The Royal Artificery Society - OOC II: electric boogaloo

[MrAbdiel]

Look, I retract the use of the term 'sharking' because I don't think Shandara is doing this maliciously. I apologize. This is probably as simple as you and I having a different mental picture of some of the spaces in the purchase scene.

I definitely don't think that following scene cleared up ambiguity; that's just where it became clear we in possession of ambiguity. I played Aiden as baffled and hurt then but I didn't want to bog us down and I didn't think Aiden had the social fortitude to make the argument. I've gone back through and... written a frankly too long post, in the spoiler below, about how it all seems to me. Read or don't, as you prefer.

Spoiler: Events as best I can tell.

Show

The wood's ownership goes through a quiet transition from "Shandara loaned Aiden the money to buy it" to "Since Shandara put the money down, she also partially owns it atleast until Aiden buys her out", finally now till "Shandara owns it entirely and has no interest in Aiden owning any part of it". It's this movement that I can't square.

1. In #1193, Aiden offers to buy it from Victor. He asks him to hold it until he can go out and get some kind of short term loan he expects to be repaid when his work designing the ships pays a dividend. Shandara says she can cover the payment with a short trip to the bank, in #1194. In #1195, Aiden is profusely thankful, pledges to pay her back. In #1197, Shandara buys the materials, and thinks "He had better pay me back".

2. In #1213 during the meeting with Lady Orlof, Shandara states that it's too risky to use the Spirit Wood experimentally into an instrument, and asks how he would feel about turning it into a stack of wands instead. Aiden pushes back in #1216 mostly because he just wants to see if he can accomplish that feat of craftsmanship. Shandara puts her foot down in #1219. She reminds him that she purchased it - a factual reality - because he wasn't able to pay on the spot. She offers for him to repay her. At this point, Shandara is asserting decision making power over the wood, even if she offers for him to repay immediately to resolve the problem. There is a sense of awkward mutual ownership now. Aiden is sullen and withdrawn in #1220 because his read of the situation - that he had taken a loan from her but the wood was ultimately his to tinker with - has proven not to be shared. In #1221 Shandara internally speculates about the spirit wood simply being too valuable to her personal goals to concede to use in the violin. She feels a little bad that Aiden is upset, but business is business. In #1222, Aiden backs off the point and changes the subject. In #1233 and #1234, they talk briefly about experimenting with the wood further. Aiden's presumption at this point is that they are operating as partners in the wood's future, and when he gets around to repaying her, he will be repaying her some portion of the total.

3. All the way down in #1462, the violin gets made from Tundra Oak and that job is resolved. Now that Aiden is liquid again, he offers to compensate her, just as he said he would, for the money she fronted for the spiritwood before. In #1463, Shandara tells him he is not an equal partner in the venture. She tells Aiden that he might have thought she implied partnership, and that she might indeed have considered it so, but then changed her mind and now considers herself full owner of the piece with no repayment pending at all. She offers to contract him for labor in some element of its future, instead. Aiden pushes back in #1464, asserting that she loaned him the gold and was expecting repayment. In this most recent post, #1465, Shandara contends that she only ever offered to cover the payment for the wood, and that she never agreed that this was a loan in any arrangement.

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So here's where we are. Rereading everything in detail again, I can see Shandara's perspective, I think. Tell me if I misunderstand because I'm very keen to have this squashed.

She wants the wood to kickstart her wand/magic shop. She put the money down when they were speculatively buying resources for the violin, and when it worked out they weren't going to use the spirit wood, it became hers. Maybe Aiden might have liked it to experiment with in some other way - but that decision would be Shandara's, and she's made it. She's not here to make him feel put out, but it is what it is.

I think this might just be a Drow Vs Bumpkin culture clash. Shandara is from a world where given word and handshake deals and that sort of soft, trusting lending doesn't exist. Only a fool would wander along with the assumption that someone else is seeking to operate in your best interest.

Aiden is from a much simpler environment where you leave your door unlocked and you never let a stranger sleep outside, and all that folksy stuff. The fact that he had expressed a desire to purchase the spirit wood right away, and that Shandara elected to cover it, and that he had pledged to pay her back, was all he needed to take this as her literally covering the cost of his purchase and expecting repayment.

If Shandara was cognizant that she was purchasing the wood for entirely for herself, and that Aiden was not becoming even a part owner of it, this is the place where Aiden, perhaps naively, might have expected a friend to make that clear, while he was offering gratitude for a loan he was vocally promising to pay back.

If this is some kind of worldview clash, I can handle that. Aiden will be sad and frustrated about that but he'll live. But if you're trying to tell me that this was never anything like a loan, and that Aiden saying "I'll pay you back" and Shandara thinking and speaking about "Repayment" doesn't imply a loan pending repayment, then I need help here because I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.