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Option 3 and Option 3
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Jan 18, 2024 03:42
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Option 9 (twice)
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Jan 18, 2024 03:46
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Option 4, Option 9
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Jan 18, 2024 04:34
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Option 8 & Option 9
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Jan 18, 2024 05:05
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Option 8 and... Option 8!
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Jan 18, 2024 05:15
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3 and 8
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Jan 18, 2024 05:16
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Option 11 All the rivers come together to form a greater mountain, it's perfect
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Jan 18, 2024 05:22
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Option 3 and Option 6
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Jan 18, 2024 05:26
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Option 9 and Option 9
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Jan 18, 2024 05:26
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8 and 8
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Jan 18, 2024 05:48
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4 and 10
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Jan 18, 2024 06:19
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Double Option 9.
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Jan 18, 2024 06:43
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3 and 8
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Jan 18, 2024 08:09
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8 and 11 A nod to the mountain.
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Jan 18, 2024 08:26
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8 and 9
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Jan 18, 2024 10:28
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Option 6 and Option 8 both look good to me.
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Jan 18, 2024 14:24
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at the risk of being biased, Option 8 twice is my vote
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Jan 18, 2024 15:54
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Option 6 and Option 8.
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Jan 18, 2024 18:15
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99
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Jan 18, 2024 23:31
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I appreciate the votes for my poorly colored flag and only lament my lack of skills in photoshop in making the colors better and maybe adding the knot where the colors meet.
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Jan 19, 2024 01:17
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Double 9
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Jan 19, 2024 03:42
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 I will close the poll in about eight hours
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Jan 20, 2024 18:11
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Option 4 and Option 9.
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Jan 20, 2024 18:21
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Double 9
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Jan 20, 2024 21:40
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Changing my vote from 3 and 8 to 8 and 8
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Jan 20, 2024 22:38
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Pacho posted:Changing my vote from 3 and 8 to 8 and 8 I will also be doing this. Double vote for 8.
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Jan 21, 2024 00:23
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The vote is closed. Option 8 is our winner!  Option 9 was our second-place choice.  Thank you all for voting, thank you all for contributing flags, and congratulations to Zanni for making the winner!
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Jan 21, 2024 02:00
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I am starting a radical faction to change the flag away from the boring vertical stripes. You will rue the day, Eighters!
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Jan 21, 2024 02:20
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Pacho fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Mar 15, 2024 |
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Jan 21, 2024 04:20
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Jan 21, 2024 04:23
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Jan 21, 2024 14:44
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Jan 21, 2024 18:03
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Jan 21, 2024 18:06
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Hail the seven rivers! Hail the glorious republic! Hail the smooth oval!
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Jan 21, 2024 18:07
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Jan 21, 2024 18:30
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Jan 21, 2024 19:24
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Jan 22, 2024 05:17
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Jan 22, 2024 07:09
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INTERLUDE: 1860 You make your way further inward. Past a heavy door, down and down a staircase, past some lightless corridors. Foul water pools in the dip and warp of the floors. As you walk through each corridor or every hall, you have the awful sensation that this place feels larger than it is. Looking at it from the outside, it might take a couple minutes to traverse it on foot, but you have been walking for far longer than that. The light is greater in here now - broader than what your lantern can provide, enough for the lieutenant to check her pocketwatch. (Majapahit; they send over marvelous things.) After so many chapels and sleeping quarters you find a great hall; multistoried, with eaves and patterned columns, gilded statuary and-  Purgyal Sunitidevi, your charge, who has clearly escaped the rest of your group and wandered into this building, faces the statues alone, sitting on an empty mat. You shush your companion. The empress doesn't see you, or if she does, she does not react to you. You tell the lieutenant, "Let her finish her business. Then we bring her back." She is speaking to them. She approaches the center of the pantheon and plants herself there.  "You really are something else, you know that? I don't know if you're all going to lament all this misfortune or mock me for being so stupid as to be a cause of it. It is not like you to make such mistakes."You wait in silence, peering behind a column. She stands. "This is for my mother and all my aunties and grandparents, yes? Which I know are some doing the work or the disguise of one of you or another. For the lot of - I am not going to do you the disrespect of lying to you and pretending." She crosses her arms and paces back and forth. "Look - I did what you all asked. What I thought had to be done. We all know how the nature of things was before." "We know how bad things had to become. We know how feckless the last man in charge had become. He had been Sikyong almost as long as I have been alive, and all he had done was enrich himself and nail his own hands to the desk. They had to drag his body out... I would not be surprised if somebody poisoned him in office, and I can understand their reasoning. The Republic was just making its death rattles, they said. It couldn't go on like this. No dynasty lasts forever, they say. There is the Chinese proverb of losing it all in three generations, but the Purgyals took a bit longer." "Wangyal of course, was he too your instrument? Was he deluded? What did you all tell him? A fool can serve as a moral instruction as well as any empress. He talked me into it. Promises of leadership and power and all that the world could offer. A state as great as Lasya the Holy, Lasya the Griffon, Lasya the... He even promised to find me a wife as kind and as great as Pakmodru Tse. Talking about the glory of the past, where he was just telling his stories. He talked to my mother, who gave me up like it was-" "I didn't really believe him that much, you know. All he ever did was talk, so we thought he could only talk. Not everyone anticipated the war - he was so drat stupid. And as was I for letting him go on. All talk, all promises. But they were convincing ones." "But I always thought it would all work out, I could shut him out, reasonable people could come in, and then I could try and fix things... get it right. The early republic, or, excuse me for daring to say so, some of the days of the empire. Bring reform. Maybe in the early days where Gyalyum the Benevolent could conjure up gold dust or cut down a hundred warriors with a single blow or something. But it's only been - only ever been worse. Fuckers wouldn't listen to me." "Clearly I have missed one test. If I had the nerve - if I said something - cut his throat during a meeting, I would have saved us a lot of trouble." "So now he can go rot. Well- wait. Maybe in death he can make a good- alms to the mountains. The griffons will have him." Her voice softens - proposing even this man gets a decent treatment after death. "But look. I-" "At least I'd like to see Lhasa. You will grant me that, at least? Really see it, if only once. That's the first request." "And then, if things in Lhasa go my way. If you require some other empress to die, either in battle or on the chopping block, then you'll get one. You fuckers are going to get one. The trial, which I know they'll do. I'll drag the rest of you all through the dirt if I must. But if I make it past this - I'll take this as a sign..." "No. I renounce you. I will do it. I deny you all. I speak this to you with lime and sulfur. Your iron swords are soft as butter to me. Your armies are now dead and your sun will rise without you. Your time is over. Do what you want. But I will be rid of you, all your invisible eyes on my every move. I stick my hairpin in their eyes. As a wandering ghost I will flee from you. I will go - get away from this. I will move to the grassless ruins of the top of the earth. Give it all up. Whatever. Get out of this. They are not going to make me a sacrifice."She slams her fist down on a table, a sharp rapping echoes past you, and turns to make her leave.
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Jan 23, 2024 06:54
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 10:19 |
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May XX, 1860 A Knuckle-Slammer stands outside the office of the Sikyong of the Republic. With the dignity of her face paint and lamellar armor in the style of a warrior ten centuries before, she has the dignity of history written on her face. One of the few institutions that has continued from Empire to First Republic to Second Empire to Second Republic and now Seven Rivers Republic. Though these days they are less 'elite infantry' and more ceremonial guard around Lhasa and other historical sites.  Art by Pachito Purgyal Sunitidevi, 'Empress' of TIbet Purgyal Sunitidevi, former empress, looks at the sword in scabbard tied to the guard's belt. She is seized by the sudden want - if she could grab it before anyone could stop her. Instead, she restrains herself, opens her mouth dumbly. This is a new thing over the past few weeks; not sitting on an elevated platform and silently receiving tributes from whatever poor peasants the aristocrats dragged in front of her.  Could I see... your magazine. Anything good in it?Oh no. She said that wrong. Wait, no - The handsome Knuckle-Slammer lifts it up so she can see the cover. Huang's Monthly Pictoral magazine, with a cover illustration about the A'erbei Mountains and a story about the mysterious and accomplished warriors who reside there. "Pretty good. If you want it, I'll give you the copy when I'm done." Yes, that is very kind, thank you.That was not so difficult, she thinks. She can talk to people. This is a skill that can be learned. But no- she is distracting herself. She lets out a long sigh, and then raps on the door.  Sangita Chautirya, Sikyong of the Seven Rivers Republic  The door opens!She enters. The office is organized chaos: neat stacks of paperwork, piles of legal books in their carved covers with the label flaps all still in place. A silver-plate photograph on the wall. The young empress clasps her hands and bows deeply - the head of the Republic mutters a "Yes, thank you."  The view is pleasant from here. You can see the peak Potala, of course. And there is the pyramid. This is my first time seeing them both this close. I've only seen photographs and paintings. She looks out the window for some time, almost a minute, before sitting. I have to admit my interest. There are so few kings and empresses left in this part of the world. Is it true that you've said that you detest your state in life and you would do anything to leave? ... No surprise you've heard that already. I cannot recall what I said exactly, but it sounds like something I would have said. I thought for the longest time that it was something I had to do, and that I did not need to ask permission from anybody. You seem miserable about it. Well, for the longest time, I thought I had a single mission, a reason that I was alive on this earth. You have to tell a story to people, to make them follow you in these things. And that there was only one way. Including making a deal with Wangyal? That was the greatest mistake of my life. Despite what you may have thought of him as a military leader- Hah! He was good at telling people what they wanted to hear. And now he shall never deceive anyone again. I got a message over the telegraph wire today, by the way. His body was burned and his ashes were shot out of a cannon, that he would not have peace in any life. Already? I would have preferred to have put him on trial. We have a system of laws and we have to set a good standard for other people, even if the outcome were to be the same. But a couple of pardons will need to be issued. We will have to decide who gets to do that too, me or a vote of the cabinet ministries... We have to set the world in a perfect order. He made me miserable, even when otherwise I should have thought life was a living dream. To be on top of the world and in a position to change things- Think upon your good fortune and marvel how many would dare to be you. There are too many dead and ruined to think too long about that- I am aware that I am only the luckiest of the deceived. I could well lose everything, as well. She pauses, fiddling with her pen. If you were permitted to stay here, as a citizen of a Republic. Without the name or position of royalty. Would you? [immediately] Of course. What would kind of head of state would I be if I got in the way of the livelihood of the people? We all know what a republic is supposed to be. She laughs, either with relief or tension.The Sikyong pauses. She does not light her pipe but her teeth only clatter on the iron and yak horn, thinking over what she has just heard. Sunitidevi winces at the noise but she doesn't say anything. I did not expect that to be your answer. I must believe this. Why is that?  Well this isn't some palace coup we are talking about. Where one emperor is overthrown and replaced by another; we are talking about the end of one system entirely. Like Gyalyum the Benevolent ending the Era of Fragmentation... We would have been swept to the winds and the four directions and then where would we be. Do you believe that, really, or are you just repeating things to try and flatter me? I do believe that. I had wanted reform ever since the beginning - though instead they would have kept me up on some platform and just as a ... object to receive gifts and prayers, but I find ways to learn things. You look rather worried in talking about this. Speaking truthfully is the best option, even if you don't know how it ends. You don't feel any regret at all? I don't know. I've been only one thing and now I have to figure out what to do after that. I don't know what to think. If you'd rather do anything else. She pauses. If you get the opportunity, what would you do? I'd like to work with trains. ... What? I'd like to work with trains. I've been on them a couple times, though not on the trip here. I saw the Lhasa-Lhoka line, of course... and I'd like to see where that may go. She stands up, crosses her arms, and can't bear to look at the Sikyong anymore. Her gaze turns to the artifacts on the wall, and in particular a knife with a warped handle and only tinged with rust from centuries in dry conditions.   Careful, that's...She withdraws her hand, and rubs the rust flakes off her fingers. I know I am at fault and I am responsible, but whatever you decide for me- The law and a panel of judges will decide. I'd like to have a simple repetitive task to put my mind at work. I admire a lot about those nuns, and their discipline-- that kind of life. This office is a one-price store. You don't get to haggle with me like that. Sunitidevi laughs, again either because she's nervous or she's letting it all out. Of course not. Our legal system is all based on the principles of arbitration and all that. But I can't arbitrate with everybody who was hurt. The results are adjusted to the individual case. And if the worst happens... then it's only one transfer from one body to another... [intensely] You believe this? Maybe. I think I do. It's about faith, which I have still. Maybe I'm just the reincarnation of someone's cat, or an illiterate peasant girl who died centuries ago. ... And what do you think happens to you after that? I don't know. I have no proof of it. Maybe there are no more Purgyals in charge of anything. Maybe not. If that is the case, I do not think it will be a tragedy if that is all gone. At this, the Knuckle-Slammer opens the door and informs the Sikyong and only gestures politely; that is time for Sunitidevi to go. She tries to bow, and at this, the Sikyong goes: "No-no-no-" and claps her on the shoulder. She bids her well. You can come out now.At this, Brevet-Colonel Saadhvi Agarwal, Army of the Tibetan Republic, kicks open the door of a cabinet and brushes dust off her coat. She coughs. "You don't have any bigger cabinets? I thought I would suffocate in there." My Knuckle-Slammers aren't as tall as you are. What do you think? Will she live?"If she is lying, she is consistent about it." The Sikyong looks down, hesitant. She's as young as my grandchildren. And laughing because she's nervous. She pauses. If she lives, it means that we can even turn a royal into a citizen of a democratic republic. But she does not go anywhere near political office. We can do better than Takdra, where he botched it and then they made another empire anyway. She can be an example."Don't tell me you're going soft, and that the traitors will go unpunished." Goodness, no. The judges are reasonable. They will hang a few of those idiotic generals we've picked up. The plateau and the republic requires sacrifices. We must choose our other cases with care. Wangyal is dead, and we can give them a few others. They can be another kind of example for history.
Kangxi fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Jan 30, 2024 |
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Jan 28, 2024 19:50
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