Sandbox Discussions

[DanielH]

Neither had I. I was confused when I first read it in other Promise glowfic, but it had much clearer context and I was able to figure it out.

[DanielH]

On an unrelated topic, I am unsure about the legality (either by Canada law or by the rules of the Catholic church) of Father O’Brien’s last comment in Myth: isn’t that kind of thing covered under priest-penitent privilege?

[Marri]

By Canada law, they're in Toronto, which Wikipedia says is covered by "Canada common law" and I haven't dug into.

By Catholic law, I'm not actually sure (which is part of why we've stalled, I've been stressing this). On the one hand, Jenny was confessing her concern about the Catholic ethics of creating people from scratch; I'm quite confident he cannot mention her thoughts on the matter in any way. On the other hand, that people are being created from scratch is not really a secret (is not even Jenny's secret) since Vivian has been doing this for a while for other people. On the other other hand, confessional privacy in full generality. I don't really know how the line gets drawn :(

[DanielH]

I think if he could have learned about people (not just animals) being created from scratch from some other source, it would be fine to ask about that. I’m not as sure that he could mention that Jenny said anything about Isabella.

[Marri]

I'm going to expand it so Jenny's talked to him about people-from-scratch more generally outside confessional, and hope that covers it >_>

(We're blaming Alli for Googling Vivian, because it is always Alli's fault. Somehow.)

[Marri]

I'm going to answer this question here because it's not actually Visitor related for me and I'm not totally sure what's a good place for it? So, generalized sandbox chat it is.

Kappa, I’m curious, how often do templates talk to each other in your head? Do they generally act like their instances? Do template instances discussing future plot generally act like template instances as characters, or might a Joker talk behind-the-scenes about how they need to find Bad Stuff to happen to them? In any case, why does the Aral template not want to instantiate as Serene’s court sorcerer? Partially I’m curious about how to read these metaphorical conversations and partly I’m curious about how they often go. Other authors, do your experiences generally match?

My characters don't talk to each other much. Mostly they talk to me. I know I've said a couple times before, but in their original canon, I was doing all this planning where Emma had a crush on Phil and Phil had a crush on Jenny and Drama would Ensue. But then Phil complained that he liked Emma, thanks very much, and Jenny started sighing about how pretty Phil was, and Emma was very firmly oblivious to everything Phil, and I gave up and turned the whole thing around. Jenny and Phil both spent a fair bit of time sulking at me for what I was doing to Emmalina. Vivian had an absolute fit when I read Dogs to the point where I just requested the conversation with Alicorn myself so she could yell. Every so often I go out and do something and one or another of my characters will show up with opinions- like, Emma NOPEs karaoke and Alli's sister rolls her eyes at my hangovers. Black Friday took a distinct left turn when Alli decided that Mark was completely adorable and could she have one please? And Vivian sighs about Karen a lot, but I don't think that's news to anyone xD

In terms of those that do have conversations: Alli and her sister talk to each other the most by far, not that I've actually managed to get a Jess onscreen anywhere yet. Mostly they complain about their mom or gossip and plot, but Jess also spends a bunch of time making poor decisions and Alli spends time rolling her eyes at her about it. (And when Alli is laughing at your decisions, look at your life, look at your choices.) Other conversations that have happened include Emma/Jenny, Emma/Phil, Jenny/ducklings (mostly Patrick), and Tamara/Scott.

[DanielH]

Thank you.

And, yes, I should probably have posted it here and quoted Kappa’s conversation that prompted it. That conversation is as follows:

Serene: "I need a court sorcerer I can trust, someone who can be my right hand."
Arals: "No."
Serene: "I have very few other options."
Arals: "Still no."
Serene: "It's this or I go ask the Miles template."
Arals: "...You fight dirty."
Serene: "Yes I do."

[Alicorn]

Characters talk to me more often than to each other, yeah. There is a sharp and interesting difference between "things the template allows are correct circumstances to put them in" and "things the template likes/approves". Like, Ivans allow that they are the sort of people who sometimes may get kidnapped, but they don't like it. Both of these evaluations are clear in my head when I contemplate a character/circumstance combination.

[Kappa]

Yeah. There was a fierce argument between the Gregor template's circumstances-evaluator and the Gregor template's representation of template members' opinions when I first thought of putting a Gregor in fairyland at all. No template's member-opinions-representation has ever wanted to go to Fairyland except possibly Secret, that I recall. And maybe Arcane.

Usually when my characters speak up unprompted about something they're talking to me, but sometimes they're talking to each other.

I should think of some disambiguating terminology here. Okay, let's say that the meta instance of a template is its representation of member opinions - so it was the meta instance of Arals that was arguing with Serene. And the attractor voice of a template is its evaluation of what circumstances are appropriate to happen to its members, so when I was thinking about putting a Gregor in Fairyland it was the meta instance arguing with the attractor voice.

Meta instances usually speak with the voice of a template member, just one who knows relevant out-of-character information. Attractor voices sometimes also speak with the voice of a template member, but they have very different priorities and opinions from what an actual template member would think. Except that some templates, like Jokers, have meta instances and attractor voices that are almost indistinguishable; Jokers being Jokers, of course they agree wholeheartedly that the things that are template-correct to happen to Jokers should happen to Jokers. Even the in-universe versions agree once some of the things have stopped happening to them so immediately.

The Aral meta instance doesn't want to be Serene's court sorcerer because that would involve there being a fairy Aral and being a fairy seems like it would be unpleasant. But for the same reason, they really don't want a Miles to be Serene's court sorcerer. The Miles template is not wholly oblivious to this exchange, though, and their attractor voice or meta instance might pop up and butt into the conversation even if the Aral meta instance caves. (So to speak.)

[Aestrix]

The people in my head tend not to speak up while I am living my ordinary life, but when I directly address them/there is something that directly involves them that they think is relevant to their interests, they're often perfectly happy to state their opinions. Notably, Tisvetaia got very protective of Kirovalin when he was in another sandbox. "AESTRIX. AESTRIX LET THEM KNOW THAT IF THEY TOUCH HIM I WILL FIND A WAY TO END THEM. LET THEM KNOW. HE IS A PRECIOUS GOD THAT MUST BE PROTECTED." She also made some very skeptical faces at me about how an alt of Sivuari could possibly be a serial killer, was I sure, she thinks that's probably fake. For another character, Raezenoth had very specific opinions about Fairyland, but he did not express these opinions in words, he expressed them by mentally giving me a look. The look was enough to break me, I can't have him involved with Fairyland in any way.

I have meta instances of characters, but they're less talkative than their specific instances; typically only when they're addressed, or when there is a subject that they feel very passionate about involved. All of my meta characters have different feelings about instances being put in places. Some, listed below:

• Raezenoth has a specific checklist and vetos any attempt that does not have the checklist met. He will not budge on this checklist. It is His Checklist. If things are not met, well, he's not going to where ever it is, now is he.

• Adarin asks if there is a Bell present, could there maybe be a Bell present, but okay if there isn't can he maybe have at least a project instead? He also is exasperated that he has an entourage of templates that trail after him, can we skip the terrible parents and maybe go right to the Veron?

• Yvette likes to have magic and maybe be in a place that needs something important done so that she can do it, and keeps rolling her eyes at me whenever I put one of her in a room with an Aisilian. "Why, Aestrix. Why do you keep doing this. He keeps. He keeps doing things."

• Zevi wants to know if her brother is present, and if he's not, if there is something/someone to do.

• Idanias are pretty up for porting, and don't even mind if they get horrible backstories in the process, they just want to go someplace interesting.

• Lynn glares at me. She just glares, I carefully tiptoe around her and put her where she seems appropriate and pray she doesn't attempt to kill me from the inside. She is less grumpy when I put her near children. I think that means she approves.

• Jowan is just so surprised that I remember him, do I want to put him in a new place, really? He's delighted, he's sure his new self will try not to - oh, no, there I go, I have given his other self something horribly stupid to do with magic, of course I have. Sigh.

• Viandra doesn't tend to care one way or another about things, quietly informing me of what she thinks is best, until she does care, in which case, I do not hear the end of it. She is easily the loudest one in my head when she wants to be, rivaled only by Yvette (specifically, that time Tisvetaia got snippy about Kiro).

I tend not to be a place where my characters argue among themselves unless I purposefully put them in their own mental room and tell them to play. I am pretty okay with this, my head's a cacophony all by itself.