Letter Bee

Four Winds

@Letter Bee

From what I have read from the others, and reading your posts, I think what others want to say is that your powers may be a bit too subjective depending on the author's or character's point of view. Unfortunately, powers that detect or read others thoughts, be them subconcious hidden or even surface thoughts tend to lead to a certain degree of meta-gaming. There is a thin line RP'ing those kind of powers between subjectivity and neutrality. I believe the main issue here is that sometimes it is implied that your powers work too subjectively and are not neutral enough on certain aspects.

That's my perspectivr on this matter. Of course I just might be talking outta my ass. I trust Scio's judgement for letting someone RP a thought-discerning power.

@Riffus Maximus

Thanks, although I feel bad now; I mean, the point of Presumption of Innocence was to be a minor Investigative Power, so that Mikhail would know what he is defending with his main 'Protection' powers. However, I clearly didn't think things through when conceptualizing it.

Four Winds

<Snipped quote by Letter Bee>

I don't know about the clearly being attracted to Nico part, nor the lying part to make herself attractive since all she was doing was slightly stuttering and it was aimed at both of you. I'll accept the overreaction part though.

@banjoanjo

My fault, then.

Gods damn it, I wanted to make Mikhail a kinder and more decent person, but it seems that his Yandere-ness and tendency to jump to conclusions took over.

@Nanashi Ninanai, for when you get here, Mikhail is going to treat Alice more kindly in the next few posts; again, I intended for him to be kinder.

Four Winds

<Snipped quote by Letter Bee>

But that's just plain old ignorance, not bad intention or actual maliciousness. Stupidity isn't a sin, even if it's fuelled by arrogance.

@banjoanjo

@Letter Bee

Well, okay. If Mikhail is just jumping to all sorts of conclusions from what he smells off of Alice, fine.

But I think what I'm wondering here is "does she even smell that bad or is Mikhail just jumping to conclusions so hard he's landed on another solar system?"

If it's the second one, cool.

@January

Ah, I see now. No, Alice doesn't smell that bad, and Mikhail was jumping to conclusions. However, let me clarify: He doesn't think that she's a criminal or that she committed any 'crime' except lying. Nor does he think she'll endanger people's lives at this point in time.

However, she lied to him and Nico, is clearly attracted to Nico, and has lied to make herself attractive to Nico. That is where Mikhail begins to overreact.

Four Winds

<Snipped quote by Letter Bee>

But are the things she wants to force on people really that terrible that Mikhail would view her as a horrible person? It's not like she's planning to make them steal or murder for her. She probably just wants them to say some generic side character lines from time to time and the things that she plans to "force" on people probably couldn't even be considered bad.

@banjoanjo

Note: These are not Mikhail's thoughts at this point in time.

Or, when the inevitable nation-threatening threat befalls the Academy, or just some matter of life and death, she'd sidetrack attempts to resolve the situation by bringing up issues of precedence and leadership, or jump into a situation without thinking and make everything worse, or, when the world is on the verge of being saved, push aside the ones doing the saving so she can 'do it herself'. That's the impression I get, although it assumes that there's going to be a matter of life and death in this RP, like in Harry Potter.

Four Winds

@Letter Bee

To be clear, if Scio greenlit the ability like how you described it originally, and this all happened in PMs, I'll bring my concerns to Scio.

@January

You don't need to do that; I just overcomplicated my explanation for how it works.

Anyway, Scio just approved the ability as written; we didn't actually talk about how it worked.

Four Winds

@Letter Bee

So is Mikhail the kind of person who tends to make a lot of skewed prejudgements? Cos there are a lot of people in the world who can be arrogant but haven't necessarily done anything bad. Like Alice for example, she has a kooky self-absorbed personality but she's no criminal I think.

@banjoanjo

Hmm, I never thought of it that way.

But yes. Sadly, yes.

Although note that Alice doesn't just have a kooky self-absorbed personality, she plans to act on it to make everybody her supporting characters, implying that she's going to force her wants and desires on them without regard for their wishes. That's what makes her smell so sulfuric to Mikhail, but he does not sense the specifics, so he probably assumes that Alice has done something else.

Four Winds

@Letter Bee

I don't think so. As long as it's clear Mikhail is just smelling the general douchebaggery of humanity and is only spitballing about the particulars of what he's smelling, I have no complaints.

@January

It is what is happening, it's just that I failed to clarify it; I tend to overcomplicate things.

Four Winds

@Letter Bee

Good to know.

@January

Okay, am I doing anything wrong besides flubbing up my post?

Four Winds

<Snipped quote by Letter Bee>

Unless this is all rendered through Mikhail's interpretation (and thus can be completely wrong), I think this is far, far too much information you would need from another person's character.

For example, if you objectively had olfactory knowledge of subconscious thought as well, you'd have to ask every single player you smell what they're really thinking if they didn't cover it in their post but you wanted to cover it in yours.

To put it concretely, Nico's general envy of others is a byproduct of his own self-loathing and inability to achieve anything noteworthy because he refuses to put genuine effort into most things. He's so certain he'll fail that he gives up before he even starts, and so he does fail most things and then writes it off as expected. Deep, deep down, he's aware he bombs things on purpose because he's scared of doing something right and doesn't want to be someone whom others expect anything from (because he's afraid he'll fail future expectations even if he succeeds in one or two things).

Can you smell that, too? Because then I have a problem with the ability.

@January

I knew I was doing something wrong with the previous post. Yes, I did mean the bolded part - it's all rendered through Mikhail's interpretation and yes, it can be completely wrong.

No, Mikhail cannot smell that.

Four Winds

Okay, but how does it work and on what moral/legal systems?
Like, what's a "crime", here?

@Letter Bee

@Menhir

Presumption of Innocence allows a person to 'smell' a person's state of mind, their regular personality, and subconscious thought (Edit: filtered through Mikhail's interpretation). Basically, it's like Rofls' character's emotion-sight, only the information is rendered as smell.

As for what moral/legal system and what counts as a crime, well, Mikhail mixes traditional and modern moral systems, but he typically detects the 'Seven Deadly Sins', or rather, emotions and mental states associated with the Seven Deadly Sins. However, he has different ideas of what counts as a 'Sin' than other people.

Examples:

Pride - Egotism and Arrogance, Mikhail hates this sin/mindset while smelling it in himself.

Lust - Not the same as sexual attraction, Mikhail interprets Lust as 'addiction' or 'obsession' and 'the desire to possess other people'.

Envy - Resentment at what others have or others are; Nico pings this a lot, but again, Mikhail doesn't mind. Other people, though...their envy is probably less justified.

Greed - The desire for power and material items, Mikhail's ability to smell this particular sin manifests strongly when the greedy person is willing to harm others to get what he wants; otherwise, minor greed only gives off a slight whiff of sulfur.

Wrath - Overwhelming rage and the desire to do harm; this pings Mikhail only if it is out of proportion to any offense.

Gluttony - This doesn't add to the sulfuric smell unless one is wasting limited resources; merely eating a lot, though doesn't ping him.

Sloth - Mikhail considers this the least of the sins, so he has to strain himself to actually catch a whiff of it.

Note, however, that to Mikhail, all types of sin smell the same; it's just that some types of sin add to the collective stink more. With Presumption of Innocence constantly active, every human, including Mikhail himself, stinks, but that just means that those who smell of sulfur beyond the normal baseline stand out.

Does that make better sense?

@January, Ah, all right.