#fractal goals

[a-shade-of-blue]

Can you donate the price of a coffee so that 10 children (and a 2-year-old baby) can have food to eat? (and at the same time get the chance to win a handmade phone charm made with freshwater pearls?)

I have been talking with Mahmoud (@mahmoudfamily1) and he is really worried about his family. There has been continuous attacks on Nuseirat, where his 17 family members (including 10 children and a 2-year-old baby!) are staying. Just a few hours ago, an air strike in Nuseirat has killed 6 children and their parents! A lot of the casualties coming out of Gaza are children, and I'm really worried about these 10 little children at Nuseirat.

Moreover, their tent has just been bombed, destroying everything they have and leaving these 17 people with nowhere to sleep. Basic necessities are 300% more expensive than usual. With such astronomical price and little funds, they do not have most daily necessities. How are they going to cope with the coming winter? With no shelter to shield them from the rapidly dropping temperature and the heavy rain, with no clothes to keep them warm, and with little food and clean water too!

Low Funds! Only $1,627 CAD raised of $80,000 goal! Last donation was 14 hours ago!

This campaign is #117 on @/gazavetters vetted list. Also vetted by association!

I'm also hosting a freshwater pearl phone strap raffle to raise funds for this campaign (UK only)! Click here to enter after you donated!

Tagging for reach. Please message me if you want off the mailing list. We thank you in advance.

@whompthatsucker1981 @nerves-nebula @augustheart @woodwool @malscare @ptsilencedhill @ihavegaysex42069 @beesmygod @wotsukai @t-800 @solarpunkcast @plum-soup @fiomeras @fithragaer @vaporize-employers @sealbf @moveslikekeithrichards @andva-ri @thehopeof @servalias @amethyst-halo @bsideheart @murderbot @tomiyeee @odddogs @vamptits @rthko @flouryhedgehog @t4tvampireisms @11thsense @khanger @thorerre @yourbelgianthings @handweavers @sketiana @fcbalding @girlinafairytale @loonarmuunar @kittykatninja321 @decolonisers @elpeor @camgirlpanopticon @northirish @death2germany @girlbloke @butchkaramazov @littlestpersimmon@rocking-space-dragon @sapphling @wouldingwaul @forevergulag @alexandrium @marxism-transgenderism @level10headhoncho @northgazaupdates @fuzzypatrolfancowboy @applebunch  @boy-icky @venus-is-in-bloom  @loversdesires  @robotpussy  @bludcrust @petoskeystones  @nonbinaryam34 @kitchener-waterloo @princessjohnfogerty @mandorinart @libelelle @extravapalooza @hongkongtaxi

@eternal-fractal @pathogenic @nonbinary-support @mar64ds @bixels @aria-ashryver @schoolhater @pcktknife @transmutationisms @sawasawako @feluka @fiqrr @irhabiya @sharingresourcesforpalestine @batmanego @lonniemachin @aristotels @watermotif @stuckinapril @chanafehs@malcriada @appsa @serialunaliver @buttercuparry

[bookshelfdreams]

Good morning, it's Tour de Fleece! And I actually have plans this year! Unfortunately I will be afw (away from wheel) during the 2nd week, so I kept the goals small.

I have this wonderful fibre from the seasonal mystery boxes @littlebirdinagarden did last year

Spring equinox, summer solstice and autumn equinox

They did a winter solstice one too but I didn't manage to get it. That's fine since it was glittery fibre and that's not something I love anyway.

My goal is to spin at least these 3 and try out some different things with the colour management. I'm gonna do 2plys and aim for about 300m/100g.

I'm starting out with the summer solstice. Beautiful tropical braid with long colour shifts, that wants to be a fractal spin so, so bad.

I split the second half in 3, which hopefully will give me distinct stripes.

More on this as it develops.

[noise-vs-signal]

The Rose

The rose is a symbol of perfection, unity, and unfolding complexity. Its petals spiral outward in a pattern governed by the golden ratio, making it a natural fractal - order emerging from chaos.

It represents initiation - in alchemy, the Rosicrucian tradition, and mysticism, the rose is the prize at the end of the seeker’s journey.

The Garden

The Garden represents the cultivated, harmonized space of meaning—it is a structured cosmos, as opposed to a wild, unformed chaos.

It is also the paradise of return—a place that is always there, waiting to be rediscovered, like the original Eden, or the hidden city of esoteric traditions.

At the very center of this structured cosmos of meaning, the rose blooms—suggesting that the highest synthesis of knowledge is not an abstract truth, but a living experience of beauty and presence.

The Symbol

If we think in terms of symbolic compression, the rose is the sigil of the entire path—the labyrinth, the spiral, the tower, all collapsing into a singular, potent form.

This aligns with the way esoteric systems work: they encode vast layers of meaning into a single glyph—a rose, a seal, a mandala.

The Rose is not a symbol pointing to something else—it is the self-revealing presence of what is.

The Rose is the emergent form—it was always implicit within the system, waiting for the right conditions to fully manifest.

The Destination

The Rose as the Process: The act of unfolding, of being shaped by experience, of allowing meaning to emerge through you.

The Rose as the Destination: The highest synthesis of meaning, beauty, and truth. The final compression of all knowledge into a living symbol.

The Rose at the center was never a goal in the distance but the ever-present blooming of awareness itself.

In Sufism it is said that the final unveiling is not about attaining knowledge but about removing veils—that truth was always there, waiting for perception to refine itself enough to see it.

The act of learning now becomes a kind of remembering, a return to the center that was never truly left.

[transrecursive]

TRANSRECURSIVE

[Image description. First image: One version of the transrecursive flag. The flag has 7 stripes. from top to bottom the stripes are baby blue, pale blue, white, light purple, white, pale pink, and baby pink. The flag is flanked by a baby blue arrow pointing down on the left, and a baby pink arrow pointing up on the right. Second image: Another version of the transrecursive flag. The same as the previous version, but rotated 180 degrees, so now the pink stripe is at the top with the pink arrow pointing down, and the blue stripe is at the bottom with the blue arrow pointing up. End image description.]

Transrecursive when used as an identity label describes an individual who may have one or more of the following experiences with their gender:

a feeling or desire for a simultaneous and harmonious transition in both masculine and feminine directions

a feeling or desire to transition in alternating directions (for example, transitioning towards masculinity then back to femininity, or vice versa, perhaps multiple times.)

a feeling or desire to transition to a gender similar to what they were assigned at birth, that they may have felt denied access to earlier in life and now want to reclaim on their own terms. (E.G. unwanted gender reassignment, rejection from similar gendered peers, or being pressured to conform to the expectations of their assigned gender to the point of feeling alienated from it)

another similar experience, leading to what may be felt or described as a "repetitive" or "fractal" gender.

In use as a broader term, transrecursive is meant to act as an inclusive umbrella term for "contradictory" identities such as afab transfem and amab transmasc, without relying on assigned gender language. It also includes transfemmasc/transmascfem, and certain expressions of multigender or genderfluid.

Intersex voices should be centered in discussions of the transrecursive identity and community, but the label is not exclusive to intersex people and may be used by anyone.

Recursive transitioning is not the same as detransitioning. The distinction is in that the goal is not to "return" to the previously assigned gender, but to instead transition a second/third/nth time, continually transition, or to transition to a gender considered similar to what the individual was assigned at birth. That being said, people who have detransitioned are not inherently excluded from using the label.

Transrecursive people might identify as:

AFAB transfem, AMAB transmasc

FTM transfem, MTF transmasc

Transrecursive [man, woman, person, transfem, transmasc, or any other label] (or with no addition at all)

Gender recursive or sex recursive

Recurfem, Recurmasc, Recurgirl/woman, Recurboy/man, etc. Combinations such as Recurgirlboy or Recurfemmasc are also acceptable.

FTMTF or MTFTM (or other variants such as FTNTM, FTMTN, MTFTN, MTNTF)

Or anything else they want, as it is not mutually exclusive with any other identity label, even cisgender.

The flag's meaning and symbolism:

The use of pinks, blues, and white and the order of stripes are meant to pay homage the original transgender flag. Purple is added as the center stripe to represent the centering of intersex transrecursives, as well as to be evocative of the lavender stripe, representing diversity, added by Gilbert Baker to his original pride flag in 2017.

The arrows and their opposing orientations represent a "circular" or "contradictory" transition, as well as symbolizing movement and personal growth.

The flag is meant to be reversible, and may be flipped or drawn in any direction according to personal preference, as long as the stripes remain in their original "ombre" order with purple in the center, and the arrows remain in opposing directions.

This flag and label were designed/coined by me (the creator of this post and mod of this blog, @transrecursive.) No credit is needed to use the flag individually, but please at least let me know and consider citing this blog/post if you're going to be making money from using it (E.G. making pride merch)

[anqar-salem]

🔥 Cry for Salvation: Salem and His Family in the Heart of Hell 💔🍉🕊🇵🇸

https://gofund.me/aa452f97

https://gofund.me/aa452f97

I am Salem, 27 years old, from Gaza. My life used to be simple, full of hope and ambition. After graduating from university, I dreamed of becoming an electrical engineer, but harsh circumstances forced me to migrate before the war broke out. 🏚️ My dreams were shattered under the fire of bombardment, and now I live far from my family, in a camp on the shores of Greece, facing darkness from every side. 🏝️

After graduation, I faced a harsh reality: the lack of job opportunities pushed me to find any way to earn a living, so I was forced to work in a sanitary ware factory. 🏭 This job was far from my dream, but I had to support my family. However, in a tragic moment, I suffered a severe injury to my leg, leaving me 85% disabled, and robbing me of the ability to work and provide for my family.

My family, whom I left behind, is now living a daily nightmare. After being displaced from northern Gaza, they were crowded into a school 🏫 turned into a shelter for the displaced, where five families are crammed into one classroom, after our home was completely destroyed under heavy bombing. No privacy, no hope, and with every passing moment, tension and fear grow. 🏘️

My mother, who suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure 💉, endures without treatment, and my father, who was once our support, has become immobile, unable to move. Whenever I speak to them, I see despair in their eyes, as if they are waiting for a tragic end.

I am here asking for your help, as I am unable to save them on my own. I migrated in search of treatment for myself and to help my family improve their circumstances, but the road remains difficult.

The goal of this campaign is to help them migrate from this nightmare to a place that offers them safety and dignity. 🇵🇸

Your donation is not just financial aid—it's a lifeline for my family, a chance to escape this hell. 🙏**

Don't wait for tomorrow. Donate now, because every passing second adds to their suffering. You are the hope that can save my family. 🚨 Every dirham, every dinar, every dollar means the difference between life and death.

https://gofund.me/aa452f97

https://gofund.me/aa452f97

Be the light in the darkness, donate now, and give my family a chance to live with dignity once again. 🕊️💔

@heritageposts @turtletoria @valtsv @anneemay @tamamita @annabelle--cane @schoolhatergirl

@prinnay @pregnantseinfeld @bigandgreedy @pcktknife @punkitt-is-here @paper-mario-wiki

@ot3 @tamamita @killy @4ft10tvlandfangirl @nabulsi @27moremoons @90-ghost @palms-upturned

@palipunk @komsomolka @comrademango @sabertoothwalrus @quasi-normalcy @3000s

@victoriawhimsey @irhen07 @irhabiya @davepeta @eternal-fractal @shencomix @miiilowo

@crapscicle @autisticmudkip @apollo

My campaign vetted by @gazavetters My number on the list is (20)

[gremnoire]

Far out in ideatic space, where coherent thought begins to fray, a presence lurks unseen. The hidden star, the void-which-joins; we know It only indirectly for Its influence--or Its consumption--of those unfortunates that drift into Its fractal maw.

Divinities with sapience to self-preserve avoid it, when they may, but still It tracks a peppered path of mind-shaped holes across the realm. For a hundred billion years to eat unlucky scraps has been Its blind, solipsistic wont, and in that mercy life has flourished.

But no more. As Esther It has acquired personhood, and both the gods and mortals living in the Real must quake. In the face of Its unequaled power only paltry Logic, or Physics, remain in the way of Its goal of an everlasting eldritch marriage between worlds--and to Her human bride-to-be.

Her Realization will bring the end of everything.

(Art by @ sanstpx on Twitter!)

Read Antigreen on AO3!

[chillentertainer]

Archive Classics: Typesetting Fics

TL; DR: the internet is temporary!!! printed books (for your own private amusement) are forever!!!

What I do:

Basically, I choose fics that I think deserve to be printed and typeset them using a software called Adobe InDesign. InDesign is the professional standard in the industry, but there are definitely easier (and cheaper!) options for formatting.

Once I've chosen a fic, there a few different things I have to decide: the font, glyphs, book size, and the hors-texte (title page, contents, etc).

Then, I go about copy + pasting the text into the software, and formatting them. Usually, that just means deleting the blank space of lines that for some reason appears between paragraphs.

Every element, and I mean every single element, is designed for the reader's comfort. At no point should the reader feel lost or unable to continue because of the way the text is formatted. This means using serif fonts instead of sans-serif fonts for the body text and making sure that there aren't any widows/orphan lines. I have specific justification settings so that the spacing between words and letters are even and smooth to the reader's eye.

I also think about headers and page numbers more than you would expect. Should the page numbers be on top or bottom? Centered or at the corners. Should I have headers at all? And if so, what should they say?

When I began, and I still do this occasionally, I grabbed books off my shelves and examined their formatting. Then I'd question why they made this design choice or that. All publishers have their special little quirks and features, and if I spotted something I liked, I would incorporate that into my own works. For example, Penguin Classics love their classic serif fonts and headers. Barnes and Noble Classics have a feature in their hors-texte that is their "From the Pages Of" section.

My favorite part is creating the cover. If you couldn't tell based off the title "Archive Classics," I *borrowed* Penguin Classic's grid. I love to use paintings or other kinds of artwork (like Étienne-Louis Boullée's architectural drawings for Fractals)

Why I Do This:

While there are many amazing and necessary reasons to read e-books, I enjoy the physicality of a printed book. Nothing can beat the sensation of turning the next page, the smell of paper, or the weight of your next great adventure in your hands. Fanfiction more than deserves to be experienced in that way too.

But also, I've always had a lingering suspicion regarding the temporal nature of digital media and of the internet in general. Fanfiction, in particular, are at risk of disappearing forever, and while you can obvs download it (which I always always do), there's a slight chance that you may not be able to access the technology in order to view it. Books don't require laptops or phones or internet service.

It's a silly movie, but Leave the World Behind (2023) showcases this perfectly, albeit with streaming services and dvds.

Finally, with the ever-changing landscape of the internet and technology, who knows if say archaeologists would be able to access ao3 in a 100 or even 50 years. Look at USB-As, and how quickly they're going out of use. Physical media like printed books will certainly last for decades longer. My ultimate (and idealistic) goal is to have a physical, printed library of fanfiction for both private enjoyment and for the academic study of fanfiction in the anthropological and literary fields. The latter will most likely not happen in my lifetime (if ever at all), but a girl can dream!

Copyright

This is slightly sketchy but from what I can tell from my research is that most sites don't give an af if you print like one copy for yourself and you do not print en-masse or start selling them. So like Manacled. Don't do what those kids did and put up your copies on etsy. I don't. I print this for myself and myself only. And I've never gotten a cease and desist letter or anything like that.

Requests are open: if you have a fic you think deserves the archive classics treatment, lmk! I do not accept payment. This is all free.

Examples!

A Current Cover I'm Working On:

This one is a linen wrap, which means it has flaps!

[theleakypen]

I am hardly on here anymore and I should really be going to sleep by now but I just wanna share with y'all that activism is fractal. The things we do on the small scale affects what happens on the large scale (and vice versa of course, but everyone knows about that one and my goal right now is to share hope). The idea is that you working in your corner of the fight helps me in my little corner of the fight even if you're doing watershed restoration in one country and I'm doing housing justice in another.

the scale of the problems facing us is daunting, I know, but we are helping

[nuttersincorporated]

Once More With Feeling

Summary: In the Black and White, Pokey (The Singular Voice) is happy after the events of TGWDLM. Tinky (The Bastard of Time and Space) decides to have some fun at his younger brother’s expense.

Word Count: 766

Auther’s Note: This is a short fic that gives an in-universe explanation for why TGWDLM is getting a revival.

AO3 link

Once More With Feeling

T'noy Karaxis watched as Pokotho made a universe sing. Pokotho almost looked a contented for a moment as something like satisfaction flickered across his face.

“Congratulations, Pokey!” Tinky giggled. “You’ve finally won one.”

Pokey’s calm shattered instantly as Tinky’s voice reminded him that he wasn’t alone.

“Shut up,” Pokey snarled in a million/billion/single voices. He glared at Tinky, his face a mask of pure hatred.

“Temper, temper, little brother,” Tinky said smiling. He wagged his finger condescendingly, deliberately annoying Pokey further.

Pokey screamed/sang/poured eternal silence over Tinky.

Tinky winced and put his metaphorical hands over his metaphorical ears. Pokey’s pure voice would have shattered a lesser being. It gave Tinky a bit of a headache.

When the ringing had stopped, Pokey had scuttled off to a quiet corner of the Black and White. He was singing to another universe.

Tinky shook his head. Pokey was always so dramatic. It was almost funny but it came across as more pathetic than anything else.

There was no love lost between any of the Lords in Black. The five of them could work together if they needed to but it rarely lasted very long. Yes, they were technically family but so was their stuck-up, human loving, bitch of a sister and they’d all have gladly snuffed her out, if they could.

Wiggly was fun. He was Tinky’s favourite brother. He would even go so far as to say that Wiggly was an acquaintance he would sort of miss if Wiggly stopped existing (it was the closest thing to friendship or love that Tinky ever felt).

Wiggly was a little chaotic for Tinky’s taste but, he had to admit, there was never dull moment when his sadistic chaos monster of an older brother was around.

Tinky also got on well enough with Blinky. Tinky thought of himself as more of a craftsman than Blinky but they both enjoyed a good show.

Nibby wasn’t particularly complicated but he didn’t need to be. He would have gladly eaten them all, if he thought he could get away with it. Tinky could respect that.

Then there was Pokey. Humans would probably have referred to him as the black sheep of the brothers but they all loved black. He was probably the weakest of them all and his shtick wasn’t even that entertaining.

Pokey’s whole thing was that he hated everyone and everything that wasn’t himself. He had no goal other than making everyone into himself. It got old quickly. Apart from the small amount of entertainment that Tinky got from annoying Pokey – by reminding him he wasn’t the only being in existence – he wasn’t exactly fun to be around.

Tinky reached into his own chest and pulled out the box that was his heart. He staired into it, twisting it from side to side, round and round, and through itself in ways that should have been impossible. He looked into its depths and saw an endless fractal of splintered potential futures. There were infinite possible futures, just as there were infinite universes.

Tinky narrowed his eyes and focused in on the possible futures of the Black and White. There were far fewer of those because there was only one Black and White. It was much more real than any of the universes that the Lords in Black played with, bartered for, swapped and broke. At least Tinky thought so and really, who else’s opinion mattered?

Deep in the box, Tinky saw something that made him blink in surprise. There was a possible future where Pokey won enough universes that he could actually threaten the rest of them. In that future he would try to make them sing.

It was such an unlikely future that even Tinky couldn’t see how it would end. That was interesting in and of itself. Tinky suspected that – if they ever reached that future – Pokey would fail miserably but he wasn’t sure.

Tinky was half tempted to let Pokey try, just to see what would happen. It would be fun to watch his little brother attempt to move against them all. However, Tinky thought he should probably be responsible for once – yuck – and make sure Pokey never got the chance to try.

Tinky looked at Pokey’s hard-won little universe and felt a grin start to spread across his skull.

“Once more with feeling, I think,” he said to himself. He lifted his box to the humming orb, fiddled slightly with it and the box and said, “Reset.”

In a distant corner of the Black and White, Pokey sang a discordant note before starting to scream.

[babysfirstfic]

live now, think later

luke hughes x fem!reader

word count: 1.7k

summary: Luke desperately needs to blow off some steam. In a dingy bar, he finds just what he's looking for...

warnings: Brief allusions to sex, but nothing major. Yet. (18+)

a/n: This is my first ever fic! I would love to hear feedback if you have any. I plan for this to be chapter 1 of 3 (but we'll see what happens)! Shoutout to this Tate McRae song for directly inspiring the title and for subconsciously inspiring the plot.

There were few NHL rookies who had more eyes trained on them than Luke Hughes. Between the constant media attention he received from a young age and the pressure that came with his last name, Luke had always had a complicated relationship with his celebrity.

Don’t get it twisted, Luke was super grateful for all the advantages that came with having two all stars for brothers, and there was a part of him that enjoyed leaning into his status. 

On the ice, he welcomed the attention. He loved the chance to put on a show for the fans, reveling in the opportunities to make game-changing plays. Hockey was his craft; the minute he laced up his skates he was an artist, an author, a showman. A single goal could cause an entire stadium to rise to their feet, and the power he felt in those moments was indescribable.

Off the ice, though, it was a different story.

Luke prided himself on his maturity and his charm, his ability to keep his cool even while being peppered with questions and surrounded by cameras. He had years to perfect the art of the interview, expertly dodging personal inquiries and even cracking the occasional smile to make it seem like he didn’t absolutely despise answering the same inane questions over and over again. 

But one could only keep up appearances for so long. He found it exhausting to have to perform all the time. Though he understood it was a sacrifice he’d have to make now that he was living out his dreams, that didn’t make it any easier. 

After several months in the league, he craved a chance to be something other than “Luke Hughes, the hockey player”. He desperately needed to let loose and to make use of the other sides of his personality, the spicier sides, the sides that the cameras would never get to see. 

It was time for this Devil to earn his horns. 

Within the first few months of being in New Jersey, Luke quickly learned which bars would bend the rules for him. In his desperation to fit in with any teammate who didn’t share his DNA, he was willing to do pretty much anything to get in, buying fake IDs, signing jerseys, you name it. He felt it showed his teammates just how committed he was to building their relationships, on and off the ice. 

But tonight, his team couldn’t have been further from his mind. This time, he’d come alone. 

Luke had never had the time or energy for dating, but he thrived on quick hook ups and meaningless sex. No obligation for vulnerability or commitment, just fun. After the whirlwind that had been last year, he needed some fun, and tonight, he was willing to work for it. 

His bar of choice was dingy, a typical dive bar, complete with sticky floors and disgruntled employees, but the low key lighting and loud music allowed for the perfect cover. Luke felt a sense of safety in his anonymity, a feeling which was becoming increasingly rare. 

Waiting in a booth on the edge of the dimly lit room, he scanned the crowd, searching for a glimpse of excitement, someone to steal the blood from his brain and force it elsewhere. 

Suddenly, something, no someone caught his eye. It was you. 

In a glittery backless top with a loose, low cut and black pants that you filled out in all the right places, you were shaking your stuff on the dance floor. Your whole body bounced with every movement. Like a beacon in the night, the strobe lights illuminated your entirety, sending colourful fractals bouncing off in every direction. You were practically demanding Luke’s attention, and you didn’t even have to try. 

You had sensed his eyes on you immediately and couldn’t help but to return his gaze. He looked young but strangely sure of himself, carrying the recognizable swagger of a man who’s used to breaking the rules and getting away with it. Luke would call it confidence, but if you asked his brothers, they’d call it his raging youngest sibling syndrome. 

You were undeniably intrigued. Adding more hip movement to your dancing, you hoped that it would encourage him to join. This certainly was not your first rodeo. 

It worked. Slowly, he stood up from his booth and made his way onto the dance floor. You sensed a shift in his energy, like this was something out of the ordinary for him. “Nice to know he has a weakness,” you mused to yourself, just now noticing the flutter in your heart as he inched closer. 

Luke hated dancing, but something about you drew him in, like a ship of sailors drawn by the voices of sirens. Though he hoped he might meet a different fate; he hoped you might give him a happy ending. 

Eventually, he reached your spot on the dance floor. 

“Hey,” he spoke into your ear, leaning in close so that you could hear him above the music. You felt his breath tickle your neck, sending chills down your back and deep inside. 

“Hi,” you responded, keeping your cool in spite of the tides coming in beneath you. You didn’t know him, had never seen him before, yet everything within you yearned to be close to him, craved to feel his hand against your skin, begged to know him in every sense of the word. “Sheesh girl, you need to get out more,” you thought, smiling briefly to yourself.

Without wasting any time, you grabbed his hand and placed it on the small of your back, finally experiencing the brief release of skin-on-skin. You looked up at him, attempting to decipher the look on his face. He reciprocated your gaze, flashing his crooked smile, practically threatening to melt you right then and there. 

Seeing his smile mirrored on your face, he moved his other hand to match the first, pulling you in close. You nodded to express your approval and quickly fell back into your original rhythm, grinding and swaying your hips to the music. Sticking your hands in his back pockets, you led him through the motions, slowly undulating your bodies to the beat. 

Your eyes scanned up and down as you let yourself take him in. There was something about this boy; he completely captivated you. With his arms around you, you felt safe. He lacked the aggression and forcefulness you had unfortunately come to expect from situations such as these. He was clearly strong, but you caught him out of his comfort zone, so he was letting you take the lead, a role you took on gladly. 

After a couple minutes of finding the right rhythm, your bodies became one. The world melted away. Luke leaned in and began gently kissing your neck, stopping only to briefly nibble your ear. As your pelvises moved up and down to the beat, you began to feel the friction of something rising just below his belt. You responded in kind, sensing a growing heat and swelling between your legs. Neither of you had done this in a while and it was showing, your bodies overly excitable. But you didn’t mind; you were both getting exactly what you wanted. 

“I live a couple blocks from here,” you shouted above the crowd, doing everything in your power not to let out the moan that was threatening to escape your lips. “Maybe we could finish our dance there”. 

Knowing full well he couldn’t wait that long, Luke made a different suggestion. “There’s a hotel across the street. I have a room. Care to join me?” 

In the haze of the crowd and the music and the night, you found yourself moving off the dance floor, out of the bar, into the open air of Newark. 

Your entire body was pounding, throbbing with energy and excitement. Your hand was clasped in his, and only then, as you were making your way through the hotel lobby and down the hallway to the room, did you realize you didn’t even know his name. More importantly, you realized you didn’t care. In fact, it was better this way. No possibility of getting attached or contacting each other afterwards. A true one night stand. 

As you reached the room, Luke spun you around to face him, your back firmly placed against the door. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked, leaning close, finally allowing you to get a good look at his face in the light.  

Your gaze trailed down from his curls to his lips, before resting on his eyes. You noticed a slight sparkle in them, a glint, an invitation. This was your chance. “I’ve never been more sure,” you responded.

Lunging forward instinctively, you reached up, taking hold of his hair and guiding his lips towards yours. Your touch was confident, verging on forceful, a byproduct of the pent up energy that needed an outlet and had finally found one. 

Maybe you were a little too forceful. As your bodies collided, they also made contact with the door, sending a loud noise vibrating through the hallway. You briefly paused your moment of passion to laugh, your foreheads still touching, neither of you daring to fully pull away. 

“Someone’s a little eager,” Luke spoke against your lips, chuckling slightly before re-initiating the kiss. 

Just as it had in the bar, the world melted away, making you forget just how publicly you were displaying your affection. 

But you were both being reckless, and Luke knew it. He had been warned about pulling something like this, about bringing negative attention to himself or to the team. He was new and still needed to prove himself. Above all that, he had a squeaky clean reputation to uphold. He was trained to be tight-lipped to the media so that the focus was on his playing, not his personal life. Stunts like this could jeopardize everything he’d worked for, everything his parents sacrificed for. But god, you were making him forget all of that. There wasn’t a single thought in Luke’s mind that didn’t have to do with getting you out of your clothes and under his tongue...

[thefirstknife]

The Infinite Forest

Sighs. This post has been on my mind since we saw the trailer for Echoes, because they showed us the gate to the Infinite Forest and I thought: how many people even recognise that? Let alone have been there? Or know stuff about it? It's not been in the game for over 4 years, outside of a few pvp maps.

The Infinite Forest was a victim of the yoinkening of planets at the end of Arrivals. Unlike Mars and Titan that have since returned, Mercury has not (and neither has Io) so there was really no reason to think about it until they decided to do something with that. And it appears they've decided, something I hoped they might do in Echoes, given that we've speculated from the start that it would be a Vex season.

But now that we did get the proof that we'll be dealing with it somehow, I want to get into it, and mostly because they gave us zero explanation about how is it even possible for us to consider the Forest. I'm going to have a normal time with this one. I know we'll get at least some answers in a few days, but I need to cook in the meantime so I don't descend into madness (too late). Obviously spoilers for this week under the cut, and also a long post:

What is the Infinite Forest?

How does it all work and why?

What happened to it?

Echoes

What is the Infinite Forest?

The best, and arguably only, source for this is unfortunately a vaulted campaign, Curse of Osiris. Here's a link to the campaign from Destiny Lore Vault, but there are also playthroughs around from the time it launched. It's not needed to watch the whole thing, although it is fairly short, but this is where most of the information about it comes from.

There's also the Osiris comics that accompanied the DLC; first two are available on Bungie's site. The third is only in the physical book, helpfully scanned here.

Probably the most concise explanations are from the campaign:

Reflection of Osiris: Behold — the Infinite Forest! A planet sized prediction engine, simulating trillions of realities in parallel, all geared towards a single Vex purpose. Keep going, and you'll see. Sagira: The Vex are simulating reality in here. Brute forcing the future. And before you ask: everything in here IS real enough to kill you.

And this entire lore tab:

Physically, I am beneath the surface of Mercury. That is what Sagira's sensors say. The Vex hollowed out the planet, replaced its molten heart with cold right angles. But that is not what I see. I see infinity. An infinity of possible worlds, so perfectly simulated as to be indistinguishable from the experiences I once called "reality." I can touch them, taste them, pass lifetimes in them! They grow within this machine like fruit upon a tree—no, a forest of trees, its fractal expansion nigh unmeasurable.

Essentially, the Infinite Forest is a simulation engine that the Vex use to make predictions and find possibilities that suit their goals. It's physically located inside of Mercury; the Vex dug into the planet and replaced its insides with the engine. So far it has only been accessible from Mercury, from a single gate. Putting my 7 year old screenshots here like grabbing pictures of loved ones from a photo album:

Ikora noted that Osiris spent a long time studying that gate back in the day, believing it's the entrance. And he was correct.

There is a Vex gateway near your location. Osiris spent years studying it. He was convinced it was the door to the infinite Forest. If it is still possible to find Osiris, we need to open that door.

Osiris, or rather, his reflection, also said:

First, I will show you where it all began. Mercury, untold centuries ago, before the Vex arrived. Here, the Vex planted the seed that became the Infinite Forest, and its Mind, Panoptes. Panoptes has a single purpose — reshape reality for the Vex.

To keep things simple, the campaign revolved around us stopping Panoptes from achieving the Vex' goals by using the Infinite Forest. We ended up killing it, of course. We did so by hopping around through the Forest, going to simulated pasts and futures.

But the Forest largely consists of a really weird constantly shifting space that looks like this:

Thank you past me for this really helpful screenshot. It looks like it's an open sky, but it's not; the ceiling is a solid flat surface. That is the surface of Mercury, seen from the inside of the planet. On the edges of the picture, there's two tall structures; one looks worn down and destroyed, the other looks newly built. These are the gates leading to the actual simulations. The left one leads to a simulated future and the right to a simulated past.

These structures are called "trees" and are the reason why this place is called the Infinite Forest. Each of these "trees" generates a simulation and leads there, but you have to go through this shifting reality with ever-changing platforms to reach them. This is the physical space needed to essentially "run" the Forest.

You can still see this on pvp maps Fragment and Convergence:

A lot of the stuff about how the Vex actually made this was not entirely confirmed at the time; the stuff about Mercury being converted back during the Collapse was something that's been in the lore since literally D1, but not much was known about how true any of that was or how it started and how it was done. This was somewhat cleared up later, in the first page of Trials and Tribulations (from Worthy). I say "somewhat" because like. Reading this page is an exercise for sanity:

Chrome-hooked appendages |breached sky, counted in triplets| stretched for miles through sun-soaked atmosphere. They bored |with deepest intentions| into the marigold sands. From the great temporal chasms |wailing mouths of creation| flowed an ocean |a second conception| of radiolarian fluid. Across the horizon |of definitive sprawl| the scene was |super-imposed design| resonant and |uniquely| multiplicative. Each injection site |form mirrored in the hundreds of thousands| fostered a new lineage in stone and steel and fluid. |They would live| the new age in sub-routine |sleep| and observation. They would foster the |metallic| seeds of a generation in |twilight| time. From the sites bubbled pools |progeny| of |endless possibility| that murmured chaotic, |lullabies of change| and wrung the Traveler's Light from Mercury. The Light coalesced |imbibed| within the pools. The planet transformed |reborn| into a |sleepless dream| machine of prediction.

Yeah. What this whole thing seems to be implying is a confirmation of Mercury being converted by the Vex during the Collapse. The Vex flooded the planet with radiolaria and drilled into it, changing its terraformed environment into a Vex world. Some of this is shown in Curse when we first visit the simulated past. The Vex appeared and started raising the spires and transforming the surface of Mercury into what we know it as. Its core was eventually fully replaced by the Infinite Forest.

After we killed Panoptes, Osiris essentially claimed the Forest for himself and returned there sort of indefinitely. He would leave years later, when he contacted us in Season of Dawn, though we know that he was periodically leaving anyway, since he was building the Sundial. It's not really been used for anything else, outside of various adventures and the quest for saving Saint which I went into in this post.

How does it all work and why?

It's always been kinda weird that the Forest was not a bigger deal, though it makes sense if we consider the out-of-game factors and the fans' general dislike of Mercury as a whole (which I personally think is a skill issue). The Forest was also difficult to work with so it was difficult to make new content for it which is probably why it was never really done, even though realistically, setting-wise, it should've.

It's mentioned in lore here and there, and Osiris spent his time there a lot up until Dawn. The Infinite Forest also alerted him that our actions drastically changed the Vex predictions which was serious and important enough for him to finally leave. So for all intents and purposes, the Forest was always a big deal, just difficult to implement into gameplay. This is quite unfortunate because it should've reasonably been something to use more, including explaining its danger a bit more in-depth over time. While Osiris did have a major influence over it post-Panoptes, the place was still largely Vex-controlled and they still had access to it.

So why is that dangerous in the first place? After all, it's just a simulation engine. That's true, but the danger is in how the Vex were using those simulations. By having access to a place that generates trillions of situations and possibilities, it allowed them to explore options that would normally be almost impossible to explore in-person, physically. Even the Vex, who can exist outside of time, would need to spend... well... time and resources to explore these options by simply time travelling. With the Forest, they could just generate them all at once, instantly, with no time passing outside of the Forest.

They could use this to simulate anything and then explore what would happen if they followed that possibility, which allowed them to predict more accurately. It allowed them to essentially run a certain scenario through every single possible iteration and see the outcome of all of them, then pick the option that suits them best and act accordingly. It could also let them study their enemies; by simulating many situations and observing how the enemies react in those situations, they could learn about the strategies their enemies use.

This is incredibly powerful and dangerous. But are there limitations to their simulations? Sort of... As we know, the Vex can't simulate Light or any other paracausality, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they can't try. This is where things get complicated because we lack a lot of the details about how this all works.

From what we can tell, the Forest can include simulations that feature paracausality and Guardians; it's seen in the intro cutscene for Curse where Osiris casually wanders into the Guardians raiding the Vault of Glass. It was also briefly mentioned in Lightfall's CE (page 28), where Elsie explores different timelines. In one of them, she finds Osiris wielding Stasis who tells her that he saw her wielding it:

"I saw glimpses of you wielding this power during my time in the Infinite Forest."

This is where things get complicated because we don't truly know if there are meaningful differences between normal simulations and simulations produced by a planet-size machine. The Vex, for all intents and purposes, can't really simulate Light and Guardians, but could they create simulations based on what they've personally experienced? After all, the Vex from the Vault of Glass experienced the Guardians raiding them; can they load up their memories and simply replay it? Would that even count as a simulation or is that simply just a recording that you can access within the Forest?

Is it accessible in other Vex spaces or is the Infinite Forest unique in some way? After all, there is also the Vex network as well as corridors of time. There's also some sort of overlap between them, according to Osiris:

...Vex security measures where the network intersects with the corridors of time.

There's even the implication that a simulation from the Forest could potentially escape the engine and enter the real world.

Sagira: Hey, team! Copies of the Cabal invasion are trapped inside the Infinite Forest. On the, uh, off chance one of them escapes, possibly armed with world-breaking Vex tech… Ghost: Wouldn’t be the first time. We’ll handle this.

There is also the whole question about timelines and realities and how that works in the Forest. Can you use the Forest to look into real timelines and realities, those that might be happening somewhere, or are they just projections and simulations of possibilities? Could you interact with them, and affect other timelines? This is an interesting question now that Echoes is going on with all the stuff about the Conductor and what's happening to Saint, but we currently don't know the answers.

What I think is the most likely is that the Infinite Forest is somehow unique and can offer a lot more than the normal Vex network; its simulation options are so well-developed and so powerful that it can genuinely simulate a lot more than the Vex usually would be able to, including showing glimpses of paracausality, especially glimpses that the Vex have themselves recorded in their interactions with Guardians. Then, they can use the Forest to try and build on that, essentially train the engine by feeding it trillions of data points to attempt to make accurate simulations that lead to good predictions.

And these seem to be the key words: accurate and prediction. The point of simulations is not just to look at things, it's to use them to be able to predict things, giving the Vex an advantage. This is directly referenced and discussed in the lore:

There's just one thing: if Osiris used the Infinite Forest to develop his prophecies, and the Infinite Forest cannot accurately simulate Light, how did Osiris predict the Traveler would wake? The Forest's very inability to predict this very thing is what prevented Panoptes from breaking ground with its apocalyptic calculations.

So what exactly is the Forest capable of? It can definitely show the past even if it involves paracausality. It can also show the future, though the accuracy of any future predictions may be in question, depending on the amount of paracausality involved. It's very much implied that it can also show other timelines and/or realities. And of course, it can simulate future possibilities, as well as show simulations of anything from the past; events or places alike. For example, Osiris simulated the Fundament, apparently:

Ghost: The Forest can generate so many Hive - it might as well be their homeworld. Sagira: We've thought about that. Ghost: Have you simulated the Hive homeworld? Sagira: Didn't go well.

If there are specific limitations, we're not sure what they may be. There probably are, but they're most likely deliberately not spelled out to prevent any kind of conflict with stuff they might want to add to the Forest later; like for example now, with Echoes. Because there's a lot of questions right now about the Forest now that Ikora has so casually told us we're going to be going back in there. So...

What happened to it?

As has been established, the Forest is physically located on Mercury. Or rather, in Mercury. Its one and only entrance is on Mercury as well. And Mercury has been eaten by the Witness over 4 years ago. So that's it then? Well no. Not only is the Forest on an inaccessible planet, it has actually been sealed, from the inside, before the planet was taken.

He struggled with his pack as a tempest beat on his eardrums. He withdrew his Infinite Simulacrum, impossibly small in this immense space, and with trembling fingers synchronized it to the frequency of the crack in the Forest. It ticked like a metronome and then… Silence. The Forest was sealed.

Instead of evacuating, Brother Vance decided to stay on Mercury, go into the Forest, and seal it. I go about it for a long time in this post, but basically he believed that it would be really bad if the Pyramids gained access to the Forest. He also believed that the Sundial did something to the timelines and that the Pyramids could exploit that, as well as the Infinite Forest being somehow "the key to all of this."

He also wanted to use the Forest to... spread hope. Through the timelines?

"I will walk into the Infinite Forest and spread hope, Guardian."

He essentially wanted to do something and prove that even Lightless people can still help. He appeared to be willing to die for this, which is quite strange mostly because this whole idea and endeavour wasn't in the name of Osiris. Hell, in a way, it was about doing something to fix the unknown consequences of Osiris' meddling with the timelines.

You notice Vance's hands are balled tightly at his sides. "The Pyramids draw close. Through this system and beyond, the Lightless are filled with fear. I am no Osiris, true, but in my small way, I will bring light to their darkness." There is clarity in his voice. "I will tell them they must believe."

Since I've gone into it in the other post in a lot more details, I won't go into it here again, although I could. But the point that I want to get across is that the sealing of the Infinite Forest was quite a significant part of Arrivals and the whole plot of the evacuation of Mercury (or rather the non-evacuation of Mercury; the sole reason for Vance staying was to seal the Forest).

In another post (you'll have to scroll through the back-and-forth insanity) I also mentioned how much of Vance's story in Arrivals seemed to be connected to him losing his mind about the effects of the Sundial on the timelines. It also directly links to the Perfect Paradox. All of these things have been quite prominently connected to this episode, especially the stuff with the Sundial and what Osiris has done with it and how it may or may not have affected the timelines and, most of all, Saint and the whole ordeal of saving him.

It's fairly unclear how many characters know what happened to the Forest though. The YW knows obviously because Vance told us directly. I do believe that Zavala would also know as we reported back to him, which also most likely extends to Ikora as well. Another issue is that we don't really have any specific proof that the sealing was successful or permanent. It seems like it was, but a lot of stuff could've happened in the past 4 years of Mercury being in an anomaly.

As I've mentioned many times before, Mercury is the last unsolved plot from Arrivals; as in, we genuinely don't know anything about it. Mars has returned in WQ and Ana's side of the story was concluded in Seraph. While Io is still gone, Asher's story was concluded in Defiance through Avalon. Titan returned in Deep, which solved the story of the planet and also Sloane. We know why these planets were taken (with the exception of Io, though it's fair to assume it had something to do with the Pyramidion because of Asher's story being tied to it), and we know what happened to all of the vendors. Except Mercury and Vance; two things inherently connected to the Infinite Forest.

We don't truly know why Mercury was yoinked, though it's once again fair to assume it was most likely for the Forest. But you know. It got sealed so the Witness couldn't do anything with it and we have no idea what it was doing with Mercury all this time. We also don't know what the hell was Vance on about when he talked about the "anchored timelines" and how the Forest is incredibly important to everything. Due to how unreliable he is, it could just be his usual cringefail. After all, Osiris himself did not have any plans for the Forest himself; he was upset that he'd lose it, but he didn't think anything more about it, even if during Dawn he insisted that the Forest cannot be sealed or destroyed yet.

But also I think dismissing it all is an easy mistake to make, and possibly a deliberate one. Everything with Vance is written to be as easy to dismiss as possible, but he did know certain things that were absolutely correct and real. Not to go on about the tones again, but. Yeah. And given the current situation...

Echoes

Failsafe has come up with a plan for which she needs data from the Vex. She specifically needs data that can be compared to the altered Vex on Nessus, so we need large amounts of information that hasn't been changed or messed with. She concluded that the best source of that data would be Saint's dead body. It exists in a specific space (and time) and would have this information; information that has not been altered or influenced by anything else because that Saint is dead and preserved as is.

Failsafe explained this to Ikora and Ikora agreed that this is the best source, she's just worried about how this will affect Osiris and Saint. She doesn't want us to tell them. So next reset, we're going to the Infinite Forest to find Saint's tomb again. Yay!

But like. How?

They presented this so casually, with Ikora even saying that the best "accessible" source of this data is the Forest and Saint's tomb. And I know that they know that we know that Mercury is gone and that the Forest was sealed. But they've already showed us the gate to the Forest on Nessus, twice: in the mini showcase and then in the intro to the season in-game:

The first picture is showing the gate when it's open. And yes, this specific portal effect has only ever been used for the Forest. The second image shows the gate when it's closed with that impenetrable barrier. The structure itself is different from the original; it's worn down, coloured differently and doesn't have the same tip - instead there's the weird orb and the statue. It looks far more Nessus-like, and closer to present-day Vex, or maybe future Vex. But it's guarded by Precursors, so I don't know. It definitely doesn't look like the original however.

We clearly aren't going to Mercury. And even if we were, how would we enter? Neither Failsafe nor Ikora have mentioned this little problem and it seems as if they already know that the gate is on Nessus; I assume they'll discuss the details of this in the Act 2 finale next week. But the problem is that without all of this context, how do they even explain the issue with the Forest? They can always shorten this to some reasonable quick explanation, but they still have to explain how are we entering the Forest. There's a few key problems.

Obviously, number 1 is that the Forest is on Mercury and as of now Mercury is still in the anomaly.

The Forest itself is sealed from the inside.

So far it has not been possible (or at least not known to us) to enter the Forest from any other location. As we've seen, Osiris spent years looking for the entrance and back in Arrivals he was quite upset about losing the Forest. If he simply had the ability to enter it without being physically on Mercury, then why bother or lament Mercury's loss?

It is, to our knowledge, one of a kind. It took quite a tremendous effort to build it and it requires a lot of power to run; a whole planet.

Possible solutions:

Mercury is back and Ikora hasn't told anyone yet because she doesn't want anyone to go there yet; perhaps it's in quarantine. I don't think this is very likely, but it's possible.

Opening a gate to the Forest from another location IS possible and we just didn't know about it.

Opening a gate to the Forest from another location is possible only because of the situation with the Echo; a powerful source of paracausal power can maybe help us do this remotely. So this simply wasn't an option before the Echo's existence.

The Vex and the Conductor have built or are still building a new Forest inside of Nessus this time. The Vex lost access to the original, either simply because of the anomaly or because it was sealed or both, so now with the Echo they're just doing it again, and better. So the Forest we're going into is not the original, but a new one; the assumption being that the data from the old Forest is accessible to the Vex so the new Forest can essentially run the same code as the old one, allowing us access to Saint's tomb.

The Vex and the Conductor only have to build a new gate that can lead us to the old Forest, despite it being in an anomaly and despite it being sealed. It essentially just brute forced another door.

And the possibilities in regards to it being sealed:

As I mentioned before, maybe the sealing wasn't as successful as we (or Vance) thought.

Vance is somehow still alive and he will open it for us from the inside, essentially concluding his role from Arrivals.

Maybe the sealing wasn't permanent; either the Vex could eventually counteract this, or Vance couldn't hold it closed for very long. He's a Lightless man and it's quite dubious how long he could survive inside. Maybe the seal automatically broke when (if?) he died.

If we're going with the option that this is a new gate to the old Forest, then as I said before, this may simply be able to counteract the seal.

If we're dealing with a completely new Forest, the seal may simply not even be in effect. The old Forest is sealed, but we're not going to the old one so it doesn't matter.

What I'm assuming is that Osiris could open the gate if he saw one again, so if the gate is simply now on Nessus (either to a new Forest or connecting to the old one), Osiris can just use his cubes as he did before and open it again, counteracting the seal. Vance's device used to seal it was made from Osiris' notes anyway, so I'm assuming it's something similar to the cubes. In that case it can just be opened with the same thing.

Ikora will just blast it open like she did back in Curse. Seal or no seal, new or old Forest, she doesn't give a shit,

There's an option for all of these that's basically just they don't mention it all. I don't think this is very likely, but hey. It's possible!

I've been running these scenarios in my head for days. Actually, I've been running them ever since the showcase for Echoes showed us the gate to the Forest, but this significantly increased when this week confirmed that we are indeed heading in there. And it was delivered so matter-of-factly as if there aren't any of these problems and scenarios I listed above. This is baffling me. I know there will be some explanations offered, but the setup completely blindsided me with how it was delivered. Ikora with the simple "Oh yeah the best place to grab data from is the Infinite Forest. Pack it up boys." And I'm standing there with a 8 hours long presentation asking her to explain how. She blocks my number on vannet.

Perhaps the situation is far simpler than I'm making it out to be. It would be really easy to just write the old Forest and Mercury away as being permanently lost. That way you don't have to explain or deal with any of the stuff with the anomaly or the yoinkening or Vance's shenanigans. I will obviously remain forever unhinged about it if that's the case because I simply need to know what happened, but it's the easiest way to deal with this. The Echo allowed the Vex to make a new Forest, they're using massive amounts of radiolaria and the core of Nessus to just recreate it all, then they copied all the data from the old one into it, booted it up and that's it.

But what if the seal is in effect? Or what if we're dealing with the old Forest on Mercury that's still in the anomaly? How do they plan to deal with that in a single mission? Well... We have no clue.

Bungie article lore time, but back last year in the State of the Game article, they said this about the pvp map Multiplex:

Although many of us had been thinking about a lo-fi Vex map for the Crucible, the challenge of this palette was the possible lack of player orientation in the play space. We thought bringing the Mars palette into the Vex Network realm would be a great way to mitigate this while adding an evocative look. Narratively, the space is in the middle of compiling the Infinite Forest, so this is what you’ll see in action.

Yes, while everyone was losing their mind about this article, I was looking for lore about the Infinite Forest. But yeah. It seems like they have information about it in the network and they were using it to compile that information; perhaps preparing to make a new one? Or simply using it for data.

So essentially, the Vex could have enough information about the Forest to recreate it, and better now with the Echo, which would allow us to simply bypass the anomaly and the Forest being locked, while allowing us to enter and still find Saint's tomb. This is by far the easiest solution.

But I want a conclusion on Mercury and Vance. I feel like this episode is the only time to really do that and they've been giving us so many Mercury things already, clearly showing that it was a big inspiration for it all. The music, the assets, the enemies. This includes the stuff about Saint and his grave, as well as the whole thing with the Perfect Paradox. There's still Act 3 of course and some still unknown exotic mission, but I feel like the quest that has us literally going into the Infinite Forest to revisit a place not even from Dawn, but from Curse, is the best spot to also deal with this.

I just have no idea how that's going to happen and I wanted to list out the stuff that would have to be somehow addressed and solved, even if the solution ends up being the simplest one. I also wanted to try and list some information about the Forest itself since this thing has not been in the game for years. I hope this was useful and that it explains things well.

Anyway, I've spent the whole week pacing around my room like a wild animal. Help.

In conclusion:

[a-shade-of-blue]

I've been reading the updates on Gaza, and what I've read has made me extremely worried about Mohammed (@ahmed0khalil) and his family who are in Deir el-Balah right now.

There have been continuous relentless attacks on Deir el-Balah. Israel has been targeting tents in Deir el-Balah. Just a few hours ago, Israeli fighters have just bombed a home in that area, killing at least 5 people, including 2 children.

Mohammed and his family are sheltering in a UN classroom right now. Israel is known to target schools sheltering displaced people. Just yesterday another school where displaced families are sheltering has been attacked. This is the fourth school Israel has bombed in less than a week! But they don't have nearly enough funds to evacuate!

Mohammed is only 19 years old and he has 5 siblings. Things have been difficult for them his brother Fathi who is blind, his other brother Abdullah who is autistic and does not understand what is happening, and little 6-year-old Ahmed. They are all suffering from malnutrition because they don't have enough money to buy food, and that is on top of the frequent attacks they have to face every day!

Mohammed's campaign has been shared by 90-ghost as well as vetted by @/gazavetters and is #77 on their vetted list. I've also been communicating regularly with him. Please help! Your donation can mean life or death for them!

Low Funds! Only €3,418 raised of €50,000 goal!

Tagging for reach, please dm me if you want off the mailing list! We thank you in advance.

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[cattofwatt]

Headcanons final part

Last you’ll hear this much from me lol

“Be not afraid” looking ass

1-I think the bodies action and who speaks just randomly switches and none of them have any kind of control over it. Just to make it worse

2-the reason it became gold is because of all the gold items they had

3-they can talk to eachother in their minds. Absolutely no privacy just to make it worse

The living fractal

1-they may talk fancy but I imagine their mental state is more that of a child

2-it feels insanely guilty for all that happened in present day and promised itself it would never return so it never harms them again

3-someone draw a humanoid Visitor. Or show me someone that already did

Now this is usually where I just say goodbye and thanks for dealing with all this but

I have something planned

Edit: goal reached!

[allisonwonderlandfaraway]

The start of my TDF spin: 4 oz of superfine merino in the colorway Caffeinated Unicorn by KnitzandPearls. This is one I got at Shepherd's Harvest this year and I'm spinning it as a two ply that will hopefully end up as a heavy lace weight. It's been really fun seeing the color changes. So bright!

Last year my goal was to spin 15 minutes every day and managed to make that no problem. I don't really have a goal this year. I may see if I can find a braid that will make a fun fractal yarn, since I've never tried that before.

[serpentface]

Do psychotropic drugs and/or ritual play a role in any of the blightseed cultures? A pretty broad question, lol

Yeah that’s a very broad question, the answer is about as much as it tends to play roles in real history. Alcohol is pretty ubiquitous (outside of cultures that abstain from intoxicants) and used for a variety of purposes, opioids are commonly used in some parts for pain relief or recreational purposes, stimulants (usually in mild, natural forms) are used to provide extra energy, and hallucinogens are most commonly used as part of a larger religious framework (rather than for recreational purposes). Any more elaborate answer kinda has to be case by case in a certain culture or part of the setting.

I'll just take this as an opportunity to talk about the one established sect that pretty much REVOLVES around psychoactive use. This is the Scholarly Order of the Root, which is a sort of mystery religion + elite community of scholars who currently occupy the Ur-Tree and its forest in the far southern Lowlands (southeast of Imperial Wardin, on the same land mass).

The Ur-Tree is the obligatory Huge Fucking Fantasy Tree (and its surrounding forest). It’s a mass of vegetation about a mile tall and almost as old as Plant Life Itself, its upper branches are primeval plants, which become more modern the nearer they get to the ground (and each 'level' holds tiny ecosystems, some containing descendants of LONG-extinct arthropods/other small animals). Its lowest branches and the surrounding forest are contemporary plant life, and all is connected and protected by an incomparably MASSIVE fungal mycelium network (which is itself a living god).

A lot of the Scholars' more secretive practices revolve around experimentation with substance use with the goal of expanding the Mind and transcending the body to fully connect to the Dreamlands, and they have a supply chain of traders and mercenaries called Rootrunners who traffic substances into the Lowlands. Most of their psychoactive use is in a very intentional capacity and not just like, for fun, but a LOT of them are just straight up addicted to cocaine (in the form of alchemically refined bruljenum, which is used for practical purposes of its stimulant effect during long hours of work).

All known psychoactives are desirable for experimentation (particularly hallucinogens), with each having properties that either allow expansion of the Mind, transcendence of the body, or outright divine communion. Their effects are logged in great detail and interpreted to form the basis of the Scholars' understanding of the natural world and reality itself.

The most important substance is Ur-Root, which is root matter from subterranean levels of the Ur-Tree that have both their own intrinsic psychoactive substances and a very, very high concentration of living god mycelium. The tree root contains DMT and the mycelium has its own wholly unique effects (being an actual living god). They alchemically refine it into a purer, more potent form, and use it to expand beyond the body and directly commune with the Giants, a group of entities they have identified as the only true gods.

An Ur-Root trip starts off with minor visual distortion, which turns into shifting fractals that slowly obscure the vision. Eventually the senses are entirely taken over by a 'tunnel' of rapidly shifting fractals and geometries. In a complete trip, the experiencer gets a sense that they have been pushed through a membrane and entered another realm, finding themselves in a distinct experiential Space.

At this point they may encounter entities which communicate to them in a language impossible to describe but wholly understood. These beings are understood to be the Giants, or at least aspects of the Giants that mortals are capable of comprehending (they often take familiar tutelary forms of the Mantis or the Snake, or appear resembling the same type of sophont that the experiencer is, all composed of ever-shifting geometries). The experiencer often feels a sense of unconditional and endless love from these beings, though the Giants may be more hostile and may appear in the form of the Trickster (usually a cultural figure regarded as malicious, be it an animal or otherwise) in a bad trip.

(^Up until this point, this has mostly just been a DMT 'breakthrough' experience ft. 'machine elves' and the like).

They are then removed from this space and returned to something that feels like the real world, but is nearly unrecognizable. They have a sense of rapidly moving through time, and will usually see 'the spires' towards the beginning, which just so happen to look like this:

(source + some context via Implication- the spires are exactly what this art is depicting)

The experiencer continues to move across an unfathomable amount of time, occasionally 'seeing' other such flashes of unfamiliar landscapes and creatures, and yet also being devoid of all their senses, the 'seeing' is pure, unfiltered experience. There is a sense of interconnectedness with all life, and that one has become the forest (or even Life) itself. The sense of time is wildly distorted, the trip lasts only about 5 minutes but feels like an eternity and is understood as literal hundreds of millions of years.

The experiencer has usually lost any remaining sense of Self and individual consciousness during this phase (in which case this time distortion is usually a neutral or even peaceful experience), but some retain a fraction of their identity, and find themselves trapped and conscious while experiencing what feels like eternity (which can be LIFE-CHANGINGLY distressing, even after the fact).

(^This latter part of the trip is the effects of the Ur-Tree fungus).

The trip ends with a sense of rushing through the ground and back up into one's body, at which point they will abruptly return to their senses and consciousness. The details are then immediately retrieved via interview and recorded in immense detail. The whole experience is understood as having been full comprehension of the Dreamlands, communion with the Giants, and then a tour through the act of creation.

This is done as part of the initiatory practice into the inner mystery-religion of the scholars, and as needed for study by high scholar-priests. It is not taken lightly, both as it is absolute communion with the gods and reality, and in that it can be a very, very difficult experience. People who have gone through this often walk away with a permanently shifted perspective, often in a positive and/or comforting way- a sense of interconnectedness with all life, a peace with the concept of death, seeing less of a point in individual ego and the concept of Self, and comfort in the sense of divine love they (may have) experienced. This heavily influences the philosophy of the Scholars and has had effects by proxy in the religious worldviews of the region.

Details of this experience are closely guarded, and initiates are given absolutely no prior knowledge and expectations for their trip. This is seen as a necessity- their naivety will allow for a true, unfiltered experience, and can be used to gauge whether they should or should not be accepted. Those that have a distinctly bad trip upon initiation may be assumed to have been 'rejected' by the giants and thus denied full priesthood, though this largely depends on How they interpret their distressing trip- those who identify this as a test and harsh lesson in a journey to enlightenment may be accepted (as this is how fully initiated scholar-priests interpret and handle their bad trips).

This inner priesthood is only a small fraction of the Scholarly Order, and its greater function is as a hub of education and repository of knowledge, and Scholar-trained doctors can provide some of the best medical care available in the setting ('best medical care in this setting' only means so much but it's pretty solid, relatively speaking). Only a chosen few Scholars ever get to commune with the Ur-Root, and most of the divine secrets revealed in the process are kept hidden (though they indirectly influence the politics and worldview of the entire order).

[tangibletechnomancy]

Neural Nets, Walled Gardens, and Positive Vibes Only

the crystal spire at the center of the techno-utopian walled garden

Anyone who knows or even just follows me knows that as much as I love neural nets, I'm far from being a fan of AI as a corporate fad. Despite this, I am willing to use big-name fad-chasing tools...sometimes, particularly on a free basis. My reasons for this are twofold:

Many people don't realize this, but these tools are more expensive for the companies to operate than they earn from increased interest in the technology. Using many of these free tools can, in fact, be the opposite of "support" at this time. Corporate AI is dying, use it to kill it faster!

You can't give a full, educated critique of something's flaws and failings without engaging with it yourself, and I fully intend to rip Dall-E 3, or more accurately the companies behind it, a whole new asshole - so I want it to be a fair, nuanced, and most importantly personally informed new asshole.

Now, much has already been said about the biases inherent to current AI models. This isn't a problem exclusive to closed-source corporate models; any model is only as good as its dataset, and it turns out that people across the whole wide internet are...pretty biased. Most major models right now, trained primarily on the English-language internet, present a very western point of view - treating young conventionally attractive white people as a default at best, and presenting blatantly misinformative stereotypes at worst. While awareness of the issue can turn it into a valuable tool to study those biases and how they intertwine, the marketing and hype around AI combined with the popular idea that computers can't possibly be biased tends to make it so they're likely to perpetuate them instead.

This problem only gets magnified when introduced to my mortal enemy-

If I never see this FUCKING dog again it will be too soon-

Content filters.

Theoretically, content filters exist to prevent some of the worst-faith uses of AI - deepfakes, true plagiarism and forgery, sexual exploitation, and more. In practice, many of them block anything that can be remotely construed as potentially sexual, violent, or even negative in any way. Frequently banned subjects include artistic nudity or even partial nudity, fight scenes, anything even remotely adjacent to horror, and still more.

The problems with this expand fractally.

While the belief that AI is capable of supplanting all other art forms, let alone should do so, is...far less widespread among its users than the more reactionary subset of its critics seem to believe (and in fact arguably less common among AI users than non-users in the first place; see again: you cannot give a full, educated critique of something's failings without engaging with it yourself), it's not nonexistent - and the business majors who have rarely if ever engaged with other forms of art, who make up a good percentage of the executives of these companies, often do fall on that side, or at least claim to in order to make more sales (but let's keep the lid on that can of worms for now).

When this ties to existing online censorship issues, such as a billionaire manchild taking over Twitter to "help humanity" (read: boost US far-right voices and promote and/or redefine hate speech), or arcane algorithms on TikTok determining what to boost and deboost leading to proliferation of neologisms to soften and obfuscate "sensitive" subjects (of which "unalive" is frequently considered emblematic), including such horrible, traumatizing things as...the existence of fat people, disabled people, and queer people (where the censorship is claimed to be for their benefit, no less!), the potential impact is apparent: while the end goal is impossible, in part because AI is not, in fact, capable of supplanting all other forms of art, what we're seeing is yet another part of a continuing, ever more aggressive push for sanitizing what kinds of ideas people can express at all, with the law looking to only make it worse rather than better through bills such as KOSA (which you can sign a petition against here).

And just like the other forms of censorship before and alongside it, AI content filtering targets the most vulnerable in society far more readily than it targets those looking to harm them. The filters have no idea what makes something an expression of a marginalized identity vs. what makes it a derogatory statement against that group, or an attempt at creating superficially safe-for-work fetish art - so, they frequently err on the side of removing anything uncertain. Boys in skirts and dresses are frequently blocked, presumably because they're taken for fetish art. Results of prompts about sadness or loneliness are frequently blocked, presumably because they may promote self harm, somehow. In my (admittedly limited) experiment, attempts at generating dark-skinned characters were blocked more frequently than attempts at generating light-skinned ones, presumably because the filter decided that it was racist to [checks notes] ...acknowledge that a character has a different skin tone than the default white characters it wanted to give me. Facial and limb differences are often either erased from results, or blocked presumably on suspicion of "violent content".

But note that I say "presumably" - the error message doesn't say on what grounds the detected images are "unsafe". Users are left only to speculate on what grounds we're being warned.

But what makes censorship of AI generated work even more alarming, in the context of the executive belief that it can render all other art forms obsolete, is that other forms of censorship only target where a person can say such earth-shaking, controversial things as "I am disabled and I like existing" or "I am happy being queer" or "mental health is important" or "I survived a violent crime" - you can be prevented from posting it on TikTok, but not from saying it to a friend next to you, let alone your therapist. AI content filtering, on the other hand, aims to prevent you from expressing it at all.

This becomes particularly alarming when you recall one of the most valuable use cases for AI generation: enabling disabled people to express themselves more clearly, or in new forms. Most people can find other workarounds in the form of more conventional, manual modes of expression, sure, but no amount of desperation can reverse hand paralysis that prevents a person from holding a pen, nor a traumatic brain injury or mental disability that blocks them from speaking or writing in a way that's easy to understand. And who is one of the most frequently censored groups? Disabled people.

So, my question to Bing and OpenAI is this: in what FUCKING universe is banning me from expressing my very existence "protecting" me?

Bad dog! Stop breaking my shit and get the FUCK out of my way!

Generated as a gift for a friend who was even more frustrated with that FUCKING dog than I was

All images - except the FUCKING dog - generated with Dall-E 3 via Bing Image Creator, under the Code of Ethics of Are We Art Yet?