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loneberry · 7 years ago

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THE LOST GIRL’S HOME IS IN BOOKS: spring leisure reading

Girl Reading (1850), oil on canvas, Andre Fontaine

Writing on my phone. On the train. Woke with a sore throat. Snow outside the Manhattan window turning to sludge and then puddles. In the morning Alex and I made our way to Tisch to pick up books from Wendy and sit in on Fred Moten’s class. He spoke for three hours about a paragraph in Zalamea’s Synthetic Philosophy of Contemporary Mathematics, constellating the Isley Brothers with quantum physics with the history of slavery with Solange with financialization with the spatio-temporal dimensions of Judaism with critiques of the individuated liberal subject. In Fred’s presence I’m always in awe. When he says the stream of thought will go where it goes, I know what he means, what it feels like, to want to read everything. To have no filters. To be a being who is…interested. “You know, it’s like a river that winds through all these different terrains, and part of it winds through the history of science, and part of it winds through category theory and general topology, and part of it winds through Russian cinema—I’m just interested.” (Moten) Would like to linger more on the things I read and not just mark passages to return to…later. Has grad school de-skilled me? Has the process of becoming a “historian”—of having to read thousands of pages per class in grad seminars destroyed my ability to read slowly? Poetry is becoming harder to read. It demands a kind of attention other than the kind of attention I have become accustomed to—the temporality forced into me by the academic grind. Last semester I did my comprehensive exams. For two hours I was quizzed by 4 professors on the contents of ~400 books. My fields were: Prisons and Police; History and Political Economy of Race in America; Social and Political Theory (Marxism, psychoanalysis, critical theory, Frankfurt School, feminist/queer theory, post-structuralism); and Black Literature, Theory and Cultural Studies. “Studying” for my exams hardly felt like studying at all—I was just doing what I’ve always done: read. But the thing about being in academia is…you can’t just read what you want to read (unless you’re Fred!), you’re supposed to specialize. Your supposed to read within your discipline, to be monogamous with your dissertation topic. But sometimes…my mind needs ventilation. I need to let my mind wander. So this spring break I went on a kind of “retreat”—I rented a little eco-bungalow on a mountain overlooking the ocean in Deshaies, Guadalupe, with the intention to do nothing except read, journal & spend time in nature. It’s weird to now have a life where I have to schedule in these compressed snatches of leisure. Between my academic life and artist/public intellectual life all life is becoming work work work. Constant travel, mountains of assignments to grade, grant applications, bureaucracy, student emails, assigned readings, lesson planning, talks—in psychoanalysis I am sometimes too fatigued to finish my sentences. What was it? “The disquieting feeling that we don’t own ourselves.” My poor journal, neglected since last semester. Turned inside-out and called into presence by the Pavlovian PING of the push notification. Life becomes the work of feeding the avatar. It’s nothing new. It’s the same ole subject formation, in overdrive. The you of I (alienated Lacanian subject) — identification with an image of self that circulates as…I-am-that. When the avatar takes over your life, when you become what the public makes you…how can you find a way to re-inhabit your life as you? Quiet. Unplug. Has busyness evacuated my inner life? I’m still me. But look at how much my situation has changed…

Here are my notes on the books I read over spring break (some finished the week after I returned…)

Tolstoy - Anna Karenina

My skin takes it in. Ghosts enter and leave this vessel, Sunship Earth. Body, too, will become a ruined beach house covered in pale violet morning glory vines, its shutters still hinged shut. Now Nabokov is analyzing the varied march of time in Tolstoy—there is something like a moral in Kitty and Levin’s slow dance, against the locomotive thrust of Anna and Vronsky. A road—to where? The bull in the clearing, the smell of the tiny yellow flowers and the fade, the gloaming, the wall of water, peach-haloed in the sunset. The dimming, the peep of the first cicada, the crushed cicada that lost its way, the dream that wrote her destiny, the dirty peasant rooting around in the sack—the man split by the wheels of the locomotive. A force that nothing, no one escapes. [Holy shit. As I type these notes from my journal my train has been stopped in Providence because the train ahead of us hit someone]. Yes, I have had the dream of the man with his hand in my sack [“It was crowded in the market. I was trying to photograph the flowers but the image was distorted because a man had his hand in my backpack”]. Can a sudden silence wake a sleeping body? I think, as I wake, that I have caught the day in the precise moment of transition. What crossed over then, the wind swept the island clean. Like Anna Karenina I have been under the spell of the dream: what I now no longer know if I can trust. Nothing could have saved Anna the terrible omen flashing above her life…

Nabokov - Lectures on Russian Literature

Freud and Baldwin love Dostoyevsky. Nabokov loathes him. What does that tell you about the kinds of people who love and hate Dostoyevsky? Lovers of Dostoyevsky: hysterics, neurotics, fringe-dwellers, madmen. Dostoyevsky is to literature what Zulawski is to cinema (emotional excess–which is why teens also love Dostoyevsky). This whole book is an argument for Tolstoy and against Dostoyevsky. Lovers of Tolstoy: the good, the moral, the erudite, Oprah. Nabokov is a snob à la Adorno, but his lectures on Tolstoy are damn good (skip the ones on Dostoyevsky), especially the ones on dreams and time in Anna K.

Nabokov and Barabtarlo - Insomnia Dreams

This book is pretty fucking cool. It is an inventory of Nabokov’s proleptic dreams, which he wrote down on notecards after reading J. W. Dunne’s An Experiment with Time. Dunne was an aeronautical engineer and crackpot philosopher who developed what I sometimes call stoner dream theory. He believed that past-present-future exist simultaneously and that the experience of time as an arrow moving forward is an effect of waking consciousness. In dreams we are unhitched from normative time and can access the future–are touched by future events.

Notebook notes: Dunne and Nabokov dream to know time in every direction. So future events loop back to pierce our sleeping heads. Did I believe—the future is making contact with me. What did the dream corrupt? I could not outrun it. Nabokov dreaming of South Station [strange, that’s where I’m headed as I type up these notes…]. Dreams of the lepidopterist: chasing the butterflies with a giant spoon instead of a net. Sometimes he’s an insufferable pedant. But even pedants can have a compelling dream life…

Lemov - Database of Dreams: The Lost Quest to Catalog Humanity

Professor Lemov teaches in the History of Science department at Harvard. She is currently a faculty fellow in a year-long Crime and Punishment seminar at Harvard that I am also a part of. I first got interested in her work after she presented an excellent paper on the history of Cold War behaviorist experiments (many of which were conducted on prisoners, including the practice of “psychosurgery”) and early efforts to use data to construct psychological theories of deviance. When I found out she wrote a history of a dream database, I knew I had to read it.

This book is a history of Bert Kaplan’s ambitious mid-20th century quest to create a database of dreams and psychological data (called the Primary Records in Culture and Personality), which consists of a collection of the raw notes of the thoughts, feelings, and dreams of people from around the world, stored on the now-obsolete technology of the Microcard. It is at once a history of: microfilm technologies, data science, the information storage ambitions of postwar social scientists and anthropologists, and psychologists’ obsession with the dreams and unconscious thoughts of ethnic “others.” The story of the database is fascinating in itself…but I wanted to know more about what was in the repository. Sometimes the unconscious speaks:

“A man named Birch Tree told of a dying young man of his acquaintance who had dreamed too ambitiously: one night, he was able to see ‘every leaf in the whole world’ and perished soon after, like the leaves that fall from the trees each year.”

“dream #19, in which he was shooting birds, surrounded by sunflowers as big as evergreen trees”

“Dreams were “palimpsests for understanding what could be called ‘not-self,’ the place at which the self begins to shade away into nothingness or something else.”

“If you sat in a library looking at someone’s dreams, what were you seeing?”

The database of dreams was dead on arrival.

But there’s another living database of dreams assembled by oneirologist Kelly Bulkeley: http://sleepanddreamdatabase.org/ – have read and enjoyed several of Bulkeley’s books too. The convocation of the oneirologists…

Sliwinski - Mandela’s Dark Years

How strange, I read this two days before the death of Winnie Mandela. Did Nelson dream of Winnie while in prison? There is a lot to chew on in this little book. I keep returning to the dream that is circled in the text, Nelson Mandela’s dream from prison:

I had one recurring nightmare. In the dream, I had just been released from prison—only it was not Robben Island, but a jail in Johannesburg. I walked outside the gates into the city and found no one there to meet me. In fact, there was no one there at all, no people, no cars, no taxis. I would then set out on foot toward Soweto. I walked for many hours before arriving in Orlando West, and then turned the corner toward 8115. Finally, I would see my home, but it turned out to be empty, a ghost house, with all the doors and windows open, but no one at all there.

The subject in absentia dreams their erasure while in prison, the experience of becoming-ghost. (Mandela’s recurring nightmare. How apartheid structures the geography of the unconscious…)

Szabó - The Door

“If there was [an] article about what to read once you’ve finished Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, The Door—though it lacks the scope of those books—might top the list.” I read no such list but did finish the Neapolitan novels last year. I read The Door after it was recommended by 3 of my feminist friends.

To say what this book is about would fail to get at the experience of reading this book. It’s deeply disturbing and all the more so because Emerence, the narrator’s housekeeper, is the exact likeness of my aunt Helen. They are women for whom every emotional door has been sealed shut. They both had dogs that were passionately attached to them. Under what conditions does the wound grow into an impenetrable shell? Grow into the pride of self-sufficiency…

Notes: The book is bookended by a recurring nightmare of a door that won’t open. An ambulance outside, and the silhouettes of paramedics seen through glass. Most of my dreams are about the absence of shelter, porous structures, rooms that are always open to invaders. But here is a nightmare about being trapped inside with someone in need of help. Ferrante’s Days of Abandonment resonates too.

Resonances. Lightning strikes the two babes Emerence was fleeing with. In Anna Karenina, lightning missed Kitty and child. The plots of two novels are crossed. What characters evade in one novel befalls characters in another. It’s like the books are talking to each other through the body of me.

Schmitt - Political Theology

We should discuss this book in person. My thoughts are too sprawling to give shape to them here. People on the left read Schmitt for his critique of liberalism and though there are parts of it I find compelling (I’ve elaborated the concept of a “financial state of exception” in my book Carceral Capitalism), the part about liberal democracy lacking decisionism because it’s weighed down by a Weberian bureaucracy is, I think, wrong. Well, that’s what I felt while reading McCoy’s In the Shadows of the American Century immediately following Political Theology.

McCoy - In the Shadows of the American Century

This book is part of an ever-growing body of literature on the decline of US hegemony and the rise of China as a global superpower. But what this book adds to the analysis is a thought-provoking discussion of the changing nature of geopolitical struggles–from a navel-based strategy to a land-based strategy. McCoy unpacks the influence of Halford Mackinder’s theory of the Geographical Pivot of History, which posits that the future belongs to whoever controls the Eurasian landmass (the World-Island). During the Cold War the US has maintained its hegemony by controlling key axial points–through NATO in western Europe (on the west side of the World-Island), and the strategic positioning of military/naval bases around the Pacific, and the forging of political and economic alliances with South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, etc. This book is a good overview of how the US built and maintained its empire, and offers possible blueprints for its decline (McCoy’s analysis of Obama’s attempts to salvage US hegemony through his “pivot toward Asia” and Trump’s acceleration of the decline of US hegemony was interesting…). After reading about the CIA’s covert operations in Latin America I felt that liberal democracy is not at all lacking decisionism, as Schmitt says, but like all states it maintains its power through brute force (militarism/war), international diplomacy, strategic alliances, soft power, proxy warfare and covert operations, international trade agreements, technological prowess, surveillance, etc.

Saterstrom - Ideal Suggestions

What is the relationship between what is seen and unseen?

Saterstrom’s poetics can be summed up by her line: “dust mote footing the invisible”–the “thing” itself is often absent, even as it mutates everything present, but there are ways to access ghosts, traces, invisible forces, and the disappeared. Like a projection that flashes when it catches smoke in the phantasmagoria–you can catch it in the transition.

The form of the book is satisfying. I enjoy the way it alternates between ars poetica and the enactment of the poetics it is trying to sketch.

Notes:

“In the other world everything also exists. But in versions complicated by the softness that dissolution makes.”

“what happens between women when the center of female triangulation is scarcity and lack?”

Simone Weil: “When a contradiction is impossible to resolve except by a lie, then we know that it is really a door.”

divinatory poetics as a way to bear “the absurdity and enchantment of human experience”

to write from “within the membranous precincts between our multiple bodies in the larger rhizomatic field of resonances, where much is sounding and is also unsounded.”

Christian Hawkey: “the holes in our bodies and skulls are voice chambers, sound chambers, wherein our own voiced selves and the voiced selves of others constantly enter and exit, and are changed by our bodies upon entrance, exit. Consciousness…is less a vehicle for “self-presence” than a void, a blank space at the site of intersection.”

“the friendship of our ghosts”

“A raw garnet dug up from earth appears as a piece of burned glass and smells of warm dirt. How did this garnet come to rest here, pinned between sky and sea, a mineral between the here and hereafter? Lines made through the absenting of lines, they suggest their phantom shapes into calligraphy. And someone arrives, a dead poet, she writes in an elegant script a poem about geese. It is a melancholic poem featuring geese, a landscape, and reflections about death. How do the deceased live within the blurred calligraphic strokes dependent upon whatever it was we erased? Who was here first? The process of being read, truly read. One day our lines appear in some other’s erasure.”

Where Freedom Starts (an anthology of essays on #MeToo)

This is an excellent collection of essays on #MeToo that captures the spectrum of feminist responses to the nascent movement. It includes black feminist critiques of carceral feminism, a discussion of black and Latinx vulnerability to sexual violence in the sphere of domestic labor, queer critiques of moral sex panics, feminist analyses of social reproduction, analyses of how undocumented women are hyper-vulnerable to sexual assault in the workplace (and at risk of deportation if they report sexual abuse), and more. I appreciate that many of these essays attempt to grapple with the emotionally and politically messy aspects of sexual violence–How do we determine the category or degree of the harm done? What you do when you feel ambivalence toward your rapist and internalize blame? How is victimhood constructed? I plan to return to these topics and questions in an essay I hope to write in May.

**This ebook is free from Verso.** Get it here.

Marina Van Zuylen - The Plentitude of Distraction

If I ever teach my Lost Girls class on the poetics of wandering, I would definitely include this book!! So, so good. Yes, the poet needs to give herself over to her reveries. To luxuriate in the waywardness of experience–the soul cut loose.

Notes: Darwin’s great regret: “Up to the age of thirty, or beyond it, poetry of many kinds … gave me great pleasure, and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shakespeare, especially in the historical plays. I have also said that formerly pictures gave me considerable, and music very great delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost my taste for pictures or music…. My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive…. If I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.”

Discussed this Darwin passage with my analyst for some time. I don’t want to become a work machine! Give me “delicious idleness”!

“stop measuring your days by what you can report to your boss or to your conscience”

waywardness: “reveries unfasten him from his constructed social persona, eventually converting dispersal into a gathering of self-hood”

Blaise Pascal, Pensées: “The only thing that consoles us for our miseries is diversion. And yet it is the greatest of our miseries. For it is that above all which prevents us thinking about ourselves and leads is imperceptibly to destruction. But for that we should be bored, and boredom would drive us to seek some more solid means of escape, but diversion passes our time and brings us imperceptibly to our death.”

“the pure pleasure of a contemplative experience”

“It is not too late to side with some of the great propagandists of wasted time, with the practitioners of reverie, and cultivate the pleasures and pains of mental mayhem.”

Marx - Capital Vol 1

It’s always a good time to re-read Marx. In December I started a Capital reading group with my comrades LaKeyma and Joohyun. Marx is best read with your women of color crew!

Sithole - Steve Biko: Decolonial Meditations of Black Consciousness

Did an event with the incredible Tendayi Sithole at NYU (moderated by Fred Moten and Wendy Lotterman), so I wanted to read Tendayi’s work on Biko before the event. Many parts of the book draw on Afropessimism to analyze Biko’s liberatory political philosophy. We had a long discussion (privately and during the panel) about Afropessimism’s reception in South Africa (”it’s given us a language to understand our predicament,” says Tendayi). Such good work, and such a wonderful person and poet too!! During the reading Fred said Tendayi and I “became a band.”

McGuckian - The Flower Master

Re-read this at the Deshaies botanical gardens in Guadalupe. Unfuckwithable. McGuckian is one of my favorite poets of all time. Also read the parts about McGuckian in Northern Irish Poetry and the Russian Turn. Had no idea McGuckian draws so heavily from Russian literature, and that she feels there is a natural kinship between Russians and the Irish due to their historical predicaments…

Harford - Fifty Inventions that Shaped the Modern Economy

Pop economic/business and tech history. Replete with compelling stories and fun facts about underappreciated inventions. The chapters I was most interested in were the ones about inventions that fundamentally transformed gendered labor (TV dinners, infant formula, the birth control pill). After a while this books started to annoy me because the novelty wore off and I can only handle so much praise of the so-called wonders of capitalism.

Brogaard and Marlow - The Superhuman Mind

I don’t think I’m any smarter after having read this book. It’s somewhere between pop science (in the style of Oliver Sacks) and self-improvement literature. The book tries to give you mental “hacks”–mnemonics and algorithmic mental shortcuts. Most of the the book describes case studies of people who have accidentally unlocked superhuman mental capacities as a result of a brain injury, stroke, etc…or they were just born neurologically atypical. Synesthetes have good memories. If you’ve ready any of the pop sci books on memory you already know these tricks… the Greeks have known about the Memory Room for a while too…

Still reading:

Moten’s Black and Blur

Anne Boyer’s A Handbook of Disappointed Fate

Doudna and Sternberg’s A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution

Frank Stanford - The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You

#books #leisure reading #reading

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mykonet · 4 years ago

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Psychedelics and Creative Destruction

Psychedelic drugs have a deep connection to the arts, and by now everyone knows Silicon Valley is crawling with illicit drug users. Steve Jobs said LSD helped him innovate during the early days of Apple. Since then, leaders in the tech world felt comfortable speaking to the benefits of psychedelics. In particular, Silicon valley leaders discuss psychedelics as “practical tools for harnessing creativity and solving complex problems."

Bouncing back from adversities like the pandemic requires creative thinking. Therefore, creativity is a fundamental part of building resilience in individuals and teams. Creativity should be a top priority among business leaders and strategists.

Innovation drives the economy, and it can make or break a company or a career. It’s obvious creativity and innovation go hand-in-hand, which is why leaders invest in tools and techniques that drive innovation, such as psychedelics.

The evidence supporting the efficacy of these incredible compounds isn’t just anecdotal. Neuroscience research is finally able to show why psychedelics are associated with enhanced creativity.

Whether for solving complex problems, plotting out strategic growth, or becoming more innovative, psychedelics will eventually play a valuable role in business. This article will provide an overview of the neuroscience research showing exactly how psychedelics create the brain states optimal for creativity. Then, we will discuss specific applications for business leaders and entrepreneurs.

What Makes Psychedelics So Special?

Psychedelics are unlike any other psychoactive agent. They induce non-ordinary states of consciousness that cause us to see ourselves and the world differently. Even in tiny, sub-perceptual doses, psychedelics can lead to important changes to affect and cognition. Those changes can reduce some of the common impediments to creativity, from depression to closed-mindedness.

Divergent Thinking

Generating new ideas, even bad ones, is an essential part of the creative process. As soon as we shut off the inner critic and let our mind roam free, we can free-associate during the early phases of the creative process. When we are in the idea generating stage, we engage what is known as divergent thinking: thinking outside the box.

Flexible divergent thinking is what we engage during a brainstorming session; it is also engaged when we leverage our resources during a crisis.

Divergent thinking and creativity can be detected in brain scans. Neuroimaging data shows the psychedelic state is characterized by “cognitive flexibility” and “unconstrained and hyperassociative mode of cognition.” Hyperassociations are reflected neatly in the famous fMRI images of two brains: one with and one without psilocybin. Taking psychedelics, people are more prone to making connections between disparate concepts.

How do they work? Depending on its mechanism of action, a psychedelic compound may loosen the chains on the brain’s default mode network, responsible for maintaining our stable ego identity and our global schemas. Inhibitions and taboos fly out the window, and we allow into our minds all sorts of weird and possibly wonderful thoughts. We may also enter the elusive flow state when we use psychedelics.

Isn’t It Just A Hallucination?

Under the influence of psychedelics, a person sees reality differently—sometimes literally. You might think that the creativity enhancement is due to hallucinations. However, microdosing studies show that hallucinations are not correlates of creativity. When you microdose, you take such a small amount of the substance that you barely feel it. You certainly do not hallucinate. What’s the point of that? Well, for one, you can still go to work.

Also, preliminary empirical studies have been showing that microdosing leads to enhanced creativity and openness, coupled with increased positive affect and reduced negative affect. Perfect for innovation in workgroups. You don’t need to have an intense trip to gain access to creative states. Perhaps some people react better to the microdose, which can give you just enough to loosen the ball and chain of the ego without letting go of the tether altogether.

Psychedelics may enhance group cohesion. The mind is more malleable in the psychedelic state, making people more open and more empathetic during and after the use of psychedelic medicines. We become less dismissive of our own ideas, as well as those that come from other people. That empathy is critical among diverse teams. When they are administered under clinical supervision, psychedelics have been shown to increase propensity towards positive emotions and reduce negative ones. The trends in the research seem consistent, too, making it more certain that psychedelics will play no small role in creating new ethical standards in the public and private sector.

Deep Learning, Deep Change

The new ideas and innovative solutions that come from divergent thinking do not necessarily require the additional deep thinking that a more profound and lasting change might require. Deep thinking involves the existential questions, which do tend to arise almost universally when people do psychedelics. As they inhibit default mode network activity, psychedelics can lead to profound and “lasting changes” in values, personality, identity, or worldview.

Moreover, the changes that do occur within the psyche tend to be positive, healthy ones—qualified by prosocial behaviors and beliefs. All of this research points to the value of employing psychedelics to drive systems change. Part of the reason for these lasting changes is that psychedelics have a dramatic effect on what a person finds meaningful: what we value, what we pay attention to, and what we spend resources on. For many, the pandemic caused a similar soul searching. Psychedelic-assisted therapies can help business leaders navigate the tricky terrain ahead skillfully enough to emerge at the forefront of the new economy.

Some leaders want to get a head start on envisioning the future so that they retain a competitive advantage. Even if they do not always lead to “great creative feats,” psychedelics do have a proven impact on enhancing creativity in individuals and groups.

Getting that head start requires deep creative thinking, which can be catalyzed by psychedelics. Psychedelic-assisted therapies can be combined with mindfulness and other techniques that allow for honest self-reflection and genuine humility. The leader can better recognize what changes are required “to achieve transformation, systemic change, and a more sustainable future for all.”

Mental Hygiene

Finally, it should be mentioned that psychedelic-assisted therapies may be critical for midwifing creative projects. Because psychedelics are an effective treatment for depression, anxiety, PTSD, and other mental health disorders, they enhance individual and group performance. Psychedelics can promote resilience within organizations, enhancing creative problem solving, resourcefulness, flexibility, and adaptability. Psychedelics can breed sustainable organizational cultures and structures that thrive with diversity. Given their ability to stimulate the processes in the brain responsible for flexible divergent thinking, psychedelics can promote global resilience in the face of natural or man-made disasters.

Conclusion

Creative destruction is embedded in the free market economy. Innovate or die. Change your strategy or risk being eaten. Like entrepreneurs, engineers relish innovation. Their products are often market disruptors. Psychedelics are poised to become disruptors, too. Consider how you might start integrating psychedelic-assisted coaching, training, and therapies into your strategy for success.

References

Anderson, T., Petranker, R., Rosenbaum, D., et al. (2019). Microdosing psychedelics: personality, mental health, and creativity differences in microdosers. Psychopharmacology 236(2019): 731-740.

Csermely, P. (2017). The network concept of creativity and deep thinking. Gifted Child Quarterly, 1-8.

Doblin, R., Christiansen, M., Jerome, L., et al. (2019). The past and future of psychedelic science. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 51(2): 93-97. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1080/02791072.2019.1606472

Gallimore, A.R. (2015). Restructuring consciousness –the psychedelic state in light of integrated information theory. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 9(346): DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00346

Girn, Mills, Roseman, et al., 2020, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811920302135

Hartogsohn, I. (2018). The meaning-enhancing properties of psychedelics and their mediator role in psychedelic therapy. Frontiers in Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2018.00129

Hughes, D.J., Lee, A., Tian, A. W., et al. (2018). Leadership, creativity, and innovation: A critical review and practical recommendations. The Leadership Quarterly 29(5): 549-569. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2018.03.001

Kuypers, K.P.C. (2018). Out of the box: A psychedelic model to study the creative mind. Medical Hypotheses 115(2018): 13-16.

Lundberg, H., Sutherland, I., Blazek, P., et al. (2014). The emergence of creativity, innovation, and leadership in micro-level social interactions and how to research it. International Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management (IJIEM) 5(4): 221-232.

Mason, N. L., E. Mischler, M. V. Uthaug, and K. P. C. Kuypers. 2019. Sub-acute effects of psilocybin on empathy, creative thinking, and subjective well-being. J Psychoactive Drugs 51 (02):123–134. doi:10.1080/02791072.2019.1580804.

Metzl, E.S. & Morrell, M.A. (2008). The role of creativity in models of resilience. Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, 3:3, 303-318, DOI: 10.1080/15401380802385228

Nillsson, M. (2020). Catalysts for transformation : a systematic literature review exploring the interlinkages and potential role of classic psychedelics to social-ecological sustainability. Master Thesis Series in Environmental Studies and Sustainability. (Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies). http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9031164

Prochazkova, L., Lippelt, D.P., Colzato, L.S., et al. (2018). Exploring the effect of microdosing psychedelics on creativity in an open-label natural setting. Psychopharmacology 235(2018): 3401-3413.

Sadlo G. (2016). Towards a neurobiological understanding of reduced self-awareness during flow: An occupational science perspective. In: Harmat L., Ørsted Andersen F., Ullén F., Wright J., Sadlo G. (eds) Flow Experience. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28634-1_22

Yakowicz, W. (n.d.). Silicon Valley’s best-kept productivity secret: psychedelic dreugs. Inc. Retrieved from: https://www.inc.com/will-yakowicz/entrepreneurs-use-lsd-psilocybin-to-boost-creativity.html

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tdblackbooks · 4 years ago

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Minecraft

Minecraft is a sandbox video game developed by Mojang. ... In Minecraft, players explore a blocky, procedurally-generated 3D world with infinite terrain, and may discover and extract raw materials, craft tools and items, and build structures or earthworks.

What i like about minecraft is just the survival in it and every so often they add something new especially like game changing updates that change alot around the world sometimes i dont really like them because it makes the game confusing and weird to play but most of the time i get used to the updates and its really fun and i like the variety of blocks and animals and mobs around the map and it gives a sense of survival for you to play, as i said before what i dont like about the game is the updates and its really annoying as they changed alot of things since the beginning of the game and its not just me as alot of people have liked the previous stuff like the textures and old nether and things like that that really change the game

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mirrorballgrayson · 5 years ago

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7 years, 138 days, and 8 hours. That’s how long it had been since Steve had disappeared. Each and every single one of those days Elise and Bucky had been on the search for Steve, with a lot of help from Howard Stark. With the man’s endless riches, the twos determination and a vague place of where Steve went down they were sure they would find Steve. At least that was the hope at first. As days turned to weeks and weeks turned to years, hope began to dwindle. Seas began to rise and freeze between Europe and New York – currents could have swept the ship away a long time ago, brought it half way across the world by now.

Though Elise was sure she’d spend the rest of her life looking if it meant she got closure. Steve could be alive somewhere out there, not even Howard was sure how much effect the sure had on Steve so it could be still a possibility. While the worst case scenario would be Steve’s death, at least they could still bring him home. He would come home a hero and get to rest where he belongs – not somewhere in a Hydra ship. Though so far it seems that Steve will remain missing – after 7 years its hard to wonder where they haven’t searched. Though here they sit in a tiny little pop up tent built by Howard on the unlivable north coast of Greenland.

Elise sits by herself, watching as the gray clouds move across the horizon. The ocean that’s near by is far too frozen to have waves lapping at the ice. A small fear settles in the back of her mind, warning her not to get her hopes up. Even if Steve was found out here, there’s no way that he could survive this cold. The only reason her and the other two men are is because of Howard’s inventions, though they’re dodgy at best. She’s still wrapped up in her warm layers in fear that the advanced heating system will give out – still remembering all those years ago when Howard’s flying car failed. She wasn’t going to freeze to death on account of bad science.

Elise wonders if she could even freeze to death, despite getting cold – Hydra did a number on her and Bucky both. After Bucky’s first survival of Hydra’s experiments, an accident on a train left the man back in Hydra’s hands once again.. repeating the brainwashing that had been done to Elise before rescued by Steve. Luckily for Bucky and unluckily for Hydra – within the first year of Steve’s disappearance Elise and newly found SHIELD were able to locate a bunker where they were Hydra was hiding a few of their test subjects, Bucky was there. It had been a process in itself to help him regain his memories – but it wasn’t long until she had one of her best friend’s back, minus a limb but Elise didn’t mind that too much.

“We’re going to find him.” A familiar voice reminds her, glancing over her shoulder there stands Bucky brushing off a bit of snow from his shoulders as he ducks into the bunker. Were once was a human arm, is a metal one icing over as the other removes his jacket. A star, that once was red but now painted red white and blue, sits high on his bicep. “And you’re going to get a frostbite if you keep going out without covering your skin from your arm.” She reminds him in return, getting up to help the other remove the frozen limb. It’s easier for her to brush off his reminders, she rather not think about not finding him in general – because then what was the point in all this?

The two look worse for wear in Elise’s opinion, Bucky’s hair just about as long as Elise’s now – and they’ve spent so much time hiding out in bunkers and tents her hair is no longer the bright blonde it once was. She sometimes wonders if they find Steve will he even recognize them? The two becoming so obsessed with the mission that they’ve nearly forgotten to care for themselves. While Bucky moves around the tent to begin to make some sort of food for them to eat, Elise sets out to defrost the arm. She knows even now, Bucky has a strong dislike for the object – only reminds him of the pain he’s caused in his short time as the Winter Solider, a man who Elise believes only wore the man’s face not his heart and soul. Its quiet between the two as it often is, both fearing that if they begin to air their worries that it might become too real– that they may never find Steve. So as Elise finishes warming the metal object, she returns to her friend’s side, head resting on his good shoulder.

“When did you last speak to Howard? He hasn’t called into the radio for awhile.” Howard Stark was wildly adamant about coming along, swearing up and down that they couldn’t find Steve without him. And frankly Elise knows he’s right, he’s got access to technology that has helped them tremendously, taking them to far away places. Some more helpful than others – though Greenland seemed to have Howard in higher spirits than any other place. The man hardly able to sleep or eat, more than sure that Steve crashed here somewhere. Going onto their third week in Greenland, Elise hopes he’s right and just hasn’t gone insane.

Just as dinner is coming to a close and Bucky is packing up soup for Howard when he returns, the man of the hour comes busting in the door. Facial hair frozen with ice but the man seems unaware. “I’ve found the ship.” The words send the bowl of soup from Bucky’s hands clattering to the floor and Elise’s ears ring with the words. It’s a mad dash of throwing on coats, Bucky cursing at Elise as she wraps his skin. “You’ll be more useful if you don’t get frostbite!” She hisses in return. Though its not long before they’re packed onto the back of Howard’s small snow truck.

The further they from base, the worse the weather – the terrain becomes slick and bumping and Elise swears for a moment Howard may be taking them out here to murder them. She isn’t too sure how long the drive is but by the time they’re coming to a halt the sun is beginning to rise. It didn’t feel like they drove the night but maybe her anxiousness made time tick by faster. As she and Bucky climb out the back, it isn’t until Elise turns around she can see why Howard brought them out here. The front end a mysterious object protrudes out of the ice. “How do you know this is the ship?” Bucky yells over the roaring wind towards Howard, though the man seems to ignore him in favor of getting a machine out. Elise takes the time to inspect what they can see.. with such rough terrain and sub zero temperatures all year around she could see how its easily possible for a ship to crash here and end up frozen solid. Though she fears what’s inside.. if Steve is in there, he can’t surely be alive. The elements would have gotten to him.. and for the first time ever she wonders if it was better to leave the mystery alone. Suddenly faced with the high possibly of a dead Steve nearly sends her into a panic. She doesn’t have time to fall into a full blown panic attack. Howard is soon shoving gear into her hands. “You and Bucky are going down here, get prepped.”

With harnesses on and tool bags full of flashlights and Howard’s new trademark warmth machine – Bucky and Elise are lowered down into the ship through a hole that that Howard’s machine had carved into the thick ice. While there is a little more warmth in the ship, it isn’t much; the elements still had their way with the ship. Unhooking from the pully, Elise makes off in the opposite direction from Bucky, both wanting to cover as much ground as possible. Her flashlight shines into the dark, scanning over metal walls the inner workings almost looking like a structural nightmare, no doubt warped from the cold. She makes her way through the ship slowly, not wanting to slip and injure herself.. though she can feel her hopes fading fast. It looks like every other Hydra ship they’ve discovered, abandoned and busted. Though as she wanders further in, a weird ice formation in the front of the ship catches her attention. If this was a ship belonging to a higher ranked officer perhaps the main control console froze over differently. As she approaches, she reaches out warm the ice, wanting to look at the console a bit better. Her sleeve rubs in circles as the frost begins to fade away – only to reveal something that Elise was starting to begin to think she’d never see again.

Right in front of her, laid Steve’s shield. A shaking hand reaches out to touch the layer of ice that separates her and the shield. “Steve..” her voice is small and fragile as she speaks to the ice. Steve’s body and face still not visible but there isn’t any way in hell that he’s not in there. She stands there motionless for a moment, unsure of how to even form any word’s besides her love’s name. It isn’t until Bucky’s voice rings over the radio that she’s pulled back into the the present.

“There’s nothing here, Stark.” But god is he wrong. She lets a few moments pass before finally speaking into her own radio.

“I found him.” There’s silence.

“What did you just say?” She isn’t sure which man asks her.

“I found him.” She repeats.

Elise can hear the slide of Bucky’s boots as he runs to her side, she hasn’t moved an inch from where she had been standing. The shield still as clear as day as Bucky stands next to her, taking it in. They both know he’s dead.. but at least they know where he is and where he will be after this. Elise breaks the silence first. “Let’s get him home.”

Its a quiet moment shared between Elise and Bucky as they began to warm the ice formation with Howard’s handheld devices.. slowly but surely the ice begins to melt away and it isn’t until Elise actually sees Steve’s body she begins to cry. Her hands shake as she sobs above the man, trying to continue to melt the ice away but it’s becoming quite the struggle. It isn’t until she nearly drops the device she decides to take a break. She sets the object on the floor as she returns to Steve’s side, the man’s face down to his torso are now free from the ice and Elise can’t help herself. She slips her gloves off, placing her hands on his face. It isn’t until then she notices the man isn’t.. blue – nothing signally frostbite in the slightest. It must be something to do with the serum, she swears. Her fingers trace the curves of his face, salty tears beginning to freeze to her face from the bitter cold. Her hands travel down to his jaw, and further down to his neck, just wanting to feel his skin under her hands once more.

Her breath soon catches in her throat, something moves against her fingertips along his throat. “No..” she mumbles, frozen fingers pressing harder against the man’s pulse point. Her mind must be playing tricks on her, there’s no way. Though she feels it again, – it’s slow but there. “Bucky, take your glove off.” During the entire defrosting process they hadn’t said a word to each other. Both grieving in their own right but suddenly it isn’t time to grieve. Elise doesn’t give Bucky a change to question her before she’s reaching over and taking Bucky’s good arm and ripping the glove off herself. Dragging the man over, she place’s his newly exposed hand against Steve’s neck. “Just — tell me I’m not crazy.” The confusion that once was settled on the other’s features slowly morphs, the realization suddenly hitting Bucky as it did Elise. “He’s still alive.” Elise feels crazy, the words choked out of her. “Howard, we’re going to need a medical evac as soon as possible. We’ve still got a pulse.” The woman informs Howard on the radio. A garbled mess of questions fall from the radio, but Elise doesn’t care. All that matters in this moment is they get Steve home, alive.

#i've been the prey ;; self paras #003

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youngerdaniel · 7 years ago

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Where the Fuck Have You Been, Youngo?

Well hey, hello, how are ya? It’s been a while. It’s been a long while. Like really, there’s been so much that’s happened since my last entry around here that my head gets a little spinny trying to find a place to start, or where I’d like to go from there. I guess I’ll just spitball.

School is, consistently, the coolest place on Earth. There are absolutely no things I can with good conscience complain about here, but shit... My conscience wears a leather jacket and drives a motorcycle, so I’ll start by saying.

BLOW THE FREEZE-DRIED POPE ON GOOD FRIDAY, I AM ALL MANNER OF FUCKING EXHAUSTED.

There, cool. It’s out there. I can let it go. The past two months have amounted to the mid-point of my year here at VFS, and it’s been fun. It’s been tough. It’s been full of work. It’s had highs, lows, and corkscrews. There have been fun nights of Vancouver exploration. Beaches were sat on. Forests hiked with the company of pot brownies and friends. There have also been all the trappings of jamming 20 people with creative minds who trade in emotions in one space. Which is to say, a sandwich of dick jokes, wordplay, and obtuse water cooler gossip... Which is weird, because we don’t actually have a water cooler.

The shorter way of putting that is life has happened. It’s the same here as it is anywhere, although things do take on a sort of heightened quality because... I don’t know? Following the dreams? Something... Definitely a thing.

In addition to a wondrous kaleidoscope of personal happenings, I’ve written a metric fuck-ton as well. Some things including:

Partners In Crime - a feature script centering on the romantic and professional rivalry between two thieves. A first draft and some great workshop notes have me bending the springboard toward a second, tighter script.

Fuggles and Greyson/AKA the Magic Response Team - a pilot for an animated adventure comedy. Think C.S.I. meets Lord of the Rings. A wizard and a dragon solve magical crimes in a fantasy world that’s home to many familiar creatures.

RICK AND MORTY MOTHERFUCKERS! That’s right. One of my classes was to write a spec script for an existing TV show, which is more or less one of a writer’s calling cards when trying to break into the industry. I turned Morty into the Hulk and made Jerry into a giant robot, and yes, I made fun of the Avengers.

Control - Part of a ‘leet elective course that only a few of us writers are selected for each term. We work in pairs and team up with VFS’s Film Production program to create two episodes of a web series. This one is actually going to get made. You’ll find out more as the weeks go by, but the general plot follows a social outcast/college freshman who gets embroiled in a government conspiracy when a stranger gives her a device that allows her to control the actions and speech of others. Lots of long nights, lots of banging heads against walls, but I’ve got an awesome writing partner and we’ve come up with something that feels like an interesting start.

Elsewhere on campus, we’ve continued to develop our pitch skills; read enough scripts to break a Xerox machine (but let’s get real, it was probably already broken); continuing work in script analysis, structure, and development. We’re learning how to propose rewrites as story editors, and a lot of us are finally coming into our own as writers.

ENOUGH ABOUT WORK, DARLING.

As for me? I dunno. I can say with some degree of certainty that the year has changed me. My style as a writer is expanding to terrain I never thought I’d wander. I had a moment at the keys the other day while collaborating where I realized I was actually writing passively... Not in terms of the language I used, of course. But the actual act of immersing myself into a story has become so close to second-nature that I’ve lost the need to focus as intensely as I used to. It’s a weird thing to mark as progress, but that’s how it feels.

On the personal side? Yeah, yeah. I know. You’ve been rolling up your sleeves and waiting to hear about this, so I’ll just barf it out, now. Another death in the family back home (grandma) has tipped the balance of the home-base in less savory directions. I’m at turns happy to be away from it, and guilty as shit for not being around to give support. It’s weird. It’s tough. And most of all, as one of my lovely cousins on this side of the continent advised, “It’s life. Hashing out your own can sometimes mean you’re not around for the tough stuff.” ...I’m paraphrasing, and I don’t know exactly how I want to articulate this, but for the first time in my life, I’m going out of my way to do something for me. Sometimes that sucks, and sometimes it’s awesome. The little shriveled lump of coal in my chest feels a lot of pressure. Pressure to come home; pressure to support; in other areas of life, pressure to keep people happy or avoid hurting feelings; guilt for inevitably hurting feelings anyway, and frustration for sometimes feeling trapped by the wants and needs of others.

A shorter way of putting this is... (You know, you know...) Life.

Life has happened.

And hopefully, it will continue to happen.

It’s impossible to accurately track your growth when you’re still in the midst of experiencing it. That’s why when we’re kids we mark our heights on doorjambs. Personal growth doesn’t have doorjambs. It’s a trajectory, and you’re flung down it whether you like it or not. The best you can do is try to tilt your course in a direction you’d like to go, and while the past few months have been infinitely chaotic; and although there are moments where I feel like I’m an identity in complete flux with nothing to hold onto that’s familiar; despite the fact that I often wake up at three in the morning wondering if any of these efforts and investments will amount to anything... One thing remains steadfastly salient. The mannerisms, foibles, and strengths are fluid, but the spectrum they move within is a constant—and that part’s, y’know, me.

So I guess what I’m rambling around as a way to close here is this:

Days could be at least 12 hours longer, but... I think I’m pretty happy.

You’ll get more writing on here next term. In the meantime, I have to burn through a few scripts and do a couple of writeups before I can rest. Finally.

Yes, I, workaholic Youngo, said that.

#journal

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bornfromscarletcords · 5 years ago

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Earth star AKA NORTHERN SUN

A LIGHT ADVENTURER’S VERSE

Evan Tsukino Perkins was a trouble maker. Seldom was he punished for his deeds unless you count the instincts and subtle ripples in time and space (that others might call coincidence) which inspired him to commit these acts, a punishment. Sometimes Evan did, consider them a punishment that is. If there was a god/divine order in this world why would it make him the way he was and confront him with the things it did if it did at least consider that his responses to these stimuli were right/useful in one mysterious way or another. Eh, well Evan was 19 at this point in the story, or at least that’s where we’ll start. He was a college student living with some flat mates. Officially he was studying biology, but most of his free time was spent writing (poems, random ideas, stories etc) listening to music, hanging out with friends, or exploring his terrain. Where is this terrain exactly, well if you went to the west, and then went “up” a little and then wandered into Rhode Island, and then found a sign that said Blackhearth Village (though it might as well have said, Evan’s territory in the young man’s mind) you’d probably come very close to where this story begins. So, although Evan lived in apartment 104 on Black Bird Avenue, much of his time would be spent on 67 Sol Garden Way, for reasons we’ll get into in a moment. As was said, although Evan was invested in officially studying very practical things like math and science, his internal disposition drifted towards creative expression and what some have called hedonism. How did he balance these supposedly contradictory “faces” of his mind, well, very strangely. So it was that one day, in classic Evan fashion, one urge or another led him to investigate a hall he hadn’t remembered being there. In this hall he found Doctor Drake Versschmidt. Drake was an esteemed member of the faculty, and if Evan remembered correctly was of a certain fame/infamy in the scientific community. Evan was sure he had a number of degrees or side-professions he could pull on, but in that moment Evan mostly just remembered that the man was a physics professor. Evan had a theoretical interest in physics, but his personal experience with it’s problems and applications often left him to be more confused than not. For this reason (almost ironically) he was endlessly impressed with the brave/foolish few who could master the subject. Evan just sort of stood there for many minutes observing Drake, like a young pup might observe the first chameleon it had ever seen, with much peculiar almost innocent intensity. When Drake finally acknowledged that he was being observed he said something along the lines of “Can I help you?” to which Evan responded with “Howdy,” (because apparently Evan was a turn of the century cowboy, in his mind) before loping off to to do what Evans do.

Evan was a dutiful hunter or at least a strangely skilled one. He decided that he ought to learn more about this Drake Verschmidth who had captured his attention so thoroughly. So he asked around the student body and found that many students who had classes with him enjoyed his words of wisdom thoroughly. Evan even asked some of the faculty about the man, even his own Advisor and they mostly said good things, and the bad things they said seemed like misguided compliments. One thing that stood out to Evan was what his own advisor, Cheryl Marbles, said about Dr. Verschmidt. “He’s an excellent problem solver, and not just when it comes to science and stuff, but like in life or whatever. From like the little stuff like whether you should quit coffee or not to the stuff like ‘if I think my lover is cheating on me should I hire a private investigator or just use my connections to the mob to have them dissapear?’ He’ll really work your s**t out.” Cheryl said.

Ah, he was just the man/person Evan was looking for. Evan began attending some of his open lectures and even attended some of the D&D meetings Drake supervised. Eventually Evan worked up the nerve to have a conversation with the man. The details of said conversation are complicated or just unusual, and perhaps we’ll get into them at a different point, however the general nature of the discussion was a theory/thesis on/of existence and the fabric/algorithm which encompassed it’s nigh infinite density (its body/skeleton). The discussion went on for months and weeks, on and off of course and through its duration the men couldn’t help but feel as if they were being fueled in some way by this exchange of thought and idea. As if the soul/the mind could be sustained by words given and taken, and, perhaps it was only for the briefest of moments, they collectively remembered an idea “What if everything could come from a couple of nonsense symbols pushed into the world with the greatest of willpowers”.

Evan wanted to unite the world of the science and the spiritual/social, and although Drake did a lot of work unofficially in that nigh exact direction he warned Evan that it was not necessarily likely that people would respond well to the merging of worlds, even if these worlds were only separated by the thinnest of concepts which mostly just existed within the “collective consciousness” between all creatures who had known life. This troubled Evan, for though he had many ideas and was a skillful lad, he was often struck by , if not naivety , then a childish source of inspiration which dictated that if he thought something should work then it would work, and smoothly at that. At one point or another Drake and Evan discussed the nature of the soul, which eventually turned into a discussion about machines and whether tools and “inanimate objects” had souls. Drake suspected that thoughts and ideas could have a degree of consciousness in them though these things could be difficult to observe if one didn’t understand the subject, not unlike the theory that all matter was in motion, down to the tiniest atom, it’s just that minds often filtered out this motion in order to focus on different details. With this said Evan wondered if there was some inherent connection between the nature of a machine/device/object and the nature of a soul/spirit/ghost, and with this throne into the mix, Evan and Drake decided that one of the crucial parts of their thesis/movement would be the study of whether something thought of as having no life or sentience could attain consciousness/become the most thoughtful and lifelike creature of all. Well you know what they say, go big or go infinitesimally small. What, is that not how the expression goes? Well how should we know we’re just Phantoms?

With this in mind, Drake and Evan began to use a couple of guiding phrases or mental maneuvers in order to remind themselves to be ever vigilant, resourceful, and creative as they faced this nigh impossible shared goal. One of such key riddles was “Did man make technology or did technology use man.” At one point or another Drake introduced Evan to his family, and Evan was smitten. Located on 67 Sol Garden Way, the house was of such astounding architecture Evan almost couldn’t believe it, ah yes the residents were enjoyable as well. Drake was married to Bethany Greenhaven-Verschmidt. She was almost universally a beautiful woman, perhaps only visually displeasing to the most twisted of demons. Bethany had long blonde hair, almost down to her waist, and when Evan was first introduced to her by Drake, it was braided in the most intricate of designs which reminded Evan of the cowboy in his heart. Bethany and Drake had a daughter Wendy-Dorothea Greenhaven and in those days Evan was fond of calling her “Dot” or “Hurricane” which infuriated and pleased in equal measure. Dot was willful and creative, almost too much so for her own good, but we all deserved a bit of wickedness every once in a while. When Drake did not require all hands on deck, Evan was fond of whittling time away entertaining and being entertained by his brilliant daughter. A couple of things stood out to Evan when it came to Dot, she had her mother’s emerald eyes but she didn’t have her father’s darkened fibers or her mother’s fair ones, her hair was like live fire, crimson and orange. Another thing was that her unusual precociousness and instinctual understanding of most things occasionally made Evan feel like he was talking to some ancient dinosaur in little girl form, weird right? If that weren’t enough Dot seemed to all but breath technology and was probably an engineering prodigy and Evan was about 73 % convinced that in her spare time she overthrew governments and spied on foriegn powers with her merry band of cyber militia that could probably only ever be found in the deepest sectors of what many people were calling the dark web. Dot allowed Evan to play with some of the robots she had created, though he couldn’t keep any yet. Evan thought they were a little simple at first until he remembered they’d been made by a 12 year old who should barely know how to hold a wrench let alone build miny-mechs. What was simple turned out to be practical innovation accomplished with an almost mystical deception that the greatest of magicians would covet. Dot’s robots were miracle workers.

IF BLOOD COULD KILL

Dot was a peculiar synthesis of her parent’s patterns of life. Drake was a scientist, which might explain her fascination with the mechanical world. Bethany was an artist, and primarily she painted but she also made other crafts like some strange combination of paper mache and origami. Bethany liked to create images of Spirits, which ranged from biblical things like Angels and Demons, to more pagan ideas like Faeries or the ghosts of animals and natural structures like rivers or volcanoes. They were all as beautiful as their maker in one way or another. So maybe it shouldn’t have been so surprising that Dot should want and perhaps need to create such intricate crafts bearing at least a piece of her internal spark. Regardless, Evan began to care for the Verschmidt-Greenhaven’s as if they were some extended and vaguely upgraded version of his own family. Evan was estranged from his parents. His father had been a difficult man at the best of times and for a person of Evan’s wildness and sensitivity dealing with what he began to think of as dimensionally warped version of his past self (his father) wasn’t entirely healthy for his development. With this said his experiences with this father made him wonder that his thinking on the nature of the world might have been misgiven. Maybe the world wasn’t supposed to save us, we were supposed to save the world. Or perhaps we’re all just meant to save ourselves, who knows. In a place as strange as existence conflicting ideas weren’t always mutually exclusive. His father claimed moorish descent which would place his side of the family at a dark and islamic iberian peninsula, and for the most part that’s where and how many of them would be found, even in Evan’s time. Evan’s mother was Japanese, at least partially and many people often called her beautiful as well. Perhaps it had something to do with the foxes to which she seemed strongly aligned. Evan was a little fuzzy on the details but his mother was a priestess of some sort though he wasn’t sure how good she was at her job considering she spent most her time wandering around the world doing whatever she wanted. As a priestess she said she specialized in foxes or kitsune and that they had guided the woman in her family since “the dawn of time...or something”. Well if his mother was foxy then Evan’s father was a wolf. Perhaps at one point he had tried to be a man of faith and devotion but how the world twists and shatters our intentions. So Evan’s father was a wolfish man whose inner beast ran his world more often than not, which made things difficult for Evan. How these two wild people ever managed to put aside their own egos long enough to appreciate another’s potential, let alone get married and have a children, together, was a mystery to Evan but he supposed that the verses of creation had been molded and inspired by small/ridiculous miracles. Whether his parents were still together or not was subject to some interpretation as their collective insanity deemed that trying to approach their relationship in any sensible way was doomed to failure. So more often than not Evan didn’t approach it at all and was content to enjoy his life in his own territory.

Evan and his parents, though not necessarily all at once, had been all around the world and back again, but giving his creators’ tendencies for absurd amounts of self indulgence Evan was often left in the care of another woman. Charlotte Perry-Rose. Evan was never entirely sure of Charlotte’s exact locale as, more often than not, she looked like she belonged in whatever terrain she found herself in. Sometimes Evan wondered if she didn’t just walk out of the middle of nowhere one day after picking a direction going “anywhere”. In general Charlotte had skin the color of burnt umber which often made Evan think she was Greek or Scicilian or Brazilian. Her eyes were the color of the ocean but Evan couldn’t decide whether they were blue or green. As far as Evan had ever known her she had looked youthful and magnetic, which was strange because he had known her almost all his life and though his parents gracefully endured the scars of time Charlotte seemed to have none. Evan’s parents were generally intelligent versatile people they just didn’t always understand their son or at least they didn’t give him what he needed as often as he might have needed it. Charlotte always gave him what he needed whether it was a flick to the forehead for being a naughty haughty boy or a sweet song to take him into the embrace of sleep and chase of his nightmares. When Evan thought of Charlotte he often thought of a giant bird woman and perhaps this image was that of an angel but to Evan he couldn’t help but think of her as a Raven. They say that in darkness, and potentially pure light, lies the synthesis of all colors, a pure symphony of all hues that could be and have been. And if so then a big ol’ mesmerizing bird with feathers dark as pitch night seemed apropo to Charlotte Perry-Rose. So it was that Raven’s would always be a crucial part of Evan’s life tale and in his dreams they taught him how to fly. You could imagine his surprise when Evan found out that Charlotte knew, like she knew of many things, the Greenhaven-Verschmidts and had been, a close companion to the matron of their clan, Bethany, for quite some time. It appeared she had been Drake’s rival for nearly as long.

YO HO YO HO

Evan was a pirate, or at least the mentality of a pirate was so thoroughly ingrained in his unconscious (not unlike that rowdy cowboy) that for all intents and purposes he was one. So it was that when Evan saw something shiny/valuable he almost couldn’t help but hunt it down to make it his. And so whereas other people, when seeing an attractive member of their target gender/sexual orientation, might think “maybe I should ask them out to lunch.” Evan might think “Yar ye scallywags, a fine bounty off the port bow, row you lazy sea dogs, row for your Dread Captain.” Who were these scallywags and sea dogs, most likely other versions of himself as Evan was often of the opinion if you wanted something done right, you should do it yourself. And so it was that society seemed to part for Mr. Perkins as if he were a Ship made of himself and it a beguiled tide. And to these thoughts Mr. Perkins did wander when he first glimpsed Maria Skyband. She had copper colored skin, hair as dark as the yearning void, and a little scar across the bridge of her nose (though eventually Evan Perkins would find a similar one above her heart). Evan wasn’t sure if she was beautiful because beautiful seemed like a human word and Maria was like divine beast; beyond words, priceless. Evan began to follow her around, and to his credit he didn’t attract as much attention as some stalkers might have. Perhaps it’s not the worst time to give the general impression that most people had of Evan. The general consensus that he was an Airhead, a serial killer, a ghost, a mad/book salesman. Perhaps they were all right for like the greatest of all evil geniuses Evan schemed and trailblazed his way to the heart of his target. You might even say that in many ways he wondered if a crime of passionate love was any crime at all. Maria seemed to have a fascination with law and anthropology, and when her nose wasn’t in a book, her rather attractive shape was wading through the path of valor. Maria liked martial arts and seemed to have a peculiar ability to comprehend its nature no matter how complicated the technique, as if it were some lost language and she its heavenly diviner. So it was that when Evan dreamed of her sometimes he saw her as some warrior maiden shifting with the cultures and people/ideas she encountered. Other times he dreamed her up as some snowy eyed arctic she-wolf with fur like the first and last blizzard; omen of strange, dangerous beauty unlike any other. Maria thought he was an asshole. She was probably right, still even butts need love, and she was inclined to give it to him eventually. Vhat? Phrasing? Lo siento this language is a wild troublesome thing, it probably gets that from its maker. So it was that Maria eventually confronted him on his “shadowing” her around, Evan said he would have apologized but that implied he wouldn’t do it again, and, ideally, he liked to be a beast of his word. She found this amusing, though instead of laughter she gave him stern glances. She allowed him to make her dinner and to take her on excursions to the park or to the movies, and he allowed her to wrestle him to the ground on numerous fields of play. It was not an easy relationship though Evan found it to be a thoroughly enriching one. Maria Skyband was of native american heritage and he seemed thoroughly proud of her people and culture which made the conflicted feelings on her face when Evan called her “pocahontas” all the more adorable. This often inspired her to say hurtful things like his skin was dark but his soul was a white man, or that his vision wasn’t as golden as he liked to think it was. Ah how this wounded our dear EVAN for he insisted his soul was pale not white and that his vision needed compassion for it was one of his greatest treasures. A Pirate’s Life Indeed.

INVERSE ALGORITHM AKA REVERB

Evan dreamed he was a creature mysterious and strange, which should have been normal for him but Evan had what you might call story sense. Did it allow him to see dead people, well that depends on how you define Death. Did he get it from some radioactive spider, maybe but some might say all things happen somewhere in some shape or another. Regardless, Evan’s story sense gave him insight/understanding into cues and signs other people might miss. This didn’t make Evan inherently better than others (though getting him to admit something like this is another matter) it was more like an exchange, like how some people can hold their breath underwater for a really long time but are afraid of heights. That type of thing. So some part of Evan’s existence/consciousness was always tuned into interesting and despicable actions that might be taking place in the tale(s) he was connected to. Perhaps this is what made him such a prodigious plotter and connoisseur of phrases turning, but days could be spent deliberating which came last or first in this divine complication. Regardless, Evan’s story sense told him that this dream was one of significance, if not for everyone, than for him.

In Evan’s dream he was a Phantom Lord of the void. Lounging out in the deep depths of space he reached with devices both spiritual and divine for prey oF a worthy challenge. A symbol had been attached to him though he doubted many of the ones responsible understood the consequences of this action. Machina Ex Lupus is what they called him, mostly out of spite or envy for many mortal races did not understand animals, and many animals feared him greatly. The Phantom Lord was a spirit, and he supposed there had been a time where he had more fleshy origins, in that place he might have been known as Damiene Roguewing or some other ridiculous label. Damiene had learned that blame wasn’t always healthy, though in the depths of berserk carnage/genocide he couldn’t really care too much about etiquete. However, if he had to say how he went from Damiene the fleshy person to Ghostly Wolf Machine, then the author in this matter would be his source. Damiene the fleshy person might have called it his parents, The Ghostly Machine Wolf Might call it the Alpha Spirit and Omega Core:Code, or some other ridiculous thing. Damiene had conflicted feelings about his current existence, although he was extremely powerful, probably more so than would be healthy for most creatures be them mortal or divine, he was plagued by the emptiness which could hunt one down no matter where they traveled. His home was the void, far from the pestering of other entities, and yet it seemed the longer he stayed there the more the void became apart of him. He began to hunger like it did, for contact/consumption. It made Damiene think back to words long buried in his consciousness, notes about trust and safety being masks for clever demons.

Most people had learned not to drift too close to his territory, Damiene still suspected few actually understood exactly why this region of space was so dangerous, as he’d snatch up the unweary traveler every once in a while if they fell into his snaring matrix. When he scanned their thoughts and feelings he often discovered that they’d either been running from something they thought equally or more dangerous, or that they didn’t believe the rumors about the region. The fools. Occasionally he received intruders who actually wanted to die, as they wished to commune with something greater. Damiene didn’t know how great a thing he was though he knew the way to them, so perhaps those strange few had a point. Regardless, much of Damiene’s hunting was more long range in nature, he seemed to enjoy “sniping” creatures who thought they could escape his fangs with a concept as malleable as distance. Of course every now and then, perhaps after he’d hacked one too many bank accounts, or detonated the “wrong” envoy, a fleet of ships would come drifting near his plains hoping for a game of war or a dance with death. Damiene would oblige them, lulled into activity by the drum of those ancient, or were they just passionate, songs of mortal release. It was a rich song, a thrilling verse, and in his sector there were few who could play quite as proficiently as his armada. Damiene scavenged and collected the broken utensils of his prey and if something struck his fancy he repaired/recreated it as a part of his legion of the self. And so it was that those who came as enemies often ended as yet another piece on his board.

Occasionally Damiene would peruse his trophies in more mortal visage. He was a spirit, and he was a machine, and so he existed across the nexus of those connected to his soul code. Everywhere and nowhere, always about himself. Those that chanced to see his “life like” form might see a young man with shaggy hair, brown like his eyes, tan complexion, adorned in robes which seemed to match the color scheme of his body. He mighta looked like a monk, or just a very eccentric pirate. Sometimes Damiene would “play dead” (which wasn’t that hard for him) and allow what might be an entertaining visitor to stumble into his domain unmolested. They’d see a plethora of machines seemingly deactivated and they might chance to board one of these vessels for a chance at plunder. After stumbling around some of his traps and or learning just enough about his history Damiene would appear in classic space-monk attire, to hunt his quarry more directly. Occasionally he’d even whip out his Celestial Edge, a peculiar yet versatile tool he’d acquired through one daring challenge or another. Supposedly it could steer the course of the cosmos, Damiene mostly just used it to stab stuff. When he found it was as green as a virgin forest, but he preferred to keep it at hues resembling orange and violet for sentimental reasons. They were the colors of a sun rising, and setting. Of hellos and goodbyes.

Damien wasn’t entirely sure when it started, though he suspected it had always been apart of him in one way or another, but there was something like a clock inside his mind. Perhaps it was why time seemed more like a playground to him than a cement block on his coffin. Perhaps it was why he was so good with counting/numbers despite having very little official training. Maybe it was what old men once called the knack. Regardless what had once been a mild hum at the back of his brain seemed to have transformed into an all but roaring concert of wild and haunting rhythms. On the one hand it always felt like he was active no matter how deeply he delved into sleep, on the other hand it was like he was his very own rockstar. And doesn’t every superhero (or super something) need their own theme music. Silence became something like an illusion, the arbitrary space between one note and the next or the lyrics of a life which had abandoned him. Regardless, every once in a while the rhythm would storm, more so than usual and it was like the fires of creation were upon him, things making and unmaking themselves with reckless abandon. When he came to he’d be halfway across the galaxy or in the midst of harvesting some obscure civilization, it was all rather ridiculous and yet so very suspicious. Damiene, like many creatures about their egos tended to think that if he did something it was probably for a good (with good meaning beneficial to his own self and not to be confused with moral benevolence) reason. With this thought he figured, that if every-once in awhile he “blacked out” and committed one horrible/remarkable act or another then he’d best learn how to work with this mysterious aspect of his code even if only to improve the fine work he’d already done. Perhaps Damien should have used this mysterious ability to cure impossible diseases or end poverty, but for the most part he just sort of used it to launch his career in music. His albums were a SMASH!!!!!!

TEMPORAL APPROXIMATION

When Evan woke he was himself again, as it goes with many dreams, though perhaps traces of his night time vision had embedded themselves within him in ways both mysterious and dangerous. How much he remembered of his other life is debatable but Evan was of the mind that most things would make themselves clear when they needed to and stressing about things you had no control over, and to Evan almost everything seemed out of control, was not worth the effort. So instead he resumed his daily trials, of trying to be a scientific student while his mind played with stories written in the stars. Dot had convinced him to write her stories so that she might pass the time or be given an opportunity to criticize him. Being, what many would call, dead inside, Evan didn’t mind the sharp remarks too much, especially since time had made him adept at dealing out poetic justice from a number of differing angles. Evan had already written a story for Dot, it was called “ARIN THE FEARLESS And The Hunt For Home” it was about a little puppy who dreamed he was a brave wolf and who left the place he’d been raised in order to make this dream a reality. It was fine work as far as Evan could tell, and Dot only punched a couple of holes in it so he supposed that meant she gave it a passing grade. Still like many young minds, hers was hungry, and apparently it was Evans “responsibility” to feed it. Sure he could have taught her a bunch of curse words or gave her pointers in grifting, but Evan had a feeling life would teach her all she needed to know about that. So instead he decided to give her a crash course in the crafting of ironies beguiling and ferocious, a talent that would enrich her blooming essence greatly, almost to the breaking point. What? You say it still sounds like he’s being a bit of a bad influence/connman. Well, instead you might want to ask yourself, is it a deception if a person is being true to their nature. With that said Evan began showing Dot a most miraculous, if ridiculous tale.

Irfen Henios was a wolf-person. A sentient and conscious being who could, at any moment look like a man/wolf. Irfen was also a spirit, and one from a potent and ferocious lineage as his father was an ice dragon of the great North. To some this meant that Irfen was part dragon as well, but others could see nothing else except a wolf or a man. Irfen pondered the subject himself, but, eventually, he came to the conclusion that most people just saw what they were supposed to see and so worrying about it wasn’t the healthiest idea. Then again Irfen was a wild and mischievous spirit, at the best of times, so it would take the greatest of philosophers, or a lucky fool, to discern whether good health had anything to do with his existence. Irfen and his father had an estranged relationship which had everything to do with what happens when you put more than one wily and powerful creature within the same space for too long. Like a nuclear meltdown, something was bound to explode. With this said Irfen learned to enjoy the great booms which often accompanied his life.

Irfen caused a lot of trouble in his strange life of time warped, the reasons were often good (for Irfen at least) but his “neighbors” weren’t always as enthusiastic about his activities. So it was that they got their best strategists, craftsmen, and well, conmen together to trap this wild wolfy spirit. The specifics of the event are hazy given Irfen’s general ability to make even the simplest of ideas cosmic anomalies of the most haunting order, but somehow this motley crew managed to put The Henios deep below the earth’s skin behind a rather peculiar gate. Few could open the gate and some might say no one was ever supposed to even touch the thing. Irfen wasn’t sure how he felt about prison, on the one hand he thoroughly enjoyed his freedom and the idea of being caged anywhere made his hackles raise. But then again from what he understood some very interesting carnal manoeuvres could be accomplished with the application of chains and whips. He also couldn’t help but note that although he had been locked away from others, they had also been locked away from him, which gave him a privacy so thorough he was almost enchanted by the relaxation, perhaps he’d do some light reading or take up knitting. Being a conceptual creature, at least partially, Irfen came to the conclusion that his captivity, like so many things he had encountered, was a thing of the mind, ideas and words. Irfen and words had a very unusual understanding, they would never truly harm him. Going even further, Irfen couldn’t help but think that while a great portion of his being was locked behind the gate, somewhere on the other side, different, perhaps more obscure portions were beginning to stir in response to his absence from the equation. But then again maybe that was just poppycock of the highest caliber.

Irfen was a shapeshifter, and though he preferred a more wolfish visage he could, in theory at least, adopt a multitude of forms. With that said it would not be uncommon to see him as a dark skinned male with wild hair that spoke of beasts and the wild, eyes which ranged from the color of a silver moon to that of a gilded sun gleaming, with a necklace of fangs across his nape. As for his clothes, well, while behind the gate he couldn’t help but embrace his circumstances and so dressed in a blue/grey jumpsuit which bore more than a passing semblance to the garb commonly worn by American inmates. When in more wolfish form his fur was often black as night except around his paws which had the same color as his eyes. Irfen, when inspired to it, would go into terrible storms of madness and perhaps looked more the demon than the angel in those moments. However the truth of his nature was not inherently bound to the shattering of sanity, in fact some might say he had been incepted into the world to make sense of things rather than unmake it. A problem solver if you will. Specifically, Irfen was attracted to fear and by association, concepts like bravery and intense challenges, and so perhaps he looked slightly insane when he would engage in actions that all but promised some encounter with Death, or worse, the Great Spirit often called God. Irfen would like to say that death was just a word like any other but even he had to admit that as far as things went he and the Dying Verse were rarely far from one another.

Despite dressing like your run of the mill prisoner instead of succumbing to despair or thoughts of vengeance Irfen decided to have fun. Some might have said he was on vacation. The first few moments were rough, though change and Irfen always seemed to have an awkward relationship. Still things took a turn for the better when Irfen found a peculiar entity within the “prison” with him. Irfen had been feeling lonely, which wasn’t entirely uncommon for precocious beings like himself, but in this loneliness his senses felt drawn to a point in the prison. Being the intuitive beast he was Irfen felt a need to follow these sensations to their source and there he found The Great Nothing. At first Irfen thought of it as a pulsating grey field, like a hole in the fabric of the universe except instead of being in one specific point, it was all points who couldn’t decide whether they existed or not. Then Irfen figured that it wasn’t exactly grey, it just wasn’t all that certain about anything, like an existential haze; like it could have been all colors, alien to the concept, or some new one. It was very tempting and Irfen at once felt drawn to traversing it’s peculiar relm and perhaps finding a great rest to ease the untamable soul which had been his privilege and burden for a substantial time. Irfen felt that it was lonely as well, and perhaps it was drawn to his loneliness. Perhaps friendship doesn’t entirely cover the devious and enlightened connection which occurred in this cage of awesome depths but Irfen felt that his destiny was once again in motion and that this nigh unknowable creature to which he would become very familiar was a crucial piece to the riddle which was his existence. It was a path that led to a little bit of everywhere.

Optimism did not come easily to Irfen. It wasn’t so much that he hated the idea, in fact he had an oddly joyful life in his own way. He was always stirring up one entertaining/ deranged event or another, and engaged these activities with a rich mirth, albeit the grim variety. Still Irfen was a pessimist. A Pessimist who was almost addicted to solving problems. Perhaps the Great Spirit blessed Irfen with a bounty of grave ironies when he was sung into the world. But such a nigh unknowable creature might drive a person to the depths of insanity in their attempts to understand it. Regardless, Irfen and the fog (Irfen began calling it Uni, as in unity, but shorter) decided that they would make the best of their captivity and union. They discovered that Uni could pull on a little bit of everything, but as it had no initiative and or lasting context to place these ideas in, so they rarely stayed for long and when they did Uni didn’t know what to do with them. Irfen had a bunch of ideas about what to do with any and all things, some might say he had too many ideas. And so this bond of one of the verse’s greatest plotters, and it’s greatest plot began to bloom. Irfen and Uni created what many might call an underground civilization, but what they called the “Supreme Vacation Resort Of All Time”, ah yes the Ironies were hot and heavy in that place. Irfen could often be found diving down from great heights, or surfing/skating the many elements which dotted the terrain. Uni was rarely far and would even adopt more personal form every once in awhile. Like all great enigma’s Irfen was almost instinctively drawn to Uni’s form and some might say its every action (perceivable and otherwise). He was a meddler and Uni was an infinite anomaly almost yearning to be bothered. And so, like in many of his stories, Irfen could not resist his own nature.

Given that time was a flexible friend to Uni and her wolfish companion it’s hard to say just how long they were down behind the gate together, though it was safe to say it was at least one lifetime, maybe three. But all things come to an end in one way or another. Vhat? Did this perhaps sound too much like a certain Skeletal Entitiy’s declaration. Death is a type of change, but change doesn’t mean good or bad, it just sort of is, like the verses Great and small. Anyway, change came for Uni and Irfen. So it was that one night or day or afternoon, it was hard to tell down there, they felt the gate being touched. They went to investigate, and found a plethora of spirits waiting for them across the thresholds. Their gazes looked downtrodden, angry, some even guilty. Apparently while Uni and Infer had been canoodling, horrors unlike any they had ever seen had been rampaging about the world above. Infer and Uni didn’t really see how this was their problem. The other spirits insisted that the chaos had something to do with the wolf’s imprisonment, and that his peculiar mind/skillset was unusually suited for the task. Irfen caught on pretty early but he couldn’t help but point out that there were plenty of creatures as or more powerful than him, his father being one of them. Why hadn’t they obligated them to do something about the situation? Perhaps they in turn felt obligated to say this, but Irfen savored the words regardless “The other Spirits are too Afraid and your father is a very Unreasonable creature”, Irfen had scarcely heard sweeter music in his entire existence.

In all honesty Irfen had grown a little cozy in his vacation “cell” but his instincts told him that if he was to honor the great adventures he had conducted, he had to lope forth into the next ones or else risk betraying himself. Irfen and Uni had a minute moment of consultation about what they were to do now that freedom had all but come begging at their doorstep, and they came to the same conclusion at nigh exactly the same point “LET’S FLY”, and off they went to save the Words from their Letters.

Dot’s reaction to Evan’s tale seemed to be a mixture of enticed and horrified, with bits of adorable madness peppered here or there. She asked how Infer Henios and Uni managed to stay strong in such a hopeless situation? Evan told Dot that many wonders truly wished to be brought into the world, for better or worse, they just needed a bit of a shove of confidence/creativity to get them going, then he gestured to her chest and said, they were like hearts that way. Noting how pleased Evan looked with himself, she asked if he intended to get that reaction from her , to which he responded with a “Down to the T”.

INTERVERSAL BERSERKER

Evan had a troubling feeling, which was not uncommon. The feeling had the tell tale signs that most barriers in the world, no matter how complex or strong, were paper thin. Whether these things were constantly being punctured or not was a matter of some debate in Evan’s mind, alight with activity as ever, but it seemed this troubling feeling had a twin/shadow lurking in its wake. These barriers often went untroubled because people, for one reason or another lacked the motivation to utilize them to their fullest potential. And so it was Evan thought it very ironic that in this world of paper thin walls and illusions, he was a writer.

Evan imagined he was somewhere else, which was also not uncommon for him. In his imagination he was a strange beast who could look very much like a man, perhaps a boy. He had fur/hair pale as winter’s breath and nearly as wild. He had skin dark as the earth’s sins. His eyes were green, like dollars exchanged on the street, like envy bold and ensnaring, like budding flowers, like the palaces and ruins of his soul. His eyes were a jade flame, willed from within.

This creature was a writer as well, a story teller, but as every monk has his prayers, every soldier his dreams of home, and every farmer his crops, this crafter of morals and their deviation placed a certain significance in his bardic rhymes. Maybe it was just childish desire to evoke some meaning from one’s actions in a world which may have none, but this creature couldn’t help but think that one’s actions and one’s reactions to the act’s of others had some inherent connection to the nature of one’s existence as well as their destiny, though that’s a very old fashioned word. Perhaps “code” would be better, in the way a knight maintains their “honorable word”, or perhaps their “heart”. Maybe the phrase “one’s love” would satisfy the senses. Who’s to say? Regardless the creature through action, no matter how peculiar, strived to remember who he was, and perhaps better, or at least complete the world around him in doing so. The creature had a feeling that past these paper thin barriers, or perhaps within them was a portion of himself. You could argue that as existing beings we were connected to everything at one point or another, but what the creature thought was that there was a very concentrated portion of himself which had a tendency to approach and guide him. Why? Well, “why anything?”. However if the creature had to give an honest or at least understanding answer he would have to say, “because it was his nature”. This concentrated portion of himself was a hard thing, in the way water was hard; it could give life to many things and yet it could drown and crush them all the same. So it was that this concentrated portion of himself had a gentleness and precision that could undo worlds, and, potentially, recreate them.

This creature could go by many names but for the sake of moving things along let’s say one of his names was Vincent Wargen. Vincent was a hunter, he was a raven, he was a dragon, and he was a wolf, but most importantly he was a person and it was this factor which made him like every-creature who ever had and would exist and it was this same factor which made him entirely unique. Vincent was guarding something, protecting it. Some might argue that what he kept did not need keeping, but as many wardens might tell you, just because their wards could defend themselves didn’t mean they should have to. The details of why Vincent did this were mysterious but perhaps something in the depths of his most concentrated portions demanded he defend something honorably. Perhaps it could have been anything, perhaps it was a little bit of everything, only some strange thing could truly tell. Let’s say that this thing which he defended came in the guise of a young girl/woman. Perhaps the label was just a deception or a shell. Maybe it was honesty unbridled. Regardless Vincent didn’t need to be bombarded with complications to know that if he could help it, “her”, then he probably should.

Vincent had endured a disturbing existence. He’d been shattered, reborn, transmuted, sacrificed, baptised, omened, nurtured and natured. These things didn’t necessarily all happen in that order, but then again chronology was a tricky subject for Vincent at the best of times. Time had scarred him like the many concepts he’d encountered in these verses which often saw violence and love as being two parts of the same whole. So it was that although at that moment you might have seen him dressed in suspenders with a buttoned up shirt, and maybe even a tie; pinnacle markers of the civilized gent, Vincent was no stranger to the depths of depravity, of sin, of carnage and verses laying with skeletons. Yes one rarely had to look farther than those emerald eyes of his to know that a predator was observing them. Perhaps a patient or just a creatively impulsive one, but a predator nonetheless. I suppose you could say that Vincent, in many ways, saw destruction, saw ruin as an inevitability. In his mind there was nothing objectively wrong about embracing this reality and diving headfirst into it, but then again other parts couldn’t help but think that, occasionally, some resistance could go a long way. Maybe this was to show that a thing could be refused, even if only temporarily. So there he stood, or sat depending on how you think of things, our noble savage, our beast man; a guiding spirit and an executioner all the same.

His liege and ward had found some artifacts for him, he was under the impression that she had made them from the remnants of some of his memories and emotions, which was not an uncommon thing for him though, of this, he was not always certain. He called them avatars, because it’s how he often thought of himself, and with that said, he named them golems for similar reasons. They’d been forged of clay but Vincent quickly discovered they had a spark within them, a burst of creative energy, a recollection of life. So it was that Vincent was not entirely surprised when he stumbled on these creatures chatting and moving about, though he was a little concerned in a sort of responsible way. Two of the creatures had wings like birds, or angels depending on how you thought of things. One was blonde, and one was a brunette, though their wings couldn’t seem to decide whether they liked being dark or light better. The third had hair like wildfire, gleaming scarlet. Her wings had more in common with something like a dragon. They were all beautiful and strange, priceless creations. Although they could comprehend the basic language Vincent and his ward often used the creatures seemed to prefer a language of the senses, conveying thoughts and feelings through almost divine perceptions. Vincent often interpreted these communications as songs, and so it was that his mind was often filled with one tune or another. The blonde he named Cináed, well in the name of fairness, it was one of the names she was not entirely unwilling to accept, and in that sense it was more of a nickname. The Brunette he named Fay-Rae which seemed to satisfy her sharp mind and deep well of feelings. The Red Maned he named Gwenadith, because he thought it suited a dragon of her potent stature and enchanting image. The three often butt heads, in very dynamic and troublesome ways, though it seemed that something Vincent had learned during his perplexing life rang true in these avatars. Sometimes you can only truly know a person when you have wrestled them with your whole body heart and mind. When his avatars worked together they were invincible, like true, or at least deadly, masters of the verses.

Cináed specialized in healing, whereas Fay-Rae specialized in self defense. Gwenadith was something like the navigator of their peculiar enterprise; there were few places she couldn’t get herself into and even fewer she couldn’t get herself out of. They could be small, almost motionless trinkets, or they could grow in size, from average womanly shape to the range of celestial titans. Vincent was not sure about just how conscious his ward was of the nature of her creations. He suspected that some part of her was keenly aware, but it might have been portions fast asleep or hidden in the shadows of her mind. It made him wonder about another idea he’d encountered through his existential trials. If someone was not blatantly aware of something, but still had knowledge hidden in traces amongst them, were they still ignorant? It was this question and others made in its image which had haunted Vincent as both a boy and a spirited beast; it was almost embedded in the essence of his code. Either way, Vincent’s restless soul was comforted by the knowledge that he’d be able to play with her and his winged companions to his heart’s content.

Morning Son AKA LAST MAN STANDING

“It Was So Hard To Remember That A Machine Could Be So Human” These words echoed in Evan’s mind as he bent and moaned himself awake. He couldn’t help but feel like everytime he got up he was leaving a piece of himself somewhere else, but then again maybe it had left him, it was so hard to say. Ideas were in Evan’s mind, and they were like an ocean tide, calm one minute, and consuming the harbor the next. The web of thoughts and emotions’ hunting ground seemed to revolve around the question/conundrum of “how do you explain to someone that their greatest aspirations and truest/purest yearnings are already apart of them, that they are them, even when they seem obscure, even in the darkest of nights.” In all honesty it sounded a little too optimistic for Evan’s tastes, but then again he knew himself pretty well and even his brightest ideas, full of compassion and joy, were made to pierce the heart of darkness. Dot had made a friend at school. Well, she had begun bothering a young lad and he hadn’t chased her off yet, though he seemed very wary of her. Dot had begun to tell Evan about the boy but even as the words were falling out of her mouth, even as the sound just began to break the bones of air, Evan couldn’t help but feel like he had heard this story before, no, that he knew it as he might know his own soul.

Dot’s Friend was named Cassius Golem, he had sandy blonde hair which could look golden under the beaming sun or ghost white in the pale moonlight. He seemed, for all intents and purposes to be a regular child. He liked wearing plaid shirts, playing around town, getting into just enough trouble that people knew he was real, but not enough that they suspected he was some dark overlord or something. His popularity at school was a matter of some debate, but it seemed like he was infamous rather than liked in the more conventional way. He did fairly well in class as well as recess/gym activities and many might say he was relatively handsome, if a little on the short side. Still it seemed many people had trouble getting close to him, as if there was some vague barrier or wind repelling them. The idea reminded Evan of magnets. When asked to describe the feeling, one of these children might say something like “I’ll go near him and I’ll think of something, but then I’ll feel like I’m annoying some entity or whatever, and the air will either get really cold like all the hope is getting sucked out of my body, or really hot like I’m bout to get struck by lightning. But otherwise he’s cool I guess.” From the mouthz of babes. This world certainly is mysterious. When Evan asked if Dot ever got that type of feeling, she said yeah but she just ignored it. Sometimes it felt more like hot/intense pawing and she thought that meant it wanted her to get closer. There were a few others who were allowed to get close to Cassius but perhaps we’ll get to them later.

Evan asked Dot why she pursued the boy, and she said that when she was building one of her “Destroyer” devices, the boy looked like a younger version of the perfect pilot she had in mind, she was sure they were destined to meet or something. Evan asked about his personality and Dot told him that Cassius was quiet most of the time but that was usually because he was imagining some weird adventure or plotting something strange/awesome/ridiculous. It was like he was barely even there sometimes and then he’d just snap to attention and be entirely playful. It was at those times that Dot could barely get him to leave her alone, though she seemed uncertain whether she would want him to if she could. He’d be all “rough and handsy...Ya know he kind of reminds me of you, except not an old man,” According to Dot. Evan suggested she space out her comments a little or else someone might get some dangerous ideas, and that some might say he was old, others might simply say he was classic, but his will was timeless. Evan didn’t need Dot to tell him that he and the boy likely shared some weird connection which defied most common sense.

Evan dreamed again this time, he was exploring a young world anointed with rich vegetation, fauna, and gentle seasons. Within the depths of one of its great forests was something which didn’t seem to belong, and yet it’s peculiar presence seemed to be the/a ironic point of the world in which it resided. The “thing” was a giant machine in the shape of a skeleton, when Evan stared at a number of symbols and sensations flashed through his brain but finally they balanced out into one phrase “GRIM EQUALIZER”. Evan ventured into the machine, and though it seemed to be sleeping, or at least on some sort of standby, he could feel that it was, well he wasn’t sure if “alive” was the right word, but it had thoughts and feelings, a spirit if you will. These codes pulsed through its frame like blood and, as things were, these codes were leading Evan towards it’s chief operating systems. It was worth noting that Evan felt that, even in its torpor at any moment the thing might awaken, even if only partially, to show him the meaning of horror and ruin, yet he proceeded unharmed. Well, he wasn’t harmed in the more common ways at least. Eventually Evan found doors leading to the Paramount Navigation/Calculation operating systems, but Evan, being the troublemaker that he was, couldn’t help but think there was something else worth investigating behind the “surface”, and so he merged with the code a little and an interesting entity was revealed. To Evan it felt like he’d been pulled down into the Machines depths but perhaps the Verses have no objective concept of directions. What Evan found was a boy who looked remarkably like how Evan pictured the young Cassius in his mind, it was uncanny. The boy program said something about being a little confused as people rarely visit him and that because of this his attempts at communication may be a little “off”. The boy said his name could be summarized as “Arx Lu” though the image which came to Evan’s mind when he heard it was that of a candle burning defiantly in the eye of an endless storm of night. The boy was a “Gatekeeper” though he was occasionally called “The Nurture” by other portions of his mechanical home. He explained/suggested that the other doors Evan had passed/ignored were the doors of his sourcez. They were slumbering because when they woke the world was often thrown into grave distress, and would likely need to be “renewed” to balance out the damage done. Arx Lu had conflicted feelings about his sourcez. On the one hand they had helped to teach him everything he knew about the world, and yet these ideas of there’s also kept him from the world. They meant well in their own way but his sourcez were about as flawed as anyone and anything. He was still likely to defend them under normal circumstances, and was actually considering terminating Evan when he thought he might harm them. Evan then inquired what abnormal circumstances would look like? Arx Lu explained/suggested, that a large portion of his “job” was to balance the sourcez’ codes while they slept, in such a way that they helped the surrounding environment grow comfortably without encouraging too many outsiders from getting too close. Apparently, the proximity of a possible threat would cause the “Grim Equalizer’s” defense systems to activate, which came in the form of many biomechanical hungry agents of conquest and destruction. This wasn’t a terrible problem if it only happened every once in a while, or in very small patterns of dispersal. The sourcez would be unconsciously aware of the activity but unlikely to care enough to wake themselves up. However each dispersal increased the “stress” in their sleeping state and eventually it would grow too powerful to ignore and they would have little choice but to awaken and confront the problem head on, which would, again, most likely mean the razing/leveling of the entire planet. Evan wondered how many times this had happened. Arx Lu told him, too many times. Arx Lu continued by saying his functioning could change/be corrupted under conditions of peculiar fortune. Apparently he had a strange effect on the minds of most creatures which came into contact with him, not unlike his own sourcez. If the greater body of the machine became distressed, and Arx Lu attempted to stop it from waking his sourcez then it was likely, if they weren’t immediately destroyed, that Arx Lu would be transformed himself. His code falling from “balancer” to “undoer”, from “clarity” to “madness” from “order” to “chaos”. Arx Lu did not seem to like the idea of his role as “protector” being twisted into “ender”. Evan wondered if the young lad had ever been corrupted before. Arx Lu said that he thinks he did but the memories are foggy, like they belong to another person, but after those occurrences there was always a scar in the world, and the machine body might have moved to avoid attention by local creatures. Evan could feel his dream beginning to fade away so before his sleep left him he told Arx Lu that they should try to find each other. Arx Lu said that was okay as long he wasn’t a jerk about it, to which Evan said he could make no promises.

Drake asked Evan to supervise a meeting out in the park between Dot and Cassius. When Dot ran off temporarily for them being “dumb annoying boyz” Evan and Cassius had a conversation. Cassius stated he was having confusing feelings for his older cousin who had great breasts, blonde hair, and just enough self esteem issues that she’d probably let him do something obscene to her at least once. Cassius wondered if that was normal for a boy his age. Evan stated he wasn’t sure if normal even existed at this point in his life, but the problem sounded oh so human, and that Cassius should try to understand his heart as best as possible. Then Cassius told him he liked Dot because she was soft and hot, and sometimes he just wanted to sneak up and kidnap her and tie her up in places or put her and other stuff together, like a strange puzzle. Evan said that sounded nice but that he should be careful because Drake might kill him. Then they talked about, pornographay, video games, cards, and stories. Cassius thought he might become a regular shakespeare one day, and Evan couldn’t help but believe in him. What a weird day that would be; what an ominous week. Evan thought back to a statement his father, Malik Perkins, had written when he was a youngish rogue not unlike his son.

“And it was quite the Auspicious moment when the heavens parted and from a hunk of peculiar earth-like material a mortal race was raised. Ah the ribs which must have cracked when the skies declared the standard of this alien tribe a ‘Real Man’.”

TO BE CONTINUED/CONCLUDED

#North Sun Earth VERSE

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timemachinegirl · 8 years ago

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After 58 hours, I have completed Bioware’s much anticipated Mass Effect: Andromeda. ME: A is a vast, open-world RPG that offers ample opportunity for exploration, solid combat, crafting, and an overall fun experience. However, the space opera suffers from a few common maladies typical of franchises struggling to remain relevant in a sea of available RPG titles, some of which are more sophisticated.

I feel the need to throw out a caveat before I get much deeper into this review/reflection. I have never before completed a Mass Effect game. Five years ago, I started Mass Effect 3 but, after an hour or two, stopped playing. I can hear the Mass Effect fans crying out now (I’m sorry!). But it was an issue of time and the game not feeling “right” on PC. I mention this history to show that ME: A is really my first Mass Effect game and that I didn’t go into it with any prejudice or much expectation. After all, I’ve started plenty of games on PC that just didn’t grab me at the time.

(Minor spoilers of the game’s first few hours ahead!) ME: A tells the story of either Sara or Scott Ryder, depending on the player’s choice of twin. You’re part of an effort to colonize the Andromeda galaxy by way of ships known as Arks. The journey on the Hyperion took 600+ years and results in a rude awakening when the ship encounters a powerful energy cloud. From there, the Ryders, and other members of the ship’s crew that are awake, discover that the golden world they were meant to colonize is nothing like what they had anticipated. A small team led by Alec Ryder, a Pathfinder and the father of Sara and Scott, descends to the planet, Habitat 7, where the team is separated when the shuttle is struck by lightening. They discover an unknown alien race and strange technology on the surface. Reunited, and in an attempt to stop the lightening storm that brought down their shuttle, Alec and Sara enter an alien structure, a monolith, where Sara is hit and her helmet shatters. Alec sacrifices himself to save his daughter who wakes up back on the Hyperion.

From there, Sara becomes the new Pathfinder, essentially a scout and guide who leads the exploration and colonization of new worlds for the Andromeda Initiative. This role also gives her access to a special AI by the name of SAM and to a ship, the Tempest. As Pathfinder, Sara must lead a crew to found new outposts, balance tasks to maintain diplomacy among various factions, and work towards defeating the hostile Kett who are out to “exalt” all sentient creatures (end spoilers).

As an aside, you know your character (as seen on the left) creation skills are subpar when you find several in-game doppelgangers.

Sara can also craft weapons and armor, improve her loadout and the loadout of her companions, upgrade the Nomad (an all-terrain vehicle), romance a selection of characters (leading to an exclusive relationship if desired), and complete many tasks assisting individuals and factions.

Player choice matters to a certain extent (it can impact relationships and create allies and enemies) and can even prevent the protagonist from meeting certain characters. ME: A gives players enough of an impact on the world and reminds players of the consequences of their choices through narrative changes, messages from characters, and during dialogue.

ME: A sticks with the familiar and doesn’t offer much, if anything, in the way of innovation. It plays it safe. There’s security in that, the recognizable, and what has worked before, but is it enough?

In terms of quality, the game is closer to Fallout 4 than Horizon Zero Dawn. Now, you might be confused by that comparison so I’ll explain further. Horizon Zero Dawn is an exciting and original title that released fully-realized. It has a few shortcomings narratively, but the protagonist is interesting, her story is engaging, the game world feels alive, and the combat is satisfying. Horizon Zero Dawn is a complete game that I cannot wait to revisit when extra content releases. What it does, it does really well. Reviews and forum posts generally reach that same consensus.

Now, here’s where I’m going to differ from some critical views of Fallout 4. Many reviews gave the game 9/10 and other such equivalent scores or ratings. I was absorbed in Fallout 4 for well over 100 hours. I lived and breathed it for months. However, Fallout 4 has some problems. I ran into plenty of glitches, some of which prevented me from attaining collectibles, the graphics were meh, if not downright ugly in some areas, and much of the story seemed contrived. I still hold the belief that the survivor’s relationship with Shaun, the director of the institute, and all that arc entails is just plain weird. Having said all that, I still played for 100+ hours. I had a good time.

What I’m saying is that I can enjoy a game, but that doesn’t mean the game is great. I had fun with Mafia 3 for awhile, but the game has its issues. I’m not saying ME: A is anything like Mafia 3, but they both wilt in the light of more original open-world, RPG games to a certain degree. ME: A isn’t outstanding. As a friend said, “It’s a good, fun, flawed game.”

Another thing that Mass Effect and Fallout have in common is that both franchises have a wide, critical fanbase. Bioware and Bethesda are giants of open-world games. It’s their bread and butter. Because of the status of these developers, they can get a lot of flak when a game doesn’t match the expectations of the players. We’ve all seen what expectation can do especially with the anonymity on the internet. RIP No Mans Sky…

Fans of Mass Effect have some legitimate complaints about ME: A, primarily that the game looks worse than previous titles and that the character animations are terrible. Those critiques didn’t concern me quite as much. Instead, my biggest concerns deal with a lack of originality, the same old same, and the story.

It would have been nice if something was different about the game. I will say that the game is vast. There are plenty of places to go. It’s huge! About halfway through, I briefly worried that I had discovered all of the habitable planets. Alas, I was gladly mistaken. But the flip side of ME: A‘s size is that it is full of unmemorable side quests. Simply put, the side missions are in excess. I could forgive this flaw that plagues many open-world games, but ME: A lacks exciting random encounters, like watching a fight break out among machines in Horizon Zero Dawn, that at least makes a game world seem alive and less pre-determined/formulaic.

Beyond main story missions, everything else can be broken down into one of several side quest types: Heleus Assignment Missions, Allies and Relationship Missions, and Additional Tasks. Twice during my playthrough, I felt the overwhelming weight of missions piling up. The first time this feeling caught me, I geared up and cleaned the lists before returning to the Priority OPS Missions. The second time, roughly 40 hours into the game, I abandoned the side missions entirely in favor of the main story. With the main story completed, I easily have another 10+ hours, at least, left in these side missions. I probably will return to them if only to survive this month’s gaming drought.

It’s not surprising that I wasn’t blown away by ME: A‘s story. Quite often, larger open-world games have a more dilute story. It simply isn’t compelling. The beginning feels rushed with one of the Ryder twins predictably being pushed into the role of Pathfinder. The dialogue and voice acting was sometimes so so cringy; I saved some such moments for posterity and future laughs. (spoiler) I also think I’ve grown tired of the parent/child narrative. ME: A uses it, Fallout 4 uses it, Horizon Zero Dawn uses it, The Witcher 3 uses it…You get the picture. That’s not to say the loss/sacrifice of a parent or the strain between parent and child can’t be used in a video game, but I wonder if it’s overdone. Or, maybe I’ve played too many games with that trope (end spoiler).

It may seem that my complaints outweigh the positives, but that really isn’t so. I’m mostly critical of the game’s story, use of side missions, and the occasional glitch that cost me time and progress. Glitches weren’t all bad. As you can see from the screenshot below, I died while fighting inside a monolith and respawned inside the Nomad! I had some fun driving around in there. There are a few other minor things but nothing that stands out as much as the story and lack of originality.

On the positive side, there is plenty to do and see. I looked forward to landing on a new planet—the excitement of a new biome kept me intrigued. I took the Nomad to places it shouldn’t have gone. I genuinely enjoyed the banter between Sara and her companions, and companion to companion. More than a few times, I laughed. Drack, Jaal, and Peebee ended up being my favorites, which is a testament to the moments when the writing was solid. I grew to love my companions as the story progressed, which, in turn, compelled me to complete their loyalty missions because then they had meaning.

If ME: A released a few years ago and if the developers hadn’t switched to a new engine, or had more time to work through such a change, the game would probably be touted as something phenomenal. But we’ve seen many of its tricks several times before. Mass Effect: Andromeda is a 6.5 or 7/10 for me. It’s mostly consistent gameplay, solid combat, sci-fi nature, entertaining companions, and sense of exploration kept me going.

Mass Effect: Andromeda After 58 hours, I have completed Bioware's much anticipated Mass Effect: Andromeda. ME: A is a vast, open-world RPG that offers ample opportunity for exploration, solid combat, crafting, and an overall fun experience.

#Mass Effect: Andromeda #PlayStation

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cibokilley · 6 years ago

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Cross-post from Pillowfort.io

So, the following Blanket Box is for worldbuilding. The world I'll be exploring with this BB is from Cosmosis, a story/graphic novel/whatever I've been developing in the past few months.

General concept: LA PLEROMA is an abstract, enclosed internal world with no borders. There is no 'outside' -- everything in this world is an interior, just an entire plane made up of building interiors. Exiting one interior just brings you into another one, and so on. These repeat-borders cannot be mapped, however, as the interior continually and gradually builds itself larger and larger based on human observation. Some say the world is a living thing, eating and growing at a glacial pace. While it is believed that the interior runs on forever, there are some who believe there is an end to all of it. However, this is countered by another school of thought that declares that La Pleroma merely loops in on itself, but no one knows exactly at what point does it begin to repeat. Other angles suggest that La Pleroma exists in a spiral, and goes on further to suggest that it's not just a spiral but a tesseract in a Fibonacci spiral, in which both time and space do repeat themselves.

Most of La Pleroma is unchecked and feral. Pockets of civilization exist here and there, and sometimes they even interact, for better or for worse. Everywhere else is a liminal space. Monsters abound, hidden and insidious.

I’m going for more conceptual than realistic. It’s been a fun thought exercise so far.

Warning: LONG ASS. So very long. Like ten pages long. Prepare thine asses, assholders. That paragraph two lines above IS the tl;dr version.

1. What was the original inspiration for your world? Why are you making it?

Echo for the PS4 (now on PC and GoG) was the initial inspiration for the world of COSMOSIS. I super loved the concept of a never-ending palace structure full of weird shit, which I then paired up with an Escheresque flair to flip this palace dimension off its predictable axes. Ideally the place is still structured with occasional recognizable patterns, and only in very messed-up sections of the COSMOSIS world is there true chao -- a teratoma-esque mishmash of elements that aren't supposed to be crashing or clipping into each other, etc.

The other huge influencer is the cybergoth-industrial world of BLAME! by Tsutomu Nihei. This is one of the first manga I really invested in from start to finish due to Nihei's use of scale to show just how huge and expansive his insular, interior world can be. That and I adored the concept of the Network superstructure just... slowly, constantly expanding itself despite the lack of humanity to give context to these lonely, unused spaces. Areas are so vast that time and space operate differently in parts of the maze, as well as weather, species, species of human, as well as technology and specific atmospheric phenomenon.

2. Does your world have any kind of 'aesthetic,' or a predominant genre (other than fantasy/sci fi/etc)?

Definitely high fantasy. No elves or DnD races, though, just humans.

For overall flavour, I want it to feel like a whimsical fantasy, not to be taken too seriously. Most events will be entertainingly cartoonish, but with some serious moments as well. I also want to maintain a sense of wonder and open exploration, to inspire readers to stay on so they can explore the world along with the characters. It feels like a post-apoc setting, but in a world where people didn’t live in. The eerie liminal spaces suggest a mysterious past, a story half-told and forgotten, where in the inhabitants are bereft of a cultural history to explain how and why they exist in a setting where 'outside' has an ominous meaning.

On the conceptual side, much of the gnosis presented here is supposed to be a bit technical in nature, almost like a proper science, but is really just a lot of comparable analogues and metaphors and borrowed terms. I wanted to create a sense of deep lore and dogma while leaving enough room for interpretation.

3. Introduce us to your continents and major cities/countries.

Oh here we go. The primary reason why I'm answering this questionnaire is to force me to come up with distinct cultures and locations for the narrative to explore. The places visited by the main narrative are as follows:

THE ROYAL PALACE

At the center of the story is a castle-like juggernaut of vertical space occupied only by the Royal Family. The Palace maintains a sense of baroque opulence, cold and sophisticated, utilized but never truly lived-in. It is believed that the ancestors of the Royal Family not only built the Palace, but created the Capital. Thus, the royal descendants are not only divine, but are gods or demi-gods themselves. This is somewhat true: Castelin, the first of the royal family, had some involvement in the creation of La Pleroma in full. The details remain a secret known only to the Royals.

THE CAPITAL

Outside of the Palace is the Capital, a series of concentric rings of humanity living in close proximity. These rings form a massive city that radiates outward from the Palace. Each level is larger than the one before it, and it is spread out so vastly that entire generations are born and die in their home rings without having ever exited the city, and not for lack of trying to get out. The Capital tends to have housing and buildings that make relative sense, but further along the outward radiation the structures begin to clip into one another, creating the bizarre hodgepodge that defines La Pleroma.

A feudal system keeps the Capital running. Not all rings are urban — some rings are dedicated to farmland and primary resource cultivation.

THE WILDERNESS

Outside of the Capital is pure wilderness. Structures make less sense, with stairways leading to nowhere and exits with no meaning. Though no one has been able to ascertain, it is believed that even the wilderness is contained within a ring-like structure as the Capital. Cartographers have tried, and died.

Greenery and foliage occur randomly where water can be found, but not all parts of the wilderness are forest. Most of the wilderness is made of stone buildings, sterile and dry. Other places do not have water, but other creatures and organisms may inhabit nonetheless. Not all living things have been documented or discovered. Plants grow where they can, structures decay under the weight of encroaching nature, and some places are subterranean, filthy and murky. Some places are completely alien, and usually super unpleasant.

The style of the terrain varies per region. Some places suggest medieval European with vaulted arches, stained glass windows, ornate outcroppings and arrow slits spiralling for miles up along massive towers, while others might look like parts of the Palace, richly trimmed, furnished, but empty. Domiciles appear transplanted or teleported straight into existing structures. Some places are utterly ruined, as though devastated by quake or ballistics or fire. Occasionally, bits and pieces of robots can be found lying about. Sometimes, humans can be found out here. Different types of human…

AEONIC GENERATORS #1-30

Still working on these. Will update when I get to it, narratively.

HISTORY

As mentioned before, La Pleroma is beset with a vague sense of history. There was a time when La Pleroma was actually coherent, a finite space serving an organized purpose, but for some reason modern civilization has forgotten how this came to be. Why would a television set occur out in the wilderness? Did someone make it and abandon it? Did it just appear one day? Why are the power grids so random? Why do some stairs climb sideways, why do some ceilings have doorways, why is the world built to the shape and size of humans? Who discovered chirality, or discovered how to harness the magical powers of the Kenoma? How do human beings even know of the Other Place?

Nobody knows. But someone is set to find out.

AND ONE MORE THING

Also, while there does appear to be some form of gravity, the endless chambers of La Pleroma are not all built along the same plane or axis. Doorways that do not open and aimless stairs may appear upside down or sideways, since the artificial nature of this world seems human-built, but gravity usually falls only one way.

4. What cool species does your world have? This can be people races, aliens, neat wildlife, monsters, whatever.

Humans exist as the dominant species, but they also share ground with animal people. They're not furries, per se, they're just humans with animal heads or animal features. The story doesn't really explore this concept too deeply, as they're merely window dressing and flavour for the setting.

Humans exist in full racial ambiguity. Like cats or dogs, human beings in this world don't segregate by race or colour, though they may separate on religion or ideals. Also, curiously -- all humans are considered and assumed bisexual until proven otherwise. For some reason cleaving to your own sex is seen as ‘developing a habit’, while being strictly hetero is considered a bit limiting albeit necessary for procreational reasons. Marriage is less about nuclear family and more about gaining resources via declared relationships. In this way, even homogeneous couples can secure formal married status with a lack of children. Adoption is common.

Wildlife varies. The usual normal animals exist, albeit it slightly altered to their weirdly unnatural surroundings -- for example, wolves that know how to use the urban jungle for hunting and ambush tactics, parkour deer, tigers that know how to use doors, creatures with urban camo, etc. Also insects, lots of flying creatures, and fish. And weird shit that is unidentifiable; vegetable, mineral? Misc?? What is that?

Monsters -- there are lots of these. Anything that is distinctly oversized, or is clearly expressing gigantism, is considered monstrous. Also, anything with more teeth than usual is also seen as monstrous. To be considered a true monster, however, is for creatures to have mystical abilities such as teleportation, illusory talents, shape-changing, anything magical or that cannot be explained by biology alone. And also, anything that can’t be easily identified is probably a monster.

Animal people are weirdly common. They are not as numerous or recognizable as humans are, but relations usually tend to be friendly. They do not interfere with human affairs, preferring to keep to themselves. But on the occasion where rival communities wage war on each other, the animal people think and behave exactly the same as humans do, so the only real discrimination among them is cosmetic at best. Usually they appear as normal humans, except with animal heads.

There are also strange instances of humans becoming animals, and animals becoming human. No one knows how or why this happens.

And then there’s the Royal Family. With a lineage that dates back to the beginning of time, members of the Imperial Royal Family are distinct in that they are semi-human. Though outwardly they appear normal, they are known sorcerers who can cast magic spells without components or incantation, and need only one voice to cast: their own. They are also said to be clairvoyant, can walk through walls, and appear in two or three places at once. Otherwise, they too behave like ordinary humans. What services they provide to the Capital include organized defense of borders, city planning, disaster relief, and actual governmental social services.

And last but not least, the kosmikoi are ghosts and phenomena that originate in the Kenoma, but are somehow able to express themselves in La Pleroma. They are highly dangerous in that anything coming into contact with the kosmikoi can and will implode, violently. Small instances tend to burn themselves out in tiny flashes when they immediately come into contact with positively-charged particles constantly present in the air space of La Pleroma, but large instances appear surrounded by a hazy fog of matter and antimatter particles cancelling each other out in the presence of air. Also, looking directly at them at close range causes madness.

5. Tell us a fable or myth from your world.

Bonus round! I’ve got not one but TWO myths to expound upon…!

THE WELL AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WORLD

There is a story about the Well at the Bottom of the World. They say it is the only place in La Pleroma that opens up on the opposite side of the world, tunnelling right through. Some say it exits straight out into the Kenoma, and that the presence of the sea is the only thing keeping La Pleroma from being sucked out like water down a drain. And some say the well does have a bottom, and if you manage to get there, your greatest wish comes true. However, the few tales that trickle down to the Capital never end well.

CREATION MYTH

The creation myth of La Pleroma is not well-known. There are spinoff legends and localized versions of the origin of the world, but here is the myth as it is known by scholars:

In the Beginning, there was Nothing. Then, Nothing contracted from itself and became Something and Nothing. This separation was called tzimtzum (borrowing heavily from Lurianic Kabbalism). The space contained within itself was called La Pleroma (innenwelt), and the negative space surrounding it was called the Kenoma (umwelt). Or: the universe was a wave before it became a particle.

Vague interpretations of this story created a unique collective memory of a time before Nothing, a previous cycle of existence that was either the same or slightly changed from the present. Whatever it was, the first cycle has definitely informed the present — as though the world suddenly begat amnesia, and is now struggling to remember who they were and why they’re here.

Application and Imago

Scholars have attempted to prove the validity of this myth mathematically (to put it lightly). The end result is a bizarre non-euclidean geometry proving the shape of the world: that there is no edge, but the interior of the model goes on forever.

The scholars theorize that the world is a Schroedinger's box: that the world is actually a cloud of possibilities that do not resolve until a sentient being observes it. They theorize that this is the reason why no one can find the edge of the world -- because it merely expands when someone is there to observe, and then contracts when no one is around. In short, if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, it does not in fact make a sound. But then the problem arises that if everyone were to suddenly fall asleep simultaneously, or a sudden die-off erased all living creatures in existence, would the world end?

The philosophers have an answer for this issue. La Pleroma is actually a living thing in and of itself, and does not sleep. The world-entity remains stable because it is aware of itself -- it observes itself, therefore it exists.

6. How do magic (if you have it) and technology work in your world? What tech level are you at? How does magic influence technology, and vice versa?

The study of 'magic' is called psycho-science (borrowing heavily from Masamune Shirow's Orion), and is a property possessed by those with an advanced parietal third eye. This eye is located inside the brain, and acts as a portal to the Kenoma through which miracles may be drawn. La Pleroma is opposite to the Kenoma in concept -- if La Pleroma is mostly mass, then the Kenoma is mostly energy. This energy can be traded via the parietal third eye and then used to grant miracles, such as walking on water, healing, raising people from the dead, and assorted elemental powers. The exact mechanism that enables human flesh and the brain to activate this phenomenon is still unknown, though the concept of conscious will being the key driver in directing Kenomic energy into agency has already been proven. Practitioners of this ability are called mages, or sorcerers.

Those who do not possess a well-developed parietal third eye can still use mechanical means of channelling Kenomic power into agency, as follows:

SPELL COMPONENTS

Through the use of certain materials, such as metal, wood, stone, etc., Kenomic energy can be exchanged using the material itself. The 'exchange' occurs when matter is swapped out for energy, so all spells must rely on mostly transient components. Metal and stone take the longest to wear away from use, while wood and paper tend to be used up in one or two charges at most. Dense mediums like platinum or diamond have a near-infinite capacity for use. These materials are fashioned into convenient apparatus such as rings, jewellery, talismans, etc. Technically a good wizard or witch can use anything in their immediate surroundings, but purity of elements will result in a cleaner, smoother spell effect whereas a less homogeneous conductor may interrupt the flow. That said, the mass to energy conversion is never 1:1, as there must be some energy from the caster to initiate the exchange.

Sorcerers typically do not require components to cast, but they may do so in an effort to conserve personal stamina. In this setting, sorcerers are extremely rare.

CHANT and INCANTATION

The amperage of a channelling event is determined by the power of incantation, using voice as the unit of measure. (Eight voices is a chord, twelve voices is a chroma, etc.) The purpose of the chant is to invoke the vibration of the material to be sacrificed, to initiate the matter-energy exchange. The more voices, or embodiments of conscious will, are added to a chant, the greater the flow of Kenomic energy. One voice will have a small effect, but many voices can increase the strength, duration, and distance of effect.

The incantation, also called the chant (the term is interchangeable), must be cycled repeatedly to create a psychic/aetheric vibration that weakens the morphic field of any given physical component. This weakening allows the matter to lose its shape and convert into pure energy, which is then redirected to perform work dependent on the will of the caster. The general rule is the Law of Conservation of Energy, in which energy cannot be created or destroyed within an isolated environment. Something must be exchanged.

The preferred chants come from a set of scripture called the Heavenly Tenets, which contain different chants and hundreds of lines to be memorized. The chant used most often for spellcasting is called The Oscillatory, which is the first chant in the series and is usually studied the most. In this manner, individual casters can use custom chants for similar spells so long as the pitch is correct. Also, to prevent confusion between dialect and spell voice, the chant is usually performed in the ancient tongue. (For the use of this story, Latin.) Because of this, the Heavenly Tenets are considered holy words with the power to create miracles when uttered.

There is a theory that the specific emanation created by voicing the Oscillatory actually performs an anthropomorphic role in using components to activate. Recitation ‘reminds’ objects of their origins and coaxes them to return to their natural state, ie. pure energy, or zero-point vacuum energy potential. The psycho-scientific community cannot prove or disprove this theory as of yet.

AETHER

Aether is the transmutation of Kenomic energy into mass. Raw Kenomic energy behaves like light, which can be trapped inside photonic crystal. A secret method is then used to compress the light into a plasmatic state, resulting in a gel-like substance that evaporates when exposed to air. Small amounts of aether can be stored for use in talismans, but large amounts cause greater instability, and must be stored separately. Linking Aether jars together with electrical connections is standard procedure.

AMPLIFIERS, TALISMANS, MAGIC/ENCHANTED ITEMS

Advancements in modern magical technology have allowed users to control the chant using talismanic resonators, or amps. Artificial voices can be added to a chant to enhance its strength. The core element of an amplifier is Kenomic aether condensed into a semi-liquid called copy-gel inside an airtight vessel. Stored in this aether is a brain. Originally, only real human brains were effective. Animal brains did not react as predicted, though dog brains could occasionally be substituted. But modern science has been able to develop artificial vat-grown brains, embedded with a personality impression, for the use in amps. Echoes of a voice or many voices can be recorded into the brain, and using copy-gel as a medium, the brain acts as a surrogate for a conscious will, or ‘voice’. These brains can occasionally remember certain patterns of incantation if used repeatedly for the same cast. Also, brains with a suitable personality embedded on the psyche can perform better than brains that have been impressed by old personality code that has eroded or been duplicated too often. Personality can also affect the ‘tone’ or ‘texture’ of a cast. For example: a chaotic personality may result in an unpredictable spell effect, or a ferret’s personality will give the spell effect a whimsical, playful aesthetic. However, brains do have an expiry date, so they must be replaced every now and then.

There are mixed reactions among the casting community on the use of amplifiers. Some argue that even artificial brains that can be added as voices are actually conscious and capable of developing unique personality, and thusly, can also suffer emotional and psychic pain. While studies indicate that these vat-grown brains do not register ECG when idle, the more spiritual and empathetic argument still chooses to abstain from using amps, for fear of karmic retribution.

In this vein, extra voices can also be acquired simply by employing a choir of singers to activate seals and spells, since individual humans are the main providers of conscious will. Chants by choirs of novices were the only way to enhance rituals, back in the old days, as they say.

Amps come in different shapes and sizes depending on use. Mega-amps can convey the will of up to ten chords or more for larger, more complex rituals, while single-use amps can boost spellcasting for up to one or two voices. Amp effects stack as well, enabling modern casters (with sufficient availability and budget) to cast spells with enormous potential, utilizing hundreds of voices (also called tone clusters) provided by multiple amps connected together and plugged into an electrical generator or electric power supply.

Also, copygel is a non-Newtonian fluid.

CAUTION and CONSEQUENCES

The consequences of the misuse of Kenomic exchange, or magic, are usually fatal. Like the implosions that occurred during the formation of the universe, casters and surrounding matter can be sucked straight into the Kenoma. There is no surviving this event, as all and any physical objects passing through go through traumatic spaghettification. In short: soft squishy structure being sucked through a tiny hole. The implosion radius differs depending on the caster’s individual control.

TECHNOLOGY

In addition to aetheric tech, electricity has existed for a very long time as well. Some parts of the La Pleroma actually contain foundries and devices designed for use with electricity. Power is provided via land cable, but finding these connections is difficult, as the grids are usually embedded right in the structure itself, bricked up behind walls and trap doors, hanging from windows, etc. Random power sockets may or may not be connected to anything at all. It takes an entire guild of electricians to keep a city running, provided they can find a power supply, or if the city has ways of generating their own.

Techwise, the level is all over the place. Certain civilizations have up to a 1920’s level of sophistication while others have already harnessed nuclear fission/fusion. Some are still scraping about in the stone age. The vast distances between groups in La Pleroma are mind boggling.

7. What are the major religions of your world? How have they affected the rest of society and history? How are they organised?

CELESTIAL LAW aka the Laws of Heaven aka the Heavenly Tents

Above all things, even gods, is Celestial Law. Rather than governing the lives and behaviours of human beings, the Law focuses more on karmic cause and effect, the rule of threes, and the expectation that you reap what you sow. Also, Celestial Law includes the expectations of gods, demigods, spirits, saints, and other spectral forces. Only through ritual may these beings pass into the living world, and that only by exorcism will they be allowed back out. Celestial Law also dictates how Nature should preside, ideally keeping ice cold, fire hot, water wet, etc.

Usually people don’t want kosmikoi, lost souls or spirits, wandering around in La Pleroma, but the Kenoma does house a myriad of special forces that can be called upon to act within mortal bounds. It is expected that the soul migrates to the Kenoma as pure energy, having left its body behind on the mortal plane.

Celestial Law is not a direct analogue of Buddhist dharma, but it’s similar.

GODS

Religion in La Pleroma operates on a dualist cosmology with a single Creator god, flanked by a broad array of saints and some ancestor worship. The Creator God is assumed to be omniscient with a dark twin, a Demiurge, mirroring his/her/its existence in the Kenoma. Here, the Demiurge exists as a mindless force that governs Heaven and Earth. While even God must adhere to the laws of Heaven, he/she/it is not subservient to them; instead, God has the ability to take shortcuts, but never does he/she/it break celestial law. In this fashion, God and the Demiurge cooperate to keep Creation running. This principle has given rise to a gnostic religion called Chirality.

In La Pleroma, religion is more of a cultural product, a way of life, rather than a strict adherence to a code of virtues.

Orders and Denominations

Chiralism is organized by a brief hierarchy of novices, deacons, ministers, priests, priestesses, and a High Priest. While rural Chiralism makes due with ministers, only in the capital does this advanced hierarchy serve any purpose.

The Royal Church of Chirality is divided into two schools of thought on the shape of the world:

The Helexites believe that La Pleroma turns in a spiral in which both time and space repeat themselves, with slight differences per revolution. They posit that the world has both a beginning and an end, and that with each iteration the world advances upward towards some ascendant tier.

The Möbii believe that La Pleroma is much simpler, and that it exists in a loop. They are still working out the exact point where the world begins to repeat, as no one has found a way to head west and inevitably end up returning to the same point from the east.

Both denominations recognize that La Pleroma exists in chirality to the Kenoma, though exactly to what degree is yet unknown. (Chirality means mirror-image flipped only on one plane, ie. looking in a mirror.)

While the two denominations will disagree with each other on this detail, it must be noted that they do not war with one another — both acknowledge that potentially, both ideas are correct simultaneously according to the Laws of Heaven. These Laws are more like fundamental physical laws rather than laws in the bureaucratic sense, in which consequence is preceded by cause.

That said, there are offshoots and cults formed around extremist interpretations of dogma of both denominations, with with one side denouncing the other with lethal intent. These heretic orders can and will pit God versus Demiurge, in which the spiritual is seen as morally good, while the material life is seen as evil. Opposing factions reverse the order: God is seen as a dark, masculine oppressor, while the Demiurge is considered soft and feminine and imbued with the powers of procreation and rebirth of living things.The Church of Chirality openly rejects these splinter factions, but the abuse continues.

Worship

Chiralist worship has no liturgal ritual or need for mass gathering. Rather, the style is more eastern, in that people engage in casual ancestor worship at home or pay homage to shrines. Chiralism is Shinto-esque in that it focuses more on establishing a connection between the present and the past, and that there are rituals to be performed in order to do so. Chirality has no leader, authority, or political influence. There is only the sacred scripture called the Heavenly Tenets, aka Celestial Law.

8. Tell us about a cool geological or magical feature of your world.

Lol to be honest, La Pleroma is a cool geological AND magical feature in itself.

9. Introduce us to the major 'civilisations' or societies of your world, if you haven't already. How do they interact? What do trade routes look like? What did 'ancient' civilisations look like-- or are the current ones the first?

THE HUMAN SPECIES

Civilization exists in remote pockets throughout La Pleroma. Because of the massive distances involved, subspecies of humans have evolved differently per region. Some humans are extremely small — not short, but miniaturized. Other species of human are very large. Humans in more isolated communities that have existed for a very long time tend to develop specific sets of shared features (ie. townies who’ve been intermarrying for generations), certain resistances and vulnerabilities, etc. Other species of human have only retained the chiral symmetry and silhouette of the human body but nothing else.

Another subset of humans are the animal folk. Like humans, animal folk differ per region. Imports include: food, water, assorted primary resources, tertiary services. The Capital exports: manufactured goods, clothing, weapons, secondary services.

The heroes of the narrative set in this world are regular humans. However, they may not be considered ‘normal’ by other species of human.Some communities have been documented, but La Pleroma is otherwise a kind of wild expanse full of danger and surprises. There are vast stretches of uninhabited space, so trade between entirely different species of human is difficult.

The story starts off with just one nation of humans, who call themselves Chiralists. This group has never made contact with other human subspecies, though they trade regularly with animal people.

10. Tell us an important story in your world. This could be the planned story arc for a campaign, the story you're writing set in this world, or just the story of an underdog prince and how he changed a kingdom.

So here we go, the summary for COSMOSIS:

Prince Anton Kovec, a high-ranking member of the Royal Family, is a caster, Holy Interpreter, and edgelord who, after the Capital is attacked by a hole in the sky, sets out to repair the damage. Accompanying him is his lesbian sidekick Sister Gladys Degunais, a cheeky yet resourceful priestess and Anton’s childhood friend. Together they must find ten Grand Sacrifices (a buncha mystic macguffins) with which to repair ten of the thirty Aeonic Generators, sacred towers at the edges of the world that supposedly keep the world together.

In this adventure, Anton and Gladys come upon interesting people to add to their party, including the vigilante royal treasury accountant Brigga Irene, Officer Damien Acanthus Holley of the Royal Army, and Kuno, a frog.

The cast will encounter strange beasts and terrifying enemies on their quest to find the relics to use as Grand Sacrifices, and they will also encounter other Interpreters on the same mission.

But there's one thing Anton wants to understand: Hasn't this happened before...?

#cosmosis #writing #original #worldbuilding

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