Well, I didn't understand it when Scott said it, and I understood it even less when MJ said it. I often find direct bluntness to be much more clearly understood than tact and beating around the bush.
(Doing Therapy)
Right, because you're not an old school gamer so you don't really understand what "alignment" is despite having participated in the alignment quiz thread. But it turns out perhaps that what Scott meant (that your alignment clashes with mine) is not exactly what I meant.
What I meant is that you hold internally inconsistent beliefs and have failed to reconcile them within yourself.
In order for you to maintain your distinction between Americans helping Americans (by which you ultimately mean others helping you) and Americans helping others (by which you mean you sacrificing for the sake of others, even if it's only because there is less for you), you have to accept a validity of the society over the individual, that it matters that this society, the American society, would insulate itself from others and retain its resources for itself; but in order to maintain your demand that American relief dollars should support you, you must hold the validity of the value of the individual over society, that you matter.
Your distinction between "us" and "them" is arbitrary, drawn to include you in the "us". Anyone else could draw a different "us" versus "them" in which wealthy Americans are not taxed to support the poor. "Are there no work houses? Are there no prisons? I support the institutions I have mentioned." "Many would rather not go there, and many would rather die." "Let them die, then, and decrease the surplus population."
The problem is, that is your attitude toward "foreigners", and you expect all Americans to share your attitude toward "foreigners"; at the same time, you expect all Americans to have a different attitude toward "Americans"--you expect to be included in their country club, as it were, accepted by them as their responsibility in exactly the way that you do not want us to accept the Haitians as our responsibility.
Ultimately you either must stand for the erasure of all such lines, or you must accept that your lines are not more valid than anyone else's. You can rationally stand for the position that all humanity must take responsibility for all humanity. You can rationally stand for the position that each individual has sole responsibility for himself and has the right individually to choose whether to take responsibility for anyone else, and who to include in that. You cannot rationally take the position that you have a claim on the assistance of anyone else and deny that anyone else has an equally valid claim on that assistance.
This is particularly so in America, where we cannot claim to be a hyper-extended family as so many other nations could. That is, on some level traceable within history, all Swedes are related to each other. For Americans, we would have to go back to Noah for the connection, and most Americans do not believe in Noah, and some do not believe that there is a connection.
A personal illustration comes to mind. We have over the decades provided temporary homes for people we knew who were homeless. Several of them have been highly opinionated individuals who were offended by the fact that we offered similar hospitality to people they thought were not worthy or deserving of our kindness. They would make their opinions quite clear--which was just one way in which they caused us to believe that they were not deserving of our kindness. They were the beneficiaries of our grace; they were undeserving recipients of our charity who had no claim on what we offered. It was rude to the point of unconscionable for them to complain that we had extended the same treatment to people they did not happen to like. If they did not like the fact that we offered such hospitality to people of whom they disapproved, nothing constrained them to keep accepting the hospitality we extended to them other than their need and their unwillingness to find another solution to their problem.
You are being one of those people, John. You are accepting the kindness of strangers (many of whom resent being forced to share what they have earned with someone who is not contributing substantially to his own support) and then complaining when those same strangers extend that kindness to people in greater need than you, as if you deserved their kindness and those others did not.
Perhaps, though, it is not an alignment conflict. If you came out "chaotic evil", that would suggest that you believe that every individual has the right to whatever he can get by any means, including objecting to the size of the shares of others whether their share appears to be greater or less. I don't think you did, though. And maybe you have a legitimate alignment conflict--I am persuaded that all nine alignments involve balancing principles in one way or another, and maybe you are simply struggling with the balance of your desire to protect your own rights with your belief in the rights of others.
--M. J. Young
Wow, this got pretty far off topic.
Kyler met Mariska while being forced into suicide missions by "C" who was working for the British government. He was assigned to "protect" (spy on) a certain foreign diplomat, and she was the daughter of another spy who had been murdered and had information implicating the diplomat in the murder of her father. Kyler relayed the information to C. During the course of the conversation C told Kyler not to involve Mariska in any way, so Kyler not only took Mariska along with him and had her deal the final blow to her father's killer, he offered her a position as his partner and told C that it would be this way or no way. Essentially it started out as a way to rebel against C, but it became much more as after versing Mariska proved herself to be a reliable partner, friend, and confidante.
It's easy to see that Mariska has changed from her involvement with Kyler, but not so clear how Kyler has grown differently. If it weren't for Mariska, I'm confident in saying that by this point Kyler would be more volatile, more violent, and less concerned with the well-being of others. Mariska has often been the voice of reason, convincing Kyler that "perhaps killing this person at this moment would not be such a good idea."
As far as the three princesses go, I actually do have some idea as to why Olivia is often chosen. Margaret has plenty of skills, to be sure, but out of the three sisters to take with you, I'd say she's probably the last choice. She's willful, she doesn't show much interest in travelling without a destination, and if she were not married to the verser, she is the least likely to become a follower because of her "duties" to the country. Even if she were to verse, her first concern after finding out what happened would most likely be for her country and what would become of it now that the king and queen were gone. She has skills, to be sure, but most of her life has been spent training how to be Suzy Homemaker times the queen of the country -- diplomatics and cooking can only do so much in the verse. Because of these reasons, in my opinion the only reason to pick Margaret is if you wanted to try to get the whole trifecta of sisters to be your followers; although I'm not saying that Nerene or Olivia would be infidelitous, they'd be far more likely than dutiful Margaret.
Which brings us to the highly underrated second choice for nearly all versers; Nerene (Pronounced neh-reen by almost every referee but me; I prefer Nay-rehn-ay). I would say, good things come in quiet packages. I'm not sure if I'd get in trouble for relating most of the good points about her or not -- most are spoilers. She is the best looking of the three, a fact which is often skimmed over, so I felt it was only right to put it near the top of the paragraph. As the second daughter, the main idea has been to train her to be married to a higher lord or the prince of another land, so she'll have had more time to devote herself to skills she enjoys rather than the serious diplomacy and homemaker skills Margaret will have been subjected to. As a quiet, demure person, it's clear she will have focused herself on indoor activities; in my opinion, many of these skills (sewing in particular) are the foundation for what could make her the perfect battlefield medic. Since she's been indoors her entire life, she's probably also the best candidate for a magic wielder. The initial verse could be somewhat complicated for her, but not nearly as bad as it would be with Margaret; as long as she has her defender by her side for the eternity known as the Multiverse, she won't have too much trouble adjusting.
Finally, we have Olivia, who doesn't act like a princess and probably wishes she weren't one and that she could leave the castle and see the world. Most likely, she's skipped out on her studies many times in order to go horseback riding or throw sticks at little boys. She'll be more excited than either of the other two to get out of her world and she'll have a genuine interest in most of the worlds that you take her to. She'll complain less about getting dirt in her hair in the Sahara, about getting snow in her boots in Antarctica, and about getting her pants soaked during the trip to Atlantis. If you wanted a martial combatant to fight at your side at Ragnarok, Olivia would definitely be the way to go.
That's my two cents.
Ky
Kyler, doesn't your character still have the body of a 9 year old boy? I'm forced to wonder how any grown adult woman could deal with that fact, despite you being a verser and being centuries older than her.
So if you get married in the multiverse, your spouse automatically joins you? That wouldn't be good, I don't think. The vows say "Till death do you part." Well, I just died, I didn't stay dead, but I did die. I guess that means we can part now..... A life partner is one thing, an eternal life partner would be too much to handle I think.
Kyler is still a boy, and he and Mariska joke about which one is older, but she travels with him as big sister, not as wife or girlfriend.
Most vows nowadays read "as long as you both shall live", and really the point isn't that if you happen to die on the operating table and they revive you your marriage is annulled, is it? It's about a commitment. And if the question is, "Is this person devoted enough to go with you to another universe?", the one person for whom the default answer might be "yes" is your spouse. Thus for any other potential associate, the default is "no, unless the roll says yes", and for the spouse it's, "yes, unless the roll says no,", and you don't make that roll for "no" unless there's already a serious problem between the principle and the associate.
Now, "Consider this a divorce" might terminate the relationship, but you'll probably wind up, like Whisp, with a very angry lady out there on your cycle looking to settle a score. Take his word for it, you do not want that.
--M. J. Young
Well, I just have a little bit of an aversion to marriage. My mom has been married 5 times. The last one they were only together for about 5 months, and the one before that, they got divorced on their one year anniversary. The guy was lucky I wasn't old enough to buy a gun, or else it would have been "Till death do you part."
Now, "Consider this a divorce" might terminate the relationship, but you'll probably wind up, like Whisp, with a very angry lady out there on your cycle looking to settle a score. Take his word for it, you do not want that.
The thing with Whisp that I don't get is why does he fight Mother at all? As soon as I found out she was there, I'd shoot myself in the head. Go on to the next world. That would just make it all the more frustrating to her.
As for Whisp I'm pretty sure that's what he does, except when she catches him unawares. I don't think he ever actually plans to fight her.
I just wonder how I'm going to explain the whole Verser thing to Arabelle (have we yet permanently decided whether her name ends in an 'e' or an 'a'? I like it better with an 'e' just because 'Arabelle' flows better, your mileage may vary). Considering people in this world don't much believe in the supernatural, and Versing is pretty much as out there as it gets...
Osevens, I gotta ask. Why do you want to get married? This is what? Still your first verse? Don't you want to shop around a little? You're going to be alive for a very long time, and go places most couldn't dream of going. Why get married, and especially so early?
On a different note, I personally like Arabella. I'm biased though. I have OCD, and I really like words with an even number of syllables.
(Doing Therapy)
Hmm, there's a fair number of people who hold the 'us Americans Club' attitude.
One way to look at is 'An English lawn is like an English constitution, both take centuries to perfect'. A lot of the Right who were not enthused about W's nation-building felt that trying to convince barbarians to be civilized was fruitless. I pointed out to one of these who is pretty famous that we did as much in Germany. His response was that Germany had a history of being modern.
The thing is....America is a set of shared ideas. Much of these ideas work because everyone shares them. Much of these ideas are not shared by other nations. Its why the rest of the world thinks we are K-razy.
Now my personal solution to a lot of these problems is Revive the British Empire. Americans don't know how to run an empire. Brits did a pretty good job. Give the Crown a hundred billion dollars a year, and use the US Navy to police the seas, and give Israel a bunch of cash...be friends with the Polish too which involves us in muscle games with the bigger powers....but largely let the Brits handle things. Have Americans stay home, and any of us who want to help out can go down to the British Embassy and apply for membership in Prince Harry's American Guards.
And then the suffering people of Haiti would have good government,and without corruption and basic rule of law, in a decade, they'd be a modest success as a vacation destination, and then they'd just keep pulling themselves up so that in a few decades it would be a not too bad place to live. Or we can keep letting bungling corruptocrats pillage their own people for the benefit of their own Swiss bank account.
Its a theory anyways.
I just wonder how I'm going to explain the whole Verser thing to Arabelle
What are their beliefs concerning the afterlife? Just tell her the truth. "You've died and this is the afterlife." It IS technically true, after all.
(Doing Therapy)
Whisp has never committed suicide, as far as I am aware. He runs, but he usually does so to find better tactical position. He knows he can beat mother if he can get the edge--they're pretty closely matched, and it's a matter of getting the battle to play to your strengths.
A bit like Amber Diceless, from what I'm told.
--M. J. Young
Amber Diceless is very like that. Mind you, having finally read the entire both sets of Amber books, I think they're all batshit insane, but yes, the Amber Diceless RPG is very like that. You have one person who is Strictly Better than Everyone at his one thing, and the only way to beat him at that One Thing is to cheat your ass off in-game (while at the same time, you are Strictly Better than him at your One Thing, at which he would have to cheat his ass off in order to beat you. I propose spending all of my build points to make my One Thing cheating my ass off).
But I digress.
I like Arabelle better because it flows, but that's just me. She's MJ's NPC, he'll figure it out.
Why do I want to get married? Because I'm a romantic sap and I like the idea of having someone to be close with like that. And there's a whole Multiverse out there, and nothing that says we'll always be together in it. Being married in one Verse doesn't mean I can't have my fun (and she hers) in Verses we're not sharing. Hell, just look at how Adam does his thing - he's married and he's still done the seductive spy thing at least once. Granted I might have liked for it to happen a bit more organically, but with my obviously abysmal An Mag ... let's just say I don't feel like waiting that many Verses for it to happen.
Who is this Amber Diceless chick I've heard so much about lately?
(Doing Therapy)
It's a game, A1nut. It's based on Roger Zelazny's "Nine Princes in Amber" and the series of books after it. Basically you play the demigodlike children of King Oberon, founder of the One True City, who manipulate Shadows (which is a sort of rudimentary version of a Multiverse - a sort of multiverse within one universe: everything that isn't Amber is just a shadow of Amber, and some are weirder than others, the closer you get to the Courts of Chaos, their enemies). The big gripe that I have with them is that Zelazny focuses SO much on his protagonists than everyone else comes off as a bit flat, and the female characters doubly so - the men come off an mannequins, the ladies like cardboard standees. It's a decent concept, but I find his execution lacking. Again, that's just me, your mileage may vary. In general he's considered a genius on par with Tolkien. Then again, I could never get through 'Fellowship of the Ring' either, so don't necessarily judge by me.
Actually, it was by playing the seductive spy that Adam met his wife; I'm not sure he's done it since, but he hasn't been to that many worlds since, and none without her.
To add to the comments about Amber Diceless, the full name is Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game, and it's the brainchild of (the recently deceased) Erick Wojnak (and I hope I spelled that somewhere near correctly), who constantly harped on the notion that you don't really need randomizers in role playing games, even long after everyone in design had already accepted Tweet's categories of drama, fortune, and karma, but he was a pioneer in non-fortune design.
As to Tolkien, Fellowship of the Ring is a very slow starter. It makes sense that it would be, because there's this whole aspect that Frodo has the ring, but no one knows that it's dangerous and no one thinks anything about it until suddenly things start happening and they have to run, so you get this transition from Little Women to Die Hard. But if you don't stick to it early, you never get to the excitement.
And as my fantasy lit teacher said, once you've finished reading the first it's not really possible to refrain from reading the second and third. Once it gets its momentum, it's hard to escape it.
--M. J. Young
Some guy said he was excited by reading LoTR, and his English teacher said it was because he had found a new way of looking at the world. I think his teach has a point.
The Ladyfaire and I liked Zelazny enough to name our firstborn after the hero. And then we find not everyone has read the book.
For fantasy novels, I highly reccommend 'The Deed of Paksennarrion.'. Its a trilogy that starts with Sheepfarmer's Daughter. Once you get to the end, you read one of the most spectacular scenes ever written in fiction. Not for fireworks, but for understanding and for forgiveness, or so it has seemed to me.
Its a tale of someone who wants to become a hero and the path and the misteps along the way. Five stars.
The Ladyfaire and I liked Zelazny enough to name our firstborn after the hero.
What's the name?
And nothing wrong with naming a child after a fictional hero. I would name not my first born son, but perhaps my second born Kyle Reese Cross after the hero in Terminator. First born son, if there ever is one, will be named after my father.
Corwin. I think it also means 'heart-friend' in Gaelic.
Eric, not to freak you out, but I read that children with unusual names are more likely to end up in prison. No one was certain why. Personally, I like that name. Corwin Ashley? That almost sounds like the name of a 17th century nobleman.
That's weird--I thought I wrote a review of Deed of Paksennarion, but I can't seem to find it.
Anyway, I second Eric's recommendation. Of all the books in the care package he sent, it is the only one I read twice and the only one I recommended to someone else. I might read some of the others again, but I will read that one again--once I manage to get it back from my daughter-in-law.
It's the path which a young girl follows from being a stubborn peasant girl to being a true paladin, and it has some wonderful concepts in it. I was so struck by it that I did some inquiries, and discovered that author Elizabeth Moon was (like C. S. Lewis and J. K. Rowling) an active member of her Anglican church. It has me wondering why so many great fantasy writers are Anglican or Roman Catholic (Tolkien, and another whose name and the titles of her books escape me at the moment, I'm pretty sure).
--M. J. Young