Champion / Josh Newman (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
orange_sun) wrote2013-09-13 02:05 am
orange_sun) wrote2013-09-13 02:05 am
(no subject)
...I refuse to actually count how many comments or months it's been but whatever, question meme for Josh and Echidna. If you want to ask about David Menlo in Demonverse that's also fine! Or monsters but I reserve the right to make mysterious faces.
no subject
Tsalalagal mentioned that Marethyu and Abraham were in the business of promoting Auspicious Threads, timelines which had an unusually positive outcome, and I think Josh would still do that now that Marethyu has accomplished his goals. In general, he wants to give timelines where outcomes are good (for humanity in particular, as a whole) the best chance they can to prosper -- I suspect that there are levels of existence to timestreams, and that they can re-merge or become less "real" or otherwise order themselves by precedence. Universal quantum physics is complicated! But there's a concept of a timeline that's "dead"/"impossible" and ones that are more "alive"/"possible" than others.
The point of that digression is that Josh wants humanity to prosper in general, and wants the modern world he came from to exist in specific, but it can be said to exist as long as it lies down a possible path of decisions. So what he's curating are a) that that possible path exists, so Sophie has something to go back to and b) making futures where humanity prospers more likely.
In terms of in general life, Josh pretty much doesn't consider that he has any idea what the right choices are. He thinks we decide what's right for us every time we make a choice, and he's pretty sure that everyone has to do that for themselves. He hasn't really thought about this a lot, though. It's kind of overly philosophical for him at this stage of his life.
...okay, we've been talking about this all evening but seriously, talk to me about Mau and Edmund.
no subject
Mau and Edmund have an interesting relationship because, although they have a lot of similarities, they tend to respond to each other in somewhat volatile and unpredictable ways. Some of the time they'll end up having a discussion that becomes very honest and personal uncharacteristically quickly, because they're resonating strongly on a topic; sometimes in a situation that could go that way, they'll end up both getting really cryptic and distant, because they know they're capable of reflecting each others' feelings more than seems safe. Sometimes they can talk each other through moments of personal or ideological crisis with uncanny empathy, but sometimes it's an issue that they're too similar on or that they're both struggling with too closely in that moment and they just spiral further into crisis. Or sometimes they don't quite mesh and it's bizarrely more frustrating than not being able to communicate with a friend, because it's a little too much like not understanding your own thoughts. At least, that's Mau's experience of his more intense interactions with Edmund.
This is complicated by the fact that Mau is really not very self aware about any of this. He's had moments of being almost self-aware! There was one time back in Wonderland where they were both trying to do nice things for each other and neither of them wanted to let the other give him anything, and eventually Mau was just like, "Okay, but can we stop playing this game? It's tiring and I don't want to with you of all people." So when they get really ludicrous he can at least recognize it in the moment. But he hasn't spent any time examining his patterns of behavior around Edmund, so all he's really aware of is that he and Edmund are friends, and it's really nice generally, and Edmund can be pretty great to talk to about leadership and stuff, but sometimes it's puzzling and frustrating for reasons he doesn't understand. For the amount of time they've spent together, Mau feels surprisingly close to Edmund, but also surprisingly uncomfortable around him.
So yeah, Mau and Edmund are bros, and their friendship is usually mutually beneficial, but it's characterized by a metric fuckton of unresolved tension. I think this is why we are all fishhandsing at them OOCly and yelling "NOW KISS!!!!" at regular intervals? Because genuine regard for each other + affection + unresolved tension = makeouts! It's kind of a standard recipe.
Except not only are they both repressed, emotionally cautious, highly preoccupied, workaholic, kind of messed up questionably teenage boys who frequently struggle with whether or not personal happiness is even a valid goal for them at all, but I don't even know what kind of unresolved tension we're talking about here. I don't! I know it isn't sexual, although I do think it has the potential to turn into that under the right conditions (and I wish I knew what the right conditions were, because at this point I shamelessly ship them), but... aside from that, it's pretty undefined. And I think that for two boys who are typically quite reserved, it's a little bit alarming to be friends with someone who occasionally causes you to be weirdly demonstrative in public (eg. hilarious ticklefight, disney princess bird scene, etc).
Anyway! So that's how it stands at the moment: lots in common, lots of moments where they click very intensely with each other, lots of undefined, unresolved tension, but also an unfortunate ability to hit each other where it hurts and put each other on the defensive without meaning to or even really realizing. So I honestly still don't know where this is going to go or even what conclusion Mau will come to once he's thought things over... but at least now he is going to think things over.
I feel like I should talk about the kiss here, some. Mau was being very honest with how he explained it to Edmund after, when he said, "Mostly I was thinking... sometimes talking isn't everything. I wanted to give you a true and real answer for the stuff I wasn't talking about. And that seemed... right." He was also being honest when he told Josh it was a weird thing to do. He'll sometimes affectionately kiss people on the forehead or the cheek, but usually it's Cassie (who started it) or Apple (as a form of teasing, because she flusters really hard), or maybe sometimes Ven (who is super touchy-feely anyway). This is the first time he's kissed someone out of nowhere on the corner of the mouth, though, or done anything that physically forward at all.
It probably sounds pretty unconvincing to say it wasn't an expression of attraction, but it wasn't. It was, however, an expression of how Mau recognizes and appreciates that his relationship with Edmund is unique. It's different from any other friendship he's ever had, because it's more intense, because they keep seeming to reach strange truths about each other too quickly. Maybe it's more fair to say that there's emotional attraction without there being sexual attraction. A part of Mau really likes hanging out with Edmund because it's not like hanging out with anyone else, and that's the feeling he was acting on when he kissed him.
There's more I could say about how I think things could go, but that's how things are. And really in this relationship, there's so much potential for so many different outcomes that it's hard to predict. So we will see!
Tell me more about how Josh is handling Mau and Edmund and how that resonates with how he came out of the Ven/Roxas thing.
no subject
What matters to him, and pretty much the sum of interest in the situation, is that they're happy with the choices they've made, and that's where he ends up stepping in to beat people with outside perspective. He thinks they might be good for each other if they decide they're interested in each other, but he's aware he's not really a judge of other people's romances? And he really would never presume to be or want to be, unless he was cheating like crazy and actually prophecying, which he can't do in Aather. (And even then he'd use the smallest intervention possible, because seriously.) I'm really just mentioning this because I recall him nudging the Flamels slightly, Perenelle in particular.) The point is, even if it might seem like he was pushing it a little with Mau, he was pushing him mostly to make a conscious choice, whatever the outcome happened to be. And to choose whatever would make him happier! The same for Edmund, a little less explicitly, with a side of "also don't just assume things about other people's choices because that's a little dumb, bro".
I guess the resonance there is that it arises from the same phenomenon? Josh really wants his favorite people to be happy. He wants them to be free to reach for things that make them happy and believe in their own happiness. I think arguably he wants that more than he wants his own happiness, at least subconsciously. He kind of has a thing about helping people, looking out for them, being active, etc! (Which is tempered by self-determination feelings -- a lot of which have arisen from the experience of being powerless and being powerful, now that I think about it. But he wants to act for the better.) And also, in general, he's got it pretty good and he knows it and he wants other people to have it as good as he does. That kind of thing was threaded in among the keyboys thing and a significantly less personally difficult expression of it is basically driving what he does about the possibility of Mau/Edmund.
How's Nick handling Camelot?
no subject
Actually what I mean is I'm afraid I can't answer that question properly because of mysterious plot things.
He's fine though! He's not out of his element, much; it's not a draining place for him to be. He hasn't made much personal progress, but that's also because I haven't really been playing him, and all the things I'm planning to do with him depend on factors YET TO BE REVEALED.
Same for Echidna? And/or, what does she think of all these ~personal monsters~ people have been beating on?
no subject
The thing about Echidna is that she's almost always in her element. She's probably not going to be a Persona with a huge character arc; she is what I conceived of her to be and I'm happy with that, even if it means she's kind of static. Her focus isn't on place so much; it's on the heroes and what they're asking her for and how they strive. And honestly, she's loving that. People are going out and throwing themselves against the Darkness, they're coming to her regularly to test themselves against her children, everyone is striving to become more and better than what they were. And that's kind of the core of what she is, that striving. So she's loving it.
The personal monsters thing is basically a really deep expression of that. When you can't confront something within yourself in an ordinary way, but you want to, she can change the context and present it to you in a form you can challenge more effectively. So of course she loves the people who come to her for it, and is happy when they succeed.
Personally, she thinks everyone is a sweetheart in general (people who aren't tend not to tag her, probably fortunately) and wants to grandma at them all. The weather and the supply shortages are annoying but nothing she can't work with -- she's kind of wistful that she can't easily bring out wine or just randomly feed people, and that her quest rewards are less good than they should be, but Camelot itself is an environment that by its nature forces people to strive in all ways, so that's a bonus for her.
What's Jill thinking of doing when she gets all her memories back?
no subject
If Edmund outright rejects Jill as a knight, though, it'll probably be increasingly difficult for her to be around him, so if she gets all her memories back before he does (which is pretty likely, since she only has like eight left or something) and he rejects her, she might Good End instead. Or if he got all his memories back and actually acknowledged her as his knight, if he Good Ended and wanted her to come with him, she'd go with him. She'd still stay and Legacy if he Good Ended but was fine with her staying to support Amethyst, though; she doesn't need to be right by his side to be his knight, and if that was the assignment he gave her she'd be okay with it. She'd be torn! But she'd be okay with it.
Anyway, that's all kind of short term. Once Aather is saved, like I said, she's planning to march back and yell at a God Lion and try to give her friends a more complete picture of what's going on. Beyond that, it is once again up to Edmund, but ever since the Loveless game, she's had fantasies of traveling across different worlds and helping people with him.
Okay. Give me the list of gods, Personae, and general assholes on Josh's Eventual Punching List and why they made the cut. Also, if you're so inclined, what his battle strategy would be with them once he'd had a chance to size them up, and how the interesting fights would likely go.