IC - Questions and Answers

[sythyry]

Perhaps I have spent too long on some Herethroy farmers who aren't even traff. So, I shall answer questions to-day. Perhaps I shall answer them wisely and well, perhaps flippantly and falsely, and, if you are very lucky, you or I will be able to tell which I did.

But beware! If you ask me a question, I may ask one back, which you are morally obliged to answer as well as I answered yours, if not better or worse!

Comments

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

How do you like having your own city so far are you glad you did it?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Well, it's not my city, but it's our city, which is rather a treat.

Today's opinion -- and I change every third, sixth, and ninth day of the week -- is worrying about the future. Right now people who live here are all immigrants of one degree or another, and all determined to make Kismirth work well. That won't last. In a year, or ten years, or a hundred, everyone will think Kismirth has Always Been This Way and doesn't need any work to keep going right, and will start ... um ... forgetting why we did it this way.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

So why did you do it that way and not some other way? Are you more worried about people deciding that traff is wrong or that having nonprimes in the city was a mistake or that magically-created cities need more attention than wood-based ones?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I'm worried -- I'm certain -- that the current widespread spirit of idealism and devotion to making Kismirth a Good Place To Live, won't last very long. I hope it will last until Kismirth is indeed a Good Place To Live, say.

Magically-created cities are in fact taking more attention than naturally-grown ones.

Ah! Now I may interrogate you viciously! What does "long-term planning" mean to you personally, and do you think it is a good idea ever?

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

So, how's that water park / amusement park going? And how thoroughly did you read the various essays on the concept from my world, regarding the types of 'rides' our water parks tend to have?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I am relying on the local Orren to do what they think best. They got distracted, mostly.

And -- what should a Good Place to Live do to criminals and wickedators?

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Exiling them's easiest!

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Well... a city like the one you are making can possibly end up with more resources (especially for building) than others, so you should consider more resource and investment-intensive options, like long duration prisons with a plethora of programs targeted at helping them reform their ways and become productive citizens. Not with Mentador, necessarily, but with the proverbial 'carrot and stick' approach -- some programs designed to scare them onto the straight and narrow, lots of stuff to encourage them to become lots of training for useful, non-criminal skills, lots of programs designed to take up their time and employ them, stuff like that. The main idea is to view a large criminal underclass as a failure of society in general, and thus a responsibility that society should attempt to fix, rather than a failure of individuals.

Further, effort should be spent on removing the incentives for people to become criminals in the first place! Also, some criminals won't take to this sort of thing, and should probably just be locked up for an extended period of time for the good of society at large. If you end up having an ethically run prison, other cities might actually pay you to take their prisoners...

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

I have this fairy tale that I am trying to decipher. It's old and it was part of an oral tradition, and it feels like it was changed halfway through to remove traces of magic use and references to fairies due to a religious war back in the past.

Being long term friends with a monster of great power, what kind of motivations would there be to keep a person cursed due to some other person's wish? Assume for the moment that both parties are truely innocent of wanting any harm to befall either. and that neither really wishes the wish to remain, even though they have no way of communicating this.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit confused about the people involved. Let us say, Sh wishes to keep G cursed out of deference to A's wish? And neither Sh nor A wishes the curse to remain?

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

Yes. that would be sort of the gist of it.

It's one of those "I am so sorry, I never meant to, never imagined that the wish would be real" kind of situations for A, and Sh is one of those "I'd love to undo the wish, but A never comes and visits, so I never know it's not what she really wanted types" people.

Of course, it makes it harder that Sh never meet A... but that's fairly the jist of it. Which is kinda actually common in a lot of our Fairy Tales.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

What kind of monsters live in Kismirth? Are there any from other worlds?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Nendrai, taptet, mherobump, blee, maraleni, norren, Locador demon, elfimel. The latter two are from other worlds.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Do the Maraleni have many (or any) prime immara?

Hmm, maybe you could have that be one of the punishments for being wicked. Permanent surveillance! Well, unless you exile yourself.

[terrana.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear. You didn't specify a topic for the question, so I'm going to have to ask something wholly inappropriate. Hmm...

Okay, how was the magical crystallization process that you used to build Strayway and Kismirth discovered/invented? It's just fascinated me since you first mentioned it.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

A gentleOrren wizard named Talujjan stumbled on it about ... my, nearly thirty years ago now. It does some quite unruly things with Locador.

[relee.livejournal.com]

That doesn't seem very long ago.

[mmsword.livejournal.com]

What is your favorite restaurant in the city so far?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

On the theory that Arfaen might sometime read this, I must definitively assert: hers!

But if hers is excluded, either on the grounds of consanguinity or on the grounds of nonrestaurantity (for it is, strictly, a catering service rather than a restaurant), I would currently favor Mordellin's Square Star, which makes the spiciest grilled mice that I have ever tasted.

[relee.livejournal.com]

So, what is the spanglio?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Nobody has told me clearly!

[It originally meant the Star-Serpent, two or three centuries ago. That got lost quickly; only two or three primes ever knew for sure that the inventor of the phrase actually meant that. There are a number of competing definitions in popular imagination, most of them silly, with the original definition being one of more common serious ones. The phrase recently became popular, as the trademark exclamation of a Count of Monte Cristo sort of character in a popular serial. -bb]

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

[Tunneling out of a wood tower seems far less impressive]

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

Just out of idle, vain curiosity, how much does Glassteel end up being used, after someone went to all the trouble to figure out how to do it?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

It's one of the favored materials when primes need something to be moderately hard or sharp, and cheap. Every sharp edge in Arfaen's kitchen is made of Sir Glass.

["someone". Heh.]

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

The tools were there... other people just hadn't noticed the implications of combining them in that fashion before. 8)