Laluzi
Posts: 456
12/4/2013
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Well, it's a question that's been asked many times before. It's probably one that Alexis bemusedly wonders every time he puts up new purely self-destructive content and watches a dedicated core of players trip over themselves to impale themselves upon it. It’s not a weak question. Seeking Mr Eaten’s Name is an arduously long quest that invites plenty of danger, requires heavy losses, and rewards nothing more than the player’s continued self-destruction. What exactly about this is so enticing?
So I figured I would make a thread. Seekers - why are you Seekers?
If multiple options on the poll above suit you, just pick the one that goes best. But even the best poll can only cover so much. What personally drove you to your damnation? In-character reasons? Personal reasons? Do you have a twisted sense of fun? Do you really like wells? Was it because all the cool kids were doing it?
For me, personally, there are a few reasons. Seeking the Name was the attention hook that got me to check out Fallen London to begin with, although that was hardly my introducer’s intent. Forbidden quests, madness, ominous names. Sure, why not? I waited a bit to build myself up before plunging into the well, eagerly sampling all the lore I could in the meantime. This, of course, only whetted my appetite.
Now that I know the story – well, it’s probably misguided as all hell, but I feel sorry for Mr Eaten. No matter how monstrous he’s become, the fact remains that he got screwed over, hard. What happened to him is not fully understood, but it was not quick, not painless, degrading, and in the end, failed to even put him out of his misery. I have to wonder what he was like, back when he was a Master under a certain Name. There’s no way to restore him, but if I can become the tool of his vengeance, I will do what I must.
The quest itself is wonderfully, wonderfully written. I dig through new text eagerly. Hungrily, perhaps. And there are plenty of times where I’ll do something, and then just stop and stare at the result text for a good minute or five, letting the gravitas of what I just did sink in. I’m only freshly Scarred, Stained, and Chained, but there were many points along that undertaking where I truly and viscerally felt for my character. That’s the gist of it, really – it makes me feel. Satisfaction and sadness are easy enough to stir in a reader, but… well, at risk of reusing a word so soon, Seeking the Name evokes things a lot more visceral. For me, it was a mix of horror, shock, excitement, and pity, all condensed into an incomprehensible ball of ‘whoa’.
I also love the idea of what Seeking does to the mind. It’s sort of like a disease – it starts off small, innocuous. An idea, a niggling thought. But the more you humor your obsession, the more it consumes you – twisting you from a curious citizen dabbling in forbidden knowledge to a hallucinating, ravenous, self-destructive shell of a person. You are consumed by your hunger, just as he was consumed – but not solely in the visceral way that Seekers tend to eat everything they can get their mouths on. The quest itself is a seething hunger for knowledge – one that grows more and more frantic and irrational as it progresses. A Seeker's insatiable need for sustenance is but a reflection of that.
So, yeah. In the end, there was no way I couldn’t take part in this. It hit me right in the interest. Plus, I have this lovely feeling of belonging. Like I’m in some sort of exclusive clique. An exclusive clique full of frothing madmen, but exclusive nonetheless.
My in-character reasons are a bit different. I am more or less lazily roleplaying an existing character, Alex Mercer, who in a nutshell is an inhuman and ridiculously powerful creature pretending to be human, and failing in some respects. He is kind of a dick and hates, above all else, being controlled. A la my headcanon, he took exception to one of the Masters over a perceived threat and tried to attack him, something which resulted in Mr Hearts driving him out of his mind with a particularly potent Correspondence sigil and walking off, tutting disapprovingly. Alex never really got over this, and he started Seeking on rumors of a dead Master, on hopes that he might discover just how they could be killed. But Seeking warps the mind, and inevitably the whys always take a backseat to the search itself. And when he learned more of what happened to Mr Eaten, it became a lot more personal, because many facets of what happened to Mr Eaten resonated with his own experiences – hunger, betrayal, losing everything that you were.
So… that’s my seven cents. What drives you all to Seek?
edited by Laluzi on 12/5/2013
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Feel free to ask if you need something! Uninterested in Trailing the Affluent Photographer.
Mercer - an enigmatic and brutal individual. Frightfully strong. Has even more frightful manners.
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streetfelineblue
Posts: 1459
12/5/2013
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I had a peculiar situation here - technically I' am at Seeking the Name 1, but I never took any action to further it (nor I have any intention to), nor I took any action to get Free of it.
OOC reason is that I have no interest in Seeking right now - I am a bit of a hoarder, and I am trying to avoid the death of my character too, so Seeking is unthinkable as of now. But I don't know if I'll ever be so bored or curious to actually desire to start Seeking anyway, so I want to keep a way open just in case ^^
IC, I'm starting to like this feeling of a persistent temptation that my character has to keep constantly in check. Adding it to the Devils courting him (to no avail), the Black Ribboner wanting him dead (Captain Vendrick; there is no reason, but he doesn't know that), and his fear of dreaming since he knew of the Fingerkings paired with a barely controlled Prisoner's Honey addiction, the result is a character like a point of calm amidst a storm, a cheerful, polite individual whose calm demeanor hides his constant strife to resist any kind of temptation - a besieged castle. I like that, especially because this aspect of him almost never actually surfaces - he's just too polite XD
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Twitter: @streetfelineblu
Blue's LiveJournal
Blue's Echo Bazaar profile
Blue's Night Circus diary
Link to Ocelot's Enigma Ambition hint page; PM for clarification. No direct solutions provided.
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Erik Vimes
Posts: 182
12/5/2013
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Seeking, eh? *He leans in conspiratorially, lowering his eyes and his voice.* I started innocent. A challenging quest, a foolhardy soul. But as I crept into the darkness, the name quietly yet surely seeped into my mind, my flesh, my soul. *He leans back, out of the candlelight.* There is no return now. The ultimate sacrifice is the only thing now that can end this masochistic suicide. The name... the name... the Eaten, the candles, the sacrifice... the sevens, oh god the sevens! They haunt my dreams! We must know the truth! we must appease the God-Eaters, we must examine, create, destroy, laugh and fall and weep into the well, we must burn and scream and relive- *He stops suddenly, dispelling his fervor.* Ahem. I simply must. There is no other option. The name beckons.
edited by Eric Vimes on 12/5/2013
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Eric~Vimes
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lady ciel
Posts: 2548
12/5/2013
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The dreams - mentions of the North; meeting a few NPC's who were Seekers and finally someone needing someone else to betray so that they could further the quest.
Ciel is a kind person, tries to help other people, hates injustice and basically hates secrets. She's not bothered about wealth or station, going mad or dying. She thought that she could go no further in The quest for the Name when progress seemed to be locked to those who would not steal from or stab other players but now there is a way to do so in a self destructive manner and she is really looking forward to seeing what happens next.
edited by reveurciel on 12/5/2013
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ciel
Sorry RL means I am not a very active player at the moment. No social actions unless you are prepared to wait and definitely no sparring or other mult-action things.
No Calling Cards or boxed cats please. Will take dupes on the affluent photographers. Other social invitations welcome. Parabolan Kittens usually available, send me an in-game social action saying you want one and I will get one to you as soon as possible.
storynexus name - reveurciel
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theodor_gylden
Posts: 117
12/22/2013
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dragonridingsorceress wrote:
You missed out 'Insatiable Curiosity'!
OOC, I DESPERATELY want to find out what all this Seeking stuff is about.
IC, I realised it wouldn't sit well with my Prime.
Hence, my alt: Seeker of Names, an individual of indistinct gender who is driven by a need to learn the True Names of all. (I would REALLY like to learn the Boatman's name, since I'll soon Die with Wounds >20)
That's why I did it, when I sought. My character greatly values knowledge for knowledge's sake, and it rankles him to see knowledge withheld. Education is, to his mind, only ever beneficial, and the idea that there are some things that are too dangerous to learn is one he's struggled to accept.
But he couldn't give up the friends he'd made or the home he built for the cold satisfaction of knowing-what, and so he withdrew from the search.
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Journal: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/echo_theodor
Annotations & Epistles: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/
Storylet: http://theodor-gylden.dreamwidth.org/11160.html
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dov
Posts: 2580
12/4/2013
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Well, I started Seeking because it sounded interesting and I didn't want to ignore a significant piece of FL lore.
I've continued Seeking (with all the cost to my character that came with it) for two reasons:
1. I've pretty much hit the current content boundary. I don't think there's much of the (non-Fate locked) story that I haven't experienced, with the sole exception of the Foreign Office, since it's out of character for my character to get banished from the court. (I'd love to experience the FO if getting banished would become something reversible.)
2. The SMEN content is so engaging and well written, that for me it's almost on par with the rest of the FL content combined.
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 Want a sip of Hesperidean Cider? Send me a request in-game. Here's an_ocelot's guide how.
(Most social actions are welcome. Please no requests to Loiter Suspiciously and no investigations of the Affluent Photographer)
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Laluzi
Posts: 456
12/5/2013
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That is how it begins...
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Feel free to ask if you need something! Uninterested in Trailing the Affluent Photographer.
Mercer - an enigmatic and brutal individual. Frightfully strong. Has even more frightful manners.
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Misbiopy
Posts: 9
12/5/2013
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I'm just so hungry. So very very hungry. Can anyone spare a bite to eat?
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mayexist
Posts: 132
12/5/2013
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Well, I just bought a book because the author told me "F*** you, buy my book", so I guess I'm embarrassingly susceptible to reverse psychology. In addition to that I've been treating Fallen London more as a book than a role-playing game, and it would feel wrong to leave a chapter unread, especially now that I've lost so much. It would feel doubly pointless to quit, since my sacrifices would have been for nothing.
George Mallory, whose own Search actually killed him, verbalized my feelings on why I started Seeking: Because it's there.
edited by mayexist on 2/14/2014
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Playersideblog
Posts: 397
12/5/2013
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Blast you all. I should not be reading this thread. It plants such a seed of curiosity in my mind...
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My profile
I am now a Correspondent, and no longer able to accept invitations as an Author. (Or so I believe.)
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Allanon Kisigar
Posts: 164
12/5/2013
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There was a little bit of "The games telling me not to and that terrible things will happen to me. Let's find out what!"
Both in an out of character, however, the prime driving force is a measure of absolutely insatiable curiosity to KNOW INTERESTING STUFF, and the more hidden, forbidden, and secret that knowledge is, the more alluring it is to that curiosity.
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A Gentleman of distinct and peculiar interests.
Invites for social actions are most welcome, except for Boxed Cats, SMEN, and Affluent Photographer
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insularis
Posts: 13
12/5/2013
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Out of character, it's because, and I know this has been repeated ad infinitum, it's the best writing in the game, bar probably nothing. And, once you get far enough into it, if you look closely enough, SMEN has wrapped itself around many seemingly disparate parts of Fallen London lore.
In character, I'm playing the standard reckless scholar who must know the answer, no matter the cost.
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Insularis
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Elene
Posts: 184
12/22/2013
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For my main, Elene: She is a person driven by an iron and unshakeable will. Her goal is to push the utmost limits of her capacity, to push to the utmost the boundaries of humanity so that she can prove her worth to herself (she's the discarded bastard child of a royal family). Although she is generally a nice and reasonable person on other matters, when it comes to her ambition she is ruthless and unyielding. She's willing to do anything, from gambling her own soul (the marvelous) to betraying her dockside friends for some favor with the masters, all in pursuit of her singular goal. As such she has no interest in mad and fruitless chases after self destructive knowledge.
Outside of my main, however, seeking has a secretive and deadly allure. Thus my alt, greycolors, will go seeking once it gets to that point. After all, it doesn't care about itself as long as it gets its revenge (nemesis).
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Elene: Generally open for invitations. No cats or Photographers though.
May or may not actually be Mr Wines.
Associates: Grey Colors, Elene2
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