Network - 03

[graveyounglady]

Who: Mercy Graves
Username: mercyme
Warnings: Discussion of the wax tablet on the TDM.

To the Gentlefolk of Other Worlds,

This is Sister Mercy Graves. Do you believe in fate? That your truth may be written and set before it has happened? I have come across a most peculiar and troubling object at the museum that has recently opened its doors.

May the spring bring life to you and yours,
Mercy Graves

Comments

@GasStationJack

[stations]

Hey, Mercy

I believe that there are entities that decide they want to make something happen, and are powerful enough to manipulate it into coming true. That isn't fate, that's just influence. It doesn't guarantee anything, not unless you let it wear you down enough that you stop trying.

As long as you don't give up and give in, there's no such thing as fate.

@jelica

[musicdied]

No. Fate's an excuse people use to avoid making choices.

Anything you find here's probably just another mind game.

@Aberration

[aelwyn_aberration]

To my dearest Mercy Graves,

Fate is an element in the fabric that makes up all of reality, though it's not as set in stone as some would have you believe. Even knowing how something might turn out gives you what you need to avert it. This is one of the primary principles of the school of divination.

Don't stress too much about it.

Yours,
A.A.

[graveyounglady]

That may be the Entities here, then. Have you been to the museum, Jack? There is a tablet there that seems to make predictions about our futures. Our specific futures. I have known diviners to speak in prophecy, but never an object.

[graveyounglady]

I do not know that the prediction made could have changed my choices. Or made me avoid making one? I saw writ upon a tablet that I would slip on the ice and sprain my wrist. I took great care after seeing it, but this morning, I slipped coming to work, and caught myself on my hand going down. My wrist has been much aggravated since.

[graveyounglady]

[She knew she could trust Aelwyn to have a wider magical view of things.]

What about set in wax? Have you known an object to make predictions about the future without a diviner there to imbue it or contemplate its meaning from bones, feathers, or the like?

There is a tablet at the museum that predicted I would injure myself. I was very careful, but lo... it has come to pass.

[stations]

I haven't been, but we had something like that back home. It can be really tempting to get obsessed with it, but absolutely nothing good comes from that.

Have you been going to see it a lot?

[graveyounglady]

Just once or twice.

Thrice.

It is our mission with ADI to make a study of such things, is it not?

[aelwyn_aberration]

When you say injured, how badly? Are you okay?

Also, yes, it's quite common for magic to be imbued into items instead. It's likely a relic of these entities, probably the Web or the Eye. So in that sense, there is a diviner, indirectly, in the form of the entity themselves being channeled through the wax.

[stations]

Can you tell me honestly you're only going back to study it because of ADI?

[musicdied]

You just described it changing your choices. Would you have been that careful if you hadn't seen the message?

If I was at home, I would say it was a coincidence. Here, I would say I don't think the tablet predicted your future, but it might have caused your accident.

@awarewolf

[wolfssegen]

I can't say that I do believe that. I like to think people make their own decisions and get where they are in life by merit of those decisions.

What did you find?

text; @stark

[fightinginfinity]

Well as we science people say there are infinite probabilities, and science is always right whether you believe it or not

Outcome is always determined by variables, and there are infinite combinations of those. So I guess if the right conditions are met then sure, but it's got a snowball's chance in hell of happening naturally

There's such thing as self-fulfilling prophecies though. Science people got a term for that too, the 'placebo effect'. Like you read on a mommy blog that your fermented-cabbage-juice cleanse will work so you feel an effect even though it's doing nothing but giving you gas probably

text; un: Username

[canofmanji]

no.

what did you find?

@jermiacumberbatch

[murderology]

SCREW FATE i do what i want

what'd you find?

[ Hello meet the reason Jack is talking about how easy it is to become obsessed with future telling devices. ]

[graveyounglady]

It is nothing a brace worn for a few days will not sort. I am fine, Aelwyn. I promise.

I wonder to what end, though? I feared injuring myself, certainly, but there were other predictions from it that were far more benign.

You will see two red birds fighting on a branch at the graveyard was another prediction I saw.

[graveyounglady]

[...]

I have some personal interest, perhaps. But is it not sensible to water two plants with one bucket of water? What if it holds some information of the future that may be vital to escaping danger? If I ignored such a thing and it came to pass without warning to others, that would be upon my shoulders.

[graveyounglady]

But being careful should have prevented that future coming to pass, should it have not? It makes little sense that watching my step would lead to a slip. And there were other predictions apart from that one that came true. One was even wholly benign, just that I would see some particular birds in a particular place.

[graveyounglady]

There is a tablet at the museum that just opened its doors that seems to grant predictions of the future. Some are more benign than others. I do not know what others might have seen writ for their fortunes.

[graveyounglady]

You must forgive me as you speak with some learned words that I do not fully understand. I have learned something of Science here, and it seems a fine god to find yourself an acolye for.

[Yep. Science the god.]

Though, I understand that most would not call it as such. What does Science say of prophecies that seem to have no personal impact on a person? Coincidence? One future said I would simply see a particular pair of birds performing a particular act in a particular place. And so I saw them later that same day. It is a most extraordinary coincidence, if it is only that.

[graveyounglady]

[There are so few people who believe in fate. Goodness!]

A wax tablet at the museum that opened recently. I holds prophecies of the future. Some benign, others less so. Or it held prophecies of my future.

[graveyounglady]

[Well... he's not saying he doesn't believe, just that he'd fight it. Which is different.]

A wax tablet that predicts the future. It seems to be residing in the museum that opened its doors near the castle to the north. Would you truly strike out against fate itself, if you knew it? Would you try to make the opposite of a prediction come true?

[stations]

No, don't water either plant. Let this plant die. It's a weed, or poison ivy.

Listen, I know how you feel. I mean, I really do. Back home, we had a radio that could do this. My best friend Jerry got obsessed with it. He thought it was somehow his responsibility to listen, in case it foretold some imminent doom, making him obligated to be the one to stop it.

That's not how it works. It's not your duty to monitor every possible future and control the way time plays out. Just by reading that thing, you're giving it what it wants. You're letting it write a future based around you feeding it, giving it power.

It's not good for you, Mercy. Don't let whatever that is manipulate your future.

@GasStationJack

[stations]

Jerry, do NOT go look at the tablet.

[aelwyn_aberration]

Still, you should rest it. Come back to the apartment, I'll make you tea.

Does the idea that the wax predicted a future outside of your control unsettle you at all, even in it's more benign facets? Or the idea that everything that happens around you is pre-determined and out of your control, only being something that can be viewed by this higher power?

That's probably the anxiety it's trying to exploit. Some people would find that terrifying. If it made predictions that you were unable to stop, it's possible that they weren't predictions but rather actions that the wax then undertook. Fear is about the illusion as much as it is about creating something real to be afraid of. In fact, I'd say more often than not it's the former.