siren's curse discussion

(context: discussing Lilac's ability to shapeshift)

[6:51 PM] Leafia_Barrett: for the record Serenade doesn't know how the magic works well enough to really instruct Lilac on how to do anything with it, she kinda phoned in a favor from the Leviathan to get the details hammered out
[6:53 PM] Leafia_Barrett: during the aftermath of Amande's death, when Lilac goes to see the Siren, her first actual spoken dialogue would be (well first off it would be "I am so sorry, this is not how this was supposed to happen")
[6:53 PM] Kiri: I will be honest and say out loud that I'm not entirely sure how much I really like the idea...?
[6:53 PM] Kiri: like, not to say it's bad, I'm just not certain what all it would add so late
[6:54 PM] Kiri: that said, go on
[6:54 PM] Kiri: you're not done talking even
[6:55 PM] Leafia_Barrett: "I'm sorry, this is out of my hands now, you have to figure out how to work the tools from here"
[6:55 PM] Leafia_Barrett: better worded, of course
[6:56 PM] Leafia_Barrett: like she is fully aware that she fucked up pretty spectacularly
[6:57 PM] Leafia_Barrett: "oh. that's why gods don't poke at things on a whim."
[6:59 PM] Kiri: is this maybe like... a thing the Siren has been known to do
[6:59 PM] Kiri: like maybe this is a weird local legend about the 'Siren's Curse'
[6:59 PM] Kiri: and Lilac's just the first person to figure out what it actually is
[6:59 PM] Kiri: because I mean i imagine the Siren's wanted out of this mess for a long time
[7:02 PM] Leafia_Barrett: it's also been a long time since she's been able to have peaceful contact with another sapient being
[7:02 PM] Leafia_Barrett: anybody who knew what the Siren was would either know enough to leave well enough alone or only know enough to know that she's dangerous (see: Crow)
[7:02 PM] Kiri: Siren keeps trying to turn people's anatomy into liquid
[7:03 PM] Kiri: it's extremely particular but it's kinda 'what she can do to help make you stronger'
[7:07 PM] Leafia_Barrett: that's... yeah that could be a thing
[7:10 PM] Kiri: the whole thing just kinda strikes me as like... a little random, I guess
[7:11 PM] Leafia_Barrett: the weakness of my plotting style - if something doesn't end up making sense, I don't really know how to fix it properly
[7:11 PM] Leafia_Barrett: if I even realize it doesn't make much sense at all
[7:12 PM] Kiri: hence why I'm trying to run it back as something that kinda... serves the story more
[7:12 PM] Leafia_Barrett: yeah
[7:12 PM] Leafia_Barrett: you're a lot better at actual coherent plot than I am
[7:13 PM] Kiri: like, don't get me wrong, I don't hate it or anything
[7:13 PM] Leafia_Barrett: I throw things at the wall and see what sticks
[7:13 PM] Kiri: it's just... a little odd both in terms of like
[7:13 PM] Leafia_Barrett: sometimes it works, like Gaia
[7:13 PM] Leafia_Barrett: sometimes it doesn't
[7:14 PM] Kiri: it happens really late and is kinda strongly tangential to anything majorly important or tangible
and also as 'an ability the gunner gets'
[7:14 PM] Kiri: like, that on Red would be unbelievably powerful
[7:14 PM] Kiri: on Lilac it's just a layer of life insurance
[7:14 PM] Kiri: y'know?
[7:14 PM] Leafia_Barrett: you're not wrong at all
[7:15 PM] Leafia_Barrett: at the very least I can offer a plausible explanation for why the Siren would pick Lilac
[7:16 PM] Leafia_Barrett: despite knowing who and what the Siren was, despite having had a close call with the Leviathan and having almost lost a friend to it, despite being raised to have a healthy respect for the Marine Depths
[7:17 PM] Leafia_Barrett: Lilac still had the courage to (even if out of necessity) walk up to and try to reason with the Siren, with no guarantee that it wouldn't backfire
[7:18 PM] Leafia_Barrett: though this raises questions in and of itself, such as "how did the group manage to get into the Marine Depths earlier on if the Leviathan and Siren were in charge of guarding it"
[7:19 PM] Kiri: it's probably because I watched Made in Abyss recently but I do like the idea of it just being a 'curse' the siren does sometimes
[7:19 PM] Kiri: moreso than the leviathan, whose awakening was like, a massive shock
[7:19 PM] Kiri: that's the reason people don't go down there
[7:19 PM] Kiri: because if they come back, they're not people anymore
[7:22 PM] Leafia_Barrett: this doesn't solve the question of how the group went down into the depths and gathered materials safely
[7:23 PM] Leafia_Barrett: it's also worth noting that the Siren actually wanting to be friendly was itself spawned by a multiplayer glitch
[7:23 PM] Leafia_Barrett: in which the passive Siren's AI didn't quite act as expected and instead of sitting still, she seemed to inherit another creature's movement AI, namely the hostile fish like piranhas
[7:23 PM] Kiri: I mean maybe they didn't
[7:23 PM] Kiri: maybe they just. skirted the entrance.
[7:24 PM] Kiri: Lilac was the one who wandered a little too deep in because she got distracted by music underwater
[7:24 PM] Kiri: if anyone's gonna fall for that it's her
[7:25 PM] Leafia_Barrett: except since she has no hitbox, all this resulted in was her trying very persistently to hug me when I went in to mine out marine rock
[7:26 PM] Leafia_Barrett: the notes mention Lilac being concerned that she's going to accidentally hit the Siren while trying to mine because the Siren's staying so close to her
[7:26 PM] Leafia_Barrett: in-game, I did accidentally hit her a few times with my pickaxe
[7:28 PM] Leafia_Barrett: this entire series of events wouldn't have happened if the Siren didn't feel like being affectionate that day
[7:28 PM] Leafia_Barrett: the fact that this happened immediately after the passive Siren's graphic was updated to be a mermaid-shaped fish lady instead of a head on a stem may or may not have played into this
[7:29 PM] Kiri: yeah
[7:29 PM] Kiri: you've told me plenty about all of this
[7:30 PM] Leafia_Barrett: it does explain why the whole sequence has resulted in a few plotholes
[7:31 PM] Leafia_Barrett: that and I suffer from a severe case of "wouldn't it be cool if" syndrome
[7:31 PM] Kiri: dude, it's fine
[7:31 PM] Kiri: you don't need to like... justify it, I know where you're coming from and all
[7:31 PM] Kiri: I just figured it might help to bring up grievances rather than sit on them, y'know?
[7:32 PM] Kiri: hugs
[7:32 PM] Leafia_Barrett: hugs
[7:33 PM] Leafia_Barrett: we do have to get all of this sorted out before it becomes an issue during actual writing
[7:39 PM] Kiri: I don't know how much I broke your heart with that, I don't know if that's an idea you got super attached to or anything
[7:42 PM] Leafia_Barrett: I was only attached insofar as "it was how I managed to make things make sense in my head"
[7:42 PM] Leafia_Barrett: I kinda stuck us in a corner a little bit by making a playable Serenade
[7:43 PM] Kiri: like, I mean. Serenade as a whole is inoffensive, even if a bit extraneous
[7:43 PM] Kiri: I mostly meant like, the whole thing with the body-shaping
[7:43 PM] Leafia_Barrett: ah
[7:43 PM] Kiri: was kind of a bit 'okay I guess, what does this add'
[7:43 PM] Leafia_Barrett: that was mostly on the spot, so
[7:44 PM] Leafia_Barrett: brb, cookies
[7:44 PM] Kiri: it reminded me of like. when Brendan writes about getting gear very precisely to the game
[7:44 PM] Kiri: 'getting stuff' isn't really the cool part of a story, it's how that stuff might change pre-existing dynamics