Chatter Box, Greeting Place, and Discussion Thread 7: A new beginning, with new ships. None for Eridan, though.

Neska wrote:

Hm.
Politics always complicates everything . . .
Character age would then be a determining factor. The game trolls are essentially teenagers from our perspective (even possibly actually teenagers by their own perspectives at this point, with the passage of time and all). The usual thing to do would be to make a character in the same age range who would be making her decisions about what to do with her life at this point and would then need to decide how politics affect her choice about where to live. On the other hand, if she's older she would likely have already established herself somewhere before the game trolls arrived and changed everything. She might not care about politics, be too entrenched to want to move, or just not give a damn 'cause she was there first (would depend on if the capital was a freshly built city or if Meenah set herself up in the closest thing to a palace that already existed). If longer lived trolls age slower (which would make sense to me, based on other such races), then even a character who is 50 or 100 years (20-50 sweeps) old would still be relatively young by the standards of her caste while still having been around long enough to watch a city grow up around her.
Ancient Egypt Level to Modern Earth Level is a pretty drastic shift, an older character would have some trouble adapting (not that they couldn't, especially if they were intelligent and curious like this alchemist character would likely be) and would certainly have at least the trappings of the pre-arrival era while they adapt (a hive built in the traditional manner, jewelry of the old style and clothing varying from old style to new and a bit in between).

Well put, precisely the case. Imagine it as a more drastic version of when the Europeans arrived in America.
Also at this point, the trolls are all going to be roughly in their mid twenties, in human years.
Another thing to note is that relative age is foolish. Sure, there are going to be plenty older than you if your race has a longer lifespan, but being 40 years old STILL makes you 40, even if your lifespan is 500 instead of 100. You've still experienced 40 years of life, a really fucking long time. You don't experience less or mature slower just because your lifespan is larger than normal.

Relative age does affect the rate at which someone reaches emotional maturity: in our modern era in which people regularly live past the age of 60 people are considered juvenile until their late teens or early 20s whereas when people expected to die before the age of 50 people were considered adults in their teens and over the hill at 30. Certainly, a 30 year old adult is more experienced (and likely better educated) than a 15 year old adult but in their respective societies they fill the same social role: young adults just starting out on their own. Someone who can logically expect to live to be 500 would still be incredibly young at 50 compared to elders of their kind (having only lived ~1/10 of their expected lifespan). Compared to a member of a shorter lived group this 50 year old juvenile would seem paradoxically experienced and mature, because they would be while still being young and immature in the eyes of their own kind.
Kinda like me: I'm older and more experienced at 30 than most (all?) of the other people in this group, yet still young and immature compared to my 60 year old parents and 90 year old grandfather. I was thinking that this character would fit in with the other trolls about the way I fit into this group.

Neska wrote:

Relative age does affect the rate at which someone reaches emotional maturity: in our modern era in which people regularly live past the age of 60 people are considered juvenile until their late teens or early 20s whereas when people expected to die before the age of 50 people were considered adults in their teens and over the hill at 30. Certainly, a 30 year old adult is more experienced (and likely better educated) than a 15 year old adult but in their respective societies they fill the same social role: young adults just starting out on their own. Someone who can logically expect to live to be 500 would still be incredibly young at 50 compared to elders of their kind (having only lived ~1/10 of their expected lifespan). Compared to a member of a shorter lived group this 50 year old juvenile would seem paradoxically experienced and mature, because they would be while still being young and immature in the eyes of their own kind.
Kinda like me: I'm older and more experienced at 30 than most (all?) of the other people in this group, yet still young and immature compared to my 60 year old parents and 90 year old grandfather. I was thinking that this character would fit in with the other trolls about the way I fit into this group.

Not true. We don't progress slower, our society has simply evolved to the point where we are sociatally treated differently. Mentally we age the SAME, it's wisdom that changes. And that's when EVERYONE in a society has a very similar age cap. In a society like a troll society where the ages vary WILDLY depending on blood color but people are treated the same despite that, a 40 year old olive blood is not going to be more mature than a 70 year old Fuchsia, just because the Fuchsia blood lives WAY longer

Tl;dr: Someone who is 50 but has a cap of 400 in the same society as someone who is 50 and has an age cap of 90 are relatively the same, albeit different OUTLOOKS on life

"Kinda like me: I'm older and more experienced at 30 than most (all?) of the other people in this group, yet still young and immature compared to my 60 year old parents and 90 year old grandfather. I was thinking that this character would fit in with the other trolls about the way I fit into this group."

Also this just seems to agree with me? You're more mature because you're the oldest, but less mature than your older parents and grandparents, is what you're saying. Which is sort of what I'm saying? I don't follow your logic with this statement

I do not comprehend.
Your statement implies that you do not think that this difference in outlook of people with different expected lifespans is an important factor, that people of the same age are at the same maturity level regardless of what percentage of their lives those years represent, yet I see that as of significant importance: people think and act quite differently based on what point in their lives they perceive themselves to be. People early in life, regardless of absolute chronological age, tend to be more reckless than those later in life and other members of their society tend not to trust them with anything of importance.
I have not, nor have I intended to do so, said anything whatsoever about how the brain itself develops. Everything I have said, or tried to say, is about how people develop socially, transition from childhood to adulthood, and how long this process takes in regards to lifespans of different lengths.
The outlooks and social development of a 50 yr old who expects to die at 90 would be distinctly different than a 50 yr old who expects to live to 400, I do not see how they would be "relatively the same"

I was attempting to indicate how maturity is relative: I don't really feel all that mature, especially when I compare myself to other people my age who have done more in terms of "adulting," but I've still got time to figure things out 'cause I've 2/3 of my expected lifespan left. But despite how immature I and my family perceive me to be, I am still more mature than those of you who haven't lived as long or experienced as much.
I suppose it doesn't work so well as a metaphor since you lot have similar expected lifespans.
But compare someone like me from our society from someone the same age from a 3rd world country who can't expect to live as long (unfortunate but undeniably true, since they don't have as much access to modern medicine and live rougher lives): 30 yr old woman in a 3rd country wouldn't be hanging out playing games but would be struggling to make sure that her children were fed and clothed. My own existence would appear absurdly childlike to such a person.

"I have not, nor have I intended to do so, said anything whatsoever about how the brain itself develops. Everything I have said, or tried to say, is about how people develop socially, transition from childhood to adulthood, and how long this process takes in regards to lifespans of different lengths."

Then we're having two different conversations lmao. You're trying to use examples of humans, in a completely different society. That's like trying to compare the ideals of someone raised in a small village in Africa to someone being raised in New York City.

Unless you want me to being elves into the discussion, humans are what we've got. I stayed away from that, because elves are not only fictional, but a different race entirely (being neither humans nor trolls). While trolls of different blood castes have vastly different lifespans, they are all trolls, just as humans are all humans. They also have a caste society, based of blood color which equates quite directly to lifespan. In every human society, again our logical source of examples, those of lower caste have access to fewer resources and live more difficult lives so that they do not live as long. Everything we know about trolls from Homestuck, which is carried over into Nightfall (there are those who are fighting against the caste system in both the original setting and the fan setting but for the most part those who are higher on the spectrum are higher in society), indicates a caste society based on blood color/longevity (Kankri's coup is an exception, but he is both a game troll [higher status, possibly immortal] and a jerk who wants to rule the world).
If you don't like my 1st vs. 3rd world comparison, how about Manhattan vs. the Bronx? Both regions of New York, subsets of the same national culture, one significantly wealthier and higher on the social totem pole than the other, the poorer people STILL live shorter more difficult lives forcing them to grow up quicker and with less experience to give them wisdom.
As I see it, the metaphor holds.
And it still has nothing to do with how people's brains develop.

I will concede the point simply because it is going in a totally opposite direction than the discussion intended.

Back to Fall :V

Here's like, OCs we need, but your OC doesn't really need to fall in that category

-Enemies of the state
-Coworkers for Nepeta
-Guards besides Tavros that have actual names
-Criminals
-Shopkeepers
-Terezi

Also here's the link :D http://afterfall.forumotion.com/

She could theoretically fall into the category of shopkeeper, if anyone is in the need for peculiar substances. Or even common things, depending on how alchemy would fit into the society. Or the alchemy could be a hobby that is paid for by something more normal (like an herb shop or a tea house or something more culturally appropriate, though I see tea shops as appropriate to all cultures seeing as I am fairly obsessed with tea).

I'd be fine with her running a tea shop as a front or running alchemy as her main business. How alchemy works is mostly up to you tbh! As long as you don't get way too crazy with it or defy laws of physics I am down with whatever you decide.

You can register on the site, and there's a section where you can post your character description and her relationship with others

Okydoky!
Unless she gets her hands on an alchemiter, it will mostly be a hybrid of chemistry and herbalism and grub stuff (since, ya know, so many grubs in Alternian ecology).

Neska wrote:

Okydoky!
Unless she gets her hands on an alchemiter, it will mostly be a hybrid of chemistry and herbalism and grub stuff (since, ya know, so many grubs in Alternian ecology).

Figured but keep in mind that killing grubs is like, bad and stuff so the monarchy isn't gonna be super gung ho about that

Well, killing troll grubs would be an issue. But from what I recall in Homestuck, EVERYTHING on Alternia produced and grew from grubs and non-troll grubs were used for food (grubsauce, grubloaf) and technology (gamegrubs).
So unless that is different on Alternia 2 and only trolls grow from grubs, there would be many, many acceptable grubs to use and experiment on.

New Alternia is v different actually. The lusii still exist because Matriorb and ectobiology, but other than the lusii and the trolls, the creatures are vastly different and much more dangerous.

Food is different as well, originating in all different shapes and sizes. Many of the creatures on the planet are safely edible, and the fish that don't kill you are p good too. Fruits and vegetables all have very hard shells and require tools to open properly, but with a softer inside. Roots and spices are far and in between, but the planet has not been explored for the most part, seeing how dangerous it is and how massive the planet is.

Oh but technology still uses those grubs, cuz the trolls didn't know another way of making said tech. So those grubs exist too

Okydoky.
Alchemical experimentation will be limited to techgrubs.

Anything else or are you good :D

If she's going to be running a shop, do you have a preference as to which city she sets up shop in?
Other than that, I just want to scan in a sketch I made for her and then I should be able write out her character info stuff and post in the appropriate location.

Hemopolis is the location of the palace and is the capitol, and is also fucking huge and on land, surrounded by high walls.

Centaurium is a floating city fortress that hosts most of the dissidents against the monarchy. Either or would work.

Also Centaurium is home to the base of Endemic, the largest dissident organization on the planet. So there's that.

Yeah, there are pros and cons for each location.
Maybe I should try rephrasing.
In Centaurium, dissidents wouldn't need a clandestine meeting place to discuss their plans but might still want tea (and possibly access to alchemical stuff for their plans).
In Hemopolis, anyone who questions the monarchy may feel the need for a quiet place to meet (especially if the owner is at all sympathetic and may be willing to help them . . . for a price).
Would the alchemist and her tea shop be more valuable to the characters in Centaurium who likely feel less need to hide their views but may want special items for any plans they have (or just some nice tea) or to those in Hemopolis who would have more need of discretion and potentially fewer options for supplies (and still want some nice tea)?
Basically, as an OC shopkeeper, she'd be fulfilling the role so many NPC characters do in RPGs: support for the main characters. In which location are characters likely to need the support she can supply?

Hmmmmm
Well.
For OCs, the current IMPORTANT ones are

Innsta, who works for Karkat as a threshicutioner, so probably not associated with your character except for a negative context
Vitrid, the leader of Endemic, who likes to have a sitdown in a local cafe in Hemopolis when his agents are on missions in Hemopolis, giving them intel on guard movements and patrols
Ezdret, who is kind of our main antagonist, and who likes to claim every competent female as her own lover

Yea

Vitrid might like the tea shop as a meeting place (if you meet at the same cafe all the time you might get noticed, but you also need to limit your meetings to known safe places).
Are the threshicutioners set up like a military unit (set out on missions) or a police force (regular patrols in the city) in this setting? If military, then it's not likely that she'd ever encounter Innsta (unless Innsta just likes tea and/or herbs). If police, then there would be the potential for circumstances where the conspirators would need help handling the authorities and as the shop keeper she might have to fend off (with words, most likely) Innsta. Though, if it's a military dictatorship, then military and police would be combined and the difference is moot.
Not gonna be interested in being summarily claimed by anyone, no matter how powerful they are, so there would be some conflict if Ezdret ever came round the shop.

It sounds like all the ideas you had about characters in reply to my question are in regards to things that would or could happen in Hemopolis. So, that would indicate that Argena Khemis, tea/herb shop keeper/alchemist, would be most valuable to the story in Hemopolis.

For the threshicutioners, they're more like Karkat's private task force or w/e, so not really either? They just kinda train, hang out, and help out with the Hunters on their missions.
Also Ezdret doesn't claim people out loud, she just kinda internally goes "Ur mine"

Hemopolis would be my suggestion as well!

Okydoky.
I'll scan in the sketch and write up a post for the other site!

Sounds good :D
Hey btw, you said Skype doesn't work for you for w/e reason, but what about Discord :O

I have never heard of a program called Discord, so I have absolutely no idea.