ᴛʜᴇ ꜰʟᴀᴍᴇ ᴀʟᴄʜᴇᴍɪsᴛ. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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acatalepsy_rpg2019-02-01 11:43 am
insubordination) wrote in acatalepsy_rpg2019-02-01 11:43 am
ᴏᴏ2 ( ᴠɪᴅᴇᴏ) | ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴀᴅ ǫᴜᴇᴇɴ
So.
[ it is a public message, to the network, that pops up on the circle's watches and roy looks Less Than Pleased (tm) with the sudden state of affairs. the weather in the temple is absolutely out of control, there are apparently weird cakes appearing in the kitchens, and the fighting ring has turned into a magical court. great.
so, that may be the reason why roy's tone is particularly clipped, or even frustrated. but he seems methodical, in his words, and he is sitting at a table with a notebook, a glass of water, and a weird looking lizard on the table that has an odd rainbow-shift to the scales.
( ignore the lizard. it seems roy is. ) ]
The Circle is currently compromised of people of a variety of talents; soldiers, magicians, teenagers . . . all of us have particular skills to contribute to the cause of whatever it is we're meant to do here. I know quite a few people [ like maes, and barabas ] have been keeping track of various magical powers that we have been gifted, and organized some semblance of structure -- all of which is necessary. But we have to acknowledge what happened to Akvos.
[ he pauses, there. ]
Astoria has not been entirely clear with the Circle on what our purpose is. That may be an innocent error, or a purposeful move to win our trust. I'm not here to argue the merits of whether or not we should trust her, but we have no choice but to participate in whatever world she sends us to. Whether we like it or not, we are stuck there until she brings us back, and we have some opportunity to assist whoever is there. We cannot depend on her to figure out what to do in order to prevent another Akvos, or -- it seems, another El Minha, given King Kathashun is no longer in his own world.
[ roy taps the pen against the table once. ]
I don't have any solution as to what we did right, or wrong, or whether or not it was our fault in the first place. But I want to begin the conversation to work to prevent it again, and seeing as Astoria is either not willing or not capable of explaining herself at the moment, we need to learn to work without her. What are we missing? What do we need to work on? And what can we do in order to be more organized before our next world?
[ and, finally, roy feeds the lizard one (1) piece of lettuce, which it lazily seems to chew on. ]
I'm of a mind we need to organize fighters, healers, and transporters, but I'm open to ideas and suggestions -- and questions, about previous worlds to those who were not there to experience them. I have been to El Minha, Struxta, and Akvos. And I'm certain "older" members of the Circle will be happy to share their experiences, too.
( filtered to maes + riza )
[ almost immediately, his expression turns from serious and leaderlike to tired. ]
Who wants to keep notes?
[ PLEASE DON'T MAKE HIM DO IT :( ]
( end filter )
( ooc: please feel free to threadjack in this post! especially if you want to use this to foster CR and/or build "teams" that roy is looking to enlist. c: )
[ it is a public message, to the network, that pops up on the circle's watches and roy looks Less Than Pleased (tm) with the sudden state of affairs. the weather in the temple is absolutely out of control, there are apparently weird cakes appearing in the kitchens, and the fighting ring has turned into a magical court. great.
so, that may be the reason why roy's tone is particularly clipped, or even frustrated. but he seems methodical, in his words, and he is sitting at a table with a notebook, a glass of water, and a weird looking lizard on the table that has an odd rainbow-shift to the scales.
( ignore the lizard. it seems roy is. ) ]
The Circle is currently compromised of people of a variety of talents; soldiers, magicians, teenagers . . . all of us have particular skills to contribute to the cause of whatever it is we're meant to do here. I know quite a few people [ like maes, and barabas ] have been keeping track of various magical powers that we have been gifted, and organized some semblance of structure -- all of which is necessary. But we have to acknowledge what happened to Akvos.
[ he pauses, there. ]
Astoria has not been entirely clear with the Circle on what our purpose is. That may be an innocent error, or a purposeful move to win our trust. I'm not here to argue the merits of whether or not we should trust her, but we have no choice but to participate in whatever world she sends us to. Whether we like it or not, we are stuck there until she brings us back, and we have some opportunity to assist whoever is there. We cannot depend on her to figure out what to do in order to prevent another Akvos, or -- it seems, another El Minha, given King Kathashun is no longer in his own world.
[ roy taps the pen against the table once. ]
I don't have any solution as to what we did right, or wrong, or whether or not it was our fault in the first place. But I want to begin the conversation to work to prevent it again, and seeing as Astoria is either not willing or not capable of explaining herself at the moment, we need to learn to work without her. What are we missing? What do we need to work on? And what can we do in order to be more organized before our next world?
[ and, finally, roy feeds the lizard one (1) piece of lettuce, which it lazily seems to chew on. ]
I'm of a mind we need to organize fighters, healers, and transporters, but I'm open to ideas and suggestions -- and questions, about previous worlds to those who were not there to experience them. I have been to El Minha, Struxta, and Akvos. And I'm certain "older" members of the Circle will be happy to share their experiences, too.
( filtered to maes + riza )
[ almost immediately, his expression turns from serious and leaderlike to tired. ]
Who wants to keep notes?
[ PLEASE DON'T MAKE HIM DO IT :( ]
( end filter )
( ooc: please feel free to threadjack in this post! especially if you want to use this to foster CR and/or build "teams" that roy is looking to enlist. c: )
video;
[Oh, honey, if only you knew... Morrigan raises an eyebrow.]
Clearly you haven't met many recently.
video;
[ put the teenagers to work, morrigan. ]
They're very excited and eager to help, no matter what the job. Put them to work, and they'll be happier for it.
video;
[Her eyes narrow slightly. Mustang... she is one of those teenagers.]
'Twould be good to have a location first. [And given the (current and momentary) cold snap, she gestures at her clothing. Not the best to be going out in.]
video;
Ah, the weather should clear up soon.
[ as if roy. . . can control that. ]
The last time the weather changed severely here, it downpoured for days and then it was right back to being blissfully serene and perfect. Maybe we can build you a greenhouse in the interim.
[ he's half joking. ]
video;
Yes. And having witnessed our collective luck, it shall instead settle on something utterly mad.
[Like whatever existed in her dead mother's head. Oh, right.] I shall scout locations later.
[Potion brewing what she has first.]
video;
[ snow is welcome, at this point.
And it's appreciated.
[ amused enough. ]
Let me know what you find.
video;
[Fuck snow. Fuck cults.
Fuck this, fuck that, fuck this thing in particular.]Oh, I will.
video;
[ without missing a beat; if he can make it to the northern wall in amestris and survive, he can handle a dragon cult. anything is better than being trapped underwater with no way out. ]
And it's appreciated.
video;
[Granted, so does she. But you try going into snowy mountains in this outfit, Roy. Noooo thanks.
She waves the other part off.]
video;
[ read: he hates it. ]
I'm much more of a warm weather person, if I truly had my choice, but picking between being underwater and a mountain, I would choose the mountain.
video;
video;
[ water sucks, morrigan. ]
video;
[bitch u try washing ur hair in swamp water.]
video;
Apparently.
[ he doesn't say where he grew up, mostly because "a city" is sort of an amorphous term, given where everyone else seems to be from. all the same! ]
I have to admit that I've never considered living in a swamp, so I'll have to rely on you for expertise, should we wind up in a marsh somewhere in the next world.
video;
Pray to whatever god you choose that we do not. If I never see another it will be too soon.
[She has so many other sights to see. Fuck swamps. (She'll say until the day she really, really wants to run with the wolves again.)]
video;
[ a bit . . . curious. home is home, after all. ]
video;
[Sorry Mustang, she's not in the mood to share when she isn't being actively compelled to by the Dreamscape.]
video;
[ which is only half true, but the homunculi are gone-ish. no one has to know the truth. ]
And dogs, we do have a lot of dogs . . . but monsters, we lack. For the most part.
video;
[There's a glint in her eyes as she says it, but smothers it before even the most observant can catch it.]
Though I believe Akvos proved that the same can be said of anyone with sentience and free will.
[They've even seen it in their own, and she won't say she isn't one of them. She'll fully admit to being a monster. But monsters weren't always the causes, either. Sometimes the bystander turned into a scapegoat, other times the pawns or creation of another.]
video;
Akvos had too many people who wanted the same thing, and refused to believe any other way was better than their own.
I'm not entirely sure monsters are to blame, for that. A creation of their circumstances, maybe. But I don't know if any of the people involved were inherently bad, or good. We'll likely never know.
video;
Consider this: The mermaid's queen saw the mermen as something to be reviled and captured their king. Said king then used dark magic to summon monsters and and rip a tear in reality. He did it to save his people, true, but that sort of justification rarely holds up to most who are then attacked or stolen from.
[Does she need to spell it out for you, Roy? For if one looked at it from the perspective of one side, what does it make the other seem like?]
That we got them to agree to a ceasefire is astounding, though t'was likely not to last our departure even if the void didn't claim it.
video;
he does listen, though. and after a long moment of mulling it over . . . ]
I don't believe any of us who actively worked on obtaining the ceasefire thought it would last longer than our stay in Akvos. Most of us seemed to be fairly realistic about our chances of long-term success.
[ roy and merlin, and shiro, talked at length about it. it didn't seem to be much of a surprise to those steeped in the investigation, but roy also focused his efforts on minimizing loss of life, rather than a long-term solution. in war, you need to triage as much as you need to work with the big picture. pretending otherwise is naïve, but he keeps that thought to himself. ]
But I still don't believe that people who make mistakes, or who are pushed to the point of desperation, are monsters. I don't believe the Queen or King were inherently wrong in what they did, and it's easy to sit here from our own positions and lecture people that we know nothing about concerning their right, or wrong. We know nothing about their culture, their history, or their people aside from what we were granted insight into, and there are always three sides to every story. I don't think it's our place to judge whether the people in Akvos were right, or wrong. I don't think it's ever our place to judge that, but those are the circumstances handed to us.
[ and, finally, he shrugs. ]
But if you're really interested in whether those people were good, or bad, we seem to have a collection of them in the lake, now. I'm sure they have a wealth of insight about the bigger picture, and maybe they can assuage our guilt far more than the rest of us can.