un: bahamut | text

[oblige]

Good day, fellow Etrayans.

Concerning Antigone's warning regarding our real names, it occurs to me that we would benefit from collaborating on this front.

To that end, I wish to open discussion.

For those who have chosen a name, please respond with what you have selected, that we may know what to call you.

For those who have not, you may use this posting to discuss your ideas or invite suggestions from others.

As for myself, I shall be using "Lucien", the name of a character from a novel in my world.

Mission Names
Dion → Lucien
Antigone → Shadow
Dwayne → Harry M'Egg
Jayce → Prometheus
Sunday → Dominicus
Prompto → Vesper
Odin → Joss
Mayuko → Murasaki
Vax → Kalas
Clive → Crandall
Percival (Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III) → Scanlan (Keylethus Pikegratia Taryon d’Shorthalt-Grogson, Heir to the Shattered Glory)
Samil → Whiskey
Noctgar → Navyth
Accelerator → Isuka
S.Rogers → Ruirthech
Nico → Slash Brightburn
Jason → Edmond
R.B. → Harker
Lady Vex'ahlia de Rolo → Velora
SquirrelPower → Sally Awesomelegs
Shinra → Evan
Emet-Selch → Eubulus
Vincent Valentine → Garm
Sciel → Céline
Vivi →
Gustave → Jean-Napoleon
Maelle → Esmé
Scott → James Bond / 007
Sleeper → Stevens
Joshua → Praeclarus
Zagreus → Dionysus
Gladio → Heliodorus
Apollo → Artemis
Dylan Brock → Reed Richards

Note: This list will remain available until the date of our deployment. At such time, it will be omitted as a precaution.

[ ooc: Free-for-all on responding to one another, of course. ]

Comments

[oblige]

[ A few moments later, because he meant what he said— ]

There. It is ready for your review.

[demigoth]

For my review? Yeah, it's right now.

[ Nico hadn't expected to be asked to inspect a simple switch. ]

How long do we have to memorize these before you delete them?

[oblige]

[ His eyebrows pinch together. ]

Delete them?

[demigoth]

We're going to a realm where they can own you if they have your name.

[ Nico is trying his best to explain this nicely, but there's a touch of why are adults so dumb in his tone. ]

You have a list of everyone's fake names and the real names they match with. When are you going to delete them?

[oblige]

[ When the adult is a medieval man, alas.

To open our devices at all once deployed poses great risk, for the people of Auriel favor magic over technology.

[ And so, he reasons, they would not be looking at this list. But he hears the concern. That he's turning it about in his mind is plain on his features. ]

...Just prior to our deployment would seem prudent.

[demigoth]

If you really think some of the people here aren't going to try to use their devices there, you're dumber than they are. I don't know everyone, but I know someone's going to do it.

[ He might have a dim view of the average person's self-preservation skills. ]

Yeah, I think so. There's nothing wrong with taking precautions.

[oblige]

I said nothing of expectation, only that it's an ill-advised risk to take. One would hope that most would consider it well, yet it is only a hope.

[ Dion takes no offense, knowing well enough that it would be folly to expect ideal outcomes. They are a mixed lot, and most are not trained soldiers or otherwise accustomed to deployment to hostile territory.

For his part, covert missions were never his purview, for light reveals... But he'll endeavor, for his world. ]

I agree that precautions are for the best. I will add a note to my posting, that others may prepare accordingly.

[demigoth]

Isn't that the same thing?

[ Dion lost Nico on that statement, honestly. He thinks he gets it, but... ]

If I think it's stupid for somebody to run off on a quest with no weapon and no real pants, isn't that the same thing as expecting them not to do it?

[oblige]

Not as such, no. Expectation would mean that I draw assumptions about a broad swath of people, many of whom I'm unfamiliar with. I would reserve expectations for those I've better knowledge of.

[ Dion would have expectations for his men, for he knew his dragoons well, but not people he knows little and less. ]

To hope is more wishful, I would say, lacking anticipation of results. One can but try to prepare should those hopes not be answered.

[demigoth]

Maybe it's different when the people are older? Or if they're not Greeks.

[ They all tend to rush into everything face first, Nico included, but he thinks he's more pragmatic than most. ]

Or maybe just not demigods. The Roman kids are more disciplined, but you can still make assumptions or have expectations. And they're usually right as long as you're only worried about the big picture.

[ Huh. ]

I think that means I do the opposite. I expect things from cohorts, but I hope individuals make better choices?

[oblige]

It sounds that way. Neither strikes me as wrong, rather... A reflection of our experiences.

[ That in itself gives him pause for thought.

Their worlds are diverse, but so are the backgrounds and knowledge they come with. Imagine if they were all to leverage that. It could be what Echo hopes for, or it could be something he hadn't considered at all, simply hoping for some savior. ]

I'd imagine there are many reasons to incline one way or another.

[demigoth]

Your way might not be wrong, but I'm right.

[ ... he's fifteen. He's very good at it, and this something of a concession to admit that Lucien may be right as well.

But not that he's wrong. ]

I know a lot of people who charge in like Errol Flynn, and that often means sword in hand? Half of our parents just encourage us to do it... so I can expect things from cohorts.

[ Including himself. But then he remembers something important. ]

Can you change my "name" to Slash Brightburn? I won't change it again.

[oblige]

[ It seems agreement enough to him, so Dion lets the words pass without comment. Neither of them is wrong, nor do they need to be. ]

I'm unfamiliar with this Errol Flynn. Is he a swordsman in your world?

[ He's doing his best to follow along there, though the bit about being encouraged he believes he understands. Plenty of noblemen's sons are spurred to join the military... Yet he's unsure that's quite what Nico means. ]

Of course I can. I'll do so now, that others have time to see it.

[demigoth]

I thought he was when I was a kid, but he was an actor. I haven't seen any of his movies in a long time, but I wish I could. They were swell - cool.

[ And then Nico realizes something, and frowns. ]

I don't know if I can watch them here or if I want to. If he wasn't any good with a sword, it'd ruin Captain Blood forever.

[oblige]

[ Fortunately, Fabian explained cool to him some time ago, so he follows. Swell must hold similar meaning, he reasons. ]

There is a theatre in Etraya, from what I've heard. It may be possible to request films you do enjoy. Is Captain Blood one of those films?

[ Though Dion doesn't know whether Nico might mean those movies won't live up to his memory. ]

[demigoth]

[ He'd be right on that account, for certain time periods. But Nico's only considering the possibility of requesting certain movies at the movie theater. ]

Yeah, it's a pirate movie. The Adventures of Robin Hood's good too - oh, and Tarzan the Ape Man. But that one wasn't Errol Flynn.

[ He pauses for a moment and then shakes his head. ]

I think it'd be better to ask for Star Wars. More people would like that.

[oblige]

You might yet be surprised. There are those like myself who are new to film. It is something of a marvel.

[ Their technology has not developed in this way. ]

Though what would make one more broadly enjoyable than the rest?

[demigoth]

Il cantante di jazz came out a few years before I was born, so I was never "new" to movies. Do these headphones still translate if we switch languages? I think it's The Jazz Singer in English?

[ Nico is secretly an anachronism, but he's been checking off a list of things to learn for almost five years now. Now that he's been steadily surrounded with other teenagers for a year, he's gotten a much better sense of what, as they say, the kids are into. ]

Everybody at Camp Halfblood likes more modern movies with better special effects? Like a painted backdrop looks sort of "cringe" if you grew up with [ the slightest hesitation, because he knows "CGI" but isn't sure about the acronym ] computer-generated... irises?

[ That's it, right? Iris-messages are like video. ]

Besides... all the talkies I saw when I was a kid - they all got remade "better."

[ With better graphics and effects, modern-cutting techniques - it's hard for an old film to compete. ]

Nobody wants to watch the original King Kong. They saw the better one.

[oblige]

[ For Dion, all of it is futuristic. All of it is some new and curious marvel, and he recognizes that this affects his perspective as a result. ]

Is there not artistic merit to both?

[ Older paintings and sculptures may not have the same resources behind their creation, the same tools used to render form, yet were they lesser for it? Were novels inferior for having been written in older times, with more limited knowledge?

Dion doesn't know how such standards may be affected by culture and advancement, but he'd like to believe there is a beauty to older works, even so. ]

For my part, I would find it interesting to see how they compared, given the opportunity to do so.

[ But also he's a nerd... ]

[demigoth]

If you think the art is bad, I think the answer is no? So that's their side. I think the newer versions have too much everything. It takes away from the story if half the movie is a 90-minute fight that shouldn't have lasted more than five minutes.

Also, you can't stab someone with an arrow. I don't care how "cool" it looks.

[ But Nico would like to see King Kong again. ]

I could ask for a set of movies, but I still thinks it's better if more people would like to see them. What kind do you like?

[oblige]

People think you can stab someone using an arrow?

[ Dion has no idea who would have put forth such an idea, but it does sound absurd. ]

I confess, they are so new to me that I've reason to find them interesting on a general basis. But I did enjoy...film noir? Mysteries. The sort that give one clues should they be looking for them. Science fiction was interesting to me as well, for a number of reasons.

[ He also loves romance, but such films let him down, alas... ]

[demigoth]

And then yank it out and fire it at someone else, and not shatter the shaft at any point. I'm no son of Apollo, but I know arrows don't work that way. If anyone requests Lord of the Rings, I want to have a showing where we're allowed to heckle and throw things at the screen when they do something stupid.

[ Which is... not as often as you'd think. Nico liked those well enough. ]

Noir? Like Angels With Dirty Faces? They have that here?

[oblige]

That strikes me as a fine idea. Audience participation of a sort.

[ Dion wouldn't mind it. Something like that brings to mind how plays would be performed for crowds that would comment or otherwise involve themselves. ]

I became aware of such films during a deployment to Earth. I'm uncertain whether the theatre here has that title, or those like it.

[demigoth]

Yes! Like a pantomime!

[ That would be fun, Nico's definitely in agreement and will be proposing it to Aurora at the next available opportunity. But first... ]

We get sent to Earth? I can go home?

[ He's so hopeful for a second. Then he remembers that his luck is never that good. The dream dies before begins. ]

Don't answer that. She probably doesn't deploy anyone to where they're from. They'd desert, and saving the universe is too important. I don't want to be tempted like that.

[oblige]

[ He hears that hope, and he hears it tempered. ]

Your instinct is surely correct. It would seem there are various Earths out there, and none I know of claimed it was their home.

[ Yet it was familiar to some, enough so that it was easy for them to blend in during that mission. ]

In my tenure, I've been on two missions to other worlds. Auriel will be the third.