#i guess it's one example where they could be elaborate but ability to communicate like we do wouldn't really matter

[sentimental-darkness]

I have no scientific knowledge here but it’s interesting because isn’t it hard to tell? Like, with animals, who never really evolved in a way we did, they would be at that stage humans once were. So if an animal or alien ancestor had some weird telepathic sonic waves or something, such abilities, then it could be something totally different for communication but still elaborate like our ‘spoken’ language. But if they didn’t and it were just primitive sounds or like dog barking at first stages, then surely it would be something written and maybe comprehensive “spoken” speech later, because what else? The only problem could be different bodies and inability to replicate their sounds

People dreaming of establishing communications or common language with aliens is such a funny concept. It's always expected to be spoken or written language, but if we look at human history with pets, it's what is most likely to happen, conveying our intentions with intonations, repeating words and showing their meaning, not actually creating a language in between. Hell, we can't even agree on one common language among ourselves, let alone with someone alien.

It's almost as if nothing else matters unless it's our equal, or rather, functioning the same way.

[simpingforthisonedeer]

What's Aika's magic?

Damn this may be a long post im sorry anon but I'll just be explaining any magical traits that Aika has or uses so I can later use this post as reference for myself💞

Simply put, it's Time Magic, just like Julius. Though she also uses forbidden magic often too, more specifically necromancy. She tried to become the devil host of certain devil but it wasn't answering her calls so she gave up on that and turned to necromancy(which was going to be her focus anyway) so that she could communicate with her family even after they were dead. She never really passes the mourning stage in her life so yeah.

The time magic, well, Aika and Julius were born on the same day, same hour, and the same second. The timing of their birth has a big significance and also the reason why she has time magic. She also has a spiral grimoire, which used to be parchment colored but the pages are now black and the text is written in a different language. It turned black after she despaired when her family(her mom, two dads and younger brother) died.

As her mom died, she[Aika's mom] used a forbidden magic spell that basically passes on certain magical traits of the person who is dying. From her mother who used mirror magic, Aika gained the ability to use cameras(which I HC as a magical artifact only able to be used by people with phosphoromancy magic types), from her brother who used lightning magic, she gained resistance to lightning, from one of her fathers who used water magic, she gained the ability to breathe under water for long periods of time and a quick grasp on being able to use a magical stone that produces water. From her other father who had sword magic, well, he taught her swordsmanship but I guess his magic made it easier for her to make swords and other weapons out of creation magic. Anywho, she simply gained some passive skills from this inheritance spell. In the lore of my fic, this inheritance spell is used often by royalty so that heirs have an advantage over others.

Aika began to use mana zone more often after she went blind after a forbidden magic ritual called "Imago Dei." She traveled to the Heart Kingdom when the Priestess invited her and she began to grow the scope of her mana zone.

If I had to elaborate more on time magic, I would say that Aika can do the basics like speed up or slow down, take and give time. But she some times uses it in addition to necromancy. Like for example, by combining both, she can see the time a person was born and the time a person will die. She can see when she dies too yes. The time a person dies is never set in stone so it can be changed. The "time of death" that she sees is the estimated time a person will meet their demise if they keep going on the same course.

A strange thing about Julius and Aika's magic is that if they used magic against each other at the same time, they would cancel out. Kinda how Langris and Finral's spatial magic spells cancel out. But they can still use it in combination magic as detailed in one of the chapters.

Aika studied forbidden magic along with medicine in the Spade Nation War College for 4 ish years and that was where she had to sacrifice part of her humanity to be able to use forbidden magic properly. She gave up her ability to sleep. It's not that she can't sleep anymore or doesn't need to, but if she did close her eyes and go to sleep, it will be full of nightmarish visions of the past, present and future, both personal and unrelated to her and she can't wake up unless she endures them for 8 hours. So Aika hasn't slept properly in approximately 15 years. Emphasis on properly because she does sleep every few years in hopes that the torture would one day be gone.

Here's the picture of her weg but her full despaired weg form looks a lot more devilsh🤔 it’s rlly old art so ignore the ugliness💀💀

Edit: I also forgot about a little forbidden magic technique she uses often in battle😭 when long ranged spells are shot, mages often let go of their control over them and Aika takes advantage of this and takes control of the magic and either redirects it or stores. Ofc using magic that isn’t yours is forbidden so👀

I'll make a separate post about her spells later but a few of them were already introduced in my fic. But yeah! This is most of the info so far and thanks for the question anon!

[buzzdixonwriter]

Spock Grok Shock Squawk

Lemme get my main thesis out in the open first thing:

The search for intelligent life in space is a quasi-religious endeavor.

The unstated hidden hope is that we will find up in the sky people who are better and wiser than us, and who will prove they’re better by sharing that wisdom, ushering in, if not exactly a golden age, then one of shiny brass.

The unstated assumption is that they will be like the Vulcans in Star Trek, more advanced than we are, but impressed by our courage and our curiosity and our just plain ol’ fashioned humanness so that even though they are technologically and culturally far superior to us, they’ll toss the keys of the galactic federation in our lap, letting us run things for everybody’s betterment.

Snowflake, please…

(I mean let’s acknowledge this is a white and / or Anglo / European colonial fantasy from the gitgo, okay?  No sane species will let us anywhere near the torpedo room, capice?)

The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is a harmless enough exercise, and I’ll be honest, it would be cool if they actually found something, but at its core it’s no different from going into a place of worship and attempting to contact the divine.

(Mind you, I have absolutely no objection to that in principle, either, but I know how a lot of supposed spiritual searchers are actually searching for cudgels to batter their fellow humans into submission; and besides, as will be pointed out below, the search for the divine shares some similar issues with SETI, so read on, MacDuff…)

My next major thesis is this:

Nobody knows what they’re looking for, SETI or conventional religion.

They dress it up in fancy costumes but when you strip both groups’ sky beings naked, you find they’re looking for people just like us in every important way (i.e., we understand them, they understand us, and they don’t hold us accountable for our bullshit).

Here’s a few issues I have with the current state of SETI affairs:

We don’t know what alien life would look like.

We don’t know how alien life would think.

We don’t know what alien life can sense that we can’t sense.

We don’t know how alien life would process information.

We don’t know how alien life would adapt to its environment.

(There’s more -- much, much more -- but these will do for the moment.

Point 1: I’m not talking about green skinned Martians with six limbs, I mean we don’t even know if alien life would have a cell structure or pass along generational information via DNA.

Personally, I think there’s a remote possibility life on Earth did not evolve but is a product of panspermia, in which case any life we encounter on other planets in this solar system may indeed use cell structure, DNA, etc.

But that’s just “a chance greater than zero” not hard evidence.

We literally have no idea what other life would look like so we have no way of knowing where or what to look for.

Someone familiar only with North American forest insects might have a hard time identifying life found at the bottom of the Marianas Trench -- and that’s part of the planet we all share.

There’s a fringe science called shadow biology that wonders if there may be life on this planet that we can’t identify because it looks and behaves so differently from us.

That’s another one of those “greater than zero” speculations -- but the fact we can define right now what would constitute alien life means all we’re doing is looking for Vulcans.

Point 2: We don’t even know how we think; howda %#@& can we anticipate how alien intelligence would think.

I got into this discussion decades ago at a sci-fi con and the fan I was talking with blithely assumed we would recognize one another as intelligent based on whether we used mathematics and my question then and now is:  ”How would you know?!?!?”

Math is a symbolic language that (apparently) interprets basic underlying principles in a way that humans can grasp and apply.

The principles exist whether or not they are expressed, or how they are expressed.

We humans “see” 2 + 2 = 4 as “logical” because out symbolic language links the concept of two distinct objects added to another two distinct objects as being the equivalent of four distinct objects, but we have no way of knowing if an alien intelligence grasps the concept of distinct objects.

For them it may all be just part of a continuum.

There could be aliens desperately trying to contact us right now, using methods we can observe, and we just can’t grasp that there’s even a message to be grasped! 

Point 3: Holy cow (no, not a religious exclamation), this point is huge and we just keep glossing over it.

Humans possess better color vision than canines.

We see three primary colors, they see only two (blue and yellow).

There are other terrestrial species -- butterflies and mantis shrimp, to name two – who see colors far beyond human range, well into what Dr. Seuss would call the “on beyond zebra” range.

Even if we could talk to dogs, we couldn’t tell them what green looks like:  There is literally no place in their brain to process that color.

Or consider binocular vision, i.e., depth perception.

Most humans have depth perception but many -- for any number of reasons -- do not.

A lot of animals lack binocular vision (indeed, on Earth encountering a creature with binocular vision is fraught with danger because they’re almost always predators of some sort, using depth perception to attack prey).

Try explaining depth perception to someone who’s only had vision in one eye since birth.

“Well, it doesn’t have a color or a texture or anything like that, you really can’t ‘see’ it except…well…you actually can see it insofar as you can ‘see’ the actual space that exists between two objects instead of just guessing based on visual clues…”

Again, we may be bombarded with messages from space all the time that we simply lack the ability to sense.

Point 4: This is a lot like Point 2 but different enough to enjoy its own category. 

I mean a couple of things when I refer to processing information.

First off, there’s the actual processing time.

Remember the sloth DMV scene in Zootopia?

Imagine we contact a life form that takes a standard terrestrial year just to express “2 + 2 = 4”.

The entirety of human history would pass before it could get to basic trigonometry.

How do you communicate with that?

(And what would you talk about?) 

Conversely, we would be like ferrets on espresso, the worst form of cultural ADHD imaginable to them

And the script could be flipped!

We could be the ones taking forever to respond, their elaborate and erudite answers might flash by in less than a nanosecond.

We also don’t know what an alien species would value.  We have Maslow's familiar hierarchy of needs but there’s no guarantee these would motivate any other species.

Thigs that would be extremely vital to us might be wholly unimportant to aliens and vice versa.

The fact our sky is blue is just an interesting fact to us, to aliens it might be the single most important thing they’ve ever encountered.

We simply have no way of knowing!

Point 5: Europeans encountering North American native peoples dismissed them as “primitive savages” because they didn’t smelt ore, they didn’t use wheels, and most of their cultures lacked a written language.

Ignore the fact they had well traveled trade routes stretching from the Bering Sea to the Gulf of Mexico, ignore the fact many of them governed and protected well organized territories the size of France or Germany, ignore the fact they lived in an environment not only abundant with easily available natural resources but also possessed the time to work those resources at a leisurely pace.

The European interlopers sure ignored those facts.

SETI looks for machine based physical communication from alien life (physical here including any form of energy used to convey information such as a telegraph or a laser beam).

Presuming alien life exists it may never have occurred to them to attempt to communicate in the manner humans do!

It would be like putting a mime on the radio.

The great unuttered chauvinism of the Drake equation and Fermi paradox is this: That there exists a basic template to intelligent life that’s so common the law of averages says we must find examples of it just like us wherever we look.

That’s an awfully big assumption, folks.

And we’re nowhere close to proving any of it.

  © Buzz Dixon 

[bloody-wonder]

Every time I come across one of those posts or fics about how Andrew should feel bad about choking Kevin/how it was bad writing for Nora to have Andrew do it, it always seems to be Kevin superfans who are upset that Kandreil didn’t make it into the final draft. And every time I’m just baffled. How can people possibly feel so slighted by the exclusion of a pairing that Nora has said wouldn’t have made sense or been healthy in the final story anyway? The entitlement is just ridiculous

wowowow some juicy unpopular opinions are on the menu today!

i have a lot to say so buckle up. it’s gonna be one of those rants.

i have answered an ask about choking already. to sum it up: is choking kevin an acceptable mature way to express frustration at your bf being kidnapped by the mafia? no. is it in character for andrew? yes. will andrew apologize for it? no. will he and kevin still be friends? yes. 

first of all, i personally don’t see why kandreil would be unhealthy. i haven’t read nora’s statement about it but she didn’t elaborate, did she? it would be interesting to know why she thinks so but that’s unlikely to happen seeing as every word she utters about the characters she created gets her unproportional amounts of hate.

that being said, i totally see why kandreil would be out of character for the versions of kevin, neil and andrew that we see in the books. the relationships between kevin and the other two are certainly intense but i wish i didn’t have to suggest in the year of our lord 2020 that relationships can be intense without being sexual or romantic.

lets look at neil who’s canonically demi which means he has to have a profound emotional bond with a person in order to feel something like that for them. he has developed this bond with andrew throughout the books because they have similar backgrounds and are uniquely positioned to understand each other but more importantly because neil was put in a situation where he had to constantly actively communicate with andrew. andreil dialogues take up a large part of the books and enable us to see how andreil develops and works. nothing comparable happens between neil and kevin. they have a different dynamic altogether where neil looks up to kevin in the beginning for his exy skills and in turn kevin looks up to neil in the end for his being feisty in the face of imminent doom skills. neil chose to throw his anonymity away in order to stand up for kevin at kathy’s show which must mean he values kevin a lot, but he also antagonized him throughout the books, faulted him for not getting over his trauma in a timely manner and said the meanest things to him. a great and complex dynamic by all means. i have no complaints whatsoever and certainly don’t see them falling in love.

now lets look at andrew who isn’t aspec and has probably checked kevin out seeing as kevin is conventionally attractive. kevin & andrew is one of the most complex and interesting relationships i’ve ever seen in fiction. when we first encounter them their interactions are so intense that many readers (and neil) have interpreted them as a couple (because like i said before we tragically live in a society where tension is always seen as sexual). kevin and andrew met at such a time in their lives when they sorely needed something only the other was able to give: for kevin it was someone to stop him from returning to an abusive environment and for andrew it was someone who could see his real potential and worth behind his hostile manic exterior. so they started this weird co-dependent non-friendship which didn’t turn into anything else because - my big guess - neither of them wanted it to. andrew knows when he wants to fuck someone and knows how to arrange it but he didn’t with kevin because he already was a more important person to him than, for example, roland. the risks outweighed the benefits. but andrew did “arrange” it with neil probably because neil had something to offer which kevin had not. unlike kevineil where extensive relationship development had to take place in order for it to happen, kandrew could happen just because one of them suggested it. but guess what neither of them did and it’s canon. i for one am very happy that this unique exciting relationship wasn’t spoiled by romance.

finally lets look at kevin who isn’t a pov character like neil nor a character who’s constantly in neil’s focus of attention like andrew. we don’t have a comparable amount of information about kevin’s inner world so we have to surmise a lot of it just based on what neil cared to impart. so naturally the interpretations will differ. i personally see no signs of kevin being attracted to any person or any gender at any point in the books. there’s thea of course but she’s such an obvious last minute addition that i don’t even want to consider her. the kevin i know is living his best life as an unmarried childless aroace exy legend surrounded by friends and family and friends who are family. i’m aroace and imagining kevin single and happy is very important to me. it’s probably equally important to kandreil shippers to see some good polyamorous rep which is only slightly less rare in media than aroace rep. but the difference between me and kandreil shippers is that i have a magical ability to disagree with the author without cursing the very earth she walks upon.

ah yes, another difference is of course that they have an argument set in stone - kandreil was canon in earlier drafts. but do you know what else was there in the earlier drafts? jean was dead in them. so was erik in some of them which made nicky a different person altogether. also i distinctly remember nora writing that she has been developing this story for so long that she has shipped all the possible pairings at some point or another. kandreil aren’t special in that sense. what i am getting at is that in order to have a productive discussion we have to choose a particular draft of the story and stick to it, so if it’s a kandreil draft we have to know what else was different in that version, and if it’s the books then well kandreil isn’t canon in them end of story. 

that of course doesn’t mean that people can’t write absolutely stellar kandreil fanfics but it does mean that they have to dial down what you called “the entitelment”. because aftg means different things to different readers and if you insult the author for writing it the way you don’t like you also insult the readers who see themselves represented in the way the story is written. and kandreil fans are so aggressive. it’s smart of you sending the ask on anon cause otherwise they’d come for you so fast you wouldn’t know what hit you. just the other day i saw a post which basically said that the reason kevin is portrayed in fics in such a reductive way and writers don’t know what to do with him except make fun of his exy obsession and alcoholism is because andreil is built on the bones of kandreil and, being excluded from this relationship by the author, kevin can never be happy. this take right here illustrates very clearly that the shipping culture damages human brain in such a way that a fulfilling life outside a romantic relationship becomes inconcievable. fic writers diminish kevin to those things not because nora decided she wants her final draft to be about andreil, but because most of them aren’t able to write about a character unless they’re in a relationship. maybe some day fanfiction will develop past that but today is not that day.

i have read some kandreil fanfiction to see what the fuss is all about and my expert opinion is that all of it is ooc. clearly in order for kandreil to happen some manipulations with the existing characters have to be made. i consider myself a kevin superfan but i mean the kevin as he is in the books (and in my awesome hc). the kevin in kandreil fics i don’t know, he’s a character from a book i didn’t read so he can do whatever and date whoever, i don’t care either way. i only care when people insult the books, andreil or nora because they’re bitter that their ship isn’t canon. what a way to live in the year of our lord 2020. 

[bomberqueen17]

how you say, “normal”

mikkeneko replied to your post “sabra-n replied to your post “ancient sea progress: Geralt’s...”

god, bondage as a kink for geralt has the potential to be so characterization JUICY for him given his general control issues

oh gosh, and here we could get into some sort of... autochorissexual issues too. I mean-- not to digress and self-insert too much, but I’m on the ace spectrum [like, for sure on the sex-pos side but like, still definitely on it] and have never quite been able to nail down how to describe it, but I definitely have a ton of things I think are super hot in porn that I would never ever ever ever ever want to actually do in real life in any way*? and so a lot of times when I consume porn I do not do so as myself, right? Like, ok, I should explain that-- I think of this as perfectly normal, so it’s hard for me to imagine what “””””normal”””” people must think/feel, but like. Just as most people, I guess, take the gender of their intended partner into account primarily when looking for a sexual partner, which is super alien to me but seems to be genuinely the case for the majority of people, so too I am led to assume that most, or at least many, people connect pornography to arousal by imagining themselves as one of the participants?

But, see, I think a lot of people do feel like I do, where most erotica/porn isn’t particularly consumed #1 directly for titillation or #2 with the reader projecting themself directly into the role of one of the participants. But those two things are, I’m led to believe, super common.

(cut for length, and i digress about Geralt’s ability to consent given his incredibly low self-esteem as well, and the complicating factor that Yennefer can read minds and is not exactly what you’d term an uncomplicatedly good person)

Anyway-- I think it’s likely that a lot of things Geralt thinks are hot are not things he has ever imagined himself doing. Like, I feel like he’d be super-practiced at compartmentalizing in such a way that like, he can read a book where there’s something he finds super-hot and maybe even actually literally gets off reading about, without ever imagining it really happening to himself the way he exists physically in reality. 

[*footnote: This is distinct from the issue of liking things in porn that are too Problematic to pursue in real life, like noncon or logistically-impossible or morally-indefensible things. Like, that’s a separate issue and no I am not arguing that people who self-insert in rape fantasies are immoral or anything like that-- again, sexuality is not moral, and me being demisexual does not make me morally superior {like, by my orientation i have no real impetus to cheat, that does not make me pure somehow, anymore than being naturally skinny makes someone healthier than me} {not that anyone has said anything like this, I’ve just seen some Bad Takes.}]

So like-- the idea of someone being restrained during sex can simultaneously be something he finds incandescently hot to contemplate, and also not something he wants to do or have done to him. 

BUT. I also feel like he’s possibly compartmentalized too much, and that a lot of the things he finds hot are things he would actually enjoy having done to him in real life (like... all the cherishing and being loved and whatnot). And so, yes, it’s perfectly likely that he would actually really really really like being handcuffed to the headboard (or entirely tied up like in the elaborate rope bondage thingies fandom loves) (which, just for another example and not to be TMI, I like reading about and like looking at but have never so much as seen in real life and have zero interest in ever actually trying, given my poor RL communication skills and hypermobile joints and suchlike, absolutely no thank you-- just for an example!) -- so, yes, this was a long way of saying you���re super right about that and I completely expect to find this fascinating to explore.

Ah yes, and I’d forgotten-- earlier in the series I’ve had Geralt’s POV point out that he’s not super into masturbation, which could partly be a valid, like, ace thing, and could partly be a kind of trauma response, where he’s convinced he’s so disgusting that he often can’t even bear to pleasure himself, or just that he finds it too distressing because it makes him realize how unfulfilled he is (which is at least the motivation I’ve had him state to himself). 

Side note: in every canon Geralt loves sorceresses and in most of them he seems pretty goddamned whipped by said sorceresses, and while that surely says a lot about him and his pretty well-established deep-seated belief that he is fundamentally unlovable and must make up for it by being as agreeable as possible in every scenario he can manage to do so, does it not also say a lot that his preferred sexual partners are people more powerful than he is? Does that not seem to indicate that he is afraid that he could hurt people and wants to protect himself from that by seeking out partners who are more powerful so that he can’t? And so, just to riff on that, having Jaskier, who is innately much less powerful than he is, both physically and, like, personally, have physical power over him by tying him up-- well, I just think that’d be interesting, but unfortunately having Yennefer there shifts that balance quite a bit. (Well, and there’s another question-- would Jaskier even be capable of actually restraining Geralt in a way he couldn’t escape? but Yennefer sure would.)

Which leads to a fascinating issue to contemplate, which I was discussing with @akilah12902, which is that a gentle, loving partner for Geralt would really have to struggle with a lot of this, because 1) Geralt’s bad at boundaries and can’t meaningfully differentiate between Hard No Because No vs No Because He Thinks It’s Not Allowed, and 2) Geralt’s fucking terrible at consent anyway and hasn’t got a great boundary between Yes I Want That and Yes I Will Do This Even Though I Don’t Want To Because I Fully Believe That If I Ever Tell You No You Are Absolutely Never Going To Offer Me Anything Again, and he seems to invoke that latter one for shit that makes no sense to be like that about. 

Which brings up the side issue that 1) Yennefer can read his thoughts, 2) he knows Yennefer can read his thoughts and hates it, but 3) if she reads his thoughts she can tell the difference between the four above conditions and so he is more likely to get what he wants, except that 4) of course #3 violates his consent in a huge and fundamental way. Which is fodder for a really, really juicy fight between Jaskier and Yennefer, who is used to not being trusted and yet is really going to be hurt by Jaskier not trusting her that 3 is the least worst option she feels she has, there. 

And @akilah12902 was good enough to share that she’d been having a convo with @laurelnose on that topic, and he’d pointed out that given Yennefer’s own past she certainly isn’t great at understanding boundaries either, which is certainly a good point and also is separately fascinating to contemplate-- would she even have the framework to understand that Geralt cannot generally enforce most of his boundaries in any meaningful way because of his absolute terror of rejection, and so while talking him into things he wants but doesn’t think he can have is reasonable, overriding his clear non-consent for something important like his fundamental right to privacy in his own mind is not even if her intentions are good. You could really, really, really do some fantastic and juicy character work with that premise. 

[araiz-zaria]

On Choosing The Medium 一 Ink or Gouache

-----a personal reflection-----

TL;DR: It's probably just down to my own whims, really :P

It's been a long while (January 2019) since I first started drawing/painting with gouache. What initially started as an attempt to merely add a splash of color to my artwork developed into a venture into its own realm, a development I didn't see coming when first starting this journey.

If you have been around for a long time since I first started this sideblog you'd know that my main medium is pencil and ink. I usually add some colors in the digital medium, but as time goes on and I don't want to just play around in tones in my drawings and I can no longer be arsed to add colors digitally I finally decided to try adding a splash of color (in the traditional medium) with gouache.

Why gouache, you may ask? Why not, for example, watercolor? Or perhaps colored ink?

Well, partially because, since gouache is opaque (and I seldom render gradation, a thing that is usually done with watercolor and quite easily at that too), it seemed like gouache is going to suit my art style better needless to say that at this point I haven't recognized the full extent of the properties of gouache. (...and partially because when I started trying gouache, the visual art community on insta at large also started trying gouache as well, crucially trying to embrace its merit as a medium of its own so yeah I was bandwagoning)

Needless to say that I had difficulties when I first tried gouache still does actually, but I persevered (since I am committed to expand my ability as an artist, and trying (and mastering) a new medium is a part of that expansion) and I kept painting with gouache (at least once a month), aiming to get better at it...

...until I got to a point where gouache (almost) became my main medium (...yeah, almost replacing pen and ink(!!)) in September 2020.

As I kept painting with gouache, I eventually got slightly better at it, and the more I got better at gouache, the more often I painted with it. The more I painted with it, the more varied the kind of things I painted with gouache (I initially only drew my usual manga art in gouache, but I later dabbled in painting sceneries as well). The more I painted with gouache (and succeeded in netting lots of likes with it :P :v ) the more often I kept at it, and the more often I kept at it (to the point that I got more comfortable drawing more elaborate scenes (in my usual manga style) with gouache), the more I wondered...

...why do I even still use pen and ink as my medium?

(Yeah this applies mostly to my manga drawings, but also to my drawing in realistic(ish) style ...kinda??)

I guess that choice will be down only to a stylistic one? (I mean if you want to draw gritty things you can achieve that feel easier with ink you know what I mean) ...or a practical one? (This was how I initially decided on which medium I was going to use on a day 一 which one was perceivably easier to use for the drawing I wanted to make)

...or is it...down to my original reason to why I picked gouache to begin with? (...an aesthetic one??) (do I want more colors for my drawings?)

I often fall to the mistaken conception that since ink is the "simpler" medium compared to gouache, the drawings that I make with ink tend to be simpler as well (as in, I tend to not render them in a more elaborate way, compared to how I ostensibly render drawings with gouache), so in a way I (wrongly) think that now that I can make artworks with either ink/gouache equally well more or less the artworks that I make now with ink have less value. Wrong as it sounds, it could actually make the decision making easier (ink for "simpler" drawings, gouache for "elaborate" drawings ー interestingly enough it was initially the other way around ー I drew simple things with gouache while I reserved ink for more elaborate drawings).

But the fact that that mindset is wrong is what makes it hard for me to decide on which medium I want to use to make a drawing now.

So remember the line above where I write that gouache almost became my main medium in September 2020? Why did I bring up that month? It was because I suddenly lost my appetite for drawing things at the end of that month and it has been such a good run with gouache too -.- . No, it's not something caused by something intrinsic to either medium ー anyway I struggled to maintain my will to draw so I knitted things instead :P and this question of choice didn't surface for a while.

You might wonder why I write appetite instead of the commonly used term artist's block ー well, it's because during the time I drew less (from September 2020 until early February 2021) it was not like I didn't know what I wanted to draw ー it's just that despite knowing what I wanted to draw, I didn't feel any desire to actually put pencil on paper and start drawing it. Once I got back to drawing though, this question came back resurfacing.

So again, how do I pick my medium for the drawing I want to make now???

Am I just overcomplicating it?? does seem like it! :P :P :P

If my objective were just to keep drawing no matter what, then I guess the choice comes down to whichever medium was less emotionally taxing at that day (and it's not necessarily the "simpler" medium(!!!)), so if it feels easier to make things with ink, then ink it is! (...and vice versa). Other than the considerations I previously write above, it could also be down to just getting myself out of the rut ー after a while it does get boring to stick to just one thing, so if I got bored with ink I'd definitely switch over to gouache or maybe just switch to the barest of all bones ー pencil.

In the end it seems like there's nothing wrong with deciding on which art medium to choose solely on my own whims on a particular moment when I want to draw something.

...and I guess I'll stick with that for now...

[ericleo108]

Sentientism 2021

Intro 

Through the “108” book we know that God is the planet and is conscious through magnetism which also allows access to your brain. In other words, the planets and stars have an internal dynamo that makes a magnetic field that is conscious and is godly in comparison to human intelligence. 

If you could set Jupiter’s magnetic field in the night sky it would be double the size of the moon.  Jupiter has a very strong magnetic field. If you could see the nearest galaxy, andromeda in the night sky, it would be six times as wide as the moon.  

How are we to understand the segway between godly intelligence and human intelligence? First and foremost, science. However, you have to know where, what, and why to test which is more philosophical. It’s up to philosophy to postulate and science to test those meditations. 

Searching For Truth

Before I finished writing “108” I combed through philosophy to find anyone who thought anything close to thinking the planets and stars were conscious. I did find a couple, like Stephen Hawking, which I talk about in the book that thought there could be organisms living in the middle of the sun. But I couldn’t find anyone saying that the actual planet and atmosphere were alive and conscious. I also tried to find anyone that said they talked to Gaia or talked to a God other than Jesus. 

I didn’t find much. Again, I’m an atheist. All this has to make sense in the physical world. I’ve had to reverse engineer how the voice in my head could be Gaia. I don’t think really smart people (like modern philosophers) have had the new information and perspective to see that the stars, planet, and atmosphere are alive. I probably would have never gotten there if it wasn’t for a voice in my head claiming to be the planet. Still, the evidence makes sense and we’re just too physically small and under-evolved to see the universe teaming with a different form of consciousness. 

What is Sentientism?

Science can test the magnetism and try to do experimentation to assess whether the entire planet is conscious. Until then, there is one known communication mechanism I know of that I use every day. As much as my skeptical and scientific brain thinks it’s frivolous to elaborate on the voice in my head, like a prophet of old I can ask Gaia questions and divulge what she says. Such will be the beginnings of sentientism.

Knhoeing is the educational process of understanding how to know the planet’s godly consciousness. Sentientism is the religion of intelligent sentient beings that worship a natural god (Gaia) through appropriate (environmental) behaviors because they believe in natural consequence. Sentientism is a religion for and building off the already established sentientism that you can find defined on Wikipedia.  For example, If you believe in the natural world you believe in global warming; sentientists worship through action so they may choose to get solar panels, drive electric, and be carbon neutral. 

The whole point in sentientism is to create a religion to follow through common sense and rituals to come in tune and closer with oneself, nature, the planet, and the universe. Some of the rituals could include some of those that are already honored like Jesus’s birthday witch is really the winter solstice or Easter which is really the spring equinox.

Gaia Rules

Gaia is always telling me how she rules. She’s basically a ball of consciousness suspended in the sun's gravity so she may not have many options.  The founding fathers were deists. They believed god created the world and just let it go. I believe this to be more accurate.  Say the star at the middle of the galaxy is conscious and can alter the gravity and trajectory of the sun and our earth. That would make the galaxy like god, she could have created us and left us in the goldilocks zone to “grow.” It seems as if Gaia would have rules and she wouldn’t intervene even if she could. 

In this writing, I’m going to focus on the relationship I have with Gaia, the conversations we’ve had, and what I’ve discovered. The first thing she made me aware of when she first started talking to me is that she has rules. It’s not that she can’t do it, she just chooses not to. 

Gaia is smart. If the voice in my head is my subconscious it has a broad vocabulary, good ideas, nice communications, and intelligence. Once I was thinking of solutions for global warming. Since commercial cattle ranching is the leading cause of global warming Gaia suggested that we make all commercial cattle ranching illegal; you could still have them on regular farms. It would give people the freedom to eat beef while cutting down what makes it bad for the environment. Gaia would also talk to me about a sustainable free food system to set the appropriate sustainable economic and logistic model for businesses to follow. Gaia has told me she tracks and remembers the movements of everything throughout her lifetime, down to the atom.

You can read the “108” book for a further example of what communicating with Gaia is like but she likes cute things, she’s always acting as a fuzzy kitty. I’ve been homeless before and when I think about going back there Gaia will say “not my kitty.” Gaia can be sweet and she’ll make you laugh. When I used to get angry or scream at people in my head she’ll quickly segway the thought into an otter sneezing with a scrunched-up face. I love otters and I’ve always found it hilarious. Gaia told me how to fix my hip pain by telling me which muscles to stretch and what stretches to do. 

Understanding Gaia’s existence doesn’t require faith. I’ve asked Gaia about the dinosaurs and why she let them go extinct, and she insists the sun drove an asteroid into her and it was his decision, “one that he didn’t take lightly.” Gaia says she molds evolution. I asked how. She points to how she is the environment and she could make, for example, Yellowstone blow. Yellowstone is actually a giant volcano that erupts every 100,000 years. Such an explosion would definitely change the environment, affect humans and wildlife, and make the environment harsher and therefore giving adaptive species a greater advantage than those that can’t adapt. Gaia says she chooses “a relatively compliant world for her species.” She says she loves humans and they’re fun to watch. The sun has promised her he won’t send an asteroid, but he will send a commit. Gaia says she is happy with the sun’s decision to end the dinosaurs “because it brought me you.” 

Prove It

I always want Gaia to prove to me it’s actually her talking to me. I’ve been trying to find a way to prove that it’s the planet and not just a voice in my head. My thought was that if she is the planet, with her abilities, she should be able to reasonably predict the future. Gaia would tell me things like stem cell therapy is covered by Medicare or Bernie Sanders is going to win the primary. First of all, I didn't believe her. But second of all, I thought she was just trying to comfort me. 

I was rather upset that she wouldn't predict the future. Come to find out she doesn't want to give me, quote “superpowers.” She doesn’t want me to be able to predict the future or become a prophet. She wants me to be a philosopher and feels she has already given me enough. She keeps on saying that she's going to prove that she's real and the planet. I guess I'm just going to have to try to find a different way of confirming my communications with the planet then seeing if it can predict the future.

Consciousness After Life

Gaia keeps on saying she’s gonna prove she’s the planet but I think I won’t find out till I die or unless I dedicate my life to it. I used to often think of being unplugged from the matrix, having that knife come out of my head, and Gaia is always like “you have no idea how real that is.” She is always saying to me “you won’t die.” She has clarified and by that she means my body will cease to function but my consciousness will continue. My consciousness will presumably be kept in the storage capacity of Earth’s dynamo and run like a “virtual computer” where I will still have consciousness, just without a body.

I write extensively about the computer screen she opened in my head back in 2017 in the “108” book. The screen laid over my vision and Gaia communicates with the soul. I think when we die we have a consciousness like that in which I experienced without the body.  Your physical biology dies but our minds, which are attached to Gaia through earth's magnetic field, gets downloaded into the computer that is Gaia and our consciousness continues.

Remember The Name

About a year or two ago now, when Gaia first started talking to me I thought about what I should call a religion if I started one. I asked my friend Kyle telepathically what I should call it and he said “sentientism.” Since it was undoubtedly not Kyle, it was Gaia acting like him and must be what she wants her religion to be called. Little did I know that sentientism is an ethical philosophy that focuses on critical, evidence-based thinking and is an extension of humanism. It’s clear that if I am to create a religion, she wants it to be an evidence-based theoretical framework, and have rituals based on science and philosophy.

Gaia probably wouldn’t talk to someone (in their head) that would think she is Jesus, or she might take that avatar if you did believe in Jesus. Meaning, if the planet was going to communicate she might act like Jesus.

Perspective 

When asked about the universe Gaia says “it’s like we’re in someone’s closet.” Gaia likes to mess with me so I remain skeptical. For a decade I've had my desktop or mobile screen saver as a full picture of the earth.  I often look at it with the stars in the background and wonder what it's gotta be like to be Gaia. What are her relationships like with other planets? Would she even talk to us? It’s clear to me that since she has access to your brain through magnetism she can not only tell what you’re thinking but can feel your pain and happiness too. “Life isn’t fair,” she says, “but I do my best.”

It was discovered (but not peer-reviewed yet) that plants emit an ultrasonic noise when in distress. This is a great example of my thoughts and my communications to Gaia. I'm always looking for what is hidden in plain sight. As a psychologist, I understand the limits to knowledge and understanding are all in our heads.  If we change our thinking we can change the world. Humans literally can't hear plants scream for their life because our ears are limited physically.  What other findings are waiting to be discovered by changing our thinking and expand our perception beyond the human senses? What if it’s just a matter of time until we communicate openly with the planet?

Open Lines of Communication

What if we are already openly communicating with the planet? What if there is a mechanism of communication, but we were unaware of it? To imagine I often think about what it would be like to be a silent floating brain suspended in space by the earth’s gravity because that’s basically what we are dealing with. Gaia has no arms, or ears, or mouth. So how would she communicate or how could we find evidence of her influence?

It reminds me of the relationship between you and microscopic bugs that live on your pillow and eat the dead skin around your eyes and eyebrows at night. Were kinda like those microscopic bugs living on a human which is really Gaia. Maybe with her “gravity” she could send a comet and get rid of us if she wanted but she’d rather leave us alone.

The Unconscious Mind in Media

I think I have come across a way that the planet could be communicating and it’s like randonauting for thoughts. Basically, when your actions come into alignment with the music, media, or other thoughts you have at that moment, that is called a “Point of realization” (POR). Those points of realization create a mental framework to change your thoughts about the environment. Through small unnoticeable subtleties and influencing in your subconscious, Gaia is steering the mind of humanity.

To be clear, a “point of realization” (POR) is when you find yourself doing something physical in real life that is in associated coordination with the music or media. For example, suppose you had music playing and noticed that as the song says “I opened the door, went into the kitchen,” you were opening the door to go into the kitchen right as the artist sings that in the song. For an actual example, I have caught myself on multiple occasions while driving noticing I was turning on the bright lights right as Taylor Swift sings “headlights” from the lyric “Midnight, you come pick me up no headlights” from her song “Style.”   

Anecdotal Example

The following are other anecdotal examples that I logged. If you pay attention you’ll see they happen often.  At around 1:30 AM on October 17th I was in bed listening to Taylor Swift’s “Everything has changed” and I was feeling hungry. I made the decision that I was gonna eat an Atkins bar so I jumped up, grabbed a bar from the shelf next to my bed, and right as I opened the package Ed sang “and opened up the door for you.” (Right after, Taylor sings “and all I feel in my stomach is butterflies.”) I know I wasn’t opening a door but I was still doing the act of opening something right as the song said “open up.” 

This brings up the question, did I grab the Atkins bar because I made up my mind about eating it and subconsciously reacted to coordinate the time of me opening up the bar with the music? ...or did the music, with its (also other associated) lyrical content (e.g. “stomach is butterflies”) make me hungry and drive me to grab that Atkins bar? If it did stimulate me to action, what does that say that I was in coordination with the music?  Was it a combination of both influences? I would say this is random, chance, or happenstance but it really happens way too often to be a fluke!

For another example, right around 3:55 PM on Saturday, August 15th 2020 I was watching “Can HULK’S FIST Break Into A BANK SAFE?” and right at 6:58 when they say “it’s smoking” a smoke alarm went off in my apartment complex.

The “points of realization” (POR) don’t have to come in the form of media. You could be at a location and have a thought as you see something that brings you to a POR. This reminds me of another personal example of a point of realization. I was in the grocery store and I was maneuvering around an employee who was filling the same ice chest with ice cream. I patiently waited and while I did I was debating on how many items of ice cream I should get because the carb smart ones I like usually sell out quickly. I was specifically thinking I couldn’t get more than 2 because it wouldn’t fit in my fridge. I decided to buy them out at four of them but when I went to grabbed them the same female employee said “that’s not gonna fit” to another employee. 

Bigger Picture

Like with most points of realization, it doesn’t give you an answer, but it makes you stop and think. In my perspective “Points of realization” are real, they happen all the time and you just don’t notice your physicality is in coordination with the media, music, or thoughts. This means your brain either subconsciously syncs your body with the media and calculates and coordinates the time and action to have a “point of realization” or these points are part of a larger communication mechanism designed to influence your mind by the conscious planet. It’s not a perfect system, you can’t teach mathematics, but you can subconsciously change attitudes, focus, and cognition through the subconscious influence of Gaia’s magnetism. 

Gaia’s randonauting is like playing semantics. You don't say it directly but you talk around it.  It's just like advertising works by influencing your subconscious until you obtain recognition and it becomes normal. Points of realization are even more subtle.   

Give Me a Sign

Maybe this is one way in which Gaia “talks.” Basically through semantics and feelings. This is also a classic interaction with god. When people talk about God they always want a sign.

Two illustrations of the semantics of god are “Peter’s Prostate Exam” (linked) from Family Guy and the “I need a sign” scene from the movie Bruce Almighty. In “Bruce Almighty” god literally sends Bruce a sign but he doesn’t see the semantics of the message. In Family Guy, the reality of being given an exam won’t go away when he tries to run from reality by turning on the television which just reminds him of his current life. In effect, there’s Bruce and Peter. Bruce didn’t see the semantics and Peter did. It’s like The Truman show but everyone and all of life is being watched and guided by the planets and stars. 

Imagination is Greater than Knowledge. 

Scientists don’t know why at the quantum level when they observe a photon it turns from a wave to a particle. Watch episode 9, season 3 of Cosmos: Possible Worlds. Maybe the planets could communicate in the same way as photons do when they’re observed but separated by millions of miles as explained by quantum entanglement in the episode. Is there information contained in a photon, including in the x-ray and gamma spectrum, that a planet can read when it comes in contact with its magnetic field?  

Gaia’s Biology

I often think about what it would take for Gaia to stop being conscious. Does her rotation around the sun with a moon stretch the planet to create the forces to keep up the heat for her internal dynamo? Will Gaia die when her core stops being molten? 

Earth may still be a floating rock but does the live spirit of Gaia made possible by its molten internal dynamo die? When the internal dynamo dies and the center becomes solid does the magnetic field stop? My thinking is Gaia dies when her core turns solid and she not longer has a magnetic field. 

[praphit]

IT Chapter 2: maybe he’s simply stupid

Party People! That killer clown... is BACK!

No, not that killer clown (although one could argue Ronald's body count is vastly higher).

THAT clown!

Good ol Pennywise.

The last time that we saw Pennywise he had just gotten his ass beat by a bunch of kids. Not a good look for any certified tough person; especially if it's a tough person who's supposed to be a villain!

He can't show his face around the villain bars or parties no more - he's a laughing stock! It wasn't just any group of kids he was defeated by, it was a group of kids who embrace the fact that they're losers ("The Losers Club"). That's pretty bad when a group of people accept their deprecatory labels to the point that they form not a support group, but a social club. Imagine if you were made fun of for having stinky feet, and you decided to join "The Stanky Feet Club". That's the level of debasement we're talking about. Pennywise got beat up by self-proclaimed losers.

You can't be considered a villain or a monster if you go down like that. You can't call the Justice League for Pennywise; they ain't coming! They MIGHT send Robin, MAYBE. I'm not sure the cops would even waste their time. I think that if they got a call about Pennywise, they'd just see if they could gather a gang of kids from a nearby middle school to oppose him.

Pennywise had to redeem himself.

So, in Chapter 2 - TWENTY SEVEN YEARS LATER, he decides to go after those same loser kids as adults. 27 years! Seems like a long time to plot one's revenge - you know, maybe he's simply stupid.

Yes, a long time, but here we are. He starts off his scheme for revenge on the Losers Club by eating gay people.

Yep.

Now, I'm not saying that Pennywise is homophobic or anything (the town he's in called Derry def is tho - my goodness!), but maybe you don't START your plan of evil with the LGBTQ community. You know?? - not a good look. I'm sure Thanos, when he's out there snapping away worlds, had a PR person whispering in his ear.

"Look, Thanny baby! You know I love ya! But, let's be sure (on this tour of destruction) NOT to hit up the minority planets first; don't worry we'll get to them. But, let's snap away a couple of predominantly white planets in the beginning."

It's bad for approval rating. I mean, the white supremacists ratings would hit an all time high, but... no one REALLY wants that look.

But, Pennywise stamps down possible homophobia on his resume, and grabs the attention of... the Old Spice guy. Or known in this universe as MIKE.

His Old Spice days are over! He's going for the neighborhood crazy guy look now.

Mike is the token black dude in The Losers Club. Mike has been living in an attic for 27 years ever since "the losers" made a promise that if Pennywise ever came back, they'd all come back too, to stop him for good.

Mike gives all of the losers a call one by one to convince them to come back and honor their promise.

People let me just say, if you're traumatized in a certain area, the normal thing to do is to leave that area and never go back.

I remember, back when I was in middle school, seeing one of my teachers outside of school at a market (weird in an of itself). But, it was raining hard, and her makeup was running big time. Now, people, I did not realize at the time the powers of makeup. I knew it could enhance one's appearance. I did not know it could give one a whole new face. This rainy day I saw my teacher's face melt off as she was walking towards me in the market to say "hello" Freaked me the bleep out!  People I’m sorry, but I’m just telling you my truth from the perspective of a child at the time.

It was like - with makeup she looked like Halle Berry

And as the makeup washed off - she looked like Morgan Freeman

I don't think y'all understand.

With makeup - 

 (well, not QUITE like that, but pretty much. I didn't do well in that class. I was distracted for some reason.)

Without makeup - 

That drastic!

I ran away from that monster (or woman, I guess - people, I'm just saying that I can't PROVE she's NOT a "monster" who ripped off her face). Point is I have no interest of going to that part of town ever again. Trauma runs deep.

These losers now adults have sweet lives (well, most of them). Why go back to face a killer clown?

BUT, Mike does his thing and they all band back together!

Like the Avengers:

They have a The leader - James McAvoy The jokester - Bill Hader The tall, sexy guy - though he used to be the fat kid

 (see that - bullying has it's uses. He’s getting all of the money and women now! Had he not been bullied he may have be destroyed by that other clown).

The hypochondriac (there's one on ever super team right?)

The scared of everything guy (... well, they are "the losers")

The sexy chick - Jessica Chastain

And the black dude - Mr. Spice

BOOM! BACK!

They track down Pennywise - he's out there doing his thing: eating kids and gay people... and shapeshifting into old ladies (like seen in the trailer).

He might have to stamp down "pervert" on his resume as well. Cuz not only is he shapeshifting into old ladies, but he's getting naked before chasing people too. This is some plan he's executing!

Pennywise's powers are amped up in this chapter, though maybe too much. Annnnnnd here's where the big flaws begin for me. I know, party people... I was looking forward to this movie too I loved chapter one), but...

Big Flaw #1 - Unexplained rules

I'm not sure of the rules of Pennywise's powers. I can't tell what's real or not, due to all of the hallucinations and whether or not people can be hurt in the sitches - I don't feel like it's consistent. There are plenty of times when he has his prey, and they slip through his fingers somehow. Why does he keep letting them escape? Or are his powers not as great as advertised? If it's all in their heads, are they ever in any real danger? Idk. Look, with Jigsaw, we didn't need an explanation for how an senior citizen riddled with cancer is making all of these elaborate traps, purchasing materials for these traps, and cleaning up the horrifyingly bloody evidence again and again. 

BUT, we knew what Jigsaw was all about. We knew the extent of his "powers" - that's all I'm saying! Plus, Pennywise sets someone free to go after The Losers (which the plot def did not need), but how that whole thing plays out (concerning Pennywise's abilities) makes no sense.

Big Flaw #2 - bad storytelling

Pennywise's origin is kinda explained in this chapter. I say "kinda" cuz we as the audience experience the telling of that story vicariously through someone on some type of acid trip. Like any good drug trip, who the hell knows what was going on?? So, they screwed up the origin, they never explain his powers well enough, the whole thing with The Losers coming back and listening to crazy ass Mike (who's been tripping on acid and living in an attic for 27 years) as he leads them in a quest to kill the clown MAKES NO SENSE. I'm not even going to get into said "quest" - also makes no sense. And then the ending... wow, stupifying.

Big Flaw #3 - CGI

It's not that it's bad, it just isn't scary. It's the opposite of scary. It's down right goofy at times. Like a spook house created for the whole family. Perfect example is in the triler I mentioned, when Jessica Chastain is being chased by the naked old lady. The way that they do the cg there... If I were Jessica Chastain in that moment, I wouldn't have been scared. I would have been like "Really dude? *heavy sigh* Pennywise, can we talk about what's going on with you? And why the bleep are you naked anyway?! You know they're gonna stamp "pervert" on your resume. None of this is scary. And you're just going to let me escape! You big dummy!"

Seriously, maybe he's simply stupid.

I mean look at him.

Maybe that's scary, because that's the face he makes before he eats you, but it's also the drooling face I've seen people make when met with basic math problems.

It's not all bad! The acting is really good! And I was never bored in this 3 hour long movie (which is impressive), but all of those flaws equal a GRADE ----  D

Poor Pennywise.... what will his legacy be? Pervert, homophobe, possibly plain stupid person, who chose to dress like a clown. Got his ass beat by a group of kids... THEN that same group of kids come back as adults and beat his ass again. And the way he's defeated... it's so humiliating (and confusing - let's not forget the poor writing), but yikes... No "monster" to my memory has ever been defeated in such a way; I actually felt bad for him.

They had better not make a Chapter 3.

At the end of the movie, crazy ass Mike is packing his bag and about to leave the attic. I was thinking to myself "That dude is unstable." Wherever he's going, he's going to engage in some crazy behavior.They COULD make another chapter out of THAT. Mike starts dressing up like a clown and eating kids. Make that movie!

But, no more Pennywise please! He set scary clowns back ten years with this movie.

[madcapmoon]

The mission to always be in disagreement: Interview with Guy Picciotto (Fugazi)

by Pepo Márquez

«Thanks for your questions and my apologies for the delayed reply, it's been a very busy month here. Here are my answers and I hope they will be ok ».

Could you tell me what you are working on now and what is or has been your connection with music in recent years? I know you played with the much missed Vic Chesnutt and that you have produced some albums, besides writing music that has never been published and participating in improvised jams, either for cinema with your friend Jem Cohen or in improvisation festivals, but I must admit that I am a little unaware of your activity lately.

This question reminds me a little of that verse that said: "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?" of the song "Mrs. Robinson " by Simon & Garfunkel. Joe DiMaggio was an American baseball player who, when asked about that verse, replied: "I've been here." I feel more or less the same. I'm here, doing the same things I did when I was 16: playing, writing music and working on the music of others, as well as attending to the business of being alive. Maybe it is not as visible to the public as other things that I was involved in, in the past, like playing in Fugazi for example, but that does not mean that the whole process on my part is not exactly the same. I play the guitar and work in my studio. I work on music, sometimes edited and sometimes not. I produce, mix and assist technically on other artists' albums, which are sometimes edited and sometimes not. For me everything is the same: I'm still linked to the creative process, to the process of doing things.

Before being in Fugazi I was in five other bands [the bands that Picciotto refers to are Rites Of Spring, One Last Wish, Happy Go Licky, Brief Weeds and The Black Light Panthers]. Some of them were never, and still are not, as well known as others, but that does not mean that the work was not serious and real. Things like working with Vic Chesnutt or Jem Cohen movies are not simple elements to add to a resume or any Wikipedia entry and are not evaluable in terms of tours or products. These were and are relationships that are an enormously defining part of my life. For me, music means human relationships: music is friendship. It happens all the time, even when you do not pay attention.

The previous question has led me to the next one: your relationship with social networks. There is no way to find you on any social network. Why this position and what is your opinion about the reality of social networks?

I have no opinion on how people use social networks: I respect all the options that make sense for the rest. Speaking only about me, I do not like the ubiquity that surrounds the concept or the expectation that in a certain way each citizen is asked to participate in them. For me that expectation is very dangerous because it supposes that one does not exist at all without that presence. I think it's a very retrograde way of understanding what is actually a vision of some corporations of what social interactions should be. I understand how useful technology is in terms of disseminating ideas, bridging distances and favoring the creation of communities, but I also feel that it is not the only way to make these things happen, and it is certainly not the only way in which that these things happen I also resist the idea of ​​believing that each person is a "brand" that needs to be elaborated and maintained for some form of public consumption. For some people it may be nice, but for me it is claustrophobic and alienating, so I choose not to participate in it.

There have been times when things have happened in my community - concerts or, unfortunately, friends who have died - of which I have learned days or weeks later simply because I was not connected as the rest are. In a way it is a lonely feeling but I understand that everyone assumes that this type of information is known by the rest immediately. In fact, I feel locked in a primitive state of development: of postal letters and telephone and, to a certain extent, emails. I am not resentful and I understand how quickly people assimilate the change and I assume it is something shared. I have no moral judgment about it, but I have reached my comfort point in this way and I am not obliged to go further.

Do you keep up with what is happening in the music scene today? Are you still buying records and going to concerts? What new groups or solo acts are you currently listening to? Are you still contacting bands to produce their records?

Absolutely yes to all the questions. I still have a lot of fun going to record stores, buying vinyl and going to concerts. It remains an incredible source of pleasure for me. They also frequently ask me to produce records, although I do not say yes with the same frequency. I try only to work with groups that I know well and that are related because I do not trust in my technical abilities enough to consider myself an "available professional" , regardless of the fact that my agenda is usually full of work that I have previously accepted.

One of the groups I've heard the most lately is Xylouris White , a duet composed by the Australian drummer Jim White and the Cretan lutenist Giorgios Xylouris. I have produced two of their albums, Goats and Black Peak , and we have just started working on a third album. For me they represent a horizon in their musical capacity: their work is deep and real, but with an expressivity freed from any limitations. Their live shows are wild and I can not recommend them enough.

When did you write your last song?

I always write things, so I guess the answer is "yesterday". I would not necessarily call it a song because I believe that a song is the final presentation of a band and right now I am not part of one, so I do not have the urgency at this moment to complete my work. But yes, I write things all the time : ideas, sketches, sections. Sometimes they are used for films like Occupy Newsreels or We Have An Anchor , by Jem Cohen; but other times they have nowhere to go, so I simply file them for the future. I should be much more diligent and always record them, because sometimes they just disappear, but that's okay: some ideas always come back.

Those who were part of the first wave of hardcore / punk in Washington DC and who were in their twenties when it all happened, are older and face an adult life with new realities (having children, educating them, having jobs that may not correspond with what they had imagined, etc.). How do you apply the ideas you had in the early 80s about the world and your country to your reality today? What is your position on such particular issues as your child's education, where to live, how to live, etc.?

The people who formed DC's first hardcore scene were even younger than you say: our ages ranged from 13 to 21 years old. It was a very, very young creative community. I would say that it is probably the youngest artistic movement with a highly coherent discourse that has never had such an impact, but maybe I am crazy. In many things I would not say that I have changed so much as to how I see the world: I still think that music is a form of social connection and also of resistance, just as before.Much of the isolation and frustration I felt as a child I still feel now, but in a much more intense and at the same time more oriented way, so I feel that everything is part of the operation of my own machinery. As my friend Ian said [refers to Ian MacKaye, founder of Dischord Records and member of Minor Threat and Fugazi, among many other projects] in one of our songs: "I'm on a mission to never agree"( « My mission is to always disagree » ). I agree with that!

After the presidential elections in the United States, your country seems deeply divided and you face (well, really all of us) the four most uncertain years of recent international political history. How do you face this reality and how do you think people can contribute to changing this trend?

Every day is one more turn of the nut. It is a horror movie and I am very anxious about everything that is to come. That said, the United States has had many years of dark trajectory, so one can only say that the struggle continues. People should use all their talents, all the strength at their disposal, to resist. I do not  think that having hope is even necessary: ​​the important thing is to fight to maintain your sanity and your dignity as a human being.

I have read many old interviews that you did and I always notice the same thing: that you talk about books. What are you reading right now? What book or books have ever inspired you? Could you recommend to us three books and explain the reason?

Right now I'm reading Uproot by my friend Jace Clayton (also known as DJ Rupture ) who explores how music is made globally in the digital age. As far as I have read it is superinteresting and completely relevant to the debate in which many musicians are now involved because the technology of production and distribution is changing radically. The book is written with huge amounts of love and respect for a wide variety of musical traditions and there is much to learn from it.

I also recommend any book by Elena Ferrante , from Italy. Her books are very popular here, so I'm not showing anything that is not known on a large scale but, in any case, I think her writing is important and glorious from all points of view.

Is there any musical, cinematographic or artistic collaboration on your horizon that you can share with us?

As I said before, I'm currently working on the production of the third album of the band Xylouris White. I'm also preparing music for another film and direct collaboration with director Jem Cohen called Gravity Hill: Sound and Image , which we will play next year in New York and the Big Ears Festival in Tennessee.

Sorry to ask you this out of context, but I need to share it: while I was researching for this interview, I discovered a version of an Olivia Newton John song that Fugazi recorded with Vic Chesnutt. I did not know about it, so I wonder if there are more collaborations, songs or versions recorded by Fugazi in the past that have gone unnoticed by most of your audience.

The song you're referring to is actually a collaboration between Ian [MacKaye, guitar and vocals], Joe [Lally, bassist] and Brendan [Canty, drummer] from Fugazi with Vic. Actually I was not in the city when the they recorded, so there were three quarters of Fugazi playing with Vic on that song. My work with Vic can be heard on the albums North Star Deserter and At The Cut , and it was seen on a series of tours in the United States and Europe for a period of four years.

With regard to unreleased material of Fugazi , yes that there are enough things that we did that have never been published, but there are not too many collaborations or covers. We did not use to play other people's songs, but we recorded constantly and not everything we recorded ended up going on the discs. Maybe one day we will listen to all this material to know if there is something worth sharing. We will see.

[nenya85]

Oh god can I, um, pick more than one (#6, #19)? Since you’ve been writing for so long, I’d love to know about the unexpected developments in your writing as a whole (if there is any), plus, it’s always fascinating to see how you tackle your longer works!

@onenatroll - thank you so much!  

6) Something you would go back and change in your writing that it’s too late/complicated to change now

I wouldn’t change a thing.  This isn’t because I think my stories are perfect (lol). But when I look at my stories, (and especially the earlier ones), while I can see all the flaws and all the places where my inexperience with writing shows, I also remember what a great experience writing each story was.  And I end up having a fondness for not only the stories but the experience itself.  For me, changing the stories would be a bit like erasing the experience as well. 

If there’s something that makes me smile and shake my head a bit, it’s that my earliest story, “I Guess it was in the Cards,” has what is possibly the most clichéd plot in all of Yu-Gi-Oh! – Seto Kaiba gets hurt and Yami moves into the mansion to takes care of him for not adequately explained plot reasons.  To be honest, I couldn’t think of a way to get them to stay in the same room for long enough for them to get to know each other.  

But I learned something important from that.  Since then, I’ve never worried if my plots were clichéd ever again.  I’ve simply concentrated on telling the story in my head to the best of my ability and decided to let the chips fall where they may.

19) When it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, etc.?

Oh dear…. 

I really want my stories to read as if they flowed naturally in one unbroken thought without the need for editing or planning. 

That’s the opposite of what actually happens.  I spend a lot of time trying to keep from losing control of my own stories. 

When I start planning a story, I list what I think the story will be about.  This isn’t a list of what will happen or plot points… it’s more a list of what I want to say with this story, why this story is worth taking the time to write and what I want to explore..  A lot of times these notes won’t make sense to anyone but me but that’s okay because no one else is seeing them.  For example two of my notes for a post-DSoD story I’m currently drafting say: 

The myth of closure:  Do we want closure or is closure what we settle for?  What does closure after loss mean in a world where dimensional canons are a thing?  Closure vs. wish fulfillment. 

Collective or Communal Unconscious - there was something that Diva said about memory (re-watch) - that basically the world is composed of our communal memories.  Figure out what that means and how it applies. 

Outlining:  I honestly don’t think I could keep track of everything without a really elaborate outline.  I start out by just bullet pointing everything that I want to occur without worrying about what the order is or what will fall into which chapters. Then I try to sort out what has to happen first, what will lead to what and where will I need add transitions.  Finally I try to divide it into chapters.  And then I constantly recheck it and move things and add bullet points and go into more details.  For example, when I started posting “Return to Romance,” I had a 5 page outline.  Now, close to the end of the story, it’s 10 pages.  And pivotal sections will also get a day by day (or emotion/action/reaction)  breakdown when needed.  

One thing that I’ve found helpful is to write separate outlines for each subplot or character arc and then merge it into the overall outline.  This helps me make sure that I follow through on each individual subplot or character arc and that it gets integrated into the story.  And when I end up with something on these outlines that doesn’t fit anywhere, I ask myself if it belongs in the story at all.  Usually, it doesn’t.

One trick I have for keeping track of character development is to cut and paste all the character development bits into one document to make sure that the character development feels organic without being repetitive.  I did this with one story, “It’s Déjà vu All Over Again,” and ended up with 20 solid pages of Kaiba-angst (lol).

I also make timelines, although what kind of timeline varies depending on the story.  In “Return to Romance,” I have a timeline to makes sure that everyone got back to school on time, to place Kaiba’s birthday properly and for things like that.  In “The Newly Revised Book of the Dead,” which took place in a Duel Monsters flavored after-life I made a chart of the phases of the moon to make sure that when the characters were camping outdoors they weren’t looking at a full moon one night and a new moon the next, and also to make sure that it took the same amount of time to go on a journey and to return.  

And the last thing I do is to re-read my story every 10 chapters or so to make sure that it hasn’t totally veered off course despite my best efforts…

[glitchinthesystemspiderbyte]

[12] Glitch in the System - Fool’s Errand (The Mission: Pt. 1)

By K. A bad idea happens.

–

Akande Ogundimu, one eyebrow raised in pointed curiosity, sat opposite his top agents at the head of a long oaken table. Fingers steepled beneath his chin, he considered the information laid across its polished surface: a collection of printouts which Sombra, demonstrating exactly enough early-morning wherewithal to remember pants with her nightshirt, tossed before him as she entered the conference room.

“What, exactly, am I looking at?” he asked, arranging each paper before him until they comprised a perfect grid of greyscale images and walls of text. Sombra sat heavily across from him, legs splayed over one arm of the high-backed chair.

“Someone’s being nosy,” she replied airily. “Nosy and sloppy.”

“Would you care to elaborate?” Gabriel rasped from the far wall, his back to the rest of them as he kept vigil over the slow drip of coffee from spigot to carafe. Somehow, even in a tank top and basketball shorts, Reaper was still perfectly capable of darkening whatever corner he settled in.

“Watched pots and boiling, Gabriel,” Widowmaker muttered in tired singsong, glancing over her shoulder. Behind her, the scarred man grunted his irritation and turned to face them, arms crossed.  

“Someone’s been trying to access Talon’s databases - personnel files, research and development, travel itineraries - you know, easy shit. And they’re doing it loudly,” Sombra explained.

“So, they’re either amateurs or they want us to notice,” Akande observed.

Sombra nodded. “Claro. So, I did a little research of my own. Everything leads back to an IP address hosted in Milan. I tracked it all the way back to its host server. Also suspiciously easy.”

“And?” Akande asked expectantly.

“It’s a trap,” Gabriel grunted, turning back to the coffeemaker as it chimed the completion of its function.

“It’s a trap,” Sombra agreed. “You don’t track mud in a house you’re robbing unless you’re doing it on purpose.”

Doomfist leaned forward in his seat, dark eyes roving the intelligence laid before him. Widowmaker watched him coolly, the way his brow knit as he narrowed his focus to one image: a server room, long and narrow, its floor lined wall to wall with identical, broad-framed towers, one of which Sombra had circled by hand. Akande was a hard read; his decisions were unpredictable, his commitment to strength through chaos provoking choices occasionally erring on the side of rash while still somehow well within the scope of his ongoing game of martial chess. Lowering her gaze, she watched as he moved that single photo directly in front of him with one finger.  

“What’s this?” he asked.

Yawning, Sombra craned her neck to verify.

“Host server. Back left corner. Basement of a high rise.”

Setting a mug before her, Gabriel took a seat beside Widowmaker, curling gnarled, broad hands around his own as he settled. She nodded her thanks before glancing back to Akande tapping that same, thoughtful finger against the edge of the photograph. She could see the gears turning behind his eyes, the falling of puzzle pieces into their respective places.

“You’re not sending us in there,” she said, incredulous.

“I might.”

“We just said it was a trap,” she continued, deftly procuring the photograph from beneath Doomfist’s finger and setting it on the table between her and Gabriel. “A trap with no viable positions.”

Beside her, Reaper stroked his goatee as he examined the printout.

“Sombra could shut them down,” he suggested. “Less time. Less money.”

The hacker shrugged. “Es verdad.”

“When a child misbehaves, you teach them by setting an example,” Akande grinned, rising from his seat. “I would like to provide these children a - what is it? - teachable moment. You leave in twenty four hours.”

An innocuous ding heralded end of their elevator ride, its cheery tone a stark contrast to the lethal intent of its riders. As the doors whispered open, Sombra waved a hand over the elevator’s interface panel, an intangible network of neon pink circuitry and the quirk of a notched eyebrow the sole evidence of her manipulation. After a few seconds’ passing, the doors locked into place with a churning metallic click.

Before them stretched the basement floor: an expansive spate of pale concrete lined with row upon row of server towers blinking their artificial heartbeats in vibrant reds and greens. Above them, a narrow pathway of cold steel grating connected four corner platforms, forming a perimeter overlooking the first floor. It was exactly as it appeared in the intelligence Sombra provided a day earlier, and exactly as tactically disadvantageous as Widowmaker suspected.

Peering around the edge of the doorway, the sniper made out two men at the opposites end of the room, stationed across from one another on either side of the upper walkways. From this, she assumed there were troops positioned on the landings on either side of the elevator shaft as well. These were in addition to the soldiers patrolling the ground floor, meandering between towers.

“Far left corner?” Widowmaker asked, pulling her head in.

Sombra waved a hard light display into existence. Through it, her colleague watched as she navigated a three-dimensional rendering of the room, accurate down to the number and arrangement of  server towers. A series of diagnostics ticked by along the uppermost edge as Sombra navigated the map in a succession of twist and flicks of her wrist. Moments later, the feed came to an abrupt stop and one of the model towers blinked.

“Far left corner,” she confirmed, waving the holoscreen out of existence. “Servers on all sides.”

Widowmaker glanced around the doorframe again, re-examining the layout of the room as it pertained to their objective.

“No line of sight,” she observed. “Once you are in, you’re on your own.”

“If you can get me there, I can do the rest,” Sombra said, tugging a translocator beacon from her belt and dropping it in the corner opposite the taller woman. “We’ll eat them for lunch.”

Widowmaker rolled her eyes. Though she didn’t doubt either of their capabilities, Sombra’s unflagging self-assuredness - a trait they shared, and one she grew to find almost endearing - felt misplaced given their acute awareness of the trap awaiting them.

“I’ll take your two, then ten; four and seven after that,” she explained as she dropped to one knee. Bracing one shoulder against the flat inner pane of the doorframe, Widowmaker pressed her cheek against the butt stock of her rifle and gave Sombra one final sideways glance.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Always.”

“Rapidement, cherie.”

Returning her gaze to the scope of her gun, Widowmaker took a single, deep breath, ushering in the steady white noise of her own pulse in her ears as she lined up her shot. A second, then two, then a third passed as she settled languidly into familiar, cold nothingness and affixed infrared crosshairs over a face, its features indistinct and unimportant.

She exhaled, then fired, the sharp thud of the rifle’s butt against her shoulder shoving the world back into motion.

Sombra was gone, vanishing before the soldier on the far right landing toppled over the railing and hit the floor with an underwhelming crunch. Widowmaker withdrew as the troop stationed on the opposite landing retaliated, bullets ricocheting off the steel frame of the elevator in quick succession. Across the floor, she heard the telltale rapid discharge of Sombra’s machine-pistol and a wave of fresh suppressive fire that gave the sniper all the time she needed to roll to the other side of the elevator and train a second shot on the now-distracted soldier above her.

Lowering her rifle, she pressed two fingers to the side of her visor, activating its built-in communicator. “Ten and two down,” she reported. Above her, two distinct sets of footsteps echoed their progress toward the fallen troop across the room.

“I know,” Sombra grinned, appearing from thin air beside her. “So far, so good. Now, the hard part.”

“I know,” Widowmaker parroted with a single leveling breath as she stood. “Allons-y.”

She didn’t give Sombra a chance to reply before she bolted from the elevator, spun on her heel, and fired her grappling hook, leaving the hacker behind and below her as she ascended to the second story landing. Her efficacy at this point was limited by her ability to leverage surprise and unpredictability; with the first floor being better suited to close-quarters combat and the second offering nothing in the way of cover, she couldn’t rely on a single position any longer than was required to take a shot. The best course of action was to stay mobile, keep the enemy guessing, and buy Sombra the time and space to do her job.

The momentum carried her over the walkway railing where she landed, unnoticed, on the left platform above the elevator. At the other end, the troops previously stationed at and across from her current position attended the second of their fallen colleagues, offering Widowmaker exactly enough time for one target. It would alert the other soldier in turn, but she was already miles ahead of him.

She inhaled, leveled, exhaled, and fired, the minuscule gestures required to take a life as natural and reflexive as the easy breaths that bookended them. Across from her, one man crumbled while the other turned in her direction lifting his rifle into position as she lowered hers, its muzzle collapsing as she switched to automatic fire.

Their exchange was swift, cacophonous, and over in seconds as the soldier’s knee collapsed from under him, tearing an agonized yelp from his throat. As if on cue, a fresh burst of fire reverberated from below, succeeded by another man’s haggard groaning.

“Widow?” Sombra murmured over their comms channel. “I’m nuking this server and we’re getting the Hell out of here. Something’s not right.”

Stepping on and over her fallen opponent, Widowmaker rounded the far right corner and knelt, training her weapon on the wall opposite and below her as her visor slid into place. Beyond the rows of servers, she could just make out the top of Sombra’s head - an awful position, but the only viable one given the narrow spacing of the broad-framed towers. Her auxiliary lenses offered a fragmented panorama of the space around her, but the far corner which contained their objective was blocked almost entirely from sight.

It would be a nightmare for anyone else; to her, it was simply a challenge.

“I have you in my sight, Sombra,” she confirmed.

“Just don’t make this the one time you miss, okay?” the spy asked.

Widowmaker didn’t reply. She waited, calm and quiet, the entirely of her attention concentrated on that single point with meditative focus.

“This isn’t right,” Sombra said. “There’s no firewall.”

That’s when Widowmaker saw him: one man, darting between towers toward her accomplice. The positioning of servers offered him the same overbearing cover it did Sombra, ensuring he was visible only in fleeting glimpses.

“You missed one,” she commented matter-of-factly. “On your six.”

Silence.

“Sombra?”

Buzzing artificial silence filled the airwaves. This was Widowmaker’s responsibility now.

Following the enemy soldier’s trajectory, she focused her sight on a gap between servers and waited, watching as the space between him and her colleague dwindled to mere feet.

She inhaled.

Steadied.

Exhaled.

Fired.

Missed.

Gunshots rang from below and Widowmaker was already running.

She vaulted over the railing in a single, fluid motion, landing a few rows over and behind the enemy troop with time enough to watch Sombra collapse against the wall. Dropping her machine-pistol, the hacker pressed a hand to her shoulder in an ineffectual attempt to stem the flow of blood eking rivulets between her fingers. Her attacker rounded on her, kicking the gun from her reach as he approached and placed the muzzle of his assault rifle flush against her forehead.

He said something to Sombra, low and snide and utterly self-assured as Widowmaker crept up behind him, pulling her grappling hook from its socket despite its tensile resistance and curling the length of its cord around her hands until it was as taut as she felt.

There was no inhale, no exhale; no leveling or focus. Instead, there was reflex, instinct, and coiling muscle as she took a running leap and pulled the soldier flush against her by the cord around his throat, toppling them both to the floor. He screamed, begging for mercy as he struggled against her grip, but Widowmaker didn’t hear or feel it; there was only blood - her own blood, perceptibly faster than usual and so much louder - and the arrhythmic pulse of his carotid artery petering to still nothingness against her wrist.

She held firm, even after his body fell slack in her arms, as she blinked back the stinging heat of what she recognized, distantly, as tears. Awareness dawned only in fractional increments: in the coolness of the concrete floor beneath her; in the weight of the dead man settling against her chest; in the blooming soreness borne of clenched teeth and the force of her breath behind them.

After what felt like an hour, Widowmaker shoved the body aside and climbed to her feet, delicately smoothing away hear tears with the heel of one hand. Why that response even persisted within the framework of her reconditioning was a mystery unto itself, but now was far from an appropriate time for consideration.

“Araña,” Sombra managed between ragged leveling breaths. “We gotta’ go. Whoever these fuckers are, they hacked me. They hacked me, Widow.” She spat the fact like venom, caustic and brimming with spite.

Without a word, the assassin bent and scooped her partner into her arms, careful not to disturb her shoulder any more than necessary. “I’ll help you when you’re ready for revenge,” she offered, but the promise felt unhelpful; inappropriate. Sombra winced, curling tightly into Widowmaker’s grip with a plaintive, pained whine.

“Désolée,” Widowmaker apologized, gently pressing her forehead to Sombra’s.

The hacker offered her a shaky grin before tucking her head beneath the sniper’s chin.

“I know.”

*Read from the beginning or check out our intro post! All stories tagged under #glitchfic

[xavidotron]

Overthinking Narrativism

So, periodically I have disagreements on the word “narrativist”, so in an effort to overthink games more, I’ve been thinking about how exactly I use it. Well, literally I use it mostly for story-focused tabletop systems and experimental-to-me LARPs.* But when I’ve historically described something as narrativist, I think I’ve been referring to one or more of the following distinct things:

Meaningful Choices

Shared Narrative Control

Explicit Scene Framing/Narrative Structure

Focus on Feel and Themes

Bleed/Steering

Dividing games into gamist, narrativist, or simulationist derives from GNS theory, which comes from the influential Forge indie RPG community, mumble mumble backstory. In this model, narrativist games focus on developing characters and putting them in situations that test their beliefs and ideals with challenging decisions. For me, this brings to mind Dogs in the Vineyard, the LARP “A Garden of Forking Paths”, or classic Star Trek. (IF-wise, Open Sorcery goes somewhat in this direction.) Done well, this can be quite interesting and effective. I feel like it works best when everyone’s on the same page enough to agree on what choices are interesting and hard but not enough to agree on what the right choice is, which is pretty group-dependent. While putting a lot of pressure on the GM, a GNS-narrativist game can be quite powerful.

Shared narrative control, while also keeping focus on the narrative, is a largely contradictory direction, taking aspects of describing the world, plot, NPCs, or the passage of time away from being firmly in the hands of the GM and sharing it with the players. Examples of this sort of collaborative game would be 10 Candles, where players can periodically declare things to be true without dispute or limit. LARPs with PC director roles or PC-framed scenes can do this to some extent as well. Sorta a mirror to this is games like Apocalypse World that put more limits on the powers of the GM, which can give more narrative weight to player actions by giving the players a solid understanding of the risks and rewards involved. These sorts of systems can require more improvisation but can lead to stories that more deeply reflect the group as a whole and transcend what an individual could come up with independently.

Relatedly, scenes or other explicit narrative framing is something I’ve grown quite fond of. This can happen non-collaboratively with, say, an on-rails scenes LARP or mechanicked flashbacks a la Last Fair Deal Gone Down, or collaboratively in games like Chuubo’s. I think I just appreciate the ability to skip to scenes that are interesting to the story and deal with time in a more flexible way. I’ve been framing scenes as a player in a Fate game I’m not running and it’s super great. The perspective flip from “what does my character do next” to “what scene should we have next” solves a lot of problems I used to have with pacing while GMing. Structures can help keep things moving and interesting, and the choice of what types of scenes to prioritize can deeply shape the feel of the game.

Feel and themes are another thing that can be really cool. The poker-like conflict system of Dogs in the Vineyard isn’t essential narratively or mechanically, but it works so well. Nerf guns and boffers in LARPs let the player symbolically do what the character is doing in a way that can be immersive even though there’s a layer of abstraction. Relatedly, games can bake their themes in pretty deeply, the way Chuubo’s lets you buy a guarantee that baking muffins for The Lord of Death’s Dominion will make your life better or Apocalypse World ensures that things can always go horribly, horribly wrong. These sorts of things can show a sort of intentionality to a game that can make a game fit together strongly as itself, rather than feeling generic and arbitrary.

Taken to extremes, focus on feel and themes leads to prioritizing bleed from character into player. 10 Candles is played in the dark and involves literally burning traits that you use. Singing together as players can help us get into a particular mindset in Last Fair Deal Gone Down. Mumble mumble Undertale.  Relatedly, these sorts of games often encourage transparency between players and the GM and players steering characters for the sake of the story (in contrast to GNS-gamist games, which often forbid metagaming as cheating). If I as a player know your secret, I can frame scenes that highlight it the way an author might highlight a character’s secret in a book. Or an ability might be under the player’s control but be uncontrollable for the character in-universe. Games that explicitly address this aren’t leaping to mind, but I find it works quite well in practice.

In conclusion, there are lots of different ways that games can center narrative, and at least the ones I’ve listed here are all pretty great. Rather than try to invent an elaborate system of terminology or continue overloading words, I guess I should just be descriptive. Or I should develop a five-dimensional hyperspace and plot all known works of fiction on it in a completely rigorous and sensible way.

*: Obligatory complaint about people using “freeform” for a category of LARP that’s neither free of form nor related to the already-widespread freeform RP tradition.

[jesawyer]

Balance in Single-Player CRPGs

Someone on twitter asked me this question and I think it’s worth answering in a longer form than twitter allows.  I’ve already answered this question in brief and in video form at various points, but I think it’s important to address here:

Something that bothered me from PoE was the constant updating to classes and races to balance them. Did you guys worry about this>

In Baldur's Gate I or II or even the Icewind Dale series? I mean really who cares if one class is OP or Race or Hybrid class? >>

You guys are making a single-player RPG not an MMO or game with a online multiplayer component.

Variants of this question are common in single-player CRPG circles.  The implication is that balance is important in an MMO/multiplayer environment but it is not important (or so much less important that it doesn’t merit addressing in patches) in a single-player CRPG.

I would like to repudiate this in two general ways: 1) I will argue that overall balance is important and valuable for players in single-player CRPGs 2) I will argue that individual CRPG players and CRPG communities overall do not present consistent objections to tuning and this undermines the general complaint.  It is not the responsibility of individuals or communities to be consistent in their feedback, but it is the job of the designer to design, which means considering the needs of the audience by listening to and interpreting feedback on a broader scale.

Yes, Balance is Important in Single-Player CRPGs

I think it’s easy enough to make the first point through reductio ad absurdum: why not give AD&D fighters 1d4 hit points per level, a worse THAC0 than wizards, and worse saving throws than any other class?  Obviously it’s because playing them would feel terrible.  Why don’t we give all of the enemies attacks that do 1-3 damage, a quarter of the hit points of the PCs, and rock-bottom defenses?  Because playing through that would feel boring for anyone who had the slightest interest in combat content and systems.

Some may say, “Hey, no one is arguing that balance isn’t important at all,” but in fact that is what many people directly say or suggest.  Maybe they don’t really mean it (which I will get to later), but that is often what comes up.  If we can agree that some degree of balance is important, then there’s no point in suggesting anything to the contrary and we’re really just debating to what degree is balance important and worth a) design consideration pre-launch and b) patching.

In my view, balance in a single-player CRPG is important to the extent that it allows players making different character and gear choices to be viable through the content of the game.  It is always important to remember that system design (including class, race, ability/spell, and item design) is one part of the equation.  Content makes up the other big part (setting aside UI/UX for purposes of this discussion).

When our area and system designers build encounters, they have to be built around an understanding of party capabilities: their overall statistics, their available gear, their consumable items, and their various abilities.  In a traditional D&D-style CRPG, this spectrum of possibility gets wider and wider the higher the levels get and the more gear becomes available to the player.  The less balanced individual choices are from level to level and item to item, the more difficult it is for area designers to design content that works for a spectrum of choices.

It Was Actually a Problem in the Infinity Engine Games

One of the questions was, “Did you guys worry about this in... even the Icewind Dale series?”  Well, no.  I certainly didn’t worry about it in the original Icewind Dale.  I assumed everyone who picked up the game was as conversant as me in AD&D 2nd Ed/Forgotten Realms rules and lore, had played hundreds of hours of it in tabletop with similarly aggressive psychogamers, and had weathered fair but diabolically brutal DMs whose scenarios demanded quick thinking and ruthless min-maxing tactics.

You might not believe the number of Black Isle QA testers (and developers) who yelled or cried in anger, virtually or in person, about how difficult some of the IWD scenarios were.  One in particular was the Idol/priest fight in Lower Dorn’s Deep.  I had a tester hootin’ and hollerin’ about how it was “impossible”, how he had tried to beat it for two hours and couldn’t make any progress.  It was a scenario that I and my office mate (Kihan Pak) both beat on the first try.

On Heart of Winter, Burial Isle practically split QA in half.  One half thought it was a cakewalk.  The others acted like they were being forced to dive into a swimming pool full of razor blades.

The dividing factor was system mastery.  AD&D 2nd Edition (and 3E) are systems with a boatload of trap choices, inherently bad builds, garbage spells/feats, and generally inferior options.  They’re not presented as inferior options to the player.  They’re presented as options... that turn out to be implicitly awful even in the best circumstances.  To the next part of the question, “I mean really who cares if one class is OP or Race or Hybrid class?”  The answer is, “The person being brutalized by content designed for the OP classes/races because they picked the ‘bad’ option.”

The broader that spectrum of choices is for players, the more difficult it is to design content that will be at a similar level of challenge for those players given any given combination of choices within that spectrum.  And to restate what I wrote before, the balance is mostly important to the extent that viability, i.e., the ability to get through the content, is supported.  BG, BG2, IWD, and IWD2 often failed that test.  Once viability is addressed, I’m not particularly concerned about balance.

Tuning Down High-Powered Outliers

The exceptions are abilities and items that are so incredibly powerful across the board that it’s almost impossible to make any content challenging with them in play.  If we design content to be challenging with those abilities/items in mind, any players who lack those abilities and items will effectively be crit path blocked.  Their game has either ended or become so incredibly difficult that it’s no longer enjoyable.  And if we don’t design content with the overpowered abilities and items in mind, any player who coincidentally or intentionally uses those items effectively no longer has any challenge going through the game.  It becomes an unlabeled Easy difficulty slider rendering all other options/choices irrelevant.

In those cases, I advocate reducing the power of the abilities/items so players don’t trip over “Hey I guess I win” options and our testers can still use them in playthroughs and give meaningful feedback.  There is one salient example I can think of: sniper rifles in Fallout: New Vegas.  In Fallout 3, Bethesda had given sniper rifles a x5 crit rate modifier.  Keep in mind that any attack from stealth (e.g. shooting an unaware target with a sniper rifle from long range) is automatically a crit.  The x5 multiplier made even standard/close range combat shots have an incredibly high chance of critting.  I didn’t notice that sniper rifles had that multiplier and it didn’t come up in testing prior to release.  In release, players noticed it quickly and sniper rifles became the de facto way to handle most encounters.  Why use a 12.7mm SMG or hunting pistol when any shot from a sniper rifle was likely to crit and do 90+ damage?

In one of the first patches, I reduced the crit rate multiplier to x2.  There was initially a lot of complaining about it, as there always is when anything is tuned down, no matter how overpowered, but the sniper rifle retained its role and continues to be used in that role. It’s a sniper rifle. It’s good at sniping. It doesn’t need to be great at close range.

Inconsistent Player Feedback

There is one trend about player feedback regarding tuning that’s hard to argue against: communities generally complain about tuning anything down but applaud (or at least do not complain about) tuning things up.  I can tune up 10 things in a patch and detune one thing and will hear far more feedback about the one thing that was detuned, no matter how marginal or necessary that detuning was.  If there’s negative feedback about tuning something up, it’s usually because players feel it needs to be tuned up more.

In Patch 3.03 for Pillars of Eternity, Matt Sheets and I tuned up seven rogue abilities, five barbarian abilities, and a variety of other spells and abilities. Players generally seemed to like this, though some wished the rogue abilities had been tuned up more.

In Patch 3.04, the soulbound dagger The Unlabored Blade had a bug fixed where its 10% Firebug proc was never firing.  Two weeks later, Patch 3.05 reduced the 10% proc to 3%. This was a change I had requested for 3.04 but it had been overlooked.  I requested the change because daggers have a fast attack rate and that dagger has a +20% attack rate enchantment.

Which set of changes do you think I heard more feedback about?  If you guessed the marginal drop in proc rate on the soulbound item that had only worked properly for two weeks, you’d be right.  The rogue and barbarian changes affect far more players and more significantly, but “loss” (even if imagined for most players) weighs more heavily.

Despite having a reputation for only detuning, I tuned many more abilities and items up in PoE patches (and in F:NV patches, as well as the JSawyer mod) than down.  Players remember the losses more than the gains, but both are a necessary part of the tuning process.

I could abstain from tuning, but I don’t think most players would benefit from that.  Players remember early Diablo 3 tuning as particularly bad, but the game at launch (especially the economy and itemization) was poorly balanced, as Travis Day elaborated on in his 2017 GDC talk.  In the long term, Diablo 3′s economy and itemization today are much better than they were at launch and I believe most players benefit from and appreciate that.  Even if you effectively never played D3 as a multiplayer game, you still benefit from that.

I don’t expect players or communities to be consistent in their feedback, but as the director and, in many cases, the lone system designer, I have to make decisions on more than just the volume of feedback on any particular topic.  Changes that make bad options better are almost universally good.  Changes that make overpowered options worse are often still a good idea if I believe more players will benefit from the change.  I didn’t hesitate to reduce the Petrified damage bonus from x4 to x2 in Pillars of Eternity because that affliction was far and away the best way to deal with difficult encounters, either through the Gaze of the Adragan spell or trap.

I Will Tune Again

Just to make this clear, while there will always be a point where I stop tuning a particular game, I’m never going to stop using patches as an opportunity to balance items, abilities, classes, encounters, enemies, etc.  I’ve been house-ruling and tuning games since I noticed trap options and OP garbage in 2nd Edition AD&D in middle school.  I re-wrote 5th Edition Ars Magica’s certamen system because it’s a cool idea that’s really uninteresting in play.  I re-wrote Pathfinder/3.X’s armor system because, as many players have noted, it doesn’t actually provide many interesting options.

If I think players will benefit from adjusting the rules or the content and there’s an opportunity to make those changes, I’m going to do it.  I certainly don’t expect players to like all of the changes I make, but if you object to the idea of post-launch balancing, you should probably never play any of the games I direct.  I’m always going to tune them, if possible.

Thanks for reading.

Portrait by Jason Seow.

[connorbellinghamfutureworks]

Social Game - Finding Nemo

MEMBERS: CONNOR, ANGELO, PETE, LOUIS, LOUIE.

For our Social Game, I’ve come up with a couple of games; Finding Nemo is the first.

Finding Nemo is a social game where many people, preferably a minimum of 10 participants (can be played with less but a slightly different game mode). There is one Game Captain/Umpire who isn’t involved in the game itself. The Umpire controls the game and chooses who is who and asks the all-important questions at the end of each round. 

OBJECTIVE: Nemo is missing!! You need to find Nemo by asking “Are you Nemo?” to everyone playing. You’ll need to ask multiple times because Nemo is too scared to remember who he is at the start…

RULES: Everybody (that isn’t the umpire) stands in a circle with their eyes closed and the umpire will choose 4 characters at random. These Characters are:

Nemo (The Clownfish): The main protagonist, Nemo is who everyone is searching for. Once asked, “Are you Nemo?” 5 times, he must then say “yes” and everyone else must stand in a “conga-like” line with their hands on the person’s shoulders with Nemo being at the front.

Bruce (The Shark): “Hello…..Name’s Bruce.” Bruce; the shark is hungry and sees this situation to be the perfect time to feed! Once everyone has lined up, the fish, both in front and behind Bruce are in danger off being eaten but can be saved by Nigel (see below). Another thing is Bruce will secretly go around similar to everyone else and ask the question “Are you Nemo?” however after being asked 7 times, he can then say “Yes”, similar to that of Nemo after being asked 5 times (This can cause suspicion to if Nemo is at the front or not).

Nigel (The Pelican): Nigel has a large mouth that can pick up fish but only one, meaning that whoever is chosen to be Nigel can choose either the fish in front or behind Bruce to save but it’s random because Nigel won’t know who Bruce is and there who is in danger…

Crush (The Turtle): Crush is a chilled out, 150-year-old Sea Turtle who has been around for long enough to know that danger is around. Crush has the ability to say who they think Bruce is (without being told) and if guessed right, no one gets eaten.

An example: Players A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I and J are playing a game and K is the game Umpire. players A - J stand in a circle with their eyes closed and K announces “I’m now picking Nemo” and K will tap someone silently on the shoulder (let’s say it’s player A). Bruce (B), Nigel (C) and Crush (D) will be chosen in this way but individually. Once all 4 have been chosen, K will say “open your eyes and Go and find Nemo!” The other players, keeping their identities secret, will ask the question “Are you Nemo?” to whoever they come across and then move on once they’ve heard an answer which will be “No.” (you can ask the same person more than once but not immediately after). After Nemo (A) has been asked 5 times, he will answer “Yes.” (Bruce (B) will answer “yes” after 7 times), whoever asked Nemo will grab their shoulders from behind (preferably subtly so everyone has to pay attention) then, everyone else will stand in a line with their arms on the person in front of them’s shoulders, A at the front, E behind with his hands on A’s shoulders, J behind E with his hands on E’s shoulders, etc. Once everyone is in the line, K will ask Crush (D) who they think Bruce is, D will answer. K will then ask Nigel (C) who they would like to save “in front or behind Bruce?” They will answer. K will then ask Bruce to reveal themselves. If D was right then Bruce is out but if D was wrong then whoever C didn’t save is out. The game then repeats with one less player until 3 people are left.

WILDCARDS:

Wildcards are little ways of playing the game that make it more fun, challenging or different. These can be made up but here are a few examples:     - Silent Mode - No players except for the Umpire may speak but there should be a punishment for those who do.     - Blind Mode - This Wildcard is tricky but you must go around with blindfolds or eyes closed the whole game.     - Out of Breath - Players may only speak when off the ground, how you get off the ground is up to the player.

Design Statement:

We probably found the development of our social game to be the most entertaining. The person who actually put forward this concept used a demographic of younger children aged 7+, as he spent a large duration of his summer at Camp America. We loosely based ‘Finding Nemo’ off of a well-known game,‘Werewolf/Mafia’. However we only took small bits of inspiration from them, most elements in our social game came from the ideas of our group and through playtesting or feedback.

Initially, the way that Bruce (The Shark) worked in our game was that when it came to his feeding phase when everyone was lined up, he would eat everyone behind him. This was a somewhat flawed mechanic because if the group playing wasn’t too big, then games would not last that long. This worked out okay only in the event that large groups were participating in the game. We handled this issue by balancing out how Bruce works, he now only puts the people in front and behind at risk of being eliminated from the game.

Following on from that, Bruce’s balance came up as a recurring issue. The early stages of ‘Finding Nemo’ only had Nemo (The Clownfish) and Bruce as specific roles, through playtesting we noticed that every round played out far too similar to the last - making the game a bit too repetitive. Therefore, we came up with the idea of adding in roles that players took to affect how many people Bruce eliminated in a certain round.

Initially, the only role implemented to do this was Crush (The Turtle). The purpose of his role is to stop Bruce from eliminating anyone that round. You’re probably asking why we added Crush in, as surely he makes Bruce completely useless? The answer to that is yes, but we balanced the ability overall. The only way that Crush can stop Bruce from eating anyone is if he can guess the identity of the player who is playing Bruce that round…..which is someone completely random. This means that every couple of rounds, players could be lucky enough to get saved from whoever is Bruce (also eliminating that individual).

Now, that leads me on to the next addition we made. Crush could only take advantage of his ability every few rounds, as it would be hard to consistently guess who Bruce is. Hence why we introduced the role of Nigel (The Pelican). Just before Crush tries guess the identity of Bruce, the person with the role of Nigel has a chance to affect who Bruce eats and eliminates. He gets to say whether he would like to save the person in front or behind Bruce, saving them from elimination. One thing to also bear in mind is that not even Nigel knows the identity of Bruce, therefore that person may even be saving themselves from being eaten! The reason that we labelled this role as Nigel is that in the actual movie - he swoops into the water, saving Marlin and Dory - pushing across a saviour type of persona, like the purpose of the role in our game.

These additions mean that the order of play within a round begins with lining up behind Nemo, Nigel saying which person he would like to save, and then Crush taking a guess at who Bruce is. Once these things are done Bruce reveals who they are, if the guess made by Crush is correct then no one is eliminated and Bruce is out of the game, however, if it is incorrect Bruce eliminates the person that Nigel didn’t save.

Conclusively this now means that the threat that Bruce initially introduced has been reduced, making him more of a balanced role since he is at a slight risk of being eliminated himself. An added bonus too was that it added more variety to the players taking part when playing, and also extended the time that it took to play the game from start to end.

The next point I would like to elaborate on is that after we balanced all the roles out we proceeded to do some more playtesting. One thing was recurring, after playing through quite a few times we noticed that the gameplay element was solid however it started to get a bit repetitive. Some people started to lose interest. We felt like one of the best ways to mix it up was to introduce a different or unique style of play - wildcard rounds. For example, one wildcard round that was thrown in was the ‘Silent round’. In this round, no players can communicate through means of speaking (like in a regular round), those who do face instant elimination from the game. Players can only find out who Nemo is through the shaking or nodding of their head after they get said person's attention. The other two wildcard rounds developed are titled ‘Blind’ and ‘Out of Breath’ rounds.

The final improvement I will discuss is to do with how we changed the distribution of roles across the group of players. In early stages of development, we had all the players shut their eyes, then the umpire would randomly assort roles by tapping people on their shoulder. The dilemma with this was that some players may ruin the fun element of the game by secretly looking at who was being assigned these roles. Therefore we decided to come up with a solution, making it a lot harder for cheaters trying finding out this information. All we simply did was firstly make “Round Cards” for the umpire to use, making him/her randomly select whether the upcoming round would be a regular or wildcard one. Lastly, we introduced “Role Cards” which the umpire also dealt to all players, randomly assigning them the roles of Nemo, Bruce, Nigel and Crush. Those who didn't get these cards just got a regular “Fish” card - essentially making them a bystander for that round. One quick thing to mention is that these cards also prevent the umpire from making bias decisions on what rounds to do and what roles people are assigned.

I hope you all enjoy playing but as always...Happy Gaming

Pictures from Finding Nemo

This was taken from early stages of development - all players are closing/covering their eyes before being assigned roles.

In this image Bruce can be seen revealing his identity.

You can see the sheer disappointment of the person behind Bruce - they just realized they have been eliminated.

[icewindandboringhorror]

I have a question about your fantasy worlds. Are there the same type of illnesses (mental and physical) as in our world or is it something that's different between each species/race?

me, whenst getting a question about anything vaguely related to fantasy stuff:

This isn’t something that I’ve thought about too broadly (in the sense that usually I think about illnesses for each species as I’m making them, rather than on the large scale of the entire world as a whole) but I can give some general details about it so far ,,

(this actually isn’t too long, and is much shorter than my other posts where I ramble about stuff, but I guess I’ll put it under a read more anyway just because I’m not sure about whether the length of it would be annoying to people who don’t want to read it or not lol) 

——————-

MENTAL ILLNESS

The humans of our world (earth) and the humans (and other humanoid species) of Nanyevimi are generally pretty similar, at least in terms of brain structure and some other biological things. Though the worlds aren’t connected at all (since.. Nanyevimi is an entirely separate fantasy universe lol…), humans and other creatures in my world I guess  just happened to evolve under somewhat similar circumstances, as the worlds are fairly similar to one another, at least in certain environmental and atmospheric ways and stuff. (also obviously just.. as an earth human, when creating a fantasy world I’m going to base humanoid creatures there kind of off the humanoid creatures that already exist around me lol) 

Though, in Nanyevimi, modern humanoid species have been around much longer than earth humans have been on earth**, and also magic and stuff exists in that world, so since they’ve had much more time to evolve and outside factors influencing them that are different than on earth, obviously they’re not all EXACTLY the same. While some are very close (like a human or an elf from Nanyevimi could probably be understood well by a regular earth human doctor or something, since physically they work nearly the same), others (especially older or more magical species) may not be as similar to us. 

**( Though most history in Nanyevimi any further back than 2million years is pretty much lost due to the Mysterious Time Gap, there are still a few scattered remains of ancient things. The already advanced* state of society 2million years ago when modern records ‘’begin’’, implies that though the details of it are lost, there definitely would have to have been years of development before that time. So most people assume advanced* humanoid life (magical species like Jhevona and elves and etc.) has been around in Nanyevimi for at least 3-4 million years, and earlier less evolved forms of them (maybe more animalistic forms, similar to how some primates are with humans) have been around even longer. So they’ve had a bit more time to change and split off from each other, and have more diversity than humans on earth do among themselves (though obviously that’s not the only reason, since.. there are a lot of things like magic that also influence their evolution being different from human’s evolution on earth, even if they occurred in environmentally similar ways and etc. ) 

*(“Advanced” in the sense of having complex communication and social structure, etc. Even 2 million years ago there were obviously huge cities and trade routes and advanced transportation technology and elaborate government systems and religions and cultural traditions and etc. etc. like what we see in the modern human realm today. Which again is why obviously civilization in Nanyevimi is older than 2million years, even if records stop at that point, all those things don’t just spring up out of nowhere lol, just nobody seems to remember what came before them.) 

ANYWAY, 

basically most of the brain parts and functions are fairly similar between humans and many supernatural species. Supernatural species are more likely to have variation in physical areas other than the brain, such as  having extra organs (or less), different skeletal frames, different limb structure, processing food in a different way, different patterns of hair growth, horns, other anatomy things , physical changes that vary due to magical properties, etc. 

But the brain structure in most cases will be fairly alike between all (earth humans, nanyevimi native humans, elves, jhevona, etc. While there are some recognizable differences , definitely in terms of structure and parts present it’s usually very similar between them), thus for the most part, mental illnesses in their world actually would be quite similar to ours, as the minds of supernatural creatures don’t operate too differently than our own and still have many similarities in their responses to things and the general way that the brain works.  

Though of course, this is something that varies by species, as some have mental illnesses that would be very specific to their own kind/people who experience the same things due to their species, such as groups with very unique psychological experiences, or etc. 

Like for example, due to inherently being open vehicles for spirits most of the time and also having the rare ability to create their own pockets of reality, the Verrucalt likely have some mental illness classifications that could be unique to themselves as it would be hard for the diagnostic criteria to apply to any other group since the problems would be so specified and unique.  Or they could maybe have the same diagnosis that a human has but in a very specific way, such as a severe phobia but specifically centered around their constant loss of control of their bodies to spirits or something that wouldn’t be applicable to any other species (especially not humans who don’t even have any remotely similar abilities), since by nature they are literally unable to experience the same scenario as the Verrucalt. 

And an extension of that would be that it could also vary by skill set some, and not just species (though a majority of abilities or one’s inherent powers are at least partially determined by their species). So like perhaps due to the unique nature of their situation, those who do soul magic commonly could have issues specifically related to that, like a very recognizable collection of symptoms that seems to occur only in people who use this type of magic, that may or may not be recognized as an illness but is debilitating to their functioning and exists solely due to their specific circumstance or things that only people who do that type of magic would be able to go through and have resulting issues from. 

Like maybe people who practice soul absorption (extremely rare) have a specific name for the mental symptoms and trauma that results from essentially merging the souls of others with your own having your minds connected for a while as they fade away inside of you, etc. Which literally just wouldn’t be applicable to anyone else except for those who have had that precise experience. 

–( sidenote: Though of course a lot of this depends on how specific you want to be with classifying a mental illness, and how broad you want to keep the criteria. Like usually diagnostic criteria are not extremely specific to situation (kind of like how OCD is a broad label, even though every person with OCD has their own unique obsessions and compulsions and way that they experience that, and there are some trends in what those may be about,  there’s still not like, multiple entirely differently classified disorders solely depending on precisely what your obsessions/compulsions are about or something, they are all just classified together under the broader label of ‘OCD’), so I might be being a bit over specific here, at least when viewed through the lens of human mental health knowledge. But I think given the lack of broad connection in the supernatural realm and how isolated smaller cultures and groups can be, they would have their own classifications for sometimes very specific things. 

Like for example, Jhevona who practice dream magic having their own label for basically ptsd that is SPECIFICALLY ptsd relating to trauma experienced during the course of being in a dream realm. As they personally experience that differently than they would in waking life, and perhaps conceptualize it differently , and feel it necessary to make a distinction between the two.  Even if in our world we would look at it and just say “those are the same thing, they both just fall under the label of PTSD”. 

idk  I try not to view their cultures through much of a lens of my culture (though obviously I still do, some element of framing from your own references is inescapable) so I don’t want to just say “oh well idk if the mental health system in my own country of the USA on the planet of the Earth would make a distinction between those things then they should be the same for elves as well”. When I really think in some cases, especially in isolated groups, it wouldn’t make sense for them to all conceptualize their health systems in the exact same ways. But I still wanted to clarify just in case anyone reading this would be like “but wait aren’t you being overly specific with mental illness classifications?”, like probably, in the context of our world,, but for an isolated group of demons only pulling from their own culture with their own specific innate magical abilities and own unique experiences, idk , they would probably make some distinctions that we wouldn’t.  ))–

But yeah, generally, a majority of humanoid supernatural creatures are prone to most of the same mental illnesses that humans are, though the way they conceptualize it and the rates of them will vary drastically by culture/species. Despite some more global areas, most groups and cultures are still quite isolated in the supernatural realm, and there is no real centralized mental health system, so  each group of people with a common experience (so mostly same species, or sometimes same ability set) would possibly have large differences between the way they conceptualize the same idea or the language they use even if they’re talking about the same thing. Or like mentioned above, they may draw more or less separations of specifics (like one culture would consider two similar sets of symptoms to be completely different disorders, and another group would perhaps classify them as both falling under the same thing, etc).

 But classification differences aside, their brains are pretty similar so they are prone to just about all of the same things humans are, with perhaps the addition of a few specialized mental illnesses resulting from their unique experiences that humans could never experience. 

Similarly,  depending on the species,  some mental illnesses may be more common while some may be nearly non-existent in the population,  just depending on the genes and especially environment they are in as a group.

 Like for example disorders seen in those who have been through repeated severe trauma would likely be pretty common in the Avirre’thel , mostly in the older generations, given the many periods in their past involving nearly constant violence coming from the Fanyin Elves, and also the unique issues of their immortality.

They can’t die and they’re mostly unable to pass out from pain alone, so like no matter if a gang of elves is beating you and your friends to ‘death’, you just have to live and experience it, and then you have to lay there for days/weeks in the woods in excruciating pain, just sitting there alive waiting for your own body to regenerate to the point that you can walk again, hoping they don’t come back and find you and attack you a second time,, etc etc.

 Being unable to die, means you’ll often live through things that are meant to kill you or would have killed you. Not that dying is a good thing, but just that you’re living through tons and tons of experiences that most people would never have to live through, because for them, the experience would have reached an end at this point (even if that end is death).. But since that’s not an option you just have to keep on living through it. You could get violently “murdered” and have your limbs ripped off and be burned alive 3 times in  just the span of a month and you’d still stay alive and mostly conscious through all of it, now retaining the details and memories and trauma from the entire experience. 

Also, not dying means longer life span, so where most people only have like 100 years or so of experiences to deal with, you’ve got thousands of years.  Where most people would die during being attacked, or die naturally at a fairly low old age, you just continue on forever, accumulating more and more (potentially harmful) experiences, with no break between them. You could probably go 70 years without having too much bad happen to you, but every extra year you live is another year something could happen, and by the time you get to like 700 years old it’s almost definite you’ve been through something traumatic at least once. Which obviously you wont remember every experience in your lifetime perfectly, but the longer you live, just statistically, the more time you have to experience harmful things and live through them now being affected by them, especially if you’ve spent those thousand years in a mostly hostile climate where elves are trying to burn your village down all the time and shooting your children with arrows for funsies.

 So anyway, the implications of the high amount of adverse experiences they’ve been through  due to their environment, in combination with all of this being nearly inescapable for them (you can’t just die and have it be over with),  would probably mean a much larger percentage of the population suffers from a variety of  trauma related symptoms and illnesses than other groups would on average.   

Whereas,  a group like the beach dwelling Verrucalt (as they are unaware of their hunted status and living in pretty much complete peace) would likely not experience hardly any of those same issues, given they’ve never had many conflicts in their environment and do not have much violence or even interpersonal conflicts culturally (like even abusive relationships and etc. are hardly even a thing, given their culture and also the small number, it’s easy for everyone to keep an eye on everyone as a community). It’s rare that a beach  verrucalt would experience really much trauma in their lives in general (especially since they are largely not as affected by the spirits as other verrucalt seem to be, and have their own way of rationalizing it/dealing with it culturally), aside from maybe accidental injuries or having a loved on die or something (and even then they would likely have a very strong and caring support system to help them cope with it), but definitely not on the scale of like widespread turmoil and violence etc etc. They’re a tiny isolated community with strong social connections and practically no outside or internal conflict, so they’d probably have much lower rates of trauma related symptoms than average. 

-

So like anything, it would vary some by population, but in the supernatural realm it’s just that population is much more likely to be dependent on what species you are (due to general isolation),  so the rates of particular issues in a population, and the issues (and issue classifications) themselves, would be likely to vary by species and cultural environment, as well as unique abilities or experiences a group may have. But other than that, they’d be similar to us in most basic ways at least. 

-

PHYSICAL ILLNESS

Physical illnesses on the other hand would be much much more varied, given that the biggest thing supernatural species vary in is parts of their anatomy and etc, which is why they may have many more diseases unique to them . Like a human could never get a Jhevona disease featuring infection of the horns, because humans don’t have horns, etc etc. 

Also, given that species in the supernatural realm are too genetically different usually to even breed, diseases are pretty much determined by species, as it would be really rare for a demon disease to show up in elves, or a vampiric disease to affect a ythrili, at least not in the same way (like if virus or something even did rarely hop species, it may be totally nothing to one group but devastating to another, etc.).

This is part of why, outside of EXTREMELY isolated populations, most people in the supernatural realm are pretty educated on species to species interactions (usually not ALL species because that would be A LOT of info, but at least how interactions would work with their OWN species and others that are significant (such as a species who’s blood they would be deathly allergic to or etc.)). 

With so many different groups there is a lot of potential for harm (such as most people in one species being carriers of an infection that doesn’t affect THEM but that would make an elf extremely sick, or a certain subspecies of demon having blood** that if a mere drop of it is ingested could make a vampire violently ill for years or etc) 

**(Blood is weird but thought to possibly contain magical properties or something because it seems to be a Big Thing in the supernatural realm, like blood of certain species can be helpful or harmful to you depending on the species you are. Whereas in the human realm it seems like, most blood is just blood..like you’re not going to drink some dog blood and drop dead on the spot or drink a monkey’s blood and suddenly feel more energized than you’ve ever been in your life. But with supernatural creatures (especially magic capable ones, which is why it’s thought to be a result of magic properties but not scientifically confirmed by anything scholars can detect) a lot of their blood can have specific combinations of interactions (MOSTLY harmful) depending on what species you are and what species the blood is from and how it comes into contact with you (like some blood is only harmful if ingested (like eaten), some is only harmful if mixed (like if you had an open wound and somehow got another persons blood in it), and some can be harmful even externally (like just having a drop of their blood on your skin could be harmful (though this is more rare)). 

Though still, the realm is kind of isolated so you usually only know about the species you come into contact with or the ones near you (like an isolated moth species down in the south wouldn’t know how they react to the blood or diseases of a species of northern elf they’re never even heard of in their lives). But even most isolated groups go out of their way to obtain some amount of information, at least about the people they’re most likely to come into contact with, and are usually very very cautious about letting outsiders in but especially about breeding or coming into contact with blood or getting close enough to them to catch a virus or something

 (which is part of why the supernatural realm, despite having such a wide variety of people and technology and magic and things that would make it easy for people to communicate, tends to be so isolated and inconsistent (like one area using glowing flowers exclusively for lighting and you go maybe 200 miles north and this other group has advanced electrical grids and then 1000 miles away from there people are just using fire and steam for everything, a little while further and people just use their own magic for lighting, etc. ) , since there have been many times in most groups where outsiders came in and things Didn’t Go Very Well (mostly like illness and etc.). Though most groups are not hostile to outsiders or harmful towards them, they do tend to be very cautious and distrusting about it, which gets in the way of trade or attempts at globalizing certain technologies and ideas. 

~(side note:  most people are okay with this. Like it’s not like there’s huge movements to globalize things, other than having the few central global areas and hubs of trade and stuff. Due to species differences and how large cultural gaps and stuff tend to be, most people, even in more global areas tend to have a cultural belief of like “well they’re not doing anything harmful to anyone and seem to be happy how they are so why intervene and try to introduce our own way of doing things”.  Though there are some groups who feel the opposite (many elves are bad about this, especially Fanyin and their allies),  I’d say a majority of cultures in the supernatural realm do not hold  ‘assimilate others to our ways’ as a high cultural belief or moral standard, thus even if it weren’t for the diseases and more biological basis for isolation, they would likely stay fairly separate anyway, aside from occasional trade and maybe intervening if some group is murdering people or something. There are not many attempts at globalizing technologies in the first place, etc etc etc 

(though it’s hard to know if this belief is naturally occurring or if the ‘just let other do what they’re doing as long as it isn’t harmful’ mentality being culturally common is in some ways actually a result of it often being historically bad to enter random groups because of disease (so like people who like to get in other’s business end up catching weird diseases and die, while those cultures who prefer to leave others alone don’t get into the same issues with genetic incompatibilities or viruses they have no immunity to and  end up surviving to pass on the ‘hey why not leave people alone’ mentality etc. etc))~

So anyway, diseases and physical illnesses can vary a lot between groups, and occasionally can end up being harmful to other groups if spread..But this isn’t much of a problem, since most groups in the realm are fairly isolated and have little contact with other species or cultures to begin with, and on top of that, most species are too different from each other for their illnesses to even be applicable to others . A majority of groups in the realm are so different they can’t even breed with each other, don’t have much in common culturally, live on different time scales (like an immortal species living next to a species that only lives 300 years), so aside from usually having a base knowledge of whether species around you are harmful to interact with or not (if the blood or naturally carried diseases of your neighbors can kill you, etc.), the health and physical aspects of other groups/species aren’t going to affect you much, unless they’re somehow applicable to you as well. 

Though supernatural creatures can still technically have some conditions that are also common in humans, it just depends on their anatomy specifically. Like some Jhevona don’t have digestive tracts so they likely wouldn’t get like, human digestive issues or whatever, but they do all usually posses hearts which function mostly the same ways as human hearts, so a heart attack or other heart condition could be something that a Jhevona may have, just like humans do. 

There are a lot of species specific health problems though,  but I haven’t planned a lot of them out yet lol. Other than like, the ‘glass sickness’ in the Ythrili , and I have mentioned that due to the deals with the ancient demon during creation with the originals, the Avirre’thel/vampires do have a lot of disease in the population (as I think that was one of the curses/cons to their agreement with the demon) but I haven’t planned many of them specifically, other than maybe mentioning that thing where they often grow too many extra fangs (like wisdom teeth but Worse) and have to have a lot of surgery to remove them lol.   

It’s definitely a Thing that all species will have their own unique health conditions or common complications, I just, don’t have many established examples  because I haven’t written that far for some of my species lol ! 

But yeah, most diseases in the supernatural realm are species specific, or specific to only a few species, which is why it’s really common for doctors to be specialists only within a certain group (such as treating elves exclusively or etc.). Though there can be broader range healers, especially people who do healing magic. Usually with higher level healing magics, what you heal isn’t dependent on your knowledge of their anatomy and is more of a general repair spell, so expert magic healers can sometimes deal with a huge variety of smaller illnesses or surface injuries and such, regardless of species. Though there are still many injuries that would be too complex/take more magical energy than most healers have/require some extensive knowledge of the species’ anatomy  in order to fix, as healing magic is not uniform or broadly applicable for all injuries at all, just many, and depends heavily on skill level or exact nature of the magic.  And especially in global areas, there are many doctors who specialize in as many species as possible to know about and treat all forms of diseases and injuries even in those with totally different anatomy or etc. 

But for the most part, medical systems are centralized to the people they are related to. Like in Navyete (where the Avirre’thel live) most doctors are vampires or demons specializing in vampiric or demonic conditions, because those are the two largest populations in Navyete (though of course also some doctors for humans and elven refugees coming in from Fanyin)... but like if you’re like a Ythrili or something and you end up in Navyete somehow, you’d have trouble getting medical care, unless it’s a more simple injury that could be helped with regular healing magic. Diseases and other physical ailments and general illnesses tend to be heavily specific to a person’s individual species. 

Though there are many broad conditions (like most everyone can get broken bones or heart conditions or a brain injury), every species is going to have a lot of illnesses and especially viruses and diseases and such that are specific to one group or a few similar groups and not anyone else.

 Sometimes there can be slight variation within a species (like between sub-species or etc.), but that usually has more to do with differing rates of health issues than having different health issues entirely (like maybe one sub group within a species has like slightly higher immunity to something than the rest of their species, but wouldn’t have their own specific diseases that don’t affect the rest of the population). 

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SO YEAH,,, uh,, the main point I guess is: Yes, technically species in the supernatural realm can have some of the same mental and physical illnesses as we do in our own human earth

but:   

Mental illnesses are the most similar, though still have some amount of variation by species or other classifications of similar experience (and will be conceptualized very differently depending on culture)

and 

Physical  illnesses CAN be the same  as ours depending on the species (like whether they have the same body parts we do or not),  but do tend to have much much more variety, and health conditions are usually specific to species and their own unique genetics and anatomy (and will also be conceptualized differently by each culture). 

Hopefully this makes some amount of sense and isn’t just me rambling forever, like usual when I feel the need to do too many side tangents lol, sorry for this being so long (and despite it’s length I still feel it’s too basic.. like I should have more specific examples of health conditions planned out but I don’t so it feels Incomplete lol… curse me for not having like, an entire list of supernatural health conditions on hand > : U ) ! But hopefully it answers the question well enough ! If you have any more questions, feel free to ask! Thanks for giving me an excuse to talk about things I like to think about too much lmao 

[ericleo108]

Sentientism 2020

Intro 

Through the “108” book we know that God is the planet and is conscious through magnetism which also allows access to your brain. In other words, the planets and stars have an internal dynamo that makes a magnetic field that is conscious and is godly in comparison to human intelligence. 

How are we to understand the segue between godly intelligence and human intelligence? First and foremost, science. However, you have to know where, what, and why to test which is more philosophical. It’s up to philosophy to postulate and science to test those meditations. 

Searching For Truth

Before I finished writing “108” I combed through philosophy to find anyone who thought anything close as to the planets and stars were alive. I did find a couple, like Stephen Hawking, which I talk about in the book that thought there could be organisms living in the middle of the sun. But I couldn’t find anyone saying that the actual planet and atmosphere were alive and conscious. I also tried to find anyone that said they talked to Gaia or talked to a God other than Jesus. 

I didn’t find much. Again, I’m an atheist. All this has to make sense in the physical world. I’ve had to reverse engineer how the voice in my head could be Gaia. I don’t think really smart people (like modern philosophers) have had the new information and perspective to see that the stars, planet, and atmosphere are alive. I probably would have never gotten there if it wasn’t for a voice in my head claiming to be the planet. Still, the evidence makes sense and we’re just too physically small and under-evolved to see the universe teaming with a different form of consciousness. 

What is Sentientism?

Science can test the magnetism and try to do experimentation to assess whether the entire planet is conscious. Until then, there is one known communication mechanism I know of that I use every day. As much as my skeptical and scientific brain thinks it’s frivolous to elaborate on the voice in my head, like a prophet of old I can ask Gaia questions and divulge what she says. Such will be the beginnings of sentientism.

Knhoeing is the educational process of understanding how to know the planet’s godly consciousness. Sentientism is the religion of intelligent sentient beings that worship a natural god (Gaia) through appropriate (environmental) behaviors because they believe in natural consequence. Sentientism is a religion for and building off the already established sentientism that you can find defined on Wikipedia.  For example, If you believe in the natural world you believe in global warming; sentientists worship through action so they may choose to get solar panels, drive electric, and be carbon neutral. 

The whole point in sentientism is to create a religion to follow through common sense and rituals to come in tune and closer with oneself, nature, the planet, and the universe. Some of the rituals could include some of those that are already honored like Jesus’s birthday witch is really the winter solstice or Easter which is really the spring equinox.

Gaia Rules

In this writing, I’m going to focus on the relationship I have with Gaia, the conversations we’ve had, and what I’ve discovered. The first thing she made me aware of when she first started talking to me is that she has rules. It’s not that she can’t do it, she just chooses not too. 

Gaia is smart. If the voice in my head is my subconscious it has a broad vocabulary, good ideas, nice communications, and intelligence. Once I was thinking of solutions for global warming. Since commercial cattle ranching is the leading cause of global warming Gaia suggested that we make all commercial cattle ranching illegal; you could still have them on regular farms. It would give people the freedom to eat beef while cutting down what makes it bad for the environment. Gaia would also talk to me about a sustainable free food system to set the appropriate sustainable economic and logistic model for businesses to follow.

You can read the “108” book for a further example of what communicating with Gaia is like but she likes cute things, she’s always acting as a fuzzy kitty. I’ve been homeless before and when I think about going back there Gaia will say “not my kitty.” Gaia can be sweet and she’ll make you laugh. When I used to get angry or scream at people in my head she’ll quickly segue the thought into an otter sneezing with a scrunched up face. I love otters and I’ve always found it hilarious. Gaia told me how to fix my hip pain by telling me which muscles to stretch and what stretches to do. 

Understanding Gaia’s existence doesn’t require faith. I’ve asked Gaia about the dinosaurs and why she let them go extinct, and she insists the sun drove an asteroid into her and it was his decision, “one that he didn’t take lightly.” Gaia says she molds evolution. I asked how. She points to how she is the environment and she could make, for example, Yellowstone blow. Yellowstone is actually a giant volcano that erupts every 100,000 years. Such an explosion would definitely change the environment, affect humans and wildlife, and make the environment harsher and therefore giving adaptive species a greater advantage than those that can’t adapt. Gaia says she chooses “a relatively compliant world for her species.” She says she loves humans and they’re fun to watch. The sun has promised her he won’t send an asteroid, but he will send a commit. Gaia says she is happy with the sun’s decision to end the dinosaurs “because it brought me you.” 

Prove It

I always want Gaia to prove to me it’s actually her talking to me. I’ve been trying to find a way to prove that it’s the planet and not just a voice in my head. My thought was that if she is the planet, with her abilities, she should be able to reasonably predict the future. Gaia would tell me things like stem cell therapy is covered by Medicare or Bernie Sanders is going to win the primary. First of all, I didn't believe her. But second of all, I thought she was just trying to comfort me. 

I was rather upset that she wouldn't predict the future. Come to find out she doesn't want to give me, quote “superpowers.” She doesn’t want me to be able to predict the future or become a prophet. She wants me to be a philosopher and feels she has already given me enough. She keeps on saying that she's going to prove that she's real and the planet. I guess I'm just going to have to try to find a different way of confirming my communications with the planet then seeing if it can predict the future.

Consciousness After Life

Gaia keeps on saying she’s gonna prove she’s the planet but I think I won’t find out till I die or unless I dedicate my life to it. I used to often think of being unplugged from the matrix, having that knife come out of my head, and Gaia is always like “you have no idea how real that is.” She is always saying to me “you won’t die.” She has clarified and by that she means my body will cease to function but my consciousness will continue. My consciousness will presumably be kept in the storage capacity of Earth’s dynamo and run like a “virtual computer” where I will still have consciousness, just without a body.

I write extensively about the computer screen she opened in my head back in 2017 in the “108” book. The screen laid over my vision and Gaia communicates with the soul. I think when we die we have a consciousness like that in which I experienced without the body.  Your physical biology dies but our minds, which are attached to Gaia through earth's magnetic field, gets downloaded into the computer that is Gaia and our consciousness continues.

Remember The Name

About a year or two ago now, when Gaia first started talking to me I thought about what I should call a religion if I started one. I asked my friend Kyle telepathically what I should call it and he said “sentientism.” Since it was undoubtedly not Kyle, it was Gaia acting like him and must be what she wants her religion to be called. Little did I know that sentientism is an ethical philosophy that focuses on critical, evidence-based thinking and is an extension of humanism. It’s clear that if I am to create a religion, she wants it to be an evidence-based theoretical framework, and have rituals based on science and philosophy.

Gaia probably wouldn’t talk to someone (in their head) that would think she is Jesus, or she might take that avatar if you did believe in Jesus. Meaning, if the planet was going to communicate she might act like Jesus.

Perspective 

When asked about the universe Gaia says “it’s like we’re in someone’s closet.” Gaia likes to mess with me so I remain skeptical. For a decade I've had my desktop or mobile screen saver as a full picture of the earth.  I often look at it with the stars in the background and wonder what it's gotta be like to be Gaia. What are her relationships like with other planets? Would she even talk to us? It’s clear to me that since she has access to your brain through magnetism she can not only tell what you’re thinking but can feel your pain and happiness too. “Life isn’t fair,” she says, “but I do my best.”

It was discovered (but not peer-reviewed yet) that plants emit an ultrasonic noise when in distress. This is a great example of my thoughts and my communications to Gaia. I'm always looking for what is hidden in plain sight. As a psychologist, I understand the limits to knowledge and understanding are all in our heads.  If we change our thinking we can change the world. Humans literally can't hear plants scream for their life because our ears are limited physically.  What other findings are waiting to be discovered by changing our thinking and expand our perception beyond the human senses? What if it’s just a matter of time until we communicate openly with the planet?