2017-10-30 [DMFA # 1794] - Crapsaccharine World

[Tapewolf]

Yes, the world is bleak.  And colourful.  It's rather neat to see Mink given the 'they' pronoun.

[PhycoKrusk]

You have to figure that it's only a matter of time before Dan decides he needs to do something about that "bleak hellscape."

[MT Hazard]

I think Arry need to buy a (gender neutral) pronoun. My favorite is 'Ze' or 'Xe'.

[Puyon]

Love digging into Mink's character like this. That they're both incredibly silly and playful but they aren't naive and are incredibly intelligent despite their antics.

...also the canon use of they pronouns on Mink  may have made me super happy. For years, their pronouns were avoided and was referred to by name instead... it reminds me of how Abel didn't have the word for Asexual until... what, 2012 I think... when he first talked about being asexual in 2008(?) and just calling it 'Not Interested'.

[Famout]

Dang it Amber! We already want to hug the Squiggly, now we never want to let them go!

[Cassi-kun]

I do wonder what sort of classes Mink takes. It's easy to see them taking healing courses and probably some gymnastics classes (Mink probably loves parkour), but I wonder what else? Do they take high level mathematics or philosophy courses? Do they do well in mechanics? Have they ever taken combat courses? How many cooking classes did they attend with Abel just for early access to Abel's cakes?

Edit: looking at Aary's phrasing... does this mean Mink is the youngest current member of Clan Jin? He's older than Abel, perhaps considerably so as his mother was slain "a long time" before May passed.

[keybounce]

Jin? The clan name is Jin? Somehow, I missed that before. Are there a bunch of tonic jokes running around? (Hey, it's school. Don't tell me people don't make fun of names.)

[Jasonrevall]

In terms of lovability Mink is quickly approaching Jyrras as my favorite character.

Also wow that last panel is just DMFA in a nutshell isn't it? Dark backdrop with colorful and cute characters half of which know what it means to murder someone. War? Genocide? Erasing people from existence completely? Forget all that Dan is dancing on the roof and Wildy is taking bets on how long until he falls and how many bones he breaks.

[keybounce]

War? Genocide? Erasing people from existence completely?

And here I was, thinking that Dan's own days as a "Killer of any non-human because Adventure!" was something of a standout example.

Dan is Tame by this world's standards.
No wonder Jyrras has a gun, and is willing to at least bluff with it.

And lets not forget Biggs, and the whole Dilemma Jyrras is in over there.

Can this world have peace?
Can you have peace when different intelligent, thinking entities all want stuff, and in some cases, the survival of one group requires the death of entities from other groups?

Never mind the whole normal problem of "I want to impose my views on you", this world has "My survival needs a death; non-cute-chu, I choose you". (NB: Never choose a cute entity to kill. Cuteness is contract armor +10.)

[Tapewolf]

You have to figure that it's only a matter of time before Dan decides he needs to do something about that "bleak hellscape."

I think that's what he got into adventuring for.  But now, especially since he's on the other side of that fence, he seems to be wondering whether that is the solution after all.

Can this world have peace?

Absolute peace?  Not without sterilising the world.  But the same can be said about our world.  Intelligent creatures, at least those with a psyche similar to ours, will always find something to bicker about.
The best that can be hoped for is that it stays bickering rather than mass-murder and genocide.  And that, would be a big enough improvement that it would qualify for 'peace' relative to, say, the dragon-cubi wars.

From what we've been shown, it seems to me that Hizell and his ilk have been deliberately stirring up trouble between the other races, and may ultimately be responsible for the violent nature of Furrae itself.  After all, if Beings and Creatures are busy eating each other and hacking each other to death, there is no chance of an alliance which might threaten the dragon race.
If that meddling ceased, it is quite likely that the tensions between the races would gradually ebb away.  (Peace through the extermination of the dragon race is not a happy thought, I hasten to add, but they seem to have a big track record of genocides.)

"We will have peace, when you and all your works have perished!"

Can you have peace when different intelligent, thinking entities all want stuff, and in some cases, the survival of one group requires the death of entities from other groups?
Never mind the whole normal problem of "I want to impose my views on you", this world has "My survival needs a death; non-cute-chu, I choose you". (NB: Never choose a cute entity to kill. Cuteness is contract armor +10.)

Is that the case, though?  'Cubi feed on emotions.  Demons can subsist without eating - consider Dark Pegasus, though the precise mechanism is unclear.  Even if that's something only an older demon can achieve, there are other ways to obtain nourishment that don't revolve around killing people.  Fast food, for example - in our own world we have access to high-energy foods to the point at which it's making us sick.  A race which has a naturally higher calorific need can just binge on such stuff.
AFAIK the biggest driver for Demons to commit acts of violence is their social structure and such things can be tweaked - extreme sports as a substitute for killing people, for example.  I can't think of an example offhand of a race that explicitly requires the deaths of other people to survive.

[The One Guy]

The problem is that many creatures, demons in particular, have the mentality that the strongest are the ones that deserve to live and any weaklings that die don't matter; to them, this isn't a problem.  In order to truly establish peace between creatures and beings, their entire culture needs to change.

[Eidolon]

Also, there is a particular case in which survival requires death--that is, if you're feeling the pangs of old age, and you know your time is coming... but you also are capable of stealing souls.

You'll die if you don't eat the soul of that nice Being over there (rendering them even deader than dead). You'll live on if you do. You don't have to steal souls in the same way that you need to eat... going without souls won't kill you before your natural clock runs out. But once it gets close to its final tick...

Your ongoing survival demands their death--and not merely their death, but the theft and utter consumption of their soul.

If humans on Earth were offered that sort of choice, we'd live in a much crappier world, that's for sure.

[keybounce]

It's one thing to be able to study, and learn, and be a student, with no bills, no loans, no need to work to survive, etc. Being a long-term student, able to keep studying new things would be great.

But ... I'm starting to understand what doing this for multi-hundred years would be like. Mink has exhausted all the classes available. And still has to take the same classes. Again. And Again. Over and over again. And over, and over, and over, ...

As much as I'm the type of person that would love to be in a "memory-retained loop", with lots of time to study and learn, at some point that would become ... a lot less desirable.

Mink is managing to deal with extreme boredom, stay cheerful, and not go crazy. ... oh, wait, we can't be certain of that last one, can we?

[Tapewolf]

Mink has a supply of new faces to interact with, and also new sciences are being developed such as electronics, computing and this low magic content metal process Jyrras is playing with.  There's more to learn and if they wanted to go into research, this is a perfect place to do so.