#give the average person an experience that plunges them into the art world because both the artist and viewer deserve that appreciation

[prompt-master]

I see a lot of posts now ragging on people for not understanding modern art and saying they could make it themselves and while that is really funny it does kinda drive me crazy

Cuz like. This is a complete failing of the museum and the display methods imo. Modern art is BORING to the typical person which is why it's the job of the museum to make it accessible and help you understand why the art work is impressive.

I see tons of modern art displays where it's just a big white room with no placards anywhere in sight. Just the art and nothing else

Museums should make you FALL IN LOVE with the art. It should guide you through its history, the reasons it's impressive, the tale of the artist, the typical reception. You should go from "but it's just a blue canvas" to having a "holy shit I get it now. That IS impressive" moment.

[rpgsandbox]

ou may not be the biggest or the strongest, but you don't have the plague. Yet. Do you have what it takes to survive?

Download the Beta from DriveThruRPG for free during this campaign.

                                      About Survival of the Able

The Black Death has come to your village. Everywhere around you people are succumbing to the plague. Quarantines are doing little to stem the tide of decay that is coming your way. Worst of all, you and the others in your almshouse have been left to fend for yourselves.

Oh, and did we mention plague victims are rising as zombies?

In Survival of the Able you’re a person with a disability living in a European almshouse when the Black Death arrives. Little is known about where the plague originated or how to stop it, but those who die from it are rising again—and they’re hungry for flesh. Since everyone else has succumbed to the plague, it’s up to a handful of you to make your way out of town and away to safety. You may not be the biggest, the strongest, or the fittest, but you're determined to survive.

                      With no other choice, Agnus faces a zombie.

In this game, you will:

Play a character with a disability who lives in Medieval Western Europe.

Encounter challenges such as disease, zombies, burning buildings, terrible weather, fatigue, and stress.

Experience discrimination based on your disability, fears that you might have the plague, or both.

Overcome incredible challenges against all odds, despite your disability. You probably won’t get much credit for your achievements, but at least you won’t be dead.

Unless you do die, in which case you may turn into a zombie and try to eat your friends.

                                              Setting and Tone

We set this game in Western Europe circa A.D. 1347 because we wanted to put you into a world where people with disabilities (PWDs) have few protections. There are no civil rights laws to ensure equal rights and fair treatment for PWDs, and most people perceived PWDs to be weak, if not helpless.

Many PWDs were sent to live in almshouses, which are church-run facilities where PWDs could be taken care of (as if they weren’t capable of taking care of themselves). The perception of PWDs was poor overall, and even people whose lives were devoted to their care didn’t often see them as fully capable human beings.

As a person with a disability in this setting, you will be challenged to overcome peoples’ fears and judgements. You will have no choice but to survive during a zombie apocalypse. The only non-disabled people you know will be unable to care for you, so you must either overcome the stigma of your disability or join everyone else in a mass grave.

Meanwhile, you do not have the luxury of adaptive aids or accommodations that we might take for granted today. Braille and Sign Language have yet to be invented, let alone wheelchairs, elevators, talking computers, etc. You cannot simply rely on technology to overcome the challenges presented by your disability, so you must use your other skills to survive.

As if all that weren’t enough, you’ll be faced with surviving the Black Plague, armed with next to no knowledge of its symptoms or effects. You don’t have history books or lessons to tell you what to expect. You’ll need to rely on your own observations, wits, and teamwork to figure out the best way to avoid plague-ridden areas and how to kill zombies so they don’t come back.

If this all seems overwhelming, then you’re on the right track. This game should challenge your perceptions, your wits, and your courage. It may not be easy, it may even be uncomfortable at times, but you’ll come out a stronger person if you’re able to survive.

Survival of the Able is based on the Fudge RPG System, but it was written 100% from the ground up to deliver a specific experience.

Players familiar with Fudge will instantly recognize Fudge Dice, the Trait Ladder, and Fudge / Fate Points. Newcomers may appreciate the simple and accessible game mechanics. Whether you're new or experienced, the game mechanics are easy to pick up and play. You can download the Beta draft for free to see what we mean.

Even if you're an experienced Fudge player, one of the first things we ask you to do is forget what you know about the system. Although it will seem familiar, we've designed a lot of new features which set the experience apart from other Fudge games you may have played. We recognize that the spirit of Fudge is to tweak the rules and make things your own, but we encourage you to try the game as it's written at least once so you can understand its intention.

So What Sets Survival of the Able Apart From Other Games?

Briefly put: there are no physical attributes in this game. Instead, we use the sliding scale of Fudge to illustrate how disability is a spectrum. At the heart of this system are the five Senses: Hear, Smell, See, Taste, and Touch. Each ranges from Non-Existent to Good (+2).

Using blindness as an example, we recognize not every blind person has a See Trait of Non-Existent. Instead, there are people with Terrible(-3) sight who can See to a degree, but not very well. Others might have Mediocre (-1) sight, which may represent typical near-sightedness or simply a lack of awareness of their surroundings.

Other character Traits include: Qualities (which represent personality and worldview), Skills (what a person can do), and Anxieties / Assurances (situations which cause or relieve Stress). Everything is designed to help you get a sense of who your character is, rather than how strong or tough they are.

In fact, your characters aren't designed to be strong or tough. In this game, you're not playing a heroic adventurer or a stout warrior. You're just an average person with a will to survive.

For more about the game mechanics:

read the glossary of terms.

listen to our podcast appearances.

download the Beta.

                                             Why This Game?

If Survival of the Able sounds a bit unconventional, then we're doing our job. This game is designed to test your fortitude by plunging you into a setting where you will be ridiculed, demeaned, and patronized just for being yourself.

Our goal is to help teach people empathy for people with disabilities. You'll have fun fighting zombies, but hopefully you'll learn a thing or two about yourself and the people around you along the way.

To be clear, we're not out to teach people what it is like to have a disability. The only way to truly understand that is to live it. Instead, our aim is to help you learn to empathize--to feel anger toward injustice, to feel frustration over inaccessibility, and to feel the joy of overcoming adversity.

We believe that when we understand each other, we communicate more openly and clearly. We can help one another thrive, rather than tear each other down. Most of all, we can shatter our assumptions and reconsider the way we've treated each other in the past.

This game isn't just about overcoming the Black Plague in the 14th Century. It's also about overcoming the plagues of misunderstanding and indifference in the 21st Century.

                                          Why This Campaign?

Survival of the Able is completely written. In fact, you can download a complete first draft of the manuscript from our website.

We're raising money to pay for art, editing, and layout. It's important to us that this game be well-presented, because the uncomfortable reality is that people judge books by their covers. If we want to get this book into as many hands and onto as many tables as possible, it needs to look great. After blowing down that barrier, we know the game will stand for itself and touch a lot of lives.

That's why we have selected some incredible talent to work on this project. We're working with several disabled and underrepresented illustrators, as well as a layout professional whose award-winning game, High Plains Samurai, is the most accessible RPG PDF to date.

All that talent comes with a price. We at Accessible Games are committed to paying fair wages to professionals, because another uncomfortable truth is that people who work in the RPG industry are ludicrously underpaid. We've built fair wages into the campaign's funding goal, but our first stretch goal is also a raise for our team. More on other stretch goals in a bit.

Finally, the campaign is here to start a dialog. Accessibility in tabletop games is something we've been advocating for since 2010, and we've seen huge growth in the 9+ years we've been doing this. We hope that by running a successful and high profile campaign, we can bring awareness of accessibility to the hearts and minds of people who perhaps hadn't considered it before.

                                         What's Included?

Survival of the Able is a complete RPG. Its rules are based on the Fudge system, but everything you need to know is in this single book.

We're producing the game in a 6"x9" format with full color illustrations. Both hardcover and paperback options will be available via DriveThruRPG.

Todd Crapper is handling layout for this project, and he's committed to accessible PDF design. He has experience using layers to create various low-vision and color blind-friendly versions within a single file, and he'll be giving that treatment to Survival of the Able.

=================================================

Kickstarter campaign ends: Tue, November 19 2019 3:00 AM UTC +00:00

Website: [Accessible Games] [twitter]

[dailytechnologynews]

The Coming Age of Imaginative Machines: If you aren't following the rise of synthetic media, the 2020s will hit you like a digital blitzkrieg

The faces on the left were created by a GAN in 2014; on the right are ones made in 2018.

Ian Goodfellow and his colleagues gave the world generative adversarial networks (GANs) five years ago, way back in 2014. They did so with fuzzy and ethereal black & white images of human faces, all generated by computers. This wasn't the start of synthetic media by far, but it did supercharge the field. Ever since, the realm of neural network-powered AI creativity has repeatedly kissed mainstream attention. Yet synthetic media is still largely unknown. Certain memetic-boosted applications such as deepfakes and This Person Does Not Exist notwithstanding, it's safe to assume the average person is unaware that contemporary artificial intelligence is capable of some fleeting level of "imagination."

Media synthesis is an inevitable development in our progress towards artificial general intelligence, the first and truest sign of symbolic understanding in machines (though by far not the thing itself--- rather the organization of proteins and sugars to create the rudimentary structure of what will someday become the cells of AGI). This is due to the rise of artificial neural networks (ANNs). Popular misconceptions presume synthetic media present no new developments we've not had since the 1990s, yet what separates media synthesis from mere manipulation, retouching, and scripts is the modicum of intelligence required to accomplish these tasks. The difference between Photoshop and neural network-based deepfakes is the equivalent to the difference between building a house with power tools and employing a utility robot to use those power tools to build the house for you.

Succinctly, media synthesis is the first tangible sign of automation that most people will experience.

Public perception of synthetic media shall steadily grow and likely degenerate into a nadir of acceptance as more people become aware of the power of these artificial neural networks without being offered realistic debate or solutions as to how to deal with them. They've simply come too quickly for us to prepare for, hence the seemingly hasty reaction of certain groups like OpenAI in regards to releasing new AI models.

Already, we see frightened reactions to the likes of DeepNudes, an app which was made solely to strip women in images down to their bare bodies without their consent. The potential for abuse (especially for pedophilic purposes) is self-evident. We are plunging headlong into a new era so quickly that we are unaware of just what we are getting ourselves into. But just what are we getting into?

Well, I have some thoughts.

I want to start with the field most people are at least somewhat aware of: deepfakes. We all have an idea of what deepfakes can do: the "purest" definition is taking one's face replacing it with another, presumably in a video. The less exact definition is to take some aspect of a person in a video and edit it to be different. There's even deepfakes for audio, such as changing one's voice or putting words in their mouth. Most famously, this was done to Joe Rogan.

I, like most others, first discovered deepfakes in late 2017 around the time I had an "epiphany" on media synthesis as a whole. Just in those two years, the entire field has seen extraordinary progress. I realized then that we were on the cusp of an extreme flourishing of art, except that art would be largely-to-almost entirely machine generated. But along with it would come a flourishing of distrust, fake news, fake reality bubbles, and "ultracultural memes". Ever since, I've felt the need to evangelize media synthesis, whether to tell others of a coming renaissance or to warn them to be wary of what they see.

This is because, over the past two years, I realized that many people's idea of what media synthesis is really stops at deepfakes, or they only view new development through the lens of deepfakes. The reason why I came up with "media" synthesis is because I genuinely couldn't pin down any one creative/data-based field AI wasn't going to affect. It wasn't just faces. It wasn't just bodies. It wasn't just voice. It wasn't just pictures of ethereal swirling dogs. It wasn't just transferring day to night. It wasn't just turning a piano into a harpsichord. It wasn't just generating short stories and fake news. It wasn't just procedurally generated gameplay. It was all of the above and much more. And it's coming so fast that I fear we aren't prepared, both for the tech and the consequences.

Indeed, in many discussions I've seen (and engaged in) since then, there's always several people who have a virulent reaction against the prospect neural networks can do any of this at all, or at least that it'll get better enough to the point it will affect artists, creators, and laborers. Even though we're already seeing the effects in the modeling industry alone.

Look at this gif. Looks like a bunch of models bleeding into and out of each other, right? Actually, no one here is real. They're all neural network-generated people.

Neural networks can generate full human figures, and altering their appearance and clothing is a matter of changing a few parameters or feeding an image into the data set. Changing the clothes of someone in a picture is as easy as clicking on the piece you wish you change and swapping it with any of your choice (or result in the personal wearing no clothes at all). A similar scenario applies for make-up. This is not like an old online dress-up flash game where the models must be meticulously crafted by an art designer or programmer— simply give the ANN something to work with, and it will figure out all the rest. You needn't even show it every angle or every lighting condition, for it will use commonsense to figure these out as well. Such has been possible since at least 2017, though only with recent GPU advancements has it become possible for someone to run such programs in real time.

The unfortunate side effect is that the amateur modeling industry will be vaporized. Extremely little will be left, and the few who do remain are promoted entirely because they are fleshy & real human beings. Professional models will survive for longer, but there will be little new blood joining their ranks. As such, it remains to be seen whether news and blogs speak loudly of the sudden, unexpected automation of what was once seen as a safe and human-centric industry or if this goes ignored and under-reported— after all, the news used to speak of automation in terms of physical, humanoid robots taking the jobs of factory workers, fast-food burger flippers, and truck drivers, occupations that are still in existence en masse due to slower-than-expected roll outs of robotics and a continued lack of general AI.

We needn't have general AI to replace those jobs that can be replicated by disembodied digital agents. And the sudden decline & disappearance of models will be the first widespread sign of this.

Actually, I have an hypothesis for this: media synthesis is one of the first signs that we're making progress towards artificial general intelligence.

Now don't misunderstand me. No neural network that can generate media is AGI or anything close. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that what we can see as being media synthesis is evidence that we've put ourselves on the right track. We never should've thought that we could get to AGI without also developing synthetic media technology.

What do you know about imagination?

As recently as five years ago, the concept of "creative machines" was cast off as impossible— or at the very least, improbable for decades. Indeed, the phrase remains an oxymoron in the minds of most. Perhaps they are right. Creativity implies agency and desire to create. All machines today lack their own agency. Yet we bear witness to the rise of computer programs that imagine and "dream" in ways not dissimilar to humankind.

Though lacking agency, this still meets the definition of imagination.

To reduce it to its most fundamental ingredients: Imagination = experience + abstraction + prediction. To get creativity, you need only add "drive". Presuming that we fail to create artificial general intelligence in the next ten years (an easy thing to assume because it's unlikely we will achieve fully generalized AI even in the next thirty), we still possess computers capable of the former three ingredients.

Someone who lives on a flat island and who has never seen a mountain before can learn to picture what one might be by using what they know of rocks and cumulonimbus clouds, making an abstract guess to cross the two, and then predicting what such a "rock cloud" might look like. This is the root of imagination.

As Descartes noted, even the strongest of imagined sensations is duller than the dullest physical one, so this image in the person's head is only clear to them in a fleeting way. Nevertheless, it's still there. Through great artistic skills, the person can learn to express this mental image through artistic means. In all but the most skilled, it will not be a pure 1-to-1 realization due to the fuzziness of our minds, but in the case of expressive art, it doesn't need to be.

Computers lack this fleeting ethereality of imagination completely. Once one creates something, it can give you the uncorrupted output.

Right now, this makes for wonderful tools and apps that many play around with online and on our phones.

But extrapolating this to the near future results in us coming face to face many heavy questions, and not just of the "can't trust what you see variety."

Because think about it.

If I'm a musical artist and I release an album, what if I accidentally recorded a song that's too close to an AI-generated track (all because AI generated literally every combination of notes?) Or, conversely, what if I have to watch as people take my music and alter it? I may feel strongly about it, but yet the music has its notes changed, its lyrics changed, my own voice changed, until it might as well be an entirely different artist making that music. Many won't mind, but many will.

I trust my mother's voice, as many do. So imagine a phisher managing to steal her voice, running it through a speech synthesis network, and then calling me asking me for my social security number. Or maybe I work at a big corporation, and while we're secure, we still recognize each other's voice, only to learn that someone stole millions of dollars from us because they stole the CEO's voice and used to to wire cash to a pirate's account.

Imagine going online and at least 70% of the "people" you encounter are bots. They're extremely coherent, and they have profile images of what looks to be real people. And who knows, you may even forge an e-friendship with some of them because they seem to share your interests. Then it turns out they're just bundles of code.

Oh, and those bot-people are also infesting social media and forums in the millions, creating and destroying trends and memes without much human input. Even if the mainstream news sites don't latch on at first, bot-created and bot-run news sites will happily kick it off for them. The news is supposed to report on major events, global and local. Even if the news is honest and telling the truth, how can they truly verify something like this, especially when it seems to be gaining so much traction and humans inevitably do get involved? Remember "Bowsette" from last year? Imagine if that was actually pushed entirely by bots until humans saw what looked like a happenin' kind of meme and joined in? That could be every year or perhaps even every month in the 2020s onwards.

Likewise, imagine you're listening to a pop song in one country, but then you go to another country and it's the exact same song but most of the lyrics have changed to be more suitable for their culture. That sort of cultural spread could stop... or it could be supercharged if audiences don't take to it and pirate songs/change them and share them at their own leisure.

Or maybe it's a good time to mention how commissioned artists are screwed? Commission work boards are already a race to the bottom— if a job says it pays three cents per word to write an article, you'd better list your going rate as 2 cents per word, and then inevitably the asking rate in general becomes 2 cents per word, and so on and so forth. That whole business might be over within five to ten years if you aren't already extremely established. Because if machines can mimic any art style or writing style (and then exaggerate & alter it to find some better version people like more), you'd have to really be tech-illiterate or very pro-human to want non-machine commissions.

And to go back to deepfakes and deep nudes, imagine the paratypical creep who takes children and puts them into sexual situations, any sexual situation they desire thanks to AI-generated images and video. It doesn't matter who, and it doesn't have to be real children either. It could even be themselves as a child if they still have the reference or use a de-aging algorithm on their face. It's squicky and disgusting to think about, but it's also inevitable and probably has already happened.

And my god, it just keeps going on and on. I can't do this justice, even with 40,000 characters to work with. The future we're about to enter is so wild, so extreme that I almost feel scared for humanity. It's not some far off date in the 22nd century. It's literally going to start happening within the next five years. We're going to see it emerge before our very eyes on this and other subreddits.

I'll end this post with some more examples.

Nvidia's new AI can turn any primitive sketch into a photorealistic masterpiece. You can even play with this yourself here.

Waifu Synthesis- real time generative anime, because obviously.

Few-Shot Adversarial Learning of Realistic Neural Talking Head Models | This GAN can animate any face GIF, supercharging deepfakes & media synthesis

Talk to Transformer | Feed a prompt into GPT-2 and receive some text. As of 9/29/2019, this uses the 774M parameter version of GPT-2, which is still weaker than the 1.5B parameter "full" version."

Text samples generated by Nvidia's Megatron-LM (GPT-2-8.3b). Vastly superior to what you see in Talk to Transformer, even if it had the "full" model.

Facebook's AI can convert one singer's voice into another | The team claims that their model was able to learn to convert between singers from just 5-30 minutes of their singing voices, thanks in part to an innovative training scheme and data augmentation technique. as a prototype for shifting vocalists or vocalist genders or anything of that sort.

TimbreTron for changing instrumentation in music. Here, you can see a neural network shift entire instruments and pitches of those new instruments. It might only be a couple more years until you could run The Beatles' "Here Comes The Sun" through, say, Slayer and get an actual song out of it.

AI generated album covers for when you want to give the result of that change its own album.

Neural Color Transfer Between Images [From 2017], showing how we might alter photographs to create entirely different moods and textures.

Scammer Successfully Deepfaked CEO's Voice To Fool Underling Into Transferring $243,000

"Experts: Spy used AI-generated face to connect with targets" [GAN faces for fake LinkedIn profiles]

This Marketing Blog Does Not Exist | This blog written entirely by AI is fully in the uncanny valley.

Chinese Gaming Giant NetEase Leverages AI to Create 3D Game Characters from Selfies | This method has already been used over one million times by Chinese gamers.

"Deep learning based super resolution, without using a GAN" [perceptual loss-based upscaling with transfer learning & progressive scaling], or in other words, "ENHANCE!"

Expert: AI-generated music is a "total legal clusterf*ck" | I've thought about this. Future music generation means that all IPs are open, any new music can be created from any old band no matter what those estates may want, and AI-generated music exists in a legal tesseract of answerless questions

And there's just a ridiculous amount more.

My subreddit, /r/MediaSynthesis, is filled with these sorts of stories going back to January of 2018. I've definitely heard of people come away in shock, dazed and confused, after reading through it. And no wonder.

[athousandsmiles-away]

Have you ever visited Taiwan?

A lot can be argued about whether Taiwan is a province of China, or whether it is a fully independent country... Taiwan considers itself to be independent politically, in fact, it has a regime of its own; but it also resembles China in several other aspects (like the language or the architecture) . Either way, all I know is when I arrived at Taipei’s airport I got a stamp - which doesn’t usually happen when you travel to a province within a country.

I travelled to Taiwan with two of my best friends for around five days, two of which we spent in Taipei and the rest of which we spent in Hualien (the East Coast of the island).

Taipei wasn’t all that much surprising, especially after having seen other megacities such as Hong Kong or Shanghai. It looked completely like an average Chinese city and, to be honest, I didn’t find super nice to walk around, except for a few temples and skyscrapers.

Some of my favourite attractions were the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, the Bao-an temple, the Elephant Hill and the Shilin Night Market - every single Asian city has one.

Chiang Kai-shek’s Memorial Hall rises like a magnificent work of art in the midst of all the busy roads and grey skyscrapers of downtown Taipei. It was built in honor and memory of the former President of the Republic of China, Chiang Kai-shek, and today it is the most prominent historical landmark in Taiwan. The complex of temples catches one’s eye because it’s style and colors contrast so much with its surroundings.

When night fell, we walked north to explore several temples, among which we found the Bao-an temple. The temple does not differ much from any other Asian temples or pagodas by day, that is why it is much more worth a visit at night. At this time, it lights up from top to bottom, becoming a sort of mystical place of worship.

Even if the streets that lead up to the temple are not very pleasant to walk through, Bao-an deserves the journey.

If you keep walking up or catch a bus from that point, you’ll finally reach the Shilin Night Market, packed with foods stalls as well as souvenirs and clothes shops. The crowded Night Market really lifted up our mood that day, because up until then we really had the impression that there was nobody in the city, because the streets and parks were almost empty and really quiet.

My last (but not least) favourite visit was the Elephant Hill, a little mountain at the outskirts of Taipei which overlooks its whole skyline - with the Taipei 101 reigning over every other skyscraper. The hike up Elephant Hill is short but steep, and it is definitely a must for all Taipei visitors, because it gives a stunning perspective of the whole city. We hiked up the hill to catch the sunset, except that there was no sunset because the sky was completely covered in clouds - oh well. But I have to say, the views were quite impressive anyway.

We also went up Taipei 101 (to the 101th floor in case there were any doubts) and the views were also pretty; however, I wouldn’t recommend it as much as the Elephant Hill, as the most iconic skyscraper there is to see is the Taipei 101 itself - which you obviously can’t see from within it.

One last thing I loved when in Taipei: their dumplings! Never leave Taipei without trying its Xiao Long Bao!

After the big city vibes, we took a train to Hualien, a smaller city on the East coast of the island. Hualien itself does not have a huge cultural offer - or even nothing at all -, but it is located right next to a beautiful national park called Taroko National Park, as well as the stunning Qinshui Cliffs.

Possibly because of the time of the year we chose, Hualien was virtually empty when we arrived. I suppose most tourists prefer to visit the Park under sunny skies and warm temperatures, but that was not a priority for us. Although the skies were somehow cloudy, the temperature rounded 15-20 degrees, so we still had a really pleasant weather during our stay.

As soon as we dropped our bags at the hostel, we rented a scooter and drove all the way to Taroko National Park. On our way, we saw several Taiwanese villages composed of tiny houses and big farms, which contrasted abruptly with the tall skyscrapers and wide roads we had seen in Taipei... After 40-50 minutes, a picturesque entrance gate leading to the National Park surprised us.

Technically speaking, there exist both Taroko Gorge and Taroko National Park. Taroko Gorge, an 18 kilometre-long marble-walled gorge, is a section of the Taroko National Park. The national park itself boasts 27 peaks over 3,000 metres in height. It also has several milestones to see, and I’m sure it would take more than three days to cover them all and do all the hikes. We chose those which we considered to be the prettiest and most important ones.

If I could describe the landscape in a few words they would undoubtedly be green and leafy trees and clear turquoise waters; abrupt caves and noisy waterfalls; but also a sort of sense of peace and calm, as if all things in nature were in harmonically connected. No wonder Taroko is one of Taiwan's most loved protected areas.

Outside of the national park and on our way back to Hualien we found the Qinshui Cliffs. They took my breath away! I perfectly remember those spectacular cliffs rising dramatically from the Pacific Ocean up to over 800 meters above turquoise waters. The dark tall cliffs contrasted with the white cloudy skies right before night was about to fall... and I can’t almost describe the feeling of peace and tranquility it all brought to me. Finding those magnificent chunks of land right at the end of our journey certainly made my day - and the whole trip as well.

That night we also visited the small town of Hualien and it’s night market, but I didn’t find it any different to other Chinese cities I’d seen before. There is one thing that I really liked though: dumplings!

In general, there aren’t many people who list Taiwan as their favourite destination ever, and many times it gets overlooked in favour of other more well-known countries in Southeast Asia. Having been there just for five days, I personally think this tiny little island has a lot to offer: amazing sceneries ranging from impressive mountains in the north and sandy beaches in the south, breathtaking hikes, the mixture of European and Chinese culture, great food...

Possibly because of its lower popularity, Taiwan is not as crowded as other destinations within Asia, and that is in part where it gets its charm from. One of the things that makes Taiwan so great is that you’ll often feel like you’re one of the only tourists in the country, and the locals will welcome you in a much warmer way - I know this from personal experience.

Taiwan is interesting culturally, historically and geographically, not to mention politically. The country is plunged in a serious identity crisis. It is a country that is not a country, successful from a manufacturing and high-tech point of view, yet striving for recognition by most of the world.

But when you visit Taiwan, you’ll quickly realise that it really is a separate country and certainly not the same as China, Vietnam or Thailand; that it has a culture of its own and plenty or attractions that can be referred to as uniquely Taiwanese... That is why my advise at this point is: go to Taiwan now before it bustles with tourists!

[riddledeep]

CLASS OVERVIEW: PIXIES

An in-depth look at Pixies and Pixie society.

Fairy Class Overview || Anti-Fairy Class Overview || Refract Class Overview

WHAT IS A PIXIE?

Small, orderly spirits capable of flight, teleportation, and other magic

A young race with a small population who manage magical paperwork (and chew on paper in general)

As a society, they tend towards the ISTJ personality stereotype- Calm, logical, hardworking, and insensitive

Pixies can hover, but not truly fly; in open air, they will plunge

Average lifespan: Inconclusive data

TAXONOMY

Kingdom: Fantastica

Phylum: Ljósálfar

Class: Ellyllon

Order: Tylwyth Teg

Family: Fae

Genus: Faedivus

Species: Pixie (Faedivus quadratum)

Fairies and Pixies are collectively known as Seelie Courters, or members of the Seelie Court (as opposed to Anti-Fairies and Fairy Refracts, known collectively as Unseelie Courters, or members of the Unseelie Court).

Pixies were classified as a Fairy subspecies until 90,000 years pre-series, just after the War of the Angels. Being their own class means they are no longer affected by Fairy decrees such as war drafts, magical quarantines, investigations made by bureaus of security, property taxes, and orders to immediately withdraw from Earth. However, they are still subject to Da Rules.

‘Pixies’ is capitalized when referring to the class and/or culture as a whole, but lowercase when referring to an individual. There are no Pixie subspecies.

BASICS

Body Type: Stocky; gynes are much larger than drones

Body Heat: Warm; ectothermic and can’t thermoregulate

Body Notes: Oily skin; they sweat a lot and feel sticky to the touch

Chromosomes: 108

Sex Chromosomes: ZZ or ZW - All functional males due to the feminization phenotype of Wolbachia

Teeth: Born with almost all their sharp teeth; bite to defend themselves

Average Height: 3′10″ (≤ 3′0″ is short for fae; ≥ 3′8″ is tall)

Average Weight: 6 - 9 pounds (5 is underweight, 11 is overweight)

IDENTITY

Loyalty and Diligence - “Treat everyone equally and never go back on your word. If you pursue a project, do it with pride and give it your all.”

Traits Seen as Most Desirable: Meekness and Dependability

Traits Seen as Most Shameful: Betrayal and Hypocrisy

Stereotype: Identical boring snobs with wishy-washy loyalties and a ton of cash on hand who have been deprived of joy and need encouragement to open up

Known For: Sticking to their ways, having close-knit herd mentality, being almost entirely hands-off the ladies, managing all paperwork, and constantly whining for attention and begging everyone else to chill

HISTORY

The most commonly accepted version of history among Pixies is that Primary, Anti-Fairy, and Refract counterparts were once a single united being known as an ao, of the Aos Sí people. They had furry bodies, six arms like an insect, bat-like ears, and colorful feathers. They were hermaphrodite, so either sexual partner was capable of becoming pregnant. They could perform a type of magic known as core magic.

Modern Fae consider the Aos Sí to have had the intelligence and technology level of cavemen. They’re portrayed in art as having loincloths and bare chests, and are sometimes depicted as centaurs who wielded tridents. Like the Fae of modern times, they’re thought to have been marsupials.

Many Fairies believe that when the Sealing War broke out among several of the ancient races of the universe, the Aos Sí were involved, but the stress of war eventually shattered their minds- and their bodies. When placed under high stress, overwhelmed Aos Sí coped by splitting into three separate beings: One insect-based, one bat-based, and one bird-based. Eventually, these three counterparts developed into the Fairies, Anti-Fairies, and Refracts we know today. Daoist Fae believe that three counterparts naturally long to reunite into a single being, and will indeed become one in the afterlife (a form is known as the Daoine Sìth form, which resembles the Aos Si body type but is thought to be a more sentient creature).

Another theory, equally accepted among Pixies as the splitting theory, is the theory of Domestic Fae. This theory suggests that modern Fairies evolved from the Aos Sí, and that Anti-Fairies and Refracts evolved from the smoke, and mist (respectively) that mixed with leftover Aos Sí magic until they took on solid form.

This theory suggests that Fairies settled down and learned to farm, thus earning them the nickname Domestic Fae. Sentient conglomerations of smoke latched onto them emotionally and took on animal forms, acting as spirit guides for generations until they eventually began adopting the physical appearance of the Fairy they’d bonded with. These smoky forms were known as Solitary Fae. Solitary Fae acted as guides and protectors to the Domestic Fae, and most Anti-Fairies would be offended if you referred to them as pets. The sentient conglomerations of mist gathered together in “flocks” and were known as Trooping Fae.

Those who hold Daoist beliefs favor the former interpretation of history, whereas those who hold Zodii beliefs favor the latter. Either way, both sides agree that their ancestors were mischievous troublemakers until Da Rules came along, and that eventually, their people settled in the cloudlands around Planet Earth and have thrived ever since.

LIFE CYCLE

Nymph: Babies are born as “shapes.” These shapes are actually a layer of chitin that helps protect the soft baby as they adjust to the world and their ability to fly and use magic. They shed it about the time they wean; around a year on average. All pixies have hexagonal exoskeletons. During their Terrific Twos, they briefly become overwhelmingly emotional, sensitive, and experience rapid mood swings. Nymphs are called nymphs until age 50.

Juvenile: The juvenile stage of the life cycle begins at age 50. Fairy children develop rapidly before their mindset stabilizes to the equivalent of a human ten-year-old. They remain mentally 10-15 throughout most of their juvenile life, developing gradually. Juveniles undergo twelve wing moults before moulting into their adult wings (and thus undergoing puberty) sometime between the ages of 140,000 - 180,000. Those who come into their adult wings earlier are generally more emotionally unstable than those who come into them later.

Adult: Regardless of when they get their adult wings, a Pixie is not considered a legal adult until they reach age of majority at 250,000 (Mentally 22). In this stage, a pixie is in the prime of their life. Their magic is very powerful, and their brain functions at an adult level. Adults can legally move out of Pixie World, purchase sugar and soda (although the Head Pixie might look the other way even when he knows they’re enjoying it underage), and vote. They undergo twelve wing moults before moulting into the senescent stage of the life cycle.

Senescent: The senescent stage is characterized by a final growth spurt, the whitening of hair, difficulty channeling magic, wrinkled faces, and longer wings. These wings are the last the pixie will ever have; once they wear out, they’re gone for good. Gyne freckles pale against the skin, and pheromones gradually weaken. The immune system also weakens during this time of life; this is the only stage of the life cycle where a pixie can die from illness.

HOW PIXIES BREATHE

Pixies breathe magic from the energy field around them. They absorb it through their pores, and it runs through their veins until it reaches the life-giving organ in their head (the core), which filters the magic and runs it out to the rest of their body. After magic is filtered, it reaches one’s counterparts for the first time; pixies breathe on behalf of their counterparts.

Pixies are connected to the energy field through “magic lines” or “breathing lines,” which are actually part of the karmic weave and invisible to the naked eye. They’re constructs of magical energy. Lines are bestowed by the father after birth (with occasional exceptions; for example, Poof received his breathing lines from H.P. during the “Open Your Eyes” Prompt, and “breathes like a pixie” as a result). These lines are removed from the donor’s core and braided into the infant’s core. A newborn who does not receive lines soon after birth will asphyxiate and die. A pixie grows a new line about every 10,000 years, so you could count their lines and estimate how old they are in human terms (exception being for those who’ve given their lines away in the past).

Once a pixie’s body has become adjusted to breathing with many lines, they require a high amount of lines to breathe easily. For example, Longwood has asthma due to giving away six of his breathing lines to a pair of newborn twins. He’ll recover eventually, but for now, he has asthma.

When a pixie is aroused (either sexually or by overindulging on sugar), they fall into a drunken state known as being “tingle-fritzy.” In this state, their lines “fritz” in and out of contact with the energy field, drastically impacting the stability of their magic. Tingle-fritzy pixies cannot maintain their magic for long. They soon lose their ability to fly, and cannot hold a shapeshifted form for longer than a minute at most. In my ‘fic Baby, You’re a Rich Man, we also witnessed H.P.’s and Sanderson’s lines fritzing during a storm. Pixies don’t like being near lightning because it zings down their lines and jolts them.

It’s also worth noting that the Big Wand plays a role in a pixie’s ability to breathe by filtering raw and polluted magic from the energy field. When the Big Wand in Fairy World shuts down, pixies lose their access to filtered magic; they do not have an antenna like the Big Wand of their own in Pixie World.

HEALING AND HEALTH

The Fae are resilient creatures built to last for hundreds of thousands of years. In their prime (Juvenile stage through adulthood), they can get sick, but won’t die from viruses or disease. Pixies have a lower body temperature than Fairies and are more prone to getting sick because of this.

A pixie’s life-sustaining organ, the core, is kept in their head. The core does not normally pump and beat like a heart does, but instead “wafts” magic through the body like the scent of a candle. Sometimes characters I write acknowledge that their core is beating. It only beats when it’s necessary to push a burst of magic through the body (such as when aroused or injured). Technically, fae don’t have blood- they have liquid magic that “hovers” around set points in their bodies. I use the term “blood” for reader convenience.

Magic resists magic. A pixie who gets stabbed with a magical blade will feel no pain; the blade will pass through the skin very easily, and although the Fairy can feel it, it doesn’t hurt and won’t damage the body. The wound will seal within seconds after the blade is removed.

Pixies naturally heal quickly; however, large wounds will only heal with time and sleep. Cuts in a wing made by an unenchanted blade can’t be healed, and those caused by a magic-touched weapon will heal only if one sleeps while holding their wand or something, since it requires that much magic and rest to repair the damage.

WING ANATOMY

As a reader of my fanfics, you’ll want to know what costas are. The common fairy subspecies (the former classification of pixies) has a tradition of cutting notches into the costas of each other’s wings, since their subspecies mates for life. Different patterns have different meanings. Cutting their costas causes small gashes to appear in the wings of their counterparts. The notches remain even when wings moult. H.P. has notches in his costas.

Pixie wings are much smaller than they should be for their body weight; they are unable to fly if their access to magic from the energy field is cut off. Their clothing is specially designed to fit around their wings. Pixies fold back their wings and slide them through the slits in their shirts. Many dress themselves with magic because it’s easier to simply wave a wand.

Between the wings is a bumpy, perforated patch of skin known as the dorsal trachea. A pixie doesn’t technically breathe from that area since they breathe magic from the energy field, but that area helps them cool down and move their wings. Because there are literal gaps there, that patch of skin fills with water if a pixie is submerged. Pixies can’t drown while they remain in contact with the energy field (they breathe magic, after all), but they sink quickly.

MINDSETS

Gyne: A gyne can be identified by his facial spots and large size. Gynes produce more powerful pheromones than drones. Gynes are territorial, and biologically predisposed to fight (and kill) one another. Gynes gather retinues of drones, whom they are expected to care for. Gynes are most likely to take mates, and drones will back down if a gyne makes a move towards their love interest.

Drone: A non-freckled pixie who is drawn to a gyne’s pheromones, similar to a retinue of worker bees who follow the queen around the hive all day. Drones who are deprived of regular exposure to dominant pheromones will fall into depressive slumps. Widely considered to be natural-born servants, they frequently get caught in the crossfire of extremists who believe they should remain silent in public, and extremists who believe they’ve been enslaved and should fight the world. Drones are stereotyped as having narrower hips, more submissive personalities, and more “feminine mannerisms.” They also produce weaker pheromones.

PHEROMONES AND PREENING

Like Fairies, pixies young and old produce pheromones from glands on their neck. Gyne pheromones are stronger than drone pheromones. Pixies are scent-based creatures, and obtain important information about an individual (such as species, mood, age, dominance, strength, and sex) from the pheromones they produce. Pheromones are not a form of mind control, but they do influence other pixies. Confident pixies produce more dominant pheromones. Pixies naturally submit to those more dominant than they. If two dominant pixies clash, one of them will either have to back down or challenge the other. Pheromones can be exchanged through a ceremony known as “preening” (when it’s calm and intimate) or “giving dominance licks” (when deliberately putting someone in their place). Dominance licks are licked on a subordinate’s face, and subordinate licks are licked on a superior’s neck. Preening is considered a form of deep emotional intimacy and trust.

Preening involves a dominant and subordinate partner, and its main purpose is to exchange pheromones via licks to ensure both parties are clear on which one is which. Times this is useful include meeting with important political figures, arriving as a guest to someone’s home, or sorting out the pecking order among roommates. Dominant pixies don’t always have to fight one another- fights only break out if one of them refuses to submit. If one party willingly submits to the other, there won’t be a problem. Preening allows them to make that distinction clear, because it literally triggers a pheromone response in the other party: a dominant pixie can use his pheromones to suppress another, temporarily shifting another dominant pixie into a subordinate one unless the subordinate directly challenges him, or until the pheromones wear off a few hours or days later (The more dominant you are, the longer your pheromones last; H.P. is widely accepted as the most consistently dominant gyne in the cloudlands and his pheromones would last much longer on someone than Poof’s would).

Preening is divided into two categories- shallow preening and deep preening. Shallow preening is quick and casual and simply involves licking someone’s face or neck for a minute or two. Deep preening is far more intense; a full-body wash beforehand is expected and the session can easily last for an hour or two. Shallow preening is usually performed while standing, while deep preening usually begins with sitting down and transitioning to lying down. It’s an emotionally intimate ritual that involves a lot of trust and vulnerability on both sides. Since he’s older than most fae and was raised with traditional Fairy values, H.P. considers deep preening to be more appropriate than cheap corner-cutting shallow preening, so it’s his default (and is thus the default of Pixie culture). Due to the sheer amount of drones in Pixie World, shallow preening is a necessity for the sake of time, but Pixies hold great respect for deep preening and would never mock it the way some Fairies do.

A retinue is a group of drones who tend to a gyne’s needs, perhaps reducing stress levels by delivering paperwork, or offering a massages or manicures. The alpha drone leads the retinue group (ranging between 3-8 total individuals at a time) and runs things smoothly so the gyne can relax. The alpha’s job is to locate drones in need of pheromone exposure and bring them to the gyne; the alpha attends every retinue session daily, but the other drones rotate frequently. The alpha must build organized teams by finding those who work well together, and the alpha is responsible for writing performance reviews for each individual. If the alpha is struggling with the workload, he can delegate the position of overseeing retinue sessions to a beta drone, who leads retinue groups and writes reviews but has no real authority beyond that.

Preening is a very common aspect of Pixie culture. A company’s dominant gyne is expected to distribute pheromones to his workers on a regular basis. It’s acceptable to preen in front of other company members since pixies are comfortable around their co-workers, though they’re hesitant about preening in front of guests. The current Head Pixie is the only regularly dominant gyne found at Pixies Inc. He therefore suppresses the fertility of other pixie gynes and performs frequent preening rituals with drones. Other Pixie companies, such as PixieCo (the Hawthorn Haven subsidiary), are headed by a Chief Pixie, who is the dominant gyne of the company but is expected to take the subordinate role when interacting with the Head Pixie. 

A crucial aspect of preening is the idea that it’s a ritual of subordinate figures humbly offering themselves to dominant figures, not dominant figures holding subordinate figures down and forcing them to submit. The subordinate partner should be the one to make all position changes and major movements. If the pair are long-term committed partners (say a gyne and his alpha drone), the dominant partner can guide the subordinate one more than would be socially acceptable with most people. Still, the subordinate partner is usually seen as the one who holds the power during preening.

In modern day, many Fairies view preening as an arousing activity (the younger generation in particular are stereotyped as preening with arousal and pleasure as their goal). All pixies are closely related and view preening as a necessary life requirement, not as a sensual or inappropriate thing. Pixies in general are stereotyped as having very chaste, non-energetic preening rituals (even the young gyne Finley, known to his high school as a massive flirt). Pixie drones are seen as hard workers with high loyalty to their gynes, but since they’re viewed as dull and boring (sometimes evil), most Fairies don’t try to lure them away from Pixie World. Especially since many fear the Head Pixie will literally kill them if they try.

That said, a very particular stereotype clings to H.P. Since he has deep preened with Anti-Fairies, and since he’s considered a figure of neutrality, most Fairies believe he’s attracted to both Fairies and Anti-Fairies. It’s widely assumed he’s had affairs with both Jorgen and Anti-Cosmo and that these affairs are hidden behind the socially acceptable label of deep preening. Fairies who don’t realize his pixies are his offspring often believe he takes advantage of them for his own dark desires too.

Anti-Fairies didn’t have political power until after the War of the Sunset Divide; once they began interacting with ambassadors and the Fairy Council, high-ranking figures stopped preening during meetings. H.P. is the only political figure who has deep preened with an Anti-Fairy as an equal- he has deep preened with both Anti-Bryndin and Anti-Cosmo and his successors will presumably continue this tradition of preening despite borders; this has won Pixies considerable favor with Anti-Fairies.

THIS post depicts the twenty-four official preening signals and their meanings. You may also be interested in the full transcript of the Cosmo Waterberry interview, wherein he discussed his life as a drone and his views of preening with a gyne who has a wife and kids, which can be found HERE. It’s worth noting that Cosmo was the first drone H.P. ever took under his wing.

PROGRESSION OF PIXIE SOCIETY

(You may be interested in “7 Billion Years In Brief” HERE)

Past: The H.P. we know from FOP canon is known as Head Pixie the First. He was classified as a common fairy in his youth, but during his adult life he became infected with the real-life bacteria Wolbachia pipientis. This bacteria alters the reproductive system of the host insect, preventing its host from reproducing naturally and instead forcing its host to asexually reproduce genetic clones.

H.P. (previously known as Fergus Whimsifinado) was studied and eventually reclassified as a pixie. He chose to take the name Head Pixie as a result. He has since become parent to the entire pixie race, though he attempts to keep his offspring at a distance and denies any fatherly attachment towards them. Sanderson is his firstborn.

Pixies made their home at the edge of a woodland that later became known as Pixie Woods (See also, “Cosmonopoly”). They began as a village, then progressed to a town, a city, and a micronation before being officially recognized as an independent World. Pixies are a young race and do not have much history to speak of other than that.

Present: 90,000 years ago, the War of the Angels (the war mentioned in the episode “Balance of Flour”) broke out between the Fairies and the Anti-Fairies, as both sides disagreed on how to treat the human race. Pixies abstained from the war at first, but were eventually forced to pick sides. They picked both.

In present day, Pixies are a very corporate society. They portray themselves as businessmen and maintain a stiff demeanor around outsiders, though they are close-knit and more casual with one another. The majority of pixies are drones, and are naturally drawn to dominant pheromones (such as those the Head Pixie produces).

Historically, Pixies have always strived to act as a neutral party in all matters of Fae discourse, and have no qualms about switching allegiances if it benefits them. Fairies and Anti-Fairies grudgingly accept this; they realize that Pixies will never be truly good nor truly evil, and will simply express complete loyalty to whichever side they happen to be collaborating with at the time. As a result, Fairies and Anti-Fairies regularly play tug o’ war with Pixies, as whichever side can claim them as allies holds an advantage over the other. 

Pixies don’t see the other fae classes as “good” and “evil” and instead see both sides as chaotic. They consider their own race the only sense of true order in the universe. They will collaborate with whichever side is running more efficiently at the time and withdraw if order can’t be maintained.

Future: Post-series, Pixies Inc. expands beyond the borders of Pixie World. A subsidiary known as PixieCo is established in the cloudland colony Hawthorn Haven (located near the planet Boudacia). Plans are made to establish additional subsidiaries throughout the universe as time goes on. Each of these subsidiaries is to be headed by a dominant gyne known as a Chief Pixie, who becomes subordinate when interacting with the Head Pixie. The proper way to address these Chief Pixies would be “Chief Pixie [Surname]” or “PixieCo’s Chief.” Commonly, Chief Pixies are addressed as C.P. or Chief even in personal interactions, and the surname is only used to differentiate between them or show respect at times when using a full name is appropriate. So a Pixies Inc. worker would greet the C.P. of PixieCo as “Chief Smith” but a PixieCo worker would simply address him as “Chief.”

Eventually, H.P.’s fertility runs out and his offspring begin having offspring of their own. They reproduce asexually just as he did, as they were born already infected with Wolbachia pipientis. The Pixie population increases exponentially at this time as more and more pixies enter their reproductive phase of life. The Gen 2 pixies (H.P.’s offspring) begin managing small businesses of their own. My final FOP ‘fic, Devil’s Backbone, examines this period in more detail.

WOLBACHIA PIPIENTIS

The four phenotypes of Wolbachia:

Asexual reproduction (Parthenogenesis)

The inability to produce kids naturally (Cytoplasmic incompatibility)

All asexually-reproduced nymphs (who all carry Wolbachia) will be born male (See also, “Gender Dynamics” below)

All female fae who become infected with Wolbachia quickly die (In insects the males die, so this is known as “male killing”)

Male fae who become infected will begin reproducing asexually according to their heat cycle peak while females will die a painful death within a few days. Fae refer to Wolbachia as Pixalchia. February 12th is a Pixie holiday, Pixalchia Day, and celebrates their species.

H.P. became infected with Wolbachia after touching dead wasps that carried the bacteria. Similarly, touching the lifedust that Fairies and pixies leave behind when they die will transfer Wolbachia (assuming the dead Fairy was infected with it). Because of this, it’s against Fairy law for a Fairy to crawl into bed with a pixie, just in case they die and the Fairy becomes infected. Pixie marriages are not legally upheld in Fairy World. Technically, pixies aren’t even supposed to leave Pixie World in the evenings.

Wolbachia cannot be transferred through physical touch with a living pixie. Pixies live perfectly normal lives. The only way for a Fairy to contract it is touching infected lifedust, or touching a dead infected insect. No law prevents Anti-Fairies from hanging around pixies at night. Anti-Fairies cannot contract Wolbachia directly, but will be affected if their counterpart contracts it.

Most masculinized pixies have no idea they were born with damseline sex chromosomes since they developed the drakian reproductive system. They tend to be taller than most pixies, have slimmer hips, grow less facial hair, and specialize in magic that requires long-term endurance rather than rapid bursts of strength.

Technically there are a few antibiotics that can cure Wolbachia (tetracycline and rifampicin), but because Wolbachia is inherently tied to a pixie’s biology, the pixie will die if their Wolbachia is “cured.” Fae who became infected with Wolbachia (and were not born with it) will not die if cured; they will continue reproducing asexually, but all offspring will be stillborns.

SOCIAL

Leadership: At this time, the pixie race is small enough that all pixies are subject to the authority of the Head Pixie. As the population increases, adjustments to the system may be necessary. For now, Pixie society functions like a benevolent(?) dictatorship, with the Head Pixie holding sole political power without a system of checks and balances. 

The Head rules for life or until official retirement and raises a hand-picked heir (the Vice President of Pixies Inc.) to succeed him. By law, all Head Pixies and Vice Presidents are gynes unless all pixie gynes are dead when the time comes to choose a successor. If a subsidiary company loses all its gynes, a new one will be transferred there. If all known pixie gynes are dead, the eldest pixie drone takes the role of Head or Chief.

The Head Pixie is the dominant gyne of Pixies Inc. and therefore preens with all the drones in the company in an almost-constant cycle similar to a queen bee’s retinue. The Head is assisted by an alpha retinue drone, who holds more authority than other drones in the company, but less authority than the vice president. Other drones defer to the alpha unless given direct instructions from the Head. The alpha’s job is to organize drones in groups called “circles” so multiple drones can receive pheromone exposure at the same time without stepping on each other’s toes. The alpha can also assist the Head in spreading his pheromones on a regular basis if the alpha takes the dominant role during preening with subordinate drones (after the alpha himself has been preened by the Head to get the Head’s pheromones that day).

Pixie World (Inkblot City) is a city-state located in the middle of the Fairy World cloudlands. It is found within the Central Star Region, so when Robe elections roll around, pixies can cast their votes for who they think should fill the position of Purple Robe on the Fairy Council. Pixies are legally allowed to run for the Purple Robe position, though none have successfully won that title yet.

The Fairy Elder and the Keeper of Da Rules are also important figures to mention. The Fairy Elder is a figurehead who holds no political power, and the Keeper of Da Rules, well, keeps Da Rules. It’s possibly worth noting that H.P. has a major crush on the Fairy Elder, which is unrequited.

Honoraries: Mr. is the appropriate address for Pixies; some people may address them as Drk. but the Mr. honorary is preferred.

Greetings: Pixies shake with their right hand, bringing their left hand around to clasp the backs of the knuckles. Fairies, who shake with the left hand, tend to find the experience uncomfortable.

Pixie gynes should be greeted before drones; they are, again, identifiable by their freckles. If a gyne is clearly accompanied by a retinue drone, the appropriate greeting is a simple “Nice to meet you,” or “Hello.” Saying, “And this must be your retinue,” would not be appropriate. Under Canterbury v. Oakwing, if you suspect someone of being a drone, you aren’t supposed to out them and are supposed to treat them the way you would treat a kabouter.

If you were arriving in a meeting room with Jorgen, Anti-Cosmo, Anti-Wanda, H.P., Anti-Sanderson, and Sanderson, you would greet them in that order.

Groups: Pixies bond neatly with other pixies, but rarely with outsiders. Relationships with other pixies could be described as, “Friendly but professional,” while relationships with outsiders tend to be stiff and all business.

Pixies fall in behind more dominant figures. They generally prefer others to make decisions for them and will follow whomever takes the lead with little question. Pixies are stereotyped as being efficient workers, but not that bright. They are also viewed as being highly suspicious and slow to trust; most Fairies will assume your friendship is genuine, but pixies are skeptical by default.

Friendships: Pixies, who are closely related to Fairies, make friends more easily than you might expect. They consider all other pixies their allies by default, but frequently befriend people outside their own race. The friendship between H.P. and Anti-Cosmo is an excellent example of this; despite the fact that their beliefs and values are very different, they have forged a bond. Sanderson is good friends with Anti-Phillip Anti-Coppertalon (and a self-declared friend of Norm the genie, though the genie might not return the sentiment).

If you hang around a pixie enough, chances are they consider you a friend- they just aren’t likely to tell you so outright. You will know a pixie accepts your presence if they hover close to the ground and don’t scoot away when you come near. If they relax their guard a little more, showing postures that are less stiff and expressing a bit more body language, they consider you a friend (even if their voice stays monotone and their eyes stay hidden). If a pixie invites you to a soda bar, you’re moving up. If you’re asked to dance with them or attend a rave, you’re on the next level. If a pixie touches you without you touching him first, you’re in the club, kid.

If a pixie decides he likes you, expect him to beeline for you any time he sees you out and about. Pixies have social wasp DNA and feel most comfortable around familiar people. Their small talk may be dry and they’ll probably follow you around until you convince them you’re leaving for a faraway destination. As long as you don’t mind the company, a pixie can be a helpful friend willing to help you carry shopping bags, sort through your mail, or buy you a soda.

Pixies are naturally loyal and, like Fairies, will assume your friendship is at a comfortable level unless you directly tell them otherwise. If you end a friendship with one, he’ll probably be surprised. Expect to have to explain why or subject yourself to pestering nosiness for the next several months (This is where having written a note explaining your intentions to end the relationship would come in handy). Normally, pixies do not take rejection hard; they will simply see a closed friendship as a risk that didn’t work out, and will review their options for new friends before trying again with someone else. Fairies tend to return to friends who reject them because they get closely attached, but pixies can normally move on once you explain why you terminated the friendship. Normally.

Expectations: Being part of a large corporation is an enormous part of a pixie’s identity. When you meet with a pixie, they expect to do their job, do it well, get paid, and then be permitted to relax after hours. Pixies expect to be treated in a professional manner; they anticipate honesty, compliance, and efficiency, and might become impatient with disagreeable customers (though they’ll do their utmost not to show it).

Pixies prize delivery- coming through with what you promised when you promised. As a result, most pixies panic at the thought of being late or cancelling plans. They’re not great about changing minds once something has already been scheduled and agreed on.

Pixies are all about loyalty and diligence. They’re less obsessed with sticking to the exact rules than Fairies are, and may actually be impressed (even flattered) if you put in the effort to figure out how to exploit a loophole against them. They like things to be done right, but “What is right?” is a question they’re willing to hold debate on; pixies consider themselves a neutral party between Fairies and Anti-Fairies. In their minds, order is good and chaos is unpleasant. Lawful Evil societies that are orderly are better than Neutral or Good societies that tend towards chaos.

Pixies are natural sugar addicts, particularly since they’re based on paper wasps (an insect famous for seeking out sugar when the queen is away). Most pixies enjoy candy and soda, and tend to show more emotion the more sugarloaded they get. However, they are still expected to remain somewhat professional in public, enjoy sugar in moderation, and not consume sugar while on the job.

Pixies try never to break a promise, and avoid promising anything that isn’t in their power to uphold. Keeping their word is something most all of them take great pride in. On that note, be aware of their handshakes- they regularly chew on paper from magical trees much like a paper wasp would. If one spits in his hand and holds it out to you for a shake, whatever deal you’re making is going to be magically binding.

Intimacy and Partnership: Because emotions are frowned on in Pixie society, their post-lekking courtship practices aren’t commonly observed. Some time after the War of the Angels, it became illegal for a pixie to stay in Fairy World after a certain evening curfew (Exception being the Head and his alpha retinue if they’re on official political business). This law (Eros v. Longwood) prevents Pixies from partying well into the night and from having sleepovers with Fairies (Staying in Anti-Fairy World late is fine though).

The intention of this law was to discourage affairs with pixies- and more importantly, prevent them from dying in public locations where their lifedust and its deadly Wolbachia pipientis bacteria can easily spread. It’s thought that pixies are more likely to die after mating than Fairies are since pixies are not a very cheerful species; pleasure is required to activate yellow magic when mating, and if yellow magic isn’t achieved then a pixie can easily die. See the Eros Family post HERE for more details about this subject.

When it comes to intimacy, Pixies are stereotyped as being inexperienced and hesitant, but curious about every sensation. It’s said they kiss with their eyes open, carefully analyzing the reaction of their partner. Kissing pixies is a fantasy some fae have, but few experience. Some people imagine kissing a pixie to be stiff, sloppy, awkward, and unemotional while others imagine it to be a pleasant experience with someone whose only thought is pleasing them. Generally, Pixies fall into a sexually subordinate role- certainly the drones do and even many gynes. Some, valuing confidence, may take a “Fake it ‘til you make it” approach, but others take a “The customer is always right” standpoint and wait for instructions or movements to mimic.

As for Pixies, their views towards intimacy vary. To some, the concept is nerve-wracking or just plain uninteresting. To others, it’s that big, mystical, semi-forbidden thing they’re told not to experiment with, which of course kicks their need to collect information into high gear.

See also, Courtship and Lekking (Under “Customs”).

Power Dynamics: Political Rank (if applicable) > Pheromone Strength > Subspecies > Physical Strength > Company Rank / Hard Work > Emotional Stability > Age > Magical Strength

Above is the general ranking system. The corporate hierarchy is as follows:

Head Pixie > Vice President of Pixies Inc. > Chief Pixies > H.P.’s Alpha Drone > V.P.s of Subsidiaries > Subordinate Gynes > Beta Drones > Other Drones

Pixie society follows a social hierarchy system, with those who prove their dominance (via a history of workplace success and diligence) being rewarded with high positions in the company. Confidence influences pheromones, which in turn influences how others react. Gynes tend to be the most dominant, drones the most submissive. There are exceptions: some pixie gynes are very young and submissive, while some drones are more aggressively dominant.

Every Head or Chief Pixie is assisted by an alpha drone. The alpha organizes lower ranked drones into groups (retinues) and directs them as needed. The local vice president outranks the local alpha drone in corporate matters (i.e. if both gave an order during work hours inside the building, you’d listen to the vice president), but the alpha outranks the vice president in social matters outside the company’s inner workings (See also, Pheromones and Preening above).

The current Head Pixie insists on being everyone’s dominant gyne; he’s strongly opposed to the idea of younger gynes managing retinues of their own and becoming dominant. He insists on having his own pheromones spread to every single drone, even though it’s stressful and inconvenient to make such an effort on a regular basis. Longwood has expressed interest in adjusting company dynamics when he takes over as Head Pixie. He believes it would be best to organize perhaps a hundred drones each under the care of the younger gynes, and let drones be exposed to those gynes’ pheromones instead of the Head’s. Longwood himself doesn’t care for preening and would prefer to preen only with a few drones he’s close to. He feels letting other gynes preen can improve their mental health (and his own), satisfy the drones more regularly, and it’s good practice for gynes who’ll become Chief Pixies someday anyway.

Gender Dynamics: Lots of people consider pixies to be inherently sexist, as they come from an all-male species. They often are, but it’s still up to some debate. Most likely, you’ll stumble across pixies who are just curious to see damsels up close. Given that they’re from an asexual race, they have very little concept of what might be viewed as inappropriate, so you may have to slap a little sense into them if they’re closely examining your breasts or repeating the high inflections of your voice in an annoying loop.

Due to the feminization phenotype of Wolbachia pipientis (or in this case, the masculization phenotype), all pixies are male and identify as such. Some pixies technically have damsel sex chromosomes, having been converted from females during early development. Pixies with damsel sex chromosomes are still born with drake reproductive parts. There are no visual or behavioral differences between pixies with ZW and ZZ chromosomes, but it doesn’t stop the media from hunting for them (no matter how many times pixies ask them not to). Pixies do not normally test their sex chromosomes and only know which ones they have if they go out of their way to check. Pixie culture doesn’t care, so 99% of them don’t know.

Currently, the sole exception to the “all pixies are male and identify as such” rule is the pixie damsel Commelina. See also, the Origin of the Pixies chapter “The Fading of Light.”

Rules of Speaking: Drones tend to defer to gynes who are older than them, though they don’t defer to juvenile gynes. Because Pixies are a close-knit group, Pixie drones tend to speak up more in public than Fairy drones. Especially when they have snippy commentary to toss out. One stereotype of pixie drones is that they have an obsession with completing things and will keep talking until they’re finished with their thought, even if you try to cut them off. Drones have a harder time breaking away from their internal thoughts too, so it often takes them a few seconds longer to respond if you speak to them while they were in the middle of thinking about something else.

When speaking to a dominant gyne who is accompanied by a retinue drone, the appropriate thing to do is pretend the drone isn’t there, the same way you would treat a service dog like a cane or wheelchair rather than a dog to play with. If you did have information you wished to share directly with the drone, then it would be acceptable to address the drone by name to signal the shift in conversation partner, or ask the gyne if he could introduce you to his friend.

Personal Space: Pixies communicate through scent, and come from a culture where pheromones are crucial to social interaction. If not sitting in a chair behind a desk, they tend to get in close when they speak, to the point that Fairies and Anti-Fairies feel uncomfortable and begin backing away.

Pixie architecture favors squares, sharp edges, and skyscrapers. Efficiency, not creativity, is the word that comes to mind. Pixies reside in apartment complexes with other pixie roommates rather than having houses and family units. At social gatherings, pixies tend to find a single person they’re interested in and tail them for the majority of the event- probably, the person they’re most interested in networking with. This habit contributes to the stereotype that pixies are annoying, invasive pests.

Pixies keep their hands to themselves when interacting with authority figures or clients, but if they consider you part of their inner circle of trusted friends they’ll engage in absentminded physical touch. Be flattered if a pixie puts his hand on your arm and leans in to whisper in your ear. You’re on the next level. Physical touch is the sign that a pixie is ready to “progress the relationship,” so to speak. If you were going to court a pixie, preen with a gyne, or take a drone under your wing, keep your eyes out for the physical touch cue.

Pixies find it extremely rude to be suddenly poofed away from whatever they were doing without warning, unless the person who summoned them is the Head Pixie. H.P. normally gets his pixies’ attention when he needs them through phone calls or texts (scry bowls before that), but if he doesn’t receive a response within five minutes, your butt is getting pinged. Assuming you’re where he thinks you are. If you aren’t at your workstation, it will take him some time to find you and he’ll be increasingly annoyed. He’ll still hunt down the pixie he had in mind for whatever task he needs done even if there are other pixies available who could do it. He’s stubborn that way.

Social Faux Pas: Showing emotion is frowned upon in Pixie society, and so is removing your shades to show your eyes during work hours. Pixies consider themselves a logical race who are above troublesome emotions. However, if one feels emotions coming on and doesn’t feel able to withhold them, they ought to excuse themselves from the room until they’re in control of their feelings again. They’re not taught this directly since again, they prefer to believe they’re above emotions, but they’ve quietly figured it out.

Relations With Fairies: Fairies are largely viewed as chaotic free spirits who tend to oppress the other Fae races; they’re a necessary evil to deal with. Pixies, normally neutral, have officially sided with Fairies over Anti-Fairies at times; Fairies and Anti-Fairies tend to fight over who has the Pixies’ favor (especially as the race grows). 

Relations With Anti-Fairies: Anti-Fairies are frequently viewed as chaotic troublemakers, but thanks to H.P.’s friendship with Anti-Cosmo, Pixies sometimes consider them allies. Pixies fought alongside the Fairies but later switched to the Anti-Fairies’ side during the War of the Angels, and Pixie/Anti-Fairy relations remained close after that. However, Pixies sided with the Fairies against the Anti-Fairies during the May Blossom War, prompting Fairies to see Pixies in a neutral/good light again and increasing Pixie/Anti-Fairy tensions (Read more about these wars HERE).

Relations With The Refracted: Refracts are typically viewed as priests and priestesses with high status, and are greatly admired.

Relations With Alien Races: Pixies rarely interact with Aliens directly, as the Fairies do most of that on behalf of the cloudlands. However, Aliens are seen as potential consumers for products, and are treated as such.

CUSTOMS

Art: Pixies value writing more than visual art, but when they do search for visual art they're biased towards digital art over physical paintings and sculptures. Pixies will read anything you give them, and as a race they have addictive personalities. They never stop at the first book in a series and will continue hunting until they’ve read the whole collection. The same rules apply to fanfiction... Some pixies will read everything in a certain genre, others everything involving certain characters, and others works from a certain author, but it’s very, very difficult to stop them once they get started.

Pixies are not known for producing physical art. Few of them choose to pursue artistic activities in their free time, and fewer still pursue things they can easily market. A few writers, painters, and sculptors do work to turn their interests into something that can earn them extra pocket change, but their work doesn’t particularly stand out against the skills of Fairies and Anti-Fairies. However, very few Fairies and fewer Anti-Fairies have attempted digital art in the first place, let alone mastered it. Pixies may not stand out in the field their competitors rule, but when it comes to digital art they are kings. Digital art is difficult to market in a world of magic, but some people commission pixie artists for the novelty of it. They’re gaining popularity with younger fae generations slowly but surely.

Pixies don’t look like they’re big on parties at first glance, but anyone who’s gotten to know them knows loud musical festivals with repetitive beats and flashing lights are a beloved part of Pixie culture. Raves grant pixies the chance to shed their gray suits and dress a little less identically for the night. While a few pixies shy away from raves, most of them embrace it. Rave clothing isn’t easily found or publicly sold in Fairy World and certainly can’t be found in Anti-Fairy World, but in Pixie World, all sorts of curious clothing items and interesting accessories are readily available for purchase and there’s no end of pixies who’ll happily help you customize a look that’s just right for you. Who knows? If word of what you’re looking for reaches the Head Pixie’s ears, maybe he’ll ping down to size you up himself.

Besides the flashy clothing they offer, Pixies are also known for dominating the disco, rap, electronic, and several other music genres in the cloudlands. Parties and festivals experimented with many different genres before then, but pixie-mixed music instantly became standard the moment it was released. H.P. takes enormous pride in this. Other pixies are allowed to get into the music industry if they like, but no music (be it on disc, digital file, or sneaky recording) is permitted to leave Pixie World premises until he’s approved it. He protects the Pix-eez brand better than his own children and runs new songs through dozens of test groups, tweaking and fiddling until he’s absolutely satisfied.

Calendar: Pixies normally use the Anti-Fairy calendar since its Year 0 approximately aligns with H.P., but they are very familiar with the Fairy calendar since that’s what H.P. grew up with and what most of their clients use. Both calendars measure auroras (times the Aurora Fairyalis has occurred). Read more about calendars in the Fairy and Anti-Fairy class overviews.

Child-Rearing: Pixies are an all-male species and can’t provide milk for newborn pixies. Most pixies live with foster families for their first two years before they’re brought back to Pixie World, post-weaning and post-Terrible Twos. Pixies Inc. has a history of sponsoring a couple’s biological children through school in return for looking after a pixie nymph. Upon their return to Pixie World, young pixies are treated as interns, and assigned a mentor who will look after them and show them the ropes. In present day, the Head Pixie rarely interacts with nymphs more than he has to.

In Pixie society, raising children is an unavoidable necessity: Wolbachia commands a pixie’s reproductive system, forcing them to reproduce asexually throughout their adulthood whether they want to or not. Pixies usually become parents at a younger age than Fairy or Anti-Fairy parents, but teenage pregnancies are impossible. Sanderson comes into his fertility 1,000 years after Season 10 ends with other drone pixies gradually following suit. In pixie drones, fertility begins between the ages of 200,000 and 255,000. 

Gyne fertility is suppressed by dominant pheromones, so only dominant gynes are capable of reproducing. Finley (Poof’s and Foop’s roommate at school) wears a vial of H.P.’s pheromones on a chain around his neck, allowing him to expose himself to dominant gyne pheromones every once in awhile. Regularly painting them on his face prevents him from coming into his fertility early despite being a dominant gyne. Theoretically, teenage pixie pregnancies are possible, but only for young dominant gynes who came into their adult wings early. Finley takes precautions.

Coming of Age: Moulting into one’s adult wings is considered an important stage in a pixie’s life, and is celebrated more than coming into age of majority at 250,000. The Pixie coming-of-age custom involves the Head Pixie (Chief Pixie in subsidiary companies) spending some one-on-one time with the newly-moulted adult as soon as possible. Traditionally, the new adult selects an activity for the day and the Head or Chief complies. 

This day out can include taking time off work to visit a famous landmark, attending a social event, or just hitting the soda bar. The two commonly have lunch and a dessert together. The idea is that the Head or Chief should touch base with the new adult and allow them to speak openly about any needs, concerns, or expectations they may have.

Courtship and Lekking: Casual flings, not committed relationships, are the standard for the Pixie race. The magical exchange of intimacy is more common than the physical one. Just as with Fairies, mating triggers a pheromone switch; mated pixies produce different pheromones than virgin pixies, so everyone knows. Sharing magic does not trigger the switch, which is another reason pixies often favor magical intimacy over sexual intimacy. Many don’t like the Head knowing what they’ve been doing after hours.

Like paper wasps, pixies are a lekking species. It’s rare for one pixie to seek out a fling on his own, and more common for a group of pixies to visit bars or attend parties together, claim one corner of the room, and use that space to compete with each other for the attention of 1-3 figures they’ve mutually picked out. If they’re trying to impress a Fairy, they’ll focus on showing their strength with a little play-wrestling in the air. They will outright ignore the Fairies they’re interested in, trying instead to attract their attention without flirting with them directly. Groups of pixies who are close friends usually take turns letting each other win on different days while groups of pixies who are less close usually let the pixie they already know is the most dominant win. Most pixies defer to Sanderson, who as alpha retinue drone is outranked by only Longwood and the Head. Generally, Fairies are more interested in pixies who scuffle with Fairies rather than with other pixies. The bigger and more attractive the Fairy they fight, the better the pixie looks. These scuffles are playful and contained to a small area, and wouldn’t disrupt an entire party or involve a lot of shouting.

After finishing the scuffle, a victorious pixie will look over at the person they’re trying to impress to see if they were watching. Even if the Fairy looked away for a moment, if they are close enough to sense the pixie looking at them, they often turn around. If eye contact is made, it’s understood that the Fairy has granted the pixie permission to approach and make small talk. At this point, the Fairy knows the pixie is flirting with them even if their conversation is somewhat dry; after a few minutes of opening small talk, the pair might withdraw to a quieter place like a hallway for more probing questions and deeper discussion. Many Fairies don’t mind kissing and sharing magic for the evening, especially at parties. Those who are completely against the idea won’t lock eyes with a pixie who glances at them after a lekking scuffle (or if they lock eyes accidentally, they’ll give off uninterested signs during the small talk stage). Most pixies prefer sharing magic mentally over the physical act of mating, but some are more willing to experiment than others.

It’s more acceptable for Pixies to flirt with Anti-Fairies than it is for Fairies to flirt with Anti-Fairies, and in fact it’s widely assumed they don’t preference race being as neutral as they are. Pixies have figured out that Anti-Fairies aren’t easily impressed with fake sparring and that different tactics are required in different situations. Anti-Fairies have sensitive ears and are not normally found at large parties, so pixies are more likely to encounter them at competitive events (like auctions and the Fairy World Games) or formal events (like the Fairy Reunion and Autumn Masquerade).

Again, pixies rarely initiate interest in someone if they’re alone, and prefer to have other pixies nearby. Most Anti-Fairies prefer to circulate gatherings in pairs or trios, so if a large number of Anti-Fairies is present at a location, there are many small groups to approach. Pixies split off to approach such pairs or trios alone, though their friends don’t go far. When trying to impress an Anti-Fairy, a pixie won’t drag on the small talk. They’ll instead ask a pair or trio deeper questions in search of thoughtful answers. Anti-Fairies tend to be cautious of the spotlight since they’re used to being focused on for negative reasons, so calling attention to them by suggesting you won a fight in search of their approval doesn’t usually go well. Expressing curiosity through genuine questions is the key to an Anti-Fairy’s trust. 

In this case, pixies meet their lekking instincts by competing with one another mentally rather than physically; it’s generally thought that Anti-Fairies are far too intelligent, complex, and/or snobby to be impressed by a lowly pixie, so the longer a pixie can hold an Anti-Fairy’s interest, the more victorious that pixie is compared to his peers. Not singling out an Anti-Fairy from the duo or trio is important, since Anti-Fairies quickly feel insulted if it seems you approached them for self-serving reasons (i.e. with the intention of seeking a fling). A pixie’s goal is to impress two or three Anti-Fairies at a time, and if one of their targets is interested in them then the Anti-Fairy will initiate the next step of securing privacy away from their friends. Anti-Fairies like to have that power in their hands, but don’t like feeling pushed around- they get enough of that from the Fairies on a daily basis. Some Anti-Fairies see Pixies as “basically Fairies” and have no interest in flirting with them at all, while others see them as close allies of the Anti-Fairies and are at least willing to give them a chance.

If you are a Fairy or Anti-Fairy, it looks better socially if a pixie approaches you rather than you approaching him; it suggests a neutral race that rarely takes sides is leaning towards you, which is something it may benefit you to take advantage of, without you looking like a weirdo who hit on this emotionless and boring guy you met at a party. Even so, sometimes pixies are the ones who get approached rather than the ones who seek out others. Pixies are famous for fluttering their wings and backing away from someone who makes them uncomfortable, so if they remain calm and near the ground, it means they’re at least somewhat interested in you as a conversation partner. Making tearing motions with their hands (if they can’t actually tear paper at the time) and nibbling on things while they look at you are signs a pixie is encouraging you to continue what you’re doing.

See also, Intimacy and Partnership (Under “Social”).

Death and Mourning: Pixies turn to dust when they die, but leave their core behind. Deceased pixies take their clothes and anything in their pockets with them, the same way they do when they change shape. Anything that was separated from them, such as glasses or a torn wing, remains behind. An item previously soaked in rosewater will also remain behind. Notably, the Head Pixie hat has been soaked and always remains after the death of the reigning Head Pixie for the successor to take.

As described above, pixie lifedust is capable of transferring the Wolbachia bacteria to any fae who comes in contact with it; under O’Weskar v. Pixies Inc., pixies are solely responsible for gathering pixie lifedust, and sick pixies need to be quarantined if admitted to the hospital. Lifedust must be disposed of properly so it doesn’t infect any Fairies, so it cannot be kept as a memory.

Only the death of the Head Pixie is mourned openly, as expressing sorrow for even the loss of the vice president is frowned upon in unemotional pixie culture. The death of the Head Pixie would be honored by shutting down all outside contact with Pixie World for 48 hours while a funeral is organized; plans should have been made in advance and may be carried out by the alpha retinue drone or another high-ranking pixie. The Head Pixie’s successor (his vice president, presumably of Pixies Inc.) must prepare for his coronation and is the sole contact between Pixie World and non-pixies at this time. Chief Pixies would be contacted and invited to attend the funeral, though non-pixies would probably be barred entrance.

Pixies are not much for elegies, and funerals would not revolve around speakers reminiscing over memories before the public. Rather, bells may be rung and mournful monotone songs may be sung; the religions or philosophical beliefs of the individual Head Pixie will likely influence the ceremony. Pixie funerals are a new concept and will take time - perhaps generations - to figure out. Besides honoring the Head Pixie, pixies do not have visible funerals and only mourn internally. They strive to continue work without revealing any emotions. 

Disagreements: Fairies spar to force submission while Anti-Fairies hug to soothe, but Pixies, comprised 99% of drones, are not a very argumentative species. They’re a fairly placid race and defer to strong leaders without a lot of complaint. They may whine on occasion, but for the most part they are a species known for being agreeable. Some will voice opinions if asked, but will generally keep their mouths shut if they don’t agree. Many pixies fall into a rut of being yes-men, much to H.P.’s annoyance.

Family Relations: Pixies are all related and consider one another allies by default, even if they don’t know each other personally. Pixies will relay company secrets to one another even if they’ve never met, simply because they’re a massive but tight-knit corporate family.

A group of pixies is called a company; this is a term for a “family” group, not just a business in general. Each company is headed by the founder, who fathered the offspring in that company. Every pixie receives a branding mark on the underside of his left wrist around age 5, which marks him as belonging to a certain company. This mark is called the company logo and appears on all identification information such as birth certificates and licenses.

Sanderson’s wrist marks. Click HERE to read more.

Young pixies work as interns, performing low-rank work under their boss’s eye. Bosses look after young pixies on the clock by teaching them life skills and making sure they eat lunch and aren’t worked too hard. Off the clock, youth are looked after by their company founder (father), who ensures their other life needs are taken care of. Interns forward their paychecks to their founder and he manages his company’s funds. The founder should not take any of his offspring’s money for himself, merely manage it until they’re old enough to do so themselves (using his own funds to look after himself).

In the workplace, promotions and demotions are at the discretion of one’s boss (who himself is subject to his own bosses, with the Head Pixie at the top of the ladder). How a pixie is raised, rewarded, or punished outside of working hours is up to the discretion of each founder. The Head Pixie (Chief Pixie in a subsidiary company) has the right to micromanage family lives if he chooses to, though the local Vice President does not have such authority; a company’s vice president is responsible for assigning interns to mentors and rotating them to new areas as appropriate, but does not involve himself in a company’s family life.

If you’re a pixie kid, you’ll probably have a closer relationship with your founder than any other adult pixie. Some may feel closer with the boss they work directly under at work, with the alpha drone that oversees their company, or with their Head (or Chief), but generally pixies have positive, respectful relationships with their founder.

See the Power Dynamics and Child-Rearing sections for more on this topic.

Homes: In modern times, pixies do not have individual homes and instead share apartment suites. Four pixies close in age are assigned to a two-bedroom apartment, with two pixies sharing a room and bathroom. All four pixies share the living area and kitchen. Most Fairies, territorial by nature, find this set-up claustrophobic. However, pixies are a social species so it works for them (as long as they’re on good terms with their roommates). Even pixies who don’t get along can still live civilly with each other- Sanderson and Longwood are a good example. At present, older pixies live in one apartment building, with rooms filled from top to bottom. A second building also exists and will gradually fill as more pixies are born.

Pixies live fairly minimalist lifestyles. Apartments contain necessities like beds and food, but they are clearly designed as places to rest and sleep between working hours and are not meant to be cozy homes. Most pixies have breakfast, dinner, sleep, and wash in their apartments but don’t use them for much else. See the “Leisure” section for more about hobbies outside the apartment.

I built a typical Pixie apartment which you can view HERE.

Hygiene: Early morning hygiene can be complicated for pixies. Their schedules tend to be tight, so if their hygiene time lasts longer than anticipated, it can throw off the rest of their day. Pixies live in apartments rather than homes, meaning they share bathrooms with a roommate. Generally the more dominant roommate will take the first shower while the subordinate one eats breakfast, then they switch off. After breakfast they clean each other’s wings quickly but efficiently. Some pixies have different work schedules than their roommates, so this doesn’t always work, but most pixies are able to keep up with their hygiene well.

Magic doesn’t affect magic, so scrubbing away the grime of a magical world requires a physical process. Pixies are stereotyped as a clean people (the cleanest of all four fae classes). That said, they are thought to pay more attention to their hair than their wings. Pixies share their genetics with paper wasps, so their wings look a bit more yellow or orange than most Fairy wings, which makes them appear more dirty. As a race, Pixies pride themselves on their cleanliness; if you imply a pixie has dirty wings, he will be offended. 

Pixies have very active sweat glands- they secrete oils and magic dust from their skin all day long. This dust clings to them, allowing them to use small amounts of magic on occasion (shapeshifting for a very short time or poofing a short distance away). If they are deprived of their wands, this small amount of magic may save their life. Producing this dust also allows pixies to naturally disguise themselves from non-magical beings, like humans, who don’t expect to see them. This natural ability is less reliable than shapeshifting, but it prevents a pixie’s cover from being blown unless the non-magical being who sees them has reason to feel like something about this person is weird and takes a closer look. This ability is known as the Principle of Observation. Only Pixies and Fairies produce dust from their skin (Anti-Fairies and Refracts do not). If they scrub their skin with soap while bathing, Pixies wash away the dust. It takes a few hours for them to secrete enough magic to build the ability back up again.

Baths are not common in Pixie World (In fact, the Head Pixie’s penthouse has the only actual bath). Most pixies shower every morning, and if they don’t then it’s probably because they were unusually busy and didn’t have the chance. It’s uncommon for pixies to shower in the evening (unless they have a night shift at work) because evenings are usually saved for free time and few pixies want to spend their free time washing up if it can be done before work instead. H.P. is an exception to this usual rule; he washes his face and rinses his hair in the morning, and uses his evenings for more intense hygiene.

Cleaning wings is a different process entirely. It can’t easily be done in the shower due to lack of space and balance. Furthermore, it’s a difficult thing to do by yourself. Because pixies prize cleanliness, they will clean the wings of any other pixie who requests it, with the expectation that when they are in need of an emergency cleaning someone else will volunteer time for them. Usually roommates clean each other’s wings as part of their morning routine. 

Cleaning wings properly requires a brush and damp cloth, similar to cleaning a floor with both a broom and a mop. Wings are first brushed of loose dust and stale magic (usually brushed from the ends to the joints). Then they are attended to more carefully with circular motions of the cloth to wash away the grime that stuck to wings because of natural oils. Freshly-cleaned wings feel light, shimmer more, and are very healthy, while wings that aren’t cleaned regularly become milky in color, will start to weigh you down, and affect your sense of balance. Sanderson cleans H.P.’s wings every evening as part of regular retinue duties, and often throws a shoulder massage in there while he’s at it. H.P.’s father raised him right, so he always cleans Sanderson’s wings in return because that’s proper manners (though not every Fairy gyne is willing to do this for their drones, even their alpha drones).

Most pixies brush and wash their wings every day (as opposed to Fairies who give theirs a scrub every other day). Pixies preparing to attend parties outside of Pixie World will usually take a quick shower and give their wings a quick brush before they go out, even if they already washed up earlier, just to keep up the image that they are a very clean people.

Inheritance: Among pixies, money that was in possession of the deceased is turned over to the Head or Chief of their company. Possessions are given to the eldest living offspring, who may distribute them among his brothers as he sees fit. This legal system only applies to pixies who live in the company hierarchy; pixies who choose to abandon the company lifestyle and make their permanent homes elsewhere are subject to that world’s legal system. If a Fairy or Anti-Fairy dies while legally residing in Pixie World, all possessions except money are handed over to the eldest living offspring.

Leisure: On the clock, pixies are expected to pour their time and energy into the company. Off the clock, they’re permitted to do whatever they want, as long as they aren’t dragging the brand image through the dirt. Company founders are expected to provide for their offspring’s needs before they enjoy leisure time for themselves, of course (See “Family Relations”).

Despite their small population, Pixies have a food court with several restaurants at Pixies Inc., and a bar called The Anthill exists nearby for those who want candy and soda. Inkblot City also has its own golf course, library, gym, hiking trails, and a special recreational hall. In the rec hall, pixies can work on their own hobbies in their free time (reading, sewing, playing musical instruments, etc.) while also being around other pixies. This way they have plenty of space to work, have locker-like closets where they can store their hobbies without clogging their apartments, and they can mingle. Hobbies and social needs met in a single place at the same time. Pixies are descended from Fairies, so wrestling is part of their culture. However, while Fairies grapple for fun, Pixies grapple only to sort out the pecking order. It’s all business with them.

Pixies view consuming sugar as a leisure activity. They drink soda and eat candy both as a way to socialize and as a way to relax on weekends. Pixie saliva actually has the magical ability to clear one’s head- a drunk fairy who kisses a pixie will instantly be alert again (though they may suffer a hangover in a few minutes). Because of this, pixies will not stay wasted for long. Their saliva ebbs and flows in their mouths, briefly canceling out the effects of sugar only for the influence to take over again a few minutes later. A pixie who continues consuming sugar will waver between sober and sugarloaded. Once they stop ingesting it, they’ll be completely sober within twenty minutes.

Meals: Pixie apartments contain kitchens where food can be prepared if one chooses not to eat out. Each pixie is responsible for his own food (in contrast with Anti-Fairies, where those lower in the hierarchy prepare meals for superiors, and Fairy culture where the most dominant one is expected to provide). Despite being a eusocial species, pixies are individualistic like that; you alone are accountable for your success in life.

H.P. is a picky eater, and this has rubbed off on his offspring. Pixies prefer foods that don’t have strong flavors. Pixie breakfasts usually consist of eggs, toast, water, and either oatmeal or cereal. Lunch foods are usually sandwiches, rice, or leftovers. Dinner may include soup and potatoes, with soy products and corn on the cob being the foods Pixie World is best known for. All pixies are allergic to honey, and are deathly allergic to a cloudland grain product called honeywheat if they consume it.

Pixies are not opposed to eating meat, but usually eat deli slices on sandwiches instead of a separate serving of meat at dinner. They normally get by on grain products, vegetables, and fruit. They do not consume dairy products, favoring soy instead, and seem to be lactose intolerant as a species (Lactose won’t kill them, but it will give them indigestion- not that they’ll let on when their stomachs are upset). Pixies eat peanut butter more often than Fairies do, but don’t eat much jam or jelly. Spicy foods are not normally served in Pixie World, though pixies do enjoy eating spicy food with a straight face in front of staring onlookers.

Pixies do not rush meals unnecessarily, but do not savor them much either. They set time aside for meals, eat food, and then do something else. Though they won’t show it, they dislike the Anti-Fairy tradition of lengthy meals. They equally dislike it when Fairies bolt down their food and dart off again.

Media: Although they’re influential in many ways, Pixies don’t have their thumbs in Fairy media. They stick to their own newspaper in Pixie World, though don’t have their own news channels. Large blocks of info are delivered to Pixie World residents through the paper while short bursts of urgent info are delivered via mass text (If you live in Pixie World, you aren’t allowed to deny either of these). Pixies are close-knit and gossip travels quickly; a common quip is “The Head knows every fart by noon.”

Fairies and Anti-Fairies alike portray pixies as the neutral race among the fae. They tend to overplay this angle by writing pixie characters who wax poetic about the balance in the universe, second-guess themselves constantly, or betray one race for the other (Non-pixies are notorious for portraying them as people who’ll do anything for even a small amount of cash). Pixies are more likely than any of the other fae classes to be portrayed as bumbling drunks or sugar addicts. They tend to disrespect damsels and mock those who have less money than they do. Many Fairies and Anti-Fairies are not fully educated about Wolbachia pipientis, so they often assume pixies have mothers. A common media trope is pixie damsels strictly staying home to do domestic things while their husbands work in one of several unremarkable skyscrapers. Pixie damsels are often portrayed as bitter about living in a society that suppresses them just for being girls (by Fairies) or as ideal hardworking women who keep households on schedule despite having husbands who are addicted to drinks and gambling (by Anti-Fairies). Curiously, many plots and tropes revolve around the existence of pixie damsels despite them not really existing in the first place; since there are so many fae who don’t understand Wolbachia, they merely imagine pixie damsels to be a fascinating secret kept behind extremely tight doors. Careful research about how their society really works goes a long way towards impressing a Pixie audience.

H.P. understands that media featuring Pixies will likely acknowledge the Head in some way. Unless he particularly hates you, he’ll probably grant you permission to include him as a character in your fiction work (so long as you aren’t writing explicit material... without showing it to him for revisions first). He’ll surely find a persnickety reason to dislike your portrayal, but his ego is too big to deny himself those fifteen seconds of fame. He goes out of his way to obtain copies of every book, magazine, and movie that portrays pixies in any way and has assembled an impressive collection over the years.

Pixies do not often portray themselves in fiction, but when they do they depict themselves as creatures of order more than creatures of neutrality. Pixies believe both Fairies and Anti-Fairies to be chaotic, and ally themselves with whichever side is more orderly (a detail many Fairies and Anti-Fairies struggle to grasp since they tend to get hung up on thoughts of good vs. evil). Pixies consider themselves extremely devoted to those they care about, in contrast to the stereotype that they’re wishy-washy with their loyalties. Pixie-written pixie characters do not pay as much attention to money as they are stereotyped to, and their characters adhere to unwritten social etiquette rules that outsiders don’t easily pick up on. Pixie literature is meant to be taken literally and doesn’t contain a lot of personification or figurative language.

Pixie media frequently mentions preening with the alpha drone or Head Pixie; pixies usually depict preening scenes rather than skipping over them the way most Fairies and Anti-Fairies do (since most Fairies and Anti-Fairies consider preening a tender, intimate thing and are horrified to see it displayed in media accessible to children). Affection is rarely expressed in Pixie World, but the majority of it is done through preening- cutting out preening scenes means knifing the one form of intimacy they actually value. Pixies often struggle with subtleties in Fairy and especially Anti-Fairy media, so such scenes are a cue for them that a pair have a lot of trust in each other.

Commonly, you’ll see painfully slow, detailed scenes describing exact licks to replay who the dominant one is and exactly how they feel about one another. Skipping over a preening session without giving details just elicits a stream of questions. Confused pixies will seek out others for advice on how a scene they came across should be interpreted, and suddenly everyone nearby is buzzing about the topic and no one is on schedule anymore. H.P. is always alerted quickly if there’s confusion in the ranks, and he’ll grab the book or rewind the TV so he can explain the nuances. Content with his judgement, his pixies will wander off and he’ll return to his office with a fond shake of his head.

Names: Traditionally, pixies have been named by the Head Pixie, the first of whom gave his offspring unique surnames in an attempt to distance them from himself and craft the professional workplace feel of Pixie society. A pixie’s legal middle name is selected by the Head Anti-Pixie, as anti-pixies are exclusively called by that name until they turn 150,000.

Most pixies treat the name H.P. gave them as their first name even if it sounds like a surname. Often, they’ll adopt the name of their foster family and treat it as either a surname or a second middle name. For instance, when introducing himself to peers at school, Finley identifies as Finley Gavin Hammerfall even though in Pixie society his legal name is Mister Gavin Finley. He introduces himself to Fairies and Anti-Fairies as Finley because that’s the name he wishes to be addressed by, but all Pixies know the young drake introducing himself as Gavin Finley really expects to be called Finley, not Gavin. Pixies cringe when media portrayals get their naming system wrong.

Once Sanderson begins reproducing, a new naming system comes into play: Young pixies are named by their father and also take on his name. This allows pixies to distinguish each other and relations easily. Sanderson’s son Cavatina uses the name Cavatina Sanderson. If Cavatina had a son named Fergus, Max would use the name Fergus Cavatina. The surname comes from the father’s name, but is only passed down one generation.

Some pixies name their own kids, but if they’re feeling tapped for ideas, they can ask the Head Pixie (or Chief Pixie if they belong to a subsidiary) to name their offspring instead. Pixie society is progressing towards a future where the Head or Chief ceremonially names all children born into his care.

Preening: An intimate exchange of pheromones; see above.

Starpieces: Pixie starpieces change as technology advances. They used wands, but gradually upgraded to other items such as quills and pens before settling with the cell phone system. In the future, they will also use starpiece watches before finally transitioning to hands-off earpieces. Pixies carry their starpieces however is convenient and don’t have a cultural expectation to keep their starpieces visible. Fairies and Anti-Fairies find this unsettling as they come from a culture where wands are almost always sheathed in plain sight. Pixie cell phones and all their future upgrades simply do not work in Anti-Fairy World. Pixies have to rent wands if they plan to use magic while visiting.

Technology: Pixies are the most technologically advanced race of all the fae. They interact with the majority of Fairy merchant skyships and even have a few of their own that venture to other planets. Pixies are not grounded in old traditions; they’re new money people who are quick to adopt foreign technologies and always strive to improve themselves and their world. You can assume they’ve experimented with all flashy human technologies that caught their interest, and a lot of Alien ones too.

Electricity isn’t a thing in most of Anti-Fairy World, and certainly not in Fairy Refract World. TVs are rare and outlets are almost nonexistent in both places. Few pixies stay there long if they can help it. While outlets are not as plentiful in Fairy World as in Pixie World, there are still enough to consider them common. In Pixie World, you’ll find outlets near most tables and chairs, along with a variety of adapter cords that let you charge most electronics in the known universe. Many pixies charge their laptops and phones during lunch; it’s unusual to see unoccupied outlets near a group of pixies on break.

RITUALS

Instar: A newborn’s transition from being shaped like a hexagon at birth to having a more pixie-shaped body. Also known as the first moult, or the time of shedding your baby skin.

Pooferty: A nymph’s transition from being pre-verbal to developing the ability to speak.

Internships: Young pixies are assigned a mentor practically as soon as they say good-bye to their foster family. Mentors give interns a tour of the company, educate them in the ways of the world and Pixies Inc., and take on the majority of parenting duties until the young pixie can effectively look after himself.

Daoist baptism: A Daoist tradition of baptizing those who’ve studied and can explain the teachings of Daoism, a Fae religion based majorly off Celtic folkore. 100 hours of silent reflection then follow. H.P., being Daoist, tends to steer his offspring towards the Daoist teachings. His Vice President, Longwood, leans towards the Zodii beliefs and tries to intervene- not necessarily to point young pixies towards the Zodii philosophies, but simply to give them time to come to their own conclusions rather than be pushed.

Moulting into adult wings: A period of several days or weeks when a pixie experiences puberty. They briefly lose the ability to use magic and fly, and usually suffer a rash as they shed their wings and some skin. The new wings that grow in are notably larger than juvenile wings, hence the term “getting your adult wings”. Anti-pixies don’t have a close parallel of this beyond puberty / sexual maturity. Pixies have coming of age ceremonies for getting one’s adult wings, but no official ceremonies for reaching age of majority at 250,000.

Soul Carriages: The practice of representing immediate and extended family members in your home by means of a personal shrine for each individual you have personally met and consider your family. Soul carriages (or animpa) are vases with three wands sticking out to represent the three parts of the soul (Hands, breathing lines, and the core).

H.P. grew up with this Fairy custom and practices it by keeping soul carriages around for his father and sister (and later Anti-Cosmo). He has built a soul carriage for each of his pixies and instructs it be kept visible in their workspace (office, cubicle, or at least their room if they truly have no good workplace surface to place it on). However, it would be impractical for every pixie to maintain hundreds of soul carriages representing every other pixie, so each merely keeps an eye on his own. It’s not appropriate for one to tend to his own soul carriage, so if the vase breaks then the Head Pixie must be summoned to repair it. When pixies leave the company, H.P. will no longer keep a soul carriage for them on his property- he will instead send it off with them along with his best regards. Many Fairies find this horrifying, as it suggests ties have been cut, but H.P. believes this is the most appropriate way for Pixies to balance familial ties with their corporate lifestyle.

HOLIDAYS

The Fae holidays are described in detail in the celebration post, HERE.

REPRODUCTION

Attraction: If questioned about their sexuality, pixies are trained to reply that they are incapable of feeling attraction. “Mates are unnecessary, marriage is pointless” is the usual quip. Due to the influence of their culture, many pixies are uncomfortable with any sign that someone is attracted to them (or any sign that they’re attracted to someone else). Some pixies maintain straight faces while others become flustered and excuse themselves from the room. A few random pixies are more curious about their sexuality and interested in exploring it. H.P.’s official policy is that his pixies are allowed to have flings as long as they don’t progress to committed partnerships that interfere with work, and as long as he doesn’t have to hear about it happening. He doesn’t like thinking about it.

Pixies as a species are generally considered unattractive. They are considered physically and magically weak (a turn-off to most Fairies) and low in intelligence (a turn-off to most Anti-Fairies). Their square features are considered a genetic mutation, so pixies are usually seen as sickly. Because of stereotypes regarding their culture, it’s widely assumed they are terrible at expressing affection (if they’re capable of expressing it at all). A few people think having a fling with a pixie would be an interesting experience (usually those who believe the stereotype that pixies are diligent and obedient and will focus on customer satisfaction) but most are not interested in long-term partnerships with them. Since pixies themselves favor flings over commitment, this works out for them too.

Obviously, pixies seek partners outside their own species. Pixies are most comfortable interacting with other pixies and are usually guarded and socially awkward around Fairies and Anti-Fairies. If searching for a partner, Pixies tend to gravitate towards those with relaxed personalities who seem confident and fairly dominant.

In modern times, Pixies are widely stereotyped as creatures who are equally attracted to Fairies and Anti-Fairies; although many Fairies still find it strange, they accept Pixie/Anti-Fairy relationships more easily than Fairy/Anti-Fairy ones due to the belief that pixies embody neutrality. Many people do not consider Pixies closely related to Fairies at all (despite both being labeled as members of the Seelie Court) and consider Pixies an entirely unrelated third race. Ergo, a Fairy or Anti-Fairy who dates a Pixie is considered odd and usually looked down upon, but it’s seen as equally acceptable for a Pixie to have an Anti-Fairy partner as it is for them to have a Fairy partner.

Many Fairies, Anti-Fairies, and even some pixies believe H.P. has had flings with both Anti-Cosmo and Jorgen. Anti-Cosmo and Jorgen are generally judged for this while H.P. somehow isn’t; the former two are expected to “hold to a certain standard” while H.P.’s standard is to be neutral in all things- he actually gets judged more whenever it looks like he favors one side over the other. Fairies feel more at ease when they notice him hanging around Jorgen more often than Anti-Cosmo, that’s for sure.

Anatomy: Pixies are born with the same reproductive structure as Fairy drakes, so their lower parts resemble the parts of female sugar gliders. However, the Wolbachia pipientis bacterium prevents them from bearing children naturally. Wolbachia restructured their insides and left them with a bizarre birthing method: nourishing nymphs in the forehead chamber, where cytoplasm is most abundant.

Pixies have forward-facing pouches on their stomachs in place of a belly button, similar to like sugar gliders. A colony founder can tighten his pouch while his nymph is inside to ensure it doesn’t squirm out during flight. After birth, nymphs nurse milk from their foster mother or bottle-feed, and nurse liquid magic from the pouch either their founder or foster father.

A nymph who does not receive sufficient magic will develop into a tomte (a pixie incapable of flying or using any magic at all). Their counterparts will be unable to use magic as well. A tomte can mate physically, but will die afterwards since mating deprives them of magic. The milk of winged mothers contains the hormone buohyrine; a baby who does not receive this hormone will never be able to fly even if they have wings. Nymphs wean at about one year of age and grow too large for the pouch by age 2 (unless they’re extremely small).

Notably, the last two pixies H.P. produced (Finley and Southmark) were both tomtes. His body could no longer produce excess magic and needed to keep its reserves for itself, so it stopped reproducing. H.P. began reproducing late in life, so it’s likely his younger pixies will stop reproducing earlier since they started earlier. His older pixies will likely produce more offspring due to receiving more magic than later pixies; Sanderson might produce 500 offspring while later-born pixies may produce as few as 100, 50, or 10 before their magic tapers out.

Magical Intimacy: Although pixies cannot reproduce naturally, it’s worth including the magical intimacy information from the Fairy Class Overview here. Pixies who engage in passionate kissing or other forms of foreplay with another fae transition to sharing breathing lines. When two partners come apart, it takes time for their lines to untangle back to normal, so for several minutes to a few hours, they continue sharing one another’s lines and magic pools. Partners whose lines are tangled are known as “snared.” “Snared” can be used as a verb in the sentence, “I heard Sanderson snared with Smith last night.” While sharing magic in this manner can be thought of as a sexual thing, it is widely viewed as a platonic equivalent: a deep and caring bond expressed between extremely close friends.

Pixies almost universally favor magical intimacy over physical intimacy, as it’s a way of expressing closeness to a partner without the pixie feeling he’s going against the “mating is pointless” mindset. “Flings” usually consist of sneaking away to a quiet hall, garden, or closet at a party and exchanging magic with a partner, still dressed in professional attire.

For many gynes and drones, deep preening triggers the sharing magic response, which is Sanderson’s drug. While Seelie and Unseelie Courters can’t interbreed, they are capable of sharing magic in this sense (unless they’re doing it with their own counterpart, because it’s the same magic pool so there’s nothing new there to share). It’s possibly worth noting that Anti-Cosmo and H.P. are on the “regularly sharing magic” level of their relationship. Sometimes.

Crossbreeding: Pixies infected with Wolbachia cannot conceive naturally, with one exception: like infected insects, pixies are capable of reproducing naturally with infected females. But since Fairy damsels can only become infected with Wolbachia after coming into contact with dead infected insects or with pixie lifedust, and they die shortly after contracting the bacteria, you can guess how often that happens.

CHARACTER DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS

Pixies are genetically identical, so their looks don’t vary by much. By default they have paper wasp wings, pale skin, black hair, lavender eyes, and rather square features. They also have poor eyesight, and produce similar-smelling pheromones too. Hair styles and dialogue patterns are the most distinguishing features between them.

Pixies have fairly weak magic, so their hats bob close to their heads.

Thanks to H.P.’s genetics, pixies are a naturally tall, broad-shouldered race. Gynes are even larger than drones. Pixies look square (drones especially), but gynes show wider hips and more pronounced curves. 

All gynes have freckles. These freckles are not inherited genetically and are linked to the amount of jelly eaten before shedding the baby form. In pixies, freckles can range in color between pink, red, and brown. They are always found on the face, neck, and shoulders. Some gynes have freckles ranging down the arms to the elbows or even the wrists; however, chest freckles, back freckles, and torso freckles are not patterns that exist in their gene pool. Gynes with more freckles are considered more attractive, especially if freckles are symmetrical.

Pixies dress professionally while on-duty. Off the clock, they have a bit more freedom in how they present themselves. White and gray remain common colors, and jewelry is very uncommon (unless it’s a candy or kandi bracelet). Each company of pixies alters their standard of dress slightly- Pixies Inc. employees wear black ties and PixieCo employees wear navy blue ties.

Pixie suits are made of linen and fine, lightweight wool. Cotton is rare and very expensive in the cloudlands, so pixies are much more likely to own cotton clothing than Fairies or Anti-Fairies are. Silk is practically nonexistent in Pixie World; silk has special connotations with intimacy when it comes to preening and is worn ceremonially if at all.

Most Pixies wear plain, simple white underpants and don’t wear undershirts since such things are considered an Anti-Fairy custom. H.P. personally found that Anti-Fairy drake undergarments (single-piece undergarments that have separate leg holes and reach down to the knee) work very well for drakes with small nymphs since they allow the pouch to be accessed easily, and the garment is loose enough to fit comfortably without a tight elastic pressing against the stomach. 

WRITING PIXIES: WHAT TO REMEMBER

Fae get drunk on sugar; candy and soda are drugs and alcohol, but wine and beer have no notable effects on them.

Hygiene: Pixies rely on pheromones and don’t use deodorant. The majority of the species is made up of drones, who produce the faintest pheromones. If you have a Fairy or Pixie nose, you can smell a gyne coming down a nearby hallway. You might not scent drones so easily.

When a pixie feels threatened, his hat will lower closer to his head.

Pixies cannot fly when their wings are wet. Their inability to fly when wet does not affect their anti-pixie counterparts, who can still fly as long as the pixie remains in contact with the energy field via their magic lines.

Most pixies struggle with subtleties and need things spelled out for them. They like to have all the details.

Pixies have 270° physical vision.

Pixies have the ability to flip their eyes into backwards into something called field-sight, which allows them to briefly trade physical vision for magical vision (the magical equivalent of heat-sensing goggles).

Pixies can sense the presence of magic around them (average diameter of 2.5 meters). Without trying, they can notice the approach of a magical being. With this magical sense, they can pick up on shapes, movement, body language, and evidence of facial expressions even while their back is turned.

Non-magical creatures (humans, aliens, animals) are invisible to this magical sense. Pixies are often startled when non-magical beings approach.

Pixies perceive the world largely through scent. If scent and sight don’t line up, they’ll be very confused. Technically, they pick up scents more through their mouths than their noses. They have the ability to smell whether or not a fairy or pixie is a virgin. While they probably won’t breach the subject in public, one’s sexual status is never a secret. 

Pixies will die if they consume the antibiotics tetracycline or rifampicin (the “cures” for Wolbachia pipientis). They’re also allergic to honey, and will become extremely sick if they consume it (a reference to the fact that bees will immediately kill wasps who break into their hives).

Pixies will “drop their lines” (lose contact with the energy field) and struggle to breathe when sugarloaded (drunk), tingle-fritzy (aroused), or if the weather is bad (rainy / windy / snowy).

Take pride in what you do and always do your best!

[eurekakinginc]

"The Coming Age of Imaginative Machines: If you aren't following the rise of synthetic media, the 2020s will hit you like a digital blitzkrieg"- Detail: The faces on the left were created by a GAN in 2014; on the right are ones made in 2018.Ian Goodfellow and his colleagues gave the world generative adversarial networks (GANs) five years ago, way back in 2014. They did so with fuzzy and ethereal black & white images of human faces, all generated by computers. This wasn't the start of synthetic media by far, but it did supercharge the field. Ever since, the realm of neural network-powered AI creativity has repeatedly kissed mainstream attention. Yet synthetic media is still largely unknown. Certain memetic-boosted applications such as deepfakes and This Person Does Not Exist notwithstanding, it's safe to assume the average person is unaware that contemporary artificial intelligence is capable of some fleeting level of "imagination."Media synthesis is an inevitable development in our progress towards artificial general intelligence, the first and truest sign of symbolic understanding in machines (though by far not the thing itself--- rather the organization of proteins and sugars to create the rudimentary structure of what will someday become the cells of AGI). This is due to the rise of artificial neural networks (ANNs). Popular misconceptions presume synthetic media present no new developments we've not had since the 1990s, yet what separates media synthesis from mere manipulation, retouching, and scripts is the modicum of intelligence required to accomplish these tasks. The difference between Photoshop and neural network-based deepfakes is the equivalent to the difference between building a house with power tools and employing a utility robot to use those power tools to build the house for you.Succinctly, media synthesis is the first tangible sign of automation that most people will experience.Public perception of synthetic media shall steadily grow and likely degenerate into a nadir of acceptance as more people become aware of the power of these artificial neural networks without being offered realistic debate or solutions as to how to deal with them. They've simply come too quickly for us to prepare for, hence the seemingly hasty reaction of certain groups like OpenAI in regards to releasing new AI models.Already, we see frightened reactions to the likes of DeepNudes, an app which was made solely to strip women in images down to their bare bodies without their consent. The potential for abuse (especially for pedophilic purposes) is self-evident. We are plunging headlong into a new era so quickly that we are unaware of just what we are getting ourselves into. But just what are we getting into?Well, I have some thoughts.I want to start with the field most people are at least somewhat aware of: deepfakes. We all have an idea of what deepfakes can do: the "purest" definition is taking one's face replacing it with another, presumably in a video. The less exact definition is to take some aspect of a person in a video and edit it to be different. There's even deepfakes for audio, such as changing one's voice or putting words in their mouth. Most famously, this was done to Joe Rogan.I, like most others, first discovered deepfakes in late 2017 around the time I had an "epiphany" on media synthesis as a whole. Just in those two years, the entire field has seen extraordinary progress. I realized then that we were on the cusp of an extreme flourishing of art, except that art would be largely-to-almost entirely machine generated. But along with it would come a flourishing of distrust, fake news, fake reality bubbles, and "ultracultural memes". Ever since, I've felt the need to evangelize media synthesis, whether to tell others of a coming renaissance or to warn them to be wary of what they see.This is because, over the past two years, I realized that many people's idea of what media synthesis is really stops at deepfakes, or they only view new development through the lens of deepfakes. The reason why I came up with "media" synthesis is because I genuinely couldn't pin down any one creative/data-based field AI wasn't going to affect. It wasn't just faces. It wasn't just bodies. It wasn't just voice. It wasn't just pictures of ethereal swirling dogs. It wasn't just transferring day to night. It wasn't just turning a piano into a harpsichord. It wasn't just generating short stories and fake news. It wasn't just procedurally generated gameplay. It was all of the above and much more. And it's coming so fast that I fear we aren't prepared, both for the tech and the consequences.Indeed, in many discussions I've seen (and engaged in) since then, there's always several people who have a virulent reaction against the prospect neural networks can do any of this at all, or at least that it'll get better enough to the point it will affect artists, creators, and laborers. Even though we're already seeing the effects in the modeling industry alone.Look at this gif. Looks like a bunch of models bleeding into and out of each other, right? Actually, no one here is real. They're all neural network-generated people.Neural networks can generate full human figures, and altering their appearance and clothing is a matter of changing a few parameters or feeding an image into the data set. Changing the clothes of someone in a picture is as easy as clicking on the piece you wish you change and swapping it with any of your choice (or result in the personal wearing no clothes at all). A similar scenario applies for make-up. This is not like an old online dress-up flash game where the models must be meticulously crafted by an art designer or programmer— simply give the ANN something to work with, and it will figure out all the rest. You needn't even show it every angle or every lighting condition, for it will use commonsense to figure these out as well. Such has been possible since at least 2017, though only with recent GPU advancements has it become possible for someone to run such programs in real time.The unfortunate side effect is that the amateur modeling industry will be vaporized. Extremely little will be left, and the few who do remain are promoted entirely because they are fleshy & real human beings. Professional models will survive for longer, but there will be little new blood joining their ranks. As such, it remains to be seen whether news and blogs speak loudly of the sudden, unexpected automation of what was once seen as a safe and human-centric industry or if this goes ignored and under-reported— after all, the news used to speak of automation in terms of physical, humanoid robots taking the jobs of factory workers, fast-food burger flippers, and truck drivers, occupations that are still in existence en masse due to slower-than-expected roll outs of robotics and a continued lack of general AI.We needn't have general AI to replace those jobs that can be replicated by disembodied digital agents. And the sudden decline & disappearance of models will be the first widespread sign of this.Actually, I have an hypothesis for this: media synthesis is one of the first signs that we're making progress towards artificial general intelligence.Now don't misunderstand me. No neural network that can generate media is AGI or anything close. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that what we can see as being media synthesis is evidence that we've put ourselves on the right track. We never should've thought that we could get to AGI without also developing synthetic media technology.What do you know about imagination?As recently as five years ago, the concept of "creative machines" was cast off as impossible— or at the very least, improbable for decades. Indeed, the phrase remains an oxymoron in the minds of most. Perhaps they are right. Creativity implies agency and desire to create. All machines today lack their own agency. Yet we bear witness to the rise of computer programs that imagine and "dream" in ways not dissimilar to humankind.Though lacking agency, this still meets the definition of imagination.To reduce it to its most fundamental ingredients: Imagination = experience + abstraction + prediction. To get creativity, you need only add "drive". Presuming that we fail to create artificial general intelligence in the next ten years (an easy thing to assume because it's unlikely we will achieve fully generalized AI even in the next thirty), we still possess computers capable of the former three ingredients.Someone who lives on a flat island and who has never seen a mountain before can learn to picture what one might be by using what they know of rocks and cumulonimbus clouds, making an abstract guess to cross the two, and then predicting what such a "rock cloud" might look like. This is the root of imagination.As Descartes noted, even the strongest of imagined sensations is duller than the dullest physical one, so this image in the person's head is only clear to them in a fleeting way. Nevertheless, it's still there. Through great artistic skills, the person can learn to express this mental image through artistic means. In all but the most skilled, it will not be a pure 1-to-1 realization due to the fuzziness of our minds, but in the case of expressive art, it doesn't need to be.Computers lack this fleeting ethereality of imagination completely. Once one creates something, it can give you the uncorrupted output.Right now, this makes for wonderful tools and apps that many play around with online and on our phones.But extrapolating this to the near future results in us coming face to face many heavy questions, and not just of the "can't trust what you see variety."Because think about it.If I'm a musical artist and I release an album, what if I accidentally recorded a song that's too close to an AI-generated track (all because AI generated literally every combination of notes?) Or, conversely, what if I have to watch as people take my music and alter it? I may feel strongly about it, but yet the music has its notes changed, its lyrics changed, my own voice changed, until it might as well be an entirely different artist making that music. Many won't mind, but many will.I trust my mother's voice, as many do. So imagine a phisher managing to steal her voice, running it through a speech synthesis network, and then calling me asking me for my social security number. Or maybe I work at a big corporation, and while we're secure, we still recognize each other's voice, only to learn that someone stole millions of dollars from us because they stole the CEO's voice and used to to wire cash to a pirate's account.Imagine going online and at least 70% of the "people" you encounter are bots. They're extremely coherent, and they have profile images of what looks to be real people. And who knows, you may even forge an e-friendship with some of them because they seem to share your interests. Then it turns out they're just bundles of code.Oh, and those bot-people are also infesting social media and forums in the millions, creating and destroying trends and memes without much human input. Even if the mainstream news sites don't latch on at first, bot-created and bot-run news sites will happily kick it off for them. The news is supposed to report on major events, global and local. Even if the news is honest and telling the truth, how can they truly verify something like this, especially when it seems to be gaining so much traction and humans inevitably do get involved? Remember "Bowsette" from last year? Imagine if that was actually pushed entirely by bots until humans saw what looked like a happenin' kind of meme and joined in? That could be every year or perhaps even every month in the 2020s onwards.Likewise, imagine you're listening to a pop song in one country, but then you go to another country and it's the exact same song but most of the lyrics have changed to be more suitable for their culture. That sort of cultural spread could stop... or it could be supercharged if audiences don't take to it and pirate songs/change them and share them at their own leisure.Or maybe it's a good time to mention how commissioned artists are screwed? Commission work boards are already a race to the bottom— if a job says it pays three cents per word to write an article, you'd better list your going rate as 2 cents per word, and then inevitably the asking rate in general becomes 2 cents per word, and so on and so forth. That whole business might be over within five to ten years if you aren't already extremely established. Because if machines can mimic any art style or writing style (and then exaggerate & alter it to find some better version people like more), you'd have to really be tech-illiterate or very pro-human to want non-machine commissions.And to go back to deepfakes and deep nudes, imagine the paratypical creep who takes children and puts them into sexual situations, any sexual situation they desire thanks to AI-generated images and video. It doesn't matter who, and it doesn't have to be real children either. It could even be themselves as a child if they still have the reference or use a de-aging algorithm on their face. It's squicky and disgusting to think about, but it's also inevitable and probably has already happened.And my god, it just keeps going on and on. I can't do this justice, even with 40,000 characters to work with. The future we're about to enter is so wild, so extreme that I almost feel scared for humanity. It's not some far off date in the 22nd century. It's literally going to start happening within the next five years. We're going to see it emerge before our very eyes on this and other subreddits.I'll end this post with some more examples.Nvidia's new AI can turn any primitive sketch into a photorealistic masterpiece. You can even play with this yourself here.Waifu Synthesis- real time generative anime, because obviously.Few-Shot Adversarial Learning of Realistic Neural Talking Head Models | This GAN can animate any face GIF, supercharging deepfakes & media synthesisTalk to Transformer | Feed a prompt into GPT-2 and receive some text. As of 9/29/2019, this uses the 774M parameter version of GPT-2, which is still weaker than the 1.5B parameter "full" version."Text samples generated by Nvidia's Megatron-LM (GPT-2-8.3b). Vastly superior to what you see in Talk to Transformer, even if it had the "full" model.Facebook's AI can convert one singer's voice into another | The team claims that their model was able to learn to convert between singers from just 5-30 minutes of their singing voices, thanks in part to an innovative training scheme and data augmentation technique. as a prototype for shifting vocalists or vocalist genders or anything of that sort.TimbreTron for changing instrumentation in music. Here, you can see a neural network shift entire instruments and pitches of those new instruments. It might only be a couple more years until you could run The Beatles' "Here Comes The Sun" through, say, Slayer and get an actual song out of it.AI generated album covers for when you want to give the result of that change its own album.Neural Color Transfer Between Images [From 2017], showing how we might alter photographs to create entirely different moods and textures.Scammer Successfully Deepfaked CEO's Voice To Fool Underling Into Transferring $243,000"Experts: Spy used AI-generated face to connect with targets" [GAN faces for fake LinkedIn profiles]This Marketing Blog Does Not Exist | This blog written entirely by AI is fully in the uncanny valley.Chinese Gaming Giant NetEase Leverages AI to Create 3D Game Characters from Selfies | This method has already been used over one million times by Chinese gamers."Deep learning based super resolution, without using a GAN" [perceptual loss-based upscaling with transfer learning & progressive scaling], or in other words, "ENHANCE!"Expert: AI-generated music is a "total legal clusterf*ck" | I've thought about this. Future music generation means that all IPs are open, any new music can be created from any old band no matter what those estates may want, and AI-generated music exists in a legal tesseract of answerless questionsAnd there's just a ridiculous amount more.My subreddit, /r/MediaSynthesis, is filled with these sorts of stories going back to January of 2018. I've definitely heard of people come away in shock, dazed and confused, after reading through it. And no wonder.. Title by: Yuli-Ban Posted By: www.eurekaking.com

[forestbathing-studies-blog]

Shinrin-Yoku: —The Art of Forest Bathing

I remember turning on the television. The camera moved down the normally sand-coloured dirt road, now churned into a red sticky mess by the latest rains, with oil puddles of ominous grey and brown refusing to melt into the earth. They glimmered with a splattering of rainbow colours, but the oil was still and stagnant.

The sky was grey, no clouds or anything. The camera crew had walked up to a little coffee-skinned boy who stood in the lane smiling, periodically pressing his palms together, fingers outstretched. He looked at the reporters, eager to please.

“And have you ever seen a flower?” One of them asked.

“No.”

“Not at all?”

“No,” said the little boy, shaking his head and smiling.

I finished packing my bags and scribbled a haiku to pin on my front door as my traveller's message.

what if you are fooled- that rainbows are scars in the sky you applaud and let bleed?

2

As I walked to the edge of my forest the boy's answer came to me again  who had never seen a flower in the mud of his shanty town, who trusted those that sent the bombs tt would set him free, free of a family to love him, free of the need to go to school any more, and free to choose which crater to sleep in, now that his house stood no more. I was leaving in my pursuit of forest study and specifically to further research forest bathing, a science started in Japan that I saw also as an art, and I knew that ultimately this study would benefit in those who had been robbed of the nature to nurture them. With this in mind I set off on my journey.

It is true that my own log cabin in the wilderness has no lock. No lock means a certain feeling of freedom. But freedom must be fed to flourish. It is not something you can give up, when your health suffers, or finances run low. You must build up your beliefs and values and experience them, and learn to learn them from others. That is the real reason to get in touch with nature, for walking in a forest also means stepping away from civilisation.

With my bag over my shoulder, I paused at the last tree before walking out into the meadow to pin my goodbye haiku to a tree trunk.

the aroma of pine

and the young morning’s fresh rain

reach my words

An early morning mist lay streaked with sunrise over the grass on  meadows. A few rowers were already gliding down the river that bordered the large expanse, dipping their oars in and skimming along the calm surface, tiny whirpools in their wake. There was an elegant, timeless quality to the scene before me. Standing under an old oak trees, I thought if I was writing a novel, this is where I would start it, just as the hardy young rowers swept by, seamlessly almost, in the mirrored river.

the sturdy oak tree

gives some ancient shade

to my thoughts

In truth my journey started in-between Panama and Colombia, in a village called Paya. I wore a red loincloth in the jungle of the Darien Gap, between Panama and Colombia. I stayed with the Kuna Indians almost exactly on the border, deep in the rainforest.There have been many efforts from colonial missionaries and sects to prise the Kunas of the Darien Gap away from their belief in the Nana Dummad, Mother Hearth, a belief closely associated with respect to the nature around them. All failed. These people, who live in the jungle remain closely at one with their environment. This seems to have a real benefit: Kuna people have a low average blood pressure (BP, 110/70mm Hg), and, do not experience the age-related increase in blood pressure that is common in Western society. Death rates from cardiovascular disease and cancer, the first and second causes of death in the western world, are so rare in the Kuna that they are almost non-existant.It is impossible to say there is no connection between living in the equatorial forest and these figures. A parallel can be drawn to the jungles of Kerala, in southern India,where the local people enjoy a remarkably healthy existences among forests, where fresh food is available almost freely throughout their environment. If there ever was a model for sustainable development, it is the State of Kerala in India, and its jungle patterned by waterways, in hich reed and wooden boats float past idyllic villages set among the trees. No slash and burn here.In both the Darien Gap and Kerala, inhabitants are literally able to pluck food from branches. Freshness is always an important issue, and their food from their respective forests is  high in vital flavonoid content. Flavanoids existabundantly and naturally in cocoa trees, but are often removed from chocolate, even dark chocolate because they can be bitter, and milk interferes with their consumption.Among the Kuna, I witnessed forest life first hand. Contrary to what one sees in news reports about people who live in these environments, everyone was healthy, and fit. It was only when leaving the settlement of Paya in the jungle, and heading towards the town of Turbo across the huge bay, that settlements began to look ragged, and disorganised, and people listless, with ill-fitting, ripped clothes, and vacant expression.In the green jungle there was always work to do, though more leisure time too, after the work had been done. Pollution was basically a foreign affair, and the Kuna carried much knowledge about the nutrients, health aids and poisons in their environment, as well as which areas were mosquito-ridden, and therefore likely to have the malaria parasite, and which areas of the rainforest were free of mosquitos.Living in the jungle, or even travelling through a jungle, is an enthralling experience. In sweltering heat as healthy as a sauna, and better than any exfoliant or moisteriser, every day is an adventure, and a detoxication for the mind.almost But problems occur when our world reaches into the areas of wilderness. I discover sad news after I leave the Darien Gap that , Víctor Alcázar, my guide and good friend was caught in an attack by a Colombian right wing squad, an attack that killed four Kuna Indian spiritual forest leaders and terrorised the harmonious settlement I had stayed in. Victor, who escaped suffering from bayonet wounds, was accused by police and prosecutors of being an accomplice of the invaders. It is inconceivable that such a kind, gentle person, who lost previously lost his front teeth demonstrating against Noriega, the Panamanian dictator, and a much-experienced guide in the jungle, could have done anything like that to destroy his own business. The veteran jungle guide, who had complained frequently about how the lack of police presence in eastern Darien hurt his business, told reporters he was a scapegoat for the police failure. I have never been able to get further information about what happened to him, this wonderful Carib of the Darien jungle, who had found himself under great stress and pressure, a man of great happiness and humour who harmed no-one, who I had corresponded with for a few years, with an unbelievably simple address of Víctor Alcázar, El Real, Darién jungle, Panama. among the treesshadows and thoughtstravel for miles 木木木

木木木

Siberia: it is no wonder this great expanse spawned such unparalleled works of literature. Every person one meets is a perfectly described character, a walking story, ready for a novel to step into. As for the land mass itself, there is simply too much of it to describe. Many don’t even try, and rarely even glance out of a window from their train invariably traversing through the immense taiga, but none will admit to any monotony of the journey. Most travellers on trains here are not romantics. Siberia pulls on more than the mere sentimental. The concept of time and space take on a new condominium for those who do stand or sit looking out of the train windows. The trees are lyrical, and give rise to great orchestral symphonies of the mind. These pines, birch, spruce and larches may not have been the forests that padogas and fancy pavilions were built from, nor the dark, luxuriouds wood of Balinese carvings, but on these tree trunks and logs whole cities had been erected over permafrost, the wooden stilts serving better for the purpose than concrete, which starts to crumble in the plunging cold. At these times temperatures slide to such nonsensical figures that bananas become hammers and even vodka freezes. But vodka is an imported drink here, from wheatfields and grasslands, and made for drinking around kitchen tables up in high-rise flats that circle cities. From these tables and bottles trains are watched below as they made their way through the taiga. Those who take those trains across Siberia are not people who succumb to the self-indulgent charms of wanderlust. True travellers, they are mostly teatotal. The true Siberian traversing his or her native land cures and heals not with vodka but with pine oil, which he or she imbibes, or rubs on ailments and heats as a natural aroma.

Chita (Чита) is situated right where two rivers meet, the Inogoda and river Chita, from which the town is named. The two rivers come together a couple of hundred kilometres north of Mongolia, in Eastern Siberia. Chita is distinct. There are only two cities in the world where on the same hill at the same time are three temples of three different religions: Judaism, Islam and Christianity, and Chita is one of them. In the ancient part of the city on the top of the hill (the old prison used to be there, too) there is a synagogue, a mosque and an orthodox church. This is why Chita is called the second Jerusalem. Even the flag looks Palestinian, with a yellow triangle replacing the Palestinian red one, and three stripes of red, white and green.

“I understand there is no key to your log cabin, where you said you live, so if you don’t need a key, what are you searching for?” said the wizened old man, sitting on a wooden ledge lining a thin bed of small growing roots. With his thin white beard and green shawl he looked like a curator of bonsai trees.

“You mean why have I travelled so far?” I asked, the traveller in me long adept at turning philosophy around like the spinning of a coin, but only to help the conversation grow, to water it, give it life.

“In miles or in ideas?” the man replied, hand on his beard, a little tug, “or perhaps the key is only in the questions.”

I looked at the little man, at his amused eyes. He could have been from Tibet, or Kalmikiya, or of Hazara descent, living in the middle of Afghanistan. Chita was not part of the Siberia of pine, spruce or birch tree anymore. Here one felt the bleakness of the Central Asian grasslands, the steppes. The old man was a Buriat, of Turkic, Mongolian origins; a Buddhist.

“I’m just looking for my way forward,” I said.

“Ah,” he said, “then in miles!”

He tugged his silky white beard again, once, twice, a third time. “A pity,” he said, “in ideas is more fruitful.”

“If I hadn’t come all the miles across Siberia we would not be chatting about this,” I said.

“And nor would we if I had crossed over Siberia the other way” he replied. “It is a good thing all I did was sit here, otherwise I would not have had such a delightful, perhaps only an inconsequential moment, but I am rather sure that from here, near the end of your journey, it is your ideas that will now travel.”

“The importance of my journey then is not what I feel about it, but in what others find in it,” I said.

“That is the real journey,” replied the man. He lifted his hand up flat, horizontal, so that it cast a shade over the small plants growing in the fresh spring soil. “It is not my ability to lift my hand that is important,” he said, “but the shade it provides so the flowers can grow and bloom without over-exposure to the direct light.”

He stood up. “Ah, see, you are taller than me. You are offering me shade,” he said, giving a chuckle, “but others kilometres away will only receive shade from the ideas you have.”

He offered his hand and I shook it.

“If you must travel far to find the right way to provide shade of ideas for others, so be it,” he said, “but remember one must travel for that reason, not to count the distance.”

From within a slip of a pocket at his chest he pulled out a small booklet, with grey cardboard cover. “When you think about our meeting, and exchange ideas about the trees, then please make one of these haiku in here part of that exchange. Only open and look when you have collected your ideas and tell others.”

I took the booklet, and slipped it into my chest pocket. I wanted to tell him that everyone needs space, and some need movement, too, the creaking of a rolling wagon wheel, ruffled flapping of a sail or click of train wheels.

Then this small, alert man on the edge of the large flower bed surprises me, placing his hand on my arm. “my niece will accompany you, the taiga is her home and she is returning there after visiting me,” he says, “her name is Yenisei. Tell me what you learn from the trees, if we meet again. If not, tell another.” BELOW SYRAIGHT AFTER leaving forest part: 木木木

It took a childhood of intermittent tramping through pine forests in the Alps, where I grew up and a decade of living in the empty deserts of the Middle East to understand forests. That and spending an afternoon in the ethereal Redwood forest, in California. I thought I’d never seen anything more exquisite and majestic. Exploring the taiga of Siberia is awe-inspiring. There is also something else, that the more time I spend in forest areas, the better my chronic and inexplicable breathing difficulties I have improve.

the pine cone that feeds all the forest is the forest

l long for nature’s products when I walk among the bushes, shrubs and trees. Not the creams from companies with names like Natura, or Flower, Plantigen, with pictures of flowers or berries on the front, and packed with goodness knows what chemicals in a plastic container. TO REMOVE

sunlit waterfall in my wooden cup the taste of a rainbow

misty morning droplets of forest poetry I touch the sky

木木木 By name alone, Yenisei sounds beautiful. Yenisei. Names become more exotic the deeper one ventures into the forests of Siberia, in the endless boreal forest, or snow forest, of coniferous trees, pines, spruces and larches, and the white trunks of the birch trees. Yenisei is my guide, and is named after the River Yenisei itself, one of the three great rivers of Siberia. She is sleeping under the boughs of another pine tree, under great branches that trap the warmth. My guide is the niece of the man I met in Chita, and related by DNA and language to many of the tribes of Northwest America.

The forests ripple over the horizon. I am under the impression I will take this mysterious, beautiful forested land with me wherever I go, spiritually, in my heart, and soul. Already mentally, and physically, it has had a positive effect after only a couple of days. There is no other forest like the pine forest. I try to write a haiku about falling asleep under a pine tree, where heavy snow does not make it under the thick boughs that trap the warmth, but just can’t get it right. No matter, I am content merely to be, among the trees. Perhaps it is the scent I like most, as well as the gentle grandeur.

pine tea for the soul starts with a harvest of needles and forest air

Yenisei is not necessarily my guide for distances we will cover in the vast interior of Russia, but also my guide for my own interior. For that purpose, I will accordingly learn all I can about the forests of Siberia. Yenisei lives in the taiga, in the forest, usually in a small community, with other ethnic Evenks, who live a nomadic life among the trees, setting up camp a while then moving on, for the pleasure of moving as well as living. On a mat of pine needles am rejuvenated

 木木木  

Here, at the other end of the thermometer from many, in Siberia, it is cold. My hands are already numb as I light the third match. The dried grass and hay, though, is still unfrozen. This time, with cupped hands not feeling the naked flame, it catches alight, a whisper of smoke then glowing tips. The herbs start to smoulder and flare, minute pinpricks of light, and soon I sip pine nut tea and offer some to my guide, through the large snow-covered branches. She smiles, and has her own forest herb brew to boil up. She hands me some dried Valerian flower roots. “Chew them,’’ she says, ‛’the flower grows here. It will help you sleep well, with nice dreams.’’ “I’m having wonderful dreams already!’’ I answer. It is only now I understand how much I appreciate the company of fir trees, and only now that I am consciously learning how healthy they are for our physical and mental health; our chemical balance, and for the soul. The landscape of rolling forests is peaceful and mystical at the same time, and we are near the top of a small hill, among thick pine trees, in scenery that looked tame enough for a Christmas card, but far enough from any settlement to see by the light of the stars and moon alone. I open the old man from Chita’s little grey cardboard book and read the first haiku. without roots we cannot flower 木木木

The first time I heard the term ′forest bathing’ was at 4 am, in Banff, Canada. It was the middle of January, and I was half way up through the trees of Sulphur mountain. I had a long knife in hand in the absence of a pick axe or walking stick, to stab at the icy snow on the steep incline and a heavy old rubber mattress thrown over my shoulder, and twisted together at the hip. The plan was to climb the mountain, blow up the rubber mattress and speed down again, and continue my journey all the way to the Darien Gap, and Kuna Indians, over the next few months. It was tough work going up the mountainside. Not so much because of the steepness, but because of the deep snow up to my waist, and I wanted to widen a path, so that my ride down would happen at speed. It was also tough work as I had not quite got over my long summer and autumn’s work, first tree planting, then burning old tree tumps, followed by carrying heavy loads of water on my back to put out smouldeting tree stumps, before finally graduating to lumberjack, and felling trees for miles and miles into late autumn. No-one could accuse me of idealistically falling in love with forests — my relationship had been physical. The Japanese woman on the ledge had been watching me for a while when I arrived. I had started at 4 am. She had started earlier, or more likely had trekked up faster. Or both; she had been on the Japanese Women’s Everest Expedition a few years earlier. Our conversation was brief, some might say terse, or aphoristic: to her quizzical look I had offerred an explanation of  enjoying being on the forested slopes in winter. “You ever heard of forest-bathing?’’ she asked. “Oh, you mean because of the rubber mattress?” I answered, lifting it off my shoulder. “No. It’s what you’re doing. Getting in the good air,” she said. “They studied the benefits in Japan a couple years ago, and it’s called Shinrin-Joku. Forest bathing.” somewhere far in the woods under the pine’s speckled sunlight a tiny acorn gives birth

I blew up the inflatable mattress, jumped on and sped down the steep hill through the forest, down the gulley I had made walking upwards. At the bottom of the mountain my travelling partners arrived by pick-up. I duly got picked up, and we drove down to Central America. And I forgot about forest bathing until  Guatemala, a few months and many miles later.

under the trees leaves and shadows of leaves only shadows stay

木木木

When I arrived in Guatemala I befriended two honey collectors in the lush bushes up the sides of a volcano. The path we were on went straight up, no matter how steep the side of the volcano became, straight up through the trees, then areas of grass, then trees. And they walked fast. Fast meant really fast, up the slope. It was a lesson learnt, in many different ways — in general, our lifestyle is worse than many in the developing world. Of course, on that day on the volcano I had very little style, and not much life in my limbs either. They stopped, politely.

“I will let you go,” I said, “you are too fast!”

The elder of the two men patted his midriff and smiled: “Have some wild forest honey!” he said in Spanish.

He put his hand in the bag he had slung at his hip, and took a glass jar out, opened it, then took a tortilla out and dipping it into the jar, gave it to me. I chewed the honey-dipped bread. It was suitably delicious.

The forest honey on my tortilla was a dark, deep amber; real medicine, and strongly antibacterial. When honey is applied on a cut, graze or scrape, an enzyme from bees called glucose oxidase activates the release of H2O2. Forest honey, the most medicinal of all honies, can even kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria like MRSA. It is also hydroscopic and pulls water away from an infected wound by osmosis. Dryer wounds heal faster, but honey also pulls lymph fluid to the wound, making balanced healing, and this honey’s low pH of between 3 and 4, makes it acidic. Bacteria cannot survive in an acidic environment.

The unrefined forest honey on the tortilla was my excuse to immerse myself into my environment. I waved goodbye to my companions and admired the view through the trees, thankful for the cover as the rain poured. As I sat, I thought of ways to render the exotic appeal of the surroundings onto paper in haiku, to convey the atmosphere of purity and harmony.

Below me in the tinsel light of the rain, I saw a shining river winding its path between the hills, and made my way downwards towards it. Great Mayan cities were carved out of the jungle here, cities now so hidden that one can really only stumble on them by accident. I took out my notebook and waded into the river, and sat on a small smooth rock to watch the current stream pleasantly by, the clear surface of the river broken by the fast patter of raindrops. It was then that a rubber raft came drifting around the bend, with four occupants, three men abnd one woman, in mid-conversation.

“Ah’m tellin’ ye!’’ shouted the man in front, in broad Scots dialect, and bright red Celtic hair . “Tha’ bloody rum’s poison man, gie’ us a whisky any day!’’

“Nah,’’ his colleague insisted in Carribean lilt and big laugh, “there is nothin’ compared to rum man!’’

Seeing me just are they were seen by me, they both expertly swivelled the rubber craft round with their wooden paddles to where I sat.

“Join us man,’’ said the Carribean, all smiles again contrasting with ebony skin. “My name’s Claymore, that reprobrate there is McGillan,’’ he laughed, in a fitting Jamaican accented musical tone, “and this is Beatrice, from Canada, and there’s Guillermo,’’ he said, pointing to the third man holding his oar as a rudder, having pioted the dinghy alongside me.

I got in. Beatrice, long-haired with red bandana, red-flowered wrap and bikini top, sat on the opposite side of the dinghy and I picked up a paddle amd dipped it into the river, swivelling it back.

“Well Ah’m nae normally one tae argue mind,’’ McGillan continued to Claymore, in full swing, “Ah’d waste neither disinfectin’ yer backside frae the tooth marks of tha’ croc over there!’’

We turned quickly to see a small alligator floating slowly in our direction, snout causing a few small bubbles to escape as it watched us guide by.

“Hey man,’’ said Claymore, “the alligator that bites your butt gets a drink from me!”

“You bloody men,’’ said the woman called Beatrice.

The forest murmured constantly with almost electric activity, but not all the noises blended in, just as the flash of colours of a macaw startled against the background of green, so a high pitched cry or deep rumble caught the senses sharply. Large butterflies, in translucent blue fluttered out of reach, almost in a dance, and no again near the riverbank on either side there was a sudden plop! As an animal quickly jumped into the water as we swept by; frogs perhaps. This was haiku country, and surely Bashō would have felt inspired among the lush, green vegetation.

Then Guillermo said: “Look!’’

Beatrice was still finishing a drawing. “The calm tranquillity of the woman’s mind,’’ she had just said, as she sketched in a long thick phallic tree trunk that bent slightly upwards over the water. Guillermo seemed to see things that we did not with our untrained eyes. He stood watching the jungle from the raft, looking at things that had happened here years ago, gesturing at what was indistinguishable in the thick forest. He quickly and easily leapt ashore picking a leaf and chewing it, then picking another from a different tree, We stepped out of the raft, causing Beatrice to look up, and waded to the river bank.

“I am Lacandón Mayan,’’ Guillermo said, as he led us up the steep bank into the forest, “my people live here long, long time ago. We came to the jungle to escape the Conquistadores, and have been a forest people since. When we farm in the jungle, nosotros, us Lacandon, we farm with nature. We mix plot of land with different plants so we don’t starve mother earth. We grow lemon, onion, pepper, corn, watermelon, all in same place. We grow banana and papaya trees to shade, so the rhythm of the forest does not change. We don’t have disease spreading on our land because we don’t grow only one kind of plant. The earth keeps strong because different plants’ needs are different.’’ He looked around. “Here we can build a incense burner renewal ceremony hut.”

The jungle looked untouched. To Guillermo, however, the pattern of the jungle had been modified, and soon we came up to some light undergrowth. We walked around what appeared to be a large mound, and pulled at the tangled branches.

“I think there’s a way in here,” said Claymore.

“Do ye then?” Asked McGillan about thirty minutes later, as we pulled and chopped and cut. A passage way finally appeared, and we slithered into the entrance, an entrance that was paved with chunks of stone. There was room for one down the small rectangular corridor, and room for two in the small chamber at the end of it. Rough scratched on stones set around patches of earth were all that was left of the probable etched hieroglyphics and artefacts.

“People have been here before us,” said Guillermo, “only the forests have stayed.”  He looked up towards the treetops. “The name Guatemala comes from Nahuatl Cuauhtēmallān, ′place of many trees,’ a translation of the Mayan K’iche, ′many trees’,” he said.

in my forest I hunt for words -trees are stories

木木木

Up near the Arctic Circle, there is magic afoot during the winter months. We know that Santa was a shaman in his big black boots, collecting the Fly Agraic mushroom, red with white dots from the forest, and feeding it to his reindeer then drinking the mix when their livers had removed the toxins, or putting them in a big sack and later hanging them to dry above the fireplace. And these magic mushrooms that grow under the fir trees, with ethereal fertilisation, are symbolised now with the draping of silver-coloured tinsel over the so-called Christmas tree, in reality the world tree, the tinsel symbolising sperm.

Of course, after eating the magic mushrooms the deer fly, and Santa laughs, with red cheeks, and the Siberian tribal and Saami people’s myth of the world tree is real. If you would like to treat yourself to one of these mushrooms, make sure you boil it first, unless you have any reindeer around. And then come North, and see the northern lights, glowing, moving behind the silhouettes of pine trees and watch, touch our magic, natural world.

snowflakes drift

as plum blossoms open in Seoul

and in my memories

The world tree has been ursuped and used in many homes as the Christmas tree, but if people wanted to follow the Nativity scene more closely they would use a palm tree. Palms are wonderful, magical trees in their own right.

two tall palms

in monsoon rains

give a coconut kiss

I briefly mentioned living in the deserts of the Middle East. What I meant was working as in-house environmental consultant for the Saudi Arabian oil company, based in a desert town called Abqaiq, meaning Tiny Bug, over the world’s largest oil field, the Ghawar Field, and on the edge of Al Ahsa oasis, with its 30 million palm trees, in the Eastern Province. 30 million trees is a lot of dates.

in only one date the taste of paradise  — never eaten alone

Walking through the immense date plantation, shaded by the broad patterned leaves in a day exotic with heat was always a thrill.  Meeting bedouins in the evening, who had nothing to offer but the best hospitality and warm sand dunes, under a backdrop of a wide, clear sky full of stars and the aroma of roasted cardamon coffee, the cardoman, as always, from the Guatemalan highlands, and the coffee possibly too, served with fresh, frothed camel milk and genuine conversation; a life at its most luxurious.

in coffee friendship

embers from the dancing fire

-floating stars

At the fringe of the large date palm plantation I stopped one evening, and walked towards a small oasis set in the wavy, curved lines of the desert sands. The oasis was surrounded by lush green palm trees, some tall and stooped, and some thick and rigid. I knelt down and reached deep into the cool, fresh water, and lifting my cupped hands drunk some and splashed my face. When I looked up I saw her sitting at the waterside about fifty yards away, opposite me, between the trees. Her legs were in the cool water of the oasis and she’d pulled her black abaya up to her thighs. I had startled her and she started to pull the abaya downwards but stopped when I smiled and touched my forefinger to my lips.

The oasis took on a creamy glow as the sun set in the desert somewhere in the distance. She kept her abaya up on her thighs, kicking in the water, softly, as I sat on the opposite side of the oasis, taking in her etheral beauty. Finally she stood up, carefully letting her abaya drop from uncurling, long fingers. Pushing a large palm leaf aside she turned to walk away in the sand, and glanced back for one long moment before making her way up the sand dune behind her.

Only in Saudi Arabia could one share such an illicit, sensual spell.

the setting sun

melts into shadows

and shadows melt into night

木木木

I am reminded again of the inbuilt need of western culture and civilisation to proletise, often found these days through the workings of charities, who go to great lengths to inform us of noble savages around the world who need our help to care for their environment and develop, by which the charity companies really mean they want our money.

In Kerala, sitting on a houseboat made from reeds on one of the many waterways through the jungle, I was told thatt the first tree huggers were from India; 294 men and 69 women of the Bishnois branch of Hinduism, who died in 1730 while trying to protect the trees in their village from becoming raw material for building a palace. They clung to the trees while being slaughtered. But their action led to a royal decree prohibiting the cutting of trees in any Bishnoi village. Thee days the villages are virtual wooded oases amid an otherwise desert landscape.

The Bishnois inspired the Chipko movement (chipko means “to cling” in Hindi) that started in the 1970s, when a group of peasant women in the Himalayan hills of northern India threw their arms around trees designated to be cut down. Within a few years, this tactic, also known as tree satyagraha, spread across India, forcing reforms in forestry and a ban on tree-felling in Himalayan regions.

among the trees only thoughts and shadows move

木木木

The traveller, farmer, writer or must seek isolation, whether he or she likes it or not. So I walk through the forests and hills back to where Yenisei has fashioned a small yurt from branches and canvas, marveling that yet again I found my way. Through Bashō we learn that the true writer does not lead a sedentary life, and indeed must walk in order to express his or her syllables. Bashō walked for 156 days through Japan in his legendary ′Deep Road to the Far North,’ series of haibun that defined the term.

By walking on his long walk, Bashō also demonstrated that the true haiku and haibun haijin’s tool is not the pen but the wooden staff. Not only does this staff lift branches and part bushes to see the dew drops and flower petals, but it can also be leant on when searching the sky for floating eagles, patterned clouds and drifting cherry blossoms. The wooden staff also taps haiku on a road perfectly, like a variant of morse code message to nature:

win—ter—is—o—ver

a—dog—barks—to—each—tap

of—my—carved—staff

My journey is in fact a journal of nature—a kikôbun. Ahaibun is a pilgrimage, maybe only of ideas, but a kikôbun has no destination, despite being a journey. The travel journal that is the kikôbun denotes a wanderer that is not Quixotic in his or her reveries, but rather seeks to record. A sword or lance of any kind must therefore be put aside for other quests, as a kikôbun merely takes from the nature that is seen when walked through, to put onto lines on pages. The semiotic wooden walking staff therefore takes on symbolic meaning.

My wooden staff— the kikôbun’s sword carving thoughts

Not Don Quixote, nor wandering samurai, what, then? Like the Navajo in the southwestern states, who use wooden tools on mother earth lest they leave scars, I don’t set out to make an impression that might not heal.

my staff slices the trees still stand and yet…

木木木

The ice patterns blown onto plants are more beautiful than the flowers that briefly bloom in summer, and more fragile. But my journey into Siberia brought me equally tender and graceful moments, landscapes, untamed, grandiose, full of proud fir trees, and the natural home of Siberian religion, for the true Siberian religion is shamanism, and travelling through the Siberian taiga is also taking another journey into the spirit world with a shaman encountered on a muddy village path, or up in a grassland meadow.

I know shamanism well from the Saami people in Lappland, and find female shamans are able to reach further into the sky. Shamanism also has a spiritual home in the steppes of Kazakhstan, and Yakutia, in the north. From Kalmykia on the shores of the Caspian to Korea, true shamans listen and interpret what nature is trying to say. No traveller or journey man or woman can remain untouched by this simple and compelling spirituality.

to know your path follow the shadows of the tracks above you

I realise my guide Yenisei is a shaman first through her commitment to her forest environment, even before watching her use different herbs for nutrition and salvation, spiritual purposes that involved intricate rituals.

northern lights

the night sky whispers in colour at the edge of the town

Yenisei teaches me to be at one with the forest around me She does this by encouraging me to sense the forest as well as merely see it. As all simple messages, it takes time to fully understand and grasp, but as I do I feel real comfort.

pine trees gently sway -is it the wind blowing or is it my mind?

Her rituals are deeply personal, and intimate, and it feels like such an honour that she lets me watch, and participate, showing a trust one only finds among forest-dwellers. And I don’t take notes. The rituals of the shaman are not to be broadcast wherever one feels like, so I will give only the most basic of impressions here.

Before any sacred shaman ceremony, juniper is burnt. The very first step is the connection with nature, and the juniper must be sought and found. Yenisei chose the juniper bush carefully, studying the texture of the berries and tasting a few, before deciding on the right bush in the right location. She put her juniper berry mixture into some oil in a small bowl, which she heated with a candle in her hand and walked the perimetre of a clearing she had found with longest view facing northwards.

She took the rest of the juniper needles and berries and boiled them into an immune-strengthening tea that helps heal the digestive system, pulling energy into the solar plexus. This juniper berry tea acts as a diuretic to help support the function of the liver and kidneys and expel toxins, energising the endocrine system. Pine needles from other pine trees can also be used for tea, or birch bark, and nettles.

She started softly tapping her shaman drum. The rhythm of a drum further energises and awakens the inner senses., and she had specified no shyness or holding back when transprted by the beat of one’s rhythm. Then came the hush. My Evenki shaman listened, especially for the sacred cuckoo bird, a symbol of good luck: hearing it could improve your spirit and feeling — if we let it, and we listened to the sounds of nature for strength.

Yenisei then spoke, softly. She said juniper pine needles were dropped nto the hands of those taking part in the shaman ceremony. The closed hands are passed over the incense or oil lamp a few times, and palms are opened to reveal the pine needles, which are ‘read.’ Being right, or wrong, was not important. What was important was to come to a consensus about possible meanings, and that in this concensus the healing may begin.

sounds of the drum

through the trees echoes tapped

shaman

her eyes lit by fire

the yurt by song

We sleep a while. Then from my bag I take out a packet of coffee made by an Italian friend, roasting the coffee on the charcoal dawn fire. I serve it to Yenisei, as she purrs herself awake and unwraps herself, naked, from the fur. In front of our shelter a beautful sight: a ring of green fire, the Aurora Borealis.

midwinter night a dark sky's lights dance in the wolf's eyes

northern lights the magic world speaks shaman inspired

木木木

I find it difficult in Novosibirsk, the capital of Siberia, and do not need to be in the capital of anywhere. Soon Yenisei will show me how to draw the birch sap from the trees, and I will literally taste the taiga. Today, though, Yenisei, my mysterious shaman has other duties to take care of, and so will make her own path alone, and let me make mine. We will part ways, my shaman and I, my guide, in more ways than one.

among the pine trees only one set of footprints- mine

And I write one more haiku, as I wach her become a small dot on a space between trees that is my horizon, walking lightly in the soft snow.

snowflakes and I on the path this morning even the trees are lonely

木木木

We often talk about taking the train, but of course, the train takes you, just like a dream does. Everytime one steps up the steps of a train carriage, one steps into a dream.

on the train deep into the soul of Siberia we share bread and reverie

My travelling ccompanions on the train eastwards through the forests are American. American travellers busy sewing or sticking flags of Canada to bags and shirts is legendary and has almost become de rigeur. It is rare, however, that being an American is alone an offense, and cetainly not in Siberia. All the same, one of the Americans across from me is busy plastering Canadian patches on bags and clothing, before practicing the accent with a lot of lilted ‛ays.’

“I am not sure all the matriachical train station guards in the small towns along the railroad tracks will spot the difference,’’ I say.

“Hey man, you gotta do what you gotta do,’’ says the young man. “Where’s Snowden anyway?’’ he adds, “I’d like to meet him, maybe even bring him in. There must be some kind of reward.’’

“Well, Canadians wouldn’t be saying that,’’ I said, “and you never know what kind of microphones they have on trains.’’

The American goes quiet in contemplation, a silence broken only by the pretty sight of his travelling colleague, Linda, slipping out of her flip flops and painting her toenails bright red.

“I’d do this in the bathroom normally,’’ she chuckles.

She was from Florida, and wasn’t exactly sure where the train was heading.

“All the way to Vladivostok,’’ I answered.

“And no cute guys,’’ she said.

She was good-looking in a disharming sort of way, with strawberry blonde hair, but as such did not stand out in the carriage, aside from her flip flops which set her apart from the high heels worn by the Russian women on the train. Inside the compartment it was too warm as usual in eastern Europe, but most passengers have kept their sweaters on regardless, as if judging the temperature by the view outside, where patches of snow flashed by under the fir trees.

Linda puts her heels on the seat beside me across from where she sat. “I could paint a little white maple leaf on,’’ she giggles.

At a small station her male colleague dashes off to restock on food, eschewing the fresh pine pastries being sold from baskets on the platform and buying instead overpriced stale buns in plastic packets from the buffet.

“They even asked if I was American, man,’’ he says, mournefully, returning.

“Don’t worry, only the mosquitoes weren’t fooled,’’ says Linda.

winter morning- the scenery paints itself into my imagination

木木木

I find out that about 150,000 inmates were imprisoned in more than 150 camps in the Perm region during the late 1940s. This was about a third of the working population of the region:

Perm-36 Labour Camp Schedule

Daily Schedule of a Gulag Prisoner Time Activity

6:00 AM Wake up call

6:30 AM Breakfast

7:00 AM Roll-call

7:30 AM1 ½ hour to march to forests, under guarded escort

6:00 PM1 ½ hour return march to camp

7:30 PM Dinner

8:00 PM After-dinner camp work duties (chop firewood, shovel snow, gardening, road repair, etc.)

11:00 PM Lights out

Much of the railroad has been laid by the bare hands of prisoners from labour camps, whose prison was Siberia itself. Gulags rarely needed fences or guard towers. Escapees were never going to get far. And the railroad still crushes the bones of those who perished building it.

Not everyone who laid down rail lines in Siberia was a prisoner. Many volunteered, and even stayed afterwards. Those people have a special inner peace about them. An understanding and deep respect of nature. They are people who prefer the numbing colds of winter to the pleasant summers, full of unforeseen dangers and reckless laziness.

Their sense of freedom is like nothing experienced elsewhere, and maybe all the more so because it is worked so hard for. Freedom in the land of gulags. It is an interesting thought. But for all its history of brutality and horror, Siberia is a vast, mystical land, a land of shamans who reach where the church or mosque doesn’t, and where temperature plunges so low that cement or metal foundations of buildings are useless next to the hardy wooden ones of the taiga, thus proving, once again that nature wins.

the further one travels

the more opens up

behind us

木木木

Two decades ago I drank a glass or two of homemade wine on a front porch, with a retired postman who’d walked home from Toliatti, on the Volga, from the non-descript decrepid town somewhere on a trainline in the middle of Russia.

Delivering the post had been his job — to the Hungarian eighth army who had invaded the Soviet Union in support of German troops, during the Second World War. And János delivered mail. He collected it from the train, or trucks and delivered it to the front line troops. This is a more important role than it first appears, for a man cannot fight without news that his loved ones are well.

It was love that made János walk. In the middle of the Second War and the middle of Toliatti, János delivered his mail and kept walking. He walked out of the town, along the trainline, then through the taiga, through the trees, over forested hills, across rivers and sleeping in the woods on the edges of villages. He walked, and walked, all the way back to Eastern Hungary, across the steppes then great plain. He walked under stars, raindrops and hailstones, from sunrises to sunsets, to the golden soils of the wine-growing town of Tokaj, back to his wife.

When he arrived back, he discovered his sister-in-law had been taken away, just taken off to the gulags of Siberia. So he turned around and walked again, attempting to find her, somewhere in the hugeness that was the Siberian taiga. He never found out what happened to her, but still now missed the Siberian forests, and especially the tribespeople that were its inhabitants. As I sat in Tokaj, Eastern Hungary, drinking his delicious homemade wine, which he kept in a wine cellar dug into the hillside, I noticed her picture, his sister-in-law, hanging on the wall; a beautiful young woman, the portrait soft in the evening glow.

János spoke no English but we understood each other very well. We shared much, János and I, much of the same soul, as we refilled or glasses, glancing at the portrait of the young woman who died in the gulag.

water drop on a branch from a cloud far above  — tiny tree magnified

木木木

We are in Yekatinberg. Among the Ural mountains outside Yekatinberg’s eastern balconies in pine-scented forests, I think of János and his long monthly walk, passing through here years before. I am not a man of the pencil-line horizon, and I walk upwards, to the nearest peak, to compose my haiku.

high in mountain forests where even shadows don’t reach nature inspires through silence

Siberia is home to so many who live with nature. Winter, when traps are laid, and fresh water comes from holes dug deep in the ice, is discreetly turning towards spring. I always miss the hard, yet pristine environment of the winter months in the forest. Winter is a time when travel is often easier, across solid lakes and rivers and through frozen forests. It is a time when hospitality is offered, when bears are not around near villages, nor dangerous ticks and bothersome mosquitos in muddy parts of the forests.

Soon though, the bears will be out again, and hungry. It is not possible to chase them away when fishing. They will always come back, so must be shot. The leaves will shimmer in the breeze. It will be harder to follow animal tracks, and easier for animals to keep their distance from hunters. In Tyumen I will only see the fort from afar. I don’t mind. I feel at home among the birch and pine trees, and castles all seem seem to share such similar histories.

Tyumen fort shines at night not as much as the birch trees -such longing

I look over at Linda, now applying another colour of nailpolish. I imaged her taking a few barefoot steps with snow melting.

she walks in the snow until the grass at the edge of spring

But by the time I have scribbled my three lines and looked up again out of the train window it is snowing:

how thoughtless-

spring blossoms are late yet another haiku about snow

木木木

Stragglers are we. All for what? Sometimes, like now, its good to get off before the end of the journey, then the journey really never ends. Until then, the traps are set. The night is young. The snow is fresh. I’ve seen the tracks. The conditions are difficult for the elk right now. The snow is not strong enough to support elks, so they often get stuck, making easy meat for hungry wolves and awakening bears. And an elk, or caribou in north America, can provide food for a long time.

But the taiga used to be home to a much larger mammal: for four hundred years, thousands of mammoth tusks have been found in Siberia, about fifty thousand of them, from mammoths almost intact, with many organs perfectly frozen and stomachs half full of food — at times the blood still viscous due to the ‘anti-freeze’ components found in the blood, so called cryptoprotective properties, as in Arctic amphibians and fish.

It is quite easy to imagine that at some point in the future a mammoth is going to be cloned using that viscous blood. Large animals like the woolly mammoth could help stabilise the ecosystem in parts of Siberia.

But why so many mammoths ended up in Siberia remains a real mystery. Why did millions of the woolly mammoth move to the cold in Siberia, and how did they die so quickly after eating? Did a massive cold front move suddenly from the Arctic? That would be a climatic condition that does not exist today. If this is the case, it would have been very cold — freezing a mammoth suddenly and quickly is no easy thing at all. It would have taken temperatures as low as -100°C. The mystery is far from solved…

so many tusks found far in the Siberian tundra we step over ancients

木木木

On the Road of Bones you never travel alone. Here, they say, words themselves freeze, dropping in tiny fragments, tinkling like a wind chime.  This is the notorious road built by the prisoners of the Gulags, the torture camps.The road stretches to Magadan on the Pacific ocean, from Yakutsk in Yakutia, a vast mysterious republic within the even larger emptiness of Siberia. A republic that would be the eighth largest country in the world if fully independent, with a population of just 1 Million.

In the distance

more forest

—and more distance

Here in Yakutia the temperature can plunge to -60°C, rendering the road a gamble that only those needing to escape a misdemeanor take, or those imbibed with a certain madness. But who would go in summer, when the mud and mosquitoes make escape almost impossible and madness almost sure?

So the best time to go is in late winter, before the melting of snow and floods, when the cold is loosening its bitter grip - but even then it is dangerous, for when the temperature rises it begins to snow heavily again, after being too cold to snow during the winter months. And the wolves are hungry by then. And I mean hungry. Last winter a pack of 400 wolves killed 300 horses before they were finally driven away. But we gamble. We leave behind the rugged Yakutians who want us to stay until June, the summer solstice, and the start of the new year in Yakutia, when the republic is full of festivities, and greets the rising sun in the morning as one.

sunrise- drumbeats of snow thud

from high branches

Yakutia means a chance to also explore the Buddhist nature that lies within each of us. I sit facing the last of the taiga, the last birch tree, and compose my haiku – peacefully, I thought.

pine needles make a comfortable rest oh! stinging ants!

And I return to the train. The Trans-Siberian, and stare at the early morning dawn.

trees touch sunlight something blossoms in me I ask no more of my forest

木木木

The train nears the Pacific coast, near to the land of  volcanoes called Kamchatka, but on this journey we are only passing by, and our last stop will be Vladivostok. Vladivostok is the kind of city I would like to arrive to at dawn, and there has always been something fascinating about this last city on a train line that one could start in Portugal if one so desired, with a few waits on station platforms in-between.

In Vladivostok we will be near the North Korean border but also near to Japan. But for now I would be satisfied to sit on a wooden bench facing the Pacific. I think about Ese, photographer and writer who drove up from Bulgaria to the beautifully forested Carpathian mountains of Western Ukraine, to be my translator and travel companion at the start of my journey through Siberia. Together we hiked from village to village, tasting the homemade wine and raindrops, sleeping in bales of hay and cottages, walls covered with local hammered tin art.

While trekking a trail that wound up through pine forests on steep hills where small brooks and streams tumbled, and Carpathian chamois carefully took their quick morning drinks I sat against a tree trunk and edited a draft of her fascinating book, Butterfly Thy Name, a raw intimate journal covering her inner desires, while she joked with me about coming on the Trans-Siberian and adding another exotic chapter. Ese was disarmingly frank.

“I have an idea that a half Ukrainian, half Georgian lumberjack with fine equipment would be an exciting, erotic mix,’’ she declared, and smiled when I said “Vladivostok or bust!”

hello Ese I am here at last, facing the sea  — without you

And then I know with rare certainty that when I arrive in Vladivostok I will already miss the trees of the Siberian taiga:

-her beauty

thousands of miles away

in the immediacy of my mind

木木木

Some notes on Shinrin-Joku, or Forest Bathing:

The history of forests is an alternative history.  Yet looking back, we can see clear signs of how trees contributed to physical and mental heath. Tuberculosis, for example, was incurable only a smattering of decades ago. Up to the mid 20th century it was the norm to send people to the mountains in Switzerland, or somewhere where the air was fresh. But when those afflicted by the deadly lung disease went to the hills, where were they going, exactly? They were not going to the peaks, but in fact to the mountain forests. It was not specificaly mountain air that was healing, but perhaps more the forests, from the pines and fir trees, which grow on elevations from the sea up to 3960 metres on a mountainside. The Paimio Tuberculosis sanatorium, in Finland, was an example of this, where until the 1950s patients were wheeled out into the forest itself, which was more or less at sea level. Contrary to expectations, results also seemed to be magnified when the forest air trapped moisture.

Rehabilitation through interaction with forestry has long included psychological issues. When one is deep in a forest, on a path between tall trees all three potentially negative issues melt away. Among the many reasons to preserve our ancient forests, the emotional ones stand tall. Forests are the perfect landscape to cultivate what are called transcendent experiences—unforgettable moments, of attunement to that outside the self, and moments that are ultimately perceived as very important to each of us.

It was in 1982 that the Forest Agency of Japan unveiled shinrin-yoku, forest bathing, in the beautiful woods of Yakushima. Yakushima was chosen because it contains some of Japan’s most pristine forests, including those of select cedar trees that are over 1,000 years old.

The first findings of shinrin-yoku testing showed lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol in subjects after forest walks, compared with those who took laboratory walks. It was the first hint that a walk in a forest might not be the same as a walk in a different environmental setting.

We know now that time within forests reduces psychological stress, depressive symptoms, and hostility, while at the same time improving sleep and increasing both vigor and a feeling of liveliness, and lowering blood pressure and pulse rate. Studies also show increased heart rate variability, which is a good thing because it means the circulatory system can to respond well to stress.

Research has shown that the emotions of pleasure and happiness are elevated with an increase in tree density. The bigger and denser the trees, the higher the scenic beauty scores—up to a point.  Arguably the composition of the air intake, the serenity and at times majesty or beauty of the surroundings will all have a role to play. Forest bathing; spending time in forests, increases ability to focus.

It takes only twenty minutes of shinrin-yoku to alter cerebral blood flow to a state of relaxation and opyomose hemoglobin (as found in red blood cells). Stress hormones that can compromise immune defense are dramatically reduced. This is vital: activities of antiviral white blood natural killer cells are suppressed by stress hormones.

Since forest bathing can lower stress hormone production and elevate mood states, it is not surprising that it can also influence immune system strength, specifically increases in the number of  white blood natural killer cells, increases in the functional activity of these antiviral cells and increases in the amount of intracellular anticancer proteins. In addition, the level of the hormone serum adiponectin is also increased. When this hormone is present in low concentrations it is linked with obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and metabolic syndrome, among other bodily disorders. These changes can be noted at a significant level for a full week after some time in a forest.

Natural chemicals secreted by evergreen trees, collectively known as phytoncide, such as a-pinene and limonene, have also been associated with improvements in the activity of our frontline immune system. Measurements of the amount of phytoncides in the air during studies have correlated the content to improvements in immune functioning. In the fresh forest air we breathe in the phytoncides. The trees give off these chemicals to protect themselves from insects. Phytoncides have antibacterial and antifungal qualities which help the evergreen trees and plants fight disease. When we take in these chemicals, our bodies respond by increasing the number and activity of a type of white blood cell natural killer cells. Increased activity from these important calls from three-day, two-night forest bathing trip lasts for more than thirty days.

Spending time in forests gives the cognitive portion of our brain a break, allowing us to focus better and renew our ability to be calm. Patients recover from surgery faster and better when they have a view of trees, and had fewer postsurgical complications compared to those who had no view or a view of a cement wall. The use of pain medications is significantly lower than that of rooms with no plants; patients have lower blood pressure and heart rate, and rated their pain to be much lower. Patients who have plants in their rooms also have comparatively higher energy levels, more positive thoughts, and lower levels of anxiety.

Since a view of nature or a few potted plants can influence subjective and objective measures of stress, and maybe get us out of the hospital faster, it seems likely that nature can keep us out of the infirmary to begin with. The first indication that this might be the case was examination of the annual sick records of the State Prison of Southern Michigan, which highlighted a glaring difference in health-care utilisation based on prison cell location. Those inmates housed in the cells facing outside to a view of forests had far fewer visits to the medical division than did those inmates housed with a view of a concrete yard.

Research in Japan showed that greening select high school classrooms with potted plants for a four-month trial period significantly reduced visits to the infirmary compared with age-matched students attending classes without the visible plants.

But forests need not be merely admired. Forest gardening is historically the prime source of gardening in tropical regions and the most traditional of land use forms. It is also probably the most resilient of agroecosystems, and are the most common form of land use in Kerala, in southern India. They are also common in Nepal, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Sri Lanka, Mexico and Java, and have been shown to be a significant source of income and food security for local populations. These gardens exemplify polyculture, in layers, building a woodland habitat, and conserve much crop genetic diversity and heirloom plants that are not found in monocultures.

Kerala has three and a half million forest gardens. Even the smallest forest garden can hold over twenty coconut palms, over ten cloves, over fifty banana and pineapple trees and thirty pepper vines, with additional fodder.

In Nepal, 70% of households have home gardens of an area 2–11% of the total land holdings, cultivated with a mixture of annual and perennial plants that can be harvested on a daily or seasonal basis. Biodiversity that has an immediate value is maintained in home gardens, as women and children have easy access to preferred food, and for this reason alone we should promote home gardens as a key element for a healthy way of life.

A natural forest is divided into seven distinct layers:

a ‘canopy’ layer

a ‘low-tree’ layer of smaller nut and fruit trees

a ‘shrub layer’ of fruit bushes

a ‘herbaceous layer’ of perennial vegetables and herbs

a ‘ground cover’ layer of edible plants

a ‘rhizosphere’ of plants grown for their roots and tubers

a ‘vertical layer’ of vines and climbers.

Forest Gardens are ideal projects for open spaces such as industrial wastelands, where trees can be planted, where even in heavily built up areas, new ‘city forests’ could contain perennial vegetables with little intervention.

At some stage forest gardening leads to forest farming, combining trees with crops or livestock, or both, on the same piece of land. Products typically fit into the following categories: edible, medicinal and dietary supplements, floral or decorative, or specialty wood-based products. Toyohiko Kagawa, who began forest farming in Japan during the 1930s, persuaded many of Japan’s farmers to plant fodder trees to conserve soil, supply food and feed animals. Then World War II disrupted communication and slowed his advances in forest farming, unfortunately changing the course of agriculture again.

Researchers in Japan and South Korea are re-establishing that connection again, with their scientific advances in the study of forest bathing. Perhaps one of the greatest benefits I personally discovered about shinrin-yoku, that stays with me, is the way it starts, and deepens long enduring friendships.

how many plants

Can I fit into

one haiku-

木木木

[revwinchester]

Color The World - Chapter 1

Summary: Sam meets Jessica early in their freshman year at Stanford and his world is suddenly brighter.  When he loses her during their senior year, Sam’s life is plunged back into grayscale.  With the help of his family and friends, Sam starts to get his life back together.  He works and travels with Dean, restoring classic cars, and eventually meets Gabriel but struggles to let the other man in. 

Author: @revwinchester Artist: @bluefire986

Pairings: Sam x Jessica, Sam x Gabriel; background Charlie x Dorothy, Dean x Castiel

Chapter Word Count: 1529

Warnings: Soul mate AU, fluff and angst (50/50 split), major character death, fire/arson, mention of suicide (no suicidal ideation, though), depression, internalized homophobia, cursing

A/N: Here’s chapter 1!  Since this is a bang, everything got posted at about the same time so you should check out the master posts here: 

Color The World - Fic Color The World - Art

I hope you enjoy it!

“Tell me more!” Sam practically squealed.

Dean was 12 now and had started learning about colors at school.  He’d made an offhand comment about it and suddenly found himself teaching his 8 year old brother a lesson on something that he himself knew very little about.

“Um, Mom used to say how pretty they are,” he told his brother.  “She told me that my eyes are green and your hair is brown.”  Most kids had a little bit of knowledge about colors from their parents but, beyond what he had just shared, Dean didn’t know much.  He had been lucky, at least compared to his brother, to have a few years with his mom and dad in love and seeing things in color.  But when Sammy was only six months old, their mom had died and their dad lost his colors.  Dad had never wanted to talk about them after that.

“Why doesn’t Dad ever talk about colors?” Sam wondered, as if he were reading Dean’s mind.

“Well, you get your colors when you meet your soulmate,” Dean reminded his brother.  “Mom and Dad were soulmates.  When Mom died, Dad’s colors went away.”

“Oh,” Sam said thoughtfully.  “Thinking about colors probably makes Dad feel sad.”

“Yeah, I think it does,” Dean replied.  His brother was such a smart kid and he consistently made Dean proud with his intelligence and intuition.  

“Could Dad ever get his colors back?”  Sam asked.

“I dunno, maybe.”  They hadn’t learned about that in class but there were still another few days of colors classes.  Everyone learned about it in school when they were 12 or 13 even though most people wouldn’t find their soulmates until they were older.  There was one kid in Dean’s class who said that one of his parents was 14 and the other was 16 when they met, though.  Dean wasn’t too worried about meeting his soulmate, yet.  His teacher said that the average age for meeting your soulmate was around 25 years old but that was 13 years away; no need to worry about something that seemed like it would take forever.

It looked like Sam was going to ask another question but their dad called them for dinner and they both scrambled down to the kitchen for burgers.

----

Sam was excited.  He was about to start his colors classes.  He’d made Dean tell him a lot when he was younger but he’d grown up reading all kinds of stories about people meeting their soulmates and finding their colors.  Sam wanted to know everything he could!  Sam loved reading and learning and this was the topic he was most excited about.  He had even prayed that Dean would meet his soulmate early so that he could tell him more about the colors but Dean was 16 now and still hadn’t gotten them.  

When Sam would get a little overzealous with his questions, Dean would often tell him to “cool it with the chick flick moments,” but Sam would press on until he either wore his brother down or got smacked in the back of the head as Dean walked out of the room.  Even Sam’s teachers couldn’t keep up with his demand for information.  More than once, his teachers tried to quell his questions with a simple “Sam, no one really knows how soulmates work.  It’s a different experience for everyone.”  Sam was undeterred, though, and would just come back with more questions and observations during their next lesson on colors.

Sam had only ever asked their dad about it once, on a Friday afternoon when he was in fourth grade.  Dean had gone to his friend Benny’s house right after school and wouldn’t be back home until the next morning.  Some of the kids at school had been making fun of Sam that day, teasing him because they claimed his clothes didn’t match.  Sam wasn’t sure how they would know, they were all too young to have their colors yet.  As Sam climbed into the back of his dad’s car, he saw one of the girls who had been particularly mean pointing him out to her dad.  The man had a look of pure disgust as he looked Sam over.  When he noticed that Sam was watching him, his facial expression changed.  The man knew that Sam saw him and understood what was happening and he was… happy about it.  It was like he was toying with Sam from across the parking lot.  

After a rough day at school and this weird interaction with his classmate’s dad, Sam didn’t think before he spoke.  “Are you ever going to get your colors back, Dad?  You’re not even trying to meet someone.”

His dad’s hand froze in mid-air, halfway to turning on the radio, before returning to the steering wheel.  They made the ride home in silence, Sam regretting his words and his dad’s grip on the wheel so tight that his knuckles were white.  They pulled into the driveway and exited the car.  “Dad, I…” Sam began.

“Not now, Sammy,” his dad’s reply was gruff.  “Go work on your homework.  Dinner’s at 6.”

“Yes, sir.” Sam responded quietly.

Sam had never gotten an opportunity to apologize or explain.  Dad had ordered pizza for dinner and seemed to be content to pretend that the car ride had never happened.  He still regretted the way he had spoken to his father that afternoon.  He didn’t regret asking the question, though.  He was still curious if someone could get their colors back after their soulmate died and he planned on asking his teacher if it didn’t get covered during their lessons, along with about a hundred other questions he had floating around in his brain.

----

“Crap,” Sam muttered as he finally got his bearings.  It was the second week of classes and he’d somehow gotten himself turned around and ended up on the complete wrong side of campus.  It was his freshman year at Stanford and he was still learning the lay of the land.  Checking his watch, he knew that if he hustled, he should get to the classroom just in time for the lecture to begin.  Lucky for him, this particular professor had a habit of running 2 to 3 minutes late herself.  

Sam booked it across the Stanford campus toward the building that housed the english department.  He was a pre-law student but there were certain courses that everyone had to take, regardless of their major, in order to “create well-rounded individuals,” or so his academic advisor had told him.  Sam had opted to take his english elective right off the bat and enrolled in a class on mythology and folklore.  

He made it to the classroom door and ducked inside just behind the professor.  Looking around the classroom, Sam noticed that the only available desk was right in the front, just off the center row.  Generally, he tried to arrive early enough to get a seat in the back of the classroom because he knew no one wanted to sit behind his 6’4” frame.  There wasn’t another choice, though, so he slipped into the seat and turned to the person behind him to apologize as the professor gathered her notes and set herself up to begin the class.

The woman seated behind him was very pretty, with light hair and bright white teeth.  “I’m so sorry,” Sam started.  “I usually wouldn’t sit anywhere near the front but there’s not any other seats.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the woman replied with a flirty smile.  “We’ll just have to go somewhere after class so that you can give me all the notes I’m going to miss since I can’t see the board.”

Sam couldn’t believe his luck; was this beautiful woman really asking him out?  “That, uh, that sounds like a plan,” he replied lamely.  He stuck his hand out to shake hers (smooth, Sam, he chided himself as he did it) and he introduce himself, “I’m Sam.”

The woman looked at his outstretched hand and smirked.  “Jessica, but most people call me Jess” she told him and took his hand.

Jess gasped and Sam’s jaw dropped as their hands connected and everything around them changed.  Sam wanted to look at everything around him but he couldn’t pull his eyes away from the woman seated behind him and her eyes were locked on his.  In his peripheral vision, he noticed a window behind her and just off to the side.  Though he hadn’t seen it before, he had always been told that the sky was blue.  Jessica’s eyes matched the sky, so they must be blue, too.

By now, the professor was ready to begin the lecture and she cleared her throat, indicating that it was time for the students to pay attention.  

“You’d better take really good notes, Sam,” Jess said with a wink, “because I’m really not going to be able to pay attention to anything she says, now.”

Sam gaped at her but turned around and did his best to focus on his professor and her lecture - something about wendigos or something - and not on taking in the world around him which was now, suddenly, in color.

Next Chapter

All tags for this piece are on the master post so that I didn’t inundate anyone with a dozen tags in just a few minutes :)

[watchilove]

Ulysse Nardin has just offered a grant to the Azores University’s marine research centre to acquire ten pop-up biologging sensors to tag blue sharks in the Atlantic and document our knowledge of this endangered species. Swimming with blue sharks, his DIVER 44mm on the wrist, Fred Buyle tags marine animals in their natural environment using non-invasive techniques. Buyle is using his underwater photography and freediving skills to change the way we see the seas.

Many marine species are difficult to study because components of their lifecycles occur solely or partially outside of the observable realm of researchers. Advances in biologging tags have begun to give us glimpses into these unobservable states. However, many of these tags require rigid attachment to animals, which normally requires catching and restraining the animals. These methods become prohibitive with large, dangerous, or rare species, such as large predatory sharks, and can have significant consequences for individual survival and behaviour. Therefore, there is a need for methods and hardware to non-invasively and rigidly attach biologging tags to sharks that present limited effects on the animals and researchers.

Blue sharks tagging

Scientists in the Azores islands of Portugal are gaining a new understanding into the lives of one of the ocean’s most fascinating and mysterious creatures, the blue shark (Prionace glauca). Jorge Fontes, an Azorean native marine ecologist at Okeanos-UAc marine research center, University of the Azores, leads a team of researchers studying this charismatic elasmobranch in the Azores archipelago. Though recreational divers come from all over the world to see the memorizing sharks, not much is known about the natural history fine-scale behaviour and habitat use. With the help of Fred Buyle, combining their amazing freediving skills with creative non-invasive attachment methods and state-of-the-art prototype data and video logging towed tags, Jorge Fontes has been pioneering the investigation of their fine-scale behaviour and ecology, providing a new and unprecedented look into the life of these mysterious and elegant sharks.

The beauty of the new non-invasive tagging method lays on its simplicity. Like an underwater cowboy, the free divers place a self-releasing “lasso” that is retained on the shark’s pectoral fins as they constantly move forward to force the water flow through the gills, towing the low drag torpedo-shaped camera tags and sensors. These innovative tags, rated to 2000 meters, combine multiple high-frequency accelerometers, magnetometer, speed, depth, temperature sensors as well as HD video. At night and bellow 100 m, two red LEDs are triggered to allow a glimpse into the world of darkness that contrasts with the crystal-clear water at the top of the seamounts. Red lighting is designed to not impact the behaviour of both the sharks and their prey. After 24 or 48h, the lasso dissolves and the tag floats to the surface and to transmit satellite and radio beacons used to track and recover the tags for data download and recharge for the next deployment. Using these tools, the team will be able to learn some of their secrets.

Bold, respectful and talented, Fred Buyle has not finished surprising us.

Three sharks are killed by man every second as against five humans killed by sharks each year [1].

90 % of sharks have disappeared from the Mediterranean [2].

By targeting sick or wounded fish, sharks keep the ecosystem in balance [3].

Tens of tagged great white sharks led scientists to a remote mid-Pacific area where they gather for a few months. It was nicknamed the “White Shark Café” [4]!

The thresher shark uses its surprisingly long caudal fin to whip and knock out its prey [5].

[1] hécatombe (Marine Policy, 2013) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X13000055?via%3 Dihubhumains tués (International Shark Attack Files, 2019) https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/shark-attacks/yearly-worldwide-summary/ [2] disparition (Conservation Biology, 2008) https://web.stanford.edu/~ferretti/Ferretti.etal.2008.pdf [3] https://www.nausicaa.fr/article/les-requins-dans-le-monde/ https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/sharks-rays/sharks [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyCkbaBgYNA [5] https://www.cyanplanet.org/amigo-sa-mga-iho

Questions & Answers With Fred Buyle & Jorge Fontes

How long does the tag remain on the shark?  

It normally remains up to 48h but it can also be more.

What is the list of the parameters detected with the tags?

We record high frequency (100 Hz; 100 measurements per second), 3D acceleration, gyro and magnetic heading, speed, depth and temperature. Moreover, when the shark surfaces for less than a second, its GPS position is recorded. We also collect the HD video with red lights in the camera tag version. We are interested in the vertical and horizontal behaviours, feeding and social interactions and energy use, based on the tail beats and speed essentially.

Are there any advances in miniaturization of these biologging tags? They seem very big for the animal. 

We are currently looking for funding to miniaturize the tags. Anyway, the tags are super low drag, which signifies that we don’t add more than 5% drag and float to the animal, meaning we are limited to tagging blue sharks over 2.5 m long.

Is there a massive potential of animal-borne sensors to teach us about the oceans and global warming?

Yes. We are currently looking to integrate an O2 sensor in our tags to learn how the deoxygenation of the oceans due to warming, and excess of CO2 will affect deep diving sharks that forage at depth for example. Devil rays and whale sharks also dive very deep, possibly to forage or to orient themselves over long migrations. Therefore, if O2 is depleted at depth, it will be a barrier for these guys.

Sometimes an animal’s mood makes all the difference. Are they surprisingly easy to tag – if you can catch them at the right time?

Indeed, we can only tag the animals that are “in the mood”. If we try to impose our methods, the animal will just swim away, therefore yes, we depend on the animal’s attitude and character.

What is the average time that it takes to see a blue shark and put a tag on it? Is it 10 minutes, an hour? 

It is hard to say, because chumming to attract can range from 10 min to 4-5 hours. It is very variable and depends a lot on the behavior and abundance of sharks in the area.

Apparently, researchers have developed a huge variety of workarounds and electronic tags. Can you tell us more about what’s available for scientists today?

Today the most popular technology used are the acoustic tags (they output a “ping” that needs to be tracked with a hydrophone – active following or a network of stations) and satellite tracking tags. The most used sat tags are spots (ping position when at the surface for a few minutes) and PAT archival tags, that measure and archive (over months) depth, temperature and light levels. In the end, the stored information is sent to a satellite and to the researcher. Light levels can be used to estimate movement tracks over large scales (ocean wide), but the error is significant at smaller scales. There is a number of custom-made tags that have similar sensors as we have but are all for fixed attachment, and you normally need to fish and restrain the shark. If it’s a big shark and you can approach, they can be attached to the dorsal fin with a clamp.

Can you show us a chart or any results of a successful tag monitoring? 

This is relatively complex as there are many variables being measured. Below is an example regarding the depth and tail beet cycles of a tiger shark we did recently in Hawaii.

About Fred Buyle

Buyle is a free diver and underwater photographer born in 1972. He has been connected to the sea since childhood when he spent several months each year on the family sailboat. At 10, an age when most kids are still skipping rope in the schoolyard, he discovered free diving. Plunging into the oxygen tank-free technique for the next years of his life, he became a scuba diving instructor, teaching free diving in beginning in 1991.

He set his first world record in 1995 and decided to dedicate his life to free diving. He broke three additional world records between 1997 and 2000 and in 1999, passed the mythical 100-meter depth on one breath of air.

In 2002, he began a second career in underwater photography. His goal:  to show the beauty of free diving and the animals in their natural, underwater world. Using only natural light, Buyle has captured images of sharks, ray, fish, dolphins and countless other majestic specimens of marine life.

Buyle comes from an artistic background; His grand grandfather was a pioneer of photography in the 1890’s, his grandfather was a painter and his father an advertising and fashion photographer during the 1960’s. His work reflects these influences, showing a subtle beauty that only comes with an experienced eye.

Buyle uses a simple formula for his photographs: water, available light, a camera and one breath of air. With simple equipment and freedom to move around, a free diver can capture unique moments. Fred has been taking pictures as far down as 60 meters on a single breath of air in remote locations inaccessible to even scuba divers. This “Zen” approach makes Buyle’s photography different from any other underwater photography.

Concerned by conservations issues, in 2005 Buyle began to work with marine biologists, assisting them in their field work. He uses his freediving abilities to approach the animals and perform tasks such as acoustic and satellite tagging and DNA sampling. Buyle has worked with teams from Colombia, Mexico, France, the UK, the Philippines and South Africa, sharing his practical knowledge and personal experience with marine life. Fearlessly approaching great white sharks, great hammerheads, scalloped hammerheads, lemon sharks, ferox sharks, humpback whales, sperm whales and orcas, he never uses a protective cage, which can disturb the animals.

During these missions, Fred carefully documents the field work he performs in order to contribute to the conservation efforts on a larger scale through talks, conferences and his own website. He believes that positive imagery is more effective than the catastrophism widely used in the media nowadays and his images are used by NGOs around the world for their conservation campaigns.

About Jorge Fontes

Jorge Fontes is an Azorean Marine Biologist with broad scientific background and interests ranging from the ecology, management and conservation of coastal ecosystems to the behaviour and conservation of marine megafauna from the Open Ocean and deep sea. Jorge has also a solid background in applied marine technology, ranging from applied marine robotics to the development of innovative non/invasive marine animal tracking solutions.

About Ulysse Nardin – Manufacture of Freedom

Ulysse Nardin is the Pioneering Manufacture inspired by the sea and delivering innovative timepieces to free spirits.

Founded by Mr. Ulysse Nardin in 1846 and a proud member of the global luxury group Kering since November 2014, Ulysse Nardin has written some of the finest chapters in the history of Haute Horlogerie. The company’s earliest renown came from its links to the nautical world: its marine chronometers are among the most reliable ever made, still sought by collectors around the world. A pioneer of cutting-edge technologies and the innovative use of materials like silicon, the brand is one of the few with the in-house expertise to produce its own high-precision components and movements. This exceptional level of watchmaking excellence has earned Ulysse Nardin membership in the most exclusive circle of Swiss watchmaking, the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie. Today, from its sites in Le Locle and La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland, the brand’s continuing quest for horological perfection centres around five collections: The Marine, the Diver, the Classico, the Executive and the Freak. In 2020, Ulysse Nardin explores the Xtremes, bringing the X-factor to the core of its collections. www.ulysse-nardin.com

Follow Ulysse Nardin

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UlysseNardinwatches/ Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/ulyssenardinofficial Twitter: https://twitter.com/ulysse_nardin

#weareulysse

Fred Buyle, Underwater Cowboy Ulysse Nardin has just offered a grant to the Azores University’s marine research centre to acquire ten pop-up biologging sensors to tag blue sharks in the Atlantic and document our knowledge of this endangered species.

[we-future-first]

The Coming Age of Imaginative Machines: If you aren't following the rise of synthetic media, the 2020s will hit you like a digital blitzkrieg

The faces on the left were created by a GAN in 2014; on the right are ones made in 2018.

Ian Goodfellow and his colleagues gave the world generative adversarial networks (GANs) five years ago, way back in 2014. They did so with fuzzy and ethereal black & white images of human faces, all generated by computers. This wasn't the start of synthetic media by far, but it did supercharge the field. Ever since, the realm of neural network-powered AI creativity has repeatedly kissed mainstream attention. Yet synthetic media is still largely unknown. Certain memetic-boosted applications such as deepfakes and This Person Does Not Exist notwithstanding, it's safe to assume the average person is unaware that contemporary artificial intelligence is capable of some fleeting level of "imagination."

Media synthesis is an inevitable development in our progress towards artificial general intelligence, the first and truest sign of symbolic understanding in machines (though by far not the thing itself--- rather the organization of proteins and sugars to create the rudimentary structure of what will someday become the cells of AGI). This is due to the rise of artificial neural networks (ANNs). Popular misconceptions presume synthetic media present no new developments we've not had since the 1990s, yet what separates media synthesis from mere manipulation, retouching, and scripts is the modicum of intelligence required to accomplish these tasks. The difference between Photoshop and neural network-based deepfakes is the equivalent to the difference between building a house with power tools and employing a utility robot to use those power tools to build the house for you.

Succinctly, media synthesis is the first tangible sign of automation that most people will experience.

Public perception of synthetic media shall steadily grow and likely degenerate into a nadir of acceptance as more people become aware of the power of these artificial neural networks without being offered realistic debate or solutions as to how to deal with them. They've simply come too quickly for us to prepare for, hence the seemingly hasty reaction of certain groups like OpenAI in regards to releasing new AI models.

Already, we see frightened reactions to the likes of DeepNudes, an app which was made solely to strip women in images down to their bare bodies without their consent. The potential for abuse (especially for pedophilic purposes) is self-evident. We are plunging headlong into a new era so quickly that we are unaware of just what we are getting ourselves into. But just what are we getting into?

Well, I have some thoughts.

I want to start with the field most people are at least somewhat aware of: deepfakes. We all have an idea of what deepfakes can do: the "purest" definition is taking one's face replacing it with another, presumably in a video. The less exact definition is to take some aspect of a person in a video and edit it to be different. There's even deepfakes for audio, such as changing one's voice or putting words in their mouth. Most famously, this was done to Joe Rogan.

I, like most others, first discovered deepfakes in late 2017 around the time I had an "epiphany" on media synthesis as a whole. Just in those two years, the entire field has seen extraordinary progress. I realized then that we were on the cusp of an extreme flourishing of art, except that art would be largely-to-almost entirely machine generated. But along with it would come a flourishing of distrust, fake news, fake reality bubbles, and "ultracultural memes". Ever since, I've felt the need to evangelize media synthesis, whether to tell others of a coming renaissance or to warn them to be wary of what they see.

This is because, over the past two years, I realized that many people's idea of what media synthesis is really stops at deepfakes, or they only view new development through the lens of deepfakes. The reason why I came up with "media" synthesis is because I genuinely couldn't pin down any one creative/data-based field AI wasn't going to affect. It wasn't just faces. It wasn't just bodies. It wasn't just voice. It wasn't just pictures of ethereal swirling dogs. It wasn't just transferring day to night. It wasn't just turning a piano into a harpsichord. It wasn't just generating short stories and fake news. It wasn't just procedurally generated gameplay. It was all of the above and much more. And it's coming so fast that I fear we aren't prepared, both for the tech and the consequences.

Indeed, in many discussions I've seen (and engaged in) since then, there's always several people who have a virulent reaction against the prospect neural networks can do any of this at all, or at least that it'll get better enough to the point it will affect artists, creators, and laborers. Even though we're already seeing the effects in the modeling industry alone.

Look at this gif. Looks like a bunch of models bleeding into and out of each other, right? Actually, no one here is real. They're all neural network-generated people.

Neural networks can generate full human figures, and altering their appearance and clothing is a matter of changing a few parameters or feeding an image into the data set. Changing the clothes of someone in a picture is as easy as clicking on the piece you wish you change and swapping it with any of your choice (or result in the personal wearing no clothes at all). A similar scenario applies for make-up. This is not like an old online dress-up flash game where the models must be meticulously crafted by an art designer or programmer— simply give the ANN something to work with, and it will figure out all the rest. You needn't even show it every angle or every lighting condition, for it will use commonsense to figure these out as well. Such has been possible since at least 2017, though only with recent GPU advancements has it become possible for someone to run such programs in real time.

The unfortunate side effect is that the amateur modeling industry will be vaporized. Extremely little will be left, and the few who do remain are promoted entirely because they are fleshy & real human beings. Professional models will survive for longer, but there will be little new blood joining their ranks. As such, it remains to be seen whether news and blogs speak loudly of the sudden, unexpected automation of what was once seen as a safe and human-centric industry or if this goes ignored and under-reported— after all, the news used to speak of automation in terms of physical, humanoid robots taking the jobs of factory workers, fast-food burger flippers, and truck drivers, occupations that are still in existence en masse due to slower-than-expected roll outs of robotics and a continued lack of general AI.

We needn't have general AI to replace those jobs that can be replicated by disembodied digital agents. And the sudden decline & disappearance of models will be the first widespread sign of this.

Actually, I have an hypothesis for this: media synthesis is one of the first signs that we're making progress towards artificial general intelligence.

Now don't misunderstand me. No neural network that can generate media is AGI or anything close. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that what we can see as being media synthesis is evidence that we've put ourselves on the right track. We never should've thought that we could get to AGI without also developing synthetic media technology.

What do you know about imagination?

As recently as five years ago, the concept of "creative machines" was cast off as impossible— or at the very least, improbable for decades. Indeed, the phrase remains an oxymoron in the minds of most. Perhaps they are right. Creativity implies agency and desire to create. All machines today lack their own agency. Yet we bear witness to the rise of computer programs that imagine and "dream" in ways not dissimilar to humankind.

Though lacking agency, this still meets the definition of imagination.

To reduce it to its most fundamental ingredients: Imagination = experience + abstraction + prediction. To get creativity, you need only add "drive". Presuming that we fail to create artificial general intelligence in the next ten years (an easy thing to assume because it's unlikely we will achieve fully generalized AI even in the next thirty), we still possess computers capable of the former three ingredients.

Someone who lives on a flat island and who has never seen a mountain before can learn to picture what one might be by using what they know of rocks and cumulonimbus clouds, making an abstract guess to cross the two, and then predicting what such a "rock cloud" might look like. This is the root of imagination.

As Descartes noted, even the strongest of imagined sensations is duller than the dullest physical one, so this image in the person's head is only clear to them in a fleeting way. Nevertheless, it's still there. Through great artistic skills, the person can learn to express this mental image through artistic means. In all but the most skilled, it will not be a pure 1-to-1 realization due to the fuzziness of our minds, but in the case of expressive art, it doesn't need to be.

Computers lack this fleeting ethereality of imagination completely. Once one creates something, it can give you the uncorrupted output.

Right now, this makes for wonderful tools and apps that many play around with online and on our phones.

But extrapolating this to the near future results in us coming face to face many heavy questions, and not just of the "can't trust what you see variety."

Because think about it.

If I'm a musical artist and I release an album, what if I accidentally recorded a song that's too close to an AI-generated track (all because AI generated literally every combination of notes?) Or, conversely, what if I have to watch as people take my music and alter it? I may feel strongly about it, but yet the music has its notes changed, its lyrics changed, my own voice changed, until it might as well be an entirely different artist making that music. Many won't mind, but many will.

I trust my mother's voice, as many do. So imagine a phisher managing to steal her voice, running it through a speech synthesis network, and then calling me asking me for my social security number. Or maybe I work at a big corporation, and while we're secure, we still recognize each other's voice, only to learn that someone stole millions of dollars from us because they stole the CEO's voice and used to to wire cash to a pirate's account.

Imagine going online and at least 70% of the "people" you encounter are bots. They're extremely coherent, and they have profile images of what looks to be real people. And who knows, you may even forge an e-friendship with some of them because they seem to share your interests. Then it turns out they're just bundles of code.

Oh, and those bot-people are also infesting social media and forums in the millions, creating and destroying trends and memes without much human input. Even if the mainstream news sites don't latch on at first, bot-created and bot-run news sites will happily kick it off for them. The news is supposed to report on major events, global and local. Even if the news is honest and telling the truth, how can they truly verify something like this, especially when it seems to be gaining so much traction and humans inevitably do get involved? Remember "Bowsette" from last year? Imagine if that was actually pushed entirely by bots until humans saw what looked like a happenin' kind of meme and joined in? That could be every year or perhaps even every month in the 2020s onwards.

Likewise, imagine you're listening to a pop song in one country, but then you go to another country and it's the exact same song but most of the lyrics have changed to be more suitable for their culture. That sort of cultural spread could stop... or it could be supercharged if audiences don't take to it and pirate songs/change them and share them at their own leisure.

Or maybe it's a good time to mention how commissioned artists are screwed? Commission work boards are already a race to the bottom— if a job says it pays three cents per word to write an article, you'd better list your going rate as 2 cents per word, and then inevitably the asking rate in general becomes 2 cents per word, and so on and so forth. That whole business might be over within five to ten years if you aren't already extremely established. Because if machines can mimic any art style or writing style (and then exaggerate & alter it to find some better version people like more), you'd have to really be tech-illiterate or very pro-human to want non-machine commissions.

And to go back to deepfakes and deep nudes, imagine the paratypical creep who takes children and puts them into sexual situations, any sexual situation they desire thanks to AI-generated images and video. It doesn't matter who, and it doesn't have to be real children either. It could even be themselves as a child if they still have the reference or use a de-aging algorithm on their face. It's squicky and disgusting to think about, but it's also inevitable and probably has already happened.

And my god, it just keeps going on and on. I can't do this justice, even with 40,000 characters to work with. The future we're about to enter is so wild, so extreme that I almost feel scared for humanity. It's not some far off date in the 22nd century. It's literally going to start happening within the next five years. We're going to see it emerge before our very eyes on this and other subreddits.

I'll end this post with some more examples.

Nvidia's new AI can turn any primitive sketch into a photorealistic masterpiece. You can even play with this yourself here.

Waifu Synthesis- real time generative anime, because obviously.

Few-Shot Adversarial Learning of Realistic Neural Talking Head Models | This GAN can animate any face GIF, supercharging deepfakes & media synthesis

Talk to Transformer | Feed a prompt into GPT-2 and receive some text. As of 9/29/2019, this uses the 774M parameter version of GPT-2, which is still weaker than the 1.5B parameter "full" version."

Text samples generated by Nvidia's Megatron-LM (GPT-2-8.3b). Vastly superior to what you see in Talk to Transformer, even if it had the "full" model.

Facebook's AI can convert one singer's voice into another | The team claims that their model was able to learn to convert between singers from just 5-30 minutes of their singing voices, thanks in part to an innovative training scheme and data augmentation technique. as a prototype for shifting vocalists or vocalist genders or anything of that sort.

TimbreTron for changing instrumentation in music. Here, you can see a neural network shift entire instruments and pitches of those new instruments. It might only be a couple more years until you could run The Beatles' "Here Comes The Sun" through, say, Slayer and get an actual song out of it.

AI generated album covers for when you want to give the result of that change its own album.

Neural Color Transfer Between Images [From 2017], showing how we might alter photographs to create entirely different moods and textures.

Scammer Successfully Deepfaked CEO's Voice To Fool Underling Into Transferring $243,000

"Experts: Spy used AI-generated face to connect with targets" [GAN faces for fake LinkedIn profiles]

This Marketing Blog Does Not Exist | This blog written entirely by AI is fully in the uncanny valley.

Chinese Gaming Giant NetEase Leverages AI to Create 3D Game Characters from Selfies | This method has already been used over one million times by Chinese gamers.

"Deep learning based super resolution, without using a GAN" [perceptual loss-based upscaling with transfer learning & progressive scaling], or in other words, "ENHANCE!"

Expert: AI-generated music is a "total legal clusterf*ck" | I've thought about this. Future music generation means that all IPs are open, any new music can be created from any old band no matter what those estates may want, and AI-generated music exists in a legal tesseract of answerless questions

And there's just a ridiculous amount more.

My subreddit, /r/MediaSynthesis, is filled with these sorts of stories going back to January of 2018. I've definitely heard of people come away in shock, dazed and confused, after reading through it. And no wonder.

submitted by /u/Yuli-Ban [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/daxcpx/the_coming_age_of_imaginative_machines_if_you/

[recentanimenews]

A Beginner's Guide To Dragon Ball

What is your great shame as an anime fan? What show has absolutely everyone seen but you? What titles in your backlog do you scroll over thinking you’ll watch it someday but never do? What series has your continued hesitance to engage with developed into an elitist disdain for? What colossal, inescapable anime will you never EVER watch?

  Hello, my name is Danni, and I’ve never seen a single episode of Dragon Ball.

      Let me explain myself. Growing up, there were few shows my siblings and I were allowed to watch on TV. It’s not just Dragon Ball Z that I missed out on. Name your favorite childhood show and I’ve probably never seen it. I did end up falling deep into the anime hole in my teen years, but I developed a habit of only watching short anime. My backlog was (and still is) massive, so I stuck to shows I could knock out in under a week. If it ran more than two seasons, I just didn’t have time for it.

  Lately, though, I’ve started to change my tune. I’ve been watching JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure since season one and got pretty deep into My Hero Academia last year. I’ve had a pretty snobbish attitude towards shonen anime for awhile now, but I think I’m starting to see the appeal. I could start watching Naruto...nah, maybe another time.

    Come to think of it, Dragon Ball Super ended pretty recently, didn’t it? I feel like everyone I know was freaking out about that final battle. I’ve also had this Dragon Ball FighterZ game for a month now, and it’s actually really cool. I know I’ve always thought that Dragon Ball Z can’t possibly be as good as it is long, but maybe it’s time I gave it a fair shot.

  It’s settled then. I’ll try watching Dragon Ball Z. My favorite characters in FighterZ are from Super, so I guess I should watch that, too. Isn’t there also an anime that comes before Z? I hate starting a series from the middle, so I’ll watch that, too. How many episodes is that in total? 575? Great, this is gonna take me like six years or something. Ah well. I can always slip into the Hyperbolic Time Chamber to watch them. I don’t know what that is yet, but I’m sure I’ll find out soon. See you all in a year!

    Wow, what a year! It’s been so long since I wrote all that other stuff before. That definitely wasn’t all a bit I just wrote because I hadn’t started writing for Crunchyroll a year ago. It’s been a whole eleven months since I started watching Dragon Ball, and it’s been about three weeks since I finished Super just in time to catch the new movie. I’m living in a post-Dragon Ball world now, and there’s a Goku-shaped hole in my heart that I don’t know how to fill. I have a deeper appreciation for this series now than I ever expected to have, and I’ve been itching to tell you all about it.

  What can I say about Dragon Ball that hasn’t already been said, though? Surely its legions of fans don’t need me to tell them what they already know. Then I realized something. I can’t be the only one who hadn’t seen it. Somewhere, somehow, someone out there right now has yet to experience for themselves the joys of Toei’s crowning achievement.  They’re probably sitting there right now asking themselves why they should watch it now after so long. Their thoughts might be clogged with preconceived notions about the series that couldn’t be further from the truth. Mine were. I’d like to right that wrong, so I’ve compiled a list of seven things I didn’t know until I saw for myself. This is the beginner’s guide to watching Dragon Ball.

It’s perfect for binge-watching

    The biggest lie you’ll ever hear about Dragon Ball from both fans and critics alike is that there are long stretches of episodes full of attacks charging and nothing else. It was something I had always heard about the show and was warned about when I decided to check it out. I waited and waited for these fabled episodes and by the end of DBZ, I realized they don’t exist (Before you ask, no, I wasn’t watching Kai). To be fair, there are times in the show when a character needs to spend most or all of an episode charging an attack. This isn’t near as boring as it sounds, though, as there is always a battle taking place to defend that character and usually a B plot to cut away to.

  Climactic battles do tend to drag on a lot in Dragon Ball, I’ll admit. So if you were a kid only able to watch at the pace of one episode a week, it would sure feel like nothing was happening. I watched the entire series at an average pace of almost two episodes a day, and that made all the difference. I was able to see battles play out over a few hours rather than a few months. If it ever got dull (which it did sometimes), I could just leave it on in the background and listen to some legendary voices shout at each other while browsing Twitter or playing on my Switch. Most of the time, though, my eyes were glued to the screen, anxious to see what would happen next.

  It’s actually about martial arts

I’m honestly a little embarrassed that I didn’t already know this. My second-hand exposure to Dragon Ball had only ever shown me clips and images of people flying around shooting energy beams and fireballs at each other. It wasn’t until I saw FighterZ gameplay in action that I realized there’s hand-to-hand combat in the show, and it took watching the original series for me to learn it’s the whole dang focus. In fact, a large chunk of the series’ sagas take place in or under the guise of a worldwide martial arts tournament, most of which can be found in the original series. Speaking of which…

  You can skip the original series, but you should still give it a shot

  Everyone I know thought I was crazy for not simply starting with Z. I thought I was crazy for not starting with Z. I had been told over and over again that everything that needed to be explained from it eventually gets explained in its sequel. I had been warned countless times that it’s so far apart from what it eventually becomes. I knew all this, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d be missing part of the story if I skipped it. So, I took the plunge. Now, eleven months later, I’m here to tell you that, yeah, you don’t need it to watch Z and Super, but you should still watch it anyway.

  The thing that will surprise you most about Dragon Ball is that it isn’t an action series yet -- it’s an adventure series. Loosely inspired by the classic adventure novel Journey to the West, the original series largely revolves around a young Goku’s quests to retrieve the seven Dragon Balls that can (presumably) grant any wish when brought together. Along the way, he encounters a series of villains who all seek the Dragon Balls for some nefarious reason, and Goku takes it on himself to stop them.

  Admittedly, the original series takes awhile to get going. It’s incredibly dated in some of the worst ways, making the first half of the series a bit of a slog to get through. Still, though, it features the first World Martial Arts Tournament saga, which offered me my first glimpses at Dragon Ball’s potential. The latter half of the series kicks off with its second tournament arc, aka the Tien Shinhan saga, aka the moment I finally fell in love with Dragon Ball. It’s here that Dragon Ball offered it’s best action and most compelling characters to date in the show. It still sits as my personal favorite tournament arc in the series. Dragon Ball manages to keep the momentum rolling with great arc after great arc as it launches itself straight into Z. It has its fair share of flaws and isn’t altogether necessary, but it’s absolutely still worth your time.

  The titular Dragon Balls aren’t lost for long

    So when Dragon Ball’s first episode ended with Goku and Bulma beginning their quest to find all seven Dragon Balls, I got a little antsy. I asked, “Is this gonna be like One Piece where they’re gonna need over a thousand episodes just to find the Dragon Balls?” Turns out I was about 987+ episodes short on my guess there. It really doesn’t take them long at all to find Dragon Balls and make their wish, even if it doesn’t exactly go as planned.

Every time the Dragon Balls are used, they disappear for a full year. This means that most of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z’s first sagas bounce back and forth between quests to find them and killing time until they can be used again. At some point in Z, though, the goal posts shift to a point where obtaining the Dragon Balls becomes completely trivial and they merely act as macguffins for resurrecting dead cast members.

  Power levels don’t actually matter

    If you’ve existed on the internet at all within the last decade and a half, you’ve likely seen the most popular Dragon Ball meme over nine-thousand times already. Between all the memes and chatter from fans, I learned about Dragon Ball’s power levels long before I ever saw them in action. Everyone has a power level and if your power level is lower than someone else’s, you’re guaranteed to lose. At least, that’s what I thought. As it turns out, power levels don’t actually mean that much in the grand scope of Dragon Ball.

  They’re first introduced in the very first episode of DBZ supposedly with the rules I listed until Goku surprises everyone by actually raising his power level. The first few sagas in DBZ are filled with villains boasting about their power levels only to somehow be defeated by someone whose power level had been lower just moments ago. It doesn’t even take Goku half the series to defeat the highest power level in the universe, at which point the term has already become meaningless.

  Super nullifies the concept even further by bringing back characters whose powers had long since been eclipsed and making them legitimate contenders. I wish someone had cleared this up for me much sooner. I had always figured that Dragon Ball fights were done deals where the highest power level always won. Who wants to watch a battle anime where the underdog never wins? Thankfully, Dragon Ball is all about the underdogs.

  Goku is pretty cool

    The hero of the story is cool. Big shocker, I know, but bear with me. If you only know Goku through clips of him fighting, of course it makes sense that he’s cool. However, once you actually start watching Dragon Ball, you kind of forget all about it, because he’s a massive goofball 99% of the time. He’s a dork from the countryside who only ever thinks about eating and fighting and doesn’t know what a kiss is despite having two sons and a granddaughter. He’s childish and naive, but when the chips are down and he gets serious, he gets serious. It rules every single time.

  Get this, Dragon Ball is really good

    Like, really really good. Don’t get me wrong, I had hoped to appreciate Dragon Ball when I first began watching it, but I never expected to fall this deeply in love with it. I spent nearly a full year watching every single episode of this series -- a series I had never intended to watch before. I spent literal hundreds of hours of my year bonding with Goku and his pals, and it hasn’t even been a month and I already wanna do it all over again.

Dragon Ball is a monolithic, world-renowned series for a reason, and that reason is because it’s freaking GOOD. Its cast is iconic, its art style is timeless, its action is to die for, and it only gets better and better as it goes on. Seriously, it’s been more than three decades since the show began and it’s still blowing minds at the box office. It isn’t a series that rests on its laurels and name recognition alone, it constantly one-ups itself with every iteration.

  I know, there probably aren’t many of you out there who haven’t seen Dragon Ball and thus most of you won’t find this article very useful. That doesn’t matter to me right now. Because I know I’m not alone. I know there are people out there just like I used to be who at best think they don’t have time for Dragon Ball and at worst think it’s somehow beneath them. Even if there are only twelve people like that out there, I want all twelve of them to read this piece and rethink their prior misconceptions.

If that doesn’t apply to you, yet you’re still with me anyway, first of all, thank you. Second of all, I want you to think of the Dragon Ball in your life. What show do you think you don’t have the time for? What show do you think isn’t worth your time? If you’ve learned anything from me today, I want it to be this: that show might be your next favorite. You’ll never know until you sit down and watch it.

    Are you a lifelong fan of Dragon Ball? A relative newcomer like Danni? Did you not even know it existed before? Let us know in the comments below!

  -----

Danni Wilmoth is a Features and Social Videos writer for Crunchyroll and also co-hosts the video game podcast Indiecent. You can find more words from her on Twitter @NanamisEgg.

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com