TEXT ✦ un: scion

[shtola]

[Hey, City network! What are you up to today? Having fun exploring the liminal spaces, reliving past memories, getting locked into vaults — or maybe just fucking around? Because apparently someone's in the mood for the latter.]

what's a girl got to do to get a little attention around here? ;)

[A short time after that initial post, a follow-up appears.]

because i certainly wouldn't mind being asked out for a meal and an evening in good company, myself. by someone worthy of the honor, of course; naturally, i'm a lady of discerning tastes.

[And then, a little bit later still: ]

takers must feel the unquenchable thirst of the pursuit of knowledge and be willing to participate in intellectual debate for bells on end. oh, and graciously accept defeat when i inevitably hand it to them. or don't — i'll best you at it whether you accept it or not. i'm ever so brilliant that way. how's that for sharing?

[OOC: If the content of this post sounds suspiciously unlike Y'shtola, that's because it isn't — Thancred (onlythans) and his sticky fingers have "borrowed" her network device for a short time. Responses will come from both Thancred and Y'shtola or possibly just Y'shtola after she murders Thancred in cold blood for this!]

Comments

@Alhaitham

[justscribing]

Kaveh here downplays his own intellectual curiosity as an academic. Should you need a tenacious debate partner, I can name no one better who has the persistence to argue for hours on end even after his ungracious loses.

[It's fine(?) they'll just whore each other out.]

[shtola]

( kaveh and alhaitham flirting in front of her? more likely than you think. because this definitely constitutes as flirting in her book. )

I take it you're his other half.

( of the debates, obviously. )

Might I ask the focus of your studies? Both of you, if you don't mind my asking. I have a specialty of my own, of course, but that is not to say I've closed my mind to other subjects.

[justscribing]

[Oh yeah, totally. Just of the debates. Nothing more.

If Alhaitham is agreeably pleased by that assessment there's nobody here to see it but him.]

I'm the one he's attempting to solicit you with.

I studied linguistics and Kaveh is an architect, though I spend personal time reading about a much wider range of subjects. And what of you?

[shtola]

( yep. totally. mhm. and we all believe that. )

A linguist and an architect. I can't imagine much overlap with the two, but I've been pleasantly surprised before.

Mine is the study of aether, which I've seen referred to by other names. 'Tis the source of life, and the basis of most our magicks and spells, though recently my ventures have been dedicated to searching for a means of travel between reflections.

[justscribing]

Our viewpoints have nothing in common at all. [That's the best part!]

Would it be traveling through reflections like a doorway, or for longer distances?

[shtola]

All the better, I find. Collaborators are well and good, but it isn't until one has to defend their arguments do they realize how it may be better reformulated and structured - if they were even right at all. Building theory atop a fragile foundation would only serve to be a waste of time.

A doorway is best for my aim, as distance is one I do not have a quantifying measure for. I've succeeded in travelling to one such realm, but I will admit that the current state of what has been done to it already is what made the feat easier in comparison.

[justscribing]

Saying that, you sound like a true scholar. [He's seen enough pompous academics who but pride and prestige before understanding, so he appreciate Y'sthola's view. Maybe she'll be a worthy debate partner after all.]

Travelling to another realm? Now you've got me curious. Just what was so special about it that you could more easily travel there rather than the next street down?

[shtola]

One could say I dabble in the circle now and then.

The short of it is thus: there are weaknesses in what little remains between our star and theirs in a failed attempt to merge the two. Due to this unique arrangement, all manner of being continually bleeds into ours through the fractures scattered about. Some mages have even been known to summon them with dubious success. Travel between the rift is most often documented to be from theirs to ours, but does show that a corridor for it exists and can likely be made use of by us as well.

I'm all but certain that I was not the first to make such an attempt, but the corruption beyond would have made the return unlikely. At least, not in the same form of which they were originally.

[justscribing]

[Star, presumably a term for world. He can get the gist of it all, though the bleedover certainly seems less natural that everything that goes on in Teyvat with the light realm and abyss realm.]

Yet you were able to return. [At least in similar enough form that she would not include herself in the unproven plight of others, long lost.]

It sounds like you have more experience ending up in otherworldly places than I do. I'm curious to know your assessment of this one.

[shtola]

I had the fortune of allies and the pleasure of collaborating with some of the finest minds in the land. For our aether to remain untwisted by the influence of the void is a wonder credited to their tireless efforts.

To speak plain and without fanfare, I am not without worry. The land is barren of life in ways I am more familiar, save for us. There's a yawning chasm where there ought to be aether, even leylines I am usually able to draw from are nonexistent. Theoretically, there is but the one place I could fathom where this may be possible, but my imagination fails me in conjuring up reasons why we would find ourselves summoned into such a territory.

[justscribing]

It's possible there's an issue of compatibility between this world's ley lines or elemental energy and our own, or it doesn't exist. Is your ability to discern it innate or learned?

Putting the reason aside for a moment, what's the most likely place you think this could be?

[fussiest]

Ungracious losses? And who are you to speak of ungracious losses??
Wasn't I the one who showed you without a shadow of a doubt that the Sage Zolfikar said that the rich should giveaway their wealth for a good purpose? And who was it that spent that entire week picking at semantics from the original paper? What do you have to say for yourself, you ungracious lout?

[justscribing]

That there even was debate on the intention of the original wording shows that you did not prove it "without a shadow of a doubt", doesn't it? Mostly important of which was the inability to define a "good purpose".

[fussiest]

Oh, no, not this again!
Like I said before, the definition of a good purpose can only be derived based on which approach you apply to it. However, I know for a fact that Sage Zolfikar didn't say it with ethical egoism in mind. One only needed to look at the subject of his comment to know that he was drawing a clear ethical duty between the rich and the poor; if anything, the only thing on the table to debate is whether the ethical relativism posed is relevant to our north Sumeran culture - which it does!

[justscribing]

[It's THIS AGAIN. It's like that argument over the value of art without an audience and how the audience's inherent consumption begets commercial value. They never settled that either.]

I never disagreed that he held a viewpoint of ethical responsibility, but you insisted on an interpretation that a good purpose was one that was morally righteous. However, that means nothing if the wealth is spent on a purpose that provides no practical good.

[fussiest]

[ and what colours the drapes should be. by the way, the answer is not black. ]

Which brings me to my main problem with every answer you've posed to this question: that you choose to die on the hill of an unfair dichotomy.
You assume that choosing morality is not practical. That's absurd! Morality is practical because it provides rules that allow us to live with others, and live with ourselves! Morality is practised in our world, therefore it is practical - and choosing a good purpose with no positive moral attributions is far from ideal!

[justscribing]

[The one time Alhaitham is willing to take color matching into account and suddenly black doesn't "go with everything" anymore. It blocks more light! The purpose of curtains!]

It isn't an unfair dichotomy to hold charity to a standard that it must have practical results, which is what the wealthy passing their money down is. If it were a moral good to throw mora into an endless chasm then to actually do so would still be a meaningless task. You can't define a good purpose solely on its moral weight, and someone who engages in practical good without the intent of moral attributions has a much greater impact society as a whole.

[shtola]

( 🍿. )

[fussiest]

[ not when it drags down the entire ambience! the sunlight may not burn his eyes, but the lack of colour consistency would! what's wrong with neutral greens! what child of sumeru would reject a perfectly serviceable #043C15! ]

Absolutely not.
While I agree that there ought to be practical good from all aspects of the moral spectrum, to say that someone who engages in practical good without the intent of moral attributions has a greater impact is an unsubstantiated statement that I have serious issues with!
To begin with, your perspective ignores the nature of morality and the depth of human compassion. It focuses on immediate outcomes without understanding that even acts of altruism without immediate positive impact hold intrinsic value as it fosters compassion and empathy within communities, and it encourages others to perform similar behaviours until it does make an impact. A collective positive impact. All of that starts from a desire to perform a social good!

[justscribing]

And your perspective underestimates the role in which the rules of society define and encourage that morality. Your chain of idealistic compassion relies on a level of empathy that not all people will carry, but they do abide by the structure of society they are raised on. Moral views may change the reason in which someone engages in an action but the actual consequence of that action, good or bad, is the same.

Besides that, I would ask for your evidence where throwing your money at people who were capable of finding the means to work themselves purely because you felt it was the "right thing to do" had any collective good, but I already know you don't have it.

[fussiest]

And here you are, making presumptions of other individual's capability to work, and the inherent bias against the knowledge that even those who are capable of working require aid to reach the fullest of their potential. This is why speaking to an egoist is the most infuriating thing in the world.
Listen here: you sent those craftsmen out to sea, but if they had done so, Sumeru would have lost the expertise of their crafts honed through decades of accumulation of experience and knowledge. In turn, they would have lost their dignity.
What they gained in return from my mora and my contacts was the ability to continue what they are best at; each subsequent project they work on begets the dissemination of knowledge to new apprentices, to add value to Sumeran craftsmanship, and to feed their souls enough to care for those around them. As soon as I return from this world, I will get names to throw in your face, you immovable rock of a man.
Until then, live my thesis: this world, too, benefits from collective good. It is, in fact, the right thing to do!

[justscribing]

You forget I had spoken to those men before you did. Their expertise is being outpaced by new methods and technology that they couldn't keep up with. It's already begun to lose its value to Sumeru as a whole, and a single job and some mora only delays the inevitable: that they will have to find some other way to survive in life as less people require their skills.

You find those names when we get back and we'll see if there was any lasting impact or if you only provided temporary relief before reality set in.

[fussiest]

Hah! As if reality will ever settle for your version of it, which is missing all the crucial components of making it human.

If I am correct, and I will be, I will take liberties to move that absolutely appalling statue you bought from the front room to the back.

[justscribing]

That would make room for an interesting hollow bird sculpture I saw down at the Grand Bazaar, if the artisan is still there.

[""""Interesting""""]

[fussiest]

[ end him y'shtola. ]

Oh, you will not! The last one you brought back was missing a wing!