Ask Deedee and Free Company DC/AC

IC askblog for Deedee Yeowoo, Free Company Dungeon Crawling And Chill, and other members of the Isekai/Online cast, written by Talia B.  Banner by MakioKuta. 

[askdeeds]

Hello New I/O Readers!

(art of Deedee by @sakura-rose12)

"So a lot of new players have ended up on Mundus! Which is, uh, not great in that you've ended up on Mundus, but hey, at least I have some idea what's up! Ask us at Free Company Dungeon Crawling And Chill (DC/AC) anything?" OOC: Hopefully with the end of Book 2 I'll have a few more readers for this, so: ask the cast anything. I'll also use this Tumblr to boost any fanwork I get, like this lovely Deedee that @nekoincardine commissioned for me from @sakura-rose12! Just post it under the Isekai/Online tag.

[hashtagloveloses]

this kid’s post and his replies to people’s questions are so pure I’m sobbing

[digidiskette]

What’s better— the thread is filled with people giving some good advice on how to respect a woman’s boundaries and how to ask what she would be okay with, publicly. Lots of trans girls thanking him for being so patient and thoughtful with his words, and lots of people cautioning him that his purpose as a boyfriend would be to keep her safe, even from his own friends and family if need be. A+ shit right here.

[stop-stalin-and-suck-my-dick]

This is so FUCKING cute help me

[gardeninthevoid]

hey, trans girls who are into guys? THIS is what you deserve. don’t you ever believe that you have to bend over backwards for men to like you, that you have to accept being disrespected and mistreated, that you’re something to hide or be ashamed of. you’re beautiful, you’re a fucking princess, and you deserve someone who sees that and loves you deeply and unconditionally, who will choose you over the world and fight the world for you. THIS is the kind of guy.

[askdeeds]

"Ralph, is this you?"

[minnaharper]

Man, those long hours illuminating manuscripts in the scriptorum can be murder. Today Minna Harper on Twitch will be streaming Pentiment at 3:00 PM Pacific!

For those unaware, Pentiment is an end of the middle ages-beginning of the renaissance murder mystery in the style of illuminated manuscripts of the era where Andreas, a journeyman artist, must clear the name of a monk accused of murder in the Bavarian town of Tassing. Deets here!

[minnaharper]

Well, at least it's not too expensive for Salzstadt. Food's good, beds are clean, I can reserve a table for Stupid Sendjewel Tricks.

[askdeeds]

Aw, hell, someone else got got.

Well, we were heading for Salzstadt after the nonsense in Vinyedo…

[tidalparticle]

The first sacrifice to Echidna which she learned from watching her parents was a deceptively benign one. One would leave out two eggs – one broken, the other unbroken – in an offering bowl after dark, and ask the Mother of Monsters that the fearful things lurking in that darkness would pass up one's family for other prey. Fertilized eggs were preferred if they could be had without raising excessive suspicion. Species did not matter.

The surface reading of this ritual is simple: snakes eat eggs. The reading slightly below the surface is that eggs are fragile and helpless – a better choice of prey than waiting for it to hatch and grow into something that can fight back – and that breaking one of them lets the Serpent Queen verify that she's not being cheated.

The mystery cult symbolic parallel construction underlying all this is that the ritual establishes an expectation of the supplicant's complicity. Even though it would take a rare and odd Namer to consider "breaking the fertilized egg of a beast" to be a sin, one still can't get away with just leaving the eggs out and telling one's self "whatever happens, happens;" one must break the offering by one's own hand. ("You have to break a few eggs to make an omelette. If you can't stomach that much, why are you even here?") Once in place, this expectation can be leveraged as a control technique when later initiations inevitably raise the stakes.

When she was young, there came a day when she was given permission to make the offering herself. On that occasion, her parents candled the eggs and selected ones with a well-developed embryo; seeing a tiny bird's freshly bloodied carcass pour into the bowl – where, before, she had only seen white and yolk – she predictably recoiled in shock, and was reprimanded for her irresoluteness by being made to repeat the offering until she didn't flinch at doing it.

Someday, if she hadn't left first, she might've been called on to perform the same ritual with something other than a hen's egg.

[trioxidewastaken]

pssst. the movie’s available on dvd for $14 and the entire collection’s for $47. buy physical media, support the wga/sag-aftra strikes & fuck david zaslav & company

[gojira007]

None of the studios/companies come out lookin’ good in all of this, so it’s genuinely quite impressive that Zaslav really does just keep finding ways to look like The Absolute Worst of the whole bunch of them.  

[ladyarjuna]

"the thing they do tell you about getting shoved through a portal to another world: you will have advantages no one else does.

"the thing they never tell you about getting shoved through a portal to another world: the advantages are never enough and never what they said. Whether those blessings are useful out of cases you find abhorrent is debatable. When you return home, it will no longer be home. When you leave, you will lose what you had and gain only a fickle god's favor in return.

"The thing they should tell you about getting shoved through a portal to another world: Even if you go, you will not come back. Not the same. You will feel disconnected. Surreal. Shaped by experiences no one else has ever had, and may never have again."

[askdeeds]

“Unfortunately, this all tracks. Not that I’m complaining about what I learned while AWOl, but… it did permanently change me, and not completely for the better.”

[askdeeds]

So Siobahn are there any things about the... otherworlders? (is that a good term?) that you find particularly jarring or confusing?

"The Players is as good a term as any, and the biggest thing I needed to get over is... Okay. All Adventurers are a reckless lot, or we wouldn't consider shouldering free lances for coin worth the price, yeah? But Players have a very skewed sense of what's dangerous compared to what's sensible, and that's before you bring in the possibility of resurrection magic."

[askdeeds]

And this is why it's much better just to refer to your home as 'Earth.'

"In practice, most of us do. There's a potential ambiguity problem - Mundus more or less means Earth - but for the playerbase talking about our homes, the ambiguity is actually helpful."

[askdeeds]

"I'll admit it. It was my fault. Sie misread the acronym and when sie did I uh." Chan Xiu rubs her neck. "I went along with it, bad pronunciation and all, because it's better than 'back home' or 'Earth'. Anyway yeah I'm Chan Xiu I'm from out of town and I'm probably going to have to apologize for that one for ages."

"I'm sure she'll accept the apology - we all do what we have to survive here."

[askdeeds]

I haven't heard of it either! But all you shipwrecked adventurers keep talking about how things are "a Yarel". In other words, "like they do it in Yarel", right? Is that *not* where you're from?

"Ah. That. That is an acronym, Iota Rho Lambda. The fact that my boon companions don't use it anymore is part of why I trust them."

[askdeeds]

Tell me about an a-Yarel cultural practice you miss, but you can't keep up with now that you're here. And on the other side of the coin... is there something of the Yberian way of life that you wish they'd adopt back in your homeland?

"a-Yarel? Never heard of it." "...I am fond of the siesta. It doesn't really get hot enough around the Lindsenfeld to be necessary, but sometimes a day is too long and you need an hour and a drink in the middle of it, yeah?"

[askdeeds]

Siobhan, do you count as part of the Free Company for the AMA? Because it would be helpful to talk to a local who actually understands something of the background the rest of your comrades are coming from here.

"The others could actually read up on the lore, but... yeah, I count, I've taken their Crowns. Just don't ask anything that could get us both in trouble, yeah? Some of us aren't as well-read as the two of us."

[askdeeds]

Ask anything huh... alright what's everyone's favourite gear set?

"I'm actually really fond of this set, lucky enough for me. What's it called, the Shah of Xia set?"

"Honestly I haven't been playing this game long enough to, uh, know? I picked up the titty armor set because it looked stupid and to show off for the stream. I'd honestly like to lean further into the Viking aesthetic later with something like this set.

"Once I've got the cash, I definitely want to lean into the armored princess look. I've had my eye on the Silk and Steel Set."

The only problem with the Dragon Under The Stones set is that it requires a sufficiently tall and impressive staff and hat to complete it."

"Shit, let's get stupid. What's the point of being in a fantasy world if you can't wear five inches of enchanted silk and get away with it?"

[askdeeds]

Whoever it'd be funniest to hear responses from: Latex outfits, yes/no?

"WHAT!? NO!"

"I already wear Delvars +3 Tittyplate of Bad Decisions, and also, when's the last time you dropped me a superchat?"

"Tempting, but not my kink."

"I prefer rigging, honestly."

"So, a catsuit?"

[askdeeds]

*leaps into view Obi Wan Kenobi Style* Hello There.

"Ah. General Blackheart. Then the playerbase is stranded elsewhere, too. What news from Caelibyrne?" Art of Hikaru by Pasteldeity

[askdeeds]

Right, the vessel with the pestle is the brew that is true, got it.

"Cheers, bro, I'll drink to that."