#with the emancipationist tracklayers

[irrigos]

update on reading the man who was thursday: this is certainly illuminating when it comes to the calendar council in fallen london!!!! from what i can tell, gk chesterton has never met an anarchist, but he heard about them and got real scared and then made up a bunch of guys to justify why he got so scared. and then when they were making fl, early fbg i guess just went "yeah thats basically what theyre like, right?"

i mean, when our main character decides to join the fight against anarchism, its because he is told that, while most rank and file anarchists just believe it when theyre told that life will be better when we're all equal, their leaders know that that's actually impossible. "They are under no illusions to think that man upon this earth can ever be quite free of original sin and the struggle. And they mean death. When they say that mankind shall be free at last, they mean that mankind shall commit suicide."

so im guess we'll just put chestertons understanding of anarchism in the "maybe" pile.... because im not too sure about that one my guy......

anyway, this is just a little illuminating to me why the revolutionaries in fl never seem to have any real interests outside of causing violence and being righteously angry. as one may have assumed, its because they werent based on actual political movements at all, but by one catholic guys nightmare

#gk chesterton heard about anarchism and he got so scared he had to make up a bunch of guys to be mad at to justify why he got so scared #gilbert. my friend. this isnt what anarchists are like. these people are much too organized. #i think the calendar council stuff worked better in early FL when the tone was a lot more cynical #now they seem VERY out of place #but like. theyre not gonna remove or change them. so the only option was to create an entirely different revolutionary body #with the emancipationist tracklayers #aaaaaanyway. just some thoughts ive been having while reading #i know one of the twists in this book but there might be others that prove my read here wrong #also apparently they quoted this book several times in Deus Ex #ive never played it but my sister has and she told me about it #it makes sense to me that they would. since the premise of that game is basically #what if every conspiracy theory were true

[violant-apologia]

There is a vital part of Fallen London that the railway has recently given me a new lease on, so I'd like to talk about it for a bit. The topic in question is the colours of the chessboard: White, Black and Red.

In their purest form, these categories are the sides of the Great Game. White represents light, law and order, but also hierarchy and restriction. Black represents darkness, freedom and equality, but also chaos and uncertainty. Red represents... neither of those.

In the context of the Great Game, Red is typically just in it for itself, ideologically neutral. Many of the branches which require having a specific colour on the chessboard require White/Red or Black/Red – while the monochrome pair are doing the act because they believe in it, Red is just doing it as a means to an end.

The Great Game isn't the only place this trichotomy exists in Fallen London, though. Many choices can be linked back towards the trio:

Identified with a School is one of the most obvious: the light-loving Celestials, the avant-garde Nocturnals and the explicitly venal Bazaarines.

The sides of the Parabolan War: the Cats, the Fingerkings and the Chessboard.

The Youthful Naturalist's qualities (and their associated endings): Acceptance, Cunning and Malleability.

Even the BDR stats are loosely aligned: Respectable, Dreaded and Bizarre.

But the triplet that has fascinated me recently is that of the factions of the Tracklayer's Union: the Prehistoricists, the Liberationists and the Emancipationists. All three factions are revolutionarily-minded, but their diversity brings a lot more texture and depth to the dynamite faction than the exclusively liberation-focused view we've had previously. While this is definitely a good thing, and has helped me figure out more diverse opinions on the revolution for my characters, the thing I want to focus on is Emancipationism.

Similarly to many of the incarnations of the trichotomy, Red is a bit of an outlier. The Prehistoricist utopia is a perfected system which serves those it governs; the Liberationist utopia is one without a system at all.

The Emancipationist utopia is everyone getting fed.

This placement of Red as a sympathetic side, and a creator of current good, is very refreshing. The writing itself admires that thought, too. In a balanced city, while the other two factions plan for the future, the Emancipationists are doing tangible good in the here and now: making sure everyone survives to realise their grand plans. It keeps the fundamental core of red, its apartness from the ideological battle, and turns it to something kind. Red is not just the dilettantes playing the chessboard for profit (though it is, still, them,) but it is also those agents trying to do good, no matter which side it happens to serve. It is the artists who pursue beauty in whatever style strikes them in the moment. It is those who war for the sake of peace.

#oooooo what a long post #incredible work me #fallen london

[mourningcandles]

* knocks on your door * 🎨: how many ocs do you have?

I have... Well, it depends on how well-developed an OC must be in order to be an OC. I have one main guy (my Nemesis PC) and have a sort of cast of characters radiating outwards from them. Mostly housemates.

So... three? I mostly use three. Then there's three others. And two more after that. Somewhere between three and ten.

Idris Peters: Correspondent. Early 30s. Revolutionary. Believes in equal access to reality-bending power. Ought to be in the process of processing their grief after the death of their daughter, but they keep running from it by getting involved in other people's problems. Nonbinary. Quoiromantic, much to the frustration of Lilac and frankly anyone with a vested interest in love stories.

Bryan Donahue: Campaigner. Former tracklayer (emancipationist). Works moving crates around at Wolfstack Docks, which is trickier than it sounds when those crates are from Cotterell & Hathersage.. Enjoys life's small pleasures and believes in the power of friendship. Used the power of friendship and one "small" favour to get Peters to agree to join the board of the Great Hellbound Railway, a decision with wide-reaching political consequences.

Doyle Donahue: Enforcer, of a sort. Bryan's twin. Professional arsonist. Could be the evil twin if he could conjure a more specific ambition than lighting buildings on fire to bring about the Liberation of Night. More or less the stereotypical bomb-throwing anarchist, although on paper he works as a stable hand. He is actually good with horses. If you need a fire or a getaway driver, he's your man.

Eleanor Hext: Orphanage nurse. She was an artist's model, but an artist's affections can be fickle. Beauty itself can be fickle. She and her skills are the only thing she can rely upon. There is an air of respectability about her, but it is nothing of substance. There is a certain role being asked of her, she knows. She cannot drop the facade. She must wait until it is perfect, until it is real and Eleanor Hext is no more.

Mary Spurling: Orphanage nurse. Longshanks. Failed pickpocket. She was hired by a mark who caught her in the act, as a well-heeled orphanage director cannot relate much to an orphan fresh off the streets. She has everything she could ask for now, but sometimes, late at night, she wishes she could start over. Perhaps then she could find what she needed when it mattered the most.

Tristan is an urchin. He heard the thunder and ran to it. He heard the thunder and ran from it. He sold his work to Redemptions, but was not redeemed. He was given a contract with a Grieving Journalist, one who later offered him a home. He did not accept. Love, at times, is a frightening thing. It leaves its mark whether you want it to or not. Would he truly be loved? Or was he just being used to mend someone else's broken heart? He decided not to take the risk. Love is a frightening thing indeed.

[rubberymen]

oh yes these descriptions are not biased at all these are totally fair and accurate and not making weird implications

#first of all the emancipationist description is a lie???? unless all beings become tracklayers???????? #secondly. the cause of darkness i mean well yes but actually no #like how do they actually write it like that and think yes this is fair #but yeah this game has a rev bias /s

[peligin-eyed]

Think I might play around and make Ambrose’s railway board just a bunch of wacky academics. My current plan:

Jovial Contrarian, for the debate 

His Amused Lordship, for Dilmun Club ties

Dean of Xenotheology, for obvious reasons

Cornelius, because skeletons

September, for the literary critiques

January (though this will take a little while because she apparently takes 7 revolutionary favors and I am 24/25 on their renown and I’m gonna get the Language of Laces first)

#probably tentacled entrepreneur and/or gracious widow on an as-needed basis for debt relief #or if i want to expand my smuggling opportunities at some point #haven't resolved furnace's storyline yet so i'm unsure at this point if she'll be able to come back #so far i've been keeping the board relatively minimal but now i have more interesting character options open #been mostly supporting the prehistoricist and emancipationist tracklayers so far so i feel like this tracks #oc: the esoteric aesthete

[snippity]

[Image Description: A series of three black and white circular digital icons. The art style is minimalistic. The first image represents the Prehistoricist faction, and features a mammalian skull suspended by a chain, with flames surrounding it. The second image represents the Emancipationist faction, and shows a set of railway tracks leading to a town in an underground cavern. In the foreground is a hammer. The third image represents the Liberationist faction, and shows a bleeding sun circled by a broken chain on a black background. /end ID]

icons for tracklayer’s union factions

#fallen london #fallen london art #icon design #digital #graphic design is my passion.....

[jane-d-ankh-veos]

I’m not judging anyone who have chosen this option, but it feels really weird that the Hinterland City has "Anti-Liberationist" as a separate alignment. First, there’s already a "Prehistoricist-Emancipationist" combination for the exact same exclusion. Second, there are no "Anti-Prehistoricist" or "Anti-Emancipationist" options, which makes it oddly specific. (And actually it’s good that at least these two don’t exist, because I resent the very idea of denying any group of Tracklayers their housing simply because of their views. My character disliked and avoided the Prehistoricists due to their support of the Chain, but couldn’t even think of taking away their right to be a part of the Union and to get what they deserved with their work. It may be enjoyable to roleplay a fantasy villain who does imaginary things like manipulating people with distilled emotions, but offering a player to replicate the nastiest parts of real-world politics is... definitely not what this game needs, to put it mildly.) And third... by making this city, we’re committing a deliberate crime against the Great Chain, dabbling in Discordance and Red Science, and putting it in the Neath which itself is one big warehouse of secret sins of every kind. So it’s just hilariously ironic that someone will look at it all and think "yes, this is a perfect place to praise the Judgements".

#fallen london #faibetter games #the liberation of night #liberation of night

[violant-apologia]

having thoughts about the relationship between pilgrim's dawn and briar. spoilers for the end of the railway and for discordance stuff!

Okay, so, Pilgrim's Dawn is obviously a Discordance double city. Briar ended up with a Discordant clone, and turned it into a city. His ideology has shaped its inhabitants; his artistic style has shaped its streets. But the city has also shaped him in return.

A thing about Discordant doubles that I disagree with a lot of people on, or at least an idea that I haven't seen expressed, is the lack of an original. A few storylets have a "You're the original, of course. Of course." sort of thing going on, but that's just your character's thoughts on the matter. A PC and their double aren't just two people who used to be one, and they're certainly not one person and a "copy" of that person. They are two people and the same person, simultaneously. That's how I read it, at least.

Anyway, this is relevant because it doesn't stop being the case when one of them becomes a city. It's not a person and a city made of their clone; the city and the person are the same. They share a soul, in a way. One person and one city, one being together; and they change together, too. Artistic style, say; if you change yours, the city's can change in accordance.

In the case of Briar specifically, he was very anti-Revolutionary at the end of the Railway. One of the primary reasons he wanted to become the city was out of worry of it becoming a Revolutionary power. But you can't populate a city with Revolutionaries and hope the influence of the genius loci is able to convert them all to good little capitalists. It had its influence, of course (his staunch anti-Liberationist bias remains), but Pilgrims Dawn is still the Tracklayers' City, and developed a more appropriate ideology. Of course, this didn't just go one way. Briar is Pilgrim's Dawn – is a city populated by Emancipationists and Prehistoricists – and has in turn become accustomed to and even fond of the ideologies.

Even when Briar leaves the Neath with the Bazaar and the Masters, even as he drifts among the stars, he is a city beneath the crust of the Earth. That never, ever leaves him.

#wanted to write this down somewhere #i'll do something more interesting with it when i write the noman fic #promise #oc: briar #discordance spoilers #pilgrim's dawn