Kaiseaya

MaoMao and Jinshi are both intelligent in a lot of ways, including deductive reasoning. So one might expect their repeated misunderstandings or continued blindness toward certain revelations to feel contrived. But they never do, in part because of how brilliantly their characterization was established.

From the first installment, Maomao ponders how "knowing too much" could get her into trouble.

At first her main concern is her own literacy. The ability to read is not a skill most young women of her station possess, and would doubtlessly draw attention. Attention threatens her ability to lay low and wait out her service contract. So she keeps this skill hidden.

And indeed, her concerns are validated by the narrative, because she catches the attention of Jinshi and Gyokuyou—two of the highest authority figures of the rear palace—immediately upon employing her literacy in her effort to warn the concubines of the poisonous effects of the makeup.

This instantly alters the course of her life, a consequence that at first seems positive; after all, personal attendant to a concubine is certainly several steps above the average palace launderess. But these elevated steps bring more attention onto her, and it isn't long at all before the emperor himself is ordering her to perform medical miracles.

Knowledge is power. And as Maomao explains to Jinshi: it's not always about what someone will do with power; it's about what they can do.

So Maomao uses the powerlessness of her station as a shield, and hides behind it by pretending not to know things.

And the way she does this is interesting, in part because she is so good at deduction. Often it comes down to her simply choosing not to pursue a line of thinking, forcefully redirecting her attention elsewhere the moment she realizes that certain lines may connect to form a bigger picture than someone of her station should see.

Maomao is an apothecary. Effectively, throughout the story, she's an herbalist, pharmacist, chemist, physician, dietician, and forensic detective.

At the same time, her primary survival mechanism is avoidance. And this is established very early in her characterization, even before her actual titular passion.

When Maomao, solver of mysterious deaths, worker of medical miracles, foiler of assassination plots, repeatedly fails to connect the increasingly-obvious dots pointing to Jinshi's true identity, it doesn't feel contrived at all; because by the time those dots begin to come to light, the story has already established that it's firmly in-character for Maomao to simply refuse to pick up the pencil if she already knows what picture those dots will form. As long as she doesn't draw those connections herself, she can remain safe in denial.

The number of people willing to accept players who won't read the rules even though they come back week after week is bizarre - you wouldn't accept it for any other game, and RPGs are just a kind of game! If the rules of one game are 'too complex' just switch to a different game! If they claim they 'don't have time' - cancel one session. That 3 hour block is now dedicated game-learning time, and 3 hours is plenty. Easy.

See, "RPGs are [...] a kind of game" is where the disconnect lies. There's a large chunk of the present D&D fandom who don't think of tabletop RPGs as games; they think of them as performances being put on by the GM for the audience of the players, who – like any audience – are obliged only to be physically present. In this understanding, the "game-ness" of the activity is part of the performance – i.e., the GM is merely pretending to moderate a game with rules as an act of kayfabe; there's no point learning the rules because there aren't "really" rules to learn.

(Partly this is a product of folks coming to the hobby whose sole prior experience is with high-production-value podcasts, where the GM actually is an entertainer putting on a show for an audience, and often a professional actor to boot; partly it's a product of Hasbro attempting to market D&D as a zero-entry-barrier hobby by framing the GM not as a fellow player with special responsibilities, but as a volunteer service provider whose job is to facilitate other people playing D&D.)

収穫祭

2015年、長屋門公園。

an evil advisor by my side

a little bit of turmoil in my line