therookery | crystal.

Entry tags:

crystal.

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Bastien
RECIPIENT: Everyone
NOTES: Threadjacking etc. always welcome.

Hello, everyone. I have a little project—I think it might serve us to have some agreed-upon replies to hard questions. Say someone asks you what is a rifter. Or they ask if it is true we once housed the mage Anders. The kind of thing where a wrong answer might cause us some trouble.

We will not settle on the right answers today. That will a longer conversation with the Diplomacy Division, I think. If you had a very clever answer that impressed someone very much, you are welcome to share it, of course, but right now I really want to know what difficult questions you have been asked while you are working, or while you are out in the city, or when your mother writes to you worried about the company you are keeping—although it does seem like most of us are not being written to by any mothers.

Separate question, if you have a living parent who writes to you, say so.

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Seems to me like if we could say citizens of Kirkwall like yourselves as well, that'd be helpful, if our assistance with Kirkwall not getting totally blasted into the sea by Venatori has earned us anything.

I'll note that down as well—though a fair number of people are more curious than that. The friends I have, they will say yes, of course, people and citizens and heroes, but where have they come from, and what are they made of, and do we propose to convince anyone they have been sent to us by the Maker or do we agree this is nonsense, and do we think they will be here forever, and so on all evening.

I know leaning into the 'heralds of Andraste' propaganda has come in and out of vogue, but personally, it seems risky to try and encourage the Maker bullshit. I'm not convinced we have that many rifters presently who'd be interested in or able to sell it, for a start, so I don't know how strong relying on people never speaking to them or hearing their opinions is.

Ouais. It would also create problems for us and for everyone who believed us if any of them misbehaved too badly.

[ Not to single out any rabid murderers with near-misses on the record, specifically. ]

Mmm. And we're just no a devout organisation, generally.

( a handful of faithful, sure, but broadly? )

I think we should rule out anything we don't think everyone could actually say with a straight face.

Everyone seem like a high bar. If that is the rule I think we—the Diplomacy division—we should be able to choose up to one in twenty members and say they are not allowed to speak to anyone anymore.