(no subject)

[sythyry]

[24 Hivvem 4261]

Thelvion is back in town. He looks distinctly "he" still. [Actual phrasing: "That-Rassimel looks distinctly "Rassimel" still. -- loyal opposition translator.]

Me:"How are you? What happened at home? And other polite inquiries which show concern for the vast bowl of doom which you poured for yourself, but which I held?"

Thelvion:"I am: back at school. I am: now seeking Rassimel companionship. I am: concerned about my long-term prospects thereto, as I am sterile due to mighty sorcerous intervention to correct a birth defect."

Me:"I am: sure that you owe me a more detailed story. I am: sure that I owe you brandy and apologies."

So, we repaired to the Lightly Scaled Refectory, where Ghirbis poured liberally from the bottle of Ulvark that Nestrune gave me a few days ago. And here is the report on Thelvion:

1. His mother is more or less recovered, though still given to occasional furies for the mind-spell cast on her. I cannot blame here. I, too, am still given to occasional furies for the mind-spell cast on me. Cursed nendrai!
2. He revealed everything to his transaffectionate Herethroy girlfriend, also known as the love of his life. For some time she could not decide whether to dump him because (a) he was the wrong species for her, or (b) he was a both-female. She finally settled on dumping him because (c) he was off at Vheshrame Academy and neglecting her far too much.
3. (c) is wholly unfair because it is exactly what they agreed on before he went to school.
4. No, more brandy would probably not be a good idea, appealing as the thought of getting drunk for a few weeks might be. Kathia, not brandy, as a preparation for going to class.
5. Could some further form of magical concealment be arranged, to prevent people from stumbling on this unfortunate matter? (The answer is, naturally, "It cannot be guaranteed. Anything I could do at the moment would cause more suspicion than it could possibly alleviate. Later on ... if you move somewhere low on formal magicians ... perhaps. It may take years or decades before I can be much help on this."

6. Thelvion:"Zi Ri aren't in a hurry, I suppose."

   Me:"Zi Ri aren't particularly competent, I suppose. In this instance at least."

7. Thelvion will live as a Rassimel from now on. He will do his best to forget and ignore his actual composition.
8. Thelvion will, regrettably, no longer attend meetings of the Vheshrame Academy Transaffectionate Student Association.

Me:"If there are any further meetings."

Thelvion:"Even if, yes. I plan to be disqualified for not being transaffectionate."

Ghirbis:"The woe! The traitor full of his treason!"

Me:"I don't blame you a bit, Thelvion."

Ghirbis:"But, how can you fail to be qualified?"

Thelvion:"I will dredge up a Rassimel girlfriend somewhere."

Ghirbis:"That is traff, for you!"

Thelvion:"I'm trying to forget that."

Me:"Please accept some more brandy by way of apology for my roommate."

Ghirbis:"Of course, if you date a Herethroy, that's transaffectionate too."

Me:"Please accept Ghirbis' tail by way of apology for my roommate."

Ghirbis:"I am to be the Rassimel girlfriend he's dredging up?"

Me:"I was thinking more of a severed tail, but that sounds suitable."

Thelvion and Ghirbis:[in unison]"No! Very no! Highly forever no!"

Me:[imitating Thelvion and Ghirbis]"Though that other Rassy is kind of cute."

Thelvion:"Ghirbis, may I pour kathia on your lizardly roommate?"

Ghirbis:"Be my guest!"

Thelvion:(does so)

Me:"The injustice!"

Thelvion:"The just revenge!"

In any case, Thelvion seems restored to tolerable spirits, if not his accustomed degree of tedium. I accept my shower and ensuing bath as suitable penance.

Or, on further thought ... is Thelvion actually being sensible and sane here, or not?

Sane: Thelvion has lived all his life as a Rassimel. He has never walked on four legs; he eats meat regularly; he has a big furry tail; all like that. By staying Rassimel, he's simply living the way he always has. He just has a Dark Secret.

Insane: He's chosen -- very fast! -- to ignore his true species, his true sexual orientation, and his true gender. That can't be good, can it?

Comments

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Instead of dredging up a rassimel girlfriend, he should become a hermit who forswears all romantic entanglements. Then he'd only be ignoring one out of the three!

[kistaro]

I would very much enjoy an illustration of a Kathia-doused Sythyry.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

If one appears, I shall be sure to show you.

[kistaro]

I do wonder, though, if kathia has the same stimulant effects when applied to one's scales as to when it is imbibed? The similar beverage on our world has been refined to its primary useful ingredient (caffeine), and there are now merchants who sell soap with an unhealthy dose of it. Even as bitter as coffee is, I suspect it is preferable to eating soap. But somehow, the high dose of caffeine in the soap goes through one's skin?

I do wonder if scales are more or less prone to such an effect. Did you find that your involuntary shower served to wake you up? Well, wake you up more than any other instance of having a container of fluid dumped upon you.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I regret to note that I failed to perform accurate measurements before I washed the stuff off. I am a miserable and utter failure at my devotion to natural philosophy this term.

[kistaro]

Ah, but you can always try again! If you find the matter as fascinating as I do, and enjoy making great sacrifices in the pursuit of science, one missed opportunity is hardly a tragedy when the experiment can be so easily re-created. Simply arrange to have kathia poured on you with some regularity, and plan to take measurements!

If your nendrai continues doing you such social favors as the doom assistance she has provided so far, you may be offered several opportunities for such experimentation. My condolences.

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

*geeking*

He would need to adventure a good bit more to earn the points to buy off Dark Secret in the first place. So his current choice makes a goodly bit of sense.

^._.^

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

*grin*

But the World Tree system doesn't have a mechanical way to buy off disads. You might be able to get rid of them by a story -- though that's hard for Thevion's -- or you might be stuck with them forever.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

You'd have to travel to a GURPS campaign world for a few sessions to earn the character points.

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

*giggle*

[devon-alek.livejournal.com]

Of course, there's the World Tree way of losing a Dark Secret: make it known. Not without its own consequences, but it can hardly be called a secret when everybody in the duchy know it.

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we need to get Sythyry & Co. into a nice, normal world where you get rich and powerful by slaughtering random forest critters! Of course zie would need to be shoehorned into a "class" and "level" too, but zie could come back with countless gold pieces and 99 suits of metal armor!

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

And if it was a properly computerized world, the 99 suits of armor would take as much space in zir bag as the one mismatched cloth sock.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

...but, the cloth sock would be a +9 Cloth Sock of Eternal Mismatchedness. No matter which sock it's placed next to, it would be mismatched!

[justicezero.livejournal.com]

I certainly would not expect him finding a Rassimel girlfriend to be a wise move, as that is being false to his nature. It is understandable if he should find himself in a relationship of convenience, however, so long as it is understood that the relationship is not based on feeling. Something akin to Illotat's marriage, perhaps, albeit with more amiability.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I think you mean 'not based on sex'. Nothing stops you from caring dearly for someone you have no interest in sleeping with.

[justicezero.livejournal.com]

Maybe. But to title it by a name associated by a romantic relationship courts disaster and misery at best

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Come to that, is it really proper to call him a him when he's a both-female?

I'll vote for sane, nevertheless.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Bard: (translates that without paying attention)

Sythyry: You're using gender-based pronouns for Thelvion?

Bard: Well, my language uses them.

Sythyry: You're using gender-based pronouns for *me*?

Bard: You get funky ones.

Sythyry: Useless translator!

Bard: Best you've got.

Sythyry: The *right* question is, "Is it proper to call him 'that Rassimel' when he's a 'that Herethroy', using species-specific pronouns?"

Bard: Translating that to "is it really proper to call him a him when he's a both-female?" is about as good a translation as we'll ever get.

Sythyry: Useless translator!

Bard: *sigh* What's the answer?

Sythyry: No, it's not proper, but he's going to keep his Dark Secret as secret as possible.

Bard: No doom there!

Sythyry: There has been *quite* enough doom this month already.

Bard: I promise that next month will be as doom-free as the day is long.

Sythyry: What does *that* mean?

Bard: Um ... nothing?

Sythyry: Useless translator!

Bard: Tired one, too.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

At this time, it's summer, so the days are tolerably long; therefore the next month will be tolerably doom-free. };)

[justicezero.livejournal.com]

If I knew more, i'm sure we could find any of a number of sentences which do not translate satisfactorily between Nice and the language common to Sythyry's home.

[vernononfm.livejournal.com]

Such as: The name of the language 'The Nice language'? ;) I don't think that's satisfactory. And I bet zie doesn't, either.

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

It reminds me of Toki Pona ("Good Talk"), a minimal language that's probably something like World Tree's Common.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I took a look at Toki Pona, but the grammar was too friggin' complex. They really went overboard with the 'minimal vocabulary' and sank deep, deep into the depths of incomprehensible sentence construction.

To the point where I gave up because it seemed pretty obvious that calling it 'minimal' was, well, semantics.

It sort of reminded me of the computer language that consisted of two characters, '`' and '''.

[(Anonymous)]

That might be Whirl (http://www.bigzaphod.org/whirl/), which uses only 0s and 1s and can print "99 Bottles Of Beer" in "only" about 16K of instructions. Its designers warn that the language may be hazardous to your sanity.
-KS

[esory.livejournal.com]

...

There are no sane choices for Thelvion. None at all.

:(

[vernononfm.livejournal.com]

This is very true. I do hope Thelvion can manage to live with zir current situation. It is a very sad position to be in, and zie has my sympathies.

[pobig.livejournal.com]

If he really wanted to forget about his dark secret, well, he could, or I guess instead remember it as a dark secret about varnishing or pleonasms or lice or something...

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

I do not think that bringing this to Vae, for her to 'make amends', would be a good idea.

For one, that Rassimel would eventually just go through the same set of steps that he went through in the recent past.

For two, I shudder to imagine what Vae would change the dark secret to. (A strawberry-scented toy boat. Not the memory of a strawberry-scented toy boat... a physical one.)

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

She should seal the dark secret into an envelope labelled 'dark secret: do not open'.

Opening it would move the transformation spell onto the envelope, which would be compelled to take over Thelvion's life and live it in his stead, while Thelvion was left as an anonymous herethroy both-female.