lilly to have her shit together. On top of that Evie is in the fight for life called critical condition. And all other groups are such that Lilly needs to look like an absolute Wunderkin. Captain Martin, Silva.

Myah - Myah was Lilly's friend before this. And that is a relationship that needs equanimity. Idolization is something that we are trying to avoid with Myah. And Lilly being able to take 5-15 minutes to cry and mourn and be a scared 12 year old in over her head feels like it's important for her own sake.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Honestly reading through all this... I kinda like Manoth? I think y'all are right that he's trying to help but he doesn't understand why inverted ethos could be anything but a gift. When you're stuck and you have no happy ending, what gift could be greater than a chance? Sure the chance might end up horribly, in fact it's likely it will. But is that any worse than certain failure? Is the chance at freedom and success worth the risk of things going horribly wrong?

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The problem is that when an Inverted Ethos goes horribly wrong, and it usually does, in most cases a lot of innocent people get caught in the blast radius. You're giving one abused child a way out of their personal tragedy, at the cost of creating easily a double-digit or triple-digit number of other personal tragedies.

[Although honestly I can't understand why anyone is stupid enough to actively abuse an adolescent whose Ethos hasn't come in yet; it seems borderline suicidally reckless]

 

[Alectai]

The problem is that when an Inverted Ethos goes horribly wrong, and it usually does, in most cases a lot of innocent people get caught in the blast radius. You're giving one abused child a way out of their personal tragedy, at the cost of creating easily a double-digit or triple-digit number of other personal tragedies.

[Although honestly I can't understand why anyone is stupid enough to actively abuse an adolescent whose Ethos hasn't come in yet; it seems borderline suicidally reckless]

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Probably one part "Nobody who matters will get hurt and the subsequent monsters are good XP for the people who do matter" and one part poor understanding of what makes this happen coupled with some people just thinking it won't happen to them anyway.

 

[Edifier]

Telling Lilly that, "you don't need to know this," "You'll find out when your're older," "It's for your own good that I'm keeping this secret," "this knowledge isn't for girls."
It's all abuse from Lilly's perspective. Keeping her in the dark, forcing her to align to the culture. It's not that apparent when someone is abused. It's fairly subjective. It's about what Zach feels for example, his feelings don't have to be objectively right or rational. He just has to be spiteful towards father and Lilly, spiteful and jealous how Lilly's getting all the special attention and how Lilly does whatever she wants, gets everything she wants, and never gets punished by dad.
Or in the case of Valerie, how she is bucking under the weight of being a noble and just can't handle the pressure and responsibility of her station of birth. She wants to do mundane servant-type stuff, but she wasn't born as one of them, and even would get punished by her family to stooping herself so low were they to find out.

But the thing is. The inverted ethos isn't always going to lead to being found out and destructive. A huge part of inverted ethos being slated to be executed on sight is that they are powerful right off the bat and hard to control. So the culture itself forces them to become villains. If there is a law, and there is one, that says: "Kill Inverted Ethos user on sight." You don't give them a choice in the first place. Even if the user is a good girl like LIlly, who would use the knowledge assimilation one in the least-destructive way, it's still the chopping block for em.
A mind-reading and knowledge obtaining ethos... any secret a noble holds... it's too much of a risk for anyone in charge.

Once Lilly gets essence + flow to a sum of 10 she will upgrade her domain related super senses.
Right now her combined level is 6.
Dream at 5, Bedrock at 1, Shine at 0. I hope the healing will boost either bedrock and shine to 2 and dream to 6. Or alternatively the weaker ones to 3.
How are the odds that Flow upgraded Lilly's Very Keen mind once more? I'd like to see what eating Aurora's heart did.

I wonder if level 5 contains echo location.
And wonder what level 10 improved senses are capable of. Hmm. Would that perhaps give an more in-depth {power} sensation capability? Upgrade and possibly unlock awareness of all powers.... tho that might be level 20 power.

If the soul bond with Evie gets made do you think Lilly will be able to use her powers like {Subversion} while she sleeps?
I'm wondering since one of the soul bond blurbs was:

If they possess power, it is possible with their cooperation to learn to share theirs with you too.

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With [Tower] having Lilly almost all of the {Deific} Awareness, shaping, and source... except for channeling. It might be possible that the bond doesn't just help heal Evie but also her family. Since the [Tower] has already given her the tools to control deific powers, it's just... well they're still sourced from Evie or connected to her.

 

[Simon_Jester]

@Edifier

I'm thinking in much more pragmatic terms. Like what happened to Marigold- effectively sold into sex slavery under the guise of marriage and the victim of 'marital' rape on her 13th birthday or thenabouts.

And I can't help but stare dumbfounded at the sheer arrogant recklessness required on the part of the adults involved, especially Marigold's 'husband,' when they know or ought to know all the following:

1) Children often get their Ethos right around this time.
2) Children often get Ethoi that are tied into their present lived experiences or solving some problem or trauma they are experiencing.
3) Marigold doesn't have her Ethos yet but is in of prime age to get one any minute now.

Sure, the exact outcome of Flower turning Marigold into, like, a blood elemental killing machine was unforeseeable... But I have to wonder what percentage of all forced 'marriages' like that result in the victim girl picking some variation on the theme of an Ethos like [Just Rip This Fucker's Balls Off] or something.

Because bullying, tormenting, or hurting someone right around the time they get their Ethos is just super dangerous or so it seems to me. Even if you're a total sociopath or sadist.

 

[Silverking]

But the thing is. The inverted ethos isn't always going to lead to being found out and destructive. A huge part of inverted ethos being slated to be executed on sight is that they are powerful right off the bat and hard to control. So the culture itself forces them to become villains. If there is a law that says "Kill Inverted Ethos user on sight." You don't give them a choice in the first place.

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...I feel this is less of a "stop persecuting the X-Men" issue and more of a "vampires and werewolves" kind of problem.

Do werewolves kill an average of 5 people on the night of their awakening alone? Yes. Do werewolves continuously have periods of time where they are not in control of themselves? Yes. Do werewolves have a tendency to become more feral over time? Yes. How many stories are there were a werewolf ends up killing even the people they care about when the Beast takes them? Countless. Is there ANY way for werewolves to have anything resembling a sustainable life? Possibly, but it will most likely involve ongoing expenses, practiced mental control, and the endless emotion of feeling caged when it would be so SIMPLE to let the Beast out.

Zach is slated to have high probability of a mental breakdown upon receiving his Ethos, and Valerie was ruining lives by accident with her thoughtless commands. In absence of evidence that Inverted Ethae Wielders can control themselves to ANY degree, having a policy of killing them on sight doesn't make people bigots, it makes them SANE.

 

[Alectai]

@Edifier

Because bullying, tormenting, or hurting someone right around the time they get their Ethos is just super dangerous or so it seems to me. Even if you're a total sociopath or sadist.

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Because it doesn't happen every time. Generally speaking, people rationalize it, internalize it, or otherwise just accept a miserable lot because for whatever reason the idea of pushing back is unthinkable.

And because it doesn't happen every time, as far as these shitbags are concerned, it shouldn't happen to them. And even if it does--well, they'll probably be fine--they hold the power in the equation after all.

Like, this setting is fractally awful in a lot of ways, that even otherwise good people have often internalized some horribly toxic thoughts, but that's what makes the appeal of maybe changing it to something a bit less awful so appealing.

 

[Edifier]

Could Lilly feed some of her magic tree into her core heart to collect material, maybe even refine it into meta-material, and then pull shenanigans to upgrade here heartstaff with that magic wood?

Speaking of artifacts. I think Lilly's second should be an upgrade to the heartstaff with an relations themed utility bent.
Enhance and supports power mixing to a greater degree. A tool for giving finer control over powers and their expression. Get it to be capable of refueling concordance for example.
Or alternatively get it working like an antenna to take in and translate awareness of all powers. Cheat Lilly into seeing oath, legend, maw, concordance, mana. And enhancing all the others Lilly has access too.

 

[TheBiggerFish]

...Well, I'm back.

...I, too, really hope Evie managed to stab that fucker somewhere painful before he got discorporated.

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.

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I do have a specific [AC] in my original plan for this, as follows: [AC] Talk to our mother about the Stuff With Zach. Because we can't fix this, and she has an Ethos that should lend itself to teaching our father the lessons he needs to learn about how to parent.

 

[sheep-dodger]

I thought it would likely be bound oath to contract with some aspect of Aurora

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Also a possibility, my thinking was that Freeform Oath was described like this:

Freeform Oath Wielders tend to prepare discrete packages of effect often based around reflection, piercing or synergy that can be applied to their allies.

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It'd make sense to me if [Shine, My Gentle Heart] branched off into empowering others around you as a "lead by example" kinda deal, but it being an ability based around contracting with Aurora is also a distinct possibility. Either way, whichever way it turns out we'll want to get something for the other expression I think.

Zack has a nasty inversion Ethos only selection coming up.

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People keep saying that, but we have no indication that this is how it plays out when someone's Ethos was auctioned to Manoth. I find it much more likely that if an auction happens it means that Weavers will nudge the Concord so that the person in question will pick the relevant weaver's Ethos when the time comes, rather that they're forced into a one-Weaver only choice. The latter would be a significant departure from standard operating procedure of Ethos distribution. Plus Zach's Inverted Ethos comes from one specific frustration with his family, how many applicable Ethea is Manoth going to have that he'd offer an Inverted-only choice with half a dozen different options that are relevant here.
I don't think people should assume that Zach getting an Inverted Ethos is any more written in stone than Myah getting strangled by her dad or any other prediction we've gotten from [Cleaver of Fortune].

 

[Slyvena]

I do believe I have mentioned it somewhere. But receiving more than three Ethos choices tops is exceedingly rare and a good fraction of people only get to choose between a few Lessers without even a single Common. Lilly is just a special snowflake. (In fact, you are unlikely to see Lessers at all now, they are deemed beneath you and are receiving heavy maluses to their appearance chance).

The favoured son of a royal house with a legacy spanning back generations who has fought a lion to the death with his bare hands and won whilst also receiving premium lotusing could expect quite the enhanced list of choices, but funnily enough that is the exception and not the rule. (Or a child in the woods coming in contact with perhaps the single most important development of an entire eon, that could also qualify for a larger list.)

Also, I should get the spreadsheet up tonight.

 

[Faraway-R]

Huh.

Actually @Slyvena can you please tell me something?

What If - what if Lilly at the opening post didn't go out into the Woods, and then failed her roll to not suffer horrible consequences from the impromptu soul surgery?

I am asking from the angles of:
1) How would this have affected her ability to get multiple Ethea?
2) How would this have affected her available Ethea selection?
3) What would have the reaction been for Lilly's family, for Harmuph authorities (if they got involved)? I'm not even talking about specific choice of Ethos yet, only the gross bodily mutilation she IIRC suffered prior to picking [Dream].
4) And how would this have changed the family's attitude towards her chosen Ethos whatever it may have been?

 

[Slyvena]

Spreadsheet is up.

-snip-

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1) Still a thing, it's kinda the primary conceit of the whole Quest.
2) Dramatically.
3) They'd have brought you to the Temple of Virtue for healing, you'd have passed inspection for anything extremely nefarious, but probably have been too out of it to even know you could get multiple Ethea until your 2nd arrived.
4) Everyone would have been extremely leery and confused. The Lore Warden would have given you a far more thorough once-over, but he lacks both the talent and equipment to diagnose what you are and would have found nothing. He probably would have gone for some exceedingly painful and distressing methods of examination too and just had the Sisters at the temple sedate you if you were conscious by that stage. You'd have been an idle curiosity, forgotten when you didn't turn up any exciting results.
The Sisters would have been very worried as to how you could be so thoroughly harmed but still survive, when you didn't have any repeat incidents they would have chalked it up to the mystery of Ethea.

I'll close the vote tomorrow.

Sorry for the big delay folks. Something terrible wonderful has happened. I got a girlfriend and she has been sucking up all of my precious time really fun to hang out with. Writing took second priority.

edit: Made this into an information temporarily, so people get an alert if they want to check the Spreadsheet.

 

[IceCold]

Somehow I think that if we picked Will Form, the Valerie encounter would have probably been much harder. Or much easier but I bet that it would have been much harder.e

 

[actuallynotanegg]

Lol, I just remembered something:

"I thought you had some monstrously powerful Ethos. A new Divine Avatar despite the heavenly wars being long passed.

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I wonder how Captain Martin would react if we told him that we're that too.

 

[Vokivas]

I wonder how Captain Martin would react if we told him that we're that too.

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*Lilly returns to her home with Slipstream*

Martin: "There you are. Where have you been? What happened. Explain. Now!"

Lilly: "I'm not really sure on the details, but I'll tell you what I know. Coming back from town, there was a girl who had my family hostage. Your guy was already dead by the time I got there, and she was capable of completely controlling people with her words alone. So I found a work around and tried to kill her, but she blew up my little brother. I kind of saved him, and I ripped her head off but that didn't work. So I listened to one of my Ethos and took her somewhere where she would be stopped. I would've been back sooner, but Aurora admitted that she couldn't handle things and decided to foist some of her responsibility on to me. So...yeah, that's about it."

Everyone: stares in confusion

 

[sheep-dodger]

Well, this doesn't look great

From how things look on the status sheet I feel like we should do everything we can to keep Evie alive, I'd say that odds are a lot better that the Watch can help our family than that they can help Evie, so we should probably focus on that. (Nevermind that we'd have to reveal Evie's existence to them, which I'd rather avoid)

Also the note on her critical condition:

And the longer I let her keep Hybrid Siphon running only worsens the odds.

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[Edifier]

Once {Hybrid Syphon} is off that means all minor relation links are free as well. Since you can't give something non-functional to Myah.
Evie is really messed up and the healing of her is also tied to the fixing of {True Song}.
Using the major relations link to put her into life support seems even more appealing. Hopefully, Evie will survive the first 24 hours while the link is forming.
I hope it doesn't take weeks to heal her.

Concordant weight remained on mild, so [Cleaver] could be used plenty.
I still want to include [Cleaver] power testing to aid in the healing attempts.

The goddess ethos is pretty much max level right off the bat. By the looks of it there are no limits when paired with Sympethic Linkage, which now is level 20.
And there's also to consider that the goddess can use us as a beacon to do stuff as she pleases. Likely put thoughts into Lilly and those around her at her own discretion, or subtly influence them as is the want of the power.

But for what to use the 3 minor links?

-> Tireless. All Essence compatiable structures are constantly infused with regenerating energy. (Currently: Physical Body, Pithe Resoance)

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I wonder, could minor essence links be used to pair {Golden Rapture} up with [Cleaver] or its powers to have it regenerate or speed up the recovery of Concordant weight?
It seems like something impossible normally, but a minor link should be capable of having them interact. Right?

On that note, perhaps there is potential to get deific and essence to co-operate with relations in hopes of healing Evie.
Evie may not have any essence in herself, buuut, but relations may be able to make deific act like essence. Or get Lilly's healing essence powers to work using Deific juice.

 

[sheep-dodger]

I feel like the most obvious attempt at Evie-triage is probably to try and keep her stable via {Hope Shock} while we establish a Soul Bond via Major Relations link? But Evie's nature is such an outside context problem to us that it's hard to say what will even affect her and how she'll interact with our powers.
@Slyvena: Is keeping up {Hope Shock} mostly a question of how much Essence we can channel? Cause I see no indication of a time-limit anywhere afaict

 

[Edifier]

The problem with the use of {Hope Shock} on Evie is her lack of essence. Unless a minor link, or major link, can overcome the gap to get {Hope Shock} to either co operate with Deific, or run off of Deific.

If Relations can't do that pairing then something that could guide Lilly in healing Evie would be a minor relations link with {Meta-Eethic Control} and {Rest State}, or a few other powers. Rest state has the note that it helps in guiding the user on how to heal and use powers for healing.
So a link from rest state could potentially feed Lilly instructions on using powers for healing purpouses.

-> Aids all powers in healing, restorative or stalling actions.

-> Excellent for reinforcing a stable historic thought pattern or effect.

-> Mild panacea for high-stress situations.

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[darknessworld]

I feel like the most obvious attempt at Evie-triage is probably to try and keep her stable via {Hope Shock} while we establish a Soul Bond via Major Relations link?

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Evie hasn't the essence pattern {Hope Shock} needs to function. She will probably have something useful to heal her once soul bound will be active (24 hours), but we won't be able to do anything outside of shutting down {Hybrid Syphon} to help her before that point.

 

[sheep-dodger]

I'm not sure if Evie needs to have Essence. {Hope Shock}'s description says this:

The Hope-Shock is able to immediatly inject stabilty into any system that is or interacts with Essence.

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and I'm pretty sure Evie can interact with Essence by virtue of being a Deific being. We just don't know how it would affect her.

 

[Edifier]

Probably giving a relations link of {Hope Shock} to Evie could cheat it. Even if Evie normally couldn't interact with the power, then the relations would enable interactions. Just to stack the cards in Lilly's favor, better safe.

Something that might prove helpful is {Recalled Genesis} if we'd get it to work based off of Legend instead of Essence. That's used for restoring the Staff to an earlier point and then regrowing it in various new ways and shapes.

I hope Evie gets better.

 

[Half Moon]

@Edifier
Sure, the exact outcome of Flower turning Marigold into, like, a blood elemental killing machine was unforeseeable... But I have to wonder what percentage of all forced 'marriages' like that result in the victim girl picking some variation on the theme of an Ethos like [Just Rip This Fucker's Balls Off] or something.

Because bullying, tormenting, or hurting someone right around the time they get their Ethos is just super dangerous or so it seems to me. Even if you're a total sociopath or sadist.

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Keep in mind:
1. Most people are told very little about how Ethos work.
3. Inverted Ethos are rare as all hell.
3. A normal Ethos gained would just as likely take of form of a service ethos, or a therapy ethos, than a fighting Ethos. More likely, even. And any non-inverted Ethos would be weak right off the bat, so that's not a quick solution either.
4. In this horrible sexist society, what happened to Marigold, along with countless other girls, might not have even been considered abuse. Maybe even by the girls themselves.

 

[Alectai]

Okay, now that we have the spreadsheet... Yeah, this is really bad, but if we abuse Relations we might be able to help stabilize Evie. The real problem is that she doesn't seem to be a valid target for Essence.

But we're in a bad, bad position if she dies and we lose [Effervescent Animus], while [Shine] is a very, very good Ethos that looks like Aurora's jailbreaking it for our sake, it's not going to be the same as losing our scry-resistance/bullshit modifier thing. It just means we might not have to throw in the towel.

Also, it means the next time we run into an evil Spirit, we just die instead of have a chance to win.

So, aside from figuring out how to help our family, we need to see how we can tip the odds in Evie's favor of pulling through. [Tower] still feels like our best bet in the long run.

I'm going to go over my vote and see if I can shore it up a bit.