esotericas

MAGNIFICENT CREATURE!!!!!

Terrifying question??? i have no idea???? I certainly try to make lotc a kinder and more interesting place. I think I do a lot to promote rp-forward leadership in my efforts at the NGS, and it's had a marked difference on the whole "ngs experience" i guess. beyond that I don't know!! I don't think I've really considered whether or not I have had a greater impact on the server than that. I try my best to approach people with kindness and to encourage them to do the same for others. I'm certainly not perfect, but I know that attitude of respect and tolerance has impacted people around me. But i guess mostly, I just try to be welcoming to people, especially to people playing countercultural characters. i don't necessarily mean "people playing darkspawn" because there are plenty of those, and whole communities around them, but moreso people who are trying new things with their personas, or who don't otherwise have a place or niche to easily fit into. also, to beat an exceedingly dead horse, i think my very strong rp-forward (or rp-only when i can) perspectives have certainly impacted the small communities i interact with. i've been really clear on how important i think it is to minimize OOC, but previously it's been hard to try to influence people beyond my own small circles bc so many structures on lotc are not built for that sort of attitude. it's been a huge change to see the NGS restored to its former glory, and i'm really enjoying being at the helm of it and getting to spread the good word to more people. i'm also really looking forward to doing more of that on drusilla. i feel really lucky to have met valentina at the right place and time irp, and to have genuinely been given the persona purely on the principle of good roleplay, instead of any significant background of ooc friendship. i had barely spoken to lena or pkdon oocly at all before manon came into valentina's life, and it makes me so happy to see people willing to offer an important role to someone off good roleplay alone. i am prone to doomering about the state of the server, but i feel very optimistic about those two, and maybe i can claim a bit of that influence as my own. maybe.? i'm going to. because i say so.

What do you think is the most important thing your experience on the server has taught you? My time on LOTC, especially my time on Manon, has taught me a lot about leadership skills and about pedagogy. I've gotten a lot of value out of thinking critically about my experiences on the server - what works, what doesn't work, and why, and I think if I end up pursuing a career in education it will be immensely valuable. Particularly, it has caused me to develop much stronger feelings on what is and isn't *good* teaching, and how to engage a relatively uninterested audience in what you want them to learn. Has the way you've engaged with this game changed dramatically over the years, or do you believe it's been more or less the same stuff, just adding more experiences and honing the niches you were enjoying at the start? Massively. I have touched on this a bit before, but I have really struggled the past few years to recapture the intensity and engagement of my rp, after my very serious burnout a few years ago. I find it much harder to develop interesting and unique characters, and I'm more prone to abandoning them once their gimmick gets stale. It's something I'm working on improving, but it's been slow-going. I actually think the opposite is true re: niches. I hate the idea of players sticking to one niche that interests them. In my mind, the whole point of roleplay is to experiment with things we can't necessarily experiment with so easily in real life. It's really tragic to me that so many lotcers find a thing they like and do nothing else, instead of trying new things. I'm always trying to expand my horizons and experiment with new places to rp, new types of characters, and new stories to tell. Would you ever recommend LOTC to an irl friend or family member? I have! I am unashamed of my interest in it, and my family has been forced to suffer through many hours of me yapping about Manon. I've recommended it to a few irls, though I've only successfully managed to convert one @wardynsorry gamer. Nowadays, I'm not so sure I'd recommend it. While I think the current narrative of the Empire is really interesting, it's made the server a much more hostile for people interested in playing fringe-type characters, and those are often the ones I and my friends love the most. A few years ago, when the irp environment was more hospitable to mages or dwarves or whatever, I definitely did though. How are you doing today? I'm good! I have a lot of schoolwork to do the next two weeks, finals sort of snuck up on me, and they're very early here, but I'm looking forward to be done soon! Do you have anything you want a reason to gush about, or talk about, that you otherwise make an excuse not to share? I'm doing a summer program on fashion design this year, and I'm REALLY looking forward to it. I was really torn between fashion and history for my major going into uni, and I decided to go with history (b.c i figure it's easier to go into fashion later than to try and get into academia) so i'm really hyped to get to do a bit of both this year :3 How similar are you to the personas you make? How much do you borrow from yourself to give life to the characters you play? Or do you find that a firmer boundary between where you end and your characters begin is more important? My characters and I often share the same interests, styles, or hobbies, but not the same values. I think it's really important to both give yourself a way of emotionally connecting to a character, and understanding them mentally, without letting character bleed get you. I think empathizing with your characters, even if they're bad people, is really important to do good roleplay. The most horrible people in the world still think of themselves as human, and without that level of understanding, characters can really easily turn into just a pile of stereotypes with no depth. Who's your favorite shitass in the NGS? I think you know. Would you consider LOTC important to you, and would you be comfortable to speak on that importance, or lack thereof? Very much so. I think LOTC is an incredibly unique medium for storytelling. I've tried DND, LARP, theater, writing, text based rp, all of it - and I like LOTC's style the best of all of them. As a server, it's really really flawed, and I'm not currently very happy with the direction it's going, but I'm doing what I can to improve the server, and I think it's still worth loving and protecting for what it is and what it could be someday. On a personal level, I think LOTC's importance has mostly been IRT my beloved Manon. I have a hard time putting into words how much this character means for me. She's been with me through a lot, and I think her and her story have become a really important part of who I am today. Her changing narrative has mirrored my own life in a lot of ways, especially my recovery from depression in the past few years years, and my own process dealing with my low empathy disorder. She is incredibly incredibly important to me. I don't think I'll be able to leave LOTC behind until she's dead - and I do NOT want her to die </3 That said, I think once she does die, I will (try to) step away from the server. While I love it and everything you can do with it, it has eaten up (and will continue to eat up) so so much of my free time that I could be spending on things that are better for my body and mind. There are so many hobbies that I've dabbled in over the years but never got to fully dig into because I was too busy with mineman, and I want this to change - but I can't escape the Manonprison until she's gone. It's really a double edged sword.

i'm a total nut for the styles of the 1890s-1900s, and beyond just the way thats represented in manon's style, i've been taking lots of inspiration from various media set around that time for my events and writing. other than that though it really really depends on the persona. it's often more concepts or themes from media that inspire me than the media itself. i read a little bit of dostoevsky a year or two ago in an english class, and we had a really fascinating discussion on whether *wanting* to believe in god made him christian or not. he certainly didn't consider himself christian, despite wanting to be. i'm not at all religious myself, but i've been percolating on that idea of "wanting to believe vs actually believing in a faith" into my rp ever since. so, moreso stuff like that! i've also been on a hugee nautical kick recently, which is more directly expressing itself in my rp (and some ngs plans) but if you're interested in what media i've been up to recently (and i guess therefore what has been inspiring me) - buffy the vampire slayer - anne with an e - goth-folk music (idk the proper name for the genre) - the night circus by erin morgenstern - hp lovecraft (problematic fav i'm sorry i know he was a shitty guy) - the video game dredge - anything and everything wes anderson and guillermo del toro (esp fantastic mr fox and crimson peak respectively) your mention of paintings was really interesting to me! i don't know that i've considered more direct visual influences on my roleplay like that before. i really really love alphonse mucha's work though :) i also spend a lot of time looking at late victorian epherma (fashion plates, notes, advertisements, etc) for a personal project i'm working on too, and the style of that has been super inspiring to me artistically! my favorite current artist is juliette brocal / cy_lyndric, with gaëlle geniller / avril_circus as a close second. i'm very interested in fashion history and both of them do incredible character art with really fantastic historical fashion in it. i highly recommend taking a peek at both of them! i'm studying medieval history with a minor in latin so a lot of that has been slowly seeping into my rp too - though i'm only in my first year. i'm sure more influences in that regard will come later on. i'm really interested in the art of the byzantine empire, those really incredibly elaborate mosaics n stuff. absolutely incredible. i love that overt all-consuming opulence, and i try to incorporate some aesthetic cues from it into my personal artwork

the original concept for manon was to play a social outsider. i wanted her to look different from her peers and family, (the source of her #albinism) and also to care about different things. from the start she was a very intellectual, philosophical person, and had a very intense sense of whimsy. she loved fairies and ghosts and spooky forests and all of that. i try to base my characters on narrative concepts / tropes i guess? moreso than specific characters. her story has always been about the experience of being an outsider. other themes have shifted a lot over time. in her early years, i took inspiration from the following themes: the cost of genius, a dark secret that corrupts everything it touches, the consequences of really intense daddy issues, and this quote in particular from addie larue: “being forgotten, she thinks, is a bit like going mad. you begin to wonder what is real, if you are real. after all, how can a thing be real if it cannot be remembered?” in manon's very early youth, she had a near-death experience, and a lot of the first few decades of her life were really intensely shaped by it. for a very long time, she suffered from a sort of cotard's syndrome. although she only briefly experienced complete delusion on the level of real cotard's syndrome (i hate diagnosing my ocs so that's the closest i'm going to get) for a long time she held the sort of abstract belief that she was supposed to die as a little girl, and that she had somehow inadvertently sold her soul in exchange for eternal life, with the caveat that nobody would ever remember or care who she was. she went through phases of celebrating this theoretical bargain and regretting it. obviously she didn't want to be dead, but she has spent her whole life yearning to truly connect with people, and in particular to have the respect and admiration of her superiors. at the start, she was inspired by auri from name of the wind, with dashes of alice in wonderland, addie larue, and yvaine from stardust. nowadays, as my roleplay is less intense, the potency of the themes in manon's life is a lot subtler. but also, she's reached the age where these emotional arcs happen a lot slower - over decades, instead of days. but these are some of the ideas that i've been percolating on in regards to her narrative at its current place: how much do we sacrifice for love, the sins of the father (or mother in her case), whether the ends justify the means, telling a lie enough that it becomes the truth, coping with being a different person than she used to be, how to keep wanting to be alive, and especially the endless grief that comes with immortality. she has always been an intensely intellectual, introspective, philosophical character, and a lot of the themes of her life - her relationships with male authorities, her relationship with womanhood, complex feelings about violence and morality, have remained incredibly persistent. it's moreso her direct character that has changed so much. a lot of it was gradual, and most of her transformations have been about the internal aspects of what she does. fundamentally, she has always been a caretaker and an educator and a philosopher, and those traits will pretty much never change. but WHY she chooses to care for people has really changed. i think on some level she always wanted to be a "good," genuinely caring person, but for most of her life she wasn't capable of caring for other people unless it was for personal gain - or, unless she convinced herself it was for personal gain. she was too wounded by being completely disregarded by almost all the most important people in her life. she had a toxic relationship with her father, her alchemy mentor secretly hated her and thought she was the scum of the earth, her best friend and her first love chose to marry her childhood bully instead of her. over and over, she was thrown away by the people she loved most, and for over a century she just couldn't ever let herself care for people without some notion of personal gain, because she *knew* none of them cared for her back. and she was often proven right (though sometimes it was warranted. she wasn't exactly easy to love, and she still isn't) partially, her perspective on her own nature began to shift - she realized, i think, that it's not actually very fun to be evil and hateful all the time, and that she would rather just embrace the things she loved for what they were, instead of trying to convince herself she needed ulterior motives to justify them. anyway. she's changed a LOT, and i think on some level she truly has redeemed herself, which i was never expecting or intending her to do. i have mixed feelings about it. i think she does too. deep down in her heart, she still feels like she was "supposed" to be a villain, and she just isn't anymore. it's been hard for her to cope with realizing that. re: manon and james i think honestly what i love most about their friendship isn't any particular moments, but the absolute faith she has always had in him. manon is so incredibly prone to paranoia. she is constantly convinced that everyone around her is secretly trying to tear her down, or to take away her happiness, or to kill her, or whatever. she's usually wrong, but she's cripplingly afraid of losing everything she's built, her reputation, her home, her family, her life - because she knows if the wrong person finds out the wrong things, and she gets unlucky, it *could* all go away. but she has never, ever distrusted james. they've never been besties, and she often disagrees with him about very fundamental matters of faith and philosophy and politics, but at this point in her life, she's very aware of how lucky she is to have a friend that she has never had cause to doubt.

i'm sorry to say she really did not like priscilla 💀 she doesnt strictly have a favorite, but there have been some with more impactful rp, or with whom she had/has a stronger relationship. siegmund was probably her most intense and interesting parent-child relationship, but he's dead rip

fave erika manon moment is MAKING HER EAT CANDLES!!! DUH !!!! i'm unfortunately not sure there's much i can say on that though. i think it's a pretty human impulse to knock down the other guy's sandcastle, especially if you secretly think it's better than your own in some way. it's not a *nice* human impulse, but it's natural, and i think it's pretty hard to escape in the general type of people that lotc attracts. i have said for years that many lotc players would be better off playing crusader kings. one of my favorite pieces of advice i received once is "it's possible for people to change, but only about 3%." i think as people come and go, *culture* on lotc can change, but the individuals themselves... mostly don't, and we can't expect them to. we can just support the ones who bring good vibes, and hope that that good energy builds on itself. that said, what i think the NGS has done differently is in some ways actually being *unwelcoming* to certain types of people. we try to be friendly to everyone irp, but the structure of the NGS is fundamentally oriented in a way that doesn't support sandcastle-kicking. the NGS is all work with basically zero reward. there is no money, there are no titles, or land, or thrones, or taxes to collect, or laws to make. the only reward for putting effort into the NGS is the satisfaction of a job well done, and the really lovely community. i think that structure has really helped boost our reputation as a stable, non-toxic community, and therefore helped attract more people *looking* for an environment like that. but also, it's done a great job keeping the power-trippers away from our community, because power-trippers are not interested in all-work-no-reward systems (and power-trippers are prone to sandcastle-kicking) i think also like . i as a person absolutely HATE anything and everything OOC. i don't like game nights or voice calls or planning meetings over DMs or joining discord servers or any of it. i hate it. i hate how it makes my roleplay worse. my goal on lotc is ALWAYS to tell a compelling, interesting story, and the more OOC wrangling you involve, the quicker the story gets two-dimensional and grey. i feel very very intensely about this, and have made it really clear in my leadership of the NGS that that's how i want the society to run. deguise worked a very similar way. while i know that perspective simply doesn't *work* for some roles, and it doesn't work for many people, i think people absolutely can *feel* that focus on RP, and i think it can build on itself to build stronger rp-forward sentiments in communities, and that love for rp necessarily turns into respect for the rp people have done in the past, and a desire to preserve it for other people to appreciate too. so i guess. TL;DR the best thing you can do is to be the change you wish to see in the world, and to avoid the people who want to wreck it all. there isn't much you can do to change them, but you can absolutely build communities where people like that aren't welcome, and those communities will be cooler and have more fun anyway the way to make rp "not a game to be won" is to take away the reward for winning, and the cost for losing. when there's nothing to incentivize that sort of mentality, you won't attract people with it.

never. i would die for sarahbarah.

WORLDS apart, truly! i don't really start characters with goals - usually i try and let them come around organically. i can't be too specific because there's some manon deeplore that you should learn irp, but she has basically taken a complete 180 from who she used to be. in her younger years, she was intensely isolated, and completely mistrusting of everyone around her (still true) but it led her to really set herself away from intense social ties. she had very few friends, and had absolutely nobody that she *relied on* because she was constantly paranoid they would discover her dark secret and abandon her. it left her very disconnected from the world around her, and eventually developed into a sort of low empathy + deep violent desires type of complex, which led her down a really dark path for a good few decades. into her more adult years, 50s or so, she finally found a way to take control of her life that didn't put her in constant danger, and she started to actually get to know herself a bit more, but she remained really intensely manipulative of others. she had very little respect for people she deemed less enlightened/intelligent than her (almost everyone) and became convinced that "nothing she did actually affected the world" so it didn't matter if she used people or hurt people. it took a really tragic series of events to make her realize just how much she was hurting people around her, and when she finally did, it was so disturbing to her that she entered literal psychosis for a few years because she couldn't cope with the idea of just how *much* she had hurt people who had loved and trusted her. she did eventually recover, and it was only really then that she actually learned to be genuinely caring and loving, and to be a good person. before then it was always with the underlying intention of using people for her own gain or entertainment. nowadays, although she can still be catty or unkind or even violent, i think she has become a fundamentally good person, which she wasn't before

my favorite member of the NGS is TANITH VURSUR!

favorite skin is manon's wedding dress which you STILL HAVEN'T SEEN BTW. JSYK!!! but also i really like this one that dev made for the gala :) my favorite husband..? who could say.........

i think one of my most powerful blessings (and greatest hindrances) on lotc has been my absolute disinterest in ooc communities, and my complete inability to maintain ooc relationships after the roleplay ones end. it's why i've spent so much time going from community to community - i like truly going wherever calls to my personas, instead of just sticking with the people and places i'm used to. it's made it a lot harder to maintain friendships (so i'm very grateful for the many folks i CAN call my good friends) but i do feel really lucky to have experienced so many different things. my favorite experience of this type of all time was when alasdair was eleven. for family drama reasons, he ran away from home, and ended up spontaneously coming upon adria circa late 2022. it was the fastest i'd ever been welcomed into a community with zero ooc labor. they immediately got me involved in multiple avenues of roleplay, and there was never a dull moment the entire time he lived there. it really showed me how much power a community like that can have, and i will absolutely never forget it. my big piece of advice is that people need to stop conflating irp allegiance to ooc allegiance (and to stop caring about ooc allegiance?? like who GAF we're playing barbies). especially in the wake of this whole war, i've heard so much sentiment on all sides connecting those two - and i think it would open people up to so much more interesting rp if they could let that go. there is a LOT i'd do differently. i lacked a lot of social awareness in my Youth on lotc (joined when i was fifteen) and there were a lot of mistakes i made that i really really regret looking back on them. definitely some friendships ruined that didn't need to be ruined. mostly, however, i think i should have taken a chance to pk manon a while ago. i ADORE her, and i don't *want* her to die ever, but at this point in her life, i don't know that she ever will - and i don't think i can quit lotc if she's still alive. and i really want to be free of this miserable server. i refuse to let her have a death that isn't narratively satisfying, so i think now she's doomed to live forever lmao. thank YOU for making the NGS!! i truly have some incredibly large boots to fill, and i feel so lucky to have gotten the chance to try em on :) thank YOU for all our rp seth. it truly forever changed manon and her character, and i feel so lucky to have gotten to tell that story with you :) someday we will rp again and it will be SO FIRE!!!!

you are truly one of the angels of lotc. i don't know if i would have survived in haense without you these two are my favorites. i don't know that the second one is actually my best writing, but it DOES make me actually cry every time i read it, which i think is a sign of a well-written farewell post

i used to be wowsirs but people kept calling me "wow" which really annoyed me because it's like . a word . and i was always getting confused if people were trying to get my attention or if they were just saying wow "esotericas" comes from a quote from ASOUE - "Life is a conundrum of esoterica" but just esoterica was taken so i stuck an S on the end! and, it really depends. my roleplay style has changed a lot in the past few years. i suffered really serious burnout my senior year of high school, which has significantly affected how intensely i can engage in roleplay. i think the year before it (like 2023?) was the peak of my rp engagement - i was deeply invested in the imrpov and the real-time development of my characters. it's when i rp'ed alasdair, my favorite persona of all time, and also when manon had her most interesting and complex developments. i've sort of lost the ability to do that - i just can't engage in rp that way anymore. i'm hoping to get it back, but in the meantime, it's been tough to deal with the fact that i literally just can't make them like i used to. i actually try to avoid taking too much inspiration from any one thing. i think it's really easy to fall down the hole of larping as characters who already exist, especially when you (as i do currently) are struggling with spontaneous character development. roleplay has changed a lot the last few years, and rp feels a lot less exciting and improvised than it did a few years ago - though i'm sure some of that has to do with not being so new to lotc anymore. where i get my inspiration really depends on the character i'm playing. i usually start with a core personality trait / concept, something SUPER simple, usually inspired by a book or movie, but not always. when i started alasdair, i was experimenting with how excessive empathy would affect a person, for example. the core inspiration for manon has always been "being an outsider." i do take more direct inspirations for characters too. the original inspiration for manon was auri from name of the wind. nowadays there's a lot of julian from the secret history in her. but i try, if at all possible, to just let rp dictate how my characters develop and who they are she briefly worked for the church as a spy at hallowcliffe, the naztherak lair on aevos. that was ******* awesome but i do think the NGS has been so incredibly rewarding. i did a lot of pretty thankless work in haense, multiple years of grinding courts etc, with very little appreciation, other than a few kind souls who were interested in being friends with me even though i don't talk to people much oocly (ily sarah and gus) coming into my NGS presidency i was expecting a lot of the same - a lot of forum post grinding with very little appreciation, but it has been so incredibly refreshing and inspiring to be brought into such a wonderful community, and to be so supported. i'd spent a long time trying to find groups that TRULY only cared about good rp, with little success, and it's been incredibly fun to help revive the NGS, and to make it into that very group. i feel really lucky to be able to bring others into the same community i always wanted, and to be able to work alongside the LEGENDS that have made it what it is. autumn is my favorite season always. i lived on the east coast of the US for many years, and the summers there are too hot for my fragile soul. fall is BEAUTIFUL and i love the chilly-but-not-freezing weather and i LOVE halloween. and pumpkin themed food. also i very specifically LOVE the smell of decaying fall leaves, when it's like kind of sweet you know?? ugh. truly the best. i do not currently have any cats, although i used to. my beloved sam passed away while i was at boarding school. i miss him every day. once i'm out of uni and have a stable income, i will be getting a cat again, but i don't want to get one until then lest i be stuck with crippling vet bills (rip my sister, that happened to her. kitty is totally fine but it was like almost a thousand dollars down the drain)

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

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 :,) 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!!!

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 :) 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. um kato oro obviously. ??

*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

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.

FERRIED BY TWO MECHANICAL RAVENS, PLATED IN GOLD AND GEMSTONE EYES GLEAMING, DOES A LETTER ARRIVE IN PETRA. •─────────────────•𖥠•─────────────────• “Thoughts are free and subject to no rule. On them rests the freedom of man, And they tower above the light of nature. Thoughts create a new heaven, a new firmament, A new source of energy from which new arts flow.” ALISTAIR, WE’LL BE THERE. –M. •─────────────────•𖥠•─────────────────•

FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE NGS H E R B D R I V E DONORS WILL BE REWARDED! •─────────────────•𖥠•─────────────────• AN ALCHEMIST RETURNS FROM GATHERING REAGENTS. •─────────────────•𖥠•─────────────────• AS THE WORLD FALLS INTO peace once more, our minds return to the simpler, more practical concerns of the everyday - and to the replenishment of reserves spent. In our service to our beloved patrons, the NGS’s stores of Alchemical herbs have been entirely depleted, and as a charitable institution, we have not the resources to procure more. It is thus that we at the NGS extend a humble request to the world at large, that those with charitable souls may consider donating their botanicals for our use. This request for donations does not come without an offer of exchange, of course. The following prizes will be awarded to the top donors: To the GREATEST DONOR: Junior Membership (or promotion) within the NGS, Pending an interview to verify character and intent. To the SECOND GREATEST DONOR: A collection of introductory Alchemical texts, Perfect for the budding scholar. To the THIRD GREATEST DONOR: A private guided tour of the NGS museum and library. Donations may either be delivered in person to one of our DIVISION CHIEFS (Those being, Manon Volkrich, Vincente Volkrich, Elizabeth Brae, Tanith Vursur,) or dropped in the DONATION BOX with accompanying proof of identity. [ OOC: You can either give herbs irp, or leave them in the dono box outside the museum. Either way, screenshot your donation, and put it in a comment on this post. Please use this format: ] IGN: RP NAME: HERBS DONATED: (Screenshot of herbs in your inventory, plus a list of herbs and amounts) DONATED TO: (Donation box / Which Division Chief) Dono box is at (1168, -1011) Donations will be open for the extent of TWO SAINT’S WEEKS, closing at the following time: Sunday, April 5th, at 6pm EST / 11pm GMT After which donations will be counted, and winners determined. Should the first-place donor be determined unworthy of NGS membership, that prize will be given to the second-place donor, and the books to the first. •─────────────────•𖥠•─────────────────• SIGNED, Her Ladyship, DAME MANON YVAINE VON VOLKRICH Dame of Arts, Lady of Deguise, Baroness of Guise and Distrugestadt, Imperial Court Alchemist, President of the Northern Geographical Society P U B L I S H E D U N D E R T H E A U T H O R I T Y O F T H E N G S “ A D T E R R A S N O V A S ” THE NGS RESERVES THE RIGHT TO REFUSE ANY PRIZE FOR ANY REASON. THE NORTHERN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY IS NOT RESPONSIBLE OR LIABLE FOR ANY HARM THAT COMES TO HERB-HUNTERS. •─────────────────•𖥠•─────────────────•

FROM THE NGS: A C H I L D R E N ’ S E X P E D I T I O N AN INTRODUCTORY STUDY IN NATURE AND BOTANY FOR THE YOUTH OF TODAY •─────────────────•𖥠•─────────────────• AN ASPIRING BOTANIST BRINGS HOME HER FINDS. •─────────────────•𖥠•─────────────────• •─────────────────•𖥠•─────────────────• AT LAST– ‘TIS SPRING! AS THE ICY CHILL OF winter melts into springtime warmth, the NGS invites the youth of the Empire - and beyond - to journey out into the more rural reaches of the Crownlands, in order to make an introductory study of the local flora, as well as to best make use of the balmy weather. Parents are permitted to attend, though the event is to be oriented toward children, and a careful eye will be kept upon them at all times. Drinks and snacks provided. Bring a notebook! SUNDAY, MARCH 22, 6:30 PM EST. MEET AT NGS HQ •─────────────────•𖥠•─────────────────• SIGNED, Her Ladyship, DAME MANON YVAINE VON VOLKRICH, SUPERVISOR @esotericas Dame of Arts, Lady of Deguise, Baroness of Guise and Distrugestadt, President of the Northern Geographical Society P U B L I S H E D U N D E R T H E A U T H O R I T Y O F T H E N G S “ A D T E R R A S N O V A S ” •─────────────────•𖥠•─────────────────•

T W I C E W E D D E D ✩ A PLAY IN THREE ACTS ✩ •─────────────────────•✦•─────────────────────• •─────────────────────•✦•─────────────────────• AN EMBELLISHED RETELLING OF the infamous CUCKOLD’S WAR of the early 20th century. The tale described in this play does not purport to be wholly accurate, nor wholly friendly to its characters, or the historical figures that inspired them. It should be treated as a work of dramatic fiction, not of history. Penned 2071. •─────────────────────•✦•─────────────────────• ✩ CAST ✩ IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE Renilde Temesch - Mid 30’s, ginger hair, charismatic and lovely. Dressed in whites, greens, and pale blues. Prince Marius Barbanov - Early 30’s, tall, dark, and handsome. Muscular. Dressed in fashionable armor. Constanz Novellen - Early 40’s, sunkissed. Dressed in purples and golds, in Balianite style. King Georg Barbanov - Mid 30’s, dark like his brother, portly or thin, but not muscular. Dressed in black and gold. Wears a simple circlet. •─────────────────────•✦•─────────────────────• •─────────────────────•✦•─────────────────────• ✩ ACT I ✩ SCENE I SCENE II •─────────────────────•✦•─────────────────────• ✩ ACT II ✩ SCENE I SCENE II •─────────────────────•✦•─────────────────────• ✩ ACT III ✩ SCENE I •─────────────────────•✦•─────────────────────•

Drusilla, as yet unaware of her own grave misfortune, played happily with one of her brother's old plush toys - a harlequin doll, its face covered in a smiling porcelain mask.