Hmm, while we did only get Jasmine's side of the story, it seems at first glance that she might well have been in her rights to kill Cal.

Eating him so she can look like him tho? ehh...
She's a Lunar. If you agree she's in her rights to kill him, the options at that point are: 1) kill him and that's it, he's just dead, or 2) eat his heart and at least have something to remember the good times, specifically the ability to take his face.

It's almost a sentimental thing, not a desecration of the corpse, for a Lunar like her.
 
[x] Stay close, and hope that they all understand you're only trying to help
 
She's a Lunar. If you agree she's in her rights to kill him, the options at that point are: 1) kill him and that's it, he's just dead, or 2) eat his heart and at least have something to remember the good times, specifically the ability to take his face.

It's almost a sentimental thing, not a desecration of the corpse, for a Lunar like her.

Ah, so it's like... taking his sportscar in the settlement after filing for a divorce, because you had good time together in that sportscar and honestly you think you can drive it better than him.
 
I don't really agree that she was within her rights to kill him, especially given that we only got her side of the story and how she acted in the prelude, and also given how her circle has treated this. 2/3 of their circlemates do not seem to be on Jasmine's side about it.

She would have been in her rights to tell Cal to leave, and if he had refused to do so then she'd have the right to exile him and enforce that, or if he had tried to fight her for the valley then she might have been right to kill him. But in the prelude we don't see him losing a fight for the valley - we see him injured, running away. She chose to pursue and kill him.

Also I just like fateful jewel / lucky stone better.
 
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[x] Stay close, and hope that they all understand you're only trying to help

Jasmine's grip on her knife becomes white knuckled. "He started second-guessing me in public. Going behind my back, undermining me. I tried to talk to him about it — he wouldn't even admit to the way he was pushing me out. I didn't want to fight him. But he wouldn't stop. And then he started conquering neighbouring peoples whose independence I'd given my word to respect. It broke my heart, but I had to—"
This sounds suspect as heck...because that sounds a lot like a paranoid person's worst possible interpretation of events paired with a willful individual who's used to doing things their own way.
 
Vote closed
Scheduled vote count started by Gazetteer on Jun 12, 2021 at 12:20 AM, finished with 27 posts and 18 votes.
 
Sidestory vote 1
But it's at least not too late to vote in this one, at least.

So, I am really going to try and get the updates coming more regularly here. I've also got several planned sidestories I've of want to do at some point, each about about a different secondary character from RitE, in addition to the two I've already posted. No timeframe commitment on these, but having one to focus on next might help. So, vote for one, if you want:

[ ] Blooming Amid Death II
[ ] The Girl and the Shadow
[ ] Hardship is Understanding
[ ] A Jewel in Tall Grass II
[ ] A Nest of Spiders
 
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I don't really agree that she was within her rights to kill him, especially given that we only got her side of the story and how she acted in the prelude, and also given how her circle has treated this. 2/3 of their circlemates do not seem to be on Jasmine's side about it.

She would have been in her rights to tell Cal to leave, and if he had refused to do so then she'd have the right to exile him and enforce that, or if he had tried to fight her for the valley then she might have been right to kill him. But in the prelude we don't see him losing a fight for the valley - we see him injured, running away. She chose to pursue and kill him.

Also I just like fateful jewel / lucky stone better.
So, a thing to keep in mind is that, yeah, this is a situation where Jasmine killed her partner in a way that was obviously premeditated (you have to dedicate a Sacred Hunt to Luna before you start it). Their friends who heard of this but were not present for the conflict are not okay with it!

What this also is, though, unless you think she's lying, is essentially a ruler's consort repeatedly undermining her to the point of outright demonstrating to their neighbours that her word means nothing. Especially in a pre modern setting like Creation, that sort of thing tends to escalate to violence a lot more justifiably than it does when it's just a marital spat. And once it does, like... Once they manage to drive off the Dawn Caste through force and he's weak and injured, what next? Cal was in bad shape. There's a good chance he'd have died on his own. Did Jasmine know that before she hunted him down to finish it? If she'd let him go and he'd lived, what happens once his wounds heal and he comes back to settle things on his terms?
 
So, a thing to keep in mind is that, yeah, this is a situation where Jasmine killed her partner in a way that was obviously premeditated (you have to dedicate a Sacred Hunt to Luna before you start it). Their friends who heard of this but were not present for the conflict are not okay with it!

What this also is, though, unless you think she's lying, is essentially a ruler's consort repeatedly undermining her to the point of outright demonstrating to their neighbours that her word means nothing. Especially in a pre modern setting like Creation, that sort of thing tends to escalate to violence a lot more justifiably than it does when it's just a marital spat. And once it does, like... Once they manage to drive off the Dawn Caste through force and he's weak and injured, what next? Cal was in bad shape. There's a good chance he'd have died on his own. Did Jasmine know that before she hunted him down to finish it? If she'd let him go and he'd lived, what happens once his wounds heal and he comes back to settle things on his terms?
Add in that Cal's action verge on (or are) treason if Jasmine is the ruler which has traditionally been punished by executon even in modern times. Also, knowing that Dawn Castes specialize in waging war, can you really afford to give him time to build up and return to restart their conflict. Given how their dispute has escalated to violence, you either end it decisively or everyone is waiting on teeterhooks for it to resume.
 
What this also is, though, unless you think she's lying, is essentially a ruler's consort repeatedly undermining her to the point of outright demonstrating to their neighbours that her word means nothing

This is the biggest bit. The only options at that point are to exile or kill him. And he's a Dawn Caste who seems to specialize in war. So uh, if you exile him he'll probably come back with an army.
 
This is the biggest bit. The only options at that point are to exile or kill him. And he's a Dawn Caste who seems to specialize in war. So uh, if you exile him he'll probably come back with an army.

Pffft, get real. What are....what are the chances? Guys?

Guys? Wow that's a lot of guys over there. I sure hope Cal's not still mad about that exile.
 
I don't know enough about Exalted or their relationship to say either way whether it was justified or not.

However, I still think that Aster should maintain healthy distance between her and Jasmine, just about at least the length of her staff so that she could boink her on the head quicker than Jasmine could reach her rib cage.

To be completely honest, I dislike the idea of soulmates or just people connected with red strings of fate across their reincarnations or some shit, but it's... uh, a bit religious. Okay, so let's say reincarnation is real and you used to be lovers in the previous life. That said, you reincarnated. You became different people. What was the point of getting reborn and becoming a new person with different life experiences if you want to reenact your previous life? Whether you become lovers or enemies or friends or literally nobody to each other should depend on your lives today and now instead of stuff that happened in the previous turn of Samsara.

That's, probably not really a take you would get from any religions involving reincarnation, but eh.

And then we have Exalted, where different incarnations of the same divine spark are explicitly different people who just sometimes get glimpses of the previous Champions' lives. Sentimentality should play absolute jackshit of a role towards people who the previous holder of your Exaltation used to know, and on balance, Aster and Jasmine are currently enemies who seem to have pretty different ideas about what exactly should happen to her homeland. Now, if this was indeed romcom ( or if we had picked that option to meet Jasmine in a forest instead of going to, pfft, become a soldier of the Satrapy, still cannot believe we did that ), I would absolutely ship the fuck out of a heroine and a villainess who have to fight due to irreconcilable ideological differences, kinda like, eh, Fateful Jewel and Aster, only actually a villainess and not, well, Aster.

But since romance is secondary to Aster trying to save her home ( which, for all we know, might be actually better run by Jasmine, lol, but Aster has absolutely no reason to believe so ), nope. No shipping. I am a serious person thinking of serious things like justice and equality and how to convince Lucky Stone that Aster isn't a baby-eating abomination.

Eh, what I'm trying to say is that it doesn't really matter what happened between Jasmine and that guy, ( unless we're planning to torture her with psychological baggage, which is a pretty unorthodox move as far as Dawn Castes are concerned ) what matters is what's happening now.

Kinda ironic that I'm making this argument about Aster who is a Solar when I usually use it to articulate why Lunars should be their own people and not have their lives revolve around their supposed 'mates'.
 
[x] A Jewel in Tall Grass II

I do want to see more about our Jewel. She is the most interesting relationship onscreen, I think, because while the others knew our exalt or us as exalted, she is the one who got to know us thinking we were mortal.
 
And then we have Exalted, where different incarnations of the same divine spark are explicitly different people who just sometimes get glimpses of the previous Champions' lives. Sentimentality should play absolute jackshit of a role towards people who the previous holder of your Exaltation used to know, and on balance, Aster and Jasmine are currently enemies who seem to have pretty different ideas about what exactly should happen to her homeland.
This is down to individual interpretation, but I personally do subscribe to the belief that a given Exaltation does seek out people who are similar enough in some ways that memories from their past lives can resonate enough for them to identify with. Jasmine has alluded to this being the case. So far, Aster has only seen a profoundly alienating flashback to Jochim, but this does not mean that he couldn't have had things in common with Aster that she'd be pretty uncomfortable with.

The Lunar/Solar bond is complicated and can kind of dredge up emotions from past lives, but yet, the exact nature of each relationship very often changes from bearer to bearer. You can wind up rivals or enemies or whatever. The only thing the Bond prevents is being indifferent to one another.

Jasmine in particular has really messy feelings from having known and had tumultuous relationships with multiple versions of her Solar Mate. Aster is really not required to match them.
 
[X] The Girl and the Shadow

This is down to individual interpretation, but I personally do subscribe to the belief that a given Exaltation does seek out people who are similar enough in some ways that memories from their past lives can resonate enough for them to identify with.
So essentially their exaltations would seek out people who are each other's Type...but these types are going to routinely take actions which piss off the other.

Like, imagine being attracted to someone with strong moral code and unflinching will while you're a pragmatic Ends Justify The Means person who is ALSO of unflinching will.
Thats just a doom to span the ages.
 
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