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You've got your Gray Maidens in full-face helmets? That's literally the first entry on
Copyright 1996-1997 by Peter Anspach. If you enjoy it, feel free to pass it along or post it anywhere, provided that (1) it is not altered in any way, and (2) this copyright notice is attached.
So, to be clear, being able to make promises that intelligent people actually expect you to keep even when it gets mildly inconvenient is hugely useful and is one of the big reasons why Law is a virtue!
But anything that doesn't help with getting that benefit - if you can't get it either way -, or anything extraneous to getting that benefit - if you will get it either way -, unless said thing helps you get some other worthy benefit, isn't serving you.
To take one example, all reasonable people agree that you cannot, and ought not, keep faith when such observance may be turned against you, and when the reasons that caused you to pledge it exist no longer. You're not losing anything, if you have a reputation for striking when struck, since no reasonable person would condemn a man for striking second, no matter the unwise promises they made and regardless of whether those promises accounted for this situation, and reasonable people agree that if someone convinces you to promise friendship while intending to use this friendship to their benefit and your loss, you owe them no fidelity.
It could well be that all reasonable people think this way, but Choryon doesn't aspire to be a reasonable person. She was raised on stories about samurai and will happily chase her romantic ideals to the end of the world.
It entertained me to be intentionally careless about phrasing my request for your oath earlier, and, as I expected, you didn't ask for any kind of clarification. Which I didn't use against you. But which I totally could have.
If I ever wanted to, I would have zero difficulty tricking you into promising to literally drink literal poison.
...Or, since that wouldn't touch your Fortitude save, promising to stand still while I kill you.
If you do ever talk me into standing still while you kill me, promise you'll do it really homoerotically and talk about me after I die with long, dramatic sighs.
It's essential.
I like Choryon a lot, and would even if you didn't exist and she weren't a player character, and I like her even more because she is and you do.
Choryon loves you; I think it's cute.
For all that you're an imaginary voice in her head whose logic she can't always follow, she has an iron faith in you. Adamantine faith in you. It puts me in mind of someone fighting blindfolded, with total trust in her intuition, or in her spotter, or something indescribable as being one or the other. She has no fear whatsoever of giving up the reins, because the two of your are always on the same page - or, if you're not on the same page, you're one page ahead in the same book.
I don't really know how to describe it... I'd say that to her, you're a god and she's your prophet, except the analogy fails because no one's god is with them every hour, and because gods are vast and alien and don't have all of their interests in common with any given cleric or parishioner... but that's the slot that she fits you into, in her head. There's a line for "deity" on her character sheet, and you wrote "Shizuru," but Choryon'd have written something else.
Anyway, I think Choryon is rad, and she has a lot of justified confidence in you and she loves you and I think you should be aware of that, if you're not already, and my request is just that you keep it in mind. She has her romantic ideals for herself, which are also your romantic ideals for her, which the two of you'd follow to the end of the world, and I am not, at this time, going to say that you oughtn't. I'm especially not going to try to convince you of anything independently of convincing Choryon of it (I'd probably do that if I had eight of you, but I very much do not). I'm just saying, if those ideals look like they're going to get you maledicted, remember that she trusts you to make the right decisions for her, and bear it in mind.
Choryon wants Ileosa to know that she's extremely unhappy with Ileosa telling her player how Choryon feels and making it weird.
Before we got distracted twice, you were explaining when it's commendable to deceive and betray people.
It's generally commendable to deceive people when that's a good idea; good ideas are self-recommending.
Good ideas are the ones that make you safer and happier and healthier and wealthier and more powerful; bad ideas make you vulnerable and miserable, ill, impoverished, and weak. You know them when you see them. Or at least I know them when I see them, so if you can't, you should bring me any you're uncertain of.
What if I don't want to be safe and happy and wealthy and powerful? What if I want to be tormented and challenged and interested and busy and beautiful and brimming with ten-thousand parts?
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