Alicornutopia

Peak sticks things together.

Passive is more the thing than mental. Basically, turning a fairy into an animal renders them non-dangerous.

Pollenclouds have an extremely weak "food" claim over their pollen. It would never be enough to vassal another fairy. It wouldn't even consistently get mortals unless the pollen is fresh and carelessly inhaled in quantity. It's embarrassing because pollenclouds are breeders and breeders are low-status (Promise intellectually knows that this is silly but retains some of the kneejerk impressions of this hierarchy) and the claim is weak and because the pollencloud was found in a mixed court, which means that Cozy's *atriarch didn't care enough to chase her down when she slipped the leash.

If a vassal feeds their master, this is safe for the master. Is that still the case for a name-based vassalization if the master then forgets the name?

Food does not retroactively vassalize an ex-master who forgets their feeding person's name.

It occurs to me this morning that my parents could not decide on a name for me for ~2 weeks after I was born. I think they just called me "the baby" during that time (though, for all I know they tried out different names that didn't stick before they settled on my actual name, in which case I have no idea what my True Name is for fairy purposes). I feel like this question has already more-or-less been answered, but don't feel like digging around the threads - is my True Name "the baby"? Do phrases like that not count? Where's the boundary between "the baby" and "runs with deer" in terms of phrasey names? What percent of the population do you think has the True Name "baby" or "infant" or the like? :P

I believe the boundary is that your parents fully expected to name you something which was not “the baby” and never intended for “the baby” to be your actual name. If they had intended to name you “the baby” and were later talked into naming you something more conventional, then I believe that would be your True Name.

Daniel is correct.

Assuming the process of forgetting a name works the same way as other mundane forgetting, at what point does the name count as “forgotten”? At the “uh, Promise is named, uh, Alisyrrabel” stage? At the “What was it? Something with an ss sound in it… Alice? Alicer, Alisyr, yeah that was it, Alisyrrel? Alisyrral? Ah, yes, Alisyrrabel, that was it!” stage?

Presumably you must be able to come up with it when questioned, but sometimes it takes a few seconds to dredge up something you remember but rarely use. I expect the first would count and the second would not.

If you can't produce it whole on demand within a couple of seconds, you don't have it, although by fairy convention if someone can easily reconstruct your name by thinking about it for slightly longer than that they haven't really forgotten.

I was thinking of magical vassalization purposes, like it being safe to eat food. I assume that is when fully awake; if it takes me longer than a few seconds to wake up I’m pretty sure I’m still safe if my vassal feeds me in my sleep.

When does the convention come up?

If you're listing your masters, you want to be surer than that that someone doesn't remember your name. And yes, you're good in your sleep even if grogginess would slow down your memory.