The Reference Desk: La [Biography, Character/Player Updates]

AlisonRobin's picture
     Most Recently: Back, briefly. Discord is Alison number zero three seven one if anyone wants to chatter. I'm trying to get pages working again after dropbox's policy change. I'm just hosting the files now where I host some other stuff.
     Being that I am trash, there is now a La tumblr.


     Spoken Name: La (human uses); Archaeologist, Librarian, Researcher
     Age: Five; arrived in The Forest on Tuesday, August 24th, 2010.
     Sex, Gender: Female/Doe/Hind, moderately feminine. Irrelevant to character.
     Real Name: La's Pictograph can be seen in my avatar, with reduplicating circles and isosceles triangles, plus a strange little fifth mark on the side I can't explain.
     Click for most complete set of visual references, though still a WIP.

     Physical Traits and Mannerisms of the Body

     Personality, Emotions, and Philosophies

     Story and Plot Elements, Pathways Forward

     Skills, Talents, and Accomplishments of Note

     Haunts, Roaming Habits, and Places of Comfort

     Reasons to Not be Alone, Reasons to Smile

     Artifacts for Museums and Other Acquisitions

     The Book: Sapient Window to Other Worlds

     How I Play La in The Endless Forest

     Alison
Site Pages


 Page Info     Look at me, I learned CSS and am on my way with Javascript! If you use noscript and it asks you to allow a script for this page it will be from my "rackcdn"--that's me. It is harmless and contains only a few simple functions to help with page navigation.
     If you ever made a guide on this site about CSS, I probably read it five times. I also read just about everything W3Schools had on CSS and Javascript. There are lots of people like Unplugged, Mahj, Aivilo, and especially GMSuerte who have all been super helpful, plus tons of other websites like W3Schools and StackOverflow.
     Page textures in backgrounds are from CGtextures, my use of them is in careful accordance with their ToS. All the art in the layout is mine EXCEPT the 140x72 gift art previews, which have the name of the original artist written on them to avoid all confusion.
     I'm assuming with this page that your computer is at least 1024x600 pixels in size. That's the smallest I can go.


 Contact     Discord is the most useful one currently! Skype is broken as all getout.
     Discord: alison # zero three seven one
      Tumblr: lasreferencedesk for la and kaprosuchussaharicus for me
     Colourlovers: AlisonRobin
     (There are multiple AlisonRobins out there so actually I'm only about 10% of us online, though it may look like I'm ubiquitous at times. We constantly fight for our logins.)
     My main email is tied to my identity and my backup email is tied to my writing work that I really don't want overlapping with other stuff, so I'll email you from my main email if I need contact. Forgive me my paranoia.
     I'm not reliable on any communication channel, even with people who live with me. But it's worth trying if you wanna chatter a lot, and I do like having people to talk at.


 Inspirations     La is based on my overexposure to books and love of reading and writing. Some of her fixations are inspired by my own, which in turn are usually inspired by people around me--art historians, librarians, teachers, mathematicians, and the like. She represents the people and qualities that I admired in adults who took care of me when I was young and that I generally strive for. I think that her good-naturedness is also fitting for the feel of The Endless Forest and I strive to make her fit the setting.
     Stylistically, I designed her with spells from TEF in mind and then incorporated hands into the design. The placement of her antlers is partly inspired by Hellboy's horns.
     La's book is inspired very loosely by a combination of things. It draws most from the concept of wizards/witches and their familiars in various media (but especially in Dungeons and Dragons), and the "A Really Useful Book"'s vague awareness and ability to advise on the spot in the film MirrorMask. Neither of those were conscious inspirations, but I noticed them more clearly after the fact.


 Gift Art     These are all lovely things made for me/La. Artist name is written on the little snippet so that no one will mistake these for my art or think I'm claiming them as my art. Click each for the whole gorgeous thing. These are in reverse chronological order of receiving them, so oldest at the bottom and newest at the top.
     Images of La are also known as laart because I said so.
































AlisonRobin's picture

Sounds great! Here also

Sounds great! Smiling
Here also works, I don't think we need a new thread. I haven't got an RP running in the biography so we're pretty free to use it for that. You wanna start or should I?
Pelicann's picture

(I'll start :3) Two

(I'll start :3)

Two black-tipped ears peeked over the brush as a pair of turquoise eyes scanned the area. Seemed clear. Tip-toeing out from his hiding spot, Cian stealthily crept towards the Ruins. He was an adventurer, seeking out the ancient tomb of the King. The piebald fawn glanced side to side as he searched, making his way through the eerie rocks. He leaped over the gaps that, if fallen through, would land you straight in the core of the earth, where molten lava would burn you to death. Cian had a very active imagination, and could get so lost in his games that he would be oblivious to anything real around him. Without even a blink, the boy jumped onto a rock where a doe sat, straightening his wobbly legs. Finally, he sighed. He had made it. The young stag looked up proudly to see the giant tomb of the ancient ruler.
AlisonRobin's picture

La looked up from her book

La looked up from her book regularly to steal glances at Cian. She did her best to discern his solitary game from afar. Some fawns pretended they were other animals, some fawns liked to pretend they were a family, some even pretended they had antlers and fought. But La could not quite make out this fawn's game.

She'd met him briefly at a wedding a few weeks ago, and remembered him for his black and white pelt. Never one to interrupt a game intentionally, La closed her book with her nose and quietly got to her feet to stalk a bit closer to where he played his game.
Pelicann's picture

Suddenly, Cian felt a tremor

Suddenly, Cian felt a tremor shake the tombs, feeling pebbles fall around his hooves as the Ruins crumbled in. He hD to get out, and quick! The boy leaped from stone to stone, taking one last glance at the glyphs etched into the walls. No clue what they said. It's not like he could read anyway. Cian finally tumbled out of the tomb just as the dust and debris blew up into the air. That was close. As the fawn stood, he noticed La standing not too far from him. He gave her a friendly grin. "Woah, you gotta be careful! The tomb coulda crushed on you real bad!" His grammar wasn't too great, and he wS typically a bit hard to understand at first, as he tended to slur his words slightly, especially when excited. The boy bounced over to the doe and gazed up at her.
AlisonRobin's picture

La grinned at him, but her

La grinned at him, but her expression turned to one of feigned shock and awe as he brought her into his game. "Oh my, that was close, wasn't it? But you made it out in one piece!" She looked him over just to make sure he was alright--partly to play along with the game and partly out of genuine concern for a child she hadn't often seen in the company of adults.

"Well," she said, raising an eyebrow now and looking back in the direction of his invisible tomb, "How are you going to get the treasure now?"
Pelicann's picture

Cian was stumped. He frowned

Cian was stumped. He frowned for a minute in concentration, furrowing his brow as he glanced back at the fallen rubble that was once an intricate tomb build for a king. The little explorer sighed in frustration. It's true - he didn't have the chance to grab the enchanted ruby while he had the chance. The structure was old and eroded from centuries of wind and rough weather. He should've planned for if it collapsed. He wasn't very well-prepared. No matter! Cian always thought of something, and this time was no exception. "The special red rock was prolly a fake! The King would never crush it like that! It mus' be...somewhere 'round here..." The boy's eyes brightened as he found a way to continue his story, and paced a bit as he scanned his surroundings. Where could that troublesome gem be? He checked behind headstones and under rocks, but to no avail. Suddenly, he perked his ears. "Ya hear that? Somebody's singin'! We gotta be real quiet..."
AlisonRobin's picture

La nodded and became quiet,

La nodded and became quiet, settling down low to the ground so she could be close to Cian's eye level, and so she would be less visible to any foes he might conjure for them. She flattened her ears against her head to even hide them from view, and whispered, "Whose voice is that, singing? Do you think it's safe for us to go looking for them or do you think it's a trick to distract us from the treasure?"

It was a delightful game for La to be playing, and she found herself being swallowed up by the story just as easily as if she were reading about it in a book.
Pelicann's picture

The fawn crept forward

The fawn crept forward silently, but turned his head to the side to reply to La. "Dunno. Prolly a trap. I'll go take a look, an' you stay here to keep watch." Cian inched his way to the corner of the Ruins, slowly peeking out. He gasped loudly, although whatever it was he was reacting to was out of La's sight. He came dashing back, scrambling over his feet to hide behind the doe. "There's a lady sitting next to the magical red rock, but she's actually a scary evil monster! We have to defeat her so we can get the treasure!"
AlisonRobin's picture

La stifled a chuckle and kept

La stifled a chuckle and kept herself from smiling when he came tearing back to her. She asked him, "How do we defeat a monster that can change what it looks like? And if she looks like a lady, how can you be so certain that she's a monster?" La raised an eyebrow to him.

She whispered on, "I think we should come up with a plan before we do anything too hasty, what do you think? Brain over brawn? I'll be honest, I don't think I'm as experienced with fighting monsters as you are."
HolyMaria's picture

thank you for the lovely

thank you for the lovely dove-visit ^^
Pelicann's picture

He was again a bit stumped

He was again a bit stumped when the doe questioned him. How did he know she was a monster? "Her eyes are red and she has nasty fangs and claws and bones aaallll 'round her." Cian widened his eyes as he spoke, his voice getting slowly more hushed and then intensifying for effect. He then tapped on the ground, indicating that La should follow him as he silently made his way to where the monster was. "Don't worry, assistant. I'll protect you." Cian gave a quick smile which almost broke his character, but just as quick as it came, it vanished and the boy was replaced with an ancient tomb raider. At the count of three, he charged out onto the big rock at the front of the Ruins, letting out a battle cry as he fought with the air. He stumbled over and fell, looking panicked. "Quick! While she's distracted! You gotta stomp on 'er!"
AlisonRobin's picture

La crept after Cian and

La crept after Cian and nodded along with his extremely serious orders, and she watched the fawn--his speed blurred him to grey in La's eyes--leap into action and begin to fight the air.

The doe waited with bated breath at the ready until he called on her for help, and she followed him onto the slab of marble that had once been a mighty wall. For a moment she saw in her imagination the evanescent outline of a red-eyed beast with bones at her feet, knocked prone by the brave explorer, but the visage faded as soon as it had appeared. Her imagination was strong, but it could not be as strong as a fawn's.

She trampled the air where the monster lay in Cian's eyes, hopping and pounding her hooves against the stone rapidly.
Pelicann's picture

Cian panted heavily, watching

Cian panted heavily, watching with wide eyes until he interrupted her attack. "Finally...she's dead." He liften himself to his hooves and cautiously checked around them to make sure there were no more enemies nearby. His ears perked up to check for any threatening sounds. None. Suddenly a twinkle caught the boy's eye. His attention was turned towards a magnificent ruby, about the size of the fawn's head. He slowly approached it, with a wide grin and curious eyes. "We made it! We get the treasure!" To anyone else, it would appear that Cian was just standing in the grass gazing down at a red flower sprouting in the ground. He knew his friend could see it, though.
AlisonRobin's picture

La flopped down to lie in the

La flopped down to lie in the grass next to the red flower. "Well done," she praised him. La was more winded from trampling a nonexistent foe than she would have liked to admit, and she did what she could to hide her slightly heavy breathing. Of all things, she didn't want to seem old. Not to fawns at least.

"You're called Cian, aren't you?" she asked after a moment. her eyes were focused primarily on the prized red poppy rather than the boy. "I think we met a few weeks ago. Though I was painted red at the time."
Pelicann's picture

As the world of imagination

As the world of imagination faded away and the ancient tombs once again became the forest Ruins, Cian fixed the flower behind his ear and sat across from La. "Ooohh yeeaahh...I remember you now. Yer La!" The boy looked rather proud of himself for having remembered the doe's name. "That's a cool name...how'd ya get it?"
AlisonRobin's picture

"I made it up," she said with

"I made it up," she said with a sly smile. "It was the first thing I ever said. And when I was little, it was my favorite thing to say, so it stuck. Now and forever I suppose! But my real name, I've had that as long as I can remember."

For emphasis, her pictograph lit up brightly where it hovered above her head before dimming back to only slight visibility.

"Where'd you get the name Cian?" she asked in turn.
Pelicann's picture

Cian listened in awe and

Cian listened in awe and smiled boyishly as the Picto hovering above La's head shined brightly. He blinked suddenly, his attention pulled back to the doe when she asked him a question. "Well..." He glanced up in thought, not entirely sure he remembered. "I think I jus' kinda knew. I learned to talk real faster than other fawns, like Pali. She still can't talk and I did on my second day. I walked real quick, too. And I grow quick." Cian stood again to show off his barely noticeable height to La. It was hard to compare when there were no other kids around but it was true. When compared to other fawns, Cian was a bit large for his age. he said glancing up at the symbol glowing above him. "Like that's how it looks, but Sea-Anne is how it sounds. Yknow?"
AlisonRobin's picture

La nodded sagaciously along

La nodded sagaciously along with him. "All fawns age and grow differently. I was a quick grower like you, but I was a slow talker like some fawns." La fondly remembered her days of babbling meaninglessly at the kind older deer who had humored her when she had been small.

She eyed his pictogram and committed it to memory. "We have our spoken names like Cian and La and we have our real names that we can't pronounce... And then some people have nicknames too. It's a bit of a confusing system if you ever really try to think about it too hard. And I have tried to think about it too hard."
Pelicann's picture

He tilted his head at the

He tilted his head at the monochrome doe, squinting his eyes and scrunching his face up for a minute. Afterwards, he giggled and grinned wide. "Yer right...my brain hurts." Cian smirked and flipped over onto his back, gazing up at the two deers' pictos floating beside one another. "Do you have a mommy and daddy too?"
AlisonRobin's picture

La smiled. "When you feel

La smiled. "When you feel that brain stretching feeling, that's a good thing. I like the feeling myself, I usually take it to mean that I have some mysteries to solve."

For his next question, she shook her head no. "No, I don't. No mother, no father. The forest is my parents. But I did okay. When I was a fawn there were a lot of adults who helped take care of me and I grew up okay."
Pelicann's picture

Cian kept his eyes gazing up

Cian kept his eyes gazing up at the sky. His mouth was formed in a little 'O' shape, and it was clear that he was only half aware of his surroundings. The other half of his attention was fixed on sorting out which clouds made shapes and which didn't."It's okay...I don't have some either. But the golden deer are like mommies and daddies, right?" The boy rolled over onto his belly, until he was close enough to La that his hooves lightly touched hers. "An' my friend Pali is family, too. But her mommy and daddy are rabbits..." The piebald fawn scrunched up his face a bit as he trailed off. He hadn't thought about his friend's situation much, and saying it out loud made it sound quite silly.
AlisonRobin's picture

La was uncertain what to make

La was uncertain what to make of the rabbit comment, and let it slide past without calling attention to it. "The Gods are our parents in a way," she said. "They look after us. And we look after each other, that is an important part--perhaps the most important part--of living in The Forest. So we can all be parents, we can all be children, and we can all be brothers and sisters."
Mjrn's picture

Haha, I have a similar thing

Haha, I have a similar thing going on. My Y save is for breeding Pokemon in my bank so that I can have a set team for my X game. Just finished a run doing that, and it was pretty fun.

I still wish we could store items, especially Mega Stones, on the bank. I hate having to hunt for them, and I hate that you can only really use most of them after you beat the main storyline. I usually restart after I complete the main story since there's not much else to do after that.
Account previously Mjrn, returned to Veedeer.
AlisonRobin's picture

I move all items to my

I move all items to my dedicated file and usually trade them away for pokemon or give them away at conventions to kids. Kids love free stuff. And I have two copies of the game so it's kind of my responsibility to be doing stuff.

I love playing through games with prebred pokemon. The current Y team is
Blue Angel the Togepi (F, Serene Grace, 31/x/31/31/31/31) Offensive Special Attacker
Daniel the Alakazam (M, Inner Focus, 31/x/31/31/31/31) Mega Special Attacker
Mad Jack the Honedge (M, No Guard, 31/31/31/x/31/31) Dedicated Team Ghost Sword
Joan the Quilladin (F, Bulletproof, 31/31/31/31/31/31) Defensive Fuck You Attacker
Hazelnut the Azumarill (F, Huge Power, 31/31/31/31/31/31) Offensive Murder Everything Attacker
aaaand Vagabond the HM Smeargle. She comes on every new playthrough so I never ever have to worry about having an HM slave. I like to imagine that she has a surfboard for surfing and a batman cape for flying. But no good IVs and I just tossed EVs into general defense since she never fights, only HMs.

I have some leftover abras, togepis, bulletproof chespins, and marills if you want with good IVs.

My partner and I also hated hunting for mega stones but I think it only took me a few days to get them all, and I was able to pick up a bunch of the TMs I had missed on the way. I think my favorite mega so far is shiny Garchomp--because I am convinced that it is colored that way as a big fuck you to all the people who think they are so macho with their shiny garchomps.
Pelicann's picture

Cian looked astounded, and

Cian looked astounded, and sat upright with wide eyes. "So you could be my sister?...Pali could be my sister?!" The boy looked utterly disgusted and frowned deeply at the thought.

((Sorry for short reply..My mind is totally gone today))
AlisonRobin's picture

"Not literally. Not

"Not literally. Not biologically. But, in the sense that we have to take care of each other and make sure that we are all safe and happy, then yes. It's a metaphor." La saw his discomfort, and interpreted it as a puppy crush on his friend. She had no interest in stifling his fawning affections.

(No worries. Sometimes short posts are better anyway, they say that brevity is the soul of wit.)
Pelicann's picture

He seemed a little calmer

He seemed a little calmer after given a better explanation. Now that he thought about it, it seemed to fit what he had always believed. If the Gods created everyone, then they were all like siblings. Cian smiled faintly. It was thoughts like these that made him feel less lonely and afraid. Suddenly, the fawn's smile faded, replaced by a curious 'o.' "Wait, what's a metaphor?" Cian inquired. This doe was just full of mysteries.
Mjrn's picture

Makes me wish I had two 3DS,

Makes me wish I had two 3DS, so that I could trade between my games. That's a no-go though, buying the 3DS I have now was a treat to myself.

I'm not big on EV/IVs at all, I just play with whatever I get. Number crunching and special breeding aren't for me, I can't be bothered with that stuff.

Nah, I'll pass, though I appreciate the offer. (:

I can't stand Garchomp in general, so he's dead last for me really. It's hard to pick a favourite Mega for me - Lucario, Absol, Mewtwo Y, and Houndoom are notable favourites though. Charizard X is pretty damn cool too.

That corgi race is precious, by the way. Which corgi was yours?
Account previously Mjrn, returned to Veedeer.
AlisonRobin's picture

@Pelicann "A metaphor is

@Pelicann

"A metaphor is when you describe something as something that it is not," La said with a crooked smile as she thought hard at how to explain it. "A creative lie, but a lie that you tell in order to help someone better understand the truth about something, or to make them see it a different way."

@Mjrn

If you need help trading stuff between games some time we can swap FCs and I can help you move items around. Right now I'm trying to relearn the names of all the moves because not all of them are direct translations. Superpower is "brute force" for instance. Otherwise it's a lot of fun in Spanish. I love the language and reading it a lot gives me a better idea about which expressions and grammars are more commonly used. It's also Spanish Spanish, which I know less about.

My corgi is the pale one who bolts for the top right of the basketball court, and then turns around and runs back to my father. She's almost the same color as the wood on the court so I had to watch the video a few times to identify her. My folks thought she'd like to meet other corgis since her favorite dog friend is a collie/basset hound mix that looks exactly like a giant corgi.
Pelicann's picture

Cian looked extremely

Cian looked extremely confused, but just shrugged it off and went back to looking up at the glowing symbols above their heads. "Have you been outside the Forest b'fore?"
AlisonRobin's picture

La nodded with such

La nodded with such enthusiasm that her ears flopped in the air at the sides. "I have. I went with a friend and we went to the human world."

She paused, and realized he might not have a concept of humans. "Humans were the people who made these ruins a long time ago. They have faces similar to ours, but they only walk on two legs."
Pelicann's picture

Cian scrunched up his face

Cian scrunched up his face with a displeased look. That sounds real creepy...things are s'posed to be on four legs. 'Cept birds an' fish. An' bugs with a bajillion hooves." The boy giggled childishly and rested on his flank. He liked listening to La talk. Her voice was soothing, and she made Cian feel calm. She was like a walking encyclopedia. "Can you tell me a story, La? 'Bout humans? What're they like? Are they nice?"
Hum's picture

Hello what feels like old

Hello what feels like old friend.

That sentence sounds better than it looks.

Actually it's kind of just poorly constructed in general.

God I love La's face. Your headcanons about the forest may have inspired some of my own, which I'll eventually shove somewhere other than the back of my mind and a Word document. Thank you for that.
AlisonRobin's picture

"Hmm," La mused at the

"Hmm," La mused at the challenge that she had been posed, and did her best to think of a story that could communicate the best in humanity.

"Well," she began after a moment, shifting the way she sat to show him her hooves, flexing them to spread them apart. "Humans walk on two legs because they have hands instead of hooves in the front. That's the biggest thing that makes them different from us. They used their hands to make tools, and then use the tools to make other things.

"They made buildings, like these ruins. Originally it was all covered up so you could go inside and never feel the rain or wind. They made buildings ten times that big. Because they could, and because they wanted to. They started off with wood and stone and mud, then started pulling metals out of stone to make stronger, better materials. Stronger than any hoof or antler.

"After a while they started making machines to speed up their work. A machine is an object that works, that does something, without a mind. Usually people control them. Imagine if you could go somewhere without having to walk--humans invented machines that could do that for them. I tell you these things so that I can give you more of a setting to tell you the story.

"There was a human man--a male, a stag as we say here in The Forest--named John Henry. This was more than a hundred years ago that he lived. He was a steel driver. His work was all about speed and strength. He used a hammer, a heavy piece of metal at the end of a stick, to push another piece of metal inside of a rock."

La paused, hoping to give Cian a moment to absorb what she had said. She had a hard time herself truly conceptualizing the amount of force necessary to do that. She tilted her head sideways and smiled at the fawn. "Do you think you could make holes in rocks all day when you're older?"
AlisonRobin's picture

And oh hai Hum :3 This is a

And oh hai Hum :3 This is a place where you don't have to worry too much about grammar construction, ironically. I know what you meant.

I'm glad my headcanons have been inspirational. I have a lot of them. I can't help it. When faced with ambiguity like in The Forest I am driven to supply my own make-believe fun.

Glad you like La's face too. I am pretty faceblind in real life (I use hair and voice to identify most people) and I can never imagine her face the same twice. I kinda like it that way.
Hum's picture

ohai Alison. I feel you. I'm

ohai Alison.

I feel you. I'm the same way. I jump between as grammatically proper as I can be and just straight ghetto chatspeak.

I think I've only ripped very slightly--or maybe I just always thought such things and seeing you put the thoughts into words inspired me to do the same--but if our thoughts are too similar, feel free to whap me. I know you won't, because it doesn't strike me as your style, but some of our thoughts are similar enough imo that I'd be more than happy to give credit. Obviously you'll see whenever the dang thing gets posted. (It'll be a "character center" of sorts, or whatever people here call those things. I think I'll be calling mine Nexus.)

I kind of am too imo, weird processing stuff. Silly brains! But yeah--for what it's worth, I've actually admired to myself how consistent you stay with her odd little cute face. So don't be hard on yourself. Either way, I just love her face, my goodness me.
AlisonRobin's picture

Thank you. I don't know what

Thank you. I don't know what I was thinking when I combined two difficult to draw things--hands and a face--for her design. What was I doing? Three-years-ago Alison was really not that smaaart.

Language-wise, I dunno. I feel really good about knowing proper grammar and spelling and I like to think I can write a damn fine essay but on forums when I am trying to write the way that I speak in real life, I just can't in good conscience use proper grammar. Like if I ask a question but don't want the tone to go up, gotta use a period instead of a question mark. And I love words like "gonna."

I cannot wait to see your headcanon. I will probably be linking to it from all of my pages that discuss my headcanons and perhaps yours will add to mine and we can build off each other... even if we end up with totally different ideas I can't see how there can possibly be any downside to having more options for imagination. I'm currently going back and doing a lot of editing on a page I made years ago about real life art/archeology and things that The Forest has in common with that. Hopefully I'll get my edits done by this year.
Hum's picture

Oh boy, do I feel you. They

Oh boy, do I feel you. They come in these odd sets of impossible things and you get just no choice in the matter. Silly characters, thinking they can just create themselves. And then doing so.

Oh I'm same. I'm just so same. I tend to leave some sentences without final punctuation when I'm trying to imply some sort of open-ness. Like "I love you" versus "I love you." Sometimes I like the finality and sometimes I like the freedom. I tend to type with the rules of poetry rather than grammar, in non-professional settings. That said, I do love me some well-written English.

I have, like, twenty... two? Axioms right now. I'm sure I'll have more, but I plan to slap them at the top of my Nexus post to give some broader definition to all characters which follow, some unification. I just think it's cool to see not only the characters, but the unique sphere of perspective in which they were created--their laws of physics, so to speak.

I believe in you, man.

P.S. Saw La today. Waved at my computer screen, though I'm pretty sure the message was not conveyed. Also I used La to get pelt enchantment spells once. I just kind of see you two around.
AlisonRobin's picture

La and I wander and then

La and I wander and then usually find a comfy spot and I have to leave my computer, so I just leave her in the forest sleeping so people can use her dreamstuffs to make pelt magic. Functionally it just means that she sleeps like a lion. And unless you have some crazy cool software for your computer I will not be receiving waves. Sad Would be cool if webcams could do that though, somehow.

My parents are pretty serious grammar/language people, one of them being an English language teacher and both of them being librarians (among other careers) and I have never found myself wanting for people who care a lot about proper grammar. I still pretty regularly break the rules when I write fiction, not just poetry (which isn't really my thing) trying to hold a rhythm or pace. I'm a fan of the overuse of conjunctions.

Calling them axioms makes you sound like Euclid or something. I can dig it.

Tracking ♥

Tracking ♥

Sig: Aihnna

AlisonRobin's picture

Welcome to the party!

Welcome to the party!
Pelicann's picture

Cian listen attentively to

Cian listen attentively to the story La told. He tried to envision the scenes in his head, closing his eyes so they acted as a screen. The first thing to appear before him was a tall, disfigured deer who stood on his hind legs. The boy had no idea what hands were, so he made them up in his head. Instead of hooves on the creature's front legs, the grotesque deer had a set of wriggly squid-like tentacles. Cian scrunched up his face, obviously disliking the description of humans he had envisioned.

The next image displayed before him was the ruins, except that they were new and full of creepy human-deer, which made Cian grimace a bit more. The young stag was unable to think of anything stronger than an antler...perhaps the stone on the Playground, but that was about it. He pictured ruins towering above the clouds, bringing an amazed smile to his face.

For the machine, he racked his brain to produce an image. Half of these words he had never even heard of before. It was all so foreign to him. A deformed stag held a rock in his tentacles and smashed against a boulder again and again. Cian opened his eyes and furrowed his brows. "That seems stupid!"
Hum's picture

-Replies even though it's

-Replies even though it's technically no longer necessary.-

Oh same. TEF: 5% activity, 95% sitting.

It's okay, we got this wave business down pat.

I can see how being raised in such a household might make one a bit more open to things. Oh man same at all though.

Euclid, Euclid... I'm not actually familiar with Euclid. (Googled him though!) O: I've just taken a handful of logic courses, and really appreciate the elegance of the logical layout. Thus, Axioms! It was, I don't actually know what to call it... It involved making formulas out of actual arguments to determine the validity of the argument. It was super great. I miss it.
AlisonRobin's picture

@Pelicann "It's very alien,"

@Pelicann

"It's very alien," La agreed. "And at first I had a very poor grasp of it myself. Humans were so strange to me that they became something that I needed to know more about, so I kept studying! But the thing about machines and inventions is that whoever you are, they can make life easier. But they aren't always better.

"That's where the story of John Henry comes in. The humans made a machine that could do his job of steel driving, and he wasn't happy about that. He didn't like the idea that a soulless object could possibly replace him, so he fought against it by racing it to prove that he was better than the machine." La hesitated. Her grasp of the story was solid enough, but as an outsider who knew it only from text and never from ballad and with only a very limited historical context of railroad worker exploitation and the American Civil war. "John Henry won the race. He made a tunnel through a mountain by himself. Can you imagine!? Here in The Forest, that is something that only gods can do. An he did it as a human with working tools. He put the machine to shame by making it seem so slow, but he also paid the price."

La's ears flopped as she released tension in the muscles that held them erect and they splayed out horizontally from the sides of her head. "He died when he finished making the tunnel, but he died a hero to all the humans who thought, like him, that a machine couldn't replace a person. They call him a hero even now for showing the machine who was boss," she added with a slight smile.


@Hum

Euclid! He was a Greek guy and is a big name in geometry. Chances are when you were in elementary school you learned his stuff. Whoosh. Personally I'm not that big of a fan of geometry outside of triangles but whatever.

Logic is fun. Formal logic more so. I like if p then q math A LOT.
Hum's picture

Oh, chill. I can dig it. I

Oh, chill. I can dig it. I did well in geometry, so I think it was my favourite high school math course.

Oh same. It was legit exactly that. Just a course on solving logical equations. Sometimes I miss it so much I want to relearn it just to solve more problems in it. I really wish I'd bought the textbook to that course. QAQ

I may have to just browse the Internet to relearn it though, now.

I was even making up arguments just to write equations for them and solve them. It's just so stupidly fun.

Hell, maybe I'll even email my old professor to ask if there's someplace else I can buy the book.

My love reigns strong.
OrinocoFlow's picture

oh yay

oh yay <3 I'm glad you're involved with my little egg <3
I was doing this character not only to connect with more people on tef but to connect others to new people as well Smiling I can't wait to see what happens!!
You do not have a soul. You ARE a soul. You have a body.
~ C.S. Lewis
AlisonRobin's picture

@Hum I call that recreational

@Hum
I call that recreational math and people always look at me weird when I use that phrase.

@Orin
Yesss. La likes strange things and has invested a great deal of curiosity into the egg already. She thinks that it might be a large species of bird but really has no idea. She'll be happy so long as things don't turn into Little Shop of Horrors.
OrinocoFlow's picture

haha no worries there XD I

haha no worries there XD I don't usually stick to creepy things very long. Mostly it'll be odd what comes out but cute too XD
You do not have a soul. You ARE a soul. You have a body.
~ C.S. Lewis
Pelicann's picture

Cian cocked his head and



Cian cocked his head and looked quite doubtful of La's last statement. "So what if a machine is better? If it made things better than that's good, isn't it?" The boy already was beginning to view humans in a negative way. Life was simple and good the way he had been living it, so why would humans make it more complicated by trying to change things?
AlisonRobin's picture

@Orin Awesome. La's fast

@Orin
Awesome. La's fast getting emotionally attached to the egg and will basically be trying to get everyone who walks past to join the egg incubating cuddle puddle with her.

@Pelicann (EEEE So cute! They look like they could be related because of their markings, you know?)

"Well in this case, the machine wasn't better. John Henry put it to shame. The story is about how humans want to make machines to make their lives easier, but the humans themselves will always be more valuable and better than the machines that they create." La had taken liberties in interpreting the tall tale. "Machines do make many lives easier for humans, but they can also complicate many other lives. In The Forest, we don't have to worry about those things, but in the human world, they do. And that's what makes them different from us."