Long Game 96: KKC in the Modern Age

[Mat he/him]

15 minutes ago, Archer said:

Whatcha trying to pay for? You're sitting on less than 8 talents, why did buying stuff become your main ambition rather than progression through EP? 

Umm... tuition? Lodging? At my current posting rate I barely scraped by, at that was starting with triple what I have now. As Araris mentioned, it'd actually be easier to pay for other thigns while expelled, but I do want to progress through EP, and I can't do that unless I'm actually at the University. So repeatedly getting my tuition inflated because of something stemming from a nonsensical RP vote is a big problem for me regardless of alignment.

15 minutes ago, Archer said:

Who would you have us vote instead of you? 

I don't want to direct your votes, but I do want you to consider economic situations different from yours and factor that into your reads. I'm not annoyed because I'm elim, I'm annoyed because being brought on the horns affects me more than the average player. Obviously that isn't a reason not to vote me if you actually suspect me, but I don't want to be kicked out for a bad reason, if that makes sense. It's like the 'caught for the wrong reasons' thing but reversed, I guess.

Edit: Accidentally posted early. Relating to the above, I also think it's telling that you and TKN are both Nobles and are currently two of the loudest voices against me. Araris is the obvious exception here, but either he's evil and playing into it or hasn't really understood what my argument is, like everyone else.

Edited August 3, 2023 by Matrim's Dice

[Kasimir he/him]

3 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

Hmm, maybe we have a couple of E'lirs in Rhetoric and Logic that cancelled Sart and TKN's votes. I'm going to assume that the GMs would inform us if they changed conventions partway through the game.

[OOC: Busy today again so a quick note - I don't think that's how R&L works, no. Can say from personal experience, as I cancelled TKN's vote on me that Month (M1?) for kraem and lulz since that vote was gonna disappear anyway. The disappeared votes are pertinent and should be asked @little wilson @Elbereth @Devotary of Spontaneity

I think it's worth asking.]

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

58 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

The disappeared votes are pertinent and should be asked @little wilson @Elbereth @Devotary of Spontaneity

Those votes should be there. The writeup will be edited to show how this affects punishments. Everybody please bold your votes and don't put them in a block of text.

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

You know what?

Mat, Mat

But I also need to vote, so Mat.

[Mat he/him]

2 minutes ago, The Known Novel said:

You know what?

Mat, Mat

But I also need to vote, so Mat.

I have good news for you! :D. :D.

Other people are in this game! :D.

Like Sart :D. :D. :D.

[This is not intended to be passive aggressive, please don’t read it that way >>]

[little wilson she/her]

The votes and Horns have been updated. For the most part, it remained the same, though Stink was charged with Reckless Use of Sympathy instead of Undignified Mischief.

[Archer he/him]

7 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Umm... tuition? Lodging? At my current posting rate I barely scraped by, at that was starting with triple what I have now. As Araris mentioned, it'd actually be easier to pay for other thigns while expelled, but I do want to progress through EP, and I can't do that unless I'm actually at the University. So repeatedly getting my tuition inflated because of something stemming from a nonsensical RP vote is a big problem for me regardless of alignment.

I don't want to direct your votes, but I do want you to consider economic situations different from yours and factor that into your reads. I'm not annoyed because I'm elim, I'm annoyed because being brought on the horns affects me more than the average player. Obviously that isn't a reason not to vote me if you actually suspect me, but I don't want to be kicked out for a bad reason, if that makes sense. It's like the 'caught for the wrong reasons' thing but reversed, I guess.

Edit: Accidentally posted early. Relating to the above, I also think it's telling that you and TKN are both Nobles and are currently two of the loudest voices against me. Araris is the obvious exception here, but either he's evil and playing into it or hasn't really understood what my argument is, like everyone else.

Quote

 

If you think I’m rping my apology in relation to the votes on me you’re dead wrong because as far as Francis is considered no one at his food thanks muchly

Is cheaper if you rp an apology, just saying

Why don't you want to direct my votes? Isn't that the whole point of the game 

 

I'm getting village vibes from Araris. I respect the willingness to continue contributing even after expulsion. The person I'd like to see more pressure on is TJ, due to their votes. They're the only T1M2 voter on me I don't fully trust. Then they also kinda sheeped the majority last round, plus a vote on Stink that feels stinky. I feel like Sart and Stink are two very different votes and people are more likely to make comparable votes if they're being genuine. 

TJ TJ

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

Quote

The votes and Horns have been updated. For the most part, it remained the same, though Stink was charged with Reckless Use of Sympathy instead of Undignified Mischief.

Did anyone else get tricked by this post into thinking the Turn was over?

[Mat he/him]

34 minutes ago, Archer said:

Is cheaper if you rp an apology, just saying

Why don't you want to direct my votes? Isn't that the whole point of the game

Oh yeah I'm gonna RP an apology (see my other RPs this turn) but I just meant it's not going to involve Sart or Francis' food in any way. Actually I'll just do that now, so I don't forget.

I mean, yes, but answering the question in that way would feel like me bossing you around. I'd much rather give my reads/views and let everyone else come to their own conclusions based on those things.

---

Francis entered the small conference room, heart in his throat. He was gripping the paper with his prewritten apology speech on it tighter than he'd like to... hopefully it would still be readable. He wasn't sure why he was so nervous. Maybe because all nine Masters were in the room.

They sat in the very back, on an elevated stage higher than the one Francis had been ushered to. No small talk was spoken between them, and despite all eighteen of their eyes being trained on him they managed to look very bored. The Masters staring at him wouldn't have struck him as something he found calming, but the realization that they didn't really want to be here either made the moment easier. 'For them,' Francis told himself, 'this is an inconvenient way to spend the morning. They'd rather be doing anything else. They don't care about me, or the apology, they just want to be gone.' That was fine with him. More of an excuse to get it over with quickly.

The rest of the seats in the room were sparsely filled with other students. It was Francis' understanding that attendance had been advertised lightly, but made highly optional, so few had turned out for it. The formality of it all, combined with the low attendance and even lower attention span of everyone in the room made for an almost laughable environment.

He reached the podium in the center of the stage, unwrinkled his paper, and began to speak in a slightly shaky voice:

"Dearest Masters and fellow University attendees,

"One of the most important virtues required to grace these prestigious halls is that of timeliness. Classes and other various appointments must be attended for a successful schooling experience, and they must be attended at the time they are offered. In addition, the strict yet generous slot of time allotted for tuition payment and lodging requests is one that is large enough that there is no excuse for missing it.

"I missed that deadline. In doing so, I showed conduct unbecoming of one elevated to the position of E'lir and disgraced the generosity that the Masters have shown me in allowing my attendance here. I apologize, and ask for your grace and kindness as I remedy this error by heightening my studies, planning better for myself in the future, and marking clearly the next date of tuition payments so as to never make this mistake again.

"I thank you for your time, and wish you all a very nice remainder of this beautiful day."

Francis folded up his paper, stuffed it in his pockets, and exited the room without giving so much a glance at the Masters before him.

[Kasimir he/him]

[TAG: RP, 546 words]

2 hours ago, Archer said:

I'm getting village vibes from Araris. I respect the willingness to continue contributing even after expulsion.

[OOC: Agreed, but good tonal read as well. Slight positive on TJ but don't mind TJ facing pressure.]

xlviii. tea

Valerra took one sip of the tea and gagged, choking. 

“This isn’t tea!” she objected, looking for a moment as though she’d rather spit it out than force herself to swallow it. “Merciful Tehlu, it’s barely drinkable! What did you do to it, forget about it for an entire span?”

Kevan shrugged by way of response and poured himself a mug of it from the pot. He watched the steam curl upwards from the hot black tea. “I was talking to Idris about how Ma—how Bob makes it. She said to go for about a quarter a block of tea, minimum. Master Bob mostly does half a block. Sometimes, someone’s doing a back-to-back marathon because they traded slots around, and then they dump a few honey discs in there for energy and then the whole thing’s so thick it practically becomes porridge. Sweet enough to rot your teeth on the spot, too. To be honest, I now feel like tea doesn’t taste right if it isn’t that strong.”

“He’s ruined you,” Soren said, shaking his head.

“I think it’s something most of the Re’lar have in common,” Kevan said, cracking a yawn. He sipped from the cup, feeling the bracing bitterness wash over him. It wasn’t a subtle tea: it felt like the sort of thing that pummelled your mind into wakefulness if only because of how thick and strong it was. By now though, Kevan figured he was sort of inured to it.

“Damage to their tastebuds?” Valerra asked, acidly. She’d given up and tipped the rest of the mug out the window, just barely missing the succulent.

“Hey!” Soren complained. “Watch out for the succulent!”

“Don’t worry,” Valerra said. “I wouldn’t inflict this tea on Plantinga.” She patted the clay pot affectionately. “Plantinga especially deserves better than whatever Kevan here thinks passes for tea.”

Soren pushed his untouched mug away, and the black tea inside sloshed slowly against the sides of the mug. “See, this is why I didn’t even bother touching it,” he said. 

“You drink scutten.”

“Yeah, I’m going to draw the line right there,” Soren said, eyes narrowing. “Scutten absolutely doesn’t deserve to be compared to Kevan’s cement.”

“Well, I don’t think anything deserves to be compared to Kevan’s cement.”

“I’m right here, you know,” Kevan said drily, sipping his tea. It was hot and bracingly strong, and that was what mattered, when he was still feeling the aftereffects of having come off his shift.

“You’ve killed the flavour,” Valerra said, reproachfully. “This is Cealdish Black, isn’t it?”

Kevan nodded. “Get them in bricks from the market, and then scrape about a quarter brick per pot each time.”

“Are you crazy? People scrape off bits of Cealdish Black to drink per cup! Cealdish Black is supposed to be smoky, with hints of honey and malt. You’ve just—this is all smoke and nothing else.” Valerra buried her face in her hands. To Soren, she said, “You deal with him. I can’t deal with him.”

Soren shrugged, classic Modegan, in the ironic tilt of his eyebrows, the quirk of his mouth. Strange how he could make the gesture so elegant, almost sensual, Kevan thought. “I think it’s too late for him. Master Bob ruined him, and he has no sense of taste left.”

Edited August 4, 2023 by Kasimir

[Kasimir he/him]

[TAG: RP, 1267 words, ANALYSIS, 258 words.]

[OOC: Alright. Some comments on what I've seen so far. I wish I had time for light, non-hard Kas analysis, but I just got off the week of suffering and conferences and meetings and admin BS and am probably going to spend this evening and the weekend recovering and finishing 50k as I'm almost there. Sadly this kraem week slowed my progress and I was forced to scribble in my breaks, but I can probably just crunch out 15k over the next three days-ish, putting me in the weird position of having finished a NaNo in slightly over a week. (The last time I finished it in a week, it was a much steeper slope and harsher rush despite my being free as it was the sem break. I remember being so sleep-deprived things got psychedelic, e.g. I was dreaming/hallucinating writing chapters I hadn't written, never do that guys, it was Wild.

Anyway:

• Not really thrilled with Sart's decision that suspicions on him will go away if he says nothing and ignores them. In that light, feel Sart deserves more pressure. Feel that Araris's point on Sart only holds water in a world Sart doesn't vote and Sart absolutely did. I'm going to channel my inner Drakebro here and say I don't feel like I want to unvote until I have anything that gives me reason to formulate a better read on Sart beyond the fact he's trending towards his E!tell rather than V.
• Agree I don't have a strong E read on Sart, but.
• @|TJ|, did you cancel Araris's vote on you?
• Wonko can't answer that. But it'd be good to get a sense of the distribution.
• Will not vote TKN and Archer and Ash this cycle, in order.
• Very mild V read on TJ, ok with pressure to TJ but not really feeling it either tbh. Sort of ambivalent so won't vote him, won't save/defend him.
• No strong read on Mat. Feel that there are some light V considerations for Mat. But these are also defeasible, so wcyd. Probably not inclined to vote him this cycle.
• Ok with Araris's STINK push. Feelsbad though. I dislike voting bros.
• Steel is beyond our concern. Unclear what to make of Szeth's reticence. Kinda gut V for Szeth but IDK how far that goes.

Back to RPing >> The GMs hate me, I swear, what with throwing down with me for the weirdest RP challenges I have seen in a long time...]

xlix. shifts

An intimation of noise.

Kevan startled awake. Blearily, his sleep-mazed mind went through a few seconds of dislocation before he remembered he recognised the ceiling, painted a faint blue that somehow reminded him of the waters of the Centhe Sea in the morning light. Talin had said something about one of Master Bob’s Re’lar having made a promotion to El’the by doing a research project on how colours affected both perception and the mood of the Re’lar on shift duty.

Kevan wasn’t sure that El’the was right. By this point, he was certain his mind had begun to associate that shade of blue with the stress of shift work.

Within a few spans of being introduced to Medica shifts, Kevan had begun to hit a sort of pattern, a sort of rhythm to how he approached it. He learned to just doze whenever he could, to go from weary exhaustion to sleep, and from sleep back to something that passed for awareness—grabbing a cup of tea from the sympathy kettle, just for alertness, and then shuffling back on shift. 

Things changed when you were an El’the.

He felt…more alone than before. It was one thing to be the E’lir who was readmitted to the University. He talked to some of his old classmates from the Fishery when they ran into each other; most of them were glad for him. He hadn’t been referred to as ‘Master Artificer’s Despair’ for no reason, and pretty much everyone’d watched him struggle through basic studies in Artificery.

Once he’d taken to Rhetoric and Logic as a fish to water, he’d found new friends, and kept old ones through effort. Soren, Jarvik, and Owyn—the original gang from the bunks in the Mews—they all stayed friends because they took the same classes, made the effort to stay in the same circles. It didn’t matter that their studies didn’t overlap as much: that Soren was putting in hours in the Fishery, or that Owyn took every and anything he found fascinating, or that Jarvik did things with Arithmetic that Kevan thought were frankly unnatural, if not outright disturbing. It didn’t matter that Valerra was, as far as Kevan could tell, extremely proficient with Alchemy and sought to open her own distillery one day. (“Please, don’t ever practise alchemy near your brews, I’m begging you,” Soren’d told her. “I don’t remotely trust anything that’s been near an alchemist’s still.”)

It was easier, when they were all E’lir together. The cracks’d really started to show only when he’d been elevated by Master Bob for what Kevan still considered…something he didn’t feel had been too much a display of skill or proficiency.

Another thing to be the student who’d made Re’lar sometime after the midterms. There was so much to catch up on, so many things to juggle, and he felt obligated to prove Master Bob hadn’t made a mistake, and the same old sense of obligation to keep a promise made in gratitude.

(He didn’t want to let Master Anders down, not after Master Anders had done so much for him.)

And now, there they were again, as though they’d arrived in lockstep: Issal and himself, making El’the before the next term had really begun.

How did you handle it? How did you handle that prickle between your shoulder-blades; the steady sense that so many eyes were on you: watching, envious, evaluating, resentful, or worse still, with the blankness of hero-worship. He didn’t want to be whatever they were making of him.

He wanted to learn. He still wanted it, so badly. He wanted to do his best; felt the need to live up to what Master Bob and Master Anders had seen in him. And he wanted to be Kevan, son of Jair, to do whatever he wanted to do, and he didn’t want all that weight on his shoulders or whispers or stares or envy or resentment or hero-worship. 

He didn’t want to be more. He just wanted to be.

He really wondered how Issal was coping.

As an El’the, there were more things to memorise, more processes, more knowledge he had to cram into his head, as though he was memorising vocabulary for Siaru exams all over again. And in the Medica, being an El’the meant you were expected to follow Master Bob on rounds, which required its own amount of preparatory work, and reading through the case histories of the patients currently in the Medica for treatment, and then collective session discussing your assigned reading cases in the meeting room, and then the actual physical rounds of the Medica, which involved talking to the Re’lar on shift and the team treating the patients, and issuing correctives where necessary. Master Bob was perfectly willing to pull you aside on these rounds, and to put you on the spot with questions about the patient’s treatment and your observations.

And then, when you’d finished your first year as an El’the in the Medica, you were put on call, which meant you had shifts, still, but were given a device that was supposed to work via sympathy (sygaldry, of course) and which went off at the worst possible times and you had to drop everything and respond as quickly as you could because that meant you were needed to attend to a patient, and sometimes lives were on the line.

Shifts and rounds were already causing Kevan to crash on the cot in that small backroom. If it wasn’t a tired Re’lar sleeping in there, it was a sleep-deprived El’the who was prone to jarring awake at the slightest sound and frantically grasping at their pager, trying to see if they were needed.

“You get used to it,” one of the El’the was telling him. She was going through her fifth year in the Medica and was looking forward to being done and graduating with her guilder. She was bright-eyed, somehow, impossibly so, with dreams of opening her own practice in her hometown. “Or at least, you learn to sleep it off whenever you’re not on shift. Bob isn’t unreasonable—you get two off-shift periods to sleep off the exhaustion before you come in for your next shift on call.”

“What about classes?” Kevan asked, reflexively. It was a startling thought, and mildly upsetting, that he might be locked out of a whole array of classes he’d want to take due to the ensuing timetable jigsaw madness.

“I remember when we were all this young and naive,” muttered another El’the who was half-drowning his exhaustion with a mug of thick Medica tea which would’ve been better off as a tankard in a tavern. “Classes don’t exist when you’re on shift,” he said. “Really, you’ve just got to drop everything. Or play timetable jigsaw. You’re at the University, you’ve made it to El’the, you know how timetable jigsaw works.” He couldn’t manage to hide his yawn. “The most basic skill a student needs just to survive the kraem that’s classes on conflicting slots, classes on the wrong side of Mains, classes that are oversubscribed, classes that a Master demands you take before he’ll remotely think of sponsoring you—”

“—classes with conflicting project presentation and defence dates that are somehow incredibly important despite Admissions existing so you have to deconflict and drop one of them—”

“—classes that are terminally undersubscribed so the Master or the giller drops it because they don’t want to teach just three students—”

“—so much kraem. Being an El’the and especially being an El’the in the Medica is all about timetable jigsaw. Welcome to the first year of hell, Kevan, and good luck to you.”

[|TJ| he/him]

9 hours ago, Archer said:

I'm getting village vibes from Araris. I respect the willingness to continue contributing even after expulsion. The person I'd like to see more pressure on is TJ, due to their votes. They're the only T1M2 voter on me I don't fully trust. Then they also kinda sheeped the majority last round, plus a vote on Stink that feels stinky. I feel like Sart and Stink are two very different votes and people are more likely to make comparable votes if they're being genuine. 

very weak point about araris imo. there's no way e!araris just simply stops trying to fake effort and try to appear village just because of expulsion. 

and what I think I have observed about v!archer before is he has this tendency to think any other reads different or diametrically opposing his are suspicious. Here with the opinion that sart and stink are two different votes, he is exhibiting the same which i think is a village indication. hesitant to say this as e!archer could have figured this tell out and be using it but i don't think I've mentioned it before. 

because i disagree that sart and stink are different votes for me. I read through m3 and both their posts pinged me off wrong. sart's lazy and misrepresenting vote on me and stink for his vote on araris. 

again disagree with the sheeping comment because I don't recall anyone bringing up my points so i went back to check - i was the second and only other vote on stink, i was the second vote on sart. 

57 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

• @|TJ|, did you cancel Araris's vote on you?

the pony protected me :).

[STINK he/him]

Szeth

TKN

One of these two super sus for sure

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

STINK?

[STINK he/him]

3 minutes ago, The Known Novel said:

STINK?

That's all you got? I know I make short posts but like cmon

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

7 minutes ago, STINK said:

That's all you got? I know I make short posts but like cmon

I felt it was appropriate. 

Could I know why I'm 'hella' sus?

[STINK he/him]

I mean for one I didn't even say 'hella' where did this lingo come from and why do I deserve to be associated with it that's one real issue here actually 

Also in your own words you've sheeped Kas while doing a wee bit of a CC thing which cool honestly on the CC department, you and mat did a talk about your voting meta where ur like yeah thats me when im village which coolio. Tuition question doesn't feel natural but I guess you're a noble so that's a given. Bad vibes tho coming from me maybe others think you're completely fine 

Also I don't need to like fully explain myself here maybe I shoulda just said gut vote like some others 

Got dinner now ciao

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

STINK

[Kasimir he/him]

[TAG: RP, 808 words]

1 hour ago, |TJ| said:

the pony protected me :).

[OOC: ngl this sentence made me lol  ]

1 hour ago, |TJ| said:

very weak point about araris imo. there's no way e!araris just simply stops trying to fake effort and try to appear village just because of expulsion. 

[OOC: What's your current Araris read?]

l. research

Kevan glared at the manuscript he was poring over. This particular reading was a sympathy press copy made of the writings of a Cealdish physicker who’d spent time as a travelling physicker in Modeg, and contained accounts of Modegan materia medica, and far more fertility poultices and remedies than Kevan’d ever wanted to know existed.

The thing about focusing his research on translating accounts of materia medica was that there were, in all these gleanings, hints of something valuable that had been lost. And then there were things that were just outright outlandish. There were mentions of the use of a mixture of the gall bladder of a hare and honey, mixed together and applied to the eye with a feather over the course of three nights to treat a condition referred to as ‘web of the eye.’ There was a layer of translation there too: what was ‘web of the eye’ anyway? He had to cross-reference it with other texts that mentioned it, and to try to identify what a contemporary physicker might have named the condition, only to realise it was very likely cataracts.

The Medica had discovered, a short while back, techniques to treat cataracts surgically. Kevan struggled to see how hare bladder and honey were supposed to successfully treat cataracts.

Sometimes, you didn’t know what you didn’t know. But it didn’t do to be overly credulous, either. He only had so much time to conduct research—the larger picture, though Master Bob had assured him he was only beginning his career as an El’the and therefore technically had a significant length of time to go. He could afford to take the time to sift the sources carefully in doing his research.

There were remedies that seemed more promising, or worth testing. The Leechbook mentioned a poultice of garlic and another allium (he’d spent almost a span referencing that, before he discovered it was onion or leek, and that was another pitfall in reconstruction: you had to ask what plants they meant, and if the same sort of plant existed; Soren’d told him that there was a whole dispute in Modeg about what they meant by silphium, and whether that was the same plant as the descendant asafoetida, but Soren was a goldmine of botanical information, and Kevan liked listening to him go on about plants and the history of plants, the way Soren’s eyes lit up, or he’d gesture animatedly as he talked about people Kevan didn’t know trying to rediscover lost herbs.)

The mixture had to be finely chopped and crushed in a mortar for two minutes, and then wine had to be added. Kevan had stopped there, frowning. Modegan wine, or just any kind of wine? Did the wine matter, or—as was fairly likely—they’d needed a clean alcohol base for the poultice?

(“It’s a popular myth that many people weren’t aware of the need for water hygiene,” Master Alys’d said, back in that class on the history of technology as they studied the hydraulics of empire: aqueducts and aquifers and wells and public paths—the means of controlling water, and therefore, the necessities of life. “Everywhere in the Aturan Empire, they had laws regulating the construction of wells and clean systems for obtaining water.” She paused. “In Modeg, for example, the sixth High King of the Brevoy line had already made mandatory sanitation laws, and laws meant to safeguard the integrity of the water supply. Those caught poisoning or fouling water sources of a town or city were to be fined at least thirty strehlaum and lashed across the back no less that five times. Bathing houses were required to be constructed independently of the water supply as well.”)

Finally, the recipe called for cow bile, which Kevan’d stared at, but alright, this was materia medica, and the mixture of garlic and allium at least seemed potentially promising, even if he wasn’t sure about the cow bile. And how was he going to go about getting cow bile to test in the first place…

He yawned and stretched, trying to work out the knots in his back. He liked it, he supposed. The slow process of translation, that brief moment of enlightenment, of illumination and discovery. It was meticulous and slow-going work, and part of him wondered if that was what he really wanted to do, one way or another. 

It could be worth doing, he told himself. If he found something, the way he had with the cinhallin project. And yet…And yet he didn’t know. 

Doubt lingered, as a shadow, at the edge of his mind. Research was supposed to be this way: slow, painstaking. You wandered down blind alleys, found wrong turnings as you mapped out your terrain, and figured out where you wanted to be.

But still, Kevan wondered about sticking with this for the next five or six years.

Edited August 4, 2023 by Kasimir

[|TJ| he/him]

12 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

[OOC: What's your current Araris read?]

still unsure tbh. but not really thinking too much about him as if he's elim then he's already been expelled. i am interested in connections to and from him though. if he intends to keep posting in the thread, the namedrops will either not exists or they'd be too ikyk-y to prevent hinting at connections if he's evil, so i'll be on the lookout for that. 

edit - speaking of szeth, i received a pm from them asking if i was evil. a very eerie callback to the very first pm i received playing SE from lord silber, with the exact same wordings. back when i was naive enough to think that perhaps such a question would not be asked from an elim. and lord silber ended up being an elim. i did wonder if it was the same case here. like, what is the purpose behind the question? 

Edited August 4, 2023 by |TJ|

[Mat he/him]

Short on time but I think I'll go Sart and TKN. I don't remember if I even had a TKN lean before but I definitely didn't like his interaction with Stink just then, and I don't really agree with Araris' read.

[Kasimir he/him]

[TAG: RP, 787 words]

17 minutes ago, |TJ| said:

still unsure tbh. but not really thinking too much about him as if he's elim then he's already been expelled. i am interested in connections to and from him though. if he intends to keep posting in the thread, the namedrops will either not exists or they'd be too ikyk-y to prevent hinting at connections if he's evil, so i'll be on the lookout for that. 

[OOC: That's the point.]

18 minutes ago, |TJ| said:

edit - speaking of szeth, i received a pm from them asking if i was evil. a very eerie callback to the very first pm i received playing SE from lord silber, with the exact same wordings. back when i was naive enough to think that perhaps such a question would not be asked from an elim. and lord silber ended up being an elim. i did wonder if it was the same case here. like, what is the purpose behind the question? 

[OOC: Wow did you have to bring Singapore's Parliament into this

Presented with minimal comment.

Quote

Changing the subject, he asked the room: “If you were a traitor, who would you… dispatch? Which one of us would you kill to further their goals?” It was a gruesome question, but one he believed needed to be asked.

Reactions are, as obvious, negative:

Quote

Krow frowned. "What kind of question is that? Surely you do not think that any traitors in our midst would tell the truth, do you?" He took a step closer, shifting his stance to leave his sword visible in its sheath on his hip. "And if we are innocent, what use would it be to know who we bear grudges against? All I can see that leading to is discord and conflict."

Quote

I don't know if you realize I'm the prime kill target and are trying to make me say it, or if you're asking for trusts in a highly unusual way

]

li. offer

“I’d just like you to consider it,” Master Anders said, calmly. 

Kevan held on to his texts with a white-knuckled grip, and wondered if the Master Rhetorician had gone stark raving mad. Maybe this entire University was mad, he thought. There was no way in Encannis’s hells he was remotely qualified to teach anything at all pertaining to Rhetoric and Logic, and Master Anders had gillers of his own.

“Aksel could do it,” he said, mindful of the strangeness of referring to Aksel by his given name for the first time. (Less strange: El’the Aksel had always invited them to use his given name and had always stressed he was still a student at the University, just like them—only that they were at different stages of their studies. Referring to Master Bob and Master Anders with their given names, as though they were colleagues was a mental transition that Kevan was still struggling to adapt to.)

“Aksel’s graduating this term,” Master Anders said, waving that statement off. “And one way or another, I think it’s useful for your education—this is an introductory level class. It isn’t particularly difficult, and I expect even an E’lir in good standing would be able to teach it.”

Kevan hesitated, torn. He didn’t feel…

That was always the problem, wasn’t it? How you felt. The world as it appeared to you. Postulate an external reality: and then there was the world as it appeared to you, and the world as it existed, as it was. Given, always in experience. Structured by perception. You could never run away from your self. (A terrifying thought.)

“Well, at least help me cover a few spans of the class,” Master Anders said. “You’ve taken the introductory class, and I know you excelled at it, and then you had to do it twice because of the clean-slate readmission, so if you think about it that way, of all the El’the around, you’re uniquely qualified to teach it.”

“Even with the Medica?” 

Kevan regretted asking. The question had just welled up, come right out of him. All the misgivings, and his wondering if he had made the right choice. He could have turned Master Bob down. And maybe he should have. How often did the University let you diversify, or become an El’the in two subjects rather than one? Your specialisations narrowed over time as you developed research interests. You were expected to refine both your expertise and interests. In a way, he’d felt more free as an E’lir: free to explore the classes that interested him, to take anything he wanted to without worry of what it might do to his responsibilities and scheduling.

Master Anders said, “The world isn’t divided into departments, Kevan. Certainly, you know you can’t study intellectual history without coming to grapple with the concepts and the ideas that drove them. And that means you have to do philosophy, one way or another. You can’t run from it.”

And he didn’t want to. And maybe that was the problem with his research. He’d hit the wall, or at least, a wall he’d have to chip slowly, bit by bit, and at the end of the day, it simply wasn’t…anyone with a decent grasp of Siaru, and the right meticulousness and the ability to piece information together given historical context, and a foundational grasp of experimental technique could do it.

Sometimes, you wanted to find your place in the world, to find a place you could leave your own mark, carve out your own unique niche. And maybe he’d felt that doing history of medicine, with a focus on improving his work in the Medica, had been the way to it.

And now he wasn’t sure.

“It’s the same way doing history of medicine can affect your physicking practice,” Master Anders went on. “Or how understanding chemistry works with physicking. Disciplines interlock and interconnect in surprising ways. We don’t like to acknowledge it, but it’s true all the same. Sometimes, we get a little too protective of our disciplines, and knowledge suffers for it. Or as Aksel likes to say, interdisciplinary work ends up upsetting both parent disciplines because the purists will say you’re tainting it and that’s not how it should be done, but purists will be purists. Your training gives you a unique perspective to bring to bear. This is always true, even of Artificery.”

We are written into one another, Kevan thought.

“I’ll do it,” he found himself saying. Suppressed his doubts.

Master Anders beamed. “Good. I’ll send you the syllabus and the assigned readings for the last year—you’re free to adjust as necessary, but you’ll be teaching the tutorials so you needn’t worry about leaving them with too little guidance…”

[Archer he/him]

4 hours ago, |TJ| said:

very weak point about araris imo. there's no way e!araris just simply stops trying to fake effort and try to appear village just because of expulsion. 

and what I think I have observed about v!archer before is he has this tendency to think any other reads different or diametrically opposing his are suspicious. Here with the opinion that sart and stink are two different votes, he is exhibiting the same which i think is a village indication. hesitant to say this as e!archer could have figured this tell out and be using it but i don't think I've mentioned it before. 

because i disagree that sart and stink are different votes for me. I read through m3 and both their posts pinged me off wrong. sart's lazy and misrepresenting vote on me and stink for his vote on araris. 

again disagree with the sheeping comment because I don't recall anyone bringing up my points so i went back to check - i was the second and only other vote on stink, i was the second vote on sart. 

the pony protected me :).

To quote Indian Jones, "everyone's lost but me!" :P. 

I was going by final VC, so fair counterpoint. And perhaps more compellingly, what're the odds Mat and TJ rand elim AGAIN and quickly shoot JNV AGAIN. TJ TJ

2 hours ago, Kasimir said:

[TAG: RP, 787 words]

[OOC: That's the point.]

[OOC: Wow did you have to bring Singapore's Parliament into this

Presented with minimal comment 

 

I just had the very fun experience of trying to guess whether or not that was an example of evil me. Apparently Xino and I were village in that situation. 

*

I'm looking for someone in Imre, PM me if you are and are interested in a... business venture 

Mat mat

[Mat he/him]

Perhaps more compellingly, what's the chance Mat rands elim AGAIN and shoot JNV AGAIN? Mat Mat

-Archer in the future, probably

[Sart he/him]

Sarenrae cleared her throat, not particularly wanting to apologize, but knowing it was necessary.

"I'm sorry for letting a velociraptor loose in the Medica. It was an interesting research subject, and I thought it might prove vital in my knowledge of the body. I'm sorry it started rampaging, and caused severe property damage. I take full responsibility for my actions, and apologize to Aralor for my lack of foresight.

She felt relieved. Surely that would calm the student body. However, someone shouted, "But what about Francis's food? How dare you steal his culinary masterpieces!"

Sarenrae was baffled. "Seriously? That's what you're mad about? Well, sorry, I guess. I mean you just left it out there, so I figured I could eat some of it."

"No I didn't!" cried Francis from somewhere in the crowd.

"Yes you did!" Sarenrae was outraged by this accusation. "It was in a big pot at the dorms. I saw it was some kind of stew, and drank some of it. Sue me. It was hot, and I was thirsty. And let me be clear that level of salt could kill someone. I don't know what you guys are talking about."

"THAT WAS EMBALMING FLUID YOU IDIOT!" shouted someone.

"..." Sarenrae paused. "I suppose that explains the after affects on my gut system. Sorry for confusing preservation liquid with food."

Apparently the university had been doing a number on her. Perhaps she needed to take a break.