@Eruantien
[minor] The actual age of the universe is reported to be only about 13.7 billion years old, which is why I made Key's age slightly larger. All Harbingers should be the same age. Is there a specific reason you have 15 billion here?
I didn't say anything when I saw the age on Shinku's CS because I wasn't sure how strict you wanted to be about the whole age-of-the-universe thing.
And I guess there's room to argue that some beings might have existed for longer than the scientifically estimated age of the universe. But, I do think you're well within your rights as ambassador to request that they're all the same age if that's what you think should be the case.
[minor] In my own head, I'm not really sure what the point of a Harbinger's mundane form having "sex appeal" is. Is it to lessen the fear of death?
If a Harbinger can choose what they look like then I don't see why they can't just look like… whatever they want to. I don't think they need a functional purpose behind their looks.
Besides, some could argue that Key is rather conventionally attractive, even if you didn't specifically use the word "sexy" in your CS. What's the purpose of Key's sex appeal, then? :P
[MAJOR] She thinks it's a waste of time to be stressed? Surely, since there's a shockingly large number of suicides each year and potentially millions throughout history, a Harbinger would be able to say something other than "you should be happy with what you're given". Perhaps they could bring some wisdom into the equation, try and comfort the reaped.
This just seems like an irrelevant criticism of the personality…
[minor] Harbingers naturally have no form, but can choose any they are partial to. Is there a reason Azrael should get embarrassed over an incident like this? It's not as if her body is the one she's stuck with forever. This leads into my next point…
I'll be honest, this
also didn't make a ton of sense to me when I read the CS. And it seemed kind of out-of-nowhere. o_O
BUT I didn't say anything because I just don't see it as my job to critique people's writing in that way.
Harbingers realistically should have no reason to feel basic emotions like embarrassment, lust, envy, etc. It's just not part of their nature. They're as old as the universe and have acquired a lot of practical knowledge and compassion over the ages. They don't have conflict in Valhalla; it's a place of rest. Perhaps I never made that quite clear in the original race sheet, but I'm clarifying it now.
Emotions are hard to write about, probably because I still don't completely understand them myself. Still, I think we can agree that feeling "joy" or "sadness" is different from feeling the so-called basic emotions I listed above. THESE are the feelings that I will allow a Harbinger to show, but nothing less focused.
I have a lot of mixed feelings about this.
Firstly, if you say that Harbingers don't have emotions, then, that's your decision. And deciding whether or not they have emotions
is an important lore thing that does need to be addressed.
BUT saying that they
shouldn't have emotions just because they live for a long time is the part that doesn't make sense to me. Because… yeah, emotions are irrational, but you don't
lose your emotions just from living and gaining practical experience. That's true among humans, as well. And although one could argue that we humans can become
better at controlling our emotions as we age and mature, but that doesn't mean we stop
feeling them.
Soooo if you don't want Harbingers to have emotions then that's all fine and good. But there's a difference between "Harbingers don't feel emotions, period" and "Harbingers don't feel emotions because of their 'practical knowledge'". The latter implies that they theoretically
would feel emotions if not for this "practical knowledge", and I don't see how having that knowledge prevents them from feeling emotions
anyway.
Secondly, I'm
really confused by the dichotomy between embarrassment/lust/envy and joy/sadness. You described the former bunch as being "basic" emotions, but, I think the latter two are generally considered to be more basic than the former… And if you want to say that Harbingers don't feel
specific emotions but they still feel
other ones, then, that's fine too — but like… A) there's still the initial issue of "living for a long time and not having a
reason to feel emotions doesn't stop emotions from happening", and B) you could pick a less-confusing way to explain which emotions Harbingers can have and which ones they can't…
[MAJOR] After reading this several times, I see where you're going here. She's trying to make death seem friendly... I would ask, any comment on why this could be a bad idea? "Hey, everyone, there's no reason to be afraid of dying! It's actually not that bad!"
Because it is intrinsically the end of one's life. No more adventures, no more personal growth, no more chances to have fulfilling experiences. And, such an attitude opens up the "easy way out".
I have
numerous problems with this.
Firstly, as I already said — I don't think Shinku was trying to say that Azrael is trying to make
death less frightening. Just that Azrael wants to make
Harbingers less frightening, despite their job.
Secondly, I think it's a bit of a leap to say that telling people not to fear death would make people suicidal… First of all, the fear of death is a human instinct, so, I don't think there's much that even a Harbinger could do to make everyone
so ok with death that they would actually
want to die — but I think a Harbinger could at least ease the minds of people who are
already dying, or just people who are excessively worried about death in general, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
If anything, I think the only demographic that would be affected in the way that you're implying are people who are already suicidal. But even then… mehh….
And
thirdly — even if Azrael's actions
would encourage more people to commit suicide… so what? Why
can't we have a character whose attempts at giving people a positive perspective on death might potentially push an already-suicidal person over the edge?
Like, need I remind you — I have a character who
eats people.
Shinku could make a character who
unambiguously encourages suicide and I'd be a-ok with that, because there's no reason to not allow that in a character. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
[MAJOR] Yeeeahhh... I do hate to break it to you, but Harbingers don't really have that kind of power, "ripping off cancer". They can at times bend the rules, give final gifts, or make small exceptions or extensions on time, but control over life isn't part of their allotted powers. Sorry. They don't control fate, although they can twist it here and there. In the end, everybody has to reach their destiny.
You're well within your rights to say no to that, though. I had a feeling you wouldn't allow it, anyway.
I'm going to bypass the rest of this, since it doesn't apply anymore. I will say that a suspension of sorts might be a good idea, in the future, for Harbingers who don't reap. However, according to my own lore, there should be no reason this should ever happen, because there's no point to it. Harbingers understand the circumstances of one's death and respond to them appropriately.
I know this has mainly already been addressed, but — I see no reason why Harbingers can't have different personalities from one another.
[minor] Makes for good RP perhaps, but I'd think that an entity that's billions of years old would probably have everything under control by now.
I agree that Azrael not being able to control her powers doesn't make a ton of sense at her age,
unless she has some sort of condition that's preventing her from using some of her powers correctly.
Like — no amount of experience will allow someone with chronic tremors to fully stop their hands from shaking, for example.
[MAJOR] Again, emotions. Why should a Harbinger take offense at words? They're a supernatural race, whose domain is death, and having dealt with death in so many fashions across so many years, they should be able to understand why certain people react the way they do, and help them come to terms with it.
I
do agree that a Harbinger being so offended by negative comments about death
is a bit weird — since I'm pretty sure
most of the comments about death that they'd hear from their victims would be negative. And it seems strange to me that a Harbinger wouldn't be used to it by this point.
[MAJOR] A pact was made with a Harbinger? So, basically, the warrior's soul now lives on inside the scythe? I can't help but feel there's a deity or seven who wouldn't be completely happy with a Harbinger retaining someone who should have ended up in their domain, perhaps.
Eh. Depends on the deity.
And since we don't know of any
specific deities who would go out of their way to do anything about it… I think it's doable.
If anything, I would've thought that the
other Harbingers would be the ones to take issue with this sort of thing happening. And it would've been perfectly reasonable for you to say no to this for
that reason, if that were the case…
