/vx/ - Videogames and Paranormal

>>136560
Amber smiles. "Sure! What did you have in mind.
You can see we have lots of different things...."

>>136578
"Uh..." She looks around at various items, especially woven sweaters that are a bit less formal, as well as practical jackets, some of which seem to be nylon and water-resistant.
"Uh... maybe this one?"
She picks out a white woolen coat that has an air of formality to it, but is thick and plain with a black band around the center.

>>136580
She pets the coat
“It does look nice... but not as nice as the dress... it definitely looks ‘warm’...”
She pulls her lips back

>>136581
"What are you looking for? A warm coat to look nice and attract attention? A dress to get gussied up for a party?
Maybe something smaller like a shawl?" Amber tries to gauge what's going through the mare's head.

>>136375
"Well..." She looks away from SIlver's eyes, up and towards the left.

"It was kind of cold that morning... which is very unusual for that time of year. It must have been the breeze, so I got on the ground between the crowds of ponies where it was warmer. I rather small then, and I was young to get my cutie mark. My mother was very much a proud follower of Celestia, she was very proud to be there. She told me her father took her when she was a filly, and she still has fond memories. Really I think she wanted something to brag about to the other mares at church. My father was proud to be there but for... very different reasons. You see, he was a member of the civil service for the treasury. So when his superior extended him an invitation to go to the Summer Sun Celebration he considered it quite an honor... and something of a career move. That isn't where my mind was. I didn't want to be up so early, and I didn't like the way the dew made my fur wet. I liked that we were in Canterlot - we spent most of the previous day taking the train from Dappleshore to Fillydelphia, and from there to Canterlot - and I wanted to walk down the boulverard in midtown and go to a candy shop...."

She pauses, and her eyes move from to her upper left at what seems to be a water stain in the ceiling of the motel room, to up and directly in front of her; above Silver. Though, throughout the conversation, she has regularly kept eye contact with Silver, no more than 6 feet in front of her face, her eyes tend to wonder during her long tangents. Every time before, however, it has been to the right, or slightly down.

"You know, I didn't actually have a direct view of her when it started. Someone next to me told the ponies around him 'shut up, it's starting,' and just like that the entire field went quiet into the most perfect silence. Not even a chirped. I moved back in the crowd of ponies, so I could have a better look... there were other foals there who stood on the shoulders of their parents, but that option must have escaped the thought of my parents... The light came upon us slowly, and from where I was I noticed it first on the ponies around me. It illuminated their stilled faces, transfixed on what lay before them, even as I remained in the shadow. I think that it what made the experience for me; seeing how it affected the others first. When I did see the light, it came down on me from above, over the top of the ponies in front of me. Kind of like how light comes over a mountain, or a line of trees in the morning, but... not the same. The light was, different somehow. When you feel it in most mornings its easy to feel a sort of mundanity to it, a feeling that it just happens every day. But when I saw it, I felt it. I felt its warmth upon me. And I do mean that in the sense that for the first time that day, it felt like a summer morning... but it was more than that. Like a warm that removed fear and loneliness."
She begins to smile, and her eyes widen as she stares above

"I felt enveloped by the light. Like I had been lifted out of the group of ponies, like I was going to merge with them. Merge with the source of the life giving essence. I felt like I was raised above the wet grass, above the group of ponies, and into the air."
Then she winces, and now finally turns her eyes to SIlver

"When the sun was raised higher, I had to pull away. Of course you don't look directly into the sun. I was blinded for a number of seconds. It felt like a minute, but it was probably about four seconds, where there was the image of a bright light imprinted on the center of my vision, and darkness off to either side, pierced by the rays emanating from the central light I could see it even when I closed my eyes, and it only slowly faded away and was replaced by the view of the ponies around me. The crowd cheered, and I cheered too. I could feel my self as a part of it, a cheering mass below the ever-rising sun. I felt the rush of euphoria as I tried again to look at the sun, only to pull away when it was too much for my eyes. I think it was only after this point that I saw Celestia herself at all. I don't remember seeing her at any point during or before the raising. Somehow... she looked almost mundane compared to the light, though Light Bringer she was. It took about fifteen minutes... well, maybe a minute and a half, but it took some time for my mother to look back at me. I still remember seeing her just glance down, pull her eyes back, and then turn back to me, and say 'Pear! You got your cutie mark!" and she turned to me and I turned to my flank and I saw it. My father turned down, smiled and said 'alright!' though I swear that for a moment he looked disappointed..."

She smiles widely at Silver
"They took me to the candy store later that day."

>>136582
"Uh... yes! I mean... I don't have a party or anything in mind but I... well, I would like to look nice when I am doing things like buying groceries, or am on my way home from work.. you know?"

>>136583
Silver's eyes sparkle and smiles back widely, clearly in awe of her cutie mark story.

"Are you certain you are not Celestial chosen?"

>>136596
*and he smiles back

>>136596
"Heh"
She smiles at Silver in a kind of embarrassed and awkward way. And yet, she isn't bashful like with the compliments on her translation abilities. She does not lower her ears, nor turn her head away. Rather, she stays where she is, eyes, ears and head facing forward, on Silver.

>>136599
"Heheh..."

Silver in turn smiles as warmly as always at her. His body language suggests he's relaxed and comfortable around such good company. His attention is focused on her, but being unable to think of much else to talk about at the moment, he just sits there quietly enjoying the calm moment.

>>136607
She smiles, and slightly lowers the posture of her head
"Uh..."
She looks off to the side

>>136608
Silver rubs the back of his neck, thinking of things to talk about.

"So...anything else you would like to say about yourself? Favorite foods, friends you have...any lovers?"

>>136609
This causes her to back up a little, and to essentially sit upright. She smiles awkwardly and grabs the end of her wrapped tail, as if to play with it.

"Not... really. I've been mostly alone since I started my professorship. There's been a precocious student or two that has been good to talk to... I've thought of socializing at the church, but the academics don't have the best of reputations..."

>>136610
Silver's eyebrows raise in surprise at her statement.

"Truly? I honestly do not know why. You are smart, interesting, great to talk to...and if I may, your appearence absolutely does not hurt you."

>>136611
She smiles awkwardly, and drops her tail, sitting up in place towards Silver
"I.... I had an somepony, sort of... kind of, when I was in graduate school. But we sort of drifted apart and I think he joined the Navy. I... sometimes get advances by professors at the University, but... they don't really share my values."

>>136612
"Huh...is there anypony at university that shares your values?"

>>136613
She exhales, and seems to ease, looking down then back up
"In the students, sometimes. Or in some of the workers, like janitors and cafeteria staff. There are a couple professors, mostly older..."

>>136614
Silver scratches his chin in thought.

"Why is that?"

>>136615
"It's... it's a very different world in the Universities. Very different. The students and the workers... a few of the professors, come from among the locals of Stable Side. Many of them come from farming families, or craftspony families. Something a bit... closer to the standard practices of ponies, if I may call it that. Closer to old wisdom. But many of the professors, and some of the students, they come from the Petty Bourgeoise, or their parents were academics. They look to knew knowledge, new discoveries. Many who don't have that as their background, adopt it."

>>136616
Silver leans forward in his seat.

"You sound like you have had experience with both. I take it you align more with lower classes than upper?"

>>136617
She blinks
"It depends. Not in Baltimare, that is for sure. The upper classes are, I think, more likely to be... 'refined.' They are more likely to appreciate art, or enjoy moderation, or to build for the future... but they are also more likely to pursue profit at the expense of all else, or adopt the belief in no values at all in pursuit of naked power. The lower classes can range from families working hard and faithful, to hooligans, alcoholics, and Anarchists."

>>136618
>>136617
"The lower classes in Stableside tend to be the third or fourth generation of descendants of settlers after the railways came in, working on farms. Those, I have few problems with. Miners... not so much."

>>136618
>>136620
"Are miners in Stableside really so bad?"

>>136621
She shakes her head
"I just mean they are more prone to certain ideologies. I think that is true everywhere."

>>136622
Silver slowly nods, understanding what she means.

"Before Stallionists, St. Petershoof was city of many different ponies holding many different professions. Dock workers, merchants, craftsponies, farmers, fisherponies, clergy, clerks, and aristocrats. There was little issue between them before Caramel Marks and Steel Stallion came."

>>136623
Her eyes go wider
"Are you from Severyana?"

>>136624
He smiles and nods.

"You could not tell from my accent? Yes, I was born in Severyana before revolution."

>>136625
"Heh, I meant that you came from the secessionist districts as a part of the emigration. Can you... tell me more about that?"

>>136626
"I was not there when Steel Stallion declared his revolution, but I learned much of it from other Severyanans after, fleeing fighting. They were not only group involved in civil war. There were others, united under one united White Movement. Farmers, aristocrats, merchants, members of clergy, clerks, and many from older generations of my people. They both opposed Steel Stallion and his radical Reds, and desired their independance from Equestria, which they felt had abandoned them. Some wanted to form their own republic, built by Severyanans to serve Severyanans, others wanted to restore old Severyanan Empire from before we were integrated into Equestria with descendent of Tsar Peter on its throne, and others were simply joined because they recognized threat communism posed to us. They were centered in St. Petershoof, heart of our people, and fought valiantly to oppose Reds and preserve our honor...but they were too divided, and their leaders could not agree on plan of action. As Steel Stallion pushed ever closer to city, they were betrayed by dock workers loyal to Red cause, and Reds were able to join up with them to push Whites all way back to Peter and Pony Fortress, first building to have ever been built in city, where they had their last stand, holding out until Reds had broken through fortress walls themselves and had captured White leadership."

>>136627
She nods, listening in on the story
"I've head portions of the story... Not necessarily from the same perspective."

>>136628
"There was great cathedral in Severyana before our civil war. Temple of Light. You might have heard of it. It was made of purist white stone and adorned with gold, and it stretched taller than every other building in city. My father told me when he took me to it that all Severyanans should get to experience it once in their life. Being inside that cathedral was like being in presence of Celestia herself, even with he being so far away from cold Severyana. It was designed to let sunlight come through its domed roof, and when it did, light would reflect off of walls and throughout entire cathedral. And when it reached midday, during Summer Sun Celebration...it felt just as you had experienced, when your own mother had taken you to see Celestia raising sun..."

>>136629
She nods, rather solemnly
"I would like to have seen it."

>>136630
Silver joins her in her solemn nod.

"I did not take my own foals to see it, and that I do regret. It is travesty what Reds did to it, when they burnt it down, shattered its walls, stole its gold...all but erased it from world entirely..."

He sighs.

>>136631
She bows her head curtly in a single nod.
"I've heard the same out of Aquelia" she adds. "And even a few stories from here in Baltimare, during the revolts."

>>136632
"It is unfortunate, terrible, that they believe religion to be such a threat to their 'ideology'. That they feel they have to destroy such beauty..."

>>136633
"It only follows from their premises. They believe that only the realm we see and feel is real and has any relevance. Anything spiritual is a superstition at best, and more likely a charlatanism perpetrated by established interests. Aquellia had it the worst because of the power the church there had, how the church was seen as beholden to foreigners and the privileges the clergy had under the Discret Dynasty. Severyana had similar pressures, but I think the masses of the ponies remained believers, and so the violence was more tempered. That didn't save the Temple of the Light though... They built their 'Palace of the Soviets' overtop of it." She sticks her tongue out in disgust.

>>136634
He looks to be a mixture of angry and sick for a couple seconds.

"And they say they hate religion...when they are building what is cathedral to communism over top of what was greatest Celestialist cathedral in all of Equus."

>>136635
For a moment, she seems to form a smile
"I don't know about the greatest"
Then she drops the smile, evidently realizing it was a poor time for a joke. She shakes her head.
"Well, to them it follows. It sort of is a Cathedral... to them. You see, in the oldest traditions, there are spirits in the world, and then ponies can achieve a connection, even a unity with this spiritual realm by achieving noble deeds. Then in the Celestialist Traditions, Spirit is abstracted above but Celestia and other Alicorns are the most perfect incarnation of the spirit in ponykind, and they can inculcate the Spirit, which is now synonymous with Harmony, into the ponies. Then Spirit is abstracted even further in the Reformed traditions, pervading almost everything and definitely synonymous with Harmony and serving to develop ponykind and other creatures. Then in certain philosophies like that of Erebus Haygle, Spirit, Harmony, and ponykind are all merged into the same, with Harmony and Spirit having no existence at all outside of creaturehood... and then finally we have these Materialist Magicalist traditions, where spirit disappears completely. There is only creaturehood and Harmony, and a world haunted by nothing, but waiting to be conquered. Well, I say 'finally.' Perhaps I shouldn't. In some of the even more modern philosophies, the world is haunted again, but by ideologies and beliefs rather than spirit, and any notion of Harmony disappears. There is only struggle over power and interests."
She sighs
"So when they build there Palace of the Soviets, they really do think they are building a Cathedral. They are building a Cathedral to celebrate what they think is the workers taking control over the economy."
She looks down and shakes her head
"What a pathetic god to worship. Some fur coats, maybe? A few shipyards? Some furniture factories? That is their god now. Work. Stripped of any notion of virtue in conducting it, like diligence or work effort. Somehow I doubt they will find even that very meager god."

>>136636
"Somehow, I think those in Supreme Soviet do not even go that far, and believe that it will be cathedral to them, and their 'achievements'."

>>136637
"Humph. Well... I don't know how degenerated the command up there is, but I know what I hear from the ponies in my own fellow departments... from the professors I will be spending my sabatiical with. They believe that all of history is classes and tribes dominating over each other, and every aspect of culture and every institution is simply a tool to power, and nothing more. To believe that, I think, does something to you. It makes you think that money, status, and power are the only good things to be pursued, and that any means is valid to pursue them. Caramel Marks... well, he wasn't so degraded as that, and there was more of the older ways in him. But still, it is an ideology that sees money and power as the only good things, and sees them as worth killing for, while it sees creatures as created by their farms, factories and shops rather than the other way around. And it sees them as having even less ultimate dignity or value than these things. Maybe they really do see themselves as lliberating the ponies from centuries of oppression by entrenched nobles..."

She shakes her head

"I really don't think they will find it. In my experience, in my studies... in my heart. I believe that those who pursue only wealth, power, or status may find it. But they never keep it"
She shakes her head
"Never."

>>136638
Silver nods with conviction.

"All of these things are temporary. Friends and family, however, will last lifetime."

>>136639
She nods
"Mhmmm. Maybe even beyond, as so many traditions believe."

She pauses for a moment

"I think I see what Firebirch, and what Twilight were trying to do. Firebirch - you've never heard of him and that's okay, but Caramel Marks read him intently - Firebirch wanted to take Friendship and Fraternity, and expand it into a Brotherhood of Ponykind. A kind of unconditional love for those we never met. But the thing is, actual friendship, actual brotherhood, is very intimate. You have to actually know them, understand them. Be in sympathy with their interests and form a portion of your world around them, and likewise them to you. A brotherhood of ponykind is... it's impersonal. How could it possibly be otherwise? It turns 'brotherhood' into charity. Friendship into the act of tossing a coin to a beggar. It debases the concept... it doesn't expand it. Much the same with Twilight and her expanded notion of Harmony. I can see what she was trying to do. What she wanted to do. She wanted to expand harmony to all of the nations, a brotherhood of all creaturedom. I suppose she figured if it could happen with the three races of ponies, it could happen with the non-equine races. But even that"
She turns off to the right, and holds her hoof up as she narrows her eyes
"It's so much more complex than that. So all this expanded harmony really does is to replace friendship and building a community with a philosophy of pacifism and... race relations. Both of these philosophies replace personal morality with government policies... but enough of that. It's something of a tangent."

>>136640
He shakes his head at her.

"No no, it is perfectly alright. I find all of this interesting, especially coming from you."

>>136642
She smiles, a little bit embarrassed, and again sitting upright

"You know, we were talking earlier about The War, and why it went so much more poorly than it should have. I think it is because of some of these ideas, these insidious new ideas. They don't really separate the hero from the villain on any kind of abstract level. There isn't really any difference in intent really. It used to be that the hero is the one who had courage, and who sacrificed themselves to save those they loved. But now... Now the hero is one who sacrifices themselves on behalf of the Nation, or of the Class, so that the Class or Nation can take land belonging to someone else. Of course the individual 'pony' doesn't exist under this only the class or the nation or the race, so if the class or nation or race sacrifices the pony for its own sake, its all the same to them... all it is is about taking power or wealth belonging to someone else, and taking it for your own and calling it 'liberation' or 'freedom.' That is heroism today, what was yesterday recognized as villainy. Not everyone believes it. Most ponies even don't believe it. But enough of them did that... it's like steel. If you heat up steel, carbon steel, to a very high temperature, you can beat it with a hammer or even rapidly cool it in water, and it will only get stronger. So it is in the past... and I pray again, in the future, that removing the comforts of life shows how little the comforts matter, and forces harmony and heroism. But if you add an impurity to the iron, like silica... when you hit it with a hammer, it shatters. Our defeat was something like that."

>>136643
Silver nods, remembering their conversation from earlier.

"What do you think that impurity was?"

>>136644
She pauses, and seems as if she is about to say something, but closes her mouth. She's still sitting upright, and she's been occasionally using her forelegs in gestures as she speaks, but she sways in place in her unstable position. She looks from side to side.

"When I entered University in Fillydelphia, in my physics class - it must have been only my third class in University, my second day there - a professor said that Celestia did not raise the Sun, that the celestial bodies were free floating entities alicorns could scarcely touch. I couldn't believe I was hearing that. I sat brewing in my seat until the end of class. I was so offended... I can't say after everything that I'm not impressed by some of their arguments, but still..." She looks down, bites her lip, and then looks back up to Silver

"The audacity to claim that... Do you want to know what I think is the impurity in modern Equestrian Society? In Severyana and New Mareland and Aquileia? It's Progress itself. Ponies no longer have to fear famine unless it's caused by a war or government mismanagement. They can live long. See far away stars. They don't have to worry about at least most diseases, and see fewer and fewer of their foals die. They see planes travel through the sky, and the clouds themselves made by factories. The problem with all of this isn't merely that it breeds complacency. Complacency can be overcome. The problem is that Ponies themselves come to see themselves as gods, or to see ponykind - or creaturekind - as a collective god. There is no enemy they cannot conquer, or has not already been conquered. Therefore, they see themselves as the highest thing in the universe; that they have already achieved the grandest stage of development. There is no humility. They see no need for virtue, for persistence, courage, wisdom, temperance, 'friendship' in any real sense. Never needing to mature, they instead go to their basest instincts, and elevate those to the status of a religion.

They need to be humbled. To see what a god really is. Only when their power amounts to nothing and their wealth is burned away will they appreciate the value of friends. Courage, kindness, generosity, loyalty... That's how it worked when the Windigos froze the lands, that is how it worked when the younger alicorn sister blocked out the sun, and that is how it must work in the future."

>>136646
Silver seems to be held up on the first part of her statement, and looks at her with a mix of shock and disgust.

"We see her raise and lower it, same as Luna! How can anypony deny what is right in front of them?"

>>136646
While I like what this horse is saying but she speaks too long, imo. One post, were your character explains their persective or two, okay. But several is annoying. But as long as your players are fine with it I guess its okay.

Don't do this >>136583 with Fantasy though. I'll probably won't read it anyway and Fantasy will roll a bite roll and bite the pony speaking. ;P

>>136575
Ooh-hoo-hoo.

>>136674
In this particular situation, I do like what she says a lot. But again this is not the first time I have reacted to how one-sided these conversations are.