esotericas 5 years AMA WOWWW

[esotericas 2674]

hey guys. i've been here for five years (and two days)

WOWIE!!! 

ask me questions i guess? maybe also send pictures of your cats. 

 

[kuerbis 3802]

sent u pictures of my 2 cats, what was ur favourite RP moment ever?

[prophetisms 982]

woaw. i heard this person is pretty cool. 

 

favorite moment at/with deguise and its residents? 

[garentoft 9265]

favourite band/musician

top 3 movies of all time

berlin?

[Dyl 2088]

wow yo! 

 

okay so favorite bardmancer?

[esotericas 2674]

Just now, kuerbis said:

sent u pictures of my 2 cats, what was ur favourite RP moment ever?

*ever* is really hard, but one of my favorites was back in manon's 70's - she was in an incredibly intensely toxic relationship (she was the problem) and she was at her MOST mentally ill

and they had a fight, and they were up on this tower over a frozen lake, and she told him she was going to jump from the tower unless he loved her enough to keep her from falling. i genuinely had a pk post prepared - i was expecting him to let her fall, she'd been incredibly awful to him

but he saved her, obviously! 

he grabbed her at the very last second, brought her down to the ground, and then literally never spoke to her again. faked his death to get away from her

[mielofficial 489]

What’s your favorite rp that’s come out of NGS so far?

[esotericas 2674]

3 minutes ago, prophetisms said:

woaw. i heard this person is pretty cool. 

 

favorite moment at/with deguise and its residents? 

oooh this is really hard

i absolutely loved all of deguise, it was maybe my favorite phase of manon's life ever. constantly trying to recapture that magic

i really loved the era when there was genuinely a large active group of people - there honestly isn't one scene that sticks out, but moreso that period of rp was just so incredibly fun and inspiring

if i HAD to choose one moment, it would probably be the masquerade :) 

2 minutes ago, garentoft said:

favourite band/musician

top 3 movies of all time

berlin?

ur intensely putting me on the spot here. i dont know if i HAVE a favorite band. if we're going pure minutes listened, it's probably some musical, but i've been on a vampire weekend kick recently

fantastic mr fox
anna karenina
laputa / castle in the sky

yes.

5 minutes ago, Dyl said:

wow yo! 

 

okay so favorite bardmancer?

um kato oro obviously. ??

[Hom 1987]

as someone who’s done a lot of scholarly rp on lotc, what do you think makes academic/learning/teaching rp good or bad? (totally not fishing for advice…)

[esotericas 2674]

5 minutes ago, mielofficial said:

What’s your favorite rp that’s come out of NGS so far?

i think the most touching has been a conversation manon and atsuko had about the lectors. 

manon was taught alchemy by a lector when she was very young, and he'd been her mentor for years before then. she spent all her life desperately wanting to be one - but he refused to let her get anywhere near them, because he thought she was too unstable. he led her to believe that at that point all the lectors were entirely dissipated, and that she had no hope of ever joining them. she'd always felt incredibly isolated and alone - without any real peers or people who shared her interests, so the idea of an entire society of weird philosopher nerds was intoxicating to her, she was obsessed with them, but she spent her whole life thinking that she never *could* have been a lector - which made it easier.

 

then she spoke with atsuko, and realized that it was just incredible bad luck that had prevented her from joining them. it was really heartbreaking for her to know that she'd just gotten unlucky, and that her life could have been so different, if it wasn't for some bad choices she made when she was very very young. part of what she loves about ngs is the strength of the community, because it was something she always lacked in her youth - so the idea that she COULD have had it really hurt her :,) 

1 minute ago, Hom said:

as someone who’s done a lot of scholarly rp on lotc, what do you think makes academic/learning/teaching rp good or bad? (totally not fishing for advice…)

engagement is 80% of it and spontaneity is 20% of it
lotc has this odd obsession with activities where the vast majority of attendees sit around and watch a few select people have fun. jousts, performances, weddings, speeches, courts, whatever. so many big events are just "you and your friend sit there and talk in #w while the important guys do the important stuff" and that's BORING!

in the same way, "formal" academic rp, in the way it exists irl - presentations, lectures, assignments, all of them fall into that same trap on lotc. it might be tolerable to sit in a lecture hall for an hour irl, but sitting in a lecture irp for an hour kills *any* interest people have in scholarly roleplay.

 

getting people on their (literal) feet, moving around, doing things, talking to each other, asking questions - all of these are the MOST important way to make scholarly rp fun. my favorite lesson manon ever taught was to one of her alchemy students who was struggling to understand how to develop an "instinct" for detecting symbols in reagents. manon explained it as needing to develop an emotional connection to the object - to be known is to be loved, etc - beyond just intellectual analysis. when the student still didn't get it, manon gave her an example of a candle (chose something that isn't a reagent so the student can't take the easy route of just looking up the symbols) and asked her to assign them. she still was trapped only thinking intellectually about it - the beeswax, the functionality in bringing light, etc. so manon made her stop talking, and take a bite out of the candle, so she could taste the faint bit of honey left in it, and better understand the emotional experience of candle-hood - brute-force, sensory interaction. 

 

fundamentally everyone on lotc spends too much time standing around and talking and not enough time interacting with their world. 90% of the time we might as well just be doing discord roleplay. people don't TOUCH things. 

 

make your students touch things, and break them, and eat them, and smell them, and throw them at the wall, and whatever else. then ask them to analyze those experiences.

 

also, nobody ever wants to come to a scheduled lesson, and the people who do come inevitably aren't actually focused. you're better off just hanging out irp, starting up a lesson when you have 2+ engaged rpers, and then just pinging @ rp ping to get more folks. the numbers don't end up being that different, but the roleplay experience is infinitely more fun. 

 

also one final tip - make your students teach each other! teaching something is the absolute best way to learn it, and again it keeps them engaged in the content. when i taught alchemy, i often made my students re-teach their peers the same concepts i taught them - but i forced them to come up with new ways of explaining things. it forces their players to actually think about concepts, instead of just vomiting up lore pages, and also it's fun

 

anyway sorry for the ESSAY i'm probably going into education irl (blame manon) so i have lots of thoughts!!! 

[garentoft 9265]

21 minutes ago, esotericas said:

laputa / castle in the sky

you know crazy ball. respect.

[esotericas 2674]

Just now, Oraclе said:

whoa, hi. top 5 lorepieces?

1) conduit
2) conduit
3) conduit
4) conduit
5) conduit

 

no jumping through ST hoops, no CRP functionality, basically no redlines. it's pure perfection. i have had so much INCREDIBLE rp with conduit - the infinite room for creative freedom and the low stakes make it so so much fun, and i think it's a really incredible way to explore a character's complexities.

 

otherwise however idk. i don't read lore unless i absolutely have to because i think most of it is not very interesting

[NovumChase 235]

What’s the story behind your username? And is there anywhere specific where you find your character/narrative inspiration?

 

Has been great getting to know you through NGS RP!

[PrimnyaQuorum 3999]

what has been ur favorite employment spot on manon.

 

What's your favorite season and why.

 

do you have cats. 

[sarahbarah 7105]

genuinely so glad to have known you these last 5 years on lotc, from norland to haense to empiyah, it's been an absolute pleasure

 

whats your fav post youve ever written?